Every Day Is April Fool's Day

Lately I've been expecting to see headlines that say, "Lee Bright to introduce hand-grenade bill" or "Lindsey Graham Bill Says Life Begins Before Conception."

Really, this election year is turning out to be just the best season ever of that perennial favorite, "Idiots in Politics."  Graham can't be getting much sleep these days, firing off nearly daily emails pledging his war against Obamacare, educational standards, gun control and women.

Graham firing off emails.

The word "freedom" is getting its workout these days as well.  Freedom as we know it here in the South means the freedom of the powerful to trample the rights of the rest of us.  It also means making sure the wealthy continue to have freedom to be wealthy.  Basically, if you have to vote for freedom, you can't afford it.

Then there are all those fun-filled contradictions.  All those state's rights folks don't mind it when the federal government wants to ban gay marriage or twenty-week abortions, but listen to them all squeal when them-there liberals talk about a standard of education for the entire country.  Why, that would mean forcing us to change our standards from the proud "minimally adequate" bar that makes us Dixie.  And you surely don't mean that poor folk have the same right to an expensive education that those rich folk have.  To be fair, we do insist that rich and poor, black and white, are taught that God created the earth 6,000 years ago, and that we all romped with the dinosaurs back then.

We won't be straying too far from ignorance if we revisit the popular political stance that there is no situation that cannot be enhanced by the barrel of a gun.  To that end (of the gun), our right wing-nuts are enjoying a real shoot-out at the Okay Y'all Corral this election year, with Lindsey Graham matching Lee Bright dumb thought for dumb thought.

Only one idiot will win.

And as homophobic as is our Lindsey Graham, he's not going into battle alone.  His string of emails of late link him with homegrown lunatic Trey Gowdy -- against Obamacare -- and the Wild Bunch:  Chuck Grassley, Jim Inhofe, Mike Enzi, the unfortunately indefatigable Ted Cruz and even his strange bedfellow Tim Scott, the Bunch signing on against Common Core and pro-ignorance.  Wonder if Graham's gotten too crazy for even his old dancing partner John McCain.

Back to freedom and guns, though, which by the way go together like women and misogyny.  Freedom ends where the OB/GYN's office begins.  While it may be risky to let just anyone carry a gun anywhere in South Carolina, the risk to freedom is greater.  That same freedom, by the way, comes into play with women's ability to reproduce.  What I mean is, Lindsey and pals have the right to demand that a woman carry a pregnancy, or for that matter, get pregnant.  See, the freedom is that the guys with the guns get to control reproduction.  It's like "keep 'em barefoot and pregnant," but thanks to those commie liberals, most of us are going to be able to have shoes.

Here's a thought, and I hope Lee and Lindsey get right on it.  They have both accidentally come out on the right (meaning the correct) side against drone surveillance.  Only because our President has been caught with his hands on the drones.  What I fully expect to see in this battle of nitwits, is a bill to allow drones in the offices at Planned Parenthood. After all, the freedom of the wealthy and powerful are at stake here.

The Stuff of Fiction

I am less likely today to believe that American democracy is foolproof than I was before the turn of the century.  Strange circumstances have upset the balance of what should be a strong and balanced system of government.  Until we lived through it, I doubt we would have thought believable the "election" of George W. Bush in 2000 by the Supreme Court.  Without the swaggering and incompetent Bush administration, I believe the perpetrators of 9/11 would have been caught before the attack, and consequently, without 9/11, there would certainly have been no second term for this idiot president and his evil minions.

So when I read Christian Nation by Frederic C. Rich, I did not chuckle at the absurdities of its premise.  Like Philip Roth's The Plot Against America and Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here, this work of fiction sets up an alternative history in which just that strange bit of credible chance leads to the falling of our democracy.

What if John McCain had won in 2008 and then died in office?  In ordinary times we would not foresee a takeover by Christian fundamentalists.  Yet here we are, where during the Bush years promotion to federal positions were granted to graduates of Christian diploma mills and anti-science agendas were pursued with confidence, and some troubling successes.

And now, despite a more rational leader, we have seen states take on the fight to ban abortion, to form state militias, to legislate against science.  We have an immobilized Senate and a radical right-wing House; our Supreme Court majority boldly rewrites the Constitution to an agenda that they claim is conservative, but is actually so only when convenient.  And we have a gun lobby that is untouchable.

We attempt to resist through democratic means the tyranny of these radical forces, who fight tirelessly in the name of their Christian god.  But where we fight with rationality and restraint, our opponents are enflamed not by the light of logic but by the irrational fire of fear and greed and hate and fueled by the dollars of corporate wealth.

Could it happen here?  

It's a gripping book, and I urge you to read it.

Dear Lindsey,

Apparently, in the midst of your identity crisis, you have decided to advertise on Daily Kos to get support for your Benghazi rant.  It must have been quite the thrill when you learned of Susan Rice's investment portfolio, which includes the company building the Keystone XL pipeline, and even better, that it was a "liberal" group (RootsAction) that is demanding her immediate divestment of those funds.

Wow.  Just step back and watch the Dems shoot themselves in the foot.  Hasn't happened for awhile.  You must have forgotten how good that feels.

Well, back to Benghazi.  You should step back a bit from those late night bitch sessions with John McCain, and realize just how crazy your paranoia really is.  You know there was nothing for Obama to gain by denying that terrorism was at the root of the attack weeks before the election.  If anything, terrorism would have gained him votes.  Let us not forget just how many free miles W. redeemed by playing the terrorism card.

Pardon me for mixing metaphors.  I am giddy with the insanity of the post-election right-wingnuts.

I have already gone on about how silly it is for you and grumpy old John to attack Rice's statements on the Sunday talk shows.  And then the old coot actually insulted her intelligence!

When I first heard the comment I was sure it had to have come from a Saturday Night Live skit.  But no, that was John McCain at his most irascible.  Don't you just want to grab him by the shoulders sometimes and say, "Look in the mirror, John!"

It is also obvious that the Republican strategy is to move Kerry out of the Senate and make way for Scott Brown, who, if I may remind you, lost the election.  I'm not going to say it's not going to happen because, well, we are Democrats, and we don't like easy goals.  But you can't deny it:  either you are plotting with the republicans so you can get that Massachusetts seat back (and maybe be able to ride around with Scott Brown in his pickup), or you are attacking a qualified African-American woman because you cannot admit that she is a qualified African-American woman.

Either case, Lindsey, I hope that you are smart enough to look to the future, like, two years into the future.  Those guys you've been hanging out with at home in South Carolina don't like you anymore.  You're left with the unpopular out of town kids, like John McCain.  You are very likely to be challenged by the Tea Party, because you will never be crazy enough to be accepted by them.  And while John McCain gives a good rendition of the Mad Hatter, he's going to make it harder for you to be friends with anyone on either side.  

So that leaves, well, just trying to do the right thing.  You have had bouts of that in the past, so I know you can do it. Just ask yourself what would Lindsey Graham do if Mitt was in the White House.  Because I know you wouldn't agree with him all the time either, but chances would be good that the arguments would be a bit more grounded in reality.

Respectfully,
Agnes

There They Go Again

I see where our own Lindsay Graham and his BFF John McCain are trying to bully poor Susan Rice presumably over comments she made on Meet the Press.  If you have ever watched any of those Sunday talk shows, you will know that they basically display more tap dancing around issues than you'll see on Dancing with the Stars.

Rachel Maddow pointed out yesterday that John McCain's hobby is appearing on Sunday talk shows, no doubt because it eases the loneliness of Sundays without dinner invitations.  And if you've seen John McCain on any Sunday talk show, you will know that the standard he sets is somewhere between lies and crazy.

So can we all agree that the issue is not what Susan Rice said on Meet the Press?  The issue is the same one that we were observing a few months ago when House maniac Darrell Issa led the charge against Attorney General Eric Holder for the made-up conspiracy regarding Fast and Furious.  You remember, the more questions he answered, the more he complied with requests for files, the angrier they got.

Also reminiscent of the witch hunts against Bill and Hillary in the 90's, when the only thing they could turn up for sure was a dress with semen on it.

On the other hand, the more they can toss around the excrement, the more they are hoping to distract us from, oh, raising taxes on the 1 percent (in other words, members of this very governing body).  If we get riled up enough about some Obama conspiracy, maybe we won't notice them trying to raise the social security retirement age.

Unfortunately, the excrement they are tossing around is their own, and they have plenty more where that came from.

The tragedy of course, is that yet another good member of the Obama team is getting dragged through Congress, this time the Senate.  And although I am hearing the hopeful say that Obama is in this for the duration, there are a lot of bodies of strewn nominees that have been laid to waste over the last four years, by a Congress that has no respect for the President or the institution of the Presidency.

I am thinking that it would be good if Obama was ready to stand up to these idiots, and give us four years that we can be proud of.  Signs say this could happen, so stay tuned.

Model Senators

I've been listening to the Don't Ask Don't Tell hearings on C-SPAN.  I was impressed with the spirit of honor and pride shown by all the military officials giving testimony.  Basically, the consensus of our military is that implementing the repeal of DADT can and will be done, with little disruption of the military.

John McCain, who appears to grow crazier by the day, was the one holdout of the committee members, grabbing onto the few statements indicating support of not repealing the policy at this time, even though there was agreement that it would be repealed with little fanfare at some future time.

McCain is an angry man, the more impotent he becomes, the angrier he gets, and I'm not talking about his sex life, because he has excellent, government provided health care.  It amazes me that he continues to get reelected, although he is from Arizona, and I believe he ran on the same ticket as Jan Brewer, the Crazy Hate Ticket.  It was an ideal match:  paranoid delusions of headless Mexicans crossing the border with drugs hidden in unmentionable places, which must have excited McCain's homophobic fantasies.

I wonder what it must feel like to be John McCain, hearing your old words played back to back with your new words every day.  I imagine the need for rigid denial must be great, so that it has become ever easier to ignore reality in order to appease his crazy voices.

I could go on forever, but that would be mean and pointless.  The point is, however, that a crazy and mean person, with fragile psychological defenses, has the power to prevent our government from functioning.  He has the power to make our legislators waste valuable time and resources on debating whether we should maintain a ban on gays in the military that other civilized countries have long abandoned.

In short, he has caused our military to suffer through painful ambiguity that could easily and professionally be resolved, with a stronger military as a result.

So, as I listened to each member of the military brass, in turn, state that they are positive that they could effect the transformation to including gays in the military with little negative effect, and in fact that our servicemen and women would act honorably and professionally, I had two reactions.

I was filled with pride, and

I wished it were possible to allow these men to serve as adjunct members of the Senate, where they could model grown-up behavior to our current legislators.

Only that Simple

During a moment of frustration at work today, actually, as the frustration built up, as I learned more and more dicta and policy changes that were coming down from on high, I imagined a day when I wasn't dependent on my job.  I imagined walking up to the director and saying, simply, "You know, you're really kind of creepy."

I got just enough pleasure from that thought to make it through the day.

And as I was catching up on news a little while ago, as Rachel Maddow was talking about the DADT perpetual state of idiocy, I imagined having the opportunity to walk up to John McCain, and just as he was about to shake my hand (thinking I was a voter of course), looking him in the eye and saying, "You know, you really are a jerk."

Then I thought about John Boehner, who has apparently in solidarity to those of us who are not millionaires given up the tanning beds, and what I would say to him:  "You know, you really are a whiny spoiled brat."

Jim Demint:  "You know, you really are dumber than dirt."

I know, that last one wasn't as constructive a criticism as the others, but why toss your pearls before swine, if you know what I mean.

Well, I feel a lot better now, even though we still have all those self-absorbed idiots in high places.