Killing the Gerrymander: 2018 With the Best News Yet

Again, not a huge fan of the gerrymander.

Which is why the latest news out of North Carolina heartens me. Per David A Graham at The Atlantic:

Federal judges have yet again struck down North Carolina’s congressional districts as an unconstitutional gerrymander, dealing Republicans a blow and throwing the state’s maps into chaos just months before a pivotal midterm election.

A three-judge panel, including one circuit-court judge and two district-court judges, ruled Tuesday evening that the Old North State’s redistricting plan relied too heavily on partisan affiliation in drawing constituencies, violating citizens’ rights under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, the First Amendment, and Article I of the Constitution. The decision is the first time a federal court has ever struck down a redistricting plan as a partisan gerrymander...

As Graham notes, there are two other gerrymander cases on similar arguments in other courts, so we'll likely have to wait for this to get to the Supreme Court (where it could well die for partisan reasons /headdesk).

But this ruling is a huge fcking deal because unlike previous gerrymandering rulings - which focused on minority representation - this focused on Party representation: Between the difference of Republican, Democrat, and Independent/smaller Third parties. As Graham noted, earlier gerrymandering efforts based on race was shot down by the courts, so the Republican-controlled North Carolina state legislature "proudly used partisanship as their primary criterion in drawing new maps." They intentionally drew state and congressional districts to serve Republican needs:

“I acknowledge freely that this would be a political gerrymander, which is not against the law,” said Representative David Lewis, the chair of the state House redistricting committee. He also said, “I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats. So I drew this map to help foster what I think is better for the country.” And he suggested the committee draw maps that would produce 10 Republican and three Democratic U.S. House districts, on the basis that he didn’t think it would be possible to come up with an 11-2 map...

The court came back and told Lewis and the other Republicans that guess what IT WAS AGAINST THE LAW:

Common Cause and the League of Women Voters both challenged the law, and their two suits were consolidated into one. The plaintiffs argued that the plan violated the Equal Protection Clause, because it discriminated against non-Republican voters; the First Amendment, because it discriminated against voters based on previous political expression; and Article I, because it interfered with the right of the people to elect their representatives...

“A partisan gerrymander that is intended to and likely has the effect of entrenching a political party in power undermines the ability of voters to effect change when they see legislative action as infringing on their rights,” Judge James Wynn, an Obama appointee, wrote for the court. “We agree with Plaintiffs that a wealth of evidence proves the General Assembly’s intent to ‘subordinate’ the interests of non-Republican voters and ‘entrench’ Republican domination of the state’s congressional delegation...”

Wynn was joined in full by Judge William Britt, a Carter appointee, and in part by Judge William Osteen Jr., a George W. Bush appointee who accepted the Equal Protection and Article I arguments but rejected the plaintiffs’ First Amendment claim...

This last bit is important. The judges did not split on two of the three arguments, meaning those arguments can work at the higher appellate (and Supreme Court) levels. The First Amendment argument is open to interpretation, but the Equal Protection and Article I arguments are etched deep into the legal underpinnings of voters' rights.

This partisan gerrymandering on the part of Republicans - in fairness, Democrats have been doing this in states like Illinois as well - is one of the big reasons why we're struggling against a federal government where the Party in power does not actually represent the majority of voters. Most Americans vote Democratic: However, the nature of geography and demographics (which is affected by gerrymandering) gave Republicans more seats in Congress.

If we can get rid of gerrymandering - if we can as a nation make it so that the House AND the Senate reflect the actual voter turnout and the issues they want resolved - we should get a Legislative branch of the federal government that genuinely reflects - and serves - the nation's interests. Only the geographic limitations - on the Senate, where small states are disproportionately represented - would be a problem from that point.

We'd still have elected officials who actually earned their electoral wins, not based on "safe" districts carved out to decimate the opposing party(ies).

Here's hoping.

Republican Congress Trying to Kill Health Care. AGAIN.

It's the circus that never ends, kids.

Even after three failed tries while in majority control of both wings of Congress, the GOP Senate is pushing one more plan to gut the everloving shit out of Obamacare (via Jeffrey Young at HuffPost):

For what feels like the 1,000th time this year, the Republican Senate is looking to ram through a hugely consequential health care bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act and “replace” it with ... a lot less.

The GOP Congress only has until Sept. 30 to advance health care legislation with a bare majority in the Senate, because that is when the special procedural rules enabling them to avoid a Democratic filibuster expire. That deadline seems to be motivating Republicans to line up behind a bill sponsored by Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy (La.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.). This could mean a vote next week.

That’s despite the fact that this legislation has never been the subject of a public debate or the normal congressional committee process. The Congressional Budget Office also won’t have time to analyze how many people would have health insurance as a result of the bill, or how much the premiums would cost.

In other words, Congress would be passing a bill with major ramifications for many millions of people without first finding out exactly what it does...

You'll notice the Republicans in charge of the Senate do not care about procedure. They do not care about the costs of what they're trying to pass. They do not care to debate this in public.

They only care about the goddamn tax cuts for the rich they'll get out of this move.

I've said this before: Republicans can't help themselves. There's this terrible mix of sadism and greed that drives the party leadership to repeat themselves on achieving their obsessive goals towards tax cuts and deregulation and privatization. Even after decades of evidence that shows every promise they make about all that never pans out, and even after their efforts make things worse with collapsing economies and collapsing (or exploding) infrastructures.

So it's back to the phones, everybody. Call the Senate, call your Senator's local offices in-state, and register your horror and anger that Congress is trying to gut health care coverage. Again. And again. And again. AND AGAIN...

You wanna stop making these phone calls, America? STOP VOTING REPUBLICANS INTO OFFICE.

Early Voting in Florida 2016 Elections

Monday October 24th is the start of Early Voting for the 2016 General Election.

So yeah, I've made my positions on the candidates well-known. (I'm not kidding. That post is blowing up the charts...)

I've made my positions on the state amendments well-known.

Now here's the thing I need from you. Vote.

Preferably I'd like you to vote with a modicum of sobriety and massive dose of sanity: that is, DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN (unless the Democratic option is an honest-to-God disaster, I will grant you that). But you've got your vote and your voice and it's your responsibility to contribute to the civic discourse, and I figure a lot of you have already made up your minds. Still, I need to ask for the sanity bit.

Early voting is a good option to make sure you have a chance to get that vote in. The Election Day - Tuesday - is a rough day to get in to your precinct before or after you head off to work or deal with getting kids to school and all that. Precincts are sometimes difficult or out of the way for you to get to: Mostly close to home but nowhere near the route you take back and forth to work/school/places to go.

Granted, some states make it hard to use Early Voting: either by setting short number of days or hours you have a chance to go, or by keeping the number of locations to a minimum to force long lines of people willing to go early.

(This is also why more people are starting to go to Absentee/Ballot-by-Mail as an alternative)

Personally, I'm a traditionalist. I like the idea of voting on the day itself, and I plan ahead to make sure I can (lacking family responsibilities, I can get in early before heading to work). I was lucky most of my life I've been unusually close to my precincts (in New Port Richey it was a block across the street!). I think I voted early once - 2012 - on the General Election, mostly because I worried I would be busy that day. Did I blog about it...? Lemme check. Okay. I voted early on some Primaries... AHA! I voted early because of a Jury summons. It was the same jury summons that stuck me in a room with 150 people watching Pawn Stars for six straight hours (and they recycled the same episodes every two! I will NEVER watch that show again...).

This year is no different. Part of me wants the energy of the importance of my vote - getting up and putting my vote in to dump Trump for all time - to power me through the whole work day of "yeah yeah YEAH."

But I encourage people to get to vote when they can. I know how busy everybody else can get.

Just a reminder for people in my county, here are the locations for Early Voting. Most of Polk's major cities are hosting. Today's over with but there's Tuesday onward to Sunday November 6th. The polling places are open during the weekends, including TWO Sundays, so there's every reasonable time available to get this done. Otherwise, be like me and get the voting done on Tuesday November 8th.

Just to note I got my Sample Ballot in the mail. I need the reminder. We all do.

Your vote is your voice, and your vote is your power.

Get to it.

Just Keep Digging That Hole, Republicans

This whole day Saturday was spent rooting for college football teams to win or lose according to the Grand Design of the Football gods. It was also a day where the Republican Party attempted damage control over yesterday's bombshell about Trump getting caught on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women. Per the Washington Post:

The fallout from the tape published by The Washington Post - in which Trump bragged in obscene language about forcing himself on women sexually - threatens to endanger the party’s hold on both houses of Congress in addition to the White House, which many Republicans now fear is lost. The episode also comes ahead of Sunday’s second presidential debate in St. Louis, which was already a crucial moment but could determine how widely the damage spreads.

When it comes to Trump, the Republicans have nowhere to go but down.

They can't force Trump off the ticket. For one thing, the voting has already started with some states, and with absentee ballots already being shipped. Their calls for him to step down will never happen: Trump's entire existence has been defending his name (tm), and doing that would admit failure. Any attempt to block him on the ballot will be a useless gesture. Rumors of trying to get his Veep candidate Pence to quit the ticket in shame can easily backfire on everybody but Trump...

In that regards, the party's stuck. Any move now against Trump - the GOP is risking even this just by chastising Trump for his sexist behavior -  would piss off the 40 percent of the Far Right voting base supporting Trump no matter what, and they'll take their revenge by voting JUST for Trump and then no other Republican candidates on the other races. Even just a two percent drop in Republican turnout in certain states can ruin the GOP chances of retaining the Senate. ANY attempt to alienate, isolate, quarantine, or deny Trump is going to hurt the down-ballot races... even though the party can still suffer in those down-ballot races just by the association to Trump. In this regards the party is dreading the congressional and state-level results: they're either going to lose their mainstream voters who will refuse to show up for Trump, or their going to lose their wingnut voters who will only show up for Trump.

They can't stop Trump from campaigning. This is a guy who lives for the cameras and the mobs and the attention. And like it or not, he is going to speak his mind, whatever twisted thoughts are going to bounce around that self-indulging brain of his. The possibility of Trump uttering more offensive statements is high: the likelihood he's going to attack Hillary by way of attacking Bill's infidelities is close to 100 percent now. And the Republican party has to know that Hillary is waiting for that attack: it's been building since the 1990s, and she's bound to have mastered the response since 2008 during her first attempted run at the Presidency. Any attack Trump thinks he can pull off is going to turn out badly, because Hillary (and Bill, and the Dems) have a way of coming out of that scandal more popular than before...

All the Republicans have left right now is taking their lumps from the beat-down they know is coming: Women voters across ethnic lines have to be refusing any support for Trump and the GOP right about now. And never forget this bit: Women voters turn up in greater numbers than men. It's a voting bloc you're NOT supposed to insult or deny. And yet the Republicans keep doing that over (Akin's attitude towards rape) and over (Limbaugh slut-shaming Sandra Fluke over birth control), and Trump is just the latest nightmare for women.

Yet I wouldn't be surprised if the Republican elites - within the party and within their chummy circle of friends of the Beltway media - are going to tell themselves this election cycle was just an aberration, that Trump ruined what was supposed to be a "change" election, that all they have to do is regroup for 2018 midterms like they've done in 2010 and 2014, that they can find a savior candidate for 2020...

Just keep digging that hole, Republicans. Just keep ignoring the fact that your party base only wants assholes - racist and sexist - for candidates, and that your candidates are more than obliging to fit that role. Just keep ignoring the fact that it's not 1985 anymore and your tax-cut trickle-down bullshit doesn't sell, that your anti-abortion anti-birth control anti-women's health outrage is too extreme for most Americans, that your hopes for another Reagan to rise from the ashes of your disasters are foolish and futile.

In Brief: Some Questions I Have for Steve Bannon

So in case you don't get your news from Fark.com you might have missed another Florida Man story:

Florida Man caught registered to vote at an address he doesn't live at, hilarity ensues.

It seems Steve Bannon, recently put in charge of Trump's off-the-rails Presidential campaign, has his voter registration at an abandoned property due for demolition, that there's no evidence he ever really lived there, and that he's been living at places in three different locations - Los Angeles CA, Washington DC (and THAT's got its own questionable issues), and yet another property in Florida - bringing up a question of which place is his real place of residence.

(Note: one reason a lot of well-off people own and claim residency in Florida is that we have very relaxed Homestead Exemptions property laws that make it REAL friendly for tax-dodging Far Right types, so for a guy who does a lot of business in DC and LA, I'm not surprised he calls Florida home... and never shows up here...)

'Cause you see, voter laws may be set by state but even the states agree you can really only call one place home (and have that as a place of voter registration). Voting in one town - even within the same state - but really being a primary resident in another is a form of voter fraud (why hello HYPOCRISY cough cough).

Maybe the reason why Republicans run around claiming Blacks and Latinos commit in-person voter fraud so often is because they seem to do a lot of it themselves.

So I got a few questions for Mr. Bannon if time allows:

1) Which state among your various property holdings is your real primary residence?

2) Have you registered to vote in the other states where you claim home ownership / rental properties? Have you voted in other states while claiming to reside at the address in Miami that you never really lived in?

3) How soon can you go to jail for lying on your voter registration forms (Florida Statutes Title IX, Chapter 104.011(2) covers it) about your address?

I expect a reply within the hour... of hell freezing over. Still, the effort counts.

At What Point Does Trump Become a Clear And Present Danger to EVERYONE'S Lives? (w/ Updates)

Did he just say what I think he just said?

Per Esme Cribb at Talking Points Memo:

Donald Trump suggested at a Tuesday rally that "the Second Amendment people" might be the only ones who can take action against a Clinton presidency.

In a speech at the University of North Carolina, Trump suggested gun owners could take Clinton out in order to prevent her appointing judges to the Supreme Court.

"If she gets to pick her judges," Trump said, "nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is."

This is essentially Trump calling out for that "Second Amendment Remedy," a phrase that's been floating out there among the Far Right every time they get angry or antsy about something Obama or the Democrats are about to win. The shorthand - the not-so-hidden message - is that the gun-nuts who believe the Second Amendment is "their" right to arm themselves against the government will rise up and "solve" the problem.

And this shit is NOT FUNNY. Trump and his cronies may try to pass this off as a joke, but violence in the real world with serious consequences is NOT a GODDAMN JOKE.

And this isn't imaginary or fake or a pipe dream. We've seen these Second Amendment fetishists commit these acts of gun violence again and again. Remember Oregon earlier this year? Remember the Planned Parenthood shooting?

There are genuine crazy people out there with easy access to firearms who only need the incentive to go and make themselves into "heroes" by shooting the hell out of everybody else.

And Trump right now just egged them on.

It doesn't matter if Trump was suggesting an act of violence towards Hillary, or if Trump was suggesting acts of violence towards any Justices Hillary would nominate. The key thing here is TRUMP WAS SUGGESTING AN ACT OF VIOLENCE, PERIOD.

He called on a group of people who have been pumped up with anger and outrage for DECADES to take to "their" Second Amendment and create a solution. One that speaks of gun violence and death.

At what point does verbal threats like what Trump just did cross a legal threshold? Nobody has the right to go around making death threats, this is not protected speech here. HE IS CALLING ON ACTS OF VIOLENCE.

Someone better fucking arrest him.

Note: follow here to Tom Levenson and Betty Cracker at Balloon Juice, and Charlie Pierce at Esquire, just to get a sense of how maddening this whole thing has become.

Update: I should include Comrade Misfit here. This is someone who, although I agree with a sizable amount of her policy views, is still someone pro-gun ownership and pro-2nd Amendment and I would probably argue over the merits of "well-regulated" vs. "shall not be infringed" with her well into Judgment Day. And even she knows Trump just went Full Batshit Cray-Cray here.

Further: Emily L. Hauser on Twitter is remembering her years in Israel listening to all the violent rhetoric towards Rabin.

And don't forget what happened to Gabby Giffords.

This shit is NOT a joke.

It HAS To Be a Blowout

(Update: Thank you, Infidel753, for the link!)

The ongoing news about the 2016 Elections is going well: Hillary's numbers are up and Trump's numbers are down.

The big buzz is how certain states for the Electoral College are being viewed as safely Blue (Democratic) to where Hillary can cut back on the ad campaigns in Colorado and Virginia. From Jim Newell at Slate.com:

The withdrawals are shocking because these are not traditional blue states. Barack Obama converted them in 2008 and held onto them in 2012. It takes the mind some time to adjust first to the changing of the colors and then, after multiple elections, their deepening. But the numbers seem to check out. Clinton has always polled strongly in Virginia, and there haven’t been any new public polls since the Democratic convention or her selection of Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate—or, for that matter, since the beginning of Trump’s ongoing nightmare week. Colorado, meanwhile, hasn’t looked competitive for a while.

Take these two states and their 22 electoral votes off the table and Trump’s available paths narrow from a few to … two. Let’s start with the 2012 map as a baseline. Trump could flip Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to get to 273. He could win Florida and Ohio, lose Pennsylvania, and then win Nevada, Iowa, and New Hampshire to get to 269—i.e., an Electoral College tie and a vote in the House of Representatives. There’s still time for other states to enter competition: Maybe Michigan or Wisconsin starts feeling the red itch. And then there’s always the path in which Trump wins every state, beautifully, by a landslide, look at these crowds, and it would be terrific, just terrific.

Cut back on the sarcasm, Jim, that's MY job.

The point is, Trump is losing any chance of garnering the swing states he'd need to pull off a victory. Essentially, every state that voted for Obama in 2012 - save for Ohio, where the polling is in flux - isn't flipping to the Cheeto-faced ferret-wearing sh-tgibbon any time soon.

Even better for the forces of sanity, Trump is losing the reliably Red states:

• Arizona - where the Hispanic population is NOT in the mood for Trump's BS - is up for grabs.
• Mormons in Utah STILL hate Trump.
• Texas - the largest state out of the Top Five (CA, TX, NY, FL, IL) still reliably Republican - could well be vulnerable. If the GOP loses Texas, that's it game over. 
• And speaking of Florida, lick it up wingnuts lick... it... up...
• My personal favorite, my birth state of Georgia now has a poll with Hillary clinging to a slim lead.

Granted, polls don't equal actual votes. But the polling has been 9-out-10 accurate (or close enough) this election cycle to where it's going to take a literal shift in Earth's orbit to shake things up.

Why I'm thrilled Georgia is showing signs of flipping Blue on the map is that if this happens - if November 8th comes and Hillary and the Democrats are able to make major gains in Red states like North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas - this can well be the death-knell of the Republicans' Southern Strategy.

What has been the keystone for Republican game-planning for over 40 years since 1968-1972 of the Nixon campaigns, the Southern Strategy is what created the hard conservative ideology of the GOP that maintained discipline and won the occasional Presidential election, as well as grant them demographic control of the House of Representatives by using gerrymandering to craft safe Far Right districts.

It also helped turn the modern Republican Party into a bunch of racists, dog-whistling about black crime and illegal immigrants and ungodly women and sinful gays. Okay, I may exaggerate: There are still a good number of registered Republicans who are not haters at heart, who are as embarrassed and flummoxed by all this nightmarish stuff as the rest of us. But those Republicans are in hiding and refusing to confront this elephant - couldn't avoid this metaphor - in their room.

Conor Friedersdorf over at the Atlantic muses if the "White Identity Politics" has already poisoned the GOP to death:

The self-interested reason for conservatives to fear white identity politics is demographic: there’s an expiration date on any coalition that wins white men without college degrees but alienates a “Rainbow coalition” that includes college-educated whites. That date may have already passed. Imagine choosing now, of all moments, to run a campaign that actively antagonizes Hispanics who were born in the United States.

That date did pass, Conor. The second Trump made his campaign announcement by shitting on Mexicans and NOBODY in the Republican ranks did anything to shut him down, that was kinda the end.

This is why it's important for states like Georgia and Virginia and North Carolina and Texas (!) and MAYBE Mississippi and MAYBE South Carolina (!) join with Florida (which hasn't been really part of the Deep South since Disney World turned a profit) and vote Democrat. It has to be done in defiance of the most openly racist candidate we've had since George Wallace in 1972. It has to be done in a way to break the Far Right White-Boy dominance of the southern states.

It has to be done to break the Republicans' desperate game-plan to use racism to win their elections.

It won't be enough for the election to be a close win for Hillary / close loss for Trump. If it's close, the GOP handlers and candidates ambitious for 2020 will think to themselves "It could have worked if Trump weren't so obviously scary to picture in the Oval Office" and "I can win running his type of campaign, just smarter and organized."

It has to be decisive. It has to be clear to even the most blindly devoted psychotics at Fox Not-News that their way - fearmongering about the Other - no longer works.

It has to be Hillary winning big, racking up all of Obama's 2012 states as well as picking up North Carolina and Georgia and Mississippi and Louisiana and Texas And Kansas and Arizona and Utah and Missouri and heck let's throw in one of the Dakotas.

It has to be the Senate campaigns - all thirty-four of them - flipping to the Democrats, a defiant slap in the face to the Republican Senators refusing to do their jobs like filling Supreme Court vacancies.

It has to be House Republicans - sitting in many a gerrymandered district thinking themselves "safe" - losing enough seats that the Democrats gain control of both houses of Congress after six years of Republican obstruction and incompetence.

It has to be the state governments of Kansas and Michigan and North Carolina and Florida getting cleaned out of Republicans who have mismanaged those states into bankruptcy or worse.

It has to be a blowout: Republicans losing their power across the board.

Maybe then - it's a fool's hope to think they will give up their Godly Narrative of Guns and Tax Cuts and White Pride, but still one must hope - they will wake up, stop dreaming it's 1985 1955 1855, and move into the 21st Century.

Get.
The.
DAMN.
VOTE.
OUT.
America.

And vote against everything the modern Republicans represent.

No Eternal Reward Will Forgive Us Now

I love the friends I have gathered together on this thin raft/
We have constructed pyramids in honor of our escaping/
For this is the land where the Pharaoh died...
- The Doors (Jim Morrison) "Texas Radio & the Big Beat"

Welp. It's official and nobody can take it back.

The Republican Party officially nominated Donald Trump - without argument the least qualified human being to ever run for the highest office of the land - to run for President of the United States.

We are now running a great risk that Trump - a con artist with no genuine political skill, running on impossible and vague promises - could actually win in November. As of today, Nate Silver and crew at the 538 website have Trump at 38 percent chance of winning. That's not good.

There is every likelihood that Trump's numbers are improving because there's traditionally a bounce in the polls surrounding the nominating convention week, but we can't take anything for granted.

It'd be nice to see who Hillary selects for her Vice Presidential pick as the Democrats head into their Philly convention next week, and see if she can regain her momentum.

It'd be nice to see American voters try to realize the severity of what Trump represents: racist misogyny driven by ignorance and desperate to sell fear. The punditry have noted that so far the Republican convention has been so overwhelmed by the Far Right narrative - BENGHAZI! Hillary should be in jail! Obama's a Secret Muslim! All of that has been openly said at the podium this week - that it's unlikely that anyone's opinions have changed so far. But the pundits are one thing, the voters are another.

God, I hate feeling like this. The dread of a potential disaster of a Trump Presidency.

Why Trump Still Worries Me

We're heading into a chaotic and potentially broken Republican convention in Cleveland within 24 hours, and these thoughts still plague me:

We are dealing with the fact that a major political party in the United States - the Republicans - willingly and in some cases happily voted for a known bankrupt-burdened, ego-driven constantly-lying con artist with no political experience at all to run for the highest office in the land.

This is something I've seen here at home. Here in Florida, our Republican neighbors happily voted for a confirmed Medicare Fraud in Rick "No Ethics" Scott to run our state as governor back in 2010, picking him over a staid but reliably conservative politician. And because of that, and because not enough Democrats and NPA voters showed up to do anything to stop him - TWICE - we've been stuck with a corrupt, crony-empowering, regulation-cutting, budget-slashing coward who has allowed our waters to turn toxic and our communities to turn into hellholes.

I mean, Christ honestly, this is what I wrote about Scott in 2010:

I've spent more than a few posts yelling and screaming about how the Republicans have failed in their leadership: about how they provide us with con artists, snake-oil salesmen, egomaniacal freaks, borderline racists, and outright liars.  But in previous cases the Republicans at least tried for a pretense of choosing 'sensible,' or least publicly clean candidates that don't have billion-dollar-sized damages trailing in their wake.  With Scott?  Dear fucking God, they're not even trying to hide it anymore.  This guy - responsible for the largest fine in Medicare Fraud history - is openly trying to buy himself an office ($40 million of his own money and counting), and for what purpose?  What do you honestly think Scott is trying to do achieve?  All I can think of is that he's hoping to get into office so that he can use the shield of "Public Trust" to avoid any culpability in the private sector he may have generated...

Just trade out Scott's name for Trump's, and take out how Scott was using his own money to win because I doubt Trump really is spending anything on his run, and what I wrote in 2010 is the exact same thing I'd be writing RIGHT NOW.

Only now it's not just the state of Florida at risk, it's the entire United States of America, and God Help Us the whole fucking planet.

This is why, despite all the stuff I read on other blogs and even in the national media punditry commentary that "it can't possibly go wrong", I am absolutely terrified that something is going to go wrong. That voter suppression efforts in key states might actually work on a large enough scale to flip Democratic states to Republican... That Democratic voters might not show up to vote, either disgusted by Hillary being too Centrist or convinced by the Far Right media that she's pure Evil (like they've been screaming about for 25 years and NEVER proven right)... That enough Far Left voters pull a 2000 Nader and keep Hillary from winning one too many swing state... That like it or not you should never underestimate the Democratic Party's ability to screw up an easy win...

Trump may be so terrible and horrifying and inept a candidate that it seems impossible that he could actually win in November... but if he's on the ballot, he has every legit chance even if it's .0001 percent of a chance when the time comes in November. So it's not really impossible: you cannot deny there is a likelihood however slim of a President Trump.

That we've actually allowed this to even get this close to happening should create nightmares for every sane person outside of the 27 percent Crazification Factor for the rest of the year.

And this is why I have been screaming - will keep screaming - at the Democrats and Moderates and Independent voters and Sane voters to make sure they get the DAMN VOTE OUT this November and that they DO NOT for the LOVE OF GOD VOTE REPUBLICAN... AND DO NOT for the LOVE OF GOD VOTE TRUMP.

In all regards, I won't be paying too much direct attention to the Cleveland convention (I can't believe Tampa's convention was four years ago already...). It's promising to be a hater-fest of epic scale, where the party is openly planning themed nights around "BENGHAZI EMAILS ZOMG" and "Clinton's Penis" (I am not making this up). This is what they've got to offer America: nothing about education, or jobs, or immigration reform (other that BUILD THAT WALL), or an informed discussion on the role of government in modern society. They're not even bringing out a positive, friendly version of their "God and Guns" platform to pull in the moderate faithful. They're not going to do much to promote a party platform - "No Porn" is the more cringe-worthy part, but the entire thing skews so far Right that even Goldwater would have choked on it - they seem embarrassed to discuss.

The Trump convention is going straight to the mudslinging: they're going to pull the Eastwood Chair stunt but multiplied by eleven.

Cleveland is coming up next. God Help Us.

So How Bad Is Pence?

Update: Tengrain, no. I am so sorry, but you got the link at Crooks & Liars wrong. I never met Pence. RUDE PUNDIT did, which is why I opened the article quoting him. Ack, please please please change the Mike's Blog Round-up link to reflect Rude Pundit's actual article. I am so so sorry about this to anyone coming from the Round-up link. Just, you know, hey here's my blog, just hang out, I update from time to time with moderate, left-leaning views, and hey buy my books and stuff, and... ahhh, so sorry. :(


Okay, so...

Probably this bad. The Rude Pundit actually met the guy once:

See, he was this blogger's Congress member for a brief, horrible period when the Rude Pundit was slowly watching his life seep away in that hellhole of flat land, cold winds, and backwards ass people, Indiana. So he has met Pence, spoken briefly to him, looked into those beady, sleepy eyes and realized, "Holy (bleep), this guy is so (expletive) dumb that he could hammer a nail in with his head and it wouldn't do any damage." No wonder Donald Trump chose him (although, hilariously, it looks like Trump was trying to back out of it at the last minute, possibly realizing that touring the nation with an tight-assed evangelical Christian with the personality of a corn-speckled turd wouldn't be a nonstop party).

Okay, so I curse often on my own blog, but I occasionaly filter it out to tone down the anger just a smidge... Anywho, I digress. Back to Rude Pundit:

Back in 2009, while in Congress (where he squatted and dumped until 2013), Pence was ahead of the curve in trying to defund Planned Parenthood... Or maybe we can look fondly back to when he declared that the Affordable Care Act was antithetical to the ideals of the American Revolution...

And, in 2010, in a preview of the kind of leadership we could expect from Veep Pence, he set the tone for the House of Representatives in telling President Obama and his agenda to go f-ck itself: ..."Look, the time to go along and get along is over...Look, there will be no compromise on stopping runaway spending, deficits and debt. There will be no compromise on repealing Obamacare. There will be no compromise on stopping Democrats from growing government and raising taxes. And if I haven’t been clear enough yet, let me say again: No compromise..."

Yes, yes, yes, Mike Pence, who, at the time, was harboring illusions that he might be president hisself one day, was one of the people responsible for the congressional f-ckery that stalled virtually any legislation in the House...

As for myself, my first direct confrontation with Pence came with his sadistic push as Governor to make Indiana a home for "religious freedom" by essentially mandating private businesses discriminate against gays:

The governor who signed this, Mike Pence, has spent the past few days trying to defend this law.  He keeps saying that the law is about "protecting religious liberty," but when asked about whether the law discriminates, or asked if it's wrong to discriminate, he avoids giving a straight answer.

It's telling that this "great and wonderful and Christian law" for religious liberty had to be signed behind closed doors and with only a handful of religious leaders - some of them known for their rabid brand of hate - rather than a broad range of church pastors and fellowships.  That's probably because a lot of the larger Christian denominations - Presbyterians, Episcopalians and most Lutheran churches in particular - support gay rights.  And a lot of other Christian churches such as the Methodists may oppose homosexuality on principle due to Leviticus and other books, but they refuse to make it a public stance to openly discriminate. 

The thing is: this law does not protect religious freedom at all.  It has nothing to do with ensuring our churches stay open, it has nothing to do with protecting people who gather in public to pray, it has nothing to do with making sure that God remains in Heaven while the flock tend to their affairs within the world.

It has everything to do with letting haters use religion as a weapon to hurt others.  It has everything to do with twisting the words of love and forgiveness from Christ himself to justify rash and reckless judgment of others.  It has everything to do with those few so-called Christians who want to persecute and punish a very small minority group in the name of other Christians who do not want to hate at all...

You can see why Trump saw value adding Pence to his lineup. Pence has inroads to the Religious Right that push their social conservative agenda on the Republican Party - so much so that the party's official platform favors their faction to a disgusting degree - that Trump wants to double-down on keeping that faction - the biggest part of his Nativist base - satisfied.

"It has everything to do with letting haters use religion as a weapon to hurt others." Trump's been campaigning on hate ever since his opening speech against Mexicans and Asians, he's been campaigning on misogyny and racism throughout his primary run, and he's campaigning on that so strongly that he can't "pivot" lest he lose that hater base.

This is the starting lineup for your 2016 Republican Party, America.

For the Love of God, for the Love of Love, do not vote Republican.

It's CINCO DE MAYO Again!

And this 2016 could prove the most bittersweet...

Artist Ted Rall, posted via Forbes.com

Could this be our last reason to celebrate the Battle of Puebla, Mexico's defiant stand against an invading French force?

Could this be the last time we make the f0cking Chimichangas?

Could this be the last time we celebrate Mexican-American and indeed Latino heritage in the United States of America?

Could this be the last time we can fantasize about Salma Hayek?

...

NEVER!

SAVE CINCO DE MAYO!

Stop Trump from ruining one of the great made-up holidays in the United States!

UPDATE: Pinku-Sensei has the margaritas over at his blog! PREPARE THE CHIMICHANGAS!

FOLLOW-UP TO THE UPDATE: There is an ungodly image of Trump trying to eat a taco salad in his office claiming he's all up for Cinco De Mayo and that his restaurant grill in the building serves them all the time. No. Just... No. That is not how you impress Hispanics. That's how you make them watch the movie Machete over and over again in a growing rage...

One Reason Why a GOP Senate Won't Even Allow Garland In the Room

There was once not so long ago a strong, unified stand by the Republican Senators to obstruct Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court vacancy.

And like all Republican efforts against Obama, it's falling apart.

The calls by individual GOP Senators - each of them facing hard questions from their states back home - to at least give Garland a hearing in committee are picking up. It's not a wave of defecting Senators - so far it's just a quarter of them - but they're starting to be heard by the mainstream media because some of them like Maine's Susan Collins is a favorite guest to the green rooms:

Since former Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February, McConnell has pledged to block any Obama-nominated justice by not holding hearings, meetings, or a floor vote.

But Collins is pushing back. In an interview with Newsradio WGAN in Maine on Tuesday, she explained why she disagrees with McConnell’s strategy to fill the empty Supreme Court seat...

At one point, Collins said she was "perplexed" by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's outright refusal to give Garland even a perfunctory hearing.

Well, there's a very good reason for that.

If the Senate actually did give Garland a hearing, they'd be screwed.

The problem becomes one of optics: the second Garland gets grilled by the Senate, even by Republicans, it will be made clear to the voting public paying attention to these things that there would be no objectionable reason for voting against Garland.

Garland is no courtroom extremist. He's not a Bork-in-waiting, where questionable judicial opinions would quickly reveal an unstable or partisan hack who would rule from the bench without proper judicial restraint. He's not another Harriet Miers, someone with more office manager experience than courtroom experience.

That's where Obama wins this: Garland has a decades-long record as an Appellate judge with a sizable case history. While the Republicans can attack him on the politics of his decisions - anything pro-choice, or pro-union, or pro-civil rights for example - they cannot hurt him on the merits of judicial experience.

Senator Collins thinks she may be able to be fair enough at her job to give Garland the chance at an up-or-down vote, as stated in that ThinkProgress article:

Shortly after Scalia’s death in February, Collins said she would give her “full attention” to whoever President Obama decided to nominate. After Garland’s official nomination earlier this month, Collins urged her fellow Republicans to “follow regular order” and go through the nomination process, even if it meant rejecting Garland in the end...

But it's harder than it looks rejecting a candidate for a position when that candidate is clearly qualified.

And the Republicans do not want to get stuck with the bad optics of voting down a respected, qualified jurist all because he happens to be nominated by a President (Obama) they openly despise.

This is a lose-lose kind of deal. The Republicans are clearly hurting themselves by denying Garland even a moment to prove himself on the public stage that he can serve as a SCOTUS Justice. But they'll still look like partisan hacks if they hold a hearing on C-SPAN and then reject Garland along party lines: Because that would prove Democrats right about how the Republicans don't care about what works, only about hurting Obama.

So they're taking the least-painful option: outright denying Garland. They can pretend they're doing so because of "tradition" of preventing lame-duck Presidents doing their job, they can pretend that Garland doesn't merit a hearing, they can plug their fingers in their ears and go "la-la-la" and go onto Bill O'Reilly and accuse Obama of playing partisan games.

Because the alternative is to prove to everyone else that Obama's really not playing partisan games, he's doing his job.

And the Republicans in the Senate are not.

Just When You Think the Democrats Are Gonna Be The Sane Ones In This Election

Last night my Twitter feed exploded.

Two things happened:

Campaign strategist Ted Devine argued the Sour Grapes theory that Bernie Sanders didn't seriously campaign in certain - Deep South - states, basically arguing that "they" let Hillary have easy wins in the states she did win in big blowouts:

“[Hillary Clinton’s] grasp now on the nomination is almost entirely on the basis of victories where Bernie Sanders did not compete,” said senior strategist Tad Devine. “Where we compete with Clinton, where this competition is real, we have a very good chance of beating her in every place that we compete with her.”

Devine named eight states where he said the Sanders campaign did not compete with a big presence on the ground or much on-air advertising: Texas, Alabama, Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, and Arkansas...

Rachel Maddow and her crew kind of blew that story out of the water, showing that Sanders did indeed set up offices in those and made serious efforts, and still got stomped. This hindsight "Oh we COULD have won if we really really REALLY really tried harder" is a lame-ass excuse. As Steve Benen notes in his article:

...But as a rule, presidential campaigns don’t get to lose a whole bunch of key primaries by wide margins and then declare, “Yeah, but we weren’t really trying.” If these eight nominating contests have left the Sanders campaign at a disadvantage they’re unlikely to overcome, it’s actually incumbent on his top aides and strategists to explain why they didn’t make more of an effort in these states.

It’s easy to imagine folks from Team Clinton saying they weren’t exactly going all out to win in Idaho and Utah – states Sanders won easily – but competitive candidates for national office don’t get to use that as an excuse when things aren’t going as well as they’d like.

At its root, Devine’s argument is that Team Sanders identified a series of early, delegate-rich states, but they chose not to bother with them. That’s not just a bad argument; it’s the kind of message that’s probably going to irritate quite a few Sanders supporters who expect more from their team.

A lot of sniping - from the Bernie backers defending Devine's statements and the Hillary backers calling for Devine's resignation - ensued.

The other thing that blew up on my Twitter feed was Leftist celebrity Susan Sarandon dissing Hillary Clinton yet again while being interviewed by Chris Hayes for not being "pure" enough to be the Democratic front-runner, and suggested this:

“I think Bernie would probably encourage people, because he doesn’t have any ego in this thing,” Sarandon told him. “But I think a lot of people are, ‘Sorry, I just can’t bring myself to [vote for Clinton].”

“How about you personally?” Hayes asked.

“I don’t know. I’m going to see what happens,” Sarandon said.

That bit of honesty prompted Hayes to stop in his tracks. “Really?” he asked incredulously.

“Really,” Sarandon said, adding that “some people feel that Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately if he gets in, things will really explode...”

From that statement, I'm inferring that Sarandon is thinking a Trump victory would get the Left-wingers of the nation so outraged that they will FINALLY rise up in anger and finish off where all the Iraq protests of 2002-03 and the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2008 and the Black Lives Matters protests of 2013 onward failed to accomplish.

I dunno if Sarandon realizes how much that mindset explains the poor midterms turnout of Democratic voters in 2010 and 2014. Refusing to show up - or worse voting for the worst possible human being to run for President since Thurmond in 1948 - is not going to lead to the glorious street revolution Sarandon fantasizes having. It's going to lead to more depressed grumbles from the Left about why this country's going to Hell in a handbasket while waiting for the Angels to come down and blow it all into the sea for them (this is a mindset very similar to the Rapture Republicans who WANT bad things to happen so they'll get their Armageddon).

Hate to break it you, Mrs. Sarandon, but the Leftist movement in this country isn't that violent and not that driven to go that far. You're confusing that with the Right Wingnuts who have their militias raid and wreck national parks while their drinking buddies open-carry AR-15s at little league baseball games.

I get the feeling she wants the uprising she craves but wants everyone else to clean up the mess that will happen. These revolutions she's so blithely happy to see happen tend to get messy and bloody and drag in the very people who called for it early on...

Sigh. Just when you want all the stupid crazy stuff to stay with the stupid crazy party in the Republicans, here comes the Democratic Party to show they can dive into the stupid crazy stuff as well. /headdesk

Now let's face it, a primary race is going to get ugly when it boils down to two serious competitors and their more fervent backers are going to fight like war wolves over who gets to win the nomination. And to be honest, when I'm looking at the polls of actual voter turnouts and voter enthusiasm, the Democrats overall are content with the two choices they have with Hillary and Bernie and are emotionally up for the coming general election.

But this brush war bullsh-t has got to de-escalate. Who cares if it's the Judean People's Front or the People's Front of Judea, the party has to recognize that there's a lot on the line here - not just the threat of Republicans driving this nation backwards to the horrific years of 2001-2009 but falling right into outright authoritarianism under Mussolini-esque Trump - and that the party has to remain civil within its own ranks and focus on November.

Dear Democrats:

Okay, this is coming from a No-Party-Affiliate guy, but I'm siding with you because the modern GOP is batshit insane and because God Help Us if Trump ever even gets an invite to use the White House bathrooms.

STOP WITH THE GODDAMN IN-FIGHTING. I swear I am gonna stop this car and turn right back for home if you kids keep acting up in the backseats like this.

YOU ARE ALL DEMOCRATS. You are all focused on key political issues: Pro-women, Pro-diversity, Pro-family, Pro-education, Progressive. You WANT government to work, you don't want to drown it in Grover's bathtub, you want social services to get better funding so we can stop the downward slide of millions of families crashing into poverty.

Stop dividing yourselves. The enemy isn't Hillary or Bill or Obama or Bernie. The enemy isn't really big business or unions or deep-pocket backers. The enemy is Ignorance, willful and fearful and sexist and racist and VIOLENT, the true power driving the modern Republicans: and it is that Ignorance that is threatening our very lives and future.

We need to remain united against that Ignorance, and against that Fear. We need to back, with a whole heart, the final nominee when the convention in Philadelphia rolls around. I want it to be Hillary. I want it to be Bernie. I want voter turnout for either to be above 70 percent when the November election happens, and I want to see the Senate flip to the Democrats with 68 seats and I wanna see the House flip to the Democrats with Ryan and his fellow safety-net slashers booted out the door.

We can do this, this election cycle, as long as we have enough candidates running in all the races and as long as the Democrats - and the independent voters aligned with you - remain united and focused.

Signed,
Witty Librarian, Second-Tier Officer of the Lost Battalion of the Horde

Update 7/31/16: You know, it's been nagging at me for some weeks now that what I've written above is something I've ranted about before. It wasn't until today that I realized that yes dammit I DID write an open letter - on Emily Hauser's epic blog - to wobbly Democrats years ago, in defense of Obama:

...This is all in spite of the fact that Obama has faced the most outrageous, slanderous, bullshitty wave of personal attacks and hate-on since Abraham Lincoln got slimed by the pro-slavery Confederates. Clinton got off light compared to what Obama’s getting now. The entire Republican Party, led about their collective nose by the far wingnut psychos of the Teabagger brigades, is openly working to make Obama FAIL, and are prideful of that effort. Even if, and especially if, they can make Obama fail and have the nation suffer for it. Right now, the core ideology of the Republican Party is “If Obama’s for it, then we are against it.” Just look at their flip-flopping on Libya for God’s sake.

Dear Democratic base: do not blame Obama. BLAME THE GODDAMN REPUBLICANS WHO ARE STILL SCREWING US AND THIS NATION. The same Republican Party that refuses to compromise on easing up on the Bush-era tax cuts, the very cuts THAT CREATED THE MASSIVE DEFICIT WE’RE IN.

If Obama seems weak because he’s trying to compromise, that’s because as a politician he’s EXPECTED to attempt compromises. A majority of American voters, even the majority of Democrats, expect that. The problem isn’t Obama: the problem is a Republican Party THAT REFUSES TO COMPROMISE AT ALL, AND INSTEAD KEEPS MAKING HARSHER DEMANDS.

The Republicans are at war with the people of the United States: they are at war with minorities, they are at war with teachers, they are at war with unions, they are at war with women, they are at war with anyone under 55 and anyone whose income is under $100,000.

The solution here is not to abandon Obama: any other Democratic leader would be facing the same problem because THE REPUBLICANS DON’T CARE WHO THEY HATE OR HURT.
The solution here is to get the VOTE OUT. YOU GOTTA GET MORE DEMOCRATS VOTING TO ENSURE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES WIN ELECTIONS.

Look at here. Look at Florida. In 2010, we had a choice between a Democrat who uses a Blackberry over a Republican WHO COMMITTED MEDICARE FRAUD. And Florida has more registered Democrats than Republicans (this is true, by 900,000 voters). And yet, voters were so glum or refused to turn out to vote. As a result, Rick “MEDICARE FRAUD” Scott won by less than 5,000 votes. The state of Florida is now getting screwed over by a crook who wants to privatize everything, kill our schools, destroy health care for nursing homes and the elderly, shut down unemployment benefits, force workers to take urine drug tests at HIS clinics, and give massive tax breaks to his corporate buddies… all because not every Democrat turned out the vote...

This was back in 2011. We are still dealing with the same unhappy Far Left people who want their utopia on gilded wings and bathed in shining starlight. Sigh.

Very Good Reasons To NEVER Vote For Trump

Just to clarify, for all the times I've commented on Trump's con artist ways, and just overall status as evil ignorant half-wit, I need to spell out EXACTLY why Trump is a disaster, has always been a disaster, and will be a disaster if anyone's foolish enough to vote for him.

The most obvious starting point is his failure as a businessman. He keeps promoting himself as this genius deal-maker, but his genius deals involve talking his way out of bankruptcy court with his ass still in one piece while everyone else pays for his follies. He's done this at least four times, with countless other broken deals in his wake.

His failures as a casino owner in Atlantic City contributed to that city's decline and ongoing economic malaise.

Here at home - Tampa Bay - Trump dirtied his hands with a contemptible condo scheme from the early 2000s where he scooped up people's deposits and fled with barely a skeleton frame of the building in place.

Don't forget: Trump f-cking killed off an entire sports league. The USFL was an upstart football league looking to compete with the NFL, and had done so by playing in a different part of the calendar (late spring) and in more diverse markets. Like all start-ups, the budding league had its financial woes but had established some strong market places and good teams. Trump had bought the New Jersey team from its Oklahoma-based owner and worked his way into the ownership group, arguing that the new league should compete directly with the NFL in the fall months. When one of his rivals arguing against it got sick from brain cancer, Trump gained control and pushed the move. It immediately killed off teams that couldn't share the same stadiums with the NFL, and they basically had to suspend operations while the owners pushed an antitrust lawsuit.

Combined with that lawsuit, the expectation was that the bigger league would cave and deal, bringing in the more successful USFL owners/teams into an expanded super-league much in the way they did with the AFL in the 1960s (It's near-common knowledge among the people involved that Trump was trying to bully the NFL into taking him as an owner). But the antitrust lawsuit fell apart: the jury found the NFL was behaving like a monopoly, but Trump's moving the USFL to the fall schedule was a self-inflicted punishment and the jury dumped the award down to a single dollar. By law, antitrust fines are tripled. The final check to the USFL ended up being $3.76. Ironically, the check itself - never cashed - is worth hundreds of thousands as a collectible.

The USFL never played another game. Good teams in mid-sized markets disappeared. Just on this alone, we need to avenge the Tampa Bay Bandits, by God...

Oh, and there's RIGHT NOW an ongoing story about another of Trump's failures, the so-called Trump University that is the centerpiece of a major fraud court case.

And that's just his past as a businessman. As his potential future as our highest executive officer...

Trump's lack of foreign policy experience is one thing. The more horrifying thing is his seeming unwillingness to learn or take it serious. As President, it's going to be his key job as Chief of State to represent the United States to the world and work as our primary receiver of ambassadors, foreign leaders, allies and enemies alike. Trump's campaigning attitude seems to be one of "bully now, bully later, bully always".

Trump is a dangerous departure for any campaign front-runner or potential President we've seen in the modern era. At least candidates like Romney in 2012 and Obama in 2008, who were inexperienced in foreign policy matters, make serious efforts to earn and learn towards the job (other candidates like McCain and Kerry and Gore in recent times had the foreign policy gravitas to make it moot points).

For the most part, Trump is going to be one of the most willfully ignorant Presidential hopefuls we've had run for office since William Jennings Bryan (I was going to say Bush the Lesser, but even Bush wasn't this willful. Dubya's ignorance as a candidate was sincere, and in some ways forgivable...). He'd be the most dangerously politically illiterate Presidents in office since Andrew Johnson.

The possibility of Trump being the Commander-in-Chief has already sounded a lot of DEFCON 1 notices among the military observers and insiders. There's been Twitter comments about how the Joint Chiefs are trying to figure out ways of keeping Trump away from the nuclear football, and those comments are not in jest...

The last point to make about Trump and foreign policy is how our own allies are going to react to having Trump as our political leader. There's already been a debate on the floor of Parliament - our staunchest ally - about banning Trump from visiting due to Trump's open racism. This has never happened before in my lifetime, and I'm uncertain if this had ever happened (probably during the early days of US vs. UK tensions). Even Sarah Palin never got this treatment.

In terms of personality, I've already tagged Trump as a clear Active-Negative character based on Professor Barber's model. I've heard there are other personality charting methods for Presidents, and I'm looking for one now. What I am finding are articles and reports from psychologists and therapists conceding that Trump shows the traits of a Narcissistic Personality Disorder, From what I'm finding about NPD, it's a fear-driven psychosis that affects decision-making in a way that would be troubling in the person whose decisions impacts upon the lives of the entire planet.

That's all I pretty much want to say about Trump. He's not the successful businessman he claims to be, he promises to be a massive disaster at foreign policy and military leadership, and his personality puts him at the emotional extremes of the likes of Nixon, LBJ, and a whole history book's worth of bad Presidents.

For all that is holy America, for the love of our children and their future, please no. Not Trump. Not one vote more. Please.

The Jokers of the Republican Candidates Are Scary. What They Want To Do To America Is Worse.

This week saw what I think is supposed to be the final intra-party debate for the Republicans... yup, just checked, it is... so this is going to be it seeing all of the surviving blowhards begging for attention on the same stage. From now on, whomever's left - Cruz, Kasich, Rubio, and Trump - will do so from their individual rallies and town halls.

The way things are polling for this coming March Madness primary - where large-delegate states with Winner-Take-All results (Hi FLORIDA) can break the field - it's likely going to be Cruz and Trump the rest of the way.

This is still not a good situation for the United States.

Looking back on this blog, you might notice I've railed against most of the GOP candidates as Active-Negative disasters in the making. Even the ones I damned with faint praise - Lindsey Graham and John Kasich - were viewed with skepticism and dismay.

That was because - even for the ones who respected the federalist system of government, of the checks and balances - all of those candidates were arguing in defense of a political agenda that will re-create the economic (domestic) and diplomatic (international) policies of 2001-2009 that led to a massive global recession - that we STILL have not recovered from - and two costly wars/occupations that continue to destabilize half the planet to this day.

During that debate - transcript linked here - all four candidates sold their similar-sing-song platforms of tax cuts, tax cuts, deregulation, spending cuts to everything not military or CEO-related, tax cuts, wars, and more tax cuts. And on a lot of their arguments, the candidates were outright lying or failed on the facts.


Digby noted in her official column over at Salon how the candidates were mostly unified on the issues, just offering different ways in which they'd shred Social Security, handle foreign trade, arrest all illegals, and charge blindly into war zones in Syria and Ukraine.

Where the Democrats have a distinct split on the issues between a Socialist-Left take by Bernie Sanders and a Centrist-Moderate take by Hillary Clinton, there are no distinctive splits among the Republicans. All that distinguishes them from each other is the hair-splitting specifics.

There's a reason why the south Florida paper Sun-Sentinel refused to endorse any of the four remaining GOP candidates. Actually, they had several, but they all boiled down to the same thing, even for Kasich: they are all pushing the same platform, and that platform is dangerous.

Just like Mitt in 2012, all four are keen on a massive tax cut that would wreck everything for everyone not in the .01 Percent bracket.

They're pushing for putting ground troops into Syria, a move that will easily go sour and re-establish an occupation regime that already ruined much of Iraq and would wreck any diplomatic standing among our own allies.

They want to shred Social Security and every other social safety net from schools up to Medicare, as though cutting back on funding somehow creates the "reforms" necessary to actually make things work.

It doesn't matter if it ends up being Cruz or Trump or Kasich or even Rubio if he somehow pulls off a rigged ballot pulls off a miracle rally.

These are the Jokers to the Right of us: dangerous in their disdain for Constitutional norms, fervent in their dogma for tax cuts and deregulation and privatization, proudly ignorant of their view of the real world. Their personalities and arrogance may distract voters as entertainment for mockery or dismissal, but they are each covering up for a political war on rights and governance that's been waging for the last 30 years that could well devastate the U.S. if any of them make it into the Oval Office.

These Jokers are deadlier than the comic book version.

Don't laugh at these guys. Recoil in horror. And get the damn vote out for Democrats to make sure they don't win this November.

The Clown Car Campaign Comes to the Crazy... Damn, There's No C-Word Synonym for State of Florida.

I've been wondering for awhile when they were going to poll for Florida's primary, as it's almost two weeks away and the last poll was in January. That January poll had the numbers for Trump, but people had dropped out, and things had changed, and I was thinking once Jeb* dropped out that the polling numbers might shift in favor of - yeah, I know I shouldn't - Rubio, the Sunshine State's remaining Fortunate Son.

Well, Quinnipiac finally came out with one today. And oh boy, we're screwed:

Marco Rubio is getting trounced by Donald Trump in his own home state, according to a new Florida poll released Thursday from Quinnipiac University. The results show frontrunner Trump holding a 44-28 percent lead over second-place Rubio...

Part of me is enjoying the schadenfreude of watching Rubio lose his own state, but the other part of me is utterly horrified there is 44 percent of the Floridians around me recklessly ignorant enough to vote for a damn bankrupt fraud. Then again, this is the damn state that voted for a Medicare Fraud for Governor. Twice. /headdesk

The RealClearPolitics site has been tracking the polls, so there's a way to follow the trends up and down for the remaining victims:

Polling Data

Poll	Date	Sample	MoE	Trump	Rubio	Cruz	Bush	Carson	Kasich	Spread
RCP Average	1/17 - 2/24	--	--	38.7	19.3	17.7	8.5	5.3	4.0	Trump +19.4
Quinnipiac	2/21 - 2/24	705 LV	3.7	44	28	12	--	4	7	Trump +16
CBS News/YouGov	1/18 - 1/21	988 LV	4.6	41	18	22	4	5	2	Trump +19
Florida Times-Union	1/17 - 1/17	838 LV	3.3	31	12	19	13	7	3	Trump +12

All Florida Republican Presidential Primary Polling Data

Interesting to note how Cruz's numbers inverted downward while Rubio's went up. Also interesting is that with Jeb out, Kasich's numbers went up as much as Rubio's has.

Thing is, the numbers do not look well for Florida or America or the world. Trump right now is cruising to a solid win in a Winner-Take-All state. If Rubio fails to garner a single delegate (there are a handful still available even in the WTA format) for his OWN STATE, he might as well drop out.

I dread what will follow.

Right now, the only sane solution is don't vote Trump at all, and just don't vote Republican either. But sanity is no longer an option. I should know: I'm a Florida Man...