Why we have some goodwill around the globe, rooting for us to overcome (again) our recurring demons... And the real danger when we're hit by that coming 9/11 Reichstag Fire.

As the Putinists continue wrecking all U.S. institutions and turning the world (including longtime allies) against us, it's important to recall how much goodwill Trump and his ilk must eliminate, before that promise to Moscow can be fulfilled. Of course all empires are disliked, but elsewhere I describe how George Marshall, FDR, Truman, Ike etc. set things up so that humanity would have its best 80 years, ever. Better than all of prior human history combined. Resulting in the *least hated* empire. That is... until now.

Okay, Pax Americana will never be the same after Trump. And maybe that's good. Other centers of Enlightenment are stepping up. But when the Union finally wins this latest phase 9 of Civil War betrayal by our idiot Hyde-Side neighbors, watch the joy burst forth around the globe... and across all Americans of goodwill and sapience. 

Want evidence for that assertion? Amid our self-reproach, Let's remember times when America did take brave steps toward light. There are others, on this planet, who remember, as well. And you need the gift that I am about to give you.

This song by Michel Sardou is called "Les Ricains" which means, more or less, "The Yankees." Here are the lyrics, to read along.

Les Ricains by Michel Sardou

If the Ricans weren't there

Si les Ricains n'étaient pas là

You would all be in Germania

Vous seriez tous en Germanie

To speak of I don't know what

A parler de je ne sais quoi

To greet I do not know who

A saluer je ne sais qui

Of course years have passed

Bien sûr les années ont passé

The rifles changed hands

Les fusils ont changé de mains

Is this a reason to forget

Est-ce une raison pour oublier

That one day we needed it?

Qu'un jour on en a eu besoin?

A guy from Georgia

Un gars venu de Georgie

Who cared a lot about you

Qui se foutait pas mal de toi

Came to die in Normandy

Est v'nu mourir en Normandie

One morning when you weren't there

Un matin où tu n'y étais pas

Of course years have passed

Bien sûr les années ont passé

We became friends

On est devenus des copains

To the friendly of the shot

A l'amicale du fusillé

They say they fell for nothing

On dit qu'ils sont tombés pour rien

If the Ricans weren't there

Si les Ricains n'étaient pas là

You would all be in Germania

Vous seriez tous en Germanie

To speak of I don't know what

A parler de je ne sais quoi

To greet I do not know who

A saluer je ne sais qui

Got you a little misty-eyed?

Even better is this version... a huge crowd of French people cheering and singing along. Capable of gratitude.  They know that this American Pax, for all of its faults, prevented vastly worse. That things could have been a hell, a curse. That every other era of dismal human history was worse. 

And if we do not blow it now, we have a chance to be recalled by our heirs - organic and cyber - the true humans - as the very best that cavemen could be. Crude, bestial primitives who tried nonetheless to lift our gaze and those around us. To something better.

Listen and read along. We need this now. Right now!

Try. I dare you not to tear up, in gratitude for this gratitude.

          == But we have a tough job keeping that promise == 

Alas, the Kremlin boyz and confederates and murder sheiks have the upper hand for now and they and stick together. 

Latest example: Trump has issued special exemptions letting Putin sell oil, evading world sanctions for his murderously criminal invasion of Ukraine. Fox News is a 5th column of the relabeled KGB's propaganda Comintern that has used blackmail to take over the entire Republican Party.

Amid the hooplah over the Strait of Hormuz -- ("YOU block it? No, *I* get to block it!") -- Trump has all along made offers to the Iranian Republican Guard and Religious Police etc. to make deals with him, in exchange for them kissing his ring. 

It's already happened! In Venezuela, Argentina, El Salvador etc. - and possibly soon in Cuba (DT shouts "They're next!") - the aim is never, ever to establish democracy or to liberate citizens from their oppressors.

The pattern is perfectly that of mafiosi and that of an ex casino mogul. Taking over another gang's territory by decapitating it's top capo, then getting allegiance (and resulting vigorish) from the sub-capos of the gang that's left in place. 

This is now so blatant that no other theory is remotely tenable. LOOK at this image of Maduro's VP Rodriguez, all spiffed and glammed-up and grin-hugging Trump's consigliere, eager to serve... and to send Trump personally a shipment of gold! And nothing for the Venezuelan people.

Oh, and Miami crime families will slip in atop the Castro power structure in Cuba. 

This is a Mafia gang and the capo di tutti capi is named Vlad. 

His other goal? Riling up enough enemies (who had been quiescent since Obama killed Osama) to deliver us into another 9/11, that he imagines might save him, this fall. Which explains why he fired over half of our counter-terrorism experts. Now why would anyone do that? 

Put it all together folks. 

== The real purpose of the coming Reichstag Fire / 911 strike ==

Everyone will be able to see that the calamity will be a blatant set-up in order to justify declaring an emergency and martial law and to cancel the November election's likely torching of the entire treasonous GOP. 

It won't work, for that reason. Because we all can see it.

Only there is an added, underlying danger that I see discussed nowhere.

Go back to 1933. The purpose of the Reichstag Fire was to excuse the Nazi arrest of dozens of opposition parliament members. And thus, the parliament could never hold a quorum vote for new elections or a new Chancellor.

The lesson?

YOU U.S. SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES: START UPPING YOUR SECURITY RIGHT NOW. 

The Roberts Court has already said Trump could off you, as an 'official act,' to prevent impeachment/conviction. So talk it over. Upgrade practices. Have contingency plans. Grow eyes in the back of your heads. Do it now.

The rest of you? 

When the calamity strikes, get out there and chant "Reichstag Fire!" 

And one more word to show our intent:

"Appomattox!"

== Finally, my qualifications as a history expert! ==

Well, AI has some legit uses. One fan/reader searched the paleontology databases and found this historical record, a bit fuzzy, from the Paleolithic. It shows my legit ancestral claims are valid!

 

Imperial dreams and Greenland seams and GOP manic swings

  The news cycle smashes my New Years resolution to only blog once a week. But after posting a ten-parter Newer Deal for Democrats to promise to Americans, there’s much to catch-up on. That list of proposals covers a lot of ways to repair our nation structurally, so that this criminal madness won’t happen again. 

But first… there’s so much sturm und drang over the Venezuela/Maduro raid. AND the Greenland mania. And so much of it misses important points! Sure, the core motive across-the-board remains distraction from the Epstein Files! But there is so much more. Let’s start with Venezuela:

-      -      While we all focus on the toddler brats who ordered the raid and followed it with fecal – “we’re running Venezuela for a profit!”  declarations, few pay heed to what we actually saw. Which was a brilliant display of stunning competence by US military and intel agencies…

 …the very same folks who Pete "Filthy Fingers" Hegseth* denounced - just 9 weeks ago - as "Too fat and too woke to fight!"  Just… nine… weeks… ago. Riiiiight.

We've seen it before. Take another example: the incredibly skilled 2001 takedown of the Taliban - who deserved it - as did Saddam and Maduro. Only then idiotic politicians plunged us into costly quagmires - as both Bushes did in Afgh & Iraq, and as Trump will do in Venezuela (and Cuba?) as he bypasses their democracy movements and the world -recognized true winner of the 2024  Venezuelan elections, in order to make deals with Maduro's comrades to milk their country to fill his own cronies' pockets. 

- Having said that, grow up about the damn oil! There will be no gushers of Venezuelan oil for years, maybe even a decade. They do have vast reserves, but collapsed infrastructure and very low exports. What our own petro companies are now angling after is lucrative no-bid contracts to rebuild Venezuelan infrastructure. Such contracts are exactly the cash cow that was milked in Iraq, by Cheney-linked logistics companies. And Iraq was not the cow. The US taxpayer was.

Again, show us what oil we ever got from Iraq, or likely will from Caracas!  Only fools are saying “It’s about oil!” Including (alas) our jibbering fool at the top.  

-       Okay, removing Venezuelan oil from world markets will benefit both the Saudis and the current Russian regime. A little. Though with a potential side effect, when subsidized Venz-oil stops going to Cuba. If that regime then falls – perhaps nudged by US military action – it could enable Trump to shore up his MAGA support, even in the face of Epstein revelations. Keep your eye on Cuba.

-       Putting all that aside, DO NOT fall for the trap of going  all anti-military about this! They are the bright side of it. Such stunning competence daunts dark forces worldwide. Not one US death and most of the explosions in Caracas etc. appear to have been largely for show and distraction. (And to finish off any reputation of Russian-made air defense systems.) But that makes all the worse the juxtaposition, that such magnificent professionals are now at the beck and call of - at best! - cranky toddlers. And at worst our enemies.

-       Trump & Hegs & company are now frantically trying to intimidate both the serving and retired officer corps. (e.g. threatening their pensions, if they speak.) And hence, officers are being forced to think thoughts that they swore never to think. And for that, I hate the toddler-maniacs, worse than for any other crime.

*(A creepy, alky boor who is unworthy to lead the men and women he berated. But why call him “Filthy Fingers”? Hegs repeatedly yammered on Fox that he doesn’t believe in germs and hasn’t washed his hands in a decade. Except perhaps in the alcohol that he spills.)

          == Is there more? On to the icy frontier! == 

There’s more than I can possibly catch up on. Like MAGA screeds about Greenland/Canada etc.  

Would a military seizure of Greenland tear apart NATO? Sure, and that’s a feature to Trump’s boss-blackmailer in the Kremlin. But there are so many aspects that few pundits or opponents mention:

-        First, it would be disobeyed. Pure and simple. And this time, the generals and admirals must not resign! Rather, do a sit-down, until they are fired. And then demand a court martial!  Watch how that, alone, would get Hegs to back down. 

-       It would shred the GOP – (it’s already started) - revealing with utter clarity which Republicans are blackmailed cowards and which have even a residuum of guts n’ balls. Residually Adult/Sane Republicans or RASRs, as I called them in Polemical Judo,   

Sure they are rare! But even 1% of Republicans is about a million people. Picture just 200 such folks entering GOP Congressional primaries in March, flipping the ‘primary gambit’ on its head.  (Luring many in GOP-gerried districts to register Republican!) Or maybe even 5000 who dare to primary MAGA dolts for state legislatures? 

       Are there that many?
        Don’t bet on it. Anyway let’s get back to Greenland… where I set several scenes in my novel EARTH…… 

-       The US (through NATO) already has bases in Greenland!  And the once-vaunted Russian Navy has been revealed as a Potemkin paper babyshark. Just one US or British submarine could bottle them all in Polyani Inlet. So, what’s with all this ‘national security’ BS? And the moronic inability of any in media to point that out? (see ADDENDUM below.)

-       There are just 50,000 Greenlanders.. Maybe 30,000 voters. Is Trump such a cheapskate that he can’t see the transactional way ahead? “I’ve escrowed thirty billion dollars that will pay out to all Greenlanders if a Join America! Plebiscite succeeds… except none of the escrowed rewards will go to those who campaigned against it!” 

Hey Don, that’s as big a bargain as Alaska! Aren’t you sure you’ll get the money back from, say mineral rights?

-       Oh, but wait a minute. Isn’t it likely Greenland would then become a blue state? Which brings us to…

I never heard or saw a pundit answer the Canada as 51st state malarky with the fact that Canada has ten provinces -- which would translate into eight new deep-blue states and a couple of purples. And two more ‘territories’ since the Inuit in Greenland get to be a state. So, bring it, dude. Bring it! Oh, and the Panama Canal Zone? Two more blues! (One on each side of the canal.) And in that case just try to leave out Puerto Rico. Where are we now, 66 states?

And hey MAGAs note this: travel from all of the above to any US city will be domestic, so no passport checks. Anyone arriving from any of those places will be assumed legal and get in. But then the "US" will have another maybe 5000 miles of lovely unguarded new borders. Have fun recruiting enough ex-cons to staff ICE, then.

But sure, there’s no ‘national security’ or ‘mineral wealth’ or climate change or such explanations. Nor even Putin ordering the Greenland thing, in order to break up NATO. (Dream-on, Vlad.)

No, there are just two real reasons for this insipidioty. The first one is widely known. Don wants immortality in the form of a huge, imperial expansion of USA territory, like the Louisiana Purchase. Especially since most map projections portray a flawed depiction of Greenland as having the same size of Africa!

As for the rest of the GOP? Even allowing for blackmailed cowardice in the upper ranks? Now I’ll explain it to you, as a pair of deeply insane syndromes.

 

    == The maniacs who are ‘thinking’ longer term ==

Of course this is all rooted in fundamental craziness of two related kinds.

First… Thielism and the Dark Enlightenment, which I’ve dissected and scrutinized and eviscerated elsewhere. A neo-religion of ingrates who perceive themselves as Top Dogs in a New World Order, but never would be anything but kibble, in any other society than the gently permissive and spectacularly productive scientific and liberal one that gave them everything. Look up the latest sub-meme of this cult: “The Technate of North America,” illustrated in this dredged up map from a similarly fevered era, the 1920s and 30s. Part of a range of bizarre political ideas that have flourished in times of stress. 

The Technocracy movement had its brief heyday in the 1930s, amid the Great Depression and disillusionment with apparently oligarch-suborned democracy. (And watch Things to Come for HG Wells’s more benign version.) The article about the Technate is fascinating (if in some places flawed). And the map creepily overlaps the vision of today's Donald Trump + Peter Thiel White House! 

Plus it illustrates the openly-expressed fantasy of Putin for a globe that’s been divided into spheres of influence, giving him Eurasia (sorry, Europe!) and ceding to China everything southward (sorry India and the rest!) With the USA converted into comfy fascism run by CEO-kings aided by the technological elite, isolationist and minding its own business…

…or else following George Orwell’s nightmare pattern of endless simmer-war among Eastasia, Eurasia and our own Oceania, which – in a stunningly creepy pareidolia – would look an awful lot like the “Technate” map. Which perhaps inspired Orwell in the first place!  I riff further on this here. 

 Oh, these guys are such ingrates, ignoring 6000 years of utter failure by their feudal model of governance. Though that, to them, is a matter of great pride. They won’t admit to being ignoramus dunces…

…but there’s another trait that I’ve seen no one else point out. Even though it’s flaming obvious.

              == The Mania is Depressing! ==

Cast your memory back as far as it will go. All the way back to the Great Depression, Republican foreign policy has featured the same trait, over and over again.

No, I’m not talking about the childish, churlish way they name things, like U.S. Navy ships… or military operations like the recent ‘Absolute Resolve,’ when the whole idea of operation names was military pragmatism and information security, not advertising slogans.

No, I refer to Republican Bipolar Disease that I first diagnosed back in the last century, but wrote about here, in 2017.  The way GOP administrations and indeed all of their political leaders tend to gyrate between two states… 

   …either manic imperialism or depressive isolationism.  

   The Bush era neocons manifested the former with openly raved “We are now an empire!”... a phrase that now blares from the Trump White House. Which just weeks earlier proclaimed an isolationist “America First!” policy and an end to wars of intervention or nation-building... and even our world network of alliances that kept the peace (mostly) for the last 80 years.  

These bipolar and extreme mood swings are predictable, hypocritical and dangerous!

Are Democratic administrations guiltless, or more-sane? Well, yes, comparatively so. Certainly, less blatantly and compulsively cyclical between extremes. And in most cases – except Somalia – at least listening to professional advice.

 

                                    == And finally… peacemaker? ==

 Is it ‘bipolar’ that Trump brags about ‘ending wars,’ then veers to naming the “Department of War” and howling at our officers to ‘kill, kill, kill!’ and beating drums of imperialism? 

 Sure it is. And all we can do, for now, is challenge his idiot supporters… in order to peel away a couple of million crucial, residually sane Republican neighbors from his alliance of confederate twittery.

DEMAND your neighbors (physically or online) put up wager stakes whether Donald Trump ever actually ‘settled any wars,’ let along eight… no ten… no fifteen!  I don’t care that he mistook Armenia for Albania. Bush Jr. would have done that. But for Don to claim that he settled the Armenia-Azerbaijan war is as crazy as the same claim for Burma-Thailand and all the others. 

 But it is the demand to NAME ONE that corners those potential RASR neighbors of yours, and may get a few of them to stop desperately suckling at the Fox teat. Like name one piece of verified, large scale evidence for an electoral ‘steal’ in 2020. And so many more, offered in my posting about the Wager Gambit.

And if you peel away from Murdochian madness even one voter, you will have done your bit for the Revolution.

But sure, it is too late for that. So… help get my Newer Deal before the eyes of Democratic pols and pundits. What will save us, maybe, is something a simple and pragmatic as better tactics.

 

=========

ADDENDUM to the post. It occurs to me that OWNING Greenland truly is different than the US having NATO military bases there. It would improve the security situation... for Putin! The current NATO bases can easily bottle in the Russian fleet, if NATO gets into a physical tiff with Moscow. But an AMRICAN Greenland might just step aside and let the RN sail on by. Especially if Greenland were taken by force, shattering NATO.  Jeepers, no lie! This IS for 'national security.' The national security of Russia.

==============================

PS... Blogger is giving me way-problems - as in this posting's line spacing. I guess I'll be shifting over to SUBSTACK grandually...  https://davidbrin.substack.com/

Come on over there!  But I'll stay here too, for one of the best comment communities online. Even when they aggravate me... they use complete sentences and paragraphs and actually argue with (some) evidence!  Where else does that happen?

 

 

 

 

Politics: desperate tyrant threats and border crises - and the criminal gang seeking permanent power

First some news blips. As if Putin's desperate gambles (supported by fellow autocracies) weren't enough: "Russia is ramping up malign disinformation campaigns against France, French President Emmanuel Macron, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), aiming to disrupt or discredit this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris."

As for President Biden's semi clamp-down at the U.S. border: he should accompany this with a warning to the leaders of Nicaragua, Guatemala, Venezuela etc. 

"You are waging war against your own people, making them refugees and hurling them at us. You assume that crime will then turn us into paranoid fascists. The experiment worked a bit, when Putin did it to Eastern Europe. And it's already worked on some U.S. citizens. So here's the deal. We must clamp down a bit on our deep American nature of welcoming kindness... just a bit and for a while. Only meanwhile, YOU cruel tyrants had better watch it. Waging war on your own people, you are also waging war on us."  

(BTW any leftists raging against this ought to go talk to U.S. Latino & Latina citizens, who have wanted this border action for a long time. Then talk to liberals in Poland, Hungary etc. about the success Putin had with this tactic, transforming European politics. If you want good things (continuing the massive progress of the 2021-22 Pelosi bills) then you need power. And that entails prioritizing.)

This and much else can be found in Polemical Judo.

== How to win ==

Alas, four years after I published it, to help in the 2020 election, there's not a single chapter or page of my book about political tactics that is obsolete.  Roughly 100 proposed methods that would likely be useful right now, at this critical time...

...and not one of those proposed tactics has been taken up or used. Not by any blue politicians or leaders. Not one of the 'generals' on the blue, Union side in this desperate phase of the recurring, 240 year US Civil War. As appalling as the confederate side's treasonous madness is the blue/union/democracy side's utter ineptitude at polemics... and dullard refusal to consider any fresh ideas.

I'll offer my book again, online. I can promise it'll be entertaining and eye-opening! Take a look at...  Polemical Judo: Memes for Our Political Knife-fight.

== One potential disaster … averted? ==

Remember in May when Earth got slammed by a Solar Coronal Mass Ejection… or sun-storm of ions hurled our way, in one of the largest such events recorded? Millions got to see aurorae as far south as Florida or as far north as Brisbane. And yet, there appeared to be none of the predicted fizzling and popping of power systems and fried computers. Oh, we’re not completely out of the woods… and this is no guarantee that a sharply pulsed and localized EMP event, triggered by some desperate Earthly foe, won’t knock us back on our heels.  But it does seem – tentatively – that desperate tyrants have to write off one of their ‘mad-gamble-weapons’. Which brings up a longstanding topic of mine…

A fundamental trait of any society is resilience: Never was it more relevant to discuss what we should have done by now... and can still do... to help our nations, civilization and families be more robust against the batterings of fate. Especially in a year when desperate foes might EMP us, or AI hallucinations run wild, or electricity nets fail, or...

In this "interview I recently did on resiliency", come see where I dissect a dozen areas we should be doing more, while prepper lords build refuge redoubts to ride out some coming 'Event.'

== More mundane… and terrifying political crises ==

Ever more, it seems that the United States Supreme Court has been (the majority) suborned into an instrument of enemies of the Republic. 

Justice Breyer Says SCOTUS Risks Creating “A Constitution That No One Wants.”  

And that was before that majority over-ruled the unanimous federal Appeals Court’s denunciation of South Carolina’s outrageous electoral cheating. As I’ve said for ten years. John Roberts has one* top job for his masters: protect gerrymandering. They are now desperate, fearing a Democratic win will let Hakeem Jeffries pass (and Biden sign) a renewed Voting Rights Act. Their #1 hope: enough flakes on our side will scamper off to the next Nader-Stein Kremlin agent. That or a Reichstag fire. 

(* Just as Roger Taney's top job was to protect the Fugitive Slave Act. History will rank them together.)

It seems like no week passes without more evidence of rabid partisanship or outright corruption by at least four of the six blatant right wingers on this court. 

But time passes. And they know that the 2024 election may affect even them. And as far as the oligarchy is concerned, keeping copntrol over the Supreme Court is even more important than Congress or the Presidency.

I wrote the preceeding paragraphs before the RNC and the choice as running mate - by ol' Two Scoops - of JD Vance, who is now self-immolating almost every day. And certainly we must gird ourselves for when/if Trump tells Kant Dance to ease himself out, on any excuse...

...and/or when/if the oligarchs say the same thing to Donald Trump.

Which is why I am daring to offer wagers (of course I must be given odds) that Donald Trump will no longer be the GOP nominee, by November. Amid his brownshirt/MAGA ravings, some of them (the few with actual knowledge) can recall how the Prussian aristocracy lost control of their Nazi tools, in 1934. They are desperate to set up a Bush-type tool and Nikki Haley is the Bush-in-waiting. But that means she must suck up to MAGA now, in calibrated ways. 

This Great White Hope is why the Romney wing has made no move quite yet, risking all our lives, in this scheme to set up Bush III. Though I will mention one more name you haven't heard in a while, because the Crown Prince of Bushism has been biding his time.

Paul Ryan.  Look for either of these names to come up, if JD (kant dance) Vance continues to self-immolate. 

Of course, never forget that we got Bush II because the fripper-flakes on the left flounced off to Kremlin agent Nader ... and then they flounced to the KGB's Jill Stein and gave us Trump. In both cases, their betrayal of the only coalition that can save civilization, was indefensible. But now?  

Well, Kamala appears to have staunched that self-destructive lefty-flake reflex, as Obama did.  Still, you freepers be on notice. Do it again and we will remember you. This time, we won’t forget.

== Is body shaming a legit tactic? No… but PARENTAL failures are! ==

Why fall for the trap of body shaming? Late-night comics are always making personal appearance cheap shots. (The fact that Donald Trump turns himself into a glowing pumpkin is what's important, not any of the fat jokes. Didn't make-up-wearing males used to draw ridivule from macho-ists?) 

Anyway, there's something far more devastating based on the biblical passage "By their fruits you shall know them." And sure, economic outcomes are always better from Democratic administrations, and they get <1% as many indicted appointees. (I do not exaggerate. Step up with wager stakes!)

But no, I mean something closer to that passage. 

Why does no one tabulate the lives of the children of those who lecture to us about family values? From Palin to Boebert to Green to Trump to so many others, GOP officials and lawmakers' 'fruits' appear to average as stunning examples of failed parenting. 

Is that why they so frantically attack poor Hunter? Without ever even naming a crime? Sure, a black sheep. Though when your brother was a spectacularly great American like Beau Biden, the average 'fruit' quality was still pretty damn high... Anyway I'd compare HB's entire life to any random month of any of the Trump boys.

And anyway... that part... the Hunter part... is over now.

Never mind that. Let's just see a statistical outcomes comparison of fruits! And wager me what'll be the outcome? Like rates that GOP pols' kids have trouble with the law or out-of-wedlock children. Or the fact that blue state sex education inarguably results in lower rates of STDs, teen pregnancy and abortion... and even rates of teen sex... than the puritanical finger-wag "sex ed" offered in red states! 

Red States (except Utah) where rates of nearly every turpitude average higher than the averages in Blue States! 

(Bets? First, look up the word 'turpitudes.' And include net tax-parasitism on the rest of the nation. Then recite aloud the Seven Deadly Sins... and TRY not to think of Donald Trump in every case?)

Our delusional neighbors use assertions as fact-canceling incantations. But I find that one phrase - "Let's bet $$!" - often rocks them back. They blink, suddenly remembering that facts and assertions are very different things. And - despite their macho - they run.

               Unattributed but brilliant jpeg meme floating the web: Anyone who finds the origin and reports it in comments gets 5 web points!
  

== Again, it’s TACTICS, stupid ==

Referring to testimony by former Trump confidant and lawyer Michael Cohen, Jim Wright on his Stonekettle posting says: "You know, I've had bad days. But it was never sitting in court listening as they read your name into the historical record forever as "Vonshitzinpants" bad."

Go ahead and giggle. But while giggling, alas, no one seems capable of using such things tactically!

The best thing The Lincoln Project could do is not just list all the former Trumpists who now denounce him. Sure, it numbers over a hundred. But next tabulate them… and finally punch it with:

"Trump has been 'betrayed' by more appointees who he formerly called "great guys!!" than all other U.S. presidents... combined. You can make up stories about that all you like, but one fact is indisputable.

"Donald Trump is a crappy judge of character."

That’s the sort of jiu-jitsu tactic that I offer in Polemical Judo.  

Moreover, if you can get anyone on any Democratic campaign - even the assistant staffer on a race for city council - to ask me, I'll send a PDF for free.  But I'll not put in the same kind of effort as I did in 2019 and 2020.  The book is utterly pertinent as ever.  I do have more to add... 

...but why should I bother?

== Finally... ==

Finally, might this be your most-influential political act? 

Right now Democratic Party mavens are measuring how many new, individual donors each of the VP front runners are bringing in. Thus you can influence Kamala Harris's choice, simply by being a $5 New Donor for any of the top candidates.

Just sayin'