And she points to Donald Trump’s as the reason she is no longer a Republican.
Like much of America, former Republican Meagan Simonaire of Maryland, joined the majority of the country and decided to speak out against Trump’s “attacks” on minorities, women “and anyone who does not agree with him.”
If only the Republican weaklings in Congress could do the same.
Are you angry? I mean, really angry? Angry about Brett Kavanaugh? Angry about the administration’s refusal to consult science about…anything? Angry about the weather? NFL players kneeling? Liberals calling for impeaching the president? Conservatives actually taking the president seriously? The president?
This is not healthy for the country or for you. And heading into the midterm elections, it’s not helping the country have anything close to a reasoned debate about the issues.
Time to breathe.
I hate to say it, but it doesn’t look like the Democrats are going to win back the Senate, and the House is going to be closer that many political analysts thought in the summer. If you’re on the left, that means total GOP control of the Congress for two more years. More deregulation, more pollution, less health care, more tax cuts for the wealthy, and more men making decisions for women.
What to do?
I know. Vote. Register to vote if you haven’t done that, but if you have, vote. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to register and vote, especially if you want to back up your complaints with action. Don’t let older voters, who supported Donald Trump and vote in large numbers, outvote you.
Yes? Then if you haven’t registered, what are you waiting for?
No? Then take it as a challenge and register and vote.
That’s the surefire strategy for effecting change. Otherwise, politicians will dismiss your concerns and see you as irrelevant. Because, in a sense, you are.
It bothers me greatly that many Americans will tip their hats to both active duty and veteran soldiers, thank them for their service and defense of this country, and then not follow-up with the one single best way to show your pride and commitment to their efforts.
Vote.
Make yourself relevant.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
There have been rumors and rumors and more rumors that Sidney… ah, Lindsey Graham is gay. And the rumors resurfaced again with a tweet from comedian, Cheslea Hunter.
Hunter tweeted that Republicans took a recent day off because it was #NationalComingOutDay , and she pointed the tweet in the direction of Lindsey Graham.
Enter TMZ. They have people all over the place, and at a local airport, TMZ found Graham and masterfully got him to answer Chelsea’s tweet.
Asked if he saw the tweet from Chelsea, Graham replied, “It’s a free country. She can say what she wants to say. I don’t care… She knows zero about me. To the extent that it matters, I’m not gay. These comments, I don’t think they reflect well on her.”
Video
You’d think these people should have no say. That they should go about making their millions and should keep their voice silent when it comes to politics and the direction politicians are taking this country. Most celebrities stifle their voice and stay silent, others buck the norm and express their First Amendment right.
Taylor Swift is one entertainer who chose to exercise her 1st Amendment right. She went on Instagram and posted her support for two Democratic candidates. Swift, it should be noted, has 112 million followers on Instagram.
In her post, Swift explained that she felt the need to speak up based on what has happened over the last two years.
“In the past, I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions,” Swift wrote, “but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now.” She continued; “I always have and always ill cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country. I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG.”
Swift explained that although she would like to support a woman candidate, Republican Marsha Blackburn “appalls” and “terrifies” her. Swift told the people of Tennessee that Blackburn “voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act” and more.
Taylor Swift ended her post saying, “I will be voting for Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives.” And she urged that her followers “educate yourself on the candidates running in your state and vote based on who most closely represents your values.”
Read Swift’s entire post below.
I guess it’s one way to stick it to Donald Trump!
Axios is reporting that sometime today, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, the man who said he would take a bullet for Trump, the man who paid one of Donald Trump’s porn-star sweeties $130,000 to buy her silence about her sexual affair with Donald, that man is now a Democrat.
Axios reports that “the source with knowledge of the situation told Axios that Cohen’s party switch is “consistent with what he told Stephanopoulos on July 2, that constituted his declaration of independence two days before Independence Day, with the key message to Stephanopoulos that now I put my family and my country first.”
Putting family and country first. What a concept. Someone should tell Congressional Republicans.
This piece was published today in USA Today by William E. Scheuerman, a Yale classmate of Brett Kavanaugh. In his piece, William called the FBI investigation “a joke,” saying he tried contacting the FBI to tell his story but was ignored.
“I went to Yale with Kavanaugh, lived in the same residential halls, and graduated with him in 1987. The alleged incident between Kavanaugh and Ramirez, another classmate, occurred during 1983-1984 in a first floor “common room” in entryway “B” of Lawrance Hall. I lived on the first floor of an adjacent entryway (“A”). Kavanaugh lived in entryway “D.”
“Many of us who lived in Lawrance Hall during 1983-1984 approached the FBI last week offering help with its inquiries. I promised a list of names of people who may have attended the party at which Ramirez claims to have been assaulted. The FBI never returned my call. Based on what has now been revealed about the FBI report, I do not believe that the FBI contacted people on that list.
“Other classmates had far more valuable information to provide. One can corroborate that he heard about the incident with Ramirez right after it occurred from a classmate. The FBI never returned his calls, either. A theologian at one of our nation’s leading universities, he did not “search and destroy.” He just wanted a proper look at the allegations so that we all could reach our own conclusions on the basis of facts, not hearsay and partisan mudslinging.
“The FBI seems to have interviewed only 11 possible witnesses relevant to both Ford’s and Ramirez’s allegations. Who made the decision to limit the inquiry’s scope? The White House and Senate Republicans. Not surprisingly, the FBI was kept from following up on a long list of possible witnesses provided by Ramirez.
“Despite Young’s claims, this was not a “thorough” FBI investigation. It was a political con job.”
Last week, Susan Collins proved that some women will believe and defend an accused abuser over the victim. And today, Megyn Kelly joins Susan Collins and Republican women by throwing an assist to the Brett Kavanaugh.
While doing her show on MSNBC, Megyn explained that something probably happened to Christine Ford, but “it wasn’t quite as bad as she remembers.”
It could have been a case of mistaken identity. I do believe that’s possible, and you can look at Dr. Ford and say, ‘She just didn’t convince me, there were too many holes in her story, I didn’t find her credible,’ or you could believe something did happen between them and Christine Ford is remembering more than actually happened at the moment.
So maybe something happened, but it wasn’t quite as bad as she [Ford] remembers and it was so minimal that Brett Kavanaugh doesn’t even remember it.
That dumb and unbelievable statement was one of many that came out of Trump’s mouth last week during the confirmation and sexual accusation allegations of Brett Kavanaugh.
After Christine Blasey Ford came forward with her 35-year-old accusation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers, Trump called her testimony “credible” but sided with Kavanaugh’s and his denials. “It’s a scary time for boys,” Trump said, apparently because more women are coming forth with their own sexual abuse recollections.
So to demonstrate how dumb Trump’s statement was, Lynzy Lab published this song on YouTube. Some of the words to her song…
I CAN’T WALK TO MY CAR LATE AT NIGHT WHILE ON THE PHONE I CAN’T OPEN UP MY WINDOWS WHEN HOME ALONE I CAN’T GO TO A BAR WITHOUT A CHAPERONE AND I CAN’T WEAR A MINI SKIRT IF ITS THE ONLY ONE I OWN I CAN’T USE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AFTER 7 PM I CAN’T BE BRUTALLY HONEST WHEN YOU SLIDE INTO MY DMS I CAN’T GO TO THE CLUB JUST TO DANCE WITH MY FRIENDS AND I CAN’T EVER LEAVE MY DRINK UNATTENDED BUT IT SURE IS A SCARY TIME FOR BOYS
We are so accustomed to reporters staying quiet and allowing politicians to lie, that when a reporter points out a lying politician, it makes news.
Take Mitch McConnell for example. On Sunday, the Republican leader of the Senate went on television and lied to the American people, as he has done too many times. He expected to continue his lies without interruption, but John Dickerson on Face The Nation had truth on his side and he wasn’t afraid to use it.
The video shows McConnell trying to justify the unjustifiable – his decision to deny President Obama’s Supreme Court nomination pick. You remember Merrick Garland? McConnell refused to do his job and denied Garland a hearing… for a year!
So to explain his decision, McConnell talked about “history,” and how he followed precedent in refusing to have a hearing on a president’s nominee. But as you’d expect, the Republican had selective memory.
Watch what happened;
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell were interviewed by Fareed Zakari on CNN on Sunday, and although both had very important views on where this country is going, Colin Powell has some pointed words on Donald Trump and his leadership style.
When Fareed asked if Trump can be a “moral leader for the rest of the world,” Powell let his feelings be known.
I don’t know that he can do that because right now that is not the way he’s acting. Let me give you an example. My favorite three words in our constitution is the first three words, We The People, We The People. But recently it’s become me the president as opposed to We the people. And you see things that should not be happening. How could the president of the United States get up and say that the media is the enemy of Americans? Hasn’t he read the First Amendment? You’re not supposed to like everything the Press says or what anyone says in the First Amendment, that’s why we have the First Amendment, to protect that type of speech.
The former Secretary of State continued;
And I hope the President can come to the realization that he should really stop insulting people. And I used this two years ago when I said I could not vote for him in the 2016 election. Why? He insulted everybody. He insulted African Americans, he insulted women, he insulted women, he insulted immigrants, he insulted our best friends around the world. He insulted all of his fellow candidates upon the stage during the debates. And I don’t think that’s what should be coming out of the President of the United States, but I don’t see anything that’s changed in the last few years.”
Yes, I’ve been reading Karl Marx while listening to Green Day.
Yes, I’ll explain.
You’ve heard the phrase: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”
Marx wrote that in an essay in 1852, comparing the rise to dictator of Napoleon’s nephew Louis Napoleon to a farce when compared to Napoleon’s rise in 1799, which occurred–you guessed it–on 18 Brumaire according to the French Revolutionary calendar.
Yes, I know, great way to ruin a pithy historical reference.
I digress.
The farce seems to be upon us, but this time it’s the second time around of the Reagan Revolution and it’s being perpetrated by a clownish president, the High Holiness of Hypocrisy, Mitch McConnell, and the tragic figure who smiles while having her reputation ripped off of her like a cheap bodice, Senator Susan Collins of Maine. There are, of course, other actors, including the nominee himself, Brett “Keg” Kavanaugh, Joe “DINO” Manchin, and Senator Lindsay Graham, the Frddie Blassie Award winner for his lack of decorum or of saying anything that someone should want to listen to, and the media machine that kept it in front of us for the past two weeks.
But farce it is, and my sense is that Ronald Reagan is spinning so fast in his grave we could tap him as a power source. Yes, the main ideas of smaller government, increased recognition of religious rights, tax cuts, and increased military spending are still in the GOP jukebox, but now they’ve added the overt racism that comes with opposing social programs and housing opportunity, a tax cut bill that punishes vast swaths of the middle class and will result in them paying more in April than what they received in their checks, anti-unionism, voter suppression, tolerance and, in some cases, acceptance, of white supremacist groups, unchecked sexism, and the vile, uncompromising, inappropriate, dangerous, misogynistic, insulting blather that comes from the president’s mouth and phone on a moment-by-moment basis.
And you know what? The GOP doesn’t care. The president doesn’t care. The right wing media doesn’t care. The Senate clearly doesn’t care, and the House hasn’t cared since 1994.
That’s the farce.
But we can rebuild this country. We have the technology. And the effort has to come from both left and right. We start by electing Democrats to the Congress, but more importantly, to the statehouses. If you have a state legislative or Gubernatorial election this November, it’s key that you keep or elect Democrats to office because they will have the responsibility to remap state districts in 2021, after the next census. It’s also important because state legislators become seasoned at that level and then become attractive candidates for federal office. The GOP has dome this masterfully for the past 30 years, and look at where they are now.
And when you consider that of the 7 presidential elections held since 1992, the GOP has one a popular majority…once–that’s right, once, in 2004–then you can see the effects of a state strategy that pays off. You can also see how farcical the GOP claim is of being the majority party or of garnering support from the American people.
It’s crucial to come out and vote.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
It was a perfect Beer commercial waiting to happen, and who else is better equipped to make such a commercial than Stephen Colbert?
Well, maybe Budweiser. But Colbert made the first attempt and I must say I am impress.
The commercial began with Kavanaugh’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, when he admitted… over… and over again… that he like beer.
“Yes, we drank beer. My friends and I, the boys and girls. Yes, we drank beer. I liked beer. I still like beer. We drank beer.”
Watch
