One of "us".

 

I just saw a report that most republicans believe that the January 6th insurrection was a democratic inside job to make their dear leader, Donald trump, look bad. I mean, seriously? How can we even have  a normal debate with these people?  What would make seemingly normal people show this type of cult like devotion to an obvious charlatan?

I have a theory, and you can stop reading now if the race card offends you. Yes, it's all about race. There is no other explanation for it. Donald trump has brilliantly built himself up as America's first white supremacist president in the modern era, and that is just fine with a certain segment of the white population who believes that their country is being taken away from them, and that those other people are turning it into their country. Donald trump doesn't have to say the quiet part out loud, because most white Americans who live with that fear see a sort of savior in trump. So what if he is a fascist? He is our fascist. He will protect our way of life. He will take us back to the days when our superiority wasn't questioned. In other words, he will make America great again.  

This is why, no matter what, Mr. trump will always have a large segment of the population in his corner. No matter how many crimes he is charged with, no matter how many women he rapes or brags about assaulting, it won't matter. It drives other Americans nuts. Those of us who consider ourselves normal and who want to see the better angels in others want to believe that the people who support him really  believe in their hearts that he is just a guy that means well and his policies will help them in the long run. That is not true. Go back to my second paragraph and read it again. It's an uncomfortable truth, and if we can't come to grips with it the cult of Donald trump will forever have us perplexed.

The British writer, Nate White, penned a brilliant essay about why the Brits don't like Mr. trump. It's worth a read. 

Another essay could be written about why so many Americans like Mr. trump. The answer would be simple: He is one of us.  

Fear the chair.

 

I will never understand the internet. I don't understand what drives clicks and makes one particular story more popular than the other. This story of the brawl in Montgomery, Alabama has captured the imagination of black America in ways that you can't imagine. There are memes, jokes, and articles, which makes the point.  As black folks, we have rallied around the folding chair, and we are so damn proud of our people for not sitting back and taking it anymore when we see injustice unfolding (pun intended) before our eyes. 

If you have been living in a cave, I will give you a quick synopsis. A black security guard was doing his job and trying to keep a private boat out of the docking area while a commercial ferry was approaching. A  bunch of  boaters (who all happened to be white) jumped the poor guy and all hell broke loose. He was trying to hold his own but the numbers were just to much for him. Then, out of nowhere, a bunch of black strangers decided to jump in and help him. One guy literally swam across the harbor to help. He is now affectionately being called Alabama Aqua Man in black circles.  The fight that followed is all over the internet, and the folding chair has now become a symbol of black resistance.

So let's try to analyze what transpired. I have been trying to figure out if this brawl was purely racial or just some citizens feeling bad for some guy that was getting his ass kicked by a bunch of drunks. But then, I have to ask myself: If the guy getting his ass kicked was white, would all those black strangers have stepped in to help? If there were a bunch of black guys beating a single white security guard, would a bunch of black strangers step in to help the white security guard? Would a bunch of white strangers jump in to help the lone white guy getting his ass kicked?  To the latter question I would say no, to the first question, I would say, yes. But I am not so sure, which is what makes this all kind of fascinating to me. 

A quick personal story. I went to high school in Jamaica. It was a boarding school, and there were kids there from all over the world. I had a close friend, Franz Newman, who I hung out with all the time.  (He is living somewhere in Canada now, and I don't think he would mind me using him for this story.) Franz is Jamaican, and proud of it. But he is from a German settlement in the Southern part of the island, and he had blue eyes and blonde hair. I remember him fighting an African American kid who happened to be from New York, and he (Franz) was getting his ass kicked. Who do you think I jumped in and tried to help? Yep, Franz. Why? Because he was Jamaican, and he was my friend. In that moment, my friendship, and my national and ethnic loyalty, took priority over any racial one that I might have. It's complicated, I know. But that was my experience back then, and I was a product of my environment. 

My guess is that because of the times we are living in, black folks have become hypersensitive to these types of interactions. So now, more than ever, we see everything in the context of race. I am also guessing that those white folks who jumped that poor security guard might not have done it if he was a white guy doing his job. So them, too, have become racialists in their every day interactions. It's where we are now as a country. And I suspect, sadly, that we will be seeing a lot more Montgomery, Alabama type racial brawls in the days to come. 

Thoughts? 

Jason's Lyrics.

 

I can take or leave country music. Some of  the music is decent, but I can do without some of it as well. My significant other, on the other hand, loves the stuff. She knows all the artists and lyrics, and we fight on long drives about me having to listen to one country and western station after another. 

I bring this up because of the latest controversy involving a country and western star who thought it was cool to write a song about small town "values" by taking on black folks and our struggle here in these divided states of America.

 I'm cool with artistic freedom, and controversial lyrics,  but I am not cool with hypocrisy. Jason Aldean and his people knew exactly what they were doing when they wrote and produced this song.  I could actually live with the song on its own, but when I saw the video that goes with it, I was like...whoa!  Live and in living color from the site of a horrific lynching back in the day, and the imagery of black folks in the most negative light you can imagine.  

My man is trying his best to bring back Sundown towns. And he is promoting violence and intolerance for good measure.    

Here is a take from Candace McDuffie, writing for  the Root: 

"Jason Aldean has done his best to defend the music video for his latest single, “Try That in a Small Town,” which has been the center of controversy for the last 48 hours. On Monday, the decision was made by Country Music Television (CMT) to pull it from the air.

 Many believe it’s because the conservative singer filmed the video in front of a Tennessee courthouse where a Black man was lynched (CMT hasn’t confirmed if this was the reasoning for its removal). More specifically, the setting was Maury County Courthouse in Columbia where in 1927, a white lynch mob hung a young Black man named Henry Choate from a second-story window.

In the “Try That in a Small Town” video, that same courthouse is draped in an American flag while Aldean sings painfully obtuse lyrics in front of it like:

“Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk/Carjack an old lady at a red light/ Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store/Ya think it’s cool, well, act a fool if ya like/Cuss out a cop, spit in his face/Stomp on the flag and light it up/ Yeah, ya think you’re tough.”

Aldean didn’t stop there. The courthouse also has clips projected onto it showing numerous protests, including the 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstrations. They are in conjunction with stills and footage of the aforementioned liquor store robberies and carjackings. However, there is significantly more footage of the protests throughout the video. 

By lyrically and visually equating meaningful rallies condemning police brutality to violent crime, Aldean is shamelessly touting how much he—and this country, quite frankly—devalues Black life. However, he took to Twitter on Tuesday to insist that this isn’t the case:

“In the past 24 hours I have been accused of releasing a pro-lynching song (a song that has been out since May) and was subject to the comparison that I (direct quote) was not too pleased with the nationwide BLM protests. These references are not only meritless, but dangerous. There is not a single lyric in the song that references race or points to it- and there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage -and while I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music- this one goes too far....Try That In A Small Town’ for me, refers to the feeling of a community that I had growing up, where we took care of our neighbors, regardless of differences of background or belief.”'

There may be no lyrical reference to race, but knowing that police brutality disproportionately affects Black and brown people and choosing to disparage those protests in the visuals for “Try That in a Small Town” completely contradicts Aldean’s defense." 

 [Source] 

 This is the same guy who was playing on stage when a mad man slaughtered a bunch of people in Las Vegas, Nevada. You would think he would know better. 

But hey, these are the times we are living in . Folks on the right will now make him a hero, and he is going to make a lot of money playing to their inner demons. 

All this and the guy isn't even from a small town. He is from Macon, Georgia, and the last time I checked that ain't no small town. My aforementioned wife, on the other hand, is from a small town. Really small. Like one stoplight small, and the people in that little corner of Louisiana are honest and decent, and there are plenty black folks who live there. But this song by Aldean was not meant for them.  

So let's be honest with ourselves, it's not about the size of the town, but rather like minded people coming together to hate in unison. 

The Supremes strike again.

I see that the Supremes are at it again. It's not enough they can just flaunt their disregard for ethics and decency in our faces. They are now making laws that hurt disadvantaged and marginalized people. They are ignoring precedent, and they are forgetting their place as one of the three branches of government by overreaching to the executive branch. 

I am not surprised that they gutted race based considerations for admissions to institutions of higher learning. This was their goal all along. It's stunning, though, that they said that this ruling does not apply to military institutions. It's as if they are cool with letting our children go in the bunkers but not in the boardrooms. The military institutions can let in all the black students that they want to, but not the prestigious state schools and Ivy League schools such as Harvaaad. That is reserved for the children of privilege (see white), and the well connected.  The children of those who can afford to fly Supreme Court Justices on private jets and treat them to million dollar vacation packages. 

I saw an Asian American mother on twitter telling her daughter that they finally made it. They finally struck down Affirmative Action and now it will be an even playing field for everyone. She actually wrote that everyone will now be judged on "merit". Poor thing.  Maybe she is still too new to America to see that she is being used, and that she is totally misguided.  But she will learn.  She will see that the "pick me" immigrant and minority will never have a seat at the table, and they will never achieve the merit based result that they rightfully want. The game is rigged, and whether it's in college admissions or in the workplace,  they will soon learn that Mr. Charlie always wins.

The small portion of seats that African American children take in these schools (5%) is not what is preventing the vast majority of Asian American children who are qualified to get rejected. They better turn their attention to the legacy admissions, and the money that the well connected pay to get their children a seat in the freshman class to see where the real problem lies. 

It wasn't only race based admissions. The Supremes saw fit to tell a bigo..I mean a "Christian" who has a business that is open to the public, that it's cool to discriminate against LGBTQ people because of free speech. Think about that for a minute: What's to stop Bubba in Alabama from preventing black folks from stopping at his gas station to get gas? If we are not careful, history will repeat itself. I can see us going down that road (pun intended) again. Ask an old black person about the Green Book. 

The right-wingnuts have a six to three majority on the court, and the tfg's appointees are all young. This out of control unchecked court will be doing damage for some time. Clarence (Clayton Bigsby) Thomas, the world's second back white supremacist, will be in Coon heaven for years to come.   

Let this is be a reminder to all you folks out there who sit on the sidelines every election day instead of voting: Elections  have consequences. You are seeing that play itself out in real time.

 

Charged!

I am pretty sure that none of you reading this were shocked by the federal indictment of Donald J. Trump for his "alleged" myriad of crimes having to do with his handling of classified documents after he left office. Thirty seven counts is a lot. Thirty seven! We all saw this coming. Mr. Trump has never had any respect for the rule of law, and he has always believed that he is above it. Now, finally, he will have to answer for his alleged crimes against the American people. 

Over the next few weeks you will be hearing the spin and gaslighting coming from the right. They will tell you that these charges are all political, and that they have nothing to do with the law.  Don't believe them. The truth is, if this had been anyone besides a former president who leads a cult of about thirty five percent of the voters in the republican party, he would have been charged and tried a long time ago.  He would more than likely be cooling his heels in one of the many federal detention facilities in our country as I write this.  

Still, I love the irony of all this. Here is a man who called for his political opponent (Hillary)to be locked up before she even had a trial, and for the death penalty to be handed down on five young men for a crime that they have been since exonerated from committing.  And now, he and his cult members are crying foul. They are saying that his arrest is political and never should have happened.  But I read the indictment in its entirety, and it's solid. I would recommend that if you are skeptical about the veracity of the charges, you do the same. And unless you are a member of the MAGA cult, I m sure that your conclusion will be the same. 

Donald J. Trump was indicted by a grand jury made up of ordinary citizens with no political agenda. They looked at the facts and came to the same conclusion: Donald J. Trump should be charged with these crimes. He will now have his day in court like any other ordinary citizen, and we will wait to see if justice will be served. 

This is a sad time for America. Imagine a former president being charged by the department of justice with committing crimes that could undermine our peace and security in the world. I would argue that an even sadder day, was when we elected this grifter and narcissist to be our leader in the first place.  Old black folks like to say that when someone shows you who they are, believe them. 

We have always known who Donald J. Trump is, so this indictment should not surprise any of us.  

Now let's just hope that justice will be served. 

Tim Scott does not want to be defined by his blackness. His party will do it for him.

 

I recently ran across an article about Tim Scott, Senator from South Carolina, and declared republican candidate for president, which I found quite interesting.  Mr. Scott is African American, and I think the fact that he is running for President of the United States is a good thing. What's not good, though, is the reason he is giving for running, and the message that he hopes that his candidacy sends. He recently appeared on The View, and I will give him credit for at least attempting to debate the merits of his positions. 

Anyway, here is the article about the aforementioned Mr. Scott. It's a bit harsh, but I actually agree with most of what the author had to stay. 

"Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) hopped in the 2024 presidential race Monday with a campaign speech in his hometown of North Charleston, South Carolina.

Scott employed language similar to every other Black evangelical politician: “Victimhood or victory? I choose freedom, hope and opportunity.” “I disrupt their narrative.” And more language suggested that he refuses to be defined by his Blackness.

In his most attention-grabbing comments, Scott diminished the existence of racism to what appears to be a largely white audience.

“For those of you who wonder if America is a racist country, take a look… at how all of God’s people come together… because unconditional love binds hearts together,” Scott said. “We are not defined by the color of our skin; we’re defined by the content of our character. If anyone tells you anything different, they’re a-lyin’!”

Scott doubled down on this inherently flawed idea as a guest on Monday’s episode of ” The View ,” suggesting that the American playing field is level because Black folks have achieved high-level jobs within the U.S. government and elsewhere (though the audience reserved their boos for when he regurgitated the asinine suggestion of his competitor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, that Disney is “indoctrinating” children with evil LGBTQ propaganda.)

Most sensible Black folks see through this bullshit like a Ziploc bag. For the woefully uninitiated, however, I’ll put the snark on hold, just for a second: Racism is forever. And it’s everywhere, including America. That no one is dragging Black folks by their noosed necks behind moving cars in the open anymore doesn’t suggest it’s completely nonexistent in all its forms.

Look no further than the 2016 election of Donald Trump, which galvanized the tiki-torch protesters and U.S. Capitol insurrectionists to say all the quiet parts very loudly in a manner I hadn’t seen before in my life. Having working eyes and ears and suggesting that racism is a thing of the past is like passing the third grade convinced that the Earth is flat.

Yet, Scott is just one of several charisma-free, cookie-cutter conservative House Negroes propagating the notion that Black folks bucking up and letting go of that pesky racism issue that apparently hasn’t been an issue since the mid-20 th century is the true anodyne for all our problems. When these clowns vie for their respective political thrones, it’s almost always on the back of Black Democrats whom they insist are playing the “race card” as victims.

In 2004, Alan Keyes was installed by Illinois Republicans as a carpetbagger to challenge Barack Obama for the state’s U.S. Senate seat. An avowed evangelical Christian staunchly opposed to affirmative action and abortion, Keyes was curb-stomped by a young Obama during his unprecedented ascendancy. Keyes was a puppet for white Republicans, and everyone saw through him.

Despite his failed presidential bid, the late Herman Cain made his millions by slinging Godfather’s Pizza and having a keen business and investment acumen. Though Cain made it a point to let everyone know that he got out of the mud all on his own despite having been born a Black man in the 1940s Deep South, his Black ass most assuredly benefited from affirmative action . May he rest in peace and all that.

Larry Elder, the patron saint of Black conservatives, has spent his decades-long radio career espousing the virtues of being a sellout. He even created a self-aggrandizing documentary, 2020’s ” Uncle Tom ,” in the hope that people listening to all his buddies talk about how cool it is to be a Black conservative might influence more people to vote for Trump again.

Elder tried to take California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s seat in a 2021 recall election. He’s running now for president in 2024 , at which he’ll also fail.

I know I must include Herschel Walker in my polemic, since he was the loudest Black Republican candidate before Scott to downplay racism . But I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen such an obvious Uncle Ruckus-shaped pawn in my life, so despite the eye-wateringly amazing progress he made in last year’s Georgia Senate race before losing to Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock, I never took Walker to be a serious human.

These morons all have one thing in common: When it’s time to get elected, the white Republicans they courted drop them like used napkins and the Democrat they challenged ultimately gets the office.

(Perhaps the only exception to this rule is almost the most dangerous: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, has the power to constitutionally send America back to the late 1800s. All while being openly financially shady .)

Outside of politics, there’s a gaggle of sellouts who, despite being born and raised to two Black parents in the 20 th century, have built sizable social media followings spewing “post-racial” rhetoric so absurd that I’m unconvinced that most of them actually believe their own hype.

Candace Owens is not a stupid woman ― I don’t believe she’s achieved the success she has in her mid-30s while lacking a fundamental understanding of the limitations society will always attempt to heap upon a dark-skinned Black woman. She’s simply riding the white supremacist wave to secure a bag, which makes her worse than the nakedly racist white people we expect it from.

For my bread, the image of Owens and her buddy Ye ― who, despite being a wildly successful billionaire, still longs for white acceptance – draped in “White Lives Matter” T-shirts last year is far more disgusting than a bunch of white incels hoisting tiki-torches.

I agree that Black people shouldn’t embrace victimhood as a crutch to keep us from achieving the goals we desire. But there’s a wide chasm between rejecting victimhood and suggesting that racism died with Jim Crow, or that we’re “post-racial” because we elected a Black man to the White House in 2008.

Racism is not our utter inability to accomplish the goals of our white counterparts. It’s our need to work a bit harder to do so. To be more agreeable and palatable. To go the extra mile to prove that we belong in spaces in which we’re not traditionally expected… spaces in which we literally weren’t allowed at a time when our parents walked the Earth.

Recognizing the perpetual existence of systemic racism and working to mitigate its effects should be part of every human’s social contract ― even for those who benefit from it.

Even if Trump manages to stay out of prison, Scott won’t come within spitting distance of the Republican nomination in a race that includes Ron DeSantis . But as he goes through the process, he’ll learn just how squeaky-clean his closet must be to even be considered for the Oval Office as a Black man… a lesson Obama had to learn before him.

Scott will be forced to compare his experience with all the ridiculous shit that Trump did, only to get elected anyway. Then perhaps he’ll finally understand racism.

CORRECTION : A prior version of this story referred to the incorrect President Bush in one instance." [Source]

Tim Scott has a very optimistic view of race in America. The problem is that most Americans in the majority population, especially those in his party, do not share his sense of optimism and hope for race relations in America. It's a party that is led by Donald Trump, a man who has made it cool for poor white folks to hate again.  So with that said, I am not quite sure where Mr. Scott's vision fits in with all the hatred and bile that has festered in his party over the past few years. 

Still, I wish him luck. He will need it.   

   

   

Google has a problem.

 

Just a note to you field hands. I tried posting an article a few days ago and it was shot down by the gatekeepers at Google. Why? Because they thought that it was offensive. (I can assure you it was not.) 

Those of you who know me know that I do not post offensive content. (At least not anymore.) I allow offensive comments, because I believe in free speech, but my posts are never offensive. 

The problem is that there are not a lot of folks at Google who look like I do, and they do not understand that that when I write the word *****  it is not meant to be offensive. The fact is, most of the people who look (and think) like I do consider the phrase field ***** a term of endearment. They are not offended by it, and neither should anyone else.  As for the phrase house *****, it should be no more offensive than the words snob, or clueless. If I had written an article about snobbish or clueless people, I am sure that it would have been allowed.  But such is life with the new gatekeepers. They decide what is offensive and what is not.  

Maybe at some point I will be allowed to repost the article, but for now,  I am reconsidering my relationship with Google. 

Sadly, after over fifteen years and millions of page views, it might be time for a change.

   

The top ten house Negroes in America. (Latest edition.)

Before I get into my list, I want to acknowledge the passing of a great man; fellow yawdie and icon, Harry Belafonte. A true field Negro in my humble opinion. The man was extremely talented, and he unapologetically fought for the rights of the downtrodden. He was also the personification of class and dignity. He will be missed. May he rest in power.  

I was thinking about Mr. Belafonte as I sat to write my list of the top house Negroes in America. They are the exact opposite of him and everything that he stood for. 

Anywhoo, without further ado, here are the top ten house Negroes in America. (Note that some Negroes such as Clarence Thomas are just a given for this list, and they are already in the House Negro Hall Fame. Therefore, some of the usual suspects will not be included on this list. I will have a Hall of Fame edition later.) 

  1. Byron Donalds, Congressman from Florida: I don't know how many times I have to say this: being a black conservative is not an automatic qualifier for this list, and it is not necessarily a bad thing. We need different points of views in a debate about how to move forward. But being a black conservative just to jig for the FOX crowd without any knowledge of the issues makes you a house Negro. 

2. Jason Whitlock: The bad toupee alone gets him house Negro recognition. But seriously, this clown should probably be in the House Negro Hall of Fame with Clarence Thomas.  I am going to include him on this current list because he has inserted himself into every high profile case where a person of color has been wronged, and, like a true house Negro, he has taken a contrary position to be patted on the head by his far-right benefactors.  

3. Charlamagne  the God:  I am not one of these people who believe that artists, athletes, and entertainers should not speak up politically, but I do believe that when you have a platform you have to choose your words wisely. And, most importantly, you have to do some research on the subject of which you speak. This Negro has done none of the above, which puts him in the house. 

4. Candace Owens: Another potential House Negro Hall of Fame candidate. She is back on this list because she continues to contribute to the downfall of political discourse and has captured the zeitgeist of the moment. Her writings for the Daily Wire, with titles such as: The Left And The Devil Tell You Lies So You Will Despair" is just gross and incendiary. 

5. Harris Faulkner:  Lying on the air to appease your FOX masters is not cool. To the house, Harris.   

6. Young Urban Terrorists: Gangbanging, selling drugs in your community, and killing other young black men for no real reason is house Negro behavior.  There is nothing cool about not getting an education and earning an honest living.  

7. Deion Sanders: I'm not mad at Coach Prime for taking the money and moving on to bigger things at Colorado, but taking a shot at JSU and the poor black folks of Jackson, Mississippi, on your way out of town, was house Negro behavior. 

8. Joseph Ladapo, Florida Surgeon General: This Negro altered the vaccine study in his state to appease his Master, Ron DeSantis.  That's as houseish as it gets. 

9. Vivek Ramaswamy, GOP Republican candidate: I know this guy probably resents being on this list because he doesn't consider himself a Negro. But I have some bad news for him: In America, a person of color such as himself, is considered a Negro. Having said that, calling for the abolition of the FBI with no alternative, and attacking transgendered children, is house Negro behavior. 

10. Kristina Karamo, Michigan Republican party chair: This election denier has called BLM members Marxist witches, accused Beyonce of secretly recruiting Black Americans to Paganism, and used Holocaust imagery to oppose gun control proposals. One has to wonder how she  made it this far with these extreme views. I think it's called the power of the house. And any Negro willing to sell their soul will be welcomed inside.  

*This post was previously written and was not published as the  gatekeepers at Google found it offensive.   

Authoritarians at the gate.

There have been three high profile cases of innocent people shot because of trigger-happy shooters over the past few days, and we can blame the likes of FOX NEWS and their never ending programming of scary and out of control criminals marauding in the streets for that.  This is the right-wing narrative that allows a culture of more guns and destruction to thrive. And they wouldn't have it any other way.

The right wants a sick dystopian world of fear and authoritarianism which makes it easier for them to take control and implement their vision of what America should look like. They are already hard at work in various red states throughout the country that have become laboratories for their autocratic rule.  

See Florida if you want a classic example of this trend. The governor of that state wants to be our president, and he is using Florida as a practice run for how he wants to run the country. He is taking on Disney, banning books and the teaching of subjects that he doesn't like in schools, banning what can be said in schools, and consolidating power around himself and his cronies. He is even recreating his own military force to battle...whatever it is he wants to battle.  ("Woke" Floridians better watch out.) 

I am not sure where this all is heading, and I wish I could tell folks that simply voting will be enough.  Sadly, I don't think it will be. It's looking more and more like getting more votes doesn't necessarily mean getting to govern in this country. The right-wing might be losing the population war as America becomes more brown and more young, but they have found a way around that by manipulating the courts to their benefit. This is where I would write an entire essay about Clarence Thomas, and the Federalist Judges that the former guy appointed, but that's for another time. I think you get the picture.

I will leave you with some quotes from a recent article in The Atlantic by Brian Klaas:

"When gerrymandering is extreme, most elections become foregone conclusions, extinguishing the foundational principle of democracy: competition. Five years ago, in Wisconsin, Republicans won just 44.7 percent of the vote in races for control of the state legislature. Yet Republicans won 64.6 percent of the seats. In North Carolina, state Republicans drew such skewed districts in the 2018 congressional elections that the GOP won 10 out of the state’s 13 districts, even though the party’s candidates earned just 50.3 percent of the statewide vote. In Georgia, a state that voted for Joe Biden and has two Democratic U.S. senators, the newly drawn district lines mean that 57 percent of State Senate and 52 percent of state House seats can be considered “safe Republican” seats. Barring a major political shift, Republicans will continue to easily control the legislature in a competitive state trending toward Democrats.

When such blatant electoral manipulation takes place in other countries, the U.S. State Department denounces it. Here, it’s just a legalized part of the American system." 

That said, I am still encouraging you all to vote. Your vote still matters. At least for now. 

*Image above from HuffPost

 

    

Criminal Defendant Trump.

 

The MAGA crowd will try to spin the criminal prosecution of their leader to be something positive, but it won't work. How can it? Just think about what this means for a minute: A former president is being criminally prosecuted for alleged crimes against the state. And a Grand Jury of his peers gave the District Attorney the green light to go ahead and charge him. 

The following article in The Atlantic from McKay Coppins sums it up perfectly. 

 "He shuffled quietly into the courtroom and took his seat at the defense table. He looked strangely small sitting there flanked by lawyers—his shoulders slumped, his hands in his lap, his 6-foot-3-inch frame seeming to retreat into itself. When he spoke—“Not guilty”—it came out hoarse, almost a whisper. Pundits and reporters had spent weeks trying to imagine what this moment would look like. How would a former president—especially one who prided himself on showmanship—behave while under arrest? Would he act smug? Defiant? Righteously indignant?

No one predicted that he would look quite so humiliated.

Of course, becoming the first ex-president in American history to be charged with a crime is not exactly a coveted résumé line. But Donald Trump’s indictment yesterday marked a low point in another way too: For a man who’s long harbored a distinctive form of class anxiety rooted in his native New York, Trump’s arraignment in Manhattan represented the ultimate comeuppance.

The island of Manhattan plays an important role in the Donald Trump creation myth. In speeches and interviews over the years, Trump has repeatedly recalled peering across the East River as a young man, yearning to expand the family real-estate business and compete with the city’s biggest developers. For a kid born in Queens—even one who grew up in a rich family—Manhattan seemed like the center of the universe.

“I started off in a small office with my father in Brooklyn and Queens,” Trump said in the 2015 speech launching his campaign. “And my father said … ‘Donald, don’t go into Manhattan. That’s the big leagues. We don’t know anything about that. Don’t do it.’ I said, ‘I gotta go into Manhattan. I gotta build those big buildings. I gotta do it, Dad. I’ve gotta do it.’”

In the version of the story Trump likes to tell, he went on to cross the river, conquer the island, and cement his victory by erecting an eponymous skyscraper in the middle of town. His childhood dream came true.

But Trump was never really accepted by Manhattan’s old-money aristocracy. To the city’s elites, he was just another nouveau riche wannabe with bad manners and a distasteful penchant for self-promotion. They recognized the type—the outer-borough kid who’d made good—and they made sure he knew he wasn’t one of them. With each guest list that omitted his name, with each VIP invitation that didn’t come, Trump’s resentment burned hotter—and his desire for revenge deepened.

Today, the old hierarchies that defined the New York of Trump’s youth are largely gone, replaced by new ones. (Brooklyn, the middle-class backwater where Trump’s father kept his office, is now home to enough pretentious white people that even the snootiest Manhattanites have to acknowledge the borough.) Trump, meanwhile, isn’t even a New Yorker anymore, having changed his voter registration to Florida in 2019 and retreated to the more hospitable confines of Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House.

But Trump never forgot the island that rejected him. And this week, he was forced to return to it—not in triumph, but in disgrace. Hundreds of journalists descended on Lower Manhattan to chronicle each indignity: the courthouse door gently shutting on him because nobody bothered to hold it open, the judge sternly instructing him to rein in his social-media rhetoric about the case. At one point, shortly after Trump entered the courtroom, someone in the overflow room, where reporters and others were watching a closed-circuit feed, began to whistle “Hail to the Chief,” drawing stifled laughter.

In the past, Trump has succeeded in using his humiliations to his benefit. It’s a big part of why he excels at playing a populist on the campaign trail. When Trump railed against the corrupt ruling class in 2016, he wasn’t just channeling the anger of his supporters; he was expressing something he felt viscerally. Yes, his personal grievances with the “elites”—the ego-wounding snubs—might have been petty, but the anger was real. And for many of his followers, that was enough.

Now he’s trying to pull off that trick again. In the weeks leading up to his indictment, Trump has sought to cast Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation as an act of political persecution—aimed not just at him, but at the entire MAGA movement. “WE MUST SAVE AMERICA!” he shout-posted on Truth Social last month. “PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!”

A modest contingent of pro-Trump demonstrators gathered in a park across the street from the courthouse yesterday, separated by a police barricade from a larger group of counterprotesters. But the relatively muted MAGA presence, compared with the crowds of onlookers relishing the moment, only underscored how alienated the former president has become from the city with which he was once synonymous. The scene was heavier on performance artists and grifters than outraged true believers. A woman in a QAnon T-shirt strutted and gyrated for reporters as she rambled about Satan and the financial system, periodically punctuating her comments with “Bada bing!” A Trump supporter burned sage to ward off evil spirits, prompting one bystander to ask, “Is someone cooking soup?” The Naked Cowboy made an appearance.

A handful of Trump’s New York–based supporters tried to convince me that this was still his town. Dion Cini—a MAGA-merch salesman who drew attention for his giant TRUMP OR DEATH flag and his liberal deployment of flagpole-based innuendos—told me he lived in Brooklyn. “Trump country!” he declared.

I asked Cini if he really believed that New York could still be considered Trump country. Cini responded by launching into an enthusiastic (and exaggerated) recitation of how much of the city had been built by the Trumps. “Sheepshead Bay was built by Trump. All 50,000 homes,” Cini said, claiming that he lives in a Trump-built house there himself. “How many towers were built by Trump? The Javits Center! I mean, you name it—the Wollman Rink, the carousel in Central Park. And they call him a Nazi. I mean, did Hitler ever build a carousel?”

After Cini wandered away, another Trump supporter named Scott Schultz approached me. Schultz said he also lives in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay neighborhood, but he disagreed that it was “Trump country.” He can’t even put a Trump sign outside his house, because he knows it will be immediately defaced, Schultz said. He fantasized about a day when New Yorkers could celebrate Trump simply as a product of their city.

“Most other [places], when someone becomes president, they have pride in that,” Schultz told me. “There was no pride at all … They want to wipe him clean. They rejected him.”

Trump didn’t linger in the city after his arraignment. There was no impromptu press conference on the courthouse steps or chest-thumping speech to his supporters outside. Instead, his motorcade whisked him away to LaGuardia Airport for a flight back to Florida. He’d been in New York barely 24 hours. For now, at least, he seems intent on waging his battle with the Manhattan haters from a distance. Writing on Truth Social yesterday, Trump proposed moving his trial to Staten Island."

He could move it to Mars. It won't matter. Even if he is acquitted or somehow gets the more serious charges tossed on appeal, he will forever be an indicted defendant, and the humiliation that comes with that will be a nasty stain on whatever legacy he has left.   

 

S*** just got real!

 All these right-wing pundits and politicians saying that Donald trump is being singled out for unfair treatment by the Manhattan District Attorney's office have never practiced criminal law in America. The truth is that Donald trump has been singled out for favorable treatment from the criminal justice system for years. Now, finally, it would appear that there is a prosecutor willing to charge him for his "alleged" crimes and make him accountable. 

And let's stop with this silly notion that Manhattan District Attorney Bragg should have waited to charge him until more serious charges were brought by one of the numerous other agencies investigating his numerous cases. That's not how this works. If you are committing criminal acts you should be held accountable regardless of your station in life. No one should be above the law. No one.  

Now, predictably, Mr. trump is painting the charges being brought against him as a political witch-hunt, and he is calling for violence, once again, from his minions. He is attacking the Judge, the District Attorney, and all of his perceived enemies for his predicament. Predictably,  he is leaving out the one person responsible for the mess he now finds himself in: Himself.

We will see how this plays out in the next coming days and months, and regardless of the outcome of his trial, Mr. trump has been an enormous stain on America and everything that she is supposed to stand for. He has exposed the true character of almost half of the country, and discredited the lie that we are a nation that view each other as equals. 

As is always the case with Mr. trump, there is more than enough irony in the position that he now find himself in. Remember all the "lock her up chants"? Hillary Clinton is having the last laugh. All those MAGA heads who were crying "lock her up" along with him, are now screaming that it's not right to indict and arrest a political opponent.  

Donald trump will be fingerprinted and have his mug shot taken on Tuesday, and a new chapter of his life will begin. This one won't end the way he wants it to, and he won't be able to control the narrative the way he is accustomed to with the help of his right-wingnut friends. 

As they say in the streets: S**t just got real.