Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me is a nice platitude, and it’s also wrong. There is great power in the word, both to build and to destroy. Madison Cawthorn did his usual performative trollery on the floor of the House of Representatives Thursday morning in response to Joe Biden’s deployment of 3,000 troops to buttress support to our Eastern European allies in the face of Vladimir Putin’s continuing aggression in the region.
Joe Biden is no stranger to foreign policy. That’s the main reason Barack Obama choose him as his running mate. Biden has been competent in that field for twice as long as Madison Cawthorn has been breathing. But be that as it may, this home schooled know nothing, who dropped out of a rinky dink college after one semester because he was flunking out anyway, is trashing Biden’s decision on the floor of the House. The Hill:
“Madam Speaker, the sons and daughters of America are not foot soldiers for your party’s inept, geriatric despot. They are not expendable pawns to be dispatched at the whims of an idiot, tossed carelessly around the world to Godforsaken caves and bloody sandboxes. They are Americans, worthy of honor and dignity. The only salute from them Joe Biden deserves involves one finger,” said the 26-year-old first-term lawmaker.
Cawthorn is not the first conservative pundit to use the word “geriatric” to describe Biden or accuse him of autocratic rule. Senate hopeful J.D. Vance, an Ohio Republican, previously tweeted in September that “Joe Biden is a geriatric tyrant” when criticizing the president’s COVID-19 plans. […]
“Our greatness is forged in our resistance to interference. The war lobby has no ally in the America-first Republicans. We will preserve our strength through nationalism,” he said.
Here is what really went down this morning, beyond the obvious, which is the clueless Cawthorn embarrassing himself and his district and state once again:
He’s a tool of Vladimir Putin. This episode will go out on Russian television. This is yet another example of a Republican official being in the thrall of Putin and his global agenda, while disguising it as a pitch about national honor. If John McCain were here, he would tell you how he and Rand Paul mixed it up over the years over this exact same thing;
It’s yet another first in the Congressional Record, showing the decline of civil discourse in the United States. Never before in history has a freshman congressman suggested that the sitting president should be the recipient of a one-finger salute;
The ageism is blatant and disgusting. Yes, Biden is not a spring chicken. But people age at at different rates. You can find 70-year-olds who are still athletes and whose mental faculties are sharp as a tack. Ageism needs to stop in this country like all the other isms.
Today I was at the doctor’s and a young woman finished my sentence for me. I let it go, as I always do, but I’m not letting it go anymore. I’ve got skills at my age that the youngster doesn’t have. I can still type 100 wpm. I can still bake bread and make homemade pasta. I still remember all the books and articles I’ve read and I’m reading more all the time. Joe Biden is a man of accomplishment and he hasn’t lost it, either. It’s time that Americans stop apologize for being old. We have something worthwhile to bring to the table.
It pains me more than I can tell you to see a know nothing imbecile like Cawthorn disparage an old war horse like Biden. Biden has forgotten more than Cawthorn has ever learned or will learn in his entire life, even if he lives to be a hundred.
Cawthorn will continue this, that much is certain. It’s nighttime now in Moscow and Vlad is having a vodka and looking on the bright side. He’s done his recruiting work well. I hope that we do ours equally as well and get the performance artists out of Congress and into obscurity, where their intellects and abilities will fit their surroundings.
Lady Liberty weeped today watching this display in the lower chamber. I join her.
Unfortunately, the orange shitweasel has made venal stupidity a national religion. Reagan started this trend when taking office as governor of California when he eliminated free tuition to the state university system. He later stated education makes people more liberal & God knows we can’t have that. I don’t remember seeing that this pinheaded dickhead ever served a day in uniform. Like his idol, who, holding a purple heart, said, ” I’ve always wanted one of these.” Maybe if he wasn’t a pampered coward who dodged service with a lie, his fat ass could have been shot too. What ignorant asswipes. As a veteran, this putin backed traitorous party makes one want to put back on the uniform & go a huntin, as we say in North cackalacky. By the way, my uncle was an original green beret, wounded 3x in Vietnam. He didn’t want purple hearts. He wanted the soliders lost in that war back. Someone please grease the brakes on that bastards’ chair.
By the way, thanks for calling out ageism. I’m 68 & have run/walked/worked out all my life, & am in better shape than most guys I see that are half my age. I have gained a total of 15 pounds since 1975. Good thing. I was too skinny then. Anyone for a 10k run?
Cawthorne tried to get into Annapolis and the selection board at the Naval Academy had the good judgement to reject him. For a while as he entered politics (and probably in his private life trying to get laid or something else he wanted) he claimed the accident where he lost the use of his legs prevented him from attending Annapolis. Well, he called called out on that LIE and toned it down but how much to you want to bet at some point he tries to make that claim again? Perhaps at some small gathering with no reporters around. As for Reagan, while some movie people went to war, his eyesight prevented him from being a pilot which was the preferred gig for most of them. The “glamour” and all that. I’m sure if he’d pressed he could have gotten himself assigned to a forward unit but he spent WWII in Hollywood making training films for the troops. So technically he “served” in the armed forces, but in a nice & safe stateside posting doing what he’d done before the war and would do after. Sadly, it did allow him to meet and spend time with a lot of rich and powerful people as many of his contemporaries were off actually serving. One has to wonder if he’d have wound up as head of SAG, and later had enough clout to go into politics if he hadn’t spent the war in Hollywood mixing with rich folks and celebrities.
My own father was in the Army Air Corps and served on bombers. He was badly wounded on a mission, so much so once he was in stable enough condition they sent him stateside where he still spent the better part of a year in the hospital enduring various surgeries. He hid all those scars on his torso for the rest of his life. I never, ever saw him without a t-shirt on. He even wore one in the bathtub! I think he was even hiding those scars from himself. Looking back I believe that except for stripping off a wet t-shirt, giving his chest & back a quick rub with a towel and pulling on a fresh, dry one he was never without one. He’d even wear a t-shirt in the hospital under those freaking hospital gowns!
I was lucky. The only injuries I had while on active duty were in training stuff or getting dinged when I stood duty as an MP on Post instead of Guard Duty at the Pentagon. Nothing major in either case, at least at the time. As I got older it’s hard to know how much of the effects on my body that led to the continual pain (in my knees in particular) were due to sports in high school, college and after and how much from the Marines. Unlike you I’m not longer fit. In fact I’m fat. I really ballooned up after the events that led to the severe neuropathy in my feet and ankles and affected my balance so much. I should be doing a lot more walking than I do. Too bad we don’t live near each other (I’m in the Raleigh suburbs) or I could go to where you run and you could shame me into at least walking and handing me some marker to place out as far as I go – increasing the distance over time!
Hey regular walking is a great gradual way to keep stuff working. Yeah, I live in Carrboro but had several jobs in Raleigh a while back. Seems I’m turning into a local yokel. If u find urself on 54/Fordham there’s a nice park just south of chapel hill called Morgan creek/ Merritt hill. The first 8/10 is a winding paved walkway that ends facing a large field with high hills & a dirt path around it that circles around it for 3/4 mile. There’s a sign & a small paved parking lot.fyi
Damn! I’m over in Cary and there’s a park a couple of miles from my apartment building that I think has a paved trail through the woods. Getting worked up to the point where I could handle getting out there on it would take some time. I wish there was someone in my building that could be a partner to provide mutual motivation. I do have one of those walkers that you can sit in, which (since I have A-Fib) comes in handy sometimes. It’s a heavy duty one able to handles someone as big as I am. During my first hospitalization out at the VA in Durham when they offered me one I laughed as I’d seen quite a few over the years and the ones you normally see would collapse like balsa wood if a 6’4″ dude like me who is also overweight (as I said, by a lot) sat on them but they said they had units that were heavy duty. When the physical therapist came into my room with it I was impressed! Anyway, between back problems and knee pain (and of course the neuropathy that affects my feet and ankles to the point where partial falls – I’m good at catching myself on a wall or piece of furniture most of the time – being a daily thing I long ago got away from walking which I did regularly before I became homeless. Back then I could go along well for a half hour using just a cane. Frankly, when the neuropathy happened (it took a few months of physical therapy to become reasonably well-balanced if I was careful) the biggest problem I had was overcoming my instinct to always look up at aircraft (especially low flying ones – especially helicopters) flying overhead when I was outside! More than once I fell backwards on my ass! Getting back to my feet was difficult back then, but not nearly the problem it is now. When I do fall all the way down getting back up is a real problem, and I’ve learned the hard way in my apartment I can’t do so using my walker even with the wheels locked. Oh well.
Maybe one day when things are more back to semi-normal we can meet up somewhere. Someday.
Give urself credit for dealing with all of that. I worked in traumatic brain injury programs so I’ve seen the struggles. I think it was TR that said do what u can with what u have where u are. Maybe. Keep me posted once in a while. U must have strength going 4ur.
Thanks. With more frequency than I care to admit I think about the irony of having been a Clinical Supervisor working with Developmentally Disabled adults when I became disable myself. Or that my employer dropped me like a hot potato instead of trying to work out some type of accommodation or find another position for me. I didn’t know until after I moved down here that there were folks in the division (HQ in Raleigh) that were unhappy about my coming in from out of state. I’ll never forget attending a meeting with the finance honcho and a couple of other people I didn’t know and when introductions were made one gal looked me up & down and with contempt dripping out of her said “So you’re the guy.” The whole story of my move down here and how the picture that was painted covered a load of shit that blew up all over me is a long one. But I tried, and tried hard for a few years to get hired again by other agencies that did the same or related work to no avail. And trying to branch out into something else didn’t work either. I always knew age discrimination was real but it sucked experiencing it for real. Even for the handful of interviews I did manage to secure (out of literally thousands of applications) walking in with a cane the reactions were easy enough to see. Double whammy but proving it in a court case would have been futile so I wound up involuntarily early retired on disability which converted to regular SSI after a few years. Meaning my monthly benefit isn’t what it could have or should have been. Oh well.
Bite me. lol. I wish I had the knee to join you in that 10k.
I’m following the NC 14th Amend. case against poor li’l Maddie. He filed a federal suit to prevent the NC Board of Elections from kicking him off the ballot that will be dismissed. He is like a feral dog; he was never properly socialized. He was certainly never educated. If he wasn’t such a venal, evil excuse for a human being, I might feel just a little sorry for him.
maddie is really just a tool (not just a tool of puttie pie’s). A first termer and hopefully that will be the end of that particular resume.
Well, if Cawthorn thinks that Biden is “geriatric,” what does he think of his hero, Donald Trump? Trump is only 3 1/2 years younger than Biden.
And I seriously have to wonder what the age demographics are for Cawthorn’s district? (I’m kind of confused also. I’ve read that he’s been “redistricted” to the 13th but that district doesn’t contain any of Cawthorn’s current district. But, I just learned that NC doesn’t require a US representative to actually live in the district they represent–and, it also appears that Cawthorn will be registered to vote in yet a different district. So, it appears he can’t LEGALLY vote for himself this November.)
To paraphase a French proverb – ‘la Jeunesses pouvait, la viellesse savait’ Youth wishes – age knows)
Cawthorn is just another disgusting repuke boil on the butt of humanity.
You know, the only thing that republiCLQWNs have accomplished since i have been around is k1lling the Kennedy’s and destroying the economy every decade.
Sure, opec was a success. It got rid of Carter and successfully allowed the middle east to extort trillions from america while destroying the envioronment but we must give credit where credit is due.
What have republiCLQWNs in office accomplished for America since 1960?
Nothing.
Now that is one hell of an accomplishment.
They’ve stolen the presidency several times. Does that count?