JANUARY 2020 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. President Donald Trump. I know, I’ve vowed to not include Trump absurdities, but sometimes it can’t be helped. In just his latest ignominious tweet, Trump stated that his list of targets in Iran would include sites of “very high level & importance to Iran & the Iranian culture.”

One would think that the resulting international and domestic uproar to the threat would move a normal person to “qualify” the statement, or at least say he was misunderstood, but Donald Trump is not a normal person. Just hours later, he made it very clear that he thought cultural sites were in fact legitimate targets.

“They’re allowed to kill our people,” he told the reporters on Air Force One as he flew back to Washington from his winter holiday in Florida. “They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site? It doesn’t work that way.”

The furor was a classic controversy of the narcissistic Mr. Trump’s creation, the apparent result of an impulsive threat and his habit of refusing to back down in the face of criticism. On the contrary, his impulse is to double down.

Administration and Pentagon officials moved quickly to walk back Trump’s assertion, which if carried out would amount to a war crime. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper sought to douse the international outcry by ruling out attacks on cultural sites in Iran if the conflict with Tehran escalates further.

Mr. Esper acknowledged that striking cultural sites with no military value would be a war crime, putting him at odds with the president, who insisted such places would be legitimate targets. Mr. Trump’s threat generated condemnation at home and abroad while deeply discomfiting American military leaders who understand the importance of complying with the rules of war (at least professing to).

“We will follow the laws of armed conflict,” Mr. Esper said at a news briefing at the Pentagon when asked if cultural sites would be targeted as the president had suggested over the weekend. When asked if that meant “no” because the laws of war prohibit targeting cultural sites, Mr. Esper agreed. “That’s the laws of armed conflict.”

Trump’s threat was not just a slip of the tongue spewing from a man who is grossly ignorant of history and propriety. It comes from a man who has no respect for laws, particularly those codified internationally. He truly believes he is above the law. He is not only oblivious to the consequences of his assertions and actions; he doesn’t seem to care what happens. After all, his enablers will cover for him.

DECEMBER 2019 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Minnesota Republican Candidate Danielle Stella. Stella, a congressional candidate for vying for Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s 5^th congressional seat, seems to think the route to victory requires triggering language and death suggestions. In two vile tweets, Stella referenced an unfounded rumor that Qatari officials had recruited Omar, the first Somali American elected to Congress and the first to wear a hijab, the Post reported.
“If it is proven [that Omar] passed sensitive info to Iran, she should be tried for treason and hanged.,” Stella tweeted. She followed with a tweet sharing a blog post link about her thoughtless statement and a photo of a stick-figure being hanged.

In an even classier move, Stella went on to defend the tweets Friday on Facebook.

”There are MANY hypocrites rage posting here. Breathe, think this through, logically,” Stella said in the post. “To clarify, I said, ‘If it is proven ____ passed sensitive info to Iran, she should be tried for #treason and hanged.’” Because this is logical to someone actually entrusted with teaching students, the special education teacher went on to explain the statement. “Treason is the only thing mentioned in the constitution for the death penalty, punishable by hanging or firing squad. I believe all involved should be thoroughly investigated,” Stella said. “I did not threaten anyone. If you are calling it a threat- you believe that individual is guilty, and therefore it is not a threat, it's treason. You and the fake news #MSM are lying by calling it lynching or terroristic threats.”

It’s like there is an outline these Donald Trump aficionados refer back to in crafting these statements: First, spew dog-whistle racism. Then, blame the media. Next, falsely accuse any dissenters. Deny, deny, deny, and cry victim.

Stella didn’t vary from the script in the least bit.

“I believe all traitors to our Country need to be tried for their many crimes,” she said. “I've been outspoken about HRC crime family, BH0, S0R0S and others as well. You are making this into something it's not.” “You are making it about race, about religion, about anything but the truth,” the educator added. “While doing so, you are sending heinous comments, actual death threats, threats of bodily harm, threats to my friends, supporters, threats to post private photos, insulting/attacking my religion, intelligence, race, gender, mental health, physical health, appearance, labeling me with many disorders and diagnoses, and using very non-PC language to do so.”

Insert more tears.

“What you're doing is reprehensible and speaks to your flawed souls and damaged psyches,” Stella said. “The only death threats I'm seeing is from the angry liberal mob where facts don't matter, only emotion, and you're somehow thinking you're righteous by threatening my life, my supporters' lives, my loved ones lives?  No, this is wrong. You are hypocrites. The angry liberal mob does this frequently to our President Donald J. Trump and his family, and never are held accountable for your hatred, your violence, your many threats, or heinous posts like Kathy Griffin.”

Stella ended her rant with “#UnitedWeStand #ForGodAndCountry #FightForUS.”

Her inflammatory remarks got Stella’s accounts banned from Twitter. Let’s hope voters scuttle her quest for public office and return her to a private life where she must deal with a felony shoplifting charge for allegedly taking 279 items worth more than $2,300 from a Target Store.

As is her above-the-fray style, Omar kept her response brief and on-message, tweeting: “This is the natural result of a political environment where anti-Muslim dogwhistles and dehumanization are normalized by an entire political party and its media outlets,” Omar said, “Violent rhetoric inevitably leads to violent threats, and ultimately, violent acts.”

Let's see, President Trump damaged American national interests when he held up military assistance to Ukraine, abandoned our Kurdish allies in Syria, cancelled the nuclear agreement with Iran, pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement. and has acted as a Putin stooge.  Talk about treason; hang him!

NOVEMBER 2019 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Sevier County Commissioner Warren Hurst. This month, Warren Hurst, County Commissioner of the Tennessee county of Sevier, bashed openly gay Mayor Pete Buttigieg during a public meeting of the county commission. Hurst made the offensive comments during what was scheduled to be a meeting on establishing the county seat of Sevierville as a “gun sanctuary city,” one in which gun laws would not be enforced.  During this meeting, Hurst described 2020 presidential hopeful Buttigieg as a “queer running for president.” He also declared that white men in the United States are losing their rights.

“It’s time we wake up, people, it’s time. It’s past time,” Hurst said. “We got a queer running for president in this country. If that ain’t about as ugly as you can get,” he added. "Look what we got running for president in the Democratic party. We can go over here to Hoss's jail and get better people out of there than those running for Democratic to be President of the United States."

Apparently, the spattering of applause was enough to encourage him to continue, because continue the commissioner did. “I’m not prejudice,” he proclaimed, uttering the words of every not-prejudiced person in the world, “but by golly, a white male in this country has very few rights and they’re getting took more every day.”

In the video, at least one person—also a white man—is seen laughing at the comments.

While you can hear some applause from the public, and someone shouts, “Amen,” at least one woman did walk out of the meeting. She’s heard saying, “This is bullshit.” Hurst later told a reporter from TV station WVLT in Knoxville that he stood by his comments. He also made sure to note that some of his best friends are black.

OCTOBER 2019 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Right-Wing Smear Network. Congressional Republicans afraid to come out and say that Donald Trump has engaged in impeachable behavior aren’t only afraid of Trump himself. They’re also living in fear of a smear network in the right-wing media, social media, and blogosphere, ready to respond to any hint of criticism of Trump with everything from insults to outright lies.

Every Republican to offer so much as a whiff of criticism of Trump has faced this onslaught, The Washington Post reports. Sen. Mitt Romney tweeted that “If the President asked or pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate his political rival, either directly or through his personal attorney, it would be troubling in the extreme.” Romney was then accused of having ties to Burisma, the company that former Vice President Joe Biden’s son was associated with. The ties? One of his mid-level 2012 campaign advisers joined Burisma’s board in 2017. Rush Limbaugh also piled on with false claims that Romney had consulted with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Sen. Chuck Grassley spoke up for whistleblowers, an issue he’s known to care about. Gateway Pundit saw this as a desertion: “So much for the Republican leaders in the Senate defending President Trump against the continuation of the attempted coup.” Sen. Ben Sasse and Rep. Adam Kinzinger were accused, respectively, of “stabbing [Trump] in the back” and being a “spineless sellout.”

Any Republican tempted to step out of line even an inch has gotten the message: We’ll come for you next. That’s why if Republicans do start breaking with Trump, it’s likely to start with a group, for safety in numbers. But even those who retain some shred of decency or concern for the Constitution or democracy may simply be too weak and scared to stand against the bulk of their party, which is now consumed by the drive for power over all else.

DONALD TRUMP: THE CONSUMMATE NO-DEAL-MAKER REVISITED

Trump's House of No Deals

In July of 2018, I posted Donald Trump: The Consummate No-Deal Maker (The Consummate No-Deal Maker).  In the piece, I contrasted Trump’s reputed (mostly self-reputed) deal-making prowess with his actual accomplishments as president. During his run for president, Trump bragged that deals would be easy, clean and quick, and they would exceed all expectations. He would make, as he put it, “beautiful deals that no other president could make.”

Well, after a little more than a year in office he made no deals of any note: no deal on health care, climate change, immigration reform and DACA, gun control, spending cuts, NAFTA, China or Pacific trade. He failed to broker deals on Iran, Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan, and made no progress on his Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative. Despite much fanfare, and his bromance with North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un , Pyongyang remained steadfast in holding on to its nuclear weapons.

Now that he’s been in office nearly three years, has his alleged nonpareil deal making skills finally showed up? Let’s see.

SEPTEMBER 2019 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. John Merrill, the current Secretary of State of Alabama. Merrill recently asserted, among other bizarre and archaic ideas, that people are “too interested in homosexual activities” and that’s why he can’t find any good television. As reported by Yellowhammer News, an Alabama-based publication, Merrill went on to clarify that by good TV, he has shows like The Virginian, Bonanza, and I Love Lucy in mind.

“That’s what we’ve allowed to happen,” he said on the loss of golden TV… and the rise of homosexuality.

Merrill, by the way, is running in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate in 2020. Yup: Doug Jones’s seat. He’s actually one of five Republicans looking to oust Jones; a list that includes former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore.

But back to today’s story.

The answer came about because Merrill was participating in a town hall in Dekalb County over the weekend. One audience member asked Merrill about cultural shifts, and how our country’s principles have “eroded.” While a question that’s probably clearly coded for this sort of response, Merrill’s doesn’t shy away from hate.

“We’re too interested in homosexual activities,” he replied. “We’re too interested in seeing how this family’s finding a way to mess on this family or to see how people are trying to date on TVor having wife-swapping on TV. That’s what we watch. When we push back against that, and we quit allowing it to be in our homes – that’s how those changes have occurred because we’ve allowed them to slowly but surely come into our lives.”

“I meant what I said,” Merrill said in response to AL.com, where he had the generous opportunity to clarify his obviously offensive words. “People are too interested in anything that is not uplifting, edifying. They’re too busy being preoccupied with homosexual activities and the wife swap shows.”

Merrill lamented he can no longer find shows “that are based on biblical foundations. … shows that promote family and culture with a father, a mother, and children based on biblical teachings and biblical principles on which our nation was founded." Yikes.

He also doubled down on his point in an interview with NBC News, when he criticized coverage of the U.S. Women’s soccer national Team. “The national narrative began to be one of divisiveness,” he claimed to NBC, “and if you can’t support these young ladies because they’re gay and because they want to wear the LGBT flag on their uniform, as opposed to just appreciating the great talent that they have, and the unbelievable athletic accomplishments that they produce, that's a problem.”

The problem is (actually) homophobia. Maybe for some wholesome TV, he can check out the gay rat wedding on Arthur that the public broadcast channel in his state refused to play? It’s a kid’s TV show, after all.

AUGUST 2019 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. Jeffrey E. Epstein. Epstein, the wealthy financier who is accused of sex trafficking, and child molesting had an unusual dream: He hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women at his vast New Mexico ranch where he could maintain a vast stable of women for the sole task of impregnation—by himself.

Mr. Epstein’s vision reflected his longstanding fascination with what has become known as transhumanism: the science of improving the human population through technologies like genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. Critics have likened transhumanism to a modern-day version of eugenics, the discredited field of improving the human race through controlled breeding.

That’s something you can kind of envision the leaders of the Third Reich contemplating in their Berlin bunker at the close of World War II, just before the Soviet tanks overran them. It appears to stem from some egomaniacal notion that because they’ve managed, whether by fortune, skill, conquest, or just plain dumb luck to attain a hugely disparate share of power over others, well, there must be something special about themselves that separates them from the rest of the human race .

In the case of Epstein, a billionaire who quite literally had the world at his beck and call, it apparently took the form of  trying to achieve some type of "immorality." This strain of gross egotism isn’t all that uncommon among the billionaire set. Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel are some examples of those who’ve succumbed to this burning desire to bless the world with their perpetual existence, devoting large chunks of their fortunes to quixotic “life extension” projects.

But even among such rarefied company, Epstein still sounds like a character straight out of Blade Runner:

Beyond his fixation with “transhumanism” and buried deep in that New York Times article, another interesting tidbit about Epstein was brought out.  As spotted by Marie Lodi, writing for New York Magazine:

If that wasn’t shocking enough, another detail that stood out was Epstein’s supposed interest in cryonic preservation, a pseudoscientific process in which the human body or head is frozen and stored with the hope that it could be successfully revived in the future, à la Encino Man. According to sources who spoke to the Times, Epstein “wanted his head and penis to be frozen.”

While he presumably wanted to have his head frozen to protect his brain, it’s not clear what benefit Epstein desired to bestow on future generations with his frozen penis. Nor was the method and storage of preserving this appendage fully fleshed out. As the penis itself serves as a mere vehicle for reproduction, the natural question arises as to whether Epstein meant for his testicles to be preserved as well. Or whether he intended his penis to maintain some sort of functionality down through the centuries, in some type of animatronic-like state.

Further complicating the situation, Epstein made no known arrangements for the penis’ presentation or the manner in which the public might view it.  So, whether it was meant to be seen by private invitation or by the broader public remains a mystery (perhaps he envisioned lines forming around the block at the Met in New York, for example, for such an exhibit). The sad likelihood is that, with Epstein’s suicide we will never get a straight answer to these questions.

I have no evidence, but I suspect that Donald Trump has sacked away some of his sperm for future breeding purposes. How better to extend his white nationalist legacy? And, would you put it past the Trumpster to have his head and penis frozen as well? (To be sure, after he has had them cast in bronze and put on display in the Capitol Rotunda.)

But when all is said and done, Epstein and Trump shouldn’t be worried. Enough evidence has already been developed about their character and behavior that few will conclude that they were anything less than colossal pricks. And no one needs to see their penises for that.