Category Archives: awful people

yeah, this is where we are now

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Yeah, I don’t want to include a screenshot of this (because I don’t want it to show up in the link), but last night Comrade Donald Trump posted this astonishing and delusional comment on his Truth Social network:

The United States Military just entered the Great State of California and, under Emergency Powers, TURNED ON THE WATER flowing abundantly from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. The day of putting a Fake Environmental argument, over the PEOPLE, are OVER. Enjoy the water, California!!!

Trump is claiming he ordered the US military (all of it? some branch of it? maybe a special secret water control operations unit?) to slip into California undetected, after which they flipped the Master Toggle Switch that controls the flow of water from the Pacific Northwest (or ‘beyond,’ whatever the fuck that is). Remember, this jamoke is the duly elected President of These United States. I don’t know if he actually believes this (which would make him actively delusional), or if he’s under the impression the citizenry of the US is stupid enough to believe a lie this blatant (and maybe they are, since they voted for him), or if he’s just bragging in order to feel good about himself (which is entirely possible). In any case, this is seriously fucked up.

Here’s the reality: The US Bureau of Reclamation (which is a federal bureau utterly lacking in troops) had shut down a few water pumps in Northern California for maintenance. The maintenance was completed yesterday and the pumps were restarted. End of.

This wildly bizarre episode is just one of dozens of equally disturbing things Trump has done in his first week as POTUS. It’s maybe the least damaging thing he’s done. The response of MAGA Republicans to all this bullshit? They’ve climbed up a tree and are hoping Trump’s wolves will find somebody else to eat first.

Republican Members of Congress addressing MAGA voters.

And the Democratic response? It’s almost as bad. The leadership seems to be attempting to sort out WHICH of Trump’s outrages they should address first, and how to craft the appropriate messaging to address that particular outrage in order to assuage the wolves.

What (in my opinion) they should be doing is standing up on their own hind legs and howling at the top of their lungs. They should be objecting LOUDLY to every single illegal command Trump has given. Hell, they should be objecting loudly to most of the legal commands he’s given, since most of those are cruel and intended to hurt people. They should be chasing MAGA up the tree.

The Democrats need to get angry and really loud and obnoxious; it’s the only way they can cut through the Trump Cascade of Bullshit. Otherwise, they’re just joining the GOP in the tree.

neil fucking gaiman

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Bless Pearl Cleage. Because of her, I can’t listen to Miles Davis anymore. One of the greatest jazz musicians of all time, and I can’t listen to him. Why? Because Pearl Cleage told me:

[H]e is guilty of self-confessed violence against women such that we should break his albums, burn his tapes and scratch up his CDs until he acknowledges and apologizes and agrees to rethink his position on The Woman Question.

Back in 1990, a woman gave me a book of essays by Cleage: Mad at Miles; A Black Woman’s Guide to Truth and told me I needed to read it. I asked why a white guy like me needed to read a Black woman’s guide to truth. She gave me that look…the look women can give to guys that basically says, ‘I can’t even believe you’re asking me that question, are you actually that oblivious?‘ Of course, I was that oblivious, but I didn’t want to be. So I read the book.

I mean, sure, I could still listen to Miles Davis. But if I even get the impulse to listen to him, I remember Cleage quoting a scene from Miles Davis’ autobiography in which he described slapping the shit out of Cicely Tyson because she spoke to a friend that Miles didn’t like. Tyson called the police and hid in the basement until they arrived. The police spoke with her in the basement, noted that she didn’t appear to be badly injured, and the spoke to Miles, who told them, “She ain’t hurt bad; I just slapped her once.” He and the police had a laugh, they left, and according to his autobiography:

Before I knew it, I had slapped her again. So she never did pull that kind of shit on me again.

If I even think of listening to Miles Davis, I get a vision of Cicely Tyson–one of the best actors in the modern world–cowering in a basement while police have a laugh with her abuser. And nope…no Miles Davis for me. Just can’t do it.

Now it’s Neil Gaiman’s turn. Like a lot of folks, I loved Gaiman’s writing. I really liked him on Bluesky, where he was incredibly kind and thoughtful and accessible to everybody. He seemed like the nicest guy.

But he wasn’t. Back in August of last year, I wrote about the early accusations against Gaiman. I wrote that I believed the women who accused him of cruel behavior. I wrote,

[A] pattern of behavior is what defines an abuser. It’s necessary to distinguish between a person who commits a bad act and a person who’s a bad actor.
Neil Gaiman, it appears, is a bad actor.

In fact, it appears he’s more than just a bad actor. I just finished reading the most awful report, There Is No Safe Word about Gaiman’s long, sordid, horrifying history of sexually abusing vulnerable women. I was somewhat reluctant to read the article. As a fan of his work, I knew it would be painful to read; I knew reading it would leave me disappointed, disheartened.

I was wrong. It left me furious.

Sure, it seems clear from the reporting that Gaiman is massively fucked up personally. And as a Buddhist, I know I should feel compassion for him. But what I feel most at this moment is rage. Fuck Neil Gaiman, fuck Miles Davis, fuck them both in the neck. Fuck every guy in a position of power who’s used that power to abuse women. Fuck the entire patriarchal system in the neck.

Some days I find it hard to understand why women aren’t arming themselves and climbing to the tops of water towers in every community and picking off men at random.

So nope, no Miles Davis and no Neil Gaiman for me. Just can’t do it.

EDITORIAL NOTE: I’ve been using variations of this same editorial note since sometime in 2023. I’m sadly confident I’ll have to keep using for as long as I write this blog. It’s still true. We must burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the ground, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil and set them on fire again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be, and then set fire to the stake. Burn the fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations.

13 million

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On the morning of 9/11/2001 I woke up, turned on NPR as I got dressed, and heard a report that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I turned on the television just in time to see the second plane hit. It was surreal. It was gutting. I vacillated between disbelief and horror. But I knew immediately that the entire world had just changed, and the change was going to be awful.

Same thing happened yesterday morning. I woke up, turned on NPR as I dressed, and heard the unthinkable news that Donald Trump had won the 2024 election. Disbelief, horror, and the same sinking awareness that the entire world had just changed. And the change is going to be fucking awful.

This morning I woke up and decided not to turn on NPR. I did, though, decide to look at the Electoral College vote. I expected the results to show that, like Trump’s first election in 2016, Trump had won the Electoral College vote while losing the popular vote.

But no. Trump won the popular vote. He actually got more votes than Kamala Harris. I just typed that sentence and it still doesn’t make any sense. How was it possible for Trump to get more votes than Harris? I mean, the guy ran the shittiest presidential campaign in US history. The guy was actually shouting about Haitians eating pets. He’d been convicted of 34 felonies, and found liable for sexual assault. How the fuck did that guy win?

This is how:

2020
Trump: 74 million votes
Biden: 81 million votes (the most votes ever cast for a presidential candidate in the US)

2024
Trump: 72 million votes
Harris: 68 million votes.

That’s how. Thirteen million people who’d voted for Joe Biden didn’t turn up. Thirteen million people just didn’t fucking vote. Thirteen million.

Why? I don’t know. I can’t be bothered to research their reasons. Before the election, I heard people complaining that Harris was campaigning with disaffected Republicans. Maybe some people stayed home because they didn’t like Liz Cheney. I heard people complaining Harris had flip-flopped on fracking. Maybe they didn’t vote because of environmental reasons. A lot of people, including me, were angry because she didn’t denounce the Palestinian genocide as vociferously as she should have. Maybe people sat out the vote as a protest. Maybe some people just didn’t want to vote for a Black woman. Maybe they decided to vote for Jill Fucking Stein or RFK. I heard people complaining about how Harris campaigned, that she didn’t do enough interviews, that she gave too many interviews to the wrong news outlets, that she ignored certain demographic groups. Maybe voters stayed home because they felt excluded. Or maybe some people saw all the enthusiasm for Harris on the news and decided she was going to win anyway so they felt they didn’t need to show up and vote.

The reasons really don’t matter. Not now. They didn’t fucking vote; that’s all that matters. They didn’t vote, and Donald Trump won. He got two million fewer votes than last time, and he still fucking won.

No, that’s not true. Not really. Trump didn’t win. Thirteen million voters gave it to him. Because of reasons.

The Palestinians? They’re more completely fucked now than before. Ukraine, absolutely fucked. Liz Cheney, fucked. The environment, fucked in so many ways you need an abacus to keep count. Trans people, fucked. Immigrants, fucked. People who look like they might be immigrants, fucked. Freedom of the Press, fucked. Reproductive rights, fucked. The list of people and causes that will be fucked over is long and deep. Things are going to get exceedingly ugly in the US. In the world. So very fucked.

Because thirteen million decided not to vote. They may never get the chance to vote again.

EDITORIAL NOTE: I’ve ended a lot of posts on this blog with a rant about the necessity to burn the patriarchy to the ground. I passionately believe that needs to be done. Patriarchy hurts everybody. I’m not going to include the rant today, because the American voters just invited the ugliest aspects of patriarchy to run the government and today I’m just too emotionally exhausted to shout. Tomorrow–or maybe next week, or next month–I’ll be less resigned. But today, the patriarchy has kicked my ass.

my prediction

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We’re going to have a history-making election in eleven days. Here’s what I think will happen. Wait…two things. First, let me admit I’ve been wildly wrong before, especially in 2016 when I was absolutely confident Hillary Clinton would win big. Second, this post will be ever so much better if you read it using the voice of Maria Ouspenskaya. Okay, right, here’s what I think will happen:

  1. Harris wins, carried primarily by women who are mobilized by Dobbs. At least ONE of the seven swing states will be a landslide Harris victory. If she wins North Carolina early, that’s it–game over.
  2. Trump will obviously claim victory, will claim fraud, will challenge everything in court, and will lose almost every case–just like last time.
  3. There won’t be any serious Congressional fuckery during the Electoral ballot count.
  4. Jack Smith’s cases against Trump will pick up speed.
  5. Trump will visit a nation in the Middle East (probably the United Arab Emirates, possibly Saudi Arabia–neither of which have extradition treaties with the US) to negotiate a golf course or hotel…and will stay ‘temporarily’.
“Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and Autumn moon is bright.”

That’s it. Those are my predictions. While Donald Trump has–and will apparently always have–passionate supporters, I think most folks are just sick to fucking death of the guy. I think they’ve had enough of his bullshit and chaos. I think even folks who may not have voted for Harris will be relieved if/when Trump finally leaves the stage.

I may be wrong, of course. But I can hear the voice of Maleva talking to Larry Talbot, “as the rain enters the soil, the river enters the sea, so tears run to a predestined end.”

just the right amount of fretting

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We’re two weeks out from election day and there’s a whole lot of OMG OMG Trump’s gonna try to steal the election if he loses OMG WTF do we do now?! floating around in social media. And it’s making some folks downright frantic.

Yeah, Trump is absolutely going to try to steal the election when he loses. That’s just a fact. We all know it. We saw him try to do it four years ago. Of course, he’s going to try it again. This time he’s better prepared for it. This time he knows what he did wrong last time. (Okay, that’s not entirely true; Trump is just a bone-ignorant as he was last time, but now he’s got a cadre of feral GOP fascists who are far more skilled at ratfucking.) This time the stakes are higher…both for the nation and for Trump his ownself. He loses, and he’s looking at prison.

So yeah, it’s understandable that folks are worried. EXCEPT for this: the Dems are also better prepared than last time. We’ve had four years to put as many safeguards in place as possible. We’ve had four years to anticipate Trump’s moves. Things look better for us than they did four years ago. For example:

  • We’ve changed the Electoral Count Act to make it far more difficult for state legislatures to reverse the results of an election.
  • We have hundreds of lawyers, lawyers in every state, ready to counter the GOP’s attempts to ratfuck the votes, and they’ve got dozens of briefs already written and ready to file, tailored to each state.
  • The governors of five of the seven so-called ‘swing’ states are Democrats. The two GOP-led states includes Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger both resisted Trump’s efforts four years ago.
  • Of the 60+ lawsuits brought by Trump four years ago, all but one was shot down. Many of the judges in those cases were Republicans, some appointed by Trump his ownself. They’re no more likely to agree with him this time.
  • Four years ago Trump had the Department of Justice and the Attorney General in his pocket to help him. Now, the DOJ and the AG are more independent.

This isn’t to say that your anxiety isn’t warranted. It’s not to say there’s nothing to fret about. Trump, his Nazgûl lawyers, and his angry supporters are willing to use any corrupt means that might give them a chance to obtain power, including violence. We HAVE to be concerned and vigilant.

I mean, c’mon, look at the amount of badly-applied makeup this guy’s wearing.

But remember, Trump failed last time. He’ll almost certainly fail again. Failure is Trump’s true brand. Trump is all make-up and weird hair. His strength is mostly an illusion. So yeah, there’s reason to fret. It’s right and proper to fret about the election.

Fret enough to get out to vote. Fret enough to encourage your friends and fam to vote. Fret enough to put up a yard sign or cough up some coin to donate to your local candidates. Ain’t nothing wrong with fretting about this election.

But don’t fret too much.

trump and his nazgûl advisors want to take us back to 1798

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Shit’s getting way beyond weird now. We’re moving into deeply scary fascist lunacy. Yesterday Trump posted this:

I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil.

Okay, we can be confident Trump himself is completely ignorant of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. But some of his Nazgûl advisors are as clever as they are hateful, and they’ve latched onto an ugly 226-year-old chunk of legislation. The Act in question was one of a set of four laws dealing with immigration and speech enacted in response to an undeclared war with the French First Republic (after the fledgling United States decided to stiff France for loans they’d accepted during the American Revolution).

Three of those laws–the Naturalization Act (dealing with the requirements for citizenship), the Alien Friends Act (allowing the imprisonment and deportation of non-citizens), and the Sedition Act (criminalizing false and malicious statements about the government)–are no longer in effect. They were either repealed or allowed to lapse. But the Alien Enemies Act is still, weirdly, in effect. It’s now Chapter 3 under Title 50 of the U.S. Code. It states:

[A]ll natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies.

It was used against the French in that undeclared war in 1798, against the British in the War of 1812, and against Japanese-Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor at the beginning of World War 2 (and to a much lesser extent, against Germans and Italians after the US entered the war). Don’t ever forget that 82 years ago the US forcibly rounded up approximately 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese descent, and detained them without trial for around three years.

This hateful fuck will try to end representative democracy in the US.

Could it happen again? Yep. If Trump should win/steal the election and invoke the Alien Enemies Act, it absolutely could happen again. Obviously, the act would be appealed to SCOTUS. Although none of the Acts of 1798 were subjected to judicial review (Marbury v. Madison, which confirmed the concept of judicial review, wasn’t decided until 1803), the few SCOTUS references to the Alien and Sedition Acts have suggested the Court would consider them unconstitutional. But that was before the current Trump Court, which is so far up Trump’s ass that they granted him wide immunity for ‘official’ actions. It’s very possible this Court would allow it.

Remember this: the Act refers to people “not actually naturalized.” To be eligible to begin the naturalization process, you have to have been a permanent resident in the US for at least five years (three years if you are married to a U.S. citizen). Once the process has begun, it still takes around another six months or so to become a citizen. That means people who’ve been living legally in the US for five and a half years could still be detained, confined without trial, and deported by Trump.

This is fucking terrifying on so many levels. Trump back in power, with a cooperative SCOTUS and aides who are dedicated fascists, will do unimaginable damage, not just to the US and representative democracy, but to the entire world.

0 and 2

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That title’s a tad misleading. There was only one actual assassination attempt on Trump’s life. The second incident was basically a security breach, but it’s being described as an assassination attempt. In order to be an assassination attempt, you have to actually attempt the assassination. The Secret Service stopped the guy before an attempt could be made. Which, you know, is what they’re supposed to do.

About that…people (and by ‘people’ I mean Republicans and gutless Democrats) are posturing outrage again, asking “How did the would-be shooter get so close to Trump before being spotted?” He got that close because 1) Trump insists on golfing at his public courses, and 2) golf courses are fucking huge, and 3) unless a golf course is in a secure area (like, say, a military base) it would take a LOT of personnel to secure the entire perimeter. This is why presidents Obama and Bush often golfed on military bases. They weren’t greedy narcissists like Trump, who’s happy to charge the Secret Service for green fees that’ll go right into his own pocket.

I don’t know, but I’m assuming the Secret Service was running some sort of rolling security bubble around Trump’s golf cart, securing a couple of holes ahead of him and a couple of holes behind him. Which, really, is enough…or would be enough for an ordinary ex-POTUS. An ex-POTUS who wasn’t an active, volatile threat to the future of democracy. An ex-POTUS who didn’t thrive on pissing people off.

Let’s face it. A lot of people would like to see Trump dead. A lot of people responded to the first assassination attempt by saying they were sorry the shooter missed. A lot of people fucking hate Trump.

I want to see him cry.

I’m not one of them. Well, okay, yeah, I hate the guy. But I don’t want to see him dead killed by an assassin. I don’t want him made into some sort of MAGA martyr. That could lead to something really really ugly. And, frankly, a quick death is too good for Trump. I want him to suffer.

I want to see him tried by a jury of ordinary citizens and, it’s to be hoped, convicted of his crimes. I want to see him incarcerated. Or at least—at the very least—facing some sort of carceral punishment, even if it’s something like 20 years under house arrest. I want to see him bankrupt. I want to see his assets seized to given to E. Jean Carroll. I want Trump broke and humiliated and reviled. I want his wife and family broke, humiliated, reviled. I want him to be internationally scorned; I want global headlines calling him a convict. I want Trump alive and painfully aware that he’ll be one of the most despised characters in American history. I want him cognizant that the name Trump will be mocked and scorned for decades.

I want the motherfucker to suffer. I’m somewhat ashamed of that, but there it is.

goddamnit

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Let’s talk about Neil Gaiman. No, wait. Let me first offer up my creds.

I was, for several years, a private investigator specializing in criminal defense. I helped criminal defense attorneys defend criminals. That sounds awful, I know. But two things. First, the US Constitution says every person accused of a crime deserves a fair trial, and a fair trial means the accused has the right to challenge the evidence of the State. The other thing is this: my job was to investigate a criminal case and report facts and evidence to the defense attorney. Not facts and evidence that HELPED the defendant. Just facts, just evidence. It didn’t matter to me if the facts/evidence helped or hurt the accused. A good defense lawyer needs an unbiased account of the case.

I’m telling you this so you can judge for yourself whether or not I’m full of shit when I talk about Neil Gaiman. He hasn’t, to my knowledge, been charged with a crime. He has, though, been accused by multiple women of sexual abuse.

I believe them.

I wish it wasn’t true, but it almost certainly is.

A lot of feminists (and I like to count myself as a feminist) say we should always believe women. I don’t always believe anybody. If there’s anything I learned as a PI, it’s this: everybody lies. But as a criminal defense PI, I never had a case in which a woman lied about sexual assault. Some women may have confused some of the details of the assault (no surprise; sexual assault is pretty fucking traumatic), but I never had a single sexual assault/rape case in which the accusation was unfounded. I’m not saying women don’t lie about it; I’m just saying I never had a criminal case in which a woman lied about it. (I should amend that; I never had a case in which an adult woman lied about it. I did, sadly, have two cases in which adolescent girls lied about sexual assault—one apparently out of spite, one for no apparent reason. Kids don’t always act logically.)

But back to Neil Gaiman, a writer I’ve long respected and admired. He always struck me as being thoughtful, caring, sensitive, and honest. He may actually be some of those things most of the time. But based on the reports I’ve heard and read, I believe he also used his position and influence to coerce or pressure women to engage in unwanted sexual acts.

When the first woman reported, I hoped it would turn out to be an isolated incident (which, of course, is one incident too many). That was my hope, but I fully anticipated there’d be more. It’s always safe to assume influential men will be assholes. Hell, it’s always safe to assume all men, influential or not, will be assholes. I mean, patriarchy is built on a foundation of men being assholes, and believing in their absolute right to be assholes.

At this point, I think three more women have now come forward with accusations against Gaiman. Why is that important? Because any form of abuse can be a single act. A person might get roaring drunk and piss their pants once and never do it again. A person might get angry and hit somebody once, and never do it again. A person might pressure somebody to have sex once, and feel bad about it, and never do it again. Everybody is capable of acting badly. But a pattern of behavior is what defines an abuser. It’s necessary to distinguish between a person who commits a bad act and a person who’s a bad actor.

Neil Gaiman, it appears, is a bad actor.

Is it possible he’s being unfairly accused? Sure. But it’s highly unlikely. Is it possible that he believes all these acts were consensual? Sure. But he’s forfeited any claim to actual innocence, and my experience suggests these women are telling the truth.

EDITORIAL NOTE: This is further evidence (as if we need any more evidence) that we must burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the ground, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil and set them on fire again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart should be, and then set fire to the stake. Burn the fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations.