Haven't done one of these in a while. Haven't looked at the news a lot. I kinda feel like everyone has made up their mind by now as to whether it would be a good thing or a bad thing for Republicans to retain as much control as they have of the government. It's now just a question of which side can do a better job of making their voters feel like the world will end if they don't turn out on Election Day.
Trump continues to do something almost every day which is morally and/or legally wrong. His backers continue to deny it or just outright say, "Who cares? We're in power and that's all that matters." They'd howl if President Obama had done the same thing and howl even louder if President Crooked Hillary had done it…but Trump was right: He could "stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters." Especially if the person he shot was a journalist.
It was kinda refreshing the other day to hear Pat Robertson throw the sanctity of human life under the bus to save a big-money arms deal. He said, in effect, one dismembered reporter is a small price to pay to be able to sell all those guns. And of course, what possible Teaching of Christ could possibly be violated with $100 billion dollars worth of weapons or however much it really is?
I wish someone had asked him what if they dismembered two reporters? A hundred? A thousand? At what point does the cost/benefit ratio swing the other way? How about ten thousand reporters and one TV evangelist motivated solely by money? That would take a lot of bone saws.
What's going to happen is going to happen. I'm not really following the polls this time. After the last election, all the pollsters are filling their projections with qualifiers and disclaimers and prearranged excuses for why they might not be right. It's like watching a baseball game where the announcers keep reminding you that the scoreboard may not be accurate. I'll probably care like hell when we get near the bottom of the ninth. And now, this…
- Fred Kaplan explains what's up with that War in Afghanistan we seem to all care about less than we care about what Trump and Stormy Daniels are saying about each other on Twitter. What Fred says about Afghanistan is that there is no path to victory there and there never has been one…and by the way, it's now the longest war in American history. That just demonstrates the folly of fighting this kind of war and how we'll never get anything out of it; not even a damned Bob Hope Christmas Special.
- And here's a right-winger saying essentially the same thing Fred says in his piece. Can someone — anyone? — point me to an article by anyone with foreign policy cred arguing that that war is still or ever was winnable?
- And here's Daniel Larison discussing how else our foreign policy is going in precisely the wrong directions.
- Our President continues to denounce Democrats as "an angry mob" while inciting his own angry mobs. It's yet another example of how nothing is immoral or wrong these days if you do it on behalf of Trump. If I were you, I'd stay off Fifth Avenue any time Donald is in town.
- Reports of clerical sex abuse continue to mount. Atheism continues to become increasingly popular. Gee, you think maybe there's some connection there? How about folks like Pat Robertson placing profits over principles?
- This may be the stupidest thing Trump has ever said. And the most dangerous.
- And here's another example of how the Number One priority of this administration is the financial enrichment of the Trump Family.
- And lastly for now: A lot of folks are bemoaning how the U.S. Constitution gives the same number of Senators to a state like Wyoming that it gives to a state like California. It is, of course, a matter of unequal representation for the larger states and they're saying something should be done about it. Kevin Drum explains to us why nothing will ever be done about it.
I have my mail-in ballot here. I'm going to spend some time this weekend reading up on the various propositions. Then I'm going to mark it, send it off and go back to paying less attention to the election that's the most important one of our lifetimes — until the next one that's the most important of our lifetimes and the one after that and the one after that…