Strike out

In light of more recent events (the pending Supreme Court vacancy) talks of immigration policy may be on the back burner for a while as legislators try to sort out that mess.  When Trump mentioned the importance of The Wall (TM) he made constant references to the criminals, the MS-13 gang in particular.  They are a nasty bunch, comprised of mostly Central Americans, El Salvador in particular, but there is one salient detail that the media (and the White House) seems to have overlooked.  MS-13 was indeed founded by a guy from El Salvador but he did so in the city of Los Angeles, California in 1980 and that makes MS-13 an American criminal enterprise if I'm not mistaken.  USA!  USA!

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Doom, indeed.  I don't think anyone saw that coming, the retirement of Justice Kennedy; I certainly didn't.  I figured Ruth Bader Ginsburg, being the oldest, would retire first but she seems to be a tough old bird what with the yoga and all.  The next oldest guy is 79 but I don't know much about him.  Judges, if they can keep their wits, can carry on for a very long time which makes a Supreme Court loaded with Trump appointees a scary proposition.  That would make his dominance complete, the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government all dancing to his tune.  I don't have a good feeling about that.

The GOP will, I hope, take a lot of lumps this November and I hope it forces them to get their act together.  Maybe they should split in two and create a third party of "normal" Republicans and let the Trumpists wither and die on their own merits.  I know it's asking a lot for sanity to prevail but I can dream, can't I?

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I wonder if Trump is a little jealous of the way his new best pal, Kim Jong Un, exercises his power. It seems that one of his generals was a little too optimistic in his views of the recent confab and those views were not in line with official party policy.  The solution?  A firing squad, naturally.  I'm not sure if it's only a matter of time before some of Trump's critics have unfortunate accidents or otherwise disappear.  Happy Vlad in Moscow would be more than happy to provide a few pointers; he has enjoyed great success as far as media critics go and they go with alarming frequency.

And there's a NATO summit coming later this summer.  That should be interesting.  I wonder if Trump will bother to attend since he doesn't seem to be on good terms with any of the other NATO countries, except maybe Turkey.  It's quite a world we're living in and I'm not the only one having trouble making sense of it.

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I found a boycott ad for Uncle Ken in the current issue of the Redeye, the free weekly paper produced by the Tribune Company.  The ad is by the Local Teamsters 727 urging a boycott against The American Bottling Company for unfair labor practices, so you should quit drinking Dr.Pepper, 7Up, Snapple, RC Cola, and a few others.  This is a boycott I can get behind since I don't drink any of those beverages but is it a boycott if I don't drink them in the first place?  I was surprised to see that the Teamsters were still in business; didn't the decline of unions begin when Reagan was messing around with the Air Traffic Controllers way back when?  That's my recollection but maybe you guys can set me straight.