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Nancy Pelosi

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.

Ameristan: Did He Bring the War Home?

January 18, 2021
by Peter Feinman
He Built a Wall

America’s Third Civil War is not a new topic. Typically, people have spoken a “culture wars” which sounds less violent than “civil war.” But underneath the more refined talk of a difference in culture or values was the threat of violence. That violence spilled out into the open on January 6, 2021. Now people are wondering if that was a one-time event or whether it signaled the elevation of a verbal conflict to a physical one: are we at Defcon OMG!?

The Third Civil War: A Look Back

America’s Third Civil War (The Atlantic)

In December, 2019, The Atlantic magazine cover proclaimed the need to act to prevent the culture wars from becoming violent civil war. In December 2020, I decided to do an anniversary examination of the articles in that issue. The goal was to compare what the writers thought back then with what had actually happened since their articles were written.

I did manage to write a couple of blogs that did just that. The blogs were

America’s Third Civil War: An Update

 The Texas Secession: Legally Dividing America

I thought I would be able to proceed in a nice methodical and leisurely manner through the magazine reviewing what people had written. Little did I know that the President of the United States would launch a “Steal the Election” campaign to undermine American democracy. Little did I know how far he would go to prevent the country from being able to celebrate its 250th anniversary because it no longer existed as a constitutional republic. As a result, I had to recalibrate. Perhaps I will resume this retrospective after January 20, 2021, depending on what happens.

 

New York Times Magazine, November 10, 2019, by Paul Sahre

  AMERICA’S THIRD CIVIL WAR

My first foray into America’s Third Civil War occurred during a battle for a Supreme Court appointment

America’s Third Civil War: Kava-Noes versus Kava-Yeses (10/19/18)

After writing about the first civil war in the American Revolution and the second civil war in the Civil War, I turned to the third one.

The third civil is different from the previous two.

It may be said to have begun in the 1960s. At that time, baby boomer males could be drafted into a war they did not want to fight and baby boomer females could have babies they did not want to have.

It may be said to have begun on August 17, 1992, when Pat Buchanan delivered his “Culture War” speech to the Republican National Convention.

It may be said to have begun in 2008 with Sarah Palin’s rally cry “to take back the country.”

Regardless of the preliminaries, history may well record that with the contentious and close vote on October 6, 2018, of 50-48 between Kava-Yeses and Kava-Noes the battle was fully engaged. There is no turning back now. When Charles Blow writes an op-ed in the New York Times that “Liberals, This Is War,” he fails to recognize that for conservatives it has been war for decades and appointing a fifth Republican legislator to the Supreme Court is a long overdue victory.

As with America’s first civil war, America’s third civil war will be intensely divisive at the local level. People who have known each other for years as best friends for life suddenly will morph into combatants. The family Thanksgiving meal will become a battleground. While it will be illegal for Kava-Noes and Kava-Yeses to marry, there is always the possibility that some of the guests will be from opposite sides of the divide. Any social engagement will run the risk of degenerating into a brawl. Hosts and hostesses will be obligated to do due diligence to ensure a peaceful event. College admission officers will need to scrutinize applicants carefully to maintain the purity of the campus. God forbid people from different sides should be assigned as roommates!  In short, people will constantly have to be on guard to make sure they know when it is safe to speak….

[W]e have a president who feasts on divisiveness. There will be no “come let us reason together” in this administration. Far from it. Instead he will stoke the flames of hatred and rejoice in the dividing of America. Never have We the People had a president who is so antagonistic to the very idea of We the People. Never have We the People had a president who is so willing, eager, and ready to campaign on behalf of hatred. Never have We the People had a president who is so antagonistic to the very goal of e pluribus unum, a motto that has been abandoned by both national political parties and mocked by our president. But there should not be any surprise that our president promotes the division of the country. What else would you expect from Putin’s poodle?

The Third Civil War (New York Times Magazine)

In general terms, the preview has come true. The Senate vote on the judicial appointment did not prove to be the breaking point nor did the judicial appointment two years later just before the presidential election. I was still writing from a cultural wars perspective and not a physical war with deaths from violence. I expected the presidential election to be the point of no return.

In my second blog on America’s Third Civil War (7/23/19), I quoted Nancy Pelosi saying:

This coming election, it is really an election that the fate of this country is riding on. This presidency is an existential threat to our democracy and our country as we know it.

Turns out she was exactly right. During the second impeachment she almost said the same words only now the election was in the past tense. Still the conflict was verbal. Then it changed.

JANUARY 6, 2021

Now the war has turned violent. My two political thriller blogs Seven Days in January: This Time It Is Not a Movie and Seven Days in January: Impeached Again were written immediately before and after the failed insurrection attempt. What happens now?

For the domestic trumperists, there are consequences to their actions.

1. They face the prospect of prison time.
2. They face mounting and expensive legal bills.
3. They may have lost their job.
4. They may rethink what it means to assault the government in the real world as opposed to at a political rally or in online chatter.

On the other hand, for many who participated in the attack or watched it, it was victory that produced a natural high. That intoxication may embolden them to try again.

For the country, there are consequences just as there were after 9/11. The post-9/11 changes have mostly been confined to airports where people now take security inspections for granted. Otherwise, life pretty much has returned to normal. This time may be different.

1. The Capitol is now in the Green Zone – How long will that last? What will it mean to tourists and school trips to see the nation’s capital in a permanent shutdown due to terrorist threat?

2. How many more Green Zones will be needed? Will even Alabama and South Dakota need to protect themselves? A lot of the chatter may turn out to be hype. Think of the army of 50,000 poll watchers that was supposed to be raised on November 3. Maybe the expected assaults will fizzle out.

3. Will there be lone wolves and soft targets? – After 9/11 there was a lot of attention/discussion on soft targets. The veterans with Iraq and Afghanistan experiences are well-trained in such tactics. There is plenty of information on the web about how prepare a bomb and the tactics to be used to deploy it to maximize effect. Will mentally-ill young males switch from attacking schools to attacking other locations that provide more vulnerable targets?

4. Who can you trust? – The supporters of the insurrection can be in Congress, the Capitol Police, the National Guard, the local police, the military, and the Secret Service. They could be your neighbors, your co-workers, and even members of your friendly local historical society. How do you know?

At this point it is too early to tell what will happen. The people who participated in the insurrection and who have been arrested are claiming they were following orders, answering the call of their President, and requesting pardons. Such pardons would be an open admission that the President really is an “existential threat to our democracy and our country as we know it” just as Pelosi said and the second impeachment claims.

The next round in the war will be the pardons issued on the final full day of his presidency. The parting gesture of the Loser undoubtedly will unleash another round of at least verbal conflict. It also may be seen as throwing the insurrectionists under the bus if they are excluded.

January 6, 2021 transformed the culture war into a civil war. It’s become a double civil war. It is a war between the Trumpicans and the Woke for control of the country. But it also is a war between the Trumpicans and the Republicans for the control of a political party. No one knows how either war will turnout. What can be said, is that it won’t end on January 20, 2021 and it will prove more dangerous to the future of this country than COVID-19 has been.

The Trump Doctrine versus the Truman (Jim Carrey) Doctrine Update

September 24, 2020
by Peter Feinman
How will THE DONALD adjust to the real world? https://www.imdb.com

Time to update the situation of the Trump state of mind versus the Truman state of mind.  When last I looked (The Trump Doctrine versus the Truman Doctrine June 14, 2018), Truman was faring better in living in the real world. How are things now?

TRUMAN AND THE REAL WORLD

In case you have forgotten, Truman Burbank was a TV reality star. The difference is that Truman didn’t know he was a celebrity reality star. He thought the world in which he lived was the real world. The suspense and drama were in the moment of truth when the reality show star came face to face with the fact that he was living in a no longer sustainable artificial reality. What would he do then? Could he succeed in banishing the real world and in continuing to live a lie in the fake world or would he seek for better or for worse to live in the world as it actually existed?

We know what happened to Truman.  SPOILER ALERT! Through a series of events, the adult Truman seized the initiative and took control over his life. He set sail onto the open sea that had always frightened him only to bump into the sky and learn that someone had built a wall. He pierced it and entered the real world. In Truman’s case, the truth sets him free. He left the fake world that had governed his entire life, took a chance on real emotions, and went forth to live a better life.

Over two years ago in that blog, I wrote: “Nothing like the Truman Doctrine will occur in the TRUMP FIRST, TRUMP ALONE reality.” Let’s see what happened.

TRUMP AND THE REAL WORLD

What is there to say about America’s greatest president?

Nobel Peace Prize for getting his North Korean lover to denuclearize.

Nobel Peace Prize for bringing peace to the Middle East.

The greatest conservation President since Mount Rushmore President Teddy Roosevelt.

Did more for black people than any President since Mount Rushmore President Abraham Lincoln.

Greatest economy in American history.

Victim of more hoaxes than any President in American history.

Victim of the greatest act of political corruption in American history in the rigged 2016 election.

Victim of the new greatest act of political corruption in American history in the rigged 2020 election.

Wouldn’t change anything in his handling of the coronavirus.

Grades himself a 10 in his handling of the coronavirus.

Grades himself an A in his handling of the coronavirus.

Grades himself an A+ in his handling of the coronavirus.

All things considered, he truly is our Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name. We are indeed lucky to share the same space-time continuum. Think how many more Americans from Democratic states would have died without his leadership.

HOCUS-POCUS and FRISBY: Where Are the Martians When You Need Them?

Twilight Zone Season 3 Episode 30 Original air date April 13, 1962

The only person who can match the very stable genius is Somerset Frisby. He is a teller of tall tales. He spins his experiences, from his heroism in war despite his bone spurs to his drug cures because of his super-genius uncle to his unsolicited advice via tweets to presidents and captains of industry, all of which he fabricates. His friends gather in the general store to hear him spin his stories, which they find very entertaining, and he never tells the truth except by chance. But he means no harm, is not a horrid, nasty, cutie pie, but no one would vote for him for President.

However, remember this is The Twilight Zone. His reputation transcends the planet Earth and even the solar system. Really illegal aliens have been monitoring human communications especially from Fox. They have heard all his stories. They accept his tales at face value. They have heard him claim eight doctoral degrees despite paying someone to take his SATs. They have heard his being the greatest baseball player in New York City because he doesn’t have a heart. They have observed that he is the smartest person in the room. When he said “person, woman, man, camera, tv,” they practically swooned in ecstasy to have witnessed such a dazzling display of mental brilliance. Naturally, they wanted to take him back to their planet as the outstanding example of the human race.

Faced with this prospect, Frisby has his “Truman” moment. He wants to live in the real world. Frisby pleads that he is simply a shameless liar, but the aliens have no concept of lying. He manages to escape from them before they take him away. When he tries to tell his friends what happened, they enjoy a laugh at what they of course take to be another of Frisby’s tall tales. This is after all, The Twilight Zone.

WILL TRUMP HAVE HIS TRUMAN FRISBY MOMENT?

The Donald is now in the eighth decade of his life. He has been an immature child in the body of an adult with the emotional maturity of a three-year old longer than most people have been alive. The chances of him changing before he dies are between zero and non-existent. He did get to be President as a successful businessman despite squandering $413 million dollars. He did con suckers, losers, deplorable and disgusting people with bozo religious customs to worship him. So give credit where credit is due. He could even win the election fairly.

Nonetheless, there are some moments that might force him to live in the real world for the first time in his life.

1. Leaving the White House January 20

Suppose despite Putin, Biden wins both the popular vote and the Electoral College. Suppose the loser contests the results through the courts. Suppose that process drags on because there are so many disputes and challenges and there is no judicial resolution despite his control of the Supreme Court, then Nancy Pelosi becomes President and he has to leave the White House.

Suppose to forestall that contingency, the Commander in-Chief orders the military to seize ballots so he can steal the election, will the military obey him?

Suppose to forestall that contingency he orders the National Guard to seize ballots so he can steal the election, are there enough of the right states governed by Trumpicans so that would work?

Suppose to forestall that contingency, the Mafia Boss of Bosses unleashes the Attorney General. But he is only one person. Suppose the attorneys he commands rebel and refuse to help him steal the election (or take away health care from their fellow Americans)?

Suppose Trumpican states select alternate electors who will provide the margin of victory if accepted? Who will make the decision if there are two claims of victory? Will Nancy Pelosi become President?

Suppose there is no Electoral College resolution by the time the new Congress is installed and a Contingent Election by the House is required? Trumpicans control 26 state delegations in the House today. What will the number be in January? How many Congressional seats also will be contested? Will Pelosi convene the House to hold a Contingent Election if Biden has won the contested Electoral College?

Suppose despite all of the above, come January 20, 2021, Joe Biden becomes the President of the United States? If that happens, that action will be a moment of truth for the would-be four-term President. There will be no peaceful transition in the government to the new President. There will be no peaceful transition to the new President in the mind of the outgoing President. He will be fighting tooth and nail to the very last moment. How will he respond to then having to leave the White House? Given his disconnect, the abrupt change to the real world will be impossible for him to accept.

2. Investigations

Previously, I asked suppose Hannity write a tell-all book (Will Sean Hannity Be Howard Baker?: Suppose He Wrote a Tell-All Book?) Suppose instead after January 20, Hannity and Fox simply cutoff his oxygen? No more commandeering the talk shows. No more interviews. No more arena rallies – who is going to pay for them? When Truman finally leaves the alternate reality for the real world, the faithful viewers seeing that the show is over simply ask, “What else is on?” Of course, the loser will declare his candidacy for 2024 making all the wannabees who sold their soul very unhappy, but what can they do? Push him off the stage? He will become the new Lost Cause for tens of millions of Trumpicans sucking all the oxygen from the room leaving them trapped in the past as Democrats expand the Supreme Court to counteract the recent appointments.

Being investigated will mark a major change in the life of THE DONALD. It will be hard to keep track of all the House committees, Senate committees, federal attorney generals, state civil and criminal courts that want a piece of him. No immunity. Restricted to home. Ankle monitor. Rikers. Welcome to the real world.

No wonder America’s greatest President who wants a four-term presidency and who deserves to be on Mount Rushmore will do everything he can to preserve the alternate reality he has lived in all his life. He has nothing to look forward to after the presidency except a painful reality; no wonder he stop at nothing to remain in the White House.

Who Will Be Biden’s Attorney General?

July 29, 2020
by Peter Feinman
Atticus Finch he’s not.

Right now the attention is focused on Joe Biden’s vice presidential selection. Any day now, we will learn who Biden has picked to be his running mate. At that point there will be a lot of discussion about the meaning of the choice. What does it mean for the future of the Democratic Party? What does it mean for the 2024 election? Strangely enough, the meaning for the 2020 election may be comparatively muted. Based on the polls, Biden doesn’t need any help to win beyond what he is already getting from his opponent, the incumbent. The polls indicate a potential, stress the word “potential,” landslide by even more than 306 Electoral College vote landslide of the 2016 election. I do not mean to detract from the significance of the vice presidential choice, but as we were reminded in the House hearings on Tuesday, the position of Attorney General can have a greater immediate impact than that of the Vice President in the operations of an Administration.

Biden’s Attorney General will have a heavy workload. While drapes should not be measured in advance, there is a benefit to exploring what will be on the Attorney General’s plate. The choreography of actions needs to be created. Who will ask for what, when, and where will it be delivered? There will be new Congressional committees come January, perhaps even a new majority in the Senate. Actions will need to be coordinated.

DOCUMENTS

Various entities have subpoenaed documents from this Administration which have not been forthcoming. Is there a list of these documents? Shouldn’t one be created if there isn’t? We know that it is possible to prepare boxes of documents in advance to be delivered once the Court gives the all-clear sign. If an accounting or financial organization can prepare to deliver requested documents even though the Court might rule in the negative, then the appropriate government entities should be able to prepare similar boxes of information. The signal will be once it becomes known sometime in November or December that there will be a change in government on January 20, 2021. It should be possible for Congress to develop a list of these documents and to serve the appropriate people and entities on January 21, 2021 if not earlier. The Department of Justice may have to wait or perhaps some of the districts will act immediately even before there is a new Attorney General.

PEOPLE

Various people have been subpoenaed during this Administration who have not been forthcoming. Various people have not been subpoenaed since it was thought to be fruitless to do so. If Biden becomes President, then presidential immunity and executive privilege for the former government employees are no longer issues. Similarly people who have been afraid to testify may be eager and willing to do so. While the personal lawyer may still claim attorney-client privilege, virtually everyone else is accessible. It should be possible for Congress to develop a list of these people and serve them with subpoenas on January 21, 2021 if not earlier. The Department of Justice may have to wait or perhaps some of the districts will act immediately even before there is a new Attorney General.

INSPECTOR GENERALS

Various Inspector Generals during 2020 have either left their position (and the government) or been squelched in their efforts to pursue investigations. Who are those people and what are those investigations? Again, the list needs to be compiled. Should someone be reassigned back to the former position? Should people be rehired to their former position? You can’t tell the players without a scorecard so someone needs to compile the scorecard and have it ready. Perhaps some of these people should be invited to the swearing-in ceremony as well.

INVESTIGATIONS

What are the investigations which need to be pursued? What are the investigations which need to be dropped?

For example, sometime before the election, perhaps in October, the current Attorney General will indict the Deep State. Based on the economy, the polls, and the number of people dead due to the coronavirus, these indictments may not carry much weight. The only people who may consider the indictments valid may be those who believe in demon COVID-19 cures and that 99.99% of the people infected are cured without any ill-effects so why shut down the economy. My prediction is the indictment of the Deep State will be the same game changer hydrochloric acid or whatever has been for the pandemic. It will seem like an act of desperation. Still these indictments may be open on the books of the Department of Justice if and when the Biden Attorney General takes command.

By contrast suppose the Mike Flynn and Affordable Healthcare Act cases are still active. There is a need to compile a list of the current (and expected) cases that will be dropped or reactivated.

Then there are the new investigations. Swampbuilder has done a superb job creating the most corrupt cabinet in the history of the United States…and some of those Secretaries may still be in office. But let us not forget the current Attorney General himself. How many investigations will there be into him?

CHOREOGRAPHY

In the event of a change of government, there is a choreography which needs to be worked out. I am not referring to the normal transition steps which are followed especially between Presidents of different parties. One can take for granted, there will be no cooperation at the highest levels between the outgoing and incoming Presidents. The outgoing one will not accept that he is the outgoing until his Court rules that he is.

Instead I am referring to the physical aspects of the transfer of power. If Joe Biden is sworn in as the new President, where will the former President be at that moment? He will not be there to watch the sleepy-creepy-corrupt person who has lost his mental faculties take office. It will be difficult enough for the current President to accept the concept that THE DONALD is a loser. Especially if he is a loser to someone who received more than 306 Electoral College votes. The loser will not participate in a public ceremony before a crowd bigger than his own inaugural crowd in 2016. He will not have the image of him as a loser become a defining one for him.

So where will he be? Will he be in Florida playing golf? Does Florida have an extradition agreement with New York? I ask because the moment he no longer has presidential immunity is the moment he can be served. Certainly by New York State and by the Department of Justice as well. If he resigns an hour before so his Vice President who is now President can pardon him, he is still subject to state law. He also still can be subpoenaed for investigations at the federal level. That means he will subject to contempt charges if he is a no-show and be confronted with a perjury trap if he does.

There is not an urgent need to select a new Attorney General, but it should not be postponed to next year either.  It is not too early to plan ahead. The immediate legal battle is the post-election one. It will be fought over a rigged vote. The issue will be not so much people here illegally but on mail-in fraud. It will be fought in the states where the claims in aggregate will make a difference in reversing the Electoral College vote. Many of those battleground states are governed by Trumpicans so it will be their ineptness which will be on trial. And if the fight does drag on for what purpose? A do-over election? What’s the remedy? How long can the current Attorney General drag the battle out? Maybe it will be Nancy Pelosi picking the new Attorney General after all! (Could Nancy Pelosi Become the First Female President?: A Constitutional Crisis)

Contingency Plans for January 20, 2021: If He Loses

May 26, 2020
by Peter Feinman
Preview to the Third Civil War: Bombardment of Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor: 12th & 13th of April, 1861 (https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3b49873/)

What are the contingency plans for January 20, 2021, if Joe Biden wins the election?
What are the contingency plans for January 20, 2021, if Joe Biden loses the election?

America’s Third Civil War is moving forward to its showdown. So far the skirmishes in the culture war have been mostly local and mostly non-violent. Clearly now the intensity is ratcheting up. That process will continue until Election Day. Given the write-in ballots, the boiling point may not be reached until after Election Day as the time required simply to count the votes may go beyond Tuesday. And then there will be the law suits. Lots and lots of lawsuits.

Two pre-election Civil War scenarios have been presented in the publications I receive. The first was published in the January/February 2019 issue of The Atlantic by Elizabeth Goitein, a co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, entitled The Alarming Scope of the President’s Emergency Powers. I have slightly revised her possible scenario to bring it up-to-date.

Imagine that it’s late 2020. Trump’s approval ratings are at an all-time low. A disgruntled former employee has leaked documents showing that the Trump Organization was involved in illegal business dealings with Russian oligarchs [and Saudi royalty]. A disgruntled government employee has leaked Trump’s taxes showing that he has violated the law many times for many years.  The coronavirus and trade war with China and other countries has taken a significant toll on the economy. Trump has been caught once again managing ineptly, and his international gaffes are becoming impossible for lawmakers concerned about national security to ignore.

In straw polls pitting Trump against various potential Democratic presidential candidates, the Democrat consistently wins. Trump reacts. Unfazed by his own brazen hypocrisy, he tweets that the Ukraine and China are planning a cyber operation to interfere with the 2020 election. His Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, claims to have seen ironclad (but highly classified) evidence of this planned assault on U.S. democracy [and the release of Covid-19]. Trump’s inflammatory tweets provoke predictable saber rattling by the Chinese leaders; he responds by threatening preemptive sanctions and tariffs. Some Defense Department officials have misgivings, but others have been waiting for such an opportunity. As China’s statements grow more warlike, “Chinaphobia” takes hold among the American public.

Proclaiming a threat of war, Trump invokes Section 706 of the Communications Act to assume government control over internet traffic inside the United States, in order to prevent the spread of Chinese disinformation and propaganda. He also declares a national emergency under International Emergency Economic Powers Act, authorizing the Treasury Department to freeze the assets of any person or organization suspected of supporting China’s activities against the United States. Wielding the authority conferred by these laws, the government shuts down several left-leaning websites and domestic civil-society organizations, based on government determinations (classified, of course) that they are subject to Chinese influence. These include websites and organizations that are focused on getting out the vote [and resisting voter suppression].

Lawsuits follow. Several judges issue orders declaring Trump’s actions unconstitutional, but a handful of judges appointed by the president side with the administration. On the eve of the election, the cases reach the Supreme Court. In a 5–4 opinion written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the Court observes that the president’s powers are at their zenith when he is using authority granted by Congress to protect national security. Setting new precedent, the Court holds that the First Amendment does not protect Chinese propaganda and that the government needs no warrant to freeze Americans’ assets if its goal is to mitigate a foreign threat.

Protests erupt.

On Twitter, Trump calls the protesters traitors and suggests (in capital letters) that they could use a good beating. When counterprotesters oblige, Trump blames the original protesters for sparking the violent confrontations and deploys the Insurrection Act to federalize the National Guard in several states. Using the Presidential Alert system first tested in October 2018, the president sends a text message to every American’s cellphone, warning that there is “a risk of violence at polling stations” and that “troops will be deployed as necessary” to keep order. Some members of opposition groups are frightened into staying home on Election Day; other people simply can’t find accurate information online about voting. With turnout at a historical low, a president who was facing impeachment just months earlier handily wins reelection—and marks his victory by renewing the state of emergency.

Over all, this prognostication remains fairly believable. I tried to update it to reflect the coronavirus and to diminish the Iran factor. I did not revise it to account for the extensive voter suppression activities already underway in the attacks on mail-in ballots, the cleansing of voter rolls in Trumpican-governed states, and the pending deployment of the Trumpican Voter Suppression army. These actions will only heighten the tension. We can witness in Hong Kong what easily could happen here.

The second example “How Far Would Trump Go to Keep Job? Foes Brainstorm Options,”   (NYT, May 25, 2020, print), is briefer as reported in the article. My awareness of this article triggered my reviving The Atlantic one. Preparing such scenarios seems more relevant now as we approach the moment of truth. In this version:

In October, President Trump declares a state of emergency in major cities in battleground states, like Milwaukee and Detroit, banning polling places from opening.

A week before the election, Attorney General William P. Barr announces a criminal investigation into the Democratic presidential nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr.

After Mr. Biden wins a narrow Electoral College victory, Mr. Trump refuses to accept the results, won’t leave the White House and declines to allow the Biden transition team customary access to agencies before the Jan. 20 inauguration.

The approach here is more domestic-based but ultimately leads the same moment of truth for the United States. It also means that if Joe Biden wins he will face more than legal battles that will drag on for weeks. He will receive no transition support since according to the incumbent, Biden didn’t win and isn’t entitled to any. Therefore as much as possible Biden needs to be ready Day 1 with a full slate of officials who know what they are doing. This interim period will provide a window of opportunity for any foreign entity wishing to take advantage of the American vulnerability. It puts the American military in a bind since it already knows what the rest of the world knows: the American commander in-chief is a blithering idiot, a simpleminded person of limited knowledge, attention span, and retention. Who knows what he might order to be done? Who knows who will obey him?

I first considered the topic of the 2020 election chaos in a blog back in 2018 about Anonymous

Suppose the very stable genius is wrong about 2020 (assuming he is still in office and chooses to run again)? Will the President honor the election results? Will the President leave the White House voluntarily? Will he demand a full investigation into the rigged results? Will he remain in the White House until the investigation by his Attorney General (not a stupid Southerner[Sessions]) is completed?  

In the follow up on March 17, 2019, I added this perspective on my earlier blog:

Those of you who read this blog [2018], may I have thought I was off my rocker. I am pleased to note that five months later the Fixer, who well knows the personality of Person #1 and what he is capable of, raised the exact same concerns in his Congressional testimony. There was not the chance to resolve this issue in the 2018 elections since the Democratic tidal wave was so huge. Even for someone living in an alternate reality there are limits as to how many Congressional districts can be contested. The situation is quite different at the presidential level.

Suppose in 2020, the Democratic candidate wins by the same small margin as the 306 electoral vote landslide in 2016? How many states would need to be contested to switch the national results? At this point it is impossible to know. Indeed we may never know if the margin is comparable to the Congressional vote in 2018. An almost 9% spread is difficult to finesse to an Electoral College victory.

I revisited the subject on May 6, 2019, When Did You First Know Individual #1 Would Reject the 2020 Results If He Lost? following an article two days earlier. Remember Nancy Pelosi’s concerns (Pelosi Warns Democrats: Stay in the Center or Trump May Contest Election Results, NYT, May 4, 2019):

PERSON #1 WON’T LEAVE THE WHITE HOUSE VOLUNTARILY

Few people outside Ms. Pelosi’s inner circle were aware of how worried she was that Mr. Trump would try to stop the opposition party from taking control of the House unless the Democrats’ victory was emphatic enough to be indisputable.

 “If we win by four seats, by a thousand votes each, he’s not going to respect the election. He would poison the public mind. He would challenge each of the races; he would say you can’t seat those people.” In recent weeks, Ms. Pelosi has told associates that she does not automatically trust the president to respect the results of any election short of an overwhelming defeat.

 She said the victory in 2020 needed to be by a margin so “big” that it cannot reasonably be challenged.

 “We have to inoculate against that, we have to be prepared for that,” as she discussed her concern that Mr. Trump would not give up power voluntarily if he lost re-election by a slim margin.

The questions I asked on March 17, 2019, remain valid.

Will Individual #1 unleash his muscle in his militias, military, police, and Second Amendment people to protect him from the greatest threat to the United States ever?

How long would it take the Supreme Court to adjudicate all the legal claims filed?

If his Supreme Court betrayed him, would Individual #1 honor its ruling?

Who would actually extract Individual # from the White House?

Based on The New York Times article, it appears that more people and with more standing than I have now realize the issue is not some wild-eyed hypothetical but a real world possibility with the clock ticking. We are headed for a showdown. Of course, if the post-election legal fight drags on long enough, it could lead to Nancy Pelosi becoming President on January 20, 2021 (Could Nancy Pelosi Become the First Female President?: A Constitutional Crisis).

One final possibility to consider is suppose Biden loses. How will people react to four more years of our immature child president? Will that result push people over the edge? That is a subject for another blog.

We’re Number 2! We’re Number 2! We’re Number Two: Trumpicans Rejoice

May 12, 2020
by Peter Feinman
Live from New York! It's Little Donny Disinfectant (Nick Levesque, Atlantic)

We’re Number 2! We’re Number 2! We’re Number Two: Trumpicans rejoice as America’s position in the world declines. The battle between the Middle Kingdom and the City on a Hill for world leadership continues (The City on the Hill versus the Middle Kingdom: Who Will Win World War IV?, May 6, 2018). If anything, the determination to triumph in World War IV has increased. There can be only one cosmic center at a time. It can be Ashur or Babylon, but not both, London or Paris, but not both, New York or Moscow both destroyed at the end of Failsafe, but not both. Ancient Rome and China could rule their respective realms in isolation from each other based on the transportation and communication technologies of its time. Now Mainland China not only can exert its influence in the South China Sea, it can make a mockery of the Monroe Doctrine.

Until recently, China could quietly and steadily move ahead through its Belt and Road Initiative to link the countries of the world to its economic engine. It became the manufacturing center of the world displacing the United States. In the meantime, the United States withdrew from the world, alienated allies, and abandoned its leadership role. From the Chinese perspective, everything was working out fine. It was only a matter of time before it officially assumed the leadership position at international organizations. After all, who was going to stop them?

The coronavirus upset everything. To the best laid plans of mice and men, the Corvid-19. Everything is different now. My first impression back on February 4 was that the virus would undermine China’s quest for global leadership (Kobe and Coronavirus: Meaning for World War IV). China’s mishandling of the coronavirus and the demonstration of American soft power at a global level suggested America would prevail even with a President who had no interest in America’s role in the global arena. In his imaginary world, everyone was looking at America in envy because of his leadership. He displayed no awareness that he already had become a laughing stock even before becoming Little Donny Disinfectant.

But then Mainland China got its act together while Trumpican America did not (Can China Leverage the Coronavirus to World Leadership?, March 19, 2020). As America floundered in February and March not taking Corvid-19 seriously or taking half-ass measures, Mainland China boldly seized the opportunity which it had been given. First, it got its own act together and then, it sought to save the world. It would fill the role that the world expected the United States to fill. In reality since World War II and in movies (Santa Claus to Relocate from Vanishing North Pole to Mar-a-Lago), it was the United States which rose to the occasion. This time it was MIA. Even worse, the American shortcomings were broadcast live for all the world to see. Only in the mind of the American immature child president and on Fox was America succeeding against the virus. Everyone else knew America was a loser.

On April 24, the question was asked “’How Can This Happen?’ A World Missing American Leadership,” (NYT). The article presents a number of people who were stunned at what they were seeing on TV. As succinctly stated: “It is shaking fundamental assumptions about American exceptionalism ⸺ the special role the United States played for decades after World War II as the reach of the values and power made it a global leader and example to the world.” American exceptionalism has been superseded by TRUMP EXCEPTIONALISM: he is exceptional and the country is only through his leadership.

TRUMP EXCEPTIONALISM has not played well on the global stage. The eyes of the world are still upon us but now it sees an erratic child who devalues scientific expertise. The seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck lacks the mental necessities to understand science despite his supergenius uncle. It’s not just that the United States is failing the world, its president is failing the American people. Germany and South Korea, countries the United States help revive, is showing the way while the United States lags behind.

The situation hasn’t improved since this article on April 24. A recent expression on this subject was The Rest of the World Is Laughing at Trump: The president created a leadership vacuum. China intends to fill it by Anne Applebaum (Atlantic, May 3, 2020). The article documents how the world is now full of Alex Baldwins on SNL ridiculing the immature child president. Indirectly, it notes that the world doesn’t watch Fox and that Little Donny Disinfectant is absolutely clueless about his image.

But out there in the real world—out there in the world where Pompeo’s boss is perceived as a sinister clown, and Pompeo himself as just the sinister clown’s lackey—not very many people are listening. Once again: A vacuum has opened up, and the Chinese regime is leading the race to fill it.

These words recall those of Brian Williams on MSNBC where after reporting on the daily absurdities at the White House then intones, “In the real world…” One also recalls the old adage, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”  Applebaum concludes with:

And if Trump wins a second term? Any nation can make a mistake once, elect a bad leader once. But if Americans choose Trump again, that will send a clear message: We are no longer a serious nation. We are as ignorant as our thoughtless, narcissistic, ignorant president. Don’t be surprised if the rest of the world takes note of that, too.  

Imagine being an international traveler from America in the future and having to explain how America could have elected this clown twice! The ridicule the student, tourist, or business person will face will be fierce and unrelenting.

Fortunately the collapse of America’s leadership role may not be fatal. This is because China overreached. At home and abroad, China has ratcheted up the intensity and fervor of its own version of Middle Kingdom exceptionalism. Imagine America if the only news media was the government propaganda network. Imagine if there is no alternative Fox. That is the tragic situation in Mainland China. All there news comes from their Sean Hannity! (The China Hannitys versus the American Hannitys: The 2020 Olympics, April 20, 2020)

Abroad, Wolf Warrior diplomacy has backfired. China expected to be welcomed with open arms as the savior of the world for its largess and own success to defeating coronavirus at home. It’s hasn’t worked out that way. The Wolf Warriors have antagonized with their insults and superiority attitude the very people who are supposed to be thankful to China. They have done such a horrendous job that even Taiwan has been able to take advantage of the mistrust of China to positively reach out to the world itself.

So now Little Donny Disinfectant wants to make China the Mexicans of the 2020 election. Whereas in 2016, Mexico was going to pay for the wall, China now is going to pay reparations. Despite having no evidence but wishful thinking, would-be 2024 Trumpican Presidential candidate Mike Pompeo intends to indict China for unleashing the coronavirus of the world. He is aiming for billions. That’s the scam.

The Chinese counter to this maneuver is easy. Besides simply refusing to pay, China has a devastating case to make. It no longer needs the canard about American soldiers introducing the virus in China ⸺ it has Fox. China already can use clips from Fox and other shows that highlight the ineptitude, incompetence, and ignorance of the immature child President. Little Donny Disinfectant is a laughing stock in China too. The “Mourning in America” video was made when the number of deaths was 60,000. Look how obsolete it is already. Joe Biden is now starting to launch his own videos highlighting the shortcomings of the incumbent. In the international arena, it will be a lot easier for China to make the case that Trump is an idiot than it will be for Pompeo to prove that the virus originated as a Chinese plot. But the world doesn’t vote in American elections. Pompeo’s goal is not to convince the world but to show Trumpicans that he is fighting for them…and therefore they should vote in 2020 for the candidate who is fighting for them as they did in 2016.

Measuring His Performance: The Target Dates

April 2011: Birtherism – reveal Hawaii findings on Obama soon: STILL WAITING
October 2016: sue all his women accusers after the campaign: STILL WAITING
May 15 2020: Coronavirus deaths drop to zero: in 3 days!!!!!
May 25 2020: Celebrate the victory over the coronavirus: in 13 days!!!!!!!
June 2020: Back to Normal
July 2020: We’re rockin’ now
July 4 2020 Supreme Court rules Republican President is above the law; American experiment ends short of 250th anniversary
Fall 2020: Deep State Indicted
Fall 2020: Deep State proves China responsible for coronavirus
November 3 2020: CLAIM VICTORY NO MATTER THE RESULTS
January 20 2021: Nancy Pelosi becomes President
January 20 2021: Arrested by New York, spends night at Rikers

Could Nancy Pelosi Become the First Female President?: A Constitutional Crisis

April 3, 2020
by Peter Feinman
Trumpican Governor Analysis of the Coronavirus

Could Nancy Pelosi become the first female President? Right now such a scenario seems unlikely. Now think about what used to be impossible and no one ever thought of and now is the New Normal.

Inaugural Day Vacuum

What would have to happen for Nancy Pelosi to become the first female President?

First, there has to be an election in November. Then the Democrats have to maintain the majority in the House of Representatives. Next, the Democrats have to elect her Speaker of the House. Finally, on Inaugural Day, there has to be no President or Vice President of the United States.

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?

Contested Election

Is there any doubt that the presidential election will be a contested one? In the 2016 election, the candidate who expected to lose already had his legal justification for denying that the winner was duly elected. The issue was illegal voters. 3 million of them. No. Wait! 5 million of them. Whatever number he needed to win the popular vote, that’s how many people voted illegally. If he had filed suit to void the election, it wouldn’t have worked. A Trumpican commission created by the newly elected President failed to find illegal voters. It was a dismal failure.

In the 2020 election, the now incumbent President can’t risk repeating the half ass effort he undertook in 2016. There is no point in finding or wasting time trying to find illegal voters in California. The effort needs to be more strategic. It needs to be well-thought out. It means that even prior to the election, there need to be teams in place to question the results in states that would reverse the election results if the charges prove true. This means in places like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona and then perhaps places like Georgia, North Carolina, and dare it be said, Texas.

How much time would it reasonably take to collect the required evidence to support such a claim in each of the states with contested results?

How many legal challenges would there be to that effort?

How many rulings and at how many judicial levels would it take to resolve all the claims so it can be determined just who the valid Electors are?

Is it possible that it would take until January 20, 2021?

I have no idea. However with a President having the full weight of the Attorney General and FBI at his personal disposal, it could take quite a while. Now try to imagine the furor Fox would stoke daily. Consider the death threats to Fauci for daring to tell the truth. Fauci telling the truth even when it means contradicting the President equates to attacking the Trumpican Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name.

Meanwhile the clock to resolve the voting disputes would be ticking.

Could Inauguration Day be postponed? The Mayor of New York City floated that idea after 9/11 that he would remain in office temporarily until the dust settled both literally and figuratively. That suggestion didn’t fly. The election was held on schedule and a new mayor was installed on schedule as well.

There is no provision for extending the presidential term of an incumbent if the Electoral College cannot elect a President. If there is no President and no Vice President than the Speaker becomes President. Say hello to Nancy Pelosi, the first female President of the United States of America.

Governors

But it probably won’t come to that. As part of that effort to contest the election, both sides would be working with the states. That means also working with the governors of those states. That also also means working in an unprecedented situation of massive mail in ballots that would increase the number of disputed votes exponentially. Even just to count them under normal circumstances would be a challenge. Under these circumstances the chad counters in Florida will seem calm by comparison.

So who are these governors who would manage this count at the state level? Keep in mind, the federal government is just there for backup purposes, will take no leadership role, and will not accept any responsibility.

Many of these governors are extremely popular now. If the election were next year Andrew Cuomo would win both the Democratic nomination and the election in landslides. His poll numbers have skyrocketed compared to the teeny-weeny bump of the Impeached President who never tells the truth except by accident, has limited cognitive skills, and is self-centered. It would be embarrassing to watch the two Queen bros bash it out, the adult and the immature child.

But Cuomo isn’t the only governor with improved ratings. Many Democratic governors have increased their popularity.  Any challenge to the vote totals in a state led by a Democratic governor who is more popular and who has been demeaned and who has not received federal support for the coronavirus then would have the last laugh. Oh, you want to dispute the votes in Michigan. LOL.

Even Republican governors in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Ohio have fared better than the President. These are the people who would be the basis for the Republicans taking back their party after the 2020 elections or who would start a new Republican Party.

Now name a Trumpican governor whose stature has increased as a result of the coronavirus. Texas? Florida? Georgia? Oklahoma? Trumpicans have the analytic skills of a person who jumps off the Empire State Building and at the 42nd floor says “so far so good.” No Trumpican looks better now than before while Democrats are producing a whole new group of people with national reputations for getting the job done.

Meanwhile the Trumpicans are only likely to look more and more foolish and inept, completely incapable of handling the real world but unable to escape the presidential game of make-believe. We are watching the governors of Georgia and Florida play “Simon Says.” They can act to protect their residents until they are given permission to do so. Truly he sucks all the oxygen out of the Trumpican tent until no one is left with any credibility.

Trumpican Behavior

Now consider the Presidential letter to Chuck Schumer. Keep in mind the perfect third-grade letter to Erdogan which is going to figure prominently in the Unpresidential Library. This time we have another unsolicited public example of his cognitive skills. Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large, refers to it as an “utterly childish letter.” He writes the letter “reads like a sort of Mad Libs you might fill out and leave in the locker of your 7th grade enemy.” Sounds exactly like something I would write about the seventh-grade-smart-aleck-dumb-aleck. In fact, it is what I have been writing in blog after blog! He is not childish, he is a child. He has the brain of one.

And let’s not forget Nunes, the crooked clown’s performance on Fox.

The Trumpican Party performance from Pence on down has been pathetic. Nikki Haley is reconsidering her desire to become the Vice Presidential candidate after Pence is dumped when Biden names a female candidate. Is she really prepared to debase herself to the Trumpican level? Will she have more of a political future as a Republican or a Trumpican? Too early to tell.

In the meantime, consider what is happening at the ground level now that adult children have returned home due to the coronavirus. [NYT, 4/1/20] In this one example, a son is trying to convince his parents of the seriousness of the coronavirus. He also is trying to convince them of how the government completely trumped-up its handling of the crisis. Shouting matches were the result.

The parents resisted. “How could this happen [here]? It must be fake,” the son reported the parents as saying. The government couldn’t have attempted to cover it up and downplay it at first. Maybe a foreign government is responsible.

But over time, the real world began to sink it. The son said, “Things just got out of control. You could see people dying at home.”

The son in this example is Chinese, not Chinese-American, but Chinese. China has its own equivalents of Trumpicans, its own Hannitys.

Here is an example of an American Trumpican. In a phone call to Rush Limbaugh on March 13, Brian from Richmond, Va., said he wanted the President to say: “[D]on’t believe the fake news and the media hype. It’s not that serious.” [NYT, 4/2/20]

Perhaps all this talk about the end of days makes sense for Trumpicans. Perhaps they are willing to face the truth about their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed be his Name. I doubt it. Unless Trumpicans die in droves, Trumpicans aren’t going to take the coronavirus seriously. Eventually, however, the real world trumps the world of make-believe. The more the Trumpican governors show they are not up to handling this crisis, the more people die on their watch, the more they will be held accountable. The more We the People pull back the curtain and see there is nothing there, the less chance there is of a contested election and Nancy Pelosi becoming the first female President. On the other hand, Biden not Cuomo is the candidate.

He Really Could Stand in the Middle of 5th Avenue, Shoot Somebody, and Not Lose Voters

April 1, 2020
by Peter Feinman
The Cuomo-Trump Debates in America's Third Civil War (Granger Collection, New York)

On January 23, 2016, the future president of the United States speaking at a campaign rally in Sioux Center, Iowa, said:

“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,”

This comment was an impromptu, unscripted, off-the-cuff remark. Prior to the rally, he had no idea that he would make such a comment. He was just showing off to the crowd about how loyal they were to him. He was expressing that loyalty in the strongest terms possible. After he made it, he had no idea of the implications of the comment or its consequences. His brain simply is not configured to think in those terms.

He didn’t even believe it. How own actions reveal that he did not think his assertion was true. It was and is true but because he didn’t believe it, he has done things he never needed to do.

For example, he had no need to pay hush money to the porn start and the playmate. Trumpicans couldn’t care less about family values, adultery, and campaign finance laws. It would be different if Barack Obama had done those things. It would be different if the previously impeached President had done those things. But it was a matter of complete indifference if their Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed be his Name did them. Their ire was directed only against Michael Cohen, the fixer, for daring to tell the truth.

Similarly, there was no need to fire Jim Comey. Suppose Comey had launched a full investigation and discovered that the candidate had colluded with the Russians and laundered money for the Russian mob, so what? With Trumpican control of both houses of Congress nothing would have happened. New York at the federal and/or state level might have pursued criminal actions against him. He would not have cooperated with any such investigations and the district attorneys would have had to wait until he was no longer in office to get anywhere. But he wouldn’t have lost any votes.

We know that because a Special Prosecutor was appointed. And what happened? Despite finding 10 examples of obstruction, no action was taken. Did he lose any support? This example illustrates the importance of controlling the narrative. Imagine How Fox would report the shooting on 5th Avenue. First it would be hoax by the media mob and the Deep State intended to reverse the 2016 election. Its goal was to remove from office the duly elected by 63 million real American voters president. Then when Fox learned he really had shot someone, Fox would identify the person as Deep-State agent, Seth Rich, and he would be portrayed as a hero.

The same situation occurred with the Ukrainian extortion attempt and cover-up. In this instance Mick Mulvaney got it exactly right: “Sure we attempted to extort the Ukraine for our political benefit. That’s the way the game is played. Get over it.” This time an impeachment did occur. The Trumpican majority in the Senate said, “So what if he did everything of which he is accused?” If it been Obama that would have been a different story. Now it was “so what” with the official legal blessing of the OJ lawyer as well. And once again, he did not lose any support.

When the coronavirus first broke in China, China deployed the Trump Playbook. The Chinese Hannitys denied that anything had happened. They suppressed the whistleblowers who dared to tell the truth. Then when China seemingly had things under control, China bragged about the superb job they had done all along, worthy of a world leader.

Then in this country, the American Hannity went ballistic. He was livid in his denunciation of the Chinese. He directly blamed them for the unnecessary deaths that were occurring in Italy and elsewhere. He was furious at China for the deaths they had caused by not telling the truth and allowing the coronavirus to spread. He wanted China held accountable.

Now the American leader has done exactly what Hannity denounced the Chinese leader for doing. Now the death toll is rising in this country at an almost Italian-like rate. Under the watch of our President, we have become the world leader in the number of cases and will be in the number of deaths. Our leadership position will only increase in days and weeks to come.

The Speaker of the House has denounced the President of the United States for fiddling while Rome burned. That accusation is not fair since Nero was an adult. The Speaker now has asserted that the President of the United States is responsible for the deaths of Americans. Death has come to 5th Avenue. Death has come to Manhattan. Death has come to the five boroughs. Death has come to New York State. Death has come to America. Our Dear Leader did not cause the coronavirus, but he has maximized its deadly impact in the United States with his ineptitude, incompetence, ignorance, dishonesty, self-centeredness and simplemindedness.

Trumpicans deny the charges. It is the disloyal traitors scum who bear responsibility with their cutie pie nasty questions who are making things worse. And the coronavirus like AIDS is targeting people who aren’t real Americans anyway. Real Americans don’t have to fear the coronavirus. Many governors do not. A map of the United States showing which governors have acted and which haven’t looks like a map of the Union states and the Confederate states and like the 2016 elections.

From time to time, I have been writing about our third civil war (Battle Report from America’s Third Civil War: Trumpicans versus Democrats Since July 14, 2019). The lines are drawn in this fight but so far there only have been skirmishes. My expectation was that our Battle of Saratoga, our Battle of Gettysburg, our showdown at high noon would occur after the presidential election. I stand by that prediction.

If Joe Biden wins, the full force of the United States government will be unleashed to undermine that victory. There will be for all practical purposes no limits to what the Attorney General will do to reverse the results since the Democratic victor will not have been duly elected. If the polls showing a 9% lead for Biden persist throughout the campaign, the intensity of the attacks against him will ramp up. How violent the battle becomes remains to be seen.

If Joe Biden loses, tens of millions of people will have a meltdown. How could it be happening again? How could it be happening to when the victor is directly responsible for the deaths of Americans?

Whatever happened before the coronavirus will be forgotten. Who cares what John Bolton has to say? He missed his moment. The election will focus on the coronavirus. In part this means, we won’t know until the fall what the facts on the ground will be. We won’t know what the impact on the voters will be. The intensity of the struggle will ratchet up. After all, the conversation will be about death. Americans will become even more divided.

Here are the two competing campaign strategies.

Trumpicans will claim it is not by chance that our Lord and Savior, the Chosen One, Blessed Be his Name, is here at the precise moment the United States needed him to defeat the Chinese invasion and save the country. Truly he is our greatest president and the only one who could have saved us. Look at how few people died. Since there is no more room at Mount Rushmore, we need to find a new mountain to be named Mount Trump where his image can be carved.

Democrats will claim that the inept, incompetent, ignorant, immature, simpleminded, self-centered child is directly responsible for an increased number of deaths and a bigger decrease in the economy. They will want to hold the former President of the United States responsible.  A commission would be created after the new President takes office to prosecute him to the hilt. Perhaps Adam Schiff will lead that effort.

How this will play out is not certain. So far the coronavirus has not cooperated with the happy-talk of our immature child president playing make believe.  It just keeps infecting and killing people. Even he finally has learned to live somewhat in the real world. There is no more talk about just 15 people total and they are recovering. There is no more talk about the coronavirus just disappearing one day. There is no more talk about a miracle. And he has not lost any support for his mismanagement of the crisis. Instead, his poll numbers are up.

The coronavirus has been weaponized.

Florida gets it requests filled because it has a Trumpican governor and he needs that state to win.

Michigan is insulted because it is led by a nasty female Democrat. That woman has been banished to the cornfields (MAD DOG BANISHED TO THE CORNFIELDS: TWILIGHT ZONE EPISODE BECOMES REAL).

Does that mean he has abandoned any hope of winning Michigan this time even though it was important to him in 2016? Quite possibly.

But what about Florida? What if the virus continues to spread there? What happens if he can no longer meet the needs of the state? Is it possible Trumpicans will finally open their eyes to the truth of their savior’s shortcomings? It is possible but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Trumpicans would have to die in droves before they would even consider that possibility.

Let’s end with another campaign rally about killing people. There was a raucous professional political wrestling arena rally in the Panhandle in Florida. When he raised the subject of what should be done about people crossing in the United States illegally, a voice from the audience rang out, “Shoot them!” Everyone laughed. That person is a true Trumpican. That audience consisted of true Trumpicans. Are they still laughing now? Will they still be laughing in the weeks and months ahead if not only New Yorkers die but they do too? Too early to tell.

One safe prediction: expect to see Andrew Cuomo on the campaign trail all the time especially in Florida with its former New Yorkers. Those campaign exchanges will be heated. Move over Lincoln-Douglas debates, there is a new civil war brewing.

Who Is a Real American?: Why the Needle Has Not Moved

December 29, 2019
by Peter Feinman
Who Is a real American? Who is not? (www.youtube.com)

As the year draws to a close, I end with a confession. I was as wrong anyone can be. I was so wrong that I am not even going to provide the link to the blog where I was so wrong. I really believed there would come a time when Republicans stared into the ugliness of Donald Trump and would be so repelled that they would abandon him in shock, revolted over having being conned by a scam artist of such minimal mental necessities who was incapable of telling the truth.

I share the feelings of Michelle Goldberg who wrote:

At the start of this administration, many who are horrified by Trump thought that at some point the Republican fever might break, leading to conservatives in Congress to check a dictator-worshipping buffoon for the sake of the Constitution. I’ve become ashamed of my naïveté… (The New York Times, December 22, print).

To be fair to Little Donee Waney calling him a “dictator-worshipping buffoon” ignores the reality that he is an immature child who never was able to man up but desperately wanted to. His worship and submissiveness is not based on any political beliefs or values. The explosion of hissy fits tweets during this current interlude between impeachment and trial is testament to the threat the immature child feels as the adult world closes in around him. He is not fit psychology to function as an adult and the more he his forced to operate in the adult world, the more off the rails he will act.

It should be noted that some Republicans have acted against the longtime Democrat and Clinton supporter who subsequently hijacked the Republican Party in a brilliant exploitation of Republican fears and insecurities. But the efforts of Rick Wilson and George Conway (in the world’s strangest marriage) are not likely to prove fruitful. The Republican Party died a long time ago [R.I.P. Party of Lincoln (1856-2016) from March 12, 2016]. It exists merely in name. Republicans have been transformed into Trumpicans, the path they were already on, before the con artist had the skill to exploit it for his own needs. [A case study on the Republican and Trumpican parties in New York will the subject of a future blog.]

So what then were Trumpicans concerned about? Eventually I did realize what Little Donee Waney knew in his gut. The answer is that Trumpicans see THE DONALD as America’s last best hope against the Politically Correct, the triumph of identity politics, and the control over Real Americans by, you know, those people.

Skeptical-about-Trump conservative radio talk show host Michael Savage asked his listeners about their support for Trump. Here is one response:

Dave in North Carolina asked how anyone could blame Mr. Trump when he is fighting so many enemies at once. “He’s not just fighting the Democrats. He’s fighting the deep state. He’s fighting the cabals. WITHOUT HIM, WE HAVE NOTHING (capitalization added).” (NYT, June 19, 2019).

The idea that Savage represented a “a small crack in the foundation of Trump loyalists” seems absurd over six months later. It’s like thinking an editorial in a Christian evangelical publication represents another small crack as well. [Will white evangelicals see the light will be the subject of a future blog as well.] The excited urgency and passion of the caller Dave speaks to belief in the LORD AND SAVIOR, THE CHOSEN ONE, BLESSED BE HIS NAME.

This past July 4 was not without a politically correct scandal either. It seems that Kate Smith in her pre-“God Bless America” day, sang popular songs on the vaudeville circuit that were demeaning to blacks. As a result she has been yanked by the Yankees. In response, the Kate Smith Commemorative Society (I did not know there was one) issued the following statement in opposition to an action it characterized as

yet another example of the harmful excesses of the questionable concept of ‘political correctness,’ and the unfair and all-too frequent tendencies to judge events of the past by the standards and sensibilities of the present. (NYT, July 4, 2019).

A few days later on July 7, The New York Times printed some responses to a survey taken of Trump voters as to their preferences in 2020. Here are some of the responses.

1. Based on the debates, Democrats have learned nothing in the last two years. Democrats believe that identity politics is a winner. Wrong.

2. I did hear (from the Democratic candidates) about decriminalizing lawlessness [meaning immigration] (and) a healthy dollop of identity politics.

3. The Democrats want to give illegals just about anything they want. What part of illegal do they not understand?

On the other hand, some Trump voters had seen the light.

1. Mr. Trump was preaching as if he supported populism and “draining the swamp.” He failed to live up to both miserably.

This person would support Sanders, Yang, Warren or Gabbard. The Democrats should be able to capitalize on Swampbuilder having the most corrupt and incompetent Cabinet in American history. [One should note that competent Secretaries may implement policies you detest but that does not make them corrupt or inept.]

2. I absolutely will not vote for Donald Trump again. I regretted it as soon as he started up with the inauguration nonsense. If his mouth is open, he’s telling lies….Our institutions and democracy are at stake, and four more years of Mr. Trump will be disastrous and ruinous. Mr. Trump has to go.

This response provides Democrats with two possible avenues of attack:

1. Can You Count? – Can you count the number of people in the inauguration parade? Can you count that 63 million is less than 66 million? Can you count that 306 Electoral College votes are not a landslide?

2. The American Revolution 250th – How can we celebrate the anniversary of removing a king from rule over us when we have a President who wants to rule over us as a king above the law and with no checks and balances?

Here’s what renowned Trumpican Maureen Dowd wrote on July 28, 2019, in an op-ed piece entitled “Spare Me the Purity Racket”:

The progressives are the modern Puritans. The Massachusetts Bay Colony is alive and well on the Potomac and Twitter.
They eviscerate their natural allies for not being pure enough…The politics of purism makes people stupid. And nasty.

In an article on “How Lying and Mistrust Could Take a Lasting Toll,” Robert Shiller wrote:

In talks with strong supporters of Mr. Trump, I have found that they are often willing to admit that he has “rough edges.” They suggest that all politicians have to play politics, and like Mick Mulvany, the acting White House chief of staff, they sometimes say we need to “get over” that. Being caught in lies seems to them to be no great shame. The greater picture, they say, is that the president has freed himself from the constraints of “political correctness” to state unpopular truths, and to fight for the interests of forgotten Americans. That view seems to show no diminution of a basic sense of the importance of honesty. (NYT 11/10/19)

My ongoing series of blogs on Columbus Day versus Indigenous Peoples’ Day are part of this same conflict. The weaponization of terms like “native” and “indigenous” by politically- corrected people were acts of war. Non-college-graduate whites were able to figure out that they were the target of this alternate vocabulary.

As long as the Trumpicans accept the con that Little Donee Waney is really THE DONALD fighting for them against the Politically Correct they will stand by their immature child president. Saudi Arabia knows that THE DONALD is an act but Trumpicans have not yet been exposed to that truth.

I was enlightened to the truth of the concerns of the Trumpicans in response to my recent blog on a “Prayer for America.” I have posted that blog before but this time I added “Prayer for Pelosi” to the title. Just prior to my posting and partly a cause of my resending it, Nancy Pelosi had stated she had prayed for the President. Subsequent to my posting it, he had responded disputing her claim to have prayed for him. Obviously Pelosi’s praying for the President does not mean she is a partisan of the President. Readers of my prayer blog sometimes were unable to understand that and/or did know Pelosi had said she had prayed for him. The mere appearance of “Pelosi” in the title with the word “Prayer” was enough to ignite Trumpicans.

Here is one response that I think goes to the heart of the divide in America:

Are you kidding me! What the hell is wrong with you sending out this email! Your prejudice is unbelievable. Do you realize 63 million people voted for President Trump. You are supposed to be a historical organization not a partisan hack org! I am going to post this email all over social media and expose your organization!

This reader opened the blog 39 times which I understand to mean it was forwarded 38 times to social media. A challenge to identify what in the prayer was partisan was unanswered.

Focus now on the use of the “63 million people who voted for President Trump.” Why mention a loser number? It was not the majority. It was not a plurality. So why call attention the loser number instead of the winner number of 306 Electoral College votes? The same may be asked of Congressional Trumpicans and Media Trumpicans who continually cite this number. What does this number mean to Trumpicans?

The answer in part goes back to Sarah Palin. She called on supporters to “take back the country.” To take it back from, you know, those people. In this scenario, who are the “we”? Who are the people for whom the country is being taken back? The answer is the 63 million in 2016 numbers. They are a minority of the voters but a majority of the Real Americans. It was at this point when longtime Democrat and Clinton supporter sensed an opportunity in his gut, a way to be the center of attention, a path to power. Barack Obama was a foreign-born Moslem. That claim rocketed the con artist to national standing. Real Americans were deeply afraid and emotionally distraught over the prospect of having their country being taken over…AND BY PEOPLE WHO WERE HERE ILLEGALLY BUT STILL TO BE TREATED AS IF THEY HAVE THE SAME IF NOT MORE RIGHTS THAN REAL AMERICANS. Real Americans needed a savior and Little Donne Waney was ready to fill that role. More than ready. And nothing that has happened since 2016 has changed that view because for these “Real Americans” the problem still exists and there still is no alternative to him.

The Wicked Witch of the White House: Is Nancy Pelosi Dorothy?

October 17, 2019
by Peter Feinman
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/david-nathan-bible.html?blackwhite=1&sortBy=relevant

The Wicked Witch of the White House is a formidable foe. He has been a sleezeball virtually his entire chronological adult life. Year after year he won the coveted “Slimeball of the Year” trophy awarded by the New York City Real Estate and Construction community to the single most disreputable builder in the city.

His winning was no fluke. He is blessed with having no morals, no ethics, and no values save narcissism. He brings to the fight an inexhaustible energy. He throws an unlimited number of punches all below the belt.  Now our immature child president has brought his lack of integrity, competence, and intelligence to the national and international arenas. He is a full-time resident of an alternate reality functioning at a child level with supreme confidence that he can get enough people to believe he really is THE DONALD, the chosen one, and that only he can solve the problems (he has caused).

The Wicked Witch of the White House is not alone. Standing with him are the Flying Monkeys. These are the people who have sold their souls to their Lord and Savior assuming they had souls to sell. They have sworn an oath to take a bullet for him. They will obstruct any effort to obtain the truth. They willingly will be thrown under the bus once their usefulness ends. As always, loyalty is a one-way street.

The Flying Monkeys are well-known to the American public. They frequently appear on Fox if they do not already work there. They include:

Vice President Brown Nose
Bill Barred for Life
Jay Sunk-so-low
Duped-by-Russia Hannity
Nunes the Clown
Clueless Jim Jordan
Marked-down Meadows
Meeting-crasher Maculate Gaetz
All Angles Ingrham
The Grahm Cracker
Kelly Alternate-Reality Conway
The Huckabee Huckster
Ridiculous Rudy, Hero Attack mutt

and the list goes on and on.

The Wicked Witch of the White House and his Flying Monkeys are further aided by Trumpicans – the American people who attend his realities, ignore or disbelieve all charges against him, and cheer him on. His skill as a con artist is his ability to connect with them through his gut-instinct. He uses their pain to service his gain. The results have been spectacular.

Now the real world is closing in. Playtime is over. The Wicked Witch of the White House in the domestic and foreign arenas has to face adults. This is not scripted political professional wrestling where he can mock and insult people all he wants as the seventh-grade smart-aleck dumb-aleck he actually is. The doctored videos of him wreaking havoc against his foes will not help him in the real world of adults. North Korea, Iran, Turkey, and Russia all know he is a weeny limited to simpleminded tweets and sanctions.  The only ones who fear him now are our allies as they know they can no longer rely on the United States as long as Bonespur Boy is President. It’s not Turkey who is concerned, it is the Baltics who destroyed Yugoslavia, it is Israel who knows it faces Iran alone, and it is the Kurds who know even a private message to the President of the United States will be delivered to their enemy.

This is Nancy Pelosi’s moment. This is the moment that history will look to try to understand what the American people finally did when their immature child President attempted to function in the adult world and did not have the mental necessities to do so.

At this point for all practical purposes impeachment is a done deal.  As far as the Ukraine is concerned the public record itself is sufficient grounds to impeach. The hearings serve only to disclose how extensive the conspiracy and coverup were in the effort to use the American government to pursue personal political needs to get dirt on an opponent and then to hide the effort. The testimony of the people outside the power of the Wicked Witch of the White House or who defy it will simply provide the details for the articles of impeachment…not whether or not there will be any.

For those still under the sway of the Wicked Witch of the White House, their obstruction will only serve to add obstruction articles to the impeachment. Their actions will not prevent it. These people have been advised on several talking shows of their need to get lawyers for their own defense.

The number of people involved in the conspiracy raises the question of how Pelosi should proceed. The impeachment of the President is the end game but should it be the only game? As We the People were reminded again and again during the Mueller investigation, Department of Justice guidelines prohibit the indictment of a sitting president. Putting aside the issue of whether that is a Constitutional restriction or simply a matter of policy, that leaves exposed people who are not President.

My advice, for whatever it is worth, is to start with the unprotected non-Presidential people prior to the impeachment of President himself.  In particular, start with the Attorney General. At minimum that should force him to recuse himself. His removal from power will make it easier to pursue the other unprotected people through the federal attorneys. Bill Barred for Life would no longer be able to curtail the work of the Department of Justice the way he declined to pursue the whistleblower’s report in the first place. In fact, that decision could easily be the first article of indictment against him.

Following the indictment of Attorney General, Pelosi could proceed week by week to recommend indictments of the remaining members of the conspiracy and cover:

Vice President
Acting Chief of Staff
Secretary of State

and whoever else deserves it. Then would come the big one.

By that time, would even Republicans in the House of Representatives support impeachment? It’s possible. The 354-60 vote to rebuke the President on his Syria pullout including 129 Republicans shows that it is possible for even the majority of Republicans in the House to defy the Wicked Witch of the White House. It also identifies the 60 Flying Monkeys in the House. In other words, the brilliant strategy in Syria may create the context which the perfect Ukrainian phone call did not. Now Republicans in the House and Senate can free themselves from the power of the Wicked Witch of the White House and vote to impeach and remove him from office…maybe even in time to select another candidate for 2020. But that’s the subject of another blog or two.