Mark Alexander
You're a bad man. You're a very bad man!
Irreverent, independent, and often snarky partnered married gay boomer and doggie dad who is tired of moral pontification by hypocritical conservative assholes and hate filled religious bigots.
Based on some recent incidents, let me reiterate: If you are the owner of a photo that appears on this site and wish it removed, you don't need to get all legal and send threatening letters and takedown notices; just email me with the photo's URL or leave a comment on the offending post and I will gladly remove it.
In other words…
Retirement
(That's actual number of calendar days. It's a whole lot less if you remove weekends and holidays. And even less than that if you calculate the actual number of days I have to come into the office!)
http://www.ricksteves.com, then "fascism" in the search window. Lots of segments in there, many from as far back as 2018.
Rick Steves, a tour guide to Europe, who has done many trips to Europe and abroad, whose shows air on KERA-TV in DFW, has a program on Fascism. His words were very carefully pointed regarding how the European countries fell into fascism, which resulted in our involvement in World War II. As he noted, charismatic leaders get elected and then alter the constitution to take control, after which personal rights diminish or disappear. When that happens, he related that the citizens look around and wonder "How did this happen?" After getting democratically elected, the charismatic leaders then get total control. After all, they might claim, "The PEOPLE voted us in, so we are doing the will of the people." How many time has that been implied after Republican victories in the past decade? Before their respective legislatures (state and federal) start to pass laws "to their liking" and the, in many cases, the general detriment of the complete populace they now represent. As if they ONLY represent Republicans (or others who voted for them) and not everybody in the country.
Mr. Steves was very clear about how fascists will chip away at democracy, bit by bir, until it is goine. Interesting that this aired when it did, although it was on a pledge drive weekend.
Trump's operatives and followers will seek to ignore the hearings as they perceive they are not legitimate or "rigged against Trump by sore losers", who were actually winners. As they also indicate how much they really do NOT know about the constitution or how a democracy works, including Trump himself. As if they slept or day dreamed all the way through high school government and American History! Dull and boring classes they'd never need later, but now they are running the government! The Peter Principle at its best!
Hopefully, though, the many undecideds and skeptics did watch enough to see that everything depicted was very real and that Trump was a very sore loser, enough so that he orchestrated/motivated that whole 01/06 situation. He said he would be at the capitol with all of those at the rally, but ducked-out and went to the White House instead. Would that little discrepancy be more "disinformation" on his part?
On the other hand, what were the insurraction participants really thinking? WHY would they spend $$$$ to get to DC and attend a rally to support Trump? What would be their ultimate "gain" from all of this? Something to tell their grandkids about? "How I Led the USA into Fascism Because Donald J. Trump Wanted ME to" . As the grandkids wondered "Why?"
But we all know how both of the Impeachment Proceedings against Trump went. Hopefully, the USA citizens MIGHT understand that Trump does not need to be President again! We can only Hope and VOTE to make sure he is a "2-Time Loser".