the Pine Tar threshold.

     On July 24, 1983, in a baseball game between the Kansas City Royals and the New York Yankees, George Brett hit a home run that was disputed by Yankees manager Billy Martin. Martin disputed that home run on the basis of too much pine tar on Brett's bat. When the head umpire agreed with Martin, George Brett stormed out of the dugout and a brouhaha ensued which had not been repeated until a group of entitled white boaters driving a pontoon boat, in Montgomery Alabama, were told they couldn't moor their boat where a tour boat was trying to park.

     Some say pine tar makes the handle of the bat sticky, so the bat doesn't slip out of their hand. I always thought that was what the glove was for, but whadda i know? Other sources say that the pine tar helps the batter to visualize the ball on the fat part of the bat. Sort of like visualizing the belt line between Donald Trumps white golf shirt and the expanse of avoirdupoir that blocks out the sun beneath it. Whatever the purpose, MLB rules state that the pine tar must not extend more than 18 inches onto the handle, ironically the width of home plate. Getting back to George Brett, who came close to batting .400 that season, the Yankees manager knew about the pine tar scofflaw some two weeks before this particular game. Martin was saving this for the proper time.

     Rules as the saying goes, are meant to be broken. But rules, it is silently acknowledged, set the limits to how far you can go. There is too often a lack of agreement on whose rules are in play. The Yankees have a rich history of pushing the rules up against the boundaries. They also have had, to their credit, some spectacular players. Richard Michael, "Goose" Gossich, the pitcher that Brett got the pine tar homerun off of was one of them. But as you have guessed by now, this is not about baseball.

     In the same way that baseball teams push the boundaries, our two political parties also push the rules. Until recently, they were gentle nudges, perhaps like George Brett's pine tar bat. We had political umpires who reminded us of the rules, and we once more toe'd the line. That began to change when the political umpires began to be bribed by one particular group from one particular party. In baseball there are a small number of players that broke the rules so egregiously that they were kicked out of the game. Pete Rose for instance. There is a list of players longer than a baseball bat who were suspended for steroid use. Until recently, our politicians could look forward to severe sanctions that were career-ending. The Democratic party can claim many of those people who got the boot. In fairness, except for Michael Myers of Pennsylvania, and James Trafficant of Ohio, the rest of this rogues gallery were from the Democratic party that wore the label, racist. We have also witnessed three presidents that were impeached. Andrew Johnson was the first and too distant for our concern. In the 1990's, Bill Clinton was impeached for lying to congress about sex acts in the oval office with a woman he was not married to. It is not clear what interest Congress had in Clintons sex life, but the special council Kenneth Starr was able to grip this topic with the surety of impeachment as George Brett going for extra bases.This impeachment was led by congressmen who were having similar sex acts with office assistants, had the public cared to look into those offices. Clinton was impeached, and acquitted by a bi-partisan Senate vote. He was elected to a 2nd term as his impeachment was building strength. Lying to congress about a blow job was not as important to the voters as the GOP legislators thought. Or maybe Republicans had become so toxic that they could only win by such tactics, and the people were tired of it. At the same time, Newt Gingerich, who led the impeachment in the House while dodging questions about his own use of his office to cheat on his 2nd wife, lost his speakership. Ironically, the guy who succeeded Gingerich for Speaker of the House, Dennie Hastert, was imprisoned for failing to protect his high school wrestlers from sexual assault. Even more ironic, Kenneth Starr, the Special Counsel investigating President Clinton to find something-anything to charge Clinton on, was dismissed from his college president sinecure because he did not do enough to protect coeds from sexual abuse. There seems to be a pattern here, ironically a pattern Republicans accuse the other party of being guilty of.

     More recently we had not one, but two impeachments of Donald Trump, a name I do not wish even to capitalize. Both impeachments, to refresh your memory, were for issues far more serious than a blow job. In the first he tried to bribe a foreign leader to dig up dirt on the Biden family as Joe Biden was preparing to run for president. That leader was President Zelinski of Ukraine, and Trump withheld military aid that had been approved by both houses of Congress. Aid that would protect Ukraine from invasion by Russia, a Trump ally. There were eight republican Congress persons who had enough spine to vote for impeachment. There was only one Republican Senator who had the courage to vote for Trump's conviction in the Senate. After-all, Trump will have learned his lesson, right? 

     The 2nd Trump impeachment was for leading an insurrection to stop the certification of the election Trump had lost. That issue is still being adjudicated, most recently earning himself indictments on 91 criminal charges in 4 states. The takeaway message here is that Donald Trump was not chastened by his first impeachment. He treats it and his second impeachment as mere laws needing to be scoffed. His followers treat them as badges of honor as Trump continues to run for that 2nd term denied him, by doing everything he can to weaken the integrity of our elections. Yet another irony: the House Republicans are in the process of trying to impeach President Biden with no hard evidence of anything impeachable. 

     The takeaway from this nearly six year journey into fascism is that Major League Baseball has more stringent enforcement of rules than Republicans. It is not just a loser ex-president that is rewriting the constitution in his own flawed language. With the possible exception of Mitt Romney (who cowers in his office when confronted by the misanthropes that have become the driving force in his party), the Republican party of today is filled with your usual selection of characters in the Sopranos crime organization. Matt Gaetz has been investigated since 2016 for bribery and sex-trafficking a minor. Remember, the second Attorney General during Trumps presidency was a fellow familiar with kissing Republican butts. Lauren Boeburt and her husband (now ex) have had several dust-ups with local police in Rifle CO. Congressman George Santos is under Federal investigation at this writing. Aside from telling so many lies even Republicans are shocked, the investigation includes wire fraud and money laundering. There is also a suspicion that he received campaign help from Russian agents. Money laundering, wire fraud, Russian meddling in his campaign, those are the normal sort of crimes committed by the head of his party. Congressman Jim Jordan has been credibly accused of ignoring the sex abuse of his wrestlers at Ohio state; that verisimilitude again. Margery Taylor Greene, who kept over $183k from her PPP loans yet voted against student loan forgiveness seems to have a total lack of the common sense Republicans claim to have in abundance but cannot display without leaving themselves vulnerable to derisive laughter. Sen. Hawley, the author of a book on manliness, gave the fist salute to Jan 6 insurrectionists then scurried away like a cockroach after they entered the Senate chambers. These are only a small sample of Republican scofflaws, and does not include the scores of trump appointees now under investigation, or his immediate family. Did I mention that Republicans not too long ago were the "Law and Order Party"? We can also point to laws in red states that are intended to lower the working age, and marriage age, as well as the cruelty exhibited by Repbuclicans in Florida and Texas. They also like to call themselves pro-life. Pro-working life I imagine. Even that doesn't seem to be logical.

     Even worse, the six Republican lifetime appointees to the Supreme Court cannot agree to the need for ethics rules for themselves on the high bench. "What for, they might ask? We tell you little people what the laws are". At least the incompetent judges of the lower courts that Trump appointed are bound by some ethics rules.

     Don't worry, your Republican congress members are conducting investigations-on such topics as the weaponization of government, so they could weaponize the congressional committee against a president that won a fair election. There are two Senate investigations of Hunter Bidens laptop, which was dropped off at a computer repair shop by someone representing Hunter Biden and recieved by an employee who is legally blind. The laptop story has a Rudy Giulani connection to Ukranian-Russians, but no worries. These investigations are stalled after nearly 9 months for lack of evidence. They also exhibit the extent of looneyness on display in that party.

     The Republican party it seems, is incapable of embarrassment as long as someone is pine-tarring their palms. There is no longer a limit beyond which they will not go. Nor is there a niggling thought to those otherwise normal politicians within their party that they may  not long have a party worthy of respect. This is the new norm. To stand up for integrity could get them primaried in the next election. 

     Back in about 2013 or 2014 Bob Dole, former Senate leader and  Republican presidential candidate prior to the millenium, stood in the Senate Chamber where his party was in the majority. He was accompanied by his wife Libby, also at one time a Republican luminary. He was there to ask his colleagues from both parties to back improvements to the Americans With Disabilities Act, which Dole had co-written. The Democrats in the Senate chamber voted to approve. Not one Republican voted for it. This is the Republican party that arose in the post-Gingerich years. There are some who are speaking out. They are not among the elected officeholders of the party, and they are being ignored by the cult of MAGA that now owns the party.