“There is no difference between hrc and djt, other than the later has a below average penis.”

Love it!!!! I’m gonna fall outta my chair!

The question isn’t “what happened to the Republic”. The Republic is dead. The question is nominally between “are we oligarchy or democracy”.

Assuming votes still matter, then democracy.

Cut down the law YUUGE bumper sticker! You are (sorry those I respect or disrepect) are in a fantasy world. The donald is a trojan horse. Might as well vote dem straight on down for that is what you will reap.

Caesar was of the Marius Reforms faction and in fact probably had Marius as a mentor.

You would probably know what my views are/were, if you read my comments at Grim b’s blog.

My prediction and analysis from 2007 hasn’t changed. If anything, it is becoming amazingly on target, even time wise.

The Gramscian march actually stopped in 2008. And the Leftist alliance had activated their strategic reserves and came out of the shadows by around 2012.

Plus:

Captured Iraqi documents have uncovered evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism, including a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. … Because Saddam�s security organizations and Osama bin Laden�s terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same outside groups. … evidence shows that Saddam�s use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of the regime.

And:

The networks by which foreign Sunni jihadists entered Iraq predate 2003, either being formed with regime complicity by Zarqawi in 2002, or directly formed by the regime much earlier as part of Saddam’s alliance with the Islamists in his foreign policy. … To put it simply, the Saddam regime’s reputation for keeping a lid on religious militancy and sectarianism is exactly wrong; by commission and omission it brought both things to levels Iraq has scarcely ever known in its history. … The Faith Campaign and the accompanying patronage networks laid the foundations for something like IS, ideologically and materially, long before the Coalition invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Note:

From Baghdad the long struggle to outlast the containment policy of the United States imposed through the UN sanctions seemed tantalizingly close. There was considerable commitment and involvement on the part of states like Russia and Syria, who had developed economic and political stakes in the success of the Regime.

Our intervention was not the cause of the sickness in the region. It was the cure until Obama deviated from Bush. The Saddam regime, with accomplices like Russia and Syria, were causes of the sickness in the region.

Hear, hear! The Republican party has earned it’s nickname “The Stupid Party” many times in the past, but now it has earned win, place and show with an oak leaf cluster.

We had the best opportunity in 8 years and completely blew it. No way I ever saw this coming. No way I would have ever predicted it.

As I said above, I think Trump is having a blast and enjoying jerking us around. There is really no likely outcome that isn’t fraught with tears at this point.

I’m with you, though – I’m not going to just throw in the towel and submit to dictators (to use GB’s formulation). Because that’s what both of them want to be. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but helping Trump win so I can spend the next four to eight years having him punch me in the face with my own fist while saying “Why are you hitting yourself? Why are you hitting yourself?” over and over …. not going to happen.