Remember back in 2008 when Sarah Palin’s lie about “death panels” in the proposed Obamacare legislation took on a life of its own?  How the entire red state noise machine took it and ran with it?  Well, irony kicked in this weekend when Palin, talking at the Turning Point USA convention brainwashing, said she’d get a vaccine “…over my dead body“.  The crowd of young conservatives fascists cheered, completely missing the irony of her statement.  Dana Milbank hit the nail on the head pointing out that Palin was an active participant in what can now only be called a death cult.

The death cult also showed its ugly head when the few people who actually paid for seats to the  Traveling Bullshit Tour stop in Dallas booed their Dear Leader, none other than TFG, when he told Bill O’Reilly that he got the booster to protect himself.  The Trumpified GOP is now actually getting people killed as the death rate from COVID in Trump counties is 5 times that of the death rate in blue counties.

The Darwin Club is actually a thing.

In that Republicans believe every race they lose is faked, stolen, or undocumented, but every election they win is dandy, they finally came across a slogan that covers all the bases.

In Texas, they will just go ahead 11 month in advance of the election, and declare which districts they won.

Bianca Garcia of Latinos for Trump is running for a seat in the Texas state Senate in 2022 and she makes it clear that there's really no point in anyone else even running: "I have conquered it already. It is mine. I am claiming the victory." pic.twitter.com/Di4jlbUWw6

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) December 17, 2021

Bianca Garcia runs for office a lot, but has decided on Texas Senate District 11 this cycle.  She has claims she cannot wear a mask because she has “a breathing problem.”

Other than that, she is pretty much QAnon central. She’s running on a three-part platform: faith, family, and freedom. And she says that it’s such a winning message that she has, in fact, already won despite opposition from “the establishment and the RNC itself.”

Damn, she makes  it look easy, don’t she?

What becomes harder and harder these days is coming up with a list of things I want for Christmas. Most items are things no one would buy for me because either they are unhealthy or they don’t know exactly what I want. In other years, I just don’t want anything that badly. However, since this is the last piece I will write before Christmas I thought I would use that tact to address this particularly situation.

My first instinct is to assert that Joe Mancin and Kyrsten Synema are not really Democrats. The whole reason we are in the mess we are in is that far too many people treat political parties like a team or tribe and not as a generic way of telling people what you stand for. They are both Democrats in the sense that they support policies Democrats support more often than not. They just don’t support enough of them or as often as many of us would like.

So, as angry as one can get at the failure of the Build Back Better bill, it is hard to know exactly what Mancin is thinking. He represents West Virginia. Maybe this deal isn’t good for West Virginia in his eyes. Maybe he bent to the whims of his donors. Maybe he just wants to wield more power on his way out the door. Maybe he is really a Republican in sheep’s clothing. Maybe a lot of things are true.

Getting legislation passed is an uphill battle. Getting judges is an uphill battle. Getting ambassadors and political appointments is an uphill battle. Holding the insurrectionists accountable has been an uphill battle. Look around the country and you clearly see one party cares about democracy (small d) while the other cares about power. One party cares about preserving individual rights while the other cares about power.

Yet, we see Demotats fighting over infrastructure, economic relief, and saving the elderly and working families money. These things are all important. Yet, it cannot be more important than giving those people a fighting chance to get people that will represent their interest. It doesn’t matter which issue it is. Public opinion polls always show that an overwhelming number of people support what the Democrats want to do. Yet, they have a 50/50 split in the Senate.

While Democrats have focused on those important but transient issues, Republicans have managed to tip the scales. They’ve managed to rig statewide elections. They are working to stack the courts. That work is starting to produce fruit now and that fruit is something the majority does not want. What the majority wants doesn’t matter. Yet, here we are still pushing that proverbial rock up the mountain.

What I want for Christmas is for the Democrats in Congress to use whatever political capital they have left to ensure that the overall representation reflects the values of the people. That means that everyone that has the right to vote should be able to vote. That means more access. That means district lines that make sense and that are fair. That means no intimidation. That means no thumbs on the scale. That means no changing the outcome when the outcome is “wrong.” That means one person, one vote. That means that land doesn’t determine political power. People do. Once you get that then all the build back better and progressive planks come. They come whether Joe Mancin supports them or not.

Texas indicted felon Attorney General Ken Paxton spent $2.2 million of my damn money conducting a colossal hunt for voter fraud in Texas. Now, keep in mind that Paxton was on the stage with Donald Trump during the insurrection.

His office’s election integrity unit added two lawyers to the team in the last year, bringing it up to six staffers total, and worked more than 20,000 hours between October 2020 and September 2021. Its budget, meanwhile, ratcheted up from $1.9 million to $2.2 million during that time.

Yet records from the office show that the unit closed just three cases this year, down from 17 last year, and opened seven new ones. That includes the newly created unit focused on the 2021 local elections, which has yet to file a single case.”

There were 11 million votes in Texas.  If all he can find is three … then maybe it’s not true that even blind squirrels can find acorns.

Honey, in 20,000 hours, I could find Amelia Earhart.

Come on, y’all, this is like saying that a tin foil hat will roast your brain or no more warning labels on paper cups of kool-aid.

So, some guy comes up with a magic amulet that will protect you from 5G mobile networks, although nobody even knows what they will do to you. And by they I mean 5G networks. The amulet, on the other hand, will make you look like a damn fool.

Well, come to find out, maybe more than a damn fool.

My first thought was that somebody sold these to cull the herd of idiots.  But, that would be mean.

However, I want you to think about this: these people will wear radioactive jewelry and stickers to protect themselves from something totally harmless, but will not wear a damn mask to protect themselves from death and spreading the disease to their family and friends.

It’s a great time to be alive, ain’t it?

This week Texas Monthly announced its 2022 Bum Steer Awards and the ones you expected were winners.  The only question was who was going to be the Top Bum Steer.  You won’t be surprised that it is none other the National Embarrassment of Texas, Greg Abbott.  The magazine ripped him a new one with these choice quotes:

“From the beginning, Abbott was attuned to the 4 percent of Texans who decide Republican primary elections and that group’s many peculiar priorities.”

“This has been a hard year for everyone, and no governor in the U.S. has had it easy. (“At least we don’t have Andrew Cuomo,” Texans could say.) But every step of the way, Abbott has made it harder for nearly everyone, rendering life more difficult, the death tolls higher, and the experience of being a Texan more demoralizing.”

About the blackout: “Who was the responsible party? Two days into the crisis, Abbott took the time to appear on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show and blame renewable energy—a field in which Texas has been a leader, thanks in large part to his Republican predecessors—even though the blackout was caused mostly by problems with the distribution of natural gas.”

About COVID-19: “And Abbott’s handling of the situation was comically erratic. He ordered a lockdown and then, under pressure from his right, crusaded to free Texans imprisoned by his lockdown.”

“But Abbott had other priorities. With his approval, the Legislature passed voter suppression legislation that rivaled the worst in the country as well as a law placing bounties on the heads of those who help others get abortions.”

And finally, “Over the course of 2021, Texans learned that Greg Abbott was not so colorless after all—somewhere along the line, he learned to be ruthless. ”

The article is a must read.  Close runners up were Ted Cruz for obvious reasons, and 25 Texans who participated in Trump’s effort to overthrow the US government and steal the presidency from Joe Biden.

After 26 years of single party rule where the GOP has controlled the governor’s mansion, both state houses, and virtually all the courts including the Texas Supreme Court, our state has become a cesspool of corruption, weirdos, felons, and fascists.  I have little hope that much will change as long as the federal government and courts are tolerant and complicit with Texas’ post-democracy fascist regime.