The only thing I know for certain… my only firm opinion coming out of the great big Kavanaugh hearings …

Dianne Feinstein sucks.

I think I can float one principle here: the nature of a last minute eleventh hour “October Surprise” revelation of even the most credible and heinous of accusations of sexual improprieties in a partisan entrenched environment… breeds cynicism.  It’s why I was wincing at the local alt weekly’s glib cutesy cut off snub printing of a letter positing the “mighty suspicious coming only now” line on Roy Moore.  (That and a false victory narrative against Trump where the polls had Moore behind by 10 points and then pulling even with the aid of Trump’s backing).  Understand, in that case I didn’t have any reason to believe that the eleventh hour allegations were sat on through the Republican primary where it may have served to get the more sure Republican on into the Senate.  (Joe Trippi has a contrary view on how that Alabama senate race played out, but also an election narrative to create for a client in Mississippi.)

But here.  Feinstein doesn’t broach the topic, moving through avenues available for her during those 9th and 10th hours — since August –  and possibly privately… which would have risked not gaining (potentially) a maximum political points for this whole thing… and may have granted Murkowski and Collins the chance to step off the Republican reservation and given Trump the chance to then switch to that “anti-choice” Federalist Society woman he had floated for the eventual placement as Justice on the Supreme Court.

Now we’re trapped in an interesting conundrum.  The looming “He Said / She Said”.  Everyone sits in their epistemological bubble, the issue divided by party and gender — and everyone sits picking the arguments from the other side that they find most mockable or exasperating.

“She has nothing to gain here”.  Sure.    Except we just went through a (now made utterly moot and pointless) process of political grand standing with Senators declaring themselves Spartacus and fathers of school shooting victims throwing themselves at Kavanaugh and acting shocked at a confused response.  Such were the existential stakes.

And now he puts up his long winded “Family Man” status and long record of women clerk hires and upstanding citizen — at least since high school — and she puts up the memoirs of regrettable drunken party culture from the only other person who was on that scene.  (And, yes, sadly, it’s possible that it just wasn’t a big enough thing in his life to remember this one.)
And, yes, Stephen Colbert gets a little too cute with his Chuck Grassley “take down / evisceration.”  (Arguably maybe even Orrin Hatch — we are in a “Made up your mind” mode.)

Yes.  Circumstantial evidence is suggestive of the high possibility.  Sure, Kavanaugh’s letter signed from a bunch of women from his high school years is implausible.  And, yes, Trump is now having to set aside his crass rules of “Always on the attack” line to join in with some fine point needling, with a host of lawyers and pundits and politicos now studying close up and counting any slight transgressions… (“Call her by her name!”)

And therein lies the problem.

A certain irony.  If there’s any political backlash on this rebounding against Democrats and Democratic women, as opposed to what’s probably mostly a head wind supporting them nationwide, it’d fall on perhaps the two most vulnerable “red state” Democrats of the six who are in the “Trump Country not running wholly with the national party” status — and unlike most of the others haven’t a firm enough established brand –  Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Claire McCaskill of Missouri.  It may not work much for the others either.  Remember, this electorate has already proven to be unimpressed by the the “Hollywood Star laden reading the repeating script” ad model.

I really wish I had noted something about Maria Butina at the time her story about being an alleged honeypot for the Russians in ensnaring the NRA and NRA backed politicos…

… which was that the story her lawyer professed on NPR…

of a maybe naive Russian right wing populist Putin lover who wanted to expand a gun culture from America to Russia and so circled in those circles…

… and who could get a little cheeky with her texting for easy misinterpretations.

Actually did indeed sound credible.  Maybe it’s because of some books on modern Russian culture I’ve been reading that allows me to identify her as a “type”.

As it were, this charge has been dropped, and the wacky hijinx of the sensationalist story that has everything Trump era liberals have as a boogey man and fits into assumptions of targeted enemies… remains in the archives of Stephen Colbert and “NRA is awfully silent” stories that pop up at the top when you look up her name.

Now I’m just a white guy with not much interest in hip hop or rap, but I do have one observation to make here… Apparently taking exception to has been Eminem versus whomever MGK…

Rap beefs are, as a rule, bad. The name is corny to write and even cornier to say out loud. Compared to feuds that shaped the genre – Notorious B.I.G. and 2Pac representing their East and West coast factions of rap, Jay-Z and Nas warring to be the king of New York, Kanye West and 50 Cent’s album sales face-off – rap beefs landing in the headlines lately are more often petty and inconsequential. […]

That’s apparently the state of hip-hop drama in 2018 – fully-grown men accusing one another of suspect ear piercings. 

If someone were forcing me to have to pick sides and have a choice in which battle I’d be forced to pick sides in, I’d go with a tie for first place on JAy-Z and Nas and Kanye West and 50 Cent and Eminem and MGK… before I’d chose a side on the big battle between BIGGIE and 2Pac…

Consequential as that one is…

Something about a wanton murder turns me off from “picking sides” on aesthetics.

Meanwhile, The Nation covers the latest waves and the politics of the new taking over the old…

Rico Nasty’s latest album, Nasty, dropped in mid-June, and it is nothing short of a declaration that it’s time for the existing order to be upended. “Bitch I’m charged up!” Nasty yells in “Bitch I’m Nasty”:

Bitches wanna beef, get you burnt up, I am the best, bar none
And I’m screamin’, “Fuck Trump! Black girls, stand up!”
Bitch I’m nasty, and I don’t give a fuck like, what is classy?
Smokin’ on cat pee and my voice is raspy
I know these hoes can’t stand me […]

Hm.  Okay?  The article goes on to diss Kanye West, who we knew would be undone by his odd comments favoring Trump.

But nonetheless.  Behold.  The new political voice of the generation.  And reading the lyrics it I’m reminded of something…

you know… if that’s speaking to the current Trump administration… it occurs to me that not enough has been said about how Akinyele’s song “Put it In Your Mouth” succinctly summed up the second term of the Clinton Administration.

“Was wearing nikes.  And suddenly realized I was in a conservative state.”

And so goes the politicization of every damned thing anywhere.  And it becomes ironic, that conservative and Republican outlets go about linking to some left or liberal outlets pointing out the strange dichotomy here: leaving aside that nike’s ceo donates to (and votes for) Republicans, we move to a litany of old complaints on nike’s corporate culture — sweat-shops, the boy’s network that once allowed Reebok to make some serious in-roads and now has exposed a litany of sexual harassment complaints, heck!  Maybe even an old line against consumer culture itself.

Still, to wear nikes under the “Colin Kaepernick” ad (The Great Back- up quarterback denied his back up job due to his political stance…  not that there’s anything wrong with being a back up quarterback, after all one just won the Superbowl, but this is a perpetual bee in my bonnet in Kaerpenick discussions)… particularly in a conservative state (Idaho?  Utah?) … is a political statement of progressive values.

So what is this crap?  I suppose nike sees the market skewing young, I suppose nike sees the market skewing global.  But there’s a feat here that reminds me of how I’ve read Russia is managed by Putin and his oligarchs– you have your oppositional forces — who are concerted stereotypes… an old looking Communist Party hack and a very urban hipster looking liberal, a silly looking nationalist… arguing over cultural matters.  The funding stems from the same sources.  They’re quite fine with the urban hipster liberal taking on the cause of gay rights — because he’s in an “other” box for the Russian masses.  See too the facebook ads Russia propagated… across the political spectrum, big fans of Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump — and two sides against the center.

The next odd thing about the Colin Kaeperneck ad… and associated commentary… is we’re getting the question posed out in pundit land … “How will this affect the mid-term elections?”  Because of course we have to ask that damnedable question.  Two manners you go with this… exciting the Trump Republican base in that host of states incumbent Democratic Senators are holding off in Trump Country, as against distracting Republicans in those states as too suburban House districts from seguing from the Trump circus to the their economic message of prosperity.  Maybe it’s part of the (Republican) Nike CEO’s master plan in keeping the Senate and House and screwing over Jon Tester and Phil Breseden?

Alan Watts, The Book, 74-75, 1966

A Hindu treatise on the art of government, the Arthashastra, lays down the rules of policy for the complete tyrant, describing the orginization of his palace, his court, and his state in such fashion as to make Machiavelli seem a liberal. The first rule is that he must trust no one, and be without a single intimate friend. Beyond this, he must organize his government as a series of concentric circles composed of the various ministers, generals, officers, secretaries, and servants who execute his orders, every circle constituting a degree of rank leading up to the king himself at the center like a spider in its web. Beginning with the circle immediately surrounding the king, the circles must consist alternately of his natural enemies and his natural friends. Because the very highest rank of princes will be plotting to seize the king’s power, they must be surrounded and watched by a circle of ministers eager to gain the king’s favor—and this hierarchy of mutually mistrusting circles must go all the way out to the fringe of the web. Divide et impera— divide and rule.

Meanwhile, the king remains in the safety of his inmost apartments, attended by guards who are in turn watched by other guards hidden in the walls. Slaves taste his food for poison, and he must sleep either with one eye open or with his door firmly locked on the inside. In case of a serious revolution, there must be a secret, underground passage giving him escape from the center—a passage containing a lever which will unsettle the keystone of the building and bring it crashing down upon his rebellious court. The Arthashastra does not forget to warn the tyrant that he can never win. He may rise to eminence through ambition or the call of The web catches the spider.  He cannot wander at leisure in the streets and parks of his own capital, or sit on a lonely beach listening to the waves and watching the gulls. Through enslaving others he himself becomes the most miserable of slaves.

So.  Who wrote the anonymous New York Times article (where… hm… someone’s “resisting” the Trump administration from the “inside” in order to… um… aid him in — successfully — implementing Republican policies?)?  Take your bets now.  Mark Pence has the lead — due to entertainment value in the concept and use of the word “lodestar”.

Worth flagging.

Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff……

Yeah.  It was round about this.  Which is a hoax, or something.

I do have to note the final … six periods… indicative of something?  (Wait for it, Jeff Sessions…… You know what’s coming, Jeff Sessions……

Noted:

So far, the total conservative congressional outcry seems to come from Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, and Michigan Rep. Justin Amash.

Noted to what effect, I am not sure.  I suppose Jon Kyl now joins the vaguely amorphous “Republican willing to take a shot here or there at Trump”, soon simply replacing Flake, holding in stead of McCain’s seat.

Years ago, round about 2001 or 2002, I’d hear Alex Jones appear with Clyde Lewis and ramble on about the building of internment — or maybe even concentration — camps — across the empty space of the American West, where the big THEY will in the near future be holding patriotic dissidents of the New World Order.  Perhaps Mr. Jones had a premonition of ICE facilities with migrant / illegal immigrants but his vision was just foggy enough not to take note of details relating to skin tone.

Alex Jones makes for an ironic figure for a “Free Speech Martyr”, but then again you’re always stuck on hypocrisy as a lesser problem, and you’re never holding up the man/woman anyways as anything special.  It’s almost the point and not beside the point.  He literally petitioned the White House (Obama Administration) to deport Piers Morgan for the crime of holding a different opinion on gun control.

Lay it aside as you dice the scrambling of issues thrown out… I’m stuck on a repetitive mantra, where he’s throwing a few things out there and it seems something where he has a host of things listed for listeners to pick up at least one on depending on their political views and biases — how many times in the course of a few hours can he jam in “Judith Miller on wmds”? … a curious question arises — did not know Judith Miller won the Pulitzer, but apparently she did (or, part of the team*)… though not on her Iraq coverage… though… the muddled point still remains, if… floating in as a non-sequitur to not say anything about his controversies.

Reasonably decent points made here or there — once upon a time, a tirade about gay (or hermaphrodite) frogs, reportedly strung off of Democracy Now environmental distress story… a couple minutes clipped out of multiple hours spoken a day for decades… and…  see too the narrowing for whatever he has said on Sandy Hook… hey!  It’s one thing I had … briefly… and was it a guest?

Still a bit of shaky ground for “speculative” commentary for Sandy Hook truthism.  He will be on firmer ground when we get around to Parkland in that… there is a conspiracy we’re working off of… too apt to extrapolate into nonsense… the same few kids who learned some telegenic and media savvy tricks from working in the school’s drama department hooked up with some political activists to promote their gun control agenda/stance.  And, victims that they are, they are not sacrosanct and all knowing.  But then again, they’re not the ones suing Jones.

Clyde Lewis disappoints.  Maybe?  Or maybe we’re a ways away from the “Old Portland”.  It’s where he speaks of the voices you must continue to listen to … combating the NWO and eta al… a list that includes George Noory and Alex Jones (put them with Lewis into a special radio format, I suppose), and then Glen Beck and Michael Savage (each speaking in their own ways on the issues with their own points of views) and then… Lars Larson?

I suppose it would be more Rick Emerson who was mocking Lars, but I’m not hearing much from him other than standard partisan positioning of the type he’s otherwise blasting away on.  George Noory may have settled into something other than a kind of rival (I did notice he passed on well wishing for Clyde’s wife recently), but once upon a time Lewis would’ve blasted him as putting you to sleep.  As for the others…

… actually I’m stuck on Lars and only Lars.

I do have one theory on the likes of Alex Jones, and some of his conspiranoial compatriots, on their relationship with the current President Trump.  They’re behaving in the manner a lot of voting blocs end up behaving — Trump gives them a little attention — just a little, mind you — and they take it and give them a full support that overlooks or excuses some of what they’d otherwise be blasting away on.

………………………..

* Wikipedia has its uses, and its uses include this.  But overall, tread carefully.