Tag Archives: Trump

Where’s Bountygate?

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You gotta hand it to the Republicans. They may be nuts, but they’re great at slurs and slogans. Just look at how clever phrasing can cut — and, perhaps more potently, undercut — at issues of importance to them.

Consider just recent phrasing by the party writ large: Obamacare, Right to Life, Creationism, ANTIFA, Snowflakes, Cucks, Gun Rights, et nausea. On the personal front, look at the Great Leader’s knack for insult: ‘Lyin Ted,’ ‘Crooked Hillary.’ ‘Sleepy Joe’ might have been an offensive smack at Joe Biden — had the idea of a presidential nap, perhaps quite a long one, not been so tempting.

Meanwhile, Democrats can’t help but rule by committee when it comes to chants. “Defund the police”? Did anyone think that name through? At the very least, why not “Re-fund the police”? It doesn’t need an explainer, is more accurate and doesn’t make the ear flinch.

Speaking of ears, how are Dems not pinning Trump’s back on his continued genuflecting to Vladimir Putin?

Quick poll: when was the last time you heard a story on allegations that Russia was paying bounties of up to $100,000 per American soldier head? It had dropped so precipitously off the news radar I thought it had been disproven and CNN/MSNBC simply let it fall unnoticed.

Nope. The New York Times ran a story on July 14 that American intelligence is now looking at whether a 2001 car bomb that killed three Marines was tied to the plot. An investigation that is ongoing.Marines transferring the remains of Staff Sgt. Christopher K.A. Slutman, who was killed in Afghanistan, last year at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

How the fuck are silent about this? How is this, at the very least, not worthy of a catch-phrase? I propose Bountygate. But whatever you pick, Dems, PICK SOMETHING. Make it stick. Add it to the hit parade. Tack on an indictment.

Putin’s Puppet Theater. Russia-Lovers. The Red 9. The New Confederacy.  Anything.

Come on, Joe. You don’t have to come out of the bunker, but pick a fearless VP who knows how to tweet and take this fool down. Between Bountygate and Trump’s unidentified storm troopers snatching up Portland protesters, we should be taking the man to more than task. Nancy, why don’t I see you front and center, proclaiming “If he hadn’t put us through the agony of one impeachment, Donald Trump would be facing jurors for this.”

I know Republicans will go to extremes to deny a blue platform. Deny global warming. Deny masks. Deny science.. Deny the reality in which the vast majority of us reside.

But I haven’t heard one Republican warm up to Russia. Not one who will admit or accept that Trump has the distinction of losing The Cold War.

But look at Putin’s s spoils of a won war. He helmed an American election. He is plundering COVID research. He’s placed a bounty on heads, the kind American Western movies love to depict. How is this left unspoken? How is Trump not painted in a McCarthy-era Better Dead Than Red scarlet sash?

I understand a Democratic political strategy of letting Trump impale himself on his own blade of insanity — and allowing his Dwight Schrutes to follow suit in a communal hari-kari. And Biden has a double digit lead in the polls, so perhaps it’s a sound plan.

But America wasn’t founded on being silent. And if we don’t speak up before Nov. 4, we may not have a say-so in any ballot box.

 

 

The 28th Amendment

A scientist at Houston Methodist Hospital last month preparing patient samples to be tested for the coronavirus.

Starting a new faith is a bitch. Just ask David Koresh, Jim Jones or Jesus.

I just can’t get people to buy the concept that science is a faith, as malleable as warm Silly Putty. But there’s no time for a wholesale conversion.

Now, we’ve got to form that putty into a new Amendment to the Constitution, the 28th. The last two were pretty dull: No. 26, passed in 1971, made it unconstitutional to prevent anyone older than 18 from voting (cc: The South); and No. 27, passed in 1992, that all congressional pay raises  must be voted on by Congress.

I propose Number XXVIII: Congress shall pass no laws restricting or restraining the collection and dissemination of scientific data gathered buy government health agencies (i.e., the separation of Science and State.)

The need comes after Donald Trump ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all COVID-19 patient information to a central database in Washington, starting Wednesday.

Anthony Fauci may want to hit the Craigslist job board. The administration sees the object hurtling toward it, reality — in the form of a Depression, pandemic and Cold War loss — and are hoping to deflect its impact until after the Nov. 3 election.With Dr. Fauci, Trump picked the one fight he can't win - Business ...

But this has been an Amendment whose need arose long ago. No president — Democrat or Republican — should be the gatekeeper to the scientific data collected nationwide. We fund every department in the federal and state government, including the CDC and the departments of Health and Human Services.

Every American citizen has a right to find out the crime rate in their neighborhood. Shouldn’t we have the same access to scientific data as we do criminal data? If we can obtain the murder rate in our city, why not the COVID rate?

The Trump response is to be expected. His inclination has traditionally been to NDA any problem he sees as a threat to his power or profits. The antics just get more desperate the closer we get to a quarter to late.

So come on, Joe. Propose change. The founders saw this threat when religion held sway. You can make a nod to them, while telling younger voters there’s an option of change.

We’ve got a grim choice before us come November: The ailing grandpa versus the ailing, crazy grandpa. You want a real base in your corner? Try science. They’re drawing believers by the legions.