The Tale of the Two-Faced Turtle

I'm old enough to remember when Mitch McConnell clearly stated that trump was responsible for the attack on our Capitol on Jan 6th.

As you may have heard by now, Turtle Boy is now saying that, of course he'll be supporting trump if the GQP nominates him again for the 2024 Presidential contest.

This perfectly shows what those of us who would not slurp trump's shitty Kool Aid have pointed out again and again: that today's Republican Party is first and last the party of Donald trump and that the number of GOP elected officials who'll stand up to him can be counted -- literally -- on the fingers of your two hands.

All of the rest will submissively drop to their knees and kiss his ring the minute he walks through the door.

This began before the 2016 Primaries were complete and never slackened throughout the four years that the Thug-in-Chief occupied the Oval Office.

Did you really think trump leaving the Presidency in disgrace and taking that last ride to Mar-A-Largo was going to change anything?

"Bulldog Ben" Basile

© 2021 Ben Lawrence Basile

There's Littering and there's Environmental Crime

I came across a story on Wednesday about a Florida man who had just been arrested for the crime of littering. Felony littering, that is. Our Department of Environmental Protection was on the case.

As with any crime, any bad act, sometimes the offender is merely dipping his toe in the water, so to speak. But sometimes they’re way out in that beautiful, deep, blue sea, swimming with the sharks.

That’s a better metaphor to use in trying to describe the seriousness of this miscreant’s very, very serious act of littering. All he did was dump ten 250 gal drums of liquid polymers and paint onto someone else’s private land.

So no, it’s not quite like the low-life who pitches his full, greasy Wendy’s bag out of the driver’s side window while cruising down the freeway. No, this unnamed environmental disaster on two legs needed a rental truck and a forklift — and multiple trips — to carry off this Lollapalooza of litter.

Hearing about crimes like this can leave me so angry and frustrated that I hardly know what to do. In this case, it’s a powerful consolation that Florida’s DEP has the necessary tools to hold accountable the criminals who commit such outrages.


“Bulldog Ben” Basile

© 2021 Ben Lawrence Basile


Yes, anyone arrested and/or charged with crimes is innocent until proven guilty.

The banner photo is from another incident and is — I’m pretty sure — covered by Fair Use.

Of course they acquitted him -- again

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last week or so, you've no doubt heard by now that the Senate has acquitted trump again.

Even though we who watch such things knew in advance that a conviction was not going to happen, the outcome still provokes outrage and disbelief.

There are two things that offer some measure of consolation to Americans who have never chugged trump's noxious Kool Aid. The first is that the presentation by the House managers in pressing the case against the Insurrectionist-in-Chief was spot-on. Very compelling. And I have no doubt that it helped to open the eyes of more than a few Americans about what a selfish, scheming and totally corrupt shit-sack our Poser Prez truly was.

The other bright spot -- if you could call it that -- is that six more Republicans voted for a conviction this time than did on the first go-around a year ago. There's that.

So in the end, the vote was 57-43. If you'd like a concise run-down of how this all played out, this article would be a good place to start.

Mob Boss trump is no longer stinking up the Peoples' House but trumpism is very much alive and well. And although a conviction wouldn't have closed the door on the possibility that we could find ourselves having to traverse the same terrain again in a few months or years, it would almost certainly have made it harder for him to brew up this kind of a shit-storm again.

Well, we go forward again. With a caring and competent President once again on the job, we have the potential to undo a lot of trump's hateful and sickening legacy over the next four years.

But as we do, we know that Hair Hitler's almost certain to pull a Freddy Krueger on us and pop up again, dead-set on inflicting more mayhem on our Nation. 

Today's failure on the part of the Senate to hold him to account for the January 6th insurrection has greatly increased the chances that we'll one day look around and realize that we're witnessing the opening frames of a sickening sequel to the very shitty movie we were forced to watch on that cold, God-forsaken January afternoon five weeks ago.

"Bulldog Ben" Basile

© 2021 Ben Lawrence Basile

The Environmental File: another troubling sign

Climate scientists are doing great work, trying to get ahead of some of the many problems we're facing as the damage we've done to the Earth becomes more and more apparent.

The way rainfall is distributed around our planet is changing. And, as you might imagine, those changes will become more pronounced going forward.

It's a bleak situation and the effects are being felt over large portions of the Earth.

The good news -- if there is any -- is that we have climate scientists who have their eyes on this, and so many other urgent issues arising out of our collective failure to care for our Planet. 

The bad news is that there are still many citizens -- and governments, sad to say -- who don't believe any of this is real. Or that it arises from human activity.

To have a look at a CBS News article from last week that shines a light on this bleak situation, just follow this link.

"Bulldog Ben" Basile

© 2021 Ben Lawrence Basile