He's Not Leaving, Pt 847

In a temporary win for democracy, the Supreme Court ruled last week that the president cannot use the post office to screen mailed ballots, limiting them to voters he likes. The main thrust seemed to be that it is too late to change the rules, as ballots are already beginning to go out.

Local Note: This morning I received an email from my local elections board that my ballot has been mailed. I plan to turn it around ASAP and bring it to a ballot drop-off receptacle. Unlike Texas, Maryland allows more than one per county. We have one right down the street.

This is the second time SCOTUS has decided this matter based on timing. They ruled the initial suit was filed too early. Now it’s too late. It seems like they’re bending over backwards to avoid ruling on the principle of the case.

Unfortunately, I believe we’ll see this matter surface again. It seems Justice Kavanaugh left them some breadcrumbs to follow for 2028. In a concurrence, he wrote, “In my view, based on the briefing the Court has received at this interim stage, there is at least a fair prospect that the final rule falls within the Postal Service's statutory authority," thus clearing the way for Republicans to draw at least one more vote in a third go-round. Alito and Thomas, the two dissenting votes, were just fine with this manner of voter suppression. I wouldn’t put it past Gorsuch and Roberts to do a 180 and find for the Felon when the chips are down, and the dominoes are about to start tipping.

Another part of the order that was killed called for all states to create identical mailing ballots. I’m sure they really wanted that… That would mean the Post Office would only need to devise one sorting profile for the machines nationwide, which would cover all ballots. Again, even the issues that seem benign on the surface have malignant purposes. Sifting out ballots would be a breeze.

I keep saying it: If the president is still alive in 2028, he’s not leaving office willingly. If he can’t win the election, he’ll cancel them. If he can’t cancel them, he’ll disrupt them. If he can’t disrupt them, he’ll create an emergency and claim wartime powers to ignore them.

Yes, I know it’s all illegal, and there’s no precedent, but so are most of the things he’s done in the last year and a half, and no one has stopped him yet. With his blanket immunity, the Justice Dept. refusing to investigate anything that falls between the cracks, and using ICE as his enforcement/defense mechanisms, he is impervious to outside pressure. (Save for maybe the Russians.) The FBI won’t help; they’re now just as partisan and corrupt as Justice:

Don’t believe me about TFG’s intentions? Check out this message from him last weekend. If this doesn’t chill your shit, nothing will:

Who do you think those drones are meant to be fired at? China? Iran? Venezuelan fishermen? These armaments are meant for us, ie., anyone who dares defy his authoritah via direct protest. OR, say, a splintered militia made up of military and police members who are willing to disobey direct orders and dig him out of the White House like a tick.

I can just imagine an automated machine gun stand on the top of this arch, remotely controlled from inside the White House. It could have two settings: Just Hit the Legs, and Kill’em All. Whiskey Pete would love it. I won’t be surprised if he outfits the ballroom with the same weaponry.

So he’s digging a massive bunker/safe house under his ballroom, arming monuments, and revoking freedom of the press. Oh yeah, he did that too when he banned MS NOW, CNN, and Politico from the White House. He said that anyone who publishes news he doesn’t like will get banned. The president now decides what can be published. First Amendment is gone in a whirlwind of Big Mac wrappers and methane. I wonder what other Amendments he’s going to nullify because he doesn’t like someone who uses them.

None of these are the actions of someone who will leave power willingly. He knows that as soon as he loses the protection of the presidency, he, his inner circle, and some of his children are going to jail. He has zero incentive to go peacefully and every reason to use every method imaginable to cling to power. His lack of scruples or ethics practically guarantees it. 

Update 9/23/26:

Welcome to the party, CNN!

It's All Part of the Plan

Our Clown-in-Chief said more stupid things last week, most of which occurred at his Big Texas Circle Jerk. One of the more terrifying tidbits was that he expects The War That Isn’t a War to end after the elections.

There are a couple of angles to this.

First off, you could say he knows he can’t end the war before then. So then, any other time will be, by definition, “after the war.” But that’s just the literal aspect.

The second point, the one that scares me, is that the means by which he intends to end the war will be so distasteful that he needs it to be after the elections, or else it will negatively affect the vote. As if there aren’t a dozen other atrocities that weigh on the scale right now.

The first thing that comes to mind is the use of nukes, which will roil the oil market and send gas prices into the stratosphere for decades, and probably dam up the Strait for good. After that, oil will seem like a quaint idea when we can’t get enough fertilizer to grow nation-sustaining crops.

And, of course, there is the horrific, massive loss of innocent life that happens any time a nuclear bomb is used. Of course, to this Administration, the fact that these will be brown people with weird names mitigates the damage.

Then there is the possibility of in-kind retaliation, either by a foreign state or an independent terrorist with a suitcase nuke. After a national tragedy like 9/11, the nation came together. If such an emergency happens again, I don’t think we’ll see such a unified front. The race to blame political opponents and exact revenge will short-circuit everything else. And it’s exactly the kind of thing TFG would use to declare martial law and assert power indefinitely.

It’s funny that in the best possible outcome, he’s just blowing his usual torrent of lies and exaggerations. But you never really know with this guy.

 

The other big item was his $5,000 bribe to vote Republican in November. The fact that he continually proposes handing out cash, without it ever happening, practically guarantees that zero cash will ever be forthcoming. No one is taking this “offer” seriously, except maybe a few MAGAs who are still waiting for their special NFTs to turn a profit, or their gold shoes to show up.

The national Republican apparatus was quick to cast doubt on the prospect, but they may not be in on the possible endgame.

Consider the fact that Republicans can be relied on to do two things:

·         Spike the deficit when they’re in power by slashing taxes for the rich.

·         Demand a balanced budget when the Democrats are in power.

It seems to be their most effective weapon, even though anyone who’s been paying attention for the last 45 years can see the pattern. We Americans have the national attention span of a flea.

So if this giveaway spikes the deficit even more, it only adds to the case Republicans are sure to bring in the future: that spending needs to be slashed because of the deficit. (Assuming we can ever actually remove the current occupant.)

What’s one of any future Democratic administration’s priorities? It had better be de-Trumpifying the government, via un-naming things he smeared his logo on or built in his own honor, restoring the governmental departments that have been gutted, and rehiring tens of thousands of government workers to staff them. That’s going to take a lot of money, and we won’t have it. And no matter how the Congressional makeup turns out, the fat cats will buy off just enough Democrats to guarantee that no substantial changes are made to the tax code that require that the rich kick in more.

So, spiraling the deficit is the Republicans’ insurance policy to keep the government the way they just made it: built by and for the Rich. Doing it via handout makes it seem like they’re trying to help the little guy.

But tell me, in what way is robbing every citizen of $10,000* and then giving them back $5,000 considered “help?”

*Or whatever the number comes to that we’ve overpaid for tariffed goods, medical services brought on by getting sick via our uninspected food or unvaccinated virus carriers.

They’re counting on us to forget about all that, just like we forget who contributes the most to the annual deficit. I vote that we remember this ploy in this and every November.

 

Blogging Note

If you have a blog using Blogger/Blogspot, have you noticed if your blogroll has stopped updating? As of today, mine has been stuck at what it showed five days ago. I’ve seen at least one other blog with the same problem, so I know it’s not just me. Any ideas as to the cause, or what to do about it?

At Least the USPS is Improving at Something

The day after my last post, about how the current attempts to sabotage the midterm elections are likely to succeed regardless of legality, a new story broke about how the post office is continuing to develop a voter suppression technique despite being forbidden by the courts.

Long story short, (and aside from the fact that it is illegal for the post office to have any role in voting systems, other than just delivering the mail, AND the likely illegality of states having to filter their voter rolls through a federal “approved” list), the plan is for the USPS to take a sample of around 400 outgoing ballots from a batch of 10,000, bump them up against the federal list, and if even a single one is deemed ineligible, the entire group of 10,000 will be returned to the state.

You can see how that would inevitably entail tens of thousands of ballots being sent back and forth, eating up all the available mailing time before the election.

This is how you know it isn’t about preventing ineligible votes. This system is designed to stop the whole process in its tracks; otherwise they’d just pull the ineligible votes and send the rest on.

A whistleblower provided an account of the work continuing on this voter-prevention system, despite the court having already instructed the Post Office to cease all such activities, so you can see how seriously the Administration takes court orders. “Just carry on, and by the time it all shakes out, it will be too late.”

This is also a scenario that defeats the use of drop boxes. You can’t leave your ballot in a drop box if you never receive it in the first place. I think the states should seriously look into either emailing ballots or making them available online. It shouldn’t be hard to limit downloads or emails to those on their list of registered voters. Of course, the Republicans will scream bloody murder about a new avenue of alleged “voter fraud,” but they do that about any practice that circumvents their voter suppression tactics. That’s how mail-in voting became an issue in the first place.

Another story that broke last week was how a Tarrant County election commission in Texas decided to eliminate 92 voting locations. This action immediately followed a “town hall meeting” wherein the overwhelming majority of attendees supported NOT removing voting locations. Tarrant County abuts Dallas and contains Fort Worth, and is one of the “Bluer” areas in Texas, and key to the Democrats picking up a Senate seat. Making it more inconvenient for your opponent to vote is a cornerstone of Republican voter suppression, whether it’s actions like these, or removing voting machines from key precincts, removing or decreasing early in-person voting days, or draconian water prohibitions when in line to vote.

They know that white-collar (upper class) can spend all day in line and their employers will accommodate, while blue-collar (middle/lower class) workers’ employers are much less lenient. Someone has to be there to make the donuts. Not to mention the loss of hourly wages while standing in line.

And regarding another voter suppression angle I covered last week, there was an article in the paper regarding using the military to appear at polling places.

The AP article quotes Gen Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying that there are no plans to send troops to the polls.

That’s fine, except that it has no bearing on whether ICE is sent. ICE is not part of the traditional military and is not under their chain of command. The president, via the Department of Homeland Security, can send ICE anywhere he wants. I guarantee they will be out and about on Election Day, on the prowl for brown voters they can pick up or scare off. I suspect this article is just one more way that mainstream media is trying to keep a lid on things, to keep people happy and complacent.

We can no longer afford to be complacent about anything. Big changes are afoot, and without our active resistance, the move to a fascist authoritarian regime is imminent.

One more quick observation. Do you know how TFG has been filling up Truth Social with fantastical AI depictions of himself in godly/heroic scenarios? There was a telling passage in the new book, "Regime Change" (Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan) that might explain it. They report that he was enthralled by AI technology, particularly about how you can just tell ChatGPT something and it will spit out what you want. He had a lot of questions about it and how it worked. (This is unusual, since he's not normally curious about anything.) So I wouldn't be surprised that rather than merely forwarding the fawning work of others, he was creating these things himself, or at least telling Natalie what he wanted.