Wednesday, July 06, 2016

Presidential nominating conventions month (#SeeYouInHouston)

It's that time of the quadrennial, with the GOP up first in two weeks -- the most interesting things will, as usual, be happening outside the Cleveland convention hall -- the Democrats following suit the week after in Philly, where the Berners will stage their last stand, and the GPUS right here in H-Town ("Houston, We Have a Solution!") the first weekend of August.  The Libertarians went first, in late May and in Orlando, nominating Johnson-Weld as their standard bearers, which earned them a CNN-televised town hall.

-- Trump is expected to tap a running mate as soon as next week, Clinton is finishing up the vetting process for her finalists, and Jill Stein is holding the door open for Bernie Sanders.  My suggestions (not quite predictions) are Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa for the Orange-utan, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia for Hillary, and former Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich for Stein.  Note that each of these brings gender balance to their respective tickets along with some swing state influence, making them the most, err, pragmatic selections for their parties.

Update: Ernst really doesn't want the job and neither does Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, though the latter suggested Drumpf tap his daughter, Ivanka.  (Seriously, he did.)  So I suppose that leaves Newt Gingrich and Chris Christie.

-- I'll be assisting the GPUS team with social media during their convention.  You still have time to register to attend, secure lodging, and purchase meals in advance.  Here's the current list of workshops, with more on the way.


-- Charles has a good and even-handed post up about the latest in the Texas presidential developments and polling.  The remaining news to break that may move things one way or the other, besides the running mate picks, include:

  • How FBI director James Comey's scalding condemnation/non-recommendation of prosecution of Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified email is being received by the electorate at large;
  • Whether Drumpf can correct course with regard to Republican establishment acceptance, raise some money, or otherwise act like a serious presidential candidate;
  • What Bernie Sanders is going to do; join the parade, stand and watch but not cheer, or get out and go Green.  This one seems easy to predict for me: he wants to be a Senate committee chairman in a Democratically-controlled upper chamber, so he's going to play along with the Dems but to some watered-down degree, managing to infuriate Clinton's base and his own at the same time.

-- It's never too late to call for opening the presidential debates to third party candidates.
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Tuesday, July 05, 2016

James Comey saves Hillary's bacon

Takes the heat off Loretta Lynch and any federal grand jurors in the process.  It was a pretty harsh scolding the FBI director gave the former Secretary of State in his public statement moments ago, but that's all it was.

I don't think the fire has been extinguished, but the bad weather is blowing over.

In chronological order:










So it was necessary, as referenced here, for there to be malfeasant intent, not just sloppiness or incompetence.  That's the part I got wrong; she didn't mean to, and that's okay.

I suppose there would have had to have been evidence that somebody died as a result of her mishandling of classified information.  But perhaps not even then.  Killing your own credibility and trustworthiness is no crime, after all.

Especially when it was already dead.

Update: It seems the law is quite clear about intent.
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Scattershooting President Clinton's first hundred days

-- This, via here, only succeeds in making me nauseous.  They left out 'start a war on Iran' for openers.  At least she might accomplish what Obama has failed to do on Guantanamo.  But she'd negotiate away an unfettered right for a woman to choose if she is left to drink alone with the GOP at White House happy hours.  (Yes, her call to abolish Hyde is a very good move.)


-- No, she won't. Because she understands what would happen if she did.

Texas Republicans, of all groups, are perhaps the most enthused over the idea that the state could be in play in the fall.

Republicans say they would love to see Democrats drawn into what they view as a hopeless money pit. But also, within a state GOP torn over its own nominee, a Clinton offensive could be just what it takes to rally an otherwise morose group.

“The quickest way to activate disenfranchised GOP donors who won’t give to Trump would be an aggressive effort by Democrats to win the state,” said Brian Haley, a Texan who was a top fundraiser in two previous GOP presidential campaigns.

Abbott is one of multiple Republicans who have already sent fundraising emails on the notion.

“She has already made it known that winning Texas will be a focus of her campaign,” Abbott campaign director John Jackson wrote in a recent missive, referring to Clinton. “It’s clear that Hillary will not only continue Obama’s liberal leadership—she will be even worse!”

Stay out of Texas, #HRod.  Democrats here have it bad enough as it is, and they might make up a little bit of ground  (scroll down to Mark Jones' assessment at the end) if you could just, you know, keep using the state as an ATM like always.

-- Some people are really mad about white privilege, brute-force capitalism, and Independence Day.

Call it the land you love, but make sure the drones are loaded, the poisons shipped off in container ships potent, the pestilence of capitalism fully armed with the parasitic power of one global power, my country tis of thee.

I could hammer and hammer the prison industrial complex eating the American Black Male. I could rattle on and on about the United States of Debts, all the trillions homeowners “owe” the financial loan sharks, thugs, or the trillion plus students owe for virtually worthless degrees in this precarious, at-will, dead-end job America.

I could rattle on how insipid and violent forgetting is, and knowing just enough of the foundations of the lies of history to get a young and old person steaming. Imagine, the state of the world with Hollywood, Big Sports, Bubble-head Big Media, Vapid Mainstream Academia weighing in on the vast sucking sound that is America’s presidential-congressional-gubernatorial set of mistakes called elections (sic).

Bombs bursting in air, as I cruised down from a pretty cool spot in the mountains, supposedly away from the ghastly 7-11-Walmart-Texaco-McDonald’s dervish of hyper-stupidity, also called mainstreaming, mainlining consumerism.

I certainly think that any of the morons advocating for #Texit -- even Greg Abbott knows better, for fuck's sake -- should have been compelled to go into the office or the plant for the entire three-day weekend, but this is simply too much hyperbolic exaggeration (two "trillions" is two too many) and way too angry.  Right message but absolutely the wrong messenger.

Dude: drink more America this Labor Day, mkay?

-- None of the above, thanks, but absolutely not Ron Green.
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