FYI

Dear Readers of the Square Peg:

Yeah, it's been a while since I posted. I apologize. The world has really knocked me off my axis the past couple of years (as it likely has you).

Between a part-time job, a volunteer gig and exploring some mental health issues (what—you thought this shit came from a balanced and healthy perspective?), I've been pretty busy. And frankly, the national news is often a bit much for me to digest. So there goes a favorite source of material.

2022 is just so fucking weird! I know this isn't factually true, but I feel as if I'm the only one who sees the creepy dude with nothing but a demented gleam and a machete climbing through the bedroom window.

Am I?

Disgusted with the presidency of Joe Biden (I mean, let's face it: Biden could invent sex and sixty-percent of America would say they got screwed), for whom everything that could've gone wrong essentially has, people are actually embracing Republicans.

Republicans!

What the fuck?

You think Republicans are going to fix the supply chain shortage and inflation and keep us safe from the eruption of tyrants happening all over the globe?

The same way Trump protected us from foreign interference in our elections? Or his sparkling handling of the pandemic? Or the laissez faire attitude he took towards Vladimir Putin as Putin was planning to upend the western hemisphere?

That kind of protection?

Oh that's right—Republicans hate the same people I do! Seeing my hate reflected in the faces of my elected representation is worth all...

Of.

This.

How can people embrace the short-term, zero-sum ideas that constitute Republican “policy”? Even with my modest eyesight I can see where they will lead. And how monstrously difficult they will be to undo.

While the scientific community continues its debate over time travel, it is incredibly ironic the party which makes such a show of denying that community is the one to accomplish it and get to the finish line first.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Dark Ages.

Props

Thank you, Dan Bernstein, for having the stones to speak an ugly truth out loud on the radio. You had the temerity to say “We want this. We vote for this.”

I have never, ever heard those words spoken out loud.

As you said, a vote for a Republican is a vote for dead kids. Republicans are complicit. And indefensible. In light of all the complexities that surround gun violence, it is remarkable we can draw a line back to a single political party and its unswerving, unwavering support of all things gun.

It also happens to be the same political party given to anointing itself as the 'defenders of the sanctity of life' via their plans to revoke Roe v. Wade--even as they enable previously-unseen numbers of guns to find a home here.

This is on you, Republicans. First, last and always. May it not be long before you and your loved ones know the terror of those children in Uvalde, Texas.

God damn you all.

Texas: It's a Whole 'Nother Country

Can Republicans see the color gray? After all, it's a secondary color, not a primary one. It's a melding of black and white, which theoretically shouldn't be visible to the Republican eye.

It must be said the ultra-binary folk on the other side of the aisle certainly like simplicity. And under normal circumstances, so do I. I mean, any idiot can devise a complicated, labyrinthine plan for something, right?

True genius lies in simplicity. The design with the fewest moving parts.

But in light of the misguided simplicity Texas Governor Greg Abbott seeks in Texas, it's not too much of a stretch to term his assault on transgendered kids genocide.

Life is messy. It rarely conforms to the yes-no, good-bad schematic we lay out for it. It goes up when we want it to go down. Left we we demand it go right. We end up with jalapeno queso when we wanted buttermilk ranch.

A favorite expressions states that life is what happens when we were planning something else.

But not to Republicans. Simple-minded creatures they are, the infusion of even in a little black in their white confuses them. Alarms them. Panics them. “That's not black!” they cry. “That's not white!”

It's pure, unmitigated terror.

And this is the challenge Abbott and his developmentally-disabled Texans face with transgendered children.

There have always been feminine men. And masculine women. And if you'll allow my libtard snowflake self to say so, there ain't nothing wrong with it. Only with the rigid gender-based expectations society imposes on them.

And depending on the degree to which each feels the tug of the other, serious mental-health issues can ensue. And if the libtard snowflake can again express an opinion, I am not a fan of mental-health issues.

I want everyone—with the possible exception of Donald Trump and his strumpets—to live their best, most-fulfilling life. If you're a boy who feels more comfortable in a dress or a girl who wants chest hair and a mustache, have at it.

As long as you only wish to get along in the world and perhaps even contribute to it now and then, what of it? If adopting the characteristics of those opposite your birth gender allows you to be your best and most authentic self, who cares?

In the early days of women's lib, the media seized on the question What do woman want? There is no single answer. Women want as many different things as men. What they really wanted (and still do) is the freedom to want them—even if they don't conform with narrow gender norms.

Yes, it's challenging. Yes, it's complicated. But so is technology. So is medicine. So is developing financial schemes that lay on the very edge of what could be termed 'legal'. But we do it. Every day. “It's complicated!” isn't good enough.

Unless you're a Republican. You have to remember, this is a group of people who were undone by having to wear a featherweight mask during a pandemic. That provoked the most vicious and destructive assault on democracy in U.S. history.

Republicans are a tremulous lot, easily agitated. In a country that is now a thoroughly non-white melting pot, they are creeped out. If you're imagining a party collectively wearing Depends underwear (extra absorbent), you're not too far off.

Where's my bowl of unmolested, homogenized tapioca? It's in 1890, bro. Good luck with that.

If you're a Republican and feel you can differentiate between Hitler's effort to cleanse post-World War One Germany and Abbott's in Texas, the comment box is open.

I dare you.

The Perfect Metaphor

Yikes! This is the last time I write under the influence!

Did a mild re-do this afternoon, hopefully resulting in a better read and argument.

As an English major, I possessed a deep appreciation of symbolism. Ensconced in a nerdy kind of awe, I marveled at how a single object or circumstance could represent and articulate a far-greater reality.

So when the news that Jeff Bezos and his ostentatious yacht would require the dismantling of a historic and recently-refurbished bridge in the Netherlands in order for it to reach the open sea, I immediately seized on it as the perfect representation of twenty-first century America.

With a combination of our elected representation and the Supreme Court either eroding fiscal legislation meant to keep Wall St. and our banks on a much-needed leash (the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act), or enabling oligarchy (the Citizen's United decision), it's no wonder America enjoys the income inequality of a third world nation.

America's 745 billionaires saw their wealth increase by seventy-percent last year. Yes. You read that correctly: seventy percent. Mine didn't. And I'm guessing yours didn't, either. This teeny, tiny circle of billionaires are now worth more than the bottom sixty-percent of the U.S. population.

Does anyone see a problem here?

So while you and I struggle with inflation and skyrocketing energy costs, the wealthy accumulate their wealth with unprecedented rapidity—even beyond the late nineteenth-century heyday of the Industrial Age, when the tax-free fortunes of J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie were amassed.

And I'm sure some of them, like investor Leon Cooperman (profiled in a recent article in the Washington Post), are thoughtful folk with a sense of the world outside of their own. But it is my belief many more resemble Donald Trump, and are preening, arrogant, amoral ghouls whose selfishness and self-centeredness cannot be measured.

I also believe the overwhelming majority of them are Republicans, and are funding the party's headlong rush towards oligarchy and totalitarianism. (And while I'm at it, who but a blue-collar Republican would swallow the notion that it is Democrats who are the 'elites'?)

What are the consequences when there exists a group of people able to pay 132 million-dollars for a home? Or 500 million-dollars for an outsized yacht? Or even more to build a personal space craft?

How does that resonate through a society where an ever-increasing amount of people struggle to afford housing? Or send their kids to school? Or find enough work to keep food on the table? To what extent are our prices distorted by a billionaire's ability to endlessly consume?

More to the point, what are the effects of such outlandish amounts of money held in so few hands?

One consequence of our enabling an oligarchy is this: While our national infrastructure crumbles all around us, legislation to repair it sits idle because same would reverse a recent trillion-dollar giveaway to our wealthiest citizens and their businesses.  

Beyond that, there are the Republican efforts to gerrymander Democrats out of existence, erect still-more barriers to non-white-voters and their curious take on election reform.

Yeah. 

Once we're done with that voting and voice of the people crap, we can focus on the streamlined, exclusionary government our billionaires deserve! And a country by, for and of the rich! Just like God intended!

Deep breath. 

O.K. Back to Jeffrey and his boat. Given the enormous entitlements Republicans have extended to the uber wealthy, it wouldn't surprise me to learn they feel the bridge should be removed for Bezos' boat. Hey! Bezos doesn't live there! He paid for it! It's his right to build a boat too big for the local infrastructure to handle! Let them fix their own damn bridge!

On the sane and sober side of the aisle, I feel that as a person of unimaginable wealth, it would behoove him to be the bigger man and offer to not only pay for the bridge's deconstruction, but for its reconstruction as well.

Toss in some high-profile public improvements on his dime and we can call it a draw.

Which, going forward, is more than the ninety-nine percent will ever see from a Republican.

Hearing Republicants

Incredible as it may seem, I occasionally grow impervious to whiny Republicants and anti-vaxxers.

It was Nora Joyce of Wilmette, Illinois who acted as my personal pallet cleanser and refreshed my ability to hear Republicants anew. Her recent letter to the Chicago Tribune goes as follows:

 

Mandating proof of vaccination for Cook County Park District facilities is a violation of taxpayer's rights. It is wrong to deny entry and participation in Park District facilities to people who pay Cook County property taxes just because they're unvaccinated. This vaccine order is not about safety.

I am embarrassed to reach into my wallet to show my card and continue this nonsense. Going to a facility with only vaccinated people will not prevent anyone from spreading COVID-19.

It is time for taxpayers to speak up about this nonsense.

Ah, Nora. What a lovely read. And continuing on the bright side, thank you for getting vaccinated.

But now I must journey to the not-so-bright side.

In your letter, you fail to mention what the vaccinate mandate is about. 

Perhaps the big, evil government you presumably dislike is a believer in the axiom use it or lose it, and is throwing its weight around merely to sustain its ability to throw it around.

Or perhaps they're trying to discourage people from using Park District facilities, so that one day a vulture capitalist might buy them and convert same into gated communities with the (yawn) attendant golf course.

Wouldn't that be nice?

There, you could cavort with unvaccinated folk minus the paralyzing social embarrassment of having to show a vaccine card and play the discreet form of Russian Roulette you seem to crave.

On second thought, maybe the big, evil government just wants to embarrass you.

Yeah, that's it.

Your repeated mention of 'taxpayer' and 'taxpayer rights' intrigued me. Is there a separate set of rights accorded to taxpayers? Because I spent hours scouring the Internet and couldn't find them, much less how paying them guarantees you access to anything. 

If you'll trouble yourself to look at the breakdown of your annual property taxes, the overwhelming percentage of them goes to your local school district. Only a teeny-tiny percentage goes to your local park district. 

To quote the late, great Groucho Marx: would you like to leave in a huff or shall I call a cab?  

And finally, Nora, I'm not aware of a health care official ever saying that gathering solely with vaccinated folk would prevent the spread of COVID-19. I think the word you're looking for is reduce. Lessen. Mitigate.

Surely your either-or, black-or-white brain remains capable of making such distinctions?

Alas, probably not.

But the biggest question your letter presents is why you even got vaccinated in the first place.

Really hoping your ovaries are dried up and shriveled, Nora. Please don't reproduce.

Happy Anniversary

Tradition dictates that to celebrate a first anniversary, a gift of paper is the time-honored way to recognize the occasion.

And I agree.

So it is only appropriate that on this, the first anniversary of the seditious attacks on the nation's capitol, a blizzard of paper gifts be bestowed upon the participants. Things like warrants. Subpoenas. Complaints. Indictments. Citations. Etcetera.

While a fair number of the rioters have already been charged, too few have been treated with the severity their acts of insurrection demand.

Sentencing is always a nebulous affair, with judges given to wide interpretation of events and circumstances. But how is that tears and flimsy excuses are exchanged for slap-on-the-wrist sentences of (gulp) probation and home detention?

Seriously?

That's the price for participating in an organized effort to overturn and deny the results of a presidential election? For storming the nation's capitol and killing three cops? Taking part in a mission with a stated goal of hanging the vice-president?

Huh?

Too typical is the case of Anna Morgan-Lloyd. In an Oscar-worthy performance, Morgan-Lloyd convinced judge Royce Lamberth she was ashamed of the “savage display of violence” she oh so eagerly partook in.

Just a day later she related to Fox News that people were actually “very polite” during the riot and that she saw “relaxed” police offers conversing with rioters and that she didn't really believe the events of that day constituted an insurrection..

(Don't you just hate it when Trumpers don't take their meds?)

Furthermore, when do Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Josh Hawley take the stand? Ted Cruz? Tommy Tuberville? How about Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, who ordered—in advance—that the National Guard not respond to any calls for help originating from the nation's capitol?

The events of January sixth were as spontaneous, as impulsive as the Super Bowl. We know everything we need to know. January 6^th demands top-to-bottom accountability. Scrutiny. Investigation. Hearings, trials and imprisonment.

Excuse the raw language, but we need to treat the participants as if they were Black.

We need to get angry. Stay angry. And make sure January 6th is treated as seriously as it needs to be, with severe punishment for the participants at each and every level.

And to impart to the mentally-ill folks across the aisle and their brain-damaged supporters that sedition is not okay.

Never.

Ever.

Election Day

I have mostly resisted writing about politics these past months because I can't handle it. Not only have Republicans stymied Democrats (whose inexplicable razor-thin margins in the House and Senate make them vulnerable), they have benefited from a rogue, opportunist senator from West Virginia.

(Gosh, Joe. So relived the nation can suffer the effects of climate change so that the good citizens of West Virginia may remain employed. The greatest good for the greatest number, right?)

So yeah, the Republicans are winning the battle. Mitch McConnell, with an healthy assist from Manchin, has effectively blocked Biden's forward-thinking legislation addressing our nation's badly-neglected infrastructure, climate change and so much else.

Yay!

So I resist clawing my eyes out by ignoring it. By watching the local WNBA franchise take a title. By driving Porsche 911s on a race track. By taking a two-week road trip I can't afford.

But reality is like having kids. It's always there. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There are no off days. And our current generation of Americans, not exactly suited to enduring things like COVID lockdowns and shortages and inflation, are angry and impatient. They want it to go away.

As do I.

But instead of reacting, we need to understand. Yes, the resumption of the normal we crave has been very slow in coming. But ask yourself why. Is it Joe Biden and his agenda or Republican resistance?

Again, Republicans have resisted virtually every public health measure intended to curb the COVID virus and eventually eliminate it. By delaying its containment and preventing its elimination, how is our economy ever to recover? How are we ever to resume our normal?

But Republicans don't really want our economy to recover. Not with a Democrat in the White House, anyway. They will stop at nothing to make Biden look weak, ineffective and clueless. And if you and yours suffer, well too fucking bad.

Sadly, many of the folks participating in polls that measure Biden's approval rating don't seem to realize this. In their ignorant, short-sighted opinion, Biden is screwing up and that's all there is to it.

He isn't struggling with in-house DINOS or wafer-thin majorities or a minority Speaker of the House eager to drive the car off the cliff to prove to his former high-school classmates that all these years later, he is a bad ass.

Can I be prom king? Will you invite me to your parties? Can I eat lunch with the cool kids?

Like his Democratic predecessor, Biden inherited a steaming heap of shit from the candidate he defeated. President forty-five did little but cultivate a bromance with Kim Jong-un and give billionaires and their corporations a big, giant tax cut.

It couldn't be more-obvious Biden has been tasked with a bit more.

So before we assign him and his party a single star on Yelp, can we please make the effort to appreciate the context? I'm aware the cost is our Instagram and YouTube time, but it might be really, really worthwhile going forward.

With solid Democratic majorities, we can at last begin to move forward. 

Vote Democratic, my friends. What's left of your futures depends on it. 

Fucked

When I can withstand the way too-frequent five-minute commercial breaks, I enjoy listening to Thom Hartmann. He's knowledgeable and his moral compass unerringly hews to due north. You know, like those guys on the other side of the aisle.

A few days ago, he was reporting on the social media posts consumed by anti-vaxxers yet frequently posted by entities hostile to the United States. For the anti-vaxxers, the source of the post doesn't matter. As long as it reinforces their beliefs it is all to the good. 

Even as the Republicans all around them are hospitalized and die.

And I'm fine with that. To paraphrase a quote attributed to nineteenth-century Army general Philip Sheridan, the only good Republican is a dead Republican.

Hartmann read one post in particular that stopped me in my tracks, at least metaphorically speaking. (I was actually behind the wheel of my beloved 2015 Honda Accord Sport at the time.)

It alleged that the COVID vaccine alters human DNA to the point where those injected are no longer considered human and as a consequence, forfeit their human rights. This was given as reason number-one for the epidemic of government-led gun seizures we see happening in every nook and cranny of the United States.

Funny how often things lead to (supply name of sitting Democratic president here) gonna take away your guns. 

I'm not sure when we became so stupid, but I'm pretty sure it aligns with the popular acceptance of social media posts as an unswerving source of truth. Because with all the empirical evidence one needs to supply before positioning a post to go viral, it's no wonder, is it?

I again suggest a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Translated, this means we're fucked. Hopefully it'll happen quickly.

Roger Benitez

Like you, my sleep is often compromised by fears that America's law-abiding gun owners are having their right to bear arms thoughtlessly and needlessly trampled upon by overcautious state legislatures who persist in the idea that the way to combat America's gun violence epidemic is to limit their availability.

That's just silly, right?

But thanks to the actions of the great and good Roger Benitez (a U.S. District Judge in San Diego), I might sleep a little better tonight.

You see, Benitez overturned a thirty year-old ban on assault weapons in California, meaning that the sad, the angry and the fearful who must feather their nests with as many guns as they are capable of purchasing will be able to do so.

Capriciously likening assault weapons to Swiss army knives, Benitez writes “...the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle.”

Exactly what battle are you referring to, Rog? The one right-wing militias collectively masturbate over in which they slaughter any demographic not male, white and Republican?

(It should be noted, gentlemen, that Ann Colter, Kellyanne Conway and Laura Ingraham will be unavailable for repopulation efforts owing to their age.)

You don't have to listen very hard to hear echoes of the former President's speech from January 6^th, do you? It's another lightly-coded reference to destroying a democracy Republicans have no chance of competing in and replacing it with a totalitarian dictatorship as quickly as possible.

Add to it the fact his ruling was issued on National Gun Violence Awareness Day and the whole thing really begins to smell. You also don't have to listen very hard to hear the “Nyah nyah!” emanating from the mouths of oppressed California gun-owners, either.

Benitez lapses into de-rigueur conservative criticism, stating that the ban has not eliminated mass shootings nor prevented attacks on law enforcement officers. I'm not sure the latter was the reason for enacting it, but I'm positive that making it harder for assault weapons to find their way into human hands was at the ban's heart.

And we won't ever know how many assault weapons didn't find homes because of it, will we?

Judge? Let me explain something to you: the ban is like the motion sensor in your backyard or the dead bolt lock on your front door. Neither is guaranteed to prevent a break-in or theft, but to deter would-be criminals. Which is why they're called deterrents.

Look at it this way: locked cars and locked homes are routinely broken into. Given locks failure at eliminating property crime, should we remove them?

Of course not.

Automotive brakes (even those enhanced with ABS) have likewise failed to eliminate vehicular collisions. Do we call them failures too, throw up our hands and say to hell with them?

Of course not.

Because we will never know how many incidents didn't happen because of their presence.

(OMG. Am I really employing reason to address a (presumed) Republican? And does that mean I get 'idiot' tattooed on my forehead?)

Like a coal mine fire, it's easy to overlook the still-simmering rage Republicans harbor over their “lost” election. (If Democrats are as good at stealing elections as Republicans are at gerrymandering and button-pushing, why didn't Democrats steal the House and Senate, as well?)

Given to herd behavior, the Republican electorate surrenders to groupthink even faster than they absorb the latest round of propaganda splashed all over Fox News. Their craven puppetmasters are a cornered felon, who understand it's either kill or die. Prison is not an option.

I once yearned for post-pandemic relief, yet it seems the pandemic and its stressors are fated to give way to a struggle between those who wish to preserve democracy and those who wish to crush it.

I'm so glad I'm not twenty-one.

Business and Government--Inverted

In the United States, “we” have given enormous power to our businesses. If you're a Republican, you feel this is a great and good thing. If you're a Democrat, probably not so much.

We is in quotations because no one asked us—the American public—if we were okay with that. It was just done. Case in point was the 2010 Citizens United decision, which had nothing to do with citizens or unity.

Ostensibly about campaign finance reform, it served to weaponize Republican's biggest advantage (money) and removed any and all constraints from corporate campaign donations. This because in the words of our friends across the aisle, corporations are people, too.

And that being the case, deserve their first amendment rights, also. 

Sniff.

This not only further entrenched the culture of special interests and lobbyists in Washington DC, but made running for office a whole helluva lot more expensive. You are no doubt shocked to learn a Republican-majority in the Supreme Court found in its favor.

As the U.S. economy has moved from one based in manufacturing to one based in more nebulous things like buying and selling stuff like debt and data, it has moved out of brick and mortar structures into cyberspace.

It has changed more-quickly than the government can adapt to it. Tech entities like Apple, Google, Twitter and Facebook frequently operate in an unregulated environment that often leaves them to (gulp) police themselves.

Which brings us to Facebook's suspension of Donald Trump.

I'm convinced one-hundred percent of us know Donald Trump is a shit. But only fifty-percent of us will admit it because denying for Donnie has become a cause. A declaration of contempt for people who see things differently than you do.

For those of us not in the cult, Donald Trump is a cancerous skin lesion. Left untreated, it will envelop the body and kill it. And unlike most cancers, the best and most-effective treatment for this strain is silence.

Unplugging the lie machine that seeks only its own affirmation even at the expense of a nation. 

Republicans can yammer about freedom of speech til they turn blue. (Heh heh heh.) Donnie can cry “It's rigged!” til his BMI is appropriate to his age, weight and height. But as they so often do, Republican's own actions hollow-out even their most-pointed accusations until they're nothing but empty shells.

Much like Republicans themselves.

Until government catches up, we are most fortunate to have tech entities like Facebook that realize the greater threat, and have acted accordingly. Ironic, isn't it?

The End of an Error?

 As we collectively crave a return to normalcy, one indication we're nearing that ideal is—ironically—one we don't want to acknowledge: mass shootings. Unless you manufacture and/or sell guns, ammunition or are in the emergency medical supplies field, mass shooting are something most of us turn away from.

What we should keep in mind is that most of us is different from all of us.

Republicans and the National Rifle Association see mass shootings as an inevitable byproduct of their rigid and inflexible support of the Second Amendment. Their support is a black and white, all or nothing gambit.

To his credit, President Biden has taken the first step in what is sure to be the most contentious trip of his presidency. He has announced several executive orders which chip away at the iceberg which threatens our already fragile notion of safety.

If there's a twitchier band of people than those who constitute the NRA, I would love to see them. The mere rumor of even benign gun control measures inevitably lapse into the hysteria of “Clinton/Obama/Biden's gonna take away your guns!”  And the gun crowd falls for it every. Single. Time.

Democrat's biggest mistake has always been their attempts to mollify these un-mollify-able folk. Nay, it is impossible. The gun crowd are a car alarm set on maximum sensitivity in a crowded urban area.

Yes, it's going to go off a lot.

Yet as we quickly learn to ignore that car alarm, we rarely do so with the gun crowd. And we need to. Now. They have established themselves as people in strident and unwavering opposition of anything that doesn't facilitate a complete and unregulated torrent of guns into the United States.

They are the customer who is never happy. And as the sentient portion of our society Democrats need to understand that. We need to let them stew in their paranoia and cower in the dark recesses of their fear. It is what they want, and if I'm going to be brutally honest, likely all they're capable of.

As Democrats, we need to stop appeasing them, couching our legislation with wording like “common-sense” to avoid waking the sleeping dog. Trump never worried about offending Democrats. We should learn from that.

The unmitigated slaughter of U.S. citizens taking place before our eyes is the result of the NRA and Republicans dictating gun policy. They have single-handedly enabled a nation with more guns than people. It's certainly noteworthy how this condition undermines the gun crowd's number-one contention that the more guns we have, the safer we'll be.

Really? Is that what we're seeing?

However much I'd love to see the manufacture, sale and possession of assault weapons declared illegal (as they have been in more-civilized nations where public safety isn't determined by an industry trade association), this is unlikely to happen.

More effective would be to strip away the immunity gun manufacturers and gun sellers enjoy. In a nation driven by money, the loss of same provides a very powerful incentive.

Let's make them liable for the destruction and the trauma their products inflict on Americans in the same way cigarette manufacturers were made liable for the toxic effects of their products.

Let's face it: the gun trade and their Republican hand-maidens have won the gun battle and profited handsomely. Wildly. And exorbitantly. After decades of unfettered government-sponsored largesse, it is time for them to bear the weight of consequence.

Georgia on Our Minds

As the struggle for America winds tighter and tighter, threatening to snap like a bridge cable, it was a welcome relief to see an entity as visible as Major League Baseball announce it would be siding with justice and equality by pulling its annual All-Star game from Atlanta in protest of the Georgia legislature's voting bill.

On one hand, Republicans have never been so transparent—or desperate. It's so nice to finally see their true motives on display. Long story short? They're exactly the venal, ghoulish sub-humans we've suspected them of being.

On the other, you can throw out that lip service about love of country and patriotism and God. Oh, and that shit about law and order, too. That is, unless we're talking about the new Republican law and order, which basically asserts 'thou shalt have no other party besides me'.

Yep. Their goal is absolute Republican rule. And even as they mimic them, let's not forget China is the embodiment of all that is evil.

Seriously?

Sorry, but 2021 Republicans present the biggest threat to democracy the United States has ever faced.

The most-ominous part of this legislation is the erosion of power held by the non-partisan election board and the handing over of that power to the partisan state legislature. As it stands, the Republican state legislature will wield total control over who interprets state election results and determines that election's validity.

Care to speculate about which elections would be judged valid? And which ones would not? 

“Bitch” McConnell maintains that no individual's ability to vote has been compromised and that the effects of the bill have been wildly overstated. And while your brain is on pause, kindly ignore that this legislation was enacted just months after a pair of Democratic victories in senatorial run-offs that handed a majority to Democrats.

Yeah, pure coincidence. Republicans wouldn't be working overtime to make sure that never happened again, would they?

If this bill is truly as harmless as McConnell paints it as, why has Ted Cruz become so defensive over the (very public) push-back, telling anyone who will listen that he and a cadre of Republican senators are working day and night to end Major League Baseball's anti-trust exemption?

Gosh. That seems like an even bigger over-reaction than Major League Baseball's, doesn't it, Ted?

I'm thinking Republicans are just really, really pissed-off that high-profile corporations like Coca-Cola, Delta, United Airlines and the aforementioned Major League Baseball see this legislation for what it is, and are outraged enough to go public with it.

On a lighter note, the Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn selected the following tweet as the funniest of the week ended 4/3/21. It is taken from the Book of Matthew, and like all great humor possesses a sharp sense of irony entirely appropriate to its subject:

"I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. Matthew 25:35. *Offer not valid in Georgia."

Kind of says it all, doesn't it? 

Thank you to the tweet's author @AIWashburn. Brilliant.

Groundhog Day

In a long-ago episode of X-Files, Fox Mulder observed “Don't all the nuts roll down to Florida.” And while Florida certainly provides us with a bounty of evidence, it can't blame its most-recent bout of stupidity on imports. Nope. This one is wholly homegrown.

Swollen with indignation and suffused with self-righteousness, Florida made it clear that no collection of Big Government bureaucrats and White House Yankees were going to derail Florida's gravy train of robust, free-market riches. No sir!

As has been its m.o., Florida was again an early adopter of the cast-off COVID precautions aesthetic and announced itself open and ready for business. This because in certain states, COVID was beginning to regress. And besides, there were vaccines now—not that everyone was bothering.

But the COVID-is-gone dream Republicans can't stop having proved otherwise. Not only is COVID resurgent in Florida, but its variants are as well. (At least they didn't listen to the CDC, right? Because that would have just been stupid!)

Instead, Florida listened to its businessmen. People with the integrity of a death row felon and the far-sightedness of an Amoeba. “Open it up! Make me some money!”

And everything was going just fine. Bikini-clad coeds were frolicking on the beach, encouraging boxer-clad males to drink to excess and fantasize. Motel rooms were occupied. Bars were packed. Dance floors were an undulating mass of thirsty bodies—the way God intended.

Yay!

But then irksome facts began to surface. You know, the kind that routinely pierce the helium-filled foil balloon of Republican propaganda. Contrary to the Republican-propagated COVID-is-dead storyline, COVID wasn't. And isn't.

Which is why Miami police had to break-up a huge gathering of young spring breakers when they refused to acknowledge that, yes, COVID is in Florida, too. And that they needed to follow the same dreary and un-fun precautions they did back home.

Like a poorly-behaved guest who overstays their welcome, COVID isn't leaving the party because you're annoyed with it. Or bored with it. Nope. COVID ain't going anywhere. Get used to it.

What's more, the harder we try to pretend it's no longer a thing the longer it will be.

I hate COVID. You hate COVID. And they only way we're going to delete it from our lives is to clench. To bear down. To treat it the way Michael Jordan did opponents in the fourth-quarter of a big game.

To paraphrase a memorable line from Cleo King in Mike & Molly, we need to beat on COVID like it owes us money. Capisce?

This is the most serious threat to our well-being most of us are ever going to face. And if we treat it as anything less—even for a week while in Florida—it's going to kick us in the ass.

Just sayin'.

Questions. I Have Questions.

When they're not opposing the ninety-nine percent, Republicans generate questions. Questions like:

Why do you think the economy can be restarted without first conquering COVID? (Hint: COVID fatigue and your boredom-slash-impatience are not acceptable responses.)

Why do you feel being vaccinated should be a personal choice? Should observing school zone speed limits or any other law, statute or mandate that runs counter to your Trumpishness be one also?

And why is your politicized contempt more-important than the larger issue of public health?

How do Republicans who unanimously voted against a COVID relief package endorsed by up to three-quarters of the population remain in power?

And in light of that, how is it Republicans can initiate legislation immediately afterwards that would eliminate the estate tax and are still able to call Democrats elites?

Huh?

People, Republicans work for the one-percent—which by simple probability likely isn't you. They don't care about you. They don't care about your struggles or your ambitions. They have the moral fibre of a drug dealer. They care about entrenching and expanding the control the one-percent wield over the ninety-nine percent.

To wit, twenty-one Republican state attorney generals have drafted a letter to the Biden administration, questioning the relief package's stipulation that state aid be used solely to address revenue shortfalls and may not be used to finance tax cuts. Especially the Republican kind.

Let's hazard a big, giant, pie-in-the-sky, out-of-the-blue guess as to who would benefit from those.

Yeah.

To the addled and easily-provoked conservative mind, this is a non-issue. What matters is that the stultifying demands of a changing populace be stifled and ignored in favor of...them. That regardless of the demographics, America remains a country by, for and of white men.

Any other idea does not compute.

Unless you wish America to become a place bent on the fulfillment of billionaires whims and wishes and their whims and wishes only, you/me/us need to fight Republicans every step of the way. On everything. All the time.

Left unchallenged, Republicans are the rot that will destroy the ninety-nine percent from the inside out. (And that includes Republicans not a part of the one-percent. )

They have shown us who they are. Forewarned is forearmed.

The Other Side of the Asile

If you're like me, you might have winced ever so slightly when Republicans accused Twitter and Facebook (and by extension—“cancel culture” Democrats) of denying Donald Trump his First Amendment rights. His right to free speech.

Of censorship and banishment.

And um, I agree. In the tiniest, most-literal sense imaginable.

But this is Donald Trump. The cancer who stood in front of a mob of right-wing nut jobs and exhorted them to do his bidding for him. To march on the Capitol building and prevent the “stolen” election results from being etched in stone—by any and all means necessary.

But like so much of what emanates from the mouths of Republicans, we needn't have worried.

Republicans have taken it upon themselves to administer their own brand of censorship by their efforts to remove, silence or, at the very least, censure those in elected office who didn't march in lockstep with president 45 on everything.

Up to and including sedition.

Sadly, the poster child for this foolishness is Liz Cheney, a congresswoman from Wyoming. Her words, more than any other, articulated the dismay so many of us felt after the events of January sixth.

She said Donald Trump had betrayed the oath he took when he became president. Yes. Betrayed. As in cheating a spouse. Jilting a lover. The word carries a powerful human component of hurt and loss. Of being lied to. It is the perfect choice.

If that weren't enough, Cheney had the temerity to vote for impeachment of Crazy Don, an act which didn't escape the notice of the Wyoming GOP. They voted 66 to 8 to censure her.

Want to talk to me again about the First Amendment, gentlemen? Oh that's right. Only Democrats censor people. You're just ensuring party homogeny.

Sore loser Darin Smith even went so far as to publicly answer the question 'You want to know how far down the Trump rabbit hole I am?' by speaking thusly:

“We need to honor President Trump. All President Trump did was call for a peaceful assembly and protest for a fair and audited election.”

Which he got—weeks before this charade.

I'm trying to imagine the Republican response had it been President Obama speaking Trump's words in front of a crowd of BLM supporters. Telling them “You need to fight like hell! Because if you don't, you're not going to have a country any more!” Or having Obama's faux Giuliani suggest “Let's have trial by combat!”

Yes, Republicans would be falling all over themselves to hang Obama from a tree. (Figuratively speaking, of course.)

But coming from Trump and addressed to an angry, roiling mob armed with guns, ammunition, helmets, bullet proof vests, police shields and filled with a soon-to-be-acted-on murderous rage?

Nah. It's just Don being Don. 

If you say so. 

Republican Resistance, Examined.

I was a bit hasty in publishing this last night. It felt rushed and incomplete. And this morning that was obviously the case. Re-titled and re-written, this is hopefully both a better read and a more-convincing argument. 

With Republican resistance to the COVID relief package mounting, Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) articulated their concerns this way: “In the administration's plan, you could have a family with three kids making over three-hundred thousand dollars a year getting a check.”

Wait. That's a problem for you? Seriously? That's a problem for the party that voted 278 - 12 across the House and Senate to pass the 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act?

That's a problem for the party that thought it would be a good idea to effectively fill one of those 200-ton Hitachi open pit dump trucks with cash and deliver it to the doors of America's corporate giants and the one-percent?

Really?

Sorry, Rob. I have a memory and it works.

I'm fairly certain Portman's claim is extracted from the most-extreme scenario imaginable, and has the same chance of occurring that Citizen's United does of helping, well, citizens.   

President Biden, I can't imagine you ever seeing this, but I am going to make a suggestion, anyway. You must disguise your relief package as wealthcare (patent pending). Call it the Right to Riches or something like that. You will then be assured of knee-jerk Republican compliance and can then bask in the light of long-sought bipartisanship.

And just think of the tangible excitement on the other side of the aisle. Republicans, relieved to have at last escaped the long, dark shadow of Trumpism, will be eager to document their delight. For starters, it's easy to imagine the over-stimulated Josh Hawley (R-MO) tweeting his not-quite-appropriate evidence and posting it on Instagram. 

The Show Me State, indeed!

(Thanks for the sexting, Josh. Photographs are always a powerful tool in court.)

Yes, Mr. President, there will be push back the moment the one-percent and its servants realize they're not getting the biggest slice of the pie and will call it another example of Democratic-sponsored socialism (which is defined by Republicans as any benefit they don't receive most of). 

What's important is that the Republican instinct to empower the already-powerful and enrich the already-wealthy is abused and exploited. That the rest of us—the 99%--get the sustenance to live another day. 

Those of us who have lost our homes, our jobs, our businesses and, not inconceivably, our loved ones desperately need help.

 

Fathoming the Unfathomable

Sadly, I haven't paid enough attention to the the mousy, thin-lipped man who occupies the position of Senate majority leader. But with a neon-lit asshole (with air horn) as president, I guess that might be understandable.

But make no mistake: Mitch McConnell is a monster. One every bit as toxic as his master.

In his party's mad scramble to solidify corporate control of the government, McConnell is its most faithful servant. While we once fought to unshackle the individual and bestow upon him (or her) liberty, twenty-first century Republicans seek to unshackle the corporation and bestow it with liberty.

(As long as generous amounts of campaign financing are offered in reciprocity, anyway.)

At present, McConnell is blocking a pandemic aid package because our corporations won't be exempted from legal action in the event they don't take the requisite steps to protect their employees.

Yep. You read that right.

McConnell is the twenty-first century version of Marie Antoinette, who infamously said “Let them eat cake!” when informed that her French subjects, who were on the verge of starvation owing to her regime's exorbitant taxation, weren't happy.

(To be clear, 'cake' at that time referred to bread. Antoinette was not suggesting a sumptuous array of fragrant, butter-infused French pastries for the unwashed masses.)

With the country starved of revenue owing to his bosses trillion-dollar giveaway to the one-percent, McConnell is playing hardball with those on the verge of hunger, homelessness and destitution.

It is a shame we as a society so quickly become inured to these kinds of acts and don't see them for the unvarnished cruelty they are.

I can't wait to see what kind of swill Republicans offer by way of explanation to their blue-collar, GED-holding base who will be among those kicked in the teeth first and foremost by this impasse.

Oh that's right. They drank the Kool-Aid. The question won't even be asked.

So while McConnell represents a state second in the nation for the amount of federal aid it receives per tax dollar paid, the rest of us clearly are not worthy. (Well, not unless we let our corporations off the hook from just about everything.)

But don't forget to vote Republican in the 2022 mid-terms and, um, take our country back.

Yeah.

 

Going Forward?

There is no joy. Only relief. With a diminished majority in the House and an undetermined alignment in the Senate, there is little worry Democrats will make any significant inroads into our legislative logjam over the next two years.

Joe Biden is mostly a paperweight. While the papers on the desk won't be scattered about the room by Trump-style bluster, they won't be put in order, either. In other words, while we won't be moving forward, the descent into chaos has been halted.

More concerning is the widespread support enjoyed by the most toxic, destructive and ignorant president the nation has ever endured. I heard time and time again “He kept his promises” as justification for casting a ballot for Mr. T.

Really? You mean the Rust Belt is awash with good-paying manufacturing jobs? 'Cause I missed that. He increased our consumption of coal, thereby restoring the economies of West Virginia and Wyoming? 'Cause I missed that, too.

(Residents of those states continued to act as battered wives, awarding the most-decisive pro-Trump percentages in the nation to Sir Lies-A-Lot despite the fact he did nothing whatsoever for their economies.)

Illegal immigration has been brought to a virtual standstill thanks to his stupendous wall—financed by Mexico—along our southern border? It has slowed, but that's because of the pandemic that isn't really a pandemic.

The brilliant health care package he's been promising for nearly four years is ready for implementation? His 'America first' policy has rejuvenated the country and we again enjoy a quality of life unparalleled anywhere in the world?

'Cause I missed those, too.

I mean, Trump did stuff, yeah. 

He awarded Walmart and Amazon and Exxon massive tax cuts. He awarded our raft of billionaires and millionaires with massive tax cuts as well. He packed our courts with right-wing conservatives. Lied, cheated and stole. Undermined our faith in the U.S. mail and in our elections.

Created more division and unrest in this country than any mob of radicalized socialists could ever hope to.

Trump entrenched racism and sexism and our political divide.

But his greatest hit was his manipulation of COVID-19 for political gain.

Caught with his pants down, Trump made lemons from lemonade in the most-grotesque sense of the word as he allowed COVID-19 to sweep throughout the United States practically unabated.

And when he wasn't allowing it, he was provoking it.

His politicization of face masks ensured the virus's spread as rabid conservatives, following their president's lead, repurposed them as symbols of liberal tyranny.

While I admit it's tempting to encourage conservative's denial and anti-mask phobia, it's clear that the Corona virus will infect any and all demographics. Translated, this means none of us are safe. Or, um, immune.

(Well, except that one guy. But you know he's passenger number-one on the crazy train, right?)

Now that the angry and the hateful have had their anti-government, anti-PC tantrum it will be interesting to see where we go from here. I tend to think it will be along the lines of the sequence depicted in It's a Wonderful Life where George Bailey sees his hometown as if he had never existed.

It will be coarse, confrontational and crude. Largely bereft of things like civility and kindness. This path is somehow more "real" and more "genuine" to addled Republican males for whom Lord of the Flies is a societal ideal.

Fearful of a world where white men no longer wield absolute power, they cling ever more desperately to ever more desperate models of power and control.

I've never been able to puzzle-out exactly what voting Republican did for working-class conservatives, except perhaps to validate their ethnic, religious, sexual and gender biases. Even at the cost of their own well-being.

But what the hell do I know?

All in all, I feel fortunate to be the age I am. I see a world emerging that is rife with hatred, distrust and manipulated endlessly by social media. Our out-sized egos have grown equally destructive, to the point where any leader who doesn't “look like us” is illegitimate.

This is at the forefront of our descent into tribalism.

Even aided by the necessary technology, I see a world unable to unite in the commonality necessary to stem global warming.

While we have temporarily beat back the Trump-styled darkness, it will retreat, reconfigure and reemerge until it has the necessary components to succeed.

Knowledge is both a burden and a responsibility. We know what we have to do to resist it.

The question is, will we? 

 

Pssst. Are You Ready for Some Good News?

I have it on the word of two Republicant relatives that COVID-19—also known as the Corona virus—will end today.

It's true.

So throw away your masks! Stand next to a stranger and expectorate without inhibition!

We're free!

Democrats? Vote Hard!

Fatigue. Anxiety. Depression. Rage.

For many of us, these are the words that characterize 2020. We've watched a radical conservative toss the one-percent (the one-percent!) a trillion-dollar tax break under the guise of a—wait for it—jobs act.

Watched him sneer as his servile lead bitch upends protocol and paves the way for Sir Lies-A-Lot to appoint three Supreme Court justices in a single term. We've watched him eliminate any and all constraints on business at the cost of the air we breathe and the water we drink.

We've watched him insult and disparage allies and befriend autocratic terrorists like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. Witnessed his winking approval of white supremacy and voter suppression. And relentlessly provoked chaos because it amuses him.

That it destabilizes nearly every element of life in the United States just adds to the fun.

We've witnessed him gut the post office's ability to sort and deliver mail in anticipation of a dramatic upswing in vote by mail. Seen him plunder his own charity, get convicted, fined and watched the lightly reported story disappear without a trace.

We've seen him blithely delete a much-heralded center for pandemic research merely because it had Obama's fingerprints on it. And besides, what ever goes wrong with cookware, anyway?

Even as the same continues to undermines his precious “fabulously beautiful” economy.

Cause and effect, Don. Cause and effect. Ever hear of it?

Most recently, we've heard him threaten to destroy Social Security and Medicare. Why? Because they fall into his hazy definition of socialism. And then there's the ongoing effort to declare the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional—in the middle of a pandemic.

Crazy Don lies like the rest of us draw breath. He's a supremely manipulative fraud who has succeeded in convincing banks, Congress and a sizeable chunk of the American populace he's the guy to loan money to. Shape policy with. And above all, blindly follow.

And when the Trump-whore isn't lying or self-promoting, he morphs into Whiny Don. The fake news media. Liberal hoaxes. The deep state. Tell me Poor Poor Pitiful Me isn't the number-one most-played song on his Spotify playlist!

Funny how the Indomitable One can stand in front of the hypnotized and let that smarmy smile creep across his face. But alone and minus the adulation, he cowers in the dark with his phone and issues a torrent of blind criticisms, unfounded—even paranoid—accusations and juvenile rants.

Can I add Needy Don to the repertoire?

A Republicant told me in 2016 he thought Trump would “shake things up.”

As we wonder when our kids can again resume their full-fledged educations and when (and if) we'll get our jobs back and how long we can stave off increasingly impatient landlords and when we'll be able to attend a ballgame or go out to dinner or a night club and when will there be a vaccine and when will life in general return to normal I must ask: are you suitably shaken?

We Democrats are a funny bunch. By nature we're diverse and have many agendas. Like our president, we also get a bit peevish when things don't go our way.

We must stop that.

For the time being, we must act like Republicants and become a herd. A bovine mass completely unaware of free will. We must ignore the polls (remember 2016?), the early returns (be they good or bad) and not focus on anything that isn't physically casting a vote against Donald J. Trump.

While I enjoy portraying him as a feckless clown, the damage he has wrought is considerable. Much of it will outlast him. He is the obedient servant of a selfish and extremely wealthy minority interested only in cementing and sustaining its power and its wealth at the expense of us.

They must be stopped. Shattered—like a ceramic figurine.

We can be the hammer. But we must vote hard. And with a vengeance.

And if you can't vote for Joe Biden can you at least vote against Donald Trump? And the party of Mitch McConnell? And of Lindsey Graham?

Given the amorality displayed by this moneyed minority, it's likely more-urgent than we even realize.