The Manufactured Border Crisis
OR… “How the GOP wastes taxpayer time and money on a fabricated crisis.” Does this crisis really exist and who’s actually responsible for it? Let’s explore.
Watch, But Don’t Listen!
With any politician, it’s more important to watch what they do, not listen to what they say. As has been stated, if a politician’s lips are moving, they must be lying. Nowhere is this true more than now… and more specifically within the ranks of the GOP, but it’s not limited to this party. The GOP has simply taken it to a whole new level. That’s not to say that the Democrats don’t lie; they do. Even Independents lie to get elected.
The difference now is whether they’re lying to you over something they’ve already done or lying to you over something they haven’t yet done. With the GOP, more often than not, they are not only lying to you over something they’ve already done, they’re lying to you over what they plan to do.
As stated, don’t listen to their words, watch their actions. Actions speak louder than words. If you watch what they do, then their lies fall right into place. They can’t lie their way out of their actions… though they may try, but that’s actually called gaslighting.
Border Crisis and Number of Crossings
Let’s begin this discussion with these dhs.gov border crossing statistics up to fiscal year 2013:
These above statistics set the tone of this article with regards to the statistics to come next. These above statistics also go to prove that we have had years under both Democrat and Republican Presidential leadership of higher than expected influx. Both parties are to blame here. Let’s further understand who was President at the time of the above statistics going back to 1989. Presidents prior to 1989 are not needed for the point this article is making. However, if you’re interested in all past Presidents, here’s a link.
In fact, up until 2013, the highest border crossings occurred at 1.8 million per year under Bill Clinton (D). George Bush (R) would get close second to this number at 1.3 million during fiscal year 1993. Here’s the list of presidents going back to 1993:
With the above table in mind, let’s proceed to the most updated DHS statistics for border crossings for 2013 and beyond. Let’s keep in mind that George Bush (R), Bill Clinton (D) and “Shrub” Bush (R) all presided over border crossings well above 1 million per fiscal year. It wouldn’t be until 2009 when border crossings began to subside again, but would then drastically surge during and after the COVID pandemic.
Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can exclusively say that their border crossing policies have worked to lower immigrant attempted ingress. Here are the border crossing apprehensions from 2013 to the 2024 (YTD):
At this point and with these ever increasing numbers under Joe Biden, you might be wondering what the hell is going on? This is a very good question. Before we get into the REAL answer, let’s discuss what the GOP is saying, but not actually doing.
Republican Lip Service
Clearly, the Republicans are paying a lot of lip service to this ever increasing turn of events around the border, but without pointing fingers at the actual situations and actual politicians who are driving this migrant influx to the southern border states. No, the GOP prefers to point fingers at the Democrats, even though the Democrats aren’t the ones driving the border crisis directly. While Democrats aren’t the party causing this drastic border influx, the Democrats also haven’t done much to arrest it either. This is called complacency, of which the Democrats are fully and entirely guilty. In fact, the Democrats prefer playing on the world’s stage rather than tackling difficult domestic issues. This is fully evident of the Biden administration’s continual meddling in world affairs, like Ukraine and Israel, all while fully ignoring the problems at home… except when such a problem suits their political fancy.
One thing is certain, nothing happens in a bubble. If something is occurring, there’s definitely a driving factor behind it. It also means that someone or something stands to gain from that driving factor. Let’s also understand that what the GOP / Republicans are saying is absolutely not what’s actually driving the influx to the United States southern border.
The Republicans are claiming that it is Joe Biden’s lack of policy around border that is the cause and reason behind this influx. In fact, this could not be further from the truth. Let’s get to that truth right now.
The Truth Behind the GOP’s Manufactured Border Crisis
The reason immigrants are now flocking to the United States southern border is actually due almost solely to Florida’s Ron Desantis (R) and Texas’s Greg Abbott (R) actions. How are these two governors responsible for this influx? It’s quite simple….
When these two nab immigrants from the border, place them onto expensive cushy busses and expensive, but cushy chartered jets… then feed, clothe and subsequently fly or drive them across the the United States… what do you think is going to happen?
Yes, the word is going to get out that now these Governors are now pro-migrant and, more than this, are willing to place you, as a migrant, onto a bus and transport you to a nice new city… FOR FREE. This transportation is literally considered winning the lottery for many migrants. These men are taking migrants and placing them onto a very cushy busses, only to drop them handily off in Chicago or New York or anywhere else other than at the border. They might even get new clothes and food in the process. What migrant would say, “No” to that? In fact, these actions might even drive more migrants to the border… and that’s exactly what’s occurring. Yes, the word does get out.
The millions of recent influx of immigrants is NOT due to lax government policies or even due to policy changes at all, no. The influx is due to these insane trafficking policies performed illegally by irresponsible governors. This fully Texas Governor endorsed and costly trafficking of migrants across America is almost solely and completely responsible for the wild influx to the United States, that and the remnants of COVID. I did write that nothing occurs in a bubble. Right here is where that bubble pops. The GOP would have you believe it is Biden’s policies that are failing… when it’s just the opposite. The policies are failing because it is the GOP who is sabotaging the United States for their own political agenda. They are they ones placing hundreds, if not thousands of illegal migrants onto busses and jets, then transporting them all across the United States.
Yes, this word DOES get out to those seeking asylum here. The GOP realizes this enticement fact and is continuing to do it anyway, yes, on purpose. It is, in fact, the GOP who is attempting to force Joe Biden’s hand. Even then, these policies under Joe Biden are almost identical to the policies that have come before. Yet, we now have double, if not triple the number of migrants to the border? And where is Joe Biden’s administration on this border issue? Twiddling their thumbs.
Texas has spent more than $148 million bussing migrants across the country. Greg Abbott has also bussed more than 102,000 migrants (and counting) to cities around the country. Greg Abbott has even paid to fly at least 120 migrants on jets to Chicago.
Illegal Maneuvers
Let me get this one out of the way right now. What Greg Abbott and Ron Desantis have done by placing migrants onto busses and into jets, then transporting said migrants across the country is actually an illegal Federal Offense under 1907. Title 8, U.S.C. 1324(a):
Subsection 1324(a)(1)(i)-(v) prohibits alien smuggling, domestic transportation of unauthorized aliens, concealing or harboring unauthorized aliens, encouraging or inducing unauthorized aliens to enter the United States, and engaging in a conspiracy or aiding and abetting any of the preceding acts. Subsection 1324(a)(2) prohibits bringing or attempting to bring unauthorized aliens to the United States in any manner whatsoever, even at a designated port of entry. Subsection 1324(a)(3).
and
Domestic Transporting — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(ii) makes it an offense for any person who — knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, transports, or moves or attempts to transport or move such alien within the United States by means of transportation or otherwise, in furtherance of such violation of law.
Clearly, 1907. Title 8, U.S.C. 1324(a) makes it federally illegal to knowingly transport illegal immigrants across the country. Yet, the DOJ has done nothing towards indicting either Greg Abbott or Ron Desantis for their ongoing part in this illegal campaign of transporting illegal aliens across the country. Where is the DOJ on this action? Once again, the DOJ is missing in action.
Homeland Security and ongoing Security Threats
For GOP governors to actually play these illegal shenanigans all for the sake of politics, this says a lot about the United States… and not in a good way. Governors are elected to govern, not to backstab and cause security risks to the United States Federal government. And once again, the Department of Justice and Merrick Garland have done nothing to enforce federal code over this matter. There’s not even been a peep about this, not out of the DOJ and not out of mainstream media. Illegal is still illegal, yet nothing.
Encouraging Illegal Migrants and Manufacturing a Crisis
The point to all of the above for Greg Abbott is to show that the United States border policies are not able to handle migrants at all. This has been Greg Abbott’s ongoing shtick for months. However, when a rogue governor decides to undermine and, indeed, run afoul of the rule of federal law by endangering the United States of America AND becoming a national security threat himself AND by knowingly and willfully using paid transportation to move illegals around the country, this is a serious federal problem. It’s also crime. Worse, his actions only serve to encourage and entice would-be migrants around the world to flock to the United States southern border. More than this, tensions are now rising between the United States and Mexico over Greg Abbott’s actions and the GOP’s wider actions involving the border.
In fact, it is Greg Abbott who is causing the border migrant flood. It is Greg Abbott is who causing the problems that the United States is seeing at the border. It is Greg Abbott’s policies that are indeed undermining the rule of law and the United State of America. It is Greg Abbott who is single-handedly ruining our relationship with Mexico… all for what? To score political brownie points with his Texas base and the GOP? Greg Abbott, just like Donald Trump, is a clear and present danger to America. If he wants to play games with Texas, have at it. When his games endanger the security of the United States as a whole, that’s when his shenanigans must stop.
Since when is it okay for Governors to perform federal illegal actions and get away with it? I guess it’s when Merrick Garland and the DOJ both choose to turn a blind eye to it. When the rule of law doesn’t apply to politicians, then who does it apply to? Clearly, not to anyone else. If politicians aren’t considered to be citizens under the same rule of law as anyone else, then there is no rule of law.
The rule of law must apply to everyone or it applies to no one!
Joe Biden and the Democrats
The Democrats don’t get a pass here. The Democrats are just as much complicit in this situation as is Greg Abbott and the rest of the Republicans. By Joe Biden and the rest of the Democrats staying mum about pushing an indictment onto Greg Abbott over his illegal transport of many, many illegal immigrants, the Democrats instead choose to sit idly by doing nothing at all. That’s also not governing. The point is, if you’re elected to govern, then govern. Sitting around doing nothing is not governing.
Unfortunately, this is what the Democrats are doing. Yes, some Democrats might have extreme liberal agendas, but it doesn’t matter when the Democrats of any type won’t push anything through. Sitting on your hands is not governing any more than bussing migrants across the country.
The State of America: Two Party System
America is under siege, not just by the Republicans, but also by the Democrats. Both parties are actively sabotaging the United States by either intentionally performing illegal actions (Republican politicians) or by sitting around doing nothing (Democrat politicians) allowing others to perform illegal actions. Right now, politicians of any party are running roughshod all over America and its citizens.
It is, in fact, the two party system that is failing America. Neither of the two parties are working towards or for the best interest of America. They both have their own internal agendas which don’t include working for the citizens or in actually solving problems. In fact, both parties seem intent on either doing nothing or in creating problems, rather than solving any.
The reason we elect our representatives is to work on our behalf. Yet, so many of these elected representatives only have personal agendas they wish to push. For whatever reason, these selfish, self-centered, egotistical, ill mannered politicians seem to be continually elected and re-elected. Why? What are they doing for you?
This is the state of America. America is being overrun by elected people who have no interest in fixing America. They only have interest in making bank for themselves and doing nothing else in the process. Lip service doesn’t fix things, only actions do. We need to tell these politicians to shut up and get to work.
Reactive versus Pro-Active
America has always had mostly a reactive system with politicians. Something bad happens, we make a law against it. That’s pretty much how the founders wanted it. That also means that knee jerk reactions tend to rule. What that also means is that when something bad happens, we can’t just ban it in the locale where it happened. No, we have to ban it everywhere.
This is what’s happening with abortion rights. When we thought we had the abortion issue locked down, conservative justices come along only to completely upend what had been in place for years… all to throw it right back into turmoil again.
Once again, knee jerk reactions rule the roost. Let’s not just ban abortion, now we have to ban everything possible involving abortion, including IVF, drugs, stem cell research and eventually, nearly everything that has come out of the technologies involving birth, babies, stem cells and all the rest.
The point now is that these politicians are taking aim at the very medical technologies which have given America incredible quality of life and longevity improvements. Yet, the fundamentalist Christians feel it is their place to take it all away and throw America back into a medical dark age. It’s coming, folks. You had better get prepared… all thanks to the GOP.
Drugs that had been created using these technologies are now under fire for the same reason as abortion. It’s only a matter of time. This is why FEDERAL laws handling fundamental rights must exist. They must exist and they must matter because it puts EVERY citizen on a level playing field no matter where they live. Having states create a haphazard patchwork of laws only serves to put everyone at risk. This is why Federal laws matter. It’s why Federal laws must exist. It’s why Federal laws have to continue to exist. It’s why Congress must act swiftly to craft Federal abortion laws that apply to all states equally. And yet, crickets!
The System is Hopelessly Broken
The Federal government cannot keep twiddling its thumbs doing nothing… thanks Democrats. The Federal government cannot keep throwing out and replacing the Speaker of the House… thanks Republicans. These are wastes of taxpayer time and money. When Government workers are not governing, then what the hell are they doing, other than collecting a paycheck? Why do we keep electing these worthless people? Something has to change. Exactly what that is and when it will happen is unknown.
I’d love to offer up a quick fix solution here. Unfortunately, our political system is so intrinsically and hopelessly broken, the only way fix it is to throw it out completely and start over fresh with a brand new and modern Constitution. We must endeavor to make a new modern Constitution that takes into account MODERN ideologies and technology, that limits the damage any one political party or political actor can do to America and that allows quick, easy and PERMANENT removal of bad actors from the stage. We cannot afford or allow this level of sabotage to remain in the ranks of politicians. Politicians need to work for the betterment of America; they are not elected to sabotage it.
One thing is crystal clear, America cannot stay on its current political trajectory. If anything, the manufactured border crisis proves this sabotage situation out… in spades.
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Andrew Weissmann on Trump’s Legal Woes
Andrew Weissmann is one of many legal analysts that MSNBC has turned to for legal discussions involving Donald Trump’s legal woes. Let’s explore some of Mr. Weissmann’s misguided analyses.
State Prison Term?
One assertion that Andrew Weissmann puts forth over Donald Trump’s state legal woes is that Donald Trump won’t be able to “get out of” any state convictions. While on its face, this assertion may seem valid, but not if you take into account a second presidency of Donald J. Trump. While a “standard bearer” President wouldn’t be able to get out of it, at least someone who actually respects the Constitution and the rule of law, we already understand that Donald Trump respects nothing but himself.
We already know that Donald Trump intends to retaliate against his political rivals. He’s already stated this. Exactly what that means or how that retribution may come is unclear. However, one thing is crystal clear. If Donald Trump is capable of an insurrection against the United States, complete with inciting his followers into violence, then Trump is absolutely 100% capable of any action against any government authority.
Should Donald Trump be found guilty of any state crimes that require incarceration in a state prison and assuming his guilty sentencing involves such incarceration, you can bet Donald Trump as President won’t serve a day of that state prison sentence. Why? Retribution.
Military Might
The President of the United States is the commander over the United States Military. Trump knows that. We know that. What this means is that instead of simply making calls to heads of state using nebulous language that might or might not sound guilty, Trump’s gloves will come fully off. Donald Trump can and will use the military to retaliate against his foes, including those in state power. He will use the military to stop anyone who attempts to collect him for any state incarceration.
Not only will Trump play the innocent victim card as hard as possible on all media outlets and call out state officials by name so his followers will seek them out, he will also send in the military to collect and then detain and/or jail anyone who tries to bring him in, placing these people into federal prisons. Will these people get trials? No. Why? Because Trump will have unraveled the need to use the judicial system to find anyone guilty. Indeed, he will make himself judge, jury and executioner (such that that term means) over all Federal legal actions. All he will need to do is pen a missive that someone is guilty and off to Federal prison they go without a trial.
You might be thinking that these ideas are all far fetched, that Trump will never be able to assert that type of authority. If Trump gets back into power as President, he will have that authority because the voters who voted him in willed that power to him. This folks is what a dictator looks like. This is how a dictator acts.
It Doesn’t Affect Me!
Yes, absolutely it does. If Trump becomes arbiter over all federal legal matters effectively disbanding the courts, even the tiniest of federal infractions could lead to federal prison time and/or death, all at his or his assign’s whims… yes, for any citizen. Even if you haven’t managed to commit any federal infractions, but you wrote something Trump disliked on social media, this could land you in prison. Think of Alexei Nivalny being placed in prison because of Vladimir Putin didn’t like what Nivalny was saying…. you’ll quickly get the idea of where Donald Trump will take America.
Weissmann’s Delusion
Andrew Weissmann is under the incredible delusion that the judicial system will hold and somehow continue to work as it normally has after Donald Trump regains power as President. Weissman’s rationale and thinking is so incredibly wrong. Donald Trump has already stated he will gut the Constitution and its powers. He will fully take the gloves off and begin systematically dismantling the U.S. Constitution at its core including the Legislative and the Judicial branches of government. Trump will usurp the powers of both the Legislative and Judicial branches and make them his own, probably disbanding all courts and Capitol Hill. Trump will become all three branches in one.
Cabinet
Will Trump’s cabinet allow this? Sure. Trump is filling his little black book with names of those people who are fully willing to do his bidding. In his last term, he failed to find people willing to make these hard choices. If Trump manages another Presidential term, he will most certainly surround himself this time with people fully ready, willing and able to fulfill Trump’s every wish and desire… no matter the cost to America, to the Constitution or to you, the voters.
State Powers
Once the Constitution is gutted, the idea that States have any say under his dictatorship will evaporate. Congressional representatives? Nope. They’re history. Trump will then make it so that if the state authorities don’t immediately bow to his wishes, they won’t remain state authorities. In fact, I fully expect that Trump will immediately remove any state authorities who don’t agree with his Presidency. In fact, I then further expect Trump to reassign his own cronies to operate those same state authorities under federal purview.
That means that once Trump begins running not just the Federal government, but also every State government, he can commute any sentence he likes, including any state sentences that might be pending against him.
State Legislatures
What does this mean for states, state voting and state legislatures? It means they’re gone, history, expunged from existence. Donald Trump absolutely cannot allow states any manner of power that overrides his own authority.
Thus, Weissmann’s analysis of Donald Trump’s state legal woes is incredibly premature and could even be considered incredibly naive. The only way Donald Trump manages to become incarcerated under state law (assuming he is found guilty) is if he is NOT reelected as President in 2024. Only at that point will Donald Trump be forced to surrender to authorities under this current legal and constitutional system. If Donald Trump becomes President again, there will be no Constitution or, indeed, any state law under which to hold Donald J. Trump accountable for anything; not now, not ever.
Vote as if your life depends on it
If you still don’t believe Donald Trump is capable of the above, then you’re even more deluded than Donald Trump. However, if you’re invested in your current way of life, in your family and indeed, the current system, constitution and rule of law, then you need to vote as if your life depends on it; because it does. A vote for Donald J. Trump is a vote to dismantle the United States.
If you want your children to have a future in the same way that you had a future when you were a child, then you need to vote to maintain our current way of life. What that means is NOT voting for Donald J. Trump. Further, you shouldn’t vote for ANY GOP candidates because they are all tainted by Donald Trump’s ideals… and wish the same harm to America that Trump does.
In the 2024 Election, that leaves voting for Independents, Libertarians and Democrats. Whatever you do, DO NOT vote for anyone in the Republican party unless you want to see America, your current way of life, your family and any money that you have saved all end.
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Biden: Supreme Court Packing
If Joe Biden has ever had a strong incentive to add more seats to the Supreme Court, the recent Supreme Court decision against Joe Biden’s loan forgiveness program is just that incentive. Let’s explore.
Legal Merit and Standing
The Supreme Court is, at this point, simply going through the motions. This once seemingly impartial entity is simply pretending to be a fair and just body, but is now an almost completely Republican owned and partisan entity targeting the Democrats (and Democracy) at every turn. It can do this because of the way the court is now packed across party lines, in a highly partisan way.
However, it’s easy for these Republican Justices to pretend to use legal jurisprudence in the guise of their fully partisan agenda. It’s sickening and disheartening that people who have been put in a significant position of supposedly unbiased power in the United States can become yet another pawn of biased politics; wielding their judicial power like a weapon and targeting it firmly against the opposing political party and ultimately using their power against the very American people they swore to protect. That’s not justice.
If anyone has weaponized anything, it’s Donald Trump. With his court packing of the Supreme Court, this is exactly where the United States firmly sits. The Republicans have now firmly weaponized the Supreme Court against the Democrats and, more importantly, against the American people. It’s a sickening turn of events. It also signifies, once again, the destruction of the American people, America’s Democracy and the further erosion of America’s constitution.
Democrat Party
I’m not a Democrat by any stretch. I am also not a Republican. I’m a non-partisan writer who sits somewhere in the middle. I also don’t identify with either of these current two political parties. I don’t like how either of these two entities operate; neither of which actually perform their services on behalf of the American people for which they were elected. Both parties certainly make bold claims about what they are doing is “for the American people”, but the reality is, they do not and they haven’t worked for the betterment of America in a very, very long time.
With the above said, I can sniff out partisan politic antics instantly. This recent Supreme Court ruling against Biden’s loan forgiveness has the guise of seeming legit and above board, but underneath that legal facade, this SCOTUS ruling is 100% driven by partisan politics and is about as far against American betterment as one can get.
The Democrats don’t deserve to be harangued by Republicans any more than Republicans deserve to be harangued by Democrats. However, Republicans have been much more actively on the offensive against the Democrats (and ultimately against America) than vice versa. The Democrats have mostly been attempting to stay out of the Republican’s childish fray. Yet, the Republicans constantly keep pushing the Democrat-bad buttons, with Fox News Network taking this Republican button pushing to entirely unnecessary extremes.
Being nasty and vile towards anyone else is not what politics is about. It’s not what America is about. Yet, here we have supposedly conservative Christians taking this “nasty game” as far as they possibly can. How can ANYONE proclaim to be a conservative Christian and hold these nasty, vile and disgusting behaviors dear? Disgusting.
Both parties have lost sight of the true agenda of elected (and appointed) representatives. Instead of spending inordinate amounts of time in-fighting with one another, that time could be better spent actually producing legitimate, workable fixes for America, America’s Economy and the American people. Instead, we have the SCOTUS, who incidentally should have even declined to accept this case entirely, is instead poking their mostly Republican heads into a case were they have no business… and worse, making biased political statements with their actions.
Biden’s Supreme Court Revision
It’s time for Joe Biden to wake up. He can’t afford to sit idly by while Republicans run roughshod all over America, the American people and America’s constitution. Instead, Biden has a way to bring balance back to the Supreme Court. I’m not saying that the Supreme Court will be in any way fixed by Biden packing this court. Oh, no no no. That will take much more effort and changes. However, giving equal balance back to both liberals and conservatives alike on this court will at least make this court’s rulings much more fair and take this now unfair balance of power back out of the hands of the now Republican packed Supreme Court.
Right now, the court has 9 justices. However, there are 13 Federal circuit courts that sit directly under the Supreme Court. At the time when 9 justices were implemented, there were 9 circuit courts. This meant there was 1 justice for every circuit court. Since the circuit courts have increased to 13, our justices are now out of alignment against the circuit courts. This means that to put the SCOTUS back into balance against our now 13 circuit courts, 4 more justices must be added to the Supreme Court.
If Joe Biden pushes to have 4 new justices added to this court, he may even choose to nominate these justices, making the balance of the court change to 6 Republicans and 7 Democrats. That could possibly bring some semblance of balance back to the court, but also possibly push it back over to the Democrats. That’s a small price to pay to get this court out of its current heavy Republican imbalance. One extra Democrat justice is way more balanced than the current 3 extra Republican justices.
But the Court Isn’t Partisan?
No court should be partisan or hold with any partisan politics. Yet, we know that every person in the United States has their own opinions and must be allowed to vote in elections. This means that, yes, even these Supreme Court Justices have their own political affiliations… if even just at the moment of entering the ballot booth. Unfortunately as humans, we are fallible and subject to subjective personal whims. Sometimes those whims are of our own making and sometimes those whims are of others making.
Unfortunately, because these justices are appointed by politically affiliated and motivated Presidents, this places a political burden on top of the person being appointed to that judicial role. Meaning, if a Democrat President appoints a Justice, this likely means that that appointed person is also of a Democrat leaning persuasion and vice versa with the Republicans and conservatism. It may further mean that the Justice may feel the need to repay that appointment over time. This further means that as this person rules in their position as Justice, their political persuasion is likely to become part of that thought process when producing judicial opinions; thought processes that might actually help out the person who appointed that Justice to the bench.
Joe Biden’s Debt Absolution
I would be remiss by not bringing up this point. Some have argued that Joe Biden, as President, didn’t (and doesn’t) have the authority to forgive student loans in that large of a quantity; that the amount of money being forgiven by the government should have needed Congressional approval.
I won’t get into the nitty-gritty of this argument here because that’s an argument that cannot be decided by an independent blog. Suffice it to say, however, that as President of the United States, the person elected to this position has tremendous power over the American people. Whether that extends to forgiving student loans or other types of debt relief, that will have to be up to the courts to decide.
Clearly, though, if Franklin D. Roosevelt was given the broad authority to implement his “New Deal” to reinvigorate the then flagging economy, then Joe Biden should have had similar authority to implement his “Student Loan Debt Relief” program for the same reason amidst COVID. Let’s move on.
Re-balancing The Court
It’s clear that without a rebalance of the Supreme Court that this so-called conservative court will continue to run roughshod all over the United States of America and America’s Constitution. If we’re trying to heal this partisan divide, then the only way to do this is through bringing balance back to this court.
Thus, the only way forward is then by increasing the number of seats by 4. This increase also makes more sense when looking at the now 13 Federal Circuit courts that exist just below the Supreme Court. As stated above, increasing the number of SCOTUS seats to 13 would be firmly in-line with the current number compared to the 9 justices we was had when there were only 9 circuit courts. One Justice should exist for every circuit court that exists. That also means expanding the SCOTUS each time a new circuit court opens.
Biden must seriously consider rebalancing the court so that four new Justices are added to offset the conservative imbalance now held on this court. The only way the American people can be properly served is if the balance of conservative justices and liberal justices is near equal. This way, opinions written (even if of a specific political persuasion) cannot imbalance justice in the favor of one side or the other.
Taking Bias Out of the Justices
This is actually impossible. There is no way to do this short of forcing Justices to give up their ability to vote after they take their oath as Justice; that and having nominations come from anonymous sources, not the President. When Justices can’t vote in elections they shouldn’t be swayed by political actors. Unfortunately, that’s never likely to fly with the Justices. Even then, they’ll have spouses and children who can vote and who can sway the thoughts and minds of these Justices at home.
Political influence is everywhere. Even were Justices to give up their right to vote simply to take their seat as Justice, that wouldn’t remove years of ingrained political persuasion before they ever took their seat. It also won’t remove outside influences from those nearest to these Justices. It also won’t remove undue influence by those in political power near to the SCOTUS, including the President, Vice President and Congress.
Further Court Balance
One idea that clearly needs to be implemented is term limits. If four additional seats are added to the bench, these new seats should come without lifetime appointment. In fact, all of the current seats’ lifetime appointments should end after the next person is appointed. Lifetime appointments for the Supreme Court need to end completely.
How long should Justices be allowed to serve? They should be allowed to serve no longer than 10 years or until they are aged 65. If a Justice is appointed to a seat and they are aged 58, they will only have until age 65 to serve. After that, forced retirement and a new appointment is required.
More than this, every four years each Justice (including the Chief Justice) must be brought before Congress for a reconfirmation hearing. This allows Congress to vacate a Justice seat should the need arise. If a specific Justice has made rulings in inappropriate ways and/or having taken inappropriate largesse, having reconfirmation hearings every four years would allow Congress to vacate that seat, giving better checks and balances over inappropriate situations.
Once a seat is vacated, it is on the President to find and appoint a new person. If a Justice is forcibly vacated from their seat, they are no longer allowed to hold a seat on the Supreme Court Justice again nor serve in any other Federal court. They may join lower non-federal courts as a judge, but may no longer hold other federal judicial roles. Once removed, it’s permanent removal from all federal judicial positions. This is effectively federal disbarment for judges.
Such reconfirmation hearings should further entice the current Chief Justice to both police and take internal action against inappropriate Justices instead of waiting for Congress to take action. If Congress is forced to vacate that seat, that person cannot serve nor be appointed to work in the Federal judicial system again.
Such actions above may seem punitive, but that’s clearly what’s needed. Right now, only the Supreme Court can police and punish itself and clearly that is not happening. Leaving it up to people to police themselves clearly means no policing at all. This means that, as has been shown, the SCOTUS is unwilling to take action against its own. This same goes for Congress as Congress is also unwilling to take action against their own (an article for another day).
Fair and Balanced Court
Bringing all of these changes to the SCOTUS means a much more fair and balanced court. If there are ramifications to wrongdoing, making the wrong choices or, indeed, taking actions of malicious intent, there should be severe consequences.
Today, there are no consequences. It means that enterprising hackers can hack this court and use its lack of governance against it. This is exactly what’s going on right now. Hackers have infiltrated this court and are using the lack of checks and balances, lifetime appointments in coupling with this court’s lack of internal governance against not only the court, but against the American people. This was not intended by the framers of the Constitution.
The Constitution intended and “trusted” for appointees to be of highly upstanding, moral and ethical fiber in taking on these roles. Unfortunately, it didn’t foresee people of ill intent and of questionable morality and ethics to be appointed to these roles. A person who is willing to sit in a grey area of intent can subvert and use the court’s “trust” against it, particularly when there are multiple Justices colluding in this nefarious role. Worse, the court’s highly lax internal punishment structures when combined with lifetime appointments makes it ripe for this kind of abuse. In other words, it only takes one person of criminal intent to become a Justice on that court and the United States can crumble from within.
Again, none of this was intended, nor foresaw by the framers of the Constitution. Yet, here we are and here we sit. Court reform is in order and the above is a good, solid way of getting this ball rolling. Unfortunately, the current lifetime appointees seem guaranteed in their roles. However, eventually they will retire, relinquishing their seat. Until then, adding four more seats all serving without lifetime appointments and with forced reconfirmation every four years ensures that at least the newest seat-holders should remain of upstanding moral and ethical fiber, else their seat can be vacated and reassigned to someone who is willing to uphold the highest ethics and values.
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Fox News: A basket of deplorables!
Hillary Clinton’s words from the 2016 election have never become more prescient than they are today. Like running into a forest fire, the Republicans and its mouthpiece, Fox News, simply can’t help themselves. Let’s explore.
Fox News and Republicans
These two are now almost synonymous. Joined at the hip, so to speak. Neither can seemingly exist without the other. Meaning, whatever the Republican party does, Fox News falls for hook, line and sinker. Case in point.
With Joe Biden’s recent bid for the 2024 election, Republicans have now stooped to an even lower low point than I have ever seen for any human being on this planet. What low is that exactly? Wishing death upon the President of the United States! How can anyone not consider making a death wish, or more specifically a death threat deplorable? No one should ever wish death upon anyone!! EVER!
Yet, here we are today with Fox News and various other Republicans claiming Joe Biden won’t live through a second term. That’s absolutely sickening. And yes, it’s absolutely deplorable. This is why Hillary Clinton’s words from 2016 have now taken on a brand new prescient meaning when discussing both Fox News and the now Randocity christened Repugnican party.
Wishing Death upon another Human Being?
Who does this? On the one hand, you have the Republicans who claim to uphold the Bible’s values, morals and ethics. On the other hand, they’re now wishing death upon the sitting President of the United States? I can’t even describe how sickening and distasteful this is.
On the heels of mass shootings day in and out and now we have Republicans actively claiming Joe Biden won’t live 5 more years? Yes, that IS wishing death on another human being. It might even be more intentional than that. And yet, you don’t hear the Democrats wishing death on Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis or any other Republican politician. In fact, Joe Biden has consistently railed against political violence. And yet, here we are with these Repugnicans.
Secret Service Investigation of Death Threats
The Secret Service team is supposed to follow up on credible death threats against the President. I would most definitely class these words coming out of the mouths of both Fox News and various Republicans, and in particular Nikki Haley, as death threats against the President of the United States.
Threatening the president of the United States is a class D felony under United States Code Title 18, Section 871. It is punishable by up to 5 years in prison, a maximum fine of $250,000, a $100 special assessment, and up to 3 years of supervised release.
Source: Wikipedia
Both Fox News and Nikki Haley need to be extra cautious when making such statements that Joe Biden won’t live through a full second term as President.
If you vote for Joe Biden, you really are counting on a President Harris… because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old… is not something I think is likely.” —Nikki Haley
Joe Biden has had no illnesses to indicate that he is anywhere near death’s doorstep via natural medical causes. Quite the contrary, in fact. He seems quite able, healthy and able to perform his job as President of the United States. He has never proven himself to be compromised in any way, either in health or mental faculties. Yet, here we have Nikki Haley making such comments as if they are truth.
Her words can also be taken in two different ways. The first way is that she may have intended the words to be said in a prophetic manner, possibly predicting his death in advance (sketchy and crass at best). The second way is far more nefarious, one that suggests she and/or the Republicans may choose to have a hand in his demise via exercising political violence. At least, that’s the heavy subtext I’m getting from her words and mannerisms.
President Biden is, at this moment, healthy and well. Based on this fact alone, Nikki Haley’s statement is not only strange and detestable, I’d actually take her statement to be a credible death threat against the President’s life. Going onto public record and making a credible death threat against a President is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
The Republicans have already proven that they’re willing to tamper with elections, tamper with election processes, tamper with the constitution in addition to making false statements. But now, they’re obviously willing to throw out incidental death threats against the President of the United States.
Republicans are going to say, “You’re being alarmist”; that her words weren’t intended that way. Listen carefully to her words again. They were measured, calculating and most of all, have no basis to be said based on Joe Biden’s present health. The only way her words can be interpreted is as a sincere death threat. Looking at Joe Biden’s health right at this very moment, the only way Joe Biden would or could die in the next 5 years is if Nikki Haley had a hand in his demise. This means, Nikki Haley’s words appear to be a credible death threat against the President of the United States.
Holding Your Tongue / Crossing The Line
There are plenty of ways for a candidate to impress upon potential voters the difference in that candidate’s age and Joe Biden’s age without crossing any lines. That’s fine. But, claiming someone (anyone) will be dead within 5 years implies something else is at play… something nefarious and malicious. First we have an insurrection on the Capitol and now we have prospective candidates making death threats?
Death threats are not and should not ever become the new normal in the United States. Unfortunately, as much as Joe Biden wants no political violence, it seems the new Republicans are now hell bent on making that a reality.
Unfortunately, these new Republicans have no qualms at doing, saying or being anything to get votes. Yet, when is it enough to call foul on these people? Death threats are not protected speech under ANY circumstances.
True threats constitute a category of speech — like obscenity, child pornography, fighting words, and the advocacy of imminent lawless action — that is not protected by the First Amendment.
Source: The Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University
Verbally predicting that a person will die within 5 years without having any evidence to support that assertion implies that the person making the statement intends to do harm to that person.
This type of speech is not protected by the First Amendment and it is also considered a credible death threat against the President of the United States (i.e., advocacy of imminent lawless action). Nikki Haley needs some serious help here to avoid the potential legal consequences of her words said against a sitting President.
It doesn’t matter if she’s a possible Presidential candidate. What matters is her threat.
Republicans at a New Low
Worse, news outlets like Fox News have jumped all over Nikki Haley’s threat and are doubling down on these words themselves, also rephrasing her words by, again, claiming Biden’s imminent death within 5 years. These are not innocent words. These are not protected words. Yet, President Biden is letting this all slide?
Where is Joe Biden’s Secret Service detail? What are they doing? Why are they not taking action against Nikki Haley and her words as well as Fox News as a credible threat? If anyone else had said these words, they’d already have been nabbed and locked up as a credible threat to the United States. Yet, we’re again giving politicians a free pass to make death threats? Since when?
Once again, Republicans are firmly showing that they are above the law and that law cannot touch them. Our Democracy is clearly under severe threat BY the Republicans. Nikki Haley’s words prove that the Republicans STILL wish to dismantle everything about American democracy. Will this deplorable Republican crap ever truly end?
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Fact Checking the Donald Trump Rhetoric
Donald Trump makes many claims and assertions which have no basis in fact. He does this almost every time he speaks at a podium anywhere. Additionally, misguided Republicans (aka his sycophants) blindly accept Donald’s rhetoric and believe Donald to be, and I quote these misguided people, “The Best President Ever.” Let’s explore how much of Donald Trump’s rhetoric is false.
Donald Trump’s Claims after Indictment
Let’s start with claims stated by Donald Trump’s own mouth following his indictment. Many of these claims may seem to hold weight until you realize that Donald Trump is a pathological lying narcissist. What that means in layman’s terms is that he habitually lies about almost every single thing he says. While there may be grains of truth in a few of his statements, they usually end with a massive lie.
I honestly don’t see the appeal or attraction in listening to someone whose lies outnumber truths and who continues to lie constantly, even when there’s absolutely no need to do so. Why so many Republicans are so willing to accept and embrace Donald Trump’s habitual lying needs to become the subject of an educational research paper that has yet to be written.
Let’s jump right into Donald’s claims…
Claim 1: Presidential Records Act requires Negotiation between National Archives and ex-President to return classified documents.
Claim Status: False. At the time a new President is sworn into office, all previous documents by the previous President must be returned, handed over to and automatically become property of the National Archives. Nothing in the NARA statute requires or even suggests “negotiating” with any former President for document turnover.
Claim 2: Joe Biden has over 1800 boxes of classified documents.
Claim Status: False. A small number of documents in boxes were found and returned from Joe Biden’s home in Delaware and Boston to the National Archives. It is entirely unclear whether those documents had been there from when he left office as vice president or if they were acquired and carried there after he became President. Additionally, the documents may not even be classified or sensitive. How would a Vice President gain access to such highly classified documents anyway?
Claim 3: All past Presidents have taken home classified documents after their administration ended. Trump actually admits to having done this himself (see below).
Claim Status: False and True, respectively. While Trump’s admission of taking boxes of classified documents to Mar-A-Lago is True, the remainder is False. No past presidents have intentionally and willfully taken boxes of classified documents from the White House or any other facility operated by the government upon departing their role as President. Donald Trump is the first and only President to have both done this upon departing the role and he is also the first ex-President to have admitted to having done this.
Claim 4: Trump’s call to Georgia soliciting votes was a “Perfect Call”
Claim Status: False. Trump’s call to Georgia’s elections official to solicit those officials to “find” 11,780 votes for Trump is not only NOT a “Perfect Call”, it very likely constitutes malicious intent to willfully solicit conspiracy and interfere with the 2020 election in Georgia. Willful election interference is a crime in Georgia.
Claim 5: Trump claims that America is experiencing the highest inflation in 60 years.
Claim Status: False. In 1979, 42 years ago, the annual inflation rate was 13.3%, 7.3% higher than our current 6% annual inflation rate as of February 2023. Let’s further put his statement into broader perspective. Donald Trump ushered in our current inflation rate as part of his own failure in handling the first year of the COVID pandemic. The United States is presently in the midst of inflation, not because of Biden, but because of Trump’s economic mismanagement of the pandemic his final year in office.
Claim 6: Trump’s claims about ballot box stuffing in the 2020 election were “all caught on government cameras.”
Claim Status: Mostly False, but also slightly True. It is categorically False and was never proven in Donald Trump’s over 63 election lawsuits that ballot box stuffing ever took place at any actual 2020 election polling places. Such activity was also never caught “on government cameras.” If it had been, he wouldn’t have lost over 63 lawsuits with this exact argument. However, Donald Trump himself did attempt to use the court system and the Insurrection itself to stuff his own ballots into ballot boxes to sway the election in his favor. Thus, his statement is somewhat True that ballot box stuffing was attempted, but only by Donald Trump himself and, by extension, those in the Republican party. In fact, many Republicans are still attempting to sway elections by heavy gerrymandering, which should be considered a form of ballot box stuffing and election interference.
Claim 7: $85 billion worth of equipment was left in Afghanistan after US withdrawal.
Claim Status: False. Around ~$83 billion total was spent on managing portions of the US occupation of Afghanistan. On withdrawal, around $7 billion in total equipment was left behind, much of it left in an inoperable state. Let’s understand the further subtext over Trump’s statement. Donald Trump was instrumental in negotiating with the Taliban in his final year in office over the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was planned for early 2020. Thus, the Afghanistan withdrawal and any associated costs of equipment left behind was a direct result of Donald Trump’s meddling in Afghanistan’s affairs. Donald Trump left behind an exceedingly short timetable for Joe Biden to execute a proper withdrawal, forcing this action just a few months after his inauguration. Thus, Donald Trump is actually at least partially responsible, along with Joe Biden, for the cost of any equipment left behind and any casualties after withdrawal from Afghanistan due to Trump’s exceedingly short timetable that Biden likely felt forced to uphold.
Claim 8: Illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar-A-Lago
Claim Status: False. After months of the failure in negotiations back and forth between Trump and the National Archives to return documents, the FBI was sent with a legally issued, judge authorized, properly signed and carefully executed search warrant to search and seize the documents that Donald Trump brought with him from the White House to Mar-A-Lago. The search was not a “raid”. The search was conducted in an orderly fashion as written in the warrant. Documents were seized by the FBI in relation to those required by the warrant. Further context follows. Donald Trump was given every opportunity over many months to surrender all documents involving the National Archives, but chose to ignore those requests. The search and seizure was only required by the FBI because Donald Trump himself failed to comply with repeated requests by the National Archives to return requested documents; documents that Donald Trump claimed he did not have, but which were subsequently found during the legal search.
Claim 9: DOJ / FBI lying to FISA Court to gain access to spy on Trump Aide
Claim Status: Somewhat True and somewhat False. At the time, the FBI was investigating a Trump aide for possibly spying in relation to the 2020 election. When the FBI submitted its request to FISA, it believed that it then had probable cause for the investigation (False). It was later determined that the FBI’s probable cause might not have been valid (True). Further context is warranted. Because this situation happened under Trump’s Presidency, he should have done something as President. Clearly, he didn’t. As the then sitting President, Trump complaining after-the-fact about a situation that he could have handled then is his own fault and of his own making and no one else’s.
Claim 10: Alleged democrat unconstitutional changes to election laws by not getting approvals from state legislators
Claim Status: Ambiguous. Trump is guilty of this himself. By Trump attempting to seat false electors in the 2020 election, who would then vote in Trump’s favor instead of the duly authorized electors during the electoral college vote, this is actually an unconstitutional change to election laws unapproved by states. Second, by requesting Mike Pence to throw the electoral college confirmation in Trump’s favor (remember, the “‘Hang Mike Pence’ chant?”) during the insurrection, this is also another example of unconstitutional changes to election laws not state approved. While Trump may be calling out a different event in his own mind, these are the two events that most people will remember that Trump perpetrated on the United States… events which fully fit Trump’s claim.
Claim 11: The DOJ was working in collusion with Facebook and Twitter to hide and suppress data involving the Hunter Biden Laptop.
Claim Status: False. Twitter and Facebook have never colluded with anyone in the government. Information about the Hunter Biden laptop was never hidden from anyone on Twitter or Facebook. Any posts removed or hidden were done so by each respective company’s staff. Further context is required. The alleged Hunter Biden laptop has never been proven to have ever been owned by Hunter Biden himself. A person purporting to be Hunter Biden, but never properly identified, dropped off a laptop at a repair shop. The repair shop owner turned the laptop over to the FBI. The laptop has never been proven to have ever been owned by anyone in the Biden family. The contents of the alleged laptop hard drive were supposedly copied prior to being handed over. The alleged hard drive content supposedly has incriminating data, but again nothing on that hard drive has been shown to implicate Hunter Biden or indeed even hold incriminating evidence. The data, the laptop and the situation were likely fabricated to disparage the Biden family. This one is solely a false talking point by the Republicans intended solely to disparage the Democrats and, more specifically, the Biden family.
Claim 11: Massive election interference (via Alvin Bragg)
Claim Status: False, but true in other ways. Context required. In point of fact, there is massive election interference occurring today, but not by the Democrats. It is actually a point of fact that Republicans are perpetrating massive election interference through heavy gerrymandering in their respective states. By redrawing district lines in convoluted and complex patterns solely designed to dilute Democrat voters into fewer numbers and concentrate Republican voters in greater numbers, this ensures Republicans win state (and federal) elections when they otherwise would not. Gerrymandering is a form of election interference on a massive scale. Gerrymandering is designed to allow politicians and legislators to pick their voters, subverting the will of the voters to pick their candidates. Additionally, Republican led states have tampered with voting laws by attempting to outlaw vote-by-mail and other similar proxy voting mechanisms in favor of in-person day of voting. These law changes are intended to exclude many legal voters (such as disabled individuals and veterans) as yet another means to allow Republicans to pick their voters, not the other way around as elections should require. Further, Donald Trump allegedly sought to interfere with both the 2016 and 2020 elections. See above to cite DJT’s interference with the 2020 election.
Claim 12: Alvin Bragg case “never should have been brought”
Claim Status: Wishful thinking. Donald Trump lived and worked in New York prior to his Presidency. Bragg’s indictment states 34 counts of falsifying business records with intent to commit “another crime” prior to the election. With this article, it’s pretty much proven that Donald J. Trump is a pathological liar. Lying this pathologically goes to prove that Donald Trump is not a trustworthy person and is not credible. Alvin Bragg has not proven himself to be a pathological liar or untrustworthy. As such, the Alvin Bragg indictment is a whole lot more credible than Donald Trump’s wishful thinking and statements of being “Not Guilty.” However, “guilty until proven innocent” is how the United States rolls. In that goal, let’s allow Alvin Bragg’s indictment to be brought to trial so Donald Trump can prove that Bragg’s indictment is indeed not valid, which will allow a jury to decide the matter of Donald Trump.
Claim 13: Crime statistics in Democrat run cities are the likes of which we have never seen before.
Claim Status: False. Republican led states far outpace crime over Democrat run states. Democrat run cities within Republican run states do have higher crime rates, but that’s only because the states are Republican run, operating under much more lax Republican state crime and gun laws. In fact, gun violence in Republican run (Red) states far outpaces gun violence perpetrated in Democrat run (Blue) states. It is actually Republican led states that have far higher crime problems than Democrat states. Most Democrat run cities in Democrat run states do not have the same crime rate problems as Democrat run cities in Republican run states.
Claim 14: In the 2020 election, DJT claims he won 75 million votes, “which is more than any sitting President in the history of our country.”
Claim Status: False. In the 2020 election, Donald Trump did not get 75 million votes. He received 74,222,958 votes. Rounding that, you’d round it down to 74 million votes. It gets worse, though. Joe Biden, in fact, won 81,283,098 votes (or 81 million votes). If anyone has the distinction of winning the most votes in United States Presidential history (based solely on Trump’s statement), it is in fact, Joe Biden who gets that honor. And yet, here we have Donald Trump taking credit for an honor which he didn’t earn and doesn’t deserve. Note that in 2016, Donald Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, but still managed to win the electoral college.
Claim 15: “[Documents] that I openly and in very plain sight brought with me to Mar-A-Lago from our beautiful White House…”
Claim Status: True. Donald Trump has confessed to having brought classified documents from the White House to Mar-A-Lago after having left office as President for a few hours, but then as ex-President after Biden’s inauguration. As ex-President, these (still classified) records were no longer Trump’s records and he had no more right to remain in possession of these classified documents after becoming ex-President. Admitting to having taken classified documents without authorization is probably exactly the admission and evidence that DOJ’s Jack Smith needs to majorly help indict and convict Trump’s case. Donald Trump needs to learn to shut his mouth.
Claim 16: “As President, I have the right to declassify documents, and the process is automatic.”
Claim Status: True and False, respectively. It is True that as sitting President, the President holds the rights to declassify some documents. It is absolutely False that the process is automatic. To declassify documents as President, forms must be filled out and submitted so that the National Archives can ascertain validity of the request and so that the documents can become properly reclassified in the archive. It does not and cannot happen automatically. However, the President cannot declassify certain types of statutorily protected documents at all, not even by thinking about it or by using paperwork. As an ex-President, however, the power to declassify documents is forfeit and lost. Simply walking out of the White House with boxes of documents in hand as soon-to-be-ex-President is not sufficient to ‘automatically’ declassify documents. The appropriate paperwork must be filled and filed to both verify if the document can be declassified and also to request the archive to update its classification, if so. If the President didn’t request these actions prior to becoming ex-President, then the documents should not be considered declassified. As stated, statutorily protected documents simply cannot be declassified at all by a sitting President. Possessing any of these statutorily protected documents as ex-President should be considered a felony. If Trump’s team had submitted declassifying document forms within 30 days of having exited the White House, the now Biden controlled government would probably have been lenient enough to accept the declassifying requests on Trump’s behalf, with the exception of statutorily protected documents, of course. I mean, how hard is it to do the right thing?
Republican Claims
While many of the Republican talking points have been covered by Donald Trump’s claims above, with those talking points lifted almost verbatim from Trump’s speeches, let’s discuss the delusions that many Republican voters are under about Donald Trump. Further, let’s validate these continually regurgitated Republican talking points.
Delusion 1: Donald Trump ushered in and presided over the best economic prosperity ever seen in the United States as the 45th President.
Delusion Status: False. Donald Trump didn’t usher in United States economic prosperity during his tenure. This economic prosperity is falsely attributed to Donald Trump. The prosperity that carried through Trump’s first 3 years during his Presidency was as a direct result of Barrack Obama. Obama ushered in this prosperity after the 2008 mortgage meltdown almost tanked the entire economy. It was Barrack Obama who spent the time and effort to rebound the economy to the prosperous level seen in 2015, just prior to Trump taking office. Once Trump took office, Trump rode Obama’s economic wave for his first 3 years, until the economy slowed in early 2019 and then COVID happened and fully tanked the economy. If Trump were the economic savior he is so readily touted and claims to be, Trump’s fourth year in office should have remained as prosperous as the 3 years prior, regardless of COVID. Note that economic prosperity includes job gains, inflation, wages and all manner of other metrics that Donald Trump rode and took personal credit for, but which happened because of Obama. One thing that Trump can take full credit for is tanking the economy once COVID arrived. Yet another dubious honor.
Delusion 2: Unemployment was at its lowest rate ever under Trump.
Delusion Status: False. Donald Trump presided over 2.9 million lost jobs over his 4 years in office. The unemployment rate went up by 1.6% to 6.3%. Compare that to the end of 2022 when the unemployment rate was 2.2% under Biden.
Delusion 3: The deficit was at its lowest rate ever in the history of the United States.
Delusion Status: False. Under Donald Trump, the United States deficit actually increased almost exponentially, skyrocketing from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion, the most ever for a one term president. A dubious honor to be sure.
Delusion 4: There were no wars under Donald Trump.
Delusion Status: False. While the United States entered no “new wars”, existing and inherited wars grew both in size and in monetary expenditures under Donald Trump. Trump even exacerbated these inherited wars causing even more death and destruction by his own actions, including the use of expensive drones. Trumps claims are just that, claims… and false ones at that.
Delusion 5: Gas prices were the cheapest ever under Trump.
Delusion Status: False. Donald Trump presided over somewhat cheaper gasoline prices between 2016 and 2019 than between 2010-2015 (which averaged over $3). The average price of a gallon of gas during Donald Trump’s presidency ranged between $2.00 and $2.75 per gallon. In fact, when Biden took office, gas prices began to decline a little over Trump’s term for at least Biden’s first year in office. After that, the gas price gouging situation began, echoing similar prices seen during some of Obama’s term in office. In the year 2000, though, the United States had seen gas prices drop to around 99¢ per gallon at the time, far cheaper than was ever seen during Trump’s time in office. More false rhetoric.
Delusion 6: Democrats are ushering in higher crime rates.
Delusion Status: False. In fact, this situation is truthfully the opposite. Republican led states are ushering in some of the highest crime rates in the nation. This is mostly because Republicans are NRA friendly, if not NRA backed. Thus, Republicans refuse to write legislation to control guns. Many Republican led states are now crafting and signing new legislation to both legalize guns even more and allow such activities as concealed carrying without a permit. For example, Republican Ron DeSantis recently signed a permitless concealed carry into law in Florida. Republicans are clearly very, very gun friendly legislatively, to the point that it is now facilitating skyrocketing crime rates and homicide statistics in Republican led states.
Delusion 7: Democrat cities are ushering in higher crime rates.
Delusion Status: Ambiguous and False. The subtext of this false narrative is to disparage Democrats without explaining that Republicans are actually responsible for this situation. Democrat run cities that are now experiencing higher than normal crime rates in those cities which exist within Republican led states. It is then no surprise that because Republicans are writing state legislation to relax gun laws, allowing open carry and even permitless concealed carry and easier access to buying guns, that the crime rate in all cities in those Republican states is skyrocketing. Thus, this false rhetoric is designed to ignore the fact that it is the Republicans who are actually responsible for the skyrocketing crime rates in those Democrat run cities.
Delusion 8: Democrats are responsible for the open border crisis.
Delusion Status: Mostly false. While Joe Biden has made a few questionable maneuvers regarding securing the border, Republicans are the ones making this situation worse. With Greg Abbott human trafficking immigrants across the country to other states along with Ron DeSantis, which is a federal crime, this action is backfiring on the Republicans. Abbott’s trafficking is actually having the opposite effect by encouraging even more immigrants to arrive at the border so they can be bussed into the United States. While Biden hasn’t sufficiently secured the border, it is the Republicans who are causing the borders to become clogged due to their cushy busses, free transportation and free food and lodging that Greg Abbott is giving to the immigrants the moment they get here. It is Abbott who is welcoming the immigrants with open arms, not Biden. The border security is actually the responsibility of Greg Abbott, in coordination with the border patrol. It is not Joe Biden’s responsibility. If Greg Abbott is not actively trying to secure the border, that failure falls almost squarely on Texas and Abbott, not on Biden. Once again, the false delusional rhetoric is the responsibility of the Republicans, not the Democrats.
Delusion 9: Donald Trump is the best president EVAR!
Delusion Claim: False. Donald Trump has actually proven himself to be the worst President in United States History. What other sitting president fomented a violent insurrection against the government? Donald Trump has had a lot of firsts, but none of these firsts are something to be proud of, nor do any of these firsts prove Trump to be a great or even good President. These firsts are of dubious distinction:
- President Donald Trump fomented and incited a violent Insurrection on the United States Capitol building for the sole purposes of causing election interference, entirely for the purposes of keeping himself in power as the President of the United States beyond his Constitutionally mandated 4 year term.
- President Donald Trump took many boxes of allegedly classified documents from the White House back to his home in Mar-A-Lago in Florida; boxes that hadn’t been proven to be declassified at the time. Trump argues that he declassified them simply by thinking about it. That’s not one of the legally adopted US Government processes required to declassify documents. The legal process involves filling out paperwork, submitting it to the archives and having that request accepted and acknowledged. If the archive staff wasn’t aware the documents were declassified, then they are not declassified. Attempting to declassify them as an ex-President also isn’t possible.
- President Donald Trump was the only President to have been impeached by the House of Representatives twice. He was also the first President to have been denied conviction by the Senate twice.
- Donald Trump is the first former President of the United States to have been criminally indicted by any prosecutor.
There are likely many more firsts yet to come, but these above are the highlights (err… lowlights) of Donald Trump’s dubious Presidency. In addition to the false rhetoric already refuted above, Donald Trump’s term wasn’t spectacular by any Presidential standard. While Trump certainly wasn’t the first president to serve only one term, Trump most definitely shares in a very small group of Presidents who have only served one term including:
- James Buchanan
- Andrew Johnson
- Franklin Pierce
- William Henry Harrison
- John Tyler
- Millard Fillmore
- Warren G. Harding
- Herbert Hoover
- Zachary Taylor
- Martin Van Buren
- Rutherford B. Hayes
- Benjamin Harrison
- Chester A. Arthur
- Gerald Ford
- James Garfield
- Jimmy Carter
- William Howard Taft
- George H. W. Bush
- James K. Polk
- John Quincy Adams
- John Adams
- John F. Kennedy (for obvious reasons)
- Donald J. Trump
Donald Trump served as President, yes, but didn’t really help the United States very much. Most countries laughed at Trump like a clown and easily saw through Trump’s crass veneer. He raised the deficit by tremendous amounts, spending vast amounts of money, but not really providing much benefit to United States citizens. Because Obama had already set the economy on an upward trajectory, Donald Trump didn’t have to do much to keep that trajectory on track. He simply needed to not interfere with it and that’s what he did (or rather, didn’t do). Donald Trump’s legacy, however, wasn’t that he was mostly a do-nothing President. It would be how he handled his final year in office and specifically what happened on January 6th that effectively eclipsed his previous 4 years of service and rewrote his historical legacy as the 45th President.
Because Donald Trump was ill-prepared to handle the pandemic, he first tried to ignore it. When that didn’t work, he then tried to do as little as possible. This left the United States open to the rapid spread of it. While the CDC and other health agencies tried to steer Donald Trump in the right direction, he was having none of it. This meant that many hundreds of thousands of people died of COVID-19 in the early days because Donald Trump failed and refused to do anything.
It wasn’t until his approval ratings dropped to all time lows that he began to work on such projects as Operation Warp Speed, to develop and push through vaccines quickly. While he did preside over such health projects, it was too little, too late… at least for his legacy. If he had acted much sooner to the pandemic, many more people could have lived.
If Donald Trump had left well enough alone regarding the election and accepted his defeat gracefully during the 2020 election, you know by actually conceding to Biden, his legacy would have remained fully intact. Instead, Donald Trump took a different, highly questionable and very unethical approach to leaving office (or rather, to prevent his leaving office). Trump attempted to perpetrate many dubious (and probably very illegal) schemes in this process which ultimately fomented into a violent Insurrection on Capitol Hill by his supporters, all in the goal of attempting to halt the counting of the Electoral College votes with the sole intent to interfere with the Election and halt the peaceful transition of power.
Though, Donald Trump (and his cabal) claimed those violent rioters weren’t his supporters at all, instead suggesting they were actually Democrats and/or ANTIFA, even though this idea makes zero sense at all. Why would Democrats show up to a Trump rally at the Ellipse and support Trump? Then see those same Democrats march to the Capitol Hill buildings only to rip apart the buildings and violently attack police officers? It wasn’t a Democrat rally. It was a Republican led rally. Why would Democrats attend a Republican rally in those numbers? No, those people were definitely Donald Trump supporters.
Worse, for 4 hours and a handful of minutes, Donald Trump allowed the rioting to continue unabated instead of calling an end to it as President and sending in troops to stop it. The President should ALWAYS call for law and order, but instead this President stayed entirely silent, aiding and abetting the rioters silently.
Donald Trump’s historic legacy will be forever overshadowed and tainted by Trump’s incredibly dubious and stupid choice to foment a violent insurrection, followed by his over 4 hours of (in)action on January 6th, 2020… fully and completely eclipsing any good that may have been accomplished during his previous years as President. No one will care ultimately what he did in his early years, but everyone will remember that a President of the United States attempted to tear up the Constitution solely for personal gain.
Sychopant Supporters
Donald Trump’s sycophants, however, act like parrots. These delusional people simply repeat everything Donald Trump says almost verbatim, as if he’s somehow the voice of reason and/or the voice of truth. If anything, this article should illustrate exactly how misguided Donald Trump’s sycophants are and how much Donald Trump lacks the ability to tell the truth. Truth is just not something Donald Trump does.
The Washington Post estimates that of Donald Trump’s 4 years in office, he perpetuated well over 30,000 false or misleading claims. That’s not insignificant. Unfortunately, too many of his sycophants are blind to his lack of morals and ethics. Anyone willing to stand around for 4 hours while cops are beaten within inches of their lives is not someone you should endorse as “The Best President EVER” as you’re obviously delusional. Only someone delusional can look beyond the criminal, the unethical and then condone downright evil behavior only to claim they see someone who they believe to be “Good”. Good? That’s a laugh. Wolf in sheep’s clothing is more like it.
Donald Trump is not a good person. He’s not even an ethical person. There are things that Donald Trump most definitely is, though. He’s a manipulative person. He’s a sociopath. He’s a classic narcissist. He’s a philanderer. He’s bigoted. He’s misogynistic. He’s may even be somewhat delusional himself. However, there are almost no redeeming qualities about Donald J. Trump. How can you look in the mirror and state with a straight face that this man, a man who is willing to allow people to be injured and killed during a 4 hour period when he could have stopped it, a man who sat around allowing hundreds of thousands to die of COVID when he could have helped, is someone to look up to? No. There is simply no excuse here.
I don’t personally hate Donald Trump. I pity him. He’s a man who is caught up in his own delusional world and simply cannot break free. He is out for himself and what others can give him. This is why he relies on delusional people to continue to hand over their money to him. Donald Trump likely needs some major psychiatric counseling and therapy along with possibly some medication. He doesn’t need to be running the United States, however. This man should have, in fact, been barred from ever holding office ever again as he is simply not fit to hold it.
Those sycophants who parrot Donald’s every word AND who also hold governmental office must likewise be shown the door. Anyone who is that much of a blind follower of someone else cannot be working towards the benefit of their own constituents. If Donald Trump is more important then a congress person’s own constituents, voting them out and replacing them with someone who can think for themselves is the only answer. The current Republican party is blinded by a man who is ultimately a huge problem, not just for the Republicans, but for the entire world.
Let’s hope that Jack Smith, special counsel brought in by the DOJ, can bring this man to justice for the pain, suffering and, yes, death he has inflicted on far too many. If Donald J. Trump is elected again as President, his delusions won’t stop with an Insurrection. America as we know it will end… and along with it your freedoms, your home, your families, your beliefs and possibly even your very lives. Donald Trump is not the answer to America’s problems. America’s last gasp will be at the hands of Donald Trump. Donald J. Trump will end America. There will be nothing at all great about that, but then there won’t be many left to worry about it either.
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Donald Trump indicted?
Yes and this is likely to be the first of many indictments to come. Should Donald Trump be indicted for anything? Clearly, the MAGA Republicans say, “No.” Let’s explore.
Note, I’ve typically avoided political and controversial topics like this one on Randocity. Not because they’re not worth writing about, but because these topics are mostly useless. However, this topic is so urgent that it must be said.
MAGA Republicans
Let’s lead with the elephant in the room. Clearly, these MAGA Republicans are bad for the United States. They’re bad for United States Citizens. They’re bad for the world. Yet, here we are once again. With these MAGA cultists jumping to Donald Trump’s defense, not even knowing if the indictment has merit.
Donald Trump is a sleazy, off-kilter, man-child wannabe politician. There’s no doubting this. The man certainly appears to be successful by all measures, but that’s only because he uses his alleged victimhood to raise money every single time someone acts against him.
Worse, the MAGA Republican base always seems to rally around this man as if he’s some kind of cult leader messiah. Yes, MAGA is literally a cult; the cult of Donald Trump.
Liberal Democrat?
I can hear all of the MAGA Republicans groaning over this article at this point claiming this author is liberal Democrat. You don’t know me. You don’t know my views. As an author, it is a journalist’s prerogative and, indeed, obligation to call out that a duck is a duck. You and Donald Trump can’t waddle your way out of this. Be upset. Fine. But, that doesn’t change the facts above. Donald Trump’s cult IS a cult. There is no way around that.
You don’t see liberal democrats rallying around Joe Biden carrying flags with Biden’s face on it as if he were some kind of messianic figure. Just the opposite, in fact. A lot of liberal democrats don’t like what Joe Biden is doing as President of the United States either and are more than willing to call out each and every fact or action they don’t like. Yet, these liberal democrats also don’t stand on street corners waving flags with Biden’s face when he’s being persecuted. On the other hand, the MAGA Republicans rarely ever speak ill of their messiah, Donald Trump, even when Donald Trump called for people to inject bleach into themselves to rid themselves of COVID-19. A truly medically dangerous suggestion. Yet, they’re so willing to drag out the messianic flags and stand on street corners calling Donald Trump the best President ever. That’s a delusional cultist.
Intelligence vs Not
One of the things that much of Donald Trump’s base has proven time and time again is that they’re far less educated than the average liberal democrat. This lack of education may be what’s feeding the gullible nature of MAGA people, leading them to becoming cultists for Trump. When you can’t exactly think for yourself, letting other people think for you seems like bliss. Sure, as a MAGA Republican, you may think you’re good at trying to make arguments, but most of those arguments end up stupid and don’t work out for you. This is the reason Fox News is so bad at it. They hire moronic TV hosts (and lame piece writers) and then expect intelligence out of each and every one of them. You (don’t) get what you (don’t) pay for. You can’t pay dumb people to instantly become intelligent.
It’s quite clear that Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson check their education at the Fox News’ door every day on the way in, even though all three claim to be college educated. If I worked at the colleges where these three allegedly attended, I’d summarily revoke their degrees. Of course, these three aren’t required to have an education to work at Fox News. A comb, a suit and a dusting of makeup in the makeup artist’s chair and they’re good to go. The teleprompter and remedial reading skills do all of the rest. You don’t need a college education to read from a teleprompter.
It’s sad that Fox News has had to stoop to such (uneducated) lows to try to gain (and retain) its ratings… ratings, I might add, that come from the bottom 10-30% of the uneducated percentile of the United States.
Once again, I can hear the MAGA Republicans groaning. Stop groaning and go get an education. That or stop reading and go listen to your (sym)pathetic “friends” over at Fox News or News Max so you get today’s fix of unreality.
Donald Trump Indicted in New York
Donald Trump formerly lived in New York and has operated businesses in and out of New York while living there and since departing the state. It’s actually relatively recently that Donald Trump moved out of New York state, first to be President when he lived in the White House and then later to Florida to live full time at Mar-a-Lago. Simply because Donald Trump WAS President at one time and just because he now lives in Florida does not mean Donald Trump didn’t perform illegal activities while residing and operating businesses in New York prior to his Presidency.
Clearly, since the Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, has brought an indictment, Bragg (and a grand jury) believes that there is sufficient evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Donald Trump.
Donald Trump claims it’s all a political witchhunt and all politically motivated, but Trump knows what he has done both prior to and after leaving New York. Because nearly every single person who is indicted of a criminal offense initially pleads “Not Guilty”, that doesn’t mean that they truly are innocent. Only a trial will uncover if this is true.
Considering that there are 30+ charges pending under Donald Trump’s New York indictment, that sheer volume doesn’t say “petty misdemeanor.” If there had been one or two charges, a petty misdemeanor might sound more reasonable, but 30 or more? No. 30+ charges definitely says something larger is at work… something that can only be decided via a judge, courtroom and jury.
Yes, it’s entirely possible that Donald Trump could be acquitted of all charges, but we won’t know that until or unless the charges and the evidence have been presented and a trial jury has decided.
Trial by Jury
One thing that Donald Trump and his cult following (including cult members Kevin McCarthy and Lindsay Graham) have continually put forth is his innocence. More than this, they have put forth that the DA has “weaponized” the judicial system against politicians, or more specifically, against Donald Trump as a politician. Again, I say, “No.” Instead, I’ll strongly counter that Trump has weaponized his cult following against the United States’ sovereignty.
A District Attorney’s job is to find wrongdoing and prosecute it. Clearly, Trump has at least left a trail of wrongdoing that has now been uncovered… in part with the help of Donald Trump’s former attorney and now convicted felon, Michael Cohen. Regardless of Cohen’s conviction and release, and regardless of Cohen’s disbarment as lawyer, that doesn’t discredit or discount his statements as to what Cohen did for and while in the employ of Donald Trump… especially when those statements can be fully corroborated using physical evidence.
Trump conferred many, many of his own personal and legal matters onto Cohen as his attorney. Trump then threw Cohen under the bus to serve prison time over those very same matters. What did Donald Trump think would happen after? Did Trump think that Cohen would step out of prison and jump right back into Trump’s good graces? No. Cohen is doing what anyone who gets thrown under the bus does. Whistleblow. Cohen just so happened to whistleblow right into the Manhattan DA’s ear… and clearly Bragg has listened intently. Cohen has likely managed and presided over many, many shady dealings with Donald Trump’s affairs, not just the Stormy Daniels “affair.”
You don’t see 30+ charges (and request to see Michael Cohen 20+ times for testimony) over of a single night’s affair requiring one single hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. There’s a whole lot more that’s been uncovered about Donald Trump’s New York affairs than a single hush money payment. Clearly, Michael Cohen has been spilling the beans about everything with Trump’s dealings while Cohen was Trump’s attorney.
This extensive situation must be resolved by using a trial with a jury. There is no other way to resolve this. However, time always seems to be on Trump’s side. Meaning, Trump can delay, delay, delay until a later day. Trump also hopes that that later day is much more inconvenient for Bragg, or better, a day when a Republican appointee has taken office and these charges can be dropped against Trump. At least, that’s what Donald Trump is hoping. This situation sucks for the United States, but it is our legal system (not) at work.
Were this any person other than Donald Trump, these legal shenanigans would not work against a DA. However, Trump seems to be able to slip out of these situations with all due ease (wielding time, loopholes and his MAGA cultists as weapons).
Further Indictments and Trump’s Future
Let’s hope that Donald Trump’s potential federal trials are not so easily skirted. I’m not fully writing off Bragg’s trial yet, but I’m also not holding out much hope that this trial will land in a court before 2024, the Presidential election year. If this trial lands at any point during 2024, Bragg will likely be forced to postpone the trial until the election is over, pending the election outcome. This means even longer waiting and possibly no trial at all.
Unless Alvin Bragg can bring this to trial before the end of 2023, his hopes of actually seeing the charges in the indictment stick to Trump are fading rapidly. Along side Trump’s false, but very noisy “witchhunt” rhetoric, which is also being parroted by his MAGA cult followers, we could also end up waiting 2 years or longer for a trial to convene. This lengthy wait may even cause the charges to completely evaporate. I’m all for holding people legally accountable, but in Trump’s case, it must be performed as rapidly as possible; from indictment to trial in no more than 3 months. If that’s not feasible, then bringing an indictment might be fruitless because of Trump’s inevitable delaying tactics.
It’s nearly guaranteed that if Trump can delay this New York trial for long enough, the charges are likely to disappear. This is why any attorney seeking to bring charges against Trump must plan to execute not only the indictment and the charges carefully, but they must also weigh the delay games Trump is likely to play. If Trump can successfully delay 6 months, 12 months, 24 months or even longer, it might exceed the statute of limitations and it could allow Trump to retake Presidential office (or see another Republican become elected) to get out of the charges entirely. The longer a trial takes to convene, the less likely Trump is to even see a trial at all. Bragg needs to weigh all of this carefully.
Could Bragg continue to levy these charges if Trump is re-elected as President? Probably not. If Trump is re-elected President, these New York charges along with any federal charges are also likely to evaporate under Trump’s change in cabinet. However, Bragg’s charges could remain, but New York State could be pressured out of existence should Trump’s feds place extraordinary (retaliatory) federal pressure on the state of New York. Thus, forcing the charges to be dropped. Worse, how would it look for Alvin Bragg to bring state criminal charges against a newly elected President?
This is why it’s nearly impossible to run these indictments at this late date. In fact, any Federal indictments should have already been levied by the DOJ in 2021 or 2022 so that Trump could potentially be on trial by the end of 2023. It’s actually too late to levy any federal DOJ charges via indictment against Trump due to the upcoming 2024 election. If a federal indictment were to be levied at this point in 2023, there is likely no possible way a federal trial could occur before November 2024 (the Presidential election). At this point, the feds are going to be forced to wait until after the 2024 election to have any hope of indicting Trump, assuming he’s not re-elected. The prospect of the DOJ indicting Trump actually fades every day that goes by without an indictment at this point. Once 2024 arrives without a DOJ indictment, there very likely won’t be an indictment until after November of that year.
If ANY other Republican candidate takes Presidential office and replaces Joe Biden, all federal indictments (or investigations) against Trump are likely to be wiped away with a single pardon. State charges don’t get wiped with a pardon, but potential federal charges (and federal crimes) do. The Department of Justice likely fully understands this ticking-clock-dilemma, particularly at this late date. At this point, it is likely far too late for the DOJ’s special counsel, Jack Smith, to hand down a Department of Justice indictment over the charges of Insurrection or the classified documents case. The only way these cases would still be possible is if Jack Smith uses his ties to the ICC to levy charges under the ICC, which is entirely separate from and outside of the Department of Justice. This “dual counsel” aspect of Jack Smith may actually be the subtext for why Merrick Garland “hired” Jack Smith as special counsel to handle Trump’s case. Merrick Garland wouldn’t stand in the way of Jack Smith were he to levy an ICC indictment against Donald Trump and then hold an international trial against Trump’s espionage charges at the Hague.
Further, if the United States changes to a Republican led President and even if that newly elected President (assuming it is not Trump) chooses to pardon Trump, any ICC indictments still remain. The ICC acts outside of the United States jurisdiction. The United States is not a current signatory on the ICC, but that situation acts entirely in Merrick Garland’s favor, even if Garland ends up ousted from office as the DOJ’s head. For all of the jurisdictions that are signatories to the international court, they may have enough pressure over the United States to force the US to hand over Trump for an ICC indictment and international trial regardless of Trump’s present political office held (or not).
In other words, with Jack Smith as counsel, all may not be copacetic for Donald Trump even after the 2024 election ends. By Garland allowing Jack Smith to deep dive into Donald Trump’s DOJ investigation, this may see the ICC weigh in on Trump’s legal situation after the DOJ is unable. Garland knew the stakes of Trump’s situation and it appears that Garland may have used Jack Smith as an ICC insurance policy if the DOJ is unable to bring a proper indictment timely.
Republican Readers
If you are a Republican and you’re still reading up to this point, I applaud you. It means that you want to better understand Donald Trump’s predicament. Donald Trump is most definitely skirting laws that the rest of us would never be able to skirt. What it ultimately says is that Donald Trump is above the laws of the nation… and that situation is not right. No man is above the law. Yet, Donald Trump firmly believes that he is… and so do his sycophant cult members.
Why MAGA Republicans continue to endorse a man who wishes avoid legal consequences by becoming a dictator over the United States solely to make sure no laws ever apply to HIM, but then happily apply laws to everyone else, why would you as a Republican want that, not just for you and your family, but for the rest of the United States?
Democracy keeps the United States whole. The rule of law glues our democracy together. Dictatorship ensures neither remain and that the United States falls. Your very livelihood, family and indeed everything you hold dear is at stake. You may think that this man’s MAGA ideals are worthy, but Trump’s ideals are only worthy of collapsing the United States and turning the United States back into a third world nation.
If Donald Trump or any of his sycophant ilk including Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, Marjorie Taylor Green, Ron DeSantis, Gregg Abbott, Josh Hawley or any other doofuses manage to become President, democracy is likely to end.
The End of Democracy?
What does it mean if democracy ends? It means you won’t have a job. It means millions won’t have a job. It means the loss of income. It means the loss of whatever money or savings you have. It means the loss of your home. It means no more public schools for your children. It means no more food. It means restaurants close. It means that the United States as you know it is over. It means those with guns survive a bit longer than those without. It means the medical system serves those who are favored by the dictator, but affords those to die who aren’t.
What comes in Democracy’s place is no more elections. No more law enforcement, except against you if you speak out against the current regime. No more free press. No more constitution at all. It effectively means the situation that now exists in China and Russia, except it’ll be under Donald Trump in the United States. Puerto Rico will likely withdraw its involvement with the United States as many other US territories are likely to do (e.g., Guam, US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, etc). Even Hawaii might try to become a territory of another nation since it’s a set of islands in the Pacific and not physically connected to the 48 state continent.
Further, it means the loss of allies and the loss of NATO status. The military will become, well who really knows? There’s no way to know what a dictator might do with a military the size of the United States Military nor the nukes under his control. It also means that those who live on or near a border, such as Mexico, will see the very real possibility of Mexican military takeovers of that border land and property. 50 states? Not anymore, with Russia firmly moving to take back Alaska and Mexico likely taking over border states.
Let’s just say that the life that you have come to know and understand is over. You won’t live under the rule of law, you will live under the rule of a supreme leader… one who will just as quickly kill you as look at you. Death will likely become the means to solve all legal problems. If you break the law, you die… even for a simple matter of theft of food simply to feed yourself or your family… even if that food was grown by you in your backyard. Once democracy is lost, your land is no longer yours and no longer is anything that sits on it.
Once democracy ends and a dictator comes into power, what you knew of the United States is gone. You can’t vote someone out of office if you’re not allowed to vote. What is the first thing that Donald Trump does if he’s re-elected president? He halts all future elections indefinitely, state or federal. An elected person cannot be voted out of office when elections don’t take place. Don’t think that Trump won’t do this. Further, Democrat led states will be either disbanded or new state leaders will be appointed by Trump, pushing out any remaining Democrat control.
This is who and what you’re endorsing and wanting to vote back into office as a MAGA Republican. You’re not voting in freedom. You’re voting out the ownership of everything you own. You’re voting out your very family’s well being. You’re voting out America’s future.
Vendetta
Why didn’t this happen in 2016? It didn’t happen in 2016 because Donald Trump didn’t have a vendetta against the United States. Today, Donald Trump has a very strong vendetta; a vendetta so strong that he’ll do anything once he regains power to ensure that vendetta is fulfilled and that he remains in power indefinitely. That includes shutting down democracy.
Once that happens, the rest of the world will retaliate by cutting off the United States from, well, just about anything and everything (imports and exports alike). No more imported food, clothing, oil, energy, products and various other stuff that keeps America economically rolling. No more exports will be accepted. That will collapse both Main Street and Wall Street alike. America’s dollar will become so devalued and worthless as to become worth less than the value of one Mexican Peso. Mexico’s money will likely become worth more than what will be left of the USD. Trump will have to seek new allies and trading partners. Better buy up some gold and horde it in your house. It’ll be the only thing you can buy stuff with… assuming Trump doesn’t force the military to go on raids and take everything you own away from you.
At this point, the United States will have to be renamed to something else… probably something like Trump Nation… or whatever naming whim Trump dreams up. What this also means is a major exodus of people flooding out of what’s left of the United States and into Canada or Mexico or other locations. Some will leave and head to Europe, but Europe (and the rest of the world) will suffer dearly from the collapse of the United States.
Staple products like cars and other big ticket items will disappear. Manufacturing will cease because there will be no money to buy these products by anyone in the United States. Grocery stores and most forms of commerce will cease. Barter will take hold, assuming Trump doesn’t annex the entirety of the United States land (and everything on it) into one big land mass ownership for himself, leaving no borders, no ownership and no more need for state legislators or state capitols. Meaning, you won’t be left with anything other than perhaps the clothes on your back with which to barter. A post Trump dictatorship economy will make the Great Depression decade between 1929-1939 seem like a pin prick by comparison.
The only people who will serve Trump directly are those who continue to lick his boots. The rest will be thrown to the curb and/or arrested and possibly disappeared (read killed). As for jails and current inmates, who really knows? Trump will deal with these institutions at his own fancy. Perhaps moving some military to manage and keep certain penitentiaries open and closing down others by releasing inmates back into what’s left of society or possibly executing them all. There’s no way to know exactly what Trump as a full out dictator might do here. Trump will have a huge bodyguard detail, but the rest of “America” will be left to fend for itself. Those in Trump’s employ who backstab Trump will summarily disappear.
There will also be no more press or TV channels or radio, except for radio and TV channels devoted solely to the Trump propaganda, which will run 24/7 on big screens around big cities. Trump’s still gotta stroke his fragile ego. No more free press or freedom of speech. Try to protest? The military will see to that.
Make America Great Again? Yeah, this is not so great is it? If you think this is all just alarmist rhetoric, then you really don’t know what Trump is capable of doing. Of course, if you want to live under the thumb of a dictator in squalor and poverty worse than what we have today, then by all means vote for Donald Trump again.
Donald Trump isn’t a Republican. Donald Trump isn’t even a Christian. Donald Trump is a nihilist; probably the exact type of nihilist that the author Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky warned us about.
A nihilist, by believing that laws and morals are useless, is also a person who would place the ultimate importance of life on material things. To this person, family, religion, and laws would have no purpose. This would make them a materialist, someone who believes the only things which have any value are those which are physical.
Does this quote sound just a little too familiar?
Trump actually doesn’t care about you or your family or anyone, let alone laws, religion, family or any other thing he professes to claim. He doesn’t care about the United States, religion or anything else… other than money and power (which gets him the things he wants… materialism). Trump pretends to care about such social topics, but only to the point that Trump hopes to convince you just enough so you as a Republican will vote for him. Once Trump lands back in power, his vendetta sees to it that the United States ends and so too with it do the Republicans, the Democrats, religion and the economy. After Donald Trump gets done with the United States, there will be nothing left united about it.
Let’s hope that before this happens that an indictment and a court finds Donald Trump criminally guilty and puts him away in prison for a very, very long time. The world is not ready for a petty nihilist dictator like Donald Trump practicing his petty dictatorship on American soil. Donald Trump cannot be allowed to be re-elected to any position. There are also plenty of non-MAGA Republican candidates who are actually willing to do the right thing for Democracy, who can kick these MAGA extremists to the curb, who can put this morally bankrupt Republican period behind us and bring respect and sanity back to the Republican party. Republicans need to finally wake up and stop defending a man who is so clearly morally bankrupt and in no way worth defending. Let Donald Trump be indicted; it’s his problem, not yours. It’s long past time to shut up and leave Donald Trump to his own fate.
Donald Trump Indictment Text
For your reading pleasure and enjoyment, here is the full text of Donald Trump’s New York indictment.
If you’re on a phone or tablet, you may need to click the link for the document to open. Donald Trump’s team is also still calling this a politically motivated prosecution from Alvin Bragg. There’s nothing in this indictment that seems politically motivated in nature. Though, the charges are also not surprising or unexpected considering Donald Trump’s activities stated by Michael Cohen. All of the counts are based on falsifying business records. Whether these counts are valid and have merit are for the courts to decide, not for Donald Trump or his sycophants or CNN’s analysts to decide. Donald Trump can file motions to dismiss in a legal format, but again it’s up to the courts to decide whether to consider if those motions are valid.
Analysis
I hadn’t really wanted to include an analysis section of this indictment, so I’ll include a short one. CNN legal pundits are heavily leaning in Donald Trump’s favor. It’s clear, CNN has become much more right leaning in its views. Thus, CNN’s legal analysts have basically treated Bragg’s indictment as nothing more than a mere, but very weak nuisance. Donald Trump’s lawyers echoed this same sentiment immediately upon leaving the arraignment court building. These Donald Trump sycophants and CNN alike have decided that Trump will likely to be able to dismiss the entire set of charges.
MSNBC, however, has taken a more balanced approach in its view; an approach to which I agree. There are 34 counts present in the indictment (this sheer number is important to realize). If the case had zero merit, it would have never been accepted by a judge to arraign Trump over. Thus, the counts are most definitely strong enough to arrest and arraign Trump. What MSNBC’s analysts postulate is that while many of the counts may be dismissed as weak, not all of them are likely to be dismissed. That reduction in counts reduces Trump’s criminal exposure, to be sure, but it is not eliminated. If even 10 counts remain after Trump’s move to dismiss, that’s still 10 counts to which Donald Trump must be held to criminal account.
I do agree that Trump may be able to get some or even a larger number of the counts dismissed. I also agree that Trump may not be able to dismiss every single count. Trump understands this. Even just 1 count is enough to take it to trial. Though, I believe there will be well more than just 1 left over after whatever is dismissed is dismissed.
False Rhetoric
One thing I do not agree with is that Bragg’s indictment is in any way politically motivated. Bragg has every right as the Manhattan District Attorney to bring anyone and everyone to justice for perpetrating illegal activities. If Bragg has uncovered evidence that Donald Trump has, in fact, perpetrated illegal activities… and according to this indictment he has… then Bragg has a legal obligation under New York Law to seek prosecution against the accused. It does NOT say witchhunt. It does NOT say politically motivated. It DOES say that District Attorney Alvin Bragg is doing his job for the state of New York. Donald Trump and the Republicans will spin this as political, only because they think it will help Donald Trump skirt responsibility for the laws that he has allegedly broken. To that I counter, if you break the law and you are exposed, you take the consequences; ex-president or not. No man is above the law.
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Is Trump Guilty or Not?
I know there’s a lot of speculation, particularly since the January 6th Select Committee Hearings. Let’s explore what might make Trump guilty of something and what that something might be.
Electoral College Vote
To begin to understand how the January 6th riots became a reality, we must jump back in time to the Trump “Save America Rally” at the Ellipse the morning of the riots. However, before we discuss the content in this rally, let’s talk about what it takes to put together such a rally. More than this, why was January 6th chosen for this specific rally in the first place?
Election Lost
We all should now know and understand that Trump lost the 2020 election. We actually even knew it long before January 6th, but Donald Trump is a major sore loser. He simply cannot stand to lose. Thus, to avoid having to admit defeat, he chose to lie and claim the election was stolen. This lie is ultimately how the Save America Rally began.
Invitations to this rally began to circulate perhaps weeks before the actual event. In fact, I saw a tweet requesting attendance to the event on January 2nd, before the event from Donald Trump’s now suspended Twitter account. I even replied to a tweet in this stream.
More than this, this invitation was also sent to extremist groups known for violence, such as The Proud Boys, the Oathkeepers and others. Donald Trump was well aware of whom were being invited to the Rally. Of course, he didn’t know which groups might show because it wasn’t an RSVP thing, but he assumed at least some of these groups, if not all of them, would show… and show up, they did.
This is the precursor that must be understood to what later transpires at the “Save America Rally” the morning of January 6th at the Ellipse.
The Ellipse
The morning of the Ellipse began with a mostly RA RA session, but with some inciting rhetoric from both Trump and a bunch of Trump sycophants, including Rudy Giuliani. Trump, during his speech, included certain key phrases to work up the crowd and to specifically incite them to take action. Let’s read his closing words from that speech!
But I said, “Something’s wrong here.” Something’s really wrong. Can’t have happen. And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore. Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors have not yet begun. My fellow Americans for our movement, for our children and for our beloved country and I say this despite all that’s happened, the best is yet to come. So, we’re going to… we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we’re going to the Capitol and we’re going to try and give… the Democrats are hopeless, they’re never voting for anything, not even one vote… but we’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones, because the strong ones don’t need any of our help, we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country. So, let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I want to thank you all, God bless you and God Bless America.
Thank you all for being here, this is incredible, thank you all very much.
— Former President Donald Trump at the Ellipse on January 6th
Donald Trump was, after this speech concluded, advised by his team not to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and he took that advice and did not march along side the crowd. Instead, they did so of their own accord, but at Donald Trump’s prompting.
Let’s take a few more words of this apart. For example, “the bold ones”. For this he is specifically referring to those like The Proud Boys and The Oathkeepers. He didn’t mention them by name, but he knew such “bold” groups were in attendance. He could see them in the crowd from the podium. For “the weak ones”, he’s trying to incite the people who don’t normally perform violent acts to step up and “take back our country”. For “take back our country”, that rhetoric is specific to the “Stop the Steal” lie discussed below.
Because Trump and his followers believe the election was stolen, he wanted everyone at that rally to “take back the country” from those who have been labeled as “thieves”… when, in fact, it was Trump who was the thief and who, at the time, was attempting to dismantle Democracy and the Constitution and illegally take a position from the duly elected candidate, Joe Biden and harm the rest of America by setting aflame the fabric of Democracy.
“Fight Like Hell”
A lot of people claim that these words are innocent. They aren’t. They’re actually fighting words. Let’s understand fighting words.
Violent actions began almost immediately (within a few minutes) after this speech concluded at the Capitol… as it was stated by Trump where “fight like hell” needed to occur. Once the people had walked down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, all hell broke loose and the violence began. In this definition above, it says “incite an immediate breach of the peace”. How quickly “immediate” must be is a matter of debate, but I’d say it also matters based on its context… context that Trump supplied in his speech. “We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue… we’re going to try and give them (the weak Republicans) the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
Trump told the crowd exactly what to do, where to do it and when to do it… and then followed through.
Once the rioting began, there were 187 minutes of continuous rioting that remained until Donald Trump broke his silence and requested the rioters to leave the Capitol grounds. However, by that time, the police may have been getting the crowds under control, no thanks to the President’s 187 minutes of inaction and silence.
It’s not just the “fight like hell” words, though. It’s all of the subtext in his and other people’s speech both before and after and the Save America Rally. It’s even in the name of the rally, “Save America” as though America needed saving. Saving from what exactly? The peaceful transition from one president to the next.
Stop the Steal
Again, we must step back in time to understand where this rally began and why. The “Save America Rally” wasn’t a one-off rally that appeared out of nowhere without context. No. It began as part of the “Stop the Steal” campaign that Trump initiated.
As we all know, Trump rejected (at the time in 2020) the idea that he had lost the election. In fact, he so rejected the notion that he lost the election, he fabricated all sorts of scenarios as to why it cannot be possible. From bad voting machines, to dead people voting, to faked ballots, to voting fraud, to election rigging on the part of the Democrats. He even attempted to rig the election himself in his favor by trying to replace the legitimate Electors with a set of his own choosing, Electors that would be faithful to Donald, not to Democracy.
Anything Donald could wrap his little greedy paws around, he’d use as a possible reason for Biden having won illegitimately. This included many, many failed lawsuits and paying for independent third party auditors to re-audit ballots in some key states. None of this worked… not the lawsuits, not the audits and definitely not his lies. The states that were accused of “rigging” or “cheating” have since audited and re-audited each and every vote cast many times to prove Biden legitimately won the election.
All of this was to no avail. Nothing has convinced Donald Trump that he has lost the 2020 election. As of this article’s date, Donald Trump is still attempting to perpetuate this lie.
No, the Save America Rally was intended for one singular purpose: to storm Capitol Hill and prevent the Electoral College from completing its job. That was the single, solitary purpose behind the Save America Rally. The rally was simply a precursor to rile up the crowd and give them a purpose. That’s exactly what Trump did in his speech.
The crowd, however, knew exactly the reason why they were there… to “Stop the Steal”. Of course, there was no steal involved. The election was free and fair and just. Nothing was stolen from anyone, least of all Donald Trump. Trump lost the election in the same way he had won it four years earlier. The voters cast their vote for Joe Biden in 2020 just as they had cast their vote for Donald Trump in 2016.
However, because the rally attendees knew exactly what “Save America” meant and knew exactly why the rally came to exist, it opened the door for exactly what happened on January 6th on the Capitol grounds.
Violence
Because it was known to at least some people in Trump’s administration, and likely to Trump himself, the types and groups of people who were invited to the rally, not just everyday citizens, but groups of extremists, it should have been known that violence was an inevitable outcome. Instead of attempting to quell that possibility during the Save America Rally, Trump did the opposite. He told them to “fight like hell” because “something is wrong”. The crowd knew exactly why they were there and it wasn’t to stand and listen to Donald Trump.
The day was January 6th, the day the Electoral College votes were to be counted. Having a rally specifically on that day with a march down to the Capitol was handwriting on the wall. There’s no way to “stop” the Electoral College by standing there peacefully outside. No. The crowd knew this. They didn’t need to be told, even though Trump more or less spelled it out with “Fight like Hell”.
The people handling this Electoral counting activity in the Capitol could only be stopped from within. That meant breaching the grounds and entering the building… which is exactly what the crowd proceeded to do and ultimately did. However, Pence and the rest of the House and Senate took shelter away from where the crowds were, thwarting advances by the crowds… only delaying the counting process.
The point to all of this is that Donald Trump’s prior rally lies combined with this Save America Rally speech lead directly to the violent outcomes of the crowd that commenced. If the Save America Rally hadn’t taken place, there would have been no riot. The riot was a direct result of the Save America Rally and, more specifically, because of Donald Trump’s words immediately prior to the crowd walking to the Capitol.
Motives
Clearly, Donald Trump had motive, opportunity and intent here. We know what that motive is. We understand the opportunity because of the Rally. We also understood the intent and outcome he desired. The motive was to stop the Electoral College and prevent them from continuing with their vote count so that he could continue his Presidency. How exactly that was to happen, Trump didn’t really care. Stopping the Electoral College vote would have been simply a stopgap measure. Meaning, even if the House and Senate hadn’t performed their vote count, President Biden would have still taken office. The vote was already official. The Senate and House portion is simply a formality. It is a formality which could likely be forgone without any problems in the system.
Exactly what Donald Trump thought he could accomplish by stopping that vote count with people breaching the Capitol is unknown.
Mike Pence
As Vice President, at the time, Mike Pence was requested by Donald Trump to reject some or all of the Electoral College vote counts. However, that’s not a power that the Vice President holds during the Electoral College vote count procedure. His role is procedural and as a facilitator of the process. The Vice President holds no power to veto, change or alter Electoral College votes in the way that Donald Trump had requested.
Why is this information important? It goes to motive on the part of Trump. Clearly, Trump was willing to try any and every avenue at this disposal to try to retake the office come January 20th, inauguration day. Trump wanted to be the one being inaugurated. Unfortunately, there was no way forward to that end short of dispensing with Democracy and the Constitution entirely… which is likely what Donald Trump wanted. Clearly, Donald Trump didn’t care whose toes he stepped on, whose coat got wet, or who fell in his puddles of water, so long as the outcome he wanted materialized.
When Pence told Trump he would be unable to do as requested by attempting to change the outcome of the Electoral College, Trump effectively tweeted that Pence had effectively turned on him. This, at the time that Pence and other representatives were holed up in fear of their lives against rioters… and at that time the tweet went out, the rioters began chanting “Hang Mike Pence”. Trump’s tweet alerted the rioters to the fact that Pence was not on board with keeping Trump in power.
Pence remained steadfast and continued with his oath and duties all while Trump did nothing to quell the rioting for 187 very long minutes.
187 minutes
Here’s a turning point. If you didn’t believe Trump had any hand in launching the riots, then you should after you understand that it took Trump 187 minutes to make a statement to stop the rioting, which he himself launched at the Ellipse. He wanted the Electoral College vote count to stop. He wanted to remain in power as President. This is all a given.
So, for that 187 minutes, he sat quietly (mostly), Tweeting only a few times. None of those communications were to tell the rioters to stop. No. Instead, they were, like the Pence tweet mentioned above, more or less attempting to egg the rioters on.
Even still, at the end of those grueling 187 minutes (at least for the cops there at the Capitol), Trump finally called a halt, but then rewarded the rioters with “Go home. We love you. You’re very special”.
You don’t reward people for bashing other people’s heads with barriers, fire extinguishers and flagpoles all while dousing them with pepper spray. That’s not what you say to people involved in violent activities. That statement was, in fact, so inappropriate as to be distasteful. It also goes to show, once again, motive, opportunity and intent. A person truly wanting the violence to stop doesn’t offer up rewarding words. Truly disgusting.
Motive, Opportunity and Intent
All three of these indicate a mindset of Trump at the time. Let’s support these with Trump’s actions:
- Trump knew he had lost the election, but created the big election lie
- Trump began the Stop the Steal rallies
- Trump sued states to attempt to prove voter fraud
- Trump invited people to the Capitol on the day of the Electoral College vote count specifically to interfere and stop the count
- Trump incited and fomented the riot at the Capitol from the people who attended the “Save America Rally”
- Trump more than likely knew violent extremist groups were present at the rally
- Trump incited the crowd with phrases like “Fight like hell” and “Save America”
- Trump did nothing for 187 minutes while these groups continued attacking the Capitol
- Trump rewarded the attendees at the end of those 187 minutes once he knew they couldn’t succeed
- Trump lost at this attempt
The motive, then, is to attempt to stay in power as President illegally beyond his Presidential term. The opportunity is to use his public power and words to wield citizens as weapons against the U.S. Government. The intent is to stop the peaceful transition of power.
What was the intent during his 187 minutes of mostly silence? The same as stated above. However, there’s no way to know what was going through Trump’s head. That’s the reason for the January 6th hearing testimony. To uncover conversations people had with Donald Trump during those 187 minutes. These conversations and other information may be very relevant to see a glimpse into the mind of Donald Trump, to see what he was thinking and possibly doing (or not doing).
Guilty or Innocent?
While 187 minutes with him doing nothing to stop the riot may not be considered a crime as part of his Presidential duties, as part of a wider and larger operation, including his election lie, the Stop the Steal concept, the Save America Rally insurrection incitement and the subsequent riot when combined, it may point to other illegal activities. It certainly leads to this conclusion.
That Trump is likely guilty of attempting to overthrow the election to remain in office. What he did is actually a form of Advocating to Overthrow the Government, which is highly illegal and carries a fine and up to 20 years in prison, along with a 5 year ban on holding any government position. Advocating to overthrow may be further considered a form of treason if other conditions are present (i.e, 187 minutes of silence).
At the time of the Capitol riot, the rioters should be considered an enemy of the United States. As a result, Trump doing nothing during those 187 minutes to stop the rioters could see him considered guilty of “adher[ing] to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort in the United States.” The very definition of Treason. If the rioters are labeled an enemy of the United States for the duration of the riot, then Trump should be considered “giving aid” during that 187 minutes of silence. He started the whole thing and then did nothing to stop it. That’s very much “giving aid”. His “rewarding” words stated when he asked the rioters to go home solidifies the fact that he was “giving aid”.
Anyone who attacks a Federal building should automatically be considered an enemy of the United States for the time they continue to attack. It doesn’t matter if the person is a natural born citizen or not. It’s the action of attacking which changes the status of the person to an enemy of the United States.
Some argue, well Trump would be overthrowing himself as he was still in power at the time. No, he was actually attempting to overthrow the future Biden administration, which was just days away from taking office. Trump’s tenure was ending and he knew that. Trump wasn’t overthrowing himself, he was attempting to overthrow Democracy (and Biden). He was attempting to light the Constitution on fire and burn it all to keep himself in power and keep Biden out of the office after Biden was so duly elected.
Clearly, it failed. Trump failed. It wasn’t for lack of trying and it wasn’t without damage and consequences to police who lost their lives, to the Capitol building that needed repairs and to at least one rioter who was killed… not to mention, the damage it has done to the reputation of the United States around the world.
This all means that because of Trump’s direct actions, not only is he likely guilty for Advocating to Overthrow the Government, not only may he be further guilty of Treason, he is likely also responsible for the deaths during the Capitol riot. After all, if he hadn’t held the “Save America Rally”, those extremists might never have showed up. It was due to his Tweet and his prompting that led people to the Ellipse and ultimately to the Capitol that day. Therefore, at the very least, Trump is partially responsible for the deaths of those at the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Because of his 187 minutes of inaction, he likely intentionally let the rioters continue unabated which appears that he had “given them aid and comfort in the United States”, the very definition of Treason.
Trial and Consequences
All of this means, especially after all of the January 6th Select Committee’s investigation, that there should be more than sufficient evidence for the Department of Justice to hold a trial over Donald Trump’s actions prior to and leading up to the January 6th riot event.
Leave the trial up to a jury to decide whether or not Trump is guilty of any or all of these charges. Personally, I don’t see innocence here. There is nothing at all innocent about lying about election fraud, then inviting violent extremists to the Capitol, unleashing them onto an unsuspecting police force and then giving them 187 minutes to perform their damage, kill people, all in an attempt to halt the Electoral College vote process. That doesn’t at all say innocent to me. No, Trump definitely needs an indictment and a trial over all of this.
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Politics: What happens if Trump runs again?
While I’ve pretty much avoided political debate and politics on Randocity, I also recognize that this blog is called Randocity. Political discussion is never off of the table. I’ve avoided politics because it’s like playing with Playdough. It’s salty, dries out and becomes no fun after just a few minutes. Because democracy actually hangs in the balance with this former President, I’ll grit and bear my way through this article as this needs to be said. Hopefully, you’re willing to do the same. Let’s explore.
Prophetic
I’m not one to try and be a prophet, but let me don this hat for this next few sections of the article. We all know what Trump did during the 2020 election. Let’s just list his actions leading up to and after the election:
- Trump began his lead up to the 2020 election by sowing seeds of mistrust and doubt in the election system by claiming that mail-in ballots are a major source of fraud. Don’t trust me on this? Follow the link. Trump made this claims many times well prior to the election. Trump’s action intended to sow distrust in the United States’s election system. For better or worse, it worked. It also set the stage for what came after. This is the start of Trump’s “Big Lie”.
- Election day arrives and Joe Biden wins. Yet, according to Trump (and his followers), Biden and Democrat party somehow managed to “rig” the election (and 50 states worth of voting systems) to see Biden win. See #1 for the beginnings of this “Big Lie”.
- Trump refuses to concede the election on election day, the day after or even today as I write this article. Instead, he begins a concerted effort to prove that he won and that Biden lost. This effort includes a number of steps including discrediting election officials, discrediting election workers, discrediting election polling places, discrediting election equipment and basically discrediting anyone involved in the election system. Make no mistake, this discrediting tactic was systematic and entailed making wild claims about the entirety of the election system… which, of course, those claims could not at all be supported or corroborated. Courts all over the country were entangled in many (frivilous) lawsuits set up by Trump and his followers to challenge the election integrity and discredit many people in the process. Trump didn’t stop here. However, Trump lost every single one of those lawsuits, over and over and over. No election fraud was (or is) ever uncovered.
- On January 2nd, 2021, in a vain attempt at overturning the election results in the state of Georgia, Trump calls Brad Raffensperger, the Secretary of State over Georgia, requesting that Raffensperger “find” 11,780 votes for Trump. Of course, he made no mention of exactly how Raffensperger might go about “finding” those votes. Clearly, this was an attempt at persuading election officials into performing actual voter fraud on behalf of Trump using veiled words. It’s most definitely not the first time Trump has used veiled words to prompt someone take potentially illegal actions which greatly benefits Trump. However, those words can then be claimed by Trump as “innocent”. It also wouldn’t be the last time Trump uses veiled words to do his bidding.
- Trump organizes a rally at the Ellipse near Capitol Hill on January 6th, 2021. January 6th was the day the winning candidate was to be confirmed as the Presidential winner by the Electoral College. This congressional procedure is primarily symbolic in nature, but it also serves a purpose for congress to go through the motions to ensure the candidate is fully recognized as having been duly elected. Trump’s rally brought throngs of Trump supporters to Washington DC on the day of the Electoral College vote in the hopes that he could somehow disrupt the Electoral College process.
- On the same day of the Rally, Trump calls Mike Pence, the then Vice President of the United States, to request him to discredit Electoral Vote counts from key states. States that, if discredited, would aid in Trump remaining in office by overturning the election results. Pence refuses and performs his duties as President of the Senate. Pence, as Vice President, is the person who facilitates and presides over Electoral Vote tabulation in front of the House and Senate. In fact, the Vice President doesn’t appear to have such requested power even if he had wanted to do as Trump asked. Again, Trump likely used veiled words with Pence to “get him” to do something untoward that, again, greatly benefits Trump.
- Trump, along with a bunch of Trump allies, make veiled, but now inflammatory rhetoric riling up the crowd at the Ellipse, effectively making it appear as if the election was about to be stolen from Trump by the Electoral College. Again, Trump uses flowery veiled rhetoric to incite the crowd into a frenzy. Trump knew exactly what his rhetoric would have the crowd do, particularly knowing a large extremist Trump-supporting fringe element had also shown up. The vote, at that time, was just several hours away. Trump and Co’s inflammatory, but veiled rhetoric lead to the riotous results which immediately followed on Capitol Hill.
- After the walk from the Ellipse, the riots begin in earnest. As a result, this riot forces the Electoral Vote count proceedings to halt for a period of time while the House and Senate staff take cover in a safe location until the grounds can be brought back under control with the rioters gone. Until that time, the Electoral Vote count remains suspended. Yes, Trump was instrumental in encouraging this action. Yes, Trump, the then sitting President of the United States, based on his veiled rhetoric speech, intentionally caused suspension of the prescribed formality of counting and tabulating the Electoral College vote counts. Keep in mind that this intentional suspension was all for the purpose of overturning the election results… IN TRUMP’S FAVOR.
- Several hours later after the rioters had gone and the DC police had brought the grounds under control did the vote count resume, with Mike Pence presiding. The vote count was uneventful and, as the voting had concluded, Biden was confirmed as the next President by the Electoral College.
These above facts are irrefutable, even though Trump would have you believe it’s all fake. Let’s stop here. I think I’ve included enough pertinent information to predict the outcome should Trump run again. Trump is, if anything, predictable.
Trump hates Losing
It’s clear, Trump hates losing. In fact, he hates it so much that he began planning his road to the “Big Lie” months before the election to ensure he couldn’t lose, at least in his own mind. If he can drag some people into his “world” of lies, then all the better. To date, Trump has still not conceded the election and still insists that the election (and election system) was (and is) rigged.
In fact, Trump is so adamant that he had won the election (both before and after) that he filed many, many lawsuits in an attempt to “prove” the election was somehow rigged, sometimes forcing a vote recount. In some places like Arizona, the votes were recounted a number of separate times all confirming and proving that Biden had won, even by his own requested staffers. Yet, Trump simply won’t take, “No” for an answer. Trump still insists that the election was rigged, is fraudulent and that he is the rightful winner of the 2020 election. No such evidence has ever been shown that this claim is, in fact, true. In fact, all evidence points to the fact that the 2020 election was free, fair and without major fraud. Sure, every election has its irregularities, but no more than any other past election.
Trump simply can’t look at the irregularities and call foul when the statistics indicate no such fraud exists.
Election Lies and Rigging
Let’s understand the preposterousness of Trump’s lie claims and understand better who is actually doing the rigging here. In order for Joe Biden and others in the Democrat party to have truly rigged the election in favor of Joe Biden, this action would have required an extremely enormous coordinated effort from many, many election officials, election workers and modification of election equipment all over the United States, in every single state. Such an enormous coordinated effort would have required many thousands of people’s synchronized participation at the polls and many, many hours of planning.
If our election system is truly that easily compromised, then there’s no way possible we can possibly use it for any future elections… ever.
Let’s examine what’s more probable, plausible or even possible? Trump’s Lie that thousands and thousands election workers all conspired against Trump to make Biden win? Or, the American people voted correctly, accurately and fairly… and that Biden was duly and fairly elected! Let’s even qualify this more. Whom do you trust in the above scenario? One single person who is known to lie (i.e., Trump) or thousands of election workers all over the country who voluntarily devote their time and resources to ensuring we have a free and fair election? Again, I ask, “Which situation is more probable?”
Just to be sure we’re on the same page, I’ll answer that question. Trump has more than proven he is not trustworthy. Thousands of election workers and election staff cannot ALL be at the level of untrustworthy that Trump claims in his “Big Lie”. It is, therefore, Trump who is lying.
Obviously, Trump’s lie is THE ludicrous and unbelievable claim here. It is way more probable that Trump is lying than suggesting an enormous coordinated effort existed to place Biden into the Presidential seat over the will of the voters. Further, if such a coordinated effort truly existed, why stop at such narrow voting margins and not go for an all out landslide victory? If the election machines can be truly compromised and modified, then why bother with slim margins? No, Trump’s claims just don’t hold water.
Biden didn’t win by any sense of a “landslide”. Oh, no no. The votes were so close that some battleground states weren’t able to call the election results for days after the election. By ‘close’, this could be as few as several thousand votes. This meant election workers were forced into counting and recounting to ensure the vote counts are all counted accurately and tabulated properly. With that many recounts all showing Biden won, there is no possible way that Trump’s “Big Lie” is in any way plausible, let alone realistic or even true.
Trump and 2024
Looking ahead, let’s really talk about what’s likely to occur should Trump end up on the ballot again. In fact, Trump is already sowing the seeds of distrust even deeper right at this very moment. As long as Trump maintains his “big election lie”, he WILL continue to both expand and reuse it against the 2024 presidential election should he choose to run again. Believe me, he will most definitely use it again and will up his game based on what he learned during the 2020 process! He’s that predictable. Prediction noted.
Let me say right now that this man should never be able to run for President again. In fact, Congress performed a major disservice to this country for not finding Trump guilty in his final Impeachment hearing. If they had found him guilty, that would have prevented Trump from ever holding office as President again. This would be a blessing come 2024. The man cannot be President again or even be allowed to run or else this country may entirely lose the meaning of the word, “Democracy.” Prediction noted.
Trump Wins?
Assuming Trump were to win in 2024, Trump will not only continue to do everything with his reacquired Presidential power to discredit the election system entirely. It’s nearly guaranteed he will want to ensure that he remains in office indefinitely by attempting to halt everything to do with future elections. That’s just the beginning of his tirade. Trump will see to it that not only can he not be voted out again, that no one else can be voted in. At this point, Democracy and the Constitution’s power ends. Worse, Trump’s “back pocket” GOP will likely follow the leader here and continue to do Trump’s bidding by seeing to it that legislation is passed that allows Trump to remain in power beyond 4 years, possibly even indefinitely. Prediction noted.
Election Lie 2.0
What if Trump loses? The outcome is just as bad simply because he was allowed to run. If we think Trump’s election lie is bad now, just wait. If Trump is allowed to participate and again loses, not only will Trump parade his next version of the Election Lie v2.0, he will see to it that both he and the GOP make sure the elections are so undermined that we can’t even use our election system come 2028. The courts will also be so completely saturated with meritless case after meritless case all for the sole means of attempting to prove that the election was, once again, rigged and stolen from Trump.
Trump will most definitely up his lying game to make sure everyone knows he was, again, cheated out of his win. That somehow the election system was (and is) majorly rigged against him with yet more fabricated evidence. This will then lead to even more voter law changes by Trump supporting states. Prediction noted.
Let’s put this into a bit more perspective with how Trump can leverage the GOP leadership team. The GOP (aka Republican party), is hanging onto Trump’s coattails for all it’s worth. These elected officials continually and constantly push Trump’s lie, but not verbally. They do so by introducing legislation that is tantamount to a modern version Gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is technically redrawing district lines around population centers so as to change the outcome of an election from a Democrat win to a GOP win. It is a form of political scam. When districts are drawn correctly and properly, the vote distributions are fair. When redrawn using Gerrymandering, it unfairly rigs voting in favor of one party over the other. Gerrymandering is an old tactic, but there are many new age tactics that can also be used in addition to redrawing districts in unfair ways.
States have now taken it upon themselves to craft laws that restrict voting in ways that make it easier for Republicans to vote and much more difficult for Democrats to vote. This is a legal form of Gerrymandering. Laws, in combination with actual district Gerrymandering, pretty much ensures a win for the party who set all of these scams up, even if that party is in the minority. This is a form of…
Election Rigging
Who is actually doing the rigging here? The problem I really have with all of Trump’s (and by extension, Trump’s GOP) hoo-ha above is that the reverse is actually true. Everything that Trump has crafted in an attempt to discredit the election results was actually performed with the intent to rig the 2020 election in Trump’s (and, more specifically, the GOP’s) favor. His “Big Lie” wasn’t intended to uncover any truth as there was no “truth” to actually uncover. Instead, his claims of election fraud by Biden were all intended to allow him to rig the elections in Trump’s favor. It’s a reverse ploy. He takes a functional, legitimate, working system and twists it into something that appears broken, corrupt and perverse for the sole means of turning it around and using it to his own benefit. It’s a classic victim ploy.
It’s also diabolical. Rigging is rigging whether by Trump or by someone else. Trump’s attempts to use the justice system, the media, his supporters and veiled words are simply attempts to get people to do his bidding, which meant overturning the 2020 election results by illegitimate means and usurping the 2020 election for himself. Can we say, “Rigged by Trump”? Yet, for whatever reason, people actually fail to see this diabolical scheme that Trump has concocted. It’s a plot that seemingly turns Trump into a victim rather than exposing him as a con man. Trump is, plain and simple, a con man. He intended to deceive his followers into believing fake information and, thus, attempt to take a legitimate free and fair election system and actually twist it by rigging it to Trump’s will.
Let me ask. Who exactly is doing the rigging here? It’s certainly not Biden.
However, few Trump supporters want to believe that they’ve been conned by Trump. It’s way easier to accept Trump as a victim than to view themselves as being duped by Trump. If you accept Trump’s lies, however, you ARE being duped. Accepting a known lie is the very definition of being duped.
Can Trump be Trusted?
A very good question. Let’s examine. At this point, it should be completely clear that this man cannot be trusted, not with Presidential power, not even with participating in the election system as a candidate. Anyone so intent on treating our election system so recklessly, callously, with disdain and with so much malice of intent cannot be trusted. Trust is earned. It’s clear that Trump has failed to earn trust and respect from almost anyone. Yet, followers still flock in his direction. I’m still at a loss as to why. The man has proven that he has no morals, moral compass, ethics or scruples.
It’s one thing for a politician to make boasting claims about doing great deeds while in office, then fail to accomplish those goals. It’s entirely another when the President of the United States holds a rally intended to halt counting the Electoral Votes which undermines the election system and the basic fundamentals that hold Democracy together.
Lies and Fraud
Trump’s deception has not ended and will not end until he is pushed out of politics entirely. That means that the GOP must force Trump out of the party. The GOP cannot continue as a legitimate political party when someone so corrupt and so ill-intentioned remains within. Someone who was (and still is) willing to sacrifice the entirety of the United States Constitution and Democracy’s fabric itself simply so that he can remain in office, that’s someone we absolutely do not need running this country, let alone even being allowed on the ballot.
If Trump is placed on the ballot in 2024, Democracy literally hangs in the balance. If we think we’re in a constitutional crisis after the January 6th Capitol attack, that’s simply the first salvo in what will likely bring down the United States if Trump regains the office of President. Prediction noted.
Trump absolutely in no way cares about the continuance of Democracy and only cares about one thing… Trump and his ability to gain and retain power, particularly Presidential power. He also wants to take that power and bastardize it into something that was never intended by the framers of the Constitution.
Regardless of whether Trump wins or loses in 2024, the United States faces a serious existential threat, one that Trump seems to want to seriously undermine (at best) and dismantle (at worst). No, Trump cannot be allowed to even participate in the 2024 election process at all. His corruption will taint the election system, win or lose. The GOP leadership must eject Trump from the party and shun any further interaction with him. That is, unless the GOP (Republican party) wants to become known as the party that brought down United States Democracy, which also likely means the GOP (and all other parties) will cease to exist once Democracy dies. No need for Democratic processes once the President wields all of the power, forever.
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The U.S. in Peril
I really didn’t want to write this article, but it must be written. Unfortunately, the US (and probably other countries) have come to a crossroads. As they say, the truth will out…. and here it comes. Let’s explore.
Brutal Truth
These lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders have caused many, many small and medium businesses to shutter their doors and lay off staff. They’re not closed for only a few days, but for potentially weeks and possibly even a month or two.
Practically no business is prepared to run without income for weeks, let alone months. It’s no wonder, then, that business owners and operators are laying off so many of their workers. You can’t continue to hold onto staff when you can’t even pay your own business’s lease and bills. This is just the tip of this iceberg.
You just wait. It gets worse. Much, much worse.
Unemployment
It is theorized that as many as 20% may become unemployed due to COVID-19. I’d guess that this is a conservative estimate and it will go much, much higher than this. 99% of businesses in the US are considered small businesses. This is the highest failure group for an extended lockdown scenario.
JP Morgan Chase writes:
Over 99 percent of America’s 28.7 million firms are small businesses. The vast majority (88 percent) of employer firms have fewer than 20 employees, and nearly 40 percent of all enterprises have under $100k in revenue.
What does this mean for the US? This means that potentially 28.4 million businesses are at risk of permanent closure due to the COVID-19 crisis. That means potentially up to 568 million jobs are also at risk of loss due to COVID-19.
Some small businesses may be able to weather a few weeks of this storm, but not much after that. Again, this situation can (and likely will) get much worse the longer it lasts.
Survival and Economy
With up to 568 million people without jobs, this means that the economy will not only tank, it will implode. The stock market won’t even exist. There will be nothing left of the US economy.
I did say that this can get worse. Yes, it can. And… it can even go beyond this.
Apocolypse
This word is actually defined as “catastrophic change”… with the word catastrophic being the key word here.
Turning out this many people to unemployment means desperation. As people’s ability to feed, clothe and house their families and themselves dwindle, desperate actions will become necessary (at least for some). Once the newly turned Robinhood thugs turn out en-masse to shake down those who “have” to feed those who “haven’t”, it’s going to get ugly. Really, really ugly. In fact, COVID-19 will likely become the least of everyone’s worry.
It will then become mostly about survival of the fittest and who has the “necessary force” to get what is needed to survive.
We haven’t yet reached this level of desperation as people still have small stock of food, water and can live out their remaining rent, but our society is quickly coming to a turning point. Once rents can no longer be paid, food can no longer be bought and gas can no longer be afforded (or even found), the niceties of our former social world will come to a grinding halt. Then, desperation takes hold.
What will ensue is looting, gangs and these folks being forced to obtain food, water and shelter by force. The currency will no longer be the dollar, but the bullet or knife. Violence is in the US country population’s nature. When it becomes necessary to survive (and it will), then all bets are off.
Martial Law
Yes, the Government can roll its military through and declare martial law to attempt to stem the tide of the new age of lawlessness that will begin, but that can’t last. Eventually, the government itself will break down and fail to be of any use. Those in the military will be conflicted about where to take orders and, indeed, where if any place can they even use the money they are being paid.
If small businesses fail, what can you spend your money on? Will that money even be worth anything? Larger businesses like Target and Walmart may be able to last for a bit longer, but eventually the supply lines will dry up as the small business suppliers close. It will become a vicious cycle that won’t end until the country has entirely unraveled.
Making the hard Choice
The country is at a serious perilous crossroads. It can keep everything closed in order to stem the COVID-19 tide or it can immediately lift the lockdown and shelter-in-place orders and let businesses reopen to save what’s left of the economy.
With COVID-19, we may be forced to let the chips fall where they may. We can’t keep society closed forever. We can’t even keep it down for a few weeks. For the US to continue its way of existence, it must be unlocked and allowed to resume.
Yes, we need to be cautious and vigilant to avoid getting COVID-19, but we can’t let COVID-19 grind the US to a halt and, subsequently, to completely unravel the US’s entire way of life.
We have to consider what’s worse? Perhaps 500,000 deaths from COVID-19 or millions of deaths due to a bankrupt US economy leaving millions homeless? Without an economy, the US can’t survive as a country. Having a president preside over a dead country is like not having a president at all.
Believe me when I say that if the US is forced into martial law, it won’t be long before there’s bloodshed… and that won’t have anything to do with being infected with COVID-19.
As I said, I really dislike writing this article, but the outcome of what can become a very real possibility must be said. Right now, the president is basically saying, “everything’s going to be okay”, but that’s not reality. If these lockdowns continue beyond a week or two, much of our country’s way of life is doomed to vanish forever. Even Hollywood may never be able to recover from this… the biggest entertainment producer in the world will be lost. Without Hollywood and the music business, this country will plunge into a second dark age.
With all of that said, cities, counties and even the federal government needs to reconsider these lockdown actions pronto. Staying locked down for months will tailspin the US into unrecoverable territory. This will force many families into the streets without the means to obtain food, clothing or shelter. The homeless shelters will be forced to shutter because even they can’t afford to stay in business. Literally, the entire country will fall back to “the wild, wild west”. People will be forced to take matters into their own hands to survive.
Now, it is difficult to foresee exactly how all of this plays out, but no matter the sequence of events, the end result will be failure, death and loss of the US way of life. We will turn back into small communities together using local services. We will have to barter to live. The technology we so actively thrive on will cease to exist. The computers will still function, but the internet may effectively shut down as more and more businesses are forced to close. Even cell phones may become a thing of the past as lawlessness and anarchy begin driving survival. Even money may become worthless paper.
Alarmist?
This article may seem a bit alarmist. In part it may be, but it is also grounded in current lockdown reality and is based on where we are headed today, while still in the early stages of these lockdowns. Simply reviewing Twitter, you can already see just how many people have been furloughed or laid off due to COVID-19. This is just the tip of a very large iceberg. News articles show restaurants and other businesses with their doors shut and lights out.
Right now is a perilous time and our government leaders needs to weigh what’s coming if we remain on this course. If we don’t change our course now, there may not be any time left to change this downward spiral.
COVID-19 may, in fact, turn out to be the least of society’s worries. Our society isn’t currently prepared to live and work at home on a semi-permanent basis. It hasn’t ever considered or prepared financially for this eventuality. There are just no work-at-home jobs that pay enough to live. Most businesses can’t afford (nor are they willing) to begin paying people the salaries they were getting when they worked in a company office. I’m not even sure that companies can recover enough at this point to pay those former salaries anyway.
Tailspin
We only need to look at the stock market to understand the ramifications of business closures, layoffs and lockdowns. Clearly, people are selling because they know they will need that money to live. The stock market can’t handle this kind of mass sell off. But, it’s inevitable and it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.
This means way less investing overall and that means less investment capital for businesses to stay in business. Businesses will also need to recover any investments they currently have to pay their own bills also, which means more selling. And, unless this COVID-19 lockdown business is unlocked soon, there won’t be an economy left to save or investments worth holding.
Only the currently richest businesses may be able to weather this storm for any length of time, such as Apple and possibly Google. That is, those businesses with billions in the bank. That also depends on how worthless the dollar becomes. Even then, these rich companies will have to start trimming their own workforce or face a cash hemorrhage crisis.
This situation will likely also tumble salaries massively. It will tumble everything including home values, multifamily rent and even phone bills. Not only will it be a recession, it may become a depression forcing major deflation across the board. One might think deflation is a good thing, but it’s not. When few will be able to afford to pay for much, even at deflated prices, we’re in for a rough and violent road ahead.
Prevention?
Can this combined economic and societal tailspin be prevented? It depends entirely on our governmental leaders. If they can find ways to prop up the local economies while allowing businesses to reopen in safe and effective ways, then perhaps. Unfortunately, I doubt that propping up everything is possible. There are far too many people to attempt to prop up every man, woman and child in the nation. Even the measly $1000 grant from the government can’t possibly help to stem this quickly overflowing tide. The only thing it will do is, in fact, make the situation worse.
How can we reopen safely? That’s the million dollar question. The first thing that needs to happen is to find a way to disinfect people’s clothing and surfaces before they enter any large gathering. This way, when they touch any surfaces within, there’s no chance of leaving latent virus behind or picking one up. Second, we need near instant viral load testing. It doesn’t matter the virus. What matters is that the person has a high viral load of any kind. If a person is carrying a high viral load of any kind, they will be denied access to all social gatherings. It doesn’t matter if the virus is COVID-19, HIV, the flu or a simple cold. We can’t be specific here. Testing needs to be general because it’s too complicated to try to determine COVID-19 specifically. This will weed out super spreaders.
With any high viral load, you can’t fly, you can’t get on a bus and you can’t enter a restaurant, store or any other business. If you’re carrying a high viral load, an isolated medical transport will come to collect you and take you home where you must stay until you can be tested viral load free. If you’re found out and about a second time, you may be jailed. HIV positive people may be a problem in this. But, HIV is also a virus and it does count under viral load. It’s not necessarily spread as easily as COVID-19 appears to be, but it is spreadable.
These actions are the only way we can protect citizens against COVID-19 and still operate society in some kind of normal fashion. Without some semblance of normality resuming quickly for our every day lives, there will be no hope of recovery for not only the economy, but for society in the US as a whole. When TV shows can’t film, when music performers can’t perform, when you can’t go to the movies, a restaurant or even an amusement park and when everyone is scared to even walk out their front door, society grinds to a halt… and that’s where we are now. Society has stopped dead in its tracks.
The things that the US is so known for can’t even be done. All business that revolves around those activities and linked to activities plus the activities secondarily and tertiarily linked will equally suffer. It’s a huge supply chain, with emphasis on the word ‘chain’. When one link breaks, the entire chain fails.
Unless we can figure out a way to kick our society back into gear, fix the chain and keep it going, we’re at the cusp of situation that is bad… very, very bad. So bad that it’s practically impossible to understand or predict just how bad it can really get. Though, we can most certainly guess.
Lawlessness
When there is a large contingent of the working force that becomes not only unemployed, but hungry and homeless, where do we go from here? As the saying goes, “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” What that means is that many people will get desperate to feed, clothe, house and protect their families… and many will attempt to take matters into their own hands to make that a reality, using necessary force if needed. This means I’d expect gun violence and looting to drastically increase.
This lawlessness will drive the government into declaring martial law. Right now, we’re at the cusp. We are teetering on the precipice. But, it won’t take much for that edge to collapse and then society falls in. In fact, we’re currently on the verge of collapse.
Government, Survival, Society and Hard Choices
I urge the governmental leaders to reconsider these lockdowns. Instead, we need to find alternative workable solutions that allow businesses to resume normal operation while attempting to keep them safe from COVID-19.
If we can’t resume a semblance of normal societal operation, we will likely end up in bloodshed. We might even have anarchy on our hands. We could even have more deaths due to unemployment and a deep depression than from COVID-19.
Governments must weigh these risks carefully. COVID-19 is a known quantity. It will kill a number of people just because of what it is. But, attempting to protect every person from it may end up collapsing society as we know it. This collapse could very easily bring about unnecessary violence as people attempt to survive. A societal collapse could even bring about more death, violence and destruction than even COVID-19 and the Flu combined.
When people get desperate enough, they will break into houses, steal food, clothing and use it for shelter. They may even consider killing others to get what they need. They will break into stores and loot. They will break into stores to steal necessities. Is that where we want society? Is that what we want to see? Is that what the current government really wants for its people?
All told, the death toll from violent survivalists could actually kill more people than COVID-19. This risk must be weighed! Letting the virus run its natural course while allowing society to operate may be a better (and safer) choice than having to declare martial law, while attempting to lockdown an entire nation. There are simply not enough troops to do that, which will lead to an even worse outcome. This situation could even trigger a second civil war, except this time it will be between governmental forces and its out of work citizens.
If we let society collapse, all bets are off on how many deaths may occur… not necessarily directly because of COVID-19, but this virus may certainly contribute in some way to that death toll.
This is a serious decision that governmental leaders must consider and they must decide NOW. Complacence and apathy doesn’t work. Strong decisive change must be implemented quickly. It may not be happy news for some, but society can’t be ground to a halt for the 18 months (as some organizations have predicted) for COVID-19 to subside. The US can’t survive an 18 month lockdown. It can’t even survive a 1 month lockdown. We must craft an alternative solution. We must craft and implement that solution NOW, while there’s still time to bring us back from the precipice. There is no other choice.
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Amazon’s “Not Helpful” Button Missing?
A Reddit user posts that the “Not Helpful” button is missing from Amazon’s reviews. Several other commenters had stated that the button was still there for them. Let’s explore.
Not Helpful is actually not helpful
Amazon has been undergoing changes to their older review system. The first was to remove their discussion boards. Because Reddit really does discussion boards better, there was really no need for Amazon to keep their own. As a result, Amazon Discussions disappeared.
In addition to the removal of Amazon Discussions, Amazon decided to revamp their review system to be more useful. I’d personally complained several times about the “Not Helpful” button.
Why is the “Not Helpful” button not helpful? Because the only thing that button ever did is “downvote” a review in Amazon’s relevance sort. This means that those reviews that received the most helpful votes with the least not helpful bubbled to the top of their relevance sort. Effectively, the “Not Helpful” button was only used as a way for users to move reviews down in the relevance sort.
What ultimately came out of that was…
Abuse
With every system built, someone (or many someones) will find a way to abuse and game the system. The “Not Helpful” button became a target for abuse on Amazon. Instead of being used for the intended purpose of marking a review as not helpful, it became a target to screw with Amazon’s relevance sort and its “recommended” reviews for the product. For example, Amazon has two reviews it places into the top of its review area:
- Most Helpful
- Most Critical
These two reviews are at the very top above all other reviews. These are coveted positions. People want their review in that spot. To get another reviewer’s review out of either spot, a person (or many persons) would need to mark the review as “Not Helpful” (thus asking their friends to do this too). Over time, salty reviewers learned they could knock these reviews not only out of these two coveted spots, they could also lower their relevance scores and raise their own reviews up, potentially into these coveted positions.
As I said above, if there’s a way to game a system, people will find it and abuse it… and abuse the “Not Helpful” button they did. It took Amazon years to realize this problem, but it seems that Amazon finally understands this problem and has now removed “Not Helpful” from its interface.
Complaints
I’ve complained to Amazon several times over the years regarding the “Not Helpful” button. Not only did it not provide any actual helpful information to those reading reviews, the only thing it did is send high quality reviews to the bottom of the relevance list because of salty Amazon reviewers… people who just couldn’t stand to see a high quality review shown above their lower quality review. People figured out they could game the review system by getting their friends and coworkers to mark certain reviews “Not Helpful” and knock them down in the relevance list.
There was only one situation where “Not Helpful” didn’t have much of an effect. That was on Amazon Vine reviews. For whatever reason, if you’re part of Amazon Vine, pressing “Not Helpful” on Amazon Vine reviews didn’t do very much. I believe that Amazon intentionally weights Amazon Vine reviews much, much higher than a standard review. These reviews don’t get as much of a “ding” against them if someone presses “Not Helpful”. The Vine reviews always seem to get top placement in the relevance sort no matter what other people mark or say against them.
With regular reviews, the “Not Helpful” button just didn’t achieve what it was intended to achieve. It also didn’t give a review reader any useful information about that review. This button was only intended to help sort reviews with, supposedly, the most helpful at the top of the relevance sort. In fact, because users ended up gaming the “Not Helpful” button, the relevance sort actually ended up pointless as many of the best reviews actually ended up way down the relevance list.
I also complained about this problem to Amazon, but that complaint was also summarily ignored.
Amazon has Awoken
It’s taken years, but Amazon has finally realized the error of the “Not Helpful” button. Not only does Amazon no longer show “
If Amazon had forced the “Not Helpful” clickers to justify their click by requiring a comment on the review, that that would have actually been much more helpful. As review readers, we need to understand valid reasons why someone clicked “Not Helpful”. The only way to do that is by writing a comment. If a “Not Helpful” clicker chooses not to write a comment, then they don’t get their “Not Helpful” click counted. It’s only fair.
Unfortunately, that opens a whole new can of worms. Even if Amazon forced the “Not Helpful” clickers to write a comment, they could have written a garbage response and then deleted it just to get past that requirement. That’s also “Not Helpful”. It’s also a can of worms that Amazon couldn’t easily solve. They’re a retailer, not a technology company. Some efforts like this simply go over Amazon dev’s heads.
Instead, Amazon awoke and realized that it was simpler to remove the “Not Helpful” button and avoid the entire relevance engine gaming problem. It’s a very late fix in coming, but it’s still a much welcomed change. Gaming a review system is not the reason for that button’s existence. Reviews exist to inform potential buyers of problems they might encounter by purchasing that “thing” (whatever it is).
Review Snobs & Trolls
In any system that you create, there will be those “snobs” (and trolls) who believe that they know better about that system than anyone else. In reality, Amazon’s reviews are fair game in any way that they’re written. This includes pricing problems, listing problems, seller problems, shipping problems, customer service problems, packaging problems, purchasing problems and, yes, it also includes actual product problems.
A review should be about ANYTHING product related including Amazon’s handling of that product to you. Amazon doesn’t like reviewers (and it is now against Amazon’s terms and conditions) to write disparaging remarks against how Amazon handled the shipping, packaging and so forth of the items you purchase. Instead, if there’s a problem in the Amazon area, they don’t want that information in the review. Amazon wants you to contact their customer support team and lodge that complaint there, not write it in the review.
If you do place such a remark in the product review, your review is not likely to be published. Even Amazon is getting its own snobbery into its own review system. However, so long as you follow Amazon’s own snobbery rules regarding its review system, you’ll be fine.
That doesn’t mean you’ll be fine against the Amazon review trolls…er, snobs. These are the folks who feel the need to either report the review or leave a nasty comment regarding the content of the review. I’ve read many reviews that are not only articulate, but also have quite valid comments regarding the product. The reviews are quite apropos and definitely relevant. Yet, there’s inevitably some review snob who believes the review didn’t live up to their own snobby ideas about what a review should contain. To those folks I ask, “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all?”
Too many of these review snobs still exist on Amazon. As a blog writer, I typically write long, but concise reviews of products I purchase from Amazon. Many people don’t seem to like my longish reviews. Instead of refuting any of what I’m saying, they pick out one tiny little thing (a thing that makes no sense when taken out of context) and then write a complaint comment (and when the “Not Helpful” button existed, they would also press it). I could even swear that there were the same people trolling my reviews and intentionally marking them as “Not Helpful” so they can keep their reviews high in the relevance area.
Considering the length of my reviews, the depth and detail at which I discuss the product(s), how it works and my dissatisfaction with whatever parts didn’t work, they ignored all of that and focused on their own out-of-context remark. These are the very definition of “Review Snobs”. These are the folks who do not belong on Amazon and definitely need to have their review comment ability revoked. If Amazon offered a user blocking system, I’d have blocked these folks ages ago. If I could delete their comments from my review, I’d have done so. In fact, I have intentionally deleted my review and reposted it to get rid of some awkward and stupid comments.
It’s entirely a waste of my time to justify what I wrote in my review to some random “review snob” just because they feel the need to intentionally take something out of context. The review is there. Read it, understand it, learn from it. Don’t argue with me about some perceived injustice in my review that simply isn’t there.
Fan Boys & Girls
Unfortunately, far too many people are fans.. well, “fanatic” is more the correct word. And with fanatics comes fanatical behavior. That’s exactly what you get on Amazon. If I review the latest Britney Spears album and give it two stars and a rather scathing review, I guarantee some of these fanatical fans will come out of the woodwork to justify how “great” that album is… and how could I give it two stars?
Don’t question someone else’s opinion. With music and movie reviews, it’s all subjective opinion. You either like it or you don’t. Don’t come to someone else’s review and try to sway them to your belief system. That’s not how Amazon’s reviews work. Amazon’s reviews are always intended to be a mix of both high rated and low rated reviews. The intent is to allow people to state the things they liked and didn’t like about that “thing”. Trying to sway everyone to raise their rating isn’t the point of the review system. In fact, I’d like it if Amazon would let reviewers disable comments on reviews.
I should also mention that, in the case of Britney, instead of just talking about the beats or her singing abilities, I also discuss the production quality, the recording quality and even how the music was mastered. These fall under what I consider objective criteria. An album is professionally produced or it isn’t. An album is professionally mixed and mastered or it isn’t. An album is cohesive track to track or it isn’t. There’s lots of objective criteria about an album that can be heard in the tracks. Sure, the songs themselves are subjective, but the production of the album is most definitely chock full of objective criteria which is easily described.
With other products, like foods or kitchen gadgets or even toys, you can judge these by objective standards, also. For a gadget like a can opener, you have to ask, “Does it open a can?” Then you ask, “Was it easy to open the can?” Some can openers just work, others are a hassle. If the can opener breaks after the second use, then objectively the product was poorly constructed. These are all bits of information that should make its way into a product review. With a kitchen gadget, you have fewer fanboys and fangirls waiting out there for your review. For the latest Britney Spears album or the latest EA video game, you have lots of fanboys and fangirls waiting with baited-breath for those reviews to appear so they can be torn down.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a one star or five star review, these fanboys and fangirls will tear down anything. If it’s a one star review, it’ll be torn down because “nothing they like is ever one star”. If it’s a five star review, it’ll be torn down as “Fake”. Even something as simple as not having the “Verified Purchase” next to it is enough to mark a review as fake.
Verified Purchase
Amazon marks purchases made directly with Amazon as “Verified Purchase”. This signifies that the purchase was made through Amazon. Yet, Amazon allows you to review any product without having purchased it from Amazon.
For example, you can purchase the Amazon Dot, Amazon Kindle and other Amazon electronics from Best Buy, Target and other retailers. Yet, if you leave a review on Amazon having purchased these from a brick-and-mortar store (other than Amazon), you won’t get the “Verified Purchase” label. However, the review snobs come out of the woodwork without this label making it one of the first comments on a review. They claim you didn’t actually purchase the item at all. So then you’re reviewing without having purchased? I call BS on that. Are these people so stupid to think that Amazon is the only place where you can buy an Echo Dot or Kindle?
I’ve purchased many items from retail stores, including Echo Dots without purchasing it through Amazon. That doesn’t make my purchase or review any less valid. Sure, I should leave a comment on Best Buy’s site if I buy it there, but I also have an obligation to leave a comment on Amazon’s site for any Amazon-made product I purchase. Even if it’s not an Amazon product, Amazon purchasers need to know what they might be in for if they purchase the product through Amazon and it’s particularly bad.
Amazon Reviews
To come full circle, I’m happy to see that Amazon has finally done away with the useless, unnecessary and abuse-worthy “Not Helpful” button. It had no place in Amazon’s review system and served no purpose other than to allow review snobs to game the review system. That’s not a user’s call. Amazon should be the call of which reviews get moved to the top of the pile and which don’t. The “Helpful” button should only be one in many metrics used to move a review to the top of the relevance list.
If you don’t like a review, leave a comment and leave it at that. Not marking a review as “Helpful” is the same as formerly marking a review as “Not Helpful”. Simply avoid the review entirely if you don’t like what was written or leave a constructive comment on why you think the review is misguided.
Review systems, including the one at Amazon, are there to let you read a user’s experience and make a determination whether that product fits with your needs. It’s not there for you to argue with the review author over some perceived injustice. If you don’t like what was said, write your own review… or write a blog article.. or report the review to Amazon. Amazon doesn’t need review snobs running around trying to sway review authors into someone else’s way of thinking. Simply give that idea up. You can’t sway a review author’s mind with a few sentences in a comment.
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Random Thoughts - Randocity! 
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