Cognitive Plaque Removal

Or a purging of bad news buildup

I feel like Inigo Montoya talking to Westley after he is revived from being mostly dead: “Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.” (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, stop reading and immediately go watch The Princess Bride.) Not that I’m summing up, mind you, but there is definitely too much and I find myself with too many issues and questions and nowhere near enough energy to pursue answers or understanding. It is possible I am hoping that a kind of data dump of the disturbing, confusing or downright alarming morass of malignant mud clogging my cognitive centers might clear my processors and allow for some productive, or at least somewhat clearer, thinking. Probably a vain hope, and to claim my thinking was clear or productive before the current clogging may be misguided, but here goes.

- The abandonment of electric vehicles - no tax cuts for buyers or producers, killing of research and outrageous kowtowing to the fossil fuel monsters - is a very effective way to cede the industry and its advancement to China. What happened to America First?

- The increasingly ill-named Big Beautiful Bill blatantly, even aggressively, stomps all over the base of the people who are so shamelessly passing it. The deeper red the state, the more damage done to its residents and the more devoted to its passage are the representatives. But as McConnell said, “they’ll get over it”. And since they are doing it now - and I have little doubt the House will in fact get done in the next day or two once the “moderates” are all done posturing and the deficit hawks cave - they will have almost a year and a half to tell lies about it, pretend they didn’t do it or blame the Democrats for the fallout, thus ensuring their base’s continued ability to vote against their own self interests.

- Setting aside his misguided and ineffectual bombing of Iran, which he only did because of his yet to be explained but ongoing habitation of Netanyahu’s pocket, Diaper Don has basically gone full isolationist. Despite the hyperbole surrounding his ability to end wars, Gaza and Ukraine continue unabated, and State has very quietly declined to even impose additional sanctions on Russia, a tacit approval of the continuation of an illegal war. (As an aside, if DesPOTUS lives in Bebe’s pocket, his second home is up Putin’s ass.) And since Israel’s attack on Iran was basically a horrifying distraction from the horrors of the ongoing war (the parallels to the US justification of the Gulf War - Cheney’s WMD fantasy - blow my mind) our piling on was outlandish. But, hey, it is standard practice when your popularity is underwater to start a war. Bebe took it to new heights, however, by starting a second war to distract from the failures and immorality of the first. But it gave ConDon a chance to pull attention from his terrible polling and flex for the hawks - two for one and he didn’t even have to go to war. Bonus feature: he got to be the first to order use of the Bunker Busters, and you have to figure there was no way he was going to go four years without bombing something. Just like all the municipal police forces with their military surplus, if you give a boy a toy, especially one that goes boom, they will find an excuse to play with it.

- I occasionally, in the midst of my ever-growing disgust and contempt with Republicans, I remember that the Democrats are also to blame for all of this. How in the ever-loving fuck did they not beat this horror-show clown last November? A staggering combination of stupidity, hubris, myopia and an utter failure to recognize their almost total disconnect from the average American voter, combined with a blind unwillingness to acknowledge any of the above or, because it is unthinkable, change, allowed the arguably worst president in history to be re-elected. All while the country was in a historic surge of economic prosperity and progress. What should have been a laugher was bungled into a tragedy, and this ongoing shit show is on them.

- Despite the so-called populism of MAGA, it is increasingly evident who this administration is actually representing. You only need look at the priorities of various cabinet departments for this to be clear. Interior is more focused on selling land and opening it to development than preserving it. The EPA wants to facilitate corporate earnings over the environment, and is more than willing to sacrifice clean air and water for profits. Labor consistently works to protect and enrich the bosses rather than the laborers. Health and Human Services has no interest in either, cutting research and actively undermining the federal health care system. And, oh yes, tax cuts that benefit the rich at the expense of the needy. it might be proof that it is easy to be popular when you’re rich.

- I have overlapping issues regarding public opinion polls. American government has long since abdicated its responsibility to its constituents, which means the salience of whether something is popular or not, approved of or not, supported or not is diminished to the point of irrelevance. This is starkly evident in the fact that support for expanded background checks for firearm purchases has been hovering in the 90% support area - across the spectrum -for a decade without any attempt to make it happen. But you do NOT want me to get started on gun control. Even if they hadn’t given up representing the people long ago, there was still the hope that fear of becoming unpopular enough not get re-elected might create a kind of false impression of governing. The BBB travesty is purported to be hugely unpopular but will pass in spite of this. The catch is that this dislike of the bill is held by a very small portion of the population because the bulk of the voters don’t know anything about it. Time and time again pollsters find out that if they ask how MAGA feels about the bill they are all good, but if they ask how they feel about Medicaid being slashed, the rich getting richer or adding trillions to the deficit they are shocked and appalled. This is exacerbated for me by the fact that in all of human history it has never been easier to disseminate information to the masses. The convergence of abysmal messaging, willful ignorance, endemic mendacity and just plain old apathy has led to an environment where a nightmare piece of legislation can be pushed through despite its opponents and their attendant pundits clamoring about how unpopular it is. Republican Senators had no reason not to vote for it. Not for nothing, I think Murkowski and Collins take turns being the one to take the righteous stance, but only after being sure that there is no way their vote might be the difference.

- Speaking of the BBB, you know who did extremely well? ICE. Their budget will be quintupled by the passage of this aberration. So all the nastiness we see on the news every day - masked gangs assaulting and kidnapping brown people - let’s call it what it is - and throwing them into jail without the pesky need of evidence or due process will soon be coming to a city near you. And in case you weren’t aware, there are still Marines in LA. They even sent in replacements, which has to indicate they are there for the long haul. This despite a distinct lack of unrest in the city. Fascism is real and it is in America.

- Which segues nicely into my last mini-rant. It has to point to Felon47’s priorities and sensibilities that while the Senate was making an already heinous bill worse, and struggling mightily to pass it, he was in Florida touring the new ICE detention facilities. Accompanied by his behatted bonehead Director of Homeland Security and erstwhile foe turned slobbering sycophant Governor Formerly Known as Desanctimonious (there was no way that snake wasn’t going to get his cut of the tainted lucre), he gushed over how great it all was, including admiring the wisdom of using alligators as guards because they work for free, and gleefully anticipated it being filled with “the worst of the worst”, also know as hard working long-time residents with no criminal records. The disgust this evokes from me lies not only in his casual satisfaction in the inherent cruelty but that it betrays the actual true nature of his agenda. His more obvious minions keep describing the BBB as the cornerstone of his domestic policy and tout it as the defining act of his presidency. Yet he isn’t even in Washington, preferring to preview what will someday - we can only hope - represent his true legacy of cruelty, injustice and amorality. As a nice bonus, it also allows him to demonstrate his utter dominance and control over Republicans. Having already browbeaten and threatened one dissenter into retirement and bulletproof in his confidence that there is no way they will turn on him, his fascist-on-holiday sojourn is a great reminder to all concerned that he is their lord and master - and they know it.

I will have to wait and see if this purging of putrescence will prove productive, but one can hope. It certainly doesn’t make me feel any better, and I seriously doubt it did you any good either, but it at least might clear a little bandwidth for potentially more positive meanderings of the mind. (And I can’t decide if a quick reread of those last two sentences raises or dashes my hopes. Sheesh.) In apology I offer you the previously referenced scene from The Princess Bride. “Why didn’t you list that in our assets in the first place?” kills me and is a popular entry in our family quote canon. Enjoy, and as always, thanks for reading.