My College Educated Sister is a Trump Supporter

Alas, it's true!  I still love her all the same though.

After posting the Nation article and comment on Wednesday, my sister vehemently pushed back... The following is my response:

Thanks for the thoughtful comment, sis!  

Interesting first question… to my very imprecise, clumsy statement…

Honestly, I’d rather not think Left/Right – it’s too divisive – Divide and Conquer merely serves Plutocrats, allowing them to loot and plunder while the Red and Blue are so busy beating each other black and blue, we don’t notice.

In other words, if the 99% of us (which mathematically speaking includes the 26% of Americans that identify as Republican, the 29% that are Democrats, and the 42% that are Independent, according to a recent Gallup Poll) stopped bickering and worked together, we could make some progress in this country.

For example, have you ever seen these data from the OECD?

Health care spending, per person, 2011:
United States: $8508
Canada: $4522
Germany: $4495
France: $4118
Australia: $3800
United Kingdom: $3405
Japan: $3213
Spain: $3072
Italy: $3012

We’re getting fleeced! Privatized medicine is a racket!

Both Left and Right should be up in arms about that!

Why don’t we save money and socialize medicine like most of the industrialized world?

You’re correct “socialism is not how this country was founded,” but do you really want to get into our nation’s brutal racial history with regard to Africans and Native Americans that were killed, forcibly taken from their land, and/or enslaved to work for free for others’ profit?

Yes, “hard working Americans should be rewarded for their efforts,” (and I am, thank you), but does that negate their responsibility to their country and community?

Could Jeff have started and run a successful business in Afghanistan or Iraq?

Haven’t taxes allowed him to have the infrastructure necessary to have a thriving small business and hire employees from an educated work force?

You may be right about small business taxes being too high, but despite that, don't you think both Jeff and my uncle have made a pretty good go of it here in one of the most sought after areas in the world to live, beautiful Southern California?

Side note, I take it you will be voting for Prop. 64, which would legalize weed for recreational use? (We voted for medicinal use 20 years ago, in 1996.)  If not, couldn’t small business people (like your cousin Nick) benefit from lifting this pointless prohibition?

The weed-conomy in Cali could be the next Gold Rush!

And sorry, can’t give big business a pass.  Seems to me that some of our biggest banks get to privatize their profits and socialize their losses.  Talk about disincentivizing honest, ethical, hard work.

So maybe we do agree on welfare – we shouldn’t be giving it to our biggest companies.

But I’m curious how “taxation and government regulations… de-motivate very hard working and talented Americans” like Jeff…

What about the hard-working single mother of a child in my class that works two jobs just to pay her bills?  She’s the one that qualifies for “freebies” like free lunch for her child because her money goes to rent of her small apartment, money for the Laundromat, and the bus fare to get to her jobs.

Thank goodness for the patriotic, taxpaying Americans who pay for her child and many more like hers to have a free public education like you and I got.

Speaking of public education, did you have Mr. McGuire for American Government at Kennedy?

Reading your comments reminded me of his old axiom about politics:  “Where a person stands depends on where he sits.”

From where I’m sitting, economic issues are only one part of the national discussion.

And when I see where someone like my student’s mom sits, I feel extremely lucky.  

I’ve never had to worry about socioeconomic, racial, sexual, or gender issues.

President Camacho

Interesting piece in the Nation, but I don't really agree with the conclusion this article draws: that we'll see a legitimate, neo-fascist, populist candidate for Prez in 2020.

I'm optimistic that if we Libs can competently and compassionately continue the conversation Sanders started during the primaries, we can push our country away from both conservative and neo-liberal policies.

Progress takes time (and patience, my radical friends ), but we've come so far already (LGBTQ rights), I'm confident if we employ smart politics, we can make America a far more equitable country.

Clinton Rules and Trump Wins

Yesterday, I wrote online that I think Trump will win because our MSM play by The Clinton Rules.

My buddy and bandmate, Mike, disagreed.  Below is my response.

I sure hope you’re right, and I’m wrong, Mike.

I didn’t say that Trump hasn’t received “overwhelmingly negative” press.  (And what is it they say about “all press” anyway?)

I said that The Clinton Rules dictate that she is held to a different standard than other public figures, and all things being equal, it will cost her the election.

Over the last 20 plus years, there have been too many examples of this to name, but just for one recent case:

Did you notice the difference in how Matt Lauer (sadly, a totem for our upper-end mainstream media) treated Trump as opposed to Clinton at the Commander in Chief forum?

           

After burning at least a third of the interview asking Clinton questions about her emails (for which she’s been found to have broken no law), he directly suggests that her behavior may be “disqualifying.”

Contrast that with Lauer’s treatment of Trump supposedly being against the Iraq war. 

How many follow up questions did he ask? 

Zero.  Zilch.  Nada. 

He passed, sitting like a potted plant, politely deferring to power.

Did he challenge Trump on that Birther nonsense he was spewing a few years back (incidentally, using that same mainstream media to sew seeds of doubt about the legitimacy of President Obama)?

Yeah, right. 

Did he ask if either of those two things were “disqualifying?”  Of course not.

Again, how many questions did he ask Clinton re: email? (And seriously, was he really going to get some crucial NEW information that congress, the FBI, and the inspector general DIDN’T get from her on national TV?)

Michael, please!  Clinton Rules stipulate that she must be held to a different standard than other candidates!

Even Rutenberg gets in on the fun in his article…

Notice how he nicely mentions all the “’gates’ affixed” to Clinton while conveniently forgetting to say how phony all those “scandals” were. 

Why would he do that on the front page of the Paper of Record? 

Could it be because they promoted that nonsense on those very front pages 20 years ago?

Gene Lyons wrote all about it in, Fools for Scandal:  How the Media Invented Whitewater way back in 1996!

Joe Conason and he wrote The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton in 2000.  It was even turned into a movie!

Again, these books discussed our mainstream media, not right-wing talk radio.

Today, Nicholas Kristof suggests one reason Clinton Rules still apply is because, “We all fall into” the trap of media narratives, as he graciously includes journalists along with us plebs.

Could it be we citizens have fallen into these traps because we see these narratives and storylines in our mainstream media over and over and over again?

Facts and context be damned in our national discourse, there's a story to tell!

Vox had a piece I posted the other day discussing the potential conflicts of interest with Colin Powell’s foundation, America’s Promise while he was SOT. 

The takeway was that we don’t know if there were conflicts of interest precisely because of the trap of media narratives and the Clinton Rules.  To wit:  in our mainstream press narrative, Colin Powell is cast as a good guy, so his charity hasn’t received the scrutiny that the Clinton Foundation has.  

I could go on, but alas, gone are the days/nights that I could spend hours upon hours thoroughly researching adequate rebuttals, at least for the time being…

But needless to say, Mike, I still fervently hope you are right about Trump.

Friends Don't Let Friends Watch Friends

Maybe, on a subconscious level, this is why I never watched Friends...

We Could Be Heroes...

Behold!  The power of mainstream media narratives and the different treatment their "heroes" and "villains" receive...

But when the press thinks of you as a good guy, leveraging your good reputation in this way is considered a good thing to do. And since the charity was considered a good thing to do, keeping the charity going when Powell was in office as secretary of state was also considered a good thing to do. And since Powell was presumed to be innocent — and since Democrats did not make attacks on Powell part of their partisan strategy — his charity was never the subject of a lengthy investigation.

Which is lucky for him, because as Clinton could tell you, once you are the subject of a lengthy investigation, the press doesn’t like to report, “Well, we looked into it and we didn’t find anything interesting.”

And here's another case in point.