Author: A L Katz

I have been up and I have been down. I have run major TV shows & made feature films and thought for sure I would never work again. I have stared into the abyss and walked away better for it. If there's one thing I have learned from the experience, it's this: Bullshit is killing us all.

Dear American News Media: Please Get This Straight — Both Sides Do Not “Do It”

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

And both sides don’t do everything for political reasons either. Let’s put that out there straight away.

I’d love to know where exactly — at which Journalism School — “Both Sides Do It ” journalism was born. Surely something as pernicious, as stupid, as poorly thought out sprang from one confused human mind, manifesto-like. I’d hate to think that a notion that easily disprovable emerged from underneath more than one rock.

The first thing “Both Sides Do It” tosses overboard is perspective. It equates a small act of bad behavior with a humongous act of bad behavior. They’re both bad behavior, see — both sides do it. It’s like comparing Bernie Madoff — who ripped off billions because he’s a greedy shit — to Jean Valjean (the hero of Les Miserables) who steals bread to feed the hungry. Yes, both men are thieves. Both sides “do it”. And yet, they don’t.

Proportion. Scale. Perspective.

Both sides do what they do but they do not do the same thing. And what both sides do cannot be compared to each other except to note how different those two things are. How completely and utterly different.

When the House Democrats impeached Donald Trump last year, it was a political act (as opposed to a criminal justice act; the House has no “criminal justice” powers). But what motivated them TO act wasn’t political. It was patriotic. They were reacting to Donald Trump willfully and repeatedly violating his oath of office and the Constitution. It was their SWORN OBLIGATION to say something, do something. They took an oath to uphold the Constitution. They had no choice BUT to impeach Trump or be just as guilty of malfeasance.

Being obligated to action against anti-Constitutional behavior is not the same as the behavior itself. To think otherwise is to think a rape victim is as guilty of raping themselves as the rapist is because a rape was happening and since it was “both sides must have done it”.

Both sides did not conspire with Russia to steal Election 2016. Both sides did not — since then — do everything in their power to either undermine America’s place in the world or enable that undermining. Both sides have not shrugged off racism, sexism and bigotry.

Both sides do not behave strangely on the subject of Russian interference in our elections. Both sides don’t block vital legislation to protect the integrity of our elections.

Both sides don’t pull bullshit rules about SCOTUS judges & election years from the Treason Turtle backsides.

Both sides don’t put forward SCOTUS candidates that they dare not vet because they’re rapists.

Both sides don’t put forward ludicrous arguments every time you ask them a question.

Both sides didn’t behave as if the coronavirus pandemic was yet another “hoax” (all previous hoaxes NOT being hoaxes either). Both sides have not made it clear that they favor money over everything else.

Both sides do not continue to back and support a president who we all know is the most unfit man to ever steal an election with the help of his Russian friend.

Both sides didn’t screw up our government’s response to this pandemic for entirely political reasons. Both sides don’t get on TV every day — at coronavirus updates that are actually campaign rallies (covered for free by our moronic main stream new media) — and lie repeatedly about how we got into this mess, what they’ve done since to help fix it, and what medications we should take to get cured (regardless of efficacy cos Don-Don gets a piece of every pill purchased).

Both sides don’t say churches should be free to congregate in spite of social-distancing rules to infect themselves and their communities because ooga-booga.

Both sides don’t want America to get back to work a moment before it’s safe.

Both sides don’t want American Democracy to die.

Both sides don’t want permanent minority rule.

Both sides don’t openly admit that if every American voted, Republicans would never win another election.

Is it not painfully clear, CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times & every news media outlet — both sides do not do “it”. They never did. YOU made that up.

Now get it out of your goddamned heads. Remember your Constitutionally-mandated responsibility to be our final check on power and stop letting Trump walk all over you, use you, abuse you and — by extension — do all that ugly shit to us.

We The People won’t tolerate it anymore. We’re the “other side” you’re ultimately accusing of “doing it”, ya see. And we know for a fact: WE DIDN’T.

Let’s Be Real: Election 2020 May Be “Trump v Biden” On The Surface, But In Every Other Way, It’s “Obama v Trump” — LITERALLY

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

Maybe this race was simply fated to go this way. Prior to the South Carolina primary a few weeks ago, everyone pretty much agreed that Joe Biden’s candidacy was done. And then yesterday, Bernie Sanders withdrew from the race (keeping his name in to get as many delegates as he can so as to exert influence over the platform — a good move). The 2020 Election began in earnest at that moment.

And then Barack Obama’s name popped into the conversation. Obama initiated part of it (an important point). He put out this tweet —

Donald Trump responded — as he would. During Wednesday’s daily political campaign ad masquerading as a coronavirus update, Trump addressed the fact that Bernie had dropped out, making Biden his opposition. Trump asked why Obama hadn’t backed Biden until now. Being Trump, he asserted that Obama “new something” — something Trump himself knew — and soon, we’d all know what that “something” was…

If ever a man needed desperately to have the words “Oh, shut the fuck up!” howled like a raging wind into his bloated orange face, it’s Donald Trump.

The final move came from Obama. It showed not only grace and tact but clear evidence of political skill. The Democratic Party aches for Barack and Michelle Obama to get into this thing. Word “trickled out” from various places that indeed Obama and Michelle absolutely intend to enter the conversation at a place and time so as to maximize the effect of their entering the conversation.

And that’s where stand as of this morning.

Being both an excellent politician and a smart man, Obama refused to endorse any of the Democratic nominees because he was letting We The People do the talking. The fact is, regardless of who emerged from the process, Obama was going to endorse them because the Democratic nominee would be the only person in a position to defeat Trump. Donald Trump is as subtle as a wet fart — and just as disgusting. Do we really have to say it out loud? Obama didn’t back Biden until now because it would have been INAPPROPRIATE.

End of story.

Now here’s where it gets good. Obama doesn’t need to do anything right this second. He knows Trump will do most of the damage to himself by himself. Trump will maximize Obama’s moment for him. Joe Biden is no one’s idea of a legacy candidate. What Joe Biden represents, what he IS — is a president whose election will instantly restore LEGITIMACY to our government. Biden’s election — just the fact of it — will mean The Rule Of Law is back in the house. And the Senate. And the Executive Branch.

Joe Biden won’t just “win” this election. As Joe himself could tell you, it’s not about him. It’s about US. It’s about what Donald Trump and the Republican Party have done to us. Trump has made it his priority to undo everything Barack Obama accomplished. Literally everything. We all know why.

Trump made this “Trump v Obama” the moment he took the oath of office and began sledgehammering the ACA. Problem is, “Trump v Obama” is “Trump v We The People” and We The People have had enough. Even Republicans (the former Republicans I mean) now sing Obama’s praises. Though they disagreed with him politically, they now see that intelligence, grace and decency matter a shit-ton. And they see — in the face of the coronavirus pandemic that the ACA is vital just to get through the current crisis; Medicare for all is where we must land however.

Joe Biden will be a caretaker POTUS — the exact thing we need as we turn off the spigots of self-destruction before the tub overflows, floods the bathroom and crashes down onto the floors below. Joe Biden’s immediate moves will be to — as much as possible — put things back as they were. But that can only be a starting point. Biden has been consulting regularly since South Carolina w Obama — I bet the subject of VP choice has come up. This will be a key — not in whether or not Biden beats Trump but in how completely and utterly Biden beats Trump.

A choice like Kamala Harris would be awesome (though she’d also be a killer Attorney General). Elizabeth Warren — awesome. Stacey Abrams — awesome. Amy Kobuchar — good but not awesome. Whoever the veep is — they’ll be the next POTUS in 2024. That’s why the veep choice is vital — that’s our future. Literally.

The reason Democrats are salivating at the thought of Obama stepping into the ring to directly speak to Donald Trump is because Obama will decimate Trump and Trump knows he’ll die a horrible death that way — in public. A poll released yesterday said that more Americans believe Barack Obama would be a better leader during this pandemic than Trump. Their opinion won’t change in the coming weeks. And the more we learn about just how egregiously terrible Team Trump’s response was — and how many Americans have died because of it — and the more Team Trump’s horrible response makes mince meat of the economy — Barack Obama will look even more amazing to us — as a destination — than he already does.

What campaign ad — that appeals to anyone outside Trump’s ravenously racist base — can Team Trump run against Obama? Anything he says will make Obama more popular and make those aching for the return of Obama’s decency to pour politics even more ardent.

C’mon — an Obama v Trump election? The Fates themselves pushed us here. And I don’t believe in Fate.

As much as Trump is a lightning rod for publicity where the world hangs on every goddamned word that spews from his anus-shaped mouth, so too will Barack Obama. But, by comparison, his words will sound like the pronouncements of an Oracle.

The choice put before us will be stark, clear & easy. Good thing because we’re going to need as many Americans as possible to show up at the polls in order to overcome the massive suppression operation the GOP will mount because it’s all they know how to do.

Donald Trump wanted Election 2020 to be yet another freakish, Trump-branded reality show. As my old pal the Crypt Keeper used to say, “Be careful what you wish for, you may just ‘get it’!”

Donald Trump is about to “get it”.

American Christianity Has Turned Itself Into A Death Cult That Would Have Horrified Jesus

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

Though I am a hard core (I’d even say devout) atheist, I consider myself a “fan of Jesus”. I don’t know for certain if Jesus actually existed (at present, no one can prove that he did, but, I suspect someone vaguely like him did exist — heavy emphasis on the word “vaguely”) but even a humble atheist like me can appreciate and take to heart the simple teaching “Do Unto Others”. It makes so much sense. Want to be treated with respect by others? Do unto them as you would have them do unto you.

Respect them.

The problem with sacred texts in a modern setting is that the modern setting knows way more than the sacred texts do. Lots of “new information” was available to the modern setting that the writers of the sacred texts had no way to access. If the men who wrote what was assembled into the Old Testament had had access to microscopes and telescopes and the internet, would they have written what they wrote the same way? Of course not. They didn’t KNOW that pathogens cause human disease, not magic or Yahweh (the god character’s actual name — “god” is his job description as in “That Yahweh’s a pretty thin-skinned god, don’tcha think?”). Had they seen photos of distant galaxies taken from the Hubble Telescope, do ya think they’d have invented a mythology to explain everything that still put Earth at the center of all creation when all evidence says the opposite?

Jesus did not invent Christianity. He lived his whole life — and died — a Jew. For all we know, he never was called “Jesus” or the “Christ” at any point during his life. Rather, if he existed, he was referred to like every other Jew of his time and place — by his Jewish name (Joshua Ben Joseph for instance). Jesus may have been somewhat radical in his message but it was still a radically JEWISH message that did not stray one iota from Jewish thinking.

Do Unto Others is a deeply Jewish way of thinking. Of course a lifelong Jew like Jesus would have thought that way. The everlasting genius that was Jesus (whoever, however, whatever he was) comes from his ability to articulate that profound message (in English anyway) in three simple words that anyone can understand. And it’s not hard to do. It’s not hard to figure out “how to do”. You just do it.

Jesus also taught you don’t need a temple or a high priest to talk to Yahweh. Go directly to the father was how Jesus put it. Talk to Yahweh yourself.

That puts priests and the church they’re sitting in into a bind. Jesus says his followers don’t need them to follow him. That makes priests and their churches completely redundant. “Useless,” my construction worker friends used to say (I worked construction briefly during the WGA strike of 1988), “As titties on a bull”.

So where the hell did priests and a church come from if it wasn’t part of Jesus’s “plan”? It came from the same place most of the early church’s mythology came from — Paul, The Apostle. It’s a simple fact. Jesus wrote 0% of the New Testament while Paul wrote about 30% of it, give or take. 27 texts make up the NT. 13 to 14 are attributed to Paul, 7 of them with absolute certainty. Even if the rest attributed to Paul weren’t actually written by him, still they speak from Paul’s point of view; they aspire to tell Paul’s version of events.

The bulk of Paul’s contribution are the letters he wrote to the new, burgeoning Christian communities beginning to form around the eastern Roman world. In them, he describes a Jesus he never met as if he knew him intimately. He speaks for Jesus and begins to lay out the ideas that later writers — the early church fathers — would use to craft an entire mythology out of whole cloth — that springboarded from Jewish culture and custom into the fantastical world of the New Testament.

If you brought Jesus back to life today and explained modern Christianity to him, Jesus would have no idea what you were talking about.

If you did the same thing to Paul, you’d get a completely different reaction. Paul would recognize the story. He’d be taken by all the new additions to what he started (though he’d probably find Mormonism — where Jesus visits North America — a continent Jesus never knew even existed — as especially egregious). Paul started as Saul From Tarsus who “converted” on the road to Damascus after experiencing an epiphany. As Paul, he became determined to spread Jesus’s message even if the message Paul was spreading had nothing to do with Jesus or his actual message.

To that end, Paul aligned Jesus with Jewish tradition (which, being Jewish, Paul was knowledgeable about) and the mythology he created (at first), struggled hard to line up Jesus with the attributes and story precedents required to justify Jesus as the “messiah”. If Jesus was indeed the prophesied messiah, he needed to fit into a certain box with certain attributes. He needed to be related to King David… needed to be born in Bethlehem (regardless of where he was actually born)… needed to be born of a virgin (not sure where that came through but the world Jesus and Paul came from believed deeply in magic and magical powers and Paul’s was not the first version of a new god being born of an old god and a human).

Paul’s genius — the thing that gave his creation (Christianity) legs — was how he employed Jesus — as a kind of mascot — for a pretty radical idea (for then just as for now): “Want to beat Death? Believe in Jesus.”

That’s really what Christianity is all about — eternal life. It was never part of Jesus’s message because he never met Paul — and never heard the wacky ideas that Paul had in his head. As the early church fathers — the men who came after Paul and set out to finish the work that Paul started — settled in to their roles, they expanded upon Paul’s mythology.

Christianity as we know it today has almost nothing to do with Jesus. He really is just a Ronald McDonald-like mascot selling “Do Unto Others” burgers to suckers. Church buildings do more to undermine any congregation’s integrity than all the atheists combined. Buildings are expensive to build, expensive to maintain. Every church has to do that math: what does it take to have a church and what does it take to keep that church operational, the doors open & the lights on? The answer? Lots and lots of money.

Jesus, as far as we can tell from the message that filtered down to us, was deeply into the spiritual side of things. He didn’t teach how to manage a church’s finances so as to keep it in the black. Do Unto Others. That’s it.

Now — picture Jesus actually getting to have that second coming Paul and HIS followers imagined for Jesus. Finally, Jesus gets to rise from the dead for all to see and acknowledge. There’ll be no disputing it this time. Jesus comes back and sees for himself what Paul did and what sprang from what Paul did.

Does Jesus ever stop projectile vomiting?

I think not.

For Republicans, It’s All Or Nothing Now — They Will Destroy The Republic Or Go Down In Flames Of Treason And Infamy

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

If there was any doubt as to what Republicans are really up to — and how extensive the corruption is inside the GOP — Chief Justice John Roberts made it explicit Monday evening when the SCOTUS (in a 5-4 conservatives v progressives decision) sided with the Wisconsin Republican Party and forced Wisconsin to holds its primary yesterday — despite the health threat it posed — and while refusing to extend any vote-by-mail deadlines (regardless of the fact that many Wisconsinites had not received their mail-in ballots). The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court gave Wisconsin permission to throw out THOUSANDS of legal votes — the most egregious act of voter suppression by a party who suppress Democratic votes the way most people breathe.

The Republican Money — the Kochs, the Mercers early on — saw demographic oblivion in their future and decided the only way to prevent it was to destroy American democracy. Relying on We The People was going to result in extinction. We The People had to be either removed from the equation or limited in our voice if we did remain in the equation. With Mitch McConnell walking point for them, the RW Money began hijacking the judiciary during the Obama presidency. There was real long-term purpose behind McConnell refusing Obama so many life-time appointments to the Federal bench.

The GOP didn’t love Trump. He compromised them. Played even dirtier than they did. Being cynical, greedy and power-mad, they hitched their wagon to the bigger bully — fully aware that that bully was himself deeply compromised by Vladimir Putin. Seems just enough Republicans were already compromised themselves (Mitch himself has taken MILLIONS into his campaign coffers that came from Russia). Russia poured lots of cash into other Republican campaigns via the NRA and a network of Russian retirees living in America, their small pensions suddenly brimming with cash intended for donation to Republicans. How convenient.

GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy famously said to then-Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan during the 2016 Republican convention “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump” to which Paul Ryan famously (per the Washington Post), “… instructed his Republican lieutenants to keep the conversation private, saying: ‘No leaks. . . . This is how we know we’re a real family here’.”

Meanwhile, remember, convicted felon Paul Manafort was handing Oleg Deripaska (he of the GRU — Russian military intelligence) proprietary polling data from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. That polling data was weaponized by Russia and sent back to Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania as propagandized Facebook ads that showed up — exclusively — on the personal Facebook pages of Democratic voters — many African American or other People of Color. The ads wanted their readers to believe that Hillary Clinton was a racist on the down low.

The point of the exercise — make voters decide to stay home instead of voting. It’s election fraud — carried out with the direct assistance of a hostile foreign government. And it’s entirely illegal.

The GOP may not have known how Russia was going to pull off their theft of election 2016, but once the “win” was Trump’s? They did nothing to address the eight thousand pound gorilla sitting in the room — the total incongruity of Trump’s “win”. There are myriad reasons Trump and the Republicans have resisited every attempt to investigate election 2016. They all have to do with culpability.

Fact: the entire Republican Party is as guilty of election fraud, obstruction of justice and treason as Trump is. They all knew or at the very least suspected what was happening. They were all obligated — legally — to say something. That they didn’t made them guilty of conspiracy.

That means every single Republican has a legal problem. And that’s where America’s problem begins.

For Trump, it’s a matter of staying president forever or probably going to prison forever — his list of crimes is that long and that bad. Robert Mueller — in his team’s report — pointed out their obligation to follow a DoJ “rule” (not a law) created while Spiro Agnew was veep (to keep him from pardoning Nixon — per “The Bagman” — the very good, very deep dive podcast by Rachel Maddow) that would not allow them to indict a sitting POTUS. That’s why the SDNY couldn’t indict Trump along with Michael Cohen for paying Stormy Daniels to keep quiet. As we sit here today, Trump remains “Unindicted Co-Conspirator #1”.

Trump knows: the instant he stops being POTUS, he’ll become INDICTED Co-Conspirator #1. And that will be just the start of his legal problems. And Trump also knows — his legal problems are so deep and so far-reaching, he could lose every single property he owns to seizure. And have we mentioned “treason”? Trump cannot stop being POTUS. That’s his bottom line.

Because it’s Trump’s bottom line — it’s the whole GOP’s bottom line too. If Trump’s crimes get exposed, theirs will get exposed too.

And everyone’s crimes have just gone nuclear because of our coronavirus response. Republican criminality has now KILLED thousands of Americans. Literally. Talk about criminal!

Norms have not mattered for a decade now to the GOP. Mitch McConnell destroyed every norm while Obama was POTUS. The Republican Senate destroyed Congressional oversight when it refused to convict Trump on impeachment. Now Trump is taking a sledgehammer to the IG’s and all possible oversight to how he doles out billions of tax-payer relief dollars. We already know that Trump himself is PROFITING from the very (unproven) cure — hydroxychloroquine — that he’s been pushing during his daily “coronavirus briefings” even as Dr. Fauchi shakes his head in alarmed disapproval.

The Republican Party is so far beyond corrupt they can’t even “corrupt” from their houses anymore.

It’s time for us — for the NEWS MEDIA especially — to stop treating Republicans as honest actors. It’s time to start treating them as what they are: CRIMINALS intent on building upon a criminal act — the stolen 2016 election — to shove permanent minority rule down the majority of Americans’ throats. It’s a rape fever dream by a Party that understands rape intrinsically. If you can vote for a rapist, it’s because you approve of the rapist — and you approve of his raping whoever he likes.

That’s who the Republican Party are — rapists. And they will destroy America rather than face the consequences of their crime.

Here’s the hopeful part. There’s more of us than them. Way more. Way, way, WAY more. As a percentage of the electorate, Trumpanistas are a mere 16%. Fact. And what Trump has steadily done to the military (undermining their purpose in Northern Syria, betraying our Kurdish ally — that doesn’t sit well with “brothers in arms”, firing Brett Crozier, the captain of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt who went public to save his crew from a rising coronavirus threat onboard their ship) will not get him the loyalty he’ll need to turn the military against the American People. It only takes having a few balk at the audacity of a full-on military coup d’etat to make the whole enterprise fall apart.

Trump will try to further rip apart the very voting procedure he always uses: vote-by-mail. But once the Post Office is spared — and we make sure EVERY American GETS their vote-by-mail ballot — the real day of reckoning will begin for Trump & the GOP. It’s way, WAAAAAAY harder to suppress voters when they vote by mail. And if We The People can make vote-by-mail how most Americans vote this November?

As Trump himself said (out loud) this week — the more people vote, the worse it is for Republicans. Agree, Don-Don. Agree completely.

Let’s make that a stone cold reality.

Let’s Say Donald Trump COULD “Cancel” The Next Election — What Then?

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

The thing we keep re-learning during our run-in with Trumpism is that there truly is no “bottom”. There is literally NOTHING Donald Trump won’t do to dismantle, undermine, betray, sell out or destroy our Democracy. His very well-being depends on his staying in power. Remember — we may think of him as just “Donald Trump” but the SDNY still sees him as “Unindicted Co-Conspirator #1” in the case of the People v Michael Cohen.

The reason Robert Mueller felt so hamstrung (other than his total fealty to the rules) by his assignment is that he believed he was prohibited by DoJ rules from indicting a sitting president. If Robert Mueller had not felt constrained by that bit of DoJ leftover from the Nixon years, all indications are he would have recommended prosecution — of Trump & everyone around him.

As we were painfully slow to grasp: our problem isn’t just Donald J Trump. Our problem is his party. The Republicans aren’t loyal to Trump out of fear — though some may be and some may have been pushed here because they were compromised — they’re loyal to Trump out of shared purpose. Most Republicans have as much use for representative democracy as Trump does.

Chief Justice John Roberts has made it clear that the SCOTUS is now part of the Republican machine. Forcing Wisconsinites to vote in person today — disallowing any extension of vote-by-mail deadlines — is a pure power grab and a blatant example of voter suppression. The SCOTUS okayed Wisconsin THROWING OUT thousands of legitimate votes. If those were guaranteed Republican votes, do ya think we’d be having this conversation?

Regardless of what Trump does, he cannot cancel the election. He can however do everything in his power to make it as far from free & fair as possible. He could conceivably — because he’s good at cheating as is the rest of his party — “win” again. Let’s go there. Let’s say that happens.

Let’s say Trump manages to “win” an election and create a situation where enough people go along with the bullshit that there’s an ounce of legitimacy to it. Let’s say Trump DOES stay in the White House. What would happen then.

Well, at first — let’s be real — things will get brutal. Trump will go after his enemies. He’ll shut what’s left of America down. It may even look for a couple of seconds like the bad guys really will get away with everything. But then reality will kick in — and some things will happen that neither Trump nor any Republican can do anything about.

For starters, the coronavirus will come around again. And when it does, Trump & the Republicans will fuck up the response just as badly. It’s in their nature.

As Americans grow angrier at what Trump & the Republicans have done — and we WILL learn exactly just how responsible Trump & the Republicans are for the extent of the “carnage” here in America — their desire for retribution will not dim. Rather, it will begin to glow with volcanic intensity. I wouldn’t count on the military or many police departments to be there to back up any Republican power play.

But, let’s say — for shits n giggles — that Trump does get the military & PDs to go along with his authoritarian power grab. Here’s one Judgment Day even Donald Trump can’t get out of. One way or another — sooner or later — Donald Trump will die. He’s not exactly the healthiest person walking around; that means it could strike Trump suddenly.

Take Trump out of the equation and what happens? Would all the other Republicans be able to keep this fascist monstrosity together? Don’t forget — this IS a cult of personality. It’s not based on the law or anything. They’re making the “rules” up as they go along — and the only thing holding it all together is Donald Trump himself. The fact that he “is”.

So — now, let’s say, he “isn’t” anymore.

Take this to the bank: no one’s filling that vacuum. Oh, various Republicans will try. But the air will have suddenly rushed out of the toxic side show. Being pirates, all of them out for themselves, the Republicans will grab for power themselves. They’ll go after the Trump kids — cos they won’t want Ivanka or Junior or Eric lording anything over the once daddy is gone.

While America watches, the Republicans will finish this exercise in self-destruction all by themselves. They will feed on themselves like a school of ravenous but stupid piranhas.

It’s just a fact. At some point, what the Republicans have done & are doing will end — because Trump will. And without Trump being the front man, the con artist di tutti con artists — the reality show star — the press will stop behaving like co-dependent hop heads. Think any other Republican can get up before the cameras and get away with shit the way Trump does?

Name them.

The Republicans — being short-sighted day traders by nature — will never look down the road to see what’s coming at them. They believe in magic. They believe that once they shove permanent minority rule down the majority’s throat that they’ll get to live “happily ever after”.

They have no idea how incredibly wrong they are.

Quick Reminder — Donald Trump Is No Less A Traitor Just Because He’s Screwing Up Our Coronavirus Response & Killing Americans Via Incompetence

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

I’m hypomanic — so, living in Trump World where things are always rocketing around at a million miles an hour, going in every which direction, doesn’t feel that different from my normal reality. The News Media wants to believe that Donald Trump lurches from catastrophe to catastrophe as a way to keep the rest of us off balance.

While Trump does live in a constant state of “making it up as he goes along”, he does it less as a deliberate “strategy” than as the only way he knows how to be. Trump’s neither bright nor curious. If not for having a rich daddy, Trump would be living in the dankest part of Queens, running the local operation for some local crime boss. He’s a criminal by nature — and not a very organized one.

The picture that’s emerging of how exactly the coronavirus and Covid-19 erupted across the globe — but with extra explosiveness in parts of America — paints a distinct and clear picture of how corruption plus coronavirus equals catastrophe. Trump’s refusal to actually use the Defense Protection Act to force big companies to support the efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus is not a mystery. It’s Trump using the pandemic to declare war ON America.

While watching the numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths skyrocket — numbers skyrocketing BECAUSE of Trump’s actions (and inactions) — it’s vital to remember that Trump does not stop being the corrupt TRAITOR we knew him to be BEFORE coronavirus and Covid-19 took our attention away. Trump’s election fraud in 2016, his continuing obstruction of justice — and the inarguable fact of his ongoing treasonous behavior (in multiple ways) continue apace, unabated.

Even now, Trump’s still firing the watch dogs still in place.

Trump’s got a bottom line — of course he does. He can’t ever stop being president. The moment Trump stops being POTUS, he stops being protected by the silly-assed (and bullshit) DoJ policy (a kind of “rule” but in no way a LAW) that says you can’t indict a sitting POTUS. In the Michael Cohen trial, Trump will automatically go from being “Unindicted Co-Conspirator #1″ to INDICTED Co-conspirator #1” — and that will open the floodgates. In a heartbeat, Trump will become the most sued & prosecuted man in America.

Sociopath that Trump is, he still knows that what he did was illegal. That’s why he keeps it secret and swears everyone else to keep that omerta. Trump knows for a fact that if he ever gets prosecuted — under oath — in a real court of law — he’s screwed. For good.

Trump knows he has nothing to stand on defense-wise. He’s got bullshit and bluster while the prosecution has whole mountain ranges of receipts. What scares Trump most? He knows down deep he could lose everything. Literally every property he owns could be seized. I bet that happens too. I, for one, am going to scream and shout my head off until that DOES become a reality.

While, in my heart of hearts, I would love to see pictures of Donald Trump, homeless, hungry and desperate, living on the street in a cardboard box with a yellow (not gold) “T” scrawled on its side, I’m open-minded enough to be happy with pictures of Trump sitting in his federal prison cell — horrified by what happened to him & horrified because this is the rest of his life.

It’s sooooooooo easy to get distracted in the age of Trump. We need to think of it like staying indoors because of coronavirus. Donald Trump is now and always will be a traitor.

There — I’ve done my “Patriotism Push Ups” for the day.

If We Don’t Severely Punish The People Responsible For Our Coronavirus Catastrophe, It Absolutely Will Happen Again

~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

Donald J Trump is the poster boy for what happens when you let a third-rate bully from Queens get away with things all his life. It’s also what happens when Republicanism — a particularly American brand of ignorant greed — gets to ride its core principles all the way to full fruition. Trumpism is Republicanism with phony, chipped gold plating.

If, at any point in his corrupt career, Donald Trump had been caught, prosecuted and punished, it would probably have been the end of him. Trump’s a bully — but he relies on having underlings to hold people down while he kicks them. Trump knows he can’t take on anyone one-on-one. Literally everyone can kick his bloated, orange ass. He’s a soft, white underbelly’s soft white underbelly.

Trump is cowardice in human form. And so is every single Republican. Just so we’re clear — everyone responsible for our Russia problem is also responsible for our coronavirus problem. It’s the same gang that can’t do anything straight.

The ignorance of Republican governors refusing to issue self-quarantine orders in their states is itself a kind of corruption. It’s a surrender to cult-of-personality authoritarianism. If Trump won’t command a thing, it cannot be done; and if he does command it, it must happen regardless of how illogical it is, regardless of how many people it will hurt for no reason other than Trump said it out loud.

Are we really to believe Georgia Governor Brian Kemp when he says (yesterday) that he only just learned that the coronavirus can get passed through direct contact between people? That, somehow, he alone missed what everyone else on earth already knew? C’mon — We The People deserve a higher quality of horse shit than that!

Understand — it wasn’t just ignorance that caused Brian Kemp to betray his oath to defend the people of Georgia. It was party politics. It was Republicanism hard at work. What’s most galling about “Both Sides Do It” journalism is that it paints both sides with a brush that only Republicans deserve to get brushed with. Taken out of context, sure — conservative values sound like a “choice” we could all make about how our country goes forward.

But the context for conservatism is a reactionary desire to force America backwards like a kidnap victim being hustled into the back of a van (before they’re cognizant enough about what’s happening to fight harder). If conservatives thought they could convince Americans to vote Republican on the strength of that idea — taking the whole country back to some glorified past where white people had even more privilege than they do now — they’d sell the idea on its merits. Problem is, it has no merits.

Republicans are motivated by desperation. They saw the demographic shift away from them several election cycles ago. Not that Republicans ever looked at the rest of us “inclusively”. They’ve always been happy to have a few sell-outs join heir ranks (looking at YOU, Diamond & Slick (sorry — I meant “Silk”) while they became more & more exclusively a white, Christian men’s bitch-n-moan party.

It’s not even a question of punishing a few Republican criminals to motivate the rest to behave. They won’t. They’ll think they deserved to not get caught instead. They’ll see reasons to go on cheating and they will continue cheating and expecting to get away with it. Worse, they’ll see themselves still getting away with one of the most monstrous crimes of all time — the betrayal of a whole country by one of its two political parties.

The moment we allowed compromise to the Rule Of Law — applying it to some more than others — we undermined its integrity. If we do manage to resuscitate it, the first thing we’ll have to commit to is following it — to the letter.

If we do that — and we follow the Rule Of Law to the letter — it will insist that we investigate, prosecute & punish (those convicted) every last person who violated it. It’s the only way the Rule Of Law can actually work as designed. All or nothing.

One of the ways we’ll know that America’s back on the right track will be Donald Trump no longer being president.

The other way is Trump’s party being so far away from power they can’t see ANYTHING from their houses.

There’s no point on relying on sociopaths to show a little conscience. It’s not in their makeup.