In a more quaint time, government shutdowns and playing chicken with the debt limit were common tactics to take something away from people.  Now it’s committing international human rights atrocities to get what they want.  This new tactic is nothing but hostage taking.  In the 1980s, Reagan used several government shutdowns because the budget contained spending he didn’t like.  Newt Gingrich used government shutdowns trying to get slashes to Medicare, public health, and education spending.  The 2011 budget drama caused S&P to actually downgrade the US’s credit rating for the first time ever due to the irresponsibly of the Congressional Republicans’ continuous brinksmanship.  In 2013, they tried it again when brand new Senator Ted Cruz whipped up the House to shutdown the government in an effort to take healthcare away from millions of people.  All this screwing around never works, but Republicans continue using showdowns over the debt limit and budget to kill everything from healthcare, social spending, to funding Planned Parenthood.

Which brings us to now.  Donald Trump lied in a continuous stream about many, many issues, but one of his biggest lies was that he was going to build a “big beautiful wall” to keep dark-skinned people out of the country.  The most outrageous part of that promise was that, through his singular strength and negotiating prowess, he was going to make Mexico pay for it.  The notion was and is idiotic, and everyone but his biggest sycophants dismissed the promise as extreme hyperbole.  As expected, Mexico shot Trump the finger, and former president Vicente Fox makes sport of regularly poking him in the eye over the issue.

Having failed at destroying healthcare for millions of people and after blowing a gigantic multi-trillion dollar hole in the nation’s budget passing out tax cuts to billionaires, he’s now trying to keep his most outrageous promise by pushing funding in the federal budget and taking money from parks and military budgets to build his wall, but the Democrats have planted their feet saying no.  So, to put pressure on the them, Trump’s in-house white supremacist, Stephen Miller, with the help of a few other deplorables, cooked up the scheme to start holding dark skinned people hostage on the border.  As is typical for extremists, Miller miscalculated, but Trump and Jeff Sessions stupidly blundered into this political and human disaster.

Sessions defended this new hostage taking plan and continues to do so, even in the face of loud and getting louder opposition.  This tactic is also the reason that Trump’s newly assigned talking point blames the “Democrats’ terrible law” that’s forcing him to take hostages.  As we all know, there is no law.  He’s taking thousands of children hostage, in violation of international human rights laws attempting to force the Dems to fund his stupid wall.  It’s familiar territory for him, since he’s connected so closely to the Mob.  You know that line, “Cute kid – it would be a shame if something bad happened to her.”  That’s PRECISELY what Trump’s doing.  To force Dems to fund his wall, he’s doing irreparable damage to thousands of children and even more parents.

How anyone could support a politician who so regularly takes hostages is beyond me.  Such a tactic is not only immoral, it costs US taxpayers billions of dollars and destroys our standing on the world stage.  A government shutdown that merely costs jobs and damages the economy is one thing.  This tactic is literally costing lives. The Dems should stand fast, and we should back them doing that.  Like the Mob, extremists don’t compromise; they destroy and threaten until they get their way.  It’s time to take that tool away from them.

The White House Gift Shop was created in 1946 by order of President Truman to sell presidential merchandise to visitors and the general public.  It is 100% non-partisan, sells memorabilia from past presidents as well as White House specific merchandise.  The funds raised from the sale of merchandise supports the uniformed Secret Service at the White House.

The Gift Shop now has a competitor.  True to his cheesy form, Trump now has HIS OWN gift shop, selling all things Trump, from autographed portraits to replica “signing pens” that he’s used for his nonstop effort to erase the Obama presidency.  Even MORE cheesy?  He lists the address of the shop as 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  So, to be clear – Donald Trump is running a private enterprise OUT OF OUR WHITE HOUSE to cash in on this elected office. Don’t believe it?  Here’s a screen shot of the bottom of his merchandising email for his flash sale of his replica “signing pen”.

That’s right, the address of this business is Donald J. Trump, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, DC.  It doesn’t get much worse than this.  It seems the least he could do is put the shop address as his hotel down the street where he’s raking in millions of dollars of money paid by foreign government officials trying to curry favor.

Hurry! Only 15 more hours left to buy your replica signing pen!  Or, how about a genuwine autographed portrait of Melania (sorry, she’s clothed in these pics; I’m sure for the right price you can get one of her nude shots).  Or, how about a framed front page of inauguration day?  If you want cheese, here’s your chance.

Yesterday, in a high profile example of profound tone deafness, the NFL announced that its team owners have agreed that any team which has a player who kneels during the national anthem will be fined by the league.  Interestingly, the decision was made without consulting with the NFL players’ union.  The decision was an attempt to make the controversy around NFL players’ protests of police brutality go away by making those protests not about police brutality, but disrespecting the flag and the song.  That accusation is not, and never has been, true.

For now, let’s set aside the appropriateness of all the super duper displays of patriotism at sporting events today.  It seems that you can’t attend any event, including 5 year old kids’ soccer games, without the obligatory playing of the national anthem.  The big leagues have taken all the flag waving to nauseating heights, parading military personnel out on the field between quarters and innings, doing the obligatory (and corny) on-field reunions of veteran-come-home and their families, competing for what team can get the gigantastigest flag out onto the field, and having everyone from Little Big Town to opera singers to sing the song.  Major league baseball has even taken the rituals to a whole new height where, not only does everyone now stand, put hand over heart and sing the national anthem before the game, now we have to stand, put hand over the heart and sing God Bless America before we can sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the seventh inning stretch.  Am I the only one to think all this military ritual is stupid?

What’s really important about this issue is all this jingoism and flag waving only started after Bush trumped up (no pun intended) non-existent evidence of Saddam’s WMD and invaded Iraq.  To whip up his base, he and his propagandists (read Dick Cheney and pals) started accusing those who disagreed about the war  as being unAmerican.  Remember being publicly chastised and accused of “hating the troops” if you disagreed?  I do.  In 2009, when the Defense Department started PAYING for military tributes before big games, the NFL adopted a policy of requiring players to not only be on the field, but requiring them to render respect for the entire ordeal.  Before then?  The players stayed in the locker rooms during the national anthem.

The NFL’s decision to now fine teams for their players exercising their right to free speech is nothing more than playing to their own base and pandering to Trump who has fanned the flames of hatred of African American players who dared to step out of line.  The entire controversy could be averted in two other ways:  1) stop requiring employees of the league to participate in patriotic rituals, or 2) actually address the content of the protests, the actual problem of police brutality against racial minorities.  But, no.  The NFL owners have cowardly made it about the flag and the song, just like Trump has, to avoid dealing with the actual issue.

Oh, and one last thing – while the NFL owners are getting all dewy-eyed over their love of the flag, and anthem, they’re selling THESE on their websites.

Oh, and this nice little piece is being sold by MLB:

Can you spell hypocrisy?

You just thought that the Amtrak train carrying congressional Republicans rammed a garbage truck killing one and injuring others.  That didn’t happen at all.  What REALLY happened was that a cement truck, a big KAMIKAZE cement truck, RAMMED the train to kill Paul Ryan and others on the train.  The reliable source for this blockbuster story?  That’s right, it’s Alex Jones of sending-children-to-Mars-to-enslave-them fame.  That’s right, within a few hours of the tragic accident, Jones had determined that it was an attack on conservatives.  Jesus, this guy needs more drugs.

Roy Moore, candidate for the US Senate from Alabama, has now been accused by 5 women of sexually abusing them when they were young teenagers.  Others are now beginning to talk about Moore’s proclivity towards young girls and of even being known for preying on them at a local mall.  The guy is a weirdo.  He’s a creep and has no place in the Senate.  However, he’s not the only one, not by a long shot.  Recent revelations about Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and many others have rocked DC and Hollywood, and all of the country in between.  Such revelations are finally bringing this pervasive issue into a national light, and has spawned the #metoo movement, where millions of women have had the courage to talk about their own experience of abuse and harassment.

Perhaps, though, it’s time for us to look outside our own political leanings and how those leanings affect how we see sexual harassment.  Right now, conservative evangelicals and even party leaders are contorting themselves to justify their support of Moore despite his clearly disqualifying conduct.  They’re doing it now in ignoring and defending the abhorrent behavior of the current occupant of the White House.  They also did it years ago when they supported Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court despite courageous testimony by Anita Hill who recounted years of sexual harassment at the hands of Thomas.  He was confirmed onto the Supreme Court anyway, and the damage he’s done to Constitutional law there for decades is clear.

But, here’s the thing; progressives and feminists have their own Roy Moore – and his name is, wait for it…Bill Clinton.  Yesterday, Caitlin Flanagan wrote about this issue in the Atlantic.  Clinton’s philandering and sexual harassment was also well known to all around him and exploded into the public several times with the Jennifer Flowers scandal, the Paula Jones case, and later the Monica Lewinsky affair which occurred IN THE WHITE HOUSE.  In the piece, she reminds us that feminists came to Clinton’s rescue, dismissing his behavior as not criminal, but mere “passes”.  Yes; “passes” where women claimed he them raped in their own hotel rooms and had sexual encounters in the Oval Office.  “Passes” where the evidence against him of serious conduct was much stronger and a hell of a lot more contemporary than what confronts Moore today.  She points to an op-ed piece written by Gloria Steinem in March of 1998, where she defended Clinton’s behavior and actually victim shamed for political gain.

Flanagan calls on feminists, progressives, and Democrats to face their own hypocrisy of supporting Clinton in the face of overwhelming evidence of his shocking conduct, yet condemning others on the other side of the aisle for behavior somewhat less egregious.  She calls for “a reckoning” with Clinton, but even more with themselves and how they contorted themselves to justify his behavior and protect their own political advantage.

It’s a thoughtful, but difficult read.  Perhaps it is time for Democrats to face this issue.  Perhaps we can deal with it more honestly that is being done on the other side.

VP Dense pulled a not-very-sophisticted political stunt today at the Indianapolis Colts game by showing up for the game, and tweeting this picture of himself with all the blah-blah-blah about standing for the soldiers, the flag, blah-blah-blah, :

As soon as the anthem was over, Dense then IMMEDIATELY left the game, tweeting this: 

Then Trump immediately followed up with this tweet:

Just patriots honoring the flag, right?  Pence comes to the stadium, tweeting he’s looking forward to the Colts game, then immediately leaves, incensed that players “disrespected the flag” by daring to kneel during the national anthem.  Trump then confirmed that he’s a super patriot by instructing Pence to leave if anyone protested during the anthem.  A spontaneous display of flag loving, yes?  Well, no, not really.

NBC News’ Peter Alexander then tweeted that the press corps with Pence had been instructed to not go into the game and stay in the van, since “there may be an early departure…”.  Alexander then reported that Pence immediately went back to the airport and flew to Los Angeles for a fundraiser.

So VP Dense, in cahoots with Cheeto Jesus, wasted millions of taxpayer dollars to jet to Indianapolis just so he could stage a walkout from the Indianapolis Colts game to show his patriotism for his mouth-breathing base.

The stupid thing about this stunt was they thought they would actually fool anyone with this kind of amateur idiocy.  Except for the mouth-breathers, of course.