Day 785 Saturday March 2, 2019
611 Days to the 2020 election and 689 Days to Inauguration Day
I have been struck by this behavior I see repeating over and over again in various forms. It’s getting to the point that I think I could put it in a Mad Libs form of predictability. Years ago there was this oft repeated quote, ascribed to various politicians, usually Speakers of the House or Harry Truman, “It takes a carpenter to build a barn but any jackass can kick it down.” It appears the jackasses are running wild.
Take for instance the Republicans in the open hearing that Michael Cohen testified at. Not one of them asked a question relevant to the reason and purpose of his coming before the committee. What they did was attack his character, call him a liar, and ask out loud why the committee was even putting up with this charade. They also tried every procedural gambit they could come up with to stall, delay, and derail the hearing. It was so bad that two well known conservative columnists spoke up. One calling the Republican party the stupid party and the other saying that the Republicans in that hearing were not trying to find out the truth but were running away from it because to face it was too scary.
This culminated in Mark Meadows making a ass of himself and pulling a racist stunt then getting upset at a junior member for saying it was a racist stunt. He falsely claimed that the young Democrat called him a racist, which she had not. She had said that what was done was racist. It didn’t take long for videos to surface of Mark Meadows campaign speeches where he had said Obama should go back to Kenya or wherever he was from. Okay, let’s define terms, methods, and procedures. Then let’s ignore them and have fun with the idiotic. It’s a good idea to separate actions from character. Let’s say I pick up a rifle and hit a target half a mile away dead center. Does that make me an expert shot or was I just lucky? It’s really hard to tell if you only have that one example to go on. Likewise what if I sank a basket from half court? Luck or ability? You really would have to witness more examples to say. Likewise if someone has a sexual encounter with someone of the same sex you could label them in some way, but as Tony Soprano famously said if it happened in jail you give them a pass. If it’s a one time thing I don’t think you’d be likely to jump up and down and call someone gay.
So I’m willing to say that if someone did something that was racist once, like dressing up in blackface, I’d not want to say they are racist. But if someone consistently can shoot the lights out of a target or a basket I would acknowledge their ability and give them the label of expert shot or great three point shooter, etc. Now what about Mark Meadows? Is he racist? Well, there are numerous campaign videos of him saying Obama should go back to Kenya or wherever he is from. That’s racist. There’s his clueless display of a black woman in a hearing and saying she works for Trump and she never heard Trump say a racist thing therefore he, Trump, is not racist – that’s racist, that’s offensive- especially to women – super especially to black women,
Then there’s CPAC 2019. Wow. There seem to be two things going on a CPAC. There’s the trinkets, hats, t-shirts and art that say MAGA or show Trump as some sort of near deity. I like the airbrush painting of Trump and a Bald Eagle soaring next to him. Such patriotism! Or the MAGA hat with all the little white studs in it, kind of like a cake decorators fantasy.
But here’s the one that really gets me. The star of the show, the person they all have come to revile, is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The thinking seems to be this: Green New Deal -> “they” (I.e. Ms Cortez) are coming to take away your cows and your pick up trucks. This leads to various politicians and right wingers saying, “She ain’t gettin’ my cows!” Now I didn’t know that Don Jr, Ted Cruz, or the squeeze my pillow guy (who said God ordained Trump to be pres) owned any cows, but apparently they do and I guess they will be hiding out in their pickup trucks shotgun in hand to keep AOC from stealing them away. And this is an improvement over what was being said about the young woman from NYC! Earlier there were articles floating around that said AOC was leading a coven of witches putting hexes on Trump 24/7/365! All this because she’s said that people should pay their fair share in taxes and we need to do something drastic about climate change? I mean everything she talks about taking action on can be backed up by science and fact. This is the shameful thing about the attacks on her.
The best I have heard from my conservative friends is: climate change isn’t that bad, what she says won’t work, and her tax ideas aren’t good and won’t work. Okay, what have you got? Oh, I see. Climate change isn’t that bad, her tax plans won’t work and SOCIALISM! Okay then, let’s get rid of the roads, military, medicare, and … what? they’re okay? But you said … oh that’s not socialism that’s roads, military, and medicare. Uh huh. I see. Hey, by the way did you know Trump is a Nazi? Yeah, there’s a picture of him standing beside one so that make him one right? No? Oh. Okay. Sorry he was standing beside David Duke a racist. No that doesn’t make him a racist, I know. But he has thrown kids in cages that are brown, has called African countries shit-hole countries, said that blacks are too stupid to vote for him … what? Oh, I’m just listing a few of the things he has done to earn the label of racist.
Moving on. Great summit in Vietnam with North Korean leader Un. I mean Trump didn’t give away the store, just a few items on the shelf. He said we don’t need to know all the nuclear weapons they have. (I mean why know what you are negotiating about when you start?) He did say that the kid for UVA who tried to steal a poster, got arrested for being a spy, and was sentenced to hard labor only to be sent home in a coma months later because of blunt force trauma to the head and died shortly thereafter was not Kim’s fault. So other than those really stupid in your face kind of screw ups, as far as we know, he didn’t do anything else. He skipped out on lunch and went home when he couldn’t artfully make a deal with rocket man.
And then to wrap up the week we have the whole top secret clearance thing with Jared. It is alleged that Trump ordered Jared be given a top-secret clearance. I guess so son-in-law could peddle that information to Saudi Arabia or Qatar or someone with money that can bail him and his family out of debt. I’m sorry. Did I say that? I mean the FBI, the CIA, and I don’t know who else said, “Don’t give him a clearance!!!” So Trump over ruled them. It was so egregious that both his chief of staff and White House Counsel wrote memo to Pontius Pilate their involvement in it. Unfortunately, for Jared, he’s not given the compartmentalized information Top Secret clearance because then he could tell MBS who exactly is reporting on him so that person could be hacked up like Khashoggi, What a pity.
Oh yes and Donald and Ivanka say that the president has nothing to do with the clearance of Jared.
Then there’s Michael Cohen’s testimony where he said Trump would be at a rally and say he has no business dealing in Russia and as he’s walking out of the hall he’d be asking Cohen how the Moscow project was going.
It’s a sad time in America, where truth is ignored and replaced with outlandish lies and fabrications. Where crimes are being committed right in front of us. Where the stupid and the willfully ignorant are cheering on the jackasses as they kick this country to pieces.
There is no guarantee that we, as a democracy, as a republic, will survive, It is up to each of us to do what we can.
611 Days to the 2020 election and 689 Days to Inauguration Day
PS Aijun, Jordan
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