Comes from Austin, Texas —

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Bernie Sanders may want to expand his anti-billionaire appeal to a new set of potential allies. The Republican Party was blessed with an overabundance of under-chromosomed candidates for President because each and every one had a pet billionaire or two bankrolling them, via Citizens United.   And now, thanks to a self-funding billionaire, they are staring down both barrels of existential Trumpageddon.  Who more than the GOP squirearchy, fervently wishing all billionaires aboard RMS Titanic in situ, is more ready to Feel the Bern?

However, let’s look at the Big, Big Picture and wonder – is the destruction of the Republican Party good for America?

By just the Big Picture, the answer is a resounding “Yes!”   The Republican Party of Goldwaterism has been artificially propped up like a tin-pot dictator long past his expiration date.  Brain-dead since the election of Reagan, they’ve gone anti-reality in order to cater to a succession of “Majorities,” which were really just various crank minorities cobbled together by Atwater and Rove to milk for donations and votes.  The sooner that ends, and with it the obstructionism of Congress, and the concomitant triumph of progressive reason, the better off we all will be.  Goldwaterism is what ails America.  Immediate relief via ass-ectomy is the prescription under the Big Picture.

But what about the Big, Big Picture? America is naturally a fractious people.  Should a significant portion of the electorate be completely marginalized and essentially disfranchised?  I’m inclined to say, “hell, YES! And it would serve them right!”  But isn’t that essentially what they, as individuals and collectively, have been fearing would happen?  Isn’t being treated as a minority exactly how they treated other minorities been their 3-AM-staring-at-the-ceiling worry, and the rationale for EVERYTHING that’s brought them to existential Trumpageddon?

Wouldn’t it make us just like them if we did?

So clearly, a fragmented Right would be wrong, right?

Wrong! BREAK ‘EM UP!  The Republican Party should fragment because marginalizing and disfranchising their voters is precicely what they’ve been doing.  Nixon used to rationalize: “I can’t do what’s right for the country if I can’t get elected.”  But then they went and made the act of getting elected – not the result, but the actual process – wrong for the country, and inherently undemocratic.

The Republican Party should drink the hemlock for their own crimes against America.   They should embrace Trumpageddon, let this play out and let Trump become the nominee, then walk out and form a new party.  Let the entire Republican Party fragment into the Conservative Party, the Christian Republican Party, the Grand Old Republican Party and The NationalTrumpalist Party.

Rather than marginalized and disfranchised, current Republican voters would then be able to have their platforms fully and frankly aired, and they’d be free to nominate according to their own whims and dictates, and they’d have more power to do so thanks to… Democrats?

Yes, Democrats! Because the unified Democrats can take advantage of their fragmentation to square the Supreme Court, to save the planet from overheating, to destroy the concept that money equals speech, to design a fair system of federally-funded elections, and to outlaw gerrymandering as a horse-whipping offense, to the empowerment of all segments of the electorate – Left, Center, and Right.

Thus empowered we Democrats can follow suit and fragment to the four winds, and isn’t this what Bernie’s been saying all along? To drop the ideas of the marketplace and rebuild the marketplace of ideas? To end the politics of money and begin again with just plain politics in its truest small-d democratic sense?

We can all embrace that end goal, but it’s going to take a village to get us there.

~Primo

Fun with Guns isn’t fun if somebody gets killed.  Unless, of course, an idiot shoots himself.

A 43-year-old man has died after authorities say he accidentally shot himself in the face while taking selfies.

The Skagit Valley Herald [Washington State] reports the man and his girlfriend were photographing themselves with the weapon on Sunday at a residence when he shot himself.

Skagit County Sheriff’s Office Patrol Chief Chad Clark says the woman reported that she and the man had taken photos with the gun several times that day and that the man had loaded and unloaded bullets multiple times.

Clark says a bullet apparently remained in the gun the final time he fired.

Apparently?  Did the report actually say “apparently”?  No shoot, Sherlock.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

The putative sancilbupeR nominee won’t release his tax returns, despite being called out by a prominent Mormon to do so, and won’t distance himself from an historically racist organization.

Meanwhile, the prominent Mormon was once a himself snacilbupeR nominee who wouldn’t release his tax returns, despite being called out by a prominent Mormon to do so, who wouldn’t distance himself from an historically racist organization.

No matter how much you shake it:

Once a flipper, always a flopper.

~Primo

Guys, I am almost fully back to normal.  A day or two more and I’ll be good as new.

But, I had to drop what I’m doing to bring you this.  Some folks have mentioned it in the comments but I need to make it a full from age story.

Travis County (think Austin) has elected a Snake Stomping Trump Republican as their county chair.  The Texas Tribune describes the reaction of the GOP power structure in Austin as “apoplectic.”  I dunno, I think maybe “snot slingin’ roof raisin’ rage” might be more accurate.

To say that Robert Morrow, the new Travis County Republican party chairman is plain spoken is like saying that Van Gogh paints nicely.  Morrow cusses like a sailor, oodles women, is convinced that most of the GOP is gay and that Hillary Clinton is “a bull dyke.”  The seems real obsessed on this gay thing.

He drops F-bombs like they were tisket-taskets in his basket.

Instead of dog whistles, he just hollers for Rover to get his butt home.

Morrow’s main complaint is with “establishment” Republicans, who he does not believe should hold elected office, he said. Last week, he tweeted that the Republican National Committee was just a “gay foam party.”

Morrow has a long history of critiquing prominent state Republicans in vulgar, and often sexually explicit, terms. For years, he has alleged that Perry is secretly bisexual; in 2010, he referred to him as “Gov. Skank Daddy” in an email.

He also uses the n word and chewed out a reporter for not wanting to use it.

When the Tribune asked about the content of some of Morrow’s social media posts, without using the specific racial slur Morrow had employed, Morrow seized on the omission as an example of corruption within the media.

“You are a perfect example of what the Trump movement is revolting against because you can’t even pronounce the word n—– when you are talking about a Facebook post,” Morrow said. “What a pathetic excuse for a reporter you are.”

Stock up on popcorn, my Texas friends.  This is gonna be fun.

Thanks to everybody and their Aunt Matilda for the heads up.

Poor Marquito.  Every time he turns around, Chris Christie is popping up like an overfed, short-haired, leaping gnome to absolutely crush him. The Outlaw Jersey Whale first eviscerated Marco Rubio in a debate-stage murder-suicide, broadcast live on the electrical teevee.  Then, when the RU-B0 droid finally looked like he might become a real boy, when he was finally poised to be poised to do something, Christie joined the Prince of Darkness Orange and sucked all the oxygen out of Mark’s Mojo.

Now, post SuperMinnesota, he’s third in delegates, third in wins, and has finished third in most states.  His only hope is to convince the media, party elders, money people and the RNC that he can ride this Win-Lose-or-Draw Primary to the Cleveland convention conclusion, and a broke, broken, brokered candidacy.

~Primo