The ODed GOP 

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I tried really, really hard to watch the first night of the Republican National Convention. Well, OK, I lie. I didn't try that hard. Instead, right after the terrible first 30 minutes or so, I took to watching Family Feud while occasionally checking on Twitter to see what was trending, then I'd check out whatever it was that was causing the Twittersphere to go nuts. So, although I didn't see former ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, proclaim that "America is not a racist nation" and "has never passed a law based on race," I was able see that she was trending and could catch snippets of her speech.

She fudged a bit. For example, when she said, "America is not a racist nation," she also acknowledged that she had been discriminated against. Maybe her discrimination resulted from her having perfectly white teeth and not for being the off-white colored daughter of a man who wore a turban, who knows? Twitter blasted her, none better than Patrick S. Tomlinson @stealthygeek, a contributor to the Science Channel, who gave the simplest of all retorts to Nikki's claim that, "America has never passed a law based on race." Tweeted Tomlinson: "I think that's wrong, but I'm only 3/5ths sure."

That broadside not only defeated Haley's claim but also reminded everyone who actually studied in school that when the Constitution itself was drafted, blacks were considered just 3/5th the worth of a white person for purposes of determining congressional representation. Alas, that reminds us that too many Americans don't consider the devaluation of a human being as racist, and also that a great many Americans didn't go to school at all.

Exhibit A for lack of American education was the repugnant speech by Natalie Harp, a cancer survivor who is an advisory board member for Donald Trump—whatever that is. She told America if Hillary Clinton had been elected, "we'd all be living in a dismal country with no hope of escape except death itself" and of Biden, that "we'd not only be lucky to keep our doctor, under Joe Biden, we'd be lucky if we could see any doctor."

No one told Harp, and Harp never told America, that the life-saving bone cancer treatments she received started in 2015, before Trump was elected. Oh, well.

But the evening highlight for me was when I saw America's First Couple trending on Twitter, Kimberly Guilfoyle and her sidekick, Donald Trump Jr. I've known some very crazy people in my life—thus, I'm thankful I will never know these two grifters. There's no way I'd be caught in the same zoo with them, let alone the same room. The last I heard of Guilfoyle, she was yukking it up with her fellow cranks on The Five, a daytime "news" show on Fox, basically a very dumbed down version of The McLaughlin Group.

Last night found her screaming into the microphone in such animation that the elephants of the Lion King were said to bow in homage. I don't have a personal decibel meter, so I couldn't accurately measure what she said. However, on the equally reliable "I'll have what she's having" meter, I'd say she was bellowing at the edge-of-the-world measure of 1,000 Meg Ryans. People have been known to suffer irreparable harm at just 43 Meg Ryans, so, thoughts and prayers to you, Kimberly. Very, very impressive, but thoughts and prayers.

I was so rapt by her screams—and trying to talk my mind out of what caused them—that I don't recall a single word that Guilfoyle uttered. Let that be a lesson to all the young influencers out there—don't let the mechanism overcome your message. And you know what I'm talking about—not every pair of skinny jeans are "life-changing." Sometimes you need to tone it down.

I was a bartender for quite some time. Back in the early 1970s, it was common for a person to tone it down by snorting up some cocaine, sometimes right off the bar. I never understood cocaine—some people said they used it to get a buzz and others to take the edge off. Hmmm, seem like opposites. Anyway, the big trending Twitter question today regards Donald Trump Jr., and why he looked so creepy and sweaty last night. People who have more first-hand knowledge than I swear he was the walking definition of the word "buzzed" last night—that if cocaine had a face, it would be his.

Isn't that something? Donald Trump Jr. accused by Twitter users of being a cokehead? One so bold as to stand before America and basically say to us all, "I can get away with this, and you can't. Eat me." There are claims all over Twitter and other social media about him and his entire family (save Tiffany and Barron) as being addicted to or using drugs ranging from Adderall to heroin.

When I was a bartender, both users and dealers needed front guys. If that's true about the Trumps, then the entire Republican Party is the front guy. Mike Lee would be considered a trusted kingpin in that world—he runs interference for the bad guys. Chris Stewart is the doorman setting off the buzzer if the cops walk in and screens buying customers with opened palm. The Spencer Coxes of the world—and the Nikki Haleys—are hangers-on and the groupies, all just playing along with the band, not caring a whit that the money they transact derives of dirty deeds.

The Utah GOP is just one more druggie—a spineless, hypocritical enabler. The "family vaues" party is no more. It ODed last night.

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