The Constitution has a provision that disqualifies anyone that engaged in an insurrection from holding office. Trump has been found guilty of that by trials and yet he ran for and won the highest office in the country. The Supreme Court kept one state from removing his name from the ballot by saying he may not hold office but you can’t keep him off the ballot. This court is by it’s actions staffed by some of the dumbest well educated people on the planet. Six are conservative and of the same religion, and none of them seem to be able to think clearly or at least not in accordance with the Constitution. Their presence on the court is a major waste of time and money, not to mention that they know nothing of the law.These justices have openly supported Trump knowing that he should not be allowed to hold office and should be removed from the court. Will Congress or the current President make the effort to invoke the disqualification? It needs to occur and it needs to be upheld. In the current congress there are members that supported the insurrection and they should also be removed from those positions immediately. The lack of any beneficial legislation during the last 4 years because of the loyalty to Trump by the republican members of both houses is enough to remove the majority of them on the basis of the 14th Amendment. As for the rank and file of MAGA let them know that violence will not serve them well. Putting threats on the net or showing up armed in the street will only mean that they are willing to forfeit all they have for a cause that is collapsing around them. Take away voting rights, homes, benefits such as social security and VA benefits. If you are willing to go into the street and possibly kill someone because they do not agree with your point of view then you must be willing to have all that you hold dear taken from you in support of your belief. Sound mean and ugly? But then the leader of the cult wants to take people, some of whom have lived here for years, that are undocumented and put them in camps taking everything they have away from them. The need to get people documented or removed may be necessary but there are ways to do things that save face as they say in Japan. Many people come here to experience freedom as did your ancestors. We are all immigrants in our past. Those earlier immigrants took this land from people that had been here before us and then created a nation under a concept that was different from the norm. That experiment is just a few hundred years old and it has been doing very well, so why do we have so many in our midst that wish to revert back to a dictatorship? The answer is because freedom takes work and effort and far too many have become the generation of the hand out. The give me generation and don’t ask me to do anything to get it, and they think this is going to be better and they are wrong. This is not going to work in anyone’s favor except Trump the biggest give me culprit on the planet.
Authors Note: Sometimes I astonish myself. Before I wrote my last substack about Washington’s Crossing called Kneel. Pray. Win. I had written another one just in case things went South. That moment has come. The United States has voted for a dictatorship … and decisively. The Supreme Court will be lost for most of the century. Women will lose most of their reproductive rights and lives. And white people happily voted to impose tyranny over all other races and creeds. So what can you do that doesn’t involve the good Bourbon?
Let’s face it: America has fundamentally changed from what it was founded to be. It is now an autocracy ruled by the white tribe. Here is what I wrote a few weeks ago for that break-glass moment. Read it and Weep. Then get busy. We have work to do.
Imagine that it is Christmas morning in 1776. You are with George Washington’s army. Midway through the crossing, the Marblehead sailors who are rowing hear something. Before they can say a word, cannons sound all along the New Jersey side of the river. Washington’s daring move is defeated before the boats touch dry land. Imagine British cannon fire raining down on them as surprise British troops had moved from Princeton in the night, and the Hessians were waiting to the south and raking them with gunfire. Now, picture the American experiment slowly drifting as a drowned failure under the ice of the Delaware River … and George Washington’s corpse is being paraded by German mercenaries.
My dear readers, if you are reading this, then the worst has happened. Donald Trump has been elected the 47th President of the United States.
You are likely filled with two feelings. Some will be the same as you felt in 2016. You feel shame and grief. But now add a complete collapse of understanding of how the Trump train hit you into the mix. Your wits are torn asunder. Your heart aches and is in deep throbbing pain. You likely feel as if a close loved one has died, and you will be correct.
Like Washington, we risked a bold and daring campaign and since you are reading this, we have failed. Benjamin Franklin’s words now ring true. We were a Republic if we could’ve kept it. We did not and it died today, so Welcome to America, the Tyranny!
The End of 248 Years of Experimenting
What is now dying is the American experiment itself. And as our Russian enemies learned long ago (and passed on to their right-wing extremist toadies) was that the fastest way to kill Democracy was to use Democracy as the very knife to slit its throat. We do not have a president; we now have a King with all the powers George III had at the time of the American Revolution.
In the Star Wars movie Revenge of the Sith, Queen Amidala summed it up neatly when she said, “So this is how Liberty Dies, to thunderous applause.” Our problem is there is no Jedi order full of mystical space wizards to save us. We did this to ourselves by popular demand.
A Trump presidency means the United States is about to get the government his sycophants voted for. You likely feel adrift as a voter of progress, goodwill, and true of heart. We are on a boat alone in a vast ocean filled with terrible storms. But as all mariners know, there is a way for a sinking ship to save its crew and, in some instances, get back aboard and salvage it. But you can’t do it when crying, even if it’s a crying shame.
I feared for America these last few weeks; I believed we would win, but I kept a reserve of 5% caution that this could end in tragedy. (Author’s note: My prediction was 100% correct, and Trump won in a landslide.)
You are most likely feeling fear, trepidation, anxiety, and a burning pain in the middle of your gut that says things are going to get nasty. You are correct in those emotions as well. So, I will give you till the end of this article to feel all of those things and then get with the program.
At the end, I want you to have a deep, sobbing cry. Then I want you to stand up, get a hot beverage, and commit yourself to not surrendering all that you presently feel hold in your heart.
Trust me, I’m a widower, and your psychological well-being demands it. Your family will look to you, and your friends will want to lean on you for the stalwartness you need to develop pronto.
You must Hold Fast! That’s a nautical term to ‘grip the rope more tightly, or disaster will strike a worse blow than the first.’ Hold Fast. To what you know is right and true, and that is not MAGA. So no matter what they send at you, Hold Fast.
But Malcolm, why not just give in?
It is easy to surrender in a storm, to pass under the waves, and slowly die inside. It is easier not to engage, go into isolation, or try comprehending the crisis that befell us. I understand it.
You may want to do what I do when the politics are at their worst. I turn on MTV and watch the vapid video show Ridiculousness, or I dial up Midsomer Murders or Poirot and bingefor hours to cleanse my mind. But while I watch, I am also writing and formulating new ideas to help me with the predicament. I am constantly crafting new plans, whether for my house repairs, Christmas decorations, or memorial garden. Strategizing and adopting major projects is the highest form of grief management. Obsessively getting your affairs in order is something those of us who have lost immediate loved ones well understand.
However, one cannot – nay, must not surrender to the sweet, cold admission that it is hard to fight. It is hard to stand against outrages, insults, and arrogance. But those are your only choices on this day of days. You can surrender to an America that is dictatorial and fascistic and will grind into the day-to-day affairs of your life without any input from you, your friends, or your family. You can let other people dictate what your life will be. That’s why it’s called a dictatorship. Information will now be sent to you in any form of “truth” they want you to see.
Or you can commit to taking some time off between now and inauguration day and prepare yourself for the upcoming political battle. It will not be waged with weapons of war, as many on the extreme right-wing lustfully imagine. In this struggle, you must become the ultimate ally of the true promise of the Constitution of the United States. And, like the oath, we swear in the Armed Forces that we will uphold, protect, and defend that sacred document. The time has come for you to do the same.
I don’t want you to do it in the cheesy Q-Anon, Mike Flynn way of standing in front of a video camera and taking a fake oath for TikTok. I want you to take the moment that hurts you the most, which will likely be high noon on January 20, 2025, and hold it in your heart. Swear to yourself that you will not let this abomination abide without your voice of opposition. Be it in op-ed commentary, Twitter responses, or calling into local radio shows, Facebook, whatever – Swear to make your voice heard because suppressing your voice is next up after suppressing your vote. In fact, they want you to suppress yourself.
Take in the words carved into the Thomas Jefferson memorial as a touchstone, “for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” That’s it. That’s your mission statement. Better memorize it because every form of tyranny over the mind of man is about to be imposed on you.
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Remember Rockwell Too
Interestingly, the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, is one of my favorite places in the world. My greatest pleasure is walking into the hall of the Four Freedoms. It has Rockwell’s four iconic paintings facing each other, including the Thanksgiving dinner table themed Freedom from Want. Next is the chilling Freedom from Fear, with the father and mother tucking their sons into bed while reading a newspaper about men dying in the European war. Next is the beautiful Freedom of Worship with its multinational, multi-ethnic hands in prayer. However, the one that touches me the most is freedom of speech. I gasp every time I see it. You must embrace its meaning. You must stand up, even when afraid, and say what you mean and feel. Right now, you feel a miasma of grief and pain. But learn to stand up and say what you mean. Tell everyone what you think is right, honorable, and true … before it is illegal.
Tomorrow, you may feel anger and a desire for change. OK, Stand up and say it. Soon, you may have to choose if you will protest if and when America lurches into a complete dictatorship and/or civil war. But once you have stood up and said you intend to speak up, remember these immortal words at the end of the Declaration of Independence: “We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
You, the reader, must understand the stakes of what speaking up means if the nation is to be saved. You must become the most loyal and ardent defender of the founding principles at the risk of your life and fortune. If you cannot risk it for that foundational biscuit, then your voice will just become one of many that will be ignored -like drowning oarsmen in the alternate universe’s Delaware, where prideful British troops drink mulled wine and piss on your body. Nobody wants that.
Right now, your MAGA neighbors v will likely view you as a foreign enemy to be intimidated, detained, or destroyed.
Be sure that the next four years will be a time of turmoil, economic hardship, and possibly civil unrest. Before you can follow instructions on navigating through it, you must first organize. Get your lifeboats back together, tie your fortunes to each other, and move with a purpose in opposition to the storm threatening to scuttle your hopes, dreams, and families.
Today is the day to let go of the mourning and make the American Experiment work again.
Have a good cry. Spin on your heel, get a coffee, and Lets Fucking Go.
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I am disheartened that a majority of voting Americans have decided that a democracy is no longer something they want. The rule of law has been defined to protect the wealthy and when Donald retakes the reins of power grievance will become the rule.
All those that claim that our economy is failing will be the first to rejoice in the strength of the economy in January 20,2025 and claim that Trump is the reason for it. All the positives of the past 4 years he will take credit for and erasing the legacy of President Biden will be number one on his agenda.
Once he implements is tariffs and his mass deportation policies the economy will collapse and the republicans will blame it all on Joe Biden.
I am sad and terrified for the future of my son and his generation. If you are female or don’t have white skin you can look forward to becoming a second class citizen.
The point where the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans meet is a fascinating natural phenomenon, often characterized by a visible line where the two bodies of water appear to clash but do not fully mix. This unique phenomenon occurs primarily due to differences in the salinity, temperature, and density of each ocean’s water. While these differences do not create a solid barrier, they create a gradient that makes it difficult for the waters to fully blend, resulting in a striking contrast that can be seen on the surface. One of the most notable places where this phenomenon occurs is at Cape Horn, the southern tip of South America, where the Pacific Ocean meets the Atlantic. Here, the waters of the Pacific, typically cooler and less salty, encounter the warmer, saltier waters of the Atlantic. These differences cause each ocean to retain its unique characteristics for a while before they gradually blend through diffusion and currents. This phenomenon is further influenced by powerful ocean currents, like the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which flows around Antarctica and affects the waters where these oceans converge. Such currents contribute to the distinct separation line that travelers often observe in photos and videos. Beyond the physical aspects, the meeting of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans has long held symbolic and cultural significance. It represents a natural boundary between two vast and diverse ecosystems, each home to unique marine life adapted to its environment. This convergence zone also poses challenges for marine navigation, as the differing currents, temperatures, and wave patterns can create unpredictable conditions, making it a notorious area for sailors. Scientists study these oceanic differences to understand more about climate patterns, marine biodiversity, and the ways in which these two major bodies of water influence global systems. This meeting point between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans serves as a powerful reminder of the complexities of our planet’s natural processes and the unseen forces shaping life within and around these waters.
It’s Election Day, I feel good about the possibility of our Democratic Republic continuing but I still have PTSD from 2016. The reality that the race is statistically so close even after the Republican Nominee is a convicted felon and adjudicate guilty of sexual assault is something I never thought possible, but here we are.
I honestly don’t trust the polls because the main stream media wants a horse race and I can’t, or at least don’t want to, admit that more than half of our voters want this experiment to end.
In 1584, the first English colony in North America was founded in what is now North Carolina. And though the 117 settlers who comprised the Roanoke Colony mysteriously disappeared three years later, ensuing waves of settlements established England’s presence on the continent for generations to come. By 1770, the total population of Great Britain’s 13 colonies in America was approximately 1.5 million. It raises the question: Since much of the population of the fledgling U.S. descended from Brits, would the American speech pattern at the time have sounded British? Could someone like George Washington, one of the most famous early Americans, have had a British accent?
Since Washington lived in an era that predates sound recordings, we don’t have a simple answer to that question in the form of audio records of the founding father’s voice. But we can determine some possibilities by piecing together factors from Washington’s life that would have impacted the way he spoke.
Washington was born in 1732 in Westmoreland County, Virginia, and spent most of his childhood near Fredericksburg. His father, Augustine Washington, and mother, Mary Ball Washington, were also born in Virginia. Indeed, George Washington’s lineage in the colony went back two more generations — it was his great-grandfather John Washington who set sail from England and established the family in Virginia. So America’s first president wasn’t from a family of recent British settlers; he was three generations removed, and the household he grew up in wouldn’t have necessarily spoken an accent that was common in England at the time.
If anything proves that partisan politics and electoral machinations are nearly as old as the United States itself, it’s the election of 1800, when Federalist Party incumbent President John Adams sought reelection against Democrat-Republican Vice President Thomas Jefferson. The already-bizarre premise of opposing parties holding the presidency and vice presidency was made possible at the time by a law stipulating that the presidential candidate who earned the second-most number of electoral votes became Vice President. In the election of 1796, Jefferson lost the presidency to Adams by only three votes, and the 1800 election was a rematch between the political rivals.
That time, with another narrow margin likely, both parties turned toward influencing electors, whose votes decided the winning candidate in states where there was not yet a popular vote. Jefferson wrote of his intent to sway electors in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey in a letter to James Madison. Federalist Senator Charles Carroll accused Jefferson and his supporters of also attempting to use “arts and lies” to manipulate votes in Federalist-leaning Maryland. From there, the accusations, well, escalated. Jefferson-supporting pamphleteer James Callendar claimed that John Adams was a hermaphrodite. Federalist newspapers accused Jefferson of maintaining a harem at Monticello.
When the votes were finally cast, the election ended in a tie between Jefferson and… his intended running mate, Aaron Burr. How? Each elector had two votes to cast, but there was no distinction at the time between a vote for President versus a vote for Vice President. Casting one vote for Jefferson and one vote for Burr was in effect a vote for each as President. The Constitution called for resolving this tie between the Democrat-Republican candidates with a vote in the House of Representatives, which was controlled by, you guessed it, the Federalist Party.
The task at hand was to vote on who, between Jefferson and Burr, would be President, but the Federalists saw an opportunity to seize power, either by delaying the proceedings past the end of Adams’ term, or attempting to invalidate enough votes to give Adams the majority. Others advocated for supporting Burr. Between February 11 and February 16, 35 rounds of voting took place, each ending in deadlock. Finally, after much lobbying by Alexander Hamilton against Burr, the 36th ballot resulted in Jefferson being appointed President. In the wake of the turbulent election, the 12th Amendment was ratified in order to prevent a repeat ordeal in 1804.
Famed Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci left behind thousands of pages of notes and diagrams from his many pursuits in math, anatomy, botany, science, engineering, and art — he created more than 200 illustrations with notes on flight alone. Leonardo had groundbreaking ideas on everything from human anatomy to bridge design, and even the writing itself is impressive: Most of it is written from right to left, in a mirror image of ordinary European script. He only wrote left to right when someone else needed to read it. He also used his own form of shorthand.
Leonardo never directly explained why he wrote this way, but there are a few prevailing theories. It may have been simply practical: The artist was most likely left-handed, and writing left to right could get messy using a pen and ink. He also may have been trying to keep his ideas secret from potential copycats, or even trying to hide his work from the Roman Catholic Church. While Leonardo’s artwork is rich with religious symbolism, he was also a skeptic, and some of his ideas would have been at odds with the teachings of the church. After Leonardo’s death, his loose-leaf notes went to his student Francesco Melzi, an Italian painter. They were bound into several volumes, mirror writing and all, and soon began circulating among European elites as collector’s items. They are still kept in museums and private collections today.
One article said that those that believe Trump is dangerous are not taking into account that our democratic system is built with many checks and balances. This is not taking into account that the project 2025 has all the necessary instructions and intentions of destroying those checks. Trump is dangerous like any cornered animal is dangerous. He is cornered and he knows it. Getting reelected is the only way he can save his ass from being put behind bars. Pretty scary for a man his age that has spent his entire life getting away with whatever he did legally or not to be facing prison. If he is elected then he will start pardoning himself from every crime he can on the federal level. Then he will start calling on the republican governors of the states where he is having trouble to let him off the hook. As for places like New York he will withhold federal funds or some other method to make those legislators agree to let him be pardoned. There is no thought of service to the nation at this point, if there ever was one. He is interested in taking care of his favorite thing, self. His ego would not hold up behind bars even if they were in a medium security facility. The idea that we, the taxpayers, would have to supply secret service even in prison is just ridiculous. He would not be safe without that protection as it seems likely that someone he lied to would be near enough to do him harm. The other alternative is to stick him in the maximum security unit in Colorado and see how long it takes for him to go totally insane. Since he would be isolated in that unit it doesn’t seem reasonable for a full security detail to be with him. He has said that he would run for Venezuela if he does not get elected. That would put him out of the way, maybe keep fox news from talking about him. It might even mean he would no longer be a major pain in the ass to the rest of us. The fact that Venezuela would try to get an extradition agreement going seems likely, I know I would not want him in my country were I them, and I don’t want him in this one either.
Esoteric Meandering Shouting Into the Void 
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