A Taste of Their Own Medicine?

Hackers launched a ransomware attack against computers across the world in recent days, demanding victims pay them in bitcoin in order to unlock their computers. The attackers went after banks and vulnerable social infrastructure, including hospitals, transportation and police.

Russian hackers have historically been behind ransomware attacks. But it was Russia -- the source of hacking attacks against Hillary Clinton and Emmanuel Macron -- that was hardest hit by these most recent attacks:

Russia was again at the center of a global hacking scandal when computer systems the world over were frozen this weekend by a variant of malicious software known as WannaCry. But this time, Russians were among the victims of the attack, not suspected of being the perpetrators.

In fact, of all the countries afflicted in the first wave of the spread of the malicious software, Russia was hit the hardest: The virus tried to infect more computers in Russia than anywhere else, according to an analysis by Kaspersky Lab, a Russian antivirus company.

And the reason that Russia was hit hardest? They're all running outdated versions of pirated software, including ancient Windows XP and Microsoft Office. Yeah: most Russian government agencies and businesses run on stolen software.

The malware was based on a program developed by the N.S.A. and stolen in a breach of the United States government’s servers. The version of the program used to demand ransoms from the operators of frozen computer systems exploits vulnerabilities in older and unlicensed versions of Microsoft Windows, used widely in Russia, that did not have security patches. 

The United States is not innocent in this. The NSA and CIA have cyberteams looking for software vulnerabilities, and instead of letting suppliers know about these bugs, they hoard this information hoping to spring it on our enemies some day.

But they're not the only ones looking for this security holes. Cyber criminals find them and exploit them right away, costing innocent civilians billions of dollars in lost productivity, ransoms and lost data.

The two most important lessons from this: 1) keep your computer updated with the latest security patches, and 2) our government shouldn't be playing a computerized version of Spy vs. Spy: they should notify software suppliers of security holes as soon as soon as they find them.

A Lack of Empathy

When Barack Obama appointed Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, he was ridiculed by Republicans because he said one of the qualities that was important in a Supreme Court justice was empathy.

Empathy is the ability to understand other people's emotions, to anticipate how someone will feel. It is a quality few Republicans seem to possess, and one that most Republicans love to ridicule.

Nonetheless, it's important in politics to be able to understand how people will react; that is, how to empathize with them.

Donald Trump likes to pretend he empathizes with his supporters, but he doesn't have a clue what they're really feeling. He just knows they're angry, and says things to stoke their anger. That's not empathy.

The Republican inability to empathize with others was displayed in full force in the Comey affair:

After Trump decided to fire Comey, he was told by aides that Democrats would likely react positively to the news given the role many believe Comey played in Hillary Clinton's defeat last year. When the opposite occurred, Trump grew incensed — both at Democrats and his own communications staff for not quickly lining up more Republicans to defend him on television.

They thought Democrats would rejoice because they think Comey is viewed by Democrats as "the enemy" for screwing over Clinton. But they were thinking like Republicans.

Comey was certainly a major factor in Clinton's loss, but not the only one -- something that Clinton herself admitted. He tried to repair the damage he caused even before election day. He was also in a bad situation: New York FBI agents were leaking stories about Anthony Weiner's laptop, so Comey had to do something. If he said nothing it would look like he was helping in a coverup. Comey had been screwed by disloyal employees with an irrational hatred of Hillary Clinton.

Then, after the election, when the NSA and the CIA confirmed that Russia had hacked the election to get Trump elected, the FBI was hesitant to come to the same conclusion. But eventually Comey came around and admitted it was true.

In the end, if Obama didn't see fit to fire Comey for interfering with the election, it was utterly preposterous that Trump would fire Comey for hurting "Crooked Hillary's" chances. Democrats are not blinded by lust for vengeance. They believe in the rule of law.

The final straw for Trump seems to be when Comey testified before Congress that he was nauseated by the idea that he helped elect Trump. That must have really stuck in Trump's big fat craw.

Republicans and other autocrats are frequently driven by hatred and revenge, typified by people like Donald Trump and Richard Nixon. Democrats are more often driven by a desire for justice and truth.

That doesn't mean Democrats don't want to see Republicans humiliated: they do. But they don't want to see their opponents destroyed in the same way that Republicans do. Trump and men like him want to utterly crush their enemies and ruin their lives. Democrats want to see their opponents slink off into obscurity in disrepute, appearing occasionally as a cautionary tale. Like, say, George W. Bush and his painting hobby.

That's why Republicans watch Fox News hate-fests while Democrats watch late-night comedy like Colbert and the Daily Show.

The crazy thing is that Trump has already done the Democrats' job for them. To use one of Trump's favorite phrases, "everybody knows" Trump is a deranged whack-job. He spouts nonsense and lies at every turn. He lies to his aides, lies to his spokespeople, lies to the vice president, lies to the Republicans who have been supporting him in Congress, he lies to the press and he lies to the American people. He constantly disgraces himself with his stupidity and ignorance in all his tweets and speeches.

With Trump everything is a lie, an exaggeration or braggadocio, which he will soon contradict on a whim, or in the next 10 minutes, whichever comes first.

No one -- not even his blue-collar base -- really believes anything Trump says. They're just sure that he hates the same people that they hate (Muslims, blacks and Mexicans), and they hope his self-serving policies will hurt their objects of ire more than he'll hurt them.

Trump's employees are in a constant state of dread that they'll be blamed for his latest fuckup, that they'll be fired because this man-child can't control his temper or his big fat mouth or his stumpy Twitter fingers. His allies are in a constant state of despair because they have no clue what idiotic thing he'll do, and they have no idea which bizarre rat-hole he'll drag them down next.

With Trump, loyalty flows only up -- he feels no loyalty to the people who work for or help him. He'll throw anyone under the bus who isn't related to him by blood or who doesn't have any dirt on him.

Trump appears to have zero empathy. He's incapable of empathizing with any emotions other that hatred -- and he's probably just projecting his own hatred rather than sensing it in others. He acts like an emotional robot, spewing the same ridiculous catch-phrases and weasel words over and over and over again. It's like he's one of those bots on the Internet that just echo back the hate they see in others.

Trump thinks that he can rule through chaos and fear. It's worked for him in private business for 50 years, and he thinks that he can do the same thing governing. That works in dictatorships, but this is America. Republicans will put up with Trump for as long as he is useful, but over the long haul I have a feeling that even they can't stomach the idea of El Trumpo.

Trump has already thrown so many other Republicans under the bus, I hope they'll return the favor before it's too late.

Trump's Law Firm Was Named Russia Law of the Year in 2016 (!)

Trump's lawyers, Morgan Lewis, just published a letter saying that Trump doesn't have any (well, hardly any -- well, at least $112 million worth) connections to Russia or Russians.

But just last May, that law firm, Morgan Lewis, was just named Russia Law of the Year. Here's the link to the press release announcing that award on Trump's law firm's website, which, insanely is still up as of this moment.

Man, are these people incompetent or what?

Trump Just Admitted a Impeachable Offense

Since James Comey was fired there's been a plethora of excuses floating by the Trump administration.

Trump surrogates at first pretended that Comey was fired for his unprofessional treatment of Hillary Clinton during the election -- which, I agree, was grounds for dismissal -- but Comey had been making up for it by pursuing the Russia investigation. Then they pretended that it was because the FBI was in disarray, and that FBI employees had lost faith in Comey.

But I had other suspicions: was it because in photos the 6'8" Comey makes Trump look like a fat midget? Or because Comey testified before Congress that the idea that he got Trump elected made him nauseous?

Then, in his interview with Lester Holt Donald Trump, Trump said he fired Comey because he was a "showboat" and a "grandstander." (If that's a firing offense, then that would be more than enough grounds for Congress to impeach Trump.)

But then Trump admitted to an impeachable offense: he said he fired Jim Comey because the FBI director was investigating him.

Later on Thursday, NBC aired its full interview with Trump. In it, Trump offered yet another reason for firing Comey: The FBI’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. (Sanders had hinted at this earlier in the day, saying the White House believed that by removing Comey, it took steps to make sure the FBI’s Russia investigation would “come to its conclusion with integrity.”)

Trump: “When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won. … So everybody was thinking, they should have won the election. This was an excuse for having lost an election.”

Trump literally said he "decided to just do it" -- fire Comey -- because of "this Russia thing."

Now we find out that Trump had dinner with Comey and demanded he pledge an oath of fealty to Trump:

As they ate, the president and Mr. Comey made small talk about the election and the crowd sizes at Mr. Trump’s rallies. The president then turned the conversation to whether Mr. Comey would pledge his loyalty to him.

Mr. Comey declined to make that pledge. Instead, Mr. Comey has recounted to others, he told Mr. Trump that he would always be honest with him, but that he was not “reliable” in the conventional political sense. 

But actually, pledging loyalty to Rump [sorry, that was a typo, but I just had to let it stand] would be the real grounds for firing Comey: the FBI director had taken an oath to "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Getting down on bended knee and kissing Trump's rump ring would be a violation of that oath, because the Russians and Trump are foreign and domestic enemies of the US Constitution.

Now Trump is launching preemptive strikes against Comey, tweeting that there might be tapes of that dinner conversation. He's also tweeting that he might eliminate press conferences, basically saying that his incompetent surrogates can't ever get anything right.

How can they? Trump is constantly changing his story. Is it because he's a compulsive liar? Because he's a pathological narcissist who has to be the center of attention, no matter how terrible his own behavior paints him? Or because his brain is so addled by Alzheimer's that he just can't remember what the hell he's doing?

Sadly, it's all of these in equal measure.

Lead Poisoning and Guns

If you've wondered why gun nuts are ... the way they are, there's an actual scientific reason: they're suffering from lead poisoning.

A review of lead exposure at shooting ranges [...] published last month found that nearly all participants in the 36 studies had blood lead levels above the 5 microgram ceiling recommended by the CDC; some had levels higher than 40. "You got to understand, the more bullets you shoot, the higher your blood lead level. The more visits you take to the range, then the higher your blood lead level."

Lead dust hangs in the air at shooting ranges, ejected from the ejection port and the muzzle when the bullet is scored by the rifling of the barrel -- the lands and grooves that make ballistics matching of bullets to guns possible.

Interestingly, high levels of lead (from leaded gasoline) led to an epidemic of violent crime in the 1960s. There's a direct correlation between lead levels and violent behavior.

Lead poisoning is not an insignificant problem, and it doesn't just affect shooters:

A 1-year-old boy in Connecticut was found to have high blood lead levels at a routine doctor's visit. There were no lead paint or pipes in the child's home. The exposure was traced to his father's job as a maintenance worker at an indoor shooting range; the father cared for his son after work in lead-contaminated clothing, according to a 2015 report from the state public health department.

What does lead do to you?

Many effects from lead can be subtle or nonspecific, says Mark Laidlaw, an environmental health scientist at RMIT University in Australia. "Memory and concentration problems, headache, abdominal pain, mood disorders – they can be attributed to a number of things unrelated to lead," he says. "You can have one of these health effects, but the shooters might not realize these are associated with their shooting. They just don't know they're being lead poisoned."

At levels slightly higher than 5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood, people may begin suffering spontaneous abortions or kidney dysfunction, according to the CDC. As the volume of lead in the body increases, the effects become more severe.

"At levels of 10 or less, there's definitely evidence of increased incidence of tremor. Some are more cognitive effects," says Catherine Beaucham, an industrial hygienist at NIOSH and author of a 2014 report that found that most people with elevated blood levels were exposed from working at recreational firing ranges. "With acute lead poisoning, you can get wrist drop, nerve problems, abdominal pain. If it gets high enough, you can get a coma and death."

 How much lead exposure is safe?

Currently, the OSHA standards for lead exposure decree that employees must stop working if they have a blood lead level of 60 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood, and workers can return to the job if their blood lead level drops below 40 for two consecutive tests. But adverse effects on cardiovascular health, brain function and kidney function have been connected to blood lead levels as low as 5. "There's no amount of lead in your blood that's safe," Page says. 

This puts a whole new spin on that old gangster joke, "He had a bad case of lead poisoning."

Did Trump Bring a Russian Spy into the Oval Office on Orders of Vladimir Putin?

When Trump met with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, the American press was banned. But a photographer from ITAR-TASS, the official propaganda arm of the Russian Federation, was allowed into the oval office.

At a time of strain between the White House and the media over coverage of the new administration, reporters raised questions Wednesday as to why a photographer from the Russian media, but not the U.S. press, was apparently allowed into an Oval Office meeting between President Trump and Russian officials.

The issue surfaced after photos of the meeting, including Trump shaking hands with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and controversial Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak, appeared in the Russian media.

Trump took the meeting on the orders of Vladimir Putin:

The chummy White House visit—photos of the president yukking it up with Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak were released by the Russian Foreign Ministry since no U.S. press was allowed to cover the visit—had been one of Putin’s asks in his recent phone call with Trump, and indeed the White House acknowledged this to me later Wednesday. “He chose to receive him because Putin asked him to,” a White House spokesman said of Trump’s Lavrov meeting. “Putin did specifically ask on the call when they last talked.”

Why did Trump agree to this? And on all days, the day after he fired Jim Comey in retribution for refusing to drop the investigation into Trump's Russian connections?

We all know that Trump pretends to hate all the media, except those fawning sexual predators at Fox News. He watches cable news incessantly to see what people are saying about him. So why was a TASS photographer there and no one from Fox?

There is now rampant speculation about whether the photographer was a spy who planted a recording device in the oval office.

For those of you who aren't Russian speakers, TASS is the anglicized abbreviation for Телеграфное Агентство Советского Союза, or Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union. Yes, the Russian propaganda agency still uses its Cold War name!

If Trump weren't the president, the FBI would never issue him a security clearance. With this dork move and the Flynn appointment, it is clear that the CIA should stop briefing Trump on matters of national security.

Especially in the oval office.

Follow the Money

The big news today is that Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey in an attempt to thwart the investigation into Trump's Russia connections, literally the day before Trump met with his Russian handlers, Sergei Kislyak and Sergei Lavrov.

It really seems like Trump fired Comey -- who had just requested additional resources to investigate Trump -- on orders from the Sergeis, and then met with them to receive further instruction. It's like an episode of The Americans.

But that isn't the really big news. That's the fact that the Senate committee investigating Trump's Russian connections has requested financial information from Treasury:

Senate Russia investigators have sent a request to the Treasury Department's criminal investigation division for any information related to President Donald Trump, his top officials and his campaign aides, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee told CNN Tuesday.

"We've made a request, to FinCEN in the Treasury Department, to make sure, not just for example vis-a-vis the President, but just overall our effort to try to follow the intel no matter where it leads," Sen. Mark Warner told CNN. "You get materials that show if there have been, what level of financial ties between, I mean some of the stuff, some of the Trump-related officials, Trump campaign-related officials and other officials and where those dollars flow -- not necessarily from Russia."

Back in the Watergate days the phrase "follow the money" took on mythic significance. Nixon was taken down because Woodward and Bernstein followed the money.

It turns out that Deep Throat didn't actually use that phrase -- that was poetic license for the movie. But the Senate investigation could well be the beginning of the end of the road for Trump's presidency.

Trump has a long history of taking lots of money from Russian oligarchs. It now seems quite probable that Trump has been laundering money for Russian oligarchs for decades, taking payments for various pieces of real estate that far exceed their actual value -- like the mansion in Florida Trump sold to the Potash King, Dmitri Rybolovlev.

This is the real reason Trump has categorically refused to release his tax returns -- there's probably evidence of the quid pro quos that will reveal Trump's money laundering for the Russians.

It would normally take a very long time to tease this information out from the hundreds of shell corporations Trump created to obscure his shenanigans. But it seems likely that the investigation will find something sooner rather than later: Trump paid a $10 million fine in 2015 for not instituting money-laundering controls at his Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City.

What a coincidence that the man who says he never settles settled for a $10 million fine just before starting his campaign for president!

Now that investigators know that the Russians are likely the people whose money Trump's casino laundered, we may have a whole bunch of congressional hearings into a president's criminal activities, making it seem like the summer of '73 all over again.

Flynn Was Just Following the Trump Business Plan

There's a lot of analysis going on in light of Sally Yates' testimony before Congress about how Michael Flynn lied about taking money from the Russians, opening himself up to blackmail by Russian spies.

Flynn also failed to report acting as a foreign agent -- a serious crime for a former high-ranking military official -- when he took half a million dollars from the Turks during Trump's presidential campaign. The Turks hoped to use Flynn to influence Trump to extradite Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric living in Pennsylvania who has been fighting against Recep Erdoğan's creeping dictatorship.

The question is, why did Trump wait almost three weeks after finding out that Flynn had taken money from the Russians and then lied about it? After Yates told Trump's White House counsel, Donald McGahn, that Flynn had committed a crime by taking Russian money and lying about it, Trump fired Yates instead of Flynn.

The Times has a timeline of the affair. Here's a snippet:

A day after Mr. Flynn was fired, Mr. Spicer spent most of his daily briefing responding to questions about the 18-day delay. He described the warning from Ms. Yates as a “heads-up” and repeatedly said that the information she provided had been quickly relayed to the president.

“Immediately after the Department of Justice notified the White House counsel of the situation, the White House counsel briefed the president and a small group of his senior advisers.”

But Mr. Spicer added that Mr. Trump had doubts, believing Mr. Flynn had done nothing wrong and ordering a review of the situation.

Get that? Trump knew that Flynn had lied to him and the vice president about taking Russian money, but Trump didn't think there was anything wrong with that. Why?

Because that's what Trump has done his entire life: taking people's money and lying.

That's the Trump business plan in a nutshell, from his bankrupt casinos to the infamous Trump University.

Donald Trump is so ineffably and irreversibly corrupt that he can't understand the basic concept of public officials being compromised by outside entanglements with foreign agents.

This is one of the many reasons Trump is not fit to be be president. Because Trump has so many foreign entanglements -- real estate in the Philippines, golf courses in the Middle East, hotels in Panama and Ireland -- he is open to extortion from the leaders of those countries, who could threaten his businesses unless he makes foreign policy decisions in their favor.

Any decision Trump makes as president will always be tainted by the possibility that he is feathering his own nest or bending to pressure by a foreigner who has compromised him, rather than working the best interests of the American people.

This is only one reason why so many people think that Trump's impeachment is not a question of if, but when.

The Republican Zombie Lie about Health Care Just Won't Die

Republican Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho achieved notoriety recently when he repeated the Republican zombie lie that not having health care won't kill anyone:

At the May 5, 2017, event, questioners asked the congressman about the Republicans’ vote the previous day on a major health care overhaul that would roll back many aspects of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, including limits on expanding Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the poor.

"You are mandating people on Medicaid accept dying," one audience member said.

To which Labrador responded, "No no, you know that line is so indefensible. Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care."

Labrador isn't the first to say this. For years Republicans have fought against universal health care by saying that since emergency rooms can't turn people away, so no one will ever die because they didn't have health care.

For example, George Bush said this in 2007 and Mitt Romney said it in 2012.

But Labrador and the Republicans are the ones using the indefensible line.

Let's say you have a brain tumor, AIDS, leukemia, lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, clogged arteries, diabetes, hepatitis C, tuberculosis, or one of dozens of other diseases. The emergency room won't admit you if you have a lump in your breast, or you have pain urinating, or shortness of breath, or pounding headaches. Those aren't life-threatening circumstances.

They're going to turn you away, even if -- especially if -- they know these symptoms may be indicative of a deadly disease: as soon as they're sure you won't keel over dead in the waiting room, they're going to prescribe you an antibiotic or a pain killer (charging you $500 or $1,000), then tell you to see your regular doctor and send you on your way.

By the time these diseases will kill you and the emergency room has to take you, it will be far too late: your breast cancer will have metastasized into your lymph nodes. The brain tumor will be inoperable. Your arteries will be completely blocked and the heart attack you suffer will be instantly fatal, or worse, turn you into a mindless vegetable. Your diabetes will have blinded you and your leg will have become gangrenous and require amputation.

These diseases are hard enough to treat when people with health care get them. But if you don't catch these problems early on, going to the emergency room will be too late: the hospital will waste hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to save a patient who is just going to die. But if they had been treated properly years before, given the right drugs and advice, the problems would be far cheaper to treat and the people wouldn't die.

Then there's pregnancy: there are a zillion things that go go wrong with a human fetus. Many of these problems can be rectified if they are discovered early enough, but are fatal if ignored until the child is carried to term. Yet self-styled "pro-life" Republicans want to eliminate maternity care from the list of things that health insurance policies must cover.

The thing is, it's not just the people who lack health care that are in danger. If you're infected with hepatitis C, HIV or tuberculosis, you can infect other people. People without health care are likely to be in low-paying jobs -- fast-food workers, maids, child-care workers, teacher's aids, dish washers, cashiers -- where they're in constant contact with the public or their food. Not to mention things like measles epidemics.

It's in everyone's interest to have all people living in this country be well.

Republicans are always so nostalgic for the good old days and hot for the Founding Fathers, they should remember Ben Franklin's admonition: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Where Is Thy Enemy?

With Republicans controlling all branches of government, I have to wonder who the enemy is of the Gun Cult. Consider that they operate best when they have someone to foam at the mouth about. They also don't sit still so well being the paranoid lot they are. What now?

Worse for them is this.

Now that he's president, though, gun sales have flattened, and gun company stocks have dropped. Sturm Ruger (RGR) stock has dropped 8% since Election Day, while American Outdoor Brands (AOBC), which owns Smith & Wesson, has plunged 23%. 

Remington, a New York gun manufacturer, and SilencerCo, a silencer maker in Utah, have laid off workers. 

Background checks plunged after November, then showed signs of recovery in February and March, but they are still far behind last year, when the campaign was in full swing.

Is the gun industry falling apart without an enemy? Facts say that it is:)

Kushners Selling Green Cards in China

Jared Kushner's company -- to which he and Ivanka still have close ties -- is selling American residency permits to investors in China:

The Kushner Companies’ China roadshow, promoting $500,000 investments in New Jersey real estate as the path to a residency card in the United States, moved to Shanghai on Sunday after a similar pitch on Saturday in Beijing.

Trump's big pitch for the election was that the United States was being sold out to the Chinese, to the Mexicans, to the Canadians, to ISIS. He won largely on the strength of the idea that foreigners are taking over this country.

And here's Jared Kushner's company, literally selling out pieces of the United States to wealthy Chinese investors so they can come live in the United States.

It's a huge conflict of interest. Trump and his cronies say it isn't, but the Chinese who are buying into it think otherwise:

But for Bi Ting, who attended the event, part of the appeal was political: Jared Kushner is the son-in-law of — and a powerful adviser to — President Trump. Virtually unheard-of in China just months ago, he is now known here as a deeply influential figure in American politics. ... “The Trump relationship is an extra point for me,” Ms. Bi said, adding that she and her husband had not decided whether to invest.

Trump himself has been profiting for decades by selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of real estate to Russian oligarchs and their children who wish to shelter their ill-gotten gains in American real estate.

Trump is on the warpath kicking out immigrants who do the grunt work that Americans simply refuse to do -- clean our hotel rooms, cook our food, pick our tomatoes, and chop up chickens in slaughterhouses. But he and is cronies are using their positions of power to bring wealthy foreigners in to buy up the country.

Trump has conned middle America into thinking that this billionaire-on-paper is one of them. But he's really just another one of these stateless international oligarchs who have no loyalty to any country but themselves.

Complete Cognitive Disconnect

The father of my son's baseball coach is a die hard Trump fan. We had a lot of great discussions last year and this year looks to top that. What amazes me the most about Coach Dad (that's what the kids call him...which is awesome) is how little regard for reality he has, especially when he starts spouting
virulent and irrational wordy squirts about communism.

With May Day just passed, he was going on about how we all dodged a bullet with Bernie Sanders. I informed him that Sanders was a democratic socialist, not a communist. His response?

"Same difference."

I then proceeded to inform him that many countries in Europe (Denmark. Finland. Netherlands. Sweden. Norway. Ireland.) and Canada were largely democratic socialist in nature. I wondered why all of them never had this problem.

He just laughed and had no response.

I continued to press him on Trump's connection to Russia. He said it was "fake news." Finally, I asked him if he saw the irony in supporting a Russian puppet on the one hand while foaming at the mouth and lying about Senator Sanders. He told me stop watching CNN.

My first thought after this exchange was how prevalent his views were. Was it fringe? The best place to check that was Kevin Baker's site, The Smallest Minority. Not surprisingly, I found this.

I intend to repeat this post each May 1 that I continue to run this blog. This is the seventh time I have put it up. Since Bernie Sanders made a credible run for the Presidency last year, obviously we've not learned a fucking thing from history.

Seriously. What a fucking moron. Bernie Sanders=Communist. Donald Trump=Victim of Fake News. This, despite EVERY intelligence agency stating that Russia interfered in our election and tipped the scales, via propaganda, to Trump. The same fucking intelligence agencies that Kevin believes were accurate on WMDs in Iraq. Now, of course, it's all some sort of liberal plot...

But Kevin and his fellow intransigent adolescents are invariably in the minority. What about the rest of the country? Here's an interesting graphic.

Most Americans don't hold the same rosy view of Russia that our current president does.

Interestingly, all the right wing news sites offer breathless examples of how Americans are more approving of communism these days. Move outside of that nonsense (while noting that they are so irrational that they think that socialism and communism are the same thing) and we see that most Americans overwhelmingly like capitalism more, even when compared to mere socialism.

So, what do we do with the Coach Dads and Kevins of the world? Their views are so incredibly driven by irrationality and the need to be right all the time that they aren't thinking clearly. People that don't think clearly make bad decisions that those of us who are rational have to then clean up.

Medication? Maybe. A padded cell? Getting there. Many more of us registered to vote and running in every election no matter how local? That's the ticket. In fact, let's do that to such a degree that we end up with more people who want drastically alter our nation's gun laws.

They only win because more of them turn out to vote.

Dedicated To Liberal Purists Everywhere....

The Sivil War

Andrew Jackson Was Not Alive During The Civil War

Andrew Jackson died in 1845, 16 years before the Civil War started. This is a fact. Yet, Donald Donald Trump on Monday once again defied the history books, this time claiming that Andrew Jackson was “really angry” about the Civil War and puzzled why a deal wasn’t cut to avoid the war altogether. Let's set aside yet another historical mistake by our president and look at the real problem.

Trump's base is as dumb as he is about history. They make up whatever shit suits their mouth foaming and pass it off as fact. Call them on it and you are a smug elite liberal who needs to be taught a lesson. Most hypocritically, you aren't even allowed to call them a dumb ass...just as they or their dear leader would say so bluntly. Only they can "tell it like it is." Because when librals do it they are all mean and stuff!!

Such precious little snowflakes...no wonder they get all pissed off about PC shit and people being offended all the time. It's really themselves they are angry at!

So, how many mistakes does this make? Let's see...Frederick Douglas is still alive...Abraham Lincoln was not a Republican...and a plaque that is dedicated to a Civil War battle that never happened.

Wow...

Shed A Little Sunlight

The cartoon above illustrates a major problem with liberals and progressives today. Similar to the fake news of Drudge, Zerohedge and other right wing blogs, the left on college campuses are going about this all wrong. Don't pretend that reality isn't reality. If you want to shut down people like...well...our current president, give them a microphone and let them speak. The court of public opinion usually sorts things out. How is Milo Yiannopoulis doing these days? Hee hee....

Take your protests and turn that energy into registered voters who vote every single year. Rather than marching, become a candidate in a purple district or, even better, a red one. Sit down and talk with the locals. You'll be surprised to find that they agree with you on things like the minimum wage and inequality.

Practice some interest convergence.

Change Anxiety

Get 'Er Done

Over the next day or two, much will be written about President Trump's first 100 days in office. Many will say that he hasn't done anything really and they would be correct. But that doesn't matter to the GOP voter. Why?

Neil Gorsuch.

If there was ever a campaign that was single issue, 2016 was it. Conservatives held their nose and voted for a guy that is repugnant for one simple reason. They wanted a conservative, not a liberal, on SCOTUS and they got it. Anything else he does can be explained away and/or stymied (e.g. health care repeal/replace). Trump "got 'er done"

What Democrats need to understand is that even though Republicans are a dying party, they are a dying party that votes. They don't stay home because of single issues like Supreme Court nominees. So, this begs the question...what turns out Democrats? Solid candidates with populist streaks and connections to ordinary citizens. This is why Bill Clinton and Barack Obama won by such large margins.

Get people out to vote. Get local candidates to run. It's just that simple.

The Airlines Think They Own Your Ass

After several weeks of catastrophically bad PR, United Airlines has announced a new policy for passengers who are kicked off overbooked flights:

United Airlines says it will raise the limit — to $10,000 — on payments to customers who give up seats on oversold flights and will increase training for employees as it deals with fallout from the video of a passenger being violently dragged from his seat.

United is also vowing to reduce, but not eliminate, overbooking — the selling of more tickets than there are seats on the plane.

This announcement is totally worthless: it doesn't mean anyone will ever get that money. It's just a press announcement. There's no regulation or law that requires this payment. It'll only happen if they get caught beating up another passenger.

Since there's no FAA requirement, United is completely free to change this policy at any time. And they will change it, once the hysteria is over. In three years, unless Congress takes action, United will go right back to treating their customers like punching bags.

In the "bad old days" when airlines were regulated by the federal government, I flew fairly infrequently, maybe a few times a year. I flew first class like once, on an upgrade. Back then it was just coach and first class. But even in coach, if an airline couldn't get me on my scheduled flight, they would put me on a plane home, any plane, even if they had to use another airline.

Back then, if a plane was half empty, I could change seats and spread out anywhere I liked in coach. These days if you change seats United will kick you off the plane.

Airlines view passengers not just as cattle, but as chattle: they think they own their customers. With their frequent flyer programs they think they have people locked in to their airline, and they can do whatever the hell they want to customers because they control their miles.

But at the same time, frequent flyer miles have become basically worthless. You can only use them for certain flights at certain times, and they force you to stay over a Saturday. There are only a small number of frequent-flyer seats available on any flight. Unless you book six months or a year in advance, you just can't use miles to fly for free.

The only thing miles are good for is "upgrades," which means spending your miles to get better treatment from the airline -- picking your seat ahead of time, checking your baggage, bringing a carry-on, getting an aisle seat.

All those things were just free back in the "bad old days" of airline regulation. They didn't cost the airline anything extra, so they never thought to charge for them.

Now the airlines are trying to extort every nickel and dime from their customers, by cramming them with seats size for scrawny six-year-olds, splitting up couples traveling together, obnoxious boarding procedures and all manner of intentional psychological torture designed to get you to pony up extra cash.

It's not just the airlines who are in on the scam. Credit card companies and hotels try to lock you in by giving you oodles of worthless airline miles.

It's everywhere: pretty much every pharmacy, grocery store, restaurant, and online shop (I'm talking about you, Amazon) has some kind of loyalty program to coerce you into buying from them.

And it's not just the sale they care about. They're collecting data on you: your phone number, your email, your habits, your preferences, when you shop, where you shop. And then they sell that data.

You ever wonder how these spammers get your email address and phone number so fast, even though you only gave it out to friends and companies you thought you could trust?

Financial advisors lobbied the Trump administration to eliminate the regulation that required they act in the best interests of the people who are paying them money for their advice. Donald Trump proudly touts the executive order that lets these guys rip off their customers as an accomplishment!

Pharmaceutical companies are the worst: charging outrageous prices for epi-pens and other off-patent drugs that patients will die without. They knowingly hook people on opioids to cash in on drug addicts.

Corporate America thinks they own you.

The crazy thing is, people who voted for Trump thought that he was out to help the little guy, when it has always been crystal clear that he's just another one of these corporate weasels out to screw little guys, like the hundreds of small businesses that Trump has repeatedly stiffed.

Americans should stop thinking that if they only bend over, the big boys will let them into first class. This is a democracy. Everyone should be treated fairly and decently, regardless of how much money they have.

Yugeist Ever?

Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said today that the tax plan put forward by his boss will "the biggest tax cut and largest tax reform in history of this country." My question is this....

Who is going to pay for it?

Suddenly all talk of deficits and debt has mysteriously vanished...at least until the CBO scores Trump's plan. I'm predicting that his tax plan won't pass the House or the Senate will end up much in the same way as ACA repeal.

Making His Mark

Here's a pretty sobering piece from Politico regarding Trump's climate policies. I think that this is the one area where he pissed me off the most. It's the whole "fuck you, we can do what we want and you can't make us do nothing!" adolescent attitude of him and his followers that is potentially going to add billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

Unless, of course, the free market stops them.

Not wanting smug liberal elites and smart people telling you what to do isn't a policy. Neither is pretending that this stuff isn't real.

Grow the fuck up and let's deal with this challenge.

Not Dead Yet

The Monitor has a great piece up about the very much premature obituaries of populism. Trump has fallen in line with reality on a few things but that should not mean that the Democrats can go back to more of the same ignorance. It's still clear what they have to do.

First, get more people to vote in the districts that matter.

Second, get new candidates to run for office from those districts. These candidates should deeply understand the district in which they are running and be the most local possible.

Take all the energy from protests and marches and put them into these two action items. Victory will then come quickly.

Why Clinton But Not Trump?

James Comey continues to befuddle me and today's very long piece in the New York Times does nothing to clear things up.

What he did not say was that the F.B.I. was also investigating the campaign of Donald J. Trump. Just weeks before, Mr. Comey had declined to answer a question from Congress about whether there was such an investigation. Only in March, long after the election, did Mr. Comey confirm that there was one.

Why? Why tell them about Clinton but not Trump? I refuse to accept that Comey was in the tank for the Republicans. He's just not that kind of guy. Perhaps he thought that since the Clinton investigation was closed (and he probably thought she was going to win anyway) he had an obligation to tell Congress. The Trump investigation was ongoing so that would mean no comment. As the article notes, what if he said nothing and she won? Then it would appear as if he was colluding...which it ended up looking like anyway but for Trump.

No matter which way you cut it, it all sucks.

A Real False Flag Attack

Donald Trump, Orly Taitz, Alex Jones and the whole right-wing propaganda machine are always spouting conspiracy theories about false-flag attacks, in which the government or some other nefarious entity stages a completely fictitious terrorist attack (like 9/11 or Sandy Hook).

Eleven days ago this happened:

An 'Islamist' suspect has been arrested in connection with the pipe bomb attack on Borussia Dortmund's team bus as authorities say they are treating it as a 'terrorist attack'.

German police searched properties belonging to 'two suspects from the Islamist spectrum' on Wednesday and arrested a 25-year-old Iraqi man from Wuppertal - not far from Dortmund - meaning another man is still on the loose.

But in reality this was a false flag attack staged to make it look like Muslims were responsible for the bombing:

German federal prosecutors say the bombing of a soccer team's bus in Dortmund, Germany, was carried out by a man apparently attempting to manipulate the team's stock for profit. The 28-year-old man has been arrested and charged with attempted murder, among other things.

Three explosions went off near the Borussia Dortmund team bus on April 11, as it was pulling out of the hotel where the players were staying. One player was injured and needed surgery on his wrist.

Authorities say letters claiming responsibility for the blasts — and identifying the motivation as Islamic or right-wing extremism — appear to be specious.

Instead they say a man with German and Russian citizenship, identified only as Sergej W., planted the bombs, apparently to make money.

On April 11, before the blast, the suspect purchased a "put option" that allowed him to make a profit if Borussia Dortmund's stock value fell. Put options are like short selling — the more value the stock lost, the more money he would make.

Authorities are selling the story that this Russian guy was just trying to make some money. But we know that the Russians have been actively working to sabotage elections in the United States and Europe, to sow further chaos after destabilizing the West by flooding Europe with Syrian refugees.

But the most natural question is, was this attack actually ordered by the FSB in Moscow in order to ratchet up tensions in Western Europe ahead of elections in France tomorrow and in Germany in September?

And then, instead of just framing Islamists, what if Russian spy "Sergej W." decided he could make a little extra money on the side by gaming the stock market?

As conspiracy theories go, it's much more plausible than all the wacko theories about Sandy Hook, when gun nut Adam Lanza murdered his mother and 26 others, including 20 kids.

It's exactly the kind of disinformation scam that the Russians have been running for decades. I'm not saying it's true, but there are a hell of a lot easier and safer ways to scam the stock market than setting yourself up for a terrorism charge by killing an entire soccer team.

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day, Planet! I'm sorry that conservatives in the United States don't give a shit about you. As usual, I, along with many others who think more than emote, will take responsibility for their inaction and willful ignorance and try to save you!

Make Sure Those Ships Are Heading In The Right Direction!

He reminds me more and more of Kim Jong Un everday...

Which Party Again Are The Adults?

Donald Trump invited Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent and Kid Rock to the White House in what has to be the clearest example that we are literally in the film Idiocracy. Like the adolescents they are, they took the time to pose under a photo of Hillary Clinton and mock it. Which party has the adults in it again?

Oh, that's right. It would be this party.

Is this Clown Really the President?

A lot of people are saying that Saturday Night Live has finally become relevant again: its parodies of the Trump White House have resounded with the public.

But SNL is facing stiff competition from someone who satirizes Donald Trump better than anyone else: Donald Trump himself.

While recounting the story to Fox Business, Trump confused Syria and Iraq, mistakenly saying he launched missiles at Iraq. “We had finished dinner. We’re now having dessert,” Trump said.

“And we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you've ever seen, and President Xi was enjoying it.

"I was given the message from the generals that the ships are locked and loaded and we made a determination to do it, so the missiles were on the way.

"I said, 'Mr President, let me explain something to you’. This was during dessert.

“’We have just fired 59 missiles’, all of which hit by the way, unbelievable from hundreds of miles away.

“What we have in terms of technology, nobody can even come close to competing… So what happens is, I say: 'We have just launched 59 missiles headed to Iraq’."

Host Maria Bartiromo was forced to correct his mistake, saying: "Heading to Syria?"

Trump responded: “Yes, heading toward Syria.”

While blathering on moronically about chocolate cake Donald Trump didn't realize that he had just said he bombed Iraq, when he had just attacked Syria in an attempt to distract from the deepening investigation of his campaign's ties to Russian spies and prove he wasn't Putin's bitch. Now, was this a simple slip of the tongue, or is Trump really that oblivious and senile?

The evidence is quickly mounting: have a look at this video, starting at about 1:10:



Trump's wife Melania, a woman who was born in a foreign country, had to remind him to put his hand on his heart for the national anthem. Doesn't Trump get that his base demands knee-jerk obeisance to meaningless patriotic forms like flags and anthems? Or does he think he needn't respect the flag because he's the president! Or is he so senile and/or deaf that he can't recognize the national anthem? Or what?

If Barack Obama had done this, he would have been crucified by the right because he hates America!

Trump's total lack of knowledge about history, international affairs, the law, the complexities of health care, and on and on, completely disqualify him from being the president. And it's easy to see how voters unacquainted with arcane policy matters could put had utter lack of qualifications aside because they're tired of the same old excuses from career politicians.

But things like this that should make it crystal clear to anyone who voted for Trump that he's either mentally defective -- a senile old man who really doesn't know what the hell's going on -- or he doesn't give a shit about this country and everything he said during the campaign was a lie and a sham.

Sadly, both are likely true.

Tax Bill=Dead

Donald Trump is never going to get a deal done on tax reform as long as he doesn't release his income tax returns. The voters don't want it. Check out this recent town hall put on by Tom Cotton, junior senator from Arkansas.

FBI used dossier allegations to bolster Trump-Russia investigation

The FBI used the infamous MI-6 dossier as justification for a whole host of investigations, including the most recent one into Carter Page, a senior Trump campaign official. Much as the president would like the Russian stuff to go away, it won't. There is simply too much evidence out there that demands an investigation.

It's incredibly obvious to the thinking world where this is headed. Let's hope this happens sooner rather than later.

Danes Going Green

Easter (No) Break

It looks like Easter break isn't going very well for Republicans. They are getting mowed down at town halls with a veritable ton of energy from the left. This energy is also apparent in ongoing tax day protests calling for Donald Trump to release his tax returns. All of this points to a pattern with which I am most pleased.

Obviously I'm not happy that Trump is president but if this gives the Democrats the kick in the ass they need, then that's some small solace. We won't know for sure, though, unless we see two things.

1. Increased voter turnout

2. Liberal and progressive candidates that are new and emerging from districts that went for Obama and then for Trump. I'd also like to see new candidates in solid red districts step forward and run on progressive platforms.

We need NRA voter level enthusiasm otherwise this won't work. Perhaps the mere fact that Trump won will provide this energy.

Has bail reform in America finally reached a tipping point?

Check out the full article here. 

Defining The Trump Voter

What are the best ways to characterize the Trump voter? It's certainly something that has been up for debate since the Donald won office last November. I think the best place to start is the man himself. He can easily be characterized by two words: childish tantrum.

This characterization can easily be extended to the people who voted for him but they are having their childish tantrums for different reasons. As I have stated previously, the right wing blogger/commenter crowd is always in childish tantrum mode because they can't stand the reality of liberals being right most of the time. All of their envy, insecurity and inferiority comes out in one fell swoop when they foam at the mouth about "smug liberal elites." They failed in life so they are taking it out on the rest of us.

Worse, they apparently think that the rules of being nice and being respectful only apply to liberals. They get to say whatever the fuck they want and no one is more perfect for this than Trump himself. For proof of this, watch what happens when a liberal calls a Trump voter ignorant or uninformed. It's the end of the frikkin' universe or something much like it. Yet, calling liberals "libtards" is just dandy!

A good chunk of Trump voters voted for him merely because they were having a childish tantrum about Hillary Clinton. I'm still trying to figure out what it is about her that makes grown men...particularly grown older men...descend into fits that are worse than a crying four year old at Wal Mart acting out to get his mom's attention. Is it just because she's a woman? A successful liberal who is intelligent? Both? Regardless, these are the voters that propelled him over the top.

And this group includes the mouth foamers on the left who voted for Jill Stein...

I think a majority of people who voted for Trump are merely folks who always pull the lever for the Republican candidate. They would never vote for any Democrat under any circumstances and merely went along. I liken these folks to the German citizens who just went along in the 1930s...

So, it's a mixed bag of angry malcontents, nihilists, and sheep that define the Trump voter. It's a really bad combination and one that is ripe for solidifying a dictatorship assuming their dear leader was competent enough. He's not at all. Given this fact, he's had to rely on more conventional folks like James Mattis, Rex Tillerson, and HR McMaster. And the GOP Congress isn't competent either. For years, they bitched and bitched about the Affordable Care Act only to fall completely flat in their efforts to repeal it.

All of this makes me realize that there is another way beyond "childish tantrum" to characterize the Trump voter.

Spineless Ineffectives.

"You're Sorry"

Number One With A Bullet!

Mark Ward has the top answer on a gun question on Quora?

Why, yes.

Yes, he does. 1.4 K views.

Is Trump's base turning on him?

That's the question posed by Politico recently. I can certainly see why they would. He's starting to govern in pretty much the same way Hillary Clinton would have governed. He's reversed himself on NATO, China, Russia, and more.

"Donald Trump dropped an emotional anchor. He captured how Americans feel," said Tania Vojvodic, a fervent Trump supporter who founded one of his first campaign volunteer networks. "We expect him to keep his word, and right now he's not keeping his word." 

Earlier this week, Vojvodic launched a Facebook group called, “The concerned support base of President Trump,” which quickly drew several dozen sign-ups. She also changed the banner on her Facebook page to a picture of Bannon accompanied by the declaration: “Mr. President: I stand with Steve Bannon.”

Hell hath no "fury" like the right wing blogger/commenter...hee hee hee...

As someone who recognizes the reality of the world and how to function in it, I applaud Donald Trump's reversal on all these positions. I'm also hoping that Bannon's days are numbered. It looks like they might be. Someone with such a fictitious view of the world bound by ideologically intransigence (aka right wing blogger/commenter) has no business implementing policy.

So, reality has hit Donald Trump smack in the forehead. Who would have guessed being the president would be so hard?

Clarification

I've had more than few emails inquiring as to why I've been missing a few days here and there in terms of posting. The main reason for this is school. I've been teaching new classes to the district (Human Geography A and B) so lesson planning has been more extensive. I've also been asked to help write curriculum for these classed going forward for the future.

So, I might miss a day here or there. Maybe two. If I do, however, I'll make it up with extra posts on one day. Nikto has been filling in the gaps as well but he's busy too writing all of his gaming software. Sometimes life for both of us can be hectic.

Don't fret, our couple of hundred daily readers. We will be around to soothe your political commentary needs. And a special shout out to the couple thousand of you that hit our site when the Russian Trump connection really blew up a few weeks back. We (and our advertisers) appreciate it!

Under A Cloud

Time to Reregulate the Airlines

United Airlines has made big news by beating up a passenger who refused to give up his seat to UA employees on an overbooked flight:

A doctor trying to return home to his patients was dragged by his hands from an overbooked United Airlines (UAL.N) flight, according to social media, embroiling the carrier in its second public relations nightmare in less than a month. 

The airline was one of the top-trending topics on Twitter as users took to the website to express their anger over the forceful removal of the passenger from United Flight 3411, which was en route from Chicago to Louisville, Kentucky, on Sunday.

The man had already been seated on the plane and when the airline suddenly discovered that they needed four empty seats to accommodate employees who had to get to Louisville in a big hurry, three security guards beat the passenger up and dragged him off the plane.

This is getting completely out of hand. Airlines have reduced legroom to nothing, packing passengers into airplanes like sardines. They charge you $50 extra to buy tickets from human beings. They charge you extra to bring carry-on luggage. They charge you extra to check your bags. They charge you extra for meals, if they offer them at all.

Next thing you know, they'll be charging passengers extra for wearing clothes, and the very air they breathe. Hey, clothes have weight too, it costs a lot of money to keep the cabin pressurized!

All this is on top of all the indignities you have to suffer to pass security: removing your shoes, removing your belt, getting X-rayed, the body cavity searches -- oh, wait. I'm exaggerating there. Or am I?

I have basically given up on flying because of the way TSA and the airlines treat passengers as cattle, or subhuman terrorist suspects.

It's all a waste of time and money anyway. The terrorists have proved that they don't need anything fancier than an assault rifle they can buy at any gun show -- without a background check. Or they can just steal big semi-tractor trailer from any truck stop, where rigs are just left idling while the drivers hit the can. Or an IED built from a pressure cooker and a bunch of nails that they can leave on any bus, train or crowded city street.

The days of Al Qaeda-style coordinated airplane hijackings are over. ISIS is the flavor of the day, and they don't need any fancy aerobatics or explosive underwear to kill people. Just a bomb, a gun or a truck.

Yes, we still need security at airports, but the current regime is extremely expensive overkill: airline security has cost us a trillion dollars since 9/11.

It's time for the American people to stand up for their rights. Congress needs to pass an Airline Passenger Bill of Rights that prohibits invasion of privacy and gouging customers for basic travel services. It must guarantee sufficient leg room for grown adults -- with room to lean back -- and that all people be treated equally as human beings. 

I'm really tired of rich people traveling on tax-deductible corporate expense accounts literally cutting the line in front of people who have to pay for their tickets with their own hard-earned money.

With our ridiculously lax gun laws, Americans already have to accept the fact that anyone can just whip out a gun and shoot you at a traffic light, in a restaurant, at your school, or at your work. Shootings happen 300 times a day, and we don't say boo.

But somehow we've been brainwashed into thinking that airline hijackings are so much more dangerous and likely. The risk of airline hijackings has been drastically overstated by the security-industrial complex to wring maximum profit out of passengers by threatening to inflict maximum pain upon them unless they pay up.

How do I know the risk is overstated? In 2015 TSA screeners were missing 95% of bombs and weapons smuggled aboard planes. Yet no US airliners have gone down in 15 years.

It's just crazy that we won't lift a finger to stop red-blooded American wife-beaters and the mentally ill from buying handguns, but we'll spend trillions to prevent the one-in-a-million chance that a terrorist will get a bomb a plane.

Puzzling Gorsuch

Now that Neil Gorsuch has been confirmed by the Senate to take the seat left empty by the passing of Antonin Scalia last year, I find myself puzzled over why conservatives are so elated. Do they think that Gorsuch is going to help them out on issues of abortion, affirmative action or same sex marriage? After all, the court has ruled on cases recently which upheld affirmative action, struck down restrictions on abortion and declared same sex marriage to be Constitutional.

So, despite there being "conservative" justices on the court, liberals are still having their way. I have to wonder if Gorsuch will tip anything right at all. Certainly, Alito and Thomas will vote to the right but Kennedy and Roberts aren't exactly the right wing blogger/commenter's dream, are they? Certainly, I would have preferred Merrick Garland for a variety of reasons, the most important one of which was that it was his seat. The Senate failed to do their duty.

Yet something tells me that all those folks who held their nose and voted for Trump simply because of right wing Supreme Court fever dreams are going to end up mightily disappointed.

Rewriting History

While I fully support President Trump's recent attack on a Syrian airbase in response to the Assad government's chemical weapons attack on its own people, I find myself confused. Is this the same Donald Trump who said this just a few years ago?

AGAIN, TO OUR VERY FOOLISH LEADER, DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA - IF YOU DO MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN & FROM THAT FIGHT THE U.S. GETS NOTHING!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2013

Or all of this. 

Here's my personal favorite.

The only reason President Obama wants to attack Syria is to save face over his very dumb RED LINE statement. Do NOT attack Syria,fix U.S.A.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2013

Ah, yes...the red line lie. That would be the one where our much missed and highly successful former president actually went to Congress to ask permission to attack Syria. The result?

Congress, especially the Republicans, told President Obama NO. Now, of course, all those same Republicans are loving themselves some Syrian air strikes. What a bunch of hypocritical assholes.

As usual, the Christian Science Monitor has the best coverage of this story.

“We should not invest the limited American military attack with any strategic connotations so far,” says Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East expert at the London School of Economics (LSE). “It’s an attack divorced from any strategic political vision. It remains to be seen whether the Trump administration has any concrete ideas to find a political solution. I’m very skeptical.”

Yep.

Trump's Attack on Syria Is Just Another Con Job

Donald Trump just lobbed 50 cruise missiles at an air base in Syria, acting unilaterally and without congressional approval, ostensibly in retaliation for a nerve gas attack that killed civilians, including women and children.

He spoke sanctimoniously about how horrible it was in the Rose Garden the other day, saying that the attack altered his opinion of Syria and Assad.

But this was not the first time Assad used chemical weapons. Back in 2013, when Barack Obama was president, Assad used them, and he used them again in 2014 and 2015. Obama initially proposed that the United States retaliate and asked Congress to authorize attacks. Congress never even held a vote because arch-conservatives and people like Donald Trump said the United States had no business getting involved in the Middle East. At the same time Trump called Obama weak for not attacking Assad. Consistency is not Trump's forte.

The fact is, the cruise missiles launched two days ago weren't aimed at Assad. They were aimed at the American media and the American people.

Trump doesn't give a damn about those dead kids. Assad is just as evil today as he was the last three times he gassed children. So what could have possibly changed Trump's mind? Perhaps the massive responsibility of being president of the United States?

That's being far too generous. No, the real reason Trump attacked Syria is because the investigation into the Trump campaign's collusion with Russia during the 2016 election is really heating up. Devin Nunes had to step down because of his clownish behavior at the White House. Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself because he'd been talking to the Russians himself. And Trump's disgraced former security advisor Mike Flynn is teasing a great story that he'll tell only if he gets immunity.

By attacking Syria, Trump hopes to distract the media from the Russia story, "proving" that he's not Putin's bitch because he attacked Russia's puppet in Syria.

The attack is a huge gamble, though: it could well alienate his core supporters.

Some of President Trump’s most ardent campaign supporters were among his most vocal opponents on Thursday after he ordered the missile strike against Syria, charging him with breaking his promise to keep the United States out of another conflict in the Middle East.

Prominent writers and bloggers on the far right attacked Mr. Trump. They accused him of turning against his voters by waging an attack that he had for years said would be a terrible idea. They also criticized him for launching the strike without first seeking congressional approval — something he said on Twitter in 2013 would be a “big mistake.”

Trump is following the same wag-the-dog strategy that George W. Bush did with Iraq. Yes, Assad is sadistic child-killing scumbag. But he has been exactly the same child-killing scumbag for the last four years: as recently as last November, Trump was still under the delusion that he could work with Assad. If it was bad for Obama to attack Assad, why is it suddenly good for Trump to attack Assad? He's the same guy doing the same things.

The fact is, Trump has been punked by the Russians and the Syrians. He's an amateur surrounded by a bunch of amateurs, all of whom are completely ignorant of how ignorant they are.

Politically, things don't bode well for Trump: he's alienating his core supporters. He ticked off most of the Republican party by being such a dick to their favored candidates. The health care debacle showed that he couldn't even accomplish a no-brainer like repealing Obamacare with complete control of every branch of government. Democrats think he's a moron. Pretty much everyone in Washington will be glad to see this stupid, money-wasting, golf-playing, self-important dickhead get his comeuppance. Including his own cabinet, most of whom have been sidelined by divas and incompetents like Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon.

That makes it a perfect time to start a war!

Anyway, now that the Republicans have Gorsuch, what do they need Trump for? That Supreme Court seat was the only reason the vast majority of Republicans held their nose and voted for Trump.

I foresee a new slogan: Dump Trump's Rump!

Another Buh Bye!

Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has stepped aside as chairman citing evil liberals as the cause. The actual cause was his own unethical and possibly illegal behavior in handling the investigation into ties between Russian intelligence. Worse, he appeared to be Trump Flunky #89, regurgitating information about the investigation from the White House itself.

Flynn, Bannon, Nunes...the arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice...

Republicans Whiff on Health Care Again

Congressional Republicans skipped town again for yet another recess without repealing Obamacare, which they insisted they would do on Day One of the Trump administration. These guys work like three weeks a year.

The reason Republicans are having such a hard time coming up with a replacement is that most of them just don't seem to believe in health insurance. At all. They want companies to be able to offer policies that don't cover anything:

According to several members, Mr. Pence had proposed allowing states to obtain waivers from two provisions of the Affordable Care Act. One provision requires insurers to cover a standard minimum package of benefits, including maternity care and emergency services. The other generally requires insurers to charge the same price to people of the same age who live in the same geographic area.

What?! They don't want policies to cover emergencies!? It's like buying car insurance that doesn't cover accidents! What's the point?

They also want to get rid of the pre-existing conditions requirement, allow life-time caps, drug rehab, psychological services, and on and on. Basically, they want to destroy everything that allows an individual health-care marketplace to exist.

They say they want to allow healthy people to buy cheaper polices and save money. But this is nonsense: the policies Republicans want to offer cover nothing, so no one would buy them. Republicans don't seem to get that healthy people don't need health insurance, so they won't pay for it, no matter how cheap the useless policies are.

This brings us to the real question: what is the point of health insurance? Insurance is supposed to spread risk over a large pool and, to use a word Republicans hate, socialize risk to alleviate private misery.

But if policies don't cover emergencies, or the back-breaking costs of cancer treatment, or run-of-the-mill things like prenatal and maternity care, there is no reason to buy health insurance. You might as well just pay for things as they come up, just like in the bad old days, when people who got cancer or had a heart attack just died if they didn't have enough money.

In the 1980s and 1990s health insurance companies justified their existence by saying that they controlled costs. They negotiated with providers to get the lowest cost on the services they covered. However, if they didn't cover a service, they didn't negotiate a lower cost.

You can see how this works when you get a statement from the insurer after visiting the doctor. It typically shows the ridiculously high price the doctor charges guys who walk in off the street, and then it shows how much gets knocked off because the insurer negotiated a lower price with the doctor for that service. If you haven't hit your deductible you pay what's left over. If you've hit the deductible then the insurance company pays the bill.

If, however, you used a service that wasn't covered by the insurer, nothing gets knocked off and you pay full freight.

And that's why the Republican idea of offering policies that don't cover anything is incoherent and worthless: if the health insurance companies don't negotiate lower costs on a service, patients pay the ridiculously high non-negotiated prices that doctors charge.

The one and only job insurance companies have is to lower prices, and if they don't do that then they are providing no useful service and are utterly useless middlemen and parasites. No one will buy their policies. And they will stop selling such policies.

And that seems to be the Republicans' goal. But why?

Do they like seeing families go broke after they lose a battle with cancer? Do they like girls and women getting pregnant because they have no access to birth control? Do they like seeing babies born with birth defects because they didn't receive proper prenatal care? Do they like seeing people with untreated diabetes losing their feet and legs and dying from sepsis caused by ulcers?

I don't know. One thing that seems certain is that they really enjoy making other people suffer.

Buh Bye

Guess who just got booted off of the National Security Council?

Steve Bannon.

As I have said a few times on here, the best way to deal with the right wing blogger mindset is to not give them the attention they so desperately need. If they see liberals freaking out, they pop boners and are all super happy that the smug liberal elite are getting payback. Just let shit work itself it out. Boy, it sure did with this situation.

As soon as Flynn was gone and McMaster took over, I knew things were going to be set right. I suspect he had little tolerance for right wing blogger buffoonery. That ideology simply has no place in the real world so it was buh bye to Bannon!

Trump Just Gave Away Your Privacy to Hackers and Spies

For the last month or so Donald Trump has been whining about how the privacy of his associates who were consorting with Russian spies was violated when their names were released to the press.

But yesterday Trump signed a law passed by Republicans on a party-line vote that got rid of privacy rules enacted by the FCC under Obama:

The bill repeals regulations adopted in October by the Federal Communications Commission under the Obama administration requiring internet service providers to do more to protect customers' privacy than websites like Alphabet Inc's Google or Facebook Inc.

The rules had not yet taken effect but would have required internet providers to obtain consumer consent before using precise geolocation, financial information, health information, children's information and web browsing history for advertising and marketing.

This means that Trump and the Republicans want your ISP to be able to sell your browsing history.

This is a gross violation of our personal privacy. What it means is that your ISP can sell your browsing history to any private detective, your ex-wife, your employer, Russian and Chinese spies, and literally anybody who wants to see what you're doing.

It also means that the government doesn't have to get a search warrant to look at your internet activity. They can just buy it from your ISP since it's freely available public information.

To make it even worse, hackers and and cyber criminals can also buy this information from your ISP. This will give them data like your home address, your email address, your search history, what porn sites you visit, what music you listen to, what Facebook and Twitter pages you visit, what computer games you play, what news sites you read, what email provider you use, and what banks you use.

It will also let hackers and criminals figure out when you're home, where you are during the day, where you're going and what you're doing.

This kind of information makes it trivial for hackers to automatically target people directly with highly effective spear-phishing attacks specifically tailored to customers on a massive scale, without having to hack a bank's records to find out who their customers are.

Instead of spamming millions of people with phony emails from Bank of America, they can specifically target Bank of America customers with information gleaned from the URLs that will make the phony emails almost impossible to distinguish from official emails sent from the bank.

Sloppy programming can inadvertently embed delicate information in your internet traffic, without the hackers having to spy on you in real time. When they find a bug in an website, they can instantly exploit it, knowing exactly who deals with that website.

This poses a huge risk to the nation's financial security, not to mention our personal privacy. This will allow hackers and spies to more effectively target employees of major financial institutions and government agencies.

Trump whines like a little bitch when his minions get caught conspiring with the Russians. But he's just fine with letting Russian hackers and spies watch every single thing Americans do on the web.

Tantrum!

So Right Wing Blogger/Commenter President 8 Year Old was supposed to sign another one of his imperial declarations (which actually mean nothing) but some person with a fat face asked him a poopy question so he stomped off down the hallway without doing nuthin!

Check it out!

The 38%

President Trump's approval rating continues to fall as he struggles to explain his connections to the Russian government, the Russian mafia and Russian oligarchs. He has likely settled down to his core base of around 38 percent of voters who will believe anything he says and NOTHING that anyone who is remotely against the president says.

Trump himself isn't really the problem. It's this 38%. We know from various studies over the last 15 years or so that the demographics that are the Trump voter aren't rational and allow emotion to drive their reasoning process. If Trump is impeached and driven from office on the basis of facts, this reality will be ignored and a new one will be formed in which liberals conspired with the elites and the media to destroy their savior. How on earth do we get these folks to recognize how warped this is?

Perhaps we can't. It may just be that we simply have to get more people to vote against this view. More importantly, we have go get more people to run against this view.

More women...more minorities...

The Enablers