Ranting and Raving (v10): How Deep is the Deep State?

I shouldn't be shocked that "leaders" like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Why Didn't I Retire?) would cave to the pressure and stop supporting the immigration bill that the Senate has been working on, for months - although I was surprised it took him only three hours to do so.

I am definitely not shocked that my Congressman, Brandon Williams (R- MAGA Truffle Farm), is going along with the rest of the cult in the House and declaring the bill "dead on arrival" even though it's supported by the Border Patrol union.  And 

Heck, I'm not really even shocked that evangelical House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Last Best Hope to Lead) suggested that the union supports the bill because it gives the members a raise; after all, we know his coat has only one color.

But I should be mad, and I am, and you should be, too.

We should all be mad at, and sick and tired of, elected officials pissing and moaning about all of the problems we face, and how horrible things are in the country right now, and how the American people are almost as concerned about everything as Sen. Susan Collins is on any given day, and how the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket because Joe Biden is the president, Democrats control the Senate, and the House GOP majority is so stinking small that (dear lord, It's The Big One, 'Lizabeth) they might have to (gasp!) work with the Democrats to get something done. Clutch those pearls, baby!

Good lord, give me a break already.

The same people who pretend they don't need to do anything because the other guy can do something. Unless of course he does, in which case they'll challenge his every move, doubt his every motivation, and keep everything ground to a halt so they can claim they can't get anything done because the other guy, blah bippity blah bippity blah blah blah.

Or, they'll propose something so extreme even they know it won't pass muster in the other chamber - not that they care - because they can say, look, we did something, and everyone's ignoring us and so it's their fault that nothing's getting done, blah bippity blah bippity blah blah blah.

And all this time, for the last several years, we've been told that if only the 'deep state' - the George Soros-funded shadow government that's keeping the unelected, unmanaged, Democrat bureaucrats in place - was not in control, everything would be better and America would be great and people would be happy and our margins of victory would, you know, actually be margins of victory. 

And yes, you always blame the nonagenarian, Hungarian-American who fled Nazin Germany as a child for everything wrong in our country - that's the MAGA way. Well, you can blame Hollywood. Or black football players. Or white female singers. Or school librarians. But you can never speak ill of the Orange Jesus. That's right - Rep. Mark Greene (R-Not Half as Smooth as Tennessee Whiskey) or maybe another one of his ilk, referred to Donald Trump as the Orange Jesus.

Yep. The Orange Jesus, the OJ. The man who led the charge against the Soros Deep State, the unelected bureaucrats who he thinks should be 'his' people, who should do whatever he wants, regardless of, you know, laws on the books, or what Congress wants to do on our behalf, regardless of what they're required to do. (And who, by the way, the OJ has promised to fire.)

In his kingdom, everyone loves him, works for him, bows to him, kisses his ring (blecch), and if they don't, well, they're part of the Soros Deep State that's trying to subvert him and drive our country down a path that is decidedly not leading to the MAGA Camp. 

I'm not at all afraid of the Soros Deep State - but the other one, the orange one, scares the crap out of me, and - and it's hiding in plain sight.

Hell, it isn't deep at all - it's as shallow as a droplet on a rose petal in my garden. And, not only does it not subvert his will and desires, it actively, openly promotes them - they don't even hide it anymore. Maga Campers - the Deep State soldiers - ignore us, and rub our noses in it when they do.  

We elect these folks to state and national office because we're looking for solutions to the problems we've all been complaining about - often, for years. But now, they do the bidding of an unelected, unmanageable, in-it-for-himself, convicted sex offender who never should have been in office in the first place, and who should never be in office again? 

Really? Is that what they think is the right way to do their jobs? Is that any way to run a country?

It's like we shouldn't even bother having an election this year, since the OJ can just issue pronouncements from his gold-plated golf cart and his minions will all scurry off and do his bidding. (Not to mention, no one can steal the election if we don't have one, right?)

Where's the accountability?  What happened to country over party? How on earth do we find ourselves where we are right now?

What the actual hell? 

What the ever-loving actual hell.  

Ranting and Raving (v9): Getting Away with Murder

I almost don't even know where to start with this one, it's so horrifying and so incredibly painful and so insanely stupid, it's hard to even talk about. 

Back in February, in Texas, of course, a nine-year-old girl was shot and killed by a guy who was robbed at an ATM. Here's the story from Houston's KWTX.

Police said the victim of a bank ATM robbery, Tony D. Earls, 41, is in custody charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after Earls fired his gun at the wrong vehicle, striking and killing an innocent 9-year-old girl.

Earls, the robbery victim, was at the bank’s ATM drive-through making a transaction when an armed robber appeared on foot and robbed Earl at gunpoint.

According to investigators, Earls took out a weapon and fired several rounds in the direction of the suspect, but it’s unknown if the suspect, who is still at large, fired back.

The robbery victim then fired several rounds “at a pickup truck he thought the robbery suspect had gotten into,” police said.

The vehicle’s occupants, a family of five, were not involved in the robbery, police said, adding a stray bullet struck a 9-year-old girl in the backseat of the pickup. She was taken to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, where she later died.

 Earls did not know the stray bullet struck the girl when he called police to report the robbery.

It goes to show that anytime there are guns involved, the danger to innocent bystanders is extremely high,” said Houston Police Executive Chief Matt Slinkard.

And then, in July, this happened.

HOUSTON — The family of a 9-year-old Houston girl who died after she was shot by a man who had opened fire when he was robbed at an ATM said Wednesday they remain angered by a grand jury’s decision to not indict the man.

“That was not an accident. That was not self-defense,” April Aguirre, the aunt of Arlene Alvarez said during a news conference as a photograph of the girl as she lay in a hospital bed bloodied and bandaged shortly before her death was shown.

Tony Earls, 41, had been charged with aggravated assault, serious bodily injury, in Alvarez’s Feb. 14 death. A Harris County grand jury in Houston on Tuesday could have indicted him on this charge or several others, including manslaughter and murder, but declined to do so.

And this is not a surprise - at least, it's not a surprise in Texas, where everything is bigger, including the stupid stuff. 

Texas law “gives very, very broad self-defense rights for people carrying guns, even if the person makes a mistake,” said Sandra Guerra Thompson, a law professor at the University of Houston Law Center.

The murderer's attorney said the robber fired and the murderer "fired back in self-defense," and the murderer "continues to grieve for Alvarez but that the grand jury made the right decision and that the person responsible for her death is the robber." The murderer, they said, 

did what we believe anyone in that situation would have done. We are relieved that, despite the emotion and tough decisions that had to be made in dealing with this case, justice was served for (the murderer).

I'm sorry, but there is zero justice being served here, 

• Unless you think that an idiot who's so dumb he'd shoot at a random vehicle in the ATM line deserves justice. 
• Unless you think that an innocent nine-year-old little girl is acceptable collateral damage for a robbery. 
• Unless you think that a person who shoots at a stranger's vehicle in an ATM line is acting in self-defense, when he doesn't even know whether the person who robbed him is in that car, or any other car in the ATM line.
• Unless you think that someone's going to rob a guy at an ATM by driving up to it, getting in line behind other cars, parking his car, getting out, walking up to the car at the head of the line, robbing the drive, going back to his car, getting in, starting it up, and sitting in line until cars move and he can get out of line and drive away. Maybe ATM robbers are that dumb in Texas, but up here, they'd have come on foot, hidden in the bushes, approached your car, stolen your money, and run away. 

There's also especially zero justice being served here if you believe that the only person or entity responsible for a murder is the person who pulls the trigger, which of course is what you tell us all the time. It's never anyone other than the shooter himself, 

• unless it's bad parenting;
• unless it's video games and movies;
• unless it's not saying prayers in school;
• unless it's too much screen time;
• unless it's woke corporations;
• unless it's socialism and critical race theory;
• unless it's red flags that were missed;
• unless it's red flags that weren't missed.

Yeah, unless that last bullet. 

Rick Ramos, the attorney for the Alvarez family, said Wednesday that (the murderer's) actions were reckless and he questioned whether (the murderer) was capable of carrying a weapon as his lawyers had indicated in court records that he had suffered from mental illness before the shooting.

Chew on that for a second. The guy had known mental health issues? The things we're supposed to be worried about?

Aren't we always told that we need to make sure that there's plenty of money that "may" be used for mental programs, and that schools and teachers and coaches and friends and classmates and neighbors and scout leaders and pastors (oh wait, it's never the pastors' fault, what was I thinking?) and everyone else need to identify these issues and make sure they tell someone?

And don't we know, for certain, that mental health issues are why we have so many shootings here? 

Heck, even the NRA tells us that - here's some of what they were telling us back in 2013:

Since 1966, the National Rifle Association has urged the federal government to address the problem of mental illness and violence. As we noted then, “the time is at hand to seek means by which society can identify, treat and temporarily isolate such individuals,” because “elimination of the instrument by which these crimes are committed cannot arrest the ravages of a psychotic murderer.”

Of course, the NRA also said this, and yes, the emphasis is mine:

A person cannot be federally disqualified from owning a gun based simply on a psychiatrist’s diagnosis, a doctor’s referral, or the opinion of a law enforcement officer, let alone based on getting a drug prescription or seeking mental health treatment. Doing so would actually discourage troubled people from getting the help they need.

Chew on that for a second. Keeping a person from having a gun will keep them from getting the mental health care they need?

What the actual hell? Isn't the very decision to get a gun instead of getting treatment for a mental health problem enough of an indication that the person shouldn't have a gun? 

Nope - not in Texas. 

Because Texas doesn't have red flag laws. 

Because Republican legislators Texas, last year, made it possible for anyone, regardless of anything, to carry handguns without a background check and without any training. 

In a nutshell, a person in Texas needs to do exactly as much to get and carry a gun as a nine-year-old little girl needs to do to go with her parents to the ATM: absolutely nothing.

But have no fear: while justice was served here for the murderer, the 'real' killer is still out there... you know, like the real killer of Nicole Brown Simpson is still out there.

... investigators planned to focus on finding the unidentified robber and holding him responsible for Alvarez’s death, with authorities now offering a $30,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.

Clearly, the person responsible for the murder of a child is not the person who murdered her. It's not the shooter, like we've always been told. It's not the guy who has known mental health issues, who "took out a weapon and fired several rounds in the direction of the suspect" and then fired several more “at a pickup truck he thought the robbery suspect had gotten into.” 

It's the guy who robbed the guy who did all of that. 

In Case You Missed it (v71)

Baby, it's cold outside, but nowhere near as cold as the experts said it was going to be. Which reminds me of this 2014 post about weather reporting and accuracy and translating that to the business environment - especially how the meteorologists use models to do their forecasts. Here' what that might have looked like, with me approaching my boss.

Hi -- got a sec? The auditors have asked us to provide ten years' worth of records related to the Doomaflatchey case, and they've given us five business days to provide the information.  I've reviewed the most reliable model on this and my forecast is that we don't have a snowball's chance in hell of producing the information in that time frame.  

See, that's the kind of thing that comes to mind when the forecasted low temp is off - by 16 degrees. But I digress. 

Here's your recap of last week's posts, starting with Sunday School, where Chuck Todd talked with Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) about the election, among other things. The senator thinks a bipartisan investigation into the election is a good idea.

Let's point out that -- if there's misinformation out there, which I believe there was, then let's put that out and lay it out so the people can see it... Republicans and Democrats alike should support that... the best way to do it is to work our way through it and... show them publicly how well it was actually run.

I appreciate his stating that the election was well run and that there was misinformation out there, and agree we need to investigate, but only if the investigation is an overarching look  that includes the participation of members of Congress in the misinformation and interference. If we ignore that, we're idiots. 

For your Extra Credit, we heard from Dr. Deborah Birx's lengthy interview with Margaret Brennan for Face the Nation. This was an eye-opener for some people, I'm sure, who perhaps still don't believe that there was an active campaign within the White House to downplay the pandemic. Many of us felt that all along, and Birx makes it clear that's exactly what was happening. 

Birx said she wasn't doing national press, and wasn't going to ask to do it, either,

because there was so much leaking and so many parallel stories being leaked to the press that did not have grounding in truth that I didn't want to ever be part of that slippery slope. I know people started it with good intentions of trying to inform the American people, but then it became a way that they could silence those who didn't agree with them. And so, I knew that every time I had a significant disagreement in the White House that within days a story would be planted... I think a lot of people were doing that.

Some blame her for not quitting, and she does get into that in the interview as well. 

I had a séance of sorts, and called upon my inner conspiracy theorist Republican personality to drop a rant about unity and impeachment and Biden and Trump and yadda yadda yadda... obviously these are not my thoughts, they're the collected mashed up thoughts of a number of Rs - including elected officials - who are riding the whiny train right now, and complaining that the drinks are watered down and there aren't enough of them, or something.

He's gone! He's out of office! He's banned from Twitter! You stole the election from him! How much punishment do you think he deserves, for doing NOTHING wrong? How much is one man supposed to take?  What did he say that was so wrong?  NOTHING, that's what he said that was so wrong. Do you think people actually listened to him? Do you think the people who were arrested blame him?  Hell, NO - they blame ANTIFA and the DemoRATS and the Libtards and the socialists, that's who they blame! 

We know that's not true, but in a world of alternative facts, who cares about the truth? Seems lots of people don't.

And then it was time for Wondering on Wednesday, and I found myself scratching my head at how when Donald Trump promoted Buy American, it was the greatest thing since the Muslim Ban and the Border Wall that Mexico is Going to Pay For, but when Joe Biden strengthens the requirements to buy American, well, that's completely different.

"Now by putting these more restrictive 'Buy American' policies in place, we are further exacerbating some of the trade problems that we've had," (Brandon Arnold) opined. "It's annoying people to the north, it's annoying other countries."

"We have to tread lightly here," ((host Ainsley) Earhardt agreed. "Because we want companies in America to do well but, also, we need [personal protective equipment] from other countries. Then we don't want to do anything to upset that relationship, maybe with China or someone else -- even though China is such a big threat."

Only on Fox News...

On Thursday, I dropped a Meanwhile Back in Albany post from last January, in part to jump-start my focus on what my Sonofa Gov Andrew Cuomo has in mind for New York this year. In addition to his pet projects, he also announced in his State of the State that we have to "end the 'American cancer' " of hatred.

Racism and discrimination are not new... It is this country consuming itself from within. And if we do not confront it, and if we do not defeat it, it will defeat us — there is no nation on this globe that can beat this nation, but this nation can defeat itself. 

New York must be the antidote. 

NY has a long way to go, as does the country. FYI, Cuomo's 2021 State of the State was delivered over four days - I've got my work cut out for me, I think.

And before I knew it, it was Friday and TGIF time, and I was still in a New York  state of mind, after AG Tish James dropped her report on nursing homes and COVID deaths and honestly, I think people are focused on the wrong thing.

COVID-related nursing home deaths were under-reported, perhaps by as much as 50%. That's an eye-catching number, for sure, but those 'excess deaths' were reported as hospital deaths, because that's where the patients died. The bigger issue, to me, that the report found fault with a number of nursing homes for how they were handling patients, infection control, and so on. Hitting the Sonofa Gov is great fun, for sure, but is he the real issue, or is patient care the real issue? Hopefully, people will understand it's the latter - that would be good news, for sure.

Which is more important to you - trying to damage the future prospects of the governor, or ensuring that our loved ones in nursing homes are getting the kind of treatment they deserve, and we pay for?

 And that's it - you're all caught up!  I'll be back later with your Sunday School. 

Ranting and Raving (v8): We Don't Need No Stinking Unity!

You know, I'm SO sick of the Democrats already! How on earth am I supposed to make it through the next two years???  

No, I'm not stupid - I said two years on purpose, because we are going to take over the House and take back the Senate in the midterms - I promise you that! And then things will go back to normal!

First of all, the Dems cheated their way into office, with those supposed millions of ballots that picked Sleepy Joe Biden over our beloved savior of the GOP, Donald John Trump. As if!!!

Does anyone really believe that someone wouldn't want Donald Trump to continue being our president? I mean, how stupid would you have to be to not want him?? He saved our Country! He loves America! He hugs the flag!

They cheated, they CHEATED, in Pennsylvania and Georgia and Arizona and Nevada and Wisconsin and Michigan. And they had help, from China and Iran, and Venezuela, and a bunch of RINOs, those fake Republicans who said they supported our beloved President, but wouldn't help him when it mattered - when it mattered SO MUCH for our Country!!!

And then, after all of our efforts failed to keep the cheaters out, even when we tried to capture the no-good RINOs and liberals in Congress, and to hang that bastard Mike Pence for allowing the Electoral College vote to be certified, they're calling for UNITY? For Country over Party? Who the hell do they think they are??? We are all about Country over Party! We call our own people RINOs for Pete's sake! We - US, not the Dems - WE are the party that's all about country over party! Are they kidding???

They say they're fighting for the SOUL of the NATION?? What the hell is wrong with them?  Countries don't have souls - corporations and good people do! Not commies and socialists and liberals! Countries don't have souls - Republicans do! 

Our souls are fine - just fine, thank you very much for asking. We know where we're going when WE die - do they? Do they even believe in Heaven?  I bet they don't. Come on, man - how can anyone who believes in giving illegal ALIENS a pathway to citizenship believe in heaven?? That's a lie! And we're sick of the fake religious people, too!

And killing pipelines! Killing all of those jobs that don't even exist yet? Who does that, who erases tens of thousands of paper jobs? And what are all of those paper jobs going to do without a salary and benefits?? How are they supposed to survive? Where's THEIR stimulus, Biden?  

All because it's what Trump wanted, and what we wanted? When all of YOU were worried about the environment and animals or something silly like that? Not to mention, there goes my 401(k), and now I'm going to have to choose between putting food on the table or gas in my truck. Thanks a lot, Sleepy Joe!

And let's talk about UNITY... What does that even mean? How can you be pro-unity and allow our president, our country's savior Donald John Trump to be impeached a SECOND TIME?? Where's the unity in THAT??? What, do you want blood out of a stone or something?

He's gone! He's out of office! He's banned from Twitter! You stole the election from him! How much punishment do you think he deserves, for doing NOTHING wrong? How much is one man supposed to take?  What did he say that was so wrong?  NOTHING, that's what he said that was so wrong. Do you think people actually listened to him? Do you think the people who were arrested blame him?  Hell, NO - they blame ANTIFA and the DemoRATS and the Libtards and the socialists, that's who they blame! 

And they're RIGHT! Trump had nothing to do with it, and you're trying to kick him when he's down, when he's already gone?!

You want unity? How about you stop pushing for stuff that you know we don't like? How about not getting rid of the Trump agenda?? How about not trying to shove your left-wing socialist crap down our throats by suggesting legislative and policy changes? Where do you get off doing that, Mr. Unity???!! 

If you want unity, you'll listen to US! 74 million people voted for US, and for our COUNTRY! You have NO RIGHT to come in and start pretending you're president on day one, just because you won the Electoral College in a stolen landslide, and just because you had 7 million more votes - they were all fake! FAKE! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT!! 

And who do you think you are, Mr. "Scranton" - some "every man" you are -- you wear a goddam ROLEX watch!  You own a PELOTON! Nice try, you leftist, elitist piece of crap! DONALD TRUMP was "every man" - he's the only one who understands what it's like to be in the trenches like us working people!!!  No one else EVER cared about us. And who cares if he has a gold toilet - he talked JUST LIKE US!  He was OUR president, and you're just a puppet for the coastal elites and Big Tech who want to CONTROL US!! And take away our guns! And turn us into Cuba! 

You want Unity?  Do what we say!  WE'RE right and YOU'RE wrong, totally wrong!  Trump had the election stolen from him, and we lost control of the Senate, but WE'RE STILL IN CHARGE because those Trump voters LOVE us - and if you want unity, dammit, you're going to have to go through us!! 

And as soon as we figure out what your precious 'unity' means, we'll let you know.

2020's Top Ten

It's time to look back at the year that was. Here are the top 10 posts of the year, based on your pageviews. 

Coming in  at number ten? My recap of day four of the Republican National Convention. The Trumps and the RNC decided the best way to abuse us with pageantry and falderol was to hold the final day  at the White House, in violation of general principle and ethics rules. In addition to those violations, the speeches themselves violated my sensibility, but some of them sparked my sense of humor, for sure.  

For example, here's the current Senate Majority Leader and Chief Cunctationist, Kentucky's Mitch McConnell.

I’m immensely proud of the work the Republican Senate has done.  (We refused to allow witnesses in the impeachment and made sure the president stayed in office so we can sit around waiting for him to tell us what to do, or for more judges to die.)  Like President Trump, we won’t be bullied by a liberal media intent on destroying America’s institutions. (We will instead be bullied by the president, and ignore the wishes even of you Republicans out there, who elected nearly 200 members of our party to serve you in the House).We will stand our post on behalf of the millions of Americans whose stories aren’t told in today’s newspapers, whose struggles are just as real. (Well, really, we'll sit on your stories, and drag them out at times like this, when it suits us. Other than that, we're just an ineffective part of a co-equal branch of government. You know what? I think that makes us 'flyover country' too!) 

Number nine came from back in March, and I was Ranting and Raving about a column in the Washington Post that tried to convince readers that the impeachment hindered the president's response to the coronavirus pandemic. Here's a part of my response to the column, addressing the author's contention that Trump couldn't have done better early on, because 

...impeachment managers were regularly calling Trump a king or incipient dictator, a more forceful response against the virus in January or early February likely wouldn't have gone well.

That one made me laugh out loud. We're talking about Donald Trump, who blurts out whatever he feels like blurting, whether it's a policy change, a threat against a Republican who dares disagree with him, any number of insults at any number of Democrats or just random crap directed at random citizens. He doesn't shrink away from anything - he tells us that all the time. If you need an example, ask the McCain family.

A Trump in Transition post from May was the eighth most popular post. This one focused on a series of four tweets, sent within the same minute, the morning after the president was whisked to "tour" the White House Bunker. I included the tweets after my comments, which began thusly.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the president of the United States. 

Hear his voice as you read his tweets,

talking about 'frisky' protesters, 

vicious dogs, ominous weapons, and

changing front lines of young Secret Service agents

 ready to 'practice' on protesters outside America's house.

He is SO full of himself.

Himself is SO full of crap.

A Sunday School Extra Credit from June was number seven. It included comments from Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on how it would be helpful for some leadership out of Washington DC. In his conversation with John Dickerson on Face the Nation,he was not gentle when talking about president Trump or the veep.

On messaging: ...when I hear the vice president talk about how things are just hunky dory, it's just - it's just - it's just maddening. The situation is critical in many places...all the happy talk and wishful thinking in the world is not going to wash that away. 

On mask requirements: ...we put an order in effect, including businesses' obligation in this regard. And we sure could use some leadership from the president. It is so difficult. From day one, he has downplayed and distorted and disabled our ability to fight this war... So right now, we are in an urgent national mission - or should be - to mask up... Donald Trump is for masking up like George Wallace was for integration.

The sixth most popular was a Sunday School post from mid-April.  This is a post I went back to frequently, when talking about the vice president and his particular skill at not answering questions. He does it by saying a whole lotta words - hundreds, even, when he could literally answer that question in one note.  

In the interview, how long were Pence's generally non-specific and nonresponsive answers?  321, 219, 279, and 282 words. You'll understand why I'm not including excerpts, right? I encourage you to read them, though - they're pretty interesting.

Coming in at number five was another Trump in Transition post, from May. Whenever Trump talks about the pandemic, you can be sure he's going to follow Pence's lead and not answer the question. And while David Muir really tried to pin Trump down, he wasn't successful. 

For example, Muir asked (I'm paraphrasing here) if workers going back to their offices could get testing if the wanted it, or if they'd just have to trust their employer that everything's safe. Here's one take of Trump trying to answer.

Muir tried to get an answer to whether people going back to work should have access to testing or "do they have to go back to work, having faith in their leaders and you, Mr. president, that the workplace will be safe?" Trump talked about some new data on testing, noting among other things that "it's also, very importantly,  we have the best testing. We have the best testing."  Which wasn't an answer, so Muir tried again. Workers "should have no problem" getting tested, Trump said, adding,

 And as good as this is, we're even getting better. We came up - don't forget, the cupboard was bare. The other administration - the last administration left us nothing. We didn't have ventilators, we didn't have medical equipment, we didn't have testing. The tests were broken. You saw that. We had broken tests. They left us nothing. And we've taken it and we have built an incredible stockpile - a stockpile like we've never had before.

So, are people safe going back to work? Who knows, even now, several months later. The president surely didn't tell us then, and can't tell us now.

Number four on the list?  Me, sharing My Middle-aged White Lady Perspective, in response to a widely shared "You see Trump as x, I see Trump as y' letter to the editor. The author tried really hard to depict the president as a patriotic leader and not a politician, as pro-LGBTQ, as not being anti-immigration  "because he married an immigrant." Honestly, there wasn't much I of the column I found credible - especially the non-politician part.

You see Trump as an unpolished politician; I see Trump as a breath of fresh air. Donald Trump pretends to be unpolished, and not a politician. He is not a breath of fresh air, he and his lies and his bullying and his threatening comprise a toxic cloud that hangs over our country, and over our allies. And he is a classic, arm-twisting strongman pol, who threatens members of his own party who might disagree with him. Don't go along with me? No endorsement. A barrage of negative tweets. Attacks against you in your district. Support for your opponent. And you think he's not a politician? That's laughable.

Your number three was a Middle-aged White Lady Perspective post, about speech and law enforcement and Black Lives Matter and about outrage. It's a twisting tale of a rookie police officer gunned down in the line of duty, and people getting 'triggered' by things they see, hear or read, and how colleges handle speech. And the outrage part? 

I honestly share the outrage, expressed by my friend, a policeman's mom, over Corona's senseless death, and of the deaths of all the other officers killed in the line of duty. I hope that her son stays safe, on duty and off, and that other police officers do as well.

I honestly share the outrage, expressed by my friends - people of color and otherwise - over the senseless deaths of those who have been killed by police officers. I hope my friends' children, family members, and friends stay safe, and aren't caught up in what we know happens to people of color, particularly black men, in our country.

I just as honestly wish it was socially acceptable to be equally outraged by both circumstances - because honestly, I often feel like it's not.

And, I guess not surprisingly, we've got another Trump in Transition post filling the number two spot on our list. This series seemed to strike a chord, or a nerve, depending on which side of the Trump you were on. This one was me, channeling Trump after the upside-down Bible appearance during the protests this past summer, and saying what he wished he could get away with. Here's how it started.

Look at me! 

LOOK AT ME!

Did you see me on the news? Even the fake news, MSDNC and the rest of them, they had my picture, did you see it? 

I was holding a Bible!!

Someone asked if it was my Bible. Nah, it's 'a' Bible, not 'my' Bible - heck, I don't even know where they found it, probably in the nightstand in one of the rooms in my hotel or something, I don't know. It's a good book, they tell me. Very good, good words. Good words. I don't have time to read it, but I hear it's very good. I'll ask Mike. Is Mike here? Where's Mike?

Sadly, I bet he could have gotten away with saying what I said. His actions that day embodied everything I don't like about him. And that surely came out in the post. 

Those same feelings came out in the top post of the year, one of the top posts of all time on the blog. It was an Irony Board post, about Rev. Franklin Graham and his comments on the Democratic National Convention, including that God was missing from that event.

Graham also reminded us all of the Ten Commandments, as if Dems and leaning Dems and former Dems like me, heathens all, I guess, needed the reminder. I took offense to that.

• He places himself above all, before all, and bows before no one. He worships mere mention of his name, the almighty dollar, the almighty ratings, as if those three things are the measure of a man. Those things? They are the measure only of a megalomaniac. They are out of place in the heart, mind, and words of a person of faith.

• He  is the graven image upon which his eyes rest most comfortably: his name on a clothing label; on the side of a building, writ in gold; carved in stone on an embassy wall; emblazoned in countless gaudy hotels, his golden club, his golf carts, and more; his giant signature, held up to the cameras for all to see, to bow to, to venerate, no matter how nonreligious, how faithless, how merciless are the words above it.

To Rev. Graham, I had one question: Tell me again, where is God missing?

There you have it -- the top ten most viewed posts of 2020. I hope you stick around for next year!

In Case You Missed it (v48)

Gather around, friends - it's time for your recap of last week's posts.

Sunday School brought us classrooms full of experts, including Dr. Deborah Birx and Admiral Giroir on the pandemic, and Neel Kashkari on the economy.

While Birx tried to convince us she's not just a stooge for the president (that's getting harder for her to do, although he did turn on her last week, so maybe there's still hope), Giroir invited the president's wrath himself, with comments about the Trump's favorite prescription.

...hydroxychloroquine needs to be prescribed by a physician. There may be circumstances, I don't know what they are, where a physician may prescribe it for an individual. But I think most physicians and prescribers are evidence-based and they're not influenced by whatever is on Twitter or anything else. And the evidence just doesn't show that hydroxychloroquine is effective right now. I think we need to move on from that and talk about what is effective.

That would be hand-washing, mask-wearing, social distancing, and the like. And some better treatment protocols, too. But not hydroxychloroquine.

My favorite prescription, other than a well-timed glass of wine?  More cowbell.

For your Sunday School Extra Credit, we checked in with three women on the Biden veepstakes short list - Stacey Abrams, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, and Rep. Karen Bass.  The latter is getting a huge push from a lot of Dems and Sanders fans alike, saying she's the one who can unify the party.

She's also the one who, just four short years ago, said that the death of Fidel Castro was a "great loss to the Cuban people." Four years ago, not forty years ago when she was a teenager and first started traveling to Cuba.  She's smarter now, smart enough to recognize that her comments were not consistent with what America stands for.

Do I know an awful lot more now? Do I understand that the Castro regime did not have the same freedoms as we do in the United States, was a brutal regime? They don't have freedom of press, freedom of protest -- which was kind of ironic because when I went in my youth, the majority of us that were there were antiwar activists. We were protesting against police abuse and understood then and now that the Cuban people did not have the same freedoms.

...So my perspective has definitely developed over time. 

One can only hope. But one can also see the Trump/Pence ads writing themselves if Rep. Bass is Biden's choice.

When it was time for Wondering on Wednesday, there was more than enough head-scratching to go around. We had some nonsense from Mike Pompeo, who really could be the poster child for my Irony Board posts, and we had an interesting story about Mark Meadows, the current chief of staff for the president, and what he'd rather do than negotiate with Congressional leaders. We are seeing the fruits of that right now, of course, because #winning, or something.

And, we had this.

Republican operatives in several states are working to get Kanye West on the ballot... anyone else wondering why they're wasting their time? And do they really think that any significant number of people are going to throw their vote away and color in the little circle by his name?  And aren't the Rs the people trying to convince us they're concerned about the dreadful state of mental health care in the US? 

I'll let you wonder on that one all the way to the ballot box.

In a time when practically every day brings a reason to rant and rave about one thing or another, Thursday had me shouting into the wind about what I consider to be a ridiculous and self-serving move by my Attorney General, NY's Tish James, to sue to dissolve the NRA.

Because nobody, other than a Democrat, would attack a GOP-favorite organization, less than three months before a massively consequential election, surely setting off a backlash against Dems up and down the ballot, across the country? Who, other than a Democrat, can be so tone-deaf?

It's worse because it's New York against the country. It's the most hated blue state attacking gun owners, for Pete's sake. Even if that's not her intention, it's like attacking Santa Claus AND not saying Merry Christmas anymore AND stealing Easter eggs and Halloween candy from little children in red states, all rolled into one, and streaming it live on Disney+.

This is the stupidest thing to come out of New York since Donald Trump.

NY Strong? Uh no. NY stupid? NY Selfish? NY epitome of why people hate the Dems? Um, yep.

And finally, last week's TGIF was a really good one. No, not because I'm biased - because all of the stories were good stories. Among the examples? How people responded to the horrific explosion in Beirut, including the nurse who grabbed three newborns - after being knocked unconscious herself. The photographer who got the image we've all seen talked about his shot.

"I noticed the nurse's calm, which contrasted the surrounding atmosphere just one meter away, he explained. “However, the nurse looked like she possessed a hidden force that gave her self-control and the ability to save those children. People stand out amidst these violent and dark and evil circumstances and this nurse was up to the task," he added. 

That's all we had last week; you are now officially caught up on the full and veritable pastiche.

I'll be back later with Sunday School.

Ranting and Raving (v7): Leave it to a Dem

You have got to be freaking kidding me. Seriously.

Today, 89 days from the most consequential presidential election in memory, the New York State Attorney General decided to drop a bomb on things by suing to dissolve the National Rifle Association.

Honestly? You simply cannot make this stuff up. From the Wall Street Journal article linked above,

The extraordinary move against the nation’s largest gun-rights group comes after an 18-month investigation by Ms. James. As a nonprofit registered in New York since its founding in 1871, the NRA is regulated by the attorney general’s office. 

The suit alleges that longtime CEO Wayne LaPierre and three other top officials “instituted a culture of self-dealing, mismanagement, and negligent oversight at the NRA,” failed to properly manage the organization’s money and violated numerous state and federal laws, according to a news release announcing the complaint.

I. Just. Can't. Even.

This is the election equivalent of Patrick Mahomes handing off to a 49ers defender on purpose, and then refusing to chase him down, allowing the Super Bowl-winning touchdown to be scored against Kansas City. Seriously. If Tish James were an athlete instead of a politician, she'd be thrown off her team, publicly accused of cheating to help the other team win, investigated by her league (and by more than on state Attorney General). She'd join the 1919 Chicago Black Sox in perpetual ignominy.

People thought James Comey's announcement about the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails in July 2016 was interference? Some think that his subsequent letter to Congress at the end of October was the quantifiable straw that broke the camel's back on  her election chances? This is ALL of that, and worse.

It's worse because it's New York against the country. It's the most hated blue state attacking gun owners, for Pete's sake. Even if that's not her intention, it's like attacking Santa Claus AND not saying Merry Christmas anymore AND stealing Easter eggs and Halloween candy from little children in red states, all rolled into one, and streaming it live on Disney+.

This is the stupidest thing to come out of New York since Donald Trump.

There's ZERO urgency with this - absolutely zero.  I don't care that she spent 18 months investigating, I really don't.

I've spent more than enough time reading articles about it, all of the sordid details and the infighting and chest-clutching being done in the organization over all of this nonsense, and it's definitely nonsense, and it's a definitely a swamp and all of that, but good grief - 89 days before the election, an election in which the Dems are already under attack by people pretending that the most extreme anti-gun people in the party are the mainstream of the party?

Seriously? Seriously? What the actual hell???

When the Dog-whistler in Chief has been saying, for MONTHS that the Dems are going to take away people's guns and erase the 2nd Amendment - you know, like it's a Confederate soldier on a papier mache pedestal in Richmond or something - and NOW Tish James pulls this out of her...hat?

As long as I live, I will never cease to be amazed by the ability of educated Democrats to shoot themselves in the foot - and the other foot, and the knee, and the other knee. It's as reliable as the sun coming up tomorrow that, at the WORST possible time, a Dem will do something stupid, unnecessary, and self-serving - it's guaranteed.

Here's what James said:

The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets,” Ms. James said in the press release. “The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA, because no organization is above the law.”

If you ask me, what that REALLY means is something along the lines of

The Governor's influence has been so powerful that attention to him went unchecked for weeks and months while he made daily appearances  talking about the pandemic, and multiple appearances on his brother's national cable show, and I don't have that kind of access or a famous brother who can help me out so today, we seek to dissolve the undivided attention on the governor by doing something so brazen that people won't have a choice but to talk about it. And me. And me! 

Tell me it's not that. Convince me, I dare you. I've got time.

And I'll ask you this: If it isn't that, what is it?  What possible other explanation is there for pulling something like this, this close to this election?

Donald Trump has been known to say that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and none of his supporters would leave him. Well, Tish James just shot the Biden campaign in the middle of the forehead.

Don't believe me?  Wait for the polls.

Wait for the polls.

In Case You Missed It (v38)

This has been a challenging day, as  I've been without my computer for over 12 hours, and not really able to respond to what I was seeing when browsing news and social media sites, and without being able to off you both of our usual Sunday features.

So, Sunday School and any Extra Credit that catches my eye will come tomorrow. But, I can offer you your week in review, in case you missed anything last week.

First up? Sunday School, and Dana Bash's interview with Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) on CNN' State of the Union. In addition to talking about masks (he trusts the American people to do the right thing, silly man), voting by mail (Florida can do it, because they do it right), and church services (We have a Bill of Rights here, you know), they talked about funding for states to help with pandemic costs and what not. Bash pointed out that red-state Florida receives $25B more in programs than it sends to Washington in taxes, whereas blue-state NY pays $22B more in taxes than it receives in programs.  Here's how Scott talked about that.

Well, first off, the -- the government of New York has never sent a dime while I have been up there in D.C. to the federal government. They don't do it. What happens is, their citizens, while they're working in New York, pay into Social Security and Medicare. And they get sick and tired of all the taxes up there and move to Florida and receive those benefits. That's not the government of New York sending a dime to the federal government. So, that's exactly what's happened. That is -- that has nothing to do reality.

We moved on to a Sunday School Extra Credit entry, which included Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) talking about race, and Papa Joe Biden's "you ain't black" comment and about potentially being Biden's veep. Let's look at the race question, and whether Demings though the comment was out of line.

...look, the vice president went on the show. I'm so glad he did, because these are the conversations that we really need to be having. And one of the things I said in a statement on Friday was that, look, we know we have some serious issues that we're dealing with in this country. And if we're going to be able to address them effectively, then we have got to hold everybody accountable, even those that we do support.

Look, the vice president shouldn't have said it. He apologized for it. But I really think the gall and the nerve of president Trump to try to use this in his campaign, he who has, since day one, done everything within his power, of course supported by his enablers, to divide this country, particularly along racial lines?

And then it was time for some Ranting and Raving about the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and about white privilege. Here's how I ended the post.

If you think it's OK that George Floyd and the others are dead at the hands of the police, you can't think it's OK that I'm still here. 

If you think it's OK that I'm still here, then you can't think it's OK that George Floyd and the others aren't. 

You can't have it both ways: Wish me dead, or be angry that they are. 

Continuing the discussion about race, last week's Wondering on Wednesday brought us examples of black people doing things that white folks like me just 'do' without having people call the police on us, or question our 'right' to do things - work out, ask someone to leash a dog, and so on.  And then, there was a police officer in Louisiana who was fired for making racist comments on Facebook, and the police chief's really low 'higher standard" comments.

He was fired, Aucoin was, for making comments that were "not suitable for a police officer to put up on Facebook," said Chief Joshua Hardy. And, "the department is moving forward and making sure this will never happen again" and the social media policy has been updated and officers have been notified about that.

But here's something else Chief Hardy said.

We're held to a higher standard than normal civilians, so you got to watch what you do, you got to watch what you say. You can't just go and post anything you want on social media.

What?  Huh?

We had another Email of the Week, in which I took excerpts from several Dems, including a former president and some of the people who wanted to be the next president, but won't be. My take on all of it?

Every day Trump has the stage alone is a day wasted. Every Sunday with no Dems in the classrooms is an educational opportunity wasted. Every time a talking head is talking about who's going to be Papa Joe's VP, instead of talking about why Trump has to be defeated, is a vote wasted. 

All of them need to become scrappy kids from Scranton, and they have to do it quickly.

I closed the week out on Saturday with a Trump in Transition entry, which was really just four of the president's tweets about protests at the White House. I was disgusted with the joy and anticipation he showed as he salivated on what would happen if protestors breached the fence. And here's how I interpreted what he was saying.

"I watched the protests. I could have been in danger

from the people I was chosen to lead."

"I was saved by virile young men."

"I could have been a virile young man,

but for the bone spurs." 

It was a rough week, for sure, and now you're up to ate with the veritable pastiche. 

See you tomorrow morning for Sunday School, and get ready for what's apt to be another long and difficult week.  

In Case You Missed It (v31)

Here's what you missed last week, if you were too busy trying to learn elementary math, or middle school science, or trying to position your camera to hide your bunny PJs for that all-important teleconference with your boss's boss.

In the Sunday School entry, we heard from Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who did his level best to get people to understand what we're up against with the pandemic when he talked with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. 

Well, it's tragically fitting that we're talking at the beginning of Holy Week because this is going to be the hardest and the saddest week of most Americans' lives, frankly. This is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment, only it's not going to be localized. It's going to be happening all over the country. And I want American to understand that.  

Also in the classroom (via taped interview)? Bill Gates, who got into some of the numbers, including the estimate provided by the administration that we could potentially see between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths over the next couple of months. Gates thinks if we handle the social distancing stuff right, we'll be much better off than that, and he's happy the estimate it out for public consumption

because a lot of people are still thinking hey, "this is like normal," not waking up every day to a completely new reality... You know, Dr. Fauci is doing a very good job here of saying the numbers are what count here.  

And, he also said

But I do think if we get the testing fixed, we get all 50 states involved, we'll be below that. Of course, we'll pay a huge economic price in order to achieve that.

On Monday, after ingesting too much craziness, too much conspiracy theory, too much MAGA, I lost my mind and started Ranting and Raving, and it probably wasn't pretty to some people, but hey - for far too long in my life, I put things in little boxes, out of the way, just setting things aside instead of really letting loose and taking out the trash, as it were. Now that I'm older, and tired of carrying around all those boxes, sometimes I just have to yell. And, when I do, sometimes strange things happen.

So yes, regular readers, at this moment I'm actually siding with the politicians and yes, there's a chance that a little bit of hell might actually have just frozen over, but have no fear - there's more than enough hatred and fear and ill will to thaw it out pretty darn quickly and now I'm going out in my garden and getting the heck away from all this BS and pulling the weeds I can pull, vs. staying inside trying to pull the ones I can't control. (Takes breath and stiff drink).  Have a nice day. And don't forget to wash your hands.

Mid-week, I was Wondering on Wednesday, I shared a mix of good news, cool things people are doing to keep themselves healthy during shelter-in-place or quarantine or social distancing or whatever it's being called where they are, and some political news about those same topics, particularly when the desires of one level of government get in the way of another level of government. Like when a governor overrules what a mayor wants to do, for example.

I compared that to what's happening where I live - my local officials are being more stringent than the governor, and I'm glad they are.

The state has social-distancing orders in place, supposedly with fines although I'm not sure any have been handed out. But our County Executive, with the support of the mayor of our area's largest city, has added another layer, calling on people to stay at home except on designated days based on whether they were born in an odd or even year.

I think it's just fine, and I don't know that I'd want my Sonofa Gov to come in and tell us that we can't do what we need to do here for our own safety. And I'm glad I don't have to wonder what would happen if he did issue a conflicting and less-safe order.

Honestly, if all politics is local, this seems like a good time to let the local people figure out what makes the most sense for their constituents - as long as I agree with the decision, of course. I'm not blind to my own bias here. 

I had two entries for the semi-retired Email of the Week feature. You may recall that series, in which I'd highlight emails from the many Dem candidates - for a long time, only the top ten of them - and as that number dropped down to two, the reasons for continuing the series dropped as well. But, now that we're down to one - Papa Joe Biden - it seemed reasonable to bring you a couple of key emails.

The first is the one sent by That Guy From Vermont, Bernie Sanders, who has suspended his campaign, but kept beating the drum about the evils of corporations and the political establishment, the latter of which was the 'entity' to which he had conceded - because, as we know, he did not lose, he was robbed by a rigged system and whatnot. 

WE HAVE WON THE IDEOLOGICAL BATTLE

As many of you will recall Nelson Mandela, one of the great freedom fighters in modern world history, famously said; "It always seems impossible until it is done." And what he meant by that is that the greatest obstacle to real social change has everything to do with the power of the corporate and political establishment to limit our vision as to what is possible and what we are entitled to as human beings.

In the face of that, how did Papa Joe respond? Honestly, he fell sort of expectations, in my opinion. There wasn't any direct outreach to TGFV's supporters, just a general 'coming together' message that, I think, did nothing to garner support from those folks. 

Bernie has often said that his campaign was not about him. It was about “us.” That goes for me, too. And now more than ever, that rings true. This primary is over -- but this campaign is just beginning. And it’s a campaign bigger than whose name is on the ballot. It’s a campaign about people like us coming together to not only defeat Donald Trump, but to ensure that America lives up to its founding promises once we do.

And two direct requests for money, too. Sigh.

So there you have it - a veritable pastiche, as usual.

I'll be back later with Sunday School.