Amen to All That.

More common sense from Donald Trump, speaking today at St. Norbert's in DePere, Wisconsin:

“The people that are the happiest are not necessarily the people that are the wealthiest,” Mr. Trump said, explaining that he knows plenty of miserable millionaires.

Mr. Trump said that having a good family and finding fulfilling work is more important than getting rich, and that people should do what they love, even if the big profits are not there.

“I’m pretty happy,” Mr. Trump said. “At least, I’m pretty content, I tell you.”

The keys to success, according to Mr. Trump, are never quitting, taking few vacations and not losing momentum — a crucial ingredient that he said could lead to failure if lost.

What We Like.

The United States cannot afford to be the policeman of the world people. We have to rebuild our own country...

Hitting Hard.

Donald Trump is wisely focusing his fiscal intelligence on the issues that will affect America's future, and are shaping us today. He's hitting it hard, again and again. Why should the US pay to protect Saudia Arabia, Germany and Japan? Do we understand that when there is no more money, our power is gone?

The Change needs to start yesterday, not words but actions...

Message? Some Lives Matter More Than Others...

Let's Talk About Important Issues, Mr. President.

Do you think Donald's Trump popularity owes to his fiscal intelligence, his ability to apply it to foreign policy in common sense ways that the people can understand? I do.

Read this article from the Sunday Chicago Tribune, and tell me if you think American taxpayer dollars are being well spent in Syria.

CIA-armed militias are shooting at Pentagon-armed ones in Syria
Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter 5-year-old civil war.

The fighting has intensified over the past two months, as CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones have repeatedly shot at each other as they have maneuvered through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo, U.S. officials and rebel leaders have confirmed.

In mid-February, a CIA-armed militia called Fursan al Haq, or Knights of Righteousness, was run out of the town of Marea, about 20 miles north of Aleppo, by Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces moving in from Kurdish-controlled areas to the east.

"Any faction that attacks us, regardless from where it gets its support, we will fight it," said Maj. Fares Bayoush, a leader of Fursan al Haq.
...
"This is a complicated, multisided war where our options are severely limited," said a U.S. official, who wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter. "We know we need a partner on the ground. We can't defeat ISIL without that part of the equation, so we keep trying to forge those relationships." ISIL is an acronym for the Islamic State.

President Barack Obama recently authorized a new Pentagon plan to train and arm Syrian rebel fighters, relaunching a program that was suspended in the fall after a string of embarrassing setbacks, which included recruits being ambushed and handing over much of their U.S.-issued ammunition and trucks to an al-Qaida affiliate.

Amid the setbacks, the Pentagon late last year deployed about 50 special operations forces to Kurdish-held areas in northeastern Syria to better coordinate with local militias and help ensure U.S.-backed rebel groups aren't fighting one another.

But such skirmishes have become routine.

You owe it to your country to read the whole thing.
Don't say later, you didn't know.

"Mary."

He just said her name, and she immediately recognized him. That's all it took...

John 20:11-18
New International Version (NIV)

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

The power of intimacy, of presence.

The Times' Take...

on Paul Ryan's speech today to House interns:

WASHINGTON — In an address billed as an examination of the future of politics, Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin on Wednesday admonished politicians in both parties for debasing political discourse, urging candidates to lift their gaze toward matters of serious policy and to strive for civility.

It was a familiar role for the speaker: He has become something of a Washington scold, deploring desultory campaigns and ill manners.

“Looking around at what’s taking place in politics today, it is so easy to get disheartened,” Mr. Ryan told an audience of House interns assembled for the speech. “How many of you find yourself just shaking your head at what you see from both sides of the aisle these days?”
...
Mr. Ryan has a reputation as a conservative intellectual who has worked hard to develop an agenda for Republicans. “Politics,” he said, “can be a battle of ideas, not insults.”

But what Mr. Ryan did not address in his speech has been the inability of Congress to turn those ideas into laws, even with Republican majorities in both houses, or to maintain much decorum in its own chambers.

When Republicans seized control of the Senate last year, they promised they had finally achieved the latitude they needed to act big: to rewrite and simplify the tax code to unleash economic growth, replace the health care law with “patient-centered” care, overhaul the criminal justice system, expand free trade and put the government on a path to a balanced budget.

Instead, after years of badgering Democrats about it, Republicans find themselves unable to even cobble together a budget, rewrite the tax code or move forward on changes to the criminal justice system.

A vast trade deal spanning the Pacific Ocean has had the life span of a Washington cherry blossom — it bloomed in bipartisan fashion, then faded away — and a Senate trade enforcement bill was watered down when it reached the House. While the Senate passed a bill to combat the opioid abuse crisis, a measure that would greatly help Senate Republicans running for re-election, it has yet to be considered in the House.

In lieu of a robust legislative schedule, Mr. Ryan has largely turned the House into a conservative think tank, where members meet to discuss ideas they hope the Republican nominee for the White House can turn into a platform. He also gives passionate speeches in which he begs for a more policy-focused and civilized campaign.

Speaking Wednesday in the House Ways and Means hearing room, Mr. Ryan spoke broadly against divisiveness but once again stopped short of specifics. He did implore his young audience to be thoughtful and civil, a clear swipe at Donald J. Trump, the front-runner for his party’s presidential nomination.

“All of us as leaders can hold ourselves to the highest standards of integrity and decency,” Mr. Ryan said.

Of course, if you define a leader as a person with people who imitate or copy his words and actions, Mr. Ryan is no real leader. He's just another speaker.... here, with a captive youth audience.

Meh.

Meanwhile, St. Paul Waits in the Wings...

Surely something will open up for him soon!

By Charles P. Pierce
March 22, 2016

WASHINGTON, D.C.—All three of the remaining presidential candidates got the prime speaking slots Monday night at the annual AIPAC policy conference, to which we were not invited, alas, although that seems to have been somewhat epidemic.

But any chance we get to hear Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin, talk about foreign policy, the area in which Joe Biden literally laughed him out of the campaign in 2012, is one that we never should pass up.

(Remember when Ryan explained to us that, in Afghanistan, it snows during the winter? Gravitas!)

Of all the barefaced pandering that went on yesterday, and Hillary Rodham Clinton was singing in tune Monday afternoon, the face of Ryan's pandering was the barest of all, and not just because he's lost the scruff he was cultivating a few months back. This was a guy doing more than rattling the saber. He was swinging it around his head until the air whistled. And, yes, this was a guy who's still thinking about being president, no matter how many non-facts he burbles out on the topic to various interviewers.

And, yes, on foreign policy, as is the case on economic policy, which I will continue to let Professor Krugman handle, Paul Ryan remains one of the biggest fakes we ever have seen. Let us begin and see where he leads us.

"To me, it is a lesson of history. For many years, we avoided what Thomas Jefferson called 'entangling alliances,' We were not as strong a country back then. And the great powers wanted to use us for their own purposes. There was no reason for us to play the pawn in their chess game. So we stayed out. That all changed in World War II. We learned the hard way that even if you don't go looking for trouble, it has a way of finding you."

Somehow, World War I, in which we certainly entangled ourselves in alliances, seems to have slipped Ryan's mind. Also, this formulation neatly elides the fact that the United States had been acting on its own, and quite imperialistically, for more than a half-century before Pearl Harbor. Probably because he wants to get to the Nazis and the Communists as quickly as possible, Ryan is trying to equate avoiding entangling alliances with isolationism. History shows that both can lead to the same bad ends.

"After the war was over, a new threat emerged: an aggressive and expansionist Soviet Union. The Soviets were setting up puppet regimes in Eastern Europe. They were aiming missiles at our friends in Western Europe. They were on the march in Asia and Africa and South America. And so we faced a choice. Either we could withdraw from the world, arm ourselves to the teeth, and make ourselves into a garrison state. Or we could pursue a forward-leaning defense. Create a community of free nations. Keep open the lanes of commerce. Build institutions that would foster cooperation. And that's exactly what we did."

And we overthrew elected governments willy-nilly, from Iran to Guatemala to Chile, and we killed countless millions of Asian peasants. And among the free nations with whom we were in community were Nicaragua under the Somozas and South Africa under apartheid. We continue.

"The threats are very different now. North Korea thumbs its nose at the world as it plays with its nuclear weapons. Iran openly backs tyrants and funds terrorist groups as it jockeys for dominance in the Middle East. An emboldened Russia is only too happy to try to reclaim its neighbors as client states. And with the rise of ISIS, an even deadlier strain of Islamist extremism has taken hold. Once again we face an aggressive militant ideology—with an assist from a gang of rogue states. And why is our relationship with Israel so important? Because in the fight against terrorism and proliferation, our interests are one and the same. For the terrorists, Israel is the first target, and we are the ultimate one. That's because we share the same values.

Yeah, he's running.

"Israel, like us, is a liberal democracy in a sea of authoritarian regimes. So when America helps Israel, both countries become stronger. Both countries are protecting our way of life.

Wait, whoa. The United States is "a liberal democracy in a sea of authoritarian regimes"? Why does Paul Ryan hate Canada so much? Or the U.K.? Or Ireland? Or the Finns, the Danes, the Swedes and the Norwegians? What is this man talking about? He's talking about delegates from Florida, is what he's talking about.

And so I want to leave you with this: I think we need to build a confident America. And the way I see it, a confident America does not shirk our commitments or shunt aside our allies. "A confident America does not distance itself from Israel or cozy up to Iran. A confident America keeps its word. It stands by our allies. It stands by Israel. Because that is what will keep the peace. That is what will keep us safe. That is what both of our countries need to thrive. "I know I just threw a lot at you. And you probably are thinking, 'What does a guy from Janesville, Wisconsin care about Israel?' But before I leave, I just wanted to say that there's actually a vibrant Jewish community in my state. And it's one that I'm very proud of.

Some of his best friends, you know…

Yeah, he's running. By not running, but he's running.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to November

Have you noticed? The media coverage today is overwhelmingly WWTD? What Would Trump Do?

Nevermind the lame-duck quacker laughing with Derek Jeter at the Rays-Cuba game this afternoon in Havana. Check out the headline tonight on this editorial in the Washington DC newspaper:

The horror in Brussels is a rebuke to Trump’s foreign policy

Belgium and other NATO allies are critical to the fight against terrorism.

It's almost as if they accept that Donald has been president these past 8 years. Except, Brussels is a screaming failure of the newly coined "Obama Doctrine", which advocates that the United States president stick his finger to the wind, and stealthily decide who to bomb and where. The world is our weapons-testing ground, it seems.

If someone in the US military dies, the mission becomes public. If not...

Whatever you choose to call it, can we all agree that for all the money spent thus far, it has not been effective? Is that fair to report?

I've never been more reminded of the mood of the country in the late 70s when Ronald Reagan came in to infuse the country with pride and a new fighting spirit. Just like the Washington media has bypassed the president now, and is looking to the candidates for leadership in the wars against terrorists -- on a day President Obama confidently proclaimed the Cold War over -- so too were we done with Jimmy Carter when the hostages were seized, and the world awaited new leadership.

Check out the headlines tomorrow and count them up: who is looking more and more like the US president today? Donald Trump, or Barack Obama?

Perhaps we could cut a deal: while the Obamas keep the seats warm, they could function as a symbolic first family, much like the royals do in Britain? We could have a separate leader for serious issues, like the ongoing wars and the need for defensive actions at home to secure America's porous borders before it happens here, again.

How to Put a Republican in teh White House.

or,
Liz Phair not Liz Mair.

(Honey, if you have to run ads featuring the presidential candidate's wife handcuffed and half-nekkid, you really ought to reconsider how far your political career has fallen, girl! Did you see the Arizona results rolling in? It's not like she has good political instincts, or is even effective or anything... Full disclosure: she was Scott Walker's secret weapon in Wisconsin too -- going negative and getting divisive. Online, she's practically begging people to call her a Jewish and gay slur. Is this really how the Democrats, or Ted Cruz, plan to win?)

Liz Mair ‏@LizMair · 1h1 hour ago

.@amandacarpenter Also looks like Trump is going to underperform 2nite, thanks to the ad. Otherwise, why start whining & making threats now?

and...

In reply to Donald J. Trump

Liz Mair ‏@LizMair · 1 hour ago

.@realDonaldTrump Hi Donald, I know you're really upset about that ad, but it was Make America Awesome's, not Ted Cruz's.

But this is the part I really don't like:

Liz Mair ‏@LizMair · 52 minutes ago

I'm surprised @realDonaldTrump didn't just take the approach to me his followers all do: YOU'RE A TRANNY LEZBO K*KE, RAWRRRR!!!!!

Own your own slurs, lady, even if they are self directed, like those college students who paint nooses and swastikas on their own dorm room doors to gain sympathy as a victim. Hate begets hate. Why do you hate yourself so, Liz?

What If...

more killing is NOT the answer, but rather, a more efficient strategy of identifying and fixing the weak and broken places (open borders) and building up a smarter gameplan is needed to help our country become a healthy place again?

U.S. Strike in Yemen Kills Dozens in Qaeda Affiliate, Officials Say
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

The airstrike was the latest sign that the Pentagon is hastening its strikes against militants in the Middle East and Africa.

Defense Wins Games.

All the points/kills in the world don't add up to much on a day like this.

And, oh my God, the cost here at home that we all continue to pay for investing so heavily in this life-is-cheap offensive set on scoring military kills....

What exactly has this gained us so far?

Take Me Out of the Ballgame...

Take me out to the crowds.
Buy me some peanuts and CrackerJack...
I don't care if I never come back!

Well it's root, root, root for the home team.
If they don't win, it's a shame...

For it's one! two! three strikes!
You're Out ... of the Old Ballgame!
-----------------------

*Because there's always next year, right?

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to November.

Have you noticed? The media coverage today is overwhelmingly WWTD? What Would Trump Do?

Nevermind the lame-duck quacker laughing with Derek Jeter at the Rays-Cuba game this afternoon in Havana. Check out the headline tonight on this editorial in the Washington DC newspaper:

The horror in Brussels is a rebuke to Trump’s foreign policy

Belgium and other NATO allies are critical to the fight against terrorism.

It's almost as if they accept that Donald has been president these past 8 years. Except, Brussels is a screaming failure of the newly coined "Obama Doctrine", which advocates that the United States president stick his finger to the wind, and stealthily decide who to bomb and where. The world is our weapons-testing ground, it seems.

If someone in the US military dies, the mission becomes public. If not...

Whatever you choose to call it, can we all agree that for all the money spent thus far, it has not been effective? Is that fair to report?

I've never been more reminded of the mood of the country in the late 70s when Ronald Reagan came in to infuse the country with pride and a new fighting spirit. Just like the Washington media has bypassed the president now, and is looking to the candidates for leadership in the wars against terrorists -- on a day President Obama confidently proclaimed the Cold War over -- so too were we done with Jimmy Carter when the hostages were seized, and the world awaited new leadership.

Check out the headlines tomorrow and count them up: who is looking more and more like the US president today? Donald Trump, or Barack Obama?

Perhaps we could cut a deal: while the Obamas keep the seats warm, they could function as a symbolic first family, much like the royals do in Britain? We could have a separate leader for serious issues, like the ongoing wars and the need for defensive actions at home to secure America's porous borders before it happens here, again.

Prescience and Gravitas.

Two traits I would not mind seeing return in an American president; enough already with the good-time Charlies...

By DAN BILEFSKY and CLAIRE BARTHELEMY -- JAN. 27, 2016

LONDON — He incensed Paris and London by saying that some of their neighborhoods were so overrun with radicals that the police were too scared to enter.

He raised Scottish tempers by threatening to pull the plug on his investments there, including his luxury golf courses, if British politicians barred him from entering Britain.

Now Donald J. Trump has upset the already beleaguered people of Belgium, calling its capital, Brussels, “a hellhole.”

Asked by the Fox Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo about the feasibility of his proposal to bar foreign Muslims from entering the United States, Mr. Trump argued that Belgium and France had been blighted by the failure of Muslims in these countries to integrate.

“ There is something going on, Maria,” he said. “Go to Brussels. Go to Paris. Go to different places. There is something going on and it’s not good, where they want Shariah law, where they want this, where they want things that — you know, there has to be some assimilation. There is no assimilation. There is something bad going on.”

Maybe it's time to stop being polite,
and start getting real? The Real World awaits...

Jean-Philippe Schreiber, a historian at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, said Mr. Trump was stirring up xenophobia. Brussels has its problems, he added, but Mr. Trump’s “hyperbolic” comments were not worthy of a response.

 

Indeed, Belgians could be forgiven for their sense of wounded pride. First, there is the beer, the galaxy of Michelin starred-restaurants, and a thriving design and art scene. Brussels also hosts its beloved Manneken Pis, a 17th-century bronze statue of a little boy urinating.

 

Channeling Mr. Trump’s provocative swagger, Mark Meirsman, a Belgian who works for the European Parliament, but who emphasized that he was writing in his personal capacity, wrote on Facebook that Mr. Trump should stand next to the Manneken Pis the next time he finds himself in Brussels (though not, Mr. Meirsman stressed, as president).

Not so funny today, eh?

Good Guys Don't Get Bombed!

Hey! That's not fair!

“I heard what sounded like a thud a minute or so before 8 a.m.,” he said. “It sounded like it could have been something dropped off the back of a truck. Ten to 20 seconds later, I heard a loud explosion and I immediately knew what it was. I saw smoke coming out of the front entrance of the airport.”

Photographs posted online showed passengers covered in blood and soot, looking stunned but conscious. Some passengers were seen being taken away on luggage carts.

Other images posted on social media showed smoke rising from a departure hall, where the windows had been blown out, and people running away from the building. Hundreds were herded outside.

Who would want to live like this, in perpetuity?
When will it ever end? A Change is Gonna Come...]

(President Obama was criticized for being MIA when the Paris bombings took place. "Michelle and I have special memories there..." Will be interesting if he cuts his island visit short and returns home for this one. Yes, I know there is ... "nothing he can do" but offer words. But his job is here, not opening new markets in Cuba. Plenty of time for visiting and schmoozing his way up when he officially leaves office...)

Give the People What They Want...

Trump’s foreign policy views are a sharp departure from GOP orthodoxy

Despite his bellicose rhetoric on the campaign trail, he sounded more interested in rebuilding the United States than in nation-building overseas.

Out of Iraq...

but not really...

Good thing he's overseas vacationing again.  President Obama has some 'splaining to do once he returns home to continue his service here as our wartime president.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon acknowledged on Monday that it had established a base in northern Iraq staffed solely by American Marines, a disclosure that followed an Islamic State rocket attack over the weekend that killed one Marine and wounded several others.

 

The White House has contended that the military is not conducting a combat mission in Iraq.

...

 

In a conference call with reporters, Colonel Warren said the Marines were not combat forces because they were positioned at the outpost to provide “force protection” to American military advisers working alongside Iraqi troops.

 

“They won’t kind of go off and conduct any type of mission on their own,” he said, referring to the Marines. “They don’t really have that capability anyways. They’re just providing coverage, right? They’re providing fire support coverage for the several thousand Iraqi soldiers and the several hundred advisers.”

 

The Pentagon said that 100 to 200 Marines were at the outpost, and that they were from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. They “began moving into Iraq within the last couple of weeks,” according to a statement from the public affairs office of Operation Inherent Resolve, the name of the American mission in Iraq.

 

Critics of the administration contend that it does not want to say the forces in Iraq are “in combat” because it would run counter to President Obama’s assertion that he ended combat missions there in 2010.

It really doesn't take a genius, or a student of history, to understand why the Founders set up our system of checks and balances to include the American people as the government.

We decide, through our elected legislative representatives, if we want to war or not. By bypassing Congress on our past dozen military excursions, we leave the American people out of the decision-making process and priority-setting process in whether we would prefer to invest our financial resources in our defense here at home, or in feeding our military a blank check to destroy the world in order to save it.

President Obama was elected in 2008 with a singular mandate: get us out of Iraq.

He can pretend, and lie to the American people, but he failed on that basic mission. AND... undertook many military missions that nobody here at home ever would have authorized.

We need to start discussing, out in the open, whether the American people support the drone military assassination program; whether we support extending the Mideast military wars into North African countries; whether we want to spend our taxpayer dollars abroad playing policeman to the world.

Iraq is broke.
No sense in throwing good money after bad, even if we did indeed break the country.

Come back home Mr. President, and explain how long this military base in northern Iraq will be staffed by Marine "advisors" and also tell us if you have any books about the history of VietNam queued up on your booklist.

Get reading. You could have been a lame duck, visiting, promoting and partying the final year away, but nooooo. The call for pre-emptive (as opposed to defensive) wars is just too great, it seems.

What a fool he is.
Still thinking our guns and military are somehow "helping"...


A Change is Gonna Come... sooner rather than later. Mark my words.

Monday Morning: You Sure Look Fine...

Not a warm, but a wonderful weekend
here in Wisconsin.  I've stocked up on spring
water from the tap, and we'll be back at a
holiday-shortened workweek soon enough.

Now just to prepare for the watercooler conversation
(I work with liberals), the facts we all can agree on
are:  a black male supporter of Donald Trump's
became enraged upon seeing two protester's
at a weekend rally, one sporting a KuKluxKlan hood.
He smacked and stomped the one man, not wearing
the hood.  Those are the facts, right?

I don't condone violence, but I wish we had a more
consistent policy about bullying, provocation and condemning
violence.  I still remember that immigrant storekeeper in
Ferguson who was pushed around before the cigarillos
were taken.  And I've seen youths walking down the
middle of the roads, daring cars to go around them...

Violence doesn't pay, and we've all got to respect decent
rules of civility so our tribal instincts don't kick in and
we're ruling not from logic but from primal identities and
separatist agendas...

Make it a great Monday, people!  I hope everyone is
well rested and ready to get back to work... lots left
undone, it seems.

Saturday, March 19

Cinderella Seasons.

The little guys are rising up, on merit, and sending the big names home...

It's not just athletics and politics anymore, it's journalism too!

Nick Denton ought to slink away already...

Thursday, March 17

Oh, and here's another Friday song...

Conway Twitty:  Tight Fittin' Jeans

Make it a great weekend
with your loved ones...
whenever you get it
started!

"Tight Fittin' Jeans"
She tried to hide it by the faded denim clothes she wore

But I knew she'd never been inside a bar before.
I felt like a peasant who just had met a queen,
and she knew I saw right through her tight fittin' jeans.

I asked her, what's a woman like you doin' here?
I see you're used to champagne but I'll buy you a beer.
She said, "You've got me figured out, but I'm not what I seem.
And for a dance I'll tell you 'bout these, tight fittin' jeans...

She said, "I married money. I'm used to wearin' pearls.
But I've always dreamed of bein' just a good ol' boys girl.
So tonight I left those crystal candle lights to live a dream.
And partner, there's a tiger in these tight fittin' jeans."

We danced every dance and Lord the beer that we went through...
I'm satisfied I did my best to make her dream come true.
As she played out her fantasy before my eyes it seemed,
a cowgirl came alive inside those tight fittin' jeans.

In my mind she's still a lady, that's all I'm gonna say...
I knew that I'd been broken by the time we parted ways.
And I know I held more woman than most eyes have ever seen
That night I knew a lady wearin', tight fittin' jeans.

Well now she's back in her world and I'm still stuck in mine
But I know I'll always remember the time...
A cowboy once had a millionaire's dream.
And Lord I love that lady wearin', tight fittin' jeans.

Wednesday, March 16

Trump Kept A-Rollin' All Night Long...

Train Kept A-Rollin'... All Night Long!
With a heave,
and a ho...

I just hope all the people who urged others to respect the office if not the president over the past eight years don't prove hypocritical when speaking about issues of violence and pre-emptive hatred toward our next president...

In the interest of diversity, there's nothing at all wrong with putting a person who has raised a son or two in the White House.  It's been far too long and our nation needs to again reflect American reality in valuing all lives, and respecting equal opportunities while magically hoping for equal outcomes too.

Trump Kept A-Rollin' All Night Long...

Thursday, March 10

How to Put a Republican in the White House.

Read this.

Washington, D.C.—The moment many foreign policy observers consider one of the worst of Barack Obama’s presidency—not bombing Syria in the summer of 2013 after Bashar al-Assad had breached the “red line” on chemical weapons—the president sees as one of his best.

But I betcha Goldberg did not interview any Europeans, or the refugees flooding their countries from the fallout war in Syria before he awarded the president his personal gold star of approval...

Through many hours of in-depth and unusually candid interviews, The Atlantic offers an exclusive and historic account of President Obama’s worldview, in which the president offers extensive explanations of his hardest decisions about America’s role in the world.

The Atlantic’s April cover story, “The Obama Doctrine,” is up now at TheAtlantic.com and will be on sale newsstands next week.

National Correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed President Obama in the White House, aboard Air Force One, and in Malaysia, and spoke to many of his current and former top national-security and foreign-policy advisors for this cover story.

Across 19 pages—the longest article The Atlantic has published in more than a decade—Goldberg details Obama’s deliberations on the most important international moments of recent history: from not enforcing the “red line” in Syria—which Obama calls “as tough a decision as I’ve made and I believe ultimately it was the right decision to make”—to the nuclear deal with Iran, to the threat of ISIS, to the “shit show” of Libya*, to Russia and Ukraine.

I know Jeffrey Goldberg, and the Atlantic, think that this fawning story about the Obama Doctrine is positive.  But for independent thinkers, it just shows why we cannot afford to put another candidate like this in the White House for a long, long time.

The cover is part of a multimedia report at TheAtlantic.com, including videos, interactives, and additional commentary and analysis by a panel of foreign-policy experts that will roll out across the next week.

One video provides a narrative account of Obama’s “red line” decisions on Syria; in a second, Goldberg and Bennet dive deeper into the piece and Goldberg’s reporting.

Bennet and Goldberg will talk about “The Obama Doctrine” at Sixth & I on March 30 in Washington, D.C. Event tickets are on sale now. Media credentials are available.

I hope the media continues to self promote their cross-media platforms with this angle:  that President Obama is doing a good job as World President, has surrounded himself with capable people who are turning in positive results, and the rest of us voters are just too dumb to acknowledge it.

Quietly, we gain strength, even as the country continues to lose...

Yes, there will be answer...  Let it be.

----------------------------------------

*On the unfixability of the Middle East:

Goldberg reports that the mess of Libya proved to Obama that the Middle East was best avoided. “There is no way we should commit to governing the Middle East and North Africa,” he recently told a former colleague from the Senate. “That would be a basic, fundamental mistake.”

“Right now, I don't think anybody can be feeling good about the situation in the Middle East. You have countries that are failing to provide prosperity and opportunity for their people. You've got a violent, extremist ideology, or ideologies, that are turbocharged through social media. You've got countries that have very few civic traditions, so that as autocratic regimes start fraying, the only organizing principles are sectarian.”—President Obama

“ISIS is not an existential threat to the United States. Climate change is a potential existential threat to the entire world if we don’t do something about it.”—President Obama

Oy!  If he was a smart lame duck, he'd stop quacking and just head south to take in the ballgames already...

Look at the South Side of Chicago, and the results today of his community organizing work there.  Under Rahm, Obama is afraid to speak out, it seems.  Those children being drawn into alleys to take a bullet in the head?  You wonder why he doesn't understand that his son would look an awful lot like those little boys...

Where are his priorities, flying around the world rallying against our collective carbon footprints? 

Does he really think history will judge him as kindly as today's Washington media, when he's clearly not taking responsibility and trying to blame others for his presidency?

On Europe’s responsibility for the “shit show” of Libya:

Obama blames Great Britain and France, in part, for losing Libya (which he refers to privately as the “shit show”). “When I go back and I ask myself what went wrong, there’s room for criticism, because I had more faith in the Europeans, given Libya’s proximity, being invested in the follow-up.”—President Obama

Make it a great weekend, and happy St. Patrick's Day!
We'll be offline for some time here, getting tasks accomplished now that the weather has turned and we're planning for the seasons to come...

See you come Spring!

We lost... We lost... We lost... We lost... We lost...

JORGE RAMOS (MODERATOR): I want to continue with the issue of trust. Secretary Clinton, on the night of the attacks in Benghazi, you sent an email to your daughter Chelsea saying that an "Al Qaeda-like group" was responsible for the killing of the Americans. However some of the families claim that you lied to them. Here's Pat Smith, the mother of the information officer Sean Smith. Let's listen.

[BEGIN VIDEO CLIP]
PATRICIA SMITH: Hillary, and Obama, and Panetta, and Biden, and Susan Rice all told me it was a video when they knew, they knew it was not the video. And they said that they would call me and let me know what the outcome was.  

HILLARY CLINTON: You know look, I feel a great deal of sympathy for the families of the four brave Americans that we lost at Benghazi, and I certainly can't even imagine the grief that she has for losing her son. But she's wrong. She's absolutely wrong. I and everybody in the administration, all the people she named, the president, the vice president, Susan Rice, we were scrambling to get information that was changing literally by the hour. And when we had information, we made it public but then sometimes we had to go back and say we have new information that contradicts it. So I testified for eleven hours. Anybody who watched that and listened to it knows that I answered every question that I was asked and when it was over the Republicans had to admit they didn't learn anything. Why? Because there had already been one independent investigation, there had been seven or eight congressional investigations, mostly led by Republicans, who all reached the same conclusions: that there were lessons to learned. And this is not the first time we lost Americans in a terrorist attack. We lost 3,000 people on 9/11. We lost Americans serving in embassies in Tanzania and Kenya when my husband was president. We lost over 250 Americans both military and civilian when Ronald Reagan was president in Beirut. And at no other time of those tragedies were they politicized. Instead people said let's learn the lesson and save lives. And that's what I did.

I never understood the people who thought it was a good thing to go out drinking with their ideological opponents after a loss* -- all in the spirit of bipartisanship, of team bonding, or whatever nonsense tells you that it's good to be civil with people that you honestly think are on the wrong side of an issue and harming the country.

I think it's good to win, and I hate losing.  Always have....
You shouldn't get too comfortable telling people, "We lost..."  Especially when you are talking about the lives of other people's children...

"And that's why we don't take children!"

Who remembers that horrific scene in Saving Private Ryan where the father of the poor family huddled in their destroyed home urges his young daughter on the soldiers, hoping to save her alone?  Carpazo the soft-hearted, short-term thinker dies; chaos ensues; and the scene ends with the child slapping her father after finally being returned alive in one piece to her family:

[A] hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

The witness was Attorney General Loretta Lynch. The subject was the troubling phenomenon of young children being forced to go through immigration court without lawyers. 

It’s the result of the influx of tens of thousands of Central American immigrants seeking asylum at the border, many of them minors traveling alone. ... She added, “We do not take the view that children can represent themselves.”

She also noted that the Department of Justice isn’t required do anything about the problem. “The current law does not provide the right to counsel,” she said. 

This is true -- unlike defendants in criminal cases, defendants in immigration court cannot demand lawyers at taxpayer expense.

"And that's why we don't take children!"

 Well-meaning people can cause big messes when they try to help allegedly doomed children by giving incentives to parents to put them out in the world on their own, too soon.  If you don't believe me, just watch what happens to these children from Central America rightly being returned to their families and homes.  

At least 18 -- preferably 21 -- to legally emigrate alone on your own two feet.  Stay home and grow.  Just like we teach American teens to stay in school, don't drop out.  The world needs to get the message. Loud and clear from America.  

You'll be turned back at the borders. Period. No illegal entry.  Won't you help save the children?

No, I would not give you false hope. 
in our strange and mournful day. 
But the mother and child reunion
is only a motion away... 

23 + 24.

That's where we stand, after Wednesday.
Weekend hours will not be happening,*
and the temperature declined to 37 again.

Still, the food was good, everyone is hacking
and coughing and I'm still healthy.  No wood
needed to knock even...

(and how was your day?)

I read some interesting things.  At work even!
And we're only guiding the Somali soldiers
it turns out:  advising them, equipping them,
flying them in, but waiting safely in the choppers
for their safe and successful return.  It's going
so smoothly, I read, we don't even need to
consult here at home about who the military
chooses to target...

(No Wars Here!)

Thank those who are killing in your name tonight
to keep you safe and sound at home.  They are
keeping us safe, right? And we owe our security
and obliviousness to those not killing in our country's
name.  Just supporting our allies in the world!

(Systematic-like.)

It's the way the world works now, you know...
course you won't see a skit like that on SNL.
Too hard to stage.
------------
* Not by my choice.  The night project likely
wraps by tomorrow or Friday.  (We've mined
all we can, with what we've been given..."-=)

Wednesday, March 9

Gee, I Wonder Why his Dog Died...

JohnKelly ‏

What I miss most since our dog died is not having him clean up the food I drop. Such a chore to lean over for peanuts and potato chips.

--------------------------

They're animals*, people.  

Feed and run them as such 

if you want them to live.  

They're not human toys, really.
(Don't feed them "people food".)

------

* as are we.  That's not an insult either.

It's just understanding how life works.

Make is a great spring Wednesday !

The sap in the trees is running, and
you better have your icehouses off the lakes.
The dogs will soon enough be lapping it up,
and not licking at the snow for a drink, when out.

Tuesday, March 8

Trump Wins in Michigan.

Jebbie you're a boy make a big noise
Playing in the street, gonna be a big man some day.
You got mud on your face
You big disgrace
Kickin' your can all over the place
Singin'

We will we will rock you ... We will we will rock you

Teddie you're a young man hard man
Shouting in the street gonna take on the world some day
You got blood on your face
You big disgrace
Wavin' your Banner all over the place

We will we will rock you

Singin'

We will we will rock you

Marco you're an small man poor man
Pleading with your eyes gonna make you some peace some day
You got mud on your face
Big disgrace
Somebody better put you back into your place

We will we will rock you
We will we will rock you

singing

We will we will rock you
We will we will rock you

everybody

We will we will rock you
We will we will rock you

---------------------------

Trump looks good down in Jupiter, sporting the pink tie for International Women's Day.  He's like the running back who gains strength as he breaks tackles and continues advancing, earning every yard, with all the players (and referees and sideline reporters) trying to jump on him and drag him down...

He'll look even better at home next week, after he takes Florida.  (I wonder where the next super-secret, off-the-record, media-strategy planning session will take place.  Bohemian Grove?  What card do they have left to play, after pulling out the Hitler trump card so early in the campaign?  Oh, I know... the strategy is working perfectly:  the white working-class will be so feared, everyone will just jump into the waiting arms of Hillary...  Sheesh!  Who comes up with this stuff anyway??)

Congratulations, Mr. Trump.
Sleep well.


ADDED:  Some It's a Wonderful Life advice for Hillary:
 "Harry wasn't there to save them, because you weren't there to save Harry..."

Extrapolate away to all the Democratic voters the party has written off in the past, while practicing identity politics.  "You weren't there for us, and now the working class -- the independent labor vote -- is not there for you..."

The Future of the Democratic Party.

"I'm on a mission that Dreamers say is impossible. But when I swing my sword, they all choppable."

(I didn't say it was a bright future... He's just the latest young man who's been picked to win. Like Marco Rubio, for the Republicans. Hillary's got debts to pay, and many promises to make before she sleeps.)

No Comment Necessary.

Why do they hate democracy and American workers, and think they should decide the election, not the American people?

Silicon Valley may be a bastion of liberals, but the threat of a Donald Trump presidency had some of technology’s biggest names meeting behind closed doors with members of the Republican elite. 

Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder and Alphabet CEO Larry Page, billionaire Facebook investor Sean Parker and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk met with GOP officials last weekend to talk about stopping the mogul-turned-reality-star from becoming president, according to a report by The Huffington Post, citing people familiar with the event.

“There was much unhappiness about his emergence, a good deal of talk, some of it insightful and thoughtful, about why he’s done so well, and many expressions of hope that he would be defeated,” Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol wrote...

“The key task now … is less to understand Trump than to stop him,” Kristol continued. “In general, there’s a little too much hand-wringing, brow-furrowing, and fatalism out there and not quite enough resolving to save the party from nominating or the country electing someone who simply shouldn’t be president.”

The off-the-record meeting happened as part of the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute’s annual World Forum, a famously secretive summit on a private island resort off the coast of Georgia.

Attendees included Republican strategist Karl Rove, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.

I suspect these Republican businessmen have gotten addicted to the too-big-to-fail bailouts, and will be needing to squeeze more from the American workers in the years to come.

Why earn it if you can just mandate it and work secretly behind the scenes to "achieve" it, setting up your sons for generations to come?

The Parable of the Rich Fool(s)

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”


And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’


“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’


“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’


“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

$50 million for Erin Andrews nudie pics?

Oh boy does that jury not understand incentives or the free-market system...

And paid for by Hilton Hotels, of all things.

Somewhere, a Kardashian is tossing in her sleep.

Mandating Parents Provide Lawyers for their Children.

Migrant Children Deserve a Voice in Court By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Children who fled to the United States from Central America must have fair hearings before deportation. -------------------- The NYT editorial board is at it again... Just last summer, children whose parents found it difficult to provide for them in Central America came streaming North, in search of food, shelter and the American way of life.  They found it.  President Obama finally stepped in to say, America will not admit these children.  Stop sending them on the dangerous journey North. Now, the board, in all their wisdom, wants to mandate that before these children can be sent home, as we eventually did years ago with Cuban citizen Emilio Gonzalez, that the parents must pay for an attorney to represent their children.  A few months ago, the parents had no money to feed their children.  Now, they've worked here long enough to pay for an attorney before their children can be properly processed and sent home?   Where are they going to come up with that money? That's why people go pro se, and represent themselves in court.  The editorial board should think twice before mandating people provide for their children what they have very little chance of affording.  Think personal choice:  Lawyers don't work for free, and the family should first purchase food and necessities, not a lawyer. If an American-born anchor baby must be left behind in social services while the family returns home, there should be private incentives provided for transportation, so the child can remain with the family and not stay alone with the United States social welfare system serving as parent and guardian. Of course, I live in the real world.   What do I know?

Monday, March 7

83.5.

It was a record high for me last week.
No, not the temperature here. (though our overnight was in the mid 40s last night, with a high in the 50s or 60s today:  Spring arrived mid-day Saturday.  Those of us working the weekend shift here walked out at 5pm into balmy Southern breezes...)

That's my total hours worked, between the two projects on the two shifts, with Saturday work.  (Saturday's child works for a living...)

What's my trick?
Be prepared.  I worked, slept, commuted by bus, train and car, alternately, and cooked my big meals on the weekend.  A roast beef, pasties, and chili keeps -- to be reheated later, as do cooked potatoes (white and sweet), carrots, and raw fruits and vegetables too.  (I splurged on the black grapes even.)

If you eat good, get as much rest as you can, and pace yourself, the paychecks are nice.  My quality of work is good, and the hard deadline is midweek for one project.

There's something about working, that even the strongest social safety net cannot provide.  Never forget, or settle for second best.

ADDED:   Also, I got a clean Spring haircut yesterday, losing all the dry brittle "winter" hair.  We cut down to the healthy stuff, which still left plenty of body and wave, and I truly feel like a new person today.  Go Me!  ;-)

Saturday, March 5

Trump's People Disdain "Caucuses".

Cruz Defeats Trump in Kansas

First Results as Five States Vote

By JONATHAN MARTIN 7 minutes ago

Some caucuses have closed in Kansas and Maine on a day when five states, including Nebraska, Louisiana and Kentucky, vote.

----------------------------

For reasons explained below...

You'll Never Draw a Taxpayer Dime in This Town Again.

Journalists working this Saturday, or the Sunday shows,
ought to ask Mrs. Clinton if she disavows her work with Philippe Reines.*  He sat much closer to the Washington seats of power than David Duke -- though never exactly in 'em -- bringing his puckish sense of humor to his job in wartime Washington.

He doesn't have the educational background, nor the sense of propriety to get a high-level security clearance.**  He was a boyish jokester -- a wannabe stand-up in a sit-down job -- drawing a public paycheck.

No joke:  ask her if people like this will continue to surround her in Washington.  (and for heaven's sake, somebody teach her how to hit Control P, to print her own emails.)

----------------------------------------
* Then they ought to find Tom Donilon and ask him if Mrs. Clinton has been in touch to apologize profusely, and disavow herself from Reines directly.

If not, the people voting in the Democratic primary ought to throw their support behind Bernie Sanders so they'll at least lose with an honest dignity come November.  There's no way Clinton can win now if she still thinks "fixers" like this -- who only help break things then move on letting other clean up after them -- are to be respected and employed.

Call Rahm Emanuel too and ask him how his pugnacious, better-than-you, unaccountable style is working out in helping him lead in the long run.  Jon Gruber too.  We're cleaning out the Washington stables folks. Take it elsewhere.

Of course, I believe a-change is gonna come in Chicago one day too...

Long-term visionary.
(Vision is scary...)

**  Look up Benjamin Rhodes' background too, and tell me if you think your company's Human Resources director would consider him qualified under any algorithm for a big political job in Washington.   Voters are rejecting the "who you know" for the "what you know" candidates, and what we know is growing every day.

Well It's All Right, to be Little Bitty...

a little hometown or a big old city.

Might as well share, might as well smile.
Life goes on for a little bitty while.

A little bitty house and a little bitty yard
A little bitty dog and a little bitty car.

A little bitty baby in a little bitty gown.
It'll grow up in a little bitty town.

Big yellow bus and little bitty books
It all started with a little bitty look...

You know you got a job and a little bitty check.
Six-pack of beer and a television set...

Little bitty world goes around and around.
Little bit of silence and a little bit of sound.

A little bitty plan and a little bitty dream,
It's all part of a little bitty scheme...

Well, it's all right to be little bitty!
A little hometown or a big old city.

Might as well share, might as well smile.
Life goes on for a little bitty while...

~Jackson, Alan.

Friday, March 4

Two Men Enter...

One Man Leaves...

(Rubio and Cruz, like Ryan, are but boys in my classification system).

Sunshine State.

With Angela Bassett, Edie Falco, Mary Alice, Bill Cobbs, and the man who played the father on the Waltons (Ralph Waite)...

Rent it this weekend.
Worth seeing now more than ever.
Timely and all.

Best line:  "She doesn't write... She doesn't call..." (headshake)
Directed by John Sayles.

Turn Out the Lights... the Party's Over.

So Mitt Romney and John McCain are on the lecture circuit?  Spare me.  What kind of Christians literally set the world on fire, and think they can tell the young people how it's going to be anymore?  Don't they get it?  What have they done?  Time's up:  is the world better or worse for your leadership contributions?  You two could not even stop George W., you want a piece of our future now?  Can't have it all fellas, just like I tell the ladies.  Hell you'd think McCain was in a war we won or something the way he's tried to continue dominating the spotlight in his old age.  Time's up, fellas.  Do us all a favor, wise up, take your sons, and retreat to man your personal palace(s).  You know, we're coming for your car elevator(s), Mitt... Bwahahaha!

I will do more than belong; I will participate.
I will do more than care; I will help.
I will do more than believe; I will practice.
I will do more than be fair; I will be kind.
I will do more than forgive; I will work.
I will do more than earn; I will enrich.
I will do more than teach; I will inspire.
I will do more than give; I will serve.
I will do more than live; I will grow.
I will do more than be friendly; I will be a friend.
 —Submitted by Liz Keen

“Do ye also to them likewise.” —Luke 6:31

The Parable of the Rich Fool

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

--------------------------

ADDED:  Matthew and Luke traced Jesus' lineage through Joseph back to King David.  He fulfilled the prophecy of the one coming from the house of David through his earthly adoptive father, if you believe...

In Jeremiah 23:5, as well as in other Bible prophecies, we are told that the Messiah would be a descendant of King David.  The New Testament books of Matthew and Luke trace back Jesus' genealogy to King David. (Some scholars believe that the genealogy in Matthew is Jesus' legal line, through his adoptive father, Joseph, and that the genealogy in Luke is Jesus' bloodline through Mary).

Jeremiah 23:5 (NIV):
"The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land.

Don't be a fool.
Just don't be a fool...

Some People Stay Far Away from the Door...

if there's a chance of it opening up.
They hear a voice in the hall outside
and hope that it just passes by...

Some people live with the fear of a touch
and the anger of having been a fool.
They will not listen to anyone so
nobody tells them a lie.

I know don't want to hear what I say.
I know you're going to keep turning away.
But I've been there and if I can survive
I can keep you alive. I'm not above
going through it again.

I'm not above being cool for a while.
If you're cruel to me, I understand.

Some people shrink from a possible fight.
Some people just accept the world as it is.

But I'm not willing to lay down and die
because I am an Innocent Man.
I Am...
an Innocent Man.
Oh yes I am, an innocent man.
~ Billy Joel (with liberties, and Liberty DeVitto...)
--------------------

Happy Friday, friends.
Keep on spinning the old tunes.

Wednesday, March 2

If You Read Only One Thing Today...

Read this.

In fundamental ways, the 2016 Democratic primary has been a litigation of the Obama years, and of whether the president’s 2008 campaign vow of “change we can believe in” succeeded or failed. The Hillary Clinton campaign has been built around the notion that, indeed, President Obama achieved substantial, progressive change, in the face of unprecedented and partly race-based obstruction, change that can be made durable only by electing a Democratic president willing to hold the line.

Mr. Sanders’s campaign, meanwhile, is an implicit critique of that proposition. It is premised on the idea that Mr. Obama promised sweeping, revolutionary change and failed, and that Mr. Sanders can succeed where Mr. Obama didn’t, by unleashing a huge outpouring of popular pressure on Washington.

The Sanders effort has attracted a fierce following among young people, political independents, McGovernite liberals once forced into political exile by Bill Clinton’s Democratic Leadership Council, and working-class white voters, whose broad sense of anger, economic displacement and distrust of institutions are also fueling the rise of Donald J. Trump on the right.

Then go to the Comments Section, and read from top to bottom the "Readers Picks", what the highest-ranked public comments say.

Take care:  You honestly might learn something...
( apart from the sunny optimism that Presdent Obama is doing a wonderful job!, and it's only haters disputing this, which is the continuing propaganda coming out of the national mainstream media.)

Primary Lessons from Georgia.

Donald Trump seems unstoppable. His victory in Georgia was complete. The narrative that he relies exclusively on poorly educated voters was shattered, again, in the Peach State and other Super Tuesday states. Exit polls here showed him leading in almost every category of voter, including college graduates and wealthier households.

Dry your eyes, and learn more here?

Minnesotans Don't Count. They "Caucus".

or, How Marco's Establishment People Finally Won One.
Did you know:  it's not a primary vote that chooses the party's nominees, but a caucus?  There is so little turnout from the voting public here, you have to go to a website and type in your zipcode and location to be steered to a larger place much further from your regular voting precinct, because they need to put together a crowd.  It's 7pm caucusing, not straight private voting, like we all will be doing come November.

"Minnesota has extremely high voter turnout in general elections," said Eric Ostermeier, a University of Minnesota political scientist and writer. "If that's something that's important, why at this stage ... would you hang on to a process which everyone knows is going to have an extremely low turnout?"

(Remember: our high temp yesterday was in the low 20s.  Rational older people stay in, don't go running out to play politics with other people in public, in the winter, where a heated germ exchange like a public school  -- or a busy grocery store, even -- is likely not where smart elders want to be, anywhere out after dark, in case the car goes off the road and you freeze to death...)

Nobody I know -- even the overtly political lawyers -- chose to spend their Tuesday night caucusing.  (I was working, myself.  Much better rate of return, as a single earner, with no tax deductibles to write off, creatively or honestly.  Percentagewise, more of my income is going to build tomorrow's America than you, I suspect, so I take fiscal leadership seriously.  And foreign policy too.  Did you know the Obama doctrine we're advancing in the world has us assassinating people in Africa now?  More wars, more and more and more and more...)

See you in November, in the regular voting locations!  Something tells me, if you wanted a chance to vote for young Marco Rubio in Minnesota, last night was likely your sole opportunity...
---------------------

Added:  Just time for one comment reply this morning:

CStanley said...

    I agree with those saying that Cruz needs to be the one to stop Trump, even though I voted Rubio.
-------------

You don't need to stop Trump.
You need to override the will of the American people.

Good luck with that, as the establishment elite are slowly coming to realize...  They're shitting bricks (not of gold) at the New York Times editorial staff room.  Hell even the token "conservative" Ross Douthat is crying, poor guy. Remember:  these are the people who believe that the majority of Americans still support President Obama's promises of making the world a better place. at American taxpayer expense... 

Imagine how much a Trump presidential victory will blow away everything they want to promote about 21st century America.

A Change Is Gonna Come... 

Make it a great Wednesday, working Americans!
Hump day, if you're not pulling a weekend shift...
 ======================
ADDED:  I feel your pain.  Even if you still can't acknowledge mine.

The Party of Trump, and the Path Forward for Democrats

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The Republicans seem to be reeling from the fact that a shady, bombastic liar is hardening the image of their party as a symbol of intolerance.

You say hardening, I say strengthening...
There's a difference, you know.

*(and shame on you for playing the race card because your intellectual ways of doing business these past decades are losing, and have fallen out of favor in the rest of the country.  Your abundance of money really can't help you now...  You can't buy your way out of this mess you've put the rest of the world in.  No more bailouts, capiche?  Put on your dungarees, folks, plenty of cleanup work in the years to come...  The great giveaway days are gone.)

Plus:  Not much better over at the WaPo: 

Trump supporters are inoculated against the truth.  By Kathleen Parker

Poor Kathleen.  She's self-reportedly suffering from a traumatic brain injury after she took a nasty fall months ago, but even so, you expect a Pulitzer-prize winning political columnist to be more attuned to reality.  She's not penning a humor column, you know.

Tuesday, March 1

The Devil Bowed His Head...

because he knew that he'd been beat.
And he lay that golden fiddle on the ground,
at Donny's feet.

Donny said:  "Devil you just come on back
if you ever want to try again...
I done told you once, you son of a bush,
I'm the Best That's Ever Been!"

(and he played, "Fire on the Mountain:  Run Boys Run!"
Devil's in the House of the Rising Sun...
Chicken in the Breadpan Picking Out Dough...
"Granny does your dog bite?"
"No child, no...")

Or as Skynyrd says:  "Turn It Up!"

The Devil went down to Georgia.
He was lookin' for a soul to steal.
He was in a bind 'cause he was way behind.

He was willing to make a deal.
When he came across this young man sawin' on a fiddle and playin' it hot.
the Devil jumped upon a hickory* stump and said:

"Boy, let me tell you what...."

"I guess you didn't know it, but I'm a fiddle player, too.
And if you'd care to take a dare I'll make a bet with you.
Now you play a pretty good fiddle, boy, but give the Devil his due.
I'll bet a fiddle of gold against your soul 'cause I think I'm better than you."

The boy said, "My name's Johnny, and it might be a sin,
But I'll take your bet; and you're gonna regret 'cause I'm the best there's ever been."

Johnny, you rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard.
'Cause Hell's broke loose in Georgia and the Devil deals the cards.
And if you win you get this shiny fiddle made of gold,
But if you lose the devil gets your soul.

The Devil opened up his case and he said, "I'll start this show."
And fire flew from his fingertips as he rosined up his bow.
And he pulled the bow across the strings and it made an evil hiss.
And a band of demons joined in and it sounded something like this.

When the Devil finished, Johnny said, "Well, you're pretty good ol' son,
But sit down in that chair right there and let me show you how it's done."

"Fire on the Mountain." Run, boys, run!
The Devil's in the house of the rising sun;
Chicken's in the bread pan picking out dough.
Granny, does your dog bite? No, child, no.

The Devil bowed his head because he knew that he'd been beat.
And he laid that golden fiddle on the ground at Johnny's feet.
Johnny said, "Devil, just come on back. If you ever wanna try again,
I done told you once, you son of a bitch...—I'm the best that's ever been!"
And he played:

"Fire on the Mountain." Run, boys, run!
The Devil's in the house of the rising sun;
The chicken's in the bread pan picking out dough.
Granny, will your dog bite? No, child, no.

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* It's got your Old Hickory reference and everything...  lol.