Let me expand a bit on yesterday's post...

Its pretty clear to me that Donald Trump thinks that he won the US Presidency because he gambled and pushed in all his chips. He gambled on the nomination, he gambled during the election, he thinks he won because of his seemingly scary risk embracing behavior, thus as President he just goes on taking wild reckless chances. By his logic that is what "works for him".
His GOP Opposition on the other hand, are almost all risk adverse to a fault, John Kasich A Giddy Sky Grifter, Mitt Romney? A Champion Trimmer, Mitch McConnell An Inept Political Conjuror.
All these guys (an many more besides) were weaned in the "Conservative Echo Chamber", which posits one rises by doubting nothing & embracing "The Agenda".
So my point is, until some starts making sacrifices in the GOP or taking some serious risks, his intra-party opposition won't amount to shit.
Not to make a heavy handed historic anology, but Neville Chamberlain, Eduard Deladier
 & Paul Reynaud all pursued risk adverse policies with that supreme gambler Adolf Hitler and did naught but bring down annihilation on their heads.
Thats my point until someone in the GOP starts wagering recklessly (and we'll know this behavior when we see it believe me) the notion of "republican opposition to Donald Trump" is pretty much hot air....

John Kasich has grunted sighed and

Gone "full declinist" and forecast the downfall of the Two Party System in the USA.
Geez whatever happened to that happy chuckling principled movement conservative who slid past every serious question at the Milford NH American Legion circa 2016??
Entitled people tend to see the end of history when their entitlements are in play such is likely the case here with Kasich.  I know he is vaguely conjuring with some sort of post apocalyptic multi party system but that'll never take root without serious and even ominous revisions to the US Constitution.
No...I'm afraid the only likely alternatives to the current two party system are either "a one party state" or a "no party state". Both alternatives are utterly unacceptable and are being and will be opposed to the very limits of honor and strength.
If John Kasich wants to do something about the current crisis then he ought to start by confronting the GOP's slide into being "hell ya, wingnut grievance party", but to do that requires that John Kasich make sacrifices and that in turn is something modern conservatives do with great difficulty...Hence Trump, Hence the Fix We Are In.

Horrible Awful News out of Winchester Ma this weekend

a woman was fatally stabbed at the Library by what appears to be, The Town Lunatic.  Kudos to everyone who leapt into harm's way to end this guy's inexplicable rampage. Peace to Ms Stryker's Ashes, Succor to Her Loved Ones.

***

But Sweet Jesus Thank Ghod we live in a Commonwealth with a nice tangle of gun control laws that inhibit the transfer of assault weapons to the waiting arms of homicidal maniacs.  In spite of all, some of that kept the body count down this time, it isn't much to be grateful for, but it is something all the same.

The President apparently wants to arm US School Teachers

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

Billy Graham is Dead...

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

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

Scott Lively

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

President's Day...

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

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

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

According to. CNN

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

Another Day Another Massacre

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

Currently..

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

In Menotomy..."The Democrats Caucus Well"

160 democrats in attendance, four paper separate paper ballots for delegates & alternates and all done in less than four hours.  Menotomy just "Gets It" and when the democrats caucus there is sound reason for numerous name politicians to be in the room observing, Everyone from Treasurer Deb Goldberg to Congressperson Clarke and including Gubernatorial Candidate Bob Massie himself (a bantam rooster of a man with an almighty pompadour suggestive of the Late Fiorello LaGuardia at his chestiest).
All that is thanks to the hard work of the town chair Aimee Coolidge and her caucus crew a blooded and experienced cadre of political organizers...they are impressive to watch believe me.
It ended up being a delegation mostly beholden to Jay Gonzalez which isn't surprising as his local supporters started organizing for the caucus around Christmas, that kind of work pays off believe me.
For a while I thought Massie's supporters might've closed the gap a little tighter but in the end they managed to elect about six delegates all told and two alternates. I suspect that was their plan all along, their main goal is to collect credibility, raise some money and most importantly get on the primary come convention time.  So his progressive base seem to be playing the usual "long game" what Setti Warren's plans are I cannot say, he had almost no discernable support in the caucus not a single delegate was elected on his behalf, Menotomy is a huge liberal/progressive enclave with a well earned reputation for a high turn out, not contesting this caucus indicates that Warren has organizational issues or else isn't attracting much support in the party base.
Frankly, I think Setti Warren is in the wrong contest, he'd be the logical front runner if he'd contested the Lt Governorship's democratic primary, he's young, an experienced mayor...camera ready he'd be a serious player come primary day.

What can I say, it was a good caucus...legit and free of controvery...its what the local democrats do best quite frankly.

Mike Pence....

is a Herculean Bore.  He makes the Late President Gerry Ford look like Little Richard when the Veep gets up to Bloviate.
There is no other word for it, the man is a crashing droning bore. Lester Holt of NBC News interviewed him at the Winter Olympics on Friday,  a soft touch set up in even the most twitchy amateur could dominate, and still Pence bungled the appearance droning on and on with that fake squinty stony expression.  Granted the man's mind is a Xian Fever Swamp but his powers of persuasion are unusually limited. At the moment, this is small beers, but if Pence should somehow succeed to The Office of President he is gonna find his limited rhetorical skills put him at a disadvantage when his has to defend his barbaric theological notions...just saying'.

The democrats are a-caucusing in Menotomy Tomorrow

a town with very high democratic turnout with strong leadership cadres on the committee level, so it's an important "get" for anyone who wants to unite the progressives behind their candidacy and sweep themselves onto the nomination & the general election.
If I had to call it beforehand I'd say it's gonna be a Gonzalez instructed delegation from Arlington, he's made two appearances before the town committee and both times he went over well. Based on what I can see, his local supporters are the only ones making noise and trying to recruit attendees...haven't much from Bob Massie's crowd and I've heard of no one actively supporting Setti Warren.
In an election year you cannot show up at a caucus unorganized and unprepared, there is no "succeeding by accident" at this time of year.  On the other hand, surprising things can and so happen, Robert Reich rose out of nowhere in 2002 and swept the caucus in a uproarious four hour long affair...so there is still room for serrendipity in this process, and thank Ghod Too.

Oops!

Turns out, State Rep Kaufman is RETIRING at the end of his current term, so all the primary palaver up in Lexington is over a very safe seat that is now officially tantalizingly open. Apologies to anyone takenin by my prior musings...I was wrong. But seriously folks, I'm supposed to be a wheel in this goddamned contraption, "nobody tells me anything!!"

The President's Latest Crackpot Idea

is that he wants to stage a gigantic military parade in Washington DC this summer on the order of the tasteless displays of military might once favored by the former USSR on MayDay.   He apparently got this idea from a similar he either saw in Paris or on Youtube...or some damn thing.
Y'know there are still some old timers in France who can attest first hand that the single greatest military parade in French History was on Bastille Day, 1939 some six weeks before the outbreak of World War Two.  Apparently it was an AWESOME display of military firepower, endless ranks of infantry marching in perfect lockstep, hundreds of heavy tanks, clouds of aircraft flying overhead and hundred of the biggest artillery pieces in Europe.  Forget all that "Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey" nonsense you get on Social Media, this was public & naked display of military might that shocked the Wehrmacht in Berlin and caused them to revise upwards their estimate of French rearmament in near panic.
Ten months later those same French signed a shameless armistice with Germany have been thoroughly beat on the battlefield by superior generalship & tactics.
And I write this merely to point out the obvious you can boast and pile up arms & ammunition a mile high, but without able leadership you may as well be unarmed, you are only providing stockpiles for your enemies.

State Senator Rosenberg

can likely fix his political career or his marriage, but he cannot do both at once. To do so is to invite becoming a liability to the democrats this fall, especially in the gubernatorial race. But so far as I know Rosenberg's plan is to fix his marriage, run for re-election and try and reclaim the Senate Presidency.  Personally I think he needs to stand down, and I write that as someone who has met Stan Rosenberg and liked him from his back bench days as Amherst/Pelham's State Representative. There is just gonna be more cringeworthy revelations about his spouse going forward, Rosenberg isn't the first politician to make a fool of himself in love, but this is a situation damaging to the democratic party's prestige and general election prospects...

Stan I'm sorry ya gotta rethink this thing...

Mark My Words...

no good will come of the looming primary battle between Ayanna Pressley and Congressman Mike Capuano. They both aggressively agree on so many points of public policy that the debates will have to turn on emotional normative and purely stylistic factors...and when that is the case, especially democrats those debates can get toxic.
Moreover Capuano has done nothing to merit being "primaried", he is progressive in a US House of Representatives ruled by retrograde weirdoes, even if Pressley some how supplants him in office she will accomplish about as much absent a democratic majority.
I'm not sure Pressley has chosen the right race here, I get that her options were limited even as her personal potential as a statesperson remains impressive.
How I wish she was running for Lt Governor as a democrat, thats a challenge I could get behind, win or lose she'd make a shit ton of new friends state wide and that is never ever a bad thing.