As is often the case with the shitstorm – a word that has never been better suited as a descriptor – of this administration, there is so much havoc being wreaked and damage being done that you just can’t keep up. So in the vein of resorting to greatest hits collections of bands whose catalog is too vast to negotiate, I give you a short list of the stuff that has recently kicked my indignancy bone.
Pam Bondi is a disgrace. Like all of her colleagues, and I do mean all, she lies like a dog on a rug, but that barely registers these days. She is blatantly and unabashedly Trump’s judicial – more like extra-judicial since so much of it is entirely outside the law – attack dog, thus reducing the DoJ to a farce, which deserves plenty of outrage, but again just de rigueur. My specific anger this time around is at her recent performance, which is exactly what it was, on the Hill. One of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s main jobs is oversight. Oversight of the DoJ, which means oversight of her and her shenanigans. Let’s be clear, that means if they call a hearing and ask for testimony it is not a lark by a rival party. It is not only their right but a responsibility. The president is not her boss, they are. And what is her response? Tantrums, insults, gaslighting and feigned outrage. She knew exactly why she was there and what she was going to be asked about. But since her and the DoJ’s actions are indefensible, she had no sound or reasonable responses. She literally showed up with a cheat sheet with attack points for the senators who might press her. Wonderfully referred to as her “Mean Girls” Burn Book, it wasn’t just cheap shots like “washed-up attorney” and “failed politician” (this last to a Republican no less, her vitriol is the only thing about her that is bipartisan) but downright ugly up to and including accusing a Senator whose grandfather was killed in the Holocaust of anti-semitism. When she ran out of good insults she switched to Biden bashing, a standby, and deflection with non-sequiters to the economy. She was even bad at that, having to check her notes to trot out the DOW, but even then referred to it being at 50,000 dollars instead of points. I would normally shy away from also pointing out just how vile and rude she was as irrelevant to the content of her “testimony”, but it is impossible to leave out just how horribly nasty she was. A person who acted like this in virtually any corporate environment in America wouldn’t keep their job. And someone who, when called into the boss’ office, responded like this would be fired on the spot. If only.
In a remarkable display of painful irony, Republicans are now talking not only of raising the retirement age but lowering the age at which young people can join the workforce. This is of course in direct opposition to the rest of the sensible world. Progressive, enlightened, or just not evil nations are letting seniors retire sooner, have no interest in child labor and in fact are moving towards less work in general with shorter work weeks and hours and more paid leave and vacation. Oh, and pay a living wage. Because, you know, they give a shit about quality of life for their citizens. It is the same kind of madness that leads to universal health care. Damn Commies! What makes it ironic is that part of the push to keep the workforce “robust” – defined as making everyone work as much as possible for as long as possible to drive the outlandishly top heavy economy ever higher – is more necessary all the time because that same workforce is shrinking. Why shrinking, you ask? Because of their wonderful deportation and immigration policy. Let’s play this out, with Stepen Miller and a some semi-sane advisor. I know there probably is no such thing around him, but indulge the fantasy.
MILLER
Immigrants are ruining America by taking all our jobs!
SANE PERSON
But sir, they do the jobs that most Americans won’t take and for less money.
MILLER
Never! White peop – er, Americans – are perfect and will flock to those jobs if we get rid of all those nasty brown folk. Besides, they are leeches on the economy. They cost us a gazillion dollars in social services!
SP
But sir, while most of them do pay taxes, they aren’t eligible for social services so they actually help the econ-
Miller begins to sprout horns while steam slowly rises from his reddening face. The room begins to grow dark.
SP
(SP throws himself to his knees)
My apologies, Dark Lord! You are of course one hundred per cent correct as always, just like your Great Orange Master. I will never allow facts to cloud your, I mean my, judgement again. They are a menace and must be returned to their shit-hole countries by any means necessary.
MILLER
With fury and vengeance! And never mind this “worst of the worst” bullshit, they are ALL evil and must be banished. Or locked up, behind bars is good, too. (A thought occurs to him.) It might even be better. Then our prison contractor cronies can make a killing and give us a cut. Write that down.
SP
Yes, sir! But forgive me, your Evilness, won’t removing tens of millions from the workforce cripple the economy and potentially impede our plan to wring as much wealth from the underclasses as possible?
MILLER
Of course not, moronic minion, we would never let anything keep us from our riches. (He cackles at the very idea) We’ll just have the old people and children pick up the slack. They have it far too easy as it is.
SP
Holy shit you really are evil, aren’t you? Wait, sir! I meant that as a compliment! It is evil in the best way! No, no, not my face!!
Sorry, that one kinda got away from me. Trying to temper the indignance a bit. But, seriously they really are evil bastards and will metaphorically eat anyone who is dumb enough to get in their way.
The insanity of giving an agency that is widely known to be incompetent, and are as we speak under investigation for said incompetence, a new, largely untested and crazy dangerous military grade weapon is a low point even for these ass-clowns. But there it is. Customs and Border Patrol – yes, them – were given a powerful new laser that is designed to, and maybe capable of, knocking drones, even potentially airplanes out of the sky. Someone had been convinced the drones were the latest danger from the cartels, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why. Carrying drugs? Not very many. They would need way bigger ones for them to be an offensive threat. I suppose they could be used to spot patrol units to find where to cross. Okay. So let’s shoot them down with a military laser that might be able to knock down a plane. Near El Paso. What could go wrong? What went wrong is that they decided to use it – against a mylar party balloon. It was only then they decided to shut down the airspace around a major US city. For ten days! I guess if they go all in no one would question the actual reason. “They would never do something that drastic if it wasn’t justified.” Uh huh. Although faith in the guys who fire off their super-laser at a balloon might be misplaced. I can only quote Charlie Brown: “Good grief”.
Remember back in September when they started blowing up civilian boats in the Caribbean in the name of stopping the scourge of fentanyl? Oh, you know. The ones where they have no evidence, exercise no due process and use the US military to commit extra-judicial murder? You ‘member. I was outraged then that it wasn’t the biggest story in the news and that both sides of the aisle weren’t up in arms over such blatantly illegal – not to mention immoral – activity. They postured a bit, a whole bunch of lies were told, the courts dithered and eventually when newer, stinkier shit came down the pipe we stopped paying attention. Welp, they’re still at it. Yesterday brought the total number of attacks to 42 and the fatalities to 145. I won’t belabor the point because it is covered ground. As in I covered it in a post on December 6. It dismays and terrifies me that literally nothing is less true than it was two months ago and it continues unabated. If anything it’s worse because it isn’t even news anymore.
Ford recently closed down a factory in Kentucky that was making electric vehicle batteries. It had been open for four months and had been the biggest boon to the local economy, well, ever. Fifteen hundred jobs makes quite an impact. So you can imagine that when it closed in December people were pissed. Can’t blame them. Except for the fact that they pissed at Ford. Now, you can almost certainly take the very short step of logic that leads you to understand that the factory closed because Trump gutted the electric vehicle industry. And this despite the auto industry practically begging him not to do so because they had spent billions building their EV capacity. Like battery factories in Kentucky. Pretty simple really, but a county that went 64% for Trump is not, maybe ever, going to take that step. They, like their Fearless Leader, can never be wrong so while I used to ask what it would take to make them see the error of their ways, I now just ask what the fuck is wrong with them? I sometimes take a more charitable, or at least broader, view of these deluded folk but at the moment my charity is being elbowed out of the way by my anger.
Last, but certainly not least, is the latest in the horrifically long line of mass shootings. At this point nothing less than an American institution, it nonetheless should be in the forefront of our national conscience for the ongoing nonsensical tragedy that it is. This one happened to be at a high school hockey game in Rhode Island, but does it matter? In just the past six months, there have been shooting deaths at a church in Michigan, a restaurant in New Orleans, a rural neighborhood in Mississippi, and at or near university campuses in South Carolina, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. It is everywhere and literally no one is safe. Teaching recruitment is in the tank because no one in their right mind wants to be in a school. But our children don’t have a choice. When, for fuck’s sake, are we going to do something about this? During my first foray into public writing I addressed this as many times as I could stomach, of course to no appreciable effect, so am not going down that road to madness again, at least right now. But the outrage never fades, even as we become so enured we don’t even notice.
A good friend of mine said that I do indignant better than anyone, and I can’t claim she’s wrong. It has a weird satisfaction at times, I suppose as I kind of catharsis, but I can’t imagine it is good way to be all the time. But as a favorite bumper sticker said: If you’re not pissed off you’re not paying attention. Never more true. Thanks for reading.