It has been a week of dangerous precedents being set -- and it's not over yet.

One precedent that didn't get much media attention (but which is truly disturbing) was Donald Trump giving a nakedly political speech to American soldiers in uniform, where he pre-screened the crowd for both looks and ideology. One memo sent out before Trump arrived specified: "No fat soldiers." Another stated: "if soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they don't want to be in the audience, then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out."

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The most important battle over immigration policy isn't being fought on the streets of Los Angeles right now, but rather over the airwaves. This is the fight for public opinion, and it could go either way. If the public largely sides with Trump's immigration tactics, it will strengthen his hand. But if the public decides the tactics go too far then it will weaken him in the long run. How the events of this week are ultimately seen by the public could be the deciding factor. Is Donald Trump and his administration doing what the voters elected him to do, or is he vastly overreaching in a dictatorial fashion? That's the entire rhetorical battle in a nutshell.

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The Beach Boys were one of those rare iconic bands that pretty much everyone loved to some extent or another. To put it another way, you could play their songs at any random party and it'd be rare than anyone objected. There aren't many such bands around (Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Beatles, maybe the Steve Miller Band and a handful of others) and their rarity is due to their being able to create music that was pretty universally appreciated. It's pretty hard to hate a song like "Good Vibrations," right? Their harmonization was second to none as well. Their music was dated, to be sure (it arose from the surf craze of the 1950s), but it was the best of the era (although Jan and Dean fans might quibble with that statement, to be fair). For the most part, it just made people happy to hear it. Which is exactly why Brian Wilson will indeed be missed.

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There has been a very dangerous development in the Los Angeles protests, although so far it seems to be a series of isolated incidents as opposed to any sort of blanket policy. Journalists covering the protests and the police response have been targeted by police using what is now being called "less-than-lethal" weapons (non-lethal rounds such as rubber bullets). And so far, it appears that this targeting has happened not from the members of the National Guard or U.S. military (who have now been deployed, in a serious escalation of the situation by Donald Trump) but rather from local and state police forces. Which is almost more worrisome, since it can't be chalked up to the federal militarization of the response to the protests.

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We seem to be quickly headed for a confluence of events that is going to produce a rather shocking split-screen moment next weekend. We could be simultaneously watching a parade that is ostensibly being given for the celebration of the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary, while we also watch the national military being deployed on the streets of American cities. That's a jarring contrast, you have to admit.

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The world's richest man and the world's most powerful man got into an online fight yesterday, which began when Elon Musk tweeted out: "Donny Trump is a poopyhead!" -- to which Donald Trump immediately responded: "No YOU'RE the poopyhead Elon!!!"

Well, no. That's not actually how it happened. But it's not that far from the reality, sad to say.

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While I do realize that a very entertaining playground fight between the world's most prominent schoolboys is currently raging, I am going to exercise a monumental amount of restraint and not address the dustup between Elon Musk and Donald Trump today. Besides, by tomorrow, there'll probably be several more amusing developments to talk about, right?

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So there's a public gathering in Washington this week that aims to fix what's wrong with the Democratic Party. It is called "WelcomeFest" and is yet another effort to make the party "more moderate" (they talk of being "partisan centrists"), while admittedly trying to emulate the amount of energy from the progressive side of the party. One of the founders of the "Welcome Party" summed this up: "We respect the very robust and multifaceted effort on the progressive faction of the party over the last few years. They had a lot of clear coherency behind it, and there was a lot of action. We are essentially just trying to emulate that faction of the party." However, one has to wonder what they really mean when they talk of being centrists and moderates, since the lion's share of the funding behind the effort comes from Democratic deep-pocket donors, instead of being supported by any sort of authentic grassroots effort.

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Elon Musk is back in the news. He's upset over the Republican budget bill and he's having a hissy fit about it online. Musk seems destined to lose this battle, since by coming out against the bill he set himself at odds with Donald Trump -- and Trump is a lot more popular with the Republican base than Musk. On the other hand, Musk has an almost unlimited amount of money and he's quite willing to toss millions at political causes when he feels like it. So it's tough to really predict how any of this is going to play out.

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This week, Wall Street figured out something about Donald Trump (that Vladimir Putin has known for quite a while now) and gave it a catchy name: "TACO." This stands for: "Trump Always Chickens Out."

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