AI Trump is CONSTIPATED!

Now this is a pretty good use of A.I. We know it's A.I. but it's OK because much of this rings true. A.I. has unleashed a keg of worms, but if A.I. can be identified as such, it should not be a big problem. But you know some people out there are cooking up ideas to deceive the public into believing what they produce.

A Tale of 2 Brains

This is a fantastic article. It's a little long, but worth the read. It's basically an interview of Dr. John Gartner in Salon.

Dr. John Gartner is a psychologist and former professor at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School. Gartner was a contributor to the 2017 bestseller "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President."

Dr. John Gartner on a tale of two brains: "Biden's brain is aging. Trump's brain is dementing"

"This is a fundamental breakdown in the ability to use language," the renowned mental health expert says of Trump

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA

Senior Writer in Salon

Donald Trump has demonstrated, in repeated and dangerous ways, that he appears to be profoundly unwell mentally and emotionally. Some of the country’s and world’s leading mental health professionals have concluded that based on his behavior, Trump is likely a sociopath if not a psychopath.  

Whatever one may think about the specifics of his policies, President Joe Biden, on the other hand, is a responsible leader and an institutionalist who believes in America and the democratic experiment. By comparison, Donald Trump hates democracy, attempted a coup on Jan. 6, and is a megalomaniac who believes that he is some type of god or messiah. Whatever a fence sitter, undecided, or disgruntled Democrat or other member of Biden’s 2020 electoral coalition who is angry at him over a specific policy may think and feel, there is no issue where Donald Trump will be a real improvement. Moreover, Trump and his MAGA movement will punish those people who they view as being members of the Democratic Party's base of support. Ultimately, a “principled” vote against President Biden (or deciding to abstain in protest) is a vote for Trump and American neofascism.

“President Biden is old” is an easy, lazy, familiar, and comfortable narrative for the mainstream news media. It is sensational and gossipy (which means more ad revenue and attention), and maintains false balance, “fairness," bothsidesism and “objectivity” in their coverage. This maneuvering also allows the mainstream news media as an institution, or so its leaders incorrectly believe, some measure of protection against retaliation by Trump and his regime, if he takes power in 2025. In all, a focus on Biden’s mental health and age is but another way of normalizing Donald Trump and the neofascist movement and a continuation of the years of failure(s) by the American news media that helped to birth the vile Trumpocene.

The claim that President Biden is old and therefore so diminished mentally and physically that he is incapable of being an effective leader has taken on a life of its own. In many ways, this narrative is immune to the facts and evidence and may be a deciding factor in the outcome of the 2024 election and the future of the United States.

In this conversation, Gartner argues that it is actually Donald Trump and not President Biden who is showing diminished mental acuity and dangerous behavior related to aging. Gartner explains that Donald Trump’s escalating dangerousness is connected to what he believes is a diseased mind that will only get worse. Gartner warns that given Trump’s dangerous personality and emotional state, (Gartner describes this as “hypomanic” behavior) he is almost certainly plotting revenge and how to make his “enemies” suffer as revenge for finally being held accountable by the courts and the rule of law. At the end of this conversation, Gartner explains how even on his worst day as an older person, President Biden is a far superior leader and decision-maker (and human being) than Donald Trump. 

For several years, you have not been commenting publicly about Donald Trump. You shared with me how you are tired and exhausted from being in the fight against him and the MAGA movement and decided to step back. I have talked to other members of “the resistance” and they too have told me similar things. They’re exhausted; they’re tired; they’re spent. You were recently quoted in an article at US News and World Report about Biden and Trump’s mental health and age. Why have you decided to retake your public platform?

I'm not quite coming back to discussing politics publicly as I did before. I went through a similar process like some of the other people you have spoken to who have decided to step away from being active members of "the resistance." For five years I did that work with total energy and commitment. I was sounding the alarm about Trump basically every day. I did hundreds of interviews. I made it my full-time job like I was at war. But after five years, when Biden was inaugurated, I thought, okay, the war's over, I can take off my metaphorical uniform. So, not only are many members of the resistance exhausted, but we disbanded when Biden won in 2020. We had a duty to warn the public about Trump and the MAGA movement and all that danger. We were basically saying, "The British are coming! The British are coming!" At this point the American people must know that the British are here.

I had to speak out now because the 2024 election might turn on this issue of who is cognitively capable: Biden or Trump? It's a major issue that will affect some people's votes. Not enough people are sounding the alarm, that based on his behavior, and in my opinion, Donald Trump is dangerously demented. In fact, we are seeing the opposite among too many in the news media, the political leaders and among the public. There is also this focus on Biden's gaffes or other things that are well within the normal limits of aging. By comparison, Trump appears to be showing gross signs of dementia. This is a tale of two brains. Biden's brain is aging. Trump's brain is dementing.

What evidence do you have for that conclusion?

"Phonemic paraphasias" —the substitution of non-words for words that sound similar—are not normally seen until a patient enters the moderate to severe stages of Alzheimer’s.

Some examples of Trump’s non-words: Beneficiaries becomes “benefishes.” Renovations become “renoversh.” Pivotal became “pivobal." Obama became “obamna.” Missiles became “mishiz.” Christmas became “Crissus.” Bipartisan became “bipars.”

This is a fundamental breakdown in the ability to use language. If you were talking to your father on the phone and he did this you would think he is having a stroke. There is no healthy older person who speaks that way.

Trump also engages in what we call "tangential speech." He just becomes incomprehensible when he engages in free association word salad speech that is all over the place. Again, that's a sign of real brain damage, not being old, not being slow, not losing a step not being, but of severe cognitive deterioration. What I don’t understand is why those clips aren’t replayed over and over in the mainstream media. Isn’t Trump babbling incoherently the most newsworthy part of his rally? You can be sure it would be if it were Biden.

Biden has been excoriated for forgetting names, which can be a normal part of aging. But Trump isn’t just forgetting names, he’s forgetting and combining people. Trump believes Nikki Haley is Nancy Pelosi. He has said repeatedly that Obama is still president. He said his father was born in Germany when that was his grandfather.

There is also a person's baseline. This is an essential tool for evaluating a person's mental decline. If you look at Trump's interviews and speeches from the 1980s for example, he may have always been a bit of a jerk, but he was articulate and polished. Now if you look at Trump there is great deterioration. By comparison, Biden has never been the most articulate person; he always had a stutter. He always made gaffes. But Biden has a good heart and good judgment. Over the decades we have not seen much evidence of deterioration in Biden's speaking.

The mainstream news media is now advancing a narrative that President Biden is old, too tired, and needs to retire. By comparison, Trump, who is only a few years younger than the president, is being depicted, inaccurately, like he is some type of Immortal or human fountain of youth and vitality. I have made the intervention that Trump looks to some like he is full of energy and life because he is clearly so unwell and out of control and dangerous. President Biden is deliberate and measured. 

Trump is what we would clinically describe as "hypomanic." Trump is a man who is sending out messages on what used to be Twitter and also on his Truth Social platform at three in the morning, sometimes dozens of them in a row. A hypomanic personality has certain strengths and weaknesses. But a lot of it is like a vector of force that depends on where you direct it. Trump has directed his energy in purely destructive and hateful ways. What appears to be endless reserves of energy feeds the incorrect impression that somehow Trump is stronger because he has the vitality of someone who is in a crazed state, who's running amok. There's energy in that apparent crazy behavior. But in the end that is not the type of person who we want as a leader. Such a person will not keep us safe. Trump and people who act like him are not going to have good judgment.

What distinguishes “hypomania" from a high energy personality?

Bipolarity exists on a spectrum. On the lower end of the spectrum, at the high end of normal limits, it manifests as an exuberant, confident person and energetic person. At the other end of the scale are people with bipolar type 1 who have psychotic delusions of grandeur.

As I’ve written about, Trump has a hypomanic temperament as his baseline, but it can become inflamed to the point where he does appear to bear psychotic delusions of grandeur. With Trump, in my opinion, we are seeing this second, very unhealthy and dangerous manifestation of hypomania. There is also a sense of entitlement. Oftentimes arrogance goes with temperament. Charisma as well and a high sex drive. There is also a high drive for dominance. There is also something else very concerning and potentially quite dangerous about hypomania. Those who have that type of personality are also prone to severe hypomanic episodes which escalate in a crisis or when they fixate on something they find exciting. Then they can become even more reckless, impulsive and irritable. Such personalities like Trump show even worse judgment in such moments.

How is Donald Trump responding to the pressure from his criminal and civil trials? Last week, he was fined more than 350 million dollars. He now owes almost 500 million dollars in fines and penalties from his two civil cases.

Donald Trump is making a list of all the people he's going to punish and get revenge on. He is thinking about all the institutions in our society he is going to destroy. There's nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal. To my eyes, Donald Trump was always an animal — but now he's a wounded animal. Too many Americans — including people in the news media and in politics who should know better — are not comprehending the scale of Trump's revenge. If Trump gets back in power heads are going to roll. There are so many people who are going to be in harm's way. People better wake up and stop being in denial.

Donald Trump’s behavior is wholly predictable. Yet, the mainstream news media, the political class, and the American people as a whole continue to act surprised by his escalating dangerousness, promises of becoming a dictator, violent threats and other pathological behavior. At this point, after at least 8 years of Trump and the MAGA movement and all the horrible things he and they have wrought, one would think the American people and their leaders would be experts on mental pathology.

At this point, anybody with an IQ over 90, who isn't brainwashed by Fox News can see that Trump is unwell, dangerously unfit, malignant personality who has reaped massive destruction (have we just forgotten the hundreds of thousands of Covid deaths?) but even "mainstream" news sources have been normalizing Trump's dangerous and aberrant behavior because the corporate owners of the media want the ad money and don’t want to alienate their potential public by telling too much of the truth about the situation. Instead, they waste precious time talking about if President Biden is too old.

Given Trump’s personality type and behavior and now his mountain of debts from the civil cases, there must be real anxiety among the United States government and the national security state and allies about the ex-president having access to top secret and other highly classified information. As others have pointed out, Trump could potentially give away the country’s secrets to hostile foreign governments for money. 

Donald Trump has absolutely no loyalty to the country. In fact, there's a perverse way in which I think he takes pleasure in destroying America. That is a function of his malignant narcissism. I have no doubt Trump would sell America's secrets and likely already has given his psychopathic behavior. Malignant narcissists take joy in destruction. An emotionally and psychologically healthy person can't understand it.

Trump is now proclaiming that he is basically the Chosen One, a type of emissary and messiah from “god” and “Jesus Christ." As a clinician who has studied Trump’s behavior, how are you making sense of such claims and what they reveal about his mind?

It's the grandiosity; Trump has delusions of grandeur. That fits both the malignant narcissism and the hypomania. It fits both. Trump is practically declaring that he is God. If someone else was doing such a thing they would likely be hospitalized. Trump's sense of reality testing is very fluid. Yes, Trump is performing for his MAGA followers, but I also am convinced that he actually believes that he has some type of God-like powers.

What about Trump’s followers who see in him some type of god or superhero?

At some level their worship of Trump is cartoonish. They idolize him beyond anything that is reasonable. If you get sucked into a cult, there is this psychology of worshipping the Dear Leader, he or she is omniscient, the Messiah. Some people's personalities are also more vulnerable to joining cults. People who have more primitive personality disorders or other such conditions split the world into idealized figures and devalued figures. Such people also tend to have unstable emotional lives and relationships. On a mass movement scale, Trump is able to mobilize many such people. I would also suggest that many of Trump's most die-hard followers are organized psychologically on this more primitive level. Some have the authoritarian personality described by Adorno after World War II in their attempt to understand who was attracted to the Nazis. Charismatic leaders like Donald Trump excite in their followers a kind of frenzy. But because the MAGA movement, like other fascist and authoritarian movements, is a death cult, what Trump is inciting in them is a kind of a dark frenzy and dangerous excitement. We have seen such energies summoned in some of the worst moments of modern history, most notably in Germany.

Returning to my earlier point. Donald Trump is utterly predictable. You have predicted almost everything that Trump would do given his personality type and mind, sometimes years in advance. What are some of your specific predictions that have come true?

I predicted over a year before the 2020 election that Trump wouldn't surrender power willingly. Trump's threats to put immigrants and other "undesirables" in camps is also predictable and not at all surprising. I was warning the public years ago that Trump should be compared to Hitler. The media and other people told me I was exaggerating, and that Trump wouldn't have concentration camps. He did it. He is now promising an even bigger concentration camp system and the largest deportation program in history. When a person tells you who they are, believe them. Trump is now quoting Hitler and Mein Kampf and talking about "vermin" and "poison" in "the blood" of the country. It's not a dog whistle anymore. It's a foghorn. Trump has really beaten us down. We've become so desensitized.

Let’s assume that both Biden's and Trump’s behavior and personalities continue in the same direction. With that assumption, on their worst day, which of these two men would you rather have as President of the United States?

Even if he was demented, I would rather have Biden than Trump as President of the United States. Dementia brings out the worst in people's character. They become 10 times worse. If Biden really were to mentally decline — and I'm not saying he has or will or is — but he's basically a benign person with good judgment. Biden cares about his fellow human beings. Biden is patriotic, and he actually believes in defending the Constitution and the United States of America. So even if Biden were to become diminished in his cognitive abilities, he's still not going to do something evil or crazy. He just might need more help. By comparison, Donald Trump unleashed would be like Satan unbound.

Original.

Brian Karem

Brian Karem is a White House Correspondent and political analyst. Can't say I agree with everything Brian writes, but I can deal with that. It doesn't make me want to throw the guy in jail like Traitor Trump would.

Joe Biden gives the media a desperately needed lesson about Donald Trump

Brian Karem

Feb 24, 2024

The most disturbing thing I’ve ever heard a president say did not come from Donald Trump.

It came from Joe Biden. Speaking with reporters in California on Thursday, the president said this about Donald Trump. “Two of your former colleagues not at the same network personally told me if he wins, they will have to leave the country because he’s threatened to put them in jail,” Biden told Katie Couric. “He embraces political violence,” Biden said of Trump “No president since the Civil War has done that. Embrace it. Encourages it.”

Perhaps I should have been shocked at the revelation that Trump, should he return to power, would jail reporters. I wasn’t of course. I had to fight him (and beat him) three times in court during his first administration to keep my White House press pass. I had already privately heard Trump’s threats. It was just disturbing to hear Joe Biden confirm it publicly.  

I have already been jailed four times trying to defend my First Amendment rights when I covered a criminal case in Texas years ago.  I spent a total of about two weeks in jail for that and do not want to repeat my experience. I am not alone. There are at least a dozen reporters in this country who’ve done the same thing: gone to jail to protect their rights.  We call ourselves the First Jailbirds Club. 

A few years back we got together at the National Press Club to speak about our experience. The group had never gathered before. We found that while our experiences were very different, we all shared one thing in common: Those who demanded we go to jail, whether they were with a city, county, state or federal government agency,  claimed to support the First Amendment. They just didn’t think it applied in our case.

The fate of Alexei Navalny in Russia reminds us of the most extreme example of what can occur when members of the government don’t respect free speech or, for that matter, political opposition. But, the fate of Julian Assange is also a reminder that it isn’t just Trump who is an enemy of the free press. Biden’s Department of Justice could drop the prosecution of Assange picked up under the Trump administration yet  has not done so. The Wikileaks founder has been languishing in prison for five years and has been battling extradition and felony charges in the U.S. for nearly 13 years for publishing classified government documents based on the idea that the public had a right to know.

Imagine if Assange were extradited back to the U.S. prior to the November election. Trump would accuse Biden of persecuting journalists while being guilty of the crime himself.

It boils down to this: For a reporter to trust what any politician says is not only foolish but dangerous. Some won’t jail you. They all will lie to you.

I have always had a mistrust of authority, since I was a young child and saw our next door neighbor, a police officer, harass and confiscate illegal fireworks from neighbors on the Fourth of July, only to bring them to his house and light them off.

“My contempt of authority … made me an authority myself,” Albert Einstein said. I know of what he speaks. Experience is the ultimate teacher and only those who have it can understand.

As an example, as often as I would preach to my oldest son when he was young that he should not stick his finger in a Christmas tree light socket, he didn’t really understand until he suffered the consequences of doing it. He soon became an authority on that subject.

My experience tells me that Donald Trump means exactly what he says, and there are plenty of politicians who would do the same if they had the chance. Worse, in covering the Hamas war, a record number of reporters have been murdered in an attempt to silence those of us who risk it all to inform others. Those in power do not want us to inform everyone else about what is going on. To do so would be to risk losing control over the masses. 

How long shall we tolerate politicians who are so hungry for power that they will risk destroying us all to get it? 

The press, of course, are rascals in their own right. But the difference is we cannot do anything but report vetted facts, although many times we do that poorly – often because of government intervention – directly and indirectly. We remain trapped by the politician who owns the pulpit and can operate the levers of power. The politician can jail the reporter. The reporter cannot jail the politician. We also remain trapped by the public who’ve been manipulated by the government into thinking we’re the problem.

To be a reporter you must either have a thick hide if you wish to do your job correctly, or a limited intellect or lack courage if you do not. You can avoid being pilloried, but only if you either play the game with those who wield the power, or are too stupid to understand the game being played. 

While standing outside of President Biden’s appearance at a library in Culver City, California on Wednesday, I saw a protester screaming “Genocide Joe has to Go!” I approached the protester who carried a bullhorn and asked “why do you call him Genocide Joe?” It was a simple question and an obvious one to ask. Instead of answering it, the person I asked became angry and accused me of being stupid, a Zionist, a racist, a CIA operative, and several other choice invectives that caused me to chuckle. 

Shortly before Thanksgiving last year, I ran into a protester waving an Israeli flag outside of the White House. He was shouting that all Palestinians were Hamas terrorists. I asked, “Do you really think everyone in Gaza is a terrorist?” I had to ask for obvious reasons, but I was told then I was an anti-Zionist, a Hamas supporter and probably a terrorist. 

I’ve also been called a Trump supporter for asking someone if they thought Biden was old. And called a communist, a fascist, and a Biden supporter for simply pointing out the fact that Trump lost the 2020 election. I can’t help but chuckle at it all. 

Since none of those who have said these things about me, or any other reporter, actually knows us, I cannot take the insults seriously. But I do take the emotion behind them seriously.

America is suffering from a disease. While we can only hope, as Einstein did, that the present crisis can lead to a better world, so far we’ve seen very little evidence of that possibility. We’ve only seen the psychic distemper brought about by excessive nationalism and the equally violent response to it. 

The extremists at both end of the political spectrum are contributing to a lack of trust of the press, but make no mistake, Trump’s intentions are beyondmisunderstanding. He is the catalyst and the driving force behind the disharmony. Remove him and while there may not be a cessation of the stupidity, there will be a calming of the waters.

That is why the world cannot see Trump back in the White House. He knows nothing but divisiveness. And Biden was right to point out that Trump wants to jail reporters.

Trump supporters don’t care. But I’ve eaten Texas jail food, so I do.

When Einstein fled Germany he fled the poison of nationalism and longed for a country of civil liberty and tolerance. The closest he found was here in the United States. Where is it today? More importantly, where will it be after the November general election?

Original.

Joe Conason

Joe Conason has been around for years. He is an American journalist, author and liberal political commentator. He founded "The National Memo" and since 2006 has served as editor of The Investigative Fund. He has written for the New York Observer, Salon, and Creators. 

Over Congressional Republicans, Putin Casts His Dark Shadow

By Joe Conason

February 23, 2024 

If you believed that the Republicans in Congress couldn't sink any lower, recent events have proved you sadly mistaken. House Speaker Mike Johnson, in his latest displays of subservience to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, has made his most wretched predecessors seem like statesmen and patriots. For the first time ever in America, a branch of the government, the House of Representatives, appears to be decisively influenced, if not controlled by a hostile foreign power.

These are not accusations to be made lightly, but the evidence of Republican complicity in purveying Kremlin espionage against the United States is now overwhelming.

On Feb. 23, a federal judge in California ordered marshals to seize Alexander Smirnov at his lawyers' office only days after he had been released on bail by a different judge, with the clear implication that he might be preparing to flee the country. Smirnov is the much touted prime witness in the House Republican impeachment campaign against Joe Biden, accusing the president of having taken $5 million in bribes from Ukrainian oligarchs. It's all a lie manufactured by Russian intelligence.

Smirnov's initial arrest was ordered by special counsel David Weiss, the Trump-appointed Republican investigating Hunter Biden, who has indicted the star witness for fabricating his entire story and lying to the FBI. In subsequent court filings, the prosecutor charged that the lies transmitted by Smirnov originated with Russian spies.

In other words, the No. 1 Republican witness in the public and repeated smearing of President Biden — on the floor of Congress and in right-wing media — was a knowing conduit for Kremlin disinformation. The intent is nothing less than to help elect Trump.

What makes this scandal so much worse — and so embarrassing to Johnson, if he were capable of shame — is that Smirnov's deception emanated from the much broader Russian penetration of American politics that began ... when?

Perhaps with that Trump Tower meeting in 2015, when Donald Trump Jr. enthusiastically welcomed the idea of a Russian dossier on Hillary Clinton from a Russian intelligence operative. And then it continued with the Kremlin's cyber assault against Clinton in 2016, and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's secret cooperation with a Russian spy named Konstantin Kilimnik. After Trump became president, he withheld weapons from Ukraine while demanding a phony probe of Biden. Trump's blackmail attempt triggered his first impeachment.

Along the way, a gang of Trump associates led by Rudy Giuliani worked with various Putin stooges in Ukraine and elsewhere to invent mendacious nonsense about the Bidens. Giuliani worked closely with Putin crony Andriy Derkach and other dubious characters, who were later indicted for attempting to interfere in the 2020 election.

For years, it has been blindingly obvious that the "investigation" of Joe Biden and Ukraine emanated not from any legitimate source but directly from this country's enemies. And yet while those accusers were repeatedly exposed and discredited, congressional Republicans insisted on pursuing the bogus case invented in Moscow.

But Johnson's undermining of American security has gone well beyond the assistance he and Republicans have provided to the Kremlin in subverting American democracy. Now refusing to fund U.S. military assistance to Ukraine in its courageous struggle against Russian invaders, they have helped Putin gain a critical victory in the battle of Avdiivka and jeopardized the Western alliance that is fundamental to European and American security. Johnson has admitted he's taking his orders from Trump, who worships Putin. The cowardice of Johnson and the Republicans has become crucial to Putin and his savage war.

Johnson has his own little Russian secrets. The speaker must still explain the laundered campaign funds from Konstantin Nikolaev, a Russian oligarch and confederate of confessed convicted Kremlin spy agent Maria Butina. She served a prison sentence here after the exposure of her successful scheme to penetrate the National Rifle Association and other right-wing groups, including some of the "Christian nationalist" outfits that Johnson promotes.

What attracts extremists like the House speaker — and his puppet master Trump — to the Russian dictator who looms above them is an authoritarian political orientation that smells of fascism. Putin is a threat from without, and they are a threat from within.

To find out more about Joe Conason and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Original.

Back in the U.S.S.R.

There are a lot of good writers out there these days, and you have to be lucky to catch them all. MSNBC gives a lot of leads to various opinionators from the NYT and WaPo, but there are many good writers beyond those two publications. Check out Substack, Alternet, Mother Jones, and so many others. Even in this era of internet aggregators, it's hard to catch everything worth catching. Damn near impossible. Despair is not an option.

'Back in the U.S.S.R.'

by Noel Casler

Feb 17, 2024

Pour one out for Alexei.

 

I don’t say this to be glib. 

I am quite serious that at this moment Americans need to take stock.

Alexei Navalny represented a spirit of bravery and stoicism in standing up to corruption - and the oppression that always follows it - with a steadfast and unwavering resoluteness. 

An example and hero to millions of Russians and freedom-loving people all over the world. 

He was the sort of person that the Republican Party at one point in their existence would have seen as a hero and a role model.

 

They would have lauded him from every angle.

 

Now they will have to laugh along as Trump undoubtedly makes Navalny’s death into some sort of punchline while praising Putin at the next MAGA rally.

 

That Navalny’s death came in the same week that Speaker Johnson blocked a vote in the House on the Senate’s Ukraine aid package is no accident.

Nor is it any coincidence that it came on the heels of Tucker Carlson’s fawning and propaganda-filled interview with Vladimir Putin in Moscow. 

And the subsequent pro-Russia content Tucker has been furiously uploading to his twitter account all week.

 

His pro-Putin hagiography tour finding an eager hype man in the salivating retweets by Elon Musk.

 

Carlson’s own comments when confronted this week at the World Governments Summit with Putin’s brutality, ’every leader kills people….’

 

It’s disgusting stuff but should sound familiar to anyone paying attention.

 

Russian talking points always follow the same script: see Trump’s ‘Super Bowl’ interview with Bill O’Reilly in February of 2017 when he was asked about Vladimir’s brutality, ‘You think our country is so innocent..there are lots of killers’.

Tucker becoming Russia’s foremost content creator comes as people are being rounded up and arrested in cities all over Russia right now for memorializing and gathering in remembrance of Navalny. 

Russian forces are removing the flowers left at monuments and arresting journalists covering the scenes. 

Putin wants to make Alexei Navalny disappear from the consciousness of the millions of Russians who supported him - and there are many members of the American conservative movement that would gladly help him. 

It’s a sad day indeed: one in which people who value democracy and love freedom need to stand up and take stock of where we are headed as a nation. 

The GOP has been in the pocket of Vladimir Putin for some time - this is no secret to even casual observers of American politics. 

The former Soviet Union started spreading cash around D.C. in the ’90s with no surfeit in sight. 

Their investments have paid dividends in the MAGA era. 

So much so that Putin has been able to completely change the narrative around Russia within the Republican Party. 

Vladimir Putin is practically celebrated on Fox News and in the halls of the GOP Congress. 

Republicans have gone out of their way to both cut support and rhetorically undermine Ukraine and minimize Russia’s horrific invasion.

This is accomplished by outright Putin toadstools in the GOP firmament. 

In both the Republican House and Senate there are no shortage of Putin apologists.

 

From the obvious lap dogs like the poodle-permed Rand Paul, to the lasciviously greedy like Ron Johnson. 

Over on the house side of the Hill it’s smarmy frat bros like Matt Gaetz who proclaim things like ‘Russia’s never done anything to me…”; using his stalling of Kevin McCarthy’s Speakership to leverage cutting Ukraine aid (to the detriment of his own state and constituents, as Florida earns billions from manufacturing weapons used by Ukraine). 

We should also remember the recent snub of President Zelensky when he requested to address Congress on a U.S. visit in September and was denied by then Speaker McCarthy.

Bravery isn’t a good look for the modern GOP so they try to avoid any examples of it at all costs.

Men like Zelensky and Navalny are examples of real leadership and selfless service - which is the polar opposite of the cult of personality that has formed around Donald Trump. 

The GOP’s aim is the constant massaging of Trump’s delicate and very damaged ego. 

‘Trump works for Putin and we work for Trump’ could be the modern Republican mantra. 

There is no easier way to distill what I am trying to say than saying it like that. 

I do feel it is important to meditate on this moment and see very clearly what many of our fellow countrymen have become and where we are heading collectively as a nation. 

For anyone that lived through the Cold War era this turnaround in the Republican Party is quite shocking. 

I’m in my early fifties now, so I only caught the last 20 years of the Cold War but it was enough of a taste to realize - it is hard to believe we are even talking about the same Republican Party. 

But we are not talking about the same party and I guess that is the point. 

The party of Rambo and Ronnie Reagan has become the party of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk and a thousand other Russian sycophants looking to suck up and follow the model of Putin’s kleptocracy and set up shop for an American oligarchy. 

Trump will of course assert himself at the top of that food chain and his minions will become his version of the Russian billionaires who bled their country dry while their daughters shop in Palm Beach and buy apartments in New York City that cost more than most Russians will make in a lifetime. 

If you have spent anytime in Monte Carlo or Mayfair or Miami you can find them everywhere, the duck-lips and Balenciaga bags, bleached blonde, plucked and coiffed with that dead-eyed look that always comes from placing money above morality. 

That recipe looks pretty tasty if you’re in line to become an oligarch yourself. Many of the billionaires who bought up judges and politicians at Trump’s behest have no problem with the conspicuous consumption of other people’s money. 

Jared Kushner, who lives the high life with Vanky on Indian Creek, a private island in Miami designed solely for billionaires, will play an outsized role in this burgeoning kleptocracy.

He was the chief architect of the initial Trump administration’s designs on turning the USA into an oligarchy - and also the one who has seemingly gotten away with it.

 

He can now direct his evil minions with the smugness of a hairless cat luxuriating the in the South Florida sun. 

Many forget that while Trump was still just a president-elect, Jared set up a back channel with the Kremlin, going around U.S. intelligence agencies. Naturally this came to light, so when Trump assumed office Kushner’s original security clearance was denied, only to be overridden, against our intelligence and security agencies wishes by Trump himself. 

Kushner then steered his father-in-law’s foreign policy decisions based on how much they would benefit Vladimir Putin and of course MBS.

Given Trump’s recent comments on NATO and allowing Putin’s Russia to “do whatever the hell they want….” when it comes to invading European allies, the GOP’s blocking of Ukraine aid and Putin’s murderous impulses and imperialistic designs, we are quite clearly in a moment of peril and pathos.

Brave men do not die in vain: Alexei Navalny was astoundingly brave and not unaware of how his story would end. 

His life should serve as an example to all of us to light and stoke the fires of fierce non-violent, political opposition to any and all enemies of freedom.

Even when those threats appear to be homegrown.

I will stop writing now and let Alexei Navalny’s words speak for themselves: 

“Listen, I’ve got something very obvious to tell you. If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong.” 

And this quote from a letter he wrote upon his return to Russia, “Everything will be all right. Even if it isn’t we’ll have the consolation of having lived honest lives.” 

May his memory inspire and guide us all, rest easy, Alexei Navalny.

Original.