December 29, 2023: Lord of the Flies, Beset and Beshit, Cannot Fool a Maggot

 

While making a rare campaign appearance in Iowa a few weeks ago, Caesar Disgustus was beset by a fly. There is something odd about the attraction flies have for ReSCUMlickans, the last Vice-Presidential debate immediately leaps to mind. Disgustus, harrowed by the flying insect, loudly protested his hate for flies. He should be careful flies produce maggots, and his maggots were in attendance.

It shouldn't come as any surprise; flies are attracted to shit. And there stood Donald J. tRUMP, beset and beshit.

Rumors have been circulating for years. Noel Casler, stage hand and celebrity handler who worked on the Celebrity Apprentice openly relates how tRUMP would, in a state of rage, shit himself on stage, that he wears adult diapers and has no control of his bowels.

All of this had lurked beneath the radar until recently when Adam Kinzinger, former Illinois Congressman and member of the January 6 Committee, asked on social media why no one has mentioned the stench that accompanies tRUMP's arrival. Suddenly the subject has gone 'viral' as the internet has lit up over speculations and confirmation that tRUMP does indeed smell like shit.

Suddenly, we were treated to videos of tRUMP farting, or shitting himself, in meetings with department heads and congressional leaders, the late Senator Dianne Feinstein being one soul unfortunate enough to be assigned a seat next to him; Turkish President Erdogan being another. It is no wonder that his wife won't ride in the same car with him.

Could it be that the 'orange' patina daily applied is not cosmetics at all but shit smeared upon his face? Nothing would surprise me. It explains his undying and unyielding support among his maggots who feed off such substance. This is what happens when one snorkels in the septic tank. In any case, one cannot fool a fly, drawn inexorably to shit as a filing to a magnet; you cannot fool a maggot either.

December 22, 2023

November 30, 2023: At Long Last, Kissassinger is Dead, War Crimes and Treason

 

Henry Kissassinger is finally, at long last, dead. He lived for a long century over half of which should have been spent in a penitentiary for war crimes as well as treason.

He began his sordid career as an analyst, playing war games, principally nuclear war games dispassionately calculating the relative millions that would be vaporized in the next war. He is said to have inspired the character in Stanley Kubrick's film "Dr. Strangelove".  He rose rapidly, working as a pentagon functionary flittering around the National Security Council in the Johnson administration while at the same time courting Republican Nelson Rockefeller, and later Richard Shithouse Nixon, during the presidential campaign of 1968. It was Kissinger who, using his connections with the U.S. delegation at the Paris Peace Talks, sent word to Nixon that a deal was all but done and would be concluded before the upcoming 1968 election. Nixon then sent word via Madame Chenault, a Filipino emigre married to an American Air Force officer with connections in Saigon, that the government of Nguyen Van Thieu should stall at Paris in anticipation of a better deal if Nixon were to win the election. It was Kissassinger who wormed his way into the emerging Nixon administration by selling out his adopted country.

Later, as National Security adviser, it was Henry who engineered the bombing of Laos and Cambodia, with orders to “kill anything that moved”, It was Henry who engineered the overthrow of the Allende government in Chile ushering in Augusto Pinochet; It was Henry who orchestrated the overthrow of the government of Argentina with similar results; it was Henry who supported the slaughter in East Timor by the Indonesian government. By some estimates Kissassinger was responsible for the deaths of some six million souls.

He gained his position by exhibiting a level of obsequiousness rare among subalterns. I used to regularly refer to him as “Kissassinger” because of his constant fawning before power. I had read the White House Transcripts published by The New York Times as the Watergate scandal was unfolding. Later my wife queried me about my use of the moniker, and then a television production based upon a verbatim reading of the Transcripts demonstrated the legitimacy of my characterization. “My god,” Kate exclaimed, “he really is a kiss ass!”

Nixon, whenever he needed reassurance, would call Henry into his office. “What do you think of my speech last night?” he would inquire. “Oh, Mr. President, that was the greatest speech I've ever heard, one of the best ever given by a president”, Kissassinger would intone. "You really think so?" Nixon would press him.  "Oh yes, Mr. President, it was beautiful, it was forceful, especially when you gave it to your enemies!", Henry would, on cue, bow and scrape in order to gain influence.  

He saw himself as the modern Metternich, the principal architect at Vienna, forgetting that Metternich fell prey to the machinations of Tallyrand.  Nevertheless, Henry soldiered on imagining himself, in the tradition of Metternich and Bismark, the modern practitioner of "realpolitik".  It was a grandiose proposition given the limited intelligence and vision of his main protagonist; for his imagined 'new world order' would not produce a 'century of peace' as Europe had known in the aftermath of the Congress of Vienna but wouldn't outlast his lifetime. 

Indeed, his famous Peace Accords of 1973 didn't even end hostilities in Vietnam and would lead, in a little more than two years to the collapse and defeat of our South Vietnamese allies finally ending the war.  Kissassinger, nevertheless, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for 'ending' the war, which his counterpart North Vietnamese Le Duc Tho refused to accept.  

He got rich in the bargain, opening up the far east, normalizing relations with China, Kissinger and Associates raked in millions mining the relationships with the Communists, acting as a gopher for multi-national corporations and the crony capitalists in Peking and Moscow.

He evaded prison, got filthy rich by selling out his country, posturing for decades as the senior statesman—the go-to-man during every international incident—on network television. He was one of the few in the Nixon administration to survive with his reputation intact. He should have been left rotting in prison.

Kissassinger is, at long last, dead. We can breathe a sigh of relief; the world is a now a better place.

November 5, 2023: Legacy of Guy Fawkes

October 30, 2023:

October 27, 2023:

September 29, 2023: Take The Greyhound, Rough Justice On Ya, Pop Up The Corn Martha

 

Indictments have been handed down in the case of the State of New York vs Donald J. tRUMP. New York Attorney General Lettia James has charged tRUMP with fraud and several other felony counts and is asking for at least 250 million dollars in relief along with the dissolution of the tRUMP Organization and the banishment of tRUMP and his larvae from doing business in New York. Imagine, Caesar Disgustus having his much vaunted “beautiful company” taken from him; imagine the tRUMP Organization placed in receivership; imagine the empire of Caesar Disgustus sold off for scrap. Caesar Disgustus, the all-time loser, is about to lose it all.

Pop up the corn, Martha. This is about to get interesting. Imagine, if you will, the stripping of most of the assets from this clown. Imagine him having to sell off that ridiculous jet aircraft. Imagine, if you will, Donald J. tRUMP reduced to taking the Greyhound to Washington and Atlanta to meet his serial rendezvous with justice. National television cameras transfixed on the spectacle of Caesar Disgustus and his Secret Service detail arriving at the depot, as he gets in line, as boards the Greyhound bus.

“It's midnight at the depot

as he drags his bags in line

travelin' light, he's got to go

but the bus won't be on time

everybody's looking half alive

later on, the bus arrives

they punch his ticket

and he finds a seat

and moves out past the lights

come on, driver

where's your heat?

It's cold out in the night” ----Harry Chapin, “Taxi” parody

Gone is the majesty of the overblown commercial jet transformed into a gouache, gold-painted obscenity. Gone is the stage prop holding up the trappings of a completely fraudulent persona. Gone is the pretense replaced by a stark reality: Caesar Disgustus stripped of his robe and sceptre figuratively standing in line naked, if you will, rubbing shoulders with the poor and the dispossessed.

“He's wrinkled on his stool

at the rest stop

the waitress being cozy

with the highway cop

coffee's tasting tired

his eyes roll over dead

got to go outside

and get the gas out of his head”

It would be rough justice, but justice long, long overdue.

“But there's nothing new about Greyhounds

nothing new about feeling down”

For the first time in his gilded existence, the snot-nosed little Lard Fauntleroy would know how “the other half” lives.

“Looking to tomorrow

that's the way the loser hides

he should have realized by now

that all of life's a ride

it's time to find some happy times

and make himself some friends

well you know there ain't no rainbows waiting

when this journey ends

Take the Greyhound

It's a dog of a way to get around

take the Greyhound

it's a doggone easy way to get you down”. (1)

One can only hope.

___________

1. genius.com/harry-chapin-greyhound-lyrics

September 19, 2023: Caesar Disgustus At The Colosseum

 

Criminal Defendant Donald tRUMP At Iowa State vs Iowa Football Game

August 27, 2023: Quote of the Day, Celebrity Arrival, Messianic Appeal

 

Quote of the Day:

"Mmmkay, And I'm 110lbs and a virgin! I'm not a scale or a doctor but I have spent some time beneath 215 pound men and Tiny was not one of them”

      ----Porn star Stormy Daniels referring to Donald Trump's claim at his arrest this week that he weighs just 215 pounds and, of course, to his 'tiny' dick. 

Of course he was allowed to self-report. Of course the nation's media covered his 'celebrity' arrival at the Fulton County Jail. Of course the cameras fixated upon our illustrious Caesar departing New Jersey in his outlandish 727 commercial aircraft and landing in Atlanta. Images of Disgustus deplaning to an awaiting motorcade. Televised coverage of the motorcade proceeding through blocked traffic as it snaked its way through the city. Hushed tones as news reporters covered his 'celebrity' arrival, proceeded by 24 motorcycle policemen and accompanied by at least a dozen vehicles. Of course he was allowed to 'self-report'. Of course he got out within minutes of his arrival. The way had been paved for him. 

Disgustus is nothing if not a creature entirely of the media. He owes his 'celebrity' status to the media and what it has made of him. His mythology is a complete media fabrication. Here he demonstrates his only talent by choosing to 'submit' to authority not only in prime time, but on his own terms; and the authorities let him do it.

His former consigliere Michael Cohen, disgusted at the spectacle, raged on the podcast Political Beat Down about the special treatment afforded Disgustus as he has serially made his way before the bars of justice. Honest citizens held up for hours on the roads and freeways. Police escorts. Cordoned off roads. No stoplights. No waiting in traffic. Wall-to-wall coverage except, of course, when he stood before several magistrates to make his ridiculous pleadings and, in this case, when he was fingerprinted and the infamous 'mugshot' was taken. They concluded the mockery of the process letting him declare his own weight and height. Stormy Daniels encapsulated the absurdity of the moment. Once again our dick-less Caesar, ever the Carnival Barker, had made a spectacle of the proceedings.

Politics as spectacle, television as spectacle, justice as spectacle. Everything is outlandish, exaggerated and totally out of proportion. The nation, indeed the world has long awaited an official accounting of his real wealth, here his real weight and height. Instead we were again treated to outlandish spectacle bordering on farce. 

Disgustus constantly whines about how he is treated so 'unfairly'. He declares that he is persecuted. This resonates with a population that reveres not the persecuted, but worships the persecuted ONE. It is fundamental to his emerging Messianic appeal.

But, like everything else tRUMP, this too is a fraud.

It is true that he is getting special treatment, but it is not persecution. No one else, and I mean no one else, would be allowed to self-report. No one else would have had the streets cordoned off and the way paved for his passage. No one else would have been allowed to determine the time of his arrival, been escorted by two dozen motorcycle policemen, nor would they have been conveyed in a motorcade. Any one else summoned to the Fulton County Jail would have had to wait for hours to be processed before being hauled before the magistrate and many, lacking bail, wouldn't have been allowed to return home. Disgustus was treated as a potentate, hardly different than if he were the sitting president of the United States. Not since the arrival of the Messiah at Jerusalem, preceded by the laying of palm branches, have we seen such a spectacle. Criminal defendant tRUMP is a private citizen charged with serious and several felonies. The spectacle belies his scumbaggery.

Of course, this is the point. Disgustus is seen as being in control, of being above the law and, as the Christian Messiah before him, condescending to 'submit' to authority but only on his terms. Once again, the powers that be have played into his hands.

Disgustus is a con and a fraud, as Dan Quayle was no JFK, Disgustus is no Jesus Christ, but he has always managed to keep one step ahead of his jailer.

“An' Br 'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison. 

July 9, 2023: Lawrence Freeman Hamp, Of Bones And Beads, Sail On Olde Friend

 

“Just yesterday morning

they let me know

you were gone...”

                   -----James Taylor Fire and Rain

We had lost touch, over the years. For more than half a century he had, several times, come and gone. He was a soulmate of my youth, so close we could complete each other's sentences.

I met him in Professor John Batchelder's Political Science class while attending college. He was eleven years my senior, was a high school drop-out,  and had spent the intervening years in the Coast Guard and Merchant Marine, but he didn't seem that old. There was about him a certain street-savvy, a certain savoir faire, a certain élan that I found, in my provincial inexperience, fascinating.

Ever the gregarious one, he simply walked up after class and introduced himself; “hi, I'm Larry Hamp, pleased to meet you”. His middle name, I later discovered was, more than appropriately, “Freeman”. So began a life-long, if often interrupted, bond.

This was in the fall of 1969. I had reached the mature age of 20, he was 31. I opposed the war, he supported it. Several spirited exchanges ensued, albeit always in private discussion, never in the Student Commons. It would take him about six months to finally come around and see it my way.

In his obituary, someone described him as a lifelong student. That he was, but I would describe him as a free-thinker, a wanderer who all those years ago set me out upon my own intrepid journey. You see, he had, in a sense, returned to old childhood haunts having seen the world. I was just beginning to break loose the confines of my origin. “Here, Señor”, he would intone as he would pass me a joint, “let me lead you astray”.

We would later light up in the basement of Professor Grey's home where he had for several months, after another divorce, taken up residence. Here he would regale me with tales of the high seas, of pulling victims who had drown from the Delaware River, of serving in Alaska. There was the story of flying into a base near Anchorage, while serving in the Coast Guard. The landing gear had failed to deploy and passengers and crew watched anxiously as the plane spent what seemed, according to Hamp, an eternity circling the airport in order to expend remaining fuel as the ground crew sprayed foam on the runway in preparation for the expected fire upon impact. “We made it”, Larry assured me, although the point was already obvious by his presence, “amidst the rattling of bones and beads”. He could turn a phrase.

Later in our collegiate experience we would meet again, this time in one of our History seminar classes, this one dealing with civil strife. The 1960's, after all, just in the rear-view-mirror. Professor Mapes assigned the two of us a project together, later telling me that he thought the combination would prove interesting. We had a choice between a major labor strike, I think it was the Great Railway Strike of 1877 and the New York City Draft Riots. I pressed for the Draft Riots having introduced myself, back in the spring of 1968, to the colorful history of mid-nineteenth century New York, the chicaneries of Tammany Hall, the political power of the the city's gangs, the city's disparities of hope and power.

“Oh I've seen fire and I've seen rain

I've seen sunny days

That I thought would never end

I've seen lonely times

when I could not find a friend

But I always thought that I'd see you again

We spent the next 18 months or so researching and writing about the Draft Riots, intending to cement a reputation as historians by publishing a seminal book on the subject. We intended not only to consult primary resources but map the neighborhoods using the 1860 census to definitively describe the likely composition of the 'mobs' that took to the streets in the wake of the victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg. You see, Lawrence was deep in military history, especially nineteenth century military history. A descendant of Lord Nelson, he made himself familiar with the technologies and tactics, in this case grape and canister used upon the mob by artillery units fresh from Gettysburg.

However, graduation came upon us and we soon went our separate ways, he off to Western Michigan University, I accepted a full scholarship at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He spent several semesters at Western, I ended up returning to West Michigan in the wake of divorce.

It was Lawrence who met me at the airport as I landed in Detroit from Boston on March 27, 1973 my marriage in ruin. He had driven from Kalamazoo and it was good to see him. Like old times, if only bitter-sweet, a bit of continuity in the madness and just in time to witness, together, the unraveling of Richard Shithouse Nixon, whom we both despised.

I had returned, for what I planned would be a short summer experience, my old job at as projectionist at the theater—a job that paid better than any prospects at the moment—and get me through until I had time to re-group. I pogoed back and forth between sleeping on Larry's couch and my brother's Dennis' front porch as we all watched the scandal unfold. It was splendid diversion in what were personally very difficult days.

At one point, during the Spring of '73, Larry said to me: “Champ, when I met you there were books all over your apartment. You were reading 5 or 6 books at a time. I haven't seen you reading anything at all, that mind of yours will atrophy if this continues.” He then presented me with a stack of books, including De Tocqueville's work, Edmond Burke's “Reflections on the Revolution in France”, and “The Federalist Papers”, all part of a boxed set of conservative classics (he had openly campaigned for Barry Goldwater, after all), as well a book on militarism and a biography of John Paul Jones. His motto: “Why reason when simple force will do”, Lawrence would invariably return to the military and to the sea.

In the spring of '74, I found myself up in Chassell, Michigan high up in 'Yupper' country; that's Michigan's upper peninsula, otherwise known as 'copper country'. Lawrence had lined up work with a landscaping firm planting trees on the embankment between Michigan Tech and the channel separating the Keweenaw peninsula from the rest of the U.P. I had applied for a managers position with Butterfield Theaters, after years working as a projectionist with the company, and was awaiting assignment. I thought, “why not?” and went north, spending a couple of months in copper country finally returning to take up management of the Vista Drive-In Theater in Grand Rapids in August of '74 returning in time to share with my brother Dennis old 'Shithouse's resignation.

Lawrence and I would correspond over the next couple of years. He made the journey south a couple of times to visit friends and family, he being a native of Hastings, Michigan a city located about 30 miles southeast of Grand Rapids, during which we would re-connect.

But, alas, we would once again drift apart.

Then, facing another marital crisis, this a second divorce, I found myself needing to hear that voice, to consult my old oracle, to seek an old touchstone. I called his ex-wife Nancy asking where I could find him. Nantucket she told me, by way of Richmond Virginia. This was early 1996. When I finally caught up with him he was back in Hastings, his parents growing old and frail, his brothers in the immediate neighborhood. His advice was to be kind to her and move on. Wisdom gleaned from years of experience, wisdom that should have been heeded during my first divorce; wisdom from a man whose soul was well lived in; wisdom well taken. My second divorce, though much more painful than the first, turned out much better. I remained in my child's life, my ex and I sharing custody.

In any case, life made its demands, time slips away, days, weeks, months, years. I always thought that we would return to the 'project' and finish the work; but always suspected that we wouldn't. Lawrence, a 'life-long professional student' as his eulogist described him in his obituary, was always about leaving loose ends. His curiosities, as well as the demands of simply making ends meet, would get the better of him and he would move on. He was a sailor. Under sail, one makes a thousand course corrections. We had that in common.

“Let me set you free,” he would intone. The straight-laced, up-tight, goal obsessed young man he met in the fall of 1969 would, by degrees, learn to relax, learn to 'let go' and evolve into a bohemian troubadour; like himself, a wanderer.

Lawrence was an agent sent to help me complete what I had set out to do all those years ago, when I was fifteen or so: to retrieve the little boy, lost in his youth. To rediscover the wonderment, the curiosity crushed by childhood; to see the world stripped naked in awe of it's complexity and marvel at its beauty

“Let me lead you astray”....

It was a commandment to think outside the box, to eschew convention and shed the straight-jacket of conventional wisdom, to see things anew. Precisely.

I had last seen Lawrence back in 2008 as Obama put the 'Straight-Talking Express' on a permanent siding. I talked him into submitting what would turn out to be a couple of contributions to these columns but we would again go our separate ways. But as we observe the 50^th anniversary of the summer of 73, a half-century since John Dean testified before Senator Sam Ervin's Select Committee on Watergate, I once again sought out my old soulmate only to find that he had loosed the bonds of this mortal coil and is now, at last, free. Sail on, olde friend, sail on.

 "I've seen fire and I've seen rain

I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end

I've seen lonely times, when I could not find a friend

But I always thought that I'd see you again."

I always thought that I'd see you one ... more,,, time...again.

_______

1. For an example of his very descriptive writing style and my analytically acerbic response to the inspiration see Protagonist: November 6, 2008: Big Wind at Nantucket, A Hurricane Boat Wreck, Misadventures of 'Maverick' (wandererandshadow.blogspot.com) 

And my response; Protagonist: November 7, 2008: A Splendid Wreck, Not A Sailor in the Lot, Wretched Exhibition of Seamanship. (wandererandshadow.blogspot.com)

June 30, 2023: Upon Its Head, Pretzel Logic, Depravity Becomes Virtue

 

“It is extraordinary that anyone would have the nerve to declare such failure victory; to declare such depravity virtue; to declare such lying truthful; and to declare such treachery patriotic.”

          ----Steve Schmidt

Steve Schmidt is, famously, John McCain's former presidential campaign manager, notable for elevating Sarah Palin to national political prominence and for placing the call to Senator Barack Obama in order for McCain to concede the 2008 election. Schmidt is one of several prominent Republicans driven by the stench of Caesar Disgustus into the arms of a welcoming and broadening Democratic coalition now including such notables as former Republican Florida Congressman Jollie, former political operative Rick Wilson, columnists George Will and Bill Kristol, and former chairman of the Republican National Committee Rick Steele. This leaves the Democratic Party as the only major political organization defending this republic.  This is the consequence of what happens when the world is stood upon its head. 

Schmidt as Wilson are founding members of The Lincoln Project, a notorious anti-tRUMP effort organized to defeat Disgustus and his minions; an effort that has met with some success.  This is a group of hardened political operatives who have wasted their talents and their youth on building a movement that, to their dismay, has now reached its logical and inevitable maturity.  It was always hell-bent on fascism, for wealth and defense of wealth as an organizing political principle is always anti-democratic and, if allowed to metastasize. will in due course become, as it now has, a threat to the republic. 

"Get big or get out"  former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz admonished farmers during the Ford administration. This will lead, by degrees and inevitably, to concentrations of wealth and power which, by degrees and inevitably leads to oligarchy, the very conditions that the ancient Athenians found intolerable and created Democracy itself in order to ameliorate.  

That's right, Democracy, the power of the people, was created in the first place in order to address the maldistribution of wealth which had imposed itself upon the polity.  These are lessons not taught in our public or private schools; we have passed down to us the form but not the substance; the institutions and the process but not their purpose.  We have been taught to venerate the institutions of democratic and, later, republican governance, but not the reasons for their being called into existence in the first place.  

This lack of proper grounding is further compounded by our schoolmarms proclivity to press upon impressionable youth the wretched pulp fictions of Henry David Thoreau and Ayn Rand, both self-absorbed third-rate writers who are passed down to us as political philosophers. Is it any wonder that confusion becomes complete in the laments expressed so eloquently by Mr. Schmidt this morning on his podcast?  Note the sense of bewilderment, the sense of betrayal, the serial violations of revealed innocence.  Think about it.  Ayn Rand boldly declared greed a virtue.  If one blindly accepts this pretzel logic how can one be surprised when, in due course, depravity also becomes virtue, lying morphs into truth and treachery patriotism. 

It is heartening to witness Steve Schmidt emerge from the thickets. One marvels, given his pronounced intelligence, what took him so long. 

 ________   

1. Schmidt, Steve. “Chris Christie Rejects Donald Trump; Ron DeSantis' Fascistic Rhetoric”, “The Warning” podcast June 30, 2023.

June 29, 2023: He is Raging, Our Erstwhile Caesar, Emerging Messianic Complex

 

“He is raging

he is raging

and the storm blows up in his eyes

he will

suffer the legal chill

he's running to stay

out of jail”

----”Running to Stand Still” --U2 parody

“But there is another, more pressing, reason that Disgustus will make the attempt to regain his former 'glory'. He will run again. He has to run again. He needs to run again in order to stymie the prosecution of his serial crimes”, these columns noted back in December, 2021.(1) Caesar Disgustus is now at wits end. Indeed, the walls are closing in. He is a cornered rat, desperate to find any way out of this miserable trap he has set for himself.

“The republic is”, it has been observed, “being gored upon the horns of a dilemma: once he makes his announcement, if not sooner, he will charge that any action brought against him will be politically motivated; done for crass partisan advantage and, therefore, of no account. On the other hand, failure to bring him to justice will give him license to claim exoneration” (2) and, we might add, pillage the republic.

So it was hardly surprising that Disgustus, our erstwhile Caesar, should nearly a year later announce his candidacy days after the midterm election—months before any such announcement should have been forthcoming—because he knew that the sword of Justice is about to descend upon his sorry fat ass. Indictments were “imminent” according to Fulton County District Attorney Fanni Willis, although it is unclear, at this juncture, if she understands the meaning of the word.

Nevertheless, in order to keep the forces of civilization and decency at bay, Disgustus took to the stage and announced to the Maggots duly assembled (3) that he is indeed running for President. It is clear that he is running not to further an agenda, but to stay out of jail.

What is new, however, is the honing and 'refining' of his message. It has morphed from the simple whining and crying of a 'rigged' election, stolen from him in the dead of night, into a more messianic, bordering on theological, appeal. The latest 'twist' in the pretzel logic that is always tRUMP, is that he now presents himself to his Maggots as the 'shield' protecting the 'Deep State' from his Maggots. This proposition comes very close to “he sacrificed himself for your sins”, and god, should something happen to Disgustus, like mother nature taking its course, it is not difficult to imagine “Maggotland” quickly concluding that their erstwhile Caesar was sacrificed for them and will, in due course, return to reign for a thousand years.

This is the peril in which this nation now finds itself.

Imagine, if you will, Disgustus gets convicted and sent to prison and, from natural causes, expires therein. He is, after all, 77 years old and now past his sell-by date. You know what will transpire. The deeply paranoid and conspiracy driven idiot wrong in this country will first deny that their great Emperor has expired. Absent his return and deep in denial even as his remains are paraded before them it will, over time, evolve into a deep belief that their Caesar will, in the fullness of time and when he deems it appropriate, return to rule over what remains of this republic. We have already seen signs of this: the gathering in Dealey Plaza, Dallas to await the return of JFK and/or JFK jr. to rule beside their beloved Caesar. It is not difficult to imagine them doing the same thing with tRUMP. He has, after all, declared himself the “Chosen One”, and has long behaved as though he sits at the right hand of G.O.P., I'm sorry, GOD himself.

This is the legacy of Robertson and Falwell, of Evangelical 'Jesus-Junkies” taking over a major political party. This is a population taught at near birth to worship; that their greatest happiness is found upon their knees; that their 'salvation' rests in the hands of one man. It is not difficult to imagine where this leads.

Disgustus has taken possession of the juncture where politics intersects mental illness. His Megalomania has now become an emerging Messianic Complex. From the Great Businessman, to the Great President, to the Great Savior. The Great Savior against whom the Republic has no standing; hence the assertion that only he is the legitimate head of state; the assertion that as 'president' he can do whatever he wishes; hence the call to repeal anything in the Constitution that stands in his way.

Caesar Disgustus is a clear and present danger. Caesar Disgustus holds the Republic hostage in order to outrun his jailer.

“An' Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison.

________

1. See https://wandererandshadow.blogspot.com/2021/12/december-29-2921.html

2. ibid.

3. https://wandererandshadow.blogspot.com/2022/11/november-26-2022-gagging-maggot-seeking.html

June 27, 2023: 768 Days, Fittingly Obscene, Shit Against the Wall

 

"Justice delayed is justice denied”

          ----William Gladstone

 It took 768 days for the authorities to finally charge Donald John tRUMP with criminal violations of the law.  I suppose it is right and fitting that he should be first charged committing illegal campaign contribution by way of paying off a porn star: an act fittingly obscene and, as always with ReSCUMlickans, involving fucking with our elections.  Nevertheless, it took 768 days to bring charges that should have been brought immediately upon the orange scumbag leaving office.

 On the 8^th of this month, additional indictments came down resulting from Disgustus' theft of government documents, over 100 of which were highly classified.  Special Counsel Jack Smith, having been on the job about 7 months, has wasted little time on this line of investigation, but it nearly two years to get around to appointing Smith to do this job and has been 914 days since he purloined the material. 

 Disgustus has been careening about the country claiming that he has every right to the documents, that they are his, and that if the National Archives wants them, they must beg him for them.  This is ridiculous. These are public documents, created by public employees, for the use of public agencies and heads of departments and for the purpose of advising public policy.  They do not belong to him; they are not his personal property.

 Disgustus has, of course, excoriated Jack Smith even going so far as to instruct the Special Counsel on matters of law claiming that the appropriate law is the Presidential Records Act, not the Espionage Act he was cited for violating, given the classified nature of the material.  Disgustus is once again smearing with a mighty hand, fooling his woefully ignorant host by throwing shit against the wall and hoping it will stick.

 It is noted here that, so far, the government has charged Caesar Disgustus with stealing only the classified materials, overlooking some 11,000 other documents the ass walked off with. He should be charged with the theft of all of it.

 While ‘president’ our Caesar Disgustus claimed with a straight face that Article II of the Constitution gave him the power to do whatever he wanted.  Disgustus now maintains his ‘innocence’ claiming that the Presidential Records Act gives him the right to take what he wants.  As in the previous instance this claim is an intentional misreading of the law.  It is yet another boldface lie, taken seriously only by the hordes of mindless supporters. 

 The Presidential Records Act was passed in the 1970’s to prevent another ReSUMlickan ‘president’, Richard Shithouse Nixon, from absconding with and possibly destroying evidence of his own misconduct, the White House tapes.  The law was passed by Congress and signed into law to insure that the public record be kept intact, and that public records, tapes, phone logs, documents and later emails and electronic communications, are preserved by public agency. 

Once again, every word uttered by this scumbag is nothing but another boldfaced lie. It is now 904 days since Disgustus left office; 904 days since he stole classified material; 914 days since he led a failed coup d’état. He has now been charged in the documents case, but the most serious crime—that of attempting the overthrow of the government—has yet to be charged. 

 What, on earth, is taking so fucking long?

 Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison.

 

 

May 30, 2023: Paper Tiger, No Joseph Stalin, A Vassal State

 

The Russian hordes have long lived rent free in the fevered imagination of the West.  It was the spectre of the Russian hordes overrunning the Balkans that led to the Crimean conflict in the mid Nineteenth Century.  It was the promise of the Russian hordes overrunning Germany and Austria in the ‘Great War’ of the early Twentieth Century upon which France and Britain placed their hopes despite the wretched Russian performance just a few years earlier in the Russo-Japanese conflict.  No one, in Moscow nor in the capitals of Europe learned the lessons of that conflict. In 1904-05,  Russia and Japan had gone to war.  It took 8 months to get the Russian fleet from the Baltic to the Pacific to engage the Japanese, a year during which Europe envisioned a quick Russian conquest.  It didn’t happen.  The Japanese crushed the Russian fleet forcing the intervention of Theodore Roosevelt to negotiate an end to the conflict.  No one cared to recall the weakness demonstrated by this conflict, instead the heads of state and their diplomatic subalterns held that Russian intervention in Eastern Europe 1914 would prove decisive.  For the first two years or so perhaps the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers held the conflict in the balance but, alas, in 1917 Revolution came to Russia and the military campaign in Eastern Europe collapsed. 

 World War II presented a quite different experience, although some 30 million Russians died during the conflict.  Nevertheless, it was the Russians who won that war, in no small part to the ruthless determination of the leadership in Moscow.  The Russian Army today is not the Russian Army of the 1940’s; and Vladimir Putin is no Joseph Stalin.

 Stalin and his Commissars would never have allowed the existence of ‘oligarchs’ much less allow them, beginning under Yeltsin’s corrupt regime, to abscond with half the nation’s wealth and spirit it away to foreign destinations like London real estate, Italy and Southern France, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland as well as, most famously, tRUMP Tower and golf courses.

 Much has been said of late that the Gross Domestic Product of the Russian Federation is less than that of Italy. (1)   This is true.  What hasn’t been mentioned is that the Gross Domestic Product of the Russian Federation is less than that of New York City.(2) 

 That’s right.  New York City has greater economic resources than the entire Russian Federation.  Compared to the United States, China, and the European Union, the entire Russian economy stands as a puny afterthought, hardly strong enough to finance a modern military posture, much less project it around the world. 

 The Russian army of today has proven to be a mere shadow of its former self.  This is in no small measure to the ‘dead souls’, that occupy the Russian ranks.  I’m speaking here of paper armies, populated by fictitious soldiers who are sent their pay which in due course lines the pockets of the military brass and the oligarchs that constitute their version of the military-industrial complex.  Tanks, artillery, armored personnel carriers, aircraft, and other military hardware not maintained even though billions of Rubles were appropriated and spent for their maintenance. For instance, tires that should have long since been replaced rotting on axels so that when pressed into service cannot travel any great distance.  Today the ‘mighty’ Russian army relies upon savage mercenaries like the Wagner Group to bolster its waning prowess, much as the Americans came to rely upon Blackwater and other soldiers of fortune in our foreign misadventures. These are the hallmarks of graft, of incompetence, of rot, and an unwillingness of the people to defend what has clearly become indefensible.  

 But the awful truth is that Putin has revealed to the world that Russia is a paper tiger. He is the head of a military force that has demonstrated itself to be no more powerful than a third-rate military power.  Shorn of nuclear capability, weapons that cannot reasonably be used without massive retaliation, Russia is fast becoming a vassal state.

 As the war in Ukraine drags on, the emerging choice the Kremlin will face is this:  will it choose to become the vassal state of the West, principally the NATO powers, or will it opt to become a client state of China.  It will have no other choice, for it does not possess the technology, nor the economy to become an independent world power. 

 Putin, of course, is hell-bent on reconstituting the “Russian Empire” as it existed after the Second World War. This is not possible. 

 It is Putin’s pipe dream, a dangerous hallucination that has led to serious miscalculations.  Ukraine, as Afghanistan and Syria is ample demonstration. Instead of demonstrating to the world the prowess of a great nation, the Kremlin must now go begging, hat in hand, to the least disagreeable patron it can find. This is the legacy of Vladimir Putin and his blood-sucking oligarchs.

 An’  President Biden, he jus’ laugh and laugh

 ___________

 

1.     See List of countries by GDP (nominal) - Wikipedia. Citing data published by the IMF, World Bank and U.N., the Russian GDP is listed at a bit over two trillion dollars annually.  2,062,649,000,000 to be precise.

2.     See Economy of New York City - Wikipedia which lists the GDP of New York City as 2.1 trillion U.S dollars.

 

April 29, 2023: Revenge and Retribution, Fascist Feces, Paranoia Runs Deep

 

As it became clear to even the most ignorant ReSCUMlickan that Caesar Disgustus had indeed lost the 2020 election, despite protestations to the contrary, flags began to appear around the countryside reading “Trump 2024 The Revenge Tour”.  Revenge, of course has become the leitmotif, if not the sole agenda of the would be tin-horn dictator. 

 Earlier this year, at the annual meeting of fascist feces known as CPAC, Disgustus openly declared that “I am your retribution”, making the false claim that “‘they’ are coming to get you and I am only standing in their way”.  Paranoia runs deep among the idiot wrong.

 Revenge and Retribution, the hallmark of every fascist movement based as it is on a deep and disturbing persecution complex coupled with delusions of grandeur—the very definition of paranoia. 

 2020 marked the first time in a century and a half when a major party discarded altogether the creation of a party platform—a manifesto if you will—at their quadrennial national convention; opting instead for a blanket support of whatever the titular head of the cancerous growth stood for at any particular time.  And, since Disgustus twists in the wind like some well-greased weathervane, on any particular issue, I suppose putting policy proposals to paper would indeed be a fool’s errand. 

 So they support tRUMP, come hell or high water.

 Now, however, Disgustus gives his adoring masses some red meat.  War upon his political opponents, revenge against the ‘Deep State’, in Bannon’s term, meaning the administrative state.  Let’s be clear about this war upon the administrative state would mean not only the destruction of the rule of law, but the imposition of ignorance upon a very complex economic, social and political order.  This can only mean disaster. We got a brief demonstration with the complete incompetence of tRUMP and his minion’s management of the Covid Pandemic.  Over a million Americans have died, hundreds of thousands needlessly because ignorance was imposed upon a complex set of biological, economic and political realities.  Willful, purposeful ignorance.  Ignorance worn like a crown, the crown of our own Caesar Disgustus. 

 It isn’t simply that Donald J. tRUMP is, hands down, the most breathtakingly incompetent chief executive ever to soil the Oval Office, but war upon the administrative state would mean the rule of law would be replaced by the capricious rule of men—principally one man.  It would mean the transformation of this country into a modern Hungary, an example embraced by the scum at CPAC when they invited Hungarian ‘strongman’ Victor Orebon to be keynote speaker at on of CPAC’s recent conclaves.  The movement toward fascism is further demonstrated by Fucker Carlson hosting the Hungarian as he broadcast his ‘news’ segment for a solid week from Hungary.  The embrace of fascism is further demonstrated by the genuflecting of the ReSCUMlickan Party as it kneels before Putin and his fascist policies, a political outcome that occupies the wet dreams of our own once and future Caesar. 

 To stand for election and publicly declare yourself to be a candidate running on the ReSCUMlickan ticket is to openly declare oneself to be a boldfaced, unabashed, fascist.  Pure and simple.  Conservatism has reached its logical conclusion, begun with Goldwater and Nixon and ending with tRUMPism: fascism.  Revenge and Retribution. We’ve seen that movie too, an altogether well-beaten path: the death of the republic. 

 An’ Br’er Putin, he jus’ laugh and laugh

 Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison.

March 6, 2023: I Digress, Studied Irreverence, Crap is King

 

"When its said and done we haven't told you a thing
We all know that crap is king"

           ---Don Henley, "Dirty Laundry"

I ran across an article on the ‘internets’ published by the “Hollywood Cheat Sheet”, or some such rubbish, where a critic listed 5 Beatles songs he summarily branded as “awful”.  I’m not giving the source, nor the name, of the critic; for it is unimaginable that real money was paid for the production, not to mention publication of such crap.  Among the 5 listed were “The Long and Winding Road”, “Her Majesty”, “Free As A Bird” and two others.  Of course, I took him to task.  Here was my response.

Awful? This critic is clueless. "The Long and Winding Road" is McCartney (in Lennon's words) being "a good boy", at his lyrical best. "The long and windy night/that the rain washed away/has left it's pool of tears/crying for the day".  A great composition. I agree with his three bandmates that Phil Spector's orchestration elevates this composition and is the correct interpretation. Christmastime is a piece of fluff, but I remember McCartney releasing this after the group disbanded.  Lastly, "Her Majesty" hits the mark, a humorous ditty with the Beatles being their irreverent best. Really, what is 'rock and roll' if not a studied irreverence? . If this guy were serious, he would have listed "Wild Honey Pie" and "Revolution Number 9" from the White Album as perhaps the only tracks that should have been left on the cutting room floor. What we have here is a critic unfamiliar with the genre.

It is clear that the essay in question was posted in order to generate click bait in order to generate advertising revenue.  Never mind serious artistic criticism.  What we got instead was artistic cretinism, for no discernable purpose other than using The Beatles to elevate the publication, employing outlandish headlines backed by complete bullshit.  These are the signs of our times.

Welcome to the world of John Bannon (1), aka Caesar Disgustus, aka Donald J. tRUMP.   A world where, in the words of Don Henley “Crap is King”.

Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison.

 ______

1, John Bannon is the pseudo persona adopted by Donald tRUMP, a fictional 'reporter' in the person of Donald tRUMP pretending to represent himself to New York media as an tRUMP 'insider'. A man in a position to know.  tRUMP engaged in thinly veiled attempts at creating fake news about himself as he sought to inflate and burnish his already grossly exaggerated image as a man of great wealth and business acumen.  The press, especially the tabloids, would publish his outlandish claims laying the basis for his inclusion in Forbes Magazines lists of the richest Americans leading to his later fraud "The Apprentice".  I'm returning to tRUMP here because he was and remains fundamentally the product of this kind of shabby journalism the consequences of which can be very serious. 

March 5, 2023: Control the Language, Adept at Projection, Banana Repubicans

“They that control the language control the debate.”

                        ----The Quotations of Chairman Joe

Congressman Jamie Raskin took to the House floor late last week and chastised the ReSCUMlickan Party for its misuse of the language.  At least since Eisenhower (I have seen Eisenhower us the term) ReSCUMlickans have been using the term ‘democrat’ as a pejorative, much as they have transformed the terms ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’.  This has become very pronounced in the last 30 or so years with the emphasis increasingly put upon the last three letters of the term, emphasizing ‘rat’.  The ReSCUMlickans have become oh so adept at projection.

 It is for these reasons that I, for one, have abandoned civility and commonly refer to our increasingly fascist adversaries as ReSCUMlickan.  As an old friend once reminded me, no one holds a candle to me when it comes to vitriol.  

 Anyway, Raskin went to the floor to challenge the ubiquitous use of the term reminding them that they have more than once been called out to correct their language, again pointing out that ‘democrat’ is a noun, but in referring to a colleague in the House or Senate the noun becomes an adjective and therefore the correct word is ‘Democratic’, not democrat.  One may be a congressional Democrat, but referring to a colleague one call him or her a ‘Democratic’ representative.  Raskin, exasperated by the incivility suggested on the House floor that perhaps this is a self-imposed speech impediment.  I suspect a more sinister design. In any case he retorted that perhaps those on his side of the isle should refer to his Republican colleagues as ‘Banana Republican” and their policy proposals and “Banana Republican”.  “But we wouldn’t do that”, he insisted.  Why not?  This is why the Democrats keep losing.  The fuckers have it coming to them, for he that controls the language controls the terms of the debate. 

 Raskin ended his speech reminding that FDR didn’t refer to the “Democrat Party” or, even necessarily the “Democratic Party”, but instead dusted off an old 19^th century party label, namely: “The Democracy”. 

 Kudos to Congressman Raskin.  This engagement is long overdue.  One doesn’t bring a banana to a knife fight and we are currently engaged in a struggle for the survival of this republic.  The time has long since passed when the gloves must come off.  If you are going to kill the rats, you’ve got to get down in the sewer. 

 Welcome to the world of Caesar Disgustus.

 Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison.

 

March 3, 2023: Biden at Mid-Term, Accomplishments and Shortcomings, America Great Again

 

As we pass the mid-term of the first Biden administration it is helpful to look back and evaluate his accomplishments as well as his shortcomings. 

 Let’s be clear, as Joe Biden took office a little more than two years ago it appeared ridiculous to even imagine that he would become a ‘transforming’ president.  Perhaps he hasn’t.  But his list of accomplishments are formidable given the narrow majorities he had in both the house and the senate.  I know the progressives pine for a new New Deal, and a revisiting of the Great Society, but Roosevelt and Johnson had huge majorities in both houses with which to work and could afford to kiss off the occasional Democratic recalcitrant.  Biden had no such margins to work with.  Nevertheless, he passed huge bills to keep the economy afloat, vaccinate the nation from the pandemic, reinvest in our nation’s crumbling infrastructure, and aid in the return of the manufacturing sector to this nation’s economy.  Yes, much more was hoped for; hopes dashed upon the rocks of West Virginia and Arizona politics in the persons of Senators Joe Machin and Kyrsten Sinema respectively.  But Joe has done the best with the cards he was delt and the nation should be thankful.

 The election of Joe Biden demonstrates what I thought in this day and age was impossible: the elevation of a modern Dwight Eisenhower to the presidency.  He has restored our economy, made bold moves by way of environmental protections, given new life to our foreign alliances, thwarted Russian fascist aggressions in Eastern Europe, and demonstrated that government can indeed be made to work and serve the interests of all the people.

 Nowhere was this on greater display than his delivery of his annual ‘State of the Union’ speech before Congress last month.  Besieged at times by the boorish behavior of the infantile Fascist caucus—the likes of everyone’s Cruella DeVil, (or is it Cruella Devile?) Georgia’s own Marjorie Greene—he called out the reactionaries reminding them of the over 300 bipartisan pieces of legislation passed in the last Congressional session, the 12 million newly created jobs, the return of manufacturing to America, the success at bringing the pandemic to heel, and a host of other accomplishments. After the sitting on their hands and refusing to applaud the creation of millions of jobs, the return of manufacturing and, it should be noted, the pledge that in the future “the supply line will start here” he had, near the end, nearly the entire Republican congressional caucus standing and applauding the pledge not to touch Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.  He had roped the dopes, for they have secretly and sometimes openly prayed for their elimination from the moments these programs were instituted. 

 Yes, Biden has accomplished much, more than Caesar Disgustus could have ever imagined.  Indeed, after citing his long list of accomplishments he could well have looked the ReSCUMlickan Party in the eye and said that he has ‘made America great again.’  But, alas, Joe isn’t one to rub it in.

 Yes, there have been some shortcomings.  More should have been done to raise the minimum wage, to advance comprehensive immigration reform, to enable unions to organize the workplace.  Some of us would love to see a federal agency created to help workers buy out the businesses they work for and establish co-ops throughout industry, retail and finance.  More should have been attempted concerning voting rights and increasing the number of justices on the Supreme Court to undo the damage done. 

 But the worst shortcoming of this administration is the failure to promptly arrest, prosecute, convict and imprison Donald J. tRUMP and all his henchmen.  He should have been apprehended on the tarmac as he departed Washington on inauguration day, brought before a magistrate, declared a flight risk and held pending trial.  No bail, no cell phone, no communications with the outside world.  Instead the fascist scumbag has been allowed to roam the premises, gnawing at the very foundations of the republic.  Caesar Disgustus and his henchmen, including members of Congress, should have faced arrest and trials.  The Republic has a right to defend itself.

 On balance, Biden stands as the most successful United States President since FDR, accomplishing more than Eisenhower did with the Interstate Highway act, and more than anyone since FDR on rebuilding the economy and dealing with national emergency; accomplishing much more than his narrow congressional majorities and ReSCUMlickan intransigence and obstruction would seem to have allowed. 

 Overall Grade A-

 Like Lincoln Biden will go down in history as dealing with grave national crises following the aftermath of the worst president in U.S. history, doing all this largely unheralded; for Disgustus still sucks (as he sucks at nearly everything) all the air out of the room.  Over two years in and every headline is still about the vicious little prick in Mar-A-Lago.  While the stench of Disgustus still stings the nostrils and waters the eyes, Joe Biden has been working under the radar to rebuild a nations in shambles, a nation that had lost its self-respect and self- confidence (as in ‘Make America Great Again’), a nation hungrily feeding upon itself.  Thank you Joe Biden, be you a one or a two term president your ability to right the ship of state in a perilous time will establish you as one of our great presidents.  Now, if you would only kick Merrick Garland in the ass and get the fucker and his minions  behind bars.

 

Indict. Prosecute. Convict. Imprison.  

 

February 12, 2023: Weaponization of Government, Fox News Porn, Repeat of Benghazi

 

 

Historian Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From an American, posted Feb. 9:

 

“Today the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government held its first meeting under chair Jim Jordan (R-OH), who promised to look at “the politicization of the FBI and DOJ and attacks on American civil liberties.” There are twelve Republicans and nine Democrats on the committee.

 

Today’s hearing began with testimony from Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee colluded with the Russians in 2016. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), who has complained that the government impeded his investigation of Hunter Biden’s laptop; former Democratic representative from Hawaii and now Fox News Channel personality Tulsi Gabbard; and conservative lawyer Jonathan Turley also testified. They rehashed old complaints, but no one produced any new evidence.

 

The top Democrat on the committee, Stacey Plaskett, from the U.S. Virgin Islands, said: "I'm deeply concerned about the use of this select subcommittee as a place to settle scores, showcase conspiracy theories, and advance an extreme agenda that risks undermining Americans' faith in our democracy." Constitutional law professor Jamie Raskin (D-MD), sporting a purple bandana from his cancer treatments, pointed out the many times Trump abused his power to reward friends and punish enemies and said, "If weaponization of the Department of Justice has any meaning, this is it.”

Raskin also recalled that in August, Jordan said an investigation would “help frame up the 2024 race, when I hope and I think President Trump is going to run again. And we need to make sure that he wins.” Raskin said the committee was "all about restoring Donald Trump, the twice-impeached former president, to the office he lost by seven million votes in 2020 and tried to steal back in a political coup and violent insurrection against our constitutional order on January 6, 2021."

 

Early in the proceedings, Aaron Rupar of Public Notice mused: ”It is a bit odd to me that Fox News isn't carrying the ‘weaponization’ hearing live, since it is basically Fox porn.” After Raskin testified, he wrote: “I’m beginning to understand why Fox News thought it might be a bad idea to carry this live.” (1)

 

Of course, this is nothing less than a run-up to the next presidential election; a repeat of the Benghazi and e-mail nonsense leading into the 2016 cycle. Of course, there is no substance here, unless of course one takes the position that publishing photos of Hunter Biden’s genitals on “Shitter” is appropriate material for your children to see.   The only purpose of the previous proceedings was to drive up her negatives.  McCarthy admitted as much after the 2016 election was safely in the bag.  The only purpose of the present proceedings are to smear Biden lest he once again flog them like a rented mule.

 

Following Goebbels and vindicating Orwell’s predictions, the scum have tortured the language to such an extent that it will now admit to anything.   The Fascist Caucus is now the “Freedom Caucus”, free speech chokes in the smoke of burning books, and now the Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is itself a weaponization, just as the failed coup d’état, the ‘stop the steal’ was nothing more than an attempt to steal the last presidential outcome.  Orwellian “Newspeak”, a form of doublespeak in which coded terms meant to mislead and to justify the greatest crimes against the republic.  There is no Republic in the Republican Party, only a naked Will to Power.

 

The nation isn’t fooled. 

 Indict. Prosecute. Convict.  Imprison.

 _________

 1.     Facebook, Sunday February 12, 2023.

January 31, 2023: Fraud Tax, Songs of Greed, Shell Game

 

The so-called “Fair Tax”, or “Flat Tax”, once thought dead on arrival, is back on the front burner. This idiotic idea has for years been simmering below the surface rising, once again, like pond scum, or some hideous creature from Mariana trench of conservative depravity. The following is from a post written in these columns from March 2008 when the scheme last saw the light of day the only change is that instead of 23 per cent sales tax, the swine now propose a 30 per cent sales tax. Such is the cost of allowing the rich to walk away from the table:

Why is it that every time one sees a fundamentalist preacher turned politician campaigning for the Presidency he has the Bible in his left hand, his right index finger in your face and a tax cut for the rich in his back pocket? It is difficult to say, perhaps overweening ambition, perhaps the reluctance or the inability to understand something as complex as economics, perhaps intellectual laziness, perhaps a simple willingness to be a shill for wealth. But in any case we are now presented with another such spectacle this time in the form of Mike Huckabee, our very own Elmer Gantry.

He arrived late to the Presidential sweepstakes and took up the twin causes of God and good government in an effort to gin up the support of the fundamentalist wrong that heretofore were seen to have controlled the proceedings. Initially his message was a welcome variant from the old standard in which Christ was seen not as the apostle of greed but became, briefly in the hands of the Reverend Mike, once again the God of compassion. Accordingly Mike spoke eloquently, if only briefly, of our collective need to tend to the least among us. But his campaign, after Iowa, gained little traction with victories limited by religious and sectional boundaries. In order to breathe new life into his flagging effort, the Huckster has now transformed himself into a full-throated champion of the so called “Fair Tax”, not so much to win the nomination but to pick up the broken petard of Pat Robertson and become the new Champion of the idiot right.

Accordingly he is now out canvassing the country saying that “in Arkansas if it can’t be fixed with duct tape it cannot be fixed, and the tax code and the IRS cannot be fixed with duct tape”. There you have it in a ‘nut’ shell. If it cannot be fixed with duct tape it must go. Well Mike, I hate to break the news but you cannot fix the schools with duct tape, you cannot fix the military with duct tape, you cannot fix the roads with duct tape…..shall we get rid of those too? Talk to any heating and cooling contractor and you will learn that in fact one cannot fix anything with duct tape, not even ductwork. But it is by these standards that the Huckster wages his war to rid us of the onerous Internal Revenue Service.

No one, especially a progressive, is about to defend the present system of how we tax ourselves in these United States. The present tax code is as close to a ‘flat’ tax as we have seen in generations, with nearly all the progressivity having been taken out of it. But the problem of taxation in America is not that we are being taxed too much, for we rank near the bottom in overall taxation among industrial countries. It is that the near elimination of the graduated income tax of our forefathers has produced a society that has increasingly become more bifurcated between great wealth and the struggling rest of us. This tax proposal, coming as it does on the abject failure of a straight out ‘flat’ tax proposed by the likes of Pierre DuPont in his Presidential campaigns, is even more regressive. It would move the tax burden increasingly from the wealthy unto the backs of the working middle and lower classes; increasing the taxation on work while nearly eliminating the taxation of wealth.

When our forefathers introduced the graduated income tax they understood, as the ‘boomers’ apparently do not, that it is better to tax wealth than tax work. Reasoning from the tenets of Adam Smith, the founder of modern free-market capitalism, that work produces wealth, our forefathers rightly concluded that it would be counterproductive to tax work since it was through work that all wealth originates. Better, they said, to tax wealth at a higher rate. By taxing wealth at higher rates it leaves work with a relatively lighter share of the overall burden, freeing it to generate more wealth. This reasoning took the form of the distinction, in the terminology of our ancestors, between what was called “earned” and “unearned” income. Better they said to tax at higher rates unearned income (income from rents, interest and profits), than earned income (income from wages). Accordingly heavier taxes were laid upon the upper income tax bracket (in the 90% range), capital gains and estate taxes. The result was a more egalitarian society, one in which the fruits of our collective labor were generally shared, a society in which we witnessed the explosive growth of a large industrial middle class.

But the ‘Boomers’, the grand recipients of our forefathers collective wisdom, saw nothing in the lessons taught that we felt obliged to learn. Accordingly we have followed the siren song of greed introducing one tax ‘reform’ after another from the tax limitation craze set off by Howard Jarvis in California in the late ‘70s, to Ronald Reagan and the Republican assault on the graduated income tax, to the several flat tax proposals, and efforts to eliminate outright the capital gains and estate taxes. Let us take a brief look at the latest entry in the tax ‘reform’ craze put forward by the conservative stink tanks. The effort, such as it is, requires more from us than it deserves.

John Kenneth Galbraith once termed economics the ‘dismal science’, and although he was referring to the writings of Smith, Malthus and Ricardo, he can also be read to understand that approaching a study of economic theory or practice is like going to the dentist. Accordingly one approaches the study of the “Fair Tax” with all the enthusiasm of facing root canal work.

The idea came out of the bowels of Americans for Fair Taxation as a simple shell game in which the tax burden would be shifted from income taxes on profits and wages to what is, in effect, a national sales tax. Now even a flat rate tax of say 10 or 12%, as our friend Pierre DuPont proposed, has at least the appearance of ‘progressivity’ inasmuch as that the more one makes the more taxes one pays. But the so called “Fair Tax” proposes a 23% sales tax on all goods and services. It would eliminate taxes on savings and investments, all estate taxes, and virtually every other form of taxation. The result is that the tax burden would be shifted entirely onto consumption. What this means is that there becomes an inverse relation between income and the effective level of taxation. That is the lower your income the higher the percentage of your income to taxation. Those at the lowest levels, required as they are to spend virtually every cent on necessities, would pay the going rate. The higher one’s income the more can be put aside for saving and investment which, under this scheme, is shielded from taxation. Yes say the proponents but when it is withdrawn it is spent and taxes are paid on it. No say we critics because the interest on this money is earned and compounded while in the bank and is not subject to taxation. “Unearned” income, which is income nonetheless, is not subject to taxation unless and until it is spent. Suppose it is not spent, suppose it is left to constantly multiply itself over a period of time. Yes when it finally is withdrawn from the bank to make some purchases it is taxed but in the meantime it is tax free. Wages are not so lucky. One is presented then with the spectacle of the worker being taxed at every turn while the investor merely clips his coupons and watches his money grow.

What the inventors of this scheme have done is take the entire cost of government and raise the money by levying a consumption or sales tax. The proposal, with the requisite misleading moniker of ‘Fair Tax’ has the appearance, like the flat tax, of fairness. Everyone pays the same tax, right? Wrong. Everyone pays the same tax, as now, at the checkout counter, but not everyone pays the same effective tax. Whole parts of the economy, principally the investment community, earn money but are exempt from taxation. So for instance, the poor slob earning $15,000. a year pays an effective tax at the going rate of 23% while the billionaire, because so much of his money is off earning income at compounded rates tax free, pays an effective rate of less than 2%.

What makes this shell game so appealing is the deceptively simple complexity of it. It reminds me, in a perverse way, of the objections modern Republicans raise to the idea of returning to a graduated income tax. “The rich already pay the lion’s share of income taxes”, they point out parroting the talking points of the Republican National Committee. The Rich do pay nearly two thirds of all income tax in this country. But that is precisely the problem. The fact that the upper ten percent carry such a burden is not due to the unfairness of the present system or to the horrors of re instituting the tax code of John Kennedy or even Jimmy Carter. It is due, quite simply, to the fact that the wealthy now own such a large share of the economic pie. No the answer is not to lower taxes on the all too heavily burdened upper classes, it is instead to raise those taxes and return a greater share of the wealth to those who labored to produce it in the first place. What is needed is a candidate for President to look the American people in the eye and tell them that what we want to see is the middle class paying 80% of the income taxes, because under this administration the middle class will control 80% of the wealth.

There are other problems with this so-called "fair tax" proposal:

There is the question of the effective tax rate. Proponents say that it is 23% but for the scheme to be income neutral—that is for it to generate as much money into the federal treasury as the current system—the effective tax on goods and services would be at least 30% and, according to the President’s Advisory Panel on Tax Reform, as much as a 34% in order to fund government at present levels. In fact according to economist William Gale of the Brookings Institution taxation at the 23% rate would blow a 7 trillion dollar hole in the budget over 10 years and he projects a more realistic rate of 31% or higher in order to reach present levels of funding.(seehttp://money.cnn.com/2005/09/06/pf/taxes/consumptiontax_0510/index.htm) This new tax would be levied at time of purchase on new homes, rent, interest on credit cards, mortgages and car loans, doctor bills, utilities, gasoline (current taxes would not be repealed) legal fees, ad nauseum.

Conservative radio talk-show host Neil Boortz contends that there will be a 22% reduction in prices as companies will be able to produce and sell goods and services cheaper because they would no longer be required to withhold taxes. This is a blanket admission, by one of the scheme’s principal proponents, that by passing the savings on to the consumer wages will in effect be cut by at least 22%. In other words the money now being withheld would not be returned to the worker but would instead be passed on to the consumer who would then realize the savings when the product is purchased. For the worker, on the other hand, the tax burden remains but must now be paid at the check out counter. The tax must be paid, albeit at the reduced price, not with one’s old ‘gross’ income but with one’s old ‘net income’ that is what was previously left after the old IRS got done with it. Assuming that all of the savings are passed on to the consumer this is at best a simple economic wash. No real savings emerges.

Now either prices increase or wages must fall. Either the employer pockets the monies formerly withheld and passes the savings on to the consumer in which case it is a dead wash—if, and it’s a big if, all of said savings are recycled back to the worker as consumer. The worker is then confronted with a giant leap in retail prices. If the schemers allow us to keep all our earnings and we have all of our former paycheck in hand then prices we will face will be as high as 34% greater. In any case the system, as presented, is a wash. The proponents contend that it will raise as much money as the present system. The question is why make the change?

The answer lies in the hidden agendas. Remember these are the same folks that have been toying with the tax code now for nearly a generation, killing with a thousand cuts the golden goose given us by our ancestors. It began at the 1976 Democratic National Convention when Jimmy Carter, as he accepted his party’s nomination for the Presidency, called the American tax code a “disgrace to the human race.” The problem facing the nation at the time was that the tax code as it had evolved in the postwar era had not been adjusted for inflation. Greater numbers of working Americans were now lifted, by the hyperinflation of the era, into higher tax brackets fueling a nation-wide tax revolt. Carter in calling for reform gave voice and legitimacy to this growing concern. Instead of simply adjusting the tax code for inflation the Democrats stalled and it was left to Ronald Reagan to do the reforming.

Posturing as a progressive Reagan, much as ‘Ol Two-Cows would do two decades later, put conservative stink tanks in overdrive spinning ‘tax reform’ that had the veneer of being progressive but in effect shifted the tax burden increasingly from wealth to work. Accordingly they cut the highest tax brackets from 72% to 35%; they cut the capital gains tax in half, made similar reductions in the estate tax. They increased Social Security withholding taxes and cut federal revenue sharing meaning that state and local governments, funded on flat rate income or sales taxes, were left to make up the difference. This had the effect of further shifting taxation over the entire spectrum from the graduated income to more regressive forms of taxation. To add insult to injury they eliminated the exemptions for consumer loans, most medical bills, and other previous exemptions that the middle class had enjoyed so as to raise the needed revenues. The result, as has been noted by Republican turned independent Kevin Phillips, is that there has been a growing gap between rich and poor and the middle class, now owning a smaller share of the national economy than at any time since before 1929, is shrinking relative to the rest of the economy. The economic high tides of the 80’s and 90’s did not, as Reagan had promised, raise all boats; and under the maladministration of ‘Ol Two-Cows, over 5 million have slipped through the now tattered safety net into poverty. It is from advocates such as these that the latest incarnation of ‘tax reform’ in the shape of the so called ‘fair tax’ comes. The question poses itself: why trust them?

The shell game gets complicated. The proposal calls for a “Prebate” program in which those at the lowest levels will be reimbursed for taxes paid giving the act a ‘populist’ veneer but this would ensure, under a revenue neutral standard, that the middle class will bear a greater share of the burden. And, to be fair, the proposal does for the first time shift social security funding in such a way as to make the rich belly up to the bar and pay more. But the fact remains that this is perhaps the most regressive tax proposal to ever have reached the national political debate since early in the nineteenth century. It is a shell game in which wealth walks away from the table nearly scot-free.

Nor does the ‘Fair Tax’ eliminate the IRS as the Huckster would have us believe. Some agency, however named, will have to collect the taxes. Taxes, in the new form would simply be collected not by the employer but by the merchant. How the retail industry will react to this burden is unclear. This proposal, by their own admission, will not cut the overall tax burden it will simply shift who will pay it. To suggest otherwise is to hint at a hidden agenda in which the real purposes are to simultaneously cut taxes on wealth and cut government revenue so as to further savage governance. It gets harder to fund the OSHA or the Consumer Protection Agency, when funding has gone dry. Whatever the real intent, one smells a rat under the kitchen sink.

It is doubtful that neither the Huckster nor Neil Boortz has studied Econ 101. If they had they would be able to recognize so obvious an economic shell game. Let us give them the benefit of the doubt and put this present misunderstanding down to a lack of proper schooling. To assume otherwise is to understand that they have become mere shills for great wealth, mere apologists for their corporate paymasters, and mere pimps for the GOP-- the Grand Old Prostitute.

In the immortal words of ‘Ol Two-Cows’, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, fool me three times, ‘won’t get fooled again’. No! No!

For another assessment of the impact of the “Fair Tax “proposal see:
http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/unspinning_the_fairtax.html