Hillary Rodham Clinton limped into the Democratic National Convention with enough pledged delegates to claim the Democrats’ nomination for the presidency and enough hubris that forced her and her senior advisors to spend time and resources dealing with her own party rather than targeting Donald Trump. Continue reading
This past week at the Democratic National Shit Show (DNSS), a spin off of UnREAL, Bernie (“I am proud to stand with her”) Sanders watched as his candle was snuffed. The producers, operating the strings, and Bernie, knew he wasn’t “wifey” material. Wifeys are establishment and while Bernie proved to be establishment, he was cast as a revolutionary. Small r. Continue reading
Politics is entertainment. Continue reading
With millions of others, I listened to and saw the speeches Monday night at the Demo convention on TV. Continue reading
As the Democratic Convention opened in Philadelphia, there’s just one clear message that matters from the Republicans: Donald Trump will be within ten points of Hillary Clinton in the fall election. Continue reading
On Sunday, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, tried to divert attention from the latest email scandal showing that officers of the Democratic National Committee schemed to undermine the Bernie Sanders campaign. Continue reading
The GOP’s new big dog blew the whistle Thursday night for nearly an hour and a half and it was loud and shrill enough to reach the ears of every angry, resentful, disaffected white American. The tone was divisive, dark, dystopian and grim. Continue reading
The four-day Trump-a-thon, sometimes noted as the Republican National Convention, ended last week in Cleveland with the Republican party still divided and Donald Trump’s ego inflated larger than a Macy’s parade balloon. Trump was all over the convention hall, the hotels, and in the media, chatting, arguing, scowling, and boasting. It was Trump’s convention, and he knew it. Continue reading
Donald Trump has made many promises on the campaign trail about things he will fix (a broken immigration system), change (the way trade deals are negotiated), and build (a wall on the southern border) if elected president. Those who do not support Trump, regardless of political party, comfort themselves with the constitutional reminder that our government includes three co-equal branches designed to protect against the accumulation of too much power in too few hands. Those checks and balances aside, could President Trump accomplish any of his stated objectives through unilateral actions? Continue reading
Oh dear. Watching C-SPAN and waiting for Tuesday’s roll call confirming Donald Trump’s nomination to begin, the house band there in the hall, led by GE Smith, formerly of Saturday Night Live, played covers of The Temptations’ “I Can’t Get Next To You” and other golden oldies. Many rhythm-impaired white people were dancing in the aisles and stands, a lot of them badly. And they kept doing it every time there was a lull in the action and the music started up again, like a high school 50th reunion run amok. Continue reading
On Tuesday evening, Trump became official GOP standard bearer, a billionaire tycoon representing America’s privileged class exclusively. Continue reading
What is on display at the RNC in Cleveland is the Republican id. We always suspected it would look something like this. But even though it reared its ugly head on occasion on Fox News or in Congress—on the lips of some right-wing preacher or billionaire hedge-fund manager. They would compare gays to Satan, progressive taxation to Naziism and people of color to criminals at best, animals at worst—but the more polite, polished folks who spoke for the party would always regretfully shake their well-coiffed heads and explain that wasn’t what the party was really about. Continue reading
A Republican convention that sees the host Republican governor boycotting it is doomed to failure. And that is exactly the case in Cleveland, where, as of 5:00 pm on opening day a schedule with times allotted to various speakers has still not been produced. This has confused not only the schedule-driven TV and radio media but also delegates. One Trump delegate from Tennessee confided he had never seen a convention without a fixed schedule. Continue reading
A lot of water has gone under the bridge lately. Great Britain voted to withdraw from the European Union. Bernie Sanders conceded that Hillary Clinton won the Democratic primary and endorsed her for president. The US stock market has regained most of its losses. The world situation remains largely unchanged, fraught with conflicts and problems, insecurities, and uncertainties. Continue reading
A pragmatist is the guy in front of the firing squad who asks for a blindfold: “If you can’t see the firing party, perhaps it isn’t happening!” Channel surfing the other night (without a blindfold) I caught two political events on C-SPAN. Continue reading
While negotiations over the Democratic platform were riddled with controversy over how far the party would go in its support of progressive climate and economic issues, the Republican platform, by contrast, takes a sharp rightward tack, particularly on social issues such as LGBTQ equality and reproductive rights. Continue reading
In all of the 35 single-spaced pages of the Democratic Party’s platform draft, there is just one mention of lobbying. Continue reading
With their government under the control of corporations and special interests, the People of the United States may think they have the right to vote, but, unfortunately, they do not. When the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written, the authors intentionally omitted this very significant detail. They failed to include the right to vote, and the error has never been corrected. Continue reading
Three weeks before the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Hillary Rodham Clinton unloaded heavy baggage. Continue reading
Despite Donald Trump’s dismissal of climate change as a “hoax” conceived by China, Politico reported that Trump’s applied for permission to build a seawall to prevent erosion at Trump International Gold Links & Hotel Ireland in County Clare. Rising sea levels also are encroaching on Trump’s south Florida Mar-a-Lago property, and according to a risk analysis prepared for The Guardian, the grounds could be a wading pool for 210 days a year because of tidal flooding. Continue reading
Oh what fun we have with the nonsense that flows out of the mouth of Donald J. Trump. The man is suffocatingly banal, racist, dishonest, inarticulate, uninformed, uneducated, narcissistic, a bully, just plain stupid, and an asshole (or in the immortal words of my people—a schmuck!). I would guess that as the boss of his own enterprises for many years, with the power and the habit of firing people, he eventually became deeply accustomed to not having his thoughts seriously questioned or challenged, to the extent that he really believes the crap that comes out of his mouth and doesn’t really understand what others actually think of him. Continue reading
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, did not intend to be in the position that others coveted so badly. According to one former campaign staffer, he planned to finish no higher than second place behind one of the establishment candidates. Little did he anticipate that his appeal to white nationalism would mean more to the Republican rank and file than proposals to cut taxes for rich people or defund Planned Parenthood. Continue reading
Over the holiday weekend, major media rightly piled on about Donald Trump’s recent recycling of neo-Nazi imagery—in particular his Hillary-hating blast featuring a six-point star affixed onto a heap of $100 bills. As both The New York Times and The Washington Post prominently reported, Trump cut and pasted neo-Nazi images from the Internet when he unleashed the latest round of his Twitter barrage at Hillary Clinton as “most corrupt candidate ever.” Continue reading
If I understand this correctly, Bernie Sanders’ strong showing resulted in the Democratic Party awarding him five selections to the Party Platform Committee. His hope was to influence the party to include a more progressive platform for the Democratic nominee (Hillary Clinton) to run on. Continue reading
Gary Younge, editor-at-large for The Guardian presents a laser-sharp analysis of the Brexit zeitgeist and British leadership’s WTF? happens next. All hell’s broken loose. Who’s in charge? Who would want this task? Boris Johnson says, “That person cannot be me.” Understandable. Who wants to receive a big, fat failing grade before the course work even begins? Continue reading
It’s amazing how the mainstream press hide the bloody history of Hillary Clinton, including her abuse of children, encouraging millions to vote for her. The establishment has clearly been behind her candidacy. Continue reading
Republican and Democrat party policies consistently represent privileged Americans at the expense of most everyone else—notably since Bill and Hillary Clinton’s deplorable 1990s co-presidency. Continue reading
Republicans, we know what you’re going through. Continue reading
This week the world has to be thankful for hubris and political miscalculation. These two factors have temporarily thrown a wrench into the imperialist project. No one in the British or American establishment foresaw the “Brexit” vote that called for a United Kingdom withdrawal from the European Union. Continue reading
Political fallout from last Thursday’s Brexit vote didn’t take long to unfold. David Cameron began it by announcing his resignation, effective when Tories meet in October, he said. Continue reading
The way this 2016 American presidential election is unfolding, there is a good chance that it could be a repeat of the 1964 U.S. election. In both instances, a Democratic presidential candidate is facing a flawed and frightening Republican presidential candidate who multiplies provocative and reckless statements and off-hand comments. Continue reading
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An America neither Republicans nor Democrats dare show
Posted on August 2, 2016 by Ben Tanosborn
It’s over, and to use Joe Biden’s favorite and oft-repeated descriptive noun, rebirthed from nine decades ago, the duopoly gatherings in Cleveland and Philadelphia gave America a double dosage of political malarkey. Republican malarkey coated with both fear and hate, and Democratic malarkey wrapped in chameleonic deception. Continue reading →