GOP Bullshit

I think Republicans are starting to get antsy about what’s going on in the country… they’re a lot more BS floating around than usual. Let’s skim across the surface of the GOP Pond and see what comes up in our net.

Fly, Eagles Fly

I know this is past its freshness date, but I wanted to make a brief comment on the Great White House Invitation Retraction controversy.

I’ve already written about how the “kneeling” thing is purely a political issue for the president. He’s still butt-stung over the NFL denying two of his bids to buy a team over the years, plus he gets to call a bunch of rich black guys “unpatriotic,” which plays to his base.

The angle I want to mention is how Fox “News” covered the issue by running pictures of Eagles players on one knee, knowing full well that they were kneeling in pre-game prayer, not protesting during the anthem. 

They knew it and they did it anyway because it’s the kind of thing they do all the time. Only this time, it got noticed by people who weren’t their devoted fans. The Eagles, themselves, called it out and it got picked up by the sports press. So, they took flak from everyone from the players to the rest of the media to other politicians.

Maybe one day their fans will catch on that they’re being lied to every day, but I’m not optimistic. And damn them for making me support a Philadelphia team!

Stone Throwers in Glass Houses

Do they really want to open this door?

“Nothing on Trump?” Really?

Well, only if you call 23 indictments of members of his campaign staff “nothing.”

They spent 6 years and millions of dollars investigating Hillary Clinton and came up with diddly-squat. Muller isn’t even done yet and he already has results. And unlike the Congressional Clinton investigations, this is not a political hit piece or show trial, so Mueller has no need to leak or otherwise publicize his findings until he’s done. And he hasn’t.

So when Republicans complain that there are no results and nothing on Trump, you have to add a giant, flaming, neon-lit, “YET.” Mueller is chopping wood and stacking the logs. He’ll light the match when he’s good and ready. In the meantime, all the clamoring about “no findings” is just desperately wishful thinking.

The Maher, The Merrier

The Republicans spent 8 years obstructing every single notion President Obama wanted, including infrastructure bills that would have helped rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges, as well as putting a lot of people to work. Instead, they passed nothing of the kind, for the simple political reason of ensuring Obama didn’t get credit. Remember the Mitch McConnell quote about how their top job was ensuring Obama was a one-term president?

They didn’t care how dire the circumstances, (like at the onset of the Administration, when the Bush Recession was in full swing,) they did not lift a finger to help a single citizen. And once they had control of the House, they made sure the Democrats couldn’t pass anything either.

This is a bit from a comic, whose job is to stir things up. It’s not like he’s a congressman or senator or someone who can pass legislation.

So spare me the pearl-clutching about some comedian’s statement. Republicans embodied that very sentiment for eight years.

This goes to a common GOP strategy. Ever notice how they constantly accuse liberals and Democrats of things Republicans have been doing all along? Gaslighting at its finest.

Paging Charles Bronson*

This was just a random thing I sifted off Facebook, but it appears that conservatives are advocating for vigilante justice.

Well… as long as it’s a white person claiming justice. Footage of cops assaulting people for minor transgressions continues to pop up online. You won’t see conservatives advocating for these victims to start executing cops, that’s for sure.

Yes, it’s a tragedy, but what’s the solution here, just let the aggrieved family of crime victims hunt alleged assailants down and kill them? Is that kind of “American Exceptionalism” this country is all about?

OK, I guess it is… it’s the only way to explain the country’s fixation on guns.

*Because Charles Bronson starred in the Death Wish movies, about a guy who hunts down and kills the people who raped and killed his wife.

Sal-lute!

This is basically just another “made-up” controversy, but…

I don’t think this is a big deal at all, BUT… because it’s exactly the kind of thing Republicans bellyached about during the Obama Administration, it’s important to call out the hypocrisy now. Just one more thing that was only unforgivable because Obama was doing it. It was almost as bad as wearing a tan suit!

And speaking of the Trump/Korea connection, did you hear about 45 commenting on how he wants “my people would sit up at attention,” the way North Koreans do for Kim Jong Un.

“My people?” MY PEOPLE?

Just reading that gave me a twitchy eye.

Dude, we are not “your people,” you work for us. (In theory) And I bet a lot of that “sitting up at attention” comes from not wanting to be executed with anti-aircraft machine guns.

Not that such a thing would work in the USA… I’m sure, right now, the NRA is working on legislation to ensure anti-aircraft machine guns are legal for private ownership. Because, you know, hunting, self-defense, and the Second Amendment. We must ensure that WE have anti-aircraft machine guns so the gubmint doesn’t try to start making us listen, by pointing theirs at us.

OMG, What About the Children?

That used to be the refrain, didn’t it, whenever there was something remotely harmful, yet fun for adults? But now, instead of reading it, “What about the Children,” it’s more like, “What about the children?”

That’s the difference between American children and brown, foreign children.

And no, it’s not just because someone broke the law. People coming here and going through the asylum process are also being separated from their children. This is a one-size-fits-all policy, regardless of alleged illegality.

Now with the considerable amount of uproar on the subject, the Trump Administration and its enablers are trying to find justification anywhere they can. Paul Ryan thinks it’s a 1997 law, so now that meme is creeping around Facebook. Not that it’s tethered to the truth or anything.

The law in question is known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, “which set minimum standards for the detention, housing, and release of non-citizen children detained by the federal government. The agreement states that children should be released to a parent, guardian, or other entity “without unnecessary delay,” with limited exceptions. If that’s not possible, a child should go to “the least restrictive setting.””

I don’t see anything in there about prying children from their parents’ arms, but that doesn’t stop the GOP spin machine.

At least he’s not claiming Biblical justification, like Jeff Sessions and Sarah Huckabee. As usual, the cherry-picking of the Bible continues so politicians can claim the godliness of whatever prejudice they entertain.

Apparently, they’re using Romans 13, “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.”

If that doesn’t sound like one of those passages that were retranslated edited by a king or someone else in authority, to reinforce his own power, I don’t know what is.

If these hacks want interested in following the true spirit of the Bible, perhaps these passages might be more apt.

But that’s not was the conservative base wants to hear, who are just fine with immigrants, as long as they’re not foreigners.