Is Trump's announced bump stock EO a trial balloon for dictatorship?

An Executive Order is a presidential proclamation that can be used for two things: directing the operations of a government agency, or controlling the operation of an existing law.

Mr. Trump attempts neither with his proposed executive order banning bump stocks. He is attempting to create a completely new law. The Constitution is extremely clear on how new laws are to be made - they have to be passed in exactly the same form by both houses of Congress (in cases where a bill passed by one chamber is amended by the other, members of both chambers are required to negotiate a common bill and send it back to be revoted on) and then presented to the President, who can sign them into law, veto them or allow them to become law without his signature by sitting on them for two weeks.

The Constitution does NOT say "a president who can't get what he wants from a useless Congress can create new laws unilaterally." (If it did, President Obama would have been the most productive president of the last 150 years.)

My feeling is that Trump chose this particular trial balloon because it's something Democrats want to happen - not Trump making things up as he goes, but the elimination of bump stocks from our midst. If we complain he'll stay up all night tweetstorming us. If we let him get away with his attempt at divine right, he'll tweetstorm us over our two-faced reaction..."it was okay for me to write a new law when it was something they liked, why not now?"

Trump wants a "terrific" bill to be sent to him. The only "terrific" bill our useless Congress needs to send him is a writ of impeachment.

Debunking Carson's $5000 chair lie

HUD secretary Ben Carson has recently claimed you can't even buy a "decent chair" for the $5000 GSA authorizes as redecorating expenses. Let's see if we can.

I went to https://lifehacker.com/5941523/five-best-office-chairs#replies and found:

Herman Miller Aeron
$1295 direct from Herman Miller

Herman Miller Embody
$1295 direct from Herman Miller

Steelcase Leap
Leap WorkLounge: $2664 direct from Steelcase
Leap with 3D Knit Back: $1022 direct from Steelcase

Raynor Ergohuman
With headrest and leather upholstery: $649 from ergohuman.com

The fifth chair is from Ikea. It's a decent chair but the odds of a Famous Neurosurgeon On The US Cabinet wanting to place his exalted tuchus in a $200 chair are very low indeed.

There is also the Unicor CXO High Back Chair. If you can wait 60 days for delivery, these can be had for $599 each. Unicor is only allowed to sell to the federal government; it is the brand name of Federal Prison Industries.

There is also the issue that our royal HUD Secretary could have sent one of his minions to Home Depot for twenty gallons of paint and a case of Democratic Cootie Spray, used the perfectly good furniture that was already there, and redecorated the whole place for a thousand bucks...

I'm not eating cake ever again

Today I read a lovely hard-right piece telling the faithful to run to the most liberal baker they know, demand a NRA cake, and sue if they don't get it.

Cake is supposed to be a nice dessert. It's not so nice now that the hard right is using it as a wedge issue. So, no more cake for me.

There are plenty of other pastries to enjoy.

Serious question about gerrymandering

Let's say that we make out like bandits in the 2020 election and take majorities in some of the most-gerrymandered states.

Should the Democratic Party re-gerrymander those states to favor our candidates?

My feeling is that we should, largely because it's going to take AT LEAST five Congresses with filibuster-proof Democratic majorities to undo all the damage Trump will do.

New Teacher Training Syllabus?

Summer between high school and college: Attend basic training and Airborne School at Fort Benning, GA

Summer between freshman and sophomore years: Attend Special Forces Assessment and Selection at Fort Bragg, NC

One year break between sophomore and junior years: Attend Special Forces Qualification Course at Fort Bragg

Summer between junior and senior years: Attend Ranger School at Fort Benning

Six months into her first year...

"Mrs. Jones, will you sing us a nursery rhyme?"
'Why certainly, child...

How Trump's proposed bump stock ban will actually work

Step 1: Trump sends out a tweet saying he has directed the DOJ to issue a regulation banning bump stocks.

Step 2: The DOJ will rightly point out that Trump's edict requires legislative action.

Step 3: The Republicans in Congress will create a bill that has a bump stock ban plus some combination of:
$30 million for Trump's May Day parade
$45 billion for the wall
a repeal of Medicaid
increase in the Social Security retirement age to 86
immediate deportation of all DREAMers
a federal abortion ban
legislative repeal of Obergefell v Hodges
or three or four other things the Republicans will use to attack the Democrats during the 2018 campaign whether Democrats sign off on them or not

Step 4: The Democrats filibuster the living shit out of this atrocity of a bill. Our leadership will get up and say, "if it was a clean bump stock ban we'd sign readily, but this isn't. It is nothing more or less than a way to try to kill the Democratic Party." Fox News will paint our leadership as unpatriotic and willing to kill children to advance our legislative agenda.

Step 5: The bill dies.

Step 6: Trump will then send about 300 tweets blaming the Democrats for not passing the bump stock ban.

Rinse and repeat.

We could do this today WITHOUT sullying the Second Amendment

Ban online ammo purchases.

Smoking and stupidity are always a bad mix

I found a new dating website...

It's for deplorables only.

https://trump.dating

You have to be straight to sign up. You do not have to be single, in keeping with their messiah's own sexual preferences.

It's also a very handy reference for the rest of us...if you find a nice person on one of the "conventional" sites you can cross-reference your match to the Trump Dating website to know whether you should stay the hell away from that person.

How not to steal metal