Friday, October 13, 2017

Sasse Gets Sassy

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Although I personally share no common political ground with Nebraska’s junior senator, Ben Sasse, on most important national issues (things like guns, abortion, and Obamacare), I will concede that the former university president who holds a PhD in American History from Yale is highly educated and very capable when it comes to putting together well-structured arguments for his right-wing positions.

There is one area, however, where the young Republican senator and I share very similar views, and that is on our mutual contempt for Donald Trump.  Sasse, who just entered the Senate in January of 2015, said early on that he would not be supporting Trump if the reality television personality succeeded in getting the Republican nomination for President.  Sasse questioned Trump’s commitment to the Constitution, and particularly to the all-important First Amendment – the one that guarantees free speech and an unfettered press.  Sasse also faulted Trump for refusing to condemn the Ku Klux Klan, and he opined that the blustery Trump seemed to think he was running for “king” instead of president.

That, in my book, is a prime example of prescience.

Trump, for his part, dove deep into his fourth grade vocabulary and shot back that Sasse sounded like a “loser.”

Senator Sasse made national news in the summer of 2016 when it came time for the Republicans to gather in their coven and nominate Donald Trump for the highest office in the land.  Sasse announced that he would not be attending but would instead be taking his kids to watch some dumpster fires across the state of Nebraska.

But that was then.

Now, the old Trump-Sasse war of words appears to be about to reignite.  Trump has been barking about “fake news” and has accused NBC, the network that foisted Trump’s reality show onto America, of deliberately telling lies about him.  NBC reported that Trump wants to increase the American nuclear arsenal tenfold, and Trump, ever the diplomat, said they were lying through their corporate teeth.   He has even gone so far as to suggest that NBC’s broadcast license renewal application needs to be challenged.

That overt fascist move to thwart freedom of the press did not go unnoticed by Senator Sasse, the man who openly worried about Trump’s disdain for the First Amendment more than two years ago.  Two days ago the ballsy first-term senator tweeted this query to Trump:

“Mr. President:
Are you recanting of the Oath you took on Jan. 20 to preserve, protect, and defend the 1st Amendment?”

Sasse’s tweet will undoubtedly serve to take some Trump heat off of fellow Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee. 

Yesterday Senator Sasse upped the ante when he tweeted this bit of sass to American conservatives, something intended to make them think beyond their plans for lunch:

“Question for conservatives:
What will you wish you had said now if someday a President Elizabeth Warren talks about censoring Fox News?”

Unfortunately for Senator Sasse, many Trump dotards are not comfortable with the notion of thinking.

Will Donald Trump, who needs the vote of almost every Republican senator in order to pass anything, be able to let Sasse’s sass go unpunished? 

Hell, no, he won’t!  Sooner or later The Donald is going to erupt all over Twitter!

Sit back and pass the popcorn.  This is gonna get good!

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