My predictions for the Trial

 The GOP will end up coalescing around Trump by the end of February.

They thought they were free of Trump, but the fact is: for the last four years they have been Trump’s bitch and inevitably, they will remain Trump’s plaything.

He will be acquitted in the Senate trial and the GOP will realize — is already realizing — that they must support him or face obliteration. The threat to form a new party is merely that: a threat, but it is an incredibly powerful threat because he alone on the Republican national scene is capable of pulling a substantial amount of voters away from the party. There is no way they will risk that happening.

Already at the state level, Repubican politicians are lining up in support of Trump and his false narratives. HIs brand of fiery populism will bring out voters. Republicans will come to understand that without Trump’s blessing they face much more of an uphill battle. Of course, the Democrats are unusually energized too, but they are already falling into the kind of smug slackerdom that got Trump elected in the first place, lulled by the wash of in-you-face-ist memes their echo chamber is cheerfully promoting, lulled by the lack of outrageous tweets or 24–7 “news” coverage on Ivanka’s hat, Melania’s latest fashion disaster, or Donald Junior’s toothy vampiress.

Trump may, in the future, realize that running for president is not the smartest move he can make: I mean, he will probably lose again. But four years is a long time and a lot can go wrong in Biden’s USA especially with people like Trump and his slimy minion pulling his puppets’ strings so incredibly effectively; and we are talking about a man who’s famous for his oversized narcissism and famous for his inability to concede anything. So I wouldn’t rule out another run from a 78 year old Trump.

I think a lot will hinge on Huckabee's run for governor in Arkansas. Once that happens, I think she will probably win. People don’t think about Arkansas too much but outside of urban centres like Little Rock (if that), it is about the reddest state in the union: take a look at this highway billboard I took a picture of when I was visiting in 2016:

These guys are not voting Democrat anytime soon. There will be no Georgia-style flip here.

When she wins, the Republicans will jump without hesitation straight into Trump’s pocket.

As for the bloody insurrection and wannabe coup that occurred: do people think that was it? Just a giant dollop of whip cream on the shit sundae Trump spent four years concocting? A bit of punctuation that marked the end?

Wrong.

Remember: a huge amount of Republicans think the election was stolen, and they outnumber the Republicans who were horrified at the violence and deaths that occurred BY A LOT.  ("By a lot" is my new favorite stupid-sounding phase. I have the greatest stupid-sounding phrases in the history of the earth) Get this though, and mark my words: Most of them  don’t care. All that patriotism? Just a sham. They are Americans. And there is only one thing that unites all Americans: absolute fear and hatred of "the others", i.e., other Americans.

If AOC or Pence or Nancy Pelosi had been strung up and murdered, a lot of people from the "fuck your feelings" squad would have applauded; and the rest would have excused it away as unfortunate collateral damage.

In the next four years I think there will be more violent uprisings; maybe not as dramatic as the one that took place on January 6th, because the Capitol is now on high security lockdown for eternity, thanks to these goobers. 

But these are dark times.

And Trump remains at the center of it.

How has the Coronavirus affected your life? Czech Republic March 19

It has wreaked utter and almost complete destruction on my life and my business.

I live in the Czech Republic. I own and run a language school with my wife. Counting the two of us, we were twelve full-time teachers a week ago and about 12 part time teachers.

On Sunday, when Italy went into lockdown, I read the news and realized that times were going to get rough and that we would be following them in about a week. Before that I had either not been too concerned or dismissed the threat as not that serious and perhaps overblown a bit by the media. But now it seemed it was getting serious. I couldn’t remember whole towns being quarantined in Western Europe at any time in my life time — and as for a whole country…it was shocking. The implications of what it would mean for us at work dawned on me throughout the day. I have money saved up in the school’s account to get us through the summer, but otherwise, I depend on regular income from clients throughout the school year to keep it running.On Monday I told Peter, an American who has been teaching for me for six years, and I quote my exact words: “I’m afraid we’re fucked.” Peter said “Maybe, but everyone else is too.”Last Tuesday, I woke up at 1.30. I sat up and thought, "I need to plan for the invevitable recession that’s coming.” I made a ten point plan, thinking, OK, when this hits us next week, I will be ready and perhaps I’ll refine the plan further before then. I underestimated the speed at which, to its credit, the Czech government acted. At 10.00 it was announced that all state schools were closing effective the next day. Most of my lessons are not governed by state school laws but we teach two intensive classes that do fall under state school laws and rules. I drove to school and dismissed the students until further notice. 40 hours gone, but spread out over about 9 teachers, so not that huge a blow.The next day, last Wednesday, one of my biggest firms cancelled lessons for good due to company policy prohibiting employees from seeing anybody outside their families and outside the workplace. I believe by now they've completely shut down, giving everyone a mandatory two week holiday. About 20 hours gone.The next day, Thursday, all meetings of more than 30 people were banned. This did not apply to any of my lessons but I decided to call off all of my public courses indefinitely. I owe several of those students another 8–10 lessons. I will probably have to either teach through the summer or offer vouchers for next year; and I’ll have to teach them if they are not profitable.On Friday morning I met with the landlord of one of the properties I rent, the office space in the town I live in, who is a friend I’ve known for several years and my ex-boss. I told him that I was simply not going to be able to pay rent after this month. He was surprisingly understanding. Now, I realize I need to just end our lease. We lost another big firm in the afternoon. I spoke with one of my teachers and she decided to go back to the UK to be with her family. I told her to leave the next day, she said she’d prefer to leave on Monday; she wanted to enjoy her last few days in the country, which she liked. I told her I didn’t think she would be able to and sure enough they closed the airport on Sunday; but luckily she left on Sunday before that happened. Another teacher asked me if I needed him to “fall on his sword” and go back to the UK. I told him no. An hour later we lost another big firm about 35 hours. I had another meeting with him. By now the news was that the borders were being closed at midnight. He had a car. I told him he needed to go. He left on Sunday, and got out just before the borders really did close.On Monday I told another teacher he had to go and gave him until the end of April. I will give him the biggest bonus I can as severance, but I am worried about him as he has literally no where to go, but I just can’t take care of him; he has a number of other health issues that frankly make him hard to employ; he claims he cannot claim disability from the UK government, though he is clearly disabled; and I’ve kept him only out of pity and a sense of charity for the last three years. Note: he is a good teacher, just misses a lot of work due to illness. Monday was total carnage. We lost almost all the rest of my clients. I’m down to about 30 or 40 hours out of the 350 that I had last week. And I’m spreading those hours among the 7 full time teachers who are left. Things are dire. One of my teachers, a Czech, called in saying she didn’t feel like coming to work and could we cancel her lessons for the week. She wasn’t sick or anything, just didn’t feel like coming in, due to the stress of the situation. I quickly reallocated all her lessons and wrote her an email firing her. I was pissed off that as I worked furiously to preserve hours for the teachers she called in only because she didn’t feel like coming in. Still most of her lessons ended up cancelling indefinitely in less than 24 hours anyway, so no real difference. She’ll be better off taking a pittance on unemployment.I still have several teachers working for me but the hours are spread out among 7 of us that are left.I’ve had meetings with all my teachers telling them to register for unemployment so they won’t have to contribute money on the soon-to-be-overburdened social system and I will pay them for the few hours they are still teaching out of my own pocket. Three of them are not eligible for any money from the State at all as they are foreigners with only temporary residence status. And I told them that they will be struggling, along with me and my wife, even those who can collect with unemployment plus a few teaching hours, for the next SIX MONTHS, with barely enough money to eat, but that I hoped it would get better in September. But I couldn’t even guarantee that. I’ve completely cut my pay and am making a pittance from the state due to the fact that my son is at home and I must stay home with him. My wife and I worked out how much we needed to survive in a typical month with our family of four and will be taking that much from the company. Because management doesn’t generate money for the company, we will have to teach some hours not paying ourselves for management at all, even though we are actually working much more. Which takes more lessons from my teachers.I’m trying to sell online lessons but it’s not going that well (yet, maybe it will get better.)At the same time, when I’m not furiously working managing the destruction of my company, ten hours a day or more, sometimes as many as 12 with a lunch break, I’m totally freaked out and afraid. Absolutely terrified. I have heart disease though I’m only 49, so maybe I’m high risk? I’ve already had a heart attack. Every headache or little cough and my heart skips a beat in fear. I’m also worried about the stress doing my heart in and going to a hospital that’s soon-to-be-overwhelmed with cases. And Even if it doesn’t kill me this does not sound like a pleasant disease to get from all the accounts I’ve read, unless you are one of the lucky ones who are asyptomatic.on Friday, the 20th, the first case has been reported in the town that I live in: it’s a surgeon who apparently picked it up in early March at a ski resort in Austria and she has been back for over ten days now. Now everyone at the hospital has to be tested.This is the most stressful, worst, most dreadful time period I’ve ever experienced in my life professionally; and on top of that I’ve got the fucking Masque of the Red Death floating over me whenever I stop working. I have to wear a home-made surgical mask outside and in town because it’s the law now and there’s a 20000 kc fine for appearing in public without one (about $750). I hate it. I hate the way it makes everyone look. It’s eerie. You can’t see them smile. It’s truly nightmarish. I hate that I’m literally living in a nightmare Hollywood end-of-the-world flick. Well no, I mean, not literally because this is no movie. This is the real fucking thing. This is life and all social habits utterly destroyed in a matter of days.I really think that the economic devastation to come is going to be so utterly profound and shattering that either we are all (and I mean ALL DEVELOPED COUNTRIES) are going to be knocked back into the developing world; or we will go full communist just to keep from total collapse. I can totally see a future of several of poverty and social unrest in the West. There’s a weird weightlessness I feel as if the floor just fell and we are all in freefall. It’s all over for us. Now is the time when China really rises, I reckon. I've talked to all of my major clients: people are not working; they have no supplies to make their goods; their clients are going under; they are not getting orders. The automotive industry is fucked. The entertainment industry is fucked. The commodities industry is fucked. My school is on the front lines of this economic war, but they are all going to follow us down the flaming hole and some of them are big foreign firms (American, Austrian, German, etc) with billions of dollars in turnover. It’s fucking horrible.

And you know what’s worst? Watching it play out on two different timelines on two different continents.

Seeing my American loved ones on social media who just can't take it seriously.

And knowing that their scepticism, their comments like: “oh, it’s just a media hoax”, "it’s overblown" “I’m really not that worried” was exactly what I was saying two weeks ago.

And the deaths haven’t even started coming to anybody I know yet. There are zero deaths in this country as of the time of writing this.

But they are coming. I can feel it.

What are some funny facts about Czech Culture?

Pictured above, the Greatest Czech of all Time, Jara Cimrman

• Czechs drink more beer per capita than any other country on the face of the earth. As the guide books say, it’s cheaper than water.[1]

• Not too long ago, the sexiest female Czech politicians all posed for a calendar. [2]"Women's political influence is growing. Why not show we are women who aren't afraid of being sexy?"

• When I first moved here, during the weather forecast, if the forecast called for was a hot summer’s day the weatherwoman (or weatherman, sometimes) would, while conducting the weather forecast, strip down to a bikini or pair of speedos so viewers would the appropriate mode of dress for the morrow. Sadly, this has become a thing of the past.

• The Czech Republic celebrates the Catholic saints Cyril and Methodius and the Protestant martyr Jan Hus, on two subsequent days in July. Equal time, I guess.

• The hardest-drinking, most macho, toughest, most amply beer-gutted Czech man will spend Christmas Eve watching reenactments of fairy tales on Christmas Eve.

• Czechs buy live carp for Christmas dinner. They let them live in their bathtub for a few days “to clean them out”before hammering their brains out and frying them up. A tradition which is sadly disappearing but still alive.

• On Easter Monday, especially in some villages in Moravia, Czech men visit women in the town and beat them with switches and/or pick them up and throw them in local rivers, lakes and streams — or failing that, in the shower. The men are then rewarded for their strenuous efforts with colored eggs, sweets and slivovice.

• When the Soviet Union invaded in 1968, Czechs in Moravia, unable to resist in any more significant way, changed road signs to Prague, misdirecting the Soviet army; the Soviet tanks travelled for quite a ways before they realized that they were completely lost.

• Czechs love a good pig-slaughter. People get together, slay a pig, then spend the day converting every single molecule of it into food, getting rip-roaring drunk in the process.

• When asked to vote for “The Greatest Czech of all Time”, Czechs overwhelmingly voted for Jára Cimrman — a fictional character. When the TV program conducting the poll disqualified Cimrman on the grounds that he did not, you know, actually exist, an online petition was launched to keep Cimrman eligible for the honor of “Greatest Czech."

• AThe Czech prime minister is a former FSB (something like the old Czechoslovak KGB) agent….and he’s from Slovakia…allied with the Communists. Not exactly funny but plenty absurd, if you think about it.

• The leader of the local far-right nationalist party is half-Japanese.

Footnotes

[1] List of countries by beer consumption per capita - Wikipedia

[2] Female Czech MPs pose for calendar 

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I Am Part of the Resistance...yuk,yuk,yuk

It captured my attention, that letter to the New York Times, in which a anonymous cabinet member told us that they were part of the resistance.

When I first read the letter, the very juiciness of it all got me thinking like very few Op-Ed pieces ever have.

Because it’s not an Op-Ed piece. It is a powerful political lightning bolt that has been thrown, using the New York Times as the rod and conduit that conveys it’s nasty message far and wide.

It is action, not opinion. An explosion.

Yesterday, after the gossipy glee with which I read the letter dissipated, I started worrying about the implications of what is going on.

This is a Constitutional Crisis, screamed the Facebook headlines ! The cowardly letter writer should show himself and remove Trumpo from office!

These are scary times, I told myself. Who knew how Trump would react? Would he fire everyone and declare nuclear war (possibly literally) against his enemies?
Pilot the Good Ship Whitehouse completely on his own, blazing its fiery trail of destruction and mayhem across the Face of the Earth? Who can Trump trust now?

There’s something so…post-modern about the letter.

Something that makes me doubt it’s authenticity. Not the content of it…but the timing of it…the message of it.

Let’s look at the message. Several points were made: here is what I took out of it:

1. Yes, Trump is an unstable buffoon stumbling from crisis to crisis, creating crises every time he flaps his Twitter-jaws.
1. We knew that already. We’ve had TWO books, including one just last week telling us this, as if it were not perfectly obvious anyway.
2. But Trump has an agenda that pleases Republicans, so we’re keeping him in power.
1. This is also kind of obvious….but who does it reassure? Enemies of Trump in general? Democrats? Hell no! It reassures Republicans who are lukewarm or hostile to Trump.
3. There is a Deep State, but we prefer the term Stable state.
1. Ah, so Putin and Trump were right! There is a Deep State preventing Trump from doing what he really wants to do.
1. And this fires up the Trump base. The Deep State bastards must be 
1. stopped!!!! The only way to help Trump is to get out and vote in November!
2. Not only that, but it makes even civic-minded, somewhat moderate Democrats, the ones who really believe in the USA and the principles it was founded on, start talking about how unConstitutional the picture this letter, which signifies a coup d’etat, really paints.
   
   It deflates them. Does it matter who they vote for? Is hatred of Trump really getting them to support a coup of the country? Where do we go from here?
   
   Isn’t it easier to just, you know, fall back into the sweet bliss of apathy and unwokedness that characterized the last, oh, 40 years of politics in America than deal with all this stress?
2. Don’t worry, the adults are in charge.
1. Another message to non-batshit Republicans. ‘Sall good, y’all. The Agenda is being advanced, after all: and that’s all that matters, eh? We know what you all want. We’ll keep him from nuking Kim and Assad.
In the wake of the message it’s been put forward that Pence wrote the letter. Because of a few words that he apparently uses: lodestar. Especially.
Well, that’s pretty damn convenient. Because Pence is the one mothafucka in the White House who Trump can’t fire.
Who does the letter help? It helps Trump. No one else.
I’m not saying Trump wrote the letter: it has obviously been written by someone a little more literate than our Twitter-star. But I’m not convinced, for all his outrage and his screams of TREASON?????, that he wasn’t aware of it from the get-go. But he doesn’t have to be for it to do it’s nefarious work on the nerves of the American people.
It’s got the quality that I expect only from the best post-modern Russian propaganda:it makes me doubt.
It makes me doubt reality.
It makes me doubt popular narratives.
It makes me doubt the integrity of the government.
It makes me doubt myself for feeling relieved that a non-democratic coup d’etat has been pulled off.
It gets me running around in circles: it is legit? Is it a hoax? Who wrote it? How will it affect Trump? Will he do something crazy now? Should I start stockpiling canned food? Should I be grateful that the Deep State is in charge? Does Democracy really amount to a hill of beans anyway? At least the Cabinet is protecting us from Trump, right?
Somewhere someone is laughing his ass off over this and it ain’t me. But I do admire the showmanship.
I’m calling this what I think it is: one more episode in the Wretched Reality Show that Trump has made of the Presidency.
It scares the shit out of me

How do Czech people feel about the Zeman's victory in the presidential election?

Most of the Czech people I know are pretty unhappy about it, but whie I live in a rural area (Zeman has more support in rural areas), I live in a bubble of educated, usually bi-lingual or tri-lingual, white-collar folks — the type of folks who don’t like Zeman.

The ones who support him are actually happy, of course.

About the most positive thing to take from it (for those of us who are unhappy) is that the polls had Zeman winning by a wider margin. The margin was less than two percent, and when the votes of voters overseas are counted, it may be less than one percent.

The truth is, Drahoš was not a particularly strong candidate. Personally, I think that of all the candidates, Fišer came off best, but he didn’t make it to the second round.

Watching the “debate” on TV Nova (I use quotation marks because it seemed like more of a hockey match than a debate, complete with chanting crowds and cheering, jeering spectators) earlier this week was enough to tell me that Zeman was probably going to win. He’s an ugly, sickly old man, but he has an incredibly strong on-screen presence, with a dark, cynical sense of humor; and, though his presence is aprofoundly negative presence, it is still stronger than Drahouš, who, sadly, comes off like a priss, even though I don’t think he really is.

The old TV image game.

---

Going forward, I think this election has grave implications for the future: Zeman seems likely to confirm food-and-media billionaire Babiš’ hold on the country.

While at the moment Babiš is making a lot of pro-EU noises, I think that will change when the EU starts putting pressure on him with regards to his corruption scandals, which involved EU funds.

He will get his legal immunity in the country , but the whole country will pay for the illegality of his dealings. Unfortunately, he owns some of the most popular and mainstream media the Czech Republic has, which means the great majority of people will read and accept his skewed, spun version of the truth.

The Czech Republic, which has always been Euro-sceptic, maybe as much as the UK if not more, seems set to really be a thorn in its side and I can only see the relationship getting worse. This is a tragedy in my honest opinion, even though Zeman, as president does not have much power. It bodes badly for the future in Europe.

It all comes down to anti-immigrant sentiments, something I feel very strongly about as an immigrant myself and as someone who grew up among immigrants and counts some of them as his greatest friends. To be honest, this immigrant issue is tearing the EU apart and while everyone in Western Europe can deny that this is happening, or dismiss it as the unimportant opinion of some marginilized racists, it is that very attitude which helps fuel it further.

There is really only one world figure of respectability who should be rubbing his hands with glee with this outcome in my opinion and that is Putin, but the Chinese seemed to want it, too, as last week it emerged that the Chinese had donated heavily to some NGO’s that supported Zeman’s campaign.

What movies are you watching this Holiday season?

Our favorites are

• It’s a Wonderful Life. The actually incredibly dark (upon reflection) family classic about George Bailey, a man driven to literal insanity by an inhumane and crushing capitalistic system. He sees visions of the world as it really is, minus the warm sentimental delusion he has lived his life under: a cold hard, heartless world of juke joints, bitter alcoholics and washed up probably drug-addicted hookers; of homeless ever-drunken child-killers brutally preyed upon by mean-spirited blue-collar thugs. 
• 
  
• Finally, Bailey decides (SPOILER ALERT) to take advantage of his neighbors’ sentimentality by taking all of their money, thus taking his rightful place at the top of the Bedford Falls semi-feudal foodchain.
  
   One of the darkest and greatest movies every made. Seriously.

• Home Alone 2: A comic romp in which an psychopathic youngster uses his formidable imagination to attempt to murder two down-on-their-luck simpletons just trying to get by in the dog-eat-dog world of early nineties Manhattan. Featuring everyone’s favorite president, Donald Trump and tragic Hollywood icon McCauley Culkin.
  
  My son laughs and laughs and laughs at this, which brings the Christmas spirit to me.

• The Polar Express: A weird-looking fantasy about a cynical kid who has a dream that allows him to buy into a variety of Christmas myths; it ends with his admission that he hears sounds that no one else hears. He literally spends the rest of his life pathetically believing in Santa Claus.
  
  Featuring a Tom Waits-esque Nighthawks in the Diner snow-ghost and a super creepy talking puppet. Also featuring a character called Know-it-all, who sounds like someone attempting to sound Jewish, but who apparently is not. Tom Hanks plays literally everybody in the film except the little black girl.

Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer: An stop-motion animated fantasy about a highly unusual reindeer who learns a valuable lesson: freakishness is tolerable, as long as you can prove you can provide a useful contribution to society. Or as long as the fantastically capricious, narrow-minded red-suited grump who rules your kingdom with an iron fist decrees you are. "Then all the reindeer loved him..."

Otherwise, you are free to go out in the cold wilderness to either freeze to death or get devoured by a terrifying roaring snow-monster. Features really scary “talking toys” and a prospector from the Yukon territory so stupid that he looks for gold on drifting icebergs.

Is the Czech election result a victory for Russia?

Both the New York Times and the BBCOnline seem to sort of be saying it is, lumping it in with recent victories of far-right parties in Austria, Hungary and Poland. 

They are wrong though and plainly do not have a real handle on Czech politics. . While ANO is not a traditionally "left-wing" party, they are not really a right-wing party either. 

Ondrej Babiš,  the Slovak-born ex-STB agent who heads the ANO party and is the probable new prime minster,  for all the MANY things I dislike about him, is not a Putin-puppet, as far as I can see, nor were most of the rest of the parties that got significant votes.

Nor is he even particularly  anti-EU, which a Putin-supported leader would be. He is  anti-Euro (like most people in this country — including myself). 

He may stand for softer sanctions against Russia but that is not necessarily an unpopular stance and doesn’t mean that he is working for Russia.

He is just out for himself, first and foremost as far as I can see.

There are accusations, which I totally believe, that the populist far-right leader Tomio Okamura is supported by Putin, and certainly he is of the same ilk as other far-right neo-nationalist politicians in, for example, Hungary.

Okamura’s party did get a significant showing (for this election, anyway — roughly ten percent of votes, technically fourth place, but there is not much difference between second, third and fourth place in this election) but it is far from clear that he will be part of a ruling coalition.

And even if Freedom and Democracy Party(Okamura’s Party) does become a coalition partner, it is not at all clear that that would be good for Russia in the long run anyway, as junior partners in coalitions tend to get crucified by the major coalition partners in this country.

Now if you ask me, I think Babiš is likely to be unpopular in Brussels in the coming years, and Putin may try to exploit this to his own ends, (which are mainly the weakening of the EU and NATO and a new Yalta-style agreement of non-interference in Eastern Europe, especially Ukraine, Georgia, etc) but this is not the same as the plainly Putin controlled parties in other parts of Central Europe.