Tag: Jeb Bush

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Cohen Touts Hillary at Opening of Local Campaign HQ

CREDIT: JB

JB

Cohen at Clinton HQ opening. Note that the cardboard cut-out of Hillary (far right, back) appears to be smiling at the congressman’s words of support.

If Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush goes looking for some kind of satisfaction this weekend, he may have to settle for a backhanded compliment from 9th District Democratic congressman Steve Cohen of Memphis.

Addressing Hillary Clinton supporters at the formal opening of local Clinton-for-President headquarters on Poplar Avenue Thursday night, Cohen gave a serious of harsh reviews of other GOP field presidential contenders (Example: “Marco Rubio, he’s a Barbie doll. They tell him what to say, and he smiles.”)

Then, by way of acknowledging that Bush, whose polling numbers have been consistently low, could be experiencing his last stand in this weekend’s Republican presidential primary in South Carolina, Cohen said, “It’s unfortunate that probably their best candidate is Jeb Bush.”

“Best of a bad lot” was roughly the connotation had in mind. In making the case for Clinton apropos the advent of early voting for the March 1 “Super Tuesday” primary in Tennessee and numerous other states, Cohen scourged the GOP presidential field in general as being threats to “women’s rights, voting rights, union rights, everything that has to with the fiber of the middle class , and the things we’ve fought for.”

The congressman was much kinder toward Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s opponent in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. Noting that Sanders, whose Memphis supporters have also opened a local office on Poplar, a short distance away, is making a race of it in the primaries, Cohen said, “Bernie Sanders is my friend, I’ve worked with him on many issues.”

He said that he and Sanders have co-sponsored a number of bills and made numerous joint appearances for various causes, but that, in most of those cases, “we haven’t been successful, because we see things in a big way,” and, given the realities in Congress, most of those things “are not going to happen.”

“Don’t say anything bad about Bernie Sanders,” Cohen cautioned the 75 or so Clinton supporters crowded into the office’s front room. “We want all those Sanders people to work with us, come the fall.”

Cohen began his remarks with the good tidings of an endorsement of candidate Clinton from U.S. Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, an African-American luminary and assistant Democratic leader in the House of Representatives.

The opening of the local Sanders office took place last Saturday and drew more than 100 people, many of them in the “millennial” age group. Matt Kuhn of the Sanders campaign had addressed that group.

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Cover Feature News

Making a President 2016

MUSINGS FROM MANCHESTER AND MEMPHIS — Not to overstate the omens, but the past two weeks have seen some lousy weather, both in New Hampshire, whose presidential primary accomplished some crucial winnowing down of the candidate field, and here in Tennessee, where voters get to make what could be an even more defining choice in less than two weeks.

In the meantime, along with more cold, rainy weather, and maybe even some sleet and snow, we are quite likely to get some close encounters with the candidates — like Donald J. Trump, the reality TV star and Manhattan real estate mogul, who, on the eve of the New Hampshire voting, addressed a rally of his supporters with the following exhortation: “I want to finish up, because you’ve got a bad evening out there. You have to do me a favor. I don’t really care if you get hurt or not, but I want you to last ’til tomorrow. So don’t get hurt!” 

That characteristically cheeky bit of tough love was uttered at the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, before an audience of thousands who had crammed into the arena on the night of what Trump, more or less accurately, had called a blizzard, one which, he had proclaimed upon arriving late, had caused at least seven accidents outside.

Hillary Clinton among the crowd at Henniker

Not that Trump’s exhortation had been his most memorable statement of the night. Just minutes earlier, following half an hour or more of heady ego-tripping boasts (all free of any taint of political-platform logic), The Donald lambasted Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican rival Ted Cruz for taking issue with the “tone” of his stump speeches. Whereupon, via a reference to Cruz’s performance at a just-concluded debate event of GOP candidates, Trump upped the verbal ante.

TRUMP: “They asked Ted Cruz a serious question: ‘What do you think about waterboarding?’ and, I said, OK, honestly, I thought he would say, ‘Absolutely.’ And he didn’t. He said, ‘Well …’ You know he was concerned about the answer because some people …” 

Distracted by a woman supporter in one of the front rows, Trump interrupted himself. Pointing to the woman, he said, “She just said a terrible thing. You know what she said? Shout it out, because I don’t want to say …” 

WOMAN: “He’s a pussy!” 

TRUMP (chuckling): “OK. You’re not allowed to say … and I never expect to hear that from you again. She said … (mock scolding tone) … I never expect to hear that from you again…” (crowd now chuckling along with him) … She said, ‘He’s a pussy!'” 

What ensued from the crowd, not all of whom had heard the interloper distinctly but all of whom now heard Trump loud and clear, was first shock, then awe, then delight, then pandemonium and chants of “TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!” It was Donald Trump’s latest Gettysburg moment in his campaign to Make America Great Again. 

It would surely be a waste if the surprise front-runner in Republican ranks should — in the interval between now and Tuesday, March 1st, when Tennessee and almost a dozen other states hold primary or caucus events — choose to bypass Memphis, known to music-lovers and NBA fans alike as a citadel of Grit ‘n’ Grind, wide open to down-homey talk and artists of the vernacular.
Caucuses in Nevada and primaries in South Carolina will have intervened between now and March 1st, and each of those states will have had an effect on candidate fortunes, but nothing comparable to the scale of what will happen on “Super Tuesday,” as the date is called on the 2016 political calendar.

By the close of voting on March 1st, we should know if Trump has maintained his edge over Texas Senator Cruz, a chilly avatar of the hard right almost as unpopular with the GOP establishment as Trump himself, the grand interloper, and we should know also which one of the three establishment-friendly candidates — former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and Ohio governor John Kasich — has been able to survive for an expected three-way battle that could last all the way ’til July, when the Republican National Convention convenes in Cleveland.

There’s an ongoing battle between Democratic contenders, too — former First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and septuagenarian Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-professed “democratic socialist” whose advent as a serious competitor in 2016 has been as breathtakingly unexpected as was Trump’s, but whose proposed reform policies are as rigorously defined as Trump’s are amorphous.

Both Trump and Sanders are considered outliers, both have developed bona fide followings, and both have been identified by political pundits, somewhat lazily, as exponents of an undefined “anger” in the body politic. The term may fairly characterize Trump’s generalized complaint that “we [Americans] don’t win at anything any more,” and Hillary Clinton has attached it to Sanders in a widely publicized sound bite suggesting that anger is all well and good, but “Where’s the plan?”

Arguably, Sanders’ plan is fairly specific. Among other things, his version of a “political revolution” would provide for free education at public colleges, universal health care (under the rubric “Medicare for All”), a return to strict controls over both political spending and banking practices, and a crash program to renew the nation’s infrastructure. All this to be paid for in large part by “a tax on Wall Street speculation.”

It may be pie in the sky, as Clinton and her supporters imply, since it is hard to see how any program so thorough-going could make its way past Republican road blocks in Congress. But it is real pie, all the same. Or, to amend the metaphor, food-wise, it is whole-loaf reform, reasonably close to everything the term “socialism” implies.

It is no accident that Bill Clinton, spouse of candidate Clinton and a former president who still commands wide popularity, both within Democratic ranks and without, played off on that metaphor last week during a hastily called rally for his wife in Memphis, citing a saying of another former Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, that anyone who would spurn half a loaf “has never been hungry.”

It is no accident, either, that former president Clinton chose to come to Memphis in the run-up to Super Tuesday. Hillary Clinton’s game plan is to prevail here and in other so-called “SEC’ [for Southeastern Conference] states on March 1st, thereby putting a comfortable distance between herself and Sanders (who tied her in the Iowa caucuses and beat her soundly in New Hampshire), and to do so largely on the basis of massive support from black voters, whose loyalty to the Clintons has been assumed for the last generation and a half.

Bernie Sanders lays out his plan for a revolution

Whereas Sanders is correctly considered a socialist (though hardly in the now-obsolete Marxist-Leninist sense of the term), Clinton is with equal appropriateness best considered a liberal. Her politics are avowedly those of compromise, and in several different senses of that word. As her husband pointed out in last week’s Memphis rally (held at Whitehaven High School), she is one who can work across the aisle (or, as the former president put it, can “stand her ground” while seeking “common ground”). President Clinton cited as an example her cosponsorship, with arch-conservative GOP House majority leader Tom DeLay, of legislation to facilitate post-infancy adoptions.

And Secretary Clinton is, for better or for worse, willing to render unto Caesar —accepting the insurance-company proprietorship and not quite universal health-care coverage of the Affordable Care Act as the continuing basis of health-care reform, and advocating the means-testing of college tuition aid rather than blanket guarantees of free education, while endorsing both choices as limited but feasible in their application. She is consistently faulted by Sanders for her acceptance of both large speaking fees from organizations like the Goldman Sachs financial house and campaign assistance from a “Super-PAC.”

For all that, there is significant policy overlap between the two Democrats, both of whom seek significant criminal justice reform, a raise in the minimum wage, and workplace equality for women, while approving same-sex marriage.

Jeb Bush putters along at Salem

There is a sameness of outlook among the Republicans, too, along with some distinguishing gradations. All by himself, Trump largely scuttled the GOP’s expressed resolve, after the party’s debacle in the 2012 presidential race, to court the nation’s growing Latino vote. When on June 16th, at his own Trump Tower in New York, he rode down on an escalator for a ceremonial announcement of candidacy, Trump also descended into a round of vigorous bashing of Mexicans as rapists and boundary breakers.

When his invective not only did not damn his candidacy but instead resulted in good poll numbers, the other Republican candidates basically followed suit, and stiff-necked resistance to any form of immigration reform is now a given among them, including the two sons of Cuban emigres, Cruz and Rubio, the latter of whom had once sponsored, but has since renounced, a path to legalization for selected illegal immigrants.

Other aspects of the GOP candidates’ litany include a resolve to terminate “Obamacare,” their preferred name for the Affordable Care Act; a pro-life stance on abortion; continued tax cuts for the corporate sector; opposition to same-sex marriage; holding the line on the minimum wage; and condemnation of the deal reached with Iran, forestalling that country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons while phasing out economic sanctions against it.

Of the Republicans still running, only Kasich, who finished a respectable second to Trump in New Hampshire, attempts to take moderate versions of these positions or to suggest that bipartisan solutions are still possible, and he tends to avoid the ritual Hillary and Obama-bashing of the others, which is virulent and nonstop. That fact, plus his relatively cash-poor status, probably doom him to lose the battle with Bush and Rubio for the establishment-backed position in a final three-way for the nomination with Trump and Cruz.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio is a Republican Ichabod Crane

Rubio, who had been considered a rising star after his strong third-place finish in Iowa, sagged in the polls after being all but eviscerated in the last New Hampshire debate by the now-absent New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who played Brom Bones bully-boy to Rubio’s Ichabod Crane, not only exposing Rubio’s tendency to repeat his own talking points, parrot-like, but actually unnerving the Floridian into doing so. It remains to be seen whether Rubio, who made a strong comeback in last weekend’s South Carolina debate, can regain his former status.

The real unknown quantity is Jeb Bush, yet another scion of a dynastic GOP clan, who hasn’t won, placed, or showed yet in any poll or vote for the record but putters along in striking range on the strength of his blue-ribbon connections, the family name, and enough of a campaign bankroll to hang in, right up to what could turn out to be an old-fashioned brokered convention.

If Trump and Sanders had not existed, they might have had to be invented. The mere presence of these two outliers in the 2016 presidential race, not to mention their wholly unanticipated viability, has utterly confounded the expectations of party regulars and the pundit class.

Sanders’ vision of a revolution directed at what he sees as control of the social and political process by an oligarchy has not only generated the beginning of a movement among Democrats and independents, it has had unexpected resonance in Republican ranks as well — and where you would least expect to find it.

The first week of February, which was also the last week of the New Hampshire primary, was an especially brutal one, weather-wise. Temperatures flirted with single digits all week (they would eventually get there), snow fell in four- or five-foot heaps almost everywhere, visibility largely vanished along with the day’s light, and ice coated the state’s highways and walkways in thick and perilous veneers.

One reason for the New Hampshire primary’s historical relevance has been the state’s relatively small size, with most of the major towns and cities located in its southern rim, a circumstance that makes candidates and their campaign events unusually accessible to anyone who cares to seek them out.

What is remarkable is that, even when the weather was at its most treacherous, people still turned out in droves, not only New Hampshire natives, but imports from neighboring and even distant states, all anxious to catch the final act of this quadrennial New England drama.

I found this out on Friday, February 5th, when I decided to brave the elements and check out a Ted Cruz town hall in a school gymnasium some six miles from my Red Roof Inn in Salem, New Hampshire, hard by the border with Massachusetts. Creeping along on the moonless night with a death grip on the steering wheel of my rental car, I finally got to the site after a half hour’s driving along roadways that the town’s fleet of snowplows were even then trying to work in shape.

I was astonished to find that, even on this night and even for Cruz, who was not considered a real contender in the primary despite his victory in the previous week’s Iowa caucuses and so heavily influenced by religious fundamentalists, there was a turnaway crowd, with no parking available except on especially slippery side streets, blocks away.

Once inside, I found a place in an overflow room and heard Cruz go through his usual hard-nosed litany of conservative positions on social, fiscal, international, and philosophical issues. But Cruz — yes, Cruz — has a populist side as well. He spoke to his crowd of wanting to rebuild “the old Reagan coalition,” one composed of “conservatives, evangelicals, libertarians, Reagan Democrats, and young people.” Because, as he said, “you’ve got to build a broad and diverse coalition to win.”

Ted Cruz with supporters at Salem

All of that was standard boilerplate, but then came a statement from Cruz that was downright shocking — and a key to his wiliness as well as a partial explanation for his better-than-expected electoral success so far. He mentioned Bernie Sanders, he of the youthful following and the resounding call with which Sanders begins each speech: “I think you want a political revolution.”

Said Cruz to his true believers: “I agree with a lot of what Bernie says about the problem, that Washington is fundamentally corrupt, that politicians are on the take, that the system is rigged for the giant corporations and Wall Street. I agree with all of that. Where I disagree with Bernie is in the solution. If government is corrupt, the answer isn’t a heck of a lot more government.”

OK, so those last two sentences amount to a rhetorical bait and switch — a take-out, away from the idea of radical public action toward old-fashioned notions of laissez-faire. The point is that Cruz, too, can sense the revolution in the air. It means something that even this dark knight of the right can recognize it.

It means something, too, that Trump, the same Trump who in last Saturday’s GOP debate unloosed the kind of intense attack on the G.W. Bush administration’s “lies” about WMDs in Iraq that most partisan Democrats have shied away from (think John Kerry … or Hillary) … that that Donald Trump begins and ends his speeches to the opening guitar strains of the Beatles’ “Revolution.”

Who knows? Maybe, lousy weather or no in this often toxic political season, some version of that hopey-changey stuff so decried by Sarah Palin might just win out after all.

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Opinion The Last Word

Zingers and Jello

CREDIT: Reuters | Kyodo

Those North Koreans do the darndest things. Now they’ve gone and launched another missile of some sort. Thankfully, this time they didn’t cause an earthquake in their own country, as they did back in January, when they reportedly tested a hydrogen bomb, apparently in an effort to build up an arsenal to bomb the United States. I don’t know exactly why, but I laughed myself off the edge of my bed when I heard that one.

I don’t think I will ever understand why there are people in the world who live just to make other people miserable. Terrorists, gangs, bigots, serial killers — the list goes on and on. Why do some people choose to be horrible instead of just trying to be happy and spread that happiness? It’s a lofty thought, and the world is an incredibly complicated place, but still, why wake up each day and think of ways to be horrible?

Reuters | Kyodo

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un

This is one of the reasons I try not to watch the news about the presidential campaign going on (and on and on and on and on and on and on) right now. I feel bad that I don’t have much interest in it, but I just see it as a pile of goons grandstanding for their own ego-driven interests.

The GOP debates would be entertaining, at the very least, except none of the candidates appear really interested in doing anything to improve society as we know it. They just want to gnaw on each other and come up with “zingers.”

I actually saw a professional television news commentator ask Jeb Bush why he didn’t come up with any “zingers” after one of the debates. Of course, poor Jeb appears to be in a walking coma most of the time, so how would he come up with “zingers?” I did actually crack up when, after Jeb got his mother Barbara Bush to get out and stump for him a little, Donald Trump made fun of him bringing out his mommy and making her walk in the snow. Why is Jeb Bush still even in the election? And who is John Kasich? I keep seeing him in the lineup, but I honestly had never heard of him. I see in my search that he is the governor of Ohio. Is this man really a viable candidate for president of the United States?

And why did the Donald have to go and resurrect Sarah Palin? Why bother her when she is busy dealing with her son’s domestic violence issues and his arrest (all of which she blamed on, of course, Barack Obama)? Why not leave her to her hunting and gathering in the woods? Donald, please don’t make us relive having her on the news a lot. She’s still as gross as she always was, and her endorsement of you didn’t do you too much good in Iowa. Leave it alone, and just tease Jeb about his mommy.

And why the hell does the opinion of Iowans mean so much to the political process? I’ve never understood that one. Iowa is probably the least diverse state in the country. It’s almost all white and mostly rural. I secretly think that no one really lives in Iowa and the campaign people just ship people in for the caucuses during presidential elections.

The whole process is just strange. The people who are reportedly residents of Iowa (I still don’t believe anyone really lives there) gather at local spots in each county, including schools, churches, and individual’s homes (thank you, Wikipedia!). So, to the best of my understanding, all of these rural white people huddle up and try to figure out who they want to win the presidential primary. And they seem to eat a lot of food items that are stuffed. Like big, nasty stuffed flapjacks and fried bread stuffed with cabbage. I feel certain they also indulge in their fair share of Jell-O with canned fruit.

But back to their caucuses, food notwithstanding. They gather and talk about the pros and cons of the candidates, but they do it differently for Republicans than they do for Democrats. Ya think that’s a red flag? And apparently, if there’s a tie, they flip a coin. Fortunately, it’s not just all tater tot casseroles (sorry, there I go again) and secret voting. They actually did give Barack Obama 98 percent of their votes, or delegates, or whatever it is, the last time. But the caucus winner in the Republican caucus the same year was Rick Santorum. Ick.

So why Iowa, and, for that matter, why New Hampshire? Again, approximately 94 percent white. I’m not saying white people don’t know what they’re doing, but why choose almost white-only states for these important elections to reflect the diversity of the country? Why not have the caucuses in New York or California? What am I missing here?

Admit it. Have you ever actually met someone who was from Iowa? I don’t think I ever have. Nor have I ever met anyone from North Korea. I would like to meet some people from these places to get their take on what really goes on there. In the meantime, I’m going to find a way to cast my presidential vote for the late New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

New Year’s Revolution

CREDIT: Jhansen2 | Dreamstime.com

Jhansen2 | Dreamstime.com

The Bern

If Bernie Sanders can somehow win the Democratic nomination, and Donald Trump is chosen as the GOP presidentialApprentice reality show contestant, it will be interesting to see an election between a socialist and a fascist.

Of course, most voters don’t know the difference between a Social Democrat and a Marxist, but I give extra points to anyone who knows who Marx is, and I don’t mean Groucho. Since the term “socialism” is often associated with the Soviet Union, or those evil European countries where they just give away their health care like that, any candidate running under that label already has two strikes against them right away. Sort of like being born with a name like Barack Hussein Obama. Socialism means major industries are owned by the government rather than by corporations or individuals. Social Democrat means someone really liberal who may soon be the front-runner of a major political party that is scared guano-less to use that term.

Discerning readers know that the United States began using socialism as soon as they set up the Pony Express. All governmental functions used for the public good are socialistic, except for all that free stuff the Democrats give away at election time like Obamaphones and abortions.

I guess nothing’s ironic any longer, but on the Republican side, Marco Rubio is giving away calculators, and Jeb Bush is sending out to a “select universe of influencers, donors, and core supporters,” digital video players with a 15-minute film called, The Jeb Story. Actually, the slickly produced videos were shipped out by Bush’s Super-Pac, Right to Rise USA, which sounds more like a Cialis commercial than the name of a slush fund. But that’s not socialistic. That’s just tiny bribes to the billionaire seraphim of the GOP.

Every time I hear an update on the gangsta cowboy vigilantes up in Oregon, I’m reminded of socialism. These armed protectors of the Constitution and their nitwit anti-bird militia don’t like government? Cut the power, the water, and WiFi, so they can’t upload any more pleas for Mountain Dew, then block the access roads and wait for the next blizzard. They even have the gall to ask that snacks and underwear be sent through the U.S. mail. Let them sit there through February, and they’ll be begging for a little socialism.

Fascism is defined as an authoritarian, right-wing system of government, led by a despot, an autocracy, or a “strong man,” and characterized by racism, xenophobia, and ultra nationalism. Speaking of Donald Trump, he trotted out the Vampira of the tea party, Sarah Palin, to endorse his candidacy during a campaign rally. She gave a long, incoherent soliloquy that was so bizarre, it inspired Tina Fey to come back for an SNL encore.

After listening to 20 minutes of Palin’s brain droppings, Trump’s expression said, “Wrap that shit up, G,” but his mouth said, “She’s really a special person.” After the Vaudeville show concluded, Trump said he would “love” to put Palin in his cabinet if elected. That should disqualify him on the spot, but nothing slows the Trump Blitzkrieg — not even the shrieking witch from Wasilla. The unemployed, half-term governor is like herpes. It’s always there just under the surface, and just when you think it’s gone, it comes back with a vengeance. In this case, her vengeance was directed at the GOP “establishment” who mocked her last time around.

Trump then announced to another rabid mob that his minions were so loyal, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose voters.” For a second, I thought this might be the equivalent of John Lennon’s “We’re more popular than Jesus” quote. It could have been worse. He might have said, “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”

I’m having a heart vs. head dilemma this election. I agree with most of Bernie Sanders’ positions, but I know in advance that he’ll be compared to Mao Zedong. I think Hillary is electable, but I’ve come down with a severe relapse of Clinton Fatigue. I knew it when she was slipping in the polls and brought out the Clinton attack machine. Even Chelsea was schlepped out of her new $10.4 million Manhattan apartment to tell lies about Sanders’ proposals and explain how he would be horrible for the working man. Suddenly, I remembered Bob Dylan’s lyrics, “What price do you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice?”

I want my country back, too — the one promised by LBJ, Martin Luther King, and the Great Society. The country that once declared war on poverty instead of drugs. I want a country that passes legislation like the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, where voting is encouraged rather than suppressed. We’re just one election and two Supreme Court Justices away, and I’m beginning to “feel the Bern.” Call him whatever you want, Sanders would be the most revolutionary president since FDR. If you really wanted to shake up our broken political system, who better than an elderly, Jewish Socialist? You could do worse.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

That Sinkhole Feeling

If I had any hair, right now it would be dyed, fried, and flipped to the side, because if I had a brain left, it would feel that way. I blame it all on Arby’s, ISIS, guns, Jeb Bush, Marie Osmond, and, more than anyone or anything, IHOP.

Yes, IHOP. I should have known I was close to snapping when I heard the headline on the news. Well, I take that back. It was when I not only heard the headline on the news but also heard a headline that it was one of five trending news stories I “needed” to follow. It was something like, “IHOP Parking Lot Collapses in Mississippi.” And I just spit coffee all over myself laughing.

See? Snapping. I didn’t even care at that moment if anyone had been injured. It was just the thought of a bunch of people having just polished off their jelly-filled, bacon-covered, cheesy pancake with sprinkles towers and all leaving at once, putting such pressure on the parking lot that it just freaking caved in.

IHOP sinkhole

And look: I’m not making fun of people with some extra poundage, because I have plenty of that myself. But come on. An IHOP parking lot in Mississippi caving in? I’m sorry, but I really don’t think that’s a story anyone needs to follow, unless it’s a sign of a sinkhole epidemic, and what the hell can you do about that?

Sinkholes. There’s another one for my list of why my brain is dyed, fried, and flipped to the side. They just happen. Giant pieces of the earth just cave in with no warning. This is why I don’t drive on bridges or interstate highways. Well, there are more reasons for that malady, but you still never know when a sinkhole is going to open up and swallow everything around it.

Wouldn’t it be something if a sinkhole … ? I’m not sure what to write here. Does a sinkhole open up, or is the sinkhole what’s there after the ground gives way? See? You’re starting to worry, aren’t you? Anyway, what if a sinkhole does whatever it does during one of the Republican presidential debates? Not that I want any of those lovely people to get physically harmed in any way, which I really don’t. But what if they were all standing there at their microphones lined up like little ducks and whining about the big ol’ mean media, and all of a sudden they just vanished? Donald Trump’s hair (talked about dyed, fried, and flipped to the side!) might fly up in the air, Ben Carson would say the same thing happened to him at West Point, Marco Rubio could expense it, and no one would even notice Jeb Bush was gone.

Ack. Never mind. They are too easy a target. They just need to go away and have their debates in private where they can just answer each other’s questions. It’s embarrassing.

So I am really snapping. I’m trying my best to laugh to keep from crying right now. I’m serious. It’s kind of hard to laugh, though (other than about IHOP’s sinkhole), if you watch the news with any regularity. In about a five-minute span the other day, there were stories about American soldiers being gunned down in Jordan, a judge in Austin, Texas, being gunned down in her driveway, and in a small town in Louisiana two off-duty police officers allegedly shot a 6-year-old child five times while he was in his father’s pickup truck, and killed him. A 6-year-old child. Let me repeat that, a 6-year-old child. Shot five times.

During the same five-minute span, there was also a news teaser about an upcoming story designed to teach people how to correctly kill another person if that person invades your home. There was a video of a woman who was seemingly having a calm conversation with a man in the Middle East, and, right in the middle of it, she pulled out a huge knife and lunged at him and stabbed him. Is this what we’ve come to? Is this IT?

I try not to get too philosophical because it hurts what’s left of my brain too much, but I’m about halfway convinced that this world is on its last legs. I don’t believe in all that stuff about heaven and hell and the second coming and floods and turning into pillars of salt, but I am really starting to wonder if we are going to just self-destruct.

Okay. Enough of that. It was hard enough to get out of bed after all that, and the last thing I need, personally, is to fixate on it. I tend to fixate on things such as how frightened I am of Marie Osmond or how insane I’m going to end up if I see one more Arby’s “We have the meats” commercial, or how, after all these centuries, the Middle East is still such a hotbed of violence. I could fixate on those things all day and never get an answer. I think I’ll just go to IHOP and sit around in the parking lot. Maybe I’ll drop in for some pancakes.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said…

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About Toby Sells’ post, “Bill Would Remove Hoover’s Name From FBI Building” …

Politicians should be focused on rewriting the future, not rewriting history.

JR Moody

Hey, who let Congressman Trey Gowdy in here?

Packrat

The name of the building should be changed. This man was a pure racist and shouldn’t be honored in this manner. If it’s history, put it in a book, not on display so an ever-changing world sees hate honored. Kudos to Representative Cohen and all who voted to end this madness.

Time Up

It is a mistake to vilify prominent gay Americans from the time before gay rights became acceptable to the mainstream. J. Edgar Hoover may not have been the most moral character in American history, but we can look back on him as a successful and powerful man who was gay and who demonstrated the falsehood of some things generally believed about gay people in that time, and some things that are said and written in this time.

It’s possible that Steve Cohen, being a straight liberal, doesn’t understand the desire of gay Americans to identify prominent (even if closeted) gay Americans in history.

Brunetto Latini

We vilify Hoover, not because he was closeted and needed to be, but because he did everything in his power to ruin the lives of gay people, closeted or not. Not because he was in the pocket of the Mafia, but because he attempted to derail civil rights for all Americans.

Hoover was a fascist lowlife who just happened to be gay.

Mia S. Kite

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s column, “Curb Alert” …

I got kicked off the Nextdoor.com site. What a bunch of uptight assholes. Absolutely no sense of humor. All I said was, “Dude, nobody wants your broken TV.” The guy was trying to sell a 50-inch broken TV for $250. For that they tossed me.

Mudgirl1

Wow, Mudgirl, I’ve never heard of anyone getting kicked off Nextdoor.com. I’m guessing my neighborhood needs to step up its game. We’re pretty snooty though, and for the most part we don’t have “curb alerts.” We do have the usual complement of paranoid “suspicious” persons alerts.

Back to topic: curb alert for the Ole Miss football season — Bwahahaha!

Jenna Sais Quoi

I am tired of Jeb Bush mouthing the falsehood that his brother kept us safe. Donald Trump has been wrong about so many things, but he is right that George W. Bush failed to keep the U. S. safe. Bush and his administration ignored warnings from the CIA and FBI of possible terrorist attacks before 9/11. He had the CIA report “Bin-Laden Determined to Strike in America” and took no actions to protect us. Not one. With the country and most of the world behind him, Bush could have focused on destroying al-Qaeda completely after 9/11.

Instead, he got us into an unnecessary war in Iraq and allowed al-Qaeda to grow stronger during his terms. Bush did not keep us safe, and Jeb Bush would be wise not to mention his brother’s name.

Philip Williams

About Bruce VanWyngarden’s column, “Memphis Makes a Change” …

Hypocrisy is another word  for dishonesty, and liberal is another word for dishonest. 

Reading The Memphis Flyer is like traveling to an alternate universe where up is down, especially when the editor decries and is “saddened” when former Mayor Herenton took “cheap shots” at A C Wharton, but mere moments before, took the cheapest of cheap shots at former governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee. 

I am no fan of Mike Huckabee, but I am also no fan of the dishonest. You chose to use the word “Christian” as if it were a four-letter word, then had the unmitigated audacity to add “sleazeball?” And you call that being “progressive,” inclusive, open-minded, and tolerant? 

You and your liberal rag are the real sleazeballs. 

Frank M. Boone

Editor’s Note: The term used to describe Huckabee was “Christianist.”

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Aborting the Truth

I was outraged Monday morning when I read the Mallard Fillmore editorial cartoon in the Commercial Appeal. That’s the “conservative” cartoon the CA runs next to “Doonesbury,” the “liberal” cartoon. “Doonesbury” has been in 1970s rerun mode for months, so the liberal point of view, cartoon-wise, anyway, consists mostly of Zonker Harris stoner jokes. Hardly a match for Mallard’s Tea Party “humor.”

On Monday, Mallard Fillmore featured the spectre of death answering the phone for Planned Parenthood. The punchline: “How may I direct your call? Sales, Service, or Parts?”

It was a reference, of course, to a recent video which purported to show Indiana Planned Parenthood officials talking about “selling” fetal tissues for medical research. Within two days, the video was debunked as a misleadingly edited political hack job. The Indiana State Department of Health investigated the video’s allegations and found “no evidence that Planned Parenthood is involved in any way in the buying or selling of tissue.”

But that hasn’t stopped GOP legislators from holding “investigations” in more than a dozen states, none of which have turned up any evidence of illegal activities by Planned Parenthood. And it hasn’t stopped 8th District Representative Stephen Fincher from using the discredited video to raise money, as he pledges to “stop funding Planned Parenthood.”

It’s happening at the national level, as well. Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, and most of the other GOP presidential wannabes are using the video to raise funds and stir up the far-right base.

And it hasn’t stopped the Commercial Appeal from publishing the patent falsehoods of Mallard Fillmore and those of numerous letter-writers who make equally specious claims. Publishing differing opinions is one thing; allowing your pages to become a forum for blatant lies is another entirely. I don’t know what they’re thinking over there.

The truth is, if you really want to stop abortion, you should make contraception as easily and readily available as possible, which is what Planned Parenthood is trying to do. Stopping abortion begins with stopping unwanted pregnancies. It’s that simple.

Here are few other facts: Only three percent of Planned Parenthood’s services involve abortion. The other 97 percent of its services include treating and testing for sexually transmitted infection and disease, contraception, screening for breast, cervical, and uterine cancer, pregnancy tests, prenatal services, adoption referrals, and urinary tract infection treatment. In other words, they’re providing much-needed medical care for those women who need it most — those most likely to incur unwanted pregnancies.

Painful as it may be to admit for abortion foes, Planned Parenthood probably prevents more abortions than it performs.

To reiterate: The Hyde Amendment already mandates that no federal funds can be used for abortion services. Planned Parenthood is not “crunching fetuses” and selling parts, as a recent CA letter to the editor claimed.

If you oppose abortion, I respect your right to do so, but it is still legal. It is not “murder” in the eyes of the law. I don’t like abortions, but I believe such a personal decision should be left to a woman, her doctor, and her conscience. If we disagree, so be it, but we should at the least agree to debate using facts, not propaganda.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Debate Rap

CREDIT: Richard Koele | Dreamstime.com

By the time this clairvoyant column hits the streets, the first Fox News/Facebook debate between the 87 declared GOP candidates will have already taken place. But just like Nostradamus, I already know what’s going to happen.

The Fox clan will determine the top 10 contenders by their popularity ranking in the latest national polls, which coincidentally is the same way they do it on American Idol.

Fox News boss Roger Ailes has chosen crack journalists Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly, and Chris Wallace to be the ringmasters of this circus, and since the bottom three contestants are statistically even, Ailes will probably pick who he thinks will give the best television. This debate is definitive proof that the de-facto leader of the Republican Party is Fox News. My crystal ball has told me what the Top 10 will say, starting with …

Donald Trump: The darling of the Tea Party and low-knowledge voter will make an attempt at dignity, until someone points out what an asshole he is, then Trump will go off and call everyone a loser and a horrible person and make damaging remarks about some opponent’s personal life. He’ll insist that he’s a nice person and that people like him, sort of like Al Franken minus the humor. Then he’ll rail about “illegals” and try to justify his comments about rapists by citing the abhorrent singular murder in San Francisco. He’ll build an impregnable fence, but it will be the classiest fence ever built. It’s time to put a winner in the White House. The four personal bankruptcies and three wives were just a speed bump. 

Scott Walker: The wildly unpopular governor of Wisconsin will mention that he’s already won two elections, although one was a recall prompted by the signatures of thousands of angry citizens who mobbed the Capitol Building in Madison. The recall was narrowly defeated thanks to a fortune in Koch brothers money. He will say his comparison of protesters with ISIS was poorly worded, but if elected president, the college dropout will immediately target this country’s greatest threat — the teachers’ union.

Richard Koele | Dreamstime.com

Jeb Bush

Jeb Bush: “The other white meat” will insist that he’s his own man and will profess his love for his father and his brother without mentioning either of them by name. He’ll deflect accusations of being “soft” on immigration and say that Trump’s comments about Mexicans were hurtful and vulgar — only he’ll say it in the nicest possible way. Bush will mention his Mexican wife and love of the Hispanic people, appealing to them by hablando un poco español. He will say that his remarks about his endorsement of the Iraq war and his comments about “phasing out” Medicare were taken out of context.

Dr. Ben Carson: The brilliant neurosurgeon will tell his truly remarkable story and mention his recognized excellence in his field. Then he’ll compare Obamacare to slavery and the Democrats to the Nazis. He’ll discuss his opposition to gay marriage and attempt to explain away the fact that he has never run for or been elected to anything. He has said, “We live in a Gestapo age, [but] people don’t realize it.” With his fondness for Nazi references, you might let him work on your brain but not on your country.

Marco Rubio: He will pander to the Latino vote, even though Hispanics probably know the difference between a Mexican, a Puerto Rican, and a Cuban from Miami. He’ll condemn the new Cuba agreement, saying Obama made a deal with a communist dictator. He will mention his parents’ ordeal, and when asked if he, as a freshman senator, is prepared to be president, he will compare himself to John F. Kennedy. When asked about climate change, he will say he’s not a scientist and then plead for a glass of water.

Mike Huckabee: The Huck will double down on his remarks comparing the recent Iran accords to “marching the Israelis to the oven door.” He will say that the president is feckless and naive and then repeat his quote, “It doesn’t embarrass me one bit to let you know that I believe Adam and Eve were real people.” Wait until someone tells him they were black.

Rand Paul: The Ayn Rand acolyte will first have to explain why he tried to pass a law allowing him to run for president and senator at the same time. He will discuss his opposition to Medicare and Social Security and parts of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He’ll say he wants to fix Social Security but wants you to forget about his statement that “reform is going to happen, and I hope it’s privatization,” or “The fundamental reason why Medicare is failing is why the Soviet Union failed.”

Ted Cruz: The loathsome reincarnation of Joseph McCarthy will repeat his statements that “Obama is the world’s largest financier of Islamic terrorism,” and “This is an administration that seems bound and determined to violate every single one of our Bill of Rights,” thus disqualifying him from further serious consideration for high office.

The other debators will be like a game of musical chairs between Chris “Bridgegate” Christie, Rick “Oops” Perry, and John Kasich, who stands a real chance of being shunned in the state of which he is governor. A Kasich staffer summed it up when he compared preparing for these debates to getting ready for a NASCAR race when one of the drivers is drunk. After all, who would you rather watch? Donald Trump or Carly Fiorina? My prediction is that the ratings for the debate will be “yoooge” and Fox will sign all the candidates to a glorified version of Hollywood Squares. There will definitely be a sequel, and it will be bigger, classier, and more spectacular than Sharknado 3.

Did I mention Benghazi?

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Ask Not

After much prayer and reflection, and with the counsel of my friends, family, and rabbi, I hereby announce my candidacy for the Republican nomination for president of the United States.

And why not? Everybody else and George Bush’s brother is running, so I figure I have at least as good a chance as half the field of already declared candidates — and I’m not under federal indictment. You can’t say as much for Governors Chris Christie, Rick Perry, and Scott Walker. Federal and state prosecutors continue to investigate Christie for his role in the “Bridgegate” scandal, as rumors of an email trail that implicate the governor have surfaced.

Patrimonio Designs Limited | Dreamstime.com

Perry is potentially facing 109 years for two counts of felony abuse of power after attempting to coerce a district attorney to resign. So far, Perry’s efforts to have the charges dismissed have been denied twice by Republican judges.

Wisconsin prosecutors accuse Governor Walker of being part of a “wide-ranging scheme” of illegal fund-raising.

The same accusations have recently arisen over Governor Jeb Bush’s coy “I’m not yet a candidate” scam. After Bush declares, he can no longer personally ask for money, yet he’s acting like a candidate who’s using the asinine Citizens United decision to try and purchase the presidency. There’s an obvious joke about the White House vs. the Big House in here somewhere.

I’ve avoided politics ever since high school student government associations, but last night, I had a dream in which the Archangel Gabriel whispered in my ear that it was my destiny to be president. Of course, Ted Cruz’s traveling preacher dad said that God told him the same thing about his boy, so someone is confused here.

In fact, several people are confused about the Almighty’s participation in American politics. Cruz said, “God isn’t done with America yet. That is why … I am running for president.” But Perry said, “I truly believe with all my heart that God has put me in this place at this time to do his will.” Actually, Perry said that in 2012, so you’d think he’d get the hint. Dr. Ben Carson said, “I feel [the] fingers” of God, which he interpreted as the Almighty prodding his candidacy. Walker said, “We [I] want to make sure that, not only are we [I] hearing from the people, but we [I] want to discern that this is God’s calling.” Marco Rubio attends a fundamentalist mega-church that demands employees sign a declaration stating that they’ve never been in a gay relationship, and he goes to Catholic mass on Sundays, covering all his bases. And this is to say nothing of religious zealots Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee.

Either all these people are lying or insane, or God is goofing on the Republican candidates. Say what you will about Hillary, at least she never declared the Deity’s blessing was upon her. I, however, have been blessed by the order of Christian Brothers, Reverend Tom Patton, Rabbi James Wax, a Hindu “saint” in India, and a Muslim cleric in Israel. Now, who’s best qualified?

Since a handful of billionaires now own American politics, all you need to stay in the race is to find one to back you. Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is leaning toward Rubio. Santorum is backed, for the second time, by mutual-fund zillionaire Foster Friess. The Koch oil barons tipped their greasy hands to Walker long ago. And Bush is backed by Woody Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson company.

This is more exciting than the Belmont Stakes. They often call politics a “horse race,” but in this case, each candidate has his own jockey. Mere millionaires are whining for access, while former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman is planning to spend between 10 and 25 million “Washingtons” on Rubio alone. I’m certain that Hillary’s war chest will overflow as well, but who have the Democrats got? Communists like George Soros or hedge-fund magnate Tom Steyer, whose tree-hugging causes fund radical-leftist politicians. If I can just convince one patriotic billionaire that I hate Obamacare but love Israel, I could take this all the way to the GOP convention.

I could also raise a lot of untraceable money along the way, which begs the question (or maybe answers it): Why are so many guaranteed losers running for president? Why are George Pataki, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, John Kasich, and Donald Trump even running?

Trump is obviously a vanity candidate who does it for his ego and to promote The Apprentice, the most wonderful show that’s ever been on television. A few claim that they are in the race to promote certain views, like Santorum’s theory that America is under attack by Satan. The rest are auditioning for lucrative commentator chairs on Fox News or perhaps their own radio show or book deal. Some are jockeying for a future cabinet position in a fantasy Republican administration.

But mostly, it’s this endless funnel of dark money that bankrolls ideological figureheads for more sinister concerns. Since no one is accountable, who’s counting? Now that the mob has been chased out of Las Vegas, politics is the new skim. If a dollar is missing here or there, who’s to know?

Which is why I am unveiling my own Ultra-Conservative, Pro-Gun, God-Fearing Super-PAC: the UCPGGF. And I am asking you for pledges of just a few dollars a day to support my campaign to stop immigration, restore God to the classroom, end taxes, and return this great nation to its rightful owners, the Inuit.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

The Rant (May 7, 2015) …

The GOP could open a haberdashery with all the hats that have been thrown into the ring for the 2016 presidential nomination. It looks pretty much the same as the last go-round, minus Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, but plus Rand Paul and Jeb Bush. The list is still in flux, but these are the folks who are most likely to entertain us all summer with their traveling vaudeville debate theater. The reviews for the last troupe were boffo. They brought down the house in every city. So what if that house was in foreclosure? Since there are so many candidates with such wonderful things to say, I thought a guide to the Republican presidential candidates might be useful.

That is, if Obama doesn’t rip up the Constitution, declare martial law, and run for a third term.

So without further delay, the prospective contenders for the office of president are:

Ted Cruz: Texas Senator and morality crusader Philosophy: Whatever Joe McCarthy said. Famous Quote: “I intend to speak in support of defunding Obamacare until I am no longer able to stand.” Spoken prior to an empty Senate chamber recitation of Green Eggs and Ham.

Rand Paul: Senator from Kentucky Philosophy: Neo-Libertarian. “I read all of Ayn Rand’s novels when I was 17.” Famous Quote: “A free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin.”

Ben Carson: Neurosurgeon and narcissist Philosophy: I’m the Bizarro Obama. Famous Quote: “Obamacare is the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.”

Jeb Bush: Former Florida Governor Philosophy: Please don’t blame me for my idiot brother torching the globe. Famous Quote: “Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families.”

Rick Perry: Texas Governor Philosophy: I got glasses this time to make me look smarter. Famous Quote: “Oops.”

Chris Christie: New Jersey Governor and bridge builder Philosophy: Sit down and shut up. Famous Quote: “Sit down and shut up.”

Scott Walker: Wisconsin Governor and union buster Philosophy: Whatever the Koch brothers tell me. Famous Quote: “Let ’em protest all they want. Sooner or later the media stops finding it interesting.”

Marco Rubio: Florida Senator and pitchman for Aquafina Philosophy: I’m really running for vice president. Famous Quote: “I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it.”

Carly Fiorina: Former CEO of Hewlett-Packard Philosophy: Just because I drove HP into the ground doesn’t mean I can’t be president. Famous Quote: “If Hillary had to face me on the debate stage, at the very least she would have a hitch in her swing.” (I don’t know what it means either.)

Mike Huckabee: Former Arkansas Governor and future pitchman for reverse-loan mortgages Philosophy: Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior? Famous Quote: “Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription.”

I suppose you could call the rest fringe candidates, since their views are so radical. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said that the GOP “must stop being the stupid party.” Anti-sex advocate Rick Santorum said, “Contraception is not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

These are all worthy topics for future hilarious debates, but for the most eloquent statement of qualifications, you have to give it up to grifter and perennial candidate Donald Trump, who said, “The only difference between me and the other candidates is that I’m more honest and my women are more beautiful.” In this tabloid culture, what more could you want in a president?