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 (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.

Ranting and Raving (v6): If You Think This is OK...

I want to scream.

We watch another heartbreaking video of a black man being killed, having the life squeezed out of him under the knee of a white police officer, and we watch the comments coming in saying all of the standard stuff - if he hadn't resisted, if he hadn't have done something illegal, if he had only listened to the police, if he only... if he only... if he if he if he if he if he only...

If you think this is all the fault of George Floyd - say his name, say it out loud - George Floyd - if you think this is HIS fault, if only he hadn't (fill in the blank), if only he had (fill in the blank), then you think these things are OK, too.

• Me, dying under the knee of a police officer, for shoplifting a $5 ring from a gift shop on a school trip in the 7th grade (peer pressure is a wonderful thing, isn't it?); 
• Me, being shot in the back by a police officer, for running (along with several friends) when we were discovered under-aged drinking on a nature trail in the woods behind an elementary school;
• Me, being shot repeatedly in the chest after stumbling arm-in-arm with the "'love of my life that week" off a bench and towards a police officer who was yelling at us for smoking pot and violating the open container law in a Wisconsin park after hours? (And is a goat-skin bag an even an open container?) 

And yet, here I am, decades later. 

Still here. 

Still living. 

Still breathing. 

Still remembering these and countless other crazy things I did that I'll likely never share. 

Is it because I'm lucky that I didn't run into any of the police officers who have been involved in - and most, absolved of - the murders of black men? 

Maybe; obviously, every black man who has an encounter with the police does not die as a result of the interaction. Only way too many of them do.

But the other reason I'm still here, still living, still breathing, still remembering, is because I am a white female, not a black man. Of that, I have absolutely NO doubt. 

I have the privilege of being allowed to live, when I commit minor violations of the law. 

A significant number of people - fellow citizens, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, and total strangers don't have that privilege.

George Floyd did not have that privilege. Eric Garner did not have that privilege. Philando Castile did not have that privilege. Amadou Diallo did not have that privilege. And dozens and dozens of other black men - and a lesser number of black women - did not have that privilege, and are dead because of it. 

They are dead because capital punishment is handed out not by a court of law, but by police officers. 

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. 

Sidebar: Ranting and Raving (v4): It's not the Impeachment, Stupid

I wanted to share some additional information related to my earlier post on how it's not impeachment that's messing up the president's response to the coronavirus crisis.  

That post was prompted by a Henry Olsen column from about a week ago in the Washington Post. One of Olsen's points was that the impeachment process was slogging along back in January and February, and that was the same time China was in the thick of battle with the virus, and (emphasis added)

Despite the near certainty that Republicans would not vote to convict the president, Democrats and most of the major media were almost entirely focused on impeachment. As a result, the White House was focused on addressing this threat to its survival, not on preparing for a threat from China that might never even materialize.

I wanted to see if what Olsen suggested - that the White House was basically consumed with trying to survive, and so couldn't also focus on the potential COVID-19 threat, so I did a little digging. Here's what I found.

I reviewed the activity just on the president's primary Twitter account (there's also the White House account, the @POTUS account, his campaign account, and others who reliably talk about whatever he wants them to) and found that he tweeted or retweeted 1,834 times in January and February - around 30 times a day. I searched that activity for a few keywords, to see what was on his mind.

In case you were wondering, he mentioned coronavirus/virus 28 times, and COVID-19 once.  When it comes to topics likely related to impeachment, he was much more active: 

• 197 mentions of impeach/impeachment
• 197 mentions of Democrats
•  99 mentions for Adam Schiff
•  65 mentions of some kind of hoax
•  65 mentions of Nancy/Nancy Pelosi
•  60 mentions of Dems
•  49 mentions of fake (most of them fake news)
•  29 mentions of Biden (Joe or Hunter)
•  26 mentions of Russia
•  24 mentions of Ukraine
•  15 mentions of FISA
•  14 mentions of whistleblower
•  12 mentions of Romney

But, it's not like he was slacking on other subjects, including calling Democratic presidential candidates names, endorsing Republicans, and other presidential things:

• 57 mentions of Bernie/Bernie Sanders
• 40 mentions of debate/debates
• 37 mentions of poll/polls/polling
• 35 mentions of Michael Bloomberg (including Mini Mike)
• 25 mentions of China
• 25 mentions of endorsement (my complete and total endorsement, e.g.)
• 11 mentions of Stone/Roger Stone
• 10 mentions of Pocahontas/Warren

As expected, whether he was talking about impeachment things or non-impeachment things, he was definitely focused on himself. But here's the thing: when you have over 57,000,000 legitimate Twitter followers (and another 15,000,000 fake ones) you can push any message you want, and before you know it, what you are talking about becomes what the media is talking about. 

Would you be surprised that, as the White House was fighting for its very survival, the president managed to attend 10 rallies - or, on average, one every six days? 

During this very trying time for White House, the president managed to make nine trips to the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, which averages just under one trip every seven days.  

He also attended four fundraisers, two each month, or one every 15 days, on average. These were important to the president's own survival instincts, and raised tens of millions of dollars. One of them would have cost me and My Sweet Baboo a pretty $580,600 to attend, if we wanted the full treatment. One of the fundraisers was all the way across the country in California, not at all near his beloved Palm Beach. 

And finally, I looked at media coverage, just from Olsen's own paper, the WaPo. Would it surprise you that, in January alone, there were over 200 articles or posts that included the word 'coronavirus', and in February, there were over 600?  Or that the articles and videos were across all categories of the news spectrum? Politics, health, technology, finance, the economy, opinion, travel/leisure, lifestyle, entertainment and more?

That's an average of just over 13 mentions a day, compared to the president's average of around 2 per day.

Olsen can say that the focus was on impeachment, but I'd say that, as always, Trump was focused on his favorite subject: the one he sees in the mirror. The one who likes to golf, who likes to visit his own properties (and charge us dearly for the privilege), who likes to raise money for his own political survival, and who loves to be the center of attention.

And, of course, who loves to make everything bad good again, or at the very least, point the blame fingers in someone else's directions.

Again, it's not impeachment that drags him down. It's him.

Ranting and Raving (v3): Solving the Immigration Problem

It's been interesting watching the president's minions deflect questions about the president not making a statement against anti-Muslim terrorism, or why white supremacists find Trump to be an ally, and instead turn the conversation to how hard the president is working to protect us from terrorists of all kinds via his emergency declaration at the southern border.

I've addressed the racism and hatred in several recent posts (here, here, and here) as well as multiple times in the past but today I want to talk about immigration - the wall, and immigration beyond the wall. 

First off, show us the detailed map of where the proposed new wall is to be built, and what kind of wall it will be, along with the impact statements showing why those areas were chosen. Those impact statements would include information on illegal crossings that will be abated when the wall is built, the impact on local landowners, their crops, and their animals; the impact on the environment (such as the kind of flooding that has been experienced in Arizona since part of the wall was put up) and wildlife and the economic impact, if any, that will come from the wall being built. 

This information has to be available, and it should be shared with any interested party - meaning, any American who wants to read it. If it's unavailable, say, because no one has done this detailed study, shame on them. And shame on us. Cease work on the border wall unless and until the information is available. 

And why don't we spend the money Congress previously allocated that has not yet been spent, and the new money just authorized, and see how things are different after those sections of fencing are built? Show us the results from the actions taken, some of which should be immediate, if there is in fact a national emergency? 

Now, here comes the hard part. With the same level of enthusiasm as that being expressed by the president and his supporters, whether elected or otherwise, for building the wall: 

• let's actively get to work finding a way to identify, track down, and deal with the visa over-stayers, who make up a significant percentage of illegal immigrants in the US. This would include delivering them back to their home countries via a formal transfer, not just a "run along home, now" type of message.

• let's make sure the immigration courts are fully funded, fully staffed and aggressively resolving the massive backlog of criminal cases first, and then immigration-only cases that have existed for years. 

• let's first make sure that the private landowners who are going to lose access to their property and perhaps their livelihoods where the new wall is supposed to be built are compensated for their losses. 

• let's solve DACA. That doesn't mean sending teens and twenty-somethings "back" to a country they've never lived in, either.  It means citizenship, plain and simple, barring a criminal record (other than that they were brought here illegally by their parents).

• let's have a public discussion on 'merit' visas, such that we don't find the need to award special privileges to supermodels. 

• let's figure out why we are so hungry to bring in foreign parking valets, bartenders, and housekeepers to work at golf clubs, wineries, and resorts owned by the president- president's sons and other companies. Those jobs should go to Americans. If they need training, the properties can train them - on their own dime, not with taxpayer dollars.

• let's figure out why we want foreign doctors and foreign engineers and so on, all those foreigners who want to love America (but who don't come from shithole countries, of course), instead of making sure that Americans can get an education and that there are funded positions for them to help solve our doctor shortage or engineer shortage or other highly-skilled position shortage.  

• let's make sure that all border crossings are fully equipped with all of the tools and staff they need to effectively identify and interdict the drugs and the murders and rapists and all of those duct-taped women that are flooding our border. 

• let's make sure we've got lots of Americans ready to do apprenticeships with migrant workers so they can learn how to pick crops so that businesses won't be tempted to hire foreigners to help them put food on our tables. 

• let's make sure that we're not allowing asylum seekers to become victimized at the holding centers we put them in, and let's make sure we're not 'losing' children who are taken into custody at the border. 

• let's act like we at least understand what it is that draws people to America, the beacon of hope and justice - and then act with decency towards those who want a part of that. 

• let's make sure that we are supplying adequate funding to the countries that are the main sources of illegal immigration, rather than threatening to cut it, so that they can build up their own countries and make it less appealing for people to make the journey to potential freedom in America. 

• let's figure out if there's any way that we can mitigate the damage to plant and animal species along the border.  

• let's see the negotiator-in-chief shame American wall contractors the same way he shames Boeing and Lockheed Martin into giving us a better price. 

• let's see if we can't come up with something on the border other than a simple wall, something that would, I don't know, produce energy, create permanent jobs (other than law enforcement), empower people on both sides of the border - and maybe let's see if we can partner with Mexico, instead of battling with them? 

• let's see if we can't stop the lying and the fear-mongering and maybe start acting like adults.

None of what's written above says, in any way, that every person who shows up here needs to be allowed to stay. None of it says that we should get rid of ICE or have totally open borders or that walls are immoral or anything like that.

What it does suggest is that we cannot attack a complex problem with only the simplest of solutions, because we have seen time and time again that this does not work. And that's what the wall is - the simplest solution that solves only one part of the 'incoming' problem, and does nothing about any of the other issues that make up "immigration" in the United States.

I'm not pro-crime, pro-gangs, pro-drugs, or any of that other happy horse poop we hear from the president all the time.  I am also not anti-immigration.

I'm all for legal immigration, and I am for treating people who are legitimately seeking asylum here with dignity - and in accordance with international law.

Both parties, all leaders, all members of Congress - every last one of them, regardless of where they sit relative to the proverbial aisle, must look beyond their next election, and stop feeding the beast. They need to do what we sent them there to do, and if they are unwilling - or unable - they must go.

It's that simple. It's as simple as building a wall. 

Ranting and Raving (v2): The 2018 Midterm Election

I've pretty much had it with the 2018 elections, on every imaginable front. I'm sick and tired of mud-slinging politicians who say nothing about their own positions but instead spend their entire time lying or purposefully obfuscating the record, story, purpose and positions of their opponent or, as happens here almost daily, asking bizarre questions on social media calling out their opponent for something about which the questioner reveals nothing about his own position. "Look at her! Look at her! Don't look at me!" I'm sick and tired of out-of-district money interfering in what happens in my district and directing who gets elected to represent me. Washington insiders are not NY-24 constituents, and they don't have a clue what's important to me. Neither does my current congressman, because he won't have a town hall meeting if his life depended on it - and it doesn't (see above reference to outside money screwing up my representation). Yeah, this guy? He's brave, oh boy is he brave. We find out about his 'biker town hall' when he posts the pictures. We find out about his 'diner town hall' when he posts the pictures. His breakfast-eating far-western-part of the district constituents found out about it when they saw the handwritten notes taped on their diner door: "Joe Blow here Sat. 8AM." We find out about his visits to carefully chosen companies when he posts the pictures. We see he's in town when he posts the pictures of endorsements he receives. Other than that? Yeah, no. He's not interested in hearing from us unless we're on record as being interested in him. He's from the other party, and I've voted for him twice - but never again. I'm sick and tired of the face, name and policies of Donald Trump being the most important thing in every race in the country. For example, in the race for Attorney General... You want to be NY AG? Tell me what you're going to do for me not what you're going to do to him. You want to take on Trump? Fine - run for Senate or Congress. Maybe I'll vote for you then. (Likely not, but whatever). I'm sick and tired and tired and sick of the ads, which around here have been running since August, I kid you not. Since August. And I'm in a media overlap are, so we have NY-24, and we have NY-23 and we have NY-22 And you know what else I'm sick and tired of? People who refuse to identify themselves, their district, their party in their advertising. What are they afraid of?  "I'm Jane Doe and I'm running as the Democrat in the NY-22 - vote for me!"  Remember when that used to be par for the course?  Not any more. They're too afraid to even say what party they're in. SAD! SICK!! to quote a certain someone. And the lies. Outright, blatant, ridiculously unbelievable lies - I mean, there is no way anyone can believe three quarters of the stuff that appears in the ads, and yet... And yet -- there's no lack of interviews with people here, there and everywhere who completely and totally parrot the lies they see and hear, and you can tell they believe with all their heart what they're saying, a COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT of the lies in the ads, the lies that come from the candidates directly, the lies that come from incumbents and challengers of both parties - on both sides - and of course from the current resident of the Oval Office, because he lies like the proverbial rug, in spades. I'm tired. I'm low energy. And we still have two weeks to go.