John Cornyn this week:

“The president is not doing cable news interviews,” Cornyn said on Twitter. “Tweets from his account are limited and, when they come, unimaginably conventional.”

That’s right – Cornyn’s not happy that Biden isn’t acting like a narcissistic screwball Trump.  I know that sounds stupid, but that criticism has gained serious traction along with the usual “Biden is feeble” and “who’s in charge?” insults.  This one, though, plays to only one demographic – Trumpists.  Trump is still the hijacker, holding the entire GOP hostage, even though his primary weapon, Twitter, has been taken away from him since January, and there are few chinks in his armor against challengers.

Also this week, the Washington Post published a report that Biden is doing exactly what he said he would do during the campaign, to not be continuously top of mind for Americans.  His calm demeanor and low key political style has calmed the waters in American political life. As measured by studies of Google searches, Trump is fading in the American consciousness and Biden has not replaced him.  Since the inauguration, the number of searches using the terms Trump and Biden have declined.

But even as the attention of the American people on the presidency has diminished, attitudes towards it are much different.  By a large margin, Trumpists and Trump leaners believe that Biden has made communication to the American people MORE negative than when Trump infested the WH.  They actually liked Trump’s loud, abusive, and confrontational style, and now criticize, like Ccornyn, that Biden is too normal and not bombastic enough.  A lot of that is the constant torrent of vitriol that they are fed by rightwing media and Republican politicians trying to keep the spotlight on themselves.  The other is that much of Trump’s base is actually attracted to over the top rhetoric along with the childish bullying and insults.  In short, Biden’s not a big enough asshole to suit them, and probably could never be.

The GOP is so subverted that just being normal is now viewed as weakness.  The Crazy Train to 2024 is already full and pulling out of the station.  It promises to be a weird trip.

The 2021 Power Catastrophe was decades in the making, especially after 1999 when ERCOT with the PUC blessings established a “market based” power generation regime.  Independent power producers (IPPs) are paid only for power they generate, not for investment in weatherproofing or maintenance.  As a result, many plants simply shut down when it’s not economic to generate power, and shut down when the weather gets extreme as it has been this week.  That’s exactly what happened this week; when fuel gas supply skyrocketed due to demand, power generation became uneconomic because most contract prices for power are fixed.  Rather than operate at a loss, the IPPs shut down, knocking over 4 million Texans off the grid.  That result is unacceptable, and everyone, including Greg Abbott and John Cornyn know it.  Rather than take responsibility for the catastrophe that they helped create (along with Rootin’ Tootin’ Rick Perry) they immediately called for an “investigation” into their own goddam actions and decisions that they made.  The other thing they did?  They lied that the problem was caused by “frozen windmills” and solar panels.  Cornyn even retweeted a picture of a helicopter deicing a wind turbine IN SWEDEN, claiming it was in Texas.  Abbott got on Fox News, and told the same lie that renewables don’t work and the Green New Deal would destroy the economy.  That’s correct – Cornyn and Abbott are politicizing a crisis where Texans are dying to score cheap political points. Cruz, of course, when called out for mocking California last summer during the wild fires, characteristically crawled back under his rock.

Here’s a map of current power outages nationwide.  Have a look at this, knowing that the same weather that affected Texas also crossed the western United States and is currently moving into the eastern United States:

Notice anything interesting?  There are no extended power outages outside of Texas in the areas managed by ERCOT.  The line across the Appalachians is where the storm currently is and where power will be quickly restored.  Texas, not so much.  This is a massive failure in public policy caused by decades of mythological and magical thinking that the “free market” cures all ills and that the federal government is always bad.  Neither has ever been true and never will be.

So, when your Republican friends start howling about “frozen windmills” stop them in their tracks and call bullshit.  Because it’s bullshit.

Dear John and Ted,

I know you won’t actually read this entire letter (if at all) so I’ll put the demand to each of you up front:

GET OFF YOU ASS AND DO YOUR GODDAM JOB.

Let’s be perfectly clear: Donald Trump promised the American people that he would build a “big beautiful wall” along the entire US/Mexico border and that Mexico would pay for it. First, the notion of a 5th century solution to a 21st century problem is idiotic on the face, and everyone, except for mindless sycophants, knew that.  Second, the promise that Mexico would pay for this farce was bullshit, and everyone, except for the same mindless sycophants, knew that, too.  If each you had just a moment of frank honesty, each of you would concede that even the concept of Trump’s wall is stupid.

Now that we’ve established the idiocy of this notion, let’s talk about the greater idiocy of shutting down the federal government for politics.  ALLOWING the president to do it is worse, and each of you are complicit.  Let’s be more specific – the fact that 800,000 federal employees are not being paid is outrageous.  Requiring almost HALF of those employees to continue working without pay is unimaginable by normal people.  The fact that each of you have defended this negligence and criminality is also unimaginable.

The risk to the US economy is clear to anyone who understands basic arithmetic; every day this catastrophe is allowed to continue, billions of dollars get flushed down the toilet.  Unseen, though, is the risk to millions of Americans caused by this shutdown.  The federal air traffic system is at great threat;  air traffic controllers, who are working unpaid in a high stress job also now have unpaid overtime forced on them due to high absence rate, presumably because many controllers are having to work other jobs to put food on the table. It’s only a matter of time when one of these overworked and overstressed controllers makes a mistake; the results of that mistake can be catastrophic.  Like controllers, TSA agents are working without pay.  The front line of our security system is weakened by overwork and the stress of not getting paid.  The Coast Guard, who has responsibility for protecting our ocean fronts and maritime shipping, is unpaid.  The FBI is now seriously hamstrung in protecting us from terrorists to other criminals because of this shutdown. It goes on and on, and the fact that you are allowing this kind of flagrant risk taking is unconscionable.

Ignoring fact that Trump is singularly unqualified from holding any public office, much less the presidency, YOUR  job is to protect the Constitution, our country, and our state from him.  Let me remind each of you about the oath that you took when you assumed your positions:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

“…I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…”  Sorry, guys, you are failing miserably at keeping this part of the oath.  You are both neglecting your jobs for politics.  I can only assume that keeping power for yourselves and your party is more important than protecting Texans, and indeed all Americans.  Ted, Michael Bennet certainly put you in your place after you stood in the Senate yesterday and lied (again) about who’s at fault here.  Just like during your shutdown in 2013, you are again lying to the American people about this shutdown.  John, you regularly peddle absolute bullshit with the weight of a college professor as you neglect your job.  One of your most despicable lies fed the Benghazi “investigation” which ultimately found nothing.  To prostitute yourselves to this president is shameful, and I think, deep down, both of you know that.

The train wreck simply has to stop. NOW.  Trump lost the battle over his wall before he ever started it because it was based on a lie.  Rudy Giuliani has destroyed his reputation because of his lying for the president.  Each of you are destroying what’s left of your integrity by lying for this president, and by neglecting your responsibility to act as a check on the executive branch.  You can fix that, though, and you can do it today.  All you have to do is stand up on your hind feet and do your goddam job.

Open the government.  Period.  A single page resolution would do that.  But that is not enough; it’s time to outlaw the use of debt ceiling brinksmanship and government shutdowns as political bludgeons to extract concessions from the other side.  There’s no reason for it, and it must be stopped. NOW.

Enough of this nonsense is enough.  Stop helping Trump take hostages.  Stop demagoguing immigrants and Democrats.  Stop letting your own cynical politics dominate your presence in Washington.  It’s your job.  Do it.

While the nation was reeling under the tsunami of convictions, plea deals, and indictments yesterday, John Cornyn was blithely unconcerned.  In a media scrum late yesterday he dismissed courtroom events, saying,

“People who do bad things, who break the law, need to be held accountable, but this doesn’t add anything to the allegations of misconduct relative to the Russia investigation.  How does this implicate the president? I don’t think it implicates him at all, especially on the Russia investigation.”

To say this, Cornyn would have to be simply bald-faced lying or be the victim of a very effective lobotomy.  The point: Cohen pleaded guilty to illegally paying off a Playboy model and porn star to keep them silent and influence an election for PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.  He said UNDER OATH in a federal court that he did it at the direction of his former boss, Trump.  It doesn’t get much more illegal (or obvious) than that.  For Cornyn to stupidly proclaim that it doesn’t implicate Trump in that crime lays bare his own corruption and unsuitability for high office (or any office for that matter).

The Trump clown car, now with two flat tires and a leaking head gasket, is still running enough to keep only the sell outs aboard.  Everybody else has fallen off (or are on their way to jail).

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

Dear John,

I’m writing this open letter to you today because you’re the only mature adult in the US Senate representing my home state of Texas.  I’m not writing to Ted Cruz, our other senator, because he is exclusively a self serving, narcissistic shitbag whose only goal in life is to continuously run for president, because, well, he’s Ted Cruz, and he is all that matters – to Ted Cruz.

That out of the way, let’s get to the point – When are you going to get up off your fat partisan ass and do your goddam job?  Today, the President of the United States denied colluding with Vladimir Putin while colluding with Vladimir Putin on television in front of the entire world.  This spray painted, hair-weaved star of cheesy reality television actually took the side of Russia against every single US intelligence agency and even your own Senate intelligence report about their interference with our elections.  Our elections.  While lavishing praise upon this murderer, Trump actually called the United States foolish and took RUSSIA’S side, idiotically harping on his election victory over a year and a half ago, babbling incoherently about why the FBI didn’t get “the server”, and insulting everyone from Hillary Clinton to the Democratic Party to the Justice Department.  I was personally humiliated and actually fought off the urge to vomit as I endured, along with millions of other Americans, the spectacle of a US President making a complete ass of himself in front of the entire world while siding against the American people.

I’m over 60, so am old enough to have witnessed the catastrophes of the Viet Nam War that tore the country apart, Watergate that eventually destroyed the Nixon presidency, Iran Contra that damaged the Reagan presidency, the sex scandals that nearly took down the Clinton presidency, and the invasion of Iraq based on trumped up (no pun intended) evidence that crippled the Bush II presidency.  However, those disgraceful scandals pale in comparison to the slow motion train wreck of this administration.  Donald Trump governs the US government as if it’s a reality television show.  He actually spews silly nonsense on an hourly basis on Twitter insulting everyone from television personalities to allies to political foes.  He continuously repeats demonstrably false statements that damage our reputation among friend and foe alike.  His conduct has degraded our political discourse to the point where his followers feel it’s open season on everyone not like them.

And the real tragedy?  The invertebrates in Congress, including YOU, have enabled this shameful chapter of our history.  Up until today, you and others have dismissed his shameful behavior, apparently afraid to attract his Twitter wrath or the anger of your mouth-breathing base which keeps returning you to Do Nothingville, DC to actually do nothing.  Enough is enough.  Trump has gone from embarrassing, to dangerous, to now treasonous.  Get off your ass.  Impeach this son of a bitch before he burns down the planet.

Sincerely,

An Old Texan Sick of Your Bullshit

John Culberson, $32,900; Henry Cuellar – $32,400; John Cornyn, $10,000.  These are the contributions from private prison company GEO Group who operates immigrant detention centers all over Texas.  Let’s be clear here – GEO is a private contractor that runs federal prisons and detention centers for profit.  How do they profit?  By keeping bodies behind bars and spending as little as possible on their welfare.  Abrogating its responsibility to look after the welfare of those in federal custody is one of the most disgusting policy decisions made by our government.  It’s a human rights violation and it’s immoral. Also, it started long before Trump infested the White House, but he’s accelerated conversions of big box stores into prisons at an alarming rate.

In the meantime, politicians (Republican for the most part) have blocked prison and immigration reform or opposed the outlawing of this practice.  The reason?  Millions of dollars filling the pockets of jerk-offs like those named above.  Cuellar is an anomaly among Dems; he vehemently opposed president Obama’s efforts to reform the immigration system and is unpredictable in his public statements.  He’s certainly not helpful.  Culberson and Cornyn, however are blocking the door to ANY humane or just solution.

The proliferation of new Desert Sands Trump Tent Resorts and Trump Big Box Internationals have finally awoken Republicans in Congress.  Even Ted Cruz took a few minutes off from running for president in 3 years to wring his hands and declare he’s going to introduce legislation to fix a problem that was completely caused by Trump’s poor decision to take the advice of his in-house white supremacists.

In the meantime, the border crisis worsens.  Innocent lives are being permanently damaged and it’s going on before our very eyes even as I type these words.

If you’d like to tell these politicians what you think of them taking dirty private prisons for profit money, here are their phone numbers:

John Cornyn – 202-224-2934

John Culberson – 202-225-2571

Henry Cuellar – 202-225-1640