Week of 10/31/2022

What Happens On Election Day Is Up To You, America
– by David Matthews 2

One week and one day from this article’s posting will be the finale for the 2022 Midterm Elections.

One of two things will happen as a result of this election.  Either the Dems and President Joe Biden, for all they’ve struggled to accomplish the past two years, will retain their majority control, or the Party of Fascism, the Party of Lies, the Party of Bullying, the Party of Hypocrisy, and the party owned and dictated by the orange narcissist, will control one or both houses of Congress.

The Party of Lies formerly known as the “GOP” have been spreading a malicious piece of fiction for the past year, claiming that the economic struggles we’ve been going through are somehow the fault of Biden and his economic packages.  That worldwide inflation was somehow caused by Biden’s programs to bring needed fixes to infrastructure and to help manufacture chips in America instead of relying entirely on China.  It is a lie, and they know it is a lie, but they’ve been spreading that lie anyway. 

Prices are not rising because of Biden’s programs.  Prices are rising because of supply chain issues going back from the global pandemic, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Western world’s reaction to it, and because of corporate greed.  Three things that Biden really has no power over.  The Party of Fascism know this, but they will lie about it anyway.

And don’t think for a moment that inflation or the price of everything will go down if the Party of Sabotage get either house of Congress.  Gas prices will stay high, the cost of food will still keep going up, and housing prices and the rent will still go up.  The only difference is that the political terrorists will be doing what they can to make it worse.

You know that no matter which house the Party of Insurrection and Stochastic Terrorism manages to win control over, their first, second, third, and really their only agenda will be revenge and sabotage.  Revenge for their orange messiah, revenge for losing control in 2020, revenge for Biden actually doing in a year what their messiah promised for four years but never followed through, and sabotage for anything and everything Biden has done and everything he needs to do.

Kiss Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare as you know it goodbye if the Party of the Narcissist gets control of the House.  Biden can talk tough, but he will be facing possible government shutdowns and the destruction of the country’s credit standing.  An old-school politician like Biden would rather deal, thinking that his enemies would be “reasonable”.  Spoilers: they’re not.  And don’t think for one moment that the political saboteurs are bluffing!  They’ve already demonstrated in previous White House tenures that they will do what they threaten.  They did it when Biden was a U.S. Senator, and they did it numerous times when he was Vice-President.

Kiss Ukraine goodbye if the party loyal to Vlad Putin gets either house of Congress.  Either funding for aid will be cut in the House or future aid will be blocked in the Senate.

The Party of Election-Deniers and Q-Anon will certainly end any attempt to investigate and to hold the instigators and abettors of the January 6^th Insurrection-slash-Domestic-Terrorism to account for their acts of sedition if they get the House.  The seditionists will be allowed to get away with their failed coup.  Instead, they’ll try to impeach Biden for whatever made-up charge they could come up with as revenge for their messiah being twice-impeached, and to focus on Biden’s son Hunter for reasons that they have never explained.

These are not flights of fantasy, but rather their agenda as they have spelled out over the past two years and backed by their actions over the past twenty years.  They will do what they say they will do if given the opportunity.  That is a promise.

Let’s get brutally honest here... the stakes cannot be any clearer this Election Day.  If the party that used to be called “Republicans” or the “GOP” win control of either or both sides of Congress, then America is plunged into partisan warfare and financial brinksmanship.  A civil war in all but name and geography.  If they lose both, then, at the very worst, the struggles from the past two years will repeat themselves as everyone ramps up for the next coup attempt in 2024.

Either way, people, it’s up to you.  Millions have already voted early, some who have never voted for midterms before but are doing so now because of the stakes we face this year.  How you vote will determine whether things get bad or worse.

It’s either America or American fascism.  Choose.

Week of 10/24/2022

The Nightmare Threats Are Real
– by David Matthews 2

Normally around this time of Halloween, there are the usual batch of nightmare fears generated by politicians and the air-fluffed ego-driven media that are designed to make you scared of everything.  Once upon a time the media would get us all scared of razor blades and pins and needles hidden in apples and candy bars.  While actual incidents are extremely rare, the media would continually blow them up to be widespread threats just waiting for your precious tax deductions to take a bite in.  Later they would change it from razor blades and pins to hypodermic needles and poisons.

Lately the big seasonal scare is the painkiller drug Fentanyl being smuggled in made to look like candy and the hysterical fear that some bag of Skittles or Smarties being handed out will have the powerful drug in disguise in rainbow colors.  The thing is that no drug dealer would ever give away such an expensive product to kids.  That would be like handing out $1000 bills like they were Monopoly money.  But, you know the media and their love of keeping the masses scared.

Of course politicians love to dish out nightmare fears around this time of year, because it’s just so close to Election Day.  So-called “conservatives” – who are actually fascists – continually try to whip up the fear of crime and terrorism.  They continually want us afraid of criminals here and of terrorists overseas and continually blame Democrats for supposedly making America “weak”.  That is the standard MO for fascists, no matter what country they’re in.  It’s always about the illusion of “weakness” and of their false promise of “strength” and “greatness”.  Italy did it first, then Germany, and now here in America.

Let’s not forget the fear of nuclear warfare, made ever more real this year by the actions of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and his criminal invasion of Ukraine.  Not only has he engaged in wholesale violence and actions that would send lesser leaders to the Hague for crimes against humanity, but he has openly and brazenly threatened to use nuclear weapons against the Ukraine and the rest of the world.  He has replaced North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un as the rabid dog of the world.  And, because of that, the media has been quietly positing articles about what would happen if Putin presses the button and the nukes start flying.  Here’s a hint: it doesn’t end well for anyone.

Previously such fears were ginned-up as campaign hysteria, such as when anti-Hillary Clinton ads talked about getting a “3 AM call” and not being qualified to answer it.  But back then the fear wasn’t global thermonuclear war insomuch as some global act of terrorism.  Let’s not forget the 1964 “Peace, Little Girl” ad for President Lydon Johnson’s campaign that inferred his challenger would lead us to nuclear war.  Deplorable even to this day.

However, there are some seasonal nightmare fears that are not flights of political fantasy.  Fears that should not be dismissed as election hysteria.  Fears that people should take seriously as things that potentially will happen.

The red-hat-wearing MAGA fascists that used to call themselves the “GOP” have been gleefully spelling out all of the wonderful things that they will be doing should they take control of the Congress after this year’s mid-term elections.  Some of their mad designs are pure partisan pornography, such as trying to impeach the current President of the United States, the current Vice-President of the United States, and the current U.S. Attorney General as revenge for twice impeaching their orange messiah. 

But some of their plans are within their grasp if they get either Congressional majority.  You know that they would dismantle all investigations on the January 6^th insurrection, and may even pervert such inquiries into their long fabricated claim that the rioters were really liberals.  You know that they will do everything they can to reverse all the legislative successes that President Joe Biden and the Dems brought forward in the past 2 years.  The infrastructure fixes?  They want that gone.  The CHIPS act which helps computer chips be made in the United States instead of coming only from China?  They want that gone.

Biden’s plan to help alleviate student debt?  Oh they’re already doing everything they can to put a stop to that, but in case the courts won’t do their bidding, they’ll do it themselves should they get legislative majority.

They’ve openly pledged to once again do everything they can to dismantle the Internal Revenue Service so it can’t go after the rich tax cheats or process all our returns faster.  After all, they did it before and they’ll certainly try to do it again.

After the extremist majority of the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade this past summer, half the states in the nation enacted strict anti-abortion laws, or else had such laws automatically go into effect when the decision was overturned.  Then bitch-of-a-bitch Senator Lindsey Graham offered legislation to make a national ban on abortion and to prosecute doctors happen, despite his party’s claim that the decision of abortion would be “left to the states”.  Today, such an idea would be handily dismissed, but, should the Party of Fascism get that majority, that “laughable” idea would be a serious threat to women all across the nation.

Helping the Ukraine fight off Russia is certainly endangered with a fascist victory, especially if it is in the House of Representatives, where all federal funding comes from.  It’s no secret that those in the party have been siding with Putin for quite some time, especially given their orange messiah’s fealty with the Russian strongman.

And then there is the so-called “third rail”.  The one subject that had previously spelled political suicide to anyone who broached it.

Social Security.

The party of the orange narcissist has long wanted to dismantle Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare, programs that help the elderly and those in need.  But doing so previously would incur the wrath of the elderly.  Old people who have nothing but time on their hands to lobby and to vote.

But earlier this year, Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the former governor and insurance CEO, laid out his 11-point plan on the nation, which included dismantling Social Security and Medicare within five years.  Scott is not some political neophyte, but the one in charge of the fascist party’s Senate campaign committee.  That’s not a responsibility given to just anyone.  And even though the current minority leaders are dismissing Scott’s plan, you know the party members want it.  And they could very well make it happen should they prevail in November.

Now you’re probably wondering what about the old folks, right?  The old people who would previously hound politicians who dare suggest taking away their safety net?  Well a lot of those folks are either dead, or else they’ve hardened their hearts and joined the party of fascism.  Brainwashed by decades of propaganda from talk radio and cable so-called “news” channels, they now see those very programs they are now enjoying as threats to the nation.

Can’t happen, you say?  The same was said about overturning Roe.  And quite recently House minority leader Kevin McCarthy has said that the party of fascism will be using the debt ceiling to get their way.  It’s a favorite tactic of theirs going back to the days of Bill and Hillary Clinton.  Threaten the nation’s credit rating, threaten yet another government shutdown, threaten any kind of necessary funding in order to get their way.  Financial brinksmanship and political blackmail are their stock-in-trade, just like conventional and nuclear warfare is of Vlad Putin.

Let’s get brutally honest here... the stakes in this midterm election could not be any clearer.  The party of fascism, the party of sabotage and insurrection, the party of the orange narcissist, they have made their plans clear should they get control of Congress.  They’re not being whispered about and they should not be dismissed as idle fantasy.  With the number of red-hat-wearing election-denying MAGA foot-soldiers running for office this time around and those already in league with the orange narcissist, no plan of their should ever be taken lightly, no matter how absurd they may seem. 

Halloween may be a season of witches and goblins and ghosts, but the nightmares of old pale in comparison to those in politics today.  At least the witches and goblins and ghosts will go away on November 1^st.  Not so for the nightmares that wear red hats and lurk in our neighborhoods and in the halls of government even in broad daylight.