Melania held on to her bull whip tightly as she swung across the crevasse, the deadly spikes just inches below her 5-figure pumps. She landed on the other side with a soft thump.

"Mrs. Trump, I presume," said the cloaked figure in a surprisingly British accent.

She nodded. "Anything in particular... catch your eye?"
Melania looked at him with the same vacant expression she looked at everything else she had ever looked at in her life.
"Yes, the Jewel of Freedom, Breaker of Bonds."
"Is there something you wish to separate from, Mrs. Trump?"

FYI citing the guys who owned people and wouldn't let women vote (the founders) for why our government representation has to always stay the same way is kind of stupid. For the millionth time, the founders aren't gods or God. "Wyoming residents get more of a say than DC residents because a guy who lived 250 years ago and was so lazy he had a team of blacks he owned who did everything around the house said so."

Susan Collins pressed the button on her wall and the secret entrance slid open. She stepped forward and gingerly walked down the limestone pathway. The air grew more foul as she went deeper.

Finally she arrived in the Senate's bowels.

"Enter, child," Mitch McConnell said. McConnell's shriveled husk hung from the corner of the room, wrapped in a nest of spider webs -- emitting the dank musk of time immemorial.

Collins dropped to one knee. "It is done, my Lord."

The Senate sanctum vibrated as McConnell croaked loudly, his laughter lost to the ages

I don't dispute that Kavanaugh was inevitable. But I think the Democrats made major fumbles, most of all making so much of the nomination about bloodless papers nobody cares about versus imagery of women bleeding out in alleys. Once again they went for the brain and not the heart. Just use the Kennedy playbook. This isn't hard.

So far I’m not really seeing Democratic officials or voters truly grasping the depth of evil we face. Instead there is a Pollyanna approach that assumes this is just a temporary lapse for the gop and it’s all going back to “normal” very soon. I’ve personally been watching the gop absolutely embrace total depravity since the early 90s and if you study any history that’s a program that’s been in place since the mid 60s.

as one of their most vehement critics, from the left at least, this kind of thing is precisely what the nyt should be spending their massive resources and expertise on. its the point of the paper. nytimes.com/interactive/20… and dont give me the "trump supporters won't care" crap. theyre not the point. theyre not the point of any of this. its about us, the normal public, knowing who the hell is ruling us and wtf theyre doing in that capacity and how they got there. its about us, not the cult.

as an adult ive never been involved in a fight, bar or otherwise, and i think frankly this is wise i think the last physical fight i had was in 11th grade, when i was about 15.

A red light buzzes in Eric Trump's office.
"Father," he whispers, and leaps out of his chair.
Inside Trump's office, the real estate hustler is playing with his Hand Extend-o-Matic 3000. He rolls his eyes as his idiot son stumbles in.
"Dad, you buzzed?" "It's Eric, right?"
Eric Trump excitedly nods, this is the first time since 1998 that his father has remembered his name. It must be important.
"Good," Trump sighs, "I got this broad I need you to hush up. Go talk to Cohen and use the money from the special fund."

Mike Pence breathed in deeply. He clenched his eyes and made a quick prayer. Upstairs, he could hear Mother watching her stories. "Gentle Jesus," he whispered to himself, "lead me not astray."

Pence hit "send." Soon his oped would be in front of millions. But his name would not. The phone rang.
Pence picked up, his weathered fingers grasping the phone tight.
"Pence."
"Sir, we got it"
"I told you not to use this line"
"Yes, sir, we just want to know if you're sure about doing this anonymously"
"Yes, you fools"
He quickly hung up. "My Lord..."

the truth of the matter re superdelegates is that they are largely held by politicians, who are human beings, who are extremely succeptible to group dynamics and peer pressure. meaning, like in 2008 when the candidate with fewer superdelegates started winning... they flipped. you may have heard of that candidate. he's pretty well known. he didn't have superdelegate support when the race began. then... he did.

Sorry but I have very low tolerance for "dotard Drumpf will soon be gone" type magical thinking. We're closer to the end of year two than we are to the beginning. There's lots of grassroots activity working towards overturning Congress, but as far as Trump goes he's lodged in. Dislodging a president is extraordinarily difficult. Its a stretch to think Mueller's going to charge him with anything and the GOP is already poised to do nothing if he makes an impeachment referral while Democratic officials are still largely in hand wrong mode.

props to this juror's cursive

https://twitter.com/bradheath/status/1032314890277597184

i tried to write something in cursive recently, and it was so bad. my cursive has never been good, but its even worse because i havent written it in decades. to be honest, i barely ever write anything down anymore.

Ending the war that was killing dozens of Americans on a daily basis was pretty "particularly left-wing" though.

https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1030477991107801089

I love hope people disappear Obama's advocacy and follow through with ending the war that killed thousands of Americans, like it wasn't a thing. Ask Hillary in 2008 if the war was a factor...

gen x has gotten beaten up for most of its existence then ignored. millenials are a running punchline. and yet the boomers seem the least able to take even a good-natured punch, despite dominating so much of our world forever. hm. maybe if y'all had a corporate anthem like generation x did you'd be handling this better :P

One day i asked my Grandma who her favorite musicians were. Grandma’s response was “Well, I like Patti, and Aretha —“

She said it with such authority, with first names that sounded like she knew them as if they were just down the street.

Grandma always loved her music. No deep point here, the exchange just came to mind

Working theory: Boomers are the largest generation ever. These numbers plus the rise of mass media in their lives has allowed them unprecedented latitude to impose their cultural tastes of so much as "the best ever." And they're wrong. I think I could get a book out of this and also become the villain of an entire generation

im beyond tired of conservatives writing like their movement hasn't been a hothouse of nuttery since at least goldwater days lbj ran ads against goldwater cause he supported the conventional use of nukes. trump and limbaugh and all the rest didnt just show up out of nowhere.

all this time and blacks have yet to come up with a racial slur for whites with anything approaching the megatonnage of the n-word i mean god there was "honky" in the 70s but that's laughable. and redneck? aka remember when you owned people? jaysus.

Still say it's RICO nyti.ms/2MKEo86?smid=n… It was... sometimes still is... a multistate crime with perps shipped across state lines to cover up, then many committed more crime after

as a guy who blogged for years and years before anybody but me gave a crap about it, cosign this

https://twitter.com/espiers/status/1029354961417760768

thats one of the bad parts of the social web tbh. back when i started blogging (fyi i was prob among the first 10 or so people who ever blogged about politics) it was just to get something out from my head and into the world. the reaction to it was irrelevant.

For people who don't know how DC is laid out, the white supremacists will be in Lafayette park, which is for all intents and purposes as close as you can get to the white house grounds without being on the grounds itself. For obvious reasons it is also an intensely scrutinized area. When I covered a tea party protest there some idiot threw a box of tea over the white house fence and the secret service had the park clear of all people in minutes to do a security sweep.