SOME THOUGHTS ON PUBLIC SPEAKING, AND HOW FAR IT MAY HAVE FALLEN.

     I am competant in one language. I'm not bragging, but I can usually find a pretty good word and if I can't, I know where to go to find one. By most recollections that makes me a liberal. By today's standards there are few on the right that claim that honor. Mark Twain once said the "difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug". Conservatives today could be more correctly compared, not to the lightning bug, but the dung beetle. Lightning bug is an etymological, or is that entymological continent away. 

     As a youngster I used to hear from people, who had the wisdom lines to support their thesis, that Adolph Hitler was known as a dynamic speaker. Some of the film of his speeches would seem to confirm this. Since my linguistic competancy is not German, I cannot say if his syntax and sentence composition were competant or not. Judging by recent experience, there are some well-known American speakers that are dynamic speakers, but who don't necessarily make sense. I have heard religious talk-show characters use the term, 'tyranny of relativism' with no seeming understanding how crazy that is when compared to the tyranny of absolutism. I have heard Grover Norquist advise Republicans that, 'bi-partisanship is the moral equivolent of date-rape', with no sense of irony. I have heard Rush Limbaugh call liberals, 'libtards', not understanding the nature of conservatives to slow down (retard) social progress, and heard his callers weigh in with, "ditto". That was all before Social Media raised the curtain on the worst assortment of stumblebums that we have seen in my lifetime. And that was the demon seed that became Donald Trump.

     He is a dynamic speaker, full of snarl and insult and and strong statements unsupported by fact. There are many other similarities between him and Der Fuehrer. Perhaps Herr Hitler was better at syntax than Trump. More likely the intended audience, then as now, do not require eloquence to be moved by a speaker; the tyranny of low expectations. Using Mark Twains words, he is the brightest lightning bug in the pack. This lower order of luminescence is insufficient to reference the books to find the right word. Unfortunately the etymological equivolent of LED lighting is all that is required of the dimly illuminated corners of the conservative world that exists today. Some of the dimwits illuminating the conservative world have an actors eye for appealing to their audience, John Kennedy would be a good example. He has a prestigious list of schools through which he matriculated: a BA from  Vanderbilt, a JD from University of Virginia, Bachelor of Civil Law from Oxford College in Britain. Yet he has adopted, I assume, the mannerisms of a citizen of Li'l Abners Dogpatch, ejucated at Oxen Ford, down the holler. Listening to Senator Kennedy and, comparing him to two Senators in our history with the same surname, makes me question what the people of Louisiana were thinking when they voted for him. If, as elected politicians like to claim, he is a "man of the people" we are tempted to ask, "what kind of people elected him?". 

     We might also look at Senator Josh Hawley. He too, was a privileged student at prestigious schools, matriculating through a private Jesuit boys school, attaining a BA from Stanford University and a JD from Yale. Aside from his fist salute to January 6 insurrectionists, and subsequent flight in terror, his greatest accomplishment to date might be the book he authored, MANHOOD, The Masculine Virtues America Needs. It has been 100 years since women got the vote, and only 50 since they were legally able to own their own credit card, yet I can confidently predict that we will never see a book written by a woman entitled, Womanhood, the Womanly Virtues America Needs. Not even by Jody Ernst, who promised to castrate some pigs, and then caucused with them.

     These are what might be called the non-dairy creamer of the crop. Let's look at some other republicans that have also failed to display mastery of the legislative tactics necessary to governance. We may start with Marjory Taylor Greene. Some say she has a sharp tongue. Others might add that the sharp tongue is not regulated by a sharp mind. Among her accomplishments is to be remembered for claiming the California wildfires of a couple years ago were started by Jewish space lasers. To date she is the only American who has knowledge of this strategic intelligence. Since I have more to point out I won't continue berating MTG, except to say that last week she was kicked out of the House Conservative Caucus. How they settled on only her still baffles me. 

     The Honorable Lauren Boebert, former owner of a bar in Rifle Colorado, next gets the kleig light. Ms. Boebert is known for saying pretty much any insensitive thing that enters her mind. She challenged a House colleague, from her own party, who is confined to a wheel chair to a sprint. If she has a filter, it is closer to a fishing net. Listening to her speak is second only in popularity to removing a wisdom tooth. 

     Rep. George Santos, who may actually be so bad that the Republican house majority might actually hold an ethics investigation. Something they would not allow for their former president and co-conspirator in the insurrection of Jan 6, 2021. He is as slippery as an eel but among his notable achievements in his party, is being gay in a party that hates gays, being a cross-dresser in a party that confuses cross-dressing with transitioning, and wishes to station bathroom moniters outside a school bathroom to make sure you enter the correct door. He has been charged by his state, which he represents, with fraud and money-laundering.

     Senator Tommy Tuberville, along with Senator Ron Johnson, are among a solid group of proto-racists within the party. While the Republican party has used racist dog-whistles since Ronald Reagan, they now make no bones about their white nationalism. Tuberville is a former football coach at a small Alabama College called Auburn which few people have heard of. Well it is Alabama, a state that still likes to believe they should have won the Civil War. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, claims to have started a plastics manufacturing company that went global trading with China, which is a no-no if done by a Biden. The company he "started" was formerly owned by his in-laws. An uninteresting side note. Currently he is defending the Saudi Sovereign Investment funds investment in PGA golf. Sure they are trying to whitewash their sordid reputation, but It's golf which our former president likes to do. Perhaps not coincidentally, Sen Johnson has investigated the Ukraine war, spreading Russian disinformation. Johnson was one of a delegation of republican Senators who visited Moscow on July 4, 2018. I forget why we celebrate July 4, it must be a minor holiday like Juneteenth. Then there is Rafael Ted Cruz, formerly an opponent of the former president and recipient of insensitive lies from the former reality TV star that became apprentice president. Did he take umbrage at the insensitive things Trump said about his wife and the lies about his father? Nope, he snuggled up to Trumps backside with his lips chapsticked, to recieve his tribute from Trump for being a good boy. Additionally, Sen Cruz is well remembered for taking a sudden family vacation to Cancun during an ice-storm that overtaxed Texas'  notably weak electrical grid. Left behind by the Cruz family, which really means the husband and father, was their beloved dog, Snowflake. Trust me, this snowflake finds plenty of irony in that. You've heard his speeches. As Republicans go, he speaks with mastery of the language, which does not mean he speaks with reliable truth. Finally we must examine some of the committees run by the majority party in the House of Representatives. We shall start with the chairman of the House judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan, previously remembered by those not in his party as the wrestling coach at Ohio State who could not protect his wrestlers from sexual abuses by the team doctor. He is currently weaponizing his committee to weaponize Congress against anything President Biden or his immediate family might possibly be guilty of. Two things can be reliably reported: 1) he is as unaware of the crimes that the former president is being tried for, as he was unaware of the hank-panky in his doctors office within his wrestling  room. 2) He has spent 6 months collecting testimony of the President without yet finding a chargeable crime. Republicans are still optimistic. Our next committee head to examine (an intentional pun) is James Comer, who has been called by a reporter, Comer Simpson. Rep Comer leads the house oversight committee, also weaponized to accuse the President of weaponizing government against Republicans. His committee has reached a dead end. Dead as in, his informants have been embarrassingly unproductive. The most recent one turned out to be a a gun runner and informant for China, who is being sought by the DOJ. He is living in exile, unable to use his inside knowledge of the Chinese government to support Representative Comer's position that President Biden has hidden financial dealings with the Chinese government. Dealings like President Trump's family had/has with the Chinese government.

     The difficult thing about an essay like this is that nearly every Republican in both houses, including the leadership, quail before their fat fuhrer should he look sternly upon them. But even the criminally-inclined must show some degree of competence. Or at least that was true before 2016. Today's republican party reminds me of a bunch of novice guitarists who, having learned four chords, think they can rock and roll.