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.