I remember when watching the news on television was a sacred obligation for me. I wanted to be informed and enlightened. In recent years I avoid it like the plague, fearing I would go bankrupt after buying new TV sets after repeatedly putting my foot through the screen or buying expensive tranquilizers. I don’t have a lot of time this morning but I’ll share some tidbits after a quick look through my phone.

On the bright side, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell has been ordered to pay $5 million to an expert who debunked his data related to alleged fraud in the 2020 election. An arbitration panel ordered him to pay Robert Zeidman, who has decades of software development experience, this amount. You might recall that Mike, ever the genius and great defender of the Donald, offered that amount to anyone who could prove his claims and data about rampant election fraud false. All these ‘fraud purveyors’ (and there have been many attempts to prove such including an expensive GOP led effort in Wisconsin) has proven is that our elections are remarkably honest.

On a down note, GOP Speaker McCarthy wants to cut federal spending as part of debt ceiling deal. As a reminder, we reached our authorized spending spending limit in January and are functioning as a nation only because of creative book keeping which cannot last for long. The pending deal would raise the limit to $35 trillion but the GOP House is balking. They claim excess spending is the culprit while conveniently overlooking the fact that Trump’s tax givaway to the unber rich added more to the debt than anything else. Even Speaker McCarthy has said ‘default is not an option.’ In such a scenario, the U.S. would not meet its obligations and become the laughing stock of the world (consider us going to the World Bank, hat in hand, begging for help), along with plunging the global economy into the crapper. What is frightening is that the zealots in his party don’t seem to care.

The GOP is trying to play brinkmanship with this issue. Their proposal would not touch taxes and would exempt the military from any cuts. They would go after public spending outside of mandated programs. They are calling for domestic spending cuts to 2022 levels with minimal future increases. That might sound benign but discussed impacts might include losing 125 air traffic control towers, slashing nutrition services to 1 million senior citizens, gutting Pell grants to 6.6 million students, ignoring the needs of 1.2 million poorer mothers getting WIC help, knocking 200,000 children off of Head Start, and resulting in 100,000 kids losing Child Care.

The list goes on including cutting recent additions to IRS which have greatly improved response to taxpayer’s questions AND would actually increase revenue to the government. Perhaps the worst proposed GOP idea would be to rescind Biden’s initiative to battle climate change passed last year. Some $370 billion across a variety of initiatives would be lost along with needed regulations on extractive fossil fuel industries. At a minimum, methane emissions would increase and you could kiss the antarctic good by. I suppose Trump and friends assume they will be dead before the ocean rises and puts their fairy land under several feet of sea water.

In other news, the Trump appointed Texas Judge who suspended the abortion pill is in the news again. Matthew Kacsmaryk, a poster boy for an ideal Gestapo agent, failed to release all his public speeches during hearings on assesing his suitability for the Federal Bench, as required by law. In these ommitted speeches, he said being gay is a lifestyle choice (conradicted by all the evidence) and expressed concerns about things like ‘no-fault divorce’ and ‘permissive policies on contraception.’ This troglodyte would bring us back to the ‘no sex except for procreation’ era of the early Catholic Church. As he advocates for his vision of a Talban ideal for America, some 60% of young women choosing coleges say reproductive rights will be important to their choice. They don’t want to go to school in states that would rescind their ability to exercise control over thier own bodies.

Then there was a CEO of a furniture making company who tried to fire up her employees to meet company financial goals. When some employees expressed concern about future bonuses, Andi Owens responded with: “I had a boss who said … you can visit pity city but you can’t live there. So, people, leave pity city. Lets get it done {achieve bottom line corporate goals}.” Her rah-rah speech, and utter dismissal of her worker’s financial needs was less compelling when the remuneration levels between workers and their bosses was examined. She made $5 million last year while her typical worker made $45,000. She later apologized for being tone deaf. DUH!

Finally, let’s go to McCurtain County Oklahoma … several local officials lamented that they could not go back to the good old days when they could whoop black people’s asses and hang them to a tree. In this pining for what they saw as utopia, they also looked forward to shooting a few media folk before arriving at the astonishing conclusion that blacks have more rights than they have. I guess the right not to be tortured and lynched is too much for these good Christians. How dare minorities wish to live in peace. One of these visionaries has resigned but I believe the others are digging in.

It may have always been this bad but in these days of cell phones and 24 hour news, it is in our faces every damn day. We seem to be drowning in a sea of stupidity and hate. I will leave you with a lighter touch on how I see the typical MAGA type of today.

Have a good day!