Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

There is a video going around, or at least it’s going around within the Bernie bubble, I’m not sure how much play it’s getting otherwise, of a focus group hosted by political pundit Frank Luntz after Thursday’s debate in Los Angeles.
It’s interesting, because 6 of the group (25 people) said going in they were for Bernie Sanders, but 14 came out as Bernie supporters. Quite a dramatic shift, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make.
After one woman spoke, who said she’d come in supporting Amy or Pete but had switched to team Sanders because “he’s on fire” Luntz tried to divide the group up, saying ‘which is more important, communication skills or where they stand?’
He got plenty of good answers. The thing is, although centrist Democrats and their toadies in the media continually try to shift to something else when reality starts whispering ‘feel the Bern’ in their ear, Bernie keeps coming out on top.
Here’s the breakdown:

a) Communication skills, Bernie wins. He says the same things over and over, his language is specific and precise. He doesn’t ramble like Joe Biden or waffle like Warren or Buttigieg
b) Issues. Bernie’s got by far the best positions on the issues
c) Character. Bernie was the only person on that stage last night without any billionaire donors or significant scandals in their background, with the possible exception of Andrew Yang
d) Age. Age is experience, except with Joe Biden, where it is senility.
e) Experience Bernie has been a mayor (a fantastic, award winning mayor) a congressman, a Senator, and a working class person. Nobody up on that stage comes close to matching that
e) Electability. Of course Bernie is the most electable. You heard the lady. He is on fire.

Well, there is the time differential and, besides, I went to a poetry reading last night and was well and truly whacked by the time I got home. Usually when we step out for a break, there are two or three joints circulating among five or six people smoking, and then everybody goes back inside to read a bit more, but last night there were three, sometimes 4 joints at a time going around the circle and it seemed like every time somebody left the circle and went back inside, somebody showed up with a fresh joint.
So, no, I didn’t actually see the debates. Of course, all my Bernie groups are saying he nailed it, I’ve seen a few other analyses which said it was over all pretty meh, and it looks like there were no knockout punches (which is what happens when Tulsi is not there), which is a shame.
But, I think the significant takeaway was the winnowing. There were only 7 candidates on the stage and, while I like Tulsi, the idea of fewer candidates is a very good sign for Bernie. If he can knock three or four more of the candidates out before, say, Super Tuesday, then he’s very likely to get over 51% of the delegates on the first ballot in July, and be the next president of the United States.
And out of the 6 other candidates on that stage, there are 5 who don’t worry me.
Joe Biden fails to inspire every time he opens his mouth, and quite frequent he actually offends, or embarrasses people. I’m not too worried about him.
Pete Buttigieg kind of screwed the pooch with his wine tasting in the crystal basement. Not as bad as he screwed the pooch with his South Carolina endorsement list, but people at the debate talked about the crystals. It’s kind of what looks bad ( a huge crystal chandelier – not by itself automatically evil) and what actually is bad (the fact that he was trying to get PAC money). Still, he’s floundering and I couldn’t be happier.
Amy Klobuchar managed to speak without trembling and all the pundits said she had a great night. I guess I’m happy for her. Anyway, she is so far back I’m not worried about her too much.
Andrew Yang is a one trick pony with zero political experience. He is not only way back in the pack, he’s not likely to expand beyond his base, which is young IT nerds who think $12,000 is a lot of money. Not worried about him.
Tom Steyer is just another billionaire. I don’t take his candidacy any more seriously than Bloomberg’s. Not worried.
The only one I really think has a chance of fucking up Bernie’s nomination is Liz Warren, and that’s because she’s got a lot of people convinced that she’s just like Bernie, and lots of people (even a lot of men) would like to have a female president.
But, the quicker the field thins out, the more focus there will be on everybody’s actual record, and there’s only one candidate who benefits from that: Bernie Sanders.

Donald Trump has become only the 3rd American president to be impeached and the first one, unlike Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson, to deserve it. It will now go to the Senate, where Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham will lead the Republicans in ignoring all pretense of honesty and fair-mindedness to acquit him, to their eternal shame.
I’ve got some thoughts on this.
re Tulsi Gabbard’s very strange vote (present), I do see it as a political calculation and I’m disappointed. But, you know how they say you’ll never agree with any candidate on everything? Well, I disagree with Tulsi about this but she’s still the most anti-war of the bunch and the only one who has really spoken out about Julain Assange and Chelsea Manning. I’d still love to see her on the ticket. (my only disagreement with Bernie is about minor league baseball, and that is, literally, a minor league issue)

If the Senate does acquit without even seriously debating the evidence, which they have clearly indicated is their intent, the House should impeach again, on the emoluments clause, or on defrauding a charity, or on the torture and murder of Khashoggi, or on being mentally unfit for office.
It’s not double jeopardy, since it’s not the same charge.
When Bernie was cheated out of the presidency in 2016, did he just stop running? No. You get knocked down, you get back up again.
That’s what I think they should do.

What I expect them to do is crouch down and put their paws over their noses like whipped dogs, and then say it’s a sign we shouldn’t go too far to the left.

Joe Biden faced some heckling at one of his rallies the other day. It would even be fair to say that his speech was ‘disrupted by protesters.’ One guy called him a liar and said his son Hunter is a crackhead. Several others were chanting ‘Quid pro Joe’ which I thought was mildly funny.
However, they were from Infowars, which is a right wing website run by Alex Jones, who reminds me a lot of Glenn Beck, but more deranged. Several of them were also shouting “Trump is innocent” which is clearly not true.
So, while I agree that Biden getting the Ukrainian prosecutor fired to end an investigation into the oil company his son worked for was an egregious abuse of power, these particular protesters were coming from the right, not the left, and I actually think Biden (as much as I dislike him) handled the situation fairly well.
That kind of thing doesn’t much happen at Bernie rallies any more. There was the incident back in early 2016 (or maybe even 2015) when some Black Lives Matter people took over the stage, but Bernie gave them the microphone because he agrees with the Black Lives Matter movement and the situation was dealt with. But lately, Bernie gets crowds of 20,000 and more, and all of them are raging Berners. 50 or 60 protesters, who can easily disrupt a Biden size crowd, would be as invisible in a Bernie crowd as a person drifting in a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The advantage of overwhelming popularity.

I’m binge watching Star Trek, the original series, and here are my observations, about halfway through season two.
I’m surprised at how well it holds up as entertainment – the plots are interesting, the suspense is all there, and of course we owe it a debt of gratitude because it was the beginning of all that followed….but damn.
It’s not just the cheesiness of the effects, they did what they could with what was available at the time. It’s the cheesiness of the dialog, and the acting. Of course, T’Pol on Enterprise and Tuvok on Voyager took some good natured ribbing from the crew, but Bones was a downright asshole to Spock most of the time. It was like a prediction that we would take our bigotry and racism into space with us. And the women’s roles. Not only are the female crew members totally objectified, but apparently women of every other species throughout the galaxy are satisfied with serving their menfolk slavishly, and in short skirts. Yes, I’ve seen them bringing coffee to the bridge.
The later iterations did a much better job with that.
On the plus side, they hadn’t invented the holodeck yet, because nobody was even talking about virtual reality, and that got totally abused as a plot device. (Voyager was the worst with that, especially Paris and Kim with their stupid Flash Gordon fantasies)
Bottom line, although it has a special and honored place in the Trek universe, it is my least favorite of all of them – except Discovery, which I may try and give another shot, but the three episodes I saw failed to engage me in any way. I don’t count it at all.