Contributors

Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Rough Justice for the Alberta Tar Sands

While Donald Trump is still claiming that global warming is a hoax, Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada is being evacuated due to a massive forest fire:
Tens of thousands of people have fled north and south.

Fuelled by soaring temperatures that hit 32 C and tinder-dry forest, the fire broached the city limits and by 6:20 p.m. a mandatory evacuation order was issued for the entire city.

“Today has been a devastating day. We have had explosive fire conditions on the landscape brought on by extremely high temperatures” and low relative humidity, Bernie Schmitte, wildfire manager at Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, said Tuesday night during a news conference.

“The fire is still out of control,” Schmitte said. “We have been challenged on many fronts as the fire came through the community. It has entered the community and it has gone through the community.”

Officials have accounted for about 53,000 people, including 17,000 people north of the city, 8,000 in Anzac, 9,000 in Lac La Biche, and 18,000 in Edmonton. Fort McMurray has population of 83,000. “This is not an exact science,” one official said when asked about the discrepancy.
Note the "32 C" temperature reading: that's 90 degrees Fahrenheit, on May 4th, in Alberta, Canada, which is really far north, at 57 degrees latitude. It's just another indication that global warming is really happening, and burning fossil fuels -- like those extracted from the tar sands right there in Alberta -- is causing the northern latitudes to heat up very quickly.

There's a sort of rough justice here: the oil extracted from the tar sands is some of the dirtiest there is (it's the crap they wanted to pipe into the US through the Keystone XL pipeline). The area has been hammered economically in recent months because of the low price of oil.

If you're superstitious or religious, you might be inclined to blame this on an angry mother earth, karma, or divine retribution. In reality, it's simple, straightforward and very predictable atmospheric physics.

Like the climate refugees being forced out of their homes in Louisiana due to rising sea levels, the people Fort McMurray are losing their homes to our insatiable thirst for oil.

The Fallout From Indiana

With Donald Trump's resounding victory in yesterday's Indiana primary, the general election has officially taken shape. Ted Cruz is out. Kasich has zero chance of getting anywhere even in a contested convention. Ladies and gentlemen...

Donald Trump is the GOP nominee for president.

I can't think of a better example of the GOP today. Donald Trump is angry, hateful, willfully ignorant, adolescent, racist, bigoted, and highly unintelligent. He is the most unqualified candidate in the history of presidential elections and he's been fueled by voters who mirror his completely false perception of reality. Conservatives are getting exactly what they want.

He also represents proof positive of one of my running theories. Conservatives want someone who is massively authoritarian because they loves themselves an aristocratic structure where the non whites know their place. Trump was so popular in the South because he reminds folks of the plantation owner lording over his minions and expecting tribute from the "less-thans."

Even though Bernie Sanders won last night in Indiana, Hillary Clinton will still win the Democratic nomination. So it's going to be Clinton v Trump. I'm looking forward to the slew of polls likely to come out in the next few weeks that show just how much Trump is going to get his ass kicked. Worse for Republicans are the down ticket candidates who now have to run way from Trump if they are in a toss up race.

With Trump at the top of the GOP ticket, the Republicans can wave buh-bye to the Senate.

Will the GOP learn its lesson? I doubt it. They will likely stomp their feet and whine about not nominating a "real" conservative. They'll heap blame on Trump but it's really the voters that are the problem. Their base is so fractured largely due to the Tea Party who seemingly morphed into Trump supporters.

The only issue faced by the Democrats is replicating what will likely be massive turnout in the fall in the off year elections. Why can't Democrats vote in the years that matter? This is why the GOP has taken over state house and local governments. When 35-40 percent of voters turnout in the midterms, that means only old, white people are voting. Translation: GOP victories.

In advance of what will surely be ear to ear smiles from fresh polls, here, once again, is my map for the fall election.




And I think I'm being generous to Trump!



Monday, May 02, 2016

Sunday, May 01, 2016

How Overt Racism Can Be A Good Thing

Jeneee Desmond-Harris has a great piece up over at the times on how the overt racism of Trump supporters is actually a good thing. She begins by relating how discussions of race invariably begin.

Last March, I reported on the Department of Justice’s findings that the police and municipal courts in Ferguson, Mo., had consistently violated the constitutional rights of the city’s black residents. The article included a summary of the abuse of power investigators uncovered, as well as the content of public officials’ emails. (One example: a photo of a bare-chested group of dancing women, apparently in Africa, captioned “Michelle Obama’s High School Reunion.”) 

Simply for presenting the investigation’s findings and the cops’ and court officials’ revealing words, I received a barrage of angry messages asking why I had to “make everything about race.”

Ah, yes...classic...but this brings up a great point.

One thing has been made very clear to me: Many people resent being confronted with information about how racism still shapes — and sometimes, ruins — life in this country.

They resent it because they don't want to take the responsibility for it...just like teenagers.

After a great summation of the Trump rallies over the last few months, we get to this. Mr. Trump and his supporters serve another function, too: They expose the falsehood of the seductive myth that with time and increased diversity, racism will inevitably evaporate.

It won't. It's an ongoing challenge. And this is why the overt racism of Trump and his supporters is a good thing. It's illustrating the folly of easy fixes and adolescent denial.

Saturday, April 30, 2016

The Not So Known Reason Why Trump Will Be Decimated

Hillary Clinton is pivoting to the general election and solidifying her operations in battleground states. It make sense because she is the likely nominee. But why isn't Donald Trump doing this? It has some folks perplexed.

"The sooner you can get up and running the better," said Dan Pfeiffer, who advised President Barack Obama. "On the Republican side, Trump has not built anything resembling the sort of field operation it takes to win."

If he doesn't have an y field operation in battleground states, he's going to lose even more badly than I thought. Meanwhile, Clinton campaign employees are heading to battleground states across the country, among them Ohio, Florida and Colorado. Democrats are also eyeing the possibility of making a run at traditionally Republican-leaning states such as Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona, calculating that Trump's penchant for controversy could put minority and female voters in play.

Georgia is in play? Wow.

Friday, April 29, 2016

Get Ready For An Ass Kicking

Insiders: Clinton would crush Trump in November

From the Republican insiders...

“There is positively no way for Trump to win in Pennsylvania,” said a Republican from that state. 

“Trump cannot and will not carry Ohio,” a Republican from that state insisted. “He will do well in Appalachia and in the Mahoning Valley but he will get killed in the rest of the state. The danger for the GOP is losing Rob Portman which is a very real possibility under this match-up.” 

Added a Florida Republican, who like all participants was granted anonymity in order to speak freely, “Trump is grinding the GOP to a stub. He couldn't find enough xenophobic, angry white Floridians to beat Hillary in Florida if he tried.” 

Wow. Here's my map of what it will all look like.


Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com


And I'm actually being generous to Trump because he's polling behind her in Utah for fuck's sake!

The GOP is finally getting exactly what they deserve. When you spend the better part of two decades training their constituents to believe wacky, ideological nonsense (see also: lies), you get Donald Trump as your front runner.

Ah, The Bubble...

Pentagon rips Benghazi Committee over 'speculation'  

The Pentagon is pushing back against the House Benghazi Committee, saying its repeated requests for documents and interviews are straining the department's resources — and, to make matters worse, many of the queries are speculative or hypothetical.

Hedger also complained that Defense Department interviewees “have been asked repeatedly to speculate or engage in discussing on the record hypotheticals.”

Sort of like a right wing blog commenting section, maybe? Man, those people live in their own fucking reality.

And now they are purposefully undermining the resources of our military.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Up Close with a Member of the Gun Cult

My daughter has been taking her driver's ed classes so she can get her permit and then (sigh, gasp) be a legal driver in the state of Minnesota. She's been going to the local driver's ed school a few short blocks from our house.

After the first class, she came home to inform us that the teacher, who also owns the school, took every opportunity he had to tell the class how he was very conservative, owned many guns, and didn't like people who weren't white. My wife and I decided long ago that our children should be exposed to people like this as often as possible so it will help them later in life. Sheltering is invariably a bad thing as the world can be a pretty awful place and young people need to know how to deal with folks like this.

But last night, she came home and told us that the instructor was bragging about their conceal carry permit. When another student said that she thought all guns should be outlawed, the instructor pulled out a knife and said, "Here's a way you can threaten someone without a gun." He then proceeded to point it at her.

Needless to say, I notified the police and hopefully this asshat will be put in his place. What is it exactly about the Gun Cult that they feel the need to threaten people all the time? Are they that insecure about life?

It's tempting to take this as just an isolated incident but this example is the direct result of a culture that cock rides guns. People like this jag off are part of the every growing pile off fallout in a society where guns are worshiped as objects of empowerment.

It has to stop.

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Trump V Clinton

I think we have to say that it's likely to be Trump v Clinton at this point. The GOP has to be shitting themselves.

Monday, April 25, 2016

Charles Koch: Clinton Might Make Better President

In a sign that this election has really gone off the rails, Charles Koch recently said that Hillary Clinton might make a better president than the eventual GOP nominee. It makes sense if you think about it. None of the current GOP candidates meet the Koch standard. Kasich is too liberal. Trump is too aristocratic and authoritarian. Ted Cruz is giant asshole.

The Hilz response?

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Playing A Role?

Is Donald Trump playing a role? Multiple reports suggest that he is, according to his campaign manager Paul Manafort. As soon as the general election begins, he will shift to more palatable stances to attract moderate voters. Take a listen


I wonder how all this will work out...y'know, the whole Mexicans as rapists, banning Muslims thing:)

Friday, April 22, 2016

Heart=Broken

All of Minnesota is mourning our state treasure...


Thursday, April 21, 2016

Turning the Lens on the Gun Culture

I have noticed a trend occurring of late that I find most heartening. Researchers are turning their lens towards gun violence and gun culture. There are many reasons why they are doing this but the recent news that UT researcher Haril Shapira is going to examine gun culture and the future of American democracy is extremely interesting.

Shapira’s work investigates what drives people to join gun-owning communities and what this means for democracy. The communities, Shapira observes, not only shape and transform individuals drawn to gun culture but also society at large. 

“We are seeing individuals taking on the roles of government when it comes to self-defense and issues of enforcement of the law,” Shapira said. “What might this mean for democracy and democratic institutions? What does an armed society hold for the future of America’s democracy?”

Indeed.

I'm not sure what his research questions will be or even what form his research will take but I'm hoping he gets into the issue of empowerment. I've been asking friends of mine who are gun owners why exactly they own them and one thing I've noticed about nearly all of them is they have something in their lives that makes them feel insecure and weak. Whether they have some sort of long term health issue or have been bullied in their lives, having a gun makes them feel better.

I can't wait for Professor Shapira's book to be released.


Wednesday, April 20, 2016

UnitedHealth Can't Compete

Obamacare is back in the news today, after UnitedHealth Group announced that it's getting out of insurance exchanges in many states.

Opponents of the health care exchange will point to this as a major failure. However, this isn't a failure of Obamacare, it's a failure of UnitedHealth's business model.

UnitedHealth is not a health care provider. It's a useless, money-sucking middleman. It grew to be the country's biggest health insurance provider with a very inefficient business model. This consists of insurance company A taking money from employer B to pay health care provider C to provide health care for employee D who works for employer B.

This is inherently inefficient. There are four parties involved in a transaction that should be conducted solely between health care provider C and patient D. Every time you add another party to a transaction the costs go up: everyone has to take their cut.

UnitedHealth doesn't make money by providing health care, it makes money by denying it. They are gambling that they'll be able to charge corporations for more health care than their employees will use.

They can do this because their customer is the employer, and not the employee actually receiving the health care. That means they can provide a much lower level of service than they can for customers who directly pay for their health care. They do this by denying coverage.

That's how health insurance companies make money: they insure healthy people, then they make using health care a hassle, hoping that patients will just cave when coverage is denied and pay for it themselves, or not bother to see the doctor at all.

UnitedHealth is a very profitable company, but it is a leech on the system. It can only be profitable by charging people for health care they don't use. Since they do not provide health care, they are incapable of effecting changes in the system itself to make it more efficient: all they can do is demand providers charge less, but since providers have a monopoly on health care, middlemen insurance companies have no real leverage.

But UnitedHealth has found that its business model can't stand up to competition on the exchanges. They're too inefficient. Companies that actually provide health care -- not the middlemen -- are the only ones that can really bring down the price of health care.

The American model for health care makes no sense. Health care is as essential to modern American life as food, clothing and shelter. Employers don't feed, or clothe or house us. Why should they pay for our health care?

Every American should pay for their own health care and employers should get out of the health insurance business altogether. They should give their employees raises equal to what they spend on health care.

This would level the playing field for American companies, who have to compete with foreign companies who aren't saddled with that burden. The same thing goes for cities, counties, states and the federal government.

The incentives in the health care system are completely skewed. Until the people who actually use it are the ones paying for it, and the people making money from it are the ones who provide it, the cost cost of health care in America will continue to spiral out of control.

Calling His Shot


Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Empire State Predictions

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will win their respective primaries today but the question is by how much.

For the Republicans, 95 are at stake. I think Trump will win at least 50 of them with Kasich getting around 30 and Cruz 15. Cruz didn't do himself any favors with his "New York values" comment. For the Democrats, 247 are at stake and I think Hillary will get just over half of them plus most of the superdelegates. Bernie will come away with a pretty good share of the delegates even though he will lose.

Monday, April 18, 2016

April Come She Will

April is usually a time of hope as Spring is about to arrive. People around the country are welcoming the warmer weather and the chance to sit outside in shirt sleeves watching a baseball game. But for many teachers, it's a really crappy time of the year as school districts decide who to cut and who to displace.

Of course, it's not entirely the district's fault. Teachers's unions make contracts that protect the most senior of staff regardless of how good or bad their performance. The reasoning behind this is solid given market economics. If the districts were allowed to cut whomever they wanted, all of the higher salaried staff would go every ten years or so to save money. Newer and inexperienced staff would flood the schools all in the name of penny pinching. Quality of education would severely drop as these new staff members would be challenged with a whole host of issues like classroom management, lesson planning, and relationship building.

Yet the issue of poor performance by veteran teachers persists and there needs to be significant changes to the way they are evaluated. First, they should not be evaluated as they are now by their fellow teachers who take a couple of years off to do Q-Comp (teacher observations). Outside and unbiased evaluators should be hired by each district to carry out these observations. Second, poor performers should not be passed along simply because they are senior. There should be significant consequences if they are not doing their jobs effectively including termination. Third, teachers that have been in the game for twenty years should shift out of the classroom and into a mentoring role for new teachers. With massive numbers retiring in the next ten years due to the baby boomer generation heading off to pasture, there will be a teacher shortage in this country. Many states, like Hawaii for example, are already experiencing this. New teachers need the guidance of their elders.

Take it from someone who has sadly experienced this too many times. Experience doesn't always mean quality.  This does not mean that we should jump on the right wing douche bag bandwagon and vilify all unions for ever and ever amen. But we do have to change the way the system currently works because it protects too many poor quality teachers.


Sunday, April 17, 2016

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Speaking Is Difficult



The filmmaker promises to keep adding his work. He will certainly have plenty of material with which to work.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Thursday, April 14, 2016

The County Needs To Hear From You.

This is why I heart the Hilz...

“You are the mothers of the children who are dying in the streets,” Mrs. Clinton told the group, Ms. McBath recalled. “You have a lot of power individually,” she said. “But collectively, you need to come together. The country needs to hear from you.”



Wednesday, April 13, 2016

What's Behind the Revolt Against Global Integration?

Here's a great piece from the post on globalization and why, despite the evidence, people are revolting against it. The evidence?

This broad program of global integration has been more successful than could reasonably have been hoped. We have not had a war between major powers. Global standards of living have risen faster than at any point in history. And material progress has coincided with even more rapid progress in combating hunger, empowering women, promoting literacy and extending life. A world that will have more smartphones than adults within a few years is a world in which more is possible for more people than ever before.

Sadly, far too many people on my side of the aisle can't accept this.


Tuesday, April 12, 2016

The Subway Reader

Monday, April 11, 2016

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Hearting Thomas Perez (and the federal government)

The video below is a shining example of many things, primarily the reason why I heart the federal government. Thomas Perez is our Secretary of Labor and, boy oh boy, is he a character. His ruminations on the Republicans, our economy, and the people of this nation are illuminating, hilarious and insightful.

Take it away, Thomas. It's mic dropping time!!

 

Saturday, April 09, 2016

Trump and Sanders: the Carpetbaggers

It turns out that Donald Trump's campaign may fall apart because he's a political novice, hired bad consultants, and doesn't know how the caucus and delegate systems work.

Trump will whine that this is unfair, that it's insider politics conducted in smoke-filled rooms. Hey, Donny boy: politics ain't bean bag.

But it raises a bigger question: who controls a political party? The voters who show up at the polls? The elected officials who serve? Or the political operatives and "hacks" who invest their time, sweat and tears, spending thousands of hours a year, year in and year out, working to advance the party and its members? This last group makes up a lot of the delegates who go to conventions. They care about more than just one presidential race.

After contributing zero time, money or effort to Republicans for sixty-eight years, Donald Trump decided that he could stage a hostile takeover of the Republican Party. Understandably, Republican party operatives who have dedicated their entire lives to the party want nothing to do with Trump.

It's not just because his ideas are stupid, he's a selfish boor, he's insulted party icons, he's ripped the bandaid of Republican lies off the Iraq war, and he's reinforced the idea that Republicans are racist, women-hating dicks.

No, a huge part of it is that Trump hasn't paid his dues, put in the time, or supported Republican candidates in any serious manner. Unlike Romney, who contributed millions to local Republican office holders in the 2012 cycle, Trump has done nothing for other Republicans, focusing solely on himself (big surprise).

Donald Trump is a New York carpetbagger come to steal the Republican Party away from the people who built it.

Bernie Sanders is doing the same thing: he's not a Democrat, he just plays one in the Senate. Unlike Clinton, who has helped raise millions of dollars for Democrats on the local, state and national levels, Sanders has done absolutely nothing to help Democrats.

And without electing several dozen more Democrats to the House and Senate, Sanders would be completely incapable of accomplishing any of his grandiose goals if he were elected. If the composition of the House and Senate remain unchanged, Sanders would be a lame duck president for his entire term.

The Bernie Bros and Trumpists want to destroy the party establishments and get rid of the deadwood "insiders." But someone has to do all the work: raise campaign cash, coddle donors, recruit new candidates to run for office so that voters have someone to vote for, organize caucuses and primaries so that people can actually vote, and keep the lights on. Without insiders political parties collapse.

A lot of people who voted for Obama are angry that he didn't accomplish everything he set out to do. Many are Sanders supporters now. But the reason Obama's momentum collapsed was that Ted Kennedy died, leaving Obama vulnerable to never-ending Republican filibusters in the Senate. Then those people didn't show up at the polls in 2010 and 2014 to elect Democrats.

That allowed Republicans to gain control of the Senate and the House, and a lot of statehouses, which allowed them to control redistricting and impose hundreds of new restrictions on voting across the country to suppress Democratic turnout. Republicans in Congress decided they would just run out the clock on Obama's term, and block everything they could.

Voters can't just show up every four years and expect to get what they want. They need to vote in every primary and general election, without fail. That's why cranky old white men run everything -- they volunteer for the grunt work of running the party and they get their peeps to show up to vote in every damned election, no matter how "insignificant."

Thursday, April 07, 2016

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

Dog Whistle?
























I wonder if this one was on of the reasons he lost Wisconsin last night.

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Wisconsin Predictions

They haven't called Wisconsin yet so I am predicting a Cruz and Sanders victory.

Monday, April 04, 2016

Watching His South Fall

Issac J. Bailey's recent piece over at Politico is both stunning and gut wrenching. He most astutely identifies why Donald Trump is so popular in the South.

The Republican South so far has rallied behind Donald Trump, a northerner without any of the grassroots evangelical credibility that is supposed to bind conservatives here—a candidate whose main appeal, in fact, has been coded appeals to the same hatred that drove Roof to pick up a gun. 

The exact same hatred.

Make no mistake, Trump’s embrace by millions of people in my region isn’t solely about economic angst. It is also about the kind of pent-up fear—made up of barely submerged racism and profound ignorance—that a reader in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, expressed to me shortly after Barack Obama’s election: “I think he’s gonna enslave us,” he said. “Look what we done to ya’ll.” 

Fear, indeed.

Read the whole piece. It's most illuminating.

Sunday, April 03, 2016

Whites Still Not Getting It

Nicholas Kristof has returned to his "White's Not Getting It" series and it's a corker. He begins with a simple quiz.

A) Whites and blacks were hired at similar rates. B) Blacks had a modest edge because of affirmative action. C) Whites were twice as likely to get callbacks.

Much of the conservative base would like choose B or even A. But the answer is C.

Worse, a black applicant with a clean criminal record did no better than a white applicant who was said to have just been released from 18 months in prison. There's more.

In one study, researchers sent thousands of résumés to employers with openings, randomly using some stereotypically black names (like Jamal) and others that were more likely to belong to whites (like Brendan). A white name increased the likelihood of a callback by 50 percent. Likewise, in Canada researchers found that emails from stereotypically black names seeking apartments are less likely to get responses from landlords. And in U.S. experiments, when blacks and whites go in person to rent or buy properties, blacks are shown fewer options.

Until we reconcile the fact that the fallout from the institution of slavery is still having a massively detrimental effect on the fabric of our society, we can't even begin to address the issues that black people face every day.

Saturday, April 02, 2016

Friday, April 01, 2016

Why Hillary Won't Be Indicted and Shouldn't Be

Richard O. Lempert offers an excellent summation of the faux scandal that is the Hillary Clinton email kerfuffle. It's the most honest and objective piece I have seen out there thus far. Here are some key points.

It is unclear whether classified information conveyed in an email message would be considered a document or materials subject to removal. Moreover, with respect to information in messages sent to Clinton, it would be hard to see her as having “knowingly” removed anything, and the same is arguably true of information in messages that she originated. If, however, she were sent attachments that were classified and kept them on her server, this law might apply.

And if they did?

But even if this section did apply, a prosecutor would face difficulties. Heads of agencies have considerable authority with respect to classified information, including authority to approve some exceptions to rules regarding how classified information should be handled and authority to declassify material their agency has classified. It would also be hard to show that Clinton intended to retain any information sent to her if her usual response was to forward the information to another, and if she then deleted the material from her inbox, whether or not it was deleted from her computer.

Some of that classified information includes information that was published in the New York Times and then retroactively classified recently.

This is a very thorough article that addresses the fact of the law. This is in direct opposition to what the media is reporting on a daily basis. I wonder why...


Thursday, March 31, 2016

Has The Donald Finally Met His Moby Dick?

Donald Trump may have finally met his great white whale and his name was Chris Matthews. Take a look...


The Donald has since walked back these comments but given the condemnation from both sides of the abortion issue, it's clear that he is finally being called on making shit up as he goes along. A recent poll in Wisconsin shows Ted Cruz up 10 points and that was taken before the arrest of Trump's campaign manager for battery and this issue.

Is this where Trump finally hits a wall?

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Watch The Birdie!


Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Want A Gun? No problem!


Tennessee Lawmaker Shows Just How Easy It Is to Buy A Gun Online
This politician brought a rifle to work to prove how easy it is to buy a gun without a background check
Posted by NowThis on Friday, March 25, 2016


Why, Chicago?

Every single day our nation hears stories like this from Chicago. Everyone across the cultural and political spectrum weighs in with their opinions and solutions which they are CERTAIN will work.

My favorite is the Gun Cult who harp continually about how "restrictive" gun laws prohibit ordinary citizens from defending themselves. This results in the "only criminals will have guns" meme which has always cracked me up. So, we make guns easier for them to get? And we allow more, untrained citizens access to guns? I guess the Gun Cult wants a return to this...




I suppose it makes sense since they are largely older, white men who grew up on a Hollywood western view of violence. Yet this on Chicago's ongoing challenges with crime (along with nearly all of them) fails to note the root cause.

Violence in Chicago is the direct result of slavery.

Consider that it was slavery (and the ensuing Jim Crow laws) which drove African Americans north to Chicago over the course of several decades in the 19th and 20th century. The result of such an influx of people resulted in a jolt of increased population density that was economically harmful to the area. With so many people vying for jobs, especially in times of economic contraction, many citizens of Chicago, newly arrive or long time residents, were bound to be disenfranchised economically. Invariably, this leads people to crime and it has continued on to this day with city officials endlessly trying to play catch up in a game they will never win.

So, we are back, once again, with being confronted by the great wound that our society fails to recognize. Violence in Chicago will not be mitigated until our entire country admits that slavery is still having a profound effect on the socioeconomic status of millions of US citizens of color.

We can't even begin to discuss possible solutions until we recognize the problem.






Monday, March 28, 2016

The Transcript

Take a look at the transcript of Donald Trump's interview with the Washington Post.

Wow.

Kinda reminds me of right wing blog commenting and discussion...no facts, adolescent tantrums, complete ignorance of reality, imperial declarations...no wonder he has around 40 percent of the GOP vote. They are EXACTLY like this.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Facing Charges

Remember Jamie Gilt? She was the gun activist who had images like this on her Facebook page.



Then her 4 year old son accidentally shot and wounded her. Ah, "responsible" gun owners...

Well, she's now facing charges which could land her in jail for up to 180 days. Here's to hoping she does the full stretch.

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Friday, March 25, 2016

Pass Three Laws

Bindu Kalesan from Boston University has just released a peer reviewed study that concludes the following.

Of 25 firearm laws, nine were associated with reduced firearm mortality, nine were associated with increased firearm mortality, and seven had an inconclusive association. After adjustment for relevant covariates, the three state laws most strongly associated with reduced overall firearm mortality were universal background checks for firearm purchase, ammunition background checks, and identification requirement for firearms. Projected federal-level implementation of universal background checks for firearm purchase could reduce national firearm mortality from 10·35 to 4·46 deaths per 100 000 people, background checks for ammunition purchase could reduce it to 1·99 per 100 000, and firearm identification to 1·81 per 100 000.

This means...

Very few of the existing state-specific firearm laws are associated with reduced firearm mortality, and this evidence underscores the importance of focusing on relevant and effective firearms legislation. Implementation of universal background checks for the purchase of firearms or ammunition, and firearm identification nationally could substantially reduce firearm mortality in the USA.

Boom.

Done.

Getting Out The Hispanic Vote

Donald Trump sure is doing a great job of getting out the Hispanic vote.

Healy is part of a wave of Latinos getting their US citizenship for the express purpose of voting against Mr. Trump. Overall naturalizations typically rise in election years, but in 2016 the numbers are stark: Applications could approach 1 million this year, 20 percent higher than average, according to The New York Times.

Hee hee...

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

"Losing" With Cruz

You have to love what the GOP has come to these days.

Republican elders, desperate to stop Donald Trump, are increasingly convinced they would rather forfeit the White House than hand their party to the divisive Manhattan billionaire. That’s why the party’s establishment is suddenly rallying behind Ted Cruz, a man they’ve long despised and who has little chance, in the view of many GOP veterans, of defeating Hillary Clinton on Election Day.

They are getting exactly what they deserve:)


Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Guns In Schools

Looks like parents in Michigan are pretty pissed about open carry a gun in school.

"Kids with a toy gun can get kicked out of school but an adult with a (real) gun doesn't?" one man asked. "It's not appropriate," said parent Michelle Miller. 

"My family hunts. My daughter carries a concealed weapon. There's a time and a place for it (carrying guns) and school is not the time and place."

What did you guys expect would happen when you enable the Gun Cult?


Monday, March 21, 2016

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Why I Heart Al Franken


Sen. Franken Pushes Back Against Republicans Obstructing Supre...
In case you missed it, yesterday in the Judiciary Committee I decided to set the record straight on some of the absurd arguments that many Senate Republicans are using to shirk their constitutional duty. They are refusing to hold hearings for Chief Judge Merrick Garland—President Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court—and many are refusing to even meet with him. This is obstruction, plain and simple, and the American people deserve better.
Posted by U.S. Senator Al Franken on Friday, March 18, 2016

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Friday, March 18, 2016

Good Words

Donald Trump is epically unprepared to be president. He has no realistic policies, no advisers, no capacity to learn. His vast narcissism makes him a closed fortress. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and he’s uninterested in finding out. He insults the office Abraham Lincoln once occupied by running for it with less preparation than most of us would undertake to buy a sofa.

---David Brooks, The New York Times 

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Trump Voters are Losers

There have been several theories advanced about the nature of Trump voters: they're angry, they're authoritarian, they're racist, etc.

This analysis found the locations where Trump is attracting the most voters:
...Trump counties are places where white identity mixes with long-simmering economic dysfunctions.
The places where Trump has done well cut across many of the usual fault lines of American politics — North and South, liberal and conservative, rural and suburban. One element common to a significant share of his supporters is that they have largely missed the generation-long transition of the United States away from manufacturing and into a diverse, information-driven economy deeply intertwined with the rest of the world. 
“It’s a nonurban, blue-collar and now apparently quite angry population,” said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. “They’re not people who have moved around a lot, and things have been changing away from them, but they live in areas that feel stagnant in a lot of ways.”
 In particular, Trump voters are white with no high school diploma, they live in mobile homes, they have "old economy" jobs, they have a history of voting for segregationists, they're unemployed, etc.

In other words, they're losers.

This pretty much explains everything about Trump supporters, and how he's able to con them into supporting him. As a casino owner, Trump knows a lot about losers. That's because casino gamblers are by definition losers -- the house always wins.

The trick to running a casino is to provide the illusion that you're winning even when you're losing. Slot machines are a great example. There's a lot of noise, and lights, and the thrill of anticipation that something exciting is going to happen. The machine keeps leading you on, giving you a little jolt of excitement every once in a while while you keep feeding it money, fooling you into thinking you're winning, even though you never hit the big jackpot.

Like a Trump rally. Trump puts his supporters in the same mindset as gamblers placing sucker bets on the roulette table or feeding slot machines. Trump constantly yaps about winning and making lots of money, like casino and lottery ads that promise the suckers instant riches.

Real winners don't constantly yap about winning. They're competent and confident in their abilities. They don't need constant adulation. Losers obsess about winning.

Trump is not a real winner: at heart, he's an insecure loser who's perpetuated the illusion of winning. He's failed at most of his business ventures. He's rich, but that's because he inherited millions from his daddy (he's tied for 121 in the Forbes 400 list with two women you've never heard of). People like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are real winners, people who started with an idea and got really rich.

Donald Trump is running his campaign like a slot machine or a lottery, promising his supporters that they're all going to win and they're all going to be really rich. The truth is, everyone who plays the Trump lottery is a loser, and if Trump wins the United States will be the biggest loser.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Winner Take All Predictions

For tonight's primary states, I predict the following.

On the Republican side,

Donald Trump will win Florida, Illinois, and North Carolina,

Ted Cruz will win Missouri

John Kasich will win Ohio

Marco Rubio going bye-bye

On the Democratic side,

Hillary Clinton will win Florida, North Carolina, Illinois, and Ohio.

Bernie Sanders will win Missouri,

With the Kasich win in Ohio and several Northeastern states to follow, the GOP race will become more convoluted than ever. Contested convention here we come!!



Monday, March 14, 2016

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Fact Checking Trump


Saturday, March 12, 2016

Good Words From The President

"We’ve got a debate inside the other party that is fantasy and schoolyard taunts and selling stuff like it’s the Home Shopping Network," Obama said in a clear reference to Trump's Tuesday-night press conference, where he wheeled out products like Trump Steaks and Trump Water to prove his business bona fides. 

"How can you be shocked?" he asked. "This is the guy, remember, who was sure that I was born in Kenya. Who just wouldn’t let it go. And all this same Republican establishment, they weren’t saying nothing. As long as it was directed at me, they were fine with it. They thought it was a hoot. Wanted to get his endorsement. And then now, suddenly, we’re shocked that there’s gambling going on in this establishment." 

Sounds familiar...:)

Friday, March 11, 2016

Poetic Justice

So, let's see here...mom brags on social media, "My right to protect my child with my gun trumps your fear of my gun" and then ends up accidentally getting shot in the back by that same child. 
Now she might be charged because Florida law requires guns to be secured from minors?
Poetic justice...

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Three Year High

The president's approval rating has hit a three year high. Real Clear Politics has him at more approval than disapproval. That's good news for Hillary Clinton who seeks to continue the president's legacy.

Right around now is when Republicans will start to say that there were some good things that Barack Obama has done...:)

Wednesday, March 09, 2016

Why Do Polls Suck?

Today the big news was that Michigan primary was a huge upset! How huge? Sanders beat Clinton by a whole 0.5%.

That doesn't sound like much of an upset. In most of the states where Clinton isn't pounding Sanders into the ground with 60, 70 or 80% of the vote, they're running about equal. Which means Clinton is piling up delegates much faster than Sanders.

So why are they calling it an upset? Because the polls predicted that Clinton would win by 20 points. If Sanders had clobbered Clinton by the same amount that Clinton has clobbered Sanders by in other states, that would be an upset. Here, the polls were simply dead wrong.

By this point it should be obvious that polls don't work anymore, and this has been the case for several years. Karl Rove made an absolute ass of himself when he refused to believe that Obama won, because he trusted his polls more than the election itself.

Mark pointed to an article on fivethirtyeight.com about why the polls are wrong. It was a list of lame excuses from someone who still believes that polls can work. They can't. Polling is completely broken, and probably forever.

Here are the real reasons why polling has lost most of its credibility.

Most reasonable people just don't answer the phone if they don't recognize who's calling. They look at the caller ID or let their answering machine pick it up. Why? Every unsolicited phone call you get from an unknown number is
  • someone you don't know calling during dinner or your favorite TV show or when you're working, or
  • a crook trying to steal your personal information, your credit card, your bank account, or your identity, often posing as Microsoft Windows support, or
  • a sales person trying to sell you something shady or something you don't want, or
  • a crook from a phony charitable organization selling you some bogus sob story to steal your money, or 
  • a paid telephone solicitor from a reputable charitable organization that is growing ever more desperate for donations because the disreputable scum bags are stealing all their donors.
That means that only schmoes with nothing but time to waste are picking up calls from unknown numbers. These people do not represent the average voter.

Pollsters used to only call landlines, which was beginning to significantly skew poll results. They have since changed that, and now call mobile numbers as well. Since mobile minutes cost real money, only really schmoey shmoes will waste their minutes talking to a pollster.

People who willingly pick up unsolicited calls frequently do so in order to mess with the caller, tying them up and wasting their time. Some think that lying to pollsters helps tweak the lamestream media, which faithfully and breathlessly report the latest poll numbers, which are increasingly wrong.

A lot of reasonable people who do pick up don't think it's anyone's business who they're going to vote for. They'll a) politely decline, b) just hang up, or c) lie to the pollster. Why? Because they have no way of knowing how that information will be used against them in the future. And it often will be used against you -- independent polls are completely free to sell your answers to political campaigns, who will use that information to dun you with more calls begging for money.

Rabid supporters will answer polls in order to "get their vote in" for their favorite candidate. These are generally a tiny and predictable fraction of the population, so they don't really tell you much about how the majority of the population will vote.

Many voters have the attention span of a gnat. They don't know anything about any of the issues. They often don't decide who they're voting for until they get in the voting booth. Polls tell you nothing when the electorate is so undecided, and though they try to control for this, clearly it's not working (this is the one excuse that 538 gave that holds water.)

For example: the most ridiculous thing I've heard voters say this cycle is, "I can't decide between Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump." (Jesse Ventura, among others, has said this.) This is like saying you can't decide between Attila the Hun and Mahatma Gandhi.

Some of these are simply clueless people. Others, like Ventura, are trying to sabotage the American political system. These saboteurs don't are about either candidate's stands on the issues, they just want to blow the system up.

News flash: nominating unelectable or unqualified candidates won't make the government work better. You'd think Ventura would have realized this after spending four years as governor of Minnesota when neither party had his back and the media hounded him for being such a thin-skinned lout.

Finally, there are Internet polls. These are conducted online, and most pollsters regard them as completely worthless because they aren't really random: it's a self-selecting population, and they are easily gamed by campaign organizations, and are also vulnerable to bot nets (like any other Internet scam).

Political campaigns and news organizations will continue to use polls, but their predictive value is nearing zero.

The only polls that really matter are the ones that actually elect candidates.

Nate Silver Was Wrong?

Why The Polls Missed Bernie Sanders’s Michigan Upset

Tuesday, March 08, 2016

Lower...


Monday, March 07, 2016

Not #1!!!


Sunday, March 06, 2016

Trump As Hitler?

As Donald Trump continues to lead in the GOP primary, comparisons to Adolph Hitler's populist nationalism are creeping in to the mainstream conversation. I've thought of about ten different ways to talk about it but today DJ Tice said it the best in this editorial. Donald Trump, like Ross Perot before him, is essentially Hitler's act but in a different dialect. Further...

Another discomforting vision of demagoguery from its heyday was authored by Minnesota’s Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sinclair Lewis. In “It Can’t Happen Here,” in 1935, before the full horrors of Nazism were revealed, Lewis conjured a satire in which U.S. Sen. Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip — “an inspired guesser at what political doctrines the people would like” — imposes fascism on America. Windrip gets himself elected president with promises one admirer calls “molasses for the cockroaches,” including: “that he had thoroughly tested (but unspecified) plans to make all wages very high and the prices of everything … very low; that he was 100 percent for Labor, but 100 percent against all strikes; and that he was in favor of the United States so arming itself, so preparing to produce its own coffee, sugar, perfumes, tweeds and nickel instead of importing them, that it could defy the World … and maybe, if that World was so impertinent as to defy America … take it over and run it properly.”

In short, buyers beware...


Saturday, March 05, 2016

Donald Trump's Penis Signals The Destruction of the GOP

I think I was the only one not shocked when Donald Trump assured debate watchers that his penis was not as small as hands. When your party's base is filled with adolescents, penis size matters. But apparently there were many others who were shocked and most of them are conservatives.

“The spectacle made me ill,” writes the conservative Free Beacon’s Matthew Continetti. “On screen I watched decades of work by conservative institutions, activists, and elected officials being lit aflame not only by the New York demagogue but by his enablers who waited until the last possible moment to try and stop him.”

Mitt Romney is trying to stop him and gave this speech hour before the debate.



Aside from the obvious problem that Romney sought and received Trump's endorsement in 2012, Romney's points about Trump (which are all dead on accurate) completely fail to note the conservative base admire all these traits in Trump. Why?

Because they are just like that too!

Predictably, the adolescents that support Trump are pissed that adults are trying to talk them down but they want none of it.

"I want to see Trump go up there and do damage to the Republican Party" said Jeff Walls, 53, of Flowood, MS.

Kathy, from Sun City, Ariz., told Mr. Limbaugh she was “absolutely livid by the Romney speech. He’s condescending,” she said, adding that he sounded like a “Democrat the whole time.” Steve from Temecula, Calif., said he had a message for Mr. Romney: “The Republican electorate is not a bunch of completely ignorant fools.”

“We know who Donald Trump is,” he added, “and we’re going to use Donald Trump to either take over the G.O.P. or blow it up.”

Ah, rebellious teenagers:)

Frank Luntz declared Hillary the biggest winner of the night and said that 22 out of his 25 focus groups said that this debate will hurt the GOP in the fall election.

Jamie Johnson, senior adviser to Rick Perry, said, "My party is committing suicide on national television.

Kristen Anderson, millenial pollster, said, "We may as well cancel the rest of the debate bc we are now in a Mike Judge film and nobody's going to talk about anything but Trump hands."  That's not the first time I've hear an Idiocracy reference.

The National Review's Alexis Levinson called for a safe word during future debates.

I think the best reaction, though, came from the Hilz..


























Sorta reminds me of my 8th graders...

-- Here’s a sampling of how conservative media outlets are covering the debate:
  • National Review: “GOP Implosion Accelerates in Motor City Wreck.”
  • FoxNews.com, “GOP breaks down in Motor City”: “Much of the fight on the Republican side is centered on who can beat Clinton,” Chris Stirewalt, the digital politics editor, writes. “The growing fear among GOP voters is that the answer might be: ‘None of them.’”
  • Christian Broadcasting Network, “All That Was Missing Was Jerry Springer”: “The Grand Old Party didn’t look grand at all. Instead, they looked gross,” writes CBN political correspondent David Brody. “Reince Priebus is faced with a crucial decision now: does he go with Tylenol or Excedrin? Which medication will take away this big fat headache?”

Friday, March 04, 2016

Trump's Dupes Just Don't Care

The Republican establishment has belatedly begun attacking Donald Trump for being a con man and a liar. The problem is, Trump supporters don't care:
On the issue of the now-defunct Trump University—which offered real estate seminars that cost students up to $35,000, and which is the subject of three lawsuits that allege Trump defrauded students by misrepresenting what the "university" was—Travino admitted it was a "black mark" on Trump's record. "But I don't care," he added. And he doesn't think Trump's supporters will care either.
And:
Matthew Higgens, a Trump supporter from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, felt the same way about Trump University. "To be honest with you, I don't care," he said. Higgens said other Republicans hadn't gone after predatory for-profit colleges that get students to take out loans for degrees and jobs that don't pan out. "How can you point the finger at one guy?" he asked. "It's ridiculous." 
No, it's not ridiculous. The crooks running those other phony for-profit "universities" aren't running for president. Why do Trump's dupes think that a man under indictment for fraud is going to fulfill any of his campaign promises?

Trump is suckering the his supporters exactly the same way that he suckered those idiots who blew $60,000 on worthless Trump University degrees.

The main reason people say they support Trump is that "he tells it like it is." They hate "establishment" politicians because they say whatever they need to say to get elected, and they never deliver on their promises.

The thing is, Trump is doing exactly the same thing: he's making promises he will never keep, and is at this very moment doing the exact opposite of what he promises. Trump is promising to stop immigrants from entering the country, yet Trump hires foreigners by the thousands to work at his casinos, hotels and construction sites (and even married two foreigners). Trump talks about slapping huge tariffs on Chinese goods, yet his Trump-brand merchandise is made in China and Asia.

But, yeah, I know. Trump supporters don't care. They just want to stick it to the politicians they hate, without really getting that Trump will be even worse than the guys they're trying to stick it to.

Trump has made a big deal about how he's funding his own campaign, and isn't beholden to campaign contributors because he hasn't taken their money. Okay. Like many Americans, he cynically thinks if you give a candidate money, you own the candidate.

But the corollary to that is: if you don't give a candidate money he owes you nothing. That means Trump believes he owes the people who simply voted for him even less than nothing. Trump is going to do whatever's good for Trump, not those broke and angry losers who put him in office. And the people who send $50 or $100 checks to Trump without ever meeting him and extracting a promise from him? They're the biggest losers ever, giving away money with no promise of any return whatsoever....

When Trump said, "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters," he was bragging about himself, implying that his supporters are duped losers following a shiny object.


Trump is repeating the prejudices of white people -- saying what he thinks they want to hear -- in order to get elected, dressing it up as "telling it like it is." He's making insane proposals about walls and tax breaks to set out an initial negotiating position, fully intent on dialing down the crazy when he comes to the negotiating table after he's elected.

That's not just my take on it, that's Trump's standard negotiating tactic: ask for the moon when what you really want is the lot on the corner. Throw your negotiating partner off balance with your daring and bravado, and he'll think he's getting a great deal when you screw him over. It's also what Trump told the New York Times editorial board in the "off-the-record" part of a January interview, according to a story on Buzzfeed.

Trump constantly carps about "political correctness," but he has already said that as president he'll be the most politically correct person in the world.

Trump is exactly the kind of wheeler-dealer politician that all his followers claim to despise. He's promising concentration camps for illegal immigrants. He's promising to lock certain Americans up en masse the way Japanese Americans were during WWII. He's promising to torture Muslims and murder their wives and children in cold blood.

He will never do any of that because these acts are violations of the Constitution and war crimes, and most of the FBI and the American military will disobey such illegal orders, and Trump doesn't want to be impeached or sent to the Hague to face a war crimes tribunal.

Trump is blustering hate to get primary votes from whites who feel downtrodden and left behind: just like the people who got suckered at Trump University. After he gets the Republican nomination, he'll back off on most of this crap for the general election, telling people that they misunderstood what he said, that he was just exaggerating for effect. He didn't really mean it, he'll say, it was just the heat of the moment. Or he'll say he was just repeating what he heard someone else say, and wasn't really sure it was true and he didn't mean it in any case.

But Trump's dupes will remain faithful. They'll rationalize that he's lying to to get win the general election, but that once he's in office he'll do what he promised in the primary.

In other words, he'll be acting just like any other politician. Because he is like any other politician, except that he's even less honest than most.


If you listen to the way Trump talks, it's obvious that he's being intentionally misleading -- or senile. He will repeat something three times, then say the opposite, then ask it as a question, then make a joke, then talk about how popular he is, what a loser his opponents are, and how well he's doing in the polls, and how much we're going to win, and how much money we're going to make by suing everyone for libel (yeah, he said that). It's all bullshit


Once he's in office, Trump will do whatever it takes to make him look good to himself. That will probably mean making tons of deals, and throwing away every campaign promise he ever made. Trump will blame Congress and the Democrats for stymieing him, and he'll sue a bunch of newspapers and websites for insulting him, and he'll swear a couple of times and the dupes who elected Trump will still fall for the act and think he's great. Even though he will have swindled them in the biggest con in history.

The truth is, there's no way to know what Trump will do as president. Everything he says is pie-in-the-sky crap. He's taking his supporters for a ride, and it'll cost this country a lot more than one of those worthless Trump University degrees.

Yes We Klan!


Thursday, March 03, 2016

Post-Mortem on Super Tuesday

Super Tuesday showed that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the front runners for the respective parties.

The Hilz is in a far better position than the Donald with a 1052 to 427 lead over Bernie. At this point, she's halfway to the 2382 needed to win and will likely win the nomination. Bernie fans can take heart that his ideas will live on in this year's party platform.

Donald's front runner status is not quite as solid as of yet. He's got 319 to Cruz's 226 and Rubio's 110. Kasich has 25. The three of them together beat Trump which I find highly amusing for several reasons. More people don't want Trump to be the nominee than want him to be the nominee. Mitt Romney is making a speech today to try to rally the troops against Trump. Many Republicans are calling for a third party option. They may as well just support Hillary if they are going to take this tack. Of course, this is what you get when you have 89 people running for president in your party. You get a disaster as your nominee.

The best the "stop Trump" folks can hope for is that he does not get to the magic number of 1237 in order to win and they can have a contested convention. That will do wonders for voter turnout in the fall. But a Trump candidacy will have the same effect as many GOPers don't support him. They are kind of fucked any way you cut it.

I've said it many times and will continue to say it. When you spend the better part of a decade conditioning your supporters to believe lies through hate, anger and fear, you get Donald Trump as your nominee.

Conservatives only have themselves to blame.

Wednesday, March 02, 2016

Tuesday, March 01, 2016

Trump: Then and Now

Yesterday the Daily Show did a send up of Trump's "Fascist Week" antics. Trevor Noah ridiculed him for unknowingly retweeting a Mussolini quote, even though it was originated by "ilduce2016." ("Il duce" is the Italian equivalent of Hitler's "Der Führer.").

The episode also looked at the interview in which Trump refused to disavow an endorsement from white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. Afterwards Trump claimed he couldn't understand the question because of a faulty earpiece. Seriously? He repeated the name "David Duke" and variations on the phrase "white supremacist" several times, so he clearly heard the words, but he just didn't seem to get it.

I have no doubt Trump had problems understanding the question. He hasn't aged well, so he's probably suffering from significant hearing loss. He may have been repeating the words to make sure that he had heard them properly.

The problem I have with Trump isn't so much the lack of disavowal (because we know Trump is intentionally courting -- nay, inciting -- the racist vote), but the physical and mental deficits Trump is clearly displaying in the clip from Sunday, which starts at about 8:30 in the video.

Notice how confused and pinched Trump's expression is. Notice how frequently he blinks. High blink rates are associated with several things: dry eyes, schizophrenia, stress, and lying. I'm guessing Trump is suffering from three out of four of these -- your guess as to which. (As a bonus, notice how bloated and orange his face is, and how white his skin is around the small, beady eyes, and how silly his hair looks. I wouldn't normally point this out, but since Trump is constantly deriding other people for their appearance -- making light of Rosie O'Donnell's weight, or insisting that Heidi Klum is no longer a 10 -- it's only fair to point out that Trump himself is a pasty, dumpy three and was never more than a five.)

Now look at time index 9:50 in the video, which is an interview Trump gave in 2000. He mentions Duke by name as the reason he's getting out of the presidential race. Trump sounds relatively coherent and reasoned.

Comparing the two Trumps side by side, it is clear that Trump's mental and physical state have greatly deteriorated in the last 16 years. Comparing him to other politicians of a similar age -- Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton -- and even older politicians like Bernie Sanders and Jimmy Carter, Trump has not aged well at all.

In recent days Republicans like Marco Rubio have stooped to Trump's level, hurling all kinds of inane insults at the billionaire. Yet they have not yet touched on what is a completely legitimate concern: Trump's rapidly advancing senile dementia.

This is a serious concern. What will the Republicans do if  Trump strokes out from a Viagra overdose having sex with his mistress a month before the election?

Super Tuesday Predictions

As voters in several states around the country head to the polls today, it's become very clear that Hillary Clinton will likely capture the Democratic nomination.She will win Alabama, American Samoa, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. With all of these states and the super delegates she already has, that will put her around the half way point towards the nomination. Bernie Sanders will win Colorado, Minnesota, and Vermont which will clearly not be enough to climb out of the deep hole he is already in.

On the Republican side, Donald Trump will win Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Vermont and Virginia. Marco Rubio will win Minnesota and Tennessee. Ted Cruz will win Texas. With all the victories Trump will pile up, it seems now that he is the likely nominee however it's just a tad too soon to tell. The winner take all states of Florida, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio on March 15th will probably be the day when we see how the rest of the primary season will go.

If Trump wins 2 of these states, it's over. If he wins Florida, Rubio is done. Republicans have been alternately pooping themselves and wringing their hands at the prospect of a Trump nomination. Some have even called for an independent run for one of the candidates that don't win. All of this really says one thing to me.

The GOP as we know it is officially dead.

I've been saying that it was coming for years. The writing was on the wall. Spend time lying to your supporters, stoking fear, anger and hatred-all of which are steeped in xenophobia and racism?

You get Donald Trump as the leader of your party.