Why does he keep bringing up Rosie O'Donnell?

I realize this is way down the very long list of reasons why Donald Trump would make a terrible president, but I think that giving a guy who has had a decade-long jihad against Rosie O'Donnell because she once said something mean about him that much political power is a really bad idea.

Will there be another one?

There are some die-hards who are claiming otherwise, but the consensus seems to be that Hillary "won" last night's debate.

So what are the odds that he doesn't show up to debate number 2? I think there is now a reasonable chance that he won't.

...and it looks like that's what Rudy is counseling.

Trump's home town paper

Is this the first time a newspaper has run an anti-endorsement?

...and the WaPo has its own anti-endorsement today. I ask once again, is this precedented? Papers regularly endorse candidates (and the NYT and WaPo endorsed Clinton yesterday), but have they ever run a separate editorial to say the other candidate should not be elected?

Between Two Ferns

I thought Clinton's "Between Two Ferns" appearance was great. I completely agree with the co-creator that there is little chance that Donald Trump would ever agree to do it. But wouldn't it be great if he did?

Flagging can't do that much

I realize this is not something that anyone who is trying to be elected to office can say, but it seems pretty clear that predicting who is going to later be a terrorist is really hard, if not impossible. We can up the scrutiny if we want, but the more you do that the more non-terrorist get their lives ruined, and that can easily become a bigger problem than terrorism itself. Terrorism is a really really small problem in this country, after all. Statistically, you are so much more likely to be hurt by... well just about anything else. Wrecking the lives of people with any connection to certain scary parts of the world is going to hurt more people than terrorism will. Plus, it might drive more people to terrorism, rendering the whole thing a useless sadistic enterprise.

So let me get this straight...

...Trump didn't pay several staffers on his campaign, causing them to resign en masse, but he has continued to pay his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski even after Trump fired him in June?

Trump isn't just a race-baiting, mostly policy-free, demagogue, he's also a guy who makes some really odd decisions that are hard to explain or reconcile with his other decisions. I guess I am supposed to apply Trump's Razor to a situation like this, but in this case, I don't know what the stupidest explanation would be.

Freedom!

Others have written about Codias, the new social network for conservatives. Because conservatives just can't get their views onto regular social media, or something. In any case, this is sure to take off because facebook alternatives have had remarkable success in recent years. I was just +1ing a post that made that very point.

Codias did load when I clicked on it. My favorite part of the home screen is where it says (under the "Freedom" heading): "We don’t censor conservative views," because not censoring only conservative views is totally the opposite of censorship!

Why this could be the next Conservapedia. Although sadly, Codias doesn't have a Conservapedia entry yet. It doesn't have a Wikipedia entry yet either, I wonder which one will get one first.

Eki?

In recent years, the first post here on January 1st on this site is my list of predictions for the upcoming year. Every time I do that I make a prediction whether any of the five former Soviet -stans will have a change in leadership in the upcoming year. My prediction swings back and forth from year to year, but the lack of change in Central Asia has been pretty consistent. Until earlier this month (or possibly last month) when Islam Karimov, (now former) President of Uzbekistan died. And now there's this.

I have no idea how series these heart problems are, but is it possible that we will have not one, but two changes in the head of state in Central Asia in a single year?!?!?!

This alone would have decided my vote

Witness the contrast between Trump and Clinton.

5 seconds

Has anyone ever actually believed that the five second rule was based on science? It has always been more of a joke than a serious claim that needed to be debunked.