For Trump, Follow Up Blame with Consequences

By Karen

I’ve been holding my fire on this Trump-getting-away-with-everything infamy for weeks because it makes me crazy to think about it. But on the anniversary of 1/6/21, we must face the fact that nothing has been done to strengthen democracy so monsters like Trump can never occupy the White House again.

Congress is crawling with traitors (on both sides) actively sabotaging Biden’s agenda and nothing is happening to them. Oh, right, Marjorie Taylor-Greene got kicked off Twitter.

I trace the origin of this mess to when the media and elected representatives willfully refused to communicate honestly about Trump.

Remember when no one on the airwaves would say Trump was lying? Except Lawrence O’Donnell, a true pioneer (this from March 14, 2017; Trump had been in office about two months)…

With hindsight on the torrent of vile, fact-free propaganda that ensued, all the other talking heads’ Victorian reluctance to speak inelegantly of Trump seems quaint.

We then had to suffer four years of gaslighting, with no one daring to call Trump a bat-shit mentally ill career criminal who broke laws willy-nilly right to our faces and dared us to do anything about it.

Oh, right, Trump was impeached TWICE, totally without consequences, except maybe some nasty write-ups in future history books that he’ll be too dead to read.

Today, even after the carnage of 1/6/21, they still use limp blame words when claiming to make big pronouncements — even adding toothless qualifiers — like, may be accountable, possibly responsible and could have culpability.

Blame words have no intent or effect but to invoke shame.

But Trump and his fellow traitors are incapable of shame. They say, “So what? We’re doing it. How are you going to stop us?”

Blame is a dead end. Nothing happens after blame. What every decent person in this country wants to see for Trump and his enablers are CONSEQUENCES.

From the two impeachments, what the 1/6 committee has gathered, and what we all witnessed firsthand during Trump’s regime, the guilt of Trump and everyone around him is irrefutable. The case against him has already been made…and made…and made.

Until somebody pronounces these criminals and traitors guilty, sentences them, and metes out dire consequences (life in prison without parole, at a minimum) to stop and punish behavior they now continue to engage in, we’ve got nothing.

Today, Joe Biden made a powerful speech where, without naming the orange bastard once, Biden laid 1/6/21 squarely in Trump’s lap.

But that’s all it was, blame. Now what?

Which brings me to Attorney General Merrick Garland. His big speech yesterday hinted that DOJ could go after Trump and his cronies, but gave not the slightest indication that he’s even attempting to maybe, possibly, even begin considering blaming Trump or his enablers for anything — let alone charging them.

But he’s all over prosecuting the small-potatoes brainwashed MAGA scum Trump sent rampaging through the Capitol.

I think Garland counts on himself and all the high-level perps dying off before he can get to them. Garland has proven himself so “above politics” and stuffed to the gills with integrity that he’ll let Trump and Republicans coup their way to fascist dictatorship while he slowly, meticulously, dots his I’s and crosses his T’s and keeps his skirts clean.

Garland is treating a nuclear war like it’s a pillow fight.

We need elected officials to end investigation stall tactics, to go with the multitude of hard, damning evidence they already have, and to mete out justice and political annihilation to Trump and Republicans — because they’re on a solid track to destroy democracy and must be stopped NOW.

Until treason and criminality have consequences, we’re all screwed.

Larry David Milks Asia-Jimmy Story for Laughs

By Karen

Watching the latest episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm (Episode 11:7, “Irma Kostroski”) my jaw dropped when one of the story lines was the statutory rape accusation against Anthony Bourdain’s last girlfriend, which we learned about in August 2018, after his death in June.

If you’re not into Curb, here’s how it goes: It’s a sitcom starring Larry David playing himself as a curmudgeonly semi-retired TV writer/producer living in California. The show isn’t fully scripted. The actors know what’s supposed to happen, but ad lib much of the dialogue.

This season, Larry has been developing a sitcom based on his early life as a Jew in New York, casting an actor named Asa to play “Young Larry.” Asa is a pretentious jerk with many ridiculous demands for his character’s “authenticity.”

The thinly fictionalized Asia-Jimmy angle first comes up between the prop master Stan and Larry (I’ve cut lines that don’t add context)…

Stan: Larry, I can’t work with that kid [Asa]. He’s driving me nuts.

Larry: You know, like I told you, he’s a fucked up kid. He got sexually abused, I hear.

Stan: Oh, well, about that. I did my research. And it turns out, little Asa there, when he was a 17-year old kid, was “taken advantage of” by the beautiful 37-year-old Adriana Amante, the Italian actress. Fucking smokeshow, stunning.

Larry: That’s the trauma? I read about that.

Stan: Not only that, but he got 400 grand as a payoff. Formerly known as Andy. Were you as lucky at 17 to be taken advantage of by a supermodel?

Larry: Yeah, right. I was traumatized because I couldn’t have any sex at all.

Stan: Same here. I couldn’t fucking pay a woman to touch me.

Next scene, Larry confronts Asa…

Larry: You’re really giving Stan a hard time. You’re acting like kind of an asshole. There could be a justification for it, because I know how traumatized you were from that horrible incident you had when you were 17 and sexually abused by a beautiful, luscious, voluptuous Italian movie star.

Asa: You heard about that, huh?

Larry: Oh, my God, I can’t even imagine how horrible that must have —

Asa: It was so hard.

Larry: How did that work, exactly? Did she get you in a headlock?

Asa: It was a mental headlock.

Larry: All right, cut the shit, OK? You were 17 years old. If a cactus touched your penis, you would have been thrilled at that age, OK?

Asa: Ow, wow, wow. What if you were in high school and you slept with an older, famous actress? How would people treat you?

Larry: They would have named the high school after me.

Later, Larry lunching with the guys at his country club, and here the truth gets altered a bit…

Larry: So, it turns out he [Asa] did this movie when he was 17 and had sex in her trailer. He claimed that he was abused and got a $400,000 settlement. Now he’s playing the victim.

Larry’s friend Richard Lewis: It was the luckiest day of his life.

Larry’s roommate Leon: He’s ungrateful. This little motherfucker got a piece of ass, which is priceless. Then he got $400,000 on top of that shit? And the movie paid him. He got paid three fucking times and he’s still complaining.

Larry: Exactly.

Now it’s local Election Day and Larry encounters Asa outside the polls, where Asa makes a demand…

Larry: Get rid of Stan?

Asa: Yeah. He’s very difficult.

Larry: You know what? You’re driving him crazy.

Asa: I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to make art.

Larry: Yeah, well, he’s going to have a nervous breakdown, and it’s going to be real trauma, not like the fake trauma that you went through.

Asa: Oh, that’s where you’re going to go. It was real trauma. I suffered very… Hey, what are you doing, Larry?

Larry approaches a boy in line while Asa looks on…

Larry: Can I ask you a question? How old are you?

Boy: 18.

Larry: If a woman who looks like this (pulls up picture, presumably of the actress, on his phone, but not you-know-who) was interested in you, what would you say?

Boy: Yeah, I’d like that.

Larry: And what if she touched you down there?

Boy: Down there? Fuck, yeah.

Larry: And what if she invited you back to her apartment to have sex with her, and then she gave you $400,000?

Boy: Who wouldn’t take that?

Larry: Yeah, who wouldn’t take that? Thank you.

Boy: Is she here? When’s this happening?

Larry: Don’t be an idiot, no. Of course not.

By making the kid a schmuck and smearing compliments all over the actress with a thick knife, Larry David presumably is trying to avoid any backlash in the real world. But what I’m wondering is, what in hell made Larry think to exploit that still-unresolved situation as comedy fodder? And to go on and on about it? In the process, he essentially applauds the woman for committing statutory rape.

This Cats Working post from August 2018 provides details of what really happened, according to The New York Times, as well as subsequent posts as more information came to light.

And here’s a full recap of that Curb episode.

PS: Cats Working avoids using the woman in question’s full name because we don’t want to come up in her Google searches on herself or contribute to statistics on mentions of her.

Democrats Plunge Virginia Backward

By Karen

Just like their dithering role models in Congress, Virginia Democrats failed to vote in this week’s statewide elections by just enough (~2 points) to make us lose EVERYTHING. In one day, they turned our totally blue state to flaming red by letting Republicans become governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, and regain a majority in the House of Delegates.

Trump is gloating because — despite losing Virginia TWICE — he’s now got the state in his greasy pocket.

Our next governor, Glenn Youngkin, whom Stephen Colbert aptly described as “the love child of Mr. Rogers and Ted Cruz,” vows to “change the direction of Virginia.”

The vacant eyes, the vapid smile of Virginia’s next Republican governor

Youngkin will come to power inheriting a multi-billion-dollar budget surplus, COVID on the wane, again, the Civil War and its iconography no longer a “thing,” and women able to get abortions without undergoing the invasive, unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds pervy Republicans mandated when they last ran the show. This is the direction he wants to change.

Youngkin, a millionaire and former CEO of a hedge fund, has never held an elected office in his life. While pretending he had nothing to do with Trump, he blew Trump’s ignorance and divisiveness through a foghorn that echoed in every dark corner of the state where knuckle-draggers get along jes’ fine with no book larnin’.

He encouraged parents who never read the book to demand banning Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved — because it makes slavery look bad and it’s written by a black woman.

He’s also got parents’ panties in a bunch over critical race theory. They have no idea what it is, it’s NOT taught in Virginia, but they’re slavering to abolish it — because they innately know more than teachers.

I won’t be surprised when they make Gone with the Wind a textbook and mandate it in all high schools as the definitive word on the Civil War.

And Monument Avenue could very well get all its statues of loser Civil War generals back. The pedestals are still there, just waiting.

For Virginia now to “change direction,” Youngkin means to turn it into East Coast Texas. He must be itching to ban as many abortions as possible, allow even more extreme gerrymandering, and procedurally disenfranchise Democratic (ahem, minority) voters under the guise of “election integrity.”

(NOTE: Even though the top three Republican ass clowns won by just a point or two, no Democrats are screaming this election was stolen. We’re not that abysmally stupid.)

And let’s not forget the death penalty, which Virginia abolished earlier this year. Youngkin must certainly want to revive that while he’s rolling back all gun control so Virginia can proudly resume giving every homicidal nut job on the Eastern Seaboard a hassle-free experience expanding their arsenals with unlimited numbers of guns and assault weapons.

Once murders pick up again, Youngkin will want to keep Virginia’s prisons from overcrowding by having the option of speedy executions. Of course, he’ll consider pardoning any felon who declares their victim “needed killing” (i.e., the shooter is white, the victim wasn’t).

That’s justice, Republican-style.

Ever heard our famous slogan, “Virginia is for lovers”? Forget that if you’re LGBTQ. Our leaders don’t want your kind around here. And don’t expect any legal accommodations that might spare you from being personally persecuted and discriminated against in housing, jobs and services.

It’s only a matter of time before Youngkin makes his obligatory trek to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring of his lord and master, whose repeated endorsements (which Youngkin pretended to ignore) undoubtedly delivered the voters that no candidate appealing to reason or decency could ever hope to reach.

And now Virginia’s going to pay. Thanks a lot, Democrats. You blew it bigly.

Delta Surges, Masks Disappear. WTF?

By Karen

During the one brief, shining moment COVID was on the decline, I still never went out frivolously or stopped wearing a mask — not even after July 1, when it once again became a Class 6 felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, to conceal your face in public. (Luckily, I haven’t heard of anybody going down on a mask rap.)

Virginia’s mask prohibition went back into effect when Governor Ralph Northam allowed the pandemic state of emergency to expire on June 30. Now, the Delta variant is rampaging through our red regions. But instead of again requiring masks in indoor settings, Northam’s wussing out and says just to follow CDC guidelines, which seem to change every five fucking minutes.

(I don’t blame the CDC, but keeping up with this shit is exhausting.)

Northam, a pediatric neurosurgeon in real life, just mandated masks for everyone in K-12 when schools open in the fall. Some parents are outraged, because they must want their kids sick or dead.

But many adults are NOT following CDC guidelines. As of this moment, the CDC says EVERYONE, vaccinated or not, should mask up indoors in “high” or “substantial” transmission areas. According to this map, that’s most of Virginia.

Many vaccinated people are apparently unaware they can inhale snootfuls of Delta from unvaxxed maskholes who walk among us. Even if the vaxxed themselves don’t get sick, they become walking COVID carriers.

This past week at Food Lion and Sam’s Club, I was gobsmacked to see predominantly barefaced customers, and some employees. The ones in masks mostly seemed to be older ladies like me who don’t want even a dab of COVID.

I blame this on the myriad stupid sources people consider “news.” I’m not just talking about Trumpy media outlets and Facebook.

With the proliferation of cable channels, streaming, social media, and even CNN’s sketchy coverage of most things, there’s no longer any main trusted source where everyone gets the same story. We used to get our news from competently staffed newspapers and career journalists like Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Huntley and Brinkley, and other professionals committed to reporting the facts without putting their own editorial spin on them.

Speaking of news, spare me any more tales of how COVID is ravaging states in the South and Midwest — a.k.a. Trump Country.

Last year, they were all oblivious while hundreds of thousands of their fellow Americans suffered and died. Today, they still refuse the vaccinations that could save their lives because their ignorance has become impenetrable after soaking in so many lies and conspiracy theories from God-knows-where.

So, now it’s their turn to get deathly ill and die, and in the immortal words of Melania’s jacket, “I really don’t care, do you?”

My sympathy goes to the selfless medical providers tasked with trying to save these morons from horrible, 100% preventable, self-inflicted deaths after they thoughtlessly sucked in a deadly virus through their maskless pieholes, mistaking it for “freedom.”

Now that it’s no longer blue states bearing the brunt of fatalities, some Republican leaders are admitting masks and vaccines aren’t so bad after all. It’s finally dawning on them that they’re screwed when they succeed in killing off much of their base in those sparsely populated, vast swaths of nowhere. They forgot to ram through any laws in those states giving livestock the right to vote.

Instead of Accountability, Committees and Investigations

By Karen

So we have yet another example of yet another powerful politician — New York Governor Andrew Cuomo — investigated by the state’s attorney general and found to have “violated federal and state” laws against sexual harassment.

Cuomo denies all of it and remains governor while the state legislature conducts ANOTHER investigation before impeaching him.

If you or I “violated federal AND state law,” we could scream our innocence until our lungs burst while we were thrown in jail to await trial, with the certainty of a guilty verdict.

But if you’re an old white guy who wears ties, it’s OK to commit felonies willy-nilly. The only consequences you’ll face are a harsh speech and some hand-wringing while the so-called “authorities” form a new committee to confirm their already-completed investigation into the misdeeds the world already knows you committed because you yourself left a complete, bloody trail of video and audio we’ve all seen, as well as written evidence and a queue of witnesses eager to rat you out.

What I’d like to know is, who kidnapped accountability, and how do we get it back?

Five members of Trump’s Cabinet were referred to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, yet they all walked away unscathed with their fresh taxpayer-funded fortunes to write their lying memoirs.

Despite being suspended from practicing law, raided and having his electronic devices seized weeks ago, Rudy Giuliani is still blathering threats on TV that anybody who dares to hold him accountable for any of his myriad crimes — for Trump and side gigs purely for profit — is a liar and will pay for it in heaven, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

While the Trump Organization itself and its chief financial officer Alan Weisselberg are under indictment, life goes grifting along for the other culpable executives, Trump’s demon spawn, Junior, Eric and Ivanka.

And Trump himself, the most hardcore, inept crook ever to befoul the Oval Office, has proven every day, on multimedia, beyond all doubt, that he’s a thief, cheat, mass murder, seditionist and traitor. Yet nearly seven months out of office, he’s still being treated like a monarch who answers to no law.

So, Trump merrily plots Phase 3 of his coup. Phase 1 was to overturn the election. Phase 2 was to dispatch his crazed MAGA cult to kill Congress.

This dementia patient is going around proclaiming himself our once and future dictator, and what accountability does he face? State, federal and congressional committees and investigations grinding at a pace to make even snails lose their shit.

Meanwhile, the halls of Congress reek from the stench of Republican vermin who commit daily treason by lying and aiding Trump’s coup attempts when they should be rotting in cells for engaging in sedition.

The only conclusions I can draw from all this stonewalling and inaction are:

1. Prosecutors (I’m looking at you, Merrick “Molasses” Garland) intend to foot-drag until statutes of limitations kick in and render certain crimes moot.

2. Prosecutors are waiting for the perps to die of natural causes before they’re brought to trial so nobody has to be the one to blame them for anything.

In the meantime, while Trump Republicans foment chaos and anarchy, Biden, bless his heart, ignores it and gaslights us with happy talk about bipartisanship and what a great country we are.

You know what would REALLY make this country great? The swift and safe return of accountability.

How the Media Could Rid Us of Trump

By Karen

When I watch TV pundits, I’m infuriated when they say things like, “If Trump runs in 2024,” or, “If Trump wins re-election,” or, “Trump’s making noises like he wants to run.”

WTF is wrong with them? Have they seen or heard that fat orange asshole lately? He’s a mess.

Every time CNN, MSNBC or any of Trump’s other “enemies of the people” give Trump a wisp of validation that his current grift is working, it’s fuel to him. It’s like feeding a Gremlin after midnight.

To destroy Trump and his delusion of regaining the White House after losing it by over 7 million votes, let’s follow Michael Cohen’s lead.

Remember Cohen? He was Trump’s lawyer/fixer who once said he’d “take a bullet” for the boss. Then he got three years in prison for a crime Trump made him commit and regained his senses.

Cohen’s under home confinement now and hosts a great podcast called Mea Culpa. It’s the only podcast I make time for because Trump always gets bashed.

(I also appreciate Lawrence O’Donnell’s Last Word because he heaps scorn and insults on Trump nearly every night. It feels like the next best thing to dancing on Trump’s grave.)

Cohen is sure Trump won’t run in 2024 because he’ll never risk the humiliation of losing again, and he never wanted the job in the first place. These days, he’s only stringing the MAGA cult along to keep wringing out campaign donations.

For some reason, Cohen never talks about Trump’s mental deterioration, so I’ll add that Trump continues his disintegration. Listen to some of this audio captured by reporters Carol Leonnig and Phillip Rucker when they interviewed Trump for their new book, I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year.

Trump babbles the same old lies, delusions, exaggerations and boasts in disjointed fragments and nonsensical tangents. Afterward, Anderson Cooper says it sounded like “Nixon, drunk, rambling,” and it’s “stunning” to think Trump was ever president.

Perfectly put, Anderson.

The media MUST stop normalizing Trump and heed its own eyes and ears. Don’t clean up his quotes to be coherent for print. Reproduce the babbling as-is.

Listen to him for five minutes and realize it’s ridiculous to think he’ll be a factor in 2024.

And that’s without considering all the investigations into myriad felonies that — if there’s any justice left — will send him to prison.

Talking heads need to embrace that any next move for Trump other than bankruptcy, incarceration, or incapacitation is patently absurd. Because it is.

Any commentator who says, “If Trump runs in 2024,” should get a hearty laugh. Incredulity and ridicule must be our blanket response to Trump as anything but a political has-been who’s finished.

It would CRUSH him.

Inspired by Joseph Goebbels, Trump likes to say, “If you say it enough and keep saying it, they’ll start to believe you.”

How about we start speaking the whole truth about Trump enough, and keep saying it, until even his cult can’t ignore it?

When he turns on the TV, Trump needs to see himself belittled, mocked and dismissed on every network. His media outlets will shrink to Fox and OAN until they can’t stand listening to his delusional kvetching another minute and cut him off.

Then we can stick a fork in Trump. He’s done.

As for those clowns in Congress who still prop Trump up, like Kevin McCarthy, Ted Cruz, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, they get the same treatment — derisive laughter until they STFU.

Just a thought.

Biden’s Trip Makes Everyone Feel Better

By Karen

For starters, while Biden was in Europe, it was great that we saw no pictures of world leaders wrinkling their noses behind his back because he’d crapped his pants. Or of Biden throwing a fit at a state dinner because he wasn’t served burnt steak with ketchup. Or of Biden declaring war in a speech on some country whose leader took offense at Biden shoving him during a photo op.

No, Biden navigated the G7, tea with the Queen at Buckingham Palace, a NATO summit, and a side trip to Geneva to rendezvous with Putin without heaping any more humiliation on us.

Remember Trump’s big meeting with Putin back in 2018 in Helsinki? They talked for several hours alone about God-knows-what, and we still don’t know. But this is how Trump looked after their tête-à-tête…

The only thing missing from this photo is Trump’s studded dog collar and leash.

At their joint press conference later, Putin may have been shaking Trump’s hand, but he was mentally twisting Trump’s balls into a knot…

Photo: Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Fast-forward to two days ago when Putin faced off with President Biden. Instead of cowering under the threat of a pee-pee tape premier or massive debts to Russian oligarchs suddenly coming due, Biden showed up armed with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and plenty of other American witnesses to take notes…

Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP

The difference in Putin’s demeanor with Biden is stark. While Biden sat straight, looking confident and collected, Putin slouched like an insolent slob. He knew that even with all his manspreading, nobody was wondering who swung the biggest dick.

Speaking of dicks, Putin also for once didn’t try his signature passive-aggression of keeping Biden waiting, as he’s done with Obama and many others…

After the summit, Biden wisely skipped the joint press conference and denied Putin the opportunity to preen and pretend to be an equal. Instead, they met with reporters separately, and Putin seemed to deeply miss playing with his Trump puppet. He told a reporter…

“In life there is no happiness; only the specter of it. There is only a mirage on the horizon. So cherish that.”

Huh?

Before his face-off with Putin, Biden mended fences with our former allies so they could unclench their sphincters, relieved at not being forced to kowtow to another arrogantly American abject moron.

But the world still needs irrefutable proof that Trump was only an aberration. Biden needs to encourage all law enforcement agencies to start kicking ass and flush Trump’s treasonous scum out of our government at every level.

Attorney General Merrick Garland is clearly not up to the task. I KNEW Biden should have put Sally Yates over the Justice Department. By now, she’d have Trump neck-deep in federal indictments, instead of letting him wander freely around Manhattan like a dementia patient on a day trip, trying to remember why people are staring at him…

You still think Trump isn’t too far gone? Get a load of him calling in to Sean Hannity and admitting, very clearly, “We didn’t win.” (0:35)…

Last night 06/16/2021 on Fox News during Sean Hannity telephone interview with Trump, Trump fully admits he lost to Biden. How is this not major breaking news?! pic.twitter.com/95moeYzyYU

— TheRealJoeFelker (@unsung_son) June 17, 2021

It’s Depressing to Be a Democrat

By Karen

After four years of Trump lying, gaslighting, and trying to kill us, survivors who retained a shred of sanity turned out in November — by a 7 MILLION-vote majority — to put a Democrat back in the White House. We expected Biden to deliver a swift return to honesty, decency, respect for the rule of law — and consequences for the crimes Trump and his cronies committed to our faces.

Unfortunately, we failed down-ballot to give Joe Biden large enough Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress to clean up the mess Trump left.

In a perfect world, Democrats would be flushing out the treason by expelling and indicting every member of Congress who enabled Trump’s presidential crime spree, which would include Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Rubio, Cruz and many others.

Instead, riffing on Star Trek lingo, Democrats are letting Republicans put the needs of the few (themselves) above the needs of the many (us).

And if that weren’t enough, Senate Democrats saddled with with the most abjectly stupid member, Joe Manchin, are letting him put the imbecilic needs of the ONE (himself) above the needs of ALL.

For instance, just 35 Senate Republicans were able to squash a January 6 commission, back-stabbing the Democratic majority who foolishly gave them every concession they demanded. By doing nothing in the aftermath, it looks like Democrats may let their treasonous colleagues’ complicity in Trump’s insurrection remain hidden forever.

You know the old saying, “Fool us once, shame on you…”?

Congressional Democrats would finish it: “Fool us EVERY TIME, grind the government to a halt, no problem.”

Manchin insists on keeping the filibuster because he still believes in Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the existence of 10 “good” Republicans. All by his lonesome — thanks to a fucked-up 50/50 Senate — Manchin can destroy all hope of getting the country back on track. Even though he heard, same as we did, that Moscow Mitch and his Murderous Minority will stop at nothing to make Biden fail.

Speaking of Trump, why is he still loose? The moment he left Washington, he should have been arrested and sentenced as “Individual 1” in the Stormy Daniels payoff crime that still has Michael Cohen under house arrest. Trump, confirmed in court as the mastermind, is MORE guilty than Cohen, yet, he’s free to spew demented lies and tear apart sanity itself to keep his MAGA cult sending him money and plotting a coup.

And how about that new attorney general, Merrick Garland? Who knew he’d be Bill Barr’s Mini-Me, covering for and defending Trump at every turn?

As I was writing this post, I read in The Washington Post that the DOJ is also fighting to keep hidden records from the Trump Hotel near the White House. The hotel where Trump raked in bribes from countries who booked rooms and events to curry favor.

I’ve had it. Chuck Schumer should be kicking McConnell and Manchin ass until they cooperate, and Nancy Pelosi should be hosting egg rolls of Republican heads down the Capitol steps to clean out the treason and corruption in the House.

Instead, they just talk, talk, talk and do NOTHING while McConnell responds with that creepy toothless, lipless grin of his.

Trump gave a speech in North Carolina last week, showing up in such a baggy, tatty blue suit that everyone thought he had his pants on backwards. Take a look at the babbling idiot Republicans are staking their futures on…

Depressed, disappointed, despairing, disillusioned, distraught, desperate. That’s how I feel. We voted for Democrats to hold Trump accountable and punish him for his crimes. We were counting on them to preserve the democracy Republicans are bent on destroying. But if Democrats refuse to do it, even though it means their own destruction, we’re doomed.

BONUS: The Boston Globe is publishing a six-part editorial series called “Future-Proofing the Presidency.” It calls outright for Trump to be held criminally accountable for obstructing justice. (The link works even if you don’t subscribe.)

Jan. 6 Rioters Peeling Away from Trump

By Karen

But first, a trailer for the Anthony Bourdain HBO documentary, Roadrunner, debuting at the Tribeca Film Festival June 11, in theaters July 16…

At 1:59, see a nanosecond of Tony in a red sports car with a brunette whose identity I can only suspect. The more her existence gets erased, the more heinously criminal I believe her involvement in his final days. Call me the suspicious type.

Now, to the present…

The FBI has rounded up roughly 500 Capitol rioters. Those with clean records are getting slapped wrists. But the violent ones caught on camera face felonies and promise to be great entertainment at their trials.

FYI, here’s a Justice Department list of everyone arrested and charged. Another list at Insider.com includes personal details on the perps.

The minute TV cameras stopped rolling, Trump forgot these people exist. Without presidential pardons, desperate defense lawyers are floating, “My client is too stupid to live.”

If we didn’t have such a woke culture, they’d be calling their clients the “R” word.

Defense places all blame on Trump, his enablers and Fox “News” for dishing out a diet of lies to ignorant dupes, and claims they bear as much responsibility as the rioters.

Essentially, defense hopes to thread a needle with an elephant. They can’t go all-out and declare their clients mentally incompetent, because that lets Trump and Fox slither off the hook. Instead, the rioters were relentlessly attacked by incendiary rhetoric and finally succumbed on January 6.

Prosecutors are going to love destroying this argument.

As convicted rioters begin marching off to prison, MAGA cultists who stayed home 1/6 but still believe the Big Lie are left no choice but to wonder where their own willingness to continue eating Trump-Fox garbage may lead.

Rioter Anthony Antonio (the guy who screamed nonsensically about it being 1776), has said: “I kind of sound like an idiot now saying it, but my faith was in him [Trump].”

Antonio’s lawyer Joseph Hurley explained, “You can catch this disease.” Misinformation “is not a defense. It’s not. But it will be brought up to say: This is why he was there. Because he was a dumbass and believed what he heard on Fox News.”

I would add, and because he probably flunked history.

Footnote: Antonio has never voted in a presidential election, so he had no skin in the game.

With a pandemic fresh in their minds, MAGA cultists who hear these dipshits called, by their own lawyers, dumbasses who caught “Big Lie Disease” may realize they’re also infected.

Who needs COVID or masks when you can ingest toxic lies from your TV until your brain mush no longer comprehends that a guy who gets the fewest votes is the LOSER?

The lawyer for “QAnon shaman” Jacob Chansley claims repeated exposure to lies overwhelmed Chansley’s ability to discern reality (and fashion, obviously)…

Although I despise them, I don’t think all cultists are 100% evil — they’re ignorant. They’ll get the shock of their lives when the trials reveal exactly how Trump and Fox have twisted their sad little minds.

Defections are happening already. On Memorial Day in Florida, Trump falsely claimed “thousands” of boaters waved Trump flags on parade. WTSP in Tampa Bay reported…

Just north of the former president’s residence at Mar-a-Lago, “Trump 2024” flags waved in the wind as dozens of boats took to the water.

Two days later, Trump pulled the plug on his 29-day-old From the Desk of blog to “put it out of its misery” (his words) because few were reading.

Trump’s ability to spread poison is waning. His mental faculties are more often discussed than his positions on anything, especially since his delusion that he’ll regain power in August. He’s making no major personal appearances with press allowed. The great showman who lives to feed off crowds like an energy vampire will be babbling remotely via Jumbotron at a Wisconsin rally on June 12.

Rioters’ trials condemning the “Foxitis” contagion and Trump’s growing inability to hide his dementia should thin the cult. Treasonous Republicans still courting Trump’s dwindling base may find themselves like Wile E. Coyote come reelection…

BONUS: Searching YouTube, I came upon this golden oldie cat video that still makes me laugh. In the original version, these cats were meowing at each other. Then someone gave them dialogue…

Republicans Continue Their Spiral Down the Drain

By Karen

Today, all but six Senate Republicans voted against (or were too chicken to vote on) formation of an outside commission to investigate the January 6 Capitol riot. The expression of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski — who voted for the commission — seems to sum up the reaction of all decent people to this new depravity…

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a news conference he thinks they’re all afraid of Trump. I don’t agree at all. Trump has no clout anymore. He’s an idiot babbling from the fringe about imaginary crimes against him. He thinks his dwindling cult of ignorant, gullible racists will somehow kick Biden to the curb and restore Trump to the White House. He’s in La-La Land.

Reality is that Trump is about to be balls-deep in legal trouble, now that a grand jury in New York has begun digging into his dirtiest financial secrets. What’s left of his rotting brain will be too occupied with trying to evade prison to care about who’s in or out of Congress.

Power-hungry sycophants who helped Trump stage the insurrection will be swinging in the breeze if they expect to win reelection with Trump’s endorsement.

Without a bipartisan commission, House and Senate Democrats are now free to do their own investigations and here’s what I predict they’ll uncover about their morally bankrupt colleagues:

• Phone records of conversations with “constituents” who subsequently got arrested for their roles in the riot.
• Logs showing they scheduled or personally conducted tours of the Capitol to help the insurrectionists case the joint.
• Meetings with Trump and his circle to plan how to overthrow the election by any means, the riot being just one component.

MOST fearful of this exposure because of their intimate involvement and coordination are Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell. It’s the only explanation for their total obstruction of finding motives and means.

Let’s face it, the Republican Party no longer exists. It has decomposed into a pack of traitors who want to install a dictator, naively thinking they’ll be showered with money and power for their devotion. To achieve that end, they’re willing to cheat, lie, steal and sabotage every democratic system we’ve got.

In a word, Republicans are the party of treason. Here’s the definition, straight from Merriam-Webster…

1: the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign’s family

2: the betrayal of a trust: TREACHERY

They fight the Biden presidency, and every good thing he’s trying to do for Americans, while continuing to toady to a demented, decisively defeated wannabe dictator.

They are A-OK with a gallows erected for the former vice president at the Capitol. Nothing to see there. Move on.

They call rioters “ordinary tourists” despite the WORLD watching them scream, fight and beat police with Trump flags while trying to find congresspeople to attack.

They support election “fraudits” like the travesty in Arizona, but only attempt them where they have willing cheaters in red state legislatures to help.

This sick behavior all boils down to treason. Until they’re brought to justice and punished — or at the very least, driven out of Congress by disgusted voters (who DO outnumber the cult) — democracy as we know it is doomed. They will befoul every future election until we eradicate them. And we must. They’ve given us no choice.