OMG!

(5.5 minute read)

Who’s the most dangerous person in the world right now?

A woman?

A former teacher?

President of the American Federation of Teachers union (AFT)?

A Jew?

Well, I hope that you’re sitting down because according to former (Thank God!) Secretary of Sate Mike Pompeo:

It’s a Jew!

Tropes[1]

            It gets worse. 

            According to an interview that Pompeo gave to Semafor, the most dangerous person in the world title goes to (drum roll) Brandi Weingarten.[2]  Ever heard of her?  I hadn’t.  Had to look her up.  She’s the President of the American Federation of Teachers Union and is Jewish.  What’s more, she’s in charge of teaching “filth!”  So, she’s actually a filthy Jewish woman teacher.  Pompeo managed to cover all of the Right’s favorite tropes with his dog whistle.

 I tell the story often — I get asked “Who’s the most dangerous person in the world? Is it Chairman Kim, is it Xi Jinping?” The most dangerous person in the world is Randi Weingarten. It’s not a close call. If you ask, “Who’s the most likely to take this republic down?” It would be the teacher’s unions, and the filth that they’re teaching our kids, and the fact that they don’t know math and reading or writing. These are the things that candidates should speak to in a way that says, “Here’s the problem. Here’s a proposal for how to solve it. And if given the opportunity, these are the things I will go work on to try and deliver that outcome that fixes that problem.” Pretty straightforward stuff.  Mike Pompeo[3]

             One of the many problems that I have with what Pompeo said is that we do have the shining example of Trump Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker as an example of a product of our educational system.  But is that really a fair comparison?  Perhaps he just didn’t pay attention.  He may have been too busy watching vampire movies.  IDK Does it make me racist to say that the man is obviously working with diminished mental acuity and happens to be black? 

            No.  Because Margorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Bobert, Louie Gomert and any number of other Trump Republicans fall into the same category.  These people are seriously broken in terms of their lack of humanity and relationships to all our society, emphasis on all.  They simply choose to play to the worst aspects of our society in order to maintain the support of their base.

            Pompeo’s looking for solutions.  “And if given the opportunity, these are the things I will go work on to try and deliver that outcome that fixes that problem.  Pretty straightforward stuff.” 

It also isn’t a reflection on Pompeo’s remarks that the target of his Trumpian barb happens to be a woman of faith.  Well, it just so happens that Pompeo is also a man of faith.

He’s a Christian Nationalist.

Different list.

            Brandi didn’t believe that she qualified.[4]  Who did you pick for an answer to the who’s the danger question?  Did you pick Putin?  I thought Putin when I saw that question in the headline.  You know, since he has invaded Ukraine and keeps threatening World War III.

There are certainly plenty of other excellent candidates to pick from though.  Lots of evil out there.  Pompeo even named two of them: Chairman Kim Jong Un (North Korea) and Xi Jinping (China).  There are lots of second-string dangerous people to pick from as well but no, not for Trump Republican apologist Mike Pompeo.  He could have even picked Trump.  As long as he added that Trump was the most dangerous in all of history Trump could even take it as a compliment.  But wait!  If what Pompeo said is true Trump would be number two since Brandi Weingarten has the top spot.  

That just won’t fly

Can you imagine?

            The Inspector General that was investigating Secretary of State Pompeo for using federal employees to do personal errands was fired by President Trump.[5]  Shades of[6] Huey Long (aka the Kingfish),[7] the Trump Republican Party along with the Old Guard Republican Party wants to replace 50,000 civil service workers with political appointees making them Schedule F “at will” employees.[8]  Civil servants comprise the “Deep State” that conservatives talk about.

            What has always fascinated me about the so-called Deep State that Trump Republicans love to talk about is the same deep state that existed when Obama was President.  They paralyzed the last 2 years of Obama’s Presidency then immediately did a 180 when Trump came into office and somehow opposed him too.  These horrible people oppose everyone!  Except they don’t.  There is no deep state running things.

            You know who else has an at-will bureaucracy that owes complete fealty to their party and leader or they lose their job?  Did you guess Russia?  Russia is like that.  Russia is a nation of have-nots. 

I recently read about a Russian Colonel getting sacked because he wanted a bribe of a washing machine.[9]  Russian soldiers are looting washing machines and everything else of value that they can lay their hands on as they wage war in Ukraine.[10]  When it comes to poverty, the United States takes a backseat to Russia.  They are a nation where graft and corruption are endemic.  Russia is impoverished.  Putin and his cronies control EVERYTHING.

One party fits all.

What was the point?

            Pompeo isn’t a stupid man.  He’s a MAGA Christian Nationalist.  He knew that his comment would generate a lot of coverage.  As a Trump Republican being in the news, positive or negative, is a good thing.  The general public may recoil but the MAGA base responds positively.  He’s gotten a lot of coverage over his remarks.  People are talking about him and that provides him relevance as a contender for the MAGA base.

            It’s much the same as The Orange Jesus Trump hosting a couple of antisemite racists for dinner at Mar a Lago.[11]  It generates publicity and coverage.  MAGA Republicans have long held a love affair with their homophobic Russian sympathizing racist antisemitic base because they number in the millions and they vote.  They recognized the agenda of the Orange Jesus early on and have remained loyal.  It’s one of the main reasons that Republican leaders have been slow to respond with comments condemning the meeting.  With the presidential primaries on the horizon they will need their core supporters. 

It’s all about the base.

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[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trope

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randi_Weingarten

[3] https://www.semafor.com/article/11/21/2022/mike-pompeo-2024-trump

[4] https://www.semafor.com/article/11/22/2022/randi-weingarten-responds-mike-pompeo

[5] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52716766

[6] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shades%20of

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long

[8] Schedule F employees:  https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2022/07/trump-endorsed-plan-purge-civil-service-rogue-bureaucrats/375028/

[9] https://www.newsweek.com/russian-colonel-arrested-washing-machine-bribe-war-1761467

[10] https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-says-russian-army-looting-it-redeploys-east-south-1694543

[11] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/28/donald-trump-shied-away-from-criticising-nick-fuentes

 

Repugnant human being

 

 (5 minute read)

Buggy

            The title refers to the aftermath of a comment a person made regarding bugs.  In a closed group that I belong to the admin posted a beautiful picture of a carpenter bee.  Things got ugly.  Fast!

(Whoa and stop right there buddy!  Yes, I know a bee is an insect.[i]  But I really wanted to go with a bug derived sub-heading.  Bugging out.  Getting’ buggy with it.  You’re bugging me.  Don’t bug on me.  Well, you get the drift.)

It truly was a stunning picture.  A woman posted in the comments section that she happened to hate carpenter bees because they did so much damage to her home.  Not a problem so far.  Then she added that she took great delight in shoving a wire into the hole that they made in order to kill them.  A bridge too far.[ii]

The lefties struck.

Not pretty

            In my life I have been accused of being left wing, right wing, liberal, conservative, anti-union, communist, and I’ll just stop there because the spectrum covered is deep, varied and descends into the vulgar.  If you think of it—I’ve probably been called it.  I like to think that I have evolved.  Now, in regard to the comment that the woman bee killer made.

            A person commented that she made a “repugnant” comment.  Another called her evil.  (To date I have not yet specifically been called repugnant.)  Another commenter said that she was an evil person.  There was more name calling and retorts.  One person said that in regard to getting rid of bugs that they didn’t do “catch and release.”  Alternative methods for carpenter bee killing were offered.  Lines in the sand were drawn. 

            I briefly entered the fray when I posted that when we had sold our home we had to pay a pest exterminator to treat some of our out building that had been attacked by carpenter bees and that we didn’t have time to get the bees into a witness protection program.  Now, I thought that was kind of funny. 

Apparently, I was wrong.

Necessary evil

            The person that commented to my comment about using pest control to kill the bees out of necessity said that a necessary evil was still evil.  Keep in mind that we’re still talking about bugs/insects.  I don’t believe that the off-hand comment that the woman made about enjoying killing bees rose to the level of serial killer evil even though she was called a murderer and did murder more than one bee.  She did mention to her detractors that she also ate meat and wore leather.  She knew her adversaries.

            A couple of decades ago when I was a dissident union member, I wrote a newsletter dealing with all the various issues that we faced in dealing with the union and corporations across America.  (Does ‘across this great land of ours’ sound more patriotic than just saying America?  I thought so. Let’s pretend I wrote that instead.)  I happened to write about a struggle that a union local was engaged with against Caterpillar Corp.  I copied the phrase that the local used and said that they were trying to “Kick the Cat” and had a picture of a cat arching its back.

A woman from PETA called.[iii]

Plinking

            Okay, she didn’t really call.  She emailed me.  As it turned out the woman really objected to my writing ‘kick the cat.”  She objected lots.  She felt strongly about it.  Telling her that I wasn’t actually encouraging animal abuse didn’t really make any headway with her.  She was giving no quarter in our back forth emailing.  My fingers were flying on the keyboard.  Two fingers. One on each hand.  That’s the way I roll or rather type.  Quite the image, isn’t it?  We were texting and it hadn’t even been invented yet.  I finally emailed to her that I needed to break from our conversation for a couple of minutes to do something and would be right back. 

            I gave it a couple of minutes and then emailed her that I was back.  There was an email waiting before I finished typing.  She obviously took typing in school.  Smart people knew to do that.  In my response back that I was already working on after telling her to wait I told her that in order to deal with getting so worked up in dealing with her stupidity I went out and plinked a sparrow off our back porch.  It worked so well that I was going to keep doing it after every time she said something stupid.  Naturally she texted back, “What?”  So, I wrote that plinking meant shot and that meant that I had shot a sparrow and had just got another one. 

Never heard from her again.

Note:  No actual plinking was involved.  Not the best story about me is it?  We all have warts.  Some of us more than others.

Throwing down

            People are locked and loaded on social media.  They are ready to engage.  It’s engagement without repercussions.  Conversations can quickly metamorphosize into other less benign territory even over the picture of a bee.  No one was personally threatened with violence in the bee throwdown.  The subject matter wasn’t quite that intense.  But threats are being made out there.  Threats are being carried out.

            Whether I am at a left- or right-wing site I’ll check out the comments.  I check out what is being said at neutral sites as well including political and non-political.  Lots of threats.  Lots of name calling.  An appalling amount of misinformation being passed as gospel.  But the preponderance of intimidation and violence being threatened is coming from the right, along with talk of insurrection (overthrowing the government) and a general mistrust of our form of government.  Throughout all the hate speech runs the thread of the nation being immoral and needing to get back to Christianity

or else!

Moral of the story.

All things considered what really happened was that a guy posted a beautiful closeup picture of a carpenter bee.  If you decide to post a comment.

Bee careful.

 

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[i] https://carolinahoneybees.com/is-a-bee-an-insect/

[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bridge_Too_Far_(film)

[iii] https://www.peta.org/