By WILLIAM LEDFORD
A famous poet once said, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. That sentence sorta, kinda paraphrases the results of the latest Rez-wide election. No major changes, which means one of two things, we’re either happy with our current leadership or we’re too darn lazy to get up off the couch and go vote the change. I saw that more people had voted than usual, so I guess it would be the former. So, as a tribal elder, still getting used to saying that, actually I’m still amazed that I’ve lasted this long, I have one request for tribal leadership. We elders need a COLA adjustment on our Christmas checks. Not too much now, save room for a little more later on, because these days a little more goes a long way. Especially with tariffs and an upcoming economic recession looming. Who agrees with me out there? Leaders! Let’s get this thing done.
It seems that not everyone was OK with the results of the last election. What else is new? Sour grapes maybe? Believing your support group more than the exit polls? Do you consider the election results to be “fake news” or “alternative facts”? Or, maybe there was an actual transgression and the perpetrators need to be exposed. I stress this though…be careful with public exposure, you may not like what you see. We might not like it either. It might be indecent. I vote for perpetual darkness.
OK, last time I wrote a little about the post-traumatic stress disorder that some school age children in America are now experiencing/suffering from by being shot at and/or witnessing the killing of their friends and classmates by psychos with assault rifles, you know, kids under combat conditions. I had forgotten another unfortunate by-product of this trend. Bullet-resistant, not bullet-proof, backpacks are available for kids. Our kids can now attend school and when they come under fire can hide behind their backpacks and hope for the best. But, I say bullet resistant because the ammo available to shooters that own assault-style weapons in this country is more deadly than the ammo available to our soldiers in the combat zone and will penetrate even body armor. Something about the Geneva Convention I suppose. Republicans are OK with this, the rest of us aren’t, or shouldn’t be.
But, a bright spot shines as there is some actual sanity surfacing amidst all of the NRA BS. Walmart and Dicks Sporting Goods have raised the legal age to purchase guns to 21 and have stopped selling assault style weapons altogether. Once upon a time you had to be 21 years old to buy a handgun but only 18 to score an AK or AR style rifle from a dealer. It’s funny, you have to be 21 to buy alcohol but at 18 you can go off to war or buy a high-powered, magazine fed weapon o’ death and destruction and wage war here, at home. America, what a country. Colt Arms has recently decided to stop manufacturing and selling their AR style weapon to civilians. Gun shop owners cheerfully point out that Colt was only a small portion of the civilian market and you can still purchase these things from other gun dealers and private owners whose consciences reside in their cash registers and in a darker, smellier place.
News flash! Trump is still in the news! And as usual it’s because of something stupid he said, or did, or both, this time is no different except, this time he might get impeached for being stupid. Because his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, seems to have been driven insane by excessive Viagra intake he constantly feeds Trump conspiracy theories and Trump, being the “stable genius” that he is, buys in to Rudy’s ranting and goes all out. This time it was the attempt to compel Ukraine to investigate a political rival and his son. Trump also has been reported attempting to compel Australia to seek out the source of the Russia investigation. All because of Giuliani. And Giuliani has been hitting the political talk show circuit showing just how bat crap crazy he is. On one he was waving official looking papers around that he claimed were “evidence” of Biden corruption except these papers had a hand-drawn Presidential Seal on them. Who does that? And isn’t forging the Presidential Seal a crime? If it aint’, it should be. Geez, who needs films like Silence of the Lambs, Alien, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist or La Llorona for Halloween when we have Rudy Giuliani who is both psychotically scary and hilariously funny…at the same time? Stay tuned.
The House of Representatives leaders are currently preparing Articles of Impeachment because of the Ukraine stuff. It’s absolutely amazing. Trump doesn’t realize, or simply doesn’t care that as President, he can’t act like he did as boss of his family business. In government there’s always someone to answer to. Checks and Balances. Geez, I learned this stuff in high school. The GOP hasn’t learned anything.
You know, you can’t write comedy this good. You have to live it. And we are definitely living it. See ya next time. And…looking for a Christmas raise. Yoohoooo…
Ledford is an EBCI tribal member currently living in Albuquerque, N.M.
