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Trump Suing Local Icon

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It has emerged that local television personality, Marge McMuffin, is being sued by President- Elect Trump.  Ms. McMuffin, who hosts a weekly baking show on channel 5, said she is totally confused, and the court summons even has Bob Crenshaw, the attorney she has hired to defend her, perplexed.  “As I understand it, the issue revolves around chocolate cake,” Crenshaw realted.  “Apparently on one episode of Marge’s cooking show, she baked a chocolate cake, and made a comment that was something to the effect that it was better than any you can get at Mar-a Lago.  If I am reading the paperwork correctly, Mr. Trump believes this is a defamation of cake complaint.”

Amazingly, it seems Crenshaw’s analysis is correct. When asked about the case, Mr. Trump adamantly defended his cake.  “There is no way there is any chocolate cake that is better than the one they make here at Mar-a-Lago,” Trump said.  It’s the best, most beautiful cake, and everyone says they’ve never tasted anything like it.  People can’t just go around saying things that aren’t true.  I have no choice but to sue.  It’s expensive, but i have to do it.  I can’t believe the Justice  Department isn’t looking into this, but that’s something I will definatley be addressing when I am in office.  The days of treating me unfairly will finally end.”

In a realted incident, Chanel 5 weekend newscaster Wolfe Fetcher was found dead in a gruesome heap directly below his 9th story appartment balcony.  A distraught Ms. McMuffin, beside herself with grief,  said Fetcher was a cherished friend and she was grateful for his insight and support.  “Going on air and stating this lawsuit business was the dumbest thing he ever heard of really meant a lot to me,” she said.

Ms. McMuffin seen here collecting items for her lobster bake

City coroner Shelly Evens is certain there was no foul play involved in the death of Wolfe Fetcher

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Will Racism Get Trump Elected?

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Just what is the GOP going to do about Mark Robinson?  The North Carolina Republican candidate for governor has given the party the political equivalent of an atomic wedgie.  Recent revelations about inflammatory comments he made on a pornographic website  a decade  past have understandably left party leaders flumoxed.  A few of them appear to have some reservations about Robinson’s character, but  they are sticking with him.  After all, Robinson already  had a known history of racist and mysogynistic remarks and this is one of Trump’s hand picked characters.  Martin Luther King on steroids, as Trump believes.  It isn’t a logical leap to  conclude Trump sees something of himself in Robinson.  Everything except skin color of course.  Interesting fact.  Robinson once called Martin Luther King “Martin Lucifer Koon” and on this porn site messaging board described himself as a black Nazi and said he condones slavery.

I can’t get my head around that last thing- a black man condoning slavery.  In fact Robinson said if that was the case he would go buy a couple.  So I don’t get it, but what it does for me is put a fine point on America’s continued burden- racism.

I have  never been an intransigent racist, but there was a time when I was ignorantly bigoted.  I grew up in Sheridan Wyoming, at the time a city with few Hispanics.  Though I never saw him, it was pointed out to me  there was a Black man who lived in town, and worked as a food server at the local Elks Club. The first Black person I actually saw was the conductor on a passenger train I took in high school. When I attended college at Creighton University’s School of Pharmacy in Omaha Nebraska  in the mid 1960’s, there were only a few Blacks on campus.  My friends were all white and about as racially naive as I was. Racial slurring and joking was something I am embarrased to say were things I participated in.

My perspective of race started to morph in 1969.  The summmer of that year a Black teenage girl, Vivian Strong, was carelessly  shot in the head by a cop, and within hours the local Black community went up in flames.  I lived with four classmates a couple of miles away, and as the evening turned dark we noticed that the horizon was lit up in bright amber.  My friends and I reached a consensus that that was something we should definitely investigate.  We drove to the perimiter  of the destruction where a group of agitated Black men alerted us to our folly from which our quick thinking driver deftly managed to extricate us from.  That episode has been an enduring memory.  I figured then maybe there was something to all the racial unrest I had been hearing about.

There were lingering prejudices.  In the 1980’s I was a Reagan Republican. As an employed pharmacist I felt I was a direct witness to a few of Reagan’s “welfare queens.”  But for me that was an economic issue more than race.  At that time I resented the entire welfare system.  Most of my friends felt the same way.  Over time, I became more open minded.  A lot of it had to do with pharmacy, the price of medication in particular.  Drug prices started accelerating in the mid 1990’s and I delt with a lot of people without insurance who really struggled to pay for their prescriptions.  The cost of insulin unrelentingly increased every  4 months or so for no apparent reason except greed.  I can’t say I became a bleeding heart liberal, but by the time Bernie Sanders  started pounding away with his criticism of the 1 percenters, I found myself agreeing with him.   And by then I had a very close Black friend who occasionally reminded me of my white privelge with his stories of unprevoked traffic stops by law enforcement.

Ever since the civil rights legislation in the 1960’s I always felt this country was making racial progress, that for every step backward, we made a couple steps forward.  I was confident my own experience  was verification.  And then along  came Trump.  The Republican candidate for president stepped off his golden escaltor and delivered an insultingly racial  speach that horrified the plurality of people who heard it, but triggered  an awakening of prejudicial animosity in many others.

it’s no secret I do not hold Trump in high esteem.  He is  a convicted sex offender , convict, racist, and all around shallow human being.  One thing you have to appreciate though is his cunning ability to recognize vulnerability.  He saw someting in the Republican party that he could take advantage of.  Starting with Black civil rights, party elites started taking positions that would ultimately attract a different party base than the one previous  Next it was opposition to the Equal Rights Ammendment, abortion rights then LGBTQ rights.  Trump realized the real glue that would hold  MAGA together is racial animus and resentment towards minorities.  Read Activating Animus

It is difficult to deny that Trump has moved Republican politics toward the hard edge “us vs them” view that dominates the GOP base.  Still, it’s a sensitive issue with Republicans.  Accuse one  of being racist you will no doubt provoke a hostile denial,  Of course not all Republicans are racist, but there are many who are not afraid and even proud to project it.   Simple observation of Trump’s hard core MAGA crowd at one of his rallies you will get the feeling you were time-shifted back to the Berlin Sportpalast in 1932.  THIS is racism.  American Reich

Why do we have to get ’em the hell out?  Because they are Black!  Straining services and driving up housing costs is MAGA bullshit.  Those things are happening as they naturally would anywhere there is a sudden inlux of residents  But that’s not the claim made by Trump and Vance as they hyped this crap.  It has everything to do with ‘demonizing and other-izing people who have already suffered enough that they chose to leave the nation of their birth. They did so exactly the way the MAGA people who claim to have “no problem with legal immigration” said they should. They went through the system. They got their paperwork. And their reward is bomb threats. Because, I’ll say it again, they’re Black’ ( Michael Ian Black- The Daily Beast)

What Trump failed to mention during his eviction notice speach is the chaos in Springfiled is of his and Vance’s own making.  They found this ficticious, outlandish conspiratorial story about Haitians eating pets on social media and continue to promulgated it even after it has been disproven and denounced by anyone even remotely involved, as well as every state and city official.  It is an inconceivably cruel stunt to perpetrate, nevermind these two are positioning themsleves to run the country.  Trump is definately a racist. He will absurdly try to deny that charge, but here is his racist history if you care to read it. Yes It’s as Bad as You’ve Heard

Trump is counting on like minded people to propell him to the presidency.  Racism really is the glue that cements his base together and solidly with him.  How many citizens are truly that bigoted?  It’s a substantial number if you believe the polls.  All those rally attendees are certainly in his corner.  They can’t get enough of all the hootin’ and hollerin’ that goes on at one of those things. However, just maybe some of those people  go to his perfomances only for that- the entertainment.  It indeed is a show.  Trump as the entertainer is the real motivator of  the MAGA movement.  It did not take him long to realise what worked best as  performance  schtick  was fear, hate and racism.  It is how he once got elected, how he maintains his base, and anything uttered that is appaling is sane-washed as being just part of the entertainment.   Just Trump being Trump.

Maga world loves a show, and boy they really got one the last week end  of October at Madison Square Garden.  This was racist ecstasy for the Maga crowd.  The MAGA Reality Show  A regular smorgasbord of crass racism and mysoginistic crudeness, interspaced with nazi innuendo, like Representative Byron Donalds walking onto the stage to the tune of “Dixie.”

Of course Trump isn’t going to disavow this stuff.  He lives for the adulation of the crowd, and he is well aware  nothing juces his crowds more than racist slurs and minority denigration.  What the Trump campaign offered in the way of  abjuration for the offensive remarks at the Garden was what you would expect.  It was delivered by JD Vance and basically it was reiteration of how the country in general has come to accept  Trump repugnancy- no big deal, it’s just the way of Trump and we should be used to it.

According to Vance, the rally was a fun fest that we shouldn’t take seriously and people should quit being so sensitive.  The Comedy Roast that Never Ends    Vance says he is “over it.”  Really? Does that mean he and Trump will quit featuring  blatant racial denigration as their main driver in this election?  Of course not.  Every rally, every speach Trump delivers is a plunge into a national dystopia and it is always  immigrants and minorities who are responsible for it.

Is Trump a racist?  It’s pretty difficult from all we see from him to conclude he is not.  Is everyone who supports Trump a racist?  Of couse not.  But if you are not offended by at least the volume of racist remarks Trump makes, you likley are a racist.  Even if you can claim to just be numb to all the degrading remarks, it’s hard to believe that fawning over his every word wouldn’t trigger inherent prejudice.

For sure many  of the people attending a Trump rally are racists. Those people see nothing wrong with the constant vilification of minorities.  But in rebuttle to Vance’s comment that the Garden rally was all in good fun, I would point out that you make racism your perpetual theme, it is not funny at all.  It is not funny when an entire community is terrorized by lies you spred about  Haitians eating pets in Springfield.  It’s not funny when a Latino gas station attendant in Florida gets punched in the head by a white man who gets caught on a survailence camera uttering “this is for Trump.”   It’s not funny when a man explains to police the reason why he threatened to kill a Syrian born man was because he wanted him to “get out of my country” and “That’s why I like Trump.”  Haters Gotta Hate

It is that resurrection of our prejudices that is so alarming.  Overcoming flat out racism is a monumental challenge. As a country we have been working on irradicating it for over 240 years.  That is why, or at least one of the main reasons why, Trump is so dangerous.  He incites people to do their worst.  Trump is especially proficient at doing so at  his rallies.  If your underlying bias and prejudice is buried under years of racial progress and you attend a Trump rally, it’s not difficult to imagine how  those atitudes could resurface and progress to something  vehemently racial.  It’s the tactic of a fascist tyrant.

I do believe Trump is a racist, and that is something completely antithetical to what America is.  We do have an immigration problem.  It has been ignored for decades.  Ironically, Trump, in his first year in office, had a very good chance of doing something about it.  He seemed sincerely adamant about initiating immigration legislation, including funding for a border wall, but he caved when  the ultra conservative wing of his party refused to make any consensions concerning DACA recipients.  More disgracefully, when he was not in office but still leveraging his MAGA clout, he torpedoed a bill written and backed by very conservative legistators only because he wanted to keep the immigration discord alive so he could use it as a political, election tool.  The man thinks only about himself.

Another Trump administration would be enormously threatening in multiple ways.  He is a careless, vindictive man bent on alloting his  time in governance settling perceived grievances rather than managing the affairs of the county and improving the lives of American citizens.  His plan for our democracy is to disable it to his advantage and profit.  Sadly the damage he has inflicted socially since his political presence is insidiously apparent.  By stoking hatred and fear of “the other” he has exposed and elevated the divisive embarrasment of racism in this country to post reconstruction levels.  So far backward has Trump taken us it will take years before racial resentment is abated.   The beginning of the repair starts by making sure he does not get elected again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look Up!

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There’s shit falling out of the sky again.  Grab Your Bullitproof Umbrella    NASA says your risk of injury from their wayward debris is “very low.”  Just 1 in 9,400.  Excuse me!  That’s not exactly comforting. That’s the range of possibilty of dying by accidental electrocution.  When I was a teenager I watched my little brother test the limits of that statistic when he attempted to extract a slice of bread stuck in our toaster with a metal-handled knife.  And according to NASA’s calculation you’re about four times as likey to get speared by their rubbish than dying in a cataclysmic storm.  How many incidents of that type do you read about every day?

Odds of dying from a dog attack are 1 in 69 thousand.  I realize we’re talking death here, but once I was attacked by a dog.  I was walking back to my apartment from a park where I had been practicing my pitch shot with  my 9 iron.  A scrawny, mud-matted mut bolted from his yard and sunk his teeth into the leg of my pants.  Overall I was pleased with my stance and form as the face of my club struck his boney rib cage. Had the little bastard broken any skin on my calf I would have made sure his skull was analyzed for rabbies, conventionally or by the modified 9 iron procedure.

The odds of being injured by a toilet are right there with what NASA is suggesting here- 1 in 10,000.  The CDC actually documents this.  Look it up if you don’t believe me.  Though congress feels gun violence is not the purvue of the CDC,  equally significant is the odds of not serviving the accidental discharge of a firearm. That happens to be 1 in 7,900. Of course in America the odds of dying from a gun assualt are 1 in 221.  And now that 6 year olds are getting in on the action, look for that statistic to become even more alamring.  .Member of NRA Junior

Anyway, just a heads up for a few days.

Brainless Microbe Outwits Most Evolutionary Advanced Form of American Homo Sapiens

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I think you can say it’s official.  With so many hospitals once again overflowing with covid patients, you can reasonably say we, the species that has evolved into the masters of the planet, have been outsmarted by a brainless, micron-sized blob.  We were so close to getting back to normal.  We have the antidote to the scurge at hand- a 95% effective vaccine.  But herd immjunity is out of reach because 30% of the adult population in the U.S. is not willing to get a shot.  Why is that?  Why would a superior, sophisticated species capable of reason let something so micoscopic and inferior in every possible way rule its domain, when all that needs to be done to regain control is to utilize  an extremely effective tool that was painstakingly developed by that superior species?

Viruses are about as simple as it gets in functionality.  They don’t eat or expend energy.  They’re baically not even living organisms. Microscopic zombies. All they do is reproduce, and in that task they are usually very efficient, but it would seem their method to be extremely boring.  There is no romantic music involved.  No smoking afterwards.  Like most of us are aware, viruses need a host in order to do what they do, and of course in the case of covid the host is a cell that dwells inside of our complicated human bodies.

In the process of reproduction, viruses unfortunatly have one thing in common with cell based life.  They are equiped with nucleic acid genomes based on the same genetic code that is used in human cells.  The really important thing to realize about this is-  viruses have genetic variation and can evolve.

And because of that feature, we could be in a world of shit.  The original alpha covid strain did what it is always inclined to do- evolve, into a more transmissible delta variant, and it is possibly a more deadly one as well.  It is only a matter of time before it mutates into a varient that is resistant to the vaccine.

Some of the public’s vaccination hesitancy is fortunatley starting to crack a bit.  When the stock market sputtered in recent weeks because the Wall Street Journal all of a sudden voiced concern, Sean Hannity did an about face and started encouraging people to get vaccinated.  A pat on the back to capitalism. But when I see a United States congressman Rep. Chip Roy goes Ape Shit  go on a weapons grade tyrant over vaccines and masking, I can almost hear the guffaws of billions of covid capsids.  If thinking were something they could do, I imagine they would be unable to believe their immense good fortune  knowing a person in a position of pubic leadership had blown off his high school biology class.  Instead of making a glaring spectacle of his ignorance by trolling for deep red-dyed attention, he could have very well made a significant impact on the vaccine hesitant in his district by explaining that it is the job of health care professionals to adjust mitigating tactics whenever there is data suggesting a pathogen has detrimentally adapted.

The reason masking is a reemerging policy is because a huge portion of our population won’t get vaccinated.  Because of that hesitancy,  the alpha strain has had time to do what it does best- mutate to delta, which as it turns out is more contageous. What is also new is it  can be transmitted by vaccinated people. That was not likely with the previous strains.  The vaccine remains amazingly protective of those who are vaccinated, but critically they are now another vector that can infect the unvaccinated.  Thus, to save those who are refusing vaccinations from severe sickness and death, and to try and stop the varients from progessing through the entire Greek alphabet all the way to an omega Xtreme Exterminator Super bug, the logical thing to do is to go back to masking up. Any unvaccinated person whining about abridgment of individual freedom should step back and realize a responsible democratic society also believes in collective freedom, which in this case is a freedom, for everyone, to carry on like we were able to do before this oportunistic contagion took over our lives.

There is also something else the unvaccinted should realize.  The inoculated at some point will tire of doing all the heavy lifting. Their patience  will wear thin if trying to save the unvaccinated from themselves contines to be an exercise in fultility.  The stick will replace the carrot in the form of vaccine mandates of some sort or other.  Being refused entrance to a concert or restaurant might not register much alarm for some, but loss of access to a job or college campus might be more signifacant.  The ultimate solution to convert the hesitant could very well arrive this fall.  Tell someone they will not be allowed into a football stadium without proof of vaccination and I believe vaccine hesitancy will come to a screaching halt. Superiority hurts sometimes, but usually its best to just let it play out.

                                               

A Grouping of Viruses                                                              A Grouping of American Homo Sapiens

 

Arizona Ballots Headed to More “Mystery” Sites

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Cyber Ninja, the security firm contracted to perform the audit of 2020 election ballots in Arizona that was requested by the state’s Republican Senate, is about to engage in more out of state analysis.  Already facing scrutiny over the reasons and legality of transporting ballots to a secluded cabin in Montana, it has emerged that the company will be sending even more ballots to  locations outside of Arizona.  Although specific details  are still unconfirmed, sites range from an abandoned mine shaft in mountainous  West Virginia where it is rummored an inquisitive band of faerie folk reside, to the impenetrable bayous of Louisiana inhabited by practicing creole sorcerers versed in the conjouring arts.  Because Cyber Ninja’s staff includes a small contingent of people able to communicate intergalactically, it is rumored another possible location for ballot transport is somewhere in Nevada bordering area 51.

Spokesmen for Cyber Ninja say they are confident the company has the resources and contacts to expose any sort of voting shenanigans 

Cyber Ninja Enlists Pair of Pandas to Assist with Arizona Vote Recount

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Cyber Ninja, the cybersecurity firm hired by Arizona Republicans to conduct their 2020 election re-audit of that states Maricopa County, is pulling out all the stops in order to get to the bottom of what is widely perceived in Republican circles to be incomprehensible- a legitimate Democrat victory.  Convinced the American public understands that an election is only free and fair if Republicans win, Arizona Republicans have assigned the task of codifying this new, inovative interpretation of the US constitution to Cyber Ninja.

Though Cyber Ninja has absolutly no experience in elections, company CEO and “stop the steal” conspiracy promoter Doug Logan says that will be no impediment to competent execution of the work at hand.  Logan stated his company has  methods to thoroughly search for signs of fraud that are normally not conducted. Of particular concern to him are the pens filled with disappearing ink that he believes were handed out to Republican voters, and he is confident his knowleged of chemical subsances will facilitate reappearance of markings and detect any traces of lemon juice.

Logan has been even more vigilant in his dogged pursuit of the massive dump of Biden ballots by the Chinese goverment he is certain has occured.  Critical to that exposer, Logan believes, is locating ballots embedded with bamboo filament specific to Chinese paper products.  So far Logan has implemented the use of various lighting techniques, like untraviolet and fluorescent, but says he has not ruled out strobe or backlighting, indoor solar, black, or disco.

Though the rather unconvenional use of bamboo sniffing dogs proved to be a bust, starting this coming week Logan is stepping up that approach. It has emerged that he has clandestinely procured a couple of panda bears that he is certain will turn the tide.  In the words of Mr. Logan, “We’ll just turn the pandas loose and let them go to work. Nothing will deter us from restoring America’s confidence in our electoral system.”  Added Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar, ” It is critically important that people know they can always depend on the Republican Party to do what’s right for democracy by insuring every election has enough Republican votes to make it legitimate.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tucker Carlson Provides Marjorie Taylor Greene With Helpful Caucus Modification Recommendations

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During his evening program, Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson commended Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene for her creativity in promoting white nationalism.  Recently criticized for spouting  “great replacement” rhetoric  by suggesting that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate with “voters from the third world,” Carlson nonetheless praised Greene for “telling it like it is” with her bold initiative to establish her nativist America First Caucus.

At the heart of the America First ideology is “respect for Anglo-Saxon political traditions.”  When Democrats and a few scatered Republican colleagues voiced criticism of the proposed organization for it’s blatant racism, Greene decided to shelve the idea for now.  But Carlson said that is a mistake, and suggested that with a simple name change  the central idea would have more appeal.

“A lot of what America First emphasizes is already being done in the GOP’s Freedom Caucus,” Carlson said.  Changing the name of the America First Caucus to the Caucasian Caucus would go a long way to clarify things. First of all, America First’s primary objective appears to actually be discriminatory.  Not racist, but discriminatory.  The organization should make it clear our country accepts ALL white people, not just  Anglo Saxons.  Second, believe it or not there is not one congressional organization that is specifically dedicated to voicing only white demands and grievances.  Representative Greene has identified a need that has been neglected for too long.”

When it was suggested what he was proposing was promoting white supremacy just as egregiously as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Carlson  immediatly assumed his ever familiar appearance of profound, cross-eyed confusion and restated his firm belief that no such thing exists.  “There is no white supremacy in this country.  Show me where there is white supremacy.  Yes some people like myself believe only white people should be living in our country and all non-white people here are occupying precious space reserved for deserving white people, but that doesn’t mean white people consider themselves superior.  We just don’t particlarly care for people with a different pigmentation.  The constitution was written by white people, for white people.  Not one black, brown yellow or red person signed the Declaration of Independence.  Those are the plain facts.”

When Carlson was asked what his understanding was of the “all men are created equal” clause in the Declaration of Independence, his deflective reply focused on the importance of the indivdual liberties gauranteed by our foundational documents.  ” We have pleny of diversity in the white American population.  That’s what’s great about our country. The Republicans and this new caucus Representative Greene is proposing is a perfect illustration.   Just look at what Marjorie Taylor Greene herself brings to the table.  She knows the importance of Second Amendment rights and leads by example.  When she spotted an annoyingly unarmed gun safety advocate walking down the street, she threatened and harassed him for an entire city block.  And she was only carrying a concealed hand gun.  Image how intimidating she can be with one of her assault rifles clutched in her hands.  That’s an image that’s American to the core.”

  MTG-  Busy Making America Great

Carlson went on to catalogue the congressmen he was certain the Caucasian Caucus will attract.  Representative Matt Gaetz he believes is a shoo in since he was already on board with America First.  Gaetz represents that segment of the American white male population that, according to Carlson,  believes in the  uninhibited freedom and duty of white men to give counsel and guidance to adolecent females and provide for their interstate transportation needs.

Carslon also believes all indications are that Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan will also  be eager to join the organization.  Jordan recently confronted the GOP’s enemy number one, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and in typical bombastic, jordanary fashion,  solidly established himself as the future of Republican public health information with his whithering rebuke of Fauci implanted socialistic practices like wearing protective face masks.  Jordan’s showdown with Fauci more importantly cemented him as spokseman for all liberty loving caucasians who are sick and tired of big government imposing rational public health guidelines that selfishly protect the health and well being of the nation at the expense of freedom loving Americans who are simply seeking to do whatever they want.   Carlson is confident the GOP will continue asserting this primary perogative- that the freedoms of individual white people should always take precedence over the common good.

 

 

 

 

Mass Shootings: A Very Positive Indication that the Nation is Getting Back to Normal

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With two mass shootings in the past week, the American public received possibly the most encouraging sign yet that the covid scourge is in rapid decline.   The nation has been cooped up inside so long people seemed to have given little thought to the colossal carnage a couple of assault weapons can inflict.  “It’s hard to get your head around a half million deaths from a virus,” Dallas resident  Tex Wesson stated. “That’s just not something you see in this country.  But a dozen or so people mowed down in a grocery store, now that’s something you can hang your hat on.”

An even more satisfying sign that things are back to normal is the typical Republican stonewalling of any reasonable gun safety measure proposed by congress and favored by 95 percent of the voting public.  With mass shootings in abatement during the pandemic, nothing in the way of saving American lives from ongoing gun violence has even remotly been addressed legislatively.  Now that Republican Senator Ted Cruz has once again assured the nation that absolutely nothing can be done to stem the slaughter, it can be confidently stated that the U.S. Senate is safely ensconced in its pre-covid cocoon of fruitless stagnation.

Welcome back, America!

 

 

 

Valentine’s Day

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Well here we are.  January’s come and gone and I haven’t accomplished shit.  My New Years resolution was to put Trump in my rear view mirror and head down any scenic highway that leads to normalcy.  And then January 6th happened.  Now it’s Valentines Day.  Wouldn’t you know it it’s 5 below zero and there’s at least three inches of snow in the drive.  Actually it’s seven or eight in some places if you count the drifts by the garbage cans and the ridge of what is now an impenatrable barricade  of ice at the end of my driveway thanks to the asshole driving the city snowplow.

So that’s just my luck and now I can’t get out and buy that Valentines Day gift for my wife.  This year I was going to make it super special.  Like, it’s our 50th or something like that. I know she would never want me to take the chance driving around on these slick streets, and then you throw in covid and, well of course it just doesn’t make sense to take those kinds of risks. It’s a shame.  I know she really looks forward to this day every year, er, I mean we do.  I guess I’ll just have to make the best of it and watch basketball all day.  It all just sucks.

 

IS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY BEING HELD HOSTAGE?

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Honesty, WTF is going on in the Republican Party.  A couple days after the January 6th insurrection at the National Capitol Building, the Republican Minority Leaders of both  legislative houses issued very forceful statements condemning Trump’s involvement . A few days after that, McConnell and McCarthy  both made  political U-turns that figuratively slammed my brain against the side of my skull.  Concusion therapy required some diligent periodical research.  Specifcally I was curious what would drive the Republican heirarchy to forgive a president that committed sedition and insurrection.  If that isn’t impeachable, what is?

Most of the articles I read universally concluded it was all about power, that basically for the Republicans nothing is out of bounds as long as it helps to regain power, and there certainly is power behind 70 million Trump votes. Naturally money and ethical abandonment play a part in such Machiavelian conduct.  But power is what it is all about.

Then I ran across this. Our Domestic Terrorism Problem

These people are bat shit crazy.  Do you suppose a few of these nut jobs got to the people walking the halls of our hallowed government buildings?  Maybe all the threats and destruction that went on the 6th of January actually served their intimidating purpose.  How much of the Republican vacillation and cowardliness is due to fear of losing power as opposed to outright fear of bodily harm?

Consider Lindsey Graham. After Joe Biden was finally declared the winner of the presidential election on November 7th, Graham, the next day, urged the president to fight on and not concede.  The day of the Electorial College count,  January 6th, after the Capitol Building had finally been cleared of insurectionists, he said “enough is enough.”  He basically denounced the “big lie” and said the election was compeltely legitimate.  A couple of days later he was accosted at the DC airport by a dozen Trump supporters calling him a traitor, and a few days later quickly mended fences with Trump, flying with him on Air Force one to Texas and later in the week castigating fellow Republicans for considering Trump’s second impeachment. During that speech he emphasized those who participated in the storming of the Capitol should be punished to the full extent of the law, but mentioned nothing about Trump’s participation.  I suppose without a spine it’s fairly easy to squeeze through tight spaces.

So, scardy çat or ass kisser? Only Lindsey knows,  What is going on in the GOP?  According to Colorado Dem. Jason Crow, in a conversaion with a few of his fellow Representatives, a couple of them broke down crying  fearing for their lives if they voted for impeachemnt.  Some History of Intimidation in Congress. This article also points out how history is repeating itself with regard to racism.

The crazy shit thought?  I guess there’s nothing more intimidating than a ranting psychopath, and especially one of those with a gun.  Brings to mind Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.  Here is a card carrying QAnon conspiracy theorist who has openly endorsed hate and violence, including the suggestion of a “bullet to the head” of Nancy Pelosi, likes to pose in photos with White Supremacist leaders, and claims California wildfires were ignited by a space lazer controlled by Jewish bankers.  As more and more of her craziness has been revealed, various members of congress are starting to wonder if Minority Leader McCarthy shouldn’t have a word with her and at least consider pulling her from her committee assignments.  This would seem to be a good idea in light of the fact she is slated for the educational committee and in her mind the Parkland and Sandy Hook Shootings were both a staged hoax.  Ya. I know. WTF!

So McCarthy says he will talk to Greene.  But there’s a problem. Trump loves Marjorie Taylor Greene- says she’s a “rising star” in the Republican Party. McCarthy just spent an entire day at Mar-a-lago spit polishing Trump’s ass. Demoting one of Trump’s fellow “birthers” seems fraught with the risk of Trump’s wrath.  Stay tuned.

Well, there you go.  No matter how you try and get around it the commmon denominator to all this chaos in the Republican party is Trump.  Power quest and bullying and intimidation are certainly Trump trademarks.  For reasons difficuilt to fathom, the Trump voting base, ever clinging to his populist, anti establishment mystique that incorporates racism and anti-immigration,  is willing to look beyond his crimes, divisive rhetoric, incompentence, corruption and moral degeneracy.  As far as craziness goes, the average Trump supporter would consider Trump’s narcisistic personality disorder to be a diagonisis leved only by those bent on defaming him.  But there is no escaping his promotion of consipracy theories, a number or which are related to QAnon.  What he did on January 6th was in no way normal and absolutey impeachable.

Trump is the Republican party, still.  He is the power, the intimidation, the crazy.  Continuing to defer to Trump as the de facto leader of the Republican Party  is to risk labeling the party as the Lunatic Party.  Hauntingly, it is the party that elevated to president someone who once bragged he could shoot someone on New York’s 5th Avenue and get away with it, and proven right.  Five people that died in the Capitol Building on 1/6/2021 would be alive today if Donald Trump had not been president.

Homeland Security just issued a Terror Advisory Bulletin that bullet points several threats to national security posed by Domestic Violence Extremists.  Political commentator Nicole Wallace  relevantly called the warning statement the “manifesto” of the Trump militant base. Terrorism Bulletin

The years of condoning all of Trump’s deceit have put the Republican Party in a difficult fix.  Whether it’s sheer embarassment, want of power, or lack of courage, too many  congressional members of that party find themselves unable to do what is right and tell the truth- that widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election was a big lie and President Trump committed acts of insurrection and sedition. That is the only way this country will even begin to heal.  The unity Republican elected officials are demanding Democrats initiate will only be possible after Republicans concede to, and explain to their constituents, the truth.  It’s that basic.

I sympathise if it is true that the threat of physical violence is the reason an elected official chooses to flush courage down the toilet.  But doing the right thing is the critical part of the job. It is so confoudingly perplexing why so many Republicans insist on maintaing fealty to Trump. As more absurd conspiracy theorists carve out  larger niches in the party, more mainstream conservatives will leave.  Over 9,000 Arizona Republicans changed party affiliation after the January 6th riot.  The party deserves someone better.  And it needs someone better. There are plenty of Republican leaders who favor comprehensive immigration reform without Trump’s attatched racism for one thing. If Republicans keep going down their current path of attempting to restrict voting rather than expanding their voting base, it is an absolute forgone conclusion and demographic fact Democrats will strenghtn their grip on power. There can not possibly be a more logical time to cut Trump loose, and If the Republicans can’t figure out a way to do it,  their party might have to confront a 21st century Bull Moose conundrum that will likewise ensure a long string of Democrats in the White House.

Historian Jon Meacham commented a few days ago about abstractive dilemmas past presidents periodically have had to deal with.  He said FDR had to negotiate between capitalists and labor.  Truman and Eisenhower had to confront the extremes of McCarthyism and Communism.  And Biden, of all things, is in the ridiculous position of having to forge his administration through the 21st century’s clouded view of what is fantasy or reality.  That should be a jarring realization of what is happening to our country.