No news and bad news

Dilbert a couple days ago noted there was no "new" news, and in politics, he's right.

The political hysteria in the USA is now a broken record.
So Muller said no collusion and now the big question if the FBI did "Watergate 2", i.e. using federal government to spy on the opposition party for political reasons. So now the call is to drop the subject, even though this has "yuge" political ramifications about "big brother" being able to get you convicted for anything by snooping on you and finding a crime.

The response of the Democrats, however, is not to call for an investigation of illegal snooping, but to double down and ask for Trumpieboy's complicated tax records: which looks like another way to try to find a crime.

Isn't there an amendment in the Bill of Rights about the right to privacy? (it's the 4th one).

Senator Markey introduced a bill about social media privacy, and he's a Democrat, but it's a bit late.

it won't do us much good if a political justice department weaponize the IRS against groups representing the party out of power but no one holds the employees who did this to account.

and of course, that won't stop Chinese hackers from using the information of our personnel files that they hacked a couple years back. and I suspect they have a data base on those who interest them by simply checking out their Facebook information.

However it hasn't stopped the anti Trumpieboy hysteria, with a Boston Globe columnist encouraging waiters to contaminate the food of anyone who worked for the present US administration, and subtle calls for assassination continue.

the latest hate wave against Trumpieboy tweets is because he dared to remind a beautiful Muslim congresslady that it wasn't "someone who did something" but that it was terrorists deliberately killing Americans under the guise of a rabid form of their religion.

Shouldn't she be doing the opposite? Stressing the good Muslims fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria, with the help of the US?

During World War I, Germans like my grandfather, were under suspicion because the family would sang German songs, so were investigated by the cops. (this was not an over reach by the cops: the only successful modern biowarfare incident happened during that war so embedded agents were a worry: LINK ). But it didn't mean he ridiculed the war effort: Indeed, his oldest son joined the military.

During World War II, the Japanese Americans fought for their adopted country.

So one would expect that the Muslim Congressladies would be defending America and their own communities against the crazies who hide behind religion, but no: instead they hate Israel and America and are acting to take over the party to push this agenda.

And it gets worse:

When a Navy Seal who was wounded and now is in Congress criticized her remark, he was ridiculed because he wears an eyepatch (he lost the eye from an explosive device).

And when Trumpie boy pointed out a lot of innocent people died from a terrorist attack, and that it was wrong to minimize that problem, he was also criticized by the Democrats and the MSM, in almost identical terms, i.e. that criticizing a person is inciting violence.

and I thought that Journolist coordination was a thing of the past. /s

The reason the Democrats won back Congress in the last election is because they ran moderates: From the Clinton/BlueDog wing of the party, many of whom are veterans. Yet we don't hear of them, for some reason.

Unless they are given a voice in the party, Trumpie boy will win, and bring a lot of new Congress folk with him.

so who will oppose him? The geriatric set or the metrosexual candidates, or the women who slept their way into power?

Biden would be a good choice, and Biden's son fought for the USA in Iraq, but hey, the PC in the party are trying to destroy him by pushing the fact that he is touchy feely and sympathetic, something that was considered "good" until a few years ago.

and the "Bernie boys" are in the media, but one of these days someone will notice that a lot of ordinary folks are not Bernie boys either, and that Bernie is... old....(and rich).

another Democratic problem no one in the MSM wants to talk about:

the "abortion until full term birth" is not really a popular item for ordinary folks, and could backfire, except of course the MSM and the wimpy churches won't make an issue about it, or note that most of the Democrats in Congress voted against a bill that mandated giving medical care to the babies who survived. Sigh.

This resembles how the radicals tried to take over the party in the past, and ended up losing elections.

I'm too lazy to post links, but never mind.

the tax reform meant we paid fewer taxes, but since this meant less estimated money was taken from the paycheck, the NYTimes is echoing the Democratic meme that people are paying more taxes.

Isn't politics wonderful?

By the way, I go my refund already: Thank you Turbotax. I used to file with Lolo's accountant, but since I started Social Security and after Lolo got too sick and his son took over his money (our finances were separate), I started filing on my own, using the on line program.

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In the meanwhile, China is busy manipulating genes, first in making superkids, and now there are reports about putting human genes into monkeys to make them smarter.

ethics? Anyone? Anyone?

this has huge implications.

Putting a gene or two into an animal is not a problem, but if a preponderance of genes are put into the animal, or the ones that control the growth of the brain are manipulated, it brings up dystopian sci fi scenerios like HGWells Island of Dr Moreau or Cordwainer Smith's "underpeople", who are used as slaves by the "real" humans. One of the themes of the "underpeople" series is their quest for full human rights.

Indeed, when the Brits were threatening to do this a couple years ago, the Catholic bishops said that if this happens, the offspring should be considered human and cared for, not discarded as animals.

Finally, there are reports that the ancient cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris is burning down: initial reports say it was due to an accident by those repairing the roof.

The entire structure is destroyed, but some of the art and relics inside were rescued. This is a major disaster for not just the Catholic world but for the world because of it's place in history.

if one is superstitious, this is a bad omen for France.