The Long Road Out

 The idiot in the White House believes that it's a good idea for 17-year old kids to load up with weapons and drive to minority communities to defend property.  He believes that such a kid, after a two-hour drive filled with intentionality, has a right to a self-defense claim when he unloads his weapons into a crowd.  So, I want to make it absolutely clear:  you won't even let 17 year olds into our military or secret police.  Now, without any training, you want them on the streets, near schools, and on the fringes of agitated citizens? What the serious fuck.  You, Donald Trump, are a dangerous accessory to murder.  Here's a baseline principle: no teenager should have access to weapons.  This would reduce the teen suicide rate in the United States by half in an instant. It would reduce the number of women murdered by young boyfriends. And it would save our Democracy.  As has always been the case in the United States, people who reject the gove...

Bright-shiny-object of the second: Guiliani says truth is not truth.   Every since Rudy reemerged from the dustbins of celebrity, he's been short a few brain cells.  But, since he's a celebrity, he can't stop sharing his impairment. Recall that his first effort to ride on Trump's celebrity machine was his insipid and manic assertion that he represented Don in the Stormy Daniels' non-disclosure fee.  It's hard to know.   Trump had corrected Guiliani three times by tweet in the first 24 hours of Rudy's cool new client engagement (has the White House actually written any checks to Rudy?   Wow, that's pretty low value for taxpayer dollars.   He's senile!).  I've never loved the Guiliani brand.   Most people forget about his admirable U.S. Attorney career where he really did get some bad guys (remember the Pizza Connection RICO trial?   No one outside Guiliani's office ever used RICO as effectively since, as the Galahad's sword it was i...

So, yesterday the non-partisan committee released their report on executive branch involvement in terror.   It's unequivocal--as one national news source concluded: "It is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture," the 11-member task force, assembled by the nonpartisan Constitution Project think tank, said in their 577-page report. The scathing critique of methods used under the Republican administration of former President  George W. Bush  also sharpened the focus on the plight of inmates at Guantanamo, which Bush opened and his Democratic successor has failed to close." This report is currently number 7 on Yahoo! news feeds--it hasn't gone much higher--the top four slots now being held by various reported rumors about the Boston Marathon bombings. I'm not saying, but isn't there a pretty long history of violent news-hogging acts occurring within hours of reports that damn the government?   Certainly that's bee...