23 III 2022: Republican contenders at Jackson hearing

I’ve seen a comment that four contenders for the Republican nomination in the next presidential campaign have been using the hearings about Judge Jackson’s appointment as an opportunity to “show off” for potential voters. These are Ted Cruz, Ben Sasse, Josh Hawley, and Tom Cotton, and they are all, each in his own way, trying to sell themselves to the old folks at home.

Cruz pontificated about teaching students about racism. I’m sure he knows plenty about racism, but not as much about teaching.

Sasse did not fit very well into this group because he did not make an ass of himself.

How did that tediously family-fixated man Josh Hawley come to know so very much about pornography??? I don’t suppose he watches the films he denounces.

Cotton is quoted as saying: “I’m looking for a justice that would uphold the Constitution, not use it to invent new so-called rights. I’m looking for a justice who understands the Constitution means what it says and does not mean what it doesn’t say.” I don’t think “the Constitution means what it says and does not mean what it doesn’t say” would get anyone very far in law school. Does “new so-called rights “maybe mean “gun rights”?

Cruz, Hawley, and Cotton were playing the same old right-wing tunes. Tough on Crime! Right.

If his performance at this hearing provides any indication, Sen. Sasse hasn’t a hope of the Republican nomination. Sasse seems too reflective and polite to compete against these three snake-oil selling demagogues.

21 III 2022: Republican world of anti-truth

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have begun their assaults on Ketanju Brown Jackson. Judge Jackson seems to be remarkably popular, approved by left, center, and right in the judicial world. But she is Biden’s nominee, so Republicans attack her compulsively. Word is, they’re going to try to portray her as “soft on crime.” The Republicans know about this sort of thing, for they gave new meaning to “soft on crime” by their support for our archcriminal ex-president. 

Missouri’s motor-mouth junior Senator started bad-mouthing Judge Jackson, encouraged by the oily Lindsey Graham. I’ve said before that Hawley ought to think before he speaks, but Sen. Graham is the last person to go to for clear thinking. Hawley started throwing around lies about Judge Jackson’s record and was immediately shut down by, of course, fact-checkers.

Speaking of Missouri, our disgraced ex-governor Eric Greitens decided that he was not disgraced so much that he could not enter our senate race as a Republican candidate. He was probably right about that, for Republicans, especially Missouri Republicans, are accustomed to living with a lot of disgrace. But now his ex-wife has alleged in legal documents that he abused her and their children. Even Republicans are wary of this, so there have been lots of invitations for Mr. Greitens to drop out of the race lest a Democrat win the senate seat. But from the asylum of Steve Bannon’s “War Room” program, Greitens claims that his ex-wife was in a conspiracy with RINO Republicans to smear him. The show goes on.

20 III 2022: What the hell?!?

1) In today’s headlines:

“Gunman opens fire, wounds 3 at Texas spring break beach destination.”

“Four people were shot and wounded in downtown Austin, Texas, early Sunday as the city hosts the annual South by Southwest festival ….”

I do not mean to pick on Texas, but another headline reads:

“Texas mass shootings jump 65% this year as violence continues.”

The “right to bear arms” has turned our Country into a slaughter-pen. Not only are criminals and virtual criminals armed to the teeth, but all sorts of mentally and emotionally unstable people can buy or easily get their hands on guns. 

Is America ridiculous or pathetic?

2) Who, I wonder, is Kanye West? And what do people find interesting in a low-life like him? He is all over the online news today because of his running quarrels with various people that seem to arise from his treatment of his ex, Kim Kardashian. Poor Kim! I guess the old “Lie down with a dog, get up with a flea” applies. But why clutter up the media with this sordid and silly business? Oh, this is what people find interesting. 

Is America ridiculous or pathetic?

18 III 2022: More similarities between Putin and Trump

CNN is running a story from Erin Burnett Out Front that bears the headline “’Complete lack of normal human morals’: Oligarch’s ex-partner on life around Putin.” “Complete lack of normal human values.” Isn’t “amoral” a way in which former President Donald Trump has often been described?

Another piece in CNN has the headline; “Putin celebrates anniversary of Crimea annexation at stadium rally.” Hmm? Don’t we also have a politician who uses Nuremberg-like rallies to prop himself up?

This article reports that Putin told his crowd, people who are informed only by right-wing propaganda: “To spare people from this suffering, from this genocide — this is the main reason, motive and purpose of the military operation that we launched in the Donbas and Ukraine.” And don’t we have a politician who tells similarly outrageous lies to his base that knows only right-wing propaganda, a politician who routinely accuses others of the very thing he is doing himself?

Trump found a lot more to like in Putin than just his good looks.

14 III 2020: Comrade Carlson; Barbarism is barbarism

Tucker Carlson, who might as well be a mole planted by the KGB, is the darling of Russian propaganda. Why doesn’t Tucker cease his treason and emigrate to the Russian Confederacy, a country he loves and where he is so highly regarded?

In Saudi Arabia, the government executed 81 people in one day. In Ethiopia, soldiers have been photographed burning civilians alive. In Ukraine, Russian barbarism seems more mild, but differs from these only in degree.

13 III 2022: Vat you mean “war crime”?!

The accusations of war crimes committed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine must cause a lot of confusion in the Russian military and in the upper strata of Putin’s wannabe empire. These Russians, you see, have no concept of “war crime.” They make no distinction between military and civilian, between military targets and everyone and everything as a target, between tactical strikes and mass murder.

12 III 2022: The anti-American Right

It has now become fashionable among American oligarchs, rightwing entertainers, and conspiracy fans to accept and repeat the claim of the Russian propaganda mill that attacking Ukraine was necessary because, with American help, the Ukrainians are manufacturing bio-weapons. 

Putin is a hero to our oligarchs. They consider him to be a kindred spirit who shares their enchantment with autocracy and disdain for democracy. Rightwing entertainers, like Tucker Carlson, know what it is to be part of a propaganda mill. They are paid to tell whatever lies their owners want circulated. The conspiracy fans can never get enough of new conspiracies and they will wolf down any garbage that comes along without even tasting it. 

All of these are providing support and comfort to America’s enemy. 

Are they not a security risk?

7 III 2022: Could Alvin Bragg also be a crook?

NYC District Attorney Alvin Bragg has shut down the investigation of Trump & Co.’s financial crimes. He has been very secretive about this, thus failing to explain behavior that even charity would have to call questionable. My ever-suspicious mind grasps for an explanation. Did somebody get to Mr. Bragg. Who talked to whom? Who was promised what? What was used to threaten or entice and whom? Does Bragg care nothing at all for his credibility as a DA and as a lawyer? A District Attorney’s decision not to prosecute might in different circumstances be unremarkable. But this is about Trump who corrupts anyone he touches.

7 III 2022: Russian re-runs

There is nothing novel about the current Russian drive to annex Ukraine. They have been doing this sort of thing for centuries. The several Russian Empires came to include virtually all the one-time nations on its borders. These seizures were most extensive and intense in the later 19th-early 20th centuries under the First Russian Empire of the Tsars: Siberia, Caucasus, Central Asia, etc., etc. The Bolsheviks of the Second Russian Empire continued grabbing up neighbors property, particularly through the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with the Nazis that gave them half of Poland and the Balkan countries and then through the creation of the Iron Curtain that as good as absorbed all neighbors into the Russian Empire. Russian rapacity seemed to have eased up with the fall of the Second Empire, but that was only an interlude while the Third Empire under Putin I was tooling up. Putin I has now resumed traditional Russian foreign policy: Conquer and annex, conquer and subjugate, conquer and control completely. 

This is bad enough. But what if we describe Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in less refined terms. Again, Asia is belching a host of barbarians against the West. Putin’s army is following in the footsteps of the Huns, the Mongols, the Cossacks, the Red Army. “But surely, Russia is too civilized, too sophisticated to sponsor an army of barbarians.” Well, we must recall accounts of Russian atrocities in countries it annexed, e.g., the Katyn Massacre in Poland, and the atrocities of the Red Army raping and butchering its way through civilian populations whom it was “liberating” at the end of WWII. We must realize that Molotov’s criticism of the West for being too sentimental about the loss of human life is not only a Bolshevik criticism, but a Russian criticism as well.

4 III 2022: How do you follow up that?

I could have predicted the behavior of Michelle Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Green at the State of the Union address is not surprising. They couldn’t have forgiven themselves if they failed to act out outrageous before so large a television audience. The rest of Congress booed them, but that was part of the plan. These are two cheerleaders playing to “the base,” and the base loves disrespectful behavior, hence part the appeal of the militant boor, Trump. 

These people, Michelle & Marjorie, Trump and his base, were never taught the conventions of good manners and common courtesy, and they are to a surprising degree embarrassed because they are ill-prepared to behave as adults, because they do not know the correct way to act. Rising up from the disadvantaged base is an animosity towards adults and the educated that is far more intense than we thought. Trump, with his 5th-grade vocabulary and play-ground insults, is, for his base, the public figure of their dreams. And Michelle, Marjory, Matt, the Capitol insurrectionists, et al., with their proclivity to hillbilly gags, guns, and violence, are heroes to the base, not because they irritate the libs, but because they have no respect for the adults.

What will M&M do to follow up heckling during the State of the Union address? Mooning the Congress, sending a box of dog poop to the President, putting cellophane wrap on the toilets in congressional wash rooms, setting off fire-crackers during opening prayers — who can say. All I can say is that to surpass themselves, they will have to come up with some really gross shtick.