Malice in Blunderland

Although Donald Trump is hinting he won't do anything to impede the constitutionally mandated transfer of power to the incoming Biden administration, his actions have been telling a different story entirely. He is still insisting - minus a molecule of a shred of proof - that the 2020 election is ripe with fraud and that victory was stolen from him. The big problem is the unsettling fact that roughly half of people in this country are foolish enough to swallow his gibberish without so much as a chaser. There is no end to the damage he can do to us between now and January 20.

And now I'm just learning that Melania Trump is reusing to meet with Dr. Jill Biden. Class act, these Trumps, ay?

Also, this week The Donald pardoned Michael Flynn for his committing perjury when talking to the FBI about his meetings with the Russians four years ago. This is only the first of many pardons in the next month-and-a-half. The problem here is that he can only pardon people for federal crimes - not state crimes. In other words, if Eric or Donald showed up at the Washington Monument with a couple of AK47 and mowed down thirty innocent people, a pardon from Papa would be prompt and certain. If I get busted for DUI here in New York and given a year in the slammer, I'm out of luck. Justice in America is a curious thing, you know?

Tom Degan

Goshen, NY

SUGGESTD READING:

The War on Christmas

from The Rant, 14 December 2020

https://tomdegan.blogspot.com/2010/12/war-on-christmas.html?fbclid=IwAR0m7ZWBlBYNDbeMV4JcXHyNyGYhpaUpyBfHWVYOdIDHEAGQa5lP-dVSSsY

It is post-Thanksgiving and the Christmas season is upon us once again. You know what that means, boys and girls! It's that most that most wonderful time of the year when we who possess a progressive bent commence with our annual War on Christmas. God bless us, one and all!

Coup Coup

Fifty-seven years ago today, our democracy came under a lethal assault when a demented little freak pointed a cheap, mail-order rifle at the head of the president of the United States from the sixth floor of a warehouse in Dallas, Texas. Today, democracy finds itself under assault once again, only this time around, the assailant is the president of the United States. Donald Trump is the tenth president to live in the White House since the time of Jack Kennedy. It defies reason to believe that the quality of American politicians (not to mention the American people) could have degraded to this point.

First of all, before you deem me as being somewhat of an alarmist, let me assure you that, at 12:00 noon on January 20, 2021, Joe Biden is going to put his right hand on the bible of his choice; he will then swear to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States". At that moment - beyond any and all arguments - he will be the president of this country. Donald Trump will then have a choice: to leave the Executive Mansion voluntarily - with as much dignity as the disgusting old freak can possibly muster - or he can be physically removed by the military and/or Secret Service. He will not have any other choice in the matter.

That one man could do this much damage to the United States in so short a time is difficult to fathom. This sort of thing was never supposed to happen here. I find it revealing that lately, the GOP's talking point (repeated by many) goes essentially as follows: "This is not a democracy. This is a republic". Of course, that line is complete and utter bullshit. We are - and have always been - a democratic republic. What they have been attempting to do is to ease us into the idea of living in a despotic cesspool, with Donald Trump as our new Fecal King. Of the hundreds of Republicans currently serving in the House and Senate, only less than a handful have had the courage to speak out against this new American despotism. That is why that disgusting party needs to be eradicated from the American political map forever.

Donald Trump knows that he is in deep trouble. When his history of tax fraud and money laundering for international organized criminal enterprises if finally made known to a public who will no longer have the luxury of denying them, there will be nowhere for him to hide, except, perhaps, inside of Putin's Russia - in disgraced exile. There will be no other options for the guy after January 20. That is why he is so comically desperate to hold on to power - in spite of the overwhelming evidence that he lost this thing badly. My biggest fear is that, for the first time in the history of this country, there will be no peaceful transfer of power on Inauguration Day. Will his half-witted, beer-bellied militia boys descend upon Washington DC by the tens-of-thousands in order to do battle with the big, bad government that Donald Trump is trying to save his MAGA-brained masses from? Anything is possible. This might turn out to be deadly.

On the day after the election of 2016, I concluded my thoughts on this site this way:

"I was almost tempted to end this piece by saying that this country can go straight to hell - but that would have been redundant. The American people sent themselves there on Election Day 2016. Get used to living in a nation in ruins."

On the morning after the election four years ago, everyone with half a brain knew that the coming administration of Donald J. Trump would end catastrophically. With fifty-nine very long days to go until Joe Biden is sworn in as the forty-sixth president of the United States, the further damage that Trump can do should not be dismissed lightly. The American people will be living with the fallout from this disgusting regime for a very long time.

It’s time to wind up the masquerade

Just make your mind up

The piper must be paid

The party’s over

It’s all over, my friend….

 

Fasten your seatbelts, kiddies!

 

Tom Degan

Goshen, NY

 

SUGGESTED READING:

 

In The Shadow of November 22

from The Rant

 

I wrote this one seven years ago on he fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Jack Kennedy.

 

"The Rant" by Tom Degan: In the Shadow of November 22

 

Don't let it be forgot that once there was a spot. For one brief, shining moment....I'm sorry, I'll stop.

Praying For Affordable Care

 

Pete, Jeff and Tom Degan

`

Today we may see the destruction of Affordable Care in this nation forever. It depends upon The Supremes.

My expatriate brother, Jeff Degan, wrote this message to his fellow Americans eleven years ago. I found it in my Facebook "Memories" page very early this morning. It seems a bit strange that, all of these years later, we're still having this same, idiotic conversation:

********

"As an American who has been living in Europe for most of the last 20 years, one who has visited doctors numerous times in four different countries, whose two children were brought into this world in European hospitals (France and England), who has himself spent a week in a public British hospital, and who underwent an operation in a private British clinic, I think I can say a thing or two about health care in Europe.

"Our out of pocket expenses for the births? Zero. Even though in France my wife spent 5 days in the hospital after the birth of our first daughter, which is standard by the way. "During the three years we lived in England, we never once paid for medicine for our children. Children get drugs for free in the UK. Visits to the GP are free for everybody.

"My expenses for the week in the NHS hospital? Zero.

"The cost of the operation in the private clinic? Zero, it was covered by my work insurance, as was the post-op physical therapy I needed.

"In Western Europe you would never be forced to sell your home in order to pay for your medical bills, as happens all too often in America when catastrophic illness strikes and the insurance company decides that your condition was 'pre-existing'.

"The quality of the care? Mostly good. French hospitals are excellent, even the food is decent. The food at the NHS hospital was beyond awful, but then again most English food is pretty bad (though they do have great Indian food).

At night, they were understaffed, but I am guessing that, apart from that place where Dr. House works, most American hospitals are understaffed at night, too.

"In short, in the US, you pay more, get less, and die younger than we do in Europe. What part of that don't you understand?

"My fellow Americans, you have nothing to fear except those who would use fear to keep you enslaved to the myth of the might of the American health care system."

Jeff Degan, Somewhere in France

What can I tell you? I know what you're thinking and and I wholeheartedly agree: the guy is a hopeless commie: an eternal shame and disgrace to the good name of the Degan Family. I also think that he may very well be on to something.

Tom Degan, Goshen, NY

Donald Trump's Very Bad Week

 

FUN FACTS: The day is Friday the thirteenth. The year is 2020. What could possibly go wrong?

It was one of those weeks that was such an astonishing time to be alive that it almost took one's breath away. It certainly left one speechless - or at least that is how I was rendered. For ten days, since the first of November, I could only look on aghast, wondering in my mind how Dwight D. Eisenhower, that last great Republican president, would have viewed the complete and utter Shit Show his party has become. 

Joe Biden is now the president-elect. There is no denying it. Kamala Harris will be sworn in on January 20 - not only as the first woman in that office - but as the first person of African descent to hold it. There is no denying that either. It should also be noted that Biden is the first Catholic to be elected to the presidency in sixty years. It's a perfect illustration of how things have changed in the United States. Sixty years ago when Jack Kennedy campaigned for the White House, the biggest issue of that run was his religion. In 2020, the issue of Biden's Catholicism was never even mentioned, not even by the most hateful of religious bigots representing the loony right wing - or, at least, I didn't notice it - and I tend to pay close attention to these things.

And as more than a few of us have been predicting for over a year, when Donald Trump's defeat at last was confirmed four days after Election Day, the silly bastard would refuse to concede, and that is what precisely appears to be happening. He is proclaiming widespread and massive election fraud where no such evidence exists. With two months and one week left to go until January 20, he is in the process of installing an insane clown posse of ideological Yes-Men in key positions in top posts inside the pentagon, with bloated gun-toting para-military yahoos from all over the nation set to do battle for their beloved fuhrer. Does this sound a bit far fetched? Perhaps it is. But I know that he is, at the very least, contemplating such an action. This is Donald Trump we're talking about after all.

The president of the United States is a beaten and bitter man. He is also more psychologically unhinged than any president in the history of Idiot Nation. He has said publically more than once that he loves noting better than "getting even" with people who have crossed him. It should profoundly concern everyone that he has less than seventy days to get even with us. If this fact doesn't make your hair stand on end, then your constitution is much more robust than mine, pardner! Not even an unhinged Dick Nixon, during the final year of the Watergate saga, was as potentially lethal to the American people as Donald Trump is at this moment. Keep your eyes opened.

Everyone who bothered to pay attention after the election of 2016 knew what a fucking disaster this administration would be. Some of us merely believed it would be only slightly more disastrous than the tenure of George W. Bush (I am now nostalgic for the guy - somebody shoot me, please). It turned out to be four times worse than my wildest and stupidest dreams. How on earth did we get to this place? On National Public Radio this morning, someone suggested that, for the good of the American nation, Mike Pence ought to surge the 25th Amendment forward and take hold of the presidency for the next two months.

My reaction? That is the stupidest idea I have ever heard in my life. What have we got to lose?

Tom Degan

Goshen, NY

 

A Very Violent Time

Hang onto your hats, boys and girls. This is starting to get interesting - and violent. I never imagined that one day I would be writing such things.

 

Yesterday, in Texas, a caravan of pickup trucks harassed a Biden/Harris campaign bus, some even attempting to force it off the road, putting everyone on board that vehicle in danger. Trump's response? 

"I LOVE TEXAS! "

The half witted sociopath and common pervert currently masquerading as our 45th president is encouraging his MAGA-brained, half-witted followers to perform acts of political violence. This can only end badly. He is determined that the blood of innocent people flow through the streets of America in the next three days - as surely it will.

Donald Trump has - for all intents and purposes - given his moronic disciples a license to kill. Ain't that something?

 

If you were naïve enough to vote for Donald Trump in 2016 your error may possibly be attributed to a lack of information. Perhaps you were just too busy in your life to be paying attention at the time. That excuse is marginally acceptable. There is no excuse in 2020. Your vote for this corrupt imbecile this Election Day can only be attributed to either a lack of character or intellect  - or both.

 

Donald Trump is an intellectually deficient sociopath and common pervert. If you're stupid enough to want him reelected to the presidency of the United States on November the third, you'll deserve everything that happens to you. Everything.

 

This is only meant to be brief. The polls close in a little over forty-eight hours from now and it's up to all of us to get rested and to vote like mad on Tuesday. November the third will prove to be the most existential election since the contest between Abraham Lincoln and General George McClellan in 1864. If the Trump Mob are allowed another four years of plunder upon the American experiment, this country is finished. If that does happen, the rest of the civilized planet will look upon us as another tinhorn dictatorship. On the morning following George W. Bush's reelection in 2004, a British newspaper asked the musical question:

 

HOW CAN 59,000,000 PEOPLE BE SO DUMB?"

 

A dandy good question when you think about it long and hard. The sane inmates of Idiot Nation were asking the same question of themselves sixteen years ago. Back then, the world had not completely lost faith in the United States. There were still plenty of pockets of hope to be sure.

 

All bets are off if this asshole is reelected. Don't get out the vote as if your life depends upon it. Get out the vote because your life depends upon it. Do you have any friends or loved ones who tonight are lying in cemeteries for no other reason than the fact that Donald Trump was elected four years ago? Then you might have an idea of what I'm talking about. Think about it.

 

230,000 dead Americans.

WE'RE NUMBER ONE!

WE'RE NUMBER ONE!

 

Brace yourselves for the trillion dollar shit-hammer. This is going to get as ugly as it's been in this country for a very long time.

 

Tom Degan

Goshen, NY

 

AFTERTHOUGHT:

 

Trump has been saying that mail-in ballots should not be valid, and obviously plans on taking that case to the Supreme Court. 

Consider this nasty scenario, though: what will happen if, on election night, Joe Biden wins in a landslide.  I imagine all of those previously worthless mail-in ballots are suddenly going to take on a whole new value - the ones that are cast for Trump, that is. That's when they send in their army of lawyers in a desperate attempt to steal the election from Biden/Harris.

This is going to get interesting.

Aren't these amusing time to be alive?