hypocrisy in the land of the free

 Let's talk for a few moments about hypocrites and hypocrisy.  Not so much about the dictionary definition, but simply about those who say one thing, but then act in a completely different manner, thereby saying they really did not mean what they said in the first place.

The idea of hypocrisy is nothing new.  In the past twenty-four hours, however, it has been crystalized with the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  The man for whom the hypocrisy trophy has been named for and long since retired, Mitch McConnell, told us in 2016 that when an opening occurs in the Supreme Court in an election year, the American people deserve their say in who gets appointed.  In that case, Justice Scalia died nine months before election day.  Supposedly, that was insufficient time to allow for a proper nomination to be considered and voted upon in the Senate.  Now, with forty-five days until election day, there is not only sufficient time to vote in a replacement, but it is somehow the duty of the Senate to do so.

The difference?

McConnell now says that in 2016, the American people deserved the chance to have their say because the sitting president was from the opposite party of the senate majority, and that is not the case now.  Putting aside the fact that McConnell never said anything of the sort in 2016, it is worth remembering that when President Obama was sworn in, McConnell outright said his job until Obama was out of office was to ensure that nothing Obama tried to do would pass the Senate.

Nothing.

Zero.

This coming from the man who spent eight years openly and admittedly doing everything he could possibly think of against the sitting president of the United States, the first African American to hold the office to bring him down short of calling him "Boy".

And now, it is okay to hold hearings and confirm a Supreme Court Justice when the opening occurs forty-five days short of election day.  I would have said ok to this if not for the fact that four years ago if we were lectured by this guy about how nine months was to soon before the election.

Hypocrite,

In what could be even worse.  Joni Ernst, she of demon sheep fame, put out a text last night, just minutes after Justice Ginsburg's passing was announced, using her death as a fund raising tool to rally the troops to ensure that a justice would be put on the court who would reverse Roe v. Wade.  Perhaps e even worse was Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, who is running for the Senate, who sent out his condolences, not to Justice Ginsburg and her family, but to the millions of "innocent babies" allegedly murdered with the complicity of Justice Ginsburg during her term on the Court.  As of this writing, he has not apologized, taken down the post, or otherwise sent out any condolence over the death of Justice Ginsburg.  At least Sen. Ernst has tweeted out an appropriate tribute.

This is the sanctity of life crowd.

The All Lives Matter crowd.

The all lives are sacred gifts from God crowd.

The same crowd that believes that a single abortion, even to save the life of the mother, is murder.

And they are also the same crowd that has said nothing to date about the story coming out that doctors at an I.C.E. facility in Georgia have been performing nonconsensual hysterectomies upon detainees seeking asylum here before sending them back to the countries they have been fleeing from.

Not a word.

Not from Doug Collins.  It is apparently murder to abort any child, but nothing at all to perform nonconsensual and medically unnecessary hysterectomies upon women seeking asylum in the United States.  

You wouldn't think that the fact that these women do not vote or that they do not speak English has anything to do with his and his crowd's silence has anything to do with this, do you?  Apparently, all lives are sacred except for the ones you do not care about.

Hypocrites.

Yes, all lives matter.

Unless you are black and demanding rights all whites get without a second thought.

Unless you are protesting police killing black people.  After all, how great is it that some white teenage kid can carry an AR-15 across state lines all by himself, into a state where his mere possession of it is illegal, and then shoot and kill protesters on the street.  And how great is it that a bunch of openly armed white guys in MAGA hats can storm the state capitol in Michigan, openly threatening legislators and forcing the cancellation of session, the very definition of sedition, while unarmed black protestors are thugs, murderers and terrorists.  It is noted that William Barr believes the black protestors are guilty of sedition for peacefully exercising their first amendment rights, while those white guys with AR-15s are heroes.  It is noted that in Washington, unarmed protestors were tear gassed to allow cadet bone spurs to pose with a Bible before a church he does not attend, while yesterday, the police in Michigan simply asked the armed white guys to step back a few feet.

Hypocrites.  The entire lot of them.

This is what we are facing.  A crowd of mostly white guys, who will say and do just about anything to hold onto their power and to suppress any contrary belief.  It has yet to reach the point where they will have their minions out on the street actually shooting us en masse, as opposed to one or two at a time, but it looks like it is getting there.  There have been a number of those far right types who have outright said they will be out on the streets killing us if they do not get the result they want on election day.  And from those All Lives Matter folks?

Nothing.

No statements pleading for sanity and peace.

Nothing.

So...

VOTE. VOTE. VOTE.

Send the hypocrites home.

Fight on.

Thank you Mr. President

One of the lasting moments from the Watergate investigation was when Howard Baker asked "What did the President know, and when did he know it?"  Howard Baker was a republican senator from Tennessee.

We now know what cadet bone spurs knew about the nature of the virus and when he knew it.  We also know that he deliberately downplayed the virus for months, allegedly to avoid a panic.

Ok.  He did not want a panic over the virus.

Apparently, he did not want a panic over the lack of testing, the lack of PPP, the lack of a coordinated, let alone a coherent plan of dealing with the virus, creating a vaccine and respect for science and the scientific process either.

So right now: 

1.  I am not panicking over the fact that we are closing in on two hundred thousand dead people and counting, perhaps because I am not one of them, most of them are old or disadvantaged minorities, of whom I am not one.

2.  I am not panicking over the fact that during this summer, when violence is allegedly increasing exponentially on his watch, fanned by his exhorting his supporters to defend their second amendment rights as a way of dealing with the virus, perhaps because I have not been shot -- although there was what appears to be an unrelated shooting that occurred a couple of blocks away about a month ago.

3.  I am not panicking over the fact that I have not worked since March and have no clue present clue if I will ever work again, perhaps because I have been much more fortunate than most and have investments to fall back on -- not to mention state unemployment benefits, if not federal assistance, the lack of which I am sure is what is getting those poor multinational corporations over the top in their time of need.

4.    I am not panicking over sending my children to schools that have been ordered to open without a national coordinated or coherent plan to safeguard the children and the teachers, perhaps because I no longer have school age children and my wife, a lifelong public school teacher is happily retired.

5.  I am not panicking over the fact that while there is still food on the shelves in the stores, there appears to be just a little bit less just about every time I go shopping, perhaps because my wife and I had a nice dinner last night.

No, I am not panicking.

Not a bit.

Thank you Mr. President.

Thank you for keeping us all in the dark, while you knew first what was about to happen and then what was happening while it was happening, but did nothing to stop it other than slapping a travel ban on Chinese citizens.

Thank you for ignoring the fact that the virus was coming into this country from places other than China.

Thank you for letting us know you were blaming China for the entire thing, even after the virus sneaked into this country and you did nothing.

Thank for for not panicking us when the virus did sneak into the country in spite of the fact that you knew it was coming and did nothing to stop it.

Thank you for putting forth that very brave and well made up face every day and setting the example for the rest of us by not wearing a mask, so that your very expensive make up job would not be smeared.  I feel much better knowing you looked better, even if the rest of us were getting sick and dying.

Thank you for making sure the rest of your gang did not let us in on your little secret, lest we all panic.

As for this last one, I am eternally grateful for your sycophants, who can keep a secret, apparently with the best of them.  So....

Thank you to the Vice-President, the head of your coronavirus task force, who has told us over and over again what a great job you are doing, and how you are the best thing to ever happen to the universe.  

Thank you for replacing anyone on the task force who was even temporarily willing to tell the truth with somebody who was only willing to praise you, and had no experience or qualifications to deal with epidemiology.  I for one am happy to hear daily from a radiologist, instead of an epidemiologist or infectious disease specialist.  Facts make me panic.

Thank you to those who know, who know what you knew and when you knew it, but said nothing.  I am particularly grateful to the director of national intelligence, Robert O'Brien, who told you in January what was coming, but never told the rest of us.  It allowed my wife and I to go on a couple of vacations in January and February without panicking.

Thank you for all you red state governors who kept us from panicking by opening up restaurants, bars, gyms, schools, hiding all that panicky public health data, and generally reminding us every day that the guy in the oval office is the greatest human ever born.

I am particularly thankful to Mitch McConnell for not saying anything, and then leaving town without addressing any relief package for the rest of us, thereby sparing me of the job of figuring out how to spend my disaster relief and unemployment checks, thereby ensuring that I do not panic when it comes time to paying my bills.

There are so many more to thank, but not enough space in the universe to do so, so thank you to all cadet bone spurs supporters for letting us know how panicky we would be if only we had something rational in the oval office.

So thank you to everyone for keeping my mind free and clear of anything I cannot handle.

And oh...

Once cadet bone spurs is out of office, whenever that may be, please don't come forward at that time, especially if you hold public office now, to tell me you knew and tried to stop him, because then, if you wanted to spend the rest of your career in your cushy little entitled position, it will be your turn to panic when you see the reaction of the rest of us.

black lives matter. no qualifier necessary.

I am a middle aged white male.  I have never had to look over my back whenever I have walked outside, even in a neighborhood I did not live in.  I have never been particularly concerned for my safety when pulled over for an occasional traffic violation.  I have never been frisked.  I have never been asked what I am doing anywhere I have ever walked.  I have never had to lecture my sons about how to act to the police if they get stopped, other than to tell them to be polite to everybody.

So I do not know what it is like to be the subject of ingrained institutional generational racism and bias against me or "my kind".

But I do know one thing:

Black Lives Matter.

You see?  That was easy.  All I had to do was put three words together.

Black.....  Lives...... Matter.

I didn't have to add or subtract anything from it.  I did not have to add a qualifier.  There is nobody out there who can be hurt by my writing or uttering the phrase.  It simply states the obvious.  Nothing else.

Black Lives Matter.

If you cannot say it without adding "Blue Lives Matter" or "All Lives Matter", then quite frankly, black lives do not matter to you.

Because if black lives really did matter to you, you would not have to add anything to it.  We all know that blue lives matter.  We all know that all lives matter.  Nobody seems to have any difficulty saying either without adding anything to it, especially "All Lives Matter", which is a just any overly simplistic way of saying "Can't we all get along?", and avoiding the real issue in the first place.

So just say it.

Black Lives Matter.

Pause for a moment.  And then do not add anything to it.  Do not tell me about any other kind of life that matters.  Do not explain anything.  It does not need an explanation.

And certainly do not tell me that George Floyd was no angel, as if he deserved what happened to him.

At that moment, whether or not George Floyd had done something terrible to anyone else any time in his life before having his breath squeezed out of him by Derrick Chauvin's knee while his three partners looked on and did nothing has no meaning at all, unless black lives do not matter to you, nor should it.  I would highly doubt that while he sucked the life out of George Floyd, Derrick Chauvin was thinking of Mr. Floyd's "victims", whomever they were.  He certainly was not thinking "all lives matter".  As you watched the video for the first, second or third times, I would doubt you were thinking of George Floyd's supposed victims or that all lives matter either.  All you were thinking was how horrible that was, and possibly that black lives do indeed matter.  If you were not thinking, at the very least, that we witnessed barbarity at that moment, then I do not think I, nor anyone else, will ever be able to help you.  If you thought well, all lives matter, not just this life, then black lives probably do not matter to you.

So we march.  We paint signs.  We dance around the streets.  We yell slogans.

And then what?

If we go home satisfied that we have done our part and then do nothing else, then black lives do not matter to us either.

So vote.

So agitate.

If you see something that says black lives do not matter, point it out.

Do not stop.  Force the change.  Force those in charge to face the fact that black lives do matter, even if they have never owned up to the obvious in the past.

Do not shoot a jogger in your lily white neighborhood.  Come to his aid if he is being harassed by a know nothing.

Intervene if a black man is being crushed under a knee.

Do not let them push over a black woman who is doing nothing but exercising a constitutional right to speak out against institutional violence perpetrated for generations against her and her family.  Or sleeping in her own home for that matter.

Use that cellphone camera for all it is worth.

Press charges.

Make them stick.

Vote those out to whom black lives do not matter.

Do not buy or do business with those who do not believe black lives matter.

Vote.

Vote.

Vote.

Make them know, even if they do not want to hear it.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

you can't talk to a maga -- exhibits b and c

A couple of months ago, I talked about a person I had known since high school who unfriended me over a very brief Facebook discussion about cadet bone spurs.  I called it exhibit a as to why you cannot talk to a maga.  Today, I present exhibits b and c.

Exhibit B

I have known this person for about twenty years.  He is a colleague in the legal profession.  He is an ex-marine.  I have known for years he is a conservative; however, we have always been reasonably friendly and our conversations always respectful to each other, and something I rather enjoyed.

Until this past Monday night.

The fun and games started when cadet bone spurs addressed the nation prior to making his way out to St. John's Church for his photo op with the Bible.  In his brief remarks before heading out into the wilds of Lafayette Park, cadet bone spurs noted he was out there protecting our second amendment rights, as if that had anything to do with the ongoing protests.  I said exactly that in a facebook post, wondering why he would mention the second amendment at that moment.  I did not say how ridiculous it was to encourage anyone to bring weapons to public protests that were already tension filled.

My now ex-friend responded heatedly that anyone would have the right to bring their weapons to protect themselves against the marauding mob of looters out there who were setting fires, throwing bricks, etc.  I responded simply that I disagreed with him and could not disagree more.  I did not explicitly say that I was referring to weaponry in a tension filled public protest; only that I could not disagree more with what he said.  I was not advocating looting, arson, etc.

His response was to invite me out into the street with the hoodlums, where he sort of hoped I would be bashed in the back of the head by a hammer wielding thug, that I had obviously not paid any attention to anything taught to me in law school and good luck with whatever is left of the rest of my life.  He not only unfriended me, but blocked me from any attempt to tell him he had completely misinterpreted anything I had said in my post.

A number of people thereafter told me I was not missing out on anything having been unfriended by him.

Exhibit C

This one involves a friend of mine.  I will only use her first name --Karen.

Karen posted on Facebook after cadet bone spurs made his heroic pilgrimage across the mountains and deserts of Washington, across the street to St. John's Church, waved his Bible and posed for photos with a bunch of folks from the office, who all looked like they may have preferred to have been sunbathing on Mars.  Her post showed a photo of his highness, holding the Bible in front of the church, with the caption, "He tear gassed Americans to get a photo in front of a church he doesn't go to holding a book he never reads".

The response?

Several defended the indefensible.  Many claimed everything said was a lie.  My favorite was this guy -- no names this time -- who questioned if there was really tear gas used, if the crowd was peaceful, as opposed to his claim of being unruly and violent, that we really did not know if he does not belong to the church and that he does not read the Bible.  It was pointed out to this MAGA that the teargassing was on several videos shot by several different news organizations, clearly showing tear gas being shot at a peaceful group of protesters.  Some pointed out that the pastor and the bishop of the church both said that cadet bone spurs is not a congregant there, and hardly ever shows up at all.  No priest, pastor, reverend, bishop, cardinal, pope, rabbi, or holy man of any kind has come forward to say he is a member at their house of worship.  It is conceded that we do not have personal knowledge as to whether or not he has ever cracked open the Bible, read a single passage of if, or did anything with the Bible other than autograph it next to a reference to God.

The next response?

Our MAGA worshiping hero told Karen that this is why he does not read newspapers or watch the news, but that he knows in his heart that none of this can be true...

As we say in court, no further explanation is necessary.  I rest my case.

In Answer to Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan used to tell us when we considering whom to vote for to ask if we were better off today than we were four years ago.

Minneapolis.

We have become the laughingstock of the world.  They would be laughing out loud and slapping their knees trying to get their breath if it was not for the fact that this buffoon has caused misery all over the world.  All the while, constantly blaming somebody else for his own ignorance, his own bigotry, his own cruelty.

Louisville.

On January 20, 2016, the unemployment rate in this country was 4.1%.  As of today, most economists agree that the true unemployment rate is greater than the officially announced rate of 14.7%.  Yet all he talks about is how great things were, if only for that damned virus, which he blames on a laboratory in China.

Atlanta

We have put children in cages, apparently because their parents came to this country looking for a better life for their families, but did not sound like the rest of us.  You know, just ike his grandparents at the end of the last century.

Denver

We have systematically withdrawn our authority as the leading voice of just about everything around the world.  We are no longer a part of the Paris Climate Change Accords, as the pace of climate change accelerates to the breaking point.  As the pandemic surges around us, he has withdrawn from the World Health Organization.  Never mind that this hamstrings the medical and public health world at perhaps the most critical time in its history.  He has also guaranteed that if a vaccine is found, but is found outside the United States, we will not be in line to receive it.

Charlottesville

In not condemning white terrorism for what it is, he has set free and given the imprimatur to all would be white nationalists, the KKK, Nazis and other second amendment terror types to prey upon the rest of us with impunity.

Philadelphia

Russians interfered with our election in 2016.  He stonewalled every investigation.  He has all but shut down the possibility of election security, threatening to veto any such provisions in any legislation given to him to sign.  Why would you want to veto legislation designed to ensure the integrity of our elections?

New York

At a time when the nation needs somebody to lead by example, he refuses to wear a mask in public and outright says Wall Street is more important than the lives of the people he serves.  So no masks for him.  Not even encouragement for others to wear them.  No social distancing.  No testing.  No tracing.  More than one hundred thousand dead and counting is a badge of honor.

Miami

Our cities are on fire.  We need soothing words, soaring words from our leaders to assure us that we will be okay.  That people of color are not going to shot when they go jogging in their neighborhood, shot by the police when they are asleep in their own homes, or snuffed out by an animal with a badge who grinds his knee into a handcuffed black man until he dies, while his partners stand around doing absolutely nothing even after the black man has stopped breathing.  Instead of words of healing, this imbecile offers images of the Jim Crow era, of lynchings, of dogs set upon people simply for protesting their rights.  He then tries to silence dissent when a single social network finally has enough of he lies and the dog whistles.  As staggering as it seems , all of this happened simply in the last week.

Chicago

So are we better off than we were four years ago?  On a personal note, I have not been able to work in the  profession I trained for and made a good living in for nearly forty years since March 16.  Although I had given up my private practice a year or so ago, it was nice having a stream of income coming in.  That ended when they closed the courthouses around here.  Since then, I have not been able to socialize in person with any friends.  No visits with families.  I cannot hug or kiss my ninety year old mother.  

Columbus

In the meantime bread lines form across the country.  People wait in their cars for hours for basic staples.

Minneapolis

Louisville

Atlanta

Denver 

Charlottesville

Philadelphia

New York

Miami

Chicago 

Columbus

Seattle

Los Angeles

Any Town, USA...

Although I am infinitely better off than many, if not most, yesterday, I received my first installment of unemployment insurance from the government.  Aside from this, I do not know what other income I personally will have for the foreseeable future.  Am I better off than I was four years ago?.

You tell me.

you can't talk to a maga -- exhibit a

A few nights ago, I was unfriended on facebook by a person I have known since high school.  This was a person I had accepted a friend request from almost as soon as I signed up on facebook back in the stone ages.  You know, like about twelve years ago.  I am not all that upset that I was unfriended.  Frankly, I barely knew this person in high school, and as I think about it now, if you showed me her picture from our yearbook without her name tagged to it, I don't think I could have picked her out.

For reasons you will easily figure out, I will refer to this now ex-friend as "Maga-ette".  While Maga-ette was mostly quiet for a long time on facebook, only posting pictures of wineries she visited every now and then and of her grandchildren, once Cadet Bone Spurs got elected, it started.  Nothing he could do was wrong.  All the problems of the world were caused by "libtards".  I debated unfriending her myself, but never got around to it.  Then came the events of this week.

It started a few nights earlier, when Mitch McConnell announced that the reason the coronavirus was allowed to spread through the United States as it has is that the president was distracted from the looming disaster by the "impeachment hoax".  From there, the inevitable happened.  A few right wing pundits backed this statement, none of them showing a bit of proof for the claim that the president was distracted by proceedings in the house that ended in December and in the Senate that was over in the first days of February all the way through the middle of March.  Then Maga-ette posted McConnell's statement word for word in boldfaced font on her newsfeed for all to see.

I pointed out to Maga-ette that the impeachment proceedings had long since ended before the president even considered taking the coronavirus threat seriously at all, and in any event, if any politician suffers from such a severe case of attention deficit disorder, perhaps they should not be serving in public office at all.  Another friend on my side of the political spectrum added that Cadet Bone Spurs did not seem all that distracted during that time so as to prevent him from running around the country giving campaign speeches and playing golf at his clubs.  Maga-ette professed not to know what either of us were talking about.  I then explained that he did not seem distracted from making nominations to judicial and government posts.  He did not seem distracted from working on deregulation of any number of industries.  He did not seem distracted from making speeches or golfing. Why was he distracted from attending to perhaps the single most looming existential threat in history, but nothing else?

Maga-ette responded that in times like this, we should all be working together, which is true.  That would have been good enough if it ended there.  Instead, she added that it is clear that I do not want to work together for the greater good at this time.

I note that Maga-ette lives about three thousand miles away from me, and to the best of my knowledge has no clue of what I do now or what I did before I semi-retired.  So I decided to educate her, at least as to the last two weeks.

During the last two weeks, my wife and I have formed a facebook group called "Stitched Together Long Island".  The purpose of the group is to mobilize the home sewing community and get them to make masks for health care professionals on the front line fighting the coronavirus pandemic.  We are in just two weeks at just under one thousand, five hundred members.  In that time, together with a sister group in California, we have distributed just about fifteen thousand masks throughout our community.  Now that the CDC is calling for all to wear facemasks outside of the home, our people are shifting slightly and making masks for their friends and neighbors, while still cranking them out for the first responders and the medical community.  All the while, we do not ask about political affiliations.  In fact, there is a rule in the group that there is no political discussion allowed.  We provide for everyone, regardless of political belief.  I also pointed out to Maga-ette that we do all of this for free and do not accept monetary donations.

I concluded by saying that I thought I was doing my part, and asking what she was doing.  Her reaction?

Maga-ette instantly had two one sentence responses, which sort of told me she had not really read what I had written.  The first told me to stand up, pat myself on the back and give myself an "ada boy" (her spelling, not mine).  The second was to tell me I was an "arrogant dem".

Frankly, I am quite proud of what my wife and I have done in the past two weeks.  The response from Maga-ette was so asinine I went immediately to my friends page to unfriend her, only to find out she had beat me to it.

And that, in a nutshell shows you how difficult it is to talk to somebody who has made up their minds that they are not going to listen, no matter what you say.  In other words, she might as well be the president himself.

let's play softball -- questions...

It was a softball question.  As softball questions go, it doesn't get more softball than this.

NBC's Peter Alexander gave Cadet Bone Spurs the opening all political leaders crave.  He asked him, "What do you say to Americans watching you right now who are scared?".

This was his Fireside Chat moment, his "Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself" moment, his "Shining City on the Hill" moment.  It was his opportunity to bring all Americans together, to rally around the flag and we are all Americans moment.  It was the opportunity to shine and let all Americans rally around the effort to beat back the coronavirus.  It was the chance to be proud for a moment.

Instead...

What does he say to Americans watching right now who are scared?

"I say you are a terrible reporter.  I think it's a very nasty question, and I think that's a very bad signal that you're putting out to the American people.  The American people are looking for answers and they're looking for hope.  And you're doing sensationalism, and the same with NBC and Comcast.  I don't call it Comcast, I call it Concast, for whom you work.  Let me just tell you something.  That's really bad reporting, and you ought to get back to reporting instead of sensationalism.  Let's see if it works  It might and it might not.  I happen to feel good about it, but who knows?  I've been right a lot.  Let's see what happens".

And then while a reporter was asking him the next question, he told Mr. Alexander "You ought to be ashamed of yourself", signalling, if nothing else, that he was not paying attention to the question being posed to him even though he had called on the reporter to ask it.

He was given the chance to shine and took it to make gratuitous insults and say a softball question is nasty.  We can only imagine how he would answer hard questions.  On the other hand, we have already seen how he does with those.

Don't believe me?  Watch the clip.  And watch the fact that nobody in the background bats an eye when he comes up with this drivel.

Leader of the free world, my ass.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2020/03/20/trump-responds-to-question-about-coronavirus-fears-by-bashing-the-media/23956487/