Overfocus on Putin’s fresh crimes against humanity is absolutely understandable but it’s not healthy to ignore other harmers skulking about. And there’s plenty of quotehorse messengers bringing in the goods.
Some stay appalled at the actions of Margie Traitor Greene and Lauren Disorderly Boebert, the latest their heckling of a wartime President at a crisis moment when national and global unity are important. But while there’s definite signs of cancers spreading on the body politic, this toothless pair doesn’t qualify. They want to be relevant on the national stage but on a scale of malignant tumors, they’re only adolescent acne popping up like junior high mean girls. Puh-leaze. ::yawn::
It makes more sense to look at the voters in one Georgia district and one Colorado district and ask them if it was opioids that made them think the driveling duo really deserved their votes.
Next up is Kentucky Rep Thomas Massie who calls himself a Libertarian conservative, gaining the support of the Paul family, but he’s really just an anti-justice Tea Partier. Oh sure, he supports all the funner things that moderates and liberals can agree with, but he stands out - badly - in other ways. He’s tried to defund the Education Dept and the EPA, he was the sole vote against sanctions on North Korea, calls global warming science ‘pseudoscience’, voted against the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhncement Act in the early days of the pandemic, and compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust.
After he forced Congress to return to Washington to vote in person amid the pandemic, per Wikipedia:
Trump said Massie should be removed from the Republican Party, calling him a "third rate [g]randstander"; John Kerry quipped that he "tested positive for being an asshole"; Representative Sean Patrick Maloney tweeted, "@RepThomasMassie is indeed a dumbass"; Representative Dean Phillips called his actions a "principled but terribly misguided stunt". When Massie was confronted by a hostile press outside the House chamber, he said he was insulted by Trump's assertion: "I am at least second-rate." Some Republicans defended Massie: Paul Gosar called him a "good man and a solid conservative" and Chip Roy said Massie was "defending the Constitution today by requiring a quorum."
He has voted against sanctions against Iran, North Korea and last week was one of only 3 House members to vote ‘nyet’ on the resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, the delivery of defensive military assistance to Ukraine to fend off Putin’s war and humanitarian relief to Ukrainian refugees fleeing Putin’s bombs and missiles. [Paul Gosar (AZ-Dumbass) and Matt Rosendale (MT-Asshole) were the other two].
Also last week, The Emmett Till Antilynching Act passed the House on a 422-3 vote. Republicans Andrew Clyde (Hangem, GA), and Chip Roy (Beatem, Texas) and of course, Massie (Burnem, Kentucky) were the three losers. Massie felt it would interfere with free speech. And in December, after another mass shooting killed 4 students at a Michigan school, he tweeted this:
Then there’s this crank judge, interfering with military performance.
And we certainly can’t overlook this jaw dropping verdict by Lee Coffee or the criminal who can now more easily prey on others.
Of course, these juvenile and no-government and no-justice types can’t hold a candle to Vladimir Putin who stated yesterday that his assault ’was going according to plan’ and would continue ‘until Ukraine stops fighting.’
Sure sounds like an old 1990 political gaffe made by Republican candidate for Texas governor, Clayton Williams, whose comment about rape blew the 20 point lead he had over Ann Richards in the polls: “If it’s inevitable, relax and enjoy it.”
Putin’s saying, if Ukrainians just accept the inevitable fate of being under his rule, they’ll get to enjoy some peace again. He’s also trying to get Europe to relax because he won’t invade anyone else. Uh-huh, right. He’s still pushing the ludicrous lie that Ukraine started the war and their government is loaded with Nazis. Who can trust a deadly, lying monster committing war crimes daily? I mean, besides Donald Trump.
And now today, a fractional number of truckers with secret fundraisers, have combined forces with white male Q-Anon delusionals, circling the Beltway around DC. They hope to slow down traffic by repeating this all week. Some have been quoted talking about all the support they’ve received and how some treated them as heroes.
Europe’s witnessing the biggest war in 76 years, Putin’s making ominous warnings implying he’s ready to go nuclear and Ukrainian ground forces are outfighting Russian ground forces. There’s heroes afoot but the Free Dumtruckers ain’t even close to that status. Heroes don’t cry about getting stuck with needles with obvious life saving results and my fervent hope is the residents of DC and Maryland will laugh them out of town.
So things are, to say the least, looking a bit bleak at the moment. The right to coddle rapists and racists and anti-vaxxers and mean girls are not constitutionally protected.
Our alliances in Europe are with people who understand what real freedom is.
Ukrainians are getting battered with more horrors to come. More than 1.5 million of their most vulnerable have fled in the past dozen days. Some days all we can do is hold onto hope.
Hold it tight.