Scapegoating KellyAnne

Far be it from me to come to the defense of KellyAnne Conway as she finds herself in a major shitstorm over her sales pitch for Ivanka’s clothing line.  Conway is a mean bitch who hungers for power in a man’s world, and will tell any lie to prove her loyalty.  Her enthusiastic promotion for her boss’s daughter was just that, a stupid misstep in a world where she has been able to say anything without penalty.

But come on, is this really worth a headline in the New York Times?  Is this anything more than a quick laugh on a late night show?

After all, this has been the most corrupt presidency in the history of the country.  What we got when we elected a failing businessman and reality show star was a con man who proceeded to show us in no uncertain terms how he came to his wealth and fame.

This is the president who became, on January 20, his own landlord, violating federal law.  Where, at the Trump Hotel, he trades rooms for favors to world leaders at a profit.

This is the president who pretends to have separated his business affairs from affairs of state, while no one really believes he does not talk freely with daughter and sons about both.  And while the US government – read, your tax dollars – pay for Eric’s security detail when he travels abroad to develop more Trump enterprises, enterprises that now come with the US president's seal of approval.

This is the president who has just named his Mar-a-Lago Resort the “winter White House,” where he can hide from the press and public as he had when he was a private criminal and entitled to hide.  Where he has just doubled the resort’s initiation fees.  Where it is estimated that his weekend jaunts will cost taxpayers $3million.  And where he feels at home making his shady deals.

And Melania, who has wisely chosen to keep her distance from her husband’s swamp, will be staying at Trump Tower, a place she likes to call “home,” with son Barron.  The estimated cost to taxpayers:  $2 million/day.  Not to mention the disruption and cost to the City of New York and its other residents.

But let us not dwell on money.  Let’s talk security violations. Beginning with use of unsecured phones and right on to meeting at a public place with a foreign leader while they talked about security issues regarding North Korea’s latest blast.  Tweets about Ivanka and Nordstrom during a security briefing for gods’ sake.  Flagrant violations of security protocols by Trump and his cast of characters occur daily, so many that the press struggles to keep up with leaks, videos and selfies.

Wondering where all those Congress creeps who targeted Hillary Clinton for the same use of a private email server that had been done by her predecessors?  You know, the partisan witch hunt by Representative Jason Chaffetz, who vowed to impeach Clinton the day she became president.  And South Carolina’s own Trey Gowdy, who never knew when he was embarrassing himself over his obsession over Benghazi.  And by the way, I wonder if he has noticed the disastrous raid in Yemen, the one that was impulsively planned during dinner in an attempt to out-bin Laden our outgoing president.  The one that cost an American life and several others wounded, not to mention deaths and injury to innocent Yemenis.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and head weasel of the Senate Mitch McConnell have been pretty quiet as this third world dictator destroys our standing in the world.  Could it be because they are busy dismantling Americans’ social safety net and programs that would protect us from corporate greed?  Or maybe they are even relieved that the shitstorm is taking attention away from their dirty deeds, like setting up rules to make their ugly laws permanent, dismantling healthcare and environmental and financial protections while shoving through bills that would deny Americans their Constitutional freedoms.

I chuckled when I heard that Ryan gave his seal of approval to the firing of Michael Flynn.  I’ll bet he was nervously waiting for the news that the president had made his decision so he could publicly announce that it was a good one, whatever it was.  Of course he does not endorse any further investigation of ties to Russia because, well, gee, what you find under that rock might interfere with the victory party they are having in Congress.

But KellyAnne, she appears to be fair game.  It sounds like her head may be on the chopping block for her impulsive sales pitch for Ivanka.  Even Ivanka may be pissed off at her.  The “White House,” which I assume means Trump, is angry about it.  Some republican members of Congress may even be stirring out of their mid-orgy lethargy to speak out about “ethics violations.”

And this is where I wonder, like Elizabeth Warren who was last week told to sit down and shut up for insulting the eminent Jeff Sessions, if KellyAnne is fair game because she is the woman on the team.

Like Elizabeth Warren, KellyAnne is really, really smart.  Unlike Warren, she has absolutely no moral compass.  She will say anything about anyone if it suits her purpose.  And she is driven, not to do the right thing as is Warren, but to get ahead.

I am looking forward to all hell breaking loose if Trump decides to let her go.  It may be that fear of the wrath of KellyAnne may be her job security, but if he is advised that seeing her head roll is the way to distract from other far more severe breaches, I will be on the sidelines cheering her on.

The Benghazi Plot

Things have gotten pretty grim around here.  Unemployment is down, the federal budget deficit is shrinking, and Obamacare is working.  Oh, and Hillary may be running for president in 2016.

What's to be done?

The answer:  Benghazi.

While even Kentucky has failed to buy into the evils of the Affordable Care Act, here in South Carolina you can't hardly say a friendly hello before someone tells you about that bad old Obamacare.  That's the result of the never-ending republican election strategy.  Years of repeating the same lies about the ACA, the "death panels," the threats of losing your favorite docs, socialism and government control, long lines and higher prices.  All that repetition actually works, especially when you have an uninformed middle class that has been hit hard in the economy.  It has gotten my fellow South Carolinians as fired up and ready to go as any Obama oratory.

And while they were hyping the evils of health care for all for the hurting middle class, they got the religious right cranked up with regularly scheduled anti-abortion votes in the House of Representatives.  In 2011, they introduced 44 anti-abortion bills.  Of course, there was no chance of getting them passed, but if the GOP understands anything it is how to get their base riled up -- and by the way, distracting us all from unemployment and corporate (and Wall Street) crime.

After the horrific shooting of twenty children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut, in December of 2012, to our amazement, the republican party turned its attention to increasing the freedom of gun owners to bear weapons.  This became the cause that fired up the paranoid redneck population which has resulted in state laws permitting guns in bars and restaurants here in SC, to Georgia, which now has a "guns everywhere" law that "guards against tyranny."  Except, of course, for the tyranny of those nuts with deadly weapons.

So is it any surprise that those far thinking right wingnuts should be setting their sights (as in cross-hairs) on Hillary, who was in charge during the Benghazi attack?  If they can get their uninformed but flammable constituents to parrot the word "Benghazi" the way they have for "Obamacare" they will be well on their way to a strategy for 2016.

It would do us well to recall, however, that this strategy has not worked so well against Barack Obama.  They tried it when he was candidate Obama, and for a couple of years thereafter, with the Kenya birth certificate nonsense.

And since then, regardless what new conspiracy the right wing is pushing, Obama has moved forward.  In fact, in the Senate in 2012 the Democrats picked up two seats.  Had it not been for the nefarious redistricting done after the last census, Democrats would have won House seats, having won a nation-wide plurality in all House elections.

I don't think Hillary is quaking in her boots over Benghazi.  The shame is that one of South Carolina's own is proudly chairing the committee to perpetuate the question of whether Benghazi can lead to republican victories in 2014 and 2016.  Has the country not laughed at us enough?  I admit, I will miss the bizarre rages of Darrell Issa but I am confident that he will have plenty more conspiracy theories with which to waste time.

The further shame is that people who don't know or care where Benghazi is, people who waved the American flag in support of the Bush administration lies that led to the war that resulted in so many deaths, are pretending to really care about the four American fatalities in the Benghazi attack.

Since the only alternative to conspiracy theories, however, is to talk about issues like the economy, corporate greed, and the environment, you can rest assured that in these parts you won't be able to swing a dead cat without hitting someone muttering about Benghazi, at least through the next couple of elections.

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 Sequester Backfire

Looking back on it, President Obama signing the sequester bill was a bit like an angry parent sending a child to their room to be with their computer and television.  He pretty much gave the right wing-nuts exactly what they wanted.

When people lose much needed income and benefits, South Carolina's own Tea Party idiots like Trey Gowdy, Mick Mulvaney, Jeff Duncan, and of course our poster boy of denial, Tim Scott, are cheering on the cuts.  Scott has the nerve to call it posturing when the President talks about cuts to police, educators and firefighters.  I guess if a job doesn't directly effect Mr. Scott, it really doesn't matter.

These clowns will come out cheering the austerity measures, and bragging on how they engineered the reduction in the deficit, while people are losing needed income and government services, and subsequently tightening their belts, leading to lost dollars for businesses.  The fact that austerity resoundingly did not work where it was put into place in Europe has no relevance for these fools, who have never felt the need to use facts to make an argument.

It's sad for our country, sad for the state of South Carolina, and sad for the voters who trusted that these people maybe knew what they were doing, and would have the courage to do what was best for their constituents rather than what made them look tough.