LATE BREAKING NEWS-For liberals only

The only side Mitch McConnell has is a dark side, in contrast with a piece in Politico featuring the inference this slime ball might have some worthwhile virtues. He doesn't. Politico says, "The Senate majority leader is relishing his turn as villain to the left." I posted this by Robert Reich saying, "Mitch McConnell is destroying the Senate – and American government." Reich states...

"The majority leader cares only for winning, not rules or democracy itself. He is doing more damage than Trump"

 Politico says...

Call him “Cocaine Mitch,” “Nuclear Mitch” or the steward of the “legislative graveyard.” Mitch McConnell says he’s the “Grim Reaper” anyway, so he’s loving every minute of it.

The “Grim Reaper” comment illustrates a sickness in this pariah who craves his power as head of the Senate, with the sole intention of getting his way and the way of the Republican Party over all that is good for this country. Donald Trump is the bottom of the barrel but Mitch McConnell is the ground under the barrel. The left will no doubt tell us that the country would be much better off with a Democratic Congress, particularly with a Dem in the White House.

Joe Biden wants to be that Dem and he's running ahead in the "brigade-sized Democratic field," described by The Hill. He has a...

"double-digit lead not only nationally, but in the key early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina. He is also currently even leading Sen. Kamala Harris in her home state of California."

But wait, The Hill says that polling is fickle...

"At this point in 2007, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was way ahead in the Republican race, and Hillary Clinton was leading Barack Obama by double digits. In the 2012 GOP race, the assortment of one-time poll front runners included, at various times, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and even Herman Cain."

Will he or won't he, but could Bernie Sanders still be the dark horse? Although Biden was once tentative on Roe v. Wade, just recently he said he would support abortion rights "if necessary." Doesn't sound too convincing, especially when "Two-thirds of Americans want Roe v. Wade left in place." In a CBS News poll, 67% say Keep it as it is; only 28% want to overturn it. But 48% claim they would be angry if it was overturned. That is fairly dramatic.

It isn't likely a Democratic House will allow a bill to repeal Roe v. Wade, but New state abortion laws are threatening the law, like the recent legislation in Alabama. It has been judged by many as going much too far and is already being challenged in court. The real fear by the left is when one of these laws is brought up in the ultra-conservative Supreme Court. Meanwhile, back at the White House with Rex Tillerson, who once called Donald Trump "a fucking moron."

Rex Tillerson Secretly Meets With House Foreign Affairs Committee to Talk Trump, was reported by the Daily Beast...

"In a more than six-hour meeting, he told members and staffers that the Trump administration actively avoided confronting Russia about allegations of interference in the election in an effort to develop a solid relationship with the Kremlin, a committee aide told The Daily Beast."

Tillerson's meeting comes on the heels of the Mueller Report release, and the refusal of Don McGhan to appear before the Democratic House. Trump recently had this to say about Tillerson...

"Rex Tillerson, a man who is 'dumb as a rock' and totally ill prepared and ill equipped to be Secretary of State, made up a story (he got fired) that I was out-prepared by Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Hamburg, Germany. I don't think Putin would agree. Look how the U.S. is doing!"

 This is after Trump chose Rex Tillerson to be his secretary of state ...

in December 2016, he praised the former head of Exxon Mobil for his "tenacity, broad experience and deep understanding of geopolitics." In a tweet touting the pick, Trump called Tillerson "one of the truly great business leaders of the world."

Donald Trump is a certifiable lunatic!

And that's the current wrap up. Please give me your comments. 

Howard Stern has proof Donald Trump 2016 campaign a publicity stunt

I have information that he...

It is hard these days to condense all the machinations of the Oval Office lunatic into one post, so I have to go on my merry way blogging on Donald Trump. For instance, after one White House meeting, Nancy Pelosi questioned his manhood and called him a skunk. Pelosi's view of the meeting...

"I can't explain it to you. It was so wild," Pelosi told top Democratic legislators after her White House meeting with the president, Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat. "It goes to show you: you get into a tinkle contest with a skunk, you get tinkle all over you."

 There was more on the subject of manhood, Pelosi linked Mr. Trump's masculinity to his infamous border wall pledge. "It's like a manhood thing for him," she said. "As if manhood could ever be associated with him. This wall thing." With all Trump's braggadocio about scoring with women, you wouldn't think so, but apparently Pelosi found a crack in the wall. Trump concluded the meeting with...

"We can go two routes with this meeting: with a knife or a candy."

What the hell does that mean? .Whatever it means, his tirades appear to be getting worse to convince Democrats to stop the investigations of him. Trump's statement to the press...

"I respect the courts, I respect Congress, but what they've done is abuse." 

It's hard to believe that Donald Trump has respect for anything, including himself. Then the next thing spewing from his mouth was that he would refuse to work with Congress until the investigations ceased. In other words, in his own demented way, he was saying, if I don't get my way, I'll take my ball and go home. You'll note that I said ball not the plural, which he never had. Here's what a U.S. District Court Judge ruled in Trump's case...

"On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled in favor of the legislative branch, reaffirming the importance of congressional oversight authority."

CNN muses over how T-rump keeps taking Nancy Pelosi's bait. This gigantic ego cannot accept any criticism of himself without a rebuttal that most of the times turns nasty. Think back, any president you can think of that ever exhibited this kind of behavior? I think not. And this draws a correlation between the man who easily blew off his competitors in the overcrowded 2016 Republican Primary with a soaring self-admiration.

Race forward to now when he seems completely bamboozled by the Speaker of the House who apparently isn't done with him yet. Pelosi seems to be on the right path planning more baiting to draw out more of Trump's bizarre reactions. Here's a grabber, "Howard Stern says he has inside info that Trump's campaign was a 'publicity stunt'" Here's the scenario...

Radio host Howard Stern, who often hosted President Trump on his show before the reality star and real estate mogul entered politics, claims Trump’s 2016 campaign was a “publicity stunt” to get NBC to give him a raise for “The Apprentice.”

 “This is a publicity stunt,” Stern said in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “I have no doubt because I have some inside information.”

Ludicrous sounding but entirely possible with the maniacal Donald Trump. It's almost as if he senses the impending dementia and wants to shove his point through on innocence before going to never-never land. This may sound crass for someone with this condition, and I wouldn't wish it on even Donald Trump, but when you weigh what this man has done to our country, there is certainly grounds for disgust. More startling news from Stern...

Stern said it all started with the 1987 book “The Art of the Deal,” ghostwritten by Tony Schwartz but credited to Trump. Stern said that a public relations professional suggested Trump start a "rumor" that he was planning to launch a White House bid.

 “So, all of a sudden, he was being interviewed — the book goes right to No. 1,” Stern said.

All Trump needed was several thousand double-digits to vote for him plus an outdated Electoral College, and we have a lunatic in the Oval Office. And yet another GOP congressman has called for T-rump's impeachment, former Rep. Tom Coleman, who represented Missouri for nearly two decades. He told Erin Burnett on CNN...

"I'm calling for impeachment now because the Mueller report is out, and in it (special counsel Robert Mueller) describes 10 obstruction of justice charges that he could not bring because of a Department of Justice rule and regulation that says you can't indict a sitting president

The other Republican was Justin Amash whose stand has pissed off the GOP en masse. Now it seems like Nancy Pelosi is going to have to work on the other side of the aisle as well to quell the demands for impeachment.

Have a great Memorial Day

Memorial Day is an American holiday, observed on the last Monday of May, honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. military. ... Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971.

How to Observe Memorial Day

By visiting cemeteries and placing flags or flowers on the graves of our fallen heroes.
By flying the U.S. Flag at half-staff until noon. ...
By attending religious services of your choice.
By visiting memorials.

Or you can do it your way...Just Remember!

Thanks to Google for the information.

Political Looney Tunes of Donald Trump

If ever there was a good use for the word loony, it is now, to describe Donald Trump. Sitting in the Oval Office he has performed such foolhardy high jinks that he would have been guaranteed a spot in the cast of the cartoon Looney Tunes. There are so many characters he could have replaced such as Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd, to name a couple. And can't you just imagine that zany lineup populating the White House just as the current members do? Looney...Looney...Looney

 Having said this, these antics provide people like me the ammunition to point out how much of a mental case maniac Donald Trump is. As an example, Trump has proposed rolling back healthcare protections for the LGBTcommunity passed by former President Barack Obama. With the spread of HIV in the offing, how foolish can this be?  Here's the scenario...

"The proposed rule from HHS reverses President Barack Obama's administration, which found that the Affordable Care Act’s anti-discrimination section does indeed protect transgender people seeking health care services."

The rule can be finalized after a 60-day public comment period. HHS' director of the Office of Civil Rights, Roger Severino, justifies the move by saying, “When Congress prohibited sex discrimination, it did so according to the plain meaning of the term, and we are making our regulations conform.” Huh? The Trump administration should be impeached en-masse for its stupid interpretations of the laws.

We're experiencing one of the early examples of the new conservative supreme Court making bad judgments for the country. Gerrymandering, which everyone but Republicans think is wrong, has been given a reprieve in Michigan and Ohio by SCOTUS. The background...

"The high court heard partisan gerrymandering cases in its previous term as well, in 2017 and 2018. But a year ago, the court issued a limited ruling that largely left the issue undecided and opened the door for lower courts to enforce limits on partisan gerrymandering. Since then, however, Justice Anthony Kennedy retired and was replaced by Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative who doesn’t have a record on the issue thus far."

This is the guy, Kavanaugh, that Sen. Susan Collins believed on abortion, and why there is a move today to vote her out of office. With the headline, "Trump is a would-be tyrant surrounded by henchmen," Joe Conason of Creator's Syndicate says...

"Donald Trump is no longer just a persistent object of national shame and revulsion. He has become a threat to the Constitution and the rule of law — and the question before the House, quite literally, is what to do about him."

Although many Democrats want to impeach Trump, Nancy Pelosi "warns that attempting to remove a duly elected president, even one who lost the popular vote, will be inevitably divisive and politically unpopular." And of course with a Mitch McConnell led Senate, there is virtually no chance to convict the Oval Office lunatic. The arguments for impeachment,however, get louder by the day, as Trump continues to commit impeachable offenses in the eyes of the left.

In keeping with the above, "MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Donny Deutsch agreed President Donald Trump's feud with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had revealed his mental diminishment." In late 2018,Jeffrey Sachs did an intriguing piece on "Trump’s Diminishing Power and Rising Rage," illustrating what a danger this manic is as his mental capacity continues to decline. How far will the American voting public allow to go?

Observations from left field

Did James Madison really want the 2nd Amendment? History tells us his intention was to land a seat in the Virginia legislature andin doing so he had to appease Southern Baptists. The results were that...

“Madison found himself one of the first American politicians to pirouette, in the course of a campaign, from a deeply held view to its opposite—all the while insisting (and trying to convince himself) that he had not changed his view at all. The Bill of Rights was born of a pander to a noisy interest group in a single congressional district.”

Thus evolved the First and Second Amendments. READ MORE.

The anti-vaxxer measles outbreak has now spread to 24 states, the 24th being Oklahoma. The number of cases has now increased to 880, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Here's the scenario...

"The total number of cases is inching closer to the record 963 cases reported across the U.S. in 1994. The current outbreak is still the largest since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000."

The majority of measles cases are still concentrated in New York. READ MORE.

Donald Trump is sliding in in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania,the Rust Belt, where he barely won in 2016. His campaign polling shows him trailing Joe Biden. Apparently the state Republican Party isn't performing up to par raising concerns...

"that a potential GOP Senate candidate in Michigan could hurt the president’s prospects there."

"The Trump campaign recently completed a 17-state polling project that concluded the president trails Joe Biden in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan." READ MORE.

Donald Trump's misguided escalation in the China trade war could lead to a dangerous confrontation. Here's where it stands...

"Ely Ratner, the director of studies at the Center for a New American Security, told The Washington Post that the failure to reach a trade deal could see the US unleash "harsher measures" against China."

The South China Sea or Taiwan are the focal points for a future crisis. READ MORE.

However, Xi Jinping says China is embarking on a “new Long March, and we must start all over again!” That has been interpreted in the U.S. to mean that he will not give in to Donald Trump's demands. Even worse...

"Xi also visited rare earth mining and processing facilities on Monday, the report said. There has been speculation that China could ban rare earth exports to the U.S. if the trade war escalates, according to the South China Morning Post."

All negotiation between the U.S. and China are in limbo, with it looking like  Xi Jinping is not interested in resuming talks. READ MORE.

Corporate income tax dodgers

Here's a fact: "Corporations are paying a smaller share of federal tax revenue than they did in the 1950s, dropping from one-third then to only one-tenth of the total today." Here's more from Americans for Tax Fairness...

"Yet, an army of lobbyists is pushing hard to convince Congress to cut the corporate income tax rate by nearly one-third — from the current 35% to 25%. This issue is at the epicenter of the coming battle over tax reform."

Bernie Sanders has been screaming this to anyone who would listen for his entire political career. Here are more facts...

Corporate share of federal tax revenue has dropped by two-thirds in 60 years — from 32% in 1952 to 10% in 2013.

Profitable corporations paid U.S. income taxes amounting to just 12.6% of worldwide income in 2010.

U.S. corporations dodge $90 billion a year in income taxes by shifting profits to subsidiaries — often no more than post office boxes — in tax havens.

Corporations complain about their tax rates but...

"The top statutory tax rate of 35% in the U.S. is somewhat higher than that of 30 other OECD countries, but the average effective tax rate — the actual rate paid after deductions and credits — is slightly lower than our competitors, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
"Several studies have found that U.S. corporations pay a similar or a lower effective tax rate — the rate actually paid — than corporations in other countries."

Thanks to Donald Trump's new tax law...

"This ITEP (Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy) report provides the first comprehensive look at how corporate tax changes under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affect the scale of corporate tax avoidance. The report finds that in 2018, 60 of America’s biggest corporations zeroed out their federal income taxes on $79 billion in U.S. pretax income. Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes at the 21 percent statutory corporate tax rate, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion."

 Go to this site for startling figures on who is not paying their fair share, as Bernie Sanders puts it. With escalating profits, conniving corporations leave it up to the American taxpayer to foot the bill, the ones who contribute to corporate profits. Legitimate deductions to decrease a fair tax is one thing, but in each case U.S. companies have an unfair advantage over the average taxpayer. This is why it is so important to elect Progressives to Congress and the White House.

Charley Manson's "Helter Skelter" is back

A young Charles Manson

The Manson family got its start in 1967, just north of where we lived in Canoga Park, Calif. We rode up there one day looking for Spahn Ranch where the Manson cult collected and did their evil business. We were almost immediately turned around by signs saying"No Admittance" accompanied by a heavy wire fence. Appropriately called the Spahn Movie Ranch, it was owned by George Spahn who willingly allowed Manson and his followers to live there.

The ranch had been the home for TV episodes of "Bonanza," "The Lone Ranger," and "Zorro." Although George Spahn wasn't involved in any of Manson's crime, his ranch was where the 'family' lived while committing the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders in Los Angeles. A wildfire destroyed all of the Spahn Movie Ranch film set and buildings on September 26, 1970. The owner, George Spahn died on September 22, 1974. My thanks to Wikipedia.

With this background, you might remember the book, "Helter Skelter," written by Charles Manson's prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi. It was Charley's term for the race war he intended to start between blacks and whites, expecting near annihilation after which he would lead his followers to take over the country. The words, from a Beatles' song, were written on the LaBianca's refrigerator door to instigate the race war. And that's a long way around to get to this...

"The Russians who interfered in the 2016 US presidential election are still at it — and this time, they’re trying to ignite racial violence in America and a partial collapse of the United States."

Looks like Charley Manson got in Vladimir Putin's head, assuming there is room next to Donald Trump. Here's the scenario from Vox...

"According to secret documents obtained by a Russian opposition group, hackers have discussed plans to stir up racial resentment in the United States in hopes of tearing American society apart. The operatives are apparently associates of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the man who set up a troll farm and was indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller for his role in 2016 meddling."

Someone has been reading "Helter Skelter." There's more...

"Prigozhin and his team of Russian trolls tried to inflame racial tensions during the 2016 cycle by operating several social media accounts that tried to discourage African Americans from voting, mainly by repeating messages of police violence and voter fraud."

But the "apparent new plot" originating as early as 2018, in preparation for the 2020 election, digs much deeper. The following is unbelievable...

"The documents reportedly contain shocking proposals such as sending black Americans to Africa “'for combat prep and training in sabotage,' as well as targeting people who have previously been incarcerated and people 'who have experience in organized crime groups ... for participation in civil disobedience actions.'”

Manson could take lessons from this guy, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Vox says...

"there is no indication of how seriously the documents — titled “Development Strategy of a Pan-African State on US Territory” — and the plan overall have been received in Russia. It’s possible the set of proposals went absolutely nowhere and were viewed as too extreme (or ridiculous) even for Moscow."

We can only hope with Donald Trump in the White House.