Today is Monday, January 31, 2022. Tomorrow will be the first of February, our shortest month. Today the host of the Morning Joe MSNBC program, Joe Scarborough, condemned the remarks made by the former president on Saturday during his fascistic rally in Texas. Of course, Scarborough is not the only prominent figure lashing out at the horrible rhetoric espoused by Il Trumpino during his superspreader event – which I’m labeling it this way because I failed to see people wearing masks in the stadium where the demagogue was talking – some repugnicans have actually pushed back at the incendiary statements made by the authoritarian Dumpf. Scarborough said today there was no doubt that Dumpf was an authoritarian.

Scarborough continued, “You have seen the rise of authoritarianism, and it is certainly what we all understand Donald Trump has been wanting to do for quite some time.” He added, “If you can’t win an election, steal an election, overturn an election – that’s what he was saying, talking about Mike Pence. Yeah, he actually said some things – we haven’t been playing his rallies of late, but he actually said some things that were so inflammatory that you had Republicans coming out and actually criticizing him and saying, ‘Hey, no, no, let’s take a step back, we didn’t want to overturn the election, we just talking about having some of the votes recounted.'”

The morning MSNBC host called Dumpf’s rhetoric reflective of fascism as he incites violence to overturn government institutions. As a reflection of Dumpf’s toxic influence on his death cult party, Scarborough referred to a Michigan Senate candidate telling his audience to bring guns to polling places. Here we have a candidate for political office urging his supporters to carry firearms to win an election at any cost. Dumpf’s implicit message, as Scarborough contends, is that if we can’t win at the ballot box, we are going to win by killing people.

One of those critics of the latest inflammatory fusillades thrown by the ex-dictator is former Representative Charlie Dent (R-PA), who said that Dumpf will be a “disaster” for the Republican Party in the 2022 and 2024 elections during a Monday appearance on CNN.

The former congressman, who was elected to Congress seven times before retiring in 2018, was interviewed by CNN’s Ana Cabrera after Dumpf made his outrageous promise that he would pardon January 6 defendants if he wins the 2024 presidential election.

Asked by the CNN correspondent, “When is enough enough for your party?” Dent answered, “Well, I think these comments by the former president are so out of bounds, so beyond the pale that he would suggest that he would pardon people who assaulted police officers, desecrated the Capitol, tried to obstruct the Congress from performing its official duties, basically tried to basically undermine the constitutional order. This is completely out of hand.”

Dent conceded that Dumpf “is doing enormous damage to the Republican Party – not to mention the country – with these kinds of comments.” He concluded, “They are just so reckless and dangerous.”

The retired congressman worried it would create a backlash against his party in the next two elections. Hell, yes, it should. As I have been stating here, there should be a reaction against the party of Dumpf, no question of it, until he’s erased completely – and the pursuit of Trumpism is abandoned for reality-based, lawful policies – and that won’t happen anytime soon.

Dent said the party is well past the time where it has to step away from Dumpf and realize he’s just going to be a disaster in 2022 and 2024.

Where are all of those present Republican critics of the latest explosive comments coming from the mouth of the autocratic ex-president? As we would expect, U.S. Representative Liz Cheney did post an anti-Dumpf message on Twitter, in which she said, “Trump uses language he knows caused the Jan. 6 violence; suggests he’d pardon the Jan. 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy; threatens prosecutors; and admits he was attempting to overturn the election.” She ominously added, “He’d do it all again if given the chance.” Cheney is one of just two repugnicans taking part in the U.S. House of Representatives’ official investigation of January 6.

Another one of those critics, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the other Republican on the January 6 committee, wrote on Twitter late on Sunday that it was “time for every Republican leader to pick a side . . . Trump or the Constitution, there is no middle on defending our nation anymore.” How many of those “leaders,” would you estimate, will actually do this before more irreparable harm could be inflicted by the wanna-be dictator? I seriously doubt this will happen.

Even the staunchest Dumpf ally, Senator Lindsey Graham, offered a tepid criticism of his Golden Idol by saying, “I don’t want to reinforce that defiling the Capitol was OK. I don’t want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future.” Graham was probably saying this with his jaw clenched, considering how he’s been unwilling to condemn his leader in the past.

Now we can segue into discussing the current situation with another celebrated repugnican of the recent past, Sarah Palin, who is in our fair city at the present moment, and is infecting as many New Yorkers as she can as she is seen eating at multiple fancy restaurants despite the fact that she has tested positive for COVID-19 and who isn’t vaccinated, as she has infamously commented, “It’ll be over my dead body that I’ll have to get a shot.” Maybe that would be too easy for her, but she could be sending her dinner guests to an early grave, possibly, from the clips I’ve seen of her seating terribly close to other dinner companions at these glitzy sites in Manhattan. Though she is eating outside at some of these spots, she was seen eating indoors at one of these restaurants. Then in that case, it was the restaurant’s fault for allowing her to sit indoors without checking her proof of vaccination.

The reason for Palin’s visit to the Big Apple is elucidated in today’s online article in The Guardian written by Arwa Mahdawi entitled “Laugh at Sarah Palin all you want but there’s nothing funny about her role in dividing America.”

The public health hazard of “Coronavirus” Palin running around the city for the last week or so is associated with her suing the august New York Times for defamation. The trial, according to the article, was supposed to start on Monday, but because of her highly contagious status, it’s been pushed back until February 3, which to me is too close for comfort. The case appears to have massive implications for press freedom in this country.

As background material for the suit, Palin is suing the paper for a piece that it put out that incorrectly linked an advertisement put out by her political action committee with a 2011 mass shooting in Arizona in which six people died and 14 were wounded – including Gabrielle Giffords, then a Democratic member of Congress. The paper was very much in the wrong this time, which it quickly admitted in a correction. However, this wasn’t enough for the geography-challenged Palin, who is seeking damages. (It’s not exactly known what that dollar amount might be, but court papers estimate $421,000 in damage to her pristine reputation is what she could be seeking.)

According to the article, it’s highly unlikely that Palin will win. However, there is the slim chance that the case could still end up in the solidly conservative Supreme Court in which the landmark decision called New York Times v Sullivan, a 58-year-old ruling, that put up a high bar to prove defamation, could be overruled by conservative justices like Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. Thus it would be much easier to sue the media for presumed defamation and win. This would be a dream come true for people like the former demagogue who, while he was running for president, said he wanted to open up libel laws so he could sue people who wrote nasty – but true – stories about him. Do we need more lawsuits then from this guy who is King of the Lawsuits already? I should hope not.

Mahdawi points out that this lawsuit filed against a respected news outlet like The New York Times bodes ill for our fragile democracy in that the press might be fearful of reporting on the peccadilloes of powerful people because they’re worried about being sued if Palin gets her way.

Thus the writer of this piece says we should not underestimate the harm Palin is capable of causing, as she flits from place to place exposing innocent people to her positive viral state. What Mahdawi attributes to Palin is this nugget of reality: “it’s worth remembering the enormous part she has played in spreading another virus in America: rightwing populism. As Barack Obama has noted, there is a ‘straight line’ from Palin being announced as the vice-presidential nominee in 2008 to Trumpism.” We all know how terrible this phenomenon has been for this country. We might all laugh at the ditzy image of the running mate to John McCain way back in 2008, but with this lawsuit pending against an estimable New York journalistic institution that could curtail press freedom in the near future, “there’s nothing funny about the role she has played in shaping the divided and angry United States that exists today.” Very somber words indeed. Maybe she should consider a security detail then – if she doesn’t have one already.

That’s enough from me. The highlight of this Tuesday was seeing my breakfast ladies at the Austin House Diner earlier in the morning and walking to Metropolitan Avenue on slushy and sometimes impassable sidewalks in order to hand over another ripped sneaker to the woman at Philips Shoe Repair for sewing.

I avoided going down to our storage unit on this day for obvious reasons.

Tomorrow Elliot and I intend to travel to Manhattan since our cleaning lady will now be coming. We hope to have breakfast out first and possibly see a film. But we’ll see. Nothing is set in stone, as we’ve learned these past two years. The weather is supposed to be not as cold as it has been the last few days. So maybe we will be able to walk more.

Stay safe and be well.