Archives for January 2021

By Bryce Holliwell

This is currently a work of fiction.

Scene: The White House,

January 18, 2021

[Ring Ring]

“Hello?”

“Hello Mike, this is Donald.”

“Yes, Mr. President?”

“As you know, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are stirring up a lot of trouble. They want to impeach me.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“I’m thinking of resigning.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“That will make you President and you can pardon me. Not that I’ve done anything wrong.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Okay?”

“Okey Dokey.”

“I’m signing the letter of resignation now.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Once you are sworn in you can pardon me.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

Scene: Mir-a-Lago,

January 19, 2021

[Ring Ring]

“Hello?”

“Mike. This is Donald.”

“Who?”

“Donald. Donald Trump.”

“I seem to recall the name.”

“Listen, stop kidding around. I need that pardon, now that you are sworn in. And, by the way, that was pretty unkind of you to have us hustled out of The White House last night.”

“Mommy made me do it.”

“I see. Well, it’s over. I need that pardon.”

“Sure, you do.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll see what I can do. Right now I’m having a fitting for the Inauguration.”

“Of Biden?”

“No, of me. Gotta go. Bye.”

Scene: The White House,

January 20, 2021 9:00 am

[Ring Ring]

“Welcome to the White House.”

“Let me speak to Mike.”

“You mean the President?”

“Yes, The President. It’s urgent.”

“Whom should I say is calling?”

“It’s Donald Trump. Please I have to speak to Mike.”

“You mean the President?”

“Yes, I mean The President. It’s urgent. I need that pardon.”

“Hold on.”

[Twenty minutes later]

“Hello?”

“Hello”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Donald Trump. You’ve kept me on hold for twenty minutes …”

[Sound of music on hold]

[Thirty Minutes later]

“Hello?”

“Hello”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Donald Trump. You’ve kept me on hold for thirty minutes more! Listen I need to speak to Mike.”

“You mean the President?”

“Yes, The President. It’s urgent.”

“Whom should I say is calling?”

“What? It’s me, Donald Trump. Please I have to speak to Mike.”

“You mean the President?”

“Yes, I mean The President. It’s urgent. I need that pardon.”

“He’s busy. Can you call back tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow? What? By then Joe Biden will be President.”

“Yes. Isn’t that wonderful. Such a nice man. Not like that idiot we had before.”

“That’s me!”

“I knew you sounded familiar.”

[Phone goes dead]

Scene: Mir-a-Lago,

January 20, 2021 12:00 noon

“What’s that moving van doing in the driveway?”

“I’m leaving.”

“Melania. What are you talking about?”

“You are loser. I hate losers. Good-bye. Come on Baron.”

“You can’t do this to me.”

12:01 pm

[sound of loud knocking]

“FBI! Open up. Keep your hands where we can see them.”

                    Or

                    Of Football and Politics 

Tuesday January 12, 2021 ( Electoral College Certification Day -6, 

                                           Insurrection Day -6,

                                          Georgia Senate Election  -7 )

Election Day -70

8 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

There is so much going on that it’s hard to know where to begin or what the major topic should be. Let’s start slow and build.

First, a quiz – When can you tell for sure that Mike Pence is lying?

Answer – When he gets that sanctimonious head nod going and begins by saying, “I can assure …” 

He’s lying. That or he has no idea what is actually going on. So then you have to have that little mini-debate with yourself, “If someone is actually clueless does what they say count as lying?” I remember being stunned to learn that Pence had replaced everyone on his staff with PR people. In other words he got rid of the doers and replaced them with talkers. Kind of like the old joke about the woman who went to bed with the ad-man. Her girlfriends asked her the next day how it was. She said he sat on the end of the bed the whole night and told her how great it was going to be.

Last night I watched the National Championship College Football game and when the game got out of hand I flipped between that and a recording of that night’s Rachel Maddow Show. She was talking about the article of impeachment against the president. This being the second time he will have been impeached. The article is entitled “Incitement of Insurrection.” There just happens to be a Federal statute of the same title. Hum. 

I’m watching a football game and thinking about how these kids don’t get paid, and yet they are generating all this money for their colleges. Yes, they get an education – hopefully, but let’s face it, that is secondary. I mean if you heard the Baltimore Ravens’ quarterback being interviewed after their win this weekend I’d say his education had a lot of holes in it. The whole of college sports has been upended by money and politics. 

Meanwhile, we’ve got a president who is being charged with insurrection. The facts are not in doubt. He did it openly on camera. What he caused is also on camera. There is no “oh they do it too” excuse. The only question is will he be removed from office? This will rest on the shoulders of Congress. Notably, the Senate, which currently the majority Senate leader is saying they can’t possibly meet before one hour after the new president is sworn in. Yeah, right. I’ll bet that if a Supreme Court Justice dropped dead ten minutes before the swearing in McConnell could get a judge pushed through.

What McConnell is betting on is that Trump will not have enough time to do anything more. Anything more terrible than what he has already done.

This is a terrible bet. I wouldn’t take it.

I would “move with alacrity” to get rid of the guy in the White House.

Oh and I love that Melania has put out a “be best” statement. Apparently, some people have said mean things about her. Remember when she stood up for all those other women who have been threatened and intimidated? No? Me neither. 

Now we get to the fin de siècle of the Trump presidency. The enablers are deserting, denying, and destroying. However, the damage he has wrought will live on. He has shown the way. The question is will people in this country be willing to face the truth en mass or not? 

PS Egyptian statue at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. There’s only a few days left to catch this show before it returns to Egypt for good.

Monday January 11, 2021 ( Electoral College Certification Day -5, 

                                           Insurrection Day -5,

                                          Georgia Senate Election  -6 )

Election Day -69

9 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

People talk about Ted Cruz being smart. That Josh Hawley is smart. I remember people said that of Grover Norquist too. Maybe, they are smart, but they are idiots.

In the case of Cruz he seems to be all show and no nuthin’ beyond that. He is slimy. He pontificates and acts holier than thou, but that’s the end of it. I’ve never seen him laugh or seem human. Josh Hawley? Please. Fresh faced, sincere acting while staying stupid stuff. 

One thing I liked about Rick Perry, (remember him? Smart glasses and all?) When he was running for president he said, “stand up for what you believe in.” He seemed to believe in something. I mean it might have seemed cockamamy to me, but at least the guy seemed to have a little bit of a moral compass. These others, have none, and having none I have no idea when they will latch onto the next thing.

There’s something about Trump that dirties up whomever he comes close to, like Pig Pen, but for morality and decency. Mary Trump put it best “cheating as a way of life.” Satan sees nothing wrong with demanding that others cheat for him. If they are unwilling he has no use for them, until he needs them again. A reporter said how he was castigated and demeaned by Trump in the most vile ways. Then Donald went out of the meeting to do something else, came back and asked the reporter, “Hey you want a picture?” (ie “with me?”) The reporter was so flabbergasted I think he stood there while Trump beamed and the reporter looked stunned. All in a day’s work for Donald.

I am also struck by how quickly all the people mentioned will throw others under the bus. They don’t seem to have any compunction or thought to do otherwise. It’s a one up, one down, zero-sum game. There are only winners and losers. There never seems to be time to really do or fix anything, just move on to the next press conference or PR stunt.

People talk about the echo chamber, which seems to be a circular ever escalating game of telephone. With each retelling the facts slip away and the assertions get bigger and bolder. When it comes back around you might have a hard time recognizing it. 

The attacks on Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton when she was running are terrible, mean spirited and untrue. The fact that various media outlets are allowed to get away with such vile reprehensible lies is a key ingredient to undermining our way of life, our democracy.

We talk about holding people to account for the attack on the Capital. I think we need to find some mechanism to hold media to account for promoting outright lies. Donald Trump uses the lines: “I don’t know. That’s what people are saying.”, “A lot of people are saying…”, “That’s what I heard…” All the time. It’s standard fare for him. Somehow, people who use those phrases would be held to account. “Sorry, what people are saying that?” “No, I’m sorry, ‘I don’t know’ doesn’t cut it. You said these things. They are unsubstantiated. They are untrue. “ I don’t know how else to combat it.

I remember William Proxmire had “The Golden Fleece Award.” He would single out people whom he thought were taking advantage of government spending. He stopped after he denoted one scientist who was doing research and sued Proxmire for a million bucks. Maybe, we need a law that says you gotta back up your statement if challenged, if not you could be liable. 

I know this is shaky ground. But there are concerted efforts to paint opponents in disparaging lights, to tell outright lies, all of which the person doing it knows it to be untrue. There should be a penalty for that.

Cruz by the way has issued various releases which make it sound like if you send him money he’s going to help out this cause or that, but the reality is it goes to his campaign or into his own pocket, just like Satan.

Talk about slimy.

But then that’s what Steve Bannon got arrested for wasn’t it?

When I was in the corporate world we had a rating system. You were rated A, B, or C. There was a pot of money and an A got the most, a C the least. For every A there had to be a C. This was all figured out in what were called “Melding Sessions.” I remember asking when I first arrived what a melding session was. One of the older supervisors got into a Sumo squat while grabbing his scrotum with one hand and had his other hand out in a grabbing gesture. “It’s where you try to protect your nuts while grabbing for the other guy’s,” he said. 

Got it? 

Is there a better way?

PS The Grandpa face

Sunday January 10, 2021 ( Electoral College Certification Day -4, 

                                           Insurrection Day -4,

                                          Georgia Senate Election  -5 )

Election Day -68

10 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021

What we think we know derives from two sources: Grandma and Einstein. 

In other words from a moral authority (Grandma, our parents, teachers, priests, politicians, and historians) or science (that which we can verify via observation and experiment).

I would posit that all of culture and civilization is founded on the crap that Granda (sic our parental authority) told us as kids. When you get right down to it what is civilization except the passing down of stories and traditions? Progress is the pushing back of our own ignorance by scientific experiment.

Science is the relentless pursuit of what is real. I could have said “truth” but that has a certain moral tone to it nowadays.

Religion is the group held belief in something that is based usually on some unprovable assertion. There are two kinds of facts: historical and provable (or scientific.)

If an event happens (say someone gets shot) you can’t go back and repeat the experiment. You have to depend on what people say they saw or you have to collect evidence that provide clues to what happened. You can draw conclusions from these two sources: what is said/believed and what evidence there is (ie Science) (“Susie says, ‘Tom shot Mary.’ ” , After having collected cartridge casings, bullets shot, and powder burns on Susie’s hand, plus the fact that it was Susie’s gun and Tom was not in the house where Mary was shot you conclude that Susie is lying and that she in fact shot Mary. )

Religion is what is believed. It is generally based on stories that back up a set of notions (myths – Civilization is based on myth. The collective beliefs of a group of people. Those myths are passed down by parental or religious or political authority. ie Grandma )

If you are Christian you are asked to believe that Christ is the son of god and that he was killed, came back from the dead and then rose to heaven. The fact that no one can find heaven up there in space is a problem for the more scientifically minded.

If you are Muslim you are asked to believe that your prophet, Muhammed, got on a winged horse and flew from one place to another. The fact that no evidence has ever been found of a winged horse ever existing is a problem to the scientifically minded. Add to that that the life of Muhammed is well documented. In fact, it’s too well documented. Just like Hunter S. Thompson once was forced to admit that he could not have done all the drugs he claims to have done and survived; Muhammed could not have  said all that is claimed, been all the places or done all the things written. Islamic Law is basically scholars arguing over who, based on their scriptures, has the better claim as to what the prophet actually did or said. You can’t go back and find out. There is no video tape, no instant replay.

The three major religions of western civilization are based on one god, the god of Abraham. There is disagreement on details.

I contend that religions change based on fact, the advancement of knowledge changes what is believed, because people will no longer accept the same line of bull when it is patently shown to be false. In that case, the moral authorities have to change there line of bull. Sorry grandma.

When Galileo said he saw moons around Jupiter the Vatican refused to believe it. He said to them all they had to do was look through his telescope. They refused. Who wants to be shown that your beliefs are false? Copernicus concluded that the planets and therefore Earth traveled around the Sun. This was based on the realization that the orbits of the planets were easier to describe and understand if this were true, despite the fact that the observed data could fit either a heliocentric or Earth centric model. He was at a lose to describe the eight year elliptical orbit of Mars because he thought all orbits were circles, not ellipses as they really are. This, based on the notion that god had made a perfect world and planets would be perfect spheres and would move in perfect circles. The reality was different than the belief, and when belief runs into reality it can be an ugly transition.

We are dependent on the word of others because we don’t have time to carry out tests or experiments on everything that we could. We have to depend on others. Hence the phrase, “Resting on the shoulders of giants” (or those who came before.) In science, we can rerun the experiment. In history, we can not. 

“Did anyone see Jesus rise?”

“What about Muhammed and that winged horse?”

No? “You gotta believe!”

(Uh, sorry. Kind of hard to do. Ya know?)

If someone is trying to get you to believe something that you see with your own eyes is untrue it’s called “gaslighting.” Based on the movie (“Gaslight” (UK) or “Angel Street” (USA) ) where a husband was trying to drive his wife crazy by fiddling with the gaslights in the house and telling her it wasn’t happening and she was going crazy.

We’ve experienced a lot of gaslighting politically in the past four or five years. Many have fallen for it. (Ie Lincoln’s famous “You can fool some of the people all of the time.”) For those who have fallen for it, they have done so in many cases because what they are told aligns with what they want or are predisposed to believe. 

Social media has allowed folks to find their tribe, and by that we have come to realize that those tribes are people who hold the same beliefs, interests, and prejudices.

This gets to the issue and idea of prejudice and discrimination. Both those terms can be used pejoratively or positively. You can say that you have discriminating taste for instance and that suggests you appreciate quality or the finer things in life. However, you can also say you hate XYZ people and that is prejudice. The law says nothing about being prejudiced. It has a lot to say about if you act on that prejudice. Acting on prejudice is discrimination. 

Can you legislate morality? Many say no, but in fact the answer is yes. If you pass laws that forbids certain kinds of behaviors you can legislate what people do and that affects their beliefs. When I was in India last year I never saw anyone smoking. I asked why that was and found out that it is against the law to smoke in public. Do you think that effects things? You bet it does.

But let’s say you are told something over and over again. Advertising executives will tell you that it takes eight exposures to something for you to believe it is true, even if it isn’t. Advertising is rift with lies that we believed at one time:

– Radium treatments were good for you,

– Smoking was healthy,

– Cocaine? Heroin? Bloodletting? All good.

– Tonics, snake oil, crystals – natch.

What about religion? I leave it to the student at lab time, except for this one little story from my life. When my kids were little my wife, a Roman Catholic, and I, an Episcopalian – also Catholic btw, went “church shopping.” We were leaving a Roman Catholic church and the priest, a fellow with a marvelous Irish accent, was telling a story about one of the children in Sunday school that day. They had been talking about Easter. How Jesus had been crucified and rose from the dead three days later to rise to heaven. This kid, a very rambunctious lad, had not been paying attention to most of the lesson. We woke up when they got to the part of the back from the dead part. He found great exception to that idea and expressed it vehemently. “Uh uh, no. When you dead, you dead!” And he apparently went on for quite a bit, the priest unable to stop him.

In recounting the story the priest was laughingly recounting what had happened and the others were tacitly going along, but I denoted an undercurrent of – what would you call it? – Like “Maybe the kid has something here?” or what we might say “The king has no clothes!” syndrome? I mean, who has the better case if this were to go to debate? The priest or the kid? It’s not even close. But you are being asked to believe. Gaslighting with moral religious authority.

What happens when those fantasies run into reality? What would have happened had that Cardinal in the Vatican looked through Galilee’s telescope? He would have seen reality. He could call it god’s work if he liked, but how could he then justify that with what he had believed?

What happened when the Trump supporters were told to go to the Capital and do various things? You can use whatever verb you like, but the point is they were told to do something, something violent, and they did. They had been gaslighted for days, weeks, months, years by Trump, but that is not all. Their own beliefs had been stoked for years by a pattern of prejudice. I remember when I watched the movie “Shoah,” a nine hour long documentary interviewing people who had experienced and participated in the Holocaust, a Jewish scholar pointed out that the prejudice agains the Jews in Europe had been there for 700 to 800 years. Most of what Hitler said was well known and accepted as true. What he did was to okay and therefore implement “the final solution,” but the rest? Well, that rested on the shoulders of those who came before him.

Much of what Trump had been telling his people was believed before he came on the scene. He merely amplified and reinforced it.

The people who marched on the Capital were a mixed bag of various prejudices. There were anti-Semites, Q-anon supporters, reality game folks, racists, people who actually believed the election had been stolen and they were there to right the wrong, anarchists, Second Amendment right believers – you name it. There were all kinds of unproven, disproven, and prejudiced believers in that mob.

Behind the racist, anti-Semitic sweat shirts, the cos-playing dress up folks there was also a contingent of well-organized military and police trained people. It has come to light that they had zip-tie handcuffs, ear piece headphones and a layout of the capital. They were looking for people and they knew exactly where to look. Was it an inside job? Well, that depends on what “inside” means in this case.

Here’s what is emerging as facts:

– The Capital Building was breached by a large group of people,

– The Capital Police were outnumbered 10 to 1 or better,

– They had not been instructed by their superiors that this day would be unusual,

– They thought the protest or demonstration would be like many others,

– They were not instructed to bring their gas-masks,

– They could not reach their superiors when trouble erupted, in fact their superiors were noticeably absent

– While we saw pictures of cos-play and re-enactors their was fighting going on, hand to hand fighting. It went on for five to six hours. Those officers were seen lying in the capital cafeteria after it was over exhausted. Some were crying because they saw images of some of their white counterparts letting the protestors in and taking selfies with them.

– The black Capital policemen were called “nigger” repeatedly that day.

– The Pentagon, which apparently has to authorize the use of the National Guard on Federal property, did not respond to pleas and phone calls for authorization. It was ninety minutes in one case before an informal call came to the governor of Maryland to okay sending in his troops.

– The Mayor of DC had asked for the National Guard but I have not seen that they got activated. Not sure who activates in that case. DC only has control of the streets, not the Federal buildings.

While some on the right are trying to say it wasn’t them that it was anti-fa etc. There is no evidence of that. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary. This was a build up that had been talked about on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for months. One of the Proud Boys boasted about putting a bullet through the head of Nancy Pelosi. 

There is a picture of a man in the Capital chamber with zip-ties. He’s a trained airforce man. He claims, “he just picked them up.” Whether you believe him or not (I don’t) it is obvious that someone had come with the idea of handcuffing people and taking hostages. This wasn’t a fun in the sun effort. This was a planned criminal enterprise. It was egged on by the president, his family, friends, associates, and various hate groups and their supporters and lieutenants.

It is a case of prejudice turning into discrimination and into criminal activity.

It is a case of fantasy and belief meeting reality.

And yet, after all that, Republican member of the House and the Senate still sided with The Big Lie that there was a problem with the Electoral College. Here they are: