He Really Said This

 

This Week's Quote

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Bob Menendez has been sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Democrats send their criminals to jail.

Republicans send theirs to the White House.

Skyler Johnson

Source: X

Coping With Trump 2.0, First Weeks

 

The Keystone Kops

Image by dcandau from Pixabay

Here's a whoops we all saw coming.

You'll recall that following the November election of openly transgender Rep. Sarah McBride, Rep. Nancy Mace raised a ruckus about trans women using female bathrooms at the U.S. Capitol. Speaker Mike Johnson then mandated that restroom access be determined solely by the gender assigned at birth.

It's taken a nanosecond for egg to land on Republican faces.

On Thursday, a male reporter saw Rep. Lauren Boebert "bursting out of the House Women's restroom during this afternoon's vote series." She complained to security of "a guy" in the bathroom. Boebert went to the House floor to round up Mace, and the matched pair of Dolores Umbridges stormed into the bathroom. Seconds later, they came back out and returned "quietly to the floor." 

Boebert later said, "I made an error regarding a mistaken identity. I apologized, learned a lesson, and it won’t happen again."

The hell it won't. As long as the self-appointed potty police are on patrol, this sort of thing will happen again and again, to everybody's embarrassment. Reportedly the duo thought the person was McBride herself. Imagine being that cisgender woman they confronted? Imagine being so hot to make political points by snagging a transgender offender that your eyesight deserts you?

I'd like to know whether the Un-dynamic Duo missed any votes while conducting this charade of a crusade. Actually, now that I think about it, this could be an effective method of keeping the reactionary pair from voting. We should arrange a constant stream of cisgender, androgynous women, both gay and straight, occupying the bathroom so that Boebert and Mace are always too absorbed with monitoring the stalls to cast any actual votes. 

Hey, they assigned themselves this task. Just because they screwed up royally, they can't stop now. America expects them to be conscientious commode cops. It's a tough job, but these two are clearly suited to spending their days perched outside the restroom, trying to deny entrance with crossed toilet brushes.

Speak Truth to Glower

 

Supporting the Resistance

Image by ArtWithPam from Pixabay

I'd allowed my ACLU membership to lapse, and that organization wouldn't let me forget it. But I was glad to see in its most recent mailing that the ACLU isn't going after me so much as Donald Trump.

This appeal for money, crafted before Trump took office, includes a poster-sized letter that reads "Dear President-elect Trump:  In case you had any doubt, WE ARE THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION. And we're not moving to Canada."

I like that line so much I wish I'd written it.

But it immediately reminded me how even my adult nieces have talked of fleeing to Germany, where we have roots, as a result of Trump's return to the Oval Office. That's a deeply sad state of affairs.

And ironic. Emigrating to Germany to escape potential fascism in America? Mein Gott.

I did indeed re-up with the ACLU today. While I don't agree with all of the group's positions, this is no time to be fussy. The ACLU fought Trump hard the first time around, and boy, do we need that again. My problem is I lack the money to support all the organizations standing against the Trump agenda.

Perhaps it's time I opened a fake university.

This Week's Quote

Image by cmccarthy2001 from Pixabay

Okay, I’ve gotta call time. Trump just claimed America split the atom. That’s THE ONE THING WE DID.

New Zealand satirist Ben Uffindell after Trump's inaugural address

Source:  The Guardian

And We're Off!

Image:  Katie Rainbow at Pexels

One of the zillion executive orders Donald Trump signed after being sworn in as president yesterday had this unwieldy title:  "Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government."

A more accurate title would've been "Erasing Transgender People for Fun and Profit."

The premise of the order is that women need protecting from all those men who claim to be women so they can gain access to women's shower facilities. It's a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

Nevertheless, to thwart the "ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex," this country's new firm leader has given us a new firm policy:  "It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality."

Bull pucky.

I know too many transgender people too well to buy the lie that they're somehow making up their gender dysphoria. This executive order and all the anti-trans campaigning that led to it are about fear, ignorance, power and religious extremism, not gender extremism.

The conservative flunkies who wrote this order were thorough. It seeks to wipe out acknowledgement of trans people at the federal level in a variety of ways, from insisting passports "accurately reflect the holder's sex" to forcing all government agencies to remove any statements or policies that "promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology."

The list goes on. But no matter how much Trump panders to his fans, transgender people have always been here, and they aren't going away. They're simply, cruelly, being marched back into the closet.

All under the pretense of protecting women. As a woman, I know that transgender women don't threaten my personal safety. It's Trump, the assaulter in chief, and a number of his wannabe cabinet members who do.

Jan 20, 2025

Here He Comes

Image by Waldryano from Pixabay

It's challenging for me to believe in a God. But here on the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, I figure any port in a storm.

So America and the planet survive the next four years, I'm pleading for divine assistance from Jesus, Allah, Vishnu, Buddha, the Great Spirit, Yahweh, Isis, Zeus, Odin and the spirit of Betty White.

Also Available in Anxious Asexual

 

This Week's Quote

Image by LORRAINE DAY from Pixabay

Special counsel Jack Smith's final report lays out in no uncertain terms federal prosecutors' position that Donald Trump -- who is set to be inaugurated president in less than a week -- would have been convicted on multiple felonies for his alleged efforts to unlawfully overturn the results of the 2020 election, had voters not decided to send him back to the White House in the 2024 election.

Katherine Faulders, Alexander Mallin, Pierre Thomas, Peter Charalambous, and Lucien Bruggeman

Source:  ABC News

A Turkey From Turkey

Image by Hüseyin Sevgi from Pixabay

Alarmed by his country's tumbling birthrate, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan yesterday declared 2025 the "Year of the Family."

The longtime authoritarian leader bemoaned rising divorce rates and people getting married later in life. And he blamed queer people, portraying the LGBTQ movement as part of a foreign conspiracy aimed at undermining his country.

He can't blame me. At the last meeting, I argued it was Liechtenstein we should undermine, but does anyone listen to me?

Worth a Shot

Nuts to Zuckerberg

Image by Htc Erl from Pixabay

You probably heard that CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that Meta is dumping its fact-checking program.

You probably didn't hear that Meta's accompanying new guidelines on hate speech allow Facebook and Instagram users to call LGBTQ people mentally ill.

Surprise!

As Zuckerberg and other tech titans rush to prostrate themselves before the incoming presidential weenie, some of us are getting crushed in the unseemly stampede. In his remarks on Tuesday, Zuckerberg cited "recent elections" and "a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech."

And hate.

According to NBC News, Meta guidelines now read, "We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality."

I find myself imagining the Meta employees in Silicon Valley as they crafted that statement. They knew they were serving up dangerous lies in the service of pandering. Did they experience migraines? Ulcers? Frogs, locusts and boils?

I assume the bottom line here is the bottom line:  Meta will make money from bigots and idiots blissfully free to call queer people crazy.

I don't have to tell you that we fought that label for a long time. We thought we were done. Now we have to fight it again. Yet another result of the Trump victory, the gift that keeps on giving.

This Week's Quote

Image:  Facebook

The upcoming documentary on Melania’s life will cover her charitable works, her service to her country, her appreciation of the arts and her deep and lasting friendships. It has a running time of just under 2 seconds.

Paul Rudnick

Source: X

Four Years Later

Image by Phillip Roulain from Pixabay

Today Congress certified Donald Trump's election victory, exactly four years after he inspired a mob to attack the Capitol to prevent Joe Biden's certification.

As Time put it, "The candidate who tried to overturn the previous election won this time and is legitimately returning to power."

Oh my fellow Americans, you've condemned us all to four more years of that man. I don't know how to thank you, as there aren't enough swear words in the English language.

This Week's Quote

Image by Eglantine Shala from Pixabay

You know how I always dread the whole year? Well, this time I’m only going to dread one day at a time.

Charlie Brown

Source:  Reader's Digest