Republican Babylon, Part One.

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. ~Revelation 18:1-5

So, among other things, we apparently have a President who couldn't pass a fifth grade Geography class. Oddly enough, I'm reminded of Grover Norquist having once said "We don't need a leader, we just need somebody to sign this stuff."

Hey Grover, how's that worked out? Traded the soul of conservatism and the Republican Party not to mention any pretense of leadership for a tax cut and now...everybody hates all you motherfuckers except for deranged idiots, racists and a few men of wealth billionaires, or as I've referred to Howard Schultz a couple times today "Shit on a shingle." Yeah, fuck that guy.

Today, my social media is on fire with people complaining that the Republican tax bill has left them paying the IRS rather than receiving their normal refund, and others who know this stuff...or even simply who do their own taxes...saying "We warned you."

A majority of said people feel like they've been screwed, many of those who were Trump voters are saying they won't vote for him again.

I'm curious, how exactly did you think a lying con-man wasn't going to screw you over and line his own pockets at your expense...and for that matter why did you expect he'd somehow find a way to hit at the rest of us without screwing you, too?

Our Constitution, our financial system, our legal system and obviously our tax code simply cannot work that way.

As I said to somebody earlier in my best Die Hard quoting form "Welcome to the party, pal!"

Listen, Republicans, Trumpers, Third Party-voting motherfuckers. We tried to tell you fucking people. It's taken a hell of a lot of you two years to figure out what people like me and many others were trying to tell you three years ago.

So welcome to the party.

Did I mention I'm really getting tired of stupid fucking people?

I'm tired of billionaires, I'm tired of racists, I'm tired of stupid people. Hell I'm tired of being sent links by my friends and picking through a selection of crap apparently from the inbox of some dumb ass racist billionaire who never met a conspiracy theory he didn't like.

New rule: If ya'll can't tell fantasy from reality or avoid saying shit that'd get you fired from being a cashier at a damn Burger King, ya'll shouldn't get to be no billionaire.

You know what else I'm really tired of? Christians claiming they're "under attack" when the truth is they're basically destroying their own religion by seeking after worldly power and wealth. This fucking garbage always works out the same. It's always the racist right-wing greedy motherfuckers that are "Defending Christianity and Western Civilization from the Communist Hordes" except it goes way further back than that, the Crusades, the various forces fighting for the Catholic side during all the religious wars that surrounded the Reformation...never forget that, people fought and died for the right to read the Bible and have religious rites in their own languages...the Confederates during the Civil War, the Central Powers...both Germany and Austria Hungary fought under the motto "God is with us" and subsequently so did the Nazis...not to mention everybody from gimcrack dictators like Ngo Dinh Diem to the UDI government of racist Rhodesia. Yeah, there's a lot of fucking people "Defending Christianity" too bad not a goddamned one of them can be bothered to read what Jesus said about those who have wealth and power, let alone actually practice their own damned religion.

Or, to put it another way, simple fairness is somehow a "Liberal" value now. I suppose somebody should go back in time and inform the conservative Baptists who taught me that it wasn't, that fairness was a human value and simply expected. It's funny how even Fox News's viewers are actually in favor of that 70% marginal tax rate that Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has proposed. Because, after all, that's fair, isn't it? Shouldn't the people who make the most money be the ones paying the most in taxes?

Ya know, I've read Ayn Rand. It's not just that she was a terrible person and a terrible writer, it's that thankfully most of us just don't find "Fuck you, I've got mine" all that inspiring. The John Galt speech at the end of Atlas Shrugged is literally a crime against words.

Sooner or later, these fucking people are just going to have to start paying their fucking share.

Oh hey, ya know I've personally been asking the question of conservatives that why is it "Nuts" to think we should pay our bills, support things like education, take care of people and have a functioning society...but endless political vendettas, racism, tax cuts and wars...how come those aren't "Nuts?" Asking, again, for the people who taught me what Christian and conservative values actually were...back when espousing those things meant you were something other than a bigot...but I digress.

And ya know, speaking of bigoted old guys, there's another thing that gets under my skin, people comparing Trump to Winston Churchill. I'm pretty sure racism was probably the only thing they had in common and it can be said in Sir Winston's defense that he came of age during the absolute nadir of race-relations on a global scale. Trump has no such excuse.

Perhaps more to the point, Sir Winston was a smart, tough son of a bitch who actually saw combat in the Boer War (where he did put himself to good use killing notoriously racist motherfuckers) the battle of Omdurman in Sudan (where he participated in the last real Cavalry charge by British Army troops) and World War I (after being sacked from his position as First Sea Lord following the bloody draw against the Kaiser's fleet at Jutland, but still...) who actually could overcome his bigoted nature and show respect for Sikh troops who fought for the British, who could make peace with former enemies and help lay the groundwork for much of our modern world...stuff like the European Union and our current international system that people like Putin and Trump are bent on destroying.

And Churchill couldn't just find India on the map, or know the difference between it and Nepal...he served in India with the British Army, knew dealing with Sikhs from experience and was likely just as familiar with the famous Nepalese Gurkha soldiers from his service there.

Further, despite the relative lack of religious inclination on the part of both men, the arch-conservative Winston Churchill and damned-near-Socialist Franklin Delano Roosevelt not only could communicate and work well together...but their communications were often punctuated with Bible verses to make points and stuff.

Trump can barely communicate with his own citizens in a professional capacity and can't even correctly name the Books of the Bible or accept even the most basic of Christian doctrines as it would apply to him...or that it might.

Republicans, you want to know why your spell is broken and why your carefully-constructed Babylon is falling?

Change is in the air, you can see it, you can feel it all around.

So much for standing athwart the flow of history yelling "Stop." Ya'll turned it into a crap shoot. Step right up and throw those dice against the wall, homey!

Ya'll should've picked a leader, not just somebody who can "sign this stuff."

But you didn't.

The State of the Union tonight is going to be a soup sandwich.

Please Clap.

Part Two