AS an aside....I can't wait for early February....because:

See, all these people are gonna get their W-2's and go running off to H&R Block or wherever to claim their refund and GUESS WHAT??

Although they saw a couple extra dollars in their checks weekly, their tax burden is gonna offset that by a fair amount and all of a sudden, they're gonna realize that the GOP tax bill was in fact a scam in many respects.

Unless you're very very rich however...

However, the people at H&R Block don't generally see the top 1% in those popup offices. Nope. Not hardly.

Hatch, Scalia, Elvis, Shelly's wife...

Quite a lineup.

Nothing against Elvis personally...

HEY! Ever seen Once Upon a Time in America? (Spoiler Alert)

At the end, the big political wheel played by James Woods who was a hoodlum-turned-political-crook-of-the-highest-order, walks out of his mansion with all the party guests there, and he knows he's doomed and going to jail. there is a garbage truck waiting. Its engine starts and then drives past Woods standing on the curb. When it passes, Woods is gone and all you can see is the garbage augur turning and the assumption is made that he threw himself onto the augur and was chewed up and spit into the trash truck.

Just sayin'...

Of course it's only a film and you cannot expect any real-life narcissistic criminal sociopath politico to do something like that to conveniently end the story. It would have to be much more complex...

I have a Swiftian proposal:

Why don’t we just allow the Republicans to tell us what to do: who to elect as Speaker, what legislation to propose and pass, who to investigate or not investigate, who to appoint as chairperson of a committee, who to back for a nominee in 2020?

This only makes good sense, amirite?

Listening to these RW assholes on what we used to call the Tube before it had no tube, is just ridiculous. Makes me laugh and cry simultaneously and at the same time.

Jerkoffs

Had a thought getting dressed this morning...

Kasich announced that he might be interested in running as a third party candidate in 2020 and it occurred to me that it was the first move of the Establishment Republicans to regain their strength and come surging back. They always play the long con, you can never overestimate their fiendishness. Given the climate of the country, the Republicans have been flushed as a majority-winner party nationally and the water is circling the drain. By getting rid of Trump for a second term and conceding the WH to a Democrat, they can begin to rebuild their favorite position: the opposition party of resentment and hate of the "Liberal" establishment which is defined as anyone to the left of Attila the Hun. I believe that they realize that they erred in allowing Trump to manhandle their candidates during the debates and probably believe that he was unwittingly set up to believe he could run and win by none other than the Clintons, who preyed on his narcissism.

Now I'm certain that Hillary never expected to lose to this fool, but therein is a different brand of narcissism which all political candidates and office-holders possess. However, Trump, while destroying the morale of the nation and breaking it into open Civil War in many senses, has served to undermine the right wing by his Marx Brothers approach to running the Executive Branch. This unintended consequence has demonstrated to our rather dull electorate that these people are really bad for the average working man and woman, AND that you can't be an ignorant, psychopathic, malignantly narcissistic fool and be successful as a President.

We have bottomed out and I do believe that with the exception of the deceased Charles Manson, America couldn't have found a worse celebrity to become President. (I understand there will be many nominees for this position, but it's a figure of speech, so stay calm.) We are on the precipice of a 24/7 story which will cause many to lose sleep as we slog through the impending nightmare. Stock up on coffee and No-Doz. It's gonna be a ride.

I hate sports analogies and rarely use them BUT...

we landed significant body blows to the Rethug Body Politic last Tuesday and they're somewhat winded and gasping A BIT. By no means are they going down...just yet. They are dogged, resilient fighters, with much endurance and energy and always expect to go 15 rounds with them.

Now is the time to do two things, keep hitting them in their now-broken ribs where it hurts the most and go for the head punch, softening them up with blows about the face and skull.

That last sentence I mean almost literally in the metaphorical sense. The Rethuglicans were always primed to use language and slogans against us: Recall the Gore/Lieberman signs which they altered to say Sore/Loserman. Stuff like that there...

I say we go after them in the same manner, insulting them profusely, getting under their collective skins, - think Kipling's How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin: Wrap them in a near-intolerable skin of itchy language from which they cannot escape. Look: we have a lot of creative, thinking, intellectual individuals who are gifted, evidenced by the torrent of late-night humor directed against this asshole in the WH and his minions. I think they should spend some time creating viral memes which pertain to individuals in the Rethuglican Party which are "catchy" and "sticky". Tarred with these unending strokes, they will have trouble beginning a sentence without people snickering.

I love Michelle Obama, but when she said the Low-High thing, I thought of all the lost elections we have endured because we are just too classy. I think there's room for low humor and belittling of these terminal hypocrites and liars. if they use language to denigrate us, the gloves come off AFAIC.

A footnote to the very significant PA election...

Over four years ago I wrote a post detailing how I had been invited to a small gathering to discuss issues with someone who was thinking of running for Governor. Tom Wolf is a close friend of a patient of mine and there were about eight of us at my patient's gracious home in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia. Mr. Wolf came around to each of us, we had a nice chat as to who we were, etc., and then he gave what could best be described as a stump speech. Afterwards he asked each of us individually what we thought. My reply was as follows: I think PA could do with a thoughtful, progressive, business-oriented governor in these times and there is a kindness/fatherliness which you possess which is a great asset. There are two things which caused me to raise my eyebrows: first is that you told a sort of funny joke that Governor Rendell had chosen you for his cabinet because you were the only Democrat in York County who owned a tie. Although amusing, it denigrates rural Democrats. Secondly, you kept referring to your Peace Corps years: many in our backwards state think that if you were in the Peace Corps, you were a draft dodger during Vietnam - that's a fact of life here even though one thing had nothing to do with the other. It is OK for Republicans to avoid the draft, quite another thing for Democrats to do so.
So when he announced, I noticed that those two facets of his speech were missing. The day after the successful election, I received a huge plant from a Florist with the Governor-elect's and his wife's name with the nicest note.

But I thought that he would never be re-elected: that Harrisburg Rethugs would chew him up and spit him out. I was wrong: he won somewhat overwhelmingly over a candidate who might be best described as a Donald Trump without the "class" and "brains" if that's even possible. I'm extremely pleased about this. He is a decent man and a moral man without the sanctimony.

Senator Casey of course won: him I know as well: his campaign for his first term was run out of the building in which I practice and have had many elevator/lobby conversations with him. Although a member of the Lucky Sperm Club, his last name is magical here in PA.

Just a word or two after a successful election day here...

Forbes article re: Kavanaugh

Interesting discussion with patient, #2397....

Early thirties, Progressive, married with child, well-educated....

She said all the right stuff about Trump, the country, the Republicans, Kavanaugh, you-name-it. she thought impeachment wouldn't be successful because of the Senate makeup and the whole Russia thing she had right on the money....

Wait for it...

so I mentioned my line that one morning, perhaps he wouldn't awaken.

She was horrified..."We don't do things like that in this country!"

Me: I wasn't implying that anyone other than Colonel Sanders or Ronald McDonald might "do something", but what makes you think that that was an impossibility - that TPTB wouldn't do something "evil" After all, we certainly did it in other countries: Chile, Iraq, Iran, and many others...

She: But they would NEVER do it here, its illegal and immoral. And there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise.

Me: I wouldn't dream of trying. I don't try with the Tea Party people and I wouldn't with you.

I found it interesting that people have certain walls over which they will not climb.

I then told her of a close friend of mine who served in the Army. HE was also a real Progressive and lifelong Democrat who was drafted because he had left college. He was pro-everything that I am, we are extremely congruent except for one thing.

He did not believe in having gays in the military. Now he is all for gay rights, gay marriage equality, all the good stuff...except not in the military and you know what he said to me?

"You never served so you don't understand and there's nothing you can say that will change my mind so don't even try."

There's no real response to that...and no point starting a fight so in both cases, I said nothing.

Umbrella!

His Royal Highness was outside in what appeared to be a sprinkle. All others were.bareheaded and unprotected but He Who Must Be Revered had an attendant carrying an umbrella so that the Royal Locks might not be wetted down by the vicious raindrops, wreaking havoc with the perfectly coiffed King of all Kings.