From the very early days of the campaign, His Orangeness has railed against all things not White American Male – all dark skinned people, especially women, ALL women, for that matter, and immigration, both legal and undocumented.  His rhetoric is continuously over the top, hateful, and racist.  He loves to dehumanize migrants with inflammatory terms like “illegals”, “animals”, and “aliens”.  His favorite pejorative, though, is “chain migration”.  The actual term is “family reunification” which has been allowed by the US government for decades where a documented migrant to the US could sponsor their spouse and children to join them in the states.  In some cases, a migrant’s parents are admitted into the country to join the family.  It’s humane, decent, and, I might add, very difficult.  It takes years to unify families through our broken system.

But in Trumpland, “chain migration” has been weaponized and is now used by Trumpists to be bigots in polite society.  Trump has repeated the falsehood (even during the State of the Union) that “chain migration” allows immigrants to bring “unlimited” people to the United States.  The statement, in short, is simply a lie.  It’s not true, and has never been true, but the term is in high repeat in conservative circles.

Trump’s problem, though, is that the very system he rails against just allowed Melania Trump (You remember her, right?  She’s the nude model from Slovenia who is now our First Lady.) to bring in her parents through “chain migration”.  AND, said parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, became US citizens yesterday.  That’s right, folks, the very system that Trump demands that Congress end just allowed his in-laws to become American citizens. Now, the Knavs are probably perfectly nice people who are fortunate to have friends in high places who could grease the skids for them attain US citizenship, which millions of others have been waiting decades for.  That’s not the problem.  The problem is the now-familiar hypocrisy.

This kind of hypocrisy shouldn’t be surprising.  Trump’s entire personal foundation is built on lies, cheating, and hypocrisy.  Rules apply to everyone else, but not Trump.  He’s immune from common decency or common sense.  Worse, the White House refuses to address any of his hypocrisy, including the “chain migration” lie, and the invertebrates in Congress, terrified of losing their power, do nothing to stop it.  That’s why it’s up to us to shine the light on Trump’s lies and fight fire with fire.

There is a place for anger, and THIS is it.

There are no factories in the US that make televisions any more.  There is one factory, Element Electronics, that assembles mass market televisions from imported Chinese parts, but that will come to a grinding halt in October.  The company simply cannot survive in Trump’s trade war where their made in China parts are now being heavily taxed.  During the campaign he complained that “we don’t make televisions in the US anymore”;  well, now we don’t even assemble them in the US.  Once closed down, it is very difficult for a company to come back on line.

All of this winning is sure doing a lot of damage.

I gotta tell you that the Federal Elections Commission does not jack around.  They are kinda like the IRS in that respect.

But, there’s a job at the FEC that I want.  It’s the job where the person opens the mail and decides it a PAC has a proper name.  It can be a PAC that’s up to no good, but it has to be named properly.

For example:

They were not amused by a PAC named: ZILLIONAIRE EMPRESS DANIELLE HUSSER BERHANE and they even threatened to file felony charges against her for her wanton act of disrespect. She’s a zillionaire, guys, so why should she fret over your silly threats?  Plus, she has a damn website so she’s gotta be legit.

And then there was this one.  I could be wrong about this because it’s the Trump administration and Lord only knows what the rules are now, but I don’t think the Treasurer of the Treasury Department can have a political PAC.  However, since Rosa is the actual Treasure of the united States, I kinda suspect somebody is jacking around.

But we’re not finished yet, because there’s this one.

On second thought, maybe we are finished.

You’ll be happy to know that Heathcliff has a tweeter account.  He’s @ChopkinkyKinky‘s I know you’re shocked to hear that.

And lastly, I think this one was filed by Ted Cruz because he thinks all campaign finance laws are not applicable to him.

Thanks to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen who does have a sense of humor.

I’ve got a new fundraising doohickey thing going on.  It’s some deep data for our local candidates and a good bunch they are.

Click here if this kind of stuff interests you.

(I will fix the donate button to go here when I get a few minutes.)

The New York Magazine asks ….

Yeah, no kidding.

And their bottom line?

It has been frequently noted that the president is molding the party in his nationalist, populist, authoritarian image. He is likewise molding its governing class after his own personal business ethos.

Thanks to Steve for the heads up.

Houston has a congressional race that’s flippable.  The congressroach who we need to take down is Republican John Culberson.

His Democratic opponent is a wonder.  Her name is Lizzy Fletcher and she is one badass Texas woman.

Culbertson is a good ole boy, a Trump supporter, and slicker than snot on a doorknob.  Honey, he’s so crooked that when he dies, we’ll have to screw him in the ground.

Well, the tables just got tilted a little.  Okay, maybe tilted is too tame a word.  An elephant shot from a nuclear submarine landed on one end.

You’ve heard already that Republican Congressman Chris Collins  was arrested for insider trading this morning.

Well, guess who is tighter than skin on a sausage with Collins?

Our boy Culbertson.

Rep. John Culberson (R-TX): The Texas Republican claimed he heard about Innate from media reports, but as the Houston Chronicle noted, it’s not clear which. At the time of his purchase, Innate was described as “a tiny pharmaceutical company from Australia that has no approved drugs and no backing from flashy venture capital firms.” The Chronicle pointed out that Culberson’s past investment history does not square with his purchase of biotech stocks and his opponent, a research physician, has wondered what led Culberson to invest, “since at the time he bought it in January there had been no published research articles or significant clinical trial updates on the drug, known as MIS416.”

And, just to add the cherry on top, another Texas Republican Congressman is being looked at.

Somebody pass the popcorn and the champagne.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.