AND NOW...IDIOTS

Communist with three houses says whaaaaat?

Sen. Bernie SandersBernard (Bernie) SandersDem senators request classified briefing on KhashoggiElection Countdown: One week from midterms | House battlefield expands | Trump doubles down on immigration | GOP campaign chief rebukes Steve King | Clinton team quiets 2020 talk | Sanders won't promise to serve full Senate termBernie Sanders to hold rally for Gillum in FloridaMORE (Babbling Moron-Vt.) on Tuesday went after President Trump, calling him “the most racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted president in history" during a campaign event for Maryland gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous (D). 

Campaign staffers “are working to make sure that the agenda of the most racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted president in history will go nowhere because Democrats will control the House and the Senate,” Sanders said of campaigns across the country.

I guess that means that the slaveholding US presidents are off the hook.  By the way, I might have rewritten that copy a little.

BREAKING

Claire McCaskill is in WAY worse trouble than I thought.

Speaking exclusively to Fox News on Monday, vulnerable incumbent Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill dropped the names of two high-profile colleagues, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, when asked to identify the "crazy Democrats" from whom her campaign has distanced itself in recent days. McCaskill said she wouldn't call the two "crazy," but noted they had disagreements with each other.

"The crazy Democrats are people who walk in restaurants and scream in elected officials' faces," McCaskill told "Special Report" anchor Bret Baier. In recent weeks, progressive activists have hounded Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell as they ate dinner, as well as Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

"We have a state senator here in Missouri that actually advocated for the assassination of President Trump. That's a crazy Democrat," McCaskill continued, referring to state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, who was censured for her comments last year. "I don't do those things. I am not somebody who thinks that we should ever be uncivil."

Wow.

The fact that Claire's even talking to Fox News at all, never mind what she told them, indicates the toxicity of the national Democratic Party in Missouri.  In football terms, what this suggests is that Claire's losing the game by eight points, has the ball on her own half-yard line and has to go 99 and a half yards just have a chance to tie the game and go to overtime.

Her internals must be through the floor and still dropping.

UPDATE: How much trouble is Claire in?  A crazy Missouri Democrat is not a fan.

In a scathing series of tweets on Monday and Tuesday, Missouri Democratic state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal referred to McCaskill as “Dixie Claire,” described her as a “piece of sh_t,” compared her to a slave owner and accused “McCaskill and her racist democratic friends” of alienating the party’s base voters.

“Claire McCaskill is desperate. She’s a piece of sh_t. Instead of knowing why people of color are angered by this administration, she chooses to put us [and] our families in harm’s way,” Chappelle-Nadal wrote in a tweet on Monday.

“If my family is harmed, blame it on Claire McCaskill. She deserves to lose. She is not a Democrat,” the state senator added.

“Claire McCaskill and her racist democratic friends continue to alienate the base,” Chappelle-Nadal wrote in a Tuesday morning tweet. In another she referred to McCaskill as “Dixie Claire.”

When I was growing up, the Democrats ran this state, partly due to the lingering affects of the Civil War which lasted longer here than they did in the rest of the Confederacy.  They owned the General Assembly and while there were Republican congressmen here and there, these were usually gerrymandered down to a minimum.

I'll never forget the astonishment at the fact that Episcopal clergyman and Republican John Danforth won election as Missouri's attorney general.  But where are we now?

The Republicans control the General Assembly with a vice grip that I can't remember the Democrats ever having.  Missouri's governor is a popular Republican and if Claire loses, as I expect she will, both US senators from Missouri will be Republicans while the Democrats will be reduced to a congressional seat in St. Louis and one in Kansas City.

Sic transit Gloria and all that.

DESPERATION?

Maybe.  Claire McCaskill's a lot of things but one of the things Claire McCaskill isn't is stupid.  While Missouri has isolated pockets of radicalism here and there, this place ain't Cali and Claire can't win running as Kammi Harris.

Trump crushed it here two years ago so regardless of their personal views, every Show-Me Democrat's going to have to run way to the right of the national party if they want to have any chance of victory at all.  They can always tack back left after they win.

So off the top of my head, I'd say that this statement means that Claire's internal polls must be cratering.  Her base won't be enough, the St. Louis and Kansas City suburbs aren't as close as they need to be, she needs more conservative support and she's not getting it.

TAKE IT TO THE BANK

If some time in the next two to six years, it is announced that a massive asteroid is headed directly toward Earth which will result in the complete destruction of the planet and/or the extinction of all life thereon, Donald Trump will be blamed.  For inhibiting science and technology or some other really stupid crap.

In Donald Trump’s abhorrence for globalism and in his inability to smack down David Duke, it was easy to hear the ominous chords of history, to see how he was activating dormant hatreds with his conspiratorial tropes. But it was always easy to see how Jews, with their well-developed institutions and communal resources, were not the most vulnerable targets of Trump’s racialism. I felt pride that so much of the organized Jewish community resisted the impulse to elevate its own problems above those of the more vulnerable.

 

Of course, this was not every corner of the Jewish community. After the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, Gary Cohn couldn’t bring himself to resign from his job. After Squirrel Hill, Jared Kushner and Sheldon Adelson will likely stand their ground. In response to this massacre, every synagogue will protect itself with great security, with more cameras and more guards. They will do what is necessary to create a sense of safety, which will also invariably inhibit the sense of escaping from the secular world. The gunman committed a crime on Shabbat, and it will reverberate as a crime against Shabbat.

 

Any strategy for enhancing the security of American Jewry should involve shunning Trump’s Jewish enablers. Their money should be refused, their presence in synagogues not welcome. They have placed their community in danger.

 

Sure thing.  Excommunicate anyone who politically disagrees with you.  That'll make anti-Semitism go away.  And hey, they can always become Presbyterians or something.

 

Moron.

UPDATE: Exhibit B.

PERENNIALS

Oh sweet mother of Dal Maxvill, Sally Kohn is a BONECRUSHINGLY stupid person.

This election is really about one question: Do you like your tax breaks more than you love your fellow human beings?

I guess that makes sense if you believe that "love" means giving somebody else's money to anyone and everyone who will promise to keep voting you into high political office. 

And that's all that it can possibly ever mean because shut up.  But if you happen to have a differing opinion, then you're a Nazi or something so shut up.

Or something. 

I can't keep up anymore.

SERIOUSLY?

To a certain class of European, any murder of any Jew anywhere is always the fault of the Jews.

UPDATE:  Really, bitch?  You're actually going to go there?

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS FLY OFF AND OFF

Look at it this way, Claire.  At the very least, you'll come out of this with a lobbying gig with Murder Inc. Sons Of Nazi Concentration Camp Guards Pol Pot Was Right And You Know It Cooking With Baby Parts Planned Parenthood.  Won't be much help to that money-grubbing sack of crap you're married to but if you want to make an omelette and all that.

There’s brutal and then there’s BRUTAL and this is the latter.

During a Missouri Senate debate, Democrat incumbent Claire McCaskill was busted in a bald-faced lie.

The issue of Project Veritas’ undercover videos arose during the debate. McCaskill accused Hawley of being involved in the videos and then all but demanded Hawley (the state’s AG) investigate Project Veritas.

Again, Hawley denied being involved in the videos and said, “and to accuse me of fraud, which is what Senator McCaskill did. She said that I committed fraud. That I participated in a fraud. She said that on television."

McCaskill interrupted him and said, “I didn’t say that on television.”

SPOILER: She said that on television.

“Well, it is startling that Josh Hawley would be part of fraudulently embedding somebody in my campaign. He’s the Attorney General of the state of Missouri. He’s supposed to be going after fraud, not participating in it,” she said. On television.

Mad props, as always, to Katherine.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN SEZ

The left will once again overplay its hand & tie half the country to a series of bomb threats — then be genuinely shocked when millions of people who’ve never sent bombs react to being accused of terrorism by digging in further against the witch hunters and their sad Inquisition.

THIS...IS FNN

Know what NBC stands for?  Not Been Covering.

NBC News published a bombshell report Thursday that undercut claims made by Michael Avenatti and his client, Julie Swetnick, regarding Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The company is coming under fire in the wake of the report because the series of events its Thursday report described occurred three weeks ago, before the Senate voted on whether to confirm Kavanaugh. The conservative jurist was confirmed by a narrow 50-48 margin on Oct. 6.

NBC did not respond to requests for comment about why they withheld the story for so long.

We are told that reporters hate Trump's term "fake news" because it's "divisive" or something.  If that is, in fact, the case, then why have so many mainstream US "journalists" been working so incredibly hard lately to prove Trump's exact point?

For almost a month, NBC deliberately sat on information that could have and probably would have killed the Kavanaugh controversy deader than Cicero.  How can anyone possibly interpret that as anything other than open hostility to Trump and to most of the United States?

If it walks like a duck, Chuck Todd.  And you still wonder why Trump won.

Of course, none of this is a surprise to anyone with a functional brain.  Most of us watched for eight years as Barack Obama wasn't substantively covered at all.  But I guess "journalism" is hard when you spend all that time with your lips on the presidential junk.

He's our guy.  Don't rock the boat.

So don't expect me to get even remotely concerned about the utter contempt in which American "journalism's" practitioners are currently held.  You people have earned every bit of it.

And you, and only you, are the only ones who can fix it. 

Because we're not going to fix it for you. Makes me no never mind if we plow your whole profession under and start completely anew.

DEAL WITH THE DIABLA

Got a proposition for you, kitten.  Give us back Turtle Bay, I'm sure we could turn it into office space or something.  You know the Manhattan real estate market.

Officially move that whole excrement festival to Geneva or Brussels or Berlin or anywhere else you care to go.  Then follow it there.  FYI, this country won't be joining you.

The United States, whose taxpayers account for some $10 billion a year in contributions to the United Nations system, was criticized at a meeting in New York on Tuesday for being late with its payments, with Cuba leading the charge – and suggesting it should be paying more.

“We know full well who is responsible for the current critical financial situation of the organization,” Cuban Ambassador Anayansi Rodriguez told the General Assembly’s budget committee. It was “alarming,” she said, that the biggest debts to the U.N. were the responsibility of one country – the United States.

Rodriguez suggested the U.S. should be paying more than 22 percent of the regular budget, complaining that it had pressed for a reduction of the ceiling to 22 percent, down from 39.89 percent in 1946.

“It is also alarming that this same country talks about getting better returns on its investment in the United Nations,” she said. “This shows that it considers international peace and security, development and human rights, as a business.”

I know you Commies don't know anything about business.  Or international peace and security, development and human rights, for that matter.  So here's a quick financial tip.  When you spend all of your time flushing your money down the toilet, nobody wants to listen to you bitch about how broke you always seem to be.

UPDATE:  Or you could move the whole sick joke to Frisco. You wouldn't be in a different country yet but most of us think that will soon be remedied.  But you'd be in Cali which means that you'd be among people just like you who think that there isn't a problem in the world that can't be solved with somebody else's money.

DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

In their shrieking, hysterical, psychotic desperation to find someone, anyone, to defeat Donald Trump in 2020 and once again restore sense and decency to the universe, the Democrats have floated many possible candidates.  One of the most prominent of these (at least in his own mind) is lawyer Michael Avenatti, he of the stripper client and anti-Brett Kavanaugh "witnesses."

Mikey Nats has spoken at just about every Democratic forum or gathering that will give him a stage and more than a few lefties who don't like or even understand the United States at all are praying to whatever it is that such people pray to that he will be the Democratic Trump, a prospect that's suddenly looking increasingly unlikely.

When Sen. Chuck Grassley referred attorney Michael Avenatti and his client Julie Swetnick to the Justice Department for criminal investigation Thursday, he cited Swetnick's interview with NBC News as evidence the two were trying to mislead the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In the NBC News interview that aired on Oct. 1, Swetnick back-tracked on or contradicted parts of her sworn statement where she alleged she witnessed then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh "cause girls to become inebriated and disoriented so they could then be 'gang raped' in a side room or bedroom by a 'train' of boys."

NBC News also found other apparent inconsistencies in a second sworn statement from another woman whose statement Avenatti provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee in a bid to bolster Swetnick's claims.

In the second statement, the unidentified woman said she witnessed Kavanaugh "spike" the punch at high school parties in order to sexually take advantage of girls. But less than 48 hours before Avenatti released her sworn statement on Twitter, the same woman told NBC News a different story.

Referring to Kavanaugh spiking the punch, "I didn't ever think it was Brett," the woman said to reporters in a phone interview arranged by Avenatti on Sept. 30 after repeated requests to speak with other witnesses who might corroborate Swetnick's claims. As soon as the call began, the woman said she never met Swetnick in high school and never saw her at parties and had only become friends with her when they were both in their 30s.

When asked in the phone interview if she ever witnessed Kavanaugh act inappropriately towards girls, the woman replied, "no." She did describe a culture of heavy drinking in high school that she took part in, and said Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were part of that group.

 

In a statement Thursday about his referral of Swetnick and Avenatti for a criminal investigation, Grassley said, "When a well-meaning citizen comes forward with information relevant to the committee's work, I take it seriously….But in the heat of partisan moments, some do try to knowingly mislead the committee. That's unfair to my colleagues, the nominees and others providing information who are seeking the truth."

Mikey's even lost CNN's Chris Cilizza and when you've lost CNN...

Everywhere you turn, Michael Avenatti is there.

Says the guy from the network that couldn't televise Mikey Nats enough.

Of late, that's turned into not such a good thing for the celebrity-lawyer-turned-2020-presidential aspirant. A brief review of Avenatti's recent problems includes:

 

* Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, referred Avenatti and his client Julie Swetnick, who alleged that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh attended a party where she was drugged and gang raped, to the Justice Department for possible criminal investigation Thursday. Grassley charged that Swetnick and Avenatti lied to committee investigators looking into the allegations against Kavanaugh. Avenatti denied that he or Swetnick misled investigators.

 

* In a Time magazine profile on him, Avenatti said that he believed that it had "better be a white male" running against President Donald Trump in 2020. Avenatti told CNN that he had been misquoted and taken out of context.

 

* A California judge ruled earlier this week that Avenatti had to pay almost $5 million to make good on a debt he owed to his former law partner. Avenatti responded by saying that his ex-partner owes him even more money.

 

* The Daily Beast published a piece suggesting that Avenatti has personally owed more than $1 million in unpaid personal taxes. Avenatti referred to the story as a "hit piece."

 

I guess this is what pilots refer to as augering in.  Get out the butter and the Marmite because as a plausible presidential candidate, Mikey Nats is toast.

UPDATE: They're bailing, ambulance-chaser.  Chuck Todd's on board.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG WATCH

I don't see any problems or potential for abuse here.  End sneering, contemptuous sarcasm.

Lithium is a potent psychiatric drug, one of the primary prescribed medications for bipolar disorder. But it’s also an element that occurs naturally all over the Earth’s crust — including in bodies of water. That means that small quantities of lithium wind up in the tap water you consume every day. Just how much is in the water varies quite a bit from place to place.

Naturally, that made researchers curious: Are places with more lithium in the water healthier, mentally? Do places with more lithium have less depression or bipolar or — most importantly of all — fewer suicides?

A 2014 review of studies concluded that the answer was yes: Four of five studies reviewed found that places with higher levels of trace lithium had lower suicide rates. And Nassir Ghaemi, the Tufts psychiatry professor who co-authored that review, argues that the effects are large. High-lithium areas, he says, have suicide rates 50 to 60 percent lower than those of low-lithium areas.

Ghaemi and a number of other eminent psychiatrists are making a pretty remarkable claim. They think we could save tens of thousands of lives a year with a very simple, low-cost intervention: putting small amounts of lithium, amounts likely too small to have significant side effects, into our drinking water, the way we put fluoride in to protect our teeth.

"Likely too small to have significant side effects," Gracie?  Sign me up.

MCJ DECISION DESK

I'm officially calling Missouri a Republican pick-up.

Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill's campaign is trying to persuade Missouri voters that she is not "one of those crazy Democrats," with a radio ad airing during the final stretch of her heated re-election fight.

 

The ad, which has been on air in mid-Missouri for roughly the past week, is part of McCaskill's closing argument in one of the country's most closely watched Senate races. As a Democrat in a state that backed President Donald Trump by double digits in 2016, McCaskill has touted her moderate credentials and urged voters to look at her accomplishments, not her party ID.

 

McCaskill's campaign appears to be doubling down on that message in the campaign's final days. In a new television ad released Tuesday by McCaskill's campaign, featuring veterans who support McCaskill, one man says of the incumbent senator, "you don't have to like her," before pushing back on Republican lines of attack and praising her work in the Senate.

Read the comments here.

BACK ON OFF, PUTIN-THERE-IT-IS

The Great Seal of the United States kicks the crap out of that Byzantine, pseudo-monarchical freak of nature you guys currently rock.

Russian President Vladimir Putin poked fun at the official seal of the United States while hosting President Trump's national security adviser Tuesday, saying he wondered if the American eagle had plucked all the olives from the branch in its talon. While sitting down with John Bolton at the Kremlin, Putin mentioned Trump's stated intent to pull the US out of a pivotal arms control treaty. He said Moscow also was aware of Washington's doubts about extending another landmark nuclear treaty and its plans to deploy elements of missile defense in space. The Russian leader then referred to the Great Seal of the United States, which includes a bald eagle holding a bundle of 13 arrows in one talon and an olive branch with 13 olives in another, the AP reports.

"I have a question: Has your eagle picked all the olives and only has arrows left?" Putin asked with a laugh.

America's Great Seal might be the most perfect example of national heraldic art currently out there because nothing is more American.  Designed by committee (three of them, actually), it has this "aw, screw it, just grab something from all three proposals and let it go" vibe going for it.

This is a century-later realization of the deist Dr. Franklin's proposal for a great seal.  That's Pharoah's army drowning in the Red Sea while Moses and the children of Israel look on at the left.  I'm pretty sure that thing on the top is Yahweh.  The words are attributed to John Bradshaw.

English regicide. It would have made a kickass national seal except for the fact that there wasn't a medalist on either side of the Atlantic who could have pulled it off.

Your sigillography lesson of the day. 

And yes, I am that boring.  I thought this had already been established.

TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME

In case you ever need a definition of that term.

Key differences between Donald Trump and Adolph Hitler--Hitler served honorably in the military, Trump didn't; Hitler was faithful to his wife, Trump cheated on all his wives; Hitler wrote a book, Trump's were all ghostwritten.

THE NATURAL

Mikey Nats, that stripper lawyer and all-around financial deadbeat, seems to be seriously considering a Democratic run for the presidency in 2020.  The guy's good; Mikey's frickin' Joe DiMaggio at effortlessly saying absolutely nothing substantive at all.

We MUST have a strong border, it is vital to our security. But we must be humane and true to who we are as a nation in how we address the issue. We must allow for proper legal immigration while protecting our people. And we should never strip children from their parents.

Got it.

KIDS

I don't know what's wrong with these kids today.

The 2016 election was psychologically traumatic for some, according to a new study published in the Journal of American College Health. It found that 1 out of 4 students surveyed experienced clinically significant event-related distress short term.

Researchers from San Francisco State University, University of California, San Francisco and Arizona State University assessed a diverse group of nearly 800 undergraduates at Arizona State two to three months after the election.

 

Wait until they find out what the job market for liberal arts majors is like.

YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION?

Turns out that you got one:

The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a government-wide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law.

A series of decisions by the Obama administration loosened the legal concept of gender in federal programs, including in education and health care, recognizing gender largely as an individual’s choice and not determined by the sex assigned at birth. The policy prompted fights over bathrooms, dormitories, single-sex programs and other arenas where gender was once seen as a simple concept. Conservatives, especially evangelical Christians, were incensed.

 

Now the Department of Health and Human Services is spearheading an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans gender discrimination in education programs that receive government financial assistance, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times.

 

The department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.” The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.

“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposed in the memo, which was drafted and has been circulating since last spring. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”

 

The new definition would essentially eradicate federal recognition of the estimated 1.4 million Americans who have opted to recognize themselves — surgically or otherwise — as a gender other than the one they were born into.

 

In other words, if it's legally possible to "recognize" yourself into an existence, it's also legally possible to be "recognized" out of one.  What the state giveth, the state taketh away; blessed be the name of the state.

 

That right there is about as perfect an explanation of why DONALD J. TRUMP IS THE LEGALLY-ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA as you're probably ever going to find. 

 

What's the difference between Trump and approved establishment "conservative" GOP presidential candidates like John McCain or Mitt Romney?  Why is Trump popular while the other two are deservedly forgotten?  Easy. 

Results.

 

A President McCain or a President Romney would have issued some kind of a disapproving statement or other, "American journalism" would have winked and that would have been that. The story and the concept would have quickly died.

 

But not now.  Is this stupid?  Get rid of it.  Is that indefensible to anyone whose vision still works? Again, if you have eyes to see...

 

Might the concepts that I'm expected to uncritically accept as scientific dogma to be uncritically accepted by eveyone be, you know, oh, what's the word I'm looking for,...wrong?

AND THE ANSWER IS...

Yes, PETA can always get WAY more stupid.

TIMES ARE TOUGH

When even US senators need outside income.  Florida's Marco Rubio takes a modeling job.

NOT AS OTHER MEN ARE

Ever since it crapped all over my home town a few years ago, I've made it a deliberate point to not give a damn about the NFL.  The Shield has basically killed the St. Louis market deader than Gilgamesh; we're making a huge push for an MLS team and if the XFL sets up here, I expect that it will do extremely well.

Since the Rams left, I've basically ignored the Super Bowl.  I don't care who's in it, I don't care who might get in it, and when it's on TV, I don't care about the celebrated commercials and I make it a point to watch whatever else happens to be on.  Old sitcoms, English soccer matches, documentaries, movies I've seen ten or more times, etc.

But I may have to rethink that stance.

Don’t look for Amy Schumer in any Super Bowl commercials this time around. She’s sitting this one out as she stands with Colin Kaepernick and his take-a-knee protest against racism and police brutality.

The comedian and “I Feel Pretty” actress explained her stance at length Friday on Instagram, challenging white NFL players to kneel as well. Addressing them directly, she wrote: “Otherwise how are you not complicit?”

“I personally told my reps I wouldn’t do a Super Bowl commercial this year,” Schumer wrote. “I know it must sound like a privilege ass sacrifice but it’s all I got.”

Ain't public piety inspiring?  And you have to be...um...impressed by anyone who thinks she matters way more than she actually does.

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS FLY OFF AND OFF

Claire McCaskill REALLY didn't need this.

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill’s husband was accused of domestic violence by his ex-wife, and his company once victim-blamed a woman who sued for sexual misconduct, Fox News has learned. 

A graphic protection order once filed by Joseph Shepard's ex-wife even alleged he hit her, tripped her and "peed on" her.

Shepard, who married McCaskill in 2002, has come under increasing scrutiny amid media reports detailing his financial decisions and wealth-building while his wife was in office. He reportedly has received more than $131 million in federal subsidies since 2007, the year McCaskill became a U.S. senator, and also invested $1 million in a hedge fund in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven his wife wants to crack down on.

In a 2015 letter about sexual harassment, McCaskill wrote that “Victim-blaming in the context of sexual violence is as old as the crime itself” and that some “law enforcement officials sometimes unwilling to pursue justice because of the victim’s behavior prior to the crime.”

“’She was asking for it,’ is a sentence I have longed to see stripped from our cultural vocabulary,” she added. McCaskill also said multiple times that she believes women and their allegations of sexual misconduct.

In later years, accusations of misconduct were also leveled against his businesses. Sugar Creek Realty – a company founded and owned by Shepard – was sued in 2009 in federal court for sexual harassment, prompting a campaign by the firm’s lawyers against the accuser.

Kristin Glemser accused the company and her female boss there of sexual misconduct, including allegedly asking her put on already-worn underwear, following her into a restroom, unbuttoning her pants without her consent, taking pictures of her in underwear without her consent and forcing her to watch her female boss simulate a sex act with another woman.

Does this matter?  End of the day, probably not.  Claire's a Missouri Democrat and Democrats look after their own (see Chappaquidick).  Slap that label on yourself and there isn't much of anything that you won't be able to get away with.

The people who planned on voting for her will vote for her anyway even if Hubby had been photographed wearing a Nazi armband with his arm stuck out in front of him at a 45 degree angle.  Chappaquidick and all that.

So I seriously doubt this flips many votes, if any at all.

GOLLY

My senniner isn't as transparent as she'd like for Missourians to believe.

Journalist: What were you telling me last night about Planned Parenthood?

Starost: How they never- How they don't donate to Claire because they don't want to ostracize pro-life voters in Missouri.

Journalist: But they still somehow get us money?

Starost: They put it through, like, different organizations.

Journalist: Keep the Planned Parenthood name off the thing, but we still get the dough?

Starost: Yup. I love that stuff, man. It's f-ing beautiful.

This and other recent revelations about What Claire McCaskill Really Thinks aren't that big of a deal here in Missouri.  Intelligent Pukes figured Claire out a long time ago. If she'd come out and told us all this at the start, she wouldn't have won one term, never mind two.

Every six years, Claire remembers that Missouri agriculture is kind of important so out come the TV ads showing her pretending to listen to Show-Me farmers.  She's currently running an ad in which Republicans say nice things about how centrist she is and which also states that President Trump signed a couple pieces of legislation she supported.

Claire approved that message so I guess she managed to feign respect for the President.

It's what Claire McCaskill does and it's what Missouri Democrats have to do to get elected.  So all this wouldn't even be a blip on the Missouri political radar if, for reasons known only to her, Claire didn't just go out of her way to make it one.

JUST IN: Sen. Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) files complaint to AG Josh Hawley's office (@AGJoshHawley), advising the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate 'possbile felonies' committed by Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas).

David Kirby, McCaskill’s campaign manager, said in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday that there is reason to believe Project Veritas committed fraud that violated the state’s merchandising practices act.

Yeah I'll get right on that says Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley who, amazingly enough, has the exact same name as the guy Claire is currently running against.

Senator, accusing people of crimes is a serious thing. If you have evidence of a crime, please come forward with it immediately. Otherwise, please stop politicizing the legal process for your reelection. #MOsen

Legally, Claire's apparently full of it.

The Missouri Merchandising Practices Act makes it illegal to commit fraud "in connection with the sale or advertisement of any merchandise in trade or commerce or the solicitation of any funds for any charitable purpose."

Exactly what part of that did Project Veritas violate?

Sometimes my state rules.  Salus populi suprema lex esto, friggin' Jayhawkers.

HMMMMM...ROO

Not seeing the problem here.

A school superintendent says kangaroo meat was mixed with beef in chili served to students at a junior/senior high school in the Nebraska Panhandle.

And Potter-Dix Public Schools Superintendent Mike Williams vows it won’t happen again.

He apologized for any anxiety the exotic ingredient may have caused.

I wouldn't mind trying this. I've made chilies with lots of exotic meats.  Bison, shark, Spam or whatever other animal musculature happened to be lying around the MCJ Building.

I mean to make myself a rattlesnake chili before I die.  Damn right, don't tread on me.  I'll bet that gator, beaver, bobcat, coyote or elk (or all of the above in one pot) chilies would be top shelf.  Maybe I'll also throw in a few of these things as well.  For seasoning or something.

What could be more American?

UPDATE: Well this sucks.

SUXTABEE U.

Guy who just won a women's cycling championship is upset that people are upset about it.

Earlier this week I wrote about Rachel McKinnon, the transgender professional cyclist who recently won a gold medal at the 2018 UCI Masters. I was far from the only one pointing out that a man (or “biological male” as some prefer to say) competing against women in most any athletic endeavor is patently unfair and professional athletic organizations need to address this situation before it spreads further. Well, it turns out that McKinnon wasn’t impressed with the feedback he was receiving and lashed out at his critics in typical social justice warrior fashion. (Washington Examiner)

Well of course xyz&%$+#e did.

McKinnon hit out at the criticism immediately following her victory both on social media and in interviews.

“I think there is absolutely no evidence that I have an unfair advantage…”

“People who oppose transgender inclusion in sport put us in the double bind. It’s the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario.

“If I win, they attribute it to me being trans and having an unfair advantage. If I lose, the same people think I must not be good anyway. People will never attribute my winning to hard work which is what I think I deserve.”

Uh huh.  Me, I can't wait for the guy who sues for the right to compete with the gals in the Olympics. Think NBC won't turn that into the most Episcopal sermon ever shoved down the national throat?  If past performance is indicative of future results, NBC as well as the rest of "American journalism" will be particularly insufferable.

PROPHECY

You know what's terrifying about the following?

Panasonic's Future Life Factory is developing wearable blinkers, designed to limit your sense of sound and sight, and help you focus on what's directly in front of you.

The prototype device, called Wear Space, is designed to keep people distraction-free when working in busy spaces or open-plan offices by blocking them off from their immediate surroundings.

Panasonic hopes that by using the partition to cut the user's horizontal field of vision by about 60 per cent, it will encourage them to concentrate on the work in front of them.

"As open offices and digital nomads are on the rise, workers are finding it ever more important to have personal space where they can focus," said the company. "Wear Space instantly creates this kind of personal space – it's as simple as putting on an article of clothing."

Scott Adams predicted it twenty-two years ago.

SPEAKING OF IMPLOSION

This just happened.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp apologized Tuesday for misidentifying victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse and rape who were listed in a recent North Dakota newspaper ad aimed at her opponent.

The Democrat, who is facing a tough race for re-election, said in a statement that she had recently learned that several of the women named in the ad either hadn’t authorized it or are not survivors of abuse.

Heitkamp, who was clearly emotional on the talk show, apologized several times for the ad, which she said she hadn’t seen before publication. She said she was reaching out to those affected by it but would understand if they didn’t want to talk to her.

Heidi knows that her campaign screwed up big-time and that this was potentially a whole lot more than a mere mistake..  She knows that because one of the women explained it to her.

Lexi Zhorela told The Associated Press that she learned of the ad Monday night

“I’m furious,” the 24-year-old hairdresser and single mother from Bismarck said. “I know I’m not the only woman hurt by this.”

Zhorela said she was listed in the ad because she had been tagged by a friend in a Facebook post who knew she had been the victim of sexual assault.

“I have only shared my story with a couple of people in confidence,” she said. “I didn’t want it blasted for the world to see.”

Zhorela said she had intended to vote for Heitkamp in November but will “definitely not now.”

UPDATE: This may have been an honest mistake.  But unfortunately for Heitkamp, honest mistakes don't exist in American politics anymore.

UPDATE: It gets worse and worse.

GOLLY

Seems my senniner hasn't been honest.

Project Veritas released another bombshell video on Monday night, this time showing Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill and her staff saying that she supports strict gun control measures, but that she couldn’t express that outwardly or she wouldn’t get reelected.

I have this rule about Missouri politics which I call the Jean Carnahan Rule.  It goes like this. Any liberal Democratic candidate who goes out of his or her way to be photographed shooting a gun is toast here.  When Carnahan ran for reelection against Jim Talent and I saw a picture of Jean shooting a gun somewhere, I immediately called the state for the GOP.

Claire's not stupid; she knows that this stance is fatal here.  So if you see a picture or a video of her shooting a rifle or something, figure Missouri as a GOP pickup and tell Josh Hawley to start hiring his Washington office staff.

WINNING STREAK

JEOPARDY

What is because SNL hasn't been funny since the Fillmore Administration, Alex?

 

Matt Damon got a lot of laughs — but no votes.

 

It's hard to imagine a more comprehensive takedown of a political figure than the one Saturday Night Live executed on Brett Kavanaugh in its season premiere last month, at a time when the judge's fate seemed to be hanging in the balance.

 

Damon added several layers of ridicule to Kavanaugh's angry, aggressive testimony before the Senate, presenting him as a sputtering, sniffing, weeping, beer-loving caricature of judicial temperament. In light of the sexual assault accusations against him, which he has denied, the sketch included an especially devastating line: "I'm not backing down. . . I don't know the meaning of the word 'stop.'"

 

And then, a few hours before the dress rehearsal of the show's next episode, Kavanaugh was confirmed as a justice to the Supreme Court.

DEAREST DEMOCRATS

Are you trying to lose?

A top spokesman for the Tennessee Democratic Party's effort to get Phil Bredesen elected senator has said he views "white male" gun owners as "the biggest terrorist organization on the planet."

Mark Brown is communications director for Tennessee Victory 2018, a project of the state Democratic party that's been working exclusively on electing Bredesen. The group is hosting Bredesen for a Johnson City meet-and-greet on Thursday afternoon.

Brown's extreme views on Republicans were showcased this summer by the Free Beacon, which identified numerous inflammatory posts on social media. In one post Brown wrote, for example, "F__k reaching out to Trump voters, The idiots aren't listening."

One comment missed in the Free Beacon‘s initial review came on Facebook in 2015, when Brown stated his belief that "white male ‘Murican gun nuts" are "the biggest terrorist organization on the planet."

RELICS

I Can't Believe It's Not Roman Catholicism gets into the pilgrimage business.

Twenty years after the brutal murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard sparked national outrage, his ashes will be interred at Washington National Cathedral following a public service of remembrance.

The Service of Thanksgiving and Remembrance for Matthew Shepard on Oct. 26 will be led by Washington Bishop Marian Budde and retired New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop and an acquaintance of the Shepard family. Until now, Shepard’s parents had not settled on a final resting place for his remains out of concern the site would be vandalized. As they approached 20 years since their son’s death, Robinson helped the family make arrangements at Washington National Cathedral.

I fully realize that there are considerable questions about the circumstances of this murder.  And I don't really care about any of them.  Whatever he was in life, Matt Shepard was somebody's son, his mother loved him very much and nobody deserves to get beaten to death.

I don't care who you are.

That said, I find it interesting that the Episcopalians want to turn this Dead Gay Guy into an Episcopalian saint.

“Matt loved the Episcopal Church and felt welcomed by his church in Wyoming,” his mother, Judy Shepard, said in a cathedral news release. “For the past 20 years, we have shared Matt’s story with the world. It’s reassuring to know he now will rest in a sacred spot where folks can come to reflect on creating a safer, kinder world.”

And if the NatCat can make some money off of him...

The site may become something of a pilgrimage stop within the LGBTQ community, Eckstrom said.

Johnson's First Law of Episcopal Thermodynamics states that every joke about the Episcopal Organization eventually comes true.  So I hesitate to insert a crack about the NatCat becoming the Episcopalian Lourdes with "miraculous cures" and all the rest of it.

Granted, miraculous cures, to an Episcopalian, might mean something along the lines of your traditionalist Christian relative suddenly and miraculously seeing how right and how prophetic the Episcopal Organization is and votes straight Democrat in the midterms.

But you have to start somewhere.

SAMMY?

Might be a real good idea for any member of Obama's foreign policy team to stick a sock in it.

HOBBIES ARE FUN

CALL ME

Uber NeverTrumper Max Boot discovers that lefties won't respect him in the morning.

I wrote: “No matter how strongly I come out against Trump... it is never enough for the most doctrinaire leftists who seem to think that no step short, perhaps, of ritual suicide will atone for my ‘war crimes.’” Exhibit A. Intolerance & self righteousness isn’t a good look.

IOKANEBRASKOTAMING II

Why have Democrats been getting their asses handed to them lately?  Sure is a mystery.

Pete Daou is something of a Twitter legend.  A fanatical Democrat, his devastation at the ELECTION TO THE US PRESIDENCY OF DONALD J. TRUMP was and is almost physically palpable while his slavish devotion to Hillary "We'll Be Nice To Those Republican Sons Of Bitches When We're Back In Power And NOT BEFORE" Clinton is sometimes embarrassingly creepy but is almost always good for a hearty chuckle or five.

Anyway, Pete recently had this to say about the American electorate.

Anyone who wonders how messed up things are, look no further than Texas, where more American voters appear inclined to choose #TedCruz over #BetoORourke. Utterly mind-boggling that anyone could think Cruz is the better choice.

It's "messed up" that Texas voters might prefer Ted Cruz to any Democrat, for God's sake.  And it's "utterly mind-boggling" that a Democrat should be forced to actually make a case to be accepted or rejected by the idiots we're legally forced to give the franchise to.

Yeah, run on that platform, Pete.

But Democrats uncomfortable with calling US voters stupid have a fallback position of sorts.  Rejecting Democrat ideas can only mean that the system is broken.  Any political system that permits any deviation from Democrat orthodoxy obviously needs radical change.

When he was arguing for the ratification of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton wrote that the judiciary “will always be the least dangerous branch to the political rights of the Constitution,” in part because he believed the federal courts would stand above the political fray and act as a bulwark against tyranny from all directions.

But it’s hard to defend the Supreme Court on these grounds today.

 

As my colleague Matthew Yglesias noted last week, the Court is now a blunt political instrument, used repeatedly to undermine outcomes of democratic governance — often on behalf of corporate interests. And the recent disaster that was the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation has further delegitimized the Court in the public’s mind.

So it’s perfectly reasonable to ask if we should abolish the Supreme Court, or at the very least strip the Court of its ability to overturn laws that it rules unconstitutional. If the Court is no longer a neutral arbiter of the law, if it’s gradually shape-shifting into a partisan weapon, then maybe it’s time to rethink its role in our constitutional system.

Back here, I joked that the left's other current talking point, the fact that under the laws of this country, legally-elected US presidents who didn't win the popular vote can legally select Supreme Court candidates and get those candidates legally approved means that the Court is "illegitimate" and a solution might be found in a reduction in the number of American states.

You know what's terrifying?  When your "jokes" turn out to be entirely plausible.  I fully expect some leftist to seriously propose this idea very soon.

WILE E.

Frisco's a leftist hellhole these days, what with the piles of human excrement on the public streets and such.  But in fairness to Public-Toilet-by-the-Bay, I've seen these in suburban St. Louis.

FRIENDLY FIRE

Claire McCaskill's a lot of things but the one thing Claire McCaskill isn't is anywhere near as bonecrushingly stupid as Arizona Democratic senatorial candidate Krysten Sinema.

The "crazy" lines aren't helpful, especially when she attributes her state's supposed insanity to one factor: "They're called Republicans," eliciting laughter and applause from a leftist crowd. Remember, she's trying to run as a moderate, cross-partisan uniter.  Part of her potential victory coalition must include a chunk of Republican voters.  But the most brutal line is this one, delivered in an out-of-state speech to liberal activists:

"I want to talk to you about some of the things that I think that you can do to stop your state from becoming Arizona.”

Sinema is asking Arizonans to elect her to represent them. She thinks they're crazy people and that other states should go out of their way to avoid being like her own constituents.  And this speech was delivered well after she undertook her ideological makeover project.  If Arizona Republican and right-leaning voters are ever going to coalesce around McSally, the Kavanaugh fight should be a clarifying catalyst; both Arizona Senators cast crucial confirmation votes.  And now, here's the Democrat in the race insulting both them specifically, and their state generally.  Talk about motivating factors.  Bigger picture, if Republicans can lock down either Arizona or Nevada -- the two states in which Democrats have the best shot at Senate gains -- it's game over.  The GOP will retain control of the upper chamber.

UPDATE: Krystie wuvs Arizona DIS MUCH.

CALLED IT

Claire McCaskill writes off outstate Missouri.

A video recording has emerged of Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill telling supporters that she doesn’t care about losing votes in the state’s “bootheel,” the southeastern most tip of the state that is rural and solidly conservative.

Republican challenger Josh Hawley featured the video recording in a new TV ad that hit the airwaves Thursday, using Ms. McCaskill’s own words to hammer home his message that the two-term senator has betrayed Missouri’s farmers, ranchers and rural residents.

“If we do our job in St. Louis County, you know, I can give up a few votes in the bootheel,” Ms. McCaskill says in the video recording, apparently captured on a cellphone as she gave a pep talk to campaign volunteers.

As Republicans are always accused of doing at all times and for all reasons, Josh Hawley immediately pounced on McCaskill's remarks.

Still, the voice-over announcer in the ad spells out the implication of the incumbent senator’s pep talk: “No wonder Claire McCaskill votes against your gun rights, against agriculture and against conservative judges like Brett Kavanaugh.”

The announcer adds, “Claire McCaskill has given up on you.”

At a campaign stop Wednesday at a farm in southwest Missouri, Mr. Hawley told a small gathering of farmers that his opponent was never on their side, not on environmental regulations, not on trade and not on confirming Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.

“It’s a pattern for her,” he said, standing on a flatbed trailer in a barn. “It’s a pattern with her on agriculture too.”

I guess that was why Claire didn't want cameras at her recent KC town hall meeting.

Michael Kinsley once famously remarked that a "gaffe" is what occurs when a politician accidentally tells the truth.  And make no mistake, this was definitely a major gaffe.

Don't get me wrong.  Claire knows and believes this and every Missourian knows that she knows and believes this.  I mean, if I figured all this out, other Pukes can too.

But one of the keys to winning any election is to excite your own followers while going out of your way not to excite the other guy's.  Don't motivate his people to make it a point to go to the polls.  As Thumper once put it, "If you can't say sumthin' nice, don't say nuthin' at all."

Will outstate MO vote against you?  Yes.  So be photographed listening to a Show-Me State farmer while nodding seriously, utter inanities like "farmers are the backbone of Missouri," win reelection, return to Washington and keep on voting the way Chuck Schumer tells you to.

In six years, the rubes will forget all about it.  But whatever you do, don't ever publicly remind outstate Missourians what all Show-Me Democrats think but are smart enough never to say.

For that way lies the private sector.  Or a lobbying gig.

GLASS HALF FULL

Look at it this way.  At least these gals aren't speaking in tongues or prophesying or droning on and on and on and on and on about Jesus rising from the dead and how anyone who doesn't believe that craziness is going to Hell and stuff.  Because NOBODY needs religious weirdoes.

I THINK WE'RE DONE HERE

Don't look at me.  I just blog here.

Can researchers & practitioners stop saying 'natural' disasters?!There is nothing natural about disasters! It's a social construct

If you're interested, the person who wrote whatever the hell that is lives in the UK and is a lecturer in Sustainable and Resilient Urbanism.  Whatever the hell that is.

Remember.  That EF-5 tornado coming directly at you is NOT trying to hurt anyone.  It's just that smashing buildings, hurling cars five miles or ripping people into bite-sized chunks are the only ways it knows how to communicate with you. 

It wants to talk.  So make an effort to listen.

UPDATE: Seriously??

UPDATE: Apparently.  This tedious bore comes in.

RUNNING FOR THE TALL GRASS

Confirmed: Heidi Heitkamp is in deep lutefisk.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D., N.D.) rejected former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's assertion that liberals should do away with civility until after they beat Republicans at the ballot box.

"You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about," Clinton told CNN's Christiane Amanpour in an interview.

Because when you're in political danger, the very first thing you need to do is to put as much distance as you possibly can between yourself and a certain babbling old crone.

"I'm wondering what you think about that idea, that you can't be civil, given the rhetoric coming from the Republicans. Can Democrats, should Democrats not be civil with Republicans?" CNN's Anderson Cooper asked Heitkamp in part of a Tuesday interview that did not make it to the airwaves.

"Well, that's ridiculous," Heitkamp responded. "I can't imagine how you get anything done if you don't bring civility back into politics."

When you were on the wrong side of a recent controversy which seems to be resonating a whole lot deeper than I honestly thought it was going to, you desperately need to say things like this.

"And that goes for both sides, ratchet down the rhetoric. I hope that we can find common ground in this country that sexual assault is more prominent than people thought it was," she continued, redirecting the conversion to allegations made against Brett Kavanaugh. The Senate confirmed Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court on Saturday, without the support of Heitkamp.

Yup.  I'm not liking your chances, Double H.  Hope you have a job lined up.

WOW

Florida governors are powerful folks.

Hurricane Michael: Rick Scott climate record condemned as storm bears down on coast

Switch parties, Rick.  Make that sucker turn for Mississippi.

READING THE SIGNS

It's entirely possible that the GOP is running a little smack here.  But if any of this is accurate, it's also entirely possible that Claire McCaskill's internal polls are cratering and that she's in far worse shape than the "official" polls are letting on.

Claire McCaskill loves to crow about her town hall meetings. But with the election quickly approaching, it seems McCaskill is getting a bit shy about letting Missourians hear what she has to say.

Yesterday in Kansas City, McCaskill held an event at a public library advertised as a “Town hall meeting with US Senator Claire McCaskill” that was open to the public. But when McCaskill walked out to begin the event and spotted a camera, she quickly walked back to talk to organizers who then announced that no filming would be permitted, despite acknowledging that members of the public were welcome at the event.

As I said back here, there are two places to keep an eye on when watching a state-wide Missouri election, the St. Louis and the Kansas City suburbs.  The cities of St. Louis and Kansas City are both solidly Democratic while most of the rest of the state is red and is going to be for the foreseeable future.

The 'burbs are generally in play.

If she wants another Senate term, Claire's going to have to figure out a way to get her supporters out to the polls in large enough numbers to counteract the voting supporters of her opponent, Josh Hawley.  And it's not that it can't be done.  Hawley's not that impressive a candidate at all but he's got one major advantage going for him.

He's not Todd Akin.

Which brings us back to Claire.  If us Pukes were enthusiastic about her candidacy, you'd think that she'd encourage everyone attending a Kansas City town hall to film away and post their video to YouTube or give people a way to upload their videos directly to McCaskill's campaign web site and give her some free campaign pub.

But video was forbidden.  Which speaks volumes.

BROWN PANTSUIT

"You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about.  That’s why I believe if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and or the Senate, that’s when civility can start again."

WHERE'S MY PALM BRANCH?

The Democrats find their savior.

It didn't work out so well the first time, but John Kerry might be preparing to challenge yet another incumbent Republican president in 2020.

The former secretary of state and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate recently spoke with Politico, and it certainly sounded like he's weighing a presidential run. In the interview, Kerry helpfully pointed out that he's only run (and lost) one time. “I've only done it once, unlike a lot of people who've been out there, and came pretty close," Kerry said, referencing his 286-251 electoral vote loss to President George W. Bush. When asked specifically if he's going to run in 2020, Kerry gave pretty much the answer you'd expect from a guy who is seriously considering it, saying he hasn't "eliminated anything in my life."

PLEASE do this.

UPDATE: The Democrats reach out.

WELP

I'm off social media platforms again.

Google is shutting down its long-shunned Plus social network for consumers, following its disclosure of a flaw discovered in March that could have exposed some personal information of up to 500,000 people, the AP reports. The announcement came in a Monday blog post, which marked Google's first public description of the privacy bug.

Oh well.  I barely knew how to use the software anyway.

WHAT'S THIS "WE" STUFF?

Quick question, Ed.  Have you gotten rid of your family wheels yet?

Climate change is not a political issue up for debate, it's an impending catastrophe that can only be averted with immediate & unprecedented action. This @UN report proves that the world does not have time for climate change deniers in positions of power.

I got rid of my car (truck, actually).  I was kind of forced to.  What with losing my job during the Obamaconomy six years ago this December and living on a small inheritance my dad left me ever since, I couldn't afford to keep my ride going any longer.

In fact, the reason why I live where I currently do is that my place is within walking distance of a couple of markets/pharmacies.  My life's pretty dull as a result; all my days are like all my other days and I can't do too much more than pay the rent and the bills and put food on the table.

Mind you, I've got no complaints.  You play the hand you're dealt in your life and I'm nowhere near a good-enough liar that I can make myself believe that I am where I am because I'm being ground down by the Big-Money Boys^TM or something.

But I seem to have digressed.  Anyway, since I no longer have a car and I assume you still do, that makes me a better human being, climatologically speaking, than you are since I'm not the one pumping Lord knows what into the atmosphere every single time I drive over to some Southie bar and spend the evening knocking back one Bushmills after another until closing.

Ed?  On the issue of global warming/climate change/the worldwide anchovy shortage/whatever, I follow the teaching of Glenn Reynolds.  I'll believe this is a crisis and agree with what "we" need to do about the crisis when the people who claim it's a crisis start acting like it's a crisis.

Not before.

HARD PASS

I have a, uh, thing that night!

JUST ANNOUNCED: An Evening with President @BillClinton and former Secretary of State @HillaryClinton is coming to a city near you! 

NATE?

Here's how life works, big smacker.  If your side sets out to not only defeat my candidate but personally destroy his life by accusing him of the worst crime this side of pedophilia, and to do it with absolutely no proof whatsoever, then if my guy wins, the very LAST thing you have a right to expect from me is magnanimity. 

The second-to-last thing is "reaching out."

Kiss off.

The football-spiking after Kavanaugh was confirmed this weekend was one such example. There's always *some* of that after a big policy/electoral win, but there's also usually a fair amount of magnanimity and reaching out to the losing side. Not so this time.

PRIORITIES

In case you're curious about what "strain out a gnat and swallow a camel" means.

The president of the Mormon church wants members, the media and others to use the faith's full name, saying nicknames are "a major victory for Satan."

Commence eye-rolling here.

Addressing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' twice-yearly conference Sunday in Salt Lake City, Russell M. Nelson says the church's name "is not negotiable."

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Nelson rejects what he calls "worldly arguments," including the benefits of internet "search engine optimization" with the word "Mormon."

If people use Mormon to describe the church or its members, Nelson urged adherents to "be courteous and patient" in their efforts to correct them.

Really, Russ?  Do you really want to push this foolishness?  You do know that the word "Christian" was originally an insult, don't you?

IOKANEBRASKOTAMING

I guess this is going to be the leftist line of attack going forward.  Phil Bump of the Washington Post Whatever Stupid Crap Advances The Agenda thinks that the Brett Kavanaugh business proves conclusively that THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN.

There have been five presidents who assumed the office after having lost the popular vote. Between them, they nominated 12 justices who ended up serving on the Supreme Court. On Saturday, with President Trump’s nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh poised to pass the Senate, the number will climb to 13.

So allowing a legally-elected US president to legally select a Supreme Court candidate and to legally push for that candidate's legal approval means that THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN?  Obviously, thinks Phil, who clearly detests the idea of allowing geographical expressions like Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota or Wyoming as well as the people who live there for reasons known only to whatever deity Phil worships to have any voice whatsoever in national affairs.

Kavanaugh, though, has a distinct honor: He will be the first justice nominated by someone who lost the popular vote to earn his seat on the bench with support from senators representing less than half of the country while having his nomination opposed by a majority of the country.

 

That's an odd opinion to have about places that grow Phil's food and make it possible for him to drive his car.   But Phil has his reasons.

 

Obviously, Trump got almost 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Clinton got about 48 percent of the votes cast for president. Trump got about 46 percent.

 

So neither got a majority of votes cast?  It's actually worse than that.

 

But that by itself doesn’t tell the whole story. Nearly half of U.S. residents over the age of 18 didn’t vote. Of the entire over-18 population, Trump got only about 25 percent of the possible votes. Clinton got about 26 percent.

I don't think that tells the story Phil thinks it tells.  Then Phil hauls out his piece of resistance.  Polls, peace and blessings be upon them.

Again, Trump is not alone in failing to win the popular vote. President George W. Bush is the other recent president to have that same fate. And, like Trump, Bush was also fairly unpopular when he made his Supreme Court nominations. Trump, according to an NPR-PBS NewsHour-Marist poll released this week, has the approval of only 41 percent of American adults. (That’s about where Bush was in late 2005 when he made his picks.)

But Kavanaugh, Trump’s nominee, is himself not very popular. Only a bit more than a third of the country views him favorably, according to that Marist poll. That’s certainly in part because of the allegations of sexual assault that were leveled against him last month. A majority of women disapprove of him.

What’s more, that same poll found most Americans didn’t want to see him confirmed. More than half, 52 percent, said the Senate should not advance him to the Supreme Court.

So what?  So this.  Government by polling data would be a definite improvement over our current situation because shut the hell up.

The first is the common complaint that polling is hopelessly flawed and inaccurate, a complaint that is generally offered only about polls that the reader doesn’t like. Anyway, it’s not true.

Insert "President Hillary Clinton" joke here.  And don't even think about bringing up that US Constitution/law of the land garbage.

The second is that America is a republic, don’t you know, and this is how the system was built to work. To which the curt response is that, yes, as someone who writes about politics for a living, I am aware of the Senate and the electoral college. It is worth noting, though, that this structure can at times conflict with the precept that all men are created equal.

What can we do about it?  As before, the obvious answer is to go to work and amend the Constitution.  Unfortunately, that would involve guys like Phil being forced to interact with people he despises and convince those idiots that he's right. 

So that's clearly a non-starter.  All Phil's got left is public bitching in the pages of the Washington Post Whatever Stupid Crap Advances The Agenda or at a DC bar while a Nationals game played on the TV in the background or something.

I guess there is one other possibility.  Do US Senators from geographical expressions we're forced to call states like Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota or Wyoming refuse to vote the way the left instructs them to?  The fix is obvious; reduce the number of US senators who can frustrate the progressive agenda.

How do you do that?  Easy.  US states are nothing more than lines that the US government arbitrarily drew on a map.  And what do we need 50 states for anyway?  It's a different time now.  Who needs farmers when we have easy access to Whole Foods or Trader Joe's?

Lines that are arbitrarily drawn can be arbitrarily erased and arbitrarily redrawn.

Why not combine geographical expressions we're forced to call states like Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota or Wyoming into one big state?  Iokanebraskotaming.  Make Omaha the new state's capital.  Reasonably big town, centrally-located, a minor-league baseball team, readily-available booze.

Two birds, one stone.  Those people will still have congressional representation, just a whole lot less of it.  Thus, their ability to adversely affect the march of progressivism will be greatly reduced and much more of a reflection of their proper role given the national population.

I mean, all those places are basically interchangeable, aren't they?

RIGHT ON SCHEDULE

In a ridiculously stupid New York Times op-ed, if you'll pardon the redundancy, Mike Tomasky pretends to worry about a Supreme Court "legitimacy" crisis.

Donald Trump won just under 46 percent of the popular vote and 2.8 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. And Judge Gorsuch was confirmed by a vote of 54-45. According to Kevin McMahon of Trinity College, who wrote all this up this year in his paper “Will the Supreme Court Still ‘Seldom Stray Very Far’?: Regime Politics in a Polarized America,” the 54 senators who voted to elevate Judge Gorsuch had received around 54 million votes, and the 45 senators who opposed him got more than 73 million. That’s 58 percent to 42 percent.

 

And if the Senate confirms Brett Kavanaugh soon, the vote is likely to fall along similar lines, meaning that we will soon have two Supreme Court justices who deserve to be called “minority-majority”: justices who are part of a five-vote majority on the bench but who were nominated and confirmed by a president and a Senate who represent the will of a minority of the American people.

 

And consider this further point. Two more current members of the dominant conservative bloc, while nominated by presidents who did win the popular vote, were confirmed by senators who collectively won fewer popular votes than the senators who voted against them.

 

Mike, or course, can't help but reveal the real reason for his feigned concern. A reliably leftist bastion is about to fall.

 

The real explanation, of course, is quite different. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did not nominate jurists who had left paper trails of judicial extremism or dropped other hints that their jurisprudence would be radical.

 

Republican presidents have. None more so than Mr. Trump, who seems to have outsourced the judicial-selection process to right-wing groups like the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation and twice nominated judges with an eye cast largely toward how happy they would make conservative evangelicals.

 

Or serious Roman Catholics. But here's where we are.  Dred Scott did not affect the Supreme Court's legitimacy in the slightest.  Neither did Plessy v. Ferguson.  Neither did Roe v. Wade, in which the Court invented a "right" to kill babies and overthrew democratically-passed laws from one end of this country to the other.

 

But legally-elected US presidents legally nominating Supreme Court candidates and seeing those candidates legally approved suddenly constitutes a "crisis?"  Really?  Then here's what you do, Mike. Only thing you can do, really.

 

Get to work amending the US Constitution.  I admit it'll be tough for people like you, what with not having a court to instantly impose your will on the entire country, having to actually convince people you hate of the correctness of your views and having to actually visit US states you'd rather not think about and interact with state legislators you hold in contempt.

 

But if you somehow manage to pull all that off, people like me won't have a legitimate complaint.  If you don't want to have to go through all that, then there is one other option.

 

Shutting the hell up.