Tag Archives: the Big Lie

Give Him The Boot

Posted on by under Election 2020, Election 2022, Environmental Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary

First, I would like to start by saying I hope all my Florida friends are safe as Hurricane Elsa made landfall in Florida just a few hours ago.  Keep safe and well, my friends.

I took a day-and-a-half off from my blog, from the news, just mostly read and played games with the family, in order to try to clear my head from the past several years when it seems that I have been on a non-stop rant about one thing or another.  I came back to ye olde blog with renewed energy … well, I had it for Jolly Monday on Tuesday, at least.  And then I read of the gun deaths over the holiday weekend and that pretty much shot any degree of tranquility I had managed to achieve.  And then today, I see this tweet from a U.S. Representative from my own state, a Republican and an asshole, Jim Jordan:

“Democrats made the Fourth of July controversial. Republicans just love America.”

Not wishing to be thrown back in Twitter jail just yet, I tempered my response …

“HA HA HA HA HA … You are soooo funny, Mr. Jordan!  No, you don’t love the country, you don’t even give a royal f*ck about the people here.  You just love money, guns, and power.  I hope you are voted OUT!!!!”

A bit of background for some who may not be as familiar with Mr. Jordan …

He has been in the U.S. Congress since 2007, and is a founding member of the unconscionably conservative House Freedom Caucus.  He was a close buddy of the former guy, which should tell you all you need to know, and the former guy awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a private ceremony just days before leaving office in January.  On what grounds, or for what heroic deed the medal was awarded escapes me, for Jordan … is not a good person.  The only reason I can figure is that Jordan was one of eight House lawmakers who were part of Trump’s defense team in his Senate impeachment trial last year.  Perhaps in Trump’s mind, that qualifies Jordan … in my mind, it just makes him an even bigger jerk than he was before.

But let’s go back a bit in Mr. Jordan’s history.  From 1987 until 1995, Jordan was an assistant wrestling coach with Ohio State University’s wrestling program.  During that time, Dr. Richard Strauss was the team physician.  Turns out that Dr. Strauss was sexually abusing the boys on the team, and … wait for it … Jim Jordan was well aware of it!

Ohio State opened an independent investigation in 2018 … thirteen years after Dr. Strauss had died by his own hand.  During the course of the investigation, at least eight wrestlers/students came forward and said that they had complained to Jordan, but he did nothing.  One of the students, Dunyasha Yetts, said in testimony …

“For God’s sake, Strauss’s locker was right next to Jordan’s and Jordan even said he’d kill him if he tried anything with him!”

None of the students accused Jordan of committing sexual assault, however four former wrestlers named him as a defendant in a lawsuit against the university.  Jordan refused to cooperate with investigations into Strauss. He described his accusers as “pawns in a political plot” and said he did not even hear any locker room talk about Strauss or sexual abuse at OSU. In response to Jordan’s denials, one of the students, Mike DiSabato said, “I considered Jim Jordan a friend. But at the end of the day, he is absolutely lying if he says he doesn’t know what was going on.”

Take it all for what it’s worth, but to me … where there is so much smoke, there is a fire, and eight students claiming they told Jordan of the abuse at the hands of the doctor constitutes a great deal of smoke!

And then … he went to Washington.  A step up from being a wrestling coach, being responsible for making the laws that directly affect some 330 million people, and indirectly affect the entire globe.  One of his first moves was to use the Freedom Caucus to shove then-Speaker of the House John Boehner out of his position.  Another was to bring the equally corrupt and ignoble Warren Davidson into the House.  Thus far, in my book, Jordan is batting 0.  He is not “for the people”, he is for lining his own pockets, for increasing his own power, and will support anything that plays into those two goals.

Jordan is also a consummate liar, for in 2018 when asked by Anderson Cooper if he had ever heard the former guy tell a lie, he replied …

“I have not … nothing comes to mind. I don’t know that Trump has ever said something wrong that he needs to apologize for.”

He was one of the 139 representatives who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Congress, and to this day claims that the election was “stolen”.  He is against environmental regulations and against women’s rights.  I could go on and on, but really … need I say more?

Jordan does not represent my district, but I hope the people in his district have the good sense to give him the boot in the mid-term elections next year.  Meanwhile, I will be working tirelessly to try to convince the people of my own district to give Warren Davidson that same boot!  We do not need right-wing radicals who completely disregard the will of the people sitting in Congress taking up space, time, and money!

The Demagogues Are Having a Field Day

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary

Our friend Annie has touched on a number of hot topics today, from General Milley’s response to the little wuss, Matt Gaetz, to the fools over at Fox News, to the Big Lie, to voter suppression efforts by Republicans! Her post is well worth the read, and she ends on a more positive note, telling us about some of the efforts being made to counter the Republican’s efforts to promote ignorance and take this nation back 100 years … or more. Thanks, Annie!

annieasksyou...

American flag image from Renan Kamikoga, found via unsplash.com

Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, drew a lot of flack last year when he accompanied then-President Trump on what was widely condemned as a “photo-op” in which Trump stood in front of a church holding a Bible during Black Lives Matter protests outside the White House.

Milley, a much-decorated general whom Trump had appointed, subsequently apologized for allowing the military to be politicized. Apparently, behind the scenes, he was doing even more.

According to a new book written by Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender (Frankly, We Did Win ThisElection), as demonstrations were held in a number of cities, Milley repeatedly stopped Trump from demanding that the largely peaceful demonstrators (more than 93% of the demonstrations were peaceful) be met with violence.

From CNN Politics:

“’That’s how you’re supposed to handle these people,’…

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The Danger of Collective Amnesia

Posted on by under Election 2020, Free Press Issues, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, voting rights

Nearly five months after the attack on the Capitol on January 6th of this year, Republicans continue to downplay and naysay the attack.  Time seems to have diminished their memories of that fateful day, and they claim it was nothing more than a few ‘tourists’ or ‘patriots’ having a good time.  Never mind that five people were killed and 140 police officers injured, and never mind that if the attempt to overthrow an election had succeeded, we would be living in a very different country today, one ruled by a madman and his cronies.

Robert Reich explains the utter importance of investigating the attack and the events that led up to it, the people who may have played a role in instigating it.  If we fail to learn from the past, then we are destined to repeat it.  Listen closely to his words, for he speaks the truth.  We the People pay to sustain a government that operates in our best interest, yet nearly half of those in Congress have completely forgotten their oaths, forgotten their purpose, and their only goal is to cement their own positions of power.

FACTS Matter And Ignorance Is NOT Bliss

Posted on by under Election 2020, Environmental Issues, Global Issues, Political commentary, Social commentary

Truth is not subjective!  Truth is based on facts.  Period.  Fact:  the sugar bowl on my kitchen counter is in the shape of a strawberry.  That is not disputable by any reasonable mind who has ever seen my sugar bowl … or a strawberry.

Today, however, there are people who will argue any point, even when a thousand facts have been presented by credible, well-respected experts.  Take, for example, climate change.

97% – 98% of all climate scientists worldwide support the consensus on human-caused climate change, and yet there are people who will tell you it’s all a hoax.  A HOAX???  For some, it is a matter only of ignorance, for they do not understand the difference between climate and weather.  For others, it is a matter of Terminal Stupidity for they believe what their favourite politicians tell them despite all the facts to the contrary.  Those favourite politicians take their marching orders from the heads of such companies as Exxon Mobil (oil company) and Murray Energy (coal company) because those are the CEOs that are lining the politicians’ pockets.  As of 2020, 88% of Democrats believe that climate change presents a major threat, while only 31% of Republicans believe it. The facts are there for all to see … melting icecaps, rising sea levels, rising temperatures, prolonged droughts, more severe and frequent tropical storms, and more.  How can anybody deny the science here?

And speaking of science, conspiracy theories and lies abound in Republican circles about the coronavirus pandemic and the vaccine.  Even though it is a fact that more than 600,000 people have died in the U.S. alone and 3.5 million have died worldwide as a result of the coronavirus, there are still those who thumb their nose, refuse to wear a mask, and are refusing the vaccine, saying it infringes on their ‘right’.  And yes, once again, the majority of those are Republicans.  A poll taken last month shows that 45% of Republicans say they will not be vaccinated.  One of the leading Republican conspiracy theories making the rounds is that the coronavirus pandemic is a cover for a plan to implant trackable microchips via the vaccine, and that the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is behind it.  This one ranks right up there with the Pizzagate conspiracy theory that claimed Hillary Clinton was running a sex trafficking ring in the basement of a pizza parlour. That one almost got people killed … the vaccine refusal will absolutely get people killed, perhaps innocent (not Republican) people.

And then there is that Big Lie that says the former one-term, twice-impeached guy actually won the election for president in 2020, despite the fact that not one single shred of evidence exists to support that lie.  In fact, every bit of evidence proves that President Biden won the election by more than 7 million votes!  And, if you want to talk about election facts, that former guy was never the legitimate president of the United States, for he LOST the 2016 election by nearly 3 million votes!  But, due to a little thing known as the Electoral College and gerrymandering, that really boils down to racist cheating, he was allowed access to the Oval Office and spent four years there tearing down instead of building up.  A national poll conducted just last week shows that fully 53% of Republicans still believe that the former guy is the “true president” now.  61% of Republicans believe the election was “stolen” from the former guy.  My jaw drops every time I see these figures … how in the Sam Hell can anybody be so bloomin’ stupid???

For more than four years, I have made every effort not to paint Republicans with a broad brush, not to lump them all in together, and not to label them, but I can no longer continue that effort.  Every single thing I am seeing today tells me two things:  Republican politicians are as corrupt as they come, they would rather rob us of our rights than lose their power; and the majority of Republican voters are just plain ignorant, not bothering to dig a bit for a few facts, but instead content to believe everything they hear on Fox ‘News’ and out of the mouths of such blathering idiots as Margie Taylor Greene, Kevin McCarthy, Ted Cruz, and others.  They say that ‘ignorance is bliss’ … and it may well be for the ignorant, but their bliss is quite literally killing the rest of us. Sorry, Republicans, but respect is earned and you have lost my respect by your ignorance, by the danger you are putting us all in with your ignorance.  If you want respect, get up off your arses and educate yourselves, try studying a few facts, and using your brain.  Earn that respect.

Wait And See

Posted on by under Election 2020, Election 2022, Election 2024, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, voting rights

An announcement letter in The Washington Post yesterday caught my eye.  The letter was written by a number of Republicans, including former members of Congress, cabinet members, and governors, and promises … I’m not sure if they are promising an entirely new party, or simply a more centrist, sensible arm of the Republican Party.

I am, by nature, a skeptic … question everything.  Trust nobody.  However, I am pleased to see that in the wake of the abhorrent treatment the party has heaped on not only Liz Cheney, but all who had the integrity to stand against the former guy and his Big Lie, I’m pleased to see that at least some notables in the GOP are not simply lying down and waiting for the bulldozer to flatten them.  I am, for now, taking a ‘wait and see’ attitude toward the whole thing, but will have more to say as I see the direction this group takes, see if they put their money where their collective mouths are.  Meanwhile, read the letter and check out their mission statement and outline with 152 notable signatories of what they hope to achieve.

The GOP has lost its way. Fellow Americans, join our new alliance.

Opinion by Charlie Dent, Mary Peters, Denver Riggleman, Michael Steele and Christine Todd Whitman

May 13, 2021 at 9:00 a.m. EDT

Charlie Dent represented Pennsylvania’s 15th Congressional District in the U.S. House from 2005 to 2018. Mary Peters was secretary of transportation during the George W. Bush administration. Denver Riggleman represented Virginia’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House from 2019 to 2021. Michael Steele is a former chairman of the Republican National Committee. Christine Todd Whitman was governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001.

The Republican Party made a grievous error this week in ousting Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) from the House leadership for telling the truth about Donald Trump’s “big lie,” which has wreaked havoc in our democratic republic by casting doubt over the 2020 election.

Cheney rightfully struck back against party leaders and warned about the GOP’s dangerous direction. She is not alone.

Alongside dozens of prominent Republicans, ex-Republicans and independents, we are announcing “A Call for American Renewal,” a nationwide rallying cry against extremist elements within the GOP, and highlighting the urgent need for a new, common-sense coalition.

We urge fellow Americans to join us.

Our alliance includes former governors, members of Congress, Cabinet secretaries, state officials, seasoned political strategists and grass-roots leaders dedicated to offering a hopeful, principles-based vision for the country — and ensuring that our votes have decisive impact in key elections across the United States.

We want to give voice to the millions of Americans who feel politically homeless and mobilize them to help chart a new path forward for our country.

It is time for a rebirth of the American cause, which we will pursue in partnership and loyal competition with others committed to the preservation of our Union.

Tragically, the Republican Party has lost its way, perverted by fear, lies and self-interest. What’s more, GOP attacks on the integrity of our elections and our institutions pose a continuing and material threat to the nation.

The Jan. 6 insurrection was a wake-up call for many who had remained loyal to the party, even while harboring concerns about its direction.

Many have since left. The GOP has effectively become a privileged third party, ranking behind independents and Democrats in voter registration.

Meanwhile, Republican legislators are trying to impede voting rights across the country as a last-ditch effort to retain power.

We will not wait forever for the GOP to clean up its act. If we cannot save the Republican Party from itself, we will help save America from extremist elements in the Republican Party.

That means hastening the creation of an alternative: a political movement dedicated to our founding principles and divorced from the GOP’s obsessive cult of personality around a deeply flawed (and twice-impeached) man, whose favorability ratings are reportedly tanking in key swing districts around the country.

We will fight for honorable Republicans who stand up for truth and decency, such as Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney, to name a few.

But we will not rely on the old partisan playbook. We intend to work across party lines with other Americans to oppose extremists and defend the republic wherever we can.

Together with our patriotic allies in other parties, our movement will stand against fearmongers, conspiracy theorists and the opportunists who seek unbridled power.

We plan to invest in a deeper bench of effective leaders in cities and states across the country while recruiting a new generation of principled, pragmatic citizens to the cause.

Some no doubt will urge us to join the Democratic Party. We believe that inching toward a single-party system would be dangerous and would fail to represent the diverse viewpoints in our nation.

America cannot have just one party committed to preservation of its democratic institutions. There must be at least two, if not more.

With Cheney’s dismissal from House leadership, the battle for the soul of the Republican Party — and our country — is not over. It is just beginning, which is why we are forming a “resistance of the rational” against the radicals.

We still hope for a healthy, thriving Republican Party, but we are no longer holding our breath.

Next month, we will convene a nationwide town hall open to all Americans and featuring current and former U.S. leaders who will lay out where we must go from here, how we can ensure a freer America and how all citizens can join the fight.

Extremists may have fired the first shot in this moral struggle for America’s future, but with truth as our lodestar, those laboring to renew America will fire the last.

They Walk Among Us …

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Election 2020, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants

Some days I wake up and wonder if I dreamed all the lunacy that is part of the United States today.  And then I pick up my phone, check the news, and … nope, not a dream, just a horrible reality.  And then I wish I could just stay in bed, not ever get up again.  I have a feeling that the founders of this nation would be deeply ashamed of some of the people who inhabit it today.  More than a few times I’ve thought perhaps we would have been better off to remain under British rule, for obviously we are not capable of self-governance today.  Just a few examples …

Unfit

Marge Green, aka Marjorie Taylor Greene, ought to be sent back home to Georgia until she can learn to act as an adult.  She seems to believe that the way to get her point across is to run after people shrieking like a banshee.  I mentioned once before that back in 2019, before she was erroneously elected to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, she ran after young David Hogg, a teen survivor of the Parkland school shootings, screaming questions at him and ultimately calling him a coward.  Hogg, more mature than Greene, kept walking and did not acknowledge her harassment, later saying “I was told growing up, it’s just better not to respond to bullies and just walk away.”  Which proves that at 19, he was more mature than Ms. Greene is today at 46.

The latest is that yesterday, Ms. Greene did the exact same thing to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, familiarly known as AOC.  Representative Ocasio-Cortez left the committee chamber slightly ahead of Greene, and Greene began shouting at her, yelling her name, and when AOC did not slow down or turn around, Greene became belligerent, speeding up and screeching that AOC was supporting terrorists (she specified that she was referring to Black Lives Matter), and screaming …

“You don’t care about the American people. Why do you support terrorists and antifa?”

Members of Congress are not going to always agree, they will have differences of opinion, and we always hope they will find common ground for compromise.  But this behaviour on the part of Marge Greene is simply unacceptable.  This is not professional, it is disrespectful, rude, and borders on criminal harassment.  I read an article last night that called Ms. Greene’s behaviour “extreme anti-leftist”.  No, it is not … it is juvenile, it is disrespectful, it is immature and the sign of a mind that is incapable of coherent thought.  Greene has never been qualified for her position and I suspect the people in her district in Georgia thought they were being funny when they elected her, but there is nothing funny about this – Greene is a threat and a danger to this nation.  GET.  HER.  OUT.

Lunatic

If you look up L. Lin Wood on Wikipedia, the first line tells you most of what you need to know:

“Lucian Lincoln “Lin” Wood Jr. (born October 19, 1952) is an American attorney and conspiracy theorist.”

Among his most famous conspiracy theories to date is that of The Big Lie, as Wood claims, despite mounds of evidence to the contrary, that “Trump had won the election with 70% of the vote, and that a secret cabal of international communists, Chinese intelligence, and Republican officials had contrived to steal the election from Trump.”

On Tuesday, Wood stood in front of a crowd in South Carolina and said …

“Donald J. Trump has never conceded…because he won the [2020] election. So be cool—it’s all going to be good in time. Donald J. Trump is still the guy the military will call for the code if they need a first strike. Joe Biden is not the President of the United States.”

Somebody needs to lock this man away before he causes irreparable harm to his family and himself!  Perhaps he and Marge Greene could share a padded room together!

He went on to say that Trump secretly invoked the Insurrection Act of 1807 before leaving office and can begin “cleaning things up” in the United States whensoever he desires. Per Wood, Trump will be the instrument of “God” when he does so.

No, Lin, the military will not call on the former guy for a nuclear code, and in fact, the former guy doesn’t have access to the nuclear codes anymore!  And if he is an ‘instrument of god’, then your god is evil incarnate!  Surely people aren’t so stupid as to fall for this bullshit?  And no, your former guy is naught more than an instrument of a deranged set of minds, people who cannot separate fact from fantasy.

Murderers

On January 6th, thousands of white supremacist and other potential murderers stormed the Capitol as the Congress prepared to certify the election results of 2020.  They erected a noose outside the Capitol, they went in chanting “Hang Mike Pence”, and it was later said they planned to drive all members of Congress into the underground tunnels and gas them to death.  These are the facts.

On Wednesday, a number of people testified about that day before Congress, including Representative Andrew Clyde from the state of Georgia, who said …

“Let me be clear, there was no insurrection. You would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”

NO, YOU ONE-MAN FREAKSHOW!!!  No, nobody with a conscience and a brain would have thought that was a “normal tourist visit”.  There was a noose.  There were 140 police officers injured.  There were guns.  There was violence.  There were five people killed that very day.  There was a noose.  There was death and destruction.  These were jackfaces who had been encouraged by the asshole of a then-president to destroy the normal processes of law and silence our voices, overturn our election where WE THE PEOPLE voted for sanity, for compassion, for a president who had a fucking brain and the capability to speak in complete sentences!

The Republican Party can go down in flames for all that I care.  Mr. Andrew Clyde can hang himself in his own noose for all I care.  They are a lot of hypocritical jackasses and I hope they every one get what they deserve!

And speaking of those who attempted to commit treason on that fateful day … I loved this Randy Rainbow clip about none other than the empty-headed Josh Hawley …

Looking Forward Doesn’t Mean Forgetting The Past

Posted on by under Election 2020, Environmental Issues, Free Press Issues, History, Law and justice, Political commentary

The attacks on Congress and the Capitol on January 6th of this year are destined to become a notable part of the ongoing history of this nation.  We rely on the media to help us find answers to the ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions, but instead the press, whose independence we cherish and protect, is turning a blind eye, has moved on without delving too deeply for answers.  The GOP prefers to simply ‘move on’ and the press is giving in to them, it seems.  Robert Reich’s piece in The Guardian yesterday speaks to this issue …

Republicans tried to overturn the election. We can’t just forget that

Robert Reich

Americans like to look forward but the effects of Trump’s lies about Covid and the 6 January insurrection are still with us

America prefers to look forward rather than back. We’re a land of second acts. We move on.

This can be a strength. We don’t get bogged down in outmoded traditions, old grudges, obsolete ways of thinking. We constantly reinvent. We love innovation and disruption.

The downside is a tendency toward collective amnesia about what we’ve been through, and a corresponding reluctance to do anything about it or hold anyone accountable.

Now, with Covid receding and the economy starting to rebound – and the 2020 election and the attack on the Capitol behind us – the future looks bright.

But at the risk of being the skunk at the picnic, let me remind you: we have lost more than 580,000 people to Covid-19. One big reason that number is so high is our former president lied about the virus and ordered his administration to minimize its danger.

Donald Trump also lied about the results of the last election. And then – you remember, don’t you? – he tried to overturn the results.

Trump twisted the arms of state election officials. He held a rally to stop Congress from certifying the election, followed by the violent attack on the Capitol. Five people died. Senators and representatives could have been slaughtered.

Several Republican members of Congress encouraged the attempted coup by joining him in the big lie and refusing to certify the election.

This was just over four months ago, yet we seem to be doing everything we can to blot it out of our memory.

Last Tuesday, the Washington Post hosted a live video chat with the Missouri Republican senator Josh Hawley, a ringleader in the attempt to overturn the results of the election. Hawley had even made a fist-pump gesture toward the mob at the Capitol before the attack.

But the Post billed the interview as being about Hawley’s new book on the “tyranny of big tech”. It even posted a biography of Hawley that made no mention of Hawley’s sedition, referring instead to his supposed reputation “for taking on the big and the powerful to protect Missouri workers” and as “a fierce defender of the constitution”.

Last week, CBS This Morning interviewed the Florida Republican Rick Scott, another of the senators who tried to overturn the election by not certifying the results. But there was no mention of his sedition. The CBS interviewer confined his questions to Biden’s spending plans, which Scott unsurprisingly opposed.

Senators Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson and the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, also repeatedly appear on major news programs without being questioned about their attempts to undo the results of the election.

What possible excuse is there for booking them if they have not publicly retracted their election lies? If they must appear, they should be asked if they continue to deny the election results and precisely why.

Pretending nothing happened promotes America’s amnesia, which invites more attempts to distort the truth.

On Monday, Trump issued a “proclamation” seeking to co-opt the language of those criticizing his falsehoods. “The Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as the BIG LIE!” he wrote, repeating his claims that the 2020 election was stolen and that President Biden is illegitimate. Most Republican voters believe him.

Trump’s big lie is being used by Republican state legislatures to justify new laws that restrict voting. On Thursday, hours after Florida installed new voting restrictions, Texas’s Republican-led legislature pushed ahead with its own bill that would make it one of the hardest states in which to cast a ballot.

The Republican-controlled Arizona senate is mounting a private recount of the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa county – farming out 2.1m ballots to GOP partisans, including at least one who participated in the 6 January raid on the Capitol.

The Republican party is about to purge one of its leaders, the Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, for telling the truth.

It is natural to want to put all this unpleasantness behind us. We are finally turning the corner on the pandemic and the economy. Why look back to the trauma of the 2020 election?

But we cannot put it behind us. Trump’s big lie and all that it has provoked are still with us. If we forget what has occurred, the trauma will return, perhaps in even more terrifying form.

Ramblings From My Own Bouncing Mind

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Election 2020, Election 2024, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants, Social commentary

What follows is just a few of the many things that weigh heavily on my mind these days, that keep me awake at night, and that are robbing us all of peace of mind, of any sense of security in this nation.

Why in hell do we start campaigning for the office of president before the ink is even dry on the last election results?  Huh?  Anybody know an answer to this?  Last Tuesday, in an interview with the traitorous Candace Owens, the former guy, asked about whether he plans to vie again for the Oval Office in 2024, said …

“I think people are going to be very, very happy when I make a certain announcement.”

The implications of that arrogant statement made me want to throw up my supper.  Luckily, I had only eaten about ¼ of a salad, so not much to worry about.

Very happy???  It literally made me want to kill the man.  Note to FBI agents who may be monitoring WordPress blogs … don’t worry, I don’t own a gun and wouldn’t go within 100 miles of that jackass anyway.

There are 1,276 days left until the 2024 election … PLEASE let us live at least ¾ of them in relative peace!!!  Allow us time to rest and recuperate from the turmoil of the past 5 years, to take heart in the fact that we once again, have a government led by a man, a man who cares about people, not only their money!

And then I read that former Vice President Mike Pence touted Trump, saying – “we made America greater than ever before” – in a recent speech.  No, Mikey, you and he damn near destroyed this nation.  You both attempted to turn a nation built on diversity into a homogenous, lily-livered, homophobic country filled with people who carried a torch for hatred of ‘other’ in their shriveled up little hearts.  And how … just HOW can you say that when it was he who incited the riot where people were chanting “Kill Mike Pence” on January 6th, and a gallows had already been erected for just that purpose?  Are you really so blind, so stupid?

In Arizona, a fake audit of the ballots cast in Maricopa Country (you remember Maricopa’s former sheriff, Joe Arpaio) performed by a nudnik cast of characters including one who participated in the January 6th attacks on Congress and the Capitol.  The audit is neither legitimate nor sanctioned by any government agency, and is crazy in that they are using ultra-violet lights to attempt to detect bamboo on the ballots, for they claim that something like 40,000 ballots were shipped here from Asia.  Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs detailed multiple irregularities with the audit in a letter to the person overseeing it for the state’s Senate Republicans, Ken Bennett.  Hobbs warned Bennett that she would be forced to haul him back to court if he didn’t bring the audit into compliance with state law.  And then, the death threats started against Secretary Hobbs and her family.  Said Hobbs …

“Earlier today a man called my office saying I deserve to die and wanting to know ‘what she is wearing so she’ll be easy to get.’ … It was one of at least three such threats today. Then a man who I’ve never seen before chased me and my staffer outside of our office.”

As a result, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has ordered round-the-clock security for Ms. Hobbs.  This is not the first incident of this type related to the controversy surrounding the 2020 election and the Big Lie being perpetuated by the former guy, nor is it likely to be the last.

Capitol Police report that there has been a 107% increase in reported threats against members of Congress compared to last year.  In 2020, the USCP logged about 9,000 cases of threats against lawmakers, while the Secret Service handled another 8,000.  In a press release, Capitol Police said …

“Provided the unique threat environment we currently live in, the Department is confident the number of cases will continue to increase.”

This, my friends, is what happens when people in positions of power such as members of Congress, former presidents, popular media personalities, and religious leaders engage in game-playing, lies, deceit, and do so loudly, attempting to stir emotions, to rouse the masses.  This is what happens when those same people with power blindly follow a madman.  This is what happens when people don’t bother to ask questions, to verify what they may hear from others, or to even take a few minutes to think about whether something makes sense or not.  C’mon folks, surely we are better than all this?

We Are Not Okay

Posted on by under Election 2020, Election 2022, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, voting rights

I guess a lot of us were naïve back in November when we celebrated Joe Biden’s win for the office of President.  I know I definitely was.  Oh sure, I knew we’d have to listen to the former guy pout and whine for a couple of months, but then he’d be gone, I thought, riding that train of irrelevance into obscurity for the rest of his life, and the nation could begin to heal.  And yes, I realized that Republicans weren’t going to just suddenly find their consciences again on January 20th and that everything would be a bed of roses … after all, Mitch McConnell was re-elected along with a fresh batch of nasties.  But still, I thought we were finally back on track to a government for the people, of the people, and by the people.  I was wrong … dead wrong.

Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman writes about where we stand today, the good that is happening under the Biden administration, but also the dangers that we still face in the months and years ahead, and a prophetic warning, if we don’t get our act together.

Trump’s Big Lie Devoured the G.O.P. and Now Eyes Our Democracy

By Thomas L. Friedman

Opinion Columnist

President Biden’s early success in getting Americans vaccinated, pushing out stimulus checks and generally calming the surface of American life has been a blessing for the country. But it’s also lulled many into thinking that Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen, which propelled the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, would surely fade away and everything would return to normal. It hasn’t.

We are not OK. America’s democracy is still in real danger. In fact, we are closer to a political civil war — more than at any other time in our modern history. Today’s seeming political calm is actually resting on a false bottom that we’re at risk of crashing through at any moment.

Because, instead of Trump’s Big Lie fading away, just the opposite is happening — first slowly and now quickly.

Under Trump’s command and control from Mar-a-Largo, and with the complicity of most of his party’s leaders, that Big Lie — that the greatest election in our history, when more Republicans and Democrats voted than ever before, in the midst of a pandemic, must have been rigged because Trump lost — has metastasized. It’s being embraced by a solid majority of elected Republicans and ordinary party members — local, state and national.

“Denying the legitimacy of our last election is becoming a prerequisite for being elected as a Republican in 2022,” observed Gautam Mukunda, host of Nasdaq’s “World Reimagined” podcast and author of the book “Indispensable: When Leaders Really Mattered.”

“This is creating a filter that over time will block out anyone willing to tell the truth about the election.” It will leave us with “a Republican Party where you cannot rise without declaring that the sun sets in the East, a Republican Party where being willing to help steal an election is literally a job requirement.”

This is not an exaggeration. Here is what Representative Anthony Gonzalez, one of the few Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, told The Hill about the campaign within the party to oust Representative Liz Cheney from her House G.O.P. leadership position, because of her refusal to go along with the Big Lie:

“If a prerequisite for leading our conference is continuing to lie to our voters, then Liz is not the best fit. Liz isn’t going to lie to people. … She’s going to stand on principle.”

Think about that for a second. To be a leader in today’s G.O.P. you either have to play dumb or be dumb on the central issue facing our Republic: the integrity of our election. You have to accept everything that Trump has said about the election — without a shred of evidence — and ignore everything his own attorney general, F.B.I. director and election security director said — based on the evidence — that there was no substantive fraud.

What kind of deformed party will such a dynamic produce? A party so willing to be marinated in such a baldfaced lie will lie about anything, including who wins the next election and every one after that.

There is simply nothing more dangerous for a two-party democracy than to have one party declare that no election where it loses is legitimate, and, therefore, if it loses it will just lie about the results and change the rules.

That’s exactly what’s playing out now. And the more one G.O.P. lawmaker after another signs on to Trump’s Big Lie, the more it gives the party license at the state level to promote voter suppression laws that ensure that it cannot lose ever again.

Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and author of the book “How to Read the Constitution — and Why,” writing in The Hill on Monday, noted that “as of late March, state legislators have introduced 361 bills in 47 states this year that contain limitations around voting, a 43 percent increase from just a month earlier.

“The measures include things like enhanced power for poll ‘monitors,’ fewer voting drop-boxes, restrictions on voting by mail, penalties for election officials who fail to purge voters from the rolls, and enhanced power in politicians over election procedures.”

Although G.O.P. supporters of these bills insist that they are about election integrity and security, Wehle added, “the lack of actual evidence of fraud and mismanagement in the American electoral system totally belies those cynical claims.”

This is the equivalent of lighting a fuse to a bomb planted beneath the foundations of our democracy.

Imagine if all or many of these measures are passed — and in 2022 and 2024 Republicans manage to retake the House, Senate and White House with, say, only 42 percent of the popular vote, effectively establishing minority rule. Do you know what will happen? Let me tell you what will happen. Disenfranchised Democratic voters will not sit idly by. They may refuse to pay their taxes. Many will take to the streets. Some might become violent, and our whole political system could become paralyzed and start to unravel.

Yet, this is precisely the path that Trump’s G.O.P. is setting us on.

Personally, I have reservations about where the left of the Democratic Party is pulling Biden on some economic, immigration, foreign policy and education issues. But Biden and his party are putting forth real ideas to try to address the real challenges that an increasingly diverse 21st-century America needs to address to become a more perfect union. The best tool for keeping the Democratic Party close to the center-left on more issues is a healthy Republican Party that hews to the center-right.

We don’t have that. We have, instead, a G.O.P. trying to cling to power by leveraging a Big Lie into voter suppression laws that leverage the party back to power by appealing solely to a largely white 20th-century America. Trump’s G.O.P. is making no effort to offer conservative alternatives to the issues of the day. Its whole focus is on how to win without doing that.

Which is why it is incumbent on every American to support in every way possible the few principled Republican legislators fighting this trend from the inside — like Liz Cheney, Representative Adam Kinzinger and Senator Mitt Romney.

What I learned covering the struggle for the future of the Arab-Muslim world post-9/11 is that the war of ideas inside is everything. Sure, it is important for outsiders to condemn bad behavior, but their voices have limited impact. Real change happens only when the war of ideas is won by insiders, working from the roots upward.

On Monday, CNN quoted Cheney as telling Republican donors and scholars at a retreat for the American Enterprise Institute in Sea Island, Ga.: “We can’t embrace the notion the election is stolen. It’s a poison in the bloodstream of our democracy. … We can’t whitewash what happened on Jan. 6 or perpetuate Trump’s Big Lie. It is a threat to democracy. What he did on Jan. 6 is a line that cannot be crossed.” A “peaceful transfer of power must be defended.”

She could not be more right. And without a war of ideas inside the party, one that is won by principled Republicans, we run the real risk of a political civil war in America over the next election.

Things are not OK.

Unless more principled Republicans stand up for the truth about our last election, we’re going to see exactly how a democracy dies.

A Woman Of Principles

Posted on by under 9/11, Election 2020, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

There aren’t too many congressional Republicans for whom I have even a modicum of respect these days.  Liz Cheney is at the top of the list of those I respect.  I don’t agree with her political positions, and quite often detested her father, but … Ms. Cheney has proven herself to be a woman of conscience, a woman who is not afraid to stand by the courage of her convictions.  She has what so many … almost all … Republicans lack these days:  integrity.

And it is because of her conscience, her integrity, her refusal to support the lies being told by the former guy and his minions, that she is almost certain to lose her leadership position as the third highest ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Think about that one … because she is honest, she is to be punished by dishonest people like Kevin McCarthy, who knows damn well that the election results were fair and aboveboard, but for his own political purposes has tied himself to the former guy’s train.

Ms. Cheney has written an OpEd for The Washington Post that I think deserves to be widely read.  I don’t agree with everything she says toward the end of her column, but that doesn’t diminish my respect for her for being one of only a handful of people in her party who put country before self.  I expect to have ideological differences with those on the right … I just don’t expect to be lied to, deceived, and threatened as we all have been by today’s Republican Party. This is what sets Liz Cheney apart from the rest of the party … her honesty.

Liz Cheney: The GOP is at a turning point. History is watching us.

Opinion by Liz Cheney

May 5, 2021 at 5:05 p.m. EDT

In public statements again this week, former president Donald Trump has repeated his claims that the 2020 election was a fraud and was stolen. His message: I am still the rightful president, and President Biden is illegitimate. Trump repeats these words now with full knowledge that exactly this type of language provoked violence on Jan. 6. And, as the Justice Department and multiple federal judges have suggested, there is good reason to believe that Trump’s language can provoke violence again. Trump is seeking to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work — confidence in the result of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this.

The Republican Party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution. In the immediate wake of the violence of Jan. 6, almost all of us knew the gravity and the cause of what had just happened — we had witnessed it firsthand.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) left no doubt in his public remarks. On the floor of the House on Jan. 13, McCarthy said: “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding.” Now, McCarthy has changed his story.

I am a conservative Republican, and the most conservative of conservative values is reverence for the rule of law. Each of us swears an oath before God to uphold our Constitution. The electoral college has spoken. More than 60 state and federal courts, including multiple Trump-appointed judges, have rejected the former president’s arguments, and refused to overturn election results. That is the rule of law; that is our constitutional system for resolving claims of election fraud.

The question before us now is whether we will join Trump’s crusade to delegitimize and undo the legal outcome of the 2020 election, with all the consequences that might have. I have worked overseas in nations where changes in leadership come only with violence, where democracy takes hold only until the next violent upheaval. America is exceptional because our constitutional system guards against that. At the heart of our republic is a commitment to the peaceful transfer of power among political rivals in accordance with law. President Ronald Reagan described this as our American “miracle.”

While embracing or ignoring Trump’s statements might seem attractive to some for fundraising and political purposes, that approach will do profound long-term damage to our party and our country. Trump has never expressed remorse or regret for the attack of Jan. 6 and now suggests that our elections, and our legal and constitutional system, cannot be trusted to do the will of the people. This is immensely harmful, especially as we now compete on the world stage against Communist China and its claims that democracy is a failed system.

For Republicans, the path forward is clear.

First, support the ongoing Justice Department criminal investigations of the Jan. 6 attack. Those investigations must be comprehensive and objective; neither the White House nor any member of Congress should interfere.

Second, we must support a parallel bipartisan review by a commission with subpoena power to seek and find facts; it will describe for all Americans what happened. This is critical to defeat the misinformation and nonsense circulating in the press and on social media. No currently serving member of Congress — with an eye to the upcoming election cycle — should participate. We should appoint former officials, members of the judiciary and other prominent Americans who can be objective, just as we did after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The commission should be focused on the Jan. 6 attacks. The Black Lives Matter and antifa violence of last summer was illegal and reprehensible, but it is a different problem with a different solution.

Finally, we Republicans need to stand for genuinely conservative principles, and steer away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality. In our hearts, we are devoted to the American miracle. We believe in the rule of law, in limited government, in a strong national defense, and in prosperity and opportunity brought by low taxes and fiscally conservative policies.

There is much at stake now, including the ridiculous wokeness of our political rivals, the irrational policies at the border and runaway spending that threatens a return to the catastrophic inflation of the 1970s. Reagan formed a broad coalition from across the political spectrum to return America to sanity, and we need to do the same now. We know how. But this will not happen if Republicans choose to abandon the rule of law and join Trump’s crusade to undermine the foundation of our democracy and reverse the legal outcome of the last election.

History is watching. Our children are watching. We must be brave enough to defend the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our democratic process. I am committed to doing that, no matter what the short-term political consequences might be.