Avanti !

Faremo Una Nuova Nazione Del Popolo!

Today, we introduce a new Blog category: Duce!

You must always be doing things and obviously succeeding. The hard part is to keep people always 'at the window', because of the spectacle you put on for them. And you must do this for years.
 --  Benito Mussolini

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MEHR, VON DIE ZUKUNFT:

Welkommen ins die neues Welt!
 

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UND NOCH IMMER MEHR:

... I actually feel quite sorry for Hillary Clinton as a person because I see someone who is eaten alive by their ambitions, tormented literally to the point where they become sick; they faint as a result of [the reaction] to their ambitions. She represents a whole network of people and a network of relationships with particular states.  

The question is, how does Hilary Clinton fit in this broader network?  She's a centralizing cog. You've got a lot of different gears in operation from the big banks like Goldman Sachs and major elements of Wall Street, and Intelligence and people in the State Department and the Saudis. She's the centralizer that inter-connects all these different cogs.  She's the smooth central representation of all that, and "all that" is more or less what is in power now in the United States. 

It's what we call the establishment or the DC consensus. One of the more significant Podesta emails that we released was about how the Obama cabinet was formed and how half the Obama cabinet was basically nominated by a representative from CitiBank. This is quite amazing....

... [Let's talk about] Donald Trump. What does he represent in the American mind and in the European mind?  ... Because he so clearly -- through his words and actions and the type of people that turn up at his rallies -- represents people who are not the middle, not the upper middle educated class, there is a fear of seeming to be associated in any way with them, a social fear that lowers the class status of anyone who can be accused of somehow assisting Trump in any way, including any criticism of Hillary Clinton. If you look at how the middle class gains its economic and social power, that makes absolute sense.

--  Julian Assange; Interview with John Pilger 
(Read some of it here, or watch the entire interview on UTub. Go. Now.)

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MEHR, MIT 'WARUM KOMMT TRUMP?'

... nothing shifted. People have been homeless, addicted, without protection or help from government for thirty years now. Hillary wanted, it was rumored, to privatize social security. The US population is drugged, desperate, and angry. But THAT America is invisible in media. People toil for minimum wage, as guest workers in their own country. Unpaid internships are now the norm. College degrees mean shit...

Trump is not the answer, of course. He is the symptom... of the virus of neoliberal Capitalism. I never thought Trump would win because I didn’t think he wanted to win. And maybe, maybe he didn’t. None of that mattered, as it turned out...

[But w]hen you have fifty bucks in the bank, how important is it that Trump makes sexist jokes? The public turned more and more as the campaign process went on. Never have the debates looked so staged and fake. Never have they seemed so removed from daily life for most Americans. The... poor black and latino communities could find little enthusiasm for either candidate. But I sensed a resentment to the smug liberals that come to gentrify neighborhoods, and who ASSUME everyone should think as they do. ... The poor are the object of derision and are patronized and ridiculed. 

The one thing I am surprised about... is that the Clinton machine allowed it to happen. But then, in certain corners of the financial elite, trust was eroding in their favored candidate. But the Dems were arrogant, too. And inept. They ran a terrible campaign with one of the worst candidates ever to run for president. So, no, it wasn’t sexism or racism, it was anger at the status quo. An inarticulate anger, but still anger.  The big mistake of liberals was to think Trump was bringing fascism, without realizing fascism was already here.

-- John Steppling, "The Big Split" / Counterpunch, November 10, 2016

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Down Town

When You're Alone And You Got No Place To Go

 The Weasel Who Lives On Trump's Head Is Restless.
Oh, And Bad Tie Choice. Loser Tie.

When you're finally alone in Downtown America, it's apparent that all sentient life hates Trump.  It's in the papers, on the Intertubes; it's what everyone is thinking when they aren't hating other people. Our Pestident in Washdeecee hates him in a way only the living embodiment of Woodrow Wilson can.

The Partei Republikanner, which gave him his own convention, hates him, too. The Weasel who lives on his head hates him, and it's beginning to show -- it's possible the Weasel has even bitten him once or twice in public.  Even the people who support him actually hate him for making them support him.  He is unfit to be Pepsodent, and by all accounts is unfit to be anything, except a Rubber Bear in the Museo Di Trumpo -- and no one is really sure about that.

Slight Adjustments To A Mr Fish Cartoon From 2012.  

The Repub party is the victim of its own Badness, but even if it refuses to die, it will lie down, and on top of its own Candydate. The Elephant hates him.

So... it will be a near-decade of America being led into a future where all its citizens are monetized, monitored, and shamed if they haven't purchased the latest shiny technology, and where the Old must not be seen or indulged. It is The Time Of She. But it cannot be yet -- or, can it?

We're not enamored of anti-climaxes here in Downtown America. Do we have to wait?  She must be crowned; we must see her Coronation Balls, and there must be The Historic Speech; school children will be allowed to take the day off in order to witness it. Whether by Trumpo or She, there's a so-called Democratic Republic to be dismantled, one way or another. Let's get it over with, huh?

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Sister Redacted And The Baseball Bat

I Don't Live Today

Supporter Of Senator Sanders Outside DNC, 7/28/16 (Photo: Patrick T Fallon / AFP)

Answer:  Yes, but I came in after She had started. I listened. After seven minutes and forty seconds I couldn't stomach it any further, muttered Fuck This, shut off the teevee, and put on the Are You Experienced? album.  America has its own political and cultural Manic Depression going on, my man, and a Purple Haze has been hanging over Philadelphia this week in a soul-draining miasma.

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The woman on that podium reminded me of a past next-door neighbor -- portly, draped in a tentish Mu-Mu made out of a fabric that had once been blue, who always started our neighbor-to-neighbor conversations with complaints about physical ailments and slowly moved on to, well, anything; the topic didn't matter. Always, it was delivered in a flat, mildly sarcastic tone.

As my neighbor spoke, she didn't talk with you; she told you. She was angry in that free-floating, Bill O'Reilly You-don't-ever-push-the-Factor way some people have. They're a box 'o crazy which will pop open at the least provocation, leaving you covered in bile, thinking All I said was, 'How're you doing?'.  

At first, you agreed with whatever silly nonsense she was spouting, in the spirit of politeness and self-preservation. But that was no protection: if you allowed her to really get going, she might begin to include you in whatever high dudgeon she worked herself into -- from sciatica, to the goddamn idiots who cut her off in traffic all the time, to her daughter-in-law, that ungrateful, spiteful bitch. Finally you were frozen, hands in pockets, saying Uh-huh Uh-huh, and hoping for the detached wheel door from any stray 747 to drop on her and allow you an exit.

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I continued to listen. During my 7:40 of Philadelphia, the voice of She on the podium also reminded me of my mother's voice, when, disgusted with Some Thing Or Other, she would say meaningfully to either my brother or myself, "Wait 'till your father gets home".  It also reminded me of my Second Grade teacher, Sister [Redacted]. Before she had that breakdown and locked me in our classroom's tiny broom closet (true story), Sister Redacted was famous for That Tone Of Voice when publicly correcting a student's wrong answer.

 She Did Not Fly; She Did Not Sing; She Only Knows How To Swing That Thing

The Rules Of Engagement were that if you spoke at all, you were required to stand up, next to your desk, when reciting or providing an answer. Sister Redacted, arms folded, would listen.  If you got it wrong, she would regard you with a distasteful expression. "That is wrong, and you should already know this," she would say in a flat, contemptuous tone of voice (and that Voice on the Podium brought the Sister's back with a surprising clarity. It connected as straight and solid as a baseball bat), followed with, "But since you don't seem to know -- can anyone here show him his error more clearly?"

(Expressing some unspecified displeasure was Sister Redacted's default expression, as if she had just eaten a mouthful of fish with bones in it. You were, after all, the squalling product of Original Sin, and it was a tossup whether Holy Mary would deign to give your sorry ass an assist on the Via Dolorosa of Life so that you might avoid the eternal punishments shown in Dante's vacation guide. Or, you know, not.)

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As I watched She delivering her address, her voice projected that same flat, exasperated, lecturing, reproving tone. It was my mother warning us You're gonna get it; it was my neighbor, explaining how the world had been specifically bent to torment her; it was Sister Redacted's baseball bat: Are you that stupid? 

There was no warmth in the delivery, no sign of compassion that wasn't included as a requirement in Her speech. Of all the personas she could have chosen to convince America that She is Our Hope, what She presented (at least for one Dog in the West) made her momentarily channel the character of an Irish Dominican nun with a bad attitude.

America: The Land Of Choices (Original Photo: TomClarkBlog)

Oh, I heard the 'America is threatened by powerful forces, threatening to tear us apart'. I heard the 'we' and 'together' as opposed to Trumps 'I alone can fix things'.  But I heard more references to business and to  "our great entrepreneurs" than I did financial oversight, or trade treaties which do not make it simpler to Screw The Peasantry worldwide. She spent an hour convincing people that She was precisely the person her handlers and flacks were saying we would not see. She's misunderstood. You'll see a different Hillary tonight. She will be warm and kind and good.

And if she had been, would I feel differently?  No. I can't ignore how Clinton behaves, who She represents, or that Her nomination means those running the Democratic National Committee will define Progressivism in America as technocentric neoliberalism: Nothing Essential About The Structure Of Power Will Change. She Will Ensure Business As Usual.

Both She and Il Duce (no matter how much he bad-boys it for the cameras) will Fluff the same Powers That Be.  Both major parties are being purchased by the same banking and finance / oil / pharma / Tech money. The only difference is the Koch Brothers, and a handful of other decrepit old Bundist billionaires are lined up to support the Right, and a similar number of so-called Progressive billionaires on the Left. 

The People? We don't figure in this equation. We're almost superfluous in the game of power and influence these people play. It's ultimately about power. It isn't about compassion, or altruism, or human rights: God forbid humans should have greater rights than corporations, or their Owners, or The Right Sort. 

This is what "The Fix Is In" is all about, and We know it -- one reason, which I keep barking about, why Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren gave so many Democrats and Independents a focus: their campaigns seemed rooted in their values, which they enunciated clearly. She? Not so much.  At the other end of the spectrum, the Tea Partei and their backers over the past decade have forced the traditional Republican party further to the right (a process Herr Gingrich began in 1993, amply assisted by Lil' Rupert, Lard Boy, Mikey Wiener and Glamorous Glenny, among others). They're one primary reason that Trump is the Right's official candidate today.

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I could only take 7:40 of it all before I gave up.  She's a Megalomaniac, running against another Megalomaniac, and She will be the winner; and Yep; We're Boned.

Sorry if this lacks the nuanced political analysis These Times deserve, but that's how it is out here in the Forward Area, peeps.

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MEHR,  MIT EIN ANDEREN UNSTRUKTURIERTEN POLITISCHEN ANALYSE:

 Two persons I went to high school with were discussing the Trumpo vs. She topic.We're all familiar with it -- Trump = Evil; She = Less Evil.  

One of them said, "Hillary is all things to all people. When she talks to the mining industry, she's all about developing coal as an energy source. When she talks to environmentalists, she's against coal. Who the hell knows what she's promised Goldman-Sachs and the rest of the banks. But she wants to be leader so badly she'll lie her ass off -- so we don't know what her policies will be once she's elected.  Trump, on the other hand, will do things we already know about because he's been up front about it. And we know none of that is good; in fact, it's downright frightening"  They would vote for She on that basis, they said.  

I responded Well, I can't shake the feeling that this election isn't about us. It's about these two titanic egos, these two win-at-any-price, world-class assholes. They claim to represent two opposing political philosophies. This contest is about them. But it isn't about The People.

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Reprint Heaven Forever: Taliban

Someone Else Today. You Tomorrow. 

(From 2015. About 'lebenty billion people in The Russia reminded me this post was out there -- and given Herr Pence's recent history we should look past his little spiel at the RNC and remember that he will be happy to fluff Evangelical bottom-feeders with next to no motivation. He'll even do it for free.)

This bill is not about discrimination... [the purpose of the legislation] is very simply to empower individuals when they believe that actions of government impinge on their constitutional First Amendment freedom of religion... 
-- Indiana Governor Pence, to ABC's George Stephanopolis

SB 101: Religious freedom restoration. Prohibits a governmental entity from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless the governmental entity can demonstrate that the burden: (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering the compelling governmental interest... Specifies that the religious freedom law applies to the implementation or application of a law regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity or official is a party to a proceeding ... Prohibits a governmental entity from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability... Specifies that the religious freedom law applies to the implementation or application of a law regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity or official is a party to a proceeding implementing or applying the law. Prohibits an applicant, employee, or former employee from pursuing certain causes of action against a private employer... (The RFRA, per the Indiana General Assembly)

I had intended to post a long rant on the perfidy and outright evil which characterize right-wing evangelism in America, but we'll just take those items as a given.

SB 101 isn't the first law passed in even recent memory allowing a minority in political control to enshrine their intolerance with the force of legislation -- in this case, evangelical christians (with a small "c") and their god-given (well, somebody's god, anyway) right to condemn -- in this case, LGBT Americans. And evangelicals love to condemn; being a True Believer seems to gives them the authority to do that, filled with Grace™ and love (and something else) as they are.



And our right-wing evangelicals want to be the dominant authority -- over women, over children, over education and art and sexuality. Our evangelicals, like the Taliban, would like to enact their own version of religious law in America -- and religious law is not about uplifting and empowering the human spirit; it's based on Thou Shalt Not.

Religious law of whatever flavor is based on the fundamental precept that Humans are bad, stained from birth with evil, who must be carefully watched by the Elders and restricted from committing more acts which The Elders believe are affronts against (somebody's) god.

And (as is always true in less democratic forms of governing), the force of religious law always rests on ultimate punishment. Those who break these laws are whipped and disfigured, have parts of their bodies crudely amputated; are tortured until they confess their crimes; are stoned to death, beheaded, or burned at the stake. And the entire community will be made to watch, or may be required to participate in a ritualized killing... as a religious requirement. As an object lesson.

And nations ruled by True Believers and their edicts -- religious, or political -- always become bankrupt cultures; shabby, frightening, and ultimately murderous places.  Ask the Muslims of Serbia and Croatia. Ask the Tutsis of Rawanda. Ask the people of Cambodia. Ask the people of Afghanistan. Ask the Jews of Europe.

(A Dog has a long memory:  The last member of my family had been a born-again evangelical; for a time, they were associated with a tiny sect, organized around a self-proclaimed 'pastor'. After a long illness, my family member died; at the funeral, I watched the 'pastor' turn what was a moment of grief and remembrance into his opportunity to tell a captive audience, at length, that their time on earth was short and everyone in earshot and beyond was hellbound and they'd better get right with the lord.

(He shouted and strutted; he preened -- a True Believer in full, in love with the power that act of condemnation gave him. Of passing judgement, and settling scores. I've found some of him in every individual I've seen or experienced since who claims to be 'moved' by an allegedly higher power. And the so-called "laws" associated with whatever freakshow delusion they're pushing which allow them to do pretty much whatever they want. Yes, they'll make fine leaders of America, or whatever they'll call their New Kingdom.

(Ask the members of the People's Temple at Jonestown. Ask the Branch Davidians at Waco. You might even ask the members of 'christian' congregations across America, listening to speeches made by their 'pastors' condemning other people as less than human and feeling such putrescent drivel is not only just fine but righteous.) 

SB101 is not the last legislation of its kind that we'll see passed in America. And if an evangelical christian ever becomes President of the United States, we will see many more. The United States is, in the eyes of many, the country where political apathy is king; perhaps that's so.

If it is, then God help us all. In our torpor, ultimately we may find ourselves ruled by the same kind of strutting, egotistical monsters that a real pastor, Martin Niemöller, had in mind when he made the oft-quoted observation:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out. --  Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)

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MEHR, MIT "ES GENUG IST !":

(Reuters) - Indiana's Republican Governor Mike Pence, responding to national outrage over the state's new Religious Freedom Restoration Act, said on Tuesday he will "fix" it to make clear businesses cannot use it to deny services to same-sex couples.

Pence, in a news conference, said the law he signed last week had been widely mischaracterized and "smeared" but he called on the state's Republican-controlled General Assembly to send a new law to his desk this week to fix it...

But Pence found support from conservatives including Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz and possible presidential contenders Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio...

Critics say Indiana's law went too far in potentially allowing businesses to deny services to gay couples, because they could argue that doing so went against their deeply held beliefs.

Same-sex marriage became legal in Indiana under an appeals court ruling last year.

Religious Freedom Acts in Georgia and North Carolina appeared to stall this week after Indiana came under fire. But the Arkansas House of Representatives is expected to approve this week an RFRA that has already passed the state's Senate.

Every Day Is A Blinding Toad

It Gets A Little Closer

The Weasel Knows Now: There Is No Way Out; It Is Trapped On His Head.
(Original Photo:  Shannon Stapleton / Reuters)

Do Not Open Your Mouth When Feasting On The Body Of Your Enemy

(Original Photo: James Keivom / New York Daily News)

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In other news, NASA has released a new HD video of the Aurora Borealis taken from the International Space Station, as it orbits Planet Trump -- or Clintonia, depending on how November goes.

One item of note -- and I would get down on your knees and thank whatever This Universe Is About for this -- it seems much less likely that Grand Turtlebear Greg Stillson of the Church Of I Kill You ! will be made Sainted Leader.

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MEHR, MIT DER SCRUB:  From Greg Palast, writing about stuff:

Francesca Rheannon, whom you may know as the host of Writers’ Voice radio, did the civic thing by volunteering to work the polls in a town east of New York City.
“I just got off my 17 hour shift as an election official.  In my election district, out of 166 Democratic voters, 39 were forced to file affidavit ballots.  The last [election] I worked in, exactly ONE voter needed an affidavit ballot.”
That’s nearly one of four voters. Why?  Their names had gone missing from the voter rolls.
An affidavit ballot (called a “provisional” ballot in most other states) is a kind of placebo ballot.  You get to pretend to vote – but the chance it will actually be counted is …well, good luck.  If your name is wrongly removed, kiss your vote – affidavit or not—goodbye.
Rheannon’s experience was hardly unique.  In Brooklyn alone, over 125,000 names were quietly scrubbed from the voter rolls in the five months leading up to the primary.
To put it in prospective, the number of voters purged equals about half of the number who got to vote.  Scott Stringer, the New York City Comptroller will now audit the Elections Board--now that the election is over.  Hey thanks, Scott.
Neal Rosenstein, the lead voting rights attorney for the New York Public Interest Research Group, which plans legal action, notes that part of the problem is that partisan hacks sit on the Elections board in New York—hacks from both parties.
Brooklyn is under the control of the Kings County Democratic Party, one of the last of the big city machines.  Would they attack their opponents’ voter registrations?  I don’t have to guess:  in my wasted younger days, I was in the Brooklyn County elections office with the hacks where we were assigned by the Party to challenge voters’ signatures en masse.  (I wouldn’t and nearly lost my state job.)
Am I saying the machine “fixed” the election for Hillary Clinton?  Without further investigation, it would be irresponsible for me to pronounce judgment.  Some of the purged may have moved, some have died.  But those who waited in line only to fill out affidavit ballots are unlikely to be deceased.
If the Machine had been aware of the mass purge underway, would they have stopped it?  As they say in Brooklyn, Fahgeddabouddit.
- See more at: http://www.gregpalast.com/new-york-voting-fiasco-just-the-warm-up-for-the-november-game/#sthash.6Euo4H9q.dpufFrancesca Rheannon, whom you may know as the host of Writers’ Voice radio, did the civic thing by volunteering to work the polls in a town east of New York City.

[A polling station worker in Brooklyn immediately after the New York Democratic primary noted], “I just got off my 17 hour shift as an election official. In my election district, out of 166 Democratic voters, 39 were forced to file affidavit ballots. The last [election] I worked in, exactly ONE voter needed an affidavit ballot.”

That’s nearly one of four voters. Why? Their names [were] missing from the voter rolls.

An affidavit ballot (called a “provisional” ballot in most other states) is a kind of placebo ballot. You get to pretend to vote – but the chance it will actually be counted is …well, good luck. If your name is wrongly removed, kiss your vote – affidavit or not—goodbye.

... In Brooklyn alone, over 125,000 names were quietly scrubbed from the voter rolls in the five months leading up to the primary. To put it in prospective, the number of voters purged equals about half of the number who got to vote...

Brooklyn is under the control of the Kings County Democratic Party, one of the last of the big city machines. Would they attack their opponents’ voter registrations? I don’t have to guess: in my wasted younger days, I was in the Brooklyn County elections office with the hacks where we were assigned by the Party to challenge voters’ signatures en masse. (I wouldn’t and nearly lost my state job.)

Am I saying the machine “fixed” the election for Hillary Clinton? Without further investigation, it would be irresponsible for me to pronounce judgment. Some of the purged may have moved, some have died. But those who waited in line only to fill out affidavit ballots are unlikely to be deceased.

__________________________________

Francesca Rheannon, whom you may know as the host of Writers’ Voice radio, did the civic thing by volunteering to work the polls in a town east of New York City.
“I just got off my 17 hour shift as an election official.  In my election district, out of 166 Democratic voters, 39 were forced to file affidavit ballots.  The last [election] I worked in, exactly ONE voter needed an affidavit ballot.”
- See more at: http://www.gregpalast.com/new-york-voting-fiasco-just-the-warm-up-for-the-november-game/#sthash.6Euo4H9q.dpuf

Francesca Rheannon, whom you may know as the host of Writers’ Voice radio, did the civic thing by volunteering to work the polls in a town east of New York City.
“I just got off my 17 hour shift as an election official.  In my election district, out of 166 Democratic voters, 39 were forced to file affidavit ballots.  The last [election] I worked in, exactly ONE voter needed an affidavit ballot.”
That’s nearly one of four voters. Why?  Their names had gone missing from the voter rolls.
An affidavit ballot (called a “provisional” ballot in most other states) is a kind of placebo ballot.  You get to pretend to vote – but the chance it will actually be counted is …well, good luck.  If your name is wrongly removed, kiss your vote – affidavit or not—goodbye.
Rheannon’s experience was hardly unique.  In Brooklyn alone, over 125,000 names were quietly scrubbed from the voter rolls in the five months leading up to the primary.
To put it in prospective, the number of voters purged equals about half of the number who got to vote.  Scott Stringer, the New York City Comptroller will now audit the Elections Board--now that the election is over.  Hey thanks, Scott.
Neal Rosenstein, the lead voting rights attorney for the New York Public Interest Research Group, which plans legal action, notes that part of the problem is that partisan hacks sit on the Elections board in New York—hacks from both parties.
Brooklyn is under the control of the Kings County Democratic Party, one of the last of the big city machines.  Would they attack their opponents’ voter registrations?  I don’t have to guess:  in my wasted younger days, I was in the Brooklyn County elections office with the hacks where we were assigned by the Party to challenge voters’ signatures en masse.  (I wouldn’t and nearly lost my state job.)
Am I saying the machine “fixed” the election for Hillary Clinton?  Without further investigation, it would be irresponsible for me to pronounce judgment.  Some of the purged may have moved, some have died.  But those who waited in line only to fill out affidavit ballots are unlikely to be deceased.
If the Machine had been aware of the mass purge underway, would they have stopped it?  As they say in Brooklyn, Fahgeddabouddit.
- See more at: http://www.gregpalast.com/new-york-voting-fiasco-just-the-warm-up-for-the-november-game/#sthash.6Euo4H9q.dpuf

Francesca Rheannon, whom you may know as the host of Writers’ Voice radio, did the civic thing by volunteering to work the polls in a town east of New York City.
“I just got off my 17 hour shift as an election official.  In my election district, out of 166 Democratic voters, 39 were forced to file affidavit ballots.  The last [election] I worked in, exactly ONE voter needed an affidavit ballot.”
That’s nearly one of four voters. Why?  Their names had gone missing from the voter rolls.
An affidavit ballot (called a “provisional” ballot in most other states) is a kind of placebo ballot.  You get to pretend to vote – but the chance it will actually be counted is …well, good luck.  If your name is wrongly removed, kiss your vote – affidavit or not—goodbye.
Rheannon’s experience was hardly unique.  In Brooklyn alone, over 125,000 names were quietly scrubbed from the voter rolls in the five months leading up to the primary.
To put it in prospective, the number of voters purged equals about half of the number who got to vote.  Scott Stringer, the New York City Comptroller will now audit the Elections Board--now that the election is over.  Hey thanks, Scott.
Neal Rosenstein, the lead voting rights attorney for the New York Public Interest Research Group, which plans legal action, notes that part of the problem is that partisan hacks sit on the Elections board in New York—hacks from both parties.
Brooklyn is under the control of the Kings County Democratic Party, one of the last of the big city machines.  Would they attack their opponents’ voter registrations?  I don’t have to guess:  in my wasted younger days, I was in the Brooklyn County elections office with the hacks where we were assigned by the Party to challenge voters’ signatures en masse.  (I wouldn’t and nearly lost my state job.)
Am I saying the machine “fixed” the election for Hillary Clinton?  Without further investigation, it would be irresponsible for me to pronounce judgment.  Some of the purged may have moved, some have died.  But those who waited in line only to fill out affidavit ballots are unlikely to be deceased.
If the Machine had been aware of the mass purge underway, would they have stopped it?  As they say in Brooklyn, Fahgeddabouddit.
- See more at: http://www.gregpalast.com/new-york-voting-fiasco-just-the-warm-up-for-the-november-game/#sthash.6Euo4H9q.dpuf

Free Market Oligarchy, Free-Market Theocracy

In November, Choose One.

Hillary The Inevitable and Little Lloyd, 2014 (Photo: Shannon Stapelton / Reuters)

From NYRB, via the Soul Of America:

Why is Hillary Clinton refusing to release the transcripts of her Goldman Sachs speeches? After losing eight of the last nine contests to Bernie Sanders, Clinton is trying to reassure voters that she is a reform-minded politician who can be trusted. Yet she has repeatedly refused requests to make public the texts of the three speeches she gave to executives of the Goldman Sachs ... in the fall of 2013, for which she was paid a total of $675,000. First she said she would look into it; then she said that she would release the transcripts only if all the other presidential candidates of both parties released the paid speeches they had given ...

... Why was she giving these speeches at all -- and accepting such hefty payments for them -- given Goldman Sachs’s record during the Great Recession of 2007–2008?...  On the stump, Clinton’s criticisms of Wall Street can sound ... radical ... During a CNN debate with Bernie Sanders in March, Clinton said that ... “no bank is too big to fail, and no executive too powerful to jail” and that she has “the tools” to do it ...

Yet Clinton’s repeated dealings with Goldman Sachs and its top executives since the financial crisis -- including the 2013 speeches and more recent events involving the Clinton Foundation -- run counter to such claims. To understand the significance of these dealings we have to bring together two strands of history. One concerns Bill and Hillary Clinton’s long-running connections to Goldman, among their closest with any US corporation. The second concerns Goldman’s activities leading up to and during the Wall Street crash of 2007 - 2008, including its deceptive marketing of contaminated mortgage derivatives.

And, even the Right doesn't trust Grand Turtlebear Greg Stillson.

Mandatory Prayer In Schools; The Hour Of Power From The White House Bunker;
And Global 'Finance' Will Be Allowed A Free Hand

Cruz, in Mr. Haney from Green Acres voice, declared to one of the moderators, “The opening question [moderator Jerry Seib] asked — would you bailout the big banks again — nobody gave you an answer to that. I will give you an answer — absolutely not.”

What else would you expect a scoundrel to say who had secretly secured big sweetheart loans from Goldman and Citibank — by leveraging his retirement accounts –– to fund his 2012 U.S. Senate campaign. Loans which the Calgary Ted conveniently forgot to disclose to the Federal Election Commission. These are the very retirement accounts that he said he and his wife said he cashed in to fund his senate race. In other words, Ted lied.

At the same time Ted’s bulging 2016 campaign accounts and supporting Super-PACs are stuffed with big oil and gas money. He knows how to play the game.

_____________________________________

Das Langweilige ist interessant geworden, 
weil das Interessante angefangen hat langweilig zu werden.

-- Thomas Mann, 

"Doktor Faustus; Das Leven des deutschen Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkühn" (1947)

_____________________________________

MEHR, MIT "STUFF":  The discussion plaint passive-aggressive argelbargle continues. Yes of course I am aware of All Internet Conventions. Even the Secret ones the Kool Kids cooked up.

HILLCOL:  Are you serious? You think Clinton is an Oligarch?
DOG: Yes.
HILLCOL: You put her in the same category as someone in the Russian Mafia?
DOG:  If your definition of an Oligarch is someone who amasses and exercises power in such a way that the interests of the many are given lip service, and they claim to be acting in the spirit of FDR while the few become wealthier and more exclusive?  Fuck, Yes.
HILLCOL: That's bullshit.
DOG:  Okay -- it's bullshit. America and the world operates in the same way as the plot of It's A Wonderful Life. Mr Potter gets his just deserts and dies alone, while the rest of Bedford Falls is poor, but morally superior.
HILLCOL:  Here we go.
DOG: And in the fullness of time, Americans will get all they deserve. I agree with that, by the way. It frightens the hell out of me.

_____________________________________

UND NOCH IMMER MEHR, MIT SICHERHEITSTRUPPEN:  The Inevitable One steamrolled into Kiddietown late yesterday afternoon, for a very special, high-donor, mover and shaker dinner at the Fairmont hotel on Tinytown's famed Nob Hill, organized and hosted by the bashful Mr George Clooney and his lovely wife, Ehrgrud. 

Remind me never to see another one of his films -- which, with the exception of Good Night And Good Luck, aren't that good, anyway. His version of one of my favorite books, Joseph Kanon's The Good German, stunk. I mean, it smelled like someone tossed a twenty-pound Salmon into the backseat of a car with all its windows up, locked the doors , and walked away for a few weeks. And, Monuments Men? Very disappointing.

When Herr Obama appears at the same venue, one helicopter to provide security hovers above the Fairmont. The Prestident Of The Free Market World rates one helicopter -- The Ineviatble One had three -- especially after a smallish group of Sanders supporters gathered near the hotel, and traffic was snarled by the attendant many, many Polizei and guys in suits who suddenly appeared to counter the massive threat. 

Many of them must be schizophrenic, because they hold one-sided conversations with imaginary friends, or mutter angrily into their shirtcuffs. Don't try to give them money; it just makes them upset.

But, Saul Goodman. It was important those awful supporters of the Stupid Old Man not be allowed to spoil the festivities and treats available for People Who Matter. Wonder who from Goldman-Sachs attended?

Because This You Must Know

Wherein We Call Auntie Em Like We See Auntie Em

We Scare Share Because We Care

Courtesy of The Soul Of America, this Faux Campaign image appeared in a slightly different guise at EyeOfTheStorm blog, where cheese fills the void created by a sudden avoidance of law enforcement, in the service of all sentient beings. Tasty, too.

We here at Before Nine (all three of the people who read it, and the Superintelligent Parakeet) thought it "buried the needle" on the Droll-o-Meter, and summed up my own general feelings about one of the two major Democratic Party candydates for Pestident. Thought we'd pass it along.

I haven't said much about the Democratic campaign to become candydate, except to give a nod to Senator Sanders' effort. He says things that makes my Ancient Lefty's Heart™ rise, while at the same time I slump in Dog Abjectness because I know he's a foil and part of the Potemkin Village backdrop to the Kabuki theatre play that is national politics.

Hillary's campaign I acknowledge only because, distastefully, I have to -- summed up in my description of her as Hillary The Inevitable !

How inevitable?  If you watched Charlie Rose yesterday on CBS (he's got air time as occasional anchor of that network's 'Evening News', in addition to his regular gig on PBS with the syndicated Charlie Rose Show), then you saw Chukalicious go after Bernie with a meat cleaver on the national Tube. How far she'll go and how she'll enlist surrogates to do it for her was obvious. 

CHARLIE ROSE: We also asked Senator Sanders why he said Secretary Clinton should apologize to the families of Americans killed in the Iraq War. And he addressed why negative attacks between the two of them have intensified. [To Sanders.] The tenor of this campaign has changed when you're questioning the qualification of a person to be president. Whether their questioning your qualifications, which they say they haven't.
BERNIE SANDERS: All I'm saying—
ROSE: — or you’re questioning their qualifications?
SANDERS: You're right. You’re right. Okay? But what I want to say is when I see the headlines, “Clinton questions whether Sanders is qualified to be president,” you know what? We are going to respond.
ROSE: But don't you owe it to yourself and those people who may vote for you to know more than simply look at a headline? You looked at a headline and then responded questioning her qualifications.
SANDERS: Oh, Charlie, it's not a question of a headline. Here, something else. I mean, after we won in Wisconsin, I think the Clinton campaign —  that was our sixth victory in seven states. I think what they have said publicly is the tenor is going to change. They are going to go much more negative on us and they have. That's the fact.
ROSE: Take a listen to this. This is what you said. You said that Clinton should apologize for Iraq war deaths. Do you really —
SANDERS: For what?
ROSE: For Iraqi war deaths.
SANDERS: This is after I was asked to apologize for the tragedy in Sandy Hook. You know, put these things in the context.
ROSE: But, again, it's tit for tat.
SANDERS: It is tit for tat but I, you know, responding to attacks being made against me.
ROSE: I'm asking where the tenor of this campaign is going and is that going too far to say she bears responsibility for Iraqi war deaths?
SANDERS: Do I bear responsibility for the tragedy for the horrors of Sandy Hook? So, you know, let's get off that. Of course, she didn't bear responsibility. She voted for the war in Iraq. That was a very bad vote in my view. Do I hold her accountable? No.

American media seems to describe Sanders' campaign in dismissive terms, like a Gene McCarthy Children's Crusade (if that name confuses you, ask your parents or grandparents if they Got Clean For Gene). He's cast as the scrappy old man, tilting at windmills, offering Pie-In-The-Sky Socialist boilerplate -- and he's facing Hillary Rodham Clinton.  

However, please note -- the media is doing the same thing to Herr Trumpo. Not that the press savages Bernie in the same way they've gone after the Donald, but the similarities are enough to ponder. Not that we should weep big Crocodile tears for Trumpo; but a pattern of dismissive, Old-Man-Sanders-Got-No-Chance articles and 'Opinion' pieces, and talking head commentary on teevee is remarkable. 

But, of course; Hillary; beyond doubt:  She Is The Inevitable One, her time Come Round At Last, after being so cruelly shut out by Herr Obama eight years ago.  Eventually, Bernie will give up. Won't he? She is The Inevitable; can't he see that? Stupid Old Man.

Apparently, no. And he seems to be garnering votes from people who find Hillary ! distasteful (and, gosh -- even if this weren't an electoral process led, and paid for, by the interests of The Few, why would people do that?).  

She Who Comes At Last doesn't like this. So now, after Wisconsin, she went after the Old Man --  only, she's careful not to do it personally.  Charlie (who fluffs a lot of Very Bad People by softballing interviews with them) volunteered to be the hired dildo for that job.

Over at Soul Of America, the Knez of Egoslavia has mentioned his encounters with a Hillaryite Colleague (HC) in their workplace -- which I reproduce here, more or less in order and more or less in unfettered glory because I agree, and because the Superintelligent Parakeet told me to:

... my anti-Clinton is not pro-Sanders - I will not be crossing the street to vote for Sanders on April 26, nor do I advocate his candidacy. My interest in Sanders is based on my anti-Clintonism, anti-Democratic Partyism, the fuckers, and how Sanders makes Hillaryite Colleagues angry.

HC said, when did you become a Sanders' advocate? ... I'm not, I said, Sanders is a tool too, just answer the question. HC said, it depends on whether Biden entered the race. Me: >> Affectless stare <<  Fuck you, said HC. 

>> Affectless stare <<, nice, said my Hillaryite Colleague over a pint earlier in the evening. Sorry about my tone, I said. Fuck you, said HC. Look, I said, I am making an effort to not let things Clinton does that every politician does piss me off more with Clinton than it does with the others. You yourself said you didn't think Clinton should be held to a higher standard than anyone else. Fuck you, said HC.

My only real commentary about Bernie and Hillary ! on the Intertubes has been posted elsewhere -- in particular, dialogue from a running commentary with my own HC at my own workingplace. Reproducing it here (at least) satisfies the Parakeet, whom I do not want to make angry:

... I like Bernie's rhetoric, but he won't become the candidate of the DNC. It will be Hillary, the Business-As-Usual, stiff as a waterboard in public, the Faux Friend of the People. I'd be all right with a Bernie Presidency -- but the idea of Hillary and Oily Billy back in Der Weissen Haus frightens me, because **she claims to be a thing when she is in fact some other Thing**, and deep in our guts we all of us know it.

I don't want Trumpo; his election to Leader is not impossible, just not likely. To rapturously want Hillary as the Inevitable Fate of Murrika is to engage in Cognitive Dissonance on a scale so huge as to be incomprehensible. So I... agree -- not crossing the street to vote for Bernie = 'anti-Clintonism, anti-Democratic Partyism, the fuckers, and how Sanders makes Hillaryite Colleagues angry'.

Here at The Place Of Witless Labor™, my own conversation with my very own Hillaryite.

HILLCOL:- Hey; lookit this (brandishes copy of USA TODAY)
DOG: Oh; this is the part where Mrs. Clinton asks Senator Sanders how he would break up large financial institutions?
HILLCOL: What'dya mean, 'The part where'?
DOG: What Mrs. Clinton implies in her question is, Senator Sanders' intentions are nonsensical -- that JPMorgan-Chase, BofA, Wells-Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman-Sachs and Morgan-Stanley CAN'T be broken up, because they're too powerful. Or they shouldn't be broken up. Because Freedom.
HILLCOL: She's not sayin' that.
DOG: By inference, she's declaring the Senator's position on American investment banks to be illogical, specious, and too radical.
HILLCOL: (Pause) What?
DOG: [Affectless Stare]
HILLCOL: Sanders is just stupid.
DOG: [More Of Same]
HILLCOL: Fuck you. You think you're so smart. It's people like you who'll get Trump elected.
DOG: (Pauses; licks self)

Re: Bernie and Progressivism, "Oooo, That's A Bingo!" Making a similar point with my very own Hillcol this morning (that The Fix Is In and the Game Is Rigged), they were confused. They thought I was some kind of diehard Bernie person.

DOG: No. I think the political and financial system is bent and irredeemably corrupt. Bernie gets up and criticizes it because he's allowed to. He's allowed on stage because he makes Hillary look reasonable and centrist.
HILLCOL: (Pause) So you don't like Sanders either?
DOG: It's not about 'liking'. National elections are orchestrated to celebrate and perpetuate myths about society. It's really about how certain people are allowed to be candidates -- and the winner has a limited amount of power. Ask yourself: what are the myths? Who does the allowing? Who benefits, and how?
HILCOLL: But Clinton is a progressive. She's a *woman*, for god's sake. Is that why you don't like her?
DOG: You're missing my point.
HILCOLL: No I'm not. You're gonna throw your vote away. You're gonna get Trump elected.
DOG: I'd tell you that, on one level, it doesn't matter whether Trump or Clinton, or Sanders or Cruz, or Kasich or Elmer Fudd gets elected -- but I think that would blow your circuitry.
HILLCOL: What the fuck are you talking about?
DOG: Bingo.

And that's Jenga.

___________________________________________ 

MEHR: ES KOMMT AUS 2008:

As "Tough Hillary" emerges, this -- true now, as it was in The Olden Days.

 (Mr Fish, 2008)

And No One Is Suprised Too, Also

Not Like You Didn't See This Coming Or Anything

#Occupy Protests, New York City 2013 -- So Long Ago And Far Away

[ WIRED - Monday, April 4, 2016 ] On Sunday, more than a hundred media outlets around the world, coordinated by the Washington, DC-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, released stories on the Panama Papers, a gargantuan collection of leaked documents exposing a widespread system of global tax evasion.

The leak includes more than 4.8 million emails, 3 million database files, and 2.1 million PDFs from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca that, according to analysis of the leaked documents, appears to specialize in creating shell companies that its clients have used to hide their assets.

“This is pretty much every document from this firm over a 40-year period,” ICIJ director Gerard Ryle told WIRED in a phone call, arguing that at “about 2,000 times larger than the WikiLeaks state department cables,” it’s indeed the biggest leak in history.

... the leak represents an unprecedented story in itself: How an anonymous whistleblower was able to spirit out and surreptitiously send journalists a gargantuan collection of files, which were then analyzed by more than 400 reporters in secret over more than a year before a coordinated effort to go public.

Immigrant Family Near Refugee Camp Near Macedonian Border (Marko Djurica - Reuters)

[ REUTERS ] The documents detailed schemes involving an array of figures from friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin to relatives of the prime ministers of Britain, Iceland and Pakistan and as well as the president of Ukraine, journalists who received them said...

The Kremlin said the documents contained "nothing concrete and nothing new" while a spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said his late father's reported links to an offshore company were a "private matter".

Iceland's Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson could not immediately be reached for comment on the naming of his wife in connection with a secretive company in an offshore haven which brought opposition calls for him to resign. Pakistan denied any wrongdoing by the family of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after his daughter and son were linked to offshore companies...

______________________________________

  

MEHR, MIT "WIE ES IST, DAS MODERNE LEBENS":   

Man escapes car dangling on Malibu cliff, only to be hit by bus

[ REUTERS ] A man who nearly drove his sports utility vehicle over a cliff in the posh beach front community of Malibu managed to escape his dangling car unharmed, only to be hit by a passing bus as he stumbled away from the wreckage, police said.

The victim, who was not identified by authorities, was conscious and breathing after being hit by the tour bus and he was transported to a hospital for treatment after the accident Saturday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said on its Facebook page. 

_______________________________________

MEHR, MIT "WIR VERLANGEN EINE ERKLAERUNG, HERRN"

Iceland's Prime Minister, Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson, resigned today as a result of revelations in the so-called 'Panama Papers' that a shell company owned by his wife held approximately $4.1 million US in shares of Icelandic banks which had failed during the 2008 worldwide financial crisis.

Ironically, Gunnlaugsson (which we assume means "Son Of A Gun") was originally elected PM after the 'Great Recession' caused Iceland's over-leveraged banks to fail, and the right-wing government then in power was removed by a social movement that included numerous street protests -- much like those held yesterday in Iceland's capital, Reykjavik, which demanded Gunnlaugsson's resignation.

UND NOCH IMMER MEHR -- ER HAT VERMESSEN

Iceland's Prime Minister, Sigmundur Gunderfundersson, did an about face and told the People that no, he won't be resigning after all, and referred them all to Tommy ("Suck On This") Friedman. 

The Collect Call Of Chtulu

When You're Lost In The Rain In Juarez

... and it's Eastertime, too.  Greg Stillson, GrandTurtlebear of the Church Of I Kill You !, may have been a Busy Wittle Evangelical Xtian; Oh Please let it be true. Break out the Good Popcorn.

REUTERS / WASHINGTON - Republican Ted Cruz on Friday denounced an article in the National Enquirer tabloid claiming he had extramarital affairs as "garbage, complete and utter lies" and accused his opponent Donald Trump of being the source of the story.

"It's tabloid smear, and it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen," Cruz told reporters at a press conference in Wisconsin, as the battle for the Republican presidential nomination reached new levels of personal rancor.

Trump issued a statement saying he was not responsible for the article. "I have nothing to do with the National Enquirer and unlike Lyin' Ted Cruz I do not surround myself with political hacks and henchman and then pretend total innocence," Trump said..

The National Enquirer, a tabloid known for its gossip and unflattering celebrity photos, published blurred images of five women with whom it said Cruz has had affairs. The newspaper did not name the women.

By Thursday afternoon, #CruzSexScandal was a worldwide trending topic on Twitter.

We have the Good Popcorn now, and will watch what happens next -- because, if you haven't been able to determine this on your own, an auto da-fe in America is a bit of a moveable feast: yesterday, Trumpo is all lit up; today, it's Stillson.  And the Corn Of Pone pops on as America's version of fascists stab publicly at each other; hee hee hee hee.

Shame that it signifies the continued unraveling of democracy here in the Respublik, but, hey; what are you going to do? You can't bite City Hall; it bites you.

_________________________________

And No One Is Suprised

Crash Dick

Lehman Bros. CFO, Erin Callan (L), And CEO Dick, Circa 2008

As the 2008 Crash was still ongoing, the U.S. Congress (at that point, still controlled by Democrats) held hearings in the House Of Representatives; if the Crash had happened a year later, the Rethugs would have been in charge, and it's doubtful hearings would have been conducted.

One of the principal figures called to testify was Richard "Dick" Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers -- before all the fun, valued in the multi-billions of dollars, the only "investment bank" to have utterly and completely failed when the Crash came, sending its employees into the street carrying cardboard boxes of personal items and a Thank You, then declaring bankruptcy in September, 2008.

His testimony came roughly three weeks later -- it had already been reported that Fuld would be paid $250 million in direct and indirect compensation for the year, before the bankruptcy was filed.

Mr. Fuld, by turns combative and contemplative, and often pained by interruptions of his answers, repeatedly denied that any misrepresentations [i.e., of the true value of CDOs being sold as investments to clients] took place. Even when confronted with internal documents that seemed to tell a different story, Mr. Fuld said he believed until five days before the Sept. 15 bankruptcy filing that Lehman remained in decent health.

“No, sir, we did not mislead our investors,” Mr. Fuld said in response to a question from Dennis J. Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio, who wanted to know how Mr. Fuld’s public statements could be valid in light of efforts by JPMorgan Chase to secure $5 billion in extra collateral from Lehman in the final days.

“To the best of my ability at the time, given the information I had, we made disclosures that we fully believed were accurate,” Mr. Fuld said.

Now, Erin Callan, Lehman's Chief Financial Officer in the last eighteen-plus months before its collapse, has published a memoir of those times, "Full Circle". Callan had repeatedly warned both "Dick" and senior managers at Lehman that their exposure to toxic mortgage packaging in CDOs was not only "bad", but Ruh-Roh Bad. As the only woman in a testosterone-soaked boardroom atmosphere, not onkly was she being paid less, but "Dick" and his sycophantic buddies didn't feel they had to listen to her, either.

 This Little Piggie Had Roast Beef (Photo: Doug Mills / NYT)

When Callan ... took over as CFO, the plan to get rid of some commercial real estate assets was “in the 18th draft,” ... She pushes her colleagues harder on the topic pretty much from the start, a claim Callan substantiated by emails obtained by both the commission and the bankruptcy court examiner’s report penned by Anton Valukas...

Callan... was smacked down by the kind of diversionary tactics that men rarely are forced to confront in the workplace. These episodes are even more galling when recalling Fuld’s nickname: the Gorilla, so-called for a penchant for punchy patter... Callan nevertheless appears to be the only one who had the sexist card played against her – and at precisely the moment her persistence was most needed.

The New York Times in October, 2008 also noted,

While defending his own pay [~$500 Million between 2000 and the 2008 bankruptcy]...  Mr. Fuld was asked why Lehman approved nearly $20 million in payments for two departing executives about a week before the bankruptcy filing...

.

The committee also released e-mail messages sent in June [2008] in which Mr. Fuld and George H. Walker, a Lehman executive and cousin of President Bush, responded in what Mr. Waxman called a mocking tone to a suggestion that executives at the company decline bonuses.

In November, 2008, "Dick" transferred ownership of the principal home he shared with his wife, bought by them in 2004 for $13.75 Million, to her for the sum of $100. He was named by Conde Nast Portfolio as the "worst American CEO of all time".  Fuld has not been barred as a securities trader and has continued to operate unhindered in the financial sphere since the Crash.

Lehman Bros. London Office Sign, Auctioned At Christie's, 2012

Callan saves one surprise [in her book] for the end. In January 2015, Fuld called her. It was their first contact since she left Lehman. He apologized for leaving her “on my own to handle things” and told her he still thought she was the best choice to be CFO... Fuld at the time, however, was months away from making his first public speech since Lehman’s collapse. He again would blame everyone but himself for the bank’s collapse. 

There was a crime, but no punishment. "Dick" lives very comfortably -- as do the heads of the Five Families, the Dimons and Blankfeins. Tens of millions of Americans (so far; you think this is over?) have been savaged by the greed and sociopathology of people like him.

Everyone knows what the Crash was like; c'mon, folks, you lived through it. This was less than eight years ago. And none of these persons have spent one day in jail -- think about that.

And -- very little has changed to prevent another Crash from happening again. Think about that.

___________________________

News Item: Sanders Wins Michigan

Trumpo Speaks From Jupiter

 Senator Sanders In Miami (Photo: Alan Diaz / Associated Press)

  

MEHR: This must mean something. Oh my yes, and watch now as the Clintonian jockeying in the middle furlongs becomes more intense and mean-spirited. Hillary The Inevitable ! will not be denied!!!

Via the New York Times:

Mrs. Clinton, addressing supporters in Cleveland, did not mention the Mississippi or Michigan results, instead alluding to the vitriol in the Republican field. “As the rhetoric keeps sinking lower, the stakes in this election keep rising higher,” she said. Running for president, she said, “shouldn’t be about delivering insults; it should be about delivering results.”

But it was almost as if her speech did not happen: Not one of the major cable news networks carried her remarks, which came as Mr. Trump was speaking.

Trump Waits To Speak In Jupiter, Fla. (Original Photo: Todd Heisler, New York Times)

________________________

Random Barking: News With Cheese

Trumpo The Clown

They're coming after Trumpi.

You can smell the smoke from pine-pitch torches; you can hear the sound of the posse, the jingle of tack and spur and the whisper of rope as riders gather, out of sight, just off Main Street. And away in the distance, you can hear the faint taptap taptap of the carpenters as they build sections of The Scaffold.

People on Main Street are keeping watch from their windows. If you listen closely, there's the unmistakable rustle of popcorn bags (and they have the good popcorn too, with caramel and sea salt ), meaning whatever is about to happen is expected to be engrossing -- a Survivor / The Apprentice fusion. Or, so they think.

Clouds are heavy in the Western sky. The sound of keening, growling, slobbering and splashing from Feral Kochs, the Addled Sheldon, the Little Rupert (Now In Heat!), and the squirming GOP Priebusfish is heard in the land. You smell something in the air -- and it's the odor of an auto da-fe.

We have public burnings in America every day; just cruise the Intertubes and ZuckerBook and Tweety. But we haven't had a good, political death-of-a-thousand-cuts since 1998, when they strung up Saintly Billy -- but only halfway. Rethugs, from their perch on the Moral High Ground, put The Hurt on him: Impeachment. And Monica.

There was the good popcorn, speechifying, and that image of Little Chelsea bravely saluting her father's cigar humidor as it was ceremonially wheeled out of the White Haus. Billy was allowed, bloodied but still in one piece, to walk away from his auto da-fe with a limp forever more. Or, so they thought.

Now, Trumpo's the target... except, it isn't only Rethugs who are coming after him. It's a section of the actual power structure of America -- and no one does an auto da-fe quite as well as the The Owners of our Great Nation. They see Trumpo as a drunken party-crasher, spoiling their mood, with the potential to upset the balance of a system which, ultimately, is for Their benefit.

You've seen Rules Of The Game , The Draftsman's Contract (if not, you should). The actual PTB, the top one-hundreth of one per cent, will do whatever they fucking well please to protect their interests. For them, the only rule is, Because I wish it. And it won't matter how big his hands, or any other parts of his anatomy, are. The irony is, Trumpo is one of their class -- a billionaire, an Owner, himself. S'all In The Game, Yo.

But too, also, the GOP Powerbars cannot allow Hillary The Inevitable ! to win in November -- because, they think, if Saintly Billy's wife becomes Leader, with scarred and oily Billy re-entering The White House in her wake ... there would (as that alien said in "Galaxy Quest") be blood, and pain, the likes of which you cannot imagine!! It's all too horrible for the Rethugs to contemplate.

But. Trumpi could surprise. He could become Leader -- the outward personification of an America where we are judged by our class and net worth, and not by the content of our character.

_________________________

MEHR, MIT  "WE HAVE REACHED THE TRUMP = HITLER MOMENT" :  

Someone had to go there first; turns out it's the President Of Mexico (via Reuters):  "Mexico's president has said his country will not pay for White House hopeful Donald Trump's proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and likened his "strident tone" to the ascent of dictators like Adolf Hitler". 

_________________________

Shrimp And Brie Nachos  
 

>> 6 ounces Brie cheese, cut into about thirty small pieces
>> 2 tablespoons olive oil
>> 2 garlic cloves, finely minced or garlic-pressed
>> 1 teaspoon paprika
>> 1 pound shrimp (~30), peeled, de-veined and tails removed
>> ¼ cup chopped red and green pepper

Place tortilla chips on a serving dish. Top with small pieces of brie cheese and set aside.  Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat for 1 to 2 minutes.

Add the garlic and saute for 1 to 2 minutes until soft but not brown. Stir in paprika. Lower heat and add shrimp. Saute shrimp for 3 to 4 minutes, or until pink.

Remove from heat. Place 1 shrimp on cheese 'n chip. Garnish with chopped red and green pepper and serve. 

_________________________

OhJay 

Runner-Up Winner, Tor Johnson Look-Alike Contest

Years ago, a springblade knife was found on O.J. Simpson's property in the Los Angeles suburb of Brentwood. If you were a sentient human in America in the early 1990's, you saw photos of Simpson's home, where he lived with his wife, Nicole Brown, before she separated from him.

As we all know, she was murdered by a psychotic killer wielding a knife, in a manner so brutal that (as the autopsy report noted) Brown had effectively been decapitated. Her friend, Ronald Goldman, was also brutally killed in the same manner.

The murder weapon was never found -- but after Simpson's acquittal on First-Degree Murder charges (and no, he cannot be tried again for that crime; more's the pity), a construction worker on Simpson's property found the knife and turned it over to an LAPD officer. The officer apparently held on to it for years without informing his superiors or the Detective division in Hollywood.  The LAPD admitted it now has the knife, but will not provide details about who had it or for how long, because it is embarrassing.

Simpson is in prison now in Nevada, convicted in 2008 on armed robbery and kidnapping charges, sentenced to 33 years, with a nine-year minimum. He is eligible for parole in 2017 (Oddly enough, one of Little Rupert's fishwraps, the New York Post, reported in October 2012 that Simpson had attempted to sell a knife to an unnamed buyer for $5 million US -- apparently the buyer believed it was the never-found murder weapon. Simpson had reportedly lowered his asking price for that item, leading the Post to choose the headline, "O.J.... Slashes Price").

This knife has been referred for laboratory analysis -- but even if a DNA report showed Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman's blood and hair were all over the weapon, it would only put a line under what is commonly assumed may be true -- that Herr Simpson is a brutal, psychotic killer who (except for the best legal team money could buy) should have already been sentenced to Death Row or prison for life in California.

Auf nicht wiedersehen, OJ, you murderous nutter.

_________________________

Is This The Best Cheese In The World?
From Britain, Where Cheese Is Desert

 The Telegraph.uk provides a look into the judging of cheeses. "It was like the Eurovision Song contest," the Telegraph told us, "but with less singing. And more cheese."

And the winner?  Le Gruyère AOP Premier Cru, Cremo SA - Muhlenen, Switzerland.

_________________________

Little Rupert Weds Model: His Lub Has Come Along

Little Rupert: Happy At Last, For The Moment

Little Rupert Murdoch, Oligarch and The Joey Goebbels-Wannabe, married a former model and jet-set fixture from the mutant zone Texas. It's Rupert's fourth marriage, and Jerry Hall's first (after a Caribbean wedding to Mick Jagger in the 90's was deemed to have no legal standing).  He is Old; she's 59, maybe.

But, "why shouldn't he be happy??" The fourth (and probably final) Mrs. Murdoch certainly looks ecstatic -- why not? Even with the inevitable Prenup, she's hit the Jackpot; it's The Gravy Train for her for the rest of her days.

Have fun, you two.  Meanwhile, Lil' Rupert's media still pumps sewage into the world, day in and day out, 24-7.

____________________