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January 6, 2025: Suppose Biden Loses?

February 7, 2022
by Peter Feinman
County-level secession in New York, February 3, 2022 (https://www.wivb.com)

Civil war talk is in the air. It is in books. It is in articles. It is on talk shows. Whole cable show series may be dedicated to the prospect of the new American Civil War. In fact, the question seems to have moved from being a debating point to being a fait accompli.

On one hand, such talk is good. After years of writing about America’s third civil war, it is gratifying to see that people in the know now are taking seriously the possibility that the 2024 election could be our last one as a free country with the current 50 states…. our ranking as a free society already has deteriorated significantly among the nations by people who track such things.

On the other hand, it also is quite fearful to realize that the end of days for our country as we now know it may be occur before a student who entered college in the 2021/2022 school year may graduate.

So to put the scare talk aside for a moment, in the real world what actually may happen on January 6, 2025, when Congress meets to certify the election results.

NO GETTYSBURG/WASHINGTON DC SHOWDOWN

The chances of a military showdown comparable to the battle at Gettysburg or any other National Park Service site in the Confederacy are slim. True both sides are more than capable of deploying forces in the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands at the national capital. Realistically, will that happen?

As we are seeing in the Russian massing of forces to invade the Ukraine, there are logistical challenges to assembling large-scale forces. First, it takes time to do it. Second, it is a highly visible process. Third, someone needs to be in charge of the effort. So while on paper one can envision large-scale forces targeting the Capital, there are numerous problems along the way.

Both sides will be traveling on the same roads.

Both sides will be flying to the same airports.

Both sides will be making reservations at the same hotels and motels.

None of this will be done in secret. There will be news coverage of the prospective participants marching off to battle.

The military is well-aware of the possibility of another January 6 and will be prepared for it.

The commander in-chief will not be welcoming the tourists exercising their second amendment rights to legitimate political discourse at the Capital to kiss and hug cops.

The possible participants know the legal problems currently faced by the participants from the 2021 assault.

Some of the Trump militias may have been weakened by the arrests from the last attack.

In short, the overall odds for a repeat of January 6, 2021, on January 6, 2025, seems low.

STATES SECESSION

Another possibility sometimes talked about is that states that object to the final outcome of the presidential vote will voice that displeasure as South Carolina did in the last Civil War. There has been talk of succession or in the new term, “divorce.”

The state most frequently associated with this path is Texas. The possibility of “Texit” has been around for several years now (The Texas Secession: Legally Dividing America, December 14, 2020).  Let’s say, for example, Texas or any other Confederate state or any of the other six states with the illegal Electors decided it did not accept the results of this second stolen election and therefore declared its independence. What would that mean in practice?

No state is pure. Every Confederate state contains Unionists. In the 2024 election, a Confederate state might vote 60% or more against Biden but that is about the limit. When the states seceded in the last Civil War, each state could be reasonable sure that it had the support of the white males who had voted. The electoral demographics are quite different know. Even the white people in the South include descendants of people who fought on the Union side. If a Governor seeks to arbitrarily assert independence or does so through the state legislature, the result would be successions within the state. In other words, a state that secedes will immediately face the reality of internal secession.

My recommendation has been that he Confederate states need to divide into their Union and Confederate components anyway. That still remains the only political solution even though it has zero traction nationally. However, if any state attempts to secede, it would lead to the division of the state into its distinct parts. At that point, the people bellowing for withdrawal will have to eat their words when they see how little of the state would actually join them.

STEVE BANNON

So far, the most practical action Trumpicans can and are taking is following the playbook of seditionist Steve Bannon. His calls for a grassroots effort to control the country already is occurring. He has identified local elections as the point of vulnerability. Few people run for these offices such as school boards and election officials. An organized voting bloc can propel their candidates to victory. Indeed, that is precisely the purpose of the off-election year non-November elections in the first place. Don’t let local elections get caught up in the hullabaloo generated by state and federal elections. Keep them under the radar so the established leaders and their friends can dominate them.

Bannon proposes a tried and true method for winning local elections. Of course, the opposition is quite capable of catching on to what is happening. Still, the national effort to coordinate a local takeover is something only Communists have been accused of in the past. Whether or not it can swing a national election remains to be seen. The more likely result is incessant confrontations at school board meetings.

Bannon’s local strategy mirrors what the Hitman has called for.

If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere because our country and our elections are corrupt.

One logical outgrowth of the Bannon strategy as reflected in this call for nationwide protest, is that January 6, 2025, will be a day of nationwide protests similar to what happened after the murder of George Floyd. While such demonstrations and counter-demonstrations at the local level will tax and exhaust local law enforcement and National Guard, it seems unlikely that they would cause a reversal in the certification vote in Congress.

COULD NANCY PELOSI BECOME THE FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT?; A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS

That was the title of my blog on April 3, 2020. The question asked in the blog was:

Is it possible that as of January 20, 2021, that the Electoral College will not have elected anyone to the two highest offices in the land?

I did not factor the January 6 certification into my calculations. It was not something I had really given any thought to back then.

The issue raised was suppose there were so many legal challenges that they could not all be resolved in time for the scheduled inauguration (or certification). If there was no duly certified winner, then the incumbent does not get to stay in office until everything is resolved. Even Rudy Giuliani had to step down as mayor after 9/11 because his term was up. So too at the presidential level. On January 20, the term expires and if there is no duly certified President then the Speaker of the House becomes President. Hello, Nancy Pelosi, the first female President.

Of course she would pick Joe Biden to her Vice President. Once confirmed by the Senate, Pelosi would shortly afterwards retire and Joe Biden would become the President.

This rumination presumes Democratic control of the two Houses. It is also quite possible that both Houses will be awash in legal challenges of their own. Next time, an attack on the Presidential vote means an attack on the whole ballot and not just the top one. The legal turmoil would extend not only to the House of Representatives and the Senate but to the state level. Both Governors and state legislature results would be on hold until the validity of vote is certified. Who knows what state governments would even be in place or who would be in Congress as of January 1, 2025? In short, there could be a complete meltdown. I am not saying this will happen. I am saying it is a possibility. The legal civil war could be far more extensive than a physical civil war.

And then there is the 14th Amendment. On February 1, 2022, Bruce Ackerman and Gerard Magliocca published “Biden vs. Trump: The Makings of a Shattering Constitutional Crisis.” They also proposed a sequence of events whereby the (unnamed) Speaker of the House could be President. Specifically, they focused on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment called the Disqualification Clause. It expressly bars any person from holding “any office, civil or military, under the United States” if he “engaged in insurrection” against the Constitution after previously swearing to uphold it “as an officer of the United States.” Could it be applied in 2024?

Right now we are witnessing its application in North Carolina at the Congressional level with Rep. Madison Cawthorn. The authors suggest the same technique could be used in 2024 against the chief insurrectionist. One may add that the more the House Select Committee and the Department of Justice use that term “insurrectionist” the more individual states are likely to do the same to disqualify the Hitman. One possible outcome is that his name will not appear on the ballot in all fifty states.

The article proceeds to describe various scenarios with massive demonstrations if the disqualification is applied. Realistically, there are too many variables to factor to know what will happen. For example, the authors assume that there will be a Congress in place. That well may be true for representatives from unchallenged states and holdovers in the Senate but who knows what will have been resolved by January 1 in the challenged states. The authors propose some remedies in anticipation of this imbroglio just as a bipartisan group is working on revisions to the Electoral College law.

But in all these configurations, one obvious one is being overlooked – suppose Biden legitimately loses the election, what if Trumpicans do not need to rig the election to win? What will Democrats do then? How will you know if the results are legitimate or not? Should Biden vacate the White House then? What will the impact of the House Select Committee and the criminal investigations be? When I first started writing about political action thrillers on January 3, 2020, I had no idea that Hollywood could not match the real world and at this point no one really knows what will happen.

Steve Bannon in Court: So What?

November 17, 2021
by Peter Feinman
The Ghost of Bannon Future (nypost.com/2021/11/17)

This week marked a change in the investigation of the Hitman’s assault on America in his attempt to steal the election and overthrow the Constitution. One of the leading confederates in this effort surrendered himself to the Court in response to his defiance of a House subpoena. His action including his public media antics have generated much discussion while obscuring the most important fact. The true question to be asked of the legal proceedings is “So what?”

Let’s examine a possible sequence of events and their meaning for the upcoming elections in 2022 and 2024.

STEVE BANNON

Bannon played a pivotal role in the insurrection of 1/6. He was the public voice. He was the one extolling the importance of this critical event in American history. He brought a sense of the historic even apocalyptic drama about to enfold. Bannon placed the events in its cosmic importance and called on Trumpicans to participate in this great day in American history.

He has no wish to say so under oath to the House committee. He understands the consequences of saying under oath what he said on the radio. He knows that these actions he advocated and the planning he participated in with others will be deemed criminal and seditious by the very people he was seeking to overthrow. Hence the defiance. He has more to gain from the national spotlight on his every utterance than he has to lose inside the courthouse or before the House 1/6 committee.

Suppose he loses the case in Court. Suppose after however long it takes including appeals, there comes a time when he is found guilty and stands for punishment. Will he be sentenced for two years or concurrent 30-day terms? Will he receive probation? Will his fine be minor and easily paid off by loyal Trumpicans? Will it cause him to testify under oath, to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and to incriminate himself? Obviously not. After going through these process the net result still will be no testimony.

The same sequence will be repeated with all the other participants in the attempted coup who are subpoenaed. What do they have to gain by testifying under the oath and telling the truth to the House committee? The answer is nothing. The people who are guilty of sedition have nothing to gain by admitting that they helped the Hitman’s attempt to steal the election and overthrow the government. Possibly one individual might seek a deal: to tell the truth in exchange for not being indicted in the final report. And that is the key. The final report and not these legal maneuverings is the key in determining whether the effort by the House committee was worth it.

THE HOUSE REPORT  

Consider what has happened so far. Over 150 people voluntarily have given testimony to the House Committee. Additional information is available from the public comments of various individuals such as Bannon and from published books detailing exactly how the Vice President was to steal the election. Simply based on the information provided so far, the House committee could write a narrative about the Hitman’s attempt to steal the election and overthrow the Constitution.

More information is coming. True, there has been a delay in the transfer of records from the National Archives to the House committee. Once those legal hurdles have been overcome there is likely to be a veritable gusher of data pouring onto the Committee. It will be as if it had struck the mother lode. There will be so much information there that the narrative of the final report will read like a Hollywood script as indeed it will be one day.

In addition, there may be information from the case unfolding in Georgia.

In short, the House committee will not need the testimony of the insurrection instigators to have sufficient date to indict all of them for sedition. This is not to say that the information from the co-conspirators would not be welcomed, only that it is not necessary to compile a damning indictment of all the people who refused to tell the House committee the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The concern for Bannon, Meadows, et.al. is not what is going to happen for defying the subpoenas, but what will happen when they are charged with sedition by the House.

THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

The true moment of truth will come the DOJ receives the House report calling for the indictments of multiple participants in the insurrection including the former President of the United States. Each and every person will not necessarily be charged with the exact same counts but all the people who obstructed the investigation will be charged for their participation in the insurrection.

What will the DOJ do then? So far most of the chronological discussion has been around the narrow window of the investigating committee. Everyone knows it needs to be done prior to Trump’s Traitors taking over the House. Informally, the Committee seems to be aiming for a (late) spring date to have a completed report with or without the recalcitrant participants. One can anticipate a report based on the evidence it has including the data from the National Archives. The House committee should be done in time.

In time for what? The general rule is no politically-related indictment after Labor Day when the election campaign “officially” begins. This means roughly, the DOJ will have the summer to decide whether or not to indict anyone for sedition and whatever other charges are included in the report. One of the conspirators named in the report will be the former President himself.

At this point, there is no way to know what the DOJ will do in the summer of 2022. There is no way to know which people it will indict, when it will indict them, or who it will not indict. One possible scenario is to string indictments of the small fish prior to Labor Day. This means Bannon, Meadows, Clark, etc.,, all the underlings save for the Hitman himself.

2022 ELECTION

Normally the midterm election in a first–term President is seen as an opportunity for out-of-power Party to gain seats. Certainly everyone anticipates that scenario will be followed even without the added benefit of voter suppression and gerrymandering. However, this time we will have two presidents. Strange as it might seem the leading issue after the House report is completed may not be the economy or Covid Instead it will be:

Is Joe Biden the legitimate President of the United States and should Donald Trump be held accountable for his effort to steal the election and overthrow the Constitution?

Or

 

Is Donald Trump the legitimate President of the United States and should Joe Biden (and his Vice President) be removed from office due to his successful steal of the election?

If the latter prevails, expect a new House committee to investigate the steal leading to an impeachment in the House but insufficient votes in the Senate to remove Biden.

Everything going on now is just foreplay. If Trumpicans take control of the House and Senate effectively there will be no government for two years save by Executive Order. The President will be spending most of his fending off repeated impeachment attacks and investigations from the Trumpican-controlled House.  It well may be that rather than have to wait for 2024 election for division of America into the United States of Trump and the United States of America, it may happen after the 2022 elections. Whether or not America can function in those circumstances remains to be seen. Stay focused on the 2022 election and let’s see if we make it to 2024. Maybe some Congressional Republicans will go rogue and caucus with the Democrats …

New York City Council Endorses Donald Trump for President: This Isn’t an April Fools Joke

October 24, 2021
by Peter Feinman
NYC Public Design Commission calls for toppling statues of slave-owner Ramses II at Abu Simbel (Wikepedia)

In a stunning and surprising move the Public Design Commission in New York City voted to endorse Donald Trump for the presidency in 2024. Amazingly, this action was taken three years before the election. It occurred in a jurisdiction that voted overwhelmingly against him in both 2016 and 2020. One might legitimately wonder why the Commission is so eager to encourage people to vote for Trump.

To answer that question, one should consider two facets of the puzzle: the historical and the political. The decision by the Commission to remove the statue of Thomas Jefferson from the Council chambers is both a political issue for the election itself (and possibly the 2022 Congressional elections as well) and an historical one as America prepares for the 250th anniversary of the signing of a document Jefferson wrote at the birth of the country.

NEW YORK AND THE 250TH ANNIVERSARY

During the 2021 legislative session, the New York State Senate and Assembly authorized the creation of a state commission for the 250th. Besides the obvious historical reasons for such a commission, as a matter of procedure, federal money for the 250th will be distributed through state commissions. Therefore it behooves states to create such commissions.

The bill is waiting for the Governor signature. Under the previous Governor, bills like this one tended to linger until the fourth quarter when they would be authorized. As an example, the bill for the quadricentennial of the non-New York 1619 event was not finally signed until 2020, meaning after the anniversary had occurred. A commission was to be created perhaps to be made public in March, 2020. That also was the time of covid, so in the end there never was a 1619 Quadricentennial Commission in New York.

A similar delay will not occur here. The new Governor obviously is quite busy right now including preparing for her own election campaign in 2022. I have been told that she soon will sign the bill. It definitely is to her advantage to own the 250th as New York was very involved in the American Revolution and in its continued legacy.

In some ways, there is no rush. While the Federal program is gearing towards 2026, things in New York will just be getting started then and will continue until Evacuation Day, November 25, 2033. In fact, the first big event in New York occurred just after July 4, 1776. The event is the toppling of the statue of King George III on July 9, 1776, at Bowling Green, just a few blocks from City Hall and the city council chambers.

So the first big event in New York as part of the 250th will be the response by New Yorkers to the reading of the Declaration of Independence. Undoubtedly this will be a big tourist event. The toppling of the statue will be re-enacted. Perhaps there will even be a convoy to Connecticut where the metal from the bronze statue became bullets for the Patriot army. The only one missing from this Declaration event will be Thomas Jefferson. He will be missing because:

“Jefferson embodies some of the most shameful parts of our country’s history,” said Adrienne Adams, Queens, co-chair Black and Latino caucus, New York City Council.

One possible disposition of the statue under discussion is to the New-York Historical Society. However in response to that suggestion current New York State Assemblyman Charles Barron said:

“I don’t think it should go anywhere. I don’t think it should exist. I think it should be put in storage or destroyed or whatever.”

The physical removal of Thomas Jefferson from the New York City Council chambers is easier than cancelling him from the American Revolution and its legacy. The legacy of the Declaration continued on in the efforts to end slavery in the United States. The legacy of the Declaration continued on in the efforts of white women to gain the same rights as white men. The legacy of the Declaration continues on to this very as an ideal by which to measure ourselves and to bend the arc of history. But not in the New York City Council. Will it cancel George Washington too?

THE POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS

Why do I say the action of the Public Design Commission in New York City is an endorsement of Trump? I certainly do not mean to suggest that the individual members of the Commission support him or want other people to vote for him. I am saying that their actions encourage people to vote for him. The Commission has taken a stand in the culture wars. Not everyone agrees with that decision or supports that side in the culture wars.

At this point there is no reason to pretend that we are not a divided country. We are an intensely polarized country. Masks have been weaponized. Vaccinations have been weaponized. 1619 has been weaponized. The American flag itself has been weaponized. People who fly it or show it or have it painted on a truck are presumed to have a particular political and cultural point of view. In an article entitled “A Fourth of July Symbol that May No Longer Unite”( NYT 7/3/21), the issue of the connection between the flag and a political party was raised. Peter Treiber, a farmer who has a flag painted on his potato truck, often is presumed to have political views which he does not share. He is concerned that the left has all but ceded the flag to the right.

Joe Biden, of course, embraces the flag. But in the Democratic Party, he is the remnant of the dying past and not the wave of the future. One should always keep in mind that he is the only Democrat who could have defeated Trump in 2020 and at this point is the only Democrat with a chance of beating him in 2024. There is no Plan B. Whether Democrats understand that or not is problematical. Whether the Woke care or not is even more problematical.

One should understand the Woke actions of the Public Design Commission in this light. For those toppling, removing, cancelling or whatever Thomas Jefferson, the joy and satisfaction may be fleeting. At the same time the Commission was taking this action, columnist Tom Friedman appeared on CNN. First he appeared on Anderson Cooper and then portions of the interview were replayed by Don Lemon. Clearly they understand the importance of the message Friedman is delivering: “Our next presidential election could well be our last as a shining example of democracy (September 29, 2021, print).

Friedman did not really say anything new, only more emphatically and with greater urgency. His recent op-ed piece asked “Have We Reshaped Middle East Politics or Started to Mimic It? (September 15, 2021, print). We now have Sunnis and Shiites where an “epidemic of tribal political correctness from the left served only to energize the tribal solidarity on the right.” His thinks Democrats are digging themselves into a hole and should stop digging. He defines American as a center-left to center-right country. By contrast the politically-correct-Woke-Progressives are all left all the time. And they communicate in an elitist derogatory manner. Whereas Trumpicans claim the Joe Biden presidency is illegitimate, the Woke claim the country of the United States is illegitimate born in original sin. Far from accepting the advice of Friedman to tone it down, they will instead double down.

The political consequences for the Woke assault on the legitimacy of the United States will be detrimental to the Democrats. It did not help them in 2020 Senate and House elections. The Virginia governorship is at risk this year. It will not help Democrats in the 2022 elections. It already is taken for granted that the Democrats will lose the House of Representatives. Then the January 6 Committee will be replaced by the first of the impeach Joe Biden committees. At the moment the 2020 presidential candidate loser is going like gangbusters within his own party and chomping at the bit to declare his candidacy for 2024. He can smell the blood in the Biden polls.

In the meantime, America’s third civil war rages on. It is being fought at the local level in school districts throughout the country. School Board members are seeking protection. Covid has enabled parents to see online what is being taught in the schools. People can relate to 1619, systemic racism, critical race theory, and diversity-equity-inclusion in their own communities. They can see which party waves the American flag and which does not. They can see which party praises the Founding Fathers and which party topples them. There are plenty of online venues where these issues are being discussed. The front-page headline of my local paper today (October 24) is “Are schools making progress on diversity?” Parents already are voting with their feet to remove children from republic schools and to recall school board members. They are energized.

These issues go right to the gut of voters. America’s greatest con artist can fake being a patriot, the Woke cannot. One should keep in mind that regardless of the vote in 2024, roughly half the country will not accept the results or even agree on the results. The only real issue is what happens then.

Can West Virginia Save Ezra Klein?

October 11, 2021
by Peter Feinman
"Civil War" was a top trending topic on Twitter on Sunday after remarks from an attendee of former President Donald Trump's rally in Iowa were widely circulated online and by the media. Trump held a rally at the Iowa State Fairground in Des Moines on Saturday. At the event, Trump supporter Lori Levi told MSNBC that she believes the U.S. is headed for a "civil war." Levi criticized Democrats and Republicans, saying most members of the GOP are "as weak as they possibly could be in Congress." "They're establishment. They don't care about the American people because they're in their elite little tower," she said. "So we're just sick of it, you know, and we're not going to take it anymore. I see a civil war coming. I do. I see civil war coming." (www.newsweek.com)

West Virginia is having a moment. So far in 2021, it has been the legislative year of West Virginia. How much longer can this last? What does it mean for the elections of 2022 and beyond?

JOE MANCHIN IS NOT MITT ROMNEY

In February, 2020, I wrote a blog entitled Where Will Mitt Romney Caucus in 2021? I said the following about Manchin at the time of the second impeachment vote:

It is rare for a Senator to break with a party on an impeachment vote. So far in American history, there is only one instance of a Senator voting to remove a President of his own party. Apparently, the Impeached One thought there was a Democrat who might vote against his party. Joe Manchin, West Virginia Senator, has long been considered one of the more conservative members of the Democratic Party. He has voted more often against his Democratic caucus than with it. There seems to have been a genuine belief that this Senator (and perhaps Doug Jones of Alabama for different reasons) might defect. Obviously that did not happen. The Democratic Party remained united.

The main subject of the blog was not the impeachment vote but the 2020 Senate elections. Different outcomes were possible. I conjectured that there was the possibility of a split Senate and what it might mean.

And then there is Mitt Romney. Suppose when all is said and done, the Trumpicans have 50 Senate seats… But suppose the Democrats win the presidency. Then Romney’s vote could make the difference. In this case, the Democrats only need a net gain of two to put Romney in the driver’s seat.

At the beginning of this year, I returned to the same subject:

Depending on how the vote in Georgia plays out, Mitt Romney may potentially have the opportunity to take a leadership role in healing the country. Of course, even if that opportunity presents itself, he may not rise to the occasion to take such a leadership position. Of course, if he doesn’t, who will?

As it turned out, I had the numbers right but the Senator wrong. One Senator has been in the driver’s seat and taken a leadership position but it has been the West Virginia Senator, Joe Manchin.

THE SENATE AND EZRA KLEIN

Manchin’s position will likely change after the 2022 elections. One possibility is that the Democrats will do well and pick up seats in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. Such a Democratic majority in the Senate would neutralize the significance of Manchin’s vote including for the filibuster. Another possibility of course, is that the Democrats will lose their leadership in the Senate in which case Manchin will be meaningless.

The Democratic prospects in the Senate contributed to a major op-ed piece in The New York Times yesterday entitled “David Shor Is Telling Democrats What They Don’t Want to Hear.” Klein paints a dire picture for the Democrats in accordance with the prognostications of modeler Shor. My purpose here is not to regurgitate Shor’s predictions or Klein’s response. Rather I will hone in on the Senate-related comments.

Klein notes that the Senate configuration overweighs rural states. He cites the Republicans adding a flurry of states in 1889 and 1890 that continue to vote Republican to this very day – North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Washington (Democratic state level). Klein mentions the last gasp in the present Congress for additional Democratic states in Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. to rectify that imbalance.

The consequences of this division is doom for the Democrats. Essentially, Democrats can pile up the votes in states like California and New York and have little to show for it. I have always thought Democrats in California should create their own Homestead Act in other states. Imagine relocating 1-2 million Democratic voters from California to Republican and/or battleground states. In part, something like that has happened but it is Republicans in California moving to Texas instead. Think of New-York-City-dwelling Democrats who move to Florida and are replaced by immigrants who vote Democrat for a net change of zero. By contrast, when upstate Republicans move to Florida, they are replaced by no one. The result is an even more Democratic state.

In my local paper, there was a report of Westchester County Republicans becoming desperate. Once the county was Republican. Now all county positions are Democratic and all county legislators are Democratic except for one who is Conservative. The Republican Party therefore if it wishes to be successful has to live in real world. It has decided to jettison Trump to get back in the good graces of the voters. Good luck with that effort as the Hitman gears up for the 2024 election.

I mention these New York and California anecdotes to point out that major structural change is needed if the Democrats wish to overcome the Senate and Electoral College obstacles. Small actions just don’t cut it. Once again, West Virginia shows the way.

THE WEST VIRGINIA SOLUTION TO THE SENATE AND ELECTORAL COLLEGE

More and more people now are openly talking about the current civil war and the possibility of secession. On one level, I am pleased to see people are now facing the real world. For years I have been writing about the civil, not cultural war. For years I have expressed my doubts over whether we will celebrate the 250th birthday of the country in its present form. At this point baring medical concerns, the 2024 presidential election will be a rematch of the 2020 election, the first rematch since 1956. To know this far in advance who the candidates will be really is remarkable. The Hitman already has taken his show on the road to Iowa. The campaign is underway.

In 2024, no matter what, the Hitman will claim victory on Election Night. What will Joe Biden do? January 6, 2021, is small taste of what will happen if the Hitman is not certified as the winner in 2025. The civil war will move beyond the talking stage to the fighting stage. We already know that whether we want to admit it or not. Since we know this scenario will play out, what if anything can be done to minimize the looming violence?

One step is the West Virginia example from America’s Second Civil War.  The key to minimizing the violence and uncertainty is following the precedent of West Virginia. In the Second Civil War, the people of what became West Virginia separated from the Confederate state of Virginia. They did not ask Virginia’s permission; they just did it and with Federal approval.

We need to follow that precedent. The eleven Confederate states need to divide into their constituent parts – part Trumpican and part American. The boundary lines should not be that difficult to determine. There already are gerrymandered districts at the Congressional and state level. Voting results are known at the county level. As part of the post-2020 census reapportionment, the Confederate state legislatures effectively will divide their states into two groups anyway. The next step is to take that division further by creating separate states based on those boundary lines drawn by the Confederates.

The result will be eleven new states. What worked for Republicans in 1889 and 1890 can work for Democrats in 2024. The new states directly address the issues raised by Klein and in a far more decisive manner. The eleven new states mean 22 additional Senators and a reallocation of the current Representatives. The 22 states will have 44 Senators, 22 Trumpican and 22 Democrat. These numbers compare to 18 Trumpican and 4 Democrat at present. The net increase of 14 Democrats creates a high hurdle for Trumpicans to overcome to achieve control of the Senate. The separation also eliminates the issues of voter suppression, rigged counting, and partisan Secretaries of State at least in the Confederate states. It also means the current Electoral College vote totals in Confederate states including Texas and Florida will be split between the two candidates instead of winner-take-all.

We all know that winter is coming. We all know that the storm is coming. We all know that Americans will not accept the results of the 2024 presidential election. Why wait until after the fact to respond? Why not act now to minimize the violence? Separate the Confederate states into Union and Confederate peacefully now while we still can. Trumpicans are hard at work to ensure the game is rigged in 2024; it is past time for the Democrats to rise to the occasion and fight back.

Democrats Win Gold Medal for Skating on Thin Ice

August 13, 2021
by Peter Feinman
Parental Love in Trumpican America (Getty Images)

The Democratic Party has won the gold medal for skating on thin ice. This coveted medal is awarded to the political party that best jeopardizes its political opportunity through risky and dangerous actions. A review of recent elections and gauging the present temperature for future elections shows that the Democratic Party right now is nowhere near where it expected to be.

BACKGROUND

For what seems like decades now, the Politically Corrected People (PCPs) have been touting the coming demographic deluge. This change in the composition of the American people would overwhelm the existing voting patterns. It would create a large Democratic voting bloc for perpetuity. The Democrats would own the Presidency and the Congress. The language and laws of the PCPs would dominate the land.

The PCPs ignored that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In practice what this meant was that the PCPs totally terrorized the weeny party of stupid. Republicans became the party of people scared for themselves, their family, their communities, and the country they patriotically claim they love. LBJ is remembered among other things for having lost the Confederacy to the Republicans in the 1960s with his civil rights legislation. Similarly the PCPs will be remembered among other things for having lost the northern white ethnics without college to the Republicans.

The Republican Party itself is not the party the PCPs confronted when they first launched their campaign to remake America according to their values. In 2008, Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential candidate represented the transition in process to the new party. The 2016 election sealed the deal. In American political history, the Access Hollywood tape will mark the official death of the Republican Party and the birth of the Trumpican Party. The battle lines for America’s Third Civil War had been drawn.

Now it is only a question of which side will win. Will victory be Taliban-style where one side controls the entire country and the losers pay the price? Will victory be Israeli-style where one side dominates but the other side retains some modicum of control in designated areas? Or will the victory be like the longtime-proposed but never realized Two-State vision where each side independently governs its own half? At this point in time, there is no way to know for sure what will happen. I reiterate my long-standing contention the 250th anniversary of the birth of the United States may not be for the country as we know it today.

2016 ELECTION

The 2016 presidential election was the first time when the PCPs made a difference. In that election the famous Democratic Blue Wall cracked. The Democrats lost in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. That was not supposed to happen.

For Democrats, it was easy to find scapegoats. Putin had interfered. The Democratic candidate was fundamentally flawed though well-qualified and the winner of the popular vote. The traditional Democratic voters who abandoned ship just as Confederates started to do post-LBJ were racist. No need to worry, the expected demographic deluge would sweep the Democrats to victory in the elections to come without them. Cooler heads recognized the impact the PCPs were having on the Democratic vote. Still overall, the Democrats saw the election as the last gasp of a fading former majority who soon would be confined the dustbin of political history. After all, in the era of Baby Boomer presidencies, the Republican Party only won the popular vote once in 2004. Sooner rather the later, the Republican ability to draw an inside straight in the Electoral College would cease and the demographic deluge would prevail.

2018 ELECTION

The mid-term election favored the out-of-power party. Democrats did well in the 2018 elections. The PCP impact seemed muted. Democrats focused on moderate candidates often with military or intelligence service background. They won in districts they had not won before or had not won recently. The trend seemed to be going their way. Democrats had great expectations for the 2020 elections not just for the presidency but in the House and the Senate.

Meanwhile the PCPs had mutated into a more virulent strain. A new word had entered the American political vocabulary – Woke. This strain of PCP has proved extraordinarily effective in alienating white people and, even worse for Democrats, other people as well. The Democrats had counted on the demographic deluge sweeping them to power. However, the taken-for-granted unity of all the new immigrants to the United States and all the colors of people included in the mushrooming of Woke acronyms can no longer be taken for granted.

The first crack in the Woke unity occurred with The New York Times 1619 Project. For the Woke, the casting of July 4, 1776, as a day of infamy and not celebration which should be replaced by 1619 was a dream come true. Perhaps the reaction was not quite as stark as I am depicting it here, but the groundwork had been laid. The problem was that many of the people in the demographic deluge actually were proud to be Americans, wanted to live the American Dream, and could not have cared less about 1619 which often was meaningless to them. If the weeny party of stupid ever caught on to these developments, the Democrats would be in big trouble. Meantime, it was becoming the Diversity Party of “all race, all the time,” and “you are your hyphen.”

2020 ELECTION

With the 2020 election, all did not work out as the Democrats had hoped for. Yes, Democrats won back Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Yes, they won Arizona and Georgia. Joe Biden not only won the popular vote, he won the Electoral College vote and by the same “landslide” as in 2016. Actually, he did even better since he did not lose any defector votes when the Electors voted.

However, elsewhere the Democrats did not fare as well. Particularly in the House. Where the Democrats expected to increase the margin, instead they barely held on. Democrats did regain the Senate. But it was real touch-and-go with some nail-biting squeakers weeks after Election Day that pushed them to a tie.

So where was the demographic deluge? We are now entering the decade which Democrats expected to own. Perhaps the Census results will force a shift that even gerrymandering cannot overcome. In the meantime, they are fighting for their lives even excluding the voter suppression and rigged counting that will transfer the attempted steal of the election by the incumbent loser in 2020 into a guaranteed victory in battleground states in 2024.

What happened?

“Defund the police.”

If there had been no coronavirus, the odds are that Donald Trump would have been re-elected. How is that possible?

Even with the coronavirus, if he had worn a mask, faked compassion, and followed Fauci instead of attacking him, the odds are he would have been re-elected. How is that possible?

Joe Biden is the only Democrat who could have defeated him in 2020. How is that possible?

Joe Biden probably is the only Democrat who could defeat him in 2024. How is that possible?

Meanwhile the Woke continue unabated in their quest to alienate white voters and elect Donald Trump. With 1619, critical race theory, systematic white racism, and white privilege, the Woke have perfected the ability to maximize the people who will turn away from the Democratic Party. Veteran Democratic operatives have caught on to the damage the Woke are doing to the Democratic brand, but they are powerless to stop it. Foxhub will make sure that the Woke and not Joe Biden is the face of the Democratic Party and in the culture wars that is a powerful weapon.

LOOKING AHEAD

The demographic deluge may take some odd twists. At some point even Trumpicans may realize that Hispanic white are white and that the term non-Hispanic white is a con to limit the number of white people in America. If the same standards were applied to non-German white, non-Celtic white, non-Latin white, and non-Slavic white, then the number of white people in the United States would be very few indeed. If that is what the Democrats are counting on, they are skating on thin ice.

The bipartisan infrastructure bill may be the last of its kind. The Republicans who have posed as TRINOs (Trumpicans in name only) are retiring. The Trumpicans who enter Congress do not know how to legislate or care to. They are performers who count their victories in Foxhub appearances and not legislation passed. They are not even interested in bringing home the bacon and do not know how the sausage is made.

Joe Biden is governing and running on obsolete models. “It’s the economy stupid” is dead. In the culture wars, bipartisan legislation is meaningless. Did anyone seriously think that masks would be weaponized when the coronavirus hoax first occurred? Did anyone seriously think that the vaccine would be weaponized and people would demand the right to die? (They are lucky the coronavirus is not small pox or the bubonic plaque.) Did anyone seriously think that masks would be weaponized again and even more virulently after the vaccine was distributed?

Even death cannot change the minds of Trumpicans, not even the death of their children. This reaction shows that “It’s the culture wars, stupid” trumps all other considerations. If the Woke define the Democratic Party, then the Party is in deep trouble even if the demographic deluge does occur.

What Will Trumpicans Do on August 14?

August 8, 2021
by Peter Feinman
The Trumpican Book of Revelation foretells his return

We are less than one week away from one of the momentous days in the history of the United States. An unprecedented event is about to occur. A sitting President will be removed from office midterm. We came close with Andrew Johnson. This time is different. You can feel the excitement mounting. You can sense the joy beginning to erupt across the land. One can start to count the hours until the glorious day of divine deliverance occurs.

PILLOW HEAD’S PERFORMANCE

Pillow Head teased us with his performance on CNN of what is to come at his conference. Never in the annals of history has there been a better organized, better sourced, and better presented case than when Pillow Head dazzled a world audience with the truth he has uncovered. Is there anyone who knows more about the law and how voting works in America than Pillow Head himself?

Truly his performance was one for the record books. I predict that debaters in high school and college, trial lawyers, and screen writers will turn to Pillow Head’s talk for inspiration and guidance in how to marshal an argument when unmasking a crime. Not since Sean Hannity exposed Seth Rich has there been such a masterful display of connecting the dots to reveal the ugly criminal truth. Now we know that even devices not connected to the internet can be hacked. Truly the steal-the-election crime was overwhelming in its complexity, design, and execution.

The end is now in sight. Pillow Head has carefully documented and presented his case for the most egregious cyber-crime in world history. There can be no doubt now of the consequences. It is only a matter of waiting a few more days for the removal sequence to unfold. In addition, Pillow Head’s team of lawyers will be seeking criminal indictments in multiple counties throughout the country for the perpetrators of his steal. This time the lawyers have the hard evidence and do not need to concern themselves about retribution from the courts for frivolous lawsuits devoid of merit and intelligence.

However, I confess I would feel more confident about the validity of the August 13 date if instead of petitioning the Court on his income taxes, the Still-President simply had said, “My new Acting Attorney General will reverse that decision on my taxes on August 14.”  And, of course, none of his people will cooperate with the January 6 Commission witch hunt either.  Since he voiced neither objection, I guess he lacks confidence in Pillow Head’s predictions even if he accepts Pillow Head’s data.

POST TRUMPATIC STRESS SYNDROME

On the off chance that events do not unfold as predicted, what then are the consequences?

Consider the disappointments that Trumpicans have experienced so far.

They were not able to celebrate after Election Day.

They were not able to celebrate on January 6.

They were not able to celebrate on January 20.

They were not able to celebrate on March 4.

They will not be able to celebrate on August 13.

Combined, all these failed days of joy pack a powerful traumatic punch. How much more trauma can they be expected to endure?

Trumpicans still know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the election was stolen. Nothing will ever sway them from that belief. They do not care if the theft was due to Chinese bamboo paper, Chinese thermometers, Jewish lasers, Italian satellites, dead people voting, illegal aliens voting, or some combination. They know it has to be something. Their concern instead is over the redress for this monstrous theft. At this point, the odds are they have run out of options for anything to be done. Perhaps the last gasp is the seven step plan outlined above.

Although there is no date attached to the implementation of that plan, one possible date for portions of it is the 2022 elections. At this point even Democrats expect to lose control of the House. Perhaps then the new Speaker of the House will yield his position, the House will impeach Joe Biden, the Senate will remove both Biden and Harris, the rightful President will resume office, and the rightful Speaker will return to his position. It certainly is true that if the Democrats lose control of the House that Joe Biden will be impeached twice before the 2024 election. Unfortunately for the loser there is no foreseeable legal way for him to return to the White House except by winning the next presidential election. Trumpicans are going to have to forgo their celebration until then.

PREVIEWING 2024

It should be taken for granted that the 2024 election will be rematch of the 2020 election as things stand now. This presumes that both candidates are in good health and that neither one will run if not physically and mentally up to the job.

For some strange reason, some political commentators and actual politicians think that 2024 will not be a rerun. I kid you not, but there are people handicapping who will be the Trumpican candidate in the event that the original voluntarily chooses not to run. Perhaps he won’t want to lose again!

The mind boggles at this view. Think of how hard he has worked to sustain the big lie that that election was stolen. It is August and we are still talking about it as current events. Tens of millions of people fervently believe the election was stolen. Their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be His Name still holds Cabinet meetings and conducts himself as the 45th and current President of the United States. The Governors of Florida and Texas know that in the event of a hurricane, they need to go to him for aid. No one is going to risk a Christie.

The Hug of Death for Trumpican Governors (REUTERS/Larry Downing)

Everyone who sold their soul in the hopes of being the one chosen for 2024 as the successor sold their soul in vain. The only battle is over who he will pick to his Vice Presidential candidate. And if you are not a woman, do not even bother. Even niece Mary Trump has come around to the view that Donald will run again. After, the electoral game is rigged so he cannot lose in Arizona and Georgia in 2024.

 ALTERNATE REALITIES INTERSECT

At some point, probably prior to the 2022 elections, the alternate realities will intersect. They are not parallel rails extending forever, separate and never meeting. They are instead two trains on the same track on a collision course. The open question is which one will knock the other one off.

The Trumpican track will run until 2024. Then we will see if all the voter suppression and rigged elections efforts will prevail.

But there is another track that could shortchange that process even before the 2022 election. I am not referring to the criminal case in New York which is progressing at turtle speed.  The January 6 Committee knows that if it does not finish its job before the 2022 election and if the Democrats lose control of the House, then the plug will be pulled on it. In an instant, the House will shift from investigating January 6 to impeaching Joe Biden. That Sword of Damocles provides a much firmer deadline than does August 13 for Trumpicans.

By election 2022, the January 6 Committee needs to have identified, investigated, and interrogated

The hitman

His Congressional co-conspirators

His Department of Justice co-conspirators.

They need to have documented the timeline and to have prepared charges of sedition against those who sought to overthrow Constitutional rule in America and instigated the assault on January 6. While August 13 may be a joke the election deadline is a deadly serious one. If there is unfinished business by the 2022 elections, then then it may remain unfinished. The Committee does not have the option of moving the goalposts the way the Trumpicans do every time a deadline fails to deliver.

The Department of Justice has a longer deadline. It is not subject to the election results. Its investigation can continue. Still as we continue to learn more and more about how far the hitman was willing to go to overthrow the election and the Constitution, we realize how close we came to not celebrating our 250th birthday as a country. After Bill Barr, the Deluge. If only he had stayed a few more days we might never have heard of the Clark-Perry machinations because they would have been curtailed…or perhaps Barr saw what was coming and decided to bail before being entrapped in seditious activity.  Even he may have his limits. He should be asked under oath. The DOJ may need to up its game, show some vigor, and indict some people.

THE BRUTUS/HOWARD BAKER MOMENT

If and only if the January 6 Committee and the DOJ do their jobs, then there may be a window of opportunity to push aside the Loser once and for all. Then one of the soul-sellers will be positioned to be the candidate in 2024 instead. The Florida Covid Governor knows this. Ironically, for any one of the soul-sellers be nominated in 2024, they need the help of the Democrats. They need the Democrats to make him damaged goods. The hitman still will not leave the stage voluntarily, but maybe, just maybe, one of the soul-sellers will be willing to push him off once he is charged with sedition.

Do Tucker/Trump Oppose the Socialist Chlorination of Water?

August 2, 2021
by Peter Feinman

Do Tucker/Trump oppose the socialist chlorination of water? That action seems to match all the criteria deployed in the current opposition to vaccinations. It is based on science. It is a central government action. Individuals have no choice unless they are not connected to the municipal water system. For that matter, what do Tucker/Trump think about the mandatory requirement to use seat belts? Do they applaud the heroic individuals who decline to buckle up? Is the use of seat belts for children an example of child abuse?

What is going on here? Why is Tucker embarrassed to admit that he was vaccinated? Why is Trump not pounding the pavement in support of the Trump vaccine? This situation highlights that other considerations are involved besides “just the facts” or the merits of the case. Yes, vaccinations have been weaponized in the culture wars as masks were before it. Who knows if the chlorination of water be allowed if it were invented today.

LEADERSHIP

Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump are not leaders. They are channellers. They feel your pain to exploit their gain. They do not cause your grievance but they are skilled enough to sense its existence. Then they can amplify it, use it, profit from it. However, they do not cause the grievance or pain in the first place. The subtitle in the recent article in Time about Tucker tells it all: “By stoking the culture wars and peddling white grievance, TUCKER CARLSON has become the standard-bearer of the right.” Notice, he stokes the existing grievance. As the article suggests, Tucker provides excuses for people to express beliefs that they otherwise might feel uncomfortable with but already had.

And if Tucker/Trump disappear from cable TV or politics, the grievance and pain do not disappear with them. Then the people simply seek or require another mouthpiece to speak for them.

In some ways, these con artists remind me of some of the figures I see in science fiction shows (Star Trek). From time to time there will be aliens with telepathic powers of some kind. They may simply read your thoughts. They may seek to manipulate them for various reasons. But they do no create them. They may tap into the deepest parts of your brain to bring to the surface memories you suppress or ignore. Then those memories provide the alien with the opportunity to exploit you.

Con artists like Tucker/Trump work the same way. They are not leaders in the sense of being able to get you to do something you do not already want to do. An example of a channeller versus a leader was just displayed by Sean Hannity. Out of nowhere, he decided to tell the truth about the coronavirus and the need to be vaccinated. Perhaps someone he knew had died or been hospitalized. He couched his plea in the standard Foxhub rhetoric: talk with your doctor, your decision is confidential, you have freedom of choice. Still the thrust of the message was clear: YOU NEED TO BE VACCINATED NOW!

His message led to an immediate blowback. Viewers could see through his attempt to sugarcoat it that he was asking people to listen to Fauci and do what they already had decided not to do. In other words, he was trying to lead them. The effort failed. The result was he did a Kevin-McCarthy on 1/6. He walked back his failed try to be a leader. He should have known that. Remember when after the election Foxhub lost viewers to other media outlets fully dedicated to the alternate universe. Then Foxhub responded by doubling down on the partisan hype. Most likely Hannity will never again make the mistake of trying to lead his viewers. Instead; he will amplify their fears, insecurities, and need to believe in their view of the world regardless of what is really happening.

One observes the absolute refusal to abandon beliefs in the actions that otherwise defy commonsense. People on death bed exclaim how could they be dying from the coronavirus hoax. Even the hospitalization and looming death of child is not enough to sway true believers from their course. Their minds have been so manipulated and exploited over the years by Tucker/Trump and others that they have lost the capacity to think straight. The increase in vaccinations over the past week show that some people finally are getting the message that the virus is for real. Unfortunately it also reveals how many people cannot be reached.

One might think that the former President would be campaigning full-stop to have his followers be vaccinated. After all, he sometimes like to take credit for the development of the vaccines under his Warp Speed program. Sometimes the vaccine even is called the Trump vaccine so as not to give Biden any credit. And he was vaccinated himself. So why hasn’t he been championing the use of the vaccine?

Here we see that he is not a leader. He knows what Hannity learned by exposing himself to his viewers in his failed leadership initiative. He knows that if he tells his followers to be vaccinated they will not listen to him. Being a warrior in the culture wars trumps everything.

RONALD REAGAN

Consider the contrast with Ronald Reagan. Suppose something comparable had happened during his eight years as a two-term president. Would Reagan have worn a mask? Of course he would have. Wearing a mask did not threatened his masculinity and make him a wimp. It is simply what needed to be done to protect him and his fellow Americans from a threat. He would have made jokes about wearing a mask. He would have told stories about his days in Hollywood making westerns and wearing a mask. We are talking about someone who could make jokes even after he was shot in an attempted assassination. He would have worn a mask and so would the people who heroically refuse to today.

When the former President yanked off his mask on the White House balcony after having been released from the hospital, he was catering to his followers, not leading. The hope of some staff people that now he had seen the light and would be a leader were dashed. He remained true to himself as an insecure weeny con artist who failed to even try to be the leader the country needed. He is not going to jeopardize his extremely successful funding con by taking a leadership position.

In an earlier blog, I suggested that President Biden invite the former President to the White House to promote vaccination in a show of strength. A few days later, Frank Luntz, on CNN Andersen Cooper, made the same suggestion. Such pleas are for naught. Put aside all the comments made above and keep in mind that with our loser ex-President it is always about him.

The needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. Think of how he condemned all the Republicans who voted on behalf of a bipartisan infrastructure bill. How could he appear at the White House with the person who stole the election, who is almost senile, and who is one-step from death’s door? He can only appear at the White House if it is to remove the present occupant as will happen on August 13. Otherwise the hitman would be legitimating Biden’s steal and undermining his own re-election chances.

So, no, Tucker/Trump will not call for ending the socialist chlorination of water based on science. They will not because at present, there is no grievance about chlorination of water for Tucker/Trump to exploit. But if the coronavirus vaccine was distributed through the public water system, then all bets are off. Just as all vaccines are questioned now, so would the chlorination of water. And remember, in Dr. Strangelove, the purity of water was enough to blow up the world.

 

Biden to Invite Trump to White House August 13 to Promote Vaccination

July 18, 2021
by Peter Feinman
It's Not Over Until the Arizona Fat Lady Sings (https://www.wmur.com)

Joe Biden, the duly elected and legitimate President of the United States of America, will invite Donald Trump, his predecessor and loser in the 2020 presidential election, to the White House on August 13 to urge unvaccinated Americans to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Biden is extending this invitation because he knows the vaccine was developed during the previous administration. He wants to give credit where credit is due just as his predecessor constantly praised the success of the previous Obama administration for carryovers into his administration.

Biden also is extending this invitation because he knows that his predecessor and his family all were vaccinated. He knows his predecessor received extensive medical treatment when he was hospitalized for COVID not available to the ordinary American. Thus it is only natural that the number one spokesperson for vaccination be the person who has benefited the most from the advances in American health care.

While vaccinated Americans have little risk of fatality due to either the old virus or deadly Delta variant form of the virus, many Americans remain unvaccinated. The same weenies who proudly would not wear a mask proudly will not be vaccinated. They think vaccination is a sign of disloyalty to their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name. Plus they know that they cannot die from a hoax anyway.

Since nothing is more important to the former President then the well-being of his loyalists, naturally he will be happy to dispel these falsehoods and to call upon them to get vaccinated. What could be more important to the former President than the lives of the people who believe in him? The loser of the 2020 presidential election is only too happy to help.  Only he can save his loyal followers now.

And his followers will believe him. Again and again they have proved their loyalty to him. When he asked for money after the election over 2,000,000 people forked over $250 million no questions asked. And they would do it again if asked. And again again if asked once more. They are happy to tithe their Lord. So if he tells them to get vaccinated because it is a matter of life and death, naturally they will believe him and do as they have been told.

WHY AUGUST 13?

Normally August 13 would be a dull nondescript day. Summer camps have ended and counselors are busy bringing in the docks and sports equipment for winter storage. High school football teams have begun practicing under the hot summer sun. Vacations are drawing to a close. Casual Fridays are winding down. People stop taking that day off and leaving work early. Congress is on vacation. The Supreme Court is in recess. The dog days of summer are such slow news days that the talk shows have nothing much talk about.

There is some talk from Pillow Head that this August 13 will different. As I previously suggested, pre-millennialists now know not to specify the date of the return of their Lord and Savior. They know because every time they do the prophecy fails to come true. Despite that pattern, Pillow Head boldly asserted that the month of August would be the date. Then he became even more specific selecting August 13 as the date. Whereas premillennialists traditionally site the chapters and verses from the Gospels and the Book of Revelation to buttress their claim, Pillowhead so far has presented no proof of why that date will become the DATE OF DATES.

His claim of an 80 million to 68 million blowout election on behalf of the incumbent requires no proof. The mere pronouncement is sufficient. His claim will result in the immediate recall from recess of the aforementioned Supreme Court. They will abandon their vacations and rush back to Washington. They will invalidate the election results and install the supposed loser back into office even though there is no Constitutional mechanism or authority to do so. Pillow Head’s pronouncement will be proof enough.

However, the odds are no lawyers will take Pillow Head’s case to the Supreme Court anyway. Ridiculous Rudy and Séance Sydney are disbarred, discredited, or both. Lawyers in Michigan are being held accountable for the nonsense they peddled. Lawyers elsewhere are in the process of suffering similar fates. The once fiery Lin Wood has been rendered a whimpering scared little baby. Lawyers who have not participated in the attempt by the loser to steal the election can read the handwriting on the wall. They know they have nothing to gain and much to lose in becoming an accessory to the Big Lie and the effort to upturn the election results. Pillow Head will stand alone in his legal fight to steal the election.

In the meantime between now and August 13, the three-ring forensic audit circus in Arizona is working double-time to become more of a laughingstock. As the circus draws to a close, we are getting closer and closer to the moment of truth. The CyberNinjas are on the brink of put-up or shut-up. They have to present the truth of the massive fraud that supports the claim that Biden lost Arizona bigtime. Then they have to name the names of the people in Arizona, China, and elsewhere who perpetrated the fraud.

The opening salvo already backfired on the CyperNinjas. It proves they do not know what they are doing and that only people like Representative Rocky Mountain Airhead are simpleminded enough to leap before they look and swallow the bull trump hook, line, and sinker. Personally, I like the idea of the door-to-door canvasing undertaken by the CyperNinjas did. Maybe next election we can have concierge voting where the government brings the voting machines to your doorstep. That way no will have to wait six hours in line to vote because the state chose not provide sufficient voting machines in districts that vote Democratic. After all, there is nothing Tucker Carlson loves more than government representatives going door to door to get you to do something.

Even putting aside the CyperNinjas lack of knowledge about Arizona voting law, they omitted one crucial bit of information about the 74, 243 mail-in ballots: they were all requested by Republicans! Well, probably not. But besides exposing their ignorance, this brief foray into their analytical thinking provides a glimpse of what is to come. Nothing they say will make sense. Everything they claim will be debunked by people who actually know what they are talking about. Everything they claim will be believed by Trumpicans. All Republican candidates for the Arizona Senate (and probably other offices and in other states) will be forced take a stand which will jeopardize their (re-)election if there is a Democratic alternative.

However, just in case, we need to be prepared. Chief Justice Roberts should be invited to the August 13 White House vaccination ceremony, too. You never know.

Kamala Harris Vows to Do What Mike Pence Didn’t Do

February 28, 2021
by Peter Feinman
Trumpican Justice (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

In 2021, Vice President Mike Pence did not have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and the Constitution. The penalty for the failure to rise to the occasion and be a profile in courage to save the country is simple, direct, and brutal: death, death by hanging, death by hanging in public. However despite the efforts of the domestic trumperists, Mike Pence escaped the fate he deserved. No wonder the Loser President was enraged and declined to express any concern about the safety of the Vice President who was not loyal.

Kamala Harris is well aware of the new rules. She does not want to be lynched. Therefore she will do what needs to be done to avoid the lynching Mike Pence managed to escape. To prevent a reoccurrence she is putting the states on notice that their electors will be subject to disqualification. In particular, she will warn the states implementing voter suppression bills. If the votes in those states in 2024 do not support the Democratic candidate, she will prevent the Trumpican effort to steal the election and disqualify those Electors through the powers granted to the Vice President in the Constitution.

ELECTION RULE CHANGES

The election rules have changed. Never again will presidential elections be as simple as they once were. I don’t mean there weren’t contentious elections in the past. I mean that once upon a time, people knew what the rules were. Now they have changed.

Once the actual vote on Election Day mattered. Now it doesn’t.
Once the certification of the vote mattered. Now it doesn’t.
Once the Electoral College vote mattered. Now it doesn’t.
Once evidence mattered. Now it doesn’t.
Once the Congressional ratification was routine. Now it is all that matters.

STOP THE STEAL: 2022 AND 2024

Given the importance of Congress in determining what Electoral College votes to count, control of Congress looms ever more important than it already was. The Trumpicans are fully aware of how critical control of Congress is in the selection of the President. They are moving full bore in an open and brazen manner to rig the vote count and steal the election(s). It is an all-out national assault on a state-by-state basis where they are in control of the legislature. It almost as if there is a special Olympics to see which state can best rig the count in elections and the gerrymandering to ensure that the Trumpicans remain in power at the state level and regain power at the federal level.

What are Democrats going to do about the Trumpican STEAL THE VOTE initiative?

Will the Democrats launch their own STOP THE STEAL counterattack to prevent the Trumpicans from succeeding? Does this effort even have a campaign name that will be used repeatedly?

Will the Democrats pass national legislation FOR THE PEOPLE to curtail such effort? In time to make a difference?

Will the Democrats will prepare a list of dos and don’ts. This list should include specific actions that Trumpicans do to rig the vote through voter suppression. The Democrats should announce that the application of these STEAL THE VOTE actions by states will be grounds for disqualification of Electors. The list also will include specific actions to promote voter turnout which if not done, also will result in disqualification of Electors. Of course, if the efforts to rig the vote fail and the state votes Democratic, then the Electors will be accepted.

Unlike the 2020 election, the scrutiny of the vote will not be limited to the Presidential vote. Senate and House elections will be subject to the same rules as applied to the Presidential election. Efforts to rig the vote for one federal position will be treated as applying to all federal offices. Just as the Presidential Electors will be disqualified in event of the rigging of the vote through voter suppression, so Senators and Representative elected through voter suppression similarly will not be seated.

Trumpicans have shown Democrats the way to win elections regardless of the vote and lack of evidence. The one and only method of determining the winners is through Congress. Those bodies in themselves may be subject to challenge if supposed House and Senate winners are the result of rig elections. The stop the steal effort will be expanded to all federal positions so by the time Congress meets to certify the Presidential elections, there may be open issues as to who is to be seated.

ELECTION CHALLENGES 2022 AND 2024

Obviously it is still early, but there still are some thoughts to consider. At this point, 2024 is shaping up as a rematch of 2020. It would be the first rematch since Adlai Stevenson and Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.

Spoiler Alert: the rematch didn’t change the results from the 1952 election.

Barring any medical and/or criminal procedures, there is no alternative for Trumpicans from the founder of the Trumpican Party, their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed be his Name. Indeed, his worshipers rolled out a golden calf before which they could frolic as they sang his praises as if they were reliving a scene from the Bible. As things stand now, he will be the candidate for as long as he wants before turning over the Trumpican Party to a junior version of himself. It is almost funny watching politicians sell their souls to be the chosen one as if the Trumpican party could anoint a non-Trump and that he would ever relinquish power.

The few Republicans left in the Party have four choices in the real world:
1. stay at home and don’t vote
2. swallow their pride and vote Trumpican
3. support the Democratic candidate as long as it is Joe Biden
4. launch an independent candidacy in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt, George Wallace, Ross Perot, and Ralph Nader and hope they make a difference the right way.

If they choose to nominate a Republican, then time is running out to start the 50-state effort to create a third party especially given that the Trumpicans in power at the state level will obstruct the effort to do so.

The Democrats have no reason to be complacent.

Joe Biden was the only Democrat who could win in 2020. That still may be true in 2024.

Without the coronavirus, Joe Biden might have lost.

Even with the coronavirus, Joe Biden might have lost if the Loser had worn a mask, faked compassion, and put Mike Pence in charge.

In order for Joe Biden to win, a major effort behind the scenes was undertaken to ensure a safe and fair election in 2020 as just detailed in a major article in Time. Whether or not that effort is repeated in 2024 remains to be seen.

The Democrats still have to decide what to do about the loss of House seats and state legislatures in 2020 and the impact of the 2020 Census moving forward.

The Democrats still have to struggle to hold the House in the post-Census districts. There are reasons why Kevin McCarthy is foaming at the mouth anticipation of 2022 when he is not otherwise kissing the Donald’s ring on bended knee.

The Democrats still have deal with the fact that at any given moment the Woke will hand the Trumpicans an issue on a silver platter again and again.

The Democrats still have to deal with the fact they have maxed out the votes they can gain by playing the race card. Many of the voters the Democrats have been taking for granted for years actually identify as Americans, are proud to be Americans, and don’t wallow in 1619. The Trumpican Party made unexpected inroads with the supposed Democratic hyphen-voters in 2020 without even trying. An adult Republican could clean up with those voters unless the Democrats change their ways. Even a Trumpican could make additional inroads if the candidate caught on to this movement. It might not even be necessary for Trumpicans to steal the election in 2024 if the Democrats continue to alienate their hyphens.

The Woke effort to create Trumpican votes will be relentless. Their success in alienating Americans continues unabated. They have been so successful, the ridicule against them as seeped out into the general public and is not just confined to Foxhub. The cancel culture has become a national joke.

To counter the Trumpican STEAL THE ELECTION effort, the Democrats need to launch their STOP THE STEAL counterattack now.

To counter the Woke and the Trumpicans, Joe Biden needs to keep reaching out to all the American people in his speeches, his legislation, and his actions. Good thing for the Democrats the pandemic should be over, the economy will have recovered and that Joe Biden is a nice guy unlike that former guy.

Will the Constitutional Republic Survive America’s Third Civil War?

January 26, 2021
by Peter Feinman
For want of wearing a mask, the presidency was lost. (https://nailstip.blogspot.com/2019/08/for-want-of-horseshoe-nail.html)

The fate of the constitutional republic of the United States of America remains unknown. Will it survive to celebrate its 250th anniversary? Will it dissolve into its constituent parts? Will it simply muddle along under constant strain because the alternative is too scary?

No one knows the answer to these questions. Before beginning a series of history blogs on the subject, I would like to note how easy it would have been for the constitutional republic already to have ended. A lot of things had to work out for us to get even this far and anyone one of them could have turned out differently.

THERE COULD HAVE BEEN A BIGGER TURNOUT ON 1/6

Approximately 8000 people showed up on January 6, not all of them armed. When I first wrote Seven Days in January: This Time It Is Not a Movie on January 3, I asked what would happen if different combinations of heavily-armed right wing militias had stormed the Capitol. I wondered if there were sufficient ground forces to stop them. Now we know. Even with the lower number of insurrectionists the defensive forces were inadequate to do the job.

1. Why weren’t there adequate forces to defend the Capitol?
2. Why was the turnout for the insurrection so low?
3. Despite the low numbers, what would the response have been if Mike Pence had been hanged and Nancy Pelosi had been killed?

SUPPOSE THE TRUMPICANS HAD BEEN AS WELL ORGANIZED AS THE WOKE

The Woke were prepared for the post-election attempt by the Trumpicans to steal the election; the Trumpicans were not. The Woke correctly anticipated the Trumpican attempt to steal the election. They had planning sessions as to what to do. More importantly, they had planning sessions on what not to do: No cries to “Defund the Police.” No toppling of statues. No burning of flags. They conducted training sessions. They planned for contingencies. They coordinated. They vowed not to provide Trumpicans with the slogans and photo-ops that would undermine their cause. They were organized, disciplined, ready and successful.

By contrast, the Trumpican side was true to their leader. He bought a lifetime of incompetence and ineptitude to managing his post-election attempt to steal the election. He was not prepared at all. He had no planning sessions. He developed no strategies. He organized nothing. When your legal effort is being led by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, you know you have a weak case. Everything was ad hoc, impulsive, on the fly. The DOJ wasn’t ready; in the end a nobody from left field attempted to stage a coup within the department that went nowhere. In the end the corporations that were being accused of criminal activity based on wishful thinking decided to strike back through legal action.

The planning for the insurrection itself consisted of a call to show up, attend a rally, and walk to the Capitol – it will be wild. There was no planning about what the people should do once they got inside the Capitol. As Mary Trump said about her uncle, a child in the body of an adult with the emotional maturity of a three-year old, he “enjoyed every second…He is a physical coward but he’s perfectly happy when other people commit violence on his behalf.” Even the rightwing groups mocked the effort for being unorganized and inadequately planned. Once inside, the insurrectionists were busy taking selfies and souvenirs. Skilled revolutionaries they were not.

1. Suppose next time the insurrection leader is an adult?
2. Suppose next time the insurrectionists turn out in force and do have a plan?
3. Suppose next time the Woke aren’t as well organized and prepared to stop the steal?

WHAT IF THE CORONAVIRUS HAD OCCURRED EARLIER IN HIS TERM?  

On numerous occasions during the pandemic, various people in the administration have made fools of themselves for their ineptitude, incompetence, and ignorance. They did not understand the science nor did they want do. One of the questions historians will ask, if they aren’t already, is why did the eventual loser throw away the opportunity to be a winner.

1. Imagine if he had worn a mask.
2. Imagine if had pretended to be sympathetic.
3. Imagine if he had put Mike Pence in charge.

Of course, he couldn’t change who he was even though it cost him the election. He simply was too simple-minded, narcissistic and lacking in mental necessities to transform the virus into a leadership challenge as a wartime president. Instead all he cared about was the Dow Jones and once that crisis was solved he lost interest.

But if the virus had struck earlier and if the vaccine had been ready earlier and if the vaccine had been distributed earlier and America was looking back on the virus on election day the way China is, he would have been re-elected. He will never understand that.

WHAT IF THE DEMOCRATS HAD NOT NOMINATED JOE BIDEN?

While 7 million votes is a lot numerically, in percentage terms, it is not that great. A small shift of votes in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and one congressional district and there would have been no need to try to steal the election. All things considered, that is not a lot of votes. It also shows how thin the Democratic bench is and how Democrats may need Biden to run again in 2024 to prevent a Trumpican victory.

Our next presidential election is the bicentennial of the election of 1824. That presidential election was one of the ugliest in American history. There were five candidates. American was transitioning from the First Party system of Federalists and Anti-Federalists/Republicans of Adams and Jefferson to the Second Party system of Whigs and Democrats with Clay/Webster and Jackson. I first wrote about it in September 2016 The Presidential Election of 1824: Lessons for Today and tried to resume the discussion in December 2020 Biden and Cuomo: The End of an Era. In that blog I wrote about the Diversity Party and the Democratic Party as two of the parties. The question was how long the two factions could remain united in one party. The answer is still unknown but I think it is safe to say both groups understand the stakes if they don’t.

In that blog, I deferred writing about the corresponding division of the other party between the Republicans and the Trumpicans. In a little more than a month since then, that division has become obvious to everyone. The actions of the state parties such as in Arizona and really-off-the-rails Oregon, the votes in the House on the electors and the impeachment, the vote in the Senate on constitutionality of the impeachment all show that there is no civil war in the Republican Party. The Trumpicans have won. The Republicans are retiring from the battlefield. The Lincoln Project Republicans aren’t welcome anymore and they know it. There is no place for them.

Mitch McConnell is four years too late to battle to save the Republican Party from the Trumpicans. He got his tax cut to help rich people get richer and he got his judges. If the price is the destruction of the Republican Party for the Trumpican Party, then he will have to decide if it was worth it. The people who need to set up a third party are the Republicans and not the Trumpicans. There is no Republican Party left to take back.

That is why the fate of the constitutional republic remains unknown and precarious. The United States of America now has one national party that is dedicated not to the rule of law under the Constitution but to the wishes of one immature individual with no conscience, no ethics, and no morals. For now at least, he is in complete control of his party. The vaunted Biden working relationships with members across the aisle means nothing. Those are the Republicans on their way out. He has no Senate experience with Trumpicans. He has no House experience with Trumpicans. They do not consider him legitimate.

The Democrats still control the House…by a little and the in-power Party tends to lose seats in the non-Presidential election. The Democrats barely control the Senate but there still are some Republicans left there so some legislation may be possible. The Democrats have no margin for error. The continued existence of the United States of America as a constitutional republic depends on them not making one.