Not Your Grandma's Congress

Just by looking at my last post you will know that I am angry about what is happening to this country and about the threat posed to it by our corrupt, incompetent President and the Republican Party. But that does not mean I cannot have some fun with the absurdities. Fox News rose up in what passes for righteous indignation to criticize a young lady ( Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio Cortez) for dancing and having fun – presumably because she is a member of the Democratic Party and now a member of congress. And now that the right wing propaganda machine has shown them the way, the Republicans are jumping on the “socialistic Democrats” should not have fun bandwagon, thus paying homage to evangelicals and the puritanical values they profess to believe in. As H. L. Menken once said: Puritanism is “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

Ah but not so fast. Puritanical values not withstanding, most Republicans will tell you it is alright to have a properly restrained good time at fancy dress balls, particularly inaugural balls celebrating the election of Republican Presidents. It is the unbridled exuberance of the masses and the inherent bawdiness of the movements of the young that horny Republicans find offensive. As Lenny Bruce used to point out, it is the people who get the horniest the quickest that can see the danger in such things. All I can say to Congresswoman Cortez is, “you go girl!” Your joy brings a smile to this old man's face, and I do not see why you can't have fun and still represent your constituents.

In regard to language it is not so much the what as the who. To say that Trump is guilty of using intemperate language is being way too polite. There are Republicans who say he should not use profanity, but the general attitude the Republicans exhibit regarding Trump's crude statements and obscene tweets is that boys will be boys. A woman using such language, particularly while calling for the impeachment of Trump is a whole different matter as far as Republicans are concerned. Given what we already know about Trump's philandering Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib's characterization of him as a m..... f..... is undoubtedly accurate, but that is beside the point. And how dare she call for his impeachment! I am sure some Republicans (presumable the ones who are old enough to remember what it means) are calling Congresswoman Tlaib a shameless Hussy!

Hang onto your hats folks. This is just the beginning. Things are about to get very interesting! 

Pardon My Vitriol

I wanted to start the year out on a positive note, but that is very difficult to do politically when we have the most corrupt and incompetent President ever. I know that may sound hyperbolic, but how else do you explain Trump giving Syria to Putin for Christmas and trying to give our loyal Kurdish allies to Erdogan for Christmas? How else do you explain Trump going back on his apparent agreement with Republican Senators and now insisting on billions of dollars for his vanity wall along our southern border? Making matters worse is the fact that even Republicans who occasionally demonstrate some grasp of reality are caving in to Trump on these issues and just about everything else because they are afraid that the right wing bacteria will slime them if they do not bow down to him. And that is no idle threat. Even as General Mattis resigns in protest and other retired generals join him in criticizing Trump's withdrawal of troops and abandonment of the Kurds in Syria the bacteria infesting Fox and other right wing noise boxes continues to tout Trump's faux patriotism as if it is real and laudable. Furthermore, that bacteria insists on the construction of the border wall even as everyone who is familiar with our border and border security says Trump's wall is nothing more than a useless political ploy which Mexico will never pay for!

What should be apparent to anyone who is paying the slightest attention is that Trump is an embarrassment the free world will long remember, and that this will make it difficult for us to ask our wary allies to join us again in any necessary defensive actions against terrorists and despotic would be conquerors. To put this in Trumpian terms: Trump is a crooked, destructive, low IG disaster for this country and for the entire free world!  There is little doubt in my mind that fair and impartial investigations of Trump and his administration will uncover a corruption so vile and subversive that only the brain dead will still oppose impeaching Trump and throwing him out of office along with the soiled diapers now covering his butt!  That is, of course, assuming that the results of such investigations are made public before 2020.

May this new year see a restoral of our national sanity and a recommitment to our proper role as a moral force and the greatest power in the world.