Guard Dog

That is terrible! It could have been a lot worse though. Hope he heals quick

Tax is theft. A necessary evil perhaps, but definitely evil. The State is taking money it did not earn from people who did earn it. If I put a gun to your head and told you I'd either kill you, kidnap you, or take away everything you have unless you give me 40% of all your money? Would that be theft? Suppose I spent some of that money in a way the somewhat benefited you? Would that still be theft when it was taken under threat of force? If it's theft when the mafia does it how is it not theft when the state does it? And the money is absolutely misspent. As James Madison wrote "The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse" . Now, in the real world there is no getting around it. Government is not an industry that generates a profit. I would much prefer if it received it's income in a different way, taxing consumption rather than production for example, or flat rate taxes rather than progressive, but it is what it is. I absolutely approve of tax cuts in any form. What I do NOT approve of is spending escalations. Tax cuts are good. Spending cuts are even better. The powers that be in the US today want more power lodged in their hands, not less. And power is bought with money other people earned. So we're pretty f----d.

That would be a hard no from me. To quote John Nance Gardener "The Vice Presidency isn't worth a bucket of warm spit". I am repelled by heavy handed, authoritarian government that respects no liberty, taxes mercilessly, spends fecklessly, and staggers from one ill advised foreign entanglement to the next. That is the Democrats in a nutshell. At least Gabbard would likely take the "ill advised foreign entanglements" off the list. She might even be OK on the "respects no liberty" part based on some of her speeches and House votes. The rest? No chance in hell. Of course I am also repelled by heavy handed incompetent government that mismanages economic and trade policy, respects some liberties but not others, bullies and belittles political opponents and allies alike, disrespects the country and it's citizens, spends money fecklessly, and staggers from one ill advised foreign entanglement to the next. So I'm going to be a hard NO on Donald Trump as well. So it's Gabbard or 3rd party for me. Either Schultz or whichever of those three idiots the Libertarians nominate. But I am re-registering as a Democrat before the Primary to vote for Gabbard. I'll probably feel the need for a shower after doing it though.

Looks like Gabbard is getting some recognition: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/455680-gabbard-the-most-searched-candidate-following-primary-debate Same thing happened last time. I didn't watch tonight (the Rays beat the Red Sox again tonight 8-5, brooms out tomorrow) but from what I'm reading she handled herself well. Hopefully that will translate into poll numbers and donations. She can do something no other candidate in the race can: peel off libertarian leaning and other disaffected Republicans from Trump. Plus she comes relatively free of baggage that can used against her. Very few of the other Dems can say that.

No outrage, just an interesting story. They are all dishonest rats in my book. D & R alike.

Not only do the dead vote Democrat, they donate to Democrats too https://freebeacon.com/politics/tlaib-donor-has-been-dead-for-10-years/ I wouldn't worry too much about this. Nothing will come of it because nothing ever does. Besides, anyone who has a problem with her violating the law just to get re-elected is clearly a deplorable racist.

So this guy gets into a terrible car accident and is killed. He finds himself in Hell facing the Devil. The Devil says to him "This is your lucky day. I'm going to give you one chance to get out of hell. All you have to do is complete three challenges" The Devil gestures to three doors behind him "Behind the fist door is a large jug of the nastiest, most foul tasting whisky we have ever made. You must drink it all, one pull, no vomiting. Behind the second door is an angry lion with a sore tooth. You must pull out the tooth. Behind the third door is a crazed nymphomaniac. You must completely satisfy her. Do all three and I'll release you from hell" The man figured he's give it his best shot. He opened door number one, grabbed the jug with two hands and started chugging. He had some difficulty but got it all down. He staggered drunkenly to the second door, went in and closed it behind him with a slam. From behind the door came the most awful commotion. There was roaring, screaming, growling and thumping... then quiet. The man staggered back out, clothes ripped and bleeding from hundreds of scratches. "Awright Dhevil..." He slurred "Wheresh dat girl with the sore tooth?"

I can remember one debate where there might be some disagreement who won, everyone agreed who lost: James Stockdale in the VP debate in '92. I remember Reagan wiping the floor with Mondale as well. Not a fair contest though. Reagan was a charismatic speaker and Mondale was incapable of hiding his sneering contempt for everyone he thought beneath him. Which was pretty much everyone. This was a funny moment too:

Oh yeah... she also said this: Yeah... video games really should be banned. Almost all the recent mass shooters were video game addicts. And, after all, no one ever shot up a school after playing Ms. Pac Man!

Sounds like good leverage for negotiating a raise

So Williamson chided the other candidates for focusing on policy and not on combating the "dark psychic force" that Trump is stirring up in this country? https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/marianne-williamson-trump-emboldening-a-dark-psychic-force-in-america Oh Marianne

Nah, you need to get away Azdeus. Leave your phones, laptops, etc behind. Find some remote place faraway from everything and just go fishing for a few days. The stress that modern life creates is killing us all. The things we own, own us all. Just walk way from it all for a little while. Just my $.02

Claiming someone "won" a debate is extremely subjective. Everyone thinks their favorite "won". The whole thing is sort of a farce.

Didn't watch the debate tonight because the Rays are playing the Red Sox and that is infinitely more important than an election almost a year and a half away. But I heard Williamson gave a good account of herself. That's good IMO. I hope more of the under dogs climb into the race. In '16 it was Hillary from wire to wire and the result was a flawed candidate and campaign. Of course in '16 the fix was in from the get-go and Sanders was always screwed. He just didn't know it. So many of the front runners are coming in with so much negative baggage I really think it would be one of the 1%'ers that could knock off Trump. Unfortunately only Gabbard, Buti-something, and Bullock would actually make a decent President by my estimation. Hopefully they can climb into the race. Biden could do the job I guess. Give a us a four year reset and return to normalcy I guess. But the left won't have him. Plain and simple. Oh man wouldn't it be great if Clinton changed her mind and got into the race? Not happening I know but it would be sooo entertaining.

Oh c'mon... Who s--t in the floor?

I spent the lat four days camping, swimming and fishing with the pups on some real estate I bought near Realfoot Slough and Indian Creek in north TN. No phone, no internet, no music and no news. Turned it on for the first time today and wish I hadn't. Mass shooting at a fair in CA, the President is really insulting an entire US city, and the Rays lost three out of four. If I ver disappear from these boards don't worry about me... I just went off grid permanently.

Gromnir, Oh the witches were definitely real. Trump's involvement with them might not have been, but they were real. The problem of the FBI monitoring Trump, the easy acceptance of the Steele report as genuine despite multiple misgivings of people in the know, and the Clinton campaign's connection to Russian interests just gets glossed right on over though. Of course Trump DID attempt to obstruct the investigation. He probably figured they were looking to frame him. Or maybe he had knowledge of guilt of something that ended up not being discovered. Who the heck even knows. Now Mueller, it's obvious he was not intimately involved in the creating of the report. It's also obvious there were investigators on his team with a political ax to grind that arguably tainted their work. Deleted text messages, formatted and destroyed mobile devices. Happens so often these days no one even comments on it anymore. They might have been right in their assessment of Trump and the Russians but by no means were they walking the path of impartial righteousness. Do you know what I see here Gromnir? Corruption. Nothing but as far as the eye can see. There are no "good guys" to be found. No player in this sad spectacle is clothed in virtue. Not Mueller who was at best and absentee landlord, as worst and unwitting participant in a conspiracy hidden in an investigation. Not the Obama admin who had known for years about Russian activity and only got the FBI and DOJ involved to undermine a candidate he didn't like. Certainly not Clinton whose sins are already well known. Not the Congress who only want to hammer the aspects of the story that suits their chosen narratives. Naught but villains to be had here. And what are the Russians doing exactly? Internet trolling? False info on social media sites? Oby stuff? Releasing hacked emails from the DNC demonstrating the whole rotten lot of them is a mob of arrogant and snotty jerks that think they are better than everyone else? Had they practiced even bare modicum of the professionalism demanded by just about every job in the country that would have been a big "ho hum". It's well established they can't "hack" our election and change a result. So if this is the Russian's "grand strategy" they are hardly the chessmasters we've been taking them for. We obviously don't need their help in electing unqualified buffoons and bad leaders to office. We're doing a swell job of that already. I can fix this Russia problem right now: Hey RNC & DNC, don't buy Kapersky. Every one knows that s--t does not work. While you're at it don't be f-----g a------s in your internal correspondence. Treat people with respect in private and maybe it will start to rub off in public. Hey America: Don't believe anything you read/see on the internet. You don't know where it came from. You would't eat a sandwich you found in the street would you? Same thing. While you're at it you probably shouldn't take what you see on TV or newspapers at face value either. What you see is likely true, but not all the truth. Of course you can't stop political types from being jerks. After all it is a smug sense of self superiority that leads them into public "service" to begin with. And you can't stop Americans from believing everything they read. You can't save people from themselves.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9579851/boris-johnsons-cabinet-first-meeting-new-prime-minister/ MBGA

Watching some of the replay of the Mueller show. You know the most important thing he said in the whole three hours? On election "tampering" No one gave a s--t about that part. The Democrats want to prove Trump broke the law (he did). The Republicans want to prove this whole thing was a biased witch hunt started under false premises (it was). So one gave a s--t about the most important part. We are so screwed. Debt is out of control, the border is out of control, the government is reduced to two tribes of warring nincompoops who are only concerned with f-----g each other (either connotation of the term would be equally correct). Rights are ignored, liberties suppressed, We're under constant surveillance, we are blundering from one pointless war to another, and foreign powers are f-----g with our elections (which is what they call internet trolling these days I guess). Meanwhile citizens want handouts, immigrants want hand outs, SJWs are getting all the attention and you're a f-----g racist if you object to any of it. There are, maybe, a handful of people who could right the ship. None of them are likely to get elected into any kind of position to do so. I'm telling you, Odovacar is leading the foederati up the Palatine right now and no one even knows it.

Nixon & Agnew hated each other from what I read. Reagan and Bush were definitely not friendly either. Don't know about Clinton & Gore. I don't recall ever reading anything about their dynamic. GWB & Cheney were friendly but that was not a marriage of convenience like the others I mentioned. Don't know about Carter and Mondale. Mondale was such a mean spirited and all-together ill-tempered a-----e I don't know how the affable Carter could have tolerated his presence. Just my own opinion but I don't think Obama thought too much of Biden. He was definitely frozen out of any meaningful activities in the administration. Edit: I seriously doubt Gabbard will make a 3rd Party run. She would be done in the Democrat Party. She might be anyway. She does not seem to subscribe to the heavy handed authoritarianism the Democrats are pushing these days.

Now reading &

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnvbtAoucPU

Funny thing happened at work today. We were talking about the Apollo Moon landings and the hazards of it. One of my colleagues was talking about the Van Allen belts only he called he called it the Van Halen belts. Nobody caught it but me. I almost choked on my coffee. I excused myself and walked away singing "Panama". About a minute later he realized what I was doing and busted out laughing.

Regarding the Mueller show today. There are no saints in hell, no honest people in government. Every last one of them is there to tell a story that is both partially true and partially false. Here is the thing.... nothing will come of it. It's all theater. It's 2020 soundbites and commercial fodder. Anyway in other news: https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2019/07/democratic-activists-worry-tulsi-gabbard-will-launch-third-party-presidential-run-to-help-donald-trump-win.html I'd still vote for her.

RIP