The Father, the Son, and the Wholly Gross

By guest columnist Noel Holston

So, the same God that sent us Jesus also sent us Donald Trump?

Image from Daily Kos

I guess that’s possible seeing as how the same God gifted us with sex and STDs, but I doubt it.

Saying Donald Trump isn’t a “perfect” man is a huge understatement, like saying DDT isn’t the best of condiments.

I, Noel Holston, am not a perfect man. I sometimes talk when I should be listening. I’m bad about leaving the toilet seat up.  I’ve been known to tithe less than 10%.  I once stole a pair of sunglasses from a surf shop in Daytona Beach. 

I regret it all.

But unlike Donald Trump, who regrets nothing, I’ve never sexually assaulted a woman in a department store dressing room, mocked a disabled man’s tremors, lied on loan applications, stiffed a contractor, or paid hush money to a porn actress. I’ve also never been sued or charged with any crime, let alone 90. 

No, Trump is not a perfect man. He’s more like a perfect storm, a monsoon of malfeasance.

But that’s not the truly disturbing thing about the meme reproduced above. We know who Trump is.

The meme was shared on Facebook by a woman from my Mississippi hometown, someone who also posts pictures of angels and kittens, and it quickly amassed a long trail of supportive comments, from anti-Liberal slurs to “Some time we need a Joab.”

(For those of you who aren’t ready to compete on Bible Baffle, Joab was a Jewish military commander under King David known for his ruthlessness.) 

The scary thing is that there are people living among us who actually believe Donald Trump was chosen by the Almighty Himself to clean up the sinful mess that liberals, progressives and free-thinkers supposedly have wrought in the U.S. of A. 

Here again, the logic is strange.

God loved and blessed America when European conquerors, also known as settlers, drove indigenous peoples off their lands and killed them by the thousands.

God continued to love and bless America when some of its enterprising newcomers used abducted Africans to build great fortunes and, later, after a bloody war incidentally freed those slaves, disenfranchised, harassed and lynched their descendants for another century.

Only now, when some men and women want to love someone of their same gender, when some men and women want to change their gender, and when poor brown people from Central and South America are trying to cross our border Southern to pursue life, liberty and happiness is God so infuriated with us that He has dispatched a snide, vulgar, narcissistic real-estate hustler to lead us back to the straight and narrow.

There’s a word for this: insanity.

There’s a second word as well: blasphemy. 

Forgive them for they know not what they do? Sure. It’s the Christian thing. 

But not until after you’ve voted them and their orange idol out.

Author’s note: I had hoped to work Matthew 9: 26 (“There are none so blind. . .”) into this, but it broke the flow. Another time.


Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He serves as Georgia Correspondent for Wry Wing Politics. He’s also a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (2000-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.

What in God’s Name Are These People Selling?

Katie Britt calls Biden a 'diminished leader' in GOP response to the State  of the Union | wtsp.com

I remember quite well rolling my eyes every time Ronnie Reagan went off on one of his “shining light on the hill” riffs. America the exceptional! A blemish-free paradise, by god! No worries ’round here other than those frumpy Rooskies! Ignore whatever’s going on with those Iranian mullahs and the guns we’re shipping to fascists in Central America. And no Gertie, AIDS is nothing you need to worry your pretty little heterosexual Christian head over.

It was platinum plated BS.

But the thing is … it worked. The guy got reelected in a goddam landslide. He was Mr. Upbeat. A doofy old dude you’d have a beer with and listen to him tell stories of fighting his way up Mt. Suribachi … the scale model one out on the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank. Listening to Reagan’s cheery BS made the rubes feel everything would work out and they could devote even more time to obsessing over football and cheesy TV.

So last night, allegedly decrepit and addled Joe Biden takes a page from Reagan — and even name drops ol’ Ronnie — while setting up what is clearly going to be the fundamental message competition of the coming campaign.

Not just that, “Yeah, I’m old, but my ‘predecessor’ is crazy.” But, “Where I see solutions to problems, and have already solved problems, these guys … like that f**king nut job in her MAGA hat yelling at me from the cheap seats … are about the gloomiest damn bastards I’ve ever met. Hell, no sci-fi writer could come up with dystopia grimmer than this crowd and their cult leader.”

The internet is on fire this morning with startled praise for the juice Biden brought to his speech last night. Not only did the guy look and sound vigorous, he was clearly enjoying batting Republicans (and Sam Alito’s Supreme Court) around like a cat with a yarn ball.

Simultaneously, I don’t think I’ve ever read worse reviews for a State of the Union response. We’re talking Alabama first term senator Katie Britt. Have you watched this thing? OMFG! Your way too put together, very white, super Christian, average Mom (with de rigueur crucifix necklace, gold variety) smiling … before she’s tearing … before she’s tearing again about the absolute wasteland of criminality, vice, degradation and despair … outside her homey kitchen.

It is truly beyond parody. (Betting is heavy she gets “Saturday Night Live” attention.)

But the essence of it all is simple and obvious. While Biden (and hopefully at some point his more youthful surrogates like Gretchen Whitmer, Jared Polis, Pete Buttigieg, Josh Shapiro, etc.) talk up all the positives through the campaign …

Continued strong job growth.

Surprisingly improving wage growth.

Much, much lower inflation compared to what any economist much less any “Fox & Friends” host predicted.

Dropping crime rates.

… Republicans, led by Orange Jesus, are only capable of talking about what a godforsaken hellhole we’re living in. How the price of a dozen eggs is more than it was in 1985! And how no one has a spare nickel to drop on, I don’t know, a Redneck Riviera condo, a new Super Duty truck with a six-ton towing package to set up in a casino parking lot outside Vegas, a set of his and hers ATVs or concierge service at little Spider and Dewey’s summer Bible camp.

Never have so many endured so much deprivation and misery!

Purely by coincidence, I opened this morning’s e-mail from John Hinderaker and Minnesota’s own dystopian sourpusses at the American Experiment. This is the crowd that has still yet to calm themselves from “overreach” of last year’s Minnesota legislative session. You know, the one where Democrats delivered on damn near everything they campaigned on and for which voters sent them to St. Paul.

Here’s a taste of this morning’s litany of misery from our local conservative intellectuals:

Migrants (!) lining up in south Minneapolis looking for work. Horror! They’re all rapists and fentanyl dealers!

An arrest in a Dinkytown shooting. Subtext — black kids involved. Democrats are still letting black kids walk around on our streets!

$2 billion for another LRT line! When will the woke spendthrifts stop the insanity and build another four lanes on every freeway?

Welfare spending still too high. Is there a worse abuse of the public purse than using tax money to pay for housing and food for poor people? Those black kids need to learn to house and feed themselves … just like Republican intellectuals did. I mean, I think Jesus gave a speech about exactly that.

Subsidies for green energy! As everyone knows windmills cause cancer. Why are we subsidizing a clear health hazard? Far better we expand tax deductions for 6000-pound, gas-powered “work vehicles.”

And finally, Socialist activism in the “uncommited” primary vote. Quoting a piece of data from the rarely-if-ever credible Alpha News we learn that hard core lefties in Minnesota’s metro areas are practically running amuck, and unless they get a tough lesson upside the head they’ll soon be protesting on the lawn of the Lafayette Club. Something must be done! Hopefully by a reinvigorated police force. No mention though of Bob Kroll.

Bottom line: The next eight months will be defined by neo-Reaganism from … Democrats, and visions of a Cormac McCarthy hellscape from Republicans.

Wooziness is guaranteed.

Nikki Haley Has Said What She Said and Will Until She Says What She Used to Say

Trump: Nikki Haley donors will be barred from "MAGA camp"

The Lovely Mrs and I did our duty and voted in Tuesday’s primary. “Two for Joe,” as the kids might say. It was perfunctory and quiet in the Edina gym where we scanned our ballots … after inspecting them for threads of Chinese bamboo and tell tale signs of Italian satellite mischief.

A couple hours later, home and safe from rampant, hell-hole crime, out of control inflation and the toxic embers of this once great country of ours we noted the resounding defeats of Nikki Haley everywhere but Vermont. Then, the next morning to no one’s surprise, the former South Carolina governor called it quits … without endorsing You Know Who … yet.

Prior to this, whenever the topic of Haley came up I tried to make the point that while I’d never vote for her over any Democrat I can imagine, there was no doubt that a Nikki Haley presidency would be more or less Republican business as usual. Sane, experienced, corporate tax-cutting, regulation-gutting conservatives would occupy pretty much every cabinet level office and key spots in the federal bureaucracy. She would at least make a cri de coeur for supporting Ukraine. She would explain the financial and moral/reputational cost to the United States of appeasing Vladimir Putin. In other words, despondent liberals and the country would survive to fight another day.

The contrast to a deeply demented Trump 2.0 was and is stark.

But like a lot of people, I always regarded Haley as as craven as she was intensely ambitious. Following her career from a distance I couldn’t recall her ever taking a political risk in pursuit of a higher ethical standard. She was a parody of The Weathervane Politician. Everyone points to her “courageous” decision to … finally … take the Confederate flag down off the top of the goddam state capitol. But precious few point out that she only did that in the aftermath of a racist lunatic murdering nine people at a Bible study meeting in Charleston.

Now I grant you, yanking the Stars and Bars is more than Mitch McConnell or any Republican dared do after Sandy Hook. But still … good lord, what does it take to make a stand against … the Confederacy?

The pundit class I respect gives Haley credit for finally finding her voice in the past three months and at long, long last saying what is obvious to everyone outside the Trump cult. This is much the same way they credit hapless Mike Pence for doing one honorable thing, on January 6. It took Haley too damn long to get where she finally got, and she may yet spin another 180, but she finally did it and said it. Which is more than you can say for … well the list is hundreds of pages long.

One assumption is that she’s playing a long game, gambling that if Trump loses and takes the House and Senate down with him, she’ll be regarded in 2028 as the Prophet and the torch-bearer for the resurrection of a Reagan-Bush-style Republican party. A countervailing assumption is that Trumpism has so thoroughly captured and controlled the white, rural base Nikki Haley will be quickly forgotten as post-Trump the mob shifts towards, who knows, Tucker Carlson? Don Jr.? Josh Hawley? Jeanine Pirro?

The major irony in this, as I see it, is that I strongly suspect Nikki Haley, or any Republican capable of putting two coherent paragraphs of thought together AND courageous enough to say into a microphone that Donald Trump is exactly what we all see he is, namely, an incompetent vulgar fraud, would crush Joe Biden in November. There are that many people, women in particular, nigh on to desperate for anything new.

But the GOP is now so far gone with white rural grievance and delusional evangelicism that Haley or whoever is going to need a completely new party.

That said, I say she endorses Trump by Labor Day.

Their “Biden Crime Family” Case Implodes in Their Faces After Years of Hype. Hannity and the Usual Suspects Ignore it.

Robert Reich

If you get your news from almost anywhere other than Falun Gong’s Epoch Times or Rupert Murdoch’s FoxNews you are aware of the arrest a few days ago, (in Las Vegas FWIW), of Alexander Smirnov, the key informant in the constantly, aggresively and loudly hyped “investigation” into Hunter and Joe Biden. You may also then be aware that MAGA Republicans’ case against Joe Biden has essentially exploded in their faces in a putrid, cringey mist.

The collapse of this case is so total you’d be embarrassed for someone — looking at you Sean Hannity — if they weren’t so completely insulated from embarrassment and shame.

(BTW — 50 Dickens Points for Smirnov’s name. Can’t make it up. Have a double, Sean.)

There are dozen different ways to examine this story, but for some reason the face of a guy I used to work for kept popping up in my head. He ran a small media operation here in Minnesota and was constantly struggling to walk what is known as the “false equivalency” tight rope, a style of footwork that required him to regularly tut-tut “the extremes” of modern media, to be specific the FoxNews and MSNBCs/CNNs of the world.

As he tried to sell it to his staff of quasi-journalists, the two ends of the spectrum (as he saw the spectrum) were equally reckless and irresponsible. The proper (i.e. safer) course was right there square in the middle where you never developed or argued an opinion on anything that mattered, other than maybe how yummy the brioche was at some new restaurant/possible advertiser.

Having a few Jewish friends and some familarity with street level Yiddish, every time I saw this guy the word, “Putz!” flashed before my eyes. And I wonder what (if anything) he’s thinking today watching Fox, with its latest long-running act of reckless hysteria-mongering, faceplant on the sidewalk like a career drunk?

On a matter more specific to journalistic integrity, there’s the as-stark-as-you-can-get issue of honesty in the way the two “extremes” are currently handling this story.

As Media Matters, The Washington Post, USA Today, the Department of Justice, Slate and others have all reported — (none of whom are funded by a looney Asian religious cult or a company that just got done paying almost $800 million in damages for its last long-running carnival of lies and bullshit) — the “FBI informant”, Mr. Smirnov, arrested by the Trump-appointed special counsel, is an almost cartoonish joke. He’s so farcical any respectable journalist could check him out in an hour. No news organization with any respect for facts would have tolerated him as the foundation for so much coverage. Not for an hour, much less for years.

But such is the seal of the bubble around America’s MAGA conservatives today. Almost nothing intrudes on what they so desperately want to hear and believe. They offer the Epoch Times, the FoxNews/Hannitys/Jesee Watters/Lauta Ingrahams of the world their embittered credulity and those “sources” exploit it.

Biden is a weak, frail, cognitive mess: Sean Hannity #biden - YouTube

But despite the demise of any basis of fact with the arrest of Mr. Smirnov, The MAGA Credulous are not getting anything remotely like an apology or a correction from their most trusted purveyors of truth.

My apologies if you’ve already heard this:

From The Washington Post … “… no one on Fox News invested more heavily in the ‘Biden bribe’ story than Hannity. An analysis from Media Matters determined that he has covered the allegation in at least 85 segments since it first emerged in May 2023. On Thursday night, he had nothing to say about the new development. Instead, he began by focusing, once again, on [Atlanta DA Fani] Willis. Viewers who tuned in at 7 p.m. had, by 9:30, gotten an hour and 40 minutes of commercial-interspersed discussion of the hearing involving the Georgia official.”

Said Media Matters, ” … Hannity alone aired 85 segments promoting the claim, including 28 monologues. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump estimates that Fox News mentioned the claim about 2,600 times in the last 12 months.”

Two thousand six hundred mentions — including 43 on camera, primetime interviews with MAGA’s beknighted committee chairman, James Comer — about assertions, that Fox and Hannity knew were just assertions, but they nevertheless presented as “bombshell” facts. Assertions, (the official-sounding “1023s” Hannity referenced so often are in fact just that, a statement of as yet uninvestigated assertions), in no way, shape or form verified.

James Comer Pretty Sure Biden Did Something Illegal; Maybe - MeidasTouch  Network

And to date this morning, three days post arrest and implosion, there has not been a peep of remorse or apology from anyone at FoxNews. Not that any of us in this “extreme” bubble are surprised, of course. Reckless assertions and the unapologetic peddling of … well, lies … is built into the Fox business model. We expect no more. And much less.

My point here is the contrast. The contrast a value-free “putz” and anyone on America’s new MAGA right refuses to make between the two allegedly equivalent “extremes”. The Fox/Epoch/Mark Levin/name your favorite MAGA mouthpiece and, the CNN and MSNBC “extreme.” For simplicity sake think of it as a Sean Hannity v. Rachel Maddow battle of “extremes.” (Lord, I’d love to watch a debate between those two. At The Sphere in Vegas. $500 a pop!)

Had either CNN or MSNBC engaged in anything as high-profile, bombastic, persistent and egregiously fallacious as what Hannity and FoxNews have done they’d be fired on the spot and faced with reputational ruin. At best they’d be a laughingstock.

But you and I know the Hannity engine — from the basement of his Palm Beach mansion – will plow on without the slightest wound of consequence.

Immunity from shame may be the biggest benefit of operating within that “extreme” bubble.

You Gotta Let It Hang Out, Joe. At This Point Perception is Far Worse Than Reality.

Joe Biden Is Old. Get Over It.

After the Special Counsel report gratuitously describing him as “an elderly man with a poor memory” the clear consensus is that Joe Biden has to come out of his protective shell, say “f*ck it”, (as he is wont to say) and let it all hang out. Just as with “crooked Hillary” and “her e-mails” back in 2016 the meme has settled in that he, Joe Biden, an honest operator with 50 years of government experience is a bigger risk than a 77 year-old failed casino operator campaigning as the fool he is proud to be.

Sunday’s Super Bowl may have been the single most-watched telecast … in history … and Biden passed on an interview with CBS. Not with a self-serving gasbag like Bill O’Reilly or a smirking frat boy like Jesse Watters or some other right-wing stooge, but with an intellectually honest network’s interviewer. Someone with a professional allegiance to facts and respectful decorum. That was a big mistake.

Especially … especially … when you factor in that the game’s enormous audience was likely fueled by an unprecedented inflow of women primarily interested in the whole Taylor Swift side show. With women voters showing a 22% preference for Biden over a guy a lot of them likely regard as the epitome of a shit boyfriend/worse husband; an undisciplined, vulgar blowhard facing 91 criminal counts and officially judged a “rapist” for his assault on a woman in a department store dressing room, Biden failing to immediately recall the name of the president of Egypt could hardly be deemed perilous to their view of who is the wiser choice.

Both of these guys, Biden and Trump, are what they are. Both are old. One has five decades of experience with national and international crises. He understands climate and infrastructure policy. The other played a real estate mogul on a TV show, bankrupted a casino, lost more money than any other person in the United States over nine years, has never said a cross word about the Joseph Stalin of our era and has been regularly described as, “a fucking moron” by people he hired to work in his first administration.

So given the fact that barring some deus ex machina event that removes him from the nomination, Biden (i.e. his team of strategists) has to push him out for unscripted interviews. Not with MAGA fools like Watters, etc. But with people like, say, Jonathan Swan, now with The New York Times. Or Maggie Haberman of the Times. Chris Wallace at CNN. Jonathan Lemire of Politico. Hell, I see value in an hour-long chat with a bona fide conservative like Bill Kristol.

Let the public decide if his (lifelong) stutter or his occasionally lengthy reaches for a specific name or date is disqualifying early onset dementia or just an older guy whose head is full of names and dates. (Among the facts conveniently ignored amid the frenzy over Biden’s “gaffes” are all the times George W. Bush, 30 years younger, mangled names, dates and spewed out bizarre salads of incongruence.)

Neither of these guys is Bill Clinton or Barack Obama when it comes to slickness on the impromptu stage. But one is sane, sincere and qualified. The other is … well, we all know … . I don’t have to repeat myself.

A Brief History of Things I Do Not Understand

GM's Hands-Free Driving With Super Cruise Just Got A Lot Better | CarBuzz

I’m tempted to say that as the years accumulate I understand less and less. But as anyone who knows me will tell you, I’ve never understood all that much. That said, lately I’ve found myself building a list of stuff happening today that I simply do not get. And being committed to public service I’m offering it to you now.

1: Hands free driving. If you watch football you’ve no doubt seen the commercial of your standard issue, cookie cutter, commercial male “average guy” actor — forty-ish, eight-day growth of beard, outdoorsy attire — behind the wheel of his gleaming new Chevy truck (estimated retail cost $80,000). But that’s all he is … behind the wheel. Never mind he’s heading downhill off a mountain with a truckload of buddies pulling a trailer carrying four ATVs. (Boys gotta have toys.) He’s got his hands in his lap letting his shiny rig drive itself. Total weight of this set up? Six tons. I don’t get it. Is steering that exhausting? More to the point, how nervous are your buddies at this scene? Also, what’s State Farm’s payout when a deer jumps in front of all this and you pile yourself, your pals and all that gear into a rock face … because you weren’t steering 12,000 pounds (minimum) down a damn mountain road?

2: Intuit Turbo Tax (or H&R Block … ). Another heavily hyped-during-football “service.” The only reason millions of us pay out $80 for TurboTax software or $300 to a tax accountant is because the likes of Intuit have so heavily lobbied our congress critters to prevent the government/IRS from offering this same service (or a better one) for free. Don’t believe me? Watch this illuminating report from The New York Times.

Let me put this bluntly … we are chumps for allowing this to happen. The Biden administration did put money into the IRS to begin addressing this stupidity, but of course … oh, you already knew … House Speaker Mike Johnson and his MAGA puppetmasters are railing against it on the grounds that, yeah yeah, jack-booted IRS thugs are going to knock in your trailer door and confiscate your guns to settle back taxes. FFS!

3: Cussing. Speaking of speaking bluntly. Politico had a story last week of Biden, who, you know, is so addled he’s repeatedly telling people Obama is still president and that woke Democrats are going to change the name of Pennsylvania (oh sorry, that’s the other guy), cussing out Orange Jesus in private conversations. Echoing former Secretary of State and Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson and countless others employed by Trump would said exssentially the same thing Biden reportedly called the failed casino operator/spiritual leader of modern Republicans a “sick fuck” and “a fucking asshole.” The context being, according to Politico, Trump’s constant indifference and cruelty to people far, far below him on the economic ladder.

Now personally, being an occasional potty mouth myself and a very big fan of The Dude, I found this to be pretty funny. Largely because it expresses so precisely and in such a succinct, common street level language way what at least 80-plus million voters are thinking … every day. Public figures generally try to avoid sounding like Joe Pesci in “Casino” when they’re out campaigning or handshaking moms at some pre-school opening. Spot on cussing is not, you know, “dignified” or “statesman-like.” But my guess has long been that wonky grey Democrats in partiucular would do well to adopt a vernacular more in tune with actual Americans. People find something relaxing and something akin to cathartic and humanizing about a leader who looks on vulgar cancer like Trump and says, “Jesus, what a sick fuck!”

4: Awards season. I like movies. I like music. But I am truly way too old and have seen too much to get excited about Oscars and Grammys and CMAs and BAFTAs and Guilds-this and that. These “contests” have almost nothing to do with objectively evaluating artistic merit … as though anything could or should. They’re virtue-signaling, trend-obsessed popularity contests heavily … and I do mean heavily … tilted in favor of who sold the most tickets and who marketed themselves to the right people in the right ways. Maybe something like the London Film Critics comes close to applauding artistic merit. But the Oscars and Grammys and the rest are first and foremost about putting on a show! About selling ads on a TV celebrity-choked extravaganza with a giant audience. Put another way, nobody wants to watch a collection of paunchy yobs you’ve never heard of natter on about some dorky film no cool kid has seen on Tik Tok.

So yeah, I don’t get awards shows either.

And finally … get off my lawn.

Lobbyists’ Whining Shows Why A Public Option in MN Is So Necessary

An independent analysis released this week by the Minnesota Department of Commerce found that up to 151,000 Minnesotans could be helped if the Minnesota Legislature gives health insurance consumers of any income level the option of buying into the public MinnesotaCare health insurance plan. MinnesotaCare has been operated by the Minnesota Department of Human Services since 1992 but has only been available to about 83,000 people who make too much to qualify for Medical Assistance (Minnesota’s Medicaid program) but earn less than 200% of the federal poverty level.

The Commonwealth Fund explains what little is known about the MinnesotaCare buy-in option proposal that will be considered by the Minnesota Legislature in the coming months:

Minnesota is also considering a buy-in option but is focusing on expanding MinnesotaCare, the state’s Basic Health Program. The Basic Health Program was created by the Affordable Care Act and allows states to leverage federal financial assistance typically used to subsidize private insurance purchased through health insurance marketplaces to instead fund a state coverage program for individuals with incomes up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level. MinnesotaCare and the state’s Medicaid program are run by the same agency; MinnesotaCare provides more generous benefits than marketplace coverage at lower premiums. The state’s recently enacted law allows the state to study and pursue different public option models in addition to the MinnesotaCare buy-in.

As the Legislature prepares to debate this issue in coming months, lobbyists for insurance companies, doctors, and hospitals are howling, which confirms to me that the Legislature is on the right track. 

Hospital and doctor lobbyists are predictably complaining that they will get reimbursed less by MinnesotaCare for medical services.  Health insurance lobbyists are predictably complaining that they will earn less by being forced to compete with MinnesotaCare.

I don’t doubt that what the lobbyists are saying is true. But their complaints should lead Minnesota legislators to ask themselves this key question: How can we possibly make insurance more affordable for struggling consumers if doctors, hospitals and insurance companies don’t get paid less?

We can’t.

If medical industry lobbyists lose on this, ordinary Minnesota insurance customers will win. It’s pretty clear that hospital executives, specialty doctors, and health insurance company executives are in a better position to make do with a little bit less money than 300,000 uninsured Minnesotans who are just one injury or illness away from medical bankruptcy or going without life-saving care.

According to the Commonwealth Fund, health insurance consumers are winning in Washington and Colorado, states that have already gone down this public option road:

“Washington and Colorado, which have operational programs, are seeing incremental progress. In Washington, public option plan rates will increase in 2024, but at a slower pace than non-public option plans (+5% compared to +8%). Similar to this past year, in 2024 they are expected to be the lowest-cost silver plan in most counties (to which premium tax credits are pegged). Public option plans will be offered in 37 of 39 counties, up from 34 in 2023.

Despite opposition from the insurer and provider communities, the Colorado Option program has generated savings for consumers while offering more comprehensive benefits and increasing transparency around health insurance premiums and provider reimbursement rates. Requested increases for Colorado Option plans were more than 30 percent lower than non-Option plans and, following the state’s subsequent rate review and hearing processes, the state announced that 25 individual market and 24 small-group market Colorado Option plans will meet the state’s target of a 10 percent reduction in premiums compared to 2021 levels. The federal government also recently affirmed that the program is expected to generate savings from reductions in plan premiums.”

That’s very encouraging progress. It’s not a cure-all, but it is progress.

Do Minnesota legislators care more about the financial bottom line of insurance companies, hospital companies, and specialty doctors than they do about the pocketbooks of Minnesotans struggling to afford health protections? In the coming weeks, we will find out.

“They” Have Good Reason to Fear Taylor Swift

The 'Taylor Swift Psyop' Freaks Need to Go Outside | National Review

I don’t think it’s my imagination. I really don’t. Not when every day it gets tougher and tougher to believe today’s Republicans have an ounce of respect for the intelligence of the average rube. Their average rubes. Not when in the course of a single week we had …

1: A dozen Colorado Republican congressional candidates — including “Beetlejuice” groper Lauren Boebert — being asked how many of them had ever been arrested? And half of them proudly shot up their hands … to the delight of the crowd that commenced hootin’ and hollerin’ in delight … at the sight of, you know, such bona fide maverick Wild West independence … or something.

2: Minnesota’s 8th District Congressman “Coach Pete” Stauber, a guy sent to D.C. solely because he can talk hockey to the marginally literate of the far north, boasting to his fellow puckheads about how he “advocated” for the billion dollars of federal money to rebuild the giant Blatnik Bridge to Superior. When in fact he … oh damn, you already knew the punchline … he caved to MAGA group think and voted against all those high-paying construction jobs.

And 3: And now, a whole host of once-upon-a-time Republican presidential candidates, (pseudo-intellectual/inflamed hemorrhoid Vivek Ramaswamy), Fox, NewsMax and OAN anchors and pundits plus … plus! … the guy who did so well selling the story of Hillary Clinton eating babies in the basement of a pizza parlor … that has no basement … freaking out about Taylor Swift rigging the the Super Bowl and the next election.

I freely concede I live in a bubble where this kind of stuff strikes me as … mmmm, what’s the word I’m looking for? … well how about “stupid” until I can come up with something better? (“Batshit” has been worn thin describing this crowd.)

But the Swift thing, besides so vividly demonstrating how afraid the MAGA-nauts are of one cute, fabulously wealthy young lady, is interesting because her influence over her fans, most of them young to young-ish women is both extraordinary and immense. Any of us who have followed pop culture for decades have to admit we’ve seen nothing — nothing — like her Eras tour or the devotion her fans have to her.

The still on-going tour has been a campaign across the globe that made her a billionaire because in large measure she was selling joyful community via high professional standards. (Ok, and high prices, too.) Point being, all her songs about relationships gone wrong withstanding, her affect is of someone who respects her audience and holds herself to standards respectful of truth (sometimes hard truths) and decency towards others. Fans may shriek and sing along and wave their flashing Swiftie bracelets without giving a lot of explicit thought to such virtues, but they feel it … and in Swift’s case, based on what we and the MAGA crowd can see, she lives the virtues she sings about.

Including the virtue of not being a sap for the bastards of the world.

Therein lies the fear she strikes into the (mmmmm, gotta come up with a new word) cynical thought leaders as they contemplate what she might be able to do with a political endorsement later this year.

Being a (very) shrewd businesswoman, Swift no doubt calculates the impact of “coming out” for say Joe Biden might have on her remarkably unblemished celebrity. Sure, there’s a percentage of her fan base that would react negatively. Certainly to an overt endorsement. But what percentage would you put that at? 10%? 15%?

She has 534 million social media followers. She can lose 50 million and still be a goddam force of political nature … if she wants to be.

The sense she’s giving at the moment is less about doing something as heavy-handed as popping up on the Jumbotron at the Super Bowl and telling all Swifties everywhere to “Vote for Joe”. It’s more — and this is savvy and wise in so many ways — simply making the persistent case to, “Vote and vote for the right thing. Vote for racial justice, gender justice, honesty and intelligence and respect for everyone, including yourself.” Presented that way, the average Swiftie — a lot of them smart young ladies — has very little difficulty discerning who of the two strange old geezers running for The Big Job embodies those virtues best.

Ms. Swift is an unprecedented phenomonon, in no small part due to her masterful manipulation of social media. She gets her message across. Instantly. And by virtue of her … well, professional virtues … her message has startling credibility with her millions of fans, (unlike, say Ted Nugent or Kid Rock), a large portion of whom may never have voted before and wouldn’t now other than she — their gold standard for fun and decency — says it’s important.

And for that reason Sean Hannity and the usual collection of incel folk heroes are rightfully terrified of her.

Heh.

Five Things That Should Keep Trump Up At Night

Politically speaking, Trump has a lot going for him. Very early in the primary season, he is the runaway front-runner for the GOP nomination.  Wrapping this up early will save him a lot of money and allow him to aim resources at Biden, instead of at his fellow Republicans.

He is battle-hardened. He has already endured dozens of serious scandals that would have ended most candidacies – two impeachments, 91 criminal indictments, a videotaped incitement of insurrection, the “grab em by the” lady bits tape, dozens of embarrassing gaffes, a porn star hush money conviction, a sexual abuse conviction, popular vote losses in 2016, 2020, 2022, and 2023, etc. 

Despite all of those calamities and more, Trump somehow still has around 35-ish percent of voters consistently enthusiastic about him and another 15-ish percent of voters who currently seem willing to hold their noses and vote for him.

After all of that, it’s difficult to imagine what could cause Trump to lose much electoral ground in the next 10 months.

Moreover, Trump has the good fortune to be running against a politically wounded, gaffe-prone octogenarian who has had to endure post-pandemic economic headwinds throughout his term.

Add to that the very real possibility of a third-party candidate siphoning off anti-Trump voters from Biden, and it can’t be denied that Trump has one hell of a strong political hand. At this stage, he should be considered the favorite to win in November.

But if I were on Team Trump, these are five challenges that especially would concern me.

Surviving a Conviction(s)

A major conviction, especially on the insurrection-related charges, could weaken Trump with a block of undecided voters. The Washington Post recently reported:

“…election-day surveys showed 31 percent of Iowa caucus-goers and 42 percent of New Hampshire GOP primary voters said Trump wouldn’t be fit to serve as president if he’s convicted of a crime.

Those are big scary numbers, but I would add two caveats to them: First, with an army of Trump lawyers trying everything possible to delay proceedings, it’s going to be very challenging for prosecutors to get a conviction and subsequent appeals completed before the November election.

Second, I’d be surprised if even one-quarter of those people who today say a conviction would be a deal breaker for them would actually abandon Trump. After hearing Trump and his supporters endlessly claim how the conviction(s) was the product of a politically motivated witch hunt, I think many cynics will agree with that cynical argument.

Still, if even a relatively small fraction of that large block of conviction-sensitive voters abandon Trump because of a conviction(s), that could be decisive in a close general election.

Moving Beyond “The Base”

Also, Trump is currently weak with swing voters. While much is made of how loyal Trump’s base is, once the primaries are over the MAGA base is not anywhere near large enough to give Trump a general election win.  He needs to win over the non-affiliated independents, soft Democrats, and soft Republicans who will decide this election. Like Biden, Trump has a lot of work to do to win over those voters.

Trump should be very worried about his poor showing with independents so far. MSNBC’s data geek Steve Kornacki noted a remarkable 71-point difference between how New Hampshire independents voted for Haley by 21 points compared to how the state’s Republicans voted for Trump by 50 points.

Fox News exit polls in New Hampshire found that 35% of GOP vote primary participants, many of whom were independents, indicated they would be so dissatisfied if Trump won the Republican nomination that they wouldn’t vote for him.

Again, if even a fraction of that holds in November, that could seriously hurt Trump’s chances in battleground states.

The Economy, Stupid

Then there is the economy. The state of the economy has traditionally been very important to swing voters – independents, soft Republicans, and soft Democrats.  Up until now, that has helped Trump pull ahead in the polls.

But as pandemic-related economic challenges have eased, the economy under Biden has very quietly gotten robust – historically low unemployment, consistent economic growth, much lower inflation than earlier, interest rate decreases likely on the way, a historic boom for the stock market/retirement funds, wage growth outpacing inflation, and, at long last, increasing consumer confidence.  The United States under Biden has the strongest post-pandemic economic recovery in the world.

Even if that good economic news only neutralizes the enormous past advantage Trump enjoyed on this issue, rather than turning it into a strength for Biden, that could help Biden win over persuadable swing voters.

Doh! Roe!

Trump also continues to face tricky political winds related to abortion rights. Surveys show that two-thirds of Americans think the overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision that kept abortion legal and safe was a mistake. Meanwhile, Trump is out there telling anyone who will listen that “I’m the one who got rid of Roe v. Wade.”  That’s music to Democrats’ ears.

The 2022 elections showed how much Republicans’ post-Dobbs abortion bans have hurt Republicans, particularly in suburban battlegrounds where battleground state elections are often decided.

Now congressional Republicans are promising a national abortion ban. That just adds fuel to this fire.

That would also worry me a lot if I was a Trump supporter.

Trump Being Trump

Getting voted out of the White House and kicked off Twitter has made Trump’s outrageous behavior a bit less visible than it was when he had the presidential bully pulpit. To the extent that Trump has been visible, a lot of the news coverage has been focused on how resilient he remains with the relatively narrow band of Americans who make up his political base. That success appealing to Republicans has made Trump look, up until now, relatively strong and normal.

But in a general election campaign, Trump’s steady stream of outrageous comments and actions will once again be more visible. Trump can’t keep himself from sounding childish, bigoted, incoherent, unstable, and dictatorial. That persona led Trump to lose the popular vote by 3 million in 2016 and 7 million in 2020.

Highly visible “Trump being Trump” news coverage is great for Trump when the task at hand is appealing to the Republican base. But a constant stream of Trump outrageousness doesn’t always help him with more moderate swing voters. Moreover, his undisciplined stream-of-conscious blathering keeps him from repeating the most persuasive anti-Biden messages and pro-Republican messages.

Again, Trump is far from politically weak. He is rightfully favored to win in November. But if I were a Trump operative, these are five things that would certainly keep me up at night.

MN Republicans Rally Around the (Racist) Flag

In 2023, DFLers in the Minnesota Legislature passed a staggering amount of significant policies to help parents, children, students, women, people of color, seniors, taxpayers, voters, and workers. In 2024, it’s time for Republicans to show what they’ve got.  Up until now, they haven’t had much of a policy agenda, other than opposing all of the aforementioned DFL improvements and trying to cut taxes for the wealthiest seniors.

But buckle up, because Minnesota Republicans have a hot new culture war issue to promote. State flag preservation, baby!

Minnesota Republicans are promising to fight like hell to preserve the current Minnesota state flag. You know, the one with the jumbled seal that looks like several other state flags. The one that is impossible to discern at a distance. The one that has long been seen by indigenous people as celebrating their subjugation and genocide. Republicans love that sucker!

The University of Minnesota’s Bill Lendeke explains the troubling origin story of the current flag, which features a picture of a white pioneer plowing a field with a rifle next to him while a Native American rides away with the sun setting:

The (state flag) designer’s wife, Mary Eastman, even penned a short poem to explain what was on the seal:

Give way, give way, young warrior,
Thou and thy steed give way;
Rest not, though lingers on the hills
The red sun’s parting ray.
The rock bluff and prairie land
The white man claims them now

Eastman’s rhyme has the benefit of honestly reflecting the dominant feelings of white Minnesotans at the time, most of whom wanted to eradicate Native Americans from their homeland. As such, the seal and flag represent sentiments that led directly to the genocide of Dakota people, and is one that Minnesotans should not celebrate in any way.

Despite this dark history, Republicans seem to see themselves as fighting to preserve a righteous flag, not unlike the brave soldiers at Iwa Jima in Joe Rosenthal’s iconic photo.

The state Republican Party even created a Save The Flag website to hock sweet t-shirts suitable for MAGA rallies.

Needless to say, Republicans look nearly as ugly in this fight as when they fight to preserve statues celebrating white supremacists such as Nathan Bedford Forest, Robert E. Lee, and John C. Calhoun.

To be clear, no flag redesign was ever going to be universally loved. When it comes to matters of design, everyone has different tastes and biases. And plenty of folks who preferred one of the other more than 2,600 designs considered by the State Emblems Redesign Commission are understandably still feeling tender.

But most of us who didn’t get our top choices respect the process and don’t throw a hissy fit over it

Given that we’re never going to have a unanimous opinion on flags, we have to look at the big picture: The current flag celebrates race-based dominance, and that’s just not ok. Beyond that, flag design experts have long said that Minnesota has one of the very worst state flag designs.

The Commission’s recommended design fixes both of those problems.

Ted Kaye, who wrote the 2006 guidebook “‘Good’ Flag, ‘Bad’ Flag,” gave Minnesota’s new design an “A” and called it excellent.

“You can’t make everybody happy, but Minnesota will come to be extremely proud of this flag,” said Kaye, secretary of the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA). “The state has seized a wonderful opportunity to improve its symbolism.”

He said he believes it would rank in the top 10 among the states and provinces of the United States and Canada were NAVA members and the public to be surveyed.

I hope the Minnesota Legislature doesn’t waste much time on the state flag debate. It’s clear what it should do.

The Commission went through a painstakingly thorough and thoughtful process, so the Legislature should quickly, decisively, and proudly approve the recommended new state flag. It is a huge improvement over the ugly — in so many ways — flag that has been poorly representing Minnesota for far too long.

The First Leg of My EV Journey

I’ve driven gas-electric hybrids for 20 years, but I wanted to step up my environmental game. I thought I’d share the basics of that journey towards increasing electrification, since others may be pondering the same.

My first choice for a new vehicle was a Toyota Prius Prime, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) that uses 100% electric over the first 40-ish miles and then automatically switches over to the gasoline-fueled internal combustion engine (ICE) after that. Since the U.S. Department of Transportation finds that 95% of trips are less than 35 miles, that seemed like a sensible bridge vehicle to use while the charging infrastructure and EV battery technology improved.

However, after spending two years on a Prime waitlist, I got impatient and somewhat impulsively bought a 100% electric Chevy Bolt EV instead.

The Bolt’s battery pack has an EPA-rated 247-mile range. Though the range is much lower in the winter, even winter ranges easily cover the way I use my car over 99% of the time. It’s very feasilble to go further by refueling at the fast-growing number of public charging stations, but for the other 1% of trips we also do have an ICE-powered vehicle in reserve.

For what it’s worth these are some of my initial impressions of EV life.

While the Bolt is much cheaper (MSRP ~$30,000 with generous tax credits available to many) and much more utilitarian than the Prius and other high-end EVs, it’s easily the smoothest, quietest, and most technologically sophisticated vehicle I’ve driven. I’m not a car enthusiast, but I look forward to driving my Bolt. While many people I know seem to assume EVs will have worse driving performance than ICE vehicles, I’m finding the opposite to be true.

It’s also cool to never again have to do things like add gas, oil, transmission fluid, sparkplugs, fuel filters, and coolant, or make other repairs associated with ICE cars powered by thousands of recurrent explosions. Brakes also last much longer because one-pedal driving has the engine doing much more of the braking, which also regenerates free electricity to slightly extend the range.

I’m not one of those guys who meticulously calculates the cost of electric charging versus the cost of putting gas in the car, but the federal government calculates that the average 2023 Chevy Bolt EUV user will save about $5,000 in fuel costs over 5 years. I tend to keep cars a lot longer than 5 years (current car is 14 years old), so that benefit will grow over time.

Environmentally, it’s not perfect, because Minnesota has a lot of coal fueling its grid. But that is changing rapidly as Minnesota moves to sunset coal use by 2035. Still, the Bolt has a 10 out 10 EPA rating for greenhouse gas emissions and is rated at 115 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe), which measures the efficiency of vehicles that run on non-liquid fuels.

Charging is truly easy. The vehicle comes with a Level 1 charger that you can plug into a regular three-prong household outlet. A Level 1 charger is the slowest kind of charger, delivering about 4 miles of additional range per hour of charging, or about 96 hours per day. That’s mighty pokey compared to other types of chargers, but a lot of people who don’t drive far or often could get by with it. In my dotage, I probably could.

For a couple grand, minus a nice rebate from my utility company, I put in a Level 2 charger in my garage. The Level 2 delivers about 25 miles of range per hour.  With that, I can easily fully charge a nearly empty battery overnight with cheaper off-peak power rates. So, I start every day with a “full tank,” though “full” is a very complex concept among the legions of EV techno-geeks.

When making longer trips, I’ll use Level 3 chargers at public stations, which deliver about 200 miles of range per hour of charging. That leads to a longer re-fueling stop than I made with my ICE vehicle at gas station. But by the time I take care of my biological needs, appetite, and smartphone addiction, I don’t think that an hour will be so onerous. And again, for the vast majority of my trips I’m only charging in my garage, where there is no waiting for refueling.

Beyond installing a charger, life with an EV truly isn’t that much different than life with an ICE vehicle.

Except for all of the questions I am fielding. That’s definitely different.

You don’t need to become an EV expert to own and operate an EV. EV enthusiasts inhabiting online EV discussion sites can make EV operation seem like quantum physics, but the truth is that you can ignore that level of complexity if you’re not interested in deep analysis of all things EV. And I most assuredly am not interested.

However, you do have to become somewhat of an expert to endure the endless questioning you get from the genuinely curious to the shockingly hostile. “Aren’t you worried that thing will start your house on fire?” “Don’t you know EVs are actually worse for the environment?” “Why get it when gas prices are low now?” “Why not wait for the next generation of improved technology?” “Aren’t you worried about getting stranded?” “Oh, so you’re better than us now?” “How can you afford that?” “Oh now I suppose you’re going to be That Guy who never shuts up about your precious EV?” “Doesn’t range decrease in cold weather?” “What did you pay for X, Y, and Z (EV-specific things)?” “Aren’t EVs going to overwhelm the grid we depend on for our homes?”

That constant barrage of questioning definitely does get tiresome. But so far, that’s the only part of EV life that I dislike.

MN GOP Running Again on Taxes? Yes, Please!

Minnesota Republicans think they have found a golden issue to run on in 2024. In the 2022 elections, campaigning on interfering with women’s healthcare decisions, blocking gun protections, banning books, censoring teachers, and championing insurrectionists didn’t go that great for them. Therefore, Republicans have settled on an old reliable “bread and butter” issue — fighting to cut taxes for the wealthiest individuals and corporations.

Bam! Take that, big-taxing progressives. Here come the trickle-down “Reagan Republicans.”

The problem is that this isn’t 1984, and most Americans do not want the wealthiest and corporations to have lower taxes. According to a March 2023 Pew survey, a jaw-dropping 83% of Americans are bothered — 61% “a lot,” 22% “somewhat” — that “some corporations don’t pay their fair share of taxes.” A nearly identical number are bothered that “some wealthy people don’t pay their fair share.” Only 17% agree with Republicans on that issue.

Looking at these numbers, you would be hard-pressed to find a worse issue for Republicans to emphasize during the 2024 elections. DFLer activists should consider contributing to Republicans who are paying to put their “shame on the DFL for taxing the wealthy and corporations” messages in front of voters. That messaging does Republicans much more harm than good.

If only Minnesota DFLers had a way to show the swing voters who will decide close races how they are fighting to ensure that wealthy people pay their fair share of taxes to support state infrastructure and services.

Enter the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). The national think tank recently found that Minnesota currently has the #1 most equitable state and local tax system, thanks to changes made by DFLers.

How does Minnesota have a more equitable system than other states? The breakdown for Minnesota by the Minnesota Budget Project shows that Minnesota’s highly progressive state income tax offsets out highly regressive sales and excise (e.g. alcohol, tobacco, gasoline) taxes. 

You may recall, that in 2020 GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen and his followers ran on eliminating that state income tax. That 2020 election didn’t go particularly well for Johson and his party.

Based on the polling and Jensen’s shellacking, shouldn’t Minnesota’s tax fairness ranking be something that DFLers tout to the 83% who agree with them? Shouldn’t they “go on offense” on this issue?

Who Doesn’t Love a Hot Mess?

Democrats Demand House GOP Reprimand Marjorie Taylor Greene for Showing  Hunter Biden Nudes

Let’s be honest, shall we? We all love a hot mess. Not that you want to be related to one (or two) or live next door to one or work for one, but from a distance hot messes supply a certain ghoulish sense of superiority-inducing reassurance. “I may be a mess,” you say to yourself, or spouse, “but I’m not nearly as hot a mess as [insert object of current fascination.]”

This deep insight came to mind yesterday watching the surprise appearance of Hunter Biden at the MAGA-led House Oversight Committee hearing into you know … Hunter Biden. It was a surpise because as everyone with more than two functioning neurons knows that very same commitee has been howling and puffing ad nauseum for over two years now demanding Biden show up and answer all their questions about how he scammed $2 billion from the Saudis to A: buy a new laptop, B: buy a new pickup truck, or C: take more d*ck pics on his cell phone.

(Oh, sorry. That bona fide/actually happened $2 billion scam was pulled off by a different relative, a guy actually in a government job, and not Hunter Biden, who did however get a roughly $6000 loan from his old man to cover the payments on his new truck.)

The issue of course is that Biden, who is to be honest more than a bit of a hot mess himself, has repeatedly said he is only willing to testify … in public. With cameras rolling. (The nefarious, tricky bastard! What’s he tring to pull?) So what happens when the Oversight MAGA crew spots Hunter right there in their hearing room? They demand — demand, by all that is MAGA and God-like — he be arrested on the spot and jailed and soon thereafter voted to hold him in contempt … for … for … showing up and being willing to answer their questions?

Nancy Mace and the scarlet 'A' - The Washington Post

One perpetually camera-ready MAGA congresswoman sniped at Biden that he didn’t have “the balls” to … to … mmm … I’m not sure what. And minutes later the biggest MAGA-naut of all, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Atlanta suburbanite carpetbagging over in Georgia’s Cracker Holler First District was holding up … yup, you gussed it … the same d*ck pics of Hunter Biden she’s flashed in other super serious MAGA hearings. (She’s flashed these pix so often I think it’s fair to ask if she has them Velcroed to the ceiling over her bed.)

Simultaneous with all this, MAGA Speaker Mike Johnson, the forelocked Bible study savant from Lousiana’s Cracker Holler Fourth District, was getting the word from some of the same people irate about Hunter Biden showing up to answer questions that his days are numbered. Why? For agreeing to a deal with Democrats to fund the government, avoid another MAGA-driven shutdown, supply bullets to fight off a Russian invasion in Europe, and keep Israel in the business of driving every Palestinian into the Sinai desert.

And with all that, I won’t even bore you with the story about the lawyer for Orange Jesus, the Supreme Leader of the Cult of MAGA, arguing in court and with what I presume was a straight face that his client — the very large, weirdly groomed fellow to his right — had the absolute immunity to murder a political rival if he woke up one day and felt like it.

And folks, that was pretty much 36 hours in the Fevered Hot Mess that is MAGA-verse 2024.

So okay, maybe the only way to “love” a mess as hot as these Real Ding-A-Lings of DC is to take a step back to a safe distance from the dumpster and just savor that fleeting sense of superiority. A moment that reassures you that no matter what indisputably stupid thing you may have said or done in your life, you at least stopped short of doing it live in public, on an official record and on camera for the entire world to see.

All this is a long wind up to encourage you to take 15 minutes out of your day and watch the two videos I’m linking here.

Since the war in Ukraine war began I’ve been watching the daily, Moscow man-on-the-street interviews conducted by a young guy named Daniil Orain for his 1420 YouTube site. Shot mainly in Moscow — which truly a world apart from everything beyond its city limits — the interviews are a revealing assessment of what ordinary Russians think and dare to say in public, in front of a camera beaming out to the entire world.

For the most part, older Russians habituated to state TV (think FoxNews Rooskie style) believe Ukraine is full of LGBT-loving fascist Nazis and Glorious Leader Vladimir Vladimirovich is the only man to protect the empire and stop NATO from overruning the Motherland. Younger people, when they’re not reluctant to “talk politics”, seem to understand what’s really going down but are helpless to do anything about it, lest they get hauled before some hot mess Kremlin tribunal and forced to explain what they saw on the internet.

1420 by Daniil Orain - YouTube

Then there’s the two people in these videos. One, an 83 year-old woman, a “babushka” in Russian terms, absolutely unloading on Putin, authoritarian bullshit, the astonishing sheep-like cowardice she sees all around her.

1420 by Daniil Orain - YouTube

And second, a 30-something construction worker/remodeler with the wit and affect of a stand up comic walking his interviewer through the facts of life in Russia 2024.

I’d enjoy seeing both of them live on camera at a MAGA House Oversight hearing.

Fearfully Fearless Predictions for 2024

Voici les prédictions 2023 apocalyptiques de la célèbre "Nostradamus des  Balkans"

Having reached the point where I can say conclusively that I’ve been around for a while, I’m here today to say that I do not recall anytime in my many years that so many people I know or read have expressed so much apprehension for the coming of a new year.

Everyone is expecting the worst.

It comes up in conversation — ok, mostly with my lefty, Trump-despising cronies — but also in blogs, in comments, in asides from strangers. With “Jesus, this one going to be sick … “, being — in para-phrased form — a common refrain. Maybe you do, but I don’t remember this as the calendar turned from say, 2013 to 2014. Or even 1967 to ’68, and ’68 was a seriously bad year anyway anyone looks at it.

For a while I was thinking of doing a semi-facetious list of the ways 2024 is really going to jump the rails of common sense, decency, legality, etc. This list would have included predictions like:

1: Thanks to a ruling of the Supreme Court, with Clarence Thomas refusing to recuse, Donald Trump will be declared the winner of the 2024 election despite again losing the popular vote by millions. Legal battles in Ohio, Michigan and Arizona will result in the Court certifying contested Electoral College electors mere days before the inauguration.

2: Violent protests will erupt across the country and in D.C. as a result, suspending the inauguration and forcing Trump to take the oath indoors under heavy security.

3: An “October surprise” — a startlingly realistic AI-generated deep fake — will so badly damage Joe Biden, much as the Comey letter eroded Hillary Clinton’s support days before the election in 2016, that it will shave tens of thousands of votes in key states, putting a Court decision about the Electoral College in complete control of asserting the winner.

And so on …

But, good lord! What a bummer, right? Who wants to think about this stuff, even if — guessing here — millions already are?

While I continue to doubt both Biden and Trump will make the 2024 ballot, neither has any serious impediment — other than age — in this first week of the new year. I can not imagine the Supreme Court, its dogmatic allegiance to “originalism” withstanding, will do anything to complicate Trump’s myriad legal fights. It certainly won’t uphold Colorado’s 14th amendment decision, no doubt resting its decision on an argument Sam Alito intuits from a Spanish Inquisition case from 1503.

Likewise, in my morose stupor of the moment, I predict the same Court will strategize a way to avoid making any definitive decision on Jack Smith’s request for a ruling on Trump’s total immunity from prosecution on anything; parking tickets, exploiting illegal immigrant labor, stiffing contractors, raping women in department store dressing rooms, inciting a riot to overthrow the government, you name it. The Alito-Thomas bloc will devise a plan effectively exonerating Trump, certainly until after he’s reelected, at which point he can (and will) pardon himself.

I had a couple dozen more like this penciled in for added emphasis, but, damn man! It’s just too dystopian, even for me, a guy who can’t wait for the “Mad Max: Fury Road” sequel.

One thing that constantly rattles through my alleged brain though is how much of the over-arching chaos of this moment, and the looming chaos of 2024 (and beyond), rests at the feet of two people: Trump and Vladimir Putin, two guys who are not exactly unfamiliar or uninvested in each other.

Putin is obviously the key element in the war in Ukraine, and the powerful suspicion is that he is also a primary figure behind Iran’s support of Hamas and Hezbollah, on the grounds that any and all chaos that absorbs and consumes western democracies serves his long term interests.

It seems smart to bet that Putin’s long-standing support for Trump — via internet troll farms and social media disinformation — will, as I suggest with that “October surprise” business — only accelerate and become much more sophisticated this year, since a Trump defeat could likely seal Putin’s fate as well among the Russian elites.

Anyway, I promise I’m scouring the web for more uplifting topics to rant on about in the months to come. Maybe even something about Taylor Swift! Please stay tuned.

The Best and Brightest Don’t Dare Say, “That’s Wrong.”

Rep. Stefanik: Harvard, Other Universities 'Enabling' Antisemitism | EpochTV

I certainly am not the only one hearing echoes of last winter’s Hamline University “image of the Prophet” fiasco in the cringy mumbo-jumbo coming out of the mouths of the presidents of MIT, Harvard and U Penn. And as much as everyone can see that the three Ivy League presidents were baited into it by congressional actors of rancid bad faith, the fact none of them could summon anything other than legalized corporatese to answer basic questions like whether students ranting about “intifada” is hate speech, equivalent to fat-shaming and misusing pronouns is smack-worthy of the gob-most.

I’ve avoided adding my .05 to the howling and posturing over the attack/war in Gaza, because it is very difficult to come up with anything that hasn’t been said a million times before over the past 2000 years. Additionally, my only “expertise” on the Israel/Palestine question comes from a winter and spring on a kibbutz in 1973, a time as a callow youth that I spent mostly as a hippie vagrant volunteer planting and picking grapefruit and chasing cute Long Island Jewish girls away from mom and dad for the first time. Not exactly deep academic endeavours.

If there is a foundational floor for any commentary here, on Ivy League quads or from extraordinarily well-bred presidents before Congress it should be that:

1: The October 7 attack was a checks-all-boxes terrorist atrocity … with an option to add that it was carried out by fanatical religious fundamentalists dedicated to the death of Jews anywhere.

2: The Israeli response while legitimate to a point, is far too broad to achieve its stated goal of destroying said terrorists “once and for all.”

Beyond that we can then satisfy ourselves with a discussion of the 800-pound nuance of Israel incinerating its moral standing with a civilian pulverizing operation designed primarily to — I’m just sayin’ it — keep Benjamin Netanyhu’s deeply corrupt, arch right-wing administration in power. An administration undergirded by … fanatical religious fundamentalists dedicated to sustaining a dehumanizing existence for Palestinians.

Point being that somewhere in there is an option for public verbiage more compelling than saying, it is “a context-dependent decision”, when asked if calling for genocide against Jews is hate speech on an Ivy League campus. As the kids like to say, “Oh, for f*ck sake!”

Hamline had to suffer international embarrassment before learning, there is a point where defering to any complaining interest group is counter-effective to insuring free speech for all. The cruel lesson being that at some point the adults in charge have to swallow deep, step up to the microphone and say, “No. That is not right. You are wrong.”

But we — and as we see they, meaning college administrators — live in a world that places proficiency with tortured legalese among the key criteria for prominent public positions. Never mind the way board room gobbledygook looks and sounds when it gets pushed out into public view and the conflict-addicted internet.

And it’s not that I don’t have some level of sympathy for an administrator’s position. Stroking the egos of donors is a full time job. But in the case of the three Ivy Leaguers who resisted admonishing anti-Jewish speech prior to their Congressional debasement, had they jumped in, mid-protest and told the demonstrators on their campuses that they were engaging in intolerable hate speech … they would then have been in the position of having to … you know … do something. As in punishment, or sanctions, or … something.

Go ahead and imagine where they’d be if they called in the campus cops to put an end to the “intifada” rallies.

“The Golden Bachelor” Meets Orange Jesus.

How to watch 'The Golden Bachelor' premiere — now streaming

In a previous life I wrote about television for a local newspaper. A recurring source of conflict with my supervisors was so-called “reality TV” which had recently, um, blossomed, across all the networks. Being a cranky, disputatious bastard I thought the stuff was junk, plainly stage-managed and therefore worthy of derisive coverage, if any at all. The bosses thought differently. They loved it. And they were convinced “our readers” as they called them, loved it too. Especially the dating shows, and they resented my resistance to succumbing to abject fandom.

I mention this because of last night’s the much-touted finale of “The Golden Bachelor”, a variation on the usual hunky/sexy twenty-somethings, in which viewers are presented hunky/sexy seventy-somethings cooing and trilling in hot tubs in search of, you know, real true love. Ratings for the variant have been through the roof, so we can expect a lot more of what this is all about.

This morning’s Star Tribune features what looks like the eighth update on “The Golden Bachelor” and its Minnesota bachelorette, the [correction: ex-wife] of a well-known local restaurateur. The story gives all-in, misty-eyed fans everything they want. The fashion choices, the heart break, a touch of recrimination. So much, you know, reality.

Everythihg real except the reality part, as reported in excruciating detail by the show biz trade paper, The Hollywood Reporter, the day before. That piece essentially vivisected the hunky golden widower bachelor, revealing him to be, while still hunky and dreamy, quite a bit the fraud, at least compared to how he was being packaged and sold on TV, and a bit of cad, as well.

Some key bits from that (actual) reporting:

“The idea that this guileless man was reawakening before our eyes to contemporary life — ‘I mean, I haven’t dated in 45 years’, he told Entertainment Tonight — made him a hugely compelling character. He seemed so wholesome and almost preacherly that, on The Daily Show, comedian Lewis Black joked, ‘This guy is like if the word ‘Gee Willikers’ became a person’. But even in this Golden variation, this is, at bottom, a reality show, a genre mostly known for its frequent disconnection with reality.”

And … “The Hollywood Reporter has discovered several inconsistencies regarding both his work history and recent romantic entanglements that contradict the received narrative.  Whether [the producers] never learned about these discrepancies or ignored them to sell a buffed-up, shinier storyline for greater impact, producers presented an incomplete and misleading image of [bachelor Gerry] Turner, which the bachelor helped perpetuate in personal remarks.

“He’s identified in chyrons throughout the show as a ‘retired restaurateur’, which is a fancy way to say he owns or owned a restaurant, with all of its attendant fun and glamour. But according to his profile on LinkedIn, Gerry last owned a restaurant in 1985, when he sold his Mr. Quick hamburger drive-in franchise in Iowa, where he’d worked his way up from high school.”

And … ” … he would come to know a woman (we’ll call her Carolyn) with whom he would go on to have a nearly three-year relationship, beginning innocently enough a month after his wife’s death.”

And … ” … his amorous activity certainly didn’t align with how he regularly yanked viewers’ heartstrings with on-air announcements about his lack of a love life since his wife died.”

And … ” … [a friend of the girlfriend] recalled watching the show and hearing Gerry say that line about not having been kissed in six years. ‘And I’m like, what? He’s got to know that people are paying attention to this show. I’m just flabbergasted’. (ABC and Turner declined to comment for this article.) At first, Carolyn [the girlfriend] tried to laugh it off. But then The Golden Bachelor became a ratings bonanza. The show was suddenly the talk of pop culture, considered a breakthrough for its positive portrayal of sexually active seniors. It bothered Carolyn that her ex was foisting lines and moves on the bachelorettes that he had used to seduce her.”

The story goes on to talk about the hunk finally talked Carolyn into quitting her job and moving five hous away from her home to his lake house, only to then present her with half the tab for his place’s monthly expenses, telling her he wasn’t going to take her to his high school reunion because she’d gained weight and then soon after that telling she had to be out by the first of the year, and making her stay at hotel the last two weeks before she moved.

My god, what a smoothy! What a heart throb! What woman’s heart wouldn’t go pitter patter for a real loving hunk like that?

Anyway, you can read the whole story, none … none … of which was mentioned in the Strib’s coverage. And maybe … perhaps … you and I and mainstream editors who should know better can reflect on how easy and irresponsible it is to give gullible audiences the story they want to believe as opposed to a story that is believable.

This though, being a blog for political ranting and raving, allow me to point out the stark parallels to the low information, gullible audiences who were sold Donald Trump as the infallible titan of finance on “The Apprentice.”

The heavily stage-managed “reality TV” Trump was for many viewers the first and certainly the most potent introduction to Trump, and no credible political analyst discounts the impact that that perception — of an astute, tough-minded, fabulously rich, more-cunning-than-the-other-rascals rascal — had on propelling him ahead of the hapless stiffs in the 2016 Republican primary and on into the White House, (thanks to the electoral college.) Never mind Trump’s “Apprentice” board room was a TV set and no producer ever mentioned his decades as a cartoonish fraud shunned by real titans of finance, swindling business partners, contractors and laborers.

Given “The Golden Bachelor’s” boffo box office, ABC will without a doubt spin this shtick ad nauseum. And that’s show biz.

But the so-called professional press has an obligation different than playing fan boy/girl to satisfy the most infantile and credulous yearnings of their readers.

WTF, Dean?

Minnesota's Phillips sees 'exhausted majority' as his path to the White  House | MPR News

There’s the story we have and then there’s the story we still haven’t heard. And that’s where we are in The Curious Case of Dean Phillips. A few days ago the Strib ran a piece about Phillips’ not all that surprising (to me) decision to bail on this grimey Congress thing. The usual officialese was transcribed and published. But for everyone following this bizarre adventure the essential question still remaining is, “WTF, Dean?”

I don’t live in Phillips’ district, but literally across the road, so I’ve been to a couple of his small group meet-ups and had two brief conversations with the guy. Astute judge of political talent that I am I assessed that he was, A: Upright, mobile and bathed regularly, B: Could form consecutive coherent paragraphs in the king’s English, C: Was solicitous and patient with the elderly and common folk, D: Was a good-looking dude and, E: Was rich.

In other words a character dispatched from Central Casting for modern American politics.

And then, after barely five years as a reasonably diligent backbencher he decides … he’s the guy to take a primary fight to the sitting President of his own party.

Oooooookay.

I have no disagreement with his stated reasons for painting a bus and road-tripping to New Hampshire. Joe Biden puts both the party and the country in a precarious situation vis a vis Donald Trump in 2024. But .. you … Dean Phillips? You’re the message bearer? You’re the alternative? Even you don’t think you could win this. So what are you really thinking when you run around torching not just your reputation as a sane adult but your relationships with the DFL/Democratic political machinery?

Missing from the Strib piece, and other local outlets covering Phillips, were quotes from DFL wisemen/women. On or off record I’d be fascinated to hear their assessments of Phillips as a person and what Phillips thinks he’s doing. Either way, having paid enough attention to politics over the years I can speculate without fear that personable, good-looking and rich Mr. Phillips has received several-to-a-lot of scorching phone calls from his soon-to-be-former-colleagues, party financiers and advisors, etc. and etc. some more. To the point I strongly suspect he’s now persona non grata with those who matter in the Democratic politics.

Oh, they’ll smile and say bland niceties in public, but he’s not getting invited to the main table for Christmas dinner.

If I had to spout off a psychologically-based explanation for Phillips I’d tie most of it to his wealth. (He was adopted into the Phillips liquor fortune.) Unlike the average Congressperson, he doesn’t need the job. While high profile and with some perks, the downside of being in Congress is the amount of precious life hours/days/months wasted in the churning wake of deeply stupid-to-manifestly corrupt “colleagues.” (Phillips said as much in the Strib story, leaving out the “deeply stupid” and “manifestly corrupt” parts.)

Being as wealthy as he is, he doesn’t have to spend hours every week demeaning himself on the phone begging for reelection money from occasionally sketchy supporters. But being as wealthy as he is also builds and sustains an attitude that, “I’m better than this”, an attitude he could sell if it weren’t for what now looks and feels like an act of adolescent hubris.

To date the “Phillips for President” campaign has been an almost farcical disaster, yet in his reasonable-sounding, good-looking and rich way he insists he’s going to carry on … you know, for the good of the party and the country.

It’s all so sad I cringe every time I hear his name.

Minnesota redesigns its flag, and the Internet is NOT PLEASED

What issue gets Minnesotans most engaged and inflamed? 

The wealthiest not paying their fair share?  The unaffordability of health care and child care?  Proposals to deny citizens the freedom to control their bodies, marriages, and reading choices? Low-income families lacking affordable food, housing, and early education?

Nope.  State flag redesign! Fetch the torches and pitchforks!

If you want to see Minnesota’s “public square” aflame, take a look at social media posts about the re-design of the Minnesota state flag. Minnesotans are passionately rising up 1) in defense of the current state flag, and/or 2) expressing outrage about the lack of their preferred colors, layouts, symbols, and words being included on the six designs that have been chosen as finalists.

“Where’s the fucking loon?”

When the Minnesota Legislature decided to redesign the current state flag, it took on a thankless political challenge. But I give them a lot of credit for taking this on, because the change is badly needed.

The current flag has many faults. The state seal on a plain background design is dull, illegible at a distance, and similar to many other state flags. More disturbingly, Minnesota’s current flag spotlights a white settler plowing a field as a Native American rides away on a horse, a scene that seems to glorify Minnesota’s most shameful chapter, when indigenous people were slaughtered and robbed of their land and livelihoods by white newcomers and white supremacist politicians. 

Even if you disagree that the scene on the state seal glorifies mistreatment of indigenous people, you have to acknowledge that, given our history, it feels that way to many. Therefore, this is a needlessly divisive image to feature on a flag that that is supposed to unify all Minnesotans.

Moving into the future, we need a flag that is more unique and unifying. However, redesigning a flag in the age of social media is easier said than done. Anyone who works in or around graphic design won’t be surprised by the volume and temperature of the feedback being offered about Minnesota’s new flag design finalists. In the world of graphic design, this happens all the time. We are all supremely confident that we have impeccable design taste that everyone else should follow, and we’re not shy about sharing our thoughts. 

However, we don’t all make the same design choices. Take a look at the artistic choices we individually make in our lives. You’ll see that there is nothing close to an aesthetic consensus amongst Minnesotans. Therefore, picking a consensus flag out of the pile of over 2,000 submissions is going to be impossible. Even the finest of designs is going to be controversial with many Minnesotans.

In addition to the “everyone thinks they’re a designer” phenomenon, we now have social media, where the masses are empowered to impulsively and repeatedly voice their opinions in the most harsh terms. In the social media age, a public relations shitshow was sure to follow the naming of these flag finalists, and it has.

So really, are these six finalists really that horrible? Or would any flag design have faced similar public brickbats?

Imagine if the Internet had existed in 1776, and that George Washington had sought popular input on Betsy Ross’s flag design. Just like with the Minnesota flag designs, Betsy would have gotten an earful about her stars and stripes proposal.

“LMAO. I’m sorry, but this is reallly the best she could do?

Even I could draw that! This is so simplistic it looks like a talentless child did it!

How much did the corrupt Continental Congress pay for this monstrosity? Those founding fathers fuck up everything.

WTF do stars have to do with America anyway. And why such ugly stars?

Where’s the EAGLE? There must be at least one EAGLE!!!

WE NEED TO START OVER FROM SCRATCH!!! Here’s MY much better drawing…”

Woud it kill them to include the actual name of the country on the country’s flag?

I don’t see cotton farmers or anything else representing the south’s proud heritage here. So typical! Such disrespect! “

Why is the design so vague and symbolic? This doesn’t look anything like the 13 colonies!

Why not just use that awesome Gadsen snake flag instead?!?

Before the flag fetishists go off on me, let me be clear that my point isn’t that Betsy had a bad design. My point is that any time you ask the public to weigh in on graphic design, some will inevitably pick apart any design that is offered, even one that over time ultimately becomes beloved.

Therefore, state leaders just need to approve a design and get prepared to be pummelled for a while by the self-righteous masses of wannabe graphic designers. It’s inevitable.

Legislators won’t be praised now, but history will look more kindly on them.



JFK 60 Years Later. The Story Remains the Same.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/assets/2013/11/12.png

So now 60 years have passed since JFK was killed in Dallas. And because “the media” (whatever that means today) loves anniversaries we’re getting a fresh flow of interviews, articles, fascinating algorithmically created animations and podcasts on the subject of the assassination … and, you know, “what really happened.”

As someone who remembers 11/22/63 vividly and has followed the various investigations and reporting on the killing extensively (some say “obsessively”) for six decades, one of the recent interviews stands out. “JFK: What the Doctors Saw”, a documentary now on Paramount+ gathers the surviving team of doctors who were present when Kennedy was wheeled into the Parkland Hospital emergency room.

What I find interesting here is that nothing these gentlemen say has changed since that day. Nothing.

In fact, if you too are an obsessive, you can dial up any number of YouTube videos of these very same doctors over the years, usually separately, saying exactly what they’re saying now. Namely … (trigger warning alert for all you who believe America is so exceptional conspiracies never happen here) … wherever else shots might have been fired from, Kennedy was hit twice from the front. Once through the throat, a wound that was quickly obliterated for a tracheotomy incision, and then, most critically the enormous head wound that blew out a large part of the back of his skull.

Allow me to repeat: these are exactly the same wounds these same doctors described that day, in the immediate aftermath and ever since. Nothing they say has changed, even though hype around this documentary suggests some kind of new understanding. In other words, this “news”, while forever relevant is very, very old.

What I finally had to accept — as part of growing up and acknowledging the world as it is, not as it should be — is that, A: There will never be a definitive judgment on JFK’s assassination, in part because B: The case long ago became such a toxic stew of official and lunatic speculation that credible political leaders and professional reporters, people whose reputations might otherwise move public opinion toward acceptance of what the Parkland doctors have always said, edged further and further away from contact with the story. They too eacknowledging as I did that this will never be settled and that public association with anything but the (deeply compromised) Warren Commission conclusion is, you know, just bad career mojo.

I could go on ad nauseum, and I have. But today’s takeaway is … what it has always been.

The Parkland doctors have always described the throat entrance wound and the massive exit wound on the rear of Kennedy’s head in the same way. In other words … as result of shots from in front of the motorcade. If you want to get into the pretzel logic of how Lee Harvey Oswald — the sad, lone commie malcontent recently encamped in Dallas, the most rabidly right-wing big city in the USA, while simltaneously interacting with an improbable collection of mobbed-up spooks — pulled off two shots from the front while perched 100 yards behind JFK, well you’ve always had the Warren Commision to buck you up.

Entertainment and Retribution. A Very Tough Act to Beat.

We’ve all got little moments, seemingly innocuous at the time, but that stick in memory nevertheless. Like this, for example.

October 2016 and I’m sitting in a hotel bar in West Yellowstone, Montana with a couple friends and a dozen or so guys out on a hunting trip or early season snowmobiling. The TV is carrying one of the debates between Hillary Clinton, who everyone assumes will win and Donald Trump, who is trying to recover from that pussy grabbin’ business.

At one point, Trump makes the crack about how Clinton should be in jail … and half the hunter-snowmobilers guffaw in unison. They are amused. This Trump dude is, you know, “just sayin’ it”, and they find it entertaining.

That’s the moment. Nothing more. I didn’t take names and follow up to see who they eventually voted for. Although one guy, figuring me for a Clinton voter, followed me out to lobby to register his moral outrage at the way Bill Clinton “defiled the people’s house”, with the Monica Lewinsky escapade.

The takeaway that has haunted me ever since is not just that Trump won — the electoral college — largely because he was a pop culture entertainment star who spoke in a common man’s vernacular. But that despite the seven years since, the 30,000 documented lies, the gross mismanagement of an epidemic that killed over a million Americans, the constant insults to allies, bona fide meritorious Americans and, you know, inciting a riot to overthrow the elected government, his followers, at their essence a deeply ignorant mob, still find him both entertaining and a better steward of their future than … well, just about anyone, but certainly Joe Biden.

All this was in mind when I read that recent New York Times/Siena College Poll that had Trump beating Biden in key battleground states. (Key and battleground because the fate of constitutional democracy is once again in the hands of … the electoral college.)

Among the facets of this coming campaign that are clear is that Trump’s voters, the MAGA crowd, most certainly does see him as their “retribution”, and this next election as their best and perhaps last chance to correct a terrible wrong and set the country back on a path that serves them, (and only them.)

Point being, the MAGA mob is 100% certain to come out with even more zealotry than they showed in 2016, since revenge and retribution have been added to the entertainment appeal of their leader.

The same can not and will never be said for Joe Biden. Tucked away in the Times/Siena poll was 25% of younger voters interested in Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with options like Cornel West and Jill Stein still in play. (We of course hope Stein, to plump up her independent bona fides, can cadge another dinner invitation to Moscow with Vladimir Putin and Gen. Mike Flynn.)

A normal presidential campaign features all sorts of “critical issues.” This next campaign has only one: keeping Donald Trump, his praetorian guard of renegade legal experts, election denying state officials and his self-pitying red hat mob away from even a scent of government authority. That’s it. Nothing else matters.

This will not be an election that turns on policy. The deciding factor is not tax equality, climate change, or police reform. One side is afire and firmly set on on cult-like retribution, while a critical faction of the other is lost in self-absorbed silliness.

Which brings us to why Joe Biden, regardless of the legitimacy he’s restored to the White House, the legislation he’s delivered and the wisdom he’s applied to Ukraine and now Israel/Hamas, is simply too precarious a vehicle to risk in another match up with Trump.

Given the electoral college — vigorously defended with inverted, Mobius strip logic by greybeard Libertarians — the indifference to Biden of a couple hundred thousand Millenials, Gen Z’ers and blacks identified in the Times/Siena poll — restores to Trump to the White House. That’s how precarious the situation is … today. And a restoration of Trump incompetence, fraud and pop authoritarianism is simply too calamitous to imagine.

The presumption among the political cognoscenti is that we are far past the point of no return in terms of Biden-Trump. Biden is in it to stay.

That said, all of them that I follow go on to fret openly about the instantaneous death spiral of the Biden campaign given one “health episode” on Biden’s part, one mumble-mouth response in a debate, or another uptick in the price of gas.

Trump Vermin | claytoonz

Trump’s addled buffoonery has never deterred his voters. Nor will his dive deeper and deeper into truly ugly Himmler-Goebbels-speak. The MAGA mob either doesn’t get the historical references of “blood poison”, “rooting out vermin” and setting up “camps” for immigrants, or doesn’t care. Either way they’re still entertained, Trump is their retribution, and revenge is a very powerful human motivation.

By contrast, one Mitch McConnell-like “freeze up” and Biden is toast.

I know I’ve warned against catastrophic thinking, but I did say that some matters before us are “worrisome.”

This is the biggest. Biden can’t make the mistake Ruth Bader Ginsburg made. Voters, especially young voters, want to be “excited” about a candidate. Sad but true. Political leadership is a form of entertainment. Joe Biden can never give them that.

Their response then is to stay home or vote for some third party vanity act. And the consequence of that is the Trump restoration.

I repeat what I’ve said before. Biden has done an excellent job. But the realities of 21st century politics powerfully suggest he should step aside and let a fresher face give critical voters the dopamine hit they need to feel entertained.