FROM ROGER FITCH and our friends down under at Justinian.

Goths at the gate

Roger Fitch Esq • Friday, November 29, 2024

Trump's narrow victory ... Gangsters, plunderers and incompetents ready to sack Washington ... Trump's narrow victory ... Dross on top ... Roger Fitch on America's kakistocracy 

"Trump's reckless venality is a reason for hope. Trump has the soul of a fascist but the mind of a disordered child. He will likely be surrounded by terrible but incompetent people. All of them can be beaten: in court, in Congress, in statehouses around the nation, and in the public arena ... the states ... have ways to protect their citizens from a rogue president" - Tom Nichols, the Atlantic 

"[C]ompetence is the last in the list of traits [Trump] seeks in nominees. That is usually a bad thing, but when the job they’re being tasked with is destroying all that is good and true, it's a reason for hope. Trump lost a lot of momentum early in his presidency because of his contempt for competence. Let’s hope that happens a second time around" - Amanda Marcotte, Salon 

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A convicted felon, he's been judged the worst president in American history. Yet, boosted by the invincible ignorance of some, a plurality of voters re-elected Donald Trump president of a country he nearly destroyed.

He plans to finish the job, endowed by the supreme court with newly-invented criminal immunity. We may be certain he will use it early and often. 

After the most expensive election in history, Republicans scored a trifeca with the presidency and both houses, but the 435-seat house is very close: 220 Republicans/215 Democrats, but three Republicans are new Trump nominees. Republican gerrymanders produce at least 16 seats, now 19, after a 3-seat North Carolina pickup: NC's 2022-elected supreme court re-allowed gerrymanders the previous court found unconstitutional.

After obstructing Biden for two years, a Republican-majority congress can't wait to undo his reforms, dismantle agencies, overturn regulations, stack courts and cut taxes for the rich. 

Corruption on an unimaginable scale will return. With Trump v US giving presidents immunity, and the court's watered-down bribery jurisprudence, Trump has little to fear in legal consequences. 

Kleptocracy rules, and the usual villains and lobbyists are queuing for pillaging permits. It's pay-to-play, especially if you're rich: cabinet-designees Linda McMahon and Elon Musk donated $15 million and $118 million, respectively, as "campaign contributions". 

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Like Silvio Berluscone and Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump escaped prison by getting elected. Now he wants revenge.

He plans to start by prosecuting all the people who prosecuted him, beginning with Special Counsel Jack Smith. Smith was previously head of a War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague, where he succeeded in trying and convicting criminal leaders in other countries. 

Berluscone - election saved him from the clink 

While in office, Donald Trump won't have to worry about any of the outstanding federal crimes he's been charged with committing during and after his first term in office, and thanks to a timely ruling from the party's Revolutionary Tribunal - the Supreme Court Six - he doesn't have to worry about being charged for crimes he plans to commit or may inadvertently commit during his next term in office, self-dealing included.  

He's demanding alarming additional powers, e.g, skipping senate confirmations, by recess appointments, and power for Treasury to selectively label as terrorist organisations, any non-profits that get in his way. Trump truculently stalled, then agreed, the transition's uncongenial ethics requirements.

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READ THE REST HERE.

Proud to be a "leftie"

 This is what the nominee to head the department of defense had to say about Guantanamo:

 “It got mucked up very early when left-wing lawyers and other protections came in,” he said. “It could have been a great place to expeditiously interrogate, try and, you know, execute, because we are in a war.”

Note: the other "protections" were from the Courts. He won't have to worry about that part for a long time, if ever.

meanwhile

 

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under at Justinian.

 

It's Hitlerish

Roger Fitch Esq • Friday, November 8, 2024

Reelection of a charlatan ... Republicans take popular vote for the first time in 20 years ... Amnesia ... Trashing a democracy ... Trump and his team of troubled men ... Mainstream media wilts in the eye of the storm ... Depravity, greed and revenge are the new normal ... Roger Fitch files from Washington 

"Some Trump voters may believe his lies. But plenty more want Trump to be terrifying and stomach-turning so that re-electing him will be a fully realized act of social revenge. Harris cannot propose any policy, offer any benefit, or adopt any position that competes with that feeling" - Atlantic

"What luck for the rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler

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Before the election, the NYRB and Atlantic warned that the 60th presidential election could mark the end of democracy in America. The Washington Monthly noted a Nazi analogy to the complicity of America's traditional conservatives in Trump's takeover of the Republican Party. The NYRB published reviews of new books on Hitler's 1933 ascent to power in Germany.

In one of the two dominant political parties there was no shame; no law, custom or standard of common decency that party operatives wouldn't transgress. Their presidential candidate, Donald Trump, was the worst, embracing racism and misogyny, or misogynoir, in the case of his opponent Kamala Harris.

Close to the election, the Republican candidate's behaviour became more erratic: at a charitable function, the white-tie Al Smith dinner, he descended into insults and obscenities in a room filled with Catholic priests, presided over by the Archbishop of New York. 

At campaign stops he called Harris a "shit vice-president" and extolled the genital endowments of a dead  golfer. His rallies became freak shows offering "extra buffoonery with a side of fascism", entertainment for his supporters and a continuation of the TV series that made him a household name, The Apprentice.

The ex-president himself saw it as a TV show. In explaining his loss in their "debate", he suggested Harris was given the answers in advance, like the 1950s quiz show scandals.

The Republican meanwhile hawked the same tat one might see in late-night TV ads: gold sneakers, trading cards (of himself), watches, the perfume "Trump" (Musk-scented?), even a "Trump bible" (printed in China) unsuccessfully foisted on Oklahoma school children.  

This was the classy candidate that the once-venerable Republican Party offered for president in 2024.

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READ THE REST HERE.

Military Plea Deal Upheld UPDATED

 You might remember that a few months ago a plea deal was struck (hit on the links for two earlier posts of mine on the subject) with the handful of men at Guantanamo who were actually charged with something. The deal was that the death penalty was taken off the table in return for their guilty pleas. A few days after the deal was accepted by the judge the secretary of defense (Austin) tried to renig on the deal. Yesterday a senior military judge said "no" you cannot pull out of a deal that was bargained for and accepted. Read more here. I will see if I can find an actual copy of the order but in essence the military Col. judge said that Austin vested authority in the judge to accept a plea deal and just because he didn't like the deal did not give him authority to overrule the deal. 

Not sure how much the rule of law will continue to be followed in this country but this was good news.

The secretary of defense has appealed the decision. sigh.

and I wonder what's gone wrong....

 

Musical interlude. The sequel