Month: January 2021

Greatest Quotes from the GOP, Past and Present

Editor’s Note: It has come to our attention that many of our Republican friends are experiencing shock and dismay at recent events, after having lost the Presidency, and the remaining legislative chamber they formerly controlled, in the last election. We wish to remind them of the Grand Old Party’s long and glorious history, by reprinting here some of the great stirring quotes of America’s Republican leaders of the past. And, in reassurance of the continued survival and even greatness of the “party of Lincoln,” we also include quotes from some of the party’s current elected leaders, who represent its no doubt bright future.

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations—Abraham Lincoln (Republican), 16th President of the United States

I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything—Donald John Trump (Republican), 45th President of the United States

I appreciate the fact, and am proud of it, that the attentions I am receiving are intended more for our country than for me personally—Ulysses S. Grant (Republican), 18th President of the United States

Can you smell through that mask? Then you’re not stopping any sort of a virus. It’s part of the dehumanization of the children of God. You’re participating in it by wearing a mask—U.S. Representative Clay Higgins (Republican), Louisiana 3rd Congressional District

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat—Theodore Roosevelt (Republican), 26th president

I just want to say to Nancy Pelosi, she’s a hypocrite, she’s an anti-American, and we’re gonna kick that bitch out of Congress—Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (Republican), Georgia 14th Congressional District

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed—Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president

Hey @MichaelCohen212 — Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat. I wonder if she’ll remain faithful when you’re in prison. She’s about to learn a lot—U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz (Republican), Florida 1st Congressional District

Education is not the means of showing people how to get what they want. Education is an exercise by means of which enough men, it is hoped, will learn to want what is worth having—Ronald Reagan (Republican), 40th president

It appeared that [the terrorists] would have young women, who became pregnant, would get them into the United States to have a baby. And then they would turn back where they could be raised and coddled as future terrorists. Twenty, thirty years down the road, they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life—U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert (Republican), Texas 1st Congressional District

There…feel better now?

More Headlines We’d Like to See

Can’t a blogger dream?

Ted Cruz praises Obamacare, Demands Investigation into Russian Hacking, Endorses Trump Impeachment “I realized, golly, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow,” says the senator. “This Texan doesn’t want to spend the Hereafter sharing an overheated dorm room with the Combover from Queens!”

Watching “Call My Agent” on Netflix While Eating Caramel Corn and Drinking Lager Beer Prevents COVID, Study Finds “We don’t know why it works, but it works,” states Dr. Fauci, who cautions, “but watching Disney+ makes it worse”

High Rate of Attempted Suicide Among Recent Presidential Medals of Freedom Medals awarded to Rush Limbaugh, Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan try to hang themselves by their own ribbons; express shame, embarrassment

Super Bowl Played With No Fans In Stadium Or watching on TV

Mysterious Illness Attacks COVID Deniers

California Approves Vaccine with Hemp Oil Additive Shot leaves patients immune to COVID and negativity

White Supremacists Face Financial Crisis Mom wants to know why Kyle is using her credit card to get stupid Army stuff

Trump Convicted in Senate by Vote of 2000-0 Every senator who ever served, dead or alive, makes effort to appear in person

 ‘Q’ to Followers: April Fool! Adds, ‘Wait, you didn’t actually believe that crap, did you?’

After Fixing Climate Change, Income Inequality, Virus, and Police Brutality, Biden to Address Secondary Issues Vows to make flying “coach” comfy again

Congress Outlaws Production, Sale, Ownership of Handguns They’re used to shoot people, study finds

On Portrait of a Lady on Fire

There’s a certain kind of movie that I love, which I’ll try to describe here. It tells a simple but intriguing story, and tells it well, with an absence of sentimentality. It’s quiet: there’s little or no background music to tell us when to feel afraid, when to feel amused, when to feel pensive. Background music tends to appear only between scenes, as if to comment rather than explain. There is an absence of expository dialogue, so sometimes we’re confused on what is happening, a confusion which sometimes gets resolved, and sometimes never does. The director has the confidence to let the camera tell the story, or, more accurately, to skillfully contrive the illusion that the camera is telling the story. Or to put it yet another way (and why not—blog space is free) we have the illusion that the story is telling itself while we’re there, rather than having it shoved in our eyes and ears. Another aspect of these films is that they tend to be visually beautiful.  

Some recent examples: Alfonso Cuarón’s stunning Roma (though I don’t buy the feminist-solidarity-conquers-class-inequality ending, and could do without the group hug on the beach, a made-for-TV moment). Martin Scorcese’s Silence. And now, Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

The story: A painter, a young woman, is taken on a frail rowboat to a rugged island off the coast of France (we’re not told where exactly, but it looks cold and Atlanticky, not warm and Mediterraneany). She has been hired by an impoverished aristocratic Italian widow to paint her daughter’s portrait. The daughter, who has been pulled out of a convent where she has been relatively happy, is to be married to a wealthy Milanese nobleman. The marriage will bring material comfort to mother and daughter, and fulfill the mother’s dream of returning to sunny Italy. But the man in Milan demands to see a portrait before he commits, and the young lady refuses to sit for one. The painter is to pretend that she’s simply the lady’s companion, taking every opportunity to gaze at her ward’s face, while working on the portrait from memory, at night.

That’s the setup, but it doesn’t begin to convey the spare, delicate way the story is told, or the depth of its characters, which is conveyed largely through looks and gestures. To give just one example, at the start of the film, we are with the young painter as she sits in the rowboat. Our perspective is gunwale-level, we are rocking violently, though the rowers don’t seem particularly anxious. We don’t yet know who the woman is or where she is going. As the boat lurches, the large wooden box the she is holding slips out of her hands into the water. The rowers keep rowing. The woman stands up and jumps into the sea to retrieve the box. That’s it: no hammering music, no shouts of, “Stop! I cannot part with my box!” We’re told just what we need to be told: this woman is fearless, and the crate contains something she cannot do without. Only later, when she is on shore and pries open the box, do we see that it contains pristine white canvasses, soaked in saltwater but still usable.

And the movie is visually gorgeous. You could freeze just about any frame of any scene at any moment, and you would have a marvelous painting. Which reminds me: another pleasure of this very painterly film is how we see the painting itself develop. And the more accurately the painter represents the beauty of her subject, the more she seals that subject’s doom in an arranged marriage.

The story is told, and the dilemmas are, if not exactly resolved, at least firmly dealt with, with no narrative cop-outs, no deus-ex-machina in the form of, say, an unexpected inheritance falling from the sky, or the scriptwriter’s pen, to make everything OK. But the attentive viewer will be rewarded with a couple of ingenious and (for me at least) satisfying clues on How Things Turn Out.

It’s simply a great experience to see a movie like this, a story well and confidently told, without the pawprints of a marketing-minded producer all over the finished product. I hope we get to see more like it.

Are You Getting Old?

10 unmistakable signs of aging

  1. Your idea of a fun drive is one without any unprotected left turns.


2. People think you’re growing ‘absent minded’ when really you just don’t care about the trivial shit any more. Like what day it is. Does it really matter whether we agree to call this ‘Tuesday’ or ‘Wednesday’? It’s all today.


3. You don’t judge your neighbors for having a lawn sign for candidate A or candidate B. You judge them on whether or not they bring you cookies on holidays or let their dog crap on your yard.

4. When you get yourself something nice, you don’t ask yourself how long you’ll use it. You ask yourself who will grab it ‘after’.


5. You don’t diss the music people listen to now. In fact you look up the songs you like on YouTube so you can get the words.


6. You give up trying to figure out wine, and just settle on that $10 Rioja that’s always good enough.


7. You go ahead and have a nice steak and fries for dinner. The salads of youth were suffered to afford you this moment.


8. You start to realize that you’re not really getting older and wiser. It’s the rest of the world that’s getting younger and stupider.

9. You watch foreign movies with the captions turned on. And also the domestic ones.


10. You haven’t made any new friends since First Clinton. And that’s OK.

Our Letter from Donald Trump to Joe Biden

Teacher Created Resources Classroom Decorations #TCR8764

Michelle and I wish you and Melania the very best as you embark on this great adventure, and know that we stand ready to help in any ways which we can.–Barack Obama, in a letter to Donald Trump on Inauguration Day 2016

The 32-year tradition is in peril this year. President Donald Trump has refused to accept the results of November’s election and vowed not to attend Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday. That makes it doubtful Trump will leave behind any handwritten, friendly advice for Biden.–The Associated Press, 1/18/21

Editor’s note: as an aid to healing the nation and closing the divide, we provide here a letter from Donald Trump to the 46th President of the United States, Joseph Biden.

Dear President Biden,

I should apologize for being such a dick towards you for the past few months. But as you know if you’ve read my niece’s wonderful book I’m a pathologically insecure human being incapable of apologizing to anyone since I equate admission of guilt with being a loser. That’s not my fault—I was raised by an emotionally abusive father who ridiculed any sign of perceived weakness and rewarded aggressive, domineering behavior as long as it succeeded. So it’s just who I am.

It was fun while it lasted. I’m going to miss the rallies. But I’m ready to move on now and finish my life as a sour resentful fat old white man of enormous wealth. Or at least loads of credit, still, I hope. If you can put in a good word for me with Deutsche Bank I’d appreciate it. They haven’t been returning my calls lately.

Hey, good luck with the whole Corona-virus deal. My strategy was to both pretend it was all made up and blame it on the Chinese.  I think it worked out pretty well but you may have other ideas.

I won’t beg you for a pardon in the name of healing, unity, closure, etc., since that would make me look weak. But, you know, hint hint!

Look me up if you’re ever down in Florida. I might be able to get you a deal on the green fees at Mar-A-Lago.

If you run into Mike Pence say hi and tell him I was just kidding when I called him a pussy for accepting the election results. I wasn’t kidding though.  Also, if you hear from Mel…she headed back to Slovenia already and I just want to make sure she’s OK. Or if you just want to hang out some time. We can knock back some diet Cokes and talk about all the losers who don’t appreciate everything we’ve done for them like what a beautiful wall.

Sincerely, Donald John Trump

P.S. I left a little present for you in the bottom left drawer of the Resolution Desk. You might want to have one of your Secret Service guys open it, lol!

P.P.S. Is it OK if I use your Twitter account for a while?

N.R.A. Go Home

NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre said the organization is "breaking free from the toxic political environment of New York."

An open letter to the National Rifle Association

Editor’s note: the Garden of Eaton exists somewhere in the Great and Sovereign State of Texas, somewhere between Laredo and Lubbock, Big Bend and Beaumont.

Dear National Rifle Association,

It has lately come to our attention that you intend to declare bankruptcy, call the moving van, load it up with the coffee table, the assault rifles, the lawyers, and any remaining dough, leave New York, and head down here to our beloved state of Texas, where, Lipton-onion-soup-like, you would reconstitute yourself. Oh, we would love to have you, N.R.A. But stay where you are! Don’t move or we’ll shoot!

Just kidding, N.R.A. But seriously, you don’t want to come to Texas. It isn’t safe!

Did you know, N.R.A., that according to the Centers for Disease Control, Texas had a per-capita rate of death by handgun of 12.7 for every 100,000 people in 2019? We may not be the worst—god forbid you should move to Mississippi (24.2). But New York’s rate per 100k is only 3.9. So just by moving to Texas you would be more than tripling the chance that you will get blown away by one of our good citizens packing heat. Why would you want to expose yourself or your loved ones to that risk? Stay where you are…it’s so much safer!

Because we just love our guns down here. According to worldpopulationreview.com, more than a third of every man, woman and little baby in this state own at least one firearm.

At least we’re not Alaska, where two thirds of the population packs heat. But then, we don’t have to worry about wolves and polar bears in our front yard, either!

But in New York, only ten percent of the citizens have a gun!

So what’s wrong with you, N.R.A.? Do you have a death wish?

Don’t get the wrong idea, N.R.A. We greatly appreciate all you have done for us! Thanks to you and your political activism for liberty on behalf of gun freaks, we’re swamped with deadly weapons, with all the convenience of weekend gun shows at the convention center and none of the bother of background checks. Thank you for protecting our 2nd Amendment right to blow each other away without interference from pesky liberals and grieving moms!

But why would you want to leave safe New York for the deadly streets of Texas?

We know you don’t like those pesky lawsuits you’re facing in New York over “spending millions of dollars from the non-profit […] on lavish trips, meals and other treats.” But lawsuits don’t kill…bullets do!

So keep your goddamn lawyers, guns and money out of Texas. Thank you!

On the Recent Coup Attempt

What the hell just happened?

Did an angry, screaming mob really take over the U.S. Capitol building, at the very moment Congress was in the act of officially recognizing the recent election of a new president?

And did that mob move on the Capitol immediately following incendiary speeches from the current president, who told them at a nearby rally, that “we’re not going to take it anymore!” and, “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore?” And did that president’s personal lawyer really tell that same crowd to engage in “trial by combat?”

And did the president happily watch the carnage unfold as it streamed live on his television, while his lawyer attempted to phone one of those legislators now hiding in fear for his life, to ask him to delay the certification of the election?

And did members of that mob, which included an Olympic gold medal athlete, a retired U.S.A.F. lieutenant colonel, and a West Virginia state legislator, actually try to hunt down specific members of Congress, as well as the president’s loyal vice president?

Did members of that mob parade down the halls of the capitol building proudly waving the Confederate flag, the battle flag of the enemy in this nation’s bloodiest war, an enemy enlisted in the cause of slavery?

And did a policeman defending the capitol die after having his skull bashed in by a protester swinging a fire extinguisher?

And was a young woman (another Air Force veteran) shot and killed trying to lead a howling gang through a locked door into the deepest recesses of the capitol, behind the chamber of the House of Representatives?

And did all this happen in the middle of the plague year?

Yes, all of this happened…and more. Human waste was deliberately smeared along the hallways of the Capitol. In case we didn’t know whose side the “demonstrators” were on, one of them waved an enormous flag that stated simply, “Fuck Joe Biden.” Vandals posted gleeful selfies of themselves with their combat boots on legislators’ desks, or walking out with stolen souvenirs.

What are we to think of it? How are we to feel about it? What should we do about it? Was this, like the Whiskey Rebellion, just a pothole, however deep and jarring, on the long and still unbroken path of democracy—or is this the start of a long and painful Time of Troubles, or worse, like the burning of the Reichstag was in the Weimar republic? The answer, of course, is up to us.

I believe that day, January 6th, 2021, will endure in history books and in our collective memory as a watershed moment, more disturbing even than 9/11. The Al Qaeda attackers were never going to bring down our government—not directly, though they did their part in giving rise to the xenophobic component of our current rightwing paranoia. But what foreign terrorists could not accomplish, domestic ones can. One doesn’t need to look too far abroad or into the past to see functioning democracies destroyed from within. And on 1/6/21 we got a glimpse of what that would look like, here.

And yet life (and death) goes on. Restaurants are (half) open, streets are full of traffic, Netflix is streaming, people are still catching COVID and dying from it, and in record numbers. Walking around the streets of my town (Austin), you wouldn’t know that this country just dodged an existential threat to its existence.

And even in Washington, our elected representatives are apparently divided between those who, like me, are outraged, and a nearly equal number who live in an alternate universe where it is our president who is a victim—of a leftwing political and media attack. As Representative Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) shrieked during the House impeachment debate, “Where’s the accountability for the left after encouraging and normalizing violence?” Apparently even the experience of having to cower in an “undisclosed location” as thugs trash your office building isn’t enough to change one’s opinion of the righteousness of Donald Trump. This does not bode well for the near future.

No one has a crystal ball. But as a nation we have to decide whether that funny little lump under our armpit is no big deal or whether we need to go see the doctor immediately. I’m voting for the latter. It doesn’t get more serious than this.

I’m looking forward to finding out more about what really happened, and didn’t happen, before and during January 6. Did some members of the Capitol police and even U.S. Congressmen give guided tours of the building to fanatics in preparation for the assault? Why were so many signs, especially on social media, overlooked or ignored? Why did it take so long for help to arrive? And what are we going to do about it? (My elected representative, Mike McCaul, R-Texas, chose to do nothing, voting against impeachment.)

We must impeach this traitorous president, in or out of office. If, like Bill Clinton, he was guilty of nothing more than lying about a little extra-marital hanky panky in a West Wing hallway, I would support letting it go in the name of weasel words like “unity” or “healing.” But this president’s crime is too serious.

We need to find and prosecute those who broke into the capitol, those who conspired to break into the capitol, and those who enabled them.

We need to vote, and fight to make voting more accessible to everyone.

And we need to continue to express the truth: that the election was legitimate and fraud-free. That our president and his cohorts helped to spread the lie that it wasn’t. That COVID is real and is killing people. That masks help to prevent it and vaccines will stop it. That the planet has gotten dangerously hot and that we have some control over how much worse it will get.

It’s going to be a long, tough slog. We are opposed by an American subculture that doesn’t simply disbelieve legitimate journalists and scientists. We have to deal with people who distrust the very professions of journalism and science and who believe they are intrinsically corrupt. People who are dosed with generous helpings of racism, xenophobia and nativism. All we can do about that is to continue to speak the truth, pursue the criminals, and treat our neighbors—all of them—with love and kindness.

11 Book Proposals for the New Year

Toilet Paper Treehouses and Fruit Cocktail Casseroles: great ideas for using your COVID hoard

Six Days in January: the story of the Mike Pence presidency

No Golf Course in Leavenworth?!—a collection of Donald Trump’s greatest prison tweets

Look Man, Here’s the Deal: Joe Biden’s secrets to great speechwriting

A Very Short Book: Rudy Giuliani’s business and political career after 2020

The Stupidest Man in the Room…Any Room: a portrait of Louie Gohmert, Congressman from Texas

Why Does Everyone Hate Me? the story of Ted Cruz’s search for a clue

We All Have Better Things to Do: Jill Biden’s guide to decorating your home for the holidays

It Wasn’t My Fault: essays by Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr, Ken Paxton, Josh Hawley and others on the events of January 6, 2021

It’s Your House…So Take a Dump All Over It! the official MAGA guide to our nation’s capitol building

Do I Have to Take Off the Mask? A compulsive’s guide to dealing with the post-COVID world

50 Shades of Post-COVID

I’m sitting outside on the restaurant patio because it’s a warm day…not because I have to. The waiter brings me a platter of hot, crispy calamari and fresh lemon wedges…on a real plate. And a pint glass of wheat beer, beads of condensation running down the sides of the chilled glass. Oh my God. Oh. My. God.

The waiter smiles and asks me if I “need anything else.” I look up at his face. Something is wrong…but why do I feel a bolt of delectable electricity running up my spine? And then it hits me…his face is completely, utterly naked…and so is mine. And we’re only four feet apart!

After lunch I go to a movie. The story is dumb but who cares…it’s been so long since I’ve experienced a big screen, a really big screen…. Someone in the row behind me coughs. I start to panic but I tell myself…Relax. It’s all part of the experience….

As I leave the theater I hear someone call my name…a friend I haven’t seen since March 2020. We start to bump elbows but then something happens. He holds out his hand. What should I do? What do I want to do? My hand grasps his for a warm, firm handshake. Have I gone too far?

On the way home I stop by the grocery store. I have a new, uninhibited, unrestrained sense of myself. I gaze at the fruit. And the vegetables. And the meat. And the cheeses, all of the cheeses. The soft, smelly ones from France and the hard ones from Italy and yes even the tasteless ones from Wisconsin. I am standing in the middle of the aisle and getting in people’s way but I take my time. This is for me. I will not be hurried.

Later on at home an acquaintance texts me and asks me if I want to join her Zoom. No, I say, no. I will meet you for lunch or coffee or dessert or just a walk in the park but I will not Zoom again with you or anyone else. That part of my life is over.