"We Wanted to Shake Up Washington"

Today on NPR's 1A radio show, Lamar voiced what I wrote about yesterday on the anniversary of Election day.  He said he voted for the "business man" candidate because he wanted to see Washington shaken up. Lamar said, "I've heard people say they would rather vote for Joe the plumber rather than Hillary because she was an insider.  I just wanted to rattle the cages."  Lamar from Georgia would have been a little more credible if he had not tried to defend the Muslim ban as some administrative function to take care of countries that could not handle vetting their own citizens.  The facts show that terrorists did not come from the countries identified on the first Muslim ban. If this was an administrative ban than Saudi Arabia, who sent the majority of 9/11 terrorists to the United States, would be on the top of the list for a country without the ability to review passports. Also, Somalia, El Salvador, Pakistan and Afghanistan are basically lawless countries and were not on the list of countries that needed extra scrutiny.

So, put aside his willingness to defend the current President no matter how indefensible the position, his main position was still insulting to the rest of the country. Disabled people depend on the executive branch of the United States to stay alive and don't want you to rattle cages thus jeopardizing their disability checks.  There are reporters in war torn sections of the world who want a strong State Department to rescue them if they are captured protecting the first amendment, and they are not going to be comforted that you hired an unqualified leader who refuses to staff the Diplomatic corps.  The children dying in Puerto Rico because they are drinking water from a superfund site look to the mainland for President to lead them through this crisis. There are scientists working on preventing a flu pandemic who do not appreciate you hiring an entry level man child.  Lamar's voting strategy allowed a President to appoint a talk show host as the head of the Agricultural Science Unit which protects us from food borne illness and famine.

Lamar, while you want to shake up Washington, the US Army private standing post in the lawless section South of Kandahar surrounded by Taliban, Pakistan and Al Qaeda does not want some rookie making decisions after 16 years of war.  We appreciate that you have elected awful Representatives and Senators from Georgia for 20 years, but that is on you.  We do not need you taking your frustration over your own poor choices out on the rest of us.  The protection of our nuclear stock pile should not be overseen by a guy who wanted to eliminate that department. We need to be assured that someone is protecting us from identity theft because our credit agency is not keeping their data is secure and if they fall down on the job there is a federal agency that comes down hard on them.  We do not know how many scientific breakthroughs will be lost because you cast your vote for a President who openly mocked science and career federal employees as the "deep state."  The point is that Lamar claimed to be a business man, but would never suggest that the mail room employee should be brought into lead Sears/Kmart to get them back on track.  No one would suggest that Wells Fargo opened fraudulent accounts so they should hire a beat cop from New York City to run the company in order to "shake things up."

Most of us depend on the federal government for our quality of life, and we don't appreciate that millions of Americans felt it was a good idea to test out an intern in the Oval Office.  This is why we are angry and frustrated.  You shoved in our face the Make America Great Again crap, but most us felt that America was a pretty great place that needed some polishing.  You blew up our federal government and we will have to pick up the pieces when it all crumbles.  Thanks, Lamar.

by Brian Davis