Donald Trump's American Carnage

 'They'll disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home, and invite MS-13 to live next door".

 

Nazi wannabe Matt Gaetz

 

The quote above is merely a single example of the hundreds of crazy statements and accusations that were made by grown men and women at last week's Republican National Convention. It's gotten this weird.

 

During his inaugural address three years ago, Donald Trump told the American people that the era of "American carnage" was over. This monumentally stupid man was wrong, of course. The carnage was just beginning. In sixty-four days the polls open up in America for what will be the 58th national election since the first one in 1788. Were I to tell you that 2020 is the most important campaign in our history I would be exaggerating - but only slightly. The only two elections that rank close to November 3 are 1864 - when Lincoln was reelected; and 1932 - when Franklin Roosevelt was chosen by the electorate over the conservative Republican Herbert Hoover. Like 1932 and 1864. The results of the 2020 presidential campaign will depend upon whether or not the United States of America has a future. It's as serious as that.

Forgive me. Donald Trump's inaugural address was three and-a-half years ago. It only seems like thirty years.

A few months ago I said that comparing the American right wing  of 2020 to the Nazis of 1938, the year of Kristallnacht and the opening of the first concentration camps, was patently absurd. But to compare them to the Nazis of 1929, the year they were just getting off the ground politically, was not only fair - it was unavoidable.

We are now at 1933 comparatively.

Back off Boogaloo

The fact that we have a renown white supremacist named Stephen Miller standing behind the president of the United States, helping to make national policy - and in some cases writing it - should outrage everyone with an IQ above a half-eaten box on Milk Duds. American extremist, far-right groups such as Q-anon and Boogaloo, which have gained a foothold here in the states, are starting gain serious support throughout Europe. The Boogaloo Boys are a well-armed militia group whose stated policy is to start a second American civil war. This is twice as freaked out as anyone would have dared imagine America would ever find itself a mere four years ago. This is beyond insane. My biggest worry is Trump inviting these murderous assholes to patrol the streets of Washington if he loses the election. I know that sounds like an unbelievable scenario - and perhaps it is - but our current chief executive is so wicked and extreme that it seems nothing anymore is beyond the realm of possibility. Incredible days these are. 

Not only does this miserable despot need to be removed from the White House on January 20, 2021 (forcibly if necessary) his entire presidency needs to be nullified and voided. We need Joe Biden to be inaugurated - not as the 46th - but as the 45th president four months, two weeks, and six days from today.

It's going to seem like a long, long time. Hang in there, folks.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED VIEWING:

On the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment, this brief report appeared on MSNBC. It's worth a look:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SttQgH8XsW0&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR30pYvuKJGE7oWslN5dmlNdVzvpEinrSMMligT2HWu8aGCWbk26Eu9gVFc

It must be remembered that the Suffragette movement was a "whites only" affair. That's what is not being talked about. In fact, the real centennial of the day all women gaining the right to vote is not for another forty-five years. Remember this.

Out in the Open

A crime being committed....

The law couldn't possibly be any clearer: it is forbidden by law to use any government facility for the purpose of staging political events. And yet, there he was in plain sight for all to see. The president of the United States flagrantly violating that law by holding a mass rally, a stage to deliver his acceptance speech to be the nominee of his party for (God forbid) another term for the presidency. As if that wasn't horrible enough, the grounds were filled to the brim with as many as fifteen-hundred people - possibly more - the overwhelming majority of whom were not wearing masks, shouting at the top of their clueless lungs, begging for another outbreak of the virus that has, as of this moment, killed almost 185,000 Americans. It was an extraordinarily mind-numbing thing to witness. The arrogance of our disgusting clown president is truly an amazing thing to behold.      

Trump used the music of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" twice after his acceptance speech - once prerecorded and once live. Also sung was Schubert's "Ave Maria", the most sacred and beautiful  piece of music I know of. It was nauseating. All this was happening as he used the southern portico of the White House as a vulgar political prop. The entire evening was a rolling constitutional crisis wrapped neatly inside of a national obscenity.

As I had the night before last, I slept though the entire comedy and watched it in the wee small hours of this morning on YouTube. What outraged me more than anything was that either Trump or his porn actress wife had all of the rose bushes and crabapple trees removed from the (former) rose garden. As I mentioned yesterday, the trees had been planted by Jackie Kennedy over half a century ago. The late rose bushes went all the way back to the administration of Woodrow Wilson in 1914. These bastards and bitches vandalized a historic site for no other reason than to give Melania better camera angles when she made her grand entrance the night before.

In 1948, Harry Truman was roundly criticized for having a balcony installed above the southern portico during the White House renovation in that period. But at least that balcony has served a positive purpose in the last seventy-two years, and every president since then has appreciated it. Ripping out the historic rose garden served no one's purpose other than Melania Trump's. Fuck her.

The mob of mindless sycophants and buffoons who attended The Donald's love fest last night weren't all residents of D.C. They came from all over the United States (and possibly abroad). We must assume that at least a small number of them were infected with the COVID-19 virus and infected people who were near them. This morning they will cheerfully go their separate ways and bring the virus to their communities around the good old USA. As I've theorized on this site previously, the evil bastard who is now posing as chief-executive wants as many people as possible to be afflicted by this pandemic. He will then use the chaos and death as an excuse to attempt to shut down the election in November. Does that sound paranoid? Don't put it past the old bastard.     

I can't emphasize this enough. folks - and forgive me for sounding like a broken record - but if this demented and corrupt old piece-of-shit is not defeated on November the third, this country is finished. Remember you read it here. Have a lovely day!

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

AFTERTHOUGHT:

I cannot stop gazing at this girl's face. She is literally starting to haunt my dreams. She was executed by the nazis shortly after this photograph was taken in 1943. She was a political prisoner. Her name was Czeslawa Kwoka. She was fourteen. Look closely into those beautiful, tormented eyes and think of the several children who have died in custody at our boarder in the last three years.

 

 

Angel

Americanism On Acid

When I awoke early this morning (actually late last evening) I watched a rerun of the GOP convention on YouTube - or as much of it as I could stand (I fast forwarded though a lot of it). It was the same collection of people with only slightly different faces that I had seen on the two previous evenings. One of the speakers struck me in particular, though. After I was finished I made the following posting on Facebook:

 

Some pathetic Uncle Tom Negro named Clarence Henderson addressed the GOP convention tonight, praising the Republican Party for ending slavery in the 1860s. One hundred years later, in the 1960s, a Democratic president named Lyndon Baines Johnson signed into law the civil and voting rights acts. Within five years time, all of the racists who had previously registered as Democrats fled that party.

 

POP QUIZ: Which party did they flee to, and which party welcomed them with open arms?

 

A lot of folks in this country are in desperate need of a long overdue history lesson.

 

The man's name was vaguely familiar to me but I could not quite place him. I proceeded to look him up on Google and was almost knocked out of my chair by what I found. Clarence Henderson is one of the surviving organizers of the original sit ins which began in February 1960 and quickly spread throughout the South. I took the post down because, in spite of his support for Donald Trump the man deserves my (and our) respect. But I'm still trying to wrap my mind around that one. Perhaps the poor man is getting dementia. He did seem a bit dotty.

Everywhere you look in America the signs of the craziness of this era is in evidence. Two nights ago, some asshole with a name that is so white it is begging to be parodied (Kyle Rittenhouse!) walked up to a group of human beings who were protesting the shooting of yet another black man - this time in Kenosha, Wisconsin. With a semi-automatic weapon in hand, he walked right by the police, one of whom told him that he was "appreciated". He was even given a bottle of water by one of them. 

Victim Anthony Huber

This Trumped-up putz then walked over to the protesters and began blasting away, killing two and seriously wounding another. The person who committed this latest atrocity on Idiot Nation is seventeen. He did  the wicked deed and ran away. He was then driven back to his home in Illinois by his dear old mommy. This was caught on video and photo. He's apparently a major supporter of Donald Trump and was photographed at one of the president's Iowa rallies in April. He probably believes that a pardon is just around the corner. Who am I to say that he is wrong? 

POP QUIZ: How long do you think a seventeen-year-old black kid would have lived had he walked in to the same scene and under the same circumstances? Take your time in answering that question

The funniest thing About the short propaganda films played periodically throughout this riot of a convention are the scenes of the riots going on all over the country at the moment, with a dark and ominous voice in the background intoning that this will be America in the age of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It amuses me greatly to understand that not one of the geniuses who produced these spots had the wit to understand that what is being shown is the undebatable reality of America in the Age of Donald Trump and Mike Pence. It's almost touching to observe the ineptitude of the people behind this event. It really is!

The night was capped off with an event in the Rose Garden. Melania prepared for the festivities by removing fifty crabapple trees that were planted by Jackie Kennedy over a half century ago. She must have been told the historical importance and significance of those trees but she obviously didn't care. Her husband is a hideous bastard. She's a silly bitch. A good-sized crowd was packed into the area for the event. As far as I could tell, only one of them were donning a face mask. White Privilege on Parade. Perhaps they were all pre-tested. Perhaps not. Perhaps some of them were and some of them weren't. We live in such confusing times.

Did you ever get the feeling that life in 2020 America is a dark satire by Paddy Chayefsky? Yeah, me too.

 

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY




SUGGESTED VIEWING:

 

Here's a link to view Matt Gaetz' speech on August 24 at the convention. It is so unintentionally funny with it's blatant lies and distortions that it really should be seen by all.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd6o91Y8oiU

 

The dude is a scream! By the way, how does a thirty-seven-year-old man have a nineteen-year-old adopted son? I was just wondering.

SUGGESTED READING:

How Matt Gaetz Used Daddy's Money
To Become Trump's Favorite Congressman
by Stephanie Mencimer

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/how-matt-gaetz-used-daddys-money-to-become-trumps-favorite-congressman/

Essential reading.
 



The Freak Show Commences

 

 

What happened last night at the opening of the forty-second Republican National Convention was something so weird and wonderful to behold, the entertainment value of the spectacle was incalculable. The one thing that is noticed this morning by scores of viewers is Donald Junior's speech. His eyes were so watery and bloodshot that many are speculating that he had been crying. Stephen Colbert remarked that he seemed to be very high. Whatever the case, the dude was not in a right way. Perhaps he was thinking long and hard about the investigation on him that is currently being done by the Southern District of New York. If that is the case he is wasting his tears. If Daddy is not reelected on November 3, it's a good guess that a pardon is on the way.

 

Last night was something unprecedented. By taking these assholes seriously, one could be forgiven for believing that if Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are elected on November 3, the collapse of western civilization is all-but-imminent. Church will be outlawed - as will education for children, heterosexual marriage, the flag, Mom, Pop and apple pie. One nitwit even proclaimed that Joe and Kamala wanted to create a "socialist utopia". Apparently not one person of the scores of people who vetted that speech had the brains to understand that "utopia" is defined as a perfect, harmonious society. These people are oodles of fun to watch; and to think that last night was only the first of three!

 



Woods

The speeches were a scream. The show business heavyweights for this convention are pretty sparse and pathetic. Last night it was Jon Voight - who was looking for all the world like a dementia victim. Coming up is Scott Baio, who is only known these days as being America's most visible has-been. The only one on schedule to speak who presently has a viable career is James Woods. The high point of the evening was the unhinged speech given by Junior's latest squeeze, Kimberly Guilfoyle. Speaking as if she was in front of an audience of thousands, the poor woman became so unhinged that I thought she was going to have a stroke.

 

Also participating in the fun were the two most completely despicable people in the House of Reprehensibles. I refer to, of course, Jim Jordon of Ohio and Matt Gaetz of Florida. Jordon has been accused of recklessly indifferent behavior back in the nineties when he was assistant coach of an Ohio college wrestling team. The team's doctor was sexually abusing a number of the wrestlers. He denies that he knew of the doctor's perversion but every former member of that team has said that Jordon is lying. He knew everything. Moral values indeed.

Gaetz, on the other hand, is just an impudent twit. Lenny Bruce once remarked about the state of Florida, "Geographically it's a groove, but politically it's a cancer". He made that statement in 1960 and, sad to say, Florida has evolved barely a molecule since. Any people who would elect Matt Gaetz to anything should not be allowed to play with sharp objects. In fact the entire state needs supervision by professionals. Seriously.

So there you have it, campers! The GOP Freak Show promises to be the festival of unintentional humor that has become synonymous with something that was once called "the party of Abraham Lincoln". We are living through some very strange times, aren't we? Just think of the complete laughingstock America will be to the rest of the planet if this knucklehead is reelected.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED VIEWING:

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified before a House committee yesterday. It didn't go well for him and we'll just leave it at that. Here's a link to watch it in its entirety. The hearings don't start until about twenty minutes into the feed. It's something else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE_iMmO0DHU

Strange days indeed.

The 2020 GOP Clown Car Show

Gentlemen, start your rhetoric.

 

On with the show.

 

Tonight commences the forty-second Republican National Convention since John C. Fremont of California And William L. Dayton of New Jersey were nominated at Philadelphia's Music Fund Hall on June 17-19, 1856. The Fremont ticket was beaten quite handily that year by Democrat James Buchanan who - until Donald Trump was inaugurated three years, seven months and four very long days ago - was remembered by most historians as the very worst president in the history of Idiot Nation. The party would fare far luckier four years later when they nominated  lawyer and former congressman Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. Lincoln would win the election in 1860 and - well, you know the rest.

 

Barack Obama has one thing in common with Lincoln: both of their predecessors and their successors are commonly viewed as some of the most incompetent men who ever held the job. When honest Abe was assassinated one month in to his second term, the job went to his V.P., Andrew Johnson, a former Democratic congressman and governor of Tennessee who had stuck with the union at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. In addition to being a cruel and mean-spirited racist and schmuck, he might very well have been mentally ill.

George W. Bush could easily have beaten Johnson and Buchanan for the title of Worst Ever. Fortunately for him, he was saved from that dubious distinction by the arrival, on January 20, 2017, of Donald John Trump. In the year 2070, the president of the United States - who in all likelihood hasn't even been born yet - will still, on a daily basis, be dealing with the damage that Trump did to this nation so many decades before. The aftershock of the electoral madness of 2016 will be with us for a very long time.  The reverberations will outlive most of you reading this; perhaps all of you - perhaps even your young children. Get used to living in a nation in ruins.

Did you ever dream you would live to see the day that you'd be nostalgic for Dubya? No, neither did I.

I'm really looking forward to watching this convention. I really am praying that Trump gets the high ratings that he brags he is going to get. Everyone in this doomed nation needs to see for his or herself what that disgusting party has morphed into since 1980, when they nominated a feeble-minded, failed "B" movie actor as their standard bearer. They have been going steadily downhill ever since.

The Biden/Harris convention was directed at We The People. The Chump/Dense affair is for white people only. Sure, there'll be a couple of token, Uncle Tom Negroes strategically sprinkled about the event to give the festivities an illusion of inclusion, but The Donald has every intention of sending a not-too-subtle message to his "base"; that he has no intention of letting these ill-mannered darkies run roughshod over this grand and glorious land of ours. Tonight begins the closest thing this country has ever come to a remote and virtual Nuremburg Rally. This is going to get extremely interesting.

So, hang onto your hats, folks! Here comes the spectacle of a party that once proudly chose Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower as their nominees. Those proud days are long gone. John McCain was, not so very long ago, a moderate and clear-eyed Republican. He's gone, too, and he's not coming back. What's left is a cabal of crooks, fools and crazy people who are about to be tossed onto history's shit pile. Good riddance.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED READING:

With Malice Toward None
by Stephen B. Oates

By far, the best one-volume biography ever written of our sixteenth president. It is still in print, and well worth your time.

Cheers!

AFTERTHOUGHT, 11:55 PM....

Mark and Patricia McCloskey are being charged with felony menacing for pointing loaded weapons at a peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstration back in June (which seems like a century ago, doesn't it? 2020 has been that kind of year). Tonight they addressed the Republican National Convention in the most blatant appeal to racism I have ever seen publicly displayed in my sixty-two years on this troubled planet. Are you still blind to what kind of a message this disgusting party is sending to the American people - not to mention the children? If the electorate is stupid enough to reelect this unhinged sociopath and common pervert to the presidency, we'll deserve everything that happens to us. Everything.

Please, these two must be seen to be believed. Here is a link to view their tirade on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ62o7TGQlw&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR26KWWVBD4-OiQUAt2bBEs7L-I3N60qObDYaH6m7Q9rnJFgNP6oGmbF8cE

Incredible.

A Change Has Come

 

"It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die
'Cause I don't know what's up there above the sky
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change's gonna come, oh, yes it will"

Sam Cooke

"That was the best convention in American history. I'm floored. What a night to be alive. WOW. Just freakin' WOW."

 

My YouTube comment on last night's Democratic convention

Well, that's it, boys and girls. After last night there is no way we will ever be able to go back to the way things used to be. This is the new reality. This is a the new America. There's no turning back. For the first time in three years, nine months, two weeks and three days I can honestly tell you that I am again proud to be a citizen of the United States of America.

Such a novel feeling in the twisted age of Donald Trump.



As anyone who knows me will attest, in the last decade-or-so my sleeping schedule has become just a wee bit - "discombobulated" shall we say? On the evening last, while everyone who bothers to pay attention was watching the Democratic National Convention, I was sound asleep. I was only able to tune in to the festivities when I awoke slightly before two AM (Thank goodness for YouTube). I had only seen highlights of the previous two nights - the keynote speakers. That was it. This time I decided to watch the thing in its entirety. I had been under the impression that a "virtual convention", with each speaker broadcasting remotely, would not have the punch that a convention is supposed have. I was as wrong as I have ever been in my life. Political conventions are sometimes amusing but rarely informative; they lack spontaneity and are almost always boring.
 

What occurred last night had an intimacy that made it a beautiful event to partake in. For the first time in my life I felt like a participant in a convention, that I was part of the history taking place. The first political convention that I have a conscious memory of is the GOP convention of 1964. That was when Barry Goldwater told America:

"But first of all, let me remind you that extremism in in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me further remind you that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

 

Barry was wrong then. He would continue to be wrong in the years that followed. It would be said that he would grow as a politician. Shit happens.

I thought that Kamala Harris' acceptance speech was the capper on the event, that it couldn't possibly go any further into the clouds of joy than it already had. Then, at the very end, they cross-faded to singer Jennifer Hudson's stunning interpretation of A Change is Gonna Come, the civil rights anthem written by Sam Cooke in 1964, less than a year before his sudden death by gun-violence. Like the Beatles' appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show ten days after Sam recorded that song, Jennifer Hudson's performance last night of  A Change is Gonna Come was the kind of televisual moment that stays with you forever.

 

Indeed, that change has come.

As former president Obama pointed out during his remarkable keynote address, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can still win the popular vote and lose the election (Forgive me for sounding like a broken record, but we really need to do away with that damned electoral college). In spite of my pride in America at the moment, I'm aware of the undeniable fact that I live in Idiot Nation and that a major effort needs to be made to ensure that the Orange Psychopath is not sent back to the White House for another four - very long - years. The Republicans are more desperate today than they've been since their founding in 1854. Donald Trump is, in fact, beside himself  in desperation.

Trump knows damned well that the next administration (with the might of the Department of Justice behind it) will easily be able to siphon through the mountain of corruption and illegality behind the most disgusting American administration in the history of greed and mediocrity. 2020 will be the most important election day since 1932. We need to get out the vote and win. Only then will Donald Trump and these corrupt buffoons doing his bidding (and that would include Vladimir Putin) will be held accountable.

On November the third, don't vote as if your life depends upon it. Vote because your life depends upon it.

When the debates happen next month and October, for the first time since the Ford/Carter debates in 1976, they will be conducted inside a closed television studio - with no audience in attendance. This is as it should be, and I hope that it sets a precedent for the future. Cheering crowds of buffoons that erupt at every political point made by their favored candidate are an annoying distraction. From now on, they need to keep the audience at home. Just a thought.

The GOP is at the moment going through herculean efforts to steal this election - everything from confiscating outside mailboxes to keep people from mail-in voting, to limiting the polling places in cities with high densities of minority populations. This is no longer amusing. If this unhinged sociopath and common pervert is allowed four more years of destruction, this country is finished. You think I'm joking? Keep voting Republican.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED VIEWING:

Just in case you were snoozing like Yours Truly, here's a YouTube link to watch last night's convention. It really was quite a night to be an American.

https://youtu.be/tcQjlQOA5dY

Aren't these incredible times to be alive?

Sam

SUGGESTED LISTENING:

A Change is Gonna Come
by Sam Cooke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPr3yvkHYsE

If you viewed last night's convention and you still don't understand that we are standing face-to-face with the dawn of a new era, you might as well go back to sleep. Sweet dreams!

The change is here. Deal with it well.

DeJoy's Criminal Tenure

 

According to the New York Times, Louis DeJoy and his wife have invested between 30.1 million and 75.3 million in companies that compete with the post office. If the USPS goes under (something he is obviously trying to make happen) he and the little woman are set to make an untold shitload of cash. I can remember a day, not so very long ago, when corrupt officials were, at the very least, subtle in their corruption. Not Louie! This asshole is about as subtle as a bull in a china shop. He has been subpoenaed to answer a few questions next week before the House of Representatives. This is something that I'm really looking forward to. It's always interesting thing to watch someone attempt to justify illegality. It really is!

 

 And Louis DeJoy clearly has committed a crime - many of them, in fact. Here is what the law (passed on June 25, 1948) says:

 

"Whoever knowingly and willfully obstructs or retards the passage of the mail, or any carrier or conveyance carrying the mail, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both."

  

Since DeJoy has impeded the delivery of a mass amount of mail he deserves a lot more time in the slammer than a measly six months. He would be lucky to get off with six years. Removing 681 letter sorting machines from various cities across the nation with huge minority populations that hope to vote by mail in November is corrupt on a scale no one has ever witnessed. Removing thousands of outdoor mailing boxes is an unspeakable crime against the citizens of this country. The practice was immediately halted once a loud enough cry was made at almost every level of the political spectrum. Apparently no more boxes will be removed - but the ones stolen from mostly poor and minority communities will not be replaced. The damage has been done - and quite swiftly.

Depending on what poll you read, Joe Biden is leading Trump by eight to ten points. This is a barely believable reality to me. There is something diseased in our national character when roughly forty percent of the population are so heartbreakingly stupid that they continue to support the most corrupt and incompetent president in American history. And it makes me wonder.

According to the New York Times piece referenced above, since 2016 DeJoy has donated 1.2 million dollars to the Trump campaign and 1.3 million the Republican Party. I think it would be fair to refer to these donations as "investments" - and that Louie DeJoy has every intention of making a handsome profit off of those investments. In our whole history, the position of postmaster general has been the most non-controversial, non-political job it is possible for a person to have. Leave it to Trump to weaponize that office.

If the disgusting administration of Donald Trump is allowed to fester for another four years, it will be tangible evidence that democracy in America is over. For his roll in perverting the post office and the electoral process, Louis DeJoy needs to be held accountable for his crimes. Then again, we can expect him to be a part of the blanket pardon that Trump delivers between now and January 20, 2121.

Five months and two days. It is going to seem like an eternity. Hang in there, people - and stay the course of resistance.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED VIEWING:

Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould 

An interesting look into the life and times of the eccentric classical pianist Glenn Gould.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIc_USZtIiE&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1kbnLmfjl4i2QCoJRjv7TqBS8eM2s_H9ZpNSElhv8OzVxMCKMLUfgE2f0

Highly recommended.  

One Very Pathetic House Negro

Standing for ol' Massah



 

It's difficult to criticize Kanye West. For all the monkey-wrenches he seems hell-bent on throwing into the campaign of 2020, it's obvious to me that the poor guy is mentally ill. Even his wife will be the first to admit that Kanye is a little nuts. He is one of those people who are "famous just for being famous". His on-line biography informs me that he has gone from being a record producer - to a rapper - to a fashion designer. I'm also informed this morning that he is a billionaire. That says to me that he has been quite successful at underestimating the intelligence of the American people. It's no wonder that he and Donald Trump are soul mates.

`

In the run-up to the November 3 election, Kanye has been charged with a special mission from his Great White Fathers - the same guys that used to be known as "the party of Abraham Lincoln". Like the pathetic and subservient negro of old, he is allowing GOP operatives to place his name on the ballot in strategic battleground states dotting the map. Were he to miraculously win every state in which he'll be on the ticket, he won't have enough delegates to win the presidency. That isn't the point. He openly admits that he is trying to divide the black vote at the expense of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Call it a silly hunch on my part but I strongly suspect that most of the folks signing the petitions on his behalf are white people. Call me paranoid.

 

Malcolm

Malcolm X had a parable he used to tell in his day about "the House Negro and the Field Negro". The House Negro lived inside Massah's home. All-in-all the dude had a pretty good thing going for him when compared to his brothers and sisters out in the field. He would set his massah's table and answer his massah's door. He was fitted with a pretty slick looking butler's suit that he wore on the job. He even had his own little room in the attic of Massah's mansion in the servants quarters. Life was comparatively good for the House Negro. If another slave stepped out of line, he made sure that the unfortunate soul who had committed the transgression was beaten within a half-an-inch of his or her life, Yeah, the House Negro sure loved his massah!

It was a different story as far as the Field Negro was concerned. The poor guy was worked to exhaustion from before the sun came up every morning until after the sun went down every evening. If he stepped one inch out of line, he could receive twenty lashes with a whip - and then be expected to get right back to work. The Field Negro's day's were long and what little sleep he was able to get was tormented. No sweet dreams for the Field Negro. He hated Massah. He wanted him dead. He would have slit the old bastard's throat given the opportunity.

Think of it this way: When you think of the Field Negro, try to visualize Ossie Davis. When you think of the House Negro, try to picture in your mind Stepin Fetchit. That is the perfect illustration.

Kanye West is the House Negro on steroids. The Trump administration is the worst thing to happen to African Americans since Woodrow Wilson lived in the White House a century ago, and yet Kanye cannot do enough for Massah Trump. One can only imagine the cynical laughter that is exchanged between them behind closed doors over the dirty trick that they're trying to play on America's most vulnerable population. I can even imagine Kanye giving The Donald a slap on the back, giddily shouting:

"HEE! HEE! HEE! Oh, Massah Donald, me 'n' you sho' is sly! HEE! HEE! HEE!"

 

This won't work. It's rather pathetic how completely stupid the two of them feel African American people are. They came out in 2008 and 2012 for Barack Obama - not simply because he was black - but because he was the best candidate. They would not have come out for Uncle Ben Carson or Uncle Clarence Thomas - or any subservient House Negro you might want to mention. A people hungry for caviar are not going to settle for fluffer-nutter. They have a lot more intelligence than Kanye and Trump give them credit for. Cynical and pathetic.

Kanye West should know better. Donald Trump knows nothing else.

Let's just take the West For President fiasco for what it is: another amusing example of the parade of idiocy that makes the tragedy of 2020 a little bit easier to bare. There is always some comic relief in the greatest of dramas, and Kanye, who has always been a figure of unintentional comedy, will fit the bill perfectly.

On with the parade!

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED VIEWING:

This segment was broadcast on MSNBC about an hour ago. Watch as Reverend Al Sharpton makes a good case why Kamala Harris scares the living mortal shit out of Donald Trump:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q7Sk59Ay88

Such amusing times we live in.

Vandalizing the Post Office

The best meme I ever created!

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds"
`
The United States Postal Service Creed
` 
Would someone be kind enough to explain to our illustrious, half-witted, Common-Pervert-in-Chief that it is a felony to obstruct the function of the United States Postal Service?

 

What is happening at the moment is a major continuation of the rolling constitutional crisis that has been wrecking havoc on our civic affairs since a significant minority of the electorate naively came to the muddled conclusion nearly four years ago that sending this haggard and senile old demagogue to the house that was once occupied by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt would be a really neat idea.

For the record: It wasn't.

What Trump and his new postmaster general are in the process of doing is destroying an institution whose very existence is guaranteed in the Constitution.

That's right, folks! The United States Post Office isn't some evil, liberal cabal that was cooked up by the Deep State in the sub-basement of Noam Chomsky's home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with co-conspirators Ed Asner and Barbara Streisand drawing up socialist documents - aided and abetted by Jane Fonda and Alexandrea Ocasio-Cortez keeping an armed guard at the door, and the added attraction of Bernie Sanders mixing Marguerites and pina coladas just behind the furnace.

No, the United States Post Office is an institution conceived in America's most precious founding documents.

One beautiful thing about the imbecile at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, is that he is so transparently stupid, one doesn't have to do too much digging to mine some method to his obvious madness. He-all-but admitted on a nationally televised interview on FOX Noise that he was withholding the money the USPS desperately needs to keep afloat. The institution almost went bankrupt a few years ago when the GOP forced it by law to finance employee retirement packages decades into the future.  This was all part of their scheme to make the post office insolvent - and ripe for the taking over by the captains of industry. Nice, huh?

Trump refuses to hand over a dime. He is trying  to stop the mail-in/absentee ballots from being delivered on time - if at all - and he said as much. The fact that millions of senior citizens rely on the mail to receive life-saving medications every month of the year means not a thing to this disgusting, homicidal Neanderthal. All that matters to Donald Trump is WINNING - by any and every means necessary, and at every and any cost. And if that cost should include the lives of you or your loved ones? Well, that's what we call "tough shit", amigo! This despicable bastard is your president. I mean - c'mon, folks! This is a guy who admitted on a nationally televised program that he finds his own daughter sexually attractive. We knew this about him before the election of 2016! Were you expecting any better? Seriously.

What we are witnessing with our own bugged-out eyes is the worst and most immense political and financial corruption in the history of human greed and stupidity. Trump and Postmaster General Louis de Joy (a most curious name under the circumstances) have a golden opportunity here to kill two injured birds with one deadly stone:

Their current goal is to slow down the mail to such a degree that most of the ballots won't arrive at boards of election until after the deadline. That is the reason they are removing outside mailboxes all across the land this week - thousands of them. That is also the reason why De Joy has done away with overtime pay for postal workers. To make matters worse, six-hundred and seventy-one machines across America that sort through 21.4 million letters per hour are being removed from postal centers in high population areas (in other words, cities with lots 'n' lots of brown faces). A lot of those machines are being junked. Are you awake yet? I kind of thought you would be.

Their second goal is to do something that Republicans have wanted to accomplish for nearly a century: They want to turn our constitutionally guaranteed postal service over to private industry - a postal industrial complex, if you will. De Joy is a walking/talking, conflict-of-interest machine. If the post office goes private, this hideous bastard stands to get even richer than he already is.

What could possibly go wrong?

FUN FACT: They also want to privatize our public schools. The head of the Department of Education, Betsy DeVos, wants to hand your children's education over to private industry. Chew on that fact for a while and get back to me.

The very fact that they are interfering in the manner in which the mail is to be delivered in this doomed nation - and the snail's pace they obviously want the mail to be  delivered at - is an act of treason in-and-of itself. Donald Trump took an oath on Inauguration Day 2017 to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States". I think that, at this late date, we can all clearly see what a sick fucking joke that was.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

Rachel Maddow

SUGGESTED VIEWING:

Last night on the Rachel Maddow program, Rachel interviewed Kimberly Carroll, the head of the Iowa Postal Workers Union. She was the whistleblower who alerted the country to what these people are doing to our post office. Here is a link to watch it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urAFZt91cDQ

This is serious.

BREAKING NEWS: 9:29 AM:

Trump's younger brother Bob is very sick in a Manhattan hospital. His condition is said to be critical. The president is keeping mum on the nature of his illness. It would be an irony of Shakespearean proportions were it to be revealed that he has the coronavirus. Send the poor guy a prayer, wish him well - and don't touch that dial, folks.

EPILOGUE, 8/16/20, 2:05 AM:

Robert Trump has died. "It is what it is". Forgive me.

KAMALA!

 

We awake this morning to the dawn of a new age.

I came to consciousness early in the morning to the news that Joe Biden had chosen the woman who is to be his running mate in 2020. It's Kamala Harris, whom I've been rooting for to take the spot for months. Things rarely go my way as far as American politics is concerned so you will please forgive me for savoring this scrumptious moment. No current member of the senate has impressed me more than the gentlewoman from California. I knew from the moment I first heard her speak a little over four years ago that she was going to be a star. I was just looking at a photograph of the 2004 Democratic nominees: two guys named John  (Kerry and Edwards). That will probably be the last time that we ever see two white guys as the nominees of the Democratic Party. After 2020, there will be no way of going back to the way things used to be. This is a jolly good thing. Don't expect diversity from the GOP any time soon. Ain't gonna happen, Bubba. 
`
In the pre-Obama era, I would opine that I would live to see a black man living in the White House, but not a black woman. That phenomenon was probably a few generations out of reach for most of us. Now I'm not too sure. I can easily see this remarkable woman going for the big prize in 2028. Whatever her plans may be, the presence of Kamala Harris on the ticket this year is a remarkable and historic moment. For the first time in a very long while, I'm feeling a bit of hope for America again. It's a novel feeling.

My awe of her is only reinforced every time I hear her speak. Forgive me but I'm in love with Kamala Harris! One of my many problems is that I have this tendency of falling for gals I have no chance of hooking up with. Either they're famous, happily married - or dead (I have a serious thing for Maureen O'Sullivan and Gail Russell. Did I ever mention that?) Kamala is only my latest case of unrequited love. It's something I'll just have to deal with as best I can. Forgive me for having to point this out, but the fact that she is beautiful is an asset in the televisual world in which we live. She holds up more-than-well in front of the cameras. Sorry, but this is a fact that cannot be underestimated.

Poor Mike Pence. For the first time I'm starting to feel a bit of sympathy for the man. He and Kamala are scheduled to debate on October 7 at Salt Lake City, Utah. It's a certainty that a clash between her intellect and his will be like pitting a bird-of-prey against a baby lizard. No, this won't be a fair fight at all. The Democrats should show some mercy for the poor old geezer and just cancel the entire spectacle. Mike won't even know what the hell hit him. I cannot wait to see that one! It won't be pretty, boys and girls. We'll just leave it at that.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.

 

Paul McCartney

Having Kamala Harris at second place on the ticket of a major political party is just another in the scores of truly historic events that I have been able to witness during my lifetime. The first news event that I have a memory of is when John Glenn orbited the earth in February of 1962. But this is something else indeed! This is a turning point in American history. African American women are a force to be reckoned with. One of the saddest things about the civil rights movement is that the story has always focused on the men. Not enough light has been shed on the women in that struggle who worked quietly behind the scene. What happened last night was truly the bright and shining moment for the African American woman.

So there you have it. This new era in American life crept upon us rather suddenly, didn't it? The sense of history being made is palpable. I couldn't be happier at this new reality.

Tom Degan

Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED LISTENING:

Blackbird

by The Beatles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Man4Xw8Xypo

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to be free....

Brace Yourselves for the Final Five

A vote for Donald Trump in 2016 was merely a lack of
 information and context.

A vote for Donald Trump in 2020 is simply a lack of
character and intellect.

THE GOP THEN:
"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

THE GOP NOW:
"Fair scare and starving yours again, our fur feather's bent first upon incontinence, a known notion, deceived in Librium, and desecrated to the prostitution that all mine were cremated awful."

Branson and Trump

We have five months and ten days left until this nightmare of an administration is mercifully behind us. What is beyond certainty is that Donald Trump is a sore loser. The truth of the matter is that the man has been a loser most of his miserable life; that is why the disgusting imbecile is so chronically grumpy. His smile is more akin to a sneer than anything else. He once told Virgin CEO Richard Branson that he loves nothing more than getting even with people who have crossed him. Between Election Day 2020 and Inauguration Day 2021, the soon-to-be former president will have two months, two weeks and three days to "get even" with the American people for banishing him from the White House. That will be the time to be on your toes, folks. The damage he will attempt in that period could very well be long lasting. Hang on.

The interview with Jonathon Swann of Axios last week was more than enough proof we need to figure out that Donald Trump is bat-shit crazy (and if you have not seen that interview yet there will be a link to it attached to the bottom of this piece). Someone remarked that it was previously thought that the interview Trump did with Chris Wallace on Fox the previous week was the bottom of the barrel, that he would never top that one in terms of sheer idiocy and incompetence. His advisors should inform him that, for the time being, it might be wise for the silly bastard to stay the hell away from the media. Just a thought. 

We need to get the vote out this year more than any year since the election of 1932. That was the year Franklin D. Roosevelt was sent to the White House by an exasperated and frightened electorate. Had Herbert Hoover been reelected at that moment, this country would have been finished. 2020 is also an existential election. In 1932 African Americans were being denied the right to vote only in the old confederacy. In 2020, that old Jim Crow practice seems to have gone nationwide. There is a massive campaign of election fraud underway at this moment. GOP operatives in states across the nation will do everything humanly possible to steal this election by sending this unhinged nincompoop back for another four years to do as much damage as he can at the behest of Vladimir Putin. Forgive me for having to point this out, but this is not the way it was supposed to be. I'm just sayin'.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED VIEWING:

Here is the train-wreck of an interview that Trump did on HBO on the Axios program. This must be seen to be believed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaaTZkqsaxY

Wasn't this a neat idea? I'm sorry, I'll stop.