Homer Simpson is exactly from the kind of demographic that amongst whom Donald Trump is supposed to be strongest: male, white (ok yellow, but that’s close enough), low-information, solidly middle-class, and beer-drinking, and not one of those politically correct elitists. And yet, Homer has defected.
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I am finally back home in Cleveland after being away for about ten days to deal with some personal matters and am now catching up with a lot of the political news that I could only superficially skim while away.
Following the two conventions much commentary has been devoted to contrasting ‘the sky is falling rhetoric’ of the Republican convention with the more sunny vision of the Democratic one, which challenged Donald Trump’s claim that he will make America great again by saying that America is already great.
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Gabriel Sherman continues to reveal more and more lurid details about the ghastly environment that exists at Fox News that has come to light since the allegations made by Gretchen Carlson surfaced and that has resulted in the departure of its head Roger Ailes. It is far worse than one could have imagined.
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A huge amount of media attention has been given to the short speech by Khizr Khan, with his wife Ghazal Khan by his side, on the last night of the Democratic convention.
Khan, whose son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, 27, died from a suicide bombing in Baghdad 12 years ago, said Trump’s shifting proposals to ban Muslims from entering the country would have prevented his late son from serving in the military. The Khans, originally from Pakistan, immigrated to the United States in the 1970s from the United Arab Emirates.
Yesterday, I wrote about the story of the stand for justice taken by Tommie Smith, Peter Norman, and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympic games and how they all suffered for their action. Today, I want to highlight another story that is more puzzling, where an athlete seemed to be actively endorsing the repression of her own ethnic group.
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I was recently reminded of an iconic Olympic photograph, of American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who made the black power salute protesting conditions in the US after winning the 200m gold and bronze medals respectively at the 1968 Mexico Olympics. Both Smith and Carlos were vilified for their action.
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In order to deal with the problem of people voting against a candidate rather than for him or her, as seems to be the case with the Clinton/Trump match up where majorities say that their vote is driven by their dislike for the opponent, in a segment he adopts an idea that I suggested back in 2014, but which I don’t claim to be original. He had also apparently resurrected his old Comedy Central persona during the conventions and ran into some trouble with the corporate lawyers
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The revelations that emerged from the WikiLeaks release of DNC emails merely confirmed what many of us already strongly suspected, and that was that Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Democratic National Committee were lying when they said that they were staying neutral during the primary race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. They were actively tilting the playing field in her favor.
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A group of African Americans had an enjoyable meal at a restaurant in Murfeesboro, Tennessee and were treated well by the waitress. Or at least they thought so. But later a friend told one of them Chelsea Mayes that their waitress had posted a photo of the group on Snapchat and used a racist slur to describe the group. The management was alerted to this and after an investigation, fired the waitress.
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ProPublica has closely examined the record of Tim Kaine over the years. It is a mixed bag with some serious concerns, especially on trade deals, big banks, and labor issues, folded in with some good views on social issues, such as abortion rights (though he is a Catholic) and opposition to the death penalty. Kaine’s main claim to fame is that he has no skeletons in his closet and is a proven successful political campaigner and is thus unlikely to say or do anything ridiculous and thus harm the ticket.
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