The Two-Party System Myth

I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat. ~ Will Rogers

One of the great American myths is that we have a two-party system of government. The recent chaos in the House of Representatives is graphic proof that Republicans are not the party in charge but rather a ruling coalition and and fractious one at that. In a parliamentary system, like the Israeli Knesset, the Republican coalition would have four identifiable coalition partners. Because of the myth they are a single party they don't have proper names or symbols attached to them, which I shall now correct.

Three Percent Party - They used to be called the Tea Party but the term "three percenters" is becoming more popular. In the House they call themselves the Freedom Caucus and make up 8% of the body. They are straight up revolutionists like the Trotskites in the old Soviet Union. Their slogan is, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Rockefeller Party - The oldest faction in the coalition they have been around pretty much unchanged for over 150 years. They represent the interests of Wall Street, K Street, and the Chamber of Commerce to the exclusion of anything else. They are about 20% of the House chamber and have been choosing coalition leaders for years. At war with the Three Percent Party, they have pledged to spend $100 million to drive them out of the coalition. They are consistently pro-war, any war anywhere. War means profits. Their slogan is an old one, "The business of America is business." Alternative slogan: "He who has the gold makes the rules."

American Nationalist Party - Once a faction of the Democratic coalition known as "Dixiecrats," they moved over to the Republican coalition in the late 1960's. Notable converts were Strom Thurmond and Jessie Helms. They have expanded their appeal in recent years by supporting a platform of fear of and hatred towards any and all non-whites. Some 15% of the House of Representatives, Donald Trump is their presidential champion. Their slogan is, "Keep America American."

Party of God - Advocates a Protestant version of sharia, where all laws are vetted for their religiosity but not any religion or every religion but just their own version of the Christian religion. They support any war that involves killing non-Christians. They make up about 15% of House seats, Ben Carson carries their flag in the presidential race. Their slogan is, "We will live by the law of God and no other law."


Once you realize the Republicans are a coalition of four separate parties fighting for power everything starts making sense.

The Most Pathetic Holiday

I keep forgetting that Columbus Day is a holiday. Today, many Americans are proudly waving an Italian flag who tomorrow will be attending a Trump rally bitterly griping about Hispanics and the Mexican flag.

On this day we celebrate...

an imbecile who miscalculated the circumference of the Earth by several thousand miles. The actual size of the Earth had be accurately calculated by the Greeks 1800 years before Columbus was born and any educated European knew what is was.

a lucky bastard who accidentally bumped into a couple of huge continents that were already known about. Had they not been there he would have ignobly died at sea mourned by nobody except King Ferdinand's bookkeeper. He didn't even discover anything new. The Vikings found America 500 years before Columbus got around to it. Portuguese navigation charts dated 1424 showed Newfoundland and some of the Antilles islands.

an asshole whose first act in the New World was to kidnap some native islanders to force them to guide him to gold. That began a centuries long campaign of slavery and genocide.

the wonders of European civilization. Racial hatred, religious persecution, all the innovated torture techniques of the Spanish Inquisition, the wholesale slaughter of European-style warfare, mass rape, and...

a massive panoply of new diseases. Bubonic plague, chicken pox, cholera, diphtheria, influenza, measles, and scarlet fever were all imported by the Old World visitors. King of the diseases was small pox. The pox coexisted with Europeans for hundreds of years, a certain societal immunity had developed. In the New World, the pox found a virgin population with no immunities and wasted no time ravaging the population. Disease is estimated to have killed over 90% of the native population of the New World.

Syphilis. All that mass rape allowed the New World to pass a present along to Europe. A night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury. Not exactly balancing the scales but some slight revenge.

The 'Burn It Down' Party

The German legislative chamber (Reichstag), February 27, 1933.

"Burn it down" is a popular phrase with radical Republicans and Tea Party anarchists. Their goal is to destroy the entire governmental system of the United States so it can be rebuilt with them in charge. Hence their repeated attempts to shut down the government. They have impossible dreams of impeaching the entire executive branch and all but three Supreme Court justices that can only be achieved if their small, rump faction gains absolute power.

When you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

This quote also came to mind this week. House Republicans came face-to-face with the abyss this week. Some recoiled in hysterical horror, others reacted with maniacal glee. Many pundits are outlining the procedural options, I want to concentrate on Republicans psychological options.

• Paralysis - Cling desperately to the status quo, limping along still hobbled by their extremists. Staggering wildly from gridlock to gridlock. If Boehner remains Speaker or Ryan is elected with no votes to spare that will be the sign that Republicans are frozen in their panic.
• Seek Help - Reach across the aisle to form a ruling coalition with moderate Democrats that excises the radical cancer from the Republican body politic. Rep. Charles Dent (R-PA) suggested that recourse. Even the threat of this might cower the anarchists into order. I think Republicans are too terrified to act boldly or courageously.
• Surrender - Give the extremists the power they want. Let the infected Republican tail wag the dog. Partial surrender will just be the first step to total surrender.

The Reichstag burned a week before parliamentary elections. Officially, a Communist was blamed but there is evidence that the Nazis burned it down. March elections put the Nazis into the ruling coalition but still lacking a majority. Within weeks Hitler had turned that partial success into total victory. The rest is history.

Carson's School Shooting Strategy

Ben Carson giggles when he describes how he would handle a man with a gun. He would lead a gang rush of the gunman. It would look something like this.

Carson is very brave with other people's lives. Carson was never a Navy Seal or Army Ranger. He never served in the military in any capacity. When honored with the offer of a full scholarship appointment to West Point he refused it.

If faced with the situation I have no doubt Carson would be screaming for everyone to rush the gunman. But he would do it from behind, possibly hiding under a desk.

Bombing Hospitals

The US bombed an Afghan hospital recently. It is a war crime to attack a hospital so, of course, it is a common occurrence in war. Hospitals are soft, undefended, targets so they are easy to hit. Hospitals may have wounded combatants so they are an easy target to up the body count. Killing and wounding doctors and nurses means a town's defenders cannot get medical aid. Also, civilians rely on hospitals, destroying them is an effective terror tactic.

Some examples of war crimes against hospitals committed by militaries.

Nazis and Allies (WWII)
At the start of the war, Germany bomb the Polish town of Wielun. One of the first building to be destroyed was the town's hospital. Allied and Nazi terror bombing of civilian areas of cities included the destruction of hospitals. Defenders of these militaries call it collateral damage due to the imprecise nature of the weapons of the time however there is evidence of the deliberate targeting of hospitals. In the Pacific both the US and Japan attacked clearly marked hospital ships - two Japanese hospitals were sunk.

Bosnia and Serbia
During the Yugoslav Civil War, hospitals were a prime target. Serbs deliberately shelled them in Sarajevo and Zagreb. NATO attacked 20 hospitals during its 78 day bombing campaign against Serbia.

Gaza
In 2014, Israel announced their intention to bombard the Al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip. It was one of three hospitals deliberately targeted by the IDF during their war against Hamas. Israel, of course, claimed all the attacks were accidents.

Al-Shifa hospital

Al-Shifa hospital

Al-Shifa hospital

Syria
Russia bombed a hospital in Hama, Syria last week. Last year, Syrian forces bombed a hospital in Aleppo. They are but two of several Syrian hospitals to have been attacked.

Iraq
In 2003, US forces used their smart bomb technology to blow up a maternity hospital in Baghdad. In 2015, the Iraqi Air Force bombed another maternity hospital, this time in Fallujah. In between, many other hospitals have been shut down due to the tactical application of explosives.

Chechnya
Both Russia and Chechen rebels have attacked the others hospitals. The rebels have been more aggressive in targeting hospitals.

Afghanistan
Again, all sides see hospitals as easy targets. The Taliban has attacked hospitals as well as the Americans.

Conclusion
The American attack on the hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan was deliberate. The Afghan government wanted it attacked and the US military was more than willing to comply. The context of events and the weapon used are proof of that. The US knew of the hospital and its location. Afghan forces had previously invaded the hospital. The AC-130 gunship that carried out the attack is a line-of-sight weapon. It has to see the target to hit it, hence it had to have seen the target was a hospital. The conflicting statements by the Pentagon is merely clumsy ass covering.

No truthful reason for the attack will every be made public but the reason can be easily deduced. The Afghan government viewed the hospital as providing aid and comfort to wounded Taliban fighters and civilian Taliban supporters. They wanted the facility destroyed to ease their attempt to reconquer Kunduz.

US military personnel consider the Afghan people "sub-human, coward scum" to directly quote from a soldier's Facebook page. So, bombing an Afghan hospital is less concerning to them than if they had been ordered to attack a veterinary hospital.

Fallujah

Fallujah

South Carolina Floods

Some random thoughts on the South Carolina floods.

How Capricious Thou Art

Suggestion: Trust somebody else.

Lots of people are placing the blame for this once a millennium flooding on God. Michelle Bachmann says the floods are punishment for the United States not being sufficiently pro-Israel. Michelle doesn't explain why God would choose the rightmost notch of the Bible Belt for His wraith. Pat Robertson says gay marriage is the reason and God will eventually flood all fifty states - Texas was first, then South Carolina. Given the politics of both of the states He was more likely punishing them for opposed marriage equality.

By the way, Pat, there will probably be flooding in California this winter. I don't have to be a religious prophet to predict this. I just need to know the nature of the cyclical oscillations of water temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.

Two Feet

This sandwich is two feet tall.

Parts of South Carolina had over two feet of rain. It's hard to picture how much rain that is. It is two years worth of rain for Southern California. I did the math, enough rain fell on the city of Charleston, SC this week to supply their 130,000 residents with all their water needs for a decade. Except, it all ran out to sea.

Water, Water, Everywhere, Nor Any Drop to Drink

All that rain means, ironically, that the state capitol, Columbia, has no water. Flood waters breached a levee, draining the reservoir that supplies the city with water. I wanted to make a joke here but can't think of one. If God is responsible (see above) than that bastard has a truly sick sense of humor.

Gloria Threw Up on the Bus

Sic transit gloria mundi -- Thus passes the glory of the world. Or, things that make me want to vomit.

Presidential Candidates Urge War With Russia

Carly Fiorina and Hillary Clinton have suggested establishing "no-fly" zones over parts of Syria and threatened to shoot down any Russian planes that violate them. Of course, such an action would quickly lead to war with Russia and the slaughter on the plain of Megiddo that fundamentalist Christians so passionately long for. What is it about lady politicians that they have to prove themselves as a potential Commander-in-Chief by being crazy-ass belligerents?

Massacre Profiteers

As sure as radioactive fallout follows a nuclear explosion, gun dealers jump on every mass shooting to market their most profitable firearms. These merchants of death have souls so befouled even Satan would reject them.

To Protect and Serve and Kill

American police continue their war of attrition against the American people. Police killed 101 people last month. Among them was an unarmed man in a wheelchair and an unarmed man suspected of passing a forged prescription, a misdemeanor. There were three cases where police killed two people during the same incident. Police must feel they have to double up their killings to make their quotas.

Friday Night Deaths

Three high schoolers died of football injuries this month bringing the total for the year to five. On average, 12 American footballers at all levels die every year. And many, many more have crippling brain and body injuries that lead to premature death. Given how much we love shooting people, having a national pastime that kills children is perfectly consistent.

A Well Regulated Militia, Being Necessary to the Security of a Free State

Another day, another mass shooting.
Another round of worthless prayers for the victims.
Another series of statements from rational people that something must be done.
More rants from gun fetishists that the only solution is more guns, more guns, more guns!!

MSNBC interviewed a student at Umpqua College last night who was on campus and conceal carrying a firearm. He and his buddies briefly looked for the gunman before they realized if police saw them wandering the campus carrying guns the authorities would shoot them where they stood. The "good guys with a gun" hid until rescued by police.

Gun fetishists love saying "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Guns just facilitate the hell out of the process. A gun makes it possible for a toddler to kill his mother. Guns makes it easier for someone momentarily despondent to kill themselves (20,000 Americans a year commit suicide with a gun). It would take ninja skills to kill a dozen people with a knife but any dolt can do it with a gun.

There is a rational, fully Constitutional way to reduce this insane gun violence. No, it won't stop all lunatics from getting guns (drunks drive cars). It won't fully keep guns from criminals (crooks steal cars). But it will make it more likely that guns are in the hands of responsible parties trained to use them. The word "regulated" is right there in the Second Amendment. Use it!

But it won't happen. There is too much money in the "guns for everyone" movement. A substantial portion of the population are married to their weapons and I do mean in a sexually deviant way. Gun fetishists act as if regulation is not symbolic but actual castration.

There will be another mass shooting next week, and the week following. Hell, there will probably be a mass shooting somewhere in the United States today, and tomorrow and the next day. And two on Sunday. Ubiquitous guns is one reason the United States is far from the greatest nation on Earth.

Haggen: How to Kill a Grocery Store, Part 2

I wrote about this six months ago. Haggen, a small regional grocery chain, tried to nonuple its size by expanding from 18 to 164 stores almost overnight. At the time I described it as an insane, doomed to fail, enterprise. As predicted, Haggen is declaring bankruptcy and will close almost all the stores they had just bought.

What Happened
When Albertson's bought the Vons grocery chain the SEC ordered Albertson's to divest themselves of 146 stores to prevent them from having a non-competitive monopoly. Haggen bought the whole kit and caboodle for $1.4 billion and quickly converted the stores to their brand. Haggen's first impression was horrible. Their prices were shockingly high and their advertising almost non-existent. Customers, including me, stampeded to other stores. Haggen has been bleeding red ink for months, losing  over $400,000 a day by one estimate.

At the beginning of September Haggen filed for bankruptcy with plans to close 27 stores. By the end of the month they want to close another 100 stores.

Why? - Theory #1: Stupid as Shit

Comvest board meeting

Haggen is owned by a Florida private equity management firm, The Comvest Group, which had no experience in groceries let alone the competitive California market. They screwed up everything that could possibly be screwed up.

• They didn't do any due diligence, they just bought everything Albertson's wanted to unload (i.e. all their under-performing stores).
• They didn't do any market research. They set prices more on whim than on what is competitive for the region.
• They didn't hold sales or advertise assuming, they like us in Spokane so they will love us in Los Angeles.
• With bankruptcy they initially hoped to sell their stores for ten cents on the dollar but now admit there are no buyers out there.
• And they naively relied on their competitor, Albertson's, to provide brotherly love and help them through the rough patches. Albertson's treated Haggen as the competition to be crushed into the dust.

Haggen is suing Albertson's. I've read the lawsuit and it's mostly complaints that Albertson's has been mean by holding sales, undercutting Haggen prices, and not stocking the stores with fresh food before leaving.

Why? - Theory #2: Crooked as Fuck

First, let me assure Comvest Group attorneys that I am not saying they did anything illegal. Crooked, yes. Illegal, no.

This theory suggest Haggen was trying to fail the business and that Comvest Group did what come naturally to private equity firms - fuck everybody for fun and profit. This theory suggests that Comvest bailed Albertson's out for future considerations. They would overpay for unwanted stores and run up a shit load of debt from suppliers, vendors, and employees. Stick the little people with the debt by filing for bankruptcy (from the Donald Trump School of Financial Fuckery). File a lawsuit so the settlement can distribute the financial booty equitably. And close the stores so Albertson's get the monopoly the SEC was trying to avoid. Also, by forcing thousands of unionized workers into unemployment this process has kneecapped the Food and Commercial Workers Union.

Win-win for the millionaires; lose-lose for everybody else.

Why Can't We Find Extraterrestrials?

The report of liquid water on Mars, and the increased probability that life will be found on the planet, reminded me of this old article hoping humans are alone in the universe because the alternative is too terrifying. The search of extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has been going on for decades will no success. Why?

We're Too Dumb

There are intelligent creatures on Earth - apes, dolphins, elephants, ravens. While we can train them to understand us and even teach them languages so they can communicate with us, we have never been able to understand their languages. If we can't understand dolphinese in the wild how can we hope to understand an extraterrestrial. Evidence of extraterrestrials may be all around us but we are too stupid to recognize it. This is the most likely answer.

They Killed Themselves

This is the Great Filter theory mentioned by Nick Bostrom. Any civilization that achieves interstellar travel would have to be both aggressively expansionist and an aggressive user of resources. Aggressive species are, necessarily, warrior species. Like humanity, a dominate warrior species will likely develop weapons capable of destroying their planet's ecosystem. Likewise, rapacious consumption of resources can deplete the planet and collapse the civilization before space travel can be achieved.

Why Leave?

Civilizations that don't want to kill each other or rape their planet live in Nirvana. What would motivate them to venture into the vast emptiness of a hostile galaxy? If they are not seeking to pillage and conquer, why go anywhere?

God Zaps Them

The universe is a dangerous place. The other Great Filter barrier is the universe smites planets every few billion years. An advanced civilization might be able to defend itself from asteroids or super volcanoes, but there are things that no civilization can survive. Take Gamma Ray bursts. When a star goes supernova it releases a beam of gamma rays that, quite literally, will fry any planet in its path. Gamma rays travel at the speed of light, there is no seeing it coming. Estimates are they happened in the Milky Way some 5,000 times since the Earth was formed. It is suggested a gamma ray burst struck the Earth 450 million years ago causing a mass extinction.

Or...
Reptilian shape-shifting extraterrestrials are among us now and Barack Obama is their king.

Ben Carson's Religion

Carson's obsession with Islam makes his own religion fair game. The only thing most people know about it is that they consider Saturday to be their holy day. But there is much more.

Seventh-day Adventist - Beginning
His faith is one of those American religious inventions like Mormonism and Jehovah's Witness. It developed in the mid-19th century out of the Millerite Movement where William Miller predicted the Second Coming on Oct. 22, 1844. When it didn't happen (the Great Disappointment) the Millerites splintered. One faction decided that Jesus had in fact returned on that date just not to Earth but to the heavenly sanctuary.

What religion will grow from our latest Disappointment?

It's sorta like Jesus had taken a really long vacation. I guess getting crucified really takes it out of a god. Anyhow, Jesus came back ready to work as Perry Mason in the ultimate courtroom procedural.

Investigative Judgment

A major tenet is that everyone who ever lived has a book. Since 1844 there has been a court trial with Satan prosecuting and Jesus defending. Everything is examined. This was only supposed to take a few years but apparently there have been more motions, evidence, and witnesses than expected, so we are in the second century of trials and the court backlog is only getting bigger.

Creationism

I don't care if Carson is a doctor, he is still a scientific idiot. Adventists are Young Earth creationists. They believe that the Earth is 6,000 years old, that it was created in six literal days, and that dinosaurs and humans coexisted.
Cereal

Adventists are health nuts, over a third are vegetarians. They also hate masturbation, believing it pollutes both body and soul. These views famously merged in the person of John Kellogg who invented a new category of foods, including Corn Flakes and Grapenuts, to keep people's bowels moving and right hand still.

Presidential Candidates: Historic Parallels (Dems)

This is more difficult for me than doing Republicans. I like Democrats but my general snarkiness may not show that.

Hillary Clinton

Hillary is Bill and Bill is Hillary. Both are mostly great progressives. Both have too many ties to the industrial part of the military-industrial complex. And both are surgically attacked to Wall Street hedge fundies and bankers.

Bernie Sanders

In the early years of the 20th century, Eugene Debs ran for President four times on the Socialist Party ticket. He was beloved by workers and violently hated by wealthy industrialists and bankers. In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson had Debs arrested for sedition. His crime? He was accused of opposing World War I and criticizing President Wilson. (Were these still crimes I'd be in prison today.)

He was sentenced to ten years in prison for being an opposition politician. In 1920, he ran for President from his prison cell. The government banned him from appearing on the ballot but he still got over 900,000 votes as a write-in candidate.

Joe Biden

Joe reminds me of Martin Van Buren. He was universally regarded as a nice guy. He was Vice-President to Andrew Jackson and ran for President in 1836 to carry on the policies of his predecessor. Martin was a rather poor public speaker and something of a nebbish. He served only one term.

Martin O'Malley

That is Denali (nee Mount McKinley). William McKinley was an Irish-American and favored military adventurism; so is O'Malley. Unlike McKinley, O'Malley is not cozy with big bankers and not a vile racist.

Presidential Candidates: Historic Parallels

Who in history do the Republican candidates remind me of?

Donald Trump

Donald is a three-headed viper. He has the intellect of Warren Harding(l), universally regarded as the dumbest man to ever sit in the Oval Office. Like Trump, Harding was a womanizer, at least Trump marries some of his flings. Harding used illegal substances while in office - he was a drunk during Prohibition. Watching Trump, it is easy to believe he does a couple lines of cocaine before going on stage.

In the middle is Huey Long, the Kingfisher. Populist popinjay, Long campaigned on a platform of soaking the rich with a folksy persona that appealed to a certain type of voter.

Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big enough majority in any town? ~ Mark Twain

On the right is Benito Mussolini, fascist dictator of Italy. Like Trump, he was media savvy and a showman. Like Trump, he made outlandish promises to restore his country's imperial greatness. And also like Trump, he had a rubber face that made weird expressions that the public, somehow, found endearing.

Carly Fiorina

Carly's doppelganger is Roscoe Conkling (in red above) who ran for the Republican nomination for President in  1876. Physically, they are nothing alike. Beside gender, Roscoe was a big man. He got his start in politics as a Tammany Hall thug who would beat up anyone suggesting reforming political corruption. Roscoe believed in patronage - to the winner belong the spoils. He hated the civil service and wanted the President to have the power to fire any government employee he wanted. Roscoe was the poster-boy for corrupt politicians throughout the second half of the 19th century.

Carly wants to fire tens of thousands of government workers. Her business record is rife with corruption - circumventing sanctions to sell HP products to the Iran government and using debt to generate phony sales growth while at Lucent.

Ben Carson

Carson's holier than thou campaign strategy reminds me of the first televangelist, Bishop Fulton Sheen. Bishop Sheen never ran for President but he did think of himself as a kingmaker. He flirted with fascism in the 1930's. He felt non-Christians were corrupting the nation and a threat to Christianity. Both Carson and Sheen were soft-spoken men with the stench of religious bigotry about them.

Jeb! Bush
Is his older brother George without the charisma.

Ted Cruz

Cruz reminds me of Rudolf Hess. Both were hate filled, well spoken, more than a little insane, and thought themselves more popular than they actually are. Terrifyingly, they look a lot alike. It's like Cruz is Hess, reincarnated.

Scott Walker

That's Deputy Dawg. A not very lovable oaf, swollen with his own sense of self-importance, that the rest of the world considers a pathetic clown. I thought about going with Pat Paulsen but Pat was way more popular than Scott who is down to asterisk in the polls.

Marco Rubio

I almost forgot Marco, mostly because he is eminently forgettable. Marco reminds me of Calvin "Silent Cal" Coolidge. I don't think he has said anything the least bit interesting. For all I know, Marco has never said a word. He is currently leading the race of the people with at least a few seconds of government experience so I guess there is something to being young, cute, and boring.

The Debate

I tried to watch. I really did. I guess I'm not a political junkie.

I stopped watching presidential debates now that they are produced by the TLC channel. Sort of a mash-up of 19 Kids and Counting and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. But I did try this time.

I tuned in a little late and caught Scott Walker in the middle of his prayer to Saint Ronald the Reagan. Overwhelmed by a mixture of boredom and revulsion, I turned it off 15 seconds later. I felt guilty, like maybe I hadn't given it a fair shot so, a half-hour later, I turned it back on. This time Ben Carson was talking about something, I don't know what he said because I quickly slipped into a coma.

After that, fearing for my health, I decided to do what I have in the past and rely on pundits, blogs, and Twitter for the highlights.

Jeb on Point
I predict the moment that will get the most laughs on late night TV is the group photo when Jeb Bush stood on his tiptoes to make himself taller than Donald Trump. It's a kindergarten move that I predict will have a longer life that any of the words spoken.

Tapper as Don King
The consensus is that Jake Tapper didn't act as a debate referee but as a fight promoter. He spent the evening trying to get people to fight the schoolyard bully (Trump) and mostly succeeded. It makes for more entertaining television than thoughtful discussions of important national issues. It also makes Stephen Colbert's "Hungry for Power Games" skit frighteningly accurate.

Carly Won
Everyone from National Review to DailyKos agree that Carly Fiorina won solely because she forced the bully to back down because he was afraid to hit a woman on live TV. Some think that will make her the Great-Not-Trump Hope for the GOP establishment.

Carson: Nice or Wuss
Ben Carson stood out as the only person to not do a turn in the mud wrestling pit with Trump. While being the uber nice guy will appeal to some, the notoriously belligerent GOP base hate weakness and, for them, being nice is the ultimate weakness.

I couldn't resist putting this photo here.

Rubio: "I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire."
Marco Rubio made a joke about the California drought that landed like a proverbial lead balloon. Sure, no Republican is going to win the state but, Marco, whoever wrote that joke for you needs to be fired immediately. I mean, insensitive much.

Who Lost?
No consensus. The answer depends entirely on who the pundit supported going in. Some say Trump lost, others that he won. Trump got the most air time, by a large amount. That made him the sun around which all the lesser candidates revolved. I suspect the ultimate losers were the people being ignored. Scott Walker got less than half the air time of Trump and, according to reports, made nothing of his brief opportunity. So, Walker is probably the biggest loser.

The Way Donald Talks

When I was very much younger I went through a "write like Hemingway" phase where I tried to keep my writing short and simple. I went so far as to analyze my writing using a readability calculator. This is an abysmally stupid way to write and, thankfully, I outgrew the phase.

Donald Trump's speaking style is bizarre. While Sarah Palin may talk in a convoluted word salad, Trump's speeches are word deserts. His most commonly used word is the shortest word in the English language - I. His sentences are often minified, short and verbless.  He wanders off and gets lost in random non sequiturs like a drunken field mouse.

I ran his announcement speech through a readability calculator and it scored at a third grade level. But more than having a speaking style that would get a D+ as an elementary school essay, Trump also oozes the homespun charm of a medicine show barker.

I seldom (never) agree with rightwing asshole Cal Thomas but he is right to compare Trump to the character Lonesome Rhodes in the 1957 film "A Face In the Crowd."

Trump's speeches are all ego. He doesn't talk about what he will do. He talks about how great he is. He treats his supporters like trained seals. "I toss them a dead fish and they’ll flap their flippers." Lines from the movie sound like Trump speeches. It is remarkable and at the same time utterly terrifying.

Trump's Deportation Plan by the Numbers

Trump has announced that his deportation plans will remove 11 million people from the United States in 18 to 24 months.

Mass deportation of 1,300 striking miners from Lowell, AZ in 1917.

• This is 50 times the capacity of all the federal prisons in the country.
• It is a deportation of 15,000 people a day every day for two years.
• It will take over 30 jumbo jets flying daily to carry this number at a price of $25,000 an hour per plane.
• Or over 300 buses a day.
• Or, 100 cattle cars a day using the Nazi figures of 150 deportees per rail car.

Speaking of Nazis...

Deportations circa 1942

• 11 million, perhaps not coincidentally, is the same number of undesirables (Jews, Gypsies, Catholics, etc.) who were killed during the Holocaust.
• Trump's plan is the equivalent of emptying the Warsaw Ghetto of Jews every month for two years.
• During the height of the Warsaw Ghetto deportations (July 22 to Sept. 12, 1942) the Germans were only able to remove 6,000 people a day. Trump's deportation czar would have to be three times more efficient that SS-Brigadeführer Odilo Globocnik.

To move that much humanity will require extensive logistics. It will require large holding facilities close to transportation hubs where they will be processed and held for some time before their deportation can be arranged. Since they will certainly be unwilling detainees these large holding facilities will have to be ringed with barbed wire with numerous guard towers to prevent escapes. Some place like this...

Buchenwald, Germany 1945.

How Are They Not Stormtroopers?

The thing to remember about all of these incidents is that they are merely the tip of the iceberg. For every such event that reach the news media because the victim's innocence is glaringly obvious there are another hundred incidents that are ignored because the victim is too poor or perhaps guilty of a minor crime. Police have become a fully American version of the Sturmtruppen.

Tennis Star Tackled
Former tennis player James Blake was attacked by six plain-clothed detectives in the lobby of an upscale Manhattan hotel (Grand Hyatt rooms start at $350 a night). He was shoved face first into a wall and battered him. He was mistaken for someone suspected of the incredibly non-violent crime of selling stolen cellphones. You know, all black people look alike.

Police slam a pregnant women to the ground over a scratch
A white woman in Barstow, CA calls police over a barely noticeably scratch her car got in a school parking lot. She blames a black woman who is eight months pregnant. The policeman confronts tth black woman. He slams her to the ground on her stomach, inflicting serious and potentially deadly pain, and arrested her for resisting arrest over the scratch.

Man killed during drug raid on the wrong house
SWAT raided a house in Lebanon, TN. It was a no-knock raid, just bursting through doors unannounced, screaming and brandishing automatic weapons. While his wife was being violently assaulted by the raiders the man got his shotgun to defend his home, just like the NRA teaches. He fired wildly, the police killed him in a volley of return fire. It was the wrong house, he was totally innocent.

Police shoot the man who called them
In Phoenix, a homeowner calls police because there is a man acting bizarrely. Police arrive, see the man who called them, and fires six shots at him, striking him twice. Your classic case of "shoot first, ask questions later."

Police arrest a man for refusing to allow a warrantless search
In Texas, police demand the right to search a home. They have no warrant and are refused entry. Police then break in, rough up the homeowner, and ransack the house. They find nothing and leave.

Twitter parody leads to arrest
A man creates a Twitter account to make fun of the mayor of Peoria, IL. The mayor, lacking either a sense of humor or perspective, sends a fully armed SWAT team to arrest the culprit and everyone else in the apartment.

Barber License Raids
In Orange County, FL, SWAT teams are sent to barbershops where they force out the customers and handcuff the barbers so they can check to see if the barbers have the correct license.

Burn, Baby, Burn
In Georgia, SWAT is making a bust on a $50 drug sale. It was a no-knock warrant. Police broke down the door and toss in a flash-bang grenade that landed in the crib of a 19-month old child. The infant suffered serious injuries. The person they wanted was not there. Public officials refuse to contribute even a penny to the medical bills of the child they nearly murdered that night.

Milkman
SWAT raid a food co-op in Venice, CA for the crime of selling raw milk.

Another food Co-op
This time in LaGrange, OH. SWAT broke into the co-op and held the Stowers family at gunpoint for nine hours on suspicion of not having the proper license.

There are more than 80,000 SWAT raids in the United States annually. More than 90% of them do not require a SWAT level of force.

Even rarer than finding out about police excess use of force is charges actually being filed against the offender officers. It is also unusual for police to reveal their standard practices in front of the well-to-do as they did in their attack on James Blake. They try to confine their violence to poor neighborhoods where their brutality will go unnoticed and serve the purpose of cowering a potentially rebellious underclass.

American police forces have become the go-to profession for psychopaths who want to subject pain, suffering, and humiliation on innocent people without going to jail. Until police forces police themselves and and carve out the cancer they are cultivating in their ranks such outrages will occur daily and seldom reach public scrutiny.

German police ransacking a Jewish home in Lodz, Poland.