Diane,

After reading all these lefties rant, one can only draw the obvious conclusion.

They are all unhinged and still can not accept the election results of some 10 months ago.

Thom, when did Pres Trump single out black football players?

K2

If a so called "Christian" who has his own Christian evangelical spiritual multi-millionaire advisors who is leading a so called "Christian Nation" was soo easily offended one would think that since the entire economy is based on things that the Bible specifically teaches against: wall street worshiping the golden calf - gambling, war profiteering death and destruction, and p*ssy grabbing; that those would be on the top of the list of items disparaging the country and flag, not moment of silence praying or kneeling during the national anthem.

Hopefully we will see how many professional full time black Racecar drivers dare to go against the ultimatum issued to them by the owners! How many are there again? Oh the dire consequences that all the racecar drivers may face.

The NFL was paid by the defense department since 2009 to have their team members out on the field for the national anthem. That's how phony they have become.

As far as Puerto Rico goes, Trump reacted slowly because he supports corporate privatization after the storm. The Puerto Rican national power company made a lot of money and now is crippled. Easier prey for "power" hungry corporate moguls. So Trump cannot fix Puerto Rico because he would be interfering with potential profit making.

As Bob Dylan said, "Money doesn't talk, it swears....."

Congratulations are certainly in order for the great state of Alabama! "Evolution my ass! We'll show those Darwinists a thing or two! Hell, were agoin' back in time! Next stop, THE MIDDLE AGES!!!"

Trump is thinking about displaying The Ten Commandments on all his hotels. Only with the word "Not" removed. After all, wouldn't want to run off all his Republican buddies.

}:--))))

}:--))))

}:--))))

deepspace: Good point about our original template being improved upon by others. Look at Canada, once a country of displaced Tories and submissive French loyal to George III. Geeez zoom ahead from the 18th century to now. They have a real national healthcare plan...we don't ...! And we won the war..LOL

That is the only politically wise choice remaining in the time left before the next few, absolutely critical election cycles. It takes way too long and way too much money to build a complete, separate, and viable third party under our current system.

The rest of the world's democracies have improved upon our original template with much more people responsive and less corruptible parliamentary systems. We just have to make do with what we have until there's enough momentum to amend the Constitution to ensure equal treatment for all parties and that gives each a fighting chance.

Spot on 2950-10K!

(Haha -- me too. I'll hit the edit button again to put the posts in the right chronological order again, hopefully.)

I too adamantly reject the notion that "economic populism" alone got Trump elected! Pardon another long rant, but all the knee-jerk Clinton bashing in the last thread piqued my Irish ire. Wanna talk culture wars and elections? Okay, goddamnit, let's do it!

"The [trolls] doth protest too much, methinks." As the hurricane of shrieking banshee Hillary Haters makes landfall on this tiny island of sanity, it's important to keep a few things straight:

First: Trump the Liar was not "elected" by the People; he was appointed by a non-democratic, three-bank-shot system of elite "electors," belonging to an overly cumbersome institutional relic from the bygone days of slavery. Hillary won the People's vote by a huge margin, hands down!

Had the votes of millions more not been literally stolen in the key states by Republican secretaries of state (Interstate Crosscheck, caging, etc.) and Republican legislatures (phony voter ID laws), she also would have been appointed by the Electoral College by an equally huge margin.

And that's not taking into account Fux News wall-to-wall conspiracy propaganda, James Comey, the Russian attack, faulty and easily hacked voting machines, the lavishing of taxpayer money on the polling infrastructure in Republican districts to make the voting experience fun and easy with more flexible hours of operation, shorter lines, better machines, and more poll workers while skimping in heavily Democratic districts in every way possible -- turning the beating heart of democracy into a fecking nightmare of intimidation and suppression!

For the longterm health of an actual functioning democracy, what the hell is wrong with enacting national legislation to register voters automatically upon reaching eighteen, or otherwise gaining citizenship through the legal immigration process, and to make voting a right, mandatory, with paper ballots, and Election Day a paid holiday (perhaps in lieu of Columbus Day, which asks us to celebrate a genocidal maniac)? Ah, but paranoid Republicans don't want everybody to vote. They never did:

"So many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome: good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. [Republican] Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." -- Paul Weyrich (No really; that's his name.)

Second: Despite Republican circle-jerks (and principled but politically naive true believers on the left) who can cite libraries full of baseless accusations and sexist and/or partisan innuendo disseminated across every possible media platform over almost three decades, and in view of the fact that she (for that most unspeakable crime of being Bill's wife) is probably the most investigated politician in modern U.S. history, by every government and non-government entity imaginable, nothing has ever stuck, much to the chagrin of those who seek to divide and conquer any resistance whatsoever to fascistic Republican one-party rule or to their cartoonish wannabe dictator.

No honest investigative journalist (Yes, they do exist.), no properly credentialed charity foundation watchdogs or ethics organizations, no congressional committee (taxpayer millions and millions wasted!), not the State Dept., Homeland Security, military intelligence, NSA, CIA, FBI, nor any other alphabet soup agency, has ever -- ever -- found any credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing by one Hillary Rodham Clinton. N-O-T-H-I-N-G !

Why is that? Did all of the above willingly jeopardize their hard-won careers by not doing their jobs, in some grand conspiracy? Did all that partisan crap, so-called "evidence" just slip through the cracks of justice? ("Oh, if we could only conduct just one more investigation, it'll all come out!") Are "Hellary" and "Billoney" master criminal geniuses who have somehow outsmarted everyone on the planet except, of course, all those greater geniuses who peruse tabloids at checkout stands, cruise the right-wing bubblesphere, watch Fux News, listen to Republican hate radio, and attend Trump rally lovefests?

"Lock her up!" Sputtering indignation aside, where's the beef? Please, please, please, all you Hillary-hating trolls, do not do the following on this blog (Your talking points are as stale as the fries under my driver's seat.): Go into your quiet room, grab pen and paper, and draw a line down the center. On one side, list all the accusations hurled against this much maligned and scorned women; on the other side, list all the provable evidence of her criminal behavior. If you are intellectually honest and do objective research, you will soon discover that while one column remains totally blank, the other one will require several reams of paper.

Does that mean she is a perfect saint? Hell no! But neither is any other Washington D.C. player, including Bernie (my first choice). To her detractors, she is nothing but another power-hungry hardball politician climbing the ladder; to her supporters, she is one smart cookie with a good heart, who nonetheless knows how to take names, kick butt, and get things done.

She is both. Just like every other Democratic politician who hangs around for any length of time and builds a record, she made a lot of mistakes; she did a lot of good; she doesn't deserve to be singled out in such a vicious, beyond-the-pale fashion. Unfortunately for the haters, she is a survivor and will not STFU (as stated yesterday) and go quietly into the night like a good little mousy woman. You go, girl!

So, let's put her colleagues, especially every swinging-dick Republican asshole, through the same decades-long wringer and see how well those goddamn hypocrites hold up. It wouldn't even be close.

In fact, let's subject the (very provable) sexist, racist, lying, cheating, emotionally unstable, violent, egomaniacal sack of junk-food fat, installed as head clown, to a fraction of the same scrutiny and watch him melt into a twittering, whimpering, steaming pile of puss and sh*t before our very eyes. Oh wait, that's already happening -- go Robert Mueller; drill, baby, drill! (Sure, that's a harsh description, but what part behind the colorful descriptors, prey tell, is inaccurate?)

So yeah, given a choice, in the general election anyway, between one of the most qualified politicians in America (and one of the most beloved and respected women in the world (notwithstanding good ol' boy Ameerkkka) and a corrupt buffoon who couldn't find his fat ass with both hands ...well, it's no choice at all. Alas, our pet trolls, to no avail, will still try to justify the unjustifiable -- their Trump vote -- into their graves. Sometimes politically entrenched attitudes won't change until a new generation of voters rises from the ashes. The sooner the better!

Third, I wholeheartedly agree with Thom: It's way past the time for true liberals and progressives to bury the hatchet, put 2016 behind them, and come together to defeat the forces of fascism now arrayed mightily against them. As the phony "third-way" corporate Democrats would have us believe, this absolutely does not mean to sit around the campfire and sing Kum ba yah with Republican reprobates -- the main perpetrators of the latest crimes against humanity, that pure evil emanating from on high. Quite the opposite, the reality of politics is war by different means, where two distinct "sides" battle it out, hopefully nonviolent. On some levels compromise is good; on other levels it is nothing more than appeasement and defeat.

Principles matter. Thus, take a knee during the racist national anthem, whether you're a football player or not.

The world is burning, so fight on we must! Time is short.

Trump ran as a fake economic populist????? Oh yes, the slippery slope of semantics. Trump is low level member of the Fascist establishment, with zero economic populism in his soul.

Economic Populism: "The political doctrine that supports the rights and powers of the common people in their struggle with the privileged elite."

Democratic Socialism is economic populism. Crooked Donny lied to the gullible in an attempt to get elected and nothing more... his intent was never to serve the economic interests of we the people.

Thom, Trump's lies didn't get him elected, not even close....election fraud installed him.

The entire Kochpublican Party represents the establishment the red states think they voted against.

The religious nut running for the Senate from Alabamastan is a great example of this...he's thinks he's anti-establishment, LMAO. He's actually playing right into the billionaires hands. Keep the red states voting against their own best economic interests by throwing them God and Guns meat.

No disrespect!

I thought money was paid to African chiefs for the sale of their own brothers

Not only to white men either

A lot of African people were sold into slavery to the East long before the West

Let me get this straight. Kneeling for prayer is acceptable and good. Kneeling for the National Anthem is blasphemous. Explain the difference and the reasons why?

I am waiting for a schedule or time that it is okay for blacks to protest white supremacy. Otherwise it is objectionable anytime. Also do we really need to do the National Anthem at sporting events. It is not done at golf tournaments. Numerous other events. Is it just a marketing tool?