I Love Myself For Hating You

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

In the 11 plus years since I'd expanded my byline to include this venerable blog, I've tried to present my commentary on news items with an even-tempered approach more befitting a respected member of the 4th Estate rather than a ridiculed bloviator of the 5th Estate. Or, as the proprietor of this blog once told me over a decade ago, "Mikey, you're me on a good day." Which I take as pretty high praise, since JP is no mean blogger, himself.

     However, two separate news items from yesterday made me blow my top and 9/11's 18th anniversary barely had anything to do with one of them. They transpired at roughly the same time in both the North Carolina state capital and the US Capitol Building in Washington. As stated, 9/11 had little to do with the former and nothing whatsoever to do with the latter. Yet yesterday on 9/11, Republicans in North Carolina and the US Congress let the mask slip on what ought to be arguably the second most patriotic day on the calendar, the day when Republicans should at least for the day switch out their Israel, Russia and NRA flag lapel pins for ones with Old Glory on them so they can shove their patriotism down our throats like a bear thrusting their manhood down a twink's throat.

     Instead, all they did was to remind me of how much I hate them and how much I love myself for hating on the most reprehensible scum that ever slithered across the face of this planet: The latter-day Republican Party. Let's start with North Carolina.

     The day started in Raleigh when Tim Moore, the General Assembly's House Speaker, called for a vote on the budget vetoed by Roy Cooper, the newly-elected Democratic governor. Most of the Democrats weren't even in the chamber because they'd left to attend various 9/11 commemorative ceremonies (apparently not wondering why their Republican colleagues had chosen to stay behind in the chamber). Moore and other Republicans had assured in unctious terms that in no way would votes be taken that morning in their absence. Why, that would be downright undemocratic, y'all! No, no, y'all take your time. We'll hold down the ole fort here and somehow try to keep ourselves amused until y'all get back.

     The minute most of the Democrats left, amazingly believing North Carolina Republicans, of all people, Moore called for a vote on the vetoed state budget in a moment that can only be described as a blitzkrieg. The veto was overridden 55-9. Deb Butler, one of the few Democrats in attendance, was literally screaming at the top of her lungs. As she wasn't officially recognized by the buffoon posing as a chairman, he called the cops on his fellow legislator (actually forcing her male colleagues to surround her so she couldn't be arrested) and, in a move that is becoming increasingly familiar with white Republican men, even cut off her microphone.

     Governor Cooper had vetoed the spending bill because he wanted to build some political consensus and support in order to expand Medicaid for North Carolina's residents. The fascist stunt pulled by the state GOP essentially deprived health care for 500,000 North Carolinians. If all the Democrats were present, they would not have had the 60% they would've needed to override Gov. Cooper's veto.

     It's unfathomable that a political party that had lost 10 seats and the Governor's mansion in last year's midterms in a deeply crimson state would be so brazen as to do an end run, take advantage of Democrats leaving for 9/11 ceremonies with the intention of stealing health care from a half a million residents. Then again, considering North Carolina's gerrymandering debacle and the even bigger debacle in NC-9 that revealed Republican scumbaggery on an epic level, perhaps they're all clued in that they didn't need the will of those uninsured people in order to legitimately remain in power.

     The fact remains that if the Democrats had used 9/11 to do the same thing to Republicans, the right wing would be shaking the pigeon shit from the rafters with their screaming and porcine squealing.

The Master Class in Scumbaggery From the Master Race

Meanwhile, 278.5 miles to the north up I-95, disgraced former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz had to be the nation's conscience. This came about when Schultz asked the subcommittee chairman Jamie Raskin for five minutes so she could then blast the GOP's guest of dishonor, former Trump hatchet man Tom Homan (R-Reichstag) for his "jingoistic and bigoted" testimony. You may remember Homan's previous Sieg Heil moment on Capitol Hill just last July when the ICE Man had another contentious exchange with Democrats, especially Ocasio-Cortez for whom he barely manages to contain a gallon of right wing bile.

     Homan, a former NYPD dick, is exactly the kind of guy Trump would elevate as one of his endless succcession of acting placeholders and would have been perfectly at home at Gestapo HQ or touring the death camps with Himmler. At one point, he began to whine to Ocasio-Cortez about how she and other Democrats were hating on law enforcement and one half-expected him to light up a cigarette and pinch it upside down between his thumb and forefinger and say, "Ve haf vays of making you not talk."

     Instead of answering questions put to him, he kept insisting, as had the Republicans who'd invited him back for an encore performance in his one man Springtime for Hitler show, that the name for the subcommittee hearing was all wrong, that instead of "the Administration's Apparent Revocation of Medical Deferred Action for Critically Ill Children", the hearing should have been entitled, "It's 10 in the Morning- Do You Know if Any of These Filthy Spics Are Raping Your Wives and Daughters?"

     Because, according to the Ho Man and Jim Jordan, there's just been a big misunderstanding. No one is trying to kill you by deporting you and ripping you from your life-saving medical care. So, who're you gonna believe? Me or those letters you, your parents, the mainstream media and a Congressional subcommittee read from USCIS ordering you to self-deport in 33 days with all your lying eyes?

     The problem was, Homan's whining about us hating on law enforcement and Jordan's oleaginous assurances that no one's getting deported would've gotten some traction and a more sympathetic hearing were it not for the sick kids sitting just a couple of feet to Homan's right. One of them, a 16 year-old boy from Honduras with cystic fibrosis, began to uncontrollably cough during his testimony while Homan casually stared at him.

     The sad clown show came to a farting end when Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts began to grill David Renaud, yesterday's tethered goat, to answer basic questions such as, "What office had ordered the end to the deferred program?" Renaud kept hiding behind a nonexistent barrier known as, "On advice of counsel, ongoing litigation prevents me from..." which, as AOC helpfully reminded him, the Supreme Court had ruled is not legal grounds to refuse to answer questions. Nonetheless, he clung to that like grim death. By the end of Ayanna Pressley's line of questions, Renaud couldn't or wouldn't confirm whether or not he couldn't or wouldn't reveal which office ended the deferred medical program, although everyone with two brain cells to rub together knew it was the office with the Oval Shape.

     On a day when Republicans could've played nice for a few hours and at least pretended to love America and democracy and solemnly observing 9/11, they chose to embrace fascism, the kind of mind-bending shit we would've seen in Nazi Germany in the 30's. We saw Republicans nakedly subverting democracy and we saw Republicans on the national stage showing the worst of their Otherism just as Hitler and Nazi enablers had done as they were unwittingly writing the Republican Party's playbook.