Saturday, January 02, 2016

Politics at the Turn of the Year


They are showing old clips of Trump verses Hillary on “Hardball”.   Trump says that back in 2006 or whatever he “had” to be nice to the Clintons, in his role as a “successful businessman”.   So he can be a political camilian I guess just putting on one hat or another depending on the circumstance.  The issue for Hillary is not any specific charge Trump makes but rather that Hillary vilified these other women whom the President had sexual involvement with.  If I were a woman this stance back then of Hillary and all this nonsense about a “vast right wing conspiracy” would for me ruin Hillary’s credibility on any women’s issues.   But the bigger picture with Bill is his connection with Wall Street and his support of NAFTA and the communications “reform” act and abolishing news departments and the fairness doctrine and the consolidation of the mass media into a few hands.  Also it was getting rid of Glass Stiegell that unleashed the “dogs of financial chaos” ten years later in the Bush administration.   But Bill Clinton is a good speech maker and his speech at the 21012 convention for Obama was instrumental in turning the tide of campaign rhetoric where Bill brought out a lot of key points I would have made myself.  In this sense Bill is reduced to the status of an agent or employee of either Obama or Hillary- - and what he’s doing is supporting the person at the top.  Then we have “No Show Rubio” where Marco Rubio missed key votes including the omnibus bill where Christie and Bush have correctly jumped all over Rubio for missing this key vote.   The combined vote of Rubio, Bush and Christie is 18% whereas the combined triad of hard right non establishment types of Cruz, Trump and Carson is 67%.  So it’s really no contest.  Trump is attacking Goudy for not handling Hillary Clinton correctly in the Bengazi hearings.  Since Goudy has endorsed Rubio- - it’s logical for Trump to attack a prominent Rubio supporter. 


Saudi Arabia put to death 47 suspected Islamic terrorists including a Shiite cleric who apparently was involved in the “Arab Spring” even though he’s Shiite and not Sunni.  I just think the Saudi government is out of control and really the biggest terrorists on the planet.  Meanwhile Donald Trump’s worst nightmare has come true.  Donald Trump’s speech are featured in a new Al Shabab vido, related to Al Qaeda.  The video featured a major appeal for African Americans in this country to join Al Shabab.  I think the Black population in this country has matured beyond such nonsense.  If they didn’t like Elijah Mohamed fifty years ago, they certainly won’t like these modern day terrorist or respect their views in any way now.  

President Obama wants to issue new executive orders for gun possession and Donald Trump says that’s a bad idea because we already have enough laws to deal with firearms regulation, if we’ll use them.  In Texas the new open carry law went into effect for that state so you can wear holsters in bar or churches or even government buildings.  Apparently they will “allow” business owners to bar firearms in their establishment.  But if it were Governor Snyder they wouldn’t even allow that.  It turns out the majority of the states in the Union have gone open carry and California and Illinois are a few of the hold-outs.  We’re finally in 2016 and by the end of the year we’ll find out whether we have Hillary Clinton for President - - or Chaos.

They canceled Newyears fireworks festivities in Paris and in Brussles due to security threats.  And in Germany two train stations received bomb threats.  There was that fire of a sixty story building in Dubai, and I’m still not sure where that is except Justin had an affair with a woman there on “Days”.   It was midnight there when it was noon here on Thursday and it was a surreal thing to see fireworks going off with a sixty-three story building in flames.   There were two celebrity deaths in the news.  Trapper John from MASH died and Natalie Cole died of various complications.  She is most famous for the duet with Nat singing “Unforgettable”.

Ohio State and Notre Dame played in the Fiesta Bowl, but the championship game will also be played in the same city a week and a half from now.   Stanford had no trouble handling Iowa in the Rose Bowl.  I think it’s silly to bypass all that potential revenue that would be generated from having these games carried on over the air TV like they used to be.   There is flooding in the St Louis area and the Mississippi will be flooding Memphis in a few days.

 I watched a summary of the Iran nuclear treaty in congress, and also a bit of the Pope’s speech before congress.  Then I turned that off and had a bit of Dr Oz on.  Then I had Dr Phil on for the entire hour.  There is this one guy who was on drugs and alcohol and believes that he wrote all of Taylor Swift’s greatest hits.  Dr Phil says it’s OK if you “fake that you’re sane” by saying what people want to hear.  I profroundly disagree with this assertion but don’t have the space or inclination to go into it now.

The Rose Parade seemed messed up.  It was Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards last year after several decades.  They both made the decision to leave KTLA.  But the picture was missing a lot of blues and purples as usual.  Also their vocal announcer track was drowned in a sea of cheering, which dominated even the bands.  Also there was more than the usual amount of trivia about individual people on floats or the production staff or talking about people’s relatives.  There was less detailed description of the floats and the flowers.  The Honda crew got some people better seats. 

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