So…we know Russia is very good at murdering political opponents. They seem capable of waging an extended, illegal war. They’re not so good at landing spaceships on the moon. Curious.

I don’t know why or what changed but all of a sudden there’s a race to get back to the moon. (Okay, “back” for the US, “to” for the rest.) The US has a mission planned to the far side. The Chinese have already landed on the far side. India just landed a rover near the moon’s south pole. Russia crashed.

Hey, no disrespect to Russia, here. They own EVERY space first except, ‘get to the moon.’ They were first TO space with the first-ever satellite. First animal in space. First man in space. (Perhaps redundant.) First woman in space. First…pretty much everything. So I have no doubt they’ll figure out what went wrong and land there sooner or later. I just see the Russians suddenly NOT doing well things we thought they did well.

Except murdering political opponents. They still do that with special mastery…

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Politico/Ipsos did a lovely poll. I think it bodes poorly for the GOP but a) it’s early, and b) it’s early. Hell, the trials haven’t even started, yet. They broke down the various aspects of the trumpster’s troubles, asked people about them, then broke THAT data down to party affiliation. You will NOT be surprised to learn that people who identify as “Democrats” think, my words, here, Trump is a criminal. People who identify as “Republicans” continue to reject reality in deference to their preferred paradigm. The REAL issue for the GOP is that the “independents” lean more toward “criminal” than “delusion.”

THAT’s the part the media keeps missing (or leaving out, perhaps.) Republicans, still registered AS Republicans, have been driving rational conservatives from the party rather aggressively and for quite some time, now. What that means is that if pollsters don’t have the numbers for “independent,” they really don’t offer enough information.

So, using Politico/Ipsos numbers, when asked if Trump should stand trial before the 2024 election, the media will report that 89% of Dems say ‘yes’ while only 33% of Republicans do. But 63% of independents think he should stand trial before the election, meaning 61% of Americans who responded think he should stand trial before the election.

Despite the claims being tossed about by cons, most Americans believe the DOJ is acting responsibly in their prosecution of trump’s crime sprees. Is the DOJ being fair? Most Republicans, 74%, will tell you no. (Of course, they’ll ALSO tell you that gasoline was only, like, .22 cents/gallon when trump was president…) Not surprisingly, 89% of Democrats believe the DOJ is being fair in their actions. The key is, 64% of independents agree with the Democrats bringing the total number of Americans who support the DOJ’s actions to 59%. Hell, that’s almost enough to pass a law in this once-great nation…

For a lot of us, the big question is whether or not he goes to prison for his crimes like any of the rest of us would. It’s a real test of the “citizen-President” concept we’ve been waving around for 200 years. Republicans say no. Hell, 43% of them say that even if he’s convicted, there should be no punishment. That shows the value of Republican input these days. He shouldn’t be punished if he didn’t do it and he shouldn’t be punished even if he DID do it because they love the guy so much. Fortunately, the rest of America, most of American, is more rational. 87% of Democrats think he should go to prison if convicted, likely base in the notion that anybody else would go to prison for doing what he did.

The key is the independents. 51% of them think prison is appropriate. 31% support some kind of punishment, if not prison. That breaks down to 50% of Americans who think he should go to prison if convicted. That number isn’t as high but I suspect many of the independents will move toward supporting prison as the details of his crimes come out at trial.

So the “news” will keep hammering on the point that Republican support for the trumpster remains high and goes higher every time a new crime is revealed – because, of course it does. But those scary headlines are misleading.

Democrats knew, and then proved to the world in 2016, that they can’t win an election without independent support. The same is proving true for the Republicans. They’ll sew up a nomination for some crazy bastard in Republican primaries, where ONLY Republicans are allowed to vote, but, so far, the insanity they nominate doesn’t appeal to the mainstream in any way and the Democrats walk in by default.

It doesn’t hurt the Democrats that Trump is the GOP flag-bearer. Independent lefties may not WANT to vote with the Democrats but understand the danger the trumpster and his ilk represent to the country. (We aren’t actually supporting the Democrats, btw. We’re supporting, like it or not, the ONLY available path to “the right thing.”) Worse, the cons have decided to come clean on their goals and most of their goals are reprehensible to true Americans. ‘ALL rights for me, NO rights for you’ is NOT a message that sells well in the US these days and I hope it never is…

I’ll tell you this: I feel better, having seen this information. What with the media constantly fomenting conflict, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that most Americans still believe in truth, justice, and the American way…

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There’s going to be some roiling in Niner world, today. Yesterday, the Niners completed a deal to send Trey Lance to the Cowboys. Lance cost the team a LOT to get. THEN, he cost the team a LOT to keep. The Niners thought they had something in Lance but then discovered, accidentally, they had, right in their hands, magic in Brock Purdy. Is that Lance’s fault? Hell, no. But are you going to play a lesser player because he cost a lot to get – and to keep? Hell, no. In the end, Lance’s contract meant he had to go.

I don’t think there’s any ill-will toward Lance. It just didn’t work out. I hope he gets a chance to resurrect his career somewhere else. AND I hope the Niners go 15-2 and win the Stupid Bowl…