Wondering on Wednesday 1/10/24

Ready... set... wonder!

Does anyone else admit to being shocked that Hunter Biden showed up at the House Oversight and Fake Accountability Committee hearing today? And did anyone else have as much fun watching Aaron Rupar's clips as I did?

The point of the hearing, of course, was to do what's called 'marking up' a bill that would hold him in contempt of Congress for refusing to sit for a closed-door deposition as requested by the folks trying to ruin his father make sure no one ever takes advantage of being in office again. I have to say, it was great theater - there was no lack of excitement, that's for sure.  

For example, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) said both that Biden "had no balls" and that he was "the epitome of white privilege," while Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-You Freaking Kidding Me?) seemed to take offense when Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Constitutional Lawyer) said Greene had previously displayed pornography in the hearing room when she held up Hunter's 'dick pics.' Greene said it was not porn, to which Raskin replied, "You're the expert." Forgive me for this bit of wondering, but did Rep. Mace miss that hearing?

Earlier this week, we were advised that The Former Guy planned on offering closing remarks in his New York civil fraud case on Thursday. Sadly - or fortunately, depending on your point of view - we'll miss the opportunity to see the courtroom campaign rally because the judge isn't going to allow it. 

In an email exchange, Judge Arthur Engoron initially said Trump could speak, as long as he limited his remarks to what's required of attorneys:

commentary on the relevant, material facts that are in evidence and application of the relevant law to those facts.

He would not be allowed to introduce new evidence, "comment on irrelevant matters, or "deliver a campaign speech" or impugn the judge, his staff, the attorney general, her lawyers, or the court system, the judge wrote. 

Needless to say, Christopher Kise, Trump's lawyer, balked at that.

"You are not allowing president Trump, who has been wrongfully demeaned and belittled by an out of control, politically motivated attorney general, to speak about the things that must be spoken about," the attorney wrote.

So, what's the wondering on this one, you're wondering? Not a whole lot, really, other than how amazing it is that Trump can always find attorneys to make fools of themselves, knowing (as they must) that there's a risk they won't be paid their full billable amount, and that they may face legal action themselves for the things they say and the acts they commit on his behalf. 

If you don't believe me, look no further than Alina Habba who offered bizarre, and potentially threatening remarks about Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of Trump's SCOTUS nominees. The Supremes will hear arguments about the 14th Amendment decisions in Colorado and Maine. 

I think it should be a slam dunk in the Supreme Court. I have faith in them. You know, people like Kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place, he'll step up.

And that makes me wonder what argument Kavanaugh will use, since his answer is pre-ordained.

Oh - one more thing, speaking of 'ordained' - if you haven't yet seen the "God gave us Trump" video, you can see it, and an edited script, in this morning's post. I can't help wondering what religious folks think of all of this. 

What's on your wondering mind tonight?

So... God Gave us Trump?

Have you seen the new Trump Adoration video? It's a total rip-off of the famous 1978 Paul Harvey speech, "So God Made a Farmer," of course, and it's a doozy.

In addition to being full of things God would never say, it's full of comical contradictions, such as Trump coming home hungry - in the dark, as he's seen in this picture - but having to wait for Melania to finish lunch "with friends, and then tell the women to come back real soon - and mean it."  

There are other mismatches between the video and the script; you might need to sit through it a couple of times to catch them all.

I took the opportunity to edit the script; if I had the talent and patience, I'd create a video to go along with it, but I'm pretty sure you'll get the picture - all of the pictures, in fact. 

And on June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a charlatan” so God gave us Trump.

And then God said, “I need someone who will play tennis and baseball while stricken with bone spurs, and use those bone spurs as a reason to avoid fighting for his country,” so God gave us Trump.

And then God said “I need someone who will party all night and then get up in the morning and spend all day lying about his business prowess, talking about his money, and showing off his gold-plated toilet,” so God gave us Trump.

And then God said, “I need someone who will salivate over his own daughter, relentlessly promote her sexy body, and suggest that if only she weren’t his child, he’d be dating her,” so God gave us Trump.

Inexplicably, God said, “I need someone who will get up before dawn and cheat on his first wife with his second, his second with his third, and his third with sex workers,” so God gave us Trump.

And then God said, “I need someone who will mock and denigrate women, boast about sexually assaulting them, say because he’s rich he can get away with it, and buy a beauty pageant so he can prowl the contestants' dressing rooms unabated,” so God gave us Trump.

At some point, God said, “I need to test the capacity of Americans to take their civic duty seriously, and to do that we need a celebrity blowhard who used to call into radio shows using fake names to promote himself to run for the president of the United States,” so God gave us Trump. 

And then God said, “I need someone rude enough, with arms strong enough to push his way through a group of world leaders to get in the front for the picture, and stupid enough to share the nation's secrets with people willing to pay to spend time with him," so God gave us Trump.

And then God said, “I need someone strong enough to suck up to dictators like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping, and bold enough to talk about how much he admires their strength, their total control over their people, their intelligence, and the pageantry of their military parades,” so God gave us Trump.

Again, inexplicably, God said, “I need someone who’s not afraid to lie about belonging to a church, who says the Bible is his favorite book, is unable to mention even a single passage he’s fond of, who will hold the Good Book upside down for a photo op as protestors are cleared from My house, and autograph copies for his adoring fans,” so God gave us Trump.

And speaking of adoration, God said, “I need someone who doesn’t represent anything I stand for, to gloat while others lay hands on him, proclaim him their Savior, and shout his praises from the pulpit,” so God gave us Trump.

And God said, “I need a patriot who’s unafraid to maul and grope the United States flag as if it was one of his sex workers, to hug it and kiss it while making lewd faces, as a crowd of people who despise many of the freedoms the flag stands for cheer him on,” so God gave us Trump.

And God said, “I need someone so self-centered he will mock our war heroes when they disagree with him, call them losers, say he doesn’t like people who were captured and tortured by our enemies,” so God gave us Trump.

And God said, “I need a leader to tell Americans to ‘get over it’ when faced with yet another school shooting, to proclaim he had the tallest building in New York City after terrorists attacked and destroyed the tallest buildings in New York City, and to comfort natural disaster victims by tossing rolls of paper towels to them,” so God gave us Trump.

And God said, “I need someone who will quote the vile language of evil leaders who came before him, taking the words as his own, knowing that others will immediately rise to his defense and take the words as their own,” so God gave us Trump.

And God said, “I need someone who will lie about everything, who will steal from charities, and who will raise children who do the same,” so God gave us Trump.

And God said, "I need someone who will ignore the law when it suits him, and face dozens of civil and criminal charges; someone who will proclaim immunity no matter what, even murder; who'll talk about 'his judges' as if they swore an oath to him, not to the Constitution, and who will, even now, refuse to commit to accepting the results of an election," so God gave us Trump.

And God said, ‘I need someone who will surround himself with people who believe everything he says, twist and turn his worst ideas into action plans, help strip rights away from anyone who disagrees with or has nothing to offer him, and who are willing to go to the ends of the earth in service to him, but not me,” so God gave us Trump.

And then God shook his head and said, “Holy cow, they actually fell for that?”

TGIF 2/23/18

Yay! Another week in the books...

The week that saw Pennsylvania get handed redistricting maps, drawn by an expert from Stanford University, based on the 2016 presidential election vote.  Why were new maps needed?  Well, the old maps were determined to be a 'partisan gerrymander' and in violation of the law, and the governor (a Dem) and the state legislative leaders (Reps, natch) couldn't get it figured out on their own, so down came the new version.

The court's new map largely undid the Republican gerrymander, creating 10 Republican-leaning and eight Democratic-leaning House seats, as estimated using 2016 presidential election returns. Outside experts who were not involved with the case praised the new map, calling it "fairer" and "much more competitive" than the old one. 

The new map is a better reflection both of the composition of the state's electorate which tends to be divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans, and of the traditional redistricting criteria used to draw maps in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

So, naturally, the justices on the state Supreme Court that made the ruling need to be impeached, because, oh for Pete's sake, because the Republicans stand to lose as many as three seats because of the redistricting.

The week that saw the Florida House declare pornography a public health crisis, and require that "In God We Trust" be placed conspicuously in every school in the state. According to the bill's sponsor, Rep. Kimberly Daniels (a Democrat),

It is not a secret that we have some gun issues that need to be addressed. But the real thing that needs to be addressed are issues of the heart.

The week that saw the president chime in officially, and give full control of his son-in-law's security clearance to General Kelly, his personal general, who will do the right thing, we're sure.

That will be up to General Kelly. General Kelly respects Jared a lot, and General Kelly will make that call -- I won't make that call. I will let the general, who's right here, make that call... I will let General Kelly make that decision and he's going to do what's right for the country. And  have no doubt that he will make the right decision. 

Or, he'll be fired, of course.

And finally, the week that say every teacher in West Virginia go on strike. Even after the state's governor signed wage increases of 2% this year and 1% for next year two fiscal years.

Wages and benefits are the issues; the salary increases are not enough to cover the increases in their health insurance, according to the teachers. And, a promised freeze of health insurance premiums for sixteen months wasn't enough to keep the teachers on the job, where the average starting salary is less than $32,500 and the average salary is $44,700. 

Which isn't a lot of money, in the overall scheme of things - especially if we end up asking teachers to be law enforcement officers too.

TGIF.

If Only...Except That

If only we let God in schools, this would never happen. God is everywhere you want Him to be, just like Visa used to be, whenever you want Him to be there. He will never leave you alone, I'm told. Besides, God doesn't prevent things from happening, He makes it more bearable when things do happen, I'm told. So you can't blame God not being in schools.

If only we didn't have violent video games, this would never happen. Except that everyone who plays video games doesn't go out and shoot up schools.  It's just fantasy, millions of people are just fine who play these games, they don't have mental health problems, they just like sitting in the dark shooting things. So clearly you can't blame God not being in schools, or the video games.

If only parents acted like parents instead of like friends, this would never happen. Except that many parents do act like parents, and do make their children behave and do have rules and curfews and make their kids do their homework and go to school and go to church and not hang out at the mall playing video games, so you can't blame God not being in schools, and you can't blame video games, and you surely can't blame the parents.

If only someone would say something if they saw something, this would never happen. Except that people do say something, and in the Florida case, they did say something and the ball was dropped, they say, because this kid still did what he did.And so you can't blame God not being in schools, or video games, or the parents, or the community. 

If only this particular kind of gun was harder to get, this would never happen.  Except that there's millions of them out there, and so you can't keep them out of the hands of people who want to get one. If they can't get one legally, they'll get one illegally the way MS-13 gang members do. So you can't blame God not being in schools, or the video games, or the parents, or the community, or the easy access to a very particular gun that is used in so many mass shootings.

If only we had had better background checks, this would never happen. Except that the background check process works just fine, look at all the people who are not able to buy guns, and besides, look how hard it is to get a pistol! So clearly, we can't blame God not being in schools, or video games, or parents, or communities, or the particular gun of choice for shooting up schools and such, and you can't blame the background check process.

If only people who had mental health issues got treatment, this would never happen. Except that this does happen when people are getting help for mental health issues. And at what point did we decide that everyone with dark thoughts has mental health issues? So no, you can't blame God not being in schools, or video games, or parents, or communities, or the gun of choice, or background checks, or mental health. 

If only kids couldn't buy guns before they were old enough to buy a beer, this wouldn't happen. 

Because drinking, you know, that's a serious thing, and society needs to make sure you're protected from a can of Bud Light until you're mature enough to understand the consequences of yelling dilly dilly like an idiot. So you can't blame God not being in schools, or video games, or parents, or communities, or the gun of choice, or the background check process, or mental health, or being able to buy guns before you can buy a beer. 

If only we didn't have half the country wandering around on medication for their mental health issues, this wouldn't happen.  Except that people need these medications to function, to be contributing members of society... pastors and parents and doctors and lawyers and teachers and the rest, and the vast majority of these medicated folks are just fine and never commit mayhem, so no -- you can't blame God not being in schools, or video games, or parents, or communities, or the gun of choice, or the background check process, or mental health, or the age of majority, or prescription drugs either. 

If only people had more respect for each other, this wouldn't happen. Except that there is no law that says you have to be respectful, there's no legal definition of respect, there's open season on anyone and anything you don't like from the top all the way down (and you know what I'm talking about here, right?)  Besides, millions and millions of people who don't respect other people go about their daily lives and never commit a crime, never murder school children. So, don't blame God not being in schools, or video games, or parents, or communities, or the gun of choice, or the process, or mental health, or the age of majority, or prescription drugs, or the lack of respect.

If only teachers were armed, this wouldn't happen.  Except that if teachers wanted to be cops they wouldn't be teachers. Nope - don't blame God not being in schools, or video games, or parents, or communities, or the massacre gun, or the process to keep guns out of the wrong hands, or mental health, or the age of majority, or prescription drugs, or a lack of respect, or unarmed teachers.

If only the NRA wasn't able to buy all those politicians, this wouldn't happen. Except that if  George Soros can buy politicians and unions can buy politicians and everyone else can buy politicians, the NRA has to be able to buy politicians too. So, not you can't blame God for not being in schools and you can't blame video games, or parents, or communities, or the killing gun, or the process, or mental health, or the age of majority, or prescription drugs, or the lack of respect, or unarmed teachers, or the NRA buying politicians.

If only people cared as much about their children as they did about their own rights, this wouldn't happen. Except that rights are rights, and children aren't. Or are simply, sadly, collateral damage for us having rights. Don't blame God for not being in schools. Don't blame video games. Don't blame parents. Don't blame communities. Don't blame the gun. Don't blame the process. Don't blame mental health. Don't blame the age of majority. Don't blame prescription drugs. Don't blame the lack of respect. Don't blame unarmed teachers. Don't blame the NRA.Don't blame people not caring about kids, and don't blame my rights.

If only thoughts and prayers kept us safe, this wouldn't happen.  Except that they don't and this does.