The end game of this election sure is dirty.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
So was the beginning and the middle. It’s a dirty country now.
Get used to it.
AG
Heh, yes. But the dirt in today’s campaigns lacks a certain flair, don’t you think? I mean, Trump and Clinton haven’t even got to “yo mama” yet!
From the Adams/Jackson campaign in 1828:
WEll, distracting.
At the moment it’s a 15-year-old in search of Hannibal Sexter two degrees of separation from Hillary Clinton against 13-year-old charging Trump with statutory rape in a civil suit that does not get heard until after the election and probably will end in a financial settlement.
And then there are emails from a private server that will not be established as being totally private in nature until after the election.
And an FBI Director who reportedly aimed to quell a mutiny and mass resignations by tipping off the GOP witchhunt committee chairs that he had files connected with sexting a 15-year-old on the same laptop as files from a private email server being investigated in a separate invetigation. And now the top cop is facing a pro forma Hatch Act investigation for tampering with an election and having any evidence he finds excluded on Fourth Amendment grounds. And if Clinton wins decisively,…maybe that letter or resignation in the drawer would come in handy.
But it comes nowhere near the whisper campaign in Southern Democratic states in 1964 about Barry Goldwater’s psychiatric problems.
But as in most things the Clinton velcro and the IOKIYAR teflon continue to operate.
It all gives me a giant headache.
End game? We ain’t seen NOTHIN’ yet…The Clinton Rules are fully weaponized and ready for mass deployment. I sincerely expect the lame duck House to initiate impeachment proceedings; why wait until January? If they lose the Senate I also fully expect the R’s to push for a trial before then, too. If they can’t win they’re fully capable of burning the country to the ground.
If we don’t win the senate, Hillary spends the first two years of her “administration” without a Cabinet, without ANY officials needing Senate confirmation.
And the media will gleefully go along and proclaim it’s all her fault for not accommodating the Republicans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v04H7_fFC90
No one’s gonna eat your eyes…
(though I haven’t researched it, so am just guessing here): feel pretty sure a lame duck Congress can’t impeach a Prez who hasn’t even been inaugurated yet.
Though there’s nothing at this point that I would put past the wingnut extremists who’ve taken over the GOP at least trying.
Exactly right!!!
I found myself drinking my coffee this morning pondering the off the rails hyperbole of many GOP politicians led the presidential nominee. Comey’s action is just one more step in destroying the standard conventions of our governance (McConell’s one term president obstructionism, shutting down the government, not advising or consenting on Garland and a whole host of nominees, nomination of a fascist) that we’ve seen from this version of the GOP.
I found myself hoping that there are enough rational adults to return us to reasonable dialogue and traditional normalcy in governance.
You might say I found myself “holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change, typically in relation to politics or religion.”
That’s right, to my own shock, at this moment in time – I can be considered a conservative.
It feels like the Comey email story still has a missing piece or two to be played. Given the presumed legal propriety of Reid’s letter and generic Democratic outrage this seems a bit opaque:
Further Reid’s letter hints at the Russian angle which is amplified further today, which might explain a lot:
Not to mention:
That’s a lot of shoes dropping. Either some world historical ratf*ckery is afoot, the Russians have infiltrated the ‘deep state’ or we have just had a perfect wave of electoral clusterf*ck.
Ihaven’t commented on the Comey thing because I don’t thing it’s that big of a deal. It’s not going to change anyone’s mind. Well, OK, maybe a couple of people …
Ryan Lizza argues persuasively that if Hillary’s the next president, Comey has done her a big favor.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/if-hillary-wins-shell-be-grateful-for-comeys-move
In the sense that, yet again, there is no there, there, then a Clinton Presidency, where it comes out that, hey…there’s nothing there!…it’s a sweet move for HRC, because it again, shows, that it’s all kitchen sinks and no fire.
I don’t think it matters for the presidential election. It possibly may have an effect on Senate races, I don’t know.
Lizza may be right in some narrow sense that it’s better for a President Clinton that the FBI investigation be disclosed now. However, it’s more evidence that insofar as Republicans have power, they will never, ever stop grinding axes about Clinton “scandals.” This is depressing.
Of course, after their 18 month Jeremiah Wright carnival, they pretty much gave up on scandal mongering about Obama. That didn’t stop them from breaking almost every democratic norm of governance in opposing him. That’s the really depressing thing. Essentially, the “crazification factor” of our population has veto power over national progress, and we can’t even have a national conversation about that.
” … insofar as Republicans have power, they will never, ever stop grinding axes about Clinton “scandals.”
After more than two decades of this, and ever-growing GOP extremism all the while, how could anyone have thought otherwise?
Incidentally, that is one reason why I opposed her nomination. But that’s all water under the bridge now. Whatever her faults (and they are many), she’s incomparably better than Trump. And in fact, I have been hoping all along that I would be able to say (and I do believe it now) that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. She simply cannot fly without them, and she knows that. And she deserves credit for knowing that.
. . . I opposed her nomination.”
Sorry, don’t mean to pick on you, you have lots of company in that (though not including me). But you happened to hit the raw nerve of a longstanding grievance of mine with some lefty comrades at the moment I’m in the mood, with (maybe) enough time, to rant.
Here’s what I find so self-defeating about that attitude/strategy: it’s like turning around, bending over, and grabbing your ankles to let the rightwing ratfuckers make you their rat. Or like the abused spouse timidly acceding to and accepting every criticism or demand from the abuser in the false belief and vain hope that that will somehow bring the abuse to an end, even though it never has and never will.
If the endless stream of VRWC-ginned-up Clinton faux/pseudo-“scandals” is mostly/entirely bullshit
(which
it
is)
then the only reasonable response to it is the most determined, strenuous opposition and refutation you are capable of mustering. Not meek acquiescence*. (And if you’re able to imagine that Sanders would not have received exactly the same treatment, I can only say I think you’re very naive indeed. To a large degree, it’s not about Hillary at all, it’s about anyone/-thing that gets between wingnut exremists and their perception of themselves as our only rightful rulers. I guess we could call it The Divine Right of Wingnuts.)
*this is very much a corollary to my previously stated impatience with lefty comrades whose response to the immensely successful Gingrich/Rove et al. propaganda campaign to demonize “liberal” was — rather than mounting a robust defense of that noble political philosophy/tradition — to instead run as fast as they could to re-self-identify as “progressive”. Meh!
Your point is predicated on the idea that you WANTED her to run. If I had wanted her to run, I would have felt the same attitude you do. But I didn’t want her to run in the first place. I’m a fighter, but this is like fighting with one hand tied behind your back, and we didn’t need it.
I only said that the totally predictable ratfucking was ONE of the reasons I didn’t support her. This would go on not only through her campaign, but if elected, probably through her entire presidency. It’s a purely practical observation, and nobody can say it’s not corrects wrong.
Since you’ve expressed your peeve, let me express mine. Bill and Hillary made their political career by tacking to the middle — Republican lite. The result of that was that they pissed off both the left and the right — but for TOTALLY DIFFERENT REASONS.
When strong Hillary supporters like yourself ealk about all the bullshit criticism of the Clintons coming from the right, they forget that most if not all the criticism coming from the left was totally different, and mostly correct. Or even if you don’t agree with it, you can’t characterize it as having anything to do with the RW “echo chamber” bullshit, other than that it is also based on lack of trust.
Basically the right hates them — rabidly — because they tended to hone in on some of their issues, but were much more popular. So they decided to ratfuck them right and left. The left dislikes them because they abandoned core Democratic Party values in their tack toward Republican Lite, but never engaged in ratfucking, the objections were based on reality even if you don’t agree with the interpretation.
I speak for myself, but I am sure that my position is typical of Democrats who were not enthused about her candidacy.
Anyway, as I said, this is water under the bridge by now. Hillary Clinton has some great abilities, but if you understand the current situation of the country, which is very different from the 1990s when Bill was president, you ought to be thankful she has the support of Sanders and Warren. She’s going to need it.
To dispel possible confusion, when I used the unfortunate wording that the Republicans “decided to ratfuck them right and left”, I wasn’t referring to political right and left/ I should have said they decided to ratfuck them six ways from Sunday, or something like that.
While I’m at it, “nobody can say it’s not corrects wrong” should read “nobody can say its not correct.”
Nope. Not at all. Not even a little bit.
I voted for Bernie and would still prefer that he were our nominee.
He isn’t.
Hillary is.
Trump’s the alternative.
= no-brainer.
Again, and as already explained above: not at all, not even close. I am of course a strong Hillary supporter in the present circumstances relative to the only realistic alternative. In my view, this is equivalent to saying I have a functional brain and use it.
But, at the risk of personifying whoever’s signature line that was (“more progressive than you no matter how progressive you think you are”, or some such): I am very much on and part of “the left”. You would likely be shocked at the radicalism of the program I would implement in the unlikely event humanity ever came to our senses and appointed me emperor of the species.
Unless and until that happens, I deal with the Realities that confront me as I find them.
So maybe we’re not disagreeing on this. Except I’m probably not as radical as you are.
disagreement is the one I originally raised: that the predictability of the Worse-Than-Useless-Corporate-Media-enabled VRWC and Rightwing Noise Machine continuing to fling every bit of shit they can find Clinton’s way in hope that something sticks — as they’ve been doing for decades now — is a valid reason to oppose her nomination.
OTOH, preferring an alternative option (e.g., Bernie in my case) is a perfectly valid reason to support that alternative. (And, at least in that sense, “oppose” the other[s]. Alas that so many seem to think that necessitates trashing the opposed alternative.)
To me there’s no contradiction between those two points. That’s the difference.
there was any contradiction between them.
Yes you did. You said the first one is not valid and the second, “on the other hand” is valid. I think they are both valid and not mutually contradictory. You think the second excludes the first.
A can be valid and B invalid without either contradicting the other (though of course, that could also be true; but it’s not inherent).
You really should get over the habit of presuming to tell me what I think, especially given your record of repeatedly getting it wrong.
I didn’t say they’re mutually contradictory. I said one’s valid and one’s not. I still say that.
I’m not telling you what you think. I’m telling you what I think.
I know you didn’t say they were mutually contradictory. I did. Because they are.
No, they aren’t:
Also too. Me:
You:
Now:
Posting comments in this place creates a record, you know.
But hey, feel free to keep digging.
Hey, thanks for straightening me out.
Now tell me again why it’s not valid to think that Bernie is a better candidate AND that Hillary is a worse candidate not (as you put it) because of “the predictability of the … Corporate-Media-enabled VRWC and Rightwing Noise Machine continuing to fling every bit of shit they can find Clinton’s way in the hope that something sticks” — but because of the practical effect that actually has on her ability to be elected.
It’s not a HOPE that something sticks … on the national level she is a velcro candidate.
Hillary not only has 25 years of “baggage” (right-wing bullshit plus left-wing mostly not bullshit), but with a target permanently painted on her ass, in a climate where the GOP is more rabid against her than ever.
That is not my opinion — it’s a fact. I’m not pandering to the right, I’m acknowledging the reality of American politics. But please explain to me again why I’m supposed to pretend it’s irrelevant. I’m only “allowed” to consider her on her policies? — which I do anyway.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter. She wouldn’t have beat Cruz — Ted fucking Cruz — but she (probably) can beat Trump. But the very fact that we’re still in doubt of that is an effect of “the damn e-mails”, “Benghazeee!!!” etc.
I’d like to see those FBI assholes in jail, but … this slimefest was predictable from the outset.
I’m sure there would be scandalous things, to me, in a Clinton administration. There are for Obama. But those things aren’t considered “scandalous” by the media.
Then, when you think about the outright treasonous and unconstitutional shit Nixon, Reagan, and GW Bush got away with, it makes whatever paltry shit they whine about with the Clintons seem utterly pathetic.
It’s just depressing because the GOP have been able to paint Hillary as ethically dubious enough to get the media to chase everything they puke up, in a way they couldn’t do with Obama. And that will never ever stop.
But then that’s part of the larger way in which the media is beholden to and massively accommodating to the (ever shifting) frameworks of the right.
. . . “scandalous” by the media.’
Drudge rules their world. He’s their assignment editor.
They’ve openly admitted as much.
So they chase like mindless 4-yr-olds in a herd after every soccer ball Drudge or the VRWC kicks down the field. Actual corruption (see Trump)? Not so much!
“I have been hoping all along that I would be able to say (and I do believe it now) that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren”
A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for Hillary Clinton.
No one is voting for Bernie Sanders and no one is voting for Elizabeth Warren.
I do notice how some people seem to like to fantasize about Mrs. Clinton as some sort of submissive little girl.
She’s not.
She’s the President, soon.
Either you don’t understand my point or you don’t want to understand it. Probably the latter.
I found, and find, both your point and your point of view, offensive.
Jesse Berney expands greatly on my point (and nails it, imo) at that link (via lgm).
Imagine, if you will, a political election in which both candidates have sparkling records and smart plans for the future and the support of their constituents and no scandals.
Hahahaha! I know! It’s impossible to imagine that!
l’m exhausted by this roller coaster ride. Too many twists, too many ups and downs. It’s making me want to throw up, actually. I voted Sunday and I am hoping the crazy ride ends without any more loop-de-loops.