Skip to content

1984 all over again

Tuesday, June 3, 2025

This happened a few days ago, but I was in Vermont this weekend and too busy to write right away. Since no one reads this blog anyway I’ll just go ahead. As the title to the post indicates, this is yet another Trump era event that makes one thing again that George Orwell knew what he was writing about:Oklahoma is a red state that has favored the GOP in presidential elections since overwhelmingly backing Richard Nixon in 1968. Donald Trump won the state in 2020 and 2024, each time with over 65% of the vote. The Oklahoma Legislature is solidly Republican, and the governor and other statewide executive officers are all Republicans. All that said, Oklahomans are making headlines for their outrage at MAGA’s latest attempt at self-serving revisionist history. Parents, teachers, and other community members are pushing back hard against a new social studies curriculum that will cost taxpayers an estimated $33 million while forcing students to explore conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, as well as learn lessons grounded in Christian nationalism. Their demand for truth over nonsense in public education is fueling legal challenges and organized activism. State Superintendent Ryan Walters slipped in some extremist last-minute changes to an over 400-page curriculum mere hours before a scheduled vote, according to a Popular Information report. Most notably, these changes require students to spot “discrepancies” in the 2020 election, echoing language from debunked claims, including mail-in ballot “risks” and “sudden batch dumps.” Half the voting board members did not even realize the curriculum contained last-minute changes before their vote, as reported by Oklahoma Voice.

We have to remember that Winston Smith, the 1984 protagonist, didn’t spend all his time dumping the truth down the memory hole, he also spent time producing lies to feed to the folks who were under the heel of big brother. In fact, this short summary of the novel from Wikipedia sounds a lot like what’s happening today, doesn’t it?

The story takes place in an imagined future. The current year is uncertain, but believed to be 1984. Much of the world is in perpetual war. Great Britain, now known as Airstrip One, has become a province of the totalitarian superstate Oceania, which is led by Big Brother, a dictatorial leader supported by an intense cult of personality manufactured by the Party’s Thought Police. The Party engages in omnipresent government surveillance and, through the Ministry of Truth, historical negationism and constant propaganda to persecute individuality and independent thinking.

On the bright side, it’s good to see that there are folks, even in Oklahoma (after all, they’re not all loons out there) are fighting back, and it’s particularly rich that they’re using a law that was designed to help right wingers inject their version of religion into the schools. You know, the version of Christianity that tells you to love your neighbor as yourself, unless your neighbor is a different color, a different religion, a member of a different political party, etc., and also teaches that you should feed the hungry and provide shelter to the needy, it being understood of course that you’re talking about billionaires hungry for the food on the tables of the poor and needy for tax breaks so they can own as many houses as they want.

Filed in Creeping Totalitarianism | | Comments (0)

Got there first

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

A short time again I predicted that the federal government would quite likely start releasing fake statistics in the event the economy began to tank. Today, Paul Krugman predicted the same thing. I’d like to think that he got the idea from me, but for some reason I don’t think that’s likely.

The link is to his Substack. Subscribe to it. It is now the case that Substack may be the place to get the most informed news, as long as you’re properly selective about who you follow.

Filed in Ramblings | | Comments (0)

Hawley must be joshing

Friday, May 16, 2025

This post at Crooks & Liars interested me. Josh Hawley went on CNN and claimed to be totally against any Medicaid cuts. That’s not the surprising part. The surprising part is that John Amato, who wrote the post appears to believe that Hawley is serious.

You remember Josh, the guy who saluted the January 6th rioters and then…, well you remember that picture of him running away.

Now, it is somewhat possible that this is good news for the Democrats, because Republicans like Hawley want to be perceived as being against these Medicaid cuts, but I think it’s more probable that when push comes to shove, if they are in the bill that the Senate must vote on, he and all other Republicans will vote in favor (though Susan Collins will be concerned), and will either come up with some way to blame the Democrats for the cuts or claim that while they regretted the cuts, they simply had to vote for the bill because otherwise the government that has already fallen apart would fall apart.

So, I’m surprised Amato is willing to take Hawley’s statements at face value, though I’d be glad to learn I was wrong.

Filed in Republicans | | Comments (0)

Open Corruption, a compendium

Sunday, May 11, 2025

I keep a rather horribly written personal diary. During the first Trump reign, I would usually put up a paragraph or two about his most recent crime. A few years ago I began reading the “On This Day” entries to my wife, though I always skip reading the Trump parts, though I skim them be myself. It always amazes me how unbelievably dishonest, corrupt or incompetent acts by the genius have slipped down the memory hole, something that would never have happened had he been a Democrat. Today we hear about a corrupt act that will possibly be mentioned in the New York Times tomorrow, and then forgotten.

It occurred to me to keep a running tally of the corruption of Trump and his compatriots. My intention is to simply update this post on what will probably be a daily basis. So, here’s the first, undoubtedly the most corrupt action any president has ever taken, and all out in the open because he’s certain there will be no meaningful pushback, like, for instance the impeachment that should certainly follow. I will add more instances as they occur. I should have started this 100 days ago, so by now there’d be at least 100 examples. So, let’s start with today’s corruption:

  1. Trump has taken a $400 million dollar bribe in the form of a free airplane from the royal family of Qatar, which will supposedly be used as Air Force One but will then be transferred to the Trump Library once Trump’s term in over. In other words, they’re giving him a $400 million dollar plane in return for which they expect and will get something in return. As an aside, isn’t it sort of weird that a guy who has never read a book intends to have a library named after him.
  2. (May 14th) This is one of many, yet another bribe in the form of giant crypto purchases meant to line the geniuses pockets and assure favorable treatment to the buyer. A struggling tech firm with connections to China and a reliance on the Chinese social platform TikTok has reportedly secured funding to purchase up to $300 million worth of President Donald Trump’s memecoin.
  3. (May 15th) Kristi Noem wants a $50 million dollar airplane for herself, even though she already has one. So that makes Pam Bondi’s grift look like small potatoes. All she did was sell between one and five million dollars worth of Trump Media shares just before Trump sent the market, particularly the market for his stock, tumbling. I’m sure she’d say it was all coincidence, if anyone could get a direct answer out of her.
  4. (May 18th) Okay, this isn’t exactly an example of corruption, but it’s illustrative of the Republican tolerance for corruption so long as the corruption is Republican corruption. Mike Johnson says that the Trump corruption, as opposed to the (non-existent) Biden corruption is okay, because “Whatever President Trump is doing is out in the open. They’re not trying to conceal anything.”, which is quite true since they risk nothing by concealing nothing.
  5. A bit of a repeat, but now we know who’s openly bribing Trump through his crypto scheme.
  6. The Trump family is using its political clout to force the Vietnamese to let it build a golf course in Vietnam, despite the fact that doing so means Vietnam must violate its own laws. Once again, all out in the open, though the White House “said, in an emailed statement, ‘All of the president’s trade discussions are totally unrelated to the Trump Organization.’ It argued that there are no ethical issues as the president’s family develops about 20 Trump-branded properties worldwide, because the president’s sons run the businesses.” Give the New York Times some credit, but not much, on this one. They sort of push the idea that it’s corrupt, though they would never say that out loud.
  7. From Crooks & Liars: Donald J. Trump pardoned tax cheat Paul Walczak after his mother, Elizabeth Fago, attended a Mar-a-Lago dinner that cost her $1 million to attend. His mother’s support for Trump, including raising millions of dollars and a connection to a plot to publicize Ashley Biden’s diary, was cited in Walczak’s pardon application, The New York Times reports.
  8. Trump is looking to take advantage of the suckers yet again, by marketing a mobile phone about which he and his offspring are making promises they, of course, won’t keep. The phone itself is a rebranded Chinese T-Mobile, the price jacked up from $172 to $499. They’re claiming it will be made in the USA, but those with knowledge universally agree that’s pretty much impossible. They’re also claiming that the alleged $47.00 monthly fee will include 24/7 telemedicine, which is also a con.
  9. This one’s a bit different in that the corruption is of a different sort. Not selling out for money, but for a judicial appointment. Full story here. A Florida state judge who ruled in Trump’s favor in his bogus claim against the Pulitzer Prize Board angled for, and got, a nomination to be a federal district court judge in Florida, clearly in return for his vote. If he’s looking to step up to the Supreme Court he’s probably going to be disappointed, because Eileen Cannon probably has a lock on that.
  10. Okay, technically this doesn’t count, as the corruption took place before the election, but I’ll include it anyway. I’m sure this is going on behind the scenes today, because, after all, it’s not like the DOJ will ever prosecute any of this stuff. Pro Publica Reports that “[I]n 2023, while Kristi Noem was governor of South Dakota, she supplemented her income by secretly accepting a cut of the money she raised for a nonprofit that promotes her political career, tax records show.” The nonprofit is a dark money group, yet another bribery conduit for which we have to thank John Roberts, so we don’t know who the bribers were, but rest assured she knew where the money was coming from.
  11. I don’t think there has ever been a bribe paid to a president in such an obvious fashion as this, and that includes anything in items 1 to 10 above. Paramount’s owners are looking to make a couple of billion dollars by selling their business, but they need governmental approval and they know they won’t get it without paying for it. So they agreed to pay $12 million dollars to settle what must be one of the most meritless lawsuits ever filed in the United States, that being Trump’s suit claiming that CBS (a Paramount subsidiary) edited an interview of Kamala Harris in a way that hurt Trump’s fee-fees. Bernie Sanders’ statement on the bribe “settlement” puts things well.
  12. A bit late on this. Trump used at least $10 million dollars of taxpayer’s dollars to market a golf course in Scotland.
  13. You can’t get more corrupt than this. Trump has demanded $230 million from the DOJ as compensation for the investigation into his obviously actual ties to Russia. The DOJ is now run by the lawyers who represented him. The article to which I’ve linked claims he is under fire for making the demand, but my guess is that won’t stop him from pressing for the money nor his lickspittles from giving it to him.
  14. Remember when Google’s motto was something to the effect: “First, do no evil”. Something like that, I’m too lazy to google it. I guess they’ve left that behind, as they’ve contributed about 10% of the open bribe to Trump for his White House destruction project. Oh, some of the above was a bit misleading. I don’t google things, I DuckDuckGo them, and so far as I know the DuckDuckGo folks have not signed on to the Let’s All Bribe Trump team.
  15. Someone else is doing a better job of this. Check it out.
  16. Okay, I realize that this could easily be updated with a new bit of corruption every day, but there’s only so much I can do. I did run across [this](https://truthout.org/articles/kristi-noem-linked-firm-secretly-got-money-from-220-million-dhs-ad-contracts/) today. Kristie Noem used a bullshit excuse to avoid competitive bidding for an equally bullshit advertising campaign she initiated, so she could steer the money to a “Republican consulting firm with long-standing personal and business ties to Noem and her senior aides at DHS”. Well, of course she did.
  17. I freely admit that the quid pro quo is not totally out in the open on this one, but I think we can agree that given Trump’s modus operandi, it is unlikely that he would have pardoned the former president of Honduras, currently serving time for “facilitating the import of some 400 tons of cocaine into the United States,”facilitating the import of some 400 tons of cocaine into the United States,”facilitating the import of some 400 tons of cocaine into the United States” if there weren’t something in it for him. After all, this is the guy who is ultimately responsible for the murder of people in the Caribbean who he sees fit to convict without trial.
Filed in Impeachable, Republican Corruption | | Comments (0)

Another easy prediction

Friday, May 9, 2025

Yesterday I read a post by Dean Baker titled Productivity Tanks in the First Quarter. It’s behind a paywall so clicking on the link might not do you much good, though I do recommend becoming a Patreon subscriber of his, as he actually knows what he’s talking about. Anyway, the post begins as follows:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics today released its first estimate of productivity in the first quarter. It showed productivity falling at a 0.8 percent annual rate. This is really bad news.

Productivity matters a lot for both inflation and living standards. In the five years from 2019 to 2024, productivity growth averaged 1.9 percent annually. That is up from 1.1 percent annually in the decade before the pandemic.

The faster rate of productivity growth most immediately translates into lower inflation. As a first approximation, inflation will be equal to nominal wage growth minus productivity growth. If nominal wages are growing at a 4.0 percent annual rate, and productivity is rising at a 1.9 percent annual rate, inflation will be roughly 2.1 percent. (We could have some redistribution from profits to wages, reversing the rise in profit shares in the pandemic, but we’ll leave that one for another time.)

I think it’s fair to say that we’ll be seeing more bad statistics in the near future, but I’m also fairly sure that the statistics released by the federal government after the near future will have the economy looking great. Isn’t it obvious that those bad statistics are the results of incompetent DEI hires and that the proper thing to do is to make up good statistics and release them instead? After all, it seems only right to consign those pesky little “facts” to the memory hole and replace them with alternative facts that are much more to our liking.

Filed in Creeping Totalitarianism | | Comments (2)

A Trump flag that speaks true

Friday, May 2, 2025

I was somewhat taken aback by the opening paragraphs of this post at Crooks and Liars, written by LeftJabber:

For nearly eight years, I have regularly ridden my bicycle past a house that has faithfully flown a Trump flag, right underneath Old Glory, without interruption in all that time.

The flag has been refreshed over the years — from the original MAGA slogan, to “Keep America Great,” to “Trump 2024”— but the political commitment, and the willingness to proclaim it, have never wavered.

I have had the exact same experience. Most of my bike rides (I am obsessive and ride almost every day, except when it rains or snows), due to where my home is situated, begin with a climb up Fort Hill, reputed to be the steepest climb on Route 1 in the nation. At the top of the hill, just as I begin my descent, there has been a Trump flag under Old Glory since 2016.

But the similarities end there. LeftJabber writes that in his case, the flag has now come down, hopefully permanently, and he speculates that the Trumper, who he assumes is a male, may have recently reaped what he has sown.

Not so in the case of the Fort Hill Trumper. I have it on reasonably good authority that it is a woman, and her flags continue to fly. But here’s where it gets even weirder. After reading LeftJabber’s article I stopped on my bike ride, crossed the road to get close, and took this shot of the Fort Hill Trumper’s flags.

Okay, not the greatest shot, but I did my best. Sometimes I wonder if the Fort Hill Trumper has in fact seen the light, and has continued to fly her tattered flags as a metaphor for what Trump, his enablers, and those who pull his strings have done to the country. But alas, I’m not buying that that’s her intent. Even so, I think that’s the message that most people in this blue part of the state take away as they drive (or bike) by.

I should add that I have biked by a number of houses displaying Trump flags (though none for as long and as constantly as the Fort Hill Trumper), and in at least one case the flag has indeed come down. So, maybe, as LeftJabber speculates, some of these folks have seen the light, though it is always a mystery how anyone could not have seen it from the start.

UPDATE: A couple of days after I posted this I rode by the Fort Hill Trumper again, and it looked like the flags had been replaced with some of a non-tattered variety! I wasn’t sure, as I passed by quickly, but I’ve subsequently confirmed it. I leave it to the reader to decide whether the Fort Hill Trumper got feedback about this blog post. (Added on the 9th)

Filed in Right Wing Idiots | | Comments (0)

Lindsay Graham deserves an Olympic Gold Medal

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

It would have to be in a new sport, but whatever.

When I first heard about this:

I figured it was a joke, but not only does Kevin Kruse vouch for it, but so does Newsweek.

Full text, as it’s not all on the picture:

“I was excited to hear that President Trump is open to the idea of being the next Pope,” the South Carolina Republican wrote alongside a video of Trump’s remarks. “This would truly be a dark horse candidate, but I would ask the papal conclave and Catholic faithful to keep an open mind about this possibility!”

Now, before I get to the medal, let me go on a bit about something else.

As I’ve noted on this blog previously, I have an advanced degree in theology, particularly Catholic theology, from Our Lady of Sorrows Grammar School in Hartford, Connecticut. I no longer consider myself a Catholic, as the fact is that a Catholic grammar school education is practically designed to create atheists, but I’m still up on all the rules. Now, I won’t spend too much time explaining why Trump could not be Pope, but just to show off my degree, I’ll just list a few of the reasons:

  • Trump is not a Catholic, though I admit he could take the JD Vance route and get himself baptized without actually believing any of the basic tenets of Christianity, you know, like love thy neighbor as thyself.
  • Trump is perhaps unique in the world for having broken all Ten Commandments. And I’m not talking mere venial sins, which we all commit. I’m talking the mortal kind, the kind that get you a quick trip to hell. Like, putting a false god (himself) in front of the fictitious god that Catholics are supposed to believe in. Then there’s bearing false witness, which is another way of saying you’re not supposed to lie, and when was the last time Trump told the truth. Let’s see. What else. Adultery? He’s got that covered. I won’t go on. The reader can fill in the blanks.
  • Trump doesn’t believe in God. That’s sort of a requirement for being Pope. As I pointed out above, he thinks he’s God.
  • There’s plenty more, but who has the time?

So, back to Lindsay and his Olympic medal. The new Olympic Event is called Competitive Sycophancy. There’s plenty of Republicans playing it these days. But no one has exceeded Lindsay. Pam Bondi, et.al. can just take a seat after this, or go for the silver or brass. They can kiss Trump’s ass as much as the want, but they’ll never cover it as completely as has Lindsay.

Now I can’t stop there. I must make the obligatory observation that once again our media will either ignore this or pass it off as normal. The Newsweek article to which I’ve linked, for instance, says not a word about the total absurdity of Graham’s tweet. They report it, and move on to other things regarding the dead Pope. They don’t even bother to say that no, it’s not a joke, he really tweeted this and he really meant it.

Filed in Republicans | | Comments (0)

Thea are Nazis, after all

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

I’m a fan of the bloggers over at Lawyers, Guns and Money but I sort of take issue with Erik Loomis’s objection to “liberals referencing Nazis all the time when talking about Trump instead of realizing everything he is doing is very, very American”.

He makes an entirely good argument that American history is littered with examples of American politicians destroying democracy and human rights. Examples include treatment of Native Americans, slavery, the institution of Jim Crow after slavery was technically abolished, and, something he doesn’t mention, the recurrent demonization of immigrants, whether they came from Ireland, Japan, China, or Southern Europe.

But I would submit there is a very good reason why liberals should stick to the Nazi comparison, which is perfectly legitimate. After all, the point of making the comparison is to try to stave off the destruction of democracy. You go with what works, or at least with what might work.

At least at the moment, most Americans still consider the Nazis to be bad guys. It is something that 99% of us agree on, putting aside the holocaust deniers and Stephen Millers among us. Nazis have been successfully demonized (and rightly so) so that if an American hears a comparison to Nazis, and recognizes the legitimacy of that comparison, he or she will more likely to be won over to the side of the person making that comparison. It’s a lot more difficult, given the fact that so many Americans do have a distorted view of American history, to score points by arguing that Trump and his fellow fascists are just like some Americans of the past, Americans about whom most present day Americans are surpassingly ignorant. So I’m glad that folks on our side, such as Al Gore, are making the comparison. It may or may not work, but it has a better chance of working than trying to get people to rethink the American past.

Filed in History, Language | | Comments (0)

Another easy prediction

Thursday, April 24, 2025

Apparently it is the case that Ron DeSantis and his wife have been stealing money big time from the people of Florida.

The Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times obtained a copy of an early iteration of the settlement agreement between Centene and the state that confirms the $10 million “donation” Centene made to the Hope Florida Foundation represented the return of taxpayer dollars stemming from Medicaid overpayments.

…

Hope Florida is the non-profit headed up by Casey “Lady MacBeth” DeSantis, who seems to want to run for governor now that husband Ron has term limits. Now, what seems to have happened is, an assorted cast of Republican miscreants from the DeSantis orbit collaborated to move $10 million of that Centene payment to Hope Florida and then, almost immediately, to two PACs pushing to help Ron DeSantis claim victory in stopping recreational marijuana.

The article to which I’ve linked also points out that DeSantis just appointed an attorney general who, himself, should probably be on the side of the courtroom opposite the prosecutor, and not as the defense attorney.

So the title to the post to which I’ve linked is, and perhaps the title was written jokily: Will Ron And Casey Go To Jail Over $10M They ALLEGEDLY Diverted?.

So, I think I can answer that question. It is now impossible for a Republican politician to break the law, since the laws do not apply to them. Ron will retire from his term limited job in peace, and his wife, who is looking to succeed him will likely do so.

Filed in Equal Justice | | Comments (0)

Another Good Friday (One Day Late)

Saturday, April 19, 2025

I’ve been writing this blog for 20 years, though gone are the days when I posted almost every day. But if memory serves (and at my age it doesn’t always) I have maintained a Good Friday tradition since that long ago time. Every year I post a video of Monty Python’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.

This year I’ve had to give a lot of thought to whether the tradition should live on, as I’m having a lot of trouble looking on the bright side. Or, more accurately, I’m having trouble finding a bright side. We no longer stand at the brink of living in a fascist state. We do live in a fascist state.There’s a remote possibility that we can overcome those fascists, but it seems clear they intend to nullify the voice of the people in order to keep in power.

The lack of any bright side is one of the reasons that I have blogged so infrequently lately. There really doesn’t seem much to comment about, as everything seems so obvious. The future we left wing radical nutcases have been warning about for years is now here.

But we can’t give up. While there’s life there’s hope. So, in that spirit, the tradition lives on.

Filed in Music, Ramblings | | Comments (0)