Zen Koan for the 2016 Election

If a candidate "loses" with nearly 3 million more popular votes than the "winner": who do you blame?

Is it true what they say about Catherine the Great?

From the BBC:

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said there was no allegation that any American was "a knowing participant in this illegal activity" nor was it alleged that the meddling altered the election outcome.

Three of the people named have also been accused of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and five have been accused of aggravated identity theft. Three companies have also been charged.

Amusingly, one of the allegations is "Promoted information that disparaged Hillary Clinton".

As if anyone needed the Russians for that one! The next quote sounds like duopoly sour grapes:

"They engaged in operations primarily to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump."

Bernie was supported by small donors: shitloads of them. He was pretty much outraising her until HER campaign pulled the dirty tricks. Remember how the primaries were called for Clinton before they had been held?

Who said "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS"? (Hint: not the Russians).

Somebody get these people a copy of the Class Action Lawsuit against the DNC and point them to democraticautopsy.org.

The Russians didn't have as much influence on the whole mess as did internal forces who are enjoying having everyone look everywhere besides where the real problems lie.

Marinus van der Lubbe is long dead.

It had to happen.

I have to point out there are things on my blog like:

Green Parties World Wide: Hey, it's nice to finally know what I am politically!

Sorry, but it wasn't the Russians that influenced my vote: look at the Duopoly for the real culprits.

Not to mention the Electoral College. Or is it true what they say about Catherine the Great?

America Deserves Donald trump

Don't let the title cause you to think that I approve of the current US president. No, this is an affirmation that a nation gets the government it deserves.

And the US deserves Donald Trump for all its failing to properly address the issues that it faces. In particular, the failings of its rigged political system. But that is a symptom of something much larger. I would say that the anti-intellectualism which is a feature of US society is another contributing factor.

What really pissed me off isn't the election of Donald Trump and the failure to properly address the cause, but an ignorant statement made by someone in authority about US immigration. Although, not sure how much “authority" can be given to someone who is director of the US tenement museum. The comment was along the lines of people whose ancestors came here and became citizens somehow are similar to the "dreamers" of today.

Part of this was based on the fact that immigration laws weren't that strict up until the late 19th-early 20th Century; however there were still immigration laws.  That is a flawed argument for a myriad of reasons: the basic one being that laws change.  You can't legally try a case which happened in the past using current law or judge a modern case by outdated law.

Another issue at work here is the national myth that people came here for a better life, which wasn't always true.  The US needs to get in touch with its convict immigrant heritage since, besides slaves, not everyone came here for a better life.

Prior to the US War for Independence, the US was the dumping ground for England's convicts:

As the 17th century drew to a close, lawmakers sought a less harsh punishment that might still deter potential offenders; penal transportation with a term of indentured servitude became the more common punishment. This trend was continued by the Transportation Act 1717 (16 Geo. 3 c.43), which regulated and subsidized the practice, until its use was suspended by the Criminal Law Act 1776. With the American Colonies already in active rebellion, parliament claimed its continuance "is found to be attended with various inconveniences, particularly by depriving this kingdom of many subjects whose labour might be useful to the community, and who, by proper care and correction, might be reclaimed from their evil course". This law would become known as the Hard Labour act and the Hulks act for both its purpose and its result. With the removal of the important transportation alternative to the death penalty, it would in part prompt the use of prisons for punishment and the start of prison building programs. (source)

Of course, the situation here was solved by Australia, but that is an aside. The term "indentured servant" sounds a lot better than convict. it also plays into the aspirational aspect of the US myth: "your ancestors came to America as a Servant in hopes of a better life."

That plays out a lot better than your ancestors were shipped to the colonies to escape the noose.

Of course, it also puts a different light on early American immigration in that blacks weren't the only people shipped to the Colonies against their will.  And do some research into indentured servitude in the Early North American Colonies if you are going to try and argue that it wasn't as bad as being a slave.

Of course, trying to draw a distinction between slavery and indentured servitude is useful if you want to divide people up by race. Add "Bacons Rebellion" in Virginia to the reading list.

But the real issue here isn't slavery or race as much as it is the aspirational aspect of immigration. As long as the myth is that people came here for a better life, one might "forgive" a person for breaking the law because they want a better life for their family.  On the other hand, Australia used to have cheap fares for immigrants up until recently, but now has incredibly strict immigration laws. Is there a lesson to be learned here?

Personally, I don't think an unlawfully present person's life happens to be better since they know they can be deported. The "dream" if there really is one is that people will someone ignore that the unlawfully present person is violating immigration law: even if it doesn't come with strong penalties.

But the real upshot here is that the US deserves a president who gives the appearance of possibly being much more affluent than he really is (isn't that the real issue with his tax returns?).  One doesn't need tax returns since there are multiple bankruptcies and other evidence his "wealth" has not been beneficial to those around him.

But the bottom line is all about the dream.  Maybe it's time for a strong dose of reality.

Poor deluded racists

Just think of people who believe Europeans were white skinned, blue eyes, and blonde haired.

Too bad that isn't true.

Scientists have reconstructed his appearance based on 3D scans of the skull and information from the man's DNA and came up with the above image.

This changes this beliefs about Early Europeans:

It was initially assumed that Cheddar Man had pale skin and fair hair, but his DNA paints a different picture, strongly suggesting he had blue eyes, a very dark brown to black complexion and dark curly hair.

The discovery shows that the genes for lighter skin became widespread in European populations far later than originally thought – and that skin colour was not always a proxy for geographic origin in the way it is often seen to be today.

The Money Shot here:

Tom Booth, an archaeologist at the Natural History Museum who worked on the project, said: “It really shows up that these imaginary racial categories that we have are really very modern constructions, or very recent constructions, that really are not applicable to the past at all.”
Yoan Diekmann, a computational biologist at University College London and another member of the project’s team, agreed, saying the connection often drawn between Britishness and whiteness was “not an immutable truth. It has always changed and will change”.

I really wish Pioneer Little Britain Europe hadn't banned me from their face book pages because I would post this every place I could.

See also:

• This is the face of a prehistoric Brit
• First modern Britons had 'dark to black' skin, Cheddar Man DNA analysis reveals

Look not at Russia, but look at internal US problems

I wish that everyone who complains about Donald Trump being president would STFU and start working on repealing the electoral college: especially if they are rabbiting on about Russia.  Time would be much better spent working on reforming the US political system than trying to blame others for internal problems.

Anyway, the real suspects in how this mess happened are:

1) the electoral college 

Seriously, I've posted enough material about how this doesn't do anything it is claimed to do and needs to go.

2) the Diebold Voting Machine

I don't know about the other two states that went for Trump, but I do know Pennsylvania uses the things. Lots of talk about how these things are dodgy and not verifiable.  Yet more talk about Russians than that these things are still being used in US elections.

3) The Duopoly itself

Again, another thing I have been talking about a lot and won't go into again.  Look at the previous posts.

4) The media

 This is a seriously incestuous problem since even "lefty/liberal" and non-US source were demonstrating unreliability here. For example, The BBC was neglecting Bernie Sanders. Another example is that the Guardian spends a lot of time on the Russian BS.  Not much really worth reading out there.  But the news sources tend to be thing like AP. The Media built up Trump since he was good for ratings!

5) The Money in US Politics

Ever wonder how Bernie could out fund raise Hillary, yet Hillary gets the nomination? There's your answer: it's all documented in the Democratic Autopsy.


Anyway, that's the short list. There are a lot better suspects than the Russians out there for who to blame for the US's political problems.  Things won't get any better as long as people aren't examining the system itself.

I bet most of the critics can't read French.

I woke up to some interesting news this morning: the French Actress, Catherine Deneuve, and 99 other women, wrote a piece condemning the blanket #metoo. Catherine Deneuve is probably one of the few of these women most Anglophones are familiar with as an international film star. On the other hand, there are another 99 other women who signed this piece who come from varying points of view.

They also aren't as well known outside France.

First off, the article makes it clear that there is a difference between rape and sexual harassment with maladroit flirtation and gallantry. Maybe non-Gallic women don't like having the door held for them, but French women tend to expect it.

Secondly, most of the English language coverage I have seen of this tends to focus on the most well known signer of this letter, but 99 other women also signed this critique of the #metoo phenomenon.

The most important part is that the writers try to distinguish between sexual violence and men being awkward. The difference between a grope and an accident. The gist of the argument here seems to be:

 In the same way, we defend a freedom to annoy, indispensable to the sexual freedom. We are now sufficiently warned to declare that the sexual drive is by nature offensive and savage, but we are also sufficiently clairvoyant not to confuse clumsy flirtation with sexual assault.

I'm not sure this can be seen as "mansplaining" as much as it is translation and cultural interpretation.  Especially since I see most of the critics probably haven't read the letter in its original French, or they don't understand the cultural under currents of this letter. Catherine Deneuve, star of Belle de Jour which is about sexual fantasy, as the face of this argument.

But there is much more to this letter than the Anglophone media lets on which needs to be addressed in this debate without resorting to an ad hominem toward one of the signers. People need to get the whole story before they comment since this letter addresses an important part of the debate.

The actual letter is here:
www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2018/01/09/nous-defendons-une-liberte-d-importuner-indispensable-a-la-liberte-sexuelle_5239134_3232.html

I'm not sure if the commenters will bother reading it since that seems to be the case with most of the people I hear discussing the letter.

Fire and Fury or Smoke and Mirrors

Part of the reason I don't pay too much attention to the US media is that there aren't too many viewpoints truly represented.  That's because the media in in the hands of the few. Even "public media" tends to  be under the control of the corporations (i.e., Underwriting or commercials by any other name).

Whatever "Russian" interference in the US political system is negligible compared to the internal problems of the system. Most of the things they were saying about Hillary weren't anything that wasn't already out there.

We can start with the Class Action lawsuit against the Democratic Party for its failing to follow its own by laws, which is sort of another post. On the other hand, it gets us to one of the failings of the primary system: they are pretty much for show.

The report,Autopsy: the Democratic Party in Crisis, gets into the failings of the machine system. You can read that for how the Democratic party basically screwed itself.  I have problems with saying that Clinton lost the election since she won the popular vote, but that doesn't determine the real outcome of the election. The real result comes from the electoral college, which really doesn't do what it is supposed to do.

That is something I've gone into depth on, but read this post for the "executive summary" of why the Electoral College needs to go.

But the blame doesn't just go to the Democratic Party since the duopoly really screwed the American public in 2016.  There is another report that show the duopoly is failing the public, "Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America" by Katherine M. Gehl and Michael E. Porter. I don't totally agree with their premise since real competition in the form of viable "third parties" might help get rid of the stagnation in the US political system.

The problem is that the US political system is rigged for the two parties and it's hard for alternative parties to run on the state and federal level. The truly conservative need to step up to the plate and follow their talk about competition since consolidation IS NOT competition: it is monopoly. And monopolies are as anti-competitive as you can get.

More "Fire and Fury"

From Ted Rall:

If Wolff and Bannon are to be believed — and so far, there is no reason not to — Trump didn’t want the job. His team wanted him to lose. “Once he lost, Trump would be both insanely famous and a martyr to Crooked Hillary,” Wolff writes. “His daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared would be international celebrities. Steve Bannon would become the de facto head of the tea-party movement. Kellyanne Conway would be a cable-news star. Melania Trump, who had been assured by her husband that he wouldn’t become president, could return to inconspicuously lunching. Losing would work out for everybody. Losing was winning.”

            Wanting to lose explains Trump’s refusal to contribute to his own run. It explains his barebones campaign, with its weird lack of field offices, his sleepy national HQ and his cheapskate approach to TV ads. The dude ran for president yet refused to spend the night in a hotel room.

I have been wondering if the game plan was that Clinton would lose the popular vote, yet win in the electoral college.  That would have led to an uproar from the right.

Unfortunately, people are talking about everything except for what really went wrong in the last election.

The real issue here is that the US needs to take a time out to seriously examine its political climate.

Another thing from Ted:

The second takeaway here is that Hillary was an even worse candidate than her biggest detractors (cough cough) believed. Ruminate on this: she lost to a man who tried to lose...So think on that a while. Hillary Clinton was so sucky that she lost to the suckiest, stupidest, losingest candidate anyone ever dreamed of.

That's bad if someone who intended to lose actually won against someone who thought she had the game sewn up to win.

Lost in the "Fire and Fury"

Michael Wolff's explosive book, "Fire and Fury" has about 1000 damning and alarming revelations.  To some on the left, it's more "Yep, that's exactly how it appeared, funny to see it confirmed," but most, including me are in utter disbelief that Trump is in fact even MORE impotent, petulant, and mean than his outward, odious persona gives off.

But I noted one point Bannon made, one which many seemed to have overlooked.  Bannon said that if Kushner, Mannafort and Trump Jr. were going to "treasonously (Bannon's word)" meet with Russians, they should have been smart enough to do so at a Motel 6 in New Hampshire or some other innocuous place because then they could have denied it more easily.

Think about that for a moment.  Bannon is saying "you guys are so stupid, why didn't you at least be smart enough to give yourself a way to cover it up?"  Now, to be fair to Bannon, he said HE would have called the FBI, he didn't say he wouldn't have taken the meeting, he just would have taken it in some out of the way place.  Bannon called the meeting treasonous and dumb as s***, but he also gave us an insight into how the Republican "Alt-Right" and for that matter, leadership, thinks.  Go get dirt if you can, but find a way to cover it up.  He SAYS he'd have gone to the FBI, sure he would have... does anyone really believe Bannon didn't hear about this afterward?  Why didn't Bannon go to the FBI?  He gave himself and the Republican party's attitude away.  Using a foreign adversary to stick a dagger in a Democrat is perfectly fine, doesn't matter if it's illegal, after all THEY would do it to you (no evidence of that of course), but make sure you can lie about it.

Bannon is more like Trump than he thinks and Trump is a child full of angry fire and petty fury.

Trump a mistake

Seriously,  I have to wonder about whether this picture accurately describes the game plan for the 2016 election.

The reason for my saying this is that Trump's campaign has been described as a clown car in quite a few places (e.g. the Economist).

Now, there is a book out that pretty much cements all the rumours about the Trump campaign. Michael Wolff's, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, claims that Trump was horribly unprepared for the challenge he took on. It seems to me that Trump wasn't supposed to be the winner in the election.

According to this book:

"Shortly after 8pm on Election Night, when the unexpected trend - Trump might actually win - seemed confirmed, Don Jr told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was in tears - and not of joy. There was, in the space of little more than an hour, in Steve Bannon's not unamused observation, a befuddled Trump morphing into a disbelieving Trump and then into a horrified Trump. But still to come was the final transformation: Suddenly, Donald Trump became a man who believed that he deserved to be, and was wholly capable of being, the president of the United States."

On the other hand, Tony Blair commented  about the claims made about him in the book that “This story is a complete fabrication, literally from beginning to end. I’ve never had such conversation in the White House, outside of the White House, with Jared Kushner, with anybody else.”

I have to admit that if Trump's election was a monumental fuck up in that Clinton was supposed to have won, that his election makes serious scrutiny of the Electoral College a must: far more than silly allegations of Russian Interference in the election. 

Any screw ups in the US electoral system are purely home grown: they don't need anyone else to make the system worse.

After all, the Election was framed as a choice between two of the worst possible candidates imaginable.

Murder or self-defence?

Person gets out of a car, or leaves their house, with a loaded gun. There was a stated intent to go after someone who looked "suspicious".

Is it self-defence or murder if the person who "looked suspicious" is killed?

To make it fun, let's use this statute!

Feel free to use this guide to help you come up with something vaguely intelligent should you wish to answer this: open.lib.umn.edu/criminallaw/chapter/4-2-criminal-intent/

BTW, this uses two situations where get away with murder laws were used.  Extra credit for guessing which two situations I am thinking of and their outcomes!

Big Z or Big D? Guess who said it?

As Science Mike said: "Let's not forget that Zaphod was President of the Galaxy even though most thought him a fool."

Anyway, can you guess which person said the quote: Zaphod Beeblebrox or Donald Trump?

Take this quiz for an eye opener! https://www.buildquizzes.com/QFVIMY

If having Trump as President of the Universe United States isn't enough to get people to see the Electoral College is truly outdated, then I don't see much hope.

My whole planet destroyed because you thought someone wanted your autograph!

Trump isn't Hitler: He's Zaphod Beeblebrox!

“His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it.” — Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I didn't really make the connection until someone mentioned this in relation to Oumuamua:

Trillian:  You idiot! You signed the order to destroy Earth!
Zaphod:  I did?
Arthur:  He did?
Trillian:  Love and kisses Zaphod? You didn't even read it, did you?
Zaphod:  Well, I'm president, I don't have a lot of time for reading.
Trillian:  My whole planet destroyed because you thought someone wanted your autograph!

Thinking about it, Douglas Adams describes him as “Zaphod Beeblebrox, adventurer, ex-hippy, good timer, (crook? quite possibly), manic self-publicist, terribly bad at personal relationships, often thought to be completely out to lunch.”  The last bit sounds pretty much like most of the criticism I heard about Trump during the campaign: he was too crazy to win.

Now that he has won: everybody is wondering why he won.  Of course, there isn't too much scrutiny to things like the electoral college, Diebold voting machines, the Democratic party's not being really democratic, etcetera.

No, just sit back and watch the side show while hoping like fuck he doesn't sign the order for Earth's destruction because he thinks someone wants his autograph.

See also:
America Is Being Run by Zaphod Beeblebrox
Donald Trump is Zaphod Beeblebrox
Donald Trump is Zaphod Beeblebrox (different one from above)

What's missing from the Russia Collusion Investigation

Why is no one in the media and this "investigation" talking  to the people who voted for the third parties?

Seriously. It seems that we are being ignored for the duopoly supporters who somehow see the election as being fixed.  Not in the way it was fixed where Hillary Clinton was pretty much the nominee before the voting began with the primary being shown up for the sham process it is, but that is a whole different post.

The e-mails we were told all along weren't an issue have somehow become an issue. That seems to be one of the main points in all this.

Then there is the social media aspect to all this, but most of the social media chatter I was party to pretty much featured people disgusted by Hillary Clinton without having to have anyone else add to the mess. The clip below wasn't set up by Russians, but was Hillary uncensored:


Was Russia behind that?

Hillary Clinton "lost" to Donald Trump in the Electoral College, not in the popular vote, which is a fact that no one seems to be discussing.  On the other hand, that should be front and centre in all this since the Electoral College is supposed to prevent foreign interference in the selection of the chief executive.

The bottom line is that Hillary's campaign which was run on hubris lost to a campaign which has been compared to a clown car.  The problem is that the media isn't looking at the home grown system which led to this disaster but is fixated on "Russian Interference" which would be minimal if it existed at all.

The truth is out there,  but don't expect to see it being discussed in the Main Stream Media.

See also
Was Donald Trump’s campaign too chaotic to pull off a conspiracy?
Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis

Let's play silly buggers.

The Russian influence thing is getting a lot out of hand. I say this because someone tried to say Hillary Clinton has never been under investigation, but Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein are currently.

You kind of wonder what rock this person has been hiding under since Clinton has been under quite a lot of investigation.  The only reason that the insider trading thing didn't result in charges during Whitewater was that the statute of limitations had long passed.  But that is one of many issues that I hope went away: although someone mentioned She might run again in 2020.

PLEASE DON'T!!!

Anyway, the mood of the day is to not try to address the flaws in the US system of elections: in particular the electoral college.

This needs to be hammered into some people's heads before someone truly fucked up wins:

The Fact is Hillary Clinton won the popular vote with 65,853,516 (48.5% votes) to Trump's 62,984,825 (46.4% votes), but lost in the electoral college by receiving 232 (43.1%) of the electoral votes to Trump's 306 (56.8%) votes.

Anyway, the above photo is of Emir Kusterica, a Serbian filmmaker, actor and musician, with Vladimir Putin. You also see the back of Jill Stein's head. The picture has been cropped so that Mike Flynn is not seen at the same table. Kusterica is sitting next to Putin: as opposed to Stein who is a few seats away.

Kusterica starred in the Widow of St. Pierre, along with Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil, FRENCH PEOPLE!!!!

I won't hold Time of the Gypsies against Kusterica.

Let's go full McCarthyism and blame me for not being very patriotic (nationalism isn't my strong suit) and liking French movies. The Widow of St. Pierre is up there on my list of fav films and can be taken as anti-capital punishment (the widow in question is slang for the guillotine).

We can get into the Serb-Russian connection as well. The people at the table could just as well be discussing punk rock. For all we know, Putin could be saying how brilliant he thought Time of the Gypsies was.

Who is who at the table.

 On the other hand, isn't the electoral college supposed to prevent foreign interference in this process (not to mention preventing someone who is dangerous from being president)?

Seriously, Kusterica should be called in for questioning if mere association is enough to charge someone with guilt.

Somehow that seems to me to be a violation of the First Amendment and the right of peaceable assembly.

Anyway, blame is the game of the day in US politics. So don't expect too much for serious matters to be addressed.

See also:

• From Whitewater to Benghazi: A Clinton-Scandal Primer 
• It's time for a special counsel on Hillary Clinton's Russia scandal
• Guess Who Came to Dinner With Flynn and Putin
• Jill Stein Denounces Probe over 'Collusion with Russians'

How America Got Divorced from Reality: Christian Utopias, Anti-Elitism, ...

Just in case you were wondering how we got in this mess.

I'm shocked! Shocked!

People are posting the video of Trump's judicial nominees being questioned and sounding like idiots.

Laci and Philadelphia ADA outside a Court Room in City Hall

No surprise to me.

That's why my blog was named after Laci. Patrick Artur made the comment that Laci had been in more court rooms than Harriet Miers (she had! And I have the proof!). You would be surprised how many judicial candidates have never seen the inside of a court room.

The best story is when I was on conference with the judge and Laci was in the bag under the table in the courtroom!

Another one where the judge saw me running Laci in the park across the street. He knew I had a dog with me, but he wasn't going to ask where she was.

Anyway. this is more of an indictment of US law schools and the legal practise. One of the deans of my US law school actually would say that they didn't have to teach the law: that was the job of the bar review courses! Most of the Judicial candidates I saw were more party loyalists or large donors: most of whom never went into a courtroom in their life.

I know that I don't stand a chance of ever being a judicial candidate, but I have tried jury trials, bench trials, argued motions, etc. I have done these not only in US State and Federal courts, but I have worked in other legal systems.

The problem is that the US legal profession hires the people who graduate top in their class, but that isn't going to provide for the best candidates.  Toss in most people who do get hired find they are worked their asses off in the hope of being made a partner (no longer being an associate).  But US law firms chew people up and spit them out.

I like the system other countries have where someone serves their apprenticeship and then is set out into the workplace.  But that is not how the US legal practise works.  People pass the bar and then go forth to practise law.

Don't take my word for it: there is somebody out there called the Rodent who will pretty much confirm what I am saying. http://www.emplawyernet.com/info/index.cfm

John Anderson Tribute

John Anderson, the independent candidate for President In 1980, died  last week at the age of 95. I wanted to note his passing since I supported him early on, but ended up voting my fear and going with Jimmy Carter.

Carter lost and we had Reagan.

I found it interesting that Reuters quoted his daughter, Diane Anderson as saying her father "really believed the two-party system was broken in 1980. Everything he wanted to prevent unfortunately came to pass."
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/05/568489924/john-anderson-independent-for-president-in-1980-dies-at-95

Marsha Sutton, in a San Diego Tribune Commentary pointed out the similarities to Bernie Sanders:

We understood we were working for a noble cause that exceeded our individual interests. We believed in the magical possibility of breaking from the traditional two-party system in favor of a moderate who spoke the truth with integrity and conviction.

My favorite button features a caricature of Anderson showing only his white hair and the outline of his glasses. The similarity to buttons sported by Bernie Sanders supporters in 2016 is obvious.

Perhaps there is more than a caricature that makes the two similar. It’s not their politics certainly, but the comparison lies in each man’s honest desire to change the established political culture.

A lot of people who denigrated the Sanders campaign neglected that there is a lot of dissatisfaction with the two party system. So, when a candidate who is seen as having integrity comes around he tends to get a lot of attention.

Unfortunately, Anderson was coming from the Republican Party which went on to become fringier and fringier.  Some people like to think that Trump signifies the death of that party while neglecting that there is a website called democraticautopsy.org.

While I like Bernie, his politics, and his attempt to revive the Democratic Party (or expose it for the fraud it is): I don't see myself voting for him or a democratic party line.

I just hope other people wake up to the fact that the US political system has been ill for an incredibly long time.

The slaughter of the innocents (or are you REALLY Christian? Pro-life?)

I am "watching" a show on Christmas Carols and they are discussing songs about the slaughter of the innocents ("The Coventry Carol", Byrd's "Christmas Lullaby", etc.) . Wouldn't the failure of the "pro-gun/pro-life Christians" to address the modern slaughter of the innocents relate to this in some way? I think about this and a modern slaughter of the innocents and the failure to address this by people who call themselves "Christians".

Yes, I am talking about what happened in Connecticut during this season.  And all the other children who die from firearms in the US.

I shouldn't need to explain what this refers to in the gospel.

Come on: have you actually read that book you claim to believe in or are you a bunch of lazy fucks who think they can be "saved" by mere belief and a failure to act on what you claim to believe in?

A "Christian" ex-girlfriend pointed out to me that Christ was pretty emphatic that you needed to ACT in a way consistent with his teaching.

Otherwise you are just one of the Pharisees.

In this case, you can side with Herod and tolerate the slaughter of innocents.

Or you can realise that life is really sacred and that deadly force should indeed be a last resort, only to be used when all other options have been exhausted.

If you side with Christ and are truly pro-life, then you need to abandon the horrible sin that is the "pro-gun" and "gun right" movement since that is what you claim to believe.

Otherwise, you may find out the truth when you arrive at the "last judgement", but hope like fuck that I am wrong.

But, I think things will be very hot for you in your hell.

(Although, I know my "Christian" ex-girlfriend is happy for the time being).