IN YOUR FACE, SCUMBAG!

Where did we go so wrong?  For 200+ years Americans have admittedly done a fair amount of bickering among ourselves (our Civil War being the most dramatic example), but we somehow managed to get along well enough to keep us moving forward to become a land of freedom and opportunity for all (well, some more than others). 

But somewhere during the 1980's (?) things began to change.  We became less tolerant of anyone who disagreed with whatever we believed.  We became intensely polarized.  Today liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, have built a no-man's-land mine field between themselves.  Some of you who may be more politically knowledgeable than me might disagree, but as I recall it the one person who most personified this winner-take-all, take-no-prisoners brand of partisan politics was Rep Tom DeLay of Texas.

DeLay was the Republican House Whip.  He was the guy who "whipped" all his party members into voting exactly as the party leadership said, or else.  You crossed him at your own risk.

Our national leaders after WWII understood it was in our best interest to NOT totally humiliate our recently vanquished enemies.  We allowed the Emperor of Japan to maintain his title, and helped the Europeans rebuild via the Marshall Plan.  Unfortunately Tom DeLay missed history class the day that was discussed.  By the time he made it to a leadership position in Congress he had earned a reputation as the meanest SOB in town.  He was never interested in negotiating with the Democrats, but only in stomping them.  He wanted to steamroll them, kick 'em in the teeth, scalp them, and finally disembowel them and spit on their carcass.

Each party dug in their heels.  The hard-core "base" of each side refused to believe that their guys could ever do anything wrong, and that the other side could ever do anything right.  For 8 years Republicans were constantly at Bill Clinton's throat, and Democrats returned the favor by constantly sniping at Dubya Bush for his 8 years in office.  Each thought they had been wronged, and it was 100% the other parties fault.  They themselves were always right, regardless of the facts.  (Truth was there was plenty of blame to go around.)

We moved from the gutter into the sewer when Barack Obama was elected President.  The Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell, openly admitted it was his goal in life to see to it that Obama was a one-term President.  Many even refused to believe Obama was American born.  Anything the Democrats proposed, the Republicans automatically opposed, sight unseen.  If any Republicans might have wanted to participate in the drafting of ObamaCare, their leadership took them aside and beat them senseless.  "NO COLLABORATING WITH THE ENEMY!"

Now the tables are reversed.  Republicans are proposing a replacement healthcare plan, and they wouldn't in a million years throw the Democrats a bone to get them to play ball.  If they should be offered a seat at the table, I'm sure the Democratic leadership would put any party defector before a firing squad.

And here we are in 2017.  Donald Trump is President, and his family and administration are under attack.  The smoke and stench of something going on between Russia and his administration, if not the President personally, is pretty powerful.  The Republican base refuses to even acknowledge anything smells, and the Democratic base is ready to start build gallows.  As Republicans and their media stooges (FOX News) see it, the crime is not that they did it, but that they got caught because someone leaked it to the other side's media stooges.  "HOW DARE THEY CATCH US!"

IMO we've pretty much hit bottom.  Today our choice is between the Party of Oil  and the Party of Water....they will never mix.  The best quote I've heard in months was this morning when a commentator on TV, a Republican, called Washington politicians "the lowest form of human life".  Too harsh?  I think not.

Oh, and Tom DeLay?  He was indicted and convicted for money laundering in 2011 and sentenced to 3 years in prison.  However, in 2013 his conviction was overturned by a highly partisan (surprise!) Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.  

I'm honestly not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but just a realist.  Individually we're wonderful people, willing to work together to better our neighborhoods and communities and schools.  But the minute we put on a red hat or a blue hat, we turn into animals.  If civil discourse isn't actually yet dead, it's definitely on life support.  Hurts to hear, doesn't it?

S

Whatcha gonna do?

Life's a bitch.  Everyone feels stress of one degree or another on a regular basis.  The single mom wonders how she's going to feed her kids with payday still a week away.  The owner of a small business hopes he can make payroll on the 1st.  Any of us would probably freak if we got a hospital bill or a "tuition due" notice demanding tens of thousands of dollars by Friday.

Can you imagine the stress a President of the United States feels when his country is attacked on his watch, or when the world's economy is crumbling and everyone is looking to him to fix it?  Just look at these President's before and after photos.  Talk about stress!  Yikes!  

There have been times in history when the President was unable to continue in his job due to illness or injury.  Woodrow Wilson, for example, suffered a stroke, and Dwight D. Eisenhower had a heart attack.  In 1965 our Constitution was amended to spell out who would take over in such an emergency.

When Ronald Reagan was the victim of an assassination attempt in 1981, the 25th Amendment kicked in and VP George H.W. Bush took over temporarily until the President recovered and could return to work.  

It's pretty easy to see when a President is disabled when he/she has bullet holes in them or is in a full body cast, but how can we tell when a President is MENTALLY incapable of performing the duties of the office?

The 25th Amendment says the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet can simply declare a President disabled and the Veep takes over.  If the President contests this, Congress decides with a 2/3 vote required to turn the country over to the VP.  But how can we tell if someone has gone "nucking futs"?  A CAT scan can't see it.  An X-ray can't see it.  A blood test won't show anything.  It's only the OPINION of a mental health expert.  It's a very inexact science.

Does a judge get a say if the President is to be declared mentally incompetent, as in the civilian world?  (The 25th Amendment doesn't mention it.)  If so, which judge?  The Supreme Court?  How long might that take?  Who runs our country in the interim?  Who has control of our nuclear codes until it's decided?  If it's a decision outside judicial review, does that mean we're putting it all in the hands of the 535 most distinguished *snort* scoundrels in the land?  (Now that should cause a spike in Imodium sales!)

I believe this is something we need to give serious thought to.   As they say, "Plan for the worst, hope for the best".

S

They said WHAT???

Will somebody please explain to me what has happened to the Republican Party....the GOP....the party of Eisenhower and Reagan and all the Bush's?  (Yeah, 'ol George W is lookin' pretty good all of a sudden, huh?)

Why yes, yes I can get BOTH feet in my mouth at the same time.

Republican front runner Donald Trumph's most recent epiphany is that he wants to prohibit any/all Muslim's from entering the USA "until our representatives can figure out what is going on."  Now, I understand he's pretty much fed up with Muslims, and a lot of others agree with him, but he needs to learn when to keep his big fat pie hole shut!

Lets think this through:  We want to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria.  That by all accounts will require "boots on the ground".  We don't want those to be American boots on the ground.  We want the countries in that region....Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, etc....to put their boots on the ground.  So we just insult the hell out of them by lumping them in with the ISIS thugs, Muslims all?  Brilliant! 

I understand the concept of pandering for votes, but damn! 

 Our next Fuhrer?

And it gets worse....Candidate/Senator* Ted Cruz today said, "We will carpet bomb them (ISIS) into oblivion.  I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out."  Yeah, he said that!  

The last time I heard anyone talking about making the Mid East "glow", it was in a comedy routine on the Don Imus show.  That character was funny.  This guy Cruz is DANGEROUS!

Please God, just make them both go away!

S

* On behalf of all my fellow Texans I'd like to offer our sincere apology for not euthanizing Ted years ago.

Kinda makes that Mars/Venus thing look silly, doesn't it?

I know many people who simply don't watch/read the news at all because they find it depressing.  Oddly enough I find some of the most disturbing world news to be intensely interesting.  Since before 9/11 I had an interest in terrorism, and after 9/11 I had a plethora of books on the subject to feed my fascination.

To me, keeping up with events in the Mid-East and Europe today is better than a trip to Disney World. *so is having a root canal....bad example*   I'm always trying to figure out why people think the way they do.  Based on the news coming out of the Mid-East, it's pretty obvious to me the Eastern brain and the Western brain don't come off the same assembly line.

I recently saw reports by journalists on the front line along the Iraq/Syria border, and another inside Jordan.  In both cases a crowd was drawn to the TV cameras where average townspeople seemed to be all excited about the rapidly growing ISIS movement and said they would love to go join the fight themselves.

Were these sincere sentiments, or were they just wanting to be on the record as ISIS supporters because they can see the little white Toyota's with the machine guns mounted on top getting closer?  (I thought the Jordanians were all up-in-arms over the ISIS murder of their captured pilot a few weeks ago?)

What are they thinking?  "Oh wow!  How cool is that?  Lopping people's heads off....that's one bad-assed M____ F_____.  THAT'S what I want to be!  I want to walk down the street and have people nod at me and whisper to their kids, 'That guy is a head lopper.  If you work hard and study diligently maybe someday you can be a head lopper, too.'" 

I don't get it.  It must be an East brain/West brain thing.  I don't see the appeal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Do you think George W. Bush is pacing around his Preston Hollow home in North Dallas these days saying, "OMG....what have I done?"  Don't get me wrong.  I'm probably one of the few who honestly believes W didn't deliberately lie to us to get us into war.  I knew of him when he was the Texas governor and found him to be a decent, bipartisan, fair chief executive.  

I can see him wanting to kick someone's butt after 9/11....it's just human nature when a sucker-punch attack happens on your watch.  However I think he had some devious, sinister advisers, the most visible being Richard "The Dick" Cheney and his mafiosi sidekick, Donald "The Don" Rumsfeld.  

They assembled the mosaic of available intelligence to show The Boss that a Mid-East adventure was justified.  By the time W figured out (?) he had stepped in doo-doo up to his eyeballs it was too late.  All he could come up with is "We're trying to bring democracy to the Mid-East."  *snicker*  It's hard to let go of a tiger when you're holding on to its tail for dear life, huh George? 

The idea of bringing "democracy" to the Mid-East is, was, and always will be a farce.  The last thing those backward people think about is democracy.  Self preservation says you get all you can from where ever you can.  Evil as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gadaffi and the rest were, they did keep a lid on things in the region.  There's something to be said for the status quo.  Washington obviously missed that memo.

S