Aquarian Weekly
3/1/23
 
Reality Check
 

James Campion
 
 
RUSSIA’S INVASION OF UKRAINE ONE YEAR OUT
A Retrospective for the Hell of It
 
A year of pain, sorrow, faith, and unity.
– Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week.
     
It’s been one year since Russian “troops” rolled into Ukraine as a mighty force to crush the ragtag defenses of its neighbor on the flights of demented fancy conjured by its omnipotent ruler and despot Vladmir Putin. The claims out of the big bad Ruskies were that this baby was going to be short and painful for the “enemy” and quick and glorious for the home team. Showing might and righting historic wrongs, it was going to bring former glory back to the mother country, return land once heralded as part of a great and long-remembered empire, and show the world the invincible power of Putin and his charges that had only been a suggested concept by a blustery middle-aged mental midget.  

How’s that going?

Well, for one thing, this is now a year old. The shock and awe bullshit that we bought when the Iraq War, going into its twentieth year now, was sold by our government, was duly pitched to the Russian people and its blatantly overrated military. The geniuses in the George W. Bush Administration said we would be welcomed as liberators, and it will all be clean as the proverbial whistle and done in a few arduous months. This obviously did not occur. Remember “Mission Accomplished?” That disaster was so far-reaching it not only elected America’s first Black president, it went on so long another Republican one used it to mock Bush and completely transform the party from international police force mongers to its current home of bleating isolationists. That is some rancid journey.

War is the great reality check, for everyone. It teaches us the valuable lesson uttered time and again by that beautiful brute, Mike Tyson, who said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” And the reality check goes both way, kiddos. Ukraine did not roll over as Putin, and let’s face it, the world expected. It fought. And won. And continues to fight and win and endure in the face of this aimless blunder. 

If history teaches us one thing, it is that invasion, a favorite of humans everywhere since the dawn of civilization – I’m reminded of the brilliant opening “Dawn of Man” scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 – a Space Odyssey, with the monkey men and the watering hole, the bone, and the smashing of a skull for dominance – needs to be over in a few days, weeks or maybe a month or two. Once things get into the six- month-to-one-year-anniversaries it tells you things went horribly wrong. Say what you want about these lunatics, but Julius Caesar, Genghis Kahn, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, even Hitler had it down. Putin, not so much. This was a grand fuck-up on the world stage and he is eating it right now.

But what about the Russian citizens? These poor people and their descendants have endured the hardships of war for centuries and are once again paying a terrible price for the musings of a madman. International sanctions have crippled the country. You could make the case that the war might be the only thing propping it up. The casualties have mounted far beyond the accepted rate by any society without the obligatory blowback, and the riots in the streets and the abandonment of duties by hundreds of enlightened Russian soldiers on the battlefield have underlined this. 

There is very little that has happened since the tanks cruised across the border that did not go sideways for Putin and it will continue to go sideways now that even more countries are backing Ukraine. More weapons are pouring in from the United States and elsewhere daily. They gain and lose ground in a weird two-step that costs them lives and treasure for no payoff. How is this supposed to end, if not badly?

Ukraine did not roll over as Putin, and let’s face it, the world expected.

Of course, we are no strangers to quagmires, Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan (also a fine Soviet screw-up) and the aforementioned Iraq. Shit, I was dubious a year ago when I wondered what might be the endgame had this ended well for Putin in a week, as he surmised? Governing a people who do not want to be governed is bad mojo. Terrorist plots, assassinations, insurrection; ask the British how the whole colonization of Ireland went? For that matter, their 18^th century shenanigans around here.

But enough about history, the doomed-to-repeat-it bromide is already in effect. It has not dawned yet, if at all, on Putin that he royally screwed up and he should cut his losses. He was offering his people the kind of rose-colored gas-bag routine this week that sinks republics. Cutting losses for people with penises is not an option. Doubling-down on bad ideas is how men roll. Especially powerful men with daddy issues who use the nations they lead as a half-assed form of therapy to prove in some violent way that their penis is bigger than the next guy’s. 

It all comes down to this, and for Putin, I assume he will have to be assassinated. That is the best bet, because then the next guy can just say it was his fault and save face. Blaming things on the last guy is also a big favorite among the penis-set. Although, there are plenty of us walking around with vaginas who are also dipshits. Not sure if that is so much male v female malady. Looks like simply being a bipedal mammal is the cause. 

At the very least this ugly year of the latest in a long line of pointless European conflicts has helped us better understand history and psychology. Of course, it has come at a cost. It has been an unmitigated horror show for Ukraine and its battered but unbowed people, who bravely fight on despite what was supposed to be an overwhelming beat-down. As a small guy with a modest penis who had to deal with his share of bullies from childhood to yesterday, I am inspired and buoyed by all this. And I am proud we are backing the right horse and that not one American has had to die for it, unlike previous embarrassing military clusterfucks. We spend enough tax money on our obsession with weapons, why not use them to take down the odd tyrant?

Nevertheless, onward we go. More misery and stupidity.

Mammal style. 

I’ll have more to say on this at the two-year anniversary. 

See ya there.   

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Aquarian Weekly
2/15/23
 
Reality Check
 

James Campion
 
 
FIRST AMENDMENT CRISIS IN FLORIDA
Governor Ron DeSantis & Fascist Republicans Shit on Constitution
 
Republicans run Florida. They are now using that power to ban books in schools.

This is a real thing. I’ll write it again.

Republicans run Florida. They are now using that power to ban books in schools.

Let that sink in. It is important you do. 

There is no reason to ask why about this. Nothing that can be offered up as a “reason” or “excuse” for defecating on the First Amendment of the United States Constitution will suffice.

It is a crime perpetuated on the citizens and children of Florida by its government. 

And if you have a specious retort to this, please stop reading and go press your brown shirt.

For the rest of us, I am going to assume no matter your political leanings, anyone reading his right now cherishes the freedoms provided by the United States Constitution. That is why you are reading this right now. There are many who are fans of some its Articles over others, and its vital ensuing Amendments, but the general respect of the document is, or should be sacrosanct. 

I realize the irony of that statement in a post-Trump world where Republicans lose elections and declare victory for months and years afterwards, insurrections have and will happen, and the Fourth and Fourteenth amendments are out the window for women. 

But humor me.

I, for one, am a big fan of the First Amendment, which guarantees the government shall make “no law prohibiting the exercise of freedom of speech and expression.” That’s a biggie. I mean, is there even a functioning democratic republic without this? Of course, this applies to literature. Banning of books is a no-no. Although previous fascists have had their way in this arena but were struck down eventually, it is and has always been against the law; the law provided by the Founding Fathers and upheld with massive bloodshed. 

Florida doesn’t give a shit about any of that. 

Banning books is pretty much the poster child of fascism. It’s what the Nazis did first, before all the camps and invasions. Currently, however, the Florida government has chosen to arbitrarily ban books from its school systems. No matter their argument for this, which is stupid, racist and a shamelessly transparent showpiece to help its governor, Ron DeSantis gain the approval of Republicans, so he can run for president, it is unconstitutional.

So, what is being done about it?

Well, you could sue and hold it up in court until it gets all the way to the Supreme Court, but that is now packed with fascists, who have stripped 51-percent of the populace of their reproductive rights and handed the decision over the same type of governments. So, where do you think that is going?

The most recent legislation in question is House Bill 1467, enacted last July, which mandates that books in Florida’s public schools be free of “pornography” and suited to “student needs,” as determined by a librarian or school media specialist. 

Banning books is pretty much the poster child of fascism.

Short aside: the SCOTUS – a previously functioning one, not the current fascist one – has already determined that state-sanctioned definitions of “pornography” is in not constitutional. Who decides what is porn? I can make a very good case that the rape, mass orgy fuck-fest and seduction addled free-for-all in the Bible is pornography. It really is inarguable. Have you read that thing? I did. Three times. Oof.

Okay, now back to these “specialists,” who are making these “decisions” on what is acceptable free speech. Doubtless they are white, fascist, Republican religious nutcases. The “retraining guidelines,” which only became available in January, according to Andrew Spar, the president of the Florida Education Association, are ambiguous. The chief academic officer (whatever the fuck that is) of Duval County (wherever the fuck that is), took a stab at it: “Books not on the district-approved list or not approved by a certificated media specialist need to be covered or stored and paused for student use.” 

I ask: What in the holy name of bicycling Christ does ANY of that mean? 

I’ll take my own stab at it: Right-wing lunatic or lunatics – they are unclear of the number or actual unelected shadow-people – who will go by a chosen name of “Media Specialist” (to make it sound official and not criminal), a will enact a “district-approved” – more fascist right-wing nomenclature – “list” of what books meet standards. (Again, who decides the “standards?” 

If I had written this about 1930s Germany, you’d shake your head in disgust and thank whatever deity you subscribe to that WWII eradicated this bullshit. But it is going on in Florida. Right now. In the United States of America.

To put a turd cherry on top of this pile of legal feces (Yes, I am riding the defecation metaphor hard here, wouldn’t you?): Not complying with this results in what one superintendent quoted in a recent AP piece will be “a felony of the third degree.” This is due to a pre-existing law prohibiting the distribution of pornography to minors.

Like, the Bible?

How does this happen? Well, how does any fascism begin? Fear. For the Germans, fear of Jews and Communists. For Florida, fear of African Americans and progressives.

What DeSantis does is hide this racism in a cloud of rhetoric about “Woke Mobs” and “Critical Race Theory.” Or the more ominous-sounding CRT, which is all the rage on brainwashing right-wing media. We don’t have enough time to cover the college-level merits of “CRT” (never taught to public grade-school kids) here, but like the Deep State and Trump having won the 2020 election, it is a fantasy concocted to scare the great unwashed into voting for half-assed idiots who shout during State of the Union speeches and knuckle-drag their way through culture wars to hide their horrific governing agenda, which is usually nothing with a side of nothing.

To wit: DeSantis previously introduced his fancy “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which disallows the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity through third grade, and another bill, known as the Stop Woke Act, which prohibits teaching that someone “must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” on account of their race or sex.

In his charmingly monosyllabic way, the governor and his fascist minions believe that teaching the history of this country – the true history, which is what education should be – might “offend” people, mostly white people. The coverage of slavery, Jim Crow, systemic racism, hurts white people’s feelings. But I ask genuinely, why? Is this guilt over admitting that racism still exists and they wish to quell this? Are they afraid a new generation might finally cop to this? I’m white. I do not feel or have never felt learning about these things makes me guilty, because I am not. Reminds me of bigots claiming gay marriage threatens their marriage.  Makes you think they doth protest too much, no?

Anyway, none of this matters – because even if they were “scared” or “sad” or whatever about Black History, this is still not good enough to ban books. Let me repeat: There is no reason good enough to supersede the First Amendment. This all sounds to me like cancel culture, anyway. It is no different than the left’s attack on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the most effective and influential book attacking racism ever published only two decades the goddamn Civil War for having the N-word in it. There is no difference. It is criminal.

By the way, Mark Twain rules!

But Florida has cleared the shelves and boxed up the offending literature just the same. All of this hinges on the whims and psychosis of a few people; right-wing, republican people, who play footsies with the Constitution as if it is a mere suggestion.

To be fair, I will let Ron DeSantis, who by the way is Italian, a race that was not considered “white” until halfway through the last century and for most MAGA crazies he is courting with this nonsense, still are not considered so, have the final word.  

“In Florida, our parents have every right to be involved in their child’s education. We are not going to let politicians deny parents the right to know what is being taught in our schools. I’m proud to sign this legislation that ensures curriculum transparency.”

He is a politician currently denying parents and their children’s rights.

Translation: Fuck the constitution. I run things. My way or the highway.

Or fascism. 

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Aquarian Weekly
1/18/23
 
Reality Check
 

James Campion
 
 
REPUBLICAN OBSESSION: FEDERAL ABORTION BAN
Women’s Reproductive Rights Already Under Siege by 118^th Congress 
 
 
Within 72 hours of taking a slight majority in the House of Representatives we get a unanimous (222) Republican vote on two bills to ban abortion nationally, building on the unconstitutional Supreme Court ruling that tossed a 50-year federal law protecting women’s reproductive rights provided by the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and sent it to the states. EVERY Republican voted for this, even moderates from blue states that barely gave the fascists the gavel after a surprisingly lackluster midterm showing due to the backlash of the SCOTUS overreach. These fuckers couldn’t agree on a Speaker of the House for fifteen rounds of voting over the course of a week, the first time it took that long in 150 years. But with their seats barely warm, they came together to hammer home what they are really about: Curving inflation? Nope. Curtailing crime? Na. Fiscal responsibly? Pish-posh. Border security? Not a wit. Enslaving 52-percent of the populace, this is their aim.

Although almost every pundit and insider paying attention to such things realized that beyond the Republican insurrection of 2021 fueled by a year of anti-democratic rhetoric, the striking down of Roe v Wade last summer led to a Democratic uprising to not only stem the tide of a purported Red Wave (and to be fair, considering the economy and two-hundred-plus years of history about the opposition party doing well in the first midterm of a president, it was expected) the Dems kept the Senate and nearly the House. Again, what saved the GOP were Republicans in states that have protected abortion laws – New York, New Jersey, and California. Voters stupidly thought their rights were safe, so why not vote Republican? However, in states where there are Draconian laws jailing doctors and rounding up rape victims or women with miscarriages, the Republicans shit the bed. These blue-state voters were wrong. Surprise! Republicans are pushing for a federal ban on abortion that will put you in the same boat as Alabama or Texas.

At least those who tried to downplay this civil rights disaster in a shameless attempt to get elected can now be outed. We know where they REALLY stand. ALL of them. There are no moderates in a party now completely ruled by fascists and religious fanaticism. There is ZERO reason to ever vote Republicans if you believe in habeas corpus, the right to privacy, and certainly keeping the fucking government off our bodies. And this is for all those men who don’t give two shits what women they knock up, it’s their problem now – first it will be women, but believe me, they will stop at nothing. These lunatics who preach that guns are sacrosanct, but women’s uteruses are open season? They will come for your cocks next, bubba.

Republicans want to do one thing: Reduce women to baby machines under the threat of law.

I had a progressive friend recently rightly point out that without the senate or the presidency these kinds of showcase bills are merely to toss red meat at the great unwashed. But I reminded him as I do all the centrists, progressives, independents, and general believers in the concept of freedom, we are only two years away from a very difficult map for Dems in the senate and a presidential election. All this changes if Republicans gain power. They will, if this week is any indication, take all of three days before they will ban all abortion everywhere. Just like the justices who told everyone Roe v Wade was “settled law,” then got appointed and tossed it without a second thought. These bills prove without a doubt that they will ban abortion nationally in 2025 if elected. And they aren’t even being coy about it anymore. First time in power since 2018 and BAM! Two bills that would be law if there was a Republican senate and a Republican in the White House. 

And this warning goes for the final few who identity as Republicans but do not want women to be arrested for deciding what to do with their healthcare. Because this week, with these votes, Republicans have shown their hand. Check that. They have shouted from the rooftops, that this is a siege on women’s rights, and it will not stop until all fifty states are under their thumb.

These votes prove what I have been telling you all along, so this is not hyperbole from a guy who practices it routinely here. This is reality and, as I pointed out last week, the sooner we come to grips with it, the better. There is nothing left to do by vote for the only party protecting women to have enough Democratic representatives, senators, and a president to cement into law protections from government rule over women. And this goes for Democrats running from now on. This must be the lead to any discussion, debate, campaign ad, whatever. Take rights back. Protect the citizenry from tyranny.

This is what voting for Republicans gets you. All that talk about the economy and cops and all the other bullshit is just that. Republicans want to do one thing: Reduce women to baby machines under the threat of law. And they will run the entire thing from Washington D.C.

This past week they voted for this reality TWICE. 

And they are not going to stop.

WE have to stop them.

NEVER SURRENDER.

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Aquarian Weekly
1/11/23
 
Reality Check
 

James Campion
 
 
MR. MCCARTHY YOUR CHICKENS HAVE ARRIVED & ARE PRIMED TO ROOST
Republican Domestic Terrorism Part II
 
As I write these words on the second anniversary of the attempted insurrection of this nation planned, led, and perpetuated by one of two of our major political parties, the Republicans are once again taking their anti-democratic agenda to the floor of the United States Capitol. This time instead of storming through the windows and killing cops, they got inside legally. Voters put them there. Well, gerrymandering and weird results in otherwise blue California, New Jersey and New York put them there, but they got inside nonetheless, and they are very much doing the same thing – wrecking the place. Instead of flak jackets, Confederate flags, and semi-automatic guns, they don suits and make speeches. But make no mistake, this is more of the same. Republicans destroying democracy.

The focal point of this has been minority leader, Kevin McCarthy getting struck down in a once-in-a-century rejection by his own party to become speaker of the House after Republicans took a slim majority when the purported Red Wave failed to materialize – like the Death Panels, the Caravan, the Wall, the Rigged Election, and most Republican delusions of the past years. The count by the time I write this is eleven – each time McCarthy sat there gobbling down the very shit he shoveled into the chamber over the past fifteen years, as he dreamed, connived, and boasted about getting the gig and using the gavel to beat the previous speaker, Nancy Pelosi over the head with it. 

This very public, tragic, and gloriously hilarious humiliation was made ever more painful when considering McCarthy failed in much the same way in 2015 and was forced to demure to a flustered Paul Ryan, who heard from the last guy, John Boehner how vile it was to corral the heap of bleating feces known as the Freedom Caucus into a governing construct and proceeded to get his ass kicked for five long years. That is until his president, Donald J. Trump – the domestic terrorist avatar – coughed up the House and the Senate and eventually the presidency and riled up the great unwashed to storm the Capitol and we know the rest.

But McCarthy is not the disease. He is the symptom of a virus ushered into the House on the 2010 Tea Party wave. Remember those guys? Oh, what a merry time of misrule that was – phony anti-government ideologs joining the government as a knee-jerk outrage to the Affordable Care Act (very popular now). Once again deluded into thinking the public wanted their Ayn Randian nonsense, they turned the chamber into middle-school rebellion, like smoking in the boys’ room but with press conferences. White guys on parade – Eric Cantor (soon sent packing by a further right-wing insurgence) and the aforementioned Paul Ryan, who helped the Trump Administration explode the national debt – very un-Ayn Randian. They called those three the Young Guns back then, before it all went terribly wrong. They were going to change things, but soon Cantor and Ryan were unceremoniously sacked, leaving McCarthy to hang around and sniff a new cynical angle. Devoid of integrity and clearly possessing no actual ideology, he hitched his wagon to the MAGA crowd that made the Tea Party look like liberal hacks. But because Republicans were under another delusion that anyone really wanted Trump as opposed to rejecting the establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton in the Bush-Clinton-Bush three step, they quickly found themselves once again out of power.

McCarthy is not the disease. He is the symptom of a virus ushered into the House on the 2010 Tea Party wave.

And this brings us to this week, where the mutated offspring of McCarthy’s silly Tea Party (please read this address I made at a 2010 Tea Party rally for my excellent prediction of all this) arrived hell-bent to deny him the speakership in much the same way he came riding into town – anti-American blather cloaked in patriotic swill. The delicious irony is hard to ignore. The very flawed, gerrymandered-district-nothing-to-lose domestic terrorists (and that is how former GOP speaker and dementia-addled Newt Gingrich framed them this week) are giving McCarthy a bit of his own dime-store boondoggle. 

If you campaign and win virtually uncontested races, then you have no incentive to govern. Vote for a speaker of the House? Why? It’s way more fun pissing on the whole thing by voting for Trump or some unknown Black Florida congressmen to play a little “identity politics vengeance” and use the TV time to rail about the border when all you really want to do is strip women of rights, oppress votes, and support Russian aggression in Europe. 

And thus, McCarthy is royally and effectively fist-fucked by his own making.

Mr. Frankenstein, your monster is here to see you.

And to best illustrate how completely delusional the entire Republican implosion is look no further than to its media blowhorns, which defended a violent rejection of our democracy two years ago but now preach sanity to embrace the law. Well, fuck them. At least these duly elected twenty-plus representatives who are making a mockery of the system, the country and the party are not treasonous criminals. But to hear the Sean Hannitys or Tucker Carlons, the NY Post or the Wall Street Journal tell it, they are mad. 

But to be fair, the very aberrations that whisked McCarthy into power and are now denying him the gavel, were invented and then disseminated by these rodeo clowns

The echo chamber giveth and taketh away. 

Sure, reality sucks for those who guaranteed a Red Wave and are faced with three days of abject degradation instead. The same strange reality of accepting defeat after being told Trump was going to win despite mountains of polling evidence before and then raw numbers after the 2020 election. You see, we may be witnessing political suicide, but none of it suddenly happened this week or even two years ago. This was the long-range plan embraced and perpetuated by its latest victim, Kevin McCarthy, who visited Trump days after the 2021 insurrection to gain his favor. Ask Mike Pence how that works. He got to be vice president eating the same dung for four years, listened to Trump toss him to the wolves, and then watched in horror from his office window as Trump terrorists erected gallows with his name on it. Those gallows and these protest votes to screw McCarthy started with his Tea Party and grew into his MAGA and ends with the convergence of January 6 of 2021 and 2023.

But who cares about McCarthy or the Republican Party? What I am here to ask is why do we keep voting for these people? It’s like inviting al Qaeda to hang out at the Freedom Tower in NYC.

The Republican Party is the enemy of democracy. 

The sooner we all come to grips with this and defeat and that enemy, a better America it will be.     

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Aquarian Weekly
12/28/22
 
Reality Check
 

James Campion
 
 
TRUMP: THE WEEK THAT WAS
From Recommended Criminal Charges to Fraud-Addled Tax Returns                     
 
Can anyone recall a worse week for a public figure that did not end up face down on a rug in his bathroom with his pants down around his knees? I cannot. Please wrack your brain. You will come up short. In a whirlwind shitstorm that swept away the final crumbs of delusion that Donald Trump is any more than a bizarre hiccup in the human genome, the former president was found potentially guilty on four counts in fomenting, planning, and covering up a coup d’état from the Oval Office and had his completely fraudulent tax returns exposed to the world. Trump has now fully joined his buddy, Vladmir Putin as a paper tiger exposed as a useless fat old fart with a daddy complex. At least Putin is still “in charge” of something, although that is debatable in most studies of political fallout. Trump is a doomed multiple loser that is slowly devolved into sad parody.

And as discussed last week, the Republican Party is trapped between trying to morph this wretched news into political witch-hunt status, a favorite defense of the pathetic one-trick-pony Trump playbook. Republican congressman Kevin Brady from Texas held a press conference calling the motivation for releasing tax returns “flimsy.” Perhaps Brady, who eerily sounds like a man recovering from a serious bout of brain bubbles, might consider listening to the guy he defends. Trump repeatedly told the nation in 2015 and 2016 that he would release his taxes once some fictious audit was done – spoiler alert, there would be no audit for another two years. Trump hid the damn things so he could hijack the country for four years after pulling the electoral equivalent of an inside straight that America duly corrected in 2018, 2020, and 2022, rejecting his ass-hat routine and those who run for office under its feckless construct.

Republicans can spin and hide all they want, their boy, twice impeached, while being the first one-term caretaker president to lose the House, Senate, and White House since Herbert Hoover, is fast becoming the latest parcel for history’s dustbin. None of the above compares to Citizen Trump’s bad news this week. Four counts of criminal behavior handed down from a bipartisan congressional committee to investigate one of the most violent uprisings against American democracy since Fort Sumpter is to put it mildly, and to quote the guy who sent Trump packing two years ago, “a big fucking deal.”

None of the charges would appear to have needed a special investigative counsel, though. For one, Trump admitted to two of them: Conspiracy to Make a False Statement and Obstruction of an Official Proceeding Conspiracy. For the former he might argue those statements about the 2020 presidential election being “rigged” were not false, despite zero evidence, dozens of failed court cases, and bogus recounts that made the loss worse, but he made them, and still makes them to the point where he is publicly declaring the U.S. Constitution should be abandoned because of it. And as for the latter, again, his aim for January 6, from public statements and Twitter-invites to come to the Capitol for his “Stop the Steal” (steal? See charge #1), because “it will be wild!” was clear. He also maintained (again falsely, see charge #1) that the vice president of the United States could halt the march of democratic order. He could not, and when he didn’t Trump tweeted that Mike Pence was a “coward.” And this was as domestic terrorists jacked on his bullshit and fancy invites were smashing into the Capitol and injuring and murdering cops, So, those are slam dunks.

He turned the executive branch into an insurrectionist outpost waging war on the rest of the federal government

Conspiracy to Defraud the United States was, let’s face it, the underlying principle of the Trump presidency. The entire thing was why people voted for him: to create a whimsical fuck-around for his own vanity and pleasure and take down a “corrupt government” run by godless pedophiles or whatever the flavor of the month was. Nothing he did from treason, obstruction of justice, placating foreign despots, and dismantling governmental institutions was no surprise for those who would eventually follow him into the violence of January 6. Hell, it might have worked as an actual governing principle, except it didn’t. It was a bleating, king-hell, stumble-bum farce and a pox on any idea of why there even is a United States of America. They/He tried, give them credit, but they/he failed in the most humiliating way, and now the piper has come for the check.

And finally, before we get to the tax issue, there is the charge to “Incite,” “Assist” or “Aid or Comfort” an Insurrection (quotes are in the brief). This was obvious from the start. Trump can’t lose. Otherwise, his father haunts him, the weird hair/tan/gut/floppy-suits/monosyllabic blather is not the eccentricities of a misunderstood genius, just the jabbering spittle of an abject moron. Losing is not an option for Trump, so he enacted all this stuff, and he got busted and now instead of whining like a little rich boy bitch, he should suck it up. When Trump told that dink Kevin McCarthy that “maybe you should be as angry as I and those brave people trying to take about our country” he had already copped to the above crime. Shit, they’re probably crimes if he were still a game show host or a gad about Manhattan, but he was the president of the United States when he committed them. He had full control of the U.S. Army. He turned the executive branch into an insurrectionist outpost waging war on the rest of the federal government – as he had previously taken on the intelligence community, the FBI, and the press for four years. The piper will see you now. 

Okay, so, onto the taxes, which prove one thing two ways: Trump was/is a fraud. For two years a purported multi-billionaire was cheating us by paying a paltry $750 (he paid zero taxes in 2020) or his supposed business acumen was/is patently false. Because those level of losses would kill sizable villages, with numbers so awful anyone even thinking about attempting to lend this goof money or partnering with him should probably walk slowly into the ocean to prevent infecting the rest of humanity. OR… he and his crack team lied about the whole thing. Which, of course, as expected, explains why whilst running for the nation’s highest office in 2016 he fought like cornered vermin to keep these things from us. And now it is out there – he sucks at business, or he is a tax cheat, and, again, a fucking criminal. Those are the choices. Pick one.

Either way, this was one whiz-bang, ass-reaming embarrassment of a week for Donald Trump, who, if memory serves, is running for president again. And will most likely be the nominee for the Republican Party, which is so morally bankrupt and intellectually damaged that it really has no alternative. 

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Aquarian Weekly
12/21/22
 
Reality Check
 

James Campion
 
 
REPUBLICAN TERRORISM
Weeding Out the January 6 Treason & It’s Fallout                       
 
More leaking. More implication of Republicans and members of the Donald J. Trump administration being culpable in the attempted overthrow of the United States government on the sixth day of January 2021. This week former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows finds himself once again in the firing line as over 450 of the originally discovered 2,300 texts reveal many Republican members of the U.S. Congress and Senate plotting to stop the ratification of a presidential election two months after it had been decided, many trying to convince an unhinged president to declare Martial Law and deploy the U.S. Army to keep control of the government and declare himself monarch. This is a thing that happened. We saw citizens act as the rabble insurrectionists, but it turns out more than the Oath Keepers, who were recently convicted by a jury on “seditious conspiracy” were actively conspiring treason.

Earlier this month, Meadows’ cooperation with the January 6 Committee (soon to be shut down by the terrorist wing of the newly controlled Republican House of Representatives) exposed his attempt to pull in the nation’s top national security officials, including the Department of Justice and Homeland Security, in a hackneyed effort to investigate completely unfounded claims of foreign election interference and voter fraud. At the behest of treasonous lunatics like the president’s legal team of Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell (currently being sued by Dominion Voting Systems, which has also filed lawsuits against Fox News and what I assume is a comedy channel called OAN for defamation) and convicted criminal Mike Flynn, whom Trump pardoned to commit more crimes, Meadows went rogue and tried to use the powers of the executive branch to obliterate our democracy.  

We learned this past summer that despite public and heated White House screaming matches with Powell and Flynn, who were pitching the appointment of a special counsel – without notifying congress – to investigate bogus claims of Chinese interference, emails Meadows handed over to the committee show he did contact then acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to look into something Trump was calling “Italygate.” An email dump this past October also uncovered Meadows, acting on behalf of the fucking president of the United States, infiltrated a recount in Atlanta, Georgia and tried to bully Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger into upending the results when the already recorded evidence that Trump tried convincing him and Arizona officials “to find me votes” was released.

The texts this week busted a whole lot of sitting congressman and senators with conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government. Texas Congressman Philip Babin reporting back to Meadows that he is worried Vice President Mick Pence is not on board with stopping the ratification of the electoral vote on 1/6, a fantasy Trump cooked up as a last-ditch effort to declare himself king. Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan riling up other members of the House to stand against the election results, speaking daily with the president about the “rigged election.” North Carolina Congressman, Ted Budd, just elected to the Senate, began furiously texting Meadows the day after the election that perpetual boogie man, George Soros was running Dominion and queering the vote. Georgia Congresswoman, who wore a mask for weeks in the chamber that read “Trump Won” begged Meadows to implore the president to declare Martial Law. (spoiler alert she spelled it “Marshall” because she is a stupid idiot who knows less about civics than my cats).

There is too many more to name, but they have all been outed by these text messages and with the January 6 Committee’s days being numbered, what can be done with these terrorists?

Many are untouchable, gerrymandered right-wing strongholds protect them from election peril. Those faced with actual comeuppance at the polls this past November were tossed out, but without a relentless campaign on the ground and in the press to weed out these maniacs much of the Republican Party is still in halls of power. Soon the GOP will have a slight majority in the House and will doubtless drag out the voting for Speaker, as party radicals have voiced opposition to projected winner, Kevin McCarthy, a man who spent days with Trump after the 2020 election and changed his position on “voter fraud” and Stop the Steal” so many times it is hard to keep track. Somehow, he is not anti-American enough for this group and they will make him twist in the wind for it and make sure he embraces the dark side. It remains to be seen if they can fuck the whole thing before the first month of 2023 is over.

With the January 6 Committee’s days being numbered, what can be done with these terrorists?

The committee has already recommended indictments to the DOJ for criminal offenses. Not sure what this will do or if Attorney General Merrick Garland will sign off on arrests and subsequent trials. But along with media pressure and keeping the names of these scum in the public eye, could help clean out the system of fascists. This should be the aim, otherwise, ready your muskets.

Irrespective of the fallout these people are enemies of the state and need to be outed as such. The leaked and already reviewed emails and texts bear this out. As long as this element is allowed to affect public policy more Draconian measure like the robbing of women’s rights and a dramatic lean on voters’ rights stand in the balance. In my experience, terrorists are not interested in governing, only to collapse the Republic. In public and in recent polls, many Republicans have grown tired of Trump’s act because he no longer can woo enough disaffected independents to win close elections. But there is a deeply disturbed cadre within the party that will continue to move Trump forward as the party’s presidential representative for 2024. Not even pipe dreams for untested Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the new darling of the stupid, will wipe this contingent out. It is truly a malignancy on the Republican Party, but most importantly, a terminal disease on the United States.

We’ll see if we can survive them.      

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