The Very Idea!

That was one of my paternal grandmother’s favorite expressions when she just couldn’t cope with a new idea of some sort, or someone’s behavior was just beyond her standards of polite and civil society (which happened pretty often.) She was born before 1900, so as her spouse was rumored to have remarked, “she would blush if she had to walk past a pile of undressed lumber.” I struggle to think what or even if she could cope with today’s society. Societies’ mores change as time goes by and they will go back and forth depending on the morals and ethics of the age they are “born” in.

Our society is going through a moral and ethical upheaval that some people recognize, and others just don’t seem to see at all. In short, the same people who are decrying the “decay of American values” as:

• Acceptance of LGBTQ+ people as being equal and having protected rights to marriage, job protections, etc,
• Protection of the reproductive rights of women and their rights to personal autonomy,
• Recognition of the rights of all BIPOC and AAPI people to be treated by the Criminal Justice system without discrimination or prejudice in policing, court, and penal systems,
• Teaching the totality of American history in our school systems which includes: the genocide of the indigenous people already living here for the purpose of seizing the land, water, and mineral rights, the purposeful importation of enslaved tribal people from the continent of African to provide unpaid labor in factories, homes, and on farms, the fight of women to gain enfranchisement (right to vote), the continuing (and seemingly unending) fight to eradicate systemic racism against anyone who looks the tiniest bit different from a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) or has different beliefs, ethnicity, gender identity, personal pronouns, religion, or just whatever in the freaking heck is the raison du jour. [reason of the day = green M&Ms, Barbies, Mr. Potato Head, Purple M&Ms, gas stoves, ceiling fans, and on and on and on]. I didn’t say any of it made sense. That’s just what they do and, seemingly, their flying monkeys are motivated by it.
• So-called “voter fraud“– this one is really a bunch of smoke and mirrors but the end result is terrifying. 1. There is a miniscule amount of documented voter fraud in any one election and you can look that up. In the election that Trump repeatedly goes back to, after three recounts (two by hand), out of approximately 17 million votes, there were FIVE fraudulent ballots. That calculates out to 0.00000000029%. Or what is known in statistical circles as not worth bothering with. Now those people will be prosecuted. (Note: all five were Republicans. Two tried to vote on nonexistent addresses, two tried to vote in the incorrect precincts, and one tried to vote in his dead mother’s name.) I worked in the Election Protection part of the Democratic Party as an Election Protection Volunteer Oversight Worker. I learned a lot and I recommend the experience.
  • Election Fraud is a different animal– this is when people do things like:
    • stuff ballot boxes with fake ballots all marked for one party (which has NEVER, EVER HAPPENED IN THIS COUNTRY.)
    • cause the software in the automated machines to make all the votes to go to one party or one candidate. (again, has NEVER, EVER HAPPENED IN THIS COUNTRY.)
    • people “harvest” paper ballots by going door to door and collecting unsealed ballots from unsuspecting elderly, disabled, or trusting, but naive people and tell them that they will finish the ballot for them and get them to the poll, but then making erasures or otherwise changing the votes before sealing the ballots for submission. (A NC House candidate was disqualified for setting up a scheme to do this in order to win his primary in 2020. He and the people involved have been prosecuted.)
    • refusing to accept the identification of certain voters because of asinine or inane criteria but accepting that of others in order to skew the results of the election based on (usually) race, economic status, or some other constitutionally protected group.
    • and so on.
• “Economic Insecurity” – From where I sit, this is the biggest joke foisted upon a gullible public in many years. CEOs are making obscene amounts of money but can’t seem to figure out that the wages they pay their entry level people is basically slave wages. I got chewed out by a CEO who got incensed at me because I objected to a 1% pay increase for my staff when I was working. I KNEW that the stockholders got theirs. I knew that the board members got theirs. I won’t tell you how I knew, but I did. I knew that the physicians (all 42 of them) got theirs. But we got 1%? Bollocks. “Trickle down” has never worked.

What ACTUALLY happens is that the C-suite and stockholders get their share of the pie first and they take great big slices. It varies from company to company but it is never less than half of the pie. It can go as high as 80%. It’s just that the numbers are so big that most people think “nyah, that can’t be right” or it is camouflaged in stock options, stock buybacks, vacations, bonuses, and stuff like that. But if you know what to look for, you can see it. It is eye-popping. Then the people in the middle dip in. Having been in the middle, I do not have a problem with middle people getting a piece of the pie as long as they don’t go hog wild with it. They work with flak coming from both directions and deserve something for being willing to do that. The problem is that the entry level people get what is left and THAT is precious little.

Now what I recognized years ago and the unions have as well, but it took the COVID pandemic to pound the message home to the majority of the people is this: the ESSENTIAL WORKFORCE is not who you thought it was. It’s the grocery store workers (checkers, stockers, warehouse), long haul truck drivers, gas station employees, day care employees, nursing home aides, nurses, doctors, EMTs, Fire, Police, hospital employees (administrative, laundry, cooks, cleaning, lab, x-ray, PT, OT, RT, support staff), etc. and these people are WAAAAAY underpaid. God bless each and every one of them because they stepped up and literally put their lives on the line. I know because I’ve been there in similar situations. You have my admiration and gratitude. Unfortunately, I can’t give them the pay raise they deserve.

What is happening? Unions are forming. It’s my feeling that this will spread. “Bidenomics” philosophy of putting economic stimulus packages aimed at the creation of jobs at the middle-class level and actually putting money at the entry level and middle-class income level has jump started the nation’s economy faster than a Quarter horse after a heifer. Suddenly, businesses are having trouble finding people to fill jobs. When that happens, employees have the power and they know it. The CEOs and stakeholders had better brace themselves. If they think their tactics of union busting from the Reagan days are going to work, they’ve got another think coming. These people can go elsewhere to work and they will. They’ll break these bosses. I, for one, will be cheering them on.

• Southern Border — If you look at this realistically (which no MAGA does), this is hysterical. Really funny. But they’ve swallowed some of the Border Patrol’s BS hook, line, and sinker which is unfortunate. Let’s look at this:
  • From their own stats, most border crossings of ANY KIND, happen at LEGAL points of entry. These folks come through on visas and just overstay their welcome. It’s been happening for decades.
  • The undocumented people also cross at LEGAL points of entry. They’re packed into semi-trucks, under vegetables, under meat, under merchandise, etc. Sometimes they’re just packed into a box truck and Customs just misses them, the coyote dumps the truck out in the desert, and if they miss the connection to open the back of the truck, oh, well. It’s happened. They find them by watching for buzzards.
  • MAGA screams about people just walking across the desert. Got news for them. Nothing just walks across that desert. There’s a reason. It’s hot as H.E.L.L. out there and there is no water. Not even the rattlesnakes are out there. Idiots.
  • About the ONLY place that actually DOES have people walking across the border/river is Texas. Here’s the funny thing about that: ever since Greg Abbott started making a huge deal about it, they’ve been having a horrible time finding workers for the ranches, farms, hospitality, docks, and other businesses that rely on cheap labor. Hmmmm. The impact has been felt all the way up into OK, KS, MO, LA, and AR. Well, darn, Abbott. Haven’t you learned you lesson yet? Apparently, no. He started putting razor wire, floating barrels, and other stuff out there. The man, I swear, has a cruel streak ten miles wide. He’s costing not just his state money, but what he’s doing is illegal.
  • As far as criminals and drugs are concerned, most of that comes in via other places, e.g. Canada, the Eastern seaboard, Western seaboard, New Orleans, Houston, Florida, private airstrips, submarines, cigar boats, and container ships. Why would any of that come across the southern border when there are easier ways to do the same thing? That argument just doesn’t hold water.

Of course, there’s the litigations surrounding The Former Guy (who hasn’t won a darn thing yet) and the fact that he’s having to plug t-shirts with his mugshot on them from the day he surrendered to the Fulton County Police Department to help pay his legal expenses for his upcoming trial for trying to illegally undermine the counts in the 2020 elections. (Never mind the fact that NONE of the other races on the SAME ballot were ever questioned at all! Very strange. If the Democrats were going to mess with one, you’d think they’d at least go for some other key races or maybe the whole thing, now wouldn’t you?) Just his mugshot, too. Not the other 19 defendants. The peculiar thing is the slogan on it-NEVER SURRENDER. But he just had. Plus the slogan is the one that Ron DeSantis uses. ????

• New York – Civil Case – E. Jean Carroll – Pending — Defamation regarding Sexual Assault X2
• New York – Manhattan – Alvin Bragg – Fraud – “Stormy Daniels” case for misappropriation of campaign funds
• New York – State Supreme – AG Letitia James – Fraud — Tax Fraud against DJT, Trump Inc., and family
• Georgia – Fulton County (but could go ND GA) – RICO + 3 other charges DJT + 19 others October 23, 2023 Looming trial date
• Arizona -State-still getting indictments together
• Missouri – civil case — fraud
• Florida – Federal – Mar-A-Largo documents
• Washington D. C.-Federal–January 6 insurrection March 4, 2024 current trial date

Personally, I don’t know if the man is loony tunes, senile, or running the biggest long con of all time, but what I do know is that he is dangerous to our democracy because of the people who surround him and who use his power to advance their agendas. And THAT, folks, is why I want him taken out of the equation forthwith. He keeps mucking things up and we need to get busy with clearing this up. Ever try to clean up a spill in the kitchen floor with a big puppy around? Whether you love said puppy or not, those feet, wagging tail, and exuberance are not going to help you mop that mess up any faster. In fact, they’re going to spread that mess throughout the house very quickly. That’s TFG. He’s got to go. NOW. Preferably with his kids.

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