Well, the GOP convention is out of the way, Hillary has picked her VP and we are about to jump into the Democratic convention. Reporter Kelly O’Donnell observed the yesterday that Tim Kaine shared a lot more of the podium with Hillary than Mike Pence did with Trump. Really? Big Surprise! Trump’s ego doesn’t leave room for anyone but himself when there’s a crowd to play to. From now on, Pence will be lucky to get a third row seat, forget sharing he stage with the grand ego.
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Trump’s dystopian acceptance speech painted a picture of carnage in the streets and Americans living in terror. If you pay attention to such mundane items like fact and truth you get a different picture. Yes, we have had plenty of murderous incidents that are headline grabbers, but contrary to what Trump, inaccurately states, every statistic tells us that crime is down all across the country; in many cases by a full 50%. What Trump doesn’t address is the fact; all the crimes he is whining about were committed with guns. If you fear some nut or terrorist shooting up your kid’s school, the answer isn’t adding guns for protection; it’s taking guns out of the picture.
The cry of; “Then only the bad guys will have guns,” sounds great but is wildly inaccurate. In societies where guns are forbidden the bad guys don’t have them either. Look at England, look at Australia. I worked in Hong Kong in the 1980’s one of the most rigidly controlled gun societies in the world. There were plenty of gangsters operating in Hong Kong. The Triads ruled the city, but none of them had guns. Ultimately, despite the fact that it was a gang run city, the people were a lot safer than in most major American cities where any nut can get a gun.
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After writing some nice things about the Trump kid’s speeches to the convention I was shown a YouTube page showing both of these male assholes holding animals they had just shot. One shows both of them holding a dead leopard. Another shows Don holding the tail of an elephant he has shot. Is this Don’s statement that he is for the continuation of the ivory trade? There is no excuse for shooting an animal unless you are hungry and plan to eat it.
Then Ivanka put the dress she wore for her speech, up for sale in a cheap version, made in China. I wonder if they plan to print Trump University diploma’s on White House stationary? This is right after she told her adoring public that her father was going to create American jobs.
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In his speech Trump declared that at the GOP convention would be no lies. He was, of course lying and what’s worse is he expected his audience to be dumb enough to believe him. Yes, he knows his audience is dumb; he depends on that. He needs the same people who were dumb enough to elect the Tea Party idiots that now fill the House to be dumb enough to elect him. Why not? They certainly haven’t gotten any smarter.
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Watching Paul Manafort provides one with an insight into the basic dishonesty of the Trump campaign. This is a guy who actually lies more than his candidate. Trump has already established that he has no respect for the truth. He lies even when he doesn’t have to. He is so used to it that it is second nature. Manafort doesn’t seem to even recognize the truth, so one could say he isn’t really lying, he is just so morally corrupt that the concept of truth just doesn’t exist in his reality.
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I have been beating the drum of Mike Pence’s lack of intelligence. So yesterday in a speech he did his best to prove me right. He was in his usual attack mode and looking for something really bad to say about Hillary and the worst thing he could come up with was to call her the Secretary of the Status Quo. Really Mike? That’s the worst insult you can come up with. That’s pathetic, but it shows that Pence just doesn’t have the brains to be one breath from the button.
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Watching Barak Obama being interviewed on Face the Nation, was a study in how a President should think and speak. He answers questions with thoughtful logic and a sense of humanity that seems almost anathema to political practice. I haven’t watched a politician since John F. Kennedy explain a problem and how he will attack it, as intelligently or as reasonably as Obama does. He talks to not at people. He considers the ramifications of what he, as President, is saying. I understand that Republicans and bigots hate him but that’s their loss.
During the questioning he laid out a primer for how to go about being a President. It was a plan that I haven’t seen from any President, with the possible exception of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in my lifetime
And then he lays out a scenario of why Hillary Clinton is as well prepared to be president as anyone who has run for that office in his lifetime. He doesn’t do it by screaming slogans or by implausible logic the way the Trump forces do. He does it by identifying specific things she has done, strengths she has developed and insights she possesses. He does it by comparing what she has done with what the best of her forerunners have done. More important he does it honestly and convincingly.
Ultimately John Dickerson conducted one of the best interviews of an important political figure that I have ever seen. He asked questions that allowed Obama to explore his own personality and philosophy. It was a privilege to see this piece of TV journalism.
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Watching Chuck Todd talking to Jeff Weaver, Bernie Sanders campaign manager, is truly frustrating. Weaver whines about the fact that he feels the DNC wasn’t fair to them in the same breath he admits that the treatment doled out to their campaign didn’t cost them the election. Well if it didn’t cost you the election what the hell are you whining about? Grow up! Get over it!
This seems to be the same complaint of the bulk of the Sanders supporters who are raising hell in Philly. You had a great run, even I was happy to see you do so well, but the game is over. Don’t be a sore loser. We all realize that you represent a very big youth movement but stop acting like infants. Grow up and get it together. If Trump wins you may never get a chance to grow up at all. With his finger on the button, the world may not go any further.
Bernie did what Bernie was supposed to do. He was never supposed to be a Presidential candidate. He was supposed to move the dial further to the left and he did that. But Bernie is a one trick pony. He rode that trick as far as it would take him. It’s a great trick and we will all be better off for it and work for it to come to pass, but if Trump gets elected it will never come to pass. So stop whining and get in line.
Watching Chuck Todd and his panel outside in Philly one still hears the youthful, not too bright, voices of Sanders supporters chanting, Bernie, Bernie. Guess what children, Bernie won the war but did lose the election. Now it’s up to him and all his followers to get on board the sink Trump’s submarine.
And for all those Bernie supporters who are talking or thinking about throwing their votes to the Green Party or the Independent party or some other fringe group that seemingly has no other function than to bleed off votes from one party or the other… think Ralph Nader.
For those of you who are too young to know or those of you who are too old to remember Ralph Nader was a serious liberal force. He came to recognition in the early seventies when his book, Unsafe at Any Speed, detailed the failure of the auto industry to take into account the safety needs of the cars they we building. But it was his runs for the Presidency that made Nader an outcast among thinking people. His hubris inflamed run in 2000, cost the Democrats the Presidency. Gore lost by 537 votes in Florida, where Nader drained off almost 100,000 votes. It cost him the election and burdened the nation with 8 years of George Bush
Those who abandon the Democratic Party to vote Green or Independent will be positing the same danger for the election of Hillary Clinton. They will be giving Donald Trump a chance to do once again to this country what George Bush and Dick Cheney did to it from 2000 to 2008. I don’t think we can survive another GOP President like that.