• Maine Gov. Paul LePage tells us that Donald Trump will do for America what Paul LePage has done for Maine. And New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie tells us that Donald Trump will do for America what Donald Trump has done for Atlantic City. LePage and Christie seem to be of the opinion that their support constitutes an “endorsement.”
Trump, however, emphatically failed to secure the endorsement of Vicente Fox.
And Max Lucado isn’t impressed with him either. (For non-members of the evangelical tribe: Lucado isn’t much of a political guy or a culture-warrior. He’s got the whole yes-but-of-course-we’re-all-Republicans-and-anti-abortion-and-anti-marriage white-evangelical thing, but he’s mainly a devotional and inspirational figure. And he’s got a yooge audience.)
• News item: “Georgia Insurance Agency Requires Employees To Carry Guns At Work.” You don’t need a team of actuaries to calculate the likeliest liability risk here.
• “There are a few facts that are pretty clearly on the record, right? Ted Cruz was born in Canada in 1970. The Zodiac murders I believe started in 1968 in California. And the final authenticated Zodiac letter was sent in 1974, as I understand. I’m just saying we shouldn’t rule anything out.”
(NABA stands for “Not As Bad As” — a popular rationalization for atrocities and other behavior that we rightly condemn when committed by the Bad Guys, but excuse when committed by us because we’re Not As Bad As them. It’s the popular standard for torture defenders and for those who justify telling lies about Satanic baby-killers, witches, outside agitators, etc.)
• “He is an alcoholic, violent, depressed,” the petition for a protection from abuse order said, “It’s my belief he is in desperate need of medical & psychological help.”
But while the protection order was granted, that had no bearing on the man’s right to be part of our nation’s well-regulated militia, so he got to keep his assault rifle and automatic pistol.
I was going to refer to that Kansas bloodbath as the “latest mass-shooting,” but that’s no longer true. In neither case were the shooters in any way influenced by foreign terrorism — just the mundane lethal violence of American men toward American women, so lawmakers won’t be concerned that there’s anything they need to do to respond to such things.
• Here’s some poetry appropriate to this moment in American politics (and a reminder that Adam Driver really needs to star in a Joey Ramone biopic):
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In