As we near Halloween, I figured it would be nice to join the Kuklapolitans as they too get ready for the holiday.  And appropriately so -- because this is broadcast of Kukla, Fran and Ollie went on the air October 28, 1949...73 years ago tonight.

It's a low-key affair, not overly funny but with a lot of charm and a couple of songs, as Beulah Witch gets ready for a bunch of her fellow alums from Witch Normal to arrive in Chicago for a Halloween convention.  One other thing I like -- the episode opens with Beulah Witch doing some preparation work along with Cecil Bill, my favorite character who is lunatic (speaking a "ta-toi-toi-toi" language unintelligible to anyone but other Kuklapolitans) and only appears on the show on rare occasions, and generally briefly.  Happily, this is one of those brief times.

And happily, too, upcoming in a few days we'll have their Halloween episode.

​When dear Lindsey Graham (R-SC) got the vapors yesterday and made his hilarious rant-comment pointing to Herschel Walker by his side as a role model for young black kids who might want to get interested in politics -- what immediately leaped out to me is that he ignored an oh-so far, far, far better role model for such things: President Barack Obama.

But then, he also left out Vice President Kamala Harris. And Senator Cory Booker. Or...perhaps funniest of all, Graham forgetting to point to *Republican* Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) -- Graham's junior senator from his OWN STATE!!! 

A couple of days I wrote about Kanye West and his ongoing virulent and violent anti-Semitic comments, and how the issue isn’t about Kanye West, but about the Republican Party which has not only been silent about it all, but has continued to back him and Trump’s own recent anti-Semitic rant.
 
I stand by that.  But I do think Mr. West does deserve some attention of his own.
 
(Quick side note:  I know well that he’s now referred today as “The former Kanye West who legally changed his name to Ye.”  But what he didn’t seem to bother to change was his Twitter account, for which he doesn't use "Ye," but still posts as Kanye West.  So, if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.)
 
This comes because, after having been pummeled by his business partnerships, notably losing his deal with Adidas who he basically dared cut ties with him, and they did, he’s be acting very desperate lately.
 
As I said before, Kanye West will be fine financially.  If he loses 90 percent of his income, with the remaining 10 percent he’s still doing great.  (Assuming he had a billion dollars – maybe more, maybe less – that still would leave $100 million.)  That said, we don’t know his financial ties and if he’s leveraged and has outstanding loans, and how losses from other business cutting ties will affect his finances. 
 
What we do know, though, is that after Adidas dropped him, Forbes magazine almost immediately removed West from their billionaire's list, significantly plummeting his net worth to $400 million.  That's a huge loss of wealth.  It's also still a massive amount of money.  Though whatever real-life problems it may cause him, I don’t especially care.  Because this isn’t about money.  It’s about a virulent, violent anti-Semite. 
 
But as much as I don’t care about Kanye West’s finances, he clearly does.
 
The other day, he went uninvited into the corporate headquarters of Skecher, trying to get a new deal to replace the one lost with Adidas – and not only didn’t get the deal, but was escorted out of the building, getting the company to put out a press release explaining that they would not be working with Kanye West now or in the future, saying among other things, “Skechers is not considering and has no intention of working with West.  We condemn his recent divisive remarks and do not tolerate anti-Semitism or any other form of hate speech."
 
He's lost partnership deals with Adidas, Balenciaga, Skechers, TJ Maxx.  His talent agency CAA dropped him as a client.  The MRC Entertainment production company has shelved a documentary that already completed about it.  Vogue has cut ties with him.  Gap has said it’s removing his Yeezy Gap products and shutting down the Yeezy Gap website.  Apple Music announced that while it’s not removing all his music, it is, however, removing the Kanye West Essentials Playlist some material, along with his biography.
 
By the way, going back to Gap a moment, Kanye West put out a weird social media post yesterday – one of many, so that’s par for the course – that included a small comment that hasn’t gotten much attention:  “As to Gap, the non-compete expires December 15, 2022.  You own the Yeezy name and all trademarks associated with Yeezy.”
 
He lost the name and all trademarks for Yeezy??  Well, that can’t be good.  Most especially for someone who went to the trouble of legally changing his name to Ye.
 
Also not good were all the social media postings he put out yesterday.  The most notable one, though, was ostensibly sent to his former agency, writing –
 
“ARI EMMANUEL
"I LOST 2 BILLION DOLLARS IN ONE DAY
AND I’M STILL ALIVE
THIS IS LOVE SPEECH
I STILL LOVE YOU
GOD STILL LOVES YOU
THE MONEY IS NOT WHO I AM
THE PEOPLE IS WHO I AM"
 
"The people is who I am."
 
Just not all the people.  Just not the people he wanted dead and to go “Death Con 3” over. And has been virulently attacking for many weeks, in fact months and perhaps years.  (A news story yesterday told how in 2018 he apparently wanted to title his album Hitler.  And had to be talked out of it.)

Fun fact:  Writing "love speech" doesn't make people (and business partners) forget one's hate.
 
And that’s the point of this all.

Kanye West can cry out that he’s all about love and The People, but his words and words and relentless words come tumbling out before him.  He can’t claim his was misquoted.  They were his own social media postings he himself wrote.  (And never claimed anyone else did.)  They’ve been his own relentless, ongoing words.
 
And beyond his own virulent and violent words of anti-Semitism that have been picked up by white supremacists  and neo-Nazi groups, he even has taken on his own black community, wearing “White Lives Matter” t-shirts and claiming George Floyd wasn’t killed by a now-convicted police officer kneeling on his neck for eight minutes, but rather died from a drug overdose.  (A “claim” the Floyd family has sued him $250 million for.)
 
That’s the problem he faces.
 
Given all he’s said about Jews and even blacks and for so long, it’s very difficult to apologize and say, “Gee, I didn’t mean it.  It was hurtful and wrong, I’m sorry.”  Because clearly he did mean it, and meant it repeatedly.  Bluntly.   You don't accidentally want to title your album Hitler.  Single “oops” statements can be apologized for with a mea culpa.  But this is about core beliefs about who a person is.  Such things require acknowledging who you are, explaining the hurt and harm it caused – giving comfort to white supremacists, understanding why it is wrong and why you have been wrong for so long and what you are going to do about the long process of changing who you are right now and for the rest of your life. 
 
And even that doesn’t erase what is on the long record of what you said.
 
That’s the problem he faces.
 
By the way, the added problem is that I don’t see most people, and most especially Kanye West, given who he’s showed himself to be his long public life, going through such a complete public cleansing of his past.  And even if, for some miraculous reason, he did, it would likely be seen as being just an attempt to reclaim is lost partnerships and money, not a public rending of his soul.  But even if – beyond even miracles – his words and actions are so profoundly powerful that they are seen as deeply heartfelt to the extent that he’s gone through a personal conversion…those words he’s long said still live on.
 
And though people at that beyond-miracle point could forgive him, it would still be hard for businesses to want to risk being associated in any way with those early and relentless, hate-filled, violent words.  And hoped-for album titles.
 
To be clear, I think it’s possible some people, maybe many, would be able to forgive Kanye West and keep listening to his music, and would want to buy his products if they could find them being made and sold somewhere, even if he only gave a moderate apology. 
 
The hurdle for West is that it’s hard to see he has even that in him.  And further, while it might be enough to win some or many fans back, it wouldn’t be enough to bring businesses back.  He’s much too toxic to the corporate world for just a mild “I’m sorry if I offended anybody” apology.
 
And his business deals are the core to his wealth now, not his music.  And music trends are short shelf lives.  The public often can forgive egregious, but simple transgressions, however those tend to take a while, let’s say five years.  The music world in five years (let alone more) may not likely have much place for a Kanye West, other than in the Oldies bin.  And the fashion world is even more fickle, often changing from season to season.  And now make it, what if the mea culpa comes in 10 years?
 
I’m not saying Kanye West won’t be able to turn around how he’s crashed and burned his life.  Or that he will be impoverished by his actions.  Financially, he should be better than fine, just perhaps at a less-grandiose scale.  And depending on how he chooses to respond to everything, he may stop being a pariah.
 
But “should” and “may” are tangential terms.  And they come up against a monumental wall and onrushing tsunami that he himself created.
 
That he himself created, and then dared Adidas to do something about it.  Not recognizing the obvious that his world revolved around so much more than just Adidas.  Who, in the end, had utterly zero interest in understanding that it was far more in their corporate interest to move to higher ground.
 
There are so many biblical quotes one could throw around here, starting with “Pride goeth before the fall.”  But it’s one other that most stands out --
 
We have not yet reached the point where this deeply-ironic biblical phrase has taken on brand new meaning, but it’s up to him to avoid it:
 
Abandon all hope Ye who enter here.

This is wonderfully done – from lyrics to animation.
 
This is from a couple weeks ago, though it was only today that I saw a tweet from Jamie Raskin about the Stephen Colbert show that said, “Thank you @StephenAtHome for bringing my pet nickname for these prehistoric Stone Age insurrectionists to life. You and your team are a riot (by which, of course, I mean a normal tourist visit)!”  And that linked to a posted by the Colbert show. 

​So, I checked it out.

 
This is pure, unadulterated crazy-talk. Reality continually shows itself otherwise. Life is too short to research all the many refutations, but a couple leaped out immediately, so I replied with them as just two basic, but blunt examples.
 
The first is that just this year, in an Indiana GOP primary for town council, Republican voters ACTUALLY NOMINATED a man currently in jail who had admitted KILLNG his wife with cancer and then dumped her off a bridge!!!
 
Okay, in fairness, no, that’s not a physical health issue.  Other than the part about cancer and getting killed.  But…well, I’d suggest it’s…er, overwhelmingly worse than nominating someone who has recovered impressively well from a stroke.  As long as we’re getting all, y’know, high and mighty.
 
And no, 17 rape allegations against Trump – including one currently in trial – isn’t a physical health matter either, though it hasn’t stopped much of the oh-so noble Republican base from considering him literally a Messiah from God.  Let alone the long list of Republican officials and candidates accused of sexual abuse. 
 
(Meanwhile, when Al Franken had a claim made against him of a photo showing him making a bad joke pretending to touch a sleeping woman’s breast years before he was in the Senate when he was a comedian, he resigned.  By today’s GOP Trump standards, he shouldn’t have been joking about such a thing and instead actually grabbed them because women let you do anything.  If Franken was a Republican, he might be president today…)
 
But going back to what dear Ms. McCain was specifically saying, OK, I'll add one more example to her truly-crazy pandering claim.  She might have forgotten it, since it was so long ago – all the way back in 2016, a whole six years in the past.  That’s when Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois ran for re-election despite having suffered a debilitating stroke that kept him out of the Senate for a year!  He had to relearn not only how to walk, but also how to talk! 
 
But to Meghan McCain, who fancies herself quite the political analyst because her father was a senator, if you dare claim that reality existed, if you dare point out that Mark Kirk was so weakened he was unable to work for an entire year and yet stayed in his Senate job and ran for re-election (ultimately losing to Tammy Duckworth), then you are a liar and a propagandist.
 
Compared to Kirk, within just a few months of having his stroke John Fetterman was back campaigning.  Within five months he was on a debate stage.  Yes, he stumbled over some words.  But so did his opponent Mehment Oz, who didn’t have an excuse.  So did Trump, regularly.  So, did George W. Bush.  So, do most people.  And John Fetterman will get even better.  That’s how rehab works.

By the way, there are currently two senators currently serving who had strokes.  Without any concerns or outrage to how well they’re doing their jobs.  In fact, I suspect most people would have no idea they had strokes.  In fact, as Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out last night, Winston Churchill had an acute stroke when he was Prime Minister of England -- and even his cabinet didn't know for a year, when Churchill finally reported it.  To pretty much no reaction by the country.  So, what faux-Dr. McCain left out of her diatribe diagnosis is explaining why John Fetterman would be unable to do his job today if elected, let alone given that he would have two additional months before even being sworn in.

(And if going back six years is too far for Meghan McCain to handle, how about right now, this year. That's when Republicans have nominated for the Senate and rallied around Herschel Walker. He's written openly about having disassociative identity disorder and repeatedly threatening to kill his wife.  After a career playing football and getting concussions.  But says now, he's "cured."  Not that that's how disassociative identity disorder works, mind you.  For the record, John Fetterman has never once tried to kill his wife.  Or threaten a shootout with the police.  And stroke patients do keep improving.)
 
So, as I wrote back, I just wish she would spare us her ignorant NONSENSE.
 
But that seems to be the standard of Republican efforts these days.  Ignoring reality, saying whatever  you want, literally lying, and throwing it all against the wall, no matter how untruthful, and letting it sit there for the world to see.
 
Just the other day, Marco Rubio sent out a tweet about a campaign canvasser of his who he said was brutally beaten just for passing out flyers in what Rubio suggested was a Democratic neighborhood.  The man was badly beaten, it was awful, and two men were arrested.  Except, in the police report, there was zero mention of it being politically motivated.  And it’s since come out that the man was a white supremacist provocateur—and has been arrested for armed burglary, grand theft and multiple probation violations, and is currently out on probation.  And he was at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.  And it turns out that the neighborhood was heavily Republican.  And to make matters worse for Rubio (yes, that's possible), are the questions of not only why was this convicted white supremacist on probation canvassing for him -- but why is he on the payroll of the Florida Republican Committee??!! And that the victim didn't suggest the attack was politically motivated until Rubio tweeted it.  Rubio has backed off from his charges, his campaign isn’t answering question, and there’s been no mea culpa or correction.  So, the public charge and original Rubio tweet stays up there, for the world to see.
 
On Monday, Rachel Maddow did a report about Republican “tricksters” who have been Photoshopping erroneous graphics onto pictures of t-shirts that Democratic candidates are wearing, making it look they are supporting wedge issues that they aren’t.  And Photoshopping the skin tones of Democratic black candidates to make them look darker than they actually are.

There is so much more.  And we all know there is so much more because we have been inundated by it on the news for the past two years, and more.  But the list it all would just be unbearable.  Going back to "this week" is almost enough.  (Just yesterday, on the heels of Meghan McCain's screed, Republican Jim Jordan posted an "outraged" tweet about unnamed stores in unnamed liberal cities that had to close due to violence. Of course, putting aside that he didn't include any details about anything he wrote, what he also didn't say is that the states with the five highest homicide rates are all Red.  And that the 14 states listed on the InfoPlease site as "most unsafe" are ALL Red.)
 
Do Democrats do inappropriate things on campaigns?  I have no doubt.  But they also are at such a lower level of truly malicious, lying, criminal deception and at an overwhelmingly-less frequency that they almost never crack the news.  And I meant literally “criminal” – two Republican operatives were just sentenced "this week" (see what I mean?  I wasn't kidding) for illegal robocalls they organized to attack black neighborhoods during the 2020 election.

Meghan McCain, this week.  Marco Rubio, this week.  Jim Jordan, this week.  Convicted robocallers, this week.  And Ms. McCain blathers idiocy about the nobility of the Republican Party.  We can't get past this week without getting muck all over our shoes.
 
And it goes on and on and on and on from Republicans.
 
But then, this is a party whose base no longer believes in the proven reality of election safety, and election denial has become a core of the GOP, even to the point of denying the fairness of elections before the elections occur!  Unless, no doubt, they win.  A party whose base believes in the word of “QAnon,” which by its very name is anonymous, they have absolutely No Idea who it is.  Yet believe his/her/their/its word that JFK, Jr. is going to come back to life and run with Trump.  And that Anderson Cooper eats babies.
 
As has been clear to many, if not most rational people, the Republican Party has long since crossed the line from decency and pursuing democracy into a world where lies, white supremacy, abuse of women and fascism can reside together.  But within the past few months, the GOP has seemingly gone into a new realm where reality does not appear to exist, and the party officials and base don’t seem to care.  Where their moral compass is broken and unfixed.  A realm where, like with Ms. McCain here and so many others (including Trump and his 30,000+ documented lies when in office that the GOP accepted), you can say near-anything you want, even if reality and the truth don't back them up or seemingly exist.  A realm where they can support a white supremacist insurrectionist like Doug Mastriano for governor.  Where they can support an incompetent, utter hypocrite liar like Herschel Walker, just because they want to “win” a Senate seat.  Where they can support a virulent election denier like Kari Lake for governor and even posture her as a new face of the party.  Where conspiracy theorists like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and ​Matt Gaetz and Paul Gosar are accepted and even growing voices in the party.
 
The Republican Party may have crossed the line long ago, but they are now lost in a deep, dark Black Hole which is trying to suck democracy and the entire country down with it.
 
Meghan McCain almost seems quaint when she writes, “If Fetterman was a GOPer, his campaign would be over. If you claim otherwise you are a liar and a propagandist.”
 
Almost.  But of course, there is nothing quaint about it.  It is virulent lying with no connection to reality and without remorse.  She is just one piece of the whole sick puzzle.  And it fits in perfectly.  It is a realm where reality has no place.