Turns out Donald Trump is a Bigoted Blowhard......Who knew?

While the moral arc of history may bend toward justice, the political arc of the Republican party appears to bend toward stupid. * * * * * * * * * * Republicans have been developing a strategy re. Planned Parenthood: "On this Planned Parenthood thing, let's make up a bunch of phony crap, spread it around like crazy, then concoct some desperate and will never work plan to shut down the government unless the Democrats defund half a billion in women's health programs, piss everybody off and make absolutely no difference before we capitulate and look really stupid. All in favor, vote aye. Motion carried." ** * * * * * * Bobby Jindal said he'd be okay with a Muslim President if he would swear on the Bible to uphold the Constitution. Um, Bobby................ * * * * * * * * * * Scott Walker announced he is dropping out of the Presidential race today so he can devote himself full-time to f****** over Wisconsin school teachers and social workers. "I've neglected making life miserable for school teachers and children for too long now in my quest for higher office," he said. "I pledge myself now with even more vigor and energy to making things even worse for Wisconsin in every way I can think of. You think Kansas is a basket case? You just wait. We're going to make Kansas look like a socialist paradise." * * * * * * * * Dr. Ben Carson shared his opinion that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was inspired by Satan. * * * * * * * * Chris Christie gave the head of the New Jersey National Guard 90 days to lose weight...... You can't make this stuff up. * * * * * * * ** Turns out Donald Trump is a bigoted blowhard. Who knew? * * * * * * * * * * Pope Francis visited Washington DC and New York City. Donald Trump demanded to see Pope Francis' birth certificate. "I've heard he may be a secret Muslim," Trump said. "I'm not saying he is, but I've heard that. I've sent the same crack team of detectives I sent to Hawaii to the Vatican to get to the bottom of this. The question we want answered is 'Is the Pope Catholic?' He seems more like an Episcopalian to me....." * * * * * * * * Several Republican Congressmen and Supreme Court Justices did not attend the Pope's address to Congress: "When we said we wanted more religion in government we didn't mean that 'feed the poor and take care of the sick' crap. We meant 'be mean to gays and lesbians' and stuff like that," they said. "Who does that guy think he is anyway, the Pope?" * * * * * * * * * Apparently about one-third of Iowa Republicans want to increase religious freedom and outlaw Islam at the same time. I don't think religious freedom is what they actually have in mind. * * * * * * *Breaking News - John Boehner to quit Congress. "Under my watch, the Republican caucus has become a fetid, corrupt, dysfunctional, roiling mass of lunacy. My work here is done," he said. * * * * * * * * * Yogi Berra died at age 90. Always quotable, Yogi once said "Half the lies told about me aren't true." He also said, ""Love is the most important thing in the world. But baseball is pretty good, too." And while I'm at it, I'd like to clarify my editorial policy with another quote from Yogi I made up - "I only make up true things."

"He kept us safe"

I wasn't planning to do any G. W. Bush bashing this week, but Jeb's assertion in the other night's Rebublican debate that his brother George "kept us safe" was too much. His Presidency's first year ended with the 9-11 attacks and his last year ended with the worst economic crash in 60 years. In between were two disastrous wars which destabilized forever the middle east leading to Iran's ascendancy and the emergence of even more radical jihadists than ever throughout the region. There a growing list of countries that GWB and Dick Cheney must avoid at risk of arrest for war crimes charges. In between was a combination of spending for two wars with money borrowed from China and tax breaks for billionaires which led to exploding annual budget deficits. Okay. Okay. Okay. Enough of that. * * * * * * * * Back to the debates: My take away from the debate Wednesday night is that Republicans are tired of smart people who know stuff, they don't like gay people, minorities, or women, they want to eliminate the IRS, screw the environment, build a giant wall at the Mexican border and have Mexico pay for it, have a military ten times larger than it is now and make Sweden pay for it, give more tax breaks to billionaires, kick out all foreigners, take away people's health insurance, prohibit Muslim kids from making clocks, make everything great and tremendous, have the entire world be afraid of us, and have fewer vaccinations. * * * * * * * *Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner today called for a ban on clock building by Muslim teenagers. "I have the support of the entire Republican House membership. And most of their watches are made in China with the exception of a few Rolexes," he said. "We can't have Muslim teens making electronic stuff ----- look at Iran." * * * * * * * In other news, Tom Brady announced his support for Donald Trump: "His balls are fully inflated," Brady said. * * * * * * * Operation Jade Helm came to an end. Texas Freedom Fighters claimed victory against the United States. * * * * * * * * * * Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees are escaping the carnage in their country and straining the ability of European countries to help. * * * * * * * * "The difficulty is," explained President Obama, "that it's an unholy alliance of disparate and competing factions - religious zealots who want to impose their beliefs on others, narcissistic egomaniacs only interested in themselves, anarchists who just want to tear the government down, plutocratic cabals secretly pulling strings behind the scenes, corporate interest in mountains of money, and the old guard clinging to power-- and no one appears to be in charge. It's a free-for-all with no leadership and every one of the factions pursuing its own narrow self-interest no matter the damage to the nation. It's really a difficult situation with a great deal at stake." "So, what's the way out of this Syrian mess, then?" a reporter asked. "Syria?" the President said. "Hell, I was talking about the Republican Party."

Weekly Lunatic Report

Republican Upate: Bobby Jindal called Donald Trump an "unstable narcissist." Mike Huckabee thinks slavery is still the "law of the land." Donald Trump made fun of Carly Fiorina's face. Ted Cruz looked like an idiot trying to butt in on the Kim Davis press conference. Jeb Bush wants to cut rich people's taxes some more. Marco Rubio is now invisible. More Bridgegate scandal from Chris Christie's New Jersey hit the news. Ben Carson looks bewildered by it all. Scott Walker won't answer questions about the past or the future. Rand Paul is still an idiot. Bobby Jindal is still stupid. At an anti-Iran rally, Michele Bachmann called for the "peaceful" bombing of all of Iran's nuclear facilities. Sarah Palin, not running, said something about pink kaleidoscopes and unicorns, but nobody could figure out what it meant. * * * * * * * I do have a suggested campaign slogan for Ben Carson - "Hey, Being President Ain't Brain Surgery!" * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Finally, Republicans, who ended their first year in the White House in 2001 watching the Twin Towers fall on 9-11, botched their mission in Afghanistan before diverting their attention to attacking Iraq based on a campaign of lies, leaving Iran as the power center in that region, began with a budget surplus and saddled Barack Obama with a trillion dollar budget deficit they blamed him for, caused the worst recession since the Great Depression, and nearly destroyed the US economy, are getting all frothy in the mouth about which email Hillary Clinton used when she was Secretary of State. A little perspective would go along ways here. * * * * * * * * Nebraska football - I went to the opener with my son in Lincoln v. Brigham Young University. How can a bunch of Mormon kids win a game on a Hail Mary pass? This rocks my theologic understanding of college football. What a let down in that last second. There's a new statistic in Nebraska football: games that Bo Pelini would have won. New stat: W - 0 L - 1 GTBPWHW - 1.

I'm just saying..............

When Donald Trump was asked a question about the Quds he thought the questions was about the Kurds and replied that he liked cottage cheese. And a Washington Post investigation revealed that Donald Trump cheats at golf.... I saw where Donald Trump said Jeb Bush should speak English. I wish he would say the same of Sarah Palin. Jeb Bush's desperate attempt to do the right thing in speaking Spanish to Spanish speaking people may backfire......that is not the Republican way. "By a significant majority, Trump’s supporters consist of the relatives you’ve been forced to block on Facebook..."-Andy Borowitz. * * * * * * * I just saw a report that the Pope was getting new glasses, but what happens if the Pope reads the Synoptic Gospels while wearing bifocals? Has anyone thought of that? This is potentially frightening, like those physicists creating tiny black holes in their giant accelerators. Or putting matter and anti-matter together in a phone booth just to see what happens. * * * * * * The unemployment rate fell to 5.1% - outraged Republicans vow to fight. * * * * * * * Re. the Kentucky county refusing to issue gay marriage licenses - "Since when does the Supreme Court interpret what is the law of the land?" asked one Republican.............. Um, could be June 21, 1788...... You guys could look it up, you know. It's weird that the same folks who are backing that Kentucky county clerk's refusal to issue marriage licenses to gay couples because of "religious freedom," are the ones who freaked out about Sharia Law a while back........and they seem oblivious to the inherent contradictions of their thinking. I'd like to see fewer people outraged that Kim Davis can't discriminate against people lawfully seeking a wedding license -- and more people outraged that dead children are washing up on the shores of the Aegean Sea.* * * * * * * It's not easy living in a universe devoid of meaning -- I'm just saying. * * * * * * * Congress is demanding anohter investigation into the banality of Hillary Clinton's email. "Where's the drama? Where's the intrigue? We've been promising scandal and deceit and we get all this boring sh**. None of these thousands and thousands of emails were even classified....... Recipes? Are you kidding me? Invites to drinks after work? Jokes about Republicans? Wha? We must get to the bottom of these totally boring emails. The lack of scandal is scandalous." All those Congressional investigations are like hard candy: they taste so sweet, but the longer the Republicans suck on them, the smaller they get until they just disappear. * * * * * * On working on my syllabi for my two classes, I have noticed that because Monday is Labor Day, classes start on Tuesday. In addition to that, my Comp II class is T/Th and my Comp I class is M/W. So I will have two Comp II classes next week, the first of which is on the first day of the quarter and the second day of the week and only one Comp I class, which comes the day after my first Comp II class, which is the second day of the quarter and the third day of the week. My normally perceived metaphoric and autonomic conceptual framework in which time order synchronically parallels pedagogic scholastic hierarchic reality is already upended. Oh my. * * * * * * * It seems to me that the odds of there being no other life in the universe are astronomical. * * * * * * * And finally, regarding the controversy of renaming Mount McKinley as Mount Denali: why would you name a mountain after a car anyway?