JFK60
JFK60's JournalThis much is certain: the weirdness and outrageous behaviors will be cranked up to 11.
I cannot allow myself to entertain basking in the warm glow of a certain Biden/Harris victory, even though I feel it’s on the way.
The zealousness of 45’s cult is something we haven’t seen before— millions of Americans simply releasing their grasp on reality, wrongly perceiving a 5-star train wreck as being good for the country.
Over the past four years, I’ve completely lost faith in my non-Democratic fellow-country-people to do what’s good, healthy and best for all. They won’t even work together to minimize and contain a viral pandemic. It’s a cult of “ME.”
As Election Day nears and arrives, one can feel the raw psychopathology building up pressure, like seismic plates pushing against one another. Hopefully, not on a large scale, but that pressure will seek release, which equates to violent behavior. And who knows when/where/how it will take place?
Swing states, swing states, swing states...
That is where this election’s outcome lies. It’s mathematically possible for King Asswipe to win with an even greater popular vote loss than the 3,000,000 in 2016.
Which is why he’s campaigning mainly in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, etc.
Democrats are hostage to the goddamned Electoral College. Biden has to STOMP the orange baboon’s ass in most of the swing states, or else democracy is over.
It'll never happen. First, Pence and cabinet officials would vote on the removal of 45.
Then, both houses of Congress would have to vote within 21 days, and a 2/3 vote from each chamber would be required to remove the president and replace him with Pence.
Sad to say, there’s no way in hell that Pence and 45’s lieutenants would “betray” him. Then there’s a Senate that’s chockablock with yahoos that would never vote out their “greatest president ever.”
I don’t even know where the Republican Party’s “out of bounds” line is located (if it exists at all), given its complete silence— other than displays of public groveling— in the face of the countless abuses and lawbreaking 45’s committed already.
Swing states, swing states, swing states...
Are where the 2020 election (provided that there is a free and fair election, which is what this insane cabal does NOT want) will be decided. Most other states are “locked in,” so the win most likely goes to the candidate who performs best in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin (and possibly Arizona).
Trump has been visiting swing state businesses and facilities during the COVID-19 shutdown. Biden must court them, too— and hard.
The Idaho Freedom Foundation has $$$ ties to the Kochs, DeVos, Coors & Walton families; & BIG corps.
NONE of these “grassroots” demonstrations are just spontaneously occurring. They’re ALL organized and coordinated by interlocking far-right organizations. The funding tentacles of these “respectable appearing” entities reach far and wide. But, as always, their ultimate funding always emanates from the same sources.
All info below is from SourceWatch.org.
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Idaho_Freedom_Foundation
The Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF) is a conservative 501(c)(3) organization that is a member of the right-wing State Policy Network (SPN) and advocates for conservative state legislation in Idaho. Thanks It is based in Boise and calls itself a research institute that advocates for "free market solutions, private property rights, individual responsibility and transparent, limited government."
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In addition to receiving funding from the State Policy Network and the Donors Capital Fund, both with ties to the Kochs, the Idaho Freedom Foundation is a partner organization in the Charles Koch Institute's Liberty@Work program.
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https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=State_Policy_Network
The State Policy Network (SPN) is a web of right-wing “think tanks” and tax-exempt organizations in 50 states, Washington, D.C., Canada, and the United Kingdom. As of October 2019, SPN's membership totals 162. Today's SPN is the tip of the spear of far-right, nationally funded policy agenda in the states that undergirds extremists in the Republican Party.
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Tax documents and other available records reveal that SPN is funded by the same large corporations, right-wing foundations, and wealthy conservative ideologues that fund ALEC. Some of the most notable corporate funders of SPN and its web of "think tanks" include Big Tobacco companies (like Reynolds), Big Oil corporations (like the Koch family fortune), AT&T, Kraft Foods, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Facebook, and Microsoft.
SPN and its "think tanks" are also largely funded by right-wing special interest groups and individuals, including the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, the Coors family, the Walton Family Foundation, the Roe Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and Searle Freedom Trust.
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SPN groups operate as the policy, communications, and litigation arm of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), giving the cookie-cutter ALEC agenda a sheen of academic legitimacy and state-based support.
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https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Legislative_Exchange_Council
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) describes itself as the largest “membership association of state legislators,” but over 98% of its revenue comes from sources other than legislative dues, primarily from corporations and corporate foundations. After the 2010 congressional midterm elections, ALEC boasted that “among those who won their elections, three of the four former state legislators newly-elected to the U.S. Senate are ALEC Alumni and 27 of the 42 former state legislators newly-elected to the U.S. House are ALEC Alumni.”
ALEC’s agenda extends into almost all areas of law. Its bills undermine environmental regulations and deny climate change; support school privatization; undercut health care reform; defund unions and limit their political influence; restrain legislatures’ abilities to raise revenue through taxes; mandate strict election laws that disenfranchise voters; increase incarceration to benefit the private prison industry, among many other issues.
ALEC is an "associate" member of the State Policy Network, a web of right-wing “think tanks” in every state across the country.
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Charles Koch is the right-wing billionaire owner of Koch Industries. As one of the richest people in the world, he is a key funder of the right-wing infrastructure, including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN). In SourceWatch, key articles on Charles Koch and his late brother David include: Koch Brothers, Americans for Prosperity, Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, Stand Together, Koch Family Foundations, Koch Universities, and I360.
Precisely. Further proof that he's utterly unfit.
The COVID-19 pandemic could have been his making, if he possessed even a mote of genuine savvy and empathy. But he doesn’t, so he continues with: unfettered bullshitting; juvenile name-calling; old Soviet-style disinformation; and shameless self-promotion, while the country (and the entire world) is ravaged by a novel virus.
His questionable sanity and proven inability to manage a crisis should reveal to ALL just how horribly unfit he is for the presidency.
His base will stick with him, no matter how awful he is. But I’m hopeful that some former followers have *finally* gotten wise to this two-bit carnival barker.
Isn't Trump's characterizing the COVID-19 warnings as a hoax concocted by Democrats...
... tantamount to claiming that those warnings and alerts were fake, false untrue, and in Trump’s inverted “reality,” were actually nothing more than scare-stories to make him look bad? And by implication, those warnings about the virus are not only something to be ignored, but something to be weaponized against Democrats, which they were indeed.
For awhile, social media was overflowing with belligerent garbage spread by bots and 45’s cult members, all centered on the insane idea that the COVID virus warnings and projections were really a “Democrat (sic) hoax” to ruin Trump’s fantastic, greatest-in-history presidency and his “soaring economy.”
Trump may not have specifically said, “the virus is a hoax,” but he drew the dots and connected half of them for his followers. He’s very cagey about directing his cult. It’s the one thing he does well, regrettably.
And they, like Bush I, beyond the human toll, also brought us economic crashes.
Why are Americans such gluttons for punishment? Why do they keep voting in these jerks?
Why are so many Americans “checked out”?
Why have a shocking number of Americans become so ignorant of facts and science?
Probable answers: first, long-time continuous Republican cuts in funds to education; next, talk radio and cable TV; then, social media and various ideological/nihilistic message boards.
These “advancements” have shut down the critical thinking capacity of susceptible individuals— in some corners, there’s no longer much interest in learning, when a talking head can spoon-feed information (served up in an addictive brew of fear and outrage) that lights up the cortex like a Roman candle?
Worse, the disinformation gets reinforced and embellished in like-minded message boards. How does one unplug this insanity? And if it can’t be disconnected, how does one reality coexist with a vastly different reality, without the eventual breakdown of one of them?
I’ve lost some sleep over this impasse, as it saddens me that my country — the United States, in my lifetime, has reached a crossroads, one with a severe potential for realigning everything familiar into something dark and destructive.
It’s Orwell on steroids.
The U.S. is now a country that exists in two completely different realities simultaneously.
Thanks to the usual RW hate media sources and the backwater effluvium of social media, one reality believes, in cult-like devotion, that Trump and the Republican Party are the true saviors of a white Christian America. And in their minds, *everything*, including the unflinching hatred and oppression they advocate and foment daily, is their salvation. They decry education, deny science, and any facts/events that measurably reveal the eye-popping inadequacies of Trumpism. There is NO room for Democrats/liberals/progressives in this particular “reality.”
The other reality, in which Democrats and progressives reside, believes in fair play and common sense— ironically, two qualities that are completely absent in conservative belief. Here, education is valued, women are equal and must not be subjected to a (again, ironically) BIG government that wants to control their bodies, their healthcare, and by extension, their very lives. This reality also has room for, and a desire to embrace POC and LGBTQ folks. And there is an urgent need to slow down the devastating effects of climate change, which are already here.
Big problems: 1) Both of these realities have ossified— they will NEVER be in agreement and harmony, because they’re been increasingly compressed into their prime-number-level basics. The two differing positions and philosophies are incompatible and intractable.
2) The Democratic/progressive reality is under serious attack from the right. Old-school Soviet-style disinformation is trotted out daily. The president and Fox News exist in complete symbiosis. The hope for a free and fair 2020 election is guarded.
3) Just where/how the two opposing forces go from here is uncertain, but based on what’s known, there will be little or no compromise. One of these two realities will eventually consume the other, unless the two different Americas become two physically different countries (small chance of that happening)
It is imperative to GOTV for actual, objective, truthful REALITY ->->-> straight Democratic ticket, up and down. 
Never underestimate a far-right, drug-addled autocrat with a cadre of insane supporters.
Assess the damage done already. Walls. Lifetime right-wing judges. Regulations trashed. Voter suppression. Damning of the free press. Children in cages. Persecution of political opponents. Thinly-veiled threats of physical violence to dissenters. A cult-like following that has made documented death threats to critics. Lawbreaking in broad daylight without consequences. Withholding critical security information. Complete ignorance of the Constitution, and no evidence of adherence to it. Using the nation’s highest office for personal financial gain. Inserting close family members into high-ranking, sensitive positions of immense diplomatic responsibility. Conspiring with a hostile foreign power to tilt an American election, and preparing to repeat that act. Going to the brink of war with Iran. Continuing intent to destroy national healthcare. Plans to move funds from Medicare and Social Security. Steady accumulation of power to the executive branch. Inability to learn from mistakes. Unable to consider advice or direction.
These (and more) distinctly un-American events have already happened. Imagine this: If defeated, Trump will congratulate the winner, thank his staff for their loyalty and simply leave office, like all other presidents have done before him.
Does the the above scenario ring true? Does it describe a situation that’s in keeping with what we have witnessed for the past 3-plus years?
Trump does *nothing* quietly, or fairly, or legitimately. Nor does he surrender any ideological ground. It would be very consistent with his demonstrated behavior to contest the results of an election, especially if all the Republican machinations don’t pan out.
I put *nothing* past this insane, bitter criminal. Nothing. It would be wise to have a plan in place that deals with Trump either not recognizing the results of an election he does not win, or not surrendering the office per the law. Because, as has been witnessed repeatedly, the law means nothing to Trump or his circle.
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Member since: 2003 before July 6th
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