worldofwardcraft
World of Wardcraft
Commentaries on Matters Political
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Why is this man smiling?
May 13, 2024
Russia's murderous dictator, Vlad Putin, must be a happy man. His project of installing a puppet as president of the United States in 2016 was — with the help of our compliant news organizations (but her emails!) — unprecedentedly successful. And then, as a bonus, that puppet somehow managed to capture and dominate one of the country's two major political parties.
Which is why it has become so difficult to tell the difference between the Kremlin's goals and those of today's GOP. Both seem single-mindedly intent on dividing Americans along racial and class lines, turning our democracy into a joke, delegitimizing our national institutions and destroying our economy.
Many Republicans, like Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ohio senator J.D. Vance, might as well be paid Russian agents. In fact, Michael McCaul of Texas, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Puck News he thinks “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base.” And GOP congressman Mike Turner, chair of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, recently observed on CNN's "State of the Union,"
We see directly coming from Russia…communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor.
But it's not just their refusal to support Ukraine (as per Putin's wishes). During the four years of his presidency, Donald Trump's foreign policy purposely sought to do much of what Putin wanted to achieve. Even today Trump and his Republican fellow-travelers eagerly work to do Putin's bidding by undermining the NATO alliance, weakening the European Union, and preventing any improvement in relations with Iran.
Think Republicans don't follow Russia's lead? A few years back the Russian government announced it was raising the age of retirement from 60 to 65 for men and from 55 to 63 for women. Sure enough, in March the Republican Study Committee, which comprises more than 170 House members, released a budget proposal that would raise the age of Social Security eligibility.
Finally, consider this quote from more than a century ago by America's greatest humorist, as cited in Albert Bigelow Paine's Mark Twain, a Biography:
In our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it and out of place — the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else's keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan.
Even though Twain wasn't trying to be funny at the time, it remains an accurate observation that would put a grin on Putin's face.
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And...poof!...just like that.
May 6, 2024
It's not often you get to see a politician's entire career completely collapse as the result of a single ill-considered act. But once in a while it does happen.
Take, for example, the case of Gary Hart, senator from Colorado and Democratic front-runner in the 1988 presidential race. Responding to rumors of extramarital affairs, Hart recklessly challenged the media to follow him around, promising they would be very bored. As NBC anchor John Chancellor remarked, "We did. We weren’t."
It soon emerged that a woman named Donna Rice had accompanied Hart on an overnight trip from Miami to Bimini aboard an 83-foot luxury yacht named (we kid you not) Monkey Business. A picture subsequently appeared in hundreds of newspapers showing Rice sitting on Hart’s lap. Five days later Hart withdrew as a presidential candidate.
Or, consider the disastrous photo op of Massachusetts governor and 1988 presidential nominee Michael Dukakis wearing a dopey grin and a huge helmet aboard a 68-ton M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank. His opponent quickly turned it into an ad ridiculing him. And after winning only 10 states plus the District of Columbia in the general election, Dukakis was never heard from again.
Then there was Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and 2004 presidential aspirant. Following his loss in Iowa's primary, Dean tried to buck up his supporters by shrieking an energetic "Yeah!" Within four days, that maniacal scream was broadcast 633 times on the national news. Following his third-place finish in Wisconsin a month later, Dean suspended his campaign.
These were all Democrats, but Republicans aren't immune to similar implosions. Which brings us to South Dakota governor and Trump VP hopeful Kristi Noem (currently hitting the reputation rehabilitation circuit — so far, it seems, unsuccessfully). In her forthcoming memoir, Noem brags that she shot her dog Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehair pointer, because it was "untrainable" as a hunting dog.
The reaction was about what you'd expect. Even hard-core MAGAs were repelled by someone who would execute a dog. Added New York Magazine,
Oh, you thought this bloody tale of animal cruelty was done? Nope! Noem then decided she had to murder the family's “nasty and mean” goat, too.
Why would she admit to such a thing? To show her cruelty and tough-mindedness, of course. And because Trump's MAGA cult fervently admires those qualities. But while the indiscriminate killing of immigrants, shoplifters and Black Lives Matter protesters is just hunky-dory with MAGAdonians, they apparently draw the line at shooting a puppy. Which means Noem's veep chances and political ambitions have literally gone up in gunsmoke.
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Poor Donald.
May 2, 2024
Word is Donald Trump is paying so much in legal fees that he’s running out of money. And with the $91.6 million bond he had to post for the E. Jean Carroll judgment, plus his company's civil business fraud fine that's approaching half a billion, it's no wonder he’s reduced to hawking $60 bibles and tacky gold sneakers.
Trump's multiple lawsuits, trials and appeals are becoming increasingly expensive, too. This year to date, $16.7 million in funds from Trump’s PACs have gone toward legal bills. Last month alone, he owed nearly $900,000 to law firms. And according to The Washington Post, Trump has so far expended a total of approximately $86 million in attorneys' fees.
Moreover, the cash isn't rolling in like it used to, either. Last year, Republican Party advisors warned Trump’s team that their small-dollar donor base could be shrinking. Sure enough, in 2023 Trump’s reelection campaign raised 62.5% less from small-dollar donors than it did in 2019. In January, Trump's campaign reported raising around $3 million. Joe Biden took in $2 million in a single day!
The drop in Trump’s small-dollar donations is magnified by a second problem: Many wealthy Republican donors have yet to commit to giving their usual millions of dollars toward a pro-Trump political action committee. Explains The New York Times, "Among their privately expressed concerns is a fear that large donations could wind up covering Mr. Trump’s legal fees."
So where can a Trump in need turn for funds? To start, he had his minions take over the Republican National Committee and its financial resources. But the RNC's own fund-raising has been alarmingly lackluster recently. So Trump decided to turn it into something resembling an extortion racket. In a mid-April letter to Republican down-ballot candidates, the Trump campaign announced the price for RNC support:
We ask that all candidates and committees who choose to use President Trump’s name, image, and likeness split a minimum of 5% of all fundraising solicitations to Trump National Committee JFC.
Trump's also been playing three-card monte with his various PACs, shifting funds from those legally bound to disperse money only for campaign purposes to his Save America super PAC that he can put to personal use, like paying lawyers. In fact, the total spent on legal expenses by Save America in the month of March was almost as much as Trump’s campaign committee spent.
As attorney fees suck cash out of his political operation, it's hard to escape the conclusion that Trump's money problems are making him a poor presidential candidate.
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Not so funny money.
April 29, 2024
You invested your kid's college fund in Truth Social stock, you bought all the Donald Trump NFTs, you shelled out for the $300 sneakers and the $60 bible. You got your flags, your red MAGA hat and "God, Guns & Trump" t-shirt. So how else can you show your everlasting and limitless devotion to the criminally indicted grifter who calls himself "your favorite president of all time"? Here's how.
Ever since 2020, when Trump lost the presidential election, Internet vendors (legitimate or not) have been selling pro-Trump coins, currency and cards, most marketed as purely collectible novelty items. In fact, while Trump was still president, even the White House gift shop was hawking a coin commemorating his first impeachment as part of its "historical moments in his presidency collection" (a steal at only $150).
What's more, Amazon currently offers a Trump 2024 Save America gold coin in a velvet display case complete with a certificate of authentication and display stand that allows you to "proudly support MAGA" for the low, low price of $16.95. And an outfit calling itself Proud Patriots is selling a collectible trading card of Trump's scowling mugshot for $29.99. But these are all merely harmless ways of separating Trump-addled cultists from their currency.
More dangerous are the online scammers dealing in phony "Trump Bucks" and debit cards. Here's the pitch: When Trump is rightfully returned to power as omnipotent king of America, he will establish an entirely new monetary structure (the Trump Rebate Banking System), and these items will suddenly become immensely valuable.
John Amann of Houston, however, found out otherwise. He bought $2,200 worth of Trump Bucks, only to discover they were worthless when he tried to cash them in at his local bank. In 2023, NBC News revealed that three separate companies based in Colorado were behind a scheme to sell fake Trump Bucks.
Plus, it's an open secret that the town of Veles in Macedonia is the headquarters for gangs of fraudsters vending debit-like "Trump cards" through encrypted Internet channels to naive, Trump-worshipping "patriots" an ocean away. Each of these cards is supposedly preloaded with $200,000, which you can withdraw at any ATM. Needless to say, they too are completely bogus.
But it's hard to distinguish between these Internet thieves and Donald Trump, who also peddles an array of Trump-branded junk, with the cash he siphons off from his cult followers going straight into his lawyers' pockets. We can only hope the gullible MAGAs who fall for these scams will eventually realize the joke's on them.
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The bad example state.
April 25, 2024
In his State of the State Address in January 2022, Governor Ron DeSantis declared that Florida was "the freest state in these United States." He also claimed "the state is well-prepared to withstand future economic turmoil." Turns out this description does not apply at all to his state's insurance industry. That particular segment of Florida's economy is currently verging on catastrophe.
Because of ocean warming, Florida is especially subject to heavy rainfalls, storm surge, and major category hurricanes that can devastate entire cities. For example, 55% of all the properties in Miami are at risk for severe flooding. And Florida's sea level, as much as eight inches higher now than in 1950, is rising by one inch every three years.
Bloomberg Intelligence reports that a 360% rise in Florida's insured losses in the past three decades due to the increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters is causing insurers to “hike premiums and exit high-risk areas.” And with reinsurance — essentially insurance for insurers — becoming unaffordable, major insurance companies are fleeing Florida in droves. AIG ceased insuring new properties along Florida's shoreline, while Farmers Group has stopped writing new policies statewide entirely.
So, since Republicans believe a "free" state means having little to no business regulation, homeowners are left having to depend on companies that are smaller, less diversified, less capitalized and more prone to becoming insolvent. A recent study by researchers at Harvard University, Columbia University and the Federal Reserve found that a majority of homes in Florida are insured by companies whose ratings would not receive an A from Demotech Inc., the industry’s primary ratings agency, and thus not be good enough to secure full backing by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
Naturally, costs for home insurance have skyrocketed, too. Floridians paid an average annual premium of $10,996 in 2023 — more than anywhere else in the country. And online insurance agent Insurify predicts that number to go up to $11,759 in 2024.
DeSantis likes to hype "free" Florida as a model for the nation. Here's how Latisha Nixon-Jones, law professor at Jackson State University responds to that notion:
Will the state serve as a blueprint for disaster-prone regions, or act as a cautionary tale? After all, states such as California and Louisiana have also seen insurance companies withdrawing from their markets.
Plus, Newsweek reports that Brookfield Asset Management Reinsurance Partnership is pulling out of nine states: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Minnesota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Washington. If Florida is an example for America, that's not very reassuring.
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The Pecker plot.
April 22, 2024
Most media news outlets are portraying the New York trial of career criminal Donald Trump as a simple case of “hush money” payments to cover up an affair. The more responsible ones are also correctly framing it as a case of election fraud since the purpose of the cover-up was to hide that affair from the voting public. But only a few are noticing the crime behind all the others, i.e., Trump’s covert collusion with National Enquirer owner David Pecker (pictured above with indicted co-conspirator) to push disinformation at the electorate and sway the 2016 election in Trump's favor.
Pecker, at the time CEO of American Media, Inc., the company that published the tabloid, was a close ally of Trump. According to state prosecutors, Pecker met with him and his then-lawyer Michael Cohen at Trump Tower in August 2015 and agreed to help Trump’s presidential campaign by "looking out for negative stories” about Trump before they were published.
Pecker “also agreed to publish negative stories about [Trump’s] competitors for the election.” One such was a bogus report claiming that Rafael Cruz, the father of Trump’s Republican primary rival Ted Cruz, was somehow involved in the 1963 John F. Kennedy assassination. But the Trump-Pecker operation really shifted into high gear when Hillary Clinton became the Democratic nominee. In the run-up to the election, dozens of stories appeared in the Enquirer with headlines like "Hillary Failed Secret FBI Lie Detector!", "Hillary's Lung Cancer Battle!", "Hillary, Bill & Chelsea Indicted!" and "Hillary: Six Months To Live!"
Prosecutors have also charged that, “because of his agreement” with Trump and Cohen, Pecker directed AMI to pay $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman, Dino Sajudin, who was attempting to shop a story about a “love child” Trump had fathered. Even after AMI concluded the story wasn’t true, the agreement with the doorman was kept in place.
With a circulation of less than 300,000, the National Enquirer, though sold in nearly every supermarket, doesn't reach all that many households. But millions of shoppers were subject to its lies. Explains political scientist and author Mark Schmitt,
Even people who don't read the Enquirer were exposed to these headlines which are really political ads. Enquirer's checkout aisle real estate is invaluable for political communication.
The Trump-Pecker conspiracy was more than merely a "catch and kill" scheme to bury negative stories. It also involved a fire hose of falsehoods aimed at getting Trump elected. And, no surprise, an immunized Pecker will be the first witness to testify against Trump in today's trial.
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How Republicans plan to win.
April 18, 2024
The Republican plot to steal the 2024 presidential election consists of a two-pronged attack. The first element is to engage in voter suppression. This is currently being pursued in a number of states in a number of ways: draconian voter ID laws, restricting the location and number of voting places, eliminating early voting, curbing mail-in voting, creating obstacles to voter registration, and any other nefarious method they can think up.
In 2013 the political hacks on our Supreme Court showed their eagerness to assist the cause by gutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Apparently, the freedom to vote is unconstitutional. Also fundamental to the GOP's voter muzzling efforts is nonstop scaremongering about voter fraud, even though it's extremely rare and usually committed by Republicans.
In fact, Republicans have been convicted of fraudulent voting in states around the country, from Wisconsin to Florida to Alabama. Here's MSNBC with a recent example:
Another person has been sentenced for committing voter fraud during the 2020 election — and once again it was on behalf of a Republican candidate. An Iowa woman named Kim Taylor was sentenced to four months in prison Monday after a federal jury convicted her last year on more than 50 counts of voter fraud as part of a scheme to help her husband in a congressional primary and a county supervisor race.
The second component in the right's election thievery scheme is simply out and out cheating. One way is by intimidating people at the polls. For example, Nevada Republicans are suing to block a state law that prohibits interfering with or harassing election officials. And Republicans in Texas and North Carolina have successfully pushed through changes making it easier for them to place partisan operatives inside polling areas.
Meanwhile, Texas has enacted two new election laws targeting Democratic stronghold Harris County — and only Harris County. One of the laws abolishes the office of county election administrator. The other allows the secretary of state to take over election administration, if the Republican governor doesn’t like how Harris County is running its elections.
Another way of cheating is through purging the voter rolls of people you don't want casting ballots. Already eight Republican-controlled states have left the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) — the interstate compact that shares voter information. Which will make cheating easier and detecting fraud harder. Says Marc Elias of Democracy Docket, "What we're seeing is…a right-wing strategy to file lawsuits to remove voters from the rolls all around the country." In other words, a strategy to win dishonestly.
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Why is it so useless?
April 15, 2024
The Federal Election Campaign Act was signed into law in 1971 by President Nixon with the purpose of creating limits for campaign spending on communication media, adding additional penalties to the criminal code for election law violations, and imposing disclosure requirements for federal political campaigns. In 1974, the act was amended and established the Federal Election Commission to enforce these goals. It was a good idea while it lasted.
Because over the years, right-wing organizations and individuals have launched lawsuit after lawsuit aimed at eliminating any kind of election regulation whatsoever. And a conservative Supreme Court has been only too happy to help. In fact, almost immediately it ruled that limits on campaign contributions were unconstitutional (Buckley v. Valeo, 1976).
With the passage of the follow-up Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in 2002, large chunks of this law too were struck down. The Court declared issue ads cannot be banned (FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, 2007), restrictions on wealthy candidates violate their First Amendment rights (Davis v. FEC, 2008) and, worst of all, corporations can spend unlimited amounts on campaigns (Citizens United v. FEC, 2010).
The arrangement of the FEC itself is also problematic. The commission consists of six members, three from each major party. Which almost guarantees gridlock since at least four of the six need to approve investigating any campaign violation. Still, according to the FEC's enabling statute, any non-enforcement is subject to judicial review. So, naturally, in June 2018, two Republican-appointed judges on the DC Circuit — including now-SCOTUS Justice Brett Kavanaugh — gutted that rule. No wonder that, of the 200 matters currently before the commission, only seven are under active investigation.
Of course, whenever the subject is election cheating, Donald Trump's name is always prominent. Most recently, he's been charged with illegally soliciting and directing "soft" (unregulated and undisclosed) money to an outside super PAC called America First Action, an outfit that spent almost $134 million on ads opposing Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Here's FEC Vice Chair Ellen Weintraub last December:
And for those keeping count, the tally is now 59 times the Commission has been presented with allegations that Mr. Trump or his committees violated the FECA, 29 times the Commission’s nonpartisan professional staff recommended that we take some steps to enforce the law, and (checks notes) still zero times a Republican commissioner has voted to approve any recommendation to enforce the law against Mr. Trump.
So if you're counting on the Federal Election Commission to rein in Trump's ongoing election crimes, don't bother. It's simply no use.
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A fool and his money.
April 11, 2024
While much attention focuses on Donald Trump's apparent inability to satisfy the New York appeals court's inexplicably lowered bond of $175 million in his civil fraud conviction — down from $464 mill (plus interest) — little notice is being paid to the many other civil suits currently pending against the one-time president and full-time criminal. These litigations have the potential to end up bankrupting him for real. Here are some of them.
Doe vs. The Trump Corporation — A group of anonymous plaintiffs have filed a class action against the Trump family and their business, alleging the Trumps used their brand to scam investors into paying for worthless business opportunities.
Rep. Karen Bass et al. Incitement Suit — Ten members of the House of Representatives, aided by the NAACP, are suing Trump, Rudy Giuliani and two right wing militia groups for conspiring to forcibly prevent Congress from counting the Electoral College votes on January 6, 2021.
Eric Swalwell Incitement Suit — In suing Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump Jr. and Rep. Mo Brooks, California congressman Swalwell alleges they violated federal civil rights laws when they conspired to interfere with the Electoral College count on J6.
Three Capitol Police Suits — Bringing separate suits against Trump and his affiliates (like the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers), three groups of officers claim they were physically and emotionally injured by attackers that Trump instigated during the J6 riot.
Metropolitan Police Suit — Also seeking compensatory and punitive damages, the Washington, DC police are alleging the physical and emotional injuries they suffered were caused by Trump's incitement and that he directed, aided and abetted the insurrection.
All these legal actions are in various stages of litigation. And several have already seen judges reject Trump's routine motions to dismiss. But, of course, Trump will no doubt keep appealing any judgments against him until he finally runs out of courts.
Meanwhile, a New York judge has ordered Trump to pay The New York Times and three of its reporters nearly $400,000 to cover their legal costs for a lawsuit he filed that was dismissed. Trump sued them over a 2018 investigation into his finances that was based in part on confidential tax records. Incidentally, their series of articles won those journalists a Pulitzer Prize.
Trump has a long-standing propensity for attracting serious lawsuits as well as initiating frivolous ones. Both with adverse effects on his net worth. In addition to the half billion and more he has already been fined, look for the above litigations to separate the "stable genius" from even more of his (imaginary) wealth.
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The Trump pump and dump.
April 8, 2024
Back in October 2021, we reported on Donald Trump's scam social media platform, Truth Social ("The Don's latest con"). At the time, we referred to it as a "garden-variety stock swindle" to defraud investors. Now, after years of lawsuits and SEC investigations, Trump Media & Technology Group (the owners of Truth Social) has finally merged with Digital World Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded shell company. Recently listed on the stock exchange as DJT, Trump's social media company is turning out to be exactly the con job we told you it was.
After surging to $78 a share at its market debut on March 26, Trump Media stock (supposedly valued at $8 billion) began dropping rapidly, with its price per share down to $40.55 by the close of last Friday. In other words, the company's stock lost more than 40% of its original value in about a week and a half. The sell-off accelerated when SEC filings revealed that Trump Media lost $58.2 million in 2023, with interest expenses totaling more than $39 million, while generating total revenues of a mere $4.1 million.
That huge interest liability was because, prior to the merger with DWAC, Truth Social was only kept afloat through millions in loans from a shady Russian-American money launderer named Anton Postolnikov. The filing also included a disturbing note from an independent accounting firm, Colorado-based BF Borgers CPA PC, warning that Trump Media's "operating losses raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern."
Meanwhile, two Truth Social co-founders sued Don the Con for diluting the value of their ownership when he increased the number of shares in the company from 120 million to one billion. Naturally, he's countersuing in retaliation. At the same time, two other individuals connected to Trump Media pled guilty to insider trading, admitting they had advance knowledge of the merger from which they personally profited.
Why would anyone invest in such an obvious flimflam? John Rekenthaler, vice president for research at Morningstar, a financial services group, likens the company's stock to a cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin owners are members of a club. So, too, are Trump Media investors, to an even greater degree. For them, DJT shares represent a currency by which they can express their beliefs and commitment.
The idea was for Trump to make a ton o' cash by peddling puffed-up stock to the gullible MAGA rubes. But under the merger agreement, he's restricted from dumping his own shares for six months. And by then, they'll probably be next to worthless.
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Out you go, rinos.
April 4, 2024
Not since its founding in 1854 has the Republican Party undergone such an abrupt transformation. It took generations for the Party to morph from its radical anti-slavery roots into a conservative opposition to the likewise metamorphosed liberal Democrats.
In its march through the last century from Goldwater to Reagan to the Tea Party, the GOP positioned itself as a political organization staunchly dedicated to orthodox conservative principles. Enter Donald Trump, a political neophyte with a talent for demagoguery. Employing mendacity and intimidation, Trump managed within a few short years to dominate the Party and bend it to his sociopathic will. Now, Republicans have discovered this means exacting retribution upon any individual who crosses, criticizes or contradicts him.
Accordingly, the Party under Trump's reign is ruthlessly rooting out all those deemed insufficiently loyal to the Dear Leader. The first to fall was Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, who stridently opposed Trump. And, in retaliation for this apostasy, was ousted from her position as chair of the House Republican Conference, censured by the RNC and subsequently defeated in her primary bid for reelection. Pour encourager les autres.
But more Republican heads ended up on pikes, anyway. Including Representatives Adam Kinzinger and Anthony Gonzalez, both of whom voted to impeach Trump. Also facing expulsion were heretical GOP senators Jeff Flake, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, who chose to escape the fury of the MAGA mob by voluntarily not seeking reelection.
Still others hounded out of the Party included Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, who refused to support Trump’s claims of election fraud, and North Carolina Senator Richard Burr, who voted to convict Trump in the second impeachment trial. In Wisconsin, Republicans are trying to remove Assembly leader Robin Vos, whose alleged offense is that he didn’t fight hard enough to overturn President Biden’s 2020 election victory in the state.
As for Nikki Haley, who had the temerity to run against him, Trump recently decreed that anyone who contributed to her campaign "from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp.” No wonder Maryland governor Larry Hogan calls his party "a circular firing squad" hellbent on excommunicating any member who dares utter a modicum of criticism against the MAGA Jesus.
It's worth noting as well that, aside from the irrelevant Sarah Palin, no one who appeared on a national Republican ticket in this century — not Pence, Ryan, Romney or Bush — will be supporting Donald Trump in November. That's because, along with Reagan, Eisenhower and Lincoln, they've all been summarily purged from the Trumpublican Party.
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Ebony and oviney.
April 1, 2024
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (pictured above being confronted by actual facts), the son and nephew of two Democratic heroes, started out his public career (after attending Harvard, of course) by failing his bar exam and being convicted of heroin possession in 1984. After a year's probation, community service and a stint in rehab, he turned himself into a celebrated environmental lawyer and activist, involved in numerous litigations and organizations in support of environmental causes.
But in the early 2000s Kennedy became a little, you know, funny in the head. He started swimming in lies and conspiracy theories, being especially prone to dishing out misinformation about how vaccines cause autism. He was also named chair of Children's Health Defense, a virulent anti-vaccine advocacy group. He also claimed the GOP stole the 2004 election for George W. Bush, 5G networks were being used for government surveillance, and the CIA assassinated his uncle.
But his lunacy really hit its stride with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the creation of preventative vaccines. Naturally, he railed against these vaccines too as dangerous. But he also insisted, “Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people." And it gets worse. According to NPR, his other beliefs include: Wi-Fi causes cancer and "leaky brain," antidepressants are to blame for school shootings, chemicals in the water supply could turn children transgender, and AIDS is not caused by HIV.
But if Kennedy's public pronouncements are bewilderingly deranged, his private life is even more of a mess. After cheating on her and struggling with drug abuse throughout 12 years of marriage, he finally divorced his first wife, Emily. Kennedy then married Mary, his second wife and proceeded to continue his habit of extra-marital affairs. He even kept a record of them in a diary that was leaked to the New York Post in 2013.
In the spring of 2010, Kennedy began divorce proceedings against Mary and went public with his relationship with future third wife, actress Cheryl Hines. Reportedly, he often told Mary she would be "better off dead" and it would be "so much easier" if she killed herself. On May 16, 2012, Mary was found hanging in a barn.
So, it seems RFK Jr. is not only a dangerous crackpot, he's also something of a creep. And one who's running for president. Yet on St. Patrick's Day, more than 30 members of the Kennedy clan visited the Bidens at the White House to show their support for Joe's reelection. Not attending was Bobby Jr. — the family's black sheep.
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Another of his mental impediments.
March 28, 2024
One of the many drawbacks of Donald Trump's limited intelligence is that he's unable to foresee the consequences of his actions. Living always in the moment, he is focused only on getting through today. Thus, he is simply incapable of either comprehending the effects of current decisions or anticipating future outcomes.
Nowhere was this more in evidence than in the lead-up to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2018, Trump ordered the disbanding of the National Security Council's Global Health Security and Biodefense unit. A year later, the position of CDC epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency was eliminated. And just three months before the coronavirus began infecting people in China, his administration decided to end a $200 million early warning program, called Predict, designed to alert potential pandemics.
Trump shut down these programs only because they originated under the despised President Obama. And without a moment's thought concerning any possible ramifications. Such as COVID-19 becoming the third leading cause of death in the US in 2020, with a death rate of 1,027 per 100,000 population and over a million dead between January 2020 and June 2023.
Then there was the time Trump, abetted by an eager Republican Congress, pushed through the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which significantly lowered the top tax rate for high-income earners and slashed the corporate rate to 21%. Wealthy GOP donors loved it, but little attention was given to the resultant economic inequality. Said the Brookings Institution's Tax Policy Center at the time:
When it is ultimately financed with spending cuts or other tax increases, as it must be in the long run, TCJA will, under the most plausible scenarios, end up making most households worse off than if TCJA had not been enacted.
Trump's tariffs on foreign goods and his rejection of international treaties may have seemed like good America First ideas at the time. But the former resulted in increasing prices for American consumers and destroying markets for American farmers, while the latter isolated us from our allies and endangered our national security. Trump evidently didn't see any of that coming.
Even today, Trump puts forward superficially attractive, but ill-considered policies. Like a 100% tariff on cars manufactured outside the US, which would make them cost twice as much. He also promises to deport eight million immigrants, which would devastate the US economy by depriving it of a sizable portion of its workforce. So, if you hear Trump's proposals and wonder what he could possibly be thinking, the answer is, as usual, he isn't.
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Everything you want in a president.
March 25, 2024
In a side-by-side comparison of the two national party candidates for president, it's not even close. One of them is an adjudicated rapist, a convicted fraudster, a verified insurrectionist, an avowed racist, an unrepentant grifter and a pathological liar. While the other embodies literally everything the American people say they want to see in a president.
For example, in a USA Today/Suffolk University poll, Americans responded 57% to 34% that they favored having a president who was willing to compromise in order to get things done. As a senator, Joe Biden was famous for being willing to work across the aisle. And as president, his latest achievement at finding the middle ground was the bipartisan border security bill hammered out earlier this year and then scuttled by House Republicans for partisan reasons at Donald Trump's command.
The Pew Research Center reports that nearly all US adults believe it's important to have a president who lives a moral and ethical life, and almost half say the president should have strong religious beliefs. In contrast to the serial philanderer and lifelong crook who hasn't seen the inside of a church in years, Biden is faithful to his wife, Jill, and attends Mass every Sunday. In February, he told the congregation at the African-American Saint John Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina, "In my life, I've tried to walk my faith."
Moreover, in nearly 50 years in public life — and despite the best efforts of House Republicans to manufacture dirt about him — there has never been so much as a whiff of scandal or corruption attaching to Biden. While many other senators were using their positions to enrich themselves via the largesse of lobbyists or through insider stock trading, Senator Biden quietly worked to craft bipartisan legislation and then took the train home to Delaware every night to be with his children.
Americans have consistently indicated they prefer a president who honors our service members in both word and deed, is loyal to our allies, supports democracy around the world and cares for the welfare of our nation. Biden has a well-earned reputation for being firmly committed to every one of these ideals. Trump has clearly shown he is not.
Time and again, Joe Biden has proven himself highly empathetic, effective at getting laws passed, skilled at finding bipartisan solutions, firm in dealing with our adversaries and willing to change his mind on issues when situations change. But, as the media constantly remind us, Biden is 81. Which apparently means we're supposed to vote for the 78-year-old fascist.
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The magic immigrant.
March 21, 2024
Republicans of the MAGA persuasion imagine that immigrants at our southern border are actually miraculous shape-shifters who can somehow take on a variety of identities. In their fevered fantasies, GOPers view these mysterious beings simultaneously as drug smugglers, human traffickers, murderous gang members, rapists, terrorists, invaders, job stealers, looters of government "free stuff," replacements for white Americans and imported Democratic voters. But also people to be excluded, persecuted, even killed. And whose families can routinely be destroyed.
For instance, Republican pols and right-wing media outlets regularly claim that America's in the midst of a violent crime wave being driven by undocumented immigrants. One study found that Faux News ran nearly 400 weekday segments on “migrant crime” in the first 10 weeks of 2024 alone. Host Jesse Watters hyperventilated to viewers in late February, “There is a migrant crime spree killing Americans.” And, of course, pathological prevaricator Donald Trump falsely declared at the southern border that the “United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime.”
The truth, however, is very different. From 2012 to 2022, undocumented immigrants were 14% less likely to be convicted of murder and 41% less likely to be convicted of any criminal offense. And two border states saw particularly sharp declines in murder in 2023, with a drop of 15% in Texas and 8.8% in Arizona. In fact, researchers have consistently found that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than American citizens.
As far back as 2015, Trump was shrieking, “They’re taking our jobs. They’re taking our manufacturing jobs. They’re taking our money. They’re killing us.” But again the facts are very different, and immigrants may not be stealing as many jobs as Trump insists. In fact, according to a 2020 Pew Research survey, about three-quarters of adults (77%) say undocumented immigrants mostly fill jobs US citizens don't want. As Brookings Senior Fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown explains:
The impact of immigrant labor on the wages of native-born workers is low…However, undocumented workers often work the unpleasant, back-breaking jobs that native-born workers are not willing to do.
Migrants aren't taking away jobs. On the contrary, employers are currently struggling to find workers. And far from being pawns in a vast conspiracy to replace white populations and swell the ranks of Democratic voters, immigrants from Latin America are simply seeking to escape intolerable conditions at home and obtain a better life for their families. Asylum seekers coming here are legal immigrants, not the supernatural all-purpose villains that inhabit the racist preoccupations of the MAGA cult.
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Autocratophiliac.
March 18, 2024
Someone really should come up with a word for a person with an extreme affinity for dictators. Because mob boss Donald Trump's certainly a prime example. Trump's longtime regard for Russian president and war criminal Vlad Putin is already infamous.
Back in 2013, Trump told Larry King that Putin did “a really great job outsmarting our country.” Campaigning in 2016, Trump asserted during a televised town hall, "I've already said, he is really very much of a leader." And only two years ago, he described Putin’s vicious and illegal invasion of Ukraine as “genius” and “savvy.”
But Putin's not the only brutal tyrant Trump esteems. A year ago on Faux News, Trump babbled on and on about China's tyrannical president Xi Jinping.
Think of President Xi. Central casting, brilliant guy. You know, when I say he’s brilliant, everyone says, "Oh that’s terrible." Well, he runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. Smart, brilliant, everything perfect. There’s nobody in Hollywood like this guy.
Then there's North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Following a meeting with Kim in Singapore, Trump gushed, “I learned he’s a very talented man. I also learned that he loves his country very much.” And don't forget the "love letters" Trump exchanged with Kim. "No really. He wrote me beautiful letters,” Trump cooed in 2018. “They were great letters. And then we fell in love.”
Only last week, Trump invited Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán to visit him (the two pictured above as BFF twinsies). During a fete at Mar-a-Lago, Trump burbled, “There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán.” And added, “He’s the boss and he’s a great leader, fantastic leader. In Europe and around the world, they respect him.”
Plus, unsurprisingly, Trump once told John Kelly, his chief of staff, that Hitler "did some good things." So why does Trump have this strange affection for authoritarian despots? Here's what John Bolton, his former national security advisor, told CNN news anchor Jim Sciutto:
He views himself as a big guy. He likes dealing with other big guys, and big guys like Erdogan in Turkey get to put people in jail and you don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. He kind of likes that.
Trump has already admitted that, if elected president again, he'd like to become "a dictator on day one," put people in concentration camps and "terminate the Constitution." Says Kelly, “My theory on why he likes the dictators so much is that’s who he is.” And that's the word on Donald Trump.
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The (not so) short list.
March 14, 2024
With the presidential race whittled down (as we all knew it would be) to Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden, and since Biden's running mate is a given, the only question remaining is Trump's VP pick. Naturally, he'll keep the suspense going (and the spotlight on him) for as long as possible. Which will allow the media to speculate on an ever-expanding roster of candidates. Here in no particular order are some of the ones being bandied about as of this morning:
Tim Scott - During a Trump primary-night victory speech, Scott delivered some grade-A groveling, telling him, “I just love you!”
Elise Stefanik - Trump reportedly nodded and said “She’s a killer” when her name came up at a dinner as a potential pick.
Kristi Noem - A devoted culture warrior, she was the top pick for VP (tied with Vivek Ramaswamy) among attendees at the 2024 CPAC.
Vivek Ramaswamy - When asked about him as veep last August, Trump praised his obsequiousness and commented, “I think he’d be very good.”
J.D. Vance - Originally a “Never Trump guy” who wondered if Trump might be “America's Hitler,” Vance underwent a stunning MAGA conversion during his 2022 Senate campaign.
Kari Lake - In January, Trump said Lake would be wonderful — in the Senate. But she spends so much time at Mag-a-Lardo, she might as well be running for VP.
Marjorie Taylor Greene - She’d make Trump look sane and reasonable. But several Trump-world sources told Rolling Stone that he’s not “stupid enough” to make her his running mate. Besides, he'd never pick someone who's as big an attention hog as he is.
Greg Abbott - After Abbott endorsed him, Trump said during a recent visit to the Tex-Mex border that he's “absolutely” on his short list of potential VP candidates.
Additional second-tier contestants include: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Byron Donalds, Tulsi Gabbard, Doug Burgum, Ben Carson and Ron DeSantis. As well as (get this) fired Faux News host Tucker Carlson. When asked if he would consider Carlson for vice president, Trump responded, “I like Tucker a lot. I guess I would. I think I'd say I would. He’s got great common sense.”
One thing for sure, it won't be Nikki Haley (who Trump calls "Birdbrain"). Nor will he make the mistake — as he did with Mike Pence — of just balancing the ticket. Instead, count on Trump to select a submissive toady who will reliably follow orders. And today's GOP has plenty of those.
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