Darkness falls as #NotMyPresident Trump and Nazi Co-president Musk begin their reign

"Hello, darkness my old friend..."

Paul Simon's famous lyrics -- covered here by (appropriately) Disturbed -- have never been more pertinent than they are now.

As of today, January 20, 2025, the coup is complete, as The Racket's Jonathan Katz put it. #NeverWasMy President Donald John Trump, apparently without a hint of irony, took the oath of office. It is of course an oath that he has no intention of keeping, which might explain why, contrary to the cartoon in the graphic above, and in contrast to his former coronation, he didn't actually place his tiny paw on the pair of Bibles offered by his Hamburglar-hatted helpmeet.

Cantaloupe Caligula is not by any stretch of the imagination a godly man, notwithstanding the cynical branding efforts by some of his most power-hungry allies (not to mention his own laughable branding efforts). But it's possible that he harbors sufficient religious superstition to fear that the holy books might burst into flame if he came in contact with them while uttering a bald-faced lie. Or perhaps in a rare moment of public candor he was simply expressing his genuine disdain for God's Word. Or maybe he just resented the fact that his own grift bible wasn't the prop of choice.

In any case, contrary to the desperate hopes and speculations of some, there's no Constitutional requirement that a president put his hand on a Bible or Bibles during the swearing-in ceremony. Which on the one hand (so to speak) is good, because it confirms the essentially secular intent of the founders. But on the other hand, it also means that Trump has now been legitimately empowered to dismantle and reassemble the republic according to his and his broligarchic allies' wishes.

* * * * *

The coup might be complete, but the guest list at today's momentous ceremony was apparently incomplete, most likely to the deep disappointment of the newly crowned Lord of All. From the Katz piece (here's that link again):

Today, Donald Trump took the oath of office inside the Capitol his supporters ransacked four years ago, backed by every living former president and the gazillionaire CEOs of every major U.S. tech platform. But one powerful ally who’d really liked to have been there was not in the crowd. Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil, was stuck at home, under arrest and indictment for a raft of alleged offenses, including money laundering and trying to instigate a January 6-style coup attempt of his own¹ . The Brazilian Supreme Court denied a plea to reinstate Bolsonaro’s passport; his wife was expected to attend instead.

Meanwhile, in South Korea, another Trumpy president—Yoon Suk Yeol² —is also in custody and facing trial for his declaration of martial law in what appeared to be yet another failed self-coup. Yoon was, unlike Bolsonaro but like Trump, the sitting president at the time of his attempt. In fact, he is still the president, though his powers have been suspended and he is facing possible removal. In South Korea, trying to overthrow democracy in plain sight is considered a grave enough threat to justify throwing a sitting president in jail. How quaint.

Katz's point, with which I must reluctantly agree, was that President Biden and allies could have done so much more than they did to possibly prevent today's lamentable coronation.

...the simple fact is this: Other countries have found ways to hold their anti-democratic presidents accountable and prevent them from taking office again. America did not.

And because America did not, we have not only Trump in power but also much greater evils, most notably, Co-President Musk, who shamelessly and repeatedly performed a Nazi salute during an afternoon rally today, while thanking Trump supporters for saving civilization. (That tracks; Musk has expressed his support for Germany's far-right (neo-Nazi-adjacent) AFD party.)

And tomorrow the wholesale destruction of America begins in earnest. Actually it has already begun, with a flurry of executive orders intended to further enrich the broligarchs, ruin the environment, and give the shaft to ordinary Americans and marginalized groups such as immigrants and LGBTQ communities. Oh, yes, and Trump is freeing thousands of the J6 convicts who stormed the Capitol in 2021 in an attempt to overturn the government. Nice.

I would say that it's going to be a long four years, but my fear is that we're in for many more years of hell than that.

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made...
~ Paul Simon, "The Sound of Silence"

We are all stuck with that garish god, including, unfortunately, the many millions who always saw him for what he truly is and always voted accordingly. But even as grim as things look now, I refuse to give up hope. And it is my hope that you feel the same.

Fifteen years after Sedona "sweat lodge" deaths, McSpirituality guru and Trumpanzee James Arthur Ray is still hustling and lying (and his victims are still dead)

 

Today, October 8, 2024, is the 15th anniversary of the day that sociopathic New-Wage/McSpirituality guru/cult leader James Arthur Ray killed two of his followers: Kirby Brown and James Shore, and set in motion the death, nine days later, of a third follower, Liz Neuman.

The instrument of their deaths was a fake and utterly reckless "sweat lodge" ceremony in Sedona, Arizona. Dozens of other participants were also injured and emotionally traumatized. The phony sweat lodge had been the "final challenge" at Ray's pricey "Spiritual Warrior" workshop, and unfortunately for three good people, it really was final.

Ray, who had shot to fame following his appearance in the simplistic and crassly materialistic New-Wage moviemercial The Secret, was convicted of negligent homicide for the three deaths in Sedona -- and consequently served less than two years in an Arizona state prison -- but he was never criminally charged in the death of yet another follower, Colleen Conaway, at a San Diego Ray event a couple of months before Sedona.

For Ray, the daze of the four- and five-figure live events such as Spiritual Warrior would seem to be over, and that's a good thing. His homicide creds are right there at the top of the page on Google search results along with the promotional stuff, and although he has been struggling mightily to make a comeback since his release from prison in July of 2013, framing the whole Sedona thing as a terrible trial and tribulation for him, his audience -- both live and online -- has shriveled like the balls of a long-time steroid user.

Though his base of followers remains as shrunken as his nads, Ray keeps on keeping on with his various shticks, because it's all he knows how to do. These days he spends a lot of time on Xitter alternating between spouting Bible verses like the man-o-God he wants you to think he is, and stumping for the American fascist movement popularly known as MAGA, kissing up shamelessly to the Mango Mussolini.

Naturally, much of Ray's MAGAt efforts center around demonizing the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, an angle I wrote about here back in August. He hasn't let up on his attacks on VP Harris, continually reposting highly edited videos and anti-Kamala memes that paint her as the destroyer of American democracy and an evil manipulator. If you know anything about Ray it should be clear that there's a lot of projection in those tweets and re-tweets, and a mercenary angle as well. As I wrote on my August post, in the context of Ray tweeting that Harris is evil and an abuser of power:

Well, I must say that Ray is a fine one to talk about "evil." Obviously he's projecting again. In any case it should come as no surprise that he is an ardent Trump supporter who is perfectly willing to paint Madame Vice President as an evil, dangerous, power-crazed demon, while totally overlooking Mango Mussolini's lies, felonies, authoritarian obsessions, and total lack of moral compass.

Ray, like his serial-scammer colleague Kevin Trudeau, is just another sorry illustration of the marriage-made-in-hell between Scamworld and reich-wing politix. Grifters are attracted to reich-wing/republican philosophies and policies, and I've been saying for years that this is due in large part to the reich's traditional disdain for consumer protection laws and regulations, the very tools that, apart from education, are necessary to protect the rest of us from the crooks.

Even as he has no room to talk about evil, Ray has zero standing in any discussion about the abuse of power. For years he abused his power over his followers, resulting in numerous injuries and at least four deaths of said followers.

I will repeat what I wrote on last year's Death Lodge anniversary post: as long as he continues to try to claw his way back to the top of an industry that has more than its share of sociopaths and predators, I feel duty-bound to post periodic reminders of why you should not listen to James Arthur Ray. In addition to being a MAGA social media warrior, he is still playing his dual role of faux-hero and martyr -- and most of all, still refusing to take any blame for the deaths and injuries of his faithful followers. And the people he killed are still dead.

Never forget.

Related on this Whirled

• October 2010: Musings on a tragedy and its meanings.
  I published this on the one-year anniversary of the infamous "sweat lodge," framing my musings around a review of Connie Joy's Tragedy in Sedona: My Life in James Arthur Ray's Inner Circle. That's another one you need to read.
• April 2019: From drawn-and-quartered martyr to "Crisis Coach": James Arthur Ray's newest desperate gimmick
  This is just one of numerous posts about Ray's arrogant yet pathetic attempts to reestablish himself as a selfish-help superstar. In this one we focus on Ray's efforts to brand himself as a "Crisis Coach."
• August 2020: Whiny babies of Scamworld
  Of the three "whiny babies" I wrote about in this post, James Arthur Ray is the worst, because even after being directly responsible for the deaths of four people at his events, and directly responsible for the physical and emotional injuries of countless others, he continues to paint himself as the real victim.
• October 2022: 13 years after James Arthur Ray's deadly sweat lodge, cults are still a danger
  This post, published last year on the Death Lodge anniversary, was a tale of two Virginias, one despicable one (that would be the infamous Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, insurrectionist extraordinaire, who was once a member of a selfish-help cult), and one admirable one: Virginia Brown, mother of one of James Arthur Ray's death lodge victims, Kirby Brown. One of the ways that Kirby Brown's family chose was to found a nonprofit organization, SEEK Safely to help educate the public, hold self-help leaders accountable, and hopefully avoid more deaths and injuries at the hands of reckless gurus. Even if you don't read my post, I urge you to visit the SEEK Safely site, which is continually expanding. You will find a wealth of useful information, as well as opportunities to get involved if you're so inclined.*
  October 2023: Fourteen years after Sedona "sweat lodge" deaths, James Arthur Ray, now a full-on reich-wing conspiranoid, is still hustling and whining (and his victims are still dead)
  Published on last year's Death Lodge anniversary, this is the first post where I discussed at length Ray's new-ish alliance with reich-wing conspiranoids and conspicuous contrarians.

* Currently on the SEEK Safely site:
Join us for SEEK Week, October 7-11. Streaming Live each night at 8pm ET on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Before you leave...
This has been, through what is no apparent fault of her own (excluding, perhaps karmic matters that are quite beyond her ability to comprehend), a nightmare of a year for the ruler of this Whirled. Money, alas, cannot make the nightmare go away, but it can make it easier to bear. Now more than ever, donations are urgently needed and profoundly appreciated. Here are some ways to do it:

• New: Venmo -- username @Connie-Schmidt-42. Here is a direct link to the Venmo page.
  New: PayPal -- Here is a direct link to Cosmic Connie's PayPal page.
  Old but still good: You can click on the "Donate" icon that currently appears on the right-hand side of every page of this blog on the Web version. There's also a donation link at the end of many of my older blog posts. In the case of both the icon and the links on the older posts, this is also a PayPal link, but it references the email account of Cosmic Connie's husband, RevRon -- which is cool, because it all ultimately goes to the same place.

NOTE: If you are donating by PayPal, please specify that your contribution is a gift, which it is (as opposed to a conventional purchase, for which PayPal deducts a percentage for their fee).

Whether you can donate or not, thank you for visiting this Whirled.

Cheeto Jeezus invites American women to accept Him as their personal savior

 

In an all-caps midnight rant on his failing social media platform, Truth [sic] Social, #NeverWasMyPresident DonOld John Trump promised a MAGAnificent paradise to the women of America should he be reinstalled in the Oval Office:

WOMEN ARE POORER THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE LESS HEALTHY THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE LESS SAFE ON THE STREETS THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, ARE MORE DEPRESSED AND UNHAPPY THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO, AND ARE LESS OPTIMISTIC AND CONFIDENT IN THE FUTURE THAN THEY WERE FOUR YEARS AGO! I WILL FIX ALL OF THAT, AND FAST, AND AT LONG LAST THIS NATIONAL NIGHTMARE WILL BE OVER. WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE! YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION, BECAUSE IT IS NOW WHERE IT ALWAYS HAD TO BE, WITH THE STATES, AND A VOTE OF THE PEOPLE -- AND WITH POWERFUL EXCEPTIONS, LIKE THOSE THAT RONALD REAGAN INSISTED ON, FOR RAPE, INCEST, AND THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER -- BUT NOT ALLOWING FOR DEMOCRAT DEMANDED LATE TERM ABORTION IN THE 7TH, 8TH, OR 9TH MONTH, OR EVEN EXECUTION OF A BABY AFTER BIRTH. I WILL PROTECT WOMEN AT A LEVEL NEVER SEEN BEFORE. THEY WILL FINALLY BE HEALTHY, HOPEFUL, SAFE, AND SECURE. THEIR LIVES WILL BE HAPPY, BEAUTIFUL, AND GREAT AGAIN!

And all that we gals have to do to gain this paradise is to accept DonOld as our personal savior and vote for him in November.

I'll pass, thank you. I'm voting for Kamala and Tim.

Trump repeated his now-infamous Untruth Antisocial message nearly verbatim at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina on Saturday afternoon, September 21, 2024. Apparently it's going to become part of his campaign shtick now. Good luck with that, you mango misogynist. Your support among women is sagging even more than your... wherevers.

Its not just the lies; it's the creepiness
Put aside for a moment the blatant and oft-repeated lies in DonOld's message about Democrats "demanding" late term abortions and infanticide. Those claims are so ridiculous that only the truly stupid truly believe them. (But remember, the truly stupid can and do vote too, so we have to outvote them.)

Let's visit instead the outrageous whopper that abortion is "now where it always had to be -- with the states, and a vote of the people -- and with powerful exceptions...for rape, incest, and the life of the mother..." There are so many lies packed into that one sentence that it's going to take far more than one sentence to unpack them.

1. "Vote of the people?" If you're talking about states with abortion bans or draconian restrictions, that's bullshit. For example, the states that had "trigger laws" to activate immediate abortion bans upon the overturning of Roe didn't hold referendums. There was no "vote of the people." The rethuglican legislatures of the states in question passed those laws and bans without input from voters. On the other hand, in the time since Roe was overturned there have been cases where "the people" have had a say when they were allowed to do so -- and even in red states they have voted for codification of reproductive freedom. Since the demise of Roe, the voters in several states have handed sweeping victories to abortion-rights supporters. And abortion rights will be on the state ballots in 10 states this November.
   
   In states like my home state of Texas, however, the abortion issue never seems to get on the ballots, so "the people" here really don't have a say. (It should come as no surprise that Texas was one of those "trigger law" states.) The truth is that the majority of voters in every state, red or blue, support abortion rights that go beyond those "powerful exceptions" Trump mentioned (see next item) -- but the rethuglican-dominated political "leaders" stubbornly ignore this fact even though it has cost them politically.
   
   Furthermore, the Christofascists who surround and support Trump, most notably the architects of the infamous Project 2025, are salivating over the prospect of new federal restrictions on abortion and other reproductive rights, in effect creating a national abortion ban (and possibly a national contraceptive ban). And Trump, who has made lame efforts to distance himself from Project 2025, has not actually said he would veto such bans were they to come across his desk. So much for "leaving it to the states!"
   
   
2. "Powerful exceptions?" That's rich. In several red states -- such as Texas -- rape and incest exceptions to the abortion bans are not allowed. If you want the sordid details, here is an interactive map from the Guttmacher Institute that shows the abortion policies of every state in the union. Appropriately enough, the states with the greatest restrictions are color-coded a deep orange.
   
   Moreover, "the life of the mother" is clearly a secondary or even tertiary consideration in states such as Texas, where the primary consideration is whether the medical care provider and/or the medical facility could be criminally prosecuted for providing desperately needed care for a woman in crisis, even if she's bleeding out. Consider the story of Ryan Hamilton and his wife, to name just one horrifying example. Also consider the fact that pregnancy-related deaths rose by a whopping 56% in Texas after the state's 2021 abortion ban (which predated the overturning of Roe). Texas' maternal mortality rate far outstripped the 11% nationwide average in the same time period. Pro-life, my ass.
   
   
3. A related lie re Roe that Trump has spewed repeatedly on social media and during public appearances is that "everyone" always wanted Roe to be overturned. He made the mistake of repeating that utter codswallop during the September 10, 2024 presidential debate, and Madam Vice President (who, contrary to Trump's later boasts, absolutely wiped the floor with him that evening) addressed the lie in no uncertain terms with some true-to-life examples of people who definitely did NOT want Roe to go away. And earlier this year (April 2024), Factcheck.org addressed Trump's absurdly false claim that "all legal scholars, on both sides, wanted and in fact demanded [that Roe v. Wade] be ended."

The lies are bad enough, but Trump's extravagant all-caps pledge goes far beyond mere lies (which, after all, we're accustomed to from him): his promise to "protect women at a level never seen before" is downright creepy, given his long and sordid history with, and his general contempt for, females. A September 22, 2024 piece on the Mother Jones site said it very well:

All this is a bit rich coming from a man who was found liable for sexual assault; caught on tape bragging about committing sexual assault; found guilty of 34 felony counts for falsifying business records to hide that he paid off a porn star with whom he allegedly had sex while his wife, Melania, was tending to their four-month-old son; and who has a known history of making misogynistic attacks on women he finds threatening. And as for Trump’s claim that women will “no longer be thinking about abortion” if he’s reelected? That’s unlikely, given that he could very well enact a federal abortion ban, and given that abortion bans nationwide have unleashed a health care apocalypse and put vulnerable women in even greater danger.

Niece Mary Trump had a more concise response: "So says the rapist."

Yeah, creepy.

Matter of fact, I haven't been so creeped out since one of this little blog's most disgusting, sociopathic, (allegedly) predatory subjects, fake-doc/cancer quack/fascist/conspiranoid peddler Leonard Coldwell, announced back in 2013, via his former partner Peter Wink, that he and Wink were launching a personal "coaching" program to help women get out of physically or mentally abusive relationships. Talk about the spider and the fly... Yeeesh! Well, Trump's pledge to the women of America is, on a much larger and more dangerous scale, also a spider-and-fly situation. Or maybe an Independence Day alien-welcoming-party situation.

DonOld's pledge to American womanhood is also straight out of Margaret Atwood's famous dystopian novel, The Handmaid's Tale. In the fictional Gilead, they were all about "protecting" women, who were no longer allowed any agency whatsoever, and were even forbidden from reading.

If DonOld's powerful infrastructure of Christofascist allies have their way, we'll have worse than Gilead in these here United States. We'll have a Fourth Reich, bent on molding its own version of the New Woman.

As for Trump's claims that women are poorer and sicker and less safe and altogether more depressed and unhappy than they were under his reign of glory, here's a big reality check.

In MAGA land, bitches and ballots are a deadly mix
The real truth is that neither DonOld Trump, nor rethuglican "leaders" in general, nor for that matter the MAGA base of whiny white males, want women to have much or any agency at all. Certainly it seems that in light of the swelling tide of pissed-off women (many of whom Mango Man and the Whiny Whites have declared to be out-and-out bitches -- and worse), they don't want women voting -- even if they don't come right out and say so. After all, most women tend to vote Democratic.

One of many current rethuglican strategies to suppress the female vote (and the votes of other groups more likely to vote Democratic) is the SAVE Act. A September 19 piece on the New Republic site by journalist and talk show host Thom Hartmann outlines the ways in which this proposed bill targets women. The alleged purpose of the SAVE Act is to prevent "illegals" from voting, but only fools are fooled by that.

...House Speaker Mike Johnson and former President Donald Trump were pushing the Safeguard American Eligibility, or SAVE, Act, demanding it be part of must-pass legislation to fund the federal government for another year (the funding runs out at the end of this month, and then the shutdown begins).

Trump, on his failing social media site, ranted Tuesday that Republicans must get “every ounce” of the SAVE Act passed or shut down the government “in any way, shape, or form.” He said it was necessary because Democrats are “registering Illegal Voters by the TENS OF THOUSANDS, as we speak,” adding the vicious lie that “they will be voting in the 2024 Presidential Election.”

Hartmann explains why mass voting by illegal migrants is not and never has been a thing in the United States, and then zeroes in on the reasons that so many female US citizens would be harmed by the SAVE Act.

The SAVE Act is a proposed federal law, so, first off, it would put a future president (say, Trump) in charge of enforcing it, taking that power away from the states. Millions of voter registrations in any states the president decides are problematic could be removed until those voters “cure” their registrations, and state authorities would have no say in it.

And what will the law require citizens who want to vote do? Lacking a passport or other proof of citizenship with their married names, they must produce both a birth certificate (with the seal of the state where it was issued; no copies allowed) and a current form of identification—both with the exact same name on them. That could instantly disqualify about 90 percent of all married women without passports or other proof that matches their birth certificates or proof of a legal name change.

For women in that situation, they can still register to vote if they can prove that they went to court to change their name when they got married, but most women just start using their new married name without ever going through all those formalities (although a few states recognize marriage as a legal name change).

Hartmann goes on to cite a a 2014 report, issued by the National Organization for Women (NOW), that explains the ways in which strict voter ID laws, which are almost exclusively sponsored and supported by republicans, result in voter suppression of several groups, including women. Though more than ten years old, the NOW report is still pertinent today.

Voter ID laws have a disproportionately negative effect on women. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, one third of all women have citizenship documents that do not identically match their current names primarily because of name changes at marriage.  Roughly 90 percent of women who marry adopt their husband’s last name.  That means that roughly 90 percent of married female voters have a different name on their ID than the one on their birth certificate.  An estimated 34 percent of women could be turned away from the polls unless they have precisely the right documents...

...A related problem is that the U.S. Patriot Act requires women’s names on certain official government documents to be the same.  Thanks to the Department of Homeland Security and the ever-tightening regulations on identification requirements, today a woman with a hyphenated name on one form of ID and just a maiden name on another is grounds for suspicion.  Patriot Act guidelines specifically require identical forms of identification, which for many women, imposes a significant challenge.

I can't emphasize strongly enough how deeply hypocritical this is, considering the facxt that traditionally, rethuglicans are all for "small government" and "letting the states decide." As I've noted previously on this blog, and as I indicated above regarding reproductive rights, they're for small government and states' rights, unless massive government overreach serves their authoritarian, Christofascist agendas.

I know I'm over-stating the obvious again, as I so often do on this Whirled, but... DonOld Trump does not have anyone's best interests at heart except his own and those of his closest allies. He certainly does not have the best interests of women at heart, despite the fact that he still has a devoted following of females, from the scary-looking blond blowfish-mouthed hangers-on who pose with him at Mar-a-Lago to the overstuffed, proudly ignorant Trump-merch-clad loudmouths at his rallies. Cheeto Jeezus isn't going to save them, and he's not going to save you and me, and he's not going to save the country, and he is a serious danger to democracy not only in the United States but all over the globe.

So please, please, please, if you're eligible to vote in the November election, register if you haven't already, and Vote Blue from the top on down the ballot.

Before you leave...
This has been, through what is no apparent fault of her own (excluding, perhaps karmic matters that are quite beyond her ability to comprehend), a nightmare of a year for the ruler of this Whirled. Money, alas, cannot make the nightmare go away, but it can make it easier to bear. Now more than ever, donations are urgently needed and profoundly appreciated. Here are some ways to do it:

• New: Venmo -- username @Connie-Schmidt-42. Here is a direct link to the Venmo page.
  New: PayPal -- Here is a direct link to Cosmic Connie's PayPal page.
  Old but still good: You can click on the "Donate" icon that currently appears on the right-hand side of every page of this blog on the Web version. There's also a donation link at the end of many of my older blog posts. In the case of both the icon and the links on the older posts, this is also a PayPal link, but it references the email account of Cosmic Connie's husband, RevRon -- which is cool, because it all ultimately goes to the same place.

NOTE: If you are donating by PayPal, please specify that your contribution is a gift, which it is (as opposed to a conventional purchase, for which PayPal deducts a percentage for their fee).

Whether you can donate or not, thank you for visiting this Whirled.