Wyoming, Part Two...

After a few days in the relative sanity of Southern California, an oxymoron in and of itself, we returned to Wyoming.  We returned to the scenery, the fresh air, the serenity, the horses...  and the nut jobs...

I will grant you that there are nut jobs everywhere.  Some would say Southern California is the grand daddy of nut jobs everywhere.  But here in Wyoming is where we witnessed it first hand on our very first day back.

Our travels on the first day back took us to the local Wal Mart.  Don't laugh.  They have a decent grocery section with better prices than the local supermarkets.  Besides, as many of you have seen from our Facebook posts, the bean grinder for our coffee broke -- both of them -- so this was an absolute emergency.

We parked on the side of the store, as we usually do, and put on our masks to go in, even though we are fully vaccinated including boosters.  On our previous visit to this Wal Mart, we were pleased that about forty percent of the folks in the store appeared to be masked.  Mind you, just about everywhere else we have been since the spring, the number of masked clientele has hovered somewhere between eighty and one hundred percent, but for Wyoming, this was a vast improvement.

Apparently, somebody sent a memo around to the locals.  On this occasion, it would be a stretch to say that ten percent of the customers were masked.  Somewhere in Wyoming, over the first weekend of October, COVID was declared cured for all, masked or unmasked, vaccinated or unvaccinated.

And then we walked past the pharmacy department.  Considering that boosters are now available, I was interested in seeing if there was anyone waiting for a vaccine  Nobody was in the waiting area.  Nobody appeared to be in the vaccine rooms.

There was, however, one man, who we will refer to as WMC -- Wyoming Maga Cowboy, or maybe the Wal Mart Cowboy.  Take your pick.  WMC was front and center at the pharmacy line -- there was nobody else in line.  He was a tall, thin drink of water with longish white hair and a thick droopy moustache to boot.  On top of the white mane was a summer weight, stiff straw cowboy hat.  The rest of the outfit was traditional cowboy in every sense, from the cowboy style button down shirt, to the blue jeans, to the boots.

And WMC was there with a purpose.

A loud purpose.

He started off by demanding a dose of Ivermectin.  You know, the paste/concoction/whatever you want to call it used to deworm farm animals that some on the far right of the mental universe have come to believe without any proof whatsoever will cure COVID.  We can start off this aspect of the discussion by noting that WMC was in the pharmacy department of Wal Mart talking to the poor victim of a Wal Mart pharmacist, demanding an animal dewormer.  It apparently did not occur to him that the pharmacy department at Wal Mart, surprisingly enough, only dispenses medications intended for humans.  It also did not apparently occur to him that if you are standing in a Wal Mart pharmacy speaking to the Wal Mart pharmacist about a medication, you likely need a prescription to get it.

As a side note here, I would offer that when we got home, my wife went on line.  Apparently, you can get Ivermectin on line without a prescription.  We have a large farm and supply store here in town.  I have no doubt you could get Ivermectin there as well.  Maybe WMC should have looked there.

Needless to say, the Wal Mart pharmacist was a little short on supply of horse de-wormers, but offered WMC a vaccine injection, considering there was no wait for one, and most likely considering where we are, nobody had made an appointment for one anytime that morning.  WMC declined, offering that he was not going to have anything injected into his body the ingredients of which were not known to him.  Putting aside for the moment the fact that WMC probably did not know the ingredients of the groceries we later saw him buying, I would be willing to bet just about anything that he did not know the ingredients in Ivermectin either.  

Undeterred by the looming lunacy in front of him, the pharmacist assured WMC that the vaccine was safe and had been researched, reviewed and approved by experts.  WMC wanted to know how the pharmacist knew this.  The pharmacist replied that it was in the medical and pharmaceutical journals and was in the news, to which WMC replied that he does not believe half the things he hears in the news.  At this point, I wanted to ask him if he believed half the things he reads in the medical or pharmaceutical journals -- or the farm report for that matter -- but it was at this point that my wife, who has much more sense than I do, decided we had heard more than enough and steered me away from WMC and towards the automatic coffee grinders.

We are guessing that WMC did not take the pharmacist up on the vaccine offer, as he was seen walking around the dairy section of the store less than fifteen minutes later.

And all of this is a tragedy.  Not only did WMC not receive a COVID vaccine that day, but he likely remains at risk for getting worms as well.

oh, wyoming...

This is one that has been waiting to be written since this past spring, just after we arrived in the Cowboy State.

Over the course of the summer, my wife and I have been unfriended by a person on facebook.  This is a person who is part of a group we had hung with for several years during the summers, with whom we had attended concerts and shows and we had to the house overnight on more than one occasion.  This person had been one of the friends my wife turned to for help when she was hospitalized while I was out of town.

During the course of the pandemic, we had been unable to get to our summer house in the west.  We spent a great deal of time dreaming of when we would be able to return and resume our friendships and enjoy the beauty of this great state.  After more than a year and a half, we were finally able to come here in May, and have been here ever since.  Once we got here, we notified our friends that we were back and looking forward to seeing all.  

Then we waited.

And waited.

After about a month, we finally heard from our "friend".  We got together for drinks and dinner, and were told, in essence, that we were on the outs with everyone.  I am not going to name the "friend" or even identify the "friend" by gender.  The plural will be used where otherwise indicating gender is unavoidable.

Our crimes(s)?

For the both of us, it turns out that our joint crime was Stitched Together Long Island, the group we founded together and was run primarily by my wife, that in the earlier days of the pandemic ended up with more than two thousand members on Long Island, and with our sister groups, primarily the original founding group in California run by my sister in law and her daughter, ended up making and distributing approximately five hundred thousand masks to need based groups, first responders and medical organizations that could not gain access to them via ordinary means.  As you can guess, our "friend" is anti-mask.  We were proudly told how they ripped their mask off the moment they were leaving stores, shooting the bird at the employees inside, to show they are independent and cannot be denied their "rights", whatever those rights are.  They will now not go to stores, restaurants, etc. that require masks.

We were also told that the friends all believe that we founded and ran Stitched Together so that we could get publicity.  For what, I am at a loss over, but there you go.

Our "friend" is, as you could also guess, anti-vax.  Part of our friendship banishment is that we have been vocal in pushing for everyone everywhere to be vaccinated.  Our "friend" claims the vaccines are nothing but poison.  They cannot tell you what the poison is, but it is poison, by golly!  

They also claim the rest of us are being manipulated by false statistics of deaths caused by COVID.  The logic here is that a person who dies of cardiac or respiratory arrest has not died of COVID, even if the death certificate states the cardiac or respiratory arrest was caused by the virus.  The further logic, if there is any, is that if the cause of death on the death certificate says cardiac or respiratory arrest, then the death was not caused or contributed to by COVID; therefore, it should not be counted as a COVID death, even if it is listed as a causal or contributing factor.

Mind you, our "friend" has taken the vaccine, but only did so when told they would not be allowed to visit grandchildren in another state.  In other words, when it suits their purposes, they will inject this "poison" into their system.

My personal crime?

This blog.

You know, the one that has had a total of five entries this entire year prior to this one.

Our "friend" tells us that the entire group is sick of the blog and how I "go on and on".  They wish I would just shut up.  Mind you, none of the others have told me this, then again, none of the others have said anything to me since our return in May.  It appears possible that our "friend" was sent as an emissary to shut me up, or they took it upon themselves with the tacit approval of the rest.

To put this mildly, I am not going to shut up, even if this blog is only published occasionally.

When I pointed out to our "friend" that the tenor of the posts in this blog has not changed at all over the course of the past couple of years while we were in New York, I was told that this is true, but times are now different.  There is no longer any tolerance among the friends for the kind of thinking and statements that are made in the blog, even if nothing in the blog is personal, and I try to avoid profanities, for the most part.  So, if I want to maintain certain friendships, I should no longer speak my mind on this blog, or anywhere where our "friend" and the rest of the "friends" may either see, hear or read it.  My First Amendment rights be damned, but they are still free to tell me what they think.

So I guess we are looking for new friends.

We will probably not look for them in Walgreen's, where just about nobody is wearing masks, and those few who are seated in the waiting area for vaccines of any kind are doing so without masks, right under signs that say anyone seated there must wear one.

We will probably not look for them in a couple of the auto repair shops and a laundromat in town that have hung signs pronouncing their undying MAGA love and "Trump Won!"

We will also probably not look for them from the various folks in the area who drive around or park their vehicles alongside the road festooned with MAGA flags and banners of all sorts, including the red, white and blue flags adorned with that all time great campaign/political slogan "Fuck Biden".

Finally, we will also probably not look for them at the announced "freedom" rally scheduled a couple of towns over from us in the next week or so, in which the speakers are going to be at the VFW railing about their freedoms being taken from them by anyone, especially anyone in the government or a school, who tells them to get vaccinated or wear a mask.  Our freedom to be able to go out in public confident that the person standing near us will not infect us with a deadly disease does not enter into the equation.

We will look for these new friends, and we will keep looking for them.  They have to be somewhere around here.

Oh, Wyoming...

life in wartime

On March 16, 2020, I was sent home from court when its closure was announced due to COVID-19 just as the court day was about to start.  You could see it coming a mile away.  In fact, a group of friends and I had predicted it about a week beforehand at brunch when we saw how the virus was starting to spread around the country and around the world without any leadership from those who could have done something to stop or slow it.  I have not stepped foot in a courthouse since that day.  I was not able to work from that day until approximately one year later, and can only work now due to the fact that my profession has figured out how to conduct that aspect that I earn my living doing via remote conferences.

During that year, I watched as persons I used to think had some intelligence, railed first against masks, then against the real experts who were trying to do something, and then against vaccines.  I watched the spoiled children play on the beaches and in the bars during spring break in Florida, encouraged by a deranged governor, who appears intent on killing his constituents.  I watched the spoiled brat interviewed on television, drunkenly proclaiming that no virus was going to stop him and his friends from having a good time.  I then watched a well dressed, well groomed middle aged white guy go on the same cameras and announce that he was not going to wear a mask "just to make you feel good".

And the virus spread.

We were unable to go to our summer home last year, as there was no way to get there.  Dining out?  Not until some of the restaurants opened for limited outside dining in the summer.  A movie? Forget it. We still have not gone to one, not even a drive in.  Sitting in the backyard became date night, but only if the neighbors were not outside as well.  Shopping had to be planned so we could get to the stores at hours where the crowds were minimal, at least compared to other times.  Even when we went shopping, the nearly empty shelves looked like refugees from the old Soviet Union.  Where we live, meats were rationed.  Toilet paper and paper towels were the new gold.  When we left the house, we masked and sometimes gloved, at least until the latex gloves we had on hand ran out.  There were none in the stores.

And some people still refused to wear masks.

And the virus spread.

We went for nearly a year without seeing our son who lives on the west coast, then got to see him very briefly when he was in New York on business for a couple of hours, outside, with masks on.  We did not see our daughter in law in person from January, 2020 until April, 2021.  During this time, she gave birth to our granddaughter.  We could not be there to help.  We desperately wanted to be there.  We saw our son who lives in another state and works in the healthcare profession going to work every day in a hazmat suit, working on the front lines in COVID units fighting to save lives by day and fighting off bigotry against him at night.  We were able to see him in person one single afternoon for the entire year in 2020, sitting outside his apartment with his partner.  We have seen them once so far this year.  We have prayed everyday for their health.  Some prayers were answered.  Some were not.  My mother is in her nineties.  She has essentially been stuck in her house for now nearly a year and a half.  Her mind is still sharp.  Her mobility is not.  Other than visiting when we can and the telephone, there is not much we can do for her, although fortunately, she is still able to care for herself.

Throughout, the same people still refused to wear masks.

And the virus spread.

Thanksgiving with my family was canceled.  Christmas with my wife's family was canceled.  Vacations with friends overseas were canceled.  No more evenings in the City.  No Broadway.  No concerts.  No simple get togethers.

Vaccines became available.  The vaccines are safe.  The vaccines work.  We rushed Mom to get hers.  We rushed to get ours.  I sat in the waiting area of Aqueduct Raceway in Queens, where I received my vaccine, and felt tears welling, figuring it was over.  People would get their shots.  We could get on with our lives.

I was wrong.

People refused to get vaccinated, many of them the same who refused to wear masks.  Politicians, pundits and others enabled them, and some, like that idiot in Florida, decreed that it would be illegal for businesses, government offices and schools to require vaccinations, thereby endangering the very people who were out there doing what they could to protect not only themselves, but those who refused to do their part to stop the spread, including that smug moron in the governor's mansion.

And many of the same folks who refused to wear masks, as well as others who think they know better than everybody else, including the real experts, refused to get vaccinated.

And the virus spread.

And the virus mutated.

We did manage to make it to our summer house this year.  The house is somewhat isolated from our neighbors, so it at least feels a bit safer.  There is no real way of knowing if it actually is or not.  We are not attending events we have routinely gone to in the past -- the county fair, concerts, music festivals, etc.  There has not been a single dinner out with local friends, many of whom are not vaccinated.  When we do go out to eat, we try to go during off times when there are few others in the restaurants.  Other than once, we have not gone to any local museums.  The nearby national parks are mobbed with out of town visitors.  We have no way of knowing who is vaccinated and who is not.  We assume many are not.  We will wait until the summer vacation has ended and the tourists have gone home to visit them.  All the while, when we go into the local stores, nobody, and I mean NOBODY is wearing a mask.  And in this state, the vast majority of people remain unvaccinated.

And the mutated virus has spread.

And still people refuse to get vaccinated.  The same people.  

Assholes.

Every single one of them.

Think there are no consequences to this?  On a practical and personal level, here is the result of those same, self-centered assholes who believe their rights are violated when they are asked to put on a mask or get vaccinated to protect themselves and everyone else, without giving any regard to the rights of everyone else out there to simply be healthy.

We are here.  For how long, we do not know.  Much depends upon whether or not traveling back to the east coast remains possible.  It could be worse, much worse.  We are presently healthy.  We have vacations planned and paid for, but do not know if they will go forward, even though they are not scheduled for many more months from now.  If they do not go forward, we will be angry and frustrated with the rest of you, but our present situation is not what anyone would consider dire.

Our son on the west coast is a member of a very well known band that tours around the world, making their living that way.  The band just announced cancellation of tour dates due to the virus, which is spreading due to the refusal of those same people to get vaccinated.  A major source of his income is now gone, because of the assholes -- and no other reason.  It is also worth noting that many of these assholes, especially the political types, are the ones who have been advocating cutting off unemployment benefits, and are the ones who are responsible for the expiration of eviction moratoriums around the country.  All of this will primarily effect working people WHO WORE MASKS WHEN ASKED TO, AND ARE VACCINATED.

Our son in the healthcare profession had been wondering a few months ago if he was going to need to switch jobs, as the unit he works in providing care to COVID patients seemed to be winding down.  He is now back to putting on a hazmat suit at work every day, dealing with an overflowing COVID unit, filled primarily, if not just about exclusively, with patients who refused to get vaccinated, exposing himself to the consequences of their irresponsibility and downright stupidity, and then being forced to go to the basement of his home after work to decontaminate before he goes upstairs to his home due to the fact that his partner is severely immunocompromised.  And we are living in fear of the consequences of his day to day responsibilities at work, and praying for him and his partner again.

And the mutating virus continues to spread.

I will not mince words.  I am finished with that.

The spread of this virus and the practical and personal consequences of that spread are the responsibility of the assholes and their enablers who refused to wear masks and now refuse to get vaccinated.

Every single one of you.

Assholes.

facemasks and jews

One of the frustrating things about having a blog is the constant vague, underlying feeling that there is an obligation to actually write something every now and then.  This is especially true when you have a blog, such as this one, in which you really do not publish much very often.  The last White Fluffy Duckies was written and published nearly two months ago.  Frankly, I thought it had been longer than that.  I have found it increasingly difficult over the past year or so to come back here and record my thoughts, as society as a whole has become increasingly depressing.

Then there are those entries that practically write themselves.

Today, we will very briefly touch upon Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.  At the outset, I will state that I will not dignify her by using her name again.  Much like the former guy, mostly known in this space as cadet bone spurs, she will henceforth be relegated to identification by nickname, reference and ridicule, which is still probably more than she deserves.  For obvious reasons, we will refer to her mostly by the title she probably adores, Rep. QAnon.

Over the course of the past few days, in addition to a myriad of of ignorant and insulting statements she has made over the years, including during the relatively brief the time she has been a member of congress, Rep. QAnon has equated mask mandates during a public health pandemic that has already killed more than six hundred thousand people in this country alone to the treatment of Jews at the hands of nazis in World War Two.  She has specifically stated that forcing people to wear masks in public is just like the treatment Jews in concentration camps felt when being herded off to gas chambers.  When the predictable outrage ensued, she doubled down, and said that there was nothing wrong at all in what she had said.

Nothing wrong.

She equated a public health measure that just about every public health authority endorses as saving lives with the mass slaughter of Jews by nazis, a deliberate genocidal attempt to eradicate the planet of Jews.  

Six million.

Six million Jews.

All killed.  

Deliberately.  

Ruthlessly.

And this cretin thinks it's the same thing as asking people to wear masks to help overcome a pandemic.

Somehow, placing a piece of cloth over your nose and mouth in an attempt to prevent the spread of a deadly virus is the same as gassing Jews.  We have reached the point where public health measures are to some people the equivalent of mass genocide. 

Let me teach Rep. QAnon a few words and places from history.  Maybe she should look them up in history books before she equates public health with genocide again.  I am not going to define them for her here, as it is just a waste of time.  For anyone to truly learn, they need to look this up themselves.

Holocaust.

Shoah.

Warsaw Ghetto.

Auschwitz.

Treblinka.

Bergen-Belson.

Sobibor.

And what is most personal to me, November 3, 1943.

I seriously doubt Rep. QAnon knows much about each of these terms, places and dates.  I doubt that she knows anything at all of the significance of November 3, 1943.  For that much I will offer a brief history lesson.

November 3, 1943 is known in the history of the Holocaust as "The Harvest Festival".  It is the day the nazis decided Jews were going to be exterminated.  Approximately forty-two thousand Jews were murdered in concentration camps that day throughout Europe, the single largest mass murder in a single day in history.  Nearly eighteen thousand alone were killed at a concentration camp in Majdanek.  Included in that number were members of my father's family -- my family -- who had not managed to escape Frompl, Poland before the outbreak of the war.  Those members of my family were likely killed that day.  The remains of the Majdanek camp still exists.  Tours are offered, including the barracks Jews were stored in while awaiting their fate, the gas chambers and the ovens.  There is also a large memorial which consists of a mountain of ashes covered from the elements.  You can walk up steps on the side of the mountain of ashes and peer over the edge.  What you will see are ashes of the people killed at Majdanek.  Included are members of my family.  

The ashes, the horrors, they still exist.  

Frompl no longer exists.  

My family, including great grandparents, aunts, uncles and numerous cousins, also no longer exist.

But Rep. QAnon still exists, as do people who think like her.  The deliberate ignorance she spouts still exists.  It is for Rep. QAnon and people of her ilk that for nearly eighty years my people have repeated the phrase --

"Never Again".

Never Again should one group of people be allowed to exterminate another for the simple reason that they are not like "us", whomever "us" may be.

Never Again should we allow ignorance and malice to flourish to the point where one people think they have the right to eradicate another, or to make false equivalences to measures having nothing whatsoever to do with Shoah.

About six months ago, a person who had been a friend on facebook published a photograph there of a nazi soldier harassing a small boy, one of those infamous "papers please" moments, and equated it with mask mandates.  I immediately unfriended her and have not seen her on my facebook feed since, nor do I wish to.  

And I say this now.

If there are any other "friends" out there who feel the same way, who think that public health measures designed to prevent the spread of a deadly virus are the same as sending Jews off to gas chambers, please spare me the job of finding out who you are.

Just unfriend me.

it can and is happening again

To those who choose to ignore history, I invite you to come out west and visit the great State of Wyoming.

Specifically, I invite those of you who think it can never happen "here", wherever your "here" may be, to come to an otherwise barren stretch of land between Ralston and Cody, Wyoming, just north of Highway 14.  It is a really beautiful stretch of land, with fabulous views of the McCullough Peaks to the south and Heart Mountain, an iconic symbol of the Big Horn Basin, to the north.  The views would otherwise be a fairy tale if it were not for the history of the location.

In this otherwise idyllic stretch of land, you can find the remains of Heart Mountain Relocation Center.  It is now the Heart Mountain Educational Center and is a fascinating museum and testament to the evil we are capable of inflicting upon our fellow citizens in the name of so called patriotism.  It is not too difficult to find.  The smoke stack from the camp is still there and is visible well before you get to the site from either direction on Highway 14.

This is where thousands of loyal Japanese-Americans -- I emphasize Americans, as in citizens of this country, not Japan -- were sent to after being torn from their homes, stripped of their belongings, other than what they could carry with them, and sent to what was basically a prison on the middle of a scenic nowhere, all for the "crime" of being of Japanese descent.  To make sure they could not leave, the residents of the camps were surrounded by barbed wire fences manned by armed military guards.  While they called the residents "internees", perhaps to soothe the feelings of those who forced them into this existence, make no mistake about it  -- the Japanese-Americans forced to live in this camp were prisoners sent there without representation, without a trial, without due process of any kind were nothing more than prisoners.

Think it can't happen here again?  

Think again.

When the legality of the internment camps were challenged, the case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court.  There, by a 6-3 majority, the Court ruled that systematically singling out Japanese Americans, who had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor or the Japanese war effort, due to an unfounded fear of Japanese-American espionage, was perfectly legal and perfectly constitutional.  For those who can follow legal citations, look at Korematsu v. United States, 343 US 214 (1944).  For those who may argue that it was only conservatives who signed on to this absolutely abhorrent decision, please note that one of the justices always held up as a lion of liberalism, William O. Douglass, signed on to the majority decision, as did another who is generally considered one of the great justices of the twentieth century, Felix Frankfurter.  While there is some debate as to whether or not the Court finally got around to overturning this decision via a 2018 case, Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392 (2018), it is noted that Justice Roberts, called the Korematsu decision "objectively unlawful", "outside of the scope of presidential authority" and "morally repugnant", he did not outright say the case was overturned; therefore, it can be argued that Korematsu, a case that legalized racism against Japanese people in this country, is still the law of this land.

Years later, we visited Heart Mountain before the camp was actually given a National Parks designation and before the museum opened.  Our oldest was fascinated by the site, took photos and wrote a paper on it for his eighth grade social studies class.

The paper was returned by his to remain nameless teacher with a failing grade and a note admonishing him not to make things up.

Flash forward to this past year.  Just about a year ago today, while returning from a run picking up masks to be distributed to need based organizations, I thought I would stop at a popular local bagel shop, one of the few local businesses that remained open, at least at the time.  While filling my modest order, the owner who thought he was engaging in friendly banter, told me he was planning on finding a lawyer to represent him and other small business owners.  He wanted to sue China for creating the coronavirus and sending it here to the United States, causing him and his small minded -- oops, I mean small business -- owners to lose business.  He was not kidding.  I did not volunteer that I am an attorney.

As the pandemic continued, we stopped to pick up some donated masks from a friend who lives in one of the nearby towns.  Our friend is of Asian descent.  Across the street from her, a neighbor was flying any number of American flags on his house, his lawn, on the telephone pole on the property, etc.  On the telephone pole was a sign, pointed directly at our friend's home, advising everyone in this country to speak English and to boycott all Chinese restaurants.  Our friend and her family speak perfect English, and why not?  They are Americans, born and raised here.  To our knowledge, they do not own a restaurant of any kind.  We do not know much about her neighbor across the street, other than the obvious fact that they are jerks.

Throughout this time, the then president, not only said nothing about the overt racism against Asians, specifically Chinese, thereby giving license to the jerks like the bagel shop guy and our friend's neighbor, but encouraged this ignorance by calling the virus the China Virus, or Kung Flu, as if to emphasize to the world, that he too is a royal asshole.

So emboldened by all of this, the jerks, the racists, the idiots everywhere are coming out of the woodwork.  Unprovoked attacks against Asian Americans are proliferating.  While the present president is coming out and saying all the appropriate things, the cat is out of the bag.  What simmered below the surface for years has emerged, and it is ugly.

And a significant enough number of the population thinks it is okay.

Think it can't happen again?  It already is happening.

Blacks are being attacked, often times by those charged by society with protecting us.  Nazis are on the rise.  So is antisemitism.  To my fellow Jews, if Heart Mountain can happen, so can Auschwitz.

Stay vigilant and remember, evil thrives when good people stay silent.

dr. suess, mr. potato head and distracted voters

 I had a really interesting conversation with my mother the other day.  We were talking, as we frequently do, about current events.  She was wondering why there are so many people in mostly red states, but all over, who consistently vote against their own self-interests.  It had brought to mind an instance I have talked before about a conversation with a conservative friend in the west who was railing against the passage of ObamaCare while it was being debated.  When I pointed out to my friend that her family needed something like ObamaCare as it would provide benefits to her grandchildren they otherwise would not be entitled to, her response was to tell me she would pray they would not get sick.

Anyway, Mom was musing about why people would vote for politicians who would push legislation that would deny them health care, or that would indeed prevent them from getting proper care, such as vaccines or just outright make them sick, as in refusing to impose common sense mask mandates.  In times of crisis, we both wondered why anyone would vote for a politician who would approve tax cuts for billionaires who do not need them while denying a raise in the minimum wage, that even if passed would not completely allow some people to afford basic rights such as decent housing and a meal.  We will not even get into the fact that nobody denies that ordinary people may need a lift nowadays, such as the stimulus payment that not a single republican in either the house or the senate voted for, and then decried as a "partisan bill".

Yet folks out there voted these people into office, and will undoubtedly vote them in again.  Steven King may be gone, but Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz and their ilk are still there, and will remain after the next election cycle, or be replaced by others of the same mindset.

And this happens over and over again.

Why?

Why do those who clearly do not believe that government should stand by and do virtually nothing in a crisis vote for those who will do exactly that and will not lift a finger to help anyone but themselves and their rich benefactors?

I think the answer is in the fact that if nothing else, the modern republican party has become the masters of distraction,  This hides their true intent, their intrinsic evil.  While George Floyd is being smothered to death, these are the guys who are pointing to the skies and yelling about Halley's Comet.

So you end up with an unemployed, uninsured white male in Kansas voting for somebody who will deny him any benefits or assistance, because that candidate will vote to prevent late term abortions, even though our Kansan friend and his family and friends, will never get an abortion at all, and will likely not know anyone else who will.

And you end up with a low wage fast food worker in Iowa who will vote for somebody who will deny her the right to an increase in her take home pay, because that candidate will vote against allowing Central Americans fleeing violence in their countries from entering the United States and seek asylum, even if she has never met anyone who speaks only Spanish in her entire life and will never be at risk of such a person "stealing her job".

And in more recent turns of events, you end up with people getting hysterical over Mr. Potato Head, Dr. Suess and the Dallas Mavericks decision to eschew playing the National Anthem before basketball games, instead of asking how Texas could freeze and utilities in the state charge thousands of dollars PER WEEK to provide basic heat to their citizens.

So why do voters on the right do this over and over and over again?  I have known many of them over the years, and on the surface they seem like decent and very likeable people.  I have called many of them friends.

I believe the answer lies in what has been referred to as American's Original Sin, and others refer to as "fear of the other".  In the most crass and brazen terms a politician has ever used to explain how Americans vote, Lyndon Johnson crystallized the entire mess, when he explained:

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket.  Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you".

And there you have it.

And there it is and will always be until we address this first.

And you can bet that the GOP will be out there calling the rest of us racists when we bring this up and scream instead about Colin Kapernick and the Dixie Chicks (ok, "The Chicks") instead.

our disgrace

 January 6, 2021 will go down in history as the date a president of the United States tried to stay in power by inciting an insurrection in which five people, including a law enforcement officer, were killed.

February 13, 2021 will go down in history as the date the United States Senate let him get away with it.

And make no mistake about it.  It was both sides of the aisle that let him get away with it.  Pay no attention at all to what the vote for or against conviction was.

Up until a few years ago, I would frequently act as a judge in collegiate mock trial tournaments.  One of my pet peeves was that the students would meticulously build up their arguments, and just when they got to the point where they were on the precipice of hammering it home, they would just assume everyone knew where their argument was leading and stop, figuring that the jury would know what to do with what had been handed to them.

The house managers and senate democrats did exactly that today, just as they have done so for years.

Anyone who practices law knows that the only way to convince a jury is to bludgeon them with the facts.  Subtlety, as I have told the unfortunate college student attorneys who have had me as a trial judge, does not work.  It has not worked in the past.  It is not working now.  It will not work in the future.  You must put your jury in a position in which they have no choice but to vote in your favor.

In this instance, the only way you were going to get the senate republican jurors to vote to convict would be to outrage the American public with the facts of the insurrection so badly that the republicans would fear for their jobs so much that they would have no choice but to convict him.

And that required witnesses.

Lots of them.

All of them.

I thought the house managers had finally gotten it right this morning when they moved to call Jaime Herrera Butler, the G.O.P. representative who was going to testify as to the conversation had between Kevin McCarthy and cadet bone spurs in which the cadet made it clear he did not care if the mob got to all the congressmen and the vice-president in the Capital on January 6, 2021 and did whatever to them.  Remember, a gallows and noose had been erected on the Capital grounds by the mob.  Rep. Butler literally begged for other patriotic G.O.P.ers to come forward, assuming there were any.  We now know there are a total of seventeen.  Ten in the House who voted for impeachment.  Seven in the Senate who voted to convict.

I really thought we were headed somewhere when the Senate voted to hear witnesses.  The only way to get a conviction here was to have Rep. Butler testify, followed by anyone who volunteered to testify about the events of the day, followed by Kevin McCarthy, and ultimately followed by Mike Pence.  By then, the outcry would have been such that I have little doubt that the G.O.P. would have begun believing that to save their hides, which is the only thing they really care about, they had to convict.  The only way cadet bone spurs would get out of it would be if there was no testimony.

And the democrats caved.

They agreed to a stipulation that what Rep. Butler had said the night before about the conversation between cadet bone spurs and Kevin McCarthy was true in exchange for her not being called to testify and that no other witness would be called either.  Considering that the G.O.P. simply wanted no witnesses at all, they got exactly what they wanted.  They could now vote to acquit on the grounds that there was no jurisdiction to even try cadet bone spurs even though that vote had already been taken and jurisdiction established, without addressing the merits of anyone's testimony and dealing with the potential ire of the public.

And the democrats let it happen.

So what if the republicans would have tried to call "one hundred witnesses". 

LET THEM.

I bet every one of the witnesses they wanted to call, including Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Hilary Clinton and Casey Stengel for that matter, would have been more than happy to comply, testify and pour even more fuel on the ex-president's funeral pyre.  I for one would have also been entertained by Casey Stengel testifying considering his performance before the Kefauver Committee sixty years ago.  We all know what the G.O.P. did today was a bluff.  They were not going to call a single witness, even Nancy Pelosi or Kamala Harris, because they could not afford to allow them to continue to bludgeon cadet bone spurs, which is exactly what would have happened, which would have put them all in a position in which to save their own seats they would have eventually had no choice but to vote to convict.  So they huffed, puffed and bluffed.

And the democrats fell for it.

I am beyond disgust.

They should all rot in hell.

Even the democrats.