Political dichotomy du jour

We just turned on the TV to have a look at what’s going on in Milwaukee.  In the foreground, Chris Hayes and Alex Wagner of MSNBC were engaged in a lengthy regurgitation of every single twist, turn, and corner in the ongoing drama about Joe Biden and what he means to the rest of the Democratic ticket.

In the background, Donald Trump’s Nuremberg rally was in full swing.  Peter Navarro, convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before the Jan. 6 Committee, had been released from prison and had made his way to Milwaukee – no doubt on some billionaire’s private jet – and had just finished giving a completely unhinged rant to his adoring MAGA masses.  The man who coined the phrase “Green Bay sweep” to describe the Republican criminal attempt to insert slates of fake electors into the certification of electoral ballots -- that took place in the middle of the night because of the attempted insurrection at the Capitol earlier in the day – told lie after lie after lie and bragged about the prison MAGA tattoo he had had some convict smear-jab into his skin.  He told the cheering throng that “Joe Biden and his Department of Justice put me there,” referring to the minimum-security Florida prison from which he had just been released.  Joe Biden had nothing to do with the subpoena the Jan. 6 Committee had issued to Navarro, his refusal of which had gotten the House of Representatives to vote a criminal referral for contempt of Congress to the DOJ, which as it has in the past, prosecuted him for the offense.  Raising the Republican Convention’s main anti-immigration theme, Navarro said, “Eric Holder and Alejandro Mayorkas...have actually gotten people killed for decades.”  Another outright, outrageous lie.  He said the Biden administration’s green energy initiatives are “destroying our industry,” another lie, especially when you consider that oil drilling in this country is at an all-time high under Biden.

On and on and on went Navarro’s fact-free rant, a warm-up for tonight’s keynote speaker, J.D. Vance, Trump’s pick as his vice-presidential running mate.  Vance will doubtlessly get up there and, without naming him, give a ringing endorsement to Vladimir Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine.  Vance opposes U.S. funding of Ukraine while simultaneously taking the position that Ukraine should end the war by accepting Russia’s conditions for a ceasefire.  And J.D. Vance is one of the most, if not the most, anti-abortion Republicans on the planet.  He is in favor of a national ban on abortions and is against exceptions that would allow abortions in cases of rape and incest.  “It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term,” Vance told Spectrum News in 2021.  “It’s whether a child should be allowed to live, even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to the society. The question to me is really about the baby. We want women to have opportunities, we want women to have choices, but, above all, we want women and young boys in the womb to have a right to life.” 

That one is sure to get a cheer from the crowd in Nuremberg…ooops, I mean Milwaukee…tonight.

Meanwhile, Democrats are speculating to the point of frothing over what Chuck Schumer said to President Biden last Saturday when they met privately in the White House.  Schumer was said to have given Biden polling data that shows Democrats will lose both the House and the Senate if Biden is on the ballot come November.

I have some personal polling right here showing that the Republican Party will nominate an out-and-out fascist, rapist, and convicted felon tomorrow night and do so happily.  Maybe the talking heads at MSNBC should try talking about that for a change.