The deep end

It’s always worse when it happens to someone you know.

As if 70 million fellow Americans who still think a nazi-lovin’, race-baitin’, woman-hatin’, name-callin’, orange face-paintin’, con-runnin’, daughter-lustin’, rumor-spreadin', handicapped-mockin’, TV-watchin’, conspiracy theory-spoutin’, covid-ignorin’, dictator-lovin’, baby-handed traitor should be the leader of the free world weren’t enough, come to find out one of them happens to be a friend of mine.

Someone I’ve worked with.

Someone I’ve worked for.

Someone I respect. Strike that. Respected.

I’ve known him almost nine years and in that time we’ve had meals together, fought for great work together and had My Dinner With Andre-esque conversations about things that matter. Although we didn’t get together often, when we did we’d enjoy each other’s company immensely.

One of the things I always liked about him was he never took anything at face value. He always made it a point to take the deep dive, looking into the rest of the story to find out where the truth lived. But going by his Facebook feed the last few months, the truth is just a distant memory. And his deep-diving, fact-finding days are long gone.

The only diving he’s doing now is off the deep end into the cold, cruel, dirty water on the edge of town in Trumpland. I don’t’ even recognize him.

His FB feed is filled with conspiracy theories about the virus (It’s a hoax! The death rate is less than the flu!) and memes about how awful Democrats are, that of course are blatant projections of all the corruption and criminal activity going on in the GOP from the top down. There's no shortage of ramblings about how they're taking away our freedom asking us to wear masks, and a lot of "Mommy I don't wanna! I don't wanna!". And of course, the obligatory "alternative facts" charts showing the crisis isn't as bad as it's being made out to be.

Most surprising are the undisguised racial slur memes against the Vice-President elect. It would all be worth serious discussion if the posts, as crass and ugly as some of them are, were from reliable sources. The ones I've seen are from Breibart, Fox state news, OAN and other extreme right outlets. Apparently serious discussion isn't what he's looking for.

I'll be the first to admit I post quotes, memes and articles that are anti-Trump and anti-Republican. But they're based in fact, sourced reliably, factually accurate and often quite hystically funny, even when they're snarky—which they often are. You're welcome.

He's also posted responses to the many comments he gets about how off base and crazy he is, and his replies usually boil down to "..if we're really friends we can disagree like adults." Well, maybe on some subjects, but not when things like racism and cruelty aren't dealbreakers for him.

So I'm grieving. I'm sad for who he's become, and the friend I've lost. I've never engaged with him on Facebook because he's clearly too far dug in. And by dug in I mean gone. Besides, I've never liked FB fights.

I'll always be a friend to the person he was. I just can't be one to the person he is.

WYSIWYG

There's a great line in John Prine's song Dear Abby that goes "You are what you are and you ain't what you ain't..." Nowhere is there a more crystal clear embodiment of that sentiment than the unstable genius himself.

From the second he descended on the escalator in Trump tower with Malaria at his side, we knew Donald Trump was a festering, racist piece of shit. He didn't tell us we were mistaken. He didn't try to hide it. He based his campaign on it. And he's basing his presidency on it.

So I guess the question I have is why is everyone still waiting for him to change? Talking heads, pundits, commentators and journalists all make it a point to mention when he's not acting presidential. SPOILER ALERT: he's never going to.

It's like asking an old man to walk faster. Even if he wanted to he can't do it.

And of course the shithole president doesn't want to.

For some reason there's this rating scale where every time he accidentally stumbles into doing or saying something that remotely resembles anything presidential (which does not include boarding Air Force One with toilet paper on your shoe), it gets mentioned and he gets points for it. It's the equivalent of giving a potty-mouthed child a cookie as a reward for good behavior. A participation trophy at a kids' soccer game.

The other thing I hear a lot coming out of cable commentators is how history is going to judge him harshly, along with his GOP henchmen. Like they give a shit. They'll have robbed the piggy bank, cashed out and stolen history's Rolex long before it has a chance to judge anything. Besides, I hear from many people that history is just fake news.

The more I have to listen to that awful, eight-grade vocabulary, mobster wannabe droning on, the more I realize the problem with the traitor-in-chief isn't that he's hiding something.

It's that he isn't hiding anything.

Snow job

This is not going to play well with many of my friends. But here goes: Edward Snowden is not a hero, despite how desperately he wants you to think he is.

It's easy to see how he might've been mistaken for one. After all, he single-handedly blew the lid off the government's PRISM program to spy on all our phone calls and internet communications.

Except that he didn't.

The not so clandestine anymore PRISM surveillance program has been operating since at least 2007 with the passage of the Protect America Act under George Bush. What Edward Snowden brought to light was the scope of the operation. But, contrary to his story, he didn't stumble onto it once he had the job at NSA. His motivation wasn't pure. His aim wasn't true.

Snowden at minimum is a vulgar opportunist. He intentionally set out to get his job and top-level clearance at the NSA specifically so he could steal - and steal is the correct word - the top-secret, classified information, which by the way is a federal offense. He also stole very specific information, most of it not dealing with our phone calls being monitored, but information that would be particularly useful to foreign governments. There was nothing random in his approach. It was a systematic search of the data. Opportunist may be the nicer name for him.

Not long ago I wrote a post that talked about the balancing act between the public's right to know and the governments need for secrecy in order to do the job we ask it to do. I'm really at a loss as to why it's so shocking to some that our government would do the things Snowden suggests. The only thing I can say is have you read the papers lately?

This is the world we live in. And it has been for a long time now.

If Snowden was in fact a patriotic whistleblower, he could've done many things differently. He could have collected the information then brought it to any members of Congress not on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or Senate Intelligence Committee (both of which have known about the program, its capabilities and its targets since the beginning) for investigation. Instead what he chose to do was flee to first China then Russia, guaranteeing that they now have a treasure trove of information regarding our surveillance of their countries. Foreign surveillance that does not impact American liberties. Snowden has said that they have not seen any of the stolen data, but that simply doesn't stand up to reason. It's the only chip he has to play.

I don't know if that makes him a traitor. At the very least it makes him a coward.

Am I comfortable with the degree of latitude the NSA has? Of course not. It definitely needs to be investigated and changes need to be made in the program. But seriously, when the Norwegian government starts talking about nominating Snowden for a Nobel Prize, something is terribly wrong.

Only one person knows what Snowden's true motivations were. And despite everything he's saying, he's not talking.