Arizona wants to give guns to criminals, domestic abusers, mentally ill and terrorists

Gabby Giffords with Mark Kelly

You read it right. Arizona's Senate Bill 1122, which has been approved by both the House and Senate, prohibits state or local governments from preventing the sale of personal property. Like gun show sales, or a friend gives or sells his gun to another friend, or just someone he met at the mall. If it sounds ludicrous it is, but just another notch on Arizona gun laws that haven't made any sense for years. The state slogan should be 'Put 'em on the street and they will kill.' Because that is exactly what they will do. Arizona ranks tenth in the nation in gun violence.

On January 8, this year, the state observed the sixth anniversary of the shooting of former U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords in a Tucson Safeway. Six people were killed, another 13 wounded, including Giffords. There has been speculation that if gun laws in Arizona were stricter, Jared Lee Loughner, 29, would never have been able to get a gun. The state legislature and the people of Arizona never seem to learn. On Friday, one person killed, seven wounded, some critically, in San Diego.  On Monday, one dead, one wounded in Dallas by gun violence.

Is the American public apathetic toward gun violence or are they just stupid?

Donald Trump in throes of imploding

Typical Trump supporters

Two more interviews by the lord and master of incoherence and Donald Trump nailed it again. Host John Dickerson on "Face the Nation" asked Trump if he stood by his unfounded accusations about Barack Obama's surveillance of Trump Tower during the 2016 election. Here was Trump's reply...

"I don't stand by anything. I just-- you can take it the way you want. I think our side's been proven very strongly. And everybody's talking about it. And frankly it should be discussed. I think that is a very big surveillance of our citizens. I think it's a very big topic. And it's a topic that should be number one. And we should find out what the hell is going on."

And then there was Salena Zito's interview in the Washington Examiner prompting this comment from Trump that Andrew Jackson was really angry about what was happening 1with the Civil War, that DT thinks shouldn't have happened. Here's Chris Cillizza's retort on CNN...

"Andrew Jackson died in 1845. It seems unlikely that he was "really angry that he saw what was happening in regard to the Civil War" since the war didn't start until 1861."

Cillizza finishes his piece with two observations that show a President who does not know what he is doing, and what is worse, thinks what he is doing is good and the right thing.

1. He did zero preparation for these interviews.

2. He makes up his own reality.

Number one is very bad based on the office he holds but number two reeks of disaster in the future should a major issue arise needing judgment and diplomacy. Unfortunately, that is probably when this maniac would implode.

The Young Turks brutalize Trump's AP interview

Okay, after Bernie Sanders on Trump, here is Cenk Uygur, founder of The Young Turks humiliating a laughable clueless Donald Trump based on his Associated Press interview. If it wasn't T-rump, it would almost be embarrassing for even a Progressive to listen to. Uygur repeatedly refers to the fact that "this" is the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, as well as addressing the poor souls that elected him. If you are looking for one of the greatest put-downs of Donald Trump, based on facts, that has been done to date, the following video is it.

Donald Trump embraces tyranny for "his" Oval Office

The U.S. government was set up as a model of checks and balances to ensure that one branch of government did not usurp all the power of the land and become dictatorial. Like the office of the President. But Donald Trump has decided that this kind of government does not fit his personality, rather, he prefers that the power should be consolidated within his office. That's right, give it all to Donald John. There is nothing this maniac would like better than to be able to dictate his daily gibberish to the Congress and judiciary as the lord baron of America.

But wait, there are things in this Washington Post article I am quoting from that Trump says that I agree with. God forbid but it's true. He indicates the politics of Washington are archaic. TRUE. He says the rules of the House and Senate are archaic, and when you consider what this Congress has accomplished in the last few years. TRUE. He wants to get rid of the filibuster, some pissed off congress person ranting for days just because he or she didn't get his or her way. DUMP IT. In the end, though, what a switch from a guy who decried Obama's power grabs with executive orders.

Bernie Sanders being Bernie Sanders on Donald Trump

Have been busy trying to finish my animal novelette but could not resist this video I discovered on The Young Turks. It is an assessment by Bernie Sanders of Donald Trump's first 100 days and it is not pretty when it comes to accomplishments. There are none and what T-rump has done is to set this country up for a future where only the wealthy and corporations prosper while the 99% languish in the mediocrity of the leftovers. The Bern is right on when he talks about all the issues and promises of the Trump candidacy, with the reality of his failure to follow through with the working class.

The silver lining in all this as Bernie states is that it has brought Progressives together and we have realized the dangers too our country and what must be done. Now we have to do it. Listen to the video below and you'll see what has to be done.

Donald Trump could be impeached by Progressives in 2018

The People speak

American University Professor Allan Lichtman predicted that Donald Trump would win the 2016 election for President, and he did. Well, not the popular vote by a long shot, but the electoral College which is all that counts. Lichtman did it with his system, “Keys to the White House,” one that has called presidential elections in the past. Not using the "Keys" this time, he made another forecast that Trump would be impeached before the end of his first term. Lichtman has put all this in his new book,  “The Case for Impeachment,” publishing on April 18.

The author indicates there are eight ways in which the impeachment could happen, using former cases like Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton to illustrate his conclusion. Lichtman points out guidelines that many people aren't aware of...

"You don’t actually have to commit a crime to be impeached. The House of Representatives basically decides what constitutes impeachment, and it could be any violation of the public trust, whether or not it’s a crime."

It was the Founding Fathers intention to put in place a mechanism that would allow Congress to keep checks and balances on the Oval Office and get rid of a "rogue" that saw fit to ignore the law. Nixon did and Lichtman believes that one of the reasons that...

"...Trump is vulnerable to impeachment is that he shares many of the same traits as Richard Nixon, and poses the same kind of threat to our constitutional system, our liberties and our freedoms."

But Peter W. Stevenson of the Washington Post reminds the Professor that Republicans control both houses of Congress plus the White House. Why would they want to mess with the balance of power by impeaching another Republican? Lichtman's reply is the people could demand it and since Donald John has no real connections in Congress, they could decide to cut him loose simply because he is a liability. It only takes a majority vote and since the Dems would no doubt be in favor, it would only require two-dozen Republicans to switch.

Stevenson makes the point that Republicans don't really trust Donald Trump, but they love Mike Pence, considered to be their Christian conservative dream for Congress. In some cases, Pence could be worse than Trump with his Tea Party ideologies that he would attempt to run the government with. I say attempt because I do believe the public would revolt as they have in the past when this radical faction gets too close to control. If the emails I get from this organization are any measurement of their sanity, Mike Pence is a part of a snake pit.

Lichtman alludes to past business dealings of Donald Trump and his many decades in the world of commerce. It's not pretty. He's flouted the law, been in trouble with the Department of Justice, broke the Cuban embargo in the 1990s, when that was a serious crime, and he has broken laws with respect to the employment of illegal immigrants, ironically contradicting his own campaign. Played fast and loose with the law, walked away from failed deals, and has had a serious problem with telling the truth, obvious in his campaign and in office, but also regularly before that.

Lichman makes a comment in closing that really sums up Donald Trump as a person, "His overriding pattern is Donald Trump first, and nothing else matters nearly as much." Yet today he is in the White House, put there by voters that I am not sure were informed enough to know what the hell they were doing; at least a vast majority of them. Donald John answered to no one in business but he has the American public trust to answer to today and that is what could bring about his impeachment. 

From bedlam to turmoil, a wrap-up from Trump Turbulence

A majority of Republicans think the economic status of black Americans is mostly their fault. The General Social Survey, a wide-ranging study of cultural and political attitudes done annually by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, reports that 55% of white Republicans agree with this concept while only 26% of white Democrats do. This 55% feel black Americans experience more poverty due to their lack of motivation and willpower. This sounds to me like the general population of the South I grew up in. Apparently little has changed.

Not exactly last week, but recent and on-going. The Democrats have a way of getting the issues they are interested in done amongst a Republican White House supported by a Republican Congress. The GOP needs the Dems to avoid a government shutdown at the end of this month. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), said...

"Republicans are going to need our help putting together the budget, and that help means we can avoid some of the outrageous Trump proposals and advance some of our own proposals.”

Trump, himself, seems to have mellowed since the repeal of Obamacare was shoved down his throat, or elsewhere. I keep saying it but just wait until 2018.

 It was Tuesday of last week that Sean Spicer effectively erased the Holocaust from history with his statement that, "... even Adolf Hitler did not sink to that level of warfare and was not using the gas on his own people in the same way that Assad is doing.” This was followed by the typical controversy that seems to go along with most everything the man says. He realized, of course, what he had said, but it is always too late and the damage has already been done. During the 2016 campaign Trump attacked Hillary Clinton using a Star of David on top of piles of money.

A week of Trump flip-flops. First, I hate NATO, then I love it. Then, China is a currency manipulator during his candidacy, in the Oval Office, China is not a currency manipulator. During the 2016 campaign, he didn't like Janet Yellen, said, she "should be ashamed of herself.” Once in the White House, “I like her, I respect her.” Conservatives don't like the U.S. Export-Import Bank. Neither did Donald John in 2016. Then he found it helped small companies so he would let it exist. It was several flip-flops that tanked John Kerry's 2004 Presidential campaign but DT seems oblivious.

A ranking of least and most popular U.S. Senators comes up regularly in the media and it makes one wonder if the purpose is to get rid of assholes like Mitch McConnell. McConnell is always at the top of the least liked, and it comes straight from a poll of his constituents. So why the hell was he reelected? Stupid voters or a weak Democrat running against him? McConnell also happens to be one of the most powerful members of Congress, and that is dangerous when it is a person who thinks only of himself and the Republican Party. But Bernie Sanders is first, because he's always for his country.