The Best Little Whorehouse in Media

By Calvin Hill

As of 2024, the date May 30^th, the original historical Memorial Day, will now be marred by the repulsive display of Republican Party legislators, with their conservative media, going before cameras and openly turning tricks for King Pimp, Donald Trump, who had just been criminally convicted on 34 counts in the same New York courthouse where the 5 young black and Latino men were wrongly convicted and wherein Trump called for the death penalty before they had even been availed of the same due process he demanded for Brett Kavanaugh. Those Republicans did not care about the border, immigration policy, inflation, the budget, the military, or any of the issues they claim their constituents sent them to Washington, DC for. Their collective goal is to show their procurer that they are willing to legally prostitute themselves to raise whatever is necessary to prove their loyalty to the fuhrer pimp.

As these appropriate metaphors come to mind, it is not lost on me that leading the onslaught of lies, disinformation and misinformation about convicted felon, Donald Trump, is Fox News Channel, the cable outlet founded by the late Roger Ailes, to allegedly offer a conservative point of view when, in actuality, the movie BOMBSHELL makes it seem somewhat clear that conservatism was only a pretext for Ailes to staff his media creation with a lot of women he wanted to f**k, and a lot of loudmouth lightweight misogynist bitch-men who would choose to close their eyes to his sexism, harassment and debauchery or engage in it themselves. Pardon me for being gauche, but some language deserves explicit terminology so there is no confusion to the point(s) being made. So, forgive me if I don’t view the felony convictions of Donald Trump as though we were locking up the Pope for not blessing a meal.

Sadly, the GOP and the conservative media know that Donald Trump is the same lying, racist, misogynist, business cheating incompetent asshole who has spent much of his adult life living off bankruptcy protection and debt who has violated civil and criminal law and escaped justifiable punishment by paying huge fines tempered with “no admission of guilt” to save the taxpayers money for trials. Trump’s Republican harem did not need to hear former fixer, Michael Cohen, testify to how Trump had him stiff people he owed for services rendered. They knew it during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump’s political concubines didn’t need to hear details about Stormy Daniels smacking his boxer-clad ass with a magazine before her self described, unpleasant sexual encounter. They could have listened to past interviews when he said he couldn’t run for president because of all the women that would come out of the woodwork. They all knew who Donald Trump was in 2016 when they were fervently against him before they became passionately for him.   

If the system was/is rigged, it’s because Donald Trump rigged it against Donald Trump. He rigged it against himself when he sexually assaulted over a dozen women and then went on a defamation spree denying it. He rigged it against himself when he lied on tax forms, bank applications and property assessments. He rigged it against himself when he used charitable funds as his own personal slush fund when the law required otherwise. And he rigged it against himself when Rupert Murdoch wrote a check for $787,000,000 rather than have his Fox News Channel staff have to testify, under oath, that the text messages and emails showing they were disgusted by Trump, but chose to lie, misinform and defame others for the love of money.

Thus, personalities such as Lou Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly, Roger Ailes and Tucker Carlson are just a few of those Murdoch relieved himself of in the name of financial prudence. Others in the brothel seem to be in a constant battle to be the top ho. Apparently, they feel safe in supporting Donald’s deranged reasoning that it was “common sense” for the January 6^th rioting insurrectionists to want to lynch Mike Pence for obeying his Constitutional oath. Ironically, they ignored the lesson of the Gamble-Huff-Jackson hit song that Trump used to open Celebrity Apprentice. They sold their soul for the money.   

“What Are You Prepared to Do?”

By Calvin Hill

The title quote was uttered by Sean Connery in his Academy Award winning role as Jimmy Malone in the 1987 film version of The Untouchables, as Eliot Ness went after Al Capone. The defense of American democracy will require that very question. Throughout Donald Trump’s term in the White House, tales of pardons offered for breaking the law were often leaked. Guardrails surrounding those officials kept them from succumbing to his bigwig, dictatorial requests. Unfortunately, Trump’s 2020 election defeat taught him all the wrong lessons. What have we learned?

In contemplating a 2^nd Trump term, the American public must answer whether or not they are prepared to accept the arrest and incarceration of Cassidy Hutchinson, Sarah Matthews and Alyssa Farah Griffin for telling the truth under oath. Don’t count on Senators Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio or Cuban Canadian American immigrant, Ted Cruz, to express any outrage when a Trump FBI sends agents to lock up Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, Chris Christie, Adam Kinzinger, Judge Chutkin, Leticia James, Mark Milley, Bob Woodward and a whole host of former Republican strategists who have condemned him as a President and a man. Donald Trump is a selfish, vindictive man of such limited intellect that his clinical psychologist niece believes he suffers from an undiagnosed learning disability.* He often appears to cover his educational limitations by projecting vociferous bravado with the illusion that he is always right.

The very Constitution that Trump sought to terminate to oust Joe Biden and have Congress reinstate him as President, is the very document he now depends upon to effusively disparage and endanger the lives of those, and the families of those, tasked to hold him to account for various allegations of violations of the law.

After January 6^th, the MAGA Republicans have already said that the next time they will be better armed. In fact, Marjorie Taylor Greene stated emphatically, that if she and Steve Bannon were in charge of the insurrection, they would have been better armed and they would have won. It should be well known to anyone who listens to Trump’s repeated lie(s) about the 2020 election, that he will not accept any loss in 2024, even in the primaries, no matter how big the margins. However, it seems voting is the only way to stop him if the law does not.

Liz Cheney has stated that Donald Trump is a man in his 70s, not a petulant child, though sometimes it is not too difficult to tell the difference. And for those that are gullible enough to believe that the people he maliciously jails will have the options of safe, legal representation, just wait until he thumbs his nose at habeas corpus. Now, what are you prepared to do?    

* From – Too Much and Never Enough, By Mary L. Trump PH.D.

Fire the Messenger

By Calvin Hill

The trouble with Congressional hearings in the age of Tea Party, “Freedom” Caucus and MAGA mania Republican extremism, there is less a search for truth and understanding and more of a grandstanding, reputation building video montage.

College administrators named in lawsuits against universities over various Constitutional issues have been an all too common occurrence in America. In an era where consensus cannot be reached between members of student body organizations, faculty, media, political organizations, civil rights organizations and think tanks concerning who should even be invited to speak on campuses, how is a college president and board of directors expected to navigate such when the topic(s) and speakers are controversial? And how does a Congressional witness satisfy institutional policy and Constitutional rights in the face of a hostile, sound bite seeking sycophant who has turned her wide open eyes away from some of the most deliberate racial and religious bigotry of a candidate, then president, in decades? Facing an agenda driven Elise Stefanik, the university presidents should have referred her pointed questions to “our lawyers for matters involving policy and Constitutional speech and punishable behavior.”

First, the 2016 GOP candidate disparaged and came for the Mexicans. The Republicans were outraged, but quickly got over it. Then they found that the candidate admitted to sexually assaulting women, and got over that too. When the candidate became president, he openly insulted non-white immigrants as coming from “shithole countries.” When the Republicans could not use “locker room talk” for that as an excuse, they said nothing. During a worldwide pandemic, Asians throughout America were being routinely brutalized each time Donald Trump trivialized thousands of daily deaths as victims of the “Chinese virus” and “kung flu.” Trump’s repeated denigration of Muslims caused assaults, not only against Muslims, but also Sikhs, Hindus and other non-white Americans and immigrants in religious garb by Americans too ignorant to know the difference. And in all of her hearing bravado in defense of Jews facing rampant and ugly anti-Semitism, Elise Stefanik and the MAGA cult did not show the outrage they feign against college administrators when Herr Trump claimed there were “very fine people” marching in the Jew bashing rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that led to the death of Heather Heyer.

It was not enough for Donald Trump to eschew due process for five young, non-white, men in Central Park. It was not enough for him to lie about Muslims celebrating in Jersey City while the smoke from the Twin Towers covered death and destruction in lower Manhattan. Donald Trump has convinced much of the GOP that their autopsy of outreach to non-white Americans was unacceptable and insulting to him as a white man and them as real Americans. Donald Trump has been Ground Zero in the orchestration of many forms of hate and hate speech in America since the Obama administration. Lindsey Graham was right the first time. “Donald Trump is a race baiting, xenophobic religious bigot.”

For these reasons, and more, there is a need to question that the atrocious anti-Semitism being viewed could not, or would not, be accepted about any other group. It is painful to hear Jews feeling unsafe in environments where free speech should thrive but becomes scary. To this day, there are still communities that black folks should not be caught in after dark – or pulled over because they look like “they don’t belong.”

It is the height of hypocrisy for Rep. Stefanik to disparage college administrators who answer the questions she asked, and then try to put her words in their mouths when she disapproves of their answers. Were a classroom debate to occur over an assigned reading of Mein Kampf, and some of the students approved of Adolf Hitler’s positions, what does Stefanik believe should happen to students when/if the debate continued out on the quad or in the cafeteria? Would she ban the book? Should the students be suspended? Free speech is not absolute when it exacts harmful conduct. That appeared to be the point of the answers.

The fear that Jews feel over the boisterous rise in vile and offensive anti-Semitic speech is real. It cannot and should not be ignored. However, under the guise of free speech, Donald Trump continues to emit vile and repulsive attacks that have terrorized entire ethnic communities and families into a need for professional protection as death threats against them have become frighteningly commonplace while Republicans remain deafeningly silent. Thus, Elise Stefanik is an extremely flawed messenger as it concerns speech and conduct. Her support and defense of Donald Trump is reprehensible.

The late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor once told former Obama official, Rick Stengel, that someday soon America would pay a heavy price for no longer teaching our children Civics. If Stefanik has a problem with specific kinds of speech, she should have the guts to say we should amend that clause in the Constitution through legislative means. Or, perhaps her abiding support for Mr. Trump is her approval of his desire to terminate the Constitution altogether.

Coaching Tommy Tuberville

By Calvin Hill

Someone needs to explain to Alabama Senator, Tommy Tuberville, what it took to extinguish Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Before a Navy Seal shot and killed the September 11^th terrorist in self-defense, a lot of work by a lot of military brains went into getting to that point. A man who has coached college football in the state of Alabama should be knowledgeable enough to know that the use of Xs and Os on a chalkboard can extend past the preparation for an athletic contest.

The Senator’s intransigent stands on jeopardizing America’s military readiness indicates a total lack of understanding of how major military operations, overt and covert, get decided and implemented.

After years of intelligence concerning the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, including false information, near misses and mere speculation, President Barack Obama received, at that time, the most reliable intelligence information as to the location of the Al Qaeda leader. A considerable period was taken to insure that the information was solid and that the appearance of the target was accurate. At that point, high-level security meetings were held on what should follow. Pres. Obama tasked the members of the military brass to come up with a plan to achieve the desired goal. Those planners are the members of the military that Sen. Tuberville is preventing from being those we depend upon to formulate sometimes dangerous missions with, hopefully, no loss of American lives; knowing the latter cannot be guaranteed. All this must be done in utmost secrecy with no leaks that may cause the target to change locations and/or increase his security.

Months later, the White House was given a proposal. To insure the best chance of success, Pres. Obama wanted the project tested. When he felt assured of the possibility that the plan could work, the President polled certain members involved for their opinion on the mission – go or no go. Some felt it was too dangerous. It entailed going into a sovereign nation without their knowledge and not knowing if that government protected that target or would retaliate.

In the final analysis, it was Obama’s decision and he gave the go. The mission did not go perfectly as planned. One of the two helicopters was lost as it descended on the compound in Pakistan. The Seals proceeded as called for in the action. They quickly dispatched bin Laden’s bodyguards and, eventually, bin Laden. The Seals were able to escape with the body of the terrorist target, much of the electronic devices and other information at the location, and they suffered no loss of lives.

Later that evening, the President walked to the lectern of the Press Room and announced to the American people that Osama bin Laden had been located and killed in a successful US operation. Still later, we saw the faces of the principles and decision makers in the Situation Room as they watched, in real time, the life and death mission of some of America’s military elite.

If Tommy Tuberville takes time to check his ego and shamelessness at the Senate door, he will realize that without the well-trained military brass, whose promotions and appointments he blocks, Barack Obama never gets to make that announcement and Osama bin Laden would remain at large. Tuberville is blocking those who could be the next wave of officers we may need to count on to plan a life and death mission to keep America safe from a terrorist catastrophe or worse. It is way past time for Coach Tuberville to be a US Senator, stop the madness, congratulate them for their achievement(s), and thank them for their service.    

Bad Faith Walking

By Calvin Hill

The United States is on the precipice of realizing the total evisceration of the term, “good faith belief,” as it is served and consumed in our political and judicial discourse. A number of the 2024 Republican presidential candidates have proposed that they will pardon Donald Trump in an effort to “heal the country.” More than half the country believes that the former President committed crimes for which he should be prosecuted. When asked how pardoning him would heal the country, Republicans go on a tirade accusing “the corrupt Department of Justice (DOJ)” and the Democrats of weaponizing the DOJ.

These Republicans and their candidates have no good faith belief that a pardon would heal this “divided country” and they have been a legion of bad faith walking since Election Day 2008 when their party, en masse, decided that no policy that President Barack Obama proposed would get their votes.

While celebrations the world over heralded America’s election of its first black President, the GOP overtly and undercover, reverted to the belief adjudicated by Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney that, “the Negro has no rights that the white man is bound to respect.” Thus, the Republicans in Congress decided there would be no cooperation of any kind to any Obama policy initiatives – the public good be damned. The previously unanimous extensions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act has basically been filibustered into extinction along with a blindfolded Lady Justice as she is repeatedly petitioned by white men, sans white sheets.

Perhaps more disturbing than pardoning Trump, 6 of 8 GOP candidates proclaimed they would support him for the presidency even if he were convicted of the crimes for which he has been indicted. Despite Trump admitting unlawful behavior, the leading GOP candidates would back him knowing his intent to pardon and release the hundreds of potential cop killers and political assassins responsible for the January 6^th carnage at the Capitol. Notwithstanding mounting criminal jeopardy, Donald Trump remains glued to social media appearing to order CODE REDS against judges, prosecutors, grand jurors, witnesses, election poll workers, “disloyal” Fox News Channel personnel and Congressional Republicans under the guise of First Amendment free speech. Is there anything Trump won’t do?   

Republican officeholders from coast to coast are on the record, that it is noble and patriotic to take up arms to knowingly defend the most egregious lie in American history. They have no good faith belief that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Even with all the lies that walked the country one step back each time it took two steps forward, not one lie, or series of lies, threatened the existence of this democratic republic as has Donald Trump’s lies. The threat to end the 236 years of American democracy since the signing of the Constitution is now being endorsed by a major political party. It does not matter to the GOP that these lies have been exposed in courts of law after teams of licensed lawyers filed pleadings tantamount to childish declarations that “the dog ate my evidence.” 

Their overt dismissal of the charges brought by New York City District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, clearly indicts the Republican Party as a walking bastion of bad faith. Illegal, covert payoffs to a porn actress and a former Playboy Playmate opened the door to the White House run and gave rise to Vladimir Putin’s infiltration of the Trump campaign. It mattered not that Mr. Trump was already listed as a defendant in hundreds of civil cases. Sexual assaults on almost two-dozen women did not matter. Moreover, the intelligence community had reason to believe that Russia had cultivated The Donald as an asset and had been doing so since it was the USSR.

Another clear example of their bad faith lies in the Republicans’ refusal to defend Rep. George Santos’ lies to obtain office with the same fervor that they defend the defendant Trump. Certainly Mr. Santos’ lies and violations of the law are just as serious as Trump’s porn payoff that sent Michael Cohen to jail. Straight lines can be drawn from Donald Trump paying Stormy Daniels $140,000, to giving campaign information to a Russian operative; to attempting to blackmail the President of Ukraine; to fomenting lies and executive incompetence during a global pandemic; to staging his “wild” rally that injured over 140 police officers, and caused a gullible Air Force veteran to being shot and killed leading an unruly mob on a mission of political assassination. 

There is absolutely nothing that Donald Trump will not do to advance his will. There is no lie he will not tell. There is no person he will not use to commit a crime for his benefit. And sadly, he has many in the conservative media relying on the bad faith of Congressional Republicans to validate his diabolical romp toward a Trump led fascist America once he takes control of the rule of law, and gets democracy out of his way. 

Trump’s GOP: Goose Stepping to Fascism

By Calvin Hill

The time has come for those in the media, the Never Trumpers and the GOP opposition to stop shying away from the Hitler comparisons as it concerns Donald J. Trump. It is not a major historical secret that Adolf Hitler did not begin his fascist reign upon Germany, Europe and Asia, by marching Jews into concentration camps and gas chambers. Holocaust survivors and their families have been very vocal about seeing the similarities to 1930s Germany in Trump’s America. If Trump’s refusal to remain silent about his plans for the future of America do not frighten you, you are in dire need of a “woke-up” call because drag shows, non-white immigrants and diverse colleges and military units will be the least of your problems.

Former and present Republicans, who have managed, advised and strategized GOP campaigns for decades are even sounding the alarms. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has openly declared that white supremacist ideology is posing the biggest terroristic threats to the American homeland. If finding out that a white nationalist militia group plotted the kidnapping and execution of an American governor doesn’t “woke you up,” or seeing Marjorie Taylor Greene wielding the Speaker’s gavel after having declared that if she, and her people, launched the January 6^th insurrection, “they would have been armed and they would have won,” then it is understandable how a classroom full of bullet riddled 6 and 9 year olds does not pierce your empathetic emotional psyche.

Straight out of the Hitler playbook, Donald Trump has boldly informed his followers that what they were seeing and what they were reading was not really happening. He has convinced them, despite his lifelong pathology for lying, that he is the arbiter of what is true, that what he has said and what you have viewed is untrustworthy because it was aired by “the fake news.” Nothing about Trump indicates that he was smart enough to discover such a devious and dishonest sleight-of-hand. However, his history suggests he is clever enough to lift his penchant for media manipulation from Joseph Goebbels, Adolf’s publicist. In an interview with Barbara Walters, she brought up the fact of Trump having a book of Hitler’s speeches. He attempted to blow it off as a gift given to him and threatened to sue Vanity Fair because they reported him having the book. It was also reported that his first wife, Ivana, said he kept it on his night table. Circumstantial evidence would point to he read it.   

Understandably, watching babies being separated from their families and justifying their being caged was not Auschwitz, Dachau or Buchenwald, but it could be the start since they have also been negatively depicted. Seeing hundreds upon hundreds of your neighbors and fellow citizens, some adorned in military gear, assault the nation’s Capitol leveling destruction and wreaking havoc in a bloodthirsty march to assassinate the next two public officials in the line of presidential succession is not Kristallnacht carried out by a horde of brownshirt recruits.  But the level of rhetoric, post January 6, by that mob has threatened that the next time, better armed and nationwide, it could be.

Donald Trump’s ideological takeover of a well-financed media organization, under the guise of “news channel,” is not some unusual phenomenon. We have seen it before, and continue to see it in other countries where democracy has already breathed its last breath. Despite their patriarchal and misogynist hierarchy costing Fox $1 billion or so in defamation and sexual harassment settlements, they seem to regard chasing the money, as opposed to truth and accuracy, as policy. Several of those considered “serious journalists” have been vanquished after word from The Donald reached his cult masses. The Congressional Republicans have gone all-in on the various Trump defenses and his non-existent platform to aid the American people. In fact, in 8 months, they have yet to do any of the things they vowed if given the House majority in 2022.

It was not what the Republicans promised the American people, but their collective platform has become retribution. The House leadership has filtered down to their electors and electorate, their plan to dismantle every agency that keeps America safe. The fact that Donald Trump has openly advocated for the termination of the Constitution has not dissuaded them from supporting his reelection. The inflection point that Joe Biden spoke of during the 2020 campaign is still upon us. This time it is more serious. The Supreme Court, while seemingly operating as an ideological ‘star chamber’ devoid of ethics or honor, is having their Constitutional authority defied by an Alabama legislature intent on segregated voter suppression.

Ironically, this Hitlerian march toward fascism is being led by the race baiting, xenophobic religious bigot that Sen. Lindsey Graham asserted Donald Trump to be. The Donald revels in the media references of him as a mob boss. In reality, he is the coward that Ted Cruz proclaimed. Trump repeatedly led acolytes on a path to prison for his personal and political benefit. Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone were all pardoned after plying their lawlessness on behalf of the quintessential projecting RINO, Donald Trump. He then requested, cajoled and threatened state and Congressional officials to break the law in his bid to steal the 2020 election.

However, when it was suggested that Trump declare martial law and seize voting machines, he balked. When faced with the opportunity to remain in office, misguided and illegal as it was, it was Donald Trump who was the coward and the “pussy.” Hundreds of misled, misinformed and misguided Americans are now languishing in prisons across the country because they fell victim to the charisma of pathological lies. And when he had the presidential authority to issue a blanket pardon for those who ransacked the Capitol, maimed and battered police officers and threatened the life of the Vice President and Speaker of the House, Trump lacked the courage that Jimmy Carter possessed when he pardoned the Viet Nam era draft dodgers against political advice. It is probably of little comfort to those presently jailed, and their families, that Trump now calls them patriots and offers to pledge allegiance while they sing from behind bars.

In Donald Trump’s warped sense of the Constitution, he attested Article II says “I could do whatever I want.” Even after his electoral defeat and facing multiple criminal indictments, Trump’s arrogant mouth has been the best witness against himself. Yet, the Republican Party has ceded their Constitutional oaths, as well as their dignity, to a dictator loving “wannabe.” The din of the boots we heard on the soldiers we saw goose stepping in the black and white newsreels of Nazi Germany are now seen and heard on the streets of America carrying Confederate flags, tiki torches and wearing MAGA hats.

This is all happening in real time. If 2024 does not work out in the way that is best for sustaining our rule of law and democratic principles, it will be too late to believe we can fix it in 2028 unless we stop being afraid to say so now. Herr Trump will see to that.

Don’t Cry for Thee, GOP

By Calvin Hill

How does one discern what lessons are to be learned from the tear-stained face of Lindsey Graham in response to the multi-count indictment of a man who has spent much of his adult life as a walking, talking symbol of a criminal enterprise – “allegedly?” The senior South Carolina senator did not shed those tears when his friend, John McCain, passed away. For Senator Graham, a more appropriate response should have been, “I told you so!” In 2016, it was Graham who loudly declared to his fellow Republicans, “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed and we will deserve it.”

For the many Republicans who have worked for and managed campaigns, Lindsey Graham was right. Those present, and now former Republicans, do not recognize the party they have supported and worked for over decades. In their opinion, Trump has destroyed the Republican Party as they knew it, and, they fear, is destroying the country. Before his run for President, Donald Trump spent much of his adult life supporting the issues of pro-choice Democrats. The quintessential RINO, Trump has convinced a significant section of the voting populace that lifelong Republicans are the real Republicans In Name Only simply because they don’t support him. What they don’t support is his reckless, vengeful leadership, or his march toward an American autocracy posing as an America First agenda.

Donald Trump, Senator Graham and the House GOP leadership have turned Republican politics into a raging bastion of schizophrenia. They will blame a “Democrat run city” when a madman shoves an innocent commuter onto the subway tracks. Yet, the very same madman can drive down I-95 and stop at any number of Republican run enclaves, buy an assault rifle and mass murder children in school, parishioners in their houses of worship, food shoppers, concert and movie goers and the Republicans’ simplistic solution is to pray and pay for better mental health.

It is the breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion and behavior, by Republicans, coupled with their delusions of reality that causes them to believe more guns and more prayers will solve the problem. And sending grief counselors to aid recently traumatized 6, 9 and 14 year olds is of little consequence when the child cannot sleep at night and wakes up screaming after hearing gunfire and seeing bloodstained classmates in their dreams. The lack of sensible gun policy is not just causing preventable death; it is creating generations of mental health problems that will go untreated because many states, where these mass murders occur, refuse to live in a world of advancement where medical care is easily accessible, affordable and necessary.

Meanwhile, in the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan, the Tennessee legislature, under the guise of violating decorum, saw fit to expel two young “uppity,” duly elected black members of their body for exercising their free speech rights after three 9 year olds were murdered in school along with three 60+ aged Tennesseans.

These days, the GOP also seems to be suffering from a self-inflicted level of paranoia over their pro-life positions. Since the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, half the Republicans feel their radical anti-abortion approaches will prejudice their election chances while the other half believes the radical anti-abortion proposals are the only way to get elected.

For a political party that usually excels at narrative and messaging, much better than Democrats, a weeping Senator Graham is not reassuring. Someone should tell Lindsey that there’s no crying in politics, bless his heart. Crying for Donald Trump is simply weak and pitiful. Leave the tears for the women who had to relive being sexually assaulted by Trump and the naked young girls he deliberately ogled at his teen pageants. And while Graham and his fellow Republicans are timidly ensconced in thoughts and prayers, they should think about doing something significant and worthwhile to prevent the tears of the next group of families who have to bury their loved ones or cannot pay the hospital bill after treatment for gunshot wounds.

Broken Windows “Storm” Clouds

By Calvin Hill

First, we must eliminate the fallacy that there are some crimes for which a former President of the United States should not be indicted and/or prosecuted. Recall that Richard Nixon was relieved of being prosecuted for obstruction of justice by accepting a pardon from President Gerald Ford. And to prevent being prosecuted for perjury, Bill Clinton accepted a deal from the Special Counsel to pay a fine, have his law license suspended and had to admit that he lied under oath.

Now, thanks to Rudolph Giuliani and Bill Bratton’s broken windows policing, Donald J. Trump has been indicted by a grand jury. The former New York City mayor and police commissioner decided that by arresting low level squeegee men and public drinkers they would prevent future crimes and catch those with outstanding warrants. The crimes alleged by the New York City grand jury, in the case of Trump, are currently unknown, yet the cult members of the Republican Party and their QAnon associates continue to downplay their possible severity. Since we know that Donald Trump doesn’t drink and has no need of spare change, we may surmise that the criminal allegations, for which he has been indicted, are likely more serious than consuming a beer in public or wiping down a stranger’s car window.

As the Republicans circle the wagons around their deeply flawed “fuhrer,” they are missing the big picture. Under the broken windows theory, NATO can be more secure and Ukraine can be free to continue the fight for its independence without the threat of a powerful Donald Trump. Russian diplomats will not have open door access to the White House. Classified materials will no longer disappear, be available to his unqualified daughter and son-in-law, or copied to places and people unknown. The Department of Justice will not be used as his attorneys of personal revenge.

The Republicans are currently weaponizing their House committees as they allege that state and federal law enforcements are weaponizing their agencies against The Donald. The very Republicans that were lined up outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue seeking pardons for aiding and abetting the attempt to illegally overthrow the legitimate 2020 election are casting their ballots for a man whose integrity they secretly question and despise. A man who stood by as death and destruction “toured” the nation’s Capitol. Trump has openly advocated the termination of the Constitution. And, insult to injury, he has vowed, if reelected, to pardon the hundreds of potential political assassins and cop killers responsible for the carnage of January 6th.

Marjorie Taylor Greene has elected to come to New York to protest Donald Trump’s indictment. The Georgia representative should be warned of this broken windows reality. Riker’s Island has a women’s facility. Don’t get caught jumping the subway turnstile.

Mitch McConnell – MAGA MAN

By Calvin Hill

The hypocrisy of Senator Mitch McConnell’s woeful disdain for Donald Trump is his pathetic desire to hide their mutual racism which helped catapult Trump into political relevance and, unfortunately, the White House immortality usually reserved for more learned thinkers. Try as he may to extinguish Trump’s hold on the Republican Party and his Senate caucus, it is The Donald’s reflection that McConnell should see when he looks in the mirror. That old photo of McConnell at one of the many sons of the Confederacy Caucasian Citizen Councils, proudly displaying the Stars and Bars, is not just a symbol of his age-old beliefs. It bolsters that belief system in his treatment of Barack Obama, the first black President of the United States.  

Once again, the GOP is advancing the prospect that they can fix what ails America if you put them in the majority. History, and facts, shows that to be a false proposition. In the face of economic disasters facing Americans in 2009, it was McConnell who rallied the Republican Party and openly declared their number one priority was to make Barack Obama a one-term President. In the face of unemployment over 9% with millions more jobs poised to disappear, along with much of the auto industry, the GOP’s priority was not the American people or the economy. Its priority was to put the first black President among the ranks of the unemployed. It was not the health care crisis the millions of newly unemployed were facing – it was to fire Obama. It was not the crooked financial institutions that were succeeding in making hard working Americans homeless. McConnell proclaimed his priority was to punish the country for making his position subservient by giving stature and veto power to a black man. And in 2017, with Trump in the White House, the Republican priority was to give a major tax cut to the independently wealthy, allow the mentally ill to buy guns, and thanks to John McCain, a failed attempt to take health care away from over 20 million Americans.  

In addition to giving aid and comfort to racism, McConnell bastardized his position as Senate Majority Leader and routinely scoffed at the Constitution’s doctrine of Advise and Consent by denying Obama’s nominees for the federal judiciary at all levels. When right-wing snake-oil telehost, Sean Hannity, disparaged President Obama for the many unfilled federal judgeships, it was the grinning Kentucky senior senator who bragged that he likes to think that he had something to do with that. The not so subtle racism spread throughout Fox News Channel and it continues to this day. The primetime hosts, and many of their guests who feel insulted when tagged racists, actually tried to hang that label on Obama – repeatedly. But when New Jersey needed federal aid after Superstorm Sandy, these right-wing “conservatives” audaciously lambasted Republican Governor Chris Christie for merely shaking hands with President Obama when he came to survey and assist his state. That criticism for such a small and thankful humanitarian gesture by members of the Fox News media has not been seen in a lifetime of natural disasters. It is something all governors do regardless of the President’s party. Then again, a black woman playing a flute or a black Olympic gymnast bowing out of competition for reasons of health, safety and the overall benefit of her team and her country makes them apoplectic as well.

Mitch McConnell, and his equally weak House counterpart, Kevin McCarthy, attempts to talk tough, but in the face of a bully with no clothes, they cower in conscience and courage. Former Republican campaign manager and strategist, Stuart Stevens, ably points out in his book, IT WAS ALL A LIE, how the party’s principles he worked for conveniently disappeared to appease Donald Trump and have the chance at perpetual power. Stevens is one of few Republicans, and ex-Republicans, who are sounding the alarm that the only way to preserve this democracy is for Republicans to lose at the ballot box at every level.

A staggering number of Republicans and conservatives who refuse to accept the 2020 election victory of Joe Biden, even after multiple recounts confirmed Trump’s defeat, are on midterm ballots at the federal, state and local levels. Many have openly declared war on the right to vote and have that vote counted. At every level, they are determined to convince voters that the life and health choices of half the population are not as important as the cost of food, which they cannot fix due to global concerns, the rise in crime which, coincidentally, they caused with their loose and outlandish gun policies after Trump got elected, and their insensitive and racist treatment of immigrants fleeing Communism. Ronald Reagan would not be proud.

As the brutal assault on the Capitol escalated on January 6^th, and elected members of Congress and their staffs were calling their loved ones to say goodbye, Republican members of Congress still voted not to certify the Presidential election knowing their lives had been put at risk, only hours earlier, by a mob doing Donald Trump’s bidding. It is unfortunate that ethics standards preclude journalists from revealing the fact that many of the Republican office holders loathe Donald Trump but refuse to say so “on the record.”

McConnell admits to not having spoken with Trump in years and would like the Party to be able to move on without the former President. But it is McConnell’s cowardice and lack of foresight that has allowed Trump’s dominance over the Senator’s caucus as well as McCarthy’s. They could have easily ousted Donald Trump after, and before, January 6^th and used their superb message machine, which always seems to befuddle Democrats, to put Trump and Trumpism out to pasture months ago.

However, it does not change the incontrovertible fact that it was McConnell’s not so subtle racist treatment of President Barack Obama that led to a very fateful trip down an escalator at Trump Tower that really makes Mitch McConnell the original MAGA MAN.

We Don’t Need Another Fuhrer

By Calvin Hill

There is a general consensus that the present day Republican Party has no bottom. But why would one be expected in an abyss. They see nothing wrong with grabbing women by their vaginas as long as the perp can say it with pride. When the GOP turned on John McCain, Gold Star families and the CIA, the march toward embracing fascism could not be far behind. Now, even the FBI and law enforcement are their enemy.

The recent revelations that Donald Trump spirited boxes of documents, belonging in the federal archives, down to his Mar-a-Lago playpen declaring, “They’re not theirs, they’re mine,” tends to belie all the self-serving confessions that his administrative detractors had to stay wedded to his abominable leadership in order to dispel him from his worst instincts. Now that we know Donald Trump wanted America’s generals to be more like Hitler’s generals, there was nothing any of them could do to stop his worst instincts short of a 25^th Amendment expulsion. Calling the gallows on the Capitol grounds meant to lynch VP Mike Pence “common sense,” attests to that fact, notwithstanding his appreciation of the death and carnage of January 6^th in service to his many lies.

The aftermath of January 6^th, 2021 brought forth scathing indictments of the former President at the podiums of both Capitol chambers, not by Democrats, but the Republican leaders of the House and Senate. However, both Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell  reneged on their oath to the Constitution and any loyalty to the democratic republic for which it stands. Trump has not been secretive about his disdain for McConnell while angling for his defeat as Senate Republican leader. Sadly, McCarthy’s pathetic allegiance to the pathologically mendacious Mr. Trump sees that misguided loyalty as his route to Speaker of the House not realizing that the disloyal Donald Trump will never forget that McCarthy was the enemy when The Donald needed his loyalty most. Clearly, if McCarthy is ever elevated to the Speakership, it will not be with the endorsement of Donald Trump.

Every Fuhrer needs a cadre of blind loyalists willing to die for their leader – until faced with death after the fall of that leader. The hundreds of January 6^th defendants now faced with their loss of liberty, courtesy of the long arm of the law, no longer profess, “Whose house? Our house,” but fall back on the adage of every war criminal – “I was just following orders,” when faced with the incriminating audio and video of them raining flagpoles and baseball bats on police officers. Even Carrie Underwood knew enough to only use her destructive instruments on “His pretty little souped up four wheel drive,” not on the cheater.

Even now, more than 19 months after Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took their oaths of office, the delusional Donald Trump is expecting some imaginary legislative force to discard the 2020 election results and simply reinstall him as President immediately. No word of what he wants done with Mr. Pence. And as the Department of Justice ramps up criminal investigations a lot more serious than Trump’s past illegal and questionable proclivities for racial discrimination in housing, fleecing non-profit organizations, and playing musical chairs with his businesses and properties in contest with the tax man, Trump is burying himself in social media confessions rife with self-incrimination. After having pled the 5^th Amendment hundreds of times in the New York State civil investigation of the Trump Organization, then witnessing the endless stream of absurdities Trump unleashes on his social media platform, there is a tendency to presume, “He can’t really be this stupid!” Then it forces you to recall that his older sister said she is the one who did his homework.

His sociopathy and narcissism renders Trump incapable of taking sound legal advice. Unable to secure some of the better criminal defense attorneys usually available to subjects and targets of adequate financial means, Trump appears to have been forced to avail himself of counsel from the law offices of Moe, Larry, and Curly Esq. who go on conservative media outlets and make ridiculously idiotic claims having no basis in fact.

The Republican Party is dumbing down education by banning books, controlling women’s medical choices, decrying the existence of parentage of same sex couples and pledging to keep courses out of public schools that are only taught in law and graduate schools. The Republican Party, and their comrades on conservative media outlets, feign insult when President Biden specifically calls out the MAGA Republicans as “semi-fascists” and threats to democracy. What is a President of the United States supposed to say when Republicans ignore the threat and continue to bend the knee and show fealty to a man who condones violence on the citizenry in service to his lie, refuse to condemn the sight of swastikas, a Camp Auschwitz t-shirt or a Confederate flag parading through the Capitol, neglect the theft of their own supporters and, insult to injury, are conspicuously silent when Donald Trump offends the American military hierarchy because they were not more like Hitler’s generals. 

Meanwhile, several Republican Governors and legislatures have waged an all out assault on the right to vote as well as Ronald Reagan’s idea of a welcoming America to those seeking our constitutional freedoms and opportunity. Should their anti-immigrant efforts become a nationwide success, prepare to see a celebratory gathering of right-wing white supremacists taking turns chiseling away the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty as they replace it with “Tired and poor huddled masses are not welcomed here. Yearn to breathe free elsewhere.”