Ketchup Is A Vegetable

Wow, is Nikki Haley a ghoul.

I mean, it’s par for the course since she’s a Republican running for Preznit. But she’s basically like, so Biden has announced he’s running. Dude’s gonna die anyway. Seriously.

“He announced that he’s running again in 2024, and I think that we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden you really are counting on a President Harris, because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely,” is something she felt quite comfortable telling Fox “News.”

What a ghoulish, awful thing to say about our nation’s chief executive. Sadly, while Haley said it in the worst way possible, it is not an uncommon sentiment.  

President Joe Biden has barely thrown his hat into the ring, and the clamoring over his age has already begun. Biden is 80 now, would be 82 when he’s sworn in, and would be 86 at the end of his term. Polls are showing that even Democrats are feeling lackluster for Biden’s run for a second term, many citing his age as a reason.

If only there was some sort of public report people could read offered by the President’s physician that summarized the current state of his health.

Oh wait. There is.

Kevin C. O’Connor, D.O., FAAFP, and no, I do not know what all of those letters mean, released in February 2023 a document detailing Biden’s health to the American public. Previously, O’Connor had released this report in 2021.

The report first discusses Biden’s bout of COVID, noting that he was fully vaccinated and experienced mild symptoms with no signs of long COVID. Biden is up-to-date on his boosters.

The report discusses Biden’s heart health, cholesterol, a condition called gastroeesophageal reflux, which is why Biden often needs to clear his throat, seasonal allergies, conditions that contribute to Biden’s more labored gait, mild peripheral neuropathy in his feet, dermatology evaluation, eye health, dental health, medications, no tobacco, no booze, and he continues to work out five days a week.

Here’s the link, you can go read the thing yourself.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Health-Summary-2.16.pdf

My point in going over all of this is: Where is Trump’s?

There isn’t one. Because twice-impeached once-indicted disgraced former President Carnage has never produced a serious health disclosure.

Let’s remember the now-late Dr. Harold Bornstein, a gastroenterologist, who later admitted that Preznit Carnage himself had dictated the 2015 absurd statement, “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” Really?

Let’s remember Carnage-man’s subsequent appearance on Dr. Oz on television, which Vox described as “surreal” and “disturbing.”

Let’s remember in 2020, when Dr. Sean Conley did somersaults to avoid discussing former Preznit Carnage’s health. This followed TFG’s helicopter voyage to Walter Reed and his bizarre return to the White House where he defiantly removed his mask for the cameras and went inside, presumably to recklessly infect more of his staff and loved ones.

Conley would not even confirm for the press when former Preznit Carnage’s last negative COVID test was.

As previously noted, President Biden’s disclosure thoroughly discusses Biden’s bout with COVID and reassures that he is not suffering from residual effects. Is TFG suffering from brain fog? Respiratory problems? Depression or anxiety? Fatigue? We, the voters, don’t know, and it is not likely that any serious attempt will be made to brief the public.

Don’t assess Biden based on the image he projects when he appears on television. Assess him on his record. Under his leadership, this full-stopped country got moving again. People got vaccinated. They got help. The economy got help. Jobs numbers improved dramatically. We ended a decades-long war. Actual infrastructure investment. The first black female Justice of the United States. Support for a besieged sovereign nation overseas. Investment for the climate. And, I would be remiss if I did not mention, first woman Vice President, first Vice President of color.

Regarding his fitness for the office, there’s facts. You can look them up.

Let’s see if I can get into writer mode tonight. Let’s see if I can. I find it increasingly difficult these days. I find it difficult because I’ve been blogging about the politics since the early 2000s and have had a mind full of it since I was a toddler and the United States of America was threatening to send my 20-something year old father off to Viet Nam to fight, and he and my 20-something mom would watch David Brinkley every night like it was life and death to them because it was. And as I’ve been blogging about this for so many years, one would think pointing out this stuff to people online for so many years would have had some sort of effect. But no, it hasn’t. The poop has just continued to run downhill, worse, smellier, and in bigger and bigger piles ever since. Holy moly, it’s as if nobody has been listening to a thing I’ve written ever in my life. And it makes me frustrated.

So let’s see if I get this correct, as I get ready to flip over to side two of Thomas Dolby’s The Flat Earth, which I particularly recommend listening to on vinyl, and hoping that those reading this remember Highlights magazine: Goofus steals a thousand pounds of classified, top-secret documents and takes them to Florida with him, and when they are requested to be returned to the American people, he lies about their existence at his place, then he acknowledges they are there but insinuates they were planted, then he flouts subpoenas, then returns some but not all of the documents, then he gets his place searched with a legal search warrant after like two years of this stupid tug of war, then he announces this search to the world when those who searched him would have been content to have done it quietly, then wonders why the world falls down on him regarding this.

Gallant discovers a dozen classified documents and calls the Department of Justice and reports it.

One of these things is not like the other. And yet, so much of it is being reported as a BUT-WHAT-ABOUT insanity. Holy Starbucks, can we stop pretending that both sides should be treated equally when it’s so clear that once side is throwing shit on the wall while the other side is desperately trying to fold a fitted sheet?

Hey. I think I just got into writer mode. Need to go put on side two and see what else we can dredge up. BRB.

So, how about this George Santos character, huh?

If only I had in my professional life puffed up my CV to a fifth of how this asshole inflated his, I would have been Bill Gates by now. Hi, I’m George Santos. I went to big fancy schools, blah blah blah. My auntie died in the Holocaust and my mommy died on 9/11, and by the way, I had a brain tumor and I’m Jewish and I’m a financial genius and I can shoot lasers out of my eyes and I used to be Menachem Mendel Schneerson and here’s maybe a white power hand signal on the floor of the Congress.

What the f87k?

And the new Sporker of the Haus is okay with this? The guy who only got his position after an internecine conflict that only happened previously the same year Ted Knight was born? Yeah. He thinks that’s dandy. Because “Santos’” (and I think anything to do with him from now on should be treated with scare quotes, let’s make that AP Style) provides him with a vote. McCarthy isn’t going to do jack-fart about Santos’ fraud. Because power.

Meanwhile, there’s the bill that acts like Kermit Gosnell is an everyday occurrence like the throw on your sofa. They call it the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.” And now for a change I put on that Apollonia 6 album I’ve been thinking about lately. Do you know why there are three chicks in the band but it’s called Apollonia 6? Because of they have six tits between them. That Prince was a genius.

There is audio somewhere I heard today, sorry, I am getting sloppy with my attribution but it is almost 2 a.m., of Rep. Steve Scalise, who was once shot in the ass at a basketball game, claiming with all his heart and soul that babies are routinely being born in this country and then, I dunno, what, the doctors then bash their little heads against the wall? That’s basically what he said. This is the narrative being expressed by one half of the mainstream political infrastructure of this country, that doctors are routinely killing babies just for shits and giggles.

Let me counter. This country is more women than men, more potentially pregnant people than there are sperm donors. Those of them who take on the physical burden of pregnancy should be respected and honored. They should enjoy our trust and our support, unconditionally. We should not assume the worst from more than half of us, that any of them would carry a fetus to term and then would just willy-nilly change their minds. This is purely mysogynistic drivel and should be pooped out and flushed.

I want a country that trusts women, unconditionally. I want a country that does not assume the worst of our women, our potentially pregnant people, our people. I want a country that stops assigning a particular agenda to the label “pro-life” because this halts legitimate conversation about anything completely (which it is meant to do, by the way). I want sanity in my little neck of the woods.

But I doubt that’s ever gonna happen.

It should not come as a surprise that the first piece of legislation passed by the Republican House is based on a lie, is constructed to solve a problem that doesn’t exist and, in fact, sabotages an already-cast solution to an actual problem, and that some of the more visible people in that august body are taking to social media to shout from the rooftops as if they have performed some sort of miracle.

As such, via Twitter: “Nixing the 87,000 IRS agents tonight and conservatives are just getting started!” (Rep. Lauren Boebert)

“I was proud to help pass legislation to defund Joe Biden’s army of 87,000 new IRS agents. America needs to support border agents, police officers, and servicemembers NOT more IRS agents targeting small businesses and families.” (Rep. Elise Stefanik)

“BREAKING → The House just voted to repeal funding for Biden’s 87,000 new IRS agents. Every Democrat voted no. Tells you all you need to know.” (Rep. Steve Scalise)

Indeed it does. It tells you that Democrats are not interested in voting for nonsense.

This morning, The Washington Post’s fact checker Glenn Kessler once again took on the task of debunking this hideous, disingenuous ghoul of a bill (link below). Spoiler: The Post upgraded this idiocy from three Pinocchios to four and characterizes it as a “zombie claim,” “…because they keep rising from the dead no matter how often they have been fact-checked.”

Link: ‘87,000 IRS agents’ is the zombie falsehood setting the House agenda

The debunking is thorough. Kessler first discusses the origin of the Republican’s dubious number they keep slinging around like a rotting fish and explains the rationale behind the policy, which is to improve tax receipts via enforcement and better auditing for complex returns. It notes that the Republicans’ effort “…would raise the budget deficit by almost $115 billion over 10 years because anticipated tax revenue would not materialize.”

Fortunately, this measure gutting the recent investments in the IRS will likely go nowhere in the Senate and would certainly face a veto by President Biden. But Republicans will continue their obfuscation offensive. They could not possible abide by attempts to make tax cheaters accountable, to fairly render treasury funds, to address deficit concerns from the funding side rather than looming with burglar’s masks on over Social Security and Medicare.

It’s almost as if Republicans don’t care about facts or good public policy. Huh.

I am not often in the business of advising Republican politicians. However, I really hate to see Columbus North High School’s most prestigious fella pass up such a smart opportunity.

Former Vice-President Mike Pence has let a few impressions leak that seem to me to be trial balloons regarding his recent invitation to testify before the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Via the New York Times:

In recent weeks, Mr. Pence is said by people familiar with his thinking to have grown increasingly disillusioned with the idea of voluntary cooperation. He has told aides that the committee has taken a sharp partisan turn by openly considering the potential for criminal referrals to the Justice Department about Mr. Trump and others. Such referrals, in Mr. Pence’s view, appear designed to hurt Republican chances of winning control of Congress in November.

The problem is that Pence, who presumably has designs on the presidency himself, is in a rather difficult spot. He seems concerned that capitulation to the Select Committee would lose him sway among the mighty Trump base. But didn’t he already lose that precious anointing when he refused to throw out the generally accepted election result on 1/6/2021? Or when he’s seen on video being quickly evacuated from the legislative floor?

This why I suspect we are reading such speculation in the great NYT. He needs to test his standing with the MAGATs. With the Qanons. With the true believers. With those who await the necromancing of JFK Jr., the ones who think Wayfair furniture is built out of human remains. Pence is sticking a wet phalange into the wind. And I don’t think the results are gonna be all that great for him.

That’s got to be quite a kick in the gut for a guy who spent four years staring into the back of Preznit Carnage’s head with a look on his face like when Itchy the Wookie is watching Diahann Carroll sing “This Minute Now” in the Star Wars Holiday Special. This is Mr. “I Am Deeply Humbled to Be Your Vice President,” after all. His repayment? HANG MIKE PENCE. HANG MIKE PENCE HANG MIKE PENCE.

So why is he even pondering this when there’s a much better, albeit more risky, way forward?

Hey. Mike. Get to marching in Liz Cheney’s parade.

Do I think Liz Cheney is doing what she’s doing because she wants what’s best for the country and she believes the Big Lie is a Big Lie and that the Insurrection of January 6 was ungood? I guess. But on the other hand, I think Liz Cheney sees a BIG FAT LONGSHOT PATH TO BECOME LA PREZNIT OF DEEZ UNTIED STATES OF AMERICA.

After all, what happens when or if the unexplainable shine wears off of der cheeterhosen? Criminal charges. Lawsuits. Sexual assault charges. Civil suits leaving him hemorrhaging money. His recent vaccine endorsements are already throwing off his most loyal unwashed. Who’s going to be there if and when the Republican Party tosses Former Preznit Disgraceful Carnage out on his ass in his fat golf khakis? Liz Cheney is so far the only one betting the long game that it’s going to be she. (Okay, yes, Adam Kinzinger, blah blah blah. Dude is really kind of an afterthought on all this, methinks.)

Cheney has begun to forge a path that might could behoove the former Vice-Preznit to embark upon. It could start with his straightforward, unredacted public testimony to the Select Committee, followed by public calls to his own party to purge itself of this enormous, treacherous lie, to respect the fair and correct result of the 2020 election, and to get back to the business of working for true conservative values.

Mr. Former Vice President, heed my call: You sir, are in need of a reinvention. And I would argue that the Congresswoman from Wyoming is showing you the way. Show up. Testify. Cooperate. Throw your former boss, who I remind you tried to have you assassinated, way deep and far under the bus. It will be good for the country. It will make you seem to be presidential.

Heck. It might even make you presidential.