Bullhornymous

So Trump has forced the GOP to return to its pre-existing condition - wanting to deny health care to the poor. With his Justice dept overnight turning 180 degrees and supporting the lawsuit to destroy Obamacare, and Trump declaring that the GOP will be known as the party of great health care, he has put Turtle McConnell on the spot.  Having just got battered in an election mainly becaue of health care, the GOP would rather not touch this with a 10 foot pole. But they are afraid to criticize Dotard too. So McConnell  said he is waiting to see Trump’s plan. But as the Votemaster brilliantly put it, the next time that the Donald comes up with a plan that requires more than 280 characters to communicate will be the first time. (There is also a bigger issue here of the Justice dept becoming just a political, biased body. But I suppose Americans are so used to the rule of law breaking down that that is hardly noticed.) The reversal apparently happened after a heated debate where tea p

And so we march on into Brexiternity. The full farce of British democracy was on view as Parliament voted on 8 (Eight!!!!???) possible alternatives to May’s deal, and all of them came short. At this late stage, for plenty of MPs, the party is still more important than country. Here the full list, in order of For votes (there were plenty of abstentions, which is why totals are far apart). I won’t go into what each option means, as it would be like writing a new version of Shakespeare ‘s Complete Works. Brexit vote options              For          Against Public vote                           268             295 Customs Union                    264             272 Labour plan                          237             307 Common Market 2.0           188              283 Cancel Brexit                       184              293 No deal Brexit                      160              400 Standstill agreement          139              422 EFTA and EEA                      

Yes, yes, I know I have not written an update on the Dem horse race for 2020 for some time, but with so much going on one has to pick and choose. Brexiternity? Mueller report? Destroying the Fed?  Upcoming Indian elections? Upcoming EU elections? China’s Belt and Road smooching with Italy? French jaunes gilets? Return of negative interest rates? It just breaks the narrator’s rhythm. Additionally, arguably more important than all of that, Bordeaux 2018 is about to be shown in barrel to critics, and 2016 in bottle has just hit the physical market with rave reviews. I am also browsing through a couple of interesting books about the Rothschilds, and will come back to that some time. The acquisition of Bordeaux legends Mouton-Rothschild and Lafite-Rothschild are only minor footnotes in the history of the legendary family, which at the end of the 19th century, could well have had a greater share of worldwide income and assets than any other family, tycoon, king, kaiser  or maharaja in histo

Devin Nunes, former House Intelligence Committee chief and the great kisser of Dotard’s (insert body part) has sued Twitter and 3 of its users for $ 250 million for insulting him without reason. Two of the users are @DevinNunesMom (which has been suspended by Twitter) and @DevinCow, which could not be suspended as it lacked content that broke the rules. Though a politician, Devin comes from a farming family. But the lawsuit resulted in @devincow going  from around 1000  followers to 148000 followers in 1 day (and increasing). When I woke up this morning, it was 285000 followers. Probably the fastest follower growth among non-celebrities. Whoever is behind that should make a donation to Nunes’ campaign account. Going from a nobody to a hefty number of followers. Heck, he could now make a fortune with a blog. The third account was that of Liz Mair, a Never Trump GOPer and former GOP Communications person. With her background, she tried to raise donations for her defense from he

Well, you know how much of a joke Brexit has become when the Dutch PM compares poor Theresa May to a Monty Python character. “Look, I have every respect for Theresa May,” Rutte said in an interview with the Dutch broadcaster  WNL  on Sunday. “She reminds me occasionally of that character from Monty Python where all the arms and legs are cut off but he then tells the opponent: ‘Let’s call it a draw.’ She’s incredible. She goes on and on. At the same time, I do not blame her, but British politics.” That was a priceless scene from  Monty Python and the Holy Grail , but the #BrexitMayhem is showing that truth can be funnier than fiction. I have lost track of the number of things the UK Parliament has voted on, sometimes for, sometimes against, sometimes for and against, sometimes for or against, sometimes for and/or against, sometimes.......just mayhem. They can now go on to vote that England must win the  World Cup, the Ashes, the 6 Nations (oops, they just lost that one), the

Another big Brexit day coming up - the final “meaningful vote” on May’s deal tomorrow. At that point we are down to 17 days left. After losing the last vote on her deal by over 200 votes, her strategy has been to effectively threaten both sides. Threaten the hard Brexiteers that its either her deal or staying in the EU. Threaten the Remainers that its either her deal or a disastrous no-deal crash out. So for all groups involved, its an intense variation on the famous Prisoner’s Dilemma. As of writing, it looks that it may work on the hard Brexiteers, large numbers of whom may be inclined to support the deal as they fear any delay could lead to a second referendum, and the uncertainty that brings. But will that be enough? If she does pull it off, all the experts who predicted that May had no control over the issue would have to eat their words. However, I still doubt that she can get enough Remainers to vote for her deal to get it over the line. One can only be amused at those

“The entire world is cheating us and laughing at us.” “Obama is running a trade deficit of half a trillion dollars. Other countries are laughing while they take our money”. “Only I can fix it”. So spoke the moron-in-chief as he promised to reduce and eliminate America’s trade deficit. Informed people knew he was just spouting b.s., just like his b.s. of eliminating the debt. In any case, most economists would not see a trade deficit as something bad as such. Nevertheless, his Trumpkins believed him. Mr. Tariff Man said “Trade wars are so easy to win”. Well, well, when the trade deficit ballooned by 40 billion in 2017, he could say still that it was Obama’s fault, and his own policies (tariffs) needed to sink in. And now the 2018 numbers are out, and the trade deficit of $621 bn exceeds Obama’s by 100 bn. Okay, he always said he could do much better than Obama. Even worse (or better), the goods deficit, which is what he railed about the most, reached 891 bn, the highest in history. Ye

The annual gathering of the world’s biggest collection of bigots and racists, also known as CPAC, took place last week. Speaker after speaker for 4 days, churning out their bigotry and racism, and roared on by a crowd who couldn’t get enough of it. The highlight was a 2 hour+ speech by Dotard, rambling on, about 1 hr 59 mins of b.s. with a few seconds here and there of sense. Would be funny, if this wasn’t the President of the United States, rabble rousing like dictators of the past, an absolute throwback to Hitler and Mussolini. More than 100 lies in those 2 hours, but plenty of red meat to get the rabble in the Colosseum aroused. This is unfortunately what 40% of America has come to. Wolves howling for blood in the wild. Thugs claiming to stand up for family values and religion. There was Jerry Falwell Jr, head of what he calls the biggest Christian University in the world, saying that God wanted a philandering, thrice married racist and liar to be the President, or he wouldn’t be.

As I wrote earlier, there is a Trump Tweet for everything. Many are years old, some like the one below, just a few days old. “So funny to watch people who have failed for years, they got NOTHING, telling me how to negotiate with North Korea. But thanks anyway!” Ha, ha, ha, so funny, Donny. Who looks like a failed moron now. ————— Wow - they don’t look happy on that first picture above. More like boxers before the fight.... Trump and Pompeo were lowering the bar every day, but they couldn’t even meet those lowered expectations. That’s what happens when you just wing it - and no  preparation has been done. Love letters are not enough..... Dotard said he was “walking away” from the talks. They probably failed because he was hurting from his bone spurs. This was Vietnam after all. So maybe he didn’t walk away, but had to be carried off, as though they had really boxed after that picture above. And not even a kiss on parting.....So much for those love letters. Then came t