Senator Cornyn, you're up. Senator Shelby, you're on deck.

Thune....you're batting clean up.  You all know the drill.  Now, off to hair and makeup.

Our latest Scandal de Jour has our Attorney General being accused of lying to his Senate compadres in order to gain their confirmation votes.  So did he lie?  He says it all depends on what the definition of "is" is.  (Old Clinton-era joke.  Look it up.)  His fellow Republicans are in full damage control mode, all lined up to say what a great husband, father, and Saint our beloved AG is, and besides, the Cubs won the World Series so all is well.  Look...SQUIRREL!

 

Meanwhile, across the hall, the Democrats are all foaming at the mouth, taking bids on building new, improved gallows.

Oh, how quickly we forget.  Just a year ago the rolls were reversed.  Former Sec State Hillary Clinton was accused of playing fast and loose with America's state secrets being run through her private email server.  Reid, Pelosi, Schumer and the rest of the Democratic party faithful were calmly shooing us away saying, "Everyone go home.  There's nothing to see here, folks.  Move along."  Not surprisingly, the Republicans saw things a bit differently.  They saw Hillary as being guilty of High Treason.

Let me state the obvious:  Our elected civil servants can't be trusted.  They just can't.  Oh, I might could find a couple if given enough time, but they're rare as purple Unicorns.  The truth is a foreign concept to them, and unless their buds are caught red-handed on camera cramming $100 bills into their coat pockets, they're going to stick up for each other.   

"He is such a fine boy, so kind to his mama, and a wonderful Sunday School teacher, too.  We all love him so."  xoxo

Fifty years ago they could have probably gotten away with their crooked ways, but it's much harder for them today.  What's the difference?  The media.  The press is everywhere, and if they don't have their cameras up and rolling when needed, there are lots of civilians out there with cell phone cameras who do.  BUSTED!

Don't let anyone tell you the media is fake, that they're "the enemy of the people".  If they weren't there, we wouldn't have lasted this long as a republic.   Don't limit yourself to just one source of news, and don't believe what just one source tells you.  Yes, different news organizations have very definite prejudices, but when taken as a whole, the truth will come out.   Freedom of Speech is #1 on the Bill of Rights Top Ten List for a reason.

S

LOOK....SQUIRREL!

...which suits Washington juuuuust fine!

I see the trend on social media these days is to swear off political posts.  "Enough already!  We only want good news for a change."  Well, I'm pretty sick of this Washington circus, too.

Only one problem:  The circus never takes any time off.  The circus is busy 24 / 7 / 365 screwing us over.  But if I take time off from posting political stuff, no one will know how bad we're getting ripped off, 'cause y'all will be too busy watching butterflies and sharing artichoke recipes.  So go ahead, watch butterflies....make a politicians day!  If we aren't watching them, they don't even have to pretend like they give a hoot about us.

We know all about the wall Mexico is going to pay for (but isn't), and the ban on immigrants from seven mid-east countries (never mind that they picked the wrong countries), and the new replacement for Obamacare (that they haven't a clue how to do), and the three million illegal voters who almost cost Donnie John Trump his election.  But that's OK, 'cause it sounds good on TV, right?  The folks back home think they're being looked after, and that's enough.

Meanwhile, Steve Mnuchin, (inmate #288356 if I had my way) is on his way to being our next Treasury Secretary, and Steve Bannon has his fat ass parked on President Trump's shoulder and is whispering sweet nothin's in his ear.

*Have you noticed that our Billionaire President is appointing other Billionaires to his cabinet and charging them with reforming the system that made them all Billionaires?*  

"Uhh, don't worry....nobody's watching.  Today why don't we gut that financial regulation thang that's gettin' in our banker buddies' way.  Oh, oh, and that Consumer Protection outfit that's protectin' consumers....consumers don't need no stinkin' protectin'!  Let's whack 'em both!"

Now don't get all smug, Democrats.  Y'all are swimming in the sewer right there with them.  You sold out to the special interests and didn't' even try to hide it!  You were afraid Lil' Bernie Sanders might muck up your Grand Plan, so you just conveniently slipped Hillary Clinton 500 free convention delegates.  "Order the confetti and balloons.  Par-tay!"

Fortunately for me I actually enjoy calling the bums out when I see them trying to put lipstick on their respective pigs.  

So read, don't read....your call.  But please, do me one favor.  Keep posting your funny memes and videos of stupid tricks gone awry.  I love that stuff.  :)

S 

Next you'll want me to pick tonight's World Series winner, right?

If Carnac The Magnificent did politics....

Time for some rank amateur, next-to-worthless political prognostication from yours truly.  The US Presidential / Congressional elections are exactly one week away, The Donald is still groping women out in his bus according to Hillary Clinton, and Hillary is already taking reservations from her Banker buddies...cha ching...for overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom according to Donald Trump.  For us the choice is simple: Would you rather die from a venereal disease or a stab in the back?

My timeline:  If Donald Trump wins we'll see some almost immediate riots / civil unrest, primarily in the inner cities where minorities will see his election as the first step to rolling back their civil rights.  That won't happen, of course, but that will be their perception.

If Hillary Clinton wins there will be civil unrest, too, primarily from those who suspect she will immediately start to work abridging their Second Amendment rights. That won't happen, of course, but that will be their perception. 

And Carnac saaaaaays....Hillary Clinton by a nose.

The House of Representatives will stay in the hands of the Republican Party, but that Party will be in total chaos.  The only organized faction of the surviving GOP will be the Brown Shirts...er...the Tea Party.  Their agenda item #1; wrestle the Speakers gavel away from Paul Ryan and pass it to one of their knuckle draggers.  Agenda item #2; begin setting up special investigation units to see what misdeeds they can pin on President Hillary Clinton.  She will prove to be a "target rich environment".

The Senate races are a tough call.  I suspect the Republicans will keep their majority standing, but only barely.  If they do, nothing their archnemesis Hillary Clinton requests will ever get a committee hearing, much less a Senate floor vote.  The Supreme Court, already one member short, will likely stay that way (or get worse as more vacancies open up due to the old-timers there now clocking out).  Republicans (Tea Party members or those intimidated by the Tea Party, which is all the rest of 'em) will never vote for a nominee they feel might overturn Roe v Wade or Citizens United, upset the Second Amendment status quo, etc.

The economy will turn south, more than anything because we've been on a winning streak for a historically long time and are due a correction.  Hillary won't notice because she'll be too busy shaking down The One Percent.  She will get blamed for the recession, as Presidents always are, and her approval rating will plummet. 

The House Tea Party will initiate an impeachment hearing against President Clinton, and will vote "aye" 20 minutes later.  They know there is no way the Senate will vote by a 2/3 majority to convict her, but that's OK with them.  They just have a sharp stick and they want to poke it in her eye.  It will be the centerpiece event of their Annual Summer Family Picnic.

For the next six months the news will revolve around nothing more than the upcoming Senate impeachment trial.  We might get a few days of "other" news following a terrorist attack somewhere, or if California goes missing after an earthquake, but that's about it. 

In the interim, while we're busy lobbing stink bombs at each other, the banks will quietly continue their march to complete domination of us all, the insurance companies will continue to merge, first into the Big Eight, then the Big Four, and finally the Big One.  Same with Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Ag, etc.

OR

We'll grow some balls, round up all the above mentioned "deplorables", and ship them all off to a newly renovated (kidding) and restocked (with bread and water) Alcatraz.

Now, is that a happy ending or what?  :) 

S

Hillary's worst nightmare

Saturday Night Live's Hillary Clinton: "You have a choice in this election.  You can vote for a Republican, or you can vote for Donald Trump."

Hillary Clinton is enjoying an embarrassment of riches.  She has her limited hard-core base of traditional Democrats, the support of maverick Democrat (?) Bernie Sanders and most of his millennials....and the support of much of corporate America.

Wikileaks has given us the transcript of what Hillary told a group of Goldman Sachs VIPs in a speech they paid her a cool QUARTER MILLION $$$ to hear.  That is....big shock....that she is a two-faced politician.*

During her primary campaign against Bernie Sanders she wanted us to believe she was a progressive's progressive.  Even after she took him out she enthusiastically embraced Bernie's "break up the big banks, no (TPP) trade deal, free college for everyone, etc" agenda.  She even agreed to make it a part of the official Democratic Party platform.  But what about what she told Goldman Sachs, and by inference the business community?

She told them that she had a face for public consumption, and a face for behind the magic curtain, and it was the latter that they should pay attention to.  Yes, she would push for "banking regulation", but the banks would have a say in writing it.  Which really meant "don't you guys lose any sleep."

At the time she said that Republicans were firmly in control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.  If she could some day become President she could deliver on her promise to her progressive friends to champion their traditional Democratic values, all while knowing a Republican controlled Congress would never go along with any meaningful change in the status quo.  Win/win....votes from traditional Democrats, money from traditional Republican business interests.  SWEET!

As it now turns out several years later she appears to be coasting to a presidential victory, and the odds are pretty good that she might, just might, get a Democratic Senate, too.  

But what if the Democrats could pull off a modern miracle and win the House of Representatives also?  Her Democratic faithful/Bernie Sanders coalition would then expect her to live up to her promises to them....she would have the votes in Congress to do pretty much whatever she wanted....while the business community would still be expecting her to stand aside for them, too, and they don't take kindly to being stiffed for a couple of hundred million $$$.  YIKES!

Hillary's "happy dance" could well turn into a "tap dance".  Hey, stranger things have happened.

S

* I know, I know.  I used "two faced" and "politician" in the same sentence.  It goes without saying, huh?  :)

Mama, she stole my ballot. Make her give it back, mama!

Donald Trump is saying the upcoming Presidential election is rigged, that there will be massive fraud at the polling places, and that the Party of the Donkey has conspired with the media to defraud him of his rightful victory.  'Cause, you know, The Donald is a winner, never a loser.  Sounds to me like he's preparing his excuse when/if he loses  does not win  comes in second...DOH!  Truth be told, though, he's sorta right.

No, I don't think there will be hearse's lined up at the polling places bringing the dead back to vote one last time.  That's not how the system is rigged these days.  Today the two...2...lemme say it again...TWO political parties who have any chance of winning (they've conspired to make sure a Third Party will be stillborn) have rigged elections by insuring only one of their Good 'Ol Boys / Girls gets nominated in the first place.  (Or as a last ditch nuclear option, withhold their allowance.)  If you're not "in", you're out.

Here's the deal:  Both parties are beholden to their Sugar Daddy special interests.  They took their (campaign) money, so now they must deliver the goods (favors).  If their candidate can't make a strong showing, their benefactors will jump ship in a New York minute.  Who would have ever thought the banks and health insurers and pharmaceutical companies, etc would be lined up behind Hillary Clinton?  But that's what they do when their preferred party's candidate is in freefall. 

After several of their Presidential candidates (Mondale / Dukakis) crashed and burned badly back in the '80's, the Democrats perfected their system of "pledged super-delegates" to make sure no renegade / hopeless candidate ever became their standard bearer again.  

The People might have wanted Bernie Sanders, but the Party wasn't sure they could control him if he won, so they took him out with the big hook (aka pledged super-delegates), and crowned Hillary instead.  Pledged super-delegates = veto power.

"But wait" you say.  "Didn't Hillary get more popular votes during the primaries?"  True, but with the ever-present pledged super-delegates making the outcome clear from day one, how many voters just succumbed to the inevitable?  We'll never know.

And just to make double / triple / quadruple sure, the Democratic National Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her staff threw roadblocks in front of Sanders at every opportunity.  We know this because her leaked emails said so.  Busted!

So how then did renegade Donald Trump walk away with the Republican Presidential nomination?  Where was their hook?  Ahhh....they didn't have one because their candidates didn't crash and burn back in the '80's.  They never thought they needed one.  But you can bet the farm that when election season 2020 rolls around they WILL have some sort of fail-safe system in place to insure only one of their Chosen Few will ever be on the final ballot.  No more Trump's for the GOP!

But for now the Republicans are stuck with him.  Most will pay Trump lip service, but little more than that.  Without their active foot soldiers or $$$$, The Donald is finished.  THAT is how you rig elections today.

Oh, and the media is biased towards the Democrats.  As a voter who will NOT be voting for either major party candidate this year I can give you a unique, un-biased view of reality.  Hillary's leaked emails and other assorted scandals don't get anywhere near as much negative press as The Donald's philandering.   Of course, more people like reading "Fifty Shades Of Gray" than "The Complete Unabridged History of ZZzzzz", too.  :)

S

She played him like a three-dollar fiddle....

Did you watch the Presidential Debate last night?  What did you think?  I'm in a unique position to comment as I don't plan to vote for either of them.  As if you care, here are my thoughts:

Overall, Donald Trump had a few good ideas, but he failed to articulate them in terms voters could understand.  He often didn't connect the dots.  For example, he claimed that our trade deals to date, particularly NAFTA, were bad for working Americans.  Hillary said NAFTA was a net jobs creator for the USA.  But Trump didn't follow up with, "yes, but we lost millions of good paying manufacturing jobs and gained lots of lower paying transportation and distribution jobs.  That's a major reason our middle class is in decline."  I think he'll see that as a lost opportunity.

He said he didn't think many NATO members were paying their fair share of the organization's costs.  I tend to agree.  But he could have followed up with "those Europeans who enjoy that comfortable social safety net you're so envious of can only afford to do that because they scrimp on their own defense....they know we'll cover their a$$ if they're ever seriously threatened.  We can't afford those things for our people because we're paying to protect their people."*

But he didn't.

*Not all 28 NATO countries are stingy funding their military.  Notable exceptions include The UK and France.

Trump pointed out that there were TRILLIONS of dollars of earnings kept by American companies overseas because our high corporate tax rate prohibited them from bringing it back here.  Why didn't he expound on that by asking "why would they want to bring it back here and pay 35% when they can leave it in Ireland or the Cayman Islands and pay a single-digit tax rate?"  That might make a believable case for a corporate tax cut.

But he didn't.

When he said that he would stop American companies from moving overseas, and Hillary asked "how", he said he would put a big tax on their (now cheap) products being brought back here for sale. In other words he would start a trade war....a big no-no.  

He could have pointed out that as our tax laws are now written, companies that make a move overseas can take a one-time tax write-off for the expenses involved, often up into the $BILLIONS for large companies.  In other words, the American taxpayers are subsidizing their move....the very taxpaying workers being laid off are paying their former employers for laying them off!  

But he didn't.

Hillary let more than a few opportunities slip by, too.  When Trump said his massive tax cut (to the wealthy) would enable them to create new and expand existing businesses and jobs, all Hillary said was "Trumped-up trickle-down economics doesn't work".  Why didn't she quote some of the authoritative research (such as by the Wall Street Journal) that says there is at least $1.7Trillion in wealth sitting idle on the sidelines right now because wealthy individuals and companies can't find enough good places to invest it, and when they do, it's often overseas?  A tax cut to the wealthy will likely create relatively few new American jobs.  

A lost opportunity, Hillary.

When she pointed out that years ago Trump was sued for racial discrimination regarding the leasing practices of his properties, his comeback was, "and I settled that without admitting any guilt."   She could have said that was like a mobster saying sarcastically "I didn't do it, nobody saw me, you can't prove a thing."  It isn't that he didn't discriminate, it's just that he got away with it.  Bye-bye black vote.

But she didn't.

I could go on and on, but you saw the same thing I did.  Basically I thought Hillary looked poised and well rehearsed, while Trump was just scattershooting and rude.  Hillary goaded him and he took the bait.  She had him on his heels most of the night.

Overall I didn't get a warm fuzzy about either.  Ummm....where was the Libertarian candidate?  The stage looked plenty big enough for a third podium to me.   ;)

S

"You, you, and you....under the bus!"

Back in June I spoke up when I heard of the "coincidental" overlap between The Clinton Foundation's list of prominent benefactors and the list of those who were approved for coveted international trade and arms purchase deals by Hillary Clinton's State Department.  No concrete proof of impropriety, no paper trail...a nod by Bill, a wink by Hillary...and things just happened.  RED FLAG!

Now it's Donald Trump's turn.  Today there was a story released by Newsweek that showed the potential conflicts of interest that might exist between Donald Trump the businessman and Donald Trump the President of the United States. 

To his credit, Trump is an exceptionally astute businessman.  He seeks out opportunities worldwide where he can partner with powerful, plugged-in foreign business interests to expand his brand.  These foreign interests are often chummy with the leadership in their respect countries, such as Russia, China, India, Turkey, various Middle Eastern countries, etc.  He is also a staunch believer in leverage, which means using borrowed money to grow his business.  And as the owner of a privately held corporation Mr. Trump keeps these partnerships in the shadows as much as possible, which is understandable.  Nothing wrong with any of this.

But now he just might become the President of the United States.  Can you imagine a situation where a country, where Mr Trump the businessman has interests, might do something detrimental to the interests of the US?  What would happen if the wayward foreign leader threatened quietly through channels to call a massive Trump loan due, or perhaps even nationalize a Trump interest in that country?  

Would President Trump cave, or compromise, and possibly agree to things that were not in the best interest of the United States?  We can't take that chance.  This would be an obvious conflict of interest between Trump the businessman and Trump the President.  RED FLAG!

Mr Trump says if elected he would put his assets in a "blind trust"....he would turn over all operations of The Trump Organization to his kids for them to run.  Oh pah-leeze!

The only way a blind trust would work would be if all the assets of The Trump Organization were liquidated and the proceeds put in the hands of a third party to be invested in ways and places that left President Trump completely clueless where his fortune was.  I doubt THAT is something Mr. Trump would be willing to do.

Now our combined candidates are 0 for 2, which explains their dismal "trust" poll numbers.  

S

"Pay to play" sounds reasonable to me, said Guido "The Snake" Gambino

Back on June 9th I wrote here about why I won't vote for Hillary Clinton.  It isn't because she isn't smart, or isn't qualified...she is on both counts.  She's been in and around government almost her entire adult life.  After all these years she no doubt has a star-studded black book of important contacts.  She's likely shaken down many of them, too.  (Something not exclusive to Hillary.)

Politics is a sleazy business...big shock, I know!  Politicians (of both parties) know how to write laws that make themselves look pure as the driven snow, but not too many layers deep into the regulations they write, if you know what to look for, you'll find all the necessary loopholes that give them a free hand to do pretty much whatever they want.  The very people who decide by the laws they write what is legal or illegal will quite naturally declare whatever they do to be legal.  It's the proverbial "license to steal".

With Hillary's "pay to play" relationship with the Clinton Foundation now front page news, let me share again what I wrote more than two months ago:

"So why won't I vote for her [Hillary]?  It's all about trust, or lack there of.  For starts, it's hard for me to separate the activities of the Clinton Foundation run by her husband and daughter and her duties as a Senator or Secretary of State.  There is no clear demarcation."

"Under federal law, foreign governments seeking to buy American-made arms [among many other things] are barred from making campaign contributions, a prohibition aimed at preventing foreign interests from using cash to influence national security policy.  But nothing prevents them from contributing to a "philanthropic foundation" controlled by policymakers.  (A tidy little loophole, wouldn't you say?)"

"Consider this:  In 2011 while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, the State Department approved a $29 billion dollar sale of American-built fighter planes to Saudi Arabia, despite the pleas of many that a deal that large would upset the delicate balance of power in the region.  The deal was even considered a "top priority" for Ms. Clinton personally.  Is it just a coincidence that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed $10 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation, and Boeing contributed $900,000 just months before the sale was given official approval?"
 
"In fact, in just three years (2011-2013) under Hillary Clinton's leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion dollars worth of arms sales to 20 nations who had given contributions to the Clinton Foundation.  This number is over twice as much as was approved by the State Department in the same time frame during the last term of George W. Bush."

"And....Hillary Clinton switched from opposing an American free trade agreement with Colombia to supporting it after a Canadian energy and mining magnate with interests in that South American country contributed to the Clinton Foundation." 

"In fact, 13 companies lobbying the State Department paid Bill Clinton $2.5 million in speaking fees while Hillary Clinton headed the agency." 

~~~~~~~~~~

I know some will say, "But the Clinton Foundation does many good things with the billions of dollars they control."   That's true, but the legitimate companies set up by organized crime to launder the money from their illegal activities no doubt provide some welcome community services, too.  Just because they sponsor the neighborhood Little League baseball team doesn't make their drug operations any less illegal.  I wouldn't vote for Guido Gambino for President just because he supported the local SPCA, even though I'm an ardent supporter of the SPCA.

I'm not a venomous partisan political person.  I'm not pro- or anti- either party.  I just call 'em as I see 'em.  And not only does Hillary's relationship with the Clinton Foundation look bad, it smells bad, too.  I just can't trust that whatever decisions she makes will always be in the country's best interest vs the best interest of the family business.

S 

 

Heads they win, tails we lose...

So now the rumor is the Republican bigshots want Donald Trump to voluntarily drop out of the presidential race and turn their standard bearer's title over to his VP running mate, Mike Pence.

OK, lets think this through.  Mike Pence was an early Tea Party guy, the same Tea Party whose candidates Donald Trump blew away one-by-one in the primaries.  The same Tea Party that his followers saw as not representing them.

And in the other corner we have Hillary Clinton, who will get the vote of (most of) Bernie Sanders followers by default.  They don't really like her...they see her (correctly) as "the establishment", the same establishment they saw as not representing them.

So now the majority of Republicans may have a candidate they didn't want, and a huuuuuge number of Democrats have a candidate they really didn't want, either.

Could things possibly get any more f__cked up?  Our Founding Fathers must be turning over in their graves.

S

"Hey Babe, wake up. You've never seen a really BIG wreck, have you?

True story:  Many years ago I was driving north on Interstate 35 in Dallas when a commercial garbage truck a couple of hundred feet in front of me, the kind that picks up entire dumpsters and tosses the contents overhead back into the big box at the rear, began to fishtail.  (I later learned the rear axle broke, causing the loss of control.)  

At 75 mph it was a pretty exciting sight!  First it swerved left, then abruptly right, then hard left again, back and forth, all while the truck was rapidly decelerating.  The slower it got, the more dramatic the truck leaned.  Right as it came to a complete stop it fell over on its side, spilling garbage all over the highway.  What a mess!

For some reason this memory I still carry after all these years came back into focus when I thought about our current presidential election season.  As I see events unfolding, the similarities are uncanny.

A year ago things started out as you might expect, nothing unusual, just your typical sunny day.   A gaggle of the usual career politicians jumped into the presidential race along with a couple of oddballs, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.  *Really? Snicker*  Then, defying all odds, the oddballs (pun intended) showed they had tapped into some deep resentments in the population.  

The process began to go off traditional course...the axle broke.  The Democrats swerved hard left behind Bernie, and the Republicans hard right behind the completely off-the-wall Trump, all while their opponents pulled over to the side to avoid being squashed.  (The opportunistic Hillary Clinton grabbed the steering wheel out of Bernie's hands at the last minute.)

Now the finish line is in sight, and the fishtailing participants are becoming more and more erratic.  WikiLeaks publishes some embarrassing emails about Hillary, and Donald Trump somehow finds room for another foot in his mouth and doesn't hesitate to take advantage of the opportunity.

So on election day, November 8th, is the out-of-control election truck going to finally fall over on its side, either left or right, spilling  garbage all over the countryside? 

Here's my takeaway from all this:  The candidates themselves are actually irrelevant, but the nerves they touched in the electorate...that is the real story this year...are here to stay, and will likely become more inflamed as time goes on.  

Donald Trump will soon be a historical footnote (the polls say Hillary will win, but as she is so widely reviled she'll likely be an ineffective President), and Bernie Sanders will retire to his rocking chair as Provocateur Emeritus.

The big news in all this is America is being seriously shaken up.  Those who actually run America, who pull all the important strings, have taken things too far some say, and the people are royally pissed about it.  It's all coming into focus for many Americans.  "Building a wall" and "Feeling the Bern" are more than just cute slogans.  IMO they're going to be permanent movements that won't just go away on November 9th.

Regardless of who wins, it looks like there might soon be a lot of garbage strewn all over the place.  We might should get our shovels ready.

S

When George spoke, we should have listened

If I were Donald Trump's campaign manager, this is about as close as I'd let him get to a microphone.  And I'd delete his Twitter account, too.

All he had to do is pose pretty with his family for the next 100 days and show up for his inauguration.  Between getting caught stumbling from scandal to scandal and ducking whatever WikiLeaks is going to throw at her next, Hillary was doing her best to hand this election to him.

But then The Donald took the bait and said he "sacrificed" as much as Mr & Mrs Kahn's son who died in service to our country.  Wha....what? 

I'm sure Donald Trump is a smart man.  His grades in college showed it, his classmates said so, and his bank account validates it, too.  So then why does he say such stupid things?  Has old age somehow disconnected his brain from his mouth?

But here's the strangest part:  This may not necessarily kill his election chances.  Hillary Clinton "talks the talk", but she doesn't "walk the walk".  She's likely do something stupid herself, like getting caught on a hidden camera a la Mitt Romney saying something derogatory about a group she needs, which will even the odds again. 

Bottom line....we're being held hostage by a closed two-party political system that gives us bad options. 

Now more than ever, we should remember the words of George Washington:

 

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

S

Look, up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, no wait...are those PIGS flying??

I love waking up in the morning so I can see what screw-ball political news popped up overnight.  Last week I saw a guy who used to be a billionaire Democrat, who raised millions of dollars for them, be crowned King of Republicans.  Then in his acceptance speech he talked about being the voice of the underdog, the working man, and underpaid women workers.  He says he'll bring back American jobs, and he's against a trade deal that [some say] would enable his fellow one-percenters to move jobs overseas and maximize their profits.  Wha....what? 

Then this week I've seen a woman who's been a lifelong liberal Democrat and is on the cusp of being her party's nominee for President, but who is today actually, quietly, the Darling of the Rich Establishment.  She publicly pledges to take down their Big Banks at the same time she gives speeches to them at a Quarter-$Mil a pop, and stuffs her campaign chest with their "donations".   *wink wink*   

She's been scorned for months by a crusty old Independent-Socialist Senator who fought tooth-and-nail with her, but now is having to beg....absolutely beg....his followers to not do anything to upset her status quo.  ('Cause, you know, socialists just loooove the status quo.)  And his loyal followers aren't buying it!  They're in the streets chanting, "Hell no D-N-C...we won't vote for Hill-ar-y."  Double Wha....what?

In my lifetime I've seen Republicans do a 180 and embrace positions that used to belong to Democrats, and vice versa.  The party of Lincoln today rarely gets any African-American votes, while the party of George Wallace gets millions.  Now I can't tell a Republicrat from a Demolican.  I'm so confused.

Are we watching some long-lost episode of The Twilight Zone?  Is the ghost of Rod Serling just jerking our chain? 


On a side note, are brownies supposed to have seeds in them?  ;)

S

How can supposedly smart people do such dumb things?

So the Democratic National Committee got caught playing favorites with their candidates.  It seems that WikiLeaks made public thousands of damning emails between DNC staffers, including the DNC Chair, and others, talking about how they could cripple Bernie Sanders' campaign and help Hillary Clinton's.

Yes, I'm outraged (but not surprised) it happened, but I'm even more dismayed that all those supposedly smart people would put anything in writing that they wouldn't want to see made public.  Nothing is secure these days....that's common knowledge.  Some smart geeks somewhere in the world can and will hack into any and every high profile account they can just to cause trouble, if not outright extort.

If you don't want to get caught writing embarrassing, vulgar, slanderous emails, don't write embarrassing, vulgar, slanderous emails.  "Paper trails" work both ways....they can hurt or help.  Haven't we learned that by now?  Have you ever sent an email meant for one person to someone else by mistake?  I thought that was just a rookie mistake.  So now we know the Democratic National Committee is full of rookies?  These are the people assisting the potential leader of the Free World?  Yikes!

*Looks like the DNC will soon be hiring.  Experience not required*

The same goes with cameras.  How many times have we seen videos of a policeman just beating the beejebers out of some guy after, for example, a chase.  He'll get the guy on the ground and then commence to just beat the crap out of him, and then a few seconds later the other less fit, fat, flatfooted cops catch up and jump in, too.  Then it goes viral and the cops are indicted, or at least looking for new employment.

BREAKING NEWS:   Every mouth breathing knuckledragger with a cell phone (and they all have cell phones) lives to take a video of something to embarrass someone else with.  Security cameras, cell phone cameras, traffic cameras, body cameras, dash cameras....they're everywhere.  How can anyone with even a low-double-digit IQ not know that?

  Even I know that!  ;)

Don't want to be photographed picking your nose, or staring at some well-endowed babe's cleavage, or stealing your neighbor's Amazon package off their porch?  THEN DON'T DO THOSE THINGS!

How can we be so smart and so stupid at the same time?

S