Worried times at the Bipartisan Café

I stopped at the Bipartisan Café to buy a piece of quiche to deliver to a sick friend and took this photograph of a stranger looking as worried as many of us feel. I’m not sure what this lovely woman is worried about, but I’m worried about the increasingly extreme gap between Democrats and Republicans in the USA. The government of this country has reached a stalemate because we have two parties that don’t trust each other and won’t work together for any purpose. The only place you even see the word “Bipartisan” used is on the signboard of that café.

The takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge by armed white right-wingers is pretty much over now. The FBI moved in on Wednesday night and arrested the leaders of the group, and seven, including two Bundy brothers, are now in jail in Portland. The judge has said they will not be released on bail until their cronies leave the refuge, and so at last count, all but four of their followers had gone home to Montana, Utah, Idaho, and the various armed right-wing strongholds where they live. 

One of the right-wing leaders was killed. There are two versions of how that happened. The authorities, whose stories I usually don’t believe, claim he was charging at them with a weapon and they shot him in self-defense. The right-wingers, whose stories I usually believe even less than the cops’ stories, claim he was on his knees with his hands in the air when they shot him; they call him a “martyr.” The difference in those two stories illustrates our situation perfectly.