Seriously, we need to knock this shit off.

“'When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”

~Leviticus 19:33-34 (New International Version.)

"Send Her Back" Trump Supporters chanted last night, at a rally in Greenville, North Carolina.

Congresswoman Omar responded to cruelty and savagery with grace and poetry. The lines she quoted are from the poem "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou.

Ilhan Omar was brought here by her family, refugees from Somalia, when she was two years old. There is no back to send her to. This *Is* home, in all respects, and judging from her reaction and for that matter her choice of poetry with which to respond, this lady is as American as it gets. If you look at how Americans face down adversity when there's long odds, this totally fits our cultural pattern. It's not just the choice of words...but the choice of poets as well. Maya Angelou overcame great hardship and adversity in her life, and eventually composed and read the Inaugural Poem at Bill Clinton's first inauguration.

There's one hell of a lot of other people in Congress, Democrats as well as Republicans, who could stand to learn a thing or two from Ilhan Omar and her three friends, I say.

There are too damned many, increasingly many senior Democrats as well as most Republicans...who hate Trump but they think they'll be safer if they wait him out, rather than stand up.

Meanwhile, America continues its free-fall descent into chaos and superstition. Here we have some damn fool imparting religious-sounding significance to Q-Anon conspiracy theory bullshit and somebody's baby picture...and this stupidity *Was* the top trending item on Twitter for part of last night.

I mean, come on, people. What the fuck? On the one hand, we have anti-immigrant Nativism...on the other hand we seem to have an emergent belief in demons, devils, sacrifices and witchcraft that is different from the kind of stuff peddled by bullshit artists and Juju men found throughout sub-Saharan Africa only by its apparent reliance on the internet and social media.

I hope I'm not the only person who finds this confusing, especially since these same people would most likely refer to African Traditional Religion as being demonic. But how is all this personality-cult conspiracy theory woo woo bullshit and belief in all these made up unseen forces any damned different, except that it's overwhelmingly practiced only by white people?

Like, I'm serious, I know a decent number of non-white conspiracy theorists...and for that matter, traditional religious believers as well...Native American traditional practitioners...and they don't act like this. For that matter I work with a guy from Zimbabwe, who I've discussed this kind of stuff with, and he doesn't act like that.

So what's these fucking people's problem?

This garbage is the result of over 50 years of Republicans pushing fear, hate, racism, religion, sexism and willful stupidity on the American public. Of course, two generations-plus in, and there's little difference between the Republican Party and most of the conservative portion of the electorate. 50 years ago this weekend, Republicans helped get us to the Moon. "We came in peace for all Mankind" as the plaque left on the Sea of Tranquility said.

Now, Republicans don't want to be bothered to have peace with their own neighbors, let alone elected officials from other parts of the country...and they have reached the point of not even recognizing the American-ness of other Americans. This will not end well...and I am increasingly certain that that's the point.

Think the wealthy have it easy, or have too much political influence now?

You just wait until BP finds itself dealing with the Republic of Louisiana instead of the U.S. Federal EPA or watch how Boeing and Lockheed Martin react to a Cold War between North Carolina and South Carolina, or until some enterprising son of a bitch decides to go all the way north and buy himself the Alaskan state university system. Stuff like that is basically the end goal here, the wealthy's dream shot. You think they get away with a bunch of shit now? Wait until they have more net worth than whole small countries that exist where US states used to be.

The Republicans seem to be 'getting' that they're not going to be able to get all of us to go along, that likely even a majority of Americans and others who are here are not going to just roll over for them...senior Congressional Democrats aside...but ya know, they're pretty damned well invested with this divisive bullshit, and I'm kind of getting the vibe that they can't stop...or maybe they're just not smart enough to. But they sure seem like they're more intent than ever on trying to break off a piece for themselves. If you keep stoking people's rage eventually somebody's going to act out on it. If you keep flicking matches into dry grass it's gonna start a fire sooner or later. If you keep the pot simmering long enough it's going to come to a boil.

That's physics, and I don't see human nature as being too much different.

And ya know, when they get their wish, there's going to be at least some of them that wish they hadn't. There's going to be chicken-shit Congressional Democrats who wish they'd done something, except maybe Nancy Pelosi who seems like she'd be perfectly happy being the first President of a new Bear Flag Republic. At the rate we're going there's not going to be any need for schemes like CalExit, America is exiting us!

There's going to be one hell of a lot of us who were made various and assorted promises by America, or who were entitled to various earned benefits, who are gonna be pretty pissed off. I used to be a conservative, I never saw any reason to "Shake things up" or otherwise upset the apple-cart and frankly I never understood why so many people who claimed to be conservatives were so keen on that very idea.

Right now, these fucking people seem hell-bent on kicking over the table just to watch the rest of us scramble to try to pick up our cards and keep in mind where we were at in the game. These fucking people have literally become the Anti-Americans...shitting on everything our country and system were ever based on and wiping their asses with the Constitution even as they accuse everybody else of doing the same goddamned thing. These people project so damned much they might as well be a PowerPoint presentation.

I was taught that America was built on immigration, and that America was not only or just a physical, geographical space but an idea...and Americans are not an ethnicity but a kind of "Chosen People" who had all made the choice, whether they were born here or not, to buy into this idea we call a country. You can be born in China...and still end up being an American, or even a West Virginian. That is the entire basis of America.

Ilhan Omar or WeiJia Jiang are as American as Donald Trump or Mitch McConnell...and certainly, at least they aren't taking money or ideological direction from America's enemies.

Screw "Blood and Soil" nationalism. To hell with White Supremacy.

I've fucking had it with this stupid bullshit.

And I'm going to tell you straight up, if you're okay with it, fuck you.