9 III 2019: Democratic Party

I read today a title on the CNN site: “8 times Democrats clashed with each other since taking power.” It has always been this way with Democrats. Will Rogers’ description of the Democrats remains accurate: “I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”

I insist on calling it “the Democratic Party” resisting an emerging anti-grammatical trend to call it “the Democrat Party.” I recall that years ago President Eisenhower and other Republicans of that era tried calling it “the Democrat Party,” and that President Harry Truman commented that it was fine for them to take two letters from “Democratic” if he could subtract two letters from the name of the opposition, making it “the Publican Party.”

5 III 2019: The Grand Rally of the Right

I’ve read accounts and seen films of the Annual Rally of the CPAC. What a rally it was! Haters of every retrograde persuasion were there in the audience. I did not notice any neo-Nazis or white supremacists, but if they were not there in person, they were surely well represented in spirit. The Congress recalled the Nuremberg rallies in the animal enthusiasm of the audience who were all wearing party-issue MAGA hats. When their Grand Wizard finally came on stage he began by humping the flag, just as Hitler used to grope the Nazis’ sacred Blutfahne (Blood Flag). There was an illustrious program of speakers who would be an embarrassment anywhere else. Though this was a man’s gathering, a lot of women were allowed to speak, like slaves making a commercial for leg irons. I’m sure there must have been at one point a moment of silence to commemorate the fallen heroes of the movement like Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Strom Thurmond.  The congress was a huge success, and coming when it did, it crowned the Leader’s foreign affairs triumph in Viet Nam.

1 III 2019: Socialists plan to undermine the U.S.A.

The news reported the address by Sebastian Gorka to the Conservative Political Action Conference in which he bellowed that the American “socialists” (that is, of course, dogwhistle for democrats) want to take away Americans’ hamburgers, rebuild their homes, and take away their pickup trucks. Well he has put his finger on the three major threats to American freedom. These socialists probably also to take away your right to shoot at road signs, take away your 50 cal. machine gun, take away your snuff, and forbid you to spit on the floor.

I suppose the warning about hamberders came straight from the White House, that about your homes from the asbestos industry, and pickup trucks … well it is not true that all ass-holes drive large pickup trucks, nor that all pickup trucks are driven by assholes, but I cannot help feeling that there must be some vital connection there.

28 II 2019: Post-disgrace Depression

Rep. James Jordan and Rep. Mark Meadows, members of the “Freedom Circus,” are trying to atone for their disappointing performances at the Cohen hearing by crying “perjury” and calling out the F.B.I. after Cohen.  These congressmen are among Pres. Trump’s warmest supporters and thus dedicated to the disinterested pursuit of truth.

Jordan is a sometime wrestling coach from OSU where he asserted a preternatural unawareness of the sexual abuse going on all around him. Mark Meadows, the one who brought the black manikin to the Cohen hearing, has been himself the object of a House investigation. In 2018 he was fined a substantial amount by the House Committee on Ethics in a case that began with reports of his Chief-of-Staff’s “inappropriate behavior” with female employees. Of course, Rep. Meadows, like Rep. Jordan, was himself wholly unaware of his Chief-of-Staff’s notorious behavior. But now, these are watchful men who notice everything and know how to sniff out deceit.

27 II 2019: “It’s beginning to look a lot like Watergate, everywhere you go”

Current developments in the Trump case remind me of two features of the Watergate investigations: 1) initial stonewalling made it like pulling teeth to obtain the evidence of Nixon’s misdeeds, but eventually the evidence came in a  gush and 2) the Republicans now are as vociferous and hypocritical as the Republcans at the time of Watergate.

How about the histrionics today from some Republicans on the Committee? Self-righteous sinners denouncing a fellow sinner whose offenses are probably much less severe than their own! And they really should sign up for some acting lessons because they surely flopped in today’s opera.

And how about “Matt the Mouth” Gaetz? His assertions of innocence with attached apology is insignificant. I apologize has become D.C. talk for “I’m sorry that you caught me.” His tweet makes it clear that he was trying to intimidate a witness.

25 II 2019: Right-wing “commentators” embarrass themselves again.

I read that someone called Pete Hegseth who does something on Fox (really fake!!) News has joined his voice to the chorus of reactionaries who are straining and lying in order to find fault with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Hegseth has denounced her raising the minimum wage for her Congressional office staff, and with a voice from the twentieth century has called this step “socialism and communism on display.” 

I would like to be able to tell Mr. Hegseth that Joe McCarthyisms are no longer a part of our political discourse, but alas, they are there, floating in the sewers and cesspits of America. But I do take heart at the massive expenditure of right-wing commentators’ air on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She really frightens these gas-bags and their listeners, because they know that they are being tried in the balance and found wanting.

10 II 2019: A new axis?

I read on the internet of a Steve Bannon + Raymond Burke axis. They are both patrons of the Dignitatis humanae institute, a reactionary program run by a former minion of Bannon.  I cannot figure out what the title Dignitatis humanaeinstitute could mean. Anyway, it looks like just another cell of the kind that tries to justify present-day reactionaries who have never accepted democracy by an appeal to an ideologically correct “Western Tradition” that never was.

Bannon, of course, recalls Mussolini, and Burke wants to be an anti-pope. This partnership seems likely to please many in this era of Trump. It is, in one way, a union of opposites, for Cardinal Burke is a notable clotheshorse (I’m sure his tailors’ bill would evoke a gasp) and a by-the-book ceremonialist, while Steve Bannon cultivates skid-row chic and is a leading figure of the New Rudeness. But shared resentment can easily bring opposites together.

We can get an idea of what this coupling can produce from Bannon and Burke’s willing tool, Archbishop Viganò. I have wondered of what see Viganò is the archbishop, probably somewhere in partibus infideliumwhere he can fit right in.

I wonder if these two could add to their team that leading Catholic and ubiquitous reactionary apologist Newt Gingrich. Newt simply oozes with long-standing resentment and has useful connections at the Vatican through his spouse, Callista, Trump’s ambassador to the Holy See, and to Opus deithrough Fr. John McCloskey who brought him into the Church.

What more mischief is the Bannon + Burke combination planning? One cannot know, but can probably guess that it will be hypocritical and well-supported financially.

18 II 2019: Lindsey Graham and King Trump

The statements of the once prudent Lindsey Graham become in recent months an unrelieved series of deceits. Ever wonder what embarrassing information Trump has on him? Maybe he is just acting Republican, for the Republicans are like a weathervane with a pig, not a cock, at the top. Whichever way the pig turns they follow at once.

14 II 2019: Trump follows Hitler’s gamebook

So King Donald is going to circumvent the Constitution and build Trump’s Folly by adding to his already endless series of lies the claim of a “national emergency.” The only pressing national emergency is having Trump and his Dauphin, Mike Pence, still in office.

I seem to recall that Hitler’s first step in dismantling democracy was to have a willing Reichstag [in our case, Mitchie and the Trumpettes] vote him power to govern by decree to deal with a bogus national emergency, and he went on governing by decree ever after.

11 II 2018: Whose stereotype?

So much for tolerance and diversity!! Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are being denounced as anti-semitic by Jewish colleagues and various others who, for their own reasons, are hurrying to jump on this bandwagon. The majority of critics seem to be especially incensed by the suggestion that Republican support for Israel is maintained by the Israel Lobby’s healthy donations to Republican politicians. What an idea!

It is a fundamental misrepresentation of Israeli foreign policy to fashion an identification between all Jews and the nation-state of Israel. If this deception succeeds, then opinion must declare any criticism of Israel, any support for Israel’s oppressed minority to be anti-semitic. What if we were to substitute another American proxy, Saudi-Arabia, for Israel in this formula, would politicians denounce any criticism of Saudi-Arabia as anti-islamicism? 

In American political discourse, “anti-semitism” has become, like “racism,” a vague, default denunciation that is based on a stereotype whereby any criticism of any Jewish person(s) for whatever reason can be called anti-semitism. And, as with racism, those who promote charges of anti-semitism are employing a concept now so vague as to prevent honest discussion of the phenomena to which this term may allude, but conveniently cannot precisely describe.