FROM TEA PARTY TO MAGA

 

In 2007 the Democrat Party dared to run a black man for President.

 

Seeing the opportunity to coalesce the racist base of the Republican Party into action, the Koch Brothers financed a Tea Party movement.

 

They hired organizers to reach out to their more gullible constituents. They paid for buses to transport protestors to targeted areas and furnished them with signs, placards, and support.

Without realizing it, the Koch brothers were training the inmates to take over the asylum.

People who had never been the center of attention suddenly had a chance to be filmed by major news networks.   Not the brightest bulbs in the Republican light show, these people showed up with tea bags hanging from their hats, don’t tread on me flags, dressed as Uncle Sam, etc.    They screamed and yelled and received their fifteen minutes of fame.   But they also found they had a movement they could belong to.   And by remaining organized they had a controlling power over the Republican Party.

More and more of the lunatic fringe joined the movement.  The only thing lacking was a leader. 

Then came Donald Trump; not a particularly bright person, but as P.T. Barnum said, you only have to be smarter than the rubes you are conning. 

 

The circle was complete.  The Tea Party became the MAGA cult. 

 

After attempting a coupe, there was a chance to eliminate MAGA, but Republicans, still afraid of the MAGA base, refused to impeach Trump and remove him from office.  

But not just the Republicans: the milk toast Attorney General Merrick Garland had the chance, but delayed holding Trump accountable for the insurrection of January 6 for two years.

 

So now we live in a MAGA republic, whether we like it or not, and Trump’s desire to delete the Department of Education pretty much says it all.   

 

the Ol’Buzzard

 

 

 

HUMANS ARE FREE FROM THE EVOLUTIONARY CULLING PROCESS

Animals that survived through the evolutionary process were not necessarily the largest, the strongest or the smartest; but those most adaptable to change.   Survival was a competition, and the physically weak, the mentally weak and the stupid were culled from the heard early.  Food, shelter and sex were the priorities for survival, and the ability to adapt was the prerequisite for passing on genetic traits. 

 

Today humans have freed themselves from evolutionary constraints, which accounts for today’s burgeoning population growth.  The physically weak, the mentally deficient and outright stupid people are able to survive in today’s technologically society.

Homo Sapiens had existed for 300,000 years, since they first appeared in Africa; but it was not until 1800 that the population finally topped one-billion.   It took 125 years (from 1800 until 1925) for population to expand to two-billion; thirty-five years later (1960) human population hit three-billion; fourteen years later (1974) four-billion, thirteen years later (1987) five-billion; twelve years later (1999) six billion; twelve years later (2011) seven billion.

 

Today, November 17, 2019 at 10 p.m., the world population stands at 7,744,609,768 (Seven billion, seven hundred forty-four million, six hundred nine thousand, seven hundred sixty-eight) and increasing at the net rate of 204,000 per day. 

So, what does this mean?    I don’t fucking know.

Two interesting web links:

THE DARWIN AWARDS

WORLD POPULATION CLOCK

The Ol’BUzzard

 

REPUBLICAN RESPONSE TO TERRORISM

We had a California terrorist attack by two radicalized Muslims and the U.S is outraged.   Even members of the Republican Congress were so concerned they stated they would pray for the families of the dead.

We had a terrorist attack at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic by a radicalized Christian.   Most Democrats were outraged – the Republicans spoke against abortion providers and said we need better mental health treatment; but not even a prayer for the dead.  

This is nothing new.  Racism and religious intolerance has always been a part of the American makeup.   Now it has pretty much congealed in  the Republican Party.   When we say that this is not what American values are, we are fooling ourselves.    

the Ol'Buzzard

TRUMP IS AHEAD IN THE POLES!

Everyone, both Republican and Democratic pundits, are wondering how Donald Trump is carrying 27% of the Republican Party in the poles.

  

I don’t see what the mystery is.   This is the 27% of the Republican Party base that supported Michele Bachman and Herman Cain in the 2012 election – the same people that elected Louie Gohmert and other Congressional wingnuts.   These are the same people that marched with the tri-cornered hats with tea bags hanging from their clothes; these are the same 27% that live on Fox and Friends.

To me it is no mystery.  These people have always been here but disregarded as nut cases until organized by the Republican Party and given a platform to scream from in the 2008 election when it seemed that a black man was going to be elected President.   

This group is poorly educated, not bright and easily manipulated.  For years the leaders and shapers of the Republican Party gave this group lip service – they fed them bullshit and told them it was cake.   They could count on them showing up at the poles as long as they gave them a piece of red meat to chew on. 

And then in 2008 they showcased them – used them to create dissension at Democratic events and to appeal to racist, conspiracy theorist and religious zealots.     

Now, like the Frankenstein monster the Party can’t control them. 

The Republican mainstream keep reminding us that regardless of his appeal, Trump won’t be their nominee and they are probably right; because at some point there will be a concerted effort to bring him down.   In the meantime they are biding their time to see if he will implode on his own.  

Even if Trump, or anyone else, would run as a third party he would have no chance, because it is not the popular vote that elects the President, but the Electoral College; and the members of the Electoral College are appointed by the two major parties.

The game is fixed.

And let’s not forget that it is fourteen fucking months left before we have a vote.   It is like a fifteen mile marathon and everyone excited about who is ahead at mile one. 

On to a more important subject: I haven’t cleaned the cats litter box this morning and they don’t like it when their box is dirty.

the Ol’Buzzard  

1984 REVISITED

I urge anyone with time for books to read or reread George Orwell’s 1984.   The similarities to our government is astounding.   It is obvious to the observer that science fiction writing has predicted advances in real science; and we might say George Orwell has predicted our present.

The story, of course, is the extreme of an individual’s manipulation by a government; but the underlying picture of our government’s manipulation of facts and reality is strikingly familiar.

(Note: the movie sucks)

EXCERPTS FROM 1984 FOR CONSIDERATION:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

“The enemy of the moment represents absolute evil.”

“If all others accepted the lie which the party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became true.”

Mission Accomplished

“Who controls the past, ran the party slogan, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

George W Bush Presidential Library

“Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version.  A great deal of the time you were supposed to make them up out of your head.”

“The aim of the high is to remain where they are.   The aim of the middle is to change places with high.   The aim of the low, when they have an aim – for it is an abiding characteristic of the low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives – is to abolish all distinction and create a society in which all men shall be equal.”

U.S. Congress

“Imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public execution, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages and deportation of whole populations not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.”

“In the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance.”

“The essential act of the party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty.   To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient…”

Weapons of Mass Destruction

“The Proles (people) are only intermittently conscious of the war.   When it is necessary they can be prodded into frenzies of fear and hatred, but when left to themselves they are capable of forgetting for long periods that the war is happening.  

What War?

 It is in the ranks of the party, and above all the inner party, that the true war enthusiasm is found.”

Republican Neo-Cons

“We know that no one ever seized power with the intention of relinquishing it.  Power is not a means; it is an end.”

Partisan Politics

NEWS SPEAK: (news released designed to diminish the range of thought.)

DOUBLE THINK: (to successfully manipulate the mind to the point that people think the opposite of what is true.)

The correlations are obvious.  

the Ol’Buzzard

Aaaaaa Yup!

There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth;

There was panic in the hen house;

The dogs were all howling and the children were crying;

As the Democrats went to bed.

Aaaa Yup.

The Republicans are now running the country.

As I have said before, we get the government we deserve and we deserve the government we get.  (Even though that it circular - it sounds good.)

Another platitude:

The inmates have truly taken over the asylum, so now that crazy uncle can sit at the head of the Thanksgiving table and hold fourth.

We do live in a democracy and election results reflect the will of the majority.  Election results also reflect the actual state of the nation itself. 

We liberals don’t like to admit it, but this is the America we now live in: a Christian America of gun violence, racism, Tea Party radicalism, militias, out of control police; a country with a higher prison population than collage attendance; a nation that holds prisoners without trial – a nation that executes its prisoners; a nation that is more concerned with its military than with its poor.

Europeans have known our true nature for a long time.

Today we can use the excuse that Democrats are apathetic and stayed home; that Democratic representatives took noncontroversial stands in order to maintain a low profile to secure their own jobs in the future; but this is who Democrats are. 

We are a Tea Party nation.

 

Texans don’t need to secede –we are all Texans now. 

I’ll be going down to get my concealed carry ID right after I build a fence to keep non-whites out of my yard while I wait on the Rapture.

 

Naaaa, I will just probably watch movies on NETFLIX, read, drink wine, make love with my wife and occasionally blog.

the Ol’Buzzard

    

WHY BOTHER - POLITICAL APATHY

I have decided to quit listening to Chris Matthews on MSNBC.   Up until this week my wife and I would tune into Chris while we ate supper.   After his program I always feel like lowering my head and charging into the wall.  

And what for?  

Why get wound up over something I have absolutely no power to change – and change to what?   The reality is that I have no option but to live through political changes I have no power to influence.  

I do not have money enough to buy my Senators and Congress Persons…    Presidential elections are decided not by my vote but by an electoral college appointed by political parties; and as far as a popular vote, it is obvious that that can be, and is being manipulated on a state level by these same political parties.

And even if my vote did count; a small, organized, vocal minority - the Republican minions (also known and the Tea Party and the Christian Fundamentalist – people who are capable of believing that Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin are intelligent choices to govern us) can influence one of the only two viable political parties we have as a choice to the shithouse rat crazy extremes – which in turn can be manipulated by the billionaires whose actual goal is to establish an Oligarchy..

(Wow what a fucking sentence!  I think I will leave it alone and won’t edit…)

I will still listen to Rachel Maddow – she doesn’t rant and rave – and to Bill Maher and Vice on HBO for the WOW factor of crazy shithouse rat political machinations, which are nothing if not entertaining.

Politics to me is a voyeuristic sport, like professional football; something I have absolutely no power or ability to influence.   But, just because I am not capable of participating on any meaningful level does not mean that I don’t find it entertaining.     I just don’t need to get wound up over something I can not control. 

Spring is coming to western Maine, the daffodils are up and it is a beautiful overcast day.   I am going to have cereal and blueberries for breakfast this morning while we watch Rachel Maddow’s program that we taped last night.

Have a good day

the Ol’Buzzard

                                                                                               

YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID

According to Rachel Maddow there are people down south (I didn't have to write that – you could have guessed the location) that are blaming President Obama for the snow storms across the southern states.   One of the comments posted on a web site stated that the ultimate military weapon would be able to control the weather; and that in fact the military caused the storms across the south with fake snow (no shit: a chemical snow that can’t be melted with a flame) in order to cover up the bills politicians are passing that are designed to take away our freedoms. 

 My only question is: how have these people survived for so long?  They are each prime candidates for a Darwin Award. 

And, how long before Republicans in Congress have investigations led by Derrell Issa to discover the Presidents culpability in the erratic weather across the country – and particularly the snow down south?

There is no hope for the United States because the idiots have escaped the asylums and the Republicans are taking over the government.

the Ol’Buzzard 

A POX ON THE CONGRESS

It is probably my age.

                                       

Or perhaps it is the month of October: a month of ghost and goblins and ghouls – Oh my! 

                             

But, the debt ceiling fight and the government shutdown seems totally out of place at this time of the year: a time of harvest – a time of food and friends and fairs and celebration from a year of toil.  

I have said before that I can’t seem to get goaded into depression about what seems now to be business as usual in Washington.   

People are posting dooms day scenarios on what Rachel Maddow calls the internet machine.  

But in reality: all of this will end in just one way.   We will grow old and infirmed or diseased or suffer an accident – and then we all die.  We will get put in the ground, or cremated and have our ashes in an urn – or some not so lovable relative will flush us down the toilet.   Whatever the outcome; when this happens, we won’t care about the debt ceiling or governments or political parties. 

And then two or three generations in the future – when we are long forgotten – people will still be exasperated with their politicians; liberals will be disgusted with the way the rich treat the poor; and people with hearts and brains will be protesting the next war. 

Things move on but stay the same.    You can’t walk in the same river twice, but the river is still there.  This slipstream of time that man has created – and mankind him and her self – are relevant only in the small self-centered ego of our species.

We change the things we can and accept the things we can’t change. 

We are approaching the season of All Hallows Eve when the dead can walk - in our minds.  We should use this season to put things in perspective.  

Celebrate this season.

A pox on the Congress.

the Ol’Buzzard

THERE IS NO HOPE

We liberals keep hoping for the miracle that will not happen.   First of all miracles are not real: You can not turn a pumpkin into a coach; you can not turn a frog into a prince and you can not twang your magic twanger and turn water into wine.  

We live in a world of hard physical laws that we refer to as science, and yet we keep expecting the impossible. 

Probably fifty percent of the people living on this earth are bone ignorant and at least thirty percent are bat-shit religious crazies, and that number is not going to change – if anything it is increasing.     At one time the really ignorant people were kept hidden by their families, but now they run for public office. 

In my last post ELECTION 2013, John Oliver highlighted Australians running for public office and made the comparison with our 2012 candidates on the Republican ticket. 

One woman running for office stated that Islam was a country and their people were followers of Huran law; and under Huran law Jews had their own religion that worshiped Jesus Christ.

You can’t make this up…the woman is obviously a moron, and she doesn't hold the patent on that condition.

Here in America we have no room to mock the Australians since we had an entire Republican candidateship that proudly proclaimed disbelief if Darwinism and global warming.   For the most part they are flat earth people that believe the world is six thousand years old. 

  These are supposed to be our elite – our top choice of people to run our country.  And even scarier: they are smarter than the people who vote for them. 

I sincerely believe that if it were possible to pole everyone in the United States at least half would be unable to answer basic questions of history, science, math and politics.   Uninformed these people are prone to believe outlandish propositions and are easily influenced and manipulated by political factions and religious leaders.   They have banded together under the Tea Party banner and are systematically taking over the government.   Truly, the inmates are now running the asylum.  

The human race has been on this earth for a minuscule period of time and we are proving to be our own worst enemy.  We probably will not inherit this earth for long.   We have an over assessment of our own worth and our own place in nature.   

Perhaps we liberals all need to lower our expectations and not let politics, religion and stupid people upset our daily lives – because it is not going to change.

the Ol'Buzzard

THE TEA PARTY IS THE AMERICAN TALIBAN

Taken from the HBO show The Newsroom.   It says it all.

The Ol'Buzzard

A VEILED CALL FOR PRESIDENTIAL ASSASINATION.

The following excerpt is from the blog: Squatlo Rant 

(I urge you to click the link to read the full post in context.)

 “An article on Huffington Post grabbed my attention this morning, and I'm still sitting here shaking my head at the treasonous behavior of some in today's GOP.  
        A Greene County Republican Committee newsletter that was published back in March included an essay by the newsletter's editor, one Ponch McPhee, in which he called President Obama "America’s Most Biblically-Hostile U. S. President" and urged patriotic Republicans to take up arms against the government should Obama win reelection.”

I read this as a blatant call for violence against our President.

We often hear TV and talk radio Republican talking heads comparing the extreme right of their party and the extreme left of the Democratic Party as both equally radical in their diatribes.   

This is not a correct comparison: the extreme right of the Republican Party has a vitriol that is poisonous and dangerous and does not exist in the extreme left.   The Right Wing of the Republican Party (including the Tea Party) attracts militia nut cases, the KKK, skin heads and other organizations that advocate violence.   This contingent of the party contains unstable gun carrying fanatics capable of killing abortion doctors and shooting politicians they do not agree with.   These people, constantly goaded by Fox News and talk radio, are unstable, delusional and damn right dangerous.

The fact is that the party has moved so far to the right extreme, that the Texas governor (Rick Perry), who publicly announced that he considered Texas secession from the United States as plausible possibility and who has been filmed shooting his pistol into the air at a political gathering, became one of the Presidential candidates for the Republican Party

Equally bothering is that Republican Senators and Congressmen do not come out and denounce this violent rhetoric, and that mainstream TV news shows do not highlight these right wing dangerous psychopaths and tie them to the Party. 

The Republican supported newsletter that published this article against President Obama is the type of officially approved rant the feeds the frenzy.  

I fear for President Obama every time he appears publicly in the South.

This may sound like an unfair attack against the South.  It is not.  It is an observation.  I was raised in Kentucky and Mississippi and I know the religious ignorance that permeate the south and encourages anti-liberal fanaticism. 

This is not the first Democratic President to face such southern racist hatred. 

In Stephen King’s novel 11/22/63 King documents the hatred that was publicly displayed in Dallas toward President Kennedy on the day of his assassination.   American flags flew upside down at the airport; and earlier Adlai Stevenson and Lady Bird Johnson had been subjected to a spit shower from a group of protesting middle class housewives.  The Dallas police were complicit by looking the other way.

This is an especially dangerous time for our President as the lunatic fringe of the far right sees his reelection as a biblical offense leading to the destruction of their racially pure America.

If an assassination attempt takes place against the first black President of the United States it will be the lowest point in our National history since the Civil War.

Though they will try to distance themselves, the leaders of the Republican Party will be complicit.   It will be an event that was encouraged by Republican propagandist TV and talk radio outlets (including Fox News and Rush Limbaugh)   and it will have taken place because the leaders of the party encouraged the rhetoric and chose not to denounce the lies and vitriol promulgated against this President.

the Ol'Buzzared