I thought I was going to have time to post about last night’s debate, but I don’t.

Please feel free to chat away!

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Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press

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Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press

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Williamson County, Texas, is about as rightwing nut country as it gets.

Williamson County District Attorney Jana Duty is one of those gun toting, law and order people.  Just so long the law doesn’t apply to her.

Judge Rick Mckinnon, overseeing a capital murder case, slapped a gag order on all the attorneys involved.  Duty thought he meant all the attorneys except her, so she shot her mouth off.

Williamson County Attorney Jana Duty

… Duty emailed the Austin American-Statesman to respond to an article reporting on a defense motion that claimed Duty withheld evidence in the case. The May 6 article quoted Duty’s email.

The next day, Kennon emailed all the attorneys to tell them to come to court on May 8. Duty did not attend the hearing. She explained in an email later that day that she felt Kennon had disrespected her by not telling the reason for the hearing and that she would not show respect for the judge by attending it.

Well, ain’t she special?  In case you don’t know, when a judge says jump and you have a question about it, you better ask that question on your way up.

A visiting judge found her in contempt of court.

Judge Doug Shaver found that Duty “intentionally, knowingly and wilfully” acted to violate a gag order, failed to appear in court and disrespected the court with a response email that made “veiled threats.

Way to go, Republicans.

Thanks to Bob for the heads up.

One of the former little short people who used to live in my house contends that Donald Trump is really a very smart Democrat:  Trump is poisoning the Republican pool so that a Democrat will easily win the presidency.

We thought that was pretty funny.

Until now.

By gawd, they’re double dating!

Former president Bill Clinton had a private telephone conversation in late spring with Donald Trump at the same time that the billionaire investor and reality-television star was nearing a decision to run for the White House, according to associates of both men.

Four Trump allies and one Clinton associate familiar with the exchange said that Clinton encouraged Trump’s efforts to play a larger role in the Republican Party and offered his own views of the political landscape.

Way to go, Bill!

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

I guess the Fun With Guns guys have stepped up their conquests.

Michael O’Neill is a 45 year old former New York corrections officer.  He is also a white supremacist and …

Pictures of the KKK, Nazi imagery and the Confederate flag were found inside his home …

He built seven bombs at the home his stepfather, and all was going well until one of the bombs did what bombs are designed to do and blew off his damn leg.

Oh hell yeah.

The explosives he created contained nails and BB pellets, according to reports. One was labeled “powder with nails.”

His attorney said O’Neill was just planning to blow up some tree stumps.

Yeah, shrapnel works really good on tree stumps.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

by Primo Encarnación y Hachecristo

Much is being made of the President’s speech laying out his foreign policy vision at American University, and a similar speech by President Kennedy, at the same venue. Both men excoriated those who disparage diplomacy by pointing out that the only other alternative is war. And I might add further that diplomacy is meaningless if it’s only engaged in with your friends. If that’s all we did, the State Department could just open a Facebook page and have Britain and Israel “like” our pictures of nukes and kittens.

But I think the discussion could profit by examining a piece of another JFK speech, one made in September, 1960, to a group of Protestant ministers in Houston, as he sought to become the first Roman Catholic President, addressing fears that his Administration would be directed by the Pope. (emphases mine)

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no […] minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference […]

I believe in an America […] where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice;[…]

This is the caliber of discourse that true patriots hold. It makes the case that it doesn’t matter if the President is a Catholic, Protestant, Jew or (gasp!) Muslim, even. It makes the case that superstition should NEVER drive US policy. It makes the devastating case against Mike Huckabee, for whom, apparently, the “P” in “POTUS” means “pastor.”

How can anyone listen to the soaring, lyrical rhetoric of a Kennedy, or an Obama, and then vote for a Huckabee, or a Trump, or a Cruz? Whither the grandeur of the Presidency, gracefully riding the scend of history, in a smarmy dogwhistle symphony called “Machine Gun Bacon?”

I believe in the America of the Enlightenment.  Rage, RAGE against the dying of the light!