… But I do know an animal when I see one.

Yesterday, the White House put a fine point on President Trump’s description of MS-13 gang members as “animals.” In a 491 word posting on the White House website, White House staff used the word “animals” no fewer than 10 times in describing MS-13 atrocities.

Democratic Senator and former Speaker of the Assembly, Bob Hertzberg, isn't slowing down.

The 63-year-old represents the 18th Senate District (San Fernando Valley) and is once again on the ballot for a June primary. I say again because Hertzberg was first elected to the Assembly in 1996 when he won the 40th District Assembly seat. In 2000, Senator Hertzberg became the Assembly speaker and served in that capacity for two years. He left the legislature to focus on business ventures, only to return 12 years later and win election in the 18th Senate district in 2014.

Former Republican Governor of Massachusetts Bill Weld has endorsed Libertarian Kevin McCormick for Governor of Arizona.

The announcement comes as McCormick is on the campaign trail, driving home his message of fiscal responsibility, the need for better teacher pay, preservation of gun owner’s rights and the need to scrap cumbersome and expensive marijuana laws.

Writes an independent voter in New Castle, Colorado Monday:

"If you are a registered Democrat or Republican voter and are fed up with the two major parties, you should register to be an Independent/unaffiliated voter today. No worries, because Colorado now has an open primary system."

Oh really, Rocky Mountain "Letter to the Editor" writer?

Please tell your fellow Colorado voters more:

Update, 9/6/18: Though California officials said they were correcting the problems with the DMV motor voter system, department officials reported Wednesday that more than 23,000 voters had been registered incorrectly since April.

Types of Healthcare Systems

Politicians love to brag about how the United States is the greatest nation on earth. But when it comes to health insurance, this is far from true.

Too much of a good thing can easily be a bad thing.

Too much water leads to water intoxication.

Too much working out leads to rhabdomyolysis.

Too many antibiotics lead to drug-resistant superbugs.

And finally, too high of a signature requirement keeps good candidates off ballots.

Signature requirements to make a ballot make sense. Go search social media for “independent candidates” and you’ll see a wide array of highly unqualified individuals running for public office.

On Friday Senator Rand Paul told viewers on Fox Business that yesterday's vote on his balanced budget bill shows which Senate Republicans are really serious about budget responsibility, and which ones are only fiscal conservatives in the abstract, not in practice:

"Republicans are, in the abstract, for balanced budgets. But as you saw yesterday, the majority of the Republican senators are really not for the balanced budget. They’re only for it in the abstract."

There has long been speculation that US businessman Mark Cuban might run for president as an independent or third party candidate in 2020.

While there is a giant question mark over a potential presidential run, it's certainly clear that Cuban believes something needs to be done to break up the two-party duopoly:

https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/996943847673548800

And Cuban went on for several tweets about the need to unite as Americans and reject tribalistic politics and the two-party status quo:

The Rose Garden press conference at the White House was canceled Thursday. I know I know, we wanted to get in and ask voter-centric questions of President Trump and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. Rain is a terrible thing.

But we did get a Sarah Huckabee Sanders appearance for a few minutes - the most notable remark was her doubling down on the president's use of the word "animals" to describe members of the notorious MS-13 gang.

Not sure if the gang members care, but the media present clutched its pearls -- lots of unhushed whispers.