Great Answer!

I'm wondering why we have to continue to coddle gun rights supporters as if they were self entitled teenagers. We too easily give in to their nonsense and allow them to control the conversation. We should call them out for exactly what they are: paranoid liars who should find alternate ways to soothe their insecurity and inferiority...ways that don't cause the deaths of thousands US citizens every year.

A Preview of a Trump Presidency in Alabama

Alabama is going to hell.

Michael G. Hubbard, the speaker of the Alabama House, is on trial for corruption. The chief justice has been suspended for ethics violations. And the governor is under investigation for talking sex with his top aide (whose company received $400K in campaign cash from the governor and whose husband landed a state government job after the governor was elected).

The case of the speaker is most illustrative of what we'll see in a Trump administration. His business was having trouble, and he needed cash, but no one would hire him:

Such reluctance, the emails showed, deepened the frustrations of Mr. Hubbard, who lamented that companies hesitated to hire him, even though he had helped strengthen Alabama’s reputation as a business-friendly state. Eventually, Mr. Brooke and others agreed to invest in Mr. Hubbard’s struggling printing company.

Prosecutors also brought out testimony that depicted the extent of the speaker’s ties with lobbyists. One lobbyist, for instance, described how he and two others had once met about their business in Mr. Hubbard’s conference room in Montgomery, the state capital.

Mr. Hubbard faces 20 years in prison on each of the 23 counts against him. Testimony will continue Thursday.

Now, as president, Trump wouldn't be looking for a job. Previous presidential candidates haven't been actively running companies the way Trump does; they do the honorable thing and step down. Even though he's running for president, Trump is still involved with the day-to-day business of his companies: he's going to Scotland soon for the reopening of the Turdberry -- excuse me, Turnberry -- golf course.

Previous presidents have turned over their investments to a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest. Not Trump. He said he'd turn over the management of his businesses to his children.

That doesn't resolve the conflict of interest. The businesses of children and other relatives of presidents still represent a huge conflict, especially in the case of Trump, a control freak who is completely incapable of relinquishing control of his companies.

For example, in the 1980s Neil Bush, son of George H. W. Bush, ran Silverado Savings & Loan into the ground, resulting in a bailout costing taxpayers $1.3 billion. The FDIC sued Bush but the case was settled out of court. The 1980s S&L scandal under Reagan/Bush was a prequel to W.'s meltdown of the financial system in 2008.

Did Neil Bush get kid-glove treatment because he was the president's son? I don't know. But based on everything Trump has said about abusing the system to get what he wants, you'd have to be a fool to think that he wouldn't take advantage of his position to increase the value of his companies and help his children out.

Because if Trump's companies went belly up while he was president, it would be a huge embarrassment to him. He will never be able to step away from them.

It's inevitable that a Trump presidency will be consumed by and endless run of scandals: conflicts of interest, funneling money and business to Trump companies, mob cronies showing up to collect favors, his tirades against world leaders, further revelations about Trump University and other real estate scams, his uncontrollable urge to get even with old enemies, murders at his casinos due to security cuts to save money, his incompetence with military affairs (he had no clue what the nuclear triad was in a December debate, has said Japan and South Korea should have nuclear weapons, has advocated torture and murder of innocent children in violation of the Geneva Conventions, like some third-world despot), and, given Trump's braggadocio and very long history of marital infidelity, at least a few sex scandals.

The 2 Year Olds

Politico has a great piece up about how it's time that the press start treating Donald Trump like a 2 year old. Considering he is the nominee of the GOP, I think we should start treating all conservatives as described by Mr. Shafer. This is especially true for the right wing bloggers and commenters out there who (metaphorically) want to have ice cream for breakfast every day when it comes to running our nation.

So, how will this be done? First, let's take a look at the symptoms.

This is the first time we’ve seen a candidate assume the psychological and reactive profile of a small child. Trump seethed like an irritable 2-year-old instead of exhibiting the kind of restraint and comity we usually associate with a finalist in the presidential sweepstakes. I’m a big baby, the Trump outburst announced to all, and I’ll just act out until my anger is appeased!

As the emotional equivalent of a toddler, Trump can’t articulate the rage he feels, and the interrogations at news conferences seem to make him only angrier.

Not only is this illustrative of Trump but it's a pitch perfect description of every single comments discussion I have ever had with conservatives.

How does one confront this?

First, you can’t manage a toddler if you play his game. if there’s one thing you don’t want to do is get in a name-calling contest with someone so emotionally stunted and so talented at giving nicknames (“Lyin’ Ted,” “Crooked Hillary,” “Little Marco,” “Crazy Bernie,” “Pocahontas,” et al.).

Second, the press needs to be more practical. Sometimes when a toddler acts out the way Trump does, the underlying cause is quite simple. He’s tired. If so, put him down for a nap. Or he’s hungry. Feed him!

I guess a reporter from Hollywood Reporter recently gave him some ice cream so that was nice.

Third, offer some distractions. The smart parent always keeps in reserve ways to distract his toddler. In Baby Donald’s case, the solution seems to be a few beautiful young women, preferably “10s,” just outside his field of vision.

Positive reinforcement helps, too. Whenever an hour or two passes without him insulting somebody as ugly, a fool, a dummy, dopey, a lowlife, a clown, a dog, a lightweight, a disaster, stupid, grubby, nasty, incompetent or one of his other pet epithets, give him the praise he needs to develop into an ethically centered, considerate human being. “You were such a good boy today,” will succeed in shaping him a lot further than the biting criticism so many have used against him.

If all else fails, Shafer notes, take away his Twitter feed! I believe they do have rules about how people conduct themselves on there.

The above is great advice for dealing with conservatives, especially the Gun Cult:)

Trump Chumps

Court documents released yesterday showed without a doubt that Donald Trump is con man out to screw regular guys:

In blunt testimony revealed on Tuesday, former managers of Trump University, the for-profit school started by Donald J. Trump, portray it as an unscrupulous business that relied on high-pressure sales tactics, employed unqualified instructors, made deceptive claims and exploited vulnerable students willing to pay tens of thousands for Mr. Trump’s insights.

These aren't just disgruntled students who felt they got screwed over paying $35,000 for bogus real estate investment classes that were supposed to be delivered by Trump himself. These are the instructors and sales people who worked for the fraudulent school.

Trump likes to claim he didn't really have anything to do with the scam, that he just lended his name to it. That's a lie:

Mr. Trump, who started the university in 2005, owned 93 percent of the now-defunct company. From the start, he acted as its chief promoter, rather than day-to-day manager, selling it as a tool of financial empowerment that would improve life for thousands of ordinary Americans. It would, he said, “teach you better than the best business school,” according to the transcript of a Web video.

Trump's con job was the worst kind of scam: taking money from people who could least afford it, ruining their lives:

The most striking documents were written testimony from former employees of Trump University who said they had become disenchanted with the university’s tactics and culture. Corrine Sommer, an event manager, recounted how colleagues encouraged students to open up as many credit cards as possible to pay for classes that many of them could not afford.

“It’s O.K., just max out your credit card,” Ms. Sommer recalled their saying.

Jason Nicholas, a sales executive at Trump University, recalled a deceptive pitch used to lure students — that Mr. Trump would be “actively involved” in their education. “This was not true,” Mr. Nicholas testified, saying Mr. Trump was hardly involved at all. Trump University, Mr. Nicholas concluded, was “a facade, a total lie.”

Trump says that lots of students felt they received good value for their money. Sadly, that's not true: they're are just losers haven't yet realized that they were conned.

Exactly like all those voters who still support Trump...

Not That Close

Here's a great piece from Charlie Cook on how the Clinton Trump race is not as close as it seems. The simple fact is that once the Hilz is the nominee, her numbers are going to return to what they were before Trump become the de facto nominee.

Released!

A judge has ordered the release of all documents related to the Trump University case.

And he's Hispanic....hee hee:)

We Remember

To those who serve and to the families of those lost, we remember...

Down 12%

After increasing in 2013 and in 2014, energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell in 2015. In 2015, U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions were 12% below the 2005 levels, mostly because of changes in the electric power sector.

Sweet!

The Rio Olympics Should Be Canceled

A hundred and fifty health experts have called for the Olympic Games scheduled to begin in Brazil this summer to be canceled or delayed:

With Brazil already swarming with Zika-loaded mosquitoes, hosting 500,000 foreign athletes and spectators for the 2016 Olympic games there in August poses unnecessary health risks and is downright “unethical.”

The Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization disagree, and have said the games should proceed.

But the problem with Brazil isn't just Zika: it's everything. As the Daily Show showed recently, Brazil is a disaster.

The former president of Brazil, Dilma Roussef, was recently deposed in a coup that was arranged by her political enemies in order to derail an investigation into their corruption. Their plot was divulged in a recording made public last week.

Brazil's economy and law enforcement are in a downward spiral because of low oil prices, problems that have been exacerbated by diverting billions of dollars to building facilities for the Olympics.

The ocean in which many of the events are scheduled to take place is filled with sewage, so loaded with bacteria and viruses that ingesting three teaspoons of seawater will infect a person with all sorts of nasty diseases.

The Brazilian government's response to Zika has been heartless. The worst thing about Zika is that it can cause babies to born with monkey-sized brains (microcephaly, or "pinheads," as Bill O'Reilly is so fond of saying). Last month the CDC definitively found that Zika causes babies to be born with tiny brains.

Brazil has severe restrictions on abortions, and no exceptions are made for babies born with microcephaly. Mothers are forced to bear children that will never be able to talk, care for themselves, grow up or ever really be human.

And then there's the epidemic of violence against women, exemplified by the recent gang rape of a sixteen-year-old girl by 30 men, which was recorded and posted online. There are at least 13 rapes a day in Rio de Janeiro, though the actual number is far higher because most rapes are never reported.

Brazil has become a third-world hell-hole in just a few short years. The country is incapable of hosting a safe and healthy Olympics. Athletes and spectators will contract diseases that they will bring home to their families and the rest of the world.

The Zika epidemic in Brazil was started by one traveler infected with the virus getting bitten by a mosquito in Brazil. It is the height of idiocy to send half a million people to Brazil so that they can get infected and bring the disease back to every corner of the world.

Let's Be Clear

The End of Oil

My favorite news organization, the Christian Science Monitor, has a great piece up about how oil is really at a turning point.

Even if the nearly 200 nations that negotiated the United Nations climate change agreement last December don’t meet their emissions-reducing commitments, they’re still worried about global warming and pollution. Major oil-consuming nations have policies in place to reduce their dependency on fossil fuels. Other pressures are building.

In five years, a fossil fuel divestment movement on a few college campuses has spread worldwide, with 518 organizations worth $3.4 trillion agreeing to sell off their coal, oil, and natural gas investments. These groups include the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, heirs to the Standard Oil fortune, and the sovereign wealth fund of Norway, a top 20 oil producer. Even Saudi Arabia is moving to sell a portion of its state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco, and diversify its economy.

One need only look at what's going in Venezuela to see what happens when you rely on oil these days. Man, I love the free market. Oh yeah....I also love this...

If the world is producing more oil, why are gas prices going up? 

Production is growing, but world demand, fueled by low gasoline prices, is growing even more. As a result, the oil glut is shrinking. By the end of the year, and perhaps as early as next quarter, production worldwide could fall below world demand. That would be the first time that’s happened since 2013.

Hmm...:)

Yay Hawai!

It looks like Hawaii is moving a more sane direction regarding guns. All firearms owners in Hawaii will now be in a federal database.

The bill involves an FBI database known as the "Rap Back" that currently tracks people who are in "positions of trust," such as school teachers and people who work with the elderly. Stephen Fischer of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division told The Associated Press. Hawaii would add gun owners to the list.

It's not too surprising that bowels are being blown in the Gun Cult. Oh well. Considering they fully support mentally unstable people acquiring firearms easily, they can fuck right off.

A New Approach to Gun Violence

NRA Members Want Background Checks?

I guess they do:)

Bathroom Wars Escalate into Violence

When this nonsense about needing to show birth certificates when using public restrooms started I asked myself how a parents with children of opposite gender would be able to bring their kids to the bathroom (and kids always gotta go...). Well, now we have the answer:

Utah dad says he was attacked for bringing 5-year-old daughter into men's bathroom

A Utah father said he got into an altercation with another man in a Walmart bathroom over the weekend after bringing his son and his daughter into the men’s restroom with him.

Chris Adams told Fox 13 Now Wednesday that he had taken his 7-year-old son and his 5-year-old daughter to shop for storage bins at the Walmart in Clinton. During their run, both children needed to use the bathroom.

Adams said he took both of his children into the men’s bathroom. He said another man inside the restroom saw his daughter with him.

“This guy walks in and goes to the bathroom, the urinal,” Adams told KSL Tuesday. “Then he just, like, turns to me and starts freaking out, dropping the ‘F-bomb,’ and what he was freaking out about was that my daughter was in the men’s bathroom.”

He said the man started a fight with him that carried out into the store. Adams said the other man kept saying it was inappropriate for his young daughter to be in the bathroom with him.

Was this grown man afraid that a 5-year-old girl with her dad and brother was a sexual predator? Or was he simply embarrassed that the girl had seen how tiny his penis was?

This crap about transgendered people in bathrooms is a red herring: it's just the Koch brothers or ALEC or some other conservative organization funded by billionaires trying to win the 2016 the same way they won the 2004 election.

As you may recall, 2004 was the year of the gay marriage scare. It played a large part in increasing turnout for Republicans, allowing Bush to win what was shaping up to be a tight race despite numerous dirty tricks played against John Kerry by Republican operatives.

But just a few years later gay marriage had become a reality. In large part because most Republicans themselves -- including Vice President Dick Cheney and Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager in 2004, who himself was gay -- actually support gay marriage.

The trans bathroom issue is nothing but a political stunt to drum up anger and hatred on the right. Republicans also have trans children, and after this election cycle is over, they'll all come out of the closet and tell us that they're actually against all this hysterical crap.

But, just as Republicans are all lining up behind Donald Trump's agenda of racism, misogyny and hatred, they'll fall in line with the trans bathroom issue just like they did with gay marriage.

The question is, in the meantime, how many people are they going to get beat up or murdered by idiots panicked by the idea that a girl piddled in the same bathroom that they did?

The Real America

A fascinating look into the Real America...wow.

Libertarians Chances

A recent piece over at Politico posits the question...does the Libertarian party actually have a chance this year? I think they do if they do a couple of things.

First, focus on the micro issues where the libertarian ideology actually works in reality. Education, which should be reformed from the local level outward, is one example. Legalizing all drugs is another.

Second, lose this nonsense.

If they can get the wingut out of their movement, they might actually peel away voters from both the Democrats and the Republicans.

When A Man Gets A Fever

Trump's Delegates Are....White Nationalists?

Donald Trump’s delegate ineptitude stumbles into white nationalism

Hoo boy...

The Challenge of One Size Fits All

The biggest challenge facing the gun rights position today is the one size fits all nature of 2nd amendment interpretations over the course of the last few decades. At the heart of this, is the concept of responsibility (individual versus societal) that dogs most issues of the day.

Defenders of gun rights fight for looser government regulations and champion easier access to firearms. By taking this position, they open up the door to a wide range of individuals, some of whom are irresponsible with firearms. Unfortunately, gun rights activists view this action as having a negligible on our society. Given that mass shootings have become the norm and toddlers shooting people  at the rate of one per week, I find this view most troubling and, quite frankly, heartless.

They also view these irresponsible people with firearms as being islands in our culture and any detrimental effect as being exclusively the fault of said person. Of course, this is the problem with the entire liberal versus conservative ideological wave length. Liberals tend to recognize that when you deal with a large group of people (aka the general public), a significant number of them are not intelligent, mature, or responsible. This is why liberals favor regulation and government control on a whole host of issues, not just guns. These irresponsible people are a drag on our society that inhibits progress. Conservatives, on the other hand, would rather leave the issue of responsibility with each person and let “free will” rule the day seemingly not caring about the effects nor our collective responsibility to society.

So, the biggest challenge facing the gun rights position today is the same one facing many of the other issues of the day. By loosening regulation on the financial sector, health care, the energy sector, and guns, people will behave in an irresponsible fashion and destroy lives. Because we live in a society where people are in a constant state of interaction, less regulated people will hurt or kill other people. It’s just that simple.