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Or… is it the day that reality t.v. swallowed reality? Thus is the question as Teflon Don Trump told a California audience that “there is no drought.” Well, that’s the headline anyway… the actual quotes appear to be that drought or not, a President Trump will open up the taps for those he deems politically appropriate (presumably farmers who will vote for him)… overall actual and quite undeniable drought be damned. The irony, of course, is that there is a certain insanity to American water management, especially in the far West, as it is– perhaps paradigmatic of so many other...

Today’s amusing anecdote would involve former Grand Inquisitor of the Clinton Presidency, Kenneth Starr, who so efficiently reported on the sexual peccadilloes of former President Bill Clinton as part of an investigative report that formed the backbone of the evidence in support of Clinton’s impeachment (to wit, Bill Clinton set in motion the destruction of the American economy by allowing Bob Rubin to dismantle New Deal era financial safety measures set in motion the possible destruction of the planet by breaching the Bush/Reagan deal not to expand NATO to Eastern Europe in exchange for Russian acquiescence in German reunification failed...

President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights Michael Ratner, one of the “founding fathers” of the “Guantanamo bar” which coordinated representation of GTMO detainees, as well as a life-long fighter for human rights, has passed away; Candace has more. I interviewed Michael in 2006. On issues local, national and international, Michael was a consistent voice for the downtrodden and brought the full might of his legal and rhetorical skills, often representing those who might otherwise be unrepresented. This is a big loss.

I just love quoting Shakespeare, even if there’s no particular context. The Grey Lady treats us to an analysis of five huge primaries today (for the record, FL, IL, OH, NC and MO). Bottom line: in 24 hours or so, Trump will be a little bit closer to the GOP nomination, Rubio will be gone, and Cruz and Kasich will be emboldened to fight on, and in Democratic action, Hillary will continue her dominance of states with big Black populations, and Bernie will do very well in the Rust Belt… but he ain’t goin’ anywhere will be the real takeaway....

Item: Don’t think perhaps the most evil corporation on a planet already dominated by evil corporations the Monsanto corporation will take the proposal in California to label glysophate (a key component of its Roundup weedkiller product) as a likely carcinogen lying down, as that company is suing to stop any kind of public notification of any kind of the [insane public health] risks posed by its products. Item: Don’t think that children as young as three or four years old can’t represent themselves in immigration court as they are facing removal from the United States, sayeth a government official responsible...

February 29th only comes once every four years. And apparently, getting Justice Clarence Thomas to ask a question during Supreme Court arguments comes around once every ten years, it seems… but, to gasps of shock from the audience, he did so! The case concerned Second Amendment (gun ownership) rights, an area he presumably cares about a great deal. I tend to think that the late Justice Antonin Scalia, widely believed to be Thomas’s intellectual godfather, largely bullied him (in some way, probably intellectually), and Thomas, now free from Nino’s shadow, can show some interest in the goings on of his...

A U.N. Human Rights panel (hilarious as that is to begin with) has just determined that the effective detention of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange (in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London) by American lapdogs Britain and Sweden violates international law. It is noted that this is “non-binding” and mostly a matter of moral suasion, but it seems clear that the Western imperial nations, should they refuse to abide by the ruling (as seems inevitable) will have a harder time going forward using this sort of ruling to embarrass weaker states (say, in Africa or Latin America) when similar rulings come down...

Item: Elite Amherst College in a town by that name in Massachusetts has decided to drop its heretofore mascot, “Lord Jeffery,” named after a colonial era soldier, Lord Jeffery Amherst (the college is named after the town, not the man). The charming Lord Jeff supposedly greeted Native Americans with smallpox infested blankets, among such other attributions of genocide, and, in the early twenty-first century, this mascot, evidently adopted in the early twentieth century, is seen as “divisive.” American campuses are now at the forefront of free speech controversies these days, and quite frankly, I’m perfectly o.k. with saying that something...

The woman who singlehandedly gave us a Black President (with a middle name Hussein) stands poised to give us an outer-borough New Yorker as our next President… Donald Trump from Queens is polling well against her, for example. (His tacit praise of Kim Jong Un notwithstanding.) And Bernie Sanders from Brooklyn is a mortal lock to win the New Hampshire primary (as is Mr. Trump.) Aside from the horse-race thing, one could go all big picture, stop a moment, and realize that Hillary [I have to tread carefully, as she and I share a birthday] has had a series of...

Some interesting developments (of the “may you live in interesting times”) variety coming out of the always interesting Middle East, as Saudi “We’ll Execute Anyone We Damned Well Want” Arabia has unsurprisingly cut off diplomatic relations with Iran. It seems that Shiites everywhere (and especially in Iran) were none too pleased when prominent Saudi Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr (and 46 others) were executed on Saturday after being convicted of terror-related offenses. Iranian protesters stormed and set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran… that sort of thing always goes well. And so, in a region that already includes Syria,...