Today's Bernie

Bernie really gets it sometimes.  We've allowed ourselves to be suckered into thinking that a kind of selective (if not arbitrary) authoritarian crap is what our Justice System is supposed to be about.

Be honest, @BernieSanders hated the Crime Bill. Spoke against it passionately & repeatedly.

Watch this.

POWERFULhttps://t.co/69F4R7IQkI

— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) February 27, 2016

And BTW - it's a pretty simple parlay to connect the fucked-up-edness of our legal system with the total FUBAR of the Corporate Prisons Industry.

Stay in line or they'll fuck you up - just because they can.

Today's Video

Tonight's #GOPDebate in a nutshell. Via @OccupyDemocrats pic.twitter.com/h6Wa0ljJ2v

— KHARY PENEBAKER (@kharyp) February 26, 2016

Today's GIF

Today's Tweet

#ThisMachineKillsFascists #BSDMS #BernieSanders #FeelTheBern #Bernie2016 pic.twitter.com/tvtw6QLYRT

— Sean Robertson (@seanr1978) February 25, 2016

One Last Shot

Conventional wisdom has it that tonight's shit fight at the monkey house GOP Debate could be the last time we see what's left of that ol' gang of our'n. 

And in keeping with the best of all possible traditions, Matt Taibbi has issued the following update on the rules of the game:

TAKE A SHOT:

1. The first time (and first time only) one of the candidates compares himself to St. Ronald Reagan.

2. When Ben Carson complains that nobody's calling on him.

3. At the phrases "Great state of Texas," "Don't mess with Texas," or "Everything's bigger in Texas." Double if that last one comes from Trump in a suggestive tone. Triple-shot if Trump says "Everything except Marco is bigger in Texas."

4. If Cruz mentions he's from Texas more than five times. Take an additional shot for each time after that.

5. Every time someone jokes about Jeb Bush no longer being there. Double if the essence of the joke is that it's hard to tell the difference.

6. When Kasich makes a speech or comment whose essence is, "Well, excuse me for being sane, but…" Drink also if a moderator calls Kasich a "moderate."

7. When anyone calls anyone else a "liar."

8. Whenever any of the non-Trump candidates calls him a "closet Democrat" or "not a conservative."

9. Whenever anyone mentions Cruz's "dirty tricks."

10. When Carson recites lines from the Bible or the Constitution.

11. When any candidate mentions being the son/grandson of a hardworking bartender/mail carrier/housecleaner/etc. and therefore is not just a believer in the American Dream, but a product of it.

12. Whenever Trump mocks someone's poll numbers.

BONUS DRINK:

Players may want to make side-bets as to what happens more often: Cruz reminding the audience that he's Texan, or Trump reminding them that Cruz is from Canada. We can have a bonus shot if Cruz mentions his Texan-ness only to have Trump immediately call him a Canadian Texan.

Lastly, I propose we create a toast in honor of the recently fallen. Instead of saying "Cheers" or "Prost," we might say, before drinking, "Chris Christie was a federal prosecutor."

(Read more: Rolling Stone)

Take It, Charlie

The inestimable national treasure that is Charles Pierce:

This is the essence of what he's about. He, Trump will tame the beast of government. He, Trump personally will bring back jobs. He, Trump personally will solve the immigration problem by building a wall and making other people pay for it. He, Trump personally will intimidate China and outmaneuver Russia into accepting American leadership in the world. And all we have to do to gain these little bits of paradise is to bestir our stumps in November, vote for He, Trump, and then sit back and watch the show. Jesus H. Christ on a white grand piano, and people say Bernie Sanders is offering "free stuff."

 

Today's Toon

Oh Those Obamas

I'm running dangerously close to the edge of a warm fuzzy feeling for POTUS and FLOTUS.

.@POTUS nominates the first woman and first African-American to be Librarian of Congress: https://t.co/5zQhYVj74jhttps://t.co/vkWq9IfqcU

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 24, 2016

Today marks the launch of @OpenEBks, bringing access to free books for students across the country. #ReachHigherhttps://t.co/1fRsZ9tFXv

— The First Lady (@FLOTUS) February 24, 2016

Book-learnin', bitches. Git some.

Click right here right now

Today's Quote

Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles. Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances. Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it. Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency ask the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular?

But, conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.” -- Dr Martin Luther King Jr

Today's Tweet

The last GOP "debate" was almost universally characterized as a train wreck, so I guess Las Vegas just couldn't stand to be outdone in the Nevada Caucus thingie so...yeah.

EXCLUSIVE: This is the scene of the Nevada GOP caucus. pic.twitter.com/ZNwB8Ns8im

— Sweet Meteor O'Death (@smod2016) February 24, 2016

Mr Deity And Da Man

I'm in.

Today's GIF

Really glad I don't do drugs anymore.

Pay It Heed, Dummy

And remember that while the Dems have been pretty much too quiet and too absent for too fucking long, the GOP is nothing but Guns-Everywhere-Kill-'Em-All-Let-God-Sort-It-Out.

You don't like it? Get up on your hind legs and do something about it.

Looking Forward

With the latest crap coming out of the Oddly-Tinted Pile Of Psychotic Symptoms (aka: The Great Trumpkin Himself), here's the one question I really want the Press Poodles to ask every candidate, but especially every GOP candidate, and especially especially Lil Donny:

"What behavior will you expect from your loyalest supporters if you lose the primary; and/or you go on to lose the general election?"

And just to be sure - please look straight into the camera and tell your voters you want them to be civilized Americans who understand that politics in this country is about argument, voting and then abiding by the results of that voting without violent protests.

Take it to the streets, and do a sit-down thing, and go on strike, and do whatever you think will get your grievances heard and addressed, but this is not where the mob rules.

Well, OK - except for that "Recent Unpleasantness" back when the Yankees invaded our homeland.

But yeah - Exceptionalism, motherfucker. Do you get it?

Today's Tweet

I am seriously considering making this my avatar on every site across the entire web.  It's just that fucking awesome.

pic.twitter.com/TFsY0g2IIx

— perfectly frank (@AmOhSoFrank) February 21, 2016

And There It Is

MoJo:

Trump didn't win in spite of being a boor, a bigot, and an analog internet troll; he won because he was proudly all those things. For all the diversions (who picks a fight with the pope, anyway?), he articulated a remarkably clear theory of politics: Other people are screwing you over, and I'm going to stop it.

In the 80s and through the 90s, it was Repubs making big strides by embracing the criticism of them for being Cold Greedy Self-Centered Assholes - saying straight up, "Why yes - yes I am. And proud of it too."

Now they can round it all out with that little extra self-delusion of Post-Racial Bigotry dressed up to look like the same old "return to American values", which btw has been re-rebranded as "Making America Great Again".

Really gotta wonder how the rubes just go along with it - until you stop and consider they've been going along with it for 400 years now - and that's just on this continent.

Down To Five

And Governor Dumpster Fire bites the dust, proving once again that as a political prognosticator, I make a pretty good floor wax.

With that in mind, I might as well let my freak flag fly:

Maybe I'm just die-hard and stubborn, but I can't stop thinking this isn't the end of it.  With very small (and fading fast) hopes that Trump won't get the nomination, and knowing pretty well what a monumental cluster fuck is brewing if he does, the GOP has to be scrambling behind the scenes to bring in a ringer.

And there seems to be way too many giddy Dems wandering around thinking the dissolution of the GOP isn't at least potentially a catastrophic systems-level failure.  With so many Repubs in charge of state and local governments, a thorough fracturing and break up of an entire political party could easily spell even bigger trouble for our little experiment in self-government.  We ain't seen nothin' yet, kids.

Hello, Sunday

Today's Quote

Here's a golden oldie.

Powell gave up his credibility when Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld played him for a sucker and talked him into doing that extraordinarily stoopid dog-n-pony show at the UN as we were being pimped into the Iraq war.

But he did the right thing afterwards and just faded away, which restores at least a bit of his honor in my opinion.  And I think part of that restoration shows in his willingness to stand up and call out the bullshit in the GOP when he sees it.

Today's Pix