We all remember the disastrous (and laughable) Republican responses to the SOTU over the years.  Bobby Jindal’s and Marco Rubio’s responses were cringe-worthy, and Jindal’s 10 minute spotlight moment ended his career.  Well, last Thursday, freshman Alabama senator Katie Britt said “hold my beer”, launching into the weirdest SOTU response in history.  Typical for Republicans, they put her in a fucking KITCHEN while she breathlessly disclosed the horrors of the Biden administration like protecting women’s health and preserving the right to vote.  If it wasn’t so strange it would have been hilarious.

One of Britt’s blood curdling stories was one she recounted of a private conversation she had with one woman who had been sex trafficked by the cartel in the US after crossing the border during Biden’s presidency.  The story was truly horrific as she described being repeatedly raped and being held captive in a shoebox-sized room.  Simply awful…with the one exception that it was complete bullshit.  Not that the woman was raped and held captive – that story is likely true.  The bullshit happened when Britt pinned the whole terrible scenario on Biden and his border policies.  Tim-Tokker Jonathan Katz did all the work on this, so I’ll let him tell the story:

@katzonearth

This isn’t going to make her like TikTok more. #katiebritt #sotu #stateoftheunion #lies #politicians #biden2024 #trump2024 #immigration #traffickingawarenes #mexico #bordersecurity #fyp

♬ original sound – Jonathan M. Katz

So, the victim here, Karla Jacinto Ramiro, was a victim of child sex trafficking when she was 12.  In 2004.  When George W. Bush was president.  IN MEXICO.  Ramiro is now an advocate for victims of sex trafficking and is in her 30s.   Ramiro even told this same story in a congressional hearing in 2015.  So, Katie Britt picks up this tragic 20 year old story and recasts it to place blame on Biden who wouldn’t be president until almost 20 years after it happened.  That’s like Republicans blaming Obama for the great recession that happened under GWB or Biden for the disastrous response to COVID  and Afghanistan debacle that were caused by TFG.

Not only was Britt’s melodramatic and creepy SOTU rebuttal cringe-worthy, it was also nothing but vicious character assassination and pure bullshit.  AND she did it on national television.  With any luck, Britt will go the way of Bobby Jindal.

Mexico’s economic minister announce last week that a new railway from Mexico to Canada for international trade is no longer going to come through Texas, but will cross into New Mexico, 20 miles west of El Paso.  The reason?  Texas is no longer considered “a reliable trading partner” after Abbott’s idiotic stunt last month that caused weeks of chaos at US/Mexico border crossings, costing Texas about $4 billion in lost trade and spoiled produce.  Now Abbott (Mini Trump) has cost Texas billions more by losing a rail line that’s going to connect the port of Mazatlan in Mexico to Winnipeg in Canada.  Laredo and Dallas were scheduled to be on the route, but no more.

Thanks for nothing, Shithead.

Just hours after Trump caved to overwhelming pressure on his idiotic separation scheme, word started leaking out of the White House that, characteristically, after causing chaos with some cruel, pointless tactic, the Trump White House has no clue how to reunite over 2,400 kids with their over almost 5,000 parents.  Anyone with common sense can divine the reason because everything Trump does is half-assed, and intended to inflict the most damage, either by design or, more likely, by gross incompetence.  From slashing taxes, to efforts to destroy the ACA, to attempts to reverse education reforms, undo environmental policies, sell off protected lands, everything Trump touches – well I’ll quote Tony Soprano on this one – “I’m the reverse Midas; everything I touch turns to sh*t.”  That old quote is certainly apropos here.  Trump thoughtlessly ripped families apart, and to keep all those people out of sight, immediately shipped them off to seemingly random cities all over he country.  It’s easily conceivable that a family of 4 could have members in different Trump Big Box Prisons in four different states.

Trump thinks that him signing yet another executive order (which reverses his last executive order) will make all the furor go away without doing anything else.  It’s up to us to not let that happen.  There are almost 7,500 people scattered to the 4 winds with no plan to reunite them and to treat them humanely.  It’s time for us to keep the pressure on to fix this catastrophe that is completely of Trump’s own making.

There is a place for anger, and this is it.