Wondering on Wednesday 4/6/22

Ready... Set... Wonder!

What's going on out there in Wonderland tonight? Well...

ABC News is reporting that Hunter Biden, the son of the president, is living in a four-bedroom mansion in Malibu, costing someone around $20K per month, and the Secret Service is renting, at around $30K/month, a nearby mansion as their command center.  

Now, I complained about the costs of protecting the adult Trump children, at their homes and on their vacations, and I complained loudly about the former president making money by renting properties to the Secret Service. I mean, the Trump are at least millionaires; Jared and Ivanka are hundred-millionaires, and of course their father is allegedly a billionaire - but that might include the money in his campaign accounts, I'm not sure. 

So, what's the wondering about Hunter and his arrangement? One, he's living in Malibu - can't he find someplace a little cheaper, or is the light really that much better for his painting there? Two, why doesn't he open his mansion to the Secret Service? And three, are they really protecting him, or are they just keeping an eye on him and sending info to the prosecutors in Delaware? 

Speaking of the alleged billionaire, he recently did a video interview, which was published in The Atlantic. In the interview, he talked about January 6th in a way that, um, puts things in a different light than what most of us have been hearing over the past 15 months. Here's some of how the former president chooses to remember things, as recapped by AlterNet.

When Congress met to certify the Electoral College results, Trump told us, there had been a 'peaceful rally,' more than a 'million people' who were full of 'tremendous love' and believed the election was 'rigged' and 'robbed' and 'stolen.' He made a 'very modest' and 'very peaceful' speech, a 'presidential speech.' The throng at the Capitol was a 'massive' and 'tremendous' group of people. The day was marred by a small group of left-wing Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists who 'infiltrated' them and who were not stopped, because of poor decisions by the U.S. Capitol Police when some 'bad things happened.'

So, what am I wondering? Only this: If I want to have what he's having - whatever it is that gives him such confidence in this altered reality - where do I get it, how much does it cost, and is it legal? 

Speaking of 'bad things happening' - and yes, that's at least partly unfair - there's news about the CDC. Here's how the NY Post reported the story. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday it plans to undergo a month-long “revamp” as it faces a credibility crisis more than two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report.

Pretty much everyone I know, at one point or another during the pandemic, wondered what was going on at the CDC, or what was going through their heads with the many varied twists and turns, and the number of people who were speaking on behalf of, or instead of, or over the top of, the CDC experts. I'm not wondering why they're doing the review and the revamp - I'm just wondering if shutting up all the extra voices is going to be part of the change.

And speaking of public health and whatnot, there's an optical illusion of a running man; it's said that if you see the man running towards you, you have a 'male' brain. If you see him running away, you have a female brain. I don't know if I believe the science of the study, but I do know Republicans believe there are women and men and that's all there is. 

I wonder, if a Republican man looking at the image perceives the man running away, can he really be a Republican - or a man?

Circling back around to alleged billionaires, and Republicans, and men, and women, there was a time when the alleged billionaire went out on a limb and said that a woman who has an abortion should be punished. 

Trump stated that if abortion was banned and made illegal, there "would have to be some kind of punishment" if a woman got one anyway. Matthews, to his credit, did not have a heart attack, or even jump up and down doing a happy dance that he had finally asked the question that might take Trump down.

Instead, he pressed, and pressed, and pressed, trying to get Trump to commit. to a specific punishment. Ten cents? Ten years? Trump answered probably a dozen times that the punishment would have to be determined. And so it went, until the actual exchange was pushed off the air by the comments from everyone else.

And here we are: in Oklahoma, a new bill that makes performing an abortion a felony absent a need to save the life of the woman in a medical emergency.

Any person convicted of performing or attempting to perform an abortion is guilty of a felony punishable by a fine not to exceed $100,000.00 or a maximum sentence of imprisonment of 10 years, or both. 

Gov. Kevin Stitt will sign the bill, gleefully I imagine, when it lands on his desk, as he'll sign all the other abortion bills that are heading his way, including one that mirrors the 'blow in your neighbors' language from Texas. 

Six years and a month ago, in the post about Trump's punish-the-woman comments, I opined that

If the Right wants to be tough on crime, and tough on legal abortion, then they should be standing up in support of Trump's comment, instead of running from it. They should be shouting it from the rooftops, rather than shouting at Trump for saying what he did. They should be castigating him for walking it back, as he did, instead of castigating him for saying it in the first place.

If not, their convictions are without courage, and conversely.

And I wonder, tonight, if anyone thinks I'm wrong on that.