We Bought the Ticket and Now We're Taking the Ride

The best thing that can be said about Donald Trump and the foul idiots who run with him is they never let themselves get hung up on one issue for too long. Yes, as we've seen so often the whole wretched bunch careens from one outrage to another with nary a pause, or scintilla of conscience.

Take Idaho republican congressman Raul Labrador. He's been in Washington for three terms now and during those six years he fought tooth and nail to get the Affordable Care Act repealed. When the still unvetted republican, "replacement plan," passed last week we can assume he was a part of the giddy crowd who gathered on the White House lawn to celebrate the victory with sausages and beer.

After the cheers subsided, the congressman goofed. He went home and held a town hall meeting to explain his vote on the bill. In response to an angry question from a constituent he said, "No one wants anybody to die. You know that line is so indefensible. Nobody dies because they don't have access to health care."

Perhaps in Raul Labrador's world they don't, but not in anyone else's. According to a 2009 study done by the American Journal of Public Health, taken before Obama Care went into effect, 45,000 Americans were dying every year because they lacked health insurance.

When news of his alternative fact hit the internet, everyone who has ever been without health care in this country--and there are a whole lot of us--had some unkind words for the representative. Within hours Mr. Labrador claimed the whole thing was a misunderstanding and his statement was, "taken out of context." What he was talking about, he said, was no one dies from a lack of emergency care because they don't have health insurance. No, they don't, but scads of people do die of things like heart disease, cancer, and a myriad of other deadly long term ailments because they aren't insured.

Sadly, as much as we'd like to, we don't have time to dwell on the representative's unique statistical knowledge, which is shared by far too many on the right. That's because, as previously stated, these twisted fucks never stay still long for either an in depth study, or a justly deserved prefrontal lobotomy.

No, today we are focusing on what former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates is saying to a senate subcommittee. Or, at least we should be.

However, as always Donald Trump, a resident of Mar-a-Lago Resort, jumped on twitter in order to head Yates off at the pass, so to speak.

This morning, hours before Yates was scheduled to appear before the subcommittee, Trump tweeted, "Ask Sally Yates under oath if she knows how classified information got into the news papers soon after she explained it to W.H. counsel."

El Don was obviously accusing Yates of being the source of infuriating leaks which started seeping out immediately after he was inaugurated. Many of the leaks roiled around former general Mike Flynn who was the newly minted National Security Advisor--the person Yates is testifying about at this very moment.

The leaks so enraged Trump he was moved to create his own alternative logic. It was a truly bizarre moment, one when reality crashed headlong into his stream of consciousness based propaganda. How else can you describe it when on the one hand the big orange guy was complaining about the media airing, "classified," information while at the same time tweeting those revelations were, "fake news?"

Flynn was sacked after 24 days. The official reason he lost his job was because he lied to Vice President, Mike Pence about conversations he had with the Russian Ambassador.

In a further effort to change the narrative, Trump sent a second tweet this morning. It read, "General Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama administration, but the fake news seldom likes talking about that."

Well, Flynn got his security clearance renewed by the Obama administration, so, yeah, sort of. What Trump failed to say is Flynn was also fired by the Obama administration. In fact a report surfaced today which says during an hour and a half meeting between Trump and Obama two days after the election, the president cautioned Trump not to hire the dude. As Obama put it, "I'm not a fan of Michael Flynn." The warning didn't stop Brother Don from hiring the retired general, or now, trying to lay a degree of blame on Obama for his decision to do just that.

In the mean time, Trump operatives are telling anyone who will listen that Yates' testimony will be politically motivated and therefore tainted because she was appointed by Barack Obama to her job as Deputy A.G. They are also eager to point out she was fired because she refused to enforce Trump's immigration embargo on Muslims from so called terrorist prone nations.

Yates spent 27 years in the department of justice, the vast majority of it in the non political job of U.S. prosecutor. When she was appointed by Barack Obama as the Deputy A.G. she was confirmed by a bi-partisan senate vote of 84-12. Her decision not to enforce Trump's executive order was based  in part because, "...nor am I convinced that the executive order is lawful..." In other words, it was a legal opinion which has since been validated by more than one federal court.

It doesn't matter though. Despite the anger in town hall meetings and the testimony of  Sally Yates there is no slowing The Trump Express. It's an out of control beast fueled by an inexhaustible supply of feral lies, bullshit assumptions, cruel disinformation, and boundless, fascist, enthusiasm.

Indeed, to paraphrase the late, Hunter S. Thompson, we bought the ticket and now we're taking the ride.

The problem is there doesn't appear to be a way of slowing it down, much less bringing it to a stop.

At least not yet.




sic vita est


5-8-17