The Clinton camp has just come out with a sharp attack ad.
The sad thing is that the Republicans will vote for him anyway.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
The Clinton camp has just come out with a sharp attack ad.
The sad thing is that the Republicans will vote for him anyway.
Yeah, the suspense is over.
If there are any sensible Republicans left, I’m so sorry, your party is a bloody shambles. It was kind of inevitable, I guess, when you embraced angry white men, Jebus, and bigotry as your tools for short term gains.
He’s done, and has dropped out of the race. That leaves Trump as the Republican nominee, unless you think, in some spasm of excessive imagination, that Kasich is relevant.
It’s now all about Trump, on one side.
And it’s probably going to be all about Clinton on the other.
Just in case you didn’t get enough of a gay Catholic man scribbling apologetics for the conservative establishment, he is trying to stage some kind of comeback as a pundit (although, actually, he seemed to pop up all the time anyway — it’s like he was on Maher all the time, which may be a misapprehension on my part, since I so rarely watch Maher). Anyway, the existence of Donald Trump has driven him to pontificate, and you will not be surprised to learn that Trump Is All Liberals’ Fault, and that the solution is for Democrats To Unite With The Good Republican Party.
No, I don’t think so. Just as he was wrong about the Iraq War, we all have to realize that he is still wrong about everything.
I forgot. I never knew about it. And if I had, I would have spit on the idea.
Did you know that yesterday was Loyalty Day
?
In order to recognize the American spirit of loyalty and the sacrifices that so many have made for our Nation, the Congress, by Public Law 85-529 as amended, has designated May 1 of each year as “Loyalty Day.” On this day, let us reaffirm our allegiance to the United States of America and pay tribute to the heritage of American freedom.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2016, as Loyalty Day. This Loyalty Day, I call upon all the people of the United States to join in support of this national observance, whether by displaying the flag of the United States or pledging allegiance to the Republic for which it stands.
Like so many evil things*, this bad presidential tradition came out of the 1950s, the Red Scare, that knee-jerk anti-Commie crapola that still fuels the fevered brains of conservatives. Of course it is on May Day, or International Workers’ Day, because there’s nothing our wealthy overlords would like to do more than replace autonomy and self-respect with mindless obedience.
I do not pledge allegiance to anything. Sometimes the greatest loyalty is a willingness to change old institutions to make them better.
*Like, say, me.
The Wall Street Journal featured a full page ad from a group denying the Armenian genocide.
The content of the ad itself is pretty bland (“Truth = Peace” and a peace sign could be swapped in for almost any cause), but its purpose is not: To deny that as many as 1.5 million Armenians were systematically rounded up and murdered by the Ottoman government in what is now Turkey, mostly in the year 1915. The modern Turkish government has famously scoffed at the truth of this historical event, despite a century of scholarship and eyewitness accounts. Measures in the United States to officially recognize the genocide (through a congressional resolution, for example) have gained wide support but ultimately failed, mainly because of Turkey’s role as a regional military ally.
I’ve just discovered the literary works of Mildred Houghton Comfort, a woman who wrote a number of biographies of Important Men of American Capitalism, back in the good old days of the 1950s. William L. Knight, Industrialist. Walt Disney, Master of Fantasy. John Foster Dulles, Peacemaker. Little Punk, the Baby Elephant. She was a prolific supporter of the conservative status quo.
These aren’t exactly popular books any more, but you can still find a few old used copies for sale. She also wrote J. Edgar Hoover, Modern Knight Errant, and there are a few pages from that scanned and available on the interwebs. It’s horrifying.
Disclaimer: I was born in the 1950s, but I was tiny and innocent and unaware and had no idea what was going on. I became conscious in the late 1960s, a much more copacetic decade. This kind of crap was more the product of The Greatest Generation, which I’ve heard was perfect and admirable in all ways, unlike all other generations of Americans.
I haven’t been able to find out much about Ms Houghton Comfort, other than when she lived: 1886-. That emptiness after the en dash is rather disquieting, and lacking in closure.
I am not happy to see Sanders sliding further away from the nomination — and I am not enthusiastic about Clinton. But I have to agree with George Takei.
I am not saying that Sanders should surrender — he should keep fighting for his cause as long as possible, and he should be doing his damnedest to shape the party platform (and maybe, as hope keeps whispering in my ear, maybe he’ll make a miraculous victory), but we have to focus on crushing the Republican party in all branches of government, and also on keeping the pressure on a certain conservative Democrat who is likely to be the nominee.
What is he thinking? This is an act of desperation, but I don’t get what she brings to the ticket. It’s as if he went looking for an unpleasant, unpopular person to complement his own unpopular unpleasantness. Or maybe he thinks McCain set a precedent.
Sure, it’ll bring more attention to his campaign, but it’s the kind of attention dog poop on a sidewalk brings — you make sure not to step in it.
It’s from Charles Pierce, on a conservative wish list for a presidential candidate.
Authenticity is the key. Once you’ve learned to fake that, the rest is gravy.
Whew. I’m putting down the keyboard and picking up the red pen to concentrate on grading.
