Gone Again ....

My Dad has taken a turn for the worse, and I am headed out to Oregon for the next week or so. He is being checked into hospice so we're not exactly sure how much time is left.

Meme Dump

Vote Blue. Here's Another Slew of Reasons Why

Here we are again, with a wee taste of the lunacy, racism, criminality, and bigotry and hate inside the GOP …

GOP Senator, and Confederate statue, Mitch McConnell has admitted that Republicans will not help solve the border crisis with President Biden because it would make Biden look good and maybe help him win in November.

It’s not a surprise really, because the GOP rails about the border during election years and then says nothing, and does  nothing, at other times.

It’s not about solving the problem it’s about the GOP hoping to stay in power so maybe this time, maybe, we should vote them all out of office since they don’t want to work for the country that hired them.

Down in Mississippi, the Republicans are trying to make it impossible for the people of the state from voting on abortion rights.

House Concurrent Resolution 11 which, to be fair, is still several legislative steps from becoming law, would give citizens the ability to gather signatures to propose new state laws or change existing laws, but it bans the people of Mississippi from placing an issue on a statewide ballot about abortion.

I know it won’t happen any time soon, but the people of Mississippi need to clean House, and the Senate, in their state.

This week former GOP House chair Liz Cheney accused her successor Elise Stefanik of deleting a press release from 2021 condemning protesters who stormed the Capitol on January 6. In Stefanik’s 2021 press release, she condemned the “violence and destruction” on that day and called for the perpetrators to be prosecuted. And now she’s changed her tune and deleted the press release.

Elise Stefanik is trying to rewrite history because she hopes to be the Pussy Groper’s Veep.

In other Insurrection news, South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace was so angry at Hair Furor during the attack on the Capitol that she discussed with aides the prospect of confronting the rioters so she could get punched and become the face of anti-Thing 45 Republicans.

Seriously. Mace also declared to her staff during the riot that she was a “never-Trumper” while she was hiding with staff in her office on that day.

Then she said she supported him, and then she said she didn't.

The Oklahoma Republican Party approved a resolution condemning and censuring GOP Senator James Lankford because he was working with Democrats and President Biden to pass a bipartisan border deal.

The Oklahoma GOP is punishing a man for doing the work for which he was hired because he was working with Democrats while his own party sits on their hands and does nothing but complain.

But that's the GOP way.

Iowa Republican lawmakers have again proposed removing protections against discrimination for transgender people from the Iowa Civil Rights Act and this time a key committee chair, GOP Representative Steven Holt, is open to the conversation.

Think on that … they want to legalize discrimination; sure they’re starting with transgender Americans, but soon it will be the gay Americans, and then any other group that doesn’t fit the GOP straight white male agenda.

Also in Iowa, a new bill in the House of Representatives would make it a legal requirement for public school students and teachers in grades 1-12 to sing the national anthem every day. Physically able students would need to “stand at attention” and “remove any headdress that is not being worn for religious purposes.”

VOTE THEM OUT.

Florida GOP Representative, and sexual predator, Matt Gaetz was adamant that his move to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was rooted in policy disagreements and not a personal vendetta related to the congressional ethics investigation against him.

But in private, Gaetz told a different story, that his effort to undercut, isolate, and ultimately remove McCarthy was payback for the ethics probe.

Matt Gaetz is still under investigation for being a sexual predator.

Last week Alabama Death Row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first prisoner to die using a new untested method of execution in the United States—suffocation by nitrogen gas.

Word has it that the new method takes several minutes to run its course and the prisoner is writhing and screaming the entire time.

Alabama GOP Governor, and racist, Kay Ivey stated:

“I pray that Elizabeth Sennett’s family can receive closure after all these years dealing with that great loss.”

Why not just use a guillotine, Kay; or firing squad; or tar and feather him.

Republican South Dakota Governor, who once fired a state employee from her job and then gave that job to her own daughter, Kristi Noem says she will personally deliver razor wire to Republican Texas Governor, and human trafficker, Greg Abbott if federal agents interfere with his plans for the U.S.-Mexico border.

Kristi Noem; a faux Christian who condones murdering immigrants rather than work toward a border solution.

GOOD NEWS

Meanwhile, back at the border dispute discussions between Democrats and Republicans … tempers flared as Republicans battled among themselves over whether to accept or reject a deal for tougher immigration laws, with some pushing back on colleagues who want to bow to Hair Furor’s wishes to kill the deal.

But one sane member of the GOP, for at least this particular day, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis urged his Republican colleagues not to make it all about politics at the behest of another candidate:

“I didn’t come here to have the president as a boss or a candidate as a boss. I came here to pass good, solid policy. It is immoral for me to think you looked the other way because you think this is the linchpin for [Hair Furor] to win.”

Tillia best be careful, or he’ll be censured like James Lankford because, again, the GOP doesn’t want to solve the immigration crisis; not when they can use it as a campaign tool every election cycle.

And on the Democrat side, here are some FACTS about the economy under President Biden …

And that’s just a small taste of GOP lunacy ... pardoning traitors for political points; gibberish speakers; anti-military criminals; lunatics and Big Liars; Christian Nationalist Nazi sympathizers; party over country fools; unfit for political office; liars and flip-floppers; and Texas.

So what do we do? We ...

The Funny Papers

Ed Hall, John Branch, Nick Anderson, Clay Bennett, Bob Englehart, Dave Whamond, Bill Bramhall, Bill Day, Jack Ohman, Mike Luckovich, Tim Campbell, Marc Murphy, Matt Wuerker, Adam Zyglis, 

Why Is It ...

… that when my birthday comes around—and it’s today y’all 🎂—I feel nothing like the number of candles on my cake? Is it cuz I’m child-like, young at heart, or childish?

… that sometimes when I look at people I get a headache?

… that there are people in the world that I have to speak to in life that are so dumb they make me squint?

… that people think they’re bad asses until it comes to pulling two shopping carts apart?

… that it's only at this point in my life that I have realized I should have tried to be good at something?

… that one day I'm jumping off a swing like I haven’t a care in the world and the next day I'm holding onto a wall trying to put on pants? No ... seriously!

… that with all of the overthinking I do I still don’t make better decisions?

… that when I’m hungry nothing is funny and everyone is ugly?

… that I think I wasn’t put on this planet to weather hardship, but am here only to delight and perplex people with my behavior?

… that when people ask how old I am, I say, “I’m this many,” and then open and close my hand for a minute or two?

I Didn't Say It

President Biden, on his opponent:

“He calls those who oppose him ‘vermin.’ He talks about the blood of America as being poisoned, echoing the same exact language used in Nazi Germany. He posts the words that describe his 2024 campaign: revenge, power, and dictatorship. There’s no confusion about who he is.”

Think about the last time a candidate for president of this country quoted Hitler in speeches.

Think about it.

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Sean Hannity, Fox “News,” after repeatedly praising Thing 45 for every stock market record, now dismisses stock prices as inconsequential for most Americans since a Democrat is in office:

“Now, stocks did hit an all-time high. What did we learn last week? Is that the stock market impacts 8% of Americans. It does not impact the other 92%. It’s one of the main reasons I’ve never used it as any kind of real barometer in terms of the health of our economy.”

The S&P 500 hit a record high this week, further reflecting a booming economy after some pundits had worried that it would fall into a recession.

Hannity is an effing blatant bold-faced liar.

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Charlize Theron, guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race, speaking to the queens in the workroom:

“I just wanted to say, given the climate in our country right now, there is a lot of energy being put toward your community not existing. I truly believe that all of that is coming from a place of fear. The beauty of who you guys are, what your community brings to all of us and the truth of who you are and represent will come out. Don’t give up. I have two small children, and I want them to grow up in a world where they know what it means to accept what’s not you, what is different and love that, to not be scared of that, and to embrace it, and that’s my job as a mom. They were born who they are and exactly where in the world both of them get to find themselves as they grow up, and who they want to be, is not for me to decide. My job as a parent is to celebrate them and to love them and to make sure that they have everything they need in order to be what they want to be. I feel like we’re living in a day and age where our words can so easily be weaponized against us. I worry about us, as people, and what we can do to each other, and how powerful it is when you love and how powerful it is when you hate. One destroys and one builds.”

Good on her; a longtime supporter of LGBTQ+ causes, Theron revealed in 2019 that her eldest child, Jackson, is a transgender girl.

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Michael Elizabeth Pence, rejecting the batshittery of Thing 45, top Republicans, and the cultists:

“I’ve seen the director of the FBI repeatedly assure the American people that the FBI were not the instigators of the riot that occurred on January 6. And frankly I’m very grateful for the efforts of the FBI to bring nearly a thousand people to justice who ransacked our Capitol and did violence against police officers that day. I believe everyone that conducted that riot at the Capitol needs to be held to the fullest extent of the law. I’m pleased that many have.”

I still hold Mike Pence accountable for goose-stepping along with a criminal and for the months and months after January 6 when he kept his mouth shut to protect Thing 45 and the GOP.

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Wilson Cruz, actor and gay man, speaking at a congressional roundtable to discuss the GOSAFE Act, a bill to prevent gun violence:

“I am a nephew and a family member devastated by gun violence. My aunt, Brenda Marquez McCool, was murdered at the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting while she placed her body between the shooter and her son, who survived. I’m also here as a citizen who’s exhausted. This bill calls for a ban on weapons that were literally created in order to end human life, to destroy human bodies. If we claim to be a society that values life, the very least we can do is pass this bill and save more human lives by removing these instruments of terror.”

The GOSAFE Act, introduced by Democrat Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico would restrict access to certain semi-automatic firearms, large-capacity magazines, and machine gun conversion devices that make guns deadlier; it would force would-be mass shooters to reload their guns more frequently—giving people time to flee and law enforcement time to arrive on the scene—while also maintaining law enforcement access to regulated firearms.

Simple, right?

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