Jeb Bush wants Margaret Thatcher on the 10 dollar bill, angering the Irish.

John Kasich wants Mother Teresa on the 10 dollar bill, angering Christopher Hitchens fans.

Bobby Jindal is making no deal of his Indian descent, which surely if he at least brought it up would get him above zero percent in the polls?

Scott Walker?  Scott Walker!

Marco Rubio and a Rand Paul proxy are apparently fist fighting.

Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina — which I guess is what people were watching for at the damned debate…

Fiorina, 61, is not averse to playing the chick card when it suits her. CNN debate moderator Jake Tapper confronted her with Trump’s words, as quoted in Rolling Stone magazine: “Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?’’ (Trump later said he was referring to her persona, not her appearance.)
“I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said,’’ she replied crisply.
To that, Trump, 69, perhaps trying to put a lid on the sad contretemps, said, “I think she has a very beautiful face, and she’s a beautiful woman.’’

Apparently presidential candidates should be exciting.  Ben Carson not sticking the exclamation mark after his name, ala Jeb.  (Why he’s falling behind fellow never elected politico Fiorna in pursuit of never elected Trump?)

Chris Christie comes out for the clock inventor named Muhammad.  Good, but for this:
But Christie, a former U.S. attorney for New Jersey who has been hawkish about the need to protect America from terrorism, added that there is a fear across the country that has risen because President Obama, a Democrat, has not made citizens “feel safe.”
AAAARRRRGGGGHHH!!!

Handwriting expert analyzes candidates’ hand-writing.  By some coincidence, finds them to all match their public persona.  Sooo…. Ted Cruz?  “Determined and dogmatic”.  Hillary Clinton’s hand-writing shows she’s “controlling”.  Funny is that Bobby Jindal is feeling “isolated”… like, his campaign?

But less isolated than Jim Gilmore, who  wasn’t invited anywhere.  (George Pataki at least made Bill Maher, and this sets up a ripping debate on the Muhammad with a bomb – clock kid.)

Mike Huckabee going on about the homosexuals… trying to conjure up an “affirmative action” hire.  Rick Santorum compares Kim Davis to a noted victim of Columbine, the victim specially embraced by conservative Christians as martyr.

Democratic Presidential hopeful (?) Lawrence Lessig considers that a Donald Trump presidency would be very Vladimir Putin-esque.  Myself, I kind of imagine that with Donald Trump, we’ll find out what the hypothetical Huey Long presidency that haunted Franklin Roosevelt in 1935 would haved ended up looking like.

Creepy note from The Hill, as they ruminate on 1968… So Joe Biden, even if he doesn’t officially enter the race for president stands an excellent chance of being the 45^th President of the United States.  This is the hypothetical as the modern day Eugene McCarthy — Bernie Sanders — reaches his ceiling of support and … Elizabeth Warren jumps in ala Bobby Kennedy, and somehow or other Hillary Clinton is Lyndon Johnson, but the establishment is worry about Warren, and they decree Biden the new Hubert Humphrey and…
Of course, I’ve darkly ruminated on how Biden could end up the 45th Presidency since Obama selecting him as his running mate, thinking 1963 not 1968… and Hillary Clinton got in some trouble in 2008 for ruminating on why she should stay in the race, ala 1968, so what does this all mean?
In the current silly season, pontificators are pontificating on the wisdom of how Biden should jump in the race, and his chances of up-ending Hillary Clinton is to declare Elizabeth Warren his running mate and insist he’ll be a one term presidency… this speculation was ignited when Biden was seen talking with Warren recently.  It takes that little to ignite things.

Martin O’Malley does the late night circuit — oh, Late Night with Seth Meyers.  Apparently he recited his stump speech in interview format.

Jim Webb is politicking in Hawaii.  Because… why not?  It’s Hawaii!

Bernie Sanders is beloved by a bunch of celebrities… which is sure to make right wing talk show hosts laughing…
For curiosity’s sake, he wandered to Liberty University — the fundamentalist Christian college of Jerry Falwell — and… respectably disagreed with the crowd.
And for a reporter from New York, the school is an exotic scene: students with eyes closed in rapturous prayer singing along to the Christian rock band that opened for the Democratic presidential candidate; students that answer every question with a “sir” at the end; many students wearing suits and dresses rather than jeans.
Sanders modified his stump speech with quotations from the Bible cited by chapter and verse — Matthew 7:12, “do to others what you would have them do to you” and the more obscure Amos 5:24, “let justice roll like a river, righteousness like a never-ending stream” — but otherwise stuck to his core issues of fighting economic inequality after bluntly acknowledging his pro-choice and pro-gay marriage positions.
But what was striking wasn’t the majority of students who lacked enthusiasm for this most liberal candidate in the presidential race, but the few among them who came wearing Bernie T-shirts and brandishing handmade signs.

Hillary Clinton in an amusing Republican debate response, unwittingly highlighting why the DNC should have a bunch more debates — for no other reason than for the vast Democratic echo chamber of noises to match up more evenly with the Republican echo chamber of noises.

Lincoln Chafee … as close to Ron Paul on foreign policy, which doesn’t seem to be giving him any traction with that smeddling of Democrats who gravitated somewhat to Ron Paul… though, maybe they didn’t exist all that much?

The 14-year-old’s day ended not with praise, but punishment, after the school called police and he was arrested.

Ethnicity gets it viewed in the lense of 9/11 and ISIS terrorism as opposed to Columbine and all that.

It’s more seriously played than, oh say, the six year old and the pop tart gun… as we see in that Obama is skipping into the picture (as opposed to that kid who had to endure an NRA celebration.)  Then again, it’s a more productive enterprise… creating a clock out of MacGyver like ingenuity and…

The third interesting aspect we have here is the role Obama is taking at the end of his administration, lame duck — not running for another term — a deeply recalicitrant Republican Congress.  “Bully Pulpit”, as Theodore Roosevelt once had it — symbolically highlighting this and that issue.  Maybe Obama wouldn’t have thrown this tweet anytime in his first six years of office.

Interesting Nick Gillepse (from a libertarian magazine Reason) who mishes and mashes the lines for and to…

It doesn’t help that the mayor of Irving, Beth Van Duyne, is a nutjob who’s convinced that Sharia law is supplanting the Lone Star State’s brand of justice.

Mike Gravel covering… The Beatles.  Not once, but twice.
There is a contradiction here, isn’t there?  As he now lines up in talks with… Lyndon Larouche…
No… It’s Mike Gravel.

The Schiller Institute has announced a special event for Sept. 12 in Manhattan, entitled “Creating a Peace Paradigm: A New Era for Mankind Where We All Become Truly Human.” Due to the importance of this event, it will be presented as a live webcast.
Uh huh.

The event’s feature presentation will be a dialogue between American Statesman Lyndon LaRouche and two other veteran members of the U.S. Presidency, Ramsey Clark (Attorney General 1967-1969) and Senator Mike Gravel (US Senator Alaska 1969-1981).
Okay.  That’s where this gets a little fuzzy.

“Two other veteran members of the US Presidency”.

From my definition of things, there are 43 “members of the US Presidency”.  George Washington through Barack Obama.  Currently alive, there are five.

I suppose if we define it to include people who run for President, than Mike Gravel belongs there alongside Lyndon Larouche.  As does, oh, Deez Nuts, who will have the same “footnote” of historical import.

Ramsey Clark was in a presidential administration once.

In the “Fantasy Shadow Government contraption” definition, laid out by Larouche… which I don’t know quite what is  — any figure of import that Larouche can rope into a “dialouge”? … I’m a little curious if Ramsey Clark and Mike Gravel consider themselves “veteran members” of the “US Presidency”.

With all eyes on Manhattan on the eve of the U.N. General Assembly and Pope Francis’ first visit to the United States, Mr. LaRouche’s intervention into Manhattan, to shape the debate about the very existence of the future of mankind, is something you do not want to miss.

Yes, it’s another one of those “most momentus weeks in Mankind’s History”…
Hm…

Former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) is the new CEO of a marijuana company that produces cannabis-infused products for both recreational and medical use, the company announced Tuesday.
The Alaskan Democrat and 2008 presidential contender will lead KUSH, a subsidiary owned by Cannabis Sativa, Inc. Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson serves as CEO of Cannabis Sativa, and Gravel is on that company’s board of directors.
KUSH will develop and market new marijuana-infused products under Gravel’s leadership, the company said in a press release.

… Is marijuana cool to the org now?
I suppose you make your compromises with things, as one time firm anti-monarchist Jeremy Corbyn ascedes to the formality of kissing the Queen’s hand and pledging servant upon ascension to Labour Party head.
Incidentally…  once upon a time a drug dealer anathema to the Larouche org, now there’s a drug dealer (Gravel) that’s been drafted into the “Presidency”.

As for Corbyn… the closest the Nation gets to addressing his sideshow with the CEC, though not quite there:

Then there are—predictably, given Corbyn’s long record of support for the Palestinian cause—the accusations of anti-Semitism. Not against Corbyn himself, who is universally regarded as a thoroughly decent man. Instead the attacks are classic “guilt by association” tactics, in which Corbyn is alleged to have shared a platform with various objectionable characters whom he has then been pressed to denounce or disavow—by groups and individuals who have been happily doing Benjamin Net- anyahu’s dirty work for years.

Outside the DNC:

As a self-identified representative from Lyndon LaRouche’s LaRouchePAC handed out literature criticizing the Clinton administration’s repeal of Glass-Steagall, and protesters struck up a rendition of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are-A Changin’,” security guards stood outside, helping some DNC staffers get in and out of the building.

AND…

The crowd was about two-thirds supporters of former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (whose failed administration, which imposed taxes on rainwater, lost his state to the GOP in 2014), and one-third supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), with a couple of Lyndon Larouche fans on the sidelines to promote their arcane economic theologies.

And We’ll find out soon enough how much of the vote Brian Gray, larouchite for Canadian office, does.

Senator Michael Bennett — Skull and Bones?

And, as I pursue this line of inquiry in the search phrases for this blog, as always…

Well, he did go to Yale.  And was in some fraternity as an undergraduate elsewhere.  But the same search that brought this page up should answer the question further — or, the wikipedia page of prominent figures from Skull and Bones does the trick… and the answer is… no.

This strikes me as a little … odd… as I was leafing through the New York Times …

In our present Gilded Age, private collection museums are again proliferating, but with a difference.

Yes, it’s in an article on arts and entertainment, but nonetheless it’s not in the editorial page.  Just a very matter of fact statement…

“Gilded Age”…

People have deemed every post Gilded Age proper age as the news “Gilded Age”, and I suppose have been right at each and every juncture, and there is a “hrm” on the rise of Donald Trump to the top of a political heap…

I like the implications herein, on what is behind a fall in crime amongst the youth…

As a digital native, or “screenager” (someone who can’t recall a time before the Internet), Henlin says, “Technology is ruling our lives.” Although he admits all that screen time can breed laziness, he sees it as a useful diversion. “Before electronics, people were forced to go outside to have fun, but that’s why there were more problems on the streets,” he says. “Nowadays, with electronics, you can play, like, a fighting game on PS3. When you play games, you can cause trouble on that. You can cause trouble and not actually get in trouble.”

Love this kid, thinking about the problems of the Dark Days before his time when … you had to go outside to seek your fun.

But when Tom Stamatakis, a former police constable in Vancouver for 19 years, is asked for his theory, one of the first things he talks about is technology. “Perhaps, generations ago, when [young people] weren’t as engaged with technology as they are now, you’d have to go out to find entertainment, as opposed to staying in your home and getting into Xbox or being engaged with your friends through social media,” he says.

Don’t make up your own fun.  Let others make your fun for you.  Though that doesn’t explain why television didn’t create a great slow-down in crime… maybe kids just get bored with television more quickly than Xbox?  (Or, the three network universe versus today’s hundreds — thousands — and youtube.)

Or… Why drive around busting up people’s mailboxes when you can bust up pixels?
Yes, it sounds all very productive, and conducive to leaving a vast legacy for the human race.  We can extend it all age groups… the future is crime-free, as soon as the future becomes all in our heads.
Whatever it takes to keep the kids from anything that might lend itself, three or four steps away, from harm.

Well, sorry, but Bob Corker just decided to say “no“.  What can you do?

Mr. Obama’s triumph in securing the deal — without the support of a single member of the party now in control of Congress — is refashioning the definition of victory for a waning presidency in the era of divided government.

This… may or may not be the case???  I don’t know… it does put a “what the heck?” thought as the (small) weekly Friday protest marches with the “No War On Iran” sign, even if the signs about Israel remain germane enough.  (The next step in Obama’s plan is to commit more money for Israel.)  Things are beyond partisan d and partisan r on both counts.

But I’m curious about the next statement.

While bipartisan victories tend to be those most celebrated outside of Washington, success by the president is now often measured more by the scope of the policy achieved than by any claim of sweeping consensus.

Bipartisan victories … most celebrated outside of Washington…

Hrm.  I suppose the trade agreement, which Obama won by going to Republican support against Democratic opposition was…
… celebrated?

Actually what you find is that bipartisan victories are most celebrated inside Washington… David Brooks will applaud.  A Gang of Seven will be heralded.  And you can sneer at the partisans.

John Kerry? He meets some guy with the Carlyle Group and… that’s enough to stick him in the current stock news freed about “furious searches” for some anti-Clinton anti-Sanders Democrat.  Sooo…  This sums it all up about right.

The New York Times reports today that “some” Democrats were “intrigued” by a meeting Kerry had with billionaire David Rubenstein recently, a person the Times describes as “the sort of Washington wise man Mr. Kerry might consult if he were mulling another run.”

That’s about the extent of the evidence presented that Kerry wants to be president, or that people would vote for him.

The Times cites “friends” saying he has no interest in another run. The Secretary of State and former U.S. Senator from Massachusetts has repeatedly said he has “zero” interest in a presidential campaign and that he has no inklings to get into the race.

No kidding?

And then there’s this obvious comment, as speculators speculate furiously…

Still, Mr. Biden, Mr. Kerry and Mr. Gore have lost presidential bids before and are hardly guaranteed party saviors — or more popular than Mrs. Clinton among important demographic groups like women, African-Americans and Hispanics.

There is that, isn’t there?
Oh, and … Joseph Biden… who … seems to be the only person not in the race who might end up in the race, and as always it is worth pondering his actual political history.  (Jim Webb’s history, sans the symbolic Confederate Flag concern, is better at the issues concerning “Black Lives Matter” than Biden’s history.)

Does the conversion of Stephen Colbert from “Stephen Colbert”, from a host in character to a host…

…represent that long since claimed and foretold “Death of Irony” that has been a staple theme of commentary since… who the Hell knows?