Very damaged. Those poor kids! They've been ruined.

This will be a wound they’ll carry with them for life.

How on earth do you fix something like this?

A "condition precedent."

“An event that must occur before a party is required to perform.”

Gotta remember that one!

She really is a world-class tactician. MAN am I glad she’s on our side!

Thanks for this essay, StarfishSaver! Lots to think about.

There's another way to look at it.

Oh he’s defying a subpoena?

That’s ... that’s ... that’s ... terrible ...

Uh ...

Oh wait ... trump’s already been doing that ...

You mean you can do that now?

Well trump did it so it must be okay now, right?

I guess it’s okay to defy a subpoena now, ‘eh?



Shove it back in their faces. You SURE you’re okay with this? Cuz that sure does open the door. If he does it and is allowed to get away with it, you can bet everybody’s going to start defying lawful subpoenas. And a subpoena isn’t gonna mean anything anymore. (Yet another valuable thing he’s broken.) And everybody who wants to get away with shit too is gonna tie things up in court and point to him and say “well, HE did it, so why can’t I? What I did was perfect, TOO! I’M innocent, TOO, y’know.”

Hello Pandora’s Box.

Love it! Love Lewis Black!

That's in OUR hands. Our side HAS TO turn out to vote.

There are more of us. If those bigger numbers turn out, he’s GONE.

Oh fabulous.

I’ve GOTTA make sure to NOT go!

Hear, hear!

And here, here!

And now, NOW.

We binge-watch one of several old favorites.

Mostly “Star Trek” series and a little “Babylon 5” - shows we know backwards and forwards. They allow us to be pleasantly bored and in that mode it’s easier to fall asleep.

I haven’t slept well in years. Working the really odd hours of morning drive kinda killed whatever ability I’d had. And then came motherhood, and I just gave up. Would never get a full 8-hours again. By now they’re at or near 30 and haven’t lived with us for years, and I STILL worry!

Agreed about Nicolle Wallace. Her show has kinda grown on me.

Same with Maddow. She’s the anchor of MSNBC’s nighttime.

I’d replace Chuck Todd.

I’d retire Chris Matthews. Enough with the mangled fast talking and misspeaking and blowing people’s names and spit spew. I think he’s aging out. While Joy Reid languishes on the weekends. Maybe she should switch with Matthews. Ease him out and let him relax during the week, bring him in to schmooze all the way through convention season. And let him fade after the next election or inauguration.

I’d keep him on the MSNBC website, though. Maybe give him special op/ed space for a regular written column. He’d sound good in print and make all his good points and they’d be totally coherent because I’d give him a good editor. He could have a closing minute or 90-seconds at the end of “Hardball,” maybe every Friday, kinda like a “David Brinkley’s Journal” kind of thing for a distinguished elder journalistic statesman in career denouement.

But we need somebody fresh in that slot.

I like Nicolle Wallace but, since she’s a Republican, I still don’t feel like dropping my guard. She may merely be anti-trump, not against the general 13th-century mindset of the GOP.

I STILL want a two-hour block on Friday nights after the Brian Williams hour. Two hours of satire and topical comedy, some music, and hosted by John Fugelsang. Do another one Saturday evening. And they both repeat.

And I’d bring (or try to bring) Keith Olbermann back on Sunday evenings for two hours of the “Angry Man thing”. And repeat THAT, too. I’d like to develop the whole weekend and get rid of that “Dateline” crap reliving old crimes.

Your last word is their first. "Grievance."

That sums it up. They’ve nursed their grievances for decades to the point where it’s come to define them.