Oh Thank Ghod...

The Hanoi Summit has amicably collapsed.
Given that pending Jailbird Michael Cohen usurped the news cycle by snitching on his former boss in front of Congress, we should consider ourselves lucky that Trump didn't frantically sign any document that Kim, Vladimir or Xi put in front of him in a vain attempt to wrest control of the narrative from his former henchman.
It is just as well, Trump was walking into Kim's Trap with eyes wide open like a sleepwalker, he had fatally conceded that North Korean Denuclearization might not be the goal, which allowed Pyongyang to potentially pivot to negotiating a final peace treaty, all while retaining their nuclear weapons and demanding God Knows What assurances from our nervous concession prone President.
Just remember, Trump announced at this summit, that Comrade Kim had no role in the death of Otto Warmbier, the late US Student who was clearly tortured near to death while imprisoned in North Korea.  So even if the summits go "ka-boom" he loves to alibi for tyrants, no wonder they all wanna meet him.

Bob Kraft a Lecher??? Who'd a thunk it??

President Trump is shocked, shocked I say at this startling revelation!

I'm still processing the fact that Bob Kraft, a billionaire four times over, gets his creepy jollies for cheaps at a tacky massage parlor in a grotty Florida Shopping Plaza.  $79.00 a hour for a slave labor "lady of joy", Kraft pays more for desert at lunchtime!
Hey...Isn't Howie Carr a club member down in Mar El Lago...he is a crime reporter, I wonder if he saw anything or has anything add?
:)
Its not that Bob Kraft is a pervert per se, sadly many rich people are perverts, its that he is a cheap pervert, and that tells me its all about abusing power over poor enslaved women with no recourse whatsoever.
Indeed the likely outcome as far as the Florida courts is concerned is a misdemeanor trial, a suspended sentence or community service...meanwhile the women get deported back to China and Ghod Knows What Sort of Fate.  It is the covert reestablishment of slavery in our midst that is the true crime, forget Bob Kraft, that dirty old man's reputation.
THAT is the real perversion here.

Is Charlie Baker Bailing Out?

Granted he has lots of money on hand, and can raise millions more in legit and funny-money, indeed his chief strength as a candidate is his fundraising operation...yet I wonder, save a brief half hearted attempt to gin up a challenge to Ed Markey in 2020, we aren't hearing a lot about Charlie's future plans.
Which are to say the least, limited,  he is hated by the National Republican Party, he can hardly hope for an Ambassadorship let alone a Cabinet Post.  He'd need to start making moves now, if he wanted Ed Markey's Senate Seat, and I don't see a lot happening along those lines (I could be wrong though).
Granted the senatorial kaleidoscope remains clouded as long as Senior Senator Warren is running for President, potentially she could win giving Baker a shot at an open seat or a more cynical opportunity to appoint himself to the Senate temporarily and make the race as an incumbent.
After that, he could run for reelection, in 2022, he has plenty of cash on hand and no reason not to make that race. It is however the least creative option but then Baker has little imagination so it cannot be ruled out based on the scant evidence to date.
So I wonder maybe he is bailing? Ergo this is his last term...He is pressing for a real estate tax that'll be used to harden the Commonwealth against Climate Change (a rare good idea given shifting weather patterns). That has to be a revenue decision anathema to the GOP Primary, its also the sort of decision someone who isn't running again might make...
Then again Lt Governor Karyn Polito has been quietly settling up old campaign debts, that is always the first thing one does when one is needs to start fundraising in earnest...because you are envisioning an expensive state wide race.
On the other hand, Baker is as usual refusing to endorse his mentor Bill Weld's quixotic bid for the 2020 GOP Presidential Nomination, bespeaks a desire to keep peace with his own State Committee (a hotbed of pro Trump ne'er do wells) and thus keep his political options open.
So Maybe Baker is out, my only question is, will he serve out his second term or find an excuse to resign and hand over the governorship to Polito so she can run as an incumbent circa 2022?

I am not sure it matters whether or not

Attorney General Barr releases The Full Mueller Report or a redacted summary, I feel pretty sure that if the Full Report is not released, it'll leak within Forty Eight Hours.  Its a chaotic mismanaged White House we have in DC, they make bloodcurdling threats that they almost never back up, this, and the fear of legal retribution, "brand harm" or a damaged reputation down the line strongly encourages leakers and whistle blowers.

So When is Vice President's Day?

Y'know that day of days when we celebrate the Democratic Vision of Hubert H. Humphrey, the Stern Jeffersonian Ethos of John Nance Garner or even the Subtle Wit of Thomas R. Marshall...?

Have No Fear...Bill Weld is Here!!!

The Ubiquitous Knight of the Charles River Swan Dive and Former Governor of Massachusetts has formed a Presidential Exploratory  Committee with the intention of challenging Donald Trump in the GOP Presidential Primaries next year.
Lets face it, Weld is a hapless has-been, he is as old as dirt, utterly inconstant & irresolute, he's left the GOP, endorsed democrats, run as a libertarian, he hasn't held office since the late 1990's, the man is Harold Stassen incarnate at this point.
I'll gloss over the fact he's been pro-choice, up until now and he is running in a famously pro-life series of primaries, Ghod only knows where the money will come from to finance this latest example of Weldian windmill jousting.  Moreover the political graveyards of this republic are full of men and women who bet the mortgage on "Principled GOP opposition to Donald Trump".
So I give Bill Weld very long odds indeed, if he makes his nickels squeak he might hang in there thru South Carolina, but does anyone think he can do any business at all in Texas or Alabama or any of the "MAGA Primaries"?
I say he cashes his check by March 2019.
On the other hand, The Boston Globe clearly loves Bill Weld that is a useful thing to have in the NH Primary where independent voters can pull party ballots, but we are a long way from any scenario where Weld sets NH aflame with an Anti-Trump Backlash.

Oh Thank God, GE is still coming to Boston...

But the tottering corporate giant is clearly coming here To Die amidst a Historic Setting.  They've even pre-paid the funeral by giving back to the Commonwealth some eighty seven million dollars in tax breaks.
For that kind of money, we can expect all of Beacon Hill to start looking for a nice stately burial plot for GE in Mount Auburn Cemetery...Hell for eighty-seven large, General Electric can hire the entire Great & General Court AND the Boston City Council to serve as pallbearers and gravediggers.
 Is it me, but will this boondoggle redound to the discredit of Governor Baker at all??? I mean he practically flopped over on his back and panted like a dog for a corporate headquarters that is down to a bare two hundred people.  This is what happens when libertarian minded republicans try to pick winners....
To say nothing of the black eye this gives Mayor Walsh, he was out there every day banging the pots for GE, neither of them look very good quite frankly.

Check this out!

The Southern Baptist Convention has a clerical sex abuse scandal all its own!  And lo and behold, they are just as lethargic as the RCC when it comes to countermeasures and transparency! I'd laugh but its all too tragic, its getting so the last place you want to take your kid, is church.

Its been a banner week on the Op Ed Page of the Boston Globe...

Joan Vennochi insists Senator Elizabeth Warren is doomed, (big surprise there huh?) and Scot Lehigh has sighed turned over and decided that Bill Weld is Our Only Hope to defeat Trump!
I love these guys, you could set your watch to them.
This quote from Lehigh pretty sums it all up:
"And in states where unenrolled voters can take a Republican primary ballot, he (Bill Weld) certainly could attract socially libertarian, fiscally moderate independents".
Its like Scot has hooked up the bleached skeleton of GOP Moderation to an EKG and he just sits there week after week month after month waiting for the damn machine to go "beep!"
Quite frankly if "socially libertarian, fiscally moderate independents" were gonna somehow save us all, they'd a done it by now! Where the hell were they on Election Day 2016 Huh?
I'll tell you where they were, they were making a bad deal with Donald Trump for "pennies on the dollar" with no thought in their heads as to the good of the nation or what might be best for the GOP, thats what they were doing!
Why?
Who knows "because her emails" or maybe "Al Gore invented the internet" or Willy Horton or whatever...but like most people who make chronically bad decisions, they are never gonna walk any of it back and so will likely Vote for Trump come 2020.
It sure sounds like Weld has got Lehigh back on his speed dial, he may not have much of a chance within or without the GOP primary but his hypnotic hold on the Boston Globe's Op Ed Page is as strong as ever.

What do...

Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin & Nancy Pelosi have in common?

They All Seem to Have Figured Trump Out, and to Trump's disadvantage as well...Look at the sheer studied contempt in this photo, it is chilling.

The merest murmur of Aspirations

on the part of Former Governor of Massachusetts Bill Weld and like a well trained cadre of teenyboppers "The Bill Weld Fan Club" convenes on the front page of the Boston Globe.

I've said it before, I've said it a thousand times, the Boston Globe is mysteriously besotted with the political aspirations of Bill Weld, no matter how inconsequence or casual they may be.  They just love him, his detachment, his insolence his casual WASPy contempt for humanity...its make's em' pant...
This time Weld may run for President, either as a Libertarian (assuming that twitchy cohort consents to nominate him) or else a direct challenge to Trump in the Primaries as a Republican.  True to Weldian form, there are strong drawbacks to both options; in 2016 Weld pledged heart mind and soul (such as it is) to the Libertarian Cause, backing off on that now would be very..."Weld-Like", but would look like rank opportunism to the rest of Us.  Plus you have to factor in the perennial also ran status of the Libertarian Party and sure-as-shooting they'll never secure a berth at the Debates in the Fall.
Weld running as a Republican just means he'll be crushed by the time he reaches the Florida Primary with little to show from his Quixotic Charge for Glory. The Former Governor has to be astute enough to realize that Trump's opposition within the GOP is fatally divided, isolated and limited to rhetorical gusts only.
Moreover, in both scenarios, where the hell is the money gonna come from???
No its time to face facts, Bill Weld is a washed up hack, a jobber, he got bored with being Governor, couldn't get elected to the US Senate, couldn't get a hearing on his appointment as Ambassador to Mexico, couldn't get nominated for Governor of New York and didn't get elected Vice President. Bill Weld isn't a hero, he is a mess, a seventy four year old tattered, ruined, over the hill joke of a politician, More Harold Stassen than anything else these days.
If I had to guess he'll run as a Libertarian and never be heard from again, save for the Boston Globe camping out all night on his stoop to get his autograph first thing in the morning....