Category Archives: Politics & News

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

He Had a Wide Stance

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Bruce Springsteen canceled his North Carolina show to protest the bathroom law.

Mr. Springsteen and the E Street Band were booked in the Greensboro Coliseum yesterday. 15,000 ticket holders will all be eligible for a refund.

Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) signed the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, HB2, last month after the North Carolina General Assembly called a special session to push the law through after the Charlotte City Council passed a non-discrimination ordinance.

“[The abominable Charlotte act] allows grown men to share bathrooms and locker facilities with girls and women,” one North Carolina Repuglican said.

Be very afraid!

The newly enacted law requires individuals to use bathrooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificate.

“To my mind, it’s an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress,” Mr. Springsteen said in a statement.

Update:
PayPal pulled 400 jobs from North Carolina. Braeburn Pharma is pulling out. The NBA All Star game probably won’t happen in NC. Some 100 national companies have decried the law.

“F**k Springsteen,” my friend Dino Russell said. “Wanna see what sex you identify with? Look in your underwear.”

Dino is a world traveler so I’m pretty sure he has peed and pooped in Europe. I didn’t know he much cared then if the next guy was male, female, both, or anything in between.

“I don’t give a crap for me,” he said. “My daughters and granddaughters presumably do and I do give a crap if the next guy over is, well, a guy with his cellphone on the floor looking up her snatch. Or whatever. Bad enough they have to deal with the weirdos of their own sex.”

Pfui. It’s Victorian. We need to get over the legal idea that there’s something secret or dirty about our bodies.

“You are being stupid,” he said. “This is an issue of increased potential for rape. Pull your head out of your ass.”

In case you missed it, please notice a number of bathroom references here.

I’m being stupid about yet another salvo in Conservative attempts to wrest local control away from the local voters.

Liz Arden gives us a few points that Dino and the other ostriches would do well to understand.

a) Just because someone thinks they’re female or homosexual or asexual or nonsexual does not mean they are pervs who will violate your person or your privacy.

b) There are pervs who will violate your daughters’ and granddaughters’ privacy and threaten their sense of safety and well-being. Period. They could be sitting next to you in church.

c) North Carolina and the other states don’t care a whit about pervs with cellphones in bathrooms. They care about competition in the bathrooms. Oh, yeah. And they care about catering to the emotional idiocy of people and the Sharia belief that they can impose their religious interpretation on everyone within 10 feet of them. Or within 3,000 miles.

How many rapes happen in the famed Parisian unisex public toilets?

How many by transgender folk or even cross dressers?

Weirdos are weirdos. A person who genuinely feels they are female despite having XY chromosomes and penises, well, that weirdness does not in the slightest threaten Dino, his wife, his daughters, his granddaughters, nor any other human being on the planet.

Unless they are carrying an axe like, say, Carrie Nation. Or the lawmakers who passed HB2 or HB 1523. Then be very afraid.

Dino’s daughters and granddaughters would do well to understand that. Dino would do well to understand that. There are already laws banning pervs from being in the bathroom looking up the little girls’ snatches. Or raping them.

Update:
Bryan Adams has canceled his show at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum this Thursday, because that state’s new “Religious Liberty” Act, HB 1523, discriminates against gay couples or members of the LGBT community.

We gotta get over the legal idea that there’s something secret or dirty about our bodies.

It’s tough, though.

He merely had a “wide stance.”

A (now-former) Republican senator pled guilty to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge after his arrest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Former Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) had been caught flat-footed by a police detective investigating lewd behavior in an airport men’s room. His 28 ultra conservative years in Congress, years spent fighting gay rights at every turn, put him in second place in Idaho history, behind only Sen. William Borah (R-ID).

Former Sen. Craig barred extension of rights to same-sex couples. He voted “yes” on an Idaho constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. He voted against extending the federal definition of hate crimes to cover sexual orientation. And so on.

Who’s making odds on how Former Sen. Craig would have voted on HB2 or HB 1523?

For the record, I’m OK with Balian Buschbaum (formerly Yvonne Buschbaum) or Erik Schinegger (formerly Erika Schinegger), Jaiyah Saelua (formerly Johnny Saelua), Mianne Bagger (formerly Michael Bagger), or Caster Semenya (formerly Caster Semenya) sharing the restroom with me or with my great-granddaughters. Caitlyn Jenner (formerly Bruce), though, I’m not so sure of.

“Buncha pansies who think it strikes too close to home,” Miz Arden said.

And there you have it.

 

The Campaign of 4-Year-Olds

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Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus says Trump supporters should “leave it to the professionals” when it comes to quelling interruptions.

Mr. Priebus also says the GOP could have a different candidate at the national convention in Cleveland this July.

A brokered, or contested, convention occurs when no single candidate has secured enough delegate votes to secure the nomination on the first ballot. Sadly a brokered convention can also occur when the party elite change the rules so the popular vote doesn’t matter.

The winning Demorat needs to have at least 2,383 delegates in the primaries and caucuses; the winning Repug has to get at least 1,237 of the 2,472 delegates. Hillary Clinton currently leads the Democratic pack with 774 pledged delegates to date, far surpassing Bernie Sanders’ count of 946. That means she’s currently well on her way to the nomination.

Say what?

Yeah, the guys on the other side of the aisle already cooked the books; they have “superdelegates” to swing the nomination wherever they want. Ms. Clinton has 469 cheaters, so she really is well on her way to the nomination unless the Sanderistas can take over that convention.

Mr. Priebus says the GOP could have a different candidate at the convention in July, too. Repugs are looking for ways to cook the books, too.

Donald Trump leads the Repuglican pack with 739 pledged delegates to date, far surpassing Ted Cruz’ count of 465, which means Mr. Trump is well on his way to the nomination, too.

Mr. Priebus is counting on the GOP having a different candidate at the convention in July.

Dear Reince Priebus:
I’ve been a Republican Town Chair. I’ve run for and held elective office. I’ve put governors and congressmen and bank presidents together to register new voters. Now I’m just a crotchety op-ed writer with a message.
You say, “We have rules.” We hear you say, “We are weasels.”
You’re going to have a populist candidate with pretty close to the 1,237 delegates required for nomination. If you go ahead with this plan to steal the nomination, just to give it to another party hack, you will have stolen the party that freed Americans from slavery and made it the party that enslaves Americans.

Remember the “stiletto” job the “mysterious cabal” attempted in 1964? When Nelson Rockefeller appeared at the convention, AuH2O voters shouted down Mr. Rockefeller and beat back your backroom deal makers.

And they were still so mad at the party that LBJ slaughtered Mr. Goldwater that November.

Here’s what is likely to happen. You give the nomination to another party hack. Demorats do the same at their convention:

  • It won’t matter whether you pick UNTrusTed Cruz or Mitt Romney or Bruce Wayne.
  • Repuglican voters will stay away from the polls.
  • Ms. Clinton will win the White House.
  • Democrats will win 7 of the 11 gubernatorial races, a dozen of the so-called “safe” Senate seats, and more than half the 18 retiring Repug House seats.
  • We’ll get a business friendly Supreme Court Justice.
  • Business pretty much as usual.

The bills getting passed will change but the real business of politics will just keep on keeping on. The trillion-dollar deficits will continue to fund your cronies. Congress will continue to do everything for themselves and nothing for us. You’ll grumble in the press and be secretly pleased that you survived.

That’s the best you can hope for.

Now imagine what happens if give the nomination to another party hack and the Demorats actually let Mr. Sanders win their Convention!

  • It still won’t matter whether you pick UNTrusTed Cruz or Mitt Romney or Bruce Wayne.
  • Repuglican voters still stay away from the polls. (New) young Demorats will turn out by the million.
  • Mr. Sanders will win the White House.
  • Democrats will win 9 of the 11 gubernatorial races, a dozen of the so-called “safe” Senate seats, and at least the 18 retiring Repug House seats.
  • We’ll get Stephen Reinhardt or Goodwin Liu or Vermont’s John Dooley as a Supreme Court Justice.
  • And a Sanders administration will start prosecuting all the bankers and businessmen he rails against.

Voter Considering Ballot BoxThat’s the second best you can hope for but you still haven’t thought about all those voters who stayed home.

This isn’t 1964 but this could well be your Viet Nam.

See, social media will keep that core of disenchanted voters alive. Sooner or later, we will elect a populist candidate. And we will throw out all your party hacks.

Here’s your real nightmare:

  • Repuglican voters will come back to the polls.
  • A businessman (and loose cannon) will win the White House.
  • In three election cycles, every sitting bum^H^H, ahem, politician will be replaced.
  • And then a populist administration will prosecute EM>you.

The Arab Spring can become the American Fall. You whining 4-year-olds won’ get a time out, though. That means actual jail time.

The country survived Viet Nam. The politicians didn’t.

We get a great choice this year. A loose cannon businessman v. a liar-turned-party-hack and a liar-and-party-hack v. a loose cannon socialist. I can hardly wait.

 

“This Town Ain’t Big Enough …”

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Another Puffin Tale from Dodge City that you just can’t make up.

Nick Grindell: I’m getting tired of your meddling. This town ain’t big enough for the both of us and I’m going to give you 24 hours to get out. If I see you in Carabinas by this time tomorrow, it’s you or me!
Tim Barrett: I’ll see you at this time… tomorrow.

A tumbleweed skitters across the road from The Western Code (1932) to High Noon (1952). There are no shadows. The sun is merciless in the sky. And the Sheriff says to the d00d, “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us.”

From IMDB, When Tim Barrett rides into Carabinas in The Western Code, his reputation as a lawman precedes him. Rescuing Polly Loomis from the unwanted attentions of a saloon ruffian, he learns her mother married ranch foreman Nick Grindel shortly before her death, and left everything to him in her will. Nick has proposed marriage to his stepdaughter, and she fears violence if her hot-blooded brother Dick finds out. When a body is found at the Bow Knot, Tim barely rescues Dick from a necktie party and is deputized to investigate when Dick confesses to a crime he didn’t commit.

The Sheriff ran a d00d out of town.

You may recall the Key West shootout in October last year when Timothy Thomas got into it with deputies on Stock Island.


I shot the sheriff, but I didn’t shoot the deputy.

No matter what my daughter often says, sometimes life just isn’t a country song.

The Key West Police and the Monroe County Sheriff’s office had been looking for Mr. Thomas for an armed robbery at a home down the street from Key West High School; the school was locked down. He took off in a stolen black Ford Mustang. Deputies spotted the car in the dark out on Stock Island not far from the jail. He opened fire on them when they tried to nab him.

He shot a Sheriff’s deputy in the chest but the deputy’s bullet-proof vest saved him.

He’s charged with attempted murder of a police officer, four counts of being a felony possessing a firearm, burglary, altering a firearm serial number, and property damage.

Jump to the present.

Tyler Thurston, Mr. Thomas’ younger brother, threatened the lives of a police officer and his family in text messages and Facebook posts hours after bad guy bro Tim was jailed for that shooting.

Text 1: “I got a 357 magnum fully loaded and a 9 ruger with 16 bullets waiting for yalls names to pop back up in my f—in’ ear. I know where yall live, I’ll kill everybody in the house.”
Text 2: “…there wont be a f—ing soul that could save yall from me. I’ll kill yall b—-es slowly and unmercifully.”

“Kids nowadays just don’t realize once you text something or put in on Facebook, it’s out there forever, whether you’re serious or not,” his lawyer told the Keynoter. “He had to learn these things the hard way and he feels badly that what he wrote scared some people.”

Uh huh.

The “kid” bro has been under the care and feeding of the Sheriff since October. Last week, he agreed to five years of probation in a plea bargain with prosecutors. The deal says he must complete a two-year drug offender program. He also has to get out of Monroe County and stay out.

 

Burn the Bern

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That’s the word that has gone out to every Demorat and Repuglican hit team, too.

Demorats have poured millions of dollars into discrediting his ability to beat Hillary Clinton now and any Repuglican in November. Repugs chant “socialist,” and “communist,” and “unwashed masses” — the codewords they bring out to tar that which they fear.

Why are the parties so afraid of Mr. Sanders, too?

He voted against the Iraq war. He rails against big business and the rich. One of his most popular quotes is that if a bank is too big to fail, then it’s too big to exist. He wants dump ObamaDon’tCare (say what?). Don’t worry, he’ll implement Medicare for everyone. Including US Congressmen. He’s Elizabeth Warren but louder. He strongly wants campaign reform. He calls himself “independent.”

Worse yet, people love Bernie Sanders.

The fact that Mr. Sanders has never actually passed a piece of legislation doesn’t seem to matter to anyone; he has his say!

The Demorats have it much easier than the Repuglicans.

They have 718 superdelegates whose sole purpose is to put their fingers on the scale to prevent nominations like that of Bernie Sanders from ever happening.

If Mr. Sanders shows up at the convention with more delegates than Ms. Clinton, you can bet the marching orders are, “Burn the Bern.”

Tomorrow is another big day with five presidential primary elections and a Repuglican party caucus (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, the Northern Marianas, North Carolina, and Ohio.)

I expect you’ll vote for someone tomorrow. I hope you won’t vote for the worst liars in the bunch (pantsuit-on-Fire Hillary Clinton, UnTrusTED Cruz, or second string Marco Rubio).

Who’s left?

We need a loose cannon in politics now more than ever but we’ve been growing little water pistols and arming them with blanks, I wrote four years ago. It’s even more true today, although the water pistoleers are starting to load acid.

Loose cannons Bernie Sanders on the far left and Donald Trump on the middle right. I hope you will vote for one or the other. Instead of burning the Bern, let’s burn the parties.

I wrote more about Derailing the Donald over here.

Who knows? With two “populists” running head to head in November, anything can happen.

 

Derail the Donald

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That’s the word that has gone out to every Repuglican and Demorat hit team in the universe.

Forget Occupy Wall Street. Today it’s Occupy Donald Trump.

Repuglicans have poured millions of dollars into a negative ad campaign to discredit his ability to beat Hillary Clinton in November. Demorats chant “hatred,” and “racism,” and “uneducated masses” — the codewords they bring out to tar that which they fear.

Why are the parties so afraid of Mr. Trump?

“The Repubs are reaping the results of the misinformation, division, racism, and fear they have been feeding the public since Barack Obama took office,” my oh-so-liberal friend Fanny Guay said. That is the Demorat’s party line, but the reality is that the only people ever to play the division or race cards in politics are liberals.

And misinformation belongs to both parties.

Pundits and establishment Repuglicans alike pretend they have no idea what will come out of the Donald’s mouth next, but that’s not true either. We all know perfectly well what he’ll say and we think we know what he’ll do.

Establishment Repugs and Demorats alike know they won’t control a Trump administration they way they have controlled the process for decades.

The unholy triad of big government, big business, and big media reaps billions and they protect one another to keep it flowing. No one cares who sits in the White House as long as government keeps getting bigger, programs keep programming, and the money keeps flowing. It’s a filthy relationship that makes everyone filthy rich. Everyone except thee and me. Everyone except We the Overtaxed People. We get ripped off.

The maverick Donald Trump doesn’t need anyone’s help so the Dems can’t control him either.

Worse, the radical Donald Trump may well prosecute the movers and shakers of that unholy triad, starting with Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton themselves and that keeps people up at night.

Even Bernie Sanders wouldn’t do what Mr. Trump could.

Hence the adjectives thrown around. “Toxic.” “Racist.” “Scam.”

Misinformation. It’s what they do.

Is Mr. Trump causing or simply riding the toxic atmosphere?

John Dickerson took Mr. Trump to task for the violence at his campaign rallies.

I call foul.

Mr. Sanders says “Donald Trump has been incredibly divisive…”

Interesting. It’s Mr. Trump’s fault when his supporters take a shot, but never the good guys who the first punch. Never, Mr. Sanders said. “Our campaign has never once organized any effort disrupt Mr. Trump’s rallies…”

In fact, every news report I’ve seen blames Mr. Trump for the increasing violence at his events and every news report I’ve seen fails to mention the Demoratic candidates the violent protestors represent. And no reporter would ever blame a Demoratic protestor for the rampages.

A Gallup poll last year found that six in 10 Americans say that their trust in mass media ranges from “not very much” to “none at all.” Trust in the mass media has fallen even more sharply among those younger than 50.

I wonder why.

Mr. Trump has 460 delegates to Mr. Cruz’ 370, Mr. Rubio’s 163, and Mr. Kasich’s 63. Ms. Clinton has 771 pledged delegates plus probably 460 “superdelegates” vs. Mr. Sanders’ 576.

There are 718 superdelegates whose sole purpose is to put their fingers on the scale to prevent nominations like that of Bernie Sanders who displeases the party insiders. Right now the Repugs are wishing they had superdelegates. Right now the Repugs are probably rewriting the convention rules so they do have superdelegates.

Americans also gave the GOP a 63% favorable rating and the Demorats 61% in 2015. This is the only time since Gallup began tracking the parties’ images in 1992 that neither party has achieved at least 40% favorability from the public.

I wonder why.

Tomorrow is another big day with five presidential primary elections and a Repuglican party caucus (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, the Northern Marianas, North Carolina, and Ohio. Florida and Ohio are winner-take-all on the Republican side).

I expect you’ll vote for someone tomorrow. I hope you won’t vote for the worst liars in the bunch (pantsuit-on-Fire Hillary Clinton, UnTrusTED Cruz, or second string Marco Rubio).

Who’s left?

We need a loose cannon in politics now more than ever but we’ve been growing little water pistols and arming them with blanks, I wrote four years ago. It’s even more true today, although the water pistoleers are starting to load acid.

I wrote more about Burning the Bern over here.

Loose cannons Donald Trump on the middle right and Bernie Sanders on the far left. I hope you will vote for one or the other tomorrow. Instead of derailing the Donald, let’s derail the parties.

In any event, the only positive political ads on TV during the news are for Viagra and Cialis. Yeppers, we’re gonna get screwed.