Yes, There Is Voter Fraud

Yes, there is voter fraud, and it is committed every day by Republican state Legislatures all across the country, but most especially in the Southern States.  This fraud is in the form of defrauding people the right to vote. One of the worst of these so-called “Voter ID” laws was enacted by the North Carolina state Legislature in 2013. Precision-crafted and tailor-made, it was designed to keep “colored people” from being able to register easily, or to have the opportunity for early voting, both of which were shown by statistical analyses to be favored by Black people. Fortunately, this odious law was struck down by a Federal Court as being discriminatory.

The State of North Carolina appealed, and the case wound its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. On Monday of this week, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case.  I was surprised by this a bit, since Mad Dog Gorsuch had already been inserted (into an already conservative court) just recently by Hairball Trump and the gutless Senate. So, I have been daydreaming as to what may have happened. Here is my daydream.

 

SCENE: The office of Chief Justice (CJ) John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court.

KNOCK ON THE DOOR:

CJ Roberts: “Come in.”

ENTERS Associate Justice (AJ) Clarence Thomas: “Pardon me, John, I would like to talk with you.”

CJ Roberts: “Sure, Clarence, come in. What’s on your mind?”

AJ Thomas: ” I came to talk to you about the North Carolina Voter ID law that is being appealed.”

CJ Roberts: “Yes, I am planning to put it on the docket this week.”

AJ Thomas: “Well, that’s just it. I don’t want you to do any such thing.”

CJ Roberts: “But Clarence, this case is a very important conservative cause. You are one of the most conservative judges, ever. I am surprised that you would not want to hear North Carolina’s appeal argument.”

AJ Thomas: “I have carried the torch for conservatism from the day George Bush appointed me. But this goes too far. It goes against my people, Black people, so deeply that it might as well be back to the poll tax of the 1920s and ’30s. I just can not go along with this.”

CJ Roberts: “I hear you, Clarence. But the Republican establishment will have my hide if I don’t put this up for a vote. With Gorsuch on board, North Carolina can not lose.”

AJ Thomas: “John, you are not listening to me. I have been your lackey, your Uncle Tom – literally – for all these years. But if you go and put this case up for a vote, I am going to make your life hell. I am going to start singing and air all of our dirty laundry; all of our back door deals; all of our compromises of being human; how little we care for or about the average American, out there for everyone to see.”

CJ Roberts: “I … I… Clarence, I have never…heard you talk…like this!”

AJ Thomas: “I’m telling you, John…”

CJ Roberts: “OK. OK. But I can’t just say that this case has no merit… I have to make up something as an excuse…”

AJ Thomas: “Fine, do it that way, but don’t you put this case on the docket. Not now, not ever. Thank you.”

SCENE FADES OUT.

 

Like I said, it is a daydream. But, according to the New York Times, CJ Roberts said in a single-sentence statement that “nothing should be read into the court’s decision to decline to hear the case.”

Amazing!

It is truly amazing how much mischief one guy can make. The latest fiasco with Hairball Trump is the firing of FBI Director, Comey. Your President actually accused Comey of being a “showboat” and of “grandstanding.” Excuse me, but this is the most egregious example of the “pot calling the kettle black.”

Of course, Trump’s showboat-grandstanding is made possible by the godless Republicans. The coalition of alt-right morons, Evangelical ministers, the Republican Party, the Russians, and the Devil are allowing this idiot to have the stage.

The Russians are LOVING this. The more chaos and schism is present in our country, the better for them. They are trying to create the same scenario in Europe, with some limited success. As I wrote in my last blog, thankfully the French did not fall for their “alternative facts.” But make no mistake – the Russians are going to continue to stir the pot (I guess I’m stuck on examples of cookware today).

Back to our country – all of this is going to backfire on the Republicans. You just wait and see. And all because they just couldn’t stand that Barack Obama was president for eight years. Sad! Very sad!

RELIEF!

I have been watching this train disaster, called the “Republican Health Care Bill,” winding its way through the gutless House of Representatives (and they dare to call themselves that). What a shameless bunch of Trumpkin morons.

It was, therefore, a great relief to learn that at least the French people aren’t as stupid as we are. That alt-right, Nazi woman, Marine LePen, was apparently soundly defeated in the second round of French presidential elections. At least for now, her hateful rhetoric and xenophobic nonsense will hopefully take back seat to sensible European politics. That massive data breach of the other candidate, Mr. Macron, just prior to the French electorate casting their votes, was no doubt the effort of the Russians, or their lackeys, who preferred LePen.

If you read my blogs over the past few months, I outlined how the Russians prefer these far-right, “nationalistic” candidates simply for the effect they have on European solidarity. If the Russians can drive a wedge between and among European countries,  the job of containing continental influence will be much easier for the Putyin regime.

Hairball Trump, of course, preferred LePen. That is no surprise. Your moronic president relishes chaos and enjoys creating schism. In his erroneous view, this gives him better leverage – for what, other than his ego, is anyone’s guess.

At least for now, Satan has been defeated! Hooray for France!  VIVE LA FRANCE!

Two Idiots with Bad Hair

Well, it probably doesn’t take much to figure out to whom the title of this blog refers. I am talking about Hairball Trump and his equally hair-challenged buddy, Kim Jung Un of North Korea. These two morons can’t keep their yappers shut, they have the diplomatic skills of a komoto dragon, and they may inanely escalate the already bad situation into a war. “Conventional” war would be devastating enough, but if Kim goes off his rocker, he may just use one of his nukes, just to show how belligerent he can be. At which point, his equally vapid counterpart, Hairball, may do just the same.

The media keep telling us how clever Kim is to play the game. But it’s not cleverness that keeps him in power and has his generals do hi bidding. It’s sheer terror. And he is doing the same with the world. He is a modern-day Caligula. If that’s “cleverness,” then a weasel in a chicken house is a freaking genius.

I am convinced that part of the problem with these two guys is their bad haircut. I have a good diplomatic suggestion for solving this manufactured crisis: I will make appointments for them with Miss Kimberly, the person who has been cutting my hair for the past 23 years. With their newly-sculpted heads, maybe girls will find these two morons attractive enough so they can get “action” without having to pay for it (Hairball Trump) or threaten families of women with torture and execution (Kim). So, Rex Tillerson, you hapless oil executive, move over because I have the solution for the Korean Crisis.

You Can’t Polish a Turd…

...or make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear…or leopards don’t change their spots...or Marine Le Pen is not going to be all of a sudden a presidential candidate for “the French people, ” just because she says so. Want more cliches? How about the truism that the “best predictor of future behavior is past behavior?”

Le Pen, the daughter of that neo-Nazi Jean-Marie Le Pen, has been the president of the far-right, anti-EU, ultra-nationalist,  xenophobic, antisemitic French political party, the National Front, for more than a decade. She, like Hairball Trump, seem enamored with Russian dictator Putyin who, in turn, is glad to finance a party that wishes to destroy European unity. She “resigned” as the head of her party just a few days ago in order to pursue her goal of becoming the leader of France.

A few months ago, I wrote a blog in which I queried whether people have forgotten the two terrible wars in the first half of the 20th century that tore the world apart and left Europe in a state of utter ruin. Now, three generations later, the nationalists in many countries are rattling their sabres, apparently forgetting (or never learning their history lessons) that it was exactly that kind of nationalist nonsense that led to the maelstrom of those wars and an estimated 50 million dead world-wide.

Le Pen may pretend that she is not a “sauvage,” like her father. But here is another cliche: “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” She slipped up a few weeks ago when she claimed that the French had nothing to do with deporting 13,000 Jews to concentration camps during 1942 but, of course, it was the French police, on orders of the French Vichy government, that did just that. She quickly back-pedaled from that statement but we saw a glimpse of her true self.

Biographers of Marine Le Pen point out that she had a terrible childhood in the home of a crazy, self-indulgent, hateful moron of a father, and that she was frequently traumatized during her childhood. Well, there are two kinds of people: ones, who become just like their antecedants (bigoted, spiteful, bombastic) or those who go in the opposite direction and become decent human beings. Marine Le Pen belongs to the first group.

Trump Done Right (For Once)

I am always very critical of Hairball Trump, but this time I am going to thank him for securing the release of the American-Egyptian aid worker, Aya Hijazi. She has been imprisoned for years under the dictatorship of Egyptian General el-Sissi, on a trumped(pun intended)-up charge. Apparently, when the dictator was in Washington recently, Trump brought up this woman’s issue and that’s what led to her freedom.

Good-bye…

…and good riddance, Bill O’Reilly. Should have happened a long time ago. One look at that smug bastard was enough to make you sick.

Call Me Cynical, But…

…I am rather suspicious of Hairball Trump’s newly-found concern about Syria. Until a few days ago he showed not the slightest interest in the suffering of the Syrian people. Worse yet, their refugees are among the ones that he wants to keep out of the country with his bogus “national security” scare.

So, let my imagination run wild a bit. At the outset, I have to say that I am not a conspiracy theorist at heart, but I can piece together some reported information, along with a good deal of conjecture. Let’s start with Russia.

From the outset the Trump administration has been dogged by reports that the Russians played a role in the presidential election to favor Trump. Trump, in turn, has been  speaking admiringly/adoringly of the dictator Putyin, even to the point that many Republicans are now reported to look to Russia as a model country to emulate (now, how the hell did THAT happen?). Anyway, this cozy relationship and favoritism have been investigated by U.S. security agencies and congressional panels.  There have been many voices calling for an independent investigator, much like the Watergate investigation of Richard Nixon in the 1970s.

Then comes the chemical attack.

So, Hairball all of a sudden gets conscience (?) and bombs the Syrian airbase. But wait – first we notify the Russians that we are going to do this. The Russians, who favor the dictator Assad, have time to inform him that an attack is imminent.  The Syrians get all their important assets out of there in a hurry, so that our missiles take out a “few MIG airplanes that are waiting to be serviced” and a few other token odds-and-ends.

But now, Hairball Trump looks “presidential” and shows us that he is no bitch of Putyin and the Russians. The Russians get angry (wink-wink) and there is an immediate cooling of the desire to investigate “Russia-gate.”

I know it’s conjecture. But what a smooth move this would have (could have) been for Hairball.

Only…

…the Syrian people continue to be massacred.

 

The Supreme(ly strange) Court

I am not familiar with the legal system of other countries, but the U.S. system of jurisprudence is often touted as a model for others. I’m not so sure that it is such a good model.

Many of our courts’ decisions are based on the Constitution and its various amendments. But those were written decades or centuries ago and many of the issues that come before the courts today were not and could not have been anticipated that long ago. Did the forefathers mean “that a well armed militia” should have weapons for which “the right to bear arms” was written, or does that clause mean that everybody can own firearms, even ones whose sole purpose is to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time? I am not arguing for or against the Second Amendment to the Constitution. I am simply saying that different judges are going to interpret the text based not on the law, but based on their own ideology.

Or take the interpretation of “separate but equal” treatment for Blacks, based I believe on the interpretation by a 19th century Supreme Court of  the 4th and 14th Amendments. For many decades, that ruling held sway, until the 1954 reversal by the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Why? Different era, different court, different ideology, different interpretation?

Could our forefathers have considered the “freedom of choice,” or  frozen embryos, or many of the other modern issues that they could not even dream of in the 18th and 19th centuries when they penned the Constitution? How can we apply 200 years-old thought to 21st century problems?

The most recent fiasco with Merrick Garland (Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court who did not even get his name placed forth by a Republican-controlled Senate) and then Judge Gorsuch’s nomination and subsequent acceptance after the “Nuclear Option” was exercised by the U.S. Senate, illustrate the strangeness of how judges are picked and confirmed (or not confirmed). Again, I’m not saying anything for or against Judge Gorsuch in this blog. That is not my purpose of this essay. The point is that individual judges can have such widely differing personal views, which then they apply to the interpretation of ancient documents and antiquated laws. This approach then creates the kind of battles that are fought between “conservatives” and “liberals.” But does that really have anything to do with the law? I don’t think so, especially when the person bringing his or her “baggage” of views is going to make life-or-death decisions, or affect the daily lives of millions of people.

There ought to be a better system. One in which politics does not play THE major deciding role in choosing judges. One in which judges would leave their own personal biases (to the extent possible) out of the decision-making process and politicians would get the hell out of the way of trying to influence the judiciary. A system that salutes the Constitution but understands that 21st century issues need 21st century solutions.

 

The “Right to Life” Lie

Of all the lies disseminated by conservatives, few are bigger than the so-called “Right to Life” movement. I have no doubt that there are many sincere people who, for philosophical and ethical reasons,  think that abortion is wrong. But the politicians and conservative religious organizations who constantly harp on this issue are two-faced liars. Here is why:

The religious and conservative Republican right wing have tried for decades to overturn the Supreme Court decision making abortion available for women in the U.S. Yet, these are the same folks who, while so “concerned” about human life, do everything in their power to make make peoples’ lives, once born,  be miserable. Actually, they try to do this already before a pregnancy comes to term. Take, for example, the recent attempt by Congress to do away with the Affordable Care Act. This would have thrown tens of millions of people off the health care availability list, including pregnancy, neonatal, and well-child medical care. Even worse, one of the Congressmen questioned why prenatal care should be covered at all, and “why should men pay for such services.” Well, where the hell did you come from Congressman, if not from your mother’s pregnancy?

One of the favorite targets of the religious right and conservatives is planned Parenthood. Yet, this organization hasn’t received federal funds for abortion for a long time, and most of their work is in the area of women’s health, not in abortion services. One of the services provided by this and other organizations is counseling and education about avoiding pregnancy through safe sexual practices. This would make sense and also obviate the need for abortion. But, oh, no, we can’t have that either or, alternatively, avoiding pregnancy by providing means of birth control.

Humans are sexual beings. Sex is as natural as eating or sleeping or any other function. Isn’t it always the old men and women (politicians or clergy) that are telling the young that sex is “wrong,” except for procreating purposes?

Ok, then, we have procreation, but not the follow-up care of children.  Republican state legislatures and the U.S. Congress cut programs like foster-care, WIC support, Medicaid, school funds, etc., to “save money,” while spending money on stupid shit, like building a wall along the Mexican border.

As far as I can see,  for churches and politicians, the steady drum-beat on harping on the “sanctity of human life” is nothing more than a way of raising money, acquiring and maintaining power,  and whipping up their base to get elected.