politicians, politics, stupid people

Marjorie Taylor Greene… one of many people who have ensured that I won’t be voting Republican anytime soon.

I was hoping to avoid recent politics today, hence the two reposted book reviews I added this morning. I actually had another idea in mind for this morning that was kind of akin to my current interest in redemption. And yet, this morning, as I read about how Republicans are refusing to support people like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, who have publicly supported convicting Trump on his second impeachment, I can’t stop myself from commenting. I never thought I’d support Mitt Romney on anything, but he’s turned out to be a fairly decent person, compared to his fellow Republicans. Ditto for Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who voted with Democrats in spite of heavy pressure from the Republican Party to excuse Donald Trump for his part in riots that went on at the Capitol three weeks ago.

This morning, as I was having a conversation with Bill about redemption and wondering if it’s really worthwhile to apologize for anything, since so many people are hellbent on crucifying others, I realized that I probably won’t forgive the Republicans anytime soon. It’s the party that gave us Donald Trump and, more recently, brand new Representative Marjorie Taylor Greeene, of Georgia. Ms. Taylor Greene was only very recently installed in the federal government, having been elected in November 2020. During that time, she’s made quite an impression.

What the hell is this woman doing in a leadership position?

In 2018 and 2019, Marjorie Taylor Greene, then apparently just a regular QAnon moron, made some shocking statements on social media indicating that she thinks Democratic leaders such as California Representative and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, ought to be executed. In a January 2019 post, Greene “liked” a comment advocating “a bullet to the head” of Nancy Pelosi. In April 2018, when a poster asked if we could “hang” former president Barack Obama and former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Greene responded:

“Stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene has also harassed victims of the Parkland school shooting. She’s all about maintaining her “Second Amendment rights”, sparing no thought or feeling for actual victims of gun violence. David Hogg didn’t respond to Greene’s harassment. She doesn’t warrant a response. She has no compassion, no empathy, and absolutely ZERO business leading people. What a vile, contemptible, shameless person she is. I wonder how she’d feel if she or one of her loved ones were killed or injured by gun violence? Doesn’t it make sense that people like David Hogg, who have truly suffered due to this issue, would want to change the gun laws?

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a despicable person, and yet she’s being rewarded by Republicans for her disgusting violent views.

To add insult to injury, and perhaps the reason that I’m joining the chorus in writing about this woman, is the fact that she evidently thinks journalists shouldn’t be allowed to do their jobs. At a town hall meeting two days ago, reporter Meredith Aldis wanted to ask Greene about the backlash she’s gotten this week due to her poorly considered social media posts of the not too distant past. Greene’s response was to rebuff her, saying “I’m talking to my constituents.” Then, Greene’s staff complained to security that Aldis was “causing a disturbance” and demanded that Aldis leave the public proceedings, which Aldis and other reporters had been invited to attend. A sheriff’s deputy even threatened to arrest Aldis and her crew for trespassing at the town hall meeting.

And finally, when Greene was confronted about her questionable social media posts, she had this lame excuse:

“Over the years, I’ve had teams of people manage my pages. Many posts have been liked. Many posts have been shared. Some did not represent my views. Especially the ones that CNN is about to spread across the internet,”

Nope. It’s YOUR page, Marjorie. It’s YOUR responsibility. If other people are posting things using your name that you don’t agree with, you should do something about it. Otherwise, people are going to conclude that they’re your thoughts and opinions. And based on the video I watched this morning, it’s clear that you’re full of shit. You don’t have any regard for other people and you should be expelled from public office. You are obviously someone who puts your “right” to own a gun over other people’s right to live without fear of being shot. You should be ashamed of yourself, and so should your supporters. Unfortunately, you belong to a party that is contemptible and will not do the right or decent thing to purge itself of corrupt and inept individuals like you.

I watched body cam videos taken on January 6th. They were included in an article by The New York Times about the riots. On those videos, 34 year old Rosanne Boyland, who was there to protest with her friend, Justin Winchell, is shown being trampled by rabid Trump supporters, who were hellbent on beating up police officers trying to control the situation. These folks, who are usually the ones screaming about how blue lives matter and abortion should be outlawed, were beating on the cops and sounded pretty intent on killing and maiming. They had no regard for a fellow supporter who was being mowed down by the crowd. Likewise, four other people were killed on that day. One woman, Ashli Babbitt, was shot as she tried to break into the Capitol. Two others had medical conditions that were triggered by the excitement. And, a police officer also lost his life to the violence, while another committed suicide a couple of days later.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is apparently all for this kind of behavior. She isn’t shocked or horrified by what’s in those videos. If you have access to The New York Times, I highly recommend watching the videos from the body cams. They are absolutely extraordinary. I can’t believe anyone with a shred of decency would be cheering on this kind of behavior. But apparently, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who wears face masks that read “Trump Won”, is all for it. She actively promotes QAnon theories, which have led to this craziness being unleashed in the United States. It’s absolutely appalling. I can’t believe this is the America people want to live in. I sure the hell don’t. Shouldn’t legislators be law abiding and law respecting individuals? I guess not in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s world.

Anyway… I am disgusted and revolted and I just needed to share it. Maybe later, if I’m feeling energetic, I’ll be back to write about something else.

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tragedies, true crime, Trump

Twitter bans Trump…

And it’s about time, isn’t it? It’s about fucking time someone cut off Trump’s mouthpiece. People are still defending Donald Trump, in spite of all of the evidence that he’s a threat to democracy. I wish they’d done it— cut off his Twitter mouthpiece—years ago. Now that there’s talk of impeaching Trump a second time, I realize that my worst fears from four years have come to pass. In fact, they have been surpassed. I never thought it would get this crazy… but lo and behold, it has. DC was overrun by wingnuts galore, intent on destroying democracy and trampling on the will of the people. It’s sheer madness.

Five people died as a result of Wednesday’s melee in Washington, DC. Most of the people who died were people who were there to cause a ruckus. One guy, an Alabaman named Kevin Greeson, reportedly had a heart attack thanks to all of the excitement. He was also carrying a Taser, which some people have said went off in his balls. I’m serious. And he’s just one of the mental giants who thought he could come to Washington, DC, raise hell, and live to tell about it unscathed. This man was supposedly a devoted husband and father. He was described as a loving person who loved his job, his motorcycles, and his co-workers. And yet, despite being “loving”, he encouraged people on Parler to spend all of their money on guns and ammunition and take to the streets. Quoted from an article about Greeson:

In November, Greeson wrote on Parler, “All males over the age of 18 join a group.. be ready to defend our country!! Spend your money on guns and ammo… It’s time to stop this shit!!!!!” “I don’t give two f**ks about COVID.. we have a coup going on in our goddamn country.! These motherfuckering demos are going to make COVID look like a runny nose! They’re goin to f*ck this county up!” he wrote in December. “Let’s take this f**king Country BACK!! Load your guns and take to the streets!” he posted days later.

Yep… sounds like a real upstanding citizen. And now he’s dead. I’ll be honest. My first instinct was to laugh about Greeson’s Taser reportedly going off and shocking him in the balls (which is now reported as false info). But then I realized that it’s really not funny at all. Now his wife has lost a husband and his kids have lost their dad.

What a way to go.

Another widely reported casualty of Wednesday’s hell raising is a woman named Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by police while trying to breach the Capitol building. Babbitt, who spent years in the Air Force, Air National Guard, and the Air Force Reserves, and was deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the United Arab Emirates, was deeply committed to Donald Trump’s agenda. She came to DC from California, wearing a Trump flag as a cape as she yelled at cops and tried to break in to a government building. She was killed as a couple of rioters hoisted her up.

I suppose I feel a little sad for her… that she was so radicalized that she felt the need to go to such extreme measures to try to force her will on the rest of us… It was a foolish plan that was doomed to failure.

I want to feel sorry for Ashli Babbitt, but everything I’ve read about her paints her as a very troubled woman. She was married twice. Her second husband’s ex girlfriend took out a restraining order on Babbitt for ramming her car three times on a roadway. The ex said Babbitt was screaming at her and verbally threatening her with violence. Also, Babbitt’s rank at the time she left military service is telling. She was in for fourteen years, yet department the Air Force as a senior airman. After that much time in service, most people opt to stay in so they can collect a retirement. And yet Ashli Babbitt didn’t… or couldn’t. And now she’s made a name for herself as a nut who tried to overthrow the government so her criminal hero, Donald Trump, could stay in office.

“No the fuck you will not!” Ashli Babbitt replied to [Kamala Harris on Twitter]. “No masks, no you, no Biden the kid raper, no vaccines…sit your fraudulent ass down…we the ppl bitch!”

Charming… perhaps it’s good that she’s been put out of her misery. Obviously, she was very agitated about something. And I find it funny that Trump supporters call Joe Biden a “kid raper” when their hero was a regular at Jeffrey Epstein’s private island of debauchery and was, himself, accused of raping teenaged girls who resembled his daughter.

Why wasn’t Ashli Babbitt outraged about this story?

There were three others who died, including Benjamin Philips, a 50 year old man who shared teenaged sons with his ex wife, Nicole Mun, whom he divorced in 2004. Philips had a stroke while enjoying the “festivities”. Before he died, Philips founded and ran a site for Trump supporters called Trumparoo. He organized rides to the Capitol for Trump supporters. And now his kids have lost their dad, all because he couldn’t accept that Donald Trump was voted out of office.

Whom did these people die for? A man who was partying, listening to Laura Branigan’s 80s era hit, “Gloria”, while they were all out in the streets, screaming, yelling, threatening, breaking things, and smearing blood and shit on one of our nation’s most beautiful and venerated buildings and its priceless works of art. A man who did his best to bully Georgia election officials into overturning the results of a fair election. A man who inspires ordinary people to act like terrorists and thugs, harassing people who aren’t like them as they try to walk home from work. A man who brags about hurting and molesting people. This morning, I read about Democrat Representative, Andy Kim, literally cleaning up the mess left by these marauding Trump loving thugs in the Capitol. I suspect he will be helping to clean up their mess figuratively, too, as the sane government officials do what they can to unravel Trump’s governmental Gordian knots.

Trump has already been impeached once. He has just eleven days left in office, and he’s very likely to be impeached again, or be subjected to the 25th Amendment. And he’s been banned from Twitter, while Apple and Google Play are banning the Parler app because of the hatred and vitriol spewed there. There’s no doubt, people were spun up by the negative energy of the Parler application– supposedly where conservatives can speak freely. Well… they can speak freely as long as they make money for the app’s developer and other companies. When they become a liability, the privilege of speaking freely disappears.

It always surprises me to read some of the bluster from Trump supporters screaming about freedom. They want to deny freedom to everyone else by claiming that the election was stolen, even though it clearly wasn’t. They don’t understand how other people could possibly vote against Donald Trump, their hero. Anyone who didn’t vote for Trump was obviously voting illegitimately. Well, I think those of us who still have sense all know that’s bullshit.

And now, there’s a good chance there will be more violence until Inauguration Day and possibly beyond then, which Trump has wisely vowed to skip. Nice going, Trumpers. You sure made America… well, not so great. This is not a great look. It’s shameful and embarrassing. The chaos needs to stop.

“Trump or war. Today. That simple.”

“If you don’t know how to shoot: You need to learn. NOW.”

“we will storm the government buildings, kill cops, kill security guards, kill federal employees and agents, and demand a recount.”

“Trump WILL be sworn in for a second term on January 20th!!,” said a commenter on thedonald.win, a pro-Trump online forum, on Thursday, the day after the siege. “We must not let the communists win. Even if we have to burn DC to the ground. Tomorrow we take back DC and take back our country!!”

Are these really the words of people who love freedom? I don’t think so. Meanwhile, their hero is being abandoned in droves and losing his honorary degrees… not unlike fellow womanizing narcissist Bill Cosby. Hopefully, he’ll end up behind bars like Cosby did, too. Fuck Donald Trump and his followers. They are a disgrace! I hope Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues throw the book at him.

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