The President apparently wants to arm US School Teachers

as a fit and necessary response to the latest school shooting massacre. I say "apparently" because he has already contradicted himself on this point twice in the past twenty four hours....
If I was Donald Trump I'd drop this proposal soonest, teacher's unions HATE him with a mortal passion, if the teachers are armed, how long before they start drilling, training, marching and preparing to Seize Power?
Hey listen there are twenty two thousand members of the Massachusetts Teacher's Association in the Commonwealth, arm and train but half of them and you have a very effective armed force in the streets with no high opinion of Donald Trump or Governor Baker.
I'm being grimly sarcastic...today, but just remember this, Mussolini lead a bare sixteen thousand indifferently armed and trained Blackshirts all the way to power in Rome circa 1922.
 At anyrate armed teachers will make municipal contract negotiations very very interesting indeed....too interesting in fact, this idea ought be set aside along with all of the President's other perverse notions.

Billy Graham is Dead...

In life, "America's Pastor" claimed to be the friend of some seven U.S. Presidents...thats an extraordinary number of diverse and fractious personalities to befriend.
The main thing I recall about the groundbreaking ubiquitious televangelist is that somewhere in Merle Miller's biography of Harry Truman ("Plain Speaking") the former US President insists that despite claims to to the contrary "He didn't know Billy Graham from a Cord of Wood".

Peace to the Pastor's Ashes All the Same..."Life is too short to be small" sayeth Disraeli.

Scott Lively

Springfield's own fagbashing pastor has announced he is running against Charlie Baker in the GOP gubernatorial primary this year.  The guy is a malevolent nutcase and whore for publicity, but then so the current US President...hence Baker's unwillingness to engage with Lively at all opting to deploy every dirty trick in the book to prevent the wretched reverend from getting 15% at the convention.
Its classic "Charlie Baker" in every way, sneaky, passive aggressive, effective yet...cowardly.
Look Lively isn't going anywhere, the State GOP isn't throwing over a money worshipping scoundrel like Baker in favor of a busted out homophobe with more debts than sense.
So Charlie could take "the high road"and actually debate this mook, yes his views on gays and transgender persons are sickening...but sunshine is best disinfectant Charlie, not rolls of funny money from sketchy out of state libertarian ideologues. Debating Lively will at least clear the air of the lingering "TrumpStench" thats in the room.
Charlie won't do it of course, so the Twitchy Tyrannical Deacon is well advised to ask Donald Trump to drop by and campaign for...Lively, Trump is just dumb enough to take that bait....it worked so well for Doug Jones after all.

President's Day...

That Day of Days when we put aside partisan differences and try to think kindly of Franklin Pierce...

BTW if there is a President's Day, how come there isn't a "Congressman's Day"?

Because Every Day is Congressman's Day, just ask Paul Ryan whose reelection campaign was worth 171K to the NRA in 2016....:)

According to. CNN

Senator Marco Rubio has collected some 3.3 million dollars in donations from the NRA and it's affiliates in the course of his political career.  Gun Money literally is what keeps this faithless little jobber in the US Senate. So if you want "change"  in the country you've got to get out on the "zero sum game field" and end  a few political careers in defeat & disgrace, and if started this process with pride bloated Marco Rubio, so much the better.
That little mook can hear a nickel drop a mile away, and that is BAD quality for a US Senator to have....his word will never mean shit to his constituents with multimillion dollar payouts on the line.

Another Day Another Massacre

I hate to flippant when seventeen lie dead from another school shoot out in Parkland Florida, but I've tried logic, eloquence, whit, factuality, moral suasion and the needle has not moved one iota towards common sense.
Sarcasm is all I have left....apologies.
The truth is, the whole thing has become a vast zero sum game. Likely there is an uncontested majority in the USA for a sane simple policy of gun control, but that majority is hamstrung by inhibitions on voting, manipulated by malign media actors, outspend and outmanuevered at every turn.  In such circumstances policy which is largely utopian in character (ergo "an armed society is a peaceful society") is made by bloated fundraisers, their puppet politicians and gruesome ideological autistics in Washington DC.
The American People are ruled by a government that will do Anything to stop gun violence in the USA ...anything as long as it isn't something that might actually work and cost certain protected cadres their privileges.
For things to change, certain personalities in Washington have to be denied power and office and then the far more difficult task of sitting a congress willing and eager to confront the issue bluntly and effectively begins.
Until then...pfft.
Sorry.

Currently..

the President's budget wish list includes a 17 billion dollar cut in social services spending and a proposal to turn the food stamps program into a direct transfer of foodstuffs scheme. Canned beans and oatmeal are apparently going to be handed out to the poor in the fashion by which we distribute food to refugees in Failed States...I find that ironic to say the least.
But then, we have this innovative rhetorical approach to poverty in this country and we've had it for some two hundred years now, we think we can "shame it away" with just the right assortment of  taunts & insults.
I don't know if being poor in any country is a soft touch, I have little enough direct experience by which to testify I can tell you it's pure misery to be poor in THIS country. Between the meager living and the cold contempt for the very state of poverty itself emanating from the OverClass its a wonder more poor people take to canoes and try their luck in the Azores.
And as far as conservative theology is concerned you don't arrive at a bad idea like this without having embraced a delusional notion of poverty as a condition of life that is literally independent of economic conditions...and if you can believe that you can believe lining them up like medieval thralls for cans of  lentils & boxes of Hungry Jack's is a good idea as well.