"Stand Back and Stand By"

Nothing says Law and Order like a president who refuses to condemn white supremacists. This is the same Administration that's willing to defy a court order about conducting the census. This is someone who conducted a racist campaign of targeting 3.5 million black voters in 2016 to discourage them from voting.

Even Fox News can't spin the refusal.

[He] blew the biggest layup in the history of debates by not condemning white supremacists. I don't know if he didn't hear it, but he's got to clarify that right away. That's like, "Are you against evil?"

Heather Digby Parton sees a clear intention with a deranged debate performance.

[H]e's openly calling for violence and intimidation around the election. He may end up finally leaving office at the end of this ordeal, but it appears that he's prepared to leave a smoldering ruin of a country in his wake.

Update (October 1):  Amanda Marcotte offers her take on this lunatic.

[N]one of this is the behavior of a man who thinks he's winning. [Agent Orange] is lashing out because he knows he's a failure and a loser, and he's trying to hold that truth at arm's length with a torrent of lies and violent threats.

Update (October 9):  Fuckface during the September 29 debate:

[S]omebody has got to do something about antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing problem.

And now the FBI has announced arrests related to a plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. 

In total, 12 people were arrested on Wednesday on state and federal charges. One day later, six men were charged in the alleged kidnapping plot.

The FBI said the alleged plot involved a Michigan militia. Suspects allegedly surveilled Whitmer's vacation home twice and discussed bringing her to a remote area in Wisconsin to face trial for "treason."

[Dear Leader has] repeatedly attacked Whitmer over her coronavirus restrictions. In April, the president called to "liberate Michigan." 

Update (October 18):  Fuckface continues to incite violence against Governor Whitmer. 

When the crowd started chanting "Lock her up," with absolutely no justification, [Dear Leader] smiled and repeated the phrase. Then he chillingly added: "Lock 'em all up."

Tax Dodger

The New York Times obtained 20 years of tax returns for Fuckface von Clownstick. The Times reports Dear Leader paid only $750 of federal income tax for 2016 and paid nothing in ten of the previous 15 years. He is also over $400 million in debt with loans coming due over the next four years. I.R.S. fines could amount to $100 million.

The tax returns that [Mr. Orange] has long fought to keep private tell a story fundamentally different from the one he has sold to the American public. His reports to the I.R.S. portray a businessman who takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes. Now, with his financial challenges mounting, the records show that he depends more and more on making money from businesses that put him in potential and often direct conflict of interest with his job as president.

I can't wait for him to prove The Times wrong when he immediately releases his true tax returns! 

Update (September 28):  Andrew Weissmann suggests Fuckface owes that money to Russians.

Update (September 29):  Roger Sollenberger says Manbaby might owe as much as $1 billion. He quotes Barb McQuade.

Someone with a mountain of debt like [the president] is a national security risk and would be unable to get a security clearance if he were any other government employee. When someone is desperate for cash, they are susceptible to blackmail or bribery. For that reason, people with massive debt or in bankruptcy are not permitted access to our nation's secrets.

Amanda Marcotte points out Dear Leader tends to actively makes things worse. Quoting Greg Sargent:

[T]hese tax returns show that [his] epic cheating wasn't shrewd so much as a desperate effort to "compensate for truly epic levels of incompetence and failure."

[W]e can see the same tendencies playing out with the coronavirus pandemic. If [he] had simply left well enough alone, letting public health officials do their job, the pandemic would still be bad, but would now be much better contained.

Marcotte also quotes First Daughter that "my dad's communication style is not to everyone's taste" but that "the results speak for themselves." 

Yeah, First Daughter: They do. ... [A]s these tax documents prove, it's a lie that goes back decades. [Agent Orange] is both an asshole and a terrible businessman, quite possibly the worst on planet Earth. He surrounds himself in gold-plated cheese, but his real Midas talent is his ability to turn anything he touches to ashes. He did it to his endlessly fake and failed business enterprises, and now he's doing it to our country.

Update (September 30):  David Cay Johnston explains Fuckface's history of tax fraud and how tax avoidance is common among the wealthy. 

Getting caught cheating, again and again, didn't make him into anything even vaguely resembling an honest taxpayer.

What [he] did learn long ago from his mentor and "second father," the notoriously corrupt lawyer Roy Cohn, was to lie, cheat, steal and never ever apologize or concede any fact. Just tie the authorities up for years and make them pour their limited resources into a case so they will give up and cry uncle.

Update (October 5):  Alex Henderson notes that tax avoidance is not the same as tax evasion and discusses an article by Derek Thompson which presents three scenarios for understanding Fuckface's tax history.

Explanation 1: [His] Businesses Are Doing Terribly, Explanation 2: Extremely Questionable Tax Maneuvering, and Explanation 3: A Mystery Only Prosecutors Can Unwind.

Update (October 9):  James McFadden speculates on who leaked the tax returns. 

Update (January 1, 2023):  After three years of legal battles, the House Ways and Means Committee released six years of Fuckface tax returns. David Cay Johnston analyzes the many instances of fraud.

One technique he used at least 26 times between 2015 and 2020 was as simple as it was flagrant. [Von Clownstick] filed sole proprietor reports, known as Schedule C, that showed huge business expenses despite having zero revenue. That created losses which [he] used to offset his income from work and investments, thus lowering his income taxes. Additional Schedule Cs had expenses exactly equal to revenues while only a few showed profits.

The 65 Schedule Cs [Dear Leader] filed as a candidate and as president helped him convert a federal tax bill that could have been as high as $46 million into a $2.1 million profit from the federal tax system.

Climate Change Maps

ProPublica published a series of maps showing the expected impact of climate change in the United States over the next several decades.

[W]arming temperatures and changing rainfall will drive agriculture and temperate climates northward, while sea level rise will consume coastlines and dangerous levels of humidity will swamp the Mississippi River valley.

The most suitable "niche" will change dramatically.

By 2040 to 2060, ProPublica reports, extreme temperatures will become the norm in the South and Southwest. But it’s not just heat that will drive Americans out of their homes: humidity and rainfall patterns will also make it difficult for the human body to control its own temperature for one out of every 20 days of the year in the Midwest and Louisiana by 2050. Farm productivity, of course, will also be exacerbated by this — much of the agricultural industry will be obsolete by then.

Meanwhile, satellite images show current disasters "before what is typically peak wildfire season in the West and with 2½ months left in the official Atlantic hurricane season".

Not to mention the emerging new climate in the Arctic and disintegrating glaciers in the Antarctic.

Update (September 18):  The disintegration refers to a PNAS study of the Pine Island and Thwaites Glaciers. They already contribute about five percent of sea level rise and would potentially add 4 feet of rise in total.

Nearing 1.5 Degrees

A report from the United Nations, the World Meteorological Organization, and other groups finds an increasing probability of global mean temperature exceeding the 1.5 degree Celcius increase limit proposed in the Paris agreement.

[I]n the five-year period 2020–2024, the annual mean global near surface temperature is predicted to be between 0.91 °C and 1.59 °C above pre-industrial conditions (taken as the average over the period 1850 to 1900). The chance of at least one year exceeding 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels is 24%, with a very small chance (3%) of the five-year mean exceeding this level.

Just two years ago the expectation of exceeding 1.5 degrees was sometime between 2030 and 2052.

And Elizabeth Weil writes about this past Labor Day.

This was the weekend that climate change, in California, stopped being about the future. The weekend that the idea that COVID-19 was worse than climate change, or fascism was worse than climate change, disappeared.

Fascist Violence

Although Amanda Marcotte sees someone who gets an ego boost watching people fighting because of him, Heather Digby Parton points out the significance of soon-to-be former advisor Kellyanne Conway's statement that "the more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who's best on public safety and law and order".

Conway's little gaffe in which she admitted that the White House and the [Fuckface] campaign believe street violence is good for them illuminates the president's fanning of the flames. He has finally grasped that he cannot unilaterally sending in a bunch of federal cops, as he did in Washington to stage his photo-op last June. Instead, he's not-very-subtly signaling to his gun-toting fans that they are going to have to take action on their own if they hope to scare people into voting for him. Leave the propaganda to him, just ramp up the chaos.

In fact, Agent Orange defended a 17-year-old vigilante who killed two people at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin over yet another police shooting of a black man.

Joe Biden notes that Republicans are trying to scare the country about what would happen under a Biden Administration and yet the violence is happening under their watch.

It’s getting worse, and you know why. Because [Dear Leader] adds fuel to every fire. Because he refuses to even acknowledge that there’s a racial justice problem in America. Because he won’t stand up to any violence.

Republicans look ridiculous describing Biden as a leftist.

I want to make it absolutely clear. Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting — it’s lawlessness. Plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted.

Ask yourself, do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really? I want a safe America, safe from COVID, safe from crime and looting. Safer from racially motivated violence, safe from bad cops. Let me be crystal clear. Safe from four more years of [Fuckface von Clownstick].

Yet Joshua Shanes refers to a number of recent incidents suggesting a rise in white violence around the United States. US Crisis Monitor tracks political violence.

It’s worth examining the direct connection between the violence we witnessed in the past week and the political performances of the Republican National Convention. The alleged Kenosha shooter, it’s important to note, had posted images from a front-row seat at a [Fuckface] rally earlier this year. Meanwhile, two of the stars of the RNC were a Missouri couple also famous solely for waving guns at Black Lives Matter protesters. This represents a growing and open policy by the president and his party to encourage violent supporters and their racist causes.

David Atkins argues the escalating tension is because "white supremacists are invading American cities with the express intent of starting a civil war". We are confronting a dangerous person.

Americans won’t be safe as long as a white supremacist president is leading a movement of bigots to incite a civil war, and attempting to ensure that the majority of Americans with cosmopolitan, egalitarian values remain politically disenfranchised and under the thumb of those who fear and despise them.

Stuart Stevens says the United States is in the most dangerous period since the Civil War and current Republican leaders are moral cowards.

I cannot tell you what being a conservative means right now. Right now, all the Republican Party cares about is power.

David Frum calls Fuckface a secessionist who believes that "since we are two countries, we can have two sets of laws and rules: one for friends, another for enemies".

[He] regards himself as a wartime president of Red America against Blue America. That's how he can describe riot and disorder as happening in 'Biden's America,' even when it happens under his presidency.

Update (September 7):  Cody Fewwick quotes Russian dissident Nadya Tolokonnikova.

Our president has only just recently had the law changed so that he can stay in power until 2036, but his program of repression didn’t start out this blatantly. These things happen in pieces, bit by bit, small acts. And each one may even seem relatively benign at first, perhaps bad, but not fatal. You get angry, maybe you speak out, but you get on with your life. The promise of our democracy was chipped away in pieces, one by one: corrupt cronies appointed, presidential orders issued, actions taken, laws passed, votes rigged. It happens slowly, intermittently; sometimes we couldn’t see how steadily. Autocracy crept in, like the coward it is.

It might not take much more than the threat of violence to achieve the desired effect. Yet, Heather Cox Richardson seems cautiously optimistic that Americans from across the political spectrum are resisting Dear Leader's attack on democracy.

[W]e should definitely worry.

But should we despair? Absolutely not.

Convincing people the game is over is one of the key ways dictators take power. Scholars warn never to consent in advance to what you anticipate an autocrat will demand. If democracy were already gone, there would be no need for [Fuckface] and his people to lie and cheat and try to steal this election.

Update (September 13):  Anthony DiMaggio identifies Dear Leader's poll watching initiative as part of a pattern of "creeping fascism".

The creeping/aspiring fascist framework is advantageous because it looks at fascism as existing on a political spectrum, with nations moving relatively closer to or further away from fascism over time. ... [T]he risk is that American fascism will take a more "friendly" form. As I’ve documented in previous research, the distinctly American-"friendly" version of creeping fascism involves far-right reactionaries like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and [Fuckface] smuggling fascistic, racist, and authoritarian themes into "mainstream" media discourse, while denying the extremism of these positions. ... [F]ascistic discourses and political aspirations continue to be sold through Orwellian propaganda techniques – celebrated through the rhetoric about freedom, liberty, and democratic empowerment.

Nowhere in this initiative does the president or his supporters advertise that "poll watching" is a euphemism for "vigilante white supremacist goons coming together in mass to harass, intimidate, and terrorize people of color in a massive voter suppression effort."

[The] initiative, coupled with his celebrations of vigilante violence against his political enemies, represents a ticking time bomb in its potential to provoke disaster come election day. This administration represents an existential threat to what little remains of American democratic institutions and the rule of law.

And Cody Fenwick wonders why Dear Leader celebrates the death of someone accused of killing one of his supporters rather than calling for justice as normal political leaders would.

[T]he U.S. Marshals killed him. And I will tell you something: That’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution when you have crime like this.

Update (September 16):  Amanda Marcotte sees Dear Leader preparing his followers to do what it takes to keep him in power.

The beauty of "retribution" as an excuse for violence is how flexible it is. Implicit in [his] unhinged comments is a belief that laws against murder are too strict, and that his followers should feel free to transgress them if they conclude that the target of their ire has it coming.

Update (October 13):  FiveThirtyEight has the election at 334 to 163 for Biden right now, but Sonali Kolhatkar argues Dear Leader is too dangerous to be defeated by an election. 

In repeatedly denouncing poll results as "fake" (here and here, and many other places), and lying repeatedly about nonexistent "voter fraud," he is laying the groundwork among his army of supporters to become motivated by a false belief that their president is being denied a legitimate win and charge to defend him on Election Day.

Democrats are doing nothing to stop a rushed Supreme Court confirmation and Kolhatkar states few people in the U.S. believe a power grab can happen here.

Even though [Fuckface] suddenly remembered a day after the debate that he apparently didn't know who the Proud Boys were, the group immediately announced it would be delighted to serve him, and issued a new logo reflecting their new marching orders from the president. If such a scenario were playing out in another nation, the U.S. State Department and American media outlets would be referring to the Proud Boys as an "armed right-wing paramilitary" group that the nation's leader is calling up in order to threaten a coup.

Update (October 26):  Police departments are preparing for violence whether Fuckface wins or loses. But not to worry.  Carl Bernstein says Senate Republicans--those paragons of virtue--are discussing what to do if Dear Leader refuses to leave. And Greg Sargent identifies five scenarios where we might get throught the election with just an all caps tweet storm.