tactical yardwork

Posted on August 27, 2025 by greg

I’m sure you’ve all asked yourselves this very same question: “What do I do when I’ve declared a national emergency and activated the National Guard to fight crime, but then there’s almost no crime to fight?” It’s annoying, right?

I mean, they elect you to be POTUS and they give you the entire District of Columbia National Guard to play with, so obviously you’d want to use them to guard the nation against something. Otherwise they’re just wasted, sitting there on the shelf. So, crime. Nobody likes crime. Crime is a good thing to fight. Everybody likes crime-fighting. It’s popular on television. It’s not YOUR fault there’s not much crime to fight.

Courageous National Guard troops, dressed in camouflage AND hi-visibility vests engage trash.

So there you are, you’ve got your troops all dressed up and no crime to fight. What to do, what to do? EASY! Make them fight trash! DC is host to tens of thousands of foreign tourists who toss trash all over the fucking place because that’s how they behave in foreign countries. Except, not so many people are coming to DC now, because they’re not really welcome. Besides, you’ve told them DC is a dangerous shit-hole. So the trash assault is a pretty short term event.

Courageous National Guard troops mulching like nobody has mulched before.

But hey, DC is also beautiful. Trees and bushes and all sorts of pretty flowers, and that shit has to be mulched. The National Guard may not be trained to mulch, but they know how to improvise, adapt, and overcome. Issue them rakes and hoes and other geoponic implements, and turn them loose. They’ll mulch the absolute shit out of whatever needs mulching.

Tactical yardwork is fine, but you really really wanted them to fight crime. That means you have to send the troops where crime exists. Fortunately, there are some pretty tough, crime-ridden neighborhoods in DC, neighborhoods where people don’t always feel safe at night, neighborhoods where news photographers are reluctant to visit. There’s no point in sending your troops there. However, you’ve heard from your pretty-eyed Vice President that vagrants–actual people without proper employment and/or lacking a fixed abode, like in those movies from the 1930s–have been loitering around Union Station. Vagrants are smelly (probably) and unsightly, like windmills off the coast of Scotland. We can’t have that. Also, somebody on your staff might have said something about maybe somebody they knew almost had their luggage stolen while at Union Station.

Courageous National Guard troops supported by an MRAP guarding carry-on luggage.

Now that’s crime worth fighting! Deploy the MRAP! Nothing discourages loitering like a mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle. Ain’t nobody gonna sleep on benches–if there were any benches–at Union Fucking Station when your National Guard is on duty. Ain’t nobody gonna roll away some poor tourist’s Samsonite hardside, not when you’re in charge and you have a MRAP handy.

So there you are. You’ve ended crime in DC. Trash is gone. Plants are mulched. You’ve established peace through superior firepower. Now all you have to do is wait for your Nobel Peace Prize. It’s good to be POTUS.

not the weirdest thing i’ve done

Posted on August 24, 2025 by greg

A couple of days ago I wrote about a photograph I’d taken of some cracks and oil stains in a random patch of blacktop. It may seem a wee bit weird to photograph a patch of blacktop, but…well, just wait. In that post, I briefly referred to the fact that there’s a difference between blacktop and asphalt. That sparked a reply to the post, and that reply reminded me of an earlier crushed stone and bitumen-related photograph I’d taken fifteen years ago.

Now that was weird.

Back in November of 2010 I was noodling around a location where a local supermarket had been demolished. All that remained of the store was its foundational slab and what had once been a parking lot. That’s where I came across something odd.

Yep, that’s a chunk of asphalt curbing around which somebody had tied a strand of red PVC-coated wire. Why would somebody do that? I don’t know, but I assumed it was to make it easier to carry. Why would somebody want to carry a chunk of asphalt curbing? No idea. I located the spot from which the curbing had been removed about 20 yards away. There were several similar chunks of broken asphalt curbing. But somebody had selected that particular chunk, tied red PVC wire around it, and moved it.

Why? No fucking clue. But it was odd, and I do love things that are odd.

So I returned to that spot about six weeks later. The chunk of curbing was still there. It had snowed, but the snow had melted off the chunk. A heron had apparently been curious enough to check it out. Not sure if that meant the heron was as curious as I was, or if I was as stupid as a heron.

Anyway, I stood there in the snow for a while, trying to cobble together some semi-logical reason for somebody to tie some PVC wire around a chunk of curbing and carry it twenty yards before dropping it. I was sure there was a logical reason; not necessarily logical to me, but logical to the person who did it. But I’m damned if I could figure it out.

I found myself occasionally wondering about that chunk of curbing and the red PVC wire. Did the person just happen to have some red PVC wire in their pocket? Had they deliberately brought the wire with them, intending to move the chunk of curbing? And why why why would they want to move it in the first place? It made no sense, but I was intrigued by it.

So I went back again on a cold, wet, foggy day in February. And yep, it was still there.

It wasn’t just strange; it was also visually interesting. I was taken with that red PVC wire. I considered taking hold of the wire and lifting the chunk, just to see how heavy it was. But I was reluctant to disturb it. It wasn’t just an object of curiosity anymore. That’s when I began to think of the chunk of curbing as a possible photo project. Which meant it didn’t seem right to intentionally change anything about the subject matter.

I returned to visit the chunk of curbing about a month later and was shocked to see it had been moved. Somebody had apparently picked it up, carried it about twenty-five feet, at which point the red PVC wire had snapped.

I can’t imagine many people would find a reason to noodle around the detritus of a former supermarket. But IF somebody did, and IF that somebody happened upon the chunk of curbing, then surely they’d be tempted to pick it up. I mean, I’d been tempted to pick it up myself. The way the PVC wire was wrapped around the chunk of curbing–it was clearly intended for it to be picked up. Who could resist it?

Somebody didn’t resist it. Somebody had seen it, had picked it up, and toted the chunk of curbing twenty-five feet. Hell, that was the most understandable thing about the whole situation.

I didn’t get back to visit my pet chunk of asphalt curbing until late in the summer. As I approached, I saw two chunks. I thought maybe whomever had moved the curbing back in the spring must have returned and broken it.

But no. It was a second chunk of asphalt curbing. Somebody–maybe the same person who’d moved it earlier–had apparently gone to the spot where other chunks of curbing were scattered, picked up another chunk, carried it to the vicinity of my pet chunk, and dropped it.

This compounded the WTFedness of the situation. It reinforced the original weirdness. It made no sense at all. It was insane. It was…kind of wonderful. I was oddly pleased by the development.

I returned a month later. Not much had changed. Some orangish lichen had grown in a nearby crack and I spent some time trying to find a way to photograph the red PVC wire and the orange lichen, but nothing seemed to work. In the end, I just documented my chunk of asphalt curbing along with its companion.

I figured I’d just about come to the end of the chunk’s story. I was still curious about the whole thing, but the original aura weirdness was beginning to fade.

Still, I’d developed something of a perverse relationship with that chunk of curbing. I felt a need to check on it. So of course I went back.

The red PVC wire had moved. It had broken six months earlier, but a length of it had been trapped beneath the chunk of curbing. How did it get loose? Maybe a bird or animal had tugged on the wire and freed it? In any event, I took it as a sign (No, not that sort of sign; just an ordinary sign) that the project was at an end. Surely, the wire would soon get blown away. Without the red PVC wire, the chunk of curbing was just a chunk of curbing. As soon as it was gone, the photo project would be over.

I gave it a couple of months. I went back in December. Nothing had changed. As near as I could tell, the red PVC wire hadn’t even moved. That was…weird. You’d think that over the course of two months something would have moved the wire. But that was just minor league weird compared to the overall weirdness.

Still, I’d made the decision that I’d keep coming back until the red wire was gone. So I returned in the spring. The entire area was fenced off and construction equipment was tearing up the old parking lot.

There’s an apartment complex there now.

I no longer live in that area, but maybe once or twice a year there’ll be a reason for me to pass nearby. And when I do, I think about that chunk of asphalt curbing, and the bright red PVC-insulated wire, and the person who’d tied the wire into a parcel-carrier. And I wonder what in the hell they’d been doing, and why. And it pleases me that I’ll never know the answer.

you hear that, mr. trump? that is the sound of inevitability.

Posted on July 11, 2025 by greg

Two people I’d rather not ever think about for the rest of my life? Comrade Donald Trump and the late Jeffrey Epstein. But here we are.

I suppose it was inevitable. I mean, in a lot of ways MAGA is the bastard child of QAnon and the Westboro Baptist Church. We’re talking about people who’ve devoted a seriously big chunk of their daily lives to thinking about sexualized anti-government conspiracies. People who’ve built complex, contradictory theories about political figures (mostly Democrats) and Hollywood elites maintaining a series of subterranean facilities where kidnapped children would be raped and then murdered for their adrenochrome. People who claim to believe trans folks are lined up outside high school bathrooms and locker rooms so they can sexually assault girls. People who spend a LOT of time thinking about forced sex with kids.

So yeah, the ‘suspicious’ death of Jeffrey Epstein is chum in the water for MAGA. When Trump’s pre-election team promised to expose the “truth” about Epstein, MAGA ate it up with a spoon. They absolutely believe Epstein was murdered because he possessed sexually compromising material on powerful figures–a so-called ‘client list’. When asked about that list, Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “It’s sitting on my desk right now to review.”

Then on Friday evening–the 4th of July holiday weekend–Bondi quietly announced, “Hey gang, guess what, there IS no client list! Oopsie! Also? Epstein killed himself! So case closed! How about those Red Sox, huh?!”

MAGA was not amused. You spend years spreading chum in the water, you expect to catch a shark. Being told there IS no shark doesn’t go over well. And given Trump’s long, close relationship with Epstein, it was inevitable that things would get weird and nasty.

But nasty enough to get MAGA to turn on Mr. MAGA his ownself?

I was curious enough that I looked into one of the MAGA-most corners of the Intertubes. I used to check in on the ‘patriots’ of FreeRepublic on a semi-regular basis, just to have some idea of how their fevered right-wing brains work. Snce the re-election of Comrade Trump, I haven’t had the stomach for it.

Until yesterday. And reader, the MAGAverse is absolutely furious. Furious not just at Bondi for her clumsy bait-and-switch approach, but also at their boy Trump. Here are a few of the comments made on FreeRepublic:

I woke up this morning with the realization that the only explanation for this is that Trump is on the list. Nothing else makes sense. This is like Watergate. It will never go away, and it will lead to Trump’s resignation.
–by E. Pluribus Unum (Democrats are the Party of racism, anger, hate and violence.)

Something very big is being covered up.
–by Highest Authority (DemonRats are pure EVIL)

Let’s face it: Pam Bondi is doing just what Trump wants her to do.
–by hcmama

I think we all need to wake up to the real possibility he’s on that list.
–by Lil Flower (American by birth. Southern by the Grace of God. ROLL TIDE!!)

Looks pretty suspicious to go from “The List is ON My Desk Right Now” to “The List Doesn’t Exist.” Someone intervened that has the power to stop the list from being released by the Attorney General of the United States.
–by Bon of Babble (You Say You Want a Revolutioan?)

This decision is way past bondi’s pay grade. This is Trump. Period.
by USS Alaska (NUKE THE MOOSELIMB TERRORIST SAVAGES)

When you see a Freeper who signs his posts with ‘Nuke the Mooselimb Terrorist Savages’ turn on Trump, you know they’re serious. Not necessarily sane, but serious. The reality that their Golden Boy might be on the List of Epstein Kiddie Diddlers (if one actually exists) has to be massively discouraging for them. One way of dealing with that is to create NEW conspiracy theories to explain it. For example, there’s a contingent of Freepers who’ve decided to blame…guess who? That’s right; the Jews.

Ask Israel. They control The Stable Genius…
by Captainpaintball (America needs a Conservative DICTATOR if it hopes to survive. )

Everybody knows Trump and Bibi Netanyahu are BFFs. Combine that with the suggestion that Epstein was some sort of FBI/CIA/Mossad agent, and you’ve got another tasty conspiracy to dine on. But even better (and by ‘better’ I mean ‘more delusional’) are the Freepers who see all of this as part of Trump’s Super Secret Clever Plan to Thump the Democrats.

I think it’s POSSIBLE that genius Trump is making this too big to go away by showing a coverup. When the truth is released…we will get suicide after suicide with DimWITS and RINOs leading the way.
by politicianslie

My conspiracy theory. The Epstein files contain information that can bring down 0bama, Clinton, Clapper, Comey, Brennan… That is why they have to sit on the Epstein files
by Steven Tyler

Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it. Trump promises to release the Epstein Files to get people excited, then claims the files don’t exists, which gets people even more excited. Eventually all that excitement will reach the boiling point and then Trump will hold a press conference and reveal…Hey Presto! The files DO exist! And they implicate ALL of Trump’s enemies! Genius! Applause and fireworks! A chorus of angels sing as the anti-MAGA deviants are led away to concentration camps in Sudan!

Jesus suffering fuck, dealing with MAGA is exhausting. I need a drink.

completely batshit deranged

Posted on September 8, 2024 by greg

I’m really beginning to believe that a line has been crossed. I’m talking about the line between neurosis and psychosis. I’m talking about Donald Trump.

A week ago, on August 30th, Trump sat down for a chat with Tiffany Justice of ‘Moms for Liberty’ (which, seriously? Is there a ‘Moms Adamantly Opposed to Liberty’ group somewhere?). The issue of trans rights came up and Trump said something completely batshit deranged.

“The transgender thing is incredible. Think of it. Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s gonna happen with your child. And you know, many of these childs [sic] 15 years later say, ‘What the hell happened? Who did this to me?’ They say, ‘Who did this to me?’”

That’s…well, as I said, completely batshit deranged. And as much as I complain about the news media ‘sanewashing’ the batshit deranged stuff Trump says, I have to admit that I did the same thing. I laughed with others about it, and basically dismissed it as Trump being a fucking bonehead again, exaggerating wildly for effect. Because, c’mon, ain’t nobody gonna to believe a kid goes to school and comes home days later (I guess the kid’s parents were busy and didn’t notice he was gone for a few days) with an entirely different set of gender tackle.

But then yesterday Trump held a rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin. And guess what? He basically repeated that same completely batshit deranged story. He said,

“Can you imagine you’re a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, ‘Jimmy, I love you so much, go have a good day at school,’ and your son comes back with a brutal operation. Can you even imagine this?”

No. No, I can’t imagine it. In fact, I can’t even imagine any rational person saying it. I especially can’t imagine a fucking candidate for POTUS saying it. And I double especially can’t imagine a fucking candidate for POTUS believing it. But I’m actually beginning to wonder if Trump does, in fact, believe something like that is happening. I mean, if you say something completely batshit deranged once and it gets reported as being completely batshit deranged, a person who is NOT completely batshit deranged would know NOT to repeat it.

But here we are. And all of a sudden, I’m hearing the lyrics to Psycho Killer in my head.

You start a conversation, you can’t even finish it
You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything
When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed
Say something once, why say it again?
Psycho Killer
Qu’est-ce que c’est?

Seriously, qu’est-ce que fucking c’est? It’s delusional, is what it is. And that brings me right back to that line I said may have been crossed in the opening paragraph. Back in January of 2021, in an article about Trump for Psychology Today, Dr. Stephen Diamond wrote this:

Once a person, including a leader, has crossed over the line from neurosis to psychosis, for, by definition, a delusion is a psychotic rather than neurotic symptom, that person has now become debilitated or disabled by a severe mental disorder, and may no longer be able to continue to perform or discharge their job responsibilities safely, efficiently and effectively. Their reality testing–which is different than neurocognitive functioning per se–has been significantly impaired.

Bingo. By repeating that completely batshit deranged story, I have to question if Trump’s reality testing has gone down the porcelain facility. It’s pretty widely accepted that he’s had a severe personality disorder for decades. But has he crossed that line? Is he actually delusional?

I’m thinking the answer is, yeah.

hitler/trump — not just a cheap shot

Posted on June 18, 2024 by greg

A couple of years ago, when I was dodging the work I should have been doing, I decided to research the authenticity of a quotation that frequently appeared online. I’d seen it attributed to both Hitler and Joseph Goebbels. You’ve probably seen it too.

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.

There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that either Hitler or Goebbels said it, though they certainly believed it and acted on it. However, a very similar line appeared in a classified World War 2 psychological profile of Hitler:

People will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

I downloaded the report (which was declassified in 1968) to read later…and promptly forgot about it. Until yesterday, when I stumbled on it again while deleting old files. I decided to glance through it before deleting it…and lawdy.

This is what happened. Back in late 1943 or early 1944, the Office of Strategic Services (the US intelligence agency during World War 2, which eventually morphed into the CIA) tasked a psychoanalyst named Walter Langer to prepare a profile on Adolf Hitler. The report was “an attempt to screen the wealth of contradictory, conflicting and unreliable material concerning Hitler into strata which will be helpful to the policy-makers and those who wish to frame a counter-propaganda.”

We’ve all seen a lot of comments comparing former POTUS Comrade Donald Trump to Hitler. It’s easy to either nod and agree or dismiss the comparison as overreach. But when you read the report–which, remember, was completed before the end of the war, when Hitler was still alive and in power–it’s uncanny how closely Langer’s evaluation of Hitler resembles Trump. The report itself has six sections: 1) Hitler as he believes himself to be, 2) as the German people know him, 3) as his associates know him, 4) as he knows himself, 5) a psychological analysis and reconstruction, and 6) Hitler’s probable behavior in the future. Only some of those could be applied to Trump. The quotations are taken directly from Langer’s report (which can be found here).

Hitler/Trump as he believes himself to be:

Many people have stopped and asked themselves: “Is this man sincere in his undertakings or is he a fraud?” Certainly even a fragmentary knowledge of his past life warrants such a question…. [A]ll of his former associates whom we have been able to contact, as well as many of our most capable foreign correspondents, are firmly convinced that Hitler actually does believe in his own greatness.

It makes little difference whether the field be economics, education, foreign affairs, propaganda, movies, music or women’s dress. In each and every field he believes himself to be an unquestioned authority.

He has fallen in love with the image of himself in this role and has surrounded himself with his own portraits.

Does that sound like Trump? Oh, absolutely.

Hitler/Trump as the people know him:

[F]rom a physical point of view, is not, however, a very imposing figure.

[His] personal appearance… it is safe to assume that this has been greatly tempered by millions of posters, pasted in every conceivable place, which show the Fuehrer as a fairly good-looking individual with a very determined attitude. In addition, the press, news-reels, etc., are continually flooded with carefully prepared photographs showing Hitler at his very best.

[H]is speeches were sinfully long, badly structured and very repetitious. Some of them are positively painful to read but nevertheless, when he delivered them they had an extraordinary effect upon his audiences.

[B]y the time he got through speaking he had completely numbed the critical faculties of his listeners to the point where they were willing to believe almost anything he said. He flattered them and cajoled them. He hurled accusations at them one moment and amused them the next by building up straw men which he promptly knocked down. His tongue was like a lash which whipped up the emotions of his audience. And somehow he always managed to say what the majority of the audience were already secretly thinking but could not verbalize.

[H]is refusal to permit ordinary scruples to get in his way is given as a sign of his greatness.

Yeah, that’s Trump.

Hitler/Trump as his associates know him: much of this section contradicts comparisons with Trump. Hitler, it seems, was a hard worker who was actually well informed about the workings of government. Apparently, he was generally thoughtful with his underlings, making sure they took breaks and ate well–even to the point of refusing to eat until everybody in the room had been served. He was also, it seems, personally courageous. However, there are a lot of aspects of Hitler’s personality that are equally Trumpian. For example:

H]is ability to persuade others to repudiate their individual consciences.

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong.

He has a passion for the latest news and for photographs of himself…. Very frequently he becomes so absorbed in the news or in his own photographs that he completely forgets the topic under discussion.

Almost everyone who has written about Hitler has commented on his rages. These are well known to all of his associates and they have learned to fear them…. [H]is behavior is still extremely violent and shows an utter lack of emotional control. In the worst rages he undoubtedly acts like a spoiled child who cannot have his own way and bangs his fists on the tables and walls. He scolds and shouts and stammers and on some occasions foaming saliva gathers in the corners of his mouth.

It must not be supposed, however, that these rages occur only when he is crossed on major issues. On the contrary, very insignificant matters might call out this reaction. In general they are brought on whenever anyone contradicts him, when there is unpleasant news for which he might feel responsible, when there is any skepticism concerning his judgment or when a situation arises in which his infallibility might be challenged or belittled.

We all know how he can say something one day and a few days later say the opposite, completely oblivious to his earlier statement. He does not only do this in connection with international affairs but also with his closest associates.

[H]e seems to lack any real sense of humor. He can never take a joke on himself.

That’s so totally Trump.

Hitler/Trump as he knows himself and Psychological analysis and reconstruction: These sections are devoted to a Freudian psychoanalytic view of Hitler’s personal life and history. It’s about his family, his youth, his military service in WW1, his rise to power, his relationships, and his sexuality and sexual proclivities. They’re full of Freudian concepts and interpretations (like “Unconsciously, all the [Oedipal] emotions he had once felt for his mother became transferred to Germany.”) and there’s a lot of focus on Hitler’s probable issues with childhood toilet training trauma. I mean, this was the early 1940s–Freud still wore the biggest hat in the field–so we have to expect this stuff. I suppose we could include Hitler’s alleged indulgence in urine play as a similarity with Trump, but I’m not sure that anybody’s particular kink is terribly relevant.

What MIGHT be relevant, though, is this observation by Langer:

Hitler’s outstanding defense mechanism is one commonly called projection…his own personal problems and conflicts were transferred from within himself to the external world where they assumed the proportions of racial and national conflicts.

We’ve all heard that every accusation made by Trump is also a confession. It’s interesting to read, to be sure, but while there are comparisons to be made with Trump’s personal life and history, the comparisons are rather generic.

Hitler’s/Trump’s probable behavior in the future: Langer outlined eight possible/probable scenarios for Hitler’s fall.

He said Hitler might die of natural causes, but considered that a remote possibility. Given Trump’s diet and lack of exercise, this possibility is less remote in his case.
Hitler might seek refuge in a neutral country. Langer also considered this to be extremely unlikely. Trump, who has property in other countries, might be more open to this.
Hitler might get killed in battle. Langer thought this was a real possibility. He said it would be undesirable from the US point of view, since it would make Hitler a martyr. As for Trump, ain’t no way he’d martyr himself.
Hitler might be assassinated. Langer felt Hitler was too well protected for this, and thought it would be undesirable–again, that martyrdom business. It also seems an unlikely scenario for Trump.
Hitler may go insane. Langer meant more insane. Incapacitated by mental illness. Which could also happen to Trump, as his emotional defenses collapse.
German military might revolt and seize him. Langer believed as Hitler’s behavior became more neurotic, a point might be reached where the military confined him. As for Trump, nobody in the MAGAverse has the courage to seize him.
Hitler may fall into [the US military’s] hands. Yeah, no, doesn’t apply.
Hitler might commit suicide. Langer said this was the most plausible outcome. And hey, that’s what Hitler did. I won’t comment further on this possibility.

Langer’s profile concluded with this comment:

[Hitler’s} mental condition will continue to deteriorate. He will fight as long as he can with any weapon or technique that can be conjured up to meet the emergency. The course he will follow will almost certainly be the one which seems to him to be the surest road to immortality and at the same time drag the world down in flames.

Again, that’s totally Trump. Willing to burn the entire combustible world in a fit of pique if he can’t get his way.

It’s weird and disturbing that Walter Langer, 80+ years ago, writing about a man “the world has come to know…for his insatiable greed for power, his ruthlessness, cruelty and utter lack-of feeling, his contempt for established institutions and his lack of moral restraints” seems to have provided us with some pretty solid insight into the psyche of Donald Trump.

sydney powell in the car with a plate of shrimp

Posted on October 21, 2023 by greg

I had a ‘plate of shrimp’ moment this week when Sidney Powell got in the car.

Okay, that sentence probably needs some explanation, doesn’t it. I mean, it’s got two wildly diverse idiomatic phrases: ‘in the car’ and ‘plate of shrimp.’ Let’s start with the former and I’ll include an editorial note at the end to explain the latter.

In the car — it’s an out-of-date phrase used by police and criminal lawyers. It meant ‘cooperate with the authorities.’ “Will this guy get in the car?” “Can we keep him in the car?” “Motherfucker is thinking about getting out of the car.” Like that. If somebody is in the car, they’re cooperating with the State. They’re along for the ride.

I wrote about this almost six years ago in regard to Lt. General Michael Flynn, who was Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor for 22 days. Flynn was forced to retire from that post for lying (to the FBI and to VP Mike Pence) about conversations he’d had with the Russian ambassador to the US. It’s not a crime to tell a lie, but it IS a crime to lie or conceal material facts to a federal investigator in connection to a federal crime.

So Mike Flynn got his ass charged. And hey, he got in the car. He agreed to plead guilty to a single count of lying to the FBI and to testify truthfully in the Mueller investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. In exchange, he’d get a lenient sentence. Accused criminals get in the car because it’s to their advantage.

But Flynn didn’t stay in the car.

In 2019, Flynn fired the lawyers who’d arranged his plea deal, withdrew his guilty plea, and hired a new lawyer. Sidney Powell. That very same day, Powell asked Trump’s Attorney General, Bill Barr, to drop the charges against her client. In the movies, of course, you see prosecutors say, “I’m going to drop the charges” and those charges just disappear. Poof, they’re gone. But in real life, a prosecutor has to file a motion to dismiss the charges and a court has to agree. Barr filed the motion to drop the charges, but the presiding judge, Emmett Sullivan, was reluctant. So Powell asked the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to force Sullivan to drop the charges. The court said, “Nope, not gonna do that.” So Powell went higher up the food chain. And in 2020, then-President Trump issued a presidential pardon to Flynn.

That’s right. Trump pardoned a guy who’d originally agreed to testify against him. Hell, he pardoned a bunch of guys who were in a position to get in the car and testify against him. If you’re a criminal, it’s good to be POTUS.

Also in 2020, Powell joined Trump’s legal team and played a major role in his attempt to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election.

In August of this year, Powell (along with 18 others, including Trump) was indicted on seven felony counts for various types of fraud and election interference under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization law. And hey, guess what.

Sidney Powell got in the car. On Thursday, she pled guilty to some misdemeanor crimes in exchange for testifying truthfully in regard to the RICO crimes. Will she stay in the car? Probably. Unless Trump somehow manages to get re-elected as president. Then it’ll be presidential pardons all around.

Plate of shrimp, right?

EDITORIAL NOTE: Right, plate of shrimp. It’s from a scene in the film Repo Man in which an eccentric mechanic name Miller sort of semi-explains the concept of synchronicity to punk-apprentice-repo man Otto.

Miller: A lotta people don’t realize what’s really going on. They view life as a buncha unconnected incidents and things. They don’t realize that there’s this, like, lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything. Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you’re thinking about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly someone’ll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate of shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in looking for one, either. It’s all part of a cosmic unconciousness.

Otto: You eat a lot of acid, Miller, back in the hippie days?

Professor Plum in the conservatory with a candlestick. Sidney Powell in the car with a plate of shrimp. It’s all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.

monday monday

Posted on October 2, 2023 by greg

It’s the first Monday in October, which means the Supreme Court of the United States is back in session. Although it’s not officially on their agenda, SCOTUS-watchers (which, I just want to say, aren’t nearly as cool as the Watchers that kept track of Highlander immortals or Buffy-era Slayers–now those folks had style) say the Court has to wrestle with this crisis-level problem: How to convince the public that the justices take seriously their ethical obligations.

The answer to which, of course, is completely fucking obvious. SCOTUS needs to actually take their ethical obligations seriously. Not just try to convince the public they’re doing that; they actually need to DO that. But that would mean chucking Clarence Thomas out on his ass. And probably Sam Alito too. And maybe finally investigate where their boy Brett K got the coin to pay off all his debts before his SCOTUS nomination process. So yeah, ain’t gonna happen.

But at least the government is still operating. Well, operating after a fashion. I mean, most of us expected to see Congress implode and a whole lot of government functions to stop this morning. Why? Because a dozen or so Republicans are acting like monkeys trying to fuck beach balls. The monkeyfucking cadre has even annoyed some of the less rabid Republicans. Don Bacon of Nebraska said, “We’re tired of fucking around with these whack jobs.”

We all are, Don. We’re all tired of them.

The fact that Congress managed to avoid stepping on a rake is seen as a sort of victory, although it’s not clear for whom. I mean, we’ll have to go through this same bullshit again in a couple of months. It’s not a victory for Kevin McCarthy, who is now solidly in the cross hairs of the monkeyfucking cadre. Matt Gaetz (Jesus suffering fuck, I still can’t believe this bouffant fuckwit is actually a sitting Member of Congress) has said publicly that nobody trusts McCarthy. Gaetz says he intends to press a Congressional motion to boot McCarthy directly in the balls (well, remove him from the Speaker’s position, which is much the same thing).

What’s interesting, though, is the anti-monkeyfuckers are murmuring about possibly expelling Gaetz IF he follows through on his attempt to kick McCarthy in the balls and IF the ongoing Ethics Committee investigation into Gaetz (for being corrupt and doing drugs and getting horizontal with underage girls) finds he probably did all the awful shit everybody thinks he did. One anonymous Republican is reported (by FOX News, if that matters) as saying this about Gaetz: “No one can stand him at this point. A smart guy without morals.”

Nobody trusts McCarthy, nobody can stand Gaetz, and neither of them has any morals at all.

“You let me be Speaker of the House and I’ll supply you with beach balls.”

Speaking of somebody without morals who nobody can stand, Comrade Trump’s civil fraud trial begins today in New York City. It’s a bench trial rather than a jury trial, so it should be wrapped up pretty quickly. I mean, the judge has already ruled that the Trump Organization deffo committed fraud. He also revoked Trump’s New York business licenses, which will likely mean Trump will lose control over dozens of New York properties. Essentially, the trial is to determine how big a fine Trump will pay. The prosecutor is asking for US$250 million. A quarter of a billion here, a quarter of a billion there…it adds up..

By the way, Trump says he’ll testify if called. Yeah, I’m just going to leave that there.

So it’s going to be an ugly few weeks for Republicans. And rightly so. You know, among all the truly awful things the GOP has done in the last couple of decades, one of the worst things is they’ve changed us. By ‘us’ I basically mean people who prefer to be kind and considerate to other folks, even if we disagree with them. People who didn’t take pleasure in seeing other people suffer. The GOP has changed us into people who viscerally enjoy watching MAGA Republicans go at each other like rabid sewer rats.

I don’t like this about myself, but I WANT to see the GOP destroyed. I WANT to see McCarthy lose his Speaker position, I WANT to see Gaetz expelled from the Republican Party, I WANT to see Comrade Trump lose his businesses and his money and his freedom. I WANT to see him convicted and imprisoned. I don’t just want those things to happen; I want to WITNESS them. I want to see them humiliated, afraid, defeated, and lost.

I don’t like that about myself, but there it is. I’ve let those monkeyfuckers change me. I’ll never forgive them for that.

silent sentinel

Posted on May 29, 2023 by greg

In the late 19th century, there was a rush to memorialize the American Civil War. There were still a lot of living Civil War veterans around, but enough time had passed that the emotional trauma of that awful war was being scarred over by sentiment. There was a national desire–maybe even a national need–to attempt to ennoble the killing and the dying, to transform the horrific mass slaughter into something virtuous.

Communities did this by erecting monuments and memorials to the fallen soldiers. It’s important to distinguish between these commonplace memorials and the statues of the leaders of the armies. The statues of Civil War generals–Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Stonewall Jackson, William T. Sherman–were created to celebrate both the individuals and the cause they fought for. Every statue of a Confederate general is also a statue defending a war to protect slavery; every statue of Union general is a statue defending the notion of a united nation.

Civil War memorial, Hanson, Massachusetts

But the vast majority of Civil War memorials and monuments–the ones you’ll find in parks and standing in front of courthouses in small towns–are dedicated to the people who did most of the fighting and dying. They’re actually memorials to the grunts, the men who went where they were told to go, who shot at the people they were told to shoot at, and who died because that’s what grunts do. Grunts don’t die for vaguely defined moral or political concepts; they die because somebody in a suit decided those concepts were worth somebody–somebody else–dying for.

For small towns that wanted to memorialize the common soldiers who died in the Civil War, the cost of marble or granite statues was prohibitive. However, there were a small number of New England monument companies that specialized in casting bronze or zinc cemetery statues. The Monumental Bronze Co. of Bridgeport, Connecticut produced a model known as the Silent Sentinel. It was a life-size statue of a generic soldier standing at parade rest and sold for an affordable US$450 (an 8-foot-6-inch version could be had for $750). For Northern markets, the belt buckle of the Silent Sentinel was stamped with US; for Southern markets, it was stamped with CS. Other than that, the statues were exactly the same. The same longcoat, the same rifle, the same knapsack, the same forage cap.

Civil War memorial, New Market, Virginia

Eventually, Southern markets caught on to the fact that they were paying Yankee industrialists for statues of Yankee soldiers passing as Confederate soldiers. They began to insist on changes to their statues–a shorter jacket, a bedroll instead of a knapsack, a different style forage cap. But the fact remains, that many of the Civil War memorials you’ll find in town squares from New England to the Midwest to the Deep South depict the same generic soldier.

That’s appropriate, especially on Memorial Day, when we’re meant to honor the troops who died in military service to their nation. The leaders–the generals, the politicians, the industrialists who profit from the weapons of war–fuck those guys. But all those poor indistinguishable bastards who put on a uniform and went to war because they were told there was a good reason for them to risk death and kill strangers, those people deserve our compassion. They earned those memorials.

gregfallis.com

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