Its a Rough Week and Likely to Get Rougher

and we are bereft of the counsel of some of our very very best on this Cold Clear Martin Luther King Day....

But even in the darkest days of 1968 Doctor King could still crack a Preacher's Sort of a Joke....

So do not be downhearted....

Captive Nations Day Ver 2.0

Rex Tillerson didn't disperse many doubts yesterday during his confirmation hearings, he came off as clueless and a little overwhelmed. Despite some very polite truculent noises abour the Russians he ended up getting schooled well and thoroughly by Marco Rubio the biggest Jobber in the US Senate.
I'll grant Tillerson means well, I doubt he is a utopian of any type if anything he seems like a likely realist (but then there are few true idealists at Foggy Bottom the Last One to Serve as Secretary of State would be William Jennings Bryan)....but he seems inhibited and underqualified. I took grim amusement in Tillerson's fastidious refusal to identify Putin as a War Criminal, it reminded me of all those shrieking posts on Facebook about Hillary Clinton eschewing the term "Islamic Terrorism".
I want to believe the best from Rex Tillerson he did after all take the BSA in hand and lead it into the 21st century on gender issues, but I think he radically underestimating just what we are letting Putin get away with, indeed the very topic seems toxic in extremis for Team Trump...which only inflames suspicions in turn.
And what kills me, these jobbers are giving the store away to Vladimir Putin who pretty much presides of a GDP the size of Italy whose main exports are ammunition, oil & mischief.
THAT is simply embarrassing....
At the end of the day, it comes down to this, either Trump et al are simply childishly naive about Putin and his intentions and will shortly be painfully shorn of those idealistic notions or else they are one and all STUPID enough to believe they may achieve power in the USA with the active backing of a foreign tyrant sans consequence.

Hi Dad Ya Proud of Me?

Dylann Roof is sentenced to death for shooting up a church with racist intent....I know people are squeamish about the Death Penalty but does anyone want this little mook strutting around behind bars posing as a "Race Martyr" and composing some Goddamned "Manifesto"?
No...better to bite the bullet ride out the appeals and let the executioner take his course....I know some of you are horrified by those sentiments I try to real with you, because its all getting very real out there.

Am I to Understand that the

"Fort Lauderdale Airport Shooter, one Esteban Santiago was able to ship his 9mm pistol in a locked case in his checked luggage sans ANY demure from the TSA?
Susbsequently as you all know, he simply adjourned to a rest room loaded his pistol and began a short but murderous shooting spree.
Seriously WE LET THIS HAPPEN!!!
Legally and fully compliant with the goddamn rules!!!
I think we seriously need to think about disbanding the TSA and declaring a state of "functional anarchy" in the air....everyone is encouraged to crade their M-1 Garand Carbines and Cherished Flamethrowers in Business Class!
We are the victims of a social engineering conundrum, "An Armed Society" was supposed to protect us all from these sorts of tragedies...instead said Armed Society has ENABLED random violence!
 Shit it is this very "Armed Society" from which we all need protection!!!
Seriously the next step is outright insurrection, we've armed ourselves so thoroughly that recourse to it, for whatever reason has become logical and....easy.

Sheriff Hodgson down in Bristol County

Has helpfully offered his entire prison population to the National Government to act as a work force when Trump's wall goes up on the Mexican Border.
This is the same wall, that Trump still insists is gonna be paid for by Mexico and apparently built by every deadbeat dad, speeding ticket evader, drunk driver, meth head and junkie in Bristol County.
Well there is a precedent for this idiotic idea, but you have to go back to the Old Testament and Hebrew Slaves building the Pyramids to find it....
Labor Camps are a Vile Foreign Innovation, but Never Forget Stupid Ideas Loudly Promulgated Are As American As Apple Pie, and if I was a Deadbeat Dad in Bristol County I'd get paid up quick, because dumber policies than this have been read into law Believe Me.

If I don't approve of Charlie Baker's

Servile attendance of Trump's inaugural, I like still less Hillary & Bill Clinton's appearance therein....But let me be clear the burden of "being a good loser" always unfairly weighed towards democrats. We are always being tasked to play by rules our opponent contemptuously break at the slightest provocation.
So if Hilary is being "A Good Loser" (perhaps the last one we'll see at a presidential inaugural in our lifetime) then Charlie Baker needs to be a "Better Belligerent" because he will get exactly nothing from this crew no matter how much he fawns.

Charlie Baker is going to the Trump Inaugural

Hat in Hand to Get the Best Deal He Can for the People of Massachusetts.
Appalling.
This is the same Donald Trump that Baker claimed was temperamentally unfit to be President back in August....
But then Baker is far too much of a trimmer and a jobber to lead any sort of a fight against a authoritarian populist gimp like Donald Trump....Charlie calculates too much and is passionate about far too little.

Hope Baker enjoys the comedy stylings of Scott Baio....but I doubt that will be the only humiliation he'll endure down there, Trump and his Family are famously vengeful, Charlie probably thinks he can  somehow grin and bear it.
Well that did not work for Mitt Romney and it sure as shit won't work for Charlie Baker.