Yeah, it’s pretty hard to dunk on someone for not being particularly political or focused on world events between 9th grade and graduating from college. I know I certainly wasn’t. The priority back then was grades, girls, music and sports...not stuff going on half a world away.

It’s a feature, not a bug. The goal isn’t to help victims (or even defray the costs of the state’s criminal justice system), it’s to keep Jim Crow laws alive without admitting they’re Jim Crow laws.

....and there will also likely be an actual hungry leopard behind the door. Who will also be a deputized police leopard, so striking him (even in self-defense) will be grounds to be charged with assaulting an officer.

My money is on it being John Bolton, as one final “up yours” for getting squeezed out.

Man, if you had told me 10 years ago how 2017 through today was going to play out, I would have in no way believed it. This is all too weird to be real. Not in a black swan event, aliens-landing-in-Times-Square weird way. But just shocking how completely unshocking something like this is after a couple years of the…

There have been state-level wealth taxes in the past that haven’t fallen to Constitutional challenges. Hell, up until about 10 years ago, Florida (hardly a bastion of tax-and-spend liberalism) used to have an “intangible property” tax applied to certain types and levels of investments. The uber-wealthy worked around…

Yeah.  Having the Sham-Wow guy as #2 on the ticket would have been a little too on-the-nose, even for Republicans.

You have a point. Pence may be more palatable as a true believer instead of just a con man parroting the talking points, but he has the electoral appeal of an equivalent mass of bark mulch. Hypocritical as hell, but more likely to buy them another 4 years of packing courts with conservative judges than throwing Trump…

You’d think fundamentalists would be more excited at the prospect of Mike Pence as President. All the malice, sexism, racism and dominist worldview, but with 75% less incoherent rambling and none of the “hush money to strippers to hide affairs” messiness.

Dammit, where are my sonic sunglasses?

Personally, I’m in favor of mass confiscation of modern firearms, and replacement with muskets or flint-lock pistols.

I have been shouting that from the rooftops since the primary got into full circus-spectacular swing.

I get - Joe is awful, for a great many reasons. We need to pick someone better in the primary. Not rocket science, no argument from me there. And the old “normal” did have major flaws. It was less insane and unstable than what we have now, but I get that it didn’t work well for a lot of people.

Barring a handful of interesting one-off episodes, the Simpsons stopped being relevant about 20 years ago. The first few seasons might be interesting for nostalgia’s sake, but I doubt too many people are going on a weekend-long Simpson’s binge with D+.

The manners police can wring their hands all they want about Castro not tiptoeing around what everyone else in the room is thinking. But that is nothing - and I mean nothing - compared to the level of criticism Biden will face if he goes directly against Trump. If Biden can’t get his shit together now, it’s not…

It plays well to certain crowds...but the legality/logistics are unclear, the whole process would be quagmired in court for years (probably wouldn’t make it through the SCOTUS) and it still wouldn’t solve the broader issue of gun violence due to most of it being due to handguns.

That about sums up the next 14 months for me.

Eh, I wouldn’t say it’s “malaise forever” so much as a question of priorities. When you’re covered in honey and fire ants, *not* being covered in honey and fire ants anymore is a lot more pressing than pretty much everything else. 

The stakes may or may not be high for any one of the candidates at this point, depending on who says something either brilliant or catastrophic. But as far as my level of personal investment? I’d hope Warren keeps building momentum, or that Castro has a breakthrough “wow, this guy really could be president” moment.…