Another Example of Being Autisitc

I looked at the clock just now; it was 3:43 PM. 343, I said to myself. 7 x 7 x 7 is 343. But, I continued, the time 3:43 does not refer to the number three hundred and forty-three, because the first 3 means 3 x 60, not 3 x100. 3 x 60 minutes past noon or midnight, plus 43 more minutes. 3:43 on the clock  means 223 minutes past noon or midnight, past noon in this case.

Then I said to myself, wait -- is 223 a prime number? And I soon discovered that it was, because it not evenly divisible by any of the primes 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, or 13, and the square of the next-highest prime, 17, is higher than 223. It is 289. 

It took me about 10 seconds to do that math in my head, and to double- and triple-check my math, and to be certain that 223 is a prime number. Without a calculator, without pencil and paper. Not Rain Man. But above average. 

This is an example of why I got frustrated with people who couldn't do the math back in March 2016, when Obama, Rachael Maddow and I told them that Hillary had clinched the nomination. 

Also, I am autistic, and for 9 1/2 years I haven't been able to explain to a single person how it was that Barack, Rachel and I knew. I assume Barack and Rachel have both been able to explain it to at least a few people, because they both have far more people paying attention to them, and also because neither one of them is autistic: they're both much better at talking to people, at persuading people. 

Dover Books on Mathematics, at Amazon: https://amzn.to/40CvBwT 

Bernie for President 2020

This is not a joke. I'm completely serious: I'm endorsing Bernie Sanders for President in 2020, and I'm doing it now, before the primaries even start.

I've said many times on this blog that I hate Bernie Sanders, and I meant it. And I still hate him. I've blamed him for Trump being elected, and I stand by that. I said back in 2015 that Bernie was the only man who could get Donald Trump elected President, and by God, Bernie did it. I said that the math was clear back in March 2016 that Hillary had it sewed up, just like Rachel Maddow and Barack Obama, and we were right, and I'm not going to discuss it because I can do math, but I don't know how to teach math. And also because most of the people who say they want to debate this don't want to debate, or learn, a goddam thing.

I'm endorsing Bernie this time because I believe that if we don't nominate him this time, he will get Donald Trump re-elected. Because he has a hard core of fanatical, hard-core, unreasonable followers. When Bernie and the Bernie Bros didn't get what they wanted in 2016, they behaved like spoiled babies and wrecked everything.

I do not see the slightest sign that they learned a goddam thing from the experience.

Let me be clear: I'm not talking about the majority of people who voted for Bernie in the 2016 primaries. I'm not talking about the majority of people who put Bernie bumper stickers on their cars. Most of those people were reasonable enough to get behind Hillary before Bernie did, and in a much, much more enthusiastic and meaningful way than Bernie ever did, even though many of them hate her intensely. Even most of the people left of center who hated Hillary still understood that the differences between Hillary and Bernie were tiny compared to the differences between any Democratic candidate and Trump. They were able to grasp the concept of party unity. And the vast majority of people who are supporting Bernie now are going to vote for any Democratic candidate rather than Trump.

I'm talking about the more than 1 million people who wrote Bernie in. I'm talking about the Bernie Bros who didn't vote in November 2016, or voted for Stein or Johnson or Trump, and I'm talking about Bernie, who either can't do the math, or pretended that he couldn't, and honestly, which would be worse?

I'm talking about people who can't be reasoned with.

It will be much more effective to just give these idiots what they want, and unite around Bernie, than it would be to nominate anybody else, and try to get the Bernie Bros to unite around them, and to get support from Bernie himself which would be more than half-assed.

Bernie is far and away the strongest candidate we have for President in 2020, because he has that hard core of idiots who will screw it up for anybody else, exactly the same way they screwed it up for Hillary in 2016, and none of the other candidates has a hard core like that. And he has a hard core like that because he's like that. But he still will be a far, far better President than Trump. Biden or Bloomberg would be much worse presidents than Bernie, and they would still be much, much better Presidents than Trump. Almost any Republican Senator, Congressperson, governor or mayor in the US would be a far, far better President than Trump, but it looks like they're going to nominate Trump for a 2nd term, so this is no time to fuck around. Bernie is the best bet to stop Trump, so I'm 100% behind Bernie. And if I'm in a place where a lot of swing voters can hear me, I'll wear my very best shit-eating grin and pretend to love Bernie, because this is no time to fuck around. (The readership of this blog is very close to 100% Leftist.)

It's easier, it's smarter, to just give Bernie and his Bros want they want. They don't understand the concept of party unity, but enough of the rest of us do. Yeah, it's sort of paradoxical and ironic. Try to enjoy the irony, if you hate Bernie too.

And again, just to be perfectly clear: when I say "the rest of us," I'm including the great majority of people who support Bernie, the great majority of people for whom Bernie would be the first choice. I'm talking about the vast majority of people to the left of center, who understand how important it is that Donald Trump not be re-elected.

Great Big Fat Guy Voted Today (Great Big Fat Guy, Day 374)

The polls opened in Michigan at 7AM. (Michigan has no early voting, and heavy restrictions on absentee voting.) A few minutes before 7AM, I set off on foot for my polling place, which is about a half-mile away. I walked because it was still dark and I don't like to drive at night anymore.

At the polling place, I got into the longest line I've ever seen up close and personal at a polling place. I went early thinking I might beat the rush, and then on the way I thought, But what about the people showing up to vote before they go to work? That might account for some of it. But I'm also pretty sure I heard an election official saying on the phone that he'd never seen lines like these.

I stood in line for about an hour, voted a straight Democratic ticket, and walked home. Michigan has a Republican governor who signed a bill into law abolishing the straight party ticket option on Michigan's ballots, but a Federal judge overturned that law. Now if we Michiganders could just get into the habit of voting more often than every 4 years, and vote these Republicans bums out of office, and vote in a majority of some people in the state and local offices -- Democrats, that is -- who actually want to encourage voting instead of making it more difficult!

I did not see any Trump thugs attempting to intimidate voters. I've still only seen one Trump sign in town, in my next-door neighbor's front lawn. This, and the voting history of our town through the decades, made me hope that maybe the big turnout meant a nice result for Hillary. It seemed that most of the people in line were women.

I saw only one clear indication of someone's political sympathies: a women in line ahead of me was wearing a Hillary button.

If you've read all of my Great Big Fat Guy posts you might think I go out walking every day, which would lead to my not being so huge anymore. And it very likely would. The thing is that I don't go out walking every day. It seems that after I've come back home from a long walk I feel like writing a Great Big Fat Guy post. Probably because I know that walking is a very healthy thing for me to do.

I haven't written a Great Big Fat Guy post every single time I've taken a walk. But close enough, unfortunately.

Still doing the push-ups and crunches every day, and attempting a bridge (see photo) every day.

I'm continuing to have the same result with the bridge every day: every day, starting from lying on my back with my legs bent and my hands on the floor under my head, I get everything but my hands and feet off of the ground, and keep it off of the ground for a while, but fail to straighten out my arms and extend the bridge fully.

Your turn, Katy:

So You Admire Obama? Or Sanders?

All of these people who say they love everything Barack Obama has ever said or done, but don't seem to have seen or heard almost everything he's said and done in the past couple of months, which has been: enthusiastically endorsing Hillary and campaigning for her non-stop, saying that there has never been anyone more qualified to be President than she is. Saying things like,

“Everything’s we’ve done is dependent on me being able to pass the baton to someone who believes in the same things I believe in. So if you really care about my presidency and what we’ve accomplished, then you are going to go and vote.”

Or:

“Even in the midst of crisis, she listens to people. And she keeps her cool. And no matter how much people try to knock her down, she never, ever quits. That is the Hillary I know.”

The people who hung on very word of Bernie's, until he endorsed her, mentioning things such as:

"Hillary Clinton understands that we must fix an economy in America that is rigged and that sends almost all new wealth and income to the top one percent. Hillary Clinton understands that if someone in America works 40 hours a week, that person should not be living in poverty. She believes that we should raise the minimum wage to a living wage. And she wants to create millions of new jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. – our roads, bridges, water systems and wastewater plants.

"But her opponent – Donald Trump – well, he has a very different view. He believes that states should have the right to lower the minimum wage or even abolish the concept of the minimum wage altogether. If Donald Trump is elected, we will see no increase in the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour – a starvation wage.

"This election is about which candidate will nominate Supreme Court justices who are prepared to overturn the disastrous Citizens United decision which allows billionaires to buy elections and undermine our democracy; about who will appoint new justices on the Supreme Court who will defend a woman’s right to choose, the rights of the LGBT community, workers’ rights, the needs of minorities and immigrants, and the government’s ability to protect the environment."

Listen to these people you say you admire so much. Listen to them trying to tell you how huge the difference between President Hillary Clinton and President Donald Trump would be.

LISTEN TO THEM!!!!

And then go vote for Hillary.

Hillary Could Win Texas

Stunning Texas Poll Shows Hillary Clinton Is Close To Turning Lone Star State Blue, reads a headline at Pliticus USA, and the story proceeds: "The bedrock Republican state of Texas could go for Hillary Clinton as Donald Trump's Lone Star state lead has shrunk to within the margin of error [...]"

Back in 2013 in my blog post Texas Is Purple, I tried to spread the word that Texas is not as solidly Republican as many people outside of Texas believe it is. So although I'm very happy that Hillary is now making it close in Texas, I'm not nearly as stunned as some people are.

Besides the fact this story may help to correct the widespread erroneous assumption that Texas is a deep-red Republican stronghold, I'm very happy about it because Texas has 38 electoral votes, and because, of its 36 US Representatives up for re-election next month, 25 are Republicans, and it would be nice to flip a lot of those House seats.

I first became aware of this story today, not from news headlines, but because every day I take a look at a few websites with electoral-vote maps, and today, on one of those sites, , I saw that Texas had gone from pink, "Likely GOP," to white outlined in pink, "Barely GOP." Red means "Strongly GOP," and ElectoralVote has just 81 electoral votes marked red right now. Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Utah and Alaska are currently pink on their map, and besides Texas, the states in white outlined in pink, "Barely GOP," are Iowa, South Carolina and Mississippi.

I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, and put those 38 electoral votes from Texas, or the 6 each from Iowa or Mississippi or the 9 from South Carolina, into Hillary's column prematurely. The most I can say, objectively, is that, right now, Trump's support is plummeting all across the country.

Since The 2005 Tape Surfaced Yesterday --

-- Trump has released a new, 99-second video which has been described as a "defiant apology."

Apologies aren't defiant. Defiant remarks aren't apologetic. Last night pundits seemed to agree that Trump would have to apologize, and that he didn't know how to apologize. They were right.

-- Billy Bush, the "Access Hollywood" host on the 2005 tape, who sounds distinctly uncomfortable on the tape, but afraid to call Trump out or just ask him to shut up -- that's how Bush sounds to me on the tape: uncomfortable and afraid. I imagine a great many people who've met Trump have felt that way -- has issued a much more apologetic-sounding apology, for not having stood up to Trump. Bush said in part:

"Obviously I'm embarrassed and ashamed. It's no excuse, but this happened eleven years ago. I was younger, less mature, and acted foolishly in playing along. I'm very sorry."

-- Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announced that Trump would not be appearing with him at a campaign rally in Wisconsin. It would have been their first campaign appearance together, later on today.

-- The Governor of Utah, Gary Herbert, US Senator from Utah Mike Lee, US Representative from Utah Jason Chaffetz and former Utah Governor John Huntsman all announced they wouldn't be voting for Trump. Prominent Utah Republican Mitt Romney announced back in May that he wouldn't be voting for Trump.

Utah's other US Senator, Orrin Hatch, has not withdrawn his endorsement of Trump, but he did call Trump remarks on the 2005 tape "offensive and disgusting," and added,

"There is no excuse for such degrading behavior. "All women deserve to be treated with respect."

So, almost the entire Republican political leadership of deep-red Utah has either withdrawn its support of Trump or sounds like it might soon. What does this mean? Will it be enough to flip Utah to Hillary? What sort of an impact will it have outside of Utah?

Ask me those things again a week from now.

-- Robert De Niro released this emphatically anti-Trump video.



It looks scripted and produced, as if it was made, or at the very least was being made, before the 2005 tape was released.

The thing is, though, that the 2005 tape, although it may feel like the absolute game-changer at the moment, is just one piece of very bad news for the Trump campaign lately. And all of the bad news can be summed up like this: the campaign's candidate is Donald Trump. It's not easy in each case to sort out what was pre-2005-tape and what has happened since the tape went public. David Letterman's most recent comments calling Trump racist and badly damaged have been publicized at about the same time as the tape, but they weren't the first time Letterman publicly said these things about Trump.

I have absolutely no idea how much effect the tape will have on Nov 8. I don't know which will have more effect: the defection from the Trump campaign of almost the entire political leadership of Utah, or the combined to-the-point remarks of Letterman and De Niro. It would take a lot to flip Utah. Letterman and De Niro might be dismissed as "liberal Hollywood celebrities" by almost all of those who have supported Trump or been undecided.

But maybe the tape is a turning-point, an opening of a floodgate. Maybe it will encourage many of the victims of Trump's predatory sexual behavior to come forward.

If it does: how much of a difference will THAT make in the election? Again, I don't know. Even before the tape went public, looking at the polls, it already seemed just about impossible that Donald would win. The crucial questions remain the same as before: how wide will Hillary's margin of victory be? And how many Democratic Senators, Representatives, Governors, state legislators, city councilpeople, judges, dog catchers, etc, etc, will ride her coat-tails into office?

Oh, and one more question: after Hillary hands his ass to him, can we please go ahead and criminally prosecute Donald for something? For what? For take your pick!

So, An Investigation Showed That Something Really Was Wrong With Donald's Mic In The First Debate

Donald said that his effectiveness in the debate was reduced by as much as 50% by that microphone.

Do we want a President whose effectiveness can be reduced by as much as 50% at any time by something as rinky-dink as a malfunctiong mic?

Maybe Donald was exaggerating, and his effectiveness wasn't cut by nearly as much as 50% by the microphone. Do we want a President who lies and makes excuses for himself when he doesn't win? There's a lot about Harry Truman I don't like, but "The Buck Stops Here" is the way I want any and every leader to be. It's an integral part of leadership.

This is at least the 4th time Hillary has run for political office: 2 successful runs for the US Senate, 2000 and 2006, then running for President against Barack in 2008, and now running against the Donald. She's been through a lot of debates. She hasn't won them all. She never blamed it on something like her microphone or the lighting or a debate moderator she thought was biased against her. All of the microphones Hillary's been in front of during her career, have you ever heard her complain about one?

I hope some right-winger actually does dig up a video or audio tape from 1963 where Hillary is running for student council and complains about her microphone malfunctioning. Because that will be just one more example of Donald's people having to go back decades to dig up something on Hillary which in some way resembles what their guy does every single day.

Do you want a President who will constantly whine and blame others when things don't go his way?

I'm just asking in case Donald's racism and sexism and shady business deals and stupidity and ignorance and lying and emotional instability and short temper and lack of impulse control and common decency haven't already made you decide to vote for Hillary.

Headlines, We Got Headlines, We Got Stacks And Stacks of Headlines...

Washington Post: Donald Trump's debate prep is going great!!!

Hahaha. The three exclamation marks are an extra hint that they're mocking him.

Politico: Trump says illegal immigrants pouring across the border to vote -- The federal government is allowing illegal immigrants to flow into the U.S. so they can vote, Donald Trump alleged Friday, fueling his own argument that November's presidential election will be rigged against him.

Well, the question is, of course, what is he fueling more, his own arguments, which only morons are buying, or the impression that he's a psycho and/or a lying sack of crap, as he must seem to any intelligent observer?

In other words, the question is: Have the morons got us out-maneuvered and surrounded? The answer is not entirely clear. And that is disturbing. I've long taken it for granted that they outnumber us. But the thought that they -- a bunch a friggin morons! -- could out-maneuver us...

Huffington Post: Donald Trump's Pretty Lucky He's Not Held To The Same Standard As Gary Johnson

True. But we're pretty lucky that at least Johnson is held to those standards.

The Boston Globe: Without Samantha Bee, this election would be so much worse

True! SO true! Without Samantha Bee, everything would be so much worse! We heart you this much, Samantha Bee!

Politico: Limited by Johnson and Stein, Clinton still tops Trump in new Florida poll

What that headline is not saying, of course, is how much Johnson and Stein keep limiting themselves. Gotta love the way they keep inserting the old foot into the old pie hole.

The Atlantic: For Young Voters, 'Hope and Change' Is Dead How many headlines like that are there for every single headline, put in a place where young voters will probably see it, pointing out elementary things such as how much different a Democratic Presidential administration could be with a Democratic-majority Congress to go with it?

Instead of attempting to explain extremely simple and extremely important things like that to low-information voters -- instead of trying to actually inform them -- so many journalists are instead trying to anticipate and emulate the reactions of low-information voters. And they're doing it in the name of something they actually call "journalistic objectivity". Bizarre, widespread and not at all good.

Would You Like To Be Pure, Or To Accomplish Something?

Some idiot whom I won't name posted a piece on Slate yesterday saying he hopes Hillary wins, but he probably won't vote for her. Voting for her would interfere with his self-image as a radical Leftist.(My words, not his.)

Idiots like this guy are not new: people who claim to be too far to the Left to actually participate in politics. They remind me of the wealthy Harvard students in Six Degrees of Separation who describe themselves as radical Leftists but become enraged when they find out that their parents have invited a homeless man into their New York apartment, immediately wondering what this bum might have stolen from their bedrooms etc. Phony radicals like that, parlour radicals whose radicalism vanishes whenever icky poor people get too near their parlours or clubs, weren't new when that film was released. Those characters, those whiny rich punks were unpleasantly familiar.

You can maintain a image of yourself as ideologically pure and be of no actual use to anyone, or you can become involved in politics, which involves making deals and compromising and getting your hands dirty. That schmuck from Slate states that Hillary is not a Leftist. Clearly, to him, no Leftist has a chance of political success the United States.

Or to put it the other way around, no one in the US can pass his ideological purity test and still accomplish something. Why become involved in American politics when there's no difference between Republicans and Democrats except when it comes to women's health and freedom to choose, green energy, tax breaks for Big Oil, labor unions, whether one fears that the government has too much control over corporations or that corporations have too much control over the government, whether the best way to help all of us is to help the poorest and weakest or the richest and most powerful, whether or not everyone should have access to affordable health care, whether too many tax breaks are available to corporate CEO's making 8 figures a year or more or to teachers and firemen making $50,000 a year or less, whether GLBT's don't have enough rights or whether they have too many, whether or not it's time to revoke the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, whether or not drilling for oil and gas in national parks would be a good idea and whether it should be easier or more difficult for people in the US to obtain guns and ammo, whether life in the US is too easy or too difficult for undocumented people, things like that?

Tell you what, Slate schmuck: if you actually do sneak into a polling booth and vote for Hillary, because, like any other sane and informed person, you're aware of the huge and tremendously important differences between her and Trump -- I won't tell anyone, I promise. Making any promises to you makes me sick, but there are more important things in the world than how I feel and what sort of scum I find it necessary to deal with for the sake of the greater good.

MAKE FACT-CHECKING GREAT AGAIN

Accentuate the positive! I'm really glad I saw this picture. Just a moment before, it was only with some difficulty that I had not replied to a German gentleman on Facebook who said he simply couldn't understand how Amurrka could fall for someone like Trump, and that he was just about through with us --

It was only with great difficulty that I stopped myself from replying, with heavy sarcasm and in polished, elegant German, that he was completely right, and how great it was that Germany had never let itself be taken over by a gang of right-wing thugs --

But instead of sarcastically stirring some Scheisse, I moved on, and I saw this picture, and I reminded myself to accentuate the positive.

Facts. Facts are great. And Hillary's got so much more of them than Donald does.

We're in the home stretch! Let's get pumped up and do this!

And remember -- SOME Germans are being positive and helpful and not taking the opportunity to throw stones in their glass house. So yeah for them too! And for all the rest of the people all around the world who just love us Murrkins to bits and are pulling for us!

As Alec Baldwin sang when he was doing an impression of Tony Bennett on "Saturday night Live," and then the real Tony Bennett joined in, so that it was the ultimate Tony Bennett duet:

I like things that are great!
I don't care about the things that I hate

Solar panels by the hundreds of millions! Expansion of the social safety net! More money for education! Minimum wage bumped up to somewhere between $12.50 and $15 an hour! Hillary!

LET'S MAKE GERMANY PROUD OF MURRKA SOME MORE!

First Debate: Presumably, Now More People Know That Trump Is A Liar

Last night in his first (and maybe last?) debate against Hillary Clinton, Trump said that not paying any taxes shows that he's smart. Then an hour later he denied saying any such thing.

Which makes yesterday a pretty average day for Trump in terms of honesty and integrity. And millions of people have noticed this, and more and more people are noticing.

Trump is following a political strategy which still functioned occasionally a few decades ago, before the Internet, before Presidential candidates were constantly televised. In 1972 Hunter S Thompson wrote about his fellow Democrat and Presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey:

"There is no way to grasp what a shallow, contemptible and hopelessly dishonest old hack Hubert Humphrey is until you've followed him around for a while on the campaign trail."

Because of the changes in technology, today a lot more people "follow the candidates around" via TV and Internet. Back in '72 Humphrey could get away with saying 3 completely different things about an issue in the same day. But today when Trump does it, a tech-savvy 5-year-old can put the video clips together and nail him for it.

I'm not saying that any of this will actually hurt Trump politically. I hope it will. I think it will. But I'm not sure it will. It should be clearer a few days from now, after more polls are in, whether the huge number of people who saw the first debate last night are now more aware that Trump is a lying sack of crap -- even compared to most politicians.

But I'm not sure what effect the debate will have, because I don't understand how Trump has succeeded so far. I really don't know how anybody has ever seen him as anything but a crude snake-oil salesman. I'm hoping that the debate will swing more undecideds from Trump over to Hillary -- but I don't understand how someone can be undecided between Hillary and Trump.

Maybe I just need to put such things into the Nietzschean category of things I don't even want to understand, and move on, and deal with the people with whom I can deal.

As of 3PM, the headlines say that Hillary won the debate by a wide margin, except for some completely crappy biased polls which say Trump won, which are the only polls some right-wing outlets are reporting on. Mendacity.

Excuses

"How can anyone write an entire novel in today's world, with so many media distractions and so forth, bla bla bla!" People who have never actually finished writing a novel have always come up with a lot of excuses for it. That hasn't changed over the centuries. Writing a novel that's any good is extremely difficult. That has also been the same for centuries. There have always been many distractions. People who have written novels have been dissing the ones who made excuses instead, for centuries, and the novelists have always been right.

And then there are the ones, from Vergil to Vikram Seth, who've written fine novels in verse. I stand in awe of them, my cap doffed.

Cervantes, to choose but one example from the novelists, suffered wounds rendering one of his arms permanently paralyzed at the Battle of Lepanto when he was 25 years old. Then he voluntarily spent 3 more years in the Spanish army. Then he spent 5 years as a prisoner of war. And THEN, with one arm, he wrote a whole huge pile of world-renowned literature including one of the best novels ever written.

He wrote all of that stuff instead of whining and making excuses. Not that it would have been very surprising, or even really all that objectionable, at if a person in his position whined a lot, because, come on.

Most people don't know a lot about how many of their favorite pro athletes accomplished many of their most amazing feats with bruises and contusions and sprains and actual broken bones. That's because sports tends to tear your body up, and top athletes tend not to whine about it too much. Kobe whined about it a lot for some reason, especially when he was so focused for some reason on not getting along with the remarkably-good-tempered Shaq (who played hurt just like Kobe and everybody else), but he was still a great athlete. If you listened a lot to Kobe and didn't investigate the matter much, you might think he was an unusual case as far as the conditions he performed under.

Okay, I need to stop whining about Kobe, I'm getting off track here. Like I say, he was a great athlete.

A lot of great accomplishments in human history have been accompanied by a pronounced tendency not to whine and complain in the face of extraordinary difficulty. I could be wrong, but it seems that most human lives have involved extraordinary difficulty of one kind or another.

It would be interesting to see a list of great novels which were written in prison.

"Hillary Clinton and the DNC rigged the primaries!" No they didn't. And Debbie Wassermann-Schultz did not set out to destroy Bernie Sanders' career. The plain truth is just about exactly the opposite: Bernie Sanders, that non-reality-based paranoid ogre, deliberately ruined Debbie's career -- hopefully only for the moment. Hillary won the nomination, she didn't steal it. But Bernie will always be the Democratic Party's Emperor of Whiny Crybabies.

But of course, in the category of insane, non-reality-based whiny-crybaby excuses, the other party have got us beat hands-down. That orange combover has already been making excuses for a long time for defeats he hasn't even suffered yet: defeats against Hillary in the debates and in November.

I can't imagine anyone with less reason to whine and complain than that whiny crybaby. Except maybe about the size of his penis. That's actually not his own fault.

Alrighty then! Those of us who've been paying attention, let's ramp it up, let's work harder at spreading the news to everybody else, the news that this Presidential campaign is a good, experienced, competent, steady, extremely capable progressive candidate against a whiny orange crybaby who's either an insane bigot or pretending to be one -- and which would be worse?

It's Hillary against a nightmare. Sing it high, sing it low. Go tell it on the mountain. Make the others understand. We have no excuse not to.

How Can Anybody Possibly Think Trump And Hillary Are The Same?

Okay, just finished blocking a few more people on Facebook who claim that "America is faced with two terrible choices in November."

Who's dumber: people who support Trump, or people who can't see any difference between Clinton and Trump? Does it matter? Both groups are pretty dumb.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: the 2016 Presidential election may be decided by shaking shiny objects in front of undecided voters.

If you can't see any difference between Trump and Hillary, go see a doctor immediately. It may be a huge brain tumor.

Or maybe you just plain haven't been paying attention. Here are a few things Trump has said lately, in public, right in front of crowds, right into microphones, on purpose:

“An extremely credible source has called my office and told me that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud.”

“Robert Pattinson should not take back Kristen Stewart. She cheated on him like a dog & will do it again – just watch. He can do much better!”

“Ariana Huffington is unattractive, both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man – he made a good decision.”

“You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass.”

“I will build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me – and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.”

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bring crime. They’re rapists… And some, I assume, are good people.”

“Our great African-American President hasn’t exactly had a positive impact on the thugs who are so happily and openly destroying Baltimore.”

“If I were running ‘The View’, I’d fire Rosie O’Donnell. I mean, I’d look at her right in that fat, ugly face of hers, I’d say ‘Rosie, you’re fired.’”

“All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me – consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.”

“One of they key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace. Good people don’t go into government.”

“The beauty of me is that I’m very rich.”

“It’s freezing and snowing in New York – we need global warming!”

“I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”

“My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”

“I have never seen a thin person drinking Diet Coke.”

“I think the only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.”

“You’re disgusting.” (In court, to a woman asking the judge for a break to breast-feed her baby.)

“The point is, you can never be too greedy.”

“My Twitter has become so powerful that I can actually make my enemies tell the truth.”

“My IQ is one of the highest — and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure; it’s not your fault.”

“I have so many fabulous friends who happen to be gay, but I am a traditionalist.”

“The other candidates — they went in, they didn’t know the air conditioning didn’t work. They sweated like dogs…How are they gonna beat ISIS? I don’t think it’s gonna happen.”

“Look at those hands, are they small hands? And Rubio referred to my hands: ‘If they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee.”

“The only card Hillary has is the woman’s card. She’s got nothing else to offer and frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she’s got going is the woman’s card, and the beautiful thing is, women don’t like her.”

“Number one, I have great respect for women. I was the one that really broke the glass ceiling on behalf of women, more than anybody in the construction industry.”

But how could you not know already that he says things like that all the time, and how could you not be appalled, and disgusted by someone who says such things? How could anyone be impressed by such a person, and want him to be a leader of any kind, let alone President?

File that under things I don't really want to know. If I seem particularly grumpy it's because I am. Politics sometimes makes me very grumpy.

An "Everybody's With Her" T-Shirt

Hopefully somebody's already beat me to this: A T-shirt covered with all sizes of the "I'm with her" logo. In addition to the original "I'm with her," there would be a "Bernie's with her" logo, and "Barack's with her," and "Elizabeth's with her."

"Scowcroft's with her." "Paulson's with her." "Armitrage is with her." "The Dallas Morning News is with her." "Apparently all of the Bushes are with her."

"Madonna's with her."

"Generals Sennewald and Maddox are with her."

"The Teamsters are with her." "A majority of business economists in a new survey are with her." "WIRED is with her." "Sarah Silverman is with her." "Cher's with her. "DiCaprio's with her." "Montel Williams is with her." "Ru Paul's with her."

"The Simpsons are with her."

"Mark Cuban's with her." "Caroline McCain's with her." "Michael Bloomberg's with her." "The US Hispanic Camber of Commerce is with her."

"The AFL-CIO's with her." "The CWA's with her." "The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Teachers, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, International Longshoremen’s Association, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers and the International Union of Operating Engineers are with her."

"Oprah's with her." "Louis CK's with her." "Jesse Jackson's with her."

You get the idea.

Happy "What-If" Thoughts

What if all the people from Trump's campaign who appear on news shows every day, babbling non-stop nonsense in the attempt to defend Trump's non-stop nonsense, all quit together in a big group, and instead of disappearing from public view like the many others who have quit or been fired from leading positions in Trump's campaign -- what if they all had a joint news conference, where they said things like:

"Just like attorneys sometimes have clients they despise, but they defend actions of those clients which they find deplorable because it's their job, so sometimes political operatives work for candidates we despise. Sometimes, that's our job. And holding a news conference like this one instead of quietly fading from public view as we're expecting to do if we quit -- holding a press conference like this one might end our careers. Maybe no politician could ever trust us again. But making sure that that lying sack of crap Donald Trump never gets anywhere near being Commander-in-Chief of anything is more important to all of us than the risk that we might never get a job in politics again. I'd rather bus tables and wash dishes alongside some of the many fine, hardworking undocumented Latin American laborers in this country, and be able to look my children in the eye again, than to go on one more day perpetrating the nightmare that is Donald Trump's political career."

"I'd like to second everything Kellyanne said -- all of us would -- and we know that Trump might sue all of us for what we're doing today. That's what he does, isn't it: he sues people. He lies about people. He lies about his own past and his businesses. He preys on people who aren't capable of protecting themselves very well. He stirs up hate. Hate based on stupidity and lies."

"The other day my son said to me, 'Dad, are you really telling people they should be afraid of you and me and Mom, because we're Mexican?' That was the final straw for me. I apologized to my son that minute for saying those things, and now I want to apologize to the rest of the world. Wow -- this feels good! This feels really good! Actually saying the truth, and making sense, right out here in public! I'm sorry, and I hope that with God's help I'll never do anything so disgraceful again!"

What if Jill Stein and Gary Johnson both withdrew from the race and urged all of their supporters to vote for Hillary Clinton,

"because stopping Donald Trump may be the most important thing you ever do!"

What if Bernie actually starting campaigning hard for Hillary, instead of just continuing to campaign against Trump and suggest that Hillary is the 2nd-worst option?

What if Rush Limbaugh started off one of his programs saying,

"I've got to get this off of my big fat chest. I've got to be able to look at myself in the mirror again: from the time I first learned that Hillary Clinton existed, I've been lying about her non-stop. I never had any reason to believe she or Bill ever did anything bad to their friend Vince Foster. I never had any reason to believe they behaved improperly in regard to the Whitewhater corporation. As to the Monica Lewinsky affair, I think the person who behaved worst was Kenneth Starr. He should have wrapped up his fishing expedition -- which began with him looking into Whitewater, remember? -- long before he ever heard of Ms Lewinski, and he should have told the public that after a long and exhausting investigation he had found no evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons. I've been lying about Hillary Clinton's character non-stop, year-in, year-out, and --"

Okay, back down to Earth. I'm getting carried away. The odds of Rush saying those kinds of things are... Well, who knows.

It's just a question of how many MORE people who normally never would endorse a Democrat, will endorse Hillary. That's already quite an impressive demographic.

Cheer up. We haven't lost yet.

Mr X Is Wrong: People Aren't Suckers For The Truth

Hillary's right: at least half of Trump's supporters are a basket of deplorables. They've got a lot of problems. One thing which would help them out a lot with many of those problems, the same way it helps most people, is better education. And about the last guy who's going to give them better education is the orange-and-blonde doofus they're supporting. He's lying to them more than he's lying to anyone else -- which is a lot.

You ever see Oliver Stone's movie JFK, with Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison, the real-life New Orleans DA trying forlornly to solve the case of JFK's murder while being attacked from all sides by pathological liars? The most striking part of the movie is the one with Donald Sutherland as Mr X, the ex-military intelligence guy who tells Garrison, very convincingly, that he could prove that a widespread conspiracy within the US government removed JFK because LBJ was more amenable to their program of military build-up and escalated war in Vietnam -- a build-up they favored because it was making them billions of dollars in profits. That is, he could prove it, except that no-one would believe him if came forward, plus he'd be sent to a mental hospital for the rest of his life, or worse, by the people he accused.

Anyway, Mr X tells Garrison, attempting to encourage him to continue fighting the good fight and bring the real killers to justice: "People are suckers for the truth."

Sounds nice, but I think it's 3 words too long: people are suckers, period. If people were suckers for the truth, a widespread government conspiracy wouldn't have been able to kill JFK for financial reasons and get away with it, and Mr X wouldn't have been afraid to give Garrison his real name for fear that his former friends and colleagues would do away with him because he was somewhat more truthful than they, and things like military intelligence and the CIA might not be necessary in the first place, and Hillary wouldn't have to worry about telling the truth about Trump's supporters right out loud, and there wouldn't be nearly as many of Trump's supporters to begin with. They're not suckers for the truth, they're either out-and-out liars, or they can't HANDLE the truth.

If people were suckers for the truth, Hillary wouldn't have taken a hit in the West Virginia primary for telling the truth: that the West Virginia coal-mining industry is going away and not coming back. That's the truth, and Hillary said it, and Bernie didn't, and Bernie won West Virginia by a wide margin. Bernie, the guy who tells it like it is and says that America's #1 challenge is global warming. Unless there are votes to be won and he's speaking to former coal miners who want to be coal miners again.

People aren't suckers for the truth. Not most of them. They're just suckers. THAT'S the truth. And if I were on Hillary's campaign staff, I wouldn't know how to advise her about how to spin her truthful, undiplomatic characterization of Trump's supporters. My strong gut feeling would be to tell her something like, "You said the truth! Go with the truth! Double down!"

But of course, political campaigns are not won by gut feelings, nor by the truth. They're won by cleverness, cold dispassionate analysis, slander and bullshit. The truth is interesting to a few historians, journalists and autistic bloggers whose voices are drowned out by those of hacks, half-wits, tools and goons.

Buy JFK at Amazon: https://amzn.to/3WwNEm4

Republicans' Attitudes About Things They're Completely Wrong About

Why don't they trust Hillary? Any sober investigation of the facts shows that she's actually unusually frank and forthcoming -- or at least, unusually frank and forthcoming for a politician. Likewise, it's easily demonstrated that Trump, whom some refer to as a "straight talker," is unusually dishonest even for a politician.

And why do they think that the economy isn't recovering, and that the climate isn't warming?

Someone may have actually answered all of those questions.

Someone -- I think it was Lawrence O'Donnell -- pointed out that many Republican positions are emotion-based, by their own admission. They (probably Lawrence) gave many examples with video clips from the Republican Convention. Seeing the entire montage all together was very striking, and suddenly some previously baffling behavior and rhetoric made sense to me: "The numbers may say otherwise, but it just FEELS to me like the economy is stagnant." "I may have no evidence, but I'm convinced that Obama is a Muslim. That's how it FEELS to me." "Yes, those scientists have all of those numbers, but it doesn't FEEL to me like the climate is warming." "I don't know... I just don't trust her!" "Okay, so actual cases of voter fraud in the US have been extremely rare for decades... but that's not the way it FEELS to me!" Etc.

This may be surprising to some people who "FELT" that conservatives were hard-headed and fact-driven, and liberals were wussies who were controlled by their emotions and refused to face unpleasant realities. File that one alongside the one about conservatives spending responsibly and liberal running up huge budget deficits.

I wish I could say that a quick and effective solution had occurred to me, now that someone, probably Lawrence, pointed out the nature of the problem to me. But no, knowing the nature of the problem just points out how extremely difficult it will be to solve it. Tripling the budget on education might put a dent in it after a few decades. That won't be easy, because there a lot of pinheads out there who vote and who FEEL like money is being wasted on education as it is, and that there is a huge liberal conspiracy to hand control of the world over to lesbians (and by the way, they can't prove anything, but for a long time they've had this FEELING about Hillary...), and that academics are an integral part of this liberal-lesbian world-conspiracy.

Still, understanding more about the nature of stupidity can't hurt. The problem, the enemy, is stupidity: the deliberate cultivation of ignorance.

Larry The Cable Guy Critical Of Hillary

Uh-oh: it seems that universally-respected intellectual heavyweight Larry the Cable Guy has grave misgivings about a Hillary Clinton Presidency.

Generally speaking, Hillary enjoys the majority of support among the highly-educated and deep thinkers. It had seemed to be a demographic which was solidly in her corner. No more: the Guy's comments represent a break in the solid trend of the large-brained backing the Democratic candidate. "Hillary will be the end of the country, that's all I got to say," he says.

He then goes on to say: "I like Trump, some of the things he says, then he's outrageous so you just don't know [...] It's not like it used to be. If you pick somebody, they want to beat you up, they want to give you death threats. It's like nobody's civil. Ever since social media came along, everybody's a jerk [...] So if you say, I kind of like Trump, I kind of like some of the things he says and I think I want to vote for Trump — 'You racist!' You're always a racist, no matter what. If they don't agree with you — no matter what you say — they throw that out."

Deep, powerful, carefully-chosen words, and quite a shock, surely, to everyone who had assumed that the founder and most prominent member of the Git-R-Done school of existentialism was in lock-step, politically, with his fellow intellectuals. As of this posting, a distraught Clinton campaign could not be reached for comment. It will be interesting to see what sort of ripple effect Larry The Cable Guy's words will have among the world's philosophers, economists and political historians.

The Clinton Foundation Will No Longer Accept Foreign Or Corporate Donations

When Hillary is elected, the Clinton Foundation will no longer accept donations from corporate or foreign sources. To avoid any appearance of impropriety.

What a colossal pile of BS: the Republican Party is owned and operated by oil companies, hedge funds and conspiracy theorists, but let's make sure no one can contribute to this foundation which fights poverty, illness and climate change all over the world, if there's a chance that it might look shady to Republicans, who are owned and operated by oil companies, hedge funds and conspiracy theorists.

The Clinton Foundation has done nothing wrong, outside of the Breitbart parallel universe. Nothing is gained by enabling the Right every time they make up another story about Democratic wrongdoing. That's right: I said: when they make it up.

Sometimes, when Republicans are driving the narrative, as in this instance where they've been riding the idea that there is something wrong with the Clinton Foundation, Democrats really need to grow a pair and tell them to go... Just go. Be not so aggriev-ed by the speck in thine own eye that thou see-est not the beam in thy neighbor's eye. Imagine if Bill had told Kenneth that Monica was none of his business. Imagine if Hillary had said that Congress had wasted enough of the public's time and resources with BS about Ben Ghazi and emails, and she was not going to co-operate and help it waste more. Democrats who stood up to Republicans, can you imagine such a thing? I can.

Es Scheint Dass Politische Nachrichten Langsam Fahren

Oder warum auch immer: viele Leute mitten in Europe machen sich Sorge, Trump koennte eigentlich noch President werden. Hier in den US ist diese grosse Angst eigentlich schon meistens vorbei.

Es spricht sich doch herum auch in den US, was fuer einen miesen kleinkarierten luegenden Arschloch Trump doch ist. Seine Fans waren zahlreich genug, um ihn zum Sieg in den Republican-Vorwahlen zu tragen. Es sind nicht genug derer, um ihn President zu machen. In Wyoming ist er noch sehr populaer, dort wuerden ihn 65% waehlen. Wenn er wollte, koennte er vielleicht noch Governor von Wyoming werden. Aber sehen wir, ob er 65% in Wyoming in November kriegt. In den ganzen US liegt sein Umfragewert unter 40% und sinkt sehr schnell. Jeden Tag sagen noch mehr prominente Republicans oeffentlich, sie wuerden Trump nicht waehlen. Oft sagen sie, sie wuerden Hillary waehlen, oft Johnson, oft sagen sie nicht, nur, dass es keinesfalls Trump sein wird. Massiven Schaden fuegt Trump der Republican-Partei zu. Jeden Tag mehr. Verlaesslicherweise. Er muss nur den Mund auftun und (sozusagegen) haarstraeubenden Unsinn reden und/oder diesen Unsinn tweeten. Und anders sprechen oder tippen scheint er nicht zu koennen.

Es ist genugtuend, zuzusehen: Trump ist sein ganzes Leben lang ruhmsuechtig gewesen, wollte beruehmt und immer beruehmter werden. Jetzt ist er vielleicht doch endlich der beruehmste Mensch der Welt geworden, und seht da: die Meisten moegen ihn gar nicht. Er hat, und hatte immer, eine betraechtliche Anzahl von idiotischen Fans. Aber die meisten Menschen, so scheint es, sind doch nicht so dumm. Die meisten -- vielleicht doch nicht die meisten Republicans, aber gewiss die allermeisten Leute -- sehen diesen Gauner durch. Und ohne besondere Schwierigkeiten, scheint es.