The problem of politics by assassination, is that it works. I am old enough to have been in school when JFK was murdered, and the Texan, Johnson, the VP took over, and then Bobby Kennedy, after he won the California primary, was killed, and then Martin Luther King Jr., and so on and so on, until Nixon and Kissinger ran the world to ruin.
I love the candidacy of Talarico, he brings energy and the truth to the campaign.

If Trump could somehow gin up runaway inflation, that would be the catastrophe he seems to be seeking for the US. Or, of course, both a never-ending war in the Middle East coupled with a major shooting war with China or some small African nation he heard had some oil.

And we have two years left on our "sentence" of being led by MAGA. One wonders if one's blood pressure will rise through the roof upon reading the headlines some mornings.

And left in the dust were millions of fellow humans who were consigned to living in the hell of Taliban rule. Yes, we had to leave, but one has to mourn the entire enterprise. And yes, Trump negotiated the worst "agreements" in American history...no one could have gotten the US out in better order, since the heavily armed Taliban were prepared and just walking in to kill the Afghans who participated with the US.

I would prefer to live in a time where whatever the FED does is...just done, efficiently and quietly, but here we are, when one has to assume that if Trump is involved, the people's pockets are being picked.

Oregon's vote by mail has worked wonderfully for years, but then, there is a system for all voters to go online and make sure that they ballots were received and counted.

And, once again, we see why there needs to be a pathway to citizenship for those who have lived in and worked in America for decades. America deliberately had a porous border system, so that work could get done. After the Bracero Program was ended the large employers just prevailed on politicians to let their workers through.
Yes, Americans expect and deserve a strong and secure border, from now on...

Color me wildly skeptical.

Well, Texas, you cannot say you don't have a clear choice...a man who is clearly faith based, and who clearly will deliver on his promises...or you can vote for Paxton.
I identify as an atheist but understand that Talarico uses his religion to empower himself, not disempower me.
Those who say we either take money out of politics or we lose our democracy are certainly right.

I spent some time yesterday at the computer designing out my hopes for America's recovery and unification after the Trump debacle. I was certainly disheartening, as internally I kept on being unable to even hope that national health care, or the like, will ever be possible in my lifetime because the billionaires want to be gods, and with Citizens Roberts...sorry, Citizens United, we are now a one dollar one vote democracy.
Feels delusional to actually hope for peace and including all.

Been watching college football, at the highest level, as I live a mile or so from Autzen Stadium, the home of the Oregon Ducks. Big Time football dominates educational institutions, unfortunately. It is wildly dangerous for the players, and the bread and circuses nonsense on Saturday afternoons, sure, is compelling, but watching people hurt each other for enjoyment is...Falling Roman Empire stuff.
High school football should be outlawed as it is child abuse...CTE.
Oregon used to be a large State University that had a football team, now it is a football team with classes and degrees that may or may not get jobs for people.

All in all, South Park feels like a harbinger of America's future, where kids are held in rigid control, by insane parents driven cuckoo for coconuts by the culture.

Wonder when the betting sites are betting that Judgement Day will be upon us?

Reminds me of when Kissinger and Nixon tanked the 1968 Vietnam Peace Talks telling (then) South Vietnam that they would get a better deal after Nixon became President. Many thousands of Americans died before peace actually prevailed...leaders sometimes like chaos as it terrorizes the people and makes them more vulnerable to manipulation.
Not sure who is a worse leader of a nation, Netanyahu or Trump, or Nixon.

It is as if there is a virus out there that causes world leaders to look for areas of conflict so they too can field armies and be in the headlines.

Now if we, regular old Americans, ran our country, we could do what Bernie has suggested, and stop AI development until this is all sorted out. But of course, the billionaires are their own country, and own our law makers and so...screwed.

All that is left is for Trump and his gang to run off to Moscow and encamp with his good buddy Putin. It is what happened when a Putin stooge ran Ukraine...Yanukovych, who still, as far as I know, resides in Russia.

Clearly Trump is applying for the title of Worst President in the History of this Constitutional Republic and quite able and willing to bankrupt America to make a point. Some other nations have a deficit with us, and if the entire world does what he suggests...chaos.

Grandfather mafia chieftain wandering around in his bathrobe muttering...take back the moon, the moon is ours...
This time however, the chieftain may in fact have lost too many marbles to be anything but in full cognitive decline.

I sit here remembering life when I was a kid, around 1950, when the Supreme Court was honorable, a collection of talented legal people, recommended by the Bar associations as I remember, when the President was a man, Eisenhower, who was commander in chief as America and its allies fought Nazi fascism.
Today, we are the fascists, allied with the worst of the worst, including Putin and Netanyahu.

Putting climate change denier in charge of the US was stupid, to do it twice was unforgivable. Now all the future can do is troop over to the gravesites of those, people like Trump, who are human caused global warming deniers, long after they die, and urinate away on them, as they try to survive the hell that is coming. We should have been fighting global warming with everything we had including reducing our populations not work like hell to "grow" their numbers.

Proof that stupid fascist ways are not only the province of the stupid leaders of large countries like Russia or America...

Give the people a sense that they have rights, and who knows where that would lead, maybe to the people asking the primary question.
And that question would be, if citizens, we own this entire country, the way people who apple stock own apple, so when do we get our dividend, the profits? That isn't communism or socialism, it is the purest of capitalisms demands. Don't cut down another of my trees, or root for another barrel of oil, on my land without a plan to pay me for my property.

Simple things going undone, unpainted, unpaid for..signs that the falling Soviet Union itself presented that their empire was falling, and the Russian billionaires were looting the treasury in anticipation. Here in America we have the same, with Trump apparently heading to be our Putin.
We are bankrupt, in that bankrupt means that one owes a debt that one cannot pay, or will not pay.