The party of bad faith

        Today's Republican party has broken faith with the America people so often in the last 30 years it hardly deserves the name.   The latest examples of the boundless cynicism with which the party treats the country is its refusal to negotiate seriously about gun control in the wake of mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, as well as its efforts to discredit the Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection.

      Both of these issues involve the party in defending the indefensible; protecting gun manufacturers profits in the case of mass shootings by teenagers with weapons of war and trying to throw shade on the probably the fairest presidential election ever held in this country at the behest of the failed former president.   I don't know which is more abhorrent.

     The Select Committee is scheduled to hold public hearings on its findings regarding January 6 starting on June 9th.   There will be multiple investigations into the handling of the mass shootings, particularly the police response in Uvalde.  Both will shine light where the GOP would prefer darkness. Let's hope enough rank and file Republicans realize they have been sold a bill of goods by their party leaders.

Another Memorial Day

       Once again we will commemorate the sacrifices out fellow Americans have made over the years to keep our nation free.   There will be parades, speeches and exhortations to celebrate the patriots who made the nation.   However, in many places in the US, people will be mourning fellow citizens killed by senseless gun violence.   

      Virtually every day in this country people are killed by guns wielded by monsters who have been radicalized by social media.   This has to stop.  Otherwise we will need another Memorial Day to honor those who have been sacrificed on the altar of gun manufacturers' profits.

It could happen here

        Our home is across the street from the campus of the Peru Central School District here in northern New York.   3 of my grandchildren attend the school.   While working in the yard yesterday I heard the happy shrieks of 2nd and 3rd graders on a physical education interlude.  It had something to do with pool noodles and lots of running.   It was a happy scene.   I couldn't help but contrast it with the horror which occurred in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday.

       Could it actually happen here.   If you say no, you have not been paying attention.  Due to New York State laws, it would be marginally harder for a teenager to acquire an AR-15, but as the Buffalo shooter demonstrated it's not impossible.   That shooter's father gave him the gun.  

      My grandchildren will surely be practicing active shooter drills in the days ahead.  It will probably cut down on their play time.   What are we telling these kids about our society and the gun fetish which may cost them their very lives?

A new episode in a long running series

         I have a modest personal connection with the latest mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.   I did business in the town over a period of 30 years with growers of spinach and other crops.   My company, Jerry Shulman Produce still buys produce in the town and our buyers speak to the growers nearly every day.   Some of them have children of an age with those gunned down in another senseless massacre perpetrated by an 18 year old child.  I pray  none of their children were hurt or killed in the incident.

      I'm sure if you take a poll in Uvalde in the near future, an overwhelming majority will favor sensible gun regulation.   Probably in most towns where mass shootings have occurred support for legislation is high.   I hope it will not take hundreds or thousands of these incidents to convince a majority of legislators to support new laws restricting the sale of weapons of war to those with a legitimate need for them; in other words, no one.   If we don't, the tragedies of Buffalo and Uvalde will be repeated over and over.

Judicial activism

        I have a feeling not too many people are following the developing story of Ginni and Clarence Thomas and their advocacy for overturning the will of the people via compliant state legislatures.  They are acting in tandem; Thomas supplying the dubious legal reasoning to allow state legislatures to nullify election results they don't agree with and his wife doing the actual lobbying of said legislatures.

      This was one  of many paths to the coup which would have kept the former guy in the presidency.   Along with the "Stop the Steal" campaign which ended with the assault on the Capitol, the pressure applied to state election officials was rather crude and mostly rejected by Republican and Democrats alike.  The same political actors such as Ginni Thomas are refining their techniques in preparation for 2024.   Their political lobbying is likely to fall on more receptive ears this time around.  Perhaps the GOP will not have to resort to threats of violence to change election results this time around.

He went there

       In the latest tell all by a former Trump administration appointee, Mark Esper tells us tRump asked why demonstrators at a  Black Lives Matter demonstration in front of the White house could not be shot.  He wasn't joking.

       Now comes an interview on NBC in which Michigan Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson says she was told by a source that tRump suggested shortly after the election of 2020 she should be arrested for treason and executed.  This, after Benson certified Biden's victory in the state.   Naturally, a tRump spokesman called Benson's assertion a lie.   I'm sure another rogue tRump intimate is in the final stages of writing another chronicle of the last days of the former guy's administration in which she will confirm the Dear Leader's wish for Benson's demise.

    The mind boggles...

Chicken littles of the world, Unite!

        Watching cable news these days is not for the faint of heart.   Despite the oft repeated fact the stock market has little or nothing to do with the actual main street economy, the market's recent sell off has brought out the gloom and doomers who would have you believe the fall of western civilization is nigh.  

       Inflation has knocked the war in Ukraine onto the back pages or the final few minutes of cable news.   Consumers are pictured as symbolically slitting their throats as they fill up the tanks of the gas guzzlers they bought when fuel was cheap due to the Covid panic.   Republicans are making political hay over an infant formula shortage brought about by corporate greed and lax regulation of the industry.  We are constantly being told to welcome a GOP wave election as if the party of tax cuts for the wealthy has any idea how to tackle the problems listed above.

    I think I am going to take a vacation from the Morning Joes of the world.   My political and economic  sanity hangs in the balance.   

Who are these people?

      Despite the furor over the mass shooting in Buffalo last week, there has been relatively little information concerning the family of the shooter.   This has also been true of most of the mass shootings that have occurred in the US, dating back to Columbine in the early 1990's.

     The media treats the shooters as fully formed distillations of evil.   They have seemingly been radicalized by online memes and bogus theories like the "Great Replacement" supposedly taking place across the country.  Easy access to firearms and voila, a fairly normal teen is turned into a wide-eyed killer who carefully researches targets 200 miles from his home.

     But who raises a mass shooter?   I'm sure his middle class parents have cute baby pictures followed by little league, youth soccer and many other activities memorialized on Facebook or other social media.  I'm reasonably sure they did not direct their son to far right websites where he learned how to modify an assault rifle to shoot even more bullets than it was designed to do.   Perhaps, however, Fox News was the default news source at the Gendron household.   Like a gateway drug, the toxic mix of right wing propaganda and paranoia masquerading as  news can warp young minds.   Did his parents explain Tucker Carlson is merely an entertainer whose grip on truth is ephemeral at best?   

      Who are these people and what are they doing to our country?

Connecting the dots

      In today's NYT, Paul Krugman traces the descent of the GOP from a mild, center right party in the early 1980s to the lunatic organization whose leaders continue to dispute the legitimacy of Joe Biden's election and encourage people like the Buffalo shooter with their espousal of the "replacement" theory.

      From Arthur Laffer's justification of the tax cutting supply side economics, the center of gravity of the Republican party has moved steadily rightward.   The base of the party now refuses to believe that Democrats can legitimately win elections.   At a rally last year, one yahoo asked when he should start killing members of the Democratic party.   A stealth Civil War is at hand and many in the center and on the left don't believe it.

     Meanwhile, the Republican Party, heirs to the legacy of Lincoln continues its devolution into an authoritarian organization.   Party leaders, who in private continue to disparage the cult of Trump, say they will support the twice impeached failed former president if he runs in 2024.

They are coming for us

       Despite the furious denials of my congresscritter, Elise Stefanik, it's pretty clear she is trafficking in the same racist themes espoused by the shooter who killed 10 people in Buffalo on Saturday.   In a campaign ad published last fall, Stefanik said Democrats are bringing immigrants into the country in order to cement a permanent liberal majority.   While not as virulently racist as the shooter, the ad played to the same themes many in my congressional district embrace as truth.   

      Ironically, this district is more than 90% white, with a majority of POC connected with the colleges in the area or ex military who settled here when the PAFB closed in 1995.  Studies, which I'm sure Stefanik is aware of , show the whiter the district and the further from the Mexican  border it is, the more likely it is to be vulnerable to racist rhetoric.  Her cynical conversion from a center right congress person to an ultra MAGA troll is driven purely by desire for power.  I believe she fancies herself the next Speaker of the House.   Dog help us all.

The typical conservative wet dream

        No contraception, no same sex marriage, no LBGTQ rights.   In the wake of the leaked opinion overruling Roe vs. Wade, the sky's the limit for the Big Brothers amongst us.   For those who don't think this is so, you are living a fool's fantasy.

What's Going On

         The words to Marvin Gaye's classic song play out in my mind nearly every day.   Written in the early 1970's at the height of the Vietnam war, Gaye's anthem stresses "only love can conquer hate".   That message is relevant 50 years on.    It seems our nation is as polarized now as it was then.   You actually hear people on the far right talking about civil war and killing those who don't agree with them.

      Intolerance, fed by the hatemongers on Fox and other right wing media outlets, threaten the future of political discourse.   Misinformation is rampant, especially on the right.   Casual hate for Democrats is all over Facebook.  What's Going On?   I'd love to be more optimistic about the future, but if past is prologue, we are in for a world of hurt.  Marvin Gaye was murdered by his father, an ordained minister in 1984.

New frontiers in gardening

       Having observed the position of the sun as it passes over the backyard over the course of  2021, I felt ready to construct several garden beds.   It started as a vanity project to convince myself I could downsize by obsession with gardening.  Fortunately, this time around the lack of sunshine will doom any attempts to upsize the garden beyond 6 thirty square foot beds and the original owners' 10x20 foot bed on the south side of the yard.   So far, 3 beds are fully planted with three more to go.   Everything looks good so far, although it has been a cool spring.   Looking forward to fresh lettuce and spinach sometime in June.

My two reasons to support Roe vs. Wade

        Let me say first, I support a woman's right to choose health care options including abortion.  I have two granddaughters, therefore I have two more reasons to support the above option.   I don't want them to grow up in a handmaid's tale world.  We need equality of the sexes for a healthy society.   Enough said on the subject.

The mothers in Ukraine

       As most of the rest of the world celebrated the Hallmark holiday known as mother's day, many mothers in Ukraine are living it in a most poignant way.   They and their children are literally in harm's way and there is a non trivial chance they know a mother who has lost a son or daughter in the ongoing conflict with Russia.

       Thanks to the Russian order of battle, even civilians are not spared the possibility of death in war.  The harrowing pictures and descriptions of refugees are a constant reminder that civilization and peace are at constant risk  and Mother's Day is something to both celebrate and remember all the mothers who have experienced the ultimate loss, that of one or more of their children.

Another Modest Proposal

       In 411 B.C., a Greek playwright wrote Lysistrata,  a play in which Greek women withhold sex from their men in order to stop the Peloponnesian War which was decimating many city-states at the time.  Although the play represents a fictional view, the implication is the fair sex has much more power to influence history than most women think.

      In keeping with that thought, maybe women outraged at the thought of the demise of Roe vs. Wade should inform their husbands and boyfriends that sexual congress will not happen until legislative Congress codifies the protections afforded women in Roe through actual law.   I think reluctant congresscritters will get the message posthaste.

the pro-birth party

        Democrats are casting about for a convincing answer to the imminent demise of Roe vs. Wade.   This morning, one of the talking heads on Morning Joe suggested a name for the GOP; "the pro birth party".  I'm sure this moniker has been applied to Republicans before.   The party is famous for advocating for blastocyst Americans from conception through birth.  Its' solicitude ends at the moment of birth.

       Republicans oppose parental leave, health insurance for children, the child care tax credit, childhood nutrition programs and the list goes on.   Why can't Democrats rally around their agenda, which include support for all those programs?    Even the climate agenda of both parties shows the complete disregard of the future by the GOP and Democrats' fight against climate change.  

       The tools are there to educate the public.  Democrats need to embrace them and show people who really values children once they are born.

All Roe, all the time

       The media found a new shiny object yesterday.   The leaked draft of a decision overruling Roe vs. Wade merely confirmed what most of us had already assumed;   The 6- 3 conservative majority's first target was only a matter of time and opportunity.   The right's decades long campaign against a woman's right to choose is in its final act and nothing short of congressional legislation will stop it.

      60 plus days of covering the war in Ukraine has bored the media, so of course the Roe leak will get wall to wall coverage unless Putin unleashes some particularly gruesome atrocity on Ukraine.   In the meantime, a leak from the Supreme Court and its attendant drama will fill the days and nights of anyone who watches or listens.

       

Roe vs. Wade and what it means

        It was probably one of the liberal justices' clerks who leaked a draft opinion by the Supreme court's resident fascist, Samuel Alito, ending the legal protection of abortions provided by the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision.   Instead of having to wait until June to organize, proponents of the landmark decision can now start making the midterm elections all about a woman's right to choose vs. the dystopian vision offered by an energized Republican party and their sponsors.

      Personally, I think the Republican dogs have finally caught the car.  They are about to find out what happens in that case.   Casual supporters of women's rights will now be avid voters to support their mothers, wives and daughters.   Suburban Republicans will be among the first to prioritize support of those who advocate legislative solutions at the federal level.

     I know the talking heads on MSNBC were exploding last night with a gloomy Handmaid's Tale vision of the future.   However, i think Republicans have woken a sleeping giant at their electoral peril.

Is it finally here

        Of course, my fellow gardeners know I am referring to the tardy arrival of spring in 2022.   Yesterday was a day of relentlessly good weather..   Not a cloud in the sky and temperatures in the upper 60s.  It was designed to get a gardener's juices flowing.   The 10 day forecast features a few days of backsliding on the temperature and some showers, but the weather is trending in a good direction, so i continue to be optimistic.