Looks like it’s the Republicans turn to have a member openly suffering the slings and arrows of age or, perhaps, some other damage. Have you seen the video of Mitch McConnell just…stopping? He was in the middle of a sentence. He got to an “uh…” and then just…blanked out. He stops talking, stares off into the distance, and doesn’t move. Finally he’s ushered off by his colleagues. (He came back a bit later and declared himself “fine” with no further details…)

This is one of the problems with our rigged system. These guys just stay…and stay…and stay. The rest of the members cover for one of their own so they get to KEEP staying, too. Strom Thurmond was something like 100 years old before he decided to step aside. Diane Feinstein doesn’t even seem to know which state (or district) she’s in from time to time but she still gets to decide on matters of national importance and only she can decide on when she’s too far gone to trust her own judgement? But what if she’s SO far gone she shouldn’t trust her own judgement? Now Mitch the Bitch is just…blanking out. But he’ll get to decide how long is too long as well. Even if he can’t remember what he was…uh…

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Floriduh, of course. This has GOT to be intentional, doesn’t it? These guys MUST be sitting in a small, dark, smokey room somewhere working to come up with the most stupid possible position on just about every subject. The latest I’ve heard (so far) is their recent adoption of a curriculum item that teaches children in Floriduh that slaves gained “personal benefits” from their condition of servitude. You see, as slaves, they “developed skills” they could use for their own “personal benefit.”

This is one of those cover stories racists like to float from time to time. It’s a classic case of trying to put lipstick on a pig. I’ve also heard that those “lucky” slaves got “free clothes” and “free housing.” I’d bet at any time any enslaved person would have traded their “free clothes” and “free housing” for some real freedom, given a choice, which, of course, they weren’t.

I don’t really understand the end game to the stories. Certainly, they’re not going to bring back slavery no matter how much they want to. (And they DO still want to, make no mistake.) Are they just trying to assuage their guilt for having participated in the first place? That can’t be right. They’d have to feel guilty in the first place. Ah, reputation repair, America’s national pastime. “Yeah, we did it. We’d do it again, too. We just don’t want to be judged for it.”
“Well, why not just acknowledge it, maybe apologize, and learn from it?”
“What do WE have to apologize for? Slaves had it great. *I* should be so lucky. THEY should apologize to US for rejecting our generosity.”
“But you don’t want to be judged for it…”
“Well, not unfairly!”
“Fear not. The vast majority of us, I think, judge bigots QUITE fairly…”

So now Floriduh’s children will be taught that slavery – if indeed it actually happened at all – was a lovely and benign institution that served both master and slave well and benefited the slaves in ways most people don’t even know about. Yet another conservative GIANT step backwards.

From a reputational point of view, Floriduh really can’t afford this. Based on news stories that come out of Floriduh on a regular, kind of startling, basis, the state seems to be struggling – a lot – with, you know, mental competence. How the hell is teaching children wrong information in school supposed to combat THAT problem?

Here’s a key to understanding how YOU can know when the bigots are lying: I’ve never heard ONE of these guys seeking to become a slave because of how awesome the “institution” was and I’m sure I never will…