Is Biden Making The Same Mistake Obama Made?

  

                         Because progressives in Congress are typically far less vindictive and calculating than their conservative counter parts, progressives typically discover the error of their ways long after the error. On that note, I think it’s important for Democrats to take a moment- a moment much like the vindictive Republicans in the Senate right now, who are stalling and delaying the coronavirus relief bill.....just because, well, they can- and talk about what they might be overlooking with this "go it alone" stimulus bill they are soon to sign into law.

                 Similar to the days of ObamaCare, before, during and after the negotiations died, Democrats are still struggling and striving for bipartisanship that was simply never going to happen in the first place. Our collective efforts as a nation to recover from this pandemic will need to cover all 50 states and territories and be all encompassing even though Republicans seem to believe it can and should be highly targeted and somewhat limited. 

Or do they? 

            Why Mitch McConnell and his party have, once again, taken the posture of block everything Democrat, no matter who gets hurt, is a question only he and they can answer. 

 ONCE AGAIN  

         As it was with Obama, the challenge of knowing whether Republicans are interested in governing or obstructing is, once again, something only they can answer. Because, once again, the signs all say obstruction of any Democrat agenda, even ones both parties have in common, is in fact the GOP agenda. If limiting the president's accomplishments is, once again the name of the game, it’s time for Democrats to place all options on the table, including the filibuster. It's also time to put pressure on their own obstructers- Senators Joe Manchin (WV), and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ)- to get them to stop helping McConnell and the GOP, and start doing what’s right for U.S. by not publicly negotiating against your own party, once again. 

        Like they did with ObamaCare, some Democrats are blocking their own party's agenda by pursuing the bare minimum they can pass despite already failing in the bipartisanship efforts that warranted bare minimum thinking to begin with.  If Republicans' insist on making Democrats go it alone, and are not putting forth the time it takes to draft a reasonable alternative, doing anything less than everything WE the People need seems silly to me.

        Because I don't want to leave anyone lost over this very important subject, let me say this another way. If you are negotiating with a good faith partner, you both simply ask for what you want, and nothing more. However, if you have no faith in who you are negotiating with, you double, maybe even triple what you ask for so that, despite the give and take process of negotiating, you are still likely to arrive somewhere close to what you actually wanted originally. 

        Truth be told, some of you would negotiate with your own parents in that same manner, and personally, I'm not mad at you for it. But I digress.

        In this situation, are Republicans actually saying they are not pushing a better alternative, so they want no credit or blame for whatever happens to their own constituents in this time of need? If Republicans are truly willing to do nothing but wait the generally accepted timeline of two years for jobs to recover to pre-pandemic levels while trusting tenants and landlords in their voting district will figure it out but not hold any of them accountable, there is no way in hell I would get in their way. 

        Additionally, there is also no way I would continue to think so small or in such a conciliatory manner on a "go it alone" piece of legislation. After all, 1.9 trillion is almost the exact number Republicans gave to rich people and corporations with their "go it alone" tax cut in the height of an economic boom no less. Taking the risk of this bill not being enough and having to try and do it all over again could prove to be the same political mistake Obama made with the Affordable Care Act, more affectionately known as ObamaCare. In that scenario, strategically withheld support from Republicans and the insurance industry itself kept Obama from making healthcare more affordable even if he was able to make it much more accessible to millions.

        Although Obama was able to win a second term despite the foolishness of using the GOP plan exclusively without getting any GOP votes to pass it, it's worth considering if he might have done the same thing if he had a do-over? Or, maybe he would have opted to call his plan the Accessible Care Act instead of the Affordable Care Act knowing what he knows about the strategic attacks against the laws affordability and its' name? 

        If Obama would have thought in advance to focus the name of his healthcare plan on the only achievable goal he had an actual chance to pull off by himself, accessibility, we might still be calling it the ACA instead of ObamaCare, the name Republicans forced on us all when they were convinced they could demonize the name to help kill the law. 

        The accessibility of a cheaper, single-payer option (aka., Medicaid) along with the strict enforcement of payments that limits the value of certain procedures, will eventually drive down prices creating affordability over time. Relative to medical costs, this had been the case for years until recent years when the healthcare costs started to rise again. The increase in use of things such as requiring referrals before covering payments, Duo billing, double billing and even fraudulent billing all seem to me like the healthcare industry's somewhat recent responses to previous years in which we witnessed medical costs in the United States actually going down. 

       Like a batter that swings but misses, even if Biden doesn't intend to run for reelection, he'll be handing the embarrassment over to his VP in waiting or his party nominee if he signs a go it alone bill into law but it fails to do enough soon enough. Desperation has many U.S. citizens sounding like starving college kids, saying, 'send whatever you can, quickly', but prudence should be saying to Biden and the Democrats, do what's right the first time because doing too little, too late was already tried by Trump and it barely helped the people who needed it the most.

               What only a few Senators are mentioning thus far is, under our current scenario; a one-time check of $1400 or $2000 that takes too god-damn long to arrive, will be gobbled up in late fees alone. The only segment of America that these late arriving stimulus checks could possibly benefit is the segment of America not teetering to close to the edge the late-fee abyss that every poor person knows about oh too well. For way too many struggling Americans, two or even three insufficient and delayed stimulus checks are not at all what the doctor ordered for our current health and economic crisis, which essentially are one and the same.

            Unless this is an effort to make ourselves believe people living paycheck to paycheck never existed, I’m confused about what we hope to achieve with a $1400-2,000 check that arrives too late? Maybe this opinion seems like an opportune moment to promote former presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s philosophy of Universal Basic Income, because I am 100% Yang Gang, but I genuinely think it’s time to focus our  attention on where it matters most. Increasing access to food stamps as well as revving the engine that produces food in America is a step Biden can and did already kick into action. The other thing that matters most, keeping people in their homes so they have a place to cook and eat their food, takes a little more thinking.

            In a way, it’s clear to see we knew keeping people housed during a pandemic mattered quite a bit because, immediately, city states and the federal government invoked eviction moratoriums to save people from the inevitable impact of this pandemic. For a moment, it seemed everyone understood what was at stake and was ready to respond to America’s paycheck to paycheck reality. Now, it’s as if we believe every one of those pay check to pay check people took the past year of pandemic shutdown to dig out of their old debt scenarios and get their finances totally in order.

         Without question, millions of Americans have increased their personal savings during the pandemic, many whether they wanted to or not. The challenge of not being able to go to movies or eat food at someone else's dinner table as readily as we used to has proven to be a financial benefit most never expected or had the discipline to try out. As a result, the notion that everyone is suffering the same is totally wrong. In reality, targeting does have merit, but it's difficult in the middle of a crisis to do it, and, as we learned from this pandemic, if even one percent of 330 million people get missed by the targeting approach, it means a lot of people will suffer who probably didn't have to.

        Many are doing well right now, but for million of others, the pandemic has forced them to survive off of unemployment level wages (which vary state to state) subsidized by stimulus checks mostly talked about and not actually received. In our effort to focus on economic stimulus and bailouts for so many, how is it we are invoking moratoriums while excluding support for landlords, the people most negatively impacted by that word?

        Aside from ignoring America’s paycheck to paycheck reality, WE are also behaving as if most landlords are Donald Trump and his late father, which is far from the truth. The truth is, most landlords are regular people who came into a small amount of money and took a chance on themselves via real estate so they wouldn’t have to work  for people like Donald Trump and his father for the rest of their lives. 

        While a handful of landlords are regretting the decision to get into the business right about now, all of them need to be considered as a significant focus of how we deal with the worst of this pandemic. Said another way, if we are not focusing on landlords we are ignoring them and the desperate constituents the moratorium is forcing them to house. a half of million dead people and counting is a tragedy. Millions upon millions of evictions without a plan to mitigate it from happening will be a travesty.

          I envision the time- similar to the moment when Democrats looked back on Obama care and wish they’d pushed for the single-payer option sooner, not later- when Democrats will wish they’d gone even bigger than 1.9 trillion to fix this mess as well. Although they have mentioned this bill as step one in a multi-step process, step one resulted in 11 hours of bipartisan Senate aids reading 600 pages of a bill way too many people needed yesterday, not tomorrow. If they don't see a clear enough sign of what to expect from the GOP in steps two, three and four, Democrats will have already failed during step one.

         Because courthouses are finally opening all across the land, there is a day soon to arrive in which, by legal necessity, the word moratorium will be laughed out of the courthouse. Unless Congress moves to save landlords in particular by paying them the back-dated rent and late fees that so many of US can't right now, there may not be any way to target support to save the beneficiaries or the victims of the moratoriums.

         The best case scenario for everyone involved is the House rejects the Senate changes, (especially the change that lowers the eligibility threshold to $80k per year income) and all of the Democrats decide to go big or go home realizing they look dumb has hell right now continuing to reach across the isle to make this bill fair when no one is standing on the other side to shake their hand.

        No, I'm not over here closing my eyes and holding my breath hoping Democrats suddenly wake up and realize they are negotiating all alone.  This particular motionless, lying down, eyes closed thing I'm doing right now is apparently called dreaming.

  https://soundcloud.com/silkeee1/recording-45

Trump, Biden Have Similarities. Caged Kids Isn't One

     

                              Be it an immigration update or an economic forecast, the intelligence briefings and reports of the general state of the nation an incoming and outgoing president receives are not different, especially during the period of transition.  The primary difference is what they choose to do with the information. The state of the union is laid to bare during a transition as an incoming president can only dribble balls that are already inflated and bouncing when they arrive. Biden got into the race to become president because he was convinced WE needed dramatically new direction in leadership from the White House, and he could provide it. For the most part, he was right, however, there are ways he isn't different from his predecessor.

                            While I don’t want to upset anyone with unfair comparisons between our new president and the past one, I do think it’s important to note, 5 weeks in, where there are some similarities as well as similarities we've heard about that aren’t necessarily true. First and foremost, thank God Biden doesn't govern by tweet, but that's just scratching the surface.

Is President Biden Caging Kids, Just Like Trump Did?

                              Despite the genuine challenge immigration poses, let’s fully debunk the notion that Joe Biden is separating families in the same manner that Donald Trump was. The distorted hypocrisy of Trumpians lying about Joe Biden doing the very thing they celebrated Donald Trump for is typical, laughable and reminiscent of that insurrection they openly planned, conducted and applauded before they decided it was probably smarter to blame it on ANTIFA.

                             To be clear, if Biden has reopened any of Trump's caged-kid facilities, and he has, it is only to deal with the volume of migrants at the border and to find a way to humanely bring them inside from the elements while keeping them together as a family. Had Trump shown the decency to, at the very least, keep families together, none of the controversy over caged kids would’ve ever began. Of course, now we understand that the cruelty and the transformation of the U.S. image as a global humanitarian was not mismanagement. It was the actual goal. Whether they succeeded or not is a question for time and the history books.

                   Under Biden, Trump or whoever is president, migrant families, walking thousands of miles towards the U.S. border and their hope for freedom, turn themselves over to authority willingly, and have never cared about the nature of the facility they eat sleep and get water from in the initial stages of the asylum process provided they remained with the same children they brought with them during the death defying journey. Because Trump chose the cruel path of separating families in this very moment of their lives, Pres. Biden's administration is currently attempting to reuinte hundreds of missing kids with parents, and has promised to allow those families who were separated, to reunite in the United States as a form of retribution for what they’ve endured.                     

Doesn't Golden Calf Trump have
on the Apollo Creed shorts?

                          No matter what OAN and NewsMax tell you, the immigration policy of these two presidents are not the same at all. What is similar between the current president and the former president involves this farce of a political conference that Trump headlined this past weekend. After days of deifying his name and his memory in preparation for the keynote speech of their golden calf, Trump himself finally spoke to the crowd- who would’ve been just as happy if they had called it TPAC and cut the charade- but only talked about old grievances, never offering any guidance to the party nor a commitment of a future presidential candidacy.

           Straw polling from the event determined Trump the clear-cut winner of the conference, but he only achieved 55% of the vote splitting the other 45% of the vote with a sparse crowd of names, none impressive enough to warrant a mention. Of significant note are the two most likely challengers to the Trumpian wing of the Republican throne, Niki Haley (SC), and former VP Mike Pence (IN), because neither were in attendance.

        How does this anti-climactic loser worshipping conference overlap with Biden? To date, Biden himself has not declared as a 2024 candidate either, seemingly suggesting in the early days of his campaign that he’d be willing and interested in handing the reigns of his presidency over to someone else after one term. 

Is President Biden still serious about one term or was that just a ploy to gain progressives support?

            Biden hasn’t spoken of it again since making his VP selection, and Kamala Harris could be the protégé Biden hopes to groom between now and the 2024 election, however, is she enough to offer U.S.? If the Democrats hope to go into 2024 with a bench to choose from, shouldn't Democrats consider identifying their "who's next" just like Republicans tried to do this weekend? Can the conversation begin in earnest before Biden public says what he plans to do one way or the other? If Kamala Harris is being set up for a Hillary Clinton style coronation as our next president, don't be shocked if the 2024 presidential election results end similarly to 2016 for Democrats as well. Niki Haley would love to be our nations first female president instead of Kamala Harris. Trust me on this!

A LOT OF PEOPLE WANT THE SAME THING TO HAPPEN WITH SCHOOLS!

            This other area of similarity between the current and former president isn’t necessarily an easy pill to swallow given the heated politics related to the subject, however, Biden and Trump wanted the exact same thing to happen with our schools and probably for the same reasons. No, I don’t really think Donald Trump gives a damn about kids or education, but I also don’t believe Joe Biden’s motivation for opening schools is entirely altruistic either.

                I’m not saying Biden doesn’t care about kids and teachers. His wife is a lifelong educator, and her feelings on most subjects influence her husband immensely. What I am saying is, a significant segment of the U.S. economy is tied to the food service programs of public schools and universities across this land. Consequently, losing the regular flow of so much food across this country has been as crippling to our economy as any one thing could be. 

               Without question, there can be no return to normal without returning our schools to normal. Biden knows it, and so did Trump. Without question, the politics on reopening schools even has the teachers union torn between themselves over what is the right thing to do- open the schools or keep remote learning until the virus passes a bit more? And, without question, lots of kids are suffering as a result of this. Yes, some kids more than others, but all are suffering one way or another from schools being anything other than open for business just like they used to be. 

        Yet, without question, Biden is pushing to open the schools nearly as hard as he's pushing the vaccine because the health of the nation is tied to the vaccine just as the health of our overall economy is tied to fully functioning schools and universities serving tons of food each week. 

            

                Love it or hate it- for our current president, Sleepy Joe, or the former president and leader of the insurrection- much of this school opening conversation is strictly about the economy, not the kids. If that similarity between Biden and Trump is tough to swallow, my apologies, but it is what it is.

#whatdoyouthink

 Recording (44) by SquareBizRadio | Square Biz Radio | Free Listening on SoundCloud

 

 

                               

WE're Only Talking About Ted Cruz And Gov. Cuomo Because WE Miss President "What's His Name"

 

https://soundcloud.com/silkeee1/recording-34

Why is this Ted Cruz story even a story?

Before I defend my view on this, I understand that Mr. Cruz has an obligation as a leader of his state to try and do whatever he can to aid those he represents whenever he can. However, what exactly can Ted Cruz do other than pretend to be doing something while freezing his ass off along with everyone else?

Yes, I also understand that Ted Cruz decided to call his decision a mistake before I could finish this article, but do you think he thought it was a mistake when he was calling for security detail to safely guide him and his group to the airport? Of course not! This became a mistake for two reasons. The first and most significant is TMZ and the gotcha' culture it proliferates, and I will leave that at that. 

The second and very significant reason as well, is the absence of #45 to go golfing right now and make Cruz' trip to Cancun seem less of a mistake. On a broader scale, the loss of the president who refuses to concede he lost the presidency has caused another problem that I’ll get into after I finish talking about our trip over Ted Cruz first.

Why Are WE Trippin' On The Ted Cruz Trip?

Let’s assume Ted Cruz decided to jump on the telephones and call citizens around Texas from El Paso, a working electrical zone not connected to the Texas grid problem, just as Beto’ O’Rourke did. Wouldn’t it be necessary for Ted Cruz to NOT ONLY get on the phone and call citizens of Texas like Beto’ O’Rourke did, but he would have to film it, Tweet it, or announce on television news that he’s calling citizens of Texas, just like Beto’ O’Rourke did, in order for any of us to know he did it?

In fact, why do we even know Beto’ O’Rourke called citizens of Texas to check on them? It’s because we found out Ted Cruz took a trip to Cancun and we needed to compare and contrast just to embarrass him! 

Or am I missing something?!

 Every opinion I share is for the sake of debate, which is to say, I recognize there are legitimately differing views on this topic. Therefore, in the spirit of everything debate worthy, I acknowledge my view on this could be clouded by something I'm missing other than a lot of people wanting an A-hole like Cruz to remain frozen just like everyone else while figuring things out, instead of doing the same damn thing from a place a lot warmer. But it also seems, in the absence of our former president, President "what’s his name", we are now stuck looking for new reasons for all the continued day drinking, as well as new reasons to care anymore about what’s on the current news cycle. In our search for reason, stories like this can help a lot.

       Stories Like This?

 I can’t help but wonder what became of the Florida whistleblower story, especially in light of  recent whistleblowing reports against Gov. Cuomo of New York? Maybe the comparison is somewhat unfair because, despite the similar allegations of intimidation connected to both stories, Gov. Cuomo seems to be fully cooperating with the investigation against him. To date, no formal investigation against Florida and its Governor  has been announced in the same fashion of the Cuomo investigation.

Rebekah Jones, the Florida whistleblower, was still being pressured by law enforcement officials many months after being fired from her job and there is no announcement about why they did it nor is their an apparent DOJ investigation into that matter in Florida either. Does anyone believe the Covid-19 numbers in Florida have ever been anywhere close to accurate? Does anyone care that the same story we are chasing in New York has basically died in Florida even though the stories are similar and Covid-19 is still at a peak death rate nationwide?

Yes, the matter in Florida is a bit dated, but it’s not much different from the claims in New York and it surely deserves the same investigation that New York is getting, especially after the raid a few months ago on the home of the whistleblower. In my mind, this  might have become a bigger story if it didn't happen under the previous DOJ. Yet, my mind is also telling me, rather loudly, that some of what WE are witnessing in this moment in time is a news media that thrived on the absurd and the sensational things that oozed from the pores of the past president's administration, and now it has developed an insatiable appetize for the cuisine.

Why Are Media Layoffs Finally Happening Now?

Locally and Nationally, newsrooms are seeing the announcement of the loss of staff every single day. But, why now? Covid-19 is the reason most are giving, but the virus has been around for over a year now and the layoffs for everyone else happened quite some time ago. 

In my mind, the rather obvious truth is, president "what's his name" was just too good for business to trim all the fat he allowed for before the extra staff could finish covering his insurrection as well as that awkward send off he threw for himself before he flew away for the very last time taking his sensationalism and ratings with him.

            I am writing this article that mentions president "what's his name" realizing, more people liked, shared or commented about the stuff I wrote as well for 4 years whenever I mentioned #45. For the sake of my own sense of integrity, I wrote less about president "what's his name" during the past two years because it was clear to me, if no one else, there was a double-edged sword involved with riding the coattail of the devil.

I also believe there was nothing really new to write about "what's his name" other than the one or two sentences of details of the newest moment of shame he was ushering US into while slithering away from it with the help of the GOP. I decided long ago, it's hard to call a clown a clown over and over again without eventually appearing somewhat clown'ish yourself, so I stepped away from the large amounts of face paint I too was wearing. Instead, I chose to post my one or two sentences on #45 in 144 word tweet format for the past two years, just so I could, at the least, vent along with everyone else while maintaining a sense of integrity.

Nonetheless, you can't spend that long away from writing about a person on purpose and suddenly forget such a concerted effort. So, if I must mention him, I have chosen to use his name sparingly or in code, to allow former president "what's his name" room to find whatever dark corner he promised before he promised he would be back in some form or fashion, trusting in his former promise and not his latter.

Before I write too much and have no choice but to mention the orange guy once again, I will close this piece by saying, despite all of the terrible things you said about him and his wife, Ted Cruz misses your ass right now like you wouldn't believe. Governor Cuomo does too, at least a little bit.

 

McConnell Suggests WE Try Trump In Regular Court

                 If you didn't have the stomach to endure until the end, and trust me I barely did myself, you might have missed the most important element to come from the last day of the proceeding.

                While the House Impeachment Managers did a superb job at laying out the case against Trump, they did not do it as emphatically or as quickly as Mitch McConnell did when he and Senate Majority leader, Chuck Schumer, gave their post-acquittal speeches.

                Schumer's words were poignant, prescient and sincere, evoking me to applause as I stood alone in my pandemic quarantined living room trying to swallow the indigestible reality of an acquittal that WE all were witnessing. McConnell's words were poignant as well, but poignant like a prick from a rose thorn or from the pungency of their seemingly sweet aroma that can start to taint if you over indulge and sniff too hard.  

Schumer delivers his post impeachment remarks

                As for stomaching McConnell's very upsetting words? Once again, I too was struggling with listening to a Senator of the United States of America, stand before God and the world acknowledging point by point by point that Donald J. Trump was as guilty as the House Managers said he was, but he didn't vote to convict. With his beautifully ungroomed bouquet of flowers, McConnell baited US in with words he knew we wanted to hear...and then pricked US all on the nose for forgetting the danger of political bouquets and what the rap group Outkast taught us, that roses can also smell like boo-boo.

                My skillset of many years of marriage and raising babies has heightened my ability to sit and endure prickly or smelly situations. So I took deep breaths, held my nose as needed and endured until the end of McConnell's speech. And, I have to admit, McConnell was slightly right on this one and here's why. 

                In honor of the person I am half-heartedly giving credit to in this moment, I am going to try to give the brevity and clarity to McConnell's explanation that he was able to give to the case on Trump. Although the House Managers put forth a quality case, a consensus view developed by the end of it all on the power of brevity and that less could have been more relative to the volume and substance of it all. If it achieved nothing else, McConnell's concise summary of the entirety of Trump's infractions displayed the power of brevity, but his remarks have started a conversation that could last for the next 6 years or more. In my view, his explanation warrants discussion all by itself, for what it hoped to achieve now, and for what it might achieve down the road.  .

                McConnell's explanation for his vote: 

                McConnell's view is, you can surely conduct a vote to block someone from office but only if you've already impeached them, which is to say, the impeachment process was specifically meant for the primary purpose of removing officials from office, not for the secondary reason it was being used in this case which was for the punishment it allows. Again, eliminating someone from running is allowed, but only AFTER you have successfully voted to remove them from office which requires no less than a two-thirds majority. No matter how you feel about removing someone from office and blocking them from future access to that post, these two processes are separate votes and there is no way to take on the secondary pursuit without the primary.

                If right about now you are cursing at me the same way I was cursing at my television when McConnell, the same guy who refused to start the (insert curse word here) trial while Trump was still in office, but is now the guy saying it's the wrong avenue for justice in this case, I get it... but hear me out as I try to make sense of what I eventually heard him say after I stopped cursing and screaming at my television so I could hear what he was trying to say.

                Because the expectation of acquittal was never clearly set into the minds of the public watching along, questions are now simmering over whether or not time should have been allowed for witnesses to bolster this case. As it turned out, the 7 Republicans that defected from their party and stood with their country are the most who ever had the courage to do it in any impeachment of a president. Could a litany of witnesses have been the key to gaining 10 more votes? 

                If the hope of the Democrats from the beginning was to achieve the first impeachment conviction of a president in U.S. history, then there was never enough time given to this. For the slightest hope of 67 votes, it would have always taken more time than Trump had left to serve to make it happen. 

                Why is that important? It's only important if you agree with McConnell and I that impeachment was intended to remove a high ranking official from office and not to reprimand them by blocking their access to political office in the future. According to McConnell's explanation, you can absolutely reprimand a high ranking official for criminal behavior they do in the waning days of their term, but the better place to do it is in the court of law not via impeachment. On that point I mostly agree, although I believe Trump did enough to deserve punishment in both arenas, not just one. If you think blocking Trump from running again would have been sufficient punishment, the impeachment was the right way to go. I believe both arenas are necessary for justice in this moment because, aside from the shame of it all, a post presidency impeachment can only achieve one outcome and that would be blocking someone from running for future office.

                Punishing Trump or anyone else via impeachment isn't illegal. For McConnell or anyone else to suggest it absolutely CAN NOT be done would suggest the seven Republicans and 50 Democrats who voted to convict did something wrong, and they did not. In reality, McConnell is dead wrong in that, if this case was before them, they had the duty to vote on it, one way or the other. The fact that 43 Republicans chose not to convict was a vote of their conscience, just as it was for the 57, although the political conscience can be terribly self serving at times, so take all of their votes with a grain of salt.

The Long Term Impact of McConnell's Explanation

                At this moment, it's hard to say if many other Republicans agreed with McConnell's final analysis on Trump or if they appreciated him basically eviscerating their support for Trump while creating a carved out explanation for himself, for his vote and for his political future relative to that vote, however, consider this point as a prediction for the future of Republicanism. Based on the McConnell explanation alone, every Republican who wants the same off-ramp can now denounce Trump and support the idea that he needs to be prosecuted in court for his crime as an explanation for their vote to acquit too. In fact, whether they wanted this question on their backs or not, it's coming thanks to McConnell drawing a line in his party. Before long, it might even soon be called taking the McConnell clause, or something like that.

                Now,  my agreement with McConnell's view is technically only a partial agreement in that I do believe Trump can and should be prosecuted in the regular courts just as McConnell suggests, but I also believe a conviction in both arenas was not outside of the current laws even if it is a potential slippery slope as McConnell explained, a slippery slope McConnell himself added water to by refusing to conduct this 5 day trial before Trump left office, but I digress.

                To dig deeper into the McConnell explanation, it is his belief that allowing the Democrats in Congress to openly use impeachment simply for their intended purpose of disqualifying Trump from future elections could have set precedence and allowed Congress to pursue a similar route against a regular citizen with inflammatory rhetoric or behavior who wants to be president someday. 

Could Congress block any person 
they consider treasonous from
future office, not just Trump? 

                Had Trump been convicted and eventually banned from the presidency, could the precedence have made way for a pardoned Edward Snowden, for example, from running for president because the party in control of Congress at that time determined he was treasonous and the only way to give him his just desserts would be to disqualify him from the presidency? Yes, the idea of Snowden getting pardoned and then running for president is a bit far-fetched, yet, with the impeachment and conviction of Trump, could disqualifying any feared political candidate via an impeachment trial have become a new norm as McConnell suggested?

                If you think on it for just a while, you realize McConnell was totally reaching at the idea of any random person being willing or able to run for president just as he is forgetting that impeachment is only for high ranking officials while in office, not for wanna-be high ranking officials with toxic rhetoric that scare people. But, that's what McConnell is forgetting.

                . What WE are forgetting is, at the time of this trial Trump fit both of those descriptions, at least for the purpose of trying to hold him accountable for the insurrection he incited. The fact that McConnell and Pelosi made no demands for Trump to be tried while still in office is not insignificant in the least. Leaving office took the punishment he deserved- which just so happened to be the only punishment the Constitution allows for- out of the picture and left behind the subordinate or additional punishment of blocking him from future office as the only punishment remaining. Therefore, the process of convicting him as if still in office became the only way to achieve the actual goal intended, which was to block him from future office.

                Once again, it is not illegal to try someone after they leave office nor is it unheard of historically, which leaves us where WE are now, determining the justness of this particular pursuit of justice. While the Constitution made pursuing an impeachment conviction possible, it made achieving an impeachment conviction much less possible with the necessity of 67 Senators required to achieve a conviction. Said another way,  pursuing justice against Trump was possible via impeachment or the regular courts, but the distinct possibility of achieving a conviction and hoping for a fair punishment always existed via one route, and that was and still is the traditional court route.

                When listening to McConnell, it felt for a moment like he was being totally unpatriotic for trying to politically have his cake and eat it too by condemning Trump before the world so he could later show us all where he stood on the all the bad stuff Trump did, but I changed my mind just a bit by the time he was done. 

                It was only a bit, because McConnell absolutely was trying to be politically expedient voting to acquit and immediately sneaking down the alleyway to avoid holding himself accountable, suggesting a traditional court to hold Trump accountable for all the negatives McConnell admitted to, but he was also making an important and necessary move to save his party from the legacy of Trump. Love him or hate McConnell for behaving like a politician if you want, the politics on what he did are sound.

                Mitch McConnell's declaration that this was a vote of conscience came down to a vote and an explanation of that vote which, for better or worse, shall remain bonded as one (the vote and the explanation of it) and married to his legacy and the legacy of this impeachment until time ends. 

Why?!

                 Because it forced 42 other people to join him or take the full backlash of acquitting Trump by themselves. To be more clear, either Trump will be 42 Senators closer to state indictments for his actions or 42 Republican Senators will refuse to agree with McConnell when they are asked by the media if they do agree with the McConnell Clause or not. The most entertaining scenario- that the GOP will slowly fracture into two camps on the subject of convicting Trump or not- is also the most likely to happen. 

                If like me you are upset with McConnell and what he allowed his party to do to US for years, not one word of the previous paragraph made you sad.

                 

GOP Rescue of MTG Will Restore Truth. Here's Why!

                If you caught that half-hearted apology that #MarjorieTaylorGreene (MTG) gave on the House floor, (video above) you might not have realized the significance of the moment, so I thought I would explain it more clearly.

                On the face of it, (R) #KevinMcCarthy (CA), a very weak House minority leader, displayed his characteristic weakness by broadcasting how sincere and apologetic MTG was with him when he and the Republican conference confronted her about all of the stuff she said before she was a member of Congress.

                It’s important we characterize The Spineless One’s misunderstanding of the #MTG transgressions as pre-Congress, something he probably didn't thoroughly research, because McCarthy seemed to not understand that most of what MTG said when confronted with her own pre-Congress words and actions, she held ground or doubled down on days before he finally dealt with it, and a five minute Google search would have provided the pertinent facts to Kev' the Spineless.

(the worse of MTG's pre-Congress comments, below)

                It's actually hard to say if Kev' the Spineless knew or didn't know about #MTG's ardent stance in the days before she relented because there was a moment in which, he with no spine, seemed to try to address it all and quiet the party infighting that was building between the #Trumpian right he's vying to lead,  and the moral majority which included a handful of Republicans who voted in favor of #impeachment. The group of #Republicans who voted to impeach included #LizCheney (WY) who was personally taking friendly fire on her committee seat too for her decision to hold #DonaldJTrump to account for his role in the #insurrection. Spineless Kevin seemed most interested in no one in his party becoming the villains over this, even though McCarthy was more than willing to demonize the House #Democrats for doing the exact same thing #Cheney and the other Republicans did. #Trump most certainly would have made villains out of the 10 Republicans in the #House who voted to impeach him. Kev' the Spineless let them all off the hook.

                Constant retaliation and demeaning labels like Kev' the Spineless abounded under Trump, whereas relenting to the moral majority was unlikely to have happened had #DJT still been the party leader orchestrating the response. The willingness of MTG to hold strong for days when confronted by reporters about her pre-Congress behavior and ongoing post election justification of herself, only to eventually relent, was a misstep and a clear sign of the beginning of the end of an era, the era of unrepentant lying.

                Displaying weakness with a closed door Republican conference and a secret vote over MTG's and Cheney's committee status via a closed door Republican conference, Kev' the Spineless allowed MTG to temporarily keep her committee seats, although, by not removing MTG himself, he forced Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of his House colleagues to bring the matter to the floor for debate and a vote. The vote didn’t end well for Greene. In fact, some reports have suggested, if Pelosi had decided to make her floor vote against MTG a secret just as Kev' the Spineless did, even more Republicans would have voted to remove her.

                Either way, it didn't really end well for Republicans, MTG or McCarthy either who was summoned to meet with Trump days before of all of this came to head, probably to tell Kev' the Spineless that he needed to be more relentless and relent less.

Did McCarthy come back with
marching orders after meeting  
with Trump in Mar-A- Lago?

                At least, that's what seems to be the case because, in the aftermath of his Trump meeting, McCarthy came out in public with a piece of paper containing a list of Democrats and a warning (possibly written in sharpie) that, if he (McCarthy) is ever the majority leader, he will go after specific Democrats on committees (Eric Swalwell (CA) and Maxine Waters (CA) were the only names he mentioned) as retaliation for what was done to MTG. While not-so-spineless Kev' had a clear warning for Democrats, it's not apparent what punishment would be doled out to the 11 Republicans who voted along with the Democrats, an element of  his spineless response to all of this,  something Trump would not have overlooked.

                Nonetheless, Trump and all those who still love him probably appreciated the new and improved spine Kev' tried to display after meeting with the GOP's recently deposed party boss.  However, much like the results of Nov. 3rd and the ensuing GOP response that followed, McCarthy's retaliation speech felt like more of the same sour grapes complaining we'd heard following the presidential election loss as well. Whatever you call his attempt to warn and complain, once again, it was too little, too late. (video below)

                When given a final chance to save herself from what was clearly becoming her inevitable fate, MTG blinked. In that brief moment, she appeared sincerely interested in retaining her committee assignments, at least interested enough to try and kiss ass like we had never seen her do before. By relenting, as she was likely advised to do, neither MTG nor the person who advised her to relent had any clue what they were doing to the brand in that moment, and I believe it was bad advice. 

                In one last ditch effort, MTG did her level best to avoid being stuck in Congress for two years with nothing to do except peddle more odd conspiracies and oppose Democrat legislation whenever possible, and it failed. Perhaps the residents of Forsythe County, GA won’t see their rebellious rep as nearly as useful to them anymore and will consider a recall themselves, especially since MTG did not rediscover her own stripes until the morning after her committee assignments were gone?

(video below)

               

                 When relenting didn't stop her removal from her committee assignments, the same person who once refused to relent until she had little choice, decided to go back on television the following morning and tell the world “I feel free [to speak as I want again]". Apparently, it took mirrors that only exist in MTG's house, a good night of sleep and freedom from committee assignment confusion to remind her of who she really was and what she had done to the brand, because, like that ugly person you take home for a one night stand, the morning after was nothing like the night before. 

A snake eating its own tail.

            What MTG is saying in this twice revised walk-of-shame is, the position she claims to feel free from she also was willing to stand naked in apology before the world, and agreed to enslave herself and bridle her slithery tongue if her colleagues in Congress would have only allowed her to stay in her position of power; a position that provided the pressure to deal with her awful behavior in the first place. 

                What MTG also doesn't recognize is, once you denounce your own lies, you no longer have the “freedom” to lie the same again. MTG might think she is more free minus her committee seats, but her tongue has already been clipped by a moment of weakness from herself and Kev' the Spineless, and there simply is no way to repair a clipped tongue or walk again once you've been cursed to crawl.

                For the rest of her days in Congress, everything MTG says will have that familiar hissing sound of self destruction- like a vicious snake that pounces but doesn't even recognize it's eaten its own tail. Right or wrong, that snake we called Trump could drown out all the hissing noise by standing firm behind the lies and the liars and redirecting the blame or chewing on the tails of anyone and everyone but himself. After this recent matter involving MTG, it appears as if Trump's "never relent" posture left the GOP when he did.

                        Why does this matter? If the true facts of the JFK assassination can still be debated, and they are, 911 and Sandy Hook don’t have to be considered real events to everyone either, which is the place we have found ourselves after a four year war against truth. Every war is based upon a series of battles, and truth won its first battle in this war when it removed Trump from office. By voting to remove MTG from her committees, the House of Representatives handed truth another battle victory while simultaneously declaring that certain agreed upon truths must be treated with the level of respect they deserve while you are serving in Congress, assuming you want a committee assignment and plan to stay in D.C. for more than two years.

                Losing access to all committee seats will not be helpful to MTG's reelection efforts, so the likelihood is, this moment of truth is both the beginning and the end of MTG. It's possible she'll run for office again in two years given her bulldog disposition, and it's even possible she could win in her redder than red voting district that must be a bit peculiar place if they voted for her to begin with. It's more likely that her own constituents have seen enough from her and will be ready to move on from the MTG experience and controversy given the lack of committee influence that now comes with the package.

               While the pandemic and the recent election make most of this MTG madness sound like no big deal to a whole lot of people, the universal space in which we could once agree on any basic truth evaporated over the past four years into a matrix of conspiracy theories and lies that used to exist only  in the National Enquirer or The Onion. What we have now, even Snopes couldn't fix. 

                If describing the punishment of one very ardent Trump supporting representative as a victory and restoration moment for truth seems like a big declaration, consider this?

                From this day forward, any Trump-like allegiance to lies can and will burn you in an institution where people are elected to represent true lives and real life situations such as pandemics and the economic recoveries they cause. Mischaracterizations of certain facts is a normal, unfortunate part of politics. Disagreeing about essential truths like birth certificates of an elected president, or death certificates of massacred school children makes the hope of collaborative governance extremely difficult, to say the least.

WE The People, have spent far too long trying to establish a more perfect union based on our divided perceptions of agreed upon truths for us to come to this moment of  allowing ourselves to become lost in a jungle of confusion over clearly proven lies and conspiracies. By way of this punishment of MTG, the House of Representatives at the very least has declared that events like 911 really happened despite all the memes and videos you can find on the internet to the contrary. They also decided threatening fellow members of Congress is not allowed and peddling conspiracy theories will endanger your ability to thrive in Congress even when your own party refuses to hold you to account the way both parties used to do pre-Trump  If you need a point of reference to my last comment, Google the names Steve King or Al Franken).

                WE ejected Trump out of office at the same time that WE elected MTG and a handful of other QAnon friendly types in. While that felt like a bit of a contradiction at the time, in hindsight, the devil we knew seemed much more important than the ones he inspired. Despite the fact that D.C. is now overrun with Trump's little inspirations, genuine demons don’t relent nor do they give a damn about the value of universal truths such as, all of our elections all over the land have, for a very long time now avoided election fraud by employing high integrity election handlers from both sides of the political isle, and those people used to be trusted and respected by ALL of us who cared to vote regularly. 

               Trump set US up for this moment from the moment he first ran for office because he never really thought he would win and instinctively created excuses to deal with any possibility of losing. In reality, the goal of being president was never as valuable to our 45th president as the goal of running. In running for president, Trump could add to the legend and mystery he created around himself. In being president, he could only expose his immense need to golf, his true self-serving nature, and expose himself to way too many institutions designed to ensure America wins no matter who our president is. In the final analysis of what WE've endured, there simply was no way for both Trump and the U.S. to come out victorious in this. One of us or both of us were always destined to lose.

                What Trump had to lose by winning the presidency was the somewhat normal freedom that allows powerful people to do lots of illegal stuff an evade the law, but he also lost the perception of self-made wealth that was shattered by the revelations about his family, mostly from his family. What WE the People had to lose by electing a lying, immoral person was our connection to truth and our universal acceptance of right and wrong. 

                We decided pussy grabbing, caged children, anti-Semitism, homophobia and political retaliation against friend or foe were all okay until the day we said "enough already". Now, with the committee removal of MTG, we've added false conspiracies, threats of harm and other unwarranted colleague confrontations done by any current committee members of Congress to our collective list of "enough already". 

                Of course, this doesn't entirely undo all the damage done to the concept of truth that occurred over the last four years, but it helps.

Did Nuggets Beat Dallas Because Murray Got Tossed?

 

Whether it was the chaos in D.C. inspired by "what's his name", or this virus that has driven the daytime drinking levels to exponential proportions, giving a damn about sporting events has been terribly difficult. Thankfully, our orange mistake and the fecal odor from that Capitol Hill raid are getting dealt with in a similar manner, so let's talk hoops and see if we can avoid one of those virus mutations

If you saw the Nuggets play yesterday (hit the link above if you missed it) and you agree like me that it's finally time to care about the Nuggets enough to talk about them, then I have a question for you. 

Did the Denver Nuggets win the game last night in Dallas in large part because of the third quarter ejection of Jamal Murray and in small part PJ Dozier, who went down earlier in the game with a hamstring injury, or was it a victory despite the loss of two key players, especially their all-star guard Murray?

Before I clarify my question so you don't think I am hating on Murray or Dozier, my answer is both. They won despite the challenge of losing two very important players, but they also won because one player in particular got out of the way and allowed a few fresher legged, hungry pups to eat.

While I have always appreciated the toughness and grit of Murray, it has always felt like coach Mike Malone gives him injured PT (playing time) just to help him get used to learning how to play injured like Kobe used to do, not because it's the best thing to do for him or the team, especially given the depth the Nuggets have at the guard spot and the difficulty of healing and injury while playing with it. 

As for Dozier, he has quickly become the kind of guy Malone relies on because of his length and ability to play team defense and because he fills in at four positions on the floor. Dozier is not yet a star player, but losing him last night makes it a win despite the loss of a secret weapon of sorts. With Murray it's a differet story. His current injuries and erratic performances thus far turned his ejection (which was legitimate thanks to his ball busting behavior) into a moment for someone else to shine, and Michael Porter Jr. came through.

By allowing Murray to play through injuries that everyone knows about, which makes the injury a ready made excuse if he needs it, Malone is forcing his team to hope for the best mental focus and performance out of their injured star who himself forces these moments on his coach to develop mental toughness while slowing the development of key backups interested in his job and simultaneously nullifying the reason for upgrading the backups in the first place. But it's all of that and one other thing.

Without Murray on the floor, a player who demands and gets his number called by the Nuggets quite a bit in every game, the Mavericks didn't really know where to focus their defensive efforts which had to be game-planned for Murray and Jokic especially late in the game. Because they aren't saddled with expectations yet, the Nuggets backups come at you like mosquitos in the summer time, and there really is no way to defend against mosquitos in the summer time. Without Murray on the floor, the capable stable, or maybe I should say swarm of Nuggets guards- Campazzo, Morris, and especially Porter Jr.- got to perform without the expectations you get after putting up 50 points more than once in the playoffs, and that is a good thing.

This is not to say the Nuggets are a better team without Murray. This is to say they aren't bound by his performances or his presence on the floor like they were last season, and that's, once again, a good thing. #whatdoyouthink

Bonus Note: R.J. Hampton actually got significant PT in something other than garbage minutes because of the loss of two guards...and he looked impressive, especially on defense. Keep an eye on him!!

 

Pandemic Newsflash: Consumer Confidence Is Our New Leader. Political Spin Has Novel Coronavirus

      [ADOLESCENT WARNING! THIS ARTICLE HAS A TON OF SHIT AND A FUCK OR TWO]

        It has been a while since I've written on politics; a year in reality, however, over two years if you exclude the piece I wrote last May on Pelosi and her reluctance to impeach Donald Trump. Since I've been away, a lot has happened in our world, but really, not a damn thing has happened at all except the 2018 elections and this current pandemic, the matter that brings me back to the arena of political lip flapping.

        I would love to think that something I enjoy researching and engaging in so much is more than just creative political opinionating, yet, I am now well aware of how truly foolish politics can become thanks to the last 3 years of pure foolishness we've been reduced to. Of course, this is not to suggest that politics are not important. This is to insist that the day to day exchange of thoughts and ideas in our current political arena has been proven to be nothing more than the last surviving circus in America with a ton of elephants and donkeys rolling around, doing silly tricks and shitting all over the place in the process. If anyone has watched the manner in which Congress has gone about dealing with what should be the most bipartisan issue in the history of bipartisan issues and can describe their behavior any better than I did in that last sentence, I highly encourage you to do it and share the results with me. I am totally curious on how many creative ways there are to describe a shit show.

        I enjoy Twitter and Facebook (sorry Google) as much as the next person, but my decision to get away from writing full blown articles (that I would want to read) about televised political pooping was not easy, but it was necessary. At some point it became obvious that the media was simply using Trump- and other people's anger towards him- for the sake of clicks and revenue, and there was just no easy way to not be a part of all that except to not be a part of all that, so I took a hiatus and decided to write a book instead.

        Now that we are all locked down in a pseudo-national quarantine, many of us have had the opportunity to reflect on ourselves and our lives, drink a lot, or drink a lot and reflect on ourselves and our lives all at the same time. Drinking and reflecting typically involves a replay of all the regrets, so I would encourage dancing when you drink and not much reflecting on life. Just a suggestion. Nonetheless, if you have embraced the opportunity to get to know the people in your home, including the one you see in the mirror every morning, you might finally be coming into the realization that nobody, and I repeat, nobody can be the blame for your happiness or sadness.  My apologies if I lost you or killed your morning buzz from that comment.

        For those who are still with me, I have to confess that I mostly lived by that mantra before the election of Donald fkn Trump. I include the FKN with no intention of disrespecting the President of the United States of America that I have very little respect for, but to emphasize the depth of the hatred I HAD developed for the guy we call president. I'm using all caps to bring strong attention to the word HAD, because I USED to hate the guy. Now, I just feel terribly sad for him and US.

 
        My deep sadness started over 2 yrs ago, when I no longer had the desire to write another word about this man. At the time, I also started that book project, so my assumption initially was that I could not easily co-mingle my brain when it came to writing. While the book is finally  winding through final edits, I now realize my inability to co-mingle had very little to do with anything other than the state of depression I was in for American politics. In a way, I have gone through the stages of grief over the death of American politics- my deceased mistress- via the election of Donald J. Trump, which essentially acknowledges that I experienced anger, stage two of grief, for way too long towards this man we call president. Most of our denial happened during the campaign, and we can all recall the bargaining we went through of blaming Hillary for being an awful candidate, or blaming non-voters for not voting. We are not over the Russia blame, but that's another topic for another day.
     
        Every divinely authored sermon in life is one you are learning yourself as you are sharing it with others. I used to love sharing the image to the right as a sermon to myself and to encourage other people to take ownership of themselves and dominion over their emotions. In the spirit of a true confession that might help someone else who is struggling with the same issue, I used to hate our fuckin' president and the mere sight of him made me angry. I ran away from talking about him because there wasn't anything new to be said, but mostly, I was mad as hell and couldn't find enough creative ways to say that or anything else.

        Today, I acknowledge that Trump used to own me the way he currently still owns a bunch of you. I am writing again today to purge this issue, to hopefully save some of you from the silent chains you bear, and to take back agency with myself and my native realm of artistic expression- political lip flapping. He who angers you might own you......but he who kills your creative spirit is killing you as well. So, I am back to writing about politics again because a newsworthy matter has arrived. But, mostly I am writing because I must.

        I am writing again today because pandemics happen about as often as ill-suited businessmen winning the presidency. While we have found ourselves to be mostly vaccinated against the damages of voting for the wrong person to lead our nation, we have also found out that vaccinations against viruses and bad presidents take a while to be created and only work if you take them.

       The best option that exists to deal with a novel virus is to self distance, mask up or stay home for the biological ones, and educate yourself on the nuances of the other virus any way you can until it is forced to go away via concerned citizens or term limits, whichever comes first. If you hadn't noticed, pandemics are great for film study or research of any kind. This moment film study/research for me came without intention as I was simply enjoying my morning coffee and scrolling through the movie channels to make sure I get maximum value for the premium channel services I am paying for during this pandemic. Because I insist on getting value out of my purchases, I now know why we are all going through this pandemic like a kite without a string.

       "Where's My Roy Cohn" was the documentary I came across and it left me wishing I had researched him back when his name first became mentioned in connection with Trump. I had seen a few pieces about Roger Stone which made me believe I understood a little bit about Trump, but Stone admits in this documentary, Cohn created him too, and you simply can not understand Trump or Stone without knowing Roy Cohn.

        For those who aren't old enough or didn't follow the Roy Cohn story close enough to know much about him, this documentary not only let's you know who he was, it tells you everything you need to know about the current ring leader of our Washington D.C. circus, and why he wants the spotlight kept on him and all of his pronouncements instead of any other animal in the act, including the media.   

        Yes. The media is just another animal stuck in this circus act, because most of the media has no way of knowing how to make it all end, and the rest have no desire to. The media of America is as dirty as Donald says we are even if we have tried our level best to minimize our overt dirtiness with him. Similarly, the Congress of America is as corrupt and guilt worthy as anyone when it comes to how we got into the mess we are in However, no one should read these indictments and consider themselves exempt.

        If you are not a part of the media or Congress, you still consume whatever media they give, giving them very little reason to feed you anything else, and you vote- or don't vote- with partisan predictability allowing for life-long incumbents and giving them no reason to listen to you. The real circus used to exist because it had a crowd that made it exist. In America's political circus, you are now either a performer or you are the constituents of the performance, because, the people who refused to go to the circus because it glorified caged animals played as active a role in making the circus go away as the people who got bored with the show.

        When I took a look in my own mirror over two years ago, I saw a disgruntled media person as well as an angry constituent who kept buying a damn ticket, and I no longer wanted to be either one. I was covering Donald's latest moment of disrespect towards someone new each day as if it deserved to be talked about like news. Mostly, it was and is just shocking and embarrassing. It absolutely is not newsworthy anymore. Pandemics aside, history will give us all plenty of time to be shocked by this MAGA moment in history that we've created or allowed. With all due respect, with everything at stake and no one steering us through this but YOU, it is not time to keep being shocked by another day of the same shit.

       We all know where to go to find his latest tweet if we need a jolt to our senses with a fresh bucket of embarrassment. If that doesn't work, go see the Globetrotters. Unlike the circus, they still have a crowd. Otherwise, nothing has really been newsworthy about this man we are forced to call president for well over two years, and that includes that slow moving, dodge-able bullet called the impeachment trial. By the time Pelosi finally decided she had enough, America was stuck in a "why now" moment of disbelief over her late pull of the trigger. When we all woke up from too many hours of impeachment coverage, we were left feeling as if the thing she finally impeached him for was much less important than the Mueller report, especially considering how Trump openly did towards China the same thing that he was impeached for doing with Ukraine.

        Trump is only right about the slime in Washington D.C. because he rubbed shoulders, donated to to both sides and slid smoothly without detection between the slime for years. In essence, he was and is the slime too, so nobody noticed or cared that he was there. In addition, nobody understands the slime or the slimey better than him, however, he told us that from the very beginning along with a bunch of other things that have many of us shaking our heads as though he wasn't up front about it all. Of course, he straight up lied about the taxes, but you get my point. He is who we thought he was, so the rest is up to YOU. You can remain stuck in denial, anger, depression, or bargaining away the blame on non-voters, but its time for acceptance so we can save our nation.  In the final analysis, if this pandemic and the presidency of Donald J. Trump does not help us to achieve anything personally, then it will not help us achieve anything collectively because all change begins with YOU.

        I am proud that I stared into the mirror over two years ago, saw a guy who was angry over a silly white man with an orange tan, and said enough already. Two years later, I am actually over the sadness and fully within acceptance, but Facebook doesn't really give you a wide range of options to click when responding to posts or comments in regards to Trump, so 😢 wins every time for me still.

        Now that I stand here healed and on the other side of my pain, I am also proud to say that I have gone through the stages of grief over the death of American politics too, and it has helped me immensely as we all sit back and watch the kind of disarray in D.C. that we've never seen at historically bipartisan moments when the world desperately needs leaders to lead.

        Take it or leave it. Congress is broken and Donald is all we have, which means we don't have much. After watching the Roy Cohn documentary, I now understand how we got him (and Ronald Reagan too btw😳....yes, watch it) and who he is better than I ever did before. At the risk of a spoiler for those of you who haven't seen it, it will explain why Trump pretends everything is a positive no matter how bad it looks. This is what Trump learned from Cohn as the number one lesson. This is what he does no matter the moment before him. This is what has worked for him immeasurably prior to a pandemic, and this is exactly what is going to kill him figuratively, along with countless Americans literally, because a virus with no vaccine and this level of contagiousness will become the kind of bad news that even Roy Cohn could not spin before it is all over.

        It all ready is, and you can't simply tell people who are afraid of a virus that is killing thousands, 'you are doing a good job' when you are not. The job will be good when WE the People are willing to go places again. PERIOD!! What our president is doing right now will not bring confidence to anyone, which means he is functionally useless, which means YOU are the only hope WE have left.

Watch any 4 television commercials in a row like I did, and
see if you notice any trends or similarities in the theme? If
you can't already tell, YOU are the only hope for this economy. 

     
        Scared people need honesty over bluster. Scared people realize viruses don't know your political affiliation so they want truth in times of fear and not Roy Cohn derived political spin. To watch Donald do his thing before I knew about Roy Cohn was infuriating and terribly confusing before I grew to accept it for what it is. To watch him now that I know what he is doing and why he keeps doing it despite watching it not work day after day is enlightening to the point of almost refreshing in a way. What this pandemic and that documentary has shown me is that, Donald can't lead any other way, and he might not be interested in learning after all of these years of using the media to simply spin the narrative, just like Roy taught him.

        In a way, this pandemic has proven to everyone still evaluating what we currently have in a president versus what we are being offered by way of Joe Biden, that Donald only knows spin....and golf. He might know real estate, but he has failed a lot in that arena and we have yet to see those taxes to determine if he's particularly good at real estate, so the jury is still out on the topic.

       Through his two hour daily televised circus events, Trump reveals his style of leadership for all to clearly see. In a moment when the playbook has already been written for him, in simple words with large text, Trump is floundering and can't seem to read this Dr. Seuss book or listen to Dr. Fauci's advice.  Recent polls suggest only 35% of Americans are still listening to him for guidance through this pandemic. While some of you might be focusing on the number I just shared and evaluating who in the hell that 35% could be, I am focusing on the fact that someone decided we needed a poll asking who are you listening to right now. As I publish this piece, I am two days removed from my 51st birthday, and I am hard pressed to recall when such a question has ever been asked. Ever!!

        If you watch Governor Cuomo (NY) each day, you quickly realize this should be so easy to do, yet, all Trump can do is the same thing he has done from day one. In this crazy circus of elephants and donkeys, the ring leader turns just so happens to be a one-trick pony.

        For every other situation prior to this pandemic, his song and dance has been enough to at least satisfy his base and satiate Mitch McConnel and Republicans from the urge to preserve the now mythical co-equal balance of power that WE were falsely made to believe would protect us from tyranny back in grade school.

             Most importantly, WE. Me. You. US, now know that WE are the straw that stirs the drink. Without us, all the ingredients could be available, but the sugar will settle to the bottom and the drink will taste so awful that it doesn't matter what price you put on it, WE won't buy it. The signs were always there if you listen a lot of news. Whenever they talk about the economy- under Obama or Donald- they define the strength of it as being one thing and one thing only. CONSUMER CONFIDENCE! If WE can't trust what you are selling us, WE surely won't trust dying over what you are selling us, will WE? I love the taste of well made Kool-Aid just like the next person, but not enough to die for it, especially when I can just make that shit at home.

        In the name of home-made kool-aid, I'm back into this arena of political lip flapping because my brain is no longer co-mingled, and there is finally something worth flapping about, which is this current conversation over CONSUMER CONFIDENCE; aka., YOU and me. I started my mirror moments over two years ago, so I am fully into this process of self realization we are all enduring during the era of Trump in general and the pandemic specifically.  At the risk of over inflating my own value, it seems clear to me that me, and people like me, will determine when it's time to get Taco Bell back to normal business levels, not elected officials. If you fools who aren't taking this seriously could save the economy by yourselves, the current businesses that are still open would not be down 40% in sales, but they are, and, even with a return to everything open, everybody won't be outside buying Taco Bell until everyone can be made to feel safe while doing it.

            I ask you, random consumer reading this post? Are you rushing back to any place that is crowded and has a potential health risk just because its one of the places who has an owner deciding to open so you can regain your sense of normalcy, or are you willing to let the other people buy shoes at an understaffed Ross until you feel confident that it is safe?

        Don't answer that. You don't need to. Without question, only consumer confidence will work to save our economy. Period. There is a window for business owners with limited liquidity to ride the storm to save themselves by offering stock options instead of money, so they can retain staff with the promise of future wealth sharing, but that is also much too close to Socialism and much to close to right to ever happen. Because fighting to become the powerful makes some people afraid to share what they've gained, many powerful people will practically risk and lose everything they have rather than willingly let go of their power. Donald J. Trump is exhibit A for this dynamic as he holds on to his powerful way of manipulating the world at the risk of losing the presidency and millions of lives during his watch.

        If circumstances play out as they are currently headed, we will get to witness a mass realignment of power- be that actually or just conceptually- as WE all are forced to fully reckon with the reality that capitalism is controlled by the consumer and no one else. In other words, how often you stare yourself in the mirror each morning and the message you deliver to the person standing there will determine the future of your individual financial situation, which will determine the future of our nation. In other words, this post and our future is all about YOU.

    In the face of a pandemic, getting to know yourself is kinda' not optional unless you intend to drink yourself broke to avoid all of that. For those of us embracing our mirrors and saving our money, it is clear. WE the People are the only hope for our personal survival and for the survival of our nation, and the rest of the world is anxiously waiting to see what we'll do next. Not just about opening our country, but whether or not we will return to who WE used to be for ourselves and the world at large.