Cosby Busted

I don't do a lot of pop culture blogging but late word comes that criminal charges have finally be filed against Bill Cosby persuant to a date rape incident circa 2004. It goes without saying that all I can hope for is a fair trial, a transparent process and the administration of justice as a restorative no matter what the outcome. This is all the more important because we are far down the road where EVERYTHING is a species of entertainment (so far that we can't go back at all IMHO) so that that makes the need for a fair trial all the more desperate. Personally I think Bill Cosby is as guilty as sin but it's another matter securing conviction given the evidence so far....

Bill Kristol is talking about a third party in 2016

which is a good indication that the GOP Insiders are starting to get thoroughly scared that there may be not alternative to Trump from within the current GOP Presidential Ranks. Right now I rate this sheer blather, the GOP has actually fractured in an election year exactly once in one hundred and four years AND THAT was in 1912! Although on at least two subsequent occasions independent candidacies strongly compromised the republican's performance in the electoral college....normally third even fourth parties are bad news for the ever contentious democrats. On the other hand the times might be ripe for a third party uprising a sort of Anti Trump Conservative Alternative, but the GOP itself is too staid and too easily scared to make a leap like that moreover what credible candidate could the "abstainers" gin up? Jeb Bush??? Rubio? Scott Walker....I openly predict none of that lot have the guts no matter how much they may hate Trump, I wouldn't even put it past Rubio to join a Trump Ticket as Veep if push comes to shove. Like I said blather at this point but it illustrates the GOP's dilemma nicely nobody wants Trump, Trump continues to top the polls, none of the candidates have a clue as to how to put down The Donald, everyone waits pensively on events like death row convicts hoping for a reprieve. Thin hopes right now IMHO.

The Boston Globe's

new delivery system is subtle, so subtle in fact I could detect no trace at all of the newspaper on the doorstep as of 7:18am est this morning nor any sign on the digital version on my mother's Ipad.... I swear sometimes the Globe's game plan is to lose to the Herald by default...

Apparently the Big Fix Proposed for the MBTA

comes down to either a ten percent hike in fares over two years or a five percent hike over two years....but pretty much it sounds like it's gonna be a hike in fares come what may. Moreover the Globe has some palaver in today's article about the high number of MBTA employees who pull down over a 100K a year...shocking supposedly the MBTA's fiscal board is ordering an audit, which is music to the ears of Scot Lehigh I'm sure. Not fer nuthin' but I'd love it if some reputable institution would audit the Boston Globe (and for that fact the Herald) to see how many employees therein are scoring for 100K a year despite a decline in sales and advertising revenue....at least MBTA can point in an across the board increase in ridership. I said a year ago or so that in the end the ridership will get stuck with higher fares and a decline in service unless they got into some sort of coalition with the MBTA workforce itself....and from the looks of things that gloomy prediction is coming true.

Am I to understand that

James Peyser, the Commonwealth's Secretary of Education is still serving as a Director for a Nonprofit called "Families for Excellent Schools" which lobbies on behalf of Charter Schools?? Because if the Secretary of State's site can be believe then clearly Peyser has incurred a rather blatant conflict of interest. Is he paid by this outfit?? Paid or Not this is a serious question for public ethics...I'm a little shocked the Boston Globe hasn't picked up on this story, but then the Globe is a credulous mark for the whole "Charter School" placebo. One thing for sure Scot Lehigh won't breath a word of it so that much is secure. Personally I think a hundred years from now our progeny will look back on the whole "Charter School" movement as a rather embarrassing fad.

Merry Curmudgemas.....

and let me just say without fear or favor that Frank Sinatra sounds all the world like he is making a hostage tape with a loaded pistol aimed at his head whenever he sings traditional christmas carols. Its like an uncommonly truthful person being compelled to read from the Symbionese Liberation Army's List of Demands. The reasons for that are simple Sinatra was an honest man when he sang there were limits to love in his estimation just as life was far from a utopian stroll....a good chunk of Christmas is at times given over to faking jollity in hope that some real succor will somehow manifest, and that sort of falsity Sinatra could never ever simulate when singing. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, A Happy Hannukah and a Solemn Kwanzaa may be a tolerable season of peace for all.

The MBTA is in one of those Bad-News-Cycles

the local media just cannot get enough of....from cost overruns on the proposed Green Line Extension to Union Square to an unmanned Red Line Training careening into North Quincy Station. Granted that out of control train was allegedly a consequence of operator error, but lets try to recall (because the Globe & the Herald and the rest of them all too willfully forget) that the rolling stock on the Red Line is only two years younger than me....the fact that any of it rolls at all manned or unmanned is a stone miracle. Be that as it may, operator error this time, massive equipment failure due operational old age next time...the actuarial tables sort of favor it. Fair enough no one wants to discuss the age of the equipment...least of all the Governor I guarantee you he has already seen a perfectly configured spreadsheet that confirms the price tag on new rolling stock. So yeah "Thank Ghod for Operator Error" thinks the Governor, the Lege and that meshugginah Fiscal Board at the MBTA......

Napoleon III spent a good chunk of

the 1850s & 1860's inconstantly supporting "National Self Determination & Unity" in Italty (as long as he wasn't seen as beating up The Pope). Of course the one nation in Europe who took the whole message of "National Self Determination & Unity" to Heart was The Germans who happily submitted to Prussian Political Domination and shortly beat Napoleon III on battlefield like a Red Headed Stepchild. So every time I see a new ISIL outrage on the TV news or some ghastly massacre in Iraq/Syria I try to recall that the US Army once swarmed in to Iraq intent on fostering that same "National Self Determination & Unity" and a good chunk of democracy as well. So far we have about as much to show for it as Louis Napoleon did in Italy.....

While her boss

Governor Charlie Baker has denounced Donald Trump's Muslim Exclusionism in no uncertain terms no one seems to have heard a whisper of an "Amen" from Lt. Governor Polito. Granted she doesn't quite command the same media attention, and even Baker's denunciation was front page on the Globe's Metro Section....bit still we shoulda heard something shouldn't we? Hey if I'm wrong feel free to furnish proof in the Comments Section....

I will grant that

Governor Baker is likely sincere when he reject's Donald Trump's plan to bare Muslims from entering the USA under almost all circumstances. I mean it's crazy UnAmerican and unworkable and also a deeply desired narcotic to the GOP Base. We can't expect detailed policy pronouncements from Donald Trump he is a bit of a political drug pusher after all, one that the rest of those jobbers in the GOP sweeps can't seem to stop. But it's easy for Baker to reject Trump's plan for Muslim ethnic cleansing....Charlie is after a moderate republican from a blue state. Moreover such resolute public rejection does nicely obscure the Governor's own ambivalence about taking in Syrian Refugees or at least that seems to be how the ever worshipful Boston Globe is playing it in today's metro section. Blogger gold though Trump is, I'm resistant to the urge to turn this into a 24-7 Donald Trump blogathon. That doesn't mean I don't wanna see whatever passes for his stump speech in NH though. BTW by all accounts Trump has a plurality up there and a double digit lead on whatever wanker is in second place this week and all by doing as little personal retail campaigning in the Granite State as possible. I find that part interesting...and instructive as to the "nationalization" of the New Hampshire Primary. My question is, what IF, Trump places in Iowa, wins New Hampshire and sweeps South Carolina....? At that point the RNC would have to get absolutely frantic about stopping Trump, but would the leadership countenance serious all out "Florida Recount" skullduggery in a bid to thwart Donald Trump?

Its important to remember

that the Federal Union temporarily went to smash in 1861 because the Presidency was in the hands of a Party and a Statesman who insisted that Congress did indeed have the authority to restrict the growth of slavery within US Territories and any incoming states into the Union. Thats it...on that notion alone sired a whole bloody civil war. Now today, there are statesmen and even politicians out there who insist the Federal Government may regulate the saturation of firearms in Civil Society. And just as there are others in contemporary public life who insist they need as many firearms as possible to thwart any attempt to regulate said firearm saturation. Anyone else out there see any vague historic parallels?

I'm not gonna wax wrathful about the massacre in California...

Save only to note that I've exhausted my rhetoric talking about the perils of "gun saturation" in the USA...and our elected representatives have largely sat thru a dozen prior provocations in complete silence....You'd think they'd speak up but no....this is Congress After All. It is burdensome to be governed by such cowards....

It may be in the weary wicked end

that all of Donald Trump's nativist rhetoric will do...is force the famously equivocal Senator Marco Rubio to pick a side in the immigration debate. So far he has been a no show and a straddler but getting past Trump at the voting booth may require a real gut check....either go full blown "sane nativist" or else start putting distance between the Junior Senator from Florida and the "ship em' back" cohort. That is of course assuming that Rubio is the GOP Insider's preferred alternative to Trump/Carson....and Rubio could still end up jacked by Jeb Bush in some final childish Kamikaze Scene.

According to the New Yorker

Senator Marco Rubio has odd religious habits, in that he worships on Saturday at a Protestant Evangelical Church and then executes his liturgical obligation to the Roman Catholic Church of his birth on Sundays. This is a practice that was once common in Louisiana back in the 1930's where the Catholic - Protestant Divide runs north to south as in Ireland, but these days what with instant media and all, you'd think it'd be an odd slightly hypocritical affectation. Not so to Rubio I guess.... Of course...as a Catholic, Marco Rubio ought to realize that the the RCC does not approve of "Open Communion", non Catholics may not partake of communion nor can Catholics receive the eucharist in non Catholic Churches. Of course Rubio has a first amendment right to sit in any church he likes...but if he is celebrating the eucharist in a Non Catholic Church YOU WOULD THINK his Local Bishop might just take him in hand for a refresher regarding doctrine.... After all John Kerry got stung in public for "preaching" in certain African American Churches by the US Bishops, this practice of Rubio's if true is deserving of a similar rebuke at the very least. But I won't hold my breath on that one, these are the US Bishops we are talking about.....

World War 2.5.1

I don't worry about US and Russian fighter jet getting into accidental conflict escalating dogfights over Iraq & or Syria. Even though that very scenario was at the core of a lot of political thrillers back in the day, conflict avoidance seems pretty much deeply woven in the diplomatic-military DNA. No I do worry about dumbass Russian Pilots flying their rattletrap jets over Turkish territory (and thus giving Erdogan an excuse to do even less about ISIS) or else straying into the Israel Air Defense Zone. THAT has escalation potential everyone should be concerned about....especially when Putin's policy goals are so utterly vague and amount to nothing more than propping up a useless regional client and asserting great power status. Poor reasons to endanger the lives of Russian troops...but then that's Putin in a nutshell, pay a dirty shopworn dollar to get a shiny new quarter.

Kudos to Congressman Moulton

for pushing back on Governor Baker's surly passive aggressive resistance to housing any Syrian Refugees in the Commonwealth. It may not be a popular stance for the freshman Congressman but it is principled and at least...definite. More than I can say about some other big name democrats in this State. The problem with democrats in Massachusetts is that we make easy terms with just about any GOP Governor who is not a demonstrably twitchy falangist....and everyone decamps to their districts to moan and groan about budget cuts when they aren't doubling the carbon footprint in their local Elk Clubs bloviating about the "Republican War on the Poor". Nothing gets done but then everyone has an excuse for inaction and maximal rhetorical bombast. As democrats we need to get out of the complacency zone all the way down to the precinct level, delineate our differences with Baker forcefully and make it clear what our stance is when He is Wrong. So far though, I'm not hearing much of that, the Election was a Full Year Ago Folks it's already a different world....get crackin'!

Ghod the Boston Globe just loves Mitt Romney...

Doesn't it? They've got an entirely meaningless poll out today indicating if Mitt Romney ran for President he'd be the Front Runner. The Globe is never more sad and pathetic than when that scary thousand yard stare falls over it and the venerable news daily starts into it's "Mitt Romney is a Moderate" trance. Its a moot point now since the deadline to register for the NH Primary has passed, but the poor doddering Globe goes on fantasizing. Romney wouldn't last two weeks against this crowd he can't take a right hook he succeeded last time because he had unimpressive underfunded competition, two weeks of Donald Trump calling him a cross dresser and a sellout and Romney will run home to Belmont crying....

Piyush We Hardly Knew Ye...

Amidst all the other things happening this week came the thin piping word that Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, Governor of Louisiana is dropping out of the GOP Presidential Race. Allegedly he has taken that browbeaten, bewildered & baffled mug of his down to the Greyhound Station on Canal Street in Manchester NH where he is piteously begging for bus fare back to Baton Rouge. But that is all part of the hazing ritual we call "The New Hampshire Primary", Texas John Connolly allegedly went thru the same thing back in 1980....

Scot Lehigh went on Safari in NH...

and discovered with breathless excitement that Ohio Governor John Kasich is really a Moderate Republican. I mean read the column Lehigh virtually coos with happiness he can just see the Charter Schools sprouting up magically on every street corner. And then the next day Kasich wrecks the whole vibe by proposing the creation of a US Agency to "promote our Judeo Christian Heritage"abroad...Bill of Rights be Damned! Ghod I think I'm gonna need Harvard Stadium in which to laff..... But let me say this, moderate republicanism is dead, it may come back though I doubt it but it will NEVER come back as long as credulous columnistas like Scot Lehigh simply project their need for a moderate republican messiah onto some cynical conservative. All that does is corrupt the brand and ensure moderate republicanism is nothing but a pose not a principled stance.

Baker sez no for now...

to any Syrian Refugees being domiciled in the Bay State....not exactly a Profile in Courage eh? Ah but when you've got a 65% approval rating yer kinda stuck with the whole "keep those numbers high" meme....which leads to more short money high fructose decision making. Which is the irony high public approval, it turns you into an @sshole with limited options.

Apparently Governor Baker

invested some time talent and treasure during the last budget season in trying to exempt his Revenue Commissioner from the state detailed and explicit restrictions on collecting outside renumeration from private entities & boards. Thankfully the State Senate put a stop to the notion, though quietly. Can you imagine the squeals of indignation that would've issued from the Boston Globe's op ed page if Deval Patrick had tried such a stunt?? I can practically envision the sheer outrage that would've poured from the laptops of Joan Vennochi & Scot Lehigh.... But as of today, dead silence on said op-ed page....but the matter will require some vigilance admittedly. All this tells me that being a "moderate republican" is a bit of a sucker's game as far as the Globe is concerned...something they fall for every damn time.

Vive La France....

It is a gut thing. If I had to choose between The French and the Russians I'm with the French every time. If I have to choose between the French and the Germans, it's France, No Contest. If I had to choose between the French and the English....okay that one is tough...but to any gathering the French will always bring the best hootch lets not forget that. No....The French Have Their Vices, but I'd rather put up with those vices than the alleged virtues of almost any other nation on Earth. Confusion doubt and woe unto that Republic's Enemies....and in us they will always have a Good & Faithful Ally.

Governor Baker....

on the basis of a freebie play from Draft Kings.com doesn't think On Line Fantasy Football is gambling per se, but with an abundance of caution he is deferring final judgement to the AG. Sigh....I just wish sometimes pols would just shut the hell up yo..."I don't think" fantasy football is gambling is just enough of an opinion to bite the Guv in the keester down the road. Besides I take the absolutist view that a bet determines gambling, not whether it's a game of chance or skill...and a bet needs to be regulated to ensure its on the up and up and taxed, since we are now in the gambling business we can look forward to a lot of problems in this area down the road. Health to the AG's deliberations, the ball has been very carelessly kicked into her court....

Jeff Jacoby wants to disband the TSA

and make security once again the bailiwick of the airlines. Ah yes....the airlines those stern incorruptible institutions that are looking to stack us up like cordwood in those meshugginah jets. I'm not gonna go too deeply into this, Jeff would privatize the oxygen supply if he could no I'll just note that airline security was securely in private hands on the morning of September 11th 2001. Not a single solitary Al Queda hijacker was prevented from boarding their targeted airliners by ruggedly individualistic profit motivated private sector security force. Given the alternate with a demonstrated record of 100% failure in a clinch...I think I'll stick with the TSA for now.

Is it me or is

Jeb Bush's current advert buy in NH plain awful? A bunch of toxically privileged toadies croaking Jeb's praises as the toughest thing on two feet since the Death of Bruce Lee.... And meanwhile Jeb "I Eat Nails for Breakfast" Bush is being beaten in the polls like a Red Headed Stepchild by a giddy sawbones whose dyslexia causes him to consistently misidentify a Pyramid for a Grain Silo. Da Facts are falling far short of the hype I think. Now the rumors are that Jeb's campaign are about to get rough with former protege Marco Rubio....which might be a gut check time for the mainstream GOP, if Jeb beats down Marco then around whom can the insiders coalesce if Trump starts gulp....winning primaries?? So I'm guessing Jeb might be getting some unwelcome push back on what amounts to a desperate plan to take Rubio down with him. Which in turn is a good test of just how narcissistic Jeb and all of La Famiglia Arbusto is when push cometh to shove.

The Globe has made a half hearted attempt to tempt

Congressperson Katherine Clark into the 2018 gubernatorial election, both she and Maura Healey have both wisely given a pass to the project. Katherine Clark represents one of the safest seats in the history of the US House of Representatives and while this makes her a good leadership prospect within the caucus it doesn't do much to project electoral power into swing precincts in Worcester & Plymouth Counties. Just sayin' thass all. Some of that article on the front page is a bid to excite the ambitions of the still thwarted PUMA wing of the state democratic partei....I urge all and sundry NOT to inhale any heady vapors exuded by the Boston Globe. Morrissey Blvd may be a liberal paper still, but when it comes to ginning up a good fight for 2018 idealogy takes a back seat to filling up a good card. Keep in mind the Globe's editorial pages luuuuv writing obits for liberals and liberalism a nice landslide for Baker fills up that need quite nicely. Besides Senator Markey is not a young man....and has remained silent so far as I can tell about his plans in 2020.... Which brings me to my main point, right now Charlie Spreadsheets is riding high in the polls, as democrats we are waiting on the issues and inscrutable fate to give us a good starting position in 2018, right now we don't have that Katherine Clark or no Katherine Clark. If I had to speculate we might need someone who can self finance the next time around, it might be a more favorable circumstance for the likes of Steve Pagliucca or the like.

Unemployment has hit 5%

the US Economy added 271,000 jobs last month. Wow. Can someone drive up to New Hampshire and tell Jeb Bush he can crawl home to Florida with his dignity intact because "Obama Already Fixed It". :)

UMass Amherst joins a lengthening list of

colleges and universities that are no longing making SAT score a core requirement for admission. I for one, could not be happier. Standardized testing was the bastardized offspring of the "Sputnik Scare" of 1957 wherein the likes of Henry Luce were in a bowel loosening panic that the US might be falling behind in the technology race with the USSR. We needed more scientists and engineers so education had to get away from mere "enlightenment" and start supporting the Nation's Cold War Priorities. Which meant standardization and more testing and tracking. Soon enough the score and metrics inspired the state legislatures (those bastions of employment for 3rd rate lawyers, befuddled ex cops and undertakers) to transform themselves into Boards of Pedagogy and viola! INSTANT MEDIOCRITY! I stand athwart all this and cry "STOP" an end to feckless testing that canalizes the student and limits the teaching options of the teacher....and lets get the Legislatures OUT of the business of literally defining the concept of education itself. I'd sooner entrust that debate to Synod of Orangutangs. So yes...Kudos to UMass this is important and a positive step.

Geez Guess I was wrong

looks like ISIS brought down that Russian Airbus in the Sinai after all. Although....there is still a chance it was not sabotage, US Intell is flagging a bomb pretty bluntly so the chances of an Act of God being the cause seems awfully slim. Nevertheless this is the last and only Wake Up Call Putin is gonna get in the region, after this, ISIS will start polishing up asides inside continental Russia. This is a big step up for ISIS in general they are moving outside the Middle East which is inevitable given their horizontal leaderless organization style. My Gut is, Putin doesn't have the resources or the diplomatic will to hang tough in Syria, I may be wrong about that as well my record so far on this is indifferent I suspect his best hope is to restore some of Russia's region credibility by brokering partition as he cannot guarantee outright victory. On the other hand it's likely too late to reconsider intervention, this week's homicidal incident means Russia is in the cross hairs Assad or no Assad. We are about to see just how well Vladimir Putin performs in a situation where he does not have the element of surprise on his side.....

If Vladimir Putin is smart

(and the jury is still out on The Little Father on that score) he'll take this plane crash in the Sinai as a good indicator of how badly ISIS wants to mess with Russia. Granted initial reports indicate that the plane crashed due to technical issues and was not brought down by ISIS, but boy howdy sure do want to do that and so much more don't they? We'll see how long Putin sticks it out in Syria when his beloved Spetnatz are getting beheaded on Youtube. But that is the folly of intervention in the region, the major powers think the calculus of power politics is somehow sovereign in the Middle East and it never is, theocide and ecstatic self destruction trump ye olde balance of power every time. This is after all a region where Arab howl about apartheid in Israel while they are slaughtering their own from Aleppo to Anbar Province....

I'd better get up to NH on the quick....

if I wanna catch Jeb Bush's "Doomsday Tour" from the sound of things, he may not last until Christmas. The Globe is reporting this morning that Jeb plans to spend more time in NH going forward, thats an open confession that the situation in Iowa is irretrievable, but then both his Dad and his Brother both Lost the New Hampshire Primary at various times in their presidential careers.... I used to think Jeb was the Man to Beat but he fatally brings nothing new to the table, more tax cuts more money worship and that relentless sense of entitlement that permeates his very being. And at the moment he is being beaten like a red headed stepchild by a loutish billionaire with a much bigger meaner sense of entitlement...Karma is a Muther Jeb. But he keeps running commercials and his polling is mired in the single digits soundly consigned with Cheap Acts, Huckabee, Gilmore or Santorum.... Sad. No really it's hilarious.

Chaffee is out

which leaves Martin O'Malley in the ahem "coveted" third tier position in the current democratic presidential sweepstakes. O'Malley is down to hanging on and hoping for a miracle at this point, some pundits out there think he is trolling for the Vice Presidential Nomination but since all three remaining candidates come from reasonably safe Blue States one is hard pressed to envision what electoral strength The Former Maryland Governor brings to the ticket. Nope O'Malley must conquer or perish right now my money is on perish...if Clinton had folded in front of the Benghazi Committee then maybe he'd get a chance...but likely Biden might've parachuted in as well. I like O'Malley and one of the things I like about him is having a cartoonishly obvious Irishman named "O'Malley" in the race. ;)

Jeb Bush is flying on fumes....

He is cutting back on paid staff in Iowa & NH, he is polling down the cheap acts everywhere and he is reduced to trotting out his still toxic brother the ex-president at fundraisers. The Bush Family Bully Mojo seems to have deserted Jeb Bush, he is finally up against someone in the person of Donald Trump with an even more Brutal Sense of Entitlement. Hence Jeb's lost and haunted look on the campaign trail, his fundraisers (the family's traditional secret weapon in any election cycle) seem to be deserting him, that has to be keeping him up at nights. I wonder where the money is going at this point, it certainly isn't wingnut tea partei money so it has to be leeching away to some other mainstream safe controllable conservative candidate. Wiser heads than mine will have to scrutinize the campaign finance filings for the answer. And there seems to be no end to this sh*tstorm, the conventional wisdom is that a few more governors and senators need to bail so that a solid "Anti-Trump" candidate can be hammered together...but what if Ben Carson bailed tomorrow? Do anyone really think his voters are gonna desert to Marco Rubio?? No Trump will be the beneficiary....so the whole bail and triumph scenario has serious consequences on the far right of the GOP Sweepstakes, which in part why I think Trump and Carson have hung tough so far, their numbers are just more favorable between them they've got about 40% locked up thats a solidly crazy and vengeful plurality that would happily vote for Roberto Farinacci if he promised to exile Barack Obama to the Phantom Zone.

Jim Webb Bails....

I'm not surprised, I never got the impression his heart was in it.... Up Until Now I sort of thought Webb was running for Secretary of Defense, but supposedly he is now making third party noises if you can believe it. Frankly I doubt anything will come of it if Webb couldn't raise the money as a democrat he will never acquire the Trumpian Cashola needed to make a credible 3rd Party Challenge Next Fall. Webb must think if he can tough it out until the NH Primary he can present himself to the nation as a principled conservative alternative to Donald Trump assuming The Donald stays in and wracks up significant primary wins. Thats about Webb's only credible third party scenario, he'd be sunk from the git go if Bush ever revived from his current swoon. Hell Jim Webb is sunk for lack of $$....this will yield two weeks of excited speculation (cu da press love 3rd partei insurgents)....then nothing.

Does someone wanna ring up the Boston Globe

and tell Joan Vennochi that contrary to her current column that the poverty rate in the USA dropped fifty percent over the balance of LBJ's term in office which was largely due to his comprehensive anti poverty programs. You could insist that an expanding GNP ate up that poverty sans Federal Intervention, I mean...you could but comparable economic prosperity under Eisenhower did not yield as great a drop in the poverty rate. So yeah The Great Society Worked....if you don't believe me read John E. Schwarz' "America's Hidden Success"if you want those numbers broken down in detail. I'd do it myself, but I'm on vacation and am under a Doctor's orders to drink brandy and cease bloviation on line....

Denny Hastert that lumbering

jobber who presided over Bill Clinton's impeachment back in 1998 as Speaker of the House, just pleaded guilty to paying hush money to a former student who accused him of molestation. This is the same Denny Hastert who sat there grinning as a host of GOP Congressman clouded the air of the US House calling Bill Clinton every name in the book including ironically "child molester". I mean yipes but did any of Bill Clinton's accusers have normal libidos? I mean save Monica Lewinsky (who clearly like all outed mistresses wanted to clear out quietly and quickly....)... Its a sad deviant role call of wingnut perviness to be sure....

Last Night's Debate...

is at first glance, bad news for Joe Biden. He needed a very serious "Hilary Meltdown" to justify entering the democratic presidential primaries as the "Savior of the Party". The Former Secretary of State, declined to give the Incumbent Veep his opportunity, she was serious, modest, well informed and on-message. That having been said, Bernie Sanders hasn't yet burst out of his liberal's liberal enclave, he took some hits on gun control that won't do him much damage over the short term. O'Malley, Chaffee & Webb all acquitted themselves well no one broke out though in any substantive way, the best that can be said is that Governor Martin O'Malley projected a comfortable vice presidential gravitas....but he he is a Northeastern Governor in a race dominated by Northeasterners and if Bernie or Hilary can't carry Maryland then they are too dumb for help. Overall everyone exuded a shocking amount of well informed sanity....which is a sharp contrast from the snarkfests that characterize the GOP Debates to date.

Cultural Note:

At All Costs Short of the Penitentiary or Our Immortal Souls the Colonial Theater MUST be saved from conversion into another Joyless Undergraduate Barracks. Emerson College has shuddered the famed venue and is "considering it's options" with regard to the property. I say it must stay a living breathing function theater! Boston is already a town vastly complacent about it's commitment to the arts and prone to useless lip service, meanwhile vital venues casually close for good with nothing on the horizon to replace them. Don't believe for a moment that just because the Hub is lousy with college students and nice tweed jacket liberal professors that the atmosphere is welcoming with respect to the Lively Arts, largely it is not. Mayor WaLSH is officially invited to Speak Up Soonest on this issue and if everyone wants to see a working model about how to turn a venue in an obscure spot into a thriving home for concerts, plays and films then you can do worse than to speak with Leland Stein who has kept the Regent Theater in Arlington up and running Against All The Odds. Someone has to stand athwart this insidious process of "De-Souling the City" and Howl HALT!!

The Fight to Succeed John Boehner has literally

come down to an ugly brutal brawl between doomsday preppers and snake handlers....as a democrat and a liberal it's fine family entertainment in every way....save the outcome, thats gonna be cringeworthy no joke. What I love is, the plaintive cries that are going up all over the Republic that House Ways & Means Chair Paul Ryan (also Romney's torpid veep candidate) HAS to step forward and run for House Speaker....to ahhh "Save moderate republicanism". HAR! Paul Ryan a moderate?? Thats a laugh, a better more devoted corporate looter cannot be found anyway in the District of Columbia...his moderate bona fides are entirely incidental and negative in scope he neither stockpiles K-Rations and ammunition and has never expressed his Love of Ghod by juggling rattlesnakes. But, the GOP is both desperate and entirely in delicious disarray I'm not sure in the end they'll be able to unite around anyone at all. Boehner may have to stay on for the next two years simply because his caucus cannot govern themselves let alone govern the nation. HAH!

What is it about Bill Weld?

That so mesmerizes the Boston Globe? Even twenty five years later?? The Capitol Section of the paper this week contains an open letter from Frank Phillips to Governor Baker detailing all the ways the incumbent can hold on to his current popularity. Fine fair enough, but the conclusion advised Baker to drive down to Canton Ma and inquire after the soul of Former Governor (wait for it...) William Weld Surpriiiise!!! Seriously, Weld has this weird power over Boomer Journalists, one and all they think they got high with Weld in College or something. Its a very bar-set-low credulous vibe....but Weld has always benefited from it, he got whipped by John Kerry, quit the Governorship cuz he was bored, fled to NYC, flirted with running for Governor of New York, got divorced, downed a LOT of Jack Daniels and then wandered back to Massachusetts. A record of triviality, whimsy, eccentricity & self indulgence but when it's Bill Weld the Boston Globe cannot get enough. I don't give a rat's ass about Charlie Baker and his sacred spreadsheets but if he really wants to be a good governor he can start by asking the simple question just what the hell has Bill Weld done for anyone else since leaving office?

Putin in Syria

I wish him the sweet unfettered joy of trying to set up a sustainable Alawite Syrian Enclave for his Pal President Assad, Russia clearly wants a big buy in back into Middle East Politics but believe me it won't come cheap if it comes at all. We will see how long Putin can hang in there once his troops start getting beheaded on Youtube and ISIS starts shifting it's sphere of action to Russia Proper.

Alex Beam does a bang up job

in his current Boston Globe column of concealing from his readership that the famed columnist hasn't mastered his cable remote and the TV is permanently stuck in "Cambodian Mode".... Insert "Three's Company" Gag Here for Pop Kultur Bumpage....

That having been said...

Working Class Xenophobia in this country does come from A Real Place at the end of the day. The USA has deunionized, deindustrialized, become casually atomized and now outsourcing to Manila is all the rage....is there any question that very real economic concerns are in play here? Granted a lot of that xenophobia comes thru a nationalist blustery filter, which of course is a cue for Good Liberals to Disdain It All which I think we do at our peril. Hate to indulge a cliche' but a little smidge of compromise is the only answer, liberals have to concede certain xenophobic streams have legitimacy, white working class inflictees have to concede prioritization economic concerns and therefore the need to enter a de facto coalition with almost anyone else than Donald Trump. Because while we are finally exiting the recession we are still hobbled by an unequal economy that will literally do anything and everything to forestall the practical redistribution of income.

Because at the end of the day I'm cynical about the US Congress

Most especially the US House I firmly believe that particular institution's malevolent paralysis will grown progressively worse as long as The Majority depends on a network of undemocratic rotten boroughs down in Dixie. Until someone tracks back to that corrupt set of circumstances we the people will be largely bystanders in a seemingly endless cycle of gridlock-shutdown-short term solution. Changing The Speaker (and from all accounts Rep McCarthy the current frontrunner sounds like a belligerent shit in every way) will not solve or even address the problem, which is to put it simply that the US House of Representatives doesn't truly Represent the Electorate, these congressmen have been self selecting their constituencies so relentlessly & corruptly that they've sidelined whole majorities of voters.... This can't be sustained over the intermediate term but that in no sense means it will end well for any of us.

Boehner Outski...

John Boehner with a sob and sigh, is resigning from congress next month even as he declares his intention to get the budget thru before he goes.... Well I tell yuh, Live By The Tea Partei, Die By The Tea Partei (metaphorically speaking of course.) But not fuh nuthin' but back in 2010 it was Rep John Boehner who discovered the Tea Partei, saw the electoral potential therein and whistlestopped Dixie promoting every Birther Sumbitch Candidate in every Rotten Borough from the Missouri to The Gulf of Mexico. And now the selfsame are making his job a living nightmare so of course he is quitting all to clear the way for someone even worse to become speaker. And that mah frenz is a simple stark reminder of how busted politics is in DC, because IF the best case scenario involves succession by some anarchist wingnut then YES you John Boehner have helped ruin the US Congress...period end of story. And that is John Boehner's legacy he empowered, enabled and was ultimately engulfed by Wingnut Anarchism and he leaves US to clean up His Mess... Thanks John, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

BTW....

Jeb Bush does want to live in a "multicultural society" so I read on da internet. Well...gee whiz Governor maybe you could Set The Example by not caving in and changing your religion all to mollify your spouse herself most definitely...an immigrant. Cuz otherwise, Jeb Bush is himself the very picture definition of multiculturalism in action, I mean....he speaks Spanish after all the mother tongue of all those Mexicans right??

On The Other Hand....

I can suddenly understand why a sacerdotal silence stole over all of Mattapan as Baby Bella was beaten to death by her mother's boyfriend....didn't that selfsame silence envelop all of Boston when James "Whitey" Bulger ran amok like a Sociopathic young He-Ape? And if so, aren't we ever gonna discuss this entirely undiscussed problem hmmmmm??

Scott Walker bails out of the GOP Presidential Sweeps

with a private prayer to the GOP God of thunder and fundraising that a southerner gets the nomination, one that forgets that Walker came off as a tedious zombie on the stump. Ah but its getting real over there yo, Walker bailed with a plea that others withdraw as well in order to stop Donald Trump. Still and all that, its a bleak end for someone who was a Certified Man of Destiny Two Months Ago..... So this means in turn that the music is getting getting up tempo and the fight to stop Trump comes dow to who bails and endorses versus who has the stamina and $$ to stay in...it's a variant on the fabled Game of Chicken. At this point though its the worst sort of zero sum game, too many slippery variables versus too little reliable intell. Fiorina collected lots of plaudits off the last debate but the she doesn't have the scratch to capitalize on her buzz moreover the punditariat was visibly desperate to anoint someone anyone as the AntiTrump. Carly got off a good line and caught that wave but it doesn't seem like it'll take her far. Early word is that Marco Rubio is polling third or fourth in Iowa and came in for some good reviews off last week's debate but that again could be sheer desperation on the part of the GOP Leadership, no one else is catching fire and fellow Floridian Jeb Bush is staggering around NH campaigning like a stroke victim. Trump's numbers seem to have finally plateau'd but that still puts him out front with no credible opposition in sight. And right now it's all about Stopping Trump, main force hasn't worked so the coalition has to be assembled bit and bit and via negotiation...I'm wondering if that rumored Romney phone poll in NH was less about getting Mitt in than in pushing some candidates towards the exits. I've got to get up to NH sooner rather than later, my revised priorities, Trump, Rubio and ...Jeb. Will advise....

Tomorrow...

the whole of Boston & Beyond will howl for blood dynamite and The Death Penalty, all thanks to this needless tragedy. It has all the elements, dogged cops, DCF snafus, dope addicts, petty criminals, lunacy and a neighborhood full of passive aggressive mutes. But if The Marathon Bombing was the Glory of the Commonwealth, then Baby Bella's murder is Rock Goddamn Bottom for us all. So before we all go off baying like hounds some shame is very much in order I think...

Interesting rumor from an unreliable source in NH

to the effect that someone is allegedly conducting a phone poll to see how well Mitt Romney stacks up against Donald Trump. Details are murky and this whole thing may be a crock...but I doubt anyone would be interested in that data say either Mitt Romney (whose messiah complex borders the pathological) or else someone in the GOP eager to tempt Romney in the 2016 Presidential race with a favorable poll thus to play "Christy Mihos" in this election cycle. Call me cynical but I just don't see Mitt Romney as the Answer to the GOP's prayers...its just that the Leadership is in deep denial about Donald Trump and his particular appeal to the republican base. Until then, should Romney run in full savior mode he'll fall afoul of the same political dynamics, namely a base that is addicted to paranoid narratives and fantasies of belligerent revenge....narratives and fantasies they've been force fed for over a decade now. They will never switch to trimmer like Romney which would be like paying for Earl Grey tea when they can get free black tar heroin.... But this is Willard we are talking about he could screw up a two car funeral and like will ere long.

Frankie Da Pope....

has come out banging the pots for The President's Nuclear Non Proliferation Agreement with Iran. Which is darn nice of him I suppose on the eve of a Big State Visit to the USA and all... *** Buuuuu-ut....the GOP Presidential Debate is a'goin' down tonight, now the Big Meme at the moment is someone up on that stage has to try to land a haymaker on Donald Trump or risk have him run amok unobstructed in the upcoming primaries. A lot of people (big money donors among them) are fairly desperate for Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and or Carly Fiorina (sp) et al to get their damage on regarding The Donald. Me....I have more modest dreams. I'd luuuuuv it if the mods would ask Jeb (professional catholic and a convert) what he thinks of the Pope's unabashed endorsement of the nuclear agreement with Iran? I mean forget the American Bishop's dogging Jeb about the Death Penalty they way they haunted Kerry about abortion in 2004...I just wanna see Bush try and frame an answer that at the least doesn't have recourse to reaffirming the separation of church and state. So that might be worth watching for, in order to stay Wingnut on Iran Jeb might be compelled to a Constitutional Principle Anathema to the GOP's Base.... Oh well A feller can dream can't he?

Frankie Da Pope is a comin' ta Town....

I suspect The Holy Father and President Obama might get on well, they seem somewhat simpatico' so to speak. *** The RCC has just enough of my money socked away that I feel as a Fitful Catholic I ought to speak up with respect to The Pope's fitful program of reform within and without The One True Apostolic Church. And if I could lobby the Throne of Saint Peter...I'd push for restoring full communion rights to divorced Catholics. These days divorced Catholics are supposed to decline the Eucharist since the secular dissolution of their marriage is somehow an affront to God Almighty. And yet....to my knowledge not a convicted priestly pedophile from out the late scandal was ever once denied Holy Communion regardless of the scope and viciousness of their crimes. So...whats the worse sin? Secular divorce or....pedophilia? Me? I'm going with pedophilia but you out there (all seven of you) will have determine that for your own selves. So IF Frankie wanted to make a free fair and dare I say it "Christ Like" reform to RCC practice he ought to drop the odious rule denying The Eucharist to Divorcees. The retention of this rule creates a de facto caste system out among the laity and also forces the Clergy into the rule of "Eucharistic Police Minister", trust me, Jesus Christ broke bread with worse characters on a regular basis with worse characters than mere divorcees. Restore the Eucharist Frankie, you kin do it....

The Globe is trying to gin up a fight

between Donald Trump and Mitt Romney...the former Governor is of course as usual cast as the Moderate Man of Destiny on Horseback sent from Heaven Above to save us all from the predations of a TV Pitchman. There is a sad predictability to who the Globe thinks can save the GOP from it's own clearest unfiltered reactionary tendencies...the cure is Mitt Romney every time. Seriously does Mitt have pictures of some unnatural act...? I don't get it. I just don't... I mean Mitt can't take the slightest pressure from the right he demonstrated as much in 2008 & 2012...the equivocating staggering candidate who dreamt up "self deportation" is supposed to take down Donald Trump? Ridiculous. I think Trump makes the overclass nervous especially since so far his main competition have proven themselves little more than the walking whining dead. Look Romney's high command is scattered among six different candidates, Mitt is a two time loser as well and lets face it, Romney could screw up a two car funeral. If Donald Trump reads the Boston Globe (And I doubt he does) I'm sure he is laughing at the prospect, Mitt Romney is exactly the sort of whiny passive aggressive jobber he has been smacking around like a jobber for the past six weeks. The Globe and the GOP is gonna have to find another hero...good luck with that one.

John Kasich's current NH ad-buy

is utterly disingenuous...in that, he harkens back to 1969 as the last good year where a balanced budget was passed by congress. Well...John THAT BUDGET was submitted by democrat, Lyndon Baines Johnson who used up the last of his once huge political clout to get a series of tax increases thru congress that along with some budget cuts and Texas style financial gimmicks allowed The President to compose a balanced budget. I promise you, "President Kasich" would never have the courage to go the same route to a balanced budget....

I'm shocked to discover

(per today's Globe) that Harvard's Hasty Pudding STILL excludes women from on stage roles in favor of male undergraduates....in drag. Yipes. Health to the efforts of any young woman trying to bust open that entirely inane tradition, break a leg at auditions kids, I at least am in your corner. Seriously I swear The Hasty Pudding is literally naturally selected itself as being a exclusive attractive nuisance for every guy at Harvard that thinks "straight white guys in drag" is comedy gold. Cuz the rest of us think it's about as funny as a Middle School Pistol Whipping....

Consider the case of Senator Marco Rubio

a mere two years ago, he was the GOP's "Hero in Waiting", a whole outreach program to Latino voters of himself and a Senator supposedly sodden with charisma and brains. Senator Rubio's sheer "centrality"made him an enviable politician and so it was natural for President Obama to reach out to him seeking a negotiating partner in the US as illegal immigration legislation was under discussion. And then... Rubio walked away from the table, partly in fear of the madness-maddened reaches of the GOP Base mostly though out of the base motivation of Presidential Ambition. Left with no negotiating partner Obama was compelled to try and move the ball forward via Presidential Directive which of course induced the usual cynical wingnut seizures cries of "dictatorship" etc. In short, Rubio could have been a hero here, taken immigration off the table and been a stand up guy....instead he decided to Run for President. Now look at him, he is spinning plates with the rest of the cheap acts while Donald Trump storms up and down the country armed with the very issue Marco Rubio handed to him. A lot of words come to mind about Marco Rubio right now, but the foremost one is "CHUMP!" Frankly if I was him, I'd bail and hope for a Hail Mary Pass on the Vice Presidency at this point his integrity and brains are so thoroughly compromised it's about the best Rubio can do given the circumstances. He has no one to blame but himself, Marco Rubio handed Trump that sword and practically held the bridle for the billionaire. CHUMP!

Down in Millis....

(as rustic a setting you can imagine short of Town Day in Peru Ma), a police officer shot up his own police cruiser set it on fire and claimed it was a random drive by shooting perpetrated by miscreants in a red pick up truck. This in term touched off a day long manhunt in Millis by the State Police etc and a complete community wide lock down....so much for an Armed Society is a Peaceful Society eh? But what I wanna know is just how the hell a Dispatcher in the Millis PD ended up armed and on the street with a badge allegedly not having graduated the Police Academy? Maybe the Globe got that part wrong or maybe Millis Ma is cutting back in strange and counter productive ways, either way I think just possibly the State might need to investigate how this dingbat came by his badge and his firearm......

Denali Denial....

President Obama renamed "Mount McKinley" in Alaska changing back to it's Amerind original "Mount Denali" so predictably every soup slurping GOP Jobber in Ohio is indignant. Denali was originally named for Mark Hanna's portly vapid sock puppet of a US President William B. McKinley who gave us the Spanish American War (and even in that he had to be pushed into it by Henry Cabot Lodge, Teddy Roosevelt and William Randolph Hearst) and little else of consequence. McKinley had a ill fortune to be assassinated in 1901, and the outpouring of grief washed up in Alaska where the Fed's named a mountain after him. Not for nothing but I am sure Ohio (McKinley's home state, eight US President's all of them jobbers and or corruptards) is dotted with Middle & Elementary Schools named for the Late President....Does he really rate a Mountain in Alaska after all these years? I mean Ohio is well within it's rights to memorialize McKinley any way it chooses....but Alaska has to rights within it's own borders as well. Frankly if the Feds wanted to be entirely honest in this transaction they should have named the mountain for Mark Hanna back in 1901...cut out The Middleman.

Per the Boston Globe today....

And the MBTA's minimum basic maintenance needs have ballooned to about seven billion dollars up from an estimated five or so two years ago. The Baker Admin which has pretty much got control of the MBTA's Management has responded with....a sonorous rustling of...spreadsheets. Transport Secretary Pollock must be quietly regretting that burst of bipartisan good sistership that impelled her to take that on that thankless task. If I were her, I'd start polishing my resume, so far merely mentioning the term "public transportation revenues" causes the Admin to stiffen in sheer Victorian Horror. Moreover based on last winter's performance, Baker's go-to seems to be "declare defeat and get out", that goes for necessary expansions in MBTA service and soon enough it'll applied to the agency's critical maintenance needs. This is regardless of whatever fare increases Humble Elias will have to pay or any decline in service he will have to endure....frankly I should feel lucky if the Red Line doesn't cave in one crisp Monday Morning. Meanwhile...those spreadsheets rustle on....sweet music huh?

A Month Ago....

I thought Donald Trump was a craze and summertime flash in the pan, but numberless gaffes later and a surge in the polls that defies all conventional wisdom and I'm prepared to admit I was wrong. I think Trump is here to stay, and if I had to hazard another dumbass guess I'm thinking he will not (at least over the intermediate term) opt to run on a third party platform. At this point, he has fifteen other GOP candidates stumbling around in his wake like toadying also-rans on "The Apprentice", bolting the partei would unacceptably concentrate his opposition and sacrifice vital political leverage over GOP Leadership. But then this is Donald Trump and he likes to present himself as a blustery Iconoclast. I'm also shocked at how poorly Jeb Bush has done so far, I thought at one point The Donald would end up simply holding Jeb's Stirrup as the Former Florida Governor rode of the body the cheap acts to Glory.... But right now, like the Other Sixteen Bush is staggering around Iowa and NH like a zombie deperately trying to explain himself all the while being mocked by Trump as a stupid indecisive jobber. So much for the Bush Machine and it's killer oppo research and it's career busting attack adverts huh? I think Karl Rove and Lee Atwater together couldn't suss out a line of attack against a phenom like Trump.... But then destroying Trump at this point means the GOP has to admit that for the past sixteen years they've fed their base belligerent paranoid fantasies and now that base enraged past reason is now gonna impose it's will...on Them. I doubt they have the political will even to discuss such a disturbing notion, but until they do, it's Trump's race to lose. The man is not gonna gaffe his way out the race, his base within the primary electorate simply does not care they want Vengeance and Trump is Merely Their Instrument.

I have to give Vester Lee Flanagan a great deal of demonic credit,

the late murderer seemingly crafted The Perfect Homicide in terms of beguiling and ensnaring social media and the news industry in general. That part of the whole plan was well thought out indeed, as a grotesque manipulator of our collective desire to watch revolting willful acts, Flanagan ranks right up there with ISIS in his murderous stagecraft. Ah but even vengeful ex television personalities cannot escape the Law of Unintended Consequences because by Sunday this will be all about a Black Gay Man's garish will to slaughter....the wellsprings of his so called rage will be passed over to say nothing of how a genuine raving lunatic can get access to firearms sans the slightest demure in this country. In other words the gaudy identity politics of it all will get Center Stage...the fact that we are booking off gruesome massacres like this on a nigh biweekly basis will be passed over in Silence! Count on it. I don't know what to tell my admittedly tiny readership save to note that we are well past the point of no return with the sheer saturation of guns in this country....and if the tendency to deliberately target unarmed cohorts continues unabated then we will rapidly come down to a question of sheer personal survival. And trust me on this "Every citizen for his or her own self" IS NOT an environment where democracy may long survive....

Apropos of Nothing....

But Ex Hero and former Red Sox Hurler Curt Schilling apparently own a huge collection of "WW II Memorabilia" including a number of SS Uniforms. I promise you, he has tried them on, check for the high polished jackboots it is a dead giveaway.....

I have to be "For Something"....

(I mean other than cheap pleasing whiskey) and I find I am For Extending the Green Line to Union Square Somerville...yes the cry goes up in opposition to "Yupification", but thats a process that has already begun in and around Union Square and naught can be done to stop it. Moreover those hills are a vast barracks and nursery studded with young families who might just make Somerville their permanent address if they have access to better Mass Transit in and out of Boston. Alas this is Charlie Baker we are talking about and with the revelation today that the project is entailing cost over runs it seems likely that the Governor will do has he has done in the past and "Declare Defeat and Get Out". That has pretty much been his Mass Transit MO all year and one doubts he will change his tune now....which is a goddamned shame because Somerville is vastly overcrowded and is but barely tapped by the Red Line, a better more robust rail option ought to be available to the citizenry.

The Pokemon Massacre (that wasn't...)

Law enforcement has intercepted two ne'er do wells on their their way to allegedly shooting up a big Pokemon Tourney at the Hynes this weekend. Well...let me reiterate a point amidst the nervous riduculousness and that is as long as the Psychiatrists at the NRA are asserting that stockpiling firearms is an acceptable treatment for anxiety, neurosis and even schizophrenia....then we will see more incidents like this and far more successfully executed as well. Just saying folks....we are saturated with two things in America, firearms and nut bags...its a wonder this doesn't happen three times a day seven days a week.

Looking forward to that pending

Jeff Jacoby column where he expunges the last of his pride and explains to his readership why "Anchor Babies" are a bad wrong evil phenomenon.

President Erdogan in Turkey

has lost his majority in parliament and will likely have to call new elections this fall amidst the usual "mounting violence". I don't like or trust the man, but I think we write his political obituary at our peril, he seems to have that "Netanyahu/Cameron quality" in that he embodies the best of all the bad alternatives. He wants a theocratic society in Turkey of all places, like that has worked so well anywhere in the religion....

Rick Perry has stopped paying certain staffers....

Which is a sure sign that he is on his last legs and will be bowing out soon. Winning in a seventeen candidate field requires money or volunteers (preferably both) and Rick has neither at this point. I'm guessing the pressure is on to arrange a decent exit around Labor Day...and then it will be "game on" to secure his endorsement. Thats where Governor Perry's worth will go up however temporarily, he is too stupid to be a credible VP prospect (which is anomaly in today's GOP believe me) otherwise. I wonder what his "asking price is"? Otherwise the fact that Rick is low on $ means the GOP fundraising matrix is shifting, clearly capital is trying to find a credible "Anti-Trump" and that means more going to fewer potential candidates, seeing some fundraising numbers right about now would be interesting indeed.

Just A Humble Shout Out to...

Former President Jimmy Carter who is sad to say, beset with pancreatic cancer. He was the very first democrat I voted for circa 1980, a proud defiance I have never yet taken back. And whatever else, all those other Ex US Presidents all sit there in their studies wondering HOW they can ever do as much Post Potomac Good as Jimmy Carter. Well thats easy, make lavish use of your time stay committed and stay focused.... Carter stuck his neck out for Civil Rights back when he was a farmer in Plains Georgia, he stuck his neck out for Peace at Camp David in 1978...the Jeff Jacoby's of this world can call him every name in the book but Jimmy Carter? He had guts they can't take that away from him. Well it is Carter versus Cancer now, Guts is what he is gonna need. I wish him well....

"I Believe Nan Britton!"

Apparently, DNA tests have proven that Warren Harding, 29th President of the United States did indeed father an illegitimate daughter by his longtime slightly spectrumy groupie Nan Britton circa 1919. Britton was the very first "wronged mistress" to go public when the nominal hush money that Harding was paying her dried up after his 1923 death, Nan published "The President's Daughter" a lurid tasty account of her affair with Harding and the darling daughter consequent thereof. Warren Harding was a schlub but he was a weirdly sympathetic schlub, a chiseler, an corruptard, a tomcat and smiling well meaning ineptoid there was always a sort of "Sir John Falstaff" quality to him...you just knew the hammer was gonna reduce Harding's fat ass to paste sooner or later it just a question of where and when. Even FDR (who knew Harding socially back in the day) had some empathy for the 29th President, he knew Harding meant well by his own dim fumbling lights in the weary wicked end. What makes me guffaw is that after almost ninety nine years the Harding Heirs are still fighting a desperate rearguard action to save his reputation first from Nan Britton's now verified accusations and then the publication of Harding's many many puerile love letters written to all sorts of women thru his public life. If I was Harding Heir...I think I'd just cut my losses and change my name....there is just no polishing up that Turnip no matter how much elbow grease you apply. Peace All The Same to the Late President's Ashes and his Heirs.....

In Today's Globe....

Jeff Jacoby gaseously celebrates Piyush "Bobby" Jindal's assimilationist rhetoric on the campaign trail. Apparently Jeff is impressed by Bobby's disdain for "hyphenated Americans". Nowhere in said column does Jacoby mention that Jindal is allegedly a convert to christianity having thru over his early life Hinduism for the Incense of the R.C.C. Well fair enough "A Man's Religion Is His Own Business" that goes back to George Washington and ought to be our true north even today. That having been said I just wonder what Jeff's reaction would be IF his beloved eldest son Kaleb came home one day an announced he wanted to "Assimilate" and was now taking Catholic Catechism instruction for Monsignor McFeeley?

Allegedly

The Clowndidate Donald Trump is mulling a public pledge not to run on a third party ticket to demonstrate I guess means that he is a serious candidate for President or some damn thing. If I was RNC Chair Reince Priebus I would not believe God's Truth Out of Donald Trump's mouth. Trump has lied outrageously to his wives, his family, investors, partners, creditors and stockholders, he's declared bankruptcy and still come thru it with two billion large, he has inflicted some of the ugliest gaudiest buildings in creation on Manhattan and still called them all masterpieces. What is lying to Reince Priebus and the RNC with a record of mendacity like that?

"Roses are Red...."

"Violets are Blue I hate the democrats and the G-O-P too!" A differently winged friend of mine on Facebook posted that couplet a few hours ago. Which in turn gave me to think that his animosity is in the face of the Founding Fathers who bequeathed to him a republic that had as few political parties as were strictly necessary. Those "Old Time Men" (to quote Mister Lincoln) had nigh mutually exclusive concerns when they were writing the US Constitution fear of domestic tyranny at home, a perfect terror of international impotence and recolonization from without. So the government they forged could never be too strong for the individual nor too weak to confront a foreign foe. Read "The Federalist Papers" if you don't believe me, Hamilton et al were obsessed with the possibility of recolonization or a nation whose "commercial commitments" were unreliable. Their solution was national unity at home by way of a Federalist Constitution and a government capable of treating with foreign powers from a position of relative strength. The Bill of Rights which came in the wake of the constitutional convention was in itself an attempt to conciliate doubtful factions within and without the Constitutional Convention. So from the git go, those "Old Time Men" had to satisfy purely political concerns...but that didn't mean they had to back a system that surrendered too much power to too few well placed partisans...hence our "winner take all" state and national elections which to this day are a barrier to third, fourth and fifth parties too easily playing for power. "Liberty is to Faction as Fire is to Oxygen"....but that doesn't mean that the purely Federalist Style of Governance that we've fallen heir to, prefers a multiparty platform. Is that fully democratic? No. Is it tradition? Yes. Is there a reason for that tradition? Yes. The Founders feared partisan strife seeing it as the downfall of every single republic memorialized in their personal libraries they couldn't abolish faction but they could canalize it via one-winner elections and divided governance. In short they had to steer a middle course thru tyranny and chaos....what we have now is the end result of that choice. So...welcome to canal living one and all....

Cautions...

(Apologies to my tiny but redoubtable readership, Humble Elias has been on vacation)... Gotta love that Donald Trump, week by week, day by day he is systematically and singlehandedly transforming the GOP Presidential Sweeps into something that is literally "Not Safe For Work". Vulgar, cheap and belligerent something in short that could get you fired if you played your cards right. And of course the GOP bases loves him for his gruesome truculence, they wish they could scream in sheer rage like Trump, the man is a magnet for sheer impotent weary wingnut projection. Meanwhile as Trump sucks all the air out of the room, poor desperate would be tyrants like Mike Huckabee can't even work up the wind for a good counterscream....poetic justice sez I. Speaking of cautions, anyone catch Alex Beam's column in da Globe last week when he gaseously asserted that "When he left office Harry Truman was doing everything possible to lose the Korean War". Try as he might Alex just does not have that Menckenish gift for witty hyperbole, he just sounds nasty and vengeful every time and more that a little dim as well. I guess 180,000 US Troops, enough aircraft to blot out the sun and the subtle military skills of General Ridgway just doesn't count as enough of an effort to Alex Beam. I'd say more but let us face it, the Globe's op-ed page is pretty much a "Mediocrities Only" bomb shelter at this point. They are all down there sweating and acting nonchalant meanwhile the world they knew is being swept away one pixel at a time. NOW THAT Mah Frenz...iz Hyperbole!!!

The Boston Globe is musing

that somehow Boston Mayor Marty Walsh's political cred was compromised by his on-and-off again thing for the defunct Olympics Bid. I don't think there is any downside to making The Right Decision, however long or by what route Mayor Walsh to got to said decision...The Globe doesn't get that because in it's institutional heart and soul they wanted the Olympics and couldn't care less the burden on the taxpayers, residents and commuters who'd have to put up with the damn thing. The Globe doesn't get that, clearly they are still stuck in a political social model where "community leaders" make huge decisions and private and then kid the public into acceptance passive or otherwise. It doesn't work like that anymore, thanks to social media we are all present and accounted for in real time to the big debate. And take it for me, this is pretty much a victory for the Little Guy over Big Money, I don't care how provincial it makes us look to Morrissey Blvd and clearly Mayor Walsh didn't give a rat's ass either when push came to shove. That is all the electorate cares about, results...everything else is snarky "inside baseball" of interest only to Boston Globe columnists who'll have to find something else to write about during the slow news months.

A couple of days ago...

The Reverend Mike Huckabee GOP Presidential Candidate asserted that the proposed Nuclear Agreement with Iran was tantamount to leading the State of Israel "to the doors of the oven". Rhetorical overkill? Sure... A Feckless Attempt to Outrant Trump? Assuredly Another failure of leadership in the GOP? Maybe Not. I could I suppose snark on about "the lack of grown ups" in the GOP who might restrain the Reverend's vituperative cataract....but lets face it, the leader's are a perfect reflection of the base and the GOP base is the problem. The base of the republican party has become intellectually corrupt to a profound and is also addicted in the psychological sense of the term to vicious authoritarian rhetoric. and like all addicts the Base needs bigger and badder doses in order to get off....Hence Trump and now Huckabee soon the whole sordid miserable rabble will be both escalating and enabling a sick degraded addicted base. If you don't believe me, consider the case of Mike Huckabee he was once, "approachable" maybe he couldn't be persuaded but he was at least willing to debate. Famously in 2008 he claimed to be a conservative who was not "mad at anyone"....now look at him blustery angry righteous, a ranter amidst ranters. This is what eight years of slavishly catering to the debauched vengeful whims of the Fox News viewership does to a Man's self respect, its made Huckabee into a humorless enabler. The rot it seems spreads from The Bottom Upwards. So what we have here is not a Leadership Crisis, its really a "followership" crisis....and it's a bad one that will get worse as we rattle on towards 2016.

Whoops!

The Power of Money in this town just got blown right out of the water.... I take it back, Boston 2024 is finished! And thank ghod too! This is a humiliating setback for the local Overclass who'd been accustomed to getting their own way for far too long....a "Market Basket" class setback to be sure. And Kudos to Marty Walsh for dropping the hammer on this shit after certain amount of dithering...I'm rotten glad he spoke up, someone had to do it Governor Baker wasn't exactly a Profile in Courage on this one to be sure.

Wow....

I think Boston Mayor Marty Walsh may have just busted Boston2024 in the head with a business end of a shovel.... In essence he just told a press conference that based on what he has seen so far he could not sign off on any financial guarantees to the USOC/Boston2024. Now that is not a ringing call to Pile The Bodies Up on the Battlements in a last stand to Stop The Olympics....but it's pretty indicative that the data and plans so far aren't beguiling the Mayor. And if they can't carry the Mayor along with them, then Boston2024 is in big trouble. Keep in mind Boston is the very last bastion of a "strong mayor" system, even the studied & qualified neutrality of City Hall can pretty much doom the whole damn project. Now I am really really curious as to where Charlie Baker is gonna land on this thing, right now given his money worshipping moderate GOP pose I'd always scored him as Pro Olympics at the end of the day. But then again, Charlie's first priority is reelection and a fight with City Hall over something as ephemeral as the Summer Olympics is not gonna help Baker towards that goal. So as I've said before our best hope in the "Anti-Olympics" camp is that the Governor feels nervous about the purely electoral impact whole proposal to back off however passive aggressively and hope the IOC takes the hint. In short we are counting on Charlie Baker's cowardice to save the day. *** On the other hand (because "no art form tracks it's own opposite" to quote Lenny Bruce), this has always been a town where Big Money Gets What It Wants and this is definitely a project that the monied classes just seem to love to death. But so far I have to score this heavily in favor of the antis, they've debated better they've used their resources better and imposed a heavy burden of proof on Boston2024....so far anyway.

In Case You Haven't Heard....

(amidst what I like to call "This Summer's Trump Din"), Jeb Bush's answer To All Our Problems is to "phase out" Medicare in favor of a Ryanesque system of vouchers. So yeah campaign 2016 is likely gonna be yet another debate within the GOP over whether to shoot Social Security in the Head or simple hygienically hang the whole program with a noose. I must say one of the unifying wingnut bona fides of the Bush Offspring is their nasty wheedling cajoling attempts to end Social Security

Ohio Governor John Kasich is running for President...

His current round of television commercials assert that he is qualified for High Office on grounds that his father was a much beloved Mailman. *** Yeah I know it's all about relatability and a comforting soft sell and evoking either a phantom sense of anesthetized monochromatic community or else imminent peril...there are but two campaign themes in the GOP after all. I'd rant on about the vacuity of it all except Sinclair Lewis nailed it in 1920 in his novel "Main Street" with it's "oratorical references to Pep, Punch, Go, Vigor, Senator Knute Nelson, Alien Agitators That Threaten Our American Way of Life, Manly Men, Womanly Women and Pointing With Pride".

Donald Trump...

refuses to rule out a third party candidacy for the US Presidency. Hmmmm.... I think, he is just playing hardball with the rest of the GOP warning them to "back off". I myself don't think Trump is serious about the third party run simply because I don't believe he is serious about running for the GOP nomination. I strongly doubt he has the stamina for the long haul nor (as I've said before) can he stand up to a serious intensive opposition research based investigation. Sheee-it the man generates nothing but opposition research every time he gives a speech. Like Sarah Palin (whose act he seems to have appropriated wholesale) the man is a "sugar high" and those sorts of candidates never last...

Say what you like....

But John Kerry is a Grown-Ass Man. Faced with bitter insults aimed at his friend Senator John McCain from GOP Presidential Clowndidate Donald Trump, John Kerry Manned Up and pushed back on The Donald Hard. McCain, as I've noted before has hardly been a strong supporter of Secretary of State but that matters little to John Kerry when its a Question of Honor. John Kerry is a Better Patriot and a Better Man than any ten like Donald Trump...I can pay Our Former Senator no higher compliment.

Texas is allegedly no longer

issuing birth certificates to the US Born offspring of illegal immigrants, this is of course in direct contravention of the United States Constitution. Its also a petty spiteful bullying act, something undertaken with the full truculent knowledge that the decision will be overturned by court order....so now Texas has to be instructed by a Federal Judge to abide by the goddamned law. As I said, gruesome and beneath Texas' dignity as a big state with a big heart....Lyndon Johnson is spinning in his grave. Moreover if Texas isn't issuing birth certificates to infant children, isn't akin to saying the babies don't exist and were never born? Isn't this a sort of "administrative abortion" by State Fiat??? Does no one else SEE THIS??? And why then hasn't The Family Research Council Called in B-52 Airstrikes????

Plutography....

Now this, The New Horizon Spacecraft's photos of the demi-planet Pluto some three billion miles away, is an achievement!! A National Achievement, something of consequence to a free people with a commitment to The Wonders of Science. Look at that picture up there, that is the very definition of money well spent despite congress' decades long commitment to short funding NASA. If someone wants to do something for The Country, spurn productivity, keep the USA pressing the frontiers of science a little bit more funding for NASA might be a good start...

Peace.....Maybe

I actually don't have transformative hopes derived of the Good News From Out Vienna this morning. At best the current nuclear agreement with Iran will head off (temporarily let us remember) a disastrous nuclear arms race in the region and possibly just possibly empower the sectors of Iranian society that do not see themselves as Allah's Cannon Fodder. More than that seems utopian for a region that is a mortuary for High Hopes. The basic policy of the USA in the region remains the same, our powder is dry and our word is good. So with that in mind the really edifying part of the story will be listening to a bunch of cowardly in the rear with the gear ChickenHawk republicans scream "Appeasement" and "Munich" at the top of their lungs. That much will be fun for a little while at least....

I still say...

Donald Trump is a "sugar high". Yes he has a visceral appeal to the much emaciated "grievance wing" of the GOP Base...but these type of blusterers always look like Godzilla the summer before the nominating conventions. As we get closer to the primaries, the dynamics shift and Trump has never run for public office before and he has a arrogant personality and no internal governor whatsoever. That won't wear well over time and the GOP convention is still over a year away. Herman Cain and Alan Cranston both looked good at this point in their respective games, remember that. Meanwhile, I maintain that so far the candidate that truly benefits is...Jeb Bush all Trump's bluster gives the former Governor of Florida a priceless chance to track back to the center at low cost and without compromising his conservative bona fides, I mean La Famiglia Arbusto excels at defending puppies, kitties and wives. Moreover Trumpmentum, is a net loss for Scott Walker he has been pushed right off the front page just as he is about to finally announce for President. Moreover...does anyone out there really think Donald Trump can stand up to a serious opposition research review? The kind the Bush Family will sic on him? His marriages, his divorces, his deals, his bankruptcies, his aggrieved former partners, his alleged extramarital affairs, and no one in this republic can be that rich and build all that AND NOT hire cheap illegal immigrant labor.... Remember that...

The FBI might have eff'd up

Dylan Roof's firearms background check but lets not forget that the N.R.A. first convinced Roof that he NEEDED a firearm, his rights and personal safety depended on carrying that firearm AT ALL TIMES and that without it nameless hostile forces would kill him assuming they didn't attend to disarm him first by legislative fiat. Given that malign line of reasoning is it any wonder Dylan Roof selected a cohort least likely to return fire and then opted to shoot first? *** This is the real argument, why is it so damn important for the demonstrably paranoid Dylan Roof's of the world to be armed, permitted to strut around so armed and jacked up to the gills on inflammatory rubbish? But trust me that is one debate they will never have in South Carolina....glad they took down that wretched flag but that is mere symbolism which is all we are capable of these days so it seems.

Apparently the current budget

just passed on Beacon Hill grants the Governor expanded powers to explore privatization options at the MBTA. Oh...Yay. No for nothing but Keolis the much heralded contractor that administers the commuter rail system didn't exactly cover itself with glory this winter, in no wise did it outperform the MBTA. But sadly this is a state with a taste for homeopathic politics a stronger dose of what didn't work before will almost always cure the affliction or so goes Charlie Baker's thesis. Otherwise "privatization" is one of those words that will undoubtedly spark the unctuous condescending interest of pundits like Scot Lehigh over at the Boston Globe who is always looking for a rhetorical shiv to run between the ribs of public sector unions. As policy it likely won't deliver (other than an excuse not to spend the money) but as politics it likely has limitless potential to burnish Baker's cred as a moderate republican supermanager. Just remember that was Bobby Jindal's trip before the Xian Spirits of the Air got into him.....

Greece Votes No....

to another austerity package payout courtesy the European Union. I want to caveat my remarks tonight by freely admitting that I am not an economist. And a long series of policy mistakes had to be made by Greek Authorities to put that venerable democracy in it's present perilous state. That having been said, no democracy may long sustain itself carrying a 25% unemployment rate. Such jobless tallies are an open invitation to revolution and dictatorship, at the moment that is whats on the line here, the survival of Greece as a brother democracy. Forget all the money allegedly owned and the austerity measures that came with the loan right now ...either someone in Athens or Brussels or wherever starts figuring out how to cut unemployment in Greece to manageable levels quickly or the whole shit house is gonna go up in flaming chunks. The Greeks are down to the question of survival all this macroeconomic stuff is fine but politics is destiny and right now I wonder if anyone in the EU gets that? Because the broad sweep of the conditions in Greece parallel the Weimar Republic circa 1932 or so, as I said economics isn't my tipple but history sure is....

Bereft of a position where he can $wap favors with Wall Street

Former US Senator Scott Brown has gone back on conservative welfare having resumed his commentator gig with Fox News and now is hawking dubious weight loss supplements on Facebook. I mean the grinning dumbass couldn't even score a soft touch gig as a visiting fellow at the "New Hampshire Institute of Politics" at Saint Anselm College which I'm told is a sort of Assisted Living Facility for washed up Granite State Politicians... Geez they really take that carpetbagger" stuff seriously up there don't they?

For the moment I'm scoring Charlie Baker as a

squish on the subject of the Olympics. Oh don't get me wrong if the pro-game percentages were just a wee bit better he'd be banging the pots in the streets for the Olympics, but at the moment public opinion seems to restrain him. Although I suspect that in his heart of hearts he'd love to get behind the IOC bid, it's the just the sort of "innovative public private partner$hip that moderate republicans love, tax cuts galore and the tax payer doesn't get officially screwed until the Governor himself is long out of office. Moreover Joh Henry, owner of the Red Sox, The Boston Globe, Liverpool United and pumper of moderate republicanism would allegedly dearly love to get a soccer stadium in Boston as long as he doesn't have to pay for it. The IOC Bid will supposedly get Messr Henry his stadium, so there is that to consider as the governor mulls over and over and over his options. My gut is, Baker will come around on the Olympics sooner or later, thats a lot of Big Money Men on that committee and the few surviving moderate republicans out there have historically been great respecters of money although the polling could nose dive...if it doesn't this could turn into Baker versus Walsh. So far neither man has a natural advantage.

When SCOTUS said yes to "Marriage Equality"

last week Jeb Bush was heard to respond that "his faith" predisposed him towards support for 'traditional marriage". Fair enough, no member of the La Famiglia Arbusto has ever stuck their necks out on behalf of the rights of any minority....ever. But then, I do so love the sacerdotal silence that falls over Jeb Bush whenever the subject of global warming and the RCC's stance thereon is under discussion. But then it's a mutual sacerdotal silence, Jeb doesn't believe in climate change and won't let "his faith" inform him on the matter, meanwhile the US Bishops WILL NEVER EVER EVER call him on his apostasy. Certainly they will not get on Jeb's case about global warming and the death penalty they way they dogged John Kerry's ass in 2004. On that you and La Famiglia Arbusto may rely.

In Case You Hadn't Noticed....

Piyush Bobby Jindal the Grand Mendicant and Governor of Louisiana has announced for President this week....overshadowed and overtaken by events, as usual. Ah but it's been a long slow inexorable fall for Jindal a bare nine years ago, Piyush was the GOP's answer to Barack Obama, young, pragmatic, ethnic and thin. Now look at him, his whole "Governor Spreadsheet" persona is effaced, Jindal has long been Grover Norquist's narrow minded tax lowerin' bitch and the result is Louisiana is a debt ridden tumbledown mess and it's current Governor's approval rating is competitive with that of the Norovirus. So having ruined Louisiana, there is seemingly nothing left to do but for Jindal to run for President as literally the ninth wingnut sock puppet in the race blustery craven and likely the most luckless governor currently serving in the USA. There is a sad shamelessness to Jindal oh he can denounce "the tyranny of the Federal Government" with the best of them on a Monday & by Friday he can abjectly beg the Federal Government for Help after some natural or man made disaster has laid his state low. And besides, Bobby Jindal just looks like a loser, constantly surprised and overwhelmed he will not wear well with the American People. Just remember this we've got a few politicians in this state who have been elected to high office as spreadsheet worshipping pragmatists...well that was Piyush "Bobby" Jindal once as well look how he ended up....

Freedom won big today...

When SCOTUS essentially nationalized marriage equality today. Everything I know about freedom as an abstract concept I got from Abraham Lincoln's "Peoria Speech" in 1854. Much of the arguments therein are heavy going vis a vis the "Missouri Compromise" but there is also a definition of freedom both practical and philosophical that stands for the ages. In the play of logic as it relates to freedom, we have not exceeded said Lincolnian definition even today. The Great Emanicipator's argument is simple, when I govern myself I am essentially free in my self governance, when I govern another in contravention of their inalienable rights that is despotism no matter how free my own self may be. Therefore freedom and self government cannot exist in an exclusive enclave, it must apply to all or it withers away. Despotism therefore flourishes where freedom and self governance are applied to some but not to all. And that notion beautifully applies itself to the entire marriage equality question, what was unjustly reserved to the few is now freely available to all under the rule of law...the very essence of the Lincolnian Definition of Freedom. Well done. Well done....

Obamacare Uber Alles....

Survives yet another challenge before the Supreme Court and sails thru to victory 6 to 3....Scalia's dissent read like a Howie Carr column blustery & impotent. The real fun shifts to the GOP Presidential Field where at least half a dozen governors now must explain themselves...why access to a doctor is somehow a bad thing and terrible mortal blow to liberty. I predict a veritable cataract of incoherence....nice divisive wedge issue the GOP should have a few more driven into them...

Dzhokar is Sowwee....

...for the lives he took. Or so he said at his sentencing hearing today. Well shit I'm all broken up a this heartfelt expression of remorse. Just remember the twisted little bastard smirked as he put down the bomb in front of family with children....I'll just bet he is sorry...

Its certainly a nice gesture

for SC Governor Nikki Haley to call for the Confederate Battle Flag to hauled down from over the State Capitol, granted it's the legislature's decision and as of today, they tabled the motion...still it's a nice gesture. It's also classic American Distraction Politics in that while we slang back and forth about th' Banner of Th' Rebellion....and never once will anyone discuss the lax violence promoting firearms laws in South Carolina or the thick atmosphere of sheer gun worship that permeates the whole region. From That Debate, Nikki Haley will flee believe me, that woman has dreamy-dreams of being someone's VP Candidate in 2016 so this whole flag mishaugas is a perfect way to "Do Something" without really "Accomplishing Anything". But again...its a nice gesture but that is all that it is...

If case you haven't heard

Jeb Bush IS officially running for President. It is easy though how that might have slipped past y'all cuz his announcement down in Florida was immediately blown off the front page by Donald Trump's announcement and then Dylann Roof's murderous rampage in Charleston. So AS USUAL another member of La Famiglia Arbusto is off to a lousy start in the presidential sweepstakes. But at this point that is how they like it, remember that his brother's main meme from start to finish in campaign 2000 is that he was a teachable who needed his father's hirelings to successfully defecate...in the end all and sundry were sufficient to steal the US Presidency for Junior. So don't rule Jeb out by any means.

Charleston....

Its a truism by now that when some twitchy geek arms himself and opts for Mass Murder in defense of his sacred beliefs and or delusions he or she usually has a shark's instinct for finding a collection of victims who cannot shoot back in any manner shape or form. Such was the case with Messr. Roof who likely drove right past The Crips and the Bloods, sat for an hour in back of the AME while the Word of God was read to him, cased the joint for any potential armed opponents and then opened fire. The NRA insists and has imposed on us a truculent vision of "an armed society is a peaceful society" (one of the most radical social engineering experiments undertaken in my lifetime it makes gay liberation look like highway beautification by comparision), but that armed society is literally never every around whenever someone goes rogue with a firearm.... I am well past the point of believing we can do anything at all about gun violence in the USA our leaders are too cowardly and too arrogant in their rotten borough fastnesses for any useful legislation...and thats without even addressing the fact that the "gun population" of the USA may be too huge for effective regulatory action. So what is to be done? Nothing. Sorry. I have no solution, and yes that is a sign of a Republic in Decline, and no I am not ready to enroll myself in the ranks of the declinists. No...I say tax corporations for 15% of the GROSS (since they are people per the Supreme Court) use the $$$ to fix Social Security and provide benefits to victims and survivors of gun violence. Thats My Big Idea Anyway....

Ghod Donald Trump hasn't been in the race for twenty four hours

and already the hyperbole and outright narcissism is reaching toxic levels!! Allegedly The Donald paid professional film extras to cheer his announcement speech yesterday...a paltry $50 a head as well, well he didn't get to be rich by writing a bunch of checks did he? I think I am in agreeance with Howard Stern, Trump just wants to pretend to run for President, crash some debates shout some insolent provocative slogans, grab a few headlines then he'll devise some laughable gimmick to drop out of the race. Which is pretty much the pattern Howard Stern followed when he ran for Governor of New York as libertarian in 1994....as soon as it came time to disclose all the sources of his income...he bailed. Ohhh but if Trump ran as an independent....ohhhh that shitstorm would be epic!

Trump for President!!!

YES!!! Oh Lord the Gift for a Hungry Blogger's Prayer....I couldn't be happier if Frank Rizzo rose from the Dead and Ran on the Armed Vegetarian Ticket!!! I honestly thought He would back down he has done so three times before, I guess He started worrying about looking like a d-bag if he bailed a fourth time....GIngrich fell afoul of this a scant four years ago and Trump is twice as a arrogant and ten times as corrupt as Gingrich. The opposition reserach alone is worth a fortune..... I wonder....once Trump gets a load of how much even the GOP hates him would he ever run as an Independent??? T'is a consummation devoutly to be wished!!!!! He could run with Jesse "The Body" Ventura or maybe Rick Flair....or The Fabulous Moolah maybe.

Pagliuca at the Crossroads....

I sometimes think Steve Pagliuca was brought in less to "save" the 2024 Boston Olympics bid and more to provide a little comforting bipartisanship to this boondoggle's potential rejection. These are all rich people we are talking about and they didn't get that way in Massachusetts without weaponizing blame to a new and unprecedented degree. Pagliuca on the other hand is a good "Bain Democrat" which means IF our bid carries the day then he could use "a successful Olympics" as a springboard to public office....hey it worked for his old CEO Mitt Romney. Cynicism it seems is the only stream that never runs dry and flows in two directions at once 24-7. *** My only other take away from all this mishaugas is the sheer bliss resistance to public opinion exhibited by the 2024 Committee and it's fellow travelers...clearly a majority of voters are opposed to the project and just as clearly that is at best an afterthought grounds for snickers in the boardroom. Here again these are rich people jugglers of finance, proud vain insulated and they didn't get that way by heeding public opinion. And that is our quandary, you can vote out the governor you can't vote out the CEO of Liberty Mutual....

The Iowa GOP has canceled their

Infamous Summer Straw Poll...which is otherwise well regarded as a dandy fundraising tool and a quick means for spectrumy falangists to get some cheap heat in the headline. Allegedly it got sh*tcanned for lack of candidate interest which is odd given the overwhelming influx of twitchy lunatics into the republican presidential nomination race, you'd think a few of them would see the advantage...unless of course the pathologies therein have coalesced around the notion that they are ALL frontrunners who have to husband their lead most cautiously....and that is powerful delusion indeed for the cheap acts like Ben Carson and High Pitched Rick Santorum. Well if I had to handicap (and I dooooo) I'd say this was "Advantage Bush" since his campaign like a zombie thats been asked to solve a binomial equation for several weeks now, a setback in the otherwise meaningless Iowa Straw Poll is worth avoiding at this point. It likely a minor disadvantage for Walker/Rubio or whoever else is the Main Chance Conservative Flavah of the Month since it denies them a chance to show some ground game.

Chris Christie went up to Goffstown NH this week

rattling his saber demanding the USA "take a military approach" to the PRC's encroachments into the South China Sea. Oh thank Ghod I thought he was gonna advocate sending in the New Jersey DPW and really getting someone killed. I'm gonna gloss over the grim sad spectacle of Chris Christie ramping up the feckless international belligerence and instead suggest someone out there start keeping count of all the countries the GOP Presidential Field wants to invade confront or destroy as the primaries unfold. With upwards to twenty people and that incubus Donald Trump trolling around out there, it's gonna get to be a long sobering educational list by the time the first ballot is cast in Dixville Notch.

As Vice President Biden lays his oldest son to rest....

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Canada) took it upon himself to make a crass joke at the VP's sorrowing expense. Whereupon, Cruz promptly apologized in public. Well....I guess certain standards of gentlemanly behavior are still holding on by their fingernails over at Harvard Law. And anyway mark the moment, how many times does a republican apologize for anything? You can for example wait until perdition for Denny Hastert to say he is sorry. Well anyway Cruz did the decent thing for whatever reason I won't speculate. I will however note that for sheer crass rhetoric this is but the tip of the iceberg as far as the GOP presidential field is concerned, John Kasich (Governor of Ohio) piled in today, Rick Perry yesterday....the roster may top out at TWENTY yammering scolding barking mad candidates ere long all one upping each other to get a hold on the tea partei base. I predict a nasty off putting cacophony. And to Beau Bridges, peace to his ashes, succor for his loved ones and family.

Mike Huckabee has lamented

that he wished someone had told him about trangender status in High School so he could claim it and "look at girls" in the showers. Teenaged girls....under the age of consent that is what The Good Reverend Huckabee has on his mind....classy huh? Well boorishness pays in today's GOP sad to say, and yet I recall with the simplest nostalgia that Mike was allegedly the one wingnut in the USA who had mastered the "Indoor Voice". Clearly "The Indoor Voice" is an impediment to getting today's GOP Presidential nomination....confessing your filthiest most perverted thoughts....not so much.

Santorum checks into the Crazy House....

Rick Santorum beady eyes and fangs bared, piled into the 2016 GOP Presidential Stakes fully intent on trebling down on the Wingnut Craziness Margin. I have a perverse admiration for Rick, of the entire sorry assed collection of presidential jobbers the GOP has eructated, Santorum is the only one with enough vicious psychic energy to constitute an American Dictator in the Making. But on some ineffable level "High Pitched Rick" falls short, maybe it's his hate filled eyes, they register poorly on TV or his high pitched whining voice....but in the end he is Gerald L.K. Smith not Huey P. Long....a sort of zoo specimen of authoritarian ineffectuality. Rick might pull off another guerilla coup next year he has the sort of demonic focus that would be prized in the paranoia ward at McLean's Hospital, but he has some heavy competition in the wingnut craziness division and all those guys can fundraise....and fundraise some more. He is literally running out of sheer desperate lust for power, he will never make anyone's short list for VP or even Secretary of Transportation for that fact. But Santorum goes on ranting and raving, just desperate for the chance to throw someone behind barbed wire...anyone at this point. He will never get there, but you have to admire perversely his pathological single mindedness....