To Everything There Is A Season; We Have Two

Living on the tundra in Minnesota, people automatically assume (yeah, I know about assume) that we wear layers all the time, hats with earlaps, and you can always see our breath when we speak. Truth of the matter is we only have two seasons here: winter...when you can see our breath...and road repair. 

Road repair officially begins the day you can see pavement emerging from the black ice covering any given bridge. Immediately after that event, the road sinks into itself and a pothole forms. Some people get crocuses, we get potholes. Not the sinkhole-eat-yer-car kind like they get in Florida; ours will just snap your axles. Road repair is then divided into three categories: 1) road defrost heaving, 2) road flooding, and 3) road buckling. Laugh all you want. This is serious stuff. Today, the temperature at 4:00 p.m. was 100° Fahrenheit. Summer highs are usually 80s and 90s. But at 100°, roads were buckling all over the place. Northbound I-35 was shut down near Forest Lake, just north of the Twin Cities. Going home traffic (we don't call it rush hour here) was totally bollocks up all over the place. Not a great experience when you're stuck in a not-moving car. 

On a positive note, the humidity, amazingly, wasn't all that bad. Okay, this Long Island girl felt right at home. Seriously. I was comfortable. The only thing missing was the smell of salt water. And that, people, made me feel just a tad homesick. On days like this, you'd find me at the beach club...as a kid... or with my kids. But I was home, sitting outside both before and after my visit to the dentist, enjoying the heat...and wishing I was back on the island staring at the ocean. But that's not happening any time soon. 

Oh, for simpler times...when one could sit on the trunk of Zayde's beige Versailles eating a Brown Bonnet from Carvel. 

Instead, I'm mostly watching the hearings on Capitol Hill about the attempted coup on January 6th, 2021. Part of me is totally disgusted, part of me is totally angry, and another part of me is totally confused as to why, despite the preponderance of evidence, a significant portion of the population of these here United (for a while anyway) States seriously believes the election was stolen...even when GOP Feckless supporters were elected to high office over the county. 

How do you rig a voting machine to do that? Never mind we hear Feckless on the phone instructing the attorney general of Georgia:

“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.”

Listen to the call if you can stand it. The statistics he recites are conspiracy theories from social media. Listening to the call, it reminds me of trying to talk my mother into letting me do something she didn't want me to do: "Ma, but all the kids......"

Need I say more?

Yeah, probably. 

Here's the thing: A significant portion of this country believes everything that pathological narcissist says. No amount of video from the insurrection, or transcripts of his calls, or emails from Ginni Thomas is gonna change that. EVER. 

The best we can hope for is a resurgence of people who run for office will understand the difference between fact and fiction, who put the good and welfare of this nation first, and who believe that it is possible to be one nation with many faiths, ethnicities, orientations, etc, but one made up of people, for the people, by the people. Lincoln didn't say white people or Christian people, or straight people. He said PEOPLE. No label, no exclusion, no nuthin'. 

People. We, the People. We, as an inclusive term. All of us. No qualifiers...except probably for citizenship when it comes to voting. Citizenship. Not color of skin, tenets of faith, or sexual preference. Not one of those things is a barrier to being a citizen in this nation. 

Those people who are preaching hate, insurrection, and the dismantling of our democracy are certainly entitled to their opinions. What they aren't entitled to is shoving it down the rest of our throats. 

But we knew this. 

Or do We, the People?

I used to think I knew the answer to that question. I'm not sure I do any more. 

About the only thing I know is that when I listen to that recording of Feckless reciting garbage stats and pressuring the attorney general of Georgia to overturn that state's presidential election, I am sick to the bottom of my stomach. Listening to him and some of his supporters in the room, I know how the insurrection happened. Anyone who listens knows that, too. 

And someone needs to figure out how to at least recuse Clarence Thomas from any case involving the 2020 election ...and if he refuses to do that, figure out how to impeach him. He needs to go. 

The Wifely Person's Tip/Joke o'the Week

Sent in by a longstanding, loyal ZJOD reader in honor of 

Tell-A-Bad-Joke-Day

An old man goes to the doctor with his wife.   

The doctor comes out and says to the wife—“your husband is amazing.  He has the heart of a 20 year old, the strength of a weightlifter and the stamina of a long-distance runner.  He says it is due to the fact that he puts on his tefillin each and every day, davens with kavana and has never eaten treyf.  In fact, he says, he is so beloved by God that every night when he gets up to go to the bathroom, God turns the light on for him when he starts and closes the light when he finishes……” 

"Oh no,” she says, “he's pishing in the refrigerator again!”   

                        Thank you, MoJo. Ziggy woulda loved it. 

Trojan Horses

I treated myself to some fluff reading over the weekend. Between last week's funeral and the bitter, bitter cold that's settled over the tundra, I needed  a little bit of decompression time. 

In the land of fluff, I have a guilty pleasure reading romance novels by Aven Ellis, Lucy Score, and Claire Kingsley on my tablet. None of these ladies write particularly deep, steamy Fifty Shades type books; these are quick reads with lots of laughs. All three write really snappy dialogue amidst really sappy stories. It's like eating a profiterole  or an éclair, sweet but you can only eat one or two before your teeth sing. But this weekend, I needed something more  complex to divert my sighing sadness over the passing of Uncle Mike. So off to the library I went, and on You R Lucky shelf (those hot books in high demand) I caught a copy of State of Terror by Louise Penny and Hillary Clinton. 

I'm not reviewing the book here, but suffice it to say, it was a fascinating read. The story, of course, casts the Mrs. Cleaver look-alike Secretary of State as  the flawed  but determined hero. Duh. Still, Clinton walked  that  walk for a few years and she provides some unexpected insight into the job and the personalities that  inhabit the halls of American Power. Some of it was, oddly, thought provoking. Not that this was real life and the  depiction of  the previous president, a Feckless Leader look-alike named Dunn, is particularly terrifying in light of  the recent investigations of January 6th, but still, it got me to thinking about a couple of things.

Mykonos vase, 670 BCE

One of those things was the Trojan Horse. The phrase has been used a lot lately, mostly ascribed to Islamic State attempts to infiltrate any number of locations/schools/corporations or to describe malware that appears to ride in as harmless software. However it's used, a Trojan Horse is a powerful image. It is explicitly about deception, the desire to conquer from within, as well as a certain level of crude trickery. No matter what you wanna call it, it's not nice.

Trying to fall asleep last night, I could not shake the image of a Trojan horse. Its middle is vacant, ready to be filled with something implicitly evil. It's designed to deliver a stealth payload of nothing good. And  in my imagination, it's BIG. Every time you hear about a Trojan horse, your mind immediately goes to a big thing on wheels being rolled into the center of a city, only to have a plague released at  midnight. 

BIG. The thing is always big. Big enough to hold an army, according to the story. I kept thinking about other things in which you could hide an army. And then I thought, maybe not an army army, but a cabal. A cadre. A cell of dedicated somethings. What if you pulled back the dome like  an open beer stein, and instead of men and women dedicating their lives to the preservation of democracy and the ideals delineated in the Constitution, you find a bunch of power-brokering lobbyists who have traded reality for a stack of lies interspersed with personal gain? 

Whatever happened to Truth, Justice, and the American Way?

Oh, wait; there are people out there who will tell you that this is the American Way: deceit, lies, self-interest...maybe it is. We have some pretty terrific role models out there for that kind of  behavior....Carnegie, Rockefeller, Hill, Astor, Madoff, Feckless....the list is very long. We have a history of internal marginalization and discrimination: Native Americans, Blacks, Asians, Jews. We are certainly not the worthy inhabitants of that shining city on a hill.

It's  like  the rotunda flips open like a beer stein, and inside you see the New Americans.....the ones who shit in the hallways and trashed the halls where our laws are made. Maybe they were making an editorial comment. Or maybe they didn't fully understand what it means to live someplace other than a democracy, however flawed, where repression was the rule of law. Maybe they need to spend a week or two in Venezuela or Saudi Arabia to experience life without the basic freedoms? 

(And speaking of basic freedoms, why is it a matter of personal freedom whether or not to wear a mask, but the government can tell a woman what to do with her body? Another conundrum.) 

But back to State of Terror. Had I read this book 6 years ago, I would've laughed it off as highly improbable. The idea that secret dirty bombs could be built and hidden would've seen possible, but far fetched. The very idea that we could have a president who was so unprepared to lead, so crude, ill-mannered, and grotesque in speech was unfathomable to me. Even Bush II could put together a cogent sentence. Nowhere in my imagination did the possibility of such a lout being elected even cower in a corner. No; the age of television and public debate prevented such a travesty from happening. Except it didn't. The electorate in this country wanted a guy who grabbed pussy and shoved his tongue into women's throats  because he was a celebrity and that makes it okay. Even if the popular vote favored Hillary Clinton, the reality of the electoral college gave us a guy who liked despots and admires dictators. This scenario sets up Clinton and Penny's book and suddenly, it doesn't seem so far-fetched. That's what make the book so terrifying: it could happen. And it probably already has. We've already had one failed  insurrection and attempted coup.

What will it take for We, the People, to pull our collective heads outta our asses to deal with the BIG LIE and get this show back on the road? We've had so many warning shots across the bow, it's no wonder we're beginning to look like an Iranian ship in the Strait of Hormuz.

Today, President Biden was heard responding to a Fox reporter's question on a still hot mic:

Peter Doocy of Fox News Channel: Do you think inflation is a political liability in the midterms?

President Biden: It’s a great asset. More inflation...(apparently thinking the mic  was dead:) What a stupid son of a bitch.

Y'know, it was a pretty stupid question. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
Midterm elections are coming.

Choose to be part of the solution:

campaign for a candidate who supports that which is important to you.

Coming up on January 6th, 2022

 Almost exactly a year  ago I wrote an episode called What If...  Please  forgive the hubris  of quoting myself:

What if all of this is just a show to divert attention away from the long-term purpose?

 
I was listening to CBS News this morning, and Ian Bremmer, head of Eurasia Group, a risk analysis company, was interviewed, talking about the global risks of 2021. He said something that caught my attention. He said Joe Biden's presidency will have an "asterisk,"  like A-Rod or Barry Bonds, meaning that the record doesn't count. Hear what he has to say:

A year later, I'm even more convinced this January 6th insurgency was exactly that: a red herring. 

On last night's CBS News, there was a report on a poll taken almost a year after the attempted insurrection. The results are basically terrifying. But four questions really stood out for me.

The full results of the poll taken December 27th -30th, 2021 

can be seen here: CBS News Poll.

I found the results terrifying. Especially the third question. 12% of the sample believes Feckless Leader must continue to fight to wrest the presidency from President Biden. 12%. Double digits. A number above statistical error. 12% of 332,915,073 (the approximate US population in 2021) is 39,949,809 people who think the election was not only stolen from Feckless Leader, but he should continue the fight to get it back. Almost 40,000,000 people. That's a big number no matter how you want to look at the statistics. 

But think of it this way: 40,000,000 are drinking the KoolAid put out there by the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of this country. 40,000,000 people are listening to Q-Anon and other alternative news outlets selling them on the idea that they are the oppressed masses and have to take back their country from the commie liberals. These are the same people who believe Feckless Leader gave them access to healthcare when all his administration did was work hard to remove access to health care. Those are the same legislators who are stopping any bills that pertain to the social safety net and have no plan or proposal for taking care of Grandma when she can no longer take care of herself. These are the folks voting for the same legislators who refuse to confront Big Pharma on drug costs even though they won't be able to afford insulin when Type 2 Diabetes sets in. 40,000,000 people who continue to vote against their own self-interests, believing these clowns care about them. 

No, these clowns care only about their wallets. Democrats, for the record, are not exempt from this either. Both sides are guilty of malfeasance, so don't think I'm prejudiced about this. I'm not. If the billfold fits, expose it. 

A recent article in The Atlantic stated that about 18% of Americans are unwilling to get the COVID vaccine. That's approximately 59,924,713 unvaccinated people. Now, that doesn't include those who, for a variety of reasons, cannot receive the vaccine, and yes, there are some individuals who are vulnerable. This number reflects those who are unwilling to be vaccinated. That means there are about 60,000,000 people, give or take a few, who don't give a shit about themselves or their families. They would rather play Russian Roulette with a close cough or sneeze than protect their elders or children. Whatever would Jesus say about that, I ask you?

As we head into the midterm elections, I would caution every sentient voter, whether you be Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, or Pastafarian in your party affiliation, to think not only about stuff like abortion and voter rights, but to consider that which falls out of your favored candidate's mouth in the coming months. recognize that party affiliation is nice, but we need a government that can sit down together to find that common ground while hammering out the differences. Not everyone is always gonna get what they want, but people, we ALL live in the country and we should be striving to find communal answers. 

The answers must go beyond the political posturing to include everyone with a stake in the country, and that means the Indigenous Peoples are more than simple shareholders; they are the original owners and cannot be dismissed from the table. It means respecting the inalienable rights of every religious group: the Jews, the Muslims, the growing Hindu population along with the Buddhists, the Baha'i, Rastafarians, and about a zillion other belief groups. Majority does not mean running roughshod over everyone else. Majority means working with the other side to make sure of our nation's survival. 

In a perfect world.

In our less than perfect world, however, there is something that is all too often lost in the shuffle and that is the real moral compass of our elected officials. I don't mean a stand on abortion, I mean knowing the difference between right and wrong, truth and lies, caring and selfishness. These are all intangibles, but require public affirmation every chance we get. You can't elect someone who has a history of cheating his workers, making totally inappropriate statements, or dodging taxes with a big grin and expect that person to act on behalf of an entire nation. That person has nothing to recommend that they will lead by anything other than self-service. 

Like Aaron Sorkin's character Andrew Shepherd said in The American President: 

 I can tell you without hesitation: being President of this country is entirely about character. 

As the midterm election year begins, maybe it's time We, the People, made character the big issue on the ballot. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I'm really tired of wallets running the country. Maybe we should be asking better questions at the debates, like 

• tell us about the strongest aspect of your character
• when facing a tough scientific question that impacts the nation, to whom do you turn, what questions do you ask, and what resources do you check for yourself?  

I don't think I want a legislator who cannot answer either of those questions. No one should. 

The insurrection did not materialize out of nowhere; it was always out there, but suddenly given new legitimacy. If you're like most of the people in this country, you already know our democracy is fragile and growing frailer each month. Be aware, people; this is out there, it's real, and it can happen. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Now is the time for the first stage of reclamation to begin:

Ask your elected representatives for an accounting of their character inventory.

If they can't back it up with FACTS supporting their case,

it's time to shop for a new candidate.

The 14th Amendment Section 3: Giving Aid or Comfort to the Enemies Thereof.

My babysitter has arrived and is downstairs logged into his workplace in Milwaukee. In a little bit, we of negative COVID tests will join the Junior Son and family of negative COVID tests for pizza dinner. Funny how something I would have thought to be so exceedingly normal is right up there with a State Dinner. Seriously. Senior Son has not seen Little Miss and Young Sir since October, and they are totally revved up that their Bumple is here for a couple of days. If you haven't guessed, they call him Bumple, The only one missing is Mrs. Senior Son who is holding down the fort at home. I am just glad to have a babysitter for tomorrow. 

Tomorrow is eye #2, and if the results are anything like eye #1, as I expect them to be, I am totally psyched to get this done. I really had no idea how yellow my world had become. Who knew? I am looking forward to even better colors with two working eyeballs. 

I really do want to be done with Feckless Loser and look forward to when, like my cataracts, he is scraped away. However, this past week, the specter of his existence wafted across the news-scape and once again we were reminded of the sadness of the last four years. Watching the footage of the mob attacking the Capitol was frighteningly sad. Hearing them call "Naaaaaancy!" again and again, and knowing they had created gallows on the grounds for Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Pence was like some kind of bad movie. Only it was the real thing and we were watching it unfold live as we watched more than a few senators look away, doodle on pads, read magazines, generally ignore watching tape of what had happened scant weeks ago outside that very chamber. It was as if they were not present, much less bothered by the attack directed against them. 

So the senate acquitted the pathetic shell of a human formerly known as Feckless Loser, on the grounds that they didn't think the Constitution allowed for impeachment after a person leaves office. Which, for the record, it does. But even convicting him would not have removed him from office; instead, it would've assigned responsibility for his words in the hours leading up to the insurrection. Instead, the Republican senators absolved him....or did they? 

Senator Mitch McConnell, probably one of the guiltiest members of Congress to aid and abet this White House in its attempted destruction of the United States as we once knew it, lashed out after the vote in which he voted to acquit:

January 6th was a disgrace.  American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like. Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the Vice President. They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth — because he was angry he'd lost an election.

 

Former President Trump's actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty. The House accused the former President of, quote, 'incitement.' That is a specific term from the criminal law. Let me put that to the side for one moment and reiterate something I said weeks ago: There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their President.

Yes, McConnell's speech is powerful, but admitting there was a problem while refusing to act on it is just as deceitful as the act itself, if not more so. He ends this accusation of Constitutional dereliction of duty with this:

We refused to continue a cycle of recklessness by straining our own constitutional boundaries in response. The Senate’s decision today does not condone anything that happened on or before that terrible day. It simply shows that senators did what the former president failed to do. We put our constitutional duty first.

By not giving this speech before the vote, Yertle the Turtle let the senate do something much worse than "not condoning" the action of this Feckless Loser -  he allowed that chamber to refuse to assign responsibility to the heinous acts, and opened the door to permit another run at the presidency in 2024.

In other words, Mitch McConnell is full of shit. 

So now, people are trotting out the 14th Amendment, Section 3:

Fourteenth Amendment 

• Section 3

  No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Hmmmm. Do you think telling the mob that you love them constitutes aid or comfort? What aid and comfort did Feckless Loser give his Vice President while he was being hunted down? Eleven minutes after being informed Pence was being evacuated from the Senate floor for his own safety, at 2:24 pm EST, Feckless loser tweeted :

Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify.

He knew his VP was in harm's way and he tweeted that shit. 

In the greater scheme of things, I would rather see them use the 14th Amendment, Section 3 to prevent Feckless Loser from ever running again. If they won't convict him because they think the post presidency impeachment is unconstitutional, why not use the Constitution to restrain him from any other attempts at elected office? This would be a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Meanwhile, where the hell is Pence in all this? Why is he silent? Why does he not speak about the events of that day? His silence is not deafening; it's perplexing. What is this man so afraid of that he won't speak out?

A Pizza Pause

Dinner with a six-year old and an almost three-year old is a raucous event, especially when pizza's involved. There were timed laps around the living room, kitchen, and dining room, lots of jumping off stuff, shrieking, hysterical laughing, dog barking, airplane crashes, and general mayhem. Bedtime stories were the best...and a promise was elicited that Bumple would come back tomorrow night to read more bedtime stories. I should be just fine by then, and that would give my boys a little bonus time, too. I love that the kids cannot wait to see Bumple. I love that my boys still jerk each other's chains and laugh at their own jokes.  

Resumption of Serious Stuff. 

Everyone back on your head*

Where was I? Oh, yeah. I remember. The GOP

In some ways, Pence's continued silence speaks very loudly to the thrall in which Feckless Loser holds the Republican Party. One would hope that the base does not solely consist of the rioting mob of January 6th. One has to believe that the bulk of the party is made of individuals who believe in traditional Republican values like my dad did. Yeah, he was a Republican and proud of it, although I cannot imagine he would be proud of this GOP. What happened to those people....or are they just as afraid as Mike Pence to admit this guy was unfit for office?

There is a major disconnect for me between the long cherished positions of the Republican party and the deification of Feckless Loser. Republicans were always stolid, solid citizen types who preferred the status quo to change. That said things like, "Love it or leave it" to kids who didn't want to go to Vietnam. That claimed to support the men in blue and general law and order. They were the party of no dreams with a city over there on a hill and some sparkling stars or something. But their version of the American dream was locked in the fantasyland of the 1950s when women wore pearls to vacuum. Miss America was a paragon of American womanhood to be admired, not grabbed by the pussy. The man they nominated did all that and boasted about it. He cheated on all his wives, had kids by all three, and that was okay with them. What happened to all those good Christian folks who cherished virginity with purity rings and preached abstinence?  When that same sorry sack of orange told Nazis they were good people and later told a rioting mob that he loved them, where were all those love-or-leave Americans who fought Nazis in Europe? Why were they silent in the face of a man who trampled on all they held dear and precious? Is this the ultimate case of Follow The Money?

Mike Pence's prolonged silence matched against Mitch McConnell's speech should be cause for great debate in the Republican party. They need to take this to the general membership and not rely on mass hysteria from some small number claiming to be the "base." I don't believe for a New York minute that all those good Republican cloth coats condone the behavior of Feckless Loser and his cadre. I don't believe for one New York minute that those staunch, righteous Americans with flags on every lapel believe that the behavior exhibited by the former occupant of the White House was okay on any level. But I do believe that if the GOP does not go back to its true base membership, the Republican Party. will cease to exist. Its tent cannot hold QAnon Shaman Guy and his cabal alongside the Bushes, the Romneys, or even the Murkowskis. 

Since I am not a Republican, I don't get a vote on the future of the party...unless....unless there is change from within its ranks to bring it back to the center. But the membership must step up to do that. The vast majority of Republicans who don't buy this pay-for-play version of America have got to let their leadership know that the end of this last term was unacceptable and an embarrassment. Those who do not learn from this experience are doomed to repeat it. 

And you thought GROUNDHOG DAY couldn't possibly be real.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Anyone wanna register as a Republican just for the hell of it? 

It might be one way to move them back to the center, dontcha know?

*BONUS JOKE*

an oldie but a goody and a Ziggy favorite - #257

A man goes to hell and the devil greets him. He takes him to a hallway which has three doors. "You gotta choose one to spend the rest of eternity in," says the devil.

So he takes him to the first door and he opens it and sees everyone standing in fire up to their shoulders. He decides that's not for him and asks to see what's behind the second door.

Everyone in the second room is raking brimstone. The smell is terrible, and the skin on their hands is peeling off. He decides that's not for him either. 

He asks to be shown the third option. The devil opens the door and the man sees everyone standing around in shit drinking coffee. The man thought that was pretty bad, but at least they could drink coffee so he told the devil that looked okay to him. 

So the man wades in, grabs a cup of coffee and is talking to one of the guys. They converse for a few minutes when the devil returns.  "Okay, guys, coffee break's over. Everyone back on your head."

Then Again.....from the middle of the insurrection

The last 4 days have been spent trying to unpack the events of the last week. Lots of readers sent IMs and emails, some calling me Cassandra, others asking how I knew. The better question is why didn't you know?

On November 9th, 2016, a scant 2 days after the election, I posted a special edition: Just So You Know

If minorities are worried, it's for a reason. We've seen this before. 78 years ago today, November 9,1938; there are still living eyewitnesses. It was called Kristallnacht. 

I can imagine why Jews in Germany were thinking this little Austrian paper hanger would be a flash in the governmental pan. But he wasn't and by the time people figured this out, glass was shattered and the borders were closed...except for the one you could pass through on a train heading into Poland. Jews were denied escape routes. President Roosevelt refused entry to the St. Louis; 908 passengers were turned away from the US, Cuba, and Canada. They were sent back to Europe. Many journeys ended in the gas chambers across Europe. 

That was then and this is now. 

Social media provides instant information. We understand what David Duke means when he twits his "people" got Donald Trump elected and his "people" are taking back America.

So let's be real clear about this: 1930 was then and this is now. Donald Trump may be president, but that's not a license to kill, bully, round-up, or terrify. We, the People will not stand idly by while segments of our population are terrorized by roving gangs of white supremacist miscreants. This is still the United States of America and we still have a Constitution. 

Or do we? Wednesday's insurrection was not about looting the Capitol or stealing Nancy Peolosi's mail; it was a full frontal attack on American democracy and the U.S. Constitution.

This meme was posted on Facebook on January 7th, at 12:53 EST. Let's not talk about how incredibly stupid this is, but for a moment, imagine what would have happened had they not been removed from the chambers. Rounded up? Beaten? Executed? Is that what this person wanted to see? I have to think so. The person that posted this was actively advocating for the murder of our Congress. Regardless of people who claimed the storming of the Capitol was "peaceful," had the mob reached a full chamber, the outcome would have been driven by rage. 

On January 8th, 2:15 PM EST, the same person posted a picture of Ashli Babbitt, the vet who was killed inside the Capitol with the status:

The only thing you need to know is she was a domestic terrorist who betrayed her oath.

No flags, no bugles, no salutes.

Expunge her. I’m embarrassed we wore the same badge 

Followed by a photograph of Brian Sicknick, the USCP officer killed by terrorists, with the status:

Now this is a HERO Air Force veteran. PROUD to say we wore the same badge...

All I could think is, "You have been a meme-posting supporter of 'the overturn the election' cabal since the beginning and now you hail this guy as a hero? You fucking hypocrite."

Oh, all the wind-twisting we are getting now. 

To ALL of you who post those memes and bullshit news stories in the name of humor or news:  Sorry folks, you cannot delete all those posts fast enough. You cannot suddenly expect people of reason to forget that you were cheering the insurrection on. Mitch McConnell cannot apologize his way outta this. Mike Pence breaks with Feckless Loser and we're supposed to believe he wasn't lock step with this traitorous SOB? And Melania? Don't even get me started. 

In your hearts, you are ALL still cheering them on. Nazis are Nazis, racists are racist, seditionists are seditionist even if you change your costume. You were pretty clear about how you felt and what you believed. You actions spoke even louder than your psychobabble. 

Former-body-builder-Conan-the-Barbarian-Republican-Gubernator Arnold Schwarzenegger delivered one of the most powerful warnings to We, the People. Arnold knows about this stuff; he grew up in the aftermath of Nazi Austria. He is the son of a Nazi soldier. He called  Wednesday Crystal Day; I think he was spot on. If you haven't seen it, stop now and watch it. 

Guys like Josh Hawley (R. Missouri,) with their closed-fist salutes are still out there. The guy with the Confederate flag marching through the Rotunda is only one of hundreds like him. They still cherish that flag and the slave-society it represented. They are looking for a return to those glory days. And they are going to continue this insurrection because they believe the great Feckless Fraud will be there on the other side to lead them to some kind of victory. They drink the Kool-Aid and swallow the bullshit because they need to believe they are right about something. Anything. Whatever sound bite deflects them from rational reality and into a world where they can blame someone else for their misfortune. 

Social media has done a great job of normalizing extremist content. Various platforms have provided the space and privacy needed to plan this attack and ones to come. There is a finely honed, well-oiled network that spread this stuff. You would have to be living under a rock to think otherwise. If you can marshal your friends for a kegger via social media, what do you think the pros are able to do? There is no doubt in my mind that we have yet to see the depth of this movement. Equally not in doubt, is the idea that they don't need Feckless to do this. If he dies, he's a martyr. If he lives, he's a puppet. Someone else is jerking those strings. 

Feckless Loser may have hosted the pre-storming rally, but the attack was well planned in advance by others. Feckless said he was going to march with them....but disappeared. Where did he go? Why didn't the kids march with the gang of thugs to storm the Capitol? What were they afraid of? Mob mentality? Or plausible deniability?The rioters knew where to go and how to get there. (That some police helped them is another matter for another day.) None of this was spontaneous. The Steve Bannons and Steve Millers of that movement are smart, crafty, and vicious.

Now, if you were to ask most of the rabble in that mob why they are storming the Capitol, they would be unlikely to provide a cogent answer. They don't want a social state (but mom depends on Medicare and Social Security.) The election was stolen by voting machines from Panama? Nah, even the hand counts lined up. They don't want Obamacare, but ask them how they pay for health care? 

Of course, there are those in the crowd who know exactly what they are doing and why. You see orthodox Jews in that crowd, vocal supporters of Feckless Loser because they believe he is good for Israel. They are a part of the one-trick-pony mob. They have an agenda that is exclusive; not unlike the Rapture-ites. They cannot see they are acting like Brownshirts. They think they are not Nazis, but they are Nazis in this crowd. They are participating in their own version of Kristallnacht and don't even see it. They have forgotten the meaning of Chillul HaShem, desecration of the Holy Name. Don't even bother trying to reason with them. You can't. 

And everyone reading this knows it ain't over. The FBI is already warning of armed "demonstrations" being planned for state capitol buildings in all 50 states. Domestic terrorists have a secondary goal, and that is to terrorize the rest of us. Right now, I'm seeing little on how to prevent that, but maybe one just has to decide not to be terrorized. Maybe think of them as Boggarts with a bad edge. I'm not positive that would work, but making up one's mind not to be scared has to be a part of this. Defy them all....get a vaccine! 

I do want Feckless Loser stripped of his civil list pensions and perks. I don't wanna play one red cent for additional Secret Service detail for him, his creepy wife, or his disgusting children. They profited off the Secret Service while he was in office, and I think that should be charged as restitution of this government. I never would've blinked an eye on the perks had he NOT encouraged the attack on the Capitol. He deserves nothing but the bill for the cleaning and repairs of the building he destroyed. 

And I hope that New York State has enough on this jackass to lock him up for the rest of his unnatural life. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If you're gonna attend a riot, at least wear a mask. 

Not only will it help keep the spread of COVID down,

it'll hide your face from the cameras, and make you harder to track down.

Didn't think of that, didja?