Bernie Sanders best-case EV scenario: 112 Sanders - 423 any Republican

Bernie Sanders will motivate millions of people who've never voted before in their lives to register to vote AGAINST him. More importantly, his platform of tax after tax, government intrusion into the private sector and unattainable pipe dreams will flip a lot of heretofore solidly blue states. Washington comes to mind quickly: everything from the summit of Mount Rainier to the Idaho state line is redder than Alabama. Always remember Reagan won 49 states in 1984 after he raised taxes three times and got 241 Marines killed in Beirut.

So...my best-case scenario for a Sanders-Trump, Cruz, Carson or Rubio race is:

Sanders:
California: 55 ev
Hawaii: 4 ev
Illinois: 20 ev
Massachusetts: 11 ev
New York: 29 ev
Vermont: 3 ev
Total is 112. The Republican takes the rest.

Unfortunately, I don't think that'll happen: With the possible exception of Hawaii, which is very solidly Democratic, and Vermont, who's been sending Sanders to Congress for two decades, there's not a safe state in the fifty. There's a good chance Sanders could receive 62 ev (California, Hawaii and Vermont) and an outside chance he gets three (his home state).

The American Way of Life can't afford Bernie Sanders in the general election.

Not Florida man: Brawl at Carl's Jr breaks out over thrown jalapeno

The question that will kill Sanders' health care plan

"How are you going to convince a Congress who would rather commit mass suicide than raise taxes to pass the tax increases that will be necessary to fund your plan?"

Very simple way to get rid of the Bundy Bunch

Send two government officials to the Malheur Refuge.

The first person will have a document purportedly transferring ownership of the refuge to Ammon Bundy's group.

The second person will have a document demanding immediate payment of 175 years' worth of back property taxes, at current rates, plus interest and penalties, on 187,757 acres of land, and authorizing the government to seize all vehicles, firearms, ammunition, personal effects, interest in any business ventures in any state in the Union, and snacks in the Bundy group's possession as partial payment for this tax liability. Then bring in the rollbacks and start loading up their cars.

They'll start packing in microseconds.

Who gets blamed when the Oregon Teahadists start shooting each other?

I mean, besides Obama - that he'll be blamed somehow is a given.

Bernie Sanders is wrong about breaking up the "big banks"

Madoff Investment Securities put a $64.8 billion ding in the economy, and it had five employees including Bernie Madoff.

Enron also cost the taxpayers billions, and they weren't a bank at all.

Senator Sanders' plan to break up the "big banks" SOUNDS good, but it won't fix the root problem: that banks have become one-stop shopping centers for financial evil. If the government breaks up the ten biggest banks, the people who are doing all this evil will simply move over to smaller banks that haven't been broken up and go right back to business.

Also...since a big bank and a small bank have the same intrinsic capabilities, and therefore the same potential to destroy the economy, the worst lawyer in America could get this declared unconstitutional in about two seconds.

The reason Glass-Steagall was so successful at stopping the banks from destroying the earth is it looked at the functions of banks rather than their size. Glass and Steagall realized the big problem in the banking sector was banks being allowed to sell securities, and their law was written to stop banks from doing that.

If you REALLY want to fix the problem, this is how: There are six branches of the financial-services business: insurance; commercial banking (checking accounts, savings accounts, personal and business loans); investment banking (stocks and bonds); credit cards; mortgage banking; and derivatives trading. Allow a financial-services firm, like Wells Fargo, to operate in one of those six branches and require it to divest itself of the other five. If we go with Sanders' plan, there will still be another collapse but this time, it'll be at little firms like the Idaho Independent Bank.

Oh, and we also need a 2 cent per share transaction tax on all stock trading, which is small enough to not be harmful to legitimate traders and large enough to stop high-frequency trading.

Perfect gift for Florida Men and Nevada Squatters

Tell me something about this Trumperlin Wall

Anyone familiar with the GOP field in the 2016 presidential race knows Donald Trump is planning to build a wall all the way across the Mexican-US border, and to have the Mexican government pay for it.

Ignore the biggest problems with this wall (namely, he doesn't have the terrain on his side, the world can't make that much portland cement, and as long as the Donald Trumps of the world insist on hiring illegals to work for cheap people WILL figure out how to get through it) and concentrate on the financial part.

Delirium Tremens over there claims he's going to force the Mexican government to pay the yooge bill for putting up the wall. What will DT do when the Mexican president tells him to go fuck himself?

Isn't the Malheur NWR headquarters closed in the winter?

Back in "the day" when the government actually had money to do things like build wildlife refuge headquarters and remote ranger stations, places like the Malheur headquarters would only be open from early spring to late fall. Since usage of the area was expected to be very light during the winter, they designed the roofs of these places to withstand snow weight, took all the paperwork and office equipment out of them on Closing Day, left the headquarters building unlocked in case snowshoers might want to use it, and had one Forest Service employee go up there on a snowcat every couple of weeks just to be sure the place hadn't fallen in.

Moral of this story: If Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is like Idaho's Red Ives Ranger Station was before Ronald Reagan took office, Bundy's "patriots" are occupying an abandoned building.

Disaster Status Report 1

As you may remember, on Thursday afternoon my car burned up in the middle of the street with half my wardrobe in the back seat. Fortunately, Thursday was also payday and this month features three paychecks, so I have one to spend on whatever I need.

On Friday I went to Spokane and bought five shirts, three pair of pants and some socks. After I get a new laundry basket or something similar, that part will be rectified.

Strange thing: my house key got distorted enough it was almost impossible to use, so I replaced my lockset with a nicer one. I was gonna anyway, but decided now was the time.

I also went car shopping. My original intent was to stash $1100 and buy an old shitbox off Craigslist, but I went around and looked at the shitboxes and...well, the name is pretty fucking accurate. Fortunately, my parents are old enough that they have to take distributions from all the IRAs they have scattered around, and they are able to loan me enough money to buy a decent car. So, on Tuesday night I'm going to take off early from work, jump on a bus for Seattle with my F4 and bank account number in hand, and buy a nicer car.