We all know that John Bolton hates everyone and everything Iranian.  He desperately tried to get GWB to bomb Tehran back to the stone age, but still licking his wounds from his folly in Iraq, even HE wasn’t stupid enough to fall for Bolton’s bullshit on Iran.

Well, Bolton’s got a president now who is remarkably more stupid that GWB, so it’s Deja Vu all over again, and this time Trump IS stupid enough to go along with him.  Even while he denies he’s planning on sending in 120,000 troops into the Middle East, the defense department is planning on…sending 120,000 troops to the Middle East.  As we talked about yesterday, he’s already moved a carrier battle group into the region, and B-52 bombers are being staged into the area.

Now the State Department has ordered the consulates in Iraq be evacuated.  US central command in the Middle East has troops on high alert citing threats from Syria and Iran.  The problem, though, is that no one outside of the US government sees ANY increased threat from Iran.  In fact, the senior British officer in the coalition anti-terrorism operation in the Middle East confirms there is no increased threat; Trump responded to his comments as “fake news”.

In 2002, I was highly skeptical of all the bullshit that Bush/Cheney was peddling to whip up a war with Saddam Hussein.  Nothing they said made any sense, and there was NO evidence that Iraq had anything whatsoever to do with the 9/11 attacks.  This drumbeat to war feels the same to me.  No one with the government has given ANY evidence that Iran or Syria are doing anything that is more threatening that their normal hostility.  Because of these circumstances, I’m going to continue calling bullshit on Trump and call this what it is – Wagging the Dog to win the next election.  Nothing more, nothing less.

“Resistance is not futile.”  A great read from Stephanie Wilkinson, the owner of the Red Hen Restaurant who asked Sarah Sanders to leave.

Ben Shapiro, right wing talker and all round smartass, got owned yesterday by BBC host Andrew Neil, who dared to ask Shapiro about his hypocrisy.  The interview was supposed to be an opportunity for Shapiro to plug his new volume of manure titled The Right Side of History, and ironically subtitled How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great.  His entire premise is hilarious, because exactly zero of his assertions are neither reasoned of moral.

At 16 minutes it’s a long watch, but very entertaining.  If you want to get to the really good stuff, fast forward to about minute 11.  After Shapiro abruptly ended the interview, Neil got in one last shot saying, “…and thank you for showing that anger is not a part of American political discourse.”  LOL.

The Cult of Trump has metastasized into a terminal cancer on our democracy.  The Congress won’t provide proper oversight, the press is running around chasing every little tweet, and Trump spends all of his time either tweeting or watching Fox Noise, and his cabinet of corrupt cronies is busily tearing down every tradition and progressive statute enacted over the last 80 years.

Since the Barr Report exonerated Trump (even though we haven’t seen the Mueller Report) Trump has been spiking the ball and becoming even more emboldened to do something really stupid.  Two possibilities of said stupidity are 1) Reigniting the battle over healthcare; 2) Whipping up the racists over immigration.  Case in point, he’s now threatening to close the southern border next week if Mexico doesn’t stop illegal immigration.  Once again, he is spouting nonsense and demanding the impossible.

I’m weary with the 24/7 train wreck that is the Trump presidency; I have Trump fatigue.   We have to do something different to wake up the Congress and the electorate.  So, I give up.  The Invertebrates in Congress won’t do their goddam jobs to stop this despot, so I say let’s do it.  Let’s close the border.  Shut down all the ports of entry and put the US military along the border.  C’mon shithead, DO IT.  Let’s burn down US-Mexico trade and just see what happens.

Here’s exactly what would happen: In January of 2019, the US imported over $27 BILLION of goods and exported $25 BILLION of goods.  That’s PER MONTH.  The US Trade Representative reports that 1.2 MILLION American jobs exist because of US export to Mexico. However, the Woodrow Wilson center has determined that 4.9 MILLION American jobs would be lost if trade with Mexico was halted.  I’ll say that again – 4.9 MILLION American jobs would be lost if trade with Mexico was halted.  Job losses at that scale would most certainly drive the US economy into another recession costing even more millions in jobs.

SO, I say let’s do it.  Let’s burn down the US and Mexico economies at the same time.  Let’s close the border.  If this is what it takes to wake up the Congress to do something, let’s shut it down, stranding billions of dollars in goods and costing millions of jobs.   I don’t know what else to do to stop this guy.

Probably the most debated issue in public health is the safety and need for vaccines.  It’s really stupid that we’re debating the safety and need of vaccines since the performance and safety of vaccines has been settled for decades.  The problem is that junk science, with the assistance of social media, has become pervasive among those who are more inclined to superstitions and myths than to critical thinking.  That superstition was on public display this week when Arizona state representative Kelly Townsend idiotically claimed that requiring children to get the measles vaccine is somehow “communist”.  Never mind that “communism” has nothing to do with science or public health policy, Townsend’s nonsensical declaration is just another example of the damage that poor education, ignorance, and the proliferation of pure bullshit can inflict on a free society.  That pure bullshit is easily obtained online or by tuning into Fox Noise and other outlets of propaganda.

In the 21st century, we’re debating the efficacy of vaccines which has been settled science for decades.  We’re also debating the assertion that massive tax cuts increase government revenues.  We are debating national healthcare policy with those who believe that the rigged healthcare system is “free market”, which it’s most certainly not.  We are actually debating putting MORE guns out in public because some people believe that the most armed society in the developed world is suffering gun violence because their aren’t yet enough guns.  We are arguing over public education with some who believe that “school choice” is actually a serious proposal beyond the actual goal of killing public education.  We argue that labor unions, which protected the income of middle Americans for almost 100 years is actually evil and should be destroyed.

I could go on and on, but you get the point.  The problem with all public policy debates these days is that one side wants to argue policy, and the other side wants to argue bullshit. And that bullshit is ALWAYS politicized.  When you can’t even agree on the facts, informed debate is impossible, which is exactly the problem today.  Civil discussion is impossible because many live in an alternative reality while the rest of us live in the real world.

Idiots like Kelly Townsend actually believe the uninformed bullshit that they spout because all they hear or read is bullshit.  Because she read on the internet that vaccines are bad, she chooses to ignore the mountain of settled science about vaccines.  Because gun nuts believe a radical interpretation of the Second Amendment, they believe that God gives them the right to carry an AK-47 into Kroger to stock up on their weekly supply of Twinkies.  All of these radical ideologies carry a common thread, and that is that one American has no burden to carry their own weight in a civilized society.  They believe that their own private “liberty” overrules the rights of all others because of “freedom”.  Radical libertarianism has infested one side of the political spectrum, but that radicalism only extends to the first person; this is the irony of this way of living.  An individual has the right to do whatever they want no matter the damage to others, but others don’t have the right to do the same.  This way of thinking is irrational, non-historic, and can’t stand up to even the most casual straight faced test.

Such is the condition of our society today.   Logic is inundated by a virtual tsunami of bullshit, and it’s driving our society backwards.  That’s the bigger problem.

Hint:  Electrical wire is not like a garden hose.