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

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It's Only A Crisis Because Pelosi Is Afraid To Impeach

     Donald J. Trump, America's current President, wants to be impeached just as Nancy Pelosi says, and he will stone-wall his way into making it happen if he must. Pelosi wants to win even if it means not doing her job, as if Trump will impeach himself for her. 

     So the war is underway. Impeach him and run the risk of helping him get re-elected, or try to beat him at the ballot box while fighting back the morality cops, like Elizabeth Warren, who see this as a clear matter of integrity.

     
 I agree with Warren and I believe Pelosi and the Democrats are joining Republicans in a really dangerous game of wanting to win the politics of the day so badly, they are running from the spirit of justice in a nation much too passionate about honoring that spirit.

     Wantonness is not a great emotion to plan around, but it is the driving force for everything Democrats talk about these days. They want Trump gone so badly, but they are afraid to listen to the Mueller report and just "Do Their Jobs" because of the potential political backlash.

     Instead of simply reading the report- which, I am starting to question if many in Congress have- Democrats want to chase down Bob Mueller and former White House attorney, Don McGhan, who might be forced to testify, but will never be able to say anything that isn't already contained in the report. No matter how much Democrats want their way on this, they will look silly having McGhan turn to pages in the report to read it out loud on television for them. In essence, they want Mueller and McGhan  and Trump to do their jobs for them.

     In fact, Pelosi said as much when she recently resorted to stuttering her way into a weird explanation of Trump trying to "self impeach", a term nobody in the world understands but Pelosi. Even her attempts to clarify herself only amounted to saying that "Trump is building the case for his own impeachment".

     Translation: Pelosi wants Trump to do her job within Congress of whipping up support for impeachment by convincing individuals who are too lazy to do their jobs, to do their jobs and finally read the report. Pelosi herself is more willing to claim that we are in the midst of a Constitutional crisis rather than do her job and accept the answer the Constitution has given for this crisis moment.

     Because of the Providential perfection of our amendable Constitution, you can never have a Constitutional crisis until you run into a problem that the Constitution has no answer for. The problem right now is that the politics are historically horrible on impeachment, which has nothing to do with a crisis at all. This is about Pelosi wanting to have her cake and eat it too. But, everyone wants to have and eat their cake right now, and it's not a good look for any of them.

     Progressive Democrats say they want a woman to be the next President of the United States, but can't find one the masses seem willing to support yet. In addition to their Medicare-for-all plans, these progressives really want America to finally get serious about climate change vis a vis their Green New Deal, which is currently just a cool name and not quite a deal or a plan yet.

     Many of the new progressives in the party came to Washington D.C. on a commitment to impeach this President, but they have been quieted by Pelosi even though the Mueller report gives them more ammunition to impeach than they had when they arrived.

     Republicans have their own wants, but they are limited because they got that tax cut that turned out to be 4-5% bigger than anyone ever wanted or asked for. As it stands, way too many Republicans simply want Democrats to move on from Mueller's findings and turn a blind eye to the outlined obstructions and impeachment instructions messaged in the report. If you read between the lines on Pelosi's "self impeachment" comment, she seems willing to comply.

     Unfortunately for the GOP, moving on from Mueller means moving on to a huge spending bill that Trump negotiated directly with Chuck and Nancy (Schumer and Pelosi) realizing Congress is hardly the right place to make agreements anymore. This odd trio have agreed to a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that will probably get jammed by the politics of deficits, special interest add-ons, or a combination of both

     But I am mostly upset with Pelosi who is convinced the impeachment process will "die at the Senate's edge" and has fended her party away from the process, even though she seems more and more willing to discuss the option herself after the controversial AG Barr Senate testimony recently.  If Democrat voters start to feel this President deserves more than he is getting, they will stop pressuring this President and start pressuring his enablers instead- Democrats included.

     Pelosi is correct in her view on the dead end road impeachment faces in the Senate, but she is dead wrong in her overall analysis of the benefit to detriment because justice can never be about politics. Whether every Senator in America chooses to align themselves on the right side of history or not doesn't diminish the importance of making them have to. 

     In fact, this is not the time to run from the process and suggest the ideal of a Constitutional crisis. This is the time to use the process and make every person in Congress have to place their marker in the history books for our grandchildren to study. This is a time to shame those who haven't read the report, and this is also the time to better explain what the word impeachment means.....because, in the minds of many, the word means removal, and Americans don't like removing people WE voted for unless we have no other choice. The first Democrat to own the process of explaining impeachment to US all will help drive the process to its proper conclusion, and they might even win the White House for their efforts.

     An impeachment is a trial.  Period. It is a fact finding process intended to investigate cabinet officials who could be immune to such an inquiry if not for impeachment. Anyone geeky enough to be reading this already understood that. Many Americans do not. The only crisis currently is that Congress is at a stand still in getting documents from the White House for every current congressional investigation, including Russian election interference, and Congress can't begin their duty of oversight without compliance from the Trump administration.

     Insert AG Barr, who runs the Justice Department and is the key lineman blocking out front for all of Trump's obstruction efforts. Ultimately, someone in the Department of Justice will have to decide to indict their boss if Democrats attempt to hold Barr in contempt for not testifying before the House as requested recently. Lying to Senators about the letter he had received from Mueller is also perjury, which is an impeachable offense. As with Nixon, obstruction of a congressional investigation is also an impeachment worthy offense. 

     At the very least, Trump and his administration have promised to obstruct and are presently living up to the promise. The reasons to shut up and do something about this administration are recent, ongoing, and exist outside of the Mueller report, a report which also begs for something to be done.

     Impeachments alone have never resulted in the removal of a President because they were not necessarily intended for that. Before the Senate ever gets a chance to vote to remove a President via impeachment, a majority vote has to happen in the House first. The Founding Fathers intentionally designed an impeachment to be just as difficult as it should be. 

     Despite popular perception, the politics of impeachment are much more damaging to the party of the President, but that is beside the point. The impeachment process is the point and it is a provision designed for scenarios that demand it. It is part of the oath of the office that Congress promises to fulfill when the President and his cabinet fails to fulfill their own oaths.  History has painted impeachments as toxic, but politics themselves are naturally toxic and occasionally corrupt. By reinforcing the toxicity of an impeachment, Pelosi and Democrats are blaming the remedy.

     A concerted push for a better understanding of the process would offer better clarity to the word itself and to the necessity for invoking it when the Constitution demands. The Democrats anxiously screaming for impeachment need to acknowledge the confusion about the process and clarify it enough to tilt public perception and force Pelosi's hand. 

     The reason impeachments have never removed a President is because our hope-filled dream of Democracy in this fractured Republic typically intervenes. In reality, the standard for removal has always been higher than"... high crimes and misdemeanors", even while the standard for impeachment is not. Until Nancy Pelosi gets that and gets the courage to do what is right and not what is politically expedient, she is failing her country, her party and herself.

     I hate to beat a dead horse, but this horse deserves a beating. Pelosi asking for hearings with Mueller is the equivalent of asking him to slap her and the rest of the Democrats over the head with the obvious before they do what the report begs of them. All of this because everyone in D.C. wants a political victory even if America loses along the way.

     Until political wantonness changes, beating Trump at the ballot box is the only trick the Democrat pony can pull off, and Joe Biden is the best option to do it. Yet, beating Trump in 2020 is what Nancy needs. It has nothing to do with integrity, justice or addressing the reason Trump won in the first place. Trump happened for a reason and his approval ratings have never been low enough for me to think that mysterious reason has changed.

     Yeah, Russia is the easy answer, however, I tend to believe that Russia tipped a scale that was waiting to fall over from eight years of the racial uneasiness from a black president that millions refused to call their own. Now, we have millions on the other end of the political spectrum unwilling to do the same with Trump although the underlying issues from both sides are bigger than either men.

   It might be time for each of US to take ownership of our own part of this problem. We all want the America WE dream of but can't see how we become our own worst enemies screaming to the winds for the America we want instead of pursuing a nation that fulfills the wants of many, Trumpians included. The Trumpian army isn't confused about what's wrong even if they have a fully distorted view of who to blame or how to fix it. 

     Because the "Lord Is My Shepherd" I loathe the word want and wantonness, and I run from the use of the word as often as I can. It is a selfish emotion.  It defies my spiritual upbringing and denotes a desperation that defies the constant provisions of God. It screams desperation, yet, some needs are desperate, and I too want this rightfully elected dude gone just as passionately as the rest of you.

     What I don't want is to use want as a strategy to get him out. I don't want an elected president to lose his job without the full benefit of a due process too politically risky to touch. I would like for Trump to get everything he deserves, even if the process results in a real exoneration and not a fake news variety.

     What I also don't want, is for Democrats to pursue a political gain and
short circuit the process and the pursuit of democracy intended by the Founding Fathers who created the impeachment to properly adjudicate the misdeeds of a President gone array. If the misdeeds are unfounded, only the process can fully investigate and set the record straight, either way.

     No matter how Trump fights it, history will be forced to sniff out the truth. No matter how Pelosi fights it, the impeachment process was meant to deal with certain presidential matters and everyone in Congress currently playing politics instead of doing their job to clarify the historical record will be held accountable by history as well.

     No, this isn't a Constitutional crisis because there is an answer for this moment and it lives in the Constitution. One day in the future, Republicans and Democrats will regret not reading the report soon enough, and they'll regret trying to take this moment to use it as an opportunity for their own political gain.  Every American who lets them get away with it will feel the same regret.

What Exactly Is A President For If Not Reassurance?

First it was just one old guy recalling his boxing days, Now 

he's actually the president with an influence on steroids. As he

calls for civility, will he change his stump speech attacks?

A time consuming writing project forced me away from my typical opining on current events, which has worked out fine because my Super Bowl 50 champion Broncos suck almost as much as our president, and there are only so many ways you can ridicule John Elway or Donald Trump before YOU start to look like the idiot and not them.

My two Trump loving followers who read that previous paragraph are thinking to themselves, Trump doesn't suck, CNN sucks. Even they, however, are smart enough to keep those words inside at a time like this. Our president is not. He is too small a man to simply call the targets of terror and offer his words of sympathy.

As it stands, Trump has postponed his own verbal attacks on CNN and the rest, but he smiled and listened to the ritual chant- "CNN Sucks"- of his campaign crowd,  just one day after FBI agents arrested the pipe bomb terrorist who targeted CNN and others declared enemies by Trump himself.

If news is nothing more than what WE find interest in, these recent acts of terror and violence are mostly news worthy out of decency for the victims not because they are unique, irregular or terribly interesting. I've forced myself to opinionate on this "way too regular" fringe violence crap because I find myself- once again- a normal, Regular American longing and waiting for my president to comfort me into rationalizing away America's violent nature, like presidents usually do. 

I'm still waiting.

If the president of our country were simply capable of saying the right thing at the right time, WE could all feign sadness and quickly return to whatever television show we binge watch over the weekends so we can mentally recharge for our understaffed, underpaid work weeks.

Despite the 11 people murdered at a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh, following 5-days of pipe bomb terror all over America, President Trump continues to do and say everything except the reassuring words regular Americans need right now.

In reality, there will always be extremists behaving extremely. Regular Americans understand this even as WE wait the 2 hours of post-tragedy grief that is customary before we argue over gun rights, the NRA or just return to our television binging for mental health escape.

WE, the regular People of America, don't blame George W. Bush for wars or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan even if we believe Saudi Arabia deserved the brunt of our anger, and maybe still does. Some of US might blame Bush, but the lion-share of America understands the industry of war, the necessity of war and the hair-triggers that cause violence of all kinds.

WE also understand that, sometimes, we war with ourselves whenever weapons of war become tools of terror in our streets, because Regular Americans understand the parable about living by the sword and recognize the inevitability of all this. When things grow beyond our ability to explain, Regular Americans know enough to follow the trail of money to clarify confusion. War an violence bring tons of money even as they bankrupt those who overuse them.

When it comes to war of any sort, presidents are often nothing more than the guys who listen to the advice of the generals and sign or decline their documents to proceed- especially now that Congress has abdicated that role among a few others. A president can choose to fight another day or in another way, but the industry and the machinery chugs along with our without their 4-8 years of consent. Violence in our streets is a byproduct of war in our world. It is a sad reflection of our inner-most nature to confront difficult challenges with rage.

Russian president, Vladimir Putin, predicted

 the end of American greatness. Is he right?

And if so, what will be our demise?

As it relates to violence in general, WE, the People, are a peculiar lot. We continue to market our land with milk and honey even though guns like the AR-15 have long since become the item most reflective of modern America and its nightmarish Dream.

The eerie connection between the Dream of America, our gun lust and that caravan from Latin America is a lengthy conversation all by itself.
(The Latin American gun leak. -- LA Times. Jan. 6th 2015)



Any notion that people willing to walk over 2,000 miles for a dream could be lazy is even more silly than the idea that ISIS would fly to the Guatemala just to join their death defying journey. The Trump administrations attempt to stoke fear of migrants by claiming Middle Easterner infiltration of the caravan. Making descendants from the Middle East analogous to terrorists is possibly more shameful than his refusal to be a president for Real Americans when Real Americans need it.

In some ways, WE are a land of type-A personalities who breed, attract and inspire those same personalities from near and far to come, live in our land and argue alongside US about what it means to be American, or how America can ignore the dangers of our violent compulsions, yet, still remain the best country in the world and not just a nation conforming to one man's distorted view of greatness.


WE will never lose our partisan divide even if the lines get blurred by another flawed, reactive socialized program or two that Regular Americans discover they need too much to let go of, flawed or not. Regular Americans want our degrading social programs to be replaced with sensible, dignified hand up legislation because Regular Americans realize that the sacrifices of the American Dream are also the exact formula for achieving it. Regular Americans still believe in the dream and see their dreams as clearly as they see the obstacles because regular Americans understand what it takes to keep ALL of our dreams alive.

On the fringes of American society, we will always have pessimists who think all this a nightmare. Because fear and misery demand company, those on the fringes have no choice but to bring the rest of US into their nightmares just to legitimize their own miserable fear induced realities. The reasons for those on the fringe are numerous and real, but no more real than the fact that the extreme fringes are not the majority. The majority of US love this land for what it is and can be, and are enjoying our chase of the dream the best WE can.

WE the People, know quite clearly what happens if we remain silent when they come for the Jews, so we depend on the civility of our president whenever those on the fringes terrorize our neighbors until we no longer understand how to feel about our country, or ourselves. 

While Democrats focus on the rhetoric of the pipe bomb terrorist, 

Republicans deflect by pointing to his Native American race.

Maybe this pipe bomb terrorist is not a Nationalist like our president recently  announced himself to be. And hopefully this Pittsburgh killer doesn't avow himself to Trump either. Regular people don't really care about the political leaning of killers who terrorize US even if our debate over weapons of war makes it look like WE do.

At moments like this, WE need to be reassured that WE are much more similar than different.

According to Trump, some 

of these are fine people.

Trumpians might have found a feeling of reassurance in the words Trump robotically read before he stepped all over them with some weird attack on the media and a few false equivalencies about congressman Steve Scalise, but Regular Americans are still empty.

Whatever Trump called his moment of reassurance only stoked terror and the debate further. With every shallow call from our president for "all sides" to improve, I am hard-pressed to understand what Trump wants to see from the media, or what he intends to change himself? I am beyond baffled as to who will change first when our president hasn't even declared what change should look like...."on all sides".

If there's anything the media should change if they could, what exactly should it be Mr. President? Lead US! Reassure US, if you can.

I will give Trump this concession on behalf of the media. If Congress was at all worthwhile, guns wouldn't be so rampant and presidents wouldn't be allowed or expected to send troops to war because war would only happen as the Constitution prescribes- via congressional order.

If this current Congress was at all fulfilling it's coequal duty, they might consider this president guilty of yelling fire in a theatre from campaign speeches that have stoked his fringes to act against a hit-list of opponents and other undesirables. It is perfectly legitimate to question the impetus of recent radicals. It is unthinkable that any president would call for civility while running so hard away from it at the same time.

Let me say this once more, for effect! The day after catching the pipe bomb terrorist, our current president was not wise or courageous enough to discontinue the "CNN Sucks" rant while campaigning. Is that a high crime or a misdemeanor? Did those two black people at Kroger die from just being black in Trump's America and or did they die from Trump's inability to promote the very civility he calls for? 

Will  there continue to be more unexplained terror stoked and promoted by our Nationalist president until a seemingly clear connection is no longer avoidable? 

If the next pipe bomber goes a step further after a Democrat mid-term takeover of congress, Trump could easily be considered a cause of this and could be impeached from the deadly toxicity of his presidency alone.

In reality, high crimes and misdemeanors can mean whatever Congress wants it to mean when they are convinced that a president is no longer fulfilling the call of the office. And what is more vital to the call of the office than what WE need from a president at moments like these?

Americans don't like the impeachment of a president, so smart Democrats like Nancy Pelosi won't let her party forget that truth. Unless, of course, the next wave of pipe bomb terror comes at her. How Pelosi managed to avoid pipe bomb terror is as mysterious as why none of them exploded.

Trump: "You should have had an armed guard in your 

church....and capital punishment. God bless all."

From military to economic, Trump has waged war with his own advisers and appointees, yet, none of them seem to care or seem compelled to follow his radical lead in areas of such vital significance. Republicans in Congress have tried to cater to his whims, but even they could only pull off a tax cut for themselves and a controversial Supreme Court pick that might work against them come November 6th.

The quandry for the GOP is that they will either l retain their majority and have to explain why they still can't agree on anything useful enough to turn into law, or they will lose their majority and have to fend off the kind of congressional oversight of the president that used to be part of co-equal governance. Anything left to be accomplished in America can not pay for itself, something Republicans promised their tax cut would do.

The bully pulpit of the president has always mattered because it is essentially their only weapon. Presidents function on influence alone, although nothing is more powerful than being able to influence the media cycle and popular opinion. Congress used to be powerful, but those days are a distant memory.

Presidents don't write the bills they eventually sign, and they obviously can't even force their own party to buy a wall they promised Mexico would pay for. Obama used his influence to complete universal healthcare, but he did it using the Republican plan based on pressure from his own party even though he didn't get a single Republican vote for his conciliatory effort.

Unless the president of the U.S. is attempting to comfort US with their yearly State of the Union- or a monthly address from another act of terror- presidents don't really have a whole lot they can do but comfort US when our world appears frenzied.

Until WE all screwed up and allowed Russia to suppress and influence enough voters into our orange accident, WE had always elected a president with the capacity to speak words of reassurance to the bulk of US and not just those fringe folks who terrorize or tacitly approve.

Now WE have a president incapable of rising above tough coverage, Saturday night live spoofs or the  insults about his spray tan to still do the only thing WE need presidents to do.

And it's sad.

Women Like Sex Too: A Simple Defense Of Facebook.

Like many of you, I have had to do my own reckoning with the Cambridge Analytica reality that Facebook has so rudely slapped us with, forcing us to reexamine the things we see and read on The Book, even to the extent of wondering how Russia used our desperate love of Facebook against us in the 2016 election....

....and then I lost my damn self on this whole conversation because I always lose me and every other progressive who thinks from time to time that Russia made somebody who was previously interested in Hillary, more interested in Trump or any other candidate that they eventually voted for. I also lose myself on this Russian bot nonsense when I think they were able to make all the people who hate getting involved in politics less interested through keenly targeted Facebook memes.

Don't misunderstand my concern with what happened. I believe Putin deserves a serious geopolitical punch in the mouth with collective actions by the world as a message and a prelude to something worse if he doesn't stop the nonsense.

What I am tired of is progressive angst in the notion that human beings would get their lazy butts off of their couches to go stand in line for any candidate by inspiration from social media when we can barely decide who is going to pick up pizza when that cheesy pickup promo peaks our interest.

I am, admittedly, the same guy who was complaining about Google telling me that standing in line at O'Reilly auto parts is somehow a (insert curse word of choice here) photo opportunity, even when I'm actually across the street at Grease Monkey and the GPS is just a little off in its tracking of my every (insert another expletive) footstep.

The truth is they ALL are trying to GPS track and content analyze us to the benefit of the public square. In their defense, THEY are typically giving us something for FREE (social media page, email, web based market site) in exchange for the right to sell who we are to a third party. It is a relationship that we are made aware of going in so that we have the option and opportunity to steer clear of the free internet if we so choose. By now, there should be a solid understanding that you still get what you pay for in this world.

But the conversation of this orange man we are enduring in our White House is not something quite as trivial as the Sunday ads we've rejected that come through the so-called free internet now. Who knew enough strategic content could be used towards gaining an Electoral advantage, and that you could actually lose an election by 3 million votes yet, somehow still win the White House just as Donald Trump did?

Al Gore, that's who knew. He already gave us that civics lesson years ago. If Hillary didn't understand the electoral challenge from the Al Gore example alone, I question if she was prepared for the challenge that would have followed primarily being the first female president against a congress of GOP wolves. When you start to analyze things that happen in our world, sex, gender and sexuality are always underlying elements of consideration.

For example, I have resolved in my mind that sex is the oldest known industry to mankind because of things much more simplistic than pimps or patriarchy. In reality, there have always been women just as interested in sex as men think they are, some even more so quietly as it's kept.

The problem is, we do keep it quiet and we don't often open up about the reality that some women enjoy sex quite a bit. Prostitution is, in part, a byproduct of the truth that women love sex too.

While pimps are probably really cool guys with really gifted vocabularies, most of them are smart enough to find the women who want to hear what they are saying. I'm not talking about the sex slave crap or trying to overdo this sex analogy any more than necessary to make a point and keep the modern day attention span long enough for that point to sink in

My point?  People know what they like and listen to what they want to hear.

Putin, pimps and advertisers are only able to target the vulnerable, not produce them out of thin air. In reality, people do what they want to do or something pretty damn close to what they were thinking about in the first place.

Friends and family didn't start to fall distant on Facebook before during and after the electing of Trump because the Russian bots incited their discord. Some folks really loved them some Donald Trump, and they didn't want to be as open and honest about it because of the same reason our teenage daughters won't talk about banging someone like our boys tend to do on the regular.

Even with the downtrend in teen pregnancy, some babies happen because women like sex too. Women like sex, some of your friends and family voted for and still like Trump (and might do it again) and advertisers need to send you a coupon for that stuff you like, want or simply need based upon their strategic compilation of your social media life. As much as we'd like to blame the world for things we'd like to change, there is no way to change anything when you can't accept it for what it is.

If you don't want to be sold a product or told to go out and vote for that person you already like anyway, shut yourself off of the internet and social media in particular. Also disconnect the data on your phone as well as your wifi-signal while you are driving and I am pretty sure you will only see targeted mail and campaign flyers every two years or so.


Of course, they are asking more details about us in the upcoming census, so it might be prudent for anyone too concerned with a world trying to decide what we want to just live off the grid and keep up with everyone you know and love on Facebook- with a fake profile- and no likes or comments of course.

Normal Voters Really Want Normalcy To Return

Apparently, denying something happened
is all that matters to Donald Trump.

It used to be normal that we defend the actual victims of domestic violence.

Not the accusers! Those liars remain exactly what they were ten years before the #metoo movement decided to be. I know we would like to pretend that WE are a new America poised to give a damn when women insist we should, but this is Real Talk...For People Who Need It (SquareBiz), and I'm not convinced that enough abusers or women are ready to vote for a woman or believe her claim of abuse.

This matter of America's foremost leader being an unrepentant misogynist works because plenty of men remain just like him and plenty of women voted for this man with complete knowledge of his history with women. Those women- who shall primarily remain anonymous, for obvious reasons- are excused for their support of president Trump because the bulk of the evangelical community has also joined him and are clearly going to vote for him again if given the chance to do so.

It used to be normal that we'd fight against the efforts of the Soviet Union.

That nation is now simply called Russia because they fought the United States beyond their ability to afford the war, and it cost them an entire union. Yes, that Russia is the same Russia that is now happily fighting us in other ways, including automated bots that disseminate spoon fed information to the same list of people that I mentioned above:  my oldest brother, women who question #metoo and other women but not Trump, prominent evangelicals and the Trump base, aka, the Trumpians.

It used to be normal that certain standards of operation like having a presidential staff with security clearances or obvious obstruction efforts of an ongoing investigation would draw the ire of a Congress that most of us were raised as children to understand had an equal balance of power within the three branches of government. It used to be normal that Congress eagerly jumped upon opportunities to show the president their equal level of power like they did when overwhemingly voting in favor of sanctions against Vladimir Putin and Russia.

This Congress wont even force Trump to enact those sanctions that were voted upon with a veto proof majority, further conceding their equal level of power to a president that wants our military to give him a parade.

If you've seen this meme, maybe normal is just an illusion
Click here to compare the actual 1956 platform to this meme

It used to be normal that going through background checks, vetting, bonding or anything of the sort was considered "due process".

Now we have presidents- and supporters of the president- willingly defending a man who can't get permanent security clearance due to domestic violence issues. Instead of questioning why he remained in that job and who gave the call to keep him there every time his interim clearance lapsed over the past year (they last for 180 days with an option for another 180 days), this conversation has devolved into a question of due process with no trial under way and no reason to invoke the idea of due process unless you are confusing Rob Porter's issues with your own, Mr. President.


Even with acknowledgement for the sharing of platforms planks when politics demand, it used to be normal that Republicans behaved like Republicans and Democrats like Democrats.

Now, we have  a president that has control over both houses of Congress and is embroiled in a debate with his own party over immigration and increasing the deficit. If the signs of the death of political normalcy aren't clear enough, what more do you need?

I am personally a bit weary of those who keep seeing the obvious but continuously ask themselves the most obvious, thus rhetorical questions imagined. Yes, there are plenty of people that continue to support this man despite all the reasons "you" think they shouldn't. His issues with style, delivery, focus, empathy and a history twice as bad as his present gaffs are not enough to run off prominent preachers who either see something beyond the ability of the rest of us, or they see a puppet who they can get stuff from. Either way, they are with him and by default against you, Bob Mueller and normalcy.

They are also not against Russians because they are not dumb. What most of you people wishing for your normal back don't quite get is that smart people don't discount the fact that Donald Trump probably did benefit from the Russian intrusion into our election. They also don't automatically look at the polling numbers and tell themselves that he could win again without Russian involvement.

What you people who need your normal back also don't quite realize is that these are the same people who willingly gerrymander as well as obstruct voters for the sake of keeping their slipping grip on power, so why not Russians?

I still think exiling the spiritual understanding of forgiveness and Grace away from our schools because it offended people while letting everything else in was stupid. But that's the conservative me talking. Mostly, I am too proudly Socialist and too against the two-party hustle to care that the Democrats could be begging for a problem if they keeping frowning in disbelief over the notion that people support Trump.

Get over it and get over your wish for normalcy. If our lazy voters had a chance to do it all over again, they would have voted Bernie Sanders into office. I would be dancing, but we would all be trying to figure out how a Socialist will govern without any Socialist driven legislation coming out of either branch of Congress. While people like @RachelMaddow try to keep a calibration of what normal used to be so that we don't allow this administration to confuse us when normal finally returns, I say she and everyone else is dazed and confused and probably won't see things clearly until their concussions symptoms clear.

Our old normal only involved the participation of less than half of the country, and that was at the best of times, not mid-terms when turnout is significantly less. Several citizens have to watch, listen or actively ignore our embarrassment of a president while they rethink their previous belief that their vote didn't matter, but many citizens turn on this circus and feel more than justified of their decision to wash their hands of all of it. Whether we have an electorate more motivated to do their civic duty is still a wait and see proposition that has apathy, gerrymandering and suppression efforts it still must overcome.

Mitch McConnell looked flabbergasted as he stared into the camera and tried to explain to a section of Trump's current support how Barack Hussein Obama became our 44th president. His only recourse was to promise them that he would block Obama at every turn and make his effort to preside over this country as difficult as one human being possibly could. Now, all of that energy is being recalled and renewed against Trump, except Republicans have a political majority so the parallel isn't quite the same even if the sentiment is.

The new normal is likely being evidenced at anti-Trump protest rallies and with recent special election results. Governor Scott Walker, in Wisconsin, is refusing to hold a special election because the last one he allowed went for the Democrats. Right now, the generally motivated as well as the generally interested but hardly motivated voters are running off of the same energy, and that is a good thing. Whether it shall be an enduring thing is something to worry about when you realize that our president- who loves his freedom and Russia way more than your sense of normalcy- has decided that the best way to protect himself and Putin is to flood the waters with more press than the average person can endure and hope it makes them downright weary when it comes time to vote.

His plan seems worthwhile given the fact that the media is stuck in a paradigm of unprecedented ratings and interest in the latest news while simultaneously being disgusted by the person they are giving so much shine to each day. Trump's presidency may be saving a few dying newspapers across the country as we speak. Although his rhetoric continuously drives those he disgusts towards further hatred of him, it gets spin'd and retold by FOX news and by those Russian bots that keep generating half-truth memes to keep Trumpians motivated and fully on board.

If Russia is still as against America as it was when it was a union too, they have NOT only reignited the Cold-War that we declared victory over, they are winning the damn thing from the inside out with Donald Trump in office.

I write to you today because our president is also a Russian bot who refuses to denounce or fight back against Putin and quite possibly colluded with him to win the job. Our Congress is loathe in their responsibilities because they are unsure of how to do their job and keep their power at the same time. Meanwhile, WAY too many of you are looking for normal again while the war for our ability to still be called a union rages on.

What many of us see- including Facebook, finally- is that the necessity for nuclear war has been usurped by the simplicity of a digital one. WE are currently engaged in a war that WE don't understand so we can not be winning it. By the time we fully discover the extent of this war we will have endured internal damage that will never allow us to return to whatever normal used to be. In fact, when you think of it, old normal is probably to blame for this mess.

So please, stop looking for it.