I give props to VP Mike Pence

faced with the exceedingly simple task of finding a Rabbi to deliver a few bland prayers at a campaign event the damn fool somehow found a "Jew for Jesus" (basically a sneaking evangelical xian cult) and there achieved Something Remarkable if entirely by accident.
The VP managed in one swell foop to UNITE the Jewish Community in the US if only in revulsion for such a crude provocative act.
Tasteless as well in the wake of the anti-semitic "Tree of Life" massacre, to indulge what amounts to evangelical christians with a taste for Jewish Cosplay.
But then this is Mike Pence we are talking about, dumb and boring make up the whole of his political brand.
Someday though, I'd like to address this obsessive need to pray over our politicians at public events, it sure betrays an unconscious lack of trust in my books.  I'd prefer politicians that are honest, not necessarily saved, because any damn fool can claim to have a reservation on God's Footstool as far as I'm concerned.

Okay this one is a riot...

The Boston Globe has formally endorsed Daniel Fishman, a libertarian for State Auditor.  The Value Structure, on Morrissey Boulevard is utterly inexplicable.  The reasoning offered in the above cited link is that the democratic incumbent Suzanne Bump has (among other things) bungled the investigation into the State Police Payroll Scandal.  This would be The Exact Same State Police Payroll Scandal over which the Incumbent republican Governor  presides and yes that is the same Charlie "Lumpy"Baker that the Globe Endorsed for reelection yesterday!!!
This is the same Charlie Baker who has yet to fire anyone at the State Police despite a steady stream of indictments for chiseling, obstruction of justice & Ghod knows what else!
This is the same Charlie Baker who seems content to keep abreast of said scandal by reading the Boston Globe every morning...
Never has neglect and mediocrity been so ringingly validated, The Globe has hit rock goddamn bottom what they excoriate in Suzanne they endorse in Lumpy.  What more can anyone say???

Lumpy Gets Endorsed by the Boston Globe...

Governor Baker's reelection was endorsed by the Boston Globe via an unsigned editorial today.  Its worth reading if you are a fan of half hearted commendations and vague yearnings for the vanished moderate republicanism of yesteryear.  Sheer Mediocrity Has Never Been So Celebrated. The Globe also earnestly wishes that Baker would be more of an Anti-Trump leader in the GOP once reelected.
I'm advising Morrissey Boulevard as a subscriber mind you, not to hold their collective breath.
The time to have done something about Trump was over two years ago in the Presidential Primary, Baker might have been able to bring in a delegation that instructed to oppose Trump but Baker declined to do that, he "Waved Through" the candidate.  Since that time, Baker's "opposition" to Trump has been muted, terse and rhetorical, The Boston Globe cannot expect anything more from Lumpy.
But then again this is an ongoing institutional bias on the part of The Boston Globe, they are seemingly desperate to foster moderate republicanism in the face of the GOP's headlong lurch into dark web rightical chic lunacy.  What Morrissey Boulevard doesn't realize is that they are giving CPR to what amounts to a skeleton...
I have to say I am disappointed in the Boston Globe but not surprised,  despite a spirited effort from democrat Jay Gonzalez they've largely relegated the entire campaign to the second and third pages of the Metro Section, which is pretty much a huge media win for Baker right there.  Gonzalez at least has at last got some adverts on TV at least he thinks the fight ought to be made come what may....

Shabbat Shalom

and peace to the ashes of all who perished yesterday at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

So it falls to me to ask is antisemitic violence our "new normal" in the USA?  If so, then we've degraded ourselves past the hope or recovery and may sadly  board up shop and decamp for the caves.

Meanwhile the President's response seems to have something to do with arming the Rabbis....

So we'd best make sure that this is not, the new normal.  Some very stupid and violent people out there have felt themselves, authorized and energized to commit heinous crimes lately...which leads to my other question which is: "If they don't get their fantasized result on election day, on whom and where will they lash out?"


I think thats a question that carries an urgent impetus....

BTW...

according to a new study we could well be underestimating the number of opioid addicts out there. Meanwhile Charlie Baker still has TV commercials out there running on a quarter hourly basis touting progress in the "opioid crisis".  Oh yet again its late October in a gubernatorial race in Massachusetts and the incumbent drifts thru the heavens like a untethered blimp, murmuring the occasional sleepy cliche' and pretending all is well.
Oh and National Grid/Columbia Gas have already punted the deadline to get the heat back on in Andover/Lawrence.  That one made the Metro Section of the Globe today...I only remark on this in passing because outside my window a nice cold wet Nor'easter is raging on.  But the Baker/Polito campaign blimp wallows along, untroubled.
And lets not forget that collection of democratic mayors who have eagerly endorsed Lumpy's reelection bid right there on camera for all to see...blimp-tenders every one of them.  I like Rivera up in Lawrence but I won't weep any salt tears if someone primaries him and all of his fellow-travelers at the next election...assuming we still have elections.

Lumpy is a die hard republican in the sense that he'll never ever regret his complacent performance in office, the rest of us though, the ones that can afford to live in the Commonwealth, will rue the day believe me.

No Pipe Bomb Sent to Me as Yet...

which is a poor result for some fifteen years of "sarcastic rant driven chatter" (per Boston Magazine)...

But as usual, I digress, I don't think this is any longer about "the decline of civility", its officially now about the Survival of Constitutional Governance, I'll take a great deal of incivility if I can guarantee the survival of the latter.
That being the case we have to consider the possibility of escalation, from below or above if
mid term election results are not favorable to our opponents. We must also be prepared for escalation even if said results are in their favor.
I am not saying the country is falling apart, or civil war looms, I am saying right now, the other guys are a lot further down the road to division and ruin than we are, shouting at Ted Cruz in a restaurant is hardly Maquis Tactics in the face of pipe bombs.

"A house divided against itself, cannot stand...I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. "

Abraham Lincoln, 1858

If Martin O'Malley really wants to run for President in 2020

assuming we still have elections or a country by then, He could do no worse than by promising to Stand By The U.S. Constitution and also End the Malign Practice of Phishing Phone Calls aka "Voice Phishing" or "Vishing".  No Joke Mah Frenz, My Ninety Five Year Old Mother still gets at least two of these vicious shakedown calls a day from ViOP Boiler Rooms the world over.  Thank Ghod almighty she has all her marbles and knows enough to hang up...but the calls are intrusive, abusive and seemingly aimed to defraud the Elderly of the USA en masse.
Lets Protect Our Elections from Foreign Interference certainly, but lets put a stop to "Vishing" as well...the two notions seem to dovetail together in my mind.
Dropping the Qualification Age for Medicare is ... Great don't get me wrong, but ending for good these maddeningly phone calls from Far Off Lands will yield a tremendous electoral windfall for the Democrats.

Elizabeth, Martin, Joe, Seth....ya listening?

Unless I Miss My Guess...

Citizen Warren is running for President in 2020.  I can tell because her current bumper sticker just reads "Senator Elizabeth Warren" and declines pointedly to cite the aspirational office in question.
Unless of course someone can talk her out of it or else Mass General Hospital comes up with a vaccination against "Potomac Fever".
I think the Senior Senator faces long odds, to put it succinctly, she has to bust thru not one, but two Glass Ceilings, the one that keeps females out of the Oval Office and the one that keeps anyone from Massachusetts from getting elected President.
On the other hand she may well be telling herself that busting thru glass ceilings is her "brand" whats two more to her...
Those ceilings are awful thick Senator, think about it, you could easily end up being blamed for Trump's second term....

Sunday Night Tirade...

"I knew your Daddy, Camille Gravel, and he was a fine man. But you are trying to make yourself a big man, and you're nothing but a little pissant."

Earl K. Long, 1960.

BTW here is a nice collection of Lumpy's worst moments in Last Week's Debate...that dead-fish-stare of his...yikes.  Baker is a lot of things, but he is not a leader as I understand the term, he certainly isn't a leader to rise to a crisis in any way.  The State Police have become a chiseling laughing stock and all Baker and his handpicked Commander seem to do is read about it in the Boston Globe.

Just imagine Lumpy as The Prime Minister of England during the Battle of Britain..."These bombs are really unfortunate, but we have allocated eight billion dollars to cart away the rubble..."

Lumpy Pretty Much Made a Blathering Fool of Himself in Last Night's Debate...

He could not answer a straight question from Jay Gonzalez as to whether or not he would be voting for Geoffrey Diehl for the US Senate this Fall. Baker hemmed and hawed and looked like a dope on live TV...I'll bet he gets that "deer in the headlights" look a lot off camera in private.
In fact, Lumpy only held out until the post forum press conference before caving in completely  by promising to vote for Diehl the very gruesome antithesis of Baker's alleged republican moderation. Before the awesome irresistible might of Citizen Diehl and the TrumpHordes Lumpy lasted about as long as a wet paper bag.
The reason for this pathetic indecision & craven surrender is simple, no one ever asked Baker if his alleged republican moderation was relevant in the age of Trump or if it could moderate any type of policy under discussion? Indeed how could it be when he plans to vote for an ideological thug like Geoffrey Diehl? You'd think he'd have some sort of answer prepared, but no, Lumpy has had it took easy for too long, he was flatly unprepared.

Sick, Demented, Typical...

Supposedly....

This trashy sycophantic masterpiece is hanging in Donald Trump's Oval Office, if you look closely though,  Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge and Warren G. Harding are all in the background looking faintly disgusted.  Earning the disdain of Warren G. Harding is no small achievement, that man was a memorably cheap slob in extremis.  Trump is impossibly slender in this painting...smirking hatefully as usual, no wonder he loves it.

If I read correctly...

The Saudis and the Turks are going to create "A Joint Commission" to investigate the murder of Jamil Khashoggi. Or as I like to think of it, the Perpetrators of the Crime and the Enablers of the Crime, are investigating the Crime.

Oh and Donald Trump has vowed to get to the bottom of this abomination, just remember his idea of "Discussing Russian Election Interference" with Putin started with kissing the same's ruby red ring.

Or still another way of thinking of it, a total of three journalism-hating regimes are now gonna figure out who tortured, killed & dismembered a journalist....how ya think thats gonna turn out?

Turkey throws in the Towel...

and finally frees Pastor Brunson which I am sure has nothing to do with the disappearance/alleged death of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.  The BBC is claiming that Turkish Intelligence has a recording of Khashoggi's interrogation and murder.
The current theory is, Khashoggi was literally dismembered, which is good old fashioned Nazi Terror Tactics designed specifically to intimidate the opposition and especially journalists worldwide, the German Word is Schrecklichkeit "frightfulness".
Such civilized allies we have, In The House of Saud, who are themselves "Putin Class" Trump enabler$ which likely explains why US Intelligence never warned Khashoggi that Riyadh was gunning for him, literally.
Moreover, Turkish Intelligence was listening in, and did nothing, as Khashoggi (a brother Muslim I might add) was tortured, killed and dismembered, not only that they, let the Saudi Hit Squad depart unmolested.
God Almighty only knows what else The Turks know about this horror show whatever it is, it was enough to scare them into releasing Brunson.
Good they ought to be scared...more transparency seems to be the only thing that sways these barbarians.

"Yeah, when WILL Charlie Baker gonna fire someone at the State Police"?

Here I echo sentiments expressed by Jay Gonzalez at the last Gubernatorial Debate.
We all know the answer to that, a republican even a republican with a two billion percent approval rating like Lumpy, would sooner blow their own brains out than let any daylight get between them and "Our Police Force" especially the Staties.
This is why Lumpy is content to keep track of the issue by reading the Boston Globe faithfully every single morning and leave the rest to the AG, the DA and the Feds.  It certainly looks craven (hell it is craven), and so far as I can see, Lumpy will be marinated in craveness by election day.
I'll give props to Jay Gonzalez for at least rhetorically confronting the problem (normally democrats have their inhibitions about confronting a public sector union) so that is at least some progress. Meanwhile someone at the State Police wants to start shredding documents, the plan got scotched at the last minute and all Lumpy seems to be able to mumble "thats a good fail-safe"...
There is no better fail safe than a Governor willing to take action against chiselers and corruptards....think on that Lumpy.

"BTW"

Governor Charlie "Lumpy" Baker quietly endorsed the "Yes on Three" campaign thus boxing the compass on LGBT issues, but then remember this is also a man who a scant month ago endorsed notorious fag basher Geoff Diehl for the US Senate. The whole thing however, was entirely downed out by the National Kavanaugh Hangover this weekend. All this tells me is that Baker's campaign must be less concerned about "Scott Lively" voters defecting or blanking their ballots on election day.  In other words, their numbers must look good for Lumpy to embrace a measure related to simple human decency.  I'm sure if there was a risk of even a quiet schism in the GOP Lumpy would run from Question Three like a vampire fears holy water.

"That Could Have Gone Better"...

We keep learning the same painful lesson over and over again in this country, that if we are waiting for Maine Senator Susan Collins to save our rights and liberties, we wait in vain.
Because as of right now, the Supreme Court is packed with Spectrumy Ideological Suicide Bombers, and somehow despite all her misgivings, lower lip pulling, anguished cries, Senator Collins managed to vote for all of them.
But then, I've been saying for years that "republican moderation" is basically a racket.  It allows access to certain fundraising resources that are denied to a grass-eater and it gets plenty of good ink from credulous outfits like the Boston Globe that are eager to pretend that "moderate republicans" are a potent force within the GOP.
In voting for Kavanaugh last week, Senator Collins simply buried for good the notion that "republican moderation" abides and is well positioned to "moderate something".  She sat silently as Judge Kavanaugh slipped into a berserker rage and literally blamed his binge drinking on Hillary Clinton when he wasn't pledging allegiance to some notional one party state.  Maybe you can make an argument that  there is but hearsay evidence as to his drinking and philandering...but the man basically shouted threats at the US Senate, and the lot of them and Susan Goddamn Collins just sat there!
Simple regard for judicial impartiality and sanctity of the US Senate dictated a "No Vote", but McConnell, Grassley & Graham long ago emigrated to a dark foreign place where any conflict between the Constitution and  mere Ideology must be won by the One True Faith.
I give Senator Heitkamp her due, she correctly saw the mortal threat posed to an impartial judiciary by Judge Kavanaugh's bestial outburst and voted no accordingly, she at least has a sense of institutional self preservation.
Otherwise the US Senate has officially hit rock bottom, why should they defend any of our rights, when they won't even stand up for their own dignity?
My big takeaway from all this is that threats, belligerence and escalation all work, at least on the US Senate.

Kay Bailey Hutchinson...

Our Ambassador to NATO (I was wondering where she ended up...) is the first member of the current administration to notice that Putin's Russia has casually broken it's INF Treaty obligations by deploying a new generation of cruise missiles in Eastern Russia.
She briefly mused over "taking out" those missiles before hastily walking back those comments, so while we've finally acknowledged the existence of the cruise missiles we've responded by making a threat we can't back up that was of itself subsequently withdrawn.
For the record, we've no regional capacity to "take out" said missiles because the USA is still keeping it's INF Treaty obligations in the face of a clear Russian violation of the same.
That's Putin's harsh wintery laughter on the soundtrack by the way.
So far as anyone can tell President Trump has not taken up this issue with the Russian Despot in any manner shape or form.

Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Nazi Germany was more artfully arranged than this humiliating mishaugas.

Liz Don't Do It...

I know every Bernie-crat and PUMA from Here to Guam, wants you to pile into the 2020 race, just remember a generation ago, their parents were blowing smoke into Ted Kennedy's face, and he fell well short in 1980.  Since that time five other guys from Massachusetts, four democrats and one republican have all tried and failed to grab off the Big Brass Ring.
I repeat myself, beyond the Berkshires, they hate us. Dunno why...maybe its Tom Brady's infuriating Barrymore-esque Profile, or the fact that they ship their kids in by the Regiment for very expensive educations...whatever it is, you mention Massachusetts in Shreveport and blood pressures start spiking.
I don't know how to fix that, I suspect only time can redress the matter, and we only get one more shot at Trump in the electoral college.  I don't think a woman from Massachusetts is the winning ticket in 2020....I've already seen the men all fall short,  All you will accomplish is keeping Bernie on the sidelines at the cost of listening to dumbasses war-whooping for eighteen months.
That and likely losing either the primaries or the big one.
Think about it Senator, just don't listen to those urgent souls who insist "its now or never"....