Archive for December, 2015

irritating regurgitating regurgitation irritation

Monday, December 28th, 2015

I glance at a handful of minutes of CNN’s morning show.  Sound is off.  The panel of political pundit figures are discussing, as suggested by the bottom line, what Donald Trump will say at his Republican Convention speech.  You know, to bring together the factions of the Republican Party, and alleviate the concerns of those Republicans not fully on board Donald Trump as their nominee.

The next topic of discussion, as suggested by the line at the bottom, is whether Hillary Clinton can and excite the floor at the Democratic Convention.

None of this is relevant to any real understanding of our politics, whether that be the superficial horse-race or something more substantial in analysis.  But these (political) cable news channels have lots of time to kill, so here’s what you get on a Sunday morning in the dead of winter.  It is a bit like watching ESPN, except when they’re flipping from one topic to another in rapid fashion on, say, the end of the NFL season and into the playoffs, the premises of how the teams hold up have some basis with the game on the field.

creepy comic strips where you least expect them

Monday, December 28th, 2015

roseisrosecreepygingerbread  So it’s Christmas Eve, you turn to the newspaper comics page, and what do comic strip duo Don Wimmer and Pat Brady give you for your daily saccharine “aw” that is the emotional attempt for the “Rose Is Rose” comic strip?

Creepy anthropomorphized ginger bread cookies come to life who want nothing less and live for nothing more than for the sleepy boy protagonist of the strip to eat them.  (Absent the boy, would the cookies be eating one another?)

What’s more the commenters circulating about the syndicate website for the strip are all stuck back on the “aw” effect, not fully understanding the implications of the strip.

definitions, definitions, definitions

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2015

Yes.  Donald Trump is a serious candidate for high office.

Donald Trump took to Twitter Tuesday to defend using the word “schlonged” to describe Hillary Clinton’s primary loss in 2008, saying the word is “not vulgar.”

“Once again, #MSM is dishonest. ‘Schlonged’ is not vulgar. When I said Hillary got ‘schlonged’ that meant beaten badly,” he said in one tweet.

Because when you hear the word “schlong”, and you think “penis”, that shows more onto you and where your head is at than it does the speaker Trump?

Moving on…

But Trump cited Tuesday what he said was a 1984 NPR report in which “schlonged” was used similarly to how he used it Monday.

“NPR’s @NealConan said ‘schlonged’ to WaPo re: 1984 Mondale/Ferraro campaign: ‘That ticket went on to get schlonged at the polls.’ #Hypocrisy”

The one news source they found to reverberate amongst the conservative media.  I do like this bit of conspiracy in the comments section.

It appears that you submitted this 6 hours ago. An hour later NPR released this article, which is entitled “Trump: Clinton was ‘Schlonged in 2008 Nomination Race’ “. It looks like they hastily appended the Neal Conan revelation so they wouldn’t get accused of covering it up.

Always align a shady motive; never allow the possibility of an innocuous one.

Is there some cultural insensitivity toward Yiddish origins and what they do of (Jewish filled) New York?

Trump also retweeted political analyst Jeff Greenfield’s defense of the term, in which Greenfield declared that the term is “a commonplace NY way of saying: ‘I lost big time.'”

To be perfectly clear, the expression is by no means “commonplace” — in New York or elsewhere. It has never appeared in the New York Times (prior to this week) and does not appear to have been used in any New York paper early in the 20th century. It doesn’t appear in Irving Lewis Allen’s 1993 book, “The City in Slang,” which documents any number of lesser-known expressions that trickled out of New York City. And, as a point of personal privilege, it’s not something that I’m familiar with, having grown up upstate and lived in the city for most of the past decade.

But it has popped up a few times, as The Post’s Justin Moyer reported on Tuesday, including one usage in the exact same context — and in an interview with The Fix’s very own Chris Cillizza.

Next an appearance in 1974, and the observation that this will be spoken and not put into print.

And so the worm turns.  I suppose if he were preparing for a hypothetical Barack Obama match-up, in an alternate universe where Obama had been schlonged in 2008, he might still use the word.  The problem is, yes, of course we know Trump’s “plausible deniable” definition and how well it would be thrown out in casual definition.  And we know the penis definition.  And we can infer how interconnected the two definitions are.  And we know Trump said something about the menstrual cycle for Megyn Kelly.  And we can only imagine the gender gap of a Hillary Clinton — Donald Trump presidential match-up.

In other things of some informal Jewish / New York antecedent… Rand Paul taps Seinfeld for a Festivus routine.

And in other news of offensiveness politico fallout — Washington Post printed a stupid cartoon, and I suppose Ted Cruz is doing what any politico worth his salt will do (see too Hillary Clinton) and making the best political hay he can out of the faux pas.

gone from the undercard

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2015

After supposedly winning the “undercard” debate (by dent of getting a few media – savvy one liner quips into the limited media notation coverage on the “undercard” debate) Lindsey Graham quits the Presidential Race, and “GOP Wonders Who’s Next“.

Will it be Jim Gilmore?  Rick Santorum?  Mike Huckabee?  George Pataki?  Who, who, who?

“This is an election for the heart and soul of the Republican Party,” Graham said on CNN. “This is no longer about 2016. This is about who we are as a party, where do we want to go, where do we take the country.”

And it is does not belong to Lindsey Graham.

But the questions this wages isn’t so much… who’s next?… it is…

… Will this provide a space for Jim Gilmore to make this next “undercard” debate, and if not… can we have an “undercard” debate with, oh, 2 candidates on the stage?

And, I guess, who wins the much vaulted “Lindsey Graham” support?  Jeb Bush gets the official campaign apparatus, for whatever that’s worth

entertain us

Friday, December 18th, 2015

A strange comment from Michael F Bishop, of the National Review, in reviewing a Karl Rove book about his favorite president, William McKinley.

Indeed, as Rove observes, “politics during McKinley’s lifetime was practiced with an intensity difficult to comprehend today.”  Readers may be surprised that issues as seemingly abstruse as the tariff and the currency could inflame the passions of millions of Americans.  But in an era before the Super Bowl or stadium concerts, politics furnished not just an arena of ideological combat but entertainment as well.

Cue Frank Zappa commentary about politics just being the entertainment branch of industry.  And look ashunder at the current rise of Donald Trump, who, you know, has a bit of the political legacy Zephod Beeblebox about it — the politics of celebrity.

Debate as it may how much of it is just a show.

In regards to the article as a whole longing for McKinley and rhyme scheme with the past (noted the “past is a foreign country: they do things differently there” warning in the article)… after failing to get George W Bush into the McKinley role… You get the feeling it falls to Hillary Clinton to be the small c conservative candidate as against the Bryan hailstorm of Cruz or Trump.

France politics swerve about a tad

Wednesday, December 16th, 2015

Pat Buchanan jumps up and down in cheering on a right wing election triumph for France.

In Sunday’s first-round of regional elections in France, the clear and stunning winner was the National Front of Marine Le Pen.
Her party rolled up 30 percent of the vote, and came in first in 6 of 13 regions. Marine herself won 40 percent of her northeast district.
Despite tremendous and positive publicity from his presidential role in the Charlie Hebdo and Paris massacres and the climate summit, Francois Hollande’s Socialist Party ran third.

What drove the victory of the National Front?

Take a guess.

Angela Merkel and open borders are yesterday in Europe; Marine Le Pen is tomorrow.

Funny thing, that the ammo today website publishes this Pat Buchanan piece with the additional headline extension “Soon It Will Be Hard Right”.  So we get there the commenters…
After more than 50 years of post World War II Liberalism it’s time for America to make a ‘Right Turn’. Average Americans are sick and tired of what’s going on, especially over the last six or seven years.

And, hm.  Pat Buchanan knows about winning an election in, say, New Hampshire, and then … oh, not winning anything more.
The failure of Marine Le Pen’s National Front to win a single region in the runoffs puts an end — at least for the moment — to any talk of her becoming president of France. […]
The National Front had promised a historic breakthrough after coming out of the initial round ahead in six of France’s 13 regions, with strong chances of winning three of them: Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur in the south, Nord-Pas-de-Calais in the north, and Alsace-Lorraine in the east. The Socialist party responded by withdrawing its candidates in those regions and calling on its supporters to vote for The Republicans, who went on to win all three. That’s a foretaste of what may happen in the 2017 presidential vote.

Message sent loud and clear.

gop update

Sunday, December 13th, 2015

Rand Paul is kicking ass and taking names, surging in the polls… and …
Okay.  Here’s how desperate it was for him.  He actually had to tweet a self-congratulatory poll result of… fifth in Iowa… as a means to encourage him from falling out of the main stage at the next Republican debate.

Paul held on to his seat in the main debate due to a Sunday Fox News poll that placed him 5th in Iowa.
Paul, who had been fighting to stay away from the earlier “kids’ table” debate, was quick to tweet about the results, saying they were just “another reason” he should be in the larger debate.

Interesting to note, in the “Alex Jones” prison planet / infowars land, Rand Paul has lost his spot out to Donald Trump — who is now forever photo-centered the better to highlight stories about the political correct media and liberals and minorities going apeshit about Donald Trump’s front-running status.

On Donald Trump, Jeb Bush has a conspiracy theory…

Appearing on WBZ-TV Sunday morning, the former Florida governor slammed his Republican presidential opponent as “not motivated to win the presidency” and continued to proclaim that Trump is in cahoots with Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner. Bush also contended that Trump is neither a “serious person” nor a “serious candidate.”

Actually, some amusement springing out of Jeb Bush on petty threats of lawsuits from Trump in the general hustle of a nomination fight.  Of course, all Trump has to say is “I lead in the polls and you’re boring”, which is what he’s been saying all year to everyone… except when someone pulls ahead of him in which case we have… Trump calling Cruz a “maniac” (or, not boring… you can’t win either way with Trump!)

… and I think we have more vetting to be done with Cruz?

In the wake of Trump controversially calling for a ban on Muslims entering America, Cruz also unsurprisingly toppled Trump in another key factor: Likeability.
He earned a 73% percent vote for that quality — far above any other GOP competitor.

People who don’t like Ted Cruz include Bob Dole, all the Bushes, John McCain

of course, who the heck is John McCain?  He’s backing Lindsey Graham

You do have to wonder about some of this.  Like… if Ben Carson bolts the Republican Party because they manage to eke out a win at convention time against a not above 50 percent in delegate count Donald Trump — a person who stayed out of politics until he stumbled into them — does that … matter?

Good news for John Kasich.  He is a popular governor in Ohio.  Unlike Chris Christie, who is not a popular governor in New Jersey.

breaking down the Republican field for 2016

Thursday, December 10th, 2015

Explaining the strange confusion of how the 2008 Republican fight broke down after a slew of candidates strangely unacceptable to the Republican rank and file…

Moving from 2007 into the 2008, the Republican nomination fight slid into three factions: in the hawkish military conservative wing, John McCain beat out Rudy Giuliani, in the social conservative wing, Mike Huckabee beat out Sam Brownback, and in the “establishment politico” wing, Mitt Romney beat out Fred Thompson.

It appears that we have in 2015 going into 2016 another three wings of the Republican party.  In the Celebrity/Outsider wing, Donald Trump looks poised to beat out Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, In the “Libertarian/ Tea Party” wing Ted Cruz looks to be beating out Rand Paul, and in the Establishment Politico wing, Marco Rubio looks like he’s beating out Jeb Bush.

The interesting thing about Ted Cruz is how Donald Trump has shifted about the Overton Window to let him in as “credible” as nominal Republican nominee possibility  — at least as a whole you can move down the right-wing scale of conservative causes and spot him somewhere, where with Trump his appeal seems to be from out of right-wing talk radio — Xenophobia, sure, but large amounts of bluster.