Grassley just stated that approving Kavanaugh is a way to atone for the treatment of both Judge Robert Bork and Justice Clarence Thomas!

You want atonement for two horrible mistakes on your side?  Go to church.  You want democracy? Release his papers and give us time to read them.

Grassley, you’re a jerk.

Texas Republican Representative John Culberson represents a large area of Houston.  Hillary carried his district two years ago and he knows he’s vulnerable.

He also has learned that he ain’t bulletproof.

Culberson is a big military memorabilia collector.  They figure that he’s bought and sold more than $1.3 million in antiques an collectables since 2010. Democrats see the opportunity for hanky-panky here,  because personal collections are exempt from congressional financial reporting. What if he’s buying a rock for $5 and then selling it to a supporter who has already maxed-out donations to Culberson?  What if he’s selling that rock for $10,000?

Additionally, there’s $33,000 in weird charges to Culberson’s campaign account.

In all, they document $32,981 in expenses reported as “books” and “research materials” since 2009, as well as $17,000 on gifts, including antiques and military collectibles, since 2004. More than $5,000 was spent on Civil War memorabilia since 2010.

My personal favorite was the $309 purchase at a place that sells fossils.  Yeah, rocks.  Other than throwing them at some other old fossils to see if they stick, it’s hard to see how buying rocks is a legitimate campaign expense. Culberson’s staff has an answer.

Culberson’s aides explained the purchase as research material on paleo-climatology, a subject that would help him understand climate science for his position on an appropriations subcommittee that oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Culberson does not believe in climate change.  How’s a rock gonna help that?  The rocks in his brain don’t help much at all.

He’s a mess.

You know how when you walk up to the top of the stairs and then stand there and wonder, “Now why did I come up here?” That’s the way Trump feels all the time.

But, you know, he has people all around him who tell him why he climbed the stairs.  Or got in the car.

He was wearing a golf tee shirt and a MAGA hat.

When asked, Sarah Sanders said, “The President stayed at the WH to make calls specifically on trade and other international issues.”

Oh right, and I came up the stairs to do brain surgery.

Most people think he came outside and realized it was too hot to play golf.

Thanks to Gray for the heads up.

One of the Fall’s biggest movies premiers is First Man, a biographical/action movie about Neil Armstrong.  It screened last week at the Venice film festival to rave reviews and Oscar talk.  A movie about one of our biggest 20th century heroes complete with jets, rockets, and spaceflight?  Cool, eh?  Not so fast, bucko, we have to go through the Patriot Test.  Uh, oh, the movie left out the actual planting of the US flag on the moon.  Trigger The Outrage Machine.  Now, for context, only a couple of hundred people have seen this movie so far; it doesn’t release until October 12, but right wing screamers from Breitbart to Twitter to even Marco Rubio have whipped up The Outrage Machine and turned the movie into a political hot potato over leaving out a flag planting scene.  Again, NONE of the people screaming on social media have actually seen the movie, and apparently not even the trailer, since our beloved totem was even featured in that.  Have a look:

Those who have actually seen the movie say the flag is all over it, and even shown in the moon scenes.  Ryan Gosling, who plays Armstrong in the film, said that the the story depicts “human achievement” more than simply American, which, in fact, is the way Armstrong himself saw it.  They chose to focus on Armstrong’s story, not only American culture.  And to some, that is the unforgivable sin.

So where is the outrage coming from?  It’s coming from radical partisans (who haven’t seen the movie) using bullshit to whip up anger of the base using the excuse that Armstrong’s biography wasn’t All-American-Flag-Wavingly-Jingoistic enough.  Oh, and that Gosling is a goddam Canadian daring to play an American hero.  That all adds up to blasphemy against Jingo, the All Seeing God of all things nationalistic.

The whole controversy is manufactured from whole cloth to only piss off the base.  What does the base do?  They get pissed off, of course, and light up social media with fake outrage over nothing.  And that’s how it works.

Lord help us all, Jeanine Pirro caught whatever the hell it is that Rudy Giuliana has.

Fox News host Jeanine Pirro said Sunday that she believes various forces in Washington have conspired to “frame” President Trump and bog down his administration with scandal and controversy.

I do not know who these various forces are but I like to think of myself as being one of them.  Please feel free to join me in these happy thoughts.

Right off the bat she says that she knows why Trump was framed —

“The crisscrossing and the incestuous nature of our government in an attempt to prevent the outsider president that we wanted from getting elected is frightening.”

Good Lord, she does know that Donald J Trump is president, right?  I mean seriously, don’t you think it’s probably not smart to say incestuous with Ivanka in the room?  I don’t know for sure what crisscrossing is, but I think it’s one of the top ten words I’d use to describe Trump’s staff problem.

She also thinks that Democrats are guilty of all the things Trump is accused of.  You know, like spend government money at their own properties, kissing up to Putin, putting their kids on the government payroll, letting Jared Kutcher be in change of everything, giving our security clearances like birthday presents, and cheating at golf.

That’s mountain-moving wrong.