WWMS: What Would Mom Say?

Today would've been Mom's 103rd birthday. If she was still here, I'd probably would've been on a flight to PBI  for the celebration. Somehow, that had become a regular event and this morning, when I awoke to get ready for minyan, I briefly wondered why I wasn't headed to the airport. Briefly. For about 5 seconds. Before I opened one eye enough to notice I am in my little townhouse and not in the big house on Pond View Drive. 

Like all daughters, the relationship with my mom had its moments. I didn't turn out to be the slim, beautiful daughter who took after her mother; I was always a Schwaidelson through and through. I wasn't accountant material; I was a writer/theater artist who obsessed about Oxford commas, not commas in big numbers. I wasn't a lot of things, but after a while, she kinda figured it all out. But her insistence that I had a fat ass was never accurate. It probably was the only thing that wasn't fat, but that stopped mattering a while ago. 

But I did get a few things from here for which I am forever grateful. While she was kind to others, she was blunt and brutally honest with me on a number of issues whether I wanted her to be or not. I am very much like her in that I tend to tell you the truth if you ask for my opinion. Here, in Minnesota, it's called being a New York Jew. Mom would call bullshit on that; she would say they just can't handle the truth. (Thank you, Aaron Sorkin. Mom loved him.)

This morning, I had to pick up an order at Macy's, so I decided to wander around Hugedale (aka Mall of America) for a while. Mom loved getting me into a mall. As I strolled around, looking at stores I'd never seen before, I wondered what we would've talked about...other than I didn't need yet another teapot. For reasons I cannot explain, I got to thinking about the last actual conversation we had. It was, oddly, political. The night before she died, we were watching the news; when then Feckless Candidate came on, she asked:

Why hasn't anyone popped this guy yet? He's a disgrace to the Republicans. If your father was alive, this would kill him.  Dead. On the spot.

I'm pretty sure she told him all about that the next morning when she met him for breakfast at Cafe Olam ha-Ba.

But that got me to thinking about  MTG...Marjorie Taylor Greene... and her about-face on MAGA....and what passed for an "apology" from her for her pre-election "toxic rhetoric." I heard her walk back stuff, but I never heard any level of ownership or accountability for her actions or her words. I kept waiting for her to fess up for actively supporting the death threats against Vice President Pence. No such luck. 

As reported in The Georgia Recorder:

The controversy has stemmed from the posts Greene made before she was elected to Congress in November.

In those posts, she endorsed a range of conspiracy theories, including that several deadly mass school shootings were staged, and liked a post that called for putting a bullet in the head of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.

She also questioned the veracity of the Sept. 11 attacks.

In her floor remarks Thursday, Greene recanted some of her rhetoric, saying “school shootings are absolutely real,” and that the 9/11 attacks “absolutely happened.” She said that in late 2018, she began to identify “misinformation” in QAnon posts, and stopped believing what she had been reading.

Greene blamed the media for the controversy around her posts, accusing reporters of using “teeny, tiny pieces of words that I’ve said” to misrepresent her views.

Some of her social media rhetoric, largely from 2018 and 2019, was publicly documented before her election. But after House Republican leaders tapped her for the Education and Labor Committee, Democrats expressed outrage at that assignment, citing her comments about school shootings.

Obviously, I wasn't alone in thinking something was missing from her ramblings. In fact, Alyssa Milano wrote an open, very eloquent, letter to MTG in her blog on Substack, Here it is in full:

Nov 17, 2025

Congresswoman Greene,

Let’s skip the pleasantries. They were never your thing anyway.

So…you’ve suddenly discovered that Donald Trump, the man you treated like a messiah, is not loyal and that the MAGA movement is not safe, not sane, and certainly not rooted in anything constitutional. And you’re shocked that he’s attacking you, endangering you, calling you a traitor. As if you didn’t know he had it in him. Puh-lease. 

Here’s the part you don’t get to skip: 

You helped create this monster. You fed it. You protected it. You celebrated it. And now that it’s finally turning on you, you want sympathy? Understanding? A moment of national concern? 

No. Absolutely not. NOPE.

You don’t get to unleash political poison into the bloodstream of American politics and then act surprised when it reaches your own veins. You don’t get to cheer on Trump while he smears, threatens, and dehumanizes everyone in his way, and then clutch your fake pearls when he finally does it to you. You don’t get to empower a movement built on conspiracy, cruelty, and violence, and then cry foul when you become its latest target

Let’s be honest, you calling for the release of the Epstein Files, isn’t courage. It’s fear. You don’t suddenly care about truth or justice. And you definitely don’t care about the victims. You are calling for the release of the files because you’re afraid of what unchecked power looks like when it’s no longer aimed at your enemies. The Epstein case is a perfect cultural lightning-rod and your supporters love that shit. You saw the polls and are reacting accordingly. Jump off the sinking MAGA ship, am I right, MTG?

Now you’re talking about accountability and transparency. Ha! Where was that energy on January 6th? Where was your outrage when Trump incited a mob to storm the Capitol? When they hunted Democratic lawmakers through hallways? When they called for the hanging of the Vice President? When police officers were beaten, crushed, and traumatized doing their jobs?

Where was your moral clarity then, MTG?

Where was your voice when Democratic governors were receiving kidnapping threats?When election workers were doxxed and terrorized? When a man broke into Nancy Pelosi’s home with a hammer and nearly killed her husband? When threats against Democrats, judges, school boards, and public servants skyrocketed?

You said nothing.

And this isn’t new behavior. You chased a Parkland school-shooting survivor, David Hogg, down a Washington sidewalk, taunting him and calling him a “coward.” You screamed through President Biden’s State of the Union address like you were the most unprofessional person to ever be elected into office. You voted against the Frederick Douglass Human Trafficking Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act, (one of only twenty members of Congress to oppose a bipartisan bill designed to help trafficking victims).

You amplified QAnon conspiracies. You suggested school shootings were staged. And while Democrats were being targeted, when a militia plotted to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and when Governor Josh Shapiro’s home was set on fire in an arson attack with his family inside, you offered no outrage, no sympathy, no defense of democracy.

I could go on. But I think you get the picture, Congresswomen. I’m not buying it.

If you want redemption. If you want to step into the light, there is only one door:

Public, unequivocal accountability. Not the performative kind with hair and make-up. Not the “Trump hurt my feelings” kind. Not the victimhood you’ve perfected. Real accountability means going fully public with everything you know, every lie, every scheme, every threat, every abuse of power you witnessed, tolerated, or assisted. If you want redemption, start with the truth. All of it.

Until then, this isn’t a moral awakening. It’s simply the consequences of your own choices arriving right on schedule.

Sincerely,

Alyssa Milano

See, Milano gets it right.  I absolutely believe MTG must be held accountable for the damage her actions and pronouncements inspired. If, in fact, she began to have doubts about what she was reading in 2018, explain to me why she was still spouting this shit in 2024? 

All this begs the question what's next for MTG? You'd have to be living in Fantasyland if you think she's not planning something very public. She's gotta be eying the senate or the governorship of Georgia. Brian Kemp, the current governor, will not be eligible for re-election in 2026 when his current term expires, opening the door to an interesting race. Even with two Democratic senators, there is no guarantee the governorship with go blue. Will the people of Georgia rally behind Greene? Who knows. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

My mother would shrug her shoulders and tell me none of this matters, that America will right its own ship, and that the Constitution withstand the wind. I'm not so sure I believe her at the moment, and would counter that Feckless Felon is a master of smoke and mirrors, that he and his cabal are great at diversion, manipulation, and misdirection. He might've signed off on the Epstein files, but have you seen them yet? He tore down an entire wing of the White House to turn it into the Faux Gold Ballroom, but what was he trying to keep We, the People from really seeing? Epstein, fer sure, but also political pardons? Russian influence peddling? Saudi business deals? All this and his family foray into falling bitcoin? 

It's all about the money, y'know. Even the proposed money with his face on it. Whether it's rebuilding in Gaza, selling out Ukraine to the Russians, or blowing up boats in the Caribbean, you can be your own buckos that the Feckless Family Members are making a buck off the deal. This family does absolutely nothing that does not enrich their private coffers. And there is no way some of those pardons weren't prepaid. And some were less than veiled threats to other governments, including backing a pardon for Bibi in his corruption trial in Israel. And let's not forget the ex-president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a sweeping drug case. Not only were US lawyers and prosecutors caught off guard, but so were officials in Honduras. I would love to know how much that cost...and where the money finally went.

And right now, indications are that Feckless Felon is not as healthy as he wants us poor shmucks to believe. Multiple photos of Sleeping Ugly have surfaced in recent weeks. And he called President Biden Sleepy Joe? Pot/kettle, people. Not only is he sleeping through meetings, but watch him walking. Yeah, I get it; he's old, but his gait is real off kilter. I thought The Borowitz Report got it in one:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Boasting about his cognitive health, on Monday Donald J. Trump asserted than an MRI performed on his brain found nothing.
“I had a perfect MRI,” he told reporters. “The greatest doctors in the country looked at my brain and came up empty.”

Trump said there was no point in releasing his MRI because “there’s nothing to see,” adding, “It’s like the East Wing.”

Yup. That's about right. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week 

It doesn't cost anything to be kind...

unless we're talking about politics.

In that case, lay it all out on the table.

The Tao of Helen

Me and mom...a few years apart