Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

Fake News = Real Murders

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The liberty of the press is essential to the security of the state. ~ John Adams

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech. ~ Benjamin Franklin

I could go on and on, adding quote after quote, but the point is clear: having fled from, and fought, tyranny for freedom, the founding fathers of this country knew how vital the free flow of information to the people was to the success of a nation.

Yesterday five of those information gatherers and disseminators were slaughtered.

The offices of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis became a killing field as the second amendment murdered the first.

Jarrod Ramos, 38 years old, of Laurel, Maryland, entered the building and according to witnesses began his assault by shooting through the glass door of the newsroom.  Police arrived within 60 seconds, but he had already taken the lives of five journalists.  And as all cowards do, he hid when they came in.  He was found hiding under a desk.

Preliminary information shows that he had a longstanding beef, as it were, with the Gazette.  They had covered a story - THEIR JOB - of his year long, threatening harassment of a woman online - she did not seek out his attentions, nor did she want them.  She describes it as a "yearlong nightmare."  In return for them DOING THEIR JOB, Ramos filed a defamation suit against columnist Eric Hartley, Capital Gazette Communications, and the paper’s former editor and publisher Thomas Marquardt.

But, as the truth is the best defense, his case against them was dismissed.  Thus began his years of online harassment and threats against the paper and its employees.  “I was seriously concerned he would threaten us with physical violence,” Marquardt said. “I remember telling our attorneys, ‘This is a guy who is going to come in and shoot us.’ "

I stress again, these people were simply doing their job.  And to all the miscreants, incels from the bowels of 4Chan, and entitled ones everywhere I say, Do not do the crime if you do not wish to see your pathetic self outed by the press.  

Just as that woman owed Ramos neither her time, attention, or affections, a newspaper does not owe you anonymity when you cross the line into the criminal.

Something our Oval occupier and his band of idiots do not grasp.

Since the beginning of his campaign for office, Donald Trump has assaulted the press.  Pointing them out, threatening them at his rallies, encouraging his cultish followers to go after them, and of course, throwing his favorite capitalized words around - FAKE NEWS.

FAKE NEWS get tweeted or slobbered by him each and every time journalists uncover more of his proven mendacity, criminal dealings, and growing list of connections to the Kremlin.  Anything he doesn't like is immediately branded FAKE NEWS.  Ask a hard hitting question?  FAKE NEWS.  Report anything accurately?  FAKE NEWS.  

And his mantra has worked on his followers.  He and his administration acolytes have also joined in the chorus of FAKE NEWS to the point that his MAGAts immediately disbelieve any reporting that questions their Dear Leader.

Fine.  There has always been, and will always be, an easily led, not-too-bright, suspicious of everything contingent in this country.  Flat earthers, birthers, grassy knollers, 911-ers, mass shooting-ers, and on and on.  Anything with too much science, facts, big words, or too horrific for their small minds to absorb, is immediately cast aside in favor of easily disproved, but much more entertaining conspiracies.

It is easy to laugh them off, marginalize them, let them spin their webs in their dirty little corners of the internet.  But what has happened under Trump cannot be ignored or left unattended.  He has repeatedly targeted the press, just four nights ago at another of his masturbatory rallies calling them the "enemy of the people,"  slurring them via his Twitter account, continually ratcheting up his attacks against them.

It is dangerous.  It is demagoguery.  It is deadly.

Each day we see video after video of his MAGAts attacking people in this country for speaking a language they do not understand, for daring to breath while brown, repeating his bullshit of "rapists and thieves."  And each time, their vile, spittle laden attacks invoke their Tangerine Taint.  HE is their justification for their attacks.  HE has given their racism and bigotry freedom.  HE emboldens them to threaten anyone who would dare question his behavior, his lies, his conflicts of interest.

See her in her pretty little MAGA hat?  She was screaming at this 14 year old boy who was defending immigrants at a city council meeting in Simi Valley this week.  Among the gems she shrieked at him?  "You are going to be the first deported" and "dirty Mexican."   What the fuck is wrong with you people?  Look at his face.  Then look at the rabid hatred pouring out of hers.  HE IS A CHILD.   And you want civility?  Pound sand, you horrific wastes of oxygen.

And as we have seen repeatedly - when a public figure with an easily led following bangs a drum over and over - people get hurt.  Bill O'Reilly, on 28 broadcasts of his then show, The O'Reilly Factor, referred to Dr. George Tiller - one of three physicians in the country who performed late term abortions - as "Tiller the baby killer."  George Tiller was gunned down in church.  Since the nightmare of Trump has begun, government studies show that the actual number of hate crimes in 2017 may be as high as 250,000 – more than 40 times the 6,121 incidents that the FBI reports for 2016.  And in the final three months of 2016, an FBI report shows there was a 25% increase in targeted violence against Trump's favorite targets - Muslims, black people, Hispanics, and LGBT.  And let us not forget that we are at the one year anniversary of his Nazi dog whistles resulted in the death of Heather Heyer in North Carolina.

His continual cries of FAKE NEWS have continually encouraged his slobbering masses to go after journalists.  These same hypocrites who are crying about civility after Sarah Sanders was denied a meal have done these things:

- Journalist Kurt Eichenwald, who has epilepsy, opened a message sent to him on Twitter from a Trump supporter.  It contained the words “You deserve a seizure for your posts” and a blinding strobe gif.  It sent him immediately into horrific seizures.  That piece of excrement, John Rayne Rivello, was tracked down and arrested.

- Rick Wilson, a GOP consultant and frequent news contributor, who is also very critical of Trump, had his daughter threatened with rape by Trump supporters.  

- Greg Gianforte, the GOPer and Trump fanboy, who was running for a House seat in Montana, body slammed a reporter.  MAGAts lapped that up and he went on to win the seat.

- Alt right fame whore, Milo Yiannopoulos is on the record as contacting two news outlets and stating he wanted to see vigilantes “gunning journalists down on sight.”   (Oh, how poor MIlo ran to the microphones yesterday to try to spin that.  Sorry, asshole, you said it, and there are consequences.)

- Last night, in the constipated bowels of the internet - 4Chan, Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter - MAGAts were posting things like this as they celebrated the murders of those Gazette journalists, "dead journalists can't spread leftist propaganda."

Listen up, just because you don't like the facts, doesn't make them propaganda. Facts have a liberal bias, but they also do not care which side of an argument they support.  FACTS just ARE.  FOX is not news, MAGAts.  It never has been.  It identifies itself as entertainment due to being dragged into court.  Countries ban their broadcasts because it is NOT news, but lies, incitement, and true propaganda.

Sean Hannity is not giving you news.  He is throwing you red meat, bullshit, and garbage, yet you eat it up like an overflowing plate of Golden Corral's finest.  The bodies of those gunned down were not yet cold yesterday when Hannity went on air blaming Maxine Waters for what happened.  Maxine Waters, who simply called for people to exercise their first amendment rights to peaceful protest against the hideous policies of this political cartel currently in power.  She never incited violence.  She never targeted the free press.  But Sean, Trump's other asshole, had to get the spin out.  As stupid as these reprobates are, they do know what they are doing, what they are saying, and when it blows up in their faces, when someone actually takes their words and turns them into violent action - they spin, point fingers, and try to escape blame as fast as possible.

Sorry, but words have consequences.  And repeating them over and over only serves to ratchet up the potential for violence.

Journalists in this country are scared.  Covering the truth should be lauded, not hunted down.  But they have been targeted by Trump - an ignorant, careless, craven coward, hiding behind a following of equally ignorant, careless, craven cowards. 

As unbalanced parties of every description can never tolerate a free inquiry of any kind, when employed against themselves, the license, and even the most temperate freedom of the press, soon excite resentment and revenge. -John Adams

That is not FAKE NEWS, that is now sadly, provably, blood stained TRUTH.

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

In memory of those slain for trying to inform.  You will not be forgotten, and your deaths will not be in vain.

The World Turned Upside Down

According to legend, after their surrender at Yorktown, the British played a ballad from their homeland called The World Turned Upside Down. 

It was originally published as a protest song in the 1640s when Parliament was threatening the populace with the outlawing of traditional English Christmas celebrations, claiming Christmas was a solemn affair and should be treated as such.  But as protest songs go, it was a pretty good lyrical choice as the upstart colonies defeated the British soldiers.

The Sons of Liberty, the colonists who had settled here, the rabble rousers, the original #Resistance, if you will, had overcome. They had drawn their line in the sand and sent the British packing.  The world had turned upside down.

Today we are staring down the barrel of a metaphorical musket engraved with those very words.

In power is an ill equipped, ignorant, antagonistic, hatefilled, money hungry blowhard who would be King if he had his way.  Supporting him are millions of dim, meanspirited, racist, shortsighted reprobates who belong to Cult 45.  Nothing he does opens their eyes.  The more vile, the better as they care only about clinging to their "win" and making the "libtards" upset.  He is also supported by a political party of degenerates who care not about their oaths to office, the Constitution of these United States, or about repercussions for this nation down the road.  

James Madison, one of this nation's founding fathers, stressed the importance of the creation and implementation of checks and balances in the Constitution as imperative to protect this nation's citizens from the abuse of a central government.  He saw what could happen, the idea of a Trump being no different than the King they fled and fought.  He and the others designed a system to thwart a consolidation of power that could operate unchecked.

James Madison saw this danger.  Yet here we are, a party completely ignoring the duties with which it is charged.  A party interested in one thing:  ABUSE.  

GOP leadership cares only about clinging to, and consolidating power, lining their individual pockets, and making their billionaire donors richer.  They are complicit in the horrors happening at the border.  They have cheered and laughed as jokes are now being told about the children who are lost (yes, Sessions stood at a podium making jokes and his crowd of sycophants laughed).  They abused their power to hold off on Merrick Garland's right to hearings after being nominated to the SCOTUS by President Obama, getting Gorsuch installed instead.  They bragged about a tax bill they did not understand, which now is pushing us to the largest national debt since WWII.

They still stand idly by, ignoring the water situation that continues to exist in Flint.  They made no effort to help Puerto Rico, turning their backs on the thousands of US citizens who perished there after the hurricane.  They now lecture us on civility because their head liar was asked to leave a restaurant.  Paul Ryan, who laughed and applauded a bakery owner who once refused to serve Joe Biden, now calls for Maxine Waters to apologize for encouraging the people to use their first amendment rights and protest these horrid Trumpers where they are found.  

Yes, that happened.  Chris McMurray, the owner of Crumb & Get It, was invited to introduce Paul Ryan at a rally during the campaign in which Ryan was running for VP.  Hypocrite much?  Not to mention the deafening silence as their stubby fingered, orange sack of pus constantly tweets insults.

The examples can go on and on - but the upshot is the same.  We are living upside down now.  And today it just got worse.

Today Justice Anthony Kennedy announced he will be retiring from SCOTUS at the end of July.  With his exit, Trump is now poised to alter the face of this nation for generations moving forward.  For those of you who eschew the news or turn away from the import of such things, let me make it plain for you - Trump is now in the position to stack the court with religious zealots, small minds, and jurisprudence that is heavily biased by individual opinion, not law.

Now, Justice Kennedy was not nominated by a Democrat.  Not at all.  Ronald Reagan put him forth.  Kennedy is a conservative, but has proven over the course of decades that he values his position and his privilege to protect the Constitution and the citizenry.  That means he has leaned both left and right in interpreting and applying law and voting.  As for the GOP that put him there?  I think we can all at least agree that the GOP of almost 40 years ago is not the GOP of today.  The GOP of our grandparents had political perspective differences with those across the aisle, but they also had spine, integrity, appreciation for the Constitution.  Think not?  See Watergate.  The Republicans who held Nixon up to the law were actual patriots.

No more.

GOPers are supplicants.  Opportunists.  Racists.  Misogynists. Power hungry religious fanatics.  And if a nominee is allowed to be seated before November, say goodbye to much of the freedoms, liberties, and power of the Constitution.

Mitch McConnell, who sealed his reputation as a wholly bought out GOPer whore when he refused to hold hearings for Obama's Scalia replacement, had the balls to say this today, "It's imperative that the president's nominee be treated fairly."

Fuck civility.  Eat a bag of dicks, Mitch.

If the Dems in office have any sense, any spine, any true concern for the precipice upon which we now stand, they will fight this at every turn.  They will force McConnell to stick to his own "rule" that a justice should not be seated in an election year.

If Trump succeeds in getting another on the bench, we are literally RBG and her last breath away from annihilating the country as we know it.  Gay marriage, LGBTQIA equal rights and protections, the Affordable Care Act, more travel bans, abortion outlawed as Roe v Wade will be in danger of being overturned, more immigrants crisis and child kidnapping at our borders.  A stacked court will run roughshod over it all.

A SCOTUS seat is a lifetime appointment.  Do you MAGAts, protest voters, Jill Stein lackeys understand that?  Every single one of you who stayed home from the polls, who wrote in a candidate, voted for Bernie or Jill - THIS is what you did.

And none of this is new information.  The very real dangers were all out there the whole time.  We warned you to look down the road.  We begged you to see past your own skin color, sexual orientation, religion and THINK about what your vote meant.  But no.  Despite the utter bullshit that was the "Hillary is just as bad" narrative, you ate it up.  Anyone who was dropped from my life for how you voted?  Let me make it clear to you now:

FUCK YOU.  You know my family, you claimed to love my son for YEARS.  Yet you sacrificed his safety so that you could vote for neither Trump nor Hillary.  Stop sending me Facebook friend requests - dropping your ass wasn't an accident.  Deleting you from my life is meant to protect my child.  

But his life aside - you also put the lives of immigrants, Muslims, black people, Hispanic people, ill people, LGBT people, children  in danger.  

You own this.  Not just the MAGAts.  And they are beyond any rational dialogue - so fuck them to the wind.  I don't care.  Their cries for civility?  Look in a goddamned mirror.

Civility is the last thing you are going to get.  You cry about your favorite mean girl being denied something deep fried, yet say nothing when one of your shitstained brethren was indicted today for threatening to murder Maxine Waters.

You are too stupid to even know how stupid is what you've done.  Your jobs are leaving this country.  BECAUSE OF TRUMP.  Your crops are withering in the fields.  BECAUSE OF TRUMP.  Your healthcare is disintegrating, and god forbid you have anything preexisting.  BECAUSE OF TRUMP.  And on and on.

This country, while imperfect, was once a leader, a place where opportunity existed, freedoms were envied.  A place where people could come and chase that American dream.  A place that gave a damn about others in this world.  No more.

We are a laughingstock.  A punchline.  A blob of land led by a blob of chicken grease which simply needs marginalized, left to fuck itself over, no help needed.

Today is bad.  Make no mistake.  But the thought that it is about to get exponentially worse?  Anyone with any sense should be sickened and very scared.

What have we become?  With all apologies to James Madison, maybe we should have lost at Yorktown.  Because now, the world has absolutely turned upside down.

You Do NOT Believe In God

About a week ago I wrote of the chest pounding being done by many who posted some variant on these words as they viewed the pictures of children separated from their parents at our border:

"This is NOT who we are."

I wrote of our country's history of taking what we want, riding roughshod over those in our way, the facts of our founding being drenched in the blood of others we deemed expendable.  And that how what we are witnessing is not anathema to us at all.

"We have allowed history to repeat itself.  We are back to who we were.  I used to think we are better than this.  Not anymore."

This IS who we are.

We are a country that has tried to be better, to forge a brighter way, to provide a path, a light for other countries to follow, aspire to.  But we have fallen.  Fallen back into the hatred, pomposity, hubris, and violence upon which we were founded.

Like an abusive partner who gets caught and swears to "never hit you again," we are hitting again.  Over and over.  Targeting those deemed lesser, weak, not worthy.  Lashing out at the most helpless in our global society.  The impoverished, the frightened, and now, the children.

I have made no secret as to my feelings about those who rallied around Trump during his campaign of hate.  THEY are the lesser thans.  They care not one whit about anyone else, caring only about keeping this country white; keeping liberals up in arms; keeping their trophy for having used ignorance and violence and aggression to put a wholly unfit for humanity, let alone public office, reprobate into the Oval.

They still go to his masturbatory rallies and chant the nonsensical and never-going-to-happen "Lock her up!"  They laugh at minorities who are gunned down, threatened, discriminated against.  They prop up a pussy grabbing, grifting, shithole all the while plastering the words "Jesus" and "saved" and "God" and "Christian" in their profiles on Facebook and Twitter.

They are the least godly people I have ever witnessed in my 52 years on this orb.

That they have loudly and proudly supported the kidnapping of children from their parents?  They are soulless.  Period.  And I will now say it flat out - they do NOT believe in God.

It is not enough to say they are not "real" Christians.   That much has been evident for a very long time.  The truth is, they do not believe in the deity behind which they hide.  I know this with complete certainty.

Because if they did, they would fear their own actions.

Because if they did, they would fear the consequences when they die.

Because if they did, they would know they are going to Hell.  For all eternity.

I may not go to church anymore, but I have never forgotten what I was taught.   And laughing while children are taken from their parents; defending a policy of genocide - and yes, that IS what is going on; and daring to walk into a church pew each Sunday while cheering the pain of others?  Well, the God I was taught - the Christian God - has no time for that shit.  His words are plain. His expectations clear.

"And the King answering shall say to them, Verily, I say to you, Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me." 

He doesn't qualify that with "unless they are brown."  Or "unless they knocked on your border and were poor and dirty."  Or "unless they can't speak your language."

He says that what you do to the least - meaning the poor, the helpless, the scared - YOU DO TO HIM.

And right now, what you godless, heathen, Trump worshipping shitheels are doing is terrorizing HIM, traumatizing HIM, marginalizing HIM, stealing the heart out of HIM, losing HIM.  Because that is what you are allowing to be done, cheering being done, to thousands of children and parents whose biggest sin is they are fleeing their homelands to try to keep their children safe.

Do you understand that part, even remotely?

I don't care what bullshit Tucker Carlson and the bigot brigade over at FOX are feeding you, these people are NOT all MS-13 gang members.  They are not all drug mules.  They are not hiding behind children to get into the country.  The facts are out there - less than 1% of the people who are caught or present themselves seeking asylum are actually perpetrating some sort of family fraud to get into the country.

That is a verified statistic FROM THE BORDER.

The rest are risking their lives to try to get their children to safety.  Which sadly is bullshit because this country is no longer any guarantee of life, freedom, liberty, sanctuary.  

And for the record, NO, we "libruls" do not want open borders, as your orange gourd made of sloth, avarice and chicken grease continually lies to you.  What we want is a fair immigration system that incorporates the rhetoric we still dare to espouse, dare to display at the Statue of Liberty.  We want to be that beacon on the hill that understands the humanity in every person, that seeks to shelter not destroy, to offer hope not horror.  To lift that lamp beside the golden door that opens to reveal a nation that values the word FAMILY and understands why tearing them apart is state sponsored terrorism.

As report after report, picture after picture, and sound recording have come out, you godless bags of garbage turn your backs, scoff, cry FAKE NEWS, call these innocent children crisis actors.  The reports are now coming out, along with lawsuits, about these children being drugged against their will inside the facilities being kept from our view by armed guards, and black paper on windows.  

These children - the count is now estimated to be 2,500 - have been spirited away from their parents, flown to 17 different states in this country, many under cover of darkness, and installed in facilities with no understanding of why, where they are, where their parents are.  

And you are ok with it.  You defend it.

Because you do not believe in God.

Officials are now on the record stating that the lack of accountability, tracking, follow up means that there is no guarantee all these children will ever be reunited with their parents.

And you are ok with that.

BECAUSE YOU DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.

If you did, you would be horrified, you would be incensed, outraged, losing sleep, demanding this stop, be rectified, these children being given back to their parents be the highest of priorities.

Instead, you comment, Tweet, brag, scoff - "If they didn't want to lose their brats they shouldn't have snuck in."

Yes, that is an actual Tweet.  From someone with the words "Jesus" "saved" and "Christian" in their profile.

Sorry, but you bottom dwellers are no more Christians than you are patriots than you are HUMAN.

What is so missing, so broken in you that you cannot even begin to equate the love you have for your "brats" with what they feel for their children?  What is so corrupt in your hard drive that you think brown people deserve to have their children stolen?  Have their babies ripped from their arms?  That you can so callously write off any pain this causes?

You do not believe in God.  You can't.  Because if you did, your afterlife lust for Heaven would have you behaving in the polar opposite fashion than you currently are.  If you believed, you would be hurting for these parents.  You would be paying attention to every doctor warning of the irreparable harm being done to these small children.  The very thought of a 6 month old lying alone in a crib and being changed once every 12 hours, would move you to action.  You would be afraid to NOT step up, step in, demand justice, help, show humanity.

Because your God demands it of you.  

But you do not.  You will not.  

You only believe in YOU.  And as long as you aren't targeted, hurting, in need - you do not give a fuck about anyone else.

That's ok though.  It's your choice.  

Just know that we see you for what you are, what you are not.   And we know you do not believe in God. 

But in all fairness? HE does not believe in YOU either.

THIS is your god.

Under His Lie

In the award winning, yet highly-disturbing-in-its-increasing-probability, series, The Haidmaid's Tale, one of the required Gilead utterances of the maids is "Under His Eye."  It is a reminder that someone is always watching, and that "someone" is some backchannel to God.

Basically, it is oppression.  A reminder that any step out of line, over the line can mean instant punishment up to and including death.

In the writing of this dystopian tale, author Margaret Atwood made it very clear that she only incorporated behaviors, treatments, aggressions, oppressions, and punishments that this world had already seen practiced in real life.  She imagined nothing, simply infused the real life horrors into her storytelling.

The series is stomach churning, nightmarish, and as I said above, disturbing in how quiet echos are being heard throughout our reality these days.  The constant attempts to insert God - ONE GOD, THEIR GOD - into what is supposed to be secular governance.  The incessant chipping away at a female's bodily autonomy.  People who are not white being sent elsewhere.  (The series does not depict this, however, the original writing does).  The drumbeats to push women and their rights back into the kitchens and delivery rooms.  The heinous and proud TRUMPeting that LGBTQIA people are NOT people, that they are lesser than, that they deserve to be targeted.  

And now, the administration orchestrated and sanctioned stealing of children from their parents.

These ALL happen in Haidmaid's Tale, which means they have all happened in history.  That this one is happening here, in this country that is supposed to be a beacon of light, freedom, civility, and hope?  Well, we are damned.

And the fact that every day, Trump tries to shift blame for these actions to someone else?

Well, we are now living Under His Lie.

This repeated verbal shell game of Trump and his lackeys is done with one aim - distract, divert, obfuscate.  They are following the Goebbel's playbook of “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

Most people are familiar with this quote.  But it goes on...

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” 

The truth is the mortal enemy of the lie.

That is why it is "vitally important" for the majority - yes, MAGAts, that's right, regardless of that lie he keeps vomiting at you, YOU are NOT the majority - to continue to seek the truth, protect the truth, disseminate the truth.

And the truth is, children are being force separated from their parents, spirited away, and kept in cages.

Yes, Steve Doocy, you piece of shit shill - they ARE cages.  Despite you trying to split hairs with this bullshit: "Some have referred to them as 'cages,' but, keep in mind, this is a great, big warehouse facility where they built walls out of chain link fences." 

 

Hmmm, chain link fence.  Enclosed.  Cannot get out.  I would say the dog is CAGED, Steve.

Hmmm, chain link fence.  Enclosed.  Cannot get out.  I would say they are CAGED, Steve.  Only, the dog has it better because he is outside in the fresh air.

The world is watching.  And we deserve every bit of condemnation, every knife-through-the-heart descriptor being levied against us.  “This is a spectacularly cruel policy, where frightened children are being ripped from their parent’s arms and taken to overflowing detention centers, which are effectively cages,” Amnesty International Americas Director Erika Guevara-Rosas said. “This is nothing short of torture. The severe mental suffering that officials have intentionally inflicted on these families for coercive purposes, means that these acts meet the definitions of torture under both U.S. and international law.”

"This is nothing short of torture."

And the MAGAts who laugh and tweet and comment their bile that these people deserve it because they are all illegal?  Look, we know that anyone who supports this outhouse with eyes is soulless, and woefully ignorant.  WE KNOW THAT.  But the lies they buy, and the ignorance they spread about even the basics is boggling.  

In the limited contact outside human rights organizations have been allowed, the truth is shameful.

Amnesty said that the organization had interviewed 17 families who have been separated from their children and found that “all but three of them had entered the USA legally to request asylum.”

ASYLUM IS A LEGAL PROCESS, MAGAts.  It means they have presented themselves LEGALLY to this country, to this government.  They are following the rules, as much as that truth makes your heads hurt.  And they are still having their children stolen.

While this administration's inability to form a coherent story or even a sentence has become legend, they are completely stepping in their own verbal shitdrool with every utterance on this policy.

Trump blames Democrats.

But Jeff Sessions is on record, on CAMERA detailing how this policy will provide deterrent, "If people don't want to be separated from their children, they should not bring them with them."

Melania Trump, she of the very questionable immigration manipulating - genius, anyone? - crawled out of her hidey hole to opine that she "hates" seeing children taken from their parents.  

White House neo-Nazi Stephen Miller says “It was a simple decision." 

John Kelly blew it off with "children will be 'put into foster care or whatever ."  What a guy...

Kellyanne Conway tried to fake being a human while defending the administration with this on the news shows, "As a mother, as a Catholic, as somebody who has a conscience ... I will tell you that nobody likes this policy."   

Trump shitweeted this ass nugget, "It is the Democrats fault for being weak and ineffective with Boarder Security and Crime. Tell them to start thinking about the people devastated by Crime coming from illegal immigration. Change the laws!"

Again with the Democrats being to blame.  For the record, the Democrats are trying to put forth legislation that puts an end to this inhumanity, YOUR INHUMANITY, Donald.  And not a single Republican will sign on.

But as to you repeating your lie, Doebbels?

Your own Homeland Security Secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, who spent her weekend tweeting that the separations are a lie, is now on the record as saying, "We will not apologize for the job we do..." and that despite her ramblings all weekend that the children were not being taken, now says, "They are very well taken care of" according to "some of the highest standards in the country."

I see.

Well, then I challenge every single GOP lawmaker who is defending this policy with the Bible, writing it off as a nothing burger, and now claiming these kids are "well taken care of" to put their own children in these places for a period of four weeks.  With just the clothes on their backs.  Regardless of age.  Male or female.  With no notice, no explanation.  These children must be caught unawares, and forcefully pulled from their GOPer parents.  Tears ignored.  Pleas for mommy and daddy must go unanswered.

And you will not be allowed contact for the duration.  In fact, as they will become some of the 11,000 children currently in federal concentration camps, you will not even be allowed to know where they are, which state they have wound up in, and who is taking care of them - food, bathing, nurturing, medical needs - NOTHING.

Surely, if there is no cause for all this alarm; if the press is inflating the situation; if the children are being cared for by the "highest standards in the country," you charlatans should have zero problem surrendering your children.  No worries about their safety.  You won't miss a wink of sleep wondering if the person bathing them is also raping them.  So Disney musical-like will be their experience in custody that, hell, you and your spouse may want to take a vacay of your own!  

Think of it!  Four whole weeks without care.  No stories to read over and over.  No hours spent preparing meals.  No clothes to wash, bedrooms to clean.  No cartoon movies to be subjected to repeatedly.  No bothersome tears to wipe when they skin their knee.  Nothing but freedom, peace, quiet.

What's that?  You would miss them?  They are your heart?  You have to know where they are at all times in order to breathe?  You have taught them "stranger danger"?  They are autistic?  Have diabetes?  Are still breastfeeding?

FUCK YOU, and FUCK YOU TWICE.

These are exactly the fears, heartache, and nightmares you have plunged these parents into.  The horrors that would fill your mind, fill theirs.  The ache that won't let go of their hearts?  No different than what would befall yours.  The feeling that your limbs have been ripped from your body?  THE VERY SAME.

The color of their skin does not change the content of their hearts, the love for their offspring, the 24/7 fears for their safety, security.

The only place it is different is in your morally bankrupt souls, if you have souls at all.  In your heartless shells, you do not consider them to be your equal.  Because you can afford travel soccer and they dared to birth a child who can only grown up to kick rocks in the street.  Because you sleep in a gated community, and they are at our gates seeking asylum.  Because your children get Gold Stars in their private kindergartens for counting to ten, while their children get a gold star for waking up another sunrise, for outliving another dangerous night, for living to the age of 10.

Oh, and let's be honest here - because your children are not brown.  That is where so much of this horrific policy begins and ends.  

I want to see these callous sons of bitches pony up their own children.  Ivanka, pick two of yours.  Melania, surrender Barron.  Paul Ryan - cough up Liza, Charlie, and Sam, you know, your "highest priority"?  The ones you waxed rhapsodic about in your tone deaf Father's Day video?

Prove that this entire administration you support is not lying.  That every child being forcibly separated from their parents is entering an idyllic existence and the highest standards of care.

You won't.  None of you will.  Because despite the constant lying, you know the truth.  The facts that threaten Trump's and your tenuous hold on power, the spotlight, money.

Here is the truth - reported by another rights worker who is on the ground in Texas trying to assist these people:

Michelle Brane, director of migrant rights at the Women's Refugee Commission, met with a 16-year-old girl who had been taking care of a young girl for three days. The teen and others in their cage thought the girl was 2 years old.

"She had to teach other kids in the cell to change her diaper," Brane said.

Brane said that after an attorney started to ask questions, agents found the girl's aunt and reunited the two. It turned out that the girl was actually 4 years old. Part of the problem was that she didn't speak Spanish, but K'iche, a language indigenous to Guatemala.

"She was so traumatized that she wasn't talking," Brane said. "She was just curled up in a little ball."

Brane said she also saw officials at the facility scold a group of 5-year-olds for playing around in their cage, telling them to settle down. There are no toys or books.

But one boy nearby wasn't playing with the rest. According to Brane, he was quiet, clutching a piece of paper that was a photocopy of his mother's ID card.

"The government is literally taking kids away from their parents and leaving them in inappropriate conditions," Brane said. "If a parent left a child in a cage with no supervision with other 5-year-olds, they'd be held accountable."

Dr. Colleen Kraft, the head of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that she visited a small shelter in Texas recently, which she declined to identity. A toddler inside the 60-bed facility caught her eye — she was crying uncontrollably and pounding her little fists on mat.

Staff members tried to console the child, who looked to be about 2 years old, Kraft said. She had been taken from her mother the night before and brought to the shelter.

The staff gave her books and toys — but they weren't allowed to pick her up, to hold her or hug her to try to calm her. As a rule, staff aren't allowed to touch the children there, she said.

THERE IS THE TRUTH.  These children are being emotionally tortured.  If not physically, too.  And it is heartbreaking.  It is sickening.  AND IT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW.

Goebbels was right - "the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

So you stay comfy under his lie in your self created Gilead, you MAGAT laden GOPers..  Just know that the truth is relentless, as are those of us who will weaponize it against you in November.  

We Are Lost

From the beginning of this grand experiment called the United States of America, we have been a nation of shame, horrific actions, indifferent inactions, too much pride, too much prejudice, and a hubris that meant we simply did as we pleased.  After all, how dare those Native Americans be on our land before we got here?

We have segregated, haughtily believing that the paler the skin, the higher on the food chain one is.  We have owned human beings, torturing them to do our bidding, line our pockets.  Treating them like the dirt their skin color mirrored.

We have denied rights based on gender, because of course women were not smart enough to do anything beyond bake bread and make babies.

We interned Asian Americans because people who looked like them did a bad thing, so hey, get that big paintbrush out.

We have lied, cheated, stole.  We have slaughtered, poisoned, ruined, run out, run down, run over, whoever, whatever has gotten in our way.

Because?  WE'RE #1! WE'RE #1! WE'RE #1!

Or some such bullshit hyperbole.

Along the way, decent people - those who believed in humanity - have stood up against the powers that be, stood with the targeted, the downtrodden, the cheated, the used.  And progress has been forced to happen.  Slavery abolished, women got the vote, no more internment camps, gay marriage legalized, marijuana being looked at with common sense not pearl clutching ignorance.  And a half black President helmed this country for 8 years.

But that element of unearned entitlement has never gone away.  It has stewed, it has roiled just beneath the surface, like hate laden lava just waiting for the fissure to widen, the pressure to build, the surface to weaken.

Donald Trump was the one they were waiting for.  The one to weaken our structures, give permission for hate to flow, and let every baser instinct, every vile thought, every inhuman act be sanctioned.

From the wearing of the Fuck Your Feelings t-shirts, to manhandling nonMagats at his hate rallies, to barking on cue like Pavlov's dogs when he threw at them the red meat of "Lock her up!" - this country has been careening towards ruin.  Trump has unleashed an ugliness, a wantoness, a palpable danger.  

Churchgoers have turned their backs on their beloved commandments to blindly support their Angel of Chaos.  If Jesus stood before them, He would be ripped to shreds for daring to speak to them of love, community, charity. These CRASStians would crucify him again if He dared speak against their newly chosen, pussy grabbing god, Trump.

Our elected officials follow in lockstep behind a morally famined, intellectually dim, dangerously cavalier grifter because it means they can cling to power, line their wallets.

Forget the Mueller investigation.  Ignore the admitted adultery, the millions spent on NOT working while he golfs.  Turn a blind eye to the emoluments clause he continually flouts, the endless schoolyard bully tweets, the saluting a North Korean general and praising a murderous dictator.

These things are all real, have happened, will keep happening.  Ignore them if you choose, if your TV channel chooses to not inform you.

But someone tell me how in holy hell is this country not united in taking to the streets over allowing children to be ripped from the nursing breast of a mother, and taken away?  

How are we allowing this to happen?  

Simple.  WE. ARE. LOST.

Every brutal impulse that founded this country is back with a vengeance. Every belief that skin color or bank account makes one greater or lesser than another is being carried out on a horrific scale. Every word at the Statue of Liberty is a lie.  Every United Nations Human Rights agreement of which we are a part?  We are now APART.

The Trump policy - yes, MAGAts, it is HIS policy, not some Democrat law as he continually lies to you - of forcibly separating parents and children at our border is nothing less than Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen horrors happening in the shadow of our flag.  Children are being stolen.  Period.  Because their parents dare to present themselves to the proper authorities as they seek asylum.  Yes, some have attempted to come in illegally, but even they do not deserve to have their families ripped asunder by an administration who seeks to terrorize as some backass deterrent.

Last night, after reporters were allowed access to an old Walmart turned child detention center (eat shit, you Jade Helm wetbrains) in Brownsville, Texas, the details of what they saw began to pour forth.  This one houses nearly 1,500 boys ages 10-17.  They are caged, allowed outside for fresh air and play for only 2 hours a day.  The other 22 they spend incarcerated, frightened, alone, scarred for life.

I stress - this is one facility.

There are currently an estimated 11,200 children in federal custody, spread out in facilities across the country.  Just as there are parents sitting in facilities with no idea where their children have been taken, if they are being cared for, harmed, abused.

In the facility reporters toured, this greeted them:

How very Kim Jong Un of you, Donald.

And your sycophants?  Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Jeff Sessions have now begun justifying this policy with THE BIBLE.  Leave out how the Bible, how ANY religious tome, has zero business anywhere near secular governance.  Ignore that this country is a country of all people, all faiths, all cultures.  Just focus on the bile inducing actions of using the Bible to defend taking an autistic and severely epileptic boy from his grandmother as they sought asylum -  TEN MONTHS AGO.  She stepped up when this boy's parents abandoned him.  She brought him here for safety.  She followed the rules.  They stole him.  For ten months she has sat in a facility in Texas.  He is 2,000 miles away in a facility in Connecticut.

But yeah, Jesus would be totally down with that.

I cannot begin to touch the depths of the horrors these parents and grandparents have felt as they have these children ripped from them, lied from them, stolen from them.  It hurts my stomach to even try.  I can imagine though - because I am a parent, and my worst nightmare has always been to not know where one of my children is. 

That this country is actively terrorizing people in this way?  That MAGAts cheer this treatment?  That churches teach their congregants that this is somehow ok?

My fury is white hot.  I have said for two years now, that you are the sewer you chose to stand in.  That your support of Trump meant you supported ALL OF IT.  The racists, the murders committed by them, the targeting of Hispanics, black people, LGBT, Muslims, and on and on.  That you do not get to declare yourself somehow clean.  I have never meant that more than now.

Where do you get the balls to think that someone with less money, darker skin, a different belief system is less than you?  Who the fuck do you think you are to, at worst, laugh at these parents and children; at best, sigh in their direction?  What god do you believe in that sanctions your support of a cavalier, adulterous, criminal, grifting, lying, stealing, whoring demon like Donald Trump?

FUCK EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU.

You are filth.  You are lower than whale shit.  You are soulless.  You are craven.  You are reprehensible.  And you deserve every bit of karma, retribution, and - oh, how I fervently hope there is a Hell - that awaits you.  

You have unleashed all of this.  And nothing you do from this point forward will wash away the stain, the stench that envelops you.  

Look at your children.  Every MAGAt, every Republican politician - look at your families.  Hold your new babies.  Gaze into your toddler's eyes.  Hug your tween or teen.  Now imagine that something you have done - perhaps a traffic court date on the docket for which you follow the rules and appear - ends with you watching helplessly as your precious children are dragged away from you.  Wait, what's that?  It couldn't happen to you?  Why, pray tell?  Because you're white?  A citizen of this country?

Fuck you, AGAIN.

Your skin color, your citizenry - nothing but an accident of birth.  That's it.  That's all.

How about Trump decides to go another step further, targeting fat people, poor people, trailer parks - all categories for which he feels nothing but disgust, has nothing but disdain?  Think it cannot happen?  

YOU ARE WATCHING IT  HAPPEN.  YOU ARE CHEERING IT HAPPENING.

The target has just not settled on your "inferiority" yet.

Maybe you have had an abortion.  Or you watch a lot of porn.  Or you're just dim, of no true intellectual value to society. Perhaps you lost your job and apply for welfare, food stamps, unemployment.  Maybe 23 & Me reveals that you are actually NOT as pristine, lily white as you believe yourself to be.  And suddenly the target is on you.  

Comparisons to Nazi Germany have at times been abused, but not now.  As people arrived in train cars at the concentration camps, the first thing that was done was to separate the children from their parents.  The bone chilling photos of this have always been unsettling, unthinkable - but they have been photos.  Reminders of what the words "Man's inhumanity to man" actually mean.

Not anymore.  We are what we have always viewed as a cautionary tale, a shameful chapter in this globe's history.  This time, the shame is ours, the deeds done by us, the terror inflicted on those deemed lesser as our precious flag waves gently in the breeze.

(A two year old Honduran asylum seeker with her mother who are about to be separated by ICE in the past 36 hours.)

We have allowed history to repeat itself.  We are back to who we were.  I used to think we are better than this.  Not anymore.

We are lost.