For all his bullshit and bluster, it took fat-ass Rush Limbaugh less than 24 hours to withdraw his rant about why certain states might secede. After all, it’s a felony to advocate overthrowing the U.S. Government, which is what secession happens to be.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at how government documents describe the Civil War. Officially, it’s called ‘The War of the Rebellion,’ okay?

Too bad that Rush’s lawyers probably told him to shut the f*** up before Trump got a chance to repeat that remark. In case you haven’t noticed, most of what Trump says or tweets is market-tested for him by Rush the day before. Where do you think Trump got the idea that the coronavirus wasn’t any more serious than the common cold?

Thanks to a law known as the Westfall Act [clap for Steve Case], you can’t sue Trump for defamation or libel while he’s still sitting behind the Resolute desk. Which is why he can get away with calling the parking-garage in Reno being used to treat virus patients as a ‘fake.’

On the other hand, Trump becomes legally liable for anything he says or does after January 20, 2021 because the Constitution doesn’t permit two Presidents to occupy the Oval Office at the same time, no matter what he might believe.

But before you sit back and think about how nice it is that Constitutional government and the idea of one person – one vote has been restored, let’s not forget that this country has a long, bi-partisan history when it comes to nullifying elections and governments all over the place.

Think the Iranians have forgotten that Ike sent the Marines into Iran to overthrow the Mossadegh government in 1953? Think again. How about twenty years later when Nixon ordered the CIA to get rid of Salvador Allende in Chile, who happened to have been elected President without even a murmur of election ‘fraud?’

Then there was the money and guns given by Truman to the ‘good’ side in the Greek civil war. And let’s not forget a little incident known as the Bay of Pigs, which was the handiwork of another Democrat(ic) President named JFK.

The best one of all is when we intervened in the first, post-war election in Italy, a country that had been run by a Fascist government since 1922. Even though Joe DiMaggio’s father had to carry papers identifying him as an ‘enemy alien’ during World War II, his son’s picture was plastered all over the country exhorting Italians to vote in 1946 for the Christian-Democratic Party which was formed and financed by the good ol’ USA.

Remember the invasion of Grenada in 1983 which was condemned by a General Assembly vote of 108 to 9? We sent the troops down there because a left-wing coup was allegedly resulting in attacks against Americans, but a Congressional report found that not a single American had been threatened or harmed.

I’m not saying that Joe would ever consider sending the 101^st Airborne into Texas just because the state’s Attorney General is such a schmuck that he actually believes he has the legal authority to tell somewhere around 160 million Americans that they have to vote again. But I can guarantee you that once Trump gets his last free ride on Air Force One, he’ll start ramping up his calls for federal, state and local officials to join his MAGA crusade.

He’ll also try to maintain his Twitter presence by saying the most hateful, racist, divisive, and crazy things he can say. After all, it’s not as if he’ll have the authority of the Presidency to give his voice any political legitimacy at all.

In which case, I am seriously considering putting up a GoFundMe to pay the legal costs of anyone who is defamed by Trump after January 20, 2021. And if he actually does shut the f*** up and just go away, I’ll happily refund everyone’s donations or send the monies off to a charity like the charity our friend Nick Kristof runs every year.

Right now, however, don’t forget to send some bucks down to Georgia for the runoff on January 5^th. Please don’t forget.