In case you missed it, here is the Mar-a-Lago war room —

You’ll note that they are all sitting on the standard issue war room delicate gold rattan chairs.

If some of these names are not familiar to you, here’s a handy guide.

Seriously, y’all, what the hell is that Steve Miller guy doing in there?  I mean, except to make Bannon look sane.

I agree with El Jefe below.  This whole bombing thing was a fake reality show.

And in Irony of the Hour, Sean Hannity on September 3rd, 2013.

UPDATE:  Well, here ya go.

Raytheon stock surged Friday morning, after 59 of the company’s Tomahawk missiles were used to strike Syria in Donald Trump’s first major military operation as President.

…

The shares of other missile and weapons manufacturers, including Boeing(BA, +0.83%), Lockheed Martin(LMT, +1.17%), Northrop Grumman(NOC, +0.90%)and General Dynamics(GD, +0.93%), each rose as much as 1%, collectively gaining nearly $5 billion in market value as soon as they began trading, even as the broader market fell.

Goes a long way explaining everything, doesn’t it?

The Pentagon says that the Russians were given advanced warning of Trump’s cruise missile attack on the Shayrat airbase in Syria.  The missiles destroyed a few out-of-service aircraft and empty fortified bunkers.  The airbase is already back in use.  Here’s a satellite photo taken after the attack:

Notice anything unusual? The main runway is undamaged untouched.  I mean completely untouched.  So, the US launches 59 Tomahawk missiles and NONE were targeted on the runway?  One of the cruise missile’s missions is to disable airfields by landing 1,000 lb warheads or multiple cluster bomblets to make craters, rendering the concrete runway unusable.  Instead, they hit outlying buildings, inflicting no damage on the actual target, the runway.  As a result, warplanes that had been moved are already back in service.

Just to give you and idea of the high explosive nature of Tomahawk’s, here’s a video demonstration of it’s capability.  You can go to about 4:15 to see the explosive force on a demonstration target.

https://youtu.be/btXZoAqLyDI

So, follow along with me here.  The US warns Russia of the attack.  Syrians move all their working aircraft off the base.  The cruise missiles land, but don’t touch the airbase runway.  The Syrian planes are already back in operation at the base.  What a coingkydink.  Was this an actual attack or window dressing covering some larger coordination between Trump’s regime and Putin’s?

This whole story fails the straight faced test.  Who’s kidding who here?  Why is the media virtually ignoring these blatant inconsistencies?

Something is rotten in Palm Beach.

I’m going to leave an open thread for you here.  I was at the ballpark last night and was completely out of touch.

(For newcomers: if the Astros are in town, odds are about 80% that I leave home by 5:00 pm and don’t return until midnight. I do not pay attention to my phone at the ballpark. It seems irreverent to do so.)

So, please feel free to use this entry to talk about Syria, Trump, and any news today.  I’ll be home all afternoon but will leave for the ballpark at 4:00 today.

He wins.  Steve Stockman wins.

First we get him defeated at the voting booth.  Then we indict him.  But, bygawd, this is one libertarian/conservative who wins the prize.

Stockman spent his congressional career stomping and yelling about the damn government.  He wanted the government out of everything.  No government means good government.

Uh, until now.  He appeared in court yesterday and told the judge he only has $17 in his bank account so he can’t afford a lawyer.  He can’t work either since his job requires him to travel out of the country but he can’t do that while he’s out on bond.

The guy stole close to $1.2 million of charitable contributions.  He’s a scam artist.  But, he’s a master at scam artistry because he told the judge ….

Stockman told the judge he needed to dismiss his hand-picked lawyers from the elite firm of Smyser Kaplan & Veselka and ideally he wanted the court to re-appoint them to the case at the government’s expense. She said she’d consider the request.

She’d consider it?  Wait, wait, every other defendant in the courtroom gets what they get from the public defender system, but this guy wants us to pay for his fancy-pants hand-picked white collar crime law firm?  Oh hell, no.

So overnight this guy goes from wanting to destroy the government to wanting to buy lobster with food stamps, something he used to accuse others of doing?

Stockman admits that he owns a house, rental property, two vans and his wife makes $72 grand a year.  He can pay his lawyer.

I hate Republicans.  I really do.

Alabama Republican Governor Robert Bentley is in a heap of trouble, especially for a guy who claims he’s a Sunday School teacher.

He was an active member of First Baptist Church Tuscaloosa where he served as a deacon and a Sunday School teacher. At FBC Tuscaloosa, he has been the chairman of the board of deacons four times and a member of the Youth for Christ advisory board as well as the Family Counseling advisory board. Bentley was the 2009 recipient of the Christian Coalition of Alabama’s Statesmanship Award.

From there, we go directly to … oh, you know what’s coming already.

The 73 year old governor was having an affair with his top political advisor, Rebekah Mason.  He set up a non-profit with his campaign funds and was paying Mason through the non-profit.  Mason, who like Bentley is married, resigned last year over the revelation that they were doing … well, the wild thing.

This morning, the Alabama Ethics Commission, and yes, they do have one of those, announced that it has found probable cause that Bentley had violated campaign ethics rules and yes, they have those, too.

The commission said it “found probable cause to believe” Bentley violated the Alabama Ethics Act and Fair Campaign Practices Act — which is the state’s campaign finance law — after a yearlong investigation. The commission referred the matter to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office.

Poor Devin Nunes.  Look what you’ve done to him.  He’s had to step aside “temporarily” as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

“Several leftwing activist groups have filed accusations against me with the Office of Congressional Ethics,” Nunes said in the statement. “The charges are entirely false and politically motivated, and are being leveled just as the American people are beginning to learn the truth about the improper unmasking of the identities of U.S. citizens and other abuses of power.”

And you’re gonna pay dearly for being mean to Nunes.

West Texas Obama-hating congressman Mike Conaway is taking over as chair.  He’s ethically challenged.  And in the Koch brothers herd.

And Conaway will be assisted by the lovely and charming Trey Gowdy.  Y’all, Gowdy sets off every fight or flight bone in my body.

I am willing to bet that this ends up with Gowdy and Conway banging each other over the head with gavels.