Angry old man shouts at clouds.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. ~Albert Einstein (Disputed.)

Serious question(s)

(Also, whoever wrote the post that Will snipped clearly has no concept of how military flag protocol OR even draping/folding any kind of cloth over a large object actually works.)

I've been noticing a pattern on social media, especially Twitter.

Every time one of these older high profile Republicans dies, the current one is more hated than the last one was, mostly by their own fucking people. i.e. Daddy Bush is somehow even more hated than McCain was, and so on.

And for what? No, really. What? No hand-waving, no vague excuses, WHAT?

For not being racist enough? For not being shitty enough? 

For not murdering all the people some willfully ignorant goon in Mississippi doesn't like?

For not somehow managing to undo progress all the way back to say, 1947 or so even though that would be a Constitutional and legal and social impossibility? Not to mention it'd take out no small number of the very people who claim to want this.

WHAT?

I didn't vote for either Bush or McCain, finding in both cases that their opponents made their respective cases better. But prior to that, I often supported both. Used to be you could disagree with somebody and even find fault with their performance without lighting your hair on fire and pulling wild accusations out your ass.

And where does THAT madness end?

With that in mind, a question...

Did these fucking people really expect George H.W. Fucking Bush to somehow prevent cultural and social change...even though that was never his...or Reagan's, or Ford's or even Nixon's stated goal?

And why the fuck do these jack-offs ALWAYS expect somebody else to lay down in the middle of the road and let the truck run them over...on behalf of their stupid ideology.

Hell, the last Republican who ran on stopping cultural and social change was Goldwater, and even he abandoned that effort once it cost him the Presidency...after he won like five states.

(In your guts you know he's nuts...but I digress.)

In 1996 Barry Goldwater and Bob Dole famously opined that they had become the "Liberals" of the Republican Party.

And while we're at it, even Bob showed up to render honors to Bush 41.

Democrats and what few sane Republicans are left had mostly respect for John McCain and G.H.W. Bush.

Republicans? (Aside from Never-Trumpers that is) mostly nothing but contempt and scorn...for their own damn people!

What the fucking what? What in the hell is going on here aside from the fact that current R's are a bunch of cretins and ingrates?

In Wisconsin today, and presumably in Michigan soon, Republicans are setting up budget-draining, time-consuming legal fights by passing laws limiting the power of non-legistlative government branches that (especially in the case of Wisconsin's) may be outright unconstitutional per the various state constitutions. Nobody has the money or the time for this bullshit, we've got real problems that need dealt with.

But more to the point, these people stomp all over the entire "Things as they are" basis of conservatism and set their own (previously) claimed values on fire and put huge targets on each of their own individual backs just to hang on to power for a few more minutes.

Is it just me or did these motherfuckers not think this trade through?

Look, I understand resenting some aspects of a changing world. Oh yes, I do. Anybody who knows me well or works with me will tell you I can rage for hours about certain subjects.

But there comes a point where you have to roll with things, YOU have to adjust, YOU have to change, YOU have to accept that what x and y (or xx and yy) were defined as 20 years ago may not be the way things are now, or history, the world, whatever you wanna call it is just gonna roll right over you and no one will care...and before you realize it you're just an angry old person shouting at the TV while Fox News fills your brain with poison....and yet somehow this may have nothing to do with chronological age.

Conservatives have, over the course of my lifetime, at least, repeatedly traded their own values for expediency, out of hate, or trying to get votes until now they have nothing left, not even the basis for their philosophy. All they have left is being angry shitheads and internet trolling, and slowly morphing into Nazis in an environment where that's not going to do much more than get people (including, but unfortunately not limited to themselves) beat up or killed for no reason, and all they'll get is being unemployable, prison, and maybe a shitty apartment in Moscow for the lucky few who make it out.

Republicans traded greatness for...Donald Trump...and in recent months have spit on actual greatness (or even just moderate milquetoast sanity) as it expired.

Oh, and while I'm at it here's the ultimate in smug "Get off my lawn" from Ross Douthat.

Funny thing, he can't even seem to get George H.W. Bush right. 

What in the fuck are these people thinking? They're going to go down like Pierre Laval or Vidkun Quisling and in 20 years Republican will be little more than a pejorative term, and no one will care.

What the fuck is even wrong with these people?

This shit makes me embarrassed that I used to be a Republican.

Fuck you, Republicans.

If this is what you've become I'm glad I'm a Democrat at this point.

A thousand and one points of light.

This is America: the Knights of Columbus, the Grange, Hadassah, the Disabled American Veterans, the Order of Ahepa, the Business and Professional Women of America, the union hall, the Bible study group, LULAC, "Holy Name"—a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky... ~George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st President of the United States.

George H.W. Bush, 41st President of the United States, died very late last night. The news dropped right around the time I was going to work, I guess. I caught the news right around my first break, and damn if it didn't make me think.

See, I used to be a Republican. It was, in fact, Bush's leadership that led me to make that decision when I turned 18 and registered to vote. It wasn't that I was particularly a fan. Hell, I loved Dana Carvey's impressions of Bush from Saturday Night Live. Honestly, I loved even more that Bush in fact would invite Dana Carvey to the White House...and that was it, right there. I appreciated Bush's ability to see the good in people, and to work with others to get things done, even when he often didn't agree with those others. I would not ultimately vote for him in 1992 (a decision I have sometimes regretted, other times not) on the basis of his raising taxes.

I appreciated Bush's commitment to international cooperation, to peace and to the rule of law and a rules-based international order...and ultimately the fact that when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the fact that instead of just talking about it, he sent the United States Armed Forces to Saudi Arabia firstly to defend our allies and secondly with the explicit intention of liberating Kuwait, and we got an international coalition together and we kicked Saddam's ass and liberated Kuwait...and then we settled in for the long haul to contain Saddam after that. I was there, later.

I also liked Bush's commitment to diversity, and (despite his employment of unscrupulous racist Lee Atwater in his campaign) his conviction that we needed to leave bigotry and racism behind us and move forward as one people.

My introduction to the day-to-day workings of politics was following, reporting on and writing a paper about the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas for a government-class extra-credit project (Class of 1992 here) when he was nominated to replace the retiring Thurgood Marshall, and to become the second African American to ever sit on the United States Supreme Court.

On one of the days of the hearings I was sick as a motherfucker, so I didn't go to school. In fact, it was bad enough that not only did I have to go to the doctor, but I was so out of it due to exhaustion (I'd been up puking most of the night) and nausea that I couldn't drive myself. My Grandpa took me to town and on the way in, we listened to the confirmation hearings on the radio. I went to the doctor, then we went to the drug store to fill my prescription and my Grandpa decided to go to the grocery store. Well, long story short, while my Grandpa was doing that I'm sitting in the truck listening to these hearings and listening to all these old Senators talking about sexual harassment and some dude named "Long Dong Silver." That was the first time I can ever remember thinking "My God, what the hell is wrong with these people?"

In fact, my inclusion of that exact phrasing in the next day's (I was feeling marginally better and not vomiting, so I went) verbal report to my class drew sharp condemnation from the teacher, who was both conservative and religious, but got a lot of support from most of my classmates so he let it stand.

And that whole story, too, was my first brush with "Political Correctness" such as it was at the time, and with the various societal currents that are still with us today, though far more strongly-backed by society, the reverberations of the Navy's "Tailhook" scandal which continue to today as well, and ultimately the #MeToo movement.

Maybe it's just me, to many younger people such an era seems anachronistic and barbaric, surely our first serious attempts at LGBT rights were still several years in the future, Lawrence vs. Texas was a dozen years in the future, Don't Ask, Don't Tell would go down as one of the first major policy achievements of the Clinton administration (and its own repeal and open LGBT service was a full twenty years in the future at this point) but it seems like we, as a nation, grappled with a lot of the same issues as we do now from both a more clear-headed and facts-based perspective. Emotion, and appeals to it, was less of a thing. I'll grant you that this could also be bad, at times.

But we couldn't have gotten to the good parts of now without going through that, first.

Also, racism was not cool, or at least the open expression of it was not tolerated as David Duke found out when he ran for governor of Louisiana in 1991 and George H.W. Bush called that shit out directly. More to the point, Duke lost, in Louisiana. This too, was a factor in my choice of voter registration. I say that as somebody whose heroes at the time included a lot of Black Republicans, including people like Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell and James Brown.

Now? Clarence Thomas aside, there's damned few Black Republicans, and for reasons that should damned well be obvious...chief among them being the fact that David Duke now has a fucking audience...and it's Republican.

I'm damned tired of this "Anything goes" moral relativism in America today. Given that, as I recently wrote, a generation ago this very thing was decried and warned about by conservatives and Republicans...I'm even more tired of the fact that it's their own spiritual descendants who are the mist assiduous practitioners of said moral relativism.

In fact, it has to be said, that many of the people I knew (of all races) who were conservatives, or Republicans, or both fell by the wayside along the way. For my Grandpa Thompson, it was the gun debate, and the fact that he didn't think anybody needed anything more than a deer rifle or a shotgun (a stance I disagreed with at the time, but kind of agree with now) for my Mom it was college, and that she came around to supporting Bill Clinton a long time before I decided to support Barack Obama's candidacy over that of John McCain. For other, church people, friends, family members, etc. it was their Union membership, or health-care issues or LGBT rights issues or wars or whatever.

No, not all of these people are liberals now, in point of fact most of them either aren't...or like me they are "liberals" only because that's where their fixed values or whatever point on the line that they chose to settle on has landed them. My Bush 41-era Republicanism...which has in fact changed little except for my views on certain social issues and understanding the fact that people need to take care of each other, our country and our environment...regularly gets me branded as a socialist by what few Trump Supporters I know.

As I've said before, the Republicans finally lost me in 2008. Maybe it's just me, maybe it's that I work in a diverse place and have for 15 years now, but at the time I was one of the last outspoken Republicans on my shift that most people knew. Ironically a lot of the people I know who are, or support, Democrats now do so for the same reasons people like them, or me, used to be Republicans.

For both the bad and the good in America right now, it's taken us a long time to get here.

And for now, we're stuck with this idiot, I'm not sure for how long, and every day now seems like more of a Republican political implosion than the last one was, and certainly Trump and his supporters seem increasingly desperate, likely for damned good reasons. They know what they've done, all too many of them knew it was wrong when they did it...but they did it anyway and with malice aforethought and now they're all starting to reap the consequences.

But the truth is, that they should have started reaping those consequences a long time ago. In point of fact, had people showed up to vote in previous mid-term elections at the rate they did last month it could be argued that we'd have damn few of these problems right now, Trump or no Trump.

The Republican Party is dead. Republicans killed it, I'd like to say they did so with a million little compromises of principles or values in the name of expediency. But the truth is, that in today's Republican Party Ayn Rand, Lee Atwater and Mitch McConnell or their ideas have far more power than Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan could ever dream of having...and this has led us directly to Donald Trump.

You can tell Trump doesn't understand what "A thousand points of light" meant, because he's never even considered service to any cause greater than himself.

If he doesn't understand that, I can't explain it to him.

It's not just that the Republican Party is no longer the party of George H.W. Bush or John McCain. It's that I've seen both men be viciously mocked on Twitter by people who are presumably both conservatives and Republicans, egged on by Russian bots. What the hell is that, indeed.

And who were we against, all throughout the Cold War? But I digress...

As I have said, Republicans have traded greatness for...Donald Trump.

And one of their last, and most underrated, great men slipped the surly bonds of Earth last night.

It's been telling, who has said what since.

In any case, fair winds and following seas, Mr. President.

Evilvangelicals.

In the beginning, God was nothing. So then he started making stuff. He made the dirt, he made the sky, he made the water, he made things that swim, things that slither, things with legs. I mean, God turned himself into a big shot. Then, in a couple of days, or a couple of million years, he breathed life into man. And he's been sucking the life out of us ever since. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series "Oz,"

I have not written much, this month. Oh, sure, I was dealing with car trouble for a couple of weeks. I've been busy, I've been tired. But you should know, dear reader, that there's more than that going on.

I've had a lot on my mind.

Maybe it's just the various ridiculous behaviors of the Evangelicals and the Republicans lately, especially since the election, maybe there's more than that going on. I don't know.

But I will tell you one thing, I've completely had it with religion...or at least with Christianity (most particularly the Evangelical or Fundamentalist sort) at least as it's practiced in the United States of America.

Consider the above photo, for example. Two women, simply sharing a kiss in the middle of a group of people dancing.

Presumably, this happened on Thanksgiving, but I've been sporadically seeing conservative butt-hurt about this for a week now.

I mean, what the fuck? For one thing, not all families are the same, our definition of family has been changing and growing for...basically my whole life. I don't give a damn if it's a "family program" nothing about this kiss here seems out of line to me.

This is America, in the 21st goddamned century, people have the right to do what they want as long as they're not hurting anybody else. Hell, this is America, there's a credible chance (though certainly, one that's reduced by the conduct and the hostility of the Christians and the conservatives themselves in this case) that one or the other or maybe even both of these women might be a Christian or a conservative herself. Certainly, as recently as a decade ago there were still some gay Republicans around.

But you can't tell that to these fucking people.

I'm serious, conservatives, ya'll are killing it for me, not least with the arrogant assumptions that somebody being white, straight and conservative is somehow the default nature of things, and anything else has to have "permission" by you to even exist.

Let's get one thing straight, there's six or seven billion people on this planet and I'm pretty sure the percentage of them that are white, politically conservative straight Americans or Europeans is a small percentage of that number. Ya'll ain't the default of anything, you're privileged assholes who have no fucking idea how the rest of the world works or what it's composed of.

And I'm going to be quite honest here. I'm not a Christian and I haven't been one in over a decade, and any belief I have in the concept and understanding of God that I once followed is being slowly strangled by this fucking bullshit.

I've officially amended my current theological viewpoint from "Agnostic Theist" to just plain "Agnostic."

Let me point out, that I have no issue with anybody else's concept of God. No Jewish or Muslim person that I've ever met (and relatively few that I've ever even heard of) has ever engaged in the kind of sustained patterns of bad conduct that have become routine fare for white conservative Evangelicals or Trump Supporters. Hell, I've damned few problems with other Christian sects besides Evangelicals at this point. They're not the ones ruining this whole "belief" thing for me. They're not the ones whose behavior repulses me to the point where I want nothing to do with their idea of God.

I've yet to see a Catholic person come out in favor of gassing migrant children, for example. Of course that might have something to do with the fact that probably a majority of said migrants are Catholic. That might have something to do with the fact that even the Pope has come out in favor of supporting these asylum seekers, immigrants and migrants, and said that national security should take second place to common decency in this matter. It is, after all, perfectly legal to seek asylum. Helping the foreigner, the immigrant, the needy and the stranger are all likewise things that the Christian religion not only encourages, but requires on a scriptural level. If you're a Christian, and you don't want to help the poor, you need to find a different religion.

But then, I honestly wonder if These Fucking People would try to shoot Jesus if they found out that he was a brown-skinned Middle-Eastern Jew who didn't share their right-wing politics.

Certainly they can't seem to understand that other people have a right to exist and be left in peace, like that fucking guy who (after he'd been told not to) went to North Sentinel Island to bother the Sentinelese tribes-people and try to teach them about Jesus expose them to modern diseases to which they have no immunity, almost certainly guaranteeing that 90% or more of them would die.

These people are, with some justification, violently xenophobic, to the point where they try to shoot down Indian Navy helicopters with bows and arrows. This damned Evangelist had been told repeatedly to not go to the island. He didn't listen, the natives shot him full of arrows.

Just sayin' when the natives only want to be left alone and will violently try to repulse anybody who comes too close it's probably best to just stay away. Also, be careful what you wish for, for you may get it.

And some "Christians" want these Native people punished when everybody from the Indian government and military on down told this dude not to go to that island, for this exact reason?

Fuck that.

I have a better idea, let's stop listening to the conservative white Evangelicals. Actually, I'm not certain about that term anymore either. I mean...can you "Evangelize" somebody for Donald Trump? He's not a god.

Like I said, it's been awhile since I've actually heard an American conservative talk about Jesus.

Instead, it's all Trump, all the time. Hell, the other day Franklin Graham referred to Trump as a "Defender of the Faith."

Are you fucking kidding me with that shit?

I find it telling that Evangelicals would rather accept crumbs from the tables of tyrants...even Islamic tyrants that two years and two months ago they'd have equated with the Devil himself...than listen to what their own religion teaches about justice, not committing murder, and the sanctity of life.

Listen, Christians, if ya'll want your religion to stop losing followers you're going to have to start doing better than this crap.

It's just that simple. This is America, not Saudi Arabia. No one has to follow your god.

Small "R."

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.

I've been watching the events of the last couple of days and...to borrow from current Republican parlance, I'm...very concerned.

First, Trump threatens to deny federal disaster relief funds to California, claiming bad land management practices, never mind that the State has precisely dick to do with wild lands management or fire protection in the affected areas, which are largely Federal land...and thus the responsibility of the Bureau of Land Management and other Federal agencies to maintain. I'm quite serious in asking this...is there anything, anything at all, that these Republican assholes are willing to take responsibility for?

I mean, for some people...Americans...the world is literally burning, and all Republicans can think about is themselves and their petty resentments?

Per the Wikipedia article on the Woolsey Fire, one of the people who lost their home is Caitlyn Jenner. So you'd think a high-profile Republican being affected might cause Republicans to look up from their endlessly selfish pursuits and notice that something happened to one of their own. Except, oh, wait, Caitlyn naturally came out against the Trump administration's constant mistreatment of transgender people so I guess I ought not to be surprised that none of them deign to notice what's going on.

Case in point; of course, it's Trump. It was raining yesterday, so dude couldn't be bothered to get off his ass and go to the event he was supposed to go to. I mean, dude went to France and then spent the day sitting in his hotel room Tweeting and watching cable news? Who the fuck DOES shit like that? I mean, in all seriousness, send me to France and I'll gladly take part in a ceremony honoring our war dead. Hell, I'd do it regardless of the weather. I'd quite honestly just be happy to get out of this country for the first time since 2006...and my last actual overseas trip, such as it was, was in 2003. Trump isn't even paying for the trip, you give me a free trip to France...governmental responsibilities or no the last fucking thing I'm going to do is sit in my hotel room and angry-Tweet about shit.

And it's not just a routine trip, either. World War I ended 100 years ago tonight. Even I kind of feel the enormity of something like that, despite the fact that it was a long time before I was even born. World War I set the stage for America to begin establishing its power in the world and ironically it was under arch-racist Woodrow Wilson that America was one of the main powers behind the League of Nations and first really made use of the 'Soft power' that we would wield to establish such dominance over most of the next 100 years. Yet you know, it's funny that Trump and all his racist supporters never seem to have even one damn thing (good or bad) to say about somebody like Woodrow Wilson. I find that a little odd.

Except, sometimes I wonder if they'd even know who he was.

You know what gets to me, about all this? It's the smallness and yes, the meanness of these fucking people. America isn't America if everybody gets to take part, Heaven isn't heaven if everybody gets to go. These are the people who, metaphorically speaking...are why Jesus was born in a stable. Fuck you, I got mine. Despite the fact that the origins of their mentality lie in the Puritan Calvinism of the Pilgrims, the actuality of it has more to do with the Atheistic Objectivism laid out in the writings of Ayn Rand than with Christianity or the teachings of Jesus Christ...filtered through the false prophecies of  a French madman or otherwise. Trump's ideal of America is more Ayn Rand's fictional billionaires' paradise of Galt's Gulch than it is Reagan's shining city on a hill.

And yet, this toxic brew has everything to do with American Evangelical Protestant church culture...

Given that the pillars of conservatism as I was taught it were generally 'things as they are' along with free trade, human dignity, innovation, international engagement, a strong national defense and the creation of wealth for everybody (rather than the select few) this fascination today's conservatives have with withdrawing from the world...with slamming the door on the very system their parents created...baffles me to no end. It's like they basically decided that since White People weren't the ones getting everything, they didn't want it anymore...even though there's not a person on the planet (including them) whose life isn't improved in some way by our global economy, global society and yes, global engagement.

That includes Republicans, and their voters.

But I guess things being better for everybody isn't good enough for them. They want to not just get everything, but also be able to see that everybody else is miserable, too. Heaven isn't heaven if everybody gets to go. As others have pointed out, a lot of the reason these people believe in this crap is they think they'll get to sit up there in heaven and gloat while the rest of us get barbecued by Satan or something.

Personally, I prefer the bigger perspective...hell, that's the view of the Bible, of God, and of Heaven that I was taught, if you want to get really technical.

What's the point of going to heaven, if only people like me get to go? What's the point of America if only people like me get to live here? I much prefer the vision of America as the melting pot that I was taught in elementary school back in the 1970's and 1980's.

But I like this whole global society thing, too.

Why?

I'm nobody, I'm not nearly as much of a writer as many of the people I follow on social media...but I can say I know for a fact that people all over the world have read my stuff. That wouldn't be possible without the internet or the international system that America was a big part of creating. No, it doesn't dump money in my pocket...but money isn't why I do this, I'd like it to be eventually, but that takes years of work to even reach that point.

 But it's not just that kind of stuff that bothers me. Since the election, since they lost the House, Republicans seem to also be withdrawing from...well, things as they are...or in fact from the point of any person now living, always have been. Let's look at this logically: The entire idea that America was founded on was voting. If you consider even the literal descendants of the damned Pilgrims, for example, there isn't a damn one of 'em whose grandfather's grandfather's grandfather didn't live and die under some variation of the Stars and Stripes and our democratic system. Maybe it wasn't as developed as it is now, maybe America wasn't as powerful...but the ideals that guided us have always been powerful and ever-expanding, with (right or wrong) the idea that we'll eventually get to everybody. In an ideal world, everybody would have been included in the first place...but just as the idea of America is ever-expanding and our consciousness is ever-expanding, so is our definition of 'Rights.'

Of course, that's probably why Republicans, or at least today's version of them, wants to slam the door on the American Experiment, and the American Ideal as well. It's not just the rest of the world, they fear and hate their own neighbors, too.

Who needs Communists, or Russians, or Muslims or even terrorists...let alone enemy combatants or even, ya know, actual enemies when you can fear and hate the people living right next door because they might be voting for the other party? Or even just for no reason at all, or because their car or their house might be a little bit nicer? I mean, if we really want to go down the rabbit-hole of petty resentment-as-national-philosophy, it never stops.

When you're a small person who's terrified that people unlike yourself may vote, and that they may well vote for the other party...experiments and ideals don't much enter into it, do they?

But then I guess, me, Me, ME!!! isn't much of an ideal, now, is it?

And no matter how you dress it up that's what modern conservatism and Republicanism have become, the glorification of selfishness.

When what you're clearly terrified of is, in fact, the American Ideal, especially if it includes Black people voting and/or all the votes being counted?

Yeah, it's time to hang it up and go home at that point.

Ya know, I'm not sure what these fucking people believe in anymore, but it sure as hell isn't America.

These fucking people have become so small and petty that I think "Republican" should be consistently spelled with a small "r" no matter whether it's proper English or not.

It's also an inaccurate description, because the last thing these fuckers actually believe in is the Republic...not just as it's currently constituted...but as it ever was.

Invictus, Part Two.

Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever Gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell grip of circumstance, 
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the Shade
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate
How charged with punishment the scroll.
I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
~Invictus.

What did I do this morning? I went and got my car fixed, then decided to go to the pet store to play with baby ferrets. Along the way, I passed an old friend who was walking...an older African American dude who doesn't drive...and gave him a ride to several places he needed to go. THEN I went to play with ferrets, the pet store got this pretty little Blaze Sprite, all in all, it was a productive morning.

I remembered that I wrote a Post, just short of two years ago, and I thought I'd write up a sequel, just because I've got to have something to do while the ferrets are out.

So yeah, Republicans lost their ass in the House last night, and this morning Trump is basically publicly shitting himself. But then, Mr. Big Talker has been publicly trash-talking Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi since he got into office and now they're going to have the power to subpoena whatever of his crap they damn well please. The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward "Don't leave your credit card bill with the bar tabs from that trip to Dubai and the porn-site subscriptions on it where the Accounting and H.R. ladies can find it." Oops. Also, don't talk shit about them, it'll be reflected in your Eval.

"Democrats put hope on the ballot" and Republicans put Barbed Wire, Caravans, Pipe Bombs, Racism and Synagogue Shootings on the ballot too. Ratcheting up the crazy and the racism seems to have been a mistake...but Trump is still at it this morning. Meanwhile, an awful lot of Democrats are deferring celebrating to get back to work, and frankly I don't blame them. Hell, I'm sitting here typing this.

While they're doing that, Trump appears to be busy castigating Republicans who lost. For example, Mia Love of Utah. Now, personally if I were a Republican at this point I'd be carefully noting that occurrence and realizing that nobody on my own side really gives a fuck about me. But hey, when you've lost Tea Party Joe Walsh it's probably time to just hang it up and go home, Donnie. But hey, what do I know?

I mean, it's good that Utah has a Democrat in its congressional delegation for the first time in decades, and all, but I think Trump's treatment of his own people here is just cruel. I don't feel particularly celebratory about that kind of crap. Were I still a Republican, stuff like that would have me eyeing the exits...just sayin.'

Meanwhile, speaking of putting hope on the ballot...this is the kind of stuff Democrats are filling my social media feeds with. My own state elected a Muslim woman to the House yesterday, and the people of Minnesota bumped Ilhan Omar  (who I took note of in the original post two years ago) up from State to Federal level, representing Keith Ellison's former district.

Meanwhile, the dreams and self-esteem of a couple of Muslim immigrant kids get a boost too. Seems like a win, overall, if you ask me.

Republicans overwhelmingly ran on hate, racism and xenophobia, and what did it get them? They lost the House and (including this lady) Michigan's congressional delegation looks a lot more, well, like Michigan does. This particular middle-aged white guy is just fine with that.

And then there was this, too, not only did Chris Kobach get his ass handed to him, leaving Kansas with a Democratic governor after years of Republican mismanagement...but Sharice Davids won. So yeah, I'm guessing with an amateur MMA fighter in the House, things might get sporty the next time some dumb ass like Don Young decides to pull a knife on somebody. And then there's the fact that she's Native, meaning that Congress looks yet more like the rest of America, and actually includes those of us who were here first...for a change. I live near, and work on, a Reservation. This is a Big Deal.

So yeah, hang in there, stay focused, and keep up the fight. We kicked their ass, and it's really just that damned simple. We have to stay on point and kick their ass again next time, too...and the next one, and the one after that...until these fucking people either give up on their bullshit or we end up with better Republicans. Since the latter is functionally impossible, I'm going to shoot for the former. We need to tell these people to go fuck themselves at every possible level at every opportunity and keep at it until the job is done. You voted, the people have spoken. Now get after it and keep the pressure on...and keep up the good work.

My roommate just let me know, a bit ago, that Trump has forced Jeff Sessions to resign. Things are going to get sporty, although I doubt very much that any of this will work out the way that Trump thinks it will.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. ~Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.

Why does god need billboards?

John 1:14 King James Version (KJV)

14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

So, the election is tomorrow. In the meantime, there's something we need to talk about, something that's going to be a problem from here on out. To be honest, if Republicans lose tomorrow, it's probably going to be a bigger problem the worse they lose.

It's this "Cult 45" shit. It's that #MAGA is these people's Allah Akbar and Deus Vult and INRI and any other religious invocation or slogan you can think of...all rolled into one.

And if you think the above Bible verse in any way, shape or form references Donald Trump, you're part of the problem. The only "Word" made flesh here is "Asshole."

It's not just that the "Capital T, Capital S" Trump Supporters think he's some kind of a god, it's that at least some Evangelicals are speaking of him in terms that literally in a Biblical fashion are used to reference Christ.

Hello? Does anybody other than me see how screwed up this is?

Am I the only one (and mind you, I'm saying this as an Ex-Christian) who thinks that if these fucking people think that the Gospel needs to be made "Great Again" (or, for that matter, that Man could do such a thing through his own vain efforts) they're in the wrong damned business?

How is it, that with all these Evangelicals, with all their talk of faith and trusting in God and this and that and the other thing...it always comes down to cleverness, to deception, to manipulation and to trusting in Man's efforts rather than in the God they claim to revere above all else?

I honestly wonder, if whoever is responsible for such things were to place the actual mantle of divinity on Ayn Rand, or Donald Trump, or the fucking Pillsbury Dough Boy, how the fuck many of these exemplars of Christian Faith would leave Jesus hanging and rush right over to whatever other banner was most permissive in letting them do what they already decided they wanted to do anyway?

See, at least in my experience of it, belief in God, in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and in the workings of the Holy Spirit required a degree of internal morality...a conscious understanding that X was right and Y was wrong, and at least some belief in the concepts of facts, of reason, and of truth.

Why? Because if it's any other way, you risk getting caught up in cult-like belief systems, falling prey to false teachers, and getting carried away in the kind of maniacal idiocy I now associate with my ex-wife's Pentecostal church, or the message board of Christianity.com back in the day.

Or, ya know, you could end up like these people and (intentionally or not) start proclaiming by means of billboards and social media posts that Donald Trump is Jesus Christ.

Ya know, I've yet to see anything resembling either grace or truth from Trump or his supporters.

It's sort of like how back in the day on the Christianity.com forums some random dude could spout off for days about some guy named Benjamin Creme being the Anti-Christ. At the time, I had no idea who that was and upon even the slightest bit of investigation, well he's just some old guy who's made a career of of peddling vaguely Buddhist claptrap and editing a self-published magazine. Except, imagine that instead of putting this dude nobody'd ever heard of on blast all the time, this random Evangelical nut bag were spending days upon days proclaiming the glories of this idiot to all who would listen.

Ironically, the most eloquent take-down of the entire mess was from this Korean American Calvinist computer-and-theology nerd in Tennessee. "These aren't the droids you're looking for."

Yes, the world, or at least the world as I knew it roughly 15 years ago has well and truly been turned upside down. Instead of calling Trumpism what it is...a cult...and attacking it with the fury that they'll muster against the Hare Krishnas, the Mormons, the Moonies or Satya Sai Baba...the Evangelicals are now actively shilling for the cult in the hopes that they'll get a more "Christian" America out of the deal??

Wait, wait, wait...one of these things is very clearly not like the other one.

I suppose one could charitably put this crap down to desire for popularity, or groupthink, or just getting caught up in the moment...but I'm not going to buy into that crap. They were hoping they'd get more political power and social control, and that once they had it nobody would bring up how they got it.

Instead...despite the fact that Republicans control all three branches of government, I feel like their hold on things has never been weaker, and I feel like their weakness has translated into America losing its grip on the sole-Superpower status that conservatives once treasured so greatly and profited from so handsomely.

And the worst part is, they don't understand why. Well, I'm a tell you why. If you become the kind of dangerous, unstable, violent fanatic that even your own family can't trust you not to start shooting at them...this is going to trickle up writ-large into world affairs if enough people get like that. Much of the rest of the world is reacting accordingly, and when we come back to the table we're going to have to do so as an equal, not from some kind of superior position. 

See, our position in the world was built largely on soft power, on trust, on this idea that the Man Behind The Curtain man in the Oval Office was at least somewhat competent, and that if he screwed up, our democratic system...which much of the world follows some variation of, by the way...would hold him to account.

Instead, we have the Russians hoping and praying that Americans are going to start shooting at each other.

Is that how you want to see America go down?

Funny thing, but at the end of the day even the Trump Supporters, or at least the conservative old bags and the ranty old men quoted in the article that this Twitter post linked to admit this bullshit is not normal, implying that they know it's a cult, they know it's ridiculous, they know it's wrong...and that they just don't care. Maybe they think they'll get something out of it other than slowly starving to death when the Social Security checks stop coming and society falls apart and dueling elements of the former US military, or opposing gangs of militiamen with AK-47's and Technical Trucks, start fighting it out in their hometowns.

I don't know what the hell these fucking people are thinking. My own experience as a former member of several of their various tribes suggests that they simply aren't.

The midterm election is tomorrow. We have the capability to stop this crap.

We The People have within our grasp the power granted to mythological heroes, to Prophets, to True Believers the world over...and perversely to every single bogeyman the Evangelicals have ever hidden under their metaphorical beds in terror of

(...even though they imagine themselves to have that power even as they reject it in favor of fellating any shitbird that'll stroke their egos and tell them how great or important they are...)

...The power to destroy a false God,

To reveal it for what it is.

To be That Guy and ask "Why does god need a starship?" (Or a ballot box, or a billboard, for that matter.)

But only if we show up and vote.

Vote the bastards out. All. Of. Them.

Principalities and Powers.

Ephesians 6:12 King James Version

12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

At work, last night, I found myself having a conversation with a conservative co-worker. He'd stopped by to begin the yearly tradition of giving me shit by counting down the days until Christmas, and instead we ended up having a serious conversation. Now, this dude is Pentecostal, he's active in his church, and in 2016 (Ironically, after voting for Bernie Sanders in Michigan's primary) he ended up voting for Trump. He's your basic Christian dude bro in all respects. Now, we generally agree regarding our view of Christmas...that it's not about Christ, but about commercialism and greed, things that Jesus was very against. We spoke about this...as it seems like we do most years...mutually lamenting something we actually agree on.

Because it was my Monday last night and I was feeling punchy, I pushed ahead: "Christmas? Dude I honestly feel like Christianity isn't even about Christ anymore." Surprisingly, he was like "Yep. I hear you, bro." Again, I pushed ahead: I told him "Sometimes I feel like I'm counting down the days until some of these Evangelicals start worshiping Donald Trump." Again...and very much to my utter shock, he agreed with me. "Yep." He continued "It bothers me." We both further agreed that we had each gotten a bad spiritual vibe from our national situation, and from the way things were going with the Trump Supporters. He specifically said that even some Pastors he knew who'd been to Seminary and who should have the knowledge to do better...just weren't. He did say that he felt that his faith hadn't been shaken...but he'd seen others lose theirs. I also told him, that given my status as an Agnostic Theist...it sort of bothers me that I still "get" a lot of the same stuff, spiritual vibes and whatnot, that I used to.

In truth, these last few years, in watching much of American Conservative Christianity fall head over heels for Trump, I have genuinely felt like I'm watching somebody I've known for a long time make a grievous mistake. I know from having done this (and from having been that guy) that there's no talking them out of it. These people are going to have to learn the hard way.

And now these bigotry-obsessed fools are kicking Christian Pastors who preach the truth out of their events?

I should add, my co-worker is the third person I've spoken to in recent days who's confirmed (per Christian terminology regarding such things) some variation of this bad vibe I've been feeling.

After all the stuff I saw last night and this morning, I think I know why.

I have, as I've increasingly written about in recent articles, long been feeling that for at least some of these people...and certainly most of the ones that are left...it never was about anything that they said it was about. It was always really all about the bigotry, and the hate. Funny thing is but I can remember when being a conservative didn't automatically mean you were a bigot.

Of course, and as Rick points out here, if they were to actually set the precedent of gutting the 14th Amendment by Executive Order (something that's automatically Unconstitutional, and would probably end up destroying the country in the long term if enacted) it's not like the next President, and the next one after that, and so on...wouldn't continue to revise our founding document by executive fiat. Do that long enough, or enough times, and we don't have a nation anymore. It's really that simple, all these amendments were put in for a reason, and there's a legit process that makes it very hard to change the Constitution FOR A DAMN REASON. This absolutely cannot be replaced by executive orders.

Of course, we're already looking at probably (at least) 50 years of court cases, lawsuits, legal problems, expensive settlements, etc. just from where we're at right now in the Trump Presidency and its endless carnival-barker cruelty and stupid shit, but I digress.

So what's having to reform and likely redo our entire Constitution when this is over? Eh? (Aside from the fact that most people who aren't on either of the hard ends of our political spectrum dread such a prospect...again, for a reason.)

I suppose these dumb asses figure that if they burn enough shit down, maybe they'll get away with it?

Take this far enough, and it becomes "Why not just let Trump be king?"

Of course, Trump could ask Louis XVI how that worked out...oh, wait.

I wonder, when the next one is King Chuck or Queen Nancy, will These Fucking People be so enthusiastic about that? I mean, I'm pretty sure I know some people who'd think Crown Prince Beto has a nice ring to it, but let's get real, this is America and we need to keep it that way.

You know, there's a solution to all this stupidity, and I think a lot of people are finally getting it. I saw on Twitter that ten states now have surpassed their entire 2014 early voting totals.

We've a week to go, so I think more will come. I keep hearing from friends in Texas that they've seen impressive turnout in early voting, so there's that, too. We can only hope the streak holds, because this may be our last chance.

People need to see through all this frenetic stupid last-minute bullshit, and just plain show up and vote. I don't give a damn if you don't like the choices, I don't give a damn if you think it isn't important. It is...that's the whole damn point of Democracy.

They care...why don't you? Even if all they want to do is break shit, the traitorous moron brigade shows up. Why can't you?

It needs to be said. Screw Trump, alright?

Trump is the symptom, it's the broken and divided nature of America...and the fact that conservatives hate and fear other Americans more than (for example) the Russians...that's the damn problem.

If you don't show up, this time, you're letting Boris here determine your future. You know, the guy who's openly lamenting the fact that Trump didn't cause a civil war and is hoping he'll at least be a Herbert Hoover and drag us into Depression.

But remember, the last time America's economy caught a cold it screwed up the rest of the world, too. The only reason Russia wasn't affected that much is because Russia's economy is shit. They're the biggest country in the world and they have an economy that ranks somewhere between that of Portugal and that of Spain in terms of all the usual metrics.

We owe it to ourselves to show up, and take our country's future back into our own hands.

End of Days.

Let us never forget that the deep things that are American are the soul and the spirit. The Statue of Liberty is not tired, and not because it is made of bronze. It is because no matter what happens, here the individual is dignified because he is created in the image of his God. Let us not forget it. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower, Speech to the B'Nai B'rith

I have a confession to make. As I've said before, I used to be a conservative. I used to be a Republican. I spent much of my life as a Christian, for awhile there I was a borderline Fundamentalist. In spite of that, I was never one of these fucking people.

By "These fucking people" I mean these conspiracy-minded chuckleheads pitching the idea that this migrant "caravan" is some kind of Jewish conspiracy to "Replace white people." Now, if the last such group is any guide, most of those people will settle in Mexico or become disillusioned and go home and a very small percentage of them will actually reach our southern border, where they will lawfully turn themselves in and ask for asylum. Out of the last group I think maybe 230 people actually did so.

Not much of a "Replacement" then, is it? It's sure as hell not an "Invasion." It's sure as hell no damned good reason to shoot up a synagogue.

There's something else at work here. I mean, aside from base racism, that is.

.There is, and always has been, among certain conservatives, a tendency towards belief in conspiracy theories, toward intellectual curiosity, toward magical thinking. I suppose when you start out believing in something like Creationism or that just about anybody can acquire Spiritual Gifts Magical Powers if they pray the right words toward the right interpretation of Jesus in the right kind of church, are part of the right "in- group" or something something Gazpacho.

If you don't think manipulative shitheads the world over, starting with the Russians, are ready to exploit this kind of mule-headed willful stupidity on the part of the American Idiot, you have another thing coming. As evidenced by the statements of their Orange God, Trump, these fucking people have been convinced that the rest of the world, all those Godless heathens, non-Americans, people not of our Tribe are somehow taking advantage of "Us." Note that "Us" does not include 75% of Americans.

As somebody who paid attention in the 1990's I'm here to tell you we can all thank Newt Gingrich for that aspect of our current mess.

But who is "Us?" I mean, who do these people think they are? I submit to you that These Fucking People are the absolute last ones who know who the fuck they are.

I'm divorced. My ex-wife and her family were basically poor Northern Michigan white trash, almost all Christian Fundamentalist or Pentecostal nuts, with most having at best a high-school education, overwhelmingly poor or at best lower-middle-class, all of them dependent on Food Stamps, with elderly family members mostly having nothing but Social Security to fall back on. Now, that's not a value judgment it's simply a statement of fact. These people were cooks and grocery store stockers and retail workers for the most part. At one time or another half my ex-wife's family and most of her church worked at Wal-Mart.

I'm not kidding when I say the highest-status job of any person that I regularly interacted with at the time was that one of my Wal-Mart Co-workers was also a member of the Michigan Army National Guard. (Oh, and by the way that dude was intent on getting out of his small hometown as well.) Others, professional people, might make appearances from time to time. Your kid's teacher, the cop that pulled you over, etc.

Most of these fucking people resent those people. You can damned well imagine what they think of the government, can't you?

Some of those people got an education and got out, the rest of the family doesn't really talk to them as much now.

I was a Christian, being an actual tithe-paying member of a Baptist church at the time. I was a conservative, for fuck's sake I was still an NRA member when I got sucked into this mess.

But I'd grown up reading, I'd traveled, I'd even been around the world a bit and I'd dealt with people from other cultures, other countries, other races and other religions. So some of those people looked at me as if I'd been born on the Moon.

Hell I still get that here, but not as much.

I can't say I ever encountered much racism, in point of fact a lot of my ex-wife's friends were dating and/or had kids by Jamaican men, and in fact one of the members of her little church clique was Jamaican (although she was a Canadian citizen and married to one of the church's "Praise and Worship" people, who was also my immediate supervisor at Wal-Mart.)

But you know what? To these people a person that was a Jew or a Muslim or some other non-Christian or even a different kind of Christian might as well have been from another planet. My ex-wife was literally never able to relate to my Mom in even the smallest possible way, because my Mom was (and is) bisexual and had given up on conservatism and religion years before.

An awful lot of her family members and friends could barely relate to me, because I knew history and theology and the world outside of their little rural bubble, I cared about science, I paid attention to politics beyond reflexively voting Republican, I watched CNN and actually read the Detroit Free Press...a habit largely limited to the elderly in the circles I was moving into.

Of course they could relate to the Jamaicans, who were here primarily for purposes of corporate profit (which these people understand) and because most Jamaicans are Christians. Even the few who weren't...Rastas mostly...could and did still talk Bible and shared many of the values of the lower-class Northern Michigan people.

By which I mean things like homophobia and toxic masculinity, but I digress.

Personally, I had nothing against gay people...and I'd been taught that way. But back in 2000, Homophobia was one of those new words that was just entering our lexicon, at least where I was at. It was an educated word, a liberal word that some of those people would look at you funny if you used it. Toxic masculinity? If you'd have used those words 20 years ago these people would've laughed at you.

Of course, the world had already begun to change, I was aware of it, had for the most part embraced that myself, and resolved to roll with it even if I didn't necessarily agree with everything. I'd find a way.

But my ex-wife's people? Aside from the obvious presence of more Black folks, the odd open bi or gay person here and there, a few factory closings and the fact that most of the people who joined the military or went to college never came back...not much in 2000 had changed from how things were in 1950...and that goes double for people who are poor and simply cannot afford to keep up with our modern world. In point of fact, the world changing was evidence that we were "Living in the End Times" although this kind of thinking had taken a hit (briefly) when Y2K and all that crap did not come to pass.

But then 9/11 happened, and even though most of these people couldn't find New York City (much less Afghanistan) with a GPS locator, a map and a pathfinder platoon, that was a sign of the End Times. Right after 9/11 two things happened, I observed that the churches in my ex-wife's hometown all became very aggressive in their evangelism and I started seeing Fox News on the TV a lot more, and CNN at least a little bit less. Conservatism has never looked back, and those fucking people (and thus the rest of us too) were set to get dragged down this path of Crazy until, well, here we are.

So you see, the problems of "today" have been with us for quite a while, maybe not as bad, but they've always been there. It's not that some people got "Left behind" by our global economy and modern world, it's that they were never included in the first place. Call it poor schools, or intellectual incuriosity, or just laziness in not making people keep up, but here we are.

Russians? Well...they're white, they say they're Christians and they hate gay people, so that's good enough for most of these white trash motherfuckers.

For all of their claimed "Nativism" most of the people that these people hate are just as native to the United States of America as they are.

By the way, I should add that their view of the Jamaicans has considerably darkened and become resentful with time, not that these fucking people want to do the jobs the Jamaicans are doing. They don't want anybody else to do those jobs either. If the comments section is to be believed, a majority of the women who get with the Jamaicans these days are (or are at least seen as being) "Liberals" and such...even if they're not, really.

But then these days, to those fucking people, "Liberal" is just code for "Not racist enough" or for "Somebody who isn't a destructive shithead."

I can remember when Trent Lott got ran out of Congress for speaking favorably of Strom Thurmond, mostly by Republicans, and I was still a Republican at the time and I agreed with that course of action.

Now? Somebody who Retweets hashtags like "Burn the Jews" or "Bring Back Slavery" has thousands of followers on Twitter, the support of the President, and no incentive to stop acting like a goddamned moron. Oh, and against this crap, the rest of us have absolutely no recourse whatever, simply because any attempt at advocating for decent behavior or imposing some level of standards, or even trying to make people understand what the Constitution, the Law, and basic humanity say about such things is derided as being "Politically Correct."

Ya know, in some ways 1988, 2000, or 2002 or even 2008 were barbaric and savage times compared to today...but I'd gladly take that over this Anything Goes crap today, where if you're a conservative  then the basic humanity of other people and any pretense of obedience to our own Constitution, human decency, or the law is suddenly up for debate. How is any of this conservative?

You know, Conservatism, "Things as they are" and all that, never mind that when I was growing up in the 1970's and 1980's racism was not cool, and things like Anti-Semitism simply were beyond the pale, and free trade, international engagement, Medicare, Social Security and even Roe Vs. Wade were basically recognized as part of the social fabric.

Not to mention, one of my deaf ferrets could probably provide a better definition of the word Conservative than most of these people can, and ferrets can't read.

It's not just that conservatives have let conservatism and the Republican Party become bitter, hollow caricatures of their former selves. It's that the rest of us have let them. It's that the most ardent far-Left hater of all things right-wing couldn't come up with a better two-dimensional caricature of Republicans than the one they've made of themselves...and Republicans are fast doing the same to America if we don't step up and do something about it and vote the bastards out.

I'm an American, I used to be a conservative, and what I want to know is when the hell did conspiracy theories, hate and murder become "Truth" and when did caring about other people, doing what is objectively the right thing, and treating people decently become crazy ideas?

When the fuck did some half-baked idea of a second American Civil War and all the millions of deaths, vast financial losses and the possibility of fratricidal nuclear attacks on ourselves that such might entail become preferable to getting along with your own neighbors, conservatives?

I don't know, but I know there's one way to start reversing this, and that's to vote the bastards Republicans out.

Otherwise they'll bring about their own End of Days, and as it happens they'll wonder why the lights are going out and the money has stopped rolling...and why there's no Jesus.