Add Pakistan...

...to the growing number of potential international flash points. 

Stark contrast

Contrasting the new normal, and what was once the norm.

The DC shuffle

Seen the headline?

House Republicans Pass Tax Reform Bill

I wish they'd quit trying to pass off what's being done in Washington as "tax reform." At best, it's a tax shuffling. You might call it a can-kick.

If it's reform, some of it goes the wrong direction. Fewer people will pay any tax at all. Fewer people paying anything at all means a larger pool of people who will vote for stuff knowing someone else will bear the burden of providing it.

They call it more progressive. Are those pushing this learned enough to know it was Karl Marx himself who pushed the idea of progressive income tax?

More questions raised than answered

It's reported Roy Moore hung out at the local shopping mall and high school football games. The allegation is he used such locales as pick-up zones. But these are exactly the kind of places a local aspiring politician would frequent to interact with voters, to have a "face" in the community.

It's also been alleged to be an open secret that Moore dated teenage "girls" in the late '70s, implying validity to the allegation he was a sexual predator. But are we really to believe "everyone" at the courthouse, and in the district attorneys office "knew" Moore was predator, but they said nothing for 40 years, waiting only until less than 30 days before an special U.S. senate election?

Also lost in the telling of the story is the difference in societal norms today versus 40 years ago. What might be deemed innocent flirting circa 1979 (or thereabouts) might be considered sexual harassment today. Also in the late '70s, teens were more mature. Eighteen was seen as being an adult. It was still in an era when many entered the work force right out of high school as opposed to going to college. And yes, many young women (and men) still married shortly after graduating high school. 

I have no personal knowledge of what transpired with Moore in Gadsden, Alabama 40 years ago, but the attacks so far are no slam dunk.

I'm also curious why both Mitt Romney and Mitch McConnell were so quick to publicly profess they  believe the allegations are true. Is there some "dossier" being passed around among GOP establishment? If so, who wrote it, and who paid to have it produced?

Based on the timing, an orchestrated fabricated smear, like those apparently attempted against Donald Trump last year, seems plausible. A rush to judgment by political establishment in DC, with no obvious effort to vet the allegations, should raise more questions than answers.

Meanwhile, in Chicago...

While gun crime gets most the headlines, Chicago has other types of violent crime too.

Groups of high school girls tearing into each other, for instance. 

Government negligence. Government incompetence

"...in what is becoming a common theme in these mass shootings, no amount of background checking would have stopped the shooter in Sutherland Springs, Texas from purchasing his firearms, because the federal government failed to do it’s job properly. It’s not the first time. "

Add this log to the fire...

The military has long been aware of its crime reporting lapses.

How'd that revolution work out, comrades?

Via Twitter:

Nov 7, 1917 - Bolshevik newspaper Pravda promises "Bread! Peace! Land!" #100yearsago pic.twitter.com/D5rZnI3LrL

— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) November 7, 2017

Clerical error

There are those to want to give government ever more control over our lives...

Yet government can't be trusted to handle the basic tasks that go with the control it's already exerted. 

Armed neighbor responded with a rifle

First armed person to engage Sunday's Texas church shooter was a neighbor,  not a police officer or deputy. The civilian intervention disarmed the shooter, may have killed him. 

Story here reads like it was all over by the time police or sheriff's deputies rolled up on the bad guy.

If it was the gunman's intention to strike a second target, it was foiled by alert, armed neighbors willing to put their own lives on the line. 

Zinger

Yes, it's Clinton-specific, but likely also has broader reflection of corruption in establishment politics.

It must suck to hijack your party, steal a nomination, turn the DNC into money laundromat,bury any evidence against you, finance fake dossier on opponent,swipe the debate questions, and promise free everything, and still lose to someone you call incompetent.

— Mark Young (@MarkYoungTruth) November 3, 2017

Abuses and consequences

I pretty much assumed something like this had taken place inside the Democratic Party: Obama hijacked it, ran off much of the party's base, left it broke. Then Hillary came along and doubled down on stripping it to a progressive shell.

Now, damn, along comes Donna Brazile who completely validates my outsider assumptions.

Yet Democrat sheeple were so star-struck by their wizards, they never dared to ponder what was happening behind the backstage curtain.

Republicans, too, have an establishment that runs their party for the establishment's interests, not those of the Republican voter.

This is why we now have a populist president. Voters are tired of selfish oligarchs who betray the people with grave regularity.

Thus far, the establishments with both party have shown no interest in reform, in returning to being entities that represent the will or true interests of the American people. They want a top-to-down government with power concentrated at the top.

The longer political establishment pushes against us, the uglier the reckoning will be when it finally comes.  The system can withstand only so much abuse or corruption before something eventually gives way.

I sometimes ponder the little things

I've love to see the pan used to bake the loaf of bread I bought today.