Is the electorate this dumb?

       In the wake of a new bunch of swing state polls showing tRump ahead of Biden with less than 6 months remaining before the election I think it is fair to ask if the children is learning, to steal a phrase from the Shrub.

      Thanks in part to the compartmentalization of the media, as much as half the voters live in a media bubble inflated by the likes of Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, and other fact free news sites.  In this bubble, crime is rampant, the economy is imploding most Democrats live in an urban hellscape and illegal immigrants are bankrupting the country.   Oh, and Joe Biden is a senile tool of George Soros and at the same time a criminal mastermind.

       If you can hold all of this in your head without it exploding, you are probably a tRump voter.  They  may or may not be dumb, but their decision about who to vote for this November will probably decide the fate of our democracy.   Is the children learning, indeed.

Stupidity hurts

      In the furor surrounding the tRump hush money trial, the everyday stupidity we are being subjected to by House Republican is mind numbing.  They recently voted on the "Hands off our home appliances Act'' which would prohibit the Department of Energy from setting energy efficiency standards on washing machines, refrigerators, etc.   All in the name of "freedom".

     The GOP has fallen into the abyss of crazy and seems determined  to drag the rest of us down with them...

Knowing what's important

      Palestinians are dying by the hundreds, Sudanese by the thousands and Russians and Ukrainians continue to kill each other.  However, I'm sure a majority of Americans were tuned into the ''hush money" trial of Donald tRump yesterday as Stormy Daniels, aka Stephanie Clifford testified about her one night stand with the disgraced, twice impeached ex president in 2006.

     The details were salacious, as advertised, and by Ms. Daniels' account of the encounter flirted with a sexual assault accusation.  tRump was described as "blocking" Daniels' ability to exit the room.  However, she described the sex as consensual, albeit marked by an imbalance of power.  The clear question being posed to the national audience was do you really want this gross pig of a man to be the most powerful person in the world?  while the title of this post is somewhat tongue in cheek, the question remains.

Israelis and Netanyahu

        It looks increasingly like the IDF will assault the city of Rafah sometime this week.  The acceptance by Hamas of a peace plan seems to have caught Bibi Netanyahu by surprise, but he and his ''war cabinet'' reacted swiftly by rejecting the plan brokered by the Egyptians and Qataris with some speciously Orwellian word salad. Netanyahu needs this war to avoid prosecution for his many crimes and the deaths of thousands of Palestinians are a price he is more than willing to pay,  Meanwhile, Biden and Blinken continue to wring their hands as if they are doing everything possible to rein in the Israelis.  It's Kabuki theater on steroids.

Status Quo

        Sam Alito is a monarchist.  If confronted with evidence showing his hatred of democracy, he would staunchly deny it.  Magically sent back in time to the 1770's, Alito would have been a Tory and probably the owner of some of Clarence Thomas' ancestors.  

      There has been a strain of anti-democratic feeling in this country dating back to the theocratic leanings of the pilgrims.  Rarely has it been so obvious as it has over the last 40 plus years dating back to the Reagan years.   Fully 30% of American voters would be in favor of an authoritarian government with a dictator in the presidency.   Virtually all of them are coincidentally tRump voters.  As Ben Franklin might have said, '' Nice little democracy you have here.  Think you can keep it?"

Deja vu one more time

     For baby boomers in our mid to late 70's, the pro and anti Palestinian protests taking place on college campuses this year call to mind the anti Vietnam war protests in the late 60's.   However, instead of the big three (CBS, NBC and ABC) and the print media being the last word in news coverage of the protests, social media is where most people get their information.  

     Much like the Black Lives Matter movement, the Gaza war protests are fueled by amateur news providers armed with i phones and a Tik Tok app.   The images being shown to the world underline the callous indifference of the IDF to the suffering they are causing among the civilian population.  Yet there seems to be little or no acknowledgement among the protestors of the horror of the October attack on innocent Israeli citizens.  Unlike the Vietnam protests which split the country, the Gaza protests seem to me to be background noise except to those directly involved.  

      To the protestors today, their cause is all consuming.  It remains to be seen if the rest of the country feels that way.

Believe it or not

        Kevin Drum has  an interesting take on the conservative case for Donald tRump for president.   While both conservatives agree the Republican tax cut in 2017 was perhaps Cheeto Jesus' biggest if not only accomplishment, Drum provides a laundry list of "accomplishments'' often cited by conservatives as reason to re-elect this buffoon.

        Among these supposed accomplishments were a ban on travels to majority muslim countries, canceling the Iran nuclear deal, pulling out of the Paris environmental accords, fighting to cancel Obamacare, appointing conservative judges and on and on.   Most of this is tongue in cheek on Drum's part, but liberals can ignore the list at their peril.  Real people, including many of your neighbors actually believe this stuff and plan to vote according to it.