Yes? Thank you. “The horror, the horror!” (Kurz in Heart of Darkness)

You know how they say that Hillel the Elder explained the Talmud in one line by quoting the “golden rule”, and saying the rest is just “interpretation”?

Well, I say, you want to know all about the Trumpickle? It’s “the horror, the horror!” The rest is just interpretation.

Rachel Maddow said on her show tonight that there is so much in the news that you can’t cover it all. And then she gave a quick one liner about a million or so things that Trump is doing or threatening to do that you might call a derivative of “the horror, the horror”. And then she just talked about a few of them.

She did start with something that I had been thinking about. You know how horrible Venezuela was in releasing all of those criminals and mentally ill folks into our country? Is there even a tad of truth there? I don’t know. But I do know that one Donald Trump has at least equaled Venezuela by pardoning or commuting the sentences of over a thousand criminals a week ago. Already, one of them has been re-arrested on illegal gun charges, and another killed yesterday in Indiana for resisting arrest. Just wait until you see what other crimes we will see from that group.

It has long been held, during the first DJ term and during his three campaigns, that everything that Trump accuses others of doing is, in fact, something that Trump himself is doing? Still going on, it appears. And it appears that it is Trump more than Venezuela who is letting out dangerous criminals on American streets.

We have already seen the confirmation of Headset, so that is behind us, I guess. Although I did hear today that it was the fence sitting Senator Tillis who convinced Headset’s ex-sister-in-law to spill the beans under assurance that this would convince some Republicans not to vote for him. If so, I wonder if Tillis told her that he, Tillis, would not be one of them who would be so convinced.

But the even dicier (and yes that is possible – isn’t one truism that there is nothing so bad that it can’t get worse?) are the prospects of Tulsi Gabbard (the woman who hobnobs with America’s enemies), Kash Patel (the man who authorized a rescue mission which had not been authorized, who has an enemies list that he has made public, and who believes that the riots on January 6 were purposely staged by the FBI), Robert F. Kennedy (you know his problems), and more.

The one who is going to be the hardest to fight against is Russell Vought, scheduled to lead OMB. As far as I know, he has not engaged in scandalous behavior. All he has done is written or directed much of Project 2025, and made it clear that he does not think that the law needs to be followed when it comes to whether or not the president can “impound” funds (i.e., decide not to use the funds that Congress has appropriated and directed him to use).

Law is a funny thing, you know. DJ just fired a dozen or so Inspectors General, something that he is not able to do without notifying Congress 30 days in advance, and fired career prosecuters and others in violation of civil service laws. I think it was Lindsey Graham who was asked what he thought about these illegal acts? His answer was that they were only “technically” illegal.

Ah, Kellyanne Conway, where are you now? Kellyanne was the inventor of “alternative facts”. I guess we now have “alternative law”. And the sad thing is that we cannot even rely on the courts to uphold the actual laws, rather than rely on Trump’s variations.

So, at least for two years, we have both legislative bodies held by the Republicans, which means not only that they will traditionally tend to vote in certain ways, but that they will presumably for now act as the USSR’s Supreme Soviet acted, unanimously. And we have the courts, where (I think) the Democrats recently named more district court judges, but the Republicans more appellate judges. They are potentially out of control as well, particularly because the Supreme Court has already ruled that the president can act illegally if he is doing within the scope of his job description, and never face any personal consequences other than not being reelected. For lame duck DJ, this means no consequences at all. He can do whatever he wants.

So, we have competent officials being illegally and improperly and unfortunately fired, and people being put into office who have no competence, no experience, and no sense.

Will things ever go back to normal order? We will see what happens on March 14, the day that the current government funding runs out, that a budget must be approved, and that the debt ceiling will undoubtedly have to be extended so that the government can, among other things, extend the Trump tax cuts. Do I think they can do this? Probably. You know why? President DJ will simply issue Executive Orders doing all the above, and his Trumpees will march ahead in lock step. They will be told that “you can’t do that”, that “it’s against the law”. Their answer will be “only technically, so sue us.” Then we will really see what happens.

And just wait until Elon Musk is president. He can’t be because he wasn’t born here? A technical violation of the Constitution. No more. We will then be faced with an even more unique situation. Elon Muskvwill simultaneously be the president and the ex-president.

I need coffee.