This TrumpWorld GrabBag Isn't New To Politics

As you may know, I am not today or any day a Trump fan, and I owe a lot of this to having been from the cradle acutely aware of politics. I basically greeted my kindergarten mates "Greetings comrade." I diagnosed my elementary school's promotion of certain people into the "gifted program" and others into the "remedial" program along racial lines as distinctly problematic while I was attending, which did nothing for my own self assessment (I understood my privileges) and launched a baby dialectics. I was the subject of a schoolyard opinion that I was weird, but I understood my set-apartness as being of my own making, and that made all the difference. My thrift store clothes and BBC vocab became my brand. I cared not for following a multitude to do evil (a Biblicism that eventually undid any interest I ever had to be a part of organized faith). 

Needless to say, I am not new to politics. I consider my premature birth in September 1972 as "coming out early for McGovern". I am, in full, the SJW for life. It is no slur to me--why wouldn't I rather be a social justice warrior, like my suffragette and civil rights heroes, than an anti-social injustice do nothing, which is the natural polar opposite, I would presume: the basement-dwelling unfuckable  racism-curious b/tard who thinks Trump politics are a good laugh because his incompetence somehow "owns libs".

How different we are! Because looking over the landscape of the Trumpist Morlocks, I am aware I would not really want to own, rent, or lease them , and could not be paid to haul them for rubbish. Which is why I am not sorry to see Paul Manafort get dinged for trying it with Bob Mueller, and reveal that he had no business trying it, among a bevy of trying-hards. 

This bish was in a plea agreement with Robert Mueller, staring down the entirety of his not even young life in prison, and was visited with an option: Just tell all the truth, and maybe you will feel sun on your face in your vast old age. And then he felt safe enough to lie. 

The reason why that makes the most sense to me is that old joint defense thingy he still had with Trump. which let Trump sort of know what he thought Mueller knew. And Manafort sort of thought being loyal enough to be a backchannel regarding what he could reconnoiter from his Mueller grilling would maybe earn him a pardon, eventually? Even if he'd still be in a sort of prison regarding shit he knew about Russian Mafiosi that would probably earn him a shafting. But anyways, he thought the lying to Mueller about Trump stuff was just pro forma for staying made. But because he's truly busted, that makes no sense. Mueller can go to the court and just provide all the deets about what he is lying about. As in, Manafort stays having giving up Trump as his really best thing.  Because this ham-faced git is not probably going to pardon him, because it would definitely be another obstruction of justice charge, and he would like to not be in prison his whole senility. 

Anyways, there still is some drama about Corsi and Stone, because of course there is. Corsi, of course, is the guy who was behind swiftboating and birtherism, and chimed in first about whether former SOS Clinton sort of looked a little ill. He's scum. And Stone is a known rat fucker, which takes a very tiny...conscience (why wouldn't the answer be "conscience"?)

Not being new to politics, I wish so many of these people at the minimum: injuries. Maybe prison. Gladly, the ability to not influence politics again. 

Pardon Me for This TrumpWorld Grab-Bag

There's something astounding about the speed with which Trump stories have recently progressed. At last glance, Trump was insinuating that Robert Mueller would have crossed a red line if he investigated the Trump Family/Company finances. But that is exactly what Mueller will do. Because of course he would. Because for one thing, I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense that Trump has been really protective of his tax returns the way he has and we still pretend there's nothing there, and also, that bankruptcy history. Those loans.  The way Eric Trump boasted about all that Russian cash and then suddenly Trump and them are pretending they have no Russian connections?

Following the money is the obvious thing to do in the first place--but this is exactly where Trump seems to feel most sensitive.  The Trump gambit of "investigating the investigators" is a little like his war on journalism--he wants to undermine voices that call him out, and call them "illegitimate" before they catch him in lies. It is, to be a little repetitive--obvious. To go to the Bard, he doth protest too much, which is most telling.

So I look at his recent reported inquiries into his presidential pardon power with a certain eye--of course he is looking into who he can pardon. This isn't what you do if you have a "nothingburger" that investigators are working on. It seems a bit like there's a "somethingburger" and he wants a little bicarbonate of "So don't lean on my family". Or that's what it looks like to me. It could be people closest to him are especially at risk, and this may very well be because he trusts them most--even to do things that aren't strictly ethical.

Right now, his defense seems to be that the appearance of collusion was totally correct because why wouldn't his campaign try to get whatever oppo they could? But the inkling that they knew of and were actively seeking out feloniously received information,  or were whoring off after poisoned fruit to win an election, is in itself troublesome and unethical. Especially if it held them open to blackmail. If it compromised the integrity of the attempts the Trump Administration makes at governing. It calls absolutely stupid ideas like the US/Russian collaborative effort at cybersecurity into question because of course a President who only won through Russian interference would think this is a great thing. But we might not even really know the extent of, for example, Trump Jr's Russian contacts, right now. Too many people, like Flynn, Manafort, Kushner, Sessions, etc., deliberately seem to have withheld information about their Russian contacts--that isn't normal, acceptable, or less than seriously questionable.

Sometimes, news just seems vaguely "not good" in the Trump orbit--the resignation of a legal spokesperson.  Marc Kasowitz is out on the Trump legal team.  The finding against Exxon for violating Russian sanctions while current SOS Rex Tillerson was CEO.

Other times, we get news that expands on our understanding of what went so askew with the 2016 election--take the investigation into the degree to which Russia influenced the left.  Jill Stein is a person who should be looked into. Not in Trump's orbit (but maybe Flynn's?) but someone who rode a propaganda train. (I have a hard place in my heart for folks who voted Stein or wrote in Sanders as if Trump and what he could represent held no threat to them. They wanted to believe Clinton was the devil. What the hell were they even looking at?)

But it seems like this was a lot of news breaking just now. And I don't think a lot of breaking news is in Trump's favor, at all.

Politics is Really Local

The jaded political observer in me did not want to post about the "meaning" of the 2017 special election results because I just don't think you can generalize about special elections, but the political geek side really wanted to weigh in, and, well, my geek side is the 800 lb. gorilla that basically always gets its way.

I didn't get emotionally invested in the special elections because people just about know about them, the campaigns are rushed, the turnout is usually low, just about on a par with midterms, and I just think the idea of calling them a "referendum" on anything, especially on President Trump, is just too "early days" yet. Most of the special elections thus far have been in what count as recently historically "red" districts. Although Democratic and left-leaning independent voters might have been entirely over the idea of a "president Trump" on Day 1, Republican and conservative-leaning independent voters are just more open to the idea that parts of his agenda are worthwhile to them, and they will wait for him to grow into his role.

That said, Tuesday's losses in GA6 and SC5 don't come as an emotional blow to me. It would have been nice to pick up a seat or two--but it wouldn't have changed the balance of the House. As it is, red seats just stayed red. The composition of the House isn't more GOP than before--it's the same.  And I don't really agree with some of the "takes" I'm seeing out there--this is somehow a referendum on Nancy Pelosi?  I'm not sure I'm seeing that. Yes, Pelosi and her "San Francisco values" is trotted out the way disconnected 80's political slogans like "tax and spend" get trotted out. I just don't feel like the people who respond to that are the "reachable" voters, anyway.

I also don't think the results of GA6 somehow point to a need to go more decidedly liberal. Politics is local, and I think minor details like Handel having a higher political profile than newcomer Ossoff and living in the district (I hate to be petty, and can stomach a "technicality" or "nuance" argument as well as the next reasonable person; but you aren't dealing with reasonable people--you're talking about voters!) might have had a lot more to do with her win than anything Ossoff particularly stood for. And I fail to see how voters that weren't swayed against a candidate that said she didn't even believe in a living wage would be won over by the prospects of "Moar Socialism". 

But for the GOP scoffers who point out that the Dems haven't eked out a win over the GOP in these special elections so far, I do want to do at least a little "scoreboard" signifying:

Democrats have covered considerable ground since just November 2016 in some of these districts. They haven't become "wins" for Democrats, but they have become competitive (I note CA is not really GOP country anymore in many locales.)  In GA 6 and MT I know for sure the GOP did spend a whole lot of money.

What I think the takeaway for Dems should be is--think of wins as possible and run everywhere. Run like you want to win. For the party: stop being sad sacks and apocalyptic in fundraising, and just look to recruit great folks who are a good fit for their area and run the election like no one outside the location is watching. Take their money, but between you and me--I can't stand purity politics. Purity is for food safety and pharmaceuticals. I'm with Ronald Reagan, if I agree with a candidate 80% of the time, he isn't 20% my enemy--we just have a debate.

Maybe there is a leftist battle or reformation coming eventually, but for the love of mutts, I'd just like to win some elections and get control of congress back first, TBH.

2016 Year in Review-Nah!

There is seriously a part of me that feels my ass got dropped in the wrong timeline. (Maybe the darkest timeline.) In the world I thought I was living in: Trump got put up by the RNC as a joke-ass candidate to clown Hillary Clinton and was supposed to lose while costing her many valuable "face" coupons redeemable wherever GOP fucks are served. Thereby allowing a Clinton presidency, wherein the GOP gave exactly zero fucks and was adversarial as hell--a universe I totally was ready for. But this is not the universe I lived in.

(The runner-up universe I was ready for had Bernie Sanders putting a boot in Jeb's ass, FWIW.)

But it just so happens that in former years I have been able to pull my year together with some kind of style. My 2015 Year in Review was absurdly detailed. My 2014 was short but sweet. My 2013 made some kind of sense.

This year didn't make any kind of sense. But I think the overarching theme of my blog was "OMG we have a serious capable human versus a catastrophe!"

And then the catastrophe won. So much for prognostications.

I didn't blog as much about the environment in 2016 as in previous years, but with a Trump admin I figure I'm bound to. Also the class war. I feel like there will be more opportunities to write "class war" posts.

Maybe next year I will have a blog that lends itself better to recapping. But I now understand you just can't tell what any year will necessarily entail. And while I wish us all peace and prosperity in the coming year, I no longer know this is the thing we'll get.

* Substantially altered from original posting. Trimmed and cleaned up--too much champagne.

Rest in the Force

Carrie Fisher, one unbelievably witty, talented, and truly genuine person, is dead at age 60. It seems cruel that she was stricken with her cardiac event four days ago, and was hospitalized and even in stable condition before she had passed, giving her fans hope that she would rally. But that didn't happen--I only hope that she was able to know the outpouring of well-wishes people had for her before she was gone.

Best known for her role as Princess (later, General) Leia Organa, leader of the rebellion against the Dark Side-led Empire in George Lucas' cinematic epic Star Wars series, she sort of was one of my feminist heroes. She portrayed a tough, sarcastic, brave Princess who didn't always need saving--and it was great to know that the actress behind that great character was a bit like that, too. Feisty. Honest. And a fighter for a cause. Her openness about her mental health and addiction behavior helped to lessen the stigma of those conditions. She was keenly aware that she wasn't perfect in a culture that tries to fake perfection, and she was knowing, wise, and humorous about it in her writing.

Star Wars was the first film I saw in a theater, and is pretty much a touchstone for many in my generation. (It still seems a little shocking to me when I come across a forty or thirty-something who has somehow not seen any Star Wars movies. How?) I think, over the arc of that series of movies, Leia seems to be as fully-realized as a character gets--and it is in no small part because Fisher herself deeply understood how scene writing and dialogue worked (and was well known as a script doctor giving often uncredited assistance to so many projects).

It's probably purely selfish of me that I'm relieved she had finished shooting for Star Wars Episode VIII, but feel so deprived, not just for myself but all her fans, of all the interesting things she still would have had in her. Her portrayal of the older, sadder, but wise General Organa showed that (despite some of the jackassery people had to say about the weird fact that actresses actually age) the character, and the actress, had not so much aged as ripened. How I wish she had more time with us.

I don't have any ideas about what the cosmos contains, but sort of want to think she is with the Force.

2016: George Michael and The Suckularity

If there was ever a year that culturally just bukkake'd every eye until there wasn't a dry eye in the house, it was 2016. The death of David Bowie I sort of could handle--he was older, you understand. Alan Rickman, too. Glen Frey, life happens. The death of Prince--after the death of Vanity (Denise Katrina Matthews)--was closer to my musical time. But it adds up:

Phife Dawg, Merle Haggard, Sharon Jones, Leonard Cohen. Gene Wilder, Florence Henderson, Alan Thicke. Pat Harrington. Abe Vigoda. Maurice White. Harper Lee. George Kennedy. Nancy Reagan. Antonin Scalia. Phyllis Schafley. George Martin. Keith Emerson. Frank Sinatra Jr. Natalie Cole (died Dec. 31 2015, but I'm including her in 2016 because reasons). Controversial Toronto Mayor Rob Ford (who could have been admirably played in a movie by Chris Farley, if he didn't leave us several years ago). Garry Shandling. Tom Whedon (father of Joss Whedon and one-time show-runner for the children's program "The Electric Company", which had Rita Moreno and Morgan Freeman in its cast and was my favorite educational program as a little kiddie).

Merle Haggard. Doris Roberts (of Remington Steele and Everyone Loves Raymond).  Joanie Laurer, the wrestler also known as Chyna. Michelle McNamara, crime writer and wife of Patton Oswald. Morley Safer. John Berrie of the Beastie Boys. Bert Kwouk known as "Cato" in the Pink Panther movies. Muhammed Ali--the greatest of all time. Fidel Castro. Gordie Howe. Arnold Palmer. Anton Yelchin. Elie Wiesel. Michael Cimino. Garry Marshall. Miss Cleo. John Saunders. Kenny Baker. Gwen Ifill. John McLaughlin. Steven Hill. Alexis Arquette. Kevin Meaney. Janet Reno. Robert Vaughn. Zsa Zsa Gabor.

The announcement that George Michael died on Christmas was exceptionally cruel--typical for this year. Known for a song actually called "Last Christmas" among so many other great tunes, George Michael was a gifted vocalist, song writer, and extremely generous and giving performer.

I loved George Michael as an early gay icon--I never really understood how anyone had ambiguity about it, before he came out at the end of the 90's--to me it was just a thing I knew. But what was unambiguous was that he had an amazing talent. His lyrics and his ability to deliver them were just impeccable. His song, written while so young, "Careless Whisper", stands up against anything in the American songbook.

This one hurt me a little. But I understood this weird thing for a while--

It makes me a bit morbid to think that this experience of people I remember, not completely antique old B/W movie and tv stars, but people I actually watched, dying, will likely accelerate as I get older.

The increase of venues for popularity outside of politics and cinema and all, the "fifteen minutes of fame" Andy Warhol noted, meant ever so many more people would become famous or semi famous enough to be recalled. And as we all get older, so do our contemporaries. So it happened that in 2016, so many people we knew or at least, knew of, came to pass, and it sucked or at least, sucked so much worse than prior years. But if my calculations are right (I didn't actually do any real math here) this trend will continue. The older you get, the better you will know those people who die, and the closer their ages will be to your own.

So expect no comfort from 2017. But I listen to George Michael and know while he lived he made some progress happen. We aren't promised forever--let's just know from so many examples how to make our time count.

*Picture stolen from here.

Trump Unshackled

What, pray tell, took off the shackles of Donald Trump, anyway? Because he said this alarming thing on October 11, I would suppose this was a reaction to a combination of awfulness that hit him in succession: the 2005 "grab'em in the pussy" tape release, the not nearly what he needed debate performance, and then, the night of the long memories, when it turned out that some of the attention that he paid to people in his orbit was not appreciated at all. It seems like his first line of offense would be to cow the establishment GOP, who aren't supporting him the hell enough (as if they don't have their own electoral battles to think about. (Who even knew he felt shackled at all? He's basically had the least reigning-in by GOP leadership--they don't lecture, they roll their eyes and whistle, near as I can tell.)

But now that he's being hit by several accusations regarding his general sleaziness, he wants to lash out in a funny old narrative-killing way. See, he gathered about himself the accusers of Bill Clinton for sex-related misdoings and that one person from a case Mrs. Clinton had so many years ago, alleging that women need to be believed and that the very worst thing that could be done is to slander and insult them and make their lives more difficult--

So how does he confront the perfectly reasonable allegations of women, many of whom can be proven to have been associated with him, some having leveled complaints a good while before the last weeks of the presidential campaign--but were uniquely empowered by the words out of Trump's own mouth that he did "grab'em by the pussy"? He insults them and accuses them of being part of an international conspiracy involving bankers, the media, and a Mexican billionaire.  He alleges these women were never hot enough for him to assault them anyway--as if there is some degree of hotness at which--oh boy! he so would?

Now, I'm being a little charitable here. Hillary Clinton faced the slings and arrows of outrageous media misfortune for years before she reached for a "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy", and the truth be told, you could straight up follow that money regarding the Scaifes and sundry others in funding a local takedown--

Is Trump a Useful Idiot?

It certainly is fascinating that, some time after the ousting of Paul Manafort, it's just now that US intelligence agencies might be considering looking into the doings of Carter Page. Being invested in Gazprom and against the sanctions against Russia kind of make it seem like he isn't interested so much in how US interests play out there, as his own portfolio. That's not actually cool.

It's not quite entirely clear what the young (well, my age) Mr. Page brings to the table as a foreign policy advisor, as he is a relative unknown.  We try to keep the hope alive, do we not, that a person not uniquely outfitted with the education or life experiences to completely perform the duties of the office of the presidency will still somehow nominate really great, informed people about him or herself  to better equip the executive team in handling all that comes across their table--

And no. Carter Page, like any of the other deplorables since jettisoned, isn't actually a great pick. If he's getting any info regarding energy policy from him, for example, as a topic that does deal with international trade and protection, things like talking about fracking in this particular way seems extra dumb.

He hopefully doesn't think Putin is an actually strong political figure to emulate, either. But he's said worse things about Mark Cuban than he has about Putin.

But so what if a major Trump advisor is possibly serving as a backchannel to Russia in contravention of any standard of national security, in a way that, if any finances could be connected to it, be considered rank treason and most likely should?

Is that really somehow more damaging than what might be in Hillary's emails?

Huh. Tend your own grease-fire, Trump campaign. I suspect it could be going places.

Pence is Praising Putin

I think the most brilliantly troll-like thing Donald Trump has done, is get Mike Pence (because I know your far-right history, player) to sort of praise Vladimir Putin.

Of course this is bullshit. Deep down, I don't think Mike Pence has a minute of praise in him for Vladimir Putin. Mike Pence is, from all I know of his record, hawkish and wary of Russia--and yet? Being Trump's VP fig leaf has him agreeing that Putin is stronger than Obama? The guy who is ordering strikes that destroy hospitals in Aleppo (for Gary Johnson, if you ever come across Strangely Blogged--Aleppo is a city in Syria where many refugees are coming from because Syria is a bad place to live in right now and if you want to pretend you know anything about foreign policy--you would have known that. But you did not. Sucks to be you.)

Putin is trying to hold on to his relationship with the appalling Assad, and I think this is dumb because sometimes, it is better to see into the future then try to preserve an unworkable "now". Putin is fucking up shit in the ME--key words: Fucking up. But that isn't strategy.

The Trump/Pence thing with Putin makes so little sense to me I'm not even going to try analyzing it--but that it even is a thing is poor judgment all around.  

Literally the Founder (and MVP) of ISIS

There isn't a lot of surprise for me in Donald Trump's oft-repeated claim of late that President Obama is the founder of ISIS. Donald Trump says inflammatory things, things that are based on conspiracy theories, and his dislike of Obama is pretty well understood. What is a little less fathomable is his intent to go with the claim as being literally true. For example, when Fox News' Hugh Hewitt tried to help articulate his comments as being a strong opinion, Trump corrected him, reiterating that he believed it to be a fact.

There is quite a lot wrong with what Mr. Trump alleges to be facts in this case. While some trace the foundation of ISIS to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and others would push the genesis of ISIS further back to AQI led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, the existence of a group, sort of fashioned from a rib of al-Qaeda, existed in Iraq before President Obama ever took office or appointed Sen. Clinton his Secretary of State. The claim that AQI was completely quiescent in 2008 is not really true, although it is true that they had a heck of a comeback with the Syrian civil conflict and the basically anti-Sunni government of Nouri al Maliki.

There might have been changes to the course that Obama's foreign policy took with respects to the region that might have made a difference--but there are no guarantees. Despite the conditions of the 2011 SOFA agreed to by his predecessor, Obama wanted retention of 5000 "advisors." This was a no-go with the Iraqis, but there's no sure way to know what 5K in support personnel could do, anyway. Covering the deteriorating conditions in Syria, it's very hard to say what, if any course, would have been preferable in stopping ISIS, when ISIS was among the many rebel groups against Assad--and the Assad regime is pretty much a pack of bounders who ought to be stopped as well. And as events evolved, it became clear that ISIS acted in a way that predated not merely on Assad's military but civilian and other rebel groups as well.

All I Know is What is On the Internet

Desperate (sad!) GOP candidate for president Donald Trump gave a disaster of a press conference--the worst! Making ridiculous claims about President Obama in a way that might be described as racist, I don't know, but that's what I'm hearing, and if it's true, then it's really, really sad.

Of course, with the brilliant DNC convention going on (and isn't it a brilliant convention, where they didn't have to go begging to someone like Sheldon Adelson, which is something a political party might do if their nominee was not actually popular nor half as wealthy as he claimed. And where they have real celebrities, like Alicia Keys and Meryl Streep, and not Chachi and Duck Dynasty? Also real presidents and vice presidents? )  But how does a competent adult make claims that Obama is ignorant when he mistakes Tim Kaine for Tom Keane--a person he has actually met?  How does a person claiming he'll make America great again, actually bait one of our historical antagonists to hack more of our countries' internal documents, violating either the privacy of individuals or the security of our nation itself?

Well, I guess you might do a thing like that if you were unbelievably ignorant yourself, or if you were totally owned by that other country because you were in huge debt--astronomical debt--the worst! I don't know what the reality is there, but something is going on, and maybe he should suspend his campaign while we figure it out? I'm just saying--

But no, I'm not just saying, this is actually very harmful shit.

He Hates America--It's What He Does

Donald Trump has been talking about how he would make America "great" again, as if it was not now pretty great, as if it was not the land of opportunity that immigrants want to come to, as if it wasn't a place where at least people like himself enjoyed civil liberties like freedom of speech, as experienced by him as around the clock media coverage.

Here's the son of an immigrant, and the heir to a fortune, who wants to complain about how America is treating people. Like himself. Who was always, always, always, insanely privileged. Cash to burn up getting recognized as a building magnate. Cash to burn up on this campaign against someone who will actually commit to doing the job of governing this country, which Trump is too full of himself to do. And a mouth full of how this country is crime-ridden and terrorism-threatened. He says he's the man to rescue us. But how?

He hates us. He hates immigrants, especially if you are brown and speak something other than English. He hates gays, or he would not have picked Mike Pence, no matter what he says. He hates people who practice Islam. He hates. He promises us the truth--and he lies.

He set out his speech, which should have been positively about how he would make America better, with a hatenanny about how today's America sucks. I won't forget that his "Make America Great" is based on thinking we are not--he thinks we are losers. He doesn't get us. We deserve better.