The Fun Continues

 

So, now we have yet another SCOTUS opening about to appear.  Justice Stephen Breyer will retire at the age of 83. He may offer President Biden his only opportunity to affect the Court, as none of the other justices are at or near retirement.

The essential question here is whether Biden will be allowed to appoint a new Justice to replace Breyer. It seems clear that McConnell and his republican allies will do everything they can to interfere with or outright prevent Biden from making such an appointment.

The fact that McConnell prevented Obama from making an appointment with nearly a full year left in his term, whereas he allowed Trump to make an appointment within months of the end of his term suggests that McConnell has no ethics and knows only power, of the sort that the fascists of the Land practice.  Given that McConnell oversaw three Trump appointees, each immeasurably worse than the last, it seems clear that there will be a fight.

And so it may come down once again to Manchin and Sinema. In fact this may be the last test of that wannabee Democratic duo. Should they fail this final test, they can expect no further support from the Democratic Party, and will slink into the gutter of republican politics forever.

It is widely rumored that Biden will nominate a Black Woman to the SCOTUS post. Who are the possibilities? The following candidates are at least high on the list:

Political pundits suggest that Ketanji Brown Jackson is a potential front-runner, if there is a SCOTUS vacancy during Biden's presidency. Biden appointed Jackson last spring to serve as a federal appeals court judge in an effort to leave his legacy on the courts after former president Donald Trump appointed white men as judges at the highest rate in decades.  Jackson was also on president Barack Obama's Supreme Court shortlist in 2016. 

 

Among the other names being circulated as potential nominees are California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, prominent civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill and U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs, whom Biden has nominated to be an appeals court judge.  Childs is a favorite of Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., who made a crucial endorsement of Biden just before South Carolina's presidential primary in 2020.

 

Oddly perhaps, Kamala Harris is also on the list of potential candidates. And yes, it is apparently possible to appoint a sitting Vice President to the Court, and she certainly fills the “Black Woman” criterion. But here, the question is Why? Why would Biden appoint Harris who is at least nominally in line to become President should he die in office from aging or simply retirement.  The rumors apparently at least suggest that Biden and Harris are less than the “perfect couple” in the White House.

 

So Harris??? That would be odd, at best from my perspective. Harris is a pretty fair candidate to run for the Presidency in 2004 or 2008, so I assume she might prefer to place her bets there.

I actually wondered about Obama as a SCOTUS candidate. But again, he is a retired President and can still claim the public’s attention whenever he chooses. Oh and there’s that “Black Woman” thing. Since Obama is a Black Man from Kenya, he probably won’t make the cut  (hahahahahahaha).

 

It’s really interesting how American politics has changed over the very long period of my lifetime. While it has always been the case that conservative (Republican) presidents largely have appointed conservative justices and more liberal presidents  the opposite, there used to be vocal arguments, but, until Obama, at least civil behavior by the Senate. But a Black President, coupled with the Power-mad hunger of the McConnell crowd of near fascists combined to reverse the apparent course of history. It is no longer the case that civility continues to prevail. Mitch McConnell now assures that rabid discourse will forever govern American politics in our Capitol. When he refused to allow Obama’s appointee, Merrick Garland to move forward, while accelerating Trump’s appointees (think hard about McConnell pressing forward with someone as awful as Brett Kavanaugh), suggests that no ethics exists within the McConnell court.

And so it comes down, once more sadly, to Manchin and Sinema. If they cannot even support this action by Biden, they surely do not deserve any further support from the Democratic Party.  And so we will see how far down to the path to our demise America will move with this process.  That old Doomsday Clock is ticking guys, and there ain’t much time left.  

White Folks State

 So, off we go into the Netherworld of 2022. So far, it all looks . . . well, a tad grim. So far, I keep seeing stories in the news about people we know, or at least know the name, and they have died. And I began thinking. Huh, so one of the side effects of growing old successfully is that more and more people die around you.  Or maybe you just notice those folks who are croaking.  Now, to be fair, for every Sidney Poitier, there is a Judi Dench.  Yeah, that lass is still with us and still working, despite her (successful) advanced age.

So, there’s that.

But then, still speaking of aging, there is that place called America, well technically the United States of America.  And it is now technically coming on 246 years old.  Now that would be really old for a fart like me. But just maybe middle aged for a country.  See the problem with countries is that, instead of dying like good, decent humans, countries tend to just fail, but not technically die.  And sometimes, it’s hard to tell if they have failed, or they have some terminally awful condition . . . you know, like Russia, or Brazil.  See countries fail by some definitions, when they no longer care about their human population at large. Instead, they care only about a few folks who sit at the top of their population heap.  Or I guess if you look at Nazi Germany, that country cared about most of their human population, except some—their Jews for example.  In Russia, there is no select population, only a select cadre of Russians who decided that only they should be able to make decisions about the present and future operation of the country, you know, sort of like in absolute monarchies.  And if the ordinary folks no longer have any ability to intervene, then you have a failed state, if not a dead one.

So, where is the United States of America, at the ripe old age of 246?? Well, we haven’t yet made up our collective minds, but a consensus is forming that we really would prefer living in an autocratic state under an idiot chieftain, if not absolute monarch. I imagine that, at least technically, The Donald would prefer being an absolute monarch to being a functioning president.  Whereas Joe still thinks being a President is nifty, despite all its problems.

And there you have it. We still haven’t made up our minds. But there is a very large population group, humans all, who think we should be an absolute monarchy. Course, they haven’t really thought that one through. See, what they really want is the get rid of those troublesome folks, called Democrats, you know, those people who seem to think that folks of color, or who speak a different language should be able to help determine the future of the country. See they really want only people like them—white, varying education levels, lots of pent-up hate, to be in charge.  And they don’t really care how that happens. If those other folks have to croak, then so be it.

Now, if that wannabee white group comprised, say, 10% of the population, then we wouldn’t even be discussing a “Failed-Dead State”. No, that would be Situation Normal.  The way Evolution works is that evil populations emerge all the time. That’s how evolution works. You take the good with the bad. But in, say, 1930s Germany, the bad population overtook the good, they elevated a dude named Adolph Hitler to power because they agreed with his declaration that Jews were the source of all Germany’s problems, and that the only path forward was to rid the state of all its Jews.  See, that’s one definition of evil.  Now that changed over time (and a war) and evolution produced a more reasonable collection of humans in Germany and they eventually got rid of their haters. And we here in the United States of America helped them to change their minds.

But this White thing has never gone away anywhere in the world. Wherever large populations of White folks live, those folks seem to have adopted a personality trait to the effect that White folks are just naturally better than folks of color.  And so, they should always be in charge. And whenever that situation is threatened, the White folks just sit up and start banging heads.  See January 6^th, 2021 in Washington, DC as the latest example.

But we got past that little dust-up and sort of returned to normal, except not really. Mainly, the White Dude who wants to be King here, has never gotten over being rejected as Absolute Monarch, and he blames that loss to folks of color and White folks who cater to folks of color.  And that Dude, sometimes known as The Donald of Trump, has decided that his people should act to throw out the current folks in charge, by any means necessary.  And, his serfs, aka the Republican Party, have taken him seriously and spend now all of their time on devising ways to rid the Nation of the current folks in charge, again, by any means necessary.

And so, whereas we used to have our rulers arguing with each other about how best to secure the safety of the nation from foreign powers, or how best to secure a vibrant economy, now our rulers divide themselves into two isolated camps who rarely speak with one another. And the camp formerly known as republicans, stays busy figuring out how to arm its population, so as to secure its future power base.

And so the game begins in this year of 2022. Will this year be known as the year America failed, or the year a Coup d’état was prevented? That question is being debated by many, and no answer has yet emerged. Many thinking folks lean towards the failed state ending, although not yet conclusively.

And so we continue. The pandemic continues unhindered by current republican politicians, who seem not to mind having their populations sicken and die.  And Climate change continues unhindered by republican moneyed folks. And finally our political system continues sickening and headed towards dying by republicans who prefer a failed state to a multicolored one.

So, Stay Tuned folks. This Station will try to continue thinking about the relative state of health of both the author, and his Nation State.  Ta Ta for now.

 

The Numbers Game

2021 . . . 2022 . . . what do the numbers mean? They really only have significance to the individual, and then only some of the time.

1865 – GM Inglis was born somewhere in Scotland, maybe Edinburgh.

1899 – Daisy Elizabeth Inglis was born in Brooklyn to become part of the Inglis clan living in America

1934 – Daisy gives birth to a young lad, Richard Eugene by name, somewhere in Brooklyn also.

1935 – Carol Kathleen Foreman pops out into this world and her mom and dad, Kathleen and Robert decide she is a keeper, and they will love her forever.

1955 – Carol and Richard decide at very tender ages, to forge a permanent union of two souls.

1956 – Carol gives birth to a tiny baby, who is then named Karen Lee, rather than, say, 56. The little baby decides later she wants a new name, and so she decides to change her assigned name to Kailia.

1959 – Carol gives birth to another tiny baby, this one named Kathleen. She thinks her name is fine, thanks.

1966 – Hold on folks, Carol has decided to give birth to a third tiny baby, and that baby will be known as Erika Anu.

And then the list of tiny babies born into the world continues, amidst continued changes in those funny numbers. The numbers are called “Years” for some reason. Humans decided a while back to break up time into segments and then label all the segments—Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, millennia and on and on. We humans use these segments to mark the thing we call our lives. See, because we tend not to live forever, we assign segment markers to our lives, and to the events in our lives.  Those markers are supposed to signify importance of some kind, and we are allowed to use the segments to signify the goodness or other in our lives. As in, “Goodness, he just turned One, and he is walking already”. Or, “Harry is only four, but he talks like he is already 9 or 10.” Or, “Oh, My, Josie has turned 21, so she can legally drink alcohol”.

And then as humans acquire larger numbers concerning their lives, we begin to think of them as ageless (or, really as old), as in “wow, he just turned 80. He is looking great, but that’s really old”.

And then, we also assign meaning to the periods in which we live, as in “The roaring (19) Twenties”. Or, “wow, the (19) thirties were really a drag. Everyone was poor, and then we entered that War”.

We worked, raised kids, and became educated, changed jobs, all while counting numbers — remember 1969? Yeah, that’s when we moved to DC. Somehow, those “19” something years seemed important and even meaningful, mainly because things happened to change our lives, and we assigned a number to them.

And then we zoomed past a final decade and suddenly we were into a new Millennium.  See, we had never used that term before. Now 2000 seemed uneventful, just another year, albeit in a different millennium.  Then we hit 2001, and that seemed different. Why? Well because we had a kind of weird film by that name, yeah that 2001.  And that film, which was actually produced in 1968 (the year we returned to America from our four-year life in India) described wholly new kinds of experiences.  Now to be fair, we had already experienced space travel, when in 1969 (remember 1969?) we landed someone on the moon.  But that limited space travel seemed more exotic somehow that that pictured in 2001.

But 2001 . . . wow. We had actually entered a new millennium. It was different somehow from that change when we entered the 20^th century, although to be fair, I was not here, so I really do not know how folks felt as we entered the 20^th century.  I know my mum was born in that 19^th century place and then moved smartly into our 20^th century.  And here’s the crux of it. See I identify myself as being a creature of that 20th century.  Yeah, I know that I have been alive through now 21 years of this new century, so I’m sort of like my mum in 1920.  I wonder how she felt in those roaring 20s. Goodness, she was footloose and fancy-free.

But 2020?  Or, worse yet, 2022?? Do those numbers raise anything interesting in your minds? Well, maybe 2020 represents a dark period in America, unlike its predecessor, 1920. 2020 represents the first (happily unsuccessful) attempted coup d’état on the American Republic.  Yeah, Republicans, under the leadership of Donald Trump, a President headed out to pasture, decided that they really did not like Democracy, preferring instead a system whereby republicans simply decide who our leaders will be. Yeah, so maybe this second decade of the 21^st century represents the beginning of a dark period in America and maybe even the world, a period we might call Anarchy.  And so maybe this 21^st century will represent to future historians the beginning of the end of our world.  Yeah, the destruction of the American Experiment, a Global Pandemic in which much of the world simply dies, followed by Climate change that causes much of the rest of our world to fall apart, perhaps returning it to its pre-human state, when hummingbirds ruled their world.

And then maybe numbers cease.  They were fun in that 20^th century, at least until 1980, that day the Music died.  But maybe now the hummingbirds will decide what we should call this 21^st century. Yeah, they’re nice dudes, and even some fun. And how much worse could they be than Donald Trump? So, move aside humans, by choosing Donald Trump, you signaled that you were no longer interested in preserving our world of numbers and counting things.  Instead, idiocy was preferred. So, now the hummingbirds have decided to take over, before we complete the destruction.  And maybe they have been in contact with those Aliens who have been wandering around waiting for us to leave.  I wonder if the Aliens speak Hummingbird?

So, let’s see what happens next. I understand that, instead of using numbers, this second decade of our new millennium will be known as Hummingbirdiana. Nice huh??