I Agree With This YouTube Hot Take On What’s Going On In Ukraine


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The above YouTube video pretty much lays out what’s going on with Ukraine and Russia right now. The only difference in opinion between his hot take and mine is he seems to assume a war is a lot more likely than I do. I’m still on the seeing’s believing fence. I’ve been through this too many times to think Putin is going to risk it all.

But I do agree that the conditions are right for a major or “open” war to happen in Ukraine at any moment. And I agree with him that what Putin’s war aims end up being will depend a lot on the initial reaction of Ukrainian forces. If they do really well, then Russia will back off. If Ukrainians do really poorly, then Russians might make a drive for Kiev.

Yet, as I keep saying, if Putin is too successfully, he’s going to open Pandora’s box. If the central Ukrainian government collapses, there is no telling where things could go. If Ukraine has a fascist government hell bent on taking back all the territory lost to the Russians, then that’s a whole different ball game.

We’re not there yet. A lot would have to go wrong for everyone. I’m still mulling the situation. I haven’t made up my mind yet as to what is going to happen.

Trump’s Quid Pro Quo With The Russians For Removing 1/3 of Our Troops From Russia & The 2020 Election


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve grown extremely jaded about the United State’s fate. All macro trends indicate that we are so, so very fucked. There’s just nothing at this point that can possibly stop our transformation from liberal democracy to autocratic managed democracy. It’s a done deal.

We need to start thinking about how this change will influence us on a personal level and what we can do to make your little corner of this shitshow better. Let me go into why this is now an absolute certainty.

It seems to me that it’s EXTREMELY likely that the Russians, in exchange for Trump removing 1/3 of our troops from Germany, are going to hack directly into our election systems. Now, let’s go through the different scenarios of what happens next.

We Find Out Sooner Rather Than Later
Ok, let’s say Trump “wins” the 2020 election in exactly the same fashion as he did in 2016 — he loses the popular vote by a significant margin by wins the Electoral College by a few thousand votes in some major swing states. A lot of people will be upset, but it’s happened before, so we’ll just chalk it up to “shy Trump voters” or the mysterious power of the “boat vote.”

Then, a few days or so after we’ve settled down and we brace ourselves for Trumplandia squeezing us of all of freedoms, massive news breaks — someone, somewhere has discovered absolute proof that the Russians fucked with the election in a direct fashion. Despite they’re best efforts to get away clean, they left behind evidence of some sort and there’s absolute fucking proof that they did it. What’s more, with a little digging it starts to grow apparent that there might have even been some direct co-ordination between the Trump campaign (read: Trump) and the Russians to pull this perfect crime off.

A lot of people on Twitter will get excited. They will begin to assume that of course this means Trump has lost and we can maybe have nice things again. Not so fast. The very same ratfucking that Trump used not only with the Stormy Daniels situation but with the quid pro quo with the Ukrainians will kick in, only at a far rapid rate because we have to worry about the vote being certified and Electors voting.

Rudy pops out of his crypt. He rants about how it’s all fake news. He goes on CNN and acts like he’s about to have a stroke. He admits Trump did it. But he rants about how it’s all legal and no laws have been broken. He could even admit that it was illegal by the end of the interview. But, remember, not only will all of this be a political issue, but the clock will be ticking as to certifying the vote and the voting of the Electoral College.

To make a long story short — because of the dynamics of the months between election night and January 20th, Trump is absolutely going to win. Absolutely. So we could literally know that Trump essentially was a traitor and by the time it was all over with 38% of the electorate would be booking their vacations in Russia they’ll be so happy it all happened.

And spare me any notion that there might be protests or a civil war. I just don’t see it. Even if there were massive protests for weeks on end, a lot of people would just be upset about the few riots that might be associated with this. Or the whole thing would be ignored. Only if there was some sort of General Strike might that catch the eye of the fucking craven cocksucker Republicans enough for something, anything to be done about this treason.

I’m not exactly thrilled at the idea of an actual civil war. I guess if the above scenario happened an actual fighting civil war might happen, but the end game on that is so up to debate that I can’t even begin to map out what might happen.

We Find Out Later
In this scenario, it’s not November to January when we find out, it’s a few years into Trump’s second term. Though, given that Trump is going to consolidate power in his second term, if we don’t find out before Trump purges the media, then, lulz.

But let’s suppose we find out before Trump nationalizes The New York Times and forces WarnerMedia to merge CNN with OANN. All the same things I just described above will happen, only Trump MIGHT get impeached again. But, sadly, the same thing will happen as the first impeachment — nothing.

Remember, Trump is an autocrat — if a very incompetent one — so all he cares about is power. Nothing else matters.

As such, our slide into an autocrat managed democracy is a done deal. America has fallen. We’re nothing more than a vassal state of Russia at this point, we just don’t realize it yet.

Get out of the country while you still can.

V-Log: Lev Parnas & The (Possible) Fall Of The House Of Trump #MarieYovanovitch

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


I may write a post on this page after Lev Parnas is on Maddow tonight, but this video is really good and says everything I want to say about this subject for the moment.

Welcome To The Impeachment Trial

Impeachment Has Turned Republicans Into Fascist Radicals On A Rhetorical Level

History doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Well, one thing’s for sure, no matter what the outcome of the impeachment process, the political hangover is going to be a bitch. MAGA Republicans were already a hysterical lynch mob before this all happened. The process of impeachment is turning them into fascist radicals completely devoid of decency and absolutely dedicated to destroying the Republic in the name of power and greed.

You know what I can compare it to? The old JMU urban legend about a group of friends sitting around drinking when someone confesses that they stole the personalized New York State licence tags off someone’s car. They, being from Virginia, think its a lulz. The person at the party who learns this, being from New York State is enraged because of how expensive the tags are. This leads to a huge fight.

The same with Republicans. Trump stole America’s personalized licence tags and Republicans want to lulz it. They see democracy as solely as a means to an end. Everyone else, meanwhile, is like, “Holy shit!” So, if what Republicans hope happens — Bill Barr successfully plays the part of Q, or whatever — doesn’t happen, they are likely to grow so worked up rhetorically that they damage themselves politically for a generation. Let me quickly qualify that statement — the Republican Party ain’t going no where. They’re bad faith political actors on an institutional level and they’re base is cool with that. They are so radicalized, so criminal, so fascist, that they honestly do think a fascist theocratic state would be an “improvement” over the Godless transgender one we now have (in their eyes.)

Macro, systemic issues caused Trump’s election and they’re only getting worse, not better. We have a solid 20-ish years before the youngest of the Baby Boomers begin to drop dead just as the Browning of America begins to kick in. Throw in, like, Florida vanishing into the sea, and there are some major things that are likely to cause Republicans political problems in the coming decades. But they’ve been aware of this since at least 1974. Trump just happens to be the moron at the right place and time to make their plot against American democracy a reality.

But let me be clear — the best case scenario for non-hysterical Americans is simply the context of this clusterfuck is a bit different. Ford BARELY lost the 1976 election after giving a full and complete pardon to Nixon. Barely. It was a razor thin defeat. So, it’s very possible that we could get rid of Trump politically and either Pence wins the presidency in his own right or some batshit insane racist fucktard like Tom Cotton, Kris Kobach, Don Jr or Tucker Carlson does the same thing in 2020.

I still think that in a surreal way, our best case scenario might be a president Ivanka Trump. She’s such a doofus that not only would the MAGA base be happy, but she’s probably so ill-equipped to be president that she wouldn’t be able to conspire with a foreign power to throw the election. She would effectively be a caretaker president who would take the blame if the economy went south, giving Democrats what they needed to win the presidency.

Remember, though, the clock would be ticking for any Democratic president sworn in on Jan. 20, 2020. They would have just over 2 years before Republicans would impeach them to make a political point. Republicans after Trump is somehow magically removed from office will be out for blood. They are going to lie in wait until they can strike and cause as much damage to a Democrat president as possible. Republicans have no shame. They will gleefully be huge hypocrites if it means they can bounce back into the White House in 2025.

But I’m getting way ahead of myself.

Even simply impeaching Trump at this point is still up in the air. It will be interesting to see how things play out.

V-Log: Idle, Incoherent Rambling About #Writing A #Novel & Impeachment #RadicalResistance

Some thoughts.

‘None Dare Call It Treason’ #RadicalResistance

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Now, let me be clear for the record again, I’m in no way suggesting violence. But I am suggesting the opposition to the MAGA peril to our democracy be more passionate, cogent and, dare I say radical on an ideological level.

The reason why I say this is, we were so busy worrying about the MAGA base, we never thought about that Trump’s cult of personality would infect people we believed would be “the adults in the room.” A prime example of this on a practical level is some Very Smart Conservatives are lulzing at Rudy, Barr and Pompeo (and Gorka!) literally racing around the globe openly pressuring foreign powers to give Trump the cover to pardon Manafort (and maybe Flynn).

This is when things get really, really dark. Not only do All The President’s Men not really feel that they’re doing anything wrong, they are prepared to pull “evidence” that Manafort was “framed” out of their butt to change the narrative as we lurch forward with impeachment. What they want is to give the Infowars comment section red meat. Throw in a possible bot attack on the part of the Russians and there’s a decent chance Chris Wallace will declare impeachment “dead” because of the “bad optics” of the attorney general releasing a report that says the entire Mueller investigation was a deep state plot to make the president look bad.

Ugh.

I feel sick to my stomach pacing out this scenario. I feel this way because outlets like The New York Times are so busy paying Maggie Haberman and “The Vogel” to play the Trump Whisperer — not to mention doxing Orange Crush! — that they are completely flat footed on the gravity of this fast-moving crisis. If the entire Executive Branch is not only run like Trump Org (that is a criminal enterprise) AND nobody is acting in good faith because they don’t believe in liberal democracy in the first place, then, well, we’re fuck if we don’t radicalize on a political level.

I used to say when I was running ROKon Magazine in Seoul that “Every problem is just an opportunity in disguise.” Because Trump is demonstrably at risk of losing his mind — as I have written repeatedly — then there’s both peril and opportunity going forward. They’re peril because if we can’t burn House Trump to the ground, then, well, that’s it. The moment Trump escapes conviction in the Senate he calls up Putin or MBS and does it all over again. Putin directly hacks the 2020 election. And if that doesn’t work, Putin or MBS — or Peter Thiel — could simply bribe the Electoral College in masse. Trump pardons Thiel and the quislings of Fox Bullshit Mt. have Bolton riding a Roomba with glee.

The ICE camp infrastructure is weaponized, all those young hack MAGA judges on the Federal bench do what they were appointed to do — destroy liberal democracy — and America is no longer exceptional, no longer a shining city on a hill, we’re American Carnage.

If The Radical Resistance wins, meanwhile, there’s a least a chance for national renewal. To make America great again, to coin a phrase. But it would take a national outrage the likes of which we have never seen in peacetime. So, I’m dubious. In fact, at this point, I fear the entire fate of the nation rests on Trump being a criminally incompetent self-own artist. That’s how Trump is extremely dangerous to the future of the Republican Party.

But it wouldn’t be in the way you think. In Red States, the Republican Party would continue to thrive. In the rest of the country, however, the stench of tyranny would whoft off the rotting husk of the party of Lincoln. And that’s the best case scenario. We have to stick the landing. If it’s a draw, MAGA wins. They have no shame, they crave power for power’s sake and they don’t believe in liberal democracy.

I am beginning to think only the military — and Trump being bonkers — stands in the way of the MAGA cult essentially bringing the United States to its knees. They already have, in a sense, but we still have a small window of opportunity.

But when Barr releases that bullshit report of his, well, either we save ourselves or we don’t.

Darkness Has Fallen — Time For The Radical Resistance To Act

MAGA is ready, are you?
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

We have to accept that what’s going on right now is not a scandal. For it be a scandal, the characters involved would have have some sense of shame. They would have to have a soul, some sense of a shared idea of what’s patriotic. This, sadly, is not the case.

The people involved in the current shitshow have come to believe their own press. What’s going on is a uniquely American type of political war because no one has gotten murdered — yet. Though MAGA via Trump’s Twitter feed seems to believe it would be a net-win for them if that did, in fact happen. MAGA leadership is so detached from the norms of democracy or civil society that they are now brazenly running roughshod over the very Constitution they swore to protect.

This is a solely a political war, hopefully for its duration, but so was, in a sense, Reconstruction. Much of the historical legacy of Reconstruction is a gift from the Radical Republicans. The 14th Amendment is the signature of the Radical Republicans left on the Constitution itself. Now that we have a sense of what MAGA’s game plan is, the Resistance has to radicalize like the Republicans of yore. If we don’t MAGA will destroy the country as we know it. We will be nothing more than a Russian-style “managed democracy.”

In practical terms, Radical Resistance in Congress would look like this — gratuitous use of the “inherent contempt” rule. They have left us no choice. Pompeo sticking his dick out at Congress in defiance is MAGA throwing the gauntlet down. If we don’t at last throw that fucker in jail, or fine him $500,000 a day until he shows up, then all is lost. They will see it as a sign of weakness and take charge of the narrative going forward.

One thing any Radical Resistance has to face is MAGA’s media messaging is now that of a feral rat — or maybe an alien xenomorph. They are prepared to burn everything — everything — to the ground to save The Dear Leader. This is their gotterdammerung. They would rather destroy our entire system of government than give an inch.

As such, political radicalization on the part of the to-date milquetoast “Resistance” is the only answer. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I hate violence and that’s not my character. But MAGA is ampting up the stakes to a dangerous level. Newt did a tweet today that used the word “fake” in it seven times. And I’ve seen similar surreal uses of fascist agitprop elsewhere on Twitter.

One last note — courage involves taking a risk. If it didn’t then everyone would be courageous. We’ve reached the point where silence is consent. I vacillate widely between resignation and wanting to fight politically until the very end.

Things are dark now. But if we’re willing to defend the Constitution the way it has defended us, maybe dawn will break sooner rather than later.

Impeachment State Of Play For Oct. 1st, 2019

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I am not very sanguine about the ultimate endgame of impeachment because if things are as bad as they appear, it’s unlikely there’s going to be any Watergate-level definitive conclusion. Far more likely is the whole system collapses, in a sense, and the United States becomes a Russian-style “managed democracy.”

I say this for several reasons. One, no one is resigning out of any sense of shame. That they’re not resigning gives the public the sense that what they’re accused of doing isn’t really all that bad, so, lulz. What’s more, once Barr releases his “Anti-Mueller Report” in an effort to lay the groundwork for a Manafort pardon, that will give the bad guys control of the narrative again.

We need to pause for a moment as to what Barr has been up to. Barr is running around the globe pressuring our allies to prove that the basis of the Mueller investigation was illegitimate and, as such, Trump has a free political reign — at least in his own mind — to both pardon people and consolidate power as we rush towards the 2020 election. If the country finally cracks in two and MAGA is spooging over Barr’s report while everyone else is in shock at how it was investigated, then it’s something of a draw and Trump wins. He barely has a trail in the Senate and he has free reign to ensure that the 2020 election is anything but free and fair.

This situation grows even more grave when you realize that the conditions that produced Trump aren’t going anywhere even if we somehow manage to find the political will to get rid of him. About half a dozen passionate young racists are chomping at the bit to succeed Trump. So, lulz?

So, really, our only way of “winning” this particular political war is a not only a clear victory but addressing what’s systemically wrong with the United States. That’s just not going to happen. Get your affairs in order. It may not be immediately, but sooner rather than later the ICE camp infrastructure is likely to be weaponized and people will begin to be “disappeared.”

You probably need to read Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America.” The scenario layed out in that novel may be our future.

My Latest Dystopian Scenario

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

This one is simple.

Barr very soon comes out with this long-awaited probe into the Deep State. He presents it to the MAGA base a the Grand Unified Theory of The Deep State. Chris Wallace says it’s “bad optics” for impeachment.

The end.

Things Are Growing Dark — We Are So Fucked

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls


I have long proposed that in the end, it will be Trump himself who brings his administration to its knees. He’s a galactic brain self-own artist and mentally unstable to boot.

That House Trump would lulz the active participation of both Bill Barr and Pompeo running around the world in a frantic effort to undermine the foundations of the Mueller Report — in broad daylight, no less — indicates that the rot within the executive branch is far deeper than anyone of could possibly imagine. Republicans are already poo-pooing all of this and going so far as to conflate it with what the whistleblower accused the House Trump of.

So, it seems to me that there’s a real chance that we’ve just about reached an endgame. And that endgame is 40% of the electorate — the MAGA base — is so detached from any notion of law or democracy that Trump through mindfucking, spin and messaging can stop the drive to impeachment in its tracks and that will be that. The bad guys will have won.

And, really, there’s only one reason and one reason only why this might not work — Donald Trump. Trump is now a tyrant the likes of which America hasn’t seen since its foundation. He’s the mad king. He’s our King George III. And about 40% of the electorate doesn’t care. In fact, they love it. They love the whole thing. They want more of it, not less.

So, I predict that Pompeo will return to the United States within a few days House Trump will lay out how they’ve “proved” that the Mueller Report was a deep state hack job and that will be that. They will own the narrative, at least with the base and Chris Wallace will say the “bad optics” exonerate Trump yet again. Everything that’s happened in the last week will be forgotten and they weaponize the ICE infrastructure at some point over the course of Trump’s second term (if not sooner.)

But, like I said before — Trump’s a self-own artist and bonkers. So, that’s our only chance of escaping a Russian-style “managed democracy.” The “anti-Mueller Report” will give the MAGA talking heads something to crow about and America dies.

A Republic, if you can keep it.