In harm’s way

 

Call me crazy

            We lost 13 soldiers in the middle of a war zone surrounded by the enemy to a terrorist attack and people are blaming Americans. I blame the terrorists for the soldiers and civilians killed at the airport in Kabul.

It’s a miracle that we didn’t lose more.

This or that

            Wherever the evacuation would have taken place the circumstances of a mob of civilians needing to be checked would have been the same and would have been the same target for terrorists. It’s easy to say that someone should have done this or that instead as if that would have been the perfect solution resulting in zero deaths.

In a war zone. Surrounded by the enemy.

Ask

            Sure we should ask questions and get answers. We should always do that. What did we do wrong? What did we do right?

            Over 120,000 people were airlifted out. That’s not a small number. It is probably a fraction of the total number that want to leave including soldiers from the Afghan military that didn’t want to fight. Whatever number that did get out it wouldn’t have been enough. There were simply too many.

            The people in charge and on the ground obviously did a lot that was right. The State Department started telling people in April that they needed to leave the country. Then they told them 18 more times. Did they save everyone? Of course not. That was never possible and was never going to be possible in any plan real or imagined. That gives rise to an easy question. Why didn’t President Trump finish the mission he started?

On his watch?

            Trump loves to take credit for things. He’s taking credit now for ending the war in Afghanistan just like he takes credit for the Covid vaccine. The agreement for U. S. troops leaving Afghanistan was agreed to February 29, 2020. Since Trump’s administration went out of their way to negotiate with the Taliban and exclude the Afghan government why didn’t they go ahead set an end date close to the November election to finish pulling all of our troops out? Perfect theater for Trump. A big win for ending the war.

But he didn’t.

Not a closer

            It’s just like all the seditionists that tried to overturn the election for him but failed. He could have pardoned the people he loved but he didn’t. He didn't really negotiate anything with North Korea. He didn’t finish up the deal he negotiated with the Taliban. A deal that they violated repeatedly on his watch without any response from his administration.

 “We’re dealing very well with the Taliban.  They’re very tough, they’re very smart, they’re very sharp.  But, you know, it’s been 19 years, and even they are tired of fighting, in all fairness.”

 President Trump, September 18, 2020

“I started the process,” Trump says. “All the troops are coming back home. They [the Biden administration] couldn’t stop the process. 21 years is enough. Don’t we think? 21 years. They couldn’t stop the process. They wanted to, but it was very tough to stop the process when other things… It’s a shame. 21 years, by a government that wouldn’t last. The only way they last is if we’re there. What are we going to say? We’ll stay for another 21 years, then we’ll stay for another 50. The whole thing is ridiculous. … We’re bringing troops back home from Afghanistan.”

Ex-President Trump, June 26, 2021

             But Trump didn’t negotiate his administration being in charge of the closing—our military withdrawal. He negotiated everything else but didn’t deal with that. He could have. Instead did what he does best.

He made a mess for others to clean up.

This link provides an excellent timeline leading up to the evacuation.

This link provides information about what the State Department was doing throughout all of this. It’s the largely untold story.

F R E E(to be)D U M B

 

CAVE People

            Republicans have been grooming their base for at least 2 decades. They started with all of the Clinton conspiracies and from there went to denying science. Like the Russians, they found out how easily their core of support could be manipulated and was willing to believe anything no matter how irrational.

            Rejection of the science behind climate change morphed into rejection of any science that they didn’t agree with. What was to become the Republican Death Cult (RDC) joined forces with the “anti” or CAVE people. (Citizens Against Virtually Everything.) They embraced them into the RDC and encouraged them. They can not only reject the science of vaccines but be glorified for doing so.

Science is whatever they say it is.

Trigger

            Initially I spent a lot of hours, we’re talking in the hundreds if not thousands over the years, chasing down all the conspiracies. In the process of doing so I learned some things.

            The first thing that I learned is the Republican and Russian operatives alike can make up stuff faster than it can be debunked. A lot of the stuff is just repackaged with a few changes and circulated again. Or just complete fabrications are cranked out to the waiting Gohmerts, Gaetzes, Greenes and Boeberts of the world.

It doesn’t have to be real.

            The second and main thing that I learned is that the core Republican base isn’t even remotely interested in the truth. They respond to dog-whistle trigger words like socialism, communism, liberals, constitution, rule-of-law, immigrant, gangs, patriots, mandates, etc. They don’t have to know what the words mean. They just know how they’re supposed to Pavlov when they hear the code words and whistles.

That’s the beauty of it.

            The right wing Evangelical Party came into the Republican fold early on in the game as did the White Nationalists. They knew a man of their cloth. The Evangelicals traded their faith for political power in pursuit of a conviction that they defined if not an outright theocracy or government that they controlled through their voting block.

The stage was set.

Fertile ground

            What they didn’t know but should have guessed is that they prepared the grounds for a multi-billionaire pauper like Donald Trump. A supposed ‘man of the people’ who won’t associate with the people other than at rallies or photo ops because they are too low class. Their base was primed and anxious for his casual racism, hatred of immigrants and anti-Muslim dogmas.

His dogmas were their dogmas.

            To his credit Trump recognized the lay of the land early on and capitalized on it politically and economically. All that he had to do was remain his vulgar crass unintellectual self.  There were and yet remain hundreds of millions of dollars to be made off of them. The game was rigged in his favor.

            Now that Trump’s reign is over the RDC has come to realize that they no longer control the RDC. After Trump’s Cullman, Alabama speech it’s apparent that he may not be in complete control either. Right after he told people that they should get vaccinated because he had been there was a smattering of boos. Yes, the man that takes the credit for getting the vaccine was booed by the very people that applauded him for doing it. He tarnished his image by doing something right. They booed him for it.

            It doesn’t matter though. There are plenty of more Trumps. They’re waiting in the leather wings of the RDC. Men like DeSantis and Pompeo are not so patiently waiting at the gate.

Ready to out-Trump Trump.

Their America

            The Constitution of the RDC says that they are free to do whatever they say regardless of anything. It’s their Constitution and their Constitution says they have right to endanger others. Their Constitution says that they’re being patriotic for trying to overthrow our Republic. All the idiotic things they do they do in the name of….

F R E t E o D b U e M B

 

Crazy is as Crazy does

 

Money Train

            I think that Republicans have made a tactical decision to drag out the pandemic as long as they can. Their continued support of no masking or vaccine mandates the pandemic will linger and raises the possibility that a variant will arise that will force another lockdown.

            That’s cold-blooded. But they are after all the Republican Death Cult (RDC). They’ve already racked up a few hundred thousand needless deaths through their anti-vaxxing/anti-masking positions so what are a few hundred thousand more to them.

            More importantly for them though is that they have also made hundreds of millions of dollars in donations off of their incredibly gullible base of true believers.

            An aside.

            All kidding aside I almost feel sorry for the Lindell guy. I get the feeling he’s being grifted for millions and his court costs are going to be astronomical. I said almost. I think that he is a true believer and his enablers keep moving the goal posts for him. That’s how they keep the money train running down the tracks.

             The heads of the misinformation dissemination organizations are millionaires because of all the believing rubes. It’s a market that’s tens of millions people deep. I’m reminded of the old phrase about fools and their money. The Republican Pro-Life Death Cult has made hundreds of millions off of pushing the fallacy that the election was stolen and to not vaccinate. Rubes and advertisers send them their money.

There are real world costs for all this deceit.

Effluent

            While there’s good money to be made in the conspiracy world there is also death. A Q Anon believer killed his two sons because of one of their whacked out fantasy theories. This is an extreme example but shows that there are and have been real world consequences to all of these fake theories. Representative Greene is one of their followers. There are other followers in congress as well. People stormed our Capitol because of Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen. Q Anon believers were there as well.

            People all over the country and throughout social media are spouting absolute gibberish garbage as facts that they sincerely believe. They feed each other a steady diet of recycled waste.

Lives are being shattered with this crap.

For reals

            A woman at the Trump rally held in Alabama was interviewed and said that she sincerely believed that Trump was going to announce that he was actually the President and had never left the White House. She sincerely believes that. There are millions more just like her.

            It’s the same people that are taking veterinarian deworming meds to combat the virus rather than simply getting vaccinated. There are real world consequences to this lunacy. These people are seriously challenged mentally. They need therapy in addition to the vaccines.

Therapy and deprogramming.

Nothing but the best.

 In the beginning

            Remember when Trump said that he would only have the very best people working in his administration. Man! He said it lots of times. Yep he was only going to hire the best! Those were the days!

That never happened.

Recurring theme

            Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in the news awhile back. It seems that the State Department lost a $5,800 bottle of whiskey that the Japanese gave to him (Our government). He made a comment to a news outlet that I thought was telling and indicative of the entire Trump Administration.

 

“I assume it wasn’t ever touched. It never got to me. I have no idea how the State Department lost this thing, although I saw enormous incompetence at the State Department during my time there,” the former secretary of state said during an appearance on Fox News. “Had it been a case of Diet Coke, I’d have been all over it.”

 

            I believe him that he didn’t steal the whiskey. But that isn’t the issue. Pompeo said that he saw “enormous incompetence” at the State Department during his time there. Not just your average old regular incompetence but “enormous incompetence” at the department that he was in charge of. He insulted the very people that worked for him.

            Shouldn’t we have had some trickle-down best here? Shouldn’t he as one of the best have been able to bring competence? Did his enormously incompetent department headed by him negotiate the agreement with the Taliban?

That explains some things.

Easier said than done.

            One of my first observations about the Trump Administration was the lack of quality in press releases and written communications from the White House. I’m referring to Trump’s staff not the clerks. And by lack of quality I mean just basic stuff like grammar and typos. I don’t say this as any kind of expert since I have a lot of help with the technical aspects of writing. For me though what we were seeing was a harbinger of the much larger picture that was developing of the administration.

            Instead of hiring the best, President Trump had the highest turnover of people at all levels of his administration in Presidential history according to what I’m reading. I question that a little bit since the physical nature of government has changed so much over the years. But for sure we can go back as far as Reagan for a more accurate comparison. Trump is the hands-down winner for decades.

            Not only did the “best” resign or get fired, sometimes in mere days, Trump then insults them as he is wont to do on their way out and after they’ve gone. They immediately become losers and incompetent in Trump-naming. Also a record number of the people that he eliminates come back and call him names right back, usually insulting his intelligence and competence.

            Since they started out being the best …

… shouldn’t we believe them?

Back to themes

            Another recurring theme is that the men and women that Trump put in charge immediately started taking apart the agency that they were put in charge of and making it worse. He put people in charge of departments that they were either antithetical to or unqualified to head.  Dejoy, a Trump holdover still in charge of the United States Postal Service (USPS) continues downgrading the USPS and making it less able to accomplish the mission of delivering the mail in a timely manner. Devos was pro-school vouchers and anti-Department of Education for all practical purposes. Carson was an unqualified disaster as Secretary of Housing and Urban development as he gutted programs designed to help the poor. Another Republican theme.

            We had four years of Trump and the Republican Death Cult (RDC) taking government apart, making it less efficient and basically not working. They were inept. For the RDC this was a success story.

            Then the pandemic hit and the Federal response was desultory at best. The Federal response to the mishandling of the pandemic from the beginning bears sad witness to their success in dismantling our government and is a wretched testimony to their success that is measured in the hundreds of thousands of lives needlessly lost.

They are the best at death and denial.