HorsesAss.Org

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Trevor with D.L. Hughley: Racially charged police violence and “How Not to Get Shot”

Corporate Landlords: The fight for affordable housing in California.

Mother Jones: March for Our Lives (full studio interview).

Jim Jefferies: Sitting down with QAnon conspiracy theorists:

The Atlantic: Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition.

New Yorker: What it’s like chasing the world’s biggest tornadoes

Trevor: Silicon Valley discovers Africa.

Bill Maher: Wok the vote.

Real Engineering: Why the US Airforce ejected a bear.

Vox: The fractured politics of a browning America.

Mother Jones: Indicted California Republican blames his wife.

Trevor: Alex Jones’s Twitter timeout and Andrew Cuomo’s MAGA gaffe.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: Chaser the dog shows off her smarts.

Unindicted Co-conspirator Dotard Трамп and His Koterie of Krooked Kakistocrats:

Daily Show: 100% Трамп-free show.

The Atlantic: It’s good to be a rebel.

Jimmy Kimmel: The week in unnecessary censorship.

Chris Hayes: Representative Duncan D. Hunter throws his wife under the bus.

WaPo: Women of color candidates break barriers in the 2018 midterms.

Trevor: The midterm elections are weird.

Songify: Zucc smokin meats.

Winlar: Racist F and Things:

Congressional hits and misses from a 2-day Senate work week

The Atlantic: Social media and hate speech—Who gets to decide?

Wendover: How to build a $100 million satellite.

Daily Show: Let’s talk about Black women’s equal pay day

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Comments

  1. 1

    Very interesting, who in the Cohen case isn’t pleading guilty or seeking immunity? Although with Cohen, couldn’t the plea have waited until after the Manafort verdict?

  2. 2

    @ ER @ #1:

    The Cohen charges were an entirely separate issue. What his pleading guilty does, is free Cohen up for testimony in the upcoming trials of Manafort, Kushner and the Trump family members who still have yet to face justice.

    This is about breaking up a major international crime organization involving hundreds of people committing serious felonies over several decades. Flipping Allen Weisselberg is just another gumdrop on the cake. That guy has the books and the long term knowledge of how they were cooked.

    Its going to be a fun ride.

  3. 3

    And nothing to do with Russian meddling in the election.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLczQfuymMc

    Wow ordinary corruption here. Why couldn’t the federal banking or stock commission, or the IRS on Manafort, but not it takes the FBI to get him on bank fraud, and tax fraud.

    I don’t feel sorry for these guys but it is a whole waste of time. Finding corruption in taxi medallions in New York city is the local governments job and not Muellers, and none of this is going to lead to impeachment and removal from office. And do you really want Pence in the oval office replacing a guy who paid off women he had affairs with, Pence will win reelection maybe twice depending on timing. If Trump were to be fed up and quits in late January you get Pence. So you want 10 years of Pence?

  4. 4

    2,
    Don’t count on Weisselberg having direct knowledge.
    He’s overseen the company’s finances going back to Fred Trump. But like the lawyers (Mr. Safety School, Esq. not really a lawyer) he was probably kept out of the inner circle. What he can do for investigators is show them where to look. His grant of immunity may be entirely pro forma.

    But his cooperation agreement sends a powerful signal and may break loose a few more loose stones. Pay attention to how quiet PornSweat will be about Weisselberg’s agreement when compared to his Tweet-bitching about Mr. Safety School, Esq.

  5. 5

    Someone should do a compare-contrast piece with Paul Manafort and Marc Rich.

    Or maybe someone already did. Maybe Trump had Manafort jailed so that when he’s pardoned, he can’t be a fugitive from justice at the time.

    That looked kinda bad when Clinton did it for Rich.

  6. 6

    @ 4

    But his cooperation agreement sends a powerful signal and may break loose a few more loose stones.

    Yeah, that’s what Republicans said about the FIVE grants of immunity provided by DOJ to cronies and contractors associated with Hillary Clinton, back when her email scandalmatter was still under investigationsecurity review.

    Democrats nominated her anyway.

  7. 7

    3,
    I should add that though Weisselberg may not have directly participated in things like bribery, theft, fraud, or conspiracy, he almost certainly knows about perfectly legal payments to multiple stcky porno ladies for NDAs and borshuns. And he can reveal a lot about PornSweat’s financial standing that he obviously does not want to see in public.

    He can do plenty of damage to PornSweat and his political empire of willing hypocrites.

  8. 8

    I am not sure why Pampao did not go to North Korea. It could be the bad week Trump has had. Do you have an important member of your cabinet off doing a job in North Korea which may go south How much political capital does the Trump WH put into Korea? Are domestic politics weakening the United States and the ability of the State Department to do something brave in the world.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump’s-cancellation-of-pompeo-trip-dashes-hopes-in-south-korea/ar-BBMpE1W?ocid=spartanntp

  10. 10

    5,
    Biggest “contrast”: Clinton didn’t have to worry about use immunity for Rich.

    Interesting fact: a President cannot pardon coercive civil contempt.

    Yeah, that.
    #youbuiltthat

  11. 11

    And after this, for his next do-over Mr Reich wishes to be taller.

    Goldy Retweeted

    Robert Reich✔
    @RBReich
    Impeachment would remedy Trump’s “high crimes and misdemeanors,” but not his unconstitutional presidency. We should also aim for its annulment — his appointments, legislation, rules and executive orders. http://robertreich.org/post/177349093095 …

    Don’t Impeach Trump. Annul His Presidency
    The only way I see the end of Trump is if there’s overwhelming evidence he rigged the 2016 election. In which case impeachment isn’t an adequate remedy. His presidency should be annulled. Let me…

    robertreich.org
    9h

  12. 12

    @ 7

    He can do plenty of damage to PornSweat and his political empire of willing hypocrites.

    He cannot undo Harry Reid’s deployment of the Nuclear Option.

    Reid’s action did more damage to the Democrat political empire of willing hypocrites than Reid apparently ever imagined.

  13. 13

    While we’re on the subject of do-overs, Stephanie Clifford would like her gawdawful abdominal tattoo removed.

    And her virginity restored.

  14. 14

    Does it matter if the blue wave is in Washington state, California, New York and Hawaii?

    Islands out in the middle of an ocean far from the mainland. Will the recovery efforts be different because Hawaii is an actual state? Or are the people there screwed, not because they are in the middle of the Pacific and it takes time to get anything there? Of course it will be because they are Democrats and brown. No you locals cannot bring back the monarchy we stole the sandwich properly and fairly. Or would you prefer to be speaking Japanese or Chinese?

  15. 15

    12,
    I know some leftie groups raise a bit of money on this scarecrow, Dumbfuck. But the truth is most of us dirty hippies really don’t care about the federal judiciary the way you Derp State Witch Hunt Conspiracy! kooks have been trained to. Sorry.

    You really think we cry ourselves to sleep every night pissing and moaning about how some irrelevant goat like Coughenour ruled in a jail civil rights suit? Maybe we should. But the fact is less than 1% of the lefty pinkos you despise can even recognize his fucking name. If this fantasy is what it takes for you to choke-fap yourself into fits of extacy, go for it with my blessings. But spare yourself the time and trouble of these posts and maybe you’ll free up that typing hand for a little added digital-anal play.

  16. 16

    @3

    Please try to keep up. I know deflecting takes a lot of work.

    Mueller investigation ≠ Cohen case

    Separate issues, separate. And yeah it does fall under the Jurisdiction of SDNY

  17. 17

    Why Trump Supporters Believe He Is Not Corrupt
    What the president’s supporters fear most isn’t the corruption of American law, but the corruption of America’s traditional identity.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/what-trumps-supporters-think-of-corruption/568147/

    “Fox’s decision to focus on the Iowa murder rather than Cohen’s guilty plea illustrates Stanley’s point. In the eyes of many Fox viewers, I suspect, the network isn’t ignoring corruption so much as highlighting the kind that really matters. When Trump instructed Cohen to pay off women with whom he’d had affairs, he may have been violating the law.
    But he was upholding traditional gender and class hierarchies.
    Since time immemorial, powerful men have been cheating on their wives and using their power to evade the consequences.
    The Iowa murder, by contrast, signifies the inversion—the corruption—of that “traditional order.” Throughout American history, few notions have been as sacrosanct as
    the belief that white women must be protected from nonwhite men.
    By allegedly murdering Tibbetts, Rivera did not merely violate the law. He did something more subversive: He violated America’s traditional racial and sexual norms.”

    “Why were Trump’s supporters so convinced that Clinton was the more corrupt candidate even as reporters uncovered far more damning evidence about Trump’s foundation than they did about Clinton’s? Likely because Clinton’s candidacy threatened traditional gender roles. For many Americans, female ambition—especially in service of a feminist agenda—in and of itself represents a form of corruption.”

    This fits the few hard core unindicted conspirator supporters I have interacted with.

  18. 18

    Does it matter if the blue wave is in Washington state, California, New York and Hawaii?

    Yup.
    Two very vulnerable House seats in WA, six in CA, and a couple in NY say it matters plenty. Add to that state AGs, Governors, Sheriffs, etc.

    But good to know that perverted child molesting idiot Trumpist traitors like you will be looking the other way in November. That helps too, even if it’s only because you can’t see clearly through the dense film of the Orange Event Horizon.

  19. 19

    17,
    The cognitive dissonance will weigh on them. It already is.
    Just look at Dumbfuck and the Loon. In the end, for true believers like them, their hatred for the dirty hippies will overcome anything and keep them moving forward.

    But plenty of more moderate “traditional” Klownsurvaturds and Thumpers have backed away from going “full retard” like the trolls. Most of them will eventually just go silent and tell themselves all this never happened. Our job is to remind them of it every fucking day for the rest of their lives.

  20. 20

    File under “no one wants electric cars”

    I’ve never been a car guy though I have taught myself basic maintenance and can do brakes and oil filters and things.

    But a few Body styles hold a certain draw for me.

    66-68 Alfa Spider
    Mid 70s Mercedes 450 coupe.

    So an all electric retro 60s body Jaguar E-type?

    Hell to the Yeah!

  21. 21

    @11 Well Mr. Reich is not a stoic.

    It is August so one can blame the heat for flights of fancy. It is President Trump all the processes were in place and he took the oath of office. Yet Mr. Reich other than disagreeing in general does not point out a single crime or misdemeanor committed by the President. Certainly that is open for Congress to define. Yet it is A Republican Congress and likely to remain sufficiently so a coup is not in the cards. Mr Reich knows this, and probably recognizes this effort is wasted political capitol. The Democratic leadership seems to recognize they cannot deliver Trumps head on a platter even if they won every Senate seat they cannot, so it is wasted effort, though the Democratic mob seems to be demanding the impossible.

  25. 25

    @5 Doctor Dumbfuck’s version of comparing a shoplifter to Al Capone in a desperate last-ditch attempt to exonerate Capone.

  26. 26

    @9 The difference is that miscreant Democrats feel a sense of shame when caught. To a Republican, bad behavior is just ordinary everyday behavior; and to Trump, who has no moral compass whatsoever, all behavior looks the same.

  27. 27

    I’m ignoring Shortbus’ trolling this morning. There are times when he’s too stupid to respond to. He must be hung over.

  28. 28

    No sign of the loon. He’s either been lynched, committed to a mental institution, or found a new hobby.

    For whatever reason, trolls burn out on this blog. After a while, they simply lose heart and fade away. It’s happened to every one of them so far.

    It may have something to do with the banality of their cause. It’s hard to keep defending the indefensible day after day with no end to the bullshit in sight.

  30. 30

    @20 “Hell to the Yeah!”

    “Page not found”

    Shame, as I love old Jags. My first car was an XK-120 roadster and I briefly had an E-type roadster.

  31. 31

    “My bet he’s under heavy sedation in an institution somewhere.”

    I figure his luck ran out. As I tried to warn him, a black man can hang out with white supremacists only so long before he finally finds himself at the end of a rope.

  33. 33

    @17 that’s what I’ve been saying. Not just gender but sexual orientation similarly can be applied.

  35. 35

    Slow news day. No Republicans were indicted today. Guess we’ll have to wait until the courts reopen for business on Monday.

  36. 36

    Very interesting true fact:
    Undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a much lower rate than Republican Presidential campaign staffers.

  39. 39

    The gun initiative, I-1639, is back on the ballot after the Washington Supreme Court overturned a Thurston county judge’s ruling that the wording of the initiative misled petition signers.

  42. 42

    McCain factoids:

    His mother, now 106, is still alive.

    McCain died from the same brain cancer that killed Ted Kennedy.

    I met his father in Vietnam or I should say, I walked by him decked out in a flak jacket and bush hat and packing an M16, and I saluted him and he saluted me back.

  44. 44

    @40 Wouldn’t setting the neighboring nation on fire constitute an invasion and act of war?

    In any case, this is just a minor taste of what will happen if the USA breaks up into 330 million independent sovereign nations, each armed to the teeth, which seems to be what these morons want.

    I know many of my liberal friends oppose the death penalty, but I hope they execute him. After a fair trial, of course.

  46. 46

    Hey. Where’s the babbling butthole troll this evening? It used to “need” HA HEROES so much on Sat. nights – after sunset, before sunset – no matter. As long as it was before the weekly obligation in the salt mines with the salt mining buddy.

    Is the freako on vacay? That didn’t matter either. The babbling nutjob “needing” HA on vacay was an especially funny time here in the threads.

    These days it’s so quiet. Was it something I said?

    Oh well there’s always boob, pork sauce, shortbus (yawn) and the schizoid glibertarian..

  47. 47

    Oh Johnny McSame as Bush… His finest moment in my book was that thumb’s down in Yertle’s face. As much as Johnny McSame despised Obama, he didn’t cotton to flipping off the black guy for its own sake. It had to be done in “regular order”.

    Low point: the “maverick” morphing into “mcsame” for power and unleashing the Wasilla freak – Sarah Quitin’ Failin’. He couldn’t quite do what was necessary – turn the asylum over to the inmates – the freaks who bleated that Obama was an “Arab”..

    Poor Johnny McSame – the hapless tool stood a better chance in 2006 going full birfer, being the same as drumpf. Quitin’ Failin’ could have shown him the way.

  50. 50

    @48 It takes a real fucking moron to not be able to tell the difference between patriotism and arrogance.

  54. 54

    48,
    Agian with the threats?

    Look at what you’ve done. For the sake of a few Meskin Toddler Tears and righteous beatdowns you’ve burned your principles to ashes in a racist dumpster fire you lit with Tiki Torches.

    You’ve done your worst. You can’t threaten us anymore you idiot.

    Stop and think for a moment how utterly bankrupt your klownsurvaturd “bowel movement” has become when your last remining argument at persuading voters is a threat. And that threat has been rendered empty.

  55. 55

    @54 He seems to be saying he and his fellow morons won’t vote for Trump in 2020 if we stop dissing them for voting for Trump in 2016 and still supporting him in 2018. I wouldn’t trust that. Morons don’t get smarter with time. Not even a little bit.

  59. 59

    “A federal judge on Saturday invalidated important sections of three executive orders issued by President Donald Trump that made it easier to terminate federal employees and weaken their labor unions. … [The orders] limited the time union officials could spend with union members, the issues that unions could bargain over in negotiations, and the rights of workers disciplined for poor job performance to appeal disciplinary actions.”

    https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/25/politics/donald-trump-executive-orders-unions/index.html

    Roger Rabbit Commentary: No, asshole, your decrees don’t override laws or contracts, nor can you take away employees’ rights by the stroke of a pen. You’re not a dictator, however much you want to be.

  60. 60

    One add reveals the Democratic parties problems.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub2LjdliU-s

    And it could be Tucker Carlson is right and if Democrats are going to try to impeach or will impeach if they get the House majority. I do not see how they don’t do it after promises they have made to their base. If you can’t do it in the Senate then you should call for the whole mess to be wrapped up. If Dems get in and they don’t impeach they are screwed. If they do impeach they are screwed if Trump is removed or not. Perhaps having a Attorney General that can do the whole job might be a good thing, perhaps if the Mueller investigation has overreached there is someone who can go you work for me and I can fire you over this. Get back to your prerogatives.

    Go green party!
    Go third party !
    Go pirate party!
    Sure democrats think you are Russians, but hey that is all part of the fun of being green.

  62. 62

    @16 Mueller investigation finds something and passes it on to the New York district AG, rather than keeping it under their hat. Otherwise it would be the IRS going after Cohen and the local government going after the taxi stuff. Just ordinary corruption.

    And the payoff stuff is that a criminal matter or a civil matter? Election law is pretty wonky stuff, and much of It is civil and can be civil, and is meant to be that. Yes Mr. Politician you screwed up here and we can fine you or go into court. Politician pays the fine and live goes on. Rather like a traffic ticket. Where the line between civil and criminal lies is a lot more mucky particularly with political operatives of both parties involved. And these guys are now cooperating with the Mueller investigation, so where are the Russians? Maybe this should be in the house with impeachment actions. Oh you all do not have the votes. That should end this whole farce right there.

  63. 63

    When the Democratic candidate is a corporatist and bought by the corporations then I may as well vote for the Republican. At least I know from the label he or she is often bought or at least friendly toward corporations. With the occasional exception of some crazy Republican rancher.

  64. 64

    @17 Or it could be traditional views about her old man getting a blow job from another woman in or out of the Oval office. And wink wink maybe she has had lovers too.

  65. 65

    @18 Republicans should happily give you the blue wave in Washington, New York, and California. Does not give you House nor the Senate. California is as blue as you can get and on a state level nothing progressive is happening. Blue wave in the blue states and red wave in red states equals stats quo. Republicans sigh of relief at outcome. It also means Kavenaugh becomes the next Supreme court judge. If Sessions is out then who ever his replacement is quickly confirmed. And the Democratic leadership is dishonest about it’s impeachment objectives. As if they were honest they know the American people will ensure impeachment will not happen.

  67. 67

    @23 And a good union that works for its members. Nor should public employees be fired for their political beliefs.

  69. 69

    @27 Rhetorical: DIALOGISMUS and acknowledgement he has no argument, and swishes to hide that by making a personal attack.

  70. 70

    Could be he has a real life and is not a paid speaker, nor retired like yourself, hopefully sharing your opinions generously, or are you making 5 cents a word?

  72. 72

    @59 So now the Republicans in congress will have to act, or have the political cover to tell supporters the President tried and provided cover. Congress actually passed pesky legislation most states did not pass decades ago.

  73. 73

    @71 Probably but I gotta give RR a low hanging branch. This will mean he will not actually respond, not that he will anyways. And yes Grammer there is no such word as gotta. and grammer is not a proper noun that should be capitalized.

    If you are going to be my personal editor it would help for you to tell me before time has run out that I might need to make a spelling correction. Too late now to do squat.

  74. 74

    Blue wave in the blue states and red wave in red states equals stats quo.

    Go with that Trailerbilly math and you’ll do half our work for us.

    Super duper top secret hint: state by state congressional contests are not “winner-take-all” like the electoral college battles. “Blue states” are more populous. The demographics for you Child Molesters is all downhill. Texas, Florida and even Georgia are steadily trending and have been for years. Remember W in FL in 2000 hand counting votes? Now a filthy dirty half socialist hippie from El Paso has drawn even with an incumbent also ran Republican Presidential contender in Texas. All the most populous states are either blue trending swings or solid blue. That makes for a substantial majority of House seats.

    The highly vulnerable Republican seats in WA, CA, and NY alone are more than half what is needed to flip the House.

    Thanks to rawdogging sticky porn stars, massive election finance fraud, Russian conspiracies, dozens of PornAborshuns, dozens of incumbent Roypublicans quitting, serial finger rape, linoleum dungeons filled with sobbing Guatemalan toddlers, Klan Tiki Torch rallies, GOP Senate candidates fingering pre-teens behind the Waffle Hut, Roypublican incumbents stealing from campaign funds to pay for blow and popper fueled weekends in Vegas that they blame on their wives, and the backing of a hooting baboon troop of troglodyte supporters who drop “cunt”-bombs into every sentence they utter, there’s barely a college educated suburban female voter left willing to vote for a Roypublican. The GOP is facing a mid term in which almost 70 Republican held House seats are up for grabs and where each and every one of those vulnerable seats will need about 20 million of combined spending to keep it close. Less than half that much money will be available.

    Even with all the election rigging, Russian tampering, gerrymandering, polling place closures, and voter purges, the math is no longer on your side. Good to see you are as bad at math as you are at patriotism.

  76. 76

    More GOP Trumpism that trolls like Shortbus can be proud of:

    Kelli Ward, Roypublican front runner for the other open AZ Senate seat suggested yesterday that the McCain family had deliberately timed the Senator’s death to hurt her politically.

    Trump won. Everything changed. Elections have consequences. This is really who they are now.

  78. 78

    @62 “That should end this whole farce right there.”

    I have a better idea. We have elections in a little over two months. Let the people decide if they want to continue wallowing in a Republican ocean of ignorance, racism, sexism, and corruption.

  79. 79

    @63 Better minds than you fail to make it past this false equivalency bullshit, so we can’t expect you to.

  80. 80

    @65 Republicans have 13 House seats in California, 8 in New York, and 4 in Washington. If they don’t want them, we’ll take them. We have 193 now and that would get us to 218.

    I don’t think the NRCC is going to hire you as their strategist, Shortbus.

  81. 81

    @68 So if Joe Blow tries to rob you, but your wallet is empty, no crime was committed? That’s what you’re saying.

  82. 82

    @69 In your case, there’s nothing to argue with, because all you post is empty-headed nonsense. Turns out you’re thin-skinned, too, a trait you share with another ignoramus we know.

  83. 83

    @70 No, I’m not paid. In fact, I regularly pay Goldy to use his blog.

    (Somebody has to help him pay the rent on this dung heap, so he doesn’t get stuck with it all.)

    I shoot down idiot trolls like you, the doctor, and the loon because it’s my patriotic duty. Tat-tat-tat-tat. Eeeeeeeee, crash, burn.

    Like I said, thin-skinned. And not even original with your limp-wristed comebacks.

  84. 84

    @72 Uh, that was about federal employees; states have nothing to do with it. I explicitly said “federal employees” in my comment @59, so there’s no excuse for this confusion on your part.

    You can’t expect other posters to debate you if you can’t do any better than this.

  85. 85

    @73 I don’t actually know what Grammar is talking about, because you spelled “corporatist” correctly in #63, but it seems you can’t spell “Grammar” correctly even when he shows you how.

    That’s what dictionaries are for. You don’t even need to buy one; these days, you can look up words online. It’s a good habit to get into, especially when trolling a blog full of people with advanced degrees whose notion of fun is sniping at illiterates who compound their ignorance of facts and failures of logic with spelling mistakes.

  86. 86

    @74 Well, Cruz is easy pickings, or at least should be in a rational world. It takes irrational voters for someone like him to get elected to the Senate in the first place. There are plenty of those, as Roy Moore’s near-miss demonstrates.

  87. 87

    @75 Liberty University is like Fox News, you go there to get brainwashed, not to seek truth or knowledge. Everyone knows what the deal is in those places, so if you won’t want to be indoctrinated with that particular worldview, don’t go there.

    Falwell has as much right to censor as Goldy does. The difference between these two gentlemen is that one is afraid of free and open debate, and the other isn’t.

    The obverse of Goldy’s refusal to censor, and his policy of opening his forum to trolls like you (something no rightwing blogger does), is that I have no obligation to “debate” you by responding to silly posts that are a complete waste of time.

  88. 88

    I miss the loon and his mindless hate. I sure wish he had listened to me when I tried to get it through his thick skull that hanging out with white supremacists would lead to trouble.

  89. 89

    @76 Yeah, that’s really going to screw up Kavanaugh’s nomination, too, by enabling Arizona’s Republican governor to fill his seat with a Republican WHO WILL VOTE.

    (That was sarcasm, in case anyone missed it.)

    According to Vox, this appointee will hold the seat until 2020, the next date for a special election under Arizona law, because the window for a special election this year closed on May 30.

    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/25/17781526/john-mccain-replacement-arizona-governor-doug-ducey

    Nate Silver expects Gov. Ducey to “land on a replacement within the next two weeks, maybe even sooner,” and “his choice is likely” to be sworn in within days.

    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-john-mccains-death-means-for-the-senate/

    I’ll bet it won’t be Ward, who doesn’t even know how her own state’s elections laws work, and is badly trailing in the pre-primary polls in the race to replace Sen. Flake.

    Nate thinks Gov. Ducey might go with a caretaker appointment and give the nod to Cindy McCain, but he probably can choose anyone he wants to (except himself; he’s not allowed to do that) without worrying about political repercussions, because his own reelection in November is a pretty safe bet.

  90. 90

    @88 Somebody had to be lunch. The lion won’t be satisfied until it has eaten.

  92. 92

    @91 Where was the “good guy with a gun”? Certainly not disarmed. We’d never do that in this country. He must have been on break.

  93. 93

    Little League of the future: Buncha 12-year-old kids playing ball. One team wins, the other loses. Losing pitcher pulls out his Glock and starts blasting away.

    Do you get a feeling this country is sliding downhill?

  94. 94

    “Florida Gov. Rick Scott says President Donald Trump has called him, offering any federal help needed in response to a mass shooting during a video game tournament in Jacksonville.”

    https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/florida/articles/2018-08-26/the-latest-authorities-1-suspect-dead-in-mass-shooting

    Roger Rabbit Commentary: How about some sensible gun control legislation? Nah, not those two guys. But FEMA will send more body bags if Florida runs out.

  95. 95

    Yes, the country and world are sliding downhill toward a global single state, wherein power will be concentrated in a strong-man country, probably China.

    China will be absolutely intolerant of democracy, free speech and any religion or creed whatsoever. Political dissent of any kind will not be tolerated, not even the jokes of comedians. Bad news for Fundamentalists of every stripe.

  96. 96

    @95 Trump seems to be after one-man rule, but I don’t think he’s going to get it.

  97. 97

    96,
    PornSweat’s handlers prefer the Putin “family”. His role is, as always, sales not management.

  99. 99

    Maine Gov. Paul LePage has been taken to a hospital after complaining of “discomfort,” but at this point it doesn’t sound serious.

  100. 100

    Meet the economist behind the one percent’s stealth takeover of America: James Buchanan founded the so-called Virginia school of economics, and won a Nobel Prize in 1986, but few people have heard of him. That’s by design, because his vision for America and humanity — a ruling system based on property supremacy — is truly dark and frightening.

    Buchanan is the intellectual godfather of privatization, vote suppression, and corporatism, all leading to a permanent and entrenched oligarchy. He was major influence on the Koch brothers, who were the primary financial backers of the movement he founded. Koch money has gone into training politicians, lawyers, and academics to propagate Buchanan’s philosophy into the mainstream of American life.

    “Duke historian Nancy MacLean contends that his philosophy is so stark that even young libertarian acolytes are only introduced to it after they have accepted the relatively sunny perspective of Ayn Rand. … If Americans really knew what Buchanan thought and promoted, and how destructively his vision is manifesting under their noses, it would dawn on them how close the country is to a transformation most would not even want to imagine, much less accept. … While Americans grapple with Donald Trump’s chaotic presidency, we may be missing the … changes that are taking place ….

    “Buchanan, MacLean notes, was … deeply suspicious of any form of state action that channels resources to the public. Why should the … government … force the wealthy to pay for goods and programs that served ordinary citizens and the poor? … Buchanan’s view of human nature was distinctly dismal. … [He] insisted that people were … driven by venal self-interest. Crediting people with altruism or a desire to serve others was ‘romantic’ fantasy: politicians and government workers were out for themselves, and so, for that matter, were teachers, doctors, and civil rights activists. They wanted to control others and wrest away their resources …. The people who needed protection were property owners … Buchanan wanted a private governing elite of corporate power that was wholly released from public accountability.

    “Suppressing voting, changing legislative processes so that a normal majority could no longer prevail, sowing public distrust of government institutions … were tactics toward the goal. But the Holy Grail was [altering] the Constitution [to] … secure the power of the wealthy in a way that no politician could ever challenge. …

    “The Virginia school … differs from other economic schools in a marked reliance on abstract theory rather than mathematics or empirical evidence. … [Buchanan] saw that his vision would never come to fruition by focusing on who rules. It was much better to focus on the rules themselves …. MacLean describes how [he] developed a grand project to train operatives to staff institutions funded by like-minded tycoons, most significantly Charles Koch, who became interested in his work in the ‘70s …. Koch, whose mission was to save capitalists like himself from democracy, found the ultimate theoretical tool in the work of [Buchanan]. …

    “Koch preferred Buchanan to Milton Friedman … Koch realized that Buchanan’s ideas — transmitted through stealth and deliberate deception, as MacLean amply documents — could help take government down through incremental assaults that the media would hardly notice. [Koch] knew that the project was extremely radical, even a ‘revolution’ in governance, but he talked like a conservative to make his plans sound more palatable. …

    ” … MacLean recounts that Buchanan and his associate Henry Manne, a founding theorist of libertarian economic approaches to law, focused on such affronts to capitalists as environmentalism and public health and welfare, expressing eagerness to dismantle Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare as well as kill public education because it tended to foster community values. Feminism had to go, too ….

    ” … [I]n South America, Buchanan … set his ideas in motion by helping a bare-knuckles dictatorship ensure the permanence of much of the radical transformation it inflicted on a country that had been a beacon of social progress. … Buchanan’s role in the … Pinochet government … has been underestimated partly because unlike Milton Friedman, who advertised his activities, Buchanan had the shrewdness to keep his involvement quiet. With his guidance, the military junta deployed public choice economics …. The dictator’s human rights abuses and pillage of the country’s resources did not seem to bother Buchanan, MacLean argues, so long as the wealthy got their way.

    “‘Despotism may be the only organizational alternative to the political structure that we observe,’ [Buchanan] had written …. If [you’re] wondering about the end result of the Virginia school philosophy, [Buchanam] helpfully spelled it out … shrinking big government is not really the point. The oligarchs require a government with tremendous new powers so that they can bypass the will of the people. This … requires greatly expanding police powers ‘to control the resultant popular anger'” and filling privately-run prisons with citizens and immigrants alike. It also includes gutting public education, retirement plans, eliminating consumer and worker rights, and replacing courts with arbitration agreements.

    It even includes poisoning children: “MacLean notes that in Flint, Michigan, Americans got a taste of what the emerging oligarchy will look like …. There, the Koch-funded Mackinac Center pushed for legislation that would allow the governor to take control of communities facing emergency and put unelected managers in charge. In Flint, one such manager switched the city’s water supply to a polluted river, but the Mackinac Center’s lobbyists ensured that the law was fortified by protections against lawsuits that poisoned inhabitants might bring. Tens of thousands of children were exposed to lead [poisoning] ….

    “Tyler Cowen has provided an economic justification for this kind of brutality, stating that where it is difficult to get clean water, private companies should take over and make people pay for it. ‘This includes giving them the right to cut off people who don’t—or can’t—pay their bills’ …. To many this sounds grotesquely inhumane, but … Buchanan [thought] … people who ‘failed to foresee and save money for their future needs’ are to be treated … subordinate members of the species, akin to …animals ….

    “Buchanan was not a dystopian novelist. He was a Nobel Laureate whose sinister logic exerts vast influence over America’s trajectory. … The rules of the game are now clear.

    “Research like MacLean’s provides hope that toxic ideas like Buchanan’s may finally begin to face public scrutiny. … ‘The United States is now at one of those historic forks in the road whose outcome will prove as fateful as those of the 1860s, the 1930s, and the 1960s,’ writes MacLean. ‘To value liberty for the wealthy minority above all else and enshrine it in the nation’s governing rules, as … Buchanan … called for and the Koch network is achieving, … is to consent to an oligarchy in all but the outer husk of representative form.’”

    https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-economist-behind-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america

    Roger Rabbit Commentary: The Republican Party has been taken over, not by Donald Trump, but by Charles Koch; and the takeover occurred long before Trump came along. Trump is merely one of Koch’s many facilitators, albeit more visible than the rest. For years, I’ve needled Republicans on this blog by suggesting they want to reinstate slavery. It seems this isn’t tongue in cheek at all, because the new order that Koch wants to inflict on us is slavery in everything but name. Workers who must take whatever wages are doled to them, women who have no freedom over their bodies, children forced to drink polluted water — are not free. They are slaves. Buchanan’s vision, and Koch’s action plan, differ from Hitler’s program only in that their program is based on a wealthy elite instead of a master race ruling the rest of humanity, and imprisoning and murdering people at will. It took a world war to free humanity from Hitler’s dark vision; what will it take to spare America and its future children from Buchanan’s and Koch’s dark designs?

  102. 102

    We have lost a great statesman with Senator McCain. He could work across the aisle, something we have lost.

  103. 103

    @102 He had his faults, but looks like an angel compared to the rest of the GOP, in this day and age when a Republican being able to say with a straight face that he’s not a groper or child molester is a resume bullet point.

  104. 104

    103)Indeed.

    I liked how he handled the carpetbagger accusation in his first Congressional Campaign.

  105. 105

    @104 The Hanoi Hilton should’ve had its own congressional district. A lot of Americans lived there.

  106. 106

    @100 There’s your vast rightwing conspiracy, although that’s a bit of a misnomer because most rightwingers aren’t in on it, just the Kochs, Scaifes, Adelsons, Mercers, etc., and Fox guys. Hillary was right all along. The GOP pols are employees working on commission.

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