'Second Amendment Remedies' Are Back In Style

Opinion | thepilot.com

Hey, look! “Second Amendment remedies” are back!

You may remember that charming little catchphrase from the 2010 campaign of tea party-backed Senate candidate Sharron Angle of Nevada.

She told a radio host that “if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying, ‘My goodness, what can we do to turn this country around?’”

Nice, huh? Sort of like saying, “Nice democracy you got there. Be a real shame if anything happened to it.” Angle’s thinly veiled threat of armed insurrection was a major reason she got her hat handed to her by Harry Reid.

But you just can’t keep the Revolution down, it seems, because nothing gets the “Real America’s” juices flowing like threatening armed revolt against the United States if they don’t get their political way.

This past Tuesday, in Wilmington, N.C., Russian-backed sleeper agent and Republican nominee Donald Trump decided to throw in his lot with the insurrectionists: “If (Clinton) gets to pick her judges,” he said, “nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”

Now, to be fair, he may not have been talking about an armed uprising. He may have just been talking about shooting Clinton in the head. You know, watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants and all.

And to think just the day before, the hacks of our so-called liberal media were falling all over themselves to talk about Trump’s pivot to being “more presidential” because he managed to get through a prepared economics speech without insulting the family of a dead hero or kicking a baby out of the hall. A day later, he’s going full Cliven Bundy.

We all know where it plays out from here, of course. Trump, the guy who his supporters love because he says what he means, will insist he didn’t mean what he said. (Hat tip to my friend and local boy Julian Long for that one.)

In fact, Trump now claims that his reference to the Second Amendment had nothing to do with “bearing arms” against the United States. Just like when Henry II asked, “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” he didn’t really mean for his knights to actually kill the Archbishop. Guess what? No one bought that story either.

As for Trump’s rapidly dwindling cadre of hardcore backers, they’ll respond as they always do: not by defending the indefensible Trump, but by raving even louder about Clinton’s emails, Benghazi, and Vincent Foster.

The “both sides do it” crowd that infests our so-called liberal media will attempt to use some statement of anger and disgust by some liberal blogger to try to convince us it’s exactly the same thing when the presidential nominee from the Republican Party suggests that keeping and bearing arms against an elected U.S. president might be a viable option if you disapprove of the president’s judicial nominees.

Of course, she may not even get a chance to nominate anyone, if Republican strategist and Trump insider Roger Stone’s warnings come true.

Referring to Trump’s expression of concern that the election is “going to be rigged,” Stone told Breitbart.com, “He’s gotta put them on notice that their inauguration will be rhetorical, and when I mean civil disobedience, not violence, but it will be a bloodbath. We will not stand for it.” Mr. Stone did not explain how one has a nonviolent “bloodbath.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s fellow Republicans continue to jump ship. Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins published an Op-Ed in The Washington Post saying that she could not support Putin’s preferred candidate because “Mr. Trump lacks the temperament, self-discipline and judgment required to be president.”

Virginia Rep. Scott Rigell left the Virginia Beach Republican Party to endorse Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. Wadi Gaitan, communications director for the Florida GOP, stepped down to promote “free market solutions while avoiding efforts that support Donald Trump.”

Fifty former national security officials, Republicans all, signed on to a letter saying that they are convinced that Donald Trump “would be a dangerous president and would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.”

The signatories included retired Gen. Michael Hayden (George W. Bush’s former CIA and NSA director); former Homeland Security Secretaries Michael Chertoff and Tom Ridge; and former U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills. But I’m sure a former reality show host knows better than those folks.

Sigh. I didn’t want to write about Trump again. I really didn’t. You can ask my wife.

But Comrade Trump’s continued implosion is the train wreck you can’t look away from.

I just hope it doesn’t wreck us all.

THE GOBSHITES SPEAK: Pathological liar and obsessive gun-humper Frank Staples, who posts incessantly under the alias "skylinefirepest" absolutely cannot see a mention of guns in any column without going off on one of his unhinged rants, and this column was no exception. I'll spare you most of his slobbering, but this part really caught my eye:

"You know, I don't really like the man BUT I will vote for a crazy man over a criminal any day! "

Yeah, well, like cleaves to like, I suppose. 

Are You Certain You Nominated a Republican? |

Opinion | thepilot.com

Hey, um, Republicans? Can we talk for a minute? Have a seat. Can I get you anything to drink?

No, really. I think you’re going to need something strong.

See, I have some bad news for you. It’s never easy being the bearer of bad tidings, but … well, there’s no way to break it to you gently, so I’m just going to come right out and say it.

This guy you nominated to run for president on the Republican ticket? I’ve been watching what’s been going on and, well … I don’t think you actually nominated a Republican.

I know, I know, it’s hard to believe. I mean, there’s this whole primary process, and all this “vetting” and stuff, so you’d think the end result would actually be someone who believes in the things Republicans are supposed to believe in.

Take, for instance, respect for our troops and for their families. I thought Republicans were supposed to be all about that.

But this Trump guy? He tells reporters he doesn’t respect John McCain’s service in Vietnam: “He’s not a war hero because he was captured. I don’t like people who were captured.”

I’m sure our servicemen and women will feel safer and more secure knowing that the man who wants to be their commander-in-chief will stop “liking” them if they have the bad luck to be taken prisoner.

Then he claimed he’s always “felt like” he was in the military because he went to an expensive military-themed prep school.

Recently, he decided to get into an extended Twitter rant against the parents of a Muslim soldier who sacrificed himself to save his comrades, even questioning whether the grieving mother was “allowed” to speak.

Then, when another mother of a serviceman asked Trump’s veep pick, Mike Pence, how the guy at the top of the ticket could be so disrespectful, the crowd literally booed her. Dissing Gold Star mothers and booing moms of living servicemen doesn’t sound very Republican, does it?

Then there’s his refusal to endorse other Republican candidates. I’m old enough to remember Saint Ronnie Reagan’s 11th commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.”

This rule has, in the immortal words of Mark Twain, been thrown down and danced upon by Donald J. Trump. Not just in the primaries, where you can expect a little back and forth, although Trump’s crude and childish disrespect for the members of his alleged party was extraordinary even by the standards of a contested primary battle.

Even after securing the nomination, however, Trump continues to slam other Republicans. He’s called New Hampshire Republican Kelly Ayotte “weak” and “disloyal” and refused to endorse her in her own bid for re-election. He also refused to endorse McCain and House Speaker Paul Ryan in their contested elections. Work across the aisle? This guy doesn’t even play well with people in his own party — or in what’s supposed to be his party.

Last but not least, there’s the whole small government thing. I thought Republicans were supposed to be all about decentralization of power. Yet they’ve nominated a man whose promise to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants would require the greatest mobilization of government power and the greatest suspension of civil liberties in our history. They’ve nominated a man who wants all power centered in himself, because, in his words, “he alone” can fix the broken system.

So that’s the bad news. You guys selected someone who not only doesn’t represent what your party’s supposed to, he’s actively driving out longtime members like former Jeb Bush staffer Sally Bradshaw, who’s worked for Republicans since the days of Bush the Elder and who told CNN that she’s leaving the party and, if the election is close in her home state of Florida, will vote for Clinton.

“As much as I don’t want another four years of Obama’s policies,” she told the network, “I can't look my children in the eye and tell them I voted for Donald Trump.” Rep. Richard Hanna of New York became the first, and probably not the last, elected Republican lawmaker to announce that he’ll vote for Clinton over Trump.

Of course, there’s always the alternative explanation. That is that Trump is actually the perfect Republican, and that the party is what its detractors have always said it is: mean-spirited, bigoted, racist, xenophobic and authoritarian rather than truly conservative and freedom-loving. That they have no actual principles, just resentments, grudges, and fears. Surely that can’t be right. Can it?

Careless, But At Least Not Crazy

thepilot.com

On July 5, FBI Director James Comey finally answered the question that’s been hanging out there for months: Will Hillary Clinton be criminally indicted for irregularities having to do with the private email server she used for official business as secretary of state?

In case you missed it, the answer was “no.” The reaction of Clinton’s critics shows another perfect example of the kind of overreaching that explains why they’re always angry and frustrated.

Some of us have been, to say the very least, skeptical of the confident assertions from the Raging Right that Clinton was going to be indicted over what Bernie Sanders called her “damn emails.”

Because let’s face it, we’ve been hearing “Hillary’s going to jail! Real soon now!” since 1992.

Unfortunately for the wingnuts, every investigation — Cattlegate, Travelgate, Whitewater, etc. — all the way up to the latest attempt to politicize the tragic deaths of four Americans in Benghazi — has come up with a big fat zero as far as any criminal charges are concerned. Now it’s happened again.

Even Donald Trump knew it wasn’t going to happen.

On July 2, three days before the press conference, he took to Twitter to inform us that “sources” had announced that “no charges will be brought against Crooked Hillary Clinton. Like I said, the system is totally rigged!”

When the announcement was made confirming this, House Speaker Paul Ryan was equally outraged.

“This announcement defies explanation,” he said.

You know, the Trumpkins remind me of nothing so much as a bunch of spoiled little boys yelling “Cheater! Cheater!” every time they lose a ball game. Except little boys occasionally wait for the game to be over. The problem is, in their obsession with seeing Hillary Clinton in jail, they blow right past some legitimate criticisms in the report.

The director clearly said that “no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case” because the FBI never found any evidence of intent to violate the law or to hurt the United States and no intent to obstruct justice from the deletion of some emails.

He did say that “Secretary Clinton or her colleagues” were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” Further, he went on to say that the State Department as a whole “was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.”

That’s actually worrisome, when you think about it.

Faced with a critical-but-not-criminal report, Trump could go one of two ways:

One, he could switch from his tiresome and unsupported “Crooked Hillary” mantra to “Careless Clinton” and use it to question Clinton’s judgment.

Two, he could screw his tinfoil hat on tighter and keep ranting that the FBI is corrupt because she’s not going to jail. As we’ve seen, Trump’s pre-emptively boxed himself into option one. He’s not very flexible when it comes to tactics, so this probably won’t change.

It’s exactly like the Benghazi mess.

There are serious questions that could and should have been asked about what happened there, including but not limited to whether we should have been intervening in Libya in the first place (something which, you may remember, I said was a ‘terrible idea.’ You can look it up).

Beyond that, you could legitimately question whether we should have had rapid response forces closer to Benghazi when we did, and soberly discuss whether that would have made a difference.

But noooooo. After all, how are you going to get eyeballs glued to the Fox News and CNN shoutfests if you talk about wonky policy stuff like that?

What draws the viewers are wild claims like the one that Secretary Clinton or President Obama told rescuers within striking distance to “stand down”; that Clinton personally denied security requests by the ambassador; or even that Clinton “faked a concussion” to avoid talking to one of the seemingly endless witch-hunts (sorry, congressional committees) investigating the murders.

And all of those committees, after spending months and millions of dollars, came up with the following that would lead to Hillary Clinton facing criminal sanctions: another big fat zero.

Come to think of it, though, there’s probably a reason why the Republicans don’t want to get into questions about something as mushy as a candidate’s “judgment.”

They are, after all, about to nominate Donald Trump, a man whose bad judgment in word and deed is truly breathtaking in both its breadth and depth.

So they’ll continue to hope for the criminal indictment that might knock their opponent out, and will once again find themselves fuming and clutching an empty bag while the woman they love to hate stumbles to the White House.

“Clinton 2016: She May Be Careless, But She’s Not Crazy.” Not the most compelling bumper sticker, but it’ll do in a pinch.

THE GOBSHITES SPEAK: Commenter "melocal" had these tidbits of wisdom to impart:

 Hillary is absolutely useless. She needs to go back to doing dishes and keeping an eye on that player she has for a husband.

Hey, good luck with the women's vote there, Trumpkin. 

And of course, you can always count on perennial asshole "Francis" to provide us with a heaping bowl of word salad, with extra bullshit dressing on the side:

I believe Democrats were more surprised than any others, like this columnist/ lawyer/writer, l who is now jumping up and down like a jubilant school girl, clapping like a trained seal, I believe others in the Democratic party thought Hillary would face some type of disciplinary action, after all several had made the comment she was guilty, but they were quick to withdraw from those statements being pressured from within their party, corruption wins again. Hopefully a more qualified will come forward and explain the outcome. The expectations met the reality, so no surprise, just lacks understanding.

Is Trump Trying to Take a Dive?

 Opinion | thepilot.com

OK, is Donald Trump actually trying to lose this nomination?

I’ve floated this idea a couple of times as a joke, as the GOP’s Gift That Keeps on Giving goes from outrage to outrage, doing and saying things that would be career-ending gaffes for any other person running for the presidency.

Using profanity in stump speeches, attacking a highly decorated former POW for being a POW, admitting that George Dubbya Bush lied us into the Iraq War, etc. etc. … you’ve got to admit, it makes you wonder.

And yet, nothing seems to dent Trump’s armor. The Trump Chumps just love him more. So he keeps ramping up the madness. But it would be crazy to suggest that he was deliberately trying to throw the election. Wouldn’t it?

And then …

This past Monday, Stephanie Cegieleski, former communications director of Trump’s Make America Great Again SuperPAC, wrote an “open letter” to Trump supporters.

She tells of being told when interviewing for the job that Trump’s run was a “protest candidacy.” He had no actual plan or even desire to win, the interviewers told Cegieleski.

“The Trump camp,” she says, “would have been satisfied to see him polling at 12 percent and taking second place to a candidate who might hold 50 percent.” She says she was initially “excited for the change to the debate he could bring.”

But then she began to notice that the man not only has no knowledge of policy, but also lacks “the humility to admit what he does not know — the most frightening position of all.”

The turning point, when she finally broke with him once and for all and decided to write the “open letter,” came when Trump responded to the brutal terrorist attack on Easter Sunday in Pakistan by taking to Twitter, detailing the casualties (and getting the numbers wrong), and proclaiming “only I can solve.”

That was the moment, Cegieleski says, when she realized that the monster she helped create (her words) had broken loose.

He may have started with the “desire to rank second place to send a message to America and to increase his power as a businessman,” but “his pride is too out of control to stop him now.”

So can Trump actually do anything now to derail his crazy train? He certainly seems to be still trying, what with stunts like posting an unflattering picture of Ted Cruz’s wife, Heidi, after a pro-Cruz SuperPAC tried to turn Utah’s Mormons against Trump by spreading a picture of Trump’s supermodel wife kinda nude (meaning that she was nekkid, but tastefully arranged so that the naughty bits were hidden).

Wives, everyone agreed, are off-limits — unless wingnuts are circulating pictures of Michelle Obama Photoshopped to look like a baboon.

Then Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was arrested and charged with battery after surveillance tapes showed him manhandling a female reporter after a Florida rally. Trump, with his usual charm, demanded to know, “If she was being assaulted, why didn’t she scream?”

In a normal campaign, this would have been a serious blow. As you may have noticed, however, this is not a normal campaign. Assaulting an uppity reporter, a female one to boot? That’s not going to hurt Trump a bit. Because, as we’re told over and over, people are angry.

People are so enraged that promises have been broken by the Republican “establishment” that they’ll back someone who promises to be straight with them.

Maybe that’s true. But the problem for Trump is that the promises that people are so upset about are ones that that very “establishment” knew were never going to happen in the first place.

They knew from the get-go they weren’t going to repeal “every word of Obamacare.” They knew they weren’t going to shut the government down until Planned Parenthood was defunded.

They knew they weren’t going to defund Homeland Security over the president’s executive orders on immigration. They didn’t have the votes, and most of them weren’t crazy enough to shut down the government.

So what happens if, God forbid, Trump gets the White House and the angry Trump Chumps discover that, no, Mexico isn’t going to pay for a border wall and we can’t make them? What will those angry people do when we truly can’t deport 11 million people?

What are they going to do when torturing people results not in an end to terrorism, but more of it? What are they going to do when the man who boasts about being the world’s greatest deal-maker starts cutting deals on things they hold sacred?

I don’t know, but I know I don’t want to find out. Trump may or may not be trying to derail his own campaign, but somebody better do it, and soon.

Just Say "Trump"

 Opinion | thepilot.com

You know, some days I almost feel sorry for the Republicans. Almost. Not only has the increasingly inevitable march of Donald J. Trump to the leadership of the party become a massive embarrassment to them, but it’s also robbed them of some of their most beloved talking points.

Some things that Republicans can no longer do, thanks to Trump (at least without people laughing in their faces):

* They can’t say they won’t vote for Hillary Clinton because she’s a “liar.”

Just last week, three reporters from Politico fact-checked 4.6 hours of Trump speeches. They found “more than five dozen statements deemed mischaracterizations, exaggerations, or simply false.” It equates, they said, to “roughly one misstatement every five minutes on average.”

I noted a couple of weeks ago that the fact-checking site Politifact looked at 70 Trump statements and found more than three-quarters of them false, rating them from “mostly false” to “pants on fire” false.

Clinton’s gotten called out on some whoppers. I’ve mocked her myself, for example, over her claim to have come under sniper fire in Bosnia. But Trump lies so consistently and so shamelessly that yet another site, Factcheck.org, stated: “In the 12 years of FactCheck.org’s existence, we’ve never seen his match. He stands out not only for the sheer number of his factually false claims, but also for his brazen refusals to admit error when proven wrong.”

And that was just at the end of 2015, before Trump really got wound up. Donald Trump is to lying what the Grand Canyon is to holes in the ground.

* They can’t claim that they’re voting for the GOP’s nominee because it’s the “conservative party.”

Hardly a day goes by now that we don’t see another story about how “conservatives are trying to come up with a plan to stop Trump.” One after another, conservatives have lined up to point out that Trump’s support of Obama’s stimulus programs and bailouts and his implied promise to concentrate more and more power in himself as president are not compatible with the idea of “small government” conservatism.

Trump’s also said he’s not going to touch so-called “entitlements” like Social Security and Medicare. The right-wing National Review, founded by no less a conservative icon than William F. Buckley himself, devoted an entire issue to refuting the idea of Trump as a conservative, even titling it “Against Trump.”

* They can’t complain about “liberal name-calling.”

This is one of the favorite comebacks against people who, like me, have been mocking the clown show the GOP and the right wing have been turning into over the past three decades. “All you can do is call people names!” they sniff.

Well, they’re about to nominate a man who’s made name-calling the linchpin of his campaign strategy. He’s chanted “Little Marco” at Rubio, called various opponents “losers,” “choke artists” and “liars,” and let’s not forget the charming things he says about women who don’t share his views or dare to challenge him.

* They can’t accuse anyone of “flip-flopping” on issues. Trump once supported a single-payer health system, which he now says he opposes. He once proposed a one-time 14.25 percent tax on wealthy Americans to pay off the national debt, which as late as August 2015 he was still calling  “a very conservative thing,” even though he now opposes it. In other words, he was for higher taxes on the wealthy and single-payer health care before he was against them.

* They can’t mock anyone for saying that George W. Bush lied us into the Iraq War. The soon-to-be face at the top of the ticket said exactly that to Dubbya’s brother JEB! at one of the endless debates.

* They can’t call President Obama (or anyone else, for that matter) a “narcissist.” When asked by Joe Scarborough who he was consulting with on foreign policy so he’d be “ready on day one,” Trump’s answer was narcissism personified: “I’m speaking with myself, number one. Because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”

Barack Obama is pretty confident, but I’m willing to bet that he talks to more than just himself on foreign policy.

It goes on and on, as the Republican front-runner embraces the things Republicans claim to despise. It’s gotten to the point where there’s a simple one-word response to anyone who tries to trot out these aged but beloved chestnuts of wingnut rhetoric. Just say “Trump.” That’s all you need to say.

You might even call it playing the Trump Card.

In Which I Toss Aside Political Correctness In My Quest For Universal Love

 Opinion | thepilot.com

Here are a few random observations on the bizarre happenings of the last couple of weeks:

— On March 11, Sen. Orrin Hatch told a reporter from the right-wing “news” site Newsmax that he doubted that President Obama would nominate a nice moderate judge to fill the seat of the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.

For example, Hatch noted, “he could easily name Merrick Garland (Chief Judge of the D.C. Court of Appeals), who is a fine man.”

Hatch quickly went on to say, “But he probably won’t do that, because this appointment is about the election. So I’m pretty sure he’ll name someone the (liberal Democratic base) wants.”

So whom did the president nominate on March 16? None other than that “fine man” himself, Judge Merrick Garland. It’ll be fun to watch all of the people like Hatch who have praised Garland and voted for him to be chief suddenly acting like the guy’s some raging liberal who’s unfit to wear a judge’s robe.

Let’s face it, Republicans: The president of the United States is messing with you. And he’s doing it brilliantly.

— Meanwhile, Sen. Pat Toomey revealed more than he probably thought he had when he took to Twitter to say, “Should Merrick Garland be nominated again by the next president, I would be happy to carefully consider his nomination.”

Another senator, the aptly named Jeff Flake of Arizona, said he’d vote for Garland in the lame duck session after the election if Hillary Clinton won to keep her from nominating someone farther left. So much for the principle that they’re just “waiting for the people to speak.”

News flash, ladies and gentlemen: They did speak. Twice, when they elected Obama by large margins, knowing that part of his job for the entirety of both four-year terms would be to appoint Supreme Court Justices whenever vacancies come due.

He’s done his job, senators. Now do yours.

— On this past week’s sort-of-Super Tuesday, Donald Trump gathered a large number of the delegates he’ll need to win the Republican nomination outright.

His rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich, however, also won enough delegates to get closer to their dream of denying Trump that knockout victory and possibly throwing the nomination wide-open at a so-called “open” or “brokered” convention in Cleveland.

I wouldn’t do that if I were you, warned Trump. If he doesn’t get the nomination “automatically,” he told CNN, “I think you’d have riots. I think you’d have riots. I’m representing a tremendous, many, many millions of people. … I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”

Got that? The man who aspires to be the leader of the Free World is threatening his own party like a bit player on “The Sopranos.” It’s a heck of a thing when the ‎GOP’s best hope is a brokered convention that’s only a figurative bloodbath and not a literal one. I don't envy them.‬‬‬‬

— Speaking of Trump and violent thuggery, it seems that he’s backpedaling on his statement that he’d “pay the legal fees” of people who beat up protesters at his rallies, such as the old geezer who walked up and cold-cocked a black protester being led out of the arena in Fayetteville.

By “backpedaling,” I mean “lying and claiming that he ever said it, even though he’s on video as saying exactly that.”

There have been some classic liars in the American political scene, but the Republican frontrunner is in a class by himself. This is a man who can deny something happened, even as he’s looking at a video of it happening.

That’s either a rare gift of sheer nerve or a complete disconnection from reality. But somehow, his supporters say they love Donald for “telling it like it is.”

— Trump’s supporters also say they love him for the fact that “he doesn’t care about political correctness.”

When you actually look at what they call “political correctness,” however, it becomes clear that all “PC” really means is having some degree of sensitivity about how your words might affect, offend, even wound people.

Well, if that kind of sensitivity is what you despise and resent, then allow me to be politically incorrect: If you’re voting for this con artist, you’re a bloody moron. A rube. A sucker for this cheap carnival barker who preys on your anger, fear and ignorance to make you feel like you’re an oppressed minority when you’re anything but that. Grow the heck up.

There. I told it like it is with no concern for political correctness. Love me now?

Way Too Interesting

 Opinion | thepilot.com

So now Donald Trump, the red-faced, bellowing bully who’s taken the Republican Party by storm, has won New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — and now seems unstoppable in his quest to lead his party to the most crushing general election defeat in modern history this November.

It appears that all of us have fallen under the old curse “may you live in interesting times.” Because our nation’s political life has gotten way too interesting, and I’m thinking it’s going to get worse.

It’s already interesting that many of the same people who sniff disdainfully about liberals “calling people names” are cheering loudly for someone who’s made it the primary tactic of his campaign.

It’s already interesting that many of the same people who’ll have an attack of the vapors if someone says a swear word on TV or posts one on the Internet are supporting a man who says he’ll “bomb the [bad word] out of ISIS” and who gleefully repeats a vulgar slur over the microphone when one of this supporters uses it against one of his opponents.

It’s interesting that the people who have made Planned Parenthood their new bogeyman and who have demanded it be defunded and shut down are now lining up behind the man who said, out loud and in public, that that organization has done “some very good work.”

It’s interesting that the people who claim to honor the sanctity of marriage are so enamored of a man who left his first wife after a well-publicized affair with another woman, who then married and divorced said woman, and who is now married to a third woman 24 years his junior.

It’s interesting that the people who screech about Hillary Clinton’s “lies” are backing a man who claims that he wrote in 2000 that “we needed to take Osama bin Laden out” (he didn’t), a man who claims “our president wants to take in 250,000 from Syria” (the actual number is closer to 10,000), a man who claims the actual unemployment rate is “probably 28, 29, as high as 35. …. In fact, I even heard recently 42 percent” (even the highest measure of unemployment isn’t a quarter of that, and that measure — the so-called “U6,” which counts even the people who are working part time as unemployed — is the lowest it’s been since 2008).

The fact-checking site Politifact reports that it looked at “more than 70 Trump statements and rated fully three-quarters of them as Mostly False, False or ‘Pants on Fire,’” a designation they use for “a claim that is not only inaccurate but also ridiculous.”

Frankly, I don’t know how anyone can listen to a Trump supporter talk about Hillary Clinton’s “lies” without laughing in their face. I certainly can’t.

But I suspect the interesting times have just begun.

It’s going to be interesting when the people who completely flipped out when First Lady Michelle Obama wore a dress that exposed her bare arms try to tell us that it’s no big deal when Mr. Trump’s prospective first lady’s nude and semi-nude pics from her modeling career begin popping up on the Internet. (Actually, it’s already begun. Or so I hear.)

It’ll be interesting when the people who’ve jeered at the idea that American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens died because George W. Bush lied about WMDs to get us into the Second Iraq War throw their support behind the man who got on a debate stage on Feb. 13 and said exactly the same thing.

It’s going to be interesting when the people who were outraged at the idea that the Dear Leader Dubbya didn’t “keep us safe” because 9/11 happened on his watch, people who demanded that anyone who said such a thing be silenced, start waving flags at the Republican Convention in support of someone who said exactly that.

What’ll be most interesting if and when the GOP nominates Donald J. Trump to be president will be watching that party finally reveal itself as the party its most strident detractors have always claimed it is: a party not of conservative values, but of authoritarian ones. A party of hypocrites with no principles whatsoever other than “Us Good, You Bad.” A party of bigots, racists, willfully ignorant know-nothings, war-mongering imperialists, rage-junkies, paranoids, and brutal thugs for whom Vladimir Putin’s “my way or the gulag” style of governance is something to be admired and emulated.

That’s more interesting than I’d like to see things get, actually, but it looks like those are the interesting times in which we’re living.

Excerpts From Santa's Mailbag

 Opinion | thepilot.com

It’s that time of year again — the time when we dip into some leaked selections from Santa’s mailbag:

Dear Santa:

It’s been a really scary year, what with attacks on Paris and ISIS killing all those people in the Middle East and everything. So we’ve decided that the only thing to do as the governing body of the greatest country in the world is run away from the world, turn our backs on people in need, and hide under our beds.

Problem is, Santa, we’re not as young as we used to be, and some of us have put on a little weight. So what we’d like are higher beds to hide under.

— The U.S. Congress

Note to staff: Please arrange to have all of these fraidy cats receive a Bible with the passages about “for I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me,” etc., underlined. Thanks.

Note to Santa: We’re on it, boss. By the way, those ISIS guys sent a letter. Said they knew they were on the permanent naughty list, but they didn’t care, because the Americans were giving them everything they wanted anyway. Man, those guys have more loose screws than an Erector Set.

Dear Santa:

I know you’d probably think I don’t need anything, because I’m very, very rich. I’m super-rich, in fact, and the reason is because I’m also the smartest person you or anyone else has ever met. Not only that, everybody loves me. People can’t wait to tell me what a great guy I am. Oh, and I have a daughter so hot, I’d date her if I wasn’t her dad.

But there is one thing you can get for me. I know there’s a tape somewhere of thousands and thousands of Muslims cheering in New Jersey as the Twin Towers fell on 9/11. Problem is, no one can seem to find it. Everybody tells me that I’m making it up, but I can’t be, because I have the world’s greatest memory.

So rustle that recording up for me, will you? Chop chop, fat boy. I haven’t got all day.

— Donald, New York City

Note to staff: I don’t know what kind of meds it’s going to take to stabilize Donny, but order him up a truckload.

Dear Santa:

I know we’re getting close to Christmas, and you really need my wish list, but all the polling data isn’t in yet on what I should want, and some of my advisers haven’t gotten back from their Thanksgiving break ski trips to let me know what gift requests will play best in Iowa and New Hampshire. So I’m going to have to get back to you.

— Hillary, Chappaqua, New York

Note to staff: I know this letter should probably disturb me, but I find it kind of charming that she apparently sat down and hand-wrote it.

Note to Santa: C’mon, boss, you think she’s going anywhere near an email account these days?

Dear Santa:

I don’t want much. I just want people to know who I am, and that I’m still running for president.

— Jim, Richmond, Virginia

Note to staff: I hate to admit it, but I made my list, and I’ve checked it twice, and I still have no idea who this guy is.

Note to Santa: Jim Gilmore. Used to be governor of Virginia. And don’t worry, no one else knows him either.

Dear Santa:

I don’t want anything for myself. Really. But I want everyone to have free public college tuition. And a single payer health plan that will ensure that no person has to worry about going bankrupt if they get sick. And a living wage for everyone, because no one who’s working full time should be living in poverty. I don’t think this is too much to ask.

— Bernie, Burlington, Vermont

Note to staff: Who does this guy think he is? Me? Ho ho ho.

Note to Santa: Actually, boss, the other elves and I have been meaning to talk to you about the whole wage thing. Look, I like sugarplums as much as the next elf, but you can’t buy stuff with them. Not to mention that our diabetes risk is through the roof these days. Even Henry Ford said he wanted his workers to earn enough wages to buy the cars they made for him. You see where I’m going with this?

— Hermie

Note to staff: The unemployment line?

Note to Santa: Oh, right. You going to load the sleigh yourself? The reindeer are backing us up on this, by the way.

Note to staff: OK, OK. We’ll talk. After Christmas?

Note to Santa: It’s a date. Merry Christmas, boss.