Forgetting 2016

No, there wasn't a military parade this 4th of July.  But perhaps we Dems won't take back Congress in November, and that military parade will happen in 2019.

Meanwhile, Trump still has his rallies.  Taxpayer funded lunatic rants.  And each one is more rage fueled than the last.  Why not?  Each time he surrounds himself with his stupid and angry followers, he is guaranteed the same national attention he got before he won the presidency.

There have been mad, tyrannical leaders on the world stage in the past.  Who could forget Qaddafi's ninety minute bizarro rant at the United Nations in 2009?

The UN is a favorite stage for the lunatic leader.  Ahmadinahad's 2011 assaults on reality and the world were so offensive that there was a walkout by US and European delegations.

And now we have Trump.  Yes, after the election, the media reflected shamefully that maybe they should not have given him so much coverage.  But the ratings!  Who could take their eyes off this train-wreck in motion?  And yet, the end result was an electorate that had not heard a single Clinton speech while being fed the full blown ugliness of Trump's assaults day after day after day.

What we learned -- what I thought we had learned -- from the election coverage, was that Trump feeds on that coverage.  He may be stupid, but he knows how to play to the crowd.  And he knows that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

He is also batshit crazy.

Put that all together and we have the Trump rally.  He personally hates people.  But he adores his adoring crowds.  And surrounded by people cheering him on, there is nothing he can say that is too unhinged.  And surrounded by TV cameras, he cannot be happier.  Unless, of course, that he knew that those TV networks were going to be playing his insane attacks, name calling and lies, on a regular loop, all damn day.

They even call it "Trump's greatest hits."

Have we learned nothing???

I have been weaning myself from MSNBC and CNN.  Honestly, there isn't that much news being covered.  You can hear the headlines of Trump's daily obscenities in the first five minutes of any hour.  Yes, it is important to keep us informed about what is happening in Puerto Rico, a country neglected by Trump, still not recovered from last year's hurricanes as they anticipate the next one.  And we need to keep hearing about the horrendous abuses to immigrants and families seeking asylum, a humanitarian disaster caused by Trump and his gleeful attorney general.  Jobs being lost, prices going up, wages stagnating as Trump acts out his decades long fantasies about economic power.

We need to keep hearing about how our allies are now needing to defend themselves against our mad leader.  And what happens now that North Korea is doing what it has always done, lies as it pursues its plans to threaten and eventually dominate the Korean peninsula?  And then there is Putin, Trump's favorite dictator.  With no adults in the room to provide an honest reporting, we can be assured that Putin will be leading Trump around by his dick, I mean, promises of wealth and power (or at least a Trump hotel in Moscow).

We have some amazing investigative journalists, who have been uncovering scandal after larceny after lie after outrage.  It has been exhausting for those who worry about our democracy to keep up with the tragedies and the cons.  The last thing we need is for our news organizations to run Donald Trump's rallies on a never-ending loop.  We don't need to see them.

After one of the all-too-many mass shootings, some of the media decided that it was wrong to continue to use the shooter's name.  That kind of notoriety could only exacerbate the problem by encouraging other disturbed potential attackers.

It is not much different with putting a camera on Trump.

I was sickened yesterday when I began hearing the rants from his latest rally.  And then heard them again.  And again.  This morning I posted to @MSNBC to stop playing those vile and violent videos.  I won't watch them.  When he starts to screech and rage, call names and tell lies, I will turn off the television.

We should have insisted on more responsible reporting in 2016, but we didn't know any better.  Today we do.  I hope you will help me by telling your news outlets to stop promoting the goals of this disturbed and powerful dictator.  Tell them to stay on message, keep us informed, and treat the rallies and tweets as the fake news that they are.

Dems Are Asking: Is It Safe to Come Out Now?

I don't know about you, but I just keep asking myself these days, "Where the hell did the Democrats go?"  There was a Senate election in Louisiana last weekend, and just as with Patrick Murphy in Florida, nary a Democrat around to throw their support to him.  It was that important that, even though the republicans had already won the Senate, both Trump and Pence were out there stumping for their guy.  But no Dems.

And we here in South Carolina have resorted to sending thanks to republican Senator Lindsey Graham for taking a stand on investigating Russia's manipulation of our presidential election.  Meanwhile, google our own Jim Clyburn and all you come up with for news is that on November 30 he announced his support for Jaime Harrison for head of the DNC.  Try googling "Jim Clyburn Russia" and the lack of news will make you want to cry.

Or spit.  Which is what I have been doing a lot of lately.  With twitter rants that threaten to destroy US / Fill In Country Here diplomacy and major US businesses, our president-elect is just beginning to enjoy the power he will wield on January 20.  As we have come to expect, our Democrats in Congress, with a very few notable exceptions, are willing to crawl as one under a rock and wait till it all blows over, at which time we may well no longer have a democracy.

Let us take a moment to remember the Obama Inauguration in 2009.  At the very time we were tearfully welcoming in our hope and change president, republican leaders were secretly congregating to figure out how to block him from seeing any of that hope and change materialize.  And then they came out in public and said the same thing.  It was just that important to them.  So all we can conclude is that the threat of disemboweling all the positive change that Obama got through that obstructionist congress is just not worth sticking your neck out for.

And those brave Democrats who are speaking out against this clear threat?  The republicans have them in their sights.  Elizabeth Warren will be attacked at every turn.  Al Franken will be in the crosshairs.  Nancy Pelosi, well, they might leave her alone this time because her considerable power is already being eroded by those white men of the Blue Dog conservatives.

Way to stick together, Dems.  Don't ever disappoint us.

While creeps like Tim Ryan advise that the reason the Dems lost was that they didn't fawn over the white middle class enough, the Russians and Giuliani's New York FBI got away with the most egregious fowl play ever to happen in US electoral politics.  Trump was in charge of misdirecting the uninformed masses, Russia provided the props in terms of constant email leaks, republicans like Trey Gowdy gave the lies the guise of authenticity in Congress, and FBI Director James Comey was coerced into nailing the election with the last-minute sleight-of-hand that kept just enough Democrats away from the polls.  Meanwhile, idiots like Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd did the dirty work we all thought was the purview of Fox News by prefacing every damn news segment by saying that Trump and Clinton were the most disliked candidates in history, equating the proven crimes of Donald Trump with the mistruths being spread about Clinton.

And when our Democratic Party adds that all up, what do they come up with?  That Hillary didn't reach all those white voters; that she didn't show enough of herself; that people don't trust her; that she wasn't genuine; that blah blah blah....

Well, let me tell you, Party Dems.  You may be afraid to come out and represent all of us.  Or you may not think it is possible to reach out to all those white middle class working folk if you keep talking about what the rest of us need.

Or maybe you think that the country blames you for being in the "do-nothing" congress.  If that is true, it is because you have failed to speak up EVERY TIME the republicans blocked progress.  This should have been a piece of cake.  The republicans gave the narrative to us on a silver platter:  "Our economy has gotten stronger since the last failed republican administration in spite of the obstructionist republicans.  Just imagine if Obama had had a majority in congress that was willing to work with him to move the country forward -- imagine what he could have done."

But instead, in 2010, Blue Dogs lost in Kentucky and Texas (yes I mean you Wendy Davis), by backing away from both liberal issues and from President Obama.

And here they are, once again, after the incredible popularity of Bernie Sanders, talking about how they are going to cooperate with the takeover of our government by a plutocracy which purpose is to further the wealth of the few, predominantly the Trumps.  Admitted ties to Russia, and nobody on our side is yelling for the release of tax returns.  Remember Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign manager?  After he was found to have ties to the Ukraine, Trump let him go with a nod and a wink, and sure enough, now that he doesn't need your vote anymore, Manafort is back, bigger and dirty as ever.  For gods' sake, Democrats have been heard singing the praises of racist Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, likely our next attorney general.

So while Paul Ryan is scheming over taking away our social security and medicare (food stamps is small potatoes these days), the Democratic Party is waiting for the republicans to take front and center against the incoming corrupt regime.  That is, when they are not debating among themselves as to whether they should bring a gift or just wave a white flag on Inauguration Day.

Shame on you for not uniting to depose the biggest threat to the country we have had in our lifetimes.  Stop fighting over what you think Hillary did wrong and get it together to fight the real bad guy.  The voters will remember you if you do; if you don't they may never have the chance. 

The Final Insult

When it comes to presidential debates, I tend to lose patience with the word games and turn them off after a few minutes.  This year I watched all three debates, and realized around the time of the third, that I was there because I needed to believe I was giving Hillary moral support.  She didn't need it, but I needed to give it.

Watching Donald Trump vomit on everything and everyone we hold dear for the past year and a half has made me feel as though I am caught in an abusive relationship.  I must listen, every time I turn on the t.v. or internet, to more lies and assaults by a man who has used his inherited wealth to bully American into giving this idiot the voice of authority.

I have heard commenters lately ruminate about whether it was inevitable that it would be the biggest pig on the planet who would run against the first possible woman president -- I am paraphrasing in the interest of accuracy.  The road that led to Donald Trump running for the presidency is a long one, even longer than Hillary's path.  Unlike Hillary, though, Trump's quest has been fueled by bigotry and greed.  Misinformation and outright lie.  Right wing eyes on the prize, the prize being ever more power and wealth.

Some trace it to the Reagan machine, those capitalists and warmongers who craved power and who were smart enough to take advantage of Reagan's fuzzy-headed good nature and evangelical Christians' need to prove their righteousness by making their beliefs the law of the land.  This is certainly when the right-wing took over the American language and turned it on its head, with Orwellian flights of fancy like "trickle-down economics" and "death tax."  And it worked.

The other thing that worked was taking advantage of the insecurity and desires of the average American, i.e. me and you.  When Reagan handed out millions in tax breaks for the wealthy, he made sure he doled out a few dollars to the rest of us.  When he talked about that welfare queen who drove up to pick up her check in her limo, he was talking to those of us who worried about making ends meet now, and in the future; he didn't need to say that people like her were taking our hard-earned money away from us.  Unlike Trump, Reagan actually had a political philosophy, and he really, really, believed it.  He had a smooth style and winning smile, much like... the evil Mike Pence.  But we'll worry about that in four years.

With people like Reagan, Bush 1 and Bush 2, that "conservative" philosophy -- nothing conservative, really, about giving money away to big corporations and allowing the wealthy and powerful to rape the planet -- had been ground through think-tanks and forced into logical-sounding sausages of policy.  It is that very same policy that Paul Ryan is trying to force down our throats today.

Which leads to the end of this dreadful road.  That would be where everybody from Putin to Ryan believe that, once in office, Trump will be happy to do their bidding.  Even though each time he has been pressured to read a coherent sentence from a teleprompter, he ends up combusting into rants at rallies and in 3 a.m. tweets.

If you guys, Paul Ryan and Rubio and all those others who slice and dice reality by saying they don't support Trump but they will vote for him, if you guys paid attention, it would be obvious to you that Trump is merely playing the game so that he can win all the marbles.  And once he's got them, he won't need to pretend to listen to you.

Donald and his sleazy sons, Uday and Qusay, can't wait to get into the Oval Office.  If Trump has been able to make money from bankruptcies, suck dollars out of the Trump Foundation and pinch pennies by denying his workers wages due, you can bet that his main goal as president will be to expand his power and his profit.  Just as with the high powered financial and legal experts he has at his disposal, he will use the republican lackeys that have been afraid to stand up to him to further his megalomaniacal agenda.  And, as he has in his life so far, he will unceremoniously rid himself of anyone who attempts to block his desires, or who no longer serves his purpose -- "You're fired."

As I was sitting in MacDonald's this morning over my senior coffee and egg mcmuffin, I was actually -- I swear -- wondering just how drunk I was going to need to get next Tuesday night while waiting for the election to be determined.  It was then, this morning, after a year and a half of insults and abuse, I was mistaken for a Trump supporter.

This is what happened.

An average looking older white man, on his way out the door, stopped and said to me, "Have you voted yet?  You HAVE to vote!"  I quickly used those powers of perception that I have honed in these years living in this red state to ascertain that this was not a passionate Hillary fan.  And so I slowly and calmly said, "You are voting for Hillary?"  And he proceeded to begin the Trump rant, the one about how he is going to fix everything that is wrong with the country.  I said, "Have you listened to the words he is saying?"  And he said he sure has, and he would "never in a million years" vote for Hillary.  Because she's a liar."  As he walked out the door I added that that wasn't true, that it was thirty years of people accusing her of lying.  But it didn't matter, because he and his ignorance were out the door.

"Damned right I'm voting," I muttered.

But that experience left me about as unsettled as I get these days.  How on earth could I be mistaken for a Trump supporter?  Of course, he hadn't seen my car regaled with lefty bumper stickers, and I wasn't wearing a tee-shirt advertising my political beliefs.  Was he making that ugly assumption because I was an overweight badly dressed white woman eating by myself at MacDonald's?  Or was he just suffering from that mania fueled by the FBI and seesawing polls in this last stretch?

To be honest, there is my own mania with which I am trying to cope.  Suffering the awareness of the sane, I wonder if I am being paranoid in thinking that there is a mole in the FBI, getting under Comey's skin with implied threats.  After all, why would a smart person like Huma Abedin leave emails on a computer being investigated by the FBI?  She has said she had no idea they were there.  How hard would it be for someone in the pocket of Putin to copy a whole grunch of those Hillary emails and put them on Weiner's computer?  And maybe throw in a few of his own invention?  And for some partisan agents to pressure Comey to notify Congress about them -- or else???

With all the internet malfeasance coming out of Russia, I'm wondering why that isn't being considered.

Anyway, as insulted as I am feeling about being mistaken for a Trump wacko, I am sure that there is still time for more bizarre events.  If Hillary wins, and she should, she will have beaten the dirtiest, most corrupt, anti-American, foulest human being to have ever run for the presidency.  Along with the basketful of deplorables that are cheering him on.

Wish us all luck.  My MacDonald's encounter is unlikely to be the final insult.