Republican candidates back Trump’s election lies across the 2021 and 2022 maps. You’ve heard about that, probably. The ones who hope to flip Dem to GOP in 2022 are surfing on the tidal wave of Trump’s lies. They’re hanging ten, they’re shooting the curl on the gurgling surge of those lies. Hoping to ride them right to office. (Many of them are Qanon idiots too–and it turns out Qanon suckers can get elected by this ignorance-haunted electorate.) Also, polling shows 60% of Republicans profess to believe Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, despite those lies being disproven over and over and over in court. And here’s the deal with these people surfing on Trumps Tidal Wave O’ Lies: Most of them know it’s a lie. But they don’t care what damage is done to democracy as long as they and their side comes out the winner. “Sure, that Hitler’s a jerk but if I tie myself to him he’ll pull me into power with him!” Some of them are evangelicals of the sort who think, weirdly, “God wants us to lie about this for the greater good”. Never mind the Ten Commandments’ “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” As for Trump:
On July third, speaking in Sarasota, Florida he said: “If you say it enough and keep saying it, they’ll start to believe you.” And in his book, years ago, The Art of the Deal, he said: “I play to people’s fantasies. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular.” And since according to his ex-wife he used to read MEIN KAMPF, by ol’ Adolph H, in bed…and since according to the historic record his father was prominent in the KKK…Trump probably knows this famous line from Nazi Joseph Goebbels: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” He’s been paraphrasing that line himself for years. Probably he learned about Herr Goebbels at his daddy’s knee. “Son, let me tell you what ol’ Joe Goebbels used to say…” A new book, “Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost, quoting John Kelly, reports that Trump told Kelly: “Well, Hitler did a lot of good things…”
Meanwhile, I’m bugged by residential area use of major fireworks on this past–on every— July 4 weekend. (I live in benighted Southern Washington State, where rules aren’t rules.) The noise terrifies my dogs, robs me and my wife of sleep–it really does sound like a war is going on around here–and on a record-hot summer it risks starting a fire. Here’s just a sample of this last weekend’s fireworks delights across the USA:
Sadly, young Matiss Kivlenieks, a 24 year old goalie for the Columbus Blue Jackets died July 4 from a fireworks mortar blast and chest trauma…Someone accidentally (probably drunkenly) shot the fireworks the wrong way.
Two Chicago police officers were shot and injured while trying to break up a crowd during a Fourth of July celebration in the city, authorities said Monday. The injured officers included a female commander, who was shot in the foot, and a male sergeant, who received a bullet wound in the leg while trying to disperse a large crowd shooting off fireworks. Some in the crowd stupidly felt that their “need” to detonate illegal fireworks was more important than human life.
Police in Cincinnati, Ohio, said two males, ages 16 and 19, were killed and three others injured at a holiday celebration at a park late Sunday night. The two males were “engaged in a verbal altercation that resulted in the two exchanging gunfire” and the other victims were caught in the crossfire, Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac said at a news briefing on Monday. So–July 4 celebration.
Across the country, fireworks displays got out of hand. . .In Chicago, a 19-year-old lost their hand and was critically injured as a result of a fireworks injury, according to the city’s fire department. In Austin, fireworks were blamed for burning multiple homes to the ground early Monday...In Houston, a 29-year-old woman suffered severe facial injuries due to fireworks in a Kroger parking lot. The woman’s injuries were so severe that she had to be flown to a hospital downtown. Meanwhile, a pregnant mom and her 3-year-old son were severely burned by fireworks at a neighborhood block party in Spring Hill, Tennessee.