YOUR SUNDAY MOMENT OF ZEN

 

SATURDAY NIGHT DANCING

 

With Christopher Walken. Chet Atkins on guitar:

Well done Nancy! (And to you too, Brandon!)

 

New York Times:

"WASHINGTON — The House passed a $1 trillion bill on Friday night to rebuild the country’s aging public works system, fund new climate resilience initiatives and expand access to high-speed internet service, giving final approval to a central plank of President Biden’s economic agenda after a daylong drama that pitted moderate Democrats against progressives. But an even larger social safety net and climate change bill was back on hold, with a half-dozen moderate-to-conservative Democrats withholding their votes until a nonpartisan analysis could tally its price tag." 

 This is exactly what the Democrats need to do - pass legislation; cut the social spending bill down to $1 trillion and get it passed. 

$3 trillion was never a realistic number to begin with and this would still represent the biggest investment in social spending in decades. The Democrats will be going into 2022 with: 

* Infrastructure passed 

* Social spending passed

* COVID controlled 

* Jobs/Unemployment significantly better 

* Afghan war ended 

* World standing vastly improved.

That's going to be a hard record for Republicans to run against.

As Speaker Pelosi made the announcement in the House, snickering could be heard from the GQP side:

HOUSE SPEAKER PELOSI:  “Did I hear a laugh over there? Did I hear a laugh from one of the people who voted for [the Trump tax cuts] that gave 83 percent of the benefits to the top one percent?”

Excellent jobs report and achievement of a bipartisan infrastructure bill that Trump talked about so much it became a punchline. Objectively an excellent couple of days for Brandon Biden. 

President Biden accomplished in nine months what Donald Trump couldn’t get done in four years: sign into law a bipartisan infrastructure bill. This doesn’t get done without the best speaker ever. 

Reminder:  Never bet against Pelosi.

Also, this:

"...the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,

 

Capitol Rioter Who Boasted She Wouldn’t Go to Jail Because She’s White Is Going to Prison 

 Capitol rioter Jenna Ryan, who infamously declared her “blonde hair white skin” would spare her from prison, was sentenced to 60 days behind bars on Thursday.

First they came for the media, then they came for the professors...

 

As POTUS, Trump continually declared to the American people that the media are "enemies of the people."

Any news that didn't flatter him, Trump called it "fake news." Any news that reported what he said and did Trump said was "fake news." His cultists repeated this; now they too believe the American media are "enemies of the people," and any report on what Trump actually says and does is "fake news."

Joe Biden won a landslide victory against Trump, and Trump has convinced his gullible cultists that the election was stolen. It was not. 

Trump is a liar -- he has been all his miserable life -- and this is his Biggest Lie, and the one that is tearing this country in two.

Now we have a new darling of the Trump cultists, J.D. Vance, telling audiences that  "the professors are the enemies" to loud applause by Trump cultists.  J.D. Vance graduated summa cum laude from Ohio State University with a B.A. in political science and philosophy. After graduating from Ohio State, Vance received a Juris Doctor from Yale Law school.

Think of all the "enemies" Vance had during those years where he attained his degrees! Those "enemies" actually were responsible for Vance getting his degrees and going on to be a best-selling writer, and now a supporter of the guy who calls the American media "enemies of the people."

Trump called the election he so ignominiously lost a "stolen election." Trump calls any election where his favored candidate loses a "stolen election." A few days before the Virginia gubernatorial election, Newt Gingrich claimed that the Democrats would cheat to win. The Democratic incumbent lost the election in Virginia on Tuesday, but neither Trump nor his lackey hangers on said anything about anyone stealing the election, because the Trumpublicans won!  Isn't that strange?

"Enemies of the people;" "the professors are the enemies." Any election where Trump or a Trumper loses is a "stolen election." Do you see what's going on here?

I do. And so does a friend of mine, and here's what he says:

Thomas P Albritton: "I hold a master's degree in History and what we are seeing develop is Fascism. I too have been thinking and saying this for quite a while. My mother grew up in Germany during WWII and she too understands this."

I understand this as well.

You better wake the hell up and understand this too.

Congratulation to Michelle Wu!

Boston's First Madame Mayor!

The Mental Illness Epidemic in America

These people exist and they vote Trumpublican.

From "Spiro Agnew's Ghost" Twitter Account:

Spiro Agnew’s Ghost @SpiroAgnewGhost ·  These are real posts, with huge amounts of interaction from Q-anon lunatics who belong strapped down to something in a rubber room. The mental illness epidemic in this country is utterly frightening and getting worse. And a bunch of people have gathered in Dallas by Dealey Plaza:

 

The question is what's going to happen to these delusional nutcakes when JFK, Sr., JFK, Jr., and Jackie O. don't show up. Will they admit they are crazy?

No. I think not. I believe they'll go on to another insane conspiracy theory and continue to believe the 2020 election was stolen.

And this from Newsmax's WHITE HOUSE correspondent:

 Newsmax Star Claims Vaccines Contain ‘Bioluminescent’ Tracker Linked to Devil

 "Twitter eventually took down Emerald Robinson’s tweet that breathlessly warned that the COVID-19 vaccines contain a glowing tracking chip that could lead to a biblical war."

“She tweets out that the COVID vaccine is meant to track your every move from an iPhone which literally tracks your every move,” political observer Josh Jordan noted. 

“The problem is that she knows it's nonsense, but she's built a brand on taking advantage of those who don't know any better.”

**************************

Those who "don't know any better" are legion. They voted for Trump in the last election and continue to believe in Trump's Big Lie.

QAnon, anti-vaxxers, Trumpublicans are all of a piece. They are mostly uninformed, fearful, superstitious, and open to conspiracies, so it's easy for con men like Trump and cynical Newsmax reporters to manipulate them. 

But to believe in dead people coming back to life in Dallas, as the QAnoners do, and to publish on Twitter that a vaccine has a bioluminescent marker in it is a whole other level of insanity. And these Trumpers are marinated in it.

American History (otherwise known as CRT by those who want to ignore it).

Qasim Rashid:

 

"It's Virginia's Election Day & 101 year anniversary of the Ocoee Election Day Massacre. 

On November 2, 1920, a white mob murdered 30 Black people, burned 25 Black owned homes and two Black churches -- because Black people voted. 

Ocoee's entire Black community was driven out within a year."

This is Trump's Legacy

 

This is the result of Trump's Big Lie: 

 "I am a hunter -- and I think you should be hunted," a woman can be heard saying in a voicemail left for Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in September. "You will never be safe in Arizona again." Or there's the man who spit, "Die you bitch, die! Die you bitch, die!" repeatedly into the phone, in another of several dozen threatening and angry voicemails directed at the Democratic secretary of state and shared exclusively with CNN by her office. 

 [skip]

 "Bullet," read one tweet reply to Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, in September. "That is a six letter word for you." An email sent to her office over the summer read: "I'm really jonzing to see your purple face after you've been hanged." 

Asked by CNN last week if she feels safe in her job and going about her days, Griswold paused for nearly 30 seconds before answering. "I take these threats very seriously," she finally said, choosing her words carefully. "It's absolutely getting worse," she added. 

 [skip] 

 "When I'm at the center of a national QAnon conspiracy and the very people who have stormed the Capitol are threatening me, it is very concerning. When someone says they know where I live and I should be afraid for my life, I take that as a threat and I believe the state of Colorado should, too," Griswold said. 

[skip]

The situation got so bad for Jocelyn Benson, Michigan's Democratic secretary of state, that during periods when the threats against her have spiked and gotten specific, she has received periodic 24-hour police protection. But when that security dropped off, the threats continued. Benson had dozens of people show up outside her house last December while she sat inside with her husband and young son, on the phone with the Michigan attorney general who was trying to scramble a police response. It ended up taking authorities 45 minutes to arrive on scene."

And idiots want Trump back in office so he can complete turning America into the cesspool he started work on in 2017.

YOUR SUNDAY MOMENT OF ZEN

 

SATURDAY NIGHT DANCING

 

Happy Halloween!

Michael Jackson's Thriller:

HAVE A SCARY HALLOWEEN

 Found around the internet:

Conservative (Not A Trumpian Proto-fascist), Michael Gerson

The problem with our body politic today is the GQP. It is corrupt. It is detached. It is defined by people like Trump, McConnell, Cruz, MTG, Gaetz, and on and on and on. 

 There is no other entity remotely deserving credit or blame for what we are enduring or the dangers that we face. 

 Michael Gerson, a Conservative, explains: 

 Is it possible to locate ideological hotheads on both left and right who care nothing for democratic procedures and values? Of course. In a country of 330 million people, one can find plenty of anarchist rioters, Marxist college professors and administrators who use tolerance as a club to beat those they deem intolerant. But judging their threat as equivalent to that of the populist right is itself a threat to the country. At some point, a lack of moral proportion becomes a type of moral failure. 

 [skip] 

 Only one party has based the main part of its appeal on a transparent lie. To be a loyal Republican in 2021 is to believe that a national conspiracy of big-city mayors, Republican state officials, companies that produce voting machines and perhaps China, or maybe Venezuela, stole the 2020 presidential election. The total absence of evidence indicates to conspiracy theorists (as usual) that the plot was particularly fiendish. Previous iterations of the GOP tried to unite on the basis of ideology and public purpose. The current GOP is united by a common willingness to believe whatever antidemocratic rot comes from the mouth of an ambitious, reckless liar. 

 [skip] 

 Only one political movement has made a point of denying the existence and legacy of racism, assuring White people that they are equally subject to prejudice, and defending the Confederacy and its monuments as “our heritage.” This is perhaps the ultimate in absurd bothsidesism. My side suffers from economic stagnation and the unfair application of affirmative action. Your side was shipped like coal and sold like cattle; suffered centuries of brutality, rape, family separation and stolen wages; and was then subjected to humiliating segregation and the systematic denial of lending, housing and justice. Who can say which is worse? 

 [skip] 

 Only one president — as released documents show — attempted to overturn the results of a fair election, tried to block the certification of his successor and discussed in the Oval Office the possibility of imposing martial law. Only one president had minions prepare the step-by-step instructions for a constitutional coup.

Dystopia, Texas, USA

 

So Texas Republicans are looking forward to a good ole fascist book "banning/burning." 

Texas House to launch investigation into school library books 

 The chairman of a Texas state House committee tasked with conducting investigations is launching a probe into books that school librarians keep on their shelves in the wake of a measure the legislature passed earlier this year to bar teaching of critical race theory in public schools.

 "...on the list are some more popular works, including: — 

"The Confessions of Nat Turner," a 1967 novel by William Styron written as a first-person narrative of an 1831 slave revolt in Virginia. — 

"The Cider House Rules," John Irving’s 1985 novel about a protagonist whose childhood mentor is an obstetrician who performs abortions. — 

"V for Vendetta," the 1982 graphic novel by Alan Moore about a dystopian, post-apocalyptic England ruled by a fascist regime, which became a hit movie in 2005. — 

"The Handmaid’s Tale," another dystopian novel written by Margaret Atwood about a post-revolution United States in which women are subjected by a ruling class of men. 

(Forced pregnancies in Texas and banning "The Handmaid's Tale?" Irony is dead! S.K.)

 "We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy" and "Between the World and Me," an essay collection and memoir by author and essayist Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Those Texans are just carrying on a good ole fascist tradition!

 

The former Republican Party's mantra was for small government and local control for decades. The Trumpian cult that has devolved into this current authoritarian entity, The Trumpublican Party, has one interest -- the concentration of power into the hands of those who believe they know best for all. 

The Democrats are trying to invest in infrastructure and the economy, raise wages, make healthcare affordable, and improve people’s lives. 

Meanwhile the GQP cultists are banning books and abortions and ranting like lunatics about baseless conspiracies. Book banning, forced pregnancy, and paying to rat out your neighbors. 

Yeah . Nothing unAmerican about any of that.  

The FBI ranks Texas as the 15th most dangerous state for --sexual assault and rape. But go ahead and ban books -- that'll solve Texas's shocking crime problems. This is what ineffectual governments do: find a problem that doesn't exist, make it a problem, and ignore what the real problems are.

Let's see if banning "A Handmaiden's Tale" will lower the rape and sexual assault stats in this stupidly run, dystopian state.

Two Years Ago Today: Trump vs. Obama

These are Trump's supporters. This is the current GQP.

‘When do we get to use the guns?’: A right-winger's question shows how the GOP is spiraling out of control 

 When Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk spoke at a far-right event in Boise, Idaho, this week, he took questions from people in the audience — including a man who made it clear that he was ready to resort to violence over lies about the 2020 election. 

Media Matters highlighted the clip on its website. Echoing MAGA Republicans' false and debunked claims of voter fraud, and hinting at animosity toward vaccine mandates, the man told Kirk, "At this point, we're living under corporate and medical fascism. This is tyranny. When do we get to use the guns? No, and I'm not — that's not a joke. 

I'm not saying it like that. I mean, literally, where's the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?"

**************************************

From my friend Lee Arnold's facebook page: 

 "What Donald Trump and his Brainless followers have done to our country. When Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk spoke at a far-right event in Boise, Idaho, this week, he took questions from people in the audience — including a man who made it clear that he was ready to resort to violence over lies about the 2020 election. Media Matters highlighted the clip on its website. Echoing MAGA Republicans' false and debunked claims of voter fraud, and hinting at animosity toward vaccine mandates, the man told Kirk, "At this point, we're living under corporate and medical fascism. This is tyranny. When do we get to use the guns? No, and I'm not — that's not a joke. I'm not saying it like that. I mean, literally, where's the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?"

Trump's lie -- his dirty lie -- about a stolen election has taken root in the weak minds of dangerously stupid people. 

And the article above Mr. Arnold's fb statement illustrates where they hope to take this lie. 

They want to kill their fellow Americans. 

 All because of Trump's DIRTY LIE. 

 IMO, that's how this country will fall apart. 

Trump supporters refuse to step back and see how he's conned every single one of them.

History is full of large groups of people falling for the disinformation and lies spread by evil men who seek power.

"It can't happen here?"

It's happening all around us. Now.

And Trump is responsible.

 DONALD TRUMP, JR., 

IS A LOATHSOME WORM.

Those who keep informed 

will know why I posted that.

Who's surprised?

 

ROLLING STONE Reports:

EXCLUSIVE: Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff 

Two sources are communicating with House investigators and detailed a stunning series of allegations to Rolling Stone, including a promise of a “blanket pardon” from the Oval Office.         

While there have been prior indications that members of Congress were involved, this is also the first account detailing their purported role and its scope. The two sources also claim they interacted with members of Trump’s team, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who they describe as having had an opportunity to prevent the violence. 

The two sources, both of whom have been granted anonymity due to the ongoing investigation, describe participating in “dozens” of planning briefings ahead of that day when Trump supporters broke into the Capitol as his election loss to President Joe Biden was being certified. 

 “I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene specifically,” the organizer says. “I remember talking to probably close to a dozen other members at one point or another or their staffs.” 

 [skip] 

 Along with Greene, the conspiratorial pro-Trump Republican from Georgia who took office earlier this year, the pair both say the members who participated in these conversations or had top staffers join in included Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).

“We would talk to Boebert’s team, Cawthorn’s team, Gosar’s team like back to back to back to back,” says the organizer.

It's all beginning to come together as more evidence is uncovered by the Congressional investigation into the January 6 insurrection by pro-Trump mobs.

According to this new report, members of Congress participated in the planning to overthrow a free and fair election and install the loser of that election, Donald J. Trump, as the illegitimate POTUS.

It's shocking to understand that members of Congress, who swore an oath to the Constitution -- not to Donald J. Trump -- betrayed their oath of office and gave their allegiance to a cheat, a liar, and a fraud, and not to their country.

Those members of Congress who participated should be thrown out in disgrace.

YOUR SUNDAY MOMENT OF ZEN

Seen on a church bulletin:

"Warm" them! "Their will be...CONSEQUENCES..."

SATURDAY NIGHT SINGING AND DANCING

 

Adriano Celentano:

(What you're hearing is gibberish that sounds like American English being sung by Italians.)