June 13, 2016

any polling data on the Illinois Senate race?

Tammy Duckworth has been in the background for a bit. Pity, some of Rauner's talks (out of one side of his mouth in Chicago, out of the other downstate) should give her fodder for free press.

Kirk made a big splash with his post-support of Trump with his refusal to support him.

One thing Trump has taught us, the media is like a school of dumb fish. Flash a shiny object in front of them, and they dash for it, ignoring everything else.

June 12, 2016

One possibly bad impact caused by this despicable event?

Trump wins the presidency. I am sure is already planning how to capitalize on this. I only hope he goes too far and pisses all of America off,

We know the NRA is meeting and planning a response. We can be sure Mitch McConnell and John Boe . . . Paul Ryan are plotting on how to keep gun control off the legislature's agenda. And we know that the vast portion of America are in tears and mourning.

What a fucked up time to live in.

June 3, 2016

TRONC

Years ago, I took a grad level psych course about how organizations, partnerships, and corporations got stuck in making really bad decisions. A combination of "group think," a perceived need to please the boss, and a fear of retribution all contributed to making a potentially bad choice into a really, really bad decision.

The Tribune Media Corpse decided to remake its image, stress how hip and modern it is, and to set a new, flashy, and "with it" reality as it moves from paper to plastic. Oops, that was the grocery industry from the 1980s. From paper to online services news reporting.

Someone at the Tribune had already came up with the cost cutting idea of replacing a couple of dozen national and international reporters with purchased content from the pseudo news paper, USAToady. That village idiot probably failed to check the content of its local Chicago rival, the Chicago suntimes, that had done just that a few years ago. What a brilliant idea - beat the competition by cutting staff and having the identical national and international content from a third party.

That village idiot just made things worse. They renamed Trib (at least the name maintained some semblance of a decent rep) TRONC. I KID YOU NOT!

According to the urban dictionary, tronc means:

Someone/thing that is very old and archaic trying to act young and hip

How fitting.

I don't know the details of how "tronc" was chosen, but it has all the earmarks of all those factors I studied years ago in that psych class - with that same laughable result.

Tronc.

Gross.

May 27, 2016

Who Hillary would appoint vs. Bernie vs. trump

For Veep, Bill
For secState, SYdney Blumenthal
For sec def, robert kagan
For treasury some exec VP from Goldman
For chief of staff, Huma
Ambassador to UN Nuland (Kagan's wife, and Hill's go to moron in Europe and Ukraine)

BErnie?
For VEEP, Warren
As for the rest, I don't know

Trump has already picke several loathsome critters, including a racist, flat earth Christianist.

May 14, 2016

Emails? Publicists? What is happening to this election?

On one side, you have Donald, who was clearly pretending to be his press agent decades ago, who is about to explode, implode, or just quit.

On the other side, it seems as though actual violations of federal law did take place, and Hillary will be forced to testify or give a statement about an unbelievable failure to protect very secret information, communications, plans and even intentions and goals.

Bar none, this is the weirdest election cycle I have ever seen in my short life. (I am only 5'9&quot There is a possibility that neither TRump nor Hillary will be available at the time of their parties' conventions.

It almost seems as though political life has become a multiplayer video game, where you have no idea where the goals lay, or what the rules are.

May 10, 2016

Paul Ryan has first, good original thought.

It stuns the constant observer of the House. He actually had a really good idea, both self-serving and devious, at the same time.

Ryan agreed to withdraw from the position of The GOP Convention leader should The Donald demand it of him.


He agreed to, should the request be made. This gives Ryan a huge edge.

A. It endears him to those GO pee-ers who hate trump
B. It gives him an out to avoid the taint of what will be a bloody, if not deadly GOP convention
C. It allows the Donald to own everything about this election
D. It keeps Ryan's presidential hopes alive.

Amazingly brilliant, for an ignoramous whose economic ideas would destroy the world economy.

April 27, 2016

Assuming she wins the nom, who would be in her cabinet?

Huma, obviously, as chief of staff.
Sidney Blumenthal, either as SecState, head of the NSC, or head of the CIA/NSA?
Victoria Nuland as UN ambassador
John Bolton as special advisor on the Middle East
David Koch in charge of reforming Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid
Jamie Dimon as SecTreas
Rahm Emanuel as health and human services
Don Blankenship as head of the EPA

Who else?

April 26, 2016

One News Now

is the webshyte for ultra-conservative christians who prefer to have their facts mangled, chewed, distorted and whitewashed before being fed to them. 24 hours ago, Kasich and Cruz apparently had a plan to cooperate.
Today, that bargain between less than equals already collapsed.

So, this afternoon, what did the AFA write:

A pair of political analysts agree that political tag-teaming by Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. John Kasich might succeed against Donald Trump.

On Sunday, the two presidential campaigns issued coordinated statements outlining an agreement: Kasich will withdraw his campaign efforts in Indiana, and Cruz will do the same in Oregon and New Mexico.

The strategy is to help the two candidates pull delegates from GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, who is inching closer to 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the Republican nomination. But will it work?

Sandy Rios"If Cruz carries Indiana and gets those delegates, and Kasich [carries] Oregon and New Mexico and gets those," says Sandy Rios, "they will prevent Donald Trump from getting enough delegates to win on the first ballot."

Rios, a radio-talk show host for American Family Radio, has privately endorsed Cruz.

When their very premise is DOA, it is fun to watch their teeny brains start smoldering before they catch on fire.

April 16, 2016

So multiple polls show Bernie tied or beating Hillary across the country.

Got it.

But the argument from Team Hill we hear most often is, frankly, specious and hollow. She loses to Cruz, Trump, and Kasich. Bernie beats them all. And then there is this:

Where Trump is viewed favorably by 34.5 percent of the likely voters, Cruz is viewed favorably by only 22.3 percent. Trump’s fav-unfav rating of negative 26.1 looks positively sunny compared to Ted Cruz’s rating of negative 48.0.

She loses to those bozos? With such bad negatives? Oh, right. Not only does she share many policy positions with the GOP, she shares in the same net negative ratings.

Tell me again why she is inevitable?

April 5, 2016

Iceland PM resigns over Panama Papers

Source: Financial Times



In a day of high drama in Reykjavik, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson first tried to hang on to his office by seeking the dissolution of parliament.

But after Iceland’s president refused to grant the request, Mr Gunnlaugsson decided to step down as prime minister but carry on as the head of his Progressive party. Sigurdur Ingi Johansson, the current minister of fisheries and agriculture, will become prime minister.
But it remained unclear how other political parties in Iceland would react and early elections could still be called.


Read more: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/60d88fa0-fb27-11e5-b3f6-11d5706b613b.html#axzz44y9XVb53