Where We've Been and Where Are We Going?

The Schloss-Blog, in this first post of February, wants to stop a moment, catch its breath, see where we've been in January and where we might be going in February.

It's not pretty.

Just to get this out of the way, how come New England didn't make the playoffs but I still have to watch Brady play in the Super Bowl?

Anyway, legislatures in Arizona, Georgia and other "battleground" states, with legal maneuvers exhausted to overturn the election, are trying to pass legislation that would enable their respective legislatures to simply overturn certified vote results before their governors sign off on them or else limit the number of ballot boxes at which to drop off absentee ballots.

If you live in one of those states, it could impact you. It will definitely impact minority populations who rely on the faith of the legislatures to protect the integrity of their votes or on the numerous ballot box locations at which to drop off their votes.

In other words, these are attempts at racism.

I heard brilliant journalist Matthew Dowd profoundly state that it took 100 years after Lincoln declared freedom for the slaves in the United States to back it up with the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, respectively.

One-hundred years! Crazy.

Yet, here we are today watching state legislatures coast to coast try to negate and/or deny those rights again, and again and again.

Earlier, I said Republicans had exhausted all "legal" avenues. But not all avenues. On Jan. 6, President Trump dispatched the minions he'd fired up for many months to invade and sack the Capitol while Congress was finishing the job of certifying the national electoral vote count.

If they'd found Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Nancy Pelosi and/or Mike Pence, they would've killed them, KILLED THEM, their declarations to do so captured on video. Trump spent months, not 20 minutes addressing them from behind a podium, to get them to go do this.

He needs to be locked up, not just convicted.

One-hundred years! Did I mention 100 years?

Meanwhile, in Palm Beach, Trump and family are now at odds with their neighbors, who insist there is a 1993 agreement to never use the Mar-a-Lago property as a residence. In other words, Donald, get the f-ck out of here, although for now, he's there to stay. For a while.

We saw 140 Republican congressmen and 5 Republican senators vote to overturn the election results anyway, despite the certified condition in which they were delivered to them from the states and despite the fact all their lives were at risk as they performed this task on Jan. 6. May they meet up in Hell with these Qanon and Proud Boy insurrectionists and answer to them there, in the eternal afterlife.

Guess what, there's more. We saw the emergence of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Qanon believer, 9/11-, Sandy Hook- and Parkland-denier, as the face of the Republican Party. She even called JFK Jr's death a "Clinton" assassination and said wildfires on the West Coast were caused by lasers from space fired by Jews. Hey Marji, if Jews had that, you and Iran would be gone.

And her boss, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, backed down to her because she had Trump's favor thanks to her calls for violence and even assassination of the Democratic politicians to whom she objected.

Yet, people in Georgia elected her to Congress to represent their district. Sick, sick racists.

Fortunately, the rest of the House, plus 11 dedicated Republicans, decided to take the racist bitch off of her committee assignments.

While Republicans embraced her, they moved to disavow Liz Cheney, the Wyoming congresswoman and No. 3 operative in the Republican caucus in the House, because she voted to impeach. She's also the former vice-president's daughter, in case you're wondering if her name sounds familiar.

(Quick comedic aside: I have a dear friend with whom, a couple years ago, I was having coffee at a local Starbucks in Arizona, which reminded her of the last time she was there. She spotted a gentleman who looked familiar, minding his own business, and approached him, inquiring if they'd ever been on a 'match.com' date. "No," he replied, "but I used to be your vice-president.")

Back to business, sorry. While all of the above rages on, so does the pandemic. Taking more and more lives (we'll be at a half-million soon) and sickening more and more people, leaving them with serious endurance, lung-capacity, heart and strength aftereffects. People I know who have had it have told me so. You ever feel like that? Maybe you had it already too.

However, now, thanks to the Trump administration, vaccine supply and distribution has reached the point that for most of us, receiving an injection is a competitive sport.

But Congress can't reach an agreement on how to help the American people survive the pandemic and its ravaging economic impact.

I'll tell them how: people's lives are at stake so you do whatever it takes rather than debate about it, you f-cking idiots.

The one thing I have realized through all this: Republicans, thanks to Trump and just like Trump, don't care if you die. As long as they're in charge.

In which case, we're dead already.

Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.

More Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix show.