news – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Pusillanimous Pardons and Immutable Immunity

The old rules no longer apply

When I check in on social media these days there’s a disturbing, yet comical, theme that runs through my feeds. Every time Trump or his toady enablers whips out some wide open act of corruption like a perverted exhibitionist my feeds fill up with naive anguish, hair pulling, and occasionally the gnashing of teeth.

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“Someone needs to stop this!”

“Congress must stand up!”

“How can they get away with this?”

What a waste of bandwidth and AI training.

In the first two instances there is no one left to stop any of this. Those folks have all gone home, or they’re cashing in after joining the circus. Congress doesn’t exist as anything other than a way to accrue vacation days, pensions, and fundraising opportunities.

As to “How can they get away with this?” One word folks.

Pardons.

Ok, two words.

Pardons and immunity.

When SCOTUS let Trump off the hook by conferring presidential immunity for official acts, he got permission to double down and do whatever he wants to do. Who knew gleefully committing crimes could be official acts?

Those following and enabling him, do so knowing full well that unless he dies before signing their pardons (he probably already has), they’re home free as well. Remember, accepting a pardon doesn’t erase the underlying crime, it just pardons you for criming in the company of a friend with pardon power and immunity.

For those who haven’t figured it out, it’s a risk free criminal enterprise.

It’s amazing how brave you might think you are, when you know you won’t be held accountable. It’s not bravery. It’s actually servitude.

It’s also amazing how naive we can be thinking any of the old rules still apply or that someone is going to ride to the rescue. No one wants to admit the jig is up because that ends the outrage gravy train, and is painful to contemplate.

But here we are.

(Image from Kelly Marken on Shutterstock)

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.

Virginia Rejoins The Confederacy With Supreme Court Action On Voting Acts

Time to get off high horses on the high road

After the U.S Supreme Court decided to to do away with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Virginia Supreme Court said hold my beer and rejoined the Confederacy, rushing to throw out the results of a recent redistricting referendum, which allowed the Commonwealth to redraw legislative districts.

A high curving road in the mountains. Photo by ARRitz on Shutterstock

These turn back the clock on civil and voting rights efforts are moving at a rapid and dizzying pace. You can certainly say that those who’ve been harboring their south will rise again dreams are sensing their chance and seizing upon it, thanks to the U.S Supreme Court Callais vs Louisiana ruling.

You can also sense that there’s a bit of panic in the air on their part. If they miss this chance, it’ll be a while before there is another one, seeing that the leader they’ve chosen to lead their fight is losing popularity as quickly as he’s losing what’s left of his mind and dragging down what used to be the GOP with it. But I fear that’s not going to even matter.

As I said in this post a couple of days ago, this is the continuation of a struggle that has gone on since the birth of this country. And while many of the southern states that made up the Confederacy during the American Civil War can’t wait for their chance to rip out the pages of history, they can really only do so because of a racist hatred and nakedly corrupted criminal influence that has taken hold in all corners of the U.S.

As to that sense of panic, I wish I could sense some of that panic in this from the other side. Quite frankly, it’s time to get off the high horse on the high road and get a little dirty in this fight. I haven’t seen or heard it yet in any of the statements made in the wake of these decisions, or the recent special session in Tennessee that effectively turned that states representation possibilities into a joke. Tennessee didn’t have this easy of a time choosing to eventually secede the first time around.

I’m not sure what makes me angrier. The open nakedly racist aggression against voting rights, or the milk-toast almost resigned reactions by Democrats. That politicians yanking us back into an unwanted past and into a dismal future are doing so with glee in their cold dead hearts. It makes the weak kneed attempts of their opponents seem even weaker. Jellyfish have stiffer spines. You can’t have a country supposedly ruled by laws, if those charged with carrying out those laws bathe openly in criminal corruption.

Given all of the efforts at election interference and obstruction that have already taken place and that will continue, these redistricting battles are creating a scenario in which it doesn’t matter how big a turnout Democrats can muster or how evil these leeches on humanity are.

We haven’t seen a roll back of rights like this since the ancestors of those leading this one rolled back Reconstruction efforts.

(Photo by ARRITtz on Shutterstock)

May 1st General Strike Planned. Hope It Matters

I’d like to see more urgency

There is a General Strike planned for this Friday, May 1. Quite frankly, I think it’s just going to be another in a series that have featured No Kings themed protests in the past year.

I don’t mean to demean the effort. Glad to see it happening. That said, given how each day brings something new that’s quickly absorbed into the swelling sponge of sewage that is the zeitgeist these days, I just don’t see any potential for real impact.

One of the problems with this protest is they missed the marketing boat. I get and appreciate the approach and historical tie in of calling a general strike on May 1. But those historical resonances are there for some, unfortunately not for all. Old rules don’t apply.

Also, given what I believe is still an urgent moment, that urgency seems to be fading a bit. I think the promotional pitches should have called the event MAY DAY and played that for all of the contextual danger it implies. Even the “Hold The Line” slug feels like stasis compared to movement.

I can understand the lack of urgency. There’s a growing sense that the next big moment isn’t going to happen until the midterm elections. Perhaps that’s justified in the wake of no real movement so far. But that actually makes the struggle more challenging, at the same time ground continues to be lost on so many fronts that won’t be easy to change.

But even though these efforts feel like they have weakening impacts, they do keep up some pressure. So, in the end I guess that matters.

Here’s hoping it does.

Birthright Citizenship and April Fools’ Day

The joke’s on us. All of us.

There’s something entirely appropriate and also ironic about the U.S. Supreme Court hearing arguments about birthright citizenship on April Fools’ Day. Don’t get me wrong, they shouldn’t be hearing the case in the first place. But they are and here we are.

The first section of the 14th Amendment, guarantees that any person born or naturalized in the U.S. are citizens of the United States. Given how language can get tortured and twisted around by lawyers and scholars, the text of Section 1 is pretty clear on its face and doesn’t require a legal degree to understand.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

But, as I said, there’s a case (Trump v. Barbara) being heard tomorrow on April Fools’ Day. Traditionally a day for jokesters and pranksters to have some fun, this unfunny joke, in my opinion, is on us. All of us.

Bottom line, it’s yet another blatant attempt at remaking America, continuing the white supremacist myth that one race is superior to any other. The fools perpetuating this lampoon of law don’t really have the courage to spell it out so succinctly. But you have to grant SCOTUS some sort of sickly ironic gift for timing of the hearing. It comes a day after announcing a block of a Colorado law that banned “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ kids on the Transgender Day of Visibility.

The bad joke that this U.S. Supreme Court has become, along with most the rest of our government is anything but funny. In the wake of a fear so deeply held by this confederacy of dunces that their somehow supreme race is heading into some sort of imagined abyss so deep that too many are constructing doomsday bunkers, I have a dim view of the possible outcome. I cant predict how it will end up. With this sad excuse of a president planning to attend the hearing tomorrow, making even more of a mockery of the episode, you just know we’re heading into another of those moments that are no laughing matter, but makes us all all victims of this dangerous prank.

No Kings Rally Returns March 28

We’re protesting against desperate foes. We need to become just as desperate.

The windup for another No Kings rally is heating up for March 28th. As I have been for the previous No Kings events, I’m of two minds.

First, it’s good to see this happening. I encourage and support the effort. Certainly since last fall’s event we’ve been through even more hell to have plenty to protest. Protests do make a statement.

Secondly, as I’ve repeatedly said about the previous protests, until they spill over into the work week I’m not sure what ultimate effect they have. Again, protests are statements. Statements are important. Statements some times lead to action. But as we’ve seen in other countries, it isn’t until large crowds gather in force for successive days and nights that anything beyond demonstrating solidarity actually happens.

Don’t get me wrong when I say that. I’m glad to see these events organized and happening. I hope they continue. I hope the crowds grow. I’d just like to see the effort continue with a greater sense of desperation.

My sense is that too many take too much comfort from feeling they are not alone and that it strengthens resolve as they gear up to vote in November. We probably will get that chance to vote. Although if you’ve been paying attention, that’s not guaranteed. I’m also not sure the results or the chaos around the results are going to provide the answers we need.

These are a desperate bunch of folks who can’t afford to lose. They know what they’ve done, and the only chance to save their skins is to stay in power. They continue to rig the game and the pace of those efforts is quickening.

I believe we have to become just as desperate.

You can check out the information on No Kings Rallies planned for your area at the No Kings website.

Media Moves: Netflix Backing Out Should Accelerate The Inevitable

Will it be a comedy or a drama when it debuts on Netflix?

There’s no denying that the insane pedophile rampaging through the last decade of our lives has changed things. It’s unfortunate that we let that occur. While many of us may have seen the potential for all the damage he’s caused, you can say not enough did, but I’ll say instead that not enough cared.

Smartphone screen showing the Paramount logo in sharp focus in the foreground, with a blurred Netflix logo and other colorful streaming imagery in the background, suggesting competition between streaming services.

But here we are. Where is that exactly? We’re witnessing almost daily damage to most things around us that I think too many still think will get magically reversed when he leaves office or leaves this planet, whichever comes first. It will take a few generations to get back to whatever we believed normal was, although I’m not sure there ever was a normal because things always evolved, though by and large at a more sanely digestible pace.

Take for example what’s happening in the media landscape. News that Netflix was going to withdraw from a bidding war for Warner Brothers, effectively clearing the field for Paramount to win the deal is being discussed from a number of perspectives by all the usual and unusual suspects.

Those that wanted Netflix to rise to the challenge and succeed, keeping Warner Brothers away from the MAGAt supporting Ellison family, were depressed and angry. Those who see Netflix as just another evil media empire were oblivously happy. Most just want to know when the next and eventual price increases are coming.

Quite a few are quite concerned about what this will do to CNN and the news landscape. They needn’t be. That Punch and Judy network long since turned over the puppet strings to the wrong masters.

You can argue that this might have happened with or without Trump, but there’s no point in that. What you can’t argue is that this kind of wheeling and dealing will never be the same again now that the Oval Office has become the one stop shop for getting ahead.

I happen to think that in the long run, Netflix pulling out of the bidding is a good thing. The trend lines point away from what we have thought of as traditional media and entertainment. Now that news is entertainment and sports is politics, it’s a circle of cannibals feeding on each other.

As for those concerned about CNN and news coverage in the larger scheme, let’s get real. There are only so many corporate knees one can bend. Yes, CBS and CNN will essentially become the same, but that consolidation is going to be an accelerant tossed on two already burning corpses.

For those concerned about the picture beyond the news game, I think we’ll see the same sort of downward acceleration once things settle in, which won’t be for a while yet. Movies and other entertainment will still get made. We’re in an age of content abundance, yet keep in mind the real winner at the moment is probably YouTube, which continues to steal eyeballs from all the other sources. Note also that audio audiences are listening more to podcasts than talk radio according to some statistics.

My hunch is this latest episode will just quicken the decline for the capitulators and accelerate the trend of consumers making other choices. I can’t wait to watch the extended series about it all on Netflix.

That’s my $.02. It might not be worth half that.

Bull(shit) in the Tariff Shop

Breaking. Things continue to break.

Well, let’s see. Having previously castrated Congress, Trump is now setting out to do the same to the Supreme Court. After SCOTUS ruled against his administration’s tariffs that were levied based on made up emergencies, Trump has essentially said that he’ll just keep them in place using other authorities.

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Of course that begs the question as to why he didn’t use those authorities in the first place. Oh, and he’s going to level an additional 10% tariff on the rest of the world in addition to piling that on top of those he’s allowed to keep. But set that aside. Any way you look at the 6-3 SCOTUS decision it’s a political and legal loss for POTUS. But then, hell hath no fury like a pedophile scorned.

Sulking like a scolded child, Trump’s typical insult laden bullying remarks also went after the justices (both conservative and liberal) that did not vote in his favor, so you know he’s he’s doing that sulking like a wounded beast in a corner waiting to strike back.

So, all and all Trump is basically giving a big middle finger to the Supreme Court the same way he has the rest of the country’s institutions, as he continues to make a world that only he sees in what’s left of his delusional mind. SCOTUS may have tried to reset the tricky balance between Congress and the Executive Branch with this decision, but asking that castrated branch to get it up and act feels comically painful now that Trump is kicking them in the balls as well. Justice Gorsuch’s eunuch-like plea for a divided system of government sounds almost lullaby-like in its longing.

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Lots of words will be written and spoken about what it all means. They won’t mean much. Given the SCOTUS decision and the pouty sour grapes speech following it, no one really knows what the economic damage will or won’t be at this point. But the political wreckage is easy to see. Suffice it to say, the situation is more than a messy minefield that will take some time to find a path through. We’d probably be better off just letting this wild bullshit artist rampage through it.

Shit’s gonna need to be cleaned up anyway.

UPDATE: After stewing in whatever the juices are they feed him intravenously, Trump upped his 10% global tariff tantrum tax to 15% the day after the SCOTUS decision came down.

(image from Igor Zakowski on Shutterstock)

If There Are Better Angels, What Does That Make The Rest Of Us?

Dual or duelling realities?

Abraham Lincoln trying to find a middle ground and attempting to hold the Union together proclaimed in his 1861 inaugural address that the “better angels of our nature” would help the country persevere. James Madison, writing in Federalist 51 said “if men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

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We’ve always looked to angels, either to save ourselves from ourselves, or excuse ourselves from those parts of humanity we know exist within or alongside us. The countless cartoons of angels and devils sitting on opposite shoulders illustrate this duality quite well. Even so, those who see the world as the brutal place it can be and act accordingly can just as often be found in pulpits praying to those better angels for guidance and protection.

Which begs the question, if there are “better angels” what does that make the rest of us? Are they divided into good, better, best ratings? To say they are all demons and devils is a shortcut that typically has led those holier than thou turning their own plowshares into swords of retribution just as sharp as those they hope to defeat.

So, I’m not a fan of the metaphor. First, it implies some sort of fairy tale-like savior(s) from beyond, heavenly or no, to right wrongs and dole out punishment, or caring and consoling those less fortunate. Second, depending on which religious texts you cling to, angels haven’t all been the “angels” we fantasize about and commercialize. Biblical texts, some still sworn by (Genesis), and some not (The Book of Enoch), talk about Angels sexually cavorting with humans, although just like anything else you can pick your side of that theological debate.

I’m sure many of those finding their relationships with Jeffrey Epstein, who are now the subject of scrutiny they thought they’d avoided, didn’t think twice in the moment about brushing off the better angels on their shoulders.

So, it’s no wonder we dwell in our duality. Sticking to the biblical for the moment, theoretically and theologically there was only one rule in the beginning. “Don’t eat the damn apple.” We’ve been adding and breaking rules ever since. Insert something about them made to be broken here.

It doesn’t matter which sphere of life you wander through, that duality is going to exist. I happen to believe that the vast majority of people start out to do something they think is a good thing, and then perhaps find their morality or their principals challenged along the they way. At that fork in the road, some choose a path that doesn’t comprise their belief systems, others the opposite.

That’s the test. There may be many gray areas in life, but that test is only pass/fail. Some may try to erase the result from their permanent record, but I think they call it permanent for a reason. Even if they can be redacted, deleted, or discarded.

On a more earthly level than spirituality, in sports there are those who play by the rules and those who will do anything it takes to win. There are admirers and fans of both. The same is true in business. The language often used in either competitive arena certainly isn’t always what I would call better angel-ish.

And then there’s politics. As my grandmother used to say, “politics is a dirty business for dirty people.” She nailed that one.

Good friend and fellow gadfly, David Todd McCarty, recently wrote about our America’s Dual State, more specifically about the dual state theory of Ernst Frankel wherein we exist in two different realities, the Normative State and the Prerogative State. As David distills it,

He called the first reality, the Normative State, where everything felt normal, and people were protected by laws and courts, and life functioned as before. The other, he called the Prerogative State, which was governed entirely by the Party, outside of the rule of law, existing in an arbitrary state of violent oppression.

Frankel was speaking about Nazi Germany, and today’s parallels have been far too easy to see or avoid. Except for those living in the Normative State, or those relishing in the performance of those pushing us towards the Prerogative State.

While I’m not a fan of the dueling angels on opposite shoulders metaphor in and of itself, pair it up with Frankel’s theory and I think those cartoons lift the animated dilemma closer to our own reality than most want to admit, but find themselves increasingly coming to terms with as those two realities increasingly converge.

I freely admit there are days when I’m hearing more from my darker angels than I want to. I like to think those thoughts come from a place of good I can return to once this is all over. But then I’m reminded of Madison more than I am of Lincoln.

(image from Alexander_P on Shutterstock)

A Question for Senate Democrats: Which Side Are You On?

Showing up is half the battle

Each time I try to lower my blood pressure a bit and calm down about the abhorrent political situation we’re living through in this country, something else pops and causes it to spike again. This time it’s the Democrats in the Senate.

It’s bad enough that we have to deal with the shit that’s continually dumped on us from the Trump regime, but when the Democrats have a chance to at least show up and threaten a fight they seem to forget that showing up is more than half the battle.

Both branches of Congress decided to split out DHS funding from the recently passed appropriations bills, leading to what most presume is a ridiculous two week timeline to debate changes for that appropriation. Call me skeptical, but I see that as another Lucy and the football moment just waiting to play out.

But it gets worse. The Democrats, according to this report from Politico, decided to strip from their demands a requirement banning ICE agents from polling sites.

If it seems feckless, that’s because it is.

At the very least include the requirement as a demand and make the GOP work to negotiate it away. Given words coming out of the White House about nationalizing voting and the pot stirring of its allies, you’d think they’d at least pay lip service to the threat. From a pure political standpoint I don’t understand the rationalization for this move given what we’ve seen with our own eyes and the words we’re hearing.

If Pete Seeger was alive today I’m sure he’d still be singing.

A Dark Place

Damnable depravity

I’m in a dark place. We are in a dark place. Living with our eyes wide open in a darkness. No light needed to know what we plainly see. ICE thugs. Minneapolis. Journalists arrested. Public corruption. Wars. Corporate capitulation to evil. And “The Epstein Files.”

I have not written much about that entire depraved episode. I will today.

In what seems like a backhanded, boomeranging, and backfiring way to distract from all of the other despicable things this administration has been doing to distract us from the Epstein files, the Justice Department released about three million of those files today. Apparently there are millions more. But in some ways we’ve probably seen enough.

Or at least to my mind we probably have. At least enough to pass judgment. Some of the files, either mistakenly or on purpose, were leaked. They include descriptions of what horrible men did to young girls. I won’t post or describe the specifics, beyond saying how utterly depraved they are.

They’d get an XXX rating if those acts were included in a movie. If you want specifics you won’t find them in the government release of the files because the DOJ actually deleted the links to some of the worst, which do indeed finger the president of the United States as a participant. But I’m sure you can find them all over the Internet.

Let me say this. The fact that there are going to be people trying to brush past and brush over what we’ve long suspected but now seen makes those horrible acts of perversion almost pale in comparison. You have to be some sort of sick to try and rationalize it as anything other than evil. But I’m sure there will be too many willing to throw their souls under the bus they continue to ride on.

When and where I grew up, it was a small rural community, populated with many who had some of the same political and social leanings of those we call MAGA today. I don’t care how much of an exalted office anyone held, how much money they made, or what pulpit they preached from. If they were accused of the things mentioned in those files they would have been quietly disappeared from the earth, never to be heard from, and mostly not spoken of again.

If this crowd of criminals and pedophiles and their supporters keep talking about Making America Great Again, I assume they are referring to that period of time when I was growing up. There’s a large part of me that thinks in despicable cases like these that perhaps we should. If only to mete out punishment the way it was done then.