In Time, I May Document These Comic-Cons With More Florid Prose, But Until Then It's the 2016 Tampa Bay Comic Con!

(Update: Thank you Infidel753 for the link to your wrapup!)

I almost didn't go this year, but changed my mind when I figured out my fiscal budget could handle the indulgence (just a little: there is no way I will be able to buy any booze for the next three months... which is okay because I'm sober and don't drink booze).

So much like I've done the year before and the year before that and the year... yeah, there's your trend for ya... SAY HELLO TO DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE that I attended the 2016 Tampa Bay Comic Con!

Early morning opening on the showroom floor. Don't worry, it'll get packed soon...

This year I was on a mission, more on that later...

And here's an early morning - way early, as most people were still in line up on the mezzanine - writer's panel! Bill Hatfield, remind me the names of the ladies joining you on the discussion.

This is still early in the morning: the gaming rooms were still getting set up.

Tampa doesn't get a lot of steampunk cosplay, unlike Orlando's MegaCon, but there's still some incredible designs here.

Alas, I did not dress up as a Jedi this year, as I had other plans. So I took pictures of everybody else being a Sith...

A Rey of Sunshine.

Yes, I punned. Sue me.

Getting seated for the one guest speaker appearance I could watch today...

It's Clara for the Oswin! (okay, it's Jenna Coleman).

Had to upload to YouTube and link the video from there.

Told you...

...it would...

...get busier!

That's Daryl from Walking Dead. Huge line for photos and autographs... He's incredibly popular. Don't forget, if Daryl dies we riot.

You know, I'm in this mob somewhere...

I AM GROOT guy wins best Cosplay costume in my humble opinion.

Guy was getting a lot of requests for pics in Artist's Alley...

SPIDERS! Nope nope nope nope nope nope... well, okay, Spider-Gwen can stay...

Gaming hall after lunch time. Definitely packed now.

This is the line for zombification. If you're here for parasitic infection, that line is back up on the third floor for the video game cosplayers.

Lady Loki did me a favor taking a picture of me, and I requested I get one of her. Thank ye again!

Look kids! Jim Shooter talking about writing comic books!

Say hello to Rochelle the Teenage Cockroach!

You might remember last year meeting John Crowther - a friend of my brother Phil - starting up this comic series via Antarctic Press. He's been busy promoting the title and it's started to get good reviews and brisk sales.

Things I didn't get pictures of: Pokemon.

With Pokemon GO an addicting phone app game, there was every likelihood the convention center would be a haven for Pokeball throwing madness. Well, it was kind of yes and no. The Tampa Convention Center - and a good part of surrounding Downtown Tampa - is rife with PokeStops and Gyms... But they were all well away from the building itself, too far to activate a Stop for supplies or battle for a Gym. However, the PokeStops were close enough to drop Lures on them to spawn armies of Pokemon to catch... meaning you can run out of balls real quick.

It also didn't help that there's no free WiFi inside the convention center. I know it's a for-profit convention where you gotta spend $15 for lunch, but complimentary WiFi isn't gonna wipe out the budget will it?

On the bright side I caught like 20 MagiKarps. You need like 150 of them to Evolve one to the powerful Serpent Pokemon. It all has to do with location: The Convention Center is right on the channel AND river, and geographic closeness to water spawns more Water-type Pokemon...

Anyway, my mission: I still owe my nephew Andrew a birthday present from last year (!) and one this year, so I bought a (information withheld until the gift is delivered). It took me months to get anybody to tell me (redacted) so I picked out (classified). I hope he likes it.

Anyway, there's my Saturday done and done. What's next, peoples?

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.

On Polling: What Should We Be Looking For?

Now that we're past both nominating conventions and that we're going to be getting away from the post-con bounces both Presidential nominees get, what should we be looking for among the polls - check here, check here, and follow up with Sober Nate Silver there - during the months of August and September?

1) Keep an eye on women. Where most polling focused during previous election cycles on ethnic blocs - White, Black, Hispanic, Asian and Other - the real split this 2016 is happening with the Men-Women vote.

As noted earlier, Silver and his fellow stat checkers at 538.com documented the severe hatred women have towards Trump. This is a key demographic as A) more women historically show up to vote than men and B) we're talking about ALL women including White voters who would normally be voting Republican.

White voters in 2012 voted around 60 percent for Romney (R), which had to include a high number of women among men. This HuffPo poll from 2012 results showed Romney won White Women voters 56 percent. Even with that number - considering Whites vote in greater overall numbers than all other ethnic groups combined - Romney still LOST. Trump in 2016 has to perform higher than that... but if White Women break away from White Men, Trump can't do that.

According to this 2016 Pew Research poll, Trump is only polling 35 percent to Clinton's 53 percent with Women overall. Among White Women Trump is getting 42 percent. Note the difference between 56 percent White Women in 2012 for Mitt to 42 percent White Women currently for Trump. That's a minus-14 point drop. Trump is not getting 60 percent of overall White voters this year, he just isn't...

2) Remember that the non-White voting blocs are so currently opposed to the Republican Party and so opposed to Trump that those groups are not going to flip to the GOP in significant numbers to help Republicans.

Black voters are likely to stay near 95-98 percent in favor of the Democrats. Hispanic voters are likely to be above 80 percent in favor of Dems by Election Day. Asian voters are reportedly getting close to being close to 80 percent for Dems as well.

While the total number of each voting bloc can't equal White Voters overall, the advantage to the Democrats having minority voters entirely with their party is that it reduces the odds of Blue and battleground states from flipping to Red/Republican. Consider them a firewall.

These are no longer elections fought by issues or ideology. We are now in elections fought over demographics (which explains why Republicans are so desperate to suppress voting rights for minorities).

3) Hispanic voters are the wild card this election cycle.

It's because polling for Hispanic voters is harder to do than for the other voting blocs, over communication - few polling units use Spanish-language surveys - and overall unwillingness to answer those surveys. So there's little idea how the turnout of that group - which is close to surpassing registration numbers for Black voters - is actually going to happen.

There's solid evidence Hispanic voters are registering in larger numbers than before, and they've got a good incentive to vote this time as Trump's illegal immigration policies are a direct threat to themselves (even as legal citizens, Hispanic-Americans know exactly what can happen in a mass round-up of anyone even looking remotely Latino). The problem - as always - remains turnout. If overall turnout of Hispanic voters gets above 50 percent - and remains around 80 percent Democrat - that will be good news for Hillary's camp.

Is there anything else we should be looking for?

Oh, right.

GET THE VOTE OUT, PEOPLE. Polling may be one thing but what MATTERS is the actual DAMN TURNOUT!

Defining Unfit

For the eight regular readers of this blog, you might recall my alter ego is working as a reporter for the biggest newspaper in Metropolis librarian for a decent and well-loved city library in the heart of Florida.

I also work an online shift with Ask-A-Librarian, a chat service for people that well have to ask a librarian some serious questions. Some of them are reasonably easy but sometimes I get a deep-level research question that engages the mind.

Well, today I got a research question.

Someone wanted to know if - historically - the United States ever had a sitting President call a candidate for the office "unfit."

I had a pretty good idea who the question was in reference to - hi, Trump! - but was curious about what prompted the research request.

I had been busy all morning, so I missed the morning presser where Obama went off on Trump (this via NBCNews.com):

The president's remarks come amid Trump's ongoing feud with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of a slain U.S. soldier who criticized Trump at the Democratic National Convention...

"The notion that he would attack a Gold Star family that had made such extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our country, the fact that he doesn't appear to have basic knowledge around critical issues in Europe, the Middle East, Asia means that he is woefully unprepared to do this job," Obama said.

I read about this as I began my research, trying to dig up previous election cycles where sitting Presidents spoke out against an opposing party candidate. I didn't have time to bring up a point to the library patron (this is how I was trained to call a library client/user) I was helping that we're actually in an unusual circumstance already: That rarely have we had a sitting President prevented from another re-election bid (due to the 22nd Amendment), and that it's been rare for that retiring President to actively campaign for his successor. This is true: Dubya was too unpopular to try it, Clinton was available but Gore was convinced to run on his own terms, Reagan did some work for Bush the Elder in 1988 but mostly stayed on the sidelines...

Can't count Carter or Ford. Nixon didn't survive a second term, neither did LBJ. Kennedy... well...

We get to Eisenhower, he was in a position to campaign for Nixon in 1960, but he infamously was quoted as saying "Give me a week, I might think of one (idea or discussion he and Nixon shared)." It didn't end well.

One thing I've been digging up has been an unwritten rule/tradition that a term-limited President (self-imposed before FDR and imposed after by the 22nd) just didn't campaign on behalf of one candidate or opposed to another. What Obama did today, what he's been doing from the DNC convention onward, is unheard of. If there's any excuse for this, it's that Obama is facing a situation no retiring President ever had before: an obstructionist opposition party willing to burn down every last shred of his administration's achievements.

As for calling an opposing candidate "unfit", specifically that term, the best I could find for my library patron was the 1964 campaign against Barry Goldwater, where LBJ was running for his own electoral win and Goldwater had won a divisive Republican nomination on an extreme Far Right platform. While Johnson himself never came out accusing Goldwater as "unfit" - in personal interviews he did question Goldwater's sanity - he used attack ads and third-party advocates to make the accusations for him. Including an underhanded attack that relied on polling psychiatrists for their professional opinions on Goldwater's behaviors and statements where enough of them declared him unfit. It was so unethical a mudslinging tactic that the American Psychiatric Association created a Goldwater Rule preventing their members from such armchair analyses.

It wasn't exactly what the patron wanted, and I really wasn't finding much research that could go back further into history covering any other kind of mudslinging attacks on character that were out there. Which is kind of odd because there's entire history books on Presidential campaigns that cover all kinds of mudslinging insults and slights since Gods help 1800. I did find one, a good book titled appropriately enough Presidential Campaigns by Paul Boller (see if your library owns a copy) and informed the patron of the book for future reference.

I finally had to tell the patron that what we're seeing is an oddity, a historical anomaly. That one big reason why Obama is able to call Trump unfit for the office of the Presidency is because we've never really had a candidate as inexperienced as Trump before.

Trump honestly has no history of public service: no elected office, no nominated office, never served as judge or administrator, no military service, nothing. We've had relatively inexperienced candidates before: We've had several generals - Harrison, Taylor, Winfield Scott, Grant, Eisenhower - but they had an understanding of organization and executive responsibilities. We've had men who served only as Cabinet officials (Hoover) or high-ranking bureaucrats (Arthur). And then again, they still had some experience. I didn't realize until today there was a Judge who ran once - Alton B. Parker - back during Teddy Roosevelt's era. Parker had a legal understanding of the Constitution, making him experienced.

There was - famously - Wendell Willkie, a businessman/lawyer with no elective or administrative experience who ended up the nominee in 1940 as a compromise candidate between Robert Taft and Thomas Dewey. In Willkie's defense, he was prominently active in politics with a strong understanding of public service (and as a lawyer had honest respect for the Constitution and the federal system). But even then, there's no evidence FDR went after Willkie for his inexperience, and Willkie ran a conventional campaign that did not point out clear character flaws that required Roosevelt to make that charge.

Obama attacking Trump as "unfit" is unique in our long proud history of negative political campaigning. We've had candidates accused of adultery and bigamy and sexual misdeeds. We've had candidates accused of graft and corruption. We've had candidates accused of warmongering, candidates accused of cowardice, candidates accused of failure. But we've never really had a candidate accused of being unfit to serve the office.

Because Trump really is that unfit to serve. Not only because he lacks the experience and because he clearly lacks the temperament: it's also because he lacks the purpose and honest intent to serve.

Well, that part I didn't tell the patron. I shouldn't politicize a research request: My job is to be as impartial as possible and focus on the information I could find. I merely pointed out Trump's lack of civil service and left it at that.

But even that alone disqualifies Trump to run for President. And Gods help us, this is why we ALL need to NOT vote for Trump.

The Scenarios 2016 Edition

(Update: Thank you again, Infidel753, for your linkage from your blog!)

For the 2012 election - four years could not have passed that quickly, did it? - I gamed out the end of the Presidential and Congressional election between Obama and Romney, and what each scenario meant for the nation. So for 2016 I should do the same.

There's really only four variations at the end of November 8th:

Trump wins

In this scenario, I don't even have to consider the variances for Congress (with both houses currently under Republican control). If Trump wins, it will happen through a form of deceit and voter suppression on a scale certain to cover the entire Republican ticket. I mean, there is a likelihood the Democrats could win the Senate in a fair fight. But if Trump wins, there was no fair fight: there was either massive lies towards the voters, a massive smear campaigning, massive blocking of voters at the booths (which is now less likely thanks to the courts tossing out horrific voter ID laws), or outright fraud (which is now an issue regarding Russian hacking, if they can get at our electronic ballot machines).

No, in this situation Trump wins with every likelihood he'll have a Republican Congress winning with him. And if that happens we are all screwed.

The most obvious point is that the Supreme Court falls under Far Right control for another generation. The Republican Senate has kept that one vacancy open for just that. Given that Clarence Thomas is already talking retirement regardless who wins, that's another seat to fill. There's still other Justices - Ginsburg, Kennedy, Breyer - well past retirement age who can either die in office like Scalia or retire. There's at least three seats the next President can fill. And if it's Trump with a Republican Senate those seats will all be Far Right acolytes with even fewer scruples and more conservative ire than Scalia.

The federal budget is the next obvious. Despite all of Speaker Ryan's rationalizations, we're talking about one of the most severe slashing budgets we have ever seen, a budget that would cut into the social safety net for families while giving large tax breaks to the extremely wealthy. With Trump there to sign pretty much any paper shoved in front of him, the GOP Congress gets what they finally want: Kansas on a national scale.

Not to mention every WORST CASE SCENARIO that everyone else on the planet is pointing out will happen with a Trump administration, and we are looking at the darkest hour in American History.

Hillary Wins, Republicans Retain Control of the Senate, Republicans Retain Control of the House

In this scenario, we get pretty much the current status quo: a Democrat in the White House and Republicans on the Hill.

This is possible if the Republicans retain enough party discipline to separate Trump like a cancer from the rest of their ticket. It'll be hard - as they are likely losing the independent non-party voters fleeing from Trump's demagoguery - but possible. The House will be easy to keep thanks to gerrymandering, but the real trick will be to save enough GOP Senators in Blue or battleground states to maintain a 51-seat control.

If this happens, we are at least saved from the disaster of what a Trump presidency would inflict on the world. We would not, unfortunately, be saved from the disaster of a Republican-led Congress.

We'll still have a Republican-controlled House filled with enough Far Right backbenchers spoiling for a fight that any sensible bipartisan work on a budget will be impossible. We'll still have a Republican-controlled Senate that is going to come up with more excuses to avoid filling Supreme Court seats, or else "Bork" every Hillary nomination until she surrenders and nominates Scalia clones.

And that's not getting into the likelihood of this Republican Congress starting up every possible investigation into every little thing Hillary does just to stir up sh-t and find an excuse to impeach. We've seen it before... we've seen it since 1993 for God's sake.

It'll be the last eight years of Republican Obstruction against Obama... only with anger and vitriol towards a woman instead of a black man. /headdesk

Hillary Wins, Democrats Gain Control of the Senate, Republicans Retain Control of the House

The polling models and predictions lean this way, although nothing is certain in life except death, taxes, and Republican Ignorance. But I digress.

The likelihood is strong because there are more Republican Senators up for election than Democratic (24 to 10) meaning more odds they lose seats just on the statistical norms. Throw in half of those seats are in Blue or battleground states and there's a good chance Democrats can eke out a 52-seat control.

This can be a marked improvement for the Democrats, and especially for Hillary. This would give them the ability to fill that vacant SCOTUS seat with a Far-Left/Center-Left Justice that would reliably flip the Court Center-Left for at least the next ten years. They'd be able to fill more Appellate level Judicial openings as well, and hopefully a lot of Executive branch positions that the Republicans have refused to fill the last two years (or even longer given their history of Secret Holds). And if any Supreme Court Justices retire (or, sad to note, pass away) within the coming session, Hillary can lock a Left-Leaning Court for decades.

The Senate Republicans could try to obstruct those fillings with Secret Holds, but in an era of Hillary - who is Active-Negative enough to force the issue - what would happen is a major rewrite of Senate rules to weaken those Holds into nothingness (it'd upset Democratic Senators who fear the precedence will come back to hurt them, but Hillary and other Senators angry at all the delays will do this to break the logjam).

The bad news in this scenario is that the Republicans will retain control of the House. And the House has Constitutional powers to make life miserable for Hillary and the Dems. For starters, they can still call their own investigations into every little thing Hillary does just to harass her administration into inaction. Above all, they still retain power of the purse: all budgets by law have to originate from the House, meaning Ryan is going to keep pushing his slash-and-drown tax-cut agenda (just as long as he's still in the Speakership role...). Getting a bipartisan compromised budget through would be a nightmare.

Hillary Wins, Democrats Gain Control of the Senate, Democrats Gain Control of the House

This is the unlikeliest scenario simply because gerrymandering is such a bitch. Pardon my Klingon.

This really only happens where the Republican voter base - discouraged by a vile Trump campaign - fails to turn out in sufficient numbers across all districts and allows a more vigorous Democratic turnout - in a situation where voter suppression efforts fail and/or independent voters reject the GOP in toto - to pick up wins in GOP-leaning districts.

This would create a brief flurry of celebration among Democrats and likely a period of quick legislative activity during the first three months of 2017. To Republican horror, there would likely be a reconfirmation of Obamacare with major reforms put in place to fix the gaps the system is showing: Most likely a hard Medicaid program that Red states CAN'T reject and a Public Option of some kind to bring health care closer to universal coverage.

The budget plans will likely include the tax hikes on upper incomes that the Democrats have been pushing for since 2008 (and haven't been able to secure due to Senate Cloture and Holds before 2010 and GOP House control ever since). Again, any attempt this time by Republican Senators to block tax hikes will get cut down by Democrats tired of all that obstructing.

As noted in the earlier scenario, Judicial and Executive vacancies across the board will get filled.

Some but not all of the progressive agenda Bernie Sanders put on the Democratic platform will get passed. The Far Left will get pissy about it, but whatcha gonna do? The smart move by Hillary will be to pass something to strengthen banking regs and make Wall Street accountable for their sins of the last fifteen years, which would appease most of the progressive base (until 2020).

The response of the Far Right - among the hard cases still in office because gerrymandering kept them in the safest of districts, or because they're safe in their cable network studios - will be one of howling rage. They never accepted Obama's victories and will never accept Hillary's (or any other Democrat's). We're already getting complaints by Trump and other conspiracy-minded wingnuts that "this election is rigged" and so will ensure continued faux outrage over their losses. Any state under Far Right control is going do what they've threaten to do during the Obama years: they will pull every legal trick to "nullify" federal laws and regulations, and bring up any and every argument to (yes, they would go there) secede.

Even with a full Democratic ticket victory, the fighting will not end. Even if it's an Electoral curb-stomp equal to what Reagan inflicted on Mondale in 1984, even if Democrats win every Senate campaign, even if Democrats win 20-plus seat control of the House, the Republicans will never accept it. It doesn't fit their Almighty Fox Not-News Narrative.

The best thing to hope for is that Hillary does win, and with enough of a mandate to continue improving our nation's economy and doing something to generate more jobs in the construction and manufacturing industries (hopefully something along the lines of repairing our broken bridges and roads and building new schools).

So, to summarize: Please for the LOVE OF GOD don't let Trump Win. That is the pure nightmare scenario. Please get the vote out for Hillary Clinton and PLEASE get the vote out for the Senate and House elections and even state legislative elections to reduce the risk of state Republicans going full John C. Calhoun on us.

Anniversary: The One That Started It All

Today is August 1st, and I've been reminded that today is the 50th anniversary of a major tragedy in our nation's history.

From the memorial website - Behind The Tower - that has popped up to recount the tragedy:

On August 1, 1966, a twenty-five year old University of Texas student named Charles Whitman went up to the observation deck of the UT tower armed with guns, ammunition, and canned food. For 96 minutes he held the campus in a state of terror. Whitman killed 14 people that day and wounded more than 30. One of the wounded died a week later and one died decades later of injuries connected with his bullet wounds. Austin Police officers Houston McCoy and Ramiro Martinez (and two other men) made their way to the top of the tower, without knowing who or what they would find. They cornered Whitman and then shot and killed him. Later it was discovered that Whitman had murdered his mother and his wife in the early hours of the morning before his rampage. The shooting was broadcast on the radio and on television and it became a major national and even international news story.

This isn't the first mass shooting in our nation's history. There was actually a mass shooting in Philadelphia back in 1949 that the Smithsonian points to as the first. And if one considers them, we've had massacres and lynchings throughout our history that could fall under this rubric.

But the University of Texas shootings seemed to hit our nation's psyche in the worst way. It was a harbinger of a growing trend towards violent gun deaths in our nation where a singular person could go on a shooting rampage with little reason (well, we've figured out there is a reason: a shitload of anger at the world and access to rifles to start a body count). It happened at a moment of political and cultural turmoil of the 1960s, and added to the chaos of the day.

When we count mass shootings today, 1966 is the starting point, because Whitman's rampage is so memorable and still relatively recent - even at 50 years! - for survivors to still be among us to document the horror. When you ask someone about a campus mass shooting, you may get Virginia Tech or Columbine High or Umpqua Community College if you ask in the Northwest or even Ecole Polytechnique if you ask in Canada. But the odds are pretty good you'll get someone saying "Well there was that one in Texas with the tower, was that in Austin?"

Yeah, it was. And that was 50 years ago. And we've been counting the mass shootings ever since.

Every Ann Coulter Mystery Ever Written, Before She Threatens To Write One

So, this is out there:

Ann Coulter: "If Trump doesn't win, it's over. I'll be writing cookbooks and mysteries."

Look, I know as a librarian I shouldn't ban books, but I swear to the Old Gods and the New I ought to be able to maintain some standards, people. I don't wanna shelve those books if they ever see the light of day...

I've got a hard enough time living with myself while my library patrons request these Far Right titles on politics and current affairs. They have a right to read what they want, so that's how I rationalize it, and also why I make sure there's a balance on the shelves with sane moderate or Progressive Left works to at least provide a marketplace of diverse ideas.

But an Ann Coulter cookbook?!?! If the title's To Serve Man someone better sue her.

And if you've ever read Ann Coulter's political stuff - where liberals are evil, conservatives are touched by God, and she is the judge of all Earth - you might get a pretty good idea how an Ann Coulter mystery will read:

It's 1952 in Midvale (it's always 1952 in Midvale). The middle-aged widower sheriff overseeing this delightful small town is rocked by shocking news of a young happily married couple - they had just gotten hitched at the Baptist church just last week! - found murdered one morning. Struggling to make sense of the crime, the sheriff teams up with a thin stunningly beautiful blonde reporter to figure out the clues.

Using her detailed understanding of Randian Objectivism, the pair uncovers the murderer as a doctor of Middle Eastern origin who killed the couple because the wife refused to let him abort her baby. The doctor is also a prominent defender of the FDR-era New Deal, which makes the town's mayor - a weak yet politically ambitious Democrat who wants to prove himself to a stern father (retired war hero general that once saved MacArthur's life in the Philippines) who hopes his son could one day serve as governor - unwilling to press charges because it might start a race riot.

When the doctor threatens the life of the token African-American family in town, the sheriff bravely oversteps his authority, forms a posse with his now-girlfriend reporter, and raids the doctor's home to find a coven of Stalin-worshiping Communists about to kill a honest and unyielding US Senator who served as a tail-gunner during The War. There's a clean shootout where all the bad Commie characters die - the Randian reporter gets to sniper-shoot the lead Commie between the eyes - while the good guys don't even get splinters. The evil doctor is forced to make a public confession where he admits the errors of his baby-killing ways before he hangs himself, the town celebrates with a special election to vote out the craven politician to replace him with a well-meaning television actor, and the sheriff and reporter decide to get married and move to the Big City where the sheriff's Small-Town sensibilities as Police Commish will save that city from collapsing into the moral rot of LBJ's Great Society in the coming decade.  

There. Done. Just change the calendar date (although it will ALWAYS be 1952) and the name of the town, and that will be every Ann Coulter mystery novel ever written before she even writes one.

And the sad thing? Publishers will line up for her mysteries because she has a known name, she has an agent on payroll who will line her up. Even if the official mystery publishers refuse her works, she can easily go to her conservative printing buddies and have them start a mystery series imprint just for her, and make arrangements for bookstores and retailers to shelve her crap at the front door of every Books-A-Million and Barnes & Noble out there.

Here's a mystery that's worth solving: can someone figure out why universities and public organizations are still willing to cough up $50,000 in speaking fees for this hack writer Ann Coulter?

Trump, Propagating His Character By the Slander

Just remember, Trump has no shame. He can sink as low and vile a human can go all because he doesn't care about anything other than Trump.

How else can we get Trump to respond to the parents of fallen war hero Army Captain Humayun Khan - who died in Iraq (note: I erroneously had this as Afghanistan earlier) warning off his unit from what turned out to be a suicide bomber - by questioning and belittling the parents' grief and rage? (via Ezra Klein at Vox)

...And, yes, the Khan family is Muslim. Under Trump’s proposed policies, they would be innately suspect; had he been president when they immigrated to America, they would’ve been barred from entering, and Humayun Khan never would have served.

"Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery?" Khan asked Trump. "Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one."

Trump responded to Khan’s speech. I don’t know what I expected from Trump. Maybe he would show some gentleness. Maybe he would show some empathy. Maybe he would refuse to comment. Maybe he would attack Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s foreign policy leadership. All of those responses would have been fine.

Trump’s actual response, though, wasn’t fine.

"If you look at his wife, she was standing there," he said, on national television. "She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me."

This wasn’t a slip of the tongue. In an interview with Maureen Dowd, Trump took the same tack. "I’d like to hear his wife say something," he said.

Let’s be very clear about what Trump is doing here: as ABC wrote, he’s suggesting "Khan’s wife didn’t speak because she was forbidden to as a Muslim." This is bullshit. It is flatly, verifiably, false. But that’s almost beside the point.

Trump listened to a speech by the bereaved father of a fallen Muslim soldier and used it to slander the fallen soldier’s family. That was his response. That is his character...

...If you would like to see Ghazala Khan speak, you can do so in this interview she gave to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. As Fallows writes, she breaks down sobbing while speaking of her son. It suggests she let her husband give the DNC speech for a simple reason: she remains overwhelmed by grief...

A sane response to being called out by a grieving family over the death of their child - sons and daughters all - on the battlefield is to express sorrow at their loss, and try to deflect their anger with a reasoned yet compassionate reply.

If Trump had any decency, he could have done as Klein suggested and shown some empathy: "I'm so sorry your son had to die like that." He could have said along the lines of "I would think every American should be proud your son saved lives in sacrifice of his own." Given Trump's political stance, he could have easily gone with "I understand you're upset about my wanting to block Muslims from coming to America as immigrants, but I'm looking at a bigger picture of stopping terrorists who come from radical Islamic regions and I'd like to think we can all work towards something that would be reasonable and fair." THAT would have fit exactly into Trump's messaging and he could have trudged on as uncaring as before.

He did none of that.

Trump's response was to ignore their pain altogether and attempt to mock the culture that the fallen soldier's parents come from. Which wasn't even remotely accurate in the first place.

As Klein notes, Mrs. Khan has a voice and has every right to speak it. She chose not to because she's still in emotional turmoil nearly a decade after her son's death.

This is a mother's burden. I've seen it. Any mother whose child dies before she does carries that, it is a blow to her far worse than any direct wound. Did you watch that speech, Mr. Trump? I could see, everyone I was sitting with at the watch party I went to that night could see it: Mrs. Khan was in pain. Anything she could have said would have come out only as tears.

Trump didn't even respond to Mr. Khan's direct accusation about Trump's lack of understanding the Constitution - which as immigrants Mr. and Mrs. Khan had to study to win their citizenship - which could have been acceptable given the challenge. Instead he went straight to attacking the parents' character.

This is the mark of the Politics of Personal Destruction: You can't attack the message so you attack the messenger. You disqualify your opposite and thus disqualify anything they represent.

Trump is the imposter Junius warned us of centuries ago: "The imposter employs force instead of argument, imposes silence where he cannot convince, and propagates his character by the sword."

Trump employs the stance of the bully: his is a history of lawsuits and attacks even on those who worked for him (that he then refuses to pay fair wages). He openly issues statements of violence and intimidation: "I would really like to punch those guys," "I can shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and not lose any voters," and let's include his willingness to pay the legal fees of those who commit acts of violence in his name...

Trump imposes silence: he bans reporters he views as enemies, avoids open and honest debate - he's trying to lie his way out of the scheduled debates vs. Hillary as I type this! - whenever possible, and has openly admitted as President he would rewrite the libel laws to make it easier for him (and not others) to sue the media into quiet submission.

And Trump propagates his character with the sword of slander, slashing and hacking at everyone, critic and supporter alike, without a care in the world.

Gods help us should Trump ever get hold of a real sword like our nation's military and our federal law enforcement.

Exponere

That's Latin for "to explain". To wit:

This election cycle for the President of the United States is a simple choice: Between a Republican candidate who has absolutely no experience with running any public office (and if the reports from Kasich's people are right, has no interest in actually doing his job in office), who insults and bullies others, who calls on and aligns himself with foreign dictator-controlled nations at odds with the United States to interfere with our democracy, who has only ever shown self-interest and greed; Or a Democratic candidate who has experience running for public office and performing her duties, who makes the effort to build coalitions within her own party (despite all the BernieBro rage, Sanders was able to deal with Hillary and get things done), who speaks of supporting our allies in our national interest, who has more often than not shown grace in the face of harsh and vocal hatred of her.

We have a simple choice between Ignorance (Trump) and Competence (Hillary).

We have a simple choice between racism and hatred (Trump vs. Mexicans, Trump vs. Muslims, Trump vs. Blacks, Trump vs. Women, Trump vs. Asians, Trump vs. Gays, Trump vs. Transgender) and a woman candidate breaking the ultimate glass ceiling with a diverse coalition of every ethnicity and gender.

We have a choice that ought to transcend the partisan divide between Republican and Democrat. How many honest Republicans are there looking out at EVERYTHING Trump represents and recoiling in horror? How many have already resigned their places - some of them local and state officials - within the GOP?

To be fair, there are a sizable number of Democrats claiming to quit the party because they hate Hillary, but not at the scale and level of disgust the anti-Trump Republicans are at. And many of those anti-Hillary Democrats are calling their support to third-party choice with Green candidate Stein. Many of the anti-Trump officials are backing Clinton: They still hate Hillary, but they all seem to agree they can actually work with her, and they know what to expect because she actually respects them even from the other side of the political spectrum. They know they can't get that from Trump. The only thing Trump respects is himself.

To every registered voter out here in the United States. This is a serious election with everything at stake. Not just Obamacare or Obama's foreign policy deals with Iran and Cuba, not just our positive-growth economy still in need of reforms to ensure better wages and more jobs, not just our roads and schools and parks. This is a serious election between a Trump who does not respect the Constitution or the rule of law or an independent judiciary or the basic civil liberties of us all, and a Clinton who has served the public trust more for the common good than for ill.

Please, to every registered voter: Get the vote out for Hillary Clinton this November. Get the vote out for the Senate and House elections so that we can truly break the gridlock frustrating us all. Get the vote out for Democratic candidates at the state level. Get the vote out for the judicial elections in your area. Get the vote out for your state referendums and amendments (ooh, remind me I gotta post a Florida referendum review ASAP).

In the immortal words of the boss: Don't Boo. Vote.

Update (what's Latin for update? (checks the dictionary)): following links to similar compare-contrast articles.

From Ezra Klein at Vox.

From John Scalzi at his blog.

From John Cole at Balloon Juice.

Personal Observation About Stats This Past Week

Just saying, but during this past week of the Democratic nominating convention, I had one blog article shoot up the charts on views:

RIP Republican Party 1856-2015.

edit: this is nothing like the weird Russia-driven traffic that I and others have been getting the past few days, where the overall views jumped up like a Laffer Curve looking for the proper tax rate of 58 percent on upper incomes. I'm getting direct page hits for "RIP Republican Party" boom and boom. For an article that's almost a year old, this is getting up there with my classic Woodstock Port-O-San Guy article (P.S. Mr. Taggart PLEASE email me!).

Funny thing is, I wasn't advertising it, pushing it on Twitter or Facebook or anything. Just, of its own accord, people have been searching for articles about the death of the Republican Party, and my article has been getting the search results.

This traffic uptick started this past Wednesday, on the third night of the DNC speeches, when Biden and Panetta and Kaine and Bloomberg and OBAMA all came out and nuked Trump from orbit.

The other bloggers I follow - Rude Pundit and Driftglass and Balloon Juice in particular - are all pointing out how the Democrats presented a positive patriotic platform that the Republicans woefully failed to do last week. The differences are stark, and even the conservative punditry is freaking out over it.

It shouldn't be surprising that right about now, people are wondering just what the hell is wrong with the Republican Party as it has (and continues to) fallen apart.

So, thank you readers. Thank you for visiting this humble site.

Now if I can get the traffic to pick up on my political rants book I'm shilling over here on the right column of this blog! --------->

C'mon folks, let's see if we can get this baby on the Amazon.com Non-Fiction Bestsellers list!

Obama Tonight

Holy.

Shit.
(note: I had to update the YouTube clip)

That was a speech.

Everybody who watched it are talking like they've just had the best sex of their lives.

Obama quoted Reagan, and Obama quoted Teddy Roosevelt's "Man In the Arena", and he could do this because the Republican Party has tossed both of those GOP icons to one side so they could follow a con artist like Trump.

Obama gave a speech so good, even Bill Clinton - one of our modern masters of oratory - had to give a standing ovation at one point.

This speech is so epic that the Democrats better get a fucking 20-point bounce in the polls this weekend.

And all the things Obama said was true, and were things I've wanted our leaders to say again and again.

Above all, when the audience started booing Trump's name, Obama said and ad-libbed "Don't boo. Don't boo. VOTE."

YES YES YES YES YES YES.

GODDAMN I WANT TO VOTE OBAMA AGAIN FOR A THIRD TERM. I WILL CHARGE HELL ITSELF FOR THAT MAN.

This night buried Trump. Panetta, and Biden, and Bloomberg, and Kaine, and then Obama all came out with the shovels and buried that con artist on every failure that Trump is guilty of.

Goddamn. I may not get any sleep tonight I AM SO PUMPED FOR THIS I AM AWAITED IN VALHALLA WE WILL ARRIVE SHINY AND CHROME. I HAVEN'T BEEN THIS PUMPED SINCE WATCHING FURY ROAD FIVE TIMES IN THE THEATERS.

Every Trump You Take (Putin Will Be Watching You)

What the hell did Trump just do today? Via Washington Post:

Republican nominee Donald Trump pleaded directly Wednesday with the Russian government to meddle in the U.S. presidential election by finding and releasing tens of thousands of private emails from his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton — an extraordinary and perhaps unprecedented maneuver in American politics...

...Asked whether Russian espionage into the former secretary of state’s correspondence would concern him, Trump said, “No, it gives me no pause. If they have them, they have them.”

The emails cited by Trump are from Clinton’s time at the State Department, where her use of a private server prompted a federal investigation. The FBI concluded that no prosecution was necessary...

Trump is basically calling on a foreign power to actively spy on an American, to actively spy on a Presidential candidate, to actively spy on a former Secretary of State.

How isn't this treason - allying with a foreign power that is at odds with us - right up front and public?

I'm with Betty Cracker at Balloon Juice over this (although she's called it back a bit, I'm still in a rage over this). Let's call this for what it is: Trump calling on a foreign power to spy on any of us is basically Treason.

It doesn't matter that Clinton's email server has already undergone a complete federal investigation, where the worst the FBI found was that it was improper that Clinton was doing this (following how previous Sec of States did their private servers!).

Trump is taking the Far Right Narrative that Evil Clinton is still hiding something, anything, and they want to get at it by hook or by crook. Preferably by crook.

This is insane. This would be like having Richard Nixon asking Red China to wiretap Muskie (didn't have to, he hired his own). This would be like having Teddy Roosevelt asking Canada to intercept telegrams sent by Alton B. Parker back in 1904. This would be like John Adams asking the kingdom of Norway to raid Thomas Jefferson's home for his personal papers.

Or, here, let's say this in a way Trump will understand. This would be like Barack Obama calling on Ukraine to hack the IRS and expose all Trump's tax returns he refuses to show us.

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE THAT, TRUMP? You and the Far Right wingnuts on Fox Not-News would be screaming for impeachment and execution if he did that.

And that's exactly what you just said Trump. At what point should we apply what's fair to the crap you're pulling?

Dear sweet God, America. This man does not have the temperament, the intelligence, the awareness to serve as President. This is a man who will bulldoze over every law, every protocol, every liberty to indulge his own twisted fantasies and needs.

Trump is a man who is right now ignoring laws and the realities of foreign policy just to scare his voting base and bully everyone else. Trump distorts and destroys everything he touches, everything he lusts for. We are watching our nation's entire political system crumble into ash.

Dear Republican Party: any claim you have to being a serious party on foreign affairs is long over. This is just the final fucking nail in the coffin.

You need to denounce this monster in your midst and you need to denounce him by name and you need to denounce his deeds. Common decency and common sense DEMAND that you do this.

God help us.

What Just Happened This July 26 2016

Why is this night different from all other nights?

Because this night, a black man is playing professional ba... wait, we've done this bit.

Because this night, I caught a Squirtle on Pokemon GO. Okay, okay, settle down peeps.

Because this night, Hillary Clinton was officially nominated for the Presidency of the United States by a major political party. There have been women nominated by third parties before, and often. But let's be honest: you have to be a Democrat or a Republican candidate to have a solid shot at the Oval Office.

If things hold, if the voter turnout is like 2012 only better, we can look forward to an historic night in November much like that night in 2008.

That means - HINT FREAKING HINT - you people need to stop polling for Trump and dump his sorry corrupt Russian-owned ass into the dustbin of history.

Sigh.

Anyway, I need more Squirtles to evolve one up. Where's a good spot to catch more?

Have You Gotten It Out Of Your Systems Yet, People?

I surprised myself finding a "Settle the Fuck Down People" tag already in my Labels. I lost track of that. Anyway I digress.

Just putting my two cents here regarding the raucous caucus that is Philadelphia at the moment. Of course, the BernieBros were out in force as Boo Birds in the back benches, but I think by the time Michelle Obama came out and did her plagiarism of Beyonce, it sounded like they've settled down.

Since this is Day Two, when the delegates are counted in, we'll probably see another round of upset holdouts crying that somehow Bernie won despite, you know, having fewer delegates than needed. At some point the convention is going to have to accept that Trump and Putin are the real enemies from here on out (more on that later).

Honest Bumper Stickers Part XII: For Your Cries Only

Now that we've got the Vice Presidents figured out, we can see a few more bumper stickers on the cars piling up on the mean streets of Yeehaw Junction.

in the real world, every other word on this sticker would say TRUMP... 

If this story can be believed...

Too wordy, I know. But accurate.

Yeah, had to get the WWE gag out of my system.

Okay, what's next?

Well, Now This Week Is the Democrats' Turn at Conventioning. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Compared to that questionable, divisive, what-the-hell mess the Republicans attempted in Cleveland... I doubt the Democrats' show in Philadelphia will be as chaotic, clumsy, poorly vetted, or poorly attended (when a Republican convention fails to finance the local strip club industry, you know there's something wrong).

Still, there's a lot of things that can go wrong that could make for terrific ratings for Fox Not-News - and provide a distraction away from the Ailes firing, more on that later - and terrible heartburn for every sane anti-Trump voter on the planet in the United States.

For starters, thanks to an infodump by Wikileaks of DNC emails (hacked by Russians, with all that suggests), the BernieBro faction is enraged by the implications that the party leadership was all in for Hillary and had been looking for ways to sabotage Sanders' primary efforts. Nevermind that the email plotting never came to life - that it was all brainstorming conjecture that got rejected by higher-ups - any excuse to hate on Hillary and her peeps will do. There's already been some backroom in-fighting...

...that led to significant reforms to the Superdelegate rules to make them more reflective of the state-by-state Primary results, something Sanders pushed for. So is there any real reason to be running around on a rampage?

In terms of the speaker lineup, it's mostly going to be familiar faces: Sanders and Michelle Obama speak Monday, Bill Clinton and a collection of Mothers of the Movement (an anti-violence group) speak Tuesday, Biden and Obama speak Wednesday night (when was the last time a retiring President spoke at the convention?), and then Chelsea Clinton introduces her mother Hillary for the Thursday night big speech. This is odd because there's no up-and-comer freshman politician who can profit from a night in the spotlight...

...wait a minute. Where's Kaine? As Vice President nominee doesn't he get a slot?

RIOT! RIOT!

...then again, it's Philadelphia. Who's gonna notice...?

Okay, okay, I'll settle. Let's stay friendly, people. Unity... unity and competence and what what.

Update: So of course there's enough of a conniption about the emails that Debbie Wasserman Schultz - never all that popular among the Democratic faithful to begin with - had to resign just before the convention starts.

So we're going to get a lot of media bashing and faux concern-trolling about this instead of focusing on the real issues, like Trump being a completely unacceptable candidate who deserves to have his ass kicked in the general election.

Dammit.

Never underestimate the Democratic Party's ability to f-ck up an easy win.

Good Lord, That's Tim Kaine's Music

Insert plethora of Tim Kaine/WWE Kane puns here.

So, Hillary has made her ticket selection, and decided on a person considered a "safe" or reliable choice in Virginia Senator Kaine. I know a good number of Democrats were pining for a more... risky pick, something a little more stunning or more stringently Progressive, maybe someone female for an all-woman ticket or someone ethnic for an "Up Yours White Guys" ticket, but in a world filled with Left-Centrist white guys you sometimes got to go draw from the well.

I've ranted about the need for Vice Presidents before, but we're still using that system so let's work with it.

The biggest thing people should take away from a Veep pick is how it signifies what the candidate is going to do as President to select all the other people to fill important roles in his/her administration. This is the first big decision, and the candidate has to nail it. A bad pick - say, McGovern tabbing Eagleton or Mondale tabbing Ferraro or McCain tabbing Palin - indicates bad people skills, poor decision-making, what have you.

This means evaluating Kaine's record (back to the Post):

Kaine comes from a swing state (note: in Electoral value, a popular pick can garner you a slight boost in the Veep's home state and maybe neighboring ones). He has executive and legislative experience. Before going to the Senate, Kaine was governor of Virginia from 2005 to 2009 and mayor of Richmond prior to that. He has a strong Catholic religious background: He was a missionary out of college. He speaks fluent Spanish. He had been vetted favorably by then-Sen. Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign.

And, most importantly, Kaine is a steady presence. He has been in the national spotlight -- both during the 2008 vetting and during his stint as Democratic National Committee chairman from 2009 to 2011. He knows how to handle the media, the scrutiny and the attacks that come with a high-profile perch. He's even-keeled amid chaos.

One word to describe Kaine favorably? Competent. He knows how politics works, he's run successful campaigns, he's been a team player, and he can work the halls of Congress and the back rooms to broker deals as needed.

And to be fair, another one word to describe him is Boring. Kaine does not attract much media attention, he's not a brilliant or charismatic orator, he's not a guy the news channels think of to invite onto their shows, he's not going to get voted Prom King any time soon. On the bright side, that also means he's scandal-proof.

His voting record shows a consistent Liberal bent. He may not be full-on Far Left but he's no Blug Dog.

By selecting Kaine, Hillary is showing that she'll value competency and a strong yet not overwhelmingly Liberal lean to her office. Kaine is essentially another Biden: someone stable and reliable for a job that demands (edit: originally had the wrong word there) stability and reliability.

Personally, I'd have gone with Perez, or searched a little harder for a younger Progressive from the Midwest or Pacific coast. I may be damning with praise here, but there's nothing wrong with Kaine as the Democratic Veep nominee.

Now, onto the Democratic convention.

To Be So Close To History and Yet So Far...

Hillary Clinton has to announce very soon - because the Democratic convention is NEXT WEEK - who her Vice Presidential pick is going to be.

She's scheduled to be in Tampa THIS AFTERNOON at 4:30 PM. At the Florida State Fairgrounds.

She's expected to announce who her running mate is going to be at the event.

OH MAN THAT IS LIKE RIGHT DOWN THE INTERSTATE FROM ME.

Pity I got to work until 5 PM.

Thing is, you usually make the announcement in the Veep pick's back yard for the locals to hoot and cheer 'em on.

The buzz about it being someone from the area - Crist? - is big.

I doubt it's Crist, though. He's honestly not as popular among Florida Democrats as he ought to be (his tenure as an ex-Republican is gonna hurt him). He's doing far better running for the revamped Congressional district covering St. Pete, his stomping ground.

I'm wondering if it's Kathy Castor... or someone else from Florida like Senator Bill Nelson (GO GATORS).

We'll find out today.

Update: well, dammit. Because of the mass shooting in Munich - dammit NRA, stop exporting this sh-t - Hillary held off making an official announcement at the speech. She announced via email afterward... and... it's Kaine.

(tries to find appropriate WWE entrance music)

YouTube's not giving me a lot of options here...

Update Revision: Betty Cracker from Balloon Juice was at the Tampa rally. I envy her. She's got pics, real good ones close to the stage.

The Rank Smell of a Great Sorrow Lies Over the Land

There is a great and harrowing despair in my soul today.

We are living in a land where fate supposes the possibility of a con artist like Trump could become President of the United States.

In spite of his many sins. In spite of his open hostility to minorities and women. In spite of his failures regarding foreign and financial policies. There is still going to be enough of our fellow Americans who will buy this con game. Worse, there are enough of our fellow Americans who KNOW - who have whispered among themselves in dark dreary corners away from the cameras - how dangerous and reckless this Trump could be but who STILL close their eyes and blind themselves all because they cannot accept any alternative: Because of their partisan habits to back Republican ideology at all hazards, because of the likelihood they themselves could profit from a Trump victory, because of their foolish hope that "maybe" Trump could be controlled.

But have we ever had a Presidential nominee be so openly toxic?

Yoni Appelbaum, on Trump's narcissism:

In 2016, Donald J. Trump mounted the stage, and told America that the nation is in crisis. That attacks on police and terrorism threaten the American way of life. That the United States suffers from domestic disaster, and international humiliation. That it is full of shuttered factories and crushed communities. That it is beset by “poverty and violence at home” and “war and destruction abroad.”

And he offered them a solution.

I am your voice, said Trump. I alone can fix it. I will restore law and order. He did not appeal to prayer, or to God. He did not ask Americans to measure him against their values, or to hold him responsible for living up to them. He did not ask for their help. He asked them to place their faith in him.

Does that not echo the cults of personality that have haunted nations scarred by dictatorships and tyrannies? Trump did not appeal to a broad, optimistic view of the nation that nearly every other Presidential nominee has offered on that stage. He did not appeal to the party, actually. Trump appealed to the fears, he appealed to the anger, he appealed to the delusions. And he offered himself up as the Great Savior for all these problems he claims besets us, as though no one else can do this.

Does not Trump's speech ignore the real world? He claims the United States is suffering at home and abroad despite evidence to the contrary. From Glenn Kessler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee at the Washington Post:

The dark portrait of America that Donald J. Trump sketched in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention is a compendium of doomsday stats that fall apart upon close scrutiny. Numbers are taken out of context, data is manipulated, and sometimes the facts are wrong.

When facts are inconveniently positive — such as rising incomes and an unemployment rate under 5 percent — Trump simply declines to mention them. He describes an exceedingly violent nation, flooded with murders, when in reality, the violent-crime rate has been cut in half since the crack cocaine epidemic hit its peak in 1991...

Throughout Kessler and Hee Lee's article they pick apart each of Trump's accusations and claims, spotting anecdote for what it is, and highlighting how Trump is getting the numbers on tax rates, immigration, and employment wrong. But Trump won't care. He will keep shilling those statements because he needs to keep convincing voters that things are worse than they are and that HE can save us.

It's been said before that the Republicans do not live in the real world. In RepublicanLand, the liberals are destroying everything and Obama is a Secret Muslim selling us out to terrorists and corporations need tax cuts and deregulations before they can hire everybody back (without any healthcare benefits or minimum wage requirements). Now, they have Trump putting his trademark name on that property, without caring how Trump's brand never really sells and collapses into bankruptcy before any buildings are even started.

And this isn't even getting into the shitshow Trump threatens to bring to our foreign policy needs and what he threatens to do with our existing alliances that have STABILIZED - in spite of the War on Terror - our world for more than a half-century. Adam Silverman's article linked here should wake people up to the danger Trump presents.

And of course, the media elites will swarm and applaud because they have to, lest Trump and the Far Right throw another conniption about how "biased" and "unfair" the "liberal media" will be. So of course the pundits will line up and say "well that wasn't TOO EVIL a speech" or will argue that Trump has finally pivoted to the Center and can actually win in Nove... cough cough BLLLAARRRRRGGGG... Jesus, I can't even write that without vomiting in disgust.

No. Just no. Not ever. Not Trump. NOT TRUMP.

How the HELL is Trump even polling above 35 percent? How the HELL IS TRUMP EVEN POLLING ABOVE THE CRAZIFICATION MARK AT 27 PERCENT?!?!

/despair

GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT, DEMOCRATS. Every single registered Democrat in the nation needs to show up this November 8th and VOTE against Trump. I don't care if you've got a grudge against Hillary. Half that shit about her isn't even REAL, so why the hell are those lies bothering you? JUST VOTE FOR HER DAMMIT.

GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT, NO-PARTY AFFILIATES. Every single one of us in the nation needs to show up this November 8th and VOTE against Trump. I'd prefer it was a vote FOR Hillary, but the key thing here is FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT VOTE TRUMP.

GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT, LIBERTARIANS. Christ, I can't believe I'm asking you guys to show up. But damn, your guy Gary Johnson is at LEAST reasonable and sane compared to Trump.

GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT, GREENS. I'd rather you vote for Hillary, because your demographic pulls away votes from Dems more than Republicans, but the key thing again is DAMMIT DO NOT VOTE TRUMP.

And Republicans? I'D RATHER YOU STAY AT HOME THIS NOVEMBER 8TH. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING, VOTING THIS CON ARTIST INTO THE RACE?! DAMN YOU. If you have the nerve to show up to vote, fine, so be it. BUT FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS SANE AND HOLY AND REAL PLEASE DO NOT VOTE TRUMP. Vote Johnson, if anything. Just please NOT TRUMP. Not ever Trump.

This shit is insane and scary and wrong.