Trump fanned the flames of Russiagate, then cried foul when progressives took him seriously

It was July 27th, 2016, at a news conference, where Trump asked Russia to intervene in our election to "find the 30,000 emails that are missing". Trump later claimed it was a joke, saying he and the audience laughed. Typical of a Trump lie, it was easily exposed as a lie by examining the cspan footage of the entire press conference. But he has so much contempt for his supporters, he knows they won't check.

As you may recall, conservative media was having a field day criticizing Clinton's use of a private email server instead of government servers, and the fact that many emails were lost in an alleged backup debacle. They benefitted from Clinton's mistake, however. Without that mistake, Guccifer would likely have been unable to hack Sidney Blumenthal's emails, which provided a lot of political treats for Republicans and conservative media over Benghazi.

Anyway, back to Russiagate. He claimed that, as a candidate, he had no connections to Putin or Russia. When the Mueller report was released, it documented many links between close family and campaign connections to Russia and the Russian government.

Now, the conservative media is pretending Russiagate was a fever dream of progressives suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. I might add that self-styled patriots had a similar derangement over Obama.

The Mueller Report speaks most plainly about the collusion between the Trump campaign/family and the Russian government and its proxies. But, in a typical Trump move, he had his lap dog Attorney General, Bill Barr, put out a press release essentially lying about the contents of the report. Again, the contempt Trump has for his followers is galling.

It's true that the Mueller Report was not the smoking gun progressives had hoped for. It was enough for thinking people to realize Trump had played the media and his followers like a master playing a perfectly tuned Stradivarius.

The most troubling aspect of the Trump phenomenon is how easily he lies about easily verifiable things. Remember his claims about his inauguration turnout? Why would anyone believe him when the same lying, vindictive swine says the election was stolen?

Uri Berliner Exposes Ideological Capture at NPR

The Free Press just dropped a piece from Uri Berliner, where he lays out how NPR has been ideologically captured. Setting my watch for 12 hours for the world to see the collapse of NPR as leftist activists hack away at the pillars of this once great American institution.

I used to be an almost rabid NPR listener. My last car proudly spirted an "I heart NPR" bumper sticker. I once had an argument with an elderly man who, upon seeing my bumper sticker, made a snide remark about communists.

Little did I know, he was right. I just hadn't noticed yet.

This was in my first year living in the Seattle area. We had moved from the frigid midwest to the warm and green pacific northwest. We moved because wanted to be sure our state government would never use our tax dollars to enshrine second class citizenship for gays into law.

In the Midwest, I had joined my local Occupy group as I was irritated by the bailouts of banksters and the fact that no one went to jail for the massive fraud that tanked the economy. I was immediately shocked at the nastiness and vitriol lobbed at anyone who dared question the consensus condemnation of what was being called "late capitalism". It was clear I had not found my tribe.

That's the kind of liberal I was.

When we moved to Seattle, we thought we were moving to the liberal utopia. Our enthusiasm was short-lived.

First there was the degree snobbery. I never had the privilege or money to go to college. Hell, I barely could afford the fees to take the GED test. That caused me to have long stretches of unemployment, punctuatedby minimum wage jobs. In the Midwest, I was the CFO of a small technology company. 

Then I noticed the intolerance of the locals. I once made the mistake of saying, at an atheist meetup, that I quite liked not having an income tax at the state level. The organizer politely asked me to leave.

I recall the exact moment I stopped my monthly contributions to KUOW. They had started referring to pregnant women as "pregnant people", and the station started uncritically quoting election material provided by the city council's own socialist bomb thrower, Kshama Sawant.

So, I'm starting my stop watch. It will be hours, if not minutes before Mr. Berliner is hounded out of his job by activists pretending to be journalists. Even the union will turn on him.

The moment he starts a substack, I'll join as a paying subscriber. I did the same for Cliff Mass, a local meteorologist, who was canned for not toeing the line on climate change. 

Leftist Podcast Implosion

I used to be a fan of a podcast called Opening Arguments, until I had a disagreement with one of the hosts over email.

It brings me so much joy to see the podcast has imploded in a leftist witch hunt over, obviously "sexual misconduct". Isn't it always?

And the atheist leftist community went absolutely apeshit.

I love watching political zombies eat each other's brains. 

I Voted for Nikki Haley

I'm a Washington State voter. For POTUS, I've voted democrat since 1996, the first year I was eligible to vote.

I've voted for candidates from both parties. I voted for Kim Wyman and Andy Hill. I would have voted for McCain, but he brought as his running mate a Christian dominionist idiot.

My hand shook a bit when I marked republican on the declaration box. I did it to vote for Nikki Haley. I know she's anti-choice, but I think she's actually quite moderate. She's also the daughter of Indian immigrants of the Sikh religion. They are the warriors of India, and some of the most industrious people alive today.

So I set aside my concerns over abortion rights and voted for her. I hope she makes an independent run and moves to the center politically.

It would be my pleasure to see a Desi woman be the first female POTUS!

GO NIKKI HALEY!

Grieving Alone - Distraction Provided by Television

After Mom died, my partner was called away to take care of his own parents. I almost immediately got COVID-19, which has dragged on for over a month. I've been grieving my mom's passing by doing little projects around the house (when I have the energy), but mostly I watch television from my youth.

First, I turned to Roseanne. I grew up in a working-class family, and my biological parents were the working poor. There was something comforting about watching select episodes. I know Roseanne Barr said some horrible things, and she has become politically unhinged, but I choose to remember her for the headstrong woman who used to hit her husband with a frying pan for laughs. In some ways, my mom was like Roseanne from the '90s. She was a hard-working boomer who worked her fingers to the bone taking care of her daughter and taking in two homeless kids. Something about re-watching Roseanne helped me remember my mom for the best parts of her unique being.

I then moved on to Star Trek Voyager. I grew up on Next Generation, but I have gravitated to Voyager more as I get older. In this time of grieving the loss of the matriarch of my family, Janeway provides some comfort. She's always headstrong and tough, while also being warm and feminine when required. I also see my mom in her character as well.

I then watched the Vicar of Dibley. The lead character is played by Dawn French, and is a newly ordained female vicar. The show takes place shortly after the Church of England started to ordain women. To me, Geraldine Granger represents a woman who broke through a glass ceiling while endearing the stodgy, conservative men around her with a quick wit and a hilarious disposition. My mom broke through many glass ceilings in her life. She faced many challenges, yet she always found a way to smile.

At the moment I'm re-watching Queer As Folk. It will come as no surprise to learn that I also found a character in this show that reminds me of my mom. Two of them in fact. The first is Michael's mom, Debbie. She's a headstrong, bossy, charming woman who always works hard and smiles. That's where the similarities end though. Debbie is a proud PFLAG mom, whereas my mom took many years to accept that I'm actually gay, and not just "being a pervert". She knew gay men, and she accepted them, even if she didn't exactly understand. She just didn't accept that SHE had raised a gay boy. The other character that reminded me somewhat of mom was Justin's mother, Jennifer. She's a fairly conservative housewife who discovers her son is gay, and struggles to understand and accept her son. She ultimately comes to accept her gay son, and it happens fairly quickly in narrative terms in the show. My mom took a lot longer. It wasn't until I brought a doctor home that my mom really started to accept me as her gay son. I still think she harbored some hesitations to the end, but she was too much of a lady to say anything.

Part of my grieving has had to do with inequality in how the inheritance will work. I was told by my step-father and my adopted sister that my mom wanted to cut me out of the inheritance entirely, but that an attorney suggested that might lead to a legal struggle that would cause problems. So, as my adopted sister and step-father narrate it, my mom agreed to give me 20%, while her daughter got 40%, and my step-father's daughter got the remaining 40%. There was a will written up in 2001, which laid all this out, but my mom never signed it. This is all hearsay, as I have not seen the will. If this is true, 2001 represented the low point of my relationship with my mom. In 2003, I met my partner, and things started looking up. By 2006, when we moved to Atlanta for my partner's residency, my relationship with mom was far better than her relationship with her biological daughter.

It hurts that they took a snapshot of the comparative relationships at the time when my stock was lowest with mom, and used that to give me an unequal share.

In some ways I feel bad for feeling angry about the unequal treatment. From my adopted-sister's perspective, it should have all been hers. She was always told the house was hers, and mom even went as far as putting my sister's name on the title of the house. Of course, after she got married, she wanted to put her new husband's name on the title, and my sister INSISTED on being paid a large sum of money to sign off on the change. In order to pay, mom cashed out her 401(k) retirement fund.

From my step-father's perspective, it should have been split evenly between his daughter and mom's daughter. He and I never had a good relationship. It was only in caring for mom that we really started to forgive and forget some of the things that happened shortly after they got married.

I'm ok. At the moment, I'm unemployed. I have my small side-gigs that keep me afloat, except for this damned virus keeping me from working for over a month! I still sometimes feel a pang of grief when I overhear a proud mother praising her son. I tear up a bit thinking how I'll never again hear her voice and see her eyes light up when she looks at me and says "that's my boy!".

I miss you mom. It was hard watching them put the veil on you and close your casket. It's hard knowing you're laying there in the cold ground for eternity.

At least I took the time to go see her as she was fading at the end. I held her hand and she opened her eyes and looked at me. She couldn't talk, but she smiled a bit and squeezed my hand before closing her eyes. I spent a few more minutes listening to her breathe. I kissed her on the cheek, told her I love her, and I left. I knew that was the last time I'd see her again. I'm so grateful to have spent that time with her. I miss her, but I'm also happy she isn't suffering anymore. I knew being locked in that memory care was hard for her. Still, as she always did, she made friends with other residents, and could still light up the room with her smile.

She did the best she could. She took in 2 homeless kids and gave us a home. Any mistakes she made in her future parenting were nothing compared to the kindness she showed with that first act of selfless kindness.

Mom's Funeral Speech

Given at my mom's funeral. I've stripped out some identifying information to protect my privacy. I wrote this over the course of about a week.

--------------Begin speech

I remember speaking at this very podium 35 years ago. Back then, they put podium at the lowest height and the microphone was down as far as it could go. I never imagined I'd be speaking here again. Hopefully my oratory skills have improved since then.

I spent hours agonizing over how to best honor mom. I ultimately decided to just share a few memories, quotes and concepts I cherish.

Anyone who knows mom knows she had a special place in her heart for animals. I have a picture of her as a teenager at a wedding. In her hands is a small black fuzzy thing. Upon closer inspection, you can clearly see it's a kitten. Yes, she brought a kitten to a wedding. This should come as a surprise to no one.

Mom once showed up at my apartment with a wounded pigeon she'd found floundering in the road. I told her my lease didn't allow pets. Undeterred, she marched over to the manager's apartment and informed him she was leaving it with me. The manager was a big guy, but he knew he'd met his match. He relented and gave his consent. Before I knew it, she brought over 2 homeless cockatoos as well! That's when the manager put the kibosh on the ever-expanding avian zoo!

When I was 7 or 8, mom got new linoleum in the kitchen. I got home from school and decided I was going to clean the new linoleum. I guess it looked in need of a cleaning! When she walked in the door from a hard day's work at the shop, she found that I had used comet cleaner on her shiny new linoleum. Needless to say, it was no longer shiny! At the time she was not happy, but eventually she learned to laugh about it. She had a way of finding the silver lining in just about any situation. That was one of her most endearing qualities. That, and her gift for gab.

After me and my partner moved away, mom and I would still talk on the phone for hours multiple times per week. We never ran out of things to talk about. 

One time dad and my partner were captive observers to one of these chat fests. We were driving through Lake Tahoe, and mom and I started talking. We were so engrossed in our conversation that we failed to notice the bored and stunned looks on their faces. Apparently we talked nonstop for 3 hours completely oblivious to their boredom. I earned a nickname that day: chatty cathy.

I found a poem that touched me in dealing with my grief at losing my favorite conversation partner. 

Hericlitis, by Callimachus, translated by William Johnson Corey:

They told me Hericlitis 

They told me you were dead

They brought me bitter news to hear

And bitter tears to shed

I wept as I remembered

How often you and I 

Had tired the sun with talking 

And sent him down the sky.

I'd like to read a memorable quote from the epistle to the Philippians. This is chapter 4, verse 8:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

I'd like to close with a cultural observation.

In Judaism, when they learn someone has died, they say "yehi zichra baruch", which translates to, "may her memory be for a blessing".

Mom. I will miss our conversations. I will miss your contagious, uproarious laughter. I will miss your legendary kindness. For me, your memory will always be a blessing. 

Thank you for rescuing a homeless kid and giving me a good life.

Hate Crime Laws Violating Free Speech

I'm almost a free speech purist, with exceptions for incitement to violence. That's why I'm horrified that a man has been convicted for trespass for putting notes on doors of homes flying the rainbow flag.

Here's the article:

https://apnews.com/article/iowa-hate-crime-lgbtq-rainbow-flag-b5d7d94722180171d80c38edf3676576

First off, saying "burn that gay flag" should never EVER be a crime. I'm a gay man, and I've put up with a lot of hateful speech in my lifetime. Never once did I think the speaker should have been prosecuted. It's speech, not conduct!

And what did they ultimately charge him with? Trespass. For walking on private property to put the notes on the doors. Did he holler at them? No. Did he threaten them? No. He simply walked up the walkway and put a note on the door expressing his opinion of the rainbow flag. 

People walk up to people's doors and leave notes frequently. Missionaries leave notes. People drive around leaving business cards and religious tracts. Is the state really saying no crime would have been committed if he had mailed them the note, or left it on the fence?

This guy was given 2 years probation for speech! I'm absolutely fucking livid! Why in hell did the snowflakes who received the notes call the police? Are gays suddenly buddy buddy with the police? Last I checked the police caused gay men more trouble that they ever provided help. This kind of shit is why so many people hate on gays. We won marriage equality. We won housing and employment protections. Do we have to pretend we're victimized by some old bigot leaving notes around town? Grow the fuck up!