A lot of my friends are going to be there.  A lot of great bands are going to be there.  A lot of pushy religionists will not be there.  But I’ve decided to give up my front seat on my Ride to Hell to this guy.

George Zimmerman is auctioning off the gun he used to murder Trayvon Martin.

It has recently been returned to me by the Department of Justice. The pistol currently has the case number written on it in silver permanent marker. Many have expressed interest in owning and displaying the firearm including The Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. This is a piece of American History […] The firearm is fully functional as the attempts by the Department of Justice on behalf of B. Hussein Obama to render the firearm inoperable were thwarted by my phenomenal Defense Attorney.

Apparently, no amount of toilet paper is going to be able to wipe the George Zimmerman stain from the collective backside of our national consciousness.  In a year when absolutely every bad thing could be trotted out with impunity as snacilbupeR “policy,” in a year when Sarah Palin suddenly fancies herself a power broker at the head of a hostile takeover of the GOP, in a year when genitalia dominate the news, either as a measure of reactionary bigotry or as a measure of presidential gravitas…

This guy still can embody all of that in one big “look-at-me-I-lynched-a-[n-word]” moment of ultimate loathsomeness.  If there is a Hell, he is most certainly on his way there, and if that happened in 10 minutes from now, it couldn’t be soon enough.

But now he’s ruined Eternal Perdition for me, and I’m going to have to start leading a goodly, godly existence in this life in order to avoid rubbing elbows with this human skid mark in the next.

Damn you, George Zimmerman.

Okay, so in Jerome, Idaho, police thought they had themselves a drive-by shooting incident when people called them with a 1:23 am gunfire incident in the parking lot of the Jerome County Judicial Annex parking lot.

Come to find out —-

Soon, the Idaho State Police notified the Jerome authorities they had stopped the vehicle along Washington Street in Twin Falls.

When Jerome police arrived in Twin Falls, they soon discovered the person in the vehicle who was actually the victim and had a gunshot wound to the leg.

Hall said it’s believed the victim had accidentally discharged the gun when he was attempting to put it away.

What the perp/victim didn’t explain is why he was playing with his gun in the Jerome County Judicial Annex parking lot at 2:23 am.  Or, maybe he did and the newspaper wanted to spare us the gross details.

Here’s the headline in Mother Jones.

Well, I do not see a problem here.  Let them.

I wonder where they are going?

On Wednesday, the Platform Committee of the Texas Republican Party voted to put a Texas independence resolution up for a vote at this week’s GOP convention, according to a press release from the pro-secession Texas Nationalist Movement. The resolution calls for allowing voters to decide whether the Lone Star State should become an independent nation.

Oh wait, they want to make me join them and quit singing God Bless America and give back my social security?

That ain’t damn happening.   Ever.

They reckon that it has very little chance of passing.  That’s what they also reckoned about about Donald Trump winning the nomination and Dan Patrick being taken seriously.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

Thanks to John for the art.

Poor Ole Ted.

First he has to go back to the Senate where nobody likes him.

Then he’s going to have to return a helluva lot of campaign contributions.  The FEC caught him taking more than the allowable contributions.  Click right here to see ten pages of names.  And since some people maxed out for both the primary and the general election, he has to return all the general election money because he ain’t gonna be in the general election, and I thank God for that.

And if that’s not enough, he’s getting sued for stealing music.

SEATTLE (AP) — Sen. Ted Cruz’s now-defunct presidential campaign is being sued over the background music it used in two videos.

Audiosocket, a music licensing company based in Seattle and New Orleans, filed the lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Seattle against Cruz for President and the advertising firm Madison McQueen. It says an agreement between Audiosocket and Madison McQueen expressly barred the use of the songs for political purposes.

The suit is for “several hundreds of thousand dollars.”  Dude, steal something cheaper next time, you know, like a haul of diamonds.

And then today, his name is so damn sullied that he had to announce that he will run for re-election to the senate in 2018.  Because people were having their doubts over whether or not he would or even should.

Bless his heart.  His cup just runneth over with real bad karma.

Only for scientific reason, I hope something else bad happens to him today because I hate that bad news comes in threes.  Now I’m not wishing something else bad on him – this is just scientific research.

You’ve heard me discuss “the pendulum” – that sweeping arc of history which describes the Conservative-Liberal dichotomy. Like a pendulum, it moves in one direction, gathering speed until sociological gravity says “whoa” and its momentum in that direction slows and pauses at its extreme.  Then it starts to go back in the other direction.  We have just recently passed a rightward peak, and are gathering speed going back in the other direction.

I have taken a look at the last 9 elections, going back to 1980, in order to gauge how the electorate is swinging. I broke them up into three elections from 1980-1988, four from 1992-2004, and the two since 2008.  Here are some statistics:

1980-1988 – “The Pits” aka The Reagan Years, by which I mean that George HW Bush ran as a third Regan term. In the 3 Reagan elections, the furthest swing of the electoral pendulum:

• Democrats lost by an average margin of 10 MILLION votes,
• Turnout was below 100 million and averaged 52% of the voting age population (VAP),
• From a low of 48% of the electorate in 1980, women rose to 52 then 53% of the electorate
• African Americans and Hispanics comprised 12-13% of the electorate.

1992-2004 – The Clinton/Bush Years indicated a sea-change, the flipping of the pendulum.   During these 4 elections:

• Democrats won the popular vote by an average of 3 million
• Turnout was around 100m and averaged 53% of the VAP
• Women’s participation remained steady at 52-54%
• AfAm/Hispanic participation rose steadily to 19% by 2004

2008-2012 The Obama Years indicate the first full run of a blue-shifted electorate as the pendulum gathers momentum going the other way.  In these two elections:

• Obama won by an average of 7 million votes
• Turnout was around 110m and has risen to 56.5% of the VAP
• Women stayed steady at 53%
• AfAm/Hispanic participation continues to rise to 23%

So during this shift, turnout is rising, women stayed steady in the majority and minority participation has almost doubled.

But while the electoral pendulum is shifted in one direction, the forces in power try to push its extremity further, or slow momentum in the other direction. This is what we see Republicans doing today.  But as the electorate shifts away beneath them, those in power tend to trim their sails to suit the prevailing winds, so the Courts will become more liberal, and the Congress will become more liberal, as the White House becomes more liberal.  There’s just a bit of a lag.  It worked the other way, too.

Republicans were storming into power in Congress just as Clinton got the White House. Within that context, within those times, he could not have won the White House by being anything OTHER than a centrist, and he could not have gotten any legislation through other than by working with a Congress dominated by Republicans and centrist Democrats.  Was Clinton as far left as we wanted him to be?  He wasn’t even as far left as he wanted to be.  He was only as far left as he could be.  Just as Nixon was only as far right as he could be.

This election will be a blue blowout; I only hope that we can overcome the political pitfalls the retreating republicans have left in our path and regain the House. Maybe not yet, but in time, as the next Supreme Court will start to undo some of the damage.  Speaking of, chew on this and think about the fall:

SCOTUS Appointments Swing back Dem 

• Nixon/Ford – 5 justices appointed
• Carter – 0
• Reagan/Bush – 5
• Clinton – 2
• Bush – 2
• Obama – 2 (+1?)

See the pendulum? Then avoid the pitfalls!