Of Republicans, Rabbit Holes And Russia

March 5, 2021March 5, 2021 ~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

If the last four plus years of Trumpism feel like anything recognizable, it’s Wonderland. Before Team Biden could begin to effectively govern — the thing we elected them to do — first, they’ve had to confront, reverse, strip out or defuse the myriad ways Donald Trump and his corrupter-than-corrupt admin went about destroying our ability to self-govern. From the first instant Trump cruised down that golden escalator in Trump Tower — “Mexicans are rapists” simmering in his ape brain — he was on a mission to destroy American democracy at the behest of Vladimir Putin. Any journalist in America (or the world) could have figured that out even before Trump got nominated. Proof was there that, as current GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy put it as he walked into a meeting of GOP muckety-mucks, “There’s two people I think Putin pays, Rohrbacher and Trump… swear to God!” No one in the room disputed Kevin or demanded he produce proof. No one called the FBI to report their suspicions either. In fact, plenty of the GOP leadership (like then Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan) demanded they all keep that knowledge — that their soon-to-be presidential nominee was likely compromised by a hostile foreign power engaged in a cyber war against us — “in the family”.

Imagine that: you are deeply suspicious that your presidential nominee is compromised by a country at cyber war with us and yet you do nothing about it. Why’s that exactly?

The truth-telling part of the story has begun. It will accelerate the instant Merrick Garland clocks in at the rejuvenated Department of Justice and the Department commits itself to uncovering all the players in the January 6 Insurrection. Pull one thread and the whole corrupt sweater will (pretty quickly, I bet) begin to fall apart. We don’t want or need Merrick Garland to be partisan to anything other than the rule of law. If he and his DoJ can just do that — enforce the rule of law evenly for the first time in the country’s history — it’s all over but the shouting for the GOP. And there’s already plenty of shouting, banging the table and making a nuisance because grievance and self-pity are the only arguments for staying in power the Republican Party has anymore.

Remember Fusion GPS — the company that first hired Chris Steele and set the “Steele Dossier” ball rolling? When Glenn Simpson (one of Fusion’s two founders) testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on August 2 2 , 2017 (the Republican-run committee was trying to undermine the Steele Dossier’s integrity), he pointed out how, when they were hired by the conservative Washington Free Beacon to examine Trump, the first thing they did was their “due diligence”. They got their hands on every piece of publicly available material they could find on Trump — from his birth certificate to his youthful indiscretions, to being kicked out of school for being a cheater and an asshole to the claptrap about his being a “self-made man” to the money laundering fiascos that were his Atlantic City casinos. Fusion’s team got ahold of every book, every newspaper piece or magazine article, every radio sit-down or TV interview. Every time he farted in public. The Donald Trump on exhibit in publicly available material was so clearly an international criminal laundering Russian mob money that Fusion hired Chris Steele to back it all up.

The Steele Dossier — for the record — was proven mostly correct and that’s quite an accomplishment for a collection of raw intel (which is what the Dossier is). Intelligence rarely deals in black and white. There are few “smoking guns” but that doesn’t mean one can’t intuit them. It’s a little like accepting that a star we can’t see really does exist; our proof is all the light moving around it and through its gravity. We use what we know to prove what we don’t.

After the Reagan years, the Republican money (mostly the Kochs and the Mercers) saw that any future “hoorahs” would have to be entirely manufactured. The key to the future — to their future — lay in controlling one branch of government: the judiciary. The House is too mercurial and unpredictable to be a good partner. The Senate, the Republicans figured, would stay in their hands for a good while longer. The executive branch — take away Antonin Scalia dancing like a Geisha atop a pin to make Bush v Gore work logically — and Republicans haven’t had a legitimate shot at the White House in forever. The only branch really still keep-able, the RW money saw, was the judiciary. Keep the judiciary in your pocket and nothing much can or will change in America.

That was the whole point.

Beneath everything, “staying in power” is the guiding principle for everything Republicans do. It’s their Machiavellian justification for resorting to gerrymandering and voter suppression since, they know, selling their “dreams for America” in the marketplace of ideas can’t work out for them because no one but them wants to live in 1850’s America where everyone “knew their place”. It was their justification for flirting with than climbing completely into bed with Russia. Take this to the bank — it isn’t just Trump who’s compromised out the wazoo by Russia. Russia understands cynicism. They appreciate how useful useful idiots can be to their cause. They poured money into Republican campaign coffers through quasi-legal means (via Republicans’ PACs); it was legal in the abstract but throw in conspiracy to commit treason charges and that money stops being anything like “legal”.

Every journalist in America could just as easily have done what Fusion did. Hell, even if they just read Glenn Simpson’s Congressional testimony, they’d get smarter and better informed.

The Republican Party has obstructed all investigation into their relationships with Russia. It’s not much to ask “why?”, is it? Rod Rosenstein personally halted the counter-intel investigation begun by James Comey’s FBI, telling the FBI that Team Mueller was doing it as part of their work and telling Team Mueller that the FBI was doing it, no need for them to focus on such nastiness. Donald Trump has repeatedly behaved toward Vlad Putin like a lap dog. Not a single Republican has wanted any of that investigated.

The Republican Party is a criminal enterprise, not a “political party”. Donald Trump is so clearly a traitor, it should be tattooed on his forehead.

At the end of the day — and the story — it will all come down to Russia, Russia, RUSSIA. Take that to the bank. Donald Trump’s “win” was never a legitimate “win”. If the authority to do things presidential flows from We The People then when a president does things WITHOUT our authority, they are UNAUTHORIZED and therefore illegitimate. It’s this simple: but for Donald Trump, there would have been no insurrection, But for Russia, Donald Trump would NEVER have become POTUS.

That’s the mother of all Rabbit Holes.

The Difference Between Icing And Cake

February 23, 2021February 23, 2021 ~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

Icing: “Both sides have decent people on them!” Cake: one side is racist, violent and reactionary, the other isn’t. The whole trick to getting propaganda to work is convincing as many people as possible that icing is what matters. If the outside is pretty, sparkly and distracting enough, hopefully no one will notice that the cake underneath the icing is rotten. And yet, some people have no idea that the cake even exists. All they perceive is the icing. Those people are called “journalists” here in America. Back when this all started, one day they’d get whipsawed in one direction by “Mexicans are rapists” colored icing, then whipsawed inn the complete other direction by “pussy-grabbing” colored icing. Then, suddenly, it was some other colored icing and the news media could hardly keep up with it. Of course, if they’d been able to forget about the icing and look directly at the cake — as Fusion GPS did when they were hired to do oppo research on Donald Trump for the conservative, Marco Rubio-backing Washington Free Beacon — they would have seen with their own eyes that every bit of the Donald Trump cake mix was vile, pernicious, corrupt, compromised and (likely) treasonous.

Icing: “Donald Trump is our nominee for POTUS”. Cake: “There are two people I think Putin pays, Rohrbacher and Trump… swear to God!”

A month before the GOP nominated Trump to be their presidential candidate, current GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy walked into a meeting of Republican muckety-mucks and said the above. The room did not erupt in chaos with people angrily demanding how Kevin got such an outrageous idea into his head. No one said, “Hey, if that’s even remotely possible, we need to get the FBI on the phone right NOW!” On the contrary, then Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan — one of the most powerful Republicans in office at the time — made it emphatically clear that what Kevin had just said was not going to be discussed outside that “room”. That little secret — no one questioned that Trump (and Rohrbacher) were taking money from Moscow — was going to stay “in the family”. That’s cake right there — Treason Cake. How can it not be if 1) you know or suspect that your PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE is already compromised (or easily compromise-able) by a hostile foreign power and 2) you accept that fact as “who he is” and therefore “who YOU are”?

Cake is the aggregated reality we all live in. It’s four years of watching Donald Trump and everyone in his orbit take corruption to bold new heights even corruption never thought it could attain. The Republican Party — seeing demographic extinction in their future — deliberately hitched their wagon to Trump despite knowing he was owned outright by Russia. They’d set themselves on a course toward permanent minority rule years before. The Kochs and the Mercers (and the other big RW donors) directed Mitch McConnell to seize the judiciary and use it as the basis for the soft coup d’etat that started during the 2016 election. The whole point of denying Merrick Garland so much as a hearing was to hijack the Supreme Court. That’s some serious cake.

Cake is the racism underlying the Republican Party’s bottom line. The former “Party Of Lincoln” is now the “pro-slavery party”. If they could bring slavery back, the GOP most assuredly would. Keep in mind — first and foremost, slavery is stolen labor. The slaver will eat the cost of clothing, housing and feeding a slave because the slaver knows he’ll make way more money from the slave’s work output. While Republicans know they can’t be that blatant anymore, the desire for slavery (free labor) drives their resistance to a livable minimum wage. People who can pay their bills and thrive economically (and therefore politically) can’t be enslaved. But, if one compromises their ability to pay their bills and thrive economically — and then make it impossible for them to ever acquire the wealth required to really thrive in America — one can “enslave them” without actually seeming to.

The restaurant business in America survives on the icing that diners should pay a significant portion of their servers’ wages. The cake is “no, the economic success of people in the food service industry should not rely on the kindness of strangers.”

Icing: America has the best health care in the world Cake: America doesn’t have a health CARE system, it has a health INSURANCE system — not the same thing. Whenever anyone walks in the door of our health system, the first question we ask isn’t “How can we fix you” — the proper question — it’s “How’re you gonna pay for this?” That’s unconscionable. It’s barbaric. It’s wrong.

Beware the icing eaters! They have a way of getting things really, really wrong…

“TRUMPOCALYPSE: THE MOVIE” — Let’s All Play Casting Director!

February 21, 2021 ~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

U.S. Vice-President Biden smiles as he speaks with Croatian PM Milanovic in Zagreb

Take this to the bank: a movie or two WILL be made about the Trump presidency. A few will nibble at the periphery of the experience, capturing the graft and the grift. Some will try to capture its essence economically but that won’t satisfy. One really had to experience the overwhelming “everyday” of it — the relentless, sometimes narcotizing fire hose of awfulness that got locked into the “on” position — to appreciate “it”. This story could never fit into a feature film no matter the length. This is streaming TV territory that audiences will want to both binge and purge at the very same time. That’s why we should make the casting process as democratic as possible. We’re invested in getting the best performances we can.

We’ve already seen a few actors play Trump — Alec Baldwin on SNL of course (which shouldn’t put him out of the running though I suspect he’d want to add a little nuance to the part if he gets the nod) and Brendan Gleason in Showtime’s “The Comey Rule” adaptation. Late night hosts (Jimmy Fallon) and comedians (Bob DiBuono) have played Trump but they haven’t “inhabited” Trump the way we’ll need our actor to inhabit the part.

Quick casting note: having personally cast a lot of actors over my career, I can assure you: we never cast actors to “act”. We cast them to “be”. We cast actors to, essentially, play a version of themselves (with a different name and wardrobe) as honestly as they possibly can. If they act the emotions, it won’t work. The camera will see it and we’ll hate the actors as a result. Much better that they just “open a vein” emotionally and let their hearts flow. So — as you look at the roles, don’t think so much “who can ‘act’ this part, think “who already inhabits it in a way” because of who they are. There’s a reason actors get so close associated with the parts they play. They’re not playing anything. They’re just “being”.

Back when I first threw down this post in the early years of Trump’s presidency, the story was smaller and simpler (if you can remember back that far). It was corruption and Russia and a desperate attempt to make it to 2018 when (as we did) we could reassert control of the House at least and try to inject a little oversight into the toxic mix. Since then… geez — what hasn’t happened? This — is it a limited series even? — could go on for years as it’s still playing out in real time.

This will always be celebration of wishful thinking — not the TV series itself — casting the damned thing as if we could stay ahead of the story. The Trump Age was brutal to people who write fiction for a living. How could fiction possibly stand up to the reality we all lived through? If a writer tried to sell what we all lived as a novel or script, they’d have been told to stop writing, period. Way too over the top. Way too crazy. Way too everything.

And yet.

This post invites your contributions! It’s an “open casting call” meaning everyone’s open to making a few casting calls.

CHARACTER ACTOR

Donald Trump Woody Harrelson, Alec Baldwin, Brendan Gleeson, Sarah Cooper

Woody Harrelson as Trump?

Alec Baldwin as Trump?

Brendan Gleeson as Trump?

Sarah Cooper as Trump?

Mike Pence

mike-pence-sanctimonious Mike Pence as Mike Pence

Beck Bennet as Mike Pence SNL’s Beck Bennett as Mike Pence?

The Coronavirus

Coronavirus as Coronavirus

Bubonic Plague 2 Bubonic Plague as Coronavirus?

Spanish Flue of 1918 as Coronavirus?

Joe Biden

Jim Carrey as Joe Biden?

Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi as Nancy Pelosi

Meryl Streep as Nancy Pelosi

Helen Mirren as Nancy Pelosi 2 Helen Mirren as Nancy Pelosi?

Mitch McConnell

mitch-moscow-mitch Mitch McConnell as Treason McTurtleface

Rudy Giuliani

Rudy Rudy as Rudy

Kate McKinnon as Rudy? Kate can play whoever she wants!

Ted Cruz

ted-cruz-sexy-eyes Ted Cruz as Ted Cruz

Josh Hawley

Josh Hawley as Josh

Roger Stone

Roger Stone as Roger

Michael Flynn

Michael Flynn as Michael Flynn

The Proud Boys

The Proud Boys as Themselves

Nazis Nazis — as The Proud Boys dream of themselves

Bill Barr

bill-barr-is-handsome Bill Barr as Bill Barr as the Worst AG in American History

Mike Pompeo

Mike Pompeo as Mike Pompeo

Lindsey Graham

lindsey-graham-looks-haunted Lindsey Graham as the most haunted, hunted man in America

Kevin McCarthy

Kevin McCarthy as The Guy Who KNEW Trump Was Getting Paid By Putin

Merrick Garland

Merrick Garland as The Guy Who Will End It All For The Republicans

Steve Bannon Jeff Bridges, Nick Nolte, John Goodman, John Howard

Steve Bannon as Steve Bannon (for comparison’s sake)

Jeff Bridges as Steve Bannon?

John Howard as Steve Bannon?

Ivanka Scarlet Johanson

Ivanka Ivanka as Ivanka

Scarlet J as Ivanka Scarlet Johansson as Ivanka?

Amanda Seyfried as Ivanka?

Jared Kushner

Donald Trump, Jr.

Eric Trump

Melania Trump

Vlad Putin Mark Ivanir, Mads Mikkelsen

vlad-is-a-tough-guy1 Vlad Putin as Vlad Putin

Mark Ivanir as Putin Mark Ivanir as Vlad Putin?

Robert Mueller Chris Noth, George Clooney

Don McGahn Andrew McCarthy

Sarah Sanders Rosie O’Donnell, Mary Lynn Rajskub

Robert Mercer Greg Kinnear, Noah Emmerich

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Now let’s move on to a few new roles — JARED KUSHNER…

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Couple of thoughts — first — NICK JONAS —

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I know – Nick Jonas is 24, Jared is mid 30’s BUT — I think Nick’s youth works for the part because it will READ as such — and one thing Jared is most notable for IS BEING TOO YOUNG for pretty much everything he’s been tasked to do. Too young and too fucking stupid…

Second thought — CHRISTIAN BALE — at 43, he’s a little old for the part but the guy’s versatile as hell. And he’s got the tools to bring out all the passive aggressive, weak-link-in-a-weak-chain nuances that make Jared so Jared…

Christianbale

KELLYANNE CONWAY

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The obvious choice — because she INHABITS the character so hauntingly — is KATE MCKINNON.

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In fact, I can’t imagine anyone better. As far as I’m concerned, it’s hers.

MORE TO COME…

ROBERT MERCER (CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA and one of THE Big Money Guys the Republican party RELY on. He’s one of the reasons they pushed through a ‘tax bill’ that could completely bankrupt us with debt —

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But SOMEONE will have to play him in “TRUMPOCALYPSE: THE MOVIE”. And April Lea — one of my readers on Twitter had this fabulous suggestion — GREG KINNEAR —

Grdg Kinnear

It’s like Greg was BORN to play the part, no…?

MORE CASTING TO FOLLOW…

“TRUMPOCALYPSE: THE MOVIE” — CASTING

I’m just trying to get ahead of the curve here. A MOVIE VERSION of this Moment In History is coming — not today of course and not tomorrow but — not too much longer after that.

As anyone in The Biz will tell you, casting is everything. Get it right — you’re Golden. Get it wrong — it doesn’t matter how good the script is, the direction, the design — you’re going down in flames colored purple by terrible acting.

Even a story as good as THIS — and stories will NEVER (I sure as hell hope) ever, ever, EVER get ‘better’ than this — could be undermined by bad casting. With that in mind, here are my thoughts about who in the current crop of actors we should ‘think about’ for ‘Our Movie’…

First up — OUR LEAD of course. Now, I know — first guy in everyone’s mind is Alec Baldwin —

And who doesn’t love when Alec Baldwin does his Trump (except perhaps for Donald himself — but then, he has no sense of humor — something our actors need to grasp and incorporate into their character). And I wouldn’t say ‘No’ to Mr Baldwin; in fact, I’d love to see Mr Baldwin come at the character from a more ‘actory’ point of view — from within. I’d want to talk about that for sure. Maybe get a screen test out of him…

It’d be worth it (for him).

Let’s say we like what he does — a lot — but don’t quite ‘love’ it. I have the ace card right here — the guy we should cast regardless of how good Mr Baldwin is because WOODY HARRELSON will be better — cos he can do just about anything.

Kingpin_1 martin-hart woody-harrelson-as-president-lyndon-b-johnson-in-rob-reiner-s-lbj Woody-Harrelson-Hunger-Games-Featured-01032017-322x268

His INTERIOR range is amazing — and we’re going to need an actor with incredible emotional range to play a character with VIRTUALLY NONE. It’s like getting an actor to sing off key. The ones who can actually sing will automatically do it better. They even know where off-key is.

So — think about it, folks — THIS GUY playing THIS GUY —

Can I sign him? Please?

Next up was going to be Robert Mueller but circumstances have forced us to consider casting THIS GUY now instead —

steve-bannon

My first thought is JEFF BRIDGES. Bannon is like The Dude’s soul-less Evil Twin — with a side of Gin Blossoms…

jeffbridges

Got some great suggestions on Twitter. Sorry, ‘Dude’, but you have competition. How about THIS GUY — NICK NOLTE…

…or JOHN GOODMAN…

EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO MERCHANDISING Mandatory Credit: Photo by S Meddle/ITV/REX/Shutterstock (5449929l) John Goodman ‘This Morning’ TV Programme, London, Britain – 27 Nov 2015 John Goodman (VT) Hollywood legend, John Goodman tells us about his Christmas film. FILM: ‘Christmas with the Coopers’.

See? Casting is harder than it looks! Keep the suggestions coming, folks

Okay — I WILL get to this guy but — he’s HARD…

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In the meantime — IVANKA TRUMP —

Ivanka

My FIRST thought? SCARLETT JOHANSSON…

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It’s almost too on the nose… I bet Scarlett would tear up the part though. Tear it up and have it for dinner…

This is a movie with multiple villains. And each villain is very different from the others and very interesting. But our Uber-Villain is THIS GUY — Vladimir…

Now, personally, I’d give it to my good friend MARK IVANIR (he played the Russian Spymaster a few seasons back on the BERLIN SEASON of HOMELAND). Mark’s Russian by birth but grew up in Israel. Knows his way around a villain while being an absolutely delightful person in the flesh…

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But I know everyone’s a star-fucker so… I would also think about TCHEKY KARYO ( on the right — ‘La Femme Nikita’) or MADS MIKKELSEN ( on the left — ‘Hannibal’) while trying to talk you into my friend Mark —

Next up TWO THOUGHTS for ROBERT MUELLER) —

Senate Judiciary Committee

A great suggestion from Purple Mountains on my Twitter feed — CHRIS NOTH —

Chris Noth

Rock solid idea. Another possibility? A guy with surprising emotional range who you just plain like the moment you see him —

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – NOVEMBER 09: Actor George Clooney attends the BAFTA Los Angeles Britannia Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on November 9, 2013 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic)

Clooney — George Clooney… ya think?

Since she’s ‘up to bat’ — let’s try n cast Sarah Huckabee Sanders —

sarah-huckabee-750x

I’m thinking MARY LYNN RAJSKUB (24 among lots of other great credits) —

Mary Lynn Rajskub

But PURPLE MOUNTAINS — on my Twitter feed had this very, VERY good idea — ROSIE O’DONNELL —

1200px-Rosie_O'Donnell_by_David_Shankbone

That’s gonna be a hard one. And we’ve only just started thinking about it… Next up —

JARED THE ‘K’…

jared-kushner-trump-split-pending

The Senate — With Its Weird Rules — Was The WRONG Place To “Try” Donald Trump; A 9-11 Style “Truth Commission” Will Be More Satisfying & Productive

February 14, 2021 ~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

Politics and Justice don’t play nicely together. Politics rarely plays by “the rules”. Justice, on the other hand, is a kind of “prisoner” of them. For a moment, we told ourselves yesterday, when it appeared the House Managers would call witnesses before Donald Trump’s Senate trial, that the Truth would, at long, long last, have its day in court. Then, after negotiations with the Senate and Trump’s defense, the House Managers backed off that call. They entered Jaimie Herrera Beutler’s statement — relating GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s desperate call to Trump to stop the riot — into the record and let it stand there. In that moment, it certainly felt like, again, Democrats were letting Republicans get away with their corruption. That wasn’t what happened. We need to appreciate the perspective the House Managers had when they sought witnesses (it was their right to demand so they demanded it) and when they chose NOT to actually call any. Perspective is the thing we’ve lost sight of over the last four years. Perspective says that what the House Managers did yesterday was as spot on as pretty much everything else they did.

Trust them, America. TRUST THEM. Trump’s Senate trial was entirely POLITICAL. That’s a vital distinction. Being a political process, Truth was not the goal; appearances — THAT was the goal for Republicans. The appearance of loyalty to Donald Trump. The fact that Trump’s defense could spew so many blatant lies on the Senate floor with zero fear of repercussions speaks volumes. For starters, even when you’re certain you know what a witness will say on the stand — under oath — you cannot control it one hundred percent. The recorded, written statement will not change. For the moment, that sufficed. Appearances and politics were satisfied. But not Justice — because Justice doesn’t live in the Senate. It never has, never will and wasn’t going to start yesterday.

Keep this in mind: the Democrats in the Senate represent 45 million more Americans than the Republicans in the Senate do. The Senate is a variation on the Electoral College theme — where white men get over-represented and everyone else gets under-represented. Ask yourself — why are there TWO Dakotas? Is it because there were way too many Dakotans for ONE Dakota? Or is it because TWO Dakotas adds TWO conservative, white, Christian Senators to the mix. Between the TWO Dakotas there aren’t two million people. 1.7 million Dakotans (North & South) have 4 Senators to represent them. Here in California just south of 40 MILLION AMERICANS get just 2 Senators. See how that gives way more political power to rural Dakotans and their desires over literally every single Angeleno? That’s not a level playing field — and it’s by design. It’s also why it’s essential that we make DC, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands ALL separate states with two senators each and the right to vote for president.

The Electoral College is slavery voting in our elections. The filibuster is slavery interfering with the Congress actually governing America.

Had the House Managers gone down the “witnesses” road, the Senate trial would have gone into a period of recess while the process to interview witnesses began. While the truth would have gotten out into the public record, it would have taken a while to get there — and the Republicans would have used the time to take every bit of wind from the Democrats’ sails, add to the chaos, spew more lies and all without ever opening their minds. The Senate remains a minefield — too unpredictable, too political.

A better idea — and this was the House Managers’ thinking: don’t do this “here”, form a 9-11 style “Truth Commission” give it ample power and oversight. Having a functional Department of Justice with Merrick Garland at its helm will help make it happen. And — an important distinction — while the newly formed and empowered Truth Commission is doing its work, Merrick Garland also will be doing what We The People are paying him to do — seek, prosecute and deliver JUSTICE. Ignore Garland’s well-known moderation. He’s a prosecutor. All we want from AG Garland is for him to FOLLOW the rule of law and FOLLOW the Constitution. If he does that? The Republicans and Donald Trump are screwed.

Even if he sucked as a prosecutor, once Garland pulled the first Republican corruption thread he saw, Republican corruption is so massive, so pervasive, so unavoidable that Garland couldn’t help stumbling over it. We have to stop thinking that four years of Trumpian Justice are “justice”. They aren’t — and bet the ranch that all those dedicated DoJ-ers who hung on for dear life while Jeff Sessions, Rod Rosenstein and Bill Barr ran the department are just aching to set their ship aright. That will mean cleaning house of Trumpian corruption both within their department and everywhere they find it.

The State of Georgia is going to prosecute Trump for election fraud. The SDNY is going to prosecute Trump for HIS role in the same case that sent Michael Cohen to prison. All they have to do there is flip Trump’s status from “POTUS” to “Former-POTUS” and indict away. He’s already on their books as “Unindicted co-conspirator #1”. Then there’s E. Jean Carroll’s civil suit. And all the other civil suits about to rain down on Trump, his company, his former charity, his everything.

And, hey — remember that counter-intelligence investigation we all thought was happening? The one Rod Rosenstein told Team Mueller the FBI was doing but also told the FBI that Team Mueller was doing but that, in reality, NO ONE WAS DOING? That’s back on the menu — and that is the bottomest line there is here. Russia. Russia, Russia, RUSSIA.

It all comes down to Russia. “But for Trump”, there wouldn’t have been an insurrection. “But for RUSSIA”, Donald Trump would NEVER have become POTUS.

Deep breath, everyone. Now, take another. And another. Let go of your cynicism — it’s not serving you. Instead, embrace skepticism. Embrace perspective. Embrace Justice — REAL Justice, not the kind of “justice” the US Senate can “deliver”. Until we use REAL Justice to clean every bit of Republican corruption from the Senate, any trial’s a show trial.

Patience is always a virtue. Just a teensy bit more patience on our part and that virtue will begin to feel deeply satisfying too.

“But For” Donald Trump, There’s No Insurrection; “But For” Russia, Trump Is Never POTUS

February 11, 2021 ~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

The genius of the House Manager’s artfully crafted argument for Trump’s conviction in the Senate is its utter simplicity: “But for Donald Trump, there is no insurrection”. Take Trump out of the equation and the insurrection never happens. Cause and effect. Its Truth is undeniable. The same goes for the fact that Trump ever got to be POTUS in the first place. That’s the Big Reveal yet to land on us. “But for” Russia’s direct involvement, Trump would NEVER have been President of the United States. Let’s be clear: Trump did not ‘win” the presidency. One cannot “cheat” and “win legitimately”. On can “cheat” and win “illegitimately” but those aren’t the same thing — and we need to be crystal clear on that fact: winning via illegal means (and winning via treason is absolutely illegal!) does not and cannot ever be the same thing as “winning legitimately”. In fact, why don’t we stop calling it a “win” and call it what it is: a crime.

Take Russia out of the Trump equation — take its money out of his pocket — and Trump does not (CANNOT!) win the presidency. Take Russia out of Trump’s failing Atlantic City casinos and his casinos go down the toilet. Take the tens of millions that Russia funneled to Trump via Deutschebank — the ONLY BANK STILL WILLING TO LEND TRUMP MONEY — our of Trump’s pocket and his real estate empire crashes and burns. Russia has used real estate to launder money it’s been feeding to Trump all along. You don’t get to be or stay an oligarch in Russia without Vlad Putin’s blessing. He’s far less a “head of state” than he is a literal crime boss. Every time an oligarch gives Trump money, he’s not doing it for himself.

Every Russian condo purchase in a Trump building no matter where in the world is money being laundered. Trump gets his cut and the oligarch gets a little richer. Hey, remember that crazy Russian real estate purchase in Florida — where the “crazy Russian” paid $95 million bucks in 2008 for a house Trump purchased at auction in 2005 for $41 million? That Russian must have been crazy to pay a $54 million premium for a house, right? I mean — who does that? Ummmmmmmmm… international criminals maybe?

The Republican Party KNEW from the get-go that Trump was OWNED by Russia. They said so — out loud — to themselves — in a meeting that was recorded and then reported on by the news media. A MONTH before the GOP nominated Trump to be their presidential candidate, current GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy walked into a Republican leadership meeting and said “There’s two people I think Putin pays, Rohrbacher and Trump… swear to God!” Did anyone in the room — in GOP leadership — question the accusation’s veracity? NO! They understood that, yeah — Putin WAS paying Rohrbacher and Trump. They understood it, some of them, because they, too were being PAID BY RUSSIA. They’d been taking Russian money into their campaign coffers forever. In the end, then Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan, spoke for the Republican Party when he got everyone to agree: they’d know they were “family” if everyone kept this terrible secret “In the family”.

Donald Trump could be one of the worst negotiators ever in the whole history of negotiation. He’s all tells. He’s been telling US since the beginning how corrupt he is. How tied to Russia he is. How much of a traitor he is. Maya Angelou would be ashamed of us. How loudly does Trump have to tell us who he is before we’ll listen to him?

Trump’s Senate trial is a political process, not a criminal process. The Republicans in the Senate aren’t so much Trump’s jury as Trump’s co-conspirators (which is odd since they were also Trump’s potential victims, too). As Trump’s own lawyer, Bruce Castor suggested, when the political trial ends perhaps a criminal trial should begin. That suggestion must have horrified the majority of Republicans sitting in the chamber. But then, so does the idea of Merrick Garland hanging out his shingle as AG. There’s a reason Mitch McConnell has slow-walked Garland’s hearing (can Mitch actually look Garland in the eye considering how criminally abusive Mitch has been toward Garland?) For four years, under L’il Jeff Sessions, Rod Rosenstein and Bill Barr, the Department of Justice served as Trump’s consigliere, enabling rather than prosecuting Trump’s various crimes. All that criminal activity is about to get exposed. And, remember the counter-intelligence investigation into Trump’s relationship with Russia — the one Rod Rosenstein told Team Mueller the FBI was handling and told the FBI that Team Mueller was handling while, in reality, no one was handling it (by design) and it died? Yeah, well — if that’s not back on the books and chugging forward already, it WILL BE.

Take this to the bank: when a rejuvenated Department of Justice under Merrick Garland begins issuing subpoenas with teeth and puts certain Republicans under oath and questioning them about THEIR strange relationships with Russia, the ground will shift beneath our feet. A whole lot of Republican Congresspeople will suddenly have to lawyer up. They’ll grow less concerned with legislating and doing their jobs than staying out of prison forever. Guys like Kevin McCarthy and Paul Ryan will finally have to explain WHY neither of them — or anyone else in that room — called the FBI after learning that someone IN THEIR LEADERSHIP feared that Donald Trump was corrupt and, likely, a TRAITOR. Guys like Senators Ron Johnson and John Kennedy of Louisiana will have to explain WHY they chose to have dinner IN MOSCOW July 4, 2018 instead of here in America. Lindsey Graham will have to answer for his amazing change of “heart” from “Trump’s a kook!” and “If we make him our nominee then we deserve to be destroyed as a party” to “I will go down with the Donald Trump ship and nothing anyone can do will stop me”. Mitch McConnell will have to explain his relationship with Oleg Deripaska — the oligarch SANCTIONED for his part in skewing the 2016 election to Trump (he received the proprietary polling data from Paul Manafort that Russian military intelligence repurposed into weaponized Facebook ads placed on the pages of Black voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan meant to suppress their votes by convincing then that Hilary Clinton was a closet racist). Mitch got those sanctions LIFTED so that Oleg could put a $300 million aluminum factory in western Kentucky. There are a thousand reasons why that was a terrible, TERRIBLE idea regardless of Trump.

All roads will lead to Russia. Okay, maybe a few will lead to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel and Turkey. But only Russia really owns Trump. I bet that’s how Putin feels about Donald. Others may own a piece of Trump, but Putin owns his “soul”.

And always, ALWAYS has.

Lie Down With Dogs, You Get Fleas; Lie Down With Republicans…

February 5, 2021 ~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

There’s a great line from “Raiders Of The Lost Ark” about Americans “…always overdressed and for the wrong occasions”. That’s your basic Republican yahoo. Wearing masks as they storm the capitol because they’re hiding their criminality. Meanwhile, in Naples, Florida, white privilege will NOT be masked! Republicans are what happens when greed convinces you that freedom equals “you’re not the boss of me”. It’s what happens when you’ve committed yourself lock, stock and barrel to denying the future by force-marching the entire culture (the overwhelming majority of Americans) literally at gun point into the past. Donald Trump didn’t change the Republican Party. He didn’t force them down a road they would never have travelled otherwise. Trump was a catalyst. He was the charisma the GOP needed to get people to look past their deplorable plans for America to a jingly-jangly set of MAGA keys. But, even as the Republican Party accepted Trump as their standard bearer back in 2016, they did it KNOWING he was a traitor.

Let’s get this straight — this is about Russia. It has always been about Russia. Russia, Russia, RUSSIA.

Every bit of obstruction of justice the Trumps, their enablers, their party played, was meant to cover up a secret that everyone already knows (but, apparently, not enough of us refuse to accept still): Donald Trump is a fully owned asset of Russian Military Intelligence. He has been for years. Everything he did upon entering the White House diminished America to Russia’s advantage. Who knows if we have any secrets left. There is a monster reveal coming at us: the entire Trump presidency from its swearing in onward was a massive crime scene and an act of treason.

Conspiracy works like this: “See something, SAY something; see something, say NOTHING?” We have to ask “why?” A month before nominating Trump their 2016 candidate for POTUS, current GOP Leader and mega-coward Kevin McCarthy walked into a GOP leadership meeting and said out loud (it was recorded): “There’s two people I think Putin pays, Rohrbacher and Trump… swear to God!” A discussion broke out amongst those there which then Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan ended by insisting that knowledge of this fact — that their likely candidate for president was COMPROMISED by a hostile foreign power (in addition to one of their colleagues, California representative Dana Rohrbacher who everyone understood was a useful idiot) — was not going to leave the room. As Ryan put it: “That’s how we know we’re a family”.

Omerta in place of patriotism.

Conspiracy spreads easily. The meeting was recorded. There’s no arguing about what was said. The question is: who in the room already knew “Russia pays Rohrbacher and Trump?” Did any of them also know that Putin paid quite a few other Republicans, too? Did they suspect — even just a “soupcon”? If they did — and they didn’t tell someone — they committed a crime. It’s that simple. How many Republicans KNEW the truth about Trump? How many suspected — even in a small, seemingly insignificant way? With conspiracy, ownership is easy. Plenty of co-conspirators don’t actually know that that’s what they are — a co-conspirator in a crime — until it’s too late.

With conspiracy, you don’t have to know anything about the crime itself to be held criminally responsible for it. You don’t even have to suspect there was criminality involved. Conspiracy moves between people like a virus, sometimes spreading silently. Tacit understanding of a thing is still understanding that it “is”. So, why didn’t YOU pick up the damned phone and call the damned FBI?

You can flea bathe a dog. Stick a flea collar on a cat or (if you’re brave) stick a pill down its throat and voila! No fleas. Now you can lie down said dog (or cat) problem-free! Not so easy with a Republican however. There’s no way to rinse off the stink of corruption. We may have caught what the Republicans have just from thinking about them — that’s how deep the rot is.

Even among themselves, Republicans are so corrupt — and so afraid of each others’ corruption that they took a secret vote on whether or not to kick Lynn Cheney from power. The Republicans said one thing out loud (she has to go!) but something different when anonymous. That, right there, is the very essence of modern republicanism: duplicity, dishonesty and dickishness.

To stand with Marjorie Taylor Greene is to stand — proudly — with racism, anti-Semitism, authoritarianism, sedition, treason, lunacy and bullshit (not necessarily in that order). Silence is tacit approval. You might as well get in the shot. Smile pretty for the camera!

The photo Republicans like Taylor Greene will be posing for shortly will be a booking photo. That’s the answer to the question — what you’ll get if you lie down with Republicans: you will get booked.

Now, lawyer up…

Dear Corporate America: Integrity Needs To Be Your New “Bottom Line”

February 3, 2021February 3, 2021 ~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

Know who believes in democracy? Corporate America. They sort of believe in American democracy. But, the “democracy of the marketplace”? That, they believe in, unabashedly. Corporate America has to — they need consumers to “vote” with their wallets and pocketbooks as “early and often” as possible (like they supposedly used to vote in Chicago when the Democratic machine ran it). Remember New Coke? Remember how fast it disappeared from shelves when Americans resoundingly “voted against it”? Product launches are no different from candidate launches; candidates in American retail politics are no different from laundry detergent. Except some will destroy your clothing, wreck your marriage and burn your whole house down. There’s a reason Mitch McConnell fought so hard to keep Americans from getting financial support during the pandemic but insisted that companies never have to face any sort of liability for forcing their employees back to work, damn any and all risk to their lives.

Already, companies like Airbnb, Amazon, American Express and AT&T have cancelled all political contributions to any politician questioning the results of election 2020. And those are just a few of the “A’s”. They all know how easy — and likely — it is for their customers to turn on them should their customers suddenly find the companies’ political stances offensive. Remember Bill O’Reilly — Fox News’ one-time cash cow? The reason Bill doesn’t work for Fox anymore — despite how lucrative his bullshit was to the company — is because Bill lost all his advertisers. This was a boardroom decision! The 21st Century Fox board of directors were told, flat out, by the companies they needed to cash flow them that none of their customers would support their advertising on O’Reilly’s “The O’Reilly Factor” any longer because he was such a sexist, racist pig.

Just like that, Bill O’Reilly became expendable. And just like that, he was gone. The democracy of the marketplace is harsh. But fair.

American consumers don’t like giving their hard-earned dollars to companies that do not respect them. They like it even less when those companies are ripping them off or doing things that could literally hurt them by, say, polluting the air and water. And the airwaves. And companies that want to overthrow our government? We REALLY hate those guys. And we ain’t buying whatever they’re selling…

The Truth — literal, empirical, this-is-what-happened-NOT-that, replete-with-receipts Truth — is about to get its day in court (the court of public opinion which is what really matters in America). On one side are Republican sweethearts like Marjorie Taylor Greene — an affront to logic and decency every time she speaks. On the other are Democrats, the rule of law, the Constitution and the majority of Americans. When the Democrats announced they’d introduce witness testimony (under oath) before the Senate “jury” during Trump’s SECOND impeachment trial, Lindsey Graham threatened to have the FBI testify, too. The Democrats, frankly, would LOVE IT if the FBI showed up and testified. What’s the point of Lindsey’s bluff here? Bring the Truth, Lindsey! Make it rain Truth! The only person needing an umbrella if that happens is YOU — and every one of your Republican co-conspirators.

I still won’t shop at Home Depot because the company’s ownership was so vociferously pro-trump. My hardware store dollars have a choice where they go to be spent. I prefer to use my local hardware store. But, sometimes, they don’t have what I need. A big box hardware store is where I’ll have to go. Ah, but which one? My dollars will vote for ANYONE but Home Depot. If too many other curmudgeons follow my lead? Home Depot’s bottom line will suffer. Pinch, OUCH!

Mitch feels that “ouch” like a cannonball rolling around his Treason Turtle shell, flattening his guts. He’s worked his whole political career to service the Big Right Wing Money and its various political needs. He’ll let all of America down before he even thinks of letting his paymasters down. Hell, Mitch is so cynical, he bought into the whole Donald Trump-Russia connection without batting a bloodshot eye. Ya don’t think Mitch had heard — same as every other Republican in the loop in 2016 — that “There’s two people (I think) Putin pays, Rohrbacher and Trump”? When current GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy posed that question to a roomful of GOP leadership (was Mitch there perhaps?) a month before the 2016 GOP convention, then Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan made everyone present agree to keep this… suspicion/fact “in the family”. If Mitch wasn’t there, take it to the bank –he heard all about it.

Take this to the bank too. No one who heard that conversation live, took part in it or heard about it afterwards called the FBI as they absolutely should have done. This was the guy they were about to nominate as their candidate for POTUS. And they wondered about his loyalties and whether or not he might be compromised by a very hostile foreign enemy who we already knew were engaged in cyber war against us. The more we learn about this abomination — and we will once Merrick Garland punches the clock and a rejuvenated Department of Justice begins to behave like the defenders of the rule of law they’re supposed to be — the worse it will get for anyone still sporting that “R” next to their name.

That “R” will begin to stand more and more for RUSSIA.

Nobody wants that trademark next to their corporate image. Nobody wants their company to be co-branded in the buying public’s mind with traitors or treason or sedition or anything Marjorie Taylor Greene has to say. It always, always, ALWAYS comes down to money. And, for now, it’s money ironically that will keep corporate America from giving to their favorite enablers, the Republican Party. Whoever baked this irony cake knew just how long to keep it in the oven.

America is at the very beginning of a Great Moral Reckoning. We’ve needed this for a long, long time. As much of a treasonous shit as he is, on a certain level, we owe Trump a thank you — for causing the Republican Party membership to finally expose itself for the cynical, racist, authoritarians they all are. They’re the biggest, drunkest, angriest, whitest, stupidest frat party ever.

See those guys? Big companies don’t care what they want to buy. Not anymore. How long, do you suppose, will it take America’s news media to catch up with what its boardrooms figured out eons ago?

Whatever ya do, don’t bet on America’s news media. They still can’t even spell “integrity”.

Of Sharks And Perspective — We’re Gonna Need A MUCH Bigger Boat, America

February 1, 2021 ~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

Quick — what’s the worst way to die imaginable? Not a nice question, I agree, but surely we’ve all contemplated the possibilities and one always comes up “worst”: being eaten, right? Being “consumed” by something isn’t just “dying”, it’s being reduced to another creature’s “food”! Everything you think you are — a husband, a wife, a friend, a lover, a son or a daughter, a rogue or a scholar — no, fool — you’re roughage, hopefully without too much cholesterol or sodium. From a shark’s point of view, you’re shark shit pre-shark. You just don’t know it. Yet.

Our news media thinks perspective is what happens AFTER the shark eats you. “Hey, don’t jump in that water,” they think journalism is, “We know there are sharks in it!” Yes, the news is important — but we all saw what happened. News of a shark might have been MORE helpful BEFOREHAND.

Was there evidence of a shark swimming around before the story even started? “Well,” the news media says, “We didn’t see any dorsal fins, so we assumed the coast was clear!” Ah, but “didn’t see any” and “so therefore they weren’t there” don’t necessarily hook up. Hey, news media — didja look? Did you LOOK for sharks in water known to be infested with them? The truth is — where Donald Trump is concerned, for instance, you didn’t!

The news media didn’t report Trump as a “shark in the water” because they didn’t realize that that’s what he was — despite the fact that they’d reported him behaving that way forever! The Steele Dossier exists because such reporting existed — that Trump was a shark who’d used his bankrupt Atlantic City casinos to launder Russian mob money. That’s what Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS, the research firm hired by Republicans backing Marco Rubio (the owners of the conservative newspaper The Washington Free Beacon) testified to before the Senate Judiciary Committee on August 22, 2017. Before engaging in the actual assignment, Fusion did its “due diligence” first. They got ahold of every bit of publicly available material they could on Trump — every newspaper story, magazine article, TV or radio appearance, every book, every video, every everything if it happened in a way that anyone could look at it or hear it.

What Fusion found there — in publicly available material — Simpson testified, convinced them that Donald Trump was likely an international criminal. They approached Christopher Steele (and his company Orbis) because Steele, former head of the MI6’s Russia desk, had the very best contacts inside Russia. And Steele was reliable. When the FBI wanted to go after FIFA’s Sepp Blatter for corruption, they hired Steele. Fusion hired Steele because he offered unparalleled PERSPECTIVE.

What Chris Steele found — and put into his collection of raw intel — the Dossier — convinced HIM that Trump wasn’t just an international criminal, he was an out-and-out TRAITOR.

The further one pulls back the camera on Trump, on the Republicans, on what they’ve done here, on how clearly they’re owned by a hostile foreign power engaged in a literal cyber war against us, the clearer one sees treason. Treason, treason and nothing but treason.

Yeah, America — we’re gonna need a much bigger boat here. If only our news media had done what Glenn Simpson did — THEIR DUE DILIGENCE. If only they would have screamed and shouted “SHARK!” when they reported (a year after it happened but, still — they reported it!) how the Republican leadership KNEW for a fact that Trump was owned by Russia but deliberately kept that fact a secret. This really happened: current GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy walked into a meeting of GOP leadership a month before their convention and said — out loud: “There’s two people I think Putin pays, Rohrbacher and Trump… swear to God!” No one said “Say, what? Are you sure, Kevin? Hey, someone — get the FBI on the phone — WE have a problem — our candidate is probably compromised by Russia!” No, instead, the Republican leadership — then Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan — insisted that everyone there “keep it in the family”.

The GOP chose omerta over patriotism.

If our press could aggregate a story the way stories are supposed to be aggregated — where you keep adding information and then building upon what you know (instead of tossing it as if it never happened and returning to a kind of “Square One of Ignorance” every damned day) — we would already equate Donald Trump and Republicans with extreme corruption. We’d already have connected the Donald Trump dot and the Russia dot — and connected them to the Republican Party dot and the Elections 2016 and 2020 dots.

If our news media didn’t accept as gospel truth everything that tumbles from a Republican’s mouth — Bill Barr, say — they might have READ the Mueller Report rather than ACCEPTING what Bill Barr said it said. Jesus, even AFTER they’d read the report, the majority of American journalists STILL go along with Barr’s take that it says “Trump didn’t do anything”. No — that’s NOT what it says. And, we now know, even what it says was squeezed and compromised and limited to a very small question — concerning Trump’s direct communications with Julian Assange and Wikileaks. We know that then acting AG Rod Rosenstein deliberately lied to both Team Mueller and the FBI — ending the counter-intelligence investigation into Trump and Russia while allowing Team Mueller and the FBI to think the other was doing that work.

Hey — how often did anyone in our news media point out the cool historical fact that Donald Trump was the first president ever to run for re-election in the very election he’d been impeached for cheating in? Not many. And yet — Trump continued to cheat every single day — in front of everyone — as if he’d never been impeached for doing the very same thing! Imagine if our press had aggregated even a fraction of what they themselves had reported!

I’m a fan of the journalist, lawyer, professor Seth Abrahams. Abrahams’ method is to aggregate what the press has reported so as to present the fullest possible picture of what we KNOW (because it’s been sourced by the press) with the widest possible perspective. In essence, he’s doing what Fusion GPS did — using what we know to paint a picture of what we should be using as the BASIS for our thinking. By simply reporting what’s been reported — a kind of massive due diligence — Seth Abrahams isn’t just a canary in a coal mine, he’s the closest thing to “Absolute Truth” we have.

What is v what is not. The more perspective we have, the better! And even the perspective we have — now that we’re using it to see the world — tells us the boat we chose won’t be good enough. The shark’s already chewing on it.

This shark won’t go quietly. There’s no point negotiating with it. It’s going to come down to a simple question of Him or Us.

While we decide however, can we do ourselves one kindness — yeah: a bigger boat.

Republicans Need To Taste “Failure Gravity”

January 26, 2021January 26, 2021 ~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

What is it that stands between most of us and criminal behavior — other than the fact that we’re not criminals by nature? I’d peg it as fear of NOT getting away with it. Most of us, even when we cheat in some small, pathetic way on our tax returns, we do it with at least a twinge of fear that WE might be the schmuck that gets audited, and our “tax fraud” revealed. Not only would we fail at crime, we’d suffer the consequences, too. What would earn rich guys a slap on the wrist could devastate us. Bottom line, we’d walk around with a scarlet letter on us — “C” for “Criminal”. For most of us, the idea of being labeled a “criminal” would be like crashing to earth, never to fly again. Gravity would win as it always does. And our flightpath would perfectly describe “failure gravity”.

Some people don’t seem to fear failure gravity. Donald Trump doesn’t. Or, he hasn’t so far. Same goes for Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Matt Gaetz, Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz and the rest of the Republican Treason Caucus. Hawley & Cruz are the poster boys for “no fear of failure gravity”. They both openly whipped the crowd to a seditious frenzy even before January 6 then doubled down in its bloody aftermath. To this day, both “men” believe they’ll get away with this. In their minds, they think they’re golden, their futures assured as the new face of the Trumpian Party. They don’t feel gravity, they feel lighter than air.

That’s why it’s imperative that we pop their balloon.

Ted and Josh — and all the rest of their caucus — need to experience a little of what the Coyote experiences when he realizes 1) he ain’t getting the Roadrunner this time either and 2) when he hits the ground this time? It’s REALLY gonna hurt.

The Coyote, industrious as he is (and who the hell’s bankrolling him? Surely the Acme Company isn’t extending him credit!) always retains his fear of gravity. Perhaps if the Coyote had to cover his own medical expenses (he must have the same Platinum coverage Congress does) — having capped out — he’d quit and let the Roadrunner live in peace. That’s another kind of “failure gravity’ — fear of your wallet losing “lift” and crashing to earth. Ironically, the “wallet” is most conservatives’ most vulnerable organ.

What instantly began to give the seditionists pause — in the midst of their celebrations — was getting arrested for having done the thing they were so proud of. They weren’t expecting to experience failure gravity and yet, suddenly, there they were — behind bars. Some of them lost their jobs — another effect of failure gravity. Friends and neighbors, family members and loved ones all began to rat the insurrectionists out to the FBI — that was failure gravity spreading like wildfire. Well, the fear of it. The problem with being associated with a criminal is the possibility that their criminal cooties might get on you — and criminal cooties = failure gravity. You get em, you fail.

I bet not a one of the seditionists thought for a second what the ripple effect would be should they fail. For sedition alone? It’s steep. Heavy, heavy fines and prison — up to twenty years. That’s a lot of prison dinners. And each one — that’s literally what failure gravity tastes like — the succotash especially.

If every one of these criminals had been given a moment beforehand where a “Voice O’ God” had pointed to the fork in the road they’d just reached and told them success as a regular citizen lay one way and failure as an insurrectionist lay the other, which road would they have taken? Most human beings — having no taste for failure gravity (especially BECAUSE OF the succotash) — would choose success and being a regular citizen. Would anyone be surprised if more than a handful of the current class of Republicans — Ted and Josh maybe — said “Screw it! Give me failure gravity or give me death!”

Um, dude, those two things might just be the same.

What scares Republicans most as the Biden Administration slowly coalesces like a young galaxy — having been denied a proper transition by pirates unconcerned by failure gravity (even the failure gravity of people dying from a pandemic) — is the newly rejuvenated Department of Justice as it will be under soon-to-be confirmed Merrick Garland. Justice, ya see, is failure gravity to Republicans.

One thing Trumpian DoJ’s were infamous for was NOT pursuing justice while, simultaneously, fomenting and creating INjustice. Remember L’il Jeff Sessions?

Ironically, it was failure gravity that caused Sessions to recuse himself from the Russia investigation that estranged him from Trump. Hey, even Bill Barr, Justice’s mortal enemy, had enough respect for failure gravity to walk away from Trump before the really sedition-y parts of the program began.

But, fear of failure gravity and actually tasting it are two different things. Bill Barr, betcha, still doesn’t think he’ll taste failure gravity. Rod Rosenstein deliberately halted the counter-intelligence investigations into Donald Trump and his relationship with Vlad Putin — right when Putin was in the middle of a cyber war against us where Trump was his main weapon. Rod wasn’t oblivious of the bigger picture. But he obviously didn’t fear failure gravity enough not to go down a road CLEARLY marked “TREASON”.

Paul Manafort and Roger Stone — though their noses were rubbed in failure gravity’s odeur — still believed this was just temporary. In time, they’d be pardoned. The taste of failure gravity would be replaced by caviar or the finest Russian vodka or virgin’s blood — whatever taste they preferred.

However — having to answer hard questions under oath will change all that. As a matter of course — just doing his job — AG Garland will pull threads on corrupt sweaters that will unravel with lightning speed. He’ll issue subpoenas that must be answered. He’ll ask questions that lead to increasingly uncomfortable places where there’s more squirming than answering. Want to plead the Fifth? Okay — that’s your right. But you and your lawyer better be prepared for where this goes afterward. That’s the biggest problem right there — the cost of lawyering up.

None of those yahoos who stormed the Capitol ever considered what it might cost to defend them against steep federal charges. That’s some expensive lawyering right there. Times how many seditionists? Geez, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear the Trumpublican Party was about to make a whole generation of lawyers fabulously wealthy. Suddenly, I realize how right my parents were — I should have gone to law school!

Now add in what losing their jobs will cost. And getting hired in the future? Even McDonald’s will look past them. Who wants a seditionist on their fry crew?

And who wants to co-brand with sedition? Twenty of the big thirty corporate donors have said they won’t give money to any Republican who refuses to accept the election’s results — that Joe Biden won fairly and squarely. That’s because the big corporations understand that THEIR customers don’t want to buy products from companies that coddle seditionists. Home Depot doesn’t care how treasonous Donald Trump is? Fine — we can all shop at Lowe’s — or, better still, a LOCAL hardware store. Remember Bill O’Reilly? The Twenty-First Century Fox board of directors FIRED him at the top of his popularity, while he was the biggest cash cow they had. They had no choice — their advertisers made it clear — THEIR clients — actual consumers (and, where the rubber meets the road, most buying decisions in American households are made by women) were simply not going to buy anything from companies in business with Bill O.

Money talked and Bill O walked (the plank).

Ask Bill O’Reilly if HE knows what failure gravity tastes like.

Mitch McConnell caved last night to Chuck Schumer, finally allowing for the transfer of Senatorial power to the Democrats. Mitch was playing junk cards and knew it. The second Merrick Garland clocks in for the first time, Mitch will get nervous. It’ll just be a matter of time before HE gets subpoenaed. Mitch needs to answer for quite a few things: his relationship with oligarch Oleg Deripaska in particular. Mitch needs to answer for why he refused to let We The People in on the secret Barack Obama wanted us to know in September 2016 — before the election: that Russia was actively attempting to MAKE Donald Trump president. Yeah, yeah, sure, Mitch — you didn’t want intelligence being “politicized” to your candidate’s disadvantage. But, your candidate was committing TREASON, Mitch — and you KNEW IT at the time.

You did, Mitch… you knew. Your whole party knew. Hell, a month before the Republicans even nominated Trump they were agreeing to “keep it in the family” that “Putin pays Rohrbacher and Trump… swear to God”. They knew.

Voila le probleme. That’s the real failure gravity here. Treason.

Treason is the failure gravity that the Republican Party believed/believes it will escape. It is incumbent on We The People to make sure the “physics of failure” frustrate them.

Hey, Democrats — Here’s Some Fun We Can Have With Mitch McConnell, The US Senate And America’s Future

January 25, 2021 ~ A L Katz ~ Leave a comment

It bears repeating: when this is all done and said, Mitch McConnell’s name will replace Benedict Arnold’s as the epithet Americans use when they want to call someone “a traitor”. “You Mitch McConnell, you!” people will scream at people like… well, Mitch McConnell. Because they’re traitors. Mitch McConnell IS a traitor. That’s not hyperbole. It’s not emotion speaking. Is it ironclad? Not 100%, no — we’ll need to put Mitch under oath to ice that cake. That’s about to happen. I bet it’s pretty top-of-the-list when Merrick Garland punches in finally. How did Russia gain so much traction inside our government? Hey, Mitch — got any ideas how that might have happened? Remember, pal — you’re under oath. I want to believe there are Democrats in power today who’d sell their families into bondage to get a chance to take down Mitch McConnell. Well, Democrats — you CAN do that — right now, in fact!

Let’s put this essential fact on the table first: Kentucky is one of those states where, should a sitting Senator be forced from office, the GOVERNOR gets to appoint a replacement until the next scheduled election. The governor of Kentucky right now is Andy Beshear — A DEMOCRAT. So, if we could find a way to take Mitch McConnell out of the picture, The Democratic governor of Kentucky could — legally — replace Republican Mitch with the Democrat of his choice.

That’s where Merrick Garland comes in. Among the questions in the soon-to-be AG’s head should be these: “Why did Mitch McConnell refuse Barack Obama when President Obama wanted to inform America — before election 2016 — that RUSSIA was actively engaged in throwing the election to Trump — and does Mitch’s relationship with Russian oligarch and former military intelligence officer OLEG DERIPASKA have anything to do with it?” That’s important because Deripaska got sanctioned for what he did in the 2016 election — he received proprietary polling data (concerning Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan) that was weaponized into personalized ads that showed up on the personal Facebook pages of Black, Democratic voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Deripaska got sanctioned for the same reason Paul Manafort went to prison.

Deripaska committed a crime against We The People. And yet — not only did Mitch McConnell refuse to give us a “head’s up” that Russia was actively trying to do this to us, Mitch PROFITED from it! Mitch got those sanctions against Deripaska LIFTED — in January 2019 — so that Deripaska could “gift” western Kentucky with $300 million dollars worth of aluminum factory. When you consider, on top of that, Mitch’s resistance to election security, his refusal to question Trump’s odd relationship with Vladimir Putin and his participation in every last bit of Trump’s obstruction of justice, ya gotta believe Mitch McConnell has secrets.

Once AG Garland begins pulling threads on the “Mitch McConnell” sweater, that ugly, old thing will come apart like a Trump family reunion.

Now, here’s where the fun begins. Mitch knows he’s got secrets. The Democrats know Mitch has secrets. Mitch knows that once his secrets stop being secret, this will kill the Republican Party dead — because they hitched a cynical plan to assert permanent minority rule (by them) to Donald Trump despite KNOWING that he was even more corrupt than they were — because he was owned outright by Russia. Mitch KNOWS that the GOP committed TREASON at its very highest level in order to grab power.

This was entirely “do or die”. You can’t plan and execute an insurrection (Republicans both planned and executed this thing) and expect nothing to happen to you. Oh, sure — the Republicans “might still” think they’ll get away with it but then, Merrick Garland hasn’t been sworn in yet. People like Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley haven’t been subpoenaed and placed under oath. People like Matt Gaetz, Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan haven’t been “Benghazi’d” yet — grilled to the gills about all the strange things they’ve done the past four years. What do you think people like Lauren Bobert will say — under oath — when questioned about her real-time participation in an act of real-time sedition?

Mitch McConnell is now officially “low hanging fruit”. He’s there to be taken, Democrats — and all you have to do (well, all AG Garland has to do) is sit Mitch down for questioning. Once Mitch is under oath and backtracking furiously though, Democrats, that’s the time to finish Mitch. Use the court of public opinion. Ask the questions out loud about Mitch and his relationship with hostile foreign actors like Deripaska. Demand Mitch tell us where his loyalties lie. Who, Mitch, are your REAL constituents?

Fortunately for Mitch, his wife’s rich so the cost of defending him won’t bankrupt the family. The cost of defending Elayne Chao, his beard however…

How Mitch is on one side of being indicted will be very different from how Mitch is on the other side of being indicted. For Mitch, it will be akin to getting dragged — kicking and screaming — from his turtle shell, having to stand before us buck naked. For what it’s worth, that will be as hard on us as it will be for Mitch. Who the hell wants that image burned into their mind’s eye forever?

At some point, the physical cost of defending himself will preclude continuing on as Kentucky’s senior corrupt senator. He’s no spring chicken. More like an old dinosaur. He hasn’t looked well lately. Knowing what he knows about what he did and what the consequences will be, Mitch will be forced to step down. He really won’t have a choice.

Hey, remember Kentucky’s Democratic governor, Andy Beshear? This is where he steps to the plate — and flips Mitch’s long-time-Red Senate seat from red to blue. Even if it was only temporary, the only reason it’d be happening is because Mitch finally got caught being the corrupt Treason Turtle he is. But, Mitch’s seat flipping from red to blue might NOT be all that temporary. While we’re pulling the thread on Mitch’s corruption sweater, let’s pull the thread on how exactly Mitch keeps getting elected by huge numbers in a state where pretty much everyone hates his guts. That thread, count on it, will lead to a whole other corrupt sweater — the one that explains 1) HOW Mitch keeps cheating his way to re-election, 2) how Republican-owned electronic voting machine companies ES&S and Diebold use their internet-connected backdoors to pad Republican election totals, and 3) how that padding technique closed the deal and “won” Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan for Trump in 2016.

Nothing America’s about to learn about Trump and the GOP and the full, ugly extent of their seditious behavior will endear us to them. There will not be a single bit of good news. Nothing will suddenly make us all think “Oh, right — now we understand why you all did it — it all makes sense!” Instead, our disgust for Republicans, their party, their hypocrisy — it will compound like usurious daily interest. We will not hear any evidence that a single Republican had anything but malice in mind.

Hey, Mitch — caveat emptor, understand? Ya puts yer money down, ya takes yer chance! You bet on permanent minority rule. You bet on Donald Trump (despite what you knew). You bet on sedition and treason and, frankly, evil.

If I were governor of Kentucky instead of Andy Beshear, when that moment came to replace you, I would find an actual SOCIALIST and name them Mitch’s replacement. But — most importantly — before Mitch found out, I’d get a whole bunch of cameras on him. Mitch does “I lost” better than almost anyone. Remember this?

Remember how good this moment felt, Democrats? That was the warm up act to literal fireworks. Go after Mitch McConnell, Democrats. Do it now. Do it with justice in mind. But don’t forget to enjoy it, too. We’ve all earned it.