The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Golly, the election of 2020 is a long ways off and 2024 is a galaxy far far away. Unless you’re the NRA and the MAGA red hat crowd. The gun lobby is up in arms over Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ criticism of the war in Afghanistan, a war she blames both Dems and GOP for getting us mired in. Grant Stinchfield, who is a host on the TV channel of our fair minded gun lobbying group, said Ocasio-Cortez made him “sick”. “The woman whose Green New Deal promises to figure out a way to handle cows that pass gas, is now crapping on patriotism and of course national security.”

Good quote, Grant! But gee, didn’t the NRA give over 30 million dollars to the guy who said the same thing she did, that the War was a mistake, that both parties screwed up and now we’re headed toward the 3rd decade of a stalemate nobody seems to be able to win. How about Trump, Grant? You boyz helped elect him and now he’s talking about pulling out of both Afghanistan and Iran. Does he make you sick? Or are you farting out the wrong hole?

Ocasio-Cortez, give her credit, has offered herself up as the national lightning rod and she can’t even run for President until 2024. Right now she’s just a freshman legislator, one of over 400, who evidently riles the gun-toters and the coal enthusiasts to a degree that most physicians would prescribe tranqulilizers and high dose statins. The patriots have a problem. Their man is tangled up in blue. Investigations are digging deep into a lot more than Russian collusion now and every man-jack of his supporters know deep in their pea-pickin hearts the fishing expedition is going to haul in the great white whale. They’ll find a way to live with those crimes, maybe even justify them, but probably just blame the FBI, the grand juries, the lying media and the lady with the alligator purse.

That smell, Grant, is not cows passing gas … although you may be right about crapping on patriotism. Hold onto yer hat, pal, the little lady from New York might have a lot to say about guns and gun regulations this coming term. And she might have her finger, not on the triggers, but on the pulse of the nation. You feel sick now, stock up with the Pepto Bismol.

Donald Trump is signing Bibles now. Why not? The man’s favorite book is the Bible, he famously said back before he ascended his current throne. When asked which one, he looked like a possum in the headlights of a tractor trailer, but when it was made clear the interrogator was interested which Testament he preferred, the Old or the New, he said he loved them both. His favorite passage, in case you’re interested, was the one with an ‘eye for an eye’. When Mueller is done with him, he may want to find a less vengeful verse.

When I was a kid, I tried reading the Good Book which is actually not a good read. After discovering in my Sunday School class that the thing was edited, well, that finished me on reading clear to the end, which meant I missed the good part when the editors got to Revelation. But even as a kid I thought if folks were taking a chapter from the Dead Sea Scrolls and throwing out the rest, maybe some text from Matthew or Mark, fiddling with the order, translating it into a King Jim version, what was I supposed to think? Obviously God didn’t write it and Jesus didn’t either, judging from the fact that his troops took turns. And okay, maybe the Holy Ghost could’ve, but I sorta doubted it.

In fifth grade Georgia elementary my teacher made us take turns picking a verse out of the Bible and reading it aloud to the rest of us penitants right after the Pledge of Allegiance. When my turn came I read the verse, ‘Jesus wept’, shortest verse in the Bible. Mrs. Abercrombie was furious. She asked me if I thought I was being funny, which I said I was not, just brief, and that got me sent me to the principal’s office. The principal sat me down and asked me if I thought I was being funny. I said I was just reading a verse. A short verse. Then he told me nobody liked a smartass. Which is not actually true. Lots of folks like a smartass. I myself like smartasses, especially those who are actually funny. I’ll take funny about anytime in this mean old world.

He told me again nobody likes a smartass. And I was a definitely a smartass. Worse, although he didn’t say it, I was a Yankee smartass. The worst kind, at least in Georgia. Donald Trump wouldn’t know funny if it bit him on his fat ass. He’s not funny because not only isn’t he a smartass, he’s actually a dumbass. I don’t know if Trump has read the Bible or if he might even think he wrote the thing. He probably thinks the chapter Trump is right after Leviticus. Me, I think it’s right after Revelations. Course, I’m just a smartass.

By now you’ve guessed we live in a banana republic run by thugs and mobsters. Maybe you’re like me, slightly shocked at the revelation our Leader doesn’t give a damn about the country, just his bottom line. Or maybe you think the folks attacking the Cohen testimony without once making even a vague attempt to counter corroborating evidence were simply acting as the Loyal Opposition, not enablers of what will, in due time, impeachment or not, prison or not, prove to be the greatest swindle by an elected official in American history.

Nobody with even the Scarecrow’s brain would doubt what has been perpetrated on us dumb citizens. All the lies, all the braggadocio, all the emoluments, all the Donald kids selling their own brands, all the conflicts of interest, all the affairs and their cover-ups, all the attacks on any and all who dare to pull back the Wizard’s curtain, all the abject ignorance, all the tax schemes, all of it day after day, brazen and blatant, what kind of traitor to American values would defend this?

Plenty, it turns out. Most of the Loyal Opposition, it would appear. When Trump famously bragged he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and get away with it, well, he was right. If you wonder how tyrants become dictators, you’re getting a civics lesson every day. They don’t take over with a coup, they take over inch by inch with the blessing of the people who benefit from his policies. And the population who like a ‘strong man’, the kind of man who embodies their own fears and prejudices, who isn’t afraid to attack the weak, the poor, the different, the ‘others’. They don’t realize yet that he will eventually attack them. He’ll make them the poor and the weak. He’ll put a boot on their neck too.

If you think the America you studied in high school history class is a country where democratic ideals will triumph over corruption and demagoguery, you’re getting a daily dose of reality. The Trump Brand is about one man. He’s ignorant and obnoxious and let’s face it, he’s popular. He’s selling himself and if he has to sell out the country, no big deal. If you’re not frightened by this yet, you should be. If you thought the Mueller Report would put an end to this reign of ignorance and greed, you thought wrong. Half of Congress turned a blind eye. Most of the ‘base’ did too. Something has turned putrid in the body politic and we’re close to becoming a country we never thought possible.

The Trump Brand, when the smoke clears and the mirrors are broken, will be a sad chapter in American History. This is the face of capitalism run amok, brakes out, no regulations, no boundaries. This is unchecked greed. Its name is Trump.

Maybe we get too much news these days. All of these days, 24/7. All the news fit to tweet. Used to be we just listened to the local gossip over at Tyee Store, find out whose kid was on meth, what daughter was pregnant, whose house was broken into, all the stuff we passed on neighbor to neighbor. Now we’re privy to the goings-on of the Kardashians and R. Kelly. I couldn’t pick any of them out of a line-up, but they sure have name recognition in my news feeds.

Today I was scrolling around the internet, stepping through the cowpie landmines of the Trump Investigations, what promises to be an endless overload of subpoenas, accusations, testimonies, pledges of immunity, conspiracies, denials and … well, you know, the Trump Show — and came across a spat between the Republicans’ newest favorite Satan, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the liberal representative from New York. I figure they must be worried about her greatly, maybe thinking in 6 years she’ll be old enough to run for President so why not start a Hillary-style smear early enough to derail her if she does. The kid barely got sworn in and already she’s a boogie man, even got her own acronym, AOC.

AOC put out a position paper calling for a New Green Deal. Or a Green New Deal. Something like that. Bundled up climate change with income inequality and scared the bejeezus out of the conservatives. Jerry Falwell’s kid, J.F. Junior, called her stupid and a liar, then invited her to speak at his bastion of evangelical purity, Liberty College, his Dad’s madrasa, a school so right wing it booted out the College Democrats, “a club whose parent organization stands against the moral principles held by Liberty University.” Tough standards, J.F.

Turns out that when AOC mentioned cutting back on meat production, cows being a major source of methane gas release, Jerry Junior took major umbrage. He’s got a herd of the farting beasts. “I’ve got a hundred cows. You just let Alexandria Cortez show up at my house and try to take my cows away,” the meat-eating man of God warned. Apparently Jerry J. is auditioning to replace Charlton Heston as Moses. That, or the lead in Planet of the Cows.