North Korea Summit Canceled: More Proof Trump is a Moron

Today Donald Trump canceled the summit he had scheduled with King Jong Un. This was completely predictable, because Kim will never give up his nuclear weapons.

The Kim dynasty is more vicious and recalcitrant than Iran's leaders have ever been, so only an idiot would have thought that there was a snowball's chance at the sun's core that North Korea would agree to denuclearization, much less actually go through with it.

The summit fell apart after both John Bolton and Mike Pence started talking about the "Libya model" for North Korea's denuclearization. That model involves a dictator giving up his nukes and then being ignominiously murdered by his own people. For some reason Kim wasn't interested.

North Korea has been trying to get a summit with an American president -- any American president -- for two decades. Giving Kim the meeting was huge concession to North Korea by the United States.

Only Trump was stupid enough to fall for it. A summit between Kim and the president of the United States elevates Kim to the level of a world power, and lowers the president to the level of a tin-pot dictator.

This was pointed out to Trump by pretty much every opinion columnist in the free world, but Trump is such a needy, attention-seeking little bitch that he blew them off, one and all.

Ever since his dealings with the mafia in New York, Trump has been most comfortable with criminals and tin-pot dictators. Trump's preferred company is violators of human rights like Russia's Putin, China's Xi, the Philippines' Duterte, Turkey's Erdoğan, Israel's Netanyahu, the Saudi monarch and Egypt's el-Sisi, not people like Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau.

Trump is not comfortable with diplomats and statesmen. He's a know-nothing bull-shitter, huckster and charlatan who is completely out of his depth with serious people. He is the stupid uncle at a wedding who keeps making unfunny off-color jokes about the bride -- and his own daughter.

Remember how just last week Trump was demanding a Nobel Peace Prize? Looks like he'll have to settle for a Trump-Kim summit commemorative coin. I hear they're still available!

The Supreme Leader can't stop laughing. When a scumbag like Kim Jong Un can sucker the American president you know the world is in deep, deep trouble.

Beneath the Planet of the NRApes

When the original Planet of the Apes movie came out in 1968 the world was living under the threat of nuclear annihilation.

The hero of the film, George Taylor, is an astronaut who lands on a world run by intelligent chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas. Humans are mute and animalistic. In one of the most iconic moments in 1960s film, Taylor discovers the Statue of Liberty half buried on the beach.

Taylor realizes that he has been on earth all along. Humanity had nuked itself into oblivion and the apes had taken over. Taylor was, of course, played by former NRA president Charlton Heston.

The company that produced Planet of the Apes was 20th Century Fox. The film reportedly saved Fox from bankruptcy, so they decided to cash in with a sequel. But they had a difficult time making a go of it. Heston wanted nothing to do with it. They had serious problems coming up with a script. The budget was cut to the bone.

Different iterations were named The Planet of Men, The Dark Side of the Earth, and Planet of the Apes Revisited. In the end they called it Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

In the film another astronaut (played by James Franciscus) follows Heston. He discovers a race of mutated humans with mental powers who live in the abandoned subway system of New York. These mutants worship a planet-killing nuclear bomb etched with the ominous initials "ΑΩ".

The apes and the mutants go to war, and in the end Heston got his wish. He put his character out of his misery by pressing a trigger, detonating the bomb, and destroying the planet.

Though not the Planet of the Apes franchise. Three more Apes movies were produced in the 70s, there was a live action TV series, an animated TV series, a 2001 remake directed by Tim Burton and another reboot that has spawned three films since 2011, making Andy Serkis a tidy sum of money.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes was an allegory on the folly of war (Vietnam was in full swing in 1970 when it came out). It was also a bad, depressing, didactic flick.

But it was on the money with its portrayal of mutants worshiping the instruments of death. The film was filled with Christian imagery: monks in habits, a creepy chorus accompanied by an eerie organ, inverted crucifixes and the Alpha-Omega.

Lest you think that worshiping a nuclear missile is over the top, consider that most Christians worship the instrument of Christ's death, the crucifix. Some sects, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, consider the crucifix a graven image and claim that its use is idolatry. At its core, Christianity is a death cult, obsessed with death and resurrection, engaging to this day in ritual vampirism and cannibalism.

It is ironic that some 20 years after the release of Beneath the Planet of the Apes Charlton Heston came to be the president of the NRA, the leader of another cult that worships the instruments of death. After destroying weapon idolaters in the movie, he became the Moses of his own cult of gun worshipers.

The problem with worshiping these instruments of death is the ever-present temptation to use them for their true purpose. Someone always wants to pull the trigger to end their own misery and take as many others with them as they can, just like Heston's character in the movie.

These days Heston has many followers: in Parkland, in Santa Fe, in Sutherland Springs, in Newtown -- in far too many places to remember any more.

And we already know how this movie ends.

Guns: Where We Currently Stand

With the Sante Fe High School shooting, the number of school children killed in school shootings has surpassed the number of servicemen killed this year. The blame for this lies directly at the feet of gun owners. If they want our children to stop being killed in schools, they need to figure out other ways to feel secure in their lives. The particular group who are most at fault are members of the NRA, gun rights activist and any gun bloggers and gun blog commenters who, on a daily basis, advocate for unstable people to remain able to acquire firearms. In short, this particular group of individuals are domestic terrorists. They should be arrested by the Department of Homeland Security and summarily Gitmo'd.

At this point, I think it's important to summarize many of the ideas that I've had  for how we can change this and cease living in a fucking war zone. The first step in considering the problem we have with gun violence in this country is to look at the intent of the 2nd amendment. It was written by James Madison and was meant for local militias at the time to protect themselves against possible tyrannical governments in the future. That's why it says...

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

It does not mean that people can carry guns with them whenever and wherever they want. Recall that both Madison and Jefferson voted to ban guns on campus of the University of Virginia when it was founded. Further, Alexander Hamilton explains the meaning of  the 2nd Amendment quite well in Federalist Paper #29:

This desirable uniformity can only be accomplished by confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority. It is, therefore, with the most evident propriety, that the plan of the convention proposes to empower the Union "to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by congress.

If a well regulated militia be the most natural defence of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security...confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority...(and) reserving to the states...the authority of training the militia

Since the time the 2nd amendment was written, the ensuing tort has shifted towards broadening individual gun ownership.

Yet even Justice Scalia, writing for the majority in DC v Heller (2008) wrote:

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. ... For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues.(54)

Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our [majority] opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. (54-55) 

We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. [Precedent says] that the sorts of weapons protected were those 'in common use at the time' [the Second Amendment was approved]. ... We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of 'dangerous and unusual weapons. " (55) 

So, with all of this, here's is what I think we should do based on why gun violence continues to happen.

First, the current gun regulations are terrible. It’s very easy to obtain weapons that make mass shootings more efficient. People with little or no training can buy a gun at Wal Mart. Mental health history doesn’t matter. Some gun sales and transfers of ownership don’t even require a background check. Many states have very loose gun laws and some now allow guns in schools and churches. Here is how they should be changed.

-Background checks on every single gun purchase. This would include private transfers of sale.

-Mental health checks for every single gun purchase followed by annual mental health checks for every gun owner.

-Regular training similar to what police and military must accomplish in order to use their firearms. Organizations like ALERRT could be used.

-All restrictions removed at the National Trace Center in Virginia

-All restrictions removed from the CDC in their research into the public health issue of gun violence. -Insurance required for gun owners

-All gun manufacturer exceptions for liability removed

Second, mass shootings are #trending and have been since the Columbine shooting in 1998. People in the United States believe that they can solve their problems by shooting up some place. I think that many mass shooters want attention and the media certainly gives it to them.

Third, The United States is very rooted in gun culture even though less than a third of its citizens owns guns. Our entertainment (films, video games, television) are very violent. Even our language is gun based. Here are some examples…

“Number one hit—-with a bullet” (music)

“Rodgers, out of the shotgun” (football)

“Faster than a speeding bullet (comics, films)

“He went off like a loaded gun” (common phrase)

With so many references to guns, it’s no wonder we don’t have more mass shootings.

Fourth, there is still a stigma in this country regarding mental health. Adam Lanza, the shooter at Sandy Hook, was severely mentally ill. He was not given adequate treatment and was likely shunned by the people around him. His mom, an ardent 2nd amendment supporter, was ill equipped to deal with his issues. She paid for it with her life. If we addressed the mental health issue by removing the social stigma surrounding visiting a therapist, we’d have less mass shootings. It should be as common as going to the dentist with an equal amount of indifference when someone says they are seeking psychological help.

Fifth, the United States has a gun culture that makes it easier for unbalanced people to obtain weapons. These folks allow their own hubris and emotions about guns to override public safety. They don’t really care if people die in mass shootings. Their first reaction after a mass shooting is “Don’t take my guns!!!” or “More guns in more places” as opposed to “Hey, how can we help? Let’s make it safer out there.”

They are enablers to mass shootings and bear a great deal of responsibility for all of the deaths the US has experienced from gun violence. In short, they are domestic terrorists and should be labeled as such by the Department of Homeland Security. Given that we have lost more people to gun violence just in the last 50 years than all of the wars we have ever fought in, they are a danger to public safety. 

Finally, it’s hard to implement changes to existing gun law because there is no equivalent of the NRA on the gun safety side of the equation. Gun rights activists vote more reliably. It’s just that simple. This may be changing, however, as Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America just had their fifth anniversary. As more of these shootings happen, more people join their cause. This is the kind of group that could easily counter or even surpass the NRA if more people helped their cause.

Until there is a significant counter balance to the NRA, we aren’t going to see any changes soon.

The Culture of Vengeance

Since the Santa Fe school shooting conservatives have been offering various crackpot causes for the violence. One guy says that religion is missing from the schools. Another says it's video games. Another says it's abortion.

Huh? High school boys never give abortion a first thought.

Ollie North, the new NRA bigmouth, says it's the "culture of violence." For once he's hit the nail on the head: the NRA's gun culture promotes everyone walking around armed, ready to shoot anyone that scares them. Or crosses them. For them the solution to every problem is a gun.

The real problem is that easy access to guns allows petty grievances to turn into mass murder.

But the exact motivations behind mass shootings are not all the same. The Santa Fe shooter was apparently a rejected suitor. Others have been motivated by racism, bullying or the thrill of notoriety.

What most shooters have in common is a mindset: they have been unjustly denied their due -- sex, attention, respect, an all-white society, an Islamic caliphate. They want to avenge their perceived suffering on innocent people.

Most are suicidal, expecting to commit suicide by cop or their own hand. They are whiny little bitches who know they're whiny little bitches and want to end it all in a blaze of glory, taking as many others out with them as they can.

It's this culture of vengeance that's the problem. With Donald Trump's election the idea that you have to hit back 10 times harder for every slight has gained cultural dominance.

Combined with the conservative rejection of common courtesy and empathy (which they call "political correctness") everyone is hurling the most vicious insults left and right. This results in an explosion of perceived slights, all of which must be retaliated against tenfold.

Then mix in the Southern "code of honor" (honor demands retribution), libertarian self-absorption promoted by Ayn Rand fans and the corrosive influence of social media. The pettiest insults can quickly escalate to deadly violence.

Jesus preached that we should turn the other cheek. Perhaps this is what people who say we need religion in the schools mean. But Christ's pacifist ideology is not limited to Christianity -- it is the cornerstone of Buddhism and secular liberal philosophy. You don't need religion to realize the Golden Rule is essential for a functioning society.

The fact is that American conservatives are the ones who most vehemently reject Christian humility and compassion (for proof, see Donald Trump and his cronies).

With nonstop demonization and dehumanization of political opponents and the less fortunate, their presumed white superiority, their thin-skinned lust for vengeance, and their non-stop promotion of violence through their pagan deification of firearms, it is American conservatives that have brought this epidemic of mass murder upon us.

Stock Buybacks Reach Record Heights

When Republicans passed gigantic tax cuts last year Donald Trump and his cronies claimed it would result in huge pay increases for workers. Democrats said companies would use the money to buy back their own stock, in order to drive up share prices, enriching CEOs and the wealthy.

Guess who was right?

Companies repurchased $178 billion of shares during the first quarter, up more than 42 percent from the same period in 2017, according to S.&P. Dow Jones Indices. That was the largest amount ever repurchased, topping the previous record from the third quarter of 2007.

It used to be illegal for companies to buy their stock back: it was considered stock manipulation. But in 1982 -- during the Reagan administration, of course -- the SEC changed the rules. This adds a whole new level of corruption to the stock market, allowing CEOs to manipulate stock prices and jack up the stock price for themselves and shareholders whenever they like.

Since CEOs are usually compensated in stock and that compensation is linked to share value, the only incentive CEOs have is to literally concentrate more and more wealth in fewer and fewer hands.

Buybacks aren't the only thing companies are spending on:

But even as companies splurged on their shares, investments in real estate, equipment and factories also jumped more than 21 percent compared with the first quarter of last year. Typically the first quarter is weak for investment, so the rise bodes well for corporate spending this year.

The only thing corporations aren't spending money on is pay increases for the people who actually do all the work.

Accomplices in School Shootings

This is America

I've been a fan of Childish Gambino for many years. No doubt, he's going to be fab as Lando Calrisian in the new Star Was film.

His newest video is called "This is America" and it's the best damn video I have ever seen. What a massively spot on statement of the United States in 2018, especially in terms of gun violence.



Stunning!

Here's a list of all the Easter eggs if you are interested.

Thank You, Wisconsin!

I love how conservatives foam at the mouth about voter ID as if there is so much voter fraud going on that we are all falling into a boiling pit of sewage. Their arguments are just a giant smokescreen for their fear at losing more voters year after year. They are already at the point where they can't win elections unless some Democrats swing their way. So, they need to figure out how to suppress votes without being so obvious. Hence, voter ID.

It looks like their strategy worked in Wisconsin.

According to federal court records, 300,000 registered voters, 9 percent of the electorate, lacked strict forms of voter ID in Wisconsin. A new study by Priorities USA, shared exclusively with The Nation, shows that strict voter-ID laws, in Wisconsin and other states, led to a significant reduction in voter turnout in 2016, with a disproportionate impact on African-American and Democratic-leaning voters. Wisconsin’s voter-ID law reduced turnout by 200,000 votes, according to the new analysis. Donald Trump won the state by only 22,748 votes.

So much for adhering to the Constitution.

Gun Sharing

Take a look at this.

Welcome to the Metro Gun Share Program in Chicago. Wanna a problem solved? Just go pick yourself out a gun and take care of it! Tyrannical governments will quake in their boots....shiver...shiver...

OK, full disclosure...this isn't an actual thing. Well, it sort of is because that's how easy it is for anyone to get a gun. This is a protest art piece that came about as a partnership between Chicago-based advertising agency The Escape Pod and gun safety organization the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. It's currently located on Daley plaza in downtown Chicago.

I'm hoping we will see more exhibits like this in the future!

ZTE: Proof Positive that Trump is a Total Moron

Last week Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, announcing that he would reinstate sanctions on Iran. All our allies opposed the move, and all indications were that Iran was abiding by it.

But since Barack Obama negotiated that deal, Trump wanted to kill it. Because, like some stray dog, Trump has to piss all over everything that smelled of the other guy.

The immediate effect was to cause a flurry of Iranian rocket attacks against Israeli targets in the Golan Heights and retaliatory strikes on Iranian targets in Syria by Israeli jets.

Then the Chinese cell phone manufacturer ZTE announced that it was shutting down because the US government banned it from buying American technology. Last year ZTE paid a $1.19 billion fine for violating sanctions by selling cell phone technology to Iran and North Korea.

Many in the intelligence community believe that ZTE's technology is used by the Chinese government to spy on Americans. When Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked the heads of the CIA and FBI if they would recommend Americans buy ZTE phones, they would not. And a bill has been introduced in Congress to prohibit the use of ZTE equipment by the US government.

But now Trump says he's going to help ZTE get back into business:

“President Xi [Jingping] of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!”

What?!? Trump has been screaming for years about how China is raping the United States and stealing our jobs, and now he's worried about Chinese people losing their jobs and saving a company that spies on us and stabbed us in the back by helping Iran. Right after he reimposed sanctions on Iran? Huh?

Trump is a total moron. Maybe he's got some corrupt backroom deal going, and he's using ZTE to extort something from China. Maybe to get to China to pressure North Korea to disarm. But since Kim Jong Un will never give up his nukes (it would be suicide), Trump is being played by Xi and Kim.

The shutdown of ZTE was supposed to be a signal to the world that the United States means business when it comes to sanctions on Iran and North Korea. By caving in to Chinese pressure to help a company owned by the Chinese government Trump showed he is either an idiot, a pussy or a crook.

I'm betting on all three.

A Cheap Mafia Thug

Negative=Fake!

Check out this Tweet from President Trump

Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump

The Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake). Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?

4:38 AM - 9 May 2018

I see. All negative news is now fake. Isn't that what all (adolescent) conservatives think?

Convicted Felon Becomes President of NRA

Oliver North was just elected to be the president of the National Rifle Association. Recall that Mr. North was indicted on 16 felony counts for his involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair. He was ultimately convicted of three of these counts: accepting an illegal gratuity, aiding and abetting in the obstruction of a congressional inquiry, and ordering the destruction of documents through his secretary. If it wasn't for the ACLU, North would still have those convictions on his record.

So, the world's leading terrorist organizations has found a new leader and it's a criminal. I'm shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED!

Trump's Making the Price of Gas Go Up

Remember how Republicans said that electing Barack Obama would jack up the price of gas to $10 a gallon? During her ill-fated presidential campaign Michele Bachmann promised that she would get the price of gas down to two dollars.

But that milestone occurred on Obama's watch, in 2015. Check out the picture on the right of Bachmann celebrating Obama's accomplishment.

Now, the president doesn't normally have a lot of direct control over gas prices. Administration policies can have long-term effects on oil prices, such as increased fuel efficiency standards on vehicles, which reduces demand and lowers prices. The Trump administration trashed Obama's fuel efficiency standards, by the way.

But generally the day-to-day ups and downs of the cost of a barrel of oil are controlled by the state of the economy and events in the news.

Since the election of 2016 the price of gas has gone steadily up (up to $2.81 from $2.35 a year ago). Now it's starting to spike: it's up to $70 a barrel. Why? Donald Trump's big fat mouth.

Benchmark prices for American crude oil cracked $70 a barrel on Monday, the first time they have climbed that high since 2014, as investors factored in the prospect of President Trump pulling the United States out of an international agreement that eased sanctions on Iran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program. 

There is no better deal to be had with Iran. Furthermore, the US pulling out of the agreement will send a message to North Korea that the United States cannot be counted on to stick to any agreement it signed.

All our allies, as well as Russia and China, are urging the United States to keep the Iran agreement intact.

Predicting what Trump will do is impossible, because his strategy is to lie and lie and then lie some more, then change direction multiple times, sowing chaos all the way. Then he waits to see what shakes out and changes course again.

And that's what I predict Trump will do. He will scream and whine and tweet and threaten to revoke the deal, and there'll be a flurry of activity with Mike Pompeo flying around the globe, and Trump will gyrate for a few weeks, and then announce that's he's come up with a hugely better deal which will be essentially the same as what we've got already.

Because Trump doesn't really care about Iran. He just wants to look tough. Putin and all the oil men want Trump to keep the essence of the Iran deal intact, so that's what Trump will do.

The same thing will happen with North Korea's nuclear program. Trump will pretend like he's made some huge breakthrough, and there'll be a "historic" meeting that lowers Trump to Kim Jong Un's level, and Kim will ostentatiously close a testing site (which he has to do anyway because it's no longer safe).

Kim may even pretend to get rid of some nukes. But he won't really do it, because Trump cannot be trusted to keep a promise: Kim would suffer an ignominious death like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi.

At the end of the day nothing will really change: North Korea will keep their nukes and the Iran deal will remain intact.

But Trump will puff up his bloated face and pretend he's a stable genius, claiming victory when the status quo is completely unchanged.

No Boiling Pit of Sewage, I Guess

California just became the fifth largest economy in the world, surpassing Great Britain. California's gross domestic product rose by $127 billion from 2016 to 2017, surpassing $2.7 trillion, the federal data said.

Certainly this is no surprise to me as Democrats (who have run the entire state for the last decade) do capitalism better than Republicans do. Yet it must come as somewhat of a shock to all of those doomsayers and pantsshitters on the right who loudly claimed (from their parent's basement) that the best economies are the ones built by Ayn Rand. Of course, they can never find examples of this, past or present, which makes it yet another example of their tantrum against some sort of authority figure from their past.

I wonder how the all the douchey right wing bloggers and commenters are going to explain this one away. All that money...made by a government with high taxes and high spending. Where's all the stifling they foam at the mouth about? The government intrusion? The excessive regulation?

Seems like it's all working out just fine in deep blue California...

Hypocrites in the NRA

And let's not forget this little ditty...

Suprise! (Not!) Trump Repaid Cohen Porn Star Hush Money

According to Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's new lawyer, everything that Trump denied about Stormy Daniels actually happened!

Trump had unprotected sex with Daniels while his wife was caring for their infant child. Trump was not only cheating on his wife, he was also cheating on his mistress, Karen McDougal, a former Playboy playmate.

Then Trump's Mr. Fixit, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels hush money just before the election. And then Trump repaid Cohen, in exactly the fashion that I knew he would: through his retainer.

Let's have Giuliani explain this:

“If we had to defend this as not being a campaign contribution - I think we can do that. This was for personal reasons," Giuliani said.

"The president had been hurt personally, not politically, personally so much and the first lady by some of the false allegations that one more false allegation, six years old - I think he was trying to help the family. For that, the man is being treated like some kind of villain and I think he was just being a good lawyer and a good man," he continued.

"It wasn't for the campaign, it was to save not so much their marriage, as much as their reputation," he said.

When asked why Cohen paid Daniels the money, Giuliani said Cohen made the allegations against Trump go away, saying "he did his job."

“Imagine if that came out of October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton?" Giuliani asked.

"Cohen made it go away," he added. "He did his job."

Previously, Trump had said that he never paid Cohen any money for this. Now Trump admits he was lying. Trump hasn't admitting banging Daniels yet: Giuliani says she's lying, and that Cohen paid her off not because of the campaign, and not to save the marriage, but to save Trump's reputation.

What a load of crap. On October 7, 2016, the Washington Post published the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump bragged about grabbing women's pussies. Any positive reputation Trump had was flushed down the toilet: everyone knew he was a serial harasser of women.

As Giuliani himself made abundantly clear, Cohen paid off Daniels to prevent her story from coming up in the last debate. That makes it a campaign expenditure.

At this point, it's clear that pretty much every accusation of impropriety and corruption made against Trump is true. His denials are just holding actions to defer admissions of guilt to another time, to use them as advantageously as possible.

The issue here is not that Trump idiotically banged a porn star without a condom. Everyone knows he's a liar, a cheater, a scumbag and an idiot. No, the news here is that Trump is vulnerable to blackmail.

And according to Giuliani, Trump has a lawyer on retainer whose job description is literally to pay off potential blackmailers.

Cohen was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, for years, to "do his job." How many more of these potential extortionists are out there, and what else are they getting from Trump to keep his secrets?

Are the Numbers Dwindling for Gun Rights Activists?

Here are a couple of photos from some recent pro gun rallies.

And here is a photo from a gun safety rally.

Maybe the lies about liberals being communists trying to grab our guns isn't working anymore. I'm sure defending wholesale slaughter on regular basis isn't helping either.

It's most ironic to note that the very dystopian future they fear is actually coming to pass due to their continued support of pro homicide policies. Even more hilarious is their insistence that Democrats are the ones with a commie bent when their dear leader is the one snuggling with Vladimir Putin.

Perhaps they need a long, hard look in the mirror.

Gun Humpers are Awesome!

I think ol' Brian is a wee bit worried about the future, don't you? Hee hee...

Still, this video strikes me as a man desperately worried about his penis size.

Some Logic?

Skipping The White House Correspondents Dinner

Exclusive Footage of the Leader of the United States Picking Up His Puppet

Quote of the Day

“I’m not sure trust is what people want from Trump. … I think they want from him his attitude, and I think that they don’t mind him being wrong on the facts. He doesn’t tell the truth on a lot of things.”

--Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's Hardball

Attitude indeed...ADOLESCENT attitude raging against an adult that did them wrong 30-50 years ago. Why can't these assholes just go to therapy instead of making the country suffer?

I do wonder how long the wrong on facts thing will last.

1-2-3-4...You're A Conservative!

I've been thinking a lot lately about how people become conservative. I realize that some of it is nature (Republican Brain and all) but there is a nurture element to it that needs to be addressed. I'm continually amazed by the severe umbrage that is taken by conservatives when it comes to authority figures, laws, and people telling them what to do. Life is filled with people telling other people what to do. Why are conservatives such fucking babies about it? In my opinion, here's how they get to this point...

Step 1: An authority figure in their lives doesn't give them enough love and/or treats them poorly. This is likely a mother or father. Ask a conservative if one of their parents let them down and every single fucking one of them will begin to foam at the mouth about how mom/dad sucked and stuff.

Step 2: Bury these feelings and fail to get therapy to work them out.

Step 3: Transfer the emotions about said authority figure to the government, the elite, the media, liberals, and anyone else who has done them wrong or told them to do something they didn't like.

Step 4: Become a fully willing pawn of right wing media which emboldens anti-authority feelings while fomenting fear, anger and hatred of anyone more accomplished and intelligent.

Presto...you are now a conservative!

Sheer Incompetence. Again.

When Donald Trump announced that he had nominated the White House physician to be the next secretary of veterans affairs I thought it was ridiculous: Dr. Ronny Jackson, a rear admiral in the Navy, had never run a large organization. Jackson is a trauma doctor who had served in Iraq and ran the small White House medical office. The VA is a sprawling bureaucracy with dozens of facilities across the country and 370,000 employees.

Moreover, I really had to question Jackson's judgment after his fawning report on Trump's health. He said that the seriously obese 71-year-old Trump was merely overweight (he had to use a golf cart on a trip to Italy when other leaders walked), was in "excellent" health, had excellent genetics and could live 200 years if only he had a healthy diet.

Since no human has ever lived more than 122 years, no competent doctor would say this: obviously he was joking, but the health of the president (especially one as physically and mentally unfit as Trump) is not a joke. Jackson is either a huckster, a Trump sycophant or wants something from Trump.

Now Jackson's nomination is serious trouble:

President Trump acknowledged Tuesday that Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, his nominee to lead the Veterans Affairs Department, is in serious trouble amid allegations that he oversaw a hostile work environment as the White House doctor, allowed the overprescribing of drugs and possibly drank on the job.

Trump apparently did nothing to vet Jackson, and it's clear why. Republicans want a puppet in the VA who will rubberstamp their plan to privatize veterans health care, because it has a huge budget and medical service companies that contribute to Republican election campaigns want in on the action.

And then Trump said this:

“I told Admiral Jackson just a little while ago, what do you need this for? This is a vicious group of people. … What do you need it for?” Trump said Tuesday, during a joint news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron. “I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it. What does he need it for? I don’t think personally he should do it. It would be totally his decision.”

Huh? Trump asked Jackson to run the VA, knowing full well what the nomination process involves. Trump is complaining that senators are doing the job that his administration failed to do before tweeting out Jackson's nomination. This is sheer incompetence.

The vetting process at the Trump White House appears to be this: if Trump likes what you say on TV, then he thinks you're qualified for a job in his administration. Jackson clinched his nomination with his hyperbolic press conference on the president's physical.

Other recent hires (including some aborted hires) from TV land include talking heads John Bolton (Fox News), Joseph di Genova (Fox News), Larry Kudlow (CNBC), Heather Nauert (Fox News), Mercedes Schlapp (Fox News) and Tony Sayegh (Fox News).

And, of course, how can we forget Anthony Scaramucci's blazing 10 days as White House communications director? His qualifications: Trump liked how the Mooch buttered him up on TV.

Nobody in the Trump administration knows what they're doing. Like Scott Pruitt (EPA), or Ben Carson (HUD), Mick Mulvaney (Consumer Protection Agency), Ryan Zinke (Interior), Rick Perry (Energy), Betsy DeVos (Education), and countless others. All these appointees actively oppose the missions of the agencies they run or are completely oblivious about them.

This is why so many Trump appointees are constantly getting in trouble for ethics violations and profligate spending.

Worst. President. Ever.

A Good Guy Without A Gun

Remember this?



A couple of years later we had this...

2 members of U.S. military stop Islamist attacker on train in Belgium

And yesterday we had this...

‘It was life or death,’ says man who snatched gunman’s AR-15

Huh. Looks like gun humpers don't have any idea WTF they are talking about. Shocking...not...

How about we stop listening to them? Oh wait, we already are...:)

Yeah, I Don't Trust Them

The Socialists Are Coming!

A recent piece in the New York times details how socialists have finally come out of the closet and are feeling welcome by more people than conservatives would like to admit.

Supporters, many of them millennials, say they are drawn by D.S.A.’s promise to combat income inequality, which they believe is tainting every facet of American life, from the criminal justice system to medical care to politics. They argue that capitalism has let them down, saddling them with student debt, high rent and uncertain job prospects. And they have been frustrated by the Democratic Party, which they say has lost touch with working people.

I can't wait for the mouth foaming and premonitions of a boiling pit of sewage when these folks start to win. It will happen.

And there will be a whole generation of leaders telling conservatives how to better live their lives...:)

Quote of the Day

"It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion" ----Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Chapter II, Part II, Article I, p. 911.

Conservatives Are Not As Racist As You Think

A recent Facebook discussion over the Starbuck's "waiting for a friend while black" debacle got me to thinking about conservatives and racism. There is zero doubt that most conservatives are racially insensitive. But are they out and out racist?

Racism is defined as "prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior." Certainly, there are plenty of conservatives that think that people of color are inferior to them and they likely feel threatened. Trump supporters definitely lean in this direction. Yet, I submit that some of them are not full out racist. They have another problem.

They just don't like people telling them what to do.

This is especially true of libertarians. If someone told them they should be more racist, they would foam at the mouth about doing the opposite. Whatever problem they had with authority in their formative years engages quickly and out comes the adolescent asshole. It's all about defying that authority and chiding people that respect those in power.

Of course, the other reason why they don't like authority is due to the fact that THEY want to be the authority. How dare someone tell them what to do when they should be telling all of the rest of us what to do!

How Did These God Damned Spammers Get My Cell Number?

In our region, the Twin Cities, there are four area codes (612, 651, 763, and 952). I live in 952 but my cell phone's number is in 651, which is the other side of town. Most of the people I know are in the 612, 952 and 763 area codes.

Most every afternoon I get a call on my cell phone from a number in the same exchange. The few times I've answered these calls they have been spam calls for direct marketers or businesses I've never dealt with (auto glass dealers).

The number displayed when I get these calls isn't the caller's real number: it's fake. Direct marketers spoof the caller ID, using a number in the same area code and exchange to make you think that someone living in your neighborhood is calling you. But since I don't know anyone in that exchange of the 651 area code, I know immediately that the call is spam and I don't want to talk to them.

I've given my cell phone number only to friends, family and only recently the doctor's office. I used to give out my landline to companies that required it, but we recently dropped the landline. Now I use a Google Voice number for companies that I never want to talk to. So no companies should have my cell number.

But how did these spammers get hold of my phone number? The same way Cambridge Analytica got hold of 80 million people's data without their permission:

From Facebook, or some other app that one of my friends installed on their phone.

When you install the Facebook app one of the things you give it access to is your contact list. That means Facebook knows your phone number and, worse, the phone numbers of everyone in your contact list.

Does Facebook sell the phone numbers it harvests from our contact lists? I don't know. There's nothing stopping them from doing so. Google also has my number, since I have an Android phone, and Apple has the phone number of everyone with an iPhone.

It's possible that Google sold my number to spammers, or Apple sold the contact list of one of my friends. Or maybe it was a company that has an app that purports to do one thing, but exists solely harvest contact lists to sell to spammers.

And that's the problem. It's one thing for Facebook to sell the personal data of Facebook users. But Facebook and companies like it have access to mountains of data about the people that Facebook users know, and there's nothing to stop them from selling those people's data as well.

If your reaction is, "Pish, tosh. What's new about this? Phone companies used to publish big fat books with everyone's phone number in them."

The difference is twofold: first, these contact lists allow companies to create networks of people, to figure out who knows who. Phone books didn't list the phone numbers of all your friends as well.

Second, Facebook has access to all the information in your contact list, including physical addresses, email addresses and any other notes you may keep on your acquaintances. Like their birthdays, or the code for your friend's home security system so you can feed their cat. Some people might even store their bank account number or other sensitive information in their contact list.

Clearly we need legislation that limits what companies like Facebook, Google and Apple can do with this sensitive information, and controls on apps to prevent them from accessing information on your friends without their permission.

Lake Elmo: a Case Study

Conservative ideology and stubbornness isn't limited to the Deep South. It can also be found in states like Minnesota.

Lake Elmo is a suburb of the Twin Cities, in what was formerly the boondocks. It's now becoming intensely developed as the population of the region continues to grow.

In the last few year residents of Lake Elmo, like my brother- and sister-in-law, have been bitching because the Metropolitan Council ordered the town to install a sanitary sewer system that will cost a lot of money.

Residents complain that they can't afford $14,000 per house for the sewers. They don't mention that these assessments are not lump payments: they are assessments paid over many years. They don't mention that the state gave the city a million bucks to defray the cost. And they don't mention that they'll no longer have to pay to pump out their septic systems multiple times a year.

Lake Elmo started out as a small town long ago, unlike most Twin Cities suburbs that were developed from farmland over the course of just a few years. New suburbs were planned out all at once with roads, water, sewage and so on.

But since Lake Elmo grew up over a century, homes and businesses drilled wells and used underground septic systems, in which sewage is collected under buildings, and allowed to seep into the groundwater.

This works fine in thinly populated rural areas. But once you hit a certain population density, it's no longer feasible. There's more waste than the aquifer can safely absorb and decontaminate: pretty soon urine and feces start leaching into your water supply.

And right on cue, to illustrate the problem of well water contamination, Lake Elmo is facing another problem: PFCs in their water supply. Recently the town was forced to shut down a well and a water tower.

PFCs cause cancer and a wide variety of other diseases; infants and fetuses are most vulnerable. For years 3M discharged chemical waste into nearby landfills, ultimately contaminating local wells.

Both these problems are the result of lax environmental regulation of businesses producing dangerous chemicals and a failure to plan for future population growth.

The conservative idea that everything should stay just the way it was 250 years ago simply does not work when the population exceeds a certain number.

For the economy to grow, the population has to grow. Growing cities and states that keep dumping excrement into aquifers, toxic industrial chemicals into landfills and car exhaust into the air will eventually kill their own people.

That's why Donald Trump's dismantling of the EPA is one of the biggest disasters of his presidency.

Alabama Inundanted by Excrement and Greed

The consequences of greed and lax environmental regulation are coming home to roost in Alabama:

A stinking trainload of human waste from New York City is stranded in a tiny Alabama town, spreading a stench like a giant backed-up toilet — and the "poop train" is just the latest example of the South being used as a dumping ground for other states' waste.

In Parrish, Alabama, population 982, the sludge-hauling train cars have sat idle near the little league ball fields for more than two months, Mayor Heather Hall said. The smell is unbearable, especially around dusk after the atmosphere has become heated, she said.

One woman complained, "Would New York City like for us to send all our poop up there forever?" she said. "They don't want to dump it in their rivers, but I think each state should take care of their own waste."

Hey, lady. If you don't like this, stop voting for Republicans who let businesses get away with literally any shit.

Other towns sued to prevent the waste from landing on their doorsteps: her mayor needs to get on the ball. The legislature of Alabama and other southern states need to take action to stop their countryside becoming a toxic dump. Just say no to the greedy companies that are importing this crap into your state.

New York used to dump this crap into the Atlantic Ocean, but the federal government banned the practice (for good cause) in the 1980s. The question then becomes, what should be done with all this human waste?

Many localities just burn it outdoors, producing air pollution and a horrific stench. In recent years many waste treatment plants have turned their waste incinerators into power plants, like the Twin Cities' Metropolitan Wastewater Treatment Plant.

But there are even better ways of dealing with waste: converting it to natural gas (methane) in giant digesters. There have been numerous pilot projects for this concept, and it is technically feasible. The problem is that as long as cities can find places to dump their crap more cheaply than turning it into natural gas, they will continue to do so.

So, Alabama, please help yourselves and your environment by banning the importation of toxic waste like human excrement and coal ash. Make other states dispose of their waste safely, or stop producing it altogether by shutting down coal plants.

This points out, yet again, the fatal flaw in the conservative dogma of laissez-faire capitalism: it doesn't scale.

Conservatives always think in terms of one guy, or one small town, or one small state. With so few people and so much land their lax attitude toward guns, zoning regulations and environmental protection will have relatively few downsides.

But when nine million people live in one city, you can't just dump your excrement in the river or in the back 40. And you don't have to be as big as New York City to feel these effects.

See my next post for another example.

Nikki Haley Has More Balls than Donald Trump

Last Friday Donald Trump looked like he finally stopped knuckling under to Vladimir Putin when the US, UK and France hit Syrian chemical weapons depots with cruise missiles.

When Nikki Haley announced Sunday that the United States would slap additional sanctions on Russia for supporting Assad's brutal dictatorship, it looked like Donald Trump was finally done being Putin's bitch.

Apparently, it was all for show: it turns out that the attacks did essentially nothing. And on Monday the Trump administration had changed its mind, and additional sanctions on Russia were off the table.

The Trump administration tried to blame Haley:

[A] Trump official accused UN Ambassador Nikki Haley of “momentary confusion” for announcing sanctions against the Kremlin this weekend that the administration later walked back.

But Haley isn’t going to take the fall. “With all due respect, I don’t get confused,” she said in a statement, according to CNN.

Her firm response came after National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow blamed Haley for the snafu. Haley said Sunday the US would punish Russia with sanctions for its role in supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons program. But the White House reversed itself Monday, reportedly because Trump wasn’t okay with the sanctions.

“She got ahead of the curve. She’s done a great job, she’s a very effective ambassador,” Kudlow said of Haley. “There might have been some momentary confusion about that.” He added that additional sanctions were “under consideration” but not implemented.

Haley, however, made it clear it that she wasn’t about to scapegoated. Kudlow later said he apologized to Haley for the demeaning comments, telling the New York Times that he was “totally wrong” to call her confused. “As it turns out, she was basically following what she thought was policy,” Kudlow said. “The policy was changed, and she wasn’t told about it, so she was in a box.”

The source of the confusion was, as always, Donald Trump.

What changed between Sunday and Monday mornings that had Trump shaking in his boots at the thought of angering Putin?

The Comey interview, in which Trump was reminded that Putin still has the pee-pee tape.

Christmas in April!

The Twin Cities Metro area got a foot and a half of snow over the weekend much to the consternation of the denizens residing here. But the giant white piles of snow aren't the only things that are reminding me of Christmas these days. The news headlines of late have made me positively giddy. Here's the one that dropped today...

Michael Cohen's mystery third client is Sean Hannity

Ah, Sean me boy...you hitched your wagon to a star that is rapidly imploding. Your life, as you know it, is over. Speaking of lives being over...

Donald Trump's presidency is collapsing

Michael Cohen and the End Stage of the Trump Presidency

Prediction: By the end of 2018, Donald J. Trump will no longer be president. 


Bolder prediction: By the end of 2019, Donald J. Trump will be in jail. 

Folks, it's all over but the crying. Consider all of the shit that Cohen has on Trump. It's now in the hands of the FBI. Soon we will all see just how much of fucking mafia thug he is and he will be gone. And then the real work will begin...

As I have said many times, Trump isn't the problem. It's his followers. Some will fall off as this information comes out but most will stick with him. They will believe exactly ZERO of the evidence present against Trump because to do so would mean admitting error. Worse, it would mean that liberals win...again! They will never be able to go against someone who trolls liberals so much because that's all they really care about.

So, what do we do about these people? Well, I'm sure some will pop off and do something dumb so we can arrest them. The other loudmouths (likely on INTERNET ONLY) will retreat to their parent's basement and have all sorts of things on which to grouse.

Meanwhile, a massive blue wave is coming soon to a theater near you this November. It's filled with women running for office for the first time who just can't wait to tell old, white men how to live their lives.

I can't wait!!

Mission Accomplished??!!!

After hitting some chemical weapons facilities in Syria, Trump was oblivious enough to tweet "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED".

Does he not remember what ridicule was heaped on George Bush for uttering those fateful words just before Iraq turned into a trillion-dollar hellhole?

What mission was accomplished? Destroying Syria's chemical weapons?

Hardly. The US, UK and France hit a few depots. Syria's weapon of choice has been chlorine gas. Chlorine gas is required to kill bacteria in drinking water supplies and pools. That means pretty much every town that has a water supply has tanks of chlorine gas just sitting around. Assad can just put grenades on them and drop them from helicopters.

If we really did destroy Syria's entire supply of chlorine the country would erupt in an epidemic of cholera, typhoid and dysentery.

What mission was accomplished? Distracting the press from the raid on Michael Cohen's office, hotel room, home, and safe deposit box?

Hardly. Since Trump announced that he couldn't attend the Summit of the Americas the news has been filled with reports about Cohen. Like the revelation that the deputy finance chair of the RNC paid a Playboy playmate $1.6 million to have an abortion.

Trump himself has continued to tweet about it, with his inane "attorney-client privilege is dead" whining. That privilege goes away when your attorney is committing crimes with you.

What mission was accomplished? Burying the Comey book and interview?

Hardly. Except for a brief time on Friday night, quotes from the book and the ABC interview have been running nonstop everywhere (except Fox News).

And, of course, Trump himself has been tweeting nonstop about Comey, hurling childish Twitter insults at the former FBI director like some 12-year-old mean girl.

The only mission Trump has accomplished has been to make himself look petulant and foolish as he and most everyone in his administration is doddering toward some form of censure, impeachment or criminal prosecution.

The real reason that Trump had to declare MISSION ACCOMPLISHED was that he wanted to go to Mar a Lago. Since the Syria thing screwed up his weekend plans, Trump is instead going to Mar a Lago on Monday and returning to Washington on Thursday.

Because the only mission Trump is capable of accomplishing is a round of golf.

Trump Manages to Make Himself Look Even Dumber

After flailing into a trade war with China that could bankrupt American pork and soybean producers, Donald Trump suddenly wants back into the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Barack Obama negotiated but Trump pulled out of:

President Trump, in a surprising reversal, told a gathering of farm state lawmakers and governors on Thursday morning that he was directing his advisers to look into rejoining the multicountry trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal he pulled out of within days of assuming the presidency.

Rejoining the 11-country pact could be a sharp reversal of fortune for many American industries that stood to benefit from the trade agreement’s favorable terms and Republican lawmakers who supported the pact. The deal, which was negotiated by the Obama administration, was largely viewed as a tool to prod China into making the type of economic reforms that the United States and others have long wanted.

The whole purpose of the TPP was to form an alliance with other Pac-Rim trading partners against Chinese hegemony. But Trump was uninterested in making deal with our allies; instead he just insulted and attacked Australia, South Korea, Mexico, Canada and other signatories.

Throughout the campaign Trump either didn't understand what the TPP was or lied about it, implying that the deal included China (it doesn't) or disadvantaged the United States to the benefit of China.


Now that Trump is about to start a trade war with China, he's suddenly desperate for allies.

What this episode shows is how utterly clueless Trump is. He trashes things he doesn't understand (TPP, NATO, the rule of law), and then expects everyone to give him a hundred mulligans for all the catastrophically stupid mistakes he's made.

At this point Republicans in Congress should impeach Trump for sheer incompetence alone.

Teacher Leaves Gun in Public Bathroom Stall

Here's a perfect example of why it's sheer lunacy to arm teachers in schools:

Not the most normal sight: a gun left in the bathroom stall.

But that's exactly what went down on Sunday in a men's room at the Deerfield Beach Pier.

The circumstances of how the Glock 9mm got there are unusual.

According to the Broward Sheriff's Office, the weapon was left by Sean Simpson. If his name sounds familiar, he's the teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas who said he'd be willing to arm himself while on duty.


According to the sheriff's office report, Simpson told deputies he'd left his gun by accident. By the time the chemistry teacher realized his mistake, the Glock was already in the hands of a drunk homeless man who had picked it up and fired. The bullet hit a wall.

Simpson was able to grab the gun away from the vagrant, Joseph Spataro, who was charged with firing a weapon while intoxicated and trespassing.

Who could have predicted such a thing would happen? Me. And every other rational person.

The teacher didn't leave the gun in the school bathroom, so at least the school didn't get shot up. But the incident illustrates yet again the fallacy of the "more guns make us safer" trope.

The more guns there are, the more dropped guns, forgotten guns, lost guns, accidentally fired guns, and guns falling into the wrong hands there will be.

This kind of crap happens hundreds of times every day, across the country, but it doesn't make the news because the people who do it aren't school teachers. The more common guns are, the more gun handling errors there will be.

As guns become more common and prosaic the less dangerous they will seem, which will ultimately make the people who carry them less careful, increasing the frequency with which such errors are committed.

Is Trump About to Start a War of Distraction?

Today the White House announced that Donald Trump had canceled his trip to South America, where he was supposed to attend the Summit of the Americas. The reason? To "oversee the American response to Syria and to monitor developments around the world."

But in reality he cancelled the trip because of the raid on the offices, home and hotel room of Michael Cohen, the lawyer who paid porn star Stormy Daniels hush money days before the 2016 election.

Just a couple days ago Trump promised to pull American troops out of Syria completely. Then Syria gassed some more civilians. That made Trump's advisors nervous, because it looked like Trump was caving in to Putin and Assad.

Trump made a big show of hitting a Syrian base with missiles a year ago after Assad gassed civilians last April. But Trump had warned the Russians the attack was coming, so there was almost no damage: Israeli media reported that the base was operational the next day.

Syria has used gas on civilians nine times since the 2016 election, and Trump has taken no serious actions against the Syrian dictator.

But now, suddenly, Trump is about to take bold action. Why? Why now? Nothing in the Syrian Civil War is any different this time than it was the dozens of other times Assad used chemical weapons against his own people.

It appears all too likely that any attack Syria will just be an attempt to Wag the Dog and divert attention from the Cohen raid. Because if we're at war, it would be unpatriotic to investigate the president.

I can just hear Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying that the investigations into wrongdoing by Trump and his cronies are aiding and abetting America's enemies abroad.

Those investigations include Russian election hacking, the conspiracy between the Russians and the Trump campaign, large Russian contributions to the NRA and the Trump Foundation, numerous financial connections between Trump businesses and Russian oligarchs, financial connections between Trump cabinet members (like Wilbur Ross) and the Russians, secret backdoor negotiations between Trump proxies (like Eric Prince) and the Russians before Trump assumed office, several Trump flunkies who have already pleaded guilty to a wide variety of criminal activities surrounding the election and the early days of the Trump administration, as well as countless scandals about profligate spending and influence peddling by his cabinet members (Scott Pruitt, Ben Carson, Steven Mnuchin, etc., etc. ad nauseam). Not to mention Trump's history of sexual harassment and paying hush money to silence Playboy playmates and porn stars.

Nothing about the Syria problem today is any different than it was for the first 400 days of the Trump administration, yet Trump managed to spend more than a quarter of his days in office at one of his golf clubs. Now he suddenly can't go to South America?

We all know what Trump thinks about South America and all those "shithole/shithouse" countries, as he likes to call them. In all likelihood he was just looking for an excuse to avoid going down there and pretending to like those people.

What do you bet that by Friday everything will be calm enough that Trump will be able to spend the weekend at one of his golf resorts?

The NRA is a Terrorist Organization

Someone is Wisconsin is making me very happy today. Check this out.

A quick glance at Mad Dog Pac shows a grassroots organization to fund billboards countering gun humper dogma. I fucking love it! It also looks like they are going after voters as well.

The tide has finally turned...

Trump Tower Death Trap

A man died after his apartment caught fire in Trump Tower: 

The fire on the 50th floor New York City's Trump Tower that left 67-year-old Todd Brassner dead and six firefighters injured was the second fire in the building in 2018. President Trump's centerpiece Manhattan skyscraper opened in 1984, but does not have sprinklers on its residential floors, a measure required in new buildings since 1999. President Trump, then a private citizen and property developer, lobbied to try and prevent the mandate at the time.

It was the second fire in Trump Tower this year:

Saturday's fire is the second fire in Mr. Trump's Fifth Avenue building this year: Two civilians suffered minor injuries and a firefighter was hurt by debris in a fire on Jan. 8 on the top of the building. That blaze was sparked by an electrical issue, Mr. Trump's son, Eric, said at the time. Eric Trump said the fire had been in a cooling tower.

Donald Trump fought tooth and nail against a law that would have mandated sprinklers in residential buildings. In 1999 he said:

People feel safer with sprinklers. But the problem with the bill is that it doesn't address the buildings that need sprinklers the most. If you look at the fire deaths in New York, almost all of them are in one- or two-family houses.

What a moron Trump is. If a wealthy art dealer accidentally starts a fire in a 72-story high rise and the building burns down because there are no sprinklers and no effective way to evacuate the tenants, hundreds of people could die and losses would be in the billions. If some poor bus-driving schmuck falls asleep on his couch while smoking in his low-rent bungalow in Queens, he and his family are likely to be the only victims.

This is a typical argument for Trump and conservatives. They constantly rail against common-sense regulations using bogus strawmen. The more potential victims and the greater the potential losses, the more protection is required. This kind of short-sighted penny pinching ultimately cost lives and money.

And even though only one person died, units in the upper floors suffered heavy smoke damage, and some residents -- especially the elderly -- will likely suffer effects of smoke inhalation.

As of last November there were 21 vacant units in Trump Tower, and only five had sold since Trump took office. I expect that number to go up after this disaster and all the bad PR about sprinklers. And with all those Russian oligarchs being sanctioned, Trump is going to be hard-pressed to find tenants.

More ominously, this incident emphasizes how Trump's business interests and properties expose him to all manner of threats, from blackmail to terrorism.

This Just In...

Pruitt Next to Be Axed?

In the dumpster fire of the Trump administration the question is never whether someone is going to be fired. It's when.

This week's candidate is Scott Pruitt, the EPA administrator. Pruitt has a long list of reasons for being fired.

It started out with his extravagant spending on travel, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on private planes for useless junkets, then traveling first class instead of coach (because he didn't want to have to deal with people who despise his destruction of the EPA and the environment). Pruitt built a $43,000 soundproof booth in his office so EPA employees couldn't overhear him plotting with oil company executives. Oh, and Pruitt also had his security detail also fly first class.

Last week it was discovered that Pruitt was paying only $50 a night to stay in a tony DC condo, which happened to belong to the wife of a lobbyist. Then the EPA approved a pipeline that the lobbyist was pushing.

Today's news is that Pruitt went around the White House to give raises to two young female cronies from Oklahoma, increasing their salaries to $164,200 and $114,590. These were political appointees, so the White House has to okay any raises. The White House rejected the raises, so Pruitt used the Safe Water Drinking Act to give his girlfriends 53% and 33% raises.

The cheap rent/pipeline approval certainly looks like a quid pro quo, an overt example of corruption. One might argue that it was just a coincidence. But Pruitt's long history of extravagant spending and disregard for the EPA's mission suggest a pattern of corruption.



From the top down, the Trump administration is clearly the most corrupt in at least a century, and probably all of history.

Memo to Gun Humpers: Start Shitting Yourself

I had several students and their parents trek out to DC for the #NeverAgain event on March 24. Here are a couple of photos that they took.

Remember when gun humpers used to make fun of crowd size at gun safety events? Something tells me that those days are over.

If all of these people vote, we are going to see significant change to our nation's gun laws.

John Paul Stevens is Right

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens recently penned an Op Ed calling for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment. I wholeheartedly support his assertions and call for the students of this nation that risen up against gun violence across the country to aim for this goal. It might not be as difficult as we think.

Of course, we would need a 2/3 vote of both chambers of Congress and 38 states to ratify such a repeal. If a vote were held today, how close would we be? California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island all have 2 Democratic Senators who would vote for repeal. That's 10 states and 20 Senators. Washington and Oregon have shifted leftward so that would give us four more senators and 2 more states. Our total is now 12 states and 22 Senators.

Looking at the states that fall into the middle (Colorado, Nevada, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania),  I see about six senators and maybe 4 states that would vote for repeal. I'm being conservative and clearly this could all change in the 2018 midterms but I think it's safe to say that 28 senators and 16 states would vote to repeal the 2nd amendment.

Obviously, this far short of what we would need but it's a pretty solid foundation on which to build. We could start by focusing voting efforts on these states in the middle and then branching out to those states that lean more right. It's also far closer to the goal than gun rights activists would probably like to admit.

For decades they had the numbers on their side in terms of reliable voters. Parkland has changed all of that and we now have a retired SCOTUS justice calling for the repeal of the 2nd amendment. Each mass shooting that happens from here on out will put more and more pressure on the NRA and other gun rights activists to cave. They probably won't.

And that means that the end is nigh for them:)