2019 Will Be More Palatable With Alan Grayson In Congress Denouncing Trump's Lies Daily

The polls Morning Consult has been doing for Politico have been relatively benign for Trump. A couple of weeks ago, while almost every other poll showed Trump struggling to keep his job approval from slipping out of the low 30s and into the 20s-- which is widely believed will trigger impeachment hearings--  Morning Consult had him at 45% approval (and 51% disapproval). That’s about the best Trump has had from any legitimate polling firm-- "the best," that is, until you look more closely and realize that most Americans now realize Trump is a liar.

Alan Grayson did a different kind of poll this week, one that he isn’t attempting to pretend is "scientific." He asked his own followers what the biggest political  lie of the last 100 years was. The results were fairly predictable:

• Trump: "Trump and Russia is a made-up story" - 55%
• Bush: "Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" - 35%
• Nixon: "I am not a crook" - 10%

More than half of us think that Lying Trump's lie about the Russians is bigger than the lying lies of both Lying Nixon AND Lying Bush. Let that sink in for a minute (or for a минут, as Trump might say to his good friend Vladimir).

…Trump beat Nixon in this World Series of Lying.  And even my kids-- none of whom was alive when Nixon was alive-- know that Nixon was a liar’s liar. They know this from Futurama, which featured Richard Nixon’s severed head in 11 different episodes. Here is my favorite Futurama Nixon line:

Bailiff: “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

Nixon’s Head: Um... am I under oath when I take the oath?

And Bush?  Bush suffered a momentary spasm of honesty when he gave Karl Rove the nickname “Turd Blossom.”  But that moment passed quickly, like a kidney stone, and then it was back to the uninterrupted BS.

But by our vote, Trump is the capo dei capi (boss of all bosses) of lies.  Trump is the Denier-in-Chief. He is the Barry Bonds of BS.  He is a six-foot-tall colostomy bag of crap. He is the preening, peacock Pinocchio of politics.

And Trump’s biggest lie of all? The lie that he was legitimately elected.

I think Grayson is going to run for Congress again. There are 3 dead-weight, utterly useless conservative Democratic congresmembers representing the Orlando area-- Blue Dog Stephanie Murphy and New Dems Darren Soto and Val Demings. Three wasted seats in Congress. I wish Grayson could run for all three simultaneously and have three votes and three times as much floor time. He'd certainly use it more effectively than Murphy, Soto and Demings do-- combined.

By the way, Grayson hasn’t declared he’s running for a congressional district yet but he seems to have an informal campaign. “Team Grayson” sent out a fund-raising letter today:

"Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est," said Julius Caesar.  And, similarly, Congress is divided in three parts:

1 The glad-handers.
2 The empty suits.
3 The sacks of hooey.

Help establish a fourth category: (4) LEADER.  Support Alan Grayson’s campaign for Congress, right here and right now.

The glad-handers are the ones with that permanent smile affixed to their faces. They are the survivors of the Joker’s laughing-gas attack. They seem to be listening to some elevator music that no one else can hear. Sometimes, they hum quietly to themselves. Whenever they see you, they look you in the eye, offer a firm handshake, and compliment you on your excellent appearance. They’re the ones who suggest that you look like you’ve lost some weight, even though you know that your belt is buckled on the last hole. And every time they open their mouths, it’s to thank some distinguished gentlemen or esteemed lady with whom it has been an honor to serve. They are very fond of each and every large donor.

Alan Grayson is not a glad-hander.

The empty suits are the ones who originally ran for office because they could obtain no other form of gainful employment. First the city council, then the county commission, then the tax assessor, then state senator, then Member of Congress. They have mastered the art of falling upward. They always have a confused look in their eyes, and they don’t even feign competence. They end each week with a sign of relief-- nothing bad has happened. They live in fear that some enterprising reporter will ask about their greatest accomplishments. On the other hand, they have no fear that anyone will ever identify them on the street. They come, they go, and it’s as if they were never there.

Alan Grayson is not an empty suit.

The sacks of hooey ask the same question, all day long: “what’s in it for me?” They’re the ones who enjoy the surf-and-turf with lobbyists, night after night. They’re the ones who treat every vote series as an imposition. If it’s your amendment, they’ll turn to you and complain, “I was right in the middle of lunch!” They lease a new Lexus each year, at taxpayer expense. They schedule campaign fundraisers in California and Florida during Winter Break, and they bring the whole family. They insist on an assignment on one of the “money committees” (that’s what they’re actually called-- money committees) in order to pad their campaign accounts. For $20,000, they’ll be your BFF. Some of them will even tell you that.

Alan Grayson is not a sack of hooey.

In his last two congressional races, Alan Grayson was the ONLY Member of Congress who raised most of his campaign funds from small donors like you. PLEASE make it happen again-- sign up to give $20.18 each month. Because Congress does NOT need another glad-hander, empty suit or sack of hooey. Congress needs Alan Grayson, just as WE DO.

I’m happy to get this confirmation Grayson is going to run. Hopefully, he’ll feel that there are a number-- not a great number-- of congressmembers already taking leadership roles in pushing the agenda he stands for as well-- men and women like Ted Lieu (D-CA), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Mark Pocan (D-WI), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Barbara Lee (D-CA) and other I know Grayson admires like Jose Serrano (D-NY), Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and John Lewis (D-GA). Not to mention all the candidates who will be coming into Congress in 2019. Long before people had ever heard of “IronStache,” outside of Wisconsin, Grayson was the first (former) congressman to endorse Randy Bryce for Paul Ryan’s seat. A few weeks Grayson asked his own supporters to contribute money to Illinois progressive David Gill. Grayson as parti of a team is what I’d love to see playing a dominating role in Congress starting in 2019-- a team that includes some of Grayson’s old friends and some of the new generation of candidates he’s going to love, especially the idea-machines like Kaniela Ing (HI), Austin Frerick (IA), Jess King (PA), Derrick Crowe (TX), Lillian Salerno (TX) and Dan Canon (IN).

And by the way, for all of Trump’s absurd bragging about accomplishing more than any other president in history, this is the list of what he has actually accomplished in his first miserable year in office (courtesy of presidential scholar Dan Molina):

• Most days vacationing*
• Most games of golf played
• Least amount of bills signed
• Lowest approval ratings
• Most provable lies
• Most cabinet firings
• Most criminal indictments

* Trumpanzee delusional fantasy world built on lies: "I would rarely leave the White House because there's so much work to be done. I would not be a president who took vacations. I would not be a president that takes time off." In reality Trump has spent more time on vacation in his first year than Obama, Clinton, Reagan and Carter combined.