My guess is that former Congressman George Santos is not real happy about being George Santos right about now. Brought up on federal charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and making false statements (aka lying) to the FEC, but not convicted of anything, he was nevertheless booted out of Congress today.

That’s a first.

To-date, three congressmen have been sent packing for consorting with the enemy (aka working for The Confederate States of America), and two more had their hats handed to them after they were convicted of their crimes by courts for “job-related bribery” among other things.

But they just lowered the bar for ol’ George. Santos, who, like his favorite former president, has federal indictments, but as yet has no convictions. But congressional tolerance for his flagrant acts (what the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is Only Fans, anyway) has flagged since the Ethics Committee issued their report on him.

114 of his fellow Republicans refused to throw George under the bus, including a former Fort Bend County Sheriff named Troy Nehls, who continues to not surprise me. My own current congressman, a despicable man in his own right, voted with nearly all Democrats to can his a$$. Don’t care. Still not voting for him.

I’m told that the dance card is filling up for the chance to replace him in a New York special election, including the guy who lost to him in the midterm. I was hoping for a spectrum of candidates for the NY CD-3 seat, and maybe we’ll get that.

Maybe.

Maybe. But only if Kitara Ravache throws her banana-bearing hat into the ring.

Yesterday, we were treated to the news that Hamas had officially violated the ceasefire when they took credit for killing three Israelis in a terrorist attack. However, there is some consternation of both sides as one side blames the other for violating the cease fire. Essentially, this is where this conflict has gotten us. The last couple of months has been a microcosm of the last 75 years since Israel was officially established by the United Nations in 1947. First, let’s take a step back for a second. The vast majority of animal behavior is predictable on some level.

Our cats and dog fight like, um, cats and dogs. One of them gets along with him (the dog) better than the others, but the dog weighs 100 pounds. He wouldn’t really hurt any of them, but they don’t know that. More importantly, they constantly fight with each other. You would think they could join together in common cause against the dog, but they can put aside their differences to do this.

This is where things are at in the Middle East. When you look at what Hamas has done it would appear that it is unprovoked. There were no direct preceding events that led up to their terrorist attack in October. However, there were tons of preceding events. Just like with my cats, there is a reason why one attacks the other. It may look like the victim was just minding their business, but it wasn’t always that way. The aggressor was responding to a time when he or she was the victim. So, even a seemingly isolated event has roots in something.

All human behavior is predictable. Even sociopathy is predictable and understandable once you get a fuller appreciation for it. Our ex-president’s behavior is predictable. Hamas’s behavior is predictable. Israel’s behavior is predictable. We respond based on previous experience and the facts on the ground as we understand them. If our experience is that you can’t be trusted and that you will attack beyond the scope of the current conflict then my response is certain to reflect that. So, here we are.

What is also predictable is our collective response. People that criticize Palestine are called Islamophobic. People that criticize Israel are called anti-Semitic. If you were to somehow criticize both then you would just be the world’s biggest bigot. This is where we are at. We cannot have a frank and honest conversation because those labels are going to be thrown around quicker than it takes you to finish this paragraph.

I fully understand the emotions involved. I feel deeply for the Israeli AND Palestinian people caught in the middle. Having empathy means actually mentally putting yourself in their place. Some have questioned why innocent people would not put themselves in harms way and turn in their neighbors if they knew they were Hamas and what they planned to do. How safe would feel turning in your neighbors? Maybe we could relocate across town in that scenario or in another state. These folks cannot.

On the Israeli side, they know they are the target of the Arab world. Most of the countries around them vacillate between reluctant tolerance and out and out hatred. If we put ourselves in their shoes it would make perfect sense to lash out at those folks to at least demonstrate strength and resolve. Knowledge and wisdom are two different things. Knowledge simply means I know all of this stuff. I’ve studied history enough to know this. Wisdom means I also know I don’t have a solution available. Humility also comes into play here. If they have been going through this since 1947 it makes perfect sense that someone would have suggested simple and obvious solutions before.

I am 76 years old and I don’t care if he is dead, I still want to impeach Richard Nixon.

So, understand that’s where my little grey head is.

But, Henry Kissinger is a whole ‘nother story.  I hate Henry Kissinger with a rage reserved for Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, and Vlad the Impaler all combined and put in a five pound sack with two cobras and a really pissed off chihuahua.

This morning I was comforted to read that Jeff Tiedrich hates Kissinger almost as much as I do.  Except he does it so much better than I do. I will warn you that Jeff is what I call colorful and Momma called vulgar.

Dante said there were nine circles of hell.  As of this morning there are ten.

“I can be someone else’s and still my own.” — Shel Silverstein

When right wing cable networks and right wing internet silos relentlessly send a barrage of hate and misinformation to their followers’ eyeballs it is not enough to speak the truth once and let it be. It must be repeated and reinforced with the same ferocity or it will die on the vine. A large part of that is in understanding what exactly is being sold.

The concept of being someone else’s missing piece seems so foreign to us. The idea that we could be there to support someone else seems like crazy talk. The idea that we can keep our individuality while also living as a part of the collective is antithetical to anything we have heard before. That is exactly what they are working against. They have us believing that words like “collective” are communist. They are steadily working towards a world where anything involving “we”, “us”, or “the group” is also communist. That is why it sounds so foreign.

This past Sunday was the last Sunday of the liturgical year. It was the story of Jesus separating the sheep and goats. The sheep fed him, gave him drink, clothed him, comforted him, and visited him when they visited the least of these. The goats did not. The challenge is realizing that the biggest enemy to Christianity does not come from outside Christianity. It doesn’t come from Muslims, Buddhists, or Hindus. It doesn’t come from secular humanists, atheists, or agnostics. It comes from people that call themselves Christians, but have lost the script.

Those same people that call themselves Christians would take a message like that of the Missing Piece and call it communist. The idea of helping another is foreign. They need to pick themselves from their bootstraps. They can’t be be given anything. They need to earn it. I would simply like to introduce those folks to a person that called himself Jesus. He fed the hungry. He healed the sick. He brought hope to the hopeless. He didn’t ask for their insurance card. He didn’t ask for identification or papers. He didn’t check for attendance at the synagogue. He just gave of himself.

I know this seems like a radical concept, but the antidote for hate isn’t hate. It is love. It is relentless love because that hate can seem relentless. It is sustained and repeated love. It is unequivocal and it is undying love. It is unqualified. The forces of evil want you to think you are alone. They want you to distrust the institutions we used to rely on. They want you to think your neighbors are out to get you. They want you to arm yourself to the teeth and shoot first. They don’t want you to even ask questions later. They tell us  that the world hates you. They say that the world wants to take what is yours and the only thing that can stop it is you and your hate.

You don’t combat that by hating that messenger. You don’t combat that by simply saying once that this is wrong. You defeat it by repeating it every chance you get. You defeat it by pouring water on that out of control brushfire. That fire is hate. The water is love. Love means that we have to give of ourselves. It means it will come back to us. We have to believe that. We have to know that. We have to share that with the world.

Project 2025 has a ton in it. There is a mention of detention camps for certain people. I will simply quote his own words from his crappy little app and let them stand on their own.

“2024 is our final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the Deep State, we wll expel the warmongers from our government, we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the Communists, Marxists, and Fascists, we will throw off the sick political class that hates our Country, we will rout the Fake News Media, we will evict Joe Biden from the White House, and we will FINISH THE JOB ONCE AND FOR ALL!”

It gets worse from there. I could go on and I’m certain we will hear more in the coming weeks and months, but instead I wanted to ask a series of rhetorical questions. This isn’t just for conservatives or just for liberals. Everyone needs to be asking themselves these questions.

Are we taking him seriously?

The answer for most is likely no. He is a known liar and for those that follow him they will talk about the fact that we really can’t take everything he says seriously. He is inartful in his speech. He doesn’t use precise language.

Admittedly, there is an aspirational nature to it all. He wouldn’t be competent enough to do this. Some people might consider it more than aspirational. Some people might want to do it and not just talk about it. Would a second administration have the constraints of the first?

Would he do that to me?

The quick and easy answer is no. I’m a white guy. Obviously, he’s not talking about me right? The trouble is that there is frequent talk of vanguishing enemies. Who exactly are those enemies? Are we talking about just recent immigrants? Are we talking about all non-white people? Are we talking about anyone in the LGTBQ+ community? If you don’t think someone would be perusing these pages to find people aligned against him you’d be nuts.

If I don’t want that to happen to me then what am I prepared to do? This is the scary part. Do I buy a red hat and a bumpersticker just so I can pass as an ally? Would more be required of me down the road? Would I need to help round up “undesirables” for these camps?

What do we do now?

Most people are not evil. Even if there are people we don’t like, few of us would ever dream of doing something like this. So, hearing someone else talk about this has to be somewhat jarring. Even if we acknowledge that he is most likely not serious, there is some stuff you just don’t joke about. You certainly don’t do it in public speeches in front of people. So, there is an element of honesty here woven within the lies and farce.

This is quite literally a fight or flight situation. If we are not prepared to fight on the political arena or maybe even the real one then we better be prepared to find a new home. Obviously, in the political world it means beating Trump at the polls. This is where we get a ton of disagreement. Is Joe Biden the best fit to beat him? Are there any other options at this point?

The worst thing we can do right now is divide our forces. A vote for Joe Mancin (for instance) only works if it were someone that would have voted for Trump but decided not to. He has a solid 35-40 percent ready to vote for him. So, you only beat him by uniting behind one man (or woman) that can get more than that.

Okay, so something or other is happening in the Republican Party and it’s become a nightmare that makes you giggle.

They are torturing each other. They are fighting, physically assaulting each other.  It’s more fun than recess in heaven.

I’m going to take a while telling this story because it’s such a damn good one.

It brings to mind for me a trial my youngest son was in recently. The opposing counsel lost three motions in a row, fair and square, because he hadn’t bothered to understand the very basics of civil court rules.  The unprepared  lawyer became enraged, not at himself for failing to do his homework, but at my baby boy who had done his homework. His rage grew to the point of yelling and snarling until the judge stepped in and issued a warning.

However, after the judge left the courtroom, Mr. Unprepared, Attorney at Law, went wacko, waving his arms, yelling, and shooting the bird at my son, and then doubling his fists. This was stoopid for many reasons. You know reasons like the fact that my son was the youngest of three good-sized brothers so he had to fight if he wanted to eat, he played football in high school and rugby in college, at 6 foot tall he was the shortest of the other three lawyers on his team in the courtroom, and – probably most damning, there were two professional cameras – HBO and the Law and Crime Network – on opposite sides of the courtroom recording the whole damn thing. It was then that Bill, one of my son’s partners who looks like he ate a buffalo for breakfast, stood up. Bill doesn’t stand up as much as he unfolds because there’s so damn much of him.  Bill didn’t say a word but his eyes said, “You may get the first punch, but I’m going to get the second 8 punches.” Things suddenly got better.

Republicans don’t have a Bill.

They just threaten each other and fight.

It’s beginning to look like everyday is a new skirmish between Republicans.  I remember Adam Kinsinger claiming that Kevin McCarthy punched him on purpose and now Tim Burchett got a McCarthy elbow to the kidney punch.

Senator Markwayne Mullin told the head of the United Brotherhood of Teamsters to get his butt out of his chair and fist fight in the pit of the hearing room. Had it not been for Bernie Sanders being horrified that a United States Senator wanted to go a few rounds of a no rules fight in the United States Senate, no telling what would have happened.

I know I could go on and on with other examples, but there will be others before I even get this posted.

One more thing – I’m getting kinda worried about Mike Johnson. Something’s not right about that guy. I’ve got myself a creepy feeling about him. Real creepy.