From GUARDIAN coverage of George H.W. Bush funeral

The 41st president has been remembered fondly in the media – particularly in the American media – over the past few days. Many have praised Bush Sr’s warmth and diplomacy, comparisons which seem particularly pertinent given Donald Trump’s convention-defying approach to the presidency.

While Bush undoubtedly deserves praise for his decades of public service, and he has been credited with steering the US and aiding Europe as the Soviet Union collapsed.

But the eulogizing has struck a discordant tone with many. While respecting Bush and his family, it would be remiss to ignore the [racist] dog whistling of Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign and his inaction in the midst of the Aids crisis.

*****

Here’s Donald Trump arriving at Bush’s funeral. He and Hillary Clinton – and Bill Clinton – fail to acknowledge one another, while Melania Trump shook Bill Clinton’s hand and waved to the former first-lady.

Why progressives will always be subordinate in the Democratic Party.

Someone in media/film writing I follow on Twitter retweeted the following statement from a person I'll not name here.  It's the perfect summary of the centrist, big donation-dependent wing of the Democratic Party (who think they've become a little more liberal because Tom Perez, who talks a good game about the party's future and unity, was elected DNC head over Keith Ellison) and the contempt they still hold for the more progressive (i.e. Bernie Sanders supporting) membership.

Democrats are your friend who'll die single, waiting for a person too perfect to exist.

Republicans are the guy who fucks whoever is there.

Michael Moore on Democrats and why 2016 was lost.

From a recent VARIETY cover story, excerpt found on the Hollywood Elsewhere site:
Variety: “Did the Russian hack of the DNC play a decisive role in swinging the election to Trump?”
Michael Moore: We need an investigation into the hacking, but the Democrats should not be thinking that they lost because of the Russians. The Democrats lost because of the Democrats. It’s the second time now in 16 years where the Democrats won [the popular vote] but lost. That is so revolting that the old guard of the Democratic Party should all resign. They let us down, the majority, now twice. I’m done with it. I’m going to help lead the charge to take over the Democratic Party.

Glenn Greenwald explains last night's defeat of Hillary Clinton.

(1) DEMOCRATS HAVE ALREADY BEGUN FLAILING AROUND trying to blame anyone and everyone they can find — everyone except themselves — for last night’s crushing defeat of their party. You know the drearily predictable list of their scapegoats: Russia, WikiLeaks, James Comey, Jill Stein, Bernie Bros, The Media, news outlets (including, perhaps especially, the Intercept) which sinned by reporting negatively on Hillary Clinton. Anyone who thinks that what happened last night in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Michigan can be blamed on any of that is drowning in self-protective ignorance so deep that it’s impossible to express in words.

When a political party is demolished, the principle responsibility belongs to one entity: the party that got crushed. It’s the job of the party and the candidate, and nobody else, to persuade the citizenry to support them and find ways to do that. Last night, the Democrats failed, resoundingly, to do that, and any autopsy or liberal think piece or pro-Clinton-pundit commentary that does not start and finish with their own behavior is one that is inherently worthless.

Put simply, Democrats knowingly chose to nominate a deeply unpopular, extremely vulnerable, scandal-plagued candidate, who — for very good reason — was widely perceived to be a protector and beneficiary of all the worst components of status quo elite corruption. It’s astonishing that those of us who tried frantically to warn Democrats that nominating Hillary Clinton was a huge and scary gamble, that all empirical evidence showed that she could lose to anyone and that Bernie Sanders would be a much stronger candidate especially in this climate — are now the ones being blamed: by the very same people who insisted on ignoring all that data and nominating her anyway.

But that’s just basic blame-shifting and self-preservation. Far more significant is what this shows about the mentality of the Democratic Party. Just think about who they nominated: someone who — when she wasn’t dining with Saudi monarchs and being feted in Davos by tyrants who gave million-dollar checks — spent the last several years piggishly running around to Wall Street banks and major corporations cashing in with $250,000 fees for 45-minute secret speeches even though she had already become unimaginably rich with book advances while her husband already made tens of millions playing these same games. She did all that without the slightest apparent concern for how that would feed into all the perceptions and resentments of her and the Democratic Party as corrupt, status-quo-protecting, aristocratic tools of the rich and powerful: exactly the worst possible behavior for this post-2008-economic-crisis era of globalism and destroyed industries.

It goes without saying that Trump is a sociopathic con artist obsessed with personal enrichment: the opposite of a genuine warrior for the downtrodden. That’s too obvious to debate. But, just as Obama did so powerfully in 2008, he could credibly run as an enemy of the D.C. and Wall Street system that has steamrolled over so many people, while Hillary Clinton is its loyal guardian, its consummate beneficiary.

Trump vowed to destroy the system that elites love (for good reason) and the masses hate (for equally good reason), while Clinton vowed to more efficiently manage it. That, as Matt Stoller’s indispensable article in the Atlantic three weeks ago documented, is the conniving choice the Democratic Party made decades ago: to abandon populism and become the party of technocratically proficient, mildly benevolent managers of elite power. Those are the cynical, self-interested seeds they planted, and now the crop has sprouted.

Of course there are fundamental differences between Obama’s version of “change” and Trump’s. But at a high level of generality — which is where these messages are often ingested — both were perceived as outside forces on a mission to tear down corrupt elite structures, while Clinton was perceived as devoted to their fortification. That is the choice made by Democrats — largely happy with status quo authorities, believing in their basic goodness — and any honest attempt by Democrats to find the prime author of last night’s debacle will begin with a large mirror.

Link to entire article:

https://interc.pt/2ekJt9O

Summary of how Donald Trump is on track to become President.

From Calvin Woodward article for Associated Press:
To those in Trump country, no boastful, stomach-turning video about women, no "lock-her-up" insult from the stage, no toxic tweet in the wee hours, could peel them away from the man whose crudities only made him more authentic in their eyes. To many of the Republicans who didn't come to the rallies — and to some of the lawmakers who faced the prospect of working with him in Washington — he was a disaster, a Republican Titanic sailing alongside Clinton's Democratic Lusitania. To the country at large, and much of the world, he polarized, repelled, entertained, shocked and fascinated.

New poem: TRUMPELSTILTSKIN

Start subdued
Adjust the microphone
Then kick a hole in the floor
Move the microphone a little more
Kick until the hole gets bigger
Keep kicking
Harder
Harder
Harder
Until the hole is large enough
For you to fall through the floor
Dropping towards the Earth's core
As you yell:
I WON'T ACCEPT LOSING!
And
YOU NASTY WOMAN!
Until your voice is no longer heard.

The 2016 Election Year Playlist.

Old and new songs relevant to this year's slugfest.

1. Winning Ugly--The Rolling Stones
2. It's Money That I Love--Randy Newman
3. Lawyers In Love--Jackson Browne
4. You're No Good--Linda Ronstadt
5. Surrender Under Protest--Drive-By Truckers
6. Magic--Bruce Springsteen
7. American Idiot--Green Day
8. Troubled Times--Green Day
9. Wristband--Paul Simon
10. Weary--Solange

New: ELECTION POEM

I want to be there when it doesn't happen

When the nation steps away from the cliff

And decides that the woman running to be the boss

Is infinitely preferable to the man

Who plays the role of a boss on TV

Where there are retakes and downtime

For him to discuss all the female

Contestants and crewmembers who

Excite him sexually

Please remember,

When marking your ballot,

The pretend boss/hateful candidate on TV

Got out of paying taxes

And won the goldmine

While his former Casino employees

Plus shareholders

Plummeted down the open mine shaft

The Presidency isn't a job for charlatans

And that's why I want to be there

When informed choice prevails

Over infantile notions of Greatness

Today's multiple-choice Donald Trump question.

How does your conservative friend/family member rationalize his/her continuing support of Donald Trump for President?
A. He'll have a lot of smart people helping him
B. I don't agree with everything he says, but he's the best choice
C. The liberal media makes mountains out of molehills
D. I can't not support the Republican Party
E. Stop Hillary!
F. More than one of the above

The perils of phrases like "basket of deplorables."

As I see it, Hillary Clinton's use of the phrase "basket of deplorables" to describe the different varieties of prejudiced people supporting Donald Trump's campaign was a misstep--even though, in advance, she prefaced it with a mention of generalizations.

Of course, the Trump campaign cut together a rapid response ad; it mixed the victimization tropes that fire up fundamentalist conservatives with footage of the Trump/Pence Louisiana flood photo-op where they briefly pretended to care about people other than themselves.

This reminds me of the self-pity ad made years ago by the Proposition 8 opponents of same-sex marriage featuring Gavin Newsom at another gathering of supporters.

Here's what the site prop8report.lgbtmentoring.org said about the Prop 8 Newsom ad:
The Newsom ad opened and closed with [then] San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom saying, “It’s gonna happen—whether you like it or not.” As much as the words, the ad’s raucous and abrasive tone told voters they were not in control and that others were forcing them to accept same-sex marriage.

The more times that conservatives get told they're not in control and (by extension) they're being persecuted, the greater the likelihood of them turning out in force on Election Day.

And this makes it even more vital that the alliance of Clinton believers and pragmatic ex-Sanders followers will not take the next few weeks for granted.

Even if it might mean refraining from basketing bigots existing in the pool of voters/potential voters.

The redoubled double standard on Hillary Clinton's health coming soon.

Now that Hillary Clinton's current case of pneumonia has been grudgingly revealed by her campaign, it's time for those Americans "on the other side of the aisle" (i.e. Republicans who won't bring themselves to vote otherwise) to develop purposeful amnesia on the subject of male Presidents/Vice Presidents with greater health issues, from William Henry Harrison to Dick Cheney.

My Hillary Clinton wishlist.

After some thought, I've decided to be (with reservations) supportive of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic presidential campaign (the U.S. can ill-afford to be ruled by the Trump/Pence/Ryan troika) .  I'm not going to castigate people who are still unwilling to support her (since they received plenty of vitriol during the primaries), but--having cast a primary vote for Bernie Sanders--I believe the seeds of future progressivism in the Democratic Party need to grow instead of being yanked in a moment of fury.  There needs to be more "democracy" in the party if it wants to be a viable alternative to Republicanism in the 2018 midterms, 2020 election, etc.

Now, onto the Hillary wishlist:

1. Please stop regarding Bernie Sanders supporters and Occupy Wall Street as irritants who bang on limousine doors during a leisurely ride through Manhattan.   Take them seriously and erect a firewall between yourself and Goldman Sachs/JP Morgan Chase/hedge funds, etc.  Government regulations to prevent Wall Street abuse of/stealing from the nonwealthy--not a bad thing at all.

2. Ensure that future government e-mails are on a much more secure government server so no further controversy over personal servers plagues yourself or others in your White House.

3. Put more distance between your forthcoming administration and your husband's past one.  It's not the 90s anymore and Dick Morris-esque triangulation and draconian welfare policies/mass incarceration/private prison support are hurtful, to say the least.

4. With regards to foreign policy, regime change causes more terrorism than it prevents--whether it's the Left's "Smart Power" or the Right's "they'll greet us as liberators" neocon values.

Re the reaction to DNC leaks.

Among the pushback rationalizations you will likely hear from those who want the Hillary train to run on time:
A. Assange is Bad Bad Bad!
B. These leaks might be connected to Putin
C. Bernie would have lost anyway
D. You're a child if you object to what the DNC did

In terms of the DNC and now almost departed chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz, I'll quote
70s TV cop Tony Baretta:
"If you can't do the time, don't do the crime."

New poem: THE UNITED STATES OF NEW YORK

New York is the real America

and the rest of us live in one big Outer Borough

learning the hard hard way

to treat democracy as a sort of treason

and civil disobedience as punishable by death

for we have no right to interfere

with the businesses that rule the world

and we have no business at all

penalizing successful people

when they allow their ugliness to show

>

which President of USNY will we choose:

the loud racist man who puts his last name on everything

or the woman who wants to keep giving war a chance

>

whatever they say now,

neither one of them give a damn about serfs--

only the landowners buying influence and power

>

and now it’s time

for us in New York Nation to be quiet

stop hoping for change

go to sleep early

and wander the Outer Boroughs

playing Pokemon Go

in hopes of qualifying

for the final championship

to be held at Times Square

Between a Brexit and a Trump/Clinton place.

Something I wrote earlier on Facebook:
Yesterday's positivity over Democrats standing up for passing gun legislation in the House replaced tonight by the British far right deploying fear and hate to remove the UK from the European Union.

So, as the United Kingdom tilts further right, the pound drops in value and immigrants (this time, refugees) are once again damned, one wonders if many in the United States will read the gigantic writing on the wall.

As an American, I deeply resent being herded into the usual "lesser of two evils" position where the choice is between a blustering billionaire spewing geysers of prejudice and "he's not a politician" fakery to the general public AND the ethically-challenged conservative Democrat who loves regime change war (just like Bush Jr. and neocons) and counts on other incremental centrists/captains of Industry to vote in lockstep after a primary campaign where the old-school liberal challenger suffered at least 57 varieties of demonization in the primaries.

Of course, if one opts out for third party choices (the leave-business-alone Libertarian buffoon Gary Johnson and the more-sane-than-Johnson Dr. Jill Stein), there's the possibility of post-November centrist Democrat pea soup getting whirled in all directions.

(Remember the 2000-era moaning where Ralph Nader was largely blamed for Al Gore's flaccid campaign and the Supreme Court's thievery?)

Looking forward to buying a NOT SORRY I VOTED FOR BERNIE bumpersticker, if such items are sold.

New poem CENTERED.

it’s neutralized now

the challenge removed

like a jacknifed truck on a freeway

after a few hours of inconvenience

you know what your friends will tolerate

don’t say you’re with Someone Else

listen again

to the arguments favoring settle for less

or letting the monster into the house

you don’t want to have the monster’s

potential rampage

blamed on you,

do you?

The day after the progressives were neutralized.

Here's an editorial cartoon/meme from TRUTHDIG's Dwayne Booth aka mr. fish:

Maureen Dowd on Monica Lewinsky--again.

Here's the sum total of relatively snark-free content from Maureen Dowd's op-Ed column in THE NEW YORK TIMES on former White House intern Monica Lewinsky's re-engagement with the public:   "there’s something poignant about a 40-year-old frozen like a fly in amber for something reckless she did in her 20s, while the unbreakable Clintons bulldoze ahead..."

Bill/Hillary 1992 and Anthony/Huma in 2013.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwXE52e9JFg--Bill and Hillary Clinton on 60 MINUTES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vmicJ35wWw--excerpt from Anthony Weiner's press conference statement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBagSsP7RVk--Huma Abedin speaks at husband Anthony Weiner's press conference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCzdpkokwCQ--full press conference feed as aired on CNN.

Re the NSA spying revelations--plus a prediction.

Must say: pretty disappointed with former Lefty warriors against Bush Admin surveillance lining up to defend Obama Admin surveillance.--Tom Belknap via Twitter.

To add to Mr. Belknap's observation:
This won't stop people (from centrists to "progressives") from voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016 (in part to "make history") and later discovering she's keeping the chain of throwing a superwide surveillance net over Americans unbroken.