MPS has the tapes on Trump’s shoes.
There’s the Evidence
MPS has the tapes on Trump’s shoes.
Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts
We went out for breakfast this morning. Over at the next table, we heard a woman rave about what a great choice J.D. Vance was as a veep choice. “He’s so smart,” she enthused.
Sure, smart. I’d say Vance has the morals, ethics, and principles of a snake, but that would be an insult to snakes.
He has the same morals, ethics, and principles of Trump, though. They’re a perfect match and neither can be trusted.
Monday’s Theme Music
Mood: gagging
Hi everyone, it’s Monday, July 15, 2024, in Ashlandia. It’s 71 F here. We expect a high of 97 F, about five degrees above our average for July. BUT yesterday was exected to top out at 96, 97, and we ended up with 102 at my house.
July 15 happens to be my little sister’s birthday, so happy b’day, little sis. Two years younger than me, she was the family baby until a couple other little sisters showed up six years later. Just found one on the doorstep in Wilkinsburg, PA, one year, and then another followed a few years later. I love all these little sisters. The oldest little sister is now a grandmother and one of her granddaughters is now in her teens. A common story but still freakin’ amazin’ to me, because time, circumstances, change, you know.
I think about her often. She’s Republican and her hubby is deep MAGA. Her boys are deeply progressive. It’s an interesting household.
Yes, I read the news today, oh boy. Judge Cannon took a dump on us. It’s just one GOP dump after another.
In this instance, an ex-prez took docs he wasn’t supposed to take and actively worked to hide them and stop them from being taken away from him. But gosh, that special counsel, Cannon says, not sure that’s legitimate. I feel like I’m listening to the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. Honestly, my faith in that case soured as soon as I learned who the judge was. I figured she’d wait until after the elections to dismiss it. But it’s a July surprise.
Move on, you say, move on. Yes, it’s going to take me a while. Between the Trump-loaded Roberts Court giving Trump cover and now the Trump appointee dismissing the case, my trust in the legal system has crashed through the floor and is mired somewhere in the Earth’s core. Using the Spinal Tap scale of 1 – 11, my confidence level in American justice is at minus 6,232,716.
“Hungry As A Wolf” by Duran Duran is percolating in the morning mental music stream (Trademark shaken). Not much surprise for the 1982 song, as I was hungry for both breakfast and justice. I took care of the former. Still hungering for the latter.
Ah, be strong, right? That’s what I tell myself. And stay positive. And have a sip of coffee, and maybe a longer, deeper swallow. Okay, here we go. Here’s the music. Cheers
Point of Order
Someone shot at Donald Trump on Saturday, 7/14/2024. A 20-year-old white male armed with a rifle, hit Trump in the ear during a Trump rally in Pennsylvania.
Not to make light of it or to excuse anyone, but hey, there are headlines out there that have been out for a while, covering a comment Trump made:
“Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the country, that’ll be the least of it.“
In the entire context of his speech, Trump is talking about an economic bloodbath. But in an era of sound bites, his statement easily becomes a trigger warning. It’s often been quoted as something as other than economics. Plus, coupled with GOP politicians refusing to say that they will accept the election throws fuel on the situation.
In the wake of the shooting, Republicans like Rep. Mike Johnson are calling for toning down the rhetoric. I urge Johnson to clean his own house up before he starts on others. Look back on Jan. 6 and what happened then.
As Donald Trump mouthed as he was hustled off stage after being shot, “Fight. Fight. Fight.”
Saturday’s Theme Music
Mood: Weary
Not enough sleep last night. Tucker (pronounced Tuckah) matters. Just not eating enough. Aging, etc.
Also, dreams. Lot of weird freakin’ dreams.
A gray-blue sky covers us as smoke from a fire somewhere has made our valley its destination. 70 F now, weather forecasts paint us as hot — 100 F — dry, and dusty. This is Saturday, 7/13/2024.
The weather seers have revised our upcoming weather, so it’s gonna be hotter than we’d hoped. Not in triple digits, but just under it. We were all looking for a break.
The media is suddenly loud and big on Project 2025. Stories are leading across the mediascape about all the ways ultraconservatives under a Trump presidency want shove foundational changes to our freedom and rights, along with the way we do business. Their dream is of unshackled big business making obscene profits (as if current profit levels aren’t obscene) with no concern about the environment or planet, led by a ‘christian’ (as they define it) government, with an executive branch chasing vendettas
Out on the campaign trail, President Biden is striking back at critics who demand he step aside with fiery speeches and assertive attacks on Trump. On the GOP side, the media publish pieces with gentle chiding, even chuckling tones about Trump’s latest crazy rant in June about water and the New Green Deal.
“They put restrictors and they put them on in places like here where there’s so much water you don’t know what to do with it. You know, it’s called rain. It rains a lot in certain places. But, now their idea, you know, did you see the other day? They just, I opened it up and they closed it again. I opened it, they close it, washing machines to wash your dishes. There is a problem. They don’t want you to have any water. They want no water.”
That’s part of Trump’s statement. ‘I opened it, they close it, washing machines to wash your dishes. There is a problem. They don’t want you to have any water. They want no water.’
This is coherent, intelligent discourse about water-saving measures? Yet few call for Trump to step aside, pass the baton, or let young leadership step forward. Crazy.
Thinking about Trump and what he’s said and done since he’s come on the political scene back in 2016 inspired The Neurons. They rang up Paul Simon’s song “Still Crazy After All These Years” from 1975 and have it playing in my morning mental music stream (Trademark sedated).
Be positive, remain strong, and Vote Blue in 2024. I have an appointment with coffee I must get to. Here’s the music. Cheers
Beware of the Poison
So, to recap. Without significant opposition, the GOP decided that Donald Trump is the ideal candidate to be President of the United States — again. He barely won in 2016 and lost the popular vote by millions in 2020.
But he is the GOP nominee again because he is an ultraright tool. The ultraright people propelling him forward is an elite, powerful group called the Heritage Foundation.
A conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation emerged with a manifesto to install many conservative idealists and Trump loyalists in the Federal government. It explicitly defines exactly how ultraright there are. Although not fully marching in time together, they plan to ignore or change laws with a conservative Roberts’ Court help, including such matters of separation of church and state. This is known as Project 2025: Mandate for Leadership: A Conservative.
The document has gained traction on the losing side of Americans’ thinking as they recognize what serious threats to democracy and freedom in the United States the document holds. Recent polls show every group except MAGAs disapprove of it.
That’s the backdrop. As this all unfolded in the public realm, Donald Trump began disavowing any knowledge of the document. He didn’t even know what it was, he claimed. It has nothing to do with us, his campaign declared. That’s because Trump’s handlers he began realizing that most Americans do not like its proposals and there is a strong chance for him to lose votes because of it. “Full reverse, all engines,” they screamed.
Unfortunately for Donald J., there it is, video evidence from April of 2022. Donald J. Trump was out there in front of a crowd, cheerleading the document known as Project 2025. “They’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do,” he said.
There it is. Despite his efforts to lie his way out of it, he is a firm player in this document’s efforts to remake the United States into a ‘christian’ nation, undermining our founders’ deliberate efforts to be an open and inviting nation for all faiths.
You know it must be bad when Donald Trump does an about face and runs hard away from it. The guy will put his name on anything from tennis shoes to buildings if he thinks it’ll bring him power, respect, or money. For him to claim, “I know nothing,” means it’s really fucking bad.
Project 2025 is a dangerous and radical vision with a feckless, useful idiot as the face. But mistake it not: it’s a poison pill for liberty, equality, and democracy in America.
Vote Blue.
Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts
Donald Trump is claiming that he doesn’t know anything about the medieval document known as Project 2025: Mandate for Leadership: A Conservative Promise. And although the man is an unrepentant liar, known for lying almost every time he opens his mouth — especially if it’s being recorded — I believe he is telling the truth.
Yes, CNN and others have substantially documented the ties between Trump and the document’s authors. But first, we know that Trump doesn’t like to read. Second, he has demonstrated that he’s as dim as a burned-out light bulb.
I mean, come on, man. Remember his suggestions for treating COVID-19, like putting a light in your body?
Recall his history lesson about the American Revolutionary War when he noted, “Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do.” (My emphasis added, to point out, the world didn’t have airports in the 1770s).
What about his claim as President that Americans need an ID to “buy a box of cereal”?
So, yes, I certainly believe that he knows nothing about Project 2025. And that — his consistent stupidity and deep-rooted idiocy — is the reason he should not be elected.
The Play’s the Thing
My wife and I watched a fascinating and troubling film called Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy. This documentary answers those questions so many of us wrestle with about why ‘christians’ embrace and support Donald Trump.
This is about poseurs claiming to be patriots and freedom-loving Americans setting out to tear down the nation as it is and its ‘liberal institutions’. Their ideal for freedom, the pursuit of happiness, and liberty is for you to behave as they want, full stop. Democracy and the Constitution aren’t important in their minds; it is about their religion and their false ideas that the United States was founded as a christian nation. The polarization we’re experiencing is a deliberate and coordinated cultivation of wedge issues. Donald Trump is not one of them; he’s a convenient tool to advance their agenda. The two sides made a deal. He agreed to supply the SCOTUS justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, and they agreed to support and promote him as the GOP candidate.
These are cynics who will lie to support their goal of a theocratic America, users and abusers who have declared war on anyone in the U.S. who is not part of their movement. They’re indifrerent to Trump’s morals, dishonesty, rapes, lies, and criminal convictions because he’s just a tool and works fine for them and their needs.
And after you watch Bad Faith, watch the Lincoln Project ad about Donald Trump and Project 2025.
Voting in 2024 is about saving democracy in the United States. That’s not just a slogan. A war is beng waged against democracy in the U.S. and Donald Trump is the tool we always suspected. We just didn’t realize how deeply organized and cynical the machinery behind him is.
Not Old News
Journalists and the media seem to have concluded that Trump has lied so much that they no longer report it. Continuing to make insane claims, such as in this instance, about electric boats being too heavy to float and getting electrocuted if they sink, they’re also shrugging. Yet they relentlessly go on about President Biden’s age.
This is from the Robert Reich July 8, 2024 column that I’m sharing from Jill Dennison’s post.
“So I said, ‘Let me ask you a question,’ and [the South Carolinian] said, ‘Nobody ever asked this question,’ and it must be because of MIT, my relationship to MIT — very smart. He goes, I say, ‘What would happen if the boat sank from its weight? And you’re in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery is now underwater and there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 yards over there?’
This story and its absolutely bonkers points should be all over the news every day. This is the individual the GOP is supporting for the powerful position of President of the United States.
Donald Trump is claiming an electric boat would be so heavy it would sink. Really? Really?? Really???
So, that electric boat would be heavier than all those cruise ships out there? You’re probably seen the ads for these floating cities lit up with electricity at night. These electric boats will be heavier than battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and aircraft carriers? They all float, don’t they?
The largest aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy is the USS Nimitz. It weighs over 100,000 long tons. It typically carries 64 full-sized aircraft on it and has a crew of 5,000. Yet, it doesn’t sink. It floats. Moreover, it has a nuclear powerplant and nobody is getting electrocuted.
Yes, the story was briefly covered, mocked, really, in the USA Today, NewsWeek, MSNBC, Washington Post and other outlets. But, come on, man, think about what Donald Trump was asking and claiming. Think about the fact that millions are promoting as the next POTUS.
IMO, Donald J. Trump shouldn’t be anywhere near an important office where decisions are made regarding the welfare of the nation. That the GOP fully supports this man who wonders about getting electrocuted by an electric boat says boatloads about what they are as a political organization.
That more media attention is being paid to President Biden’s age over Donald Trump’s remarks pretty well indicts our media as pretty damn useless when it comes to this election. As Jill put it, they’re failing miserably.
And then the media wonders why their readership keeps dropping.
Michael Seidel, writer 