Bits of Snarks ‘n Snippets

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, education, Humour, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

I tried to come up with something fun for a Saturday Surprise post, but sadly the snarky angst is bubbling over, so please forgive my lack of humour today.  Perhaps there will be a Sunday Surprise – who knows?

The not-so-great State of Ohio

I hate the state I live in – Ohio.  I have always hated it, and had it not been for a job offer from Honda back in the 80s, I would never have moved to this state.  I’ve lived in the State Capitol, Columbus, and for the last nearly 30 years, have lived in the northern suburbs of Cincinnati.  The state is heavily republican, and about 80% of the people are arrogant bigots.  But what I read today makes me more determined than ever to get the hell out of this state!

This memo put out by two state legislators says it all …

Ohio-memo

One of the “greatest presidents in American history”?????  WTF?????  If this passes, then I am definitely leaving the state, if I have to live in a lean-to in the mountains and forage for wild berries and mushrooms to eat!

Jon Stewart on Twitter

Former Daily Show Host Jon Stewart Testifies On Need To Reauthorize The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund

Comedian Jon Stewart, a long-time favourite of mine, joined Twitter two days ago, though he has long said it would never happen, and already he has nearly one million followers!  Wow … I’ve been on Twitter since January 2009 – 12 years – and I have only 140 followers!  And he’s only tweeted twice!  Hmmmm … wonder what I’m doing wrong?

Reward for bad behaviour?

Yesterday I wrote a rant about newly-elected representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene.  She is a conspiracy theorist, a gun-totin’ bitch, a Trump loyalist, and played a role in the attack on Congress on January 6th.  Many, including myself, have called for her to be removed from the House of Representatives, for she is not somebody I want making the laws that I live under. 

She is not, in fact, lawmaker material, but rather troublemaker material with her many nasty remarks and allegations that 9/11, the Sandy Hook school shootings, and the Parkland school shootings were all hoaxes.  More recently it has come to light that she said that ‘wildfires in California were not natural. Forests don’t just catch fire, you know. Rather, the blazes had been started by PG&E, in conjunction with the Rothschilds, using a space laser, in order to clear room for a high-speed rail project.’ 

But now for the worst of it! 

The only education this woman has is a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.  She does not have a degree in education, has never been a teacher, and yet she was placed on the House Education and Labour Committee!  She would be making the decisions about what is taught and how it is taught in our public schools???  NO!  Just effing NO!  After her committee placement was criticized by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and in light of Greene’s spreading of conspiracy theories regarding school shootings, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz introduced a motion to remove Greene from all committee assignments.  I want her removed from Congress … hell, truth be told, I want her removed from the planet Earth!  Send her to join her alien friends somewhere way up in space!  See if Elon Musk can help.

A breath of fresh air … literally

President Biden has nominated Deb Haaland to be the new Secretary of the Interior, replacing Trump’s fossil fuel entwined David Bernhardt.  Let me tell you just a bit about Deb Haaland …

deb-hallandMs. Haaland is a politician who has been the U.S. Representative from New Mexico’s 1st congressional district since 2019. The district includes most of Albuquerque, along with most of its suburbs. Haaland is a former chairwoman of the Democratic Party of New Mexico. Along with Sharice Davids, she is one of the first two Native American women elected to the U.S. Congress. Haaland is an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo and a 35th-generation New Mexican. Haaland is a political progressive who supports the movements to abolish ICE and to implement the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.

When President Biden picked Representative Haaland to be his Interior secretary, the positive response to the historic choice was so enormous, it virtually overshadowed any meaningful dissent.  But now that the bulk of the confirmation hearings are due to start next week, the naysayers are coming out of the woodwork.  Why?

Two words:  fossil fuel.  Senator Bill Cassidy, a republican from Louisiana who sits on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which will oversee Haaland’s confirmation proceedings, and appears ready to hold Haaland to account for the Biden administration’s plans to stop issuing new leases for oil and gas drilling on federal lands.  THOSE LEASES NEED TO BE STOPPED!  Fossil fuels are just that … fossil:  a relic of the past!  Renewable energy is where we turn our sights now, Mr. Cassidy!

Ms. Haaland stands for strong conservation, climate action, and tribal rights … all in direct contrast with the fossil fuel industry, in whose pockets are many of the republicans in Congress, obviously including Mr. Cassidy.  I have sent an email to both of my state’s senators urging them to confirm the nomination of Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Interior, for I feel strongly that her values are what this nation needs more of. 

A laugh or two

And last, I give you a bit of humour about … well, about so many things.  This clip from Jimmy Kimmel actually made me laugh, so watch it – it’ll be good for your blood pressure!

17 thoughts on “Bits of Snarks ‘n Snippets”

  2. Whether it’s Europe’s hottest year on record, unprecedented wildfires in California/Cascadia, off-the-chart poor-air advisories, the mass deforestation and incineration of the Amazonian rainforest (home to a third of all known terrestrial plant, animal and insect species), record-breaking flooding in Europe, single-use plastics clogging life-bearing waters, unprecedented stalling hurricanes, a B.C. (2019) midsummer’s snowfall, the gradually dying endangered whale species or geologically invasive/destructive fracking or a myriad of other categories of large-scale toxic pollutant emissions and dumps—there’s discouragingly insufficient political gonad planet-wide to sufficiently address it.
    (And, yes, I very much want to be proven wrong!)

    To me, our existence has for too long been analogous to a cafeteria lineup consisting of diversely societally represented people, all adamantly arguing over which identifiable traditionally marginalized person should be at the front and, conversely, at the back of the line. Many of them further fight over to whom amongst them should go the last piece of quality pie and how much should they have to pay for it—all the while the interstellar spaceship on which they’re all permanently confined, owned and operated by (besides the most wealthy) the fossil fuel industry, is on fire and toxifying at locations not normally investigated.

    The latter is allowed to occur, because blue-shirted liberals and red-hatted conservatives are preoccupied loudly blasting each other for their politics and beliefs thus distracting attention from big business’s moral and ethical corruption, where it should be focused.

    Meanwhile, mindless arguments are made and stupid-sounding catchphrases repeated, like “It’s the economy, stupid!”

    In short, we’re distracting ourselves from our own burning and heavily polluting of our sole spaceship, Earth.

    There’s discouragingly insufficient political gonad to sufficiently address the cause-and-effect of manmade global warming and climate change.

    What is sufficiently universal, however, is that the laborers are simply too exhausted and preoccupied with just barely feeding and housing their families on a substandard, if not below the poverty line, income to criticize the former for the great damage it’s doing to our planet’s natural environment and therefore our health, particularly when that damage may not be immediately observable.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Good morning Jill. Great post as usual. On Marjorie Greene, a few thoughts. She is trying to set herself up as the Republican version of AOC, which is why she tries to always use her middle name. She doesn’t use a hyphen which AOC does. She clearly is no AOC. The political party she belongs to is now a cult, and she is a cult member in great standing. While the House Republican leadership quickly removed S. King from committee assignments for racial comments, Greene is protected by her standing with tRump as he loves people that act like her. Do you find that what use to be unacceptable public behavior is now celebrated common behavior by Republicans and even the leadership? I was appalled by the behavior of the Republicans in the House during the first impeachment trial but at least they did not threaten to harm people during the hearings. Now you have the party encouraging the most thuggish members of their cult. The kind of behavior of gang thugs in high school is used by elected officials. I am not sure but that former political party has been taken over by people that use to not be allowed in public and if they did act that way would have been arrested. She went after a teen who had just been through a mass shooting for dog sake, in public and no one intervened. Decent people would have at one time told her to knock it off and blocked her from harassing him. It is a complete rejection of education, public discourse, reason, any conversational skills, and decency. I hate what they have done to the country and the national image. Hugs

    Liked by 2 people

    • Sorry I’m slow in responding, Scottie! I got behind, and you know how that goes … it takes a few days to get caught up! No, Marjorie Greene is no AOC! AOC stands for people, for things that have positive benefits, whereas Greene is a bigoted, violent, fanatic bitch! Oh yes, Scottie … more and more I find things that were once taboo now being accepted as the norm. For a member of Congress to chase down, stalk, and denigrate a high school student would once have caused such a stir that member of Congress would have been given the boot immediately. Now, Greene does that to David Hogg, and even threatens him with her gun! Every day I ask myself what the hell kind of country this is becoming … and I don’t like the answers. I look out my back window … grass is green, squirrels are eating the peanuts I put out and a flock of birds are attacking the bird feed, and … everything looks normal, but looks are deceiving and once I leave my own little corner of the world, it becomes obvious that nothing is as it once was, nothing is as it should be. Sigh. Hugs, my friend.

      Liked by 1 person

  6. Well, Jill, I never laughed, but I did smile. Poor Guillermo, he gets so picked on. UPS Auditors, eh? (Now you know for sure I am Canadian, be! See how we do comedy in the Great North? Dee proof is in da E-mail. So ef you if gee aitch I! Damn, who moved da you!)
    Using space lasers to start forest fires, hunh?

    Liked by 3 people

  7. Jill, newsbreak. There was a Trump Parade scheduled for yesterday of all the truthtellers on the Trump team, but they had to cancel it. One person got sick and the other one did not want to march alone. 😎 Keith

    Liked by 5 people

Comments are closed.