Don't Get Me Started with Linda Sharp

Stay The F**king Course

I swear, as much as I go on about how awful is the MAGAt party (there is no Republican party anymore, sorry), I find myself often screaming at my own.

How many times do we have to painfully be shown that the Democrat delusion that if we stay high and above board, they will somehow meet us there, only means we get shanked in the ballsac because they will never rise to meet us?  Going high only leaves our delicate bits exposed to those who play their politics not just in the gutter, but far lower in the fetid sewers.

I wrote last week that I have to give it to the MAGAts in one area.  They keep moving forward as a unit no matter what.  Pussy talk?  Write that shit proudly on a tshirt, ladies.  Impeachments?  Meh.  Adjudicated rapist?  Pfft.  Rambles about sharks, windmill cancer, and Hannibal Lector like my father's roommate in the memory care ward?  He's our guy!  34 felonies?  BFD, rigged, fake news.  Appears all over the Epstein files as a pedophile.  Fingers in ears, lalalalalala.

They create and live in their own reality.  Facts have no place there.

Nope, not a cult...

It is something the Ds have simply not mastered.  The ability to just stay the fucking course.  

Yes, President Biden is old.  (SO. IS. TRUMP.)  But one less-than-stellar debate performance and the whining, naysaying, doomsdaying, and fatalism started before the clock struck midnight.  And as the media took the ember and turned it into a massive inferno, instead of coming out strongly, forcefully, and calling absolute bullshit on the relentless and honestly laughable tsunami of "reports", Dem leaders buckled.  

Which is the exact hoped for outcome from a media largely owned by MAGAt billionaires.  Ignore their own emperor who is stark, fucking naked and in full senile decline 24/7/365.  Hyper focus on the old guy who has accomplished so much during the past 3 1/2 years in office.  Don't report news, CREATE news.  I have to hand it to them.  They know their audience.  The more salacious, the better.  As the saying  goes, "If it bleeds, it leads."

Unless, of course, we are talking about an assassination attempt.  One of the biggest stories to happen politically since the attempt on Reagan, and the media is content with the Trump imposed blackout of any information regarding his condition, the shooting, any doctor's report.  Currently the national media is only reporting on it when they have no choice.  It is local media and British media (BBC, Daily Mail, etc) where the actual journalism is taking place.  They are the ones reporting on the shooter's parents alerting police to their son being "missing" on the morning of the shooting.  They are the ones who reported the cell phone had finally been breached by the FBI.  They have reported on his alleged Steam account (now being reported as fake) and ominous posting about the 13th, "July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds."  

Only then, when it becomes obvious they are covering for Trump do they put together a minimal story and broadcast it.

Explain that to me.  If someone had shot at Biden?  Given how the media has all but climbed up his colon in search of any chink in his health armor, do you really think they would accept a blackout of any and all information with a threat of firing to anyone in the administration who would violate it?

Come on now.

So for three weeks we have watched as attacks on Biden ramp up.  With no real, true, hard pushback from those who have access to the microphones, where are we?  Falling the fuck apart, that is where.

There is the faction of (largely) young people who hold President Biden wholly responsible for the butchery happening in Gaza/Israel.  I watch their posts daily, and while they are not wrong in their outrage, their despair, even their watching of trauma porn in the shape of any and all videos they can find that show the carnage and blood and bodies in the street - young and old - it is very apparent that far too many of them are viewing this through a pinhole of October 7, 2023 to NOW.  So little historical knowledge or perspective about how long the bloodshed has gone on there; how tangled and effed up are our government's policies regarding that region; how there is no magic wand to be waved, let alone by one man.  

And while there are whataboutisms to go around (What about Kenya?  Myanmar?  Haiti? The Congo?), it won't change anything about the hyperfocus on babies dying in Gaza.  Again, they ARE right.  What is happening there - and I reiterate, I do not care which side of the line, what is the religion, young or old - is horrific.  Innocent people dying daily because of where they were born, where they are trapped.  Just as innocent people were slaughtered in Israel on October 7th for the crime of attending a music festival and being in the wrong place at the very wrong time.

Congo is on the brink

The focus and blame gaming by this faction of young voters obscures much of anything else right now.  Again, I am not saying they are wrong for their horror, their anger - this is a demographic that has lived through far too much while being blamed for far too much for far too long - but the threats to not vote for Biden, to not vote at all, to write in Santa Claus - all will do nothing to help their own country which is seriously imperiled.

Another faction stomping their feet and making their own threats are older voters who should fucking know better, but are ready to pull a 2016 and protest vote should Biden step aside.  So hyper focused on the possibility (looking more like probability) that their primary vote will be cast aside, they are setting their hair on fire.  Honestly, I have less rope to hand these people because again, they are older and should know better, having actually seen what happens when pants wetting wins over protecting democracy.

And then there is the piece of the pie where all the handwringing, naysaying, seeing Trump slide through legal processes and get away with one thing after another has people on the verge of simply giving up.  WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT THE OTHER SIDE WANTS.  Drown us in bullshit, hubris, their Grand Canyon's worth of lies that go unchallenged, algorithms that obscure reality, and now in-fighting - all designed to wear us down and make us give up.

And now President Biden has COVID - not a small thing for an 81 year old.  Light symptoms so far, and that's good.  But also now the pretaped BET interview that aired last night is dovetailing with all the fatalism and speeding up speculation he will step aside soon.  In the interview (again, pre-taped before any COVID test came up positive) he says that he would re-evaluate “If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, ‘You got this problem, that problem.’

If I had to guess, yes, a change is probably coming soon.  And if it is going to happen, it needs to be soon.  We have four months to get our shit together, rally around a new ticket, and get the vote out.  Kamala and a swing state Senator or Governor makes the most sense strategically.  The fun part of my mind has its own wet dreams - Kamala and Michelle Obama.  Hell, Kamala and Barack Obama.  

It really does not matter.  A chair, a doorknob, a McFlurry, Jimmy Carter in hospice - I will vote for whoever is on the ticket because keeping Trump and his coven of 2025ers and bigots and religious zealots and Handmaid's Tale lovers from accessing the kind of power that will endanger so many lives is paramount.  

There is no softer tone at the RNC.  Flying glass and a nicked ear have not turned down the dial on the vitriol.  Far from it.  The hate and pomposity and ignorance and lies and promise of Christofascism have been on full display.  Signs call for MASS DEPORTATION - families, be damned.  Buttons refer to Kamala Harris as a ho.  Rally trucks are wrapped in pictures of Biden tied up in the back.  Speakers call for blood.  

They know what they are about.  And they have horse blinders on as they gallop towards it.  They have not hitched their wagon to a star, but a fetid outhouse named Trump.  And their promises to shower us all in their autocratic, forced religion, oath to MAGA bullshit is very real.

We ARE better.  Our ideas are better.  Our hearts are better.  Our grasp of democracy is better.  Our hopes for the future are better.  And our desire to protect those we don't even know is better.  What we need to work on is our fortitude, our stick-to-it-tiveness, our focus, and our goal.  It cannot matter who is on the ticket, our voting for it is all that will save us.

We have four months.  The answer is simple:  Keep your eye on the ball and STAY THE FUCKING COURSE.

Usha Vance, The Ultimate Pick-Me Girl

If you have spent any time online, especially in the hallowed halls of Tik Tok or Instagram, you have surely run across the term 'pick-me girl'.

By definition, a pick-me girl is a woman who tries to stand out from other women to gain male attention, approval, and validation, often at the expense of other women.

Focus on that last part.

Perhaps you know someone in your orbit who unfortunately falls into that category.  Someone for whom the male gaze is the ultimate prize.  Male acceptance the north star by which they navigate.  For better or worse (usually worse), these women will willingly subjugate, demean, and debase themselves in the process.

If you are still unfamiliar and need a glaring example, then look no further than Trump's running mate's wife, Usha Vance.

If ever a woman radiated pick-me girl energy, it would be her.  All the while, I do note, radiating sad acceptance of her lot when she does not think she is being watched/photographed.  Zero sympathy points awarded.  In fact, I deduct 30 points from Slytherin.

Here is some background about Usha.  It is impressive ... until it isn't.

Usha is the daughter of Indian immigrants.  Her mother is a Biologist and college provost.  Her father is an engineer.  By all accounts Usha excelled scholastically, received an undergraduate degree from Yale, a Master's from Cambridge and graduated from Yale Law School in 2013.  That is where she met Vance.  Up until 2014 she was a registered Democrat.  But the deals with the devil were too good to pass up and that changed (had to change) when she began clerking for boof King Brett Kavanaugh when he was in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  She then went on to clerk for Justice Roberts.

She and JD got married in 2014.  She continued her legal work while having three children - two sons and a daughter.  In fact she worked right up until this week when she quit her law firm to complete her contract with Satan and maximize her pick-me girl energy by traveling to Milwaukee where her repugnant husband was named Trump's VP choice.

I shared this morning that while I typically do not believe that any single demographic is a monolith, I do, however, make one exception. Trump supporters and voters are indeed a monolith. They are a monolith of abject stupidity, rampant self-loathing, glaring blindspots in which they do not see how they are currently actually targeted if not promised to be targeted should he get back into the oval, and people who are willing to sell their souls. It is a monolith of racism, bigotry, hatred of the other, willful ignorance, and a lust for vengeance against anyone they can blame for their personally acquired lot in life. The monolith encompasses misogyny, lying like breathing, and glee at turning this nation into some Christofascist, Handmaid's Tale wet dream.

This is a woman who should know better. She has been educated at the highest levels, was raised in and is still of the Hindu religion, was solidly open minded and progressive in her thinking, her actions, even her choice of spouse until he made his deal with the devil. But then she told her scruples and dignity and integrity to fuck off when she went to work for Brett Kavanaugh. And now she is willingly being used as a visual token by a campaign that openly disparages anyone of color, who has promised to deport at the highest numbers ever seen, and who has no use for someone like her - brown, with a funny name, a child of immigrants, and not Christian - once they get what they want.  The ultimate sellout and pick-me girl. She has aligned herself with the absolute worst elements in our society and is now actively helping to steal rights from other women in order to get what she wants. So I don’t care how many sad faces the photographers captured of her at the convention last night when she didn’t think she was being watched, she is there under her own steam. And the locomotive she is driving is dragging democracy down into the sewer with her.

What I find so very sad is that this woman not only has two sons by Vance, who are being raised in his new, repulsive ideology, but she also has a daughter who she is now willingly working to strip bodily autonomy and basic human rights from. It is completely shameful.

Vance is on the record saying women who are beaten should stay with their husbands.  That he will work to completely outlaw abortions - NO EXCEPTIONS.  So if his daughter is brutally raped someday and gets pregnant, too bad.  If she marries an abuser?  Stick with it, girlie.  Cover those bruises with long sleeves and thick make-up.  Education?  Pfft.

That piece gets me, too.  He is completely onboard with Project 2025 (now being rebranded as Agenda 47, even more dangerous) which demonizes education, especially collegiate (hello, Yale Law School - hypocrisy, party of 2, your table is ready), and would eradicate the Department of Education.  The woman is degreed from Cambridge and Yale, for cripe's sake.  How does she square that with what she now represents?

How does she square any of it, especially her husband, who once called Trump a "moral disaster", a "total fraud", and "America's Hitler"?  A husband who is now a willing toadie, lickspittle, and power whore, funded by Peter Thiel, who would see 50,000 federal employees fired and replaced with sycophants who would pledge allegiance to Trumpism, not the Constitution.

She is standing by a husband who once Tweeted about Trump, “Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man. Lord help us,” after the “Access Hollywood” tape was published in 2016.

And this one: “There is no moral equivalence between the anti-racist protestors in Charlottesville and the killer (and his ilk),” Vance wrote in a deleted-tweet.

He has liked Tweets that said Trump committed “serial sexual assault,” calling him “one of USA’s most hated, villainous, douchey celebs.”

This one's a gem.

All of that to this: “I’m proud to be one of his strongest supporters in the Senate today and I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure President Trump wins in November - the survival of America depends on it.”

No, the death of this great experiment called the United States of America depends on it.  Installing fascism depends on it.  Enacting laws that violently target my trans son depends it.  The complete stripping of female bodily autonomy depends on it.  The elevation of their warped Christianity as a national religion depends on it.  The further lining of rich donors pockets depends on it.  The complete destruction of the rule of law depends on it.  The eradication of Social Security, military benefits, overtime pay - all depend on it.  The 900+ pages of their virulent playbook being enacted depends on it.

Usha is a learned woman.  Vance brags about her absorbing 1,000 page books in mere hours.  I refuse to believe she is not up to speed on what her husband has fully embraced.  It is, in fact, his embrace of this heinous manifesto that gained him the recommendation of the Heritage Foundation to Trump for him to be the VP pick.

I feel nothing but disgust.  No sympathy.  She has watched as her once thoughtful, balanced, seemingly decent husband has turned into a pawn of the richest (Thiel), and has taken a dive headfirst into the sewer of Trumpism.  Judgey?  Sure, whatever.  But I can tell you that if my measured, decent, progressive husband began spouting this level of dangerous bullshit, embracing measures that vilify our son, strip autonomy from our daughters, place me, my parents, and my children in danger as targets for our ethnicity, and endanger the future of this country?  There would be a very public repudiation of him, a dumping of his shit on the front lawn, a bonfire of it all, and the fastest divorce you have ever seen.  My integrity is not for sale.  And my love has limits.  And that limit is when someone proves they have no humanity.

Not so, Usha.  Last night saw her fully dive into the MAGAt sewer with him.  Nothing she does now will change that.  She is a willing pawn, a token, a pick-me girl who is openly working against women, children, the elderly, the LGBTQIA, and this very nation.

Honestly, the only person with more pick-me girl energy than her right now?  Her pathetic, greedy, power hungry sellout of a spouse.

MAGA Rhetoric Finally Backfires

I have spent the past week immersed in the wonder of my now 20 month old granddaughter.  She is lovely, lively, talking up a storm, and provides, without even knowing, simple, pure joy.  She also provides, without knowing, some of my darkest moments as I find myself routinely thinking about the world around her and how her country stands on a precipice.

I worry about the fact that she, at less than two years old, is having her bodily autonomy stripped away by ignorant, misogynistic politicians.  I worry about the quality of education she will be afforded should MAGAts find their way back into the Oval.  I worry about the volatility of this country, roiling with hatred, anger, pent up and misplaced rage.  I worry about every trip she takes to the grocery store, the park, Starbucks for her weekly danish.

I worry because the breath of love I have held for her mother for 32 years, now contains her, too.  That breath I will never exhale because I hold it worrying about every what if, skinned knee, heartbreak, lost opportunity, broken heart, possible accident, harm in any way.

So much of it can be traced to a vulgar, bankrupt, narcissistic, dumber-than-dogshit star fucker, so possessed of his own vanity that he rode his gaudy gold escalator down to the ground floor of Trump Tower, dragging us all down into the depths of his personally designed hellscape.  This country has been on fire since that fatal fateful day in 2015.

He released every demon that had barely been kept in check by societal correctness.  He emboldened every racist to take off their white sheets and parade proudly through the streets.  He demonized every "other" - that target moving as fast as his gnat level ability to focus.  In office he stripped children from their parents.  He destroyed this country's place on the world stage.  He flirted with the world's worst demagogues, compromising national security, and every military person stationed abroad.  And when faced with the fact that he was going to lose the office he all but stole in the beginning, he and his bought out minions plotted to steal the 2020 election.  Fake electors, fake stories of vans full of ballots in the dark, fake lawsuits, and when all else was failing - he ginned up his mouthbreathing, easily led base of gun loving, woman hating, LGBTQ+ attacking, racist, shit smearing MAGAts and had them descend on the halls of Congress.

Deny that last one all they like; obfuscate it all they desire - the videos will never go away.  The shit may have been cleaned off the walls, but it will forever stay smeared over their names as J6 treasonists.

Not content to stay ostracized and relegated to the gaudy gold plated halls of Mar-a-Lago, the bronzed bumblefuck set about tightening his grip on the GOP.  Whether through blackmail (looking at you Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz), love of power and the limelight (MTG, Lauren Boebert, Josh Hawley, all and sundry other peon MAGAt politicians), or simple hatred of the other (Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, all and sundry peon MAGAt politicians), the past three and a half years have been nothing but a continued ratcheting up of the rhetoric.  Fomenting fear, creating bogeymen for FOX viewers, demonizing all who vote blue. 

His every rally stop includes talk of retribution, retaliation, dictatorship.  Project 2025 that strips rights, protections, entire systems of our government, replacing them with loyalty oaths not to the Constitution, but to Trump.  His lackeys go on TV and openly speak of lists created of those who will pay, of blood, of violence, of revolution.  And the dumbshits in red hats listen.  They believe they belong to some super cool club of patriots who have been sanctioned to shed the blood of anyone who dares question, let alone gets in the way of Dear Leader.

But here's the thing.  Rhetoric typically is a one way road , UP.  It only gets bigger, the threats grander, the lies bolder, the taunts more vile.  And when that happens, it can backfire.

We saw it yesterday as someone took a shot at Trump at his rally.  Positioned atop a building adjacent to the gathering, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, PA (I lived there for two years, nice place, my sister attended the high school Crooks later attended) fired towards the podium.  One person died, another was injured, and Trump's ear was bloodied by what law enforcement has said was teleprompter glass - although the Orange Hindenburg will ride the "bullet" story to his grave.  (Authorities are still investigating but have said they found explosives in his car as well.  He was a registered Republican.  Just another raging white boy with a gun.  True motive TBD.)

In the immediate reaction to the video that went everywhere, yes, cries of "staged" "fake" and Reichstag Fire" went up - after all, this is a lying, grifting, soulless, opportunist we are talking about here.  The fact that Secret Service did not bundle him up and get him the fuck off the stage immediately, rather allowing him full access to potential other shooters so that he could pump his fist, shout "Fight, fight, fight!" and provide the photo that will now be on Time magazine speaks to complete dereliction of duty that, yes, could easily be construed as planned. (I refuse to place it here and amplify his photo op further.)

No matter.  The image was snapped and within two hours was available on Tshirts, mugs, flags, anything to grift some more. 

Here's where I stand.  No matter who fired the gun; no matter who was the intended target; no matter what was the motivation, this is not what we do.  Fomenting violence, acting out that violence, is unacceptable.  I don't care who is in the crosshairs.  It simply cannot be what we now slide into as some warped new normal.  Personally, I want to see Trump in a jailcell before a casket.  I want to see him lose again, in spectacular fashion, a resounding loss that sends a message to him and every person who is riding his spray tanned coattails, that we reject completely them, their vile agenda, their bloodlust.

He is alive.  His ear will be fine.  And let me make it very clear to those pundits who are now creating a story out of nothing about sympathy votes - NOT HAPPENING.  Trump is exactly who he was when he woke up yesterday.  A crimped ear changes nothing about his lust for power, his thirst for payback, his full embrace of Project 2025.  He is still a pig, a conman, a Soprano wannabe, a stupifyingly ignorant sack of hamburger grease and ketchup. 

He wants one thing:  POWER.  And he will do anything to get it back.

THAT is why there was, and continues to be, so much skepticism about the circumstances of yesterday's events.

Sympathy?  He got shot at, that has to suck big time.  But no, I will not be genuflecting and shedding a tear for an Aquanetted a-hole who made joke after joke about Nancy Pelosi's husband being attacked; a pompous carnie who attacks and endangers the lives of anyone who he believes wrongs him; a shameless self promoter who watched in glee as his supporters stormed the Capitol and attacked police.

No, I see him clearly for who he is.  Yesterday changes nothing.  It does not erase his felonies.  It does not poof away his presence in the Epstein files or his alleged rape of children.  It does not make me suddenly believe his protestations of knowing nothing about Project 2025.  IT. DOES. NOT. CHANGE. MY. VOTE.

I will be voting for the side of the aisle that will better protect my trans son, your lesbian daughter, your wife who sadly needs an abortion to save her life from a pregnancy gone terribly wrong.  I will be voting for the preservation of Social Security, the Department of Education.  My vote will be to keep their warped Christofascist playbook far away from my granddaughter.  My vote is for the future I want for her, for your children, your grandchildren, for all of us.  My vote will be to save us from what would be an unrecoverable slide into fascism, governmental terrorism, and a smothering of our Constitution.

So to Donald Trump I say, slap a bandaid on it, thank your lucky stars you are alive, and from now on maybe think twice, and speak once.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, who am I kidding?  We all know who he is and how he is going to exploit this.

Buckle up, everyone, it's only going to get worse from here.  We are voting for our very lives.