Happy Birthday to James Baldwin

This photo was taken by me at the Women's March in D.C. on January 21, 2017.

"Ignorance Allied with Power Is the Most Ferocious Enemy Justice Can Have."

Trump Steaks! They're INNNNSANE!

After stumbling on this commercial for Trump Steaks, something became immediately obvious,...

...the real-estate con man from Queens (who also failed with Trump Steaks, Trump "University," Trump Foundation, Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Soho, Trump Airlines, the Trump "Administration," etc., etc.) missed an opportunity to be the next pitchman for another New York institution, Crazy Eddie's appliance stores.



Rather than becoming an on-screen television personality where he played a "successful billionaire" and a president, maybe Donald Trump would have finally found his true niche in selling televisions instead.

Trump's Approval Ratings Envy - "Nobody likes me; it can only be my personality."

Which does Trump care about more, his approval ratings or 150,000 American deaths from the #TrumpVirus?

Before you answer, watch this statement from this afternoon's press conference in which he whines about his approval rating vis-à-vis Dr. Anthony Fauci's:

 

...and he's got a high approval rating, so why don't I have a high approval rating with respect and the administration with respect to the virus? We should have a very high....

Now you can vote in this Twitter poll:

POLL:
Which of the following upsets Donald Trump more?
150,000 Americans dead from the #TrumpVirus or the fact that he is much less popular than Dr. Anthony Fauci?

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) July 29, 2020

One-Week Poll: "The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire"

Is it possible for residents of an empire to accurately see where their empire is in the span of its lifecycle while the empire's leaders are still proclaiming their empire "exceptional" and therefore immune from the fate of all empires?

In other words, where do Americans think we are in our allotted period at the top of the global heap? Are pandemics, extreme inequality, militarism, racial and regional divisions, corruption, etc. etc., solvable problems or signs of our end times?

You have one week to vote in this Twitter poll.

POLL:

Gibbon's "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" was published in six volumes.

Which volume of "The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire" are we currently living through?

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) July 24, 2020

Feel free to retweet to harness the wisdom of crowds.

Should someone who threatens war crimes and pardons war criminals be allowed to have a Twitter account?

POLL:
If you were @Jack, would you use your power to permanently block future posts from the @Twitter account of @realdonaldtrump* (while archiving past posts for use by prosecutors and historians)?

*impeached

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) January 7, 2020

John Wayne illustrates Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's "La propriété, c'est le vol!"

It's amazing, but the clearest video representation I've ever seen of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's famous slogan, "Property is theft!" (first formulated in French as "La propriété, c'est le vol!") is found in Howard Hawks' classic western, Red River. I had posted this movie back in 2011 with the same message, but that earlier clip had been removed from YouTube. Here's the key section of the film again, courtesy of Fandango MovieClips.

The movie ends with John Wayne a respected large-scale landowner, rancher, and all-around successful capitalist asshole. Here he is very early in the film, beginning his Texas real-estate and cattle empire with a murder and the brazen theft of Mexican land that formed his original ranch on the north side of the Rio Grande. I don't think any further explanation is needed to connect the dots to Proudhon's thesis.

God-Given Guns?

A couple of days ago, the most recent ex-Minister of Information for the Trump Administration, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, tweeted that "Democrats say we have guns in America because of 'corruption'. No, we have guns because it’s our God-given right enshrined in the Constitution."

Being the smart aleck that I am, I replied with "It seems sacrilegious (as well as ridiculous) to blame modern America's firearms plague on a mythical 'God-given right' to bear arms." and "But if the right to bear arms (as part of a militia) in the Constitution is 'God-given,' then so is the #emoluments clause." Checking back a couple of days later, I was heartened to see that my replies acquired more than a few likes and retweets, and that there were over 25,000 other replies to her original tweet, most of which were amazed and surprised at her invocation of The Almighty in her defense of assault weapons.

I wasn't surprised. This wasn't the first time I heard this claim about a God-given right to bear arms. It seems to be an article of faith among a certain subculture of Americans. Back in 2012, I quoted at length from the document of a right-wing extremist group, The Platform Committee of the Republican Party of Texas. Not only did they talk about the "God-given right" to open carry your firearm on page 14 of their 2012 platform, but that was one of their less controversial planks. Abolishing Social Security and Income Tax; withdrawal from the UN, IMF, WTO, and World Bank; anti-homosexuality and pro-confederate-monument planks; repealing the Endangered Species and Voting Rights Acts; and much more that makes Donald Trump look like a flaming moderate on the GOP scale of fucknuttery were included. You can read more excerpts here, or the full document here. We sometimes forget in these days of Trump's constant headline-grabbing distractions, that the foundations of know-nothingism run deep in the GOP and USA. The nightmare didn't begin in November 8, 2016.

(Also -- having an open mind -- if anyone can cite the Bible verse in which God gives people -- especially Americans -- the divine right to carry guns, I'm willing to listen.)

Poll: C or P?

POLL:
Both labels are appropriate and easily verified, but which hashtag is more upsetting to the easily-upset current temporary occupant of our @WhiteHouse, #RacistInChief or #RapistInChief?

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) July 15, 2019

The True Blue Liberal Poll About the First Democratic Debates

Please vote in the following poll in the next three days. If you thought someone other than Harris, Warren, Castro, or Biden won the two nights of debates on that crowded stage, please tell us why in the comments here and on Twitter.

POLL:
Who was the biggest winner of the last two nights of debates? Sorry, Twitter only allows four spaces, so include your winner in the comments if s/he is not in the choices below.

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) June 28, 2019

A Twitter Poll for Mike Pence's 60th Birthday

In the parallels between Watergate and the current #StupidWatergate, what role do you believe that Vice President Mike Pence is playing?

Here's a POLL for Mike Pence's 60th birthday.

In this #StupidWatergate we're living through now, is @VP Pence playing the role of Sprio Agnew (the even more unattractive insurance policy against Trump's impeachment) or Gerry Ford (hired for his future promise to pardon Trump).

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) June 7, 2019

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Caussidière for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 1851 for the Montagne of 1793 to 1795, the nephew for the uncle. [...Trump for Nixon, Pence for Agnew and/or Ford...]" 

--Karl Marx, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon" (1852)