“Please do not ever contact me again.”

I don’t know Lori Sotelo personally. I have had no previous encounters with her and have no wish to ever meet the woman. But her name showed up on my Facebook page, posted by a good friend of mine, who was good and pissed at just the latest in fairly long line of irrationally haughty public pronouncements by prominent Republicans who, emboldened by the (alleged, Russian-aided) “victory” of their designated tool, Donald J. Trump (currently squatting in the White House and posing as “president”), are now adopting the same attitude toward their constituents as Caligula held for his lowest subjects. First Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton – that weak-chinned, goofy-looking sack of self-aggrandizing toe jam – issued a cease & desist order against any of his electorate who dared seek an audience with him and now the imperious Ms. Sotelo, chairperson of the King County GOP Gabfest and Clown University, has similarly told one of her own to screw off because she was – as am I and millions of other people, holding Republicans responsible for the continuing slaughter at our public schools – upset and had the audacity to lay the blame where it belongs.

(I was going to out her photo up here but, honestly, I just don’t want to look at her smirky, smug face, anymore. Google her. She’ll be the first ones up)

Gunplay in our public schools, here in the Trump Era, has now become so much of a routine occurrence that, in 2018’s current elapsed seven weeks, we are actually averaging 1.71 school shootings a week, an average that, if played out for the rest of 2018, would result in NINETY school massacres by January 1, 2019. And actually, if you figure the number of incidents in which a gun has been discharged on school property, whether or not anyone was injured, that number rises to 18 or 2.5 shootings a week or 130 for the year.

And that number doesn’t even count the school shootings that were planned but thwarted by friends, families, and acquaintances or even strangers who discovered the plots and blew the whistle.

A lady named Ginny Baldwin wrote a reasonably civil email to Ms. Sotelo, demanding that the Republican Party stop providing aid and comfort to the NRA, while our children are mowed down wholesale, all so wealthy arms manufacturers can keep their revenue streams unbroken and each new shooting can encourage fresh waves of weapons purchases to the desperate and frightened. Ms  Baldwin was direct and emphatic but never crossed any lines of decency and obscenity…as I would SURELY have done. The screengrab from my friend’s post appears below, as does the final line of Ms. Baldwin’s email, which proved to be the thing that offended Ms. Sotelo’s tender little sensibilities…

Ms. Sotelo has effectively outed herself as one of those wannabes of the “Teflon Republican” set who feels that bearing any responsibility for the actions of the party which she feeds her ego by representing should not attach itself to her. A more astute politician, sensing the current societal climate as to guns and the deaths of our children, would probably have at least gritted their teeth and manufactured a non-committal, non-confrontational response, designed to convey some sort of (probably phony) empathy and concern for the lives lost and those left to grieve – which, in this case, is the entire country, minus a few gun-totin’ delusionals and the smaller set of politicians who think they can or should remain above it all.

Not the very important Ms. Sotelo:

I want to say this as directly and emphatically as I can and I’ll be  damned if I’m going to sugar-coat it in deference to Mr. Cotton or Ms. Sotelo’s priss-pot sensibilities:

There is no creature on God’s earth that is as low and beneath contempt as a politician who decides that they do not have to obey even the most basic principles of the job they’ve taken on. If you are elected to any office in this country, you OWE your constituents the common decency of making yourself the place they go when they’re hurting, when they’re uncertain, when they’re angry and seeking justice, when they have questions, or even when they just want to vent because of having to, yet again, watch the unthinkable come to pass with STILL nothing at all being done to provide a remedy. Whether the faux-regal Ms. Sotelo likes it or not, she has had herself installed as the GOP’s go-to face in King County, Washington…which, I will grant you, is a fairly thankless position, here in one of America’s blessedly most Liberal cities and counties but, as my grandpa and countless other Americans, all the way back to Harry S. Truman, who allegedly said it first, have put it, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

I hope Ms. Baldwin and maybe 50,000 more Washingtonians literally blow out the email servers that provide Ms. Sotelo’s inbox. I hope her mailbox ruptures and spews righteous indignation all over her smart Mercer Island front yard. I hope passersby at Westlake Center and Bellevue Square and Seahawks games rain down Ms. Baldwin’s same questions and statements whenever Lori Sotelo sticks her carefully-coiffed head out her front door. I hope the state GOP Committee takes her out behind the metaphorical woodshed and has that come-to-Jesus meeting that wise and experienced politicians have with their errant number who forget that public service is about SERVICE first and that they can – in an instant, with one thoughtless and callous venting of their spleen – undo the work of decades in building a reputation for honesty and fairness and professionalism.  If there are any Republicans of character left, here in Washington state, I hope they put the Facts of Life squarely before Ms. Sotelo’s nose and maybe suggest that she cut the imperious shit and at least TRY to impersonate someone with a brain and heart and a conscience. The hauteur of her mini-smarm-fest of a response aside, the timing of it reveals just how callous and clueless politicians can become when blinded by what they (erroneously, as in this case) regard as the triumph of their philosophy.

Drawing of Tiny Tommy Cotton by DonkeyHotey on Flickr

Tom Cotton, In any kind of just society, would have been recalled to Little Rock, publicly shamed by his state’s GOP and Governor, and would now be sitting in a baby pool filled with cheap beer, pondering his ego and how it was his undoing.

I doubt that any of this will actually happen to Ms. Sotelo. Republicans placing themselves above the concerns of their constituents is sadly more the norm, now, than the exception. But, here in genteel old KingCo, WA, USA, we do, at least, know who one of these haughty pieces o’ baggage is and those of us who possess working brains and consciences CAN make her life a lot less pleasant by making damned sure that she is haunted by this moment of ego run amok and properly devalued as a respectable member of this area and our culture.

TRY to get this, Lori: You are NOT better than any of the rest of us and if you doubt that, we’ll all be happy to take our case for your removal from your duties to the ballot boxes in 2018 and give you that long interlude you seem to need to reevaluate your place in the universe.

I am DONE with these clowns and reptiles and lunatics. So done. So sickened. And SO wounded to my soul at watching our children and grandchildren die while politicians prevaricate and simper and shift blame. ENOUGH. Do your damned jobs or GET OUT.