1. Fuck the spin. We know nothing about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election.
What we know is how Attorney General William Barr characterized the
report and its findings. Barr is a Republican sin eater, engorging
himself on a banquet of crimes and betrayals going back decades.
He has no moral or ethical standing here, and his legal standing is
based on how he was going to wolf down the slop trough of sins of the
Trump administration. Unless and until we see the actual report, the
actual evidence, the actual two goddamn years of work that was done and
that, apparently, Barr only needed less than two days digest and shit
out a summary letter, we know nothing.
2. But, hey, for shits and giggles, let's say take the cackling Russia naysayers' perspective and treat Barr's letter like
it's totally legit. Well, look at the second page, where Barr says
explicitly that Mueller showed that Russia tried to interfere in the
2016 election. I mean, call me a crazy conspiracy theorist, but when I
read, "The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors
successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons
affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations,
and publicly disseminated those materials through various
intermediaries, including WikiLeaks," I think that's pretty fucking
serious and damning and deserves action from, oh, hell, let's say the
White House.
2a. Barr writes that "the Special Counsel did not find that any U.S.
person or Trump campaign official or associate" conspired with Russians
to spread disinformation through social media. But when it comes to the
DNC hacks, he writes, " the Special Counsel did not find that the Trump
campaign, or anyone associated with it" conspired on them, leaving out
the more all-encompassing "any U.S. person." Which says to me that
someone in the U.S. sure as shit conspired.
2b. This part is entirely fucked up: apparently, there were "multiple
offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump
campaign." So, just to get this right, Russian operatives told the Trump
campaign, presumably Jared, Junior, and Manafort, "Hey, we're dicking
around on social media and, by the way, we've hacked the shit out of
Hillary's email. Wanna fuck?" And we know that Jared and/or Junior
winked about lifting sanctions while saying out loud, "Oh, no, we'd
never want that." And then they didn't go directly to the FBI and turn
everyone in who contacted them. That inaction gave tacit approval. Put
it this way: If President Hillary Clinton's campaign hadn't turned over
Russian offers of hacked Trump emails to the FBI, DC would be on fire
tonight as enraged Republicans demanded Pennsylvania Avenue run red with
the blood of her administration.
2c. And if this had been written about President Hillary Clinton: "while
this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it
also does not exonerate [her]," the only thing we'd be talking about is
how she wasn't exonerated. The GOP and the media wouldn't let her say
that she was exonerated. They wouldn't allow such an obvious,
demonstrable lie. But with Trump, well, fuck us all, it never matters
that he lies like the rest of us breathe.
2d. Frankly, Mueller's report could exonerate Trump on everything. It
could be everything that Republicans are spinning it to be. But I'm not
gonna buy anything one way or the other until we get to see the thing.
I'd be a credulous idiot to think any other way. Right now, without the
report, this is a cover-up. Of obstruction. Of the extent that our electoral system is at risk. Of what Trump's relationship with Russia actually is.
3. While Trump and his party of religious zealots, miserable racists, child molester enablers, and generally shitty humans are attacking
Democrats savagely, let's not leave out the role Trump played in making
the investigation into Russian meddling in the election all about him.
He saw it as tainting his "Greatest Victory in the History of Everything
Yeah You Heard Me Fuck You," so he sought to discredit the
investigation and the people doing it.
But here's the trouble I have. If you believe the Barr letter, you have
to believe that Russia did meddle in the election. It's right there. It
says so. Yet every time Trump has been given the opportunity to agree
with fucking everyone that such interference occurred, he has dismissed,
demurred, or denied it. He has suggested multiple times that it could
be the Chinese or the mythical 400-lb hacker. And his administration is
doing precious little to prevent that interference again. This is like
the climate change of espionage here: it happened. It's happening.
Everyone knows it's happening. But because a tiny group of tiny dicks
refuse to act, nothing will be done. And it'll just get worse while the
tiny dicks get jacked off on all of us.
So, at best, Trump has such a fragile ego that he fears anyone
questioning his election. Or he wants Russia to interfere. Or he's
utterly compromised. In other words, he sure as shit acts like he's
guilty and we're fucked either way.
4. Democrats did put too many eggs in Mueller's basket. And now they
should kick the investigations into high gear. Get some fuckin'
subpoenas going. Drag some motherfuckers before committees and put 'em
under oath. Get Trump's goddamn tax returns. Some emoluments clause,
motherfuckers. Some bribery.
Look, Trump is buried up to his neck in shit. Sure, it would be nice to
have backed up dump truck of manure and covered his orange deflated yoga
ball of a head. But we can also get our shovels and finish the job with
the shit that's already there.
5. Let's fuck shit up in 2020. I don't buy that concentration on Russia
has hurt Democrats. If anything, it has unified us and pissed us off.
Feel that rage. Embrace it. Use it to fuel you through November 2020
because, without some miracle or dark magic, we're not getting out of
the rest of this Trump term. Gird yer loins, motherfuckers. Gird 'em for
the long fight.
Let's talk about the continued blind allegiance to Donald Trump from
brainwashed Republicans concerning the Mueller Report. Even though no
one knows what is in it, Republicans are claiming it exonerates Donald
Trump. The Amerian people need the full report to be made public as well
as the underlying evidence!
According to new reports, swing voters in pivotal states like Wisconsin
are beginning to turn on Donald Trump after finally coming to the
realization that the man is a con artist and that he lies about
everything. This doesn’t automatically mean that Democrats are going to
win in the Midwest, but it does offer a window for Democrats to make
some serious progress.
Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains how
Democrats can get these swing voters over to their side, but it won’t be
easy.
What are your thoughts about Donald Trump's unresidential behavior and
uncalled for jabs at the late John McCain, wrapping a week of wild
tweeting and bizarre behavior?
resident Trump blasted George Conway, the husband of White House
counselor Kellyanne Conway, as a 'stone cold loser' on Wednesday who is
jealous of his wife's success.
George Conway, who questioned the president's mental fitness for office
this week, is a 'husband from hell,' Trump said in a morning tweet that
took the internal family feud to new heights.
Trump said he barely knows Conway, who has become well-known for his
tweets ripping apart the resident.
Conway once lived in Trump World
Tower in New York with his wife, who served on the condo's board."
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said Monday that he would not support the
Equality Act, which would expand and clarify federal protections for
LGBTQ people, without significant changes.
Manchin, the only Senate Democrat who is not supporting the legislation,
said he wants to provide more control to local officials. Rep. Dan
Lipinski (D-IL) is the only Democrat in the House who does not support
the current legislation.
'I strongly support equality for all people and do not tolerate
discrimination of any kind. No one should be afraid of losing their job
or losing their housing because of their sexual orientation,' Manchin
told the press. 'I am not convinced that the Equality Act as written
provides sufficient guidance to the local officials who will be
responsible for implementing it, particularly with respect to students
transitioning between genders in public schools.'"
"
Hosts: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian
Cast: Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian
Jeanine
Pirro, the Fox News Channel host and former prosecutor, was absent from
her usual slot in the network’s Saturday night prime-time lineup — and
her most powerful viewer was not happy about it.
Fox News bumped the show a week after it publicly condemned
Pirro’s on-air suggestion that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) did not
support the U.S. Constitution because she is Muslim and wears a hijab.
“Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro,” resident Trump tweeted Sunday morning.
Trump
accused Pirro’s critics of waging “all out campaigns” against Pirro and
fellow Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who was widely rebuked after
decade-old racist, misogynistic and homophobic comments resurfaced last
week. Both of their comments prompted some advertisers to boycott the shows.
“Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down,” Trump said in another tweet, before issuing a curiously dire warning to “Be strong & prosper, be weak & die!”
Democrats are doing that thing they always do, that same bullshit of
questioning every step, every word, every gesture to the point of
paralysis in some areas. In just the last few days, we've gotten a
report that some Democrats are feeling skittish
about opening up investigative whoop-ass on Ivanka Trump, the daughter
and fantasy lover of resident Donald Trump, because it might make
Daddy-kins angry. We've had the entirely unnecessary blow-up over Ilhan
Omar's poor choice of words when talking about issues related to Israel.
And now we've got Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi declaring, "I’m not for impeachment...because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it."
Welcome back to the same fuckin' pothole-filled road we've been down too many times.
The most important of those is Speaker Pelosi's pronouncement, which is
more definitive than she's ever been on the subject of impeachment with
Trump. For some of us, our stomachs turn and our bowels clench because
it echoes what she said
in 2006, after Democrats won back the House and she was about to become
speaker. "Impeachment is off the table" when it came to George W. Bush,
even though he was a goddamn war criminal, even though we desperately
wanted him punished.
In the course of her new interview with the Washington Post,
Pelosi agrees that this is the most divisive "political climate" since
she's been in Congress because "because of the person who is in the
White House and the enablers that the Republicans in Congress are to
him." She adds, "We have a very serious challenge to the Constitution of
the United States in the president’s unconstitutional assault on the
Constitution, on the first branch of government, the legislative
branch…This is very serious for our country." And, when asked if Trump
is fit to be president, she is very clear: "I don’t think he is. I mean,
ethically unfit. Intellectually unfit. Curiosity-wise unfit. No, I
don’t think he’s fit to be president of the United States."
If the resident is assaulting the Constitution, dividing the nation,
and is unfit to even be president, then impeachment should be the most
important thing that the Congress can do. Fuck the politics. Fuck the
Senate. Fuck waiting for the Mueller report. You fucking do the
investigations in your committees, you write up the articles, and you
vote. You do it because, if you don't, then you're saying, "Yeah, he's a
criminal surrounded by criminals who is actually turning people in the
country violent, but, damn, the Republicans will just be so mean about
it." You do it because history and your goddamn oath of office demand
that you do it.
And don't talk to me about Bill Clinton's approval and the 1998 midterms
as being hugely affected by investigations and his impeachment. As I wrote
last year, that's a garbage argument. Clinton's approval was already
above 50%, heading to 60 after his reelection and his disapproval was
mostly in the 30s. Trump's numbers are the opposite. And the crimes
Clinton was accused of are just a Tuesday morning for Trump while every
other fucking tweet of Trump's is him looking us dead in the eye and
saying, "I did not have collusion relations with that country, Russia."
As for the idea that the Senate won't convict, well, shit, the House
right now is passing all these bills on voting rights, gun control, and
more that the Senate won't touch because Mitch McConnell is a total
cockmite and, you know, it's run by Republicans. That's not stopping the
House from voting on things so that Democrats can run on the
legislation that was stalled (and will have to be passed again in a new
Congress). Besides, the Senate can't just ignore the House on
impeachment. The Constitution requires that the Senate have a trial on
removing the president once the House impeaches (although you can bet
McConnell will try to say he doesn't have to). That trial won't be about
Trump's dick and whose mouth it was in, although it could be. It will
be about how, say, he's getting bribed by Saudi Arabia through his
family business.
While polls right now have impeachment far down the list of shit people
want the Democrats to do, the point is that the majority of Americans think Trump's
a fuckin' crook. They will get on board with taking this corrupt
asshole down. Jesus, kicking out a rich prick? That's a fuckin' movie
ending.
Look, you wanna excite the base for an election? You wanna get people to
rally around you? You wanna bring the left and moderates in the party
together? Then don't fucking do what President Obama did with the GOP
after 2008 and let the bastards slide. Don't let them control the
narrative. Go after every single one of Trump's criminal children (so
far, Tiffany and Barron seem to have blissfully stayed out of the muck).
Anal probe these fuckers until you're up to your elbows in their
colons.
And don't take the goddamn bait every time Republicans start screaming
about something on Fox "news." It's been days since Trump called the
entire Democratic Party "anti-Jewish." And not a single Republican
member of Congress has condemned him saying that. So, really, who the
fuck cares if the GOP is upset about some insult? If you're a Democrat
saying that impeachment should be off the table because it might piss
off Republicans, then you're just doing their jobs for them.
Pelosi could have played it coy and said, "Well, we'll have to see where
things lead." Or she could have said, "The nation is worth it even if
he isn't." She could have said said that the Founders of our nation put
impeachment in the Constitution for a reason, for people like Trump. The
groundswell of support from Democrats (and a good number of
independents) would overwhelm the outrage, and the fence sitters and the
nervous Democrats would have gladly surfed on that wave.
In the most generous reading of her words, Pelosi knows something or has
something up her sleeve. But I don't think so. I think that, for how
great she can be on things like wall funding and other issues, this is
one of those times that she acts like the sadly typical, abashed
Democrat, afraid to use power to its fullest.
1. When Michael Cohen, the former lawyer for resident Donald Trump,
said to the House Oversight Committee at his open hearing yesterday, "I
know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat,"
it didn't budge the needle one bit on Trump's support among his idiot
hordes of voters. They love him because he's a racist, a conman, and a
cheat. They love him because he cheated and conned and got away with it
and they don't give a hairy rat's asshole if they're the mark. And they
love him even more because he's a racist who's rich because it shows
that you can be a racist piece of shit and still make coin and become resident. So put that out of your minds, dear, liberal reader who so
wanted Cohen to burn it all down. Cohen could have shown up with videos
of Trump raping a 12 year-old girl on top of an American flag, laughing
while Vladimir Putin shits on his doughy face and Mohammed bin Salman
shoves rolled up wads of cash into his enormous ass, and his idiot
hordes of followers would say, "Damn, that's livin'."
2. And the Republican Party wouldn't give a goddamn either. Essentially,
the GOP is no longer made up of Americans. It's comprised of Trumpians,
mostly men and a few women who are loyal to the man, not the nation,
and who will allow him to get away with any crimes he wants as long as
he continues to give them tax cuts, savagely conservative judges, and
bullshit bravado for the aforementioned hordes. At no point in the
hearing did a single Republican attempt to defend Trump. In fact, you
could say that on some accounts, Cohen did more to defend Trump on some
specific allegations than the Republicans, when he said he couldn't
absolutely confirm a conspiracy with Russia and didn't believe the piss
tape exists. But Cohen went at Republicans, at times giving looks that
seemed to say that he knows where their bodies are buried, too. When he
was finally sick of all the shit Republicans were throwing at him, Cohen
snarled
at insufferable dickhole Jim Jordan of Ohio, "I just find it
interesting, sir, that between yourself and your colleagues that not one
question so far since I’m here has been asked about resident
Trump...The American people don’t care about my taxes. They want to know
what it is that I know about Mr. Trump. Not one question so far has
been asked about Mr. Trump." That is some baller shit right there.
3. Every Huckleberry Chucklefuck on the GOP side who sounded like they
had a mouthful of chicken-fried balls merely repeated the same shit over
and over about Cohen: that he lied to Congress before; that there were
all these Fox "news"-generated conspiracies going on that involved,
among others, the Clintons; that Cohen might try to make some money on
his tribulations (so I guess we can expect that Newt Gingrich and a
hundred other scummy Republicans drummed out of DC won't be invited to
the cocktail parties and Hannity reacharounds anymore); that he was in
it for himself. After a while, it was hard to tell one white guy with a
Southern accent from another. Oh, shit, was that Jody Hice? Or Ralph
Norman? Or Mark Green? Jesus, when the two white women on the GOP side
spoke, it was a huge relief because at least the pitch of their voices
was different.
3a. Of course, it was easy to tell who Mark Meadows
of North Carolina was. He was designated bitch face for the whole
proceedings, screeching like a banshee that stepped on a Lego piece
whenever he found something the least bit offensive. The racist, birther
son of a bitch who only got elected because of racist gerrymandering
almost cried when Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib accused his racist ass
of doing racist shit. Meadows had brought Trump party planner and now
HUD official for some fucking reason Lynne Patton, a black woman, to
stand behind him in what was obviously a move to prove that racist Trump
isn't racist. "See?" he was essentially saying. "Trump loves black
people so much that he hired one of the only ones he knows to run an
agency he couldn't give a happy monkey fuck about. Not racist!" Cohen
eviscerated Meadows with a simple statement: "Ask Ms. Patton how many
people who are black are executives at the Trump Organization. The
answer is zero."
3b. Special mention
to Louisiana Republican Clay Higgins, who is from my family's district
and is just dumber and more useless than a sack of wet hair. He kept
thinking he had caught Cohen hiding evidence when he brought up boxes
where Cohen found the documents he was presenting. At least twice, Cohen
explained that the boxes were taken from him by the FBI and returned to
him. Higgins is an ex-cop, so maybe he's used to just confiscating shit
and selling it to buy military equipment for his Cajun jackass brigade.
He's another one of those disgraced motherfuckers who a bunch of yahoos
love because he's "straight-talkin'" or some such shit, so they vote
for his Deputy Dawg ass. (And, yeah, I've gotten in vicious arguments
back home over him.)
4. What came through most clearly is that Donald Trump is just a fucking
asshole. I mean, just a horrible, blithering, narcissistic piece of
garbage, and not even quality garbage. Like the garbage that gets stuck
on the bottom of the can and rots and then you have to scrape it out. It
is likely orange. Trump loves to act like a mob boss, doing things with
a wink that his stooges understand. Cohen talked about how the whole
election was just an "infomercial" for Trump's brand, that winning was
never in the cards in Trump's mind. He talked about how Trump evaded the
draft, with Trump saying, "You think I’m stupid, I wasn’t going to
Vietnam." He talked about how Trump loves dicking over people who owe
him money. He said that Trump had him threaten Trump's schools even
though they are prevented by federal law from releasing his academic
records, and that Trump had him threaten people hundreds of times (which
means that Cohen got a kick out of doing it, like he had some power).
And, c'mon, can we not ignore the fact that the resident of the United
States is paying off porn stars for their silence? Can we all not agree
that that's just so fucking sleazy? Or that he was negotiating for a
Moscow tower while he was running for resident? Mostly, though, Trump
lies and lies like lies are air and food and water. Trump has lied about
everything, every goddamn thing, and he has created a barrier of
lickspittles, sycophants, and lackeys to prevent truth from either
getting out or penetrating in. And right now, Republicans are the
fuckin' Praetorian guard for Trump.
5. Mostly, Democrats did okay. They got Cohen to delve a little bit into
the operation of the Trump Organization, although they didn't dive
nearly as deeply as they could have. They ranted too much about how they
were doing something good for the country by holding the hearing (to
counter the Republicans completely worthless claim that the hearing was
harming the nation). And they dropped the ball a few times, which was as
much due to the limitations of the 5-minute clock as anything. But they
could have dug in to expose more clearly what a ramshackle entity
Trump's business is, how it's just a few people, mostly family, doing
slimy shit to make sure the Trump name stays out there. Kardashians with
real estate and fewer scruples.
5a. However, fucking Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was not there to fuck
around. She didn't pause to make any statement. Instead, she gave a
goddamn masterclass on how you can take five minutes and break through
the rhetorical bullshit in order to get to the heart of a matter. She focused
in on Trump's deflation of the value of his properties to avoid taxes.
That's a crime, and Trump could face big fines and tax evasion charges
when the Southern District of New York prosecutors get done with it.
Shout out also to Ayanna Pressley, Democrat from Massachusetts, who dug
into more financial crimes, these related to the way the Trump
Foundation was used as a slush fund, often just to stroke Trump's huge
ego. And she emphasized, as did Michigan's Brenda Lawrence, Trump's
racism because he's a fucking racist.
5b. Leave the speeches to the Democratic Chair of the Oversight
Committe, Elijah Cummings, who concluded the hearing with a thunderous attack
on his GOP colleagues and on those who degraded Cohen. It was a cry for
decency that he was making to wholly indecent people, but, tearing up
at Cummings' words, Michael Cohen, an indecent man trying to find
decency and respect again, seemed to really hear them. Cohen was a shit
human who worked for a shittier human, and Cummings offered him a chance
at redemption.
6. What did we gain from yesterday? A sense that we might get at the
truth of what was done to the United States in November 2016. A feeling
of, if not hope, then something hope-adjacent that we might use the
mechanisms of our government to save ourselves.
6a. But the Republicans won't help at all. They are done as anything other than as a subsidiary of the Trump corporation.
6b. And we shall need to heed Cohen's warning about Trump that " I fear
that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a
peaceful transition of power." That's some scary shit right there
because, well, see number 1 up there.
In it, the disgraced former attorney to residentDonald Trump painted a picture of a “racist,” a “conman” and a “cheat” sitting in the Oval Office. Then, in scathing detail, Cohen listed examples of each in action.
Here are some of the most stunning excerpts from the statement:
“Mr. Trump is a racist”
“He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a ‘shithole.’ This was when Barack Obama was President of the United States.
“While we were once driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, he commented that only black people could live that way.
“And, he told me that black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid.”
Trump has a very low opinion of his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
“Mr. Trump had frequently told me and others that his son Don Jr. had the worst judgment of anyone in the world. And also, that Don Jr. would never set up any meeting of any significance alone – and certainly not without checking with his father.”
How Trump dodged service in Vietnam
“Mr. Trump claimed it was because of a bone spur, but when I asked for medical records, he gave me none and said there was no surgery. He told me not to answer the specific questions by reporters but rather offer simply the fact that he received a medical deferment.
He finished the conversation with the following comment. ‘You think I’m stupid, I wasn’t going to Vietnam.’”
Trump is not a patriot
“The sad fact is that I never heard Mr. Trump say anything in private that led me to believe he loved our nation or wanted to make it better. In fact, he did the opposite.
“When telling me in 2008 that he was cutting employees’ salaries in half ― including mine ― he showed me what he claimed was a $10 million IRS tax refund, and he said that he could not believe how stupid the government was for giving ‘someone like him’ that much money back.”
Trump ‘reveled’ in refusing to pay his bills
“One of my more common responsibilities was that Mr. Trump directed me to call business owners, many of whom were small businesses, that were owed money for their services and told them no payment or a reduced payment would be coming. When I advised Mr. Trump of my success, he actually reveled in it.”
Trump knew about Roger Stone and Wikileaks
“In July 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump’s office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone. Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone. Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of ‘wouldn’t that be great.’”
One of Cohen’s biggest regrets: Lying to Melania Trump
“He asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair, and to lie to his wife about it, which I did. Lying to the First Lady is one of my biggest regrets. She is a kind, good person. I respect her greatly – and she did not deserve that.”
Trump repaid Stormy Daniels hush money with personal checks
“I am providing a copy of a $35,000 check that resident Trump personally signed from his personal bank 14 account on August 1, 2017 – when he was resident of the United States – pursuant to the cover-up, which was the basis of my guilty plea, to reimburse me – the word used by Mr. Trump’s TV lawyer ― for the illegal hush money I paid on his behalf. This $35,000 check was one of 11 check installments that was paid throughout the year – while he was resident.
“The resident of the United States thus wrote a personal check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws.”
Cohen warns Trump: I’m not your ‘fixer’ anymore
“For those who question my motives for being here today, I understand. I have lied, but I am not a liar. I have done bad things, but I am not a bad man. I have fixed things, but I am no longer your ‘fixer,’ Mr. Trump.”
The identity of Individual #1
“For the record: Individual #1 is resident Donald J. Trump.”
Matt Gaetz, you Florida tea party slack jawed yokel, you need to drink a stiff cup of SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!
dlevere.
As Michael Cohen apologized
to a Senate panel Tuesday for having previously given false testimony,
Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Congressman serving Florida’s first district and a
stalwart ally of resident Trump, took to Twitter with a tweet that some
ethics experts considered a threat to Cohen.
“Hey
@MichaelCohen212 – Do your wife & father-in-law know about your
girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder
if she’ll remain faithful when you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a
lot…,” Gaetz’s tweet said.
If you're going to be a supporter of resident Donald Trump, there's a
certain amount of delusion you've got to have. And there's a whole range
of the kinds of delusional thinking that can infect you.
You've got the
seemingly practical delusions of most of the GOP members of Congress, a
kind of "I can live with his barking insanity and wholesale destruction
of our constitutional system if I get tax cuts for my wealthy donors"
delusion.
On the other end of the spectrum, you've got the nutzoid
conspiracy theorists, the ones who believe that Trump is a superhero who
is being undermined by a cabal of Hillary Clinton, Democrats, media
types, and, sure, Jews.
In the middle is the average delusional Trump voter, the kind who
justify everything he does by declaring that Trump's not racist, not
dumb, and certainly not unqualified for the job. They actually believe
stupid shit he says, like that a border wall would solve all our
problems with illegal drugs and prevent undocumented immigrants from
entering the country.
They actually believe that Trump saved the economy
from the wreckage of Obama's (checks notes) 75 straight months of job
growth. They will justify anything in terms of Trump's obvious
awesomeness, wondering how we can't comprehend the wonder that is the
glowing orange blob that is Donald Trump.
And, perhaps most mindbending,
some of them actually believe that the rise of white supremacist
terrorism and violence in this country has nothing to do with Trump.
Like some things ought to be a no-brainer, right? When the FBI arrested
very white guy Christopher Hasson in Maryland last week, he had a
shit-ton of guns and ammos, as well as several Hulks worth of steroids
and a small CVS of other drugs and supplies, and a plan to start a race
war and a kill list of Democratic lawmakers and members of the media who
are critical of Trump. So it's not a huge leap of logic to assume that
asshole was inspired by Trump's rhetoric.
But not Eddie Scarry of the Washington Examiner (Motto: "No, not that one. Not that one either. Okay, just fuckin' click to find out"). In a "column"
(if by "column," you mean, "A moronic, masturbatory yawp that its
author desperately hopes will get him some Hannity man-love") titled,
"Christopher Hasson, Coast Guard officer, was a nihilist and there’s no
evidence he was a Trump supporter," says, well, the title pretty much
says the entire thing, just on repeat.
It's all a bunch of self-own, really. In court documents,
Scarry points out that in January, Hasson searched for "what if trump
illegally impeached” and “civil war if trump impeached.” But don't you
dare say that means he wanted civil war if Trump was impeached. Besides,
Scarry says Hasson was driven by "a preoccupation with race and a
nihilistic view that had no clear attachment to politics at all, outside
of an unspecified antipathy for “liberalist/globalist ideology.” But
don't you dare smack your head as you tell this bridge troll that Trump
has a preoccupation with race and has derided
"globalists." For Scarry and his delusional ilk, Trump simply can't be
the racist piece of shit the majority of us know he is because, well, he
isn't? I don't know. I can't get that up in my own ass.
In order to keep asserting, as he does, "Hasson didn’t care about
Trump," Scarry ignores a couple of things. Like that almost all of the
people on Hasson's kill list have been directly criticized by Trump.
Otherwise, why would he give a shit about Joe Scarborough or Richard
Blumenthal (who he called "Sen blumen jew," continuing that hilarious
conservative sense of humor)? Or that he wants to kill "poca warren,"
which uses Trump's nickname for Elizabeth Warren?
The very act of eliminating Trump's influence on Hasson requires a
ludicrous amount of denial. But that's more or less the only way Trump
voters can exist in their bizarre, thick bubble where facts and reality
don't penetrate.
(Note: It took everything I could not to make a joke about the name
"Scarry." I couldn't decide whether or not to go with "frightening" or
"full of scars" or "related to Richard Scarry.")
(Note again: The fact that an individual can legally buy that many guns makes us a ridiculously dumb country.)
Joe: ‘Not a word from the resident’ and that ‘speaks volumes.’ Amid resident Trump’s silence on the alleged domestic terror plot by a Coast
Guard lieutenant, the Morning Blow team discusses the state of American
politics today.
The New Jersey state Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly voted to pass a
bill that would keep presidential candidates off the state’s 2020
ballot unless they release their tax returns.
According to the Courier Post,
the Democratic-controlled state Senate passed the measure along party
lines in a 23-11 vote on Thursday, sending the bill to the Assembly
committee and full legislature for a vote before it heads to the desk of
Gov. Phil Murphy (D) for consideration.
The controversial measure would
deny candidates for President and Vice President a spot on the state
ballot if they do not publicly release five of their most recent tax
returns at least 50 days before the general election in 2020.
The
bill, if passed, would also bar the state’s electors from voting for
candidates for President and Vice President as part of the Electoral
College system if they choose not to comply with the legislation.
Let's talk about the dangerous and increasing authoritarian tendencies
of Donald Trump, who is now talking about JAILING Department of Justice
investigators and wanting RETRIBUTION for critics.
MSNBC 11th Hour's Brian Williams hosts Intel Community veteran Malcolm
Nance to discuss recent evidence of Kremlin espionage, using Trump
associates, and disinformation campaigns intended to cause chaos and
disruption.
'The resident's decision to officially declare an emergency - to
pretend to build an unbuildable border wall - is not only an act of
constitutional vandalism. It is also an act of cowardice...,' writes
Eugene Robinson in a new WaPo column. Robinson joins Morning Blow to
discuss.
Let's talk about Donald Trump's bizarre deference for Ann Coulter. No
matter what nasty thing she says or tweets about him, Donald Trump
continues to hold her in ostensibly as high regard as Vladimir Putin!
Last week Trump suggested that he would build a “human wall” along the
southern border if Democrats don’t give him the funding that the wants
for his border wall. Apparently some of his supporters took the message
to heart, and they went down to the southern border and formed a wall
themselves.
Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses the insanity of this
and why his supporters will literally do anything he tells them to do.
Let's talk about Mick Mulvaney's recent interview with Fox News' Chris
Wallace on Fox News Sunday, during which Mulvaney admitted clumsily that
Republicans during Barack Obama's eight years in office weren't worried
about doing their jobs.
Two teams of federal officials assembled to fight foreign election
interference are being dramatically downsized, according to three
current and former Department of Homeland Security officials. And now,
those sources say they fear the department won’t prepare adequately for
election threats in 2020.
“The clear assessment from the
intelligence community is that 2020 is going to be the perfect storm,”
said a DHS official familiar with the teams. “We know Russia is going to
be engaged. Other state actors have seen the success of Russia and
realize the value of disinformation operations.
So it’s very curious why the task forces were demoted in the
bureaucracy and the leadership has not committed resources to prepare
for the 2020 election.”
resident Narcissist actually put a plaque with his name on it on a
section of the fence that was repaired on our southern border. It said,
"Here lies what was left of my shame. Hahahaha just kidding I never had
any shame."
Watch as Alan Gomez reveals this astonishing-but-not-really
tidbit to Ali Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle on their show. They were
discussing the bipartisan budged deal struck in Congress to avoid
another shutdown, and fund the government.
In attempting to predict
whether it will succeed in doing that, Gomez rightly said that since no
one on God's green earth knows what the hell is going on in that idiot
Trump's head, it's impossible to tell.
I'm paraphrasing only slightly.
Then he casually mentioned that Trump might just be satisfied with 55
miles of fencing, put a plaque on it like he did in California, call it
a success and herald the win to the heavens. At that point, Ruhle
stopped him in disbelief.
So, Morning Mika's Husband took some of his own "executive time" to pen a
Washington Post op-ed claiming that Michael Bennet, Colorado's
"soft-spoken, white son of the establishment" could be the answer to the
Democratic party's prayers.
Leave it to proud ex-Republican to try to sell us on a conservative
white, straight, middle-aged corporatist as the "savior" of the party he
loves to preach to but would never join. Michael Bennet gave one good
speech (and I'll give it to him--it was a good speech) on the senate
floor, and all of a sudden he's supposed to eclipse the likes of Kamala
Harris and Sherrod Brown as the one senator who can beat the Idiot
Cheetoh because he's...what...so much like him?
Michael Bennet, just like Trump, knows what it's like to have
everything handed to him. He only won his senate seat because he got to
run as an incumbent, having been appointed by then-Governor Bill Ritter
to fill a vacancy. And Ritter only plucked Bennet from the
Superintendent of Denver Public Schools job (a position he was appointed
to despite having ZERO school administration experience) because he
(Ritter) had some personal grudge against the wildly popular Andrew
Romanoff, former Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives. And
despite Romanoff having clobbered Bennet at the state convention, Bennet
ended up winning the primary because President Obama, in a move for
which I will never forgive him, endorsed Bennet. (Why on earth Obama
put his thumb on the scales in a Democratic Primary, I will NEVER
understand.)
As Colorado's senator, Michael Bennet has distinguished himself
by...well...not distinguishing himself. Until his famous "Ted Cruz is a
big meanie" speech, very few people could have named the state he
represents. He serves on three rather quiet committees, and his votes
tend to be non-controversial, as are the bills he sponsors. In short,
he just doesn't seem to want to make news. Now, that might be
Scarborough's idea of presidential material, but I personally want a
leader who...leads.
I truly don't intend to knock Bennet. As our senator he has been
fine. Just fine. (Personally I'm hoping Andrew Romanoff, who just
announced a run for Cory Gardner's seat, will make it to the Senate
after all. Romanoff is my idea of a real Democrat.) I just
think it's kind of rich that Joe fucking Scarborough thinks he knows
what the Democratic party "needs." After all, when Joe served in the
People's House--as a Republican--he sponsored a bill to withdraw
from the United Nations, voted to defund the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, and worked to try to impeach Bill Clinton. And I won't
even go into his own little intern scandal. Google it.
Joe seems to think that since Bennet isn't a lefty-liberal, that he
can "save" the Democratic party. Well, I think that the 2018 elections
proved that the party, and indeed the country, is ready for some loud, proud lefty-ness. And frankly, if we want to beat Cheetoh, the last
person we should nominate is a milk-toast, "soft-spoken" centrist. If
Joe thinks that's what this country needs, let him convince his own former party to nominate Michael Bennet.
1. Fuck you if you're watching the videos
of students from Covington Catholic School hooting and yelling and
chanting and dancing in their douchewear of MAGA hats and Trump shirts
and you think,
"Oh, this is totally innocent and not racist." And double fuck you in
your mouth and your ass if you look at images and videos of very white
Nick Sandmann standing and smirking in front of very Native American
Nathan Phillips and believe, as Sandmann's parents' hired guns
wrote for Sandmann, "I said a silent prayer that the situation would
not get out of hand." Bullshit. Anyone who has ever been around a group
of young white dipshit males has seen that fuckin' smirk, that face that
says, "You wouldn't touch me because I'm white and I got a group of
angry white boys around me who are pissed off that they missed the era
of lynching." Jesus, it must have been frightening to be surrounded by
those howling piss ants in their MAGA gang colors.
1a. The one thing I'll give the forensic videologists of the right is
that I never clearly heard the racist dipshit kids chant, "Build the
wall." They may have. They may not have. I'm just saying I didn't hear
it. Update: I watched another video,
the one where the kid (whose name is probably Squee) rips his shirt
off, and they are definitely chanting, "Donald Trump" for a couple of
moments.
1b. Don't fuckin' tell me to "Watch the video of the whole thing."
Motherfuckers, I did watch it. And it shows exactly what it looks like: a
bunch of privileged white Christian boys getting off first on
confronting some black people (the Hebrew Israelites are fuckin'
assholes) and then on confronting some Injuns. They likely thought
they'd finally get a hug from their MAGA fathers for doing it. Hell,
they were probably gonna circle jerk about how brave they were for
months after. Probably still will. While a Trump speech is playing on
their phones.
1c. Teenagers know that everything...every fucking thing...will be
recorded. They love it. They want it. They want to see how the stupid
shit they do gets major likes and hearts and whatever the fuck. That's
also what Sandmann was thinking standing there, knowing that his boys
were recording. "Holy shit, this is gonna be so sick on my Insta." The
old person argument of "I could do stupid things when I was a teenager
and no one would ever see it" is bullshit because today's kids expect to
be recorded. They do the stupid shit because they want it recorded.
2. As a liberal, I think the way that teenagers of color are treated by
our American justice system, our American culture, and our American
politicians is fucking disgusting. It is a savage fucking country that
arrests kids and tries them in court as adults
and talks about them like they are grown ups and not bundles of
hormones whose brains haven't fully developed. It's a savage fucking
country that lets kids live in abject poverty and does almost nothing to
help them get out and then punishes them when they step even a little
out of line, like acting up in school. All of this need to change, be reformed, overturned, anything. We have failed our kids miserably in so many ways.
2a. If you're conservative and you're pissed off at all the people on
the left who are condemning the Covington Catholic dipshits, saying that
they're just kids and are making stupid kid mistakes, I wonder how
you'd've reacted if it had been a group of African American teen boys
who just came from a Black Lives Matter march and were smirking at and
mocking a white minister singing, "Amazing Grace"? Fuck you. You know
what you would've said. You'd've been calling for them to be castrated
and sent to the fields. Yet now you act like the public outrage at the
dipshits makes them the moral equivalent of unarmed black teens shot by
the police.
2b. The right also viciously attacked the Parkland teens for daring to
speak out about gun control. When they planned a national school walkout
for students, conservatives lost their goddamned minds. "They're being manipulated
by adults," they said. "They're just being exploited." Yet somehow when
you arrange for groups of Catholic school kids to go march against
abortion rights, that's not exploitative. Weird, huh?
2c. If you're liberal and you want the racist dipshits treated like
non-white kids are treated in America, well, sorry, but that's just
fuckin' hypocritical. I don't want the racist dipshits gunned down by
cops or sent to prison for absurdly long sentences or anything like
that. I don't want that to happen to any teenagers. I do want the entire
goddamn country to get back to the idea that all kids are kids, and,
except in exceedingly rare cases, they should be treated as such. That's
not a way to excuse the racist dipshits from Kentucky. But it is to say
that our reaction to all teen dipshittery, criminal or not, should be
contextualized by the fact that they are still kids. (And if you think
sending death threats to the school or the kids is right, you can go
fuck yourself.)
2d. To get super-harsh here, when teens are gunned down in a school or
are the victims of some other crime, we are quick to label them as
"children." Well, why do teen victims get to be innocent children while
teen criminals get to be adults?
2e. Yeah, the dipshits deserve to be punished by their school and, if a
crime was committed, charged with it. Of course. That's obvious. But
punish them as kids, as we should all kids.
3. The dipshits have shitty parents, shitty teachers, and shitty
religious leaders. They all have failed. The chaperones on the trip
failed. The adults failed. They should be punished. They should be fired
if they are at the school. Too bad we can't fire parents. The adults
close to these kids are gonna fuck it all up. They already are.
4. Nathan Phillips has actually been incredibly insightful about the whole situation. In an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer,
he said, "I'm disappointed with [Sandmann's] statement. He didn't
accept any responsibility. That lack of responsibility, I don't accept
it." All he wants is for the dipshits to accept that they were dipshits.
That's where learning begins. "I'm just working for a better future for
all of our children," he said. "But, I can't work with liars and
thieves." And, in one of those so-wise-it's-almost-a-stereotype moments,
he added, "I live in the plains and I've watched a tornado come down.
It's very destructive. What I saw in front of me that day was
destruction from a terrible storm tearing apart the fabric of my America
and threatening the future of all our children." He now wants to meet
with the dipshits and try to teach them what they did was wrong, in case
they don't understand that simple fact. Maybe he can tell them what the
Indigenous Peoples March was for, too.
4a. Yeah, he's not a Vietnam War vet, although he did serve in the Marines. Well done, right-wing media. So? Does that mean Phillips deserves the treatment he received? Assholes.
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has made headlines all week after he
announced his interest in running for President, but the American
public isn’t too happy about it.
In fact, most people are sick and tired
of billionaires like Schultz who want to take away our privileges and
safety nets while hoarding billions of dollars in cash for themselves,
but that is EXACTLY what Schultz’s platform is shaping up to be. Ring of
Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
During an interview with CBN, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee
Sanders said that God actually chose Trump to be resident and that the
Almighty WANTED Trump to be resident of the United States.
This woman
isn’t playing with a full deck, and her comments prove that. But there’s
a lot of implications from her comment that she likely didn’t realize,
and Farron Cousins explains those.
Rallying at the first Women's March with my aunt, a cardboard Hillary Clinton, and my posterAs I made plans to
participate in my third Women’s March in January, there had been one big
change in my life this time around: I was no longer living with my
husband.
Last fall, after 24 years of marriage and almost two years of
dealing with the aftermath of the devastating 2016 election, I decided I
could not live with this person anymore. Why?
Because, while the
results of the election were devastating for me, they were not for my
husband. He voted for Donald Trump, and he has continued to support him.
So as a staunch liberal and a frequent Trump protester, I had to do
something.
Over a couple of months, I began to look for a full-time job to
support myself. I toured apartment complexes in our area, I ordered new
furniture on my credit card, and I began the process of moving my life
to a new place—without him. I moved out of our house of 20 years during
the last weekend in October and into an apartment. And I have not
regretted it.
* * *
Eric (a pseudonym) and I met in the early 1990's, when we were
both in our late 20's. We didn’t talk much about politics, but I
volunteered for Greenpeace and Amnesty International and was just
beginning to identify as a liberal. From what I gathered, he was pretty
apolitical and middle-of-the-road in his views. We seemed to get along
great.
We enjoyed going to parties with mutual friends, listening to
live music at local clubs, going on hikes in the area, traveling, and
laughing together. Looking back at it, that’s probably all we had in
common. At the time, it seemed like a lot.
We got married in May 1994, adopted a dog, and had our first
child in October 1996. He was followed by another son, and then a
daughter. I guess our compatibility started to fray a little after we
started a family. We had differences of opinion about raising our kids,
but who doesn’t? He came from a more traditional, Catholic family who
expected me to quit my full-time newspaper job when I had my first baby.
That bugged me. I did resign, but that was because I had a
tiny premature baby at home and couldn’t bear to leave him in day care
and be gone all day working. So I started a freelance editing business
and worked from home, which I continued to do over the years while I
raised three kids.
Along the way, I realized that Eric and I were canceling each
other out at the voting booth. He voted Republican or, later,
Libertarian, and I never voted for anyone but Democrats. We joked about
it, but it wasn’t a major deal.
Until it was.
Our differences—and the strain they caused—began to pile up
over the years. I am the daughter of a women’s libber who was an
activist in the 1960's and 70's, and I was influenced by her. Eric seemed
to disparage feminism. He made several sexist comments to me during our
marriage, such as the fact that he thought he
should be the head of our household. He once told me that he didn’t need
me as a friend, because he had enough friends. It felt like he was
relegating me to a more sexual, subservient role.
Our problems as a couple gradually increased. I became a gun
safety activist, and toted my oldest son with me when I went to the
Million Mom March on Mother’s Day 2000.
Other marches followed, and
eventually I joined Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, after the massacre
at Sandy Hook. Being a parent definitely brought that whole issue to
the forefront for me. But as a father, Eric never felt strongly about
the kids being killed in schools in our country. I had passionate views
about this topic, and he just laughed at me and my emotions. He didn’t
argue about gun safety with me, but my activism seemed to be a joke to
him.
Exactly when Eric started to move more to the right of center,
I’m not certain. But as I suffered through the George Bush years, it
definitely bugged me that Eric voted for him in both elections. Around
this time, he also started to get more religious and explore new
churches. I was not a churchgoer, and we didn’t get married in a church.
But I started to suspect that he was sliding over to the religious
right. I had participated in an abortion rights march before we got
married, and now here Eric was reciting pro-life (and anti-choice)
propaganda.
Then Barack Obama came along. I volunteered for his campaign,
and was overjoyed when he won. My middle child was geared up to
volunteer too, at just age 9. He went with me to the first Obama
inauguration, and I was so happy that he wanted to be there. We bundled
up in layers of winter gear that cold January morning and took a VRE
train in from Virginia to Union Station. Walking out of the station onto
the streets spilling over with such energy and excitement, I was
thrilled to be part of this historic moment, and to be sharing it with
my son. We both donned Obama knit hats that I bought from a street
vendor.
But later, I went home to the person I had taken my marriage
vows with. Of course Eric didn’t like Obama. He grumbled about him and
his policies, and he continued to complain about him for the next eight
years. It was another reminder to me that we just were not simpatico.
I brought up the idea of marriage counseling, but we never went forward
with it. I found it was easier just not to talk politics with him.
But all of that pales in comparison to what was to come next:
Donald Trump. I truly think the 2016 presidential campaign and election
heralded the beginning of the end of our marriage.
When I heard that Trump was running, I really didn’t think
anybody would actually support him, especially in my circles. I said
jokingly to Eric, “You better not vote for Trump in the primary,” never
considering that he actually might. His synopsis of Donald Trump was
simple: “He cracks me up.” I tried talking to him about all my
objections: the racism, the misogyny, the blatant egoism, the
corruption, the idiocy, the mocking of the disabled! But he didn’t care.
He thought that Trump’s actions and words were funny and didn’t believe
what the media were reporting. He hated Hillary Clinton and what she
stood for. And to add insult to injury, he told my daughter he didn’t
like Hillary because “she doesn’t wear dresses or skirts.” When I heard
that, I was fuming.
And soon I was canvassing for Hillary. I joined Pantsuit
Nation, and I got involved however I could. I was horrified when Trump
picked off all his Republican rivals and eventually became the GOP
choice for president. But like so many of us, I really didn’t think he
would win against Hillary.
And then he did, and my worst nightmare came true. Waking up
the morning after the election to confirmation that Trump was going to
be president was surreal. I was too upset to talk about it with Eric—I
was sure he would gloat about the Trump victory. I felt really distanced
from him the week after the election. He knew I was distraught, but we
had nothing to say to each other.
I had to find comfort with like-minded people; I wasn’t going
to find it in my marriage. So I texted my Democrat friends and invited
them out for drinks at a local restaurant, to commiserate. After hugs
and symbolic safety pins were passed out among us, we made plans to go
to the resistance march in January 2017 that we were just starting to
hear about. A friend offered to charter a van to get us into Washington
for the march. And with our plans taking off that night, my heavy heart
was lightened a bit.
But there was one thing I couldn’t say to my friends as we
discussed going to the Women’s March and protesting the new
administration: “My husband supports Trump.” I could not admit that. I
was too embarrassed and ashamed, so I hid it.
But my mood got better as word spread to family and friends
about our transportation for the march, and that one van ended up
becoming four chartered buses from Vienna, Virginia, to the National
Mall. My mom flew out from Chicago to join us, along with my aunt from
Maine, and my 14 year old daughter planned to go as well.
The night before the march, the four of us carefully took
colorful markers to poster board, creating our heartfelt protest
posters—even while Eric was spouting off ridiculous pro-Trumpisms to my
mom and aunt. I tried to shush him, and I’m sure my annoyance was
palpable. But he just didn’t seem to get it, and I felt myself
disconnecting a little more from him with each moment.
Before the election, I had asked Eric not to show his support
for Trump in front of my family or friends. At one point, I almost
stormed away from the table when we were out to dinner with a couple in
Annapolis who also were staunch Democrats, because he was defending
Trump. I asked him to stop or I would have to walk away. He just didn’t
seem to get the scope of my deep disdain for Trump, and my utter
annoyance with him for supporting the man.
The day of the first Women’s March was amazing, such a
momentous time to be out there with thousands of other protesters in
pink hats. I was proud to be part of this moment with my mom and my
daughter, and gratified about the numbers of people from all over the
country and world taking part in this and the sister marches. But the
fact that my husband was home disagreeing with what we were so
passionately doing on the streets of the nation’s capital just gnawed
away at me.
I had no idea that day that the Women’s March would be the
first of many such protests of the Trump administration that I would
come to take part in. There was so much to object to, I just couldn’t
stay home, especially living as close to Washington as I do. I was an
occasional activist before Trump became president. After that day,
resistance became my life’s norm. I continued to march, to go to rallies
and protests, as every week there was something else to be alarmed
about. All the while, Eric made light of my activism, embarrassed me in
front of people with his comments, and usually managed to express the
opposite of what I believed in.
So I started to seriously think about getting out. I realized the truth: Eric was not my soulmate, and he probably never was.
After a too-long beach vacation with my relatives in August
2018, I was feeling more resigned about ending our marriage. We didn’t
get along well during that trip, and I was always worried that Eric
would open up his mouth and spout out words supporting Trump, or that
sounded vaguely homophobic, or that expressed his inane belief that
climate change was a myth. And I noticed he had become so rigid about
everything, like an old man I didn’t know. How did I end up here with
this person? I couldn’t even look at him anymore, and the long car ride
home seemed endless.
I came back home determined to find my way out. I knew he would
never leave our house, and if I wanted to separate, I would have to be
the one to move out. I wasn’t working full-time then, but I started to
apply for jobs and also went to secretly tour apartment complexes in our
area. It wasn’t the first time I had explored the idea of moving out,
but this time I felt more sure and actually went to see possible new
homes. I told no one of my plans.
Eric could tell that I was troubled about our relationship and
that I was distant with him.
He tried, however halfheartedly, to make it
better. I went back and forth on what to do. I felt if I was going to
do this, I had to leave soon. But how was I going to explain to anybody
that after 24 years of marriage, it would be our difference in politics
that would end up tearing us apart?
I delayed my decision for a little while and tried to see the
positive side of staying with him and the life we had built together.
But then came the last straw.
Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. I
couldn’t bear this and knew I had to go resist, again. I found out about
a big protest being planned. The night before, I brought it up to Eric,
hoping that he would finally agree that this all was a travesty, but
no—he angrily stated that Kavanaugh was innocent and the “Democrats have
waged a smear campaign on a great federal judge.” I lost it. I couldn’t
believe that he was defending a sexual predator like Kavanaugh,
especially when we have a teenage daughter.
The next day, I called the apartment complex next to my
daughter’s school and told them I wanted to sign a lease. I was prepared
to call it quits. I knew I couldn’t live with a Trump supporter
anymore. I told Eric I was getting a full-time job and moving to an
apartment. I felt terrible, but it was hard for me to talk about it with
him without getting very emotional, so I kept it brief. However, I knew
it was the right thing to do.
Soon I moved out of the house we shared for 20 years, and it
was a relief. Eric and I later talked about the reasons why I left. He
replied that he didn’t think politics was something to split up over,
that it didn’t matter that much to him. I said that it does to me. And that was the heart of the issue, right there: It matters a lot to me.
* * *
Now that I’m in the new apartment, although it is much smaller
than the house we shared and I don’t see my kids quite as much, I have
felt my anger, annoyance, and shame dissipate. And that’s better for
everybody. I am happier now that I no longer share a bed and a life with
someone whose beliefs are so contrary to mine.
So as I recently prepared to march again in Washington, I
reflected on how this was my first political protest since moving out of
the house and marriage. This time I was in a much different place, both
figuratively and literally, as I headed out to the third Women’s March.
When I stepped into the streets with my sign and started chanting, I
knew that I could live with myself a little bit better. Because now when
I continue the resistance, I’m no longer going home to the opposition.
And that feels great.
Jennifer Merrill is a freelance writer, former newspaper copy
editor, and current editor at a science education trade association. She is the author ofChasing the Gender Dreamon Amazon. You can follow her on Twitter @Hey_Jen_Merrill.
This government shutdown is weighing on all of us. I'm sick of it, I'm
sick of cable networks streaming Trump being a jerk, I'm sick of all
the lies, and I'm heartbroken by all the horrible stories of what's
happening to the people who work for the government.
I am not alone, apparently. Senator Michael Bennet went off on Ted
Cruz, the shutdown, and his frustrations with the shutdown. Hard.
“I seldom rise on this floor to contradict somebody on the
other side,” Bennet began. “I have worked very hard over the years to
work in a bipartisan way with the presiding officer with my Republican
colleagues, but these crocodile tears that the senator from Texas is
crying for first responders are too hard for me to take.”
“When the senator from Texas shut this government down in 2013, my
state was flooded. It was under water. People were killed. People's
houses were destroyed. Their small businesses were ruined forever. And
because of the senator from Texas, this government was shut down for
politics,” Bennet shouted, voice rising. He was referring to the 2013 Colorado floods, which devastated the state and killed 8 people.
He was just warming up. Watch the abridged version above, or the full version below.
The Internet lit up on Monday evening as photos of Donald Trump’s buffet
for the Clemson Tigers’ celebratory dinner made the rounds on social
media.
Trump greeted the National Champions with food from McDonald’s,
Wendy’s, and Burger King, with some pizza for good measure.
The dipping
sauce packets were placed in beautiful silver bowls, and golden candles
lined the table of this hillbilly buffet. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins
discusses this.
