The Expanse. The new season.

Production values don't seem as good.

And why did Naomi get so butch?

Why did all but Amos and Bobbie so change their looks?

Even Avasarala, some.

And she seems to have a different husband.

OK, same husband, different actor.

Trump's PC of the right

I drafted the definition of antisemitism. Rightwing Jews are weaponizing it

Trump's own version of a PC attack on the First Amendment.

Delusions or Lies?

No, it's not that they are ignorant, or confused, or short on information, or misled by fake news.

They truly admire these guys and agree with what is most vicious in and about them and their programs.

The False Romance of Russia

Anne Applebaum joins those who try valiantly to hide - or evade - the ugly truth.

Just as well claim the Nazi voters didn't vote for all that mad, anti-Semitic, anti-Slavic, racist shit.

Or deny their profound and forthright embrace of state criminality, violence, and an agenda of war.

As for the ludicrous, glowing (at least in their terms) portraits of the enemy societies and their leaders by useful idiots of the left and, now, the right, they are not evidence of delusion but flat out dishonesty.

They are just flat out lies.

But I can't help but laugh.

She may be the only critic of this new idiotic and contemptible right who sees the grandfather role of Pat Buchanan.

And her exposé of Russian realities as well as the loony leaders of the pop stupid right is an extremely important piece.

She is the kind of conservative I admire, and I have loved her work for many years, now.

Not just her columns but her books.

Her excellent books.

There is hunting and there is, well, serial killing

Hunting animals you can and someone will eat is per se unobjectionable.

Killing maneaters is unobjectionable.

Trophy hunting is just killing for the love of killing. Or proving what big balls you have.

And intentionally hunting endangered species is not just killing an individual animal for the sheer deplorable love of killing, it is animal genocide, it is intentionally putting at further risk an already endangered species, not for any defensible reason (killing a polar bear in self-defense, say), but for its own sake.

Donald Trump Jr killed rare endangered sheep in Mongolia with special permit

On a hunting trip to Mongolia earlier this summer the president’s son Donald Trump Jr killed a rare species of endangered sheep. 

A permit for the killing was retroactively issued after Trump met with the country’s president, according to new reporting from ProPublica.

Trump was accompanied by security from both the US and Mongolia on the trip, the outlet reported. 

The argali sheep, with its large horns, is considered a national treasure there, and permission to kill one is “controlled by an opaque permitting system that experts say is mostly based on money, connections and politics”.

So, you think this is an accident? Not intended? Innocently stupid or stupidly innocent?

Trump’s use of a personal cellphone means Russia could have intel about Ukraine calls

The Duce and his crooked lawyer betraying secrets to their pal Putin in plain sight of all the world.

How dare he tell the truth?

Jesse Jackson, on the other hand, during his run for the nomination, always sounded like he was talking through a mouth full of mashed potatoes.

Michael Bloomberg under fire for calling Cory Booker 'well spoken'

Joe nails a Trumpist heckler

'You're a damn liar': Joe Biden lashes out at voter in Iowa

Remarkable how many people think Biden here revealed wicked, retrograde attitudes and that his remarks were gaffes.

How they are paying for those tax cuts by punishing the poor

Nearly 700,000 will lose food stamps with USDA work requirement change

The cruel, insulting, and unspeakably offensive rhetoric of the rich kicking the poor in the face.

“We’re taking action to reform our SNAP program in order to restore the dignity of work to a sizable segment of our population and be respectful of the taxpayers who fund the program,” Perdue said. 

“Americans are generous people who believe it is their responsibility to help their fellow citizens when they encounter a difficult stretch. That’s the commitment behind SNAP, but, like other welfare programs, it was never intended to be a way of life.”

Pelosi angrily rejects a question that slanders her with a Trumpist talking point

They cannot deny he did what he did and cannot convince anyone it wasn't illegal or it doesn't matter.

So it's all bullshit about Democrats hating him for his unexpected victory over Hillary that they wish out of hatred and resentment to delegitimate and overturn.

She's not one to make it easy.

Nancy Pelosi tells Sinclair reporter James Rosen: ‘Don’t mess with me!’

“Do you hate the president, Ms. Speaker?” the reporter, James Rosen from the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group, asked during Pelosi’s weekly press briefing at the Capitol.

“I don’t hate anybody. We don’t hate anybody. Not anybody in the world. Don’t accuse me,” she said, leaving the podium to approach Rosen and pointing at him as she spoke.

He then interrupted her, saying he was asking about a charge from a GOP lawmaker during the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearing Wednesday that Democrats wanted Trump gone only because they didn’t like him.

“I did not accuse you. I asked you a question. Rep. [Doug] Collins yesterday suggested that the Democrats are doing this simply because you don’t like the guy. I think it is an important point,” he said, referring to the Georgia lawmaker, a fervent Trump backer.

He was as good as heckling her, making very sure to repeat the allegation to her face as provocatively as possible.

Pelosi then walked back to the podium and continued to lecture Rosen.

“This is about the Constitution of the United States and the facts that lead to the president’s violation of his oath of office. And as a Catholic, I resent your using the word hate in a sentence that addresses me,” she said, adding that she prays for Trump.

Mass politics

It could be said that an essential attribute of a successful regime in the age of mass politics is vulgarity.

But there is a considerable difference between the mere vulgarity of style and propaganda of the liberal regimes and the profound vulgarity of values of authoritarian and, even worse, fascist, racist, or Nazi regimes.

And right now many leading Western nations are sliding from the former toward the latter.

Are regimes, parties, or movements of the further left also committed to vulgar values?

Or is that another difference between them and regimes of the vicious right, from the merely authoritarian even to the totalitarian?

Questions that arise while watching on Amazon video Detective De Luca.