The Second Coming Is Closer Than You Think.

I'm supposed to be getting ready for Rosh haShannah, the Jewish new year. This is supposed to be the start of a period of introspection and reparative consideration. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to start the process, not like I have a choice. 

There are so many scary things happening right now that I can't even begin to put my fears into words. The fires in the Amazon rainforest are monumental in impact and danger....I mean screamingly dangerous....to the ecological future of our planet. The trade war with China is certainly impacting our farmers and factories alike while the senate leadership is blaming Social Security and Medicare for the $4.8 billion increase in the deficit. Really? What ever happened to fiscal responsibility? Or is that just for us little people?

©2019-Steven G. Artley - Artley Toons Online

Feh, I am tired of writing about that crap. It's not going to be changing any time soon. On PBS News Hour, the most reliable source of news we've got these days, it was pointed out that Feckless Leader's campaign has already raised more money than the entire Democratic field of candidates. If that doesn't make you stain your bloomers, you probably really liked TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and thought the original PSYCHO was funny. 

Buying Greenland is not funny. It's a harbinger. 

I think I could live with the buffoonery and the aphasia if I thought he had reliable back up keeping the country safe. But the sanctification of his lies by his minions really bothers me. The great chasm between fact and the oval office is okay with a whole lot of people who seem not to really care about that. They seem to love it when he retweets stuff from conspiracy nutball Wayne Allyn Root.

"Thank you to Wayne Allyn Root for the very nice words. “President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world...and the Jewish people in Israel love him.......like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God...But American Jews don’t know him or like him. They don’t even know what they’re doing or saying anymore. It makes no sense! But that’s OK, if he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’s good for........all Jews, Blacks, Gays, everyone. And importantly, he’s good for everyone in America who wants a job.” Wow!  

from Twitter:

Donald J. Trump

@realDon·Aug 21

This is not a tv show, it's not a movie. You can't just turn it off, go get a beer from the fridge, and forget about it. If your grandfather was talking like this, you'd be calling the local hospital for a mental health intervention. Where is a strait jacket when we need it?

Folks, there are real lives and livelihoods at stake here. Real farmers who are in real jeopardy of losing their farms if they can't sell their crops. There are real workers who will never be able to retire, much less afford food, utilities and medication if Social Security and Medicare shrinks to pay off the national debt. Paying into the fund for all of their working lives, lots of people are trying to figuring out how they are gonna manage without a portion of their income upon which they were including in their financial planning. And then there are the low-wage workers who cobble together life but never are solvent enough to have enough income to even plan with.

Once upon a time, when people didn't live all that long, the family cared for its elders. There was no "sandwich" generation; this is what everybody did. They raised you and you care for them. If, G-d forbid, there was no one left, there was the city poor house. Or the local asylum, or some other loathsome institution where old people went to die because they could no longer care for themselves. Lots of people froze to death because there was no heat, or starved to death because there was no food. I'm not talking about Democratic Republic of Congo or Haiti. I'm talking about the United States, about Mississippi, New Mexico, Kentucky, and  Alabama. People die there even today because they have no access to basic services. 

The US Census Bureau Official Poverty Measures reported that in 2017 one in eight Americans live in poverty. About half of those live in deep poverty, living on less than $2.00 per day. Think about that. In America there are a significant number of people living on less than $2.00 per day. A cup of Starbucks costs more than that. Let's not get into a discussion about welfare and/or the working poor. Just think about kids. Just for a moment. All those babies being born because birth control is too expensive or just plain unavailable.

The most terrifying part of this is that We, the People of the United States, the same ones who wanted to form a more perfect Union, elected a man who is a sexual predator in an age where that is highly unacceptable, a man who was a serial cheat on several wives, a man who has habitually lied to the contractors he hires and cheats them out of payment, a man who cozies up to foreign dictators who suppress human rights, a man who considers those same enemies of the United States his close, personal friends and favored associates. He wants Putin back in the G-spot:

He’s a proud person. Would I invite him, I would certainly invite him. Whether or not he could come, psychologically, I think that’s a tough thing for him to do. You have a G-8, now it’s a G-7, and you invite the person that was thrown out really by President Obama, and really because he got outsmarted

He being President Obama who was outsmarted. He blames President Obama for Putin attempting the annex the Crimea. Sure. This was immediately followed by pimping for his Miami resort as the site of the next G-meeting. Is this even legal? A large segment of the population thinks so, and thinks that's okay enough to send money in support of this pathological excrement. 

What's the point of harping on this stuff? It isn't going to change a damn thing. Whether or not he actually wins the vote, he will remain president. The detention centers will be turned into a chain of for-profit concentration camps. Farmers will lose their farms, crops will rot in the fields because there is no one left to harvest, people will starve and die. The planet will continue to attempt suicide by climate and fires, and Feckless Leader will blame President Obama. In the end, a paternalistic, feudal monarchy will crown that asshole as King. We elected the president we deserved. 

And then, he will announce he IS the second coming. All bow down.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Going to State Fair?

Forget the Pronto Pups ....

just eat roasted corn. It is totally to die for.

Thank you, Bibi!

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. & Rep. Ilhan Omar,
D-Minn.in St. Paul, Minnesota.
(AP Photo/Jim Mone)

A big THANK YOU shout out to Bibi and Feckless Leader for delivering to Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib the very best summer vacation extravaganza they could never have imagined in their wildest dreams. Never in the course of history have so few handed so much to a couple of frosh congressclowns with delusions of revolutionary grandeur. Those two short-sighted buffoons didn't stop anything; they gave Ilhan and Rashida the bullhorn, the spotlight, a platform, and the riveted attention of the world. 

Mom used to say ( a lot) you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. If Israel has nothing to hide, why not let the Venom Sisters see Israel in real time? Sure, they  get to go visit Grandma on the West Bank, but make them drive by the prosperous shopping malls and luxury apartment parts. They want to go to Gaza? Sure thing, but don't forget to show them S'derot where bombs are lobbed at children daily and the remains of bomb balloons still litter the ground. Show them Jerusalem and let them go pray on the Al Aksa and the Mosque of Omar, ...but not before they get a glimpse of that wall that has been there a thousand years longer than Islam was invented. Schedule time with Arab Knesset MPs to learn about how they view their roles and the reality on the ground for Arab Israelis. And make sure they meet with Arab/Palestinian members of the LGBT community to learn about their exciting existence in Gaza and the West Bank. There is plenty Tlaib and Omar could've been shown that would given them a more rounded overview of Israel in real life. 

But no. Feckless and Bibi put paid to that opportunity.  Maybe they're working together to buy Greenland and maybe Yalta or Malta or the Falklands. Who knows? They are both so seriously deranged it's hard to even hazard a guess what those two fascimo-wannabes are thinking. What they weren't thinking was that their actions would turn this into a political, partisan issue. What they weren't thinking was that barring Tlaib and Omar would give them the boost they needed to keep themselves in the limelight.

How stupid do you have to be not to figure out that's what's gonna happen?

In the end, the only thing Bibi did was weaken the State of Israel and undermine what's left of its reputation on the world stage. Instead of letting even more sunlight into the day-to-day operation of the STATE of Israel, he made sure everyone on the planet  now believes Israel has something to hide. Israel is the only democracy in the ME; now, it looks like more sham and illusion than political reality. I don't think that's a real good look for Israel.

Nor is this a good look for the US.

An attorney friend of mine, not long retired from the UN and a dedicated ACLU supporter, recently wrote:

    On my 30s meter, we are now at 1937

I would've said 1938, but let's not split hairs. 

Not that the US was ever the perfect moral center of the world. Not even close. We have dozens of heinous skeletons in the closet. We've come close to walking down this road before. There have been concentration camps, [not death camps] here during the 40s. George Takei often serves as our collective memory on this topic, but this did not stop with Manzanar. McCarthyism of the 50s was next, rife with witch hunts and baseless accusations. Followed by Watergate and an impeachment based on a blow job.

Fine. Whatever. Go put in an offer for Greenland. Offer them a golf course with greens and sod instead of ice sheets. They'll never go for it, but you need a diversion. We need you to have a diversion.

Pay no attention to the environment behind the curtain.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

I need a diversion. State Fair starts Thurday.

Cannot wait to smell like a Tom Thumb mini donut.

What I've Learned So Far On My Summer Vacation

Well, I was thinking I'd take up the pen again tonight, but maybe not. I wanted to write (so I thought) about Red Flag Laws, but the deeper I dug, the less I wanted to write about them. The states that already have them in place show a decline in gun suicides but not much in other forms of gun violence. The Washington Post ran a good analysis of what Red Flag laws can and cannot do: The gun-control legislation Washington might actually consider: Red-flag laws.

Something to keep in mind from the article:

One reason Republicans like this proposal is because it doesn’t create a federal law restricting gun access. It creates grants to help states set up these laws, and each state can adjust the restrictions to what it believes is best. Congress hasn’t passed a law limiting people’s access to guns in more than two decades, since it created a national federal background check system in 1993.

To be blunt, I have absolutely no expectation that Congress is gonna pass anything now or ever. Red Flag laws are little more than Red Herrings.  They probably do, however, appeal to Moscow Mitch and The Great White Dope. They are, after all, Red. 

Honestly, it's depressing. 

One thing I did notice is that none of the news outlets are letting the lies pass without calling them out as lies. It's pretty clear his nose is growing at an alarming rate and at least the news media is noticing. Whether it's the number of jobs he has created or the number of migrants attempting to enter the US, it's all lies. There's not a lick of truth in anything he says or tweets. 

But that's okay with his base. Well, that says a lot about his base. 

What does it say about the rest of us?

©2017-Steven G. Artley - Artley Toons Online

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Wake up and smell the covefefe.

If you can't smell it, you need your nose fixed.