The 60 Minutes team thatâs working upstairs is pretty good, but itâs doubtful they are all angels. RIP Morley:
Trump had a do-over interview with Megyn Kelly. Nothing happened:
Trump refuses to show his tax returns, itâs none of our business:
The debate about which bathrooms to use continued:
Congress shows it isnât up to dueling with mosquitoes:
TSA is the curse that never ends:
The weekâs news was dominated by the summit meeting between Paul Ryan and Donald Trump. Going in to the big meeting, Ryanâs staff had an office pool:
The GOP feels that the boys will paper over their differences:
After the meeting, the Very Reverend Elephant abandoned his scruples:
Trump now says that the GOP is behind him:
Donaldâs General Election strategy is to promise only what fits on a ball cap:
Wrongo came back from Europe with the flu, and he is still playing hurt. Maybe this week will bring a cure. There were good cartoons this week, however.
The GOP spent millions over the past 30 years building their Get Conservatives Elected machine, only to have a gifted amateur seize the controls and eviscerate their strategy. Take a look at the GOPâs monster love child:
This week, Trump had his way with the GOP:
Trump repeats story about Ted Cruzâs father from the âNational Enquirerâ:
Bernie plans to wait till the, well you know. Hillaryâs dismaying weakness with Democrats is something to worry about. Bernie is likely to win at least 20 state primaries:
State of the art in todayâs electronic voting:
Something you may have missed this week was that an increasing number of hospitals were held hostage by attacks on their IT departments. The attackers were looking for ransom. It started last month with Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center.
Last week there were three more, and this week, a whole hospital chain was attacked by ransomware, this time affecting the servers of 10 related MedStar facilities in Maryland and Washington DC.
Apparently most hospitals have paid the ransom.
Is this extortion or terrorism? Patients probably donât care which. Letâs hope no patients were harmed by the IT outages. The biggest question these attacks on hospitals raises is: Why arenât hospitals better prepared against ransomware? Hospitals are considered critical infrastructure, but unless patient data is impacted, there is no requirement to even disclose that a hacking occurred, even if operations are disrupted.
Computer security in the hospital industry is generally regarded as poor, and the federal Department of Health and Human Services regularly publishes a list of health care providers that have been hacked with patient information stolen.
Onward to the rest of our silly season. Donald Trump had a bad week on the abortion issue:
On the other hand, Trump said out loud what the GOP really thinks:
Ted and Don enter the Rut:
The GOPs self-fulfilling prophecy:
The Democrats have their own dilemma:
Letâs start with the infamous Donald Trump and his Trumpettes whacking protesters at his rallies:
Trump isnât alone. This happened in the past. Ronald Reagan, as Republican Governor of CA said after Kent State: âIf it takes a bloodbath, then letâs get it over with.â James A. Rhodes, Republican governor of Ohio, said about student protesters at Kent State:
Theyâre worse than the brown shirts and the communist element and also the night riders and the vigilantes. Weâre going to eradicate the problem, weâre not going to treat the symptoms.
Onward to the GOP and SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland. Mitch McConnell, our #1 Constipational scholar, says ânoâ to a previously appointed Constitutional scholar:
Judge Garland should take his cue from namesake Judy Garland in Wizard of Oz and say to the Senate, find a heart, find a brain. But mostly, find some courage:
Or as the cartoon shows, all the seats on the Court could well be vacant. Never before has the Senate insisted that it can simply ignore the presidentâs nominee and refuse to participate in the process required by the Constitution. They should not start now.
The GOP has trouble squaring the circle about the peopleâs voice being heard:
The general election shapes up as who can use the Force more effectively:
One explanation for Putinâs pull-out from Syria:
How about an extra helping of political cartoons in honor of the silly season? After Super Tuesday, you might need some Bernie Crème:
Instead of âYes we can,â Democrats have adopted a new slogan this election year: âWhy try?â In spite of Hillaryâs Miami victory speech, which sounded like it was written by Bernie, Clinton supporters believe we shouldnât aim high, that we shouldnât try for broad fundamental change, because we might fall short. Why is it better to proceed incrementally, to settle for less than we deserve because we might not get everything we want? Why do the establishment Dems proceed from the presumption that settling for incremental change is the only way to real change? Didnât they learn anything from the 2014 mid-term elections?
Justice Scalia non-nomination creates GOP euphemisms:
The Parties have selective views of what is realistic when choosing a candidate:
Why is a huge corporation protecting us from our government? Shouldnât it be the other way around?
The preliminary results from the Nevada Caucus gives the win to Hillary Clinton, while the preliminary results from South Carolina say that Donald Trump has won, with second place too close to call at this point.
For the Democrats, the mainstream candidate now looks quite likely to take the nomination, while on the Republican side, the insurgent appears to be the one who will be the nominee. The Sanders Democrats will fall in line behind Clinton for the general election, because they know that no issue in this election trumps judicial philosophy, and the nation canât survive another Scalia.
Hereâs why: Federal judges have great power over our democracy. We could review many of Scaliaâs decisions, but letâs just focus on three:
⢠The five Supreme Court judges (including Scalia) who decided the 2000 election by awarding the White House to George W. Bush.
⢠Or, the five judges (including Scalia) who decided Citizens United, saying that big corporate money was speech.
⢠Or the five judges (including Scalia) who gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The judiciary controls many, many aspects of our lives; therefore, the importance of having federal judges who reject far right-wing ideology cannot be overstated.
On to cartoons. Who will walk in Scaliaâs shoes?
Obama has about as much chance of getting a Supreme Court nominee approved by Senate Republicans as he does of convincing the average GOP voter that his Hawaiian birth certificate is genuine:
GOP dilemma: Letâs honor Scalia by ignoring the Constitution:
Obama gets a lesson in the Senateâs Advise & Consent process:
Happy Valentineâs Day. The news of Week That Was included the New Hampshire primary, another power grab by the Supreme Court, the Zika virus, and proof of the existence of gravitational waves.
Some people have an embarrassment of riches on Valentineâs Day:
NH reminds Hillary about kids in a different way than before:
Sanders met with Sharpton before heading to South Carolina:
When the history of early 21st Century US is written, the villains will already be wearing black:
Zika virus is all over the news:
Proving Einstein right about gravitational waves took 100 years. Hope we do better with market panic:
Todayâs Super Bowl marks the end of the football season, but still overshadows the political silly season, that will be with us for what will seem to be a long, long time.
Things to look for in Super Bowl 50:
“And, when we score a touchdown, make sure you know your assignments for the end-zone celebration.”
And what to look for in your living room:
But, even at the Super Bowl, the problem of football concussions isnât going away:
So far, the Democratic race is between an idealist Grandpa and a wonk Grandma:
In New Hampshire the political woods are full of free running saps:
Something not so super this week was this dickhead:
Big week for news. The Bundy standoff winds down, Trump & Fox, Planned Parenthood, Iowa, and Barbieâs makeover. Most of Bundy Brigade have been arrested:
But Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, a 54-year-old Arizona rancher was killed at an FBI checkpoint. Finicum seemed deluded but decent, thinking he was doing his patriotic duty. But like the rest, he was misled by bad information, and a barrage of lies. Despite what extremists claim, there are no internment camps positioned to lock up patriots, no black helicopters waiting to attack, no government agents massing to confiscate guns, and no reason for citizens to occupy government land with arms. But because there are earnest-but-gullible citizens who take these lies to heart, Finicum may not be the last martyr for a ridiculous cause.
Fox debate is shadow of former self:
The Trump/Kelly poutrage was brilliant strategy:
Cruz still pushinâ his values in Iowa:
Cruz looks to be auditioning for attack-dog vice presidential contender. Wherever Spiro Agnew is now, he must be smiling and nodding in approval.
Iowa will be over soon. Whatâs next?
Planned Parenthood grand jury surprised everybody:
Apparently we misunderstood what it meant to come to this country to practice religious freedoms â it really is the freedom for the guy on the right to force everyone else to follow his religion.
Barbieâs makeover will do nothing for women:
