Oh holy crap.

Ivanka looks like Bride of Satan and Melania bought everything she could find at the Italian Widow Boutique.

The expression on The Pope’s face is priceless.  This picture alone is worth the price of the trip.

Thanks to Ibis for the heads up.

Donald Trump has found a new hero.  Rodrigo Duterte, who is “president” of the Philippines got a phone call from Trump last April that went like this …

“I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem. Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I wanted to tell you that.”

That would be kinda nice except for the fact that Duterte believes in shoot drug dealers and addicts from the backs of motorcycles, and has made news around the world about it.  He’s even claimed to have personally killed a few himself to show how it’s done.

“Hitler massacred three million Jews [sic], now, there’s three million drug addicts. I’d be happy to slaughter them,” he said in September. Last month, he told a group of jobless Filipinos that they should “kill all the drug addicts.” Police have killed over 7,000 people, devastated poor areas of Manila and other cities, and used the drug war as a pretext to murder government officials and community leaders.

You don’t like your boss at work – report him as a drug addict.  Don’t like what reporters are writing about you – they’re all drug addicts.

Now that’s an idea Trump would love.

Thanks to Greg for the heads up.

UPDATED!  Well, I just learned that he told Duterte military secrets in the same damn conversation.

U.S. President Donald Trump told his Philippine counterpart that Washington has sent two nuclear submarines to waters off the Korean peninsula, the New York Times said, comments likely to raise questions about his handling of sensitive information.

Trump told Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte Washington had “a lot of firepower over there”, according to the New York Times, which quoted a transcript of an April 29 call between the two.

“We have two submarines — the best in the world. We have two nuclear submarines, not that we want to use them at all,” the newspaper quoted Trump as telling Duterte, based on the transcript.

Don’t tell him anything, y’all.  Just don’t.

Washington Post in non-breaking news (because we expected it).

This makes me so mad that I could jump start my car without any cables.  The cuts go to Medicare, medicare research, the National Science Foundation, the social safety net, and anything that’s gonna cure anything.

The National Cancer Institute would be hit with a $1 billion cut compared to its 2017 budget. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute would see a $575 million cut, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases would see a reduction of $838 million. The administration would cut the overall National Institutes of Health budget from $31.8 billion to $26 billion.

Oh damn, the Canadians are going to build a wall to keep us out.

Look, the rich already don’t pay their fair share of taxes because they hide their money in off-shore accounts.  They don’t need help.

“I’m not really concerned about how many billions billionaires have,” said Glenn Hubbard, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush.

Holy crap, y’all, when even Republicans are concerned, there’s a big problem.

Former CIA Director John Brennan just testified before congress that Russia “brazenly interfered” with the 2016 election.

Trey Gowdy (who only vaguely appears to be human) was livid because Brennan would not reveal any evidence that Donald Trump hisownself colluded with Russia because that’s still being investigated.  Gowdy complained that there are far too many C Words being used — collude, cooperation, coordination — and all that was confusing.

Yeah, especially if you don’t understand synonyms, a thing that Donald Trump is using all his evil power to destroy bigly.

Let me give Trey another C word we use here in Texas — cahoot.  When you are cahooting, you are up to no good. Russia and the Trump campaign were in cahoots.

Here’s some some P words for Trey: patsy, puppet, pawn. There ya go.

Clarence Thomas is well down the path of being one of the worst Supreme Court justices in US history – he seldom speaks out in hearings, and always occupies the far corners of extreme right wing ideology, sometimes even further to the right of Antonin Scalia if that was even possible.  That changed yesterday, when he sided with the court’s 4 liberal justices to strike down North Carolina’s 2011 gerrymander which packed two districts with African Americans, the First and Twelfth, virtually nullifying their votes.  The result of this racial gerrymander was, even though  North Carolina has a Democratic governor, Republicans now hold 10 of the state’s 13 congressional seats.  Elena Kagan, writing for the majority, struck down the gerrymander because race was used as the deciding factor in determining district borders.

Gerrymandering is a cancer on democracy, I believe even more than money.  Since the advent of sophisticated demographics computer programs, the practiced has been raised to an art form by Republicans, cementing huge congressional majorities in some states, disenfranchising millions of voters.  Thomas has always sided with conservatives on voting rights issues, especially when it comes to money.  This decision is a pleasant, if not shocking, turn of events.  Maybe Thomas is getting a condition of reverse dementia where he gets more thoughtful the older he gets.  No one knows, but this is a huge victory for a democratic society.

Senfronia Thompson is the single best argument against term limits.  She was first elected to the Texas House of Representative in 1972 and continues to this day to be the clearest voice in Texas for the underdog.  She is the voice of the voiceless and the power of the powerless.  I love her.

Today, she took to the floor of the House to shame those suckers.

As she spoke thunder literally rolled!

“Bathrooms used to separate us!! Colored for some and White for others and those days should not return to our Nation.

If you question a transgender child then yes you question God’s creation.”

Chairwoman Senfronia Thompson of Houston.

She is a genuine Texas hero.