I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: politics

  • longing for Happily Ever After

    longing for Happily Ever After


    A benefit of having written 869 posts over the past fourteen years is the luxury of searching for subjects I’m certain I must have written about at some point in time. As I prepared for the onslaught of news surrounding the surrender of a former president of the United States to the state of Georgia tomorrow for issues concerning the election of 2020, an ex-president who was well acquainted with the concept of human frailty, in addition to the circus atmosphere already evident in preparation for the first debate in the 2024 presidential election by the Republican candidates tonight, I searched for a piece I wrote in 2016. Sure enough, as my mother would say, I found my opinions on human frailty haven’t changed.

    Full disclosure to avoid any semblance of plagiarism – I stole this idea from my current favorite BBC series Lark Rise to Candleford. (Current to me but originally aired in 2008 – 2011.) Dorcas Lane was the postmistress caught in a wave of changes to her small town of Candleford in Oxfordshire at the end of the 19th. century. Her notoriety extended beyond the walls of the post office due to her persistent meddling in everyone’s affairs.

    Her maid Minnie was a wonderful addition to the cast in the second season with her penchant for asking questions that were “extraordinary.” In the episode I watched today, Minnie was a-twitter with questions about just what does Happily Ever After really mean in affairs of the heart. Dorcas was prepared to answer with wisdom to share and spare.

    “We all want life to be simple and our relationships to be enchanted, and then along comes human frailty. Before we know it, all will be lost.”

    Human frailty. I have seen a ton of that going around in the world lately. So much so that it seems like an epidemic. Waves of it. Oceans of it. Human frailty runs rampant from Orlando to Dallas to Minnesota to Baton Rouge. It zigzags through a packed crowd in a huge commercial truck in Nice, France before striking again in a failed military coup in Turkey. It shouts angry hate-filled  rhetoric in a large convention hall in Cleveland, Ohio before skipping across the Atlantic again  with gunfire in a shopping mall in Munich. Behind every evil stands the specter of human frailty.

    Thank goodness for the relief of Lark Rise, a break from the onslaught of bad news on my favorite 24-hour news channels with their 24-hour news cycles. Yes, give me a good conversation with Twister Terrell, another of my favorite friends from Lark Rise, who sums up what happens when human frailty runs rampant.

    “Some folks got neither logic nor reason nor sense nor sanity.”

    Here’s hoping somewhere… sometime… somebody unravels the key to human kindness and compassion for each other that will not only change the news cycles but enable us to rediscover the logic, reason, sense and sanity that our human frailty disguises.

    Like Minnie, I long for Happily Ever After.

    *************

    Slava Ukraini. For the children.

  • say her name Laura Ann “Lauri” Carleton

    say her name Laura Ann “Lauri” Carleton


    Laura Ann “Lauri” Carleton

    Hate had no place in her heart or in her store when sixty-six- year-old Lauri Carleton was shot and killed at her place of business on Friday, August 18th., 2023 for her refusal to take down a gay Pride flag she flew outside her store in Lake Arrowhead, California every day. She will be celebrated by her family and friends as a brave ally of the LGBTQ+ community who gave her life in the outrageous act of believing love is love.

    Rest in peace, Lauri, but know that the community you died for will never rest in peace as long as forces rage against equal justice for all.

    Say her name: Laura Ann “Lauri” Carleton.

  • stuck in the Middle with you

    stuck in the Middle with you


    Due to the writer’s strike across America, I have been asked by Fox News to lead a team of writers that will flush out their programming for the Republican presidential primary debate on August 23rd. Wise men say only fools rush in where political operatives fear to tread so I quickly accepted. My team consisted of campaign speech writers I designated Captains from all candidates who qualified for the debate not to be confused with all qualified candidates, and at our first meeting we met during cocktail hour somewhere.

    I think we should begin with prayer, I said to the group, and Pence’s Captain immediately bowed his white head of perfectly coiffed hair. No, no, Pence Person – I meant prayer to start the debate, not a prayer for our meeting. Oh, he said as he swatted a fly swirling perilously close to his head. I sighed as everyone else in the room shifted uncomfortably. I made a note No Prayer, too controversial.

    Moving on, I said. Does anyone have ideas for entertainment to pump the Nielsen ratings with a larger viewing audience for the debate, something to attract the Movable Middle which traditionally ignores all debates? Think out of the box on this one, I continued. To get us started, why don’t we come up with a new theme song?

    I’ve got an idea, the Christie Captain said enthusiastically. How about a Stealers Wheel Tribute Band singing Stuck in the Middle with You? We could even ask band members to wear pink baseball caps with “I’m a Real Republican” logo.

    Okay, I responded. Let’s take a look at the lyrics:

    Well, I don’t know why I came here tonight, I’ve got the feeling that something ain’t right.
    I’m so scared in case I fall off my chair, and I’m wondering how I’ll get down the stairs    . Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right. Here I am stuck in the Middle with you.

    A buzz filled the room, heads nodded approval vigorously, and spontaneous applause erupted. One hand in the back of the room, however, was timidly raised during the clapping. Excuse me, the Ramaswamy Captain said, but what kind of band is a stealers wheel band, and do we really want to highlight stealers during a debate featuring the leading candidate who is currently facing 91 felony charges across his criminal indictments?

    Suddenly the room got very quiet.

    Heck, yeah, the Christie Captain answered, but I sensed a change in the atmosphere. Not so fast, my friends, I thought.

    Hm. I made a note: No to Stealers Wheel band, Yes to new theme song; contact Kid Rock and Lil Wayne about performing.

    Okay. Great work, group, I said. I’ll send my notes to Fox. That’s enough for today. Meeting adjourned.

    (Cocktails and light hors d’oeuvres courtesy of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas if you can contribute $1,000 to his next Bahamas vacay. Hey, nothing from nothing leaves nothing.)

  • in case you missed it

    in case you missed it


    On Thursday, August 03, 2023 ABC News (and every other news organization in the world) reported that former President Donald J. Trump has been indicted in the special counsel’s investigation into his alleged plot to overthrow the 2020 election. Trump has been charged by Special Counsel Jack Smith with four counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.

    “Despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power. So for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the defendant knew that they were false,” the indictment said.

    I’m no mathematician, but my count is two years and nearly seven months for the indictment to be filed against Trump since the Insurrection on January 06, 2021. What have those busy bees at the Justice Department been up to during that considerable amount of time for this indictment to be issued? Hm. Let’s see. For one thing they’ve been tallying the actual losses to the buildings and grounds as well as costs to the City of Washington Police as of October 14, 2022: $2,881,360.20 per the 30-month report filed by the US Department of Justice.

    This report goes on to say “More than 1,069 defendants have been charged across all 50 states and the District of Columbia… Approximately 561 federal defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences for their criminal activity on Jan. 6. Approximately 335 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration. Approximately 119 defendants have been sentenced to a period of home detention, including approximately 19 who also were sentenced to a period of incarceration.”

    And yet, the person who was in my mind the instigator of the coup attempt to overthrow our democracy on January 06, 2021 has been playing golf and allegedly showing classified documents from his presidency to random guests at his estate in Mar-a-lago in Palm Beach, Florida for the past thirty months. The level of difficulty to indict a former president must be mind-boggling while charging social media influencer Kai Cenat with inciting a riot and unlawful assembly in Union Square in New York City on Friday August 4th., just one day after Trump’s arraignment on criminal charges, took fewer than twenty-four hours. Apples to oranges, you say? Most assuredly, but the wheels of justice moved at warp speed against Cenat while similar wheels must have spun out of control for Trump’s criminal behavior to be charged.

    I feel a sense of relief for Trump’s day of reckoning, his own judgment day to be on somebody’s calendar somewhere. Big wheel of justice keep on turning, please, but kick it into high gear. This guy is running for re-election in 2024.

  • in case you missed it on CBS News Sunday Morning

    in case you missed it on CBS News Sunday Morning


    Voting records on gun control legislation in Congress

    Here’s how our South Carolina Congressmen have voted on loosening gun restrictions: Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott have consistently supported laws loosening gun restrictions (or against a measure adding restrictions) for as long as they have been in the Senate (Graham since 2002, Scott since 2013).

    The only person in Congress from South Carolina who consistently supports laws to tighten gun restrictions is D-SC Jim Clyburn, a lone voice crying in the wilderness of lives lost to gun violence in this country.

    The stats above are year-to-date numbers as of July 22, 2023 – which means we are on pace for nearly 50,000 gun-related deaths this year.

    This is madness. This is insanity. No gun toting gun owner needs AR15-style rifles. Nobody. Period. We need to start somewhere. Ban the damn things.