Fat Tuesday is upon us and here on the southern plains snow is falling from a battleship gray sky. In New Orleans and other locales huge amounts of alcohol are being swilled and women who should know better are baring their breasts to appreciative male crowds while yelling things like, "wooohoooo!"
The mood in Washington D.C. tonight will be a tad more somber. Whether it will be more dignified or not remains to be seen. As Barak H. Obama readies his State of the Union Address guests are pouring in from different parts of the land.
Sitting with the first lady, Michelle Obama will be 102 year old Desiline Victor. Ms. Victor, who is black, had to make two trips to her Florida polling station and wait for hours to cast her vote for the president. All that was thanks to some ruthless chicanery pulled by Florida election officials who were busy trying to fix the results of the voting. Also sitting with Mrs. Obama will be the parents of Hadiya Pendleton. She was the teenager gunned downed in Chicago only a matter of days after marching in the President's Inaugural Parade. Mrs. Obama attended her funeral this past Saturday. Chicago police have arrested two men in the case. One has reportedly confessed and said that young, Ms. Pendleton wasn't the target. He was after rival gang members instead. In other words she died because she was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. That being defined now days, thanks to the proliferation of guns, as just about anywhere in America.
Indeed. Two Colorado lawmakers are bringing along the parents of a teenager who made the fatal mistake of attending a movie in Aurora, Colorado late one night. Nancy Pelosi's guest is a fourth grader from Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty kids and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary school fucked up by simply attending class that awful day in December. Former congresswoman, Gabby Giffords will be there, still struggling to overcome the horrible wounds she endured because she was shaking hands with people in a Tucson shopping center parking lot.
To counter all this maudlin left wing fol de rol Texas congressman Steve Stockman has invited over the hill rock musician Ted Nugent to attend. Yes, those two certainly play well to the middle of the road crowd. Stockman has threatened to bring impeachment proceedings against the president if he attempts to pass, or enforce any gun control legislation. Nugent is on record as having said the Obama administration is "evil and America-hating." He compared the president to a coyote who is pissing on sofas in American living rooms and said such a beast should be shot. That one got him a nice little chat with the Secret Service. They quickly decided the guy is just another mouthy right wing asshole and no real threat to anyone except those who attend his concerts and listen to what he claims is music. Whether Mr. Nugent can keep his mouth shut during the speech is the subject of some speculation. It is highly doubtful he'll have the guts to offer his respects or sympathies to any of the gun violence victims.
Later in the evening Florida senator, Marco Rubio will deliver the republican response to the president's speech. He will make his case in both English and Spanish as the GOP desperately tries to mend fences with Latino voters all across the land. Rubio will have to walk a line so fine that is almost the width of a hair if he wants to continue to be the new poster boy for the party. He can rail about the economy, but if he seems too soft on that tea party bugaboo illegal immigration, they will stay away from his campaign in droves. The brutal rubes can't win you an election, but they can keep you from getting nominated.
And speaking of the chock ful o nuts wing of the GOP, Kentucky senator Rand Paul will be delivering the tea party response to the president's speech. Can there be any more proof the republicans are a schizo lot? They are so divided they have to have a mainstream guy give one speech and then have one of the tea party favorites to give another just to keep all the troops happy. Yes, we want to attract Hispanics, but we don't want to alienate all those crazy white folks who are our only real source of bread and butter.
Trust me, somewhere in this land, to the utter horror of people like Ted Nugent, those "Hillary 2016" bumper stickers are being cranked out by the thousands. Look for the aging white population, all those people who see their political and cultural power washing away right before their very eyes, to become more desperate, even more willing to say or do anything.
Is the Republican Party done? Probably not yet. However it is certainly on the ropes. The people who make up its base have no answer to the changing demographics of this nation. They still can't comprehend why they aren't running things any longer. After all they've been doing it for over two hundred years and compromise has never been necessary before, so why start now?
Denial is an amazing thing isn't it?
sic vita est
2-12-13
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