The Witness Chronicles, May 16, 2024
Florida make climate change illegal and the weirdness of Trump’s trial
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Republican Solves Climate Change by Making the Words Illegal
Ron DeSantis does it again
As of this week, Florida no longer has climate change, just like that in his ongoing campaign to make things disappear by making words illegal. Don’t Say Gay took care of homosexuality, censorship of children’s books stopped trans kids in their tracks, and now they have tackled climate change by making the words ‘climate change’ illegal.
I don’t know why no one else thought of this simple solution. Despite record high ocean and Gulf temps, the largest hurricane season ever projected, increasing numbers of tornadoes and floods, and ground waters turning saline, the state that is the poster boy for disastrous climate change no longer has it.
Seriously we are now seeing peak ‘bury your head in the ground’ Republican denial of anything their fossil fuel buddies don’t like. This despite the aforementioned ongoing climate disasters, a home and property insurance crisis, hundreds of destroyed homes that can’t be rebuilt because there is no insurance or contractors, and more.
Governor Ron DeSantis and his lackey state government don’t like reality much so they have decided to legislate it away, by making it illegal to refer to the greatest man made disaster affecting the entire planet. In the process they are doing their best to give the rest of us the impression that Florida is run by the biggest group of idiots ever elected.
Given that Florida is the state hit hardest by the reality of global warming, with it getting harder and harder to buy and own property, a water supply being replaced by salt water due to rising ocean levels, and storms that are capable of destroying entire cities, this bold action is overdue.
California should consider making the phrases ‘forest fires’, ‘mudslides’, and ‘drought’ illegal, saving the state billions in fighting these disasters. For Texas it might be ‘tornadoes’ and ‘floods’. After all they are suffering from record rainfall and constant destructive storms and they now have a weapon to easily end these cataclysms.
Watch for Texas Governor Abbott to jump on the linguistic war on these disasters. He could ship these words to the liberal states, thereby saving his state from a fake disaster. Watch out New York City, dangerous words like hurricane and global warming are headed your way. But don’t worry, you can move to Florida where these problems no longer exist.
This trend showcases the real innovation found in the ranks of the Republican Party when it comes to problem solving. All they had to do was create an imaginary world where actual problems go away, magically.
We reached a milestone of dumb and dumberness folks, thanks to the Trump revolution, a great reason to re-elect the buffoon in chief.
The Trump Trial is Just Plain Weird
The sideshow we should have seen coming
I’ll admit, I skim the news when it comes to the ongoing trial because I don’t think it is changing much so far. There are a lot more relevant stories hidden in the boring numbers behind the polling, things like the apparent fact that Trump is not winning voters beyond his base.
But a few things about the trial have struck me. First, the Stormy Daniels testimony spent a lot of time on whether she and Trump had sex, whether it was consensual, and how boring it seemingly was. That’s all sort of titillating, though I do not need the image of Trump sitting in his underwear waiting for her on the bed. Ugh.
But none of this has anything to do with what he is accused of, which is falsifying business records to cover up his indiscretions for the purposes of election fraud. It doesn’t matter whether they actually had sex or the sordid details of whatever happened in that hotel room.
The questioning was stupid to say the least. Did they eat dinner in the room, at a restaurant, or at all? Completely irrelevant.
Then there was the defense questioning of Michael Cohen, which seemed to hit the ground with a dull thud. Trump’s attorney did what was expected in trying to paint Cohen as a liar and an unconvincing witness, but Cohen wasn’t having any of it. He stayed calm and showed a dry sense of humor in his answers.
Cohen has been insulting Trump over and over again on social media and the defense brought up multiple examples of that, but Cohen shrugged it off, not denying anything. It just showed the fact that insulting people is not illegal, unless you happen to be under a gag order like Donald Trump. To use online insults to paint Cohen as a dirtbag just highlights what Trump’s constant insults say about him.
No one in that courtroom thinks Michael Cohen is a nice guy. In fact, we know his job when he worked for Trump was the opposite. He was the enforcer, the thug, the guy who did the dirty work. No news there.
Then there were the changes to the environment this week in the courtroom as Trump loyalists, including House Speaker Johnson and other Republican congressmen, showed up to provide support for the ex-President and to say the stuff he can’t because of that gag order. Their presence was just plain weird, given they are supposed to be in DC governing.
And, childishly, they were wearing identical outfits in homage to Trump, with blue blazers and red ties. I’d like to know the source of the memo that made that happen because it sure sounds like it came directly from the Boss. One rumor was that Trump was actually telling them, via notes, what to say to reporters.
The Republican Party no longer looks like a political machine, it looks like an entourage of ass lickers with silly stunts like that dress code. These are supposedly powerful men acting like weaklings just to curry favor with DJT.
There has been the notable absence of Trump’s family, with the exception of son Eric, the dumb one. Melania was nowhere to be seen and you can’t really blame her since it appears Trump was unconcerned about her feelings as a reason for the coverup, despite the defense’s attempt to imply that was the motivation for hiding the infidelity.
It seems his main concern was losing the women’s vote and the election, not the fact that his wife would be hurt by his actions. Again, this seems like another fail by the defense. And a reinforcement of the fact that Trump’s own ego is always the primary driver of all this stuff.
Another detail we learned yesterday was that Stormy Daniels wore a bulletproof vest in and out of the courtroom. This speaks volumes about the very real personal safety issues the jurors will face if they convict, stirring up images of organized crime mob trials.
So far the consensus among legal observers is that the prosecution has yet to prove all these indictments are felonies. That requires a smoking gun, evidence that Trump signed off on all the alleged coverup plans. If he did, the election fraud charges would push this trial into more serious territory.
Barring a dramatic surprise, it doesn’t look like they have that evidence. So what kind of damage is this doing to Donald Trump from a voter perspective? To answer that we have to look at those likely to vote for him. The MAGA people will simply see this as proof that their guy is a tough macho guy being unfairly targeted.
But swing voters and women may be put off by the sheer tawdriness of everything he touches. That’s where the overemphasis on what took place in the hotel room becomes a problem. It’s just creepy at best.
The real loser in this so far is the Republican Party with their shameless support for Trump above governing, setting policy, or actually doing anything positive for the country and the voters. Instead of looking competent they look like patsies doing his bidding no matter what he wants them to do.
Behind all of this is the reality that Trump’s legal bills, estimated at $100 million and counting, are sucking the resources of the Republican Party and donors dry. Eventually they will no longer be able to go to the well because it will be tapped out.
In this era of big money politics, this is a real problem. It is based in the reality that for the Party Trump must win the election or he likely ends up convicted of multiple crimes, along with his most loyal retainers. They have gone all in to make sure he wins but there does not appear to be any backup plan for the future of the Party if he loses.
It’s all or nothing at this point and if things go south, we will be dealing with desperate men and women in a headless party. That’s a scary prospect to say the least.
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