Vlad I know little about, but Trump's are simpletons. They hang on to his every...

utterance as if it is divine.

They'll go away eventually, but our side is besotted with fear that some of his crap could come true. And that's what scares me most. Trump is laughable, not fearsome.

Look around the country and maybe 60% of the population agrees with us on most things, 80% on some things. But, it works out that that miserable 20% or so has managed to elect a leadership that ended up controlling things.

How did that happen? One thing is that they are much better than us at messaging. We're getting better this year, but after the fallout from LBJ's daisy commercial, it's still like we're terrified of speaking up.

They don't spend much time publicly trashing each other. They had a huge pile of potential candidates for the '16 primaries, but no Sanders supporters ginning up the works. To this day I'm not sure how they got Trump and this year we get Biden. The gods of democracy work in mysterious ways. Trump and his ass-kissers are particularly good at saying the most ridiculous things with a straight face. That's a talent that we should be proud of not having, but we not only don't often take the bit, we don't throw it back at them.

Anyway, now we're in a spot where any time Trump opens his tiny mouth he gets press and huge support from his greedy base. This, btw, is something he's been working on for 50 years and may be his only talent. The NYC press always had a Trump quote for slow news days, and he would call every editor in NY if he wasn't mentioned for a day or two. Practice makes perfect.

I'm running off at the the keyboard now, but it all sums up as -- Don't let them gaslight you.

Dayum Bernie! I just heard what you said today and I gotta say that's a whole different...

Bernie than I have seen. After Amy K's barnburner today that was something to hear.

Maybe there is something to be said for a Bernie/Amy ticket after today.

Nope, nope, nope... We got a ticket, and it's a damn good one. Just want to hear more from the both of you.

The conscience of America lies in you two.

All very interesting, but it was the Supreme Court which gave us Brown vs BoE and Roe...

in the first place. And then it was slammed for legislating from the bench and being too liberal.

I don't like what's happening any more than anyone else around here, but the Court suffers from the same ebb and flow as legislators do. Throughout our history, it has subtly followed the political trends of the day.

The Hughes court threw out FDR's first New Deal programs, but as the Depression wore on and public sentiment changed, along with a justice or two, it generally supported FDR. Later on, adding Douglas and Black to the Court made it indelibly liberal. And Hughes was fine with that.

So, while I bemoan the Garland situation, and the possibility of a young conservative on the Court, I do not think it is the end of the world.

I just went to keepamericagreat.com. Orangeanus really fucked up not registering it...

Evolution hasn't finished with us yet. The same mechanism that gave us the spiritualism...

movement of the 1800s and the fear of gluten today is at work. People have this need to believe in something, and aren't always all that discriminating in what it is they believe. Since the belief is not based on any observable facts, it is impossible to argue against.

Conversation with a climate convert...

In 2014, the Turtle won re-election with 806,787 votes-- around 200,000 more than Grimes had...

So, what we have is someone who was elected by .6% of the US population tying up pretty much all national legislation.

In the case of the new supreme court justice, around 60% of the population refers to wait until after the new congress and president are installed.

(Or at least wait until RBG is in her grave. Have some respect!)

I have to go through the Federalist Papers again to see if this was brought up during the Constitutional Convention, but I suspect it was not part of the plan.

RBG Vigil in Bridgehampton tonight. Got this from Southampton Dem committee...

Expanding the Supreme Court...

It can be done by Congress, and very simply. Just pass a law setting the number of Justices by three, or five, or 99. President Biden signs it and starts appointing.

FDR's problem was style, not substance. The pubic wasn't yet into his Depression solutions, and was OK with every one of the early attempts being ruled unconstitutional. when he tried to expand the court.

The Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937 aimed to appoint 6 new justices for every justice over 70 years 6 months of age who had been on the court for 10 years. It was not well received, and I don't think it even made it to a vote.

That was then.

I have no idea what would happen now, but I suspect it would have an easier time.

Just turned on MSNBC to Trump saying he's the greatest thing for Puerto Rico...

when asked why it took so long to set up an aid package "It was just so complicated to do" and of course it had absolutely nothing to do with being weeks from the election and all those Puerto Ricans in Florida. Bronx Puerto Ricans don't count, of course, since he's not winning NY anyway.

And there are plans to make PR a center for drug manufacturing-- he no doubt does not know that it has been a center for drug manufacturing for years. Or assumes we don't know.

History will not be kind to him-- I just hope we aren't kind to him in November. I want his ass beaten so badly there's not nearly enough orange dye on the planet to cover the scars.