time to call a spade a spade

I am going to preface this one with two points.

1.  My parents always told me never to stoop to the level of those who would insult and demean others, just because they can.

2.  I have tried in the past to impose a twenty-four hour rule, which basically says that if somebody or something has completely enraged me, I will not respond for at least twenty-four hours, thereby giving me enough time to cool off so that I will not say or do anything I may regret later.

Obviously, the rules are being broken today and I do not care.

Today, while health care was being debated throughout the country, and while a pair of very important pieces of legislation regarding immigration were being debated on the Hill, our president decided it would be a great idea to issue a broadside vulgar attack against MSNBC morning anchor Mika Brzezinski, describing her as allegedly bleeding from a facelift.  This coming from a guy dying his hair some sort of burnt yellow/orange and wearing it in the most recognizably bizarre combover on the planet.  I thought about this for a few moments before walking way from my desk to try and digest it.

Throughout the country, health care is being threatened by rich guys and their stooges in Washington who cannot stomach the thought that a few of their pals' dollars that they are never going to miss might be spent to care and treat for somebody else, but at least is being seriously debated.

In the House of Representatives, they are debating and will most likely pass legislation today regarding imposition of enhanced criminal sentences upon illegal immigrants and for the right of the federal government to withhold funds from cities deemed to be so called sanctuary cities.

We still do not know the exact extent of the Russian interference in our election, although everybody except the guy behind the desk at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue concedes that they did try to influence the outcome.

Europe is debating its very existence as a community.

The Secretary of Defense has just declared that North Korea now poses an imminent threat to the security of the United States.

... and our president has nothing better to do than insult a news anchor from a show he claims he does not watch, and talk about her bleeding from a facelift she either did or did not have, something most of us could not care less about.

He sat in our oval office, from where Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, from where Teddy Roosevelt created the National Parks system, from where Franklin Roosevelt calmed a nation with fireside chats during the Great Depression and created the New Deal, which led the world out of it.  For crying out loud, for purposes of this rant I will even note that it's from where Reagan lorded over the fall of the Soviet Union on behalf of the United States.

And this is where he decides to launch broadsides about a cable news morning show anchor allegedly bleeding from a facelift.

His spokesperson then claims the president is entitled to defend himself from personal attacks and "fake news", and that we all know that this is a guy who will fight back "ten times harder", as if that justifies this nonsense.  On the fox cheerleading network, the spokesperson's father, an ordained preacher, echoes this thought, but does concede he would not have used the language the president used.  At least the other panelists on the show, who presumably do not have children of their own working for the lunatic in the oval office, made no effort to defend him or to justify the remarks.  Some actually condemned the remarks, which shows you just how far over the line he went.

Here is a man who thinks nothing of "grabbing them by the pussy".

Here is a man who thinks it is okay to remark on television that a woman who asked him somewhat tough questions at a presidential debate, questions that would not have been so tough if he actually prepared for the debate and had thought about the answers, was "bleeding from her eyes, bleeding from her, wherever..."

Here is a man who has announced to the world that his daughter is so beautiful he would "do" her if she was not his daughter.

Here is a man who does not think the dignity of the office of the President of the United States is above responding to what he believes is a petty and undeserved personal attack by spewing vulgarities the average third grader would think twice about saying, and in so doing further demeaning the office.  I would note that while Reagan always talked about the dignity of the office, I have never heard anything similar from this guy.

Based on all of this, and with apologies to my parents and to the twenty-four hour rule, I can only come to one conclusion:

OUR PRESIDENT IS AN ASSHOLE.

I leave it to others to characterize the rest of us who elected him to an office we apparently no longer deserve to have exist in this country.

only three

Sometimes it takes a village.

Sometimes it takes only three.

Sometime before the upcoming holiday weekend, the senate may vote on the abomination Mitch McConnell has the nerve to call "The American Health Care Act".  It appears safe to assume that nobody on the left is going to vote for this thing -- I can't even bring myself to call it an act of legislation.  It's more like an act of byzantine cruelty.  We are therefore left with the hope that at least three senators from the right will vote against it.

We certainly are not going to count on Mitch McConnell, who may be one of the most vile humans ever to hold public office, to vote against his own atrocity, but just about all you need to know about this person is the fact that he was once treated as a child for polio at the very same facility founded in part by Franklin Roosevelt.  The facility was not, as some claim, government funded, but it was a non-profit charitable organization, and the treatment was not paid for by the senator's family.  In the days leading up to this vote, this neanderthal in an expensive suit refused to take a minute or two to meet with representatives of the March of Dimes, the very organization that is among the leaders in providing care and treatment for the less fortunate who may suffer from the same or similar afflictions as the senator suffered from and received treatment for as a child.

This is the guy who called capital security to forcibly remove protesters in wheelchairs from outside his office.

This is the guy whose staff wrote this law in private and kept it secret for as long as they could while trumpeting coverage for all.  I have often told juries that one way to tell if a person is lying is very simple.  Truth screams.  Weasels whisper.

I will leave it to you to figure out if the senate majority leader is screaming or whispering.

So we are left with the hope that three senators from the right will vote no.  I would like to think that with a bill this so abjectly cruel that would not be a problem; however, as of this writing, while more than three from the right have stated opposition, only two, Senator Heller from Nevada, who has a vulnerable seat open for election next year, and Senator Collins of Maine, have come out against the bill because it is the cruel abomination the rest of us see it for.  At that, Senator Heller has stated that he cannot vote for this bill "in its current form", meaning that he is open to voting for it with a few tweaks, such as were given to Alaska to exempt it from automatic and savage Medicaid cuts that would have decimated their health care system, while not effecting any other state.  At least we now know the five pieces of silver that will buy off Senator Murkowski.  Given this, I have no doubt that Senator Heller will be appeased with something to bring back to Nevada while selling out the rest of us to help assure his reelection.

That leaves us with Senator Collins.

Oh, but you say there are four more who have come out in opposition. True, Senators Cruz, Paul, Johnson and Lee have also said they cannot support this bill "in its current form".  It is worth noting, however, that each of these gentlemen oppose the bill "in its current form" because its cuts to services in the name of cutting taxes for really rich guys, such as the president and his family, do not go far enough.

Think about that for a second.

These four senators, our public servants, will not vote for an abomination that is estimated to leave twenty-two million of our fellow and most vulnerable citizens without insurance coverage, and will strip down coverage for the rest of us unless we pay more BECAUSE IT IS NOT CRUEL ENOUGH.

I think it is fairly safe to assume that these four "servants" will come around and vote yes, if only to set the stage for what they believe is a more acceptable level of "let them eat cake".

So, if two others are not persuaded or do not have a pang of consciousness, we are left with people like me praying like mad that my coverage, which now costs about twenty-seven thousand dollars a year, will not somehow miss a payment or have an arbitrary dweeb working at an insurance company who has no degree or knowledge of medicine or humanity for that matter, deciding that it is not worth covering a fifty-nine year old non-smoking, socially moderate drinking, slightly overweight DIABETIC.  I already dealt last month with one of these dweebs deciding that one of the medications I have been taking for years now apparently costs too much, even though it is a generic.  I now am forced to take a different formulation of the same thing, which if nothing else, has left my doctor shaking his head.  I don't need to search for examples of what could potentially happen to people with pre-existing conditions if they lose their coverage through no fault of their own.  I am potentially one of those persons.

Do you think the senators care?  Senator Johnson has said that people with pre-existing conditions should have to pay more, just like people who have a record of prior car accidents and moving violations have to pay more for car insurance.  I am happy that Senator Johnson views me as the equivalent of a drunk driving an Edsel through a red light.

So, happy Fourth of July.  Enjoy your barbeques.  Don't drink and drive.  Especially do not get into an accident or get sick.  There will be no republican senator waiting for you in the emergency room.

a few potshots and quick hits

With all that has gone on in the world over the past couple of weeks since I posted anything, I really don't know where to start.  Certain things I probably should have commented on.  I know I felt a pull to say something a bunch of times, but did not get the chance.  Now that I will be essentially incommunicado for the next couple of weeks, I offer some quick hits.  Feel free to rejoice over or reject any.

1.  I'm not sure which is worse, the fact that he withdrew us from the Paris Accords, or the fact that he did not have enough guts to say it to the faces of the world leaders when given the chance.  Well, he did have the guts to say what was on his mind to the leaders of our NATO alliance; however, there is a difference between the right to speak your mind and knowing when not to say what is actually on your mind.

2.  No Kathy Griffin was not right, but she at least apologized.  I have yet to hear an apology from anyone who posted photos or cartoons of Obama being hung in effigy.  That a very unfunny, D-list by her own words comedienne makes a very unfunny joke, statement, or whatever you want to call it does not amount to a national debate point.  She was wrong.  She admitted she was wrong.  She was fired.  It's over with.  Move on.

3.  I have flipped through various talking head stations today, ranging from MSNBC on the left to the fox cheerleading network on the right.  Okay, I skipped Newsmax and OneAmerica.  They do not count, and make no effort to show they do.  Anyway, after about ten minutes of drivel from all of the networks, I think I can speak for many of us when I say to the talking heads:

No, you are not personally the news.  We do not care one whit about what you think of the other networks and what one of their reporters/talking heads/guests etc. said.  How about you shut up, stop adding to, or even causing the national discourse, and contribute something worthwhile to the discussion.  If you can't do that, then try doing something more useful like showing re-runs of old ads featuring Billy Mays.

4.  Maybe he might want to give his own staff a heads up when he has made up his mind on something and then announces it to the twitterverse -- especially if they went to sleep thinking they had actually talked him out of it.  Speaking of which:

Does serving under this guy give you such a rush that you can overlook the fact that he pulls the rug out from under you daily, undermines everything you work hard to establish in his defense or just makes you constantly look foolish?  How long before those who thought they were well respected, not only by their peers but the public in general say the heck with this and start resigning?  Somebody in the cabinet and in the White House has to have at least a shred of self-respect.  Somebody?  Anybody?

5.  I used to tell my sons that I almost hoped the far right would sweep an election one year, because if they were in charge of all branches of government, by the time four years had passed and the general public got a good long look at these clowns, their movement would be over with for at least the rest of our lives.  Ok.  I'm sorry I said it.  Now that I have apologized, does this mean we can have a do over, or at least declare that one hundred and twenty-six days are enough?

6.  I have some friends on the right -- yes, I have people I still call friends who are on the right -- who somehow still believe that this guy is doing great.  Nobody can tell me anything substantive he has done that constitutes "great", but at least they are consistent with their leader who tells you he is making history about every thirty-three seconds, but can't tell you what he has actually done that is so really, really terrific.  I especially like their defense of his health and tax "plans", consisting primarily of "I'm so glad to see he is making sure my hard earned money does not end up supporting some lazy slob who refuses to work for a living or some immigrant".

7.  Listening to Terence Blanchard's "A Tale of God's Will" is very soothing, especially these days.

8.  My sister in law has spent the past couple of weeks in Great Britain.  She reports that as soon as the locals hear her accent she has had to impress upon them that she did not vote for him or support anything he says or does.  I know I had to do something similar when there in April.  Judging from what I have seen and heard, the folks in London must be wondering if anyone here voted for him.

9.  Speaking of London, and Manchester for that matter, I might have thought it would be good form to offer an expression of sympathy for the victims, a strong show that we stand united with them, and an offer of the assistance of the United States instead of taking a potshot at the American courts, the gun control lobby and a completely out of context swipe at the mayor of London, later doubled down upon.  But then again, what do I know?

But I guess there is one thing we can all agree upon regardless of what side of the political fence we may sit on:

10.  The Mets really suck.