Cyndi Lauper recorded a song a few years back called “True Colors”. It dealt with acceptance and self love. “True colors” is a phrase that describes what is beneath the visible surface of someone, or a group of someones.

Their true nature.

So today, as if on cue, the Republicans in the House, along with their newly-minted leader, MAGA Mike, revealed their true colors. $14.3 billion in military aid to Israel must…MUST be offset by $14.5 billion in cuts to IRS funding that was put in place by the Inflation Reduction Act.

That’s a new one.

Military Aid for a military ally has never been offset by cuts to any US government function.

But there it is. The first issue out of the chute in this post-McCarthy Era is to ensure that rich tax cheats can lie, cheat and steal from their fellow American taxpayers once more. Because if they can’t cheat, Israel will suffer.

It’s called a Poison Pill. You wanna help military allies? Here, swallow this first.

When we hear about Mike Johnson’s adopted son, we notice that Hhe doesn’t seem to be in any of the family pictures. He was adopted when he was fourteen. Maybe he is the one taking the picture. Maybe he doesn’t like being in pictures. Maybe we should respect his privacy as Johnson alluded to in the article linked above.

This is an uncomfortable talking point. Admonishing our own is never a joyous experience, but it is one that has to be done every once in awhile. There always seems to be a trail that follows those with prolific anti-gay rhetoric. I think that is when Shakespeare said, “doth protest too much.”

It is in this vain that progressives and gay rights activists seem to be going after Johnson. Perhaps it is just a group of people that watch a little too much Investigative Discovery in their spare time. Years ago there was a similar story involving Matt Gaetz. He apparently adopted a boy from Cuba. Considering how sleazy and sexualized Gaetz is, there was plenty of speculation about what was really going on there.

That same speculation is happening now. Johnson has made a career of ant-gay and anti-lesbian rhetoric and championed legislation that would promote those views. He has opposed legislation that would support those groups. His wife dangles in the gay conversion therapy that feels so repugnant. One thing leads to another and the amateur sleuths assume Johnson is gay and trying to repress it. They are assuming the boy was a furtherance to that end.

I’m really not sure which is worse. On the one hand, you have a young man that really doesn’t want to be in the limelight and you are openly attempting to out him against his wishes. The fact that none of it could be true cannot be understated. You also have a legislator that has said and done some pretty questionable things above board and you are spending your time trying to catch him in some sort of hypocrisy below board.

Is Mike Johnson secretly gay? I really don’t know and I really don’t care. What I do care about is what he will actually do as speaker of the house. I care that he attempted to push the big lie forward and actually did things behind the scenes to make it happen. I care that this fact didn’t seem to be a disqualifying point for his House colleagues. I care that he is already going back on his word to push through aid for Ukraine at the same time as they pass aid for Israel.

I care about a looming shutdown in November that no one has done anything about since they passed the last continuing resolution. I care that he is seen as an improvement over Jim Jordan just because he doesn’t yell as much and seems able to find his sport coat on a daily basis.

What I don’t care about is whether or not he is a closeted homosexual. Maybe that fuels his homophobia and far right views. Maybe it drives him to go whole hog on the evangelical thing. I care what you do. I care how your actions affect those around you, me, and everyone else. Whether there is a deep seeded reason for those actions matters not to the people suffering the consequences of those actions. I’ll let the psychologists and psychiatrists worry about repressed feelings, self-loathing, and all of the other buzzwords we like to throw around these days. Let’s focus on the real stuff and let others worry about the imaginary stuff.

We’ve made a lot out of the fact that conservatives don’t really govern. There is a subtle difference and that difference comes in the legacy of conservatism from 1981 forward. They have not offered any new programs or any significant plank that has made our lives better. Conservatives superpower is messaging. They have crafted a very simple message over time that has become so ingrained that people now assume it to be true. It really is a two-pronged message that relies on each other to pass muster.

Believe it or not, most progressives aren’t socialists. We like capitalism. We like the idea that someone can get ahead by building a better mousetrap. We like robust choices as consumers. The idea of someone getting rich isn’t repugnant on its own. The devil is always in the details. How did they do it? Now that they are rich and powerful, what are they doing to people lower than them on totem poll?

The first coup of modern conservatism was their ability to redefine success itself. What does it mean to be successful? If you ask them it means having a good job, making a lot of money, and buying a bunch of stuff. The person with the most toys wins. The person with the fanciest title wins. The person with the biggest bank account wins. However, we can redefine success to shun the notion of winning and losing. Deeply personal success happens without bank accounts, toys, or fancy titles. Deeply personal success happens when we manage to take our gifts and use them to make the world a better place.

Specialization just might be man’s greatest gift to the world. It might be the most important thing that separates us from all of the animals. Each of us can become an expert in something worthwhile. Either that, or we can use gifts of compassion, empathy, and deep human connection to help those that need our help.

If we begin to see success as a positive impact on the world around us then we cease to see it as winning and losing. If we surrender the notion that successful people win then we also repudiate the notion that life is a zero sum game. That is the second conservative plank and it is even more insidious than the first one. If there are winners and losers in the game of life then we also are bound to see connections between others’ success and our failure.

The concept of a zero sum game is easy to see as a sports analogy. Someone or some team must win the game. If they win then the other team does not. So, you either win or you lose. In life, that begins to look like the predatory capitalism we have seen develop over the past 40+ years. If I want to be successful then you can’t be.

In this paradigm it becomes easy to hate the other. The other turns into whatever we need to tell ourselves to feel good about what we need to do to be successful. It could be migrants. It could be ethnic minorities. It could be women. It could be members of the LGTBQ+ community. It could be whoever or whatever we need to convince ourselves that what we are doing is okay and justified. Therefore, government programs are bad. Charity for charity sake is bad. Mercy is bad. In order to combat this notion we have to fight the battle over the definition of success.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

I did it again. I opened up Twitter/X again and the algorithm did it to me again. I usually just check in once or twice a day to see if I get any mentions. I still get an occasional baseball question from fantasy players and occasionally someone may respond to something I’ve said. Most of the time it is a desperate woman needing attention or something like today’s nonsense.

Innocently enough I see the little display that says I have a new mention. Hey, maybe someone said something interesting. I should have known better. This was a random conservative “journalist” that has a bombshell for us. Are you ready for this? Apparently John Kerry has been giving away Israeli defense secrets to the Iranians. He is just giving them away.

As you might imagine, there is apparently an audio recording. This journalist didn’t have it. She said the Senate “must have it” which means we aren’t even sure if they do. Plus, since no one has heard the recording that I know of, no one could verify its authenticity. So, maybe there is a recording of someone that might sound like John Kerry doing something. Sounds solid to me.

This is my favorite part. A responsible X user asked the very basic question everyone should be asking: where did you get this from? She attached a video of Maria Bartiromo reporting on Fox Business. Fox Business is where people go when regular Fox isn’t batshit crazy enough for them. Before we move on, can we spare a moment for Maria? She was somewhat of a responsible journalist at some point in her career. What does it look like when someone’s soul has been crushed when they sell it off for their thirty pieces of silver?

I have to wonder how many of those folks on conservative outlets really believe that they are on the side of the angels. Have they deluded themselves or are they cravenly just offering their services to the highest bidder? Let’s look at what this story is all about and why it exists. John Kerry used to be the Secretary of State. He was on Obama’s team when they negotiated a deal with Iran. Many conservatives feel that the deal was weak, so they put two and two together and got 27. He likes the Iranians. He had access to the information. Surely, he shared it with them.

I suppose their is a non-zero chance that its true. He could have information that would benefit them. He had spoken to them when helping to negotiate the deal towards the end of Obama’s presidency. So, the opportunity is there. Yet, John Kerry married into the Heinz family. Maybe he is just a raging Anti-Semite and we didn’t know. Maybe a lot of things.

There is a distinct pattern here and I’m clearly not the first person to see it. Every time a negative news story comes down about Trump and his many cases then we see someone run with one of these stories about Joe Biden or a prominent Democrat. He got the proverbial double whammy this week. Three of his attorneys flipped on him in Georgia and it came out that Mark Meadows has been singing to Jack Smith. Republicans have been in full on panic mode.

Just stay tuned. That evidence is coming we promise. There is a whistleblower in hiding. No one can seem to verify he exists or that anything he says is above board, but you can trust us. We’ve never lied to you before. Yup, that’s the ticket.

Narcissism used to be a mental illness. I suppose it technically still is, but what happens when it is actively encouraged? Depending on the source, the exact verbiage changes, but one of them states, “self-centeredness arising from failure to distinguish the self from external objects, either in very young babies or as a feature of mental disorder.” In other words, the person is the center of the universe.

This makes sense for very young children because they literally are the center of their family’s universe. It’s been awhile since I’ve taken child and adolescent development, but this changes somewhere around pre-school. There are other children which means there are others that have feelings. Children learn to share and learn that they can’t always do what they want to do.

I noticed something on Twitter/X. One of the things is that the algorithm wants me to see stuff I’ve never asked to see. Sometimes I follow these people. Sometimes they think I will be pissed off. A guy named Terry wants you to boycott Bass Pro Shops. You see, he wanted to go in and buy some magazines for his AR. They let him do it without an ID last time, but now they want him to produce an ID.

Let’s leave aside for a moment that no one should own an assault rifle. Let’s ignore that a magazine carries numerous bullets which means that someone can get off a round of more a dozen bullets in one sitting. Let’s leave aside the fact that it has no other positive utility other than killing human beings. Let’s leave aside for the moment that the AR-15 has been the weapon of choice in the vast majority of mass shootings in schools, shopping malls, and other public places.

Bass Pro Shops was not saying that he could not own an assault rifle. They were not denying him the magazine. They were simply asking for his ID. Keep in mind that these are the folks that want people to show multiple forms of ID to vote. Yet, something that could result in the deaths of dozens of people in one sitting should not even have that basic level of regulation. Just give me my damn bullets and let me live in peace.

I think we know what will bring down western civilization. It is narcissism. It is about me and what I want. To hell with what might be best for everyone else. The idea that I probably shouldn’t have that kind of firepower doesn’t enter their mind. The idea that we should be able to track something which is so frequently used to kill a lot of people doesn’t enter their mind. The 30 seconds of inconvenience is just too much.

Everyone needs a mascot. Everyone needs a symbol. They need a hero. Trump is their mascot, symbol, and hero. Every time he disses the left, center, military, or foreign leaders it gives them a warm fuzzy. He is sticking it to the man. It isn’t enough for someone like Terry (I am absolutely throwing him under the bus) to announce his jackassery to his friends and family. He has to announce it to the world.

Maybe this is what they want. Maybe they know full well they sound like an ever loving ass. However, I choose to think they have never progressed past the point of being a toddler. I want my damn bullets I shouldn’t have and I want them now. Screw you for making me actually responsible for them and what they may do. Freedumb. ‘Merica. Deep state. MAGA. Maybe next time they will get to multiple syllable words.