MURDERING GOVERNORS

Just Play Through the Pain!

Back in the day when I played little league baseball, I remember some over-zealous coaches who would rather have a winning team than teach us kids all about the game we loved. One day, a ball bounced off an infield rock and hit our young shortstop in the mouth. He fell to the ground, some blood dripping from his lower lip. The coach asked the youngster if he was okay. After an affirmative answer, he pulled the boy to his feet and slapped his butt with, “Joey, you’re fine. Just go play through the pain.” In that moment, I learned that some believed machismo was the very essence of “being a man.”

One of the greatest American motivators is money. Many have lost their lives because a determined boss would have rather made his numbers than make sure a worker didn’t get harmed by rushing safety processes and cutting corners. Sadly, there is no rule book or policy history we can turn to for help with a global pandemic. Rather, it’s a practice of trials and observation — when A happens, employ plan B and measure C, the result. It takes a smart government to employ such discipline in times like these, and political affiliations are now ruling the amount of common sense applied to the science.

I live in Florida, and this is my situation. On the 29^th of July, the state reported 17,589 new Covid-19 cases and we had a positive infection rate of 18.44%. It was the eighth consecutive day the state reported more than 12,000 new infections. The last time Florida had such high numbers was on January 7, 2021, when the state recorded 19,816 new cases, its highest-ever, single-day number of Covid incidents. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Florida now accounts for about 20 percent of reported Covid cases across the United States. Despite this terrible spread of the Delta variant and rising death toll, Governor Ron DeSantis has pulled a page from the screenplay Jaws to make sure that ”Shark Delta” doesn’t disrupt the state’s tourist trade.

Florida ranks 48^th and 49^th of all the states in inoculations at assisted living facilities. According to the Associated Press, “As coronavirus cases continue to soar, two Florida mayors are announcing mask and vaccine mandates and defying the governor who is firmly opposed to any pandemic restrictions.” DeSantis has threatened to bring the state’s legislators back to Tallahassee to pass a law banning mask mandates. The governor here, and those in many other Republican states, would rather control the policies of local communities and put more people in harms way. Why are they doing this?

As the AP reported, “All 67 of Florida’s counties are considered areas of high transmission, meaning they have more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people in the past seven days. DeSantis has remained staunchly opposed to restrictions, mask mandates and vaccine passports, a stance central to his reelection campaign. He was defiant Wednesday as he criticized the new CDC guidance during a Salt Lake City gathering of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that pushes conservative policies in Republican-controlled state legislatures.” So, what the hell is the governor of Florida doing during environmental, health and building inspection crises in the state? Well, he’s flying off to another state to deliver speeches. He’s so self-centered and partisan I truly believe he doesn’t give a single shit about what any Democrat in his state thinks. He’s such an asshole.

Here’s what Ron DeSantis said on 7-28-2021, “I think it’s very important we say, unequivocally, no to lockdowns, no to school closures, no to restrictions, no to mandates!” He’s really going all in on a stupid attitude that this is just a “seasonal spike” and we’ll all be fine. Most attitudes are just opinions without facts.

Florida law is clear. According to Fla. Stat. Annotated §100.36(1), “Any member of the governing body of a municipality or charter county, hereinafter referred to in this section as ‘municipality,’ may be removed from office by the electors of the municipality.” Unfortunately, that would take too long while giving DeSantis and many other Trump sycophantic governors the time needed to kill more people. Plus, a recall election can remove only one politician, while others in the anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-government, law and order movements will murder us all if we let them.

They just want us to just play through the pain, take one for the team and then get onboard cruise ships to spread the virus. Deep down inside, though, they’re just coaches being pushed by political ambition and a Napoleonic need to control things to make them seem a bit taller. Taller than what?

Some state Republicans are frothing at the mouth and wasting their taxpayers’ money by hiring idiots to field incompetent and unprofessional “recounts.” In Maricopa County Arizona, a grifter company named Cyber Ninja’s opened the voting machines which, according to federal law, must now be replaced. This will cost the county millions of tax dollars. But rather than worrying about whether the big lie is worth it, these inept politicians are ignoring the science of virology and casting aside reasonable, inexpensive and proven methods of mitigation, such as mask wearing. Rand Paul is at fault for pushing the NIH and CDC to end the mask advice early. We should have never taken our masks off.

The time has come to unmask the truth about Republican governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis. They should be arrested for aiding and abetting murder. Yes, the more they push back against the CDC and science, the more people will become infected, all in order to look good to the tRump-lickers. Why?

This week in Jacksonville, Florida, one hospital reported 35 people in the ICU with Covid-19, and some of them are children. In Jackson, Mississippi, there are seven children in ICU with two of them on life supporting ventilators. Why on earth are these politicians allowing this to happen? Why are they forbidding school boards from enacting mask mandates? Kids under 12 cannot get the vaccine, and because so many parents are anti-mask and anti-vax, high schools will be breeding grounds for Delta and perhaps other variants this year. Teenagers will die, kids will die and if those youngsters bring the virus home, their siblings and parents could die.

Ron DeSantis can pound his chest raving about the great job he’s doing, but sooner or later the truth will come out. He stopped daily Covid stats being released by the state’s health department so he could avoid confronting and handling the problem. He’s a scumbag politician of the lowest order, nothing less than a mammoth mound of waste material.

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GUARANTEES & WARRANTEES

Spoiled Americans with Unreasonable Demands

I am sick and tired of people complaining. I live in a town where the median age is 69.1 years of age, and old people love to nit-pick, but I’m turned off by it. Maybe they have lived so long they believe all things should be working perfectly. Well, they just aren’t. I find myself repeatedly asking these days, “Why is that? For example, when I google Pandora 50% of the time I get links for the jewelry company and the other half I get those of the music service. They should know I use the music service and present only those.

People quibble over the least important aspects of life. Let’s take Mike Huckabee. He’s 65-years-old, so he’s bound to say something stupid half the time he opens his mouth. But his daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is only 38 and she’s running for Governor of Arkansas. You’d think she would know how to avoid saying stupid things, but no! Here’s a little back story for you. Arkansas currently is one of two states with the largest increase in Covid-19 cases. So, young Sarah Huck-a-wanna-bee rode to the rescue and wrote an op-ed piece to convince more Arkansans to get vaxxed.

If you want to read her diatribe you will find it here, but let me throw out some tidbits. Ms. Huckabee opens with a rather astonishing and unbelievable remark, “Like many of you, I have had a lot of misinformation thrown at me by politicians and the media during the pandemic.” Really Sarah, what exactly did they say that was WRONG and why did you wait so long to get the vaccine you gratuitously labeled the “Trump vaccine?” In your overbearing idol worshipping you mentioned his name 17 times in your article. Yes, okay, we can thank the former president for giving big Pharma the money needed to start the gears turning, but he did nothing to promote confidence in the vaccine. 95% of everything he said when the vaccines were rolling out had to do with the big lie about the election. So, what good was he?

My frontal lobes burst into fire when reading, “I was also reassured after President Trump and his family were vaccinated. If getting vaccinated was safe enough for them, I felt it was safe enough for me.” Yes, young Sarah, but why wasn’t Trump promoting the vaccine and its effectiveness? If he’s responsible for this great thing, why does he never mention it? His only recent claim was people stopped getting the shot because they don’t trust the Biden Administration. Really? What does that have to do with the TRUMP CURE?

Ms. Sanders proclaims that events and church should not have been shut down, and there shouldn’t have been mask mandates. Sarah adds, “As the number of covid cases and hospitalizations once again rise exponentially in Arkansas, information is emerging that I hope people will consider. Recent data demonstrates that those Arkansans who are not vaccinated are at significantly greater risk for serious illness from covid. In fact, 98 percent of covid patients currently hospitalized in our state and 99 percent of recent covid deaths were people who were not vaccinated. It’s clear that the Trump vaccine works and is saving lives.” Sarah, the immunizations are neither the “Trump vaccine” nor the “Biden vaccine,” they are AMERICA’S vaccines. We paid for them. They are being made by Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, not by any administration or president. Get off your hyper-partisan high horse and start making sense.

It’s a ridiculous approach to ask people to do what is medically right for America by wrapping it in a Trump flag with the expectation that vast numbers of people will now stick a needle in their arms. All Sarah Huckabee Sanders has done is confuse people, which seems to be easy to do in Arkansas. I mean, really, they elected both Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee as governors and now they will probably put her in that chair. OMG. I want my razor back — to kill myself.

There are no guarantees in life and during a global pandemic words truly matter. More than once, Baby Huckabee lied to us from the press room in the White House. As they asked Michael Cohen, “Why would we believe you now?” Does anything Sarah Huckabee Sanders says carry meaning? She does point out that, “Many of our hospitals are now dangerously close to maximum capacity due to rising covid cases.” Yeah, but is that true? Sorry, I am being ironic there. I hear those hospital statistics from reliable sources, you know, the media you go out of the way to malign in your piece. You speak with forked tongue.

The bottom line? Sanders is merely using vaccination to pitch her run for Governor. She’s not a worthy messenger. If it’s a Trump vaccine, why isn’t his picture on every vial? You know, like Colonel Sanders’ face is on every bucket. Sarah, you could’ve gotten the shot seven months ago. Where were you then? Perhaps too busy trying to overturn an election? I’m glad you got the shot but hope you don’t get the votes.

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ROE V. WADE REVISITED

Let’s Regulate Women’s Rights!

There is a passage in my 2014 book If God Could Talk where a TV talk show host and his producer are vetting God for an appearance on a cable TV show. The interview became a difficult discussion with God about abortion. After the female producer challenged God about the government attempting to control what a woman does with her own body, God fired back.

“You can’t have things both ways. You cannot say you believe in evolution, but refuse to let nature take its course. You have no idea if that fetus will be your next Messiah or your next serial killer. You use evolution as your science and then use a myopic viewpoint to legislate when life begins. What you cannot comprehend you blame on God or wave your Constitution in the other person’s face. You want to play God? Go ahead, play God and kill the baby.”

Now one might ask, was God really talking in the book or was the author personifying the deity by scripting his lines. Stop right there. I wrote the lines and God had nothing to do with it. I was trying to make my person-God-character believable. One might want to say that God is definitely pro-life, but is he really?

On July 22^nd, the state of Mississippi filed a brief with the Supreme Court defending the state’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy and requesting that Roe v. Wade be overturned. Their case was already set to be the Court’s biggest reproductive rights lawsuit, but because they went all in, it definitely demands our attention.

“The national fever on abortion can break only when this Court returns abortion policy to the states,” said Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch. By the way, it’s Ms. Fitch. Lynn is a woman. This might seem like a hail Mary pass but conservative pro-life people have been working on this since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Let the fun begin.

A primary goal of the Republican Court-packing has been a not-so-subtle plot to please their most conservative voters who want Roe v. Wade to be overturned. They want to abort the law and flush it down the river. I debated this issue in a 1967 high school class where I was assigned the task of defending anti-abortion laws, and it’s almost unbelievable that the debate continues to this very day.

The 1973 Supreme Court ruling was rather simple. It stipulated that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. The law didn’t address the rights of the unborn fetus because it was not a fully grown human. So, the debate begins and ends on the determination of when life actually begins and who makes that decision.

Most people don’t realize that Roe is not the name of a person. We have traditionally used names like John Doe or Jane Roe to mask the identity of citizens in highly sensitive matters of law. At the beginning of the case, the Court addressed the legal issues of standing and mootness. They decided the appeal of Jane Roe, whose actual name was Norma McCorvey, was moot because she had already given birth to her child and thus would not be affected by the ruling. The Court also decided she lacked standing to assert the rights of other pregnant women. Finally, the Court understood that they couldn’t restore the rights of a woman in the past but could hear a case about all women in the future and whether the Texas law banning all abortions was constitutional.

Many constitutional law experts believe Roe v. Wade was not decided properly and they focus on this part of the ruling, “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, in this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”

Medical science and care 48 years ago was not nearly as advanced as today’s modern technology. Hospitals and doctors are now well equipped to save premature lives every day. In the summer of 2020, Minnesota’s Beth and Rick Hutchinson had what they call their miracle baby boy. Their son Richard was born at 21 weeks, one of the youngest babies to survive such an early arrival.

That being said, we must put the facts on the table. In general, an infant is not considered to be viable until after 24 weeks gestation. The survival rate of an infant born before they are 24 weeks old is less than 50 percent.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently signed new legislation into state law that bans abortion at the onset of a fetal heartbeat, which can occur as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. The Supreme Court refused to determine and decree when life begins, yet the Texas lawmakers, predominately composed of men, have decided a woman cannot have an abortion for any reason after six weeks. Do the Texas legislature’s paygrades allow them to play God? Many women don’t know they are pregnant six or even more weeks after conception.

Overturning Roe v. Wade will hurt poor women, their family planning and their futures. I hate to drop a bomb here, but many American women get abortions not because of rape, possible inherited fetal impairments or health conditions of the mother or baby. They get abortions just because they are not ready for another baby. We will end up with millions of unwanted babies, an overwhelmed adoption system and no safety net for single women.

Unskilled, untrained people will perform unsafe abortions and kill a bunch of women due to a lack of sanitation or expertise. It has happened in the past and will happen again. To make matters even worse, we now have the internet with its preponderance of old wives’ tales and faulty advice ready to hand out abortion routines that will kill or harm fetuses and mothers. Remember when someone suggested people drink bleach to kill Covid-19? Who came up with that idea?

They say we must send our sons and daughters to war to save the life of democracy and our nation. When our kids get killed, we honor them, but we still have some blood on our hands. We let people drive drunk, they kill other people and we put up little crosses and flowers on the sides of our roads. And when we block the funding of family planning organizations and ban the use of federal funds for abortions, we are simply saying that we don’t care about the poor and under-educated women in America.

We will surely hear from abortion opponents with mega certitude that the medical procedure of abortion violates “God’s Word.” It might come as a surprise that neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament mentions abortion — not one word. There are some biblical cruel rules about menstruation, but most modern Christian women dismiss the advice.

Women are different than men but they aren’t any less equal. If the government tells a woman what she can do with her pregnancy, what might be next? Could we see new laws for demanding the castration of rapists? Might the government enforce tubal ligation of women with “too many” children? China does that. Maybe new rules will ban “certain women” from making babies who might become violent criminals? Where does it stop? I cannot believe that the right of millions of women are in the hands of our legal system. Who wrote this script?

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THE FEAR OF FLYING

Mask-less (Zipless) Encounters and Liaisons

Erica Jong wrote a book in 1973 called Fear of Flying, which was a portrayal of female sexuality. Some say that work helped propel the second wave of feminism. Women read the book for its liberating sentiments and men read it for the titillating stories about Ms. Jong’s sexual exploits. Go ahead and look up the term “zipless,” but the current reality of having random encounters with strangers who aren’t wearing masks clicked me back to that book. Some say we are about to enter our fourth wave of the pandemic while others say the third wave of feminism is embodied in the #MeToo movement.

Here in the US, we are facing a strange conundrum of having the world’s largest supply of vaccines while a significant percentage of our population refuses to get a shot. Hey, thanks for being so damn selfish. Almost 15% of Americans say they will not get vaccinated and the percentage among Republicans is alarming.

According to a CBS-YouGov poll, “50 percent — said they felt the vaccine hadn’t been properly tested or they were waiting to see what would happen with the vaccine. Forty percent said they didn’t trust the government, while 30 percent said they didn’t trust science or drug companies. Eleven percent of those polled said they believe that because they’ve had COVID-19, they’re now immune from the virus.” I’m not sure why they would think that but who am I to question?

This idea that the vaccines have not been “properly tested“ might be related to the daft feeling among many of these folks that they would be safer if Donald Trump was still president. They’re not good with details and science. Let’s not forget that Trump became infected with Covid-19, was hospitalized and then got better. He and his wife became fully vaccinated in January, so what’s the delay all about?

There was a great article in the New York Times today that highlights the fact that the vaccines have not been “officially” approved by the FDA, which keeps some people from getting the jab. If you subscribe, you can find it under the tag, ‘The No. 1’ public health issue.

What happens when the FDA or the USDA learn that tainted meat has entered the US food chain? They get the lot numbers of the bad meat and then send out bulletins far and wide warning to NOT EAT that meat. They then quickly mandate a recall of the tainted lot. In this case we want them to move quickly, so, why is fast action on a virus that kills less desirable than something that just gives Americans the runs?

While the CDC stresses that people need to get vaccinated, the FDA follows it’s guidelines of waiting at least 18 months to insure the treatment is safe. This leads to one of my favorite concepts, the implication of the opposite. Here’s another excerpt from the New York Times article mentioned earlier, “…officials insisted that they were merely ‘following the data.’ In truth, though, they were basing their advice on a narrow reading of the data — and not understanding how most people would interpret their comments.” Sadly, people are not following the data now.

Moderna and Pfizer tested their vaccines among 30,000 people. By the way, the United States paid those pharma firms for the testing as part of the Warp Speed deal. So, with the testing and the subsequent total of 338,491,374 Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson shots, what is causing the wait? It’s time, and time cannot be changed. It’s constant and it takes, well, time. The FDA requires 18 months of data to ascertain the possible side effects and by-products of the shots and they cannot change time.

One of the conspiracy theories is that getting a shot will affect a woman’s ability to get pregnant or have kids. Well, with only eight months of vaccinations how could anyone be able to confirm or deny that notion? There is absolutely no evidence that an mRNA vaccine affects DNA or reproductive biology. There is no indication that if does anything to a man’s sperm or a woman’s ability to produce eggs. Judging by the pregnancies, births and growing kids all around us, I think we are safe.

So, for those people waiting for OFFICIAL APPROVAL, could it be their fear has been exacerbated by the merging of bad data, rumor and conspiracy theories instead of the large body of medical evidence? You know, those pure facts like 99.5% of the people getting COVID right now are unvaccinated.

A person trained in the legal profession is adept at the technique of sowing doubt with the facts to get a win for their client. Reasonable doubt works in the courtroom, but the vaccination jury has been out for so long I wonder if they even remember where we were a year ago. Back then we were having 125,000 new cases and more than a thousand deaths every day. Now with the vaccines we have about 30,000 cases and under 300 deaths per day. How can anyone doubt that this positive change is the result of vaccinations? And I hate to throw some salt in the open wound, but just weeks ago we were down below 10,000 cases a day and less than 200 deaths per day. Thanks, Delta Variant and vaccine hesitancy.

A quote by Rebecca Robbins, who covers the vaccines for New York Times, jumped off the page at me. She agrees that full approval, whenever it happens, is “probably going to be the catalyst for many new mandates.” Does she mean that people who work in the healthcare and nursing home industries will be legally bound to get a shot? If that, along with more people getting fully vaccinated, is the result, then I say let’s get this approval NOW!

The New York Times added, “Right now, it appears a full approval for the Pfizer vaccine could come in September, with Moderna not far behind.” WHAT? That is only ten months after first shots were administered, not 18 months. So, why wait until then?

Oh yeah, they are not being influenced by a raving maniac in the White House so they’re playing steady and safe. I get it, but isn’t the risk of full approval worth it? We are over 608,000 fatalities from Covid-19. How many more? Did we learn nothing from Fear of Flying? Liberation has some risk but a potentially huge reward.

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DARK MONEY, LIGHT REASONING

When contributions become bribes

If you are under forty years of age, you probably don’t know about the concept of “equal time” for radio and television. It was a rule codified by the Communications Act of 1934, and it required broadcasters to allow candidates to purchase airtime at the same rate as their “most favored advertiser,” meaning at the lowest possible rate. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rightfully was concerned that broadcast stations could easily manipulate the outcome of elections by presenting just one candidate’s point of view while excluding those of all other candidates.

I’m a former broadcaster and I remember times of having a candidate talking and joking on the air with the morning crew for twenty minutes. Afterward, I had to send a letter to all the other candidates offering them the same time. Of course, games were sometimes played. If the “snake handler Nazi” candidate demanded equal time, the station gave him twenty minutes on Sunday at 4AM.

The equal time rule should not be confused with the now-defunct FCC fairness doctrine, which was introduced in 1949. It required the holders of broadcast licenses to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was honest, equitable, and balanced. The FCC eliminated the policy in 1987.

This brings us to Citizens United v. FEC (Federal Election Commission), a 2010 Supreme Court case whose ruling asserted that corporations are people and removed reasonable campaign contribution limits. This allowed corporations and unions to use dark money in attempts to influence election results by advertising for or against one or more candidates. Wow, how did we get here?

Neither you nor I have the time to get into the details of this outrageous decision, but the highest court in the land said in no uncertain terms, that they 1. Don’t believe that disclosing who gives a candidate money helps democracy and 2. Corporations have the same first amendment rights as individual people. Okay, I get it, money talks and nobody walks, but why can’t we know exactly who is talking?

Corruption is as old as language because once a person could communicate with another they could give in order to get. The essence of quid pro quo was around long before the Latin words, quid, pro and quo were invented. The phrase means something for something, and after a person has been given something, especially something of great value, that individual typically will deliver something in return. Politicians are like kids set loose in a candy store and told their parents won’t be back for an hour. They know that eating too much candy is wrong, but hey, no one is there to stop them.

Our campaign financing system is broken and the only way to fix it will be getting these less than honest grifters out of the candy shop. Even the more moderate and semi-honest politicians in both parties complain about how much time they waste making phone calls to donors and Super PACs. They already get paid handsome salaries for doing their jobs, so why should they be allowed to fund raise on our dime? The annual compensation for most Senators, Representatives and Delegates is $174,000, and they get more when in leadership roles. They also have great healthcare insurance and average pensions of $74,028. Why do they beg for money? Because they need as much as possible to buy more advertising than their challengers. Simply put, that corporation, you know, that “person,” will pay whatever is necessary to put their candidate’s message on the air UNEDITED and UNCENSORED. They can say whatever they want.

A television or radio station doesn’t have to take political advertising but should they sell one political ad they must take commercials from other politicians until they are sold out. Candidates rush to buy their advertising schedules early to insure they get on the air. A few years ago, I was researching political advertising for a major firm and one candidate bought so late there were only a few spots available. They lost.

The term “dark money” is unique to the United States. Our unreasonable laws allow “nonprofit organizations” to raise funds for the purpose of influencing elections without requiring disclosure of their donors. These monies are dark, sinister and secret by their very nature. In fact, they are NOT dark; they are invisible.

Those political con men and women who talk about how they want politics and government to be transparent are full of shit. Two congresspeople, Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene and Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, have raised between $1.4 and $1.5 million in donations by teaming up to hold rallies in states they don’t even represent. By the way, it’s a two-way street. Representative Liz Cheney has reported to the FEC a $2.4 million bankroll, which is major moola for Wyoming. You see, the wind blows both ways and the dollars fly to anyone with a presence and controversial tail wind.

Call it what you will, but that money, regardless of its origin, is a damn bribe. If I give you money, you must profess my beliefs. For example, a candidate or congressperson can raise oodles of cash by stating belief in the BIG LIE. It doesn’t matter if deep-down inside they don’t believe what they are shoveling, the more shit they sling the more money they get.

SOLUTION? End Citizens United and pass a law requiring the disclosure of all political contributors or donators. Any “non-profit” that buys a political ad, must have a website detailing all monetary donations and sources. Also, anyone running for, elected to, or filing to be on the ballot for any federal office must disclose the last three years of their tax returns. None of this is unreasonable but should it all happen you’d quickly see many corrupt sons of bitches running out the door.

Transparency is better than darkness. As the Washington Post says, “Democracy dies in darkness.” True, that.

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RACISM REVISITED 2021

Can a white guy write about this subject?

When I mentioned to a dear friend that I was thinking about writing a book called RACISM REVISITED, her reaction threw me for a loop. She said, “Be careful with that because you have no credibility with the subject.” Oh, yeah, I am white. But wait, why can’t a person of one race discuss race and different viewpoints on the matter? Am I somehow disqualified because of my race? That, in substance, is racism. But I am not angry about it; I am simply curious as hell.

We would not be hearing so much about Critical Race Theory (CRT) had the New York Times not published the 1619 Project, an on-going educational initiative to enlighten all races of US citizenry about how this country was formed and how our laws, customs and policies affected people of different races in dissimilar ways.

Most authors eventually face a situation in which they over-describe or lather on some fiction to make their words more compelling. The 1619 Project asserts that American history doesn’t begin in 1776, but rather 1619 when the first Africans were brought to these shores and sold as property. This truly angers some conservatives who believe God himself sanctioned the creation of our new land in 1776.

The writer of the 1619 Project used some fanciful language to attract readers. Here’s a little gem from the title page, “Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true.” A white person may hear “our ideals are wrong,” when author Nicole Hanna-Jones was probably trying to communicate that there was a difference between our ideals and actions. It’s like the father hitting his son because the young boy slapped his sister. What was the lesson learned? Did dad’s action reinforce violence as a learning and communication tool?

We are talking about education here, and some state governments are trying to control what we teach our children. Oh, boy. An article titled Disingenuous Defenses of Critical Race Theory, written by Christopher F. Rufo, appeared in the New York Post on July 9^th. You can read it here. First, I’ll point out that the newspaper is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s company. Next, as one would expect given the title of the article, Mr. Rufo contends that most other writers are wrong. Okay, I get that. The Op-Ed is anti-CRT.

The goal of all these legislative actions is to stop teaching the core principles of critical race thinking, which Mr. Rufo claims has “race essentialism” and “collective guilt” baked into them, claiming that to be a strong kind of “state-sanctioned discrimination.” While he attempts to link “guilt” about racism to the left, he fails to explain how political membership has anything to do with teaching the history of African Americans.

I am sure Mr. Rufo fears that we are going to push “toxic racial theories onto children” at the expense of taxpayers. Really? Is this about money? Well, slavery was about money. I don’t know how you could possibly teach the economic history of the United States without mentioning the advantage we had with “free labor.” Hou could such knowledge possibly harm young minds?

In the fifties, there was a huge uproar about teaching sex education in our high schools. I remember it well. We were told not to do it, but never told precisely what it was that we were not supposed to do. In 1959, the US had a population of 177 million and now we have a family some 331 million strong. I guess that sex education either didn’t work or totally corrupted us. We never talked about slavery, of course, because we were all white kids.

The Supreme Court recently ruled that US students can say pretty much what they want when they are not on campus, but the high court did provide a path to punishment for disruptive behavior in the school. I became extremely interested when Florida, my home state, passed a law stipulating Critical Race Theory was not to be taught. So, I wrote a letter to the Education Commissioner, Richard Corcoran:

I read with great interest the recent discussion of guidelines on teaching what is described as “Critical Race Theory.” I also saw your quote in the newspaper, “… the rule would help better ‘police’ Florida teachers and would prevent teachers from ‘indoctrinating’ their students with a liberal agenda.” From that, I have a few questions.

First, what is the decree attempting to do? Is it simply a censorship bill? What is NOT to be taught about America history? What exactly is this “liberal agenda” you mentioned? As a taxpayer, I would like to know what exactly is the state outlawing? Please send me the language you are prohibiting, in detail please.

This whole effort on your part seems to be more placating than what you might really do if you were not being managed by a dogmatic Governor. Would you, for example, forbid teachers from discussing the Holocaust? You know that in Germany, this study is mandated. Would you forbid any teacher in the Florida Educational system discuss slavery, lynching and Jim Crow Laws in America? Time to be specific, Mr. Corcoran.

I hope you respond. I don’t want to go on social media and make a big deal about this, but certainly, this whole effort reminds me of what happens in totalitarian nations. The intimidation within the law reeks of political pressure, but it’s your job to lay out exactly what can be said and what cannot be discussed. You know, that once one takes away the truth, that person is no longer an educator, they become the “thought police.” Will we still let the kids read George Orwell’s 1984?

Well, I never got a response. It’s part of a huge problem in modern America — too much tweeting and yelling with no acceptance of responsibility or explanation about how things work. Laws get passed without people understanding why or what they mean. According to a recent story from NBC News, “Critical race theory battles are driving frustrated, exhausted educators out of their jobs. Battles over diversity and equity initiatives in public schools have resulted in administrators and teachers being fired or resigning over discussions.”

The tension is being created by furious parents berating teachers, especially those of color, for presenting critical race theory in classrooms. Schoolboards need to understand that CRT is an academic framework taught in graduate schools that posits racial discrimination is embedded within US laws and policies. But then, who am I to say? I am white. What would I know about the struggles of Black men and women in a post racist world? Irony there.

Before any reasonable discussion or debate can take place, all the parties must agree on the meanings of words. I know what racism is, even though I may never have felt it. Our founding fathers were not interested in the rights of women and people of color. They had little care for the natives who were either forced off their land or murdered. The early settlers cared only about being successful as a nation and all their critical British theories propelled them to look the other way. Consider this, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” That was a lie, and so is the myth of Puritans sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner with the Native Americans to celebrate the freedom of America. That lie is taught in our schools, and let’s not forget that below a certain age Santa Claus is a real person. Hey, I can be critical of Santa Claus. I’m white and most of the time he’s white too, you know, just like Jesus. Oops, did I go too far?

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IS DONALD TRUMP NEWSWORTHY?

Our Former President Should Just Go Away

I keep asking why we continue to fuss about the things Donald Trump says now that he’s a private citizen again. Of course, one could argue that that he’s never been a “private” person or his craving for publicity, attention and press supersedes the privacy any normal person would assume.

Now with the Trump Organization’s CFO being charged with more than a dozen counts of fraud and a 15-year duplicitous tax scheme we can’t avoid the continuous storm of bombshells. The Wall Street Journal has this interesting update, “The Trump Organization has removed longtime finance chief Allen Weisselberg as an officer at some of its subsidiaries. The removal of Mr. Weisselberg as an officer from multiple Trump Organization entities comes amid discussions of potential changes in the chief financial officer’s duties, responsibilities and possibly title at former President Donald Trump’s company, people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Weisselberg, who has worked for the Trump family since 1973, is expected to remain at the company.” Really? He is accused of all that stuff, and he’s removed as an officer yet he remains employed by Trump companies. Why?

Most any other business would have reacted with, “Wow, we had no idea, and we’re going to clean house.” But, no, Trump never said what Mr. Weisselberg did was wrong. His sons Eric and Don Jr., officers of the company, claim they did nothing wrong and every firm gives top executives the same kind of perks and treatment. Okay, but when Jamie Diamon gets a jet from JPMorgan Chase, he declares the jet’s value as income. Why would Weisselberg cheat the treasury out of $1.7 million when he doesn’t need the money? He could have simply paid for all that stuff or declared it as income. It makes no sense that an accomplished CFO would put himself in jeopardy. This situation isn’t as bad as that of Bernie Madoff, but maybe it’s that same thrill of getting away with something knowing he might get caught.

All that bullshit that blew out of Trump’s mouth at his rally in Dallas last weekend might have been great fertilizer for a prize-winning tomato plant, but it contained nothing important or truthful to us. Why do legitimate press outlets keep replaying and regurgitating the lies? They might say it’s just a route to more ridicule and repudiation of the old fool, but the more they talk about him the more people believe it’s all true.

During the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) hoedown in Dallas, the crowd decided to cheer when one of the speakers mentioned the country not achieving Joe Biden’s vaccination goal of 70% by the Fourth of July. Mitt Romney called that CPAC crowd cheering “grossly unfortunate.” Well, I guess that’s the best Mitt Romney can muster. It’s funny to me that Donald Trump is fully vaccinated but his loyalists are against vaccination. Where’s the logic in that?

So, why does the press need Donald Trump? We know that Fox News wants as much as they can get of the demigod, but MSNBC and CNN have taken the position that until the guy is dead and buried he’s a danger to America. Okay, he might be, but really, just replaying and repeating his lies ad nauseum doesn’t erase them.

A business can mount a court case if someone publicly promotes a lie about it and get a judge to pump out a gag order making that person shut up. It’s exactly what those two voting machine companies are doing with Rudy Giuliani and his lunatic cohorts. Those assholes are using the Big Lie to malign, slander and devalue those companies.

Why doesn’t someone launch a class-action suit against Donald Trump to get a court to gag him? Oh yeah, First Amendment, but large groups of citizens should have the right to sue someone who is doing harm to the whole nation. Doesn’t that give them standing in any court? It’s our country. The courts cannot rule over content published on Facebook even when it’s false or hateful. It’s Facebook’s company, not the government’s.

Content moderation would take a ton of money but it’s a good idea. Should that happen though, Trump and his idiot friends would squawk all over TV about how the left is out to get them. They would claim they are somehow being violated. Now we all know that any publicity is good publicity, but there comes a time when someone should tell a loser to just shut up and go away. Why is any of this important to you, Mr. Trump? You cried wolf about a rigged election and can never take that back. You have no way out of your stupid lies. You are the target of jokes told around the world. They say you’re a sore loser, a guy who just isn’t big enough to take it like a man. Daddy would be so proud of you Donnie! I wonder if your older sister still has the energy to pour a bowl of mashed potatoes on your head to shut you up.

The only people who care about Donald John Trump are those who have never been able to love themselves. They see the former president as their savior, born to make their lives, what? Better? Did his presidency help them? No one gets anything from Trump other than cons and lies. I would love to see a military transport drop all the ballots he didn’t win on the front lawn of Mar-a-Lago with a giant sign that says: COUNT THEM ALL, ASSHOLE!

Maybe then the world could go on.

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WHICH PILL WILL YOU TAKE?

The Lessons of Fantasy and Inner Conflict

For today’s post, I kindly ask that you suspend reality and think not only outside the box but beyond this world and the next. Place yourself far away in another galaxy, where reality is less discernible and evident. I was recently draw back to the movie The Matrix when it was mentioned in the book Caste by Isabel Wilkerson. I dusted off the DVD and watched it again.

So far, The Matrix is a trilogy, but The Matrix 4 is slated for release on December 22^nd of this year. The richest and most well-designed scene is in the first movie of the series, which nicely lays out the premise. Laurence Fishburne plays the role of Morpheus, who wears strange sunglasses without temples that are affixed to his nose by only the bridge. An incredibly young Keanu Reeves plays the part of Neo, a brilliant hacker and computer programmer.

In the scene, Morpheus tries to explain the Matrix to Neo, using terms and poetry that might lead you to believe he’s talking about a divinity or God spirit. He warns Neo that, “It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.” Neo wants to understand the Matrix and believes Morpheus has the answer he desires. It’s the classic tale of a young man seeking universal truth.

The ever-curious Neo asks, “What truth?” and Morpheus explains, “…you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, kept inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind.” The older Morpheus explains that the truth, and thus the Matrix itself, is something he cannot talk about, others must see it for themselves. With that, he opens his hands and shows Neo two pills — in his right hand a red pill and in the left a blue one.

Now one could start there with an analogy of red representing right-leaning or conservative viewpoints and blue signifying left leaning or liberal thinking, but that would be too easy. As we learn, nothing about the Matrix is easy.

Morpheus lays out the conundrum by saying, “This is your last chance. After this, there is no going back. You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed, and you believe whatever you want to believe.” I have always thought that this choice thing was a setup, a trick, because it didn’t matter which pill Neo took. He would always be in search of the truth because that is the way he is wired.

Morpheus then explains the other choice, “You take the red pill, and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. Remember that all I am offering is the truth. Nothing more.” This is where is gets good. Neo takes the red pill, of course, because he believes the “Wonderland” of truth theory where there is no reality and he’s trusting someone else’s binary choice, not his own.

I will go no further into the plot here. If I’ve piqued your interest, then go watch the film. However, be aware of the complex set of plotlines that can spring forth from a mind wanting to be manipulated. “When you take the blue pill and the story ends,” could mean the pill makes you feel secure knowing that there was an election, the bad guy lost and you are ready to go on with your life. You believe this because you’ve attached a thick layer of fact molecules to the various scenarios of life. You know the basement of that pizza place in Washington, D.C. wasn’t where babies were sacrificed for their blood to feed Democrat operatives. In fact, there is no basement in the Comet pizza establishment.

What about those who have taken the red pill? Well, they are seduced into various “rabbit holes” where they are forced to adopt, believe and fixate on whatever their handlers dish out. As they digest the large red conspiracy pill, brainwashers like Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity narrate their reality. These guys are not modern-day Morpheus-like leaders, they are agents of hate, lizard-like liars and armed conspiracy anarchists.

In the film, agents are the guardians within the computer-generated world of the Matrix, protecting it from anyone or anything that could reveal it as a false reality or threaten it in any other way. But be careful. Those taking the red pill are depicted as the heroes. Are you lost yet? Well, don’t get confused. People who say they are seeking the truth after taking the red pill can be traitors, like the character Cypher, played by Joe Pantoliano. They are picking the truth they want to believe, not the real truth.

Once someone goes down a rabbit hole, like Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Paul Gosar have done, they have totally given up cerebral control. They are compelled by a sinister need to shock, disrupt and interpret truth for those they believe will follow them down into the next rabbit hole. Whether it’s Jewish space lasers or Joe Biden sending “brown shirts” into Missouri to encourage “human experiment” vaccines, they are off their rockers. Paul Gosar has said, “If the Pope wants to devote his life to fighting climate change, then he can do so in his personal time. But to promote questionable science as Catholic dogma is ridiculous.” First, I am sure the Holy Father doesn’t punch a timeclock at the Vatican. Next, Mr. Gosar lives in a district that had the highest temperatures in the history of recordkeeping. He’s not going to burn in hell, his trousers are already aflame in his very own backyard.

Which pill will you take? Will you trust a certain news source because they hold the pill? Do you really believe they would do anything to lower their ratings, such as telling the truth? Fox News deals not in truth. They are part of a Wonderland created by exploiters and con artist wanting to get your viewership and money. Donald Trump is like Agent Smith, The Matrix head agent out to capture and destroy those who disagree with his premise or opinion. Here’s a question, how would Donald Trump even know if the election was rigged? Seriously, he doesn’t know anything other than the shit he makes up or things members of the armed conspiracy anarchists tell him. He didn’t look at the ballots. He didn’t see bamboo in the ballots. He didn’t go to Comet Pizza and ask to see the basement. He wouldn’t know a fact if it blew into his bellybutton.

I took the blue pill a long time ago. I go to sleep at night, then wake up every morning believing in the facts as presented by truth-tellers. I never bought into Stephen Colbert’s “Truthiness,” instead thinking that black and white outlined facts and gray areas were designed for mood management and psychological stability. When Morpheus says the truth is something he cannot talk about, one must see it for themselves, he is right. The people who have been sucked into the deep dark rabbit holes are not helping America. We need to be deeply concerned they are in positions of power, and we must work to change that now. Even Paul Gosar’s siblings have said he should be removed from Congress and called him a traitor to this country. I am sure a more strongly worded reaction is forthcoming.

Take the blue pill, my friends, and stop wasting your time on trying to see things that aren’t real.

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THE STORY OF DAVID & GOLIATH

Which one does Donald Trump think he is?

Most people know the general plot of the David and Goliath story, which comes from the Old Testament of the Bible. But for those who don’t, the classic story is about a little guy defeating a far more powerful giant. Yes, there is some “tortoise and the hare” in there.

David’s brothers went off with the Israeli army to fight the Philistines while the smaller David stayed home. The Philistines were a people who came from the island of Crete to Canaan (which is Israel today) and controlled the area for some two hundred years before this final war. The Philistines’ primary weapon was a nine-foot giant named Goliath who not only kicked butt but had a nasty habit of bad mouthing the Israeli God. Little David traveled to the front and confronted Goliath with the only weapons he had, a sling shot and five smooth rocks. The small guy declared to the ogre that God was on his side, and he launched one rock that hit Goliath in the forehead. The oversized bully came crashing down and Israel won the war.

Given the way Donald John Trump announced his new lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter and Google might lead one to think he’s a little guy out to slay the dragons of high-tech. He names the CEOs of the three firms in his lawsuit and declares it’s a class-action complaint, believing his claims can be aggregated with other lawsuits against a defendant that has allegedly caused him and others harm. I might be a candidate for that class-action because I have been banned from Twitter for life, but I wouldn’t get within spitting distance of anything initiated by Donald Trump. There are a huge number of possible reasons why this case will most likely be thrown out, but if it does move forward the defendants could call Trump to a deposition.

So, does Trump perceive himself as David, the disadvantaged martyr, or Goliath, the invincible warrior? I see Trump as a goofy giant being told by all his sycophants and followers that he has superior weaponry and his god, the almighty dollar, and he will win the day. Truth is, this is just another stunt to get on camera and raise cash from his rabid but naïve fans. He will pocket the money.

Trump may view Facebook, Twitter and Google as monolithic corporate overlords, but they are simply websites and search engines that are not owned by the government. Just as Trump and his expensive attorneys were able to run out the clock on obtaining damaging witness testimony at the former president’s impeachment trials, the billionaires behind these social media sites are not about to go down easy. The anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft lasted more than three years and the Supreme Court has no appetite to get involved.

Trump is lame brained, and he misses a fundamental fact. The First Amendment states that the government cannot restrict speech. It has nothing to do with corporations. Facebook, Twitter and Google are not the government. In fact, the First Amendment protects them from being told what they can or cannot host on their sites.

In the end, the little Davids of this story, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai, will use weapons of exclusion. Goliath-Trump tried to keep us off his presidential Twitter account, not understanding he didn’t have the right to do so. The recent court decision stating Facebook is not a monopoly will embolden them. Trump is hoping this lawsuit will incite people to rally around him, but he’s an aging idiot who becomes less relevant with each passing day. By the way, where is that Trump social media site he claimed would be coming?

Caste is a recent book by Isabel Wilkerson. She presents a great explanation about the way people hold racists beliefs and are influenced by those long-held prejudices. I suggest that Trump followers have been captured by his rhetoric and are blindly following a false prophet. Here’s a quote from Wilkerson that fits perfectly, “People who do not know that they are captive will not resist their bondage.” Yes, those who continue to believe the “Big Lie” and other aspects of Trump’s foolishness are in bondage. Maybe the modern day Davids will smite the giant’s head and knock some sense into him.

You heard it here first. This off-base lawsuit is dead on arrival because Donald Trump’s remedy would hurt America and help no one. And that, dear friends, is just one of oh so very many reasons why Donald Trump is an asshole.

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THE LOSER PALOOZA TOUR

A sad cult with limited purpose or power

I remember fun times at many company holiday parties once the karaoke started. You know, free entertainment in some bar with fellow workers singing along to recorded music tracks. It always reminded me of Andy Warhol’s comment about a person’s 15 minutes of fame, except with karaoke it’s more like three of four minutes. By the way, the name is a mash up of two Japanese words that mean “empty orchestra.” The mixture of alcohol and one who cannot sing often provides karaoke humor, along with a good dose of embarrassment.

One night during the celebration of another successful year at my company, a well-respected co-worker stood up to sing his favorite song. The microphone was loud and the music track was perfect, but the man’s singing was shit. It was a totally embarrassing performance for both the guy and the audience. It was like an old guy hitting a line drive at the company picnic and having a heart attack on his way to first base. That might be a good time for someone to say, “Okay, this is over.”

So, let’s say that one weekend Jesus Christ is booked at the Florida state fairgrounds and the next weekend the devil himself, you know, Beelzebub, the Prince of Darkness, that Satan guy appears there. Who would draw the biggest crowd? Most people would probably say Jesus, but why wouldn’t the devil also get a large crowd? Donald John Trump just proved that he could draw a great horde to a free event on a hot rainy night in Sarasota, Florida.

In the Sarasota Herald Tribune, this letter to the editor really summed it up nicely, “Let’s put Donald Trump’s Sarasota rally in perspective. Maybe one-tenth of 1% of the area showed up, including out-of-towners. These rallies are fool’s gold for Trump. Perhaps most telling is the fact that no protesters bothered to show up (perhaps out of fear). Trump has turned into Mr. Irrelevant!”

That same Herald Tribune summed up the rally with these five takeaways. 1. Trump base remains committed, 2. (Florida Governor & Trump sycophant) DeSantis not mentioned, 3. ‘Stolen election’ narrative continues, 4. Criminal investigation is a ‘witch hunt,’ 5. Trump tap-dance of political kingmaker is a focus. Let’s dig a little deeper.

Trump is being manipulated by people around him. They are filling his head with dreams of returning to office in 2024, or worse, being “reinstated” next month after some amazing revelation comes out of the fake Arizona ballot audit. Insiders say the firm Cyber Ninjas haven’t found any fraud, but they don’t know how to end their farce. They are simply stealing money from the Maricopa County Republicans. Once August comes and goes, Donald Trump’s followers will feel like the loyal fans of those doomsday predictors who end up being totally wrong about the world ending and leaving their disappointed fans in the dirt.

The airplane that flew over the event on Saturday night towing an electronic LOSER PALOOZA sign had it right. This is the tour of the loser needing the instant gratification of a crowd of people who are just as desperate and disillusioned as he is. This broke-dick politician will continue to wring money from these lambs, but he’s not Jesus and he certainly isn’t the devil. If he were the Prince of Darkness, he would still be president. In today’s world the devil usually wins.

When someone talks for 90 minutes repeating their old, tired material, it’s not a meaningful speech. It’s just a show, a circus clown holding court in the city that Ringling Brothers once called home. The man with the painted face tells his lies and cheap jokes then walks away feeling better about himself but in reality he is an empty, sad loser.

A news story said Governor Ron DeSantis asked the Trump camp to postpone the Sarasota rally out of respect for the families of the Surfside building collapse. The Donald refused to move the date and that created enough tension between the two men that Trump never mentioned DeSantis in his rambling speech. There is one other factor that needs to be mentioned here. The result of a straw-poll taken with young Christian voters a few weeks ago showed DeSantis getting more votes than Trump as a possible presidential candidate for 2024 — Oops!

Trump has painted himself into a corner with his “stolen election” crap and he can’t seem to end it. There’s no elegant way to escape the disdain of Republican moderates and there is also a new problem on the rise. Trump keeps talking about his new criminal jeopardy as part of the same out to get me harangue about the greatest witch hunt in the history of America and it’s those leftist, radical, Democrat socialists who want to make me look bad. It’s revealing that Trump and his too-talkative sons never deny what was done. Instead, they attempt to normalize criminal behavior of the family and close associates. Biden won’t be giving the Trump boys a pardon, so it might be best for them to shut up and put together a strong defense strategy, or the phrase “lock ‘em up” just might hit home.

Trump’s playing the “king maker” role just might backfire on the party and on him. First, when the Republicans primary a politician with a new pro-Trump face, they have no idea who will be running on the Democratic ticket. It could be there will be two new faces in play, and the Democrat might seem like a more reasonable choice for the people of that district or state. Next, when you add sycophants to the party you end up with folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene with lower appeal to party moderates. Over time, those big mouth Trumpers show exactly how ill-equipped they are to hold an office. Once a district has a strong Democrat in office, it’s awfully hard to get them out. As each district becomes more Hispanic or African American, the chance of a Republican comeback go down each year. It will take more than extreme gerrymandering and voter suppression for Republicans to keep power.

The media keeps Trump front and center. They know he’s a polarized actor who’s great for the ratings. People who love him tune in and scores of people who hate him also tune in. But the saddest part is that no one in Trumplandia has the nerve to tell him he lost, and he needs to go home and build a library for that one book he owns. You know, the one with Hitler’s speeches.

The only purpose of the cult is to incite Republicans who think a crowd equals lots of voters, and to make Trump feel good. The real number of those who would pick Trump over any competent Republican is about 25%. People like Florida’s Matt Gaetz, Arizona’s Paul Gosar and Colorado’s Lauren Boebert are positioned to the right of Donald Trump. As we learn more about their criminal investigations, conspiracy theories and radical white supremacy beliefs and right-wing endorsement of violence against members of Congress they will be repositioned as too racist or radical to be in Congress. They were there during the insurrection and now try to say it didn’t happen. Maybe they are simply too stupid to be in Congress? Hey, did they stand in the rain waiting for Trump? Well, no, so maybe they aren’t totally stupid.

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