So, just a programming note for those that regularly read this section. I am working with one good eye and have surgery planned in about a week. I mention that only to mention that I know there are grammatical errors and typos that are passing through. I literally cannot see them. I catch a few with the squiggly red lines, but some will get missed.

I am a fairly dedicated Catholic, but this is the first year I have participated in a Holy Thursday mass. Our parish actually has a tradition where the priest washes the feet of twelve regular church members that represent different eras of ministry and/or leadership. I was honored to be one of them this year.

Sacred scripture mentions Jesus washing the feet of his disciples before the last supper. The idea is that anyone that wants to exalt themselves will be humbled and anyone that humbles themselves will be exalted. I’m quite certain I’ve read that somewhere, but us Catholics have been accused of not knowing their Bible.

The triduum includes Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter vigil. The theme of threes continues as we see Jesus demonstrating love, humility, and service all at the same time. I couldn’t help but think of the current state of affairs in the presidential election.

Humanity is an imperfect thing. Everyone has at least one significant character flaw and Joe Biden is no different. This is often when we separate politicans and political stances with the actual quality of the person. George W. Bush did some very questionable things and that is probably putting it mildly. The same could be said about Barack Obama.

My regular readers know this already. This is more for those stumbling to this for the first time. Forget policy and ideology. I defy any of them to name one positive quality that Donald Trump possesses. You can’t. He’s not honest. He’s not humble. He’s not faithful. He’s not kind. He’s not giving or generous. He’s not just. He’s not wise or intelligent. He is not compassionate or empathetic. He’s not courageous or selfless.

Setting aside politics, I could identify some of those qualities in every president in our history. Even then ones we might decry as ineffective, corrupt, or both have some of these qualities. It can be difficult to separate the man from what the man does. Sometimes we aren’t meant to, but Bush II had a genuine conversion experience. He was faithful and on balance a good man outside the political arena.

The exact same things could be said of Barack Obama. It is not a coincidence that the Bushes and Obamas got along so well after both left office. I can’t imagine any past president spending any time with Trump willingly. There is certainly an importance in what people believe and what values they bring to the party. There is also an importance in whether any particular candidate is a good and honest person when you ask them to make a crucial decision under pressure.

Politicians have made a lot of hay around the so-called 3 AM phone call question. Yes, the Biden team has an issue here with their candidate being even slightly off his game. I just don’t see how anyone can feel comfortable with Trump on the other end. I’m just not seeing it. I don’t get it. Maybe a Trump voter can come in and explain it to me.

It was P.T. Barnum that said that a sucker was born every minute. I’m not going to question what people spend their money on. Goodness knows I’ve bought some useless crap over the years. I’ve been snookered by marketing gimmicks and charlatans just like anyone else. So, if someone is going to throw down 60 bucks on the Trump Bible then Godspeed.

Advertising has always been a somewhat unsavory business where facts and slight of hand are married in a shotgun ceremony. Just this week I noticed that Appleby’s is bragging that their boneless wings won a national taste test including a restaurant with wings in its name. Number one, aren’t boneless wings just chicken nuggets? Secondly, you have to know it was a blind taste test between Appleby’s, Bennigan’s, and TGI Fridays. Congratulations.

So, when I saw Trump selling his own Bible it didn’t surprise me. The fact that he was partnering with someone like Lee Greenwood didn’t surprise me. The only thing that surprised me about the whole deal is that Lee Greenwood is still alive. I could have sworn he died in obscurity when his shitty patriotic porn finally fell out of favor. Everything old is new again.

This isn’t new ground. My parents used to regale me with stories about the radio station that drowned out the locals at night. They would have a variety of shows and one that sold religious artifacts. It included things like the John the Baptist soap on a rope and autographed pictures of Jesus. No, what Trump is doing it not new and not novel.

I suppose in a way he isn’t even the worst one. Televangelists bilk their followers for thousands of dollars and it is usually thousands they can’t afford to give away. So, who knows where on the pantheon of sleeve these Bibles would rate. It is more pathetic than anything else. Add it to his action figures, shoes, and all of the other crap he peddles and it’s just sad.

I’m more and more convinced that Trump is nothing more than a thought experiment. How far are we willing to go before we either put him in jail or tell him to go away? When will the Republican party say enough is enough? Will they ever say it? What will the last straw be for people in MAGA nation? It’s not even certain that there will be an end.

Trump outrage is its own cottage industry. You have to know that networks like MSNBC, CNN, the Young Turks, and other similar networks secretly love this. They are rolling in ratings and advertising dollars. Every tweet, every insane rant, every trial development gets covered in breathtaking immediacy. It’s all breaking news. It’s all developing news. It’s all the most important thing that’s ever happened in the history of the world.

Let’s consider what we know. We know he has always failed at business. We know he is the most frequent litigant in the history of the country. We know he has committed countless amounts of fraud. We know he is guilty of how many counts of sexual misconduct. We know he is addlebrained and unfit any position of leadership. We’ve seen it first hand.

It’s not funny anymore. When we went through those first four years it ceased to be funny. It’s time for him to exit stage left. If need be, maybe we can use one of those old Vaudeville hooks to yank him offstage. Maybe he can have his own channel where he can sell his shitty shoes, overpriced Bibles, and can run infomercials with Lee Greenwood, Jon Voigt, and Kid Rock for 24 hours. Then, at least I could avoid it by simply not turning on that channel. I’m out.

I need to get this off my 70+ year old scrawny chest, because if I see one more comment, meme, cartoon, or op ed slamming VP Kamala Harris, especially from Democrats, I’m going to lose it. She’s been proclaimed inadequate from the get go. Many naysayers rely only on their info silos or no info at all, just perceptions. So many times I’ve answered the ‘what’s Kamala Harris actually doing, it doesn’t seem like much’ question with “plenty”. Do you follow her social media? I have since the beginning. Do you actually look for information or wait for it to be fed to you by a mainstream media that retains so much misogyny it reminds me of 2016 all over again? Here is where I confess to my 2016 PTSD. Heck, they’re even criticizing the way Kamala laughs. Can’t wait for the canckles comments to start. And when did you ever ask what Mike Pence was doing during the 45 era (not including post election when he got plenty of attention)?

Fortunately for me there have been a few pieces in the last few weeks that give me hope, despite all the hand wringing. Mark Jacobs (Stop the Presses) sums it up. There are 3 main problems with Kamala Harris that send people into a tizzy. She is a Democrat, a person of color, and a woman, the trifecta of GOP hatred. Choose either of the other two for hesitant Democrats. The heck with her incredible experience and credentials, which rise far above many former VPs, because, you know, DEI.

In their effort to be ‘balanced’, the WaPo put up Kathleen Parker’s hit piece, after Jennifer Rubin addressed the VP issue, calling her ‘underrated’, with FACTS. She’d written last fall about the calls to replace Harris. VP Harris is certainly hitting her stride in her position, staying on message, supporting her POTUS and their vision for America, and not shying away from speaking her mind on important issues. She’s been in the room with POTUS in times of crisis. By the end of 2023, she had traveled on four official trips to Asia (Thailand, Philippines, Japan, Singapore, Viet Nam, Indonesia, and South Korea). She has made official trips to Guatemala, Mexico, France, Germany, Poland, Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia, Honduras and the Bahamas. Harris has represented the US at the Munich Security Conference THREE times. She has criss-crossed the country in defense of reproductive rights and health care, and has been welcomed at colleges campus all over the nation, engaging with young voters on issues that matter to them. She stands up for Joe Biden without upstaging him, and was brilliant in her defense in the wake of Special Counsel Hur’s “lapse in judgement”, calling his comments regarding Biden’s age “gratuitous, inaccurate and inappropriate.” NPR published this today, thank you very much.

So stop, please, with the moaning about how Joe should replace her on the ticket. As the highest ranking woman in US government EVER, she is more than ready to step in should anything befall POTUS in the next 4 years. This is the ticket we have, and it’s been a successful team. A lot of us out here really like what she brings to the table. Otherwise, you’ll help propel a repeat of 2016. I’m looking at you, Jill Stein voters, Bernie or Busters, and stay at homes. We need all hands on deck to banish TFG and his MAGAts.

Bill Clinton once said “Democrats want to fall in love; Republicans just fall in line.” We have to fall in line for the biggest Blue Wave ever in November. And that’s a FACT.

NBC pulled a fast one this weekend, hiring Trumpist liar Ronna McDaniel, former RNC chair liar and insurrectionist, as a paid political “analyst”.  She debuted on Meet the Press yesterday and it was a Shit Show with McDaniel lying while tripping over her lies while Kristen Welker did her best to hold her feet to the fire.  McDaniel’s performance was typical just repeating herself while pretending to be the slightest bit credible.  The real star of the show, though, as Chuck Todd took a flamethrower to not just McDaniel, but NBC itself.  He told Welker that the bosses of NBC owed her an apology for making her interview such a prolific liar.  Have a look:

It gets better, though.  Joe Scarborough launched this morning condemning NBC and Nicole Wallace followed suit.  The blowback is so bad the MSNBC has told parent company NBC that they won’t give McDaniel airtime on any show.  Boom.

Keep in mind that McDaniel chaired the RNC up until TFG’s daughter in law took over 2 weeks ago.  She led the way on The Big Lie, played a key role in the fake elector scam and tried to get Michigan to not certify the 2020 election.  She’s essentially an unindicted co-conspirator in the insurrection; rather than being on NBC, she should be on bail for federal felony charges.  She’s the worst of the worst, and Todd was right – you can’t trust a word out of her mouth.  NBC has made a huge mistake and I predict a short tenure for Ms. McDaniel at the network.

Sometimes, Juanita Jean puts me to work with the push broom to swamp out the beauty shop after an especially busy week.

Like this one.

But before dumping the dust pan, I picked out a note I found and read it. It was from Alfredo at the Dairy Queen. I went back in and showed it to her: “Oh, yeah,” she said, “that’s a real interesting story about Ted Cruz that hasn’t gotten any real attention. Go ahead and do something with it if you want.”

I took that to mean she wanted me to tell you about it, so here goes.

It seems that Texas Senator Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz has a podcast. A podcast is a digital medium that allows people who otherwise encounter insurmountable barriers to enter the media market a simple way to do so.

But it seems Ted’s podcast, Verdict With Ted Cruz, got a leg up in the form of production services from media giant iHeartMedia.

From Forbes (12/1/22):

“The Texas Republican and his co-host announced in the Oct. 7 episode of ‘Verdict with Ted Cruz’ that their three-year-old, bootstrapped podcast…had recently received an intriguing offer from iHeartMedia: ‘iHeart can fund the whole thing, fund production, dump a whole bunch of money into marketing,’ said co-host Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire. ‘This is incredible. It will make this show sustainable, not just for the next few months going into the midterms but for the next years.’ The deal also calls for iHeartMedia to market and air the show on some of its 860 radio stations, supply Cruz with a new co-host and increase production from once to three times a week.”

Now that’s what I call surmounting the insurmountable.

That’s a podcast on steroids.

But wait…isn’t that sort of like an in-kind donation from a registered lobbyist?

According to the same Forbes article:

“iHeartMedia lobbied on two bills that appeared before one of Cruz’s committees last quarter.”

Conflict of interest, anyone?

According to Ted Cruz’s spokesman, there is nothing wrong with this deal. “Senator Cruz receives no financial benefit from Verdict. There is no difference between Sen. Cruz appearing on a network television show, a cable news show or a podcast airing on iHeartMedia.”

According to Senate Ethics rules, senators cannot accept honoraria for oral presentations transmitted electronically. That being the case, Cruz himself cannot benefit from his podcast, and he doesn’t. According to a most recent (March 20, 2024) Forbes article, Cruz’s independent superpac, Truth and Courage PAC, however, has no such restriction (click to make bigly):

That’s $214,752.98 in American money.

Those were proceeds from radio advertisements aired during his podcasts.

That’s money that the PAC can use to independently ensure “that Ted Cruz is re-elected to the United States Senate in 2024” (from their website).

They tell me that the US Senate has an Ethics Committee, and they say, on their website, that the committee doesn’t comment on matters before them.

I do hope that this is one of those matters, but I am a glass half empty sort of guy.