Liz Cheney on Trump’s victory:

“Our nation’s democratic system functioned last night and we have a new President-elect. All Americans are bound, whether we like the outcome or not, to accept the results of our elections. We now have a special responsibility, as citizens of the greatest nation on earth, to do everything we can to support and defend our Constitution, preserve the rule of law, and ensure that our institutions hold over these coming four years. Citizens across this country, our courts, members of the press and those serving in our federal, state and local governments must now be the guardrails of democracy.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-victory-liz-cheney-131546802.html

"Citizens across this country, our courts, members of the press and those serving in our federal, state and local governments must now be the guardrails of democracy.” Liz Chaney

 

Well, my choice for President of our fair United States of America didn’t win. So, what now?

First the good things:

1.       There will be a peaceful transfer of presidential power. No more worry about there not being one. There is no longer any reason to think there will be another Jan-6 riot at the Capitol. National Guard troops can stay home

2.       All the preparatory positioning by the GOP for mounting multiple legal challenges to the election outcome will be boxed and closeted for at least another election cycle.

3.       47’s incessant school yard trash talk might become less profuse and repugnant and more civil (I don’t really believe this).

4.       Storm Rafael now forming in the Gulf of Mexico will miss Florida.

5.       Due to expected “La Nina” conditions approaching the west coast, a mild winter can be expected for Florida.

6.       The TBT actually delivered my Wednesday paper this morning.

7.       Despite my doubts about the future of my country, I will carry on.

 

Now the bad things:

1)       47 is 78, meaning he will be 82 when his current term is completed. Will he be up to it? Everyone will be watching. If he can’t, his VP will have to step up, and that’s really scary.

2)       Iran is raising “full-scale” nuclear threats toward Israel this morning.

3)       47 insists he can end the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war, without explaining how. He summarizes his approach through another Reagan phrase: “peace through strength.” But he remains critical of NATO and top U.S. military brass. “I don’t consider them leaders,” 47 has said of Pentagon officials that Americans “see on television.” He has repeatedly praised authoritarians like Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

                (a)   In other words, Ukraine is screwed and pal Putin will get a pass and a chunk of Ukraine.

                (b)       U.S. commitment to NATO will now be in question … again … offering Putin further expansion opportunities.

4)       47 will have unconstrained power granted to him by SCOTUS.

                (a)    Heaven help us.

                (b)   47 has promised he will truly weaponize the U.S. Department of Justice and go after his opponents.

5)       47 has not said explicitly that he would veto national abortion restrictions if they reached his desk. Thus, women can expect a federal law limiting their right to make decisions regarding their own body.

6)     DeSantis successfully used your tax dollars to defeat a constitutional amendment that would have allowed women in Florida greater freedom to make decisions affecting their own bodies.

7)       47 will levy stiff import tariffs on some foreign products.

           (a)       Respected national economists have expressed doubts as to how this can be done without raising prices for you and me.

8)       While 47 has promised he will carry out “the largest mass deportation program in history” using the National Guard and empowering domestic police forces in the effort, he has been scant on details of what the program would look like and how he would ensure that it targeted only people in the U.S. illegally. 

9)       47 has promised to extend his 2017 tax overhaul, with a few notable changes that include lowering the corporate income tax rate to 15% from the current 21%. That also involves rolling back Biden’s income tax hikes on the wealthiest Americans and scrapping Inflation Reduction Act levies that finance energy measures intended to combat climate change. With national debt in the trillions and growing, how will he pay for this reduction in federal revenue?

10)  47  has called for rolling back societal emphasis on diversity and for legal protections for LGBTQ citizens, and has called for ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs in government institutions, using federal funding as leverage.

11)  47 has pledged to remove obstacles to fossil fuel production, including opening all federal lands for exploration — even though U.S. energy production is already at record highs. 

12)  47 has pledged he will unleash housing construction by cutting regulations — though most construction rules come from state and local government – as well as to end “frivolous litigation from the environmental extremists.”

13)  47 has pledged to weaken the government’s power to enforce statutes and rules by reducing the number of employees engaging in the work and, potentially, impose a chilling effect on those who remain.

        (a)  This would make it easier to fire federal workers by classifying thousands of them as being outside civil service protections.

14)  47 also claims that presidents have exclusive power to control federal spending even after Congress has appropriated money. Trump argues that lawmakers’ budget actions “set a ceiling” on spending but not a floor — meaning the president’s constitutional duty to “faithfully execute the laws” includes discretion on whether to spend the money.

       (a) This interpretation could set up a court battle with otherwise weakened Congressional oversight.

15)  47 has suggested that the Federal Reserve, an independent entity that sets interest rates, should be subject to more presidential power.

       (a)       Though he has not offered details, any such move would represent a momentous change to how the U.S. economic and monetary systems work.

16)  47 has targeted the federal Department of Education for elimination in his second administration. That does not mean that he wants Washington out of classrooms. He still proposes, among other maneuvers, using federal funding as leverage to pressure K-12 school systems to abolish tenure and adopt merit pay for teachers and to scrap diversity programs at all levels of education. He calls for pulling federal funding “for any school or program pushing Critical Race Theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.”

17)  In higher education, 47 proposes taking over accreditation processes for colleges, a move he describes as his “secret weapon” against the “Marxist Maniacs and lunatics” he says control higher education. Trump takes aim at higher education endowments, saying he will collect “billions and billions of dollars” from schools via “taxing, fining and suing excessively large private university endowments” at schools that do not comply with his edicts which would almost certainly end up in protracted legal fights.

18)  As in other policy areas, 47 isn’t actually proposing limiting federal power in higher education but strengthening it. He calls for redirecting the confiscated endowment money into an online “American Academy” offering college credentials to all Americans without a tuition charges. “It will be strictly non-political, and there will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed—none of that’s going to be allowed,” he said on Nov. 1, 2023.

19)  Trump insists he would protect Social Security and Medicare, but exempting tip and overtime wages from payroll taxes would reduce the funding stream for Social Security and Medicare outlays.

         (a)   47 has also mentioned approving state requests for waivers of various federal rules and has broadly endorsed state-level work requirements for Social Security recipients.

20)  47 has called for repealing the Affordable Care Act and its subsidized health insurance marketplaces. But he still has not proposed a replacement.

21)   In the latter stages of the campaign, 47 played up his alliance with former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines and of pesticides used in U.S. agriculture and repeatedly told rally crowds that he would put Kennedy in charge of “making America healthy again."

22)  47 has claimed falsely that climate change is a “hoax,” and blasted Biden-era spending on cleaner energy designed to reduce U.S. reliance on fossil fuels. He proposes an energy policy – and transportation infrastructure spending – anchored to fossil fuels: roads, bridges and combustion-engine vehicles. “Drill, baby, drill!” was a regular chant at Trump rallies.

23)  47 says he does not oppose electric vehicles but promises to end all Biden incentives to encourage EV market development and to roll back Biden-era fuel efficiency standards.

24)  47 could make it harder for workers to unionize. In discussing auto workers, Trump focused almost exclusively on Biden’s push toward electric vehicles. When he mentioned unions, it was often to lump “the union bosses and CEOs” together as complicit in “this disastrous electric car scheme.” In an Oct. 23, 2023, statement, Trump said of United Auto Workers, “I’m telling you, you shouldn’t pay those dues.”

25)  47’s rhetoric and policy approach in world affairs is more isolationist diplomatically, non-interventionist militarily and protectionist economically than the U.S. has been since World War II. But the details are more complicated. He pledges expansion of the military, promises to protect Pentagon spending from austerity efforts and proposes a new missile defense shield — an old idea from the Reagan era during the Cold War.

26)  47 is a convicted felon. How will his sentencing be handled?

27)  Will he pardon the Jan-6 rioters? He has promised to do so if they’re innocent.”

28)  Will he pardon others who were complicit in the illegal attempt to overthrow the Biden election?

29)  Will he and his family again be able to reap millions inappropriately if not illegally through the opportunities created by his position as President of the United States?

 

 Election Day in America 2024

Well … finally … the day is upon us. We, the people of America, collectively get to discharge the privilege and obligation to choose one of its human members to guide and lead our nation further into an unknown condition called the future.

Though it is a period of great angst for many, it has been equally so for others in past elections, I’m certain. This is not the first time the continuance of the country’s chosen form of government has been so clearly challenged. But how that challenge has come to be is historically unique and more dangerous than it has ever been. There three conditions that have brought us to where we are today.

One condition not unique in world history is that the mindsets of many have become consumed with the believe that their lives are harsh and to them bleak to the extent that it is no longer acceptable. They believe it is due to the decisions and disregard of others. And, there is very little they can do about it. It is a feeling bordering on desperation.

The second condition is also not unique. It is when one person of some stature or personal attribute who accurately defines and identifies this desperation and offers an alternative that will remove it and replace it with a better life. And then also promises to remove all those who were responsible. Desperation will no longer exist, and their lives will improve.

But the third condition is very unique. Never has there been the ability of anyone on the planet to be heard at will and instantaneously by everyone else on the planet. Social media has become a force no earthly society has ever had to deal with. The ability to sneeze and have it immediately heard around the world, and then for others to have the ability to respond to it in real time, has never existed. Suddenly, group thought can explode and be generated in seconds forcing institutions and governments to react far more quickly, and dangerously, than they otherwise would’ve had to. The world is now seemingly more and more easily influenced by information spread by the phenomenon of viral dissemination that does not even have to be true.

So this is what we have today. Folks who feel disenfranchised, actually and not. A man who promises an impossible utopia formulated by a tsunami of lies and false realities given agency by instantaneous dispersion to millions at a time without letup 24/7 for ten years.

Having said as much, there is hope today, that, as America has a few dark times in the past, stood still for a moment and took time to assess it all. And having done so, determined what it collectively believes will be the best path forward for the next four years. It has made the right decision in the past. 

I have hope it will again.

 GOP Hypocrisy at its worst - MTG

"Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is begging the federal government to urgently “send the funds” to help the American southeast recover in the wake of Hurricane Helene, even though she herself stood in the way of emergency relief funds just last week."

"The storm was supposed to come directly across my district, but when it came through Georgia, it went to the east, and we mainly just got a lot of rain,” Greene told Real America’s Voice’s Terrance Bates. “When we go back to Washington, we will be working hard to make sure that states like Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina get the funding that they need, She says”

Hypocrite MTG Now Demanding Hurricane Relief Funds She Tried to Block | The New Republic

 Questionable Land Swap Approved by Florida Cabinet

Jane Goodall has said, “As humans we are losing our indigenous wisdom.” What she meant by that is, as a society our daily decisions and actions are based too much on our needs and intentions of today and without regard for the impact those needs and intentions will have for tomorrow.

This morning, I read about a land swap approved recently by Florida’s Cabinet that would exchange a 324-acre designated conservation area for a remote 861 acres of planted pines which, presumably, would one day be clear-cut and sold as timber.

Curiously, the action was presented as an emergency item on Florida’s State Cabinet agenda which, notably, prevents having to meet the prior public notice requirements normally associated with non-emergency items. Also, there was no staff presentation or even a quizzical thought by Cabinet officials as to why it was an emergency, what the fiscal implications were, or why the exchange was under consideration in the first place. And, the item was presented and approved in less than 30 seconds, according to the report.

Okay, very unusual. So what?

The primary members of the Florida Cabinet are Governor Ron DeSantis, State Attorney General Ashley Moody, Commissioner of Agriculture Wilton Simpson, and Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Petronis. The decisions these people make on any given day can and do have important repercussions upon the state’s future. The land swap they approved so casually and demonstrably without reasonable public notice is an example.

The 324-acre parcel was originally purchased in 2016 by the Florida Department of Transportation for $6,000,000 to mitigate the permanent loss of another area of natural Florida that would be destroyed by construction of the Suncoast Parkway. It was then deeded to the State Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) which in turn leased it to the Florida Forest Service for management.

So, the purpose of the acquisition was out of concern for the loss of a part of natural Florida and, as such, was done out of respect for the state’s future and the importance of preserving as much of Florida’s disappearing natural systems as possible for future generations.

Here’s where this story goes badly awry.

The 324-acre designated conservation area is located immediately adjacent to a golf course previously known as Sugarmill Woods Country Club and World Woods Golf Club. In December 2021, Cabot SMW OpCo LLC, headquartered in Toronto, Canada, purchased the golf course and associated properties. Since then, it has planned a complete renovation of the property involving a world class golfing experience, luxury homes and related golfing amenities. According to public records of the County Clerk’s office, Hernando County has approved “Community Development District” status for Cabot’s 1200-acre redevelopment project which will allow Cabot to issue $250,000,000 in bonds to finance the project.

Again, so what?

Well, Cabot, recognizing how highly beneficial the adjacent 324-acre conservation acreage would be for expanding its redevelopment project, then offered a proposal to acquire it in exchange for that remote 861 acres of planted pines near Cedar Key.

As mentioned, the exchange was then presented to the Cabinet and approved in less than 30 seconds with no staff or Cabinet-member discussion and the Department of Environmental protection was delegated responsibility to get it done.

What’s wrong here is this: 1), the item was added to the agenda only 24 hours before the meeting without public notice; 2), apparently, to make this possible, emergency status was given the item without proper justification; 3), no appraisals were provided for discussion or concerns mentioned that once the property becomes part of Cabot’s project the 324 conservation acres will be fully developed and its value will skyrocket to tens of millions, well beyond any value that might be associated with a remote 861 acres of planted pines; and most importantly, 4) its purpose as an environmental offset for the natural area destroyed by construction of the turnpike will be negated and lost forever to the diminishing remainder of natural Florida.

This action reflects stark disregard for how fast the state’s natural systems are disappearing, and why Jane Goodall would rightly be appalled. The decision was wrong and should be reversed.

 Here Today Gone Tomorrow

There was an opinion piece in the St. Pete Times by Jim Aylward who wrote back in 2011 about how lives that have passed through his, just disappear. 

It’s a light piece but I’ve noticed the phenomenon as well, and the older I get the more unnerving it can be. Friends who would “check in” from time to time, just stop. Or someone who had for some reason put me on their list to receive “forwarded” emails suddenly just stop forwarding them.

The sudden end of hearing from someone seems by itself a kind of "last communication."  The silence, maybe that's the message. 

When it happens, whatever the connection that tethered two people together becomes just inert nothingness. Whatever kept them aware that the other still exists in this world is simply dissolved into utter quiet.

Whatever actual communication had occurred, as well as whatever may have  been resultantly constructed in the mind's eye of the sender, would also now be forever sandwiched between two question marks. One, symbolizing what was not known before there was a mental image of that person. The other, symbolizing the end of any further input that would change it.

I have no idea why I send stuff around. Maybe I just want to keep marking myself present in this world by pushing that last question mark out a little longer in time. 

One day, nevertheless, I’ll probably just stop, too, and then there will be only silence and you’ll have to guess whether it was because I just got bored, tired or died. Maybe it’ll be all three. And maybe that's the message.

But until then you’ll just have to put up with me.

Fleeing FSU

Letters to Richard,

When I borrowed that hundred dollars from CD and started walking west on US 90 out of Tallahassee, I had no idea where you were. Maybe New York. I had no idea where Snell was either. It must have been about October 1963.

I had run into depressing times. While John Donne’s “Three Person’d God” was totally incomprehensible to me, it wasn't my only failing. I was finding that my only opportunity to engage the fair sex was to walk close enough behind them to catch a snoot full of their young, sweet musk, in the spring when their shoulders were bare and their laughter was easy and often. It was tough. I had no car, no money, no style, no nothing. I had none of the social skills or tools needed to navigate in their world of money and practiced social graces. It was depressing. I concluded it was just not going to be. I needed to get out of there before self disappointment became a permanent part of my psyche. Inferiority, perceived or valid, can be terminally destructive. I hated the feeling. Fortunately, in all our many conversations with you and Snell I realized there was another world “out there.” My focus at FSU was not on learning.  Penetration and good times, yes. But not learning. I needed to get away.

To grow as a person, one needs to seek sights not seen and try things not tried. Brooksville had never been a place where one might seek awareness and knowledge, and it was now apparent that Tallahassee was becoming less than a positive experience. Given my small-town mindset, it took a lot of courage for me to step beyond my mental boundaries with no intentions other than to engage and learn about a larger world. While I was convinced that we are all just pawns of fate dropped upon this planet without choice, I also believed we are obliged to engage it and if we don't we are not worthy of having had the opportunity.

Hitchhiking in those days was an innocent and acceptable means of travel. It was not considered unwholesome or dangerous to impose upon the good graces of others who happen, as fate might have it, to be traveling in the same direction as you and who might be willing to share a ride. The Country had not yet suffered the loss of an ill-advised war, the assassination of a revered President and his brother, or the murder of a legendary black leader that would wound our hearts. Nor had the destructive scourge of illegal drugs yet infected our national innocence. We could still trust people we had never met enough to stop and invite them into our cars. Folks would pick you up if it appeared you needed a little help or maybe, out of curiosity, just to ask where you were going.

So it was on a cool Tallahassee morning, carrying my faux leather suitcase and wearing levi's and a powder-blue Troy Donahue nylon jacket that I held out my thumb and headed west in search of a road untraveled. Snell had said it is not the destination that is relevant. It is what happens along the way.

The day I left FSU, CD and I had walked from our apartment behind the Sweet Shoppe on the south side of the campus to Tennessee Street, a couple of miles away on the north side. Tennessee Street runs east and west through downtown Tallahassee and is also U.S. Highway 90 which will take you to New Orleans straight as an arrow, 400 miles west . My decision to leave that depressing time of my life brought with it a growing sense of release though what I was about to do had yet to sink in. I was eager to embrace what was ahead. I was 21 years old and unafraid. There was a comfortable, cool breeze out of the north.

We dodged the morning traffic and trotted across to the north side of Tennessee Street. CD stopped as we stepped up on the curb.

“Well, man, you really going to do it?”

“Guess so,” I said.

He smiled that smile which somehow always seemed to be on only one side of his face.

“Send me a post card.”

“Yep.”

There was a moment when we looked at each other not knowing what next to say. Then we shook hands firmly, and without looking back he turned and walked south, back across Tennessee Street and joined the growing groups of students on their way to class.

I started walking west toward New Orleans.

FSU was over.

Lying on the world stage; DJT’s gift to a new way of life in America?

So, DJT gave his acceptance speech the other night and, as we have come to expect from this sorry and deeply flawed man, it was packed with a train load of plain and verifiable lies. There was hope he would try to offer a more unifying message for our country which has become increasingly and dangerously divided by a storm of false declarations, but that was too much to expect.

When I was growing up, lying would get you sent straight to hell according to my dear mother, the Bible, and practically every adult person in my young life. Here's what the Bible says about being untruthful:

1. 
   Exodus 20:16: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” This is one of the Ten Commandments, directly prohibiting lying1.
2. Proverbs 12:22: "The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy"2.
3. Colossians 3:9: "Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices"2.
4. John 8:44: Jesus speaks about the devil, saying, "When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies"2.

These verses suggest lying is not only discouraged but is seen as contrary to the nature of God and harmful to human relationships and human communities.

Being "Trustworthy" is also the first commandant of the Scout Law which entails twelve points:

TRUSTWORTHY. Tell the truth and keep promises. People can depend on you.

LOYAL. Show that you care about your family, friends, Scout leaders, school, and country.

HELPFUL. Volunteer to help others without expecting a reward.

FRIENDLY. Be a friend to everyone, even people who are very different from you.

COURTEOUS. Be polite to everyone and always use good manners.

KIND. Treat others as you want to be treated. Never harm or kill any living thing without good reason.

OBEDIENT. Follow the rules of your family, school, and pack. Obey the laws of your community and country.

CHEERFUL. Look for the bright side of life. Cheerfully do tasks that come your way. Try to help others be happy.

THRIFTY. Work to pay your own way. Try not to be wasteful. Use time, food, supplies, and natural resources wisely.

BRAVE. Face difficult situations even when you feel afraid. Do what you think is right despite what others might be doing or saying.

CLEAN. Keep your body and mind fit. Help keep your home and community clean.

REVERENT. Be reverent toward God. Be faithful in your religious duties. Respect the beliefs of others.

If you were a Boy (or Girl) Scout, you probably had to say these twelve points together before each meeting as Troop 71 did back in the 1950's when Frank and Chan Springstead, Jack Underwood, and Jack McGee were our Scout Leaders. Obviously, DJT was never a Scout and never pledged allegiance to such fundamentally important human behaviors.

Lying would also get you sent to the Principal's Office in a heartbeat if you were caught in one by your 6th grade teacher. One of my teachers at Hernando High, Ms. Parrot, could make you feel like death would be a better punishment if she caught you lying.

So, how is it that lying is now as common as a crows call on a berry farm these days? How is it that politicians practice it like it's a proper pursuit for a politician? How is it that a very practiced or cleverly presented lie can potentially get one elected to the highest position in the land? And how is that millions of people have accepted DHT's incessant lying to the extent that his lies have become their Truth, their life’s Gospel. 

The one great lie of DJT is that the election of 2020 was a fraud and that he won the election instead of Joe Biden. Not only has this lie eroded the very foundations of the governing institutions fundamental to our American Democracy, it has also instilled in public behavior the poison of violent dissent.

CNN counted at least 20, TWENTY ! lies in DJT’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention the other night where he was nominated the 2024 GOP candidate for the presidency of the United States. CNN called them “false claims,” but, in fact, they were lies. You can find CNN's assessment HERE.

What in our decaying nation has happened to the thought that lying is not good, not good for you, not good for me, and certainly not good for the world where it is now being so easily spewed at the national level by a former and potential future leader of the most powerful nation ever established by mankind? What on this earth is he going to be lying to us about next?

 Why the Brits detest Trump

Here is Nate White’s answer to the question, “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump.” 

Nathaniel Ridgway White was an award-winning journalist known for his business and financial reporting at The Christian Science Monitor. He received the second and third Gerald Loeb Awards for Newspapers, the most prestigious award for business journalism.

From the London Times.

Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England, wrote this magnificent response:

A few things spring to mind…

Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.

For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.

 

So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever.

I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.

But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll.

And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.

And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.

Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.

Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.

And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.

Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.

He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.

He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.

That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.

There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think

‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’

is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.

After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form;

He is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit.

His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.

He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.

In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:

‘My God… what… have… I… created?’

If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.

 

would be the boxed set.

 What Wikipedia says about the Heritage foundation. 

The Heritage Foundation has been publishing new editions of its Mandate for Leadership series in schedules that run parallel with each presidential election since 1981.^[41] Heritage refers to its Mandate as a "policy bible".^[41]

President Trump met with Leonard Leo and others in 2017.

Heritage president Kevin Roberts sees the organization's current role as "institutionalizing Trumpism."^[42] He established Project 2025 in 2022 to provide the 2024 Republican presidential nominee with a personnel database and ideological framework,^[43] after civil servants refused to support Trump during his attempt to institute a Muslim travel ban, his effort to install a new attorney general to assist him in his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and his calling for the use of lethal force, saying "When the looting starts, the shooting starts" during the George Floyd protests.^{[44][better source needed]} Associate project director Spencer Chretien argued that it was "past time to lay the groundwork for a White House more friendly to the right."^[8]

In April 2023, the Heritage Foundation published the 920-page Mandate written by hundreds of conservatives,^[45] most prominently former Trump administration officials.^[2] Nearly half of the project's collaborating organizations have received dark money contributions from a network of fundraising groups linked to Leonard Leo, a major conservative donor and key figure in guiding the selection of Trump's federal judge nominees.^[37]

Axios reported that while Heritage had briefed other 2024 Republican presidential primaries candidates on the project, it is "undeniably a Trump-driven operation", pointing to the involvement of Trump's "most fervent internal loyalty enforcer" Johnny McEntee as a senior advisor to the project. The 2024 Trump campaign said no outside group speaks for the former president, referring to its "Agenda 47"^[46] as the only official plan for a second Trump presidency.^[47] Two top Trump campaign officials later issued a statement seeking to distance the campaign from what unspecified outside groups were planning, although many of those plans reflected Trump's own words. The New York Times reported the statement "noticeably stopped short of disavowing the groups and seemed merely intended to discourage them from speaking to the press".^[48] Nevertheless, the campaign said it was "appreciative" of suggestions from like-minded organizations.^[49] Project 2025 is not the only conservative program with a database of prospective recruits for a potential Republican administration, though the leaders of these initiatives all have connections to Donald Trump.^[50][51] In general, these initiatives seek to help Trump avoid the mistakes of his first term, when he arrived at the White House unprepared.^[52]

The two officials released a similar memo days later, after Axios reported Trump intended to staff a new administration with "full, proud MAGA warriors, anti-GOP establishment zealots, and eager and willing to test the boundaries of executive power to get Trump's way", which would include targeting and jailing critics in government and media.^[53] Axios also reported on people being considered for senior positions in a second presidency, which included Kash Patel, Steve Bannon, and Mike Davis, a former aide to senator Chuck Grassley who has promised a "three-week reign of terror" should Trump name him acting attorney general.^[54] Patel had said on Bannon's podcast two days earlier, "We will go out and find the conspirators—not just in government, but in the media... We're going to come after you. Whether it's criminally or civilly, we'll figure that out."^[55][56] In June 2024, Bannon named specific current or former FBI and DOJ officials who would be hunted down for alleged crimes and treason, even if they fled the country.^[57][58]