Having read DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s resignation letter in full, I’m struck by how the full scope of a very important job has been narrowed down to an internal dispute over not being cruel enough to brown skinned people at the southern border.

DHS covers protecting cyberspace, threats from real terrorists organizations, chemical and biological weapon threats, potential attacks on our networks, infrastructure and foreign interference in our election process.

Nielsen may have done a good job of keeping us safe from the long list of threats the homeland faces. But she was fired for not getting on board with a strong enough stance on family separation policy as a deterrent to families seeking asylum from Central America.

I can’t help but think our true enemies couldn’t be happier about this blatantly racist misguided focus. I’m not shedding any tears for Nielsen. While she’s the one who took the heat from congress by trying to deflect concern about family separation, children in cages and poor record keeping – it’s hard to argue she didn’t have it coming for basically defending a heartless change in policy towards asylum seekers as any good Trump soldier would. Take the bullet for the boss.

The final assessment? Thanks for taking the bullet on that but we don’t feel like you’re implemention is savage enough to meet the White House standards.

It’s not surprising #FireTuckerCarlson is trending on Twitter. He’s made no secret of his preference for white male dominance, falling just short of a formal endorsement of the KKK. It caught Fox News by surprise though that he has a history (on tape no less) of being so demeaning of women. He’s an unapologetic defender of Warren Jeffs and Roy Moore. What else do you need to know?

As someone who roots for Fox to die in controversy on a daily basis, I was interested in Tucker’s response to release of the tapes. Sure enough he followed the latest Republican trend in defending himself: double down.

We have pictures of you with a known child trafficker. So what?

We have tape of you using the C word in a live interview. So what?

We have records showing you neglected to pay taxes. So what?

We have checks showing you engaged in election fraud by paying off a porn star and a Playboy model. So what?

We have documents showing you took money from Russian oligarchs in exchange for political favors. So what? What are you gonna do about it?

It’s heartening to see establishment republicans attack the lunacy of CPAC on Twitter. I guess it’s true what they say about the enemy of your enemy is your friend.

I’ve always thought Bill Kristol’s writing leaned more conservative than what I would espouse but after following him on Twitter for the past couple of years, I’ve come to admire him a great deal. For one thing, as a champion of the Never Trump movement he gets credit for not being complicit while watching republicans and Trump completely trash the party of Reagan. He makes it very clear that he’s bothered by it. I appreciate the honesty here. There’s a lot to be said for that.

Same is true for quite a few notable establishment republicans like John Kasich, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, the Bush family, George Will, Steve Schmidt, Ana Navarro, Al Cardenas, David Brooks, Michael Gerson, Erick Erickson, and Margaret Hoover. These are some lifelong, once proud republicans who are bold enough to speak out against the current state of lunacy, amplified to 11 on the knob by the cult-like followers at CPAC. Make no mistake about it, these CPAC people are nuts.

I find the courage of the Never Trumpers admirable and hope that someday we can get back to minor disagreements on policy. In the meantime, I consider Kristol and the others close allies. There’s a lot we agree on, most notably, that we’re overdue for a serious conversation about invoking the 25th amendment.

Most of us survived our teen years with some regrettable / idiotic behavior. I’m certainly no exception to that. The viral video of the group of teenagers from a private Catholic school in Kentucky mocking Native American Nathan Phillips looks like a very powerful teachable moment to me for both the students involved and their parents.

When you’re caught red handed treating your fellow man poorly for no reason at all, there’s an opportunity here to send a message to the teens, their parents, and the rest of us.

As someone whose father was an educator and raised a daughter who is also an educator, I can tell you that one reason the public school systems are broken is because so many parents view their school district as having an obligation to babysit their children. Schools set a standard of behavior and if the line is crossed, they do frequently use suspension as a means to remove disruptive kids from school grounds. I’ve heard stories about how effective this is because parents’ lives are disrupted big-time if they have to leave work mid-day and come pick up their kid from school. Even worse if it’s a multiple day suspension and they have to make arrangements for watching their kid because the babysitting service has put them in a time out.

Politics and MAGA hats aside for a minute, the behavior was mean and disrespectful. It stopped short of being violent thankfully.

I’ve never been someone to be quick with an “off with their heads” verdict especially when it comes to teens. I was suspended once in high school for fighting. Had I been caught doing the other 99 things I shouldn’t have been doing, it would have been an even 100. Let’s face it, kids do dumb things.

There’s chatter on Twitter about expulsions. I actually think a couple of weeks off school on a severe suspension combined with community service would be more effective. The parents will have to deal with their worst nightmare — nobody to watch their kid during the day, and the kids will get some time to think about behavior modification.

Now back to politics not aside. It seems like there may be a pattern here. For the past two years when I see videos posted of racist rants at Walmart or in general, one group of people treating another group of people poorly, why are there always so many of these red hats in the pictures?

Republican strategist Rick Wilson wrote a book titled “Everything Trump Touches Dies” which has a Twitter hashtag of its own that needs no explanation.

I’m reminded of this as I watched “America’s mayor” Rudy Giuliani beclown himself on CNN last night. Chris Cuomo pressed Giuliani on the mounting list of indictments, guilty pleas and convictions to which he responded “I never said nobody on the campaign ever colluded with Russia. I said the President didn’t.”

The once proud, by general consensus mayor of our country for his handling of the 9/11 aftermath now has his reputation in tatters because he hitched his wagon to Trump train. He’s gone the way of Trump University, Trump steaks, Trump airlines, Trump vodka, and Trump casinos.

And that’s just a partial list of the failed businesses.

When you compile the list of human resources whose reputations have taken a nosedive you have to include Jeff Sessions, Michael Flynn, Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer, Rex Tillerson, John Kelly, H.R. McMaster, Don McGhan, Emmet Flood, Ty Cobb, Ronny Jackson, Nikki Haley, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Chris Christie. These people all had notable reputations (at least in some circles), but have since paid a steep price for attaching their wagon to Team Trump.

Let’s not forget the sad souls that didn’t have a decent reputation to begin with — who just went from low to lower: Lindsey Graham, Trey Gowdy, Ted Cruz, Devin Nunes, Anthony Scaramucci, Michael Cohen, KellyAnne Conway, Sean Hannity, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, Orin Hatch, Stephen Miller, Tom Price, George Papadapolous, Omarisa Manigault, Roy Moore, Sam Nunberg and Roger Stone. Do I dare? Yes I do. I’m going to add Melania “I don’t really care do you?” Trump to the list. You want to talk about Melania and reputation? Okay, let’s do that.

I can think of only one Trump appointee who successfully avoided getting his reputation shattered – James Mattis. But since he resigned in protest, you must conclude along with Rick Wilson that #ETTD.

Furloughed workers are getting on board with Wilson’s assessment too.

I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of people are big talk until an issue affects them personally. Case in point, the 2019 GOP shutdown.

Because of this belief, I was pleased to see pictures of two hour TSA lines at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport.

Armchair Trump supporters can wait in line while unpaid federal workers begrudgingly scan their bags in between taking sick days.

Isn’t this shutdown great? You know what fixes it? Skin in the game.

The air traffic controllers actually have the power to end the shutdown in less than 48 hours with a strike. Can you imagine the scrambling that would exist in Washington during a complete shutdown of air traffic?

How presumptuous of the federal government to assume workers will report to work for no pay.

The CNN republican stooge strategist baton has officially been passed from Jeffrey Lord and Jason Miller to Stephen Moore and Steve Cortes. Robert Reich takes Moore to school a couple of times a week and establishment republican strategist Ana Navarro found the perfect response to Cortes by filing her nails on air.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks truth to power. She’s 28. It’s resonating with young voters. This is long overdue.

Bernie can say the same words but it doesn’t ring as true with the voters we need to turn out. Same with Elizabeth Warren. Same with Joe Biden.

This probably sounds like age discrimination and you’d be right about that. It is. There’s just no denying the fact that it’s time to pass the baton to a younger, more representative/diverse group of leaders. It’s their future. My parents’ generation had its turn which is why we need these octogenarians to fade off into the sunset.

OAC is too young to lead the party but she can be extremely effective as its messenger until perhaps one day her time comes.

My New Years resolution is to make sure the republican party dies.