Weekend at donnie's II: Electric Waterloo

Today's "What The Hell Happened THIS Time" combines the craziness of Florida with the criminality of trump. You're not gonna believe this story about how the IT computer server room at trump's Mar-A-Lago got wiped out (via By Katelyn Polantz, Jeremy Herb, and Kaitlan Collins at CNN):

An employee at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence drained the resort’s swimming pool last October and ended up flooding a room where computer servers containing surveillance video logs were kept, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

(blank stare)

(facepalm)

(headdesk)

While it’s unclear if the room was intentionally flooded or if it happened by mistake, the incident occurred amid a series of events that federal prosecutors found suspicious.

YA THINK?!

My first response when I read the report was "WHO THE FUCK PUTS A COMPUTER SERVER ROOM ANYWHERE NEAR A BODY OF WATER?" and my second response was "WHO THE FUCK REROUTES THE WATER HOSES INTO A COMPUTER SERVER ROOM?"

Okay, considering that I've heard there's a basement or underground part of Mar-A-Lago - which still doesn't make sense to me considering IT'S RIGHT THERE ON THE ATLANTIC OCEAN JUST WAITING TO SINK WITH THE NEXT HURRICANE - who the bloody hell IN SOUTH FLORIDA would put that kind of equipment BELOW GROUND where such water-borne accidents could cause serious damage?

In all my time working in libraries in Florida, in buildings that have multiple floors, we've always put the server equipment on the upper floors to avoid any kind of flooding damage in the first place. If it was a single-story library, the server closet was always furthest from the water main/bathroom pipes as we could afford.

I am seriously questioning the architectural layout of any trump-owned facility. I want to see the goddamn floor plans to see just how close the server room was to the goddamn pool.

At least one witness has been asked by prosecutors about the flooded server room as part of the federal investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents, according to one of the sources.

The incident, which has not been previously reported, came roughly two months after the FBI retrieved hundreds of classified documents from the Florida residence and as prosecutors obtained surveillance footage to track how White House records were moved around the resort. Prosecutors have been examining any effort to obstruct the Justice Department’s investigation after Trump received a subpoena in May 2022 for classified documents.

Prosecutors have heard testimony that the IT equipment in the room was not damaged in the flood, according to one source.

Yet the flooded room as well as conversations and actions by Trump’s employees while the criminal investigation bore down on the club has caught the attention of prosecutors. The circumstances may factor into a possible obstruction conspiracy case, multiple sources tell CNN, as investigators try to determine whether the events of last year around Mar-a-Lago indicate that Trump or a small group of people working for him, took steps to try to interfere with the Justice Department’s evidence-gathering.

"The Dog Ate My Video Surveillance" excuse isn't going to help you, trump.

In the meantime, trump keeps pretending that Bernie is still alive, uh trump keeps screaming on social media that he's innocent of any wrong-doing.

I hope the indictments come this week and I hope the charges are so serious the judge refuses to grant you bail. Bastard.

The Mouse Knows How to Play (w/ Updates)

Well, there's actually been a lot going on in the war between Bully DeSantis and The House of Mouse (aka Disney Orlando) since last I wrote about DeSantis going after Disney for their pro-gay stances. 

After DeSantis' November re-election - and the establishment of super-majorities in both houses of the state legislature - DeSantis carved out a more humiliating law that took complete power of the Reedy Creek Improvement District away from Disney's corporate kingdom, and planned to stack the incoming board with lackeys and anti-gay wingnuts that would look for any excuse to dump their Culture War bullshit on everything Disney runs (even dictate company policy - straight-up censorship - outside of Florida!).

Part of me remained a little shocked by what DeSantis was attempting. I've grown up - my life since my family moved to Florida in 1977 - with the belief that you do not fuck with Disney. They go after day care centers, for God's sake. And yet it seemed to me that Disney - this massive, multi-billion dollar entertainment entity, this behemoth that has enough money it can buy nations if it had to - was rolling over and playing dead to let this godless tiny bully have his way with them. I was wondering when the fabled army of Mickey Mouse lawyers would show up to sue DeSantis and the Florida GOP back to the stone age.

Well, it turns out that army of lawyers already scorched the Earth before DeSantis' lackeys could grab the keys to the Magic Kingdom. Skyler Swisher at the Orlando Sentinel has more:

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ handpicked board overseeing Disney World’s government services is gearing up for a potential legal battle over a 30-year development agreement they say effectively renders them powerless to manage the entertainment giant’s future growth in Central Florida.

Ahead of an expected state takeover, the Walt Disney Co. quietly pushed through the pact and restrictive covenants that would tie the hands of future board members for decades, according to a legal presentation by the district’s lawyers on Wednesday...

I was hoping more along the lines of giant dragons melting everything DeSantis owned into a scrap of metal, but this might work.

The previous board, which was known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District and controlled by Disney, approved the agreement on Feb. 8, the day before the Florida House voted to put the governor in charge.

Board members held a public meeting that day but spent little time discussing the document before unanimously approving it in a brief meeting.

DeSantis replaced those Disney-allied board members with five Republicans on Feb. 27, who discovered the binding agreement the previous board approved.

DeSantis and Disney clashed over the corporation’s opposition to what critics call the “don’t say gay” law, which limits classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools...

Among other things, a “declaration of restrictive covenants” spells out that the district is barred from using the Disney name without the corporation’s approval or “fanciful characters such as Mickey Mouse.”

That declaration is valid until “21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, king of England,” according to the document.

A development agreement allows Disney to build projects at the highest density and the right to sell or assign those development rights to other district landowners without the board having any say, according to the presentation by the district’s new special legal counsel...

So what happens here is that DeSantis and his cronies can't interfere with Corporate Disney's power to sell and develop the land in the special district and... and... wait a minute. Back up to that earlier bit.

Valid until “21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, king of England”???

It's a Rule Against Perpetuities, an ancient English Common Law practice that applies to modern law - even in the United States - in obscure but powerful ways. Not all states observe it... but Florida DOES.

Did Disney just tie their Magical Kingdom to the fates of the British Royals of the United Kingdom?!

(Taps one of Charles' son on the shoulder) "Yer a Disney Prince, Harry!" (yes, Disney is stealing this from a Warner Bros. franchise... which has a theme park at Universal just up I-4.)

This is where it gets tricky. Are the rules only counting the current descendants of Charlie, which would mean the grandkids under William and Harry both? Or does this extend to future generations, which technically implies the rules are upheld until the Windsor bloodline is officially done (which could take centuries)? (Update: see below)

Either way, the Disney lawyers have set up a situation where DeSantis can't demean or devalue or bully or break the House of Mouse in any way. Even the legal battles over this arrangement could take years to resolve - the delaying tactics alone could take five to ten years to hurdle past - and those are years DeSantis can't afford to slip away.

DeSantis is campaigning now - technically off-the-radar, because Florida laws require him to resign from his current office if he's running for another - for the Presidency, and he's doing it by pandering to the worst parts of Culture War hysteria the Far Right enjoys. Hammering at an "evil pro-gay company" like Disney would have been cheap easy points to score. But if he can't impose his will on Disney's corporate policies - if he and his lackeys can't make Disney change their tune about gay rights, if they can't force Disney to dispose of gay/trans characters on their cartoon shows and streaming service, if they can't compel Disney to shill Christianist bullshit as they hoped to - then he's got nothing to offer the GOP voting base this 2024.

This may not stop DeSantis and his allies in Tallahassee. They can arguably come up with more laws to hammer at Disney's corporate rights in order to humiliate them further. But all that does is expose the hypocrisy of the modern Republican ideology. You'd think a pro-business political party wouldn't do this, but the GOP is no longer pro-business. They're an authoritarian religious cult, obsessing over absolute loyalty to their dogma and themselves, and they will undercut businesses - even ones as profitable and powerful as Disney - as well as people to get their way.

I do hope the Disney lawyers unleash that broom army to drown DeSantis' team of lawyers. Wash 'em all away, Mickey.

Quick update: If the deal holds, if Disney is able to stave off DeSantis' upcoming legal fight, the youngest "current living descendant" of King Charles III is Princess Lilibet of Sussex, Harry and Meghan's daughter born 2021. 

Current British life expectancy is 80 years. Given she will have access to the best doctors and care, we could expect Lilibet to live at least 85 years, after which those 21 extra years added on would mean 106 years before DeSantis' hand-picked board of Culture War meddlers can even order office supplies on the Reedy Creek dime. And by then, the 2024 primaries will be LONG over.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Plus, the Magic Kingdom FINALLY has a REAL Disney princess to celebrate. It's all yours, Lilibeth Diana of House Windsor. Start working on your singing skills for the inevitable three-musical-picture deal with the studio.

Update 3/30/23: There's a detailed report with the Disney Tourist Blog that keeps up with the parks. Even the blogger Tom Bricker was caught off-guard by the company's sleight-of-hand here:

In terms of commentary, I don’t really know what to say. Throughout the Reedy Creek battle, every effort to predict specific outcomes based on legal analysis has proven futile. In our most recent article that touched upon the RCID takeover, I conceded that this was not how I expected the saga to play out.

With that said, there’s one way I’ve been right on the money all along: that this is not about the law, passing meaningful legislation, or the tough and thankless work of local governance. It’s about political theater; scoring a “win” in today’s era of ‘politics as team sports’ and the ongoing culture wars. The goal isn’t to govern; it’s to grab headlines and dominate the news cycle.

Serious analysis isn’t appropriate here because these aren’t serious people with sincere motivations. That’s likely why Disney opted against fighting this previously and instead put out deferential and conciliatory statements. The company’s calculus was that it’s not as easy to “fight” a one-sided culture war. The satisfaction (my note: for DeSantis and his Culture Warriors) was in the struggle...

This was never about reform. This was about control. And Disney is doing everything they can to deny DeSantis any control.

Crazy Busy Week Ahead

Monday is going to be the start of one crazy week:

The House Committee investigating trump's Insurrection is going to present Day Two of their indictment, following up on a surprisingly strong opening night that pretty much accused trump of setting and staging the riot. Day Two is reportedly going to delve into how trump knew he lost the 2020 election but decided to undermine the electoral process and stage a coup. The television ratings by the way - 19 million viewers - put the audience around Sunday Night NFL numbers, which are pretty strong (Tucker Carlson's prime time show on Fox Not-News by comparison draws around 3 million)

Twitter is aflutter that this is the week the Supreme Court officially issues its rulings on abortion - specifically the case involving Mississippi's ban - that can effectively mean the end of Roe and abortion rights. Madness will surely follow.

Congress reportedly reached a "bipartisan" deal on gun regulations / safety laws that is supposedly Cloture-proof so it can pass the Senate and then arguably the House for ratification. It won't address the more serious needs - an assault weapons ban, universal background checks, et al - but it will address age requirements for purchases, more funding for mental health (no guarantee THAT will go where needed), and restrictions on domestic abusers having firearms in an attempt to reduce domestic gun deaths. It will be the first major gun safety legislation passed in 30 years (!) and while it won't be enough it will be interesting to see if the more positive elements - especially that domestic abuser restriction - can show success in saving lives.

Ukraine remains a war zone but there's signs that Russian attempts to secure the Donbas aren't working and that Ukrainians are mounting decent counterattacks. Granted, the experts were thinking Russian forces wouldn't last past May, but all of the momentum and global support remains with Ukraine. Russia is reportedly falling back on weapon supplies and equipment from the 1960s (!) which doesn't bode well for their long-term ability to wage war.

Oh, and the Tampa Bay Lightning hockey team - yes, there's been ice hockey in Florida since 1992, people! - are going to their third straight (after winning back-to-back) Stanley Cup Finals (facing Colorado) looking to be the first NHL team since the 1980s New York Islanders to have three straight championships. It's a dynastic possibility, which would put this Bolts team atop the list of Greatest Hockey Teams of ALL TIME. And to Michael Wilbon who derisively mocks Tampa as "not real hockey town" and "SEC" - while ignoring A) the attendance records the Lightning set in the 1990s playing in a half-filled baseball dome, proving there's a fanbase for a Hockey Town and B) the SEC (Southeastern Conference) is a college conference that revels in national championships every year - all I gotta say is SUCK IT WILBON.

I may not even find time to blog about all of it. We're busy at the library with our Summer Reading programs. /sigh

Work is work.

What Republicans Believe In The Dark Of Their Own Making

So it got leaked this weekend that Ginni Thomas, wife to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, texted a number of messages to trump's then Chief-of-Staff Mark Meadows about the plan to stage a riot and insurrection on January 6th at Capitol Hill. Via Andrew Prokop at Vox:

Newly revealed text messages show that Virginia “Ginni” Thomas — conservative activist and spouse of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — wanted President Trump to take extreme measures to stay in office in the days following the 2020 election. The messages between her and then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows were provided to the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attacks and obtained by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

One major takeaway from them is that her alarm was apparently sincere: These seem to be Thomas’s genuine beliefs, expressed in private to Trump’s top aide, when no one was looking.

Thomas shared with Meadows conspiracy theories that Trump had a secret plan to expose election fraud (“I hope this is true”) and to send its perpetrators to Guantanamo Bay, urged that Trump should “not concede” because “it takes time for the army who is gathering for his back,” said the “Left” was “attempting the greatest Heist of our History,” championed the ludicrous claims of Trump’s lawyer Sidney Powell (“Sounds like Sidney and her team are getting inundated with evidence of fraud”), complained about being “disgusted” with Vice President Mike Pence for approving the results, and declared Biden’s win meant “the end of Liberty...”

As Prokop noted, this was what Thomas was saying to a fellow Republican with the belief her messages would never see daylight, what she was openly thinking when no one was looking.

As I tweeted meself:

these are messages she expected would never see the light of day. this is what she thinks, what she believes when the public eye isn't on her. Ginni Thomas is a full-on conspiracy nutcase, and she's a major player in the GOP circles AND has the ear of a SCOTUS Justice. WTF.

— Witty Librarian For Ukraine (@PaulWartenberg) March 25, 2022

Just to point to an example, Thomas wrote a text about Sidney Powell - she of "release the Kraken" infamy - getting a ton of "evidence of fraud." In the real world, Powell never proved any voter fraud happened, did not win a single legal battle to throw the election to trump, and has since faced numerous disbarment matters across the states she tried to sell her accusations. Powell had already lost many of her lawsuits by the time Thomas texted Meadows, and yet there she is still selling that broken lie.

A cynic might think that the Republican/conservative leadership in this country are merely pandering to the less-informed more ignorant voting base, and some - like Mitch McConnell - are. But these Ginni Thomas text messages reveal that the conspiracy rot - the outright gaslighting by trump, the wingnut fearmongering, the lies bought at face value without a shred of provable evidence - has worked its way up to the movers-and-shakers to where they will never act rationally no matter the situation... and who will insist that everyone else among their ranks to be as irrational and destructive as they are.

If character is what you are in the dark, then Ginni Thomas and everyone else like her are at best delusional and irrational, at worst raving lunatics.

And yet, will anyone do anything about it?

There may be a moment where Ginni Thomas could get called to testify before the Congressional hearings into the January 6th Insurrection.

Regarding her husband on the Court, there is a likelihood that Clarence Thomas failed to recuse himself from a legal matter involving the insurrection - he was the only dissenter, by the by - and may have violated a law or three if it's proven his wife was part of that matter brought before the jurists.

It would be nice to think accountability will apply here, but too often the Republican leadership has skated on these matters - and failing to resign over them - and until the hammer drops on both of them we're just speculating.

The larger problem is the rest of the Republican leadership. This "pulling the curtains to see behind the scenes" moment reveals that Ginni's madness did not set off any alarm bells with them, and a number of them have already revealed they are fully supporting that mad narrative of trump's "stolen election" Big Lie.

How the hell can the rest of America deal with a sizable political faction - Conservative Republicans - living among us who cannot be reasoned with?

We're coping with a reality that our fellow Republican neighbors do not live in the Real World. They live in a Fox Not-News Fantasyland where Democrats are Evil, Libruls are Pedophiles, the Others are raiding our sacred borders to steal our jobz and takes our womenz, and only GOD'S CHOSEN GRIFTER donald trump CAN SAVE US ALL. 

And they are perfectly willing to fight in the halls of power and the streets of our cities to make that fantasy real.

You cannot deal with madness like this. You cannot negotiate over something that has no basis in fact. You cannot compromise with those who believe themselves so utterly in the right that they can never betray their absolute beliefs.

The Republicans are wholly committed now to trump's Big Lie, utterly convinced that they should never give power to Democrats or let liberals/progressives have any say in their own lives.

Republicans are at war with everything and everybody they do not believe in. The laws they're passing - to abolish abortion, to cancel out education about racism and sexism, to remove the gay/lesbian/trans people from public sight - is part of that war.

The madness will not end until the rest of us stand up and say ENOUGH, until the rest of us deny these wingnut assholes any power over us. That means fighting them every minute of the day, at the ballot box, in the media op-eds, in our homes and schools and workplaces.

The Republican War On Everybody is upon us whether we liked it or not. We dare not let them win.

Post 2000: The Road Travelled and the Road Ahead

Reaching my 2000th blog rant with this essay. With all the madness still going on this 2021, building on the madness we've witnessed since the year 2000 itself, this is a moment for reflection and introspection.

Looking back, I had started blogging to talk about reforms, needed Constitutional amendments to make our broken federal system correct itself. Along the way, I found myself diving into the partisan debates to the point I became a sideline critic. I think it was the aftermath of the 2008 elections - when Obama came to office and the Republicans doubled down on the obstruction - where I realized that sensible reforms were unlikely as long as one of the two major parties - who know which one, I'll give you a hint the name rhymes with "Republi-can't" - was batshit insane. I'll keep referring to John Cole about this forever and ever:

I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

And he wrote that back in 2009. That was my wake-up call about how broken everything had gotten and was going to stay that way.

None of the changes I keep blogging in favor of - the end to gerrymandering, an end to the logjam in the Senate caused by Filibusters and Secret Holds, fair primaries for the Presidential campaigns, holding liars accountable, holding corrupt politicians accountable, getting rid of deficit-inducing tax cuts for the super-rich, holding the media accountable for their follies, building a better brighter world for our children to inherit - are going to happen because there are enough corrupt powers in high places - not just the whole Republican Party but also enough "centrist" Democrats eager to maintain their own power and wealth - who would rather keep the corrupt status quo or even make it worse.

Even when these reforms would benefit the Democratic Party overall - especially eliminating the gerrymandering going on right now that would skew U.S. House seating to Republican control in spite of the real demographics favoring Dems - we are all witnessing delays and foot-dragging due to the rigged Filibuster rules even with the Democrats in control of both houses of Congress and with Democratic President Biden sitting in the Oval Office prepared to sign any electoral reforms into law.

It would be pretty to think that eventually things will break in favor of reforms and opportunities for most Americans still struggling day to day. It won't come through thinking, though. It's going to have to come through action, especially the ones in office who have an obligation to fix the damage getting done and give us all an opportunity to breathe again.

It will take more commitment that just mere blogging, obviously. I have to - as much as the rest of us - do my part to push and motivate in the real world, to march when the moment of action arises, to speak in public when our voices should be heard, to vote and encourage others to vote to break the suppressive efforts the corrupt powers push down on us. 

Everything I've seen the past decade-plus while writing this blog has documented this spiral path downward, through the highs of witnessing Obama's transformational administration and the lows of trumpian rage, incompetence, and misrule. All the ongoing bloody struggle between the irrational and rational factions of America, with occasional glimpses of hope that this madness will pass.

That's what I have right now, looking ahead to the rants and posts awaiting me in the future on this blog. Just a little more hope.

Just a little more... 

How Are We Going to Explain This Crazy Shit To Future Conspiracy Nuts?

I can't believe I'm wasting one of my blog posts before reaching the 2000th article on this, but dammit this needs mentioning (via Michael Williams at Dallas Morning News (paywall)):

Weeks after they first gathered near Dealey Plaza, dozens of believers in the furthest fringe of the QAnon conspiracy theory remain in Dallas, expecting long-dead John F. Kennedy Jr. to reveal himself in the city where his father was assassinated and usher in the reinstatement of Donald Trump as president.

While their beliefs are patently absurd, the fervency and devotion of this particular group, along with their loyalty to a leader known as Negative48 and unwillingness to leave Dallas, is unique — and cause for alarm and concern, according to an expert who has followed QAnon for years.

“I think what you’re seeing here is really, undeniably a cult,” said Mike Rothschild, author of The Storm Is Upon Us, which chronicles the rise of, and fallout from, QAnon.

The leader of the group is Michael Brian Protzman, a Washington man who amassed a following on social media with his version of gematria, a Hebrew numerology language. Interpreting codes that include numbers and letters, and using elements of Christianity and QAnon, his followers have come to believe that Kennedy, who died in a plane crash in 1999, will reappear in Dallas and commence a new Trump administration.

Some of Protzman’s followers believe President John F. Kennedy wasn’t assassinated in 1963; others believe he was, but then resurrected as a messiah shortly thereafter. Despite the failure of either Kennedy — or other dead celebrities who were expected, including Michael Jackson and Princess Diana — to appear during the initial Nov. 2 rally that drew hundreds to downtown Dallas, a hardcore group of Protzman’s followers remain in Dallas, expecting their arrival...

Part of this does read a lot like the Rapture-type fringe groups who pray for Apocalypse, waiting for a Messiah figure to pop up, grant them boons while laying waste to this poor corrupt world, and bring about a new era of peace of prosperity for the REAL True Believers.

But this is something well past the almost-benign nature of those cult-like behaviors of yore. These new Believers have tied their hopes to more direct physical matters: the ongoing rabid rallying done by donald trump and his Far Right media enablers looking to rile up their victims for more cash and more bloodied streets.

These QAnon cultists pining away in Dealey Plaza aren't waiting for a Jesus to preach to them the Gospels again: They are waiting for a sign from two long-dead historical figures - one of them who left Dealey Plaza 58 years ago with a gaping head wound! - to grant them the license to go on a rampage to put trump back in a White House he lost by both Popular and Electoral votes.

This isn't funny. This is scary shit.

And this ain't a First Amendment issue, this is a Baker Act moment. Those crazies need to get taken in for psychiatric evaluation right fucking now.

The crazy train for the entire Far Right faction of our nation has been on this downward spiral for years now, and it's not stopping until they are stopped.

Quick Word: NaNoWriMo 2021 Ongoing

I might not be on this blog much this month because National Novel Writing Month is back and I really really really need to focus on that.

Also, I'm a little pissed at Virginia voters right now and writing that whole state out of my will, WTF Virginia anything Youngkin (sp?) does to screw up your state is going to be on you now.

Also also, I really think Joe Manchin is officially more evil than Mitch McConnell right now because he keeps cutting at his own party's attempts to improve American lives for no other reason than to be an asshole to everybody making less than $77,000 a year.

Also also also, the Qanon nutjobs not only believe now that JFK Jr. is still alive and well and supporting trump but also that John-John's dad JFK (you know, the guy with a fcking rifle shot hole in his fcking head since Nov. 22 1963) faked his public assassination and was set to return this past weekend to publicly support trump for 2024 as well. Never mind the fact that EVERYONE'S SEEN THE ZAPRUDER FILM DOCUMENTING JFK'S GAPING HEAD WOUND, if Jack was still alive he'd be 107 YEARS OLD, which is kind of very very very very very fcking rare to see in a dead guy.

/headdesk

Some Novembers, the shit in the real world can't compete with the sci-fi fantasy stuff I try to write.

One Sentence Explanation Why Republicans Are Still Pandering to trump's Coup Attempts to Subvert the 2020 Elections (w/ Update)

It is not that Republicans really believe Democrats stole millions of ballots, and it is not that Republicans can PROVE Democrats stole millions of ballots: It is that Republicans have to demonstrate to each other their absolute fealty to the GRAND FAR RIGHT NARRATIVE that Democrats/Liberals are all evil Commies, and so the Republicans must top each other with a kind of escalating madness to prove their loyalty to the cause even at the expense of making fellow Republicans look bad, which has the added benefit of forcing those other Republicans into acquiescing to that madness to keep the rest of the Republican Party in that downward spiral of "No, *I* can be crazier than thou!"

And there is nothing - outside of the courts just collectively going "fuck it, Contempt of Court for every one of these bastards for wasting our time" - that can compel them to stop that downward spiral.

Okay, that's two sentences, but it all needs to be said even with this third sentence.

(Updated 12/31/20): This is adding to the blog entry, but I saw this on The Atlantic by Peter Wehner and thought of placing it on a separate blog article but then realized it fits here better: 

Hawley knows this effort will fail, just as every other effort to undo the results of the lawful presidential election will fail... Every single attempt to prove that the election was marked by fraud or that President-elect Biden’s win is illegitimate—an effort that now includes about 60 lawsuits—has flopped. In fact, what we’ve discovered since the November 3 election is that it was “the most secure in American history,” as election experts in Trump’s own administration have declared. But this immutable, eminently provable fact doesn’t deter Trump and many of his allies from trying to overturn the election; perversely, it seems to embolden them...

It is one thing for Hawley to position himself as a populist, something he had done even before he was elected in 2018; it is quite another for him to knowingly engage in civic vandalism and, in ostentatiously unpatriotic ways, undermine established norms and safeguards. This is precisely what Senator Hawley is now doing—and he is doing so in the aftermath of Trump’s loss, when some political observers might have hoped that the conspiracy mindset and general insanity of the Trump modus operandi would begin to lose their salience...

What is happening in the GOP is that figures such as Hawley, along with many of his Senate and House colleagues, and important Republican players, including the former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, are all trying to position themselves as the heirs of Trump. None of them possesses the same sociopathic qualities as Trump, and their efforts will be less impulsive and presumably less clownish, more calculated and probably less conspiracy-minded. It may be that not all of them support Hawley’s stunt; perhaps some are even embarrassed by it. But these figures are seismographers; they are determined to act in ways that win the approval of the Republican Party’s base. And this goes to the heart of the danger...

The problem with the Republican “establishment” and with elected officials such as Josh Hawley is not that they are crazy, or that they don’t know any better; it is that they are cowards, and that they are weak. They are far more ambitious than they are principled, and they are willing to damage American politics and society rather than be criticized by their own tribe...

The weakness is how they abandoned their duties as party leaders to actually lead: The people in charge are supposed to correct possible errors, guide others to enlightened paths, set examples, and make sure things are done right. That may sometimes require getting into the pit of madness, sorting out the troublemakers to prevent them from making things worse, and getting back up on that horse to charge into battle.

The modern Republican Party does not want to correct their lies because that would kill the Narrative they've built this failing structure upon. The GOP leadership would rather pander and succumb to the followers who've gotten addicted to the Fox Not-News lies that feed their rage and foolishness.

Like I keep saying about the Republicans, it's now trumps all the way down. And they're dragging the rest of the nation down with them.

You Don't Have to Be Crazy to Work for trump... But It Sure As Hell Explains A Whole Lot

So under the categories of "Florida Man," "Republicans Are Insane," and "Baker Acted," we have this report coming out of Ft. Lauderdale (via the Sun-Sentinel):

President Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale was taken from his Fort Lauderdale home by police Sunday afternoon after his wife reported that he was armed and threatening suicide.

The police, called by his wife, went to the house in the Seven Isles community, an affluent area in which houses have access to the water. They made contact, “developed a rapport” and negotiated his exit from the house, the police said in a statement. He was taken to Broward Health Medical Center under the Baker Act, which provides for temporary involuntary commitment.

My dad worked as a legal guardian and I studied for it as a profession for a bit (didn't go anywhere, wasn't any good at it) when I was unemployed, and let me tell you the Baker Act is a huge step, if the doctors find out he's got serious issues Parscale is going to get wrapped up in a whole slew of legal issues and intense treatment that will take him out of circulation for a good while (for example, he will likely - for his own safety as well as everyone else's - lose his rights to own or keep any firearms if this happens).

The thing you gotta remember about Parscale was how... intense he was regarding his work as trump's campaign manager this 2020 election cycle. Right up to the point where all of Parscale's financial mismanagement - and self-indulgence - got out in the open. Along with a disastrous attempt to host a campaign stop at the height of the COVID pandemic in Tulsa - poorly set up, rife with flaws that were exploited by Korean boy band followers for God's sake - Parscale quickly lost favor with his boss and quickly lost his campaigning top job.

Everything since then was probably not a fun ride for Mr. Parscale. A public object of ridicule, likely not finding many allies, and also facing the possibilities of investigations into how he managed the 2020 campaign, he had to have been under massive emotional pressure.

But don't expect me - as a fellow half-mad Florida Man - to offer any sympathy to Parscale, who willingly signed up for this job with all the warning signs about trump. I only wish well to his wife, friends and/or family members in case Parscale's madness doesn't go away.

This is what you get with trump, when you think about it. Given trump's history of being a demanding bad boss with his own obsessions, narcissism, and paranoia, you'd have to be as crazy as Parscale to willingly work for that Shitgibbon in the first place. The question is how much sanity you'd still have once you get kicked to the curb.

(Glances at half of trump's ex-employees showing up on Dancing With the Stars) Well, maybe that question's been answered anyway...

And to think: This isn't even the most embarrassing story coming out of trump's world tonight.

The Meaning of the Mask

It hurts to see my state of Florida bring out its godforsaken high-level crazy-ass madness on the global stage, but here it was in all its infamy this week:

It's like they were being forced at gunpoint to eat their veggies and brush their teeth at night.

It's been one of the worst reactionary movements I've ever seen in my life outside of "All White Lives Matter" from its maddening tone-deafness, willful rejection of science, and desire of each of those screaming anti-mask arguers to show off their prideful selves.

The one consistent argument - aside from the conspiracy whacko stuff like 5G transmission (?!) - is how the masks will hurt them by cutting off the amount of oxygen we need. The "I Can't Breathe" excuse, which is so tone-deaf as to be crass intentionally. It's also wrong, with report after study after proven demonstration shows us.

So why are these wingnuts absolutely fucking freaking out over the wearing of something that really doesn't harm them and only costs about 6.99 to buy (cloth masks available in menswear stores NOW) or 15.99 to buy as a 50-pack off Amazon?

Masks are symbolic. They have cultural value. And in this case, in this Age of Coronavirus, the mask represents health care.

But here's the thing:

The mask is not about YOUR own health and well-being. The mask represents the health and well-being of EVERYONE ELSE AROUND YOU.

The mask does not stop you from contracting the virus. The mask reduces the odds of you spreading the virus to everyone else.

The mask is a symbol of you looking out for others, that you are a caring and thinking person, willing to do your part for the community - family, friends, neighbors, even your enemies - health.

What does it say for those who reject wearing the mask? What does it tell us when these self-absorbed people go out in public proudly displaying their faces? What level of Pride is driving these people to expose not themselves but everyone else to the risks of COVID?

It's not so much that each of these screaming, mocking people are increasing the odds they get exposed to a lethal virus.

It's that each of these screaming, mocking people are willing to get the rest of us sick. They don't care for us, they don't WANT to care for us. It would disrupt their self-perceptions of superiority.

Which symbolizes exactly how dangerous their self-centered, holier-than-thou, egomaniacal rage-driven world-view is.

Gods help us, because the people who refuse to wear the masks clearly don't give enough fucks to help us.

Their selfishness is getting everyone else killed.

Where Florida Man and Pandemics Collide. Also Known As "Hey, I cruised down that crazy-ass road when I was a teenager!"

I grew up in Florida, specifically the north end of Pinellas County, so whenever something hits the social media involving anything between Port Richey to, well, Clearwater my ears perk up. Today was one of those days when this started trending (via Heather Monahan at WFLA a local affiliate):

Gyms have been closed since Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a statewide safer-at-home order last month to slow the spread of coronavirus. That executive order expired when the state started the first phase of reopening last week.

But Florida’s gyms – at this point – aren’t allowed to reopen until the state reaches Phase Two of the governor’s reopening plan.

A group of 20 to 30 people gathered outside the Pinellas County Courthouse in Clearwater on Monday morning to protest that, calling for gyms to reopen now so employees can get back to work and customers can return...

It popped up on my Twitter like this:

You should read the retorts. Sad but expected.

I should point out the demographics of my olde stomping grounds: Pinellas' current population - if these protesters were genuinely from the area - is about 969,000 peeps. Clearwater itself is currently around 104,000. Even with that specific a sample (and with Clearwater the county seat, they could have drawn from Tarpon Springs to Gulfport) that's barely nothing.

Seriously . Thirty protesters tops isn't even enough to qualify for a brawl at a Dunedin biker bar.

Anywho, the lack of massive protests is of interest because one thing the national punditry is puzzling over is how below the COVID-19 infection and death rates the Sunshine State has been since mid-March. Considering how 1) Governor DeSantis dropped the ball on early closure announcements, 2) the beaches in particular were open for Spring Break, raising the ire of everyone else in the univeres, and 3) our state is particularly vulnerable with the high number of elders who are most threatened by any pandemic, the fact that our rates are nowhere near similar cases like New York or Georgia caught enough attention even back in April at Vox, and the local paper Tampa Bay Times did an article recently about it (via Adam Playford, Kathleen McGrory, Steve Contorno, Caitlin Johnston and Zachary T. Sampson):

Medical professionals saw a trajectory of cases that tracked alarmingly close to the early days of the outbreak in New York. They implored Gov. Ron DeSantis to swiftly shut down the state. He waited two weeks.

After the state shut down, the predicted tsunami did not arrive. Temporary hospitals sit unused. Ventilators were never in short supply. The death count, though tragically nearing 1,800 today, remains short of what many feared...

The analysis indicates that while Florida’s politicians debated beach closings and stay-at-home orders, residents took matters into their own hands.

By the time each county shut down, there had been large reductions in activity, the cell phone data shows. People in the worst-hit counties were overwhelmingly staying home weeks before DeSantis’ order went out — and even before the much-earlier orders issued by local governments...

I can personally attest to that from where I live. When the news started growing back in January, a lot of public social areas near me saw a drop in turnout. One harbinger IMHO was all the horror stories about cruise ships getting quarantined (Florida is a major departure point with a lot of seniors taking those trips). By first week of February, the local multiplex was mostly empty. When I went to see Birds of Prey its opening weekend, I saw the smallest turnout for a blockbuster comic book movie in ages and it was for a movie that was actually well-received and hyped. I knew right then people were avoiding each other.

And I work in a library, with reasonable attendance numbers especially in the winter when the snow-birds are here... and yet the door count and circ numbers and computer users (!) were halved by the first week of February. March was no better right up until we got the city order to close for public safety. 

The Times reporters went to look for data to back up the anecdotes. They used tracking methods to see where the people went (and didn't go):

Floridians, it turned out, weren’t waiting.

They severely cut back on going out in public before any government forced them to, according to a Times analysis of cell phone tracking data.

The Times obtained information from Google and two other private companies that use location data from apps on millions of cell phones to determine whether people are socially isolating.

Each company’s data works differently. But it all showed the same thing: In every county in the state, significant decreases in movement began before shutdown orders were issued.

Miami-Dade has had the largest outbreak in Florida. But in the five days preceding the county’s March 26 stay-at-home order, more than half the phones tracked by one of the firms never traveled more than a mile. That represented a drop of more than 80 percent compared to data the firm, Descartes Labs, collected from mid-February to early March.

Data from another company, Unacast, showed that the average distance traveled in the county had been cut nearly in half. Visits to businesses Unacast classified as nonessential, based on guidelines issued by various state governments, dropped at least 65 percent.

Similar patterns repeated across Florida...

That is not what epidemiologists expected, said Thomas Hladish, a University of Florida research scientist who specializes in disease modeling and has been advising the state on the outbreak.

"What you see in Florida is that people started social distancing much earlier,” Hladish said. “Whether it’s because their schools closed or they were watching the news, they seemed to have started to act before they were explicitly told, ‘Don’t go out.’ That early action is almost certainly the biggest factor in why things weren’t worse here.”

In short: DeSantis and the other state leaders may have been idiots, but the rest of the state wasn't. We may be crazy, but we're not THAT crazy. So that's my eyewitness testimony.

Back to the Times article.

The state’s sprawling cities and random strokes of good fortune may also have worked in Florida’s favor. But public health experts warned that as Florida reopens, its good luck could change with one asymptomatic disease carrier stepping into a large nursing home.

"The thing that is really easy — because this is silent and because it may not be immediately impacting you — is you get really complacent about it,” said Jeffrey Shaman, professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University. “There is a lot of opportunity for this virus to grow exponentially, if it's given the opportunity."

Already, residents’ willingness to stay home appears to be shifting...

The sad news?

Even with all this going on, the political pressure to re-open things faster than before is growing. It's not the 30 protesters along Ft. Harrison Ave., it's the lobbyists and GOP leadership in Tallahassee rushing things without concern that we don't have enough testing kits and we're still not ready for a bigger wave of infected.

If you look at the Times charts, they all show the county numbers ticking upward this May, when more and more people chafed at the social isolation. Now with a Phase 1 restart that's reopened a number of businesses - as long as staffs and customers practice masks, gloves, and sanitizing guidelines - we could see a greater uptick as asymptomatic people mingle with the yet-untouched.

I would like to think most of the Floridian residents around me are still savvy enough to recognize the risks. We're nowhere near the safe levels of testing and protection that would justify going to sporting events, concerts, movie theaters, biker bars, and gyms. It's not an impulse toward "freedom" that should push us towards such self-defeating urges. It better be a desire to avoid harming others, a modicum of responsibility to our loved ones and everyone else's.

This is gonna be a rough month in Florida.

Please, fellow crazy folk. Don't go too far into the madness.

A Librarian-Writer-Jedi-Pirate-Wannabe Looks Back at 50

Sigh.

I remember I first wanted to become a writer when I was still in single digits, around maybe 8 or 9 years old, trying to write stories and slowly learning the mechanics of plot, character development, and the need for white-out goo while using an old-style typewriter.

I remember wanting to be a Jedi from A New Hope onward. Too bad my midichlorian count is too low my lack of faith is disturbing.

I didn't get too much into the being a pirate thing even while growing up a Tampa Bay Buccaneers sports fan. I really didn't get into it until I saw Emma Thompson's version of Sense and Sensibility where Edward points out "Piracy is our only option. ...What is swabbing anyway...?"

Becoming a librarian in real-life happened in college, when I worked in the Cataloging department with bindery processing at University of Florida. My Journalism studies were floundering (I graduated with barely a C average in those classes) and it had gotten to where I was there more to work in the library than to take the classes (things might have been different if I was able to switch majors to something I was getting better grades in like History or Political Science, alas my parents were paying out-of-pocket - I missed the scholarship requirements by a single grade in high school - and they needed me to finish as quick as possible). Anyway, long story short, I went to South Florida to get my Masters (THAT I got an A average in) and went straight into working in libraries ever since 1994.

There was that dark period during the Great Recession where I lost my job as a librarian in 2008 and spent four years struggling to regain full-time employment, up until 2013 when Bartow Library took a chance on me and I've been there ever since. There were times I was hoping the Obama administration were hiring, but I kept missing my chances to drop off my resume with him and damn it all I wasn't able to get my shot at being in the room when it happened.

  

In terms of all the other things, I've got the pictures of me being a Jedi, not so many of me being a pirate, and a good number of me being a mostly self-published writer. I keep running into the writer's block - the usual problems with chronic depression, work-related stress, real-world anxieties from horrific political dis-leadership and a current pandemic - of unfinished stories all over the place, and I should be using this time I still have to finish at least one of them to feel the accomplishment of completion again.

There's still a lot in my life I haven't done that I wanted so much to do when I was younger: To travel to places to see the world (Grand Canyon, Prague, London, Ireland, the coasts of Spain to Italy, Japan), to break out of my shell and learn social skills, to be better as a friend, to figure out how to flirt proper with ladies, figure out relationships (how to start one, obviously), stuff like that. There's a lot there that I should have done and figured out when I was younger - the regrets of being 20, and then 30, and then 40... - and part of me knows with all that's going on that I don't have many chances left.

So there's me, looking back at 50. I'll add pictures of the cake for today a little later.

Four For the Fourth 2019 Part WHAT THE FOURTH IS THIS SH-T!

I really don't want to go spreading wild rumors, so for starters I don't believe a word of this. However, this craziness is out there and requires an impartial and professional review.

To wit: There are a bunch of crazy-ass QAnon trumpsters who believe John-John, AKA John Kennedy Jr., the Prince That Was Promised sex symbol of the 1990s, faked his death in 1999, spent the last twenty years hiding in Pittsburgh, and has turned into an avid trump supporter who is willing to go public this 4th of July to sign up as trump's 2020 Veep running mate.

...

I CANNOT MAKE THIS SHIT UP. I may write as a hobby and get a few things published here and there, but JESUS TAPDANCING CHRIST I cannot delve into this level of the absurd. Here's Rolling Stone's EJ Dickson's take on it:

On this scientific scale, John F. Kennedy Jr. falls somewhere in between Judy Garland and former Minnesota Twins center fielder Kirby Puckett; all of which is to say, he is extremely, irrefutably dead. In July 1999, the pulchritudinous son of John and Jackie Kennedy and cofounder of George magazine perished in a tragic plane crash at the age of 38, along with his wife Carolyn Bessette and his sister-in-law Lauren. At least, this is the conventional narrative perpetuated by the fake news media, according to supporters of the pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon. Hardcore Q believers think that JFK Jr. is not only alive and well, but also that he plans to emerge from his 20-year hiatus from public life by coming out and supporting Trump as his running mate in 2020. Moreover, they believe that a guy in Pittsburgh named Vincent Fusca is actually JFK Jr. in disguise, and they have made T-shirts promoting this belief...

The theory that JFK Jr. is alive and a Trump supporter and a hirsute former financial services professional who lives in Pittsburgh has been percolating in QAnon forums for at least the past year. But it recently made a resurgence on YouTube, where QAnon supporters are posting tutorials for how to make JFK Jr. face masks to wear to Trump’s much-hyped July 4th rally, when they believe JFK Jr. will finally emerge from hiding. The goal of the masks, according to Daily Beast reporter Will Sommer, is for believers to be able to easily identify other QAnon supporters (though, frankly, this seems unlikely, as the shock of seeing a long-dead celebrity casually walking around Washington would almost certainly inspire mass fear and panic in the streets)...

To be fair, not every Q believer buys into the idea that JFK Jr. staged his own death and is secretly posing as a Trump supporter from Pittsburgh. But the belief has gained enough traction among Q supporters that it’s worth engaging seriously with how such beliefs spread, and why they gain acceptance in some circles...

The world of a Conspiracy believer - a Truther, a Birther, any of them - from Salem Witches to Jim Crow race-baiters to Turner Diary readers is all based on a belief that the world is crap (which is half-true) but that it's crap for a reason (The conspiracies that the wingnuts KNOW exist, depending on their own racial and religious hatreds) and that the Conspiracy Theorist alone (even among the thousands of others) is the one truthteller setting the world free.

In short, ego-driven fantasies that they will rise up and the rest of us will fall or show adoration.

This is similar to those End Times believers: The innate desire to rise above the mundane world through mystery and tragedy and cosmic forces beyond our ken. They are just as disdainful of the facts and just as eager to see the world end just to prove themselves correct. It's mostly sad, except for the poor souls who drive themselves to self-harm or violence because of it.

There's entire books on how the United States is prone - and vulnerable - to wild accusations and troubling groupthink. This is just one more crazy plot line in a crazy and dark timeline our nation has to endure.

Look, I personally believe - or want to believe - that Elvis and Freddie Mercury are both alive, having achieved immortality and riding across the United States solving crimes. But that's just the whimsy in me. I know they're dead, I know this world is not fantasy, and besides I have no idea which bike either of them had a preference for (I'm thinking Triumphs, but that's actually Dylan's preferred ride).

Elvis is dead, people. John-John too. Just focus on solving the problems of the real world, okay?

Some Days of the Darkest Timeline Are Just Packed

So Kellyanne Conway violated the Hatch Act...

trump's chickenhawks are accusing Iran of attacking Japanese oil tankers...

House Republicans are STILL claiming "No Collusion"...

Just to note how fucked up the world is right now, Boris Johnson is lining up to be the next Prime Minister of Brexit...

There's an ongoing civil war in Syria, bloodshed in Sudan, and Ebola plagues in Africa...

And Sarah Huckabee Sanders is leaving the White House by the end of the month.

Did I miss anything?

Oh, right.

trump argued that he doesn't have to report any foreign offers of support to his re-election campaign essentially claiming he'll collude (again), prompting the chair of the Federal Elections Commission to issue a rebuke (which is still toothless without arresting trump for the shit he's already pulled in 2016! /headdesk)

I swear, O Lord, You better have angels coming down to fix all this shit, 'cause we're fucked and nobody else is coming to help.

Update On The Madness Midterm

Oh No. Not Again.

(via the Tampa Bay Times) Florida ordered mandatory machine recounts in three statewide elections Saturday for the first time in state history.

Secretary of State Ken Detzner issued a one-page order directing all 67 counties to conduct a machine recount of more than 8.2 million combined ballots over the next five days in the races for governor, U.S. Senator and commissioner of agriculture.

Yes, of course, only FLORIDA could make the 2018 Midterms election cycle THIS MUCH CRAZIER.

It didn't help that the state's election services are still seriously compromised, with broken electronic machines, understaffed county offices, confusing precinct locations, long lines, and struggling volunteers (those are the ones I feel worst about: many of them are honest and capable and dealing with a lot of top-down problems).

We've got reports about the Broward County ballot not showing the key US Senate race for people to vote on, creating a massive gap of unaccounted voters.

Long before I started blogging, I lived in South Florida. I was there for the 2000 Debacle. It wasn't fun, stressful as hell knowing the fate of the entire nation hung the balance...

This election cycle, with all the other things that have happened since Tuesday, there's not AS MUCH at stake at the national level - pretty much the US Senate race between Nelson (please) and Scott (NOOOOOOO) - other than how much of a margin the Republicans control the Senate next term (if it's a 1-vote lead all of a sudden McConnell has to work harder to keep his troops in line, if it's a 3-vote margin he has more leeway). The way things are counting out in Arizona, whether Scott wins or loses becomes a bigger deal.

What *is* at stake is at the state level: whether the Republicans retain control of the Governor's seat with DeSantis or if Democrats can force a power-share getting Gillum into that seat. If Gillum DOES recover and gets the win with the machine count (it all depends on if a lot of missing ballots in Blue counties - hello again, Dade - and the absentees by mail are counted in time) this would be a bigger deal.

Statewide, the Dems will have a say in how the gerrymander efforts by the GOP are done (which bodes well for Dems). Gillum would ensure the felon re-enfranchisement amendment is enforced, improving the odds of higher turnout (which favors Dems a bit more).

At the national level, a Gillum win would revitalize an otherwise down-in-the-mouth progressive voting base. For all the wins that DID happen for Democrats and Progressives - winning back the US House, winning more governorships and state offices in the Great Lakes and Midwest states, more women and minorities in office - most of the big-name races (Beto O'Rourke in Texas, Gillum in Florida, Abrams in Georgia) did not pan out.

Beto's loss was close, but not close enough to force a recount. Abrams' run for the Governor's seat in Georgia is still in question because of the closeness of the results (it may yet - IT NEEDS TO - go to recount), but if she prevails it would be the first true big crack in the GOP Southern Strategy. A Black Woman winning in what was a solid Conservative (and historically racist) state would be almost as big a win as Obama winning the Presidency in 2008.

Gillum's win - if it happens through recount - would be almost as big as an Abrams win. Florida may STILL be a Southern state with its own dark history of racism, but the last 30 years or so has seen this state wobble between its redneck leanings or its East Coast Transplant/International(Caribbean)  leanings. That Florida may be ready for a Black man running Tallahassee (well, okay, running Florida) is a big step but it wouldn't be as Earth-shattering as flipping Georgia.

There's still a lot to worry about: there's no guarantee the recounts mean a Gillum or Nelson victory (although both would be a huge relief to me personally) here in Florida. There's every chance the Republicans still in charge of a lot of things - and every chance Rick "No Ethics" Scott tries to shoot the recount down - will mess things up to where the Supreme Court interferes AGAIN with this mess.

But after the blues of Tuesday, this bit of Hope this weekend keeps me going.

P.S.: GOD, I know as a Unitarian you don't listen to me much, but PLEASE for the LOVE OF YOU make sure the recount favors Nelson and Gillum. Please. PPPPPLLLLLEEEEAASSSSEEEEE (gives the Almighty that pleading kitteh-eye expression)

Short Answer: Too Late, Already Gone Mad

Just saw this title on Slate.com, an article by Dahlia Lithwick that says

How to Survive Trump’s Presidency Without Losing Your Mind

My response?

Too late.

When the Electoral College broke down and the haters kept crawling out of the woodwork, I sank into a deep and terrible and angry depression.

BUT I'M MUCH HAPPIER NOW BHWHAHAAHAHAHAAHAAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHA (drinks tea) HAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHHAAHAAAHHEHEHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHHAAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Ahem.

Just buy my books, especially the upcoming Strangely Funny V anthology published by Mystery & Horror LLC due out later this month!

MADNESS!!!!!

Where Do I Even Start With This Day?

Just to top it all off, right now trump is trying to distract everyone from this whole week's worth of scandals by calling air strikes into Syria. As though starting a war would help him.

And wasn't this a goddamn movie plot point from the Clinton years?!

But this all follow-up to the ongoing news about trump's criminal lawyer Cohen (both meanings apply right about now) and the fact he traveled to Prague without reporting it to anybody because that trip involved a meeting with a key Russian official. Damn, everybody can afford to travel to Prague except me. *I'D* love to go to Prague, but then again I'm honest enough not to work for a scuzbucket like trump...

It's not helping that federal investigators likely got to Cohen's taped conversations with people. Considering that the warrants to search his materials - and that it's officially a criminal investigation on him now - any of those conversations relating to trump AND Russia and/or Manafort and/or anyone else under investigation opens up a can of worms where the worms are from Arrakis (the spice MUST flow...).

Throw in the roiling turmoil that is the Republican Party, where another rich white guy connected to Cohen had made arrangements with a Playmate (NOT the one who had an affair with trump by the by) to cover up their affair, covered up that she got pregnant, and then covered up that she had an abortion(!) which kinda violates a lot of things the goddamn evangelical base is supposed to care about.

Not to mention the fears that trump is one temper tantrum away from firing Deputy AG Rosenstein in another attempt to shut down the criminal investigations into Russia's interference with our 2016 elections and their questionable business ties to trump and his partners.

Also consider how trump is reacting to the guy he fired to commit Obstruction, smearing former FBI Director Comey over Comey's latest tell-all book that describes just how unhinged and dangerous trump is behind the scenes.

So yeah, this WAS Friday the 13th after all.

We are so very very VERY royally fucked, America.

Brexit: Not So Clean, Not So Tidy

Well, when last we heard of the Brexit Debacle of UK, the British Parliament was on the verge of collapse, the British economy was tanking (although it rebounded onto a shaky perch on the cliffs of insanity), and Infidel was kinda pissed at me for making apparently flippant arguments about England going balls-to-the-walls crazy.

In the middle of all the strum und drang of the 2016 Presidential Elections (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT VOTE TRUMP, ahem had to be said), some of the Brexit stuff had slid by, but it's come back into the news because one of the tricks the Conservatives in Parliament were trying to pull off to avoid accountability on this mess just blew up:

Parliament must vote on whether the UK can start the process of leaving the EU, the High Court has ruled.

This means the government cannot trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty - beginning formal exit negotiations with the EU - on its own.

Theresa May (the Prime Minister following Cameron's fall from power over the Brexit results) says the referendum - and existing ministerial powers - mean MPs do not need to vote, but campaigners called this unconstitutional.

The government is appealing, with a further hearing expected next month...

The Tories were trying to pull off a Pontius Pilate Maneuver: Wash their hands of the affair and let other people do the heavy lifting and take the blame.

That's because the public response to the entire Brexit issue makes it clear that anyone holding this hot potato when the music stops is going to get burned.

The economic implications alone should terrify people. The value of the British coinage - as they call it the Pound Sterling - took a huge hit right after the vote and the current signs are that it will continue to suffer. The value of your currency impacts on trade and tourism in big ways. Also, their own banks - some of the biggest financial institutions on the planet (London is bigger than New York as a capital of finance, for us Yanks to comprehend) - are threatening to relocate to Europe rather than stay in the UK. This can become a serious hit on the nation's ability - for people, for businesses, for the government itself - to deal with any loans, debts and overseas financial transactions.

This getting messier, not easier. As well it should, because the people in power who let it come to this need to answer for this mess.

This fight over the Article 50 rule is getting to the point where the British government is going to have to call a General Election (it's traditionally every five years, but emergency situations warrant calling this out of cycle. They're not regimented the way we do it here in the US). Considering how the Brexit ruling has stirred up all the wrong passions - violence against Immigrants and minorities have ticked up, the fringe politicians are stirring up even more threats, the generational and geographic disparities are more riven than ever - the next election can end up a greater pile of chaos with the wrong people in power. Just think of what it would be like if Trump, uh Boris Johnson ended up as the last Tory standing...

Now you know why the British are openly airing these kinds of ads:

Uh, no. We're not voting for Trump and you lot need to break out the brooms and sweep your own damn messes up.

Sorry, Infidel, but seriously it's their own damn fault.

Update: aaaaaannnnndddddd Infidel's blocked me.

Brief: My One Big Hope for 2016 Election Day

Is that if Hillary wins and the Democrats make major gains in Congress to where stability is assured, I have got to cut back on blogging. It's driving me crazy...

Wake Me Up When The Wingnut Nightmare Ends

Today is September 11.

It has been fifteen years since 2001. Since that clear-sky day that Tuesday turned so shockingly wrong.

And here we are, fifteen years later in the midst of an election cycle where one of the candidates - Trump - is an unabashed Islamophobe, eager to defame Muslims with accusations and lies that make it easier for his followers to attack innocent people on our streets.

Here we are fifteen years into a War on Terror where the crimes our own nation committed - a torture regime, unjustified invasion and occupation of Iraq that was based on lies - remain unanswered. Worse, the likes of Trump wants to bring that torture regime AND a re-occupation of Iraq (this time to blatantly take all the oil) back.

It has been fifteen years for my people, for our nation, for the United States sitting in the shadow of our own demons, driven into the shade by our fears and our rage. Kept there by a political faction among the Far Right who profits from keeping their fanbase fearful and mad. Any sane policy on keeping our nation safe gets ignored. Any hopeful expression of our nation's diversity and openness of culture gets mocked and insulted and beaten. Any attempt at justice - ending a prolonged and possibly illegal detention of prisoners at Gitmo, for starters - gets denied.

And the United States stumbles on, still bearing the scars of that Tuesday. We won't heal. There are those among us who can't.

And we're still stuck in a nightmare doomed to get worse if the biggest fear-monger of them all gets his orange-colored ass into the Oval Office.

This will not end well, if at all, in my lifetime, will it?