van59 asks a scary question:

IMO, Cruz is far more dangerous as a Machiavellian machine – basically, amoral regarding methodology – to achieve his goal of top power. While Trump says outlandish things, being the money independent carnie he is, is he really more dangerous than Cruz as Prez?

Primo answers:

Each of them would be a disaster for this country, but for different reasons. Think of the Republican Party as a kind of Scream Team of evil mad scientists. Cruz is one of the evilest and maddest of them all, but he still fits a recognizable political pattern that everyone can pigeonhole. There is a logic to him, based on flawed premises, to be sure, but in the parlance of the old Dungeons & Dragons character alignments, Cruz would be lawful, evil.

Trump is the experiment that has escaped the lab at ScreamTeam, Inc. Corporate Person HQ. With his only motivation being The Admiration of All, Trump MAY or MAY NOT act in a way we would deem beneficial to mankind. And you never know what particular action Trump may choose to think is beneficial to himself, and whether or not he’s lying when he says so. Trump is chaotic, evil.

Put another way, the Republicans have been peering into the “Whites Only” men’s room mirror at Nietzsche’s Abyss & Bait Shop since Lee Atwater, and Trump is what finally leered back.

Recognizing that we on the Left want neither, and that we intend to defeat either, this becomes more of an existential question for the Republicans. They fear a Cruz nomination because it will fail; they fear a Trump nomination because it will fail spectacularly and rip apart the Party. Or, it might succeed – which the last few principled Republicans fear most – and rip apart the Party.

However, we Dems & Friends intend to SOUNDLY defeat Cruz because, with a GOP Congress, he can deliberately work unimaginable evil that would take us another 20 years to claw back from – especially in the Supreme Court – for every issue of consequence to Americans and other human persons.

And we Dems & Friends intend to SOUNDLY defeat Trump because the same nightmare could occur, through error and neglect: he could sign every bill the GOP sends him, while stumbling around the levers of military power and maybe provoking some sort of WMD standoff, but certainly provoking our diplomatic corps overseas to seek political asylum.

So, pick your poison: Frankenstein? Or Frankenstein’s Drumpf?

Then think about this, and try to sleep: what if Trump actually has a plan?

Texas’ other senator, John Cornyn, is not as crazy as Ted Cruz, but he’s just as mean.

Cornyn has pledged that the senate will react to President Obama’s nomination to the Supreme Court by beating them like a piñata.

The No. 2 Senate Republican warned Monday that potential nominees to the Supreme Court should consider the battle they will be forced to endure if they are picked for the post, suggesting a high-stakes slugfest could damage their reputations in a fruitless pursuit of the top court.

“I think they will bear some resemblance to a piñata,” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas.

Good to know that, John.  We’ll nominate your mother.

Let me remind John that you’re blindfolded when you hit the piñata, and that it takes a bunch of people looking like fools before that sucker gets hit.

Bring it on, John.  Bring it on.

Thanks to Mary for the heads up.

Democrats tonight are voting in Michigan (130 pledged delegates) and Mississippi (36). Right now, the only path Bernie has to the nomination is to win the pledged delegate count and then convince enough unpledged (super) delegates to change their vote so as not to thwart the will of the people. But first, he MUST demonstrate that nominating Bernie Sanders is indeed the will of the people.

It’s a tall ask. He managed to win a few small caucuses over the weekend, but like Hillary in ’08, where every winning day saw her fall further and further behind in delegates, he lost Louisiana by enough that he lost the weekend. Today should be even worse. Hillary has large leads in the polls, and even if we assign all the undecideds to Bernie, Hillary’s lead will increase by 35 or so delegates.

With the concomitant 166 decrease in pledged delegates available, Bernie is running out of runway. He needs to get this campaign off the ground, but he’s had weeks to do that and he hasn’t accomplished it yet. After we have tonight’s results, we can talk about his path forward. But if he doesn’t shake things up tonight, there won’t be a lot of tomorrows left for him

On the GOP side, OMG. Trump still maintains his lead, despite the Cruz surge over the weekend. Rubio is on his way out, apparently: he will meet his destiny next week in Florida, where he never dreamed that all the bridges he’s ever burnt there would also torch his campaign.

Tonight, they have a caucus in Hawaii and a primary in Idaho, both closed, which favors non-Trumps, for 51 total delegates. In Michigan and Mississippi, there are 99 delegates at stake. That’s a pretty big haul, 12% of the winning total. They are all being assigned proportionally, and Trump leads in recent polls, mostly.

But it’s hard to quantify yet how much being vetted – FINALLY – by the GOP, the other candidates and the media is blunting his momentum. Trump finds himself very much in the same position as Hillary: a large lead with diminishing runway for his opponents. But he’s still a “front-runner” who has yet to score over 50% in even one contest.

That having been said, Cruz has not gotten the memo about a brokered convention, and is campaigning as if he’s going to win every state, which is putting Kasich in Michigan at risk to blunt Trump, and is really hurting Rubio in Florida next week, the first winner-take-all primary, and I do mean, all.

The only big play to watch for tonight is a Michigan win for Kasich. Trump could lose Idaho, also. But unless Trump goes 0-for-4, then the only game changer left is Florida, next week.

~Primo

Okay, so there’s a controversy.  It’s about Whole Foods stripping oranges naked and putting them in plastic containers.

People were pretty much agreeing that this was a pathetic way to jack up the price of a damn orange.

That was until even naked oranges became a victim of political correctness.  A person from the disability community speaks.

“Preparing food with limited mobility is both hugely time consuming and potentially dangerous. While adapted cooking tools do exist to help offset those issues, they are really expensive, ” Sauder explained on her blog. “Anything that helps make my regular acts of daily life safer and more convenient is always a plus. So I was one of a number of disabled people who pushed back against the wholesale shaming of preprepared foods.”

I think “wholesale shaming” might be a little over the top.  Just a tad.  Tiny bit.

I’m not talking out of my patootie.  I represent Disabled Democrats on the State Democratic Executive Committee.  I am well aware of disability issues when it comes to the marketplace and lifehacks.

I am blessed that I am able to cut an orange.  I can even peal one.  Do you want to know what I cannot do?  Open one of those containers from Whole Foods.  I can’t do that and my disability has nothing to do with my hands.

I have been known to stab one of those hermetically sealed like Tut’s tomb containers and then cut around the edges, risking opening the veins on my wrist with the cut edges or the knife.  They are far harder to open than a damn orange.

I am willing to bet that if you buy an orange at Whole Foods, they will cut it for you without charging double the price for the orange.

Bananas?  Already tried that.

You know, I wanted to do this after the last Republican debate, but I just couldn’t get the energy to climb to the top of the cab.

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas – A bizarre standoff with a naked woman dancing on top of a big rig brought traffic on US-290 to a halt Monday morning.

The westbound lanes of the highway were shut down for more than two hours while the woman entertained drivers stuck in the standstill.

I do not know if this was her reaction to the thought of Donald Trump or Ted Cruz being president, but if so, she certainly speaks for me.

Thanks to Michelle for the heads up.

Just when you think the Texas Legislature cannot possibly get any worse, it does.

Y’all probably remember me talking about Republican State Representative Molly White. the woman who wouldn’t allow Muslims in her state office and then doubled down on it.

Well, Molly got beat in the primary in this heavily Republican district.  I’d like to say that’s good news but it ain’t.  The guy who beat her is worse.  He’s an old white male who hates your uterus.   His name is Hugh Shine (seriously) and he was in the legislature back in the early 90s.  He was a rightwing nut back then and the only thing that’s changed is that he’s now an older and meaner rightwing nut.

And who can forget Debbie Riddle, the meanest woman on earth?  I wrote about her so many times that you’d think her middle name was Louie Gohmert.  She invented terror babies, all manner of restrictions on women’s health, and slept in the hall overnight to be the first to file an anti-immigrant bill.

Poor Ole Debbie got beat.

I’d like to say that’s good news.  It ain’t.  Debbie got beat because her opponent contended that Debbie was caught actually speaking to Democrats.  Okay, so I made that part up.  But not by much.

Debbie got beat by a woman named Valoree Swanson.  Go take a look.  Holy cow, that woman is literally exploding with self-righteousness.

So, yeah, we dropped lower than a snake’s belly in wagon rut.

This legislative session ain’t gonna be pretty.

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