America: One of the Most Violent Nations on Earth

On Monday, I visited my doctor (thanks Obamacare) to make sure my inoculations were up to date for a bucket list trip to Israel next Spring. My doctor's first question was, "Aren't you afraid of all the violence?"

My answer was the same as every other time I've been asked that question since I first considered the trip. I am far more likely to meet a violent end in the United States than any other civilized country. The per capita murder rate in the US is five times higher than Israel.

Following the terrorist attack on a Colorado Planned Parenthood building by a white, middle-age wacko, President Obama said, "We can’t let it become normal." I'm sorry, but mass killings in the US are the norm. Nearly every day in the country there is a incident where at least four people are killed or wounded in a gun attack.

So, no I'm not at all afraid of visiting Israel. I am a little afraid about coming home.

A Parable for Our Times

In 1943 Walt Disney turned a 100 year-old fairy tale, "The Remarkable Story of Chicken Little" into a cartoon short. He choose to underplay the fascism reference so it is a useful story for our Trumpism times.

Quotes from the book:
Foxy Loxy reads from a Psychology book. The quotes are drawn from Mein Kampf.

• To influence the masses, aim first at the least intelligent.
• If you tell a lie don't tell a little one, tell a big one.
• Undermine the faith of the masses in their leaders.
• By the use of flattery insignificant people can be made to look upon themselves as born leaders.

My question, is Donald Trump Foxy Loxy or Chicken Little?

Initial Thought on the Turks Shooting Down a Russian Jet

This is the list of candidates who have advocated shooting down Russian planes in Syria.

Jeb Bush - "We need to have no fly zones. The argument is, well we’ll get into the conflict with Russia, maybe Russia shouldn’t want to be in conflict with us."

Ben Carson -  "We need to stand our ground with the airspace. I would establish a no-fly zone along the border with Turkey. In no way would I back off."

Hillary Clinton - "I personally would be advocating now for a no-fly zone and humanitarian corridors to try to stop the carnage on the ground and from the air."

Chris Christie - "My first phone call would be to Vladimir, and I’d say to him, listen, we’re enforcing this no-fly zone. And I mean we’re enforcing it against anyone, including you."

Carly Fiorina - "This is a tricky maneuver, it’s a dangerous maneuver, but it’s a maneuver that we must undertake. The Russians do not get to move into the Middle East and become the dominant outside power."

Lindsey Graham - "I don’t know if there’s anybody left to train, but a no-fly zone would be a great relief to the Syrian people."

John Kasich - "You enter that no-fly zone, you enter at your own peril. No more red lines, no more looking the other way. If any hostile aircraft should enter that, there will be a great consequence to them."

Marco Rubio - "The United States should work with our allies, both Arab and European, to impose a no-fly zone over parts of Syria."

A Test of Courage

Trump went there. "Absolutely" would he establish a database of American Muslims.

On January 21, 2016 President Donald Trump will issue an executive order requiring all Muslims or people with at least one-quarter Muslim heritage to report to their local post office and be registered with the federal government.

Here is your test. Would you go too? Christian, Jew, Buddhist, atheist - would you register along side your friends and neighbors? This is no idle act. Quite literally, it would put your lives, fortunes, and sacred honor at risk. I don't know that I would have that kind of courage. I like to think I would but there would be genuine fear once Trump's Thugs inevitably are given the registry.

But, yielding to the fear would only postpone the same result. In the eyes of Trump's Party, I am also a traitor. My time will come. Trump used to be a joke. He no longer is. Trump is now a genuine threat to the very concept of Americanism.

Is Trump Going There?

"We’re going to have to do things that we never did before. Some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule." (source)

Donald Trump said that in answer to a question if he would support requiring Muslims to carry special religious identification with them and allowing warrantless searches of Muslim homes, businesses, and mosques.

I know I've violated Goodwin's Law repeatedly regarding Trump and not without reason. But this is as close to going full National Socialist as he has ever gone. What is more frightening (yes, some things frighten me) is that even the mainstream Republican National Review readers fall mostly into two camps: defending the stance as a negotiation ploy and saying it's a great idea.

I expect Ted Cruz (Trump's Mini-Me) to imply support for the concept in coming days.

Fear Itself

nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. ~ the rest of the sentence from FDR's famous "fear itself" speech

I am no more afraid of being killed by terrorists now than I was last week, which is to say not at all.  I am far more likely to die violently at the hands of a drunk driver. There is a tiny chance a mugger will kill me, but it is still greater than a terrorist. A nervous cop shooting me? Very unlikely but still more likely than a terrorist. A terrified concealed carry gunist popping a cap in me by mistake is improbable but more possible than a terrorist offing me.

Terrorists want to instill terror - the occasional random attack is just a means to that end. The pants pissing reaction of Republican governors and legislators is their submissively yielding to the terrorists. It is pathetic, cowardly, and shows all the emotional maturity of a three year-old screaming in horror at the sight of a birthday clown.

Actually, this makes more sense.

The Great Nativist Competition

Republicans are battling each other to absurd degrees to be crowned the most intensely racist nativist and thereby win their party's nomination for President.

1903 - "The Unrestricted Dumping Ground" opposed immigration from southern and eastern Europe, calling them criminals and terrorists. Familiar?

Nativism has a long history in American politics. The target of the xenophobia changes with the times. Protestants hated Irish Catholic immigrants. Irish hated Italian and Jewish immigrants. Just about everybody hated Chinese immigrants.

Ben Carson, the only African-American in the race, has hired a notorious white supremacist to chair his Mississippi campaign. Carson has stated that Islam is inherently incompatible with the US Constitution. This is a clear echo of the 19th century Know Nothing Party accusation that Catholic immigrants would follow the Pope's orders to destroy America.

Circa 1900 - "Pauper" immigrant labor will inevitably steal food from the table of the American working man.

Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are two second generation Americans with Spanish surnames who are locked in a battle over who will keep more Spanish surnamed immigrants out of the country. Both use the argument that poor Mexicans are stealing the jobs of hard working Americans.

1919 - "Put them out and keep them out." Keep terrorist Europeans out of the US.

Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz both recently suggested a religious test for refugees - Christians in, Muslims out. Religious exclusions are a recurring theme in American history. The Know Nothings were anti-Catholic. The Red Scare in the 1920's excluded and even expelled Eastern European Jews suspected of socialist beliefs.

Operation Wetback was one tenth the size of the Trump deportation plan.

Donald Trump is, of course, at the top of the dung heap. Most recently he has suggest closing mosques to curtail terrorism, like that wouldn't just radicalize more people. He wants to engage in the greatest mass deportation of humanity since Nazi Germany, but do it "humanely." Even the right wing Federalist has called Trump's plan hardcore pornography for nativists.

Paris Terror: Winners and Losers

Wiser people than me will decided on the whys and responses to the horrible attack on Paris last night. I will look at a simpler question.

Winners
Isis
Obviously. They successfully struck back at one of the nations fighting their den of thieves and rapists. Also, they may be able to stop the depopulation of their Caliphate.

Neo-Fascists

10,000 attend anti-immigrant protest in Dresden, Germany

They are the biggest winners, to the point I briefly considered that Marine Le Pen's National Front was behind the attacks. They are still a tiny factor in French elections, just two seats in the national assembly, but these attacks will greatly increase their appeal.

Other anti-immigrant parties that will get a boost are UKIP and BNP (United Kingdom), Freedom Party (Austria), NDP (Germany), National Revival (Poland), and the Northern League (Italy). So far, most of these are insignificant legislative parties, Austria is an exception, but the combination of terrorist attacks and the flood of refugees could change that.

In the United States we can expect another bump in Donald Trump's support.

Losers
Isis
Yeah, here too. France, especially, is going to want bloody revenge.

Tremble, tyrants! and you, traitors,
The disgrace of all groups,
Tremble! Your parricidal plans
Will finally pay the price! ~ lyrics of La Marseillaise not usually sung

Syrian Refugees
The doors are being closed to new refugees and there will be great agitation to expel those already in Europe. Thousands of innocents will be punished for the sins of a handful if the refugees are sent back into the jaws of ISIS.

Muslims as a Whole
The Charlie Hebdo attack in January triggered anti-Muslim protests. This attack is exponentially worse and will probably bring more violent protests.

What a 'Deportation Force' Looks Like

Donald Trump recently said he would have a "deportation force" to "humanely" remove eleven million Mexican "rapists." This has been done before so we know what it will look like.

"The Spider," an evil ethnic rapist

Here, a uniformed deportation official humanely directs undesirable aliens into comfortable railroad cars.

Alien women preparing to enjoy the scenery in a wonderful open-air transport under the care of humane deportation officials. Making deportation fun!

Deportees arriving at their destination. Note the joyful expressions on their faces.

Children being loaded onto trucks for a fun deportation journey.

Criminal aliens being escorted by watchful deportation officials

Deportation agents greeting illegal aliens on their arrival. The truncheons will be used to gently and humanely urge them to their final solution destination.

And, because Trump mentioned it directly, armed deportation officials during Operation Wetback in 1954.

While Operation Wetback did not have extermination camps as such, thousands died. A key component of Operation Wetback was to leave people without assets far from any population centers so they could not ever get back to the United States. In just one incident in July, 1954, 88 people were deposited in the Mexican desert without provisions and died from the heat. Hundreds of US citizens of Hispanic descent were rounded up, stripped of the possessions, and expelled from the United States to die in poverty in a foreign country.

Would You Kill Baby Hitler?

The real baby Hitler.

Killing baby Hitler is a test of ones ethics. Jeb Bush stupidly choose to answer this hypothetical, he said he would butcher a toddler he though might grow up to commit genocide.

A Man of His Times
There are thousands of psychopaths walking around all the time. Some of them make great CEOs (Al Dunlap) while others turn to a career in law enforcement or become Vice-President. The best way to keep Hitler from killing would have been to prevent World War I from ever happening.

Deprive Hitler of the economic devastation and social angst that Germany suffered following the Versailles Treaty and little Adolph might have spent his life wandering the streets of Vienna content with killing the occasional stray dog.

His Replacement Could Have Been Worse

Okay, we killed baby Hitler but didn't change the cauldron of post-war Germany that cultivated him. The German Socialist Worker's Party existed before Hitler joined. It was already nationalist and antisemitic and had all of the philosophies Hitler later embraced. Any number of future members like Ernst Rohm, who organized the SA into a force of two million thugs, or Heinrich Himmler might have risen to leadership in the absence of Hitler and done a much better job of it.

Both were far better organizers than Hitler. When British Intelligence proposed assassinating Hitler in 1944, Churchill canceled the project because Hitler's battlefield decisions were so incredibly stupid it was decided he was an asset to the Allied military cause.

Karmic Disaster

Not real baby Hitler.

You've considered the options. You know it probably won't make a difference and if it does it might just make things worse. You've decided, the hell with it, you are going to smother baby Hitler in his crib.

You've decided to kill someone whose greatest crime, at that point in his life, is being fussy about going to sleep. For a pro-life advocate, like Bush, you've committed a horrific sin.

For a pro-choice person like me who believe life begins when you draw your first breath, killing a baby on spec is an ultimate evil. It is the sort of thing someone gripped with schizophrenic delusions might do.

So, Jeb, just saying, you are one sick son of a bitch.

Postscript
But I would have assassinated him in 1933 and not thought twice about it even if that meant I'd have to go back and assassinate a half dozen other German leaders that followed him.And it probably still won't have made a significant difference

When the Lunatics Run the Asylum

Many years ago (early 1973 to be exact) I read an essay by Susan Sontag that I remember to this day. Susan had gone out to watch a movie. At some point she realized that many, even a majority, of the people in the theater with her that night had voted for Richard Nixon. It was an inconceivable concept that was also undoubtedly true.

It was a couple of months after Nixon had won reelection by a huge majority. A majority so large supporters were considering repealing the 22nd Amendment so Nixon could be President in perpetuity. The country was full of Nixon voters and people like Songtag and me couldn't wrap our minds around the bizarreness of that fact.

The fact that Ben Carson and Donald Trump combined have the support of half the Republican electorate is similarly baffling. Yes, I know a substantial percentage of Republican voters have brains the consistency of tapioca pudding, but even during the madness of the 2012 primary season lunatic Michele Bachmann peaked at just 16%. While Herman Cain has a brief sojourn at the top of the polls nobody thought he might actually get nominated.

Things are different today. There are really just five people at this point with a chance at the nomination. The only one with a resume (Bush) is hated by his party's base. A rookie Senator (Cruz) is hated by his party's elites. The guy with the best chance, another rookie Senator (Rubio), may be a childlike toady but at least nobody hates him.

Then we have two men who have commanding leads over everyone but each other. Carson is a straight up loon with a world view so distorted it would be unbelievable as fiction. Trump thinks knowledge is a dangerous thing so he refuses any association with it. In the latest FOX poll, Rubio, Bush, and Cruz combined have less support than Trump. If it were not for Carson he'd be running away with the nomination.

The lunatic asylum of Bedlam

I live in a conservative enclave of Southern California that once elected to the state legislature a man who ran on an anti-witchcraft platform and we have a megachurch just a few miles up the road. I know I must have neighbors who are enthusiastic supporters of Carson or Trump. And that terrifies me. I have long ago accepted that I am surrounded by Republicans but this, this is too much.

I don't understand it and I don't want to understand it. Understanding it leads to madness.

Grifters, Conmen, and Other Presidential Candidates

There are many reasons people choose to run for President, probably the rarest is a dedication to public service.

Ben Carson - Grifter

Carson is the clearest example of a grifter candidate I've ever seen. Most of the millions of dollars donated to his campaign have disappeared into a black hole called "fundraising." It is being laundered into various pockets with Dr. Ben, as the mastermind, certain to get the largest share. Carson's runs the God Scam to perfection, I expect there are several televangelists green with envy. Greenest of all is Mike Huckabee who expected to fleece the faithful as well as he did four years ago only to see Carson steal his flock.

Donald Trump - Egoist

I'm not the only person to see the Mussolini-Trump nexus. Trump's campaign is based on a cult of personality. There is no issue more important to Trump than Trump. It is quite literally all about him. Throw in extreme nationalism and more than a hint of racism and you have, well, a political movement Benito would have been proud of.

Marco Rubio - Conman

It's really hard to figure Marco out. Everything about Rubio is a bit off, a bit phony, like he can't quite keep his stories straight. He feels to me like the character Elmer Gantry (picture), someone who has told so many lies all his life he doesn't even know what the truth is anymore. Rubio sells out to billionaires like Norman Braman like a common toady. Marco is a just cheap carny conman.

Jeb Bush - Disappointing Son

One thing is clear, Jeb doesn't want to run for President. It clear in every statement, every appearance that he'd rather be doing anything else. He's running because daddy told him to and he always does what daddy says. It's a sad thing to watch, embarrassing really. You get the feeling Jeb could have a happy life if he didn't have the family obligation burden.

Carly Fiorina - Huckster

She wrote a book published in May, 2015 that nobody was buying (it is currently ranked #21,336th on Amazon). She ran for President trying to juice sales. It hasn't worked but maybe if she gets picked as someone's Veep sales will finally take off. Carly's just trying to hawk books.

Ted Cruz - Ghost Grifter

Yes, Cruz is a grifter and he will use any tragedy for money. But he is after so much more. Cruz wants to have power over people. Power so he can make them suffer. Cruz is a stealth candidate, he refuses to say exactly what he wants to do. Like Sauron, he will do whatever he has to to gain the power to rule us all.

Fixing the Debates

I hate presidential debates. They are group press conferences where, if we're lucky, a pro-wrestling interview breaks out. The revisions demanded by Republicans would make them worse, turning them into group infomercials. 

Gotcha Questions

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. ~ Harry Truman

Republican want an end to "gotcha questions." While loaded questions (When did you stop beating your wife?) are unfair, "what newspapers do you read" shouldn't be a tough question. When Becky Quick asked Ben Carson about his financially insane 10% tithe tax plan that was not playing gotcha, it was a tough question that needed answering. If you want to be President you should be able to handle tough questions.

Stupid Questions

Elvis or Johnny Cash? ~ Asked by CNN's John King during a 2012 Republican debate

The bane of American debates. For some reason TV talking heads believe in asking questions so dumb Entertainment Tonight would reject them. They are a waste of time and brain cells.

---

How I Would Change the Debates

Limit Participants
Two candidates are perfect, three and four are okay. Five on a stage is getting crowded. Ten? That's a mob, not a debate. Break the Republican horde into groups of four or five. Scatter the polling leaders among the groups so there is not one major debate with minor satellites. The leaders can be gathered in 2016 when the bottom dwellers are winnowed out.

Two Hours with Chairs
Let them sit at tables or desks. Lincoln and Douglas stood during their debates in 1858 but that was so people in the back could see them. Chairs make more sense in a television age. In the first Kennedy-Nixon debate of 1960, Nixon injured his knee prior to the debate, prolonged standing made him visibly uncomfortable. Should presidential decisions depend on not having an infected toenail? The Kennedy-Nixon debate was one hour long. Ninety minutes to two hours is plenty of time, this is not an endurance contest.

No Commercials
Are we choosing the leader of the Free World or boner pills? The networks have civic responsibility to offer their time without commercial breaks.

Fewer Question, More Answers
The Kennedy-Nixon debate had one moderator (Howard K. Smith) and three questioners from different news agencies. The format allowed for two and a half minute responses with ninety second rebuttals. Each question allowed for five minutes of substance. The CNBC rules were one minute responses with thirty second rebuttals only if allowed by the moderators.

For a five-handed debate, each question could have a two minute response with up to four one minute rebuttals. That would allow for at least three questions for each debater.

A two-handed debate could allow for two minute responses, one minute rebuttals, and thirty second responses to the rebuttal.

Limit Topics
One debate on foreign policy questions only. Another on domestic policy. A third on candidates specific policy positions. I like the idea of asking candidates about their opponent's policy positions.

None of these things will happen. Campaign consultants live in a soundbite world. Long answers and rebuttals are poison to their quick quote world. Television stations want excitement and conflict not policy discussions. They want the candidates to personally attack each other. Most candidates don't have well thought out policy goals (Trump and Carson) while those that do (Ted Cruz) want to keep them secret. So we will continue to get these circus performances masquerading as debates.

Real Halloween Monsters

Monsters are real, at least in the following allegedly true stories.

Petar Blagojevich - Vampire

Petar, a farmer in the Serbian village of Kisiljevo, died mysteriously in the year 1725. That was not surprising as most deaths in the 18th century were mysterious. He was buried with church honors and the villagers went back to their peasant lives. Three nights later Petar's son was shocked to discover his father rummaging the kitchen looking for food. The son fed the father who left without speaking.
The son told the villagers. Two nights later Petar returned but his son refused to feed him without an explanation for his being, you know, not dead. Visibly enraged but still wordless, Petar left. Again, the son reported the strange events to his neighbors. One day later, Petar's son was found dead. Over the course of the next week or so seven more villagers were found dead or dying. Many reported being visited by an angry Petar who grabbed them by the throat and choked them.

Terrified villages appealed to a local magistrate named Frombald. He and a priest exhumed Petar's grave. They found a corpse in excellent condition, apparently well fed. His eyes were open and appeared alive. There was fresh blood around his mouth. Most chilling, Petar appeared to be softly breathing. Panicked, they drove a stake into his heart which caused an explosion of fresh blood to flow. They then burned the corpse to ashes.

Fritz Haarmann - Vampire of Hannover

It's post World War I Germany. In 1924, people began discovering skulls and other body parts in and around the Leine River outside Hannover. In all, over 500 bits of human detritus were found, parts of at least 22 people. Police suspected Haarmann from the beginning, not just because of the toothbrush mustache that was common to German psychopaths of the era. When they searched his apartment they found the floor and walls covered in blood.

When Haarmann confessed he said he hadn't intended to kill anyone but that in "sexual ecstasy" he would bite them in the throat ripping out the larynx. After killing them, he would dismember them, remove their organs, strip off their flesh, and decapitate them; disposing of the remains in the forest by the river. Haarmann claimed to have killed ten boys and young men a year since the end of the Great War. He was convicted of killing 24 and, in a bit of macabre irony, was executed by beheading.

Gilles Garnier - Werewolf

The 16th century was the heyday for werewolf sightings in France and Germany. In 1573, children began disappearing near Dole, France. Authorities announced an open hunting season for werewolves. Gilles was spotted with a dead child and arrested. In court he confessed that, being recently married, he had been having trouble finding enough food. One night while hunting he had been approached by a demon who offered to turn him into a werewolf to aid his hunting. He said he killed and ate four children, bringing some of the flesh home to his wife. He was burned at the stake.

Felicia Felix-Mentor - Zombie

Not the lame, modern zombie horde but an actual Haitian Voodoo zombie. Felicia died and was buried in 1907. Twenty-nine years later she returned to home. Nothing is known about what happened to her because she could only babble unintelligibly. Her laugh was coldly soulless. She died shortly after returning.

According to scholars, a bokor, Voodoo priest, can make a zombie by drugging him with tetrodotoxin, simulating death.The bokor would dig up his victim who had been awake but paralyzed during the funeral and burial. The victim would thus believe he had died and been revived as a zombie. Additional drugs to suppress inhibitions and free will keep the victim a willing slave.

Buzz Kills
Skeptics will point out that Petar Blagojevich's vampire corpse was the result of normal putrefaction. Firtz Haarmann was simply a sexual sadist psychopath. Gilles Garnier was mentally ill and his confession was directed by the interrogation tactic of the day, torture. And Felicia Felix-Mentor was not a long lost beloved family member returned but simply a totally different mentally ill woman.

Another 'Debate'

Another "debate" (I don't know what these are but the are not anything like debates), another two hours I did not waste. But I did invest a few minutes reading the reviews.

'Liberal Media'
Republicans love bashing the liberal media and did so very openly last night. Ironically, CNBC is unabashedly libertarian and less "liberal" than FOX news. An on-air tirade by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli started the Tea Party movement. Erick Erickson singled out Jim Cramer for praise yet Cramer has been the sole Obama supporter on the network.

CNBC Talking Heads
Business reporting is where people go when they can't get a job in real journalism. They don't bother researching or knowing facts because their jobs are to make facile generalizations ("The market rose by 100 points today because GE reported earnings one cent above expectations.") on complex microeconomics beyond their ken. As interviewers they are tasked with helping CEOs do PR. Getting a reputation for probing questions of CEOs is a quick way to get fired.

Poor Jeb!
I'm really beginning to feel sorry for Jeb Bush. Marco Rubio pulled down Jeb's pants and spanked his bare fanny early last night. Jeb spent the rest of the debate curled up in a corner weeping softly. Jeb will never be President, the only remaining question is whether he can regain some small dose of family honor before withdrawing.

Winners
Most say Rubio. I would say it's St. Cornelius. He is the patron saint of earache sufferers. Given the astonishing number of bald-faced lies told by the candidates and allowed to stand by the ill-informed moderators, I suspect thousands of people were praying for Cornelius to intercede and end their torment. 

Trump & Mussolini In Their Own Words

I've described Donald Trump as an amalgam of Warren Harding's womanizing stupidity, Huey Long's down-home country radicalism, and Benito Mussolini's media savvy hatreds. The violence of Trump supporters highlight the Mussolini parallels.

Both Trump and Mussolini had a cult-like following. I don't think Trump is the leader (Il Duce) of a fascist revolution. He thinks he is leading a crowd of supporters when he is really just the figurehead for a rabid mob of dangerous criminals.

Egomaniac 

We will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored with winning. ~ Trump (9/9/2015)
I’m intelligent. Some people would say I’m very, very, very intelligent. ~ Trump (Fortune magazine, 4/3/2000)

This is the epitaph I want on my tomb: Here lies one of the most intelligent animals who ever appeared on the face of the earth. ~ Mussolini

Racism

I have black guys counting my money. … I hate it. The only guys I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes all day. ~ Trump (USA Today, 5/20/1991)
These disgusting Jews, I must destroy them all. ~ Mussolini quoted in his mistress's diary

Vengeance

My motto is: Always get even. When somebody screws you, screw them back in spades. ~ Trump
We do not argue with those who disagree with us, we destroy them. ~ Mussolini

International Relations 

When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best. They're not sending you, they're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people. ~ Trump's most famous presidential quote (6/16/2015)
I will build a great wall — and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me —and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. ~ Trump (6/29/2015)

An African country universally branded as a country without the slightest shadow of civilization. ~ Mussolini announcing his invasion of Ethiopia.

War

I would bomb the hell out of those [ISIS] oilfields. I wouldn't send many troops because you won't need 'em by the time I'm finished. ~ Trump (7/8/2015)
Let us have a dagger between our teeth, a bomb in our hands, and an infinite scorn in our hearts. ~ Mussolini

Italian Fascist Blackshirts.

Article about Trump's Thugs.

Donald Trump rally, Richmond, VA, Oct. 16, 2015

Hillary, Hurricanes, and Hubris

A variety of topics.

Hurricane Patricia

That hurricane poised to slam into Puerto Vallarta has sustained winds of 200 mph. That makes it an F4 tornado the size of Texas. One to two feet of rain is predicted and a storm surge well in excess of ten feet added to a four foot high tide. The devastation it will bring will make Katrina look line a spring drizzle.

Hillary and the Seven Dwarfs

I couldn't have done it. Eleven hours of that shit and I would not have resisted making snarky comments, loudly drumming my fingers on the table, and cutting off the inquisitors repeatedly demanding they "get to the point, we only have 63 more shopping days until Christmas." Martha Roby (R-AL) wins the clueless prize for the most unwittingly sexually suggestive question (above). The seven Republicans on the committee came off like they have a collective IQ under 50. All they managed to do is make Hillary Clinton look totally and completely presidential.

Carson Leads Trump in Iowa

Ben Carson, the Party of God candidate for President, has replaced Donald Trump at the top of the meaningless polls in Iowa. Expected as Iowa is the state that gave us Presidents Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee. Of course Iowa Republicans would support a man who promises to turn the Department of Education into a Gestapo tasked with purging liberal and non-religious thinking from college campuses.

I think most people, when they fin­ish that course[AP History], they’d be ready to go sign up for IS­IS. ~ Ben Carson

Okay, so the first quote is fake. But the wonderful thing about Dr. Carson is he has so many other crazy statements to choose from. 

Linc, We Hardly Knew Ya
Not that we really wanted to know either you or Jim Webb. There are many reasons to make hopeless runs for President. Some are grifters (Huckabee, Carson) looking to scam gullible rubes. Some people are unemployed, bored, and just looking for something to pass the time (Fiorina, Santorum), and some people have a particular issue they want to publicize (Lawrence Lessig). I never figured out why Lincoln Chaffee ran. Now, I probably never will know.

Biff Trump for President

I don't know why it took so long for me to see this. Once you realize it your image of Donald Trump will never be the same. Trump is Biff Tannen circa 2015.

Both are billionaire assholes...

who treat women like shit.

Both have weird hair and stick their names on the tip of tall casinos like they are over compensating for tiny, tiny penises.

It's all there. Robert Zemeckis warned us this was coming. He gave us ample opportunity to avoid the moral and criminal cesspool that Biff/Donald leadership would bring us to. We laughed and called it a fun movie when it was really a prescient documentary.

Marty McFly, save us.

Three Crazy Beliefs Some People Have

With the continuing irrational popularity of Donald Trump and Ben Carson I thought I'd explore some other crazy things people believe.

Flat Earth

It's hard to believe there are still people convinced that the Earth is flat, the Greeks figured out it was round over two millennia ago and even accurately calculated the circumference. I've never met a believer (I've also never met a Carson supporter) yet they appear to exist. And they believe there is a vast international conspiracy of governments and scientists to cover up the fact that the Earth's South Pole is actually its outer rim. Many also subscribe to the Domed Earth Theory that there is a solid structure encasing the flat Earth. This guy thinks the dome is made of glass.

Hollow Earth

Okay, you are an advanced scientific thinker and accept the Earth is a globe, but what's inside? Certainly not a chewy nougat center like confectioners hope or a hot iron core like those silly scientists claim. Obviously, it's hollow. The flying saucers we see are not space aliens, because that would be insane, there are people living inside sending vehicles out to see what we surface dwellers are doing. This theory contends that Adm. Robert Byrd flew into the center of the Earth through its polar openings. They also say that Hitler escaped into the hollow Earth.

Geocentric Theory

If you are a fundamentalist who is certain that the Earth is God's crowning creation you can't accept the scientific position that our planet is just a rock orbiting a nondescript yellow star on the outskirts of a mediocre galaxy in a universe with billions of galaxies. No, our planet has to be special. The sun must revolve around the Earth even if that doesn't make any sense. But that is not good enough. According to Robert Sungenis (PhD in religious studies not any science) the whole of the universe revolves around the Earth and all evidence to the contrary are Satanic lies.

Presidential Campaign By the Numbers

The NY Times has published a wonk's wet dream, all the presidential campaign finance numbers in one neat place. Thank you NYT.

Burn Rate

Hillary Clinton's campaign (excluding PAC money) has raise more than twice as much donations ($77 mil) as any other candidate. But she is burning through it twice as fast as anyone else. She also has more cash in hand than anyone else but her burn rate is so high she is going to have to keep up prodigious fundraising just to tread water. High spending helped kill Hillary's campaign in 2008 where she started running out of money in February.

Ben Carson has an even faster burn rate. He is second in total spending, almost two-thirds of what he has raise has already been spent. Rumor is most of the money is going to his fundraisers. He is spending money to raise more money so it can be spent raising money to be spent on fundraisers. This is a known scam rookie politicians fall for.

Bernie Sanders is in the best shape on burning cash. With $27 million cash in hand and a low burn rate, Bernie could run his campaign at this level for six months without raising any more cash.

Political Action Committees

Only three candidates, all Republicans, have raised more money from their fat cat sponsors into their PACs than into their own campaigns.

Jeb Bush, leads everyone in the billionaire butt kissing sweepstakes. Nine digits, $108 million, 81% of all the money set to get Bush elected has gone to PACs instead of Bush's own campaign.

Chris Christie's own campaign has raised a measly $4 mil, his PACs have taken in over $14 mil.

Marco Rubio's PACs have also take in more money ($17 mil) than his campaign ($14 mil) but at least it's close.

Bernie Sanders is the only serious candidate (sorry Ben and Donald) with no billionaire PAC auxiliary.

Million Dollar Donors

In buying politicians, nothing says "I own your sorry ass" like investing a million dollars.

Ted Cruz leads the pack. Ninty-five percent of his PAC's $38 million donations have come in seven figure buys.

Marco Rubio's $17 mil in PAC money comes from a handful of million dollar gifts (77%). Marco also is getting $2.5 million in secret donations funneled though Besilu Stables.

Hillary's million dollar buyers are a little less than half her PAC's donor pool.

Jeb's PACs still have room for more donations as only 24% of his donors have gotten into seven figures. Of course, that also means they can save their cash if they decide he is a lost cause.

Little People

At the other end of the spectrum are the small donors, $200 or less. These people are not buying a president but simply supporting someone they believe in.

Bernie Sanders, unsurprisingly, leads the league in this stat. Over 81% of his donors are from regular folk. Only 1% of his supporters have maxed out at $2,700.

Ben Carson, more surprisingly, is also at the 80% level. Who'da thunk?

Hillary's small supporters make up less than 20% of her donor base. Sixty-three percent have already maxed out.

Jeb's small supporters are a microscopic 3% of his backers. Eighty-one percent have maxed out, meaning they are dead weight on his future donor list.