Wondering on Wednesday (v179)

I had no idea it's been so long since I've wondered out loud, as it were, on Wednesday - looks like it was a month ago?

I wonder about that right off the bat. I mean, vacation aside, it's not like there nothing head-scratch worthy going on. Sigh

Here's just some of what has me wondering tonight.

• The 'prorogation' of the British Parliament. What a fascinating process! Just suspend the whole thing, and don't let anything get in my way, says PM Boris Johnson. And we thought the filibuster was bad? How long, I wonder, before #POTUS will be asking Snitty Snitty Bill Barr if there's a way he can do the same thing here? It would be way more cooler than just forcing Mitch McConnell to 'go nuclear', something Trump has called for several times. I mean, he sees a massive military parade, and wants one... He sees an obsequious press in a dictatorial country, and wants one... I mean, this 'put parliament on the sidelines' thing is right up his alley.

• There are around a dozen members of Congress not running for reelection next year - so far - and the majority of them are Republicans. This is on the heels of 34 Republicans not running for reelection in 2018. There are a variety of reasons cited - usually the desire to do something else (is Fox News hiring?), or spend more time with their families, and so on. Most don't say it's because they can no longer keep quiet about the direction the party is taking, but I have to wonder how much that plays a part?  And will we have to wait for the books to come out before we know for sure? 

• How many resorts are there in the United States that are near airports and are not owned by the Trump family, I wonder? And why wouldn't the United States government consider using even the worst of those resorts for the next G7 summit, instead of entertaining discussions about enriching the president by using his Doral resort? How hard do you have to wonder about simple things like this?

• And speaking of Snitty Snitty Bill Barr, is there really no other place for him to throw his annual holiday party than the president's hotel in DC, I wonder?  Seriously - that's the ONLY place that could accommodate him, in all of the capitol area? And lest you're wondering, this is not a case of me being disappointed I'm not on the guest list - it's really a case of how can people like Barr be so unconcerned about the appearance of a conflict of interest, of a lack of independence, for the role of AG, for the Justice Department as an institution, and for the people that work there? 

• It seems that Kirsten Gillibrand is the first of the rest of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates to read the handwriting on the wall; a couple of hours ago she announced she's dropping her candidacy after failing to qualify for the September 12th debate. Who else will be announcing a similar decision tonight, I wonder?  Ten have qualified: Biden, Sanders, Warren, Harris, Buttigieg, Booker, Klobuchar, Castro, Yang and Castro. The rest have not. I'm liking that smaller debate stage - how about you?

There's more to wonder about - there always is. What's on your mind?

TGIF 6/15/18

Thank freaking goodness it's Friday!  Have you had enough of this week yet? I sure have - let me count the ways.

First, we had the painful G7 meeting in Canada, in which, we're told, president Trump said that he could send 25 million Mexicans to Japan and Prime Minister Abe would be out of office in no time; that all the terrorists are in Paris, and of course, all the nonsense about Canada, and attacking our other allies, and suggesting that Russia get back in, and that Obama is to blame for, well, pretty much everything.

Net neutrality officially ended, leaving it open for service providers to slow down traffic for people who don't want to pay more for faster moving bits and bytes; block or otherwise demote content from competitors, and so on -- all things the Trump administration argued were ridiculous and would not hurt consumers because they probably wouldn't even happen so we need to just let net neutrality die.

Then we had the highfalutin' rootin-tootin' holy salutin' summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un, of whom the president said, he's a great negotiator. Coming from the Artist of The Deal, them's some pretty strong words of praise. And it must be true, because it doesn't appear Kim gave up anything in return for a lifetime of handshakes  - and that salute - and a movie trailer. Don't forget the movie trailer. Now, the fact that North Korea has previously promised some level of the 'denuke' process that Trump says we will get. And there was that whole war games comment. All I could think of was Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy and that computer...

We had the pro-net neutrality administration all up in arms when a federal judge decided that an AT&T-Time Warner merger was just fine (even with Fake News CNN in the mix) and it wouldn't hurt consumers in the least, honest.

We've got all those kids in detention along the border, because the Bible tells us it's OK or something like that. Or maybe it's because it's the Democrats' fault, not the Bible's. The story changes so many times in a day or two, it's hard to keep track. But as long as we fully fund the border wall that Mexico's going to pay for, it's all good.

And the IG report - the one that proves that there was "no collusion" even though the report had nothing whatsoever to do with determining whether or not there was collusion? Yeah, that happened too.

Finally, I think every single media outlet said something along the lines of 'Trump said numerous things that were misleading' or 'not totally accurate'  or 'maybe incomplete', with only people on Twitter calling out the lies - repeated lies - about North Korea, kids ripped out of the arms of their parents, and the IG report, among other topics.

And only people on Twitter were calling out the media's complicity in allowing Trump to lie with impunity each and every day. Today was just like the first 500 or so days of this administration, after all.

I don't know about you, but I could really use a drink. Or, whatever it is that Rudy Giuliani's having.

TGIF.