First World "Discrimination" Taking Toll On Rich Trump Fans

Scott Pruitt resigned from the EPA today because he says people have the
gall and rudeness to question his corruption. How rude! 

Today, we received word that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is finally calling it quits.

He's under 18 federal investigations, and Pruitt seemed to trying to set some sort of record for the greatest number of scandals he could self-generate.

You don't  know where to begin: The $50 a night stay in a gas lobbyist's condo - a real sweetheart deal. Trying to use his influence get his wife a job at various places, including a Chick Fil A franchise. He re-assigned or demoted staffers who questioned his exorbitant spending.  

And there's silly ones, like using his vehicle's emergency sirens to cut through traffic to get to his favorite restaurant. And using government assistants to try and buy a used mattress from a Trump hotel. I hope we figure out what's up with that.

Amid all this wrongdoing, Pruitt's resignation statement is the most self-pitying I can remember:  "....the unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family, are unprecedented and have taken a sizable toll on all of us."

Got that? People dared to criticize Pruitt's constant grifting. He should have run his corruption racket in peace without pesky media types and critics exposing the (alleged) crimes for what they were.

Pardon me while I fail to cry me a river.

Other rich Trump partisans are suffering under the weight of "discrimination" against them. Out on posh Martha's Vineyard, the lawyer Alan Dershowitz complained in an op-ed in The Hill that all his rich but liberal buddies have "shunned" him because of his apparent support for Donald Trump, and his opposition to a special counsel to investigate Trump's ties to Russia.

In response, reports the Boston Globe, Walter, Teller, a prominent Los Angeles entertainment lawyer, and a Vineyard resident, sent Dershowitz a scathing email, which read in part:

"You thereby gave Trump an opportunity to use you and your positions in his own defense, to wave you like his pom-pom. How unfortunate for all of us....You defended and gave cover to this president who relentlessl disrupts and destroys all that we value and causes massive and lasting damage to our political system, our courts, our standing in the world, the environment, and more. In all of that you are complicit."

Ouch! So during this hot summer, the coffee klatch at the Chilmark General Store on Martha's Vineyard is disrupted. Oh well.

But shunned in tony Martha's Vineyard! How tragic! I'm sure the people who have had the cops called on them for barbecuing while black, campaigning while black, working while black, etc think they're lucky compared to Dershowitz's unfortunate fate.

Another in this series of poor rich people getting discriminated against for liking Trump is the actor James Woods. His agent dropped him over the Fourth of July holiday because he was feeling "patriotic."

James Woods, misunderstanding the Constitution, says the fact that
his agent dumped him over his political views was a violation
of his First Amendment rights. 

Woods has been a big Trump fan on Twitter and other outlets.

Woods lamented that his agency dropped him basically to violate his First Amendment rights, which proves Woods does not understand the Constitution.

Woods can spout all he wants about Trump, and nobody can stop him. His agent dropped him, but can't do a thing about Woods expressing his opinion. Which is as it should be.

The agent, Ken Kaplan, was expressing his own First Amendment rights by dropping Woods. Kaplan disagrees with Woods so much that he can't work with him. Some might call that rude, but Kaplan can respond to Woods' free speech any way he wants, as long as it's not threatening.

Again, cry me a river.

I'm sure James Woods, Alan Dershowitz and Scott Pruitt will come out of this "horrible" experience just fine. Maybe it will make them grow as people. But you can't count on that.

Let's just talk instead to the black, Hispanic, LGBTQ and other groups whose members are not necessarily rich, but are experiencing true discrimination. Then maybe I'll be more sympathetic to Pruitt, Dershowitz and Woods.

Assault On Reporter By Republican Candidate Gianforte A Campaign Boost

Republican Greg Gianfonte, in a special Montana Congressional
election today, is accused of assaulting a reporter Wednesday
evening. Will that help or hurt him?

Everybody is talking about Republican Greg Gianforte today this morning.

He's up for a special Congressional election today against Democrat Rob Quist in a closely watched race.

Of course the reason all the talking today is going on is because Gianforte assaulted a reporter who fairly aggressively questioned him about the Republican repeal and replace of Obamacare, which would kick 23 million people off health insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Yep, Gianforte is charged with misdemeanor assault for body slamming Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs the night before the election.

Many people rightly condemned the assault. Montana newspapers withdrew their endorsements of Gianforte. Many people are now hoping he loses the election, which had been tightening anyway due to revulsion over some Republican proposals.

If Gianforte loses, that would be something, as his Congressional district is normally reliably Republican.

Don't count on him losing, though.

There's a large subset of the worst of the Republican base who are thrilled that Gianforte punched a so-called obnoxious reporter, especially one from the left-leaning Guardian.

Gianforte's macho moves might lead hard-core Republicans to come out and vote for him in droves today.

After all, the Trump campaign and his administration has made literally bashing journalists - not just criticiziing them - a popular move among the Republican wacko caucus.

As CNN notes:

"Senior Huffington Post media reporter Michael Calderone pointed to the arrest earlier this month of a West Virginia reporter who shouted questios about health care reform at Health Secretary Tom Price and the manhandling by security gaurds of a Washington reporter at the Federal Communications Commisson headquarters."

All this led Modern Family Executive Produer Danny Zuker to tweet, "It's a sad fact that in this climate I have no idea if assaulting a reporter hurts Gianforte or helps him."

That is sad.

But people really are applauding the assault. Brent Bozell, the president of the conservative Media Research Center, tweeted, "Jacobs is an obnoxious, dishonest first classs jerk. I'm not surprised he got smacked."

If Jacobs is an obnoxious, dishonest first class jerk, does that justify assaulting him? To Bozell, the answer is yes.

Of course, Bozell might still have sour grapes because Jacobs broke a story about suspicious financial dealings by the Media Research Center.

Reports from Montana polling places this morning are not encouraging.  CNN National Correspondent Kyung Lah offered the following tweets from Montana this morning:

"MT GOP voter to me just now, knowing I work for @CNN. 'That audio made me cheer.' She smiled as she walked in to vote for Gianforte."

And:

"MT  GOP voter, upon learning we're from @CNN: 'You're lucky soeone doesn't pop one of you.'"

Sigh.

 By the way, Jacobs also got Gianforte pissed off in another respect

The assaulted reporter - Ben Jacobs - had previously broken a story about Gianforte's investments in Russian companies and we all know how controversial that type of thing is under the Trump administration.

It was telling that Gianforte's statement after the assault blamed Jacobs, saying he was a liberal reporter being aggressive. I guess that's grounds for body slamming, I guess.

Also, how can anyone run for office if they can't stand reporters asking tough questions and shoving tape recorders in their faces? That's what life is like for all politicians, liberal and conservative.

Today's election in Montana has turned into a referendum on which is better: Civility, or the natios continued decline into an acceptance of mob "justice" or the rule of law.

The Bowling Green Massacre Was Created For A Reason And It's Working

Kellyanne Conway didn't "misspeak." She created the
Bowling Green Massacre for a reason, and it's working. 

I'm sure a lot of people rolled their eyes when they saw poll results earlier this month that indicated half of Trump's supporters think the Bowling Green Massacre is one good reason why Trump should pursue his immigration ban.

As many of us know, the Bowling Green Massacre is a fictional tragedy, one brought to us by Trump counselor and serial liar Kellyanne Conway.

The evil person here in Conway, not the Trump voters. They might not be all that gullible.

The question the poll asked was this:

"Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: 'The Bowling Green Massacre shows why we need Donald Trump's executive order on immigration?'"

As Huffington Post analyzes the polling question:

"What the question did ask about was whether respondents agreed that a fake event - presented as a factual event - justifies a policy that many Trump supporters already support. Of course, many supporters were going to agree with that stateent, even if they weren't aware that the Bowling Green Massacre was fiction."

As the article notes, people like me pay attention to the news ravenously. I knew the Bowling Green Massacre was fictitious the second Conway mentioned it.

However, not all so-called "low information voters" who think the Bowling Green Massacre happened are so stupid.

They're raising families, trying to hold down numerous jobs to make ends meet. They're caring for sick relatives and wondering where the next rent payment will come from.

They're not sitting there analyzing each bit of news that comes out. They never have time to pay attention to any news. So if somebody tells them the Bowling Green Massacre happened, who are they to argue? They haven't watched tne news.

As the Huffington Post notes, researchers know that if you ask somebody a question about a subject they know little about, they'll be agreeable to your questions and give you answers. They don't want to look dumb, understandably.

Says Huffington:

"Many will think they should have an answer, and say the first thing that comes to mind. This is why polling on specific policies is difficult - people often haven't given the issue a lot of thought, but whem prompted, they will make up an opinion."

The poll question was also worded in a leading way, so more people might have given the Bowling Green answer than they otherwise would have.

I won't say don't believe the polls. They're useful.

However, don't totally rely on them.

The Nation magazine was prescient back in August, when they questioned polls that suggested Hillary Clinton was almost a sure shot at getting into the White House.

We all know how that ended up.

As The Nation reported, some people lie to pollsters. In the case of the presidential election, some people really liked Donald Trump and were planning to vote for him, but didn't want to admit to a real live person they were going to do so, because Trump was perceived as so offensive and aggravating.

There's no prying eyes in the voting booth, though, so people feel more free to choose who they want while casting ballots.

Conway knows what she's doing. She's quite the skilled flack, except with no morals I can find.

She lies to stir up people. She knows most average people don't have time to parse her words and figure out the truth or fiction within.

So she plants the Bowling Green Massacre. When called on the lie, she said she accidentally misspoke. But again, few people have time to pay attention to those nuances.

Conway created the Bowling Green Massacre to advance Trump's con.

They say truth is stranger than fiction. What's even stranger is people like Conway who create fiction to create a so called alternate version of truth.

Maybe Congress Should Get More Blame Than Trump

Will Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell put career and agenda
over the nation? And if so, will it be Congress' fault if Trump
really messes up America? Probably, yes.

The daily Trump show continues apace, with all kinds of weird tweets, orders, meltdowns and whatnot that is an everyday occurance.

Lots of people, including me, have long been appalled by Trump, and continue to be. We fear he's ruining the country, and we fear he and minions like Steve Bannon are trying to turn the United States into an undemocratic autocracy.

Maybe we're blaming the wrong guy, though.

The reason I say this is I read an interesting article by Ezra Klein in Vox that matched my suspicions.

In short, it's Congress' fault.

Klein writes:

"The President can do little without Congress's express permission. He cannot raise money. He cannot declare war. He cannot even staff his government. If Congress, tomorrow, wanted to compel Trump to release his tax returns, they could. If Congress, tomorrow, wanted to impeach Trump unless he turned his assets over to a blind trust, they could. If Congress, tomorrow, wanted to take Trump's power to choose who can and cannot enter the country, they could." 

The problem is, Congress can do all these things and more, but they won't.

The Founding Fathers knew that presidents had the potential to become autocratic, hence the power of the purse and other advantages they bestowed on Congress.

Klein goes on:

"If Trump builds an autocracy, his congressional enablers will, if anything, be more responsible than him. After all, in amassing power and breaking troublesome norms, Trump will be doing what the Founders expected.   But in letting any president do that, Congress will be violating the role they were built to play. We need to stop talking so much about what Trump will do ad begin speaking in terms of what Congress lets him do."

Look, the GOP controls Congress now. We should expect them to try to push through their agenda as forcefully as possible. That's what majorities in Congress always have done and always will. That's life whether we like it or not.

Seems to me that Congressional Republicans are so afraid of upsetting our Snowflake President Trump that they won't reign him in. Because they probably figure that if they prompt more Trump meltdowns, they won't get their agenda through.

Or they're playing Trump.

Back in January, Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary under President Bill Clinton who has turned himself into a bit of a liberal firebrand, posited the notion Congress is taking advantage of Trump and will hammer down on him when he stops being useful.

Reich recounted a conversation about Republicans in Congress  he had with an unidentified  Republican friend:

"They'll play along for awhile.....They'll get as much as they want - tax cuts galore, deregulation, military buildup, slash all those poverty programs, and then get to work on Social Security and Medicare - and blame him. And he's such a fool, he'll want to take credit for everything."

Of course I have no way of knowing if Reich's recounting of this conversation is accurate.

But if so, it's chilling. Republicans in Congress know what they're proposing is unpopular. The reason they're pursuing the agenda seems to be to enrich their "One Percent" rich friends and by extension, themselves.

These Congress Creatures also know that if voters focused their anger on them when things go south under this agenda, their jobs are in jeopardy.

So, find a stool pigeon who will take the blame instead. That would be Trump.

Then, when Trump does something over the top stupid, they'll find an excuse to impeach him and install Vice President Mike Pence as president.

Now, Pence is a right wing zealot, but he's sane, people in Congress like him, and the hope is he'll get things done.

However, as noted in many publications, liberals are learning lessons from the ultra-conservative radical Tea Party of all people. The Tea Party focused on Congress, and now liberals are doing the same.

In other words, people are trying to hold Congressional Republicans accountable.

We'll see if it works, but it's clear the GOP is feeling some pressure.

Getting back to Klein, he writes:

"Already, congressonl Republicans are complaining that their phone lines are jammed, that their town halls are swarmed, that protesters, as Rep. Dave Brat said, 'in my grills no matter where I go.' And already, congressional Republicans are beginning to slo cown on repealing Obamacare and peel off from Trump's most unqualified nominees, like Betsy DeVos."

True, the more liberal wing of the the nation has a huge uphill battle, at least so far. DeVos was ultimately confirmed, despite two moderate Republicans who voted against her.

It's also largely full steam ahead with the GOP agenda.

But the liberal pressure remains. The fact that it's causing headaches for some GOP Congress Creatures is bound to slow things down, or even make them think twice about overreaching if they want to keep their jobs.

In the past couple of days,  we've had Republican congress people hold town meetings that didn't go all that well.

One widely distributed video was certainly bad optics for Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee.

A young girl named Hannah Bradshaw asked the climate-denying Chaffetz, "Do you believe in science?"

The whole Chaffetz town hall was a complete mess, with a large crowd booing and shutting him down. True, many of these people were activists who never voted for Chaffetz and never will, but the scene had to take him aback a bit.

Especially since the crowd yelled "Do Your Job!" After all, part of Chaffetz's job is to investigate the Trump administration if there's funny business going on.

Chaffetz seems awfully reluctant to do that, but there's also public pressure, so, we'll see.

No doubt there is going to be LOTS of pressure on wimpy Republicans who won't stand up to Trump by the 2018 elections. Activists are already organizing campaigns and money and activism to be sure some incumbents sweat in two years.

I don't know where that will go, but Republican Congress Creatures are sure playing a risky game by sucking up to Trump. Risky for them, and even more risky for the nation.

Will they put country before career? I don't have confidence that they will, but one can hope, right?

A Case Study On The Fight Between Alt Right Bullcrap And The Main Stream Media

Um a few people DID misbehave in Germany on New Years Eve
but it wasn't exactly an Islamic fundamentalist insurgency
at Breitbart suggests in this article

Having safely installed their hero Donald Trump as President and secured their man, Steve Bannon as their chief of staff, Breitbart News seems like it has now turned its attention to the upcoming German elections.  

Although they're probably not coordinating with Breitbart, I'm sure Russia is delighted by the wacko right wing "news" site's help.

The latest bit of drama involves a Breitbart "news" article that "informs" us that a mob of Islamic extremists, numbering around 1,000 or so and yelling "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) set a church on fire in the city of Dortmund.

The Breitbart headline read, "Revealed: 1,000 man mob attack police, set Germany's oldest church alight on New Year's Eve."  The article went on to say the mob was massing around al Qaeda and Islamic flags

Dortmund Police said the reality was a whole lot tamer than what Breitbart envisioned. To me, it's not even news.

Yep, lots of people were out celebrating New Year's Eve in Dortmund. Some of them might have been Muslim.  Some people in the crowd definitely took things too far, but this was also not anything remotely resembling an Islamic extremist insurgency in Germany.

Police said an  average number of  people were arrested for misbehaving on New Year's Eve, the Guardian reports

There's no evidence the crowd was actually celebrating Islamic extremists  in Dortmund. A stray spark from fireworks did cause  a small fire in some netting in construction scaffolding at the church.

The minor blaze was quickly put out. The church, which is not the oldest in Germany, was undamaged, says the Guardian.

Yawn.

My conspiratorial mind thinks Breitbart wanted to help stir up right-wind passions in Germany to help continue the authoritarian march across the globe let by Putin.

I couldn't find the church article on Breitbart, but their front page feature has them apoplectic over a New York Times article this past Sunday that suggested ways to thwart fake news sites.

Third parties and bots often place advertising in web sites, and the business or entity that's being advetised is often unaware of which web sites its on.

This is why ads seem to "follow" you from site to site. Algorthms latch on to your interests, and those ads that target you follow you. Even if you go to websites the advertiser doesn't like.

Those advertisers can, of course, ask to be removed from those sites, and that's what the New York times highlighted.

The New York Times article highlighted a Twitter group called Sleeping Giants that alerts businesses and non-profits that they're being advertised on sites that promote lies, white supremacists or bullying that can inspire attacks on Muslims, women, gays, you name it.

Sleeping Giants has targeted Breitbart in particular lately because "they're the biggest fish," a founder of Sleeping Giants told the New York Times.

Just today, Sleeping Giants crowed that they got the travel booking website Trevago from advertisting at Breitbart.

Of course today, Breitbart countered that it's the New York Times that's the purveryor of fake news.

Breitbart said the New York Times is being hypocritcial because they say they're for press freedom and at the same time they are trying to squelch the journalism of Breitbart.

Though I question whether Breitbart is journalistm, but whatever.

I guess everybody has their own reality now, so nothing is truly fact based. They'll believe whatever they want to believe.

For its part, Breitbart is doubling down on its "reporting" from  Germany (We can't disappoint our rabid readers with a retraction, can we!)

If you read Breitbart's doubling down article in reaction to the take down by main stream media, notice the um, double speak.

The problem is Breitbart is a master at using certain words that incite hate. The Guardian might refer to the people in the city square in Germany as New Year's Eve crowd. Breitbart calls them a "mob."

Breitbart plays with definitions. German police said most of the people in the square were "peaceful" Breitbart says they were not because some were lauching fireworks, and others were "egging" them on.

The video that even Breitbart posts to "prove' their point shows, yes, people illegally launching fireworks, while most in the crowd stand and gawk at the spectacle, at an outdoor party that's gone out of control. To me, gawking is peaceful enough.

Breitbart was also forced to backtrack on the Allahu Akbar shouts. They admit in the follow up that that phrase is about as common as when Christians say "Amen."

As Matt Gertz in Media Matters points out, Breitbart in its original reporting strung three separate facts together to create a false nightmare scenario.

1. There were about 1,000 people in the square.
2. A few of them shouting "Allah Akbar"
3. One person got careless with fireworks, starting a small blaze.

These three facts became this in Breitbart world: "A mob of more than, 1,000 men chanted "Allah Akbar launched fireworks at police and set fire to a historic church."

Bit of a difference, eh?

Breitbart claims its facts were accurate, but Media Matters points out the obvious: You can't string together facts  to create new "facts."

As Gertz wrote: "The relationship that Breitbart claimed existed between those facts is also relevant in terms of whether the story is accurate."

Everybody always accuses their opponent of twisting the facts. Breitbart takes it to a new art form.

I guess it's a war between the misinformation campaign by the likes of Breitbart and the people who want to squelch the misinformation by hitting where it hurts: The revenue stream.

It's a bare knuckle fight that I see going on for a long time.

And it's one of those fights that will make or break the Trump administration, and perhaps American and democracy itself.

Maybe Trump Isn't My President

I admit I was a little annoyed by some people who kept at the mantra "Trump is not my president" just after the election.   

This was coming from people I normally agree with on politics. But Trump won, despite the obvious flaws with the Electoral College, and the flaws in the media, the candidates, some voters and a multitude of other factors.

So, we had to come together as a nation, and those of us who can't stand Trump would be the loyal opposition, holding his feet to the fire through his administration.

After the revelations over the past few days, and Trumps reaction to them, maybe the "Trump is not my president" crowd was right.

Of course I'm referring to the additional news that's been coming out about Russian meddling in our election.

As the Washington Post told us late last week, people with connections to the Russian government and Wikileaks used thousands of hacked Democratic National Committee emails to boost Trump's chances.

"'It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia's goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,' a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. Senators told the Washington Post on Friday. 'That's the consensus view.'"

That report is a bombshell, even if we don't have firm evidence the Trump campaign directly coordinated with Russia during the election campaign.

The more disturbing part of the news was Trump's reaction to it.

According to the Washington Post:

 "'I think it's ridiculous,' Trump said in an interview with 'Fox News Sunday,' his first Sunday show appearance since the election last month. 'I think it's just another excuse. I don't believe it.....No I don't believe it all.'"

Trump also said that the CIA was wrong about Iraq weapons of mass destruction during the Bush adminstration. In his mind, if the intelligence officials were wrong once, they're always wrong.

Think about this: He's siding with Russia over us. Yes, assess and judge CIA reports as president-elect, but to just dismiss it out of hand and cozy up to his pal Vladimir Putin in the process?

Ugh.

Trump is apparently too full of himself to get legit intelligence briefings anyway. He said: "I get it whe I need it....I'm like, a smart person. I don't have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years."

Ookey Dokey!

Then you add in all the other factors that seem to delegitimize Trump. He won the electoral college, but lost the popular vote by more than 2.5 million people. Not exactly a mandate.

His fascination with Russia seems to keep going on and on like the Energizer Bunny, too. I'm not sure if he's actually going to pick ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, like news reports suggest.

If he does, though, Tillerson has lots of close ties to Russia, which isn't such a great thing for a Secretary of State, is it?

The Trump and Russia conundrum is making strange bedfellows, that's for sure. South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, a Republican, usually drives me crazy with what he says. But he's right when he called for a Congressional investigation into the matter.

A real pleasant surprise was Joe Walsh, the former Congressman from Illinois, a reactionary right winger whose ever word he ever uttered I disagreed with.

Until now.

Walsh went on an epic tweetstorm over the weekend, outraged that most fellow Republicans are not itching for an investigation.

Sample Walsh tweets:

"I'm a Trump supporter. But if Russia messed with our election to help Hilary lose, I'd be pissed and I'd demand something be done about it."

And:

"Republican silence will be tantamount to treason. Call 4 an investigation. Foreign governments can't pick our President #RussianHackers."

The fact that Trump continues to attack any hint of anybody calling for an investigation is suspicious to me, big time.

I don't know if there's anything there, but he's acting like a five year old trying to lie his way out his parents learning he had his hands in the cookie jar.

Except the five year old's lies are more nuanced and clever than Trump's.

God help us all. I really don't think Trump's our president. Maybe he's Russia's, and he is turning the United States into a wholly owned subsidiary of Russia.

Ugh.

Trump Violence A Hallmark Of World's Most Ignorant, Entitled Candidate

Anti and pro Trump partisans confront each other
in Chicago Friday night.  

Trumps famous incendiary words are only part of the reason why there's so much hate and trouble surrouding his increasingly odious rallies.

A lot of the trouble comes with Trump's attitude that he's going to do what he wants, when he wants, without ever consulting with anybody else.

He lies to get his way.  He's a classic bully who gets what he wants at the snap of a finger, and he's not going to stop now.

That's to everybody's detriment. Except Trump, of course.

It appears a lot of the trouble in Chicago Friday night came when Trump abruptly canceled the rally for safety reasons "after meeting with law enforcement."

Note the artful dodge here. Somebody in Trump's camp probably did talk with someone in law enforcement, so you technically have a "meeting" here with law enforcement.

However, both Chicago and University of Illinois police said they played no part in the decision to cancel the rally and as Acting Police Superintendent John J. Escalante said, "were kind of taken by surprise" by the announcement to call off the rally.

Surprising the police like this is never a good situation, especially when you have two large groups of people angry at each other - the Trump partisans and those demonstrating against the candidate.

Police usually have crowd control methods that work a lot better when they know something is coming, i.e. a rally with 10,000 people being cancelled.

I bet the police, through no real fault of their own, were caught flat footed by the announcement the rally would be canceled, and inevitably chaos erupted.

This plays right into Trump's (small) hands and perhaps that was his plan all along. Trump had been under escalating criticism for the violence at his rallies.

Now, he had a bunch of anti-Trump protesters here, and an abrupt rally cancellation would inflame the situation. The anti-Trump crowd would  get into fights, and then Trump could blame the liberal "goons" for all the trouble at his rallies, deflecting the blame away from Trump and his supporters.

I might have gotten too conspiratorial here with my theory but I wouldn't put it past Trump.

A Trump rally earlier Friday in St. Louis, which until Chicago was one of the worst yet, lends credence to my theory.

There's no question Trump is a goon. In St. Louis he said of the protests: "Part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long (to kick protesters out) is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore....There used to be consequences. There are none anymore."

Essentially he was saying it was OK to beat up a protester, then. I'm all for arresting and charging someone if, IF they're doing something illegal. There's you consequence right there. It shouldn't be assault, as Trump advocates, at least implicitly.

I get it that Trump isn't the one that made many of his supporters so angry. A complex, messy stew of economic turmoil, social change and other frustrations did that, not Trump. But Trump is using that anger to his advantage, and creating a show by whipping up that anger until we literally get sucker punches being thrown at his rallies.

Trump is a showman, and he realizes the rage he fans just makes the show all that much better. At least to his fans. And his ego. It's all about his ego, after all.

Trump said the protesters were "so bad for our country." Really? Protest, peaceful protest, anyway, is enshrined in the First Amendment.

But I know how much Trump hates the First Amendment except in the moments it benefits him.

Not all anti-Trump demonstrators are blameless. True,  rhe vast majority were peaceful, as were the vast majority of the Trump supporters, Neither side should resort to violence. It was a fail to see fists flying.

I'm also gratified there were large anti-Trump protests, but if their aim was to shut down the Trump rally rather than just demonstrate against it, that makes me uncomfortable. Free speech, even odious free speech, should be encouraged, not shut down.

The antidote to bad free speech is more free speech, so of course peaceful demonstrations are fine here.

I'm definitely no fan of Trump's GOP rivals in the presidential campaign, but I have to say they were spot on and  made some very good points in reacting to Trump's Friday Night Fiasco..

"There aren't fights breaking out at my rallies, Ted Cruz rallies, John Kasich rallies, Bernie Sanders rallies," noted GOP candidate Marco Rubio, the Senator from Florida.

Cruz correctly chimed in: "There's no doubt that a candidate bears responsibility for the culture that is set from the top."

Which proves Cruz and Rubio at least occasionally understand something Trump does not.  That with rights come responsibilities. We are free to say what we want in this nation, but there are consequences to what we say.

Trump, as noted above, wants consequences all right. As long as he never has to deal with any of thoae consequences.

Consequences, apparently, are for the little people.

Is Donald Trump The Sign Of The Apocalypse?

Is Donald Trump so popular because America lost its way?  

You gotta hand it to Donald Trump. He's simultaneously turned himself both into a national crisis and the Great Buffoon Of The Day. And, to many, a savior.

Half the country is scared to death that he might actually become president and ruin the nation and the world. I'm pretty much in the camp.

The other half want him to do all the outrageous things he proposes, because it's "fighting back" against all that they see is wrong with the world.

There doesn't appear to be a way out of this standoff.

Getting Serious About Trump:

Trump had a great Super Tuesday primary. Google searches of the phrase "How to move to Canada" increased by 1,500 percent late Tuesday night as the results came in.  The government of Canada's immigration page experienced delays under the load of presumably mostly Americans looking at it, the Montreal Gazette reported. 

Trump has repeatedly said he wants to build a wall along the United States southern border to keep illegal immigrants from Mexico out. So many Americans might want to move to Mexico to flee Trump that it might be Mexico that builds that border wall.

Hey, if that happens, at least Mexico would pay for it, fulfilling one of Trump's campaign promises.

More seriously, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, writing in the Washington Post, said just the threat of a Trump presidency could well badly damage both the national and global economy.

Summers went so far as to call Trump a threat to American democracy with his authoritarian viewpoints.

He wrote:

"The economy is already growing at a sub-two percent rate in substantial part because of a lack of confidence in a weak world economy. A growing sense that a protectionist demagogue could soon become president of the United States would surely introduce great uncertainty at home and abroad.

The resulting increase in risk premiums might well be enough to tip a fragile U.S. economy into recession. And a concern that the U.S. was becoming protectionist and isolationist could easily undermine confidence in many emerging markets and set off a financial crisis."

I know in my head I've started thinking about spending less money and trying to horde as much cash as I can to stave off what is to my mind the inevitable Great Trump Economic Depression if he's elected president.

Rise Of The Authoritarians:

There's an incredible amount of commentary floating around as to whose fault it is that somebody like Trump could capture the imagination of so many Americans.

The hard question is how to reverse this. It won't be easy.

One major reason why Trump is so popular is that so many people have lost trust in most institutions and the "establishment." Which means not many people are going to listen to the likes of Lawrence Summers and abandon their infatuation with Trump.

And sorry, Mitt Romney, they're not going to listen to you, either. 

Vox this week had a long but fascinating piece on how big picture fear and uncertainty and societal change can bring out the authoritarian in a large segment of the American public.

Vox cited the work of Karen Stenner, author of the book "The Authoritarian Dynamic."

Vox reported:

"According to Stenner's theory, there is a certain subset of people who hold latent authoritarian tendencies. These tendencies can be triggered or 'activated" by the perception of physical threats or by destabilizing social change, leading those individuals to desire policies and leaders that we might more colloquially call authoritarian.

Authoritarians prioritize social order and hierarchies, which bring a sense of control to a chaotic world. Challenges to that order - diversity, influx of outsiders, breakdown of the old order - are experienced as personally threatening because they risk upending the status quo order they equate with basic security. 

There's certainly a drumbeat of big changes in threats we're all hearing about, amplified by the 24 hour news cycle, cable TV shoutfests, zillions of radio shock jocks and social media that scream all kinds of dire news and warnings.

Some of the changes and upheavals are good:  Gay people can now marry in the United States. The Black Lives Matter movement is putting a spotlight on racial injustice and the excesses of some police forces. Authoritarians equate police with social order, so even objections to police shootings of unarmed citizens is equated with a breakdown of social order.

Other changes are indeed threatening to all of us. Rising income inequality is threatening everyone's livelihood, except for the elites, which were the ones who were suppose to maintain social order. They're not anymore, which encourages the authoritarians. Money in politics, and inaction by Congress do the same thing.

You can see why the world seems to have turned upside down and inside out, especially from the perspective of white lower and middle income men, who are really being buffeted from all sides.

Ever notice how many white male faces you see at Trump rallies? I don't think that's a coincidence.

This Won't End Soon

Here's the intractable problem:  Even if the Trump candidacy implodes, the nation is ripe to embrace some other demagogue. The "Trump problem" isn't going to go away if Trump goes away, as Vox notes.

So-called establishment Republicans are in a tizzy, because they fear Trump will be the Republican nominee, and might not win the presidency because of his crazy ideas. Sure, Trump, with all his excesses, might open the door for Hillary Clinton or even Bernie Sanders to win the White House.

But there's still a chance Trump could win. Or, because I don't see signs of our nation's upheaval and resentment among its citizens going away anytime soon,  another dangerous authoritarian overlord type, one that's less of a clown than Trump, could become President in 2020, or 2024.

Yeah, I'll keep laughing at Trump's buffoonery, but meanwhile, I, like Summers, am fearful of some authoritarian jerk, be in Trump or someone else, taking power.

We've gotten into this mess because leaders don't lead, the idea of making money while maintaining a sense of ethics and fairness has gotten quaint, and many members of the media value ratings more than responsibility, and let every wacko commandeer the microphone.

No wonder so many people are pissed off and would go so far as to vote for Trump. In embracing a crazy person, they're screaming for some sanity in this nation.

Pharma Bro Shkreli and Shadenfreude: A Match Made In Heaven (Or Hell)

Martin Shkreli under arrest today, inspiring a huge wave
 of schadenfreude. But will he get the last laugh? 

I bet it's fair to say that one of the most searched words on Google today is "Schadenfreude."

"Schadenfreude" refers to the pleasure derived from another person's misfortune, and so many people, including yours truly, have been experiencing intense schadenfreude over the arreset of Martin Shkreli.

Martin Shkreli, the "Pharma Bro" train wreck I've been obsessing about because he raised the price of life saving drugs to sky high levels to make oodles of money, was arrested on fraud charges, according to numerous media reports this morning.

He's the guy who raised the price of a medication for people with HIV and other life threatening illnesses from $13.50 to $750.00. His logic is its his job to make lots of money, and if sick and broke people suffer because of it, too bad.

He's been busy getting reading to inflate prices of other life saving drugs, too.

According to MSN:

"Prosecutors charged him with illegally taking stock from Retrophin, Inc., a biotechnology firm he started in 2011, and using it to pay off debts from unrelated business dealings. He was later ousted from the company, where he'd been chief executive officer, and sued by the board.

In the case that closely tracks that suit, federal prosecutors accused Shkreli of engaging in a complicated shell game after his defunct hedge fund, MSMB Capital Management, lost millions. He is alleged to have made secret payoffs and set up sham consulting arrangements."

Everybody had a HUGE field day with this arrest, especially on social media, because Shkreli is such a vile creature.

Maybe this makes me a bad person, but the news about the criminal charges against Shkreli are making me a very happy man today. I'm in a good mood now. Like a lot of people.

When I Googled "schadenfreude Shkreli" this evening, I got no fewer than 6,250 matches.

Salon collected some of the best Tweets about Shkreli's arrest today, including, from @ohiotimmons3, "On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me a warrant for Martin Shkreli."

@John Fuglesang Tweeted: "Wait, Martin Shkreli in jail? Are the criminals OK?"

Probably not. As long as Shkreli is around, somebody's going to get hurt.

Over at Wired, they tell us that Dean Burnett, known as @garwboy on Twitter, noted, "Government warning: National schadenfreude reserves expected to run dry by the end of the week."

I have no doubt that's true.

Many people are apparently worried about a Wu-Tang Clan album Shkreli recently bought. It's the only one in existence, and he reportedly paid $2 million for it.

Yeah, I don't know why anybody would spend $2 million for the only copy of an album from anybody, but what do I know?

If Shkreli goes to jail, I guess he now has time to enjoy the Wu-Tang album he bought from all the money he's making off the backs of ill people.

This arrest will probably slow down Shkreli's quest to totally inflate the cost of life-saving drugs for other people, but at least it's a start.

Here's how lousy Shkreli is. He told a Forbes health care summit early this month that he screwed up. Did he mean he shouldn't have raised medication prices so much?

Nope. He said he should have raised them more.

Forbes quoted Shkreli thusly: "'My shareholder expect me to make the most profit," Shkreli said, a theme he returned to again and again. 'That's the ugly, dirty truth.'

'I'm going to maximize profits,' Shkreli addes later. 'That's what people (in healthcare) are afraid to say.'"

In other words, the only responsibility of a manufacturer of a life saving medication is to maximize profits. The patients who need it? Fuck 'em. let them die as long as I can make millions.

No wonder people as disparate as Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton hate him.

My dream? That Shkreli gets a long, long inside look living among the "Lights of Dannemora."

As in the really nasty Clinton Correctional Facility in New York.

My dream probably won't come true, though. As The Guardian points out, even when there's wild excesses like those of Shkreli, the big splash of publicity over the arrest will be for naught.

Most CEOs caught with their hands on the cookie jar are not convicted. Even when they are, they get what for them is a slap on the wrist. A fine of a few million dollars, which is really peanuts, and then they can go on ripping people off.

I'm sure several more medically needed people will die to satisfiy Shkreli's greed.

Then it will, unfortunately, become his turn to feel the schadenfreude when the rest of us can't afford the medicine to keep us alive. The medicine that the likes of Shkreli prices out of our reach.

I Love The Ferguson Police. Maybe.

Are the police in Ferguson overdressed here?
Photo by Jeff Roberson, Associated Press.  

Yep, that's right, I think the police out there in trouble Ferguson are  totally boffo. They've done us all an enormous favor.  

Or, they, and other police officials down there, are rapidly pushing this nation toward a crisis, I'm not sure yet.

No, I don't like that police in Ferguson shot an unarmed black teenager. No, I don't like that they played dress up, pretended to be soldiers with ridiculous amount of gear, and military trucks and gear.  I don't appreciate them arresting journalists who are trying to tell us what's going on.

I don't like that the police are trampling First Amendment rights. Or telling people "I will fucking kill you" for the high crime of walking down the street.  Or telling a CNN producer to get out because those "niggers" might do anything. 

The reason I love the job police in Ferguson are doing is because they've finally got us talking about whether arming local police to the teeth with hard core battle weapons is a good idea. They've got us talking about how our rights to peaceable assembly and speech are threatened by goons who say they are trying to keep the peace.

Police in Ferguson have us talking about race, crime, rights, poverty, freedom. I have no idea if all the talking we're doing because of Ferguson will improve things, but it's better than silence.

Look, I get it. Ferguson is complicated. There are a few criminals, looters, violent offenders, and jerks amid the hundreds, or thousands of peaceful protestors that have been out every night in Ferguson.

You've got to control the creeps, arrest them, put them away, but at what price? Isn't there a better way than to also treat everybody who lives in and near Ferguson like they are terrorists?

WAR GAME ARE FUN!

They brought the dogs out in Ferguson. Photo
by David Carson, St. Louis Post Dispatch  

We can start by police nationwide, who are taking advantage of federal giveaways to receive enought high tech arms to make Vladimir Putin blush.

Do we really want local cops to constantly act like third rate actors making some sort of lowbrow military Rambo movie? Yeah, in extreme events, some of this stuff might come in handy. But once in a blue moon. Do we really need entire invading armies to execute basic search warrants?

The juxtaposition of peaceful protests and police so pimped up in military gear it looks like they're in a knock down, drag out battle in Baghdad is disturbing to say the least.

The Economist has a good summary of how Congress, awash in military hardware campaign cash, perpetuate this extreme militarization of what used to be the nice police on foot patrol in your neighborhood.  

"In this as with so much else in American governance, it starts with federal cash. Every year Congress passes the National Defense Authorization Act, which sets out the Defense Department's budget and expenditures. The version passed in 1990, in the wake of the sharp rise in drug related violence, allowed the Defense Department to transfer military gear and weapons to local police departments if the were deemed "suitable for counter-drug activities. 

"....The American Civil Liberties Union found that the value of military equipment used by American police departments has risen from $1 million in 1990 to $450 million in 2013."

Apparently, defense contractors weren't making enough money off of wars overseas. The bottom line would get even better if they encouraged police to declare war on us. The shareholders must be so excited. 

 U.S. News and World Report has a pretty good take on this point: 

"Have no doubt, police in the United States are militarizing, and in many communities, particularly those of color, the message is being received loud and clear: 'You are the enemy, ' writes Tom Nolan, a 27-year veteran of the Boston Police Department and professor at SUNY Plattsburgh, in an op-ed that appeared in DefenseOne in June, more than a month before the Ferguson riots.

Is that what police in this country really want? That we are their enemy? That is truly scary. 

FIRST AMENDMENT

I also love the police efforts to detain and shut up journalists covering the unrest. Yeah, like THAT'S going to work.

Lord knows some journalists are jerks, too, bloviating about nonsense and puffing up their over inflated talking head egos even more. But the truth is, most journalists, imperfect as they are,  just want to tell us what's going on. They want to make us understand the deal. And the have the First Amendment right to do so.

Apparently, the cops in Ferguson think the First Amendment is bullshit, and reporters should just shut up and regurgitate their happy little press releases.  I hope the national conversation about this crisis eventually convinces them otherwise. But I'm not totally optimistic on that one.

At least Ferguson has gotten so much attention, and drawn so many journalists, that police in Ferguson have ended up playing whack-a-mole. They detain three or so journalist to shut them up, and 30 journalists come in to yak and yell about journalists being detained.

I guess police in Ferguson police haven't figured out how to control the entire media like China has, which is a good thing.

And by the way, you Second Amendment enthusiasts. Where were you when they were trampling the First Amendment? I bet you'd be howling in the streets if the police trashed the Second Amendment as badly as the First. Aren't all the Constitutional Amendments important?

Who knows if the reaction to Ferguson will improve things in this country? At least we can count on minor victories.

The cop that told peaceful citizens and journalists to leave or "I will fucking kill you" has been reassigned away from Ferguson. (When asked for his name the "I KEEL YOU" cop said "Go Fuck Yourself" so I guess that's his unusual name)

I don't know how the rest of the Ferguson story will play out. I don't know if police will back away from arming themselves to the teeth.  I wonder if anyone will be held accountable for trashing Constitutional rights.

But something better change, dammit.

to

Some Congress Creatures Are Profoundly Mentally Ill, And We're All Suffering For It.

A few relatively sane people managed to save the nation from an economic crisis with the budget deal last week,  so maybe, just maybe,  the inmates aren't running the asylum. 

But don't count on it. We haven't heard the last of that awful contingent in Congress that is profoundly mentally ill.
  
Think about it. The strange Tea Party wing that shut down the government and almost caused a global recession live in their own alternative reality where facts are besides the point. 

They just make up their own facts. It's more fun that way. 

They are so narcissitic that they expect the rest of the country to bend to their will, no matter how crazy their ideas and how many people oppose them.  And they delight in dragging the rest of us into their sad, twisted psycho drama.

Sounds like a severe mental illness to me.

Let's pick these symptoms apart.

Facts:

Most people base their decisions on the facts in front of them. Since everybody's different, people will  respond to the facts in various ways. That's why some politicians take a liberal course and others react in a conservative fashion when dealing with the facts, with reality.

That's fine. Eventually, the liberals and conservatives, using the facts as a guide, will argue a bit then work out some sort of compromise.  In the real world, maybe sane conservatives and liberals each have ideas that might improve Obamacare, improve the economy, improve our lives. Each side is worth listening to. 

However, the mentally ill Congress creatures, mostly Tea Party, that precipitated this mess didn't like the facts, so they just created their own reality, by retreating to their own bubble, brought to them by Fox News and lobbying groups like the ironically named Americans For Prosperity. 

So now, instead of dealing with facts, they think the economy won't suffer because they decide not to pay the nation's bills,  that shutting down the government will somehow lead to cost savings when in the real world it's worsening the deficit and made our economy take a $24 billion hit, that everybody supports them when in reality all the polls show most Americans really, really, really hate them.

Plus, they've gerrymandered their Congressional districts so much that they preside over what I might call weird shaped Tea Party ghettos.   

The alternate reality these Congress creatures live in is fed by a weird media and lobbying apparatus that tells them  our socialist terrorist Muslim Kenyan not legitimate president  put down his Quran, stop taking our guns away, and stop sending cash to terrorists, everything will be OK.  

It's why demonstrators, OK, one demonstrator, during a protest amid the shutdown decided to wave a Confederate flag in front of the White House, prompting  journalist Jeff Goldberg to Tweet:

"In many parts of America, waving a Confederate flag outside the home of a black family would be considered a very hostile act."

Note: Right now it's hard right conservatives who have this mental illness. But it can afflict the hard left, too. Chemtrails and 9/11 conspiracy theories, anyone?

Bottom line: That Congress creatures that created this mess are clinging to a fantasy world  is one sign that something is weird mentally. And they insist, are convinced they are right, that they are our saviors, that everyone else is wrong, and we should do whatever they say, no matter what people in the real world think

Which brings us to the next aspect of this mental illness:

Narcissism and No Responsibility:

The whole episode brought us a lot of weird moments that demonstrated this aspect of mental illness.

That's why we had one Congress Creature, Randy Neugebauer,  yelling at a park ranger for closing a national monument that HE helped close and the ranger had nothing to do with. We had another one, Lee Terry of Nebraska saying he wouldn't give up his salary during the shutdown, so that he could afford his "nice house."   (Both later apologized after the expected horrible press)

And we had another one saying the Democrats had to give the Republicans lots of concessions, because, well, they have to. 

"We're not going to be disrespected... We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is," said Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind. early in the shutdown.

Yeah, he didn't know what, but they have to get something to be respected. Um, don't you have to earn respect? 

Not all Tea Party and strongly conservative lawmakers are afflicted with this mental illness, of course. I heard one Tea Party Congressman from Virginia speak on NPR the other night who gave all the Tea Party talking points, but opposed the past two weeks of shenanigans because it harmed the country, didn't get them what they want, and avoided what he sensibly called "principled compromise."

Another conservative, Peter King, a conservative Congressman from New York who does not appear to be affected by this mental illness, was moved to say this last week:

"The party is going nuts.... So many people I run into who are normal people--and I hate to use that term--just don't understand what is going on."

To understand what's going on, what King and the rest of us should do is just examine U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who is widely considered the ringleader of this debacle.

He's the one that did that weird, pointless 21 hour speech as the shutdown loomed railing against Obamacare. During the shutdown, he kept insisting he and the GOP were "winning" the fight, despite plunging poll numbers.

And when it was all over the other day, when Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was saying a deal had been reached, Cruz tried to steal the media spotlight outside at that very moment saying he'd fight on

And Thursday,  Cruz said Thursday he wouldn't rule out causing another government shutdown to stop Obamacare. 

So they're all delusional. The sad thing is, had more sane people who oppose Obamacare, who have different ideas on how to coax the economy along, they might have made some progress had it not been for the crazies.

And the economy, Americans, wouldn't have suffered as a result. 

Of course, the whole point of trotting out these crazies is to make barely less crazy right wing ideas seem a bit less off the wall, thereby making them acceptable to us.

Hey, sequestration, which use to be regarded as completely off the wall, seems like the norm now.

Obviously, I have no good ideas on how to get out of this mess. I'm not a psychiatrist, so I can't fix Congress. I don't think anybody can. That's the disheartening thing about living with someone with a mental illness.

You're trapped in their chronic, sad condition.

All you can do is make jokes about it. The Onion had it right with its story last week about a broken sewer pipe. You've GOT to read it to make you feel better. (click on this hyperlink)