Hot but not unpleasant this late-afternoon Thursday here in California’s Central Valley, though we’re forecast for another ‘mega-heat wave’ this weekend (happily about as bad as our last hot spell, but not as ‘mega’ as the one in June), so enjoy for the right now.

In surfing the InterWebs, the word, ‘coup,’ in regards to America seemed to be present in some form or another today, and I spied this:

This tweet from hours before the insurrection didn't age well https://t.co/DZfu4LPEgN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 15, 2021

What happened Jan. 6 at the US Capitol was an attempted coup, an insurrection/riot against the law and order of democracy. Today’s kick to the word, ‘coup,’ has apparently come from Army Gen. Mark Milley, current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as described in the upcoming book, “I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year,” by Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker.
Supposedly Milley was way-concerned about T-Rump’s action/state-of-mind in the weeks following the November election:

“They may try, but they’re not going to f—— succeed,” Milley said of a possible government takeover in conversation with his closest deputies, according to the book.
“You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with the guns,” he said.

The general, having listened to Trump spread an array of baseless conspiracy theories and false claims of fraud throughout the final weeks of his term, had drawn parallels with the rise of nazism in 20th century Germany, the book said.

“This is a Reichstag moment,” Milley told aides in early January, according to the book.
“The gospel of the Fuhrer.”

And the T-Rump responded like the nasty, insult-monger, and admitted his coup-ness:

1. Lost the election by a pretty sizable margin despite efforts to sabotage the USPS
2. Spent the time between election and certification trying to strongarm officials into changing the vote totals
3. Tried to recruit "alternate" electors to override the states' votes https://t.co/Xrx7G4o6T1

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) July 15, 2021

Even Chris Cillizza at CNN can sometimes get it right: ‘So Trump is saying that he’s against coups but if he DID, uh, do a coup, he definitely wouldn’t do one with Milley? That’s not comforting at all!‘

The Associated Press had the best quick note: ‘The mere mention of a coup was a stunning remark from a former president, especially one who left office under the cloud of a violent insurrection he helped incite at the U.S. Capitol in January in an effort to impede the peaceful transfer of power to Democrat Joe Biden. Since then, the FBI has warned of a rapidly growing threat of homegrown violent extremism.‘

Mutiny in repose performed by a psychotic idiot…

(Illustration out front: Pablo Picasso’s ‘Les Deux Saltimbanques: l’Arlequin et Sa Compagne,’ found here)