Rumble, Obama, Rumble
My, how times have changed. Apparently, gone are the days of former President Barack Obama’s low-key, darn near milquetoast critiques of Trump/GOP corruption. Recently, while campaigning in Ohio and Michigan for Democratic candidates, Obama went full-on Wu-Tang/Public Enemy on Agent Orange. “After two years of chaos and cruelty and corruption and incompetence, the likes of which we have not seen in modern times, you get a chance to say enough is enough,” Obama declared. He didn’t stop there. “The current president… decided to start an unnecessary war that nobody asked for, nobody voted for.” Obama then went in on Trump’s ghetto renovations of the White House, saying, “He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.” Obama then posted up Trump about the grifting spree. “We have never seen a president excel in straight-up grifting, on your dime, like this,” Obama charged. “Never seen a president so intent on selling favors like this… We learned a Venezuelan billionaire wanted a pardon, so he paid one of Trump’s personal lawyers $50 million to be general counsel of a company nobody knows anything about. And lo and behold, the pardon falls out of the sky,” urging voters to “bring some accountability to this government.” Hey “44,” glad you decided to reintroduce yourself. Hopefully, the votes will tally accordingly.
Outlaws and disorder
It’s absolutely amazing to me that the vast majority of Americans are living their lives as if it’s business as usual. News flash: It’s not. U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche recently refused to rule out that the Department of Justice (DOJ) might prevent a state from certifying its election results — a process over which the federal government has no authority. Translation: That’s the U.S. top cop saying he’ll break the law regarding elections if he so chooses. His boss, Agent Orange, recently told senior military commanders at a gathering in Quantico, Virginia, that he has the right to sic the U.S. military on U.S. citizens he deems “enemies.” News flash: Trump absolutely does not have that authority, as was pointed out by former POTUS Barack Obama (and the U.S. Constitution). Voters in multiple states are reporting that when selecting Democrats, the screens in their voting booths displayed Republican choices. Any one of these realities just a few years ago would have been considered headline news. Today, crickets. We’ve become numb to anti-democracy injustices. But now’s not the time to be numb and dumb. Some social forecasters predict that from Election Day (Nov. 3) to Jan. 6, 2027 (when newly elected officials are sworn into office), expect there to be GOP shenanigans, including refusals to certify elections and even violence.
Weaponized mediocrity
A good rule of thumb is to make your apology as loud as your off-base accusation. But scumbags who make false claims to purposely hurt others don’t follow that rule. Case in point: Nathan Confas, a self-described white supremacist, whose charges of plagiarism against Cambridge professor Jason Arday (a brother) led Arday to resign his position and then commit suicide. Recently, it was revealed that Arday was cleared of all plagiarism charges. It’s a fact that does Arday no good now. And don’t hold your breath waiting for Confas to issue any apologies. Confas is on record as saying that under a true meritocracy, Black people would “disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment.” The irony is that merit enabled Arday to earn his place at Cambridge. A lack of merit kept Confas from advancing in his career. So, Confas attacked the accomplished Black man because Confas’s own mediocrity kept him from advancing, though he assumed his whiteness was enough.