It was a week of chaos and some of it is lingering.
Just ask them down in Florida where republicans are screaming fraud about some iffy goings on with the Broward County election board. For those with short memories Broward County, located north of Miami, is the place where Al Gore got screwed out of winning Florida and the White House in 2000. Now it is GOP senate candidate Rick Scott who is claiming his ever shrinking lead over democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is due to some sneaky stuff perpetrated in Ft. Lauderdale.
Never one to stay presidential, Donald Trump has started calling county election supervisor Brenda Snipes foul names so we know she must have done something at least halfway right. With a recount pending, the current vote now shows Scott leading Nelson, 50.09% to 49.91%.
In case you're wondering, Brenda Snipes is a registered democrat. She has held her job since November 2003. That's the month she was appointed to the position by then governor, Jeb Bush.
Ah, karma.
Meanwhile, within hours after republicans lost control of the U.S. House of Representatives, Don Trump began a serious push toward totalitarianism. Shortly after the votes were tallied he canned U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. You know the man who recused himself from being involved in Bob Mueller's investigation of the Trump campaign. The El Supremo appointed Matthew Whitaker to replace Sessions as, "acting," AG. Whitaker has previously appeared on cable news shows saying Mueller's investigation is a witch hunt and it should be ended immediately. He even proposed a novel way of doing it without actually firing Mueller. Just cut off all the funding, he said, and it will grind to a halt.
Not surprisingly Mr. Whitaker has told everyone he will not recuse himself and is insisting he'll be directly in charge of Mueller's investigative efforts. Today in yet another display of surreal big brotherism, Trump said he not only didn't discuss the Russian investigation with Whitaker before handing him the job, but, in fact, didn't even know him.
A little over an hour ago The Washington Post, showed a snippet from a Fox and Friends episode aired last month. Over the phone Trump said to the hosts, "I can tell you Matt Whitaker is a great guy. I mean I know Matt Whitaker."
In addition, The Big Orange Guy picked a fight with CNN's Jim Acosta during a press conference. The evidence the confrontation was planned is incontrovertible. Several members of the press heard staffers saying to each other, "This is going to be fun." The President then invited Acosta to question him and spent the next few seconds condemning him. Trump subsequently had Acosta's credentials pulled, which means the reporter is banned from the White House press corps.
The White House claimed they were exiling Acosta from the press room, not because of his questions, but rather that he had, "put his hands on a young woman." The woman would be a WH intern who tried to take the microphone from the reporter at the direction of her boss.
To prove Acosta's brutality they put out a video tape of the moment. The tape released had initially appeared on the notorious InfoWars conspiracy site and experts all over the place say it has been--you guessed it--doctored to make Acosta's movements appear more aggressive than they actually were. It also edited out the moment when he said to the woman, "Pardon me, ma'am."
At the same presser Trump called a black reporter's question about white nationalism racist. Later he said he wouldn't hesitate to yank the credentials of other journalists. The warning was clear--Ask me a question which pisses me off and you're gone.
Vladimir would be proud. The next step is some poison in Joe and Mika's coffee. Or, in a pinch, the Khashoggi option.
Meanwhile, when it comes to the local scene, Kendra Horn took out incumbent republican Steve Russell and became the first democrat in 40 plus years to win the Oklahoma 5th Congressional District. The 5th consists of Seminole, Pottawatomie, and Oklahoma Counties, minus Midwest City and Tinker AFB.
Her win became the sum of all state republican fears. Oklahoma's most populous county and city has become a blue dot in a sea of red. And it wasn't just Horn who illustrated this creeping change of demographics and politics. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Drew Edmondson lost to his opponent by 12%. He failed to carry 73 of Oklahoma's 77 counties, including both Pottawatomie and Seminole, however his most decisive statewide win was in Oklahoma County.
No, Oklahoma isn't about to turn blue, or even purple, but at least the GOP can no longer claim the state is a deep red monolith.
There was more, of course, including another mass shooting. This one by a decorated marine corps veteran who, just a little while ago, was determined by police to be irate and irrational, but not crazy enough to be institutionalized. He legally owned the weapon he used to murder a cop and 11 others in a Thousand Oaks, CA bar.
As usual everyone offered their thoughts and prayers then went right back to whatever it was they were doing before this latest horror.
Yes, the gun control debate and sanity both appear as dead as the victims in Thousand Oaks.
Ladies and gentlemen, given the circumstances is it any wonder the bar is open.
I didn't think so.
11-9-18
I believe the time has come when we need to make some very hard and difficult choices on what to do to improve public safety. I doubt we can stop the craziness, but we can slow it down. I recall almost half a century ago the problem of airline hijackings. We pretty much put an end to that, but in doing so turned a fairly enjoyable experience into something filled with headachy red tape which has only increased through the years. We do not live in our parents or grandparents USA anymore, and its time we quit pretending we do. Our nation's leader is not Grandpa Ike, nor John Kennedy, not even near being a Reagan conservative. I think we on the left need to recognize tighter controls are needed, those on the right would do well to to stuff the mean-spiritedness which has been let out for air during the first two years of the Trump administration. It didn't take much to bring that out for fresh air, but that's a commentary for later. Many changes need to be made to Make American Safe and Sane again. You might even argue that something resembling an Old Testament judgement is needed to bring us to our senses. I sincerely hope not but nothing else seems to be fazing the craziness. Do not be naive enough to think that the rest of the world is unfazed by what is happening to, and in, America. Do not be foolish enough to believe that the world outside our borders will allow us to continue to spiral downhill and so threaten the safety and well-being of the world at large. Well, excuse the rant, but I've had about enough.
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