So anyone who has been following my intermittent essays has probably discovered two things.

#1 I'm a self admitted ass and unashamed of this fact.

#2 They're usually fueled by my exchanges as of late with Democrats on FB who at one point I may have called friends, but it seems ever since I turned on team blue i lost my seat at the cool kids table. Not that I care.

Today of course is no exception. And one I take particular perverse pleasure in posting here, given the exchange. So for context before we get to the good stuff. Said "friend" had this comment to make.

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"One would think that the POTUS would encourage, and immediately implement, an independent investigation of all of his dealings with the Russians. In this way, he could clear his name, and forever put this nagging situation behind him. He would then be able try and achieve his various campaign promises, while still learning to be an effective CEO of the country. Why not? #wethepeople"
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Me being me I couldn't resist, and since I do enjoy pointing out the hypocrisy in others, I did first point out.

"“Because guilty until proven innocent isn't how this country works, even for someone you despise. And if a repub had said the same thing about Bill during impeachment or Hillary about her multitude of scandals how fast would you have shot your own comment down?"

And of course took it one step further with a personal jab back in my corner of FB land.

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Guess the quote.

One would think that the Secretary would encourage, and immediately implement, an independent investigation of all of her dealings surrounding Benghazi. In this way, she could clear her name, and forever put this nagging situation behind Her. She would then be able try and achieve her various campaign promises, while still learning to be an effective president for the country. Why not?

Issa? Nope

Ryan? Nope

Gowdy? Nope

It was actually said by a democrat on my facebook feed, about Trump and Russia. I just switched the office position, the gender, and replaced one location with another.

Stop and think about that for a moment.

Or keep rooting for the CIA to take down a president cause it's one you don't like.

I'm good either way.....
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Whoo boy the outrage that followed! First the husband " I resent you using my words to drive your points. Iand I think you should remove it. You are a capable fellow, use your own thoughts." With the wife pointing on on the original comment. "Using other people's words without credit, even if cleverly changed to suit one's personal agenda, is tacky at best and insidious at worst. I agree with his comment. Write your own stuff and stop borrowing without permission or acknowledgment."

But she really decided she wanted to take a swing at me back on my own post I refused to take down.

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And..it's still here.

Because you haven't shared it, this is what was 'actually' said on my husband's page:

(above quote)

His status reflects his concern and a genuine interest in a solution that could possibly keep this country from the nastinesses of an impeachment hearing and all of the upheaval that accompanies such a proceeding.

He's a thoughtful soul, my husband. He ponders long about the issues at hand, and puts his words together very carefully before sharing them.

He has a good number of friends who respect him greatly for that, among other things.

Enter you.

After reading h i s status which 'appeared' on y o u r feed, you went to h i s page..he being a 'friend' of yours..copied it and altered the wording to suit your perspective and make your oh-so-clever point. You also diss him in the process by insinuating but for a few word changes, it could have been written by the likes of Issa, Ryan, or Gowdy. The insult is veiled, but there.

That, Jesse, is where you crossed the line of decency and I'm not having it.
Now, it may be you have lost the ability to couple your thoughts together in the Jesse-esque witty way we all love. It may be all the posts about Democrats et al vehemently vilifying Trump in constant outrage, yet apparently unable or unwilling to, in the next breath, bash and reprimand Hillary(b i g yawn)for all of her transgressions have pushed you over the edge.

It may be you do not get that copying someone else's status, changing a few words and t h e n slamming that person for the original while not even sharing or crediting it is not only poor form, it is unappreciated by most here on FB and lacks integrity.

Whatever the motivation, has asked you to remove your version.

I'm asking you to do the same a n d apologize.

People read what you write. I would think it would please you to know this, even give you a sense of pride that your words also influence those who read them.

You stop and you think about t h a t.

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To wit, my rebuttal. Which as it was far too long for FB, I felt like posting and sharing here.

Well bless your heart, are you done yet?

If not I think I still have a few more pieces of wood and nails back in the storage totes. So you can make a cross for yourself now that you're done nailing **** to that one.

Regardless you weren't going to get an apology before. And if you think this display of crocodile tear fueled fake indignation with a dash of petty personal attacks while trying to publicly shame and patronize me on my own page was going to get you one you are SORELY mistaken. Have you forgotten who you're dealing with? Did you really think I was gonna be cowed by your little lecture? Though the fact you seem to think you have some kind of moral high ground here is rather entertaining.

Face it Gertrude you aren't pissed at the theft, you're pissed at the play. And the fact you and Claudius are being called out for your words and deeds. The first of what is a multitude of hypocrisies on display here. The least of which is evidenced by this rather vocal demand you seem to think you're entitled too. Even as you and I both know that if I turned my Jessesqe wit on a Republican in this fashion using their words against them (as I've done in the past) you'd be the first in line applauding.

For the record it's a debate tactic as old as time and as current as now. If **** is really so mad about me using words without permission, well he's not the first and he won't be the last I'm sure. I mean let's look at this gem from the election season.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrX3Ql31URA

That one really was my "favorite" If by fav I mean crass example of emotional manipulation and rampant fear mongering, all it was missing was the daisy petals, the mushroom cloud in the background, and Helen Lovejoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RybNI0KB1bg

Personal curiosity, were you or the hubby telling anyone back then to stop using words without permission? Or to come up with independent thoughts? Somehow I doubt it... Given that at the moment your own vapid appeals to emotion about what a thoughtful man he is seems to be the entirety of your case for what a terrible person I am right now. Who needs facts and logic right?

But again this is the hypocrisy I've come to expect from people still wedded to the two party trap and the misguided belief (see that shaky moral high ground) that Democrat = always good and Republican = always bad. Which of course is just the mirror of team red's belief. And a system that leaves no room for debate. Any fact that goes against this, any case made to listen, and anything that defends the other side can not be allowed to stand, and must always be wrong. Ours is the cause of righteousness!

http://68.media.tumblr.com/97edbc1fd058aeba689a5d4a41088ea9/tumblr_nfuyl...

So why Jesse! Why must you act this way, why can't you join us in investigating those nefarious Russians!

Ok, so as long as we're talking about ties to Russia influencing policy. Why won't you?
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-...

I know I know it's the “b i g yawn” right? But have a moment of honesty. If I had said instead that a business or charity tied to Trump had been receiving major donations in this fashion which were tied directly to Russian interests in a strategic resource. How fast again would you be screaming for that investigation?

Ah but of course since it was Hillary that did it, yawwwn, sort of like how we don't need to bat an eye at, oh I don't know, undocumented sales of chemical weapons, whose level of sale directly correlated with Clinton foundation donations right?

http://www.ibtimes.com/hillary-clintons-state-department-increased-chemi...

Weapons turned on those protesting autocrats across the world, but of course that doesn't matter right, after all the Democratic mantra when this came out?

“Do you want Trump!?” That or “Stop being so sexist!”

Yawwwn...

And right here is the problem. This isn't some cheesy fairness doctrine 1 to 1 bullshit where every Trump bash must contain a Hillary one, and it's patently stupid to try to phrase it as such, it's the fact you (I.E. Democrats as well) won't be honest with us, and you won't be honest with yourself.

You speak of the grace and charm Obama displayed in office, and how you'll miss him? But like your own holier then thou hypocrisy (the same we see from the culture warriors of the right) its a sham.

You're going to say we have to fight Trump's assaults on the rights of immigrants and ICE raids across the USA, while turning a blind eye to the record setting 2+ million deportations that occurred under Obama.

We have to investigate every thing Sessions is doing or done, but hey when Lynch just happened to meet Bill on the Tarmac in the middle of the FBI investigation it was let's discuss the grandkids.

You're going to say we have to fight back against Trump's assaults on civil liberty while turning a blind eye to Obama's expanding of the patriot act, increased attacks on civil liberty, and approval of drone strikes on Americans without trial.

You're going to say Trump will start wars all over while ignoring with nary a protest US policy in Libya and Syria (both pushed for by then Sec Clinton) that have turned both countries into a wasteland and havens for terrorism. At least he got his peace prize?

You'll decry Trump's botched Yemen raid as a sign of what's to come, never mind that it's just the bookend to Obama's own warmongering.

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/30/obama-killed-a-16-year-old-american-...

But hey, least he had grace and charm as he did it... I can't think of a more perfect example of a recent article I found covering this particular brand of sycophancy

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/24/liberal-hypocrisy-late-shaming-an...

To steal a few more words not my own.
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“On this and so many other issues, the very great majority of just sat and clucked about what a great victory it was in and of itself to have a smooth-talking, silver-tongued, outwardly sophisticated, Harvard Law-minted first half- white president and you moaned about the “obstructionist” Republicans who supposedly prevented (the arch-neoliberal and deeply conservative) Obama from being the true progressive he (you foolishly insisted) really wanted to be (this even though Obama tacked to the corporate and imperial right from the beginning of his presidency, when he had Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress).

Arrogant liberals’ partisan hypocrisy, overlaid with heavy doses of bourgeois identity politics and professional-class contempt for working class whites, is no tiny part of how and why the Democrats have handed all three branches of the federal government along with most state governments and the white working class vote to the ever more radically reactionary, white-nationalist Republican Party. Ordinary people can small the rank two-facedness of it all, believe it or not. They want nothing to do with snotty know-it-all liberals who give dismal dollar Dems a pass on policies liberals only seem capable of denouncing when they are enacted by nasty Republicans. “
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This is the point I'm driving home that you and **** missed cause you were too busy getting pissy at me to see it. And it's not an insinuation, it's an open accusation.

The only difference between you, him, and the most rabid Obama hater out there is where you land on the political spectrum.

Your words are different, your tone is the same. You ignore every crime your own side commits in the name of taking down the other, you don't care how it's done, the ends justify the means so long as it's your tribe on top. It's why I said a month or so back on FB

For every Fox there's an MSNBC
For every Infowars there's an Addicting Info
For every Rush Limbaugh there's an Ed Schultz.
For every Daily Caller there's a Daily Kos
For every Breitbart there's a Bipartisan Report
For every them there's an us.
And we are the us, we are never the them.

You are continuing the dangerous and destructive mentality started by the right in delegitimizing the office of the president and demonizing the opposition while making deities of your own. All the while clinging to any leak, any story, any shred of news from the left wing blogosphere and MSM that shows this time we've got that smoking gun connection to take Trump down. You do it. You listen to it, and you accept it. Even if it comes from the CIA, the very selfsame agency people like you were lambasting I'm sure during the Iraq war, while cheering Julian Assange and Wikileaks for showing the truth of the bush administration. Let that hypocrisy train keep a rolling on.

And let's add to it we now have people cheering W's appearance on Ellen because he's attacking Trump. The man who at the time I was lambasting Pelosi for lacking the courage to impeach. The man who lied us into a war that spread how much devastation? The man who is a WAR CRIMINAL. But free pass given if he attacks Trump? All good right?
The hypocrisy is beyond words...

And you show your own perfectly with what you said to me back on yon hubby's page, let's give credit where credit is due this time, since of course you only said what he said, and not what I did.

My response to his quote?

“Because guilty until proven innocent isn't how this country works, even for someone you despise. And if a repub had said the same thing about Bill during impeachment or Hillary about her multitude of scandals how fast would you have shot your own comment down?”

And here's the thing you also didn't get, the same way (diff friend) here missed the point by focusing on just Benghazi the “scandal” instead of Benghazi as an example. I'm not defending Trump here, I'm defending the rule of law, as it applies to his quote, and pointing out (as I did by turning his words around) The hypocrisy again of Democrats who seem to think otherwise. But your response, oh that was something else.

“Guilty until proven innocent is exactly how this country works. From both sides of the aisle at various times in our illustrious history.“

And right here is the problem caused by your blind anti Trump zealotry. You can't accept anything positive that will defend him in any form. It doesn't work to a closed mind conditioned to not accept anything positive of a republican, complete square peg round hole territory.

So you have to turn it around and in your drive to take him down decide that it's ok to overturn the basic concept of law stretching back to the Romans and Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat "Proof lies on him who asserts, not on him who denies" Because why? We gotta get Trump.

Let's ask the US Supreme court what it thinks about this. Per Coffin v. United States (1895)

“The principle that there is a presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary, and its enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law.”

Let's ask the The universal declaration of human rights it's opinion on this matter.

“Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense."

Let's even ask those evil Russians what their Constitution says.

"Everyone charged with a crime shall be considered not guilty until his or her guilt has been proven in conformity with the federal law and has been established by the valid sentence of a court of law". It also states that "The defendant shall not be obliged to prove his or her innocence" and "Any reasonable doubt shall be interpreted in favor of the defendant"

But where Trump is involved? Let's say it one more time, because it needs to be said.

“Guilty until proven innocent is exactly how this country works”

You know what THAT norm brought us?

Guilty until proven innocent brought us Japanese interment camps.
Guilty until proven innocent brought us the house unamerican activities committee.
Guilty until proven innocent brought us the creation of anti Semitism under Hitler
Guilty until proven innocent brought us believing every Muslim was a terrorist after 9/11 and to this day.
Guilty until proven innocent brought us believing every Mexican is a illegal criminal rapist so we gotta build that wall.

And what's amazing and appalling is once again you are too blind to once again to see that in your drive to attack Trump and the right you like so many others have become the very thing you claim to hate.

Actually appalling isn't the right word, let's go with disgusting in the rank two faced hypocrisy once again on display by you here.

So please, if I'm stealing your words and taking them out of context, by all means defend them. Tell me what you meant tell me when this norm was a good thing. Justify it. Or keep telling me what a great guy hubby is so none of this matters, and how dare I call you out that much more.

Because (here I go stealing again) you know what I find “tacky”?

Someone who has as her FB picture how we need hope and compassion, but may as well add a * that says. “Unless you're one of Trump's deplorables I'll blame for my losses along with Russia.”

And you know what I find “insidious”?

Someone who has the gall to try and use this as an argument against him, and someone who will ally themselves with the very forces most known in this country for their undemocratic practices.

Another article in that regard, as shared by a friend of mine.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_deep_states_hatred_of_trump_is_n...

Two actually.

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/2/16/greenwald_empowering_the_deep_sta...

When you go down this road you're doing exactly what Greenwald said. And it is insanity.

Your actions and your continued allegiance to the corruption represented by Democrats just as much as Republican (hello Tom Perez)

Your inability to own up to your faults, and those of your party.

Your inability to even attempt to acknowledge the multitude of election irregularities during a primary, or the faults of your candidate. Let's just sweep it all under the rug and repeat time and again “LALALALA But her emails” *eyeroll*

Your inability to see past anything except what fits your desire to take down Trump with no plans to replace him past insert Democrat here (maybe Booker, he's such a paragon of virtue after all) and the fact you don't care who helps you do it so long as it's done?

You aren't defending Democracy.

You are actively aiding and abetting in the destruction of it.

And as long as you continue to do so? You and I aren't friends, we're enemies. Because I won't tolerate this hypocrisy and this corruption from anyone, regardless of party, much less from people who have shown their moral high ground is made of quicksand.

And I don't do this for pride, I do it because it's what I believe is right, regardless of the consequences that follow. If you don't like what I have to say, tough luck, but do yourself a favor and one last time here...

Stop acting like a republican and calling for censoring the words because you don't like what's being said.

That enough independent thought in my own words for you?