Reality Horror TV for Real

Well....who said politics is boring?  Just so we don't relax, President Trump is finding every way he can to create chaos. This past weekend he tweeted his warnings and provocations to fill the streets in DC with domestic terrorists to foment insurrection on January 6th.  Is this really happening?   There are many who think he is completely unhinged and fantasizing about invoking the Insurrection Act to bring out the military and invoke martial law.  He apparently believes he will be able to confiscate the election machines in the 'battleground states' and wave his magic wand and force millions of people to line up like sheep and 're-vote' to change the result of a national election!  If it weren't so absurdly frightening it would be funny.

But wait, maybe he has a plan that is now coming into focus!  The unfathomable replacements he made at the Pentagon a few weeks ago, replacing long time career Pentagon leaders with his sycophantic supporters, perhaps make a little more sense.  If he has his toadies in control, then his move to call out the military is perhaps not so farfetched!  I guess he thinks he can get the military to herd all the unwilling voters to go to the polls and at gunpoint cast their ballots.

 

What a plan!

 

If any of this actually happens, it is goodbye democracy.

 

I tried to take a nap earlier today, since yesterday I drove back from a wonderful weekend with my daughters in Raleigh, NC.   As mile after mile went by, I was amazed at the giant billboards that  promoted Trump and "Make America Great Again".  I realized that the rural landscape I was racing through had hordes of people who blindly accepted the crap he was feeding them.  I tried to imagine living there and seeing those giant billboards every day and hearing the tripe being spouted by local radio every day.  

 

Since the journey had really wiped me out, I laid  my head down about 2:30pm and turned on the radio so the droning would put me to sleep.  What I heard instead was the local FOX talk radio host frenetically inciting his prospective callers to offer up their opinions of why the election was a complete hoax.  One

after another these people recited the often heard tropes about why Trump has been fraudulently hoaxed out of winning.  The host egged them on spouting the lies over and over again!  It is just so unbelievable that this is happening.......It just never seems to stop and no matter that what they are saying is unprovable because of the complete lack of evidence, and the fact that all of their lawsuits to change the election results have been laughed out of court by more than 88 judges nationwide, they just ignore the facts!

 

Thank God there are only 23 more days of this.  I am holding my breath until Trump is finally gone.  He has clearly shown his true colors over the past several weeks, and especially the last few days.  His complete cruelty and disregard for the millions of Americans who don't have enough to pay the rent is so nauseating.  He is out playing golf while people are sitting in food lines because they can't feed their children. 

 

Well, I guess we just have to fasten our seat belts and see what horror materializes next.  As I said, it certainly is not boring.  I just wish the future of my country wasn't at stake. 

Send something like this to the 127....

 When I wrote to my Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart and told him he should be ashamed of himself for being one of the 126 Republican congressman who provided support for the Texas lawsuit trying to throw out the results of the election in 4 other states, he wrote me back:

 

                                                                                 

                                                                                   

Dear Laurence,

 

Thank you for your recent correspondence. I always appreciate hearing from constituents back home as it helps me better serve you in the 116th Congress.

As you may know, Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution states that “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . .  .” The petition that Texas recently filed in the U.S. Supreme Court alleges that the states of Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania usurped the authority granted to the State Legislatures of those states to set the rules for presidential elections. Because the U.S. Constitution expressly provides that only the state legislatures may set the laws for the presidential election, I joined 125 of my colleagues urging the Supreme Court to consider these alleged constitutional violations.

I believe that the amicus brief I signed raises serious questions as to whether Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution was violated. The amicus brief gives the Supreme Court an opportunity to determine the validity of this claim. Because our commitments to the democratic process and peaceful transfer of power are the cornerstones of American society, I believe it is critical to resolve these constitutional concerns about the election. A ruling from the Court would bolster public confidence in the process, assuage the doubts of millions of voters, and ensure that future elections are conducted in full compliance with the Constitution. I firmly believe that all legally valid votes from eligible voters throughout the nation must be counted and given full effect, without being nullified or diluted by unconstitutionally cast votes. The amicus brief that I signed did not explore the many issues raised in President Trump’s various legal challenges. Instead, it simply asked the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether the Constitution was followed in those four states where last minute changes were made to the election process by judges, local officials, and others without the constitutional authority to do so. Without taking a position on the constitutional issues raised in the case, the Supreme Court determined that Texas did not have standing to bring suit. I accept the Court’s decision.

I have been involved in a number of different constitutional disputes over many years, including the 2000 presidential election during which flaws in Florida’s election process led to judicial review. In Bush v. Gore, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed two decisions of Florida’s Supreme Court, including one mandating a statewide recount in which each county would apply different ballot-counting rules, resulting in unequal treatment of Florida voters in violation of the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. In that election, the U.S. Supreme Court played an important role in ensuring that essential constitutional provisions were followed.

I swore under oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the amicus brief that I signed seeks to do precisely that. Our Constitution has served us well for over two hundred years by safeguarding individual rights, ensuring a separation of powers, and proscribing the means of electing our federal representatives.  Especially in times of controversy and contention, it is even more important that we not abandon the foundational document that shapes our legal system.

Again, thank you for contacting me. Please do not hesitate to do so in the future, should you have any other questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

 

 

Mario Diaz-Balart
Member of Congress

 

This is what I wrote back to him:

 

Dear Congressman Balart:

Congressman Balart, I received your email reply.  I know you have probably answered a lot of emails like this, but truly, what you sent to me is about as 'form' a response as it gets, and not very convincing for several reasons...

The Constitution plainly says that each state shall appoint presidential electors "in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct."  That in no way allows for any other state to impose its will on the right of another state to determine its own rules.  In the case that you support, Texas has asked the Supreme Court to override such legislative determinations.  The case you supported is therefore hostile to the liberal political system and antagonistic to the idea that the will of the people should prevail. 

The Texas brief stated that Texas asserts that the Supreme Court's intervention is necessary to ensure faith in the election, but it is hard to imagine what could possibly undermine faith in democracy more than the Supreme Court permitting one state to enlist the court in its attempt to overturn the election results in other states.  The Texas case attempts to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters in violation of the core principles of the Constitution.

Additionally, there’s no reason to believe the voting conducted in any of the states was done unconstitutionally;  no evidence has been produced of voter fraud and consequently Trump’s post-election litigation campaign has been repeatedly laughed out of courts across the country.

At the end of the day, you have misguidedly supported an effort to disenfranchise millions of voters solely for the purpose of maintaining power at the expense of a constitutionally insured process of accepting the will of the voting electorate.  Sir, that is about as anti-democratic as it gets.  You have now become part of a party that has abandoned the concept of democracy and the rule of law, and has accepted autocratic means and processes to remain in power--in effect you have supported an attempt at a coup d'etat.

You are not a stupid man by any means.  You know in your heart of hearts that this election was fair and secure, and you also know in your heart of hearts that there is a steady stream of falsehoods, misdirection and lies being promulgated by the Trump campaign and all it's sycophantic supporters, which now apparently includes you.  It is that steady invective that is stirring up emotions amongst a major part of the electorate that voted for Trump, and is now being persuaded by those lies that Joe Biden is not a legitimate President-elect.  Your actions have been cause for loss of faith in our system of government and our democratic norms.

When you lie in bed at night and stare at the ceiling and try to rationalize your support for this effort, I hope that somehow you will understand how destructive your misguided support of these anti-democratic efforts has been.

I am clear now in my understanding that because you have chosen to throw your lot in with those who reject our democracy, you have no place in the Congress of the United States.

Yours respectfully,

Laurence A. Lancit

 

Uh Oh! Wake up America!

What we have just experienced in America is akin to having a mole on your back that you notice one day, but since can't see it daily you don't really think about it.  Then one of your friends sees it by accident and strongly recommends that you go to the doctor and have it looked at. You know you've had it for a year already, but never really thought about it, but now, feeling a sense of urgency you immediately make an appointment.  Fast forward:  you actually have a virulent melanoma, have it immediately removed, and after full body scans seem to be free of any metastases.

 

But are you really safe?....Really clean?  Only time will tell, but the constant apprehension will be with you for years.  Scary enough? 

 

And that is how we have just been jolted awake in America.  This week we awoke to the fact that 18 state Attorneys General, and over 126 members of Congress(almost 2/3 of the House Republican caucus) have chosen to pledge allegiance to a man rather than their oath to protect the Constitution and the rule of law.  2/3 of the Republican party(including all the 'mute/conspiring' Senators in Congress and a significant number of Republican state legislators including 18 ATTORNEYS GENERAL have attempted the most brazen assault on democracy in our country's history.  They collectively filed a lawsuit directly to the United States Supreme Court intended to overturn a national election to keep the ruling regime in power.  That, my friends, is not what happens in a democracy.  That is what happens in a dictatorship.  This group of seditionists attempted to overthrow our democracy and negate the will of the vote of the people.  This is a treacherous action attempting to nullify a legal choice by our citizens of who should govern the nation.  The reality is that we are living in a country where a significant minority of the country doesn't believe democracy is as important as fealty to Donald Trump.  

 

The fact is that Donald Trump lost the election.  He lost the popular vote by over 7 million votes and 306 electoral votes.  That is not a close contest, folks.  And yet, here is a major political party that wants to overturn that result with no actual evidence to support their action.

 

Joe Biden said that this election was a referendum on democracy.  Well, democracy won, and now the Republican party has rejected the result of that referendum and now demands that the notion of democracy be ignored.  Think about that.  126 members of Congress, elected by the people, have announced that they don't believe that the will of the people should be accepted. 

 

What do these people really stand for?  Certainly not democracy, right?  

 

These people have conspired to overthrow the democratically elected President Elect.  And all of these actions are based on false claims of fraud and lies perpetrated by the President and his supporters.  The American people are being betrayed by these people.   How can we trust those who don't believe in the founding principles of our country?  How do we perceive this large minority as we attempt to govern our country?  Suddenly a huge percentage of our population has shown that they do not believe in the peaceful transfer of power, a fundamental characteristic of our American form of government that has been paramount since the founding of the republic in 1776.

 

I think it is important to analyze what these actions are based on.  We knew that there would be accusations of a rigged election by the Republicans and Donald Trump ever since he was elected in 2016.  He screamed and threatened that if he lost in 2020 it would be because of massive fraud and another rigged election in 2020.  Now, in the aftermath of what was clearly a secure and honest balloting,  and a repudiation of him, and after over 60 lawsuits contesting the result, there has not been even one lawsuit that has succeeded.  In fact, all the cases have literally been thrown out of court by Republican and Democratic appointed judges!  Not one lawsuit has been able to present any credible evidence to support any of these claims.  And yet, even though the Republicans and the President have been defeated in all the lawsuits, the Republican Party doesn't care!  They just insist the election was rigged in spite of no evidence.  It doesn't seem to matter.  The only thing important to these people is that a fair and free election is not as important as retaining their power. 

 

The realization that so many people in our nation believe the lies, being egged on by these rejectors of democracy, gives us a true moment of pause.  Last night the Supreme Court rejected their attempt--we dodged a bullet, but like the guy in the example I gave in the beginning of this blog, we should now be really scared for our future.  What will happen in the next election?  How can we trust that the result will be respected and accepted?  The Republicans in Congress who supported the ridiculous Texas lawsuit may not accept the results of any election if they don't win.  Remember, they don't believe in the sanctity of free and fair elections.  They don't believe in democracy and their oath of office means nothing.

 

What is the future of our country now?  My view is that this is a malignant movement that has been festering for a long time at the hands of many non-believers of democracy.  Consider the actions of Mitch McConnell over the past 10 years; the behaviors of Republican legislators who have made it their mission to suppress as many minority and Democratic voters as possible for years.  Consider how laughable it is that Texas, (whose Republican governor mandated that Houston, a city of over 4 million people, could only have ONE ballot deposit box for the entire population in the recent election), would bring a suit against 4 states calling into question their election processes. Consider the efforts by the Postmaster General to sabotage the delivery of absentee ballots.  Elections are only for show for Republicans apparently.  If they don't win, it's okay  to nullify them.  What form of government is that??

 

The only solution to rid our body politic of these cancerous people is to methodically identify them and destroy them.  That means that unless we relentlessly purge our government of these people who are non-believers of democracy, we are at grave risk of losing our republic.  This process will not happen overnight.  It requires diligence over a period of years to rid ourselves of a coalition of people that includes racists, fascists, nationalists, and white supremacists by voting them out of office and preventing them from coming to power.  We must all recommit ourselves to the preservation of democracy in America, standing guard daily against this dark force that has somehow found a foothold in our society.  

 

In case we had any doubts, at least we now can see it for what it really is. 

 

Unprecedented!

'Unprecedented' is a word that every day provokes my gag reflex more and more.  Everything is 'unprecedented' today from every word that vomits forth from Trump to every action taken by the Republican party to reject democracy.  Let's just stop using it.

And as we go forward, maybe it is time for the mainstream media to disregard more and more of what Salmon Head has to say daily.  I know it's 'unprecedented' to not cover every utterance of Orange Man, but really....does he have anything of value to say?  We should be itemizing all the anti-destructive actions that the new administration will have to take to undo the destruction of the past 4 years.  The world will be moving on after January 20th, so let's get a jump on it.

 

As one of my friends said recently, "Don't fret about the horribleness that we are seeing every day now,

because imagine if Tangerine Man had won.  The horror of more 'unprecedented' things happening over the next 4 years would make many of us take out our guns and off ourselves."  

 

The task of navigating the 'unprecedented' conditions that Peach Head has bequeathed to us with the corona virus is perhaps the most important job of the new administration.  Until we tame this beast, all the other parts of our lives will be ...well....'unprecedented'!  First and foremost will be the task of repairing and establishing a distribution system for the vaccines that ultimately will bring relief from the pandemic.   Watching Biden's team begin to peel the layers on this onion is such a welcome breath of intelligence that it's .....'unprecedented'!  When have we ever in our lives felt as damaged as a country?  So glad to see people with our well-being as their first priority planning to take charge.

 

All the lemmings who idolize Canteloupe Man will need to wake up soon and realize that they have been duped, or they will be left behind as the rest of us return to the 21st Century.  They and all their mute/racist/fascist loving 'representatives' in Congress will probably wind-up devouring themselves over the next several years.  It will be the 'unprecedented' death of a once valuable political party.

 

So now, every morning before I look at any newscasts or scan the papers, I take a moment (and a deep breath) and thank God we are finally 'rounding the corner' on this 'unprecedented' sorry era in the history of our country.  I have love and respect for those heroes who simply stood up and defended our Constitution.   Let's hope that we have learned a valuable lesson about the fragility of our democracy.  It was truly an 'unprecedented' moment of instruction at the feet of Apricot Head.

Can We Make It to the 20th?

The Washington Post reports today that of the 249 Republican members of Congress, only 26 of them (about 10%) are willing to acknowledge Joe Biden's victory in the national election.  That is after both AG Barr and Chris Krebs, former director of CISA, have affirmed that there is no evidence of any kind of massive fraud or rigging of the election.  That is astonishing and saddening.

What that really means is that 223 Republicans--elected by we the people-- in the United States Congress, who have taken an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America, have chosen not to stand up for democracy.  They have, in fact, conspired in an effort to undermine our democracy.  They have stood mute as our most sacred institution--the right to vote-- has been attacked in an unfounded campaign against the democratic outcome of an election by the current President of the United States.  Trump is trying to leverage the power of the presidency to subvert the vote and overturn the election results.   History will not look fondly on any of them!

God help us, he cannot disappear soon enough from the scene.  Because as we wait patiently for

Inauguration Day to finally be rid of him, he is doing everything he can possibly do to trash as much of the important government functions as he can.  He simply doesn't care about our country any more.  If he did, he wouldn't purposefully replace experienced Defense Department employees with inexperienced lackeys who suddenly have control over our country's secret espionage activities and covert military actions.  And why are the new Trump installed leadership people in the Defense Department refusing to meet with Biden's transition team to get up to speed on critical national security issues?   And why is he trying to make thousands of Civil Service employees suddenly vulnerable to being fired at a whim?  Or why is he doing nothing to advance desperately needed plans to control the pandemic and distribute the vaccines that will shortly be available?   

 

It seems that his mission now is to destroy as much of our government as possible and sew as much discord and doubt about our democracy as possible.  It is clear that he is spitting on the concept of a peaceful transfer of power in our country, a tradition that sets an example for every democracy on earth and sets us apart from virtually all of the autocratic systems in the world.  Most of what he is doing is just spite....he is just spiteful.

 

It feels so helpless to be seeing all this stuff happening and not having the ability to stop it.  We are prisoners in our own country to a despot who doesn't care a whit about what our country really stands for.  The reality of his claims of voter fraud and rigged elections is a myth.   And yet he keeps promulgating the lies and revs up his lemming-like supporters to believe the myth.  All the while his actions seem designed to literally pull the dollars out of his unsuspecting supporter's pockets into his "Leadership PAC" to the tune of over $250 Million.... to do what with?  A small amount goes to his 'defense fund' and the rest goes literally into his pocket!  What a scam.  Is he stupid enough, even after all his failed legal efforts, to believe the election was rigged, or is it that he knows it's a lie but doesn't care?  Maybe both!  The biggest surprise is the belief held by so many Americans that the election was 'stolen' somehow--without any real evidence!  It is mind boggling.  They all seem to be SO sure!  Where are their brains?

 

Let's all visualize the image of pages of a calendar riffling off the top of the pile in a gentle wind,  like we used to see in the movies when they wanted us to imagine the passage of time.  At the end of the day apparently all we can do is hold our breath until January 20th and pray that nothing irreparably destructive is done to our country by this mean spirited, unhinged, vindictive excuse for a human being.  It is a wonder we have survived his term thus far, and--well-- actually over 250,000 deceased victims of the pandemic haven't!