Peter David's Blog, page 11

Freak Out Friday – November 2, 2018

Godwin’s law is out of date when it comes to Trump, since the comparisons to Nazism are legion by this point. However in the last seven days Herr Trump (or, if you prefer, Hair Trump) has absolutely reaffirmed his resemblance to Hitler in pretty much every way imaginable.

Trump is legendary for his incessant sleight of hand, conman powers of distraction. The oldest magician’s trick in the world: spouting misdirection to make us ignore one thing by distracting us with another. The GOP passed a tax cut that highly favored the richest individuals and attempted to repeal health care seventy times. Yet now they are endeavoring to run away from their actions, repeating incessantly the lie that they support health care for preexisting conditions and want to provide tax cuts for the middle class. Obviously they hope that if they say it enough times, credulous voters will ignore their records and forget things that they witnessed with their own eyes. Which of course might very well work for some of them.

But Trump realizes that more is required, because people are stupid but they’re not THAT stupid. And so he is following Hitler’s playbook, using the powers of the office to try and scare his followers…in this case, to get them to the voting booths.

Because that’s what it’s all about in today’s world of politics. It’s not about issues. It’s not about character. It’s about fear. Scare the voters enough and hopefully they will turn out in large enough numbers to prevent the evil Democrats from throwing open the borders (because what are we, anyway? A nation of immigrants or something?) and repealing health care.

So let’s see what Herr Trump has been up to.

1). The Others are evil.. Hitler blamed the loss of World War I on the Jews, and pretty much everything else that was going wrong in Germany. Since Europe had a solid history of anti-Semitism, that blended right in and played to peoples’ beliefs. America likewise has a tradition of fear and hatred for outsiders, whether it’s black slaves, Asians, the Irish, and of course Jews. Trump has been playing to this hatred going back to the days when he wouldn’t rent apartments to blacks and the very beginning of his campaign when he launched with the fear technique of talking about all those evil Mexicans: the gang members, the drug dealers, the rapists, etc. Now he’s got a brand new talking point: a caravan of desperate immigrants who are on foot and schlepping toward the United States. They are currently over 2000 miles away. Average human foot speed is four miles an hour, but over a third of the travelers are children, so let’s assume they’re moving at two miles an hour, ten hours a day. This so-called invasion won’t be at the border for at least a hundred days, assuming any of them make it that far.

Yet Trump and his cronies are claiming that they are bringing diseases such as leprosy (with no evidence, of course) and smallpox (declared eradicated by the World Health Organization in 1980). And people are genuinely buying into it, convinced that they are only days away from having the Walking Dead swarm over the borders illegally, as opposed to what they are doing which is applying for asylum.

And of course Mr. Conspiracy Theory even has his own notion about who is behind the caravan: the Jews. Specifically, one Jew, philanthropist George Soros. Because of course there is a grand tradition of seeing Jewish influence behind everything. The Jews must be stopped because they are trying to use immigrants to do away with white Christianity. We know this because the Pittsburgh shooter made it quite clear before he killed people.

Not to be too Jewish about this, but the concept of the POTUS condemning an exodus of desperate people strikes most definitely home. The fact that his daughter is a converted Jew does nothing to excuse the hatred he’s been spreading that has caused everything from shootings to attempting bombings. He is creating at atmosphere of hate, and there are plenty of people out there breathing it in deeply and letting loose their inner hatred and homicidal mania.

2). Camps.. Trump, in addition to dispatching thousands of troops to stand around with their fingers up their asses for the next three months, loves the idea of setting up encampments where the refugees will live for…well, forever. Camps where they can live in concentrations of people. Granted, he hasn’t suggested gas chambers to execute them, but he has zero interest in helping them enter the country to become citizens. He just wants to imprison them, on no charges, for good. Just like Hitler did with the Jews or, for that matter, FDR did with the Japanese. Ignore their rights. Ignore their desires. Ignore their pleas to be treated like any other people seeking asylum. Just stick them in camps. That’s the ticket.

3). The Great Dictator.. Remember that whole procedure about states having to ratify changes in the Constitution? Trump doesn’t care about that. He is convinced that he can unilaterally change a constitutional amendment with a wave of his executive power. His supporters immediately scream “Obama! DACA!” completely oblivious to the fact that using an executive order to expand an existing policy to help people is lightyears away from using an executive order to change the constitution in order to hurt people. But that is of course what he wants to do. Screw congress, screw the states. He wants to change unilaterally the Fourteenth Amendment to declare that its assurance of people being born here were American citizens is no longer applicable. “We’re the only country that has that policy!” he declares, oblivious of the thirty others that have similar policies including both Canada and Mexico.

This is why it’s useless to claim thet Trump lies. Lying requires intent to deceive. You have to know that you are stating falsehoods. I think more often than not, he really doesn’t know. He says whatever occurs to him and just assumes that if he said it, it’s true, QED. His cries of “fake news” are really condemnations of reporters who are writing the truth that he doesn’t like, which is any truth that is critical of him…which is pretty much all of them. Trump literally doesn’t know what the truth is, nor does he care. According to CNN, for instance, on October 22 he told untruths eighty-three times. All those people who try to claim all politicians lie must understand that yes, sometimes they do. But not ALL THE TIME. Not INCESSANTLY. Not EVERY TIME THEY OPEN THEIR MOUTHS.

And yet he claims that he can single handedly rewrite the constitution.

Let’s project this: He issues an executive order to rewrite the fourteenth amendment. It gets fast tracked to the Supreme Court and his judges are actually insane enough to say yes, the President can change the constitution via executive order. Fine. Has he considered that the next Democrat to take office will use that precedent to abolish the Second Amendment? Executive order, SCOTUS backed it, boom, it’s gone. Done deal. The NRA can howl all they want; their man lay the groundwork.

It would almost be worth it to see that happen. Almost.

Did he do anything right? . Remember all the crap he stirred up with China and trade wars? Ostensibly he is making arrangements with a trade agreement that is sparking a turnaround on Wall Street. So I suppose it’s good in the same sense that the Fantastic Four, in their first movie (not the Corman one, the one after that, that featured Captain America as the Torch) managed to defeat Doctor Doom. Except Doom’s creation entirely came about because Reed Richards talked him into joining them on a space experiment that went insanely wrong. Doom’s anger against Reed was totally justified and the FF were basically doing damage control for Reed’s screw up. So apparently Trump is managing to undo some of the stupidity that he launched. Yay, I guess?

PAD

Freak Out Friday – October 26, 2018

I know I’ve been gone for the last several weeks. It’s just been too much of Trump doing the exact same thing: Vilifying opponents (mostly female or black or black females), blaming the Democrats for every single thing that he’s caused to go wrong, calling the press the enemy of the people because they dare to criticize him, and lying, lying, lying (over five thousand as of last month, according to the Washington Post.). It’s just…it’s so much the same that I was feeling sick of it.

And then we had a new wrinkle. We had the bombs or, as Trump put it on Twitter, “Bombs.” Right there, right in front of millions of people, he put basically air quotes around the word as if to imply that it’s all some show, some false flag thing put together by the evil Democrats. The ones who he claims will get rid of pre-existing medical coverage, which is explicitly what the Republicans want to do. The ones he falsely claims came up with laws compounding the immigrant situation. The ones he blames for everything that he and his fellow GOPers do that screws things up. And now he was implying that the entire bomb situation, where bombs were being sent to all his opponents and news organizations, wasn’t real. That it was all being arranged by Democratic operatives in order to make the GOP look bad (as if everything they say or do doesn’t accomplish that.)

Of course, the problem is that the GOP loves conspiracy theories, embraces them, broadcasts them, reports on them as news items on Fox. They claim that George Soros, a philanthropic Jew, organized the migrant march. They still claim that Barack Obama is a Muslim born outside of the USA; Trump was their standard bearer for that one. And their latest was that the left itself was behind the attempted bombings. Despite the fact that the typos in the return addresses screamed it was GOP because a startling percentage of Trump followers have trouble with spelling.

Except now an arrest has been made. In Florida; of course Florida. The lunatic drives a van that is festooned with Trump stickers and a photo of Hillary Clinton with a target on it. He has a criminal record and is a registered Republican.

Trump’s reaction before the man was arrested? He claimed that we need to come together, to become a vast United America. He did it in his trademark soft, barely awake voice that he uses when he’s saying something he really doesn’t want to say. Because the simple fact is this: there is no more divisive man with a microphone as Donald Trump. He creates splits between our allies, he cuts his friends loose the moment they run into trouble, often claiming he barely even knows them. He complains how Brett Kavanaugh was falsely and hastily judged while encouraging shouts of “Lock her up” at rallies over women (of course) who have committed no crime.

After he was arrested? Trump congratulated law enforcement. Which is fine, but is not what needs to be addressed.

The simple fact is this: Trump should shoulder some, if not all, of the blame for this.

Trump loves violence. He has since the campaign began. He has embraced it wholeheartedly. He encouraged his followers to beat up protestors at rallies, claiming that he would cover their legal fees. He urged police officers to bang around suspects who were under arrest. He embraced a politician who beat up a reporter, calling him “my kind of…my man!” He loves Putin who kills reporters, Kim Jong un who had his step brother and uncle assassinated. Trump is, and always has been, a brute. He either embraces violent answers to questions, or uses threats of violence to intimidate his idiot followers. That’s why he claims without any proof that terrorists are marching toward us in the caravan. That’s why he described Mexicans as rapists and gang members. He wants to keep his base in fear and use violence against those whom he dislikes.

Naturally it culminated in a Florida sicko who rose to his master’s words and attempted to bomb anyone who Trump disliked.

Will Trump take any responsibility? Of course not. Instead he and the right will shout “Baseball shooter” because they think that one idiot doing something on impulse is comparable to a Trump nut systematically trying to bomb everyone that Trump doesn’t like. Trump has yet to conceive of the fact that words have meaning. That when you rail against people and endorse violent means to an end, people are going to take that and run with it, believing that they are doing what you would want them to. Even more to the point, it is quite simply insane that they take wrongdoing on the part of the Left as an excuse when someone on the right does something ten times worse. The right should aspire to be better than the left, just as the left does with the right. “Whataboutism” is pretty much a right defense. I don’t use the right’s obsession with analyzing and scrutinizing everything Obama ever did in a restaurant as a reason to excuse leftists harassing GOPers who are just trying to have an evening out.

The worst is when righties try to claim that Trump has done “so much good” for the country. Typically they’re wrong, buying into actions that are misreported, false, or insanely exaggerated. But you know what? Let’s say, just for fun, that Trump has done positive things. You know what? Hitler built up a sizable infrastructure in Germany, including the Autobahn. And Mussolini made the trains run on time. Does that make them admirable leaders and good guys?

This bomber is yet another Trump production, even if he doesn’t have Trump’s name on his back in gold letters. Trump’s supporters will of course not cop to that either. This guy is the face of home grown, Trump spawned terrorism, but Trumpies will declare he’s a single lone mentally ill nut who should not be accorded any importance. An isolated incident, that’s all.

No. He’s a landmark, a map, a guide for others to follow. I’d wager there are White Supremacists already putting together a GoFundMe page to pay for his defense. His kind has millions of supporters, and God only knows what they’re doing now. Now that the door has been opened to launch a terrorist attack on people Trump hates, it’s likely going to be kicked wide open and others will come marching through.

But what’s Trump worried about? He’s busy claiming Twitter is cutting back on his followers. Well, I know of one guy in Florida who may have been dropped off by now.

PAD

Neil deGrasse Tyson can save us all

So we’ve had a week to mull over the UN report that says the effects of global warming are no longer something that will impact the next century. We’ve got from twelve to twenty two years to pull it together, or my children and grandchildren will find the world uninhabitable around them.

This requires immediate action, and there’s one thing in which we can take complete confidence: Trump will do nothing. Even if he said he’d do something, he’d do nothing (right, Elizabeth Warren?)

But some individual states have proven they’re willing to step in where Trump ignores the needs of the world. Now we need to widen that.

There is no more respected scientist in this country than Neil deGrasse Tyson (okay, MAYBE Bill Nye.). Everyone knows and respects him. So Tyson needs to organize GUST.

What is GUST, you ask? Governors United to Save Terra.

Tyson needs to organize a national convention attending by governors from all fifty states. He needs to bring them together to one place, summon a coterie of scientists, and have them lecture at, and work together with, the governors to lay out a plan for them to undertake that will help to decrease the undeniable impact of global warming. Yes, even the governors of states with coal miners need to get on board with this.

Where would the money for this come from? From us. If Tyson began a Kickstarter or GoFundMe page dedicated to organizing the GUST meeting in order to save the planet, he’d easily get the money to do the job. Everyone, Republicans and Democrats alike, respect Tyson and, oh, by the way, want to do what they can to save the Earth.

This is the United States of America, but as states we really haven’t been united since…I dunno…World War II. Now we need to come together. The Feds aren’t going to do it: Trump rejects global warming and the EPA is slowly disintegrating. The states need to do it, and Tyson can get it done.

Organize GUST, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Let a new wind blow through the environment.

PAD

Freak Out Friday – October 5, 2018

Full disclosure–as of today, Friday, I am no longer part of this mortal coil. Instead I have shuffled off to New York Comic Con where, even now, I am at table E11 in Artist’s Alley. So swing on by.

Consequently I am writing this on Wednesday, October 3, so I will not be current on whatever idiocy has occurred in Trumpworld in the last two days. But it’s still worth writing about what’s happened so far.

1). So what does this mean, exactly?. During the election Trump incessantly bitched about NAFTA, complaining that for some reason I either failed to understand or he failed to explain, it was a terrible deal that was shafting America. I tended to ignore these claims for the same reason I ignored most of his claims: they were all lies. And I never thought he’d get elected and pose a threat to it.

Yet as it turns out he did get elected and he was ready to destroy NAFTA. I have no idea what the consequences of that would have been but I have to assume it wouldn’t be good. Yet apparently the US, Canada and Mexico managed to, at the eleventh hour, carve out a new deal. I know it has another name now, but I honestly don’t want to waste time looking it up again, so I’m simply going to refer to it as the New Administration Stupid Crap Ass Reboot, or NASCAR.

The Trump administration is claiming all sorts of positive things will come of it. Most of it seems to have something to do with Canadian milk. Considering his other policies are annihilating farmers nationwide, I guess it’s good that SOMEone is being helped. But I’ve seen a number of people who actually know about this stuff stating that the changes from NAFTA to NASCAR are going to be minimal. Plus there is a secondary issue. Thanks to Trump’s constant threats and actual dropping out of agreements that the US had signed onto, there is absolutely nothing apparently to stop either the Canadians or Mexicans, especially if there’s a change of government, from stepping forward and announcing they’re out of NASCAR. So Trump has likely laid down the mortality of the agreement he’s so proud of getting in place. It could be a classic example of what goes around comes around.

2). Someone should investigate the investigation.. So thanks to Jeff Flake being guilted into doing the right thing by some angry women in an elevator (and let’s give credit where it’s due; an entire women’s marching band in an auditorium couldn’t guilt Mitch McConnell into doing the right thing because the man has no soul, so at least there’s still hope for Flake) the FBI is spending this week investigating Judge Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assault of Doctor Ford. Except the “alleged” should really be in front of the word “investigating” because, as of this writing, over a dozen acquaintances of Kavanaugh’s who want to back up Ford’s descriptions of a teen Kavanaugh have not been contacted by the FBI. Indeed, they’ve contacted the Feds and have not heard back. Even Ford hasn’t spoken to them, for God’s sake. To say that thus far it appears not only to be a non-thorough investigation but in fact a non-existent one is to understate it.

Is it possible that Trump has instructed them that way? Of course it is. That’s why he stood there in Mississippi a few days ago and belittled and lampooned Doctor Ford to the hoots and hollers of a bunch of Mississippi assholes.

The fact of the matter is that over the past years, as the GOP did everything they could to block the efforts of every Democratic president to accomplish anything, we’ve lost focus of the United States of America. Instead we have devolved into tribes where everything someone witnesses is done through a polarized set of opinions that guarantees what they’re going to think before they see it. People in Ford’s tribe saw a pained but strong woman reliving one of the worst nights of her life in order to stop him from rising to the highest honor for a juror in this country. People in her tribe understood that of course she was too terrified to report it when she was fifteen. Kavanaugh’s parents were both attorneys. She’d have been shredded in courts, even her parents might not have believed her, her good name would have been destroyed, and her town would have turned against her and shielded the rich kid.

And then there’s Kavanaugh’s tribe. This includes both the rich and powerful, and the dumb ass hicks who adore Trump and believe the white man’s position of strength in America is being threatened by women who can just make shit up and be believed. People who see rage from a man as something strong and rage from a woman a sign of shrill weakness. They dismissed Ford’s testimony as unsupported (because so many sexual assaults happen in public squares) and saw Kavanaugh’s hysterical, utterly unjudicial rant as proof that he was innocent because he wouldn’t have been so angry otherwise.

Yes. He would have. Because he sees himself as a deserving white man who is having something he believes he’s earned snatched away from him (just as, two decades ago, Clarence Thomas saw himself as a deserving black man who was the subject of a lynching because Anita Hill cited his sexual misdeeds, and she was pilloried for it just as Ford is now.).

There are two reasons I am positive Trump helped him with his speech last Thursday: 1). Because it was loaded with Trump talking points, and 2) Kavanaugh made sure to tell people that no one else had seen it. Why in God’s name would anyone make that claim? Seriously. Did Obama ever feel the need to say, “I just want you all to know I wrote this myself?” No, because if he did, every one on Fox News would declare, “Well that’s proof he didn’t write it himself, because who makes that declaration except someone who wants you to THINK it when it’s not really true?” Same thing here.

Yet Trump has the gall to say that it’s tough to be a young white man now? NOW? Why? Because they’re in danger of being held to a code of conduct that doesn’t automatically spin confessions of rape or assault against the woman who had to endure it?

And Doctor Ford even sensed that she may well have been wasting her time vis a vis Kavanaugh, describing herself as being an object in the path of a speeding locomotive. McConnell wants to steam roll right over her, even though Kavanaugh has made plain beyond any question that he is not deserving of a chair on the SCOTUS, and possibly even any judge’s chair.

This is not the opinion of a tribal liberal. This is the opinion of the American Bar Association. There are some excerpts from the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct as of February 2007.

CANON 1: A judge shall uphold and promote the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary and shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of Impropriety.

Rule 1.2, Comment 2: A judge should expect to be the subject of public scrutiny that might be viewed as burdensome if applied to other citizens, and must accept the restrictions imposed by the Code.

Comment 3: Conduct that compromises or appears to compromise the independence, integrity, and impartiality of a judge undermines public confidence in the judiciary.

Comment 5: …The test for appearance of impropriety is whether the conduct would create in reasonable minds a perception that the judge violated this Code or engaged in other conduct that reflects adversely on the judge’s honesty, impartiality, temperament, or fitness to serve as a judge.

By any reasoned viewing of his actions, he is in clear violation of the canon. As he decried Democrats in general and the Clintons in particular, does ANYONE who might have stake in a liberal issue before the SCOTUS have the slightest belief anymore that they might get a fair hearing from Kavanaugh? Of course not. It is clear beyond any measure that Kavanaugh has no place on the SCOTUS.

And yet McConnell and crew insanely still want him on. Why? He was one name on a list of two dozen jurists, all of whom will be happy to undo Roe V. Wade, which is what this is really all about. Why are they still stuck on Kavanaugh?

There is really only one viable reason:

They want to piss off the Democrats.

I mean, God knows I’m used to that attitude. I’ve seen right wing assholes support the most ludicrous challenges to the Constitution purely because they know it’ll piss off liberals. Indeed, that’s the main reason they love Trump. He has no problem pissing off people he doesn’t like, most conspicuously liberals, and they take great glee in that. I understand it because it’s a juvenile and idiotic frame of mind to have, which is why they have it. But at least those maroons weren’t running the country.

Except now they are. That is the only explanation. McConnell and his Zoo Crew take delight in governing in a way that will anger Democrats. That, and holding on to power, are the only things they care about.

Kind of a stupid way to run a country, isn’t it?

PAD

Freak Out Friday – September 28, 2018

Normally when I write Freak Out Friday, I begin with a google search of Trump News to see what the idiot has been up to.

Wasn’t necessary this week. All of it played out on every TV station in this country. It was unavoidable. Indeed, being a total wuss, I wasn’t able to watch it for all that long as Dr. Ford struggled mightily–and for the most part successfully–to keep her act together. Meanwhile Judge Kavanaugh followed up with a shouting performance that utterly fell apart when the prospect of the FBI was raised.

I mean, I don’t know about you, but if a woman accused me of trying to rape her and I was offered the opportunity to have the FBI investigate it, I would not hesitate to take them up on it. “Take your time, get it right,” I’d say. Kavanaugh? Lapsed into silence, didn’t really answer, kicked it back to the committee. When someone remains unflustered and keeps themselves together, generally speaking they’re either a sociopath or have nothing to hide. Ford is no sociopath. When someone shouts and blusters and then backs down in the face of a thorough investigation, they’ve plenty to hide.

And of course Trump sticks with his pick since he is incapable of ever admitting when he’s wrong. Ever. He posted a bellicose tweet declaring that it was now obvious to America why he had chosen Kavanaugh. Yes, it is. Trump is an admitted, hell, boastful, molester of women. So naturally he was drawn to someone of a similar nature.

Now understand, I am fully prepared to believe that Kavanaugh genuinely doesn’t remember what he did. I had never in my life been drunk, but I have my own experience with memory loss. I was in the hospital with my stroke for ten days and I remember maybe five minutes of it, in all. No one believes I’m lying about that. I’m actually told it’s rather common. And I am likewise willing to accept that Kavanaugh drank himself into a stupor in which he doesn’t remember–or would rather not remember–what he did. It’s likely he considers himself a decent man who NOW would never do such a thing, and may deeply believe that even if he did it back when he was 17, he shouldn’t be punished for it now.

Of course, the same man didn’t hesitate to forbid a 17 year old girl from having an abortion, believing that she had made a mistake and now had to spend the rest of her life paying for it, so: a hypocrite, at the very least. A hypocrite who doesn’t want the FBI involved nor his friend Judge (what an appropriate surname) testifying under oath. Yeah. That’s who you want setting law for the next generation.

Ford has literally risked her life to come forward into a no-win scenario, and the GOP naturally wants to speed the nomination forward rather than find out the truth. If anyone has ever doubted that the GOP is entirely about acquiring and keeping power, this should pretty much confirm it. All they have to do is wait for the FBI to conduct an investigation, but they won’t do it. They’re afraid of two things: the Mid-term elections and the truth. That is who is running the country right now.

Except the one thing they should really be afraid of is Trump. Their man, their ruler, their dictator is a sociopath, a compulsive liar without the slightest bit of human empathy. There is no doubt in my mind that if Fox and Friends told him to launch a nuclear missile, he would do it. A rational president with a sense of the country’s good on his mind would insist that, at the very least, the FBI be given the time to determine what happened. Trump would never do that: he hates the FBI, and would never admit that he could have made an error in selecting Kavanaugh. Yesterday he tweeted, “Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him.” Yes, he did. He shouted. He ranted. He accused the Democrats and political enemies of aligning to destroy him. In short, he did exactly what Trump does whenever he gets backed into a corner. He took a huge page out of the Trump playbook, crumpled it, shoved it up his ass and regurgitated it. Trump selected him because he saw in him someone who was just like himself: a sexual molester who doesn’t want to be held responsible for his actions.

And I know, there are people shouting “Innocent until proven guilty.” Uhm…you know that’s not a real thing, right? It’s not in the constitution. The UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, yes, but not the American judicial system. If someone were really innocent until proven guilty, then no one could ever be held in jail while awaiting trial, because jail is where guilty people go. All the precept genuinely refers to is that it’s the prosecution’s burden to provide proof of the crime. Which was essentially what the prosecution was trying to do in this instance, except the entire trial was shut down. No other witnesses (including corroborating ones), no FBI investigation, no nothing. Just one woman. Every asshole who asks why she didn’t come forward when she was fifteen has received the answer: Because she wouldn’t have been believed. It took her thirty years to become the assured woman who convinced millions of Americans. If she’d been fifteen, she’d have been shredded in court and become a pariah in her hometown, no question. Ford is a smart woman and I suspect she was a smart girl, and the smart girl knew the odds against her were insurmountable. The grown woman was able to sit there and lecture senators about the hippocampus, which I’ve no doubt many would have guessed was an animal tended to by Dr. Dolittle. The young girl would likely have crumbled.

What it comes down to is this: Unless there are senators who are concerned that they’ll lose their seat by voting for Kavanaugh, this asshole is going to wind up on the Supreme Court. I’m sure he and Clarence Thomas will be best buds. Roe v. Wade will be teetering on the edge of oblivion. And Trump will go back to watching Fox and Friends to find out what to do next.

PAD

Yeah, I know

It’s my birthday. Not a big deal to me but if you wanna do the whole happy birthday thing, go ahead.

Freak Out Friday – September 21, 2018

He almost managed to do it. Trump almost managed to act like a decent human being.

And then today his true nature rose and he blew it.

You of course all know about Christine Blasey Ford, the California professor who (shades of Anita Hill) described a teenage Brett Kavanaugh, drunk out of his mind, attempting to sexually assault her. The obvious question is, should something a stupid teenager do be held against him decades later? The obvious answer is, if he’s black, yes. If he’s white, no. At least that is most likely what his defenders believe, even if they wouldn’t admit it.

Yet with his candidate under assault, Trump was displaying an astonishing even-handedness, stating that Ford should be heard. He wasn’t tweet-assaulting her. He was actually behaving like a concerned citizen with a sense of the trauma attempted rape would have on a frightened teenager, and advocating that Ford be given a hearing. Even his staff expressed genuine surprise that Trump was behaving like someone who had a moral center, something that until this week he appeared not to possess.

And that lasted until today, when Trump suddenly launched an assault against her from his Twitter haven, declaring that he wanted to see the police report because certainly a terrified teenager who didn’t want her parents to know she’d been at a party where drinking was going on would tell them all about it.

1). I would ask if Trump was insane, but sadly we all know the answer to that.

The fact is this: Back in the early 1980s, a teenage girl who accused a guy–especially a rich guy or an athlete–of sexually assaulting her was likely setting herself up to be a social pariah. This is what she would have faced: “Did he actually rape you? Penetrate you? No? Then why ruin the rest of his life for a stupid mistake. Besides, admit it: you really wanted it, didn’t you. You wanted it and then changed your mind at the last second, right, you stupid slut?” If she had said what happened, the chances are huge that she would have been talked out of pursuing it while simultaneously getting herself marked as a temptress who likes to get guys in trouble. Of course she didn’t say anything; she would get her life slagged while everyone else would be patting Kavanaugh on the back and telling him to ignore the little troublemaker.

This is, of course, a policy only held toward women. When hundreds and hundreds of boys are assaulted/raped by Catholic priests years ago, everyone accepts it and demands justice. But one scared teenage girl sexually assaulted by a Trump nominee? Sorry, but if she’s unwilling to testify by Monday, toss her aside, and she was probably lying anyway.

I’m not the slightest bit surprised that Ford wants the FBI to examine it before she testifies. You never know how many Trump-loving gun nuts are going to want to punish her for making life difficult for Trump. Having an actual investigation that backs her up, she figures, is sure to serve as proof of her allegations.

Yet Trump falsely claimed that the FBI wasn’t interested in investigating it. Trump has no trouble ordering the FBI to investigate “crooked Hillary,” but an actual crime? No, he claims it’s not their thing. Not their thing? IT’S IN THEIR DAMNED NAME. Plus, no surprise here, the FBI stated that Trump was lying. That he had not spoken to them, and they would be perfectly happy to begin investigating it if he told them to. Which of course he won’t. Because nothing, not even the humiliation of a teen girl, is going to derail Trump’s ultraconservative selection who will send the SCOTUS spiraling downward for a generation or more.

Could Trump remotely be expected to understand the shame of a teenage girl? Of course not. He thinks it’s okay to grab women by the pussy, for God’s sake.

The fact is that Kavanaugh is going to wind up on the Supreme Court no matter what he’s done. The GOP is walking in lockstep to make sure this culmination to their plan to make the SCOTUS conservative goes through. They first made it incredibly obvious when they stole a nomination from Obama, manufacturing arguments about how a president shouldn’t be able to nominate anyone during an election year, an excuse they completely threw away when it came to Trump nominating someone during an election year. They have forsaken any adherence to the notion of serving the people; they just want everything they can get as fast as possible. I still think Obama’s biggest mistake was not saying, “If they’re not going to do their job, that’s their choice, but I’m going to do mine. He’s now a Supreme Court justice. Presto.” If he had, we wouldn’t be in this fix.

2). Hey Sessions–you don’t exist. . Trump told “The Hill” two days ago that he doesn’t have an attorney general. What he really means is that he doesn’t have an attorney general who will do whatever he wants him to do. If Sessions would shut down Mueller, Trump would love him. Unfortunately for Trump, Jeff Sessions–who really is, frankly, something of a dick–at least has enough respect for the Constitution to place his loyalty to that over his loyalty to Trump. That makes him ineffective and a subject of ridicule.

Did he do anyt–Oh, screw it. Why even bother asking anymore?

PAD

The Dick Knight Rises

On April 12, “Young Sheldon” aired an episode called “A Mother, a Child, and a Blue Man’s Backside.” In it, Sheldon’s mother goes ballistic when she discovers her son is reading a smutty comic featuring full frontal male nudity. It was called “Watchmen.”

The episode seemed charmingly antiquated. I don’t really recall much offended fan reaction back when the book was initially published, although granted that was somewhat before the modern age of social media. By the way standards have changed in comics, I figured if it was done today, it would result in little reaction at all.

Well, not so much, as it turns out. In the first issue of “Batman: Damned,” well…there’s been lots of talk about Bruce Wayne’s dick in the past years, but it’s always capitalized and has the last name of “Grayson.” This time we see a heavily shadowed version of the real thing.

And I’m told by my wife that there are actually some fans who are offended.

Really? If it was Selina Kyle’s pubic hair, fanboys would be all over it. But depict a shadowed outline of the dick knight and those same fans are appalled.

I mean, you guys DO get it’s a drawing, right? That Bruce Wayne is fictional. That it’s one artist’s interpretation. That other than an attempt to justify the adult label on the book, it’s utterly pointless. That “Watchmen” was far more explicit thirty years ago.

Jesus. Chill, people. It’s a dick. Almost every other person in the world has one. No big deal, in any interpretation.

PAD

“Fear: Trump in the White House” Review

“With integrity, you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide.” –Zig Ziglar

“Power is fear.”–Donald Trump

It makes perfect sense that Trump would make that statement. Power, of course, does not immediately require fear to be operational. Bosses have power, but a good boss is hardly considered someone who operates through promoting fear in his subordinates. And good presidents don’t inspire fear. Obama certainly did not. W. may have inspired fear since he was an idiot, but he didn’t consider fear a mandatory part of his job. Nor did Clinton, certainly or any reasonable man you can name.

But Trump believes that fear goes hand in hand with being the POTUS. That explains why he has contempt for our allies and tons of admiration for Putin or Kim Jong un, dictators who are known to have everyone from political enemies to family members poisoned, shot, or otherwise dispatched of. They inspire fear in their population, and Trump wants to do that as well. He despises the media because, rather than fear him, they dare to criticize him. He wants the media to fear him, his staff and secretaries to fear him, the voters to fear him. Or just love him unreservedly, something I’m reasonably sure even his wife doesn’t do.

Into Trump’s world of threats, deceit and chaos comes Bob Woodward, one of the men who helped bring down Nixon. Woodward has written numerous books about Presidents, but as the Trump administration slides deeply toward Nixonian paranoia and retribution, Woodward seems singularly qualified to conduct interviews and try to draw a genuine framework of what’s happening behind the scenes.

Much of the “secret” stuff has been exposed in other books, but one was always suspicious of either the sources or the books’ narrators. When Woodward, however, attributes certain quotes to certain people, you are convinced of the truth of the assertions. Woodward is entirely about truth; to him, that’s Journalism 101. You know that everyone he quotes, he both has it on tape and he’s also got it from multiple sources because in proper reporting, every fact should be verified by two or even three sources. At no point is Woodward lax in that regard, which leaves you more and more stunned about Trump’s White House. Whether he is insulting his subordinates to their faces with others around or condemning them on Twitter, Trump is depicted as a man who is utterly devoid of human empathy. I think we all figured that out back when 9/11 happened, where his initial reaction was to point out that he now had the tallest building in NYC mere hours after three thousand people died in the WTC collapse.

He has no empathy and more, as the lead quote indicates, he has no integrity. Woodward makes the inevitable case that Trump cares about one thing and one thing only: himself. He is a narcissistic, compulsive liar. Woodward gives us instances where Trump is shown saying one thing and then later flat out denies he said it. His subordinates keep trying to find ways to maneuver him, including just swiping papers off the desk so that he will not sign them and hopefully forget about them.

That is, of course, no way to run a country. People who were not elected to office have no business undercutting the chief executive. On the other hand, the things they prevent him from doing are terrible, whether it’s having others executed even though we’re not at war with them, or instituting tariffs that will make a shambles of the world economy (“Fear” ends before Trump actually implemented his tariff policies that were loudly supported by one man who pretty much every other economist in business decried as an idiot.)

Woodward gives us quintessential Trump, whether he is blusteringly ignoring good advice or declaring that he knows things are wrong and he’s right because he “just knows,” even though Trump’s instincts are 100% off the rails.

Woodward’s style is as flat as it ever is, and sometimes the book drags if Trump is not present on the page. But in this day and age where reportage is often accompanied by screaming idiots who are thrusting their opinions forward, oftentimes with no support, it’s refreshing to see a nonstop litany of “just the facts, ma’am.” Sadly enough, the person you find yourself admiring the most is Rob Porter, who becomes an essential Trump confidant who is determined to do whatever it takes to prevent Trump from sending us spiraling into World War III. Yet he lost the gig when word of his spousal abuse came out. I thoroughly understand why he had to go when all that became public, and yet even one of the women he abused said, “I definitely want him in the White House and the position he is in. I think his integrity and ability to do his job is impeccable.” When you get done reading “Fear,” you will likely agree with her.

PAD

“Is Rey a Mary Sue?”

That was a question daughter Caroline asked me over lunch today.

“Of course not,” I said.

“Because some people say she is,” continued Caroline, “because she learned about being a Jedi so much faster than Luke.”

Operating on the unlikely possibility that someone doesn’t know what a Mary Sue is: She is a character who first launched in a satire of Star Trek fan fiction. Mary Sue is generally young, superb at every undertaking, serves as a sort of wish fulfillment of the author, is beloved by the existing cast of characters, typically shows up the lead, and–not required but not atypical–oftentimes dies and is grieved by everyone.

There are contentions that Rey falls into that category because she was so formidable a Jedi by the end of “The Force Awakens.” She was able to manipulate minds with the Force, could levitate a lightsaber to her hand, and defeated a trained Jedi master in their first lightsaber battle.

“Inconceivable!” shouted fandom.

“Perfectly understandable!” replied yours truly.

Here’s why:

Luke Skywalker had to go through a learning process, and as he learned, so did we. We didn’t have the slightest idea that Jedi’s could raise stuff with the power of their minds until “Empire Strikes Back,” wherein Luke raised a lightsaber to himself, Yoda lifted an X-Wing fighter, and Darth Vader mentally hurled pieces of junk at Luke during the climactic battle.

We didn’t see what a fully empowered Jedi could do until Luke took down Jabba the Hutt almost singlehandedly, and later defeated his father. It wasn’t until I saw a fully trained Luke in action that I accepted the claim that the Jedis had kept peace in the galaxy for generations.

The thing is, now that we know everything that a Jedi can do, were we really supposed to spend three MORE movies watching Rey traverse a path that we had already seen? When she mind manipulated the guard (a disguised Daniel Craig) we knew that Jedis could do that because we saw Obi-Wan do it. When she pulled the lightsaber to herself we knew that Jedis could do that because we saw Luke do it. There would have been no dramatic pull watching her learning how to do stuff that we had already witnessed happening in previous movies. The whole point of a voyage of discovery is that we learn stuff alongside the POV character. If all we did was watch her learn things we already knew, that would have been boring as hell.

Furthermore there was a story context: Kylo Ren, in probing her mind, obviously flipped some sort of switch in which she suddenly understood the potential of the power she had within her. It was only after that moment that her powers began to materialize.

Rey being as talented as she was had nothing to do with her being a Mary Sue; it happened because of dramatic necessity.

Let us also remember that yes, she beat Kylo Ren, but he wasn’t at his best. He was suffering from a wound inflicted on him by an infuriated Chewbacca and blood was dripping down from it. Hell, the first time they met, he knocked her out in five seconds. If she’d been facing off against a 100% Kylo Ren, it might well have gone quite differently.

Nor did she supersede the lead character; she spent the entirety of her first film looking for him. When she found him, that led into the second film, The Last Jedi, another film that fans love to decry. Why do they hate it? Because it wasn’t the film they would have made. From the moment Luke threw the lightsaber away over his shoulder, they despised it because it wasn’t giving them the beats that they had cooked up in their own minds. How dare Luke be too depressed to leap back into battle. How dare he teach the hated Rey. And the biggest sin of all: How dare we learn that Rey’s parents were no one in particular. A couple of brain addled schmucks who sold their daughter for drug money and got stuck in debtor’s graves? The film did nothing that they expected, and rather than celebrate being surprised, they vented their spleen against the film, the director, the actors…everyone they could think of.

Oh, and of course there’s the greatest sin of all. Rey was a female. If Rey had been a guy, fans would have said, “Cool, he’s almost as bad-ass as Luke.” But because Rey was a female, the reaction instead was, “How dare this girl be almost as bad-ass as Luke!” Fans will deny this, of course, but until Rey came along, the entire Star Wars universe in film had exactly two female characters: Leia and Mon Mothma, the latter of whom didn’t have much to do at any point except bark orders and look worried. The fact that the new films changes the male/female ratio simply infuriates fans who think the modern creators have no business adding additional females (with the exception of Phasma because you can’t see her face and also she’s played by Brienne of Tarth, an acceptable ass kicker in and of herself.)

So no. Rey is not a Mary Sue. She’s a tough nut Jedi who had her abilities expedited to avoid dramatic repetition. And The Last Jedi was a great follow-up if you’re willing not to hate it just because it didn’t tell the story you wanted to tell.

PAD