Trigger Happy

 I can't help but think about the Christmas card Lauren Boebert sent out back in 2021. It features the the smiling mother of four young boys, all of whom are holding their rifles in front of the family tree. This was the lighthearted response the Colorado Representative gave to the criticism her colleague from Kentucky received after posting a similar holiday photo. 

I can't help thinking about this in part because of the willful sneer in the face of the families of victims of a school shooting in Michigan that had happened just days before. The fifteen year old shooter in that case was given a gun by his parents as "an early Christmas present." Also, "Representative" Boebert's oldest son was about fifteen when the festive photo was taken. 

And now he's about seventeen. And he's about to be a daddy. Ms. Boebert announced the blessed event at a CPAC breakfast weekend before last. She laughed about the math. "I'll be a thirty-six year old grandmother!" She went on to praise rural communities' acceptance of teenage pregnancy. The age of the mother was not immediately made available, except that she was "over fourteen." 

Here would be a good place to put in the part about how she has consistently railed against "comprehensive sex education" in public schools. One can only imagine how stifling the environment must be for a teenaged boy in the Boebert home. It might also be connected to the lessons handed down from Daddy, who did some time in jail for "lewd exposure." Which we can only assume would be met with praise for rural communities' acceptance of indecent exposure in alleys behind bowling alleys. 

This is, after all, (checks notes) the "Family Values" party. The party that insists that what you don't know can't hurt you. The party that seeks to rationalize their wacky points of view on the run, rather than providing anything but fear of being "woke." If you were awake, you could smell the hypocrisy. 

That would be the Republican Party. The party in Tennessee that is overseeing legislation outlawing drag shows in public places and targeting gender care for the trans community. represented in part by Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally. The hysterically named Lieutenant Governor Randy was caught liking pictures of naked young men on his official Instagram account. The seventy-nine year old responded with three red hearts and three "on-fire" emojis, along with the comment: "Finn, you can turn a rainy day into rainbows and sunshine." Which would be all well and good in a party that wasn't careening toward pushing everything and everyone back into a closet or worse. Randy is somebody's great-grandfather, by the way. I suppose rural communities are generally more accepting of #grandpaporn. 

I can't wait to see the Boebert's Christmas card this year...