Kool Aid Luke

And suddenly, there was silence...

Go figure. After spending the last decade and some, beating the drum about bogus endemic voter fraud sweeping the nation, it turns out (surprise!) that all along it was the Republicans who were the biggest perpetrators of actual election fraud.

Quick point of information, voter fraud is carried out by individuals who seek to misrepresent themselves in casting individual ballots. Election fraud is a systematic effort to influence the administration of an election so that the playing field is skewed in favor of one candidate over another. Mark Harris, the Republican candidate for the 9th Congressional district in North Carolina, attempted the latter while the North Carolina GOP accused Democratic voters of perpetrating the former. Oh, the irony.

Funny how that works. Looks like Donald Trump didn't write the fraudster playbook after all, he was just one of its more shameless, adept users. No, in fact, ever since the enactment of landmark voting rights legislation over 50 years ago, the GOP, in pursuing its Southern Strategy, has sought to roll back and neutralize these reforms. Give them credit, though. This is not your grandfather's Jim Crow. Now, they're much more "subtle," using a variety of techniques with the advantage of enjoying a thin veneer of legality:

• gerrymandering electoral districts, either by cracking or stacking them to dilute minority voice; 
• limiting the number of days for early voting to suppress voting by working class folks unable to take time off their jobs to go to a polling station; 
• reducing the number of polling stations, especially in areas populated predominately by poor folks and people of color: and, 
• as was the case in NC, harvesting and bundling absentee ballots from voters who are unaware of that this practice is actually illegal.

To add insult to injury, last year Donald Trump established a bogus commission, led by one of the country's biggest election fraudsters, Kris Kobach, Kansas' now former secretary of state, to investigate voter fraud. After several states refused to submit their electoral data to the commission, effectively rendering it toothless, Trump disbanded it. Since then, we haven't heard too much about this false crisis, which, by my estimation, is approximately #17 of a running list of 139 false crises manufactured by Trump and his cronies and enablers.

And now, when there is finally evidence of widespread election fraud, an actual crime, all we hear are...crickets. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. Or maybe I'm wrong, and it's not a guilty silence. Maybe the Republican Party has done nothing illegal at all. Maybe it was just poor messaging and what we really have here is just failure to communicate...

Rest NOT Assured

I read in this morning's Washington Post that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is nearing completion on his investigation - if he hasn't already - of the Trump campaign/administration and that he might deliver his report might soon. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-department-preparing-for-mueller-report-in-coming-days/2019/02/20/c472691c-354b-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html

Coincidentally, amidst all of the Trump goons going down with indictments, convictions and jail time, Trump has decided - with plenty of cover from supine Democratic Party "leadership" - to party like it's 1979 and rattle his little itty bitty saber. Led by the patron saint of mass murderers, Eliot Abrams, the US has attempted to stage a "soft" coup d'état in Venezuela and is now threatening the country with military intervention if they Nicolas Maduro doesn't hit the road, prontíssimo.

Coincidence...right? Sure, and I have some nice real estate to sell you in Florida, coincidentally in the same exact spot as Mar-a-Lago.

Back to the likely contents of the Mueller report...it appears there have been major movements of the lower intestinal variety by many in the White House in anticipation of its release, and with good reason. After Congress has a chance to view and use its findings, assuming newly minted AG William Barr allows it to go public in some form, federal prosecutors will have opportunities a plenty to follow up with their various investigation: into the now moribund Trump Foundation's self-dealing; the sources of the Trump inaugural committee's funding; and of course, the biggie, hush payments to Trump's "mistresses," which might well have been made with campaign funding.

To paraphrase the inimitable Dr. Seuss, "Oh, the places we will go!"

But before we get anywhere we'll have to endure more of the GOP operatives' trashing of Mueller, his team of prosecutors, and of national law enforcement agencies more generally. Funny, how this smack down of our security sector is being perpetrated by the so-called "law and order" Trump administration and its enablers, the so-called "tough on crime" GOP. I guess their ethical compass is calibrated to point to "true South," which means when they get into a jam rather than take responsibility, they come out swinging lead pipes, collateral damage be damned. At this rate, I wonder if there will be any of our institutions left standing should Trump make it to the end of his first term without first resigning or getting impeached, such is the GOP's willingness to smash all that it once held so holy and dear.

N.B. - I'm no great fan of this particular part of the U.S. federal government. The FBI especially has a deep, troubling history when it comes to delegitimizing, harassing and even assassinating civil society leaders who were identified as potential threats to power holders. Case in point, Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, along with fellow Black Panther Mark Clark and other innocents, were slaughtered while they slept during a raid carried out by the FBI and the Chicago Police in a December 1969 raid.

I'm just observing and expressing my frustration about how it always seems to work that the full weight of the federal government's coercive powers always land 99.9% on those without power, usually people of color and those who are economically disadvantaged. But when it's the powerful who have potentially run afoul of the law? Never mind...next subject...move along. Nothing to see here.

I also realize that pointing out the sheer mind numbing pervasiveness and scale and hypocrisy of how stuff actually works in America is an exercise in pointing out the obvious. Still, I still think it's worth stating it and demanding accountability, especially of the powerful. That accountability is rarely if ever exacted of the powerful makes me imagine that there must be some sort of black market for insurance to cover the their multiple, systemic abuses of authority, which led me to ink today's 'toon. I wonder if Trump & co. are covered? Or did he stiff his insurers, too?

Witch Hunt Season

We've all probably become numb to Trump's daily attacks on everyone and everything that doesn't feed and stroke his bloated ego: journalists, who do their job reporting facts instead of making stuff up and praising the beloved leader for his innumerable feats of supreme excellence; political opponents, real and imagined, who dare to call Trump to account for his "performance" as president of the United States instead of falling in love and in line with his magnificence; his own appointees and staff, who make the foolish mistake of occasionally following the law when carrying out their duties rather than blindly doing exactly--what--he--wants; and, of course, Trump's arch-nemesis, Robert Mueller, who may or may not be close to wrapping up with his investigation of the Trump campaign/administration and its shenanigans.

Today the New York Times published an exhaustive recounting, not only of what we have all seen and heard in these very public attacks but also those that are not so public and that have been carried out on the down-low.

It's well worth a read if only to help us appreciate one of the few areas where Trump and his merry band of slime-ball wannabe gangstas have shown a modicum of competency - going after and kneecapping people. You thought soon-to-be jailbird Michael "Stoolie" Cohen was the only "fixer" in Trump's inner circle? Evidently not. It's enough to make you rub your eyes and think you're watching a rerun of some forgettable episode of the Sopranos. But then you remember, "No, wait a sec. This is Trump. Tony and his crew were actually good at what they did." So, maybe a more apt comparison would be to characters in a Looney Tunes cartoon.

And given Trump's obsession with Mueller and his interminable "witch hunt" I couldn't help but think of one of my favorite episodes - "Wabbit Season." Seriously. Look at how Trump makes a big show of doing EXACTLY the very thing his lawyers (the good ones, the ones whom he fired or who fled the scene on their own volition) told him NOT to do. I'm no shrink, but this dude clearly has got some issues when he not only behaves in (borderline) criminal ways and then boasts that he did so AND that he'll get away with it. He's almost daring you to try to stop him.

And, so far, no one has. I don't have any great faith that the Mueller report, if it's ever actually made public, will include some smoking gun. Nor am I counting on the Democratic-controlled House to do the right thing and start impeachment proceedings. Instead, they're going about trying to stage a political death by a thousand committee hearings, which, as Yoni Appelbaum pointed out in the Atlantic, is far less likely to succeed. It's less likely to mitigate the damage Trump is currently wreaking on nation on a daily basis and it does nothing at all to safeguard our institutions in the medium-term from being thoroughly delegitimized by his constant trashing of our governing norms.

It's all enough to make me channel my inner Daffy Duck and insist, no, DEMAND, that someone shoot me now!

Low Barr

While we're all fixated with the coup d'état the Donald is in the midst of perpetrating, maybe folks haven't bothered to pay closer attention to another little news tidbit. The U.S. Senate confirmed William Barr as the next Attorney General of the United States. Here's a few things to mull about our new AG as he assumes his post, as taken from an article on the website of Democracy Now:

• As Attorney General (1991-93) under President George H.W. Bush, Barr "was involved in the pardon of six Reagan officials for the Iran-Contra scandal..." 
• He "...oversaw the opening of the Guantánamo Bay military prison, which was initially used to indefinitely detain Haitian asylum seekers." 
• "Barr also openly backed mass incarceration at home and helped develop a secret Drug Enforcement Administration program which became a 'blueprint; for the National Security Agency’s mass phone surveillance effort."
• He's just as pro-incarceration, anti-civil rights and anti-immigration as Jeff Sessions.
• Barr openly supported Trump's anti-Muslim ban.
• And, yes, he inappropriately weighed in with his interpretation of presidential authority as it relates to Trump's options in reaction to special counsel Mueller's ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign/administration's possible collusion with Russia.

Etc., etc., etc.

This is not the guy I want to be the nation's chief law enforcement officer. Actually, this is not the guy I want as a hall monitor in my kids' school. Instead, let him spend the rest of his career raking in big bucks to make some fat cats even fatter.

When the question is inevitably asked, "He couldn't possibly be worse than Sessions, and definitely nowhere near as bad as Whitaker?" I have to answer, "Uh-yeah!" Why? Because unlike his predecessors, (1) he has already served as AG and knows his way around federal bureaucracies in general and the Justice Department in particular; and (2), unlike most bottom-of-the-barrel scraping knuckleheads appointed by Trump, he might actually be really good at what he does. That should give us all pause, given his track record.

So once we get through Trump's attempted takeover of the U.S. Government, we might want to turn some of our attention to the DOJ where Barr will be looking to accelerate Trump's agenda with greater efficiency, competency and, at least for now, support from Trump himself. If you thought we couldn't go any lower, then you better buckle your seat belts and be prepared for the worst.

Brown Eggs & Ham

The interminable, chalkboard scraping reality TV dramedy that is the Trump administration is now looking at airing a rerun of the recent episode, "Government Shutdown: It's My Country and I'll Break It If I Want To." Earlier this week, Congressional leaders hammered out a compromise to keep the U.S. federal government open until the end of the current fiscal year, and it appears there's a good chance that both houses will pass it. There's only one problem.

The same problem we've been dealing with for the past 2+ years.

The press is all aflutter - "Will he? Won't he?" - will Trump sign the funding bill or will he veto it? If he vetoes it, will Senate Republicans muster the intestinal fortitude, retrieve their spines from cold storage and override Trump's veto? Here's the real question, and no, it's not border security. The real question is: will Congress, or anyone for that matter, focus on the actual problem?

Rampant, unfiltered, unvarnished state-sanctioned xenophobia and racism.

Clearly, Trump and his white supremacist muse, Stephen Miller, are doing whatever they can in their limited time in power to turn this nation into a hermetically sealed loaf of Wonder Bread. And while they're at it, they are taking great delight in making the lives of asylum seekers and migrants, mostly Central Americans attempting to escape a century U.S.-sponsored violence, as miserable as possible.

The ludicrousness of it all is what led me to hearken back to the most outrageously silly stories I ever read - Dr. Seuss, of course! And one of my all-time faves is Green Eggs & Ham. Don the Con made me think of Sam I Am and his tireless travails to find some way to get his friend to try this wondrous gastronomic delight. Sadly, with Don the Con, there's simply no pleasing him, especially since he's been an unrepentant racist sociopath all is life.

Check, please!

Nothing Personal

As readers of the Imperial Wardrobe have seen, I have mixed feelings about Speaker Pelosi. I'm no big fan of her incrementalist centrism, which at best is an effective rearguard action to defend against Republican efforts to send us back to the 19th century. However, I won't hesitate to give her credit when it's due. She's a master tactician, more than capable of carefully and purposefully advancing the Democratic leadership's agenda. Few can match her ability to ride herd on all of the little Democrat kitties, many of whom will often get distracted with whatever ball of yarn happens to bounce their way. And, of course, she knows how to make a fool of Il Duce, aka, il minaccia arancia.

Which brings me to today's entry for the Wardrobe. Whilst huffing and puffing and blowing his SOTU down into the gutter last week, Trump tried to threaten "Nancy" and the Dems in case they got it into their heads that it was open season on him and his brood. If they so much as thought about calling Trump & co. to account for their various and sordid activities and misdeeds, he promised he would flex his muscles and show'em who was really boss.

Yeah, right.

I couldn't track down the actual number of planned and current House investigations/hearings into the administration's various miscreants, but I'm guessing it ranges between one and two dozen. The Democrats' efforts stand in stark contrast to the those of Republicans, who cynically abdicated their institutional role responsibility over the past two years. They were too obsessed with ramming through as many unqualified, rabid right-wingers into the U.S. federal judiciary and making our society even more of Dickensian dystopia with yet another unaffordable tax cut for the super rich.  Describing them as asleep at the wheel probably doesn't do justice to the damage they did to our system of governance.

As my high school chemistry teacher liked to say, "Don't get mad. Get even." Who better to stick to the Re-flub-agains than Charm City's very own favorite daughter, Nancy Pelosi. They say that she learned the tricks of the trade at the feet of her father, former Bmore mayor, Thomas "Big Tommy" D'Alesandro. I'm sure she knows exactly how to read the riot act to Trump and his spineless Republican enablers without even raising her voice and all the while doing it with a smile. After all, she knows; it's nothing personal, or even partisan. Its governance.

Boyz In The Hood

It must be pretty bleak in the neighborhood around Governor Street these days in Richmond. The Boyz - all members of the power troika, the big 3, the heart of the order - whatever you want to call them - have managed to get themselves into hot water. Of course, I'm speaking about Governor Ralph Northam, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, and State Attorney General Mark Herring.

Northam and Herring disclosed, to varying degrees of forthrightness and honesty, that they engaged in some racist behavior in their past, dressing up in blackface. For Fairfax, a survivor has stepped forward to accuse him of having sexually assaulted her. He has vehemently denied it, and while I'm in no position to know or determine the veracity of her claim the fact that she hired the same attorney as Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford indicates to me that her accusations have some merit. What has been more interesting to me, though, has been to observe the Democratic 2020 hopefuls and other party heavyweights try to tiptoe through this minefield without appearing to be too hypocritical. Successful or not, you be the judge.

Of course, now the Virginia GOP, without even a complete news cycle to exploit their newfound bounty of bad news for the Dems, has revealed - not surprisingly - it has a few bad Boyz of its own. The Virginia Commonwealth Senate Republican Majority Leader, Thomas Norment Jr., admitted that as managing editor of his college (Virginia Military Institute) yearbook he signed off on including all manner of racist garbage in the publication. Of course, he issued the standard mea culpa, but it was hard to view such a disclosure as genuine or credible. As with Northam and Herring, Norment only made the disclosure once he knew he had no other choice but to do so.

Some readers of the Imperial Wardrobe have questioned whether it's really necessary or compulsory for public figures to make such disclosures prior to assuming public office. Good question, the answer for which has changed over the years. What might have been acceptable 50-60 years ago is no longer so today, and thank goodness! Because that means we have actually made some progress, and things might have just changed for the better. Progress, not perfection, right?

I'm not sure what the future might hold but, for now, I'm grateful that we are holding power holders accountable for the actions they take and have taken as adults, even as young adults, as the case might be with these three bad Boyz. Even if none of these three change their ways as a result of their recent experience, the public outcry over their behavior and their fumbled reactions to public scrutiny will serve as a lesson for all those aspiring to hold public office. They must hold themselves to higher standards. To do otherwise will land them in hot water, or worse, in some bad neighborhoods, and that ain't no fairy tale.

Do As I Say...

So...despite not having any real desire to do so, I tried to watch the State of the Union speech last night. I think I managed to make it through the first ten minutes before the dry-heaving began. I just couldn't stomach the smarmy faux comity, bald-faced lies, self-promoting puffery and ham-fisted bullying. That's our Donald, the round-faced buffoon of bluster, the master of self-made disaster, the reason why we should each be doing our part to shake of our collective apathy and work towards rebuilding and restoring our democracy.

I know it has been suggested before, but even after only ten minutes of listening to him I realized that it's absolutely essential to have a "truth-o-meter" scrolling along the bottom of the screen any time Trump speaks publicly and especially when he is being broadcast. The amazing thing to me is that Trump knows full well that anyone with half a brain can see right through his shtick, which is chockfull of lies, race-baiting and empty threats he'll never be able to carry out.

I think he also probably knows full well that the most of the folks in his base, the real audience of his SOTU speech, don't give a hoot whether or not anything he's saying is actually truth. He's speaking directly to their racial hatreds and primal fears and he's giving them what they've never got from any other politician: validation. If all they got before from the other pols was coy come-ons, nods and winks, now they're getting heaping servings of racist red meat topped with all kinds of encouragement to proudly and openly display their animus towards the other -- whoever the other might be for that day -- immigrants, people of color, Muslims, Latin Americans, take your pick.

And how does such hatred get normalized, transformed from the dog whistle of the silent majority to be considered part of the discourse of the political mainstream? Why the Grand Old Party, of course! What used to be the party of Lincoln has now irreversibly become the party of Trump. What does that mean in practical terms? It means that the folks who once gave us the emancipation proclamation, national parks and the Environmental Protection Agency have now been reduced to contradicting every principle they once held dear - limited government, free trade, a robust U.S. foreign policy, etc. - just so they can remain in lock step with Trump as he leads them (and the rest of us) off the cliff.

And for anyone unwilling to join the lemming brigade you'll be met with the GOP's still highly effective PR machine, which takes a scorched earth approach to all political opposition. Hence, the toon for today, showing Trump making use of the only thing that he and the party have and have ever had to offer to us. And like fast food, it might feel good gobbling it up, but give yourself about, I don't know, ten minutes and you'll be rushing for the nearest commode to purge...

Wreck-It Ralph

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has been in damage (out-of-) control since this past Friday when his 1984 medical school yearbook photo surfaced, showing him either in a Klansman's hood and robe or in blackface. He initially tried to start up the apology tour only to flip-flop within 24 hours, changing his story to deny that he was in the photo altogether. Instead, he volunteered that he had earlier put on a blackface as part of a dance contest, which he won by the way, impersonating Michael Jackson doing the Moonwalk.

Hoo boy, where to start.

I've been chatting with some fellow progressives about this, and some have wanted to show that they're hardheaded tough guys by adopting the GOP approach to damage control. When one of the GOP's finest is outed as having committed some heinous act, her/his colleagues make a studied shrug of the shoulders, deflect folks' attention, engage in a little "whataboutism," and try to change the subject. Said progressives wonder why Northam is being given the "Al Franken treatment." Like Franken, they suggest, Northam did something stupid when he was young but he has since grown up and devoted the rest of his career to doing, presumably, less stupid things.

Let's be clear: there is a big difference between what Franken and Northam did. Franken acted like an ass and subsequently apologized for it before his act was made public. When it was made public, he didn't hesitate; he apologized again and resigned. In contrast, Northam chose to hide behind the little-know eleventh commandment, probably inserted by some aspiring politician from among the wandering Hebrews when Moishe wasn't looking. You know the one I'm talking about: "Thous Shalt Not Get Caught."

Northam kept his miscreant behavior buried over the course of four electoral campaigns over the past two decades and probably had no intention of ever letting folks know about it. What about Robert Byrd, some folks ask? He was a grand wizard of the KKK and went on to become one of the "lions" of the Senate. That occurred some 80 years ago, when it was not only acceptable but also probably recommended for white power holders to be card-carrying members of that domestic terrorist outfit. It's no excuse, just acknowledging historical reality, I'm afraid.

But posing as a Klansman or in blackface in 1984? Where had Northam been for the last 20 years, during the civil rights movement and subsequent enactment of affirmative action policies? Did he have his head buried somewhere? Maybe in a white hood and robes? There's really no excuse. And then failing to disclose it to the electorate not once, but four times? Pretty cowardly and bereft of any semblance of integrity.

Thankfully, most Democratic leaders and activists just aren't having it, calling for Northam to resign...by yesterday. Still, like a bad cold, he lingers, chipping away at whatever advantage the Democrats thought they might still have in the moral authority department. Evidently, he's now becoming a political liability, although I really hope that the Democratic faithful realize that what Northam did and the need to hold him accountable is important, and not just to safeguard a temporary political advantage. It's about integrity and the legitimacy of the norms that Democrats have (rightfully) been making such a big fuss about protecting.

I'm a big believer in leadership that requires someone to model the behavior they demand of others. "Do as I say, not as I do" is never a good policy, either in interpersonal relationships or in public office. Otherwise, one's leadership lacks integrity and ends up doing more harm than good. Speaking of which, did "Doctor" Northam ever consider his actions in light of his having taken the Hippocratic oath? Maybe he got it confused with his own hypocritical oath. Well, that'll learn him: his cowardice has wrecked his political career and may potentially wreck Democrats' attempts to differentiate themselves from the sociopathic narcissistic president and his amoral GOP enablers.

That's our Ralph. A closet white supremacist and quite the little House (and Senate) Wrecker.

The Schooled Are the Ruled Are the Fooled

Evidently, the Donald didn't hire some of the very best, very smart people to run his intelligence agencies. Once again, after those silly career professionals attempted to behave as such in front of Congress, they contradicted the Donald's wishful thinking on the current status of threats posed to U.S. national security. Nota Bene - I am no big fan of the intel community - they've done some pretty horrible things and with the exception of the Church Commission's work 40 years ago, they've rarely been held to account. However, I'll give them this: they're quite committed to doing what they believe to be in the best interest of protecting U.S. national security, even if their work often undermines this objective, but that's another blog.

This professionalism stands in stark contrast to somebody I know. And I think you know him, too. This somebody has the attention span of a Chihuahua on amphetamines. This somebody has the intellectual capacity of...about the same [perdoname mil veces, mis preciosos perritos, no quéria insultarles, ya lo saben, verged cue sí?]. And this is same somebody has a pathological aversion to facts when they don't conform with his own extremely narrow, always warped view of reality.

So when Trump goes out and tells the world that up is down and down is up when it came to U.S. national security and how his policies have been oh so very successful, you know his intel chiefs were going to have to set the record straight. Never to be one to countenance such fact-based truth to bluster, Trump lashed back, telling his intel chiefs that they were "naive" and that they should probably go back to school. By doing so he somehow was implying that they, with more than a century of collective experience, lacked the same depth and breadth of knowledge as him. This from a man whose main source of information comes from vacuous right wing pundits on Fox News and bloviating white supremacist pinheads on talk radio.

Which school might Trump be suggesting these low IQ intel chiefs go to? Where else? Trump U, of course! All hail our dear alma mater, that very white ivory tower of hucksterism, know-nothingism and flimflammery. Give the intel chiefs a few weeks of Trump U's best offerings, and they'll come out with their heads filled with the most beautiful, brainiest smarts and firmly planted up their backsides...The real question is, "Is our intel chiefs learning?"