Here's Jerry Garcia's last performance with the Grateful Dead, a month before his death on August 9, 1995.
Tuesday, August 09, 2016
Monday, August 08, 2016
42 years ago today.
Here's Richard Nixon's August 8, 1974, resignation speech as broadcast on CBS News, followed by commentary from Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, Dan Rather, and Roger Mudd.
Saturday, August 06, 2016
The One Video to Watch on the 71st Anniversary the Hiroshima Bomb.
It may have been lost in the shuffle as Trump scuffled with gold-star families and crying babies, but the most important campaign moment of the week may have been this conversation about the current Republican nominee for president and nuclear weapons that took place on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show on Wednesday, August 3. This snippet will only take a couple of minutes of your time.
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...or this one:
"Be careful America, and be careful Republican leaders. Your party is blowing up." (Mika Brzezinski at 1'33" above)It won't be just a party blowing up if Trump is elected. Personally, I don't see how anyone concerned about the safety of the world can remain undecided about their choice for president after watching that short video.
----
...or this one:
#TrumpDebateConditions
— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) August 10, 2016
8) No mean 'gotcha' questions like that trick question about the so-called 'nuclear triad'! https://t.co/BpZlsPas06
Friday, August 05, 2016
2002 in France should be our benchmark for this 2016 US election
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| The French field of sixteen in 2002. By Vpe - Own work, Public Domain |
Supporters and opponents of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential bid would find a lot that looks familiar in the Programme de Jean-Marie Le Pen during the National Front (FN) leader's quest for France's presidency in 2002. Section four of the program was dedicated to reversing the flow of immigrants into France and immediately expelling all immigrants "en situation irrégulière," section seven was devoted to a new protectionism, and section thirteen was all about "la loi et l'ordre," a couple of words that came to our language from French with the Norman invasion and have become the Nixonian mantra for Donald Trump this year. The comparisons between Trump and the FN Le Pens, both Jean-Marie in 2002 and his daughter Marine now, are not far-fetched.
Going into the first round of voting on April 21, 2002, it was widely anticipated that the top two vote getters among the 16 parties participating would be the RPR's Jacques Chirac, the incumbent President (seen as "Super Menteur," or Super Liar, at 1'55" in the video above), and the Socialist Lionel Jospin, the incumbent Prime Minister. Nine national polls conducted in April had Chirac and Jospin within 1 or 2 percentage points of each other with Le Pen trailing them by 4 to 6 points in third. It was therefore a major shock to everyone in the nation (and much of the world) when Jean-Marie Le Pen qualified for the final round of voting by coming in second (see 3'35" above). A stress on crime committed by foreigners immediately before the election had a lot to do with Le Pen's surge (just as some in the Trump campaign must be looking for a Trumpstag fire of their own in late October of this year).
As some Republicans in 2016 are fond of pointing out, France was then presented with "a binary choice" for the second round of voting on May 5. The parties of the Left which had eaten into Jospin's votes had no problem telling their supporters to vote for the Center-Right establishment candidate in the second round. On May Day there were competing public demonstrations, with 20,000 showing up for the FN's celebration of Joan of Arc and about a million showing up for the Labor Day marches with tricolors mixing with the red flags. The voting four days later wasn't any closer. Le Pen's total between the first and second rounds rose from 4.8 million to 5.5 million votes, but Chirac's rose from 5.6 million to 25.5 million. Chirac won the presidency with 82.2% of the vote.
That's the benchmark our centrist candidate Hillary Clinton needs to be shooting for on November 8, 2016. There's no room for the luxury of voting Green or writing in Bernie Sanders. We need to look toward France 2002 for our model of rejecting xenophobia and the cult of personality in USA 2016.
When Will We See This Burger King Creation on Trump Force One?
Mac N' Cheetos? Who knew that Burger King had entered into a cross-marketing agreement with our orange presidential candidate?
We've seen Donald Trump posing with McDonald's and KFC on his private jet (and with a taco bowl in his gold-plated tower to pander to Hispanics), so when are we going to see some BK product placement? And will he eat his Mac N' Cheetos with a knife and fork?
Great afternoon in Ohio & a great evening in Pennsylvania - departing now. See you tomorrow Virginia! pic.twitter.com/jQTQYBFpdb— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2016
It's Time for Liberals to Be Politically Incorrect and State the Obvious: 2016 Is a Contest Against Stupid People
This week the grizzled elderly sage of spaghetti westerns Clint Eastwood told us that we Americans (especially young Americans and liberal Americans) were too politically correct. I'm inclined to agree to a degree; it's time to call idiots by their name and declare war on idiocy.
It's been obvious for quite a while that any Republican or independent conservative who was able to string a series of grammatically-correct sentences together to form a coherent paragraph was going to reject the candidacy of Donald Trump.
In January, the National Review dedicated an entire "Against Trump" issue to the candidate they described in their lead editorial as "a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones." In June, television's most prominent intellectual conservative commentator, George Will, officially left the GOP saying "This is not my party." He asked for Republicans to defeat Trump and "grit their teeth" through the Clinton presidency and wait for 2020 (Trump's response has been to describe Will with two of the favorite words from his extremely-limited vocabulary: 'Dummy!' and 'Boring!'). The New York Times' most prominent right-of-center voice has been appalled all year by Trumpism, and David Brooks' column today is no exception, telling Trump's Republican enablers that it's time to get off the fence about their support for him: "There comes a time when neutrality and laying low become dishonorable. If you’re not in revolt, you’re in cahoots. When this period and your name are mentioned, decades hence, your grandkids will look away in shame."
Yesterday news broke about the most obvious revolt of intelligent Republicans against their party's choice for president. The Harvard Republican Club, the oldest group of college Republicans, will not endorse the GOP nominee for the first time in their 128-year-long history. Their statement is worth reading in full, but almost any random paragraph from it contains more common sense than you'll see in hours of commentary from the cable-news experts.
This wasn't just a statement by a single person at the top of the organization. According to the Harvard Crimson article about the decision, 10% of the members support Trump, 10% were undecided, and 80% indicated they would not support him. Let that sink in; that's 80% of the nation's oldest group of college Republicans refusing to support the Republican candidate for president.
So who are the idiots who are supporting Trumpism? The New York Times showed us that this week as well (using language in the following video that the Times would never allow as Fit To Print in the pages of the paper):
It's been obvious for quite a while that any Republican or independent conservative who was able to string a series of grammatically-correct sentences together to form a coherent paragraph was going to reject the candidacy of Donald Trump.
In January, the National Review dedicated an entire "Against Trump" issue to the candidate they described in their lead editorial as "a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones." In June, television's most prominent intellectual conservative commentator, George Will, officially left the GOP saying "This is not my party." He asked for Republicans to defeat Trump and "grit their teeth" through the Clinton presidency and wait for 2020 (Trump's response has been to describe Will with two of the favorite words from his extremely-limited vocabulary: 'Dummy!' and 'Boring!'). The New York Times' most prominent right-of-center voice has been appalled all year by Trumpism, and David Brooks' column today is no exception, telling Trump's Republican enablers that it's time to get off the fence about their support for him: "There comes a time when neutrality and laying low become dishonorable. If you’re not in revolt, you’re in cahoots. When this period and your name are mentioned, decades hence, your grandkids will look away in shame."
Yesterday news broke about the most obvious revolt of intelligent Republicans against their party's choice for president. The Harvard Republican Club, the oldest group of college Republicans, will not endorse the GOP nominee for the first time in their 128-year-long history. Their statement is worth reading in full, but almost any random paragraph from it contains more common sense than you'll see in hours of commentary from the cable-news experts.
Donald Trump, despite spending more than a year on the campaign trail, has either refused or been unable to educate himself on issues that matter most to Americans like us. He speaks only in platitudes, about greatness, success, and winning. Time and time again, Trump has demonstrated his complete lack of knowledge on critical matters, meandering from position to position over the course of the election. When confronted about these frequent reversals, Trump lies in a manner more brazen and shameless than anything politics has ever seen.
Donald Trump is a threat to the survival of the Republic. His authoritarian tendencies and flirtations with fascism are unparalleled in the history of our democracy. He hopes to divide us by race, by class, and by religion, instilling enough fear and anxiety to propel himself to the White House. He is looking to to pit neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend, American against American. We will not stand for this vitriolic rhetoric that is poisoning our country and our children.
This wasn't just a statement by a single person at the top of the organization. According to the Harvard Crimson article about the decision, 10% of the members support Trump, 10% were undecided, and 80% indicated they would not support him. Let that sink in; that's 80% of the nation's oldest group of college Republicans refusing to support the Republican candidate for president.
So who are the idiots who are supporting Trumpism? The New York Times showed us that this week as well (using language in the following video that the Times would never allow as Fit To Print in the pages of the paper):
Monday, August 01, 2016
EVERY Vote Counts against an Anti-American and Anti-Democratic Donald Trump
Donald Trump crossed another line today in Ohio when he told a group of supporters:
This is another reason -- if not the main reason -- that every vote counts in 2016, even in safely red or blue states. There should be no thought of throwing your vote to a third party or writing in a name that no one will read, just to make yourself feel better or more politically pure this November. During the Democratic convention last week I heard one Bernie supporter from Utah being interviewed on the radio; she told the reporter that she was definitely going to vote for Jill Stein of the Green Party because her state was voting Republican no matter what she does; however, she said she might vote for Hillary if she lived in a swing state like Florida or Ohio, in other words, if her vote mattered.
However, in 2016 every vote counts in every state. Try to imagine a situation where, like Gore in 2000, Trump loses a close electoral vote and wins a close popular vote. Would Trump, like Gore in 2000, leave the stage with grace and silence? Would he go back to his gilded penthouse with congratulations for Madame President Clinton? Or, more likely, would his speeches and press conferences and tweets and Facebook posts about vote rigging and "Crooked Hillary" rise to an unprecendented din? And how would some of his core supporters among the well-armed and poorly-educated conspiracists, white supremacists, Fox brainwashees, and "Bikers For Trump," react to his endless whines about unfairness? Would we want to find out?
It's safer simply to make sure that Donald Trump is buried by a vote count, both electoral and popular, that leaves no room for doubt.
"First of all, it [the primary season] was rigged, and I'm afraid the election is going to be rigged. I have to be honest. Because I think my side was rigged. If I didn't win by massive landslides — I mean, think of what we won in New York, Indiana, California 78 percent. That's with other people in the race, but think of it."Last week in Iowa, Trump planted the same seed about the general election:
"Now we have one left, one left, one left, and in theory, in theory it should be the easiest, but it's a rigged system. It's a totally rigged system. The elections are rigged."
This is another reason -- if not the main reason -- that every vote counts in 2016, even in safely red or blue states. There should be no thought of throwing your vote to a third party or writing in a name that no one will read, just to make yourself feel better or more politically pure this November. During the Democratic convention last week I heard one Bernie supporter from Utah being interviewed on the radio; she told the reporter that she was definitely going to vote for Jill Stein of the Green Party because her state was voting Republican no matter what she does; however, she said she might vote for Hillary if she lived in a swing state like Florida or Ohio, in other words, if her vote mattered.
However, in 2016 every vote counts in every state. Try to imagine a situation where, like Gore in 2000, Trump loses a close electoral vote and wins a close popular vote. Would Trump, like Gore in 2000, leave the stage with grace and silence? Would he go back to his gilded penthouse with congratulations for Madame President Clinton? Or, more likely, would his speeches and press conferences and tweets and Facebook posts about vote rigging and "Crooked Hillary" rise to an unprecendented din? And how would some of his core supporters among the well-armed and poorly-educated conspiracists, white supremacists, Fox brainwashees, and "Bikers For Trump," react to his endless whines about unfairness? Would we want to find out?
It's safer simply to make sure that Donald Trump is buried by a vote count, both electoral and popular, that leaves no room for doubt.
The Trump Quote of the Weekend
In the flood of hateful idiocy and untruths coming from Donald Trump's mouth over the weekend, it was hard to zero in on the blackest kernel, until I saw this tweet in my timeline just now.
(But if that phrase isn't enough to prove he's no constitutional scholar, there's also the fact that he told Republicans in Congress that he wanted to protect Article XII of the [seven-article] Constitution.)
Doesn't saying Khizr Khan "has no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution" prove that Donald Trump has never read the Consitution?In email statement, Trump keeps insisting he was wronged by Khizr Khan. No walkback of comments on Ghazala Khan > pic.twitter.com/hgcJWG1LOx— Alex Burns (@alexburnsNYT) July 31, 2016
(But if that phrase isn't enough to prove he's no constitutional scholar, there's also the fact that he told Republicans in Congress that he wanted to protect Article XII of the [seven-article] Constitution.)
Sunday, July 24, 2016
Part 3 of One Voter's History with "The Lesser of Two Evils"
Click Here for Part One: 1968, 1972, 1976
Click Here for Part Two: 1980, 1984, 1988
1992
1992 was another year in which the candidate I supported in the primaries lost. (The background music for the writing about this year is R.E.M.'s Out Of Time.) The Jerry Brown and Bill Clinton clashes, some of which involved Hillary's law firm weren't the only similarity with 2016. Jerry Brown was also a precursor of Bernie Sanders in his attack on PACs, his $100 cap on contributions solicited from small donors with his ubiquitous 800 number, and a no-frills campaign in which he stayed in supporters' houses rather than fancy hotels (cf. the photos of Bernie flying coach and carrying his own bags). Since his first round as California Governor, I always liked Jerry Brown's style that was totally out of sync with conventional politics and conventional American lifetyles. I wasn't a fan of Bill or his centrist path, and I was disappointed when he got the nomination, but I voted for him. I didn't see it as a case of "the lesser of two evils." It was more a case of "the leftest of two centrists," and note that's 'leftest' as in 'most left'; there were no leftists involved on either side. George H.W. Bush had lost my vote for good when he gained the support of 90% of Americans with Operation Desert Storm.
1992 is also the rare classic case of the third party helping rather than hurting the Democrats. Ross Perot got almost 20 million votes and Bush only lost to Clinton by about 5 million. If some of those Republicans had voted for "rightest of two centrists" rather than the shiny little nut from Texas, George the First would have easily won re-election.
1996
I voted for Clinton/Gore over Dole/Kemp in 1996, but I don't remember much more about it than that. I remember having one Clinton/Gore pin similar to the one pictured here, but I haven't stumbled on it or anything else from that year. (This entry will be too short to require a change in soundtrack on my turntable, but if I did pick something to represent 1996 for me, it would probably be Blur's The Great Escape).
It might be worth mentioning that Ross Perot ran again in '96 and got 8 million votes, enough to swing it as he could have in 1992 if his voters had gone Republican. Also, the Green Party's candidate in '96 was Ralph Nader, who came in fourth with 685,297 votes.
2000
This is the year we'll hear about most in 2016 if it seems as though a significant number of hardcore BernieOrBusters will be voting for the Green Party's Jill Stein or the Libertarian Gary Johnson. (My soundtrack for 2000 is, of course, Kid A.) Early in the primary season, I thought I'd be voting for New Jersey's Senator Bill Bradley over Al Gore, but by the time the New Jersey primary came around Gore was unopposed and I didn't even vote in the meaningless preliminary round.
I had no problem voting for Gore over Nader and Bush in the general election, but others did. Nader got just under 3 million votes nationwide, but - most importantly - he picked up 97,488 votes in Florida, which Gore only lost by 537 votes (though even that thin Bush margin needed an assist from a Republican Supreme Court). If a miniscule percentage of those 97,488 who felt their votes didn't count except to "send a message" had voted for the major party candidate closest to their views, George W. Bush would not have been able to gain the White House (even with help from the Supremes).
Adding insult to injury, of course, is the fact that Al Gore won the popular vote by over 450,000 votes nationwide.
Try to imagine a situation in 2016 where Donald Trump loses a key state by less than a thousand votes, or loses the electoral vote after winning the popular vote. Will he, a conspiracy theorist who already claims the system is rigged and fixed, go quietly? Will his supporters, more conspiracists and heavily-armed white supremacists and motorcycle gangsters, go quietly? Do we want to find out? It's important that Donald Trump be crushed decisively in November, and not only to show the rest of the world that he only represents a fringe of America. Ralph Nader in 2000 is still the best lesson we have for why it's sometimes necessary to choose the lesser of two evils rather than send a message that no one hears (unless it blows up the side you're closest to).
Click Here for Part Two: 1980, 1984, 1988
1992
 |
| The height of new technology in 1992, Jerry Brown included a toll-free 800 number on everything. |
1992 was another year in which the candidate I supported in the primaries lost. (The background music for the writing about this year is R.E.M.'s Out Of Time.) The Jerry Brown and Bill Clinton clashes, some of which involved Hillary's law firm weren't the only similarity with 2016. Jerry Brown was also a precursor of Bernie Sanders in his attack on PACs, his $100 cap on contributions solicited from small donors with his ubiquitous 800 number, and a no-frills campaign in which he stayed in supporters' houses rather than fancy hotels (cf. the photos of Bernie flying coach and carrying his own bags). Since his first round as California Governor, I always liked Jerry Brown's style that was totally out of sync with conventional politics and conventional American lifetyles. I wasn't a fan of Bill or his centrist path, and I was disappointed when he got the nomination, but I voted for him. I didn't see it as a case of "the lesser of two evils." It was more a case of "the leftest of two centrists," and note that's 'leftest' as in 'most left'; there were no leftists involved on either side. George H.W. Bush had lost my vote for good when he gained the support of 90% of Americans with Operation Desert Storm.
1992 is also the rare classic case of the third party helping rather than hurting the Democrats. Ross Perot got almost 20 million votes and Bush only lost to Clinton by about 5 million. If some of those Republicans had voted for "rightest of two centrists" rather than the shiny little nut from Texas, George the First would have easily won re-election.
1996
I voted for Clinton/Gore over Dole/Kemp in 1996, but I don't remember much more about it than that. I remember having one Clinton/Gore pin similar to the one pictured here, but I haven't stumbled on it or anything else from that year. (This entry will be too short to require a change in soundtrack on my turntable, but if I did pick something to represent 1996 for me, it would probably be Blur's The Great Escape).
It might be worth mentioning that Ross Perot ran again in '96 and got 8 million votes, enough to swing it as he could have in 1992 if his voters had gone Republican. Also, the Green Party's candidate in '96 was Ralph Nader, who came in fourth with 685,297 votes.
2000
This is the year we'll hear about most in 2016 if it seems as though a significant number of hardcore BernieOrBusters will be voting for the Green Party's Jill Stein or the Libertarian Gary Johnson. (My soundtrack for 2000 is, of course, Kid A.) Early in the primary season, I thought I'd be voting for New Jersey's Senator Bill Bradley over Al Gore, but by the time the New Jersey primary came around Gore was unopposed and I didn't even vote in the meaningless preliminary round.
I had no problem voting for Gore over Nader and Bush in the general election, but others did. Nader got just under 3 million votes nationwide, but - most importantly - he picked up 97,488 votes in Florida, which Gore only lost by 537 votes (though even that thin Bush margin needed an assist from a Republican Supreme Court). If a miniscule percentage of those 97,488 who felt their votes didn't count except to "send a message" had voted for the major party candidate closest to their views, George W. Bush would not have been able to gain the White House (even with help from the Supremes).
Adding insult to injury, of course, is the fact that Al Gore won the popular vote by over 450,000 votes nationwide.
Try to imagine a situation in 2016 where Donald Trump loses a key state by less than a thousand votes, or loses the electoral vote after winning the popular vote. Will he, a conspiracy theorist who already claims the system is rigged and fixed, go quietly? Will his supporters, more conspiracists and heavily-armed white supremacists and motorcycle gangsters, go quietly? Do we want to find out? It's important that Donald Trump be crushed decisively in November, and not only to show the rest of the world that he only represents a fringe of America. Ralph Nader in 2000 is still the best lesson we have for why it's sometimes necessary to choose the lesser of two evils rather than send a message that no one hears (unless it blows up the side you're closest to).
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