Thom, Please use your platform to promote the only thing Democrats can do to stop Kavanaugh and our decent into authoritarianism, All Democrats need to boycott all Senate and Congressional proceedings, bringing the government to a halt, until a thorough investigation charges of perjury and sexual assault of Kavanaugh are completed and made available. Non-participation and cooperation by united Democrats will be supported by a large majority of Americans and the press. This is the only way to win against thes Republican bullies who are willing to go outside the system to prevent Obama's nominee and to put in heads of our institutions who's goal is to destroy those agencies. They must stand up and fight and the only way now is to disrupt the system, which is corrupt but much more so under the Republicans. What the Republicans are doing is outrageous and only an outrageous response will do. It is the only way to defeat Kavanaugh and begin to stop our rapid decline into fascism.

How about it DS or Charles West, or even Thom or Louise? I will keep asking this question. Tell all of the posters and readers of this forum how the Trump presidency has personally harmed you. Unless you are an illegal immigrant, I think you will have great difficulty coming up with a response. We all know Trump runs his mouth and says some stupid things. But that's not really harming anyone. You know, the old stick and stones thing. What has he done that is causing you problems?

Come on, please tell everyone how Trump has caused you harm since he took office. Are you making less money now because of the Trump economic policies? Has the value of your property decreased for some reason? Have the Trump tariffs caused you to lose your job? Have you or your family members gone to fight in some Trump war somewhere in the world? Did the Trump secret police come in the middle of the night and raid your home? Oh wait, never mind. I confused him with Mueller.

This should be an easy softball question for everyone considering that Trump is the worst president ever. Right?

As to the Kavanaugh debacle...for the life of me I cannot believe that the dems are not calling for impeachment.

That is, the impeachment of Elena Kagan from the SC. After all, she hired Kavanaugh to teach at Harvard so she is obviously complicit in furthering his career. She must even like and respect him. Oh the humanity. As per the facist democratic party standards, she is guilty by association because she supported this obviously mysoginistic pig. She must be destroyed. The party cannot tolerate any dissent.

Sorry Elena...we hardly got to know ya'!

As usual, you got it backwards. The only goosesteppers in this country are progressives/liberals. Who will do anything and everything as long is it benefits the party? Liberals/progressives. Who doesn't care about the rule of law and due process as long as it benefits the party? Liberals/progressives. Who tries their best to stifle dissent and limit free speech they don't agree with? Liberals/progressives.

As for killing innocents, we already know who leads in that category? Liberals/progressives.

DS is right...facism does work great for the 1% elite as now represented by the democratic facist pary of the US. Just ask Feinstein how its been working for her. Or Obama, or Clinton, or Soros. Its a shame that the democrats have now ceded support for the middle and lower classes to the republicans. And what is even worse is that the rulers of the democratic party don't care. They now like being the party of 1% elite. The modern day dems have now become exactly what they used to despise. Ironic, isn't it?

What has happened to the democratic party in this country?

Kend,

I have spent 22 years in the Hardware Store business and this is what I have observed.

As store manager I did the ordering for the entire store. In the begining products were labled as to what country they were made in. Most electrical items were made in Mexico, plumbing in USA etc. as time went on electrical moved to Vietnam where it was even cheaper to make. That hurt Mexico. Then items starting shifting countries where items were made so quickly that ordering sheets claimed country of origin may vary. After that most came from China. Now when you look around your home almost everything comes from China. Two points....1. When items such as your washing machine was made in USA it lasted a lifetime, now 3 or 4 years, yet with the cheap labor & matierals the price stays the same or higher. Another example would be Nike shoes.

2. The products have become inferior to what we make with the exception of Germanys.

My question is what country that can make it's own necessities (concrete, steel, etc.) would shut them down and turn that security over to another country? and then except an inferior product while losing money do to tariffs?

From my perspective many people didn't vote for Trump because he was Repb or Dem He has been both, but because much of what he wanted to do made sense.

Hi Diane,

She is not a subject that I have followed so Google would be my resource and with a quick glance the only reference I notice refers to her book. I've never paid much attention to Hollywoods contrived BS.

Sorry. Always willing to help where I can though :)

Deep I know you will correct if I am wrong but it looks like Trump tax cut is about 3% for everyone with a minimum tax rate of 10%. With a maximum of about 40%. Not sure what the big fuss is. As to tax fairness, the top 1% pay 27% the top 5% - 46% and the top 10% pay about -60% of the taxes. This seems more than fair. If you don't agree what should those numbers be in your opinion?

The corporate rate went from 35% to 21%. Which I think is smart. Americans where investing in other countries that have much better tax rates. This will help bring investors back to the states. Again if you don't agree give me a number. What should corporations pay?

Do your own homework and dive into the real numbers, Kend, instead of just swallowing the pablum being fed to you by corporate media. There are two economies: for the rich; for everyone else.

Salaries, bonuses, dividends, stock values, shadow-banking investments, high-end real estate, reduced taxes for billionaires -- hey, that economy is doing fantastic! The top ten percent, or so, are partying like there's no tomorrow. Bully for them.

No so much for the bottom ninety percent smothered in staggering debt, especially the bottom half or more. Their economy suffers stagnant wages (adjusted for inflation, stuck at 1970s levels). Even if the working poor are slaving away at two or more jobs, they still can't afford restaurants, vacations, newer cars, decent housing, adequate healthcare, college, retirement, emergencies, daycare, home and vehicle maintenance, etc., etc., etc.

The much ballyhooed tax cuts are primarily for the exclusive rich. The few bones thrown to the unwashed masses are buried by higher insurance premiums, deductibles, and co-pays. Plus, higher inflation on all consumer goods and services is on the rise, which will only get worse if the orange clown keeps waging a fruitless and destructive trade war with China, Europe, Canada, and pretty much the whole world, using caveman, blunt-force trauma rather than an intelligent and well-thought-out approach. Why is that not surprising?

And who will eventually pay for the billionaire tax giveaway that just exploded the deficit yet again? Well, you can bet your ass it won't be them. It'll be everyone else and their kids. So tighten your belts, peasants -- if you have any notches left.

By the way, what you call the "liberal left" is actually the vast majority of the population sitting right smack dab in the middle of the political spectrum, when they're polled strictly on the issues without any political connotations attached. Whereas the Republican agenda, which is always about deregulation of giant monopolies and tax cuts for the obscenely wealthy who own them, is way to the right of mainstream thought. That's what the average polling numbers have consistently demonstrated year after year, so it's a real phenomenon and not just a statistical fluke.

Quotes popularized by Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain): "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." Or another way to look at it: "Figures don't lie, but liars do figure."

You're being lied to, Kend. That's why you continually ask the same questions and never get closer to the understanding you seek. For starters, turn off Fux News, hate radio, and quit reading viral emails and right-wing conspiracy theories on the internet. Then expand your horizons.

"The truth is out there. But so are lies." -- Dana Scully, The X-files.

Great job on this post. Very informative and informational. Thanks for putting this together.

Ken - Wrecker Service Website

@#13: Bam, right out of the gate -- another subtle misrepresentation, then another and another. It's hard to keep up with you, HotMama.

When have I ever said that I favor Democratic billionaires over Republican billionaires? In my humble opinion, we shouldn't have any billionaires at all. Period. Nobody should monopolize that level of personal wealth in an essentially zero-sum economy that expands and contracts. Guess who keeps wealth mostly intact during a contraction and who doesn't.

Billionaire wealth would be much more fruitful left in the economy in the form of higher wages, higher education, healthcare, infrastructure, and welfare for our crippled, aged, or otherwise challenged fellow citizens who are incapable of earning a living but who nonetheless deserve the respect and security accorded any human being, and not to be left homeless on the streets. Plus, all that idle wealth locked away in a sterile digital wasteland could instead help finance a number of other essential domestic infrastructure projects, potentially creating millions of high-paying jobs that would last a long time, which in turn would add revenue to the Treasury and reduce the deficit and debt. What's not to like, unless you're a cranky billionaire?

Our own history proves, as do those of other vibrant democracies with large middle classes, that more investments that stabilize civilian society -- instead of going toward more ships, jets, bombs, and war -- increases middle and lower class wealth in leaps and bounds, invariably leading to a more robust economy and, consequently, to a happier, healthier, more productive population with less poverty, sickness, drug addiction, crime, domestic violence, and divorce.

Ah, but wouldn't that directly challenge the wealth and power and exalted status of the plutocrats? YES! It's called revolution! But at the ballot box instead of the ammo box. Naturally, white-supremacists, fundamentalists, militia types, and aging tough guys dressed in camo with bellies hanging over gun belts (mostly all Republican/Libertarian) would have us choose the ammo box and fight da guvmunt. No! Stupid! (Go back to drinking beers, Bubba. We'll call you when dinner's ready.)

A healthy economy is one based on solid wealth, fairness, and peace, rather than astronomical debt, extreme wealth disparity, and endless, endless warfare. But here we are -- stuck with the by-god real thing: power-mongering plutocrats literally stealing our democracy and economy out from under us, no matter what stripe we happen to wear. Still, hands down, one helluva a lot more billionaires buy Republicans than Democrats. Why?

Haha ...and now, we're back to playing patty-cake, kid games: I'm rubber; you're glue. What you say bounces off me and sticks to you. Speaking of "one-sidedness," check the archives: your periodic renouncements of partisanship appear somewhat feigned, since most of your political commentary is heavily weighted toward pro-Trump/Republican and anti-Democrat/liberal programed talking points that one hears just about everywhere.

See how that works -- the reversal of roles, the one-sidedness? For a once-upon-a-time Democrat, albeit disillusioned, you seem to have contracted a bad case of unconscious bias projection somewhere along your path of evolution, which appears over-generalized when projected onto Democrats, and without solid justification. Anecdotal evidence from your past experiences in California with Feinstein, Governor Moonbeam, or whoever and whatever, doesn't indicate a larger trend nationwide. Time marches on; the world changes.

FYI: I'm more truth v. lie than red/blue, con/lib, Rep/Dem. But it can't be helped that the objective truth about outside events, and the real world beyond one's abstract ideation and unconscious biases, are largely in line with traditional Democratic/progressive/liberal worldviews and platform issues rather than those promoted by modern-day, so-called "conservative" corporatists. Not always of course.

I'm open, but no Republican or Democrat in a primary will ever get my vote, unless: they take anthropogenic climate disruption seriously; they quit advocating for more and more spending for war and less and less for domestic needs; they quit trying to dismantle regulations that are designed to keep the population and environment healthy and economically stable; they quit working for their billionaire donors and start working for you and me and Bobby McGee; they quit trying to suppress the vote; they quit governing as if this was a Christian fundamentalist theocracy based on wackadoodle pseudoscience; they advocate for Medicare for all and for removing the insurance industry choke hold (or at least strengthen Obamacare and rein in the greed of the insurance companies); they advocate for subsidized college, higher taxes on the rich, reduced military spending, higher wages, stronger unions, sane gun laws, and most importantly, for publicly funded political campaigns, banning all other outside money from influencing our political process.

That's for starters, but you get the idea. By the way, those are just some of the issues that long-term polling averages show, depending on which issue, 60-80% of people agree with -- when the questions are framed as generic and don't allude to party affiliation. So, most issues mischaracterized as "left" by corporate media or "far left" by right-wing pundits are actually, it turns out, about as mainstream, mom, and apple pie as they can possibly be. It's the right-wing corporate agenda -- classic fascism -- that's truly on the far right and way out of step with average Americans.

It's pointless going around in aimless circles with you again while the coffee gets cold, as you seem to have a knee-jerk propensity to deflect from key subject matter, to ignore it altogether, or to misrepresent the intent and meaning of opposing viewpoints. I don't know if it's unconscious or not. That's fine, though; long posts delving into issues are hard to absorb. Guess my "dump truck" is just bigger than yours. ;-)

However, for the record, you are ascribing to me, then holding responsible, your own off-topic, cherry-picked issues and biases that you harbor against the "dems," the Clintons, and Obama. This is just a transparent deflection from the present-day reality of a pathological liar and sexual predator, who ain't too bright and is presently lurching around the warrens of the White House breaking things and scaring people. And now this immoral oaf just nominated another demonstrable liar and alleged sexual predator to sit on the Supreme Court for life.

BUT, we're all suppose to travel down dead-end paths with HotCakes as a way to deflect from what's going on right in front of our eyes with today's power players deciding the world's fate, as we speak. Additionally, the whole Obama cage thing, whatever, is debunked and misguided on many fronts, sinking nowhere near the depth of depravity of Trump's border policy -- a travesty of justice that the UN, the Pope, as well as most of humanity, have condemned as criminally immoral. But let's face it, the primary problem of immigration is that Republicans don't know how to rule and can't come up with a comprehensive immigration-reform bill that would be agreeable to both legislative bodies and the White House. Meanwhile, we have a dysfunctional, xenophobic bigot with a delusional border-wall fetish trying to kick start what would become the biggest boondoggle in American history ...and that's saying a lot!

BTW, I've condemned Bill Clinton repeatedly back in the day for his sexual transgressions and patronizing behavior toward women and unwanted touching, exposing himself, lying, etc.. (Nonconsensual rape was never proven, however.) He's certainly not my guy to defend. But you know what? It's been adjudicated ad nauseam; it's over; the Clintons and the Obama's are no longer on the stage. There's nothing more that anybody can add or subtract, say or do, to change a damn thing. It's past the time to move on and up to present-day realities, which are becoming more and more dire each passing moment.

Now, if you don't follow HotCakes' pet peeves and go down her random rabbit holes, suddenly you're a hypocrite. How dare thou hypocrite not anticipate which hole to go down before daring to opine about the main topic. If you follow such "logic" a little further, however, that would mean one would have to write several paragraphs of Democrat/Clinton/Obama back history, complete with explanations and qualifications and footnotes of this that and everything, before daring to point out any of Trump's repulsive behavior or the abrogation of principles by the current Republican circus of clowns.

Screw that; it's easier to be a hypocrite! And aren't my submissions long enough without qualifying them with a load of Clinton and Obama crap that doesn't pertain to current events, just because you hate them and think they make a good fallback counterargument for, well, just about any political topic? Okay, okay, we all get it!

"I could go on and on but the hypocracy [sic] is obvious."

Indeed.

Alas, another item can be added to The List of Things to do with Used Tea Bags.