Okay, come to find out, Ginni Thomas ain’t real anxious to testify before the Jan 6 Committee.

Not only does the committee have emails between Ginni and John Eastman …

Lawmakers also have text messages Thomas exchanged with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in which she urged him to work toward overturning Joe Biden’s victory.

But her lawyer, Mark Paoletta, indicated that Ginni’s earlier statement that she was anxious “to come clear up misconceptions” before the committee may not be the operative plan.

“Without more information, I am left to believe that, if her name were Ginni Jones, the Committee would never even entertain speaking with her,” he wrote.

Well, damn. That’s some fancy lawyering right there. Honey, they wouldn’t be asking to speak to her if her name was Juanita Jean either. You wanna know why? Because Juanita Jean didn’t try to overthrow the United States government.

 

There is one path forward for those that want the United States to continue to be a republic. There is one path forward for those that want individual rights and individual liberty to be a thing moving forward in the United States. There is one path forward for those that want the church over here and our politics to be over there. There is only one path forward.

You must vote and you must vote for Democrats. If it’s Joe Biden then it’s Joe Biden. If it’s your moderate senator or milquetoast representative than so be it. If it’s Skippy the kid who used to run the video store for dog catcher than so be it. If it has a D you vote for it. If it has an R you don’t.

If you are looking at your local school board election or local city offices and someone talks about how they are conservative then you don’t vote for them. You may have known them for years and you think they are a stand up man or woman. That’s great. You still vote for someone else.

You cannot vote for third party candidates. You cannot vote for the Republican because you like him/her and think they are decent enough. You cannot stay home because you don’t like anyone on the ballot. You vote for the Democrat to save our democracy. You vote for the Democrat or democracy dies.

Andrew Yang has formed himself a new party. Some of Yang’s ideas were interesting in the last presidential primary. I definitely understand the impulse to give people more choices. I definitely understand the impulse to say that the two-party system has driven this country into a ditch. I definitely understand the impulse to say that a “vote this party or die” mantra is what got us here. 99 times out of 100 I would be saying the exact same things.

We need to acknowledge the present reality. 40 percent of the country (or at least those that vote) are taken in by the right. I could call them deplorable, brainwashed, uneducated, or any other negative adjective I can think of. They aren’t changing their vote. They could listen to stories about the ex-president sitting in a high chair and throwing food at the wall. Maybe they would hear tales of him rubbing his own feces on himself in some kind of fit of rage. Maybe they would see him take a briefcase directly from Vlad Putin and they would still vote for him.

They are thanking him for saving “white” lives. They are calling for the destruction of the wall between church and state. They want an end to gay marriage, interracial marriage, available contraception and affordable health care for women. They want gay men, lesbian women, bisexuals, transsexuals and everyone else back in the closet. Generals in the military are taking the fifth when asked if they support the peaceful transfer of power. In short, they aren’t hiding it anymore. They aren’t using cute dog whistles or a carefully crafted group of phrases giving them plausible deniability. They are coming right out and saying it.

Now is not the time to divide the other 60 percent. Now is the time for the other 60 percent to speak in one voice and tell them no. Now is the time for the other 60 percent to muster the courage to send the most egregious to jail and the less dangerous underground. Now is the time for the other 60 percent to codify our voting rights. Codify women’s rights. Codify LGTBQ+ rights. It is time for the 60 percent to codify those norms that we just assumed would always be there into actual law.

From there, Yang and everyone else can discuss what the progressive movement should look like and what the choices should be. Conservatives that defect to us to save democracy can then figure out amongst themselves what their movement should look like. Maybe then we won’t have to vote for Skippy for dog catcher or against your friend for the school board. Until that day comes there is only one solution. You have to vote and you have to vote blue. Otherwise, democracy dies.

He tried to strangle his Secret Service agent.

I am sitting here with my mouth hanging open.

 

Labels have ruined our politics. I could parcel out which side does it better or more often, but what would be the point exactly? The general problem is that I can throw a label at you and immediately brand you as something positive or negative just based on the connotation that the label has. In many instances the definition in people’s minds aren’t even accurate. So, following are a group of statements that fit as definitions for terms thrown around in public.

1. Different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another.
2. Men should hold the power and women should largely be excluded from it.
3. Most of the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
4. A political system headed by a dictator in which the government controls business and labor where opposition is not permitted.
5. The enforced separation of different racial groups in a country or community.
6. People should be able to marry whoever they want regardless of race, gender identity, religion, or age.

If I spent enough time focusing on it, I could likely craft a series of statements that those on the left would subscribe to and those on the right would subscribe to. It would be interesting to see how many statements we could get people to agree to. Would people that consider themselves as progressive or conservative actually continue to support progressive or conservative ideals?

I’m sure many of you recognized fascism and socialism above. Obviously, the first issue is that many in the political sphere know that the common person has no earthly clue what those things actually are. So, they can throw that label at anyone and have it stick because the label can fit anything. Since the label is harmful then using the label becomes a weapon.

This is also unfortunately where we descend into questions of good and evil and what those terms really mean. Does the mere belief in something make someone good or evil? Or, do we have to wait and see how those beliefs manifest themselves to determine if the individual is good or evil? Certainly, I think we can acknowledge that numerous people believe numbers one, two, and five.

We could throw number six in there too, but I added a little something extra to six to make it a much more difficult statement to support without qualification. I suspect a lot of these statements have “yeah,,,but” thoughts attached to them. That’s what makes politics so difficult. The world is rife with “yeah…buts”. No matter what personal moral code one follows, they all would agree that what we do is far more important than what we say. I have a sinking suspicion that if we allowed people to openly accept or reject such simple statements we’d see much more agreement overall and many of our politicians would be left in the cold looking for a place to land. Then again, I could be wrong.

Okay, who is the surprise witness tomorrow and what recently uncovered information does he or she have?

Thelma thinks it’s Ginny Thomas.  I don’t.  I’m wondering if it has something to do with John Eastman.  It’s gotta be somebody they are afraid will change their mind if they wait two weeks for the next hearing.

My source – Gossip & Hearsay, LLP  – is Herschel Walker and he’s going to reveal the 2 additional states no one knows about.

What’s your guess?

 

We went on a family vacation to San Francisco. It used to be that you could go away and leave your troubles behind. With connectivity, all of our troubles seem to follow us everywhere. In the span of a week we saw two landmark Supreme Court cases hit the news.

Everything old is new again. It would be wrong for me to suggest the court is reaching new ground here. In a way it is, but for the most part we have been here before. Brown vs. Board of Education created new law back in 1954. It also likely went against what the majority of the population felt at the time. We had no public opinion polling back then, so that is merely a guess, but I feel like it is a good guess.

The court is there to interpret the constitution and not to bend to the whims of a fickle majority. I think we can agree with that much. However, it is fair to question whether following legal precedent matters and conservatives have long maintained a disdain for activist judges. The court (by vote of 6-3 both times) just actively created new law on both counts. They created two radically different interpretations of the constitution on both counts.

There is also no denying what they are after. Clarence Thomas mentioned gay marriage in his majority opinion and we know our very own John Cornyn mentioned Brown vs. Board of Education. It doesn’t take much of a stretch to include interracial marriages as well. We are literally going back a century on human rights.

In an odd way, the backdrop of San Francisco is kind of telling here. You have never seen a town more into Pride Month than San Francisco. You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a pride flag. Stores had pride messages painted on their windows. Different companies offered pride products. It was the most inclusive, welcoming environment I had ever seen. How does all of this happen in the same country?

It happens because a minority of citizens have managed to control government and the courts. The GOP has effectively won a majority in a presidential election once since 1988. Many of their politicians have suggested that we live in a center-right country right now. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that based on national voting records or public opinion polling. None.

What there is evidence of is plenty of gerrymandering and voter suppression tactics that have kept progressivism at bay. This is where things get dicey. It is fair for people to look at Democrats in general and liberals and progressives specifically and claim they have failed. They didn’t codify abortion into law. They have been ineffective at stopping gerrymandering and have allowed the courts to be dominated by conservatives. There is no denying that.

The question is what happens now. We can go down two roads. One road would be for enough voters to punish Democrats either by staying home or voting for third party candidates. That way, you’d insure a Republican victory. The second road is to recognize the threat and where it is coming from. There you would overwhelm the GOP with a blue wave and then slowly rebuild what they have broken.

There are some that think the first road is tempting. After all, maybe if things get really bad then systemic change will be easier to obtain. That thinking has two problems. First, you are hurting millions along the way and secondly you are assuming there will be a democracy left to get back. Clearly, the GOP doesn’t care what the majority wants. They never have. Your only real bet is to block them from tearing this thing down any further.