The Commentariat -- August 22, 2016
Afternoon Update:
Erik Eckholm & Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Sunday blocked the Obama administration from enforcing new guidelines that were intended to expand restroom access for transgender students across the country. Judge Reed O'Connor of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas said in a 38-page ruling, which he said should apply nationwide, that the government had not complied with federal law when it issued 'directives which contradict the existing legislative and regulatory text.'" O'Connor is a Bush II appointee. -- CW
October Surprise? Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "The FBI's year-long investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server uncovered 14,900 emails and documents from her time as secretary of state that had not been disclosed by her attorneys, and a federal judge on Monday pressed the State Department to begin releasing emails sooner than mid-October as it planned. Justice Department lawyers said last week that the State Department would review and turn over Clinton's work-related emails to a conservative legal group.... On Aug. 5, the FBI completed transferring what Comey said were several thousand previously undisclosed work-related Clinton emails that the FBI found in its investigation for the State Department to review and make public.... It is unclear how many documents might be attachments, duplicates or exempt from release for privacy or legal reasons." -- CW
People need to understand just how radical a departure this is from the mean of American politics. Among the values most necessary for a functioning democracy is the peaceful transition of power that's gone on uninterrupted since 1797. What enables that is the acceptance of the election's outcome by the losers. Here you have a candidate after a terrible three weeks, which has all been self-inflicted, saying the only way we lose is if it's 'rigged' or stolen -- in a media culture where people increasingly don't buy into generally accepted facts and turn to places to have their opinions validated where there's no wall between extreme and mainstream positions. That's an assault on some of the pillars that undergird our system. -- Steve Schmidt, John McCain's 2008 presidential strategist, to Politico, August 22, 2016
We need to know the full extent of Senator Obama's relationship with ACORN, who is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy. -- John McCain, during a debate with Barack Obama, 2008
Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump, tempering the tone of his hard-line approach to tackling immigration reform, said on Monday that he wants to come up with a plan that is 'really fair' to address the millions of undocumented immigrants now in the country" -- CW ...
... CW: I gather from this Politico piece by Nick Gass that the immigrants Trump wants to be "fair" to are those who come to the country legally: "We have a lot of people that want to come in through the legal process and it's not fair for them." Trump told Fox "News" he isn't flip-flopping. It sounds as if that's true.
Social Security to Pay Homeless Woman $100K+. Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post: Eighty-year-old Wanda Witter, a homeless woman who lived for years on the streets of D.C., claimed Social Security owed her a bundle. During that time, Witter tried to get them to pay out what she though they owed her, but Social Security & others viewed her as crazy. Finally, social worker Julie Turner, who works for the Downtown Cluster of Congregations, went over the paperwork Witter had been dragging around, thought it looked credible, & got her a lawyer, Daniela de la Piedra, who specializes in Social Security disputes. de la Piedra & Social Security agreed Witter was owed more than $100,000. Social Security will be sending her a check for $99,999 in the next few days (the largest the agency can cut on short notice), & she will be getting monthly benefits of $1,464. Turner also found Witter an apartment. -- CW
*****
Presidential Race
Ben Schreckinger of Politico: "Trump's poll numbers remain dire, but he can point to at least one ray of hope for a turnaround: Republicans have continued gaining ground in recent months in voter registration in Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Iowa, while the late surge in Democratic registrations relative to Republican registrations that occurred in battleground states the final months of the 2012 election had not materialized in numbers released in early August." -- CW
Cyra Master of the Hill: "Colin Powell says Hillary Clinton's campaign has been trying to use him to help justify her use of a private email server while she was secretary of State.... [Clinton] reportedly told FBI investigators that Powell ... recommended she use a private email account.... On Sunday, Powell told the New York Post's Page Six..., 'The truth is she was using it for a year before I sent her a memo telling er what I did [during my term as Secretary of State],' he said. 'Her people have been trying to pin it on me.' But, the Post reported that 'despite appearing angered by the situation,' Powell added, 'It doesn't bother me. It's OK, I'm free.'" -- CW ...
... Margaret Hartmann: "Clinton has never publicly tried to 'pin' Emailgate on Powell.... It's actually strange that while cycling through a number of bad explanations for her private email server, Clinton never told the press that Powell suggested it. If she were more adept at scandal management, she would have blamed it on him a long time ago." -- CW
Daniel Politi of Slate: "In what looked to be at least partly a way to dodge questions about the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook essentially accused Donald Trump of being a Kremlin puppet." -- CW ...
... Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Robby Mook, said they still haven't found a person to play Donald Trump in mock presidential debates. 'It's very hard to find someone to mimic the reckless temperament and the hateful instincts and divisive instincts of Donald Trump,' Mook said Sunday on CNN's 'State of the Union.'" CW: Any suggestions?
** Greg Sargent collects evidence that Trump's "plan all along ... [was] to establish a media empire with him at the helm -- one that caters, at least to some degree, to a white nationalist or 'alt-right' audience.... It's hard to predict what sort of longer term civic impact that might have, but it's hard to imagine it would be a good one." -- CW
Maggie Haberman & Matt Flegenheimer of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump has seized on a new argument...: that Democrats are preparing to exploit weak voter identification laws to win a 'stolen election' through fraudulent voting.... Mr. Trump's language has moved beyond his party's call for rigid identification requirements and the unfounded claims that polls are 'skewed'.... And his warnings have been cast in increasingly urgent and racially suggestive language, hinting that the only legitimate outcome in certain states would be his victory.... Last week, Mr. Trump hired as his campaign chief Stephen K. Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart, a conservative news website that has frequently given voice to ... perceived voter fraud and 'propaganda polls' showing Mrs. Clinton ahead. And on Friday, Mr. Trump released his first campaign ad ..., featuring an image of a polling site with the word 'rigged' flashing onscreen less than two seconds after the spot begins." -- CW
Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump's campaign wavered Sunday on whether he would continue to call for the mass deportation of 11 million illegal immigrants from the United States, the latest in a series of sometimes clumsy attempts to win over moderate GOP voters without alienating millions who have flocked to his hard-line views. After insisting for more than a year that all illegal immigrants 'have to go,' Trump met with a newly created panel of Hispanic advisers on Saturday and asked for other ideas -- making clear that his position is not finalized, according to two attendees. Any shift would represent a remarkable retreat on one of the Republican nominee's signature issues." -- CW ...
... TBD. Jenna Johnson & Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "On Sunday morning, [Donald Trump's] newly installed campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, was asked during an interview on CNN's 'State of the Union' whether Trump still wants 'a deportation force removing the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants.' 'To be determined,' said Conway, who in the past has supported creating a pathway to citizenship for the millions of immigrants illegally living in the United States." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jenna Johnson: "Donald Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said Sunday morning that she does not want the Republican presidential nominee to release his tax returns until an audit by the Internal Revenue Service is completed, abandoning a position that she took five months ago, when she didn't work for the campaign and urged Trump to "be transparent" and release the filings.... Trump is the first major presidential nominee from either party since 1976 to not release tax returns." -- CW (Also linked yesterday.)
The Scampaign, Ctd. Nicholas Confessore & Rachel Storey of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump is leaning heavily on Republican Party organizations to provide crucial campaign functions like getting out the vote, digital outreach and fund-raising, at a time when some leading Republicans have called for party officials to cut off Mr. Trump and focus instead on maintaining control of Congress.... In July, when Mrs. Clinton spent almost $3 million to field a staff of 700 people at her Brooklyn headquarters and in swing states around the country..., Mr. Trump spent more money on renting arenas for his speeches than he did on payroll." CW: This is what a vanity campaign looks like, except few vanity candidates try to undermine the republic. ...
... Isaac Arnsdorf of Politico: "The Donald Trump campaign's boasts of a formidable fundraising month in July spooked Democrats.... But a closer inspection of the campaign finance report filed just before Saturday's midnight deadline indicates the haul came at a steep price.... Though the campaign touted an $80 million figure for its July fundraising, just $36.7 million of that total went directly to the campaign. The rest came in through joint fundraising vehicles with the Republican National Committee and state parties. At least $9.5 million of that money is off limits for spending on the election because it's designated for the RNC's convention, headquarters and legal accounts. Plus, the RNC is considering spending its money down-ballot instead of supporting Trump as tensions boil over between the party's apparatus and its defiant nominee. The money the Trump campaign raised also didn't come cheap. The campaign more than doubled its spending from the previous month to $18.5 million in July.... Most of that money went toward expanding the campaign's online fundraising operation." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... CW: Those of you who thought the Trump campaign was lying about its big haul were on the right track; not a lie, but deceptive.
But in the same speech [in Fredericksburg, Va.], he again slammed an order by the state's Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, to restore voting rights to some convicted felons who have completed their sentences, a move McAuliffe says could help African-Americans who were disproportionally affected by laws that put lifetime bans on felons." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
Maybe he [Trump] can sharpen his appeal by imploring African American voters to 'get off the Democrat plantation.'-- Mike in DC, Balloon Juice commenter ...
... E.J. Dionne: Particularly because of his rudeness & crudeness Donald Trump is turning Virginia blue. North Carolina and even Georgia might follow. -- CW
Paul Krugman: Donald Trump hands out Play-Doh while the world burns. Republicans' vehement "hostility to climate science seems disproportionate [to the campaign contributions they get from the fossil fuel industry]; bear in mind that, for example, at this point there are fewer than 60,000 coal miners, that is, less than 0.05 percent of the work force. What's happening, I suspect, is that climate denial has become a sort of badge of right-wing identity, above and beyond the still-operative motive of rewarding donors." -- CW ...
... ** Hairspray. Lawrence Krauss, in the New Yorker, details how Donald Trump & mike pence are the anti-science candidates.
Rebecca Morin of Politico: "Continuing with the narrative that Hillary Clinton is unfit to be president, Rudy Giuliani, an adviser with Donald Trump's campaign, claimed Sunday there are videos online that show Clinton has an illness.... The media 'fails to point out several signs of illness by her; all you gotta do is go online,' Giuliani said.... Clinton's campaign has since called those claims 'deranged conspiracy theories' and has recirculated a 2015 letter from internist Lisa Bardack that said Clinton was in good health." CW: Notice how Giuliani's claims play into the "rigged election" theme; the media are co-conspirators in a cover-up that anyone can discover "online"; i.e., on some "deranged conspiracy" Websites.
Caitlin Yilek of the Hill: "Tea Party firebrand Michele Bachmann says she is advising ... Donald Trump on foreign policy." Something, something, radical Islam. CW: This is very reassuring. She can't tell New Hampshire from Massachusetts even when she's in New Hampshire, so let's just assume her expertise lies beyond our borders.
I never claimed to be a journalist. -- Sean Hannity
... Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: Sean "Hannity uses his show on the nation's most-watched cable news network to blare Mr. Trump's message relentlessly -- giving Mr. Trump the kind of promotional television exposure even a billionaire can't afford for long. But Mr. Hannity is not only Mr. Trump's biggest media booster; he also veers into the role of adviser.... Mr. Hannity's show has all the trappings of traditional television news -- the anchor desk, the graphics and the patina of authority that comes with being part of a news organization...." -- CW
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Matea Gold & Anu Narayanswamy of the Washington Post: "... ousted [Trump] campaign manager Corey Lewandowski received his regular $20,000 monthly fee on July 6 -- two weeks after he was jettisoned and had been hired by CNN as a political commentator. Trump has continued to call on Lewandowski for advice since his departure...." CW: Nice work, CNN. Fair & balanced & all.
Senate Race
Classy. Sabrina Siddiqui of the Guardian: "Republican senator Mark Kirk said on Sunday that Barack Obama was 'acting like the drug dealer-in-chief' when his administration used the delivery of a $400m payment to Iran as what it called 'leverage'. Kirk made the statement during an interview with the editorial board of the State Journal-Register, a local newspaper in his home state of Illinois." CW: Yeah, and his street name is 2 Terms, which is something you ain't gonna get, Marky. Knocking a popular president -- and in a way many white people will assume is racist -- in his home state is not a winning strategy.
Other News & Views
** The Meme Must Fit the Crime. Brian Beutler: "As a genre of political spin and analysis, 'Obama's Katrina' has been with us since the beginning of the president's administration. Anytime something tragic and abrupt happens in the country is an occasion for Republicans and media figures to compare it to President George W. Bush's famously terrible response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. By the Washington Post's count, there have been 23 Obama's Katrinas since 2009, and that only brings us through to July 2014.... There's a reason the Obama's Katrina genre endures in futility: The unwholesome mixture of a press corps obsessed with optics and a conservative establishment reeling from its own failures." -- CW
Fernanda Santos of the New York Times: "Every week in immigration courts around the country, thousands of children act as their own lawyers, pleading for asylum or other type of relief in a legal system they do not understand.... Children accused of violating immigration laws, a civil offense, do not have the ... right [to an attorney].... A class-action lawsuit, filed by the A.C.L.U. and other civil rights organizations, is trying to change that.... Yet the government has also spent millions of dollars paying for lawyers to represent unaccompanied children in immigration courts...." Some private legal groups also represent some of the children for free. -- CW (See also Ken W.'s comment on the ACLU in yesterday's thread.)
Beyond the Beltway
Laura Vozzella of the Washington Post: "Gov. Terry McAuliffe will announce Monday that he has restored voting rights to 13,000 felons on a case-by-case basis after Republicans and state Supreme Court justices last month stopped his more sweeping clemency effort.... McAuliffe's planned action ... comes about a month after the Supreme Court of Virginia invalidated an executive order the Democratic governor issued in April. With that order, McAuliffe restored voting rights to more than 200,000 felons who had completed their sentences.... McAuliffe also will lay out his plans for restoring rights to the remainder of the 200,000." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Phillip Ericksen of the Waco Tribune-Herald (Aug. 19): "Ken Starr has decided to leave his last remaining post at Baylor University, saying university officials wanted him out.... He remained at Baylor as a law professor after being fired as president May 26 and resigning as chancellor days later. His firing came after an independent investigation found 'a lack of institutional support and engagement by senior leadership' [CW: in relation to mishandling sexual assault allegations, especially against the school's football team] to implement Title IX, according to Baylor's board of regents." CW: I plumb forgot to link this last week; I think Akhilleus mentioned it in the Comments section. Anyhow, nice to know Starr is now available to investigate Hillary Clinton.
CW: If Team USA's post-Olympics presser is any indication, Ryan Lochte & his posse wrecked the games for the team. This "distracton," as Lochte & others like to call it, is grossly unfair to the American kids who trained for years to join the ranks of the world's best athletes.
News Lede
Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Pills marked as hydrocodone that were seized from Paisley Park after Prince's overdose death actually contained fentanyl, the powerful opioid that killed him, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.... Investigators ... are leaning toward the theory that he took the pills not knowing they contained the drug." -- CW
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Reader Comments (30)
Hmm...who to play Donaldo in practice debates? Let's see, there are probably legions of stupid as shit xenophobic racist white assholes on bar stools across America, but they might not be able to pull off the smirking, self-satisfied sense of unearned entitlement even though they probably all combine a sense of being 100% right about their most blithering idiocies despite being totally ignorant of whatever topic they choose to maul.
Hmm...
Hey I've got it! Hillary can hire the last Confederate president. Just get him good and drunk first so's the snarling smartassery isn't partially masked. He's got all the rest of the qualifications in spades.
For her debate practice I recommend a Trump player from SNL.
There must be hundreds of trump-a-likes in Bellevue Hospital, but as
a mock debater they might be a tad saner than trump.
John Oliver has a foolproof plan to turn Trump in to a legend so that someday we may be celebrating:
GUY WHO DECIDED NOT TO BE PRESIDENT DAY
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/john-oliver-donald-trump-hero_us_57baa71de4b0b51733a4463e?section=&
So now the Republican party is turning Trump's delusional behavior into policy. There is going to be Dem voter fraud. The evidence is ........... All polling organizations are part of a conspiracy. In other words it is impossible for the world's most perfect person to lose, so Trump's tiny brain has to preset the story to protect his ego. Today this is how America does the politics of President.
The best one of the day is the former mayor of NYC on 9/11 saying the videos show Clinton has mental issues after his comment on all terrorist attacks occurred under Obama. I was thinking of a comment declaring the Rudy suffers from dementia but that would give him too much credit when plain stupidity says it all.
And lastly, note that Trump and company attack Hillary's health, her email system, her foundation etc. And her policy proposals? Nothing other than inventing proposals she has never said.
What a shame that the brilliant Philip Seymour Hoffman is no longer with us. He'd be a perfect stand-in for the Trumpster. He might even have done it for free–-well, maybe a little coke and chips to spur him on. In time someone will make a film about this time in our lives when a narcissistic huckster bedazzled a segment of our voting populace and caused havoc in the Republican Party that had (unknowingly, so they say) exposed the underbelly of the conservative message––like the naked sculptures of the Donald in full display, there has come that day when THEY have to say––"What the fuck were we thinking!"
Forrest Morris, I don't think there are any Trumps in Bellevue. People with NPD are almost never treated. How can you treat a person who is perfect and knows more about psychiatry than that idiot doctor!
@PD Pepe: Hoffman would have been perfect! He was such a brilliant actor that his imitative performance would have been unnerving, and he was smart enough to know when & where to throw in the insults & how to make the idiotic non-answer answers. So a loss in one more way.
I would have paid to see the prep.
Marie
Hillary's perfect sparring partner. Trump as Trump. In his mind, only he can be he. I'm sure if HRC's campaign paid him enough, he would do it. I hear tell his campaign could use the money. Of course he would demand that a Trump property and Trump Steaks, Trump Wine and Trump Water be served. Only he can deliver the required authentic bullshit.
Alec Baldwin might be good at playing Trump. If not, I say find any bratty 8-year old.
How ideology works
There is a theory (the argument is not bad) that ideology in the modern world, that the "...invention and rise of ideology was a psychic response to the waning of traditional religion in the West" ("Ideology and International Relations in the Modern World", Alan Cassells). The general idea is that ideology (the word came into general use in France around the time of the Revolution, as a handy way of referring to the theoretical ability to engineer social and political responses--the first try out of the box (The Terror) was, shall we say, less than boffo) replaces the rules of organized religion with its own set of rules for social behavior. This sounds entirely reasonable as a working description of the operational aspect of ideology. Just as a sidebar, if it's true that ideology was originally thought to replace religion, the irony of religion, at least right-wing evangelical Christianity, infecting a certain strain of modern American ideology demonstrates the power of rules designed (or evolved) to be nearly invisible to those under their thrall.
All of which is my typically long-ass way of getting to the point. This morning I heard an interview with a Trump supporter (he's mad, boy, he's really mad...) who is pissed about what he considers the heinous lie of "white privilege" and here's his reasoning for why there is no such thing (approximate quote):
"How is it then, that all these women and minorities get all those good jobs ahead of me? I should be getting those jobs. So, see? There's no such thing as white privilege."
It's achingly painful that the idea that "all those good jobs" should go to white males ahead of pesky women and pain in the ass, undeserving minorities is held up as an example of the how there is no such thing as white privilege. It's like the argument "I can't be racist, my great grand daddy never owned slaves".
But this is exactly how ideology works.
It works that way for progressives as well. The difference, at least I hope so, is that most progressives and liberals I know have a sense that their thinking moves in a certain direction because that direction has been fairly well thought out and with the sense that it's possible there are other explanations and other solutions but, for them, the ones of which they approve seem like the best alternative. In other words, they are at least aware of the action of ideology.
The danger comes when ideological motivation is completely invisible and appears to arise unbidden from the subconscious, a sort of deus ex machina if you will, giving the thoughts and actions themselves a kind of timeless, perfectly obvious quality.
How we've gotten to the point where Trump and his malevolent, shit-hole ideology have come to be considered a timeless, perfectly obvious solution to anything will be left for another post. Or fifty.
Nonetheless, right-wing ideology, as it's been molded and adapted for the last couple of generations to more effectively combat the betterment of population groups who are not white Christian males has produced Trumpism as surely as oxygen, fuel, and sparks generate fire, and has engendered its adherents for whom nothing else but bigotry, racism, misogyny, hatred, victimization, and selfishness (all seminal Confederate traits) seem reasonable or desirable as political and social goals. Worse, it seems inevitable and invisible. Invisible rules, that say white American Christians should come first no matter what, are what Trump has always counted on.
Thank you Confederates! Your mother thanks you, your father thanks you, and Robespierre (Trumpspierre?) thanks you.
I just wanted to say a little something about Citizen625's post from Saturday about mining communities.
Miners, like other population groups that are self-selecting and largely closed off from the majority of other avocation/occupation groups, cleave to their culture in ways that may seem entirely illogical and even unhealthy to outsiders. Like cops with their thin blue line and multi-generational military families, that culture is bred in the bone (talk about invisible ideology) and erects walls that protect those inside them and stave off intruders and unwelcome counter-arguments from the outside.
Listen to interviews with most current miners in West Virginia or eastern Kentucky and you are almost guaranteed to hear "My papaw was a miner, my daddy was a miner, and I hope my sons will still have a mine to go into when I retire or die".
Yes, there are much less dangerous ways to make a living, but that entails leaving behind not just the mine, but an entire way of life, the only community most of them have ever known (if they left, many of them traded the mine for the military which is just another walled off group with members who have each other's backs in life and death situations--this ain't like selling insurance). I know plenty of Catholics (I was one myself for a long time) who still go to church, not because of the belief system, but to maintain a connection with a culture into which they were born, a culture that feels familiar and which connects them with parents and relatives long departed, that is redolent of long ago events and special days and family gatherings. That's a tough bond to loose.
It's not, perhaps, the Gordian Knot, but one that requires more than a little finesse, especially from an outsider. That sense of community, of shared sacrifice, of mutual protection, of hard won belonging, is a tough one to throw off. The city I grew up in, you could move in from the other side of the world and half an hour later be down at City Hall telling everyone else how to live. But a short bicycle ride away, there are communities where it doesn't matter how long you've lived there, if you weren't born there, you ain't a native. And never will be. So you best be careful when addressing those who are. That's just how it is.
Anyway, that's my two cents on that one.
@Akhilleus: Food for thought. What I find interesting is that the "ideology" of our white guy who isn't getting "all the good jobs" follows a Biblical model: that is, the OT sanctions a patriarchy that is fine with enslaving gentiles/"the other," with defining women as chattel, with routing its enemies to the point of eating their flesh & drinking their blood, with ironfisted despots and authoritarian judges/priests, with hierarchical castes, etc., and justifying it all with "god-given commandments."
This ancient ideology, which certainly was not unique to the Jews, has endured in a secular form, just as variations of Greek & Roman "reforms" (not to mention the New Testament, particularly the Synoptic Gospels) pop up to counterbalance & attempt to quash the primitive ideologies that never die.
In this sense, there really is a "clash of civilizations": it's enlightened ecumenicism vs. primitive tribalism rooted in a set of superstitious rules.
Marie
"I never claimed to be a journalist" -- Sean Hannity
Jesus! Finally, some fucking truth from Fox.
So what is he then? He's not fish, which I guess, makes him foul. (I must have my leetle jokes now and then, eh?)
But isn't that the case with the entirety of Faux? Serial sex abuser Roger Ailes realized, long before the infomercial pests, that adopting the look of an actual news program, the flashy over the shoulder graphics, the lower thirds, the crawls constantly blaring "Democrat Party out to KILL you and sell your daughters!!", talent (so called) in suits (women must be blond and wear skirts shorter than those worn by high school girls in 1969), nice lighting, the whole schmeer, would provide his every lie, insult, prevarication, and la-di-da nutso proclamation with at least the veneer of truthiness.
Hannity at least, has come clean (how long it would take a mud encrusted slug like Hannity to get clean I won't even try to estimate) or at least started to.
Con-fucking-gratulations.
Asshole.
Now back to your Trump rimming.
@Akhilleus: I get sense of place, of community, of continuity. But if the angels of their better nature were to prevail -- and yes, sometimes the angels win -- that sentence that begins "My papaw was a miner, my daddy was a miner..." should end, "but I want something better for my children -- a community college, a tech center on that mountaintop where the strip mine was, the vision & skills & wherewithal to make the environment safer for their children."
A sense of community doesn't mean that the community has to exist in a time warp of depressing, hopeless conditions.
Marie
Marie,
I completely agree with your argument that those miners should want something better for their kids. But then you run up against the problem you limn in your other comment about the power of tribes. It might seem an apostasy for some in those communities to advocate a different path for their progeny and those kids might feel the same way.
Eventually, as with defunct religions and sects, descendants find that the old rules don't (or can't be made to) apply anymore. The system collapses from within. I hope this isn't the fate for mining communities, as that process can be painful. It could be that carefully approaching these groups with a solid plan for moving into a better future might have some positive effects.
The fact that many military lifers see that following the Trump Ness Monster (he is part Scots, isn't he?) down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and irresponsible talk of nuclear weapons use is clearly not in their interests is a hopeful sign. Although now that I think of it, the choice between existing and possibly not existing doesn't indicate much of a paradigmatic shift.
Probably the best route would be to try to find allies within the community to advocate for change. After all, miners were convinced by their own to align with unions against the mine owners, and there was a whole lot more on the line in that argument.
Here ya go, here's your Trump debate surrogate.
Thank, Nancy. That kid reminds me of Alex P. Keaton, the Michael J. Fox character on the old "Family Ties" show, although -- probably because he was portrayed by Fox, I'm thinking the Alex character was a lot nicer than the Trump organizer kid, even if the Trump kid is a lot nicer than Trump hisself.
Also, too, the person playing Trump has to be a Hillary supporter.
Hey, maybe Anthony Weiner. He's obnoxious, he represented part of Queens, & Hillary Clinton reportedly can't stand him. I'd suggest he wear an orange wig, but that would look so funny it would probably humanize him too much.
Marie
So, TrumpTV, eh?
Whoa. Wonder what that would look like? Would the primary propaganda set be a scaled down Nuremberg Reichsparteitagsgelände? I can see the red flags replacing the swastika with a stylized T (he might decide against the Fraktur "T", but then again, he might like it) and the talent dressed in SS uniforms, but of course, that would just be Trump being "sarcastic". Dunno about you guys, but I think Hannity would look cute dressed all in black with shiny leather boots, jodhpurs, and a snappy SS peaked cap. And all "newscasts" could begin with the Trump Salute.
But never mind that now, details, schmetails. Plenty of time later for programming delights.
The really important stuff is how will Herr Drumpf make money? Wasn't that the point of this entire Potemkin campaign?
Who will pay for this bullshit? Who will he get to advertise on White Nationalist/Hate TV? I can guess a few. Hobby Lobby for one, natch. Walmart for another. Any company with "white" in the title, maybe. Stormfront.org will be a constant presence. Hey, how 'bout "This TrumpTV Weather segment brought to you by Stormfront. Cuz the weather's never too bad to firebomb a black church." Of course Mr. Clean, and his "White Tornado" could get some prime spots as well if they so chose. Just imagine the spot, a white tornado wiping out minority enclaves, brown people flying off into the ozone. "Clean 'em out!" Hey, "those people" should have listened to Drumpf when they had the chance. What did they have to lose?
I'm guessing "Guns and Ammo", the NRA, and the deadly weapons industry will be heavy advertisers, especially on the evening "Weapons We Love and the Commie Pansies Who Hate Them" hour. And of course Phil (Duck Dynasty Hate, Inc.) Robertson will be given his own show to counter the mealy mouthed conserva-lite of weenie ass pablum puker Bill O'Reilly, who doesn't have the guts to come right out and say we need to execute "teh gays". There will be a special "Trumponomics" segment wherein Wall Street shills talk up the latest junk bonds.
But on a more serious note (wait, I really was being serious earlier...), the idea that a TV network could be just a consolation prize for Donaldo is wanting. The more realistic possibility is that Trump and his Breitbart buds will use their new platform, if they lose, to spread chaos and the kind of misinformation and lies that would make Ben Carson look like the fucking Delphic Oracle. They're already laying the foundation for a possible groundswell of uprisings and violence, spreading the idea that the election will be illegitimate, that guns are the answer, that the assassination of a duly elected president is an entirely reasonable response because the only way they lose is through cheating by the Democrats who naturally need to be punished.
"Trumpspierre" may not be just a jokey nom de stupid after all.
Merde.
News Flash (so to speak):
Swimsuit manufacturer Speedo announces it is ending it's sponsorship of disgraced liar and Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte.
It seems the balls it takes to lie, multiple times on national television, about a made up robbery to cover vandalizing a gas station and pissing on a wall--all caught on video, are just too big to fit in a Speedo.
Not a News Flash:
Hillary really does need to stop blaming other people for the e-mail clusterfuck which is all her own fault. What's next? A fever dream in which Susan B. Anthony told her that private servers were the way to go?
Let's move on.
What a coincidence that Marie mentioned Anthony Weiner. I was
notified about a documentary being released on Netflix tomorrow:
"Weiner". Anthony Weiner exposed (figuratively).
The discussion of miners and mining communities brings to mind Homer Hickam, the RocketBoy, who was raised in a coal mining town, worked in the mines himself and eventually and remarkably had a career as a NASA engineer and author. Heartwarming--yes, I cop to sentimentality--as his three accounts of his early life are, his transition was a tough one. "The Coalwood Way," in particular depicts the strong cordage of practice and belief that bound the community together and held its its members closely to it. Not steel links, maybe, but very strong and exceedingly hard to break. Hickam was the rare exception.
Regarding the unholy alliance of Trump, Ailes and Bannon and the new "news" network that is sure to emerge after Trump's November loss: While purportedly campaigning for high office, they are consciously preparing its ground, working on both content and editorial slant. All the talk about rigged elections fits right in. The network will be a blustering paranoid, white, anti-immigrant, gun-toting and unfettered capitalist platform.
Its call letters? GOWP, greedy, old, white and paranoid. I suspect it will supplant Faux News for many. Ailes' and Trump's revenge. Can't wait for the sure deluge of etheric scum.
Imagine "Lyin' Hillary" can't either.
Ken,
Shouldn't that be "Crooked Hillary"? C'mon, man. Get your insulting epithets straight.
Crap! Just heard via NPR that Gabby Giffords and husband Mark have endorsed Mark Kirk and the PA Rep. Senator Pat Twoomey. (I have no idea how to spell his name correctly.) Their endorsement was based on gun control votes in the Senate.
Akhilleus,
Minor mea culpa...it's not an excuse to be proud of, but I was misled by the Master.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/282073-trump-reassigns-lyin-nickname-to-clinton
This fits in with comments above about ideology and the young trumpoids. Krohn's description of his metamorphosis might warm the cockles of your heart.
I agree with comments about the mining communities, and that's why I wondered aloud what the old mining villages would want for their futures now, given that mines were closed and the nexus broken a generation and a half ago.
Dear Julie Turner (who helped the homeless woman get her Social Security benefits):
We are giving you the rest of the year off. With pay.
Thank you for restoring our faith in humanity. (Well, a little anyway.)
@Nancy. Here, here! Of course Julie probably would take the rest of the year off.
Marie
<< 'It's very hard to find someone to mimic the reckless temperament and the hateful instincts and divisive instincts of Donald Trump . . . ' >>
I submit, for your consideration, Kevin Spacey.
He's a master impersonator - vocally, facially, kinetically & manneristically. All he'd need is one nasty hair piece & a way (no doubt he'd find one) to lend to his hands (they're large!) a diminutive appearance. With his more-than-ample intelligence (gotta be smart to play shtoopid) & his mega-Thespian-chops, he'd bring his profound understanding of - and the facility to internalize (&, then, externalize) - another's psychological terrain & behavior.
[Besides - He's have a blast doing it.]