Rick Wilson is a Republican strategist, a conservative who decided very early that would oppose Trump forever, relentlessly, no matter what the consequences. He watched as many of his colleagues, after initially opposing Trump, went all in for him because, hey, that’s where the money is. After all, morals, ethics, conservative principles, and concern for the country as a whole is just so old school and tired, right? Wrong. Because, “Everything Trump Touches Dies.” Wilson touches on this central theme again and again, detailing how once respected people like General Kelly got debased, corrupted, and had  their reputations rightfully trashed by associating with and supporting Trump.

There are many such examples in the book. Wilson knows many of those who are now in the Trump orbit. As a leftie, it’s fascinating to read Wilson destroying Trumpism from a conservative viewpoint. Wilson emphasizes that  Trump is a sleazy, corrupt opportunist with no ethics or guiding principles, and is not and has never been a conservative.

He also writes like Hunter Thompson and can be savagely funny while getting his points across.

He was targeted by Steve Bannon in 2015 for opposing Trump. He, family, friends, clients were attacked. When the Roy Mooore campaign came around, he was asked to create attack ads against Moore, who was backed by Bannon, and takes pride in helping bodybag both of them.

On the groveling conservative media:

“Meet the clickservatives—conservative media types more interested in web traffic and ad revenue than ideology—who have embraced Esoteric Trumpism at the low, low price of their integrity. It’s a deal with the Devil, and far too many in the conservative intellectual class and the commentariat couldn’t wait to sign. “Eternal damnation later for making libtard snowflakes cry now and raking in those hot clicks? Bargain!” Defending the principles of limited government, personal liberty, and strict adherence to the Constitution is old and busted. The new hotness? “Nationalism is the new black.” So many of them dropped their panties and put out on the first date because Big Donnie talks dirty to the media.”

On bodybagging Roy Moore and Steve Bannon:

“We helped craft a series of ads for a SuperPAC that carefully targeted Republican women in six Alabama counties, pouring in tightly targeted, researched, and tested messages. The strongest was released the night Bannon held his infamous rally in Fairhope, Alabama. You’re welcome, Steve.

Our closing ad was simple: a series of pretty, upset girls on screen look straight to camera while a voice-over asks, “What if she was your little girl? Your daughter? Your sister? What if she was sixteen years old? Fifteen? Or even fourteen? Would you let a thirty-two-year-old man date her? Undress her? Touch her? He called it dating. We call it unacceptable. That’s why we can’t support Roy Moore.”

Beating Roy Moore was a moral obligation. Beating Steve Bannon was a pleasure. Within days of the loss in Alabama, Bannon went from the GOP’s newest kingmaker to political leper. We all piled on, savagely. That’s how politics still works, even for people who think they’ve reset all the rules and defied all the structures.”

Gutenberg, the new editor for WordPress, gets a callout in WordPress 4.9.8. Users are asked if they want to install it as a plugin. When WordPress 5.0 launches, Gutenberg will be the default, with an option to use the Classic Editor. At that point, WordPress core code will be updated.

Things may get a bit bumpy for a bit. Old themes and plugins may have issues or stop working. Most developers are working hard to get their plugins and themes ready for Gutenberg. I’ve already had to uninstall cranky plugins that didn’t play well with changes in WordPress core code that are already happening.

I’ve been using Gutenberg since May on this blog. It’s like the Medium editor, however, IMO, better. It’s a new paradigm. In Gutenberg, everything is a block, which are reusable templates. A block can be a paragraph, image, heading, gallery, video, etc. Choose a block and insert it. It takes a little getting used to, however is more powerful and intuitive than the Classic editor.

Gutenberg Plugins are already appearing. Drop It gives the ability to insert free photos from Unsplash and Giphy directly into a post. Atomic Blocks adds several new blocks. There will be many more as Gutenberg rolls out.

Gutenberg is the soon to be released editor interface for creating content with WordPress, and many developers have already started building Gutenberg Blocks. The goal of the Gutenberg project is to unify the many ways content is currently created in WordPress and combine them into a consistent experience for the user. The Gutenberg editor puts the focus back on content and takes a drastically different approach to it than the traditional Rich-Text editor that ships currently with WordPress.

The concept behind Gutenberg is not new, it draws its inspiration from how old printing presses used a galley and chase to create reusable templates that could consistently reproduce the same layout. With its introduction comes the concept of composing content with blocks. Gutenberg Blocks function similar to the way most page-builder plugins currently work–by providing a way for users to visualize the layout and appearance of their content.

Confused babble on the left says Trump / Russia is a distraction and instead we must focus on a progressive agenda. This is resolutely and idiotically backwards. No progressive agenda is possible until Trump is toppled. Period. Democrats have a real chance to take back both houses in November. If they do, it’s game over for Trump and his corrupt minions.

After eviscerating his own party in Everything Trump Touches Dies, Rick Wilson has advice for Democrats on how to win in the upcoming midterms and 2020. Wilson is a Republican strategist, one of the original Never Trumpers, and wants Democrats to win bigly now.

First off, Wilson says, admit Hillary was an uninspired candidate. I agree. Democrats need to run inspired candidates, younger ones too. Hillary, Biden, Bernie – thank you for your service. Now retire. Adam Schiff, Ted Lieu, and Democratic politicians who have actively opposed Trump should take leadership roles.

“Let’s have some real talk about Hillary Clinton: she was a catastrophically terrible, horrible, crap-tier candidate, and she always has been. Democrats will sputter about her accomplishments, her stature, her work as a senator and secretary of state and still look away from the hard truth of politics: sometimes politicians have the Gift; sometimes they don’t. Hillary never did. Not once.

Never a gifted, graceful, or natural speaker, Hillary’s constant mental self-auditing was always visible: “I will now run Human Interaction Subroutine 54.1, warm smile followed by sincere chuckle.” Without using the phrase “first woman president,” try to name the actual predicates of Hillary’s campaign. Unless you’re an HRC campaign insider, you can’t.”

Wilson created pit bull attack ads against Democrats using Pelosi as the focus because, while liberals love her, most everyone else doesn’t.

“While we’re on the subject of the GOP’s secret weapons, I’ll name another: Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi may raise a metric crap-ton of money for the Democrats, but she sets the rest of America’s teeth on edge. Ever wonder why we stuck her in candidate and SuperPAC ads against you until Trump came along? Because it worked for a long, long time; only Trump has made her more palatable”

Democratic candidates who can win in more conservative areas aren’t going to be democratic socialists like Ocasio-Cortez. They just aren’t. Forget about running ideologically similar candidates. 

“Another reason we took over 1,100 legislative seats from you over the past 15 years is your top-down ideology. Florida is not Vermont. Michigan is not Wyoming. New York is not North Carolina. As long as you insist on a single set of national standards for your party candidates, you limit the regions, states, and districts in which you can effectively compete

Guns are a flash point. Yes they are. Made worse by lecturing and barely concealed scorn from coastal elites. Instead, focus on issues Democrats can win on like health care, the economy, Social Security, Medicare, and immigration.

“Most of you Democrats still don’t realize the way you speak about guns is a signifier of political hostility to Americans who long ago made up their minds on the matter. You conflate them with the people who commit these crimes, and you do it constantly, tendentiously, and with the worst goddamned nanny-state condescension.

In an ironic twist, about 35% of the 1.4 million people in Florida who have a concealed-carry permit are Democrats. You guys don’t even understand your own base.”

Ok, Qanon is officially so insane that even Pizzagate wackos say Qanon is cray-cray. In case you have been blissfully unaware, Pizzagate nutcases thought Hillary and other Democrats had a secret pedophile sex-ring hidden in the basement of a DC restaurant. One of their wackos actually went to the restaurant with a rifle, fired three shots, found no basement or pedophiles, and went to prison for four years.

These Pizzagate crazies think Qanon is unhinged madness. Which it clearly is. Unless you believe JFK Jr. faked his death “then began secretly working to put Trump in the White House and destroy the Clinton/ Illuminati/ vampire cabal.”

Theories about Qanon include that it is:

1) A left-wing anarchist prank.

2) 4-chan knuckleheads pranking older conservatives.

3) Russian active measures.

If it is a leftie prank, it is now incredibly irresponsible given that an armed gunman blocked a bridge near Hoover Dam in July demanding that Trump release the real documents about Hillary probe. This is straight-up Qanon derangement. Any responsible leftie prank should have ended then.

My guess: It’s a 4chan prank with Russian bots, trolls, and shit-stirrers jumping up, because that what they do. Happens all the time on Twitter.

So, no, I don’t think it’s a leftie prank.

“While it’s almost impossible to prove who started QAnon, there is some evidence that it was meant to be a prank all along. And more importantly, it’s looking more and more likely that QAnon is actually a prank by leftists or anarchists to make the far-right look deranged.

Matthew P. Wright was arrested after he drove an armored vehicle onto a bridge spanning the Hoover Dam and blocked traffic to demand the government “release the OIG report,” a call spouted by QAnon believers. Wright’s standoff with the police lasted 90 minutes. He was eventually taken into custody without incident, authorities said, but a rifle and a handgun were found inside the truck.

Rick Wilson.

“Some even believe Q composes these messages for their eager consumption and interpretation at Trump’s direction, the amanuensis to an orange Nostradamus whose quatrains appear on the same image boards that feature bronie porn, hentai spank-bank material, and tween Neo-Nazi shitposter incels, instead of penned on parchment.

“Lurid and exciting for the rubes, but as of yet, Hillary Clinton walks free. If that even is Hillary Clinton, and not a shapeshifting reptilian overlord.”

Of course, it’s just trolling. It’s just a prank by some chan-autists. It makes me shake my head to explain to people that the idea of a conspiracy this grand and elaborate has as much chance of working as Skeeter’s plan to cook meth in the WalMart bathroom.

After decades of NIMBYs opposing it, Massachusetts will soon have 800 MW of offshore wind from Vineyard Wind. And, added bonus, the price is highly competitive.

Massachusetts electricity users will save about $1.4 billion over 20 years from the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the U.S.

With Vineyard Wind, the U.S. is starting to close the gap, Harries said. While offshore wind is still more costly than onshore wind and solar, it offers other advantages, notably that the turbines will generate power in the winter when prices are high.

Federal tax credits and a long-term power-purchase agreement were part of the equation that helped the wind project “offer an attractive price to the benefit of consumers,”