Category: Humor

The ‘cold civil war’ is warming up

~ odd man out

Brrr! Our country is chattering through a cold civil war. The longer it persists, the more likely it is to end not with a whimper but with a bang.

So says my friend Swamp Rabbit, a formerly apolitical drifter transformed into a fire-breathing left-wing activist by Trump’s attempted shakedown of a foreign ally.

“Ain’t nothing wrong with being an activist,” Swamp Rabbit said when I raised the issue. “It’s better than hanging out at your shack, watching them swamp frogs hibernate.”

“Never mind,” I replied. “My point is that you didn’t really care about politics until the impeachment hearings, but now you’re all fired up about the fate of the nation. People all over the country are fired up, and a lot of them are rednecks with rifles who don’t want to see Trump brought down.”

The case for bringing Trump down was presented this week by House Democrats in two articles of impeachment. The first says Trump abused his power by threatening to withhold military assistance from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky unless Zelensky agreed to announce an investigation of Joe Biden. In other words, he tried to conduct a shakedown to “harm the election prospects of a political opponent.”

The second article says Trump blocked investigation of the shakedown by directing “the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its ‘sole Power of Impeachment.'”

Republican counter-arguments are flimsy. They say Trump’s target was corruption in the Ukrainian government, not Joe Biden. They insist, contrary to what the Constitution says, that the House doesn’t have the power to demand the further evidence it seeks.

Ultimately, they’re arguing that Trump is above the law, which is what Trump has been implying or saying outright for three years now. It’s the argument his so-called base makes by standing by him, knowing he’s a career conman who paid $25 million to the people cheated by his sham university, and $2 million for stealing from his own charity.

They knew he was a crook and stood by him. They know he’s an attempted extortionist and stand by him.

None of this is new. The MAGA morons don’t care if Trump is a criminal, so long as he’s their criminal. They count on him to be anti-black, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-environment. They believe him when he says he’s anti-elitist, even though he’s backed by plutocrats.

“What’s scary is that Trump’s true believers gets more loyal as his abuses get more flagrant,” I said to Swamp Rabbit. “They get more defiant of people who want to make sure he doesn’t shred the Constitution. What we’ve got here are two different countries, like back in 1860.”

“Like I said, it’s a cold civil war,” he replied. “But it’s gonna get a lot hotter, bet your shack on that.”

Footnote: The House Judiciary Committee approved the articles of impeachment today and sent them to the full House for a vote. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox News — the other America’s main news outlet — that he’ll let Trump’s lawyers decide how his trial before the Senate is handled. So much for separation of powers!

Politics and Thanksgiving dinner …

~ Boohunney ~ 1 Comment

In the course of the last few years, I have been pretty artful at avoiding political conversations with members of my extended family during Thanksgiving (or anytime for that matter.) My family’s political opinions run the spectrum so the potential for lighting a powder keg is pretty high as we are members of a highly opinionated group.

I am pretty blunt, “It is Thanksgiving, how about sending me this in an email.” And I move on the conversation about something benign.

https://twitter.com/MeatBlankett/status/1199357141892714496

But, some just can’t stop the urge to opine.


Some will have the unfortunate experience of having a distant relative getting a little deep into their cups and start pontificating crazy conspiracies. You know, a real buzz hassle.

Maybe this will help. Maybe.

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

GOP’s impeachment strategy — see, hear, speak no truth

~ odd man out

We were on the way to a job upstate on Wednesday, listening to the impeachment hearings on the radio, waiting to hear what Trump’s boy Gordon Sondland would say now that it was clear he hadn’t been forthright in his closed-door deposition before the House Intelligence Committee last month.

Sondland was more cooperative this time around.

YES, he told Democratic inquisitors, a quid pro quo was demanded by Trump. No way would Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky get a meeting with Trump, let alone $400 million in military aid, unless he agreed to launch so-called investigations that might boost Trump’s re-election campaign.

YES, all the president’s men were “in the loop” regarding the quid pro quo. Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Mick Mulvaney, Rudy Giuliani and others knew Sondland and his two amigos were pressuring Zelensky to announce investigations, and Sondland had the emails to prove it.

YES, the three amigos — Rick Perry and Kurt Volker were the others — received their orders to lean on Zelensky from Giuliani, who was acting “at the express direction of the president of the United States.”

“Great, it’s all over now,” I said to Swamp Rabbit. “Sondland is a snake, he’ll only cough up as much evidence as he thinks is necessary to avoid perjury charges. But the evidence he just coughed up is damning.”

Swamp Rabbit, who is off the wagon again, reached for his flask and took a swig. “That’s what you think,” he said. “By tonight them Republicans will be saying Sondland’s testimony don’t change nothing, there’s no smoking gun.”

He was right about that, of course. And right again the next day after two more credible witnesses testified — David Holmes, who overheard what should be an incriminating phone talk between Trump and Sondland, and steely-eyed Fiona Hill, who deconstructed the “fictive narrative” that Trump’s henchmen concocted to justify the investigations, which were all about trying to wreck Joe Biden’s presidential bid.

Swamp Rabbit noted this morning that Trump’s House weenie Devin Nunes is still pushing fictive details about Biden — Kellyanne Conway would call them “alternative facts” — and that Nunes’s homeys continue to march in lockstep with him now that a Senate trial seems almost certain. And that there’s no evidence Trump directly commanded Sondland to tell the Ukrainians they wouldn’t get their military aid unless they went after Biden.

“But that’s crazy,” I said. “Trump’s commands are indirect, just like a mob boss’s, but everybody knows the commands come from him. That’s how mob bosses who go to trial get convicted, through the testimony of people who track the commands they receive back to the boss.”

“Maybe so,” the rabbit said. “But them other mob bosses ain’t president of the United States. And they don’t get to have a jury that’s mostly made up of Republican senators.”

Stand by your monster

~ odd man out

“Check it out,” Victor Cortez said, changing channels on the old Zenith I’d pulled out of a trash dump for Swamp Rabbit. The subject on MSNBC was the impeachment hearings. Same thing on CNN. But the big story on Fox News was “Kanye West spreading his message of faith” and — this might have been fake news — selling $55 pancakes at a breakfast event.

Victor’s point was that Fox would rather show anything but a bad-news story about Trump. And when there are bad-news stories they have to cover — the actual hearings, for example, which started Wednesday — they will ignore the facts and pretend they’re good-news stories.

“But even Fox has shown a few cracks,” Victor said later in the week, after acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor testified on the first day of the hearings and Fox News host Chris Wallace called Taylor “a very impressive witness and… very damaging to the president.”

The hardcore Trump suck-ups — Hannity, Carlson, Ingraham, and so on — would follow Trump all the way to the Führerbunker, Victor explained, but actual reporters at Fox News with a shred of credibility are hedging their bets regarding Trump’s long-term political health.

“Not so with them Republicans in Congress,” said Swamp Rabbit, who had just arrived at my shack for his weekly appointment with Victor, his parole officer. “Trump got on the phone with Zelensky and said sure, you’ll get that military aid, but I want you to do something for me, meaning get dirt on Biden. That’s an impeachable offense, plain as day, unless you’re a Republican.”

“But Republicans are saying there was no explicit quid pro quo,” I said. “Trump didn’t explicitly say ‘You won’t get the aid unless you deliver dirt on Biden.'”

“It don’t matter,” Swamp Rabbit replied. “You don’t have to spell out the quid pro quo. All you gotta do is conduct it. If I’m holding your swamp cat and say ‘I’ll give your cat back to you but first I want you to do me a favor,’ then I’m abusing my power and breaking the law.”

I reminded Swamp Rabbit that Trump’s toadies — people like Lindsey Graham and Nikki Haley — know he’s the lowest of the low, a guy who has cheated big banks and small business owners, robbed his own charities, betrayed foreign allies, taken kids from their parents and jailed them, and worse. They don’t care; they’re afraid he will denounce them to his base, that vast horde of lost souls who’d be happy if he made himself president for life.

“But that don’t make no sense,” the rabbit said. “They’re propping up a monster. Don’t they care what history is gonna think of them?”

All three of us laughed at that one. “Does Trump care about history?” I said. “Does his brother, Kanye West?”

A wall can’t keep the future out

~ odd man out ~ 1 Comment

“So you’re telling me part of the multibillion-dollar wall Trump is having built on the Mexican border can be breached with a hundred-dollar saw? You’re not making this up?”

Swamp Rabbit wasn’t making it up. He was reading from a news article he’d called up on my laptop:

…When fitted with specialized blades, the saws can slice through one of the barrier’s steel-and-concrete bollards in minutes, according to [border] agents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the barrier-defeating techniques. After cutting through the base of a single bollard, smugglers can push the steel out of the way, creating an adult-size gap. Because the bollards are so tall — and are attached only to a panel at the top — their length makes them easier to push aside once they have been cut and are left dangling…

Swamp Rabbit’s parole office, Victor Cortez, interrupted to vouch for the story’s accuracy. “I’ve got one of those reciprocating saws,” he said. “With the right blades it will cut through anything.”

I don’t believe you,” I said. “That reporter is tripping.”

“Just because you can’t drive a nail don’t mean some saw can’t cut through steel,” Swamp Rabbit replied.

I asked why the U.S. Border Patrol didn’t build a regular old brick wall. The rabbit said it was because they thought the concrete and steel bollard system was the best design they could afford.

“They can peek through the bollards — poles is what they are — and see them pesky refugees coming,” he explained. “And they can fix the poles that get wrecked if the refugees are too fast for them and sneak through.”

I persisted, just for the sake of argument. Didn’t Trump say the new wall would be “virtually impenetrable?” Didn’t he assure all those good old boys in the MAGA hats that he would save them from the marauding rapists he warned about?

“The Mexicans were gonna pay for the wall, too,” Swamp Rabbit noted. “If Trump said it, you can bet it ain’t true.”

Footnote: The refugees or aliens or whatever you want to call them are using ladders as well as saws to get past the wall. Who would have thought?

Half-cocked and loaded

~ odd man out

We were talking about Trump and Twitter. Swamp Rabbit noted that making threats is a dangerous habit for a president who has no self-control and isn’t on good terms with the English language. “Take a look at these here tweets,” he said.

The first tweet was from June:

“We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights [sic] when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. — Donald Trump, June 21

The second was from last week:

Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed! — Donald Trump, Sept. 15

“So is he cocked and loaded or locked and loaded,” Swamp Rabbit asked. “What’s the difference? Is this porn movie talk?”

I did some research. It looks like Trump was thinking of handguns in old Western movies when he said “cocked and loaded,” which refers to pulling back the hammer of a revolver so that it will discharge a bullet faster when you press the trigger. Someone must have told him that the more contemporary term is “locked and loaded,” which can refer to locking a magazine in place on an AR-15-type assault rifle, the weapon of choice for Trump fans who try to kill as many people as possible in crowded public places.

“The problem is that Trump is talking about missiles, not rifles,” I said. “Missiles could start World War III.”

“True dat,” Swamp Rabbit replied. “On the other hand, he’s a punk at heart. He does most of his dirty work through them toadies he hires and fires. He won’t start no shooting war.”

Never assume, I told him. What if another jackass like John Bolton starts pushing Trump’s buttons? And what happens when he can no longer wangle his way out of facing criminal charges, or if the polls say he can’t get re-elected?

“He might go off half-cocked,” I concluded.

Swamp Rabbit wanted to know what “half-cocked” meant. I opened the online dictionary and showed him that going off half-cocked means rushing to get something done without considering the possible consequences.

“It’s like shooting a musket after you forget to pull the hammer all the way back,” I explained. “The musket might go off in your face.”

Swamp Rabbit, obviously tired of the subject, signaled for me to shut up. He said, “I still think Trump picked up them phrases from a porn movie.”

Out with the old kook, in with the new

~ odd man out

“John Bolton’s ouster makes the world safer,” according to a headline in The Nation, but the analysis that followed was unpersuasive. Yes, the loony chickenhawk is gone but not his boss, who has launched a misguided trade war against China, trashed the nuclear deal with Iran, threatened to nuke North Korea, and encouraged Boris Johnson to destabilize the EU and destroy what’s left of the United Kingdom. How is the world safer?

“Why do you read that crap?” said Swamp Rabbit, who was looking over my shoulder at the story. “Why don’t you feed the cats, or pull up them weeds over there by the tomato patch?”

I told him it’s important to follow the mainstream news analysts. They usually reach the wrong conclusions from the facts they gather, but careful readers can use the same facts to piece together conclusions that make more sense.

“I’m gonna piece together some lunch from that pork roll I swiped at the SuperFridge today,” Swamp Rabbit said. “Stop by my shack if you want a sandwich.”

I told him no thanks, I had some Triscuits, I was reading up on who might be chosen to replace Bolton. Politico said Trump was looking at more than a dozen “generally conservative” candidates, some of whom have ties to Bolton or Fox News or the George W. Bush administration. The pick will be a “yes person,” according to an insider quoted in the article.

But we already knew all that, didn’t we? We knew the new national security adviser is likely to be as despicable as Bolton (one of the liars who helped start the disastrous war in Iraq by falsely claiming Saddam had WMD) though possibly not as overtly kooky. That he or she will be an ass-kissing neocon who will obey all orders from Trump, no matter how stupid or vile.

In the end it won’t matter who’s chosen. No one Trump hires could possibly be any more impulsive or vindictive than he is, and he has the final say on policy. The world will be no more or less safe.

I should have waded over to Swamp Rabbit’s place for that sandwich.

Footnote: Imagine a just world in which government officials and their toadies are held responsible for their roles in debacles like Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya, where hundreds of thousands of people died for nothing and trillions of dollars were wasted. All the Boltons would have been banished years ago. A lot of them would be in jail.