Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down

Posted on November 6, 2021 by jilldennison under Environmental Issues, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Good grief! Have the Republicans in Congress completely lost their bloody minds? On Friday, the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that has been the source of much haggling for months finally passed in the House. It would not have passed this time either, had it not been for 13 Republicans who stepped up to the plate and put the best interests of the people ahead of the Republican Party.

Don Bacon of Nebraska
Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania
Andrew Garbarino of New York
Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio
John Katko of New York
Adam Kinzinger of Illinois
Nicole Malliotakis of New York
David McKinley of West Virginia
Tom Reed of New York
Chris Smith of New Jersey
Fred Upton of Michigan
Jeff van Drew of New Jersey
Don Young of Alaska

Filosofa gives a huge thumbs-up to these 13 men and women! 👍

But then came the repercussions from the circus show otherwise known as the GOP, or the Republican Party. A sampling …

“I can’t believe Republicans just gave the Democrats their socialism bill” — Matt Gaetz 👎
“That 13 House Republicans provided the votes needed to pass this is absurd” — Chip Roy 👎
“Vote for this infrastructure bill and I will primary the hell out of you” — Madison Cawthorn 👎
Says ol’ Margie Greene … any Republican who voted for the bill would be “a traitor to our party, a traitor to their voters and a traitor to our donors.” After the vote, she accused the 13 of having voted to “pass Joe Biden’s Communist takeover of America” and tweeted the phone numbers to their congressional offices. 👎👎

It becomes obvious that either a) these people have no idea what ‘infrastructure’ is, or b) they don’t care if people are killed on crumbling roadways and bridges, if the people of this nation have clean, safe, drinking water, and more. My best guess is the latter explanation … the Republican Party no longer gives a damn about their constituents or about the people who pay their salaries … they care only about their own power and wealth.

Six Democrats voted against the bill, but you don’t hear other Democrats deriding them and calling them names. Just goes to show the difference in the level of maturity, don’t you think?

A number of Republicans are either leaving the party or deciding not to run again next year because they are ashamed of what the party has become and no longer wish to be associated with it. While I fully understand their logic and cannot argue to the contrary, perhaps it would be better for the country if those few who still have a conscience stayed in the party and tried to make a difference. We’ll never know.

The Republican Party has become something that would make the Founding Fathers roll over in their graves. The only way they will change is if the most radical of them are voted out of office. There was a time when I thought the vast majority of people in this country were too smart to fall for some of the crap the GOP is dishing out, but today I’m not so sure.

Oh Da Snark … Try Watching Grass Grow!

Posted on August 12, 2021 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, education, Environmental Issues, Political commentary, Social commentary

It seems I keep finding things to snark about. I have tried to clear my mind of the detritus, tried lying in the yard watching the grass grow to find some peace of mind, but some of the blades of grass began looking like politicians after a while. I threw myself into housework … for all of ten minutes … and then I was tired, so I went back to reading the news. So, letting loose the snark here on ye olde blog seems to be the only way to evict it from my head!

Punished for doing the right thing

Okay, my friends … I’m going there again … ‘there’ being the place I try very hard to stay away from: religion. Well, not religion per se, but rather certain religious ‘leaders’ who have flown repeatedly onto my radar, almost as if they are begging me to swat them down. Sigh. I really don’t like delving into the realm, for I understand that in this area, I am a minority and my views have little or no value to the majority. However …

Greg Locke, pastor of the Global Vision Bible Church in Nashville, Tennessee, is not a nice man. He has floated across my radar numerous times, but until recently I swished him away, pooh-poohed him as just another foolish evangelical. Until recently, that is, when he actually had the unmitigated gall to tell his congregation that if they wore a mask, they would be thrown out of church!

“If you start showing up [with] all these masks and all this nonsense, I will ask you to leave. I am not playing these Democrat games up in this church.”

‘Democrat games???’ Who’s playing games now, Greg? What’s next for Mr. Locke? Will he throw out parishioners who have been vaccinated? What about those who eat healthy and exercise regularly … are they to be given the boot? Folks, this is not about whether one chooses to believe in a higher being or not … this is about life and death, about personal choices, about our health. Mr. Locke has just mandated that his congregation must engage in dangerous, life-threatening behaviour in order to have the dubious ‘privilege’ of hearing him opine on that of which he is proven ignorant.

This isn’t Locke’s first foray into the unconscionable. Previously he insisted President Joe Biden was not legitimately elected and claimed only “crack-smoking” leftists would think he beat Donald Trump to the White House. He has falsely accused the State of Tennessee of building ‘quarantine camps’ to house the unvaccinated, and last September he published a book titled, This Means War: We Will Not Surrender Through Silence (Pastor Greg Locke: Spiritual Warfare Series).

What a joke he is … I wonder how many people will die because they listened to him?

And on the subject of masks …

Do you ever look around, read the news, and just wonder if the whole damn world has lost its collective marbles???

On Tuesday night, a meeting of the school board was held in Williamson County, Tennessee, the wealthiest in the state and one of the 20 wealthiest counties in the country. The purpose of the meeting was to decided whether or not there would be a mask mandate in place when children return to school next week. Unlike some other states, there is no ban on mask mandates in Tennessee and the decision is left up to each school district.

The meeting was so chaotic that it ended up taking four hours to decide that yes, they would mandate masks for teachers and students at the elementary school level. Masks will be optional at the junior high and high school levels where most students are over 12 years of age and thus eligible for vaccination. Angry parents showed up, almost none wearing a mask, and frequently disrupted the meeting, expressing their fury that their child might be ordered to wear a mask. One person became so violent that he had to be escorted out by county deputies.

But it was what came afterward that makes me think our nation is devolving into something cruel and inhumane. As the meeting broke up, hundreds of protestors were waiting outside. The meeting had included health care professionals who attested to the value of wearing a mask during this time when the Delta variant of the coronavirus is running rampant. Upon leaving the building, the health care professionals were surrounded by protestors chanting and issuing threats such as “We know who you are,” and “We will find you.”

If this is what it means to be an American, then I want no part of it! These people are loons! Doctors and nurses, trying to keep the children of these loons safe and alive, are threatened for doing so. PEOPLE! WAKE UP! This is not how rational human beings behave!!! Or is it? Are people completely losing the ability to disagree in a civilized manner?

Something to ponder

Our friend Jerry, aka Grumpy1180, left a comment on my post about Andrew Cuomo’s resignation that I found very astute …

I’ve had several epiphanies since leaving the Republican Party. Here’s one of them: When a Republican “leader” gets caught with his or her hand in the cookie jar–or his or her pants down, or choose your cliche–Republican followers turn on the accusers, the law enforcers, the court system, the media, and anyone else who would dare to question the integrity of their hero. They side with the person over the principle. When a Democrat leader gets caught violating a law or an important social norm, Democrat voters say, essentially, “Sorry, _____. I liked you, but principles come first. Time for you to move on and be replaced by someone who understands the importance of upholding crucial, society-sustaining principles.”

Think about that for a minute … he’s right! Did you hear a single Republican call for Trump’s resignation in light of his many proven sexual harassment accusations, his lies, his corruption? He even admitted to some of them, yet not a whisper was heard from Republicans in or out of Congress. When confirmation hearings were being held for Brett Kavanaugh to occupy a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, and a highly credible woman accused him of sexual assault, who did Republicans turn on? The woman, not Kavanaugh. And more recently … have you heard a single Republican call for Representative Matt Gaetz, who is being investigated on sex trafficking charges, to step down?

Think about it … which party has shown integrity? Jerry is right … it damn sure ain’t the Republican Party!

Snarky Snippets Volume 100+

Posted on July 30, 2021 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, Environmental Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

Some days my head simply spins on its axis (my neck) trying to keep up with everything happening in the nation, the world today. There are days that I can pick a topic, focus, and write a relatively coherent post on a single topic. Other days, however, I simply cannot gain that level of focus that is requisite, so instead I toss out a few snippets, usually snarky ones. Today is such a day. The week is topsy-turvy and my mind is spinning at somewhere around 136 rpm (revolutions per minute). Thus, today I give you another episode of Snarky Snippets …

Will Congress find their conscience, or will millions be living on the streets soon?

The current eviction moratorium, that prohibits landlords from evicting tenants who have fallen behind on their rent, is set to expire tomorrow. This means, in a nutshell, that millions of people could be without a home soon … millions, not hundreds, not thousands, but millions, the majority of them children. It was hoped that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) would extend the moratorium, given the new surge in cases due to the Delta variant (and the anti-vaxxers), but last month, when the Supreme Court upheld the current moratorium, they also made it clear that it could not be extended again except by an act of Congress.

President Biden called on Congress to act “without delay” to extend the eviction moratorium. Biden’s request prompted House and Senate Democrats to begin exploring whether they could rally enough votes to approve the new protections for renters. It remains unclear if Congress has the time and support to act ahead of the current July 31^st deadline.

I have very little doubt that the members of the House of Representatives will rally and manage to vote ‘yea’ on a hastily prepared bill that will keep millions of people sheltered. However, once such a bill reaches the Senate, possibly even sometime today, it will almost certainly go into the “Dead Bills” bin along with the For the People Act and probably hundreds of other pieces of legislation that the senate Republicans, along with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are holding up in a game of roulette. Let’s hope I’m wrong, for with the current heat wave that is affecting some 20 states at the moment, this is no time to be living on the streets.

The Four Stooges … or the Four Gs

Yesterday, Representatives Matt Gaetz (the sex trafficker), Margie Greene (QAnon member in good standing), Paul Gosar (white supremacist extraordinaire), and Louie Gohmert (the idiot in too many ways to count), went to the D.C. Department of Corrections (where they should all be standing on the other side) in an attempt to visit some of the prisoners who have been arrested in connection with their role in attacking Congress and the Capitol on January 6^th. They were turned away by jail officials. The Four Gs claimed they were there to inspect the treatment of suspects. Funny, isn’t it, that at least tens of thousands pass through the prison system each year, yet these three never came to check on those people.

Now, I may have a suspicious mind, but given that the four were accompanied by cameras from right-wing news organizations, I have a sneaking hunch that this was intended as a photo op, as an excuse to rile the masses yet again, as they surely knew they couldn’t just waltz in and visit with the prisoners of their choice.

When told that they were “obstructing entrance into this facility,” Gohmert responded …

“We’re the people that vote on whether or not to fund you, at what level, and we’re trespassing?”

WHOA … can we say ‘abuse of power’ or throwing one’s weight around? For the record, Congress has ZERO influence, for the D.C. Detention Center is not a federal facility and is fully funded by Washington, D.C. taxpayers.

The action at the jail was the group’s second this week, after they barged into the Justice Department on Tuesday trying to ask questions about the detention of January 6^th suspects awaiting trial and whether any were being held in solitary confinement. Gosar called them “political prisoners” who are being “persecuted” and unjustly punished. Oh wait … pobrecitos … were they not the ones dressed like maniacal cavemen carrying clubs, bear spray, and other weapons on that fateful day? Were they not the ones that scaled the outer walls of the Capitol, beat police officers, broke windows to gain access, and caused millions of dollars in damage to OUR property? Excuse me, perhaps I’m thinking of a different bunch of bozos.

Gohmert seemed to be the spokesperson for the bunch and said …

“The supervisor came down and was standing right here and turned her back on me. The other one said she won’t talk anymore and that we’re trespassers. We’re in totalitarian, Marxist territory here. This is the way third-world people get treated.”

Get a life, Louie!!!

And of course, ol’ Margie also feigned indignance …

“We suspect there is a two-tier justice system in the United States, for Trump supporters that are charged for Jan. 6 and catch-and-release for BLM rioters.”

Yeah, that’s right, Margie … when a cop pulls a person over, the first question out of his mouth is to ask whether the person is a trumpeter or not … if he is, then he is carted off to the Gulag, never to be seen or heard from again. Sheesh, but how did we manage to get so many dumbasses in Congress this time ‘round??? And four of ‘em whose surname starts with ‘G’. One media outlet, The Hill, referred to them as the ‘seditious four’ … sounds about right to me.

A dangerous thing to say

One of the Four G’s, Margie Greene, made a very dangerous statement when speaking to the Alabama Federation of Republican Women last week. First, she told the group that President Biden “is going to be sending one of his police state friends to your door,” referring to the volunteers the president has mentioned sending to rural areas to help people better understand and have access to the vaccination. But the worst part was when she told them …

“We all love our Second Amendment rights, and we don’t like the federal government coming on our property to tell us what to do. You have HIPAA rights and you do not have to tell your medical information and you can tell them to get off your front porch and get off your front lawn.”

WHOA NELLIE! This is a lawmaker, a member of Congress, advising people to get their guns out … this is incitement to violence, plain and simple! In my book, that statement alone is grounds for her immediate expulsion from Congress. Mr. Kevin McCarthy damn well better take action … it is long past due.

The Week’s Best Cartoons 4/10

Posted on April 12, 2021 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, cartoons, Environmental Issues, Humour, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary, voting rights

People like Matt Gaetz and Mitch McConnell give the political cartoonists much material to work with these days! It’s almost impossible not to mock them … it’s almost as if they’re begging us to! Our friend TokyoSand found some of the very best ones last week, as she always does. Thank you, TS!

See All The ‘Toons!

The Week’s Best Cartoons 4/3

Posted on April 4, 2021 by jilldennison under cartoons, Election 2022, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, voting rights

Once again, TokyoSand has found the best selection of political cartoons from the hundreds out there. This week’s biggest topics have been Matt Gaetz (who, in my book, deserves to be consigned to the annals of idiocy and forgotten), the trial of Derek Chauvin, the man who murdered George Floyd, and the horrendous voter suppression bill signed into law in Georgia by Governor Kemp. Thank you, TS, for all your hard work putting these weekly cartoon posts together!

See All The ‘Toons!

NO, Dr. Seuss Isn’t ‘Cancel Culture’!!!

Posted on March 7, 2021 by jilldennison under History, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Let’s talk about this hullabaloo some people are calling ‘cancel culture’. I wrote a post a while back about the so-called cancel culture, and to me it’s a meaningless, made-up phrase, but since it’s being bandied about like a ping pong ball this week, let’s examine a couple of things, starting with the folks who are up in arms over Dr. Seuss.

On Tuesday, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, which oversees the 20th-century children’s author’s estate, announced that it had decided to discontinue publication and licensing of six books by Theodor Seuss Geisel, saying, “These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.” Though four of the six books are basically unknown and make up a fraction of the author’s oeuvre, Fox News and other conservative voices, as if on autopilot, are treating the decision as another example of “cancel culture.”

Note that it was not I, nor any other person the republicans like to call snowflakes and bleeding heart liberals who decided to discontinue the books … it was the author’s representatives, the owners of the books! And yet, I’ve seen story after story about how liberals are now canceling Dr. Seuss. For the record, Theodor Seuss Geisel wrote and illustrated more than 60 books under the pen name Dr. Seuss. More than 60! That means, that even with 6 being taken out of publication, there are still at least 54 books to read to your children/grandchildren!

Now, about that hullaballoo. Times change, societies evolve, things that were widely used 50-100 years ago become obsolete. We evolve, we grow, we learn … well, some of us do anyway. And as we learn and grow, some things will inevitably go by the wayside. Terms and images that were once thought acceptable are no longer so, as we’ve learned that they are hurtful to others. This isn’t ‘cancel culture’ or anything like it, this is evolution, this is a society trying to be better than it once was.

You don’t still use grandma’s old wringer washing machine to do your laundry, do you? Or drive your grandfather’s old Model-T? The owners of the Dr. Seuss books evaluated and decided it was time to evolve, time to put racism and racist remarks in the past, to move forward in a more diverse, inclusive society. Anybody who is up in arms over this obviously doesn’t understand how the world works. And leave it to the likes of Fox News to play those ignorant people like fiddles, to pour fuel on a fire that didn’t even exist until Fox lit the match, and to find a way … any way … to blame those who are trying to put out the flames of bigotry in this nation.

I’ve heard those who call this ‘book banning’ and ‘censorship’ … it is neither. No library, religious group, school or government made the decision to stop publishing these books … the books’ owners made the decision, as was their right to do. Kevin McCarthy, Matt Gaetz, Marco Rubio and others in government have erroneously made such ignorant remarks such as …

“First, they outlaw Dr. Seuss and now they want to tell us what to say.” – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy

“When history looks back at this time it will be held up as an example of a depraved sociopolitical purge driven by hysteria and lunacy.” – Senator Marco Rubio

“While we’re able to joke about the absurdity of these things, tonight, each and every day Americans have to decide whether or not to self-censor, to self-cancel, to maybe not fly their America First flag in full but rather half mast. And I think that’s really the goal of the left, to cause us to be less expressive about our love for our country and our values.” – U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz

I’d like to think that with a pandemic that has swept across the nation for the past year giving us the highest death rate on the globe, voting rights on the chopping block, threats of violence by extremist racist groups, systemic racism in law enforcement, threats to our national security by domestic terrorists and more, our elected officials might have more serious things to spend their time on than being outraged because the owner of six books chooses to no longer publish them. I really resent paying these peoples’ salaries these days!

And then there’s the Mr. Potato Head ‘scandal’, also being called ‘cancel culture’. Hasbro, makers of the Potato Head, announced on Thursday that it would drop the “Mr.” from the brand’s name in a new playset to be released this fall, in order to be more inclusive and so all could feel “welcome in the Potato Head world.” The new sets are designed without the Mr. and Mrs. designations that will let kids create their own type of potato families, including two moms or two dads.

Naturally … sigh … the homophobic bigots went ballistic. The bottom line here is there’s no such thing as ‘cancel culture’, merely a natural evolution into what we hope will be a more inclusive, more compassionate world. People who spend time ruminating over these non-issues have too much time on their hands and too little maturity to find other things to think about.

Snarky @#$%& Snippets

Posted on December 6, 2020 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, Election 2020, Environmental Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

If you live outside the United States, count your blessings. This nation has lost its collective marbles! I would damn near kill for just one day with no mention of anyone whose last name is Trump in the news. I would absolutely do a happy dance if all the republicans in the nation suddenly developed laryngitis and had to go 24 hours without opening their nasty mouths! We can’t even get weekend breaks from the chaos and craziness! In keeping with the chaos, I now have news overload which has given me a severe case of mind bounce (not to mention high blood pressure), so this morning you get a bunch of unrelated tiny snippets with an abundance of snark … I think.

You’re Fired (by form letter via email)

Trump fired the Pentagon business advisory board … all nine of them. Members of the board received a brief email from Joshua Whitehouse, the White House liaison to the Department of Defense, that simply said, “if you are receiving this e-mail, your membership on the Defense Business Board has expired or is coming to an end.” What a way to find out you’re ousted, eh?

But wait … that’s not even the worst part. Two of the people Trump named to the board to replace the fired members are none other than Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, his former campaign manager and deputy campaign manager, neither of whom have served a single day in the military or have a hair on their head’s worth of experience in the defense industry! My damn cat has as much to qualify him for a seat on that board as those two ass-lickers have. Former Defense Secretary William Cohen called the move, “… an obscene gesture to the Biden supporters and to at least the majority of the American people.”

Idiot Extraordinaire

Former Republican congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who made a brief and unsuccessful attempt to gain the republican nomination for president in 2012, just can’t seem to sit down and shut up. Her latest is a short video whereby she pleads with god to “deliver Donald Trump a second term”. I don’t need to add my snark to that one, for it speaks for itself.

Gaetz banned from New Jersey!

I’ve written so many times about the punk republican representative Matt Gaetz that I can even spell his name without looking it up. He was arrested for Driving Under the Influence in 2008, and two years later elected to the Florida House of Representatives. Since 2017, he’s been making a fool of himself in the U.S. House of Representatives. He’s a punk who thinks his antics are cute … he reminds me of a teenage boy, but he is in fact 38 years of age.

The latest? He doesn’t seem to understand that rules apply to him, too. He attended a ‘secret party’ held by the Young Republicans club in Jersey City, New Jersey, with at least 150 other people in attendance. Right smack in the middle of a new surge of the coronavirus in that area, and where such large gatherings were expressly forbidden by order of Governor Phil Murphy. Nobody wore a mask at the gathering.

While not officially banned, Governor Murphy said, “You are not welcome in New Jersey, and frankly I don’t ever want you back in this state.” Two thumbs up to Governor Murphy for having the courage to speak up and speak out. As for Gaetz … Floridians apparently think he’s cool, for he was re-elected again last month. Way to go, Florida … here, have another drink of Kool Aid.

Isn’t coercion illegal?

I seriously long for the day Trump is naught but a bad memory … I would love not to see his name ever again. The latest? He’s once again trying to coerce Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to convene an emergency session of the Georgia State Legislature so it can name its own electors, who would in turn vote for him instead of President-Elect Joe Biden. This, my friends, is how leaders of banana republics deport themselves, not the ‘leader’ of a democratic republic of 330 million people!!! WE THE PEOPLE spoke on November 3^rd! Donald F***ing Trump has no right whatsoever to attempt to override our voices!

In case you can’t tell, I am livid. Donald Trump should be arrested right now and kept in a jail cell, given only bread and water until the evening of January 20^th. He has broken just about every law I can think of, and this is beyond unconscionable … it is criminal! He is a crook, worse than President Richard M. Nixon ever thought about being. He is as bad as Jeffrey Dahmer!

Kemp, for whom I have zero respect, to his credit refused Trump’s ‘request’. Georgia has had two full recounts and an audit and certified the election for Joe Biden not just once, but twice. No evidence of any notable fraud has been found. Why oh why hasn’t Melania held a pillow over his head some night?

Ol’ Two-Faced Lindsey is at it again

Speaking of men with no conscience … Lindsey Graham is in the news again. You remember Lindsey … the ‘man’ who claimed to be Senator John McCain’s ‘best friend’ and then stabbed him in the back? Lindsey made an appearance on Fox ‘News’ the other day. When Sean Hannity asked him about the possibility of Donald Trump facing a Federal investigation for crimes he’s accused of committing in office and during his campaign, Lindsey replied, falsely claiming that Robert Mueller’s investigation “found nothing,” and promising that if both Republicans win the two special elections coming up in January in Georgia, “the Attorney General nominee…will come before the judiciary committee…there’s no way in hell anyone’s gonna get confirmed …”

Tell you what, folks … I think it’s time for a mass impeachment of every damn republican in Congress, for as best I can tell they are every one a bunch of crooks who are determined to further rip apart what little is left of our trust in government.

And on that note, I must stop for tonight for if I don’t take a bit of time to wind down, I’ll lie awake cussing ‘til the sun comes up … if it even bothers. Have a wonderful Sunday … if you live outside the U.S., that might be possible.

This is my coffee mug, gifted to me one Christmas many years ago by my girls. It suits me to a T.

A Damn Shame

Posted on December 4, 2020 by jilldennison under Election 2020, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry

The Electoral College will meet in just ten days to cast their votes, per the popular vote in their states, for the next president of the United States. Joe Biden has, as I’m sure you know by now, won 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232 … so there should be no question, right? But, you need to know that there are a few shenanigans by people who are attempting to override the will of the people and keep Donald Trump firmly planted in the Oval Office. Do I think this will work? No … but I do think we need to be aware, and once again contact our elected officials to make sure they understand that we will not put up with having our voices erased.

Although the Electoral College will meet on December 14^th and presumably the electors will vote in good faith, representing the will of the people, there is still one final step in the process. Congress must certify the Electoral College vote. Trump has, thus far, lost all but one of his lawsuits, and that one resulted in a negligible difference, especially as compared to the 40 he has lost. So, his last best hope is for Congress to challenge the results of the Electoral College. Typically, this wouldn’t be a concern, but this year is like no other in our history.

An obscure 1887 law called the Electoral Count Act, and several subsequent updates, spell out the process, setting January 6^th after a presidential election as the official certification date and outlining vague, unnecessarily complex procedures. On that day, the House and Senate meet in a joint session at 1 p.m. — just three days after the newly constituted Congress is sworn in. One of their first orders of business is to pass judgment on the Electoral College vote.

If a single House member and a single senator join forces, they can object to entire slates of presidential electors. They must do so in writing and provide an explanation. If they do, the House and Senate must retreat to their chambers and debate the outcome for up to two hours before voting on the matter. Each state’s electors are certified separately, meaning lawmakers bent on challenging the results have multiple chances to force lengthy delays. If the Democrat-run House and GOP-controlled Senate disagree? That outcome has never been tested before, so we are in uncharted waters here.

Why do I bring this up now? Because at least a few republican members of Congress are trying to rally support for such a challenge. Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama has been telling colleagues and allies that he plans to challenge the Electoral College votes when Congress officially certifies Joe Biden’s victory on January 6^th, as long as a Senate Republican joins him in the long-shot effort.

“In my judgment, if only lawful votes by eligible American citizens were cast, Donald Trump won the Electoral College by a significant margin, and Congress’s certification should reflect that. This election was stolen by the socialists engaging in extraordinary voter fraud and election theft measures.”

Methinks Mr. Brooks has been drinking a bit too much of the Trumpade. But, he is not alone … the ignoble Matt Gaetz, representative from Florida, unconscionable Warren Davidson from Ohio, and newly-elected Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon follower/promoter, have all said they would seriously consider challenging the certification of the Electoral College. So, all that’s left is a republican senator to jump on board … is it so hard to believe that Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, or Lindsey Graham might decide to play along? They certainly haven’t shown any integrity thus far …

Even so, I think the odds of such a challenge succeeding are slim-to-none, however it is in our best interest to keep an eye open, for there are those who would deny the voice of the people, would instead opt for a government that does not consider the will or best interests of the people. These are uncharted waters … this entire election and post-election period has been unprecedented in the history of this country. We can be forgiven for not having much trust in the system operating as it was originally intended … as it has for the past 233 years. Corruption seems to be the name of the republican game and … the only thing I trust them to do is lie, cheat, and steal.

I don’t think the framers of the Constitution nor the people who fought for our freedom ever intended it to be like this. It’s a sad statement that we cannot trust the people we elected and whose salary we work hard to pay. Most people work hard all their lives and pay their taxes without question, so that we can support the lifestyles of these people in Congress, most all of whom are independently wealthy beyond our wildest imagination, and half of whom would throw us under the wheels of a bus if it suited their interest. A damn shame.

Good Night

Posted on November 4, 2020 by jilldennison under Election 2020, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants, Social commentary

Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Matt Gaetz, Susan Collins, Joni Ernst and many other horrendous, conscienceless, corrupt members of Congress have been re-elected. Worse yet, at this point it looks very much like Herr Trump will continue as the Dictator of the nation formerly known as the United States of America. As of this writing, there are at least 65 million very stupid people in this country who have just signed the death warrant for the country and its 330 million inhabitants. Thank you, assholes.

Filosofa is OVER and OUT.

The RNC — A Laugh A Minute!

Posted on August 25, 2020 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, Election 2020, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

I did not watch even a single minute of the Republican National Convention, nor do I plan to. I have enough troubles at the moment, without having to watch vomit-inducing speeches by some of the ugliest people in the nation. But, I read enough news stories and commentaries this morning to draw a couple of conclusions, which I shall share here with you today.

First, it appears that the Republican Party, or should I say, Donald Trump, has no platform. Their platform, such as it is, seems to be to turn Joe Biden … all democrats, in fact … into some sort of monster who must be feared. A few samples …

Joe Biden and the radical left are now coming for our freedom of speech. They want to bully us into submission. If they get their way, it will no longer be the silent majority. It will be the silenced majority. – Don Trump Junior
Joe Biden and the radical left Democrats … want to drag us into the dark. – Don Trump Junior
The woke-topians will disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home and invite MS-13 to live next door, and the police aren’t coming when you call. – Matt Gaetz
They want to steal your liberty, your freedom. They want to control what you see and think and believe so that they can control how you live. They want to enslave you to the weak, dependent, liberal victim ideology, to the point that you will not recognize this country or yourself. – Kimberly Guilfoyle (Junior’s latest paramour)
They’re not satisfied with spreading the chaos and violence into our communities. They want to abolish the suburbs altogether. Make no mistake, no matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats’ America. – the McCloskeys (the couple who pointed guns at peaceful protestors simply walking down the sidewalk)

There’s more, but you get the message, right? In 2016, Trump’s only real platform was fear-mongering, telling the less intellectual among us that we must be afraid of immigrants, for they are coming to rape your women, kill your children, and take your jobs. He painted Latinos as rapists and murderers, and Middle-Easterners as Islamic terrorists, in order to strike terror into the hearts of those who knew no better. “I alone can fix this,” he claimed. And this year is no different … just a different ‘enemy’ this time.

And along those lines, the speakers at the RNC went out of their way to claim that Trump is not a racist and the U.S. is not a racist nation, even as Trump refers to the coronavirus as the “China virus”, and Junior calls Joe Biden, “Beijing Biden”. Oh no, no racism here!

“In much of the Democratic party it’s now fashionable to say America is racist. That is a lie. America is not a racist country.” – Nikki Haley

Try telling that to the family of George Floyd, or to Jacob Blake, fighting for his life in a Milwaukee hospital.Last Friday, Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris was asked by ABC News’ David Muir in a joint interview with Joe Biden about various names Trump has called her recently. Her response should be an example for all of us when Trump and his cronies start with the name-calling and the lies. Senator Harris laughed.

Muir: “President Trump has referred to you as ‘nasty,’ ‘a sort of madwoman,’ ‘a disaster,’ ‘the meanest, most horrible, most disrespectful of anybody in the U.S. Senate.’ How do you define what you hear from the president?”

Harris started to laugh halfway through the question.

Harris: “Listen, I really – I think there is so much about what comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth that is designed to distract the American people from what he is doing every day that is about neglect, negligence and harm to the American people.”

I really think this is what we must all learn to do … laugh at the ridiculousness of the claims, then move on and focus on the positive, focus on Joe Biden’s candidacy, his platform, the things that will begin to heal the deep wounds in this nation. Trump & Co can only make those wounds deeper, more infectious, if we allow them to. Here’s an example for you …

I had to laugh at the part where Junior said, “Our founders believed there was nothing more important than protecting our God given right to think for ourselves.” Think? Junior? 🤣🤣🤣

They really are a riot … rather like an episode of The Three Stooges, only with really bad actors.

And if you want another joke, one speaker even compared Trump to George Bailey in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life!!!

And perhaps the most ludicrous of all, given all the irrefutable evidence of Trump’s campaign colluding with Putin and the Russians to influence the 2016 election, is this statement by Trump himself …

“We caught them doing some really bad things in 2016. We have to be very careful because they’re trying it again with this whole 80 million mail-in ballots that they’re working on. The only way they can take this election away from us is if it’s a rigged election.”

Remember, folks … LAUGH!!! If you don’t laugh, you might cry, and I understand that the tissue companies like Kleenex and Puffs are already working overtime to try to meet demand!

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