Told you

 I don't normally refer back to up the accuracy of my own posts after the fact, but it seems like Orange Caligula's never-ending effort to discover nonexistent election fraud based on false claims and (more recently) abuse the power of the Presidential pardon to give as many of his political cronies an undeserved Christmas present proves my point way too well about his malign nature. And all this came after he lost.

At this point, we've got 27 more days of this.

Here's hoping someone remembers to inventory the silverware after he leaves the White House.

The case against Donald J. Trump

This is going to look like preaching to the choir, since many of you have already voted and I'm fully aware of who you probably voted for, but...

Tomorrow is election day. And the importance of this particular election can't be understated. It may be one of the most important election for President other than 1860, 1932 or 1968, and that's not hyperbole - not in the least.

Because Donald Trump has to go. It's just that obvious.

I could spend hours compiling all of the reasons why he needs to be driven out of office by January 20th, 2021 (there are articles in RationalWiki and the Encyclopedia of American Loons that have compiled a huge chunk of them, so look for those instead), but there's a simple set of facts that make it glaringly obvious:

There's the narcissism. The deranged Tweets that will end up in the historical record whether he likes it or not. The self-dealing. The filling of his cabinet with fellow would-be oligarchs, incompetents and fellow self-dealers. His need to browbeat the few competent ones into resigning when they're no longer sycophantic enough for his liking. His abject refusal to release his tax returns when every other Presidential candidate has been doing it for decades. The repeated accusations by women he's encountered of sexual harassment and outright sexual assault. The fact his family are mouthpieces for his knuckle-dragging brand of politics and simultaneously in on his grift. The fact that that grift is only further enhanced by his refusal to let go of his business holdings. The fact that he's used his position as President to enhance the monetary gain of those business holdings. His inability to handle criticism, hard questions from the press or any status other than someone never to be questioned, ever. His butchering of environmental regulations, national parks and wild spaces in the name of profit. His abject slavishness to Vladimir Putin. His cozying up to the likes of Kim Jong-un. His use of the race card and the xenophobe card every time he needs or wants to. His cult of personality among people who'll ultimately be humiliated when they finally realize what they've been worshipping. And on and on and on.

Donald J. Trump, in short, is not worthy to be President. He never has been and he never will be. And he doesn't deserve your vote, my vote or anyone else's.

People will still be foolish enough to give it, but that's because he's used his nascent personality cult to whip people into a state of fear of anyone or anything different from them. Never mind the fact that he's done everything he can to prove that he's a sociopath, a narcissist or both: there's always been plenty of room in Anerican politics for candidates who appeal to racists and bigots stretching all the way back to the Anti-Masonic and Know-Nothing parties, and there will be in the future. But no one has combined that with a hostility to - or an outright ignorance of - the workings of democracy and the Constitution more than Trump has, and that's one of the reasons that he's so dangerous. He wants to stay in power in order to avoid the consequences of his corruption, and he's practically willing to do anything to accomplish it. Which is precisely why he needs to be defeated.

So if you haven't voted yet, do yourself a favor and vote him out of office.

Because I don't want to end up in a refugee camp for exiled Americans somewhere outside of Auckland or Winnipeg four years from now saying "I told you so!" because they didn't vote.

And that's not hyperbole, either.

Grifters gonna grift, infinitely

 You don't have to go any further than the latest New York Times' article on how Donald Trump makes money off of VIP access to his businesses and his Presidency to see how well the grift works:

Federal tax-return data for Mr. Trump and his business empire, which was disclosed by The New York Times last month, showed that even as he leveraged his image as a successful businessman to win the presidency, large swaths of his real estate holdings were under financial stress, racking up losses over the preceding decades.

But once Mr. Trump was in the White House, his family business discovered a lucrative new revenue stream: people who wanted something from the president. An investigation by The Times found over 200 companies, special-interest groups and foreign governments that patronized Mr. Trump’s properties while reaping benefits from him and his administration. Nearly a quarter of those patrons have not been previously reported.

With all of that money, prestige and political power at stake, is at any wonder why he's also been openly chivying his Attorney General to indict political opponents lately?

After all, oligarchic regimes in Central America have been doing this sort of thing for decades. Not just years. Decades. Which is why you should disbelieve any statement by Trump that his role model is any American businessman he's liable to invoke, including himself. What his real goal is something far closer to a less bloody version of Guatemala than anything else.

Restating the obvious

 Not that anyone should be surprised at this by now, but over the last few days you have a real choice of things to know about Donald J. Trump: that he's probably a massive business and tax fraud, and that he's definitely giving aid and comfort (and probably veiled orders) to white supremacist groups.

Just keep all of that in mind if things get especially hairy in the run-up to November 3rd.

Looking for a flashlight at the abyss

 The title isn't intended to be overdramatic. Honest. But the feeling I've been having lately is that we're all standing near a very deep pit and while there may be a bridge there, it's not all that visible. Matter of fact, the fog in this place is quite thick, which is not only a warning to watch your step but make damn sure that the bridge is still there as well.

Consider this: in September 2020, we currently have a President who is anything but an ideal leader for anything - including leader of a squad of garbage pickers doing community service for drunk driving. There's tons of news articles and Tweets (most of which were authored by him) that prove this point. He's one of the people who put that metaphorical hole in the ground, along with any number of domestic and international political enablers. The stakes for the upcoming general election are extremely high, and the possible fallout has been theorized about in things ranging from the Transition Integrity Project's wargaming of a contested election to Mike Selinker's darker four scenarios for a post-election civil war. Things are precisely that dangerous right now; the situation literally makes the legal fallout from the 2000 Presidential election seem like a contentious PTA meeting in comparison.

My own opinion is that things might go in a direction where we're not all screwed in the end. Notice the key word there: "might". There's no guarantee that a sitting President who's been exceedingly reluctant to guarantee a peaceful transition if he loses will actually accede to leaving voluntarily at noon on January 20th, 2021. But the real problem is that period between November 4th and January 19th. Just about anything can happen - much of it bad. I'm hoping it doesn't. But hope is just that - a best of all possible worlds conclusion to this mess we're in. It may happen. Then again, it may not. Again, the stakes are just that high.

And then there's me as the individual, as opposed to me as a blogger. If things go especially pear-shaped in the US, it wouldn't surprise me at all - not in this era, and not under an increasingly dysfunctional Federal government. I hope it won't. But I'm in my 50s and I fully realize that my life expectancy would be on the downside in any major civil conflict that would go off because of a contested election result. There's been a lot of things that haven't worked out in my life, but something like this would dwarf them all. I was in preschool and elementary school during Vietnam. I saw 9/11 on the TV like practically everyone else, as well as Afganistan and Iraq. But all of those happened overseas, not in Chicago, Washington or New York. If things get that bad, all of the previous wars and terrorist attacks would be like nothing in comparison. The bloodletting could be precisely that awful because it would be in American streets instead of Kabul, Baghdad and Mosul. And in a case like that, a lot of the people reading this right now might not be around to survive it.

...unless I'm wrong, of course.

I'm hoping I am. But I've never felt this insecure about the possible results of an election in my life, and although my money's on sanity winning out in this situation I can't guarantee it.

So here's hoping I'm wrong for a change. Because that metaphorical hole in the ground might not have a bottom.

Now reading

 Chronopolis and Other Stories by J.G. Ballard, which is a restart from January 1st. The reason? I've been remiss in my reading habits (the last novel I finished was in July 2019), and real life has been so bizarre and even vicious over the intervening eitght months that I lost the urge to read anything except non-fiction, and usually online. So it was time for a change

In Memoriam: Gale Sayers, 1943-2020

 The nickname "Kansas Comet" was entirely deserved.

A warning

 For those of you who scoff at the idea of getting the hell out of the country if Trump gets re-elected, let's put it like this:

You can wait until the November election is over and done with. At the first sign of the Orange Duce not accepting a Biden win or declaring some sort of national emergency or martial law to nullify a loss, you better be prepared for the worst. I don't believe for a minute that the lunatic in the White House will ever accept any sort of voluntary departure from the oval office as legitimate. He can leave on a stretcher with a blanket over his face after Tweeting himself into a stroke at 5 in the morning, or he can leave at the business end of several guns held by Federal agents next January. He's already made ridiculous noises about "negotiating" a third term as if all of this was just some business scam he's participating in, and he probably believes it.

So be prepared. The worst hasn't happened yet, and I'm doing my best to not be alarmist, but when your house is on fire you don't just sit there and let it burn. You call the fire department, or try to put it out. And we may be at exactly the point in time where we're all starting to smell smoke. I sure as hell hope we're not, but I'm not sure of much of anything any more. And I wish I was.

In Memoriam: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 1933-2020

Just another reason why 2020 is practically the Abyss of recent history, especially in the United States.

About Ed Brayton

 This is going to be hard for me to write.

Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars has long been a favorite skeptical blog of mine, since it featured a wonderful combination of incisive analysis, strong opinion and outright snark. It's bounced around from when I first ran into it on Scienceblogs, but Ed has always kept the same degree of quality and intelligence in all of its incarnations up until now.

Unfortunately, serious health problems dropped his output to the point where he couldn't post nearly as often as he liked.

And then I read something that just ruined my night.

Ed has decided to apply for hospice care, since his medical condition has deteriorated to the point that palliative care instead of yet more trips to the hospital and yet more stays in rehab facilities would just make more sense.

I understand his decision and respect it.

That doesn't make it any easier to accept.

As somebody who has a blog that has nowhere near the following that he does, it's like a giant sinkhole appeared and ate the place where I live. He was one of those bloggers who kept swinging for the fences even when a number of completely spurious lawsuits from some of his targets started coming in to try to shut him up. They didn't, but you know how idiots are when you point out their stupidity. They just keep plugging away even though all that proves is that they're still idiots.

Unfortunately, being shut down by your own medical problems is something entirely different.

Ed is, in my mind, irreplaceable, just as any great blogger is. I'm sure he'll keep up at it until he no longer can, but the end is the end, regardless of that. And that's what's so difficult to stomach about it.

On the subject of conventions during a crisis like this

My personal $0.02 on convention cancellations due to the pandemic:

Even if we're exceedingly lucky and this thing eventually burns itself out like the 1918 flu pandemic did, it took that particular disaster roughly two years to be over and done with. Even if it only takes a single year from now because of a variety of factors (including the fact that we have better medical and scientific knowledge and treatment techniques than in 1918-19), that still means that it might not be safe to hold conventions until May 2021. That means that cons running from Anime Central this year until Acen next year won't be able to be held - or held in the same way they used to be.

This also means that local events ranging from Acen through Gen Con, Wizard World, Windycon, Capricon next year and possibly Acen in 2021 might all be washouts. No one can entirely predict how the pandemic will play out by then, but if the Illinois rule holding public events down to 50 people or less continues to be necessary that would completely wipe out all of the aforementioned conventions that are held in Illinois. As for Indiana, their events have to follow state law as well. And large events held outside the area like San Diego Comicon, Dragon*Con and Worldcon would have to follow their respective local law - or just admit that the accompanying liability issues just aren't worth the risk. And, IMO, they're not.

With all of those factors laid out on the table, this much can be said - conventions may have to sit on their budgets until a time they can be held safely. Vendors may have to rely on online or mail-order sales instead. And fans may have to find new ways to network or hold online "conventions" until we get out of this mess. Yes, the situation is bad. Quite bad, as someone who both staffs and attends conventions. But it's still far better than the alternative.

Predictable result, predictable revulsion

There are many moments in the history of the United States where our political leadership actually showed political courage and wisdom. This wasn't even close to being one of them.

As for the 52 Senators who couldn't be bothered to show any scruples or nerve in trying to rein in an out of control President, let me say this clearly: if Donald J. Trump keeps going down the path he's been heading ever since his inauguration, fuck every last one of you for your inaction. You deserve nothing more in terms of sentiment than that.

Online "journalism" at work

The fact that Lev Parnas, Rudy Giuliani and Devin Nunes were in fairly constant contact with each other is galling but hardly shocking (nothing surprises me about the Ukraine situation any more, really), but this following tidbit about former The Hill staffer John Solomon is especially interesting:

The call records also show Giuliani, Nunes and Parnas also were in frequent contact with John Solomon, a former columnist for the Washington news outlet The Hill. Solomon published a series of opinion pieces criticizing former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch as part of “a coordinated effort by associates of President Trump to push … false narratives publicly” in a bid to force Yovanovitch’s ouster, the Democratic report said, citing public statements, phone records, and contractual agreements.

After Solomon published an article critical of Yovanovitch on April 7, phone records show numerous calls between Giuliani, Parnas, Nunes and Solomon. For instance, on April 10, Giuliani and Nunes talked on three short calls in rapid succession, followed by a text message, and ending with a nearly 3-minute call. Later that day, Parnas and Solomon had a 4-minute, 39-second call.

The Hill had previously attempted some cleanup on Twitter and elsewhere after the mess Solomon caused, but if all of this comes off as "too little, too late", that's because it probably was.

Nothing good can come from this

It's not as if Qasem Soleimani wasn't a son of a bitch - he was, but a very high-ranking son of a bitch, to say the least - but his death on the business end of a US airstrike (and on neighboring Iraqi territory, on top of it) will do nothing to stabilize a region already fraught with sectarian violence and wall-to-wall atrocities against civilians.

But it couldn't possibly be a wag the dog hedge against certain domestic political issues, especially when embarrassing new evidence was about to come to light, could it?

Nah. Of course not.

Now reading

Chronopolis: the Science Fiction of J.G. Ballard (UK title Chronopolis and Other Stories) by J.G. Ballard