Today is Tuesday, November 1, a new month. Despite the shocking attack on Paul Pelosi, the 82-year-old husband of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, that should have infuriated anyone with a conscience, we have instead a morally bankrupt party, which I’ll refer to as the party of Dumpf, that sows only absurd conspiracy theories about the assault in order to deflect attention from the outrage that they should be normally expressing. This is a low moment for us as a country if we have elected lawmakers ridiculing a violent attack against an American citizen. These are the same men and women shouting “crime, crime, crime” to win over fearful voters like here even in New York where the Democratic candidate for governor is losing ground to an abominable Trumpist candidate by the name of Lee Zeldin, which is astounding to me, and they don’t even care about a real crime being committed in a person’s house in San Francisco. How could anyone vote for these people, given their fucking record of do-nothingism.

One of those abominable voices spewing right-wing conspiracy theories regarding the recent attack of Paul Pelosi is Texas senator Ted “Ooze” who is particularly obnoxious. An Independent article by Johanna Chisholm on my smartphone examines the latest kerfuffle from this sleazy character in an article entitled “Ted Cruz faces furious calls to apologize for pushing Paul Pelosi attack conspiracy theories: ‘You’re disgusting.'”

So today the senator who scurried to Cancun during a wintry emergency in his state last year and was burned over the coals for doing so faced a barrage of demands to issue an apology or retract a tweet after he appeared to promote a GOP conspiracy theory about the attack on Pelosi’s husband.

Even though the widely disliked senator began his thoughts on the horrific crime by offering his “prayers” for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her aged husband of 82 years on Friday, he pulled back from the “normal” expressions of concern for the health of the victim who was attacked in his own room, he retweeted posts from unreliable sources that seemed to promote falsehoods and innuendo about the suspected attacker, 42-year-old David DePape.

In one of the posts, Senator Cruz shared a screenshot from alt-right activist Matt Walsh, in which he pushed back against the information that has been widely reported from reliable news outlets that DePape had recently become engaged in posting on far-right political blogs.

The two delusional men then apparently challenged the notion that DePape was a screwball and engaged in militant right-wing conspiracies. How could Cruz accept this reality powering a fucking violent man who was brainwashed by right-wing conspiracies when the entire repugnican party is a welter of conspiracy theories? He had to deflect the reality somehow.

However, Cruz’s comments did not escape the ire of the Twiterverse when the criminal complaint was released from U.S. District Court in Northern California yesterday that immediately debunked the two men’s absurd theory as it clearly laid out how DePape had politically motivated intentions and users began demanding an apology from the befogged senator.

One user tweeted, “You want to amend your lies and conspiracy theories, @tedcruz? You owe Paul Pelosi, the Pelosi family and America an apology for your disgusting tweets.” Another online commentator just tweeted out, “You’re disgusting” to the Texas senator.

Sadly, Cruz joins a horrendous chorus of other GOP-aligned figures and elected officials who have begun trafficking in conspiracy notions about the attack on Pelosi rather than acknowledge the facts relayed in the arresting documents from state and federal authorities.

More disturbing is the extraterrestrial tweets posted by that paragon of GOP lunacy, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who ridiculously claimed that Pelosi would have stopped DePape if he had a gun in the house and said something really surreal about DePape being an illegal alien and should have been deported. Does anyone grasp what this idiot was saying about the Pelosi attacker? Greene made more of a fool of herself, which is certainly not very hard to do – she just needs to open her loud, ignorant mouth to do that – when she defended Elon Musk for posting a conspiracy theory that falsely claimed that Pelosi knew his attacker.

This country can now thank the former orange-haired president for creating this sort of atmosphere here where even facts are rejected outright by a huge percentage of the electorate.

We need the efforts of former President Barack Obama at this time to bring his stumping for Democratic candidates all throughout the land. He has hit the campaign trail most recently and has unleashed a spate of withering attacks on the Republican Party and its crop of hideous candidates. The article that examines the efforts of the former president is written by Eric Garcia for The Independent which is entitled ‘The best closer we have’: Obama floods the campaign trail to help Democrats as midterms loom.”

In Michigan, Obama slammed GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon for spouting a series of downright baffling conspiracy theories. Obama talked about a video that just came out in which Dixon is outrageously claiming that Democrats have been working for decades to topple the United States because they are still upset about losing the Civil War. And that COVID restrictions were part of some master plan to do this. Ugh! WTF! Is this woman running for governor or the head of a psychiatric institute? She certainly needs to be defeated in her quest for the governorship in Michigan, my son’s home state for now.

In Wisconsin, Obama blasted incumbent GOP Senator Ron Johnson for getting tax breaks for his wealthy donors while favoring cuts in benefits for retirees and hard-working Americans of lesser means. Then Obama shredded the incumbent idiot who needs to be unseated immediately. He correctly grasped the situation by saying, “Some of you here are on Social Security, some of your parents are on Social Security, some of your grandparents are on Social Security. You know why they have Social Security? ‘Cuz they worked for it. They worked hard jobs for it. They had chapped hands for it. They had long hours and sore backs and bad knees to get that Social Security. . . . If Ron Johnson doesn’t understand that, if he understands giving tax breaks for private planes more than he understands making sure that seniors who’ve worked all their lives are able to retire with dignity and respect, he’s not the person who’s thinking about you, who knows you and sees you, and he should not be your senator from Wisconsin.” A great reason for why anyone should vote for his opponent in Wisconsin, lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes. Let’s hope so; unfortunately, the horrible Johnson is favored, inexplicably, in this race. Maybe common decency will prevail here like in other races.

Today Obama will travel to Las Vegas to shore up Democratic Senator Catherine Cortex Mastro and Governor Steve Sisolak, who face tough reelection fights. He will also campaign for Senator Mark Kelly and Katie Hobbs in Arizona. And on Saturday, the two-term president will campaign in Philadelphia with President Joe Biden and Pittsburgh, to boost gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro and Senate nominee John Fetterman. Let’s hope that this incisive and most well-liked former commander-in-chief will persuade voters to come out for Democrats in a week’s time.

I’ll leave you with an apt tweet from a user who nailed how disgusting the repugnican party is right now that it collectively laughs at an elderly man being attacked with a hammer by a violent, white 42-year-old far-right extremist: “When did Republicans become such crass, soulless, hateful and spiteful human beings as to laugh that an elderly gentleman is in the ICU because of a violent assault? Disgusting.

Then this user concludes by quoting author Jonathan Swift, stating, “I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.” This describes the current state of the party under Dumpf. Enough said!

The highlight of my day today was my driving to that bookstore in Ridgewood, Queens, called the Topos Bookstore. Elliot preferred to stay home, so I was alone with my trusty GPS. I’m not really comfortable driving somewhere that I don’t know, but I decided to do it anyway.

When I got to this new geographical destination, I patted myself on the back for actually finding it. Of course, how could anyone get lost when using Waze or some other system now? I could, though.

I was unable to park at a spot on the street where the store was on the corner, so I drove around the block to seek out another place.

Then I walked into the cozy little bookstore that had a small cafe inside and a few tables outside where one could drink coffee and eat one’s snacks.

I found the store to be welcoming and nicely stocked. One shelf close to the front of the store boasted some well-known paperbacks. I was attracted to Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon which depicts modern-day totalitarianism (it was published in 1941) and the fate of a political prisoner known only as Rubashov. It’s on the 20th-century best seller list, so I picked it up for my library. Another book I was attracted to was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s autobiography. Both books cost $12.

I then ordered a medium coffee and a piece of banana walnut bread from the cafe, then went outside to find a table upon which to sit down on, but couldn’t find an unoccupied one. So I went next door and sat on some residence’s stoop to have my drink and eat my snack.

Next, I decided to explore this new neighborhood and walked several blocks away from the bookstore. That was my first mistake, since when I came back and tried to locate where my car was parked, I couldn’t find it immediately. I had forgotten to take a picture of where I parked, so I really didn’t know where that was. I began to get a little panicky, but I held my fear inside. After 20 minutes or so, I eventually did find the car. Whoo!

Boy, was I happy to find my 12-year-old vehicle that was just cleared for driving once more only yesterday when I picked it up from our mechanic. My hair was matted from sweat as I got behind the driver’s side. Then I put on the GPS to see how to drive home. I drove through new vistas that I haven’t seen before. From what I could ascertain from my wandering through the neighborhood, Ridgewood seemed like a very nice cluster of decades-old, small houses and mom-and-pop stores that don’t exist in many places anymore in New York. There was a small-neighborhood charm to the area, I thought. I would certainly return if I could, but I would take the train the next time since I found an elevated subway stop for the M train just a block or two from the bookstore. I think it would be easier to take the subway then. Parking does not look that easy, actually.

I was very glad when I saw familiar sights on my drive back to Forest Hills. When I parked the car in the garage, I went upstairs to tell Elliot about my little adventure.

Stay safe and be well.

Halloween is still much on display here outside this house on Woodward Avenue, where the bookstore is located. Do you like the blue spider?