Drowning in a Sea of False Equivalency

Tags

comparisons, false equivalancy, GOP, teabaggers

Everywhere we look it seems we see the ugly head of stupid reasoning attaching itself to every issue we face today. Issues are not debated, they are attached. By that I mean velcro strips of “arguments” are thrown at statements that do nothing to actually argue the real point, or offer enlightenment in their own right. They usually obscure, deflect, and defeat real argument.

Case in point is false-equivalency, or as it is known in the GOP dumbed down inopposite: comparing apples to oranges. You see, a perfectly good way to end an argument is to just stroke one’s chin and utter, “ahh, but now you are comparing apples to oranges,” and then sagely walk away, while your befuddled opponent scratches their head and wonders how to respond to that.

For uttering the words, “apples and oranges” is not an argument, but rather a clever device to stop everyone in their tracks while they ponder how what they just said could be of no more worthy comment than to point out that you failed comparison class. But did you?

I know the term false-equivalency is a big mouthful, and something that requires neuronic interplay, so bear with me dear GOP friends. I’m writing this slowly in the hopes that by reading it slowly you just might get a hint of what we are talking about. I’ve been engaged in a couple of conversations recently and all seem to succumb to the “I really don’t have an argument, so hey, I’ll just throw this canard your way, and Good Day!”

Case in point:

The GOP has been Halloween scary when it comes to this Ebola thing. And as the GOP often does, it presumes its sad cadre of listeners/followers can’t remember last Saturday from Mother’s Day, so it says stupid things figuring it can get away with it. While all the GOP was running around in their clown cars lighting everyone’s hair on fire with the “WHO’S IN CHARGE” allegations, they conveniently forgot that they were IN CHARGE of blocking the obvious person to be in charge.

You see, they blocked the nominee for Surgeon General Vivek Murthy a good while back. Dr. Murthy drew this scorn because he had had the temerity to suggest that gun violence in this country was a national health concern. Even though, as SG Dr. Murthy would have zero control over gun laws, the NRA wizzed it’s collective pants and ordered its minions to put a stop to the nomination, which they did.

Now I would be the first to tell you that in all likelihood, the Ebola fright week would have happened in any case, since the GOP is firmly convinced that frightened Americans tend to vote Republican and thus will miss no opportunity to so terrify where possible, but rational people see the GOP walking into their own poop as it were.

Enter the equivalency provocateur, who told me, “aw shucks, you guys wouldn’t approve of Bork. So nominate someone who can get confirmed, and stop whining”.

Essentially, all denied nominees are the same.

This is false equivalency. Nominees have been rejected by  both sides in the past, but ostensibly it is because they are unfit in some manner for the office to which they are intended. Such was not the case in Mr. Murthy’s case–his medical credentials are unassailable. He simply was unacceptable to a small lobbying group. Murthy undoubtedly would make the same argument regarding the need for better safeguards in cars. And it would be as repellant for him to be dismissed from consideration by the auto lobby.

In fact, as regards the Consumer Protection Agency, the GOP was actually clear: Richard Cordray had been denied the job for years by recalcitrant Republicans, not because he was not qualified, but because they hated the agency and were trying to make it powerless, by keeping it headless. They fully admitted that Cordray’s credentials were impeccable.

Claiming that “both sides do it” is not an answer, its avoidance of the real issues of why one party has decided that not governing is the new way to govern as the minority. Instead of working with the majority and trying to tone down legislation that has majority support, they aim at obstructing all legislation and such has been their stated decision since a week or so after Obama entered the White House in 2009.

Case in Point:

Among the other asinine arguments about how we aren’t doing enough about Ebola, is the usage of it, as a means to whine about the border security issue again.

We can talk all day about border security, how more people have been deported under Obama than Bush, how more agents have been deployed under Obama than Bush, how more fences have been constructed under Obama than Bush and on and on, but of course, that doesn’t fit the meme the GOP wishes to pursue, so instead we talk about how terrorists who are carrying Ebola will be crossing our borders willy-nilly and infecting everyone before they die.

When we again remind them, then why aren’t we talking about the Northern border too then, we get the “that’s comparing apples and oranges”.

When asked to explain that, they figuratively, smile slyly and walk away.

Because of course it is not comparing apples and oranges. The Northern border is more than twice as long as the Southern, and as best I can learn is “secure” to about 1%, I’d hazard a guess that is mostly at the Great Lakes, which presents a sort of barrier itself and the St. Laurence, and at points of entry such as Sarnia, Windsor, Buffalo, and Niagara. Other than that, its wide open and as everyone knows, a few thousand of our citizens entered Canada to avoid Vietnam a few years back if you recall.

Who’s kidding who?

If you were a terrorist, might you consider it in fact easier to enter through the north than the south?

If you buy any of that nonsense in the first place that is.

Case in Point:

Some one posts about Cheney and Haliburton being responsible for the existence of ISIS in the first place.

Now that’s probably a stretch. I suspect that they have a part to play in the rise of ISIS to be sure, pushing a needless war that allowed war profiteering companies like Haliburton to make billions at the expense of over a 100,000 Iraqi lives to say nothing of our own losses. That is something we could discuss.

But the response we get is not a defense of Cheney and company, but rather, a “let sleeping dogs lie” kind of theory because “history can’t be changed”.

No indeed history cannot be changed, but that is hardly an argument. It’s not even rational good sense on it’s own merits. To know and learn from history gives us the hope at least that we don’t make the same mistakes. So said George Santayana however inelegantly he might have worded it. And as others point out, we are constantly learning it better;  we seldom write one definitive history of anything, but continue to gather information and reflect on the subject from myriads of angles.

But it does offer to shut down the conversation does it not?

And that’s all that the GOP seems good at.

At all costs, we must avoid what we don’t want to confront. I think you get that when you sign the card, “I register as a Republican,” along with your requisite button and US flag pin.

These are false equivalencies, or simply avoidance period. Don’t be confused. It’s the first line, and usually the only line of defense you will get. We don’t argue with the uber right to convince them, for that is usually not possible, we seek to inform the fringe who are listening in and actually want to learn.

Continue to be clear with your facts, scrupulous in your research, and quick to admit any mistake. You can count on the fact they won’t do any of these things, and a fair listener/reader will end trusting your version. The point is after all, truth.

The New Black Man on the Block

Tags

Ben Carson, GOP, History, racism, tea baggers

Anybody who knows me knows a couple of things about me. One, I believe education is the only sound way to move humanity forward, and two, education need not necessarily be formal to produce an educated person. Plenty of folks have done it on their own, and while harder and somewhat precarious, one who is determined will be educated.

One of the things that was indelibly imprinted upon my cerebral cortex around the time I was in law school, or perhaps after that hellacious thing called “the bar exam”, was the realization that some people can matriculate fully through nearly the hardest subjects imaginable, and be dumb as the proverbial rock. When I got to know lawyers who were stupid, I immediately concluded that there were an equal number of stupid doctors, physicists, and psychiatrists. An important object lesson when you contemplate handing over your gotten gains to an investment counselor.

As everyone who is anyone knows, Ben Carson, neurosurgeon extraordinaire, and compelling story of rising out of poverty man supreme is the new darling of the excruciatingly insane right. When Alan Keyes, Allen West, and Hermie Cain have stumbled while carrying Confederate dreams, Ben has jumped forth willing to sacrifice his integrity and soul for a chance to be “somebody” nay, the only-body with dark skin in the white party of the GOP.

I read about Carson well more than twenty-five or thirty years ago when I was a fledgling lawyer in Detroit and indeed I was impressed with his story of being raised by a single mom in Detroit. He was indeed a stellar image in the tarnishing mirror of inner-city poverty. So I don’t come to the party late as it were and as so many of my rather uninformed, Patriotic platitudinous Tea Imbibing acquaintances  have.

To hear them talk, Ben discovered both sliced bread, the true Ark and by virtue of his status as real honest-to-goodness hero, he has the creds to talk with authority on any issue at all. Being smart means you can be an expert on everything.

But alas, our Ben is but what used to be referred to as an idiot savant–supremely gifted in one area (brain surgery) while he is at best equivalent to a seven-year-old on most any other subject.

This is a man who, given all his education part of that being in BIOLOGY FOR GOD’S SAKE, insists that evolution is false. This is a man who equates health care for the poor to being “next to slavery, the worst thing that has happened to the Black community.” This is a man who today attacks the AP standards in American History suggesting that they more likely train the next generation of ISIS fighters.

Proving that he has not read the material at all, he falsely claimed that there were two paragraphs about George Washington and none about Martin Luther King. What really incensed him is that the material devoted time discussing the behavior of Americans toward Native Peoples, the internment of the Japanese during WWII and the vileness of Jim Crow. I mean seriously folks, teaching truth is so wrong when you are trying to build a nation of sheep who will OBEY their betters.

The fact that Carson has learned so well to obey his, is apparently his proof that everyone should be like him, so that, should some poor person have a certain gift, they too can aspire to be the puppet paraded around the circus ring to “prove” the Good Old Party of white indeed is an equal opportunity exploiter.

All of this matters naught to the empty-headed faux patriots out there who say they are just itching to vote for Carson for President. He tells them what they want to hear after all, and that’s always much better than the truth. One can only hope that one dies the sweet death of delusion before the house comes crashing down.

Of course, Ben, like all the others who pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, forgets all that guv’mint help they got along the way, as they dance the NO SOUP FOR YOU tap for the pleasure of their white betters who coo at them like the house pets they are.

Ben won’t be going far, though he is part of the dream ticket, I’m told. With Cruz as President and he as VEEP, the GOP can probably get away with at least 60-1000 years of never having another candidate of color in their midst. Sarah had her chance, so that’s one bird down and two to go.

The kids at Jefferson County Colorado who are trying to prevent their school from dumbing down and patriotizing up their curriculum have no idea just how wonderful they are. They shame millions of adults who should know better.

It’s a Crying Shame I Tell Ya

Tags

ethics, GOP, greed, McDonnell, Politics

While I never have enjoyed pulling wings off of flies, I must admit that I chortled with delight at the news that Bob McDonnell and his wifey were convicted on a bazillion counts of bribery the other day.

Yes, my halo must sadly await placement upon my sacred head for a while longer, for I did indeed revel in the anguish of my fellow man and woman. I am but a flawed human still, though I continue to trudge through the sludge of humanity ever confident that I too shall emerge at the end of this life with a robe of white.

Bob said something similar as he stumbled from the courtroom, no doubt shocked that anyone would think him guilty of wrongdoing, spouting that his “faith remained in the Lord” or words to that effect.

Everyone talks about how “sad they feel” for the kids and grandkids who must suffer the public humiliation of their parents and such, but heck, all of us sooner or later discover that our parents are in fact mere mortals with feet of clay don’t we? People who choose public life necessarily put their good character out front to be sullied and blasted rightly or wrongly by a notoriously hungry and uncaring press and public who hunger most of all for juicy tidbits of naughtiness to make themselves feel superior in all their stellar tract homes of existence.

Take no prisoners is my call.

Good old Bob decided in some desperation to play the “Adam card”. I say in desperation since it appears that given Virginia’s rather lax laws regarding ethics in public office, Bob and Maureen thought that they could trade influence for pretty shiny things with impunity. When indicted, there was precious little “defense” available to them.

Thus, Bob and his ever trusty sidekick Maureen decided, either jointly or severally, that Maureen would serve herself up as the Eve of all Eves–evil temptress seducing the unsuspecting and beloved by God, Adam to bite and then bite again (and again too numerous to count) of the apple of bribery. Adam  (Bob) would claim “the woman made me eat!” So awful was the spector of Bob talking to Maureen, that there could never be a collusion of purpose. The two plainly lived in one house but in separate wings however quickly put together. In fact, to bring himself closer to the Lord, Bob took up living with a Roman Catholic priest, and was (it is reported) once seen touching with real humility the brown robe of a monk for that picture perfect  photo op. (Okay, so I sorta embellished there.)

Alas for Bob and Maureen, the jury was not exactly impressed.

Perhaps it was because, for all this, the McDonnells had been so darn good at putting on the face of marital bliss as recently as 2012 when they were both courting the Mittens team in an attempt to soothe the savage beast of greed for that Christmas present of all time–POWER.

This sort of suggests that the McDonnells are well versed in the art of sleight of hand and/or pulling the wool over the eyes of their subjects or betters as the case may be. It may well be that the average jury has the collected IQ of something less than the actual IQ of any single member, but that stupid they are not.

Which all leads to the conclusion that one cannot pretend to have a normal marriage and then “admit the awful truth” just coincidentally when it appears necessary to save your sorry skin. Fakery screams loudly in the night, and in the daylight as well it seems.

I suppose that as scandals go, this one is somewhat tame. Nobody was secretly dressing up in tutus and screwing obese diaper-clad bearded old men, but it was still fun to behold. While the “better class” talks about how sad it was to watch this downfall of such a promising politician, I remind them that, like the usual “low class” gawker, they too were not able to avert their eyes at the bloody accident, but indeed did GAWK. And in reality these “better” people will, with appropriate shaking heads and tsk-tsk, discuss the scene of execution for weeks to come at all their soirees of note.

In a world in which Russian has invaded a neighboring state in the hopes of resurrecting Tsarist Russia’s might, where young men with great firepower dream of world conquest by laying waste all those who oppose them (ISIS or Duck Dynasty [convert ’em or kill ’em] Phil Robinson, your choice), where a virus threatens to decimate portions of Africa and spread worldwide, where droughts threaten to become decades long in the Southwest of the USA, and on and on, it’s a small thing to find a bit of relief watching the crash and burn of two very stupid people.

I for one am not sympathetic to their situation nor apologetic for my enjoyment of their self-absorbed/induced misery.

 

Wish I’d Said That Thursday 7/17/14

Tags

border issues, GOP, immigration, refugee children, tea drunks

Wannabe Arizona Congressional candidate Adam Kwasman (RedicuOP’er), was out ya know, showin’ the fine people of his state how we deal with these menacing brown children who are invadin’ the home land and posing such a threat to all we hold dear in Merika, like with their strange African-diseases Ebola, and their vaccination-less bodies.

And he made this remark in pointing out, that giving these children temporary homes and food and care until legal processes are complete is well, just not compassionate according to the very high standards so far established by the GOP in general, and the Tea suckers in particular.

And he said:

I was actually able to see some of the children in the buses. The fear on their faces… This is not compassion.”

Nod, nod.

Except these children were all Americans and were from the YMCA and they were on a their way to a camping trip, until forcibly scared half to death by the likes of Kwasman and his band of merry idiots.

I wish I’d said that–in some horrible nightmare……

 

It Wasn’t THAT Long Ago. . . .

Tags

abortion, contraception, fundamentalism, GOP, Hobby Lobby, Women's issues

A little history seems in order.

Okay, so before we start, let’s get this straight. This is not an anti-male diatribe, much as you may think it is. There are damn well plenty of stupid women out there who have drunk the kool-aid and think women’s place is in the home, tending the kitchen, children and pets, in that order. The trouble is, the women who tell you that are ANYTHING BUT stay-at-homers themselves and even if they are, they are writing blogs, books, and preachin’ on social media that YOU should not be like them, but rather like the fantasy women they envision–pampered, protected, cared for, and wiper of runny noses all wearing that crisp peter pan-collared cotton frock and perfectly shined respectable two-inch pumps and pushing the vacuum with a free hand.

Whew. . . .

No this is against paternalism and all its ugly underbelly of psychological signals that tell the female gender that they are all they can be just by primping in front of the mirror and making very sure that that eyeliner is on straight and that lipstick is the latest fashion color of the season.

Ya see, I grew up in that tween place, on the cusp, able to see both shores as it were.

Women got the vote in 1920. My mother was born in ’26, so she grew up having it, though I must say, she pretty much used is as far as I can tell, as her husbands explained to her was right and good. But her mother came into her adulthood without it, my grandmother was born in ’01, so it impacted her most. I knew these women for whom the vote was a “new” thing,  but grew up knowing that voting was no different for me than for any guy I knew.

It was not until the 60’s, during the general period of awakening that lots of minorities were going through, least of all white males who were being conscripted to be the fodder in another war, but one this time that seemed to merit no one’s patriotic fervor, that we women began to learn of our own deeper oppression. We began to learn that it was not okay that our bodies were not our own to control, that we were not by “nature” relegated to certain types of jobs, and paid less in others simply because we were women.

We learned that there was much more to do in this journey to equality.

And we secured our right to control our bodies–in other words–to make mistakes just like men do with theirs.

And we worked hard to break through glass ceilings that prevented us from being fighter pilots, (if that’s what we wanted), neurosurgeons, police officers, firefighters,  and corporate CEO’s. And then we discovered that even when we got the jobs we didn’t get the pay, and we began that fight too.

Always with a certain segment of scared men and the women they controlled telling us that we were going against God, country, and well, nature itself.

Always with those who believed that as we gained our power to control our lives, theirs would somehow be diminished. Sharing is a hard lesson to learn.

They argued of course that women would become “just like men”, or worse, punish men in some Amazonian-driven lust for power themselves.

They argued that we would cry during tense negotiations with a Khrushchev and rain down upon America the nuclear holocaust that permeated the Cold War era.

They called us atheistic feminists and the spittle trickled down their chins, catching and rerouting through grizzled stubble, that they wiped away with grubby fingers still clutching ragged signs with misspelled words echoing their hate: Back to the kitchen you sluts!

But while these battles went on quietly across America with thousands of dedicated women, all the clamor died down, and life didn’t change a whole lot. We figured we were still on the journey, but life as we know it hadn’t stopped, and someday we would reach our goal of full integration and equality in America. Most of us thrived in a world that seemed increasingly equal to us.

And then along came the “IMMORAL MINORITY”  waving their bibles, and explaining to middle-aged white men who had failed in the great American dream to be great achievers, that women were the problem and not corporate greed. Women were and always were the problem ever since that bitch picked that apple off that tree and seduced God’s great creation Adam into sinning. Women were the problem.

And as the rich got richer and the poor got poorer and the great middle started to age and find that damn they weren’t much better off than their parents, some thing had to give. Corporate America became adept at focusing the blame on minorities, takers all. Suddenly, feminism became a dirty word again. Our enemies are mostly aging white men who feel left behind (damn that Rapture, where are you?). The feel and it’s certainly palpable at this point, emasculated by articulate, educated women.

Ask me about it. I belong to a forum of my old high school, and my wars always end up being against these male types (one of which actually said that he ended up calling me names because “I drove him to it.”), and women who believe that women were created to serve me according to their fine uneducated reading of certain pseudo-Pauline texts.  And invariably they block me, so I can read the their comments and they don’t have to respond to mine. Except that there are men on the forum who are just as liberal as I am, just as knowledgeable, and just as “in-your-face”, and they don’t get blocked. Why? Because men can argue with men, but women must be very careful to be properly respectful lest they be branded as “stupid” and “a troll” and “self-defined intellectual”. (I was once told that educated people were “pissants” all, by one tiny-penised patriarchal dope.)

So along comes Hobby Lobby and it’s claim that its corporate religiosity is being assaulted by requiring it “pay” for certain contraceptive methods it in its utter stupidity deems abortifacients, and the Feds have no right to make them offer same to their employees. There is so much wrong here that it’s sick. First, HL provided all these methods before they were picked as the “plaintiff” and then told, “damn, guys, you offer this stuff already!” Hobby Lobby owner Green claims “shit, I have no idea”. Hobby Lobby gets I would guess 80% of its inventory from China, a nation that makes abortion a national policy and until recently required it after one child. Hobby Lobby has a 401K retirement benefits package which includes owning shares of various big pharma companies which, you guessed it, manufacture all the abortifacients that HL moans about.

So the SCROTUS decided that corporate religious well-being trumps women’s rights to good health. Along with that, they decided that there can be no buffer zone between women trying to enter clinics that offer contraceptive care along with abortions and those who want to scream at them demanding that they “think again”.  Women seeking treatment at a PPH clinic must be within “spittin’ distance” of those who seek to turn them away.

Across America, Republican led legislatures make it hard if not impossible for poor women to get reproductive care of any kind by loading down clinics with regulations (aren’t Republicans against business regulation as a matter of principle?) that are so burdensome that they have to close.

And all this in the name of NOT ABORTING. When all of these restrictions do exactly the opposite.

Republicans in Congress vote down equal pay for women.

There is a line.

It has now been crossed.

We will not go back.

Vote in 2014 as if you life depends on it, because control of it is surely at stake.

 

 

 

 

Eric, My Dude, Wha’ Happened to Ya?

Tags

Eric Cantor, GOP, John McCain, men with no brains, stupid party, teabaggers, when old men need to lie down

Frank Luntz really got one thing right. “The GOP is lousy when it comes to doing polling.”

By all accounts, Eric was blindsided by his rather convincing loss to a third-rate “economist” called Brat. He dinna see it cummin’ as they say.

As all politicians do, they manage to put on a thin smile as they stumble to the podium to admit their loss and congratulate the nobody who was somehow good enough.

The punditry is all awash in ‘splainin’ how this happened.

Some say it was his flirt with immigration reform. Other’s his watering down of a bill that would have but a stop to insider trading by congress people, who are as you know, so danged overworked and unpaid that it’s only fair that they should be able to do what nobody else can do without going to jail.

Some say Eric was just a total shit, arrogant and dismissive, failing to act, ya know, like one of his constituents, on those “hanging out  in the district” times. He was in a word, (words actually) full to the brim with the sweet smell of his own poo.

He will likely be replaced by an even more odious (ideologically speaking) commodity, the Brat guy. Who is some sort of economist, but apparently not much of one, who when asked what his position was on minimum wage increases, said he hadn’t had time to work out a “fully crafted statement” on that yet, or some such bullshit. What freakin’ economist doesn’t have a thought on a subject that, ya know, DEALS WITH ECONOMICS?

But I guess one shouldn’t wonder since his economic philosophy seems to be “Brat believes in free-markets as run by some curious amalgam of Presbyterian theology and Ayn Rand’s economic sociopathy.” If that don’t make your head spin I don’t know what will. The atheist Rand married to a dude who claims that his win was a “miracle from God”. I can’t wait to see how it pulls that off.

It is however, most comforting to know that there are plenty of GOP tenderfeet waiting in the wings for their chance on the national stage.

As well as some old has beens who are still trying to be relevant to something that passes for significance in this political world.

Enter one John S. McCain. A meme last week on Facebook asked commentors to sum up Johnny in three words. My favorites were “still not relevant”, “still not President”, and “Sarah Palin, seriously?”. Fresh off his flopping like a dead flounder all over the Bergdahl mess, he ‘s moved on to utter more stale bullshit to an increasingly deaf audience.

You may not have heard, but Iraq is being overrun at the moment with Al Qaida–you know–the crazies who came into Iraq when George W, following orders from Cheney and Rummy, decided to invade it, because they wanted to? That war. The war that we sorta fought to a tie, which gave us our escape window? And we escaped. And like everyone on the planet knew that chaos (or more chaos I should say) would ensue until the damn country became a bloodbath? And a few hundred people have died in that country every month, but Syria was worse, so we didn’t notice? Until the deaths started being several hundred a week? Now ya remember?

Yeah, well, now Johnny, setting aside his blatant memory loss, has declared that we won that war, (more specifically George did after following John’s instructions), and now Obama has gone and lost it, and his entire group of foreign security advisors should be fired, and replaced by the old crew from George’s tenure, and hell, while you’re at it, let George take over, cuz God we all felt so much better and more secure when he was at the button. Such is the way John sees things, or forgets things.

Meet Jeff Miller, (R-FL).

Look carefully since Jeff, is a zombie. Not walking dead, but walking brain-dead. He is shown holding on to his head, for it would float off to the ceiling if he didn’t. It’s full of nothing but helium.

Florida, as you may know, if one of those areas of the country that will soon lose half its sovereign soil when the oceans rise due to climate change. It is of some minor concern to its residents not all of whom are ready to trade their land based homes for boats.

So in their brilliance, they, in part at least, elect this fool.

Jeff, make no bones about it, is a fool, in CAPITAL LETTERS.

Frank has that wonderful ability to hold lots of facts in his empty brain that are in utter conflict.

First, Frank says that scientists are not agreed about who is causing this particular climate change. That’s not true, of course, for they are, to a degree of more than 97%; the rest being dismissed as owned and paid for by Koch brother enterprises and others in the fossil fuel industry.

Frank chooses to side with the paid-for deniers, and of course reminds us that “the climate is always changing”, as indeed it is. The planet we call home has, over billions of years, undergone plenty of change, most of it taking millions of years to build up. No doubt Frank doesn’t believe this because he must stay on the good side of the funny-gelicals who don’t believe the earth is more than 6,000 +/= a few hundred years old. But, for purposes of this argument I guess he believes that climates change over time.

His proof? Oh the dinosaurs. How in the heck could the dinosaurs have been axed if climate change wasn’t a “natural thing”. After all, he says, man wasn’t there (oh no screams Ken Ham–he’s an atheist!), and they weren’t driving around cars and such.

So the fact that the dinosaurs disappeared means that climate change isn’t man made. (Get the ropes and pinions, that jump across that chasm of logic is mighty wide!)

What Jeff doesn’t have a clue about is that the climate was rolling merrily along in old dinosaur land, when a comet or asteroid hit the planet and threw up so much dust and dirt, that the climate changed massively in a very short time (hint, hint like today’s human activities), and produced an unlivable situation for the dinos quickly. (purists note that this is the Alvarez theory to which I generally adhere or the catastrophic extraterrestrial theory. There are other serious theories which we aren’t going to get into here, suffice it that it has no effect on the argument.)

In other words, there is climate change which is normal and then there is that which is abnormal. What is happening to the earth today is abnormal, proceeding much too rapidly, and is demonstrably man-made.

The point is, there is no connection between the dinosaurs and the reality of man-made climate change. Never was, never will be.

And so we end, “Your week in GOP shenanigans and really stupid stuff.”

 

The Shaming of the GOP

Tags

Bergdahl, GOP, hypocrisy, tea party

I mean ya gotta hand it to the GOP and their corp of clowns. I swear the term chutzpah must have been invented just for them.

Given all the back-walking going on within the GOP ranks on this issue of Sgt. Bergdahl, it still remains stunning the degree to which folks like Fox Noise continue to look down their noses at the drooling sycophants that pass as the usual Fox viewer.

Case in point, is one Ollie North, criminal/traitor extraordinaire who was recently on Newsmax to give us the benefit of his wisdom on the negotiated release of Sgt. Bergdahl from the hands of the Taliban.

You remember Ollie. He participated along with candidate Ronald Reagan, in a secret deal with Iran (terrorists) to sell them missiles and then turn that money over to the Contras in Nicaragua (more terrorists). In return Iran was supposed to turn over  hostages, but not until the election was over, so Carter couldn’t get the benefit of it. This was not only negotiating with terrorists, it was downright treason.

Yet, Fox figured Ollie was a good choice to weigh in on the matter of the Bergdahl release. I mean seriously!

From there we move to Johnny McCain who just cannot to this day live with the fact that he is not the President.

Back in February of this year, Johnny suggested that he could probably get behind a trade of Taliban Gitmo detainees in exchange for Sgt. Bergdahl, though he would “have to see the details”. This seems in line with the information that this negotiation has been in the works since 2011, and that the appropriate members of Congress were informed of both the negotiations, AND the subjects of any exchange.

John was enraged when this was pointed out to him. He sputtered, accused journalists of “lying” and then abruptly changed his tune, and suggested that it was a done deal, and we should move on. Then the next day, he was back on the bandwagon, screaming for “his head”.

Joined at the hip, Kelly Ayotte just on Memorial Day was calling on citizens to “remember Sgt. Bergdahl in their thoughts and prayers” and declaring that she was pushing the military to do everything possible to return him to his family. Of course now she’s singing a different tune.

Ayotte, is of course, no different from Lindsey Butchmeup Graham, who get their marching orders from Johnny, came to lately McCain, and both can be forgiven their turnabouts, since it’s all just too confusing to them in the first place. Lindsey of course is facing a primary next week, and so he’s desperately trying to remind everyone in his state that he has a mighty big job in just zipping up his trousers over that massive load of junk he’s carrying.

Their story is not singular as it were. A host of those who were congratulating America on having brought back a prisoner, quickly scrubbed their congratulations from their Twitter feeds when advised that the GOP was tacking once again. At least six Republicans have done so, advised by party leaders apparently that things “had changed”.

This all falls into place when one realizes that the rabble of the Tea People are making their anger heard throughout the faux news blogs that cater to the trailer brigade. Facebook pages, and the usual stories rebound around the likes of WorldNetDaily, Breitbart and Fox Noise, all attesting to the fact that Bergdahl was “probably a traitor”, “probably a deserter”, whose father “looks like a Muslim” and on and on. Impeachment echoes through the halls of crazy land.

None of this has anything to do with the decision of course, but in the usual fear of upsetting the grossly ignorant, GOP politicians run scared. The mill around the Capital, asking each other what to do, after all, elections are at stake, and NOTHING is as important.

The degree to which the GOP jumps when the fringe furrows it’s collective Neanderthal brow, is stunning. Just last week, the NRA after having declared that the crazies in Texas wandering around cheap food establishments with assault-type rifles and camouflage, should just go home, was met with an uproar from these thugs, and beat a hasty retreat, claiming “we made a terrible mistake”.

Such is the state of the GOP that they are drug around by the nose by a band of motley ill-educated morons who have basements full of canned goods, and lockers full of assault weapons, all ready for the coming revolution. However shaming this is to them personally doesn’t excuse the selling out of their soul in exchange for a greasy fingered vote.

The bottom line is quite simple. There are few facts that are known, other than the following.

1. Prisoner exchanges have always been part of a President’s duties, going back to George Washington.
2. Prisoner exchanges are done by most countries, including Israel with Palestine. In fact one of their more famous exchanges involved 1 Israel for over a THOUSAND Palestinians. Both sides call the other side terrorists.
3. This negotiation has been going on since 2011. There seems to be evidence that some Congressional leaders of the appropriate committees were aware of the negotiations, and the general parameters of those discussions.
4. Sgt. Bergdahl has been charged with no crime. And even if he were, that is no reason whatsoever by any military standard not to secure his release.
5. The exchanged Gitmo detainees were Taliban, not Al Qaeda. There is a serious difference.

This smacks, as so much of GOP opposition usually ends up being, as nothing more than, whatever the Black guy does, we hate it. Note that as usual, the GOP prior to this event, demanded the release of Sgt. Bergdahl, but as usual offered NO concrete terms of how that should be done. (See Syria, and the Ukraine for similar demands without specifics). So they demand action, refuse to specify what that action should be, and then when ANY action is taken, it’s the wrong action, and still there is no statement of what right action would look like.

This is a pattern of opposition. This is not governance, it is pure mean-spirited obstinate opposition. It is in truth a pandering to the fringe crazies which now seem to run the GOP. These people are satisfied with nothing other than venomous denial to everything this President presents. Of course they have no alternatives. Do you expect to get alternatives from seven-year olds?

Perhaps someday, normal men and women will pick themselves up from the mud, wash themselves off, and decide to reclaim the GOP as a party worthy of listening to. Not today however, not today.