Young intern doing her job

Sometimes the silliest and most trivial incidents reveal the most.

F'rinstance, Sarah Sanders described the woman who tried to take Jim Acosta's microphone as a 'young intern.'

She's young -- graduated from college in 2012 so in her late 20s. But old in experience, having worked on Rauner's campaign in 2014 and then held the top press aide positions with the Republican National Committee before becoming an assistant press secretary at the White House.

A fast rise, one might say and wonder what her qualifications are.

So, query?

Did Sanders expect no one would notice she was not an intern? Didn't care because the Trumpters will swallow whatever crap they're fed?

Or is this a devious plot to get out of her job by wrecking any semblance of credibility with the press men and women?

One thing for certain: Sanders does not care if everyone in Washington is laughing at her. They are and she had to know that was going to be the outcome.

Perhaps the district judge will be the only one who is not amused.

Thank you for your service

In time for Veterans Day.

Just when you thought the Trumpeters couldn't go any lower.

UPDATE Sunday: as usual, getting too close to Trunp -- even if he doesn't know you -- destroys your reputation. Whitaker shouldn't hmve had a reputation it turns out but as long as no one was looking he could get by as another bureaucrat.

Now all world is looking and what they are finding is another racist bigot.

“And while I agree that I want to understand their judicial philosophy and whether they understand natural law and natural rights and then the founding documents and how they fit together...I don’t think that gets us far enough because natural law oftentfimes is used from the eye of the beholder," he continued. "What I’d like to see is things like their worldview.… Are they people of faith? Do they have a biblical view of justice? I think that is very important.”
The moderator interrupted Whitaker and asked “Levitical or New Testament?” which is an indirect way of asking whether people of the Jewish faith should be banned from serving as federal judges.
“I’m a New Testament,” responded Whitaker to laughter. “And what I know is as long as they have that [New Testament] worldview that they’ll be a good judge.”

The only really meaningful election result

Scott Des Jarlais was re-elected for the fourth time to Congress from Tennessee's 4th District.  He got close to two-thirds of the votes.

GOP not sending their best to Congress

Scott Des Jarlais is a rapist and a would-be murderer and the Republicans see nothing wrong with that. After all, God has forgiven him. He told Des Jarlais so.

And that, when you get right down to it, is all you need to know about the difference between the two main political parties in the United States.

(See   https://whyy.org/articles/scott-desjarlais-a-family-values-fraud-gets-a-pass/ and https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5229243/Congressman-Scott-DesJarlais-says-God-forgives-him.html)

No left turn

I do not expect much of a turn toward the Democrats in today's voting.

America is always on the verge of fascism. I was born in 1946, the year Truman, under pressure from rightwingers, established the security state and the loyalty oath. On the national level we soon saw McCarthy, Nixon, Reagan and now Trump -- all frightened of and determined to suppress democracy.

There's been no time in my life when the United States pursued a policy favoring the democracies overseas, and it is always undergoing a struggle within our borders to realize the democracy envisioned by the Founders.  The pressure of the rightwingers against participatory government is relentless.

It works because Americans are to great extent looking for a fuhrer. This should not surprise anyone despite the cant about being free and brave and independent.

For at least a third of the American electorate, freedom and independence are the last things they want.

We can start with religion. About two-thirds of Americans belong to authoritarian cults which either deny or discourage any sort of independent thought. This group includes the Roman Catholics, the other Catholics and evangelicals. The preachers are not overwhelmingly successful in stopping their adherents from thinking on their own, but they are always working against it. 

If we then turn to economics, the myth of that sturdy yeoman farmer, the man the Jefferson thought would make America democracy secure by cultivating his own vine and fig tree (probably the most inapt of Jefferson's political statements) has never been a genuine part of our system even when the land taken from the Indians was offered to the whites at rock bottom prices. It took substantial capital to become an independent farmer, so that, for example, when Iowa was settled in the 1830s and '40s about third of the people there were always landless, and this has been the case throughout our history. Economic dependence does not foster political independence.

Socially, you only have to scratch the skin of America to see it bleed racism, xenophobia and fear.

These attitudes have never quite predominated nationally -- America is so big that when one section goes fascist another can remain more or less immune. But authoritarianism is so close to taking over at all times that any time a slick talker blowing a tin horn comes into town millions rush to follow him. There's never been any shortage of cynical rich men willing to fund that parade. (But not only cynical; the rich are perhaps more fearful than even the poor.)

This election has not been about health care or jobs. It has been about fear. It is not hard to terrify an American.

To a degree we confront our racism and classism, but in public discourse never our fear. Not a word about this is ever taught in our schoolbooks -- no one says anything about the mayors of the east coast cities who in 1898 each demanded that the navy send its fleet to his city to protect his harbor from the largely imaginary Spanish navy.

Is not difficult to terrify an American.