The 2026 Election, 18th Edition. Primary Voting Commences Edition. Vote like your future and that of your state depends on it, because it does, part three. Yet more labels.

 

Tuesday, August 3, 1926. Uprising in Mexico.

The Liga Nacional Defensora de la Libertad Religiosa commenced an uprising in Mexico, although appreciating it as such was probably not evident to anyone at the time. 400 armed faithful barricaded themselves in the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.  Fighting continued until they ran out of ammunition.  18 people were killed and 40 wounded.

On this day, the Diocese of San Antonio was elevated to a metropolitan archdiocese. It'd become a place of refuge for fleeing faithful and clergy from Mexico.

Italy banned parades, ceremonies and public demonstrations that were not authorized as "effectively useful".

London's first traffic lights went into operation.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 31, 1926. Calles Law takes effect.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Art, Catholic, Christianity, Cristero War, Dogs, Economics, France, Mexico, Plutarco Elías Calles, religion

Thursday, July 29, 1926. Fascist mindsets.

The fascist government of Italy prevented 2,000 Italian pilgrims from visiting the church of Madonna del Sasso in Locarno, Switzerland, on the basis that Italians should spend their money in Italy.  

It was the first time the pilgrimage had been disrupted in 400 years.

Sounds like something the Orange Mussolini would do today.

The Convention and Statute on the International Régime of Maritime Ports providing freedom of access to maritime ports without regard to a ship's nationality or maritime flag, went into effect.  Sounds like something the Orange Mussolini would oppose today.

Al Capone was freed after having spent a night in jail after being arrested on charges arising from the April 27 murder of assistant State's Attorney William McSwiggin and two friends, James J. Doherty, and Thomas "Red" Duffy. The new assistant State's Attorney, George E. Gorman, stated that evidence was insufficient for the charge.

Still living Polish literary and anti communist figure, after having been a communist, Jacek Bocheński was born in Lwow, which is now in Ukraine.

Last edition:

Tuesday, July 27, 1926. The Filipino House votes for an independence plebiscite.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, 1927, Diplomacy, Philippines, Politics, Prohibition, The Press, U.S. Territories, United Kingdom, United States

Tonight Der Führer will speak to you of the Reichstag Fire, um, no, Donald Trump will speak to you of the stolen 2020 election. Same lie, same theme, by the same people, 93 years later. Let's blow American democracy's brains out to calm the wounded feelings of childish Donald Trump, loser.

By Eddie Adams, Associated Press - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/world/asia/vietnam-execution-photo.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=153554473

Tonight Donald Trump will come on television to lie.  

The lie has been told before, many times.  Terrible demonized opponents, most probably Communists, have tried to subvert the the will of The People.  It's a crisis.  You must sacrifice your civil liberties, even if only briefly, in order to allow the State to take on this terrible, terrible danger.

Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party told the lie in 1933.  Communists, the German people were told, had burned down the Reichstag.  The solution was to put the gun to the head of the fragile German democracy and blow its brains out.

Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and the State of February 28, 1933

In virtue of Article 48(2) of the German Constitution, the following is decreed as a defensive measure against communist acts of violence endangering the state:

Article 1

Sections 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. Therefore, restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press, on the right of assembly and the right of association, and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications, warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations, as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.

Article 2

If in a state the measures necessary for the restoration of public security and order are not taken, the Reich Government may temporarily take over the powers of the highest state authority.

Article 3

According to orders decreed on the basis of Article 2 by the Reich Government, the authorities of states and provinces, if concerned, have to abide thereby.

Article 4

Whoever provokes, or appeals for, or incites the disobedience of the orders given out by the supreme state authorities or the authorities subject to them for execution of this decree, or orders given by the Reich Government according to Article 2, is punishable—insofar as the deed is not covered by other decrees with more severe punishments—with imprisonment of not less than one month, or with a fine from 150 up to 15,000 reichsmarks.

Whoever endangers human life by violating Article 1 is to be punished by sentence to a penitentiary, under mitigating circumstances, with imprisonment of not less than six months and, when violation causes the death of a person, with death, under mitigating circumstances, with a penitentiary sentence of not less than two years. In addition the sentence may include confiscation of property.

Whoever provokes or incites an act contrary to public welfare is to be punished with a penitentiary sentence, under mitigating circumstances, with imprisonment of not less than three months.

Article 5

The crimes which under the Criminal Code are punishable with penitentiary for life are to be punished with death: i.e., in Paragraphs 81 (high treason), 229 (poisoning), 306 (arson), 311 (properties), and 324 (general poisoning). Insofar as a more severe punishment has not been previously provided for, the following are punishable with death, life imprisonment, or imprisonment not to exceed 15 years:

1. Anyone who undertakes to kill the Reich President or a member or a commissioner of the Reich Government or of a state government, or provokes such a killing, or agrees to commit it, or accepts such an offer, or conspires with another for such a murder;

1. Translated from Reichsgesetzblatt I, 1933, p. 83.

2. Anyone who under Paragraph 115(2) of the Criminal Code (serious rioting) or under Paragraph 125(2) of the Criminal Code (serious disturbance of the peace) commits the act with arms or cooperates consciously and intentionally with an armed person;

3. Anyone who commits a kidnapping under Paragraph 239 of the Criminal Code with the intention of making use of the kidnapped person as a hostage in the political struggle.

This decree is in force from the day of its announcement.

Berlin, February 28, 1933

The Reich President von Hindenburg 

The Reich Chancellor A Hitler

The Minister of Interior Frick

The Minister of Justice Dr. Gürtner

You are going to be told that tonight.

The 2020 election was stolen, Donald Trump will lie.  It must have been, as his fragile toddler's ego can't handle if it wasn't. Surrounded by sycophants who help sooth his suspicions that he's dumb (spelled, as he just apparently learned, with a "b"), he truly can't handle the truth.  So the solution is to put the gun to the head of American democracy and blow its brains out.

Trump's administration, with its own goals and desires, all of them anti democratic, have their own aims in this.  MAGA is a set of willing dupes, drunk on the lies and apparently unwilling to get up from the bar stool and get a ride home.

There's a very real chance that Trump will succeed at this.  From today, until November, democracy will be besieged.  If the Republicans cannot completely subvert the November election, they'll seek to subvert it thereafter.  If the Democrats win in the fall, the period from November until January will be an all out effort to destroy the results of the election.  It won't even be subtle.

And sadly, many Republican members of Congress, like John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis, will go all in to help Trump even though, in backrooms and with their close friends, they undoubtedly think he's a lunatic.  

The question usually is for something like this, what can be done.  Well, being honest and open about your honesty from now until January is about all most can do.  Don't vote for the Chuck Gray's, Harriet Hagemans, Reid Rasners and Megan Degenfelders.  Be true to your conscience and the country.

And frankly, don't bother with Trump's parade of lies tonight.  Trump's only real power is that people who surround him are convinced they will not bear the price of his sins.  They will, at some point.  Sending the message that we're done listening to Trump starts letting them know that the bill is coming due very soon.

The SAVE Act. Ihre Papiere, bitte.

When I was young there used to be periodic calls for a National Identity Card.

The concept was that the card would show you were a US citizen, be your social security card, proof of ID, etc.  

Everything in one package.

President Clinton proposed national IDs during his administration as part of his administration's health care plan. Some people on the right and left proposed it as a way to combat illegal immigration.  

Frankly, it'd make a lot of sense, or it did, in context.  The card could be general proof of your identity, be your SSN card, your medicare card, your draft card, etc.

It was always opposed by the far right.  Indeed, opposed fanatically.  Ronald Reagan joked that it would be "the mark of the beast", but that was a joke that tapped into the Evangelical element of his base.  A halfway joke, basically, pitched at people who were already afraid that the Antichrist was soon to appear.

But the left opposed it too, and adamantly.

I note this for the current irony.  The Trump Administration is boosting the SAVE Act as a means of trying to keep the "wrong" people from voting.

We all know who those people are. . . . wink, wink.

And that's because they know that in the fall they're going to lose.

But ironically, they're basically proposing that millions of adults do, and millions won't be able to do, what would have been done decades ago, if they hadn't run around preventing it.

Of course, that wouldn't have required a national seizure of the elections, but that isn't required now, either.

It's funny, we used to think that the state demanding your papers was fascist.

Now, Chuck Gray just gleefully turns voter roles over to the Federal Government. . . . which doesn't mean that the state demanding paper is not, in fact, fascist.

Ihre Papiere, bitte.

Thursday, March 11, 1926. Governments and labor.

The Italian Senate banned all non-Fascist labor unions and declared all strikes and lockouts to be unlawful, with compulsory arbitration before special labor magistrates to resolve any disagreements between labor and industry. Premier Benito Mussolini declared that the bill was "the most courageous, most audacious, most radical and most revolutionary reform yet proposed by the Fascist government in its 40 months of office.

Sort of like the Wyoming Freedom Caucus dominated 2026 legislature banning union dues from being automatically deducted from state employee paychecks.

Well, to some people, freedom's just another name for everything you'll lose.

Éamon de Valera resigned as the leader of Sinn Féin after the Ard Fheis general assembly failed to approve, by five votes (218 to 223) his motion for the party to have representation in both the Oireachtas (the bicameral parliament of the Irish Free State) and the Parliament of Northern Ireland.

The Council of the League of Nations voted to approve the award of most of the former Ottoman Empire's Mosul province, to the British Mandate of Iraq and to extend the British mandate an additional 25 years.

Last edition:

Thursday, March 5, 1926. Rerum Ecclesiae.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, American Legion, Art, Calvin Coolidge, Catholic, Christianity, Estonia, Newspapers, Post Office, religion, The Press, USSR

Wednesday, January 6, 2021. The Coup.

I wasn't going to mark this date.  This tragic event is only five years in our past, and therefore it is much too early, really, to be able to fully apprise it.

But attempt to apprise it we must do, and the coup that started on January 6, 2021 did not fail, it succeeded, and whether the fascistic/Francoist revolution it seeks to bring about will succeed or fail is not yet know.

The coup did not fail, as our justice system failed.  Trump could easily have been in court within six months and sentenced within seven.  Unfortunately, our criminal justice system moves as slowly as Baby Boomers at Walmart as its controlled by them, as is much of our society.  This insurrectionist is now in charge.

But will he succeed?

Most Americans do not support the would be caudillo Donald Trump and most are not part of a muddled fascist/Franoist/New Apostolic Reformation movement, or even have its world view. But those who do are running the country right now, aided and abetted by people like opportunistic Marco Rubio and a compliant Supreme Court.  The worst tests are yet to come.  This year, 2026, is going to be absolutely awful, least we are spared by some sort of Divine Intervention (which I note seriously, not in jest).

Usually, however, people get exactly what they deserve in terms of politics.  The roots of the populist revolution go back at least as far as 1973 and have been brewing for decades now.  We cannot expect that the fruits of political neglect can be harvest and discarded overnight.  We are paying for our errors, and stand to likely pay a heavier price yet.

But the country has come through such things before. The Revolution itself was one, the Civil War a second.  

May God grant that we get through this quickly, and with as little damage to the world as possible.

Thursday, December 24, 1925. Non è possibile scavalcare il Capo del Governo.

Winnie the Pooh was first identified by that name in a Christmas story by A. A. Milne.  Prior to that, his name had been Edward. 

The Italian parliament passed Law No. 2263, "Decree on powers of the head of government", declaring that the decisions of Prime Minister Benito Mussolini and his government were not subject to legislative review, and that Mussolini could only be overruled by order of the King.

Sort of like what Donald Trump would like to do now. . . but without the possibility of an interfering king.

 Mrs. Coolidge distributes Christmas bags for Central Union Mission

"Uncle Sam's Follies, 12/24/25"

Last edition:

Wednesday, December 23, 1925. Things in Arabia.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, First Saudi State, French Empire, French League of Nation Mandates, It was because of World War One, Lebanon, Monarchy, Petroleum, Saudi Arabia, Syria

Additional links; Thursday, November 20, 1975. Death of Franco.

Labels: 1930s, 1940s, 1970s, 1975, Central Intelligence Agency, Congo, Dachau, Fidel Castro, Francisco Franco, German SS, National Conservatism, Ngô Đình Diệm, Spain, Spanish Civil War, The Holocaust, World War Two

The ascent of the ignorant.

I know I have an Ivy League education which is now supposed to make me ashamed. 

But I am really tired of trying to argue with ignoramuses who don’t know anything about anything on this hellsite.

It will be a miracle if America survives this ascent of the ignorant.

Jon "Bowzer" Bauman.

We need to stop trusting the experts... Trusting the experts is not a feature of science or democracy, it's a feature of religion and totalitarianism.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., ignoramus.

Bauman, famous for his portrayal as a deep voiced "greaser" in the band Sha Na Na, but in fact very well educated and now a Democratic political activist, has it right.

I've struggled to put together posts on this topic, unsuccessfully several times.  Lots of people like me, Conservatives back in the day, and Social Conservatives still, keep wondering what happened, even while pretty much knowing what happened. We're horrified as the country rockets towards Petainism, or Francoism, or just outright stupidity, even while we wonder how on earth we went to a country in which homosexual propaganda is outright directed at the young.

Justice Kennedy. . . you are to blame for a lot of this.

Anyhow, one of the real stunning things of the Trump ascent has been the ascent of the ignorant.

And that's hard to take.

William F. Buckley, conservative intellectual.  He wouldn't recognize, or approve of, the current Republican Party.

Conservatism used to be fairly intellectual. . .well it was fairly intellectual after the McCarthy era.  In truth, it's always cycled between intellectualism and wild conspiratorial phantasy, just as the left has cycled between  intellectualism and wild eye flaming goofballedry . To some extent, the poor nation is getting both of these now at the same time, but it's most prominent on the right.

Ronald Reagan and conservative George F. Will.  Will left the Republican Party due to Trump.  This is the same room that Trump has made look like a movie set designers version of a 19th Century New Orleans whorehouse.

A big part of Trump's intellectual, if you will, drive now comes from Dominionist who claim to be carrying a sword for Christianity but who don't grasp the mains intellect of it.  It was Cardinal Newman who noted that to know history was to make a person a Catholic, and the Dominionist neither know history nor, for that matter, Christianity very well.  Outside of those carrying a Pine Tree flag are those who are in the Petainist/Francoist Christian Nationalist movement, who at least aren't anti intellectual and are relatively intellectual themselves, when their beliefs are drilled into.

But beyond that are a great mass of people, including people now in power, who reflect blistering ignorance.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Anti vaxxers, who took their initial inspiration from a Playboy model whose only claim to fame was her boobs, and then having had a child (out of wedlock, of course), went into full bore ignorance during COVID, showing how low education in the country generally sunk.  A person can oppose vaccines for themselves on philosophical, or even theological, grounds, but you can't oppose them on scientific grounds. That's just ignorant.  Nonetheless, Trump has elevated Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and "Dr. Oz" to positions of real power, when they ought to be in the waterfowl section of the local zoo.  No serious nation would have either of these people in positions where they dealt with anything biological, even if that meant they were disqualified from being dog catchers.

Mehmet Oz.

Most of the cabinet officers we hear from on a frequent basis are total sycophants who sound like their on the losing end of a debate in a high school forensics team.  Some sound like outright thugs.  Our Ambassador to Israel is there as he wants to help bring about the Apocalypse.  

Trump is outright weaponizing the Justice Department into the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and persecuting (not a typo) anyone who publicly opposed him.  He's also sending the National Guard, converted into the Ersatzheer, into Republican cities illegally.  While all  this occurs a populace that would have previously flooded into the streets in protests sits on its hand believing that there must really Marxist, Communist, Fascists, Monarchist about to take over these cities and convert them into Communist Anarchist Monarchies.

It's really doubtful the nation can recover from this.

At a lower level, we're debating library books in the children's section which an adult nation ought to be able to sort out in about fifteen minutes. But perhaps a bigger example is the outright believe by people who believe that you ought to drink petroleum oil for breakfast that nuclear power is going to turn your housecat into the central character in 1950s Japanese horror film.  In the meantime, a legitimate concern on the part of some, youth being exposed to pornography, has been captured by local members of the Freedom Caucus who are freely dumb in their local efforts to oppose it, going to public forums like school boards to act up.

The press rarely gets things 100% right, indeed a local big story that I know very well has recently amused me by how off the mark the reporting is, but the press has become a whipping boy for people with agendas on both sides.  Chuck Gray, the Wyoming Secretary of State, is so enamoured of this that he can't pick up a lunch menu without claiming its the product of  the "radical left wing media".  The left accuses the press of ignoring Trump's mental decline, which is obvious to everyone, while the right basically seeks to totally shut down everything but the Völkischer Beobachter.

How we get out of this is really questionable, but education, and I mean public education, is going to have to be they key to a large extent.  People need to learn science again.

I don't know how Americans became so uneducated.  

I went through the local public school system which wasn't perfect, but frankly it was pretty good.  My parents also took a real interest in how we were doing in school, and I think everyone's parents did.  My own kids went through the same system after I had, and it had improved from good to really good.  

Even then, there were some hints of things changing, mostly in the form of a handful of homeschooled showing up in sports and the rise of a series of private Christian schools and schools that were private Christian schools but which wouldn't admit that they were.  Homeschooling was, and is, mostly marked here by what the parents don't want their children to learn.  Some of those parents were really well educated themselves, but imports from elsewhere and often members of distinct minority religious communities.  Outside of the Catholic school, and probably the Lutheran school, this was true of the Christian schools as well.  

Following COVID, here locally, we got the influx of people from somewhere else who detested education even as they put their kids in schools  One member of the legislature enrolled her two kids in the local high school noting how she was a "refugee" from Illinois, where she'd been on a school board.  Now we have a Freedom Caucus legislator being such a problem at a school board meeting she had to be escorted away from the podium when you can bet that every member of the school board is, in fact, conservative.

What I think that tells me is that education elsewhere had declined, and we took in an influx of the uneducated, who in the sprit of the times, spread their views to elements ready to accept it locally.

Another thing is this.

Americans have always had a sort of populist anti intellectual streak, which is heavily ironic as the Founding Fathers of the nation were largely well to do elitists.  Indeed, Jefferson figured the republic would not last, as ultimately it would yield from hard working yeoman farmers to a city living mob, dependent upon the government.  He wasn't quite right, but he wasn't all that far off.  We've had two prior New York born Presidents in the country, a highly educated but quite rural intellectual, a more urbane intellectual, and a real estate developing complete buffoon.  

The essence of populism is that people have a native wisdom.  The problem is, only an educated public does.  Jefferson appreciated that, which is why he so heavily depended on the yeomanry to carry the republic.  Family units, living independently, and frankly as somewhat genteel hardworking Christian farmers.  He wasn't a yeoman himself.  He did foresaw a day in which the republic would be much like it has become, a screaming mass of poorly educated people who were easily lead.

The "new people", German propaganda poster from 1938.  In reality, most Germans never looked like this, just as right now most Americans don't really reflect the ideals of the New Apostolic Reformation. 

Populist movements have in fact always been easily lead.  The Nazis were able to do it with the German populace.  The Communist were able to do it with the Russian people.  The Fascists were able to do it with the Italians.

Manipulation of the masses by forces co opting populist movements is uniformly simply.  The people are worshipped for having common sense, with their leader supposedly reflecting back their wisdom.  Out side of that group, are the enemies, some vague, often faceless group, who are out to destroy the common people.  For the Nazis, those horrific enemies were the Communists and the Jews, as well as Gypsies, Catholics, homosexuals, and Slavs.

For the Fascist, it was the Socialist, Communists and Slavs. 

Soviet realist painting of female farm worker. Female farm workers were a favorite subject for Soviet propaganda posters.  They were always smiling, and tended to be a little chunky.

For the Communists, the population is the workers, whose enemy are capitalists, those who own their own businesses, and people who believe in any kind of religion.

Chinese girls are a favorite of Chinese Communist posters

For Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, which has been co opted by the National Conservatives, it's anyone who isn't a Christian conservative.  

Now, it's always the case that populist movements, after they get co opted, are shot through with hypocrisy  The movements become vehicles for obtaining power and people at the top either never believed in the movement, or they regard themselves as exceptions.  Nazism was virulently anti homosexual, but Ernst Röhm was a flaming homosexual.  Goebbels had been a Communist.  Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler all lived well, not as common people.  English roundheads in the English Civil War may have fought for Calvinist morality, but they kept in some cases mistresses.

And so we have Trump and his followers.  Trump probably has no real solid moral beliefs at all, and is a serial polygamist who was born obscenely wealthy and is getting richer in the office.

The problem with populism is that the bloom always comes off the rose.  It turns out that native intelligence is often pretty ignorant.  It always collapses in one way or another, often violently  It's followers are left to pick up the pieces often having been exposed, by the end, as people who were enemies of the very movement they espoused.  

It didn't have to be this way.

There were real reasons that the mass of people were discontent.  Ignored on immigration and the erosion of an industrial base for decades, and watching the decay of moral values even as they joyously participated in that decay themselves, there was a real opportunity for a return to true conservatism.  Even National Conservatives had the opportunity to participate in that, although they'd lost faith in democracy in general which caused them to choose not to.

When this flies apart, and it will, the reckoning is going to be huge.  What will have been achieved is to anger those who became victims of it.  The real number of populists in the country is fewer than supposed, and the true diehards fewer yet. Trump mostly won because Joe Biden chose to run in his dotage, which was obviously advanced, and which camouflaged Trump's mental decline.  That can't be camouflaged any longer.  

Nonetheless, like good fascists, the GOP is going to go down with Trump, even though it need not to.  Mike Johnson is effectively releasing cheery news from the Führerbunker as the edifice of the Republic literally collapses around him.  The Leader and his Favorite Architect plan a monumental building as an old one is destroyed.  Miller and Bondi send their thugs out to hang supposed enemies from lamposts. Loyal reports from loyal lieutenants about not being able to hang on are ignored.  Vance consults his Plans for the Fatherland book as if he has a political future.

It should be obvious where this is headed.

But it's easier just to blame it on Trump's style, or his amazing intelligence that we can't grasp, and just ignore it.

Lex Anteinternet: Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Millions of Us See It From Chicago to Portland, James Comey to Letitia James, and so much else—this is no longer America. Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Millions of Us See It From Chicago to Portland, James Comey to Letitia James, and so much else—this is no longer America.

Lex Anteinternet: Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Mi...:  

Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Millions of Us See It From Chicago to Portland, James Comey to Letitia James, and so much else—this is no longer America.

 Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Millions of Us See It

From Chicago to Portland, James Comey to Letitia James, and so much else—this is no longer America.

Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Millions of Us See It From Chicago to Portland, James Comey to Letitia James, and so much else—this is no longer America.

 Memo to Future Historians: This Is Fascism, and Millions of Us See It

From Chicago to Portland, James Comey to Letitia James, and so much else—this is no longer America.

The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Fifth Edition.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti vaxxer who has no business running the HHS, announced with Donald Trump today that its recommending pregnant women not take Tylenol due to what it terms an increased risk of autism in children.

But for being born a Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is a certified quack, would not be occupying this position.  Donald Trump simply offered him this position to remove him as a political threat during the primary.

This will get worse, taking on childhood vaccines is next.

Dr. John Barrasso. . . . remember your original profession?

Tylenol has been around since 1955.

Trump designated ANTIFA, which actually isn't an organization, a terrorist organization.

Rather, it's a movement of persons on the left who regard the Trump prior administration and this one as fascistic, which this one has in fact become.  The name is drawn from an unsuccessful German Communist resistance movement that opposed the rise of Nazism.

Symbol of the 1930s German organization.

ANTIFA in the U.S. is a movement, not an organization, which make the listing of it as a "terrorist organization" all the more frightening.  While those using the ANTIFA logo in the US often have shown far left affiliation, the Administration is itself acting more and more fascistic, in recent weeks appropriating a death for its purposes, illegally deploying National Guardsmen, and pressuring media outlets to shut down its critics.  Presently Trump is pressuring AG Pam Bondi to prosecute its political opponents, of which this is part.

The administration, with these two events, has crossed into new territory, one being now fully into batshit crazy territory in terms of its medical advice, and another having now crossed the line into actual fascism.

The trend is going to get worse.

Trump doesn't seem have any personal allegiance to democracy at all, and its clear that some of his lieutenants in his orbit do not.  However, while his movement has convinced many within it that those on the left are enemies to be hated, the majority of Americans still have allegiance to democracy, albeit in varying degrees.  This is part of the reason that Trump's become increasingly unpopular, and was moreover never popular with a majority of Americans.  As this become more apparent, the Administration increasingly reaches for thing to rally support from its base, or to distract the general population, something aided by Trump's advancing dementia.

September 24, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

Hmmm. . . while I'm grateful that Trump is suddenly supporting Ukraine, sort of, why the change in view?

This is odd. Why the sudden change?

Last edition:

The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Fourth Edition.

Labels: Donald Trump, Health, J. D. Vance, Mental Health, Predictions, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Russia, Stupidity, The Madness of King Donald, The Second Trump Administration, U.S. Air Force, You heard it here first

Lummis on limiting free speech.

Kimmel’s suspension prompts free-speech Republicans to reconsider their boundaries

Something to note:

In fact, some Republicans who consider themselves defenders of unfettered speech are getting more comfortable with limiting it. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., told Semafor that “an FCC license, it’s not a right. It really is a privilege.”

“Under normal times, in normal circumstances, I tend to think that the First Amendment should always be sort of the ultimate right. And that there should be almost no checks and balances on it. I don’t feel that way anymore,” Lummis added.

“I feel like something’s changed culturally. And I think that there needs to be some cognizance that things have changed,” she added. “We just can’t let people call each other those kinds of insane things and then be surprised when politicians get shot and the death threats they are receiving and then trying to get extra money for security.”

Pretty much what those supporting totalitarian states have said about freedoms throughout history.

Absolutely shameful.

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 103d edition. The tragic co-opting of death and politics.

I posted this the other day:

Lex Anteinternet: What's the meaning of Charlie Kirk? Sometimes the...: This is not intended, I'd note, to be a hagiography of any kind for Charlie Kirk.  The populist far right is already trying to do that, ...

I'll note that I'm already tired of commenting on Charlie Kirk and his murder.  I guess I'm like a lot of Americans that way.  But I will note some things here, which I hope will be my last commentary on this event, although it probably will not be.

The first one is that I still really don't know anything about Kirk.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to.  The populist right's latching on to the story, not the man, has created a full blown set of hagiography.  Kirk was a wonderful family man, and a man of God, we're told.  Those not buying into this propaganda, which is now what it's become, have pointed out that he said some really horrific things.  I saw a short clip of an African American pastor lambasting the late Kirk from the pulpit in one effort to address the record.  

Where does this leave us with Kirk's character. . . the real one?

Well, there were things to admire about him, and things to detest, but where he seems to come out is on the end of populism that creeps up on being fascist in some ways.  He's not the only one on the far right who hold those views.

Indeed, National Conservatives and Christian Nationalist come really close in some instances to holding these views, and they have Trump's ear, or more accurately, perhaps, his inattention.

Those who do hold those views appear to be making a dedicated effort not only to form the record, but to suppress anything counter to it.  It's amazing.  We've never been closer to an outright crackdown on dissent in the US than right now.  

I'm also amazed by how people are intermixing religion in this.  

As readers here know, I"m a Catholic and Mrs. Kirk is as well.  Charlie Kirk was headed in that direction.  It'd have been interesting to see what would have happened had he become a Catholic.  I've never been in a Catholic parish that wasn't multiracial.  Catholics have been reminded from time to time that while they are citizens of many nations, they're just passing through.

I support the Second Amendment, I'd note, but one other thing that I'm just baffled with is how some people seemingly must mix things that are political with their religion in odd ways.  One example is the flood of Twitter commentators who are appalled that their pastors didn't mention Kirk last Sunday.  If that's not odd enough, there's this:

This morning I walked into a church I’d never heard of, let alone stepped foot in. I prayed with strangers. I cried with people I’ve never met before. I held hands with them and sang about God. 

The Pastor openly talked about how important our gun rights are. How you cannot legislate against evil. How we cannot be afraid to speak out for fear of consequences from the HR department (this is an actual quote!!). He honored and spoke genuinely about the life and impact of Charlie Kirk for *the entire* service. It was absolutely amazing. 

If I told y’all how improbable it was that of all the churches I could have chosen to attend for the first time in many many many years that it would be this one…and that it would be so perfect…you’d believe me when I say that God absolutely led me there….He led me back home.

The pastor preached on gun right?  He preached on Kirk for the entire service?

This is a very Catholic thing for me to say, but it's bizarre to me in the first instance that Protestants of some denominations will listen for an hour or more to some pastor talk.  This isn't the way Apostolic Faiths work at all. And frankly, only an audience that is fully convinced of what you are saying will listen to that sort of address.  Effective deliveries often tend to be short, and conclude suddenly, leaving the listener with a "oh crud" feeling.

Here's the reading that Catholics, and some others who follow the Latin lectionary, heard last Sunday.

Numbers 21:4b-9

With their patience worn out by the journey,

the people complained against God and Moses,

"Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert,

where there is no food or water?

We are disgusted with this wretched food!"

In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents,

which bit the people so that many of them died.

Then the people came to Moses and said,

"We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you.

Pray the LORD to take the serpents from us."

So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses,

"Make a saraph and mount it on a pole,

and if any who have been bitten look at it, they will live."

Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole,

and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent

looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

Philippians 2:6-11

Brothers and sisters:

Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.

Rather, he emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness;

and found human in appearance,

he humbled himself,

becoming obedient to death,

even death on a cross.

Because of this, God greatly exalted him

and bestowed on him the name

that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend,

of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that

Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

John 3:13-17

Jesus said to Nicodemus:

"No one has gone up to heaven

except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,

so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,

so that everyone who believes in him might not perish

but might have eternal life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,

but that the world might be saved through him.

As already noted here, it was the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. Most pastors of the Apostolic Faiths preached on that.

People have a strong tendency to want the Church to reflect their political views.  That's a lot easier for people who are members of Protestant Evangelical churches which are often sort of do it yourself type of faiths.  That doesn't challenge people in the pews at all.  Here locally there's a massive Evangelical congregation which, I know, contains unmarried couples living in sin, people who have multiple marriages, and the like.  They go to hear the Good News, and they should be hearing the Good News.  But part of that news is a person needs to confess and repent.  

We're not hearing much of that out there on the net.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 102nd edition. Short attention span and a Ballroom Blitz*. And self sabotage.