Friday August 7, 2020
86 Days until the election on November 3rd
166 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
Jerash, Jordan
There have been three instances this week of what happens when BS meets reality.
The funniest and most glaring was the Senate led by the Republicans that decided to question Sally Yates. She was the Assistant Attorney General that went to the White House to warn the president that Michael Flynn was compromised by the Russians. For that she was forced out of her job and Flynn was kept on until it be came so bad and he got arrested and pled guilty to exactly what Yates had said he was doing.
The Republican Senators are looking more and more like the fools and stooges they have become. That not lovable trio of Graham, Cruz, and that idiot from Louisiana named Kennedy* asked Sally questions. They had a problem. They had been listening to right wing media that had made Yates out to be some sort of demon. The reality is that she is a well trained lawyer and polite woman. Kennedy was the worst. He asked her if there wasn’t in fact a group of people within the Justice Department that hated Trump and tried to do everything they could to make sure he wasn’t elected. She said she was unaware of any such group or people. Undeterred Kennedy went on to ask if she in fact wasn’t part of that group and didn’t she hate Trump. She very politely said she didn’t hate anyone and elaborated on her concerns about the president’s actions.
See, this is what I love about Kennedy.* He is undeterred by facts, or answers to his own questions.
*Note: I use the asterisk to be able to make sure we know that this Kennedy has nothing to do with the Kennedys from Massachusetts.
Okay, so the Three Amidiots (my clever new name for them) kept asking questions based on what they understood from right wing media. Here’s the problem they had – What the right wing media says has little or nothing to do with reality.
So what happened? Well, they got very politely told that what they were saying was not true. And here is where Pogo comes in, I quoteth “We have seen the enemy and they is us!”
Or to put it another way, and I forget who said this, “Having faced the problem we moved on.”
Or as Ron White said of the police department that engaged in a gun battle with bank robbers at point blank range and managed not to hit any of them. “We engaged the robbers at Point Blank Range.” “Then what happened?” “We went home.”
Okay, so that is the first of three instances of when BS meets reality. Next up – the NRA. The AG of New York is bringing charges and saying that the NRA must dissolve. Why? Oh, good question. It seems that those in charge have been looting the organization, which is – get this – against the law. Imagine that? I mean Wayne La Pierre and the rest of the board have managed to take $64,000,000.00 over a few years. The organization is essentially bankrupt. Oh man I wonder what all those guys in their jacked up pick up trucks with their “Don’t Tread on Me” license plates and “Protect My Second Amendment Rights” bumper stickers with their little round NRA patch are thinking now? I know. They are no doubt being told that the AG of NY is a terrible person, which would be obvious to them because 1) She’s a woman, and 2) She’s black. Hey, how about 3) She don’t take no shit like you boys did from Wayne?
I mean it’s not like you guys weren’t told. This would have required you paid attention and that you stopped listening to Rush. But let me remind you that – moi – had told you a long time ago. I wrote about how the NRA leaders have to file if they give over $250 to the NRA or any of its funds, etc. Guess how many hot shots running the NRA gave over two fifty? I mean it was desperately important. Wayne made videos saying if they didn’t get enough money everything was going to go to hell. Actually, he needed the money to pay for his jetting to the Bahamas and hanging out on a 108 foot yacht, but so what? Oh, the answer? How many gave money to help this desperate cause that the NRA was warning its loyal members about? Zero. None. Nada. Zilch.
You loyal members were played for suckers. But you knew that – if. If you had paid attention. John Oliver did a whole show telling you that Wayne had spent $300,000 to buy suits. Oliver wouldn’t have minded I don’t think if the suits had been sharp looking but they were all that dull blue La Pierre always wore.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of warnings. So while Wayne was cruising the Bahamas and buying expensive suits and the rest of the upper echelons of the NRA were siphoning off whatever money they could La Pierre was pushing such ideas as idiots should be allowed to carry firearms. I’m not talking idiots like “You’re an idiot” idiot. I’m talking mentally impaired people. When he wasn’t doing that he was forcing legislation through that wouldn’t allow the ATF to use computers to trace arms, thus allowing criminals to acquire guns because the time limit on tracing would run out. He also was for high capacity gun clips, silencers on weapons, night scopes, and bump stocks.
Me? I’m for life. And those measure aren’t helping us live.
Then there is the classic of the week Johnathan Swan of Axios got to interview Trump one on one. How he got that interview I don’t know. Bet the White House staff won’t allow another one. Even though Swan was very deferential to the president, and I guess you have to be with a narcissist, he exposed the president as uninformed, unprepared, and clueless. Swann wasn’t even trying to do that, but the discussion was so egregious that it couldn’t be helped. Somehow Trump had convinced himself that he was doing a really good job with the corona virus and he showed Johnathan some prepared graph he had been given. He managed to take a graph that showed he was doing a terrible job and interpret it that he was doing so much better than any other country.
This gets to the heart of what Trump does. He talks to himself. Doesn’t let anyone else have time to talk. Rarely listens when they do talk, and convinces himself of the efficacy of what he just said to himself. Some might call this behavior delusional, I don’t. I call it standard operating procedure for him.
Now we get to the ultimate BS meets reality. Beirut. Six years ago a bunch of fertilizer was seized and put in a warehouse in the port of Beirut. It blew yesterday. Timothey McVeigh would be so proud. When the stuff was seized the port authorities didn’t want it there. They protested. They warned. No one cared. It blew.
Moving on. Hey, now we get to the latest criminal activity started by the president. I mean does a day go by that we don’t learn of a new crime?
This one involves his ambassador to Britain. Trump asked him to get the British Open for his golf course in Scotland. Okay, is that a crime? I don’t think so. Unethical – yes. Hopefully, my legal friends can let me know.
But here’s where a crime could have been committed. If our ambassador went to someone in Britain and asked them to move the British Open to Trump’s crappy golf course in Scotland and if the ambassador suggested or threatened to do something dastardly in the name of the U.S. if they didn’t move the game to Donnie’s course. Or he could threaten not to do something. Either case would be bribery.
I think this comes down to if it was unethical for Trump to ask his ambassador to do this, and it would be potentially illegal if the ambassador asked someone in Britain to do it. If the ambassador threatened them with withholding some U.S. Aid etc. then it would be illegal.
Ah me, but that’s just the start of it. All this was known and written up in a report that the IG (Inspector General) of the State Department investigated and submitted. What happened next? Oh the report was marked “classified” and never saw the light of day and the IG got fired. He has no idea why he got fired. They got a new guy in and after three months he quit with no explanation. Oh wait, Mike Pompeo says that the fellow wanted to go back to Indiana and that “this happens all the time.” No, it doesn’t Mike – you lying sack of excrement.
Americans are dying at over 1,000 a day. Actually, one every 80 seconds, that’s a change from one every 90 seconds just a few days ago.
How long can the Republicans and the right wing media hold out against reality? It’s hard to say. I think one thing will be when and if the millions of people get thrown out of their apartments and they don’t have any money, because the Republican Senate failed to act.
Then there’s the right wing argument that we shouldn’t give people $600 a week or they won’t go back to work, let’s give ‘em $200 instead. Yeah. Someone tried this line on Chris Jansing and she stopped them right there with a whoa-whoa wait a minute where are the jobs that you are talking about? And like Trump and his graphs, they guy had nothing.
Reality is a cold place as some on the right are now learning. Well, I’m being optimistic aren’t I?
86 Days until the election on November 3rd
166 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
PS The Temple of Artemis, Jerash, Jordan.
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