Tag Archives: congress

U.S. Flag v. U.S. Constitution

It’s not often you get to forecast history, regardless of what news outlets would have you believe. But mark January 6th on your calendar, because the showdown will not only be epic; it will be historic.

Technically, Wednesday will see the U.S. Congress gather to validate the Electoral College’s election of Joe Biden.

But in truth, Jan. 6 will mark a Scopes-Monkey-Trial-level battle between faith and reason, in this case embodied by the U.S. flag and the U.S. Constitution.

The American flag has come to represent nothing if not our toxic addiction to identity politics. We turn ’em into t-shirts, bumper stickers, tank tops, toilet paper, you name it.

The American Constitution has yet to become a t-shirt craze, though many of the lawmakers who gather in congressional halls will certainly wipe their asses with it Wednesday.

And we should note everyone who does, and remember them, by name. Because those will be the elected officials who formally declare that they consider claims valid even when when they are unaccompanied by facts.

Wednesday’s ringmaster, of course, will be Donald Trump, the P.T. Barnum who has already signaled some elephants in the GOP to prepare to stand on their chairs when he sounds the whistle. He already sounded another whistle, of the dog variety, over the holidays to supporters, Proud Boys, QAnoners, and other slackwits for what he promises will be a “wild” rally Wednesday.

Make note of them, too.

Because the Dunce Confederacy that will gather in marble halls and outside them pose an existential threat to this world, country, and you individually.

These are the people who refuse to believe the globe is heating up, round, or overseen by primates. These are the people who believe that voting is a privilege, not a right (a white, male privilege, to be precise). These are the people who believe if you’ve been saddled with a vagina, melanin or uppity attitude, you don’t deserve a seat at the table.

Oddly, or perhaps fittingly, the person at the center of the showdown is not Trump, but Mike Pence. For it’s Pence who will be tasked with calling the Electoral College’s results legit, and to admit political heresy by conceding there is no god, er, Trump, er Higher Power. It’s hard to tell them apart beneath the patriotic cloak of faith.

It’s worth noting that should reason win out, it will be a profound affirmation of the Founders and the power of their thesis paper. They could not have been more prescient: They may have pictured King George when they penned independence, but they painted Donald Trump in their cautionary tale of governance gone mad. What a layered, measured prescription they wrote for the body politic! It remains prophecy on parchment.

If faith wins out, god help us all.

Because faith requires conviction, not evidence. Reason requires evidence, not conviction. When the former holds sway, what chance, the voice of the muted? What armor, the threadbare?

It’s not often that fools and traitors put their names in a registry. When they do, let’s go Memento on their asses. Let this be OUR tattoo to jog the memory:

Lincoln may have been a Republican, but he was killed by conservatives.

Time to Kiss the Toad

Image result for the outer limits trump

There is nothing wrong with your computer screen. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper….You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to… The Outer D.C. Limits.

Anyone familiar with these waters knows that sharks infest them. And their favorite chum is stupidity, so religion and Trump are high on the menu. They’re entrees, not appetizers.

But in keeping with Evidentialism’s core tenet that we celebrate the fact we get more todays than yesterdays (or tomorrows even!), we must acknowledge — today, right now —  that the president (and the federal government writ large) did exactly what the Founding Fathers envisioned: They acted for the good of the people they serve.

This shouldn’t be news. Governments are supposed to act for the betterment of their charges. But, particularly now, the notion seems quaint and antiquated, and has been trampled underfoot by political peacocking. (BTW: Can the GOP please hire a high schooler who can work Microsoft Paint? Those signs make Vegas look understated.)  Image result for gop signs at hearing carton

Still, we have to give credit to the president and both sides of the aisle for actually working on a Friday. Trump signed into law a $1.4 trillion set of spending measures Friday that not only averted another government shutdown, but raised the smoking age to 21 and secured funding for studies on gun violence.

It would be hard to argue against the logic of either measure. Does anyone contend the age should go down? Or that we need to be spending less to examine our gun crisis? (Under the new legislation, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will receive $25 million to conduct research on gun violence. That came after a more than two-decade block on such research at a federal level.)

We get it. It’s hard to compliment an intellectually incontinent narcissist, particularly one whose sole talent is doing touchdown dances. But even the CNNs and MSNBCs of the world had to give the president — and deeply divided Congress — credit for a flurry of bipartisan bills that averted another Grinchian Christmas gift to “non-essential” federal employees, right? Nope.

Let’s thank Donnie while we’re at it, no matter the gag reflex. The president could have easily upended the system he publicly abhors (but privately milks). He could have insisted the $1.4 billion was just a fraction of the $5 billion he demanded for a wall (which is true) and refused to sign it. He could have told his yokel base: “See what happens when Dems impeach? Your government breaks.”

But he did neither. And Congress passed an enormously consequential bill. Yet, when I flipped to the outlets that are the president’s greatest critics, CNN and MSNBC, this is what I found:

And here’s how MSNBC summed up the day:

This is why we have the reputation we do. Have we gotten so entrenched in our echo chambers that anything outside it resembles a home invasion? Why is good news so difficult for us to hear, let alone repeat?

The position of the 24/7s is particularly disappointing given the tiny amount of work you’d need to exert to have today’s news fit your narrative. Consider this simple story angle: We have now raised to 21 the drinking and smoking ages. Why not gun ownership?! You could still appease your base with a ‘this is a good start’ criticism. But to not acknowledge your opponents getting something right is to diminish when they get it wrong.

Better yet, consider how we would have covered the passage of the bill had it been signed by Hillary Clinton. Dollars to donuts that Anderson Cooper would yodel the praises of a president brave enough to stare down big tobacco and sign into law a study the NRA does not want published, let alone  funded.Image result for anderson cooper

Again, none of this acknowledgment need bother the woke angels of the Left’s nature. Trump is not Lord Voldemort. We won’t be hectored and haunted should we speak President Napalm’s name. If you can call out his errors, call his base hits, too. Image result for trump voldemort

We can do better than what the 24/7s are offering us. Is the bill too bloated? Absolutely. Do we need to eventually pay off the card? No doubt. Do journalists ask themselves question in order to make a story look more substantial? Perhaps.

But there’s a reason “Fake News” has taken off with the masses. Let’s be honest with ourselves, fellow reporters and the curious-minded: You don’t have to offer fabricated details for a story to be fake news. It just need lack context.