Category Archives: Where does the GOP get these guys?

Keeping Our Heads for Four Years

If you were a news junkie during the George W. Bush era, you’re already experiencing deja vu.  That sinking feeling already makes your eyes roll automatically when Putin’s President appears.  It settled into the back of your neck from the whiplash as you shake your head and shout “no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” over the latest outrage or tweet.  And it’s there in the pit of your stomach, when you try not to vomit whenever you see the color orange.

Yup, it’s started.  The Deluge.  The Flood.  The Trump shit storm.

trump-and-putin

During the Bush years, I would just be ready to pounce on one issue, when another hit the fan and took the wind out of my sails. Resistance is hard if there is just so much to resist.

How, I worried in the days since November 8, will I survive Trump.  I feared a heart attack.  A stroke.  Getting so scared I’d shit in my pants.   Of course I worry about the last one sometimes during a scary movie.

Anyway, I’ve come up with a strategy for a hybrid Resister/Surviving Human.  I’m going to become a political centaur!

centaur-female

Google Image.  No shit will be given by this filly.

 

I’m going to take my mother’s marital and parental advice and apply it to my activism.  She said:

Choose Your Battles!

Me, I’m going to try to focus on issues I know about and/or that are closest to my heart.  The ones I write about here on FiftyFourAndAHalf.

But that won’t be all I do.  I will look for and follow the lead of others who are knowledgeable about other issues, and I will try to help to the extent I can.  It’s not hard, really, to make calls to Congress and the White House.  Really, it just takes a minute.  You or I can even just cut and paste and hit “send.”

But I will try my very best to keep my blood pressure — and my outrage to livable levels.

George W. Bush kept us all off balance because there were so many things to be outraged about, that we couldn’t keep it up.  Different bad presidents need different tactics.

And Trump will make the Dubya years look like a walk in the park.  And that park is in Baghdad.

 

 

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There’s a Big Difference

Two occurrences in the same neighborhood really point out the difference between reactions of members of the two different parties.

Vice-President Elect Mike Pence has moved into a short-term rental house in the mostly democratic Chevy Chase neighborhood of DC.  When residents realized he was living there, the reaction was this, courtesy of the Washington Post:

rainbow-flag

Photo courtesy of the Washington Post, (taken by Gary Cameron/Reuters)

They put out rainbow flags.

The other occurrence took place at a restaurant in the same neighborhood, a pizza place called the Comet Ping Pong.  As written up in the Washington Post,

A North Carolina man was arrested Sunday after he walked into a popular pizza restaurant in Northwest Washington carrying an assault rifle and fired one or more shots, D.C. police said. The man told police he had come to the restaurant to “self-investigate” a false election-related conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton that spread online during her presidential campaign.

This restaurant was the subject of false news accusations that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring from the restaurant’s bathrooms.  (Who the hell believes such stupidity?)  Other than  General  Mike Flynn, soon to be Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser:

I feel very secure now, don't you?

I feel very secure now, don’t you?

Nevertheless, the gunman was arrested, several area businesses went on lock-down.

A D.C. police report made public Monday says Welch had been armed with an AR-15 assault-style rifle. The report also says police seized a Colt .38 caliber handgun and a shotgun. One of those weapons was found inside the restaurant; the other in the suspect’s car.

Please wake me in 2020.

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Deja Boo-Hoo

Exactly five and a half years ago tonight, I was in a bit of a snit.  A tiff.  I was, in a word, miffed.

The result of those feelings was this blog.  And in fact, it was the reason* for the stupid name.  And my first post where I wrote:

Because I am fifty-four-and-a-half years old, the world is against me.   The world would be treating me just fine, thank you very much, if I were just six months older.  Read the news lately?  Some folks in Congress want to change Medicare — starting with me.  Starting with folks currently under 55.  Am I the only fifty-four-and-a-half-year-old who is seriously pissed off about this?

Well today, I’m no longer 54-1/2.  But I am not in  a snit.  A tiff.  And I’m no longer miffed.

Today I’m mad as hell.

Did you see that Donald of the small hands plans to put this guy in charge of Health and Human Services?  Congressman Tom Price (R (Suprise!)-GA).

tom-price

Photo Image Credit: Gage Skidmore

Folks are lining up in opposition to Price.  Not only will he piss me off by trying (and god help us, failing) to derail Medicare, but as the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, he is the author of the House bills to repeal Obamacare.  He is adamantly opposed to abortion in all cases.  He opposes including provisions in Medicaid to permit low income women to afford birth control.  He’s probably in favor of hangers.

Here is Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly’s comment opposing Price:

Tom Price has led the charge to privatize Medicare, and for this reason, I cannot support his nomination. I am ready to work with anyone who wants to improve access to quality health care for Hoosier families and seniors, but the nomination of Tom Price would put us on a direct path to end Medicare as we know it, which would raise health care costs and break a fundamental promise to seniors. I have fought to protect Medicare, and I will continue to oppose efforts to privatize Medicare or turn it into a voucher program.

I, personally, will do what I can.  Because I really do fear that before long, this is what Trumpcare will look like:

You know I got this from Father Kane at the Last of the Millenniums, don’t you?

*****

*Shortly after starting the blog with the stupid name, I realized that 54-1/2 was the average age my two late sisters reached.  I kept the name because, as the “sick” member of the family, it reminds me that really, every day is a gift.

I’ll continue to believe that.  Until, of course, I am an old Crohn’s patient whose Medicare has been taken away.  Then I will — literally — poop all over Congress and Donald Trump.

poop-4Google Image

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The Difference and Hillary’s Chicken

As if we needed reminders.  As if you couldn’t imagine this sort of thing happen.  In case you need to show the difference in the two parties.

Show ’em this.

J.J. Holmes has severe cerebral palsy.  He is 12 and is confined to a wheel chair.

On Saturday, his mother took him to a Trump rally, where he wanted to protest Trump’s treatment of folks with disabilities.  So they raised a Hillary placard.  And they were thrown out.

According to one report I read:

This is truly disturbing to me … What I witnessed while covering a Trump rally today. Wheelchair-bound JJ Holmes, 12, who has cerebral palsy, and his family were ordered out of Saturday’s Trump rally by Trump after they chanted for Hillary Clinton. JJ begged his mom, Alison, to travel over two hours so he could attend. JJ begged his mom, Alison, to travel over two hours so he could attend. Unable to speak, JJ communicates through a special device similar to Stephen Hawkings. JJ is passionate about politics and concerned about the future of all humans but especially those with disabilites. Alison said the family was kicked by Trump supporters and had to shield JJ’s wheelchair as Trump supporters gathered to push JJ’s wheelchair out of their space. Alison was called a child abuser and a murderer. This is just so, so sad! Tears are burning my eyeballs but then I look at JJ smiling afterwards when he asked his mom if she is proud of him.

Trump himself ordered the boy and his mother to be thrown out of the rally. His deplorable supporters taunted them on the way out. Taunting a disabled child? The lowest of the low.

That’s not exactly how the Democrats acted.

Instead, J.J. and his family got to meet President Obama.

Attribution: Valentina Pereda on Facebook (via Daily kos)

Attribution: Valentina Pereda on Facebook (via Daily kos)

Since Hillary started her advocacy working to get disabled students admitted to school, I’m pretty sure s he’s good with Obama supporting her on this one.

Trump’s supporters were kicking at JJ’s wheelchair.  What sort of people do that?

Oh yeah.  Deplorable ones.

*****

Don’t be confused by the second half of my title.  I don’t think that Hillary IS chicken.  Nope, not a bit.

But she DOES makes a fine chicken dish that made it into the 1987 Congressional Club Cookbook, which has recipes from all sorts of congress members, their spouses, governors and their spouses.  Both Bill and Hillary have recipes in it, befitting the first power couple — both cook.

I Took This Picture! It's MY Cookbook!

I Took This Picture! It’s MY Cookbook!

It's my snapshot of the page.

That’s my proof.    And my picture.

It’s quick, easy and perfect for a weeknight meal.

This time, I may have it with champagne.

 

*****

I’m really looking forward to writing about non-campaign related shit!

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What’s Your Plan

I promise I’ll shut up.  Soon.

Today I spent the day calling strangers and asking them if they’d made a plan to vote.

You see, scientific studies say that folks are more likely to actually go and vote if they tell somebody what their plan to vote is.

  • Do you plan to vote in the morning?
  • The afternoon?
  • Evening?
  • How are you going to get there?

Bring your ID.

I figured there were no stranger strangers, so after all my posts on the election for all these months, I figured I’d bore you one last time:

Make a plan for when you’ll vote.  And go vote!

*****

My bloggin buddy, NTexas99 sent me this link.  It is to the pictures of women, born before the 19th Amendment was ratified, who waited all their lives to cast this vote.  It’ll make you smile.  And perhaps forgive me for all these political post.  Maybe.

http://www.iwaited96years.com/

 

 

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