For the umpty umpth time, the voters chose Hillary. She has the mandate of the people.

The Electoral College chose Bozo.

He has their mandate.

The mandate of, what?, 538 low flying political noodles?

Odd, which mandate cuts ice, eh?

The most usual defense of the EC and its power to defy the preference of the actual voters is that it is thus empowered to save us from the people's choice of some dreadful demagogue, making president in his stead some at least harmless politician, if not some admirable statesman.

I guess we won't hear much of that defense, any more.

But another might be that the EC, like the equal representation of states in the senate, intentionally insulates our political branches and institutions from all always or usually being overwhelmed by the same popular passions at the same time.

If we did not have such braking devices, imagine how much more power horrors like Trump might obtain from "wave" elections dominated by his supporters.

Or how much power underlying popular phenomena like the existence of so many deplorables all supporting the same sort of politician or agenda might gain in a single election or sequence of federal elections if they were all equally or too close to equally responsive to the - hopefully transient - passions of deplorable voters like the Trumpist Republicans.

Maybe that's an argument for both the EC and unequal representation in the senate that potentially survives the counter-example of Trump?

Who would waste an hour listening to their unendurable merde?

Louie Gohmert On Impeachment: 'Coup, Civil War And Guns'

Not exclusively appalling lies. Sometimes utter gibberish.

As quoted by Frances Langum.

“Never in the history of this country have we had such gross unfairness that one party would put armed guards with guns to prevent the duly authorized people from being able to hear the witnesses and see them for themselves,” the congressman griped.

Gohmert also complained about a whistleblower who brought alleged corruption to light.

“That’s not the kind of evidence that a coup should be based on,” Gohmert ranted. 

“If we’re going to have what they’re trying to legalize as a coup, we ought to have a right to see each of those witnesses.”

As was pointed out on MSNBC, when the Republicans of the senate vote to acquit because Trump's crimes and assaults on the constitution don't rise to the level of impeachable offenses they will give permission to every future president to behave like this dreadful, contemptible authoritarian thug who stops short of being an actual fascist only through not knowing himself, what he really believes, and what he really wants.

He is genuinely that stupid.

On the other hand, if they acquit on the excuse that we are close to an election, anyway, and they are putting the question in the hands of the people, they are deliberately accepting in advance that the reelection of Trump would have the same effect in licensing the crimes of the man himself and the like crimes of every future president.

The party that with such egregious mendacity and revolting hypocrisy pretends to love and revere the constitution and the republic it defined.

The party that strikes hammer blows at the constitution with every iteration of the dreadful bullshit they spread in defense of the enemy of the people, of democracy, and of the Republic in the White House.

The interwar European ruling classes in Spain, Italy, and Germany were so frightened of communism that they sponsored, in order of increasing horror, a Catholic traditionalist dictatorship, a Fascist dictatorship, and the Nazis.

Today, in America and in Europe, spooked by a leftward drift toward greater social democracy, they sponsor nationalist and racist thugs whose demagoguery wins power they use to further enrich the rich and further empower the powerful.

The real Trump rising

For the first three years the globalist, establishment types stopped him acting on his Buchananism.

Less and less, lately.

Donald Trump declares Syria ceasefire permanent and lifts Turkey sanctions

He's given both Syria and Turkey to Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump has announced that the US will lift sanctions on Turkey, taking credit for a ceasefire deal that should end Ankara’s attack on Kurdish-led forces – at the price of ending the Kurds’ dream of local autonomy.

The US president, who has come under withering criticism for abruptly withdrawing US troops – and paving the way for a deadly Turkish offensive against the Kurds – said on Wednesday that a “small number” of US troops would remain in Syria’s oilfields.

In a televised address on Wednesday, Trump emphasized that US troops were “safe” and said America would leave other powers to fight each other in the region.

He added: “Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand.

Wednesday’s announcement came as Russian troops expanded their presence across north-eastern Syria, the result of an agreement between Ankara and Moscow.

Just a week ago, Trump announced a series of financial punishments on Ankara – including the reimposition of 50% tariffs on Turkish steel – after Turkey launched its attack on Kurdish-led forces in north-eastern Syria.

That offensive began hours after a phone call between Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in which the Turkish president, informed Trump of his plans, and understood the US president to give a green light.

“The government of Turkey informed my administration that they would be stopping combat and their offensive in Syria, and making the ceasefire permanent,” Trump said.

“I have, therefore, instructed the secretary of the Treasury to lift all sanctions imposed October 14,” he added.

“How many Americans must die in the Middle East in the midst of these ancient sectarian and tribal conflicts?” Trump said. “I am committed to pursuing a different course, one that leads to victory for America.”

Making the Justice Department's bad constitutional invention even worse.

Absolutely nowhere in the constitution does it say a sitting president cannot be indicted, prosecuted, tried, found guilty, or even fucking imprisoned.

That is all just sycophantic - c'est-à-dire ass-kissing - bullshit.

Nowhere.

And, really, if you're going to insist on invisible ink, shouldn't it be in support of some valuable constitutional feature rather than being, say, deliberately intended to undermine it?

Like, par exemple, the rule of law?

Trump couldn't be prosecuted if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue, lawyer claims

And could this possibly scream "Guilty! Guilty!" one decibel more loudly?

Update, 102419, this morning on MSNBC Joe Scarborough damned forcefully the Justice Department's absurd doctrine, repeatedly and angrily.

So, Putin will get to occupy the Bosporus?

And the Turks are still in NATO?

Well, Trump doesn't give a shit about NATO, anyway.

Turkey announces new deal with Russia as US says its Syria ceasefire has succeeded

Eh bien. Dansez maintenant!

The Grasshopper and the Ant

And then the wives of the ant and the grasshopper fell ill, and needed to be sent to nursing homes.

Neither had suitable insurance; both applied for Medicaid.

For the grasshopper who had squandered his income over his entire lifetime of travel, partying, and festivities, it was a piece of cake.

Neither he nor his wife had a thing.

Medicaid granted!

But the ant and his wife had scrimped and saved all their lives, living on cold porridge and travelling no further than the next town, doing their best to provide for their "golden years".

They had to give up and sign over everything they had spent a life of sacrifice and prudence to save.

And only then, stripped as naked as the grasshoppers, but not having had the life of ease, riotous living, and heedless pleasure of the grasshoppers, were they given Medicaid.

"Gee," said the ant to himself. "It's as if the state wanted to punish the prudent, the provident, the industrious, the thrifty, the responsible, in favor of the altogether shiftless and thoughtless."

And the grasshopper looked over at the ant. And smiled.

But there are other questions one could ask about The Expanse.

Why are the Mormons so prominent in The Expanse?

Everybody asks that.

But why do the folks on The Expanse seem like the ethnic mix found in the US or maybe also Europe?

That's a crowd that looks a lot more like America than, say, Southeast Asia or Africa.

Hell, even the UN crowds look like a bunch of Americans salted with an extra dose of east and south asians.

And yet, not one character ever displays the slightest consciousness of ethnicity or race.

Mormons apart, nobody has loyalties other than to Mars, to the UN, or to the OPA and one or another of its many factions.

Nor are identities perceived or felt otherwise.

And why do so many people admire the Martians for being an entire culture and population united in devotion to a single end, terraforming their planet?

As though somehow entire populations devoting themselves, or more likely being devoted by the powerful among them, to a single goal is just admirable in itself, quite apart from the worth of the goal.

So many people so admire totalitarianism?

And yet it seems many people, reading the books, claim the authors are peddling some sort of libertarian ideology.

Don't see it, myself.

So, do they now regret the way the US ran away from the war in Vietnam?

Do they retrospectively regret all those "collaborators with US imperialism" we abandoned in the fall of Saigon, in 1975?

They?

Democrats joining Republicans in unanimously deploring the betrayal of the Kurds and the abandonment of Syria.

To be fair, it amazed me at the time how many supporters of the war did not mind at all the abandonment of thousands and tens of thousands of Vietnamese supporters of the US effort to a horrible fate.

I opposed the war but also was deeply ashamed of the betrayal of so many whom we had actively induced to rely on us.

In truth, we could not save everyone who had at least hoped for our victory - that would have been most of the people of South Vietnam - but we could and should have saved those publicly in any way associated with our participation in that war.

Tens of thousands though that would have been.

Because we were responsible for at least some of them sticking their heads up, daring so long to resist the reds, and we had promised them all they could count on us.

Why didn't the Brits give British passports to the entire population of Hong Kong when they agreed to turn over the colony to Beijing?

Why didn't the Commonwealth countries agree to accept them all as refugees, sharing them out among themselves more or less proportionately to their own part in the total population of the Commonwealth?

How was their failure to do any such thing not a shocking betrayal?

Not that they - the Vietnamese or the Hong Kong Chinese - would all have agreed to leave their homes.

But the invitations should have been extended.

Hillary's letter is hilarious!

'Don't be a dick, OK?' Hillary Clinton tweets parody of Trump Erdoğan letter

Hillary tweets a bogus letter from JFK to Khrushchev during the missile crisis.

Dear Premier Khrushchev, 

Don't be a dick, OK? 

Get your missiles out of Cuba. Everybody will say, ‘Yay, Khrushchev! You’re the best!’ But if you don’t everybody will be like ‘what an asshole’ and call your garbage country ‘The Soviet Bunion’. 

You’re really busting my nuts here.  

Give you a jingle later.  

Hugs,



John Fitzgerald Kennedy.”

The centrality of Christian clericalism to the true Republican agenda

'A threat to democracy': William Barr's speech on religious freedom alarms liberal Catholics

Prominent liberal Catholics have warned the US attorney general’s devout Catholic faith poses a threat to the separation of church and state, after William Barr delivered a fiery speech on religious freedom in which he warned that “militant secularists” were behind a “campaign to destroy the traditional moral order”.

. . . .

In the hallways of the justice department in Washington, there has been a similar furor among some Catholics employees who answer to Barr. 

“I was shocked by the speech and all this fire and brimstone,” said a senior department career official who considers himself a devout Catholic, speaking on condition that he not be identified for fear of losing his job.

“At least it helps me understand why Barr has been so willing to put his own reputation on the line to defend Trump so fiercely in every battle,” beginning with the congressional investigation that is likely to end in the president’s impeachment, he said. 

“Trump is Barr’s imperfect vessel in serving a much higher cause: the gospel.”

. . . .

He [Barr] warned that Catholicism and other mainstream religions were the target of “organized destruction” by “secularists and their allies among progressives who have marshalled all the force of mass communications, popular culture, the entertainment industry and academia”.

He insisted that “the traditional Judeo-Christian moral system” of the United States was under siege by “modern secularists” who were responsible for every sort of “social pathology”, including drug abuse, rising suicide rates and illegitimacy.

. . . .

The reaction to Barr’s address came as another Trump cabinet member, secretary of state Mike Pompeo, was drawing fire from civil liberties groups over the state department’s decision this week to promote his recent speech titled Being a Christian Leader on the department’s online homepage.

The speech by Pompeo, an evangelical Christian, was delivered on Friday, the same day as Barr’s speech, to a meeting of the American Association of Christian Counselors in Nashville.

“It’s perfectly fine for secretary Pompeo to be a leader who is a Christian,” the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State said in a statement. 

But the decision to promote Pompeo’s speech on the department’s official website sends “the clear message that US public policy will be guided by his personal religious beliefs”.

Republican voters will never turn on the Duce. But will the pols?

They chose him above 17 Republican politicians not in spite of what he was but because of what he was.

And is.

They chose a mob boss instead of an actual political leader, knowingly and joyously.

They are fine with him behaving like a mob boss, right out in plain sight.

So Republican pols can turn against him only despite the clear preference of Republican voters, and they will be punished by those voters.

Yeah, it's scary, too.

Proliferation is an especially bad idea in certain especially unreliable parts of the world

Turkey fired on U.S. special forces in Syria. It's absurd that it still has U.S. nukes.

Yup.

But not more so than that Pakistan should have nukes. Or, for that matter, India.

But when US forces were detailed to seize Pakistan's nukes the NYT saw fit to blurt the story at the cost of making the raid impossible.

Self-righteous, liberal fucking New York Times.

Totally and completely wrong

The Affluent Society

He advanced the absurd thesis that innovation driven by competition was a myth, and that what competition actually inspired was only cosmetic and meaningless, "marginal differentiation".

Think tail fins on cars.

Not that it doesn't inspire that.

But it also does, and also did, inspire actually significant innovation.

It's not all a fake, this virtue of capitalist market competition.

He's right and he hasn't got a prayer

Still, I made an online donation.

A couple of decades too early for the world to be facing the economically and politically shattering consequences of robotics and AI.

But it's good someone sees it coming, and talks it up.

Andrew Yang

Basic Income

It does not occur to me that basic is a reason to eliminate or diminish Social Security.

There is no reason people with private pensions, savings, or other assets should lose them. So why people enrolled in America's public pension plan?

Ditto Medicare, Medicaid, etc.

And the existence of basic is perfectly compatible with that of any public or private insurance scheme or none.

Nor should basic merely equal the official definition of poverty.

It should be sufficient all alone to enable a life better off than that.

And for the fun of it, a lucid proof that the Basic of the Expanse is not what's meant by a Basic Income.

Credit to Bregman for calling this to my attention.

Or maybe Bertrand Russell with his more than a century old defense of "the vagabond's wage", which I read so many years ago.

Considerably more pressing, now, though, given any degree of accuracy in Yang's dystopianism regarding robotics and AI.

Tulsi vs Hillary

Like president Trump, Tulsi Gabbard is objectively pro-Russian and Putin's agent.

But unlike Trump, Ms. Gabbard has not yet comported herself in public in such manner as to lend overwhelming credence to the proposition that she is also subjectively pro-Russian and Putin's agent.

Interesting question which Hillary actually meant to assert.

Tulsi Gabbard on Hillary Clinton claims: "She knows she can't control me"

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) responded to Hillary Clinton's suggestion that she is Russia's "favorite" 2020 candidate, by saying Clinton was attempting to "undermine" her campaign, and that she "knows she can't control me," reports CBS.

Not a denial and not a defense.

Hillary Clinton implies Tulsi Gabbard is "the favorite of the Russians" in 2020

"I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She's the favorite of the Russians."

The truth is Hillary did not name her at all.

But everybody knew whom she meant, since she was neither the only nor the first to point out the problem.

Tulsi Gabbard on the issues, in under 500 words

So, the Democrats are never going to want to do this?

Uh, to investigate a political opponent? Like, uh, some prominent Republican?

And they will never want a foreign government to help out by, say, confirming the contents of some phone conversation?

Would they never offer a quid pro quo to encourage such help?

And if it isn't always an election year, it's always damn close, is it not?

By the way, are not treason, bribery, and all high crimes and misdemeanors, well, crimes (Article II, Section 4)?

Every last blessed one?

So, quote Hamilton from the Federalist Papers or from his grocery lists all you want, the actual text of the constitution specifies impeachable offenses must be crimes.

Not that I want to be a blue nose about it.

Justice in America

An innocent man pleaded guilty to a drug charge to get out of jail.

An Oklahoma man who pleaded guilty to trafficking cocaine last week had his conviction dismissed days later after lab results determined the white substance he was arrested for having was not drugs.

It was in fact powdered milk he had gotten from a food pantry, he told a judge.

. . . .

Jason Lollman, a public defender in Tulsa, told NBC News that he's accustomed to clients pleading guilty — even if they're not — to get out of jail because otherwise they're "forced to sit in and wait" before and during their trial.

"The cash bail system, posting cash bail, is a problem," Lollman said. "If they can’t afford an attorney, they're not going to be able to post bond to get out."

There have often been "times where I’ve actively talked a client out of taking a plea bargain," Lollman said. But "if the client wants to take that plea, I really can’t stand in the way of it."

"Sometimes it’s like we, the attorneys, have more stamina than the clients do," he added. "But that’s because we’re on the outside and they're in jail."

Specifically, Lollman's colleagues have relayed to him that the Oklahoma City Jail, where Gregg was held, is a "generally awful jail."

Isolationist, anti-globalist Trump

'It's not our border'

In other words, "Fuck do I care?"

Which could be exactly what he told Erdogan on the phone, when asked.

‘They have a lot of sand to play with’

“It’s not our problem,” Trump said during a White House photo op. “They’ve got a lot of sand over there ... There’s a lot of sand they can play with.”

He added that the Kurds are “not angels," even though the Kurdish forces were the primary American ally in the battle against ISIS and al Qaeda militants.

Trump also repeated a Turkish talking point when he asserted that a Kurdish political party in Turkey are terrorists.

OK, they're just fucking lying

Defenders of Trump who claim to believe in his innocence or the guilt of Bidens Joe and Hunter, or that he is not Putin's agent.

Donald Trump Has Single Handedly Brought ISIS Back From The Dead

Every bit as much as the fakers who claimed to believe "Hillary is just as bad".

Bullshit.

Smoke behind which to hide frank and knowing support of this unutterably contemptible, criminal, racist thug they wanted to put in the White House for the sake of their fucking tax breaks and their war on progressivism.

What can one say?

Activists defiant as Uganda proposes death penalty for gay sex

The Ugandan government's plan to reintroduce a bill that could impose the death penalty for homosexuality is being met with defiance from the LGBTQ community in the East African nation, activists told CNN.

Ugandan Ethics Minister Simon Lokodo, in an interview with local media Thursday, said present laws criminalizing gay sex - which in theory can come with a life sentence - were not tough enough.

When asked by a presenter on local NTV why the bill is being introduced now, Lokodo said, "The penal code only criminalizes the act [gay sex]. ...Now we're saying anything, like recruitment, promotion, exhibition...amounts to committing a crime against that law."

Trump v the courts

Trump's losses mount in stunning day of setbacks

Five federal courts dealt blows to President Donald Trump on Friday just as the limits of his legal strategy to block an impeachment inquiry became clear.

So, were they all Democrats?

It amounted to a challenging end of a challenging week for Trump, who remains consumed by an impeachment crisis that is clouding his presidency.

Within moments of each other, a career diplomat began painting a damning portrait of the President's foreign policy to lawmakers just as Trump lost his appeal in a federal appeals court to stop a House subpoena of his tax documents, which he's guarded fiercely since refusing to make them public as a candidate.

Then, in rapid succession, judges in New York, Texas, Washington state and California sided against Trump administration initiatives meant to limit immigrants from entering the country -- both through a physical barrier and by raising the requirements on migrants seeking legal status.

Friday night, the man in charge of executing much of Trump's immigration agenda, acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, submitted his resignation to the President as the legal setbacks mounted. 

Long in the works, and by all accounts unrelated to the court decisions or the impeachment crisis, the move nonetheless fueled a sense of an administration in flux. 

McAleenan was the fourth person to serve in that post since the Trump presidency began.

How did this even happen?

A Nobel prize that dishonours the victims of genocide

Liberal intolerance

O'Rourke says churches against gay marriage should lose tax benefits, draws backlash

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke said Thursday that churches and other religious institutions that oppose same-sex marriage should lose their tax-exempt status, taking the Democratic presidential debate into uncharted — and controversial — territory.

A little too aggressive a blow in the culture war, I think.

And as for the tax break, it's unconstitutional and should be ended.

Efforts to deny churches or churchmen the freedom to declaim upon political issues at will are also unconstitutional.

Trump in La. Every day a more revolting disgrace to America

Trump blasts ‘bulls–t impeachment’ inquiry at rally

Wretched, sickening scum.

Look who got forced out

Shep Smith, Fox News’ Most Vocal Donald Trump Critic, Abruptly Announces He’s Quit

While wrapping up the Friday, October 11, broadcast of his daily 3 p.m. Fox News show Shepard Smith Reporting, host Shep Smith announced that it was his final show for the network. 

Smith was a stalwart of Fox News’ hard news division and in turn, was President Donald Trump’s most vocal critic and on air fact-checker at a network largely criticized as a satellite office of the White House press shop. 

Smith has worked for Fox News for 23 years, since the it launched in 1996.

“Recently I asked the company to allow me to leave Fox News and begin a new chapter,” Smith said on air. “After requesting that I stay, they graciously obliged. 

"The opportunities afforded this guy from small town Mississippi have been many. 

"It’s been an honor and a privilege to report the news each day to our loyal audience in context and with perspective, without fear or favor. 

"I’ve worked with the most talented, dedicated and focused professionals I know and I’m proud to have anchored their work each day—I will deeply miss them.”

The announcement was abrupt and appeared to shock Smith’s colleagues, including Neil Covuto and John Roberts. 

Here’s a clearly unsuspecting Covuto uttering a breathless “whoa” before saying that he’s “a little stunned and heartbroken” immediately after the 3-to-4 p.m. handoff.

. . . .

Smith was a nonpartisan journalist at a network whose news division seemed to be undermined by the primetime opinion hosts who regularly espouse conspiracy theories, Pro-Trump propaganda, and especially in Tucker Carlson’s case, white nationalist talking points.

. . . .

Smith’s exit follows a secret meeting Attorney General William Barr held with Fox News mogul Rupert Murdoch earlier this week, as reported by The New York Times. 

Although it’s unknown what was actually discussed at the meeting, the president has recently directed his rage against the network for airing unfavorable polls and unflattering news regarding the impeachment inquiry.

A rep for Fox News told The Hollywood Reporter that the decision to leave the network was entirely Smith’s.

Trump in Minneapolis outdid himself

The most horrible president imaginable still loved by his deplorables

Surpassing himself in vicious, lying vulgarity.

A thug, a crook, a mob boss, and a pig.

For every means there is an end . . .

.  .  .  that would justify its use.

That seems to be the universal conviction of the principals on The Expanse.

And it is truly a sincere moral view.

A long way from the all but universal left commitment to Just War theory - because of or despite its dependence on the Doctrine of Double Effect - and the idea of war crimes.

Moral bookkeeping without God

The Expanse, season 3.

Asked if a truly good act at the end of life can make up for some or all of the evil done earlier, Ashford, a soi-disant atheist, says he likes to think so.

Make up for without make up to.

Universal sexism

It appears the universal conviction of popular culture that for a woman in authority to get the necessary respect her underlings must address her as a man.

They must call her not "Ma'am" but "Sir", not "Boss" but "Boss Man".

Catherine the Great, Queen Elizabeth I ("Gloriana"), the Queen Empress Victoria, Golda Meir, and Mrs. Ghandi would all have found this conviction profoundly sexist and misogynist.

As do I.

Don Quixote

Phooey. He was not a fighter for lost causes, but for imaginary ones.

James S. A. Corey didn't know that? Neither of them?

Everybody thinks this will happen.

Is Trump’s Syria Policy about to Loose 12,000 ISIL Terrorists on the World?

But why would the Kurds be stupid enough to release ten or twelve thousand of their most skilled, most determined, most relentless enemies, very possibly upon themselves?

So, does the smart money expect the Kurds to simply massacre these folks?

Asked about this, by the way, the Duce shrugged and said something to this effect about those ISIS fighters.

"Well, they're going to Europe, not to America. Europe is where they want to go."

Update 10/10

About 10,000 are Iraqis and Syrians, the others from various other countries, some in Europe.

Trump repeats the lies they are going to Europe, alliances are easy to make, and our NATO allies in Europe are just ripping us off, they are delinquent in their military spending and owe us hundreds of billions.

He reiterates the damning truth that the Kurds did nothing for us on D-Day, or at any time in WWII.

The Republican defenses of the Duce are utterly shameless horseshit and beneath contempt

"Regicide"

"Sedition"

"The Democrats will destroy our country."

When are Republicans going to realize they are trashing the constitution and the republic for fucking Donald Trump?

White House says it will not comply with impeachment inquiry

Gratitude without providence

Or, "Count your blessings and be glad of them" for atheists.

Epicurus advises that in old age, infirmity, or ill health we take pleasure in the grateful recollection of past times of pleasure and happiness, rather than bemoaning our current miseries or short and awful prospects.

But there is no providence in Epicurus' view, and so this is not a case of being grateful to, but only of being grateful that.

There need not be anyone to thank, you see.

And that is a most interesting observation, from a man who died so painfully.

No nukes!

Utility Giant Sets Up Critical Test For Top 2020 Democrats On Nuclear Power

If the Dems are the environmentally responsible party they need to make it clear they will have no truck with the dirtiest of dirty power sources.

After Borat I never would have expected The Spy

Sacha Baron Cohen.

The brass of the man

So, people are not supposed to find it unspeakable for Trump, Trump, to call Joe Biden corrupt.

What people?

The people who insisted in 2016 that Hillary was a despicable as Trump. All of whom voted for Bozo.

Update.

I just saw a Trump ad - the first I have seen - for the 2020 campaign. On MSNBC.

America is a stupid country that elected Reagan twice and GW twice.

What does that tell you about 2020?

The Expanse series

Why do 2 guys living in New Mexico write in Brit English?

"Lift" for "elevator", for example.

What justice for our betters looks like

Not that we are surprised.

A once-acclaimed attorney who paid $75,000 to cheat on daughter's ACT sentenced to 1 month in prison

A crime in public is still a crime. A crime boss acting in public is all the more egregiously a crime boss.

Not just Ukraine, Trump now calls for China to probe Bidens

What the media not in his corner and Democratic blogs claim is proof he is a narcissist is proof he is a psychopathic (sociopathic?) criminal like the Al Capone character of The Untouchables.

Why they prefer to hit him with a shrink-speak label they have to explain every time they use it to just calling him the crime boss and thug he is, citing exactly the same proofs, something that would need no explaining, is a mystery of the liberal mind.

Our contemporary, and not

By ch 43 or so, the portrait of the whore Nancy's love for and complete subjection to Sykes, her pimp, her lover, and the animal whose shameless violent attacks may yet kill her, is full.

Oliver Twist.

Barr knows what Trump wants, and is just the right man to give it

DOJ joins Trump lawsuit seeking to block release of his tax returns

The Justice Department is joining President Donald Trump in his legal battle to block the release of his tax returns to state prosecutors investigating the Trump Organization, according to court papers filed Wednesday.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance is seeking eight years of Trump's personal and corporate tax returns as part of a criminal investigation into the Trump Organization over hush money payments made to two women who have alleged affairs with Trump before he became president.

Trump's lawyers to the Court: the Duce is above the law

The president’s lawyers filed a lawsuit in federal court late last month seeking to block the subpoena. 

The suit says Vance isn’t entitled to the returns and a sitting president cannot be criminally investigated.

Sanders is out for a while, and probably just out

And that's not today's big news.

Bernie Sanders Treated For Chest Pain; Campaign Events Canceled

Al Capone in the White House

Remember the character of Al Capone as depicted in the film, The Untouchables?

That's the guy the Electoral College - absolutely not the American voters - put into the White House in 2016, with a lot of help, per the entire US intelligence community, from Vladimir Putin.

Not an authoritarian or even populist politician, really. Just a psychotic, narcissistic thug.

Alligators and snakes in a moat at a wall along the Mexican border.

Glass blades at the top to lacerate the flesh of people trying to climb over.

Border guards instructed to shoot to kill, or at least maim, desperate migrants crossing unauthorized.

Withholding half a billion in aid to Ukraine, intended by Congress to help them resist aggression by Putin's Russia.

Making it abundantly clear to Ukraine's president, in a phone call Mike Pompeo was on and an aide of Mike Pence was on, that if he wants that money he had better dig up dirt on Joe Biden's son for Trump's 2020 campaign.

Using Pence, Pompeo, and Barr to solicit from foreign governments aid in casting mountains of discredit on the idea Russia did anything to aid Trump's 2016 campaign and would aid or is aiding his 2020 campaign.

Denouncing the unknown whistle blower as a spy and demanding he be outed and punished as spies once were, by the death penalty.

Denouncing Adam Schiff, dubbed "Shifty Schiff", as a liar and a traitor who ought to be forced to resign.

If I were not an atheist I would be praying, nightly, for his happy death.

Like Big Al in The Untouchables, he lies, he glories in a sycophantic section of the press that loves him, he spreads the disease of political corruption all around him.

If you have been watching the news these last few days and have not seen this, there is something very wrong with you.

Perhaps you are a Trumpist.

Update.

All of this was made possible by the idiotic excess of democracy that passed the power to choose their candidates from the party professional pols to the primary voters and caucus going activists.

Trump is proof that the process is too democratic.

A lesson everyone has absolutely refused to learn.