We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Living in the NYC area, I have plenty of wacky Progressive friends. They are really wacky these days. Of course, my Republican friends can be just as nutty, at times. It all depends on what you're discussing, though this should go without saying.
What's really crazy, though, is how one Progressive friend mentioned to me that polarization has reached "fever pitch" and the basis of her comment was the recent Congressional shooting. I shrugged and said it had been at that level for 24 years, really, and she'd simply chosen not to notice. Now that she's energized politically, it matters to her. No, no, no, she replied, that can't be it. It most certainly is.
All my Progressive friends are members of the #Resist movement. I am not a Trump supporter, but I'm not suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, either. He's had mixed results so far. Nothing outlandish, nothing crazy. I think he's accomplished quite a bit (both better and worse) for not passing a single piece of major legislation. His bluster and hyperbole bug me, but that's just talk and Tweets. I've seen and heard worse from regular politicians. Yet it's these words that set off the #Resist people. They go bonkers over every little thing! It's fascinating.
The natural impulse of a political system in institutional crisis is to dig in. Too many institutions in the West remain decades after their birth, frozen in the moment of their creation. NASA, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the university system and the United Nations rule us from the past. Public life has become a museum of memes from which nothing can escape without a mummy hand dragging the fugitive back into the darkened interior. It is perhaps no coincidence the two most popular leaders of the Western left, Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, might credibly impersonate Boris Karloff. They are here to lead us back to 1968.
It may not be that Trump earns hatred for unnecessary provocation and vitriol, but instead that he or any other Republican would have earned such venom anyway.
“The losing political party is using a conspiracy theory — without having a single shred of evidence — to DERAIL a constitutionally-elected president.”
Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the election was the recrudescence of the politics of envy and resentment. This is not to say that there are no genuine or severe problems in the country: the stagnation of productivity, the precariousness of income, the deficiencies in public services, the low cultural and educational level of much of the population, the inadequacy of the housing stock, and so forth. But the only solution ever heard to these problems, which are evident the moment you leave a prosperous area whose residents are likely to vote Conservative, is more government expenditure. Even the Conservatives went in for this, though more mildly than Labour. Prime Minister May refused to rule out tax increases, for example.
The Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn radiated dislike of the prosperous, even the modestly prosperous...
...
None of this worried the young, who had as yet no stake in property, only what are sometimes called ideals. The Labour Party offered them and others the beguiling vision of living perpetually at the expense of others—Frédéric Bastiat’s definition of the state. The Laffer curve meant nothing to them; punishing the prosperous was more important and gratifying than understanding how to maximize tax receipts.
The election could take Britain back more than 50 years.
... it is so important for the President to Trump the Narrative. The wholesale disregard of what this unremitting attack on Trump might do to the country is breathtaking. Trump’s enemies—including his former Democratic opponent—fancy themselves part of a “resistance.” Leave aside the nauseating presumption of that rubric, as if they were freedom fighters struggling against a totalitarian threat. In truth, what they are “resisting” is the result of a free and open democratic election and the rule of law—what Dershowitz rightly calls “our civil liberties and constitutional rights.”
... this city has never reconciled itself to Trump's victory, and the president daily rubs their noses in their defeat with his tweets.
Seeking a rationale for its rejection, this city has seized upon that old standby. We didn't lose! The election was stolen in a vast conspiracy, an "act of war" against America, an assault upon "our democracy," criminal collusion between the Kremlin and the Trumpites.
Hence, Trump is an illegitimate president, and it is the duty of brave citizens of both parties to work to remove the usurper.
I think they just want to cripple him, same as with Bush-Hitler
It’s a swamp of innuendo based on anonymous sources, investigations fed by illegal eavesdropping, scandals in which the outrage comes before the evidence whose purpose is to overturn an election. These aren’t investigations. They’re a coup by the losing side that refuses to admit it lost a presidential election. The coup isn’t just aimed at President Trump or any single member of his administration.
It’s aimed at America, at democracy and at any policy to the right of free entitlements and no freedoms.
Impeachment is merely a tactic aimed at one man. The broader strategic aim is to stymie and sabotage THE AGENDA. PDT will not be impeached, but if he can be smeared as illegitimate, then everything he wants to do will be made out to be against the will of the people because he "stole" the presidency.
And since the GOP-e is in league with the Dems and the Deep State bureaucracy, this is why everything is being slow-walked and stonewalled.
No one thought he would win. Now that he has, they are scrambling like mad to make every excuse imaginable why the Repeal can't go forward, or Tax Reform or The Wall or you-name-it. The Dems claim fraud/collusion, the GOP-e claims process/rules bullshit, the Deep State Leviathan leaks and sabotages. And the press reports PDT as an insane failure.
It is an amazing state of affairs: A President of the United States who does not at all grasp the Office he occupies, and who thus entirely lacks the proper situation sense, or contextual knowledge, in which a President should exercise judgment or act. Let that sink in...
Insofar as that might be true, I think it is part of why he was elected.
Good morning, kids. Well, the big stories today will be James Comey's delivery of a double-talk nothing burger dressed up as the smoking gun to end all smoking guns that will lead to the impeachment of President Trump. That's the way it will be reported and played from now through November of '18 and '20. What will not be reported in the "news" is the President's historic slashing of regulations which, in spite of Democrat-Republican and Deep State sabotage is boosting the economic outlook and creating real jobs and growth. Hence, the never-ending "collusion" libel which is all the Democrats have. Big national elections in Britain. Perhaps the wave of love from the followers of Mohammed will be a wake up call to Brits to keep Jeremy Corbyn the hell out of 10 Downing Street. Other than that, watch a rabid racist BLM hack go on a rant at Tucker Carlson and for a palate cleanser, enjoy as Richard Burr explains to Kamala Harris to STFD and STFU, but in the nicest of parliamentary ways. .. Have a better one and remain blessed.
Wow. David Blaine used to amaze me with his 'street' magic. Since he became more performance artist than magician, I've been less impressed with his stuff. But magic is fun if it's done well. I don't think I've seen it done this well in a very long time.
Celebrities who still haven’t learned that their endorsement of anyone or anything usually yields the opposite of the intended effect also weighed in on Trump’s move. Hollywood’s most prolific climate celeb — the bed-hopping, jet-setting, yacht-cruising Leo DiCaprio — said he hoped Trump would make the “moral” decision to stay in Paris, then tweeted shortly after the president’s announcement that “today, our planet suffered.” Unhinged showgirl Bette Midler tweeted that Trump’s exit gave “BigOil a windfall” and that “there has never in US history been such a destructive megalomaniac in the WH. Thank you to US press and other numbskulls who put him there.”
Mark Ruffalo, known more for his environmental activism than for his marginal acting, tweeted that if Trump left Paris, the president would “have the death of whole nations on his hands. People will be looking to the USA for retribution for what they loose [sic].” Actress Alyssa Milano, who is approximately 0 for 432 on helping political candidates win, tweeted: “Oh my God, you really are a monster. @realDonaldTrump.” But the topper could go to George Takei of Star Trek fame, who tweeted: “Trump is having us pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. Too bad someone didn’t tell his father that he shoulda pulled out too.”''
Post-Brexit Britain will no longer be bound by an EU Code of Conduct that seeks to police the online speech of over 500 million citizens and ban ‘illegal online hate speech’. Or an EU law that encourages the criminalisation of ‘insult’. Or a proposed EU law that undermines fundamental freedoms by purging Europe of every last shred of supposed ‘discrimination’ […] There is just one, small problem: when it comes to censorship and the quashing of civil liberties, the UK doesn’t need any encouragement from the EU, or anybody else.
Fact: 50% of Americans have below average IQs, so it's not too hard for Watters to find these people. Both political parties compete hard for their votes.
The Trump backlash was a slap in the face to most, utterly unexpected because they simply don’t even acknowledge that a world exists outside of their gated communities, the suburban soccer moms and Whole Foods customers have no clue that they just destroyed the entire coal industry or put people out of work as they hurry to Pilates. Given that ignorance, Trump was a political asteroid impact, the most unlikely and devastating thing many of them had ever seen as he crashed into their world. The anger from them is one of class, the upending of their perceived social status by someone so beneath them as to not even warrant an opinion. It is difficult to put this concept into words if you have not experienced those social circles, the level of outrage would be akin to a janitor walking into an Exxon Mobile board meeting and overruling the entire table of executives.
The anger is palpable within the Beltway and it’s coastal fiefdoms, which is understandable. The idea that someone who shakes parmesan from a can contravened the wishes of those who can taste the difference between serrano and iberico Jamón is simply unacceptable...
Donald Trump has been given a great gift in that his gaffes are seen by most Americans in the context of an obsessed and unhinged Democratic-media nexus. He is pitted against a new fusion party of media elites and aging political functionaries, who all believe that America should operate on their norms, the norms of Washington, New York, Hollywood, and Malibu — all places that symbolize, to most Americans, exactly how the country has gone wrong.
Recommended by a friend:
Living in the NYC area, I have plenty of wacky Progressive friends. They are really wacky these days. Of course, my Republican friends can be just as nutty, at times. It all depends on what you're discussing, though this should go without saying.
Wonderful Herreshoff via
Transgendered Track Star 
Good news for redheads: 
Image stolen from 
California´s huge snowfall 
Photo: finally got the pic of my friend's backyard Barred Owl 
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