The Art of Hypocrisy

“The most ominous danger we face comes from the marginalization and destruction of institutions, including the courts, academia, legislative bodies, cultural organizations and the press, that once ensured that civil discourse was rooted in reality and fact, helped us distinguish lies from truth and facilitated justice.” Chris Hedges

The mendacious Orange Menace and his GOP sycophants lose their shit every week over the Mueller investigation and how long it is taking, when, by the standard of how complex investigations go before any conclusion is reached, it’s moving along fairly fast. All politicians are hypocrites, when you come down to it -- lambasting others for doing the same crap they do -- but Republicans have made hypocrisy into something of an art form. When the GOP devoted endless hearings into the Benghazi affair, time wasn’t a problem at all, nor was plowing over the same patch of ground again and again. Whatever it took to paint Hillary Clinton in a negative hue.

Newt Gingrich is one of the great political hypocrites of all time. Back when Newt was laying his Contract with America on America, the Congress he bossed launched an investigation into a land deal in Arkansas, Whitewater, involving Bill and Hillary Clinton. That little exercise in political vindictiveness went on for nearly 6 years, damn near the entirety of Clinton’s presidency. Talk about a “witch hunt,” and all over a failed real estate deal. Gingrich was certain that Whitewater was the Crime of the Century. It wasn’t, any more than Clinton lying about a blow-job. So, calm down motherfuckers. Muller’s investigation seems a tad more important, and it’s obvious that Trump is worried about it because he has intensified his Twitter attacks on Muller and the press.

Short Takes:

-I saw the film Blindspotting last weekend. Written by Daveed Diggs of Hamilton fame, and Rafael Casal, Blindspotting is a hip, funny, moving, and sometimes violent story of two friends, one white, one black, trying to survive in Oakland, California, which is being invaded and gentrified by pale hipsters with money. A complication is that Colin, the character played by Diggs, is serving his final three days of probation in a halfway house and he can’t afford to make a single misstep. Left to his own devices, Colin could pass the three days fairly easily, but with a volatile friend like Miles, played to perfection by Casal, it’s like walking on a hire-wire, which only gets worse when Colin witnesses a police officer shoot an unarmed black man late one night. We don’t learn the crime that put Colin in jail until well into the film, but it was violent and involved Miles, and Colin bore his friend’s weight, a fact which cost Colin, not only his liberty but also his relationship with his girlfriend, Valerie. I found Blindspotting to be fresh, different, real and timely.

-Isn’t it odd that Donald J. Trump, thrice-married, serial adulterer, habitual liar, draft dodger, tax evader and general degenerate lowlife is the darling of the religious right? It’s another con, of course, based in Trump’s white nationalism and embodied by Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, who is freaked out that white Christians will be prevented from discriminating against gays, LGTBQ people, and people of various shades of brown in the name of religion, than he is of these historically marginalized groups gaining any kind of foothold in our society.

-When I drove into the parking lot where my doctor’s office is located the attendant, a white male of middle-age, was listening to Rush Limbaugh, and I heard Trump’s voice, talking about “our movement” and at first I wondered what movement The Orange Menace was referring to, but then I realized he meant the white supremacy, put-people-of-color-back-in-their-places, blame-all-our-problems-on-immigrants movement. The Make America White Again movement.

-The annual Fiesta has begun here in parched, hot, Fat City, also known as Santa Barbara, five days of revelry, Flamenco dancing, parades, tequila and Corona, cascarones, tacos, tortas, and churros, the most blatant, commercial kitsch; as always, the differences between Spain and Mexico will be deliberately blurred. Five of us strolled along a few blocks of State Street last night, on sidewalks crowded with tables laden with crates of cascarones, sellers sprawled on folding chairs; the sidewalks and gutters were already heavy with multi-colored confetti. The City had positioned generator-powered lighting towers in the middle of two different blocks, to keep the homeless from sleeping on the sidewalks or to make tourists feel safer, I wasn’t sure which, and the light cast was harsh and obnoxious. We went to Joe’s for a drink and something to eat. The bar was packed and a few minutes after we sat down a mariachi band arrived and played a few songs. Some of the patrons sang along.