Guard Dog

Not true at all. The Primaries can do tremendous damage to a candidate. Especially if the runner up does not "play ball" or the runner up's base feels jilted. The latter happened in '16. The former between Carter & Kennedy in '80.

Hillary Clinton in 2020? https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/427156-clinton-not-ruling-out-running-in-2020-report Oh please please please please please please please please please let that happen! The absolute political mayhem that would cause would be sooo entertaining.

As long as President Trump doesn't get impeached, he still wins. And he won't get impeached because he still has more support than against. Even after all this that is going on. They simply don't have the power to impeach him. And yes, that's why I don't vote. Everything is controlled and the people refuse to believe it. They'll blame hackers, double voters and other things when they don't get their way but in their ignorance refusing to believe or accept that the government is further schwering them over. We as Americas citizens tend to think we actually have an opinion or a voice. History has only proven opposite. Why people have false hope, it only sets them up for disappointment and need to vent through the internet. OMG! Reading that last sentence after what you wrote in the others was incredibly funny. Sometimes I wonder if you are secretly posting satire sarcasm and just no one has picked up on it yet. If so... genius. And if the irony is lost on you well... it was still funny!

Our president seems to be smarter than his doubters and opposition, that's key. It's like watching a superhero without powers (Batman/IronMan) survive attacks from heroes WITH powers (Superman) and mocking them for not being able to do anything about it. I'm sorry, but in the light of a cold and dispassionate analysis I really do not see how you can arrive at this conclusion. Picking an unwise fight is bad enough. Picking an unwise fight you are clearly not prepared to win at all cost that leaves you publicly humiliated? That is not the outcome of someone smarter than they seem. This was Batman with no mask or utility belt. Ironman with no suit.

This might be interesting: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/howard-schultzs-independent-run-could-help-trump/581374/

Society? I thought we were talking about politics? Sorry to differ with you guys but he is done. The only thing that saves him is a SCOTUS fight if RBG steps down or another Hillary Clinton-esque candidacy. Had his opponent been literally any other democrat (with the exceptions of Warren, Sanders, Pelosi, or Schumer) he would not have won in '16. He was less loved than she was hated. As far as where is supports would go? Home. They stay home. I vote in every election but if there is no LP candidate for President I would skip that one. Or write my own name or Mickey Mouse's in. Put the black mouse in the White House in '20!

I can't even remember when "conservatives" were for smaller government. Not since 1988 at least.

Clearly you have never had to carry little plastic bags in your pocket when walking your dog!

I'm not sure folks not in the US realize what just happened yesterday. The border wall fight was ill advised. But capitulating and allowing Pelosi and Schumer their opportunity to actually gloat about it publicly? He's done. The only thing he had was the "I'm tired of wimpy Republicans caving in to the evil democrats" MAGA hat wearing base. As far as most of them are concerned he sold them out. The "establishment" Republicans never liked him. The Democrats hate him. And those on the fence just watched him get publicly castrated. He has no friends now. His only shot at re-election is if the Democrats nominate someone as repulsive as Hillary Clinton. And they have more than a few in their stables. He offered them things they have been wanting for several administrations and they still said no. If I had been advising him during this mess I'd have told him to shut down even more. Order all Coast Guard and Naval Vessels to berth. suspend military Ops, shutter every agency including the FBI, NSA, HSA, IRS, etc. Suspend pay and privilidges for Congress & his own admin including himself. Close Camp David, the SCOTUS, the Federal Courts, all of it. Then every hour tweet the name, e-mail, office mail address and phone number of a Democrat congressional rep and ask the public to call, mail, or e-mail them. Yes this would have been a "nuclear" option and likely harmed the country. But he is in a knife fight that he picked. It's not even about the wall or not building the wall. It's just about winning the knife fight. If I were advising him I'd have quoted Churchill to him "Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival." Of course THIS is WHY you don't get in knife fights. Now as I have said before this was not worth fighting over in the first place. It's a pretty poor idea to build a wall. Not because walls are not effective. They do increase the difficulty of the crossing and it will discourage some. But the reason it's a bad idea is it is trying to solve a problem by attacking the supply. If the "war on drugs" has taught us anything (it hasn't) The key is to attack the demand. Why is illegal immigrant labor in demand? It's cheap. You don't have to pay them benefits. They don't count as employees for tax and regulatory purpose. Fix THAT and you solve the problem. How? Easy. Work Visas for anyone and everyone. They become legal workers who must be paid the minimum wage or higher, receive benefits if applicable AND pay taxes. And make citizenship unobtainable from a work visa. To apply for citizenship they would have to apply to the US embassy from their home country like any other immigrant. Now they are all legal, no longer paid slaves, and no longer living in fear of the "knock on the door". Since there is no economic advantage of hiring a immigrant who might go home at any time they become less attractive so the demand will drop. See? Wasn't that easy? It will never happen though. The Republicans want to keep them illegal because their doners love slave labor and their voters have been convinced they should be afraid of them The Democrats want to turn them all into citizens because they think they will vote Democrat. So neither of the one major party we have will go for it. Too bad. It would work and be very "American" (free market and freedom loving at once) in the process.

3:2.

Some takeaways from the shutdown: This is what happens when you don't pass a damned BUDGET like they are SUPPOSED to do every year. It was a stupid fight over a bad idea The cost of the construction was less than 20% of the amount of foreign aid to nations whose citizens are in armed conflict with the US right now or who are driving their own people to flee to the US. If shutting down 25% of the Federal government has caused this much aggravation it is an object lesson that Leviathan is way out of control. Donald Trump is done politically. He's road kill now. Not for shutting the government down. For opening it back up and getting nothing, nothing at all for doing it. He has been publicly castrated and Nancy Pelosi is now wearing his testicles as earrings. That list one is neither good nor bad. When you have to choose between two devils no matter which you pick you are still in hell.

As someone who leans more toward the left, Imma ask... Should we trust this source in the age where leftist extremists call themselves "unbiased" and manipulate statistics? My gut tells me don't believe everything I read. Esp if it's on the net and even moreso when it comes to politics. "Hello there fellow leftists. I am very left-wing. Just the most left-wing guy you can imagine. By the way, have you noticed how everybody on the left is an evil lying extremist?"

I saw this last night... thought some of you would appreciate it: You bring Kirk if you want to win a fight. You bring Picard if you want to win it without fighting You bring Janeway if you want to win a battle. You bring Sisko if you want to win a war You bring Archer if you want to kill off a good thing...

Well, the "press" is hardly monolithic. But even so both things can be true at once.

It might bring you no comfort to hear this but I really do not believe things are as bad as we are led to believe. The need for drama to sell news has led to so much attention paid to the worst acts by people. It's made even worse by political misinterpretation or even willful distortion such as we saw last week. To watch the news is to be told everything is viewed through a political prism. In the reality of most peoples lives, very little is. Just because "they" are telling us the margins define the middle does not mean it is really so.

I read this while cooling my heels in a hotel room last night. I found it eerily appropriate with regard to the whole Covington School/Phillips/Black Hebrew whatever media coverage: "Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one's first feeling, "Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that" or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything, God and our friends and ourselves included, as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred" It's from C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity. Read it in a issue of The Atlantic.

A college or university is a business. An indecisive student that takes a lot of unrelated classes and muddles around for a while is good for business. Why do you think Wal-Mart & Target arranges their stores they way they do? The WANT you walking around and seeing stuff. I was an engineering student. Did I need to take Psycology, American Lit. Creative Writing, etc? No I did not. But I HAD to take, and PAY, for all of them and others. Would you advise someone with no income who didn't know what they wanted or needed to go Target and buy a bunch of things on a credit card? Of course they recoil like Dracula from a cross when you point this out. I really upset one of my instructors one time. He made a rather glib comment about his role as our professor. I told him he had a fundamental misconception about our relationship. Miami Dade CC offers to teach people things for a price. I paid the price and "hired" them to teach me Calculus. As their employee they assigned him to fulfill their part of the contract. I was not his student, I was his customer. My contract with MDCC is if I pay and show up for class I'll be taught Calculus. That's our "relationship". He was NOT pleased. But I was right, he was wrong.

This. If a high school kid of average intelligence and academic inclination asked me for career advice I'd tell them to think long and hard before going into serious debt to pay for college. If you have a burning passion for a particular field that is one thing. But if you don't know what you want to do with your life do NOT go to college to try and figure that out. That is not what they do there. Don't put the cart before the horse. Besides like Grom said a degree itself might be overvalued in terms of the qualifications you get while earning it. Back in the 90's I threw some $60k at FAU for a degree completely irrelevant to my current profession. Granted it wasn't my money mostly... my rich Uncle Sam took care of most of it. But still... You know what is seriously undervalued? Trade schools. HVAC Mechanics will never want for work. I read somewhere once there was over 100 billion square ft of commercial building space in the US. You have to figure times two for homes and other spaces. Almost all of it cooled by HVAC. I had to get mine fixed last spring and the wait was three days. They are that busy even here in the back end of nowhere TN.

The more I read about that ugly little fracas in DC this weekend the more I think none of the three groups did themselves any credit. Once again we demonstrate an instability to just leave each other alone and just do your own thing.

A guy said to me today that the Pats are the New York Yankees of the NFL. No, not even close. The Pats never got close to the Superbowl prior to '85 and only started this dynasty in the last 15 years. The Yankees have won championships in every decade since the 1920's. And even before they when they were the NY Highlanders.

Going to Nashville for two days tomorrow for work. They guy I'm travelling with asked f there are any good BBQ places there. I told him "you live 40 minutes from Memphis... you don't go to Nashville for your BBQ!" But I am planning on going to Bob's Steak & Chop House. It's a block from Music Row & it is most excellent! I wish I could bring Sunny. She's staying with a friend. It's not that I don't trust her with Sunny but... no one loves your pup like you do!

I just saw Mary Oliver passed away last week. Sad news indeed. If you love dogs and have never heard of her, well , where have you been hiding?? "Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass? What would this world be like without dogs?" "Dogs die so soon. I have my stories of that grief, no doubt many of you do also. It is almost a failure of will, a failure of love, to let them grow old — or so it feels. We would do anything to keep them with us, and to keep them young. The one gift we cannot give." "A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the trees, or the laws which pertain to them... A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing." Mary Oliver 1935-2019 RIP

Hmm... I believe Rand Paul is a Republican. I thin you are confusing him for his father. But... y'know... they all look the same right?