Orlando Falllout

Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to ISIS, official says 

"In the beginning he was a normal being that cared about family, loved to joke, loved to have fun, but then a few months after we were married I saw his instability. I saw that he was bipolar and he would get mad out of nowhere. That's when I started worrying about my safety," she said.

When you support our nation's current gun laws, you allow someone like this to acquire a firearm. Thus, you are just as responsible as he is. Thankfully, there are members of Congress who agree.

“This phenomenon of near constant mass shootings happens only in America – nowhere else,” Murphy said Sunday. “Congress has become complicit in these murders by its total, unconscionable deafening silence. This doesn’t have to happen, but this epidemic will continue without end if Congress continues to sit on its hands and do nothing – again.”

It's bizarre, really, because we're talking about a threat to our national security and yet they do nothing. As a side note, it's interesting how the ISIL angle is being played up but not the mental illness nor homophobia. At this point, it seems like the ISIL connection was after the fact and merely thrown in as an excuse by Mateen in the hopes of denying his individual problems.

As mass shootings plague US, survivors mourn lack of change

"The deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history has people around the world wondering why mass violence keeps happening in America." 

Uh...because a third of our country (gun owners) has a totalitarian stranglehold on the rest of us, peddling ideological nonsense based purely on their need for empowerment?

Not Working

The 28th Amendment

I was planning on putting up a post this week on how a 28th amendment should be added to the US Constitution that rewords the 2nd Amendment. Today seems a good day to do so given what has happened in Orlando. Thanks in advance to John Paul Stevens, former SCOTUS judge, for the inspiration.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, while serving in a militia, shall not be infringed.

Unless you regularly train for active shooter situations, other forms of combat, and get regular mental health and background checks, no guns for you. This would drastically reduce gun violence in our nation and would clearly have prevented this event.

I’m past the whole “shocked, outraged and saddened” tripe. Events like the Orlando shooting happen on a regular basis in the United States and it’s entirely the fault of the gun lobby and its supporters. Worse, international terrorist organizations are now exploiting this.

As a citizen of the United States, we are at continued security risks as long as we have a completely warped view of firearms. The shooter in this case was on an FBI watch list but because gun rights activists have used their power to maintain lax gun laws, this guy was able to procure guns.

The Gun Cult is, once again, criminally responsible for this. We need to stop them before they allow more  people to be killed.

What Happens When You Aren't An Asshole

Guns Save Lives!!

I Rest My Case

Idiots

Mocking The Disabled

When I watch the video below of Donald Trump mocking a disabled reporter, it reminds me a lot of the bullying that goes on in the comments sections of blogs. Childish...insensitive...someone who was obviously bullied themselves... and much more.

The people that run these blogs and the commenters that follow them finally have a candidate that represents their values.


 

I'm going to truly enjoy watching them get their ass kicked in November.

Trump's Waterloo?

What amazes me the most about this is that high ranking GOP members are shocked, SHOCKED, that Trump is being a racist. What the fuck did they expect? And what does this say about the GOP base?

Exactly what I have been saying all along...:)

Republican Strategy: Pump and Dump Trump?

It has been a mystery to conservative pundits across the country how supposedly honorable Republicans are supporting Trump. See any column written by Jennifer Rubin or George F. Will at the Washington Post to see what I mean.

But with the release of court documents in the Trump University case the way forward is clear.

It is now obvious that Trump is an immoral, unethical, lying, cowardly, bullying crook with mob connections and a two-year-old's inclination for temper tantrums. He has forty years of dirty laundry with extra-marital affairs, tax evasion, bankruptcies, shady deals and so on.

All the Republican establishment need do is nominate a vice president that's smarter than a bucket of warm spit. If Trump is elected, they impeach the bastard.

They'll have their choice of hundreds of Trump scandals to choose from.They need only dig up four or five oldies but goodies, as they did with the Clintons. Trump has literally dozens of Whitewaters. Set up a few congressional investigations, which will find probable cause for impeachment. Appoint a special prosecutor, who will most assuredly find numerous high crimes and misdemeanors because, well, Trump. After a brief impeachment trial in the House, Trump will be convicted in the Senate.

Their chosen VP will become president, and Bob's your uncle.

Trump has insulted pretty much everyone in the Republican Party, and sure, it'll be embarrassing for the House and Senate to impeach a president who's nominally a Republican.

But shutting Trump's fat mouth with an an impeachment trial will be so worth it...

Five Undisputed Facts About Clinton's Emails

From The Hill...

First, the former secretary of State did nothing illegal by having a private email system. The department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) pointed to “policies” that were violated but cited no laws that were violated and said these policies were inconsistently applied and need to be further clarified in the future. 

Second, Clinton was not trying to hide her use of her own private email address. In fact, 90 percent of all the emails she sent went to State Department employees with a state.gov email address, which she thought, mistakenly, would be automatically preserved on the department’s email server. How could she be seeking to hide her use of a private email address if she sent her private email to so many people at State? 

Third, no email received or sent by Clinton was labeled at any level of classification. Multiple references in the media and in the right-wing blogosphere to Clinton emails containing “classified” information all refer to post-facto opinions — what could be accurately called classification by hindsight. State Department experts disagreed with many of those opinions. 

Fourth, according to the OIG, there is no evidence that Clinton’s private server was ever successfully hacked. In other words, all the dire and dark warnings from partisan Republicans about the secretary of State risking the nation’s security by using a private server are, in fact, all speculation — based on no facts whatsoever. 

Fifth, as pointed out by the inspector general, there was ample precedent for the use of private emails for official and private business, from Colin Powell to senior aides for Condoleezza Rice.

If you head hurts, that's the ol' cognitive dissonance happening.

The second one is my favorite because it shows how silly the Hillary mouth foamers are. Email goes two ways, right? So..um...that means that there are always copies out there FROM THE PEOPLE WHO SHE SENT EMAILS TO!!!

Freaking Out Over Dead Lesbian Syndrome

A couple of months ago the CW show The 100 killed off Lexa, a lesbian character, right after she had consummated her relationship with Clarke, the main character.

Fans went nuts. Many stopped watching the show, and its ratings crashed. The showrunner has apologized profusely, but critics have not been mollified (note: Clarke had a previous lesbian liaison and everyone lived!).

The 100 is a post-apocalyptic science fiction series. A nuclear war killed most of earth's population. A few thousand people survive on space stations in orbit. But after many decades, the space stations are running out of resources: in particular, oxygen. Because of this, pretty much any infraction is punished by death, as a form of population control. But it's not working any more; the only way the human race can survive is to return to earth, which is still a radioactive hell-hole as far as they know. So the Sky People, as they are called, send 100 kids sentenced to death down to earth to see if they can survive.

NPR has a story about this today: 

About 10 percent of the deaths that I counted were gay, bisexual or otherwise queer women, which, when you think about it proportionally, is kind of nuts because not many television shows, unless it's "Orange Is The New Black" or something, have more than one or two maybe gay, bisexual or otherwise women. And the fact that most of them - a lot of them end up dead is troubling.

Now, there may be a real Bury Your Gays or Dead Lesbian Syndrome in TV and the movies, a holdover from the 50s when various ethics codes in the media required that no sin go unpunished, at a time when homosexuality was considered aberrant.

But in this case The 100 is 100% not guilty of Dead Lesbian Syndrome. The lesbian character didn't die because she was a lesbian, but because the main character loved her. In this show, every loving relationship eventually ends in death.

Bellamy's girlfriend dies. Jasper's girlfriend dies. Clarke's dad dies. Octavia's boyfriend dies. Monty's mom dies. Everyone in Mount Weather dies. Clarke's previous two boyfriends die; Clarke herself was forced to administer the death penalty to the second one to avoid all-out war with the "grounders," as the natives are called.

The 100 is literally the grittiest show on TV. Most shows starring people in their teens and 20s have them running around with perfect clothes, hair and teeth and makeup, regardless of how barbaric their situation. Not The 100. When someone gets beat up, they're bloody and bruised and the damage lasts multiple episodes. They live in a post-apocalyptic world that has devolved to a medieval level for most inhabitants.

Life on The 100 is dirty, short and brutal, regardless of sexual orientation. So don't stop watching the show because Lexa got killed. Anyone Clarke loves is gonna die: hers is the kiss of death.

A far better reason to stop watching the show is that is essentially the anti-Star Trek: everyone acts like an idiot, all outsiders are distrusted, hated and killed, everyone holds a grudge and nearly every character has lost their moral center, at a time when humanity needs it most. The show has a dismal, hopeless view of mankind and its ability to survive its own self-destructiveness. Each season the plot lurches from one looming catastrophe to another bigger and even more calamitous disaster, with any rays of hope snuffed out within one or two episodes.

The one good thing the series does is emphasize our predicament: for the human race to survive, we need each other. Otherwise we won't have a civilization; we just have an ever-growing pile of corpses.

Children Need Protection!

How is it Not Racism?

I'm sure in Donald Trump's mind, calling out U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the judge in the Trump University fraud case, for being Mexican isn't racist. Never mind the fact that Judge Curiel is an American citizen who was born in Indiana. He's a beaner!!! Fuck him...

 

Someone Woke Up Hillary

The video below is an excellent illustration of how you take down Donald Trump. I'm happy to see that Hillary Clinton finally woke up. She looks presidential and he looks like some angry, old white guy yelling in a hat. Speaking of such guys...

I noted how her critique of Donald could also be applied to right wing bloggers and commenters. After all, they are essentially the same animal. Example...

"Donald Trump's ideas aren't just different -- they are dangerously incoherent. They're not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies."

Sums up nearly every conservative, especially the Gun Cult, that I've ever had a discussion with over the years...:)

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.