Wow. Just Wow. And an OMG from Penzeys.

Let's just open with the amazing news from FOX: Tucker Carlson has been canned. 

Tuck describes his winkee

Interestingly enough, poor ol' Tuck didn't even get a good-bye show from which to sign off. Nope. No such luck. FOX simply announced they were parting ways. Oh, dear. There is so much to unpack in that simple statement. One might think this was a quickly made decision on the part of FOX who, for reasons I cannot possibly fathom,  seemed to be surprised that they had to settle that mega lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems. I'm sure Tuck must be worth more than the 3/4 of a billion dollars Fox is gonna shell out on his behalf, but no matter; he and his producer are both out.

FOX NEWS MEDIA AND TUCKER CARLSON PART WAYS

NEW YORK — April 24, 2023 — FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.
 
Mr. Carlson’s last program was Friday April 21st. Fox News Tonight will air live at 8 PM/ET starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating FOX News personalities until a new host is named.

Pretty unglamorous ending for their former golden boy, dontcha think? I mean, he was the bedrock upon which all bull-oney was perpetrated. Tucker Carlson so effectively portrayed January 6th as a chance to tour the capitol while reminding all Americans we had a right to treat the seat of America's democracy as if we were in our own homes...assuming you used a crowbar to bash in the windows to gain access to your own house. 

Not to be outdone by FOX, CNN equally abruptly canned Don Lemon, ostensibly for a string of incredibly idiotic statements about women. 

When declaring her run for the presidency, Haley called for mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75. Lemon argued that Haley herself “isn’t in her prime.”

Lemon attempted to support his argument by saying that a woman is only “considered to be in their prime in 20s and 30s and maybe 40s. I'm just saying what the facts are - Google it..."

Hmm. Dad bod? Yup.

...he added when Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins, his female co-hosts, pushed back his statement. He compounded his mansplaining that this really was referring to the common approbation that equated a woman's prime in relation to giving birth. This was not his first foray into misogynistic commentary. And not the first time he's been called to account for his rambling mouth. 

Seems to me Mr. Lemon, now 57, is sucking in a bit of dad bod in that picture, hinting not so subtly that he might also be past his prime.

Jeff "the Sheitl" Shell

What is it with guys and the news these days?  Jeff Shell is out at NBC for an "inappropriate relationship" that's been going on for over a decade. I don't mean to sound anti-feminist here, but guys have been screwing around at the office since offices were invented. If two people wanna screw around, that's their business. Of course, I'm not so sure I'd wanna fool around with a guy in such an obvious sheitl [toupee.] You'd think he could afford a better barber. Last year it was Jeff Zucker who was forced out due to a "consensual relationship" with a woman in the company. Next year, it'll be someone else. Whatever. 

I understand it's a slippery slope, that there is a possibility for preferential treatment or coercion that could lead to bigger HR lawsuit issues. I get that it can become fraught with workplace danger. However, there is a world of difference between having consensual affairs behind closed doors and spewing lies and/or misogynistic bull-oney on the air. 

I don't think there is a woman in the workforce ever who has not experienced some form of misogyny. There's always at least one asshole trying to cop a feel, or tell a female colleague to "fetch coffee." It's beginning to change, but we're not there yet. But can two people meet at work and have a relationship? Not any more, I suppose. 

So here's the other thing I noticed while following this week's revolving door of dismissals: bullying and lying doesn't get you canned...sex does. 

Bullying and creating a hostile work environment requires years to document and process. How many hundreds, nay, thousands of women have left a workplace because the men are intolerably badly behaved? How many women have been passed over or pushed out because they are, simply, women? Getting a company to move on that behavior was so impossible that it finally spawned its own protest movement: ME, TOO. And yes, there is progress; it is getting more exposure and it is easier to press the suit. This is definitely movement in the right direction however slow it is.

But a consensual relationship between two people coming to light, ends up with one or both out of a job. 

At the same time, however, lying to the American audience, spinning stories until they are no longer recognizable and bearing no resemblance whatsoever to truth not only go unpunished, but it's put out there as gospel until some really expensive lawsuit happens....like Dominion Voting Systems. The lies didn't get Carlson canned; the expense of paying damages did. It wasn't about truth, justice, or the American way; it was about the money.

There is no real equivalency here, no nuance. A Martian following the news this past week would undoubtedly come to the conclusion that Earthlings put no premium on truth, that all information coming from the box is nothing more than propaganda with no basis in fact. That FOX settled the law suit should tell everyone in America that the executives knew the on-air "talent" was lying through their teeth and straight into American living rooms. 

And you wanna know the really sad part? A significant percentage of Americans still believe Tucker Carlson was telling the truth and this is all part of a conspiracy theory. 

This is not simply a GOP  problem. The left is just as guilty as the right when it comes to screeds and misdirection. I would cite one of my favorite shops at this point. I am a long time Penzeys customer. They have a history of fair trade, fair pricing, and customer respect. Now a national chain of spice shops, Bill Penzey's vision is alive and well in the trinkets and prizes he gives out to his customers. He's an honorable man who fights for civil rights, public justice, hope, and kindness.

He puts out a great catalog and occasionally sends informative emails. 

Until this week. 

Mr. Penzey sent out an email that was painful to read. To these eyes, it was the antithesis of the kindness and hope he as always promoted. Basically, he called all Republicans benighted at best, misguided and mindless at worst. I was horrified. 

This is what he sent out. [The bolded sections are my emphasis.]

About Republicans

 

As we’ve now said on our first-ever About Us page on our website, there’s something unique about humankind’s relationship with spices that time and again have caused spices to be a driving force for change. We live in a time calling out for change and for solutions to the very real problems our country and our planet face. There’s two very different futures ahead for us totally dependent on whether we solve these problems or not. With so much at stake we feel obligated to use the unique position spices hold in our lives to try to help promote the solutions to these problems as best we can.

 

Watching the slow decline of the Republican Party over the last half century, and the steep decline/bottom falling out over the last decade, it can be easy to see the nonsense that has overtaken the party as pretty much random. Once you start seriously looking at the problems America and the world face and who and what are standing in the way of solving those problems, it quickly becomes clear there is nothing random to what the Republicans are promoting.

 

The Republican departure from conservative values and embrace of what, from a distance, looks a whole lot like insanity didn’t happen by chance. All of it has been intelligently crafted with the goal of preserving the position of those who profit from the inhumanity that is at the very roots of pretty much every problem we are facing. From the environment, to racism/discrimination, to health, to saving our democracy at home and growing it abroad, half the time Republicans are intentionally blocking the solution to the problems we face. The other half of the time they are the problem we face.

 

The truth of our time is we’ve arrived at the point where there’s no way to respect the nonsense the Republican Party is promoting and have any hope of overcoming the problems we as a nation and we as a planet face. Given the choice between saving America and planet Earth or saving the feelings of Republican voters, we are choosing to side with saving our country and our world. I’m sorry it’s come to this.

 

And no, there is no HATE!!! in any of this. There is a whole lot of propaganda at the heart of much of how Republican voters have been steered away from conservative values to what they now seem all too happy to vote for. The thing to remember about propaganda is that it doesn’t just misinform, it also works to make people immune from the truth by convincing them any facts that counter their propaganda are nothing more than HATE!!! But we really have no hate for Republican voters. None at all.

 

I actually like and respect most of you guys. Sure, there are a growing number that are there for the racism, but I still believe the majority of you have good hearts that want to help and do the right thing. I know you to be trustworthy, and honest, and funny, and caring, and good souls. The problem isn’t what you are, the problem is what you are now voting to support. You guys have been turned around.

 

Remember when your distrust of big city types, and your deep rooted beliefs in paying your debts, respecting your marriage, raising kids willing to serve, honoring your word, and going to church every week had you voting for Donald Trump over Joe Biden all because Biden’s son had a computer? Or how you couldn’t vote for Hillary because she was over-prepared and used emails? I know that to you your actions seem rational and in keeping with your values, but when it comes to voting you are now consistently voting in people who are the exact opposite of you and the values you hold dear.

 

What does any of this mean? Going forward we would still be glad to have you as customers, but we’re done pretending the Republican Party’s embrace of cruelty, racism, Covid lies, climate change denial, and threats to democracy are anything other than the risks they legitimately are. If you need us to pretend you are not creating the hurt you are creating in order for you to continue to be our customer, I’m sad to say you might be happier elsewhere.

 

If on the other hand you still want the best spices and don’t need us to respect what you now vote for to be our customer, Hooray! We are happy to have you here, but know that we will, on a regular basis, try to wake you up from this dream that has you believing there is anything conservative left at all to what the Republican Party has become. We can and will work without Republicans to solve the problems we face, but it sure would be nice to get back to a time where Republicans were equal defenders of equality, the environment, and democracy. We look forward to that day.

 

Thanks for reading. Thanks for being here,

 

Bill

And what makes it even worse for me, personally? I agree with large chunks of what he said.

But not all.

I have close friends who are Republican and are horrified by what has happened to their party. They are as disgusted by FOX News as much as we are. They are heartbroken by the lies, the hate and the threats. But they have significant disagreements with much of the standard Democratic platform. Are they benighted? Hardly. They will vote in primaries and caucuses to do what they can to bring the party back into the rational center. But even when Mr. Penzey says "And no, there is no HATE!!! in any of this,"  he's wrong. There is so much hate embedded in the body of that letter that I have to seriously think whether or not I will remain a customer. 

I looked to this guy and the store on Grand Avenue as a welcoming place that smells great and has women like me behind the counter who can speak intelligently about the differences between Ceylon, Korintje, and Vietnamese cinnamon. This is important stuff if you cook. Politics, at least until now, have never been on my mind when I walk through that amazing door. 

They are now. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

A dash of ground chipotle will do wonders in your brownie batter.

A dash of cardamom can go into anything you bake to enhance the flavor.

Vanilla double strength is expensive but worth it.

I've learned a lot in that store. (sigh)

Random Thoughts with a Through-line.

America is delusional. I don't make this statement lightly, but events in recent weeks make me wonder about the ability of We, the People, who are supposed to be working toward a more perfect union, to manage to elect a functional government... or at least one that understands this is ONE country, ONE people, ONE population yet it's increasingly evident that no one is listening to the vox populi, the voice of the people. 

To wit:

• 61% believe abortion to be legal (June 2022) 
• 53% believe medication abortion should be legal and available versus 22% who believe it should be illegal
• 61% believe some corporations do not pay their fair share in taxes.
• 50% find it difficult to afford health care costs even with insurance.
• 63 % of Americans believe Biden/Harris won the 2020 election; 29% believe there was voter fraud.
• 61% of REPUBLICANS still believe Feckless loser won. 

And if that's not enough proof that no one is listening, try this one out for size: 

Well, his name isn't Jake, it's Jack Teixeira and he's not a patriot. The twit leaked classified information on a gamer website. That means a member of Congress, an elected official of the United States government, is defending an act of high treason. 

Imagine if the kid's name was Jake Goldstein. Then, he woulda been an agent of George Soros, a tool of the Jewish Space Laser corps. 

And speaking of questionable government officials, imagine the outcry if Justice Clarence Thomas's name was Justice Chaim Tomashefsky. Hoo Ha! The attacks on that guy from the right would be legendary! Can you even imagine the pitchforks and flaming torches outside the house of Elena Kagan if she were taking zillion dollar vacays with Mark Zuckerberg? Or selling a bit of property to Sergei Brin? I mean, they'd be calling for her expulsion to a gulag in Oklahoma for sullying the hallowed halls of justice. How about declaring income from a company that hasn't existed for almost a decade? Oh, that woulda sent Ketanji Brown Jackson straight to jail with life imprisonment for tax fraud. 

But the House Judiciary Committee doesn't wanna discuss Clarence Thomas; Jim Jordan, the chairman of said committee is too busy trying to demand trial evidence to a point where DA Bragg had to sue to get him to stop violating the criminal process. Jordan is working a little Texas two-step here to distract and deflect. Or, as Ziggy would say whenever there was a Dairy Queen up ahead on the right...."LOOK! A PINK ELEPHANT!" while frantically pointing to the left. The kids might've fallen for that once or twice....but one would think We, the People, are more sophisticated than that.  

Or not. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Since April 1st, there've been a whole lotta mass shootings; 33 dead, 167 injured. That doesn't include the cop shootings: 2 dead in Wisconsin, 1 dead in Minnesota. Let's not leave out the Black kid in Kansas City who was trying to pick up his siblings...and got shot in the head by an old White guy when he rang the wrong doorbell. Oh, it's worth mentioning he made it to other houses to ask for help, and when one opened the door he was told to get down on the ground, which he did...and lost consciousness. He's alive and recovering. Lucky the guy who shot him was really old and couldn't see. 

How is it we not agree guns are a problem? How is it one national party calls itself pro-life yet refuses to rein in the merchants of death? How can you carry on about controlling women's bodies when you refuse to in any way hamper weapons of death from getting into the hands of people who will use them on other people NOT in a war zone? 

The Washington Post ran an article about the mass shooting in Alabama this morning. Do take a moment to read it...and try to keep your last meal down. But it was something said in the comments section that really got to me. A commenter who goes by Lamar 72 wrote:

The gunman was merely exercising his rights of expression via blasting everyone in sight. Since they did not have parties in the 17th century with DJ’s, the Supreme Court has determined there is nothing you can do about this.

That stopped me in my reading tracks: Originalist thinking at its very basest root. 

The way originalist thinking as applied by this court is not good for America. It seeks to prevent the country from moving forward in today's world. How can it? Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and ConeyBarrett do not recognize modern social development or scientific achievement. I mean, look at vaccinations. Gender identity. What they are really saying, along with the rest of the GOP pro-death contingent, is that women are chattel to be kept barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, and "non-conforming" gender identity is a game. 

Our very own Senator Klobuchar hit the mark in an interview when she asked:

"What is going to be next? Is that judge going to not like birth control pills? Are we going to have a judge that doesn't like [cholesterol medication] Lipitor? There's a reason that Congress gave the FDA the power to make these decisions about safety."

In case you're wondering about this stream of vitriolic angst, there actually is a line the goes right from my first salvo down to this one... in case you missed it. What We, the People want has absolutely no relation to what the GOP is trying to shove down our throats even with a Democratic administration. Their methodology is distract and divert in hopes no one will look behind their curtain because the rest of us are too busy putting out these absurd fires. Their goal is to take this country back to a time before information was available to anyone who could read, much less access to Google. They are counting on schools to dumb down curricula to a point where kids don't learn about how government is supposed to work, no longer care about anything outside their bubbles, and allow these people to control what they read, what they think, what they do.

You think I'm kidding? Red states are actively banning books. Not just books about sexuality and gender, but about history....Anne Frank...the Holocaust, slavery in the United States. BELOVED is on the banned list in several states, along with THE KITE RUNNER. Really? We cannot possibly expose children to history, can we?

Gee, isn't that what Hitler did? Actually, yes.  He believed he could win the hearts and minds of German youth through indoctrination via Hitler Youth and League of German Girls. At a rally in support of Feckless Loser hosted by (get this one) Mom's For America, freshman congressclown Mary Miller from Illinois told the crowd:

This is the battle. Hitler was right on one thing. He said, 'Whoever has the youth has the future.'

And so, kids, this is why I doubt we are not necessarily able to elect a functional government. Clowns like this are making these statements in public. And way too many people are drinking this brand of Kool-Aide.

Just a thought. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If you live in Minnesota, summer was last week.

If you were out of the state, you missed it.

Bummer.

Even If We Were All Learned In The Torah

Today,  we have a guest contributor. I rarely share the byline, but my guest has a lot to say about Passover. Young Sir, who happens to have recently turned 5, was great at answering questions during the seder, so we're gonna talk about the seders and what they mean. 

Me: How many seders did you go to this year?

YS: I went to one seder at Tom and Laurie's. I saw my cousins T and O. It was fun. We telled stories and sang songs. We finded the afikomen and we got money for giving it to Tom. 

Me: Did you go to another seder?

YS: I went to another seder at Savta's [that's me!] house. It was my favorite seder.

YS: Well, it was fun. It was relaxing. There were lots of kids there. I was the only boy. [the other 6 were girls.] 

Me: Did you get to answer questions at this seder? Which ones?

YS: I answered why this was different from all other nights. I talked about Egypt and other stuff. I telled them the salt water reminded us of the tears of the slaves in Egypt. I telled them about maror [bitter herbs] that reminds us of the bitterness of the slaves in Egypt. Then I ate a hard boiled egg, matzah, and gefilte fish with cucumber. I didn't want soup, so that was all I ate. I had chocolate-chocolate cake for dessert.  The food was good. 

Me: What else did you do?

YS: We opened the door for Eliahu ha'navi [Elijah the Prophet] and then we went outside to play in the dark.

Me: Was this a good seder?

YS: Yes. We had fun.

I will tell you, however, that 15 people with 7 of them kids, was total wonderful, delightful bedlam, much like the seders of my childhood. I was floored at the amount of knowledge amongst the little guys, and when Little Miss read aloud from the Haggadah, her reading was fluent, flawless, and expressive...a pretty nifty thing for an 8-year old. 

The first seder was the first cousins' seder since the lockdown. There was lots to catch up on. Since I grew up with great cousin seders, this was particularly awesome for me, because the last three years were one giant anomaly. Lots of hugs, lots of laughs, and a great afikomen hunt. I found myself a touch emotional at times, missing Ziggy who loved telling the story of the departure from Egypt, and wishing he could see his grandkids with their plague masks on.

My cousin Laurie found a picture of a seder long ago....my parents, her dad, and her in-laws at her parents' seder table. Her mom, the fabulous Pesh, had to have been in the kitchen...as usual. But seeing the three sets of parents together made me wistful, wishing that they could see their great-grandchildren doing what their grandkids had once done: run amok. Would that they could've been there to see the tradition continue into one more generation. 

During our interview, Young Sir made it very clear he had fun at both seders. He and his big sister were with their cousins the first night and close family friends the second... meant there was lots to yammer on about. I know Little Miss will remember the second seder because of all the noise and laughter; I hope Young Sir remembers, too. And I want them to tell their kids that seders were fun, that they exist because of what The Holy One did for all of us when we went out of Egypt.

This is something we do right: we tell the story at the table, stressing that WE were slaves in Egypt and that freedom from slavery is a communal event. We use rituals like salt water, bitter herbs, and matzah to transmit the importance of the story that is about US, not those people long ago. There is an intrinsic importance in gathering together with family, friends, strangers without a place to go on Pesach, or those who want to learn our holiday. 

The props

The seder isn't just a meal...the word means order and there is a specific way to tell the story, complete with visual aids: a special Seder plate with sections, the Haggadah, a matzah cover...this one embroidered by the same Grandma Sarah that edged all those hankies and a special cup for Elijah himself. These are all visual aids that enhance consistency to the retelling. 

You retell the story. You use the props. You add a bit, adjust for kids' ages, for adults' depth of understanding, but you stick to the outline. You hit all the points high points...and then some.  As it is written in the Haggadah:

Now, even if all of us were scholars, even if all of us were sages, even if all of us were elders, even if all of us were learned in the Torah, it would still be our duty to tell the story of the Exodus from Mitzrayim [Egypt.] Moreover, whoever elaborates upon the story of the Exodus deserves praise.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

New to making Pesach?

Save a couple of empty gefilte fish jars.

Trust me on that....they're handy for un-making Pesach.

When Margarine Costs Ten Bucks...And Other Observations.

Okay. I admit I'm an idiot. People have, over the years, told me I'm an idiot before this, but this year, I will agree with them.

I just spent $10 for a pound of kosher for Passover margarine...

and it's not even the good stuff!

I have, in years past, complained about no Temptee Whipped Cream Cheese, no Breakstone's Cottage Cheese, red horseradish. All things considered, these were annoying parts of passover, but I've made crème fraîche, cottage cheese, and even red horseradish from scratch. In fact, if you must know, I keep a supply of cheesecloth on hand for just such emergencies. But this year, the outages are devastatingly horrible, and neither can be made from scratch.

There is almost no margarine to be found, and what there is  is the yukky stuff (as in not Migdal which happens to be great for parve baking.) Even more tragic, THERE ARE NO JOYVA MARSHMALLOW TWISTS to be found anywhere...except for a lone package that was hidden away at the bottom of my chest freezer...and is Kosher l'Pesach. The Junior Son, ostensibly over to schlep boxes, nabbed the lone box of Twists. I think they're for his family...unless he's gonna sell 'em on eBay for a zillion dollars, and you know I won't be seeing a cut of that! It's okay. I'll just sit here imagining I'm eating a frozen Joyva Marshmallow Twist. 

And to add insult to injury, I FORGOT to buy my annual package of seriously disgusting coconut covered Pesadik marshmallows. See, you have to open the bag and let them dry out for a few days before they're even remotely edible, although they are a far cry from stale Peeps, the gold standard for crispy marshmallows. 

And you wanna know what's worse? Just like all your favorite Christmas songs, Peeps are Jewish. They may be tref (not kosher) because they actually use pig-derived gelatin, but most of the rest of Just Born candies are certified both kosher and halal. Go figure. 

From Wikipedia

Russian-Jewish immigrant Sam Born (1891–1959) came to the United States in December 1909. He moved to San Francisco, where, in 1916, Born was awarded the "key to the city" of San Francisco for inventing the Born Sucker Machine, a machine that mechanically inserted sticks into lollipops.

In 1917, Born started a small retail store in Brooklyn, New York. He displayed in his store window an evolving line of daily made candy, advertising its freshness with a sign that declared Just Born. The original company symbol showed a baby resting in a candy measuring scale. Sam Born is also credited with the invention of chocolate sprinkles, known as "jimmies," and the hard coating on ice cream bars.

In 1923, Born started his own manufacturing company in New York City. Irv and Jack Schaffer, Born's brothers-in-law, joined the company to help market and sell the confections. In 1932, the trio relocated operations to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The company bought a four-story, 224,396 sq. ft. building, built during 1920, from a bankrupt printing company.

Sam Born's son, Bob Born, joined the company in 1945, and would later become the company's president for more than 30 years. He was part of the two-man team that mechanized the process forming Peeps, allowing a substantial increase of production, causing Just Born to become America's largest manufacturer of seasonal marshmallow confections. Bob Born died at age 98 on January 29, 2023.

Passover is bad enough....

And yes, I know I'm carrying on over candy. Power is still out in some neighborhoods after the April Fools Blizzard. Tornados did a job on Mississippi. Kids are still dead after the school shooting in Nashville. And I'm complaining about candy.

Fourteen years ago Ziggy and I were doing the Passover changeover terrified because we each suspected it would be the last one we would do together and neither of us wanted to talk about it. We weren't having our annual fight about the correct way to duct tape the plastic sheeting over the laminate counters. We weren't arguing about how much floor washing we were gonna do, and whether or not he would paste-wax the floor in the morning. It was unusually quiet that night, and after the floor was washed, we didn't snuggle on the couch like we always did; he shooed me upstairs to bed because he wanted to just think. 

You see, I wasn't going to shul in the morning; we were going to the oncologist.

It's amazing how, in the space of a heartbeat, life can change. 

What's even more amazing is our refusal to change the things we can to protect the ones we love. School shooting after school shooting after school shooting...and those indefensible, bible-beating misogynists want to ban books.

No toddler ever found a parent's loaded book and accidentally killed a sibling, yet there is a ridiculous drive to ban books conjoined to a refusal to ban automatic weapons. 

Can someone explain that to me? How has this nation not risen up in screaming protest to remove these child-haters from elected office?

Marjorie Taylor Greene was on 60 Minutes the other night. She does a great job pretending to be a normal person who just happens to believe in conspiracies and lies like a rug when it suits her. ("Oh, I never said that." Roll video please.) But she did say something which I've written about in the past and sometimes think might not be such a bad idea: a national divorce. 

The idea is not without precedence. It was strongly considered after the Civil War; had the country divided then, things would be vastly different from what we have now. Duh. But the idea that the ideological differences are so severe right now as to warrant such a split may not be as farfetched as it sounds. 

As you can see, red states cut down the middle of the country, and it's easy enough to figure out that the industrial northeast is the more populous of the two. While Texas is somewhat industrial, most of the red states are agricultural with lower standards of living.  All of which got me to thinking: what happens if...?

For starters, what happens when the blue states walk away with the lion's share of the tax base? Companies that had been thinking about moving to red states will soon figure out their workforce probably wants stability of education and availability of health-related services. These will become two driving wedges into the separation of blue from red. 

What happens when the loss of the tax base coupled with red state promises of lower taxes, smaller government, and less government regulation means the loss of a whole lotta federal services like transportation infrastructure maintenance including air traffic control, railroad safety, and highway repair? If planes can't take off or land safely, if trains derail, and highways are unsafe on which to drive, how do the goods get to market?

What happens when all them pinko-socialist programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will also shrink? If there is no Social Security, who is going to take care of Grandma's expenses? Since the GOP has yet to provide a blueprint for affordable care, who is gonna quit the job to care for Grandpa when he's home sick and can't get admitted to hospital? Who's gonna put food on the table?

You known damn well the blue states are gonna revise, fix, and replenish those safety net programs once they're not blocked at every turn by an obstructionist congress. And while the red states are largely agrarian, there is still a whole lotta farming in the blue states as well.

I'm not so sure Lincoln did the right thing in reunifying the North and South. If those people wanna elect Feckless to another term, let them....and let the blue states elect someone who knows how to run a company...other than into the ground. 

This isn't Brexit or Megxit or any other kind of cosmic break. This is actually a very specific one and one I would more than likely welcome, because it would rid We, the People from the likes of Feckless Loser, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ron DeSantis, and some of the others of the brainless trust who can't figure out where the greenbacks come from. 

Yeah, this is a scary prospect, but wasn't leaving Egypt for the wilderness just as scary? It wasn't a walk through any sorta park; it was a struggle to get out, a struggle to form a single people, and a struggle to settle into the land. It took a long time, but it was the right thing to do.

I can only think that We, the People, need to stop being slaves to the whims of a party that claims to love America,  but clearly doesn't like Americans to live, be well, and thrive. Maybe, just maybe it's time to get out of this abusive relationship.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

הָא לַחְמָא עַנְיָא דִּי אֲכָלוּ אַבְהָתָנָא בְאַרְעָא דְמִצְרָיִם

This is the bread of affliction our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt.

All those who are hungry, let them enter and eat. 

All who are in need, let them come celebrate the Passover. 

Now we are here. Next year in the land of Israel. 

This year we are enslaved. Next year we will be free.