At least the Democratic Party still believes in "we the people"
Despite all the drivel about a bipartisan (a whopping 12 of 53 republican Senators, and 13 of 195 republican congresspersons joined the Democrats) rejection of Trump's bullshit emergency declaration, does anybody really believe if the Democrats had not driven this resolution it would have come about?
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Democratic Party is the only barrier between us and a dictatorship--republicans stopped believing in democracy long ago.
How long before the blindness results in vengeance?
After another week in which our government decided that the killings of two innocent, unarmed black men were justified (in Tulsa, OK and Sacramento, CA), one has to wonder just exactly when police will be confronted with questions concerning why they shot a man with his hands in the air, why they shot a man in the back, why they shot a man several more times after he was already knocked to the ground by his bullet wounds, how a phone gets confused for a gun, why they turned off their street cams, and why they failed to announce themselves.
While one tries to appreciate the often difficult decisions police officers are forced to make in a split second with their lives (and their families' well being) on the line, too many of these decisions are turning out to be outrageously bad and carried out with an overkill of force. And to not have the prosecutors acting as a check on said behavior makes it seem all the more ruthless.
One has to wonder how much longer public trust in our local police forces will last if marked change is not forthcoming...and right soon.
Keep in mind that the budget for 2020 that the Trump administration handed to Congress this week is not just Donald Trump's budget, but is for all intents and purposes the budget of the republican party. Its cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Cancer Research, Public Schools, and the Great Lakes (among numerous others) are not bugs of republican policy, they are the features. From Mitch McConnell to Kevin McCarthy, from Susan Collins to Rand Paul, this is another in a long list of initiatives to turn American from a Democracy to a Plutocracy in their never ending quest to show their fealty to America's wealthy elite.
Though Nancy Pelosi (and a host of other Democrats) have already said "Hell no!", it's important that from now until the 2020 elections are over that we tie every republican candidate, despite their disavowals, to the dystopian vision of America that their party harbors.
It's either that or watch as they turn income inequality in America to levels seen only in third world countries.
I noted last week that I caught Taj Mahal performing "Queen Bee" on The Tavis Smiley Show and about a minute into his performance went looking for a pen and a piece of paper...which I was glad to have because after Mahal finished performing, I flipped to the next channel just as Father John Misty was beginning his performance of this week's tune on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Two great tunes new to me in the space of ten minutes--again, surprise and wonder, wonder and surprise...
Father John Misty (and what a great moniker that one is) was born Joshua Tillman in Rockville, Maryland and grew up in a very religious family. After attending college for a year, he headed to the music mecca of Seattle in 2002 and began his career in earnest. He originally performed under his given name, was in the bands Fleet Foxes and Saxon Shore, before finally settling in as Father John Misty in 2012. He has released eight albums as Josh Tillman, four as Father John Misty, one with Fleet Foxes, and two with Saxon Shore. He's had three top twenty albums as Father John Misty, with one of them reaching the top ten. Tillman has also been nominated for four Grammys and won once.
"Holy Shit" (and what a great single title that one is) was not released as a single so yet again we have no shout outs for the Billboard Hot 100 this week. It was on the 2015 LP I Love You, Honeybearwhich reached number 17 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard 200 chart. Interestingly (or not) for this day and age, 30% of its sales have come in the form of the good old-fashioned LP.
"Holy Shit" was written on the day Tillman married his wife (they're still together so I'm assuming the somber tone of the song wasn't a warning shot that the marriage was doomed from the start), and it lists a litany of life's ills and emotions, as well as cultural phenomena, on its way to its chorus which basically questions what's going on in the protagonists soul as he ponders his mortality...in all honesty, I really don't know what the song is about. But I like its anthemic nature, the way the piano and the acoustic guitar play off each other, and I like Tillman's pained yet hopeful vocals (wedding day doubts/joy?)--especially the elongated "Oh" that ends the chorus and I always imagine is probably the moment in concert when everybody in the arena is "Ohhhing" along. I also like the way Tillman plays on the words holy shit in terms of the songs religious overtones and imagery, juxtaposing it with the surprise one usually has when those two words are uttered. In the end, what I like most about it is that numerous listens after the first time I heard it on Colbert, I still think, "Holy shit, this is a great song..."
Lyric Sheet: "Oh, and no one ever really knows you, and life is brief/So I've heard, but what's that gotta do with this black hole in me..."
Though he's tried to walk it back since (and good luck with that), Donald Trump's response that he believed Kim Jong Un when he said he didn't know what happened to Otto Warmbier (American intelligence agencies have concluded that he was basically tortured to death by North Korean authorities--for stealing a poster) shows just how craven and amoral he truly is. For as bad of a President as George W. Bush was, does anyone believe for a minute he would have sided with a man who runs his nation like a concentration camp?
And for his claims to have been misrepresented, they're just so much bullshit. He's so obsessed with impressing the Nobel committee that he wouldn't say shit if Kim gave him a mouthful because Kim might shut down the talks in a pique of anger...oops, too late. News flash: the Nobel committee doesn't give Peace Prizes to people who claim Nazis are good people, blow up the Iran deal, destroy decades old unions with Europe, and fellate murderous tyrants like Vladimir Putin.
Can you imagine the pain he caused the Warmbier family siding with the man who had their son beaten to death? I went to the Merriam Webster web site to look for synonyms for inhuman and was unable to find anything that matched the depths to which Trump has abased us all.
Anyone still thinking that Donald Trump has the interests of ordinary Americans at heart can quickly disregard those thoughts.
They're not pretending--republicans really are idiots
You know, in order to save themselves a lot of time the national media could just summarize the yearly CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) by saying that it's people who don't have the good sense God gave a goat spouting nonsense that would make Lenny from Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men sound as eloquent as Shakespeare.
In continuing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez week here at emaycee Presents: A Liberal in the Motor City, Princess Ivanka went on Fox News to kiss wealthy asses while proclaiming that most Americans do not like the idea of Ocasio Cortez's guaranteed minimum wage. Take that, Marie Antoinette!
Note to Princess Ivanka: "most" Americans are not rich assholes whose sole qualm with a guaranteed minimum wage is that they might not be able to afford that fifth yacht. I can flat fucking guarantee you that a supermajority of Americans are most interested in getting paid a decent wage.
Word of warning, Princess--a day of reckoning is coming and you can either fix income inequality now or we will fix it for you later.
The average American gets paid just enough so he doesn't quit his job, and works just hard enough so he doesn't get fired.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." Source unknown
Uncle emaycee Wants You For the Coming Class War! Enlist today....
Capitalism: Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you can exploit his labor, become filthy rich, and keep the poor bastard living paycheck to paycheck for the rest of his life.
