The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for November, 2021

Two weeks have passed since I bestowed the Right-Cheek award for November on the Democratic Party. That choice, given the circumstances, was easy to make. But such has been the level of monumental ass clownery over the ensuing fortnight that I have been driven to despair by the Sisyphean challenge of singling out a single Left-Cheek awardee, be it an individual or a group. Here were just a few of the possibilities:

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, for his heartlessly brutal use of desperate refugees as weapons against the European Union;

Arizona Representative Paul Gosar (who won an Ass Clown Special Award in July of this year), for his childish and vulgar use of an animated cartoon showing him murdering a fellow member of Congress and threatening the President; 

Judge Bruce Schroeder, whose churlish demeanor and laughably defense-friendly management of the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse has made a mockery of impartial justice;

Steve Bannon, the enabler and mouthpiece of Der Furor whose arrogant nose-thumbing of the Congressional committee investigating the January 6th insurrection undermines the entire concept of law, order, and responsibility; 

Alex Jones, the unhinged conspiracy theorist who has finally been held liable for the defamation of the families of the children murdered at Sandy Creek Elementary School in 2012; and,

The Russian government, which tested an anti-satellite missile against one of its defunct satellites, creating a dangerous cloud of orbital junk that threatens the safety of the International Space Station ... the crew of which contains two Russian cosmonauts. 

I could go on citing potential awardees, but it will just raise my already-too-high blood pressure and I must make a decision, no matter how difficult it is to do so.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the award for 

The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for November, 2021

is presented to

The Republican Party

The GOP has now won this award seven times, not counting awards presented to individual Republicans or Republican groups, committees, or its national committee. The GOP - which, for some unknown reason, still thinks of itself as "the party of Lincoln" - has become so completely unhinged that its members in Congress refused en masse to support infrastructure legislation that provides desperately-needed repairs to the infrastructure that benefits the entire country. The the sole reason for this united opposition was that supporting anything proposed by the Biden administration - no matter how popular and how important and critical to the nation - would imply some measure of support for President Biden, which the GOP absolutely refuses to do. This, of course, has not prevented GOP "legislators"* from speechifying to their constituents to claim credit for the benefits that the legislation against which they voted will bring to their districts. 

Another example of the degradation of the GOP can be seen in its refusal to condemn the disgraceful action of Representative Paul Gosar (mentioned above), while pushing to punish its 13 members that voted for the President's infrastructure bill.

At the grass roots level, the GOP has in many regions turned into a cult of personality that would make even a North Korean leader blush. Bizarre, bordering on orgasmic support for the narcissistic sociopath who certainly ranks as the worst president in history ...

led directly to a violent and despicable assault on the very foundations of our democracy - without any significant pushback from Republican "leaders." 

Those assaults continue, with Republican members of Congress actually using the new GOP catchphrase "Let's go, Brandon" (a cleaned-up version of "F**K Joe Biden") on the House floor.

At a rally in Idaho last month, the audience applauded when a man asked when he could start killing Democrats. “When do we get to use the guns?” he asked, “How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?” Speaker Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, an organization devoted to promoting right-wing values, denounced the question not on principle, but because he said it would play into Democratic hands. He claimed that, “We are living under fascism.”

Rather than focusing on the economic well-being of the nation, Republicans across the country focus single-mindedly on niche culture war issues, spinning up unfocused anger at school boards over perceived educational bias against imagined American values and at medical professionals arguing in favor of measures needed to stop a pandemic that has killed more than 750,000 Americans.

The nation needs a responsible, thoughtful, professional conservative party to balance the liberal Democratic party and ensure that the views and interests of all Americans have a place to be heard.

Today's outrageously extreme, authoritarian, and violent Republican party is not it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the Left-Cheek Ass Clown award for November, 2021, is presented to the Republican Party and, by extension, those who support its insane trampling of American values and traditions in the name of protecting those values and traditions. The GOP also earns a score of 2,999,999 on the Gohmert Stupidity Scale, leaving a single ghm to allow for all but certain future growth.

Heaven help us if the GOP regains control of the House and Senate in next year's midterm elections.

Have a good day, and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday, when we'll try to put a happy face on the otherwise depressing news.

More thoughts then.

Bilbo

* If they've actually done any "legislating" since the inauguration of the Biden administration, it has escaped my notice.