Alaskan White Trash

I've resisted writing about the most famous hillbilly family in history, the Palins, for as long as I can. But they forced my hand.

Sarah "Caribou Barbie" Palin
She has endorsed Donald Trump. Trump has already proven that even billions of dollars can't turn reprobate trash into a gentleman. To Sarah, he is a kindred spirit. They share a hatred of humanity and an overwhelming belief that, no matter how much they have, the world owes them more, more, more, more. They also share a speaking style that is best described as illiterate. Sarah flew to Iowa for this endorsement while her eldest son was rotting in jail.

Track Palin
In typical trailer trash fashion, Track knocking up his first wife six months before marrying her and then divorced her 18 months after taking the vows. She got the baby; he got the guns. He is rumored to be a drug abuser. He has recently been shacking up with chippy in his mother's house. On Jan. 18, 2016, he got smashed (blood alcohol .189), roughed up his girl, and allegedly threatened to shoot himself.  He got his ass thrown in the Wasilla jail.

Mommy Sarah blames Track's fucked up life on President Obama who gave her son PTSD while serving in Iraq in 2008 under then president George Bush. The sister of Bristol Palin's baby daddy says that Sarah forced her son into the military to hide his drug use from the media during her Veep run.

Bristol Palin
Aw, Bristol. She has made a million dollars as a spokesperson for abstinence-only policies. Her religious practice of abstinence has been so strict she has had only two out of wedlock babies. By trailer trash standards, she's practically a virgin.

The Brawl

In 2014, the entire Palin family started a drunken brawl. It was your typical white trash brawl. Teeth lost, ribs broken, a drunken slut (Bristol) throwing the first punch. But, while the Palin's are trash they are also Republican royalty. All criminal assault and public drunkenness charges magically disappeared.

Birtherism Thru History

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President. ~ U.S. Constitution, Article II, section 1

If Ted Cruz is elected president then he would be the first president in American history born outside the boundaries of the United States or the British colonies that formed the United States at its founding. That doesn't mean there haven't been many claims made by presidential opponents that their births are questionable.

Thomas Jefferson

The hatred between the Federalists, led by John Adams (r), and the Anti-Federalists, led by Thomas Jefferson (l), was bitter. Adams supporters claimed Jefferson was not the son of Virginia planter Peter Jefferson and his English-born wife Jane but was the illegitimate child of a "half-breed Indian squaw and a mulatto father" and hence not a citizen.

Andrew Jackson

Jackson is a twofer. During his life opponents questioned both his race and where he was born. Jackson's mother, it was said, was a prostitute who married a black man and Andrew's older brother had been sold into slavery. In fact, his parents were Irish and immigrated in the American colonies in 1765. Andrew was born two years later.

That leads us to the first true birther attack. His opponents charged Andrew was actually born aboard the boat and is therefore not a "natural born citizen." Of course, Jackson was a citizen at the adoption of the Constitution in 1787, so that charge is meaningless.

Abraham Lincoln

The bitter race politics of the Civil War of course led to the charge that the leader of the anti-slave Union was actually a n****r. This canard was probably as popular then as the ludicrous charges that President Obama is a secret Muslim are today.

A South Carolina newspaper described Lincoln as "a lank-sided Yankee of the uncomeliest visage, and of the dirtiest complexion." Political cartoons would characterize Lincoln as a monkey. Even today white supremacists attack Lincoln with the N-word.

Chester Alan Arthur

Another pure birther attack. Arthur was picked as Garfield's vice-president purely because of his connection to the corrupt
Roscoe Conkling machine in New York. Arthur's family had a vagabond life around Vermont in the 1820's, mostly because his father's rabid abolitionist views kept getting him fired.

Opponents of Arthur charged that, during the family's travels, Chester had been born while his family had been across the border in Canada.

Non-President Questions
Barry Goldwater was born in territorial Arizona three years before it became a state. There was no serious question that this was disqualifying although it was mentioned occasionally.

George Romney was born in Mexico of parents who had been born in territorial Utah. Legal scholars said it was a non-issue. It never got a chance to be seriously discussed because Romney dropped out of the race before any delegates were selected.

John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone and received a congressional resolution declaring him constitutionally eligible.

And Now Cruz
For two hundred years courts have avoided defining who is eligible to be president. They consider it a political matter to be decided by legislators or voters. They won't touch the Cruz question.

Cruz most closely resembles George Romney's case. His family voluntarily emigrated from the United States with the intent of permanently living in a foreign country. Romney's family only returned to the US as refugees from the violence of the Mexican Revolution. Cruz's family only returned to the US as economic refugees because they couldn't make it in Calgary.

Both of Romney's parents were American citizens and neither became Mexican citizens. Only one of Cruz's parents was an American citizen and they both became citizens of Canada. George Romney was never granted Mexican citizenship. Ted Cruz was a legal citizen of Canada from his birth until he renounced it in 2014.

Is Cruz a natural born Citizen?
Legally, probably yes. Politically, probably no. The fact that he has held duel citizenship for almost all of his life makes Cruz, at best, a dangerous precedent. What if the next duel citizen candidate has more loyalty to his birth country than his adopted country?

Presidential Odds

We are three weeks from the most important meaningless event in American politics, the Iowa Caucus. The last two rounds saw Iowa Republicans choose Presidents Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum so we know it always predicts correctly.

Winning the Iowa Caucus is as significant in choosing presidents as winning the State Fair pie baking contest. And much less tasty. Really, who wouldn't prefer a warm berry pie to Rafael "Ted" Cruz?

The Red odds are from the Paddy Power betting board; Blue odds are my own.

Republicans

What a mess this field is, a bunch of lame and sickly horses.

Donald Trump 3 to 1 (1.75 to 1)
I once described Donald as the disease-ridden crack whore you might fuck during the summer but not the one you'd want to marry. Well, it's winter and his polling numbers are improving. But he is so hated by Republican power brokers that the official response to the SOTU address was mostly an attack on Trump.

Ted Cruz 4 to 1 (2.75 to 1)
Perhaps even more hated than Trump. Other foreign-born candidates, John McCain and George Romney, got bipartisan declarations that they were eligible for the office.  The growing Cruz Birther movement is being greeted with tacit agreement or sly none-of-my-business comments from his Senate colleagues.

Marco Rubio 6 to 1 (2 to 1)
Supposed to be the Great Establishment Hope but looks out of his depths. Prone to rookie mistakes like vowing to filibuster the omnibus spending bill and then not even bothering to show up and vote against it.

Paul Ryan 6 to 1 -- Mitt Romney 10 to 1 (unlisted)
If the Establishment can get to a brokered convention and Rubio continues to look childlike then these are the likeliest dark horses. Paired with a female veep, either Nikki Haley or Susana Martinez, and we have the kind of dream team the Establishment was hoping for at the start of last year.

Jeb Bush 8 to 1 (9 to 1)
Someone, referring to Bush, recently said that money has to count for something. But, wherever his super PAC has spent big money advertising Bush's poll number have dropped in response. Jeb once expected a coronation, now he talks about not surrendering to the Republican peasantry.

John Kasich 10 to 1 (100 to 1) - Chris Christie 16 to 1 (16 to 1)
Both have a slim chance of rising from deserved obscurity. Kasich's debate performances have been dismal but both are working hard in New Hampshire and if one of them can pull off an upset the billionaires might just throw their fortunes at him.

The rest of the field will see their snowballs chances melt long before they can get them into Hell.

Democrats

Hillary Clinton 1 to 2 (1 to 6) - Bernie Sanders 2 to 1 (3.5 to 1)
I love Bernie, but....Even if he wins both Iowa and New Hampshire he lacks the resources to compete nationally with Clinton. In an existence with an infinite number of universes, Bernie would win in many of them, but not most of them.

Martin O'Malley 50 to 1 (100 to 1)
If Hillary gets indicted and Bernie falls ill then Martin has a chance.

Law and Order: Part Two, Prosecutors and Judges

There are good and just district attorneys and judges but my experience from outside the dock is that the system is chock full of unskilled and even corrupt people in both positions. As a juror, I've seen a judge fall asleep on the bench. I've know of one man who lost a legislative election and was appointed to a judgeship because he needed a job. I've seen a district attorney prosecute a man he knew was innocent as a favor to a friend.

It is not a Justice System. It is just a system. ~ Bob Enyart

Normally a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich if a prosecutor asks it to. ~ Chuck Robb

Judges are but men, and are swayed like other men by vehement prejudices. This is corruption in reality, give it whatever other name you please. ~ David Dudley Field

Capital punishment turns the state into a murderer. But imprisonment turns the state into a gay dungeon-master. ~ Jesse Jackson

Keeping Score

Ethics codes say that prosecutors should seek justice not convictions for their own sake. Yet district attorneys are all about keeping score. San Diego's DA Bonnie Dumanis is always touting her office's conviction rate, like that's a good thing. To her, and most other DAs, getting convictions is the only goal. If coercing plea deals from innocent people boost her stats then that's what she'll do.

Police Infallibility

No one is more vested in the concept that the police are incapable of error than district attorneys. To get their inflated statistics it is vital that courts see the police as godlike. That means corrupt or violent cops have to be given free passes lest the bad apples taint the public's unquestioning belief in police perfection.

My Friend, the Judge

Also vital to keeping an inflated conviction rate is insuring that the judge is your friend. The Orange County District Attorneys Office is about as corrupt as they come. For years they have been hiding exculpatory evidence to convict innocent people. In 2014, an actually honest judge, Thomas Goethals, discovered the tip of that scandal. Since then, the DA's office has repeatedly disqualifying Judge Goethals from hearing cases. This is common. DAs across the country will blackball judges who are insufficiently subservient to the prosecution.

Judge In My Pocket

For every Thomas Goethals there is a Judge Mark Ciavarella. Ciavarella, if you forgot, is one of the Pennsylvania judges who took bribes to sentence juveniles to for-profit prisons. Because most judges face elections, one way to legally buy justice is to elect your own judge. Massey Energy CEO Dan Blankenship paid over $3 million to elect West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin. Benjamin repaid that debt by being the deciding vote in a lawsuit Massey was involved in. Or, you can hire a judge's relative and funnel bribes that way. Clarence Thomas' wife has been hired to lobby her husband on several cases.

How to Make Money in Police Work

Busy times, so before I go to Law and Order: Part Two here is a story of a police force dedicated to income generation or, if you prefer, police as a criminal enterprise.

The police force of Bal Harbour, Florida was expected to pay its own way with little taxpayer support. Speeding tickets weren't going to cover the budget so, along with the Glades County Sheriff's Office they set up an operation to tap into the free-wheeling drug money circulating in nearby Miami.

The police set up a money laundering operation to service the South Florida drug industry. Whether there was, initially, some noble law enforcement intent is debatable. Whatever, the officers quickly realized the money was big and sweet and the only way to fuck things up was to actually arrest anybody.

In two years, they cleaned up over $55 million in illegal cash for the cartels. The police departments officially pocketed $2.4 million in profits. The individual officers seem to have skimmed another $1.3 million dollars for their personal use. Other reports say up to $12 million is missing. During that time absolutely no arrests were made and many of the businesses the police laundered for are still in operation.

The Feds slapped Bal Harbour for using the laundered money to pay police salaries but ignored the greater operation until the Miami-Herald last year blew the cover off the whole sorted mess. With the enterprise known publicly, the Feds must now at least appear to be investigating. Some people have and will be fired but I suspect no one will be indicted.

Bless your naive little heart if you believe this is one, isolated, rogue police department. Until the affair became public, the Department of Justice's only concern about the illegal activities was some sloppy bookkeeping. This type of operation is so pervasive the DOJ is mostly interested in getting their cut. Stopping it would be a career killer for any FBI agent who tries.

Law and Order: Part One, the Police

In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories. ~ Law and Order opening narration

Infallibility

A basic tenet of the criminal justice system is that the police are infallible. They are upstanding and true, they never make mistakes or lie under oath. Police crime labs are miracles of science that can deduce the absolute truth from the tiniest speck of evidence and never, ever falsify their results.

Those are fairy tales, of course. Police want to "get the bad guys" so they will lie if the facts are insufficient for a conviction. Or they made mistakes or panicked and shot an unarmed child and are covering their asses. Crime lab techs are not top of their field scientists (sorry Abby Sciuto) but people who couldn't get good paying jobs in the private sector. They make mistakes all the time and occasionally just fabricate their results because convictions matter over truth.

DNA tests are touted by the FBI as accurate to 1 in 108 trillion but when you factor in the skill of the technicians and the fact they analyze chemical replications of the sample, the accuracy is probably closer to 10,000 to one. Fingerprint reliability is even worse. Yet we citizens are taught that both are totally infallible.

The Blue Wall

Nothing makes a police officer lie more freely and brazenly than covering for the criminal activities of a brother officer. Police are trained from their first days that theirs is a brotherhood, like the Mafia, and that their first responsibility is to protect their brothers up to and including covering up murder.

Income Generators

In many jurisdictions, patrol officers are expected to earn their salaries through writing traffic tickets. In Estelline, TX (above) moving violation citations are a major source of revenue for the city. Taking bribes from drug dealers won't get you canned, but failing to meet your ticket quota is a fireable offense.

The concept of civil forfeiture has greatly upped the ante on using police as an income generator for municipalities. While some states require criminal convictions to seize assets, in many other states an unsubstantiated charge never proven in court is sufficient for the police the take cash, cars, boats, and any other property they want. Economist Frédéric Bastiatthe has described it as the "conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder." Which makes police little more than government authorized pirates.

Militarization

Take a tank, stencil the words "rescue vehicle" on it and it is still a military vehicle. SWAT was originally designed as a small detail of specially trained officers who would be called into service on those rare times when patrol officers were outgunned. Now, SWAT has become the military arm of the police and is used for everything from serving misdemeanor warrants to bashing in the door of people whose property the police want to seize (see above).

There are over 80,000 SWAT raids a year, some 75,000 of these are unnecessary uses of force. They are so frequent that mistakes are common. SWAT has raided the wrong houses, killed innocents, and even led to the needless death of police officers.

Jobs for Psychopaths

Most police are not psychopaths, many psychopaths can't accept the discipline of police work. But for those who can, a career in law enforcement is perfect. Want a job where you can legally bully people? Want a job where you can lie, cheat, and steal with impunity? Want a job where you can beat the shit out of innocent people and receive congratulations from others? Want a job where once, maybe twice in your life you can up and murder someone with no consequences just because you feel like it? Then police work may be for you.

analyzed is but a chemical replication

analyzed is but a chemical replication

America the Beautiful - In Pictures

O beautiful for spacious skies,

Predator drone with hellfire missiles

For amber waves of grain,^*

More evil than will fit in a caption.

For purple mountain majesties

Bingham Canyon copper mine, Utah

 Above the fruited plain!

1911 ad for the sale of lands stolen from Native Americans.

America!

1921 Ku Klux Klan rally outside Chicago.

America!

Little has changed in 95 years.

God shed his grace on thee,

Tennessee mosque vandalized.

And crown thy good

After shooting an unarmed man, a South Carolina policeman watched him slowly die.

With brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

Louisiana coast, 2010.

* Monsanto has made a fortune from creating genetically modified seeds. These modifications pollute organic farms through a little know process called pollination. Organic farmers have unsuccessfully sued Monsanto for corrupting their crops. Monsanto, in turn has successfully sued organic farmers for patent infringement when Monsanto created genomes show up in their crops. That is but the tip of the iceberg of Monsanto evilness.

In 2015, Congress pass the so-called Monsanto Protection Act making it illegal to sue companies creating genetically engineered crops for any illnesses, deaths, or damages those crops cause.

2016: Into the Abyss

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

Welcome to 2016, a year with the potential to be historic in a way our posterity will curse for centuries to come.

Rebirth of Fascism

Donald Trump hasn't just moved the Overton Window regarding fascism, he has seismically shifted it. His call to expel 11 million people from the country was greeted enthusiastically by racists from coast to coast. His deliberate use of Nazi soldiers in an early campaign ad was a clear dog whistle for neo-Nazis that he was one of them. As his outrages have become more and more outrageous each previous unthinkable stance has been mainstreamed. The hate filled fascist-lite Ted Cruz is now being touted as a moderate alternative to Trump.

But it is not just the United States that has seen a growth of fascism. France's National Front, which is both anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim, got a plurality of votes in the first round of regional elections in early December. All of Europe has seen a surge of fascist party support in recent years.

Anti-Science Idiots

As the effects of global climate change become obvious politicians have stepped up their denials of basic facts. Running second to Trump in the Republican presidential race is a man aggressively attacks all forms of scientific research or thought.

Return of Jim Crow

Mississippi first requires driver's license or equivalent to vote. They then closed the offices issuing those documents in African-American communities. The Supreme Court is striking down voting rights and civil rights at every opportunity. Police shooting of unarmed black men and even black children has been effectively legalized and has become a 21st century version of lynching.

'Round Midnight

'Round Midnight by Debra Hurd

Science calls it Seasonal Affective Disorder, that tendency towards wistfulness we can get this time of year. The days have gotten shorter and darker and so can our moods.

There is a reason the somber "White Christmas" is way more popular than "Holly Jolly Christmas." (Note to young folk: "White Christmas" refers to the fact that in prior years it would snow in winter over much of North America.)

In 1941, Thelonious Monk penned a song that has become a jazz standard, some say he wrote it as early as 1936 at the age of 19. "Round Midnight" has been recorded and embellished by countless jazz legends like Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Ella Fitzgerald.

My favorite version was recorded by Linda Ronstadt with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. And, yes, I've had a crush on her for decades.

Indulge the wistful.

Is Vlad Putin a Vampire?

A series of photos have been discovered that suggest that Vladimir Putin is ageless.

According to his official bio, Putin was born in 1952 but, there he is serving in the Russian military decades before his birth.

Putin first appears in 1975 as a fully grown adult working in the KGB division responsibility for falsifying identities. His supervisors described him as having a "lowered sense of danger," as if he knew he was immortal.

This photo shows Putin in his KGB uniform looking exactly the same as he does now except for having a little more hair. His physical prowess is said to be superhuman. He killed a grizzly bear two years ago with his bare hand using the "force of a thousand men." Russia expert Sarah Palin says that Putin wrestles bears for fun.

Earlier this year, at the age of 63, he scored seven goals in a hockey game against former NHL players, a feat not even the great Wayne Gretzky accomplished in his prime.

The rumors aren't just that Putin is a vampire. He might even be The vampire, the real Dracula. They share the same first name, Vlad, and in Cyrillic lettering and allowing for the strange Slavic dialect of 15th century Transylvania, Putin is an anagram of Tepes (I don't have any actual proof of that but you can't prove me wrong).

Tepes had a large Roman nose while Putin's is rather petite, but plastic surgery was invented in the first century AD so he had plenty of time to get a nose job. They both have a notable dimple in their chin.

Putin's endorsement of Donald Trump proves Trump is not a werewolf, which I guess is a good thing. But Trump is known to associate with vampires so Putin's endorsement proves Trump is under the thrall of a vampire or a bloodsucking fiend himself, which is probably a bad thing.

The telltale signs of vampire enthrallment are weird hair and bizarre behavior. Trump is suspected of eating millions of spiders a day, and Trump's hair makes Renfield look normal.

More Christmas Traditions

Yes, I know there was a Republican debate filled with fear mongering, war mongering, and the extermination of "thousands of children." Not going to let it dim my holiday spirits.

Christmas Trees
What's Christmas without murdering some helpless conifer, hauling it inside, and dressing the corpse in lights and tinsel? (Sorry, still a little bummed about that debate.)

The Christmas tree is pagan, of course. Germanic pagans understood that woodland fairies got cold in winter just like everyone else. They would bring inside pine boughs so the sprites would have a comfy warm place to winter. In return, the fairies would give the family good luck the rest of the year.

Mistletoe

Don't osculate under the tree parasite with anyone else but me. In Norse mythology the mistletoe was sacred to the goddess Frigga. Frigga feared for the life of her son, Baldar the god of the summer sun, and got pledges from all the plants and animals on earth to protect him. But she had neglected the lowly mistletoe. Loki snatched a sprig of the plant and fashioned it into an arrowhead which killed Baldar.

Frigga cried over her child, her tears becoming mistletoe's white berries, until he was resurrected. She then decreed that all who meet under the mistletoe should show no harm and kiss each other in greeting.

Wassailing
Wassailing began in the Celtic tradition of drinking toasts to fruit trees to make them happy and insure a bountiful harvest. It merged with Nordic caroling into an English tradition of door-to-door singing followed by a demand for fruity goodies like figgy pudding and cider or ale.

Christmas Pickle
I didn't know this was a thing but, hey, I love a good kosher dill.

In the 1880's, Woolworth department store sold a line of glass fruit and vegetable ornaments imported from Germany. The pickles were not moving because they were ugly, bumpy, kinda phallic looking. Woolworth had a stockpile of unpopular pickle ornaments.

Some advertising genius publicized the story that in Germany the pickle ornament was the last one put on the tree and a special present was set aside for the first child to find it. Utter poppycock but people flocked to the stores to buy their Christmas pickles and a new tradition was born.

Candy Canes

There is a fascinating story that the choirmaster of Cologne Cathedral in 1670 was looking for a way to keep the children quiet during his interminable liturgical services. He went to a confectioner and asked him to put a curve in peppermint sticks to symbolize the shepherd's staff.

Another story is that an American candy maker around 1900 wanted to make a religious treat. His candy would look like a shepherd's staff but if you turn it around the hook becomes a J for Jesus. The white in the cane symbolized Christ's purity while the red symbolized the blood of His scourging at the crucifixion.

Both stories have no actual historical support. Peppermint sticks have been around for centuries. The hook was probably added as a seasonal marketing tool to make it easier to hang the treats on a tree. Just like marshmallow peeps have no religious significance.

Christmas Traditions

For the remainder of the Christmas season I am boycotting politics (unless Donald Trump get even more outrageous) and will think atheistically happy thoughts. The English language has a staggering array of words for the winter solstice season and traditions.

Yuletide

Yule comes from the Norse word jol, and like much of northern European religious celebrations has a pagan origin. The Norse jol celebrated the passing of the winter solstice and the slow return of daylight to the cold north.

It was a 12 day celebration and the source for the Twelve Days of Christmas tradition that is inexplicable under the Catholic calendar. There was drinking, feasting, and probably more than a little whoring.

No one knows the exact origin of the Yule Log but it probably came from the tradition of lighting a fire to keep warm. Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one.

Caroling

Another pagan Norse tradition cleaved onto a Middle Eastern religion. The jol celebrations included songs sung to Thor and Sunna, the Sun goddess. Early Christians worked tirelessly to replace the joyful Norse tunes with turgid Latin hymns. In 17th century England the humorless evangelicals of their day, the Puritans, banned the singing of carols along with any other Christmas celebrations. Caroling went underground, whispered in the privacy of home and hearth, until those fun loving Victorians made wandering minstrel shows of carol singing.

Boxing Day

Traditionally a day when employers give their employees gifts in celebration of the season. This is basically a British concept that, in the United States, is considered by bosses an obscenely evil act of generosity tantamount to theft of millionaire property.

In recent years, influenced by American businesses, Boxing Day has been turned into a Black Friday-like shopping day when low income workers are encouraged to go into staggering debt buying useless garbage to the greater profit of their bosses.

Nativity Creche

The first nativity scene was made by St. Francis of Assisi in 1223. He was holding a Midnight Mass in the Italian town of Greccio and wanted an attraction to boost attendance. He gathered a few farm animals and put a actual baby in a feeding trough filled with hay and a Christmas tradition was born.

Wander most neighborhoods in America and you will find all sorts of nativity scenes - religious themed, cartoon character themed, serious representations and comic displays. In Sycamore, Ohio, a man designed a front yard nativity where the shepherds and and wise men were skeletal wraiths and baby Jesus was a demonic child. The local government has declared the creche a "zoning violation" even though similar but more reverent depictions are given a pass. He is being fined $500 a day for his blasphemy.

The American Circus of Lunacy

The British have the Monster Raving Loony Party, we have Republicans.

Cruz Courage Failure
In a small, private meeting, just Ted Cruz and a few of his millionaire investors, Cruz tentatively questioned Donald Trump's judgement. The statement got out and Trump challenged Cruz to say publicly what he was whispering in private to his "bosses." Cruz, with the craven obsequiousness for which he is justly famous, immediately kowtowed and twitted, "Donald Trump is terrific."

Carson Will Bolt the Party If Trump Isn't Nominated
Republican leaders are musing about managing a brokered convention to prevent Donald Trump from becoming the party's leader. Ben Carson is having none of it. He is threatening to leave if party leaders use the delegate process to keep Trump from getting a majority of the convention delegates. In other words, if politicians use politics to influence a political party Carson will throw a tantrum.

Romney's White Horse
It is an LDS article of faith that should the US Constitution be hanging by a thread a Mormon leader will rise up at the last moment to save the nation. A growing theory is that, in a brokered convention, Mitt Romney will be selected by the delegates to save the nation from the joint threat of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. With neither money nor organization, Romney will ride to the rescue in a historic election.

'If Cruz Is Elected I'm Going to Canada'

An opinion that is showing up on many comment boards is if Ted Cruz becomes president people will seek asylum in Canada. It may not work. In 1938, the foreign born leader of Germany forced the country of his birth to join his greater German Empire. Jews who sought asylum in Austria didn't do well.

More Frightening Than Trump

It is no longer Godwin Lawish to point out that Donald Trump is preaching a neo-Nazi brand of Republicanism that is resonating with substantial portion of the party.

We use to think Trump and Carson were funny. In the words of a 1943 American propaganda film...

When we saw these people [on the news] quite often we laughed. To us they seemed like characters in a musical comedy. But they weren't comic, they weren't funny, there were deadly serious. ~ Why We Fight

But more frightening than Trump, who I've likened to the popinjay dictator Mussolini, is the horror lurking in the shadows - Ted Cruz.

Whenever Trump promoted some ethnic cleansing of America, Cruz refuse to denounce it. Rather he offers finely nuanced support. In response to Trump's proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the country for any reason Cruz said, "I commend Donald Trump for standing up and focusing America's attention on the need to secure our borders." Cruz went on to imply he would do things differently.

No denouncement from Cruz for the most obscene policy position uttered by a presidential candidate since George Wallace. Just sly support followed by a subtle suggestion that Cruz be more efficient at the cleansing.

While the Trump barge breaks water, Cruz follows calmly in his wake. Cruz expects, in time, to pick up Trump's StormFront supporters and merge them with Carson's evangelicals into a coalition of racial and religious hate that will propel him to the White House. Ted Cruz is more frightening than Donald Trump. He is a kinder and gentler fascist who, if elected, will do unimaginable violence to both the concept of democracy and to the many enemies of the state (liberals, atheists, intellectuals, gays, Muslims) he sees surrounding him.

The Rage of Xenophobic Nativists

On May 15, 1972, I was talking to a college professor about the news that someone, then unknown to us, had attempted to assassinate segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace. She said that she prayed the shooter wasn't black because the backlash against all African-Americans and the civil rights movement would be devastating. Wallace at the time was running second to George McGovern in the Democratic primary race.

Fortunately, the shooter was a whiter than white lunatic named Arthur Bremer who had wanted to kill someone to prove his questionable manhood.

There will be no such check following San Bernadino on the rage of xenophobic nativists being fueled by the hate rhetoric of the leaders of the Republican presidential race. I've noticed two things while browsing right-wing opinion.

Collective Guilt - There is a growing belief that all Muslims are guilty of the acts of two individuals. Anti-Muslim hate crimes have skyrocketed in Europe since the Paris attacks and will blossom like an obscene flower in the US.

Guns Are an "Inalienable Right" - Any effort to keep military style weapons out of the hands of potential extremists will be opposed by the NRA and by the same people who would force all Muslims to register themselves. AR-15s are being spoken of with a holy reverence that I have never heard before. Semi-automatic weapons have reached the level of religious sacraments for many Americans who worship guns now before God.

Trump and Cruz will likely see another bump in their poll numbers in the coming days. Harassment of women wearing hijabs will increase. Bomb and death threats against mosques and Muslims have already spiked. Actual physical attacks will probably follow. If we are lucky we will not see actual pogroms in Muslim communities but that is possible in states like Texas where gun worshiping nativists abound.

San Bernadino

I sit here watching coverage of the latest mass shooting, reading blogs (several commenters at right-wing Hotair described the massacre as "the cost of freedom"). One lone gunman or three concerted terrorists. The softest of soft targets, a facility treating developmentally disabled people.

You may have noticed a lack of verbs in those sentences. There are no verbs to describe the horror. Only adjectives.

My Political Refuge

I was going to write about presidential odds (Cruz and Rubio are 3 to 1, Trump is 5 to 1, everyone else double digits) But I just don't care. This is the time every election cycle I am grateful to not live in Iowa or New Hampshire.

Actually, there are lots of reason I'm glad to not live in Iowa where the most popular pastimes are meth addiction and cow tipping.

What passes for a tourist attraction in Iowa.

But most pleasing is, unlike Iowans, I don't have candidate advocates descending like locusts whenever I step out the door.

As for New Hampshire, a winter cold snap in Southern California is three consecutive days when no one is wearing shorts and a tank top, so there's that. But mostly I am happy that I can sit down in a diner and not have some stranger running for president trying to get his picture taken with me like I'm some sort of celebrity.

I do pay for living in SoCal - literally, the cost of living is freaking high. Then there is the need to measure out my bath water with a thimble and constantly wondering if I can afford to flush the toilet this week. And don't get me talking about the football team.

Still, living in a True Blue state with a late primary (June 7) means I can pretend the presidential nominating process is happening in some crazy foreign land where illegally entering the country is punished by summary execution.

It'll get real soon enough but give me my winter refuge.

Police Killings Continue

The death of Officer Garrett Swasey in Colorado Springs is ample proof that many officers risk their lives daily to protect the public. Unfortunately, there are some police officers, ill-trained and too quick to anger or panic, who are putting the public at daily risk. Eighty-four people were killed by police officers across the United States in November.

Jeremy Mardis was shot multiple times by police on Nov. 3.

Six year-old Jeremy Mardis was killed when police unloaded a hail of bullets into the car holding Jeremy and his father. At least eighteen bullets were fired into the car, five struck the child, killing him instantly, while two bullets hit his father. Given that the smaller target was hit more frequently, I suspect the officers were firing into the passenger side of the car. According to reports, the father was holding his arms up the the universal sign of surrender when the barrage began.

The killing took place in the small central Louisiana town of Marksville. Marksville strikes me as one of those frightening Southern towns that are a cross between Mayberry and Touch of Evil. Allegedly, officers there assaulted someone on the street in July because he was an outsider, "definitely not a local boy." The city marshal is an elected position allegedly belonging to a school bus driver with no law enforcement training who, apparently, is running a speed trap scam.

Two of the four officers involved have been charged with murder.