+ First things first. I want
to apologize to the Sandernistas for any impolite things I may have written
about you in the past 10 months. I especially want to apologize to those of
you who rose up after your leader abandoned you, after Bernie wiped out your
votes and muted your voices, after he turned you over to the DNC’s thuggish
floor managers and security guards, after he sat passively as your brave chants
of “No More Drones” were drowned out by the fascist war-cry of “USA! USA!!” I
want to apologize for doubting your resolve. I want to apologize without
qualification. You didn’t cry when Bernie betrayed you. Not for long. You
marched right back into the Wells Fargo Center intent on spoiling the party.
You didn’t sour on your ideals. You refused to be domesticated. You pissed on
their carpet. You shouted down their war criminals. You made this squalid
affair fun for a few precious hours. And that ain’t bad. Somewhere Abbie
Hoffman is cracking a smile (though perhaps not at the spectacle of Meryl
Streep ripping off his
wardrobe during her bewildering
performance, an act so incoherent it made one long for the Absurdist
theater of Clint Eastwood and his
empty chair routine.)
+ I woke up this morning with a
hangover that has defied the usual remedies. Too much mezcal from the Kaine
Drinking Game (one shot for every reversal of a long-held position). Too many
hours of tedium, dread and bombast. For relief, I turned to the Holy Text
itself, Fear
and Loathing on the Campaign Trail: ’72 and drank in HTS’s savage
denunciation of lesser-evil voting:
“How many more of these goddam
elections are we going to have to write off as lame but ‘regrettably necessary’
holding actions? And how many more of these stinking double-downer sideshows
will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put
together some kind of national election that will give me at least the 20 million
people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always
being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils? I
understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing, this year, is
Beating Nixon. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago
in 1960—and as far as I can tell, we’ve gone from bad to worse to rotten since
then, and the outlook is for more of the same.”
[…]
+ Trump took to Twitter early
this morning, as his hair was being replastered into place, and denounced the
All Star lineup at the Democratic Convention last night as an orgy of “empty
rhetoric.” He wasn’t wrong. The whole affair had the feel of one of those rock
concerts featuring bands from the 1970s. The first few phrases were thrilling,
then it all started to fade away into a nostalgic stream of familiar hooks and
licks you’ve heard a thousand times before on Classic Rock AM radio. All played
very well with magnificent staging and a dazzling light show, yet utterly
antiseptic. The curious Tim Kaine interlude was the lone exception. It was hard
to tell if his performance was camp or kitsch.
+ Here’s another reason to
like Harry Reid and lament his looming retirement from the Senate. Shortly
after his speech at the Democratic Convention, Reid laid some wood on the DNC.
He said he was appalled by the DNC’s efforts to sabotage Bernie Sanders’
campaign, saying “Sanders didn’t get a fair deal.” Reid was asked if the
Democratic Party has a back-up plan if further damaging emails emerge that
might cripple Clinton. He shrugged his shoulders and said flatly, “No.” Then
again maybe Bernie deserved his fate. After all, he went along with the
crushing of his campaign willingly enough, kind of like Al Gore in 2000, when
he refused to challenge his own stolen election. Bernie basked in the spotlight
of his great betrayal, a surrender marketed as “unity.” He savored each small,
patronizing mention of his name last night by Kaine, Biden and Obama.
Meanwhile, Sanders capitulated to demands from the DNC that he agree to
prohibit own of his most ardent supporters, Nina Turner, the black former state
senator from Ohio, from appearing on stage to place his name in nomination. “If
it were BeyoncĂ©,” Susan Sarandon fumed, “they would’ve made it work.” It’s even
worse than that, Susan. The DNC is giving prime time slots on the stage to
lesser talents than Beyoncé, including Carole King and Katy Perry.
Turner’s crime? She’s refused to kneel down and endorse Clinton. Bernie’s
crime? He choose Hillary or Nina Turner. I tell you again: there’s a reason so
many blacks were suspicious about Sanders from the very beginning.
+ The New York Times reports
that after spending most of the spring in hiding, mega-donors are flocking back
to the Clinton campaign. With Bernie vanquished and pacified, it is now safe
for the powerbrokers of the Clinton cash machine to re-emerge, after being
asked by the campaign to be discreet during the primaries. Now hedge funders,
insurance execs, Big Pharma lobbyists and securities traders can get back to
the business of wining and dining the Clinton Team with style. Don’t worry
though. This is their last hurrah, before Hillary, you know, Citizens
United and slums shut the access door on them permanently (wink, wink)…
+ Ned Sublette, author of the
monumental American Slave Coast, writes to remind me that Bill Clinton did a
180 on Cuba policy. He campaigned on a pledge to normalize relations with Cuba,
then in 1996 did the opposite when he signed the vicious Helms-Burton Act,
which tightened the embargo on Cuba nearly to the point of strangulation. The
man who prodded Clinton to do so? Leon Panetta. Hit the replay button and shout
him down again, in Spanish this time.
+ We will no doubt be
bombarded tonight with a cluster bomb of references to Hillary’s brittle little
book, It Takes a Village, which Cockburn savagely reviewed in The Nation,
earning him a raft of rebukes from the feminist lobby. Here’s a nugget that
sums up the Clintonian approach to the exploitation of children for their
political advantage:
“The Clintonite passion for
talking about children as ‘investments’ tells the whole story. Managed
capitalism (progressivism’s ideal, minted in the Teddy Roosevelt era) needs
regulation, and just as the stock market requires—somewhat theoretically these
days—the Security and Exchange Commission, so too does the social investment (a
child) require social workers, shrinks, guidance counselors and the whole vast
army of the helping professions, to make sure the investment yields a
respectable rate of return.
“The do-good progressives at
the start of the century saw the family—particularly the immigrant family—as a
conservative institution. So, they attacked it. Then their preferred economic
system—consumer capitalism—began to sunder under the social fabric, and so
today’s do-gooders say that the family and the children, our ‘investment,’ must
be saved by any means necessary. When the FBI was getting ready to incinerate
the Branch Davidians they told Janet Reno the group’s children were being
abused. Save them, she cried. They went at it and all, including the children,
were burned alive.”
It will come as no surprise to
seasoned Clintonologists that Hillary didn’t actually write the book herself.
It may, but shouldn’t, come as a surprise that Hillary (like Trump) stiffed the
ghost-writer of the It Takes a Village out of the final payment. For the gory
details see Doug Henwood’s book My
Turn.
+ Chuck Schumer: “I’m not
worried about the white working class voters. For every blue collar white male
we lose, we’ll gain two college educated women voters in the suburbs.” I’d put
my money on the TPP passing before Christmas.
What else would you expect
from Schumer? The only regular interaction he has with working class people is
the elevator operator at Citibank when he rides up to the executive suite to
pick up a campaign check.
I’ll give Schumer this much.
Though the Senator looks a little awkward, he must be a remarkable athlete. All
these years racing from one TV camera to the next and not even a sprained
ankle.
+ I used to admire Laurence
Tribe. I don’t remember why now. I have a vague memory of him as a fierce
defender of free speech and civil liberties. But here he is serving as a
Clinton attack dog for the red-baiting of Donald Trump. In lockstep with the
National Security elites, Tribe ludicrously said Trump’s snarky remarks asking
Russia to return Hillary’s missing emails may have violated US law. If so, then
you’d expect someone like Tribe to rush off to court to have such a law
stricken down as unconstitutional. He knows it’s all bullshit, but is
apparently happy to play his role in the new McCarthyism. Perhaps Tribe thinks
he’s finally going to land on the Supreme Court. I’d support a Rand Paul-led
filibuster against him. Have you no shame, professor?
+ Expect some flood warnings
as the tears begin to flow when the nation celebrates its own enlightenment in
finally nominating a woman for president. The rest of the world will view this
“historic moment” as something of a participation trophy. Eighty-five women
from 54 different nations have already been elected or appointed as heads of
government starting in 1960 with Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
Women have led governments in: India, Israel, Central African Republic, UK,
Portugal, Dominica, Norway, Pakistan, Lithuania, Bangladesh, France, Poland,
Turkey, Canada, Burundi, Rwanda, Bulgaria, Haiti, Guyana, New Zealand,
Mongolia, New Zealand, Northern Cyprus, Senegal, South Korea, Sao Tome and
Principe, Finland, Peru, Mozambique, Macedonia, Ukraine, Liberia, Bahamas,
Germany, Jamiaca, Ukraine, Moldova, Haiti, Iceland, Croatia, Madagascar,
Trinidad and Tobago, Australia, Slovakia, Mali, Thailand, Denmark, the
Philippines, Guinea-Bissau, Slovenia, Latvia, Transnistria, Poland, Namibia,
Greece, and Myanmar.
+ Terry O’Neill, head of Now,
was asked about the tardiness of the US in relation to the rest of the world in
electing a female head of state. Her response was a strange, almost
misogynistic putdown of other women world leaders. “Many of them weren’t
feminists. Hillary was a born feminist. It was a harder road for her.” USA!
USA!
If Elizabeth Dole or Sarah
Palin had somehow been elected president, I wonder if NOW would have put an
asterisk by their names?
+ Working class hero Sherrod
Brown, the Ohio senator who was snubbed for the VP slot, told CNN that: “We’re
going to win in part by showing that Trump is a hypocrite on trade.” Did he run
this message by Hillary and Kaine?
+ So far it’s 6 for 6. 6
speakers 6 “God Bless Americas.” There goes Tammy Duckworth. Make that 7 for 7.
Despite the allegation by Ben Carson that Hillary communes with Lucifer, it’s
looking like it will be another big night for God.
+ Here comes Elizabeth Warren
to give yet another testimonial to her new BFF, HRC: “Hillary is a fighter who
never gives up for the people who need her most.” Like Goldman Sachs, Monsanto
and Benjamin Netanyahu. You can take it to the bank.
+ Joaquin Castro, the rising
political star from Texas, is now on stage talking about how sensitive Hillary
is to the plight of Mexican immigrants and undocumented aliens. This wasn’t
always the case and who really knows if it is now. During the NAFTA debates,
the Clinton administration went hard after the perils of Mexican immigration,
using language that Trump may have cribbed. Al Gore even went so far as to
blame Mexican immigrants for the spread of Satanic abuse in the US. This was a
double lie. First, Mexican immigrants weren’t practicing Satanic abuse (or
Santeria, as the Clinton people also alleged). And second there was NO Satanic
abuse epidemic. Hard to document even a single real case. But these pernicious
and racist lies helped sell the deal that continues to debilitate people on
both sides of the border.
Remember that Hillary strongly
backed the cruel Obama administration policy of rounding up thousands of
immigrant children and sending them back to Mexico, El Salvador and Honduras.
When Sanders confronted her once or twice, she essentially pulled a Madeleine
Albright and said it was the right thing to do. All for the children, you
understand.
+ Chris Cuomo is giving a
tribute to his father Mario Cuomo, both of whom worked as lawyers for…Donald
Trump. Trumps and Cuomos go way back. In fact, Donald encouraged Mario to run
for president in 1988 (he hated Bush) and Mario urged Donald to run for
governor of NY, after he stepped down. Bi-partisanship you can believe. (See
Wayne Barrett’s Trump: the Deals and the Downfall)
Cuomo is attacking Trump for
“selling fear,” as he simultaneously sells fear of Trump. The Republicans sell
a dark dystopian fear. While the Democrats sell fear with a smile and a drone
strike.
+ Melania Trump’s petty
crime of word theft was much less noxious than the Democrats flagrant
cribbing of the GOP’s rabid USA! USA!! chants.
+ Nancy Pelosi, defender of
the poor & alleged inside stock (Visa) trader. Net Worth: $58 million. Who
says West Coast liberalism doesn’t pay?
Pelosi mumbles unintelligible
syllables into the microphone for five minutes and flies off to check her
portfolio to Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”
+ Ted Danson and Mary
Steenburgen have shown up to talk about how Hillary practices the “poetry of
doing.” Doing what, one might ask? Steenburgen, a native Arkansan, is the woman
Bill Clinton reportedly took out to dinner the night he executed the brain-damaged
Ricky Ray Rector to boost his poll numbers in the 1992 campaign. There’s ice
running through those Clinton veins. Mary Steenburgen, the woman Bill Clinton
took out to dinner the night he executed the brain-damaged Ricky Ray Rector to
boost his poll numbers in the 1992 campaign. It’s one thing to mock the
disabled; it’s something else entirely to put them to death for your own
political advancement.
+ Have the speakers tonight
been instructed to be boring in order to make Hillary seem livelier by
contrast? Or are they just flatline boring by nature?
+ I said last night that
Obama’s speech was written in the key of Reagan. Now here is one Reagan’s
speechwriters, Doug Elmets, giving a full-throated & unconditional
endorsement of Clinton, as the true heir of the Reagan legacy. Can anyone prove
him wrong?
+ Yet another cop at the Mic,
a moment of silence for the fallen police and speeches from relatives of dead
officers. The Democrats have featured more cops as prime time speakers than the
GOP, all of them lecturing about how “violence isn’t the solution” to anything.
Since January 1, 668 civilians have been killed by police.
+ DNC Convention Motto for
Coronation Night: “God, the flag and drones.”
There seem to be more flags in
the hall tonight than at Arlington Cemetery on Memorial Day. Curiously, despite
the non-step odes to the dead, none are being waved at half-staff. Thanks for
the memories…
+ Rev. William Barber: “Jesus,
a brown-skinned, Palestinian Jew…” Can’t wait to see how Bill O’Reilly explicates
that tomorrow night.
Whoops, he said Palestinian
again! They may have to pull Rev. Barber off the stage to keep him from saying
the word “Palestinians” once more. By a special order of the convention rules,
“Palestinians” are only allowed two mentions for the week.
+ The chants of USA, USA!!
during Khizr Khan’s moving and powerful speech about his slain son is
revolting. Do you have to be a “patriotic” American Muslim to enjoy the rights
of the constitution that Khan showed? If you are a “patriotic Pakistani” does
that protect you from a CIA drone strike?
+ Gen. Allen’s deranged speech
could have been written by Donald Rumsfeld. Perhaps it was. I feel like I’ve
just watched the first 45 minutes of Full-Metal Jacket again.
+ Trump has really gotten
under the skin of the military-security establishment. His repeated swipes at
NATO did it. They’ve united behind HRC. You’ve got to give him that. On the
other hand, it gives an ominous new meaning to “Stronger Together.”
+ Who knew the Democratic
National Convention would turn into a military recruitment video?
+ How can they possibly top
this? A live drone strike on the big screen?
+ Two parties, both
proto-fascist. How to choose?
+ If I were the Iranians and
North Koreans, I’d be hardening my bunkers, pronto. Assad should probably book
a room at the nearest Ecuadoran Embassy.
+ Gen. Allen just annihilated
every humane sentiment expressed in Rev. Barber’s powerful sermon. Perhaps that
was the point.
+ We begin to see the outlines
of Hillary’s economic plan: military Kaine-sianism.
+ Bernie, how do you like your
party now?
+ I wouldn’t be shocked if
those super-charged delegates goose-step out of the Wells Fargo Center tonight
to invade Delaware, waving their flags and chanting USA, USA!!! all the
way to Dover.
+ Boomer, our Australian
Shepherd, still hasn’t emerged from the closet where he fled during Gen.
Allen’s war rant. Who can blame him?
+ Hillary has already
out-Thatchered the Iron Lady and she hasn’t been elected yet. She’s made the
complete metamorphosis from a Goldwater girl to a McGovern woman to a Reagan
granny.
+ Mission Impossible: Chelsea
trying to humanize her mother after the blood-thirsty madness of the previous
30 minutes.
+ Chelsea says her mother lost
the fight for “universal health care.” Not true. Her plan wasn’t for “universal
health care”, another market oriented scheme called “Managed Competition” and
she fucked up that through her own incompetence and hubris, setting back the
cause of single-payer by at least a generation. No wonder Chelsea decided not
to go to med school.
+ “How many times will she
leave her mark? How many ways will she light up the world?” the disembodied
voice of Morgan Freeman asks. Well, how many drones and cruise missiles can
Lockheed and Boeing manufacture in four years?
+ The word of the night is fight,
fight, fight, fight, fight. I don’t know if the children are scared, but I am.
+ I am Woman, hear my missiles
ROAR!
+ People in the audience are
crying. I’m crying. I don’t think we’re crying for the same reasons.
+ Hillary looks and sounds
more and more like Cersei Lannister with each new speech.
+ Hillary once again embraces
Reagan to bash Trump. Reagan left the Democratic Party in the 1950s, but the
Party apparently never left him.
+ I’m getting a weird vibe
that they might actually bring out Qaddafi’s head on a pike.
+ HRC says the “service part”
always came more naturally to her than the “public part”. Well, that explains
the private email server…
+ In her brisk recitation of
the Rodham family history, Hillary somehow left out the fact that her father
was a John Bircher. Of course, by the end of Hillary’s 2nd term her father
may seem as meek as George McGovern.
+ Does Hillary cough every
time she lies, or does she cough every time see stumbles into the truth?
+ Note the repeated emphasis
on “believe” instead of “know” in Hillary’s description of her political
ideology. My friend John Trudell used to warn against the “believers.” “Think
more, believe less” he said. In Hillary’s case, “believe” is likely shorthand
for “make-believe.”
+ The comparisons of HRC to
Lady Macbeth are grossly unfair…to Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth had a
conscience.
+ She says she loves to talk
about her “plans.” Has she started yet? I haven’t heard one specific plan.
Maybe she’s talking about her invasion plans. Oh, yes, she getting around to
that now…
+ Pledge fealty to Israel.
Check.
Defend NATO. Check.
Bash Russia. Check.
Destroy ISIS (by funding Al Qaeda?). Check.
Praise the Generals. Check.
Hail our military (and its defense contractors) as a national treasure. Check.
Salute the troops. Check.
America is great. Check.
America is good. Check.
America is not a bully. Check.
Manifest Destiny. Check.
God bless America. Check.
Defend NATO. Check.
Bash Russia. Check.
Destroy ISIS (by funding Al Qaeda?). Check.
Praise the Generals. Check.
Hail our military (and its defense contractors) as a national treasure. Check.
Salute the troops. Check.
America is great. Check.
America is good. Check.
America is not a bully. Check.
Manifest Destiny. Check.
God bless America. Check.
+ Unlike Hillary’s idol Ronald
Reagan, there was no pledge to eliminate nuclear weapons. Just a vow to
have a more stable hand on the button than Trump. Like that Harry Truman. Duck
and cover.
+ How appropriate that it all
ends with Hillary and Kaine standing before a golden (or is it, Goldman?)
shower raining down on America!
+ As a final blessing,
Hillary’s preacher has come out to confirm at last what we’ve long
suspected: there’s a Methodism to her Madness.
+ All Sandernistas should
leave the Wells Fargo Center before they lock the exits. (See Red Wedding.)
+ Hillary passed her audition.
She’s the authentic Queen
of Chaos and when she stoops, she stoops to conquer.
Notes From the Democratic
Convention
Day One: Don’t
Cry for Me, DNC!
Day Two: The
Humiliation Games
Day Three: Night
of the Hollow Men
Day Four: She
Stoops to Conquer
