You know, Republicans have been all out of sorts since we made them quit using the N word.  And they were to a lesser but important degree unhappy about not being able to use bitch, gal, little lady, or honey when referring to coworkers.

So, you know, they have gone into a frenzied delight over being able to say Let’s Go, Brandon! because everybody knows what they mean is F*** Joe Biden.  They get the F word without actually saying the F word.

I thought I had seen it all, but nobody had taken the cake yet and made Let’s Go, Brandon! a religious sacrament or an act of baptism.

Until Governor Greg Abbott.  I’m going to give you the link, but I want you to prepare yourself. Governor Abbott sent out an email to his supporters and unfortunate people who got signed up for his emails because some damn Republican thinks that’s hysterically funny.  The email claims he’s in need money real bad because he’s all that stands between an army of lefties overtaking Texas and killing the memory of Donald Trump, the greatest man who ever lived.

So, he’s selling Let’s Go, Brandon! wrapping paper for all your Christmas needs.  It even has Christmas stars and little wreaths on it. What a wonderful way to welcome the Christ child on Christmas morning! The F word always gives that warm feeling in your bowels, you know.

And since they have trademarked the word Christian, you gotta wonder if this is the new Christmas robe for the clergy.

And to make this very special, only if you look closely do you begin to realize you’re making a monthly pledge of at least $35 in order to get this charming Christmas wrapping paper.  So, not only is it snazzy, it’s swanky.

Some things are just too dumb to fail.

Newt Gingrich, who disappeared for 8 glorious years of the Obama administration, is back from his tour of duty as consort to the ambassador to the Vatican under Trump.

He’s written a so-called book entitled Beyond Biden and he’s selling it for $20. Probably all of 500 people would buy it, but here’s the deal.  The National Republican Congressional Committee buys a truck of these suckers at a heavily reduced price and then they make Newt autograph them. They then sell them online, autographed, for a donation of at least $50.

It all works great – Newt makes a little money and can claim his book is selling a bunch at the point of origin. The NRCC puts the book online at WinRed and they make money. It ain’t about literacy – it’s about money.

And I’m not the one being catty about this. After all, when a purrectly good deal comes along, you jump on it. They haven’t changed it in at least three days but I took a screen shot just in case they do.

What an oppurtunity!

Rage is an emotion I rarely ever feel. I’m thankful that it doesn’t happen very often. When rage hits I have to take a step back and collect my thoughts. That happened last night when El Jefe reported the ruling of the judge in the Jacob Rittenhouse case here.

I wanted to check myself and go to the source. However, I know Twitter is not the best source for news either. So, I decided to go to a reputable source like NPR and saw the same story again. I still couldn’t believe what I was reading. It was like we had gone down some sort of worm hole in time into a different universe. I certainly wasn’t capable of intelligent commentary.

Let’s start with the obvious. Does this judge have proof that those particular individuals were participating in looting, arson, and rioting? Moreover, did Rittenhouse absolutely know which of his victims (oops) were guilty of those things? Firing indiscriminately into a crowd would seem to show a lack of discerning on his part, but that’s probably my fault for using big words like discerning.

How is anyone (let alone a judge) allowed to refer to anyone in public as a looter, rioter, or arsonist unless we know for a fact that they were doing those things? In one flail swoop, the judge has managed to not only render a ruling that makes the case for an appeal a slam dunk, he’s opened himself up to class action lawsuit for defamation of character.

However, let’s forget all of that for the moment. Do we want to live in a society where that even matters? Do we want to live in a society where a teenage boy gets to decide what crosses the line between peaceful protests and rioting? Do we want an adolescent deciding when someone has crossed the line into looting? Do we want someone without a fully developed frontal lobe getting to decide the fate of someone even if they have been caught committing an act of arson? Hell, are any of those actions things that anyone should be killed over?

I’m not qualified to make that decision and I’m a grown ass man. Besides, I don’t want to live in a world where individuals on the street get to decide whether my actions somehow call for me to be the victim of state sanctioned murder. The whole concept is so morally repugnant that I can’t even entertain it. This didn’t come from a high school buddy or some stranger down the street. Apparently, this thinking came from a judge in a court of law.

So, one decision collectively demonstrates where we have gone wrong. This decision just told the families of those VICTIMS that it was their fault for protesting in the wrong place at the wrong time. This decision told the families of the VICTIMS that their loved ones will forever be branded as criminals or miscreants. This decision white washed a young kid’s decision to take the law into his own hands and become judge, jury, and executioner. This decision turned the American justice system (if even temporarily) into a lynch mob. May God have mercy on our soul if we allow this to happen.

The Washington Post is reporting that Wisconsin Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder, who is presiding over the murder trial of young gun nut Kyle Rittenhouse, who gunned down two protesters last summer, has ruled on how lawyers can refer to the dead.  Recall that Rittenhouse, who was a minor at the time, was illegally in possession of an AR-15, and had illegally crossed state lines to join a white supremacist group “guarding” private businesses in Kenosha Wisconsin.  He killed two protesters who had confronted him for carrying an assault weapon in public.

Schroeder’s ruling?  During the trial, lawyers can refer to the people Rittenhouse killed as “looters”, “rioters”, and “arsonists”, but not as “victims”, because “victims” is a “loaded term”.  We’ve fallen down the rabbit hole and we’re not coming back.

Regulars around here know that every so often I bring you stories sent to me by my real life friends Vickie and Cecil from a pretty small town area. Pretty regular they have good front page stories in the Fayette County Record.

But today  they hit the Trifecta of Journalist Magic. I’m gonna put the front page here, but you’re gonna have to open it up in another page to read it. Go on. I’ll wait here for you.

Welcome back.

First off, I cannot believe that there is a place called the Lucky Leopard Lounge in Smithville and I have never been there.  I also am dubious about it taking a three month investigation to arrest three people for gambling.  Honey, this is Texas. Any damn food knows you wait until November 27th when Texas A&M plays LSU and you can arrest a standing room only crowd. You’ll probably get the snot beat out of you but that’s the price you pay for law and order.

Then ya got the Daredevil Mayor of LaGrange (where the actual Best Little Whorehouse in Texas was located) riding in the Lickskillet parade last Saturday.  Honey, it takes a daredevil just to be mayor of LaGrange. Vickie, who is far more cultured than I am, explained to me that Lickskillet festivities come from the saying that if you show up late for dinner all that will be left for you is to lick the skillet.

But the reason she sent the newspaper is about the books in schools.  A fourth grader’s mom was upset that her daughter brought home a book about LGBTQ because the child didn’t know who LGBTQ means. The mom was sad because the school usurped the opportunity for her to have a sensitive conversation with her child about … well, that. The mom said, “in a world where this is plastered everywhere, I felt like the school library would be a safe place for her.” Safe from what? Ignorance?

And the use  of “plastered” doesn’t lend itself to a sensitive conversation.

And then she dives head first into the shallow end of the art world. Last year her daughter came home with an art history book that had nakkid women in it.  Nakkid, I tell you. She pitched such a fit that they transferred the book to the high school, where in her words, “I am sure the high school boys are loving it.” And, Mom, maybe even some of the girls. And let’s not forget students who like art.

To his credit, Vickie says the superintendent seemed shocked by it all and the newspaper ran an editorial about the inadvisability of censorship.

By the way, if you’re ever in Fayette, don’t forget to stop at Hruska.

There are always moments that leave me speechless. As much as I am able to throw more than enough words on a page, I struggle to speak when someone does something so brazen that it defies explanation. The right makes up stuff all the time, so that really shouldn’t be a shock, but I still find a way to come away surprised at how low they are willing to go.

Nevada happens to be the place we are talking about today. A unassuming elementary teacher passed away in 2017, but was never removed from the voting rolls. That became a problem when she somehow cast a ballot in the 2020 election.

Fox News does what Fox News does. This seemingly isolated case became proof that the election was stolen. Now, we probably shouldn’t talk about the mental gymnastics necessary to take one case and somehow extrapolate widespread fraud out of it. Hyper-partisan hacks will certainly take logical leaps in the interest of a good story. Heck, they’ll even make conclusions without all of the evidence.

That’s not the part that gets me. The part that gets me is how they put on the husband to talk about how peculiar it was that his wife’s absentee ballot was submitted. He went on talking about how it proves there is fraud. He should know about that because he’s the one that submitted it. After all, he is seen looking dead into the camera expressing how dumbfounded he is that someone would do this.

I suppose we tell ourselves lies all the time. It’s all a part of the mental gymnastics it takes to get through the day. Sure, I’ve only had one cup of coffee. Sure, it wasn’t me that ate the last of the cookies. Sure, I’m going to work out today to work off some of these extra calories. We might even speak those lies out loud to our loved ones.

What we don’t do is go on television and offer bald-faced lies in the interest of a national narrative. The makers of South Park have always had ways of stripping down our malarkey and leaving us naked before the world. They poked fun at families that did this when some of them are probably guilty of murder. Those people blamed it on a random Puerto Rican guy. It’s the same concept. It’s not enough to say I didn’t do it. They had to actively point the finger at someone else.

One can hardly blame right wing blowhards for jumping on something before getting all the facts. Sure, their explanations defy logic, but we’ve done that before. Maybe we haven’t broadcasted those assumptions to the world, but most of us don’t have that opportunity. What’s unfathomable is being the guilty party and being brazen enough to go on camera and point the finger at someone else. I’d be doing good to find a bunker and stay put until everything blows over. I guess some people are more shameless liars than others.