Chris Jepson: What I'm thankful for

I’m thankful for memory and the printed word. I’m thankful for the “legitimate” press, for journalists of integrity whose goal is to accurately report the news. I’m thankful for the honorable historian whose agenda is a factual accounting of the past. I’m thankful to be living in a nation that honors and respects speech, dissent and opposition to authoritarian abuse, of any persuasion. I’m thankful that every day is a new day and all that that implies.

On October 23, 2010, now Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” This was little over a year after Republican strategist Frank Luntz had convened a meeting of top House Congressmen in Washington D.C. on the night of President Obama’s January 20, 2009 inauguration and the consensus of that meeting was that every House Republican would work tirelessly to bring down the president by opposing every policy, program or initiative Obama proposed.

In 2009 then Republican Ohio Senator George Voinovich said, “If he was for it, we had to be against it. [McConnell] wanted everyone to hold the fort. All he cared about was making sure Obama could never have a clean victory.”

A few days after the recent 2016 presidential election, here is what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell implored the nation to do, “It’s time to accept the results of the election, to lower the tone and to see what we can do together to make progress for the country.”

President Obama won that 2008 election by almost 10 million votes over Republican John McCain. Yet Congressional Republicans immediately conspired from day one to deny him his victory.

Move now to today. Hillary Clinton soundly won the popular vote by an ever-expanding margin. According to the Cook Political Report, Clinton has received about 63,600,000 votes to the president-elect's 61,900,000. She received 48 percent of the national vote compared to Trump’s 46.7 percent.

There is absolutely no voter mandate, no voter majority for a Trump administration, yet Mitch McConnell wants all Americans to now sing kumbaya and, “accept the results of the election, to lower the tone and to see what we can do together to make progress for the country.”

What the hell is Mitch McConnell smoking? “Lower the tone and to see what we can do together to make progress for the country.” In your dreams, Laddie. Your hypocrisy is staggering. It’s a wonder you didn’t swallow your tongue. Your BS would gag a maggot.

We have a president-elect who just settled out of court — a $25 million lawsuit against his spurious Trump University — for defrauding tens of thousands of our fellow Americans.

We have a president-elect caught on tape bragging, boasting — much like an insecure, infantile male moron — about indiscriminately grabbing women by their crotches.

We have a president-elect who selects Steve Bannon of alt-right fame as a close presidential advisor. Bannon is the chief purveyor of the white power nonsense called Breitbart News. Bannon oversaw a Breitbart headline of “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy.” Or how about this Bannon headline: “After The Pulse Club Massacre, It’s Time For Gays To Come Home To Republican Party.” This man is sick.

We have a president-elect who Tweets the most adolescent utterances, at all hours of the early morning. This is to be the president of the United States? Really?

I’m thankful for the freedom to call a spade a shovel. Trump is a national embarrassment and an undeniable danger.