This one's for Brett

Repeal and replace

The National Anthem.

"The Star-Spangled Banner." Too martial.

"This Land Is Your Land" and "America the Beautiful." More uplifting and far easier to sing, although the latter may not be sufficiently secular.

It should have been Woody's song all along:

Rumpled but Right

“I just want to make clear that I send @SenSherrodBrown out of this house in dress shirts ironed with so much spray starch they stand on their own like tombstones on the carpet. Two hours later, reporters are calling him ‘rumpled.’" -- Connie Schultz, tweeting about on her husband’s attire.

Parenthetically, in a Democratic Party that had its priorities straight, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown would be at the top of the prospective POTUS list.

Bernie Sanders in 1993: The United States Needs Universal Health Care

From the Self-Importance Desk

What a relief that Sen. Gillibrand has called for the withdrawal of the Kavanaugh nomination. Clearly, Sens. Feinstein, Hirono, Booker, Harris, et al, have not been up to the job. Everything's going to work out all right, though, now that Sen. Gillibrand has arrived to save the day.

Vote. But vote strategically.

Both major parties follow scripts leading up to elections. The GOP pitches prayer in the schools, criminalizing abortion and what amounts to racial cleansing. Never happens. The Democrats hawk social and economic justice (this year in the form of free education, Medicare for All and criminal justice reform). Never happens. Whatever was promised turns out to be "too hard," the other side just won't compromise. Whichever party wins, though, what does happen is this: endless war, corporate welfare and unimpeded transfer of public wealth into private hands.

Vote. Vote locally. Vote strategically. But, wherever possible, don't vote for corporate shills and the war machine. Change is a long, slow process. It's not going to happen in one election. Or two. Or probably ten. But it's not going to happen at all if we keep falling for false narratives.

There are plenty of Democrats to vote for, especially at the local level. But we need to be selective. The Democratic establishment apparently learned nothing from 2016. They may need to hear from you again. If you don't favor kleptocracy and militarism, then in races where the outcome will be the same, don't vote. Or vote Green or Peace & Freedom or Working Family or whatever other off-brand choice you have. Or write in yourself or Lebron James or Kshama Sawant or Jimmy Dore or Helen Keller or Stormy Daniels or the progressive who got outspent in the primary or anyone else you think will get across the point that you're not accepting business as usual or the lesser evil anymore.

Otherwise, change? Never happens.

DogGone

A couple of days ago, I'm in a coffee shop on Montana. You know the one. I'm having a scone and coffee near the door at a table next to that counter holding the cream and milks, sweeteners, condiments, straws and napkins. The stream of dogs is unrelenting, but what can you expect in a city that enforces only those laws that affect squeaky wheels.

The entitled have no second thoughts about turning others' protections to their benefit. Case in point: you could open a wildly successful store here selling nothing but counterfeit service-dog outfits.

So, just another day in paradise.

Then this happened, over the top even by Westside standards. A woman enters, wearing expensive workout clothes, apparently aspirational, with a small pooch that also looks like it has missed a few days at the doggie dojo. The woman drags her little darling over to the food-laden counter, grabs a handful of napkins, and proceeds to wipe the dog's ass. Then she reaches up and throws the toilet paper into the hole between the honey and the half and half.

There are good reasons for the regulations prohibiting animals, other than service animals, in places that stock and serve food: hygiene, allergies, disease, noise, bites, fights, the rights of other patrons among them. Service dogs are excepted because they are a necessary aid to people with certain disabilities. They are also well-trained: they don't bark, fight, climb on the furniture, or lick the tables (there is one local mutt that drags his ass around the floor every day while his "master" gets his order; I wonder what level of fecal matter Mythbusters would find on the Sugar in the Raw at that location).

The regulations are reasonable. They should be enforced.

Wanna know how scared Ted Cruz is?

“Searching for new wedge issue, Cruz says O’Rourke will ban barbecue” (Austin American-Statesman headline).

That's how scared Ted Cruz is.

Official campaign site for Beto O'Rourke, the 2018 Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas: Beto for Texas.

People who think they need "The Brain Boost Diet Plan" probably need it more than they think.

Whistling past the graveyard

So Andrew Cuomo, smug in the afterglow of his primary win, says the progressive "wave" is "not even a ripple."

But I have to ask, moving forward, do you want to be in the party of, say, Beto O'Rourke and Elizabeth Warren or the party of Andrew Cuomo?

'Cause it's not going to be both.

Senator Elizabeth Warren at Netroots Nation 2018

Sen. Warren tells her own story to show how radically government has abandoned its responsibility to help the poor and working class.



The next president of the United States will be a woman.

Elizabeth Warren or Nikki Haley.

Your choice.

This is what neglect of infrastructure looks like

‘It looked like Armageddon’: Gas explosions trigger deadly chaos in Massachusetts by Karen Weintraub, Frances Stead Sellers Cleve R. Wootson Jr. (Washington Post). Gas Explosions Drive Thousands From Homes in Boston Suburbs by Nate Raymond and Brian Snyder (Reuters).

This morning, someone said to me...,

"If we can survive this stupid, ignorant, corrupt dictator-wannabe, we can survive anything." I'm not so sure. What if he was an intelligent, informed, personally ethical dictator-wannabe? Take away Donald Trump's creepiness, avarice and racism, teach him to read and write and hold a coherent thought, and you have Barack Obama, ruling by executive order, conducting endless wars because he can. We have stood by as representative legislative government has become enfeebled, fossilized, barely functional, nearly useless; watched as power has increasingly vested in our serial kings. Isn't there a significant (and probably growing) number of us that would be happy to bring the curtain down on political theater that offers no happy endings, to bring an end to kleptocracy and dysfunction? Aren't there more than few voters who would respond readily to someone who promised convincingly to make the trains run on time?

Noted

Bernie Sanders ran; Hillary Clinton moved left. Cynthia Nixon ran; Andrew Cuomo moved left.

It takes an existential threat to their power to make establishment Democrats do the right thing.

Good to know.

It should go without saying

It is unfair and counter-productive of society to dump the job of providing services to the homeless community on businesses, like coffee shops and gas stations, and public organizations, like libraries, that are ill-equipped and unprepared to handle them.

Fear (and Loathing)

Trump's lawyer told him, "Don't testify. It's either that or an orange jumpsuit." Then he resigned.

The rest of the story:
Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward.

Fear

"Woodward's book, detailing the inner workings of Trump's administration, is set to hit shelves Sept. 11. The White House has issued a blanket refutation of the book's claims, which it says are based on information from disgruntled ex-employees." Except, who has so many disgruntled ex-employees their gripes would fill a book?