Putin, hero of a certain sulfurous American rightist

The eponymous founder of Buchananism, not for the first time, extols the virtues of Vladimir Putin.

Is Putin the ‘Preeminent Statesman’ of Our Times?

That is a question it would certainly never have occurred to me to ask, I assure you.

Buchanan's treasonable admiration for the Russian thug and all he stands for is revolting.

And his depiction of Putin's strategic attack on the West - undermining NATO, the EU, and American leadership in Europe - as a defense of traditional Western civilization, of which he asserts both blood-and-soil nationalism and clericalist suffocation of culture under Christian sexual morality to be essential features and key values, is a repulsive smokescreen he does not even realize is a smokescreen.

Or does not care; one or the other, they are equally bad.

Make no mistake.

Buchanan is not merely reporting.

He is blatantly cheering.

Putin has read the new century better than his rivals. 

While the 20th century saw the world divided between a communist East and a free and democratic West, new and different struggles define the 21st.

The new dividing lines are between social conservatism and self-indulgent secularism, between tribalism and transnationalism, between the nation-state and the New World Order.

On the new dividing lines, Putin is on the side of the insurgents. 

The utter joke of Human Events

Human Events

Their front page today is 90% Ann Coulter touting Trump, Trumpism, White Nationalism, loathing for welfare bums, and the like.

And 10% Paul Dykewicz, whoever he is.

A quondam significant conservative website utterly hollowed out by its embrace of Trump and Trumpism.

And Buchananism.

Well, that's all right, then.

Mexican man cleared in sexual assault of schoolgirl because he didn't 'enjoy' it

Diego Cruz, 21, was one of four young men from prominent families in the coastal state of Veracruz who were nicknamed “Los Porkys” on social media after they were accused of seizing a classmate from their elite private school as she left a New Year’s party on 1 January 2015.

In a ruling which was made public on Monday, Judge Anuar González found that although Cruz was accused of touching the victim’s breasts and penetrating her with his fingers, he had acted without “carnal intent” – and so was not guilty of assault.

González also found that although the victim, who was 17 at the time, was forced into the car of one of her alleged attackers, she was never “helpless”. 

Two of the other three suspects are accused of penetrating the victim.

The release of Cruz – who had fled to Spain, but was extradited back to Mexico – has prompted outrage among human rights activists, and marked a new low point in a case that has reinforced the perception that those with money and political connections are above the law.

A really bad bet

Toshiba's Westinghouse Electric is filing for bankruptcy

The company bet big on the nuclear industry in 2006, acquiring Westinghouse for $5.4 billion. It was a bold deal that came at a time of renewed interest in nuclear power.

But the meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011 changed things. 

In the face of souring public opinion on nuclear energy and stricter safety requirements, hopes of a nuclear renaissance soon faded.

Analysts said Toshiba paid too much for Westinghouse, forcing it to maintain an aggressive nuclear power plant sales forecast. 

That led to Westinghouse acquiring nuclear construction business CB&I Stone & Webster in 2015.

The deal was supposed to help Westinghouse complete the U.S. reactor projects. 

Instead, costs spiraled out of control. 

Toshiba later admitted that it may have overestimated the value of CB&I Stone & Webster.

The ugly, even ludicrous, side of capitalism

Jeff Bezos passes Warren Buffett to become the world's second richest person

And did I say "cruel"?

Another of those bloody "strong men"

Venezuela's high court dissolves National Assembly

More of the endless Bolivarian bullshit.

In a surprising move the Venezuelan opposition is calling a coup, the Venezuelan Supreme Court has stripped the country's National Assembly of its powers. 

The court ruled that all powers vested under the legislative body will be transferred to the Supreme Court, which is stacked with government loyalists.

The ruling effectively means the three branches of the Venezuelan government will be controlled by the ruling United Socialist Party. 

The opposition has been taken out of the picture.

Whoa. WTF?

Former National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn asks for immunity in return for testimory

He asked the Senate Intelligence Committee, and his his lawyers have made the same offer to the Justice Department.

No takers.

Interesting.

Measuring up

No man thinks he needs to measure up to women.

Some women think they need to prove, or men need to be made to believe, or men need to be made to admit, that women are as tough as men, as competent as men, as smart as men - even as able to drink dreadful whiskey at room temperature as men.

They are called "feminists".

Some of them insist subordinates call them "Sir", at least on television.

No man wants to be called "Ma'am".

Or even "Mum", like the Queen.

What's that?

What about Jennings?

And Manning?

Well, yes.

You have me there.

The Siberian candidate echoed Russian "active measures"

Russian deception influenced election due to Trump's support, senators hear

Donald Trump’s willingness to embrace Russian disinformation was one of the reasons Russia’s interference in the 2016 election worked, the Senate panel investigating the president’s alleged ties to the country heard on Thursday.

Decades of Russian covert attempts to undermine confidence in western institutions, including planting or promoting false news stories or spreading doubt about the integrity of elections, will accelerate in the future unless the US confronts so-called “active measures”, several experts testified to the Senate intelligence committee.

“Part of the reason active measures have worked in this US election is because the commander-in-chief has used Russian active measures at time [sic] against his opponents,” said [Former FBI Special Agent] Clint Watts of George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security.

. . . .

When asked why the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, felt the 2016 US election provided the Kremlin an opportunity to intervene – the consensus position of US intelligence agencies – Watts pointed to Trump.

Wittingly or not, Trump and his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, embraced and promoted narratives, including false ones, convenient to Russian interests, including a fake story about a terrorist attack on the Turkish airbase at Incirlik used by US forces and baselessly doubting the US citizenships of Barack Obama and Ted Cruz.

“On 11 October, President Trump stood on stage and cited what appears to be a fake news story from [the Russian propaganda outlet] Sputnik News that disappeared from the internet. He denies the intel from the United States about Russia. He claimed that the election could be rigged – that was the number-one theme pushed by RT, Sputnik News,” Watts testified.

And Trump supporters still believe every word.

Moving on? Doesn't look it.

Paul Ryan: I don't want to work with Democrats on health care

House Speaker Paul Ryan says he has no interest in working with Democrats on getting health care legislation passed, disputing a suggestion by the White House to reach across the aisle and bypass conservative House Republicans.

"I'm trying to get this bill passed," Ryan said on CBS's "This Morning." 

"Nancy (Pelosi) and I see things very, very differently. I don't want government running health care."

"I don't want that to happen. I want a patient-centered system," Ryan added.

Earlier this week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said President Donald Trump is "absolutely" willing to work with Democrats on a way forward on health care.

"What I worry about, Norah (O'Donnell), is if we don't do this, then he'll just go work with Democrats to try to change Obamacare -- and that's hardly a conservative thing," he said.

"If this Republican Congress allows the perfect to become the enemy of the good, I worry we'll push the President to working with Democrats. He's been suggesting that much."

The Wisconsin Republican said he hopes that Republicans can come together and figure out a solution to repealing the Affordable Care Act.

Stopped cold, again

Federal Court In Hawaii Halts Donald Trump’s Travel Ban Indefinitely

“We cannot fault the president for being politically incorrect, but we do fault him for being constitutionally incorrect.”

The Duce at war with the Freedom Caucus?

Trump, Ryan go public with fight against Freedom Caucus

Trump appeared to target conservative House members within his own party in a tweet Thursday morning that told his supporters "we must fight" the House Freedom Caucus as well as Democrats next year.

"The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!" Trump tweeted.

The President is using the power of his bully pulpit to try and force the Freedom Caucus to work with him on his agenda rather than be against it.

But several members of the FC, in response to questions, scoffed contemptuously at the idea that Trump could in primaries replace them with Trumpist Republican candidates.

And this.

It came shortly after Ryan made clear in an interview on "CBS This Morning" that if his party can't unify, Trump will likely turn toward Democrats for future legislative deals.

This is not inconceivable, I think.

And Democrats have repeatedly expressed willingness.

A proper concern of the masses?

Why is this in Breitbart?

Fewer Than 1 Percent Of Papers in Scientific Journals Follow Scientific Method

So far, so good

I have for some months been on a shaving regimen involving rotation of razors for one week each, each using one fresh blade for its week.

The short Weishi 9306 F
The Feather Popular
The Merkur 180
The long Weishi 9306 FL
The Baili Victory Shaver

In order from most to least mild, though none is really aggressive.

I am amused to note that I have one Japanese, one German, and 3 Chinese razors.

All of them clones or variations of American inventions.

Republicans can't string together two sentences to a journo without lying

Or even one!

Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP - none of these is "government run health care," nor are all of them together.

An American National Health Service of which all medical personnel were employees and that owned all hospitals, clinics, doctor's offices, or other medical facilities would be an American and national example of government run health care, and some people think it would be better than what we have now, if it provided good and equal care for all Americans.

And Obamacare is not an awful law from which Americans need to be protected.

After health care failure, Plan B suddenly more appealing for Republicans

"Opposition to government run health care has been a foundation of the Republican party for three or four generations now, so it is difficult to see House Republicans walk away from efforts to protect the American people from this awful law," said Michael Steel, former spokesman for ex-House Speaker John Boehner.

A lot of people seem not to realize that if the people are to prefer capitalism to full-on socialism it has to be because it's better for them, the people, and not because it's better for capitalists and their best serving running dogs.

Capitalism is a political choice, not an inevitability.

Lo! I tell you a mystery!

Canadian Gold costs about a quarter what Jack Daniels black label does.

Yet its taste is considerably less nasty.

And that's how you judge, not just whiskey, but all hard liquor.

Hate crimes are not per se terrorism

Klan murders of blacks were intended to terrify blacks into abandoning efforts toward political or social equality, and were for a long time successful.

That was terrorism.

Attacks against abortion providers and clinics for the purpose of stopping people getting or providing such services are terrorism.

Hate crimes are generally no such thing, and are purely and simply about hate.

The purpose of altering political or other behavior, definitive of terrorism, is lacking.

For some reason, accepting that Muslims killing Americans or Europeans as part of a campaign to scare Europeans into abandoning the fighting against ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and others in the Middle East and Central Asia is terrorism - think of the attacks in Spain in 2004 - while whites killing blacks out of sheer hatred, whether or not in hopes of starting a race war, is not is just too much to swallow for many of the race commissars of the left.

That obtuse and racially motivated view is plainly to be seen in this article and in the actions of this prosecutor.

A White Racist Killed A Black Man And Was Actually Charged With Terrorism

James Harris Jackson murdered a random black man in cold blood. 

The Manhattan DA decided to call it what it was: an act of terrorism.

On March 17 a white Army veteran named James Harris Jackson boarded a bus from Baltimore to New York City. 

Several days later, he allegedly stabbed a black man, 66-year-old Timothy Caughman, to death. 

Jackson and Caughman didn't know each other. 

But Jackson, by his own admission, hates black men and Caughman became another unfortunate example of someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

On Monday, March 27, Jackson was charged with first and second degree murder as an act of terrorism. 

He was also charged with second degree murder as a hate crime, as well as several weapons violations.

No border wall for The Duce?

Booman thinks no way, and the White House knows it.

He can't deliver what he promised.

While possibly under investigation for his Russian connections

Trump Son-in-Law Jared Kushner to Oversee Government Overhaul

President Donald Trump will name his son-in-law, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, to lead a new office responsible for streamlining and overhauling the federal government on Monday, the White House told NBC News on Sunday night.

Is it the Putin plan?

Anyway, creating, abolishing, or changing the missions of executive departments requires congressional action.

Bozo has not won a lot of loyal new friends among standard Republicans, so far.

Kushner offers to meet with Senate Intel Committee over Russia meetings

President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has volunteered to speak to the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of its investigation into Russian meddling in the US election, a White House spokesman said Monday.

"Throughout the campaign and transition, Jared Kushner served as the official primary point of contact with foreign governments and officials," the White House spokesman told CNN in a statement. 

"Given this role, he has volunteered to speak with Chairman Burr's Committee, but has not yet received confirmation."

The lemmings are hilarious

Stocks open lower, Dow falls triple digits on Trump pessimism

Getting to Soylent Green

China will lead the way to that future.

Jing-Jin-Ji: China Planning Megalopolis the Size of New England

China's rulers are planning a megacity that would be home to 130 million people and cover an area the size of New England.

The Fascist impulse among the Trumpists, again

OMB Director Mick Mulvaney: Washington’s ‘a Lot More Broken’ Than Trump Thought

If strong elements of the right talk like this when they don't get their way, it's a bad sign.

In an interview Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press," Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget and previously a U.S. representative from South Carolina, bluntly acknowledged that Trump's team may have misunderstood the complicated process of legislating.

There's "plenty of blame to go around," he said.

"What happened is that Washington won. I think the one thing we learned this week is that Washington is a lot more broken than President Trump thought that it was."

Mulvaney was a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus[.]

. . . .

Asked why they couldn't pass a bill when Republicans maintain control of the presidency, the House and the Senate, Mulvaney posed a clear question.

"Is the Republican Party capable of governing? I know the man in the White House is capable of governing. I saw it this week," he asked.

"We haven't been able to change Washington in the first 65 days," he added.

"And I think if there's anything that's disappointing and sort of an educational process to the Trump administration was that this place was a lot more rotten than we thought that it was."

Today, in America, it's the leadership of the Republican Party and the White House.

Note, too, how Mulvaney and Trump, elsewhere in this report, talk to and about the Republicans who opposed them.

Trump and his familiars have talked like this, often with much heat, since the campaign.

Remember The Duce's speculation about a "Second Amendment solution" in case the "rigged system" in Washington "stole the presidency" from him?

And his claims that a Democratic victory would be proof the system was rigged?

True enough, much that Bernie said was gasoline on the fire.

But he never called for violence.

A revealing piece by Kailani Koenig.

If the Trumpists are dealing with a rather bitter adversary relationship not only with the main stream press but also with nearly all of official Washington as well, the entire Democratic Party, and even much of the Republican Party, and they are, it is entirely their own fault and, really, of their own choosing.

That is emphatically and very clearly how the Duce and his supporters have seen themselves from the earliest days of his campaign.

This is the role they have undertaken, not just willingly but with the greatest enthusiasm.

Bozo and Ahnguhla

Donald Trump printed out made-up £300bn Nato invoice and handed it to Angela Merkel

A wag journo recently said Trump regards NATO as an American charity that benefits only Europe.

The same wag, were he to comment on the question, might say that Marine Le Pen regards NATO as a con job that benefits only America.

And she regards Poland and Germany as wholly adequate buffer states between France and her distant pal Putin's Russia.

Ah, those nationalist populists!

Update.

The White House has denied this story.

Marine Le Pen

Russia’s Putin Picks Le Pen to Rule France

Anti-American, anti-EU, and anti-NATO.

Sort of like, well, Trump.

Perfect!

Trump, Ryan give up

Unable to get the votes, mostly but not only because of the intransigence of the Freedom Caucus, seconded by the dismay of the moderates.

Trump and the Republicans could not deliver, he on his campaign promises, they on seven years of promises, to repeal Obamacare.

Trump blames the Democrats and predicts Obamacare will explode, this year.

Trump asked Ryan to pull the vote on the bill, laying blame at the feet of Democrats in an interview with the New York Times moments after making the decision.

With any luck, this is a sign of the utter collapse of the Trump presidency and the descent of the Republicans into bitter, impotent divisions, resulting in the failure not only of his agenda but also of theirs.

Bob Casey stands up

Senate Democrats pledge to block Neil Gorsuch's supreme court nomination

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer joins Bob Casey and independent Bernie Sanders in opposition, setting stage for clash over potential filibuster.

Remember this fight

The fight over Obamacare happening right now.

Remember it when Jill Stein, Ralph Nader, Michael Moore, or some other exaggerated lefty says there's not a dime's worth of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats.

Or the fight over Gorsuch, who would undo the sexual revolution in the law, if he could, rather than protect or expand it.

The real negotiators are in the Freedom Caucus

Trump on campaign promised universal excellent coverage with lower consumer costs than Obamacare.

Ryan's original plan would have cost most people more and provided less than Obamacare, but Trump was all in, anyway.

Millions were expected to lose coverage.

The Freedom Caucus, a caucus of the most hard shelled of the House Republican conservatives, has since then forced the plan far to the right, and still calls it scornfully the biggest welfare program the Republican Party has ever offered.

For even more millions, no coverage.

Remember their motto, "Let them die!"

Wikipedia says the Freedom Caucus has 29 members.

The Tuesday Group, comprising Republican moderates of the House, found the original plan already too far right, too Draconian.

They are aghast at the concessions won by the Freedom Caucus.

They have about 50 members, says Wikipedia.

Trump team ultimatum.

A legal way to buy votes

The best Republican Party money can buy.

Kochs pledge millions to GOPers in 2018 -- if they vote no on health care bill

5 killed and 40 hurt, they now say, in London attack.

Still no confirmation this was even a wildcat Jihader attack, much less one run by any terrorist organization, though.

Where was Comey with this sludge before the election?

When he was smearing Hillary, I mean?

US Officials: Info suggests Trump associates may have coordinated with Russians

The real symbol of the United States

It is in New York, the greatest city in America, and not DC.

Compared to New York, DC is like Harrisburg, Albany, or Springfield.

But it sure as hell was not the Twin Towers.

It was and is the Statue of Liberty, complete with hoaky poem about immigrants.

The New Colossus.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Refuge.

The ultimate safe harbor.

Us.

Lemming watch

Goddamned blithering idiots.

The Trump Honeymoon Is Over: Markets Are Now Scared His Promises Won’t Come True

56° F in Our Town

Hello, wall.

GOP Sen. Jeff Flake: Trump should apologize for wiretapping claim

Nancy Pelosi said so yesterday, probably not for the first time.

Tyrants do very well

Crime pays.

Rachel said Reuters said . . .

That our Secretary of State Tillerson is blowing off a meeting of all NATO foreign ministers - it would have been his first - to fly to Moscow, instead, for undisclosed reasons.

To receive orders from Russian officials?

Was that the price Moscow extorted from Trump?

That Bozo put Putin's man in charge of State?

Yes, that's the question she meant to put in our minds.

Treason in plain sight?

Not bloody likely, sure, but then what the hell?

Napolitano is gone

Napolitano missing from Fox.

50° F in Our Town

The intelligence committee hearings

FBI Director Comey and the NSA Director, Admiral Rogers, were able to confirm several points.

Russian efforts to influence the election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign are under investigation.

Russia had a clear preference for a Trump victory and Putin personally hates Hillary Clinton.

The Russian motivation for their interference before late summer of 2016 was both their negative desire that Hillary not win and a positive desire that Trump win.

Republicans on the committee did their best to undermine those assertions - that the Russians wanted Trump to win and Hillary to lose and that was the point of their interference - of intelligence folks, but the latter did not budge.

In late summer, Comey said, the Russians thought Trump had no chance and shifted their focus to undermining an expected future Clinton Administration, both at home and in Europe.

Nobody has any shred of evidence of any wiretaps or surveillance of Trump or Trump Tower by any American intelligence agency.

Likewise British snooping.

Nothing supports Trump tweets about O ordering or requesting such a thing, by US agencies or others.

Any such request, and any such snooping, would be criminal.

Both Comey and Admiral Rogers explained they have not offered any view of how far the Russians actually did influence the election and will offer no such view.

Rogers did say that Russian hackers did not hack electronic voting machines to alter recorded votes or vote counts in any state.

If you think all this makes Comey a hero, ask why he made revelations about Hillary well timed to harm her.

He was a tomb about Trump, though investigation concerning possible collusion between his campaign and Moscow began last July.

Peters vs Mercator

According to The Guardian, the Mercator projection, by pushing the equator below the halfway line of the map, while handier for representing navigation routes, exaggerates the size of land masses in the northern hemisphere.

The Peters projection, putting the equator halfway down the page, gets the relatives sizes better - though I must say to observers used to be older map it looks like the world in a fun house mirror.

Naturally, this being The Guardian, the switch to the latter in the Boston public schools, while noted as a switch toward relative accuracy, is celebrated as a decolonization of the map, as rejecting exaggeration of the old imperial powers.

Like Greenland, Sweden, and Alaska.

Yet that does seem to reflect the motives and beliefs of the school authorities, as indicated in these snips.

They are certainly not making this change merely for the sake of accuracy.

The result goes a long way to rewriting the historical and socio-political message of the Mercator map, which exaggerates the size of imperialist powers.

“This is the start of a three-year effort to decolonize the curriculum in our public schools,” said Colin Rose, assistant superintendent of opportunity and achievement gaps for Boston public schools.

The district has 125 schools and 57,000 students, 86% of whom are non-white, with the largest groups being Latino and black.

Leave it to The Guardian to count Latinos as nonwhite.

They fully endorse the absurdity that "Islamophobia" is a form of racism.

Still, those numbers tell you of a demographic future for the country that Bozo's wall will not avert.

After changing the maps, Rose said, educators plan to look at other subjects and shift away from presenting white history as the dominant perspective.

The respective merits of the Mercator and the Peters maps have long been debated.

A spirited discussion about their implications even featured on an episode of the West Wing, in which characters argued for the Peters map to be used in US public schools and told the administration the Mercator projection had “fostered European imperialist attitudes for centuries”, creating an “ethical bias” for “western civilization” against the developing world.

“The Mercator projection is a symbolic representation that put Europe at the center of the world. And when you continue to show images of the places where people’s heritage is rooted that is not accurate, that has an effect on students.”

The Guardian does not note that these claims are racist lies and weaponized history.

Boston public schools map switch aims to amend 500 years of distortion

Bozo meets Merkel

I console myself with the thought that a majority of my countrymen voted for Hillary, and not for this horrible, sulky brute.

We have put Fyodor Karamazov in the White House.

"Bozo," for short.

37° F in Our Town

Happy Equinox!

Who is Peter Beinart and what happened to addle his brain?

Breaking Faith

Political dirtbag Napolitano

Napolitano was just parroting propaganda first spread elsewhere, but gave the impression of having original sources inside the professional intelligence community.

Really a "longtime Donald Trump confidant"?

This guy?

'Deep State' Keeps Sending Their Worst Assassins After Roger Stone

This guy?

Somehow, I think of Ratbert.

Will the US strike first in some way?

MSNBC journos are speculating.

Tillerson: Pre-emptive force an option with North Korea

Past U.S. administrations have considered military options against North Korea and have publicly said that an attack on the U.S. or its allies would prompt a devastating response.

Tillerson's comments were unusual, however, as he appeared to be implying, in public, that the U.S. would consider military force as a way of preventing an attack by Pyongyang, and not just as a means of retaliation. 

It also comes amid a greater sense of urgency about the threat because of North Korea's rapid progress toward developing the means to strike the U.S. with a nuclear-tipped missile. 

Risks of military action are high as North Korea could unleash a massive artillery barrage on Seoul in retaliation.

Hey, they listen to all of us and lie about it all the time. NSA, CIA, Americans know they listen to everything and lie about it. To doubt this is absurdly naive.

That is now how Trump loyalists, including actual congresspeople, defend Bozo's charges that Obama had Trump Tower wiretapped and was tapping his own personal phones.

Charges for which every responsible authority in DC of either party has said there is no shred of evidence.

That and unsupported allegations that everyone working for the campaign has told them that they are personally convinced they were wiretapped, listened in on, and surveilled.

An alleged - and allegedly universal - conviction for which these Trump defenders never seem to find it necessary to ask for, report, or suggest any form of justification.

The only honest journalist on Fox?

Shep Smith: ‘Fox News Cannot Confirm Judge Napolitano’s Commentary’

"Judge Andrew Napolitano commented on the morning show Fox and Friends that he has sources who say British intelligence that was involved in surveillance at Trump Tower. 

"Fox News cannot confirm Judge Napolitano’s commentary. 

"Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now-President of the United States was surveilled at any time, in any way, full stop."

Smith calling Napolitano’s reporting “commentary” is no accident. 

It is Smith’s way of preserving the News of Fox News, separating it from the Opinion side of the channel, which includes Fox & Friends.

“The president could learn first-hand whether the building which he lives was wiretapped,” Smith said. 

“All he would have to do is ask the intelligence services. They work for him.”

Or maybe not.

Later that same day,

Boo Hoo. Fox News Forced To Deny Napolitano's Claims

So, Breitbart is as close as you get to all in.

Fox not so much.

Any stick is good enough to beat a dog with

Kant said that about the evident attitude of those of his critics whose criticisms seemed to him especially trivial or silly.

MSNBC brought that to mind, with their pedantic insistence on pronouncing Angela Merkel's name "ahnguhla" in order to berate Trump repeatedly for saying it as any anglophone would.

An invention of the masses

That is why language is far too stupid to capture the complexities of even our own motivations.

Consider the word "love," for example.

And what it supposedly denotes, in any of its recognized meanings.

Cultural change

Eat an apple every day.
Get to bed by three.
Take good care of yourself.
You belong to me.

That last line.

How comfortable are the young with it, today?

Bozo's lying disease spreads

Chris Hayes says that on Fox News Andrew Napolitano supplied the reason the American intelligence community knows nothing of any surveillance of Trump or Trump Tower.

Napolitano claimed to have sources in American intelligence who told him Obama never asked any of them to surveille Trump.

He asked some British intelligence agency to do it.

I guess N no longer cares about his already slender credibility.

These guys just never stop making up ridiculous shit.

What's the paycheck for that like?

Andy's paycheck, for example?

Maybe that's not what's going on.

But I would check.

No charity for Bozo

The default rule of interpretation - the rule of charity - says that of the remark of another one should suppose until it is proved otherwise that it makes sense, is not stupid, and is believed to be true by the person offering it.

Bozo, however, has shown since his birther years that in his case it is only prudent to suppose the exact opposite, the contradictory, the negation of the rule of charity.

Any remark of Bozo's should be greeted with the supposition that it is senseless, stupid, or a lie.

The burden of proof is entirely on him.

Senate Intelligence Leaders Offer Broad Pushback On Trump Surveillance Claims

Trump lies about his lies

Bozo's travel ban stopped, again

Federal district courts in Maryland and Hawaii impose nationwide temporary injunctions

It's a Muslim ban, they say, and you can't do that.

By the time this is over it will be settled law that the First Amendment, as understood by liberals, controls immigration law as well as presidential discretion regarding passage across our borders.

In the long run, that may not be such a good idea.

There is no essential difference between religions and cults except that CMW says we are to respect the former and deplore the latter.

Recall Jim Jones, David Koresh, or the Japanese sarin gas subway attacks.

But there it is.

Nobody really gives a shit about the long run.

Fascinating but wrong

Furet confuses nationalism, political loyalty to one's ethnic group and the conviction that there should be a state comprising all and only persons of that group, with patriotism, loyalty to the state, the politically sovereign entity, to which one belongs.

And he relies crucially on utter fuzziness and hopeless equivocation on "equality" in his views on modernity, capitalism, democracy, socialism, and communism.

Reading Le passe d'une illussion.

Again.

Larry O'Donnell still hearts socialism

Defined not as public ownership of the (i.e., all) means of production, but as public ownership of (any, some) means of production.

Highways, schools, fire departments, and so on.

More on the Siberian candidate

Rachel on the 8th pointed out the Trump campaign removed from the Republican Party platform an assertion of Republican support for lethal aid to Ukraine in its struggle against Putin supported Russian separatists.

And that the only official of the Trump campaign to be personally on intimate, friendly terms with Putin is the Secretary of State who has just fired dozens of the highest ranking professional foreign service officers without replacement.

He has effectively decapitated the world headquarters of US soft power.

He is not invited to Trump's national security meetings.

Trump has announced a 37 % budget cut for his department, and he has refused to answer reporters' questions how his department can operate with such a budget.

Trump complained John Huntsman, Obama's Republican ambassador to China, sold out America to that country.

Trump has just appointed Huntsman ambassador to Russia.

The State Department weekly press briefings have been canceled.

The State Department annual report on human rights around the world, heretofore a high profile, press conference occasion, usually harshly critical of Putin's Russia, was this week released to the press by memo, almost surreptitiously.

Your daily Bozo

Trump says Obamacare was timed to blow up in 2017.

Immediately after O left office.

Good thing he and the Republicans are in power to save us.

And he and the Republican liars club are still droning on about O wiretapping Trump Tower.

Once a birther, always a birther.

18° F in Our Town

Attacks of doubtful coherence

Damning Trump for both insufficient support for our global system of alliances and putting us and (or?) the world at greater risk of war than would conventional globalist fans of Washington's Cold War II is not at all uncommon.

That seems an attack of doubtful coherence.

But there is something to it, as well as to worries about his vaunted preference for unpredictability.

The most likely cause of a new American war not against Jihaders?

North Korea - and our global system of alliances.

As soon as they think they can hit us with a nuke, the North Koreans will again attempt the conquest of South Korea, where they will immediately engage tens of thousands of American forces fighting side by side with the South Koreans.

Maybe even sooner.

They will not wait for a new American foreign policy concensus that would disentangle America from its current, worldwide alliances.

Putin, a much cooler head than Khrushchev, is less dangerous than the loons in Pyongyang.

He is far less likely to attack a state with which we are formally allied.

Ukraine is not now, and may never be, a state to whose defense we are committed by express treaty.

Much less by the presence of tens of thousands of boots on the ground.

But Dean Acheson's apparent disinterest in South Korea, coupled with Truman's personal commitment, led to the Korean War.

And Trump's apparent lack of zeal for even Latvia, a NATO member, much less Ukraine?

What might Putin do, in the face of that?

And what would Bozo do in response?

Now you have me worried

Where does the Republican Party find all these people?

Betsy DeVos wants to use America’s schools to build "God's Kingdom"

Trump's stirling choice.

The international assholes club, palling around with the Russians

The Fuse Is Burning

Let's walk through this chain of events today that mixes together Julian Assange, President Trump, Nigel Farage and Sean Spicer.

Trump's 'Advisor' Visits Wikileaks Embassy, Can't Recall Why

But then you have unelectable twit, Trump "unofficial advisor" and Brexit side-of-a-bus liar Nigel Farage going to visit the Ecuadoran Embassy two days after the latest dump, disappearing into the building for 40 minutes, and then claiming he "can't remember" why he was there as he gets in his car after.

Big shock. More Trump bullshit.

Remember When Trump Said He Would Have A 'Plan To Defeat ISIS Within 30 Days'? Time's Up, No Plan.

White House Demonstrably Lying About Flynn

31° F and snowing in Our Town

But not as bad as predicted.

Living proof

Democracy is a failure because voters are vicious and stupid.

Bozo the grotesque demagogue and the success of the Republican Party with the uneducated mass of white voters are the proof.

In major shift, White House privately backing earlier rollback of Medicaid expansion

Trump to conservative leaders: If this plan fails, I'll blame Democrats

Republicans' biggest white lie: that they represent the working class

Bonus! GOP Obamacare Repeal Bill Depletes Medicare Trust Fund Faster

More fake news? The Siberian candidate.

Rachel, who compares it to Watergate, is insisting the Trump campaign collaborated with the Russians in their effort to defeat Hillary.

Maybe they did.

But accusation without evidence is not a propaganda move invented by Trump.

Pshaw. No surprise, at all.

The Note: The divide over the health care bill

Who did not see this coming?

From day 1 of his candidacy, his position on Obamacare, though largely bullshit as proved by his enthusiasm for this plan that is a step away from the universal and affordable insurance he promised, put him at odds with the conservatism of the Republican Party.

Assange, again

Wikileaks attacks US, releases thousands of stolen CIA documents

Naturally, they frame treason and espionage as patriotic efforts to expose the evil US security agencies.

59° F in Our Town

My brother and his family live in Plaza, just outside Minot.

My Mom lives in Minot, where it is 19°  F and snowing.

Released Jihaders return to the fray

Fact-checking Trump's tweet about Guantanamo Bay detainees

Why is this more a problem than ordinary, even violent criminals returning to crime when released from prison?

Or is it?

More lies from Bozo on twitter.

"122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield,” he wrote.

“Just another terrible decision!”

But the vast majority of those 122 former detainees – about 93 percent -- were released before former President Obama even took office.

According to a September 2016 report from the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 113 of those 122 detainees who have been confirmed as “re-engaging” were released from Guantanamo Bay under the Bush administration.

Only nine of them were released during the Obama administration.

A cruel idea

Kelly: DHS is considering separating undocumented children from their parents at the border

Just what you would expect

Republicans' Obamacare replacement bill: The winners and losers

The costs of health care get shifted even further from the young to the old and from the rich to everybody else, especially the poor.

So Democrats hate it.

But it's not brutal enough for the real deal conservatives, who attack it and are calling it "Obamacare Lite."

Republican 'Trumpcare' plan battered by politicians on both left and right

Bozo and the right wing bullshit machine go nuts

Trump claims Obama ordered Trump Tower wiretap during the campaign

Nothing supports this and all authorities to date deny it.

Remember those 3 to 5 million illegal aliens who voted for Hillary?

Hannity, Breitbart, and Limbaugh are all in.

It's part of the silent coup of the deep state, according to them.

Trump supporters swear by every word from Bozo's mouth.

This clown show that is democracy in America today was brought to you by the Republican Party and the American conservative movement.

Meanwhile, relevant authority yesterday confirmed that the investigation of Russian meddling ordered by Obama turned up zero evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

This is frightful

They are deporting people with no serious criminal records who have been here for decades.

Single father from Mexico in US for 20 years deported after Ice 'check-in'

A completely baseless attack

She could be a Grand Imperial Wizard (Wizardess?), for all I know.

But this is totally baseless and groundless.

She is being attacked for a policy and a favorable outlook on black colleges shared and encouraged by blacks in particular and liberals in general for many, many decades.

And if school choice is code for allowing parents and students to avoid government mandated race mixing in the schools or elsewhere then I am OK with it.

Insane Betsy DeVos Press Release Celebrates Jim Crow Education System as Pioneer of “School Choice”

A mess mostly of liberals' making

Supreme Court Revives Challenge by Black Voters in Virginia

Republican gerrymandering dovetailed with liberal identity politics in concentrating black voters in fewer districts, thus both creating more Republican districts and affording black voters a better chance at voting in people of their own little hearts' desire.

Democrats are not happy and are suing before the Supremes.

Fake news?

Trump Putin Power Play, on MSNBC tonight, seems to be no more than an effort to make especially horrifying what we already know, which is precious little and not at all horrifying except to devout globalists and fans of Cold War II.

What? Still no new ban plan?

Andrea Mitchell says the White House cancelled the announced unveiling of a new travel and refugee ban in order to give Trump time to brag about his speech of yesterday.

Thunderstorms and the middle 50's in Our Town

Pouring down rain so far all morning.

Lemmings go wild

The Dow has today jumped 200 points, going above 21,000.

A big defense spending increase, a trillion for infrastructure, and huge tax cuts for corporations and the rich entailing huge deficits.

Hey, what's not to like?

Bozo Roi

The Duce, sounding presidential, sort of, in a muted Mussolini way, urges Buchananism

On a government packed with Democrats and standard issue, hard right Republicans.

Reportedly.

A $54 billion hike for the military doesn't sound like a withdrawal from globalism.

No cuts to entitlements, further delay of the promised revised travel restrictions and refugee ban, defamation of illegals and a trillion $ for infrastructure.

Citing Lincoln, he calls for protectionism.

Citing Eisenhower, he calls for his infrastructure projects.

But Trump is still Trump.

Lots of "I", completely fictitious account of his campaign and election as uprisings and victories of the American people, who mostly voted against him.

Lots of Buncombe about renewed American spirit, patriotism, optimism, greatness, etc..

And the wall is still in, though the claim that Mexico will pay is gone.

And it is still "radical Islamic terrorism".

A lot of baloney about the mess he has inherited and will save us from.

His call to repeal Obamacare and "replace" it with a wholly voluntary (no individual or employer mandates) system retaining required coverage for preexisting conditions, financed only out of the purchaser's pocket coupled with tax breaks and HSA's, is a call for disaster for millions who even now can afford insurance only because of Obamacare subsidies or get it at work only thanks to the employer mandate.

That and his promised cuts in regulations and taxes were probably the sweetest cash music to the ears of Republicans in the whole speech.

And red meat for his base, the creation of VOICE, an office in Homeland Security whose job is to publicize crimes against citizens by illegals.

No kidding.