Month: January 2021

A Swearing Out Ceremony

Like millions of others I had my fat ass planted squarely on the couch for most of the day yesterday as I watched the inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Harris.

And I admit that I would still have rather seen Bernie standing there with his hand on the bible instead of sitting by himself in the back row bundled up in a winter coat and sporting some classic mittens.

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I digress.

Yet the inauguration was a reaffirmation of the values and traditions that make America a shining example of democracy to the rest of the world. It had pomp, circumstance and substance. And after an attempt on January 6 to overthrow the government (initiated by you know who), we witnessed (thankfully) a peaceful transfer of power.

Still, I think Trump got away easy by heading out of DC at the crack of dawn instead of doing the right thing and attending the swearing in of POTUS 46.

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In these circumstances in the future (God forbid) I suggest that we have a swearing out ceremony.

It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. Just some flunky like Moscow Mitch standing by the stairs to the helicopter and saying:

“Trump, you douchebag. Get the fu@@ out of here.”

Oh well. I digress again.

But in any event, I’m pleased that Biden is at work today in the Oval Office. He appears to be a decent person who is more than qualified to end what he called our “uncivil” war. And he seems to be more interested in fixing the many problems that face our nation rather than spending his day on twitter, watching TV and stroking his own ego.

Except for those sitting in their mommy’s basement rapped in a Trump/Nazi flag, I think you have to admit that the inauguration yesterday presented an opportunity for all of us to feel good about America again.

And the person who put the exclamation point on the whole affair was the 22-year-old poet Amanda Gorman.

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Here’s from the BBC:

Amanda Gorman has become the youngest poet ever to perform at a presidential inauguration, calling for “unity and togetherness” in her self-penned poem.
The 22-year-old delivered her work The Hill We Climb to both the dignitaries present in Washington DC and a watching global audience.
“When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade?” her five-minute poem began.
She went on to reference the storming of the Capitol earlier this month.
“We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it, would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy,” she declared.
“And this effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.”

Wow.

…”while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.”

Somebody should have shared that line with Trump during his swearing out ceremony.

Democracy Under Siege

Okay. I wasn’t sure I was going to opine on what happened in DC earlier this week, since I don’t really have any new insights. But hey. How often does a retired senior citizen with access to a computer and the internet have the opportunity to sit on his couch and watch a gaggle of domestic terrorists attempt to overthrown the government of the USA?

Fortunately, not often. In fact, the last time the Capitol was breeched by a group of armed thugs was during the War of 1812. And the British didn’t even have Twitter or Facebook to mobilize the dim-witted masses.

This assault on our democracy — and our elected leaders — is clearly nothing to laugh about.

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I digress.

I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to believe that Trump helped incite this riot via his tweets and other comments that launched a host of conspiracy theories and gave rise to the notion that the election was stolen, even though no credible evidence of voter fraud has surfaced.

Still, Trump supporters — who now constitute the white nationalist wing of what used to be the Republican Party — believe it is better to trash the Constitution rather than abide by it.

Fortunately, those who stormed the Capitol on Wednesday are not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

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And then there is this guy who must have either taken a vacation day or called in sick to join the mob.

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Oh well. I heard this morning on MSNBC that his employer terminated this douchebag. And that’s probably a good thing. I expect that he will soon be joining many of his comrades in prison — and I assume that would create a conflict for showing up to work every day.

I also worry about whether Wednesday’s assault on our country was the end of a tragic episode (read that to mean Trump’s presidency) or the beginning of a new chapter in our nation’s history marked by violence and God forbid, political assassinations. If what we witnessed at the Capitol was a preview of how we are going to live as a Banana Republic, then I would prefer not to see the main feature.

So, I guess we need to do at a minimum a couple of things:

One, Congress has to investigate how an armed mob was able to take control of what should be one of the most secure facilities in this country. And we have to make sure that nothing like this can ever happen again. Without putting too fine a point on this, what we witnessed was a catastrophic failure of the police and armed forces.

Two, social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook have to be held accountable for making it easy to spread lies and disinformation. They aren’t just innocent bystanders to this type of train wreck.

Three, we need strong national political parties that represent the views of all Americans. It is time to move on from the Republicans if they have morphed into the American Nazi Party.

Four, Trump needs to go, sooner rather than later. And if that means impeachment or invoking the 25th Amendment, then so be it. 

Trump and his enablers provoked this assault on our democracy.

It’s time to close the book on this ugly chapter in American history.

And move on.

 

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2020: Good Riddance

Well, I guess unless you are Jeff Bezos or one of the other billionaires who have made a financial killing off of the pandemic that defined 2020, I’m sure you will agree that it is a blessing to now be looking at the disaster of last year in the rearview mirror.

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But if nothing else, we learned last year just how inept our federal government is at responding to a national crisis. Folks, without putting too fine a point on it, if this were the best we could do in the early 1940s we would all be speaking German or Japanese now. So it goes.

In fact, with nearly 350,000 Americans (and counting) being killed by the Trump Virus, we have already surpassed the number of deaths of American military men and women during WW2. Here’s from Business Insider:

The US saw 291,557 battle deaths during World War II, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

I wonder how the Trump-supporting mask-holes are getting along with their claims that this pandemic is a hoax, while clinging to absorb conspiracy theories that Biden and the Dems somehow stole the election.

 

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I digress.

Anyway, I’m reasonably optimistic that 2021 will be better.

It appears that a vaccine for the virus is beginning to make its way into arms of Americans throughout the country.

And we can look forward to the return of some actual Presidential leadership in less than a month — even if the current POTUS has to be carried from the Oval Office in leg irons.

 

 

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So let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best in 2021.

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But in any event, for 2020: good riddance.