The Witness Chronicles, a Grasshopper Sub

The Witness Chronicles October 25, 2023

I rename the Republican Party, Trump faces the kraken, and Joe Biden’s bad timing

Oct 25, 2023

withered tree surrounded with snow during daytime — Photo by Fabrice Villard on Unsplash

You know, writing about Biden and why he should not run in 2024 is painful, especially after his masterful handling of the terrorist attacks in Israel, but I feel the future of the country is at stake. It sucks to be one of the messengers.

I have a new brand for the GOP that more accurately describes what they are these days and it’s ugly. And Trump’s loyalty oath sees a total fail in Georgia as Sidney Powell, kraken handler, turns against him in court.

When you surround yourself with talent like that, you get what you pay for. But Don will never get that.

I feel like the country wants to heal itself, but healing can be painful, and we have a year of it ahead. It will be a year of reckoning for our democracy, the first real test since the Civil War. Exaggeration? I don’t think so.

I certainly hope I am wrong and we do the right thing. The alternative is unthinkable.

I’m Renaming the Republican Party

Let’s call it what it is, the Trump Cartel

It’s time to get real guys and gals, your party has nothing to do with its historical precedents. It’s no longer old school conservative, no longer pro-business unless they write huge checks, and no longer hands off government.

And it no longer supports our core democracy or the rule of law. So, what do we call it? I vote for the Trump Cartel, you know, the criminal version of a legitimate business, except it just kills anyone or any idea that its leader doesn’t like at the moment.

This week we are watching the ridiculous process of Jim Jordan trying to become Speaker, despite no one liking him and an unmatched track record in eight terms in Congress of never passing a bill and never even getting one to the floor.

Which is exactly what a Speaker is supposed to do.

The former wrestling coach and sexual abuse cover-up guy showed his true colors after he failed to win his first vote behind closed doors. His office and supporters, the true wingnuts of the party, decided the best way to get votes was to threaten members of congress, including his own colleagues.

This did not go over well, but was straight from Trump’s playbook of strongman tactics against his own followers. Apparently Jordan still believes the ‘base’ actually has real power. And so do many of his fellow party members.

Glibness aside, it is obvious that the GOP, which stands for Grand Old Party, in case you are under 60, is neither grand nor a party as we think of one. Yes, a lot of them are old but they'd rather not think about that.

The leader of the Trump Cartel would be thrilled with this name change, mostly because it has his name front and center. We know how important that is to him. But he is a savvy marketer and knows that ‘Cartel’ has a nice ring to it if you like murderous criminal conspiracies dedicated to making money they can’t even spend.

He knows he can sell that concept to the shrinking clown car of loons who still think Trump rallies are good fun. Let’s go see what he says this time…he can’t possibly top the last rant. He can and he will, which brings them back every time so he can fleece them into donating their lunch money again.

It’s worth going hungry.

What about those Republicans who don’t want to rejoin the new party? Trump and the RNC would have you know they are weak, spineless, probably mentally ill, and perverts. But now, with Jordan’s strong arm tactics blowing up in his face, more of them are saying what we all think:

Jordan is a world class jerk and dumbass loudmouth. Which, obviously makes him the best man for the Speaker of the House of the United States Congress.

Another good reason for adopting the Trump Cartel brand is their use of personal threats against non-believers and their families, especially if they call themselves Republicans or, gasp, moderates. God save us all, except of course the Democrats.

In a weird but gratifying twist of fate it may be the Democrats who have the solution to breaking the Trump Cartel’s iron grip of fear. The Cartel has been largely ignoring them and they have woken up and found themselves strong.

Did anyone see that coming? Minority Democrats having the power to change Republican politics because the Cartel is too busy chewing each other’s legs off and sticking shivs into each other? A few Republicans who are tired of constantly throwing up in their mouths and join the Dems to vote, could put the party out of business.

All of this would be great fun if it wasn’t so damn serious. A major ally finds itself unexpectedly in a horrible war in the Middle East. No one in the House majority knows the latest official intelligence because the person who gets briefed is the Speaker and, in case you forgot, there isn’t one.

Oh yeah, and the government is about to shut down again and without a Speaker, nothing can stop it. Of course there is no evidence Jordan would do anything to stop that disaster. After all, he supported the January Sixth insurrection and has yet to acknowledge that Joe Biden won in 2020.

The Speaker is charged with raising huge sums of money to help his members win re-election, but the money boys are not buying this Cartel thing. Donors don’t just hand over checks, they want stuff, which usually involves passing laws, something the Cartel is very bad at.

There is a possible new reality emerging in DC, just as we enter the 2024 presidential election races. It is the growing realization among moderates that they may actually hold the power right now.

But it remains to be seen if they have the will to exercise it. So far, not so much. Trump’s grip is still holding on but it’s only a matter of time until he finally cracks up completely. He has been doing practice runs for ‘crazy ex-President’ at his rallies and gets more and more unhinged daily.

Which his fans just love, until it comes time to put a guy they know is crazy into power. This is where anonymous voting may save America’s collective ass. Once you’re in that booth you can go either way and no one will know.

That’s a fact that polls conveniently bypass.

Ain’t this a great time to be alive in America? Just in time to see the show and maybe the fall of the democracy and the rise of the Jim Jordans? Well, I would not bet on that.*

I might bet on a few Republicans joining Dems to try and stop the insanity. That would make a nice change, right?

*As I write this Jordan has lost a second vote by 22 votes. He is toast.

Kraken Unleashed in Georgia. Oh, Wait

The Sidney raises her strange looking head out of the deep blue sea

And she is joined by a sort of sidekick monster named Cheeseboro. Yes, I know that’s not how you spell it, but that's what I see every time so…It’s the backwards revenge of the crackpot lawyers and their one time client wishes their checks had bounced.

They probably did, but this is not a Trump finance story. No, this is what the pundits call a bombshell, a ticking time bomb, a very bad thing for the ex-President who actually lost, for real, in 2020.

Now we all know Ms Powell from the famous threat to ‘unleash the kraken!’, her warning that a secret weapon existed that would silence Democrats and pundits forever.

A kraken, in case you don’t play video games or read terrible fantasy novels, is a mythological sea monster that only really ever appeared in the margins of old maps of unexplored lands, as in ‘here be monsters’.

But Sidney arrived in Trumpworld, a fully realized crackpot who somehow became a lawyer, carrying a truly fearsome weapon that no one was allowed to see. But it promised to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that Donald Trump was not a loser, which he is and always has been.

Her credibility was bolstered by her extremely weird outfits and strange facial expression, which I can’t mock because she has to live with that through no fault of her own. Unless she traded her soul with Satan and that was the tradeoff.

Sidney almost became a Special Counsel for the Department of Justice under Trump, which is an almost perfect example of how completely nuts things were in the White House back then.

She was so nuts that even Trump’s lackeys tried to keep her away from him, because he was willing to consider any, and I mean any, story that proved he was not a loser, which he was.

Eventually she went wherever Trump lawyers go, but resurfaced in Georgia charged with an actual set of charges for election interference. And of course, when faced with a trial, she copped a plea because she was guilty for real.

And the other guy, Cheseboro, had his own set of charges and he turned too. Yes, Don when you demand loyalty but don’t return it, you get rats. And these rats are going to testify, under oath, in court, against you. And that is very bad.

You see, they know stuff. Like what you and your co-conspirators talked about and planned when you were plotting to overthrow the government. They were there.

I’ll be honest, I can’t wait to see Sidney spilling the beans. And Trump watching and trying to use his superpowers to fry her brain before she can screw him. Don, her brain is already fried.

Cheese man was allegedly the guy who brainstormed the false electors scheme which says a lot about his knowledge of the Constitution and the law, which as a lawyer, he is supposed to know about.

I’m going to get serious for a minute, though it’s hard when faced with this deliciousness. Trump is already showing signs of cracking, and the current civil trial regarding his business dealings is not going well for him. We’re only a few weeks from 2024 and the crucible of the Presidential election, and he is the only legit (!) Republican candidate despite facing three more criminal trials next year.

Trials for small things like insurrection and endangering the security of the United States by stealing classified documents. And waving them around to show off at his country club. Me big man…etc., etc.

I predict, and god knows I could be wrong, that the man will fall to pieces next year under the pressure of reality, a thing he has avoided for his entire life, until slamming into it now.

I wish I could say I was sorry for him but I am not. His mania would destroy the fabric of a nation I love, a marvelous experiment based on the rule of law. A law he has constantly circumvented all his life, but which inexorably is catching up to him right now.

The fact that two pitiful lawyers, who sought reflected glory by association, so quickly folded, tells us how fragile the Trump House of Cards truly is. It’s collapsing as we watch and the spectacle has been a long time coming.

Karma, Don, karma.

Note: This morning news broke that Jenna Ellis, another Trump lawyer in the White House, has pled guilty in Georgia. The fact that they are folding one after another indicates the case against Trump and his cronies is very strong. They are all giving extensive recorded statements.

Joe Biden Had His Best Week. Was Anyone Paying Attention?

It’s not working, and it has to

If you live in newsland and punditville there’s no doubt that President Biden hit home runs this week with his actions and speeches in Israel. It was a bravura performance showing what a US President can be during a major crisis.

But no one here in the US is talking about it. No one. We are consumed by the Republican crap in the House of Representatives, Trump’s ongoing crazy, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, and other earthshaking events of interest to all mankind.

Not one soft-spoken man’s calls for sanity in the face of a war that could engulf the Middle East and the rest of the world. The key word is soft-spoken. No one here heard the words of power he said and many who did only heard a quiet old man, respectable and knowledgeable, but an old man nevertheless.

There is a real problem here, a huge problem. The lies about Biden’s mental state are lies, created to advance the cause of chaos here, but they have taken hold and nothing he can do will reverse that. Only history at this point will record how powerful his record and tenure as a President have been.

They are remarkable, but without his ability to use the bully pulpit, no political machine can bring his campaign to life. His words and actions this week were words of power. But in our overblown media and cultural environment they were lost.

His opponent for reelection is an insane man beset by a barrage of serious criminal charges including insurrection against our own government and endangering national security, not to mention the legal destruction of his business empire.

Beating Trump should be a walk in the park, as he continually indicts himself further every time he opens his mouth. It speaks volumes about the dangerous and willful ignorance of Americans, that he even exists in the public sphere, much less is holding his own or winning in polling.

Joe Biden has got to retire and it has to happen now, right now.

We know Joe is a patriot. The most patriotic thing you can do right now Mr President is not to run for re-election. It might be a matter of saving our democracy. The stakes are that high.

I understand Joe has pride and an ego and a sincere belief he is the best man for the job going forward. I share that belief, with reservations, but I am in the minority among Democrats and Independents, his constituency.

It’s over.

Donald Trump is not a winner. He did not win in 2016, Hilary Clinton lost in one of the worst campaigns ever in US history. And Joe Biden roundly beat Trump in 2020, powered by a country fed up with Trump’s hateful divisiveness and massive ego.

Those sentiments are not only still strong, they are being fueled by the indictments and Trump’s own ranting against his own party and everything decent about our democracy.

We need another choice and as long as Biden stays in we will not get one. That’s reality. The alternative, a possible Trump second term, would likely be the end of our democracy, not an exaggeration.

History will be good to you Joe, but this run is over.

The Witness Chronicles, politics decoded

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