Virginia, 2025

For a few minutes, let’s turn our attention to the Nov. 2025 election in Virginia when the state will elect Governor, Lt Governor, and Attorney General.

Virginia was turning blue when, in 2021, we ran a weak, not-too-bright candidate for Governor while the Republicans ran a political novice who raved about “CRT” being taught in schools, kids being told by teachers to change their gender, and other bullshit.  It worked so well that a state that had gone strongly for Biden in 2020, elected damn fool incompetents as Gov, LtGov, and AG in 2021.

And now here’s what’s shaping up for 2025 — VA is one of three states that has state elections in off-years, following the Presidential election.

  • Very popular Abigal Spanberger, former member of Congress, is the Democratic candidate for Governor.  (In VA, governor is limited to one term.)
  • Two strong Democrats have announced their interest in the LtGov seat.
  • Ditto — two strong Democrats have announced their interest in running for Atty Gen.
  • Meanwhile:
    • Thank God our Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, cannot run again.  He likely will be given a job in the Trump administration.
    • Current LtGov Winsome Sears has announced her run for Governor and it’s looking as though she will be the Republican nominee.
    • Current Atty Gen Jason Miyares has announced his run for re-election.  He needs to be defeated so he can go back to chasing ambulances.

Meanwhile, here’s LtGov Winsome Sears, soon to be Republican gubernatorial nominee.

 

Here’s a link to the nutty shit she has propounded. 

The coming Second Civil War

The Second American Civil War is almost here . . . but it’s not as you would expect between Democrats and Republicans.  No, the Second American Civil War will be a war within the Republican Party, pitting the establishment, business wing of the GOP against the Trump as dictator wing.  And it will be bloody.  Here is the lineup.

Republican senators today elected John Thune of South Dakota to be the next Senate majority leader. Trump and MAGA Republicans had put a great deal of pressure on the senators to back Florida senator Rick Scott, but he marshaled fewer votes than either Thune or John Cornyn of Texas, both of whom were seen as establishment figures in the mold of the Republican senators’ current leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Scott lost on the first vote. The fact that the vote was secret likely helped Thune’s candidacy. Senators could vote without fear of retaliation.

The rift between the pre-2016 leaders of the Republican Party and the MAGA Republicans is still obvious, and Trump’s reliance on Elon Musk and his stated goal of deconstructing the American government could make it wider.

Republican establishment leaders have always wanted to dismantle the New Deal state that began under Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt and continued under Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower and presidents of both parties until 1981. But they have never wanted to dismantle the rule of law on which the United States is founded or the international rules-based order on which foreign trade depends. Aside from moral and intellectual principles, the rule of law is the foundation on which the security of property rests: there is a reason that foreign oligarchs park their money in democracies. And it is the international rules-based order that protects the freedom of the seas on which the movement of container ships, for example, depends.

Trump has made it clear that his goal for a second term is to toss overboard the rule of law and the international rules-based order, instead turning the U.S. government into a vehicle for his own revenge and forging individual alliances with autocratic rulers like Russian president Vladimir Putin. 

He has begun moving to  put into power individuals whose qualifications are their willingness to do as Trump demands, like New York representative Elise Stefanik, whom he has tapped to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, or Florida senator Marco Rubio, who Trump said today would be his nominee for secretary of state.

Alongside his choice of loyalists who will do as he says, Trump has also tapped people who will push his war on his cultural enemies forward, like anti-immigrant ideologue Stephen Miller, who will become his deputy chief of staff and a homeland security advisor. Today, Trump added to that list by saying he plans to nominate Florida representative Matt Gaetz, who has been an attack dog for Trump, to become attorney general.

Trump’s statement tapping Gaetz for attorney general came after Senate Republicans rejected Scott, and appears to be a deliberate challenge to Republican senators that they get in line. In his announcement, Trump highlighted that Gaetz had played “a key role in defeating the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax.”

But establishment Republican leaders understand that some of our core institutions cannot survive MAGA’s desire to turn the government into a vehicle for culture war vengeance.

Gaetz is a deeply problematic pick for AG. A report from the House Ethics Committee investigating allegations of drug use and sex with a minor was due to be released in days. Although he was reelected just last week, Gaetz resigned immediately after Trump said he would nominate him, thus short-circuiting the release of the report. Last year, Republican senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma told CNN that “we had all seen the videos he was showing on the House floor, that all of us had walked away, of the girls that he had slept with. He would brag about how he would crush [erectile dysfunction] medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night.”

While South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham said he would be willing to agree to the appointment, other Republican senators drew a line. “I was shocked by the announcement —that shows why the advise and consent process is so important,” Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) said. “I’m sure that there will be a lot of questions raised at his hearing.” Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) was blunt: “I don’t think he’s a serious candidate.”

If the idea of putting Gaetz in charge of the country’s laws alarmed Republicans concerned about domestic affairs, Trump’s pick of the inexperienced and extremist Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth to take over the Department of Defense was a clarion call for anyone concerned about perpetuating the global strength of the U.S. The secretary of defense oversees a budget of more than $800 billion and about 1.3 million active-duty troops, with another 1.4 million in the National Guard and employed in Reserves and civilian positions.

The secretary of defense also has access to the nuclear command-and-control procedure. Over his nomination, too, Republican senators expressed concern.

While Trump is claiming a mandate to do as he wishes with the government, Republicans interested in their own political future are likely noting that he actually won the election by a smaller margin than President Joe Biden won in 2020, despite a global rejection of incumbents this year. And he won not by picking up large numbers of new voters—it appears he lost voters—but because Democratic voters of color dropped out, perhaps reflecting the new voter suppression laws put into place since 2021.

Then, too, Trump remains old and mentally slipping, and he is increasingly isolated as people fight over the power he has brought within their grasp. Today his wife, Melania, declined the traditional invitation from First Lady Jill Biden for tea at the White House and suggested she will not be returning to the presidential mansion with her husband. It is not clear either that Trump will be able to control the scrabbling for power over the party by those he has brought into the executive branch, or that he has much to offer elected Republicans who no longer need his voters, suggesting that Congress could reassert its power.

Falling into line behind Trump at this point is not necessarily a good move for a Republican interested in a future political career.

Today the Republicans are projected to take control of the House of Representatives, giving the party control of the House, the Senate, and the presidency, as well as the Supreme Court. But as the downballot races last week show, MAGA policies remain unpopular, and the Republican margin in the House will be small. In the last Congress, MAGA loyalists were unable to get the votes they needed from other Republicans to impose Trump’s culture war policies, creating gridlock and a deeply divided Republican conference.

The gulf between Trump’s promises to slash the government and voters’ actual support for government programs is not going to make the Republicans’ job easier. Conservative pundit George Will wrote today that “the world’s richest person is about to receive a free public education,” suggesting Elon Musk, who has emerged as the shadow president, will find his plans to cut the government difficult to enact as elected officials reject cuts to programs their constituents like.

Musk’s vow to cut “at least” $2 trillion from federal spending, Will notes, will run up against reality in a hurry. Of the $6.75 trillion fiscal 2024 spending, debt service makes up 13.1%; defense—which Trump wants to increase—is 12.9%. Entitlements, primarily Social Security and Medicare, account for 34.6%, and while the Republican Study Group has called for cuts to them, Trump said during the campaign, at least, that they would not be cut.

So Musk has said he would cut about 30% of the total budget from about 40% of it. Will points out that Trump is hardly the first president to vow dramatic cuts. Notably, Ronald Reagan appointed J. Peter Grace, an entrepreneur, to make government “more responsive to the wishes of the people” after voters had elected Reagan on a platform of cutting government. Grace’s commission made 2,478 recommendations but quickly found that every lawmaker liked cuts to someone else’s district but not their own.

Will notes that a possible outcome of the Trump chaos might be to check the modern movement toward executive power, inducing Congress to recapture some of the power it has ceded to the president in order to restore the stability businessmen prefer.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was himself a wealthy man, and in the 1930s he tried to explain to angry critics on the right that his efforts to address the nation’s inequalities were not an attack on American capitalism, but rather an attempt to save it from the communism or fascism that would destroy the rule of law.

“I want to save our system, the capitalistic system,” FDR wrote to a friend in 1935. “[T]o save it is to give some heed to world thought of today.”

The protections of the system FDR ushered in—the banking and equities regulation that killed crony finance, for example—are now under attack by the very sort of movement he warned against. Whether today’s lawmakers are as willing as their predecessors were to stand against that movement remains unclear, especially as Trump tries to bring lawmakers to heel, but Thune’s victory in the Senate today and the widespread Republican outrage over Trump’s appointment of Gaetz and Hegseth are hopeful signs. 

The Nov 5, 2024, revealed the real America . . . and it’s ugly

Everyone in the days and weeks ahead will use VP Harris’ loss as an opportunity to seek validation for their own favorite complaint: Harris lost because she campaigned with Liz Cheney; No, Harris lost because she didn’t embrace Gaza; No, Harris lost because she didn’t choose Shapiro; No, Harris lost because she wasn’t progressive enough.

Take a good hard look at the map, my friends. Trump has won the popular vote. Trump ran the table. Explaining that with your favorite issue isn’t going to cut it, tempting and consoling as it may be.

The problem isn’t the electoral college. The problem isn’t that we didn’t have a full primary. The problem isn’t Harris. The problem isn’t that Dems didn’t have the right message. The problem isn’t even inflation or the border. The problem is so much worse than any of those things. Those are all technical problems, with straightforward expertise fixes. If only it were so!

No, our problem is not technical. It’s very much adaptive. A party that embraced the Big Lie, supported an insurrection, and has been selling conspiracy-addled madness for years was widely and enthusiastically embraced. Voter turnout was profound! People didn’t sit this out.

Simply put, the problem is cultural. America, culturally, has completely abandoned a politics of decency and respect and has embraced instead a politics of resentment, revenge, false nostalgia, and bullying.

And if you look at the demographics, you also won’t be able to comfort yourself that it’s just a white thing, or a working class thing, or an education thing. It’s multi-class, multi-gender, multi-educational and multi-racial. That’s what winning the popular vote means. That’s what running the table amounts to.

A culture that has descended to this level of debasement is not easily fixed. In fact it may not ever be fixed. The timeline for changing something like this is decades–at best–not two-to-four year election cycles. You can extend that in this case, because with the GOP likely controlling all branches of federal government and the courts, they will ensure that mechanisms are in place to keep them in power long after their popularity has waned. You can count on that.

The GOP evolved into a party of rage, lies, and revenge–and it correctly diagnosed that there was and is a large appetite for that. That’s what the country wants. At least, enough of the country wants it to ensure broad appeal and widespread electoral success. The old GOP will never return, and the Dems have nothing to say to American culture at the moment. Nothing. They’ve been speaking to a country that’s gone, like dust in the wind. And that’s my final thought, which my posts last night alluded to. The America I knew and loved is gone. This new America–nah, I won’t even bother. I will say that cultural change is less likely to occur in politics, or in the academy. You’re not going to get people to see how vulgar they’ve become through a clever argument or a nice campaign speech, that’s for sure.

And for the rest of the world, America’s rightward lurch is, I’m afraid, bad news for you too. I know you know this. Because it’s not isolated, is it? It’s just at the moment the most prominent example of a burgeoning trend. And this will embolden others in other countries, to be sure. We need not speculate what happens when countries become mired in lies, embrace resentment, and savor bullying. We know exactly what happens. Bloody conflict and global destabilization.

The first quarter of the 21st century will therefore in hindsight be viewed as the seed-planting stage for the absolute shit show that’s about to unfold globally over the next two and a half decades. Count on it.

Adopt whatever coping and endurance strategies you have available. You’re going to need it. I think that’s all I’ve left to say.”

Just when you think they can’t sink any lower, the MAGAts sink even lower

Homeowners with Harris/Walz yard signs getting postcard notices that immigrants will be moved into their home.

The postcard is addressed to “Resident” with a Kamala Harris logo posted on the front of the postcard.

“We will be moving a family of 4 from the country of Belize into your home on 11-3-2024. They will need food, toiletries, and transportation. Thank you!” the card reads.

It is not clear where the postcards came from as there was no political organization or return address listed.

“Well, someone sure seems to be upset with my choice of yard sign. I thought it was pretty funny, so I decided to share it with you all. I could seriously use the help with the leaves, if true…,” the caption read on the Reddit post.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/massachusetts-residents-claim-theyre-being-trolled-fake-harris-postcards-saying-migrant-family-moving

November 5 is your chance . . .

 

PissOnTrump.jfif

 

The media claims that Trump has become a mean, vindictive, dangerous, slimy  liar, a failure, and an all-around piece of shit.

They are wrong.

He has always been a mean, vindictive, dangerous, slimy  liar, a failure, and an all-around piece of shit.

The Trump campaign in one photo

 

 

After the Madison Square Garden rally in which one speaker referred to Puerto Rico as “garbage floating in the ocean,” Trump staged a stupid stunt at an empty airfield.

Trump donned a yellow safety vest, faced the camera, made a few comments, then tried to get into the passenger side of a garbage truck — he stumbled toward the truck, tried three times to grasp the handle, finally opened the door, managed to climb into the passenger seat (with campaign staffers shoving him into the seat), then rode around in circles for a few minutes.