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| Image: Facebook |
Today former President Donald Trump issued a statement recognizing his wife Melania and Casper the Friendly Ghost as masters of invisibility.
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| Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay |
I can't say whether my friend was engaged in calculated matchmaking, but when I departed several hours later, Mary whispered to me at the door, "She's cute, isn't she?"
Being set up has never worked well for me. However, as I drove home I decided it's a sign of progress that these days our straight friends are as hot to make a mess of our love lives as our queer friends.
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| Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay |
Politico notes, "The investment underscores the degree to which the white evangelical community has allied itself with Trump, even as he faces a forthcoming trial on charges stemming from hush money payments to a porn actress."
Faith & Freedom will be laying out $10 million more than it did four years ago. But that's not really surprising. Inflation has raised the price of everything—including hypocrisy.
Image by Robin Higgins from Pixabay
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they’re okay, then it’s you.
Rita Mae Brown
Source: Reader's Digest
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| Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay |
Sure enough, PBS brought me a story about a major survey that found support for LGBTQ rights has, for the first time, gone down in the U.S.
Note to self: must avoid the Sunday news if I don't want to start the week depressed. Or bitchy.
The Public Religion Research Institute interviewed over 22,000 adults in 2023, and found that support for same-sex marriage dropped two percentage points, and backing for non-discrimination protections dropped four points.
The CEO of the Institute said the downward tick surprised them. I can't say it surprised me, not with all the anti-LGBTQ legislation hovering about, but it was still hard to hear. I had to watch comedy for the rest of the evening to compensate.
The drop, said the CEO, was "largely driven by party polarization." She noted that her team "saw much deeper declines, for example, among Republicans in terms of their support for these issues, whereas Democrats tended to stay relatively stable."
This would be the moment to crack that Democrats are always more stable, but I won't.
She continued, "And I think what's happening is that you see many Republican leaders in red states, really trying to amp up the volume, so to speak on LGBTQ rights, and really trying to claw back some of those rights across the country."
And really being complete assholes.
The CEO finished, "And I think that's had a spillover effect nationally in terms of the attitudes of Republicans, especially on issues with respect to LGBT rights."
The red states have floated a cloud of bigotry across the country that other Republicans are getting high on. I never thought I'd write these words, but it's a shame Nancy Reagan isn't around to urge people to Just Say No.
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| Image: Facebook |
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| Image by Raquel Candia from Pixabay |
Meanwhile, the office of Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed the agreement is "a major win against the activists who sought to stop Florida's efforts to keep radical gender and sexual ideology out of the classrooms."
Both sides triumphed? I guess the title of the most magical place on earth has shifted from Disney World to Tallahassee.
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| Image: Facebook |
"My God," I blurted at the TV. "How did he get past security?"
Well, it turns out that even though the openly gay and remarkably deplorable Republican was expelled by the House, he was still allowed to attend the speech. Which he did, because he's a publicity whore.
It took me a while to recover. In fact, I didn't regain my equilibrium until after Biden had finished, when I was listening to political pundits on the "PBS NewsHour." It dawned on me that two of the three talking heads were openly gay.
Apparently, in my clearly tired brain, two esteemed political analysts cancel out one political toadstool.
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| Image: Facebook |
When Apayauq Reitan competed in Alaska's grueling Iditarod sled dog race two years ago, a transgender pride flag billowed from her sled. Reitan, who is Norwegian and Iñupiaq, was 24 at the time. A short documentary called "Apayauq" captures her experience and her emotions as the Iditarod's first out trans woman musher.
The film is well worth seeing. Though I do wish they'd interviewed the dogs.
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| Image: Facebook |
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| Image by Lisette Brodey from Pixabay |
According to The Washington Post, Trump offered 30,573 false or misleading claims during his term as president. That's an average of about 21 lies a day. Who does anything 21 times a day? That shows a real commitment.
The numbers ballooned over time. In his first year in office, Trump averaged about six falsies a day, and 16 in his sophomore year. In year three he reached 22 claims a day, and in his final year, when he was desperately seeking re-election, he achieved the pinnacle of 39 lies a day.
I remember marveling at the time that all that lying didn't appear to cause profound internal dissonance. It seemed to me he was due for at least an ulcer. Or for random parts of his body just to fall off.
I have to assume he has no conscience and so felt no dissonance. The untruths were merely a means to an end.
By the time Trump's fabrications had reached the stratosphere, he knew he could get away with it. His followers didn't care, the press had missed its chance to hold him accountable and Republican politicos had already gone remarkably deaf.
Now he's still at it, fibbing at a clip that would make Pinocchio jealous. Trump is such a fabricator that if he were suddenly to start telling the truth we'd see a mass fainting event from sea to shining sea.
