toxicity of Donald Trump

Fresh from what he sees as a great victory in Singapore, where Kim Jong-Un pantsed him, Trump's Wednesday was pretty crazy.

The Republicans always planned that the Midterms would be all about the greatness of their tax cuts. That isn't working at all. And Plan B probably don't either.

GOP candidates rallying behind Trump read an ABC News headline yesterday. Some are, of course... and some aren't. The line that interested me most, though, was "Republicans appear far more comfortable touting Trump’s leadership than Democrats do arguing against it." Again, some are and some aren't-- on both ends of that statement.

Read any of that stuff about how most Democratic candidates don't want the Clintons campaigning for them?

The GOP, particularly the NRSC, is starting to acknowledge they have their first Todd Akin/Richard Mourdock of 2018: Lou Barletta. In 2012 when Joe Donnelly was winning a Senate seat in Indiana and Claire McCaskill was being reelected in Missouri because their opponents were judged by voters as too insane and extreme, Bob Casey was running in Pennsylvania against a mainstream conservative, Tom Smith.

Crucial Senate primaries today in West Virginia and Indiana-- states that Trump won by big margins in 2016 (68.5% to 26.4% in West Virginia and 56.8% to 37.9% in Indiana)-- are a mess for the Republicans.

Tomorrow is Tuesday... primary day in 4 important states: North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia and Ohio-- each of which was carried by Señor Trumpanzee. If you think the GOP primary in West Virginia is crackpotsville... well, you're right, but almost sane compared to what's going on in Indiana. Last week we looked at the mess the Indiana senate primary has turned into.

Forbes made sure to include a caveat under contributor Harry Binswanger's name in their latest issue. Here's how Binswange describes himself-- no joke: "I am a philosopher who was an associate of the late Ayn Rand, and since 1986 I have been a member of the board of directors of the Ayn Rand Institute. I have taught philosophy at Hunter College (CUNY) and the University of Texas at Austin.

When Trent Franks retired in December after a sexual harassment scandal, I told a friend of mine to calm down, saying that the district is so red that if it flipped-- or even got close to flipping-- the GOP would have to pack it in and forget the idea of even an effective minority next year. The PVI is R+13 and Trump beat Hillary 58.1% to 37.0%. Romney and McCain even did slightly better than Trump did. This is really Republican district in the suburbs and exurbs west and northwest of Phoenix. It includes Sun City, Peoria, Litchfield Park and Surprise.

Joe Ricketts' Ending Spending Fund was founded to help candidates with the primitive idea that federal budgets need to be "balanced," basically so that government could not engage in doing any good for citizens or for society at large. Spending creates national wealth, something conservative nincompoops like the Ricketts family refuses to understand.