Another Grand Week in the Republic

I knew it was coming...it was time to start shopping again for the healthcare marketplace plan for my wife and kids.  I had heard that rates were going up because some of the COVID era subsidies were about to expire.  But I wasn't expecting that they would go up from $376/month to $825/month, more than a doubling.  In some ways I suppose I am lucky, as it might be that the rates have gone up in part because my daughter is working full-time while she's going to school, and my son is working regularly part-time while in high school.  That extra income likely cut my subsidy, but the Big Beautiful Bill this summer that ended the extra subsidies was probably the main reason.  

It's a good thing that my second job offers health care.  For me it's almost nothing, less than a hundred dollars a month, but to add the family is going to jack it up to around $800 a month.  When you add me in, it's still less than what I am doing through the marketplace, but this will likely take out about half of my check.  Again, I am still blessed...we've always tried to think of this extra money as just that, extra.  But likely this will mean that some of the fun things we do with the extra money won't be there.  

I waited at first to go ahead and sign up for the job health plan, because along the way there was an ever-so-slight chance that perhaps the subsidies would be extended.  After all, the Democrats in Congress were refusing to vote YES on a continuing resolution to fund the government, and so said government was shut down for almost 6 weeks as the wanna-be heroes were fighting to return the subsidies to the plans.  Things were looking up for the Dems...last week they won all the hotly contested off-year elections, Trumpy's approval ratings magically slipped below 38% in some cases, and maybe, just maybe, the Republicans would give in.  Nope.  This weekend it came out that 8 of the Democrats finally gave in, giving MAGA the 60 votes they needed to fund the government.  Once again, the Democrats were running the touchdown into the end zone and instead fumbled it back to the Empire.  

Because of the shutdown 42 million Americans who depend on food stamps no longer had access to them.  And while I'm a bit skeptical that many are truly going hungry (my goodness, look at the obesity rates in this country), the gleefulness with which the GOP were ensuring that that extra money wasn't going to poor people was painful to watch.  All along as the shutdown continued, the demolition of the East Wing of the White House also ramped up so that the Trump Ballroom could be built (alongside the renovations of the bathrooms in the Trump living quarters).  Trump wasn't there much of course, because he was having a Great Gatsby-themed party at Mar-a-Lago for his rich cronies.  I mean, the same people who think of themselves as pro-life are perfectly content to watch the living suffer, but were we expecting anything different?  It's like they think of that book as aspirational rather than a cautionary tale.  

I suppose if there's one good thing coming out of the re-opening of government is that an Arizona Democratic congresswoman has now been sworn in, and she becomes the last person on the petition necessary to start releasing some of the Epstein files.  And sure enough, today they are starting to pour out.  While what's in there is going to be hard to read except for those who like that kind of stuff, at least light is finally going to be shed on just how good Trump and Epstein have gotten along over the years, and how Trump will once again have to face the revelation that he's a horrible, evil person.  

Of course for his supporters, it won't matter.  The 38% will soon come back roaring to his defense and soon we will move on to ignored scandal #852 (#2611 if you include Trump 45).  Yes, it's more Greatness than you can ever imagine in our fine nation.  

The Charlie Kirk Non-Obituary

I used to faithfully listen to paleoMAGA talk show host Rush Limbaugh; while I began as somebody who bought into a lot of what he was saying, over time I eventually became to realize how unChristian and ignorant much of his commentary was.  When he eventually died, I struggled to figure out how I ought to think about him and other people who I thought were destructive to society, even as they were loved by many people.  I eventually come up with the sentiment that goes something like, 'We do not dance on the graves of evil people, but neither do we silently wash over the wickedness that they produced.'  I've tried keeping to this mantra in my thinking ever since.

Yesterday right-wing advocate Charlie Kirk was assassinated on a college campus in Utah.  I confess that I haven't really ever read much from him, but he was a very popular speaker and debater in the current Trump/MAGA echo chamber.  I have seen several tributes on Facebook from people whom I otherwise respect and who almost never post political material (if they did, I would unfollow them).  Even some kids on my school bus this morning were talking about this, how their parents were crying that Kirk was dead.  

Were I to ever read much of his material or listen to his speeches, I might have liked some of the things he was saying, even as I probably would have found distasteful many other parts because it seems that often the only thing that appeals to many in MAGAland is hateful denunciations of wokeness or demands to get rid of aliens and strangers or angry screeds about liberals.  And so I don't feel entitled to really say anything terrible or praiseworthy about him.  He was a husband and a father and a son.  Lots of people loved this man, much as they loved Limbaugh.  We should respect their grief.  

But there's one quote that I keep seeing, which boils down to Kirk saying that the death of some due to gun violence is absolutely necessary in order for us to be a free country.  This has been posted by many of his opponents who are dancing on his grave this morning.  Karma, they will tell us.  A man who fought gun control on college campuses was killed by a gun on a college campus.  Will yesterday change any thinking on this?  I keep wondering how much longer the earnest question of 'Don't we surround ourselves with guns and threaten violence so as to keep in check the tyranny of the wicked'? will continue to be spewed out.    

Nevertheless, Charlie Kirk will become a modern-day martyr for the MAGA crowd.  But let's not turn him into a hero.  People like Charlie Kirk have helped create a world in which political violence is now the norm.  Conservatives will whine and moan about the violent rhetoric of the left, but they are just as much a part of the problem as those they decry, led by a President who seems to take seriously his role as Insulter-In-Chief.  Even as we condemn yesterday's violence, we cannot wash over the wickedness that evil people produce, regardless of ideology.  Whether or not he was wicked or righteous is in the hands of God now, but we can see the fruits of hateful ideology all around us, even if it is wrongly supported by many people who call themselves Christian.

I do find it interesting that in the wake of yesterday's violence, there were many liberal stalwarts who posted nearly identical 'thoughts and prayers' comments on social media.  I don't think they were trolling, but rather they really meant this...but when this is all we have rather than intentions to make this world a better place, it really does seem like satire.  

The Entitled Age

The school district for which I drive is a state football power, one of the largest schools with historically one of the best teams in the state.  Last year I drove the team to a road game against a school in a lower classification and watched my school win something like 45-6.  Over the course of the year I probably watched them play 3-4 other times, usually smashing other schools, and it quickly became apparent to me just how expected this was...at one game I was listening to fans, parents or maybe alumni, gripe about mistakes they were making even as they were up by 40 points.  When we would score, there was no joy; when the other team might get a first down, there was frustration, almost anger.  At another game we were up again by 30 points or so, and I was sitting behind the student section.  Most of the game they weren't paying attention, but at another point a chant started up.  "This is boring! (clap clap clap clap clap).  This is boring!  (clap clap clap clap clap)"  Ultimately they lost in the state semifinals.  People were not happy.

I mention this because last night in the home opener our school lost 22-21 to the same team they had beaten 45-6 last season on the road.  I'm guessing that people around here are gonna be ticked off today.  I'm sure over the next few weeks I will be overhearing conversations about how bad the coach is or the players or lazy or whatever...but it strikes me that the great problem is simply that people feel entitled.  When there is continued success, people think that somehow they deserve it and have every right to bitch and moan when they no longer get it.  

We are entitled in this generation in so many ways.  The lady sitting in the Wal-Mart parking lot waiting for a low-paid worker to load up her car from her online order, moaning about how long it takes.  The 65 year old man I know who got evicted from his apartment but won't get a job in order to pay for a new one as he awaits another woman to come into his life and take care of him.  The parents who expect their kids to eat both breakfast and lunch at school for free even as they drive around in a $75K SUV.  

In many ways we have been blessed for so long, and in so many ways, that we won't know how handle a little bit of adversity as it comes upon us.  As our idiot president continues to tank the economy and alienate us from all of our allies, things are gonna start getting much worse in the coming months.  People are going to really be in a world of hurt if they think they can keep eating out all the time, spending hundreds of dollars on sports tickets, and drive around gas-guzzlers that are far more vehicle than they need.  I'll be curious to see how people will adapt...but my instinct is that things are not going to go well.  

The Anti-Trump algorithim

Because I believe that Donald Trump is a terrible president and an even worse human being, several times a week I will ragegoogle something like 'Trump is a moron' or 'MAGA is code for Nazi'.  I say these things not because I have great confidence in the Democrats or that I am a liberal...but in the end the various algorithms out there regularly put things into my news feed that likely they think I want to hear.  If I was a climate change denier, they would fill my box with opinions that rising seas are good for real estate along the seashore ("It's a seller's market if there's a shrinking amount of oceanview property!")  If I lived my life thinking that all people are stupid and I'd rather hang out with horses, I'd get ads for T-shirts that have majestic horses on them.  But because my online profile is likely as filled with English soccer, 70s yacht rock backstories, technology gadgets and anti-Trump sentiment, I get offered a lot of anti-Trump news.  Lately I've noticed there are three primary avenues.

1)The "Here's how Trump is destroying America and the World!" stories.  I actually agree with many of these stories, even if not everything is as bad as they say.  Not everything depends upon Trump, but it's important to know how he and his minions are destroying efforts for clean energy, equality, and Ameica's place in the world, among a thousand other evil things he is doing.  

2)The "Trump's support is collapsing in the polls!" stories.  These bug me a bit more, because almost always the 38% floor for Trump never seems to get crashed through.  But continually we are told about polls that show that Trump's supporters are finally waking up (nope), that the GOP will lose Congress (not likely), that the Democrats are rallying around ___ (laughable).  Nothing is changing for his acolytes, even as Trump's stupidity is on daily display for anybody paying attention.  

3)In recent weeks I've started to see a handful of "Trump is dying!" stories.  Like the polling numbers, I think that this is mostly wishful thinking, because I don't really think that Trump will die within the next few years.  No matter how obese, frail, or demented he seems, he will receive the best care available within the medical world.  This weekend one of the things that popped up was a wondering header that said, "Trump has no public appearances this weekend!  Could he be receiving a life-saving treatment?"  Doubtful...likely he's playing golf or plotting with advisors about taking away rights from somebody or planning some grift for his sons to take advantage of.  I don't really buy that the bruises on his hands or his swollen ankles or his slurred speech really mean that death is immanent; such things are simply the way of life for many senior Americans who live for years like this.  Modern medicine (something that costs the government a LOT of money!) means that people will live a long time with all sorts of ailments.  Most seniors will spend the last decade of their life going from doctor to doctor as they seek to manage conditions that are products of genetics or age or lifestyle; the only difference with Trump is that he is in a position to have the best practitioners come to him.  Maybe we might get lucky and he'll do more listening to quacks like RFK Jr ("Hey Mr. President, drink this raw milk and don't pay attention to doctors!"), but I doubt it.  If anybody is going to hang on, it's him.  

Maybe I need to change what I google for so that I will have a more balanced newsfeed.  But maybe I'll be like most people today, blissfully believing whatever appears in front of me.  

Labor Day weekend

This weekend is the unofficial end of summer, a weekend in which we honor American labor for their hard work by making the first Monday of September a national holiday.  Sure, many of the people who actually do hard work are still going to be working that day (think restaurant workers, first responders, nurses in hospitals) while the people who already have so much get the day off.  It would make sense to me that we could make Labor Day something like the old British Boxing Day, where the servants are waited upon by their lords and masters for one day.  Maybe have the doctors go and clean out bedpans on Monday?  Executives of Yum! trying to fry up the chicken or make burritos?  Maybe not...our world would likely explode if a lot of the stuffed shirts actually had to sweat a little bit.  

Sepaking of restaurants, this past week we saw the Stupidest Story of the Year that didn't involve our Dear Leader, at least directly.  Cracker Barrel, that old mainstay of countryfied food and a shop with stuff that people who think 'merica! is loved by voting for an old corrupt billionaire who likes to hump the flag occasionally, decided to change their logo.  It...wasn't good.  Basically they took the mustard and brown color from before and watered it down to something even less sexy than it had been.  Likely this was the result of paying some high-dollar PR people some money hoping that they would get young, hip audiences into the story so they might buy rocking chairs or cornhole games after dining on some fried chicken and catfish.  Needless to say, this rebranding made some people who have too little to do in their lives really mad.  

Where the story goes from amusing to downright stupid, however, was that the right-wing mediasphere decided that Cracker Barrel did all these things because they are 'woke'.  Getting rid of the barrel on the old sign, as well as the old dude (his name is Uncle Herschel, we all learned this week) sitting next to it, showed that they are somehow, someway, betraying all that is good about America.  Of course complaints of 'wokeism' have replaced 'politically correct' and charges of liberals of being 'snowflakes' as the great whine of the 38%.  Liberal calls to be 'woke', that is, to wake up and recognize that there are systemic problems of racism and inequality in this country', have been twisted to the point where being 'woke' is now code for 'anything that makes we True Americans upset'.  That is, of course, pure snowflakeism.  Thus a company hiring a black man when a white man applied for the job is now greetied with cries of wokeism.  Pointing out that climate change is real and that we are harming the planet, wokeism.  Any government policies that recognize the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion are now suspiciously woke.  And now a company with a wrong-headed idea about how they should rebrand their company is rooted in a desire to be woke and thereby must be boycotted until obese people wanting to kill themselves with satured fat and bankrupt their savings by buying wooden tic tac toe games get their way, of eating at a restaurant with the right kind of conservative logo.  

Maybe it was a good thing that on this Saturday of Labor Day weekend I didn't venture outside the house except to get two pieces of junk mail from the mailbox.  Catching up on some shows, watching soccer, taking a nap, and having some smoked salmon and wild rice with my wife tonight, was enough for me.