Day 458 – When The Bizarre is Normalized

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Yesterday’s news was a singularly incredible day of revelation of news that was repulsive, bizarre and – I don’t know – disgusting? 

Senator Mike Lee, a very conservative and possibly still sane Republican Senator has been revealed to be publicly talking about our constitutional duty while secretly trying to find any rock to overturn the 2020 election.

Speaking of which there are still Republicans trying to work to overturn the results in several key states. The Governor of Alabama has gone off the deep end on this stuff too.

And now it’s been discovered that there is a little group that has been diligently sliming every Biden nominee. It used to be that political folks would try to dig up dirt on their opponent. That’s called opposition research. The point being to try and find something that can be used from an opponent’s past against them. That’s what the Steele Dossier was all about. And that started out as a research project by Republicans to figure out what Trump was all about. Eventually, the guy doing that work asked, “What’s Trump doing in Russia?” He went to Steele in England because there was no plausible explanation. Eventually, we discovered that Trump was trying to get a tower built in Moscow. Now, we know that Trump likes authoritarian leaders. 

So who came up with the attacks that Cruz and Hawley mounted against Brown, the Supreme Court nominee? Who got two Biden nominees to withdraw on allegations that were completely false? Why it was this little group. Where are they getting their money and who is heading them up? Why surprise surprise the money comes directly from another group that gets its money directly from a Trump super pac. Who is in the upper group? Why Mark Meadows and other Trump folks.

This group isn’t after one or two nominees, they are after all of them. And like Karl Rove, they’ve learned that you don’t need facts, you just make stuff up and then say “Where there’s smoke there must be fire.”

This garbage is picked up by Fox and their mouth pieces. See, in the good old days we used to have news people that actually cared if the story was true. Not anymore.

JD Vance, who wrote Hillbilly Elergy, is running for the Senate. He got Trump’s blessing and so came out with a bunch of pro-Trump, anti-Biden ads. Then a post showed up that before that he had called Trump, the American Hitler.

Meanwhile, Russia has surrounded Mariupol. The defenders and civilians left are holed up in a steel mill, without food, water, and little ammunition. Why aren’t we airlifting supplies to them? The “we” being whomever you like to name. This is a fight between democracy and authoritarianism. If a country commits genocide, which Russia has, and it’s been stated by those who need to state it, then by the 1948 Geneva Convention the other signers are duty bound to stop it. 

Kevin McCarthy is complaining that the Biden administration did not arm the Ukrainians soon enough. He seems to have forgotten that he voted against the arming when the last guy was in office. Same for Josh Hawley.

In other news, The Untied States of America has the worst outcomes for pregnant women and their babies.  More women die in childbirth in the good olde U S of A than in any other industrialized country in the world. Why is that? The question was posed to a woman running a group trying to change that. The answer is simple – we don’t care. Other countries have programs in place to help pregnant women. We don’t. 

Which leads me to the anti-abortion BS sweeping our country. In Ukraine many women were held in a basement and raped, nine of them are now pregnant. I guess they have to have those babies – right? God’s Will, and all that.

In other slime news, Alex Jones’ Info-Wars is declaring bankruptcy to try and dodge the coming judgements he and his company are going to be slammed with in connection with the court cases against him for saying the children in Newtown were actors.

In other news a judge has struck down mask mandate the CDC just put in place. This judge was appointed to the bench by Trump and the Republicans. She’s was 33 years old at the time, an assistant lawyer or some such, (described as one-step up from intern) and was rated as unqualified by the ABA. You gotta really be unqualified for that rating. None the less, she was appointed for life to the job. In this case she heard no oral arguments, nothing, she just ruled. Not just for her jurisdiction but for the whole nation. I look forward to every right wing hack group, like the Trump funded slime machine, trotting crap up to her.

Speaking of trotting crap, what’s with Hershell Walker and his Senate run? Yes, he was a great runner in football. I’ve heard him say he’s done a lot of things in his life. I’m sure being a Senator would be another nice thing to say you’ve been, look at football coach Tommy Tubberville! He’s a senator. Apparently, Hershell felt that he hadn’t done enough. He lied on his resume. Why? God knows. I wish these clowns had to at least take the same test that immigrants to this nation have to take to become citizens before they are deemed qualified to run for office.

Zelensky made the quote of the day yesterday when he was asked, once again, “what do you need?” He said he feels like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. Same shit – different day.

When are we going to get serious about Putin and Ukraine? Yes, I know. We’ve all heard the arguments. It’s time to show strength and make others nervous. The ambassador to the U.N. from Russia say they aren’t doing it. So why don’t we suggest a humanitarian rescue and we’ll shoot at those foul people shooting at civilians? It’s not the Russians, right?

I’ve been busy, preparing for a trip to Angkor Wat. I want to photograph the panels on the 3rd Gallery. It would be cool to display those panels at scale. Anyone know where there’s a hallway ten feet high and 275 feet long? I’ll need eight of them.

Pictured is one of the murals.