SNL

Will protesters disrupt tonight's taping of SNL?  I hope so.  Let's face it, NBC has a high tolerance for racist behavior and it's about time the network is called on it.

What Resistance

Is it just me?  I'm I the only person in this country who realizes that Kim Davis is all alone in her refusal to grant marriage licenses to same sex couples?  I mean, come on, where's the massive resistance we were told to expect?  Nor even her own staff, presumably hired by her, will follow Davis to jail.

Colbert

Just finished watching the first ever The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and it was just plain bad.  Come on, I can't be the only person who was baffled by the first half of the show where he basically praised himself.  A few moments of humor, but then, I kept wondering when he would get to his guests.  I'm inclined to like George Clooney, but the bit they did where he plugs an imaginary movie,  after they repeated the basic joke for the nth time,  again, I was wondering when it was going to end.  And then it was Jeb Bush.  No wonder the guy is falling in the polls.  He's a dullard.  That's fine, but hardly worth staying up for.  After all, The late Show is more entertainment than political commentary, and if it's not engaging, what's the point.  The band, led by Jon Batiste, however, is top notch.  If the show ends with a musical number every night, there'll be at least one high light.    Listening to the great Mavis staples is a treat, especially when it's part of a kick ass version of the Sly Stone classic Everyday People.  It would have been a bit better if Colbert himself hadn't sung a verse.  The man isn't a singer.  Give it a D+ and hope for improvement.

Maybeeeeee

I was born in 1955, and in my lifetime, the pundits assured us that the American people would never elect John Kennedy, because he was a Catholic.  After a devastating loss in the California governors race against Pat Brown, we were all told that Richard Nixon's political career was over.  He was no longer electable.  Jimmy Carter, a one term Governor from Georgia, was a political joke.  Another southern Governor, Bill Clinton, was a womanizer, somewhat shady, and after a disastrous keynote address  at the previous Democratic Convention, one of the seven dwarfs, and was dog meat against a popular sitting President.  And let's not forget how we were all assured that America wasn't ready for a black President, and that Barack Obama was nothing but a speed bump on the road to a John McCain victory.

I'm not predicting that Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders will be the next President.  Quite frankly, my feeling is that Donnie will probably go third party and guarantee a Democratic victory.  As for Bernie, I think he's got a shot in a week field, (And yes, I do include Hilary in that.) though it's unlikely.  The point is, the American electorate doesn't always follow the advice of the talking class.

More On Donny Dumbo

I've noticed that the media seems to be taking Donald Trump seriously, and why shouldn't they.  He is, after all, leading the Repug field, that is if early polling is to be believed.  Everything he says gets parsed for meaning and how it will influence voters.  My question: Why hasn't anyone questioned his sanity.  We're so used to his publicity mongering that we're overlooking the very real possibility that he's clinically insane.  Let's face it, put Donny on a street corner, and people are crossing the street to avoid the crazy guy.

Dylann & Donny

"You rape our women and you're taking over our country and you've got to go."  Dylann Roof

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best.  They're sending people that have lots of problems. They're bringing drugs.  They're bringing crime.  They're rapists."  Donald Trump

Please Tell Me They Were Non Union

This just in! (Not really)  The Donny hired background actors to fill out his Presidential announcement rally.  As a member of SAG-AFTRA, I hope they were all non union.

The Donald

So Donald Trump want's to be President of the United States.  Actually, I suspect he'd be horrified if he actually won.  Best guess, his publicity addiction has finally got the better of him.  The only question in my mind: Will his behavior at the Fox sponsored Republican debates make one of the other nuts look reasonable?  Reasonable enough to be a viable candidate?  Only Donald Trump, by comparison, could make Ted Cruz look sane.

And speaking of debates.  As I understand it, only the top ten contenders, based on polling, will be invited.  As of right now, Donny is in, but John Kasich, the sitting Governor of Ohio, is out.  Lindsey Graham, a sitting U.S. Senator is out.  Don't get me wrong, there's not a single announced Repug candidate that I would vote for, but Kasich and Graham actually have experience in government, and too, there not lunatic  publicity whores.

Favorite Quotes

From Lyndon Johnson after 1968 race riots and the death of Martin Luther King Jr.

"What do you expect?  I don't know why we're so surprised.  When you put your foot on a man's neck for 300 years and then you let him up, what's he going to do?  He's going to knock your block off."

Water Water Nowhere

It's time to piss off libertarians (A favorite thing of mine.) while asking an obvious question.  California is in an ongoing, epic drought.  Governor Jerry Brown has signed an executive order mandating a 25% reduction in water use.  If we don't have enough water to grow tomatoes, can we allow water to be used to grow marijuana?   Environmentalists (I consider myself an enviro.) love to point out that it doesn't make a lot of sense to grow things like rice and almonds, two water intensive crops, in a semi-desert place like California's central valley.  How much sense does it make to brew beer during a drought?  It's not like we can't truck in Bud from the Midwest.

I'm Confused

I'm confused.  Republicans detest Attorney General Eric Holder, but they won't confirm his successor, Loretta Lynch, effectively keeping Holder in office.  My head hurts.

The Man Most Likely To Start World War 3

I Hate To Be Negative.....

I hate to be negative but won't the effects of human driven climate change be mitigated by a population die off.  I mean, come on, get real,  I'm 60 and the population of both the planet and the United States have doubled in my lifetime.  The idea that we can provide food, water, and health care for a few more billion people is ridiculous.  We can barely provide for everyone now, and it's only going to get worse.

Now, I know that a lot of people read stuff like this and assume that famine, disease, and all that will be the plague of the third world, and it won't happen here. ( Fill in any first world country for here.)  I don't know why first worlders make that assumption.  A massive drought, not enough water to grow food, knows no boundaries, and when push comes to shove, we can only buy so much food  from other countries.  And let's not forget our old friend war.  War over resources has already begun, and it will only get worse.

Talk about the four horseman.

Ebola

I've been sitting here reading articles about anti-vaxers and I started wondering, what happened to the Ebola scare?   I know there are American troops in west Africa helping to contain the outbreak, and because of that I would expect multiple news stories on the effort to stop the disease.  I've long felt that the United States would be far more secure if we converted an aircraft carrier task force or two from war to medical and disaster relief.

Meanwhile, cons in the U.S. have started blaming illegal aliens for the spread of measles, rather than Americans who are opposed to vaccinations.  I guess, when those same people predicted that terrorists would send Ebola infected illegals across the border because they hated our freedom didn't pan out, they moved on to some other  threat.  At least, measles is a real threat, even if we only have to look at self centered, upper middle class Americans for the true cause.

Hey, just thought I'd pass this along from my personal experience.  I grew up in a small, rural town in western Pennsylvania. My first grade class (1960, just so you know how old I am.)  had about fifty or so kids divided into two groups.  About 15 or so of those kids were mentally retarded.  There had been a rubella outbreak six years earlier, and women, infected with rubella, while pregnant, are at great risk of delivering mentally disabled children.