What Happened? I’ll Tell You What Happened (2017Sep12)

Posted by XperDunn on September 12, 2017

Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to the reporters at United Nations headquarters, Tuesday, March 10, 2015. Clinton conceded that she should have used a government email to conduct business as secretary of state, saying her decision was simply a matter of “convenience.” (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Tuesday, September 12, 2017 11:07 AM

What Happened? I’ll Tell You What Happened (2017Sep12)

Hillary Clinton’s new book, “What Happened”, has been getting a multitude of similar reviews—all of which summarize her reasoning and smugly find it lacking, for a bunch of self-assured reasons. It makes me crazy to see this reek of misogyny continuing on, as if the election were still in progress.

We all know exactly ‘What Happened’. Hillary Clinton offered the country an intelligent, reasonable choice—and we, in our collective wisdom (or lack of) chose Donald Trump—an idiot we would be hard pressed to find the equal of. It is not Hillary who has to explain herself. ‘We have met the enemy—and he is us.’

The GOP blamed Obama for eight years of struggle to recover our employment rate—forgetting that Bush made the crater Obama then crawled out of. Did Hillary fail to recognize the spasms of rage and resentment being stoked by Republicans, Alt-righters, and Russians? Did she keep her head in an environment where quiet common sense had gone out of fashion? Yes. Does her being a minority of one mean that she should have acted like a carnival barker—that she was the one making mistake after mistake? Sadly, no—that was us.

The media, especially social media, whipped us all into paroxysms of hysteria over the 2016 presidential race—and only in such a fact-free, reason-free, top-of-your-voice environment could we have been turned around enough to have voted in a TV con-man with his hand out, groping for pussy. But hey—that’s What Happened.

It’s Kinda Important (2016Oct30)

Posted by XperDunn on October 30, 2016

Sunday, October 30, 2016 4:07 PM

Well, I’m still mad about Comey—the pig-snout! Fire that hack, President Obama—or whoever is in charge of FBI Directors. It looks like Trump isn’t the only unfit person involved in government these days. These unspeakable people harass after HRC, trying to bring her down with technicalities, while they trample all over the spirit of the election. And I’m not even sure what Comey did was legal—if it is, it shouldn’t be. Actual lawyers have rules preventing them from this behavior—but blowhards can do as they please.

You see, to some people, a position of responsibility is an opportunity, not a burden. Their only purpose in seeking such positions is to further themselves, not serve the public. And they assume that everyone is as empty inside as they are. So, of course, to them, HRC is plotting to take over the world—that’s what they’d do, given the opening. They scoff at the idealism inherent in a lifelong public servant like Secretary Clinton—and they invite us to join them in their bitter conviction that the world is as ugly as they perceive it to be.

Listen to the people that rail against her—they all have a delirious rage to them. It is as if HRC has become for them the symbol of helplessness—she represents women’s equality; her career is an attack on fundamentalism; her marriage is both imperfect but unbroken—which is more than many of her detractors can say; and she is just as pugnacious as her tormentors, but a lot smarter about it—which drives them mad with rage. She is the embodiment of the irresistible force of change—of our ongoing history of social progress and human rights.

I would even go so far as to say that Hillary Rodham Clinton is America, in a woman—flawed but dreaming of greater things, successful but concerned for those who have less, strong and ready to fight—but only for justice and human dignity. And, certainly, cursed by many—for various reasons. But come to think of it—remember that the USA, and we its citizens, are none too well loved in many parts of the world—we’ve made mistakes, and we invite envy with our success—and we’ve been bad-mouthed by people that want to see us fail. Well, in this domestic affair, our presidential election, Hillary is the USA—and Trump and his GOP cronies are the Third-World dictators-of-finance that are bad-mouthing her and want to see her fail. Bullies are everywhere, both at home and abroad—and they can be easily identified by their actions. See these two candidates for who and what they really are, please—it’s kinda important. And please Vote.

This Has Got To Stop (2016Oct29)

Posted by XperDunn on October 30, 2016

Saturday, October 29, 2016 8:11 PM

If Secretary Clinton did something truly wrong, I want to know what it is—and I want to know right now. I have had enough of this pussy-footing B.S. about hearings and investigations and witch-hunts. I will consider any lack of straight answers or compelling proof, by election day, to be an admission that the vast right-wing conspiracy has been finding welcoming friends among the Republican party for thirty years—and that all their outrage is hypocritical hogwash that they have sold to us on the basis of pure repetition and pig-headed refusal to drop any rumor they ever started.

Face facts. If anyone belongs in jail here, it’s Trump. If anyone is lying their head off here, it’s Trump. If any FBI director has ever pulled this stunt eleven days before Election Day, I’d like to know which presidential race that was.

Sorry, Trump supporters—I’ll try to say this as kindly as I can. If you support that mountain of bull-crap, then you should take a long look inside yourself and ask if maybe it’s resonating with some bull-crap of your own. Hey, life is unfair—but blaming potentially your best advocate for that, on the word of a bunch of trolls, is worse than unfair—it’s self-destructive. Go towards the light. Don’t listen to the scary man’s voice.

The news and the press are faced with a tough decision here—if a man is proven to be lying about 70% of everything he says, are they still obligated to give him equal time? I understand Vice President Biden’s urge to beat this jack-off to a pulp—the way he thinks and talks about America outrages my patriotism as much as if he were insulting my mother. And, considering the man, I’m sure he would do that, as well, given half a chance.

This TV personality only looks like a respectable person—he’s got wardrobe and make-up people. But when he opens his mouth he reveals a complete ignorance of the Constitution, the law, the powers of the presidency, international relations, education, or social engineering. Both his actions and his associations strongly suggest bigotry, sexism, and nationalism as part of his character. He’s a pig—how can I explain to you something you should be seeing for yourself?

I call for the immediate dismissal of Director Comey for interference in an election. (I would suggest waiting until the day after the election, so as not to seem partisan, but if the Director can’t wait, I don’t see why we should.) And I call for his replacement to immediately release whatever new information the FBI has pertaining to the Clinton email investigation. This crap has got to stop. Innocent until proven guilty, godammit—especially during an ongoing election.

Birthday Girl (2016Oct27)

Posted by XperDunn on October 27, 2016

Thursday, October 27, 2016 3:47 PM

Today’s video isn’t really a present for our future president—it’s more about my daughter and granddaughter—but their lives will be so much better for having Hillary Clinton in the White House for the next eight years—that’s right—eight. So the video is for them—but consider it a thank-you-in-advance to Hillary, as well.

I know that Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton’s birthday was yesterday, but you don’t turn 69 every day, so I think an extension is in order. And she does kinda look like a little girl up on the platform next to Michelle Obama—she’s really adorable. I know that Wiki-Leaks dumped some more emails about the Clintons profiting from their positions or their charity—but the State Department has nothing to say about it, and the alignments of government decisions concerning foreign actors that paid the Clintons is hard to prove (though easy to suggest) and proving that those government decisions were against the country’s best interests is an even harder case to make.

However, if I wanted to prove that her opponent was actually a threat to this country, rather than a fitting leader of it, I could easily do that to the satisfaction of most Americans—or so the polls would suggest. Or rather, the polls suggest that such proof has already been made—a bell that cannot be unrung, try though Fox News might.

He isn’t really the issue though. The general anti-Hillary tone of America is the subject that has aroused my ire this afternoon. When I hear those whiny people, squirming with delight at being on TV, yet saying things they should be ashamed of—repeating things they heard Trump say, or some other Republican, to the effect that Hillary is an untrustworthy, dangerous criminal—I could just spit.

For starters, we have this fine old tradition here that says no one is guilty until proven so in a court of law. Further, Hillary has been to court; she’s been to the Hill (for eleven hours); she’s been interrogated by the FBI. Usually, fugitives don’t make speeches on TV, so I’m going to assume that Hillary is not a criminal. Only during a campaign can someone call their opponent a crook, and not suffer for it—it’s slander. Criminal accusations are usually accompanied by evidence rather than innuendo—only during a campaign is innuendo sufficient.

Over thirty years of public service deserves more respect from us—it certainly gets respect from the people that pay her a fortune to come and talk to them. They must be interested in her ideas and her experience. You know, the talk-circuit is an industry in itself—many great and famous people make a good living off it—and there’s nothing illegal about it. I’m sure that Hillary’s fees make many people jealous—but that is their problem—not ours. We need only recognize that the most powerful people on Earth want to hear what Hillary has to say.

People tend to call the birthday girl ‘the lesser of two evils’—well, people, try this: you get yourself a law degree, spend some thirty-odd years in public service, be attacked by conservatives the whole time, raise a daughter, keep your marriage together, and start a world-class, global charity before you run for President, twice, while people say the ugliest things they can think of about you—then you, too, can be ‘the lesser of two evils’. Y’all’s got some fuckin nerve, is all I can say.

Have you seen the Republicans? Bunch of slimy toads—not a one of them I’d trust with grocery money. And lie—these bastards lie like they’re Michelangelo painting the Sistine ceiling—they lie like Mozart composed music—if an honest word came out of one of their mouths, I think the whole of Washington, D.C. would sink back into the swamp it came from. But the nice lady who wants to help children—she’s the dangerous criminal?—yeah, right. How stupid are we supposed to be?

You people get your heads on straight. Look at what’s in front of you and ask yourself, ‘Who am I gonna believe?’ Happy birthday, Ms. Clinton.

The Shifting Sands of Time (2016Oct19)

Posted by XperDunn on October 19, 2016

Wednesday, October 19, 2016 1:23 PM

Do you remember the ACA website roll-out? Gosh, what a mess—it took them weeks to make it work properly, right? And the furor, while it was still kludgey, was amazing, deafening—as if a buggy program could never be fixed. But now it works fine (better than the legislation, if we’re being honest about it) and nobody says ‘boo’ about it.

Opponents of Obamacare saw the bobbled roll-out as an opportunity to press their case—against the bill and the president, both. But the moment passed and now we are back to judging ACA on its merits, rather than the mechanics. Issues are always more vulnerable to criticism while they are still in flux—but success always changes the playing field.

The same could be said for the economy, wages, and the fight against ISIL. The meat of Donald Trump’s campaign is that ‘America is losing’. He talks of inner-city hell-scapes (even though crime rates are plummeting). He talks of job loss and high unemployment (even though employment has risen steadily for eight years). Stats on wage-increases show the biggest jump since the sixties. And with the siege of Mosul under weigh, and ahead of schedule, the idea that ISIL represents an existential threat to the USA becomes more and more of a fading boogeyman.

I’ll be interested to see in tonight’s debate whether Trump will get a pass, running on stats that were borderline when he declared two years ago—and are laughably out-of-date in October of 2016. While he’s been vaguely promising to somehow ‘make America great again’, Obama’s administration has been repairing the damage left by Bush, and exceeding the level of success our nation enjoyed before Dubya got his hands on the reins. Yes, Bush-43 did take a lot of the wind out of the sails of our ‘greatness’, but our incredible President Obama has undone all that, and moved beyond, to historically surpass our previous greatness.

People make a lot of noise about wanting the candidates to focus on issues—but they are. There is only one issue—Trump is unfit to be president. Hillary Clinton is as fit as a human being could possibly be. There’s your issue. You can dress it up, if you want—but we do not need a savior to repair all the ‘disasters’ of the Obama years—because they are small potatoes compared to all his enormous successes.

In fact, a case could be made that the whole idea of a ‘disruption’ candidate is an expression of pure frustration—and that slow, thoughtful change is the only reasonable way forward for the world’s greatest government. That is why the Educated demographic is fully backing Clinton, and the Uneducated are fully backing Trump—the uneducated, less mobile, more financially-insecure people are far more open to an emotional message, promising them the moon without any details about the journey.

So, in the end, not only is Trump wildly unfit for public office, but his mission to ‘bigly enGreaten’ America is an entirely unnecessary one. Competent public servants are already taking care of that, Drumpf—you can scurry back to your TV shows. Hillary will handle it.

What Have We Learned? (2016Oct18)

Posted by XperDunn on October 19, 2016

Tuesday, October 18, 2016 8:32 PM

Tomorrow night is the third and final debate. For most people, it will be a spectacle, rather than an education. This campaign is on its second year—if you haven’t heard it all, already, you’re just not paying attention—and you haven’t seen a TV since 2014.

I have learned a lot about this country and the people who live in it. I learned more than I wanted to know about Trump. I have learned a lot about the media, especially media journalism. And, of course, I’ve learned about our next president, Hillary Clinton.

I find Hillary Clinton so impressive that, to my ear, all those who can’t abide her sound like a lot of sour grapes. She’s tough—in a very tough game—world power. You know those people who always win at Risk? Well, she does that—in real life. Do you know how rare it is for capable people to throw their lives away on this inexcusably wretched, yet crucially important, circus called national politics?

Only a martyr to public service like Hillary would put the intelligence and drive that most successful people put into forging empires of their own—into a lifetime of helping our ungrateful, apathetic asses. Look at the crap she has to take from us, before we will deign to allow her to work herself gray-haired, in the toughest job on earth, for four years. Oh, no, no—wait! We might prefer the racist pig idiot clown with the stupid face. Hmmm—let us think. Hmm—think, think, think. Well….

Are you joking? Are you seriously joking right now?

Watch the last debate—watch him tell every lie three times—he thinks that makes people believe it. Even children see through him. What is wrong with the grown-ups?

History (2016Oct13)

Posted by XperDunn on October 13, 2016

Thursday, October 13, 2016 1:44 PM

We all have history. I have incidents in my past of which I am not proud, things that make me wince to remember. But I tell myself that I learned from those mistakes, that I’ve become a better person by feeling the shame of past sins—I’ve come to realize how thoughtless behavior can feel to the person on the wrong end of it, and now I am more careful in my words and deeds.

I’ve also learned that mistakes can’t be undone. If confronted with my past, I tell myself, “Don’t deny that you hurt someone—that would just make it worse—like hurting them all over again.” It’s easy for me—I don’t have any dark secret to confess—I’ve simply been rude or thoughtless in my youth at certain points—and felt bad enough about it afterward that the memories haunt me.

Donald Trump didn’t coalesce into existence behind a podium one year ago—he has a history, too. Now, he prefers to label it a ‘media conspiracy’, but it used to be a reputation he was proud of—the wealthy Manhattanite man-about-town, with an eye for the ladies. His boasting, aboard Billy Bush’s bus, is an example of him propagating that rep—and his bragging about being the owner of a pageant, thus being able to pop into dressing rooms, jibes neatly with the accusations of then-fourteen-year-old girls who describe the same experience from their point of view.

Of all the blatantly transparent lies that Trump has told throughout the campaign, his denial of his own personal history is the biggest whopper so far. It must be dizzying, even for him, to go from bragging about this aspect of himself, to denying it as a filthy lie. I’m starting to think that Trump’s emphatic untruths are a subconscious compulsion—when he says, ‘Lock her up’, he’s really shouting to the world, “I should be locked up!” Perhaps that explains why he mirrors everything Secretary Clinton says, in reverse—he’s actually agreeing with her in the only way his ego will allow him to say it?

Who knows? I’m no psychiatrist. Yet, as a layman, I still feel confident in saying he has a screw loose. Millions of Americans find it appealing—that’s the real problem. I can see that he’s crazy—but how in the world do I get someone else to see it? I can’t put my eyes in someone else’s head.

I saw a Facebook comment this morning where someone said everything I have said, that Trump still won’t show his taxes, he’s horrible and unfit, etc., but ended with the conclusion that our country needs to be ‘disrupted’ by someone like him, because it is too ingrown and self-defeating. I don’t dismiss those points but, as I’ve said before, you don’t fix a computer by taking a hammer to it. And governing fifty states at once, plus being the world police, makes the USA as complicated as any computer. In many ways, it is more complex—people always make everything more complicated. Setting off a bomb, as a president, seems more an expression of frustration than a thoughtful judgement call.

Plus, Trump and the Republicans habitually downplay all the good news coming out of the latest stats. (Isn’t it funny how we value stats based partly on how well they agree with our opinions?) If you look at the stats, the idea of ‘four more years of Obama’ is hardly the threat they wish it sounded like. If a Democrat President with the entire Congress standing in his way could have this much success, imagine what Hillary could accomplish with a willing Senate, maybe even a House of Representatives.

This women’s-equality thing and inclusion-of-gays thing is working out just fine—to the outrage of the far right. Their only chance was to bring us backwards before the new attitudes could settle in. Trump was their shot at that. But it looks as though we may have dodged the bullet.

Trump’s campaign boils down to: ‘Who ya gonna believe?’ He does this because, in business, the answer is always ‘the bloated billionaire’. Unfortunately, this is politics, where the answer to ‘Who ya gonna believe?’ is never ‘the bloated billionaire’, it’s ‘the lifelong public servant’. Vote for Hillary.

Cautiously Optimistic (2016Oct12)

Posted by XperDunn on October 12, 2016

Wednesday, October 12, 2016 10:42 AM

This is more like it. I don’t feel like a lone voice crying in the wilderness anymore. Most people seem to have caught on—electing Donald Trump would be just like electing a hog because it had won the blue ribbon at the Iowa State Fair. That’s a good pig—that’s a pig above its peers—but it’s still a pig.

Donald was (and is) a scheming skeeve, first as a real-estate conniver and Manhattan ‘playboy’, then as a reality-TV star who entertained by being pompously cruel. That he had fourteen seasons is a sad commentary on the American TV audience—but enjoying his perfidy, as semi-fictional guilty pleasure, is a far cry from finding him fit to lead the nation.

Cmdr. Spock could have told you right off that a human doesn’t indulge himself at the expense of others for seventy years—and become a model public servant the next day. He’s not a plotline, he’s a person—he doesn’t ‘pivot’, or suddenly transform in any other way—anymore than you or I do. Thus we conclude that his candidacy was nothing more than a quest for self-aggrandizement and power—in other words, an ego-trip.

And I can forgive Trump and Billy B. for their lewdness on the tape—I can even forgive Trump running for President, for the most venal of motivations, and pretending he’s been ‘called’ to public service, out of idealism. I can forgive all that. To forgive is divine. But I ain’t gonna vote for him—no, that’s a fer piece beyond forgiveness.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, began her life with a passion for helping children. As her life brought her to positions of influence, she used that influence to help children—and learned that helping families is a great way to do that—and found that a community (or ‘a village’) is a great model for raising every American to a place of opportunity, security, and freedom. Thus her passion for children and her love of country melded into a single driving motivation.

Comparison between the two candidates is laughably unequal. Those who hate Hillary Clinton have very vague and diffuse rage against the status quo—the hysterical intensity of it marks it as a prejudice, rather than a reasoned judgement. When they try to tell me that Hillary is ‘just as bad’ as Trump, I can’t think of how to answer them—except to call them ‘dumb people’ (which rarely helps).

I truly think that the world is getting too complicated for a certain segment of the populace—they view the election as an unfair test—a test they are afraid to fail, as if life had become one long math class—and Trump is waving at them, saying, ‘Easy answer!—Over here!’ They are voting their frustration, not their judgement. Emotions and Democracy don’t mix, any more than emotions and the judicial system, or emotions and the practice of medicine. Passion has its place in politics, but only as passion for good, for the truth, and justice.

Has thirty years of campaigning, media fire-storms, scandals, political infighting, and partisan attacks blunted Hillary’s idealism? I should hope so. Imagine, if you will, what such a ‘refining fire’ would do to your dewy-eyed, youthful dreams, or what it did to mine (and I’m just a regular guy). A battle-scarred pol may seem an uninspiring option to the young absolutists—but we should keep in mind what fights she fought while earning those scars.

They were not legal tussles with creditors and unpaid workmen and excluded minorities. She fought to end school segregation. She fought to get disabled kids the right to be included in our public education system. She fought for health care for people who weren’t rich enough, or healthy enough, to get their own. She has served the public her whole life.

Trump, at the 2^nd debate, said she’s been in power for thirty years and ‘has nothing to show for it’. That’s right, Donald—by your lights, Hillary has nothing to show for a lifetime of public service—she hasn’t become a billionaire, or a celebrity TV bully, or cheated decent people out of payment for the work they gave in good faith—nothing to show for her life. Well, except maybe millions of grateful people whose lives have been improved, even saved, by her work—and the respect of decent people like myself.

I was very excited about seeing Hillary Clinton be elected the first woman president of the United States. I didn’t think the Republicans could field an opponent that had a chance against her. I was pretty shocked to realize that the campaign to impugn Hillary Clinton was not only alive and well, but had become rabid—and that the majority of Americans were starting to believe, through sheer persistence of repetition, everything her opponents were accusing her of—no matter how wild.

This was complicated by the fact that Hillary Clinton—the actual human being—is indeed less than perfect. She has made mistakes—and she has been a politician—and decades of attack have spurred her to a few unfortunate verbal rejoinders. I get the feeling she doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Neither do I. But none of that—and certainly none of the hogwash peddled by her haters—changes the fact that she is a whip-smart, doggedly capable person—and we’d be hard-pressed to find a better leader for the next eight years.

But enough—28 days from now, we’ll vote, and then we’ll, finally, know whether we are safe. Vote as if your life depended on it. VOTE.

Sex Matters (2016Sep29)

Posted by XperDunn on September 29, 2016

Thursday, September 29, 2016 3:20 PM

Let’s discuss presidents and sex. I don’t want to go back too far—let’s start with FDR. That great man was confined to a wheelchair and he still managed to have multiple affairs while in office. Truman, a great man as well, was also a good man—no known affairs, though he enjoyed drinking and gambling. Then there was Eisenhower—definitely an affair while SCAEF, but I’m not historian enough to know whether he fooled around in office.

dwight_d-_eisenhower_official_presidential_portrait

Then we had Kennedy—I think we can put him in the plus column. Then we had LBJ—no affairs that I know of. Same with Nixon—though we’d be hard-pressed to call him a ‘good’ man. Then Ford—another no; then Carter—another no, though he ‘lusted in his heart’. (And what hetero man doesn’t—or gay, come to think of it?) And Carter was followed by Reagan—two wives, but no known affairs.

Then we had Bush-41—a definite no. Bill Clinton was then the fourth modern president with publicly-known, documented affairs—but he was the first to be hounded for it while still in office. Then Bush-43 came along as the matching Puritanical bookend to his father. (If we can call a hard-partier like the young Bush-43 ‘Puritanical’, it is only in the fidelitous sense.) And last but not least, we have our present President—who, like Mary Poppins, is practically perfect in every particular (and certainly doesn’t have affairs).

So there you have the modern roster—affairs aren’t exactly common among presidents, but then they aren’t exactly uncommon either. And, if we are honest about it, the Presidency is one of the few jobs where such a thing would still impact one’s position. Married men having affairs is no rarity. In today’s society, no one goes to jail or loses their job over infidelity alone—with the exception of politicians and priests. Likewise, in today’s society, Divorce has very little baggage—heck, Trump’s on his third marriage and nobody says boo about it—even with him as presidential candidate for the Conservatives.

Yet as a man with five kids by three wives, he seems to be considering bringing up Hillary’s husband’s infidelity as a black mark against Hillary—he claims he denied himself that ‘weapon’ at the debate because he had scruples about embarrassing Chelsea. Bringing up Chelsea’s name in this context seems like the sensitive way to go, alright. But I still need to have explained to me what Bill’s peccadilloes have to do with his wife running for office?

Is Trump going to criticize her for not abandoning her family when she suffered the embarrassment of Ken Starr dragging this affair out over two years’ worth of prurient headlines? That’s how Trump advised his daughter—saying that if she were sexually harassed at work, she should quit her job and find a new career. Does he believe that Secretary Clinton, as a woman, is also supposed to run away when a man hurts her feelings?

Or is he going to try to blame Bill’s behavior on his wife? A lot of stand-up comics have gone that route, suggesting that, if Hillary had been more sexually inventive, Bill would have never strayed. I can see Trump going that way—it would fit with his apparent theme: ‘no lie too big, no statement too idiotic’. And his advisors clearly have trouble explaining the difference between a presidential campaign and a stand-up routine to the GOP nominee. Wait—scratch that—stand-ups rehearse their acts.

I don’t know how Trump is going to tie Bill Clinton’s notorious hound-dogging to his wife’s character. Still, he blames the last thirty years of federal governing on her alone, without any problem with the logic of saying so. But even Trump supporters are going to have trouble with tarring a wife by her husband’s affairs—at least the women, I presume. The married ones may even resent such an implication—if Trump supporters even hear the words that come out of his mouth in the first place. There is no evidence of that at present.

The world, and especially the media, await this idiot’s next words with baited breath—though for the life of me I can’t understand why. There’s no reason to fear this clown—we fear only the crowd that supports him and will, apparently, vote for him to be President of the United States—and the education system that is so broken that these crowds exist. President Clinton (the faithful one) will have to work on that.

Thirty Years (2016Sep27)

Posted by XperDunn on September 27, 2016

Tuesday, September 27, 2016 11:27 AM

Of all Trump’s bombastic BS, the ‘thirty years’ attack is the most exasperating. Trying to turn Hillary Clinton’s preparedness into a negative is as convoluted an argument as his claim that an unprepared ‘outsider’ is what this country needs in a leader.

Let’s take a page from Seth Myers and take ‘a closer look’ at this ‘thirty years’ nonsense. Hillary Clinton earned her law degree and was active in public service long before she became the First Lady of Arkansas, never mind First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS). Beyond that, of all the people who ‘serve at the pleasure of the President’, I think we can place FLOTUS at the head of that list.

In other words, while First Lady, Hillary Clinton tried to help her husband’s work, succeeding in creating (and passing) the Children’s Health Care bill and other notable good works. She met with elected officials from around the country, with foreign dignitaries, and with charitable efforts leaders, learned about the workings of the White House and the challenges of governing—but she did not govern.

After the White House, she won election to a Senate seat from New York—and was an able partner to the senior Senator from her state and worked diligently with both sides of the aisle—but she did not govern—she wasn’t even the minority whip.

Then she became Obama’s Secretary of State. Again, serving at the pleasure of the President—not governing.

So, all this experience is excellent preparation for becoming the President—but never gave her any opportunity to make her own decisions. I won’t deny that those were positions of influence—but influence is not power. Any decisions made by her husband, by Congress, or by Barack Obama, were theirs, not hers. And she couldn’t even publicly talk about any disagreements she might have had with the two presidents she worked beside—people don’t do that.

So the last thirty years of Hillary’s life have been an historically excellent preparation for the job of President—but they haven’t been thirty years of governing, as Trump would have us believe. He is simply trying to turn one of her greatest strengths into a negative.

Well, two can play at that game—Trump, you’ve had seventy years to engage in public service and you have never once bothered to care about other people—what’s makes you think you can convince us that you suddenly do care? Seventy years of self-serving, sometimes fraudulent, piracy have prepared you to do nothing other than lose to a qualified candidate. No amount of bombast can change that.

Questions, anyone?

Trump’s Cult Constituency (2016Sep17)

Posted by XperDunn on September 17, 2016

Saturday, September 17, 2016 4:34 PM

We’ve all been mystified—how has a self-confessed fraud and egomaniac managed to collect and hang on to so many voters? The first clue is that Trump has made slim inroads into the educated-people demographic. The second clue is that none of his lies—even when proven untrue—see him losing any followers.

A narcissist with no experience in government who, when Hillary says he’s unfit, says, ‘no, she’s unfit’; when Hillary points out his racist behavior, says, ‘no, she’s the racist’—like an idiot child, he doesn’t even deny he’s unfit, or a racist—he just says, ‘I know you are but what am I?’ And now—the most flagrant lie in history—after spreading birther bigotry for five years, he says, ‘Hillary started it.’—a provably-false lie—and reverses his own position, without explanation or apology.

We wonder if we’re still sane—any other candidate would have been laughed out of countenance twenty slip-ups ago. Any other candidate would have plummeted in the polls by now. But Trump’s supporters hang tough—it’s a mystery. But I’ve figured it out—it’s a cult.

Think it through—this is a group of people who have been indoctrinated against science and facts. They’ve been told they can’t believe the newspapers or the TV or the radio—that reality is something different from what everyone else says it is. They have little or no education—many are emotionally fraught from all the change in this country—a change they see as working against them. And here’s a celebrity who speaks like Moses come down from the mountain, bringing the revealed word of Trump—graven on plastic tablets (that dissolve in water each news-cycle).

He tells them who the infidel is—he jokes about someone shooting her. He tells them that only he can save us all. The rest of us can tell he’s making it all up as he goes along—but his followers take his every word as gospel.

Their rage insists on a target—someone has to be punished, or at the very least damned—and everyone knows women make the easiest targets. Their fear is comforted by his insane confidence—like a prophet of old, he spouts nonsense—nonsense that God will make good on, in the end, right? These peoples’ faith is their strong suit—and it’s been under attack by progressives. Trump welcomes their non-judgmental faith, their non-questioning faith—in him (God is a bit player on Trump’s stage). It’s not a constituency—it’s a cult.

So, don’t go looking for Trump’s numbers to drop—no matter what happens. This election will decide whether there are enough sane people in this country to keep this jackass out of public office—or whether his zombie army will outnumber us at the polls. It’s the stuff of nightmares. This election should be quite exciting—we won’t be simply casting a vote, we’ll be trying to save the world. Vote for Hillary. Or live in the hell-scape of the alternative.

A Word About Arithmetic (2016Sep16)

Posted by XperDunn on September 16, 2016

Friday, September 16, 2016 1:46 PM

A Word About Arithmetic (2016Sep16)

As the polls stand today, HRC has a slim lead over DJT in a head-to-head, but they are dead even, when the poll includes Johnson and Stein. People tell you to vote your conscience—and that is very good advice. However, judgement is also a factor—if you vote for someone who polls at or below ten percent, you are casting a vote for your conscience—but you’re not electing anyone.

Someone will be elected, but it won’t be Johnson or Stein. They could be angels come down from heaven, their policies could be solid gold—they are not getting elected. That’s arithmetic. Either HRC or DJT will win the election. So while you vote your conscience, ironically, you are also abstaining from voting for who will be elected.

And that would all be hunky-dory, if you don’t care which major candidate wins. Since there are big differences in the two major candidates, it is unlikely that anyone has no preference of one over the other—but if you really don’t see any difference between them, go on and vote your conscience. But, personally, I would also add—go and get your eyes checked.

Trump continues to hide his taxes. He just announced that he’s giving up the birther conspiracy—but no apology or explanation was given for the years of racist (and ludicrous) aspersions cast on the serving President. I could write all day and still not complete a full list of his nonsensical posing as a serious adult, and his unfitness for a position of responsibility. I’d need another entire day to review the lies he’s told, not just about his opponent, and his President, but about nearly everyone and everything.

To be fair, a lot of it is just ignorance—he actually believes some of his own lies. But most of it is purposeful manipulation of the people he looks down on—yes, I’m talking about you, Trump supporters—you poor, deluded suckers. He’s pushing your buttons, hoping you’ll push the button for him in November—and once you’ve done that, open that envelope from Reader’s Digest—‘You’ve just won a Million Dollars’! Ha!

Hillary Clinton has been unfairly attacked, over and over, for thirty years—but no one has ever taken her down, because she’s legit. We’ve all been lied to—she’s no monster, no criminal, no liar, no inept bumbler, no traitor, and no fool.

Here’s an easy point to make—Secretary Clinton, over the years, has been accused of so many things that they contradict themselves. She can’t be a monster and a weakling; she can’t be sneaky and a fool; she can’t be helpless and be the most dangerous person on the planet. In their over-enthusiasm to smear this fine lady, they’ve called her mutually exclusive things—so at least half of them are lying about her, right off the bat, by the sheer logic of it.

We’ve all been to high school—we’ve all seen the mean kids say mean things about the nice kids, and get away with it. But that nonsense doesn’t fly in the real world—with the one exception of Hillary Clinton. She’s got a mob of very good people, all vouching for her—no, shouting her praises—are you going to believe them, or Donald Trump and Fox News? Please explain your answer. If only to yourself.

How Smart Do You Have To Be? (2016Sep07)

Posted by XperDunn on September 7, 2016

Wednesday, September 07, 2016 12:34 PM

Debates are coming. Can Trump hide ignorance with sheer bluster? Can Hillary Clinton overcome public awkwardness to reveal her inner beauty? We shall see.

People say ‘if Trump wins, I’m moving to Canada’—but for me, it’s more like cause to slit my throat—America is the greatest thing on Earth—we just can’t give it to a jerk who can’t see that greatness, who wants to replace it with his own conceited idea of what ‘greatness’ is.

But if there is a God (and even if there isn’t) Hillary should kick his ass. (And here I insert the obligatory reminder that we shouldn’t take it for granted—we must Vote—and get out the Vote.) If the world is made right again in November, and Hillary does win, I will feel a warm glow inside, knowing that America is safe from that bullying charlatan. But…

Here’s the thing. We have ‘checks and balances’—the tripartite nature of our government is meant to prevent excesses in any one branch—including the Executive. It is not meant to paralyze our government. And it never has before now, when subtle racism has made the Legislative branch into a stone wall preventing the Executive branch from any action, not only in legislation, but even in filling the complement of the Judicial branch. This is cynical politicization of government beyond the bounds of responsibility, or of shame.

After the disaster of Bush-43’s presidency, the GOP did an autopsy to see why their bankrupt ideological platform wasn’t getting any votes outside of their carefully gerrymandered pockets of influence. They solved the problem, and then ignored the solution, because the solution was to be more like the Democrats—that is, ‘decent human beings’. Not their scene, apparently. So they went down a rabbit-hole of lies, rationales, and bluster against the Democrats.

That conglomeration of ignorance and dog-whistling became so threadbare that a reality-TV celebrity was able to outshine them—when he should have been laughed off the primary-debate-dais by the contrast between himself and a dozen serious politicians. But by that point, he wasn’t facing rational, reasonable, serious politicians—he was facing Jeb, Marco, and Ted. Plus, the GOP had curated themselves a base of yahoos before the primary even began—so Trump won. They’re sorry now—but still, not because of their platforms, but because Trump made fools of them.

Now, these people are saying, “Okay, vote for Hillary if you must—but make sure to vote the party on the down-ballots, to provide a ‘check’ against Hillary”. In other words, if the GOP can’t govern, no one else should—and Democracy be damned. I say, if you’re going to elect a President, elect people who will work with her. We’ve had it, we little people—let someone get some goddam governing done. If the Dems fuck it up, elect a GOP president and Congress to replace them, but let somebody do something.

‘Small Government’, in a highly-developed country, in the 21^st century? Yeah, that’ll work, alright. ‘Nationalism’, when we need the injection of fresh blood that only immigration can bring—and when we need the real Muslims, as our greatest defense against extremist murderers? Yeah, that’ll work, alright. Ignorance and Science-denial, in the midst of a cyber cold-war and increasing automation and AI? Yeah, that’ll work, alright. I know, I’m an egghead—but how smart do you have to be, to see the hypocrisy of the GOP or the unfitness of their candidate? How ignorant do you have to be, to fall for it?

The Struggle (2016Sep06)

Posted by XperDunn on September 6, 2016

Tuesday, September 06, 2016 1:23 PM

Two months is a lot of time—I should be experiencing it; I should be savoring it; I should be reveling in it—especially at my age. An old friend of mine died yesterday—and he was the latest in an ever-growing list of people who are gone from my life forever. Until the day I join those old acquaintances, I owe it to them and myself to wring the juice out of life to the best of my ability. I resent the media making me wish for the next two months to go by as quickly as possible—I resent the media making the simple act of turning on the TV a painful experience.

My resentment glowers at their false equivalency between the con man, Trump, and the target of cynical, misogynist con-men, Hillary Clinton. I smolder at the easy passes they’ve given the Ignoramus, and the sensation-biased scrutiny they’ve given a woman who could fairly be described as our most prominent statesman—statesperson, that is. For instance, if I were running for president, I would hope that I, like Hillary, would have policies backed by decades of experience and consideration—not policies that I’m still struggling with at the eleventh hour. Presidential candidates don’t get a learning curve—that’s why we’ve never seen a tyro run for president before—it’s not a trainee-level position.

But there’s a bigger, longer story behind the present scuffling. Bush and the GOP got us into a war we should never have started—or, having started it, should have ended. They let the financiers play their games until the economy crashed and burned, leaving millions unemployed, evicted from homes, and robbed of their savings or retirement nest-eggs. Then they let their racist colors fly proudly while our first black president tried to fix their mess, obstructing every remedy he proposed, every move he tried to make—even when they wanted the same things—out of pure venal spite.

The GOP is not called the party of the rich for nothing—their lip service to the true values of this country has become ever more cursory; their demeaning of science and sense in favor of the cold comfort of profits have left them with no honor—and due to their incompetence, no profits, either. This country is in a mess—and anyone who blames the Democrats for this simply hasn’t been paying attention. Now a demagogue, with no thought for public service, hopes to ride the rage and despair nurtured by his own party into the White House. The few decent people left in that party have felt compelled to accept their party’s utter failure, and stand with Hillary Clinton.

This not only belies the false equivalence shored up by the media—it also proves that the GOP’s attacks on her are only for show. Sensible people of either party see Trump as the death of the American Dream—and rightly so. Hillary Clinton (who, being human, has faults) is as vulnerable to criticism as anyone with a fifty-year resume—but fair-minded people can only marvel at all she has gotten right and all she has accomplished. Trump is having a grand time criticizing others for how they do a job he’s never done—and no one calls him on it. His record is spotless—because it is a blank sheet of paper.

But let’s suppose that Hillary Clinton were just an ordinary politician—nothing special, no life-long history of experience especially suited to the job she hopes to win. Let’s say we criticized the former Secretary of State for her mediocrity, rather than her brilliance. Her opponent is still a horrible man. Far from voting for Trump, I wouldn’t even let that man in my home. Trump has no values, no ethics, no decency—he is a greedy, self-serving cretin. I’d sooner vote for anyone else—not that the Stein or Johnson votes won’t help Trump more than Hillary—that’s just another way the GOP is trying to worm their way into office. So, make that ‘anyone else with a chance of beating him’.

And even if he weren’t a monster, he’d still be ignorant and inexperienced—not just for the office, but in general. He has no experience of life as people live it—he is a yapping lap-dog without an owner. He’s mean-spirited, pompous, and selfish. He’s a billionaire who claims to be the salt of the earth. He’s a racist who claims Hillary is a bigot. He’s a crook who claims she’s crooked. He’s great at firing people. He’s great at putting people down. He’s the insult-comic dog candidate—a joke that wears quickly but won’t go away.

Watch Trump’s old interviews, when he’s asked if he’ll go into politics—he spent his life avoiding the hard work of public service—he’s not interested in being a mayor or a governor or a senator—he just wants to win the reality show that is the presidential contest. He doesn’t want to do the work. He doesn’t even want to study the issues. He just wants to pursue his celebrity to new heights. What will he do as president? He’ll do whatever the hell he feels like. He won’t know or care about the ripple effects of his actions. Oh that’s bold, alright—but it’s pretty stupid, too.

(Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

Americans, if you vote for Trump, you will get exactly what you deserve—and it won’t be pretty. Naturally, I’m with Her. But you don’t have to share my admiration of our potential first woman president—you can vote for her just to save the nation from a con man. This country has so much history, so much greatness, so much potential—why would you hand it over to a conceited, spoiled, sorry excuse for a man, like Trump? Do you really want to vote for a GOP presidential candidate that promises to make Bush-43 look like Solomon? Help me and all right-thinking Americans keep George W. Bush as our stupidest and most inept president—vote for Hillary.

ta-ta. (o wait–one last thing):

Confusion Reigns (2016Sep01)

Posted by XperDunn on September 1, 2016

Thursday, September 01, 2016 1:56 PM

I’m confused. I like Hillary Clinton a lot—but everyone else seems to hate her. A person accused of endless atrocities, but never proved guilty of any of them, is a rare and wondrous thing. If she is truly guilty of all this criminality, then she is unbelievably clever. If she is not, then she is the target of the longest, most intense smear campaign in history—and yet continues to be the favorite for the upcoming. That would make her unbelievably tough. Clever or tough, or both—I like that—and I don’t see where all the spite is coming from.

I’m not confused about all the free media Trump gets—everyone knows: if it bleeds, it leads. Trump’s campaign has been bleeding (out of his wherever) since he first announced his candidacy by calling Mexicans rapists. Everything he says is full of entertainment value—he’s shocking. I’m shocked that, with all he has said, he has anyone willing to vote for him—and we are all shocked by his hate-speech, his rudeness, his trashing of American ideals, and especially his ignorance—considering the job he’s asking for.

Consider this: many people who know and work with Trump have been telling people that he is a narcissist, a cheat, and a bully. No one who has worked with or knows Hillary Clinton has anything bad to say about her. The people who vilify her are always people who don’t know her. Even Republicans she has worked with have testified to her competence and ability—and never accused her of duplicity, as her detractors do.

So, if Hillary Clinton is a villain, she’s not only clever enough to never be proven guilty, she’s also clever enough to fool everyone she’s ever met. And that’s too damned clever—that’s beyond the limit of credibility. One has to wonder. Is it a coincidence that these same people hate her husband, Bill, or her former boss, President Obama? That sounds a lot like the attitude of an angry Conservative, not the indictments of an objective observer.

These would-be angry-mob-leaders blame Hillary for the deaths in Benghazi—even after Ambassador Stevens’s sister said, “We all recognize that there’s a risk in serving in a dangerous environment. Chris thought that was very important, and he probably would have done it again. I don’t see any usefulness in continuing to criticize her. It is very unjust.“ The GOP do a disservice to the late ambassador’s heroism—yet the public still makes it a black mark on Hillary’s ledger, eclipsing the memory of Chris Stevens and the honor of his sacrifice.

That one bugs me the most—but there are two sides to all the accusations made by her enemies—and, as with Trump, only the most shocking and sensational sides are harped-on in the media. No one, to my knowledge, has ever done an in-depth analysis of the Hillary-smear’s long history, or the pros-and-cons of each smear, to expose this nebulous far-right propaganda machine for the ‘doubt factory’ it is. Sixty Minutes, where are you when we need you?

We should remember that her accusers are the same people who brought us Climate-change Denial, Reverse Racism, and Trickle-down Economics. They are the liars, not her. They are the criminals, not her. They are the bigots, not her. That should be clear to everyone. It is not. I’m confused. Are American voters such empty-headed lemmings? Can a horror-show like Trump really worm his way into power, when we have Hillary Clinton as an option? Someone explain this to me.

And while you’re at it, explain to me how people so judgmental that they disapprove of Hillary Clinton can elect a Congress full of village idiots. Those are the good guys? And Hillary is the Wicked Witch of the East? Very sound, everyone—extraordinarily wise—well done. Shit. Nice to know the country is just crawling with intelligence.

The world loves Hillary, but America doesn’t. The world believes in Climate Change, but America doesn’t. The world is dead set against using nuclear weapons, but Trump is considering it. How am I supposed to love my country, when it is so tightly-packed full of morons? I am confused.

bye now.

Damn Good Woman (2016Aug28)

Posted by XperDunn on August 28, 2016

Sunday, August 28, 2016 6:52 PM

Lately a lot of people are saying the election has gotten very ugly, that the rancorous back-and-forth is getting out of hand. To me, this is just more unconscious misogyny. Trump has said some very ugly and thoughtless things—it’s most of his platform, really—and lots of ugly things are being said about Hillary, the Clinton family, and their Foundation. But Hillary herself has done nothing but point to Trump’s record, and quote his own words—is that really Hillary being ugly, or just holding up a mirror to her opponent? I know people like to say that politics is a rough business—having one ugly candidate in the race is enough to tar them both—but that seems pretty facile to me.

There has been nothing underhanded or resentful in Hillary Clinton’s attacks on her opponent and his positions. She was very careful, recently, to outline the facts that reflect racism in Trump’s history, without ever calling him a name. Trump did that—and he’s the only one, Dem or GOP, that has had the foul grace to do so. News-chyrons trumpet his sensationalism, feeling no need to add that it’s a childish and baseless claim. But again, Trump is being ugly, so the news-folk are being ugly—still no ugliness from Hillary.

When are Americans going to give this woman a fucking break? When was the last time enemy-agents destroyed this country by donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a luncheon invitation? Umm, never. What office-holder doesn’t have a network of contacts that help them serve their constituency? Umm, none of them—not if they’re doing their jobs. Who the hell, in or out of government, can guarantee us that all their cyber-comms are completely un-hackable? Nobody. Since when does an FBI head criticize the State Department for being sloppy, without it being taken with a grain of salt for the political elbow-in-the-ribs it most likely is? When it’s Hillary, that’s when. Why has every single, silly, stupid charge the far-right can raise against her made headline news? I’ll tell you why—because it’s two stories. First they can dazzle us with the exotic claims, then, they can report on the dull facts that belie the stupid claims—that’s why they do it. Two for one—and fuck the poor lady’s feelings.

She does have them, you know. Yes, even you, with the sore throat and the spittle on your lip from screaming her damnation—you have to admit that she has feelings. Successful strong women have just as many feelings as any of us. Imagine what it’s like to be a political football, having to take time out from the very hard, very complicated work of serving the nation at the highest levels, to answer a bunch of rabid barking from the most thoughtless group of people ever known. You couldn’t pay me.

And speaking of pay—Secretary Clinton never twisted anyone’s arm for her speaking fees. If I may quote “Moneyball”: ‘High salary says the same thing about you that it says about other top players—that you’re worth it.’ I suspect Trump’s camp picked the speaking fees as a target because it gives them an extra free hit—suggesting that Hillary isn’t really worth what she was payed, therefore it had to be ‘influence money’. Please—just because no one ever has, or ever will, pay Trump the same amount—try again, losers.

Yet Trump gets a pass. Every day, we get to hear foolish back-and-forth over immigration and inner cities. Let’s go back to the original problem. Trump has no experience and no empathy. Trump hasn’t the preparation or the knowledge for the office he seeks. Trump hasn’t the temperament or the self-control to be fit for the office he seeks. He’s a narcissist who wouldn’t be running for president, if he really knew what the job was all about. His daily feed of BS may divert us from this core problem, but it will never make it go away.

So, we can go on picking apart the fifty-year career of a political master, and continue to ignore the wreck that is supposed to oppose her, but it’s all just misogyny at this point. I’d appreciate anyone who can convince me otherwise—this is all very disheartening. Even a gay guy wouldn’t have to take this shit. And, speaking of taking shit, it’s a good thing both Donald and Bill are old farts, or Trump wouldn’t be talking so fast and loose about a damn good woman—he’d be swallowing teeth.

Racists Have Feelings, Too (2016Aug26)

Posted by XperDunn on August 26, 2016

Friday, August 26, 2016 12:08 PM

Racists Have Feelings, Too (2016Aug26)

Trump is a product of the reality-TV movement—in his world, Simon Cowell could insult, demean, and destroy a little girl’s or boy’s lifelong dream—and it was all a part of the show. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat—an unavoidable feature of sports—now available as social interaction! Those voted off of American Idol, or ‘You’re Fired’ by Trump, would staunch their tears as they walked off, to mouth obligatory approval of their own dismissal, and the good judgment of Cowell or Trump—because that was still part of the performance. It’s all show-biz—no harm, no foul.

This suited Trump’s persona well—he’s an unfeeling sort. Being capricious, overbearing and cruel towards others—and far from being criticized, as you or I would be, but rewarded with big ratings—suits him down to a ‘T’. His romp through the Republican primaries was just more of the same—though the GOP curated their base to include many who confuse reality TV with reality—and it seemed, for one brief, horrifying moment, that his inertia would carry him into the White House.

That his campaign is being shredded in the national one-on-one with a cogent, serious opponent is cause for pride amongst American voters, and no little shame for the GOP, to have the Tea-Party portion of their base be so shamefully exposed as insensitive mouth-breathers who see a kindred spirit in the Donald. His promise to eject millions of Mexicans from our country—and build a big wall to keep them out—had his faithful near hysteria with joy. His promise to ban Islam was just the cherry on top.

When we look more closely, we see that we’re talking about persecuting huge numbers of Americans, along with the ‘bad ones’, and that most Americans are not comfortable with a complete reversal of our traditions of equality and fairness. Good for us—wouldn’t it be tragic if our two-centuries-plus of idealism could have been squashed virtually overnight by an ignorant celebrity?

And now, while Trump engages us in a hypocritical debate over who is a bigot, we all ignore the Native Americans protesting the invasion of an oil pipeline through their land. Our original sin of genocide returns to us, over and over, resuming its place in our present—because the original target of white bigotry is still getting shafted, even today. The urban pockets with decaying schools, without access to fresh, healthy foods, with landlords who feel no compulsion to repair their tenements—these dead-traps for minorities have persisted for decades. But they are still spanking-new issues compared to our ongoing persecution of our nation’s original residents.

Trumpeting his new-found tolerance and pity for non-whites at all-white rallies is Donald’s way of staying in his comfort zone—but he may find that he prefers an audience of color once it sinks in to his most zealous advocates that, like the rest of what Trump says, he didn’t really mean it about deporting all the Mexicans, American-citizen children and all.

They supported him because, like him, they are insensitive to the suffering of others—their hate trumps their love—and they want America to show strength by being cruel. Their fear and hatred of having a woman control their lives has been slow-baked into them by the same parents, preachers, and culture that convinced them of the superiority of the light-skinned and the absolute need to carry a gun at all times. But bottom line, most of them are not financially secure themselves, and resent any comfort to the poor while they struggle to avoid their own poverty.

Such people’s hatred of Hillary Clinton is a steady-state thing, they do it nightly at a bar or watching FOX-News at home—but this bait-and-switch of Donald’s just might rouse them to active hatred. Donald once joked light-heartedly about Hillary and her liberal SCOTUS nom-pick—“maybe the second amendment people can take care of that”—well, let’s hope he doesn’t find out that such things cut both ways. Calling together the most iron-hearted misanthropes in the country under a banner of law-and-order, only to turn around and say, “I was being sarcastic” is not the safest thing I can imagine.

Substituting brash statements for policies has been a winning strategy so far for the Donald. It matches well with his total absence of experience. While he can snipe at a multitude of choices and missteps in Hillary’s long career, he offers no complementary points of attack upon himself. That might have worked, had Donald, like most villains, not had the seeds of his own destruction already within him.

But policies can be re-worked, modified, changed in detail while leaving the message intact. Trump’s bold statements may not have been policies, but his supporters certainly took them as such. Having a policy of deportation would have allowed some wiggle-room, but the simple statement, “We’ll deport 11,000,000 people” is difficult to walk back, especially if your constituency has set their hearts on that promise. The fact that the majority of Americans see that as impractical and inhumane means that he has to court them with a ‘softening’ of his stance—yet he cannot ‘soften’ on the one thing his existing base agrees on—not without betraying them.

So Trump has finally retreated to the political landscape of policies—and solved this paradox by having a policy ‘in flux’, i.e. he’s pleasing everybody by saying nothing definite. But there is an even greater danger for him in adopting a policy approach. Just as he left it until after his ignorant interviews to bone up on geopolitics; just as he left it until 75 days before the election to learn about minorities; he is switching to policy-planning virtually on the eve of debating Hillary Clinton. I would quake with fear to face Hillary Clinton in public to debate policy—and I’m a fairly informed person, unlike Trump. I almost feel sorry for him. But his would-be supporters won’t.

Enough Already (2016Aug15)

Posted by XperDunn on August 15, 2016

Monday, August 15, 2016 10:43 AM

This weather is unbearable—extreme heat warnings in the tri-state metro area for days—and no end yet forecast. Floods and fires in too much of the rest of the nation. Riots in Milwaukee—not to make light of that situation, but did the flash point have to center around a rare ‘justified’ shooting? Talk about muddying the waters. But then ‘justified’ is a relative term to most people, in spite of the law-enforcement definition of it. I like to remind myself that Milwaukee’s population isn’t likely to explode at a single incident—there had to have been some previous incidents that elicited a sense of injustice among the residents. People don’t just rise up when the cops shoot an armed criminal with a long record.

Yet there is one thing that I have had altogether too much of—and for way too long. How long are we going to talk about Donald Trump as if he isn’t just a bad joke? Newspeople say totally misleading things, such as, “Trump will be giving a speech on the economy.” Or “—on national security.” Or “Trump will release his new three-point plan to fight ISIL.” Why can’t they be honest? Just say ‘Trump hopes to remain coherent and sound reasonable for a full day on Tuesday before returning to his usual bloviating that requires apologists on every news channel—no word yet on how superficial and ignorant his ‘reasonable’ will be’. I’d like to hear that.

The trouble is the GOP nominated him for president. This leads all the media to feel obligated to comment seriously on a running joke (no pun intended). I feel that Hillary, way back in the primaries, hit the nail on the head, saying, ‘All the GOP candidates are ‘Trump’—Trump is just better at it than the rest of them’. This also explains why significant numbers of GOP leaders are being shamed into switching parties—conservatism in America has always maintained a minimum level of BS, but there’s a limit to magical thinking—especially among business leaders—even in the GOP.

Here we have an entitled, capricious blue-nose whose normal relationships with others consists of bossing them around. He laughs at the idea of debts and obligations—a tactic which, in business, is merely seedy—but which, in public service, amounts to nihilism. Nihilism in public service is, of course, just what the Tea Party ordered—but for the vast majority it is terrifying—and should be.

Some of his madness is plagiarized straight from the GOP. The GOP administration oversaw the birth of ISIL and the destruction of our economy—but they hope to blame those very problems on the Obama administration—as if American history began eight years ago. It’s the virgin birth thing all over again, but this time the baby is a demon.

He also one-upped the GOP’s persistent dog-whistling to Islamophobes, homophobes, racists, misogynists, and bigoted, ignorant haters of every flavor—by openly courting such people, sans subtlety. His base is such a distillation of miserable people who want to blame others for their problems that they are invulnerable to evidence or reason. They’ve been told they’re wrong for so long—and here’s a guy who says they’re right. You can pry Trump out of their cold, dead hands, in effect.

His campaign rhetoric, while failing to build a majority, still manages to damage our foreign relations, our economic stability, and our faith in government in general. He has decided that if he can’t be crowned king, he’s going to leave a bruise on America—one way or the other, he’s leaving his mark. When he said he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose a single vote, I have to wonder if he was making a point or voicing a long-treasured fantasy.

As I’ve written before, Trump lived for seventy years without any interest in public service—I find it highly suspect that he wants to do it now, but only if he can start at the top, by running the free world. I would make a terrible president—but I’d be better than Trump. You’d be better than Trump. Anyone on the outside of a mental institution would make a better president than this horrendous excuse for a human being. He’s made traitorous statements. He’s made criminal statements. And he lies much more often than he says anything true. But he laughs it all off—pure nihilism.

But Trump doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are a lot of ignoramuses and crooks and haters and hypocrites out there—and they’ll all vote for Trump. Still, most people are basically good—and they won’t vote for Trump. He has overlooked the main thing the GOP uses to brainwash us into accepting their garbage—the appearance of civility. Thank God he didn’t have the subtlety to pull that off or, like most GOP candidates, we wouldn’t have known what a jerk he was until he’d been inaugurated.

Pro and Con-fidence Man (2016Aug10)

Posted by XperDunn on August 10, 2016

Wednesday, August 10, 2016 3:47 PM

Donald Trump tells us that America is broken, America has failed, it’s just a big pile of junk—and that he can fix it and make it ‘great’ again. America does have serious problems—no one could refute that. But is America the sum of its problems—or is there something more? Well, I think it’s pretty clear that there is more to America.

Over 94% of workers are earning a paycheck—that doesn’t change the millions in poverty, but it does mean that the vast majority of 300,000,000 Americans are actively engaged in the economy. That’s not nothing. And Trump’s desire to throw out all the rules and turn it all on its head would far more likely disrupt the economy, throwing more people out of work—and have no effect on the unemployed other than making their plight even more intractable.

Trump says China is ‘raping us’ because of our debt—he wants to use his bankruptcy tricks to reduce that debt. China has $1.24 trillion in Treasuries and Japan has $1.13 trillion. All foreign investment in Treasuries comes to a total of $6.1 trillion. US Treasuries are the safest investment in the world—it’s where everyone puts their savings. That’s why American citizens, our corporations, and our local governments hold $2.8 trillion in Treasuries. If Trump staged a Treasuries default to cheat China, he’d be bankrupting you and I—and the whole world—as well.

Trump wants to segregate Muslims, erasing two centuries of our proud tradition (and constitutional law) of embracing all religions equally. But Muslims are part of us—the 99.99% of American Muslims who embrace tolerance and peace are our strongest bulwark against terrorist infiltration. Over three million Muslim-Americans own businesses, police our streets, serve in our military, teach in our schools, and raise their families with the same values as every other American. Only an idiot would marginalize these loyal citizens because of hysteria over ISIL. Their children are being targeted by online terrorist propaganda—do we really want their parents to feel victimized by our government? No one hates the ‘Islamic-extremist terror groups’ more than the real Muslims. Paranoia has never been a virtue—and inclusion is among America’s highest virtues. We are left to wonder if Trump simply hates America, as it is, and wants to take it over and run it like a dictatorship.

Trump says we are wallowing in a swamp of political correctness—and there is some overreach by the nit-pickiest PC-police types—but when he calls for hatred against all Muslims and fear of all Mexicans, he simply makes the PC-police’s case for them. Advising his daughter to run from sexual harassment and find a new career elsewhere is proof that the PC-police still have a lot of work to do. And dog-whistling for snipers to take pot-shots at his political opponents is proof that Trump’s objection to political correctness is that it prevents him from saying whatever outrageous bile spills from his mouth.

It seems likely that this election will not be a choice so much as a sociological survey of the mentally unbalanced in America. By the time we reach November, Trump’s voters will have been winnowed down to only the most backward, bigoted, spiteful high-school drop-outs—and this will provide important data for the mental health care community. Using the voter stats from GOP down-ballot races for candidates who still stand by Trump will help further refine the input. We will know, for the first time, exactly how many of voting-age Americans are sane, how many are apathetic, and how many are just plain bat-shit crazy.

America has many troubles—no one denies that. But with the most prepared, experienced, smartest, toughest president to ever take office in charge, we have our best chance of rising above our issues and finding solutions. Vote for Hillary. And let’s hope we get enough sensible legislators in Congress to untie her hands, so she can get done what needs to be done. We can’t go on with a Congress that goes fishing while Zika establishes a beachhead in Miami, or keeps a Supreme Court nominee waiting for a record full-year for a Senate hearing, and on and on. Who votes for these snail-trails? Kick’em out—put the Congress back to work. Eight years of racist paralysis is enough—we don’t need another four years of misogynist paralysis there.

Why Hillary? (2016Aug09)

Posted by XperDunn on August 10, 2016

Tuesday, August 09, 2016 8:07 PM

Several people, mostly Bernie supporters and Republicans, have put forward the thesis that ‘the lesser of two evils’ is a false choice and that evil is evil. This is prompted by their firmly-held belief that Hillary Clinton is some kind of monster. They all agree that they won’t vote for Trump—and who can blame them?—but they stick at turning to Hillary. I respect ethical staunchness—I’m a big fan. And I won’t wade into the morass of a politician’s long lifetime to parse her sins, venal or cardinal—though I would point out that truly villainous politicians often get caught and convicted—and seldom accomplish any meaningful governance.

Plus, no matter what you accuse Hillary Clinton of doing or saying—she has in her off-time, as Family Advocate, First Lady, and Senator, done some planning, some consensus building, and helped pass several pieces of notable legislation—and, as Secretary of State, she obviously pleased her boss, the President—and didn’t let the world fall into anarchy or let anyone invade the USA. So she has experience, ability, and a firm grasp of the realities of the U.S. government—she has been, to some extent, mentored by two presidents.

Compare that to the Independent party or Libertarian party candidates. Those two may have more experience than Trump, who decided at the age of seventy to give presidenting a try, but they are still pigs-in-a-poke compared to the most qualified candidate in history. Neither have endured one percent of the scrutiny of the candidate they challenge—and I don’t vote for somebody just because I don’t know anything bad about them—not if it’s because I don’t know anything about them.

So that leaves ‘not voting’. Don’t choose that, please—it’s un-American. Because ethics are ethics, chess games are chess games, and annoying chores are annoying chores—but politics is part ethics, part chess game, and partly an annoying chore. There are thousands of people out there, screaming at the top of their lungs—and since long before the primaries began—that Hillary Clinton must not be elected. Why are they so desperately trying to keep her from the presidency? Well, because they thought that Jeb Bush would oppose her in the general—or some other GOP with even less chance of beating her—it’s all political messaging.

If Hillary was as bad as critics paint her, serious, thoughtful people would be criticizing her—or charging her with some actual crime—or at least saying that they don’t think she would make a very good president. But no serious, thoughtful person is saying that—only her political opponents are saying that. And this may be extra confusing, right now, because serious, thoughtful are saying bad things about Trump. If it helps, try to remember that only one group disses Hillary—everybody disses the Donald. There is a difference between political mud-slinging and objective criticism. Media-savvy Donald knows this—and tries his best to turn all criticism into politics—accusing his accusers.

America is a big complicated place—there are a lot of people out there with a vested interest in their own agenda. I accept that politics is a rough business and—bottom line—Hillary Clinton is no angel (or if she is, it’s that one with the big flaming sword). But we don’t want an angel as commander-in-chief. We don’t want an angel across the negotiating table from Putin. We want a smart, serious, no-fucking-around grandma whose been there and done that. What we don’t want is a little imp with a big mouth. Or one of two strangers that wandered in late. And we certainly don’t want a bunch of goddamned Americans whining that their conscience is telling them not to vote.

If your ethics are that disturbed by the present race, then you started late—you should have been out there the last four years getting ready, finding a good candidate and helping them towards the presidency. Don’t show up in the summer before the election and say you’re not pleased with your choices. You Berners—he announced his candidacy on May 26, 2015—and all of you high-and-mighty reformers were sitting around doing nothing until your friends dragged you to his rallies. Hillary started ‘stealing’ the nomination in 2008. So get over it—if you really got inspired—good. Do something with that going forward—if you really believed what he was saying, there’s no reason to turn your back on politics now.

And you can start by voting for the candidate that didn’t come from a millionaire’s family—try Hillary—how do you know you won’t like it, if you won’t taste it?

O–and BTW, there are new baby-pictures in my latest video. Please enjoy:

Merrily He Goes Along (2016Aug09)

Posted by XperDunn on August 9, 2016

Monday, August 08, 2016 11:33 PM

I get it now. For the longest time I was frustrated—I thought, ‘Why don’t journalists out this clown?’ But, here’s the thing—they’re hamstrung by journalistic ethics—they can only report what Trump does and what he says. They cannot follow that up with their honest opinion about what he just did or said—that’s against the rules—even if an entire roomful of journalists are asking themselves, ‘Could this man seriously believe he can lead a nation?—He’s out of his mind, or an evil super-villain, or both.’ They can’t say that. They can only report the facts, ma’am.

This is important not just because it explains the press’s failure to call the Donald what he is—but because it also means that Donald Trump has created the firestorm over his fitness and temperament all by himself. With his own words and deeds he has demonstrated his ignorance, bigotry and general unfitness for arguably the most important job in the world. Everyone talks about him ‘walking back’ the reputation he has made over a year of campaigning—but you can’t un-ring a bell. This leaves the vilification of Hillary Clinton as his one and only job—his last, desperate shot at liquidating his final rival.

But Donald Trump has zero experience in government, zero understanding of the global checks and balances that maintain the status quo—and by ‘status quo’ I mean holding back World War III, mass starvation, nuclear winter—or all three at once. Donald Trump has zero understanding of public service—he has spent a lifetime in the bare-knuckle private sector and now he supposes that governance is just another ‘business’. He wins a popularity contest—but he is forcing American voters (perhaps for the first time) to question whether the one they like the best is really the best person to vote for. And his cumulative statements seem to be answering our question with a resounding ‘no’.

Trump started out with an easy job—decades of Republican mud-slinging had already made Hillary Clinton unpopular, to put it mildly—and he should have easily made the case that she should not win. But now he has raised the bar much higher—he now has to show that Hillary is more unfit than he is—and that’s a much tougher job. As a Hillary supporter, I’d like to think that people had wised up to the unfair defamations of Hillary—and seen through Trump’s lack of seriousness, and his narcissism. But I’m afraid that’s not true. I’m afraid that people have simply had their noses rubbed in the outlandish antics of Trump to the point where even the staunchest Republican has to ask, “Is that really the American way? I didn’t think we were that ugly.”

Being outrageous about his rivals during the Republican primary was fair game—we enjoyed it. But being outrageous about the national spirit, about the constitution, about war crimes and nuclear bombs, about dead soldiers and POWs?—whoa, hold on there, fella. Let’s take a beat. Nobody’s laughing any more.

There was an article in the New York Times today addressing the issue of journalists whose heads explode at the paradox of Donald Trump. Journalists are supposed to be non-judgmental—that’s their job. But what do they do with a man who dances on the edge of insanity and enormous ignorance? When Hillary questions his mental stability and fitness, she is responding honestly to his wild clown act. But when the Donald turns around and, in effect, says, “I know you are but what am I?” journalists are obligated to print ‘Trump Questions Hillary’s Fitness’ as if the statement had been made by a rational adult.

There’s a method to Trump’s madness, though—he really knows how to work the spotlight. He only trips up when substance or ethics or empathy intrude on the conversation—such areas are quicksand for the glib and superficial. Trump can tap-dance like mad—it will be interesting to see the debates. Can his media-savvy outshine the emptiness inside his head and heart—or will Hillary’s command of the subject become painfully obvious next to his vague notions of which country is which, and what cabinet bureau handles which subject?

As a Hillary supporter, I hope for the later. But bluster and venom are deadly debate strategies—and Trump is a past master of both. He also likes to make stuff up in his head as he goes along—fact-checks afterwards be damned. If Hillary is as big a liar as everyone seems to think, she’s going to need it to stand up to the man who makes his reality up as he goes along.

If Hillary Is Satan, Then So Am I (2016Aug07)

Posted by XperDunn on August 7, 2016

Sunday, August 07, 2016 11:18 AM

Spencer and I went to the supermarket yesterday and spent $300 on spaghetti, hot dogs, and Eggos (plus my snack foods). This is probably why Claire does the shopping—she buys what we need, I buy what I want. Spencer did all the driving, so I thought the trip was easy. I get too stressed out trying to drive a car these days—but I love to go to the store. It reminds me of the good ol’ days when I made too much money and went shopping just for fun.

Claire is still out west—but she’s sending pix of Lil Sen, so I get to see. Oh what a beautiful baby our baby had. Every time I see California fires on the news, I get worried. I ask Jessy, “Are you near the fires?” and she always says, “No, don’t worry.”

One of my conservative Facebook friends posted a meme today—it had a list of accusations about Hillary Clinton. I thought to myself, “OMG, why didn’t I hear about any of this?” So I googled each one—and Snopes.com explained how each accusation was false or misleading. I left the Snopes URLs in the comment section—but you know how it is with zombie-lies—they never die, they just keep roaming the earth.

That’s why it bothers me that the media is always saying things like, “The public still thinks of Hillary Clinton as untruthful.” Have some self-respect, newspeople—don’t report on what people think, report on whether they’re correct or not. This whole thing with the email-servers just bugs me.

Some talking heads say that the main problem is that she had a separate server in the first place. Well, (1) she wasn’t the only government official to do that, (2) email was still fairly new tech—there is no “email division” in the state department, and (3) have you seen Hillary’s life? She’d been attacked by the far-right for decades—I’d have been paranoid about privacy, too.

As far as her lying about it goes—she said publicly that no confidential emails were on her private server. FBI director Comey said that out of 30,000 emails, he found three marked confidential—two with a ‘c’ at the bottom (which everyone knows means confidential) and one with a confidential ‘heading’. One confidential email, no evidence of being hacked, and no obstruction of justice—yeah she’s a lying bitch, alright—or maybe she’s just a human being. I prefer the human being explanation—but then, Hillary Clinton is not an existential threat to my yahoo mind-set, so what do I know?

When questioned about it (for the zillionth time) Hillary attempts to explain herself—but then the talking heads say, “She talked like a lawyer—parsing the details in a complicated way.” Well, first, she is a lawyer—not necessarily a bad thing, when in public service. And secondly, why is it okay for her accusers to nit-pick one email out of 30,000, but Hillary is evasive when she talks about details? Even MSNBC, supposedly the anti-FOXNews, goes after Hillary for her ‘untrustworthiness’. It’s the mother of all zombie-lies, and its roots are found deep within misogyny and humanity’s inherent need to knock down those who rise high.

Hillary Clinton is a politician—and compared to other politicians, she is the picture of transparency. Yes, she tries to spin things when attacked—that’s what politicians do. Yes, she makes mistakes—but then, people do that. Painting Hillary Clinton as Satan incarnate—that’s just hysteria. Her lifelong efforts in service to families and children have been entirely discounted, replaced with a mountain of BS from people who are themselves demonstrably dishonest—that the media climbs on board with it all is proof that they care more about sensationalism than information.

The media are also all in agreement that Trump is wrong to do anything other than hammer away at the false charges leveled at his opponent. They overlook that his charges against her are without foundation. They overlook that a candidate who can only attack his opponent must not have anything good to say about himself. And the latest thing they do is try to equate the two candidates’ attacks on each other—I’m sorry, but Trump’s non-stop blustering against Hillary is not the same as Hillary’s stump-speeches, in which she outlines her detailed plans to help the country, calls for unity, equal rights, and community among all Americans—and then ends her talk with a short review of the horrible things that Trump has said—and pointing out that his comments show ignorance on too many levels to count.

The whole thing makes me tired and not a little disgusted. Vote for Hillary—or be a victim—your choice.

Not So Good (2016Aug05)

Posted by XperDunn on August 6, 2016

Friday, August 05, 2016 2:21 PM

Okay, so call me a starry-eyed optimist. I always reach for the moon—yesterday I was day-dreaming about a Clinton presidency with a Democratic-controlled legislature—with bill after bill, just sailing through—and changing the face of our future. But I just saw Hillary Clinton give a press conference in DC that was co-hosted by the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists —and Hillary said that even if she wins, and even if Dems take the Senate, there will still be a GOP majority in the House.

For at least two more years, she would have to contend with Paul Ryan’s Mad-Hatters Tea-Party. She recommends that supporters write their congresspersons to let them know we’re watching, let them know how we feel about obstruction of important bills—and of course to vote for Democrats in 2018 (though she didn’t say that last part—she has to stay on message about this election—she only alluded to the low voter turn-out in off-year elections, which allows the GOP to keep sneaking in).

Thus it won’t be all peaches and cream—even if there’s a Democrat blow-out in this election. The GOP will be able to continue their policy of obstructing the Dems and claiming the Dems can’t do anything. I don’t know why people keep falling for this. Massive misinformation campaigns in targeted demographics—that’s my take on it—the GOP can evert any issue—they can take the simplest cause and turn it on its head. Their reasoning never survives close scrutiny, but if they hammer half-truths into their base, over and over—their nonsense starts to sound like sense.

People are suffering. People are angry. Why people blame Hillary for this is beyond me. Hillary doesn’t control the government—legislation goes through the GOP—or never makes it past the GOP, more like—so why do people still believe them when they blame Obama? They’ll try the same thing if Hillary wins—but maybe people will catch on. Maybe people will see that an adversarial two-party system is deadly—only a truly bi-partisan system that does its work, and leaves the differences on the sidelines, has enabled our government to function throughout its first two centuries. We cannot continue with the GOP mind-set of winner-take-all. It’s bad for everybody.

Still, I remain optimistic. Our government will inevitably embrace the 21^st century and all the digital magic that comes with—and streamlining data-collection, analysis, communications, and policy-making will do for bureaucracy what it has already done for our military—state-of-the-art tools for finding trouble-spots, creating solutions, and implementing those solutions, with digital monitoring that allows real-time feedback on its efficiency, will allow our government to change as quickly as the times—all we need to do is make sure the right people are deciding on our heading. Will America be run to please the wealthy and big businesses—or will we be governed in terms of what’s best for everyone—rich or poor, big or small? We decide—one way or another, we will not enter into our future without having anything to say about it—we just have to believe—and act appropriately.

The GOP and the lobbyists rely on political inertia and public indifference—the USA has run so smoothly for so long that many people feel our elections are just going through the motions. Let’s prove them wrong—let’s all vote—in every election—and get involved in politics more, locally as well as nationally. It’s a government by the people—but if the people lay down on the job, other influences take advantage. We have to fight back—no matter how boring or tedious the process may be. Vote for Hillary—and if you don’t like her, vote anyway—vote for somebody. Get off the sidelines. This isn’t a football game that we watch at home—this is reality—get involved.

***

Better (Same Day)

Enough. I’ve been hanging out here with Spencer—just us guys. Claire has found the way to San Jose and is holding her granddaughter as we speak. Lil Seneca is happy and healthy and Jessy is well also—Big Sen had to return to work. Lately Claire has taken some art classes including life studies sessions, pencil technique, pastels, charcoals, and even watercolor. I get a free art show every time she comes home—in one of today’s videos I share two of my favorite Life Studies with you.

I remember my teens—I was a pretty needy kid. I wanted to make friends in the worst way. One way I tried was to make my parents’ house a sort of Grand Central terminal for all the kids in my class who wanted to hang out somewhere, without their parents, and with other kids to hang with. Sometimes, when my parents weren’t around for awhile, we’d get some really heavy traffic going through the living room. After some time it became annoyingly clear that I had started something that I couldn’t stop.

Well, we never get that kind of traffic in our living room today. But since it is the room I record in, I often catch Claire or Spencer walking past the piano during a video—I think it adds character to the show. I have one today that shows the merest glimpse of Spencer, so I’ve called it Dunn & Son, Ltd.

Lastly, my piece de resistance, Granddaughter, is frustrating to post—I have all these beautiful pictures of our new baby, but I’m not sure I’m happy with my piano-playing on this video. The pictures make up for it, but I wish I liked the music better.

ttfn

Am I Dreaming? (2016Aug05)

Posted by XperDunn on August 5, 2016

Friday, August 05, 2016 12:03 AM

What is this winsome magic? Don’t tease me, now. Don’t say it unless you really mean it. Can the entire nation have finally begun to see the madness of a Trump candidacy? Will I be saved from the dread of suspecting that a majority of my country-people were foolish enough to be taken in by that ‘salesman’ who is selling his heart out? America has about 300 million people in it—about 13 million of them are hard-core Trump supporters—so roughly 4.3% of Americans are yahoos—yeah, that sounds about right.

I don’t want to jinx anything—but news reports now say Hillary Clinton is leading, even in battleground states—and that even congressional and senate seats are looking vulnerable, because of disarray in the Trump GOP. It just might be that Hillary would win—and—be working with a Democratic Congress.

The GOP handed Obama a nation in the ditch, miles from the nearest phone—and despite that, our President managed to helm a slow recovery. What he couldn’t do was pass any significant new legislation, with a GOP Congress sitting on its hands just to spite him. But if the Democrats get back the legislature, we could see an almost FDR-like wave of economic reforms. We could see jobs, growth, wage hikes—hell, all kinds of good stuff—who knows?

Now, that twit, Julian Assange, is planning to dump some sort of scandal into the news cycle sometime soon—you’d think a coder could see through Trump’s façade of BS—so, it’s still a tricky business. We’ll have to wait and see just how crazy Debbie Wasserman Schulz got—and whether any of it can be directly connected to Hillary. But a dream has sprouted in my mind—a future full of progress and prosperity—a return to American exceptionalism that isn’t just bluster—a serious effort to see equal justice for everyone, in every community.

I’d like to see Hillary do so well that future Republicans will have to make ‘compromise’ and ‘bipartisan productivity’ a part of their appeal. Four years from now, I want to see Hillary run for re-election with the slogan, ‘this is what happens when government does its job’. I want to hear the GOP disavow their era of obstruction and subtle bigotry. And I want them to change the subject, for the rest of my life, whenever anyone brings up the Donald.

I’ve been so terrified that we wouldn’t see through him until it was too late—I’m hesitant to think about this nightmare being over—there are still ninety-something days until Election Day. I can’t take the suspense. I keep telling myself to stop watching the news, just let it go until November—but then I just have to check and make sure we’re still heading in the right direction. Auggh! (As Charlie Brown would say.)

Dossier (2016Aug02)

Posted by XperDunn on August 2, 2016

Tuesday, August 02, 2016 5:01 PM

You know me—quick trigger finger when I hear about injustice.

Right now, I’ve been compiling a dossier on Hillary Clinton. I tried to find reliable sources for the main conspiracy theories that paint her as the devil in a blue dress.

I must admit, she’s no saint—but neither do I find anything worthy of the hysterical venom directed at her.

Let’s remember that I am saying nothing of the innumerable good, and even great, things that Hillary Clinton has done in a lifetime of public service—I think people forget sometimes that the blips below arise, and could only arise, from someone who is deeply involved in the administration of our government. And, like the government, we are prone to stress the problems with Hillary Clinton without remembering all the good things we take for granted, every day, year after year.

Also, I would be remise if I didn’t mention the cretin who conflates, lies, insults, and accuses not just Hillary Clinton, but our president, our military, our vets, our minorities, our Muslims, and our women. He has made a catalog of every stumble in Hillary’s career, true or false, and blown them out of all proportion. Hillary can’t respond in kind, since he has no public service experience of any kind, at the age of seventy. She can point out his execrable business practices, but it’s not quite the same thing.

So, here we go—the worst of Hillary Clinton.

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewater_controversy

“David Hale, the source of criminal allegations against the Clintons, claimed in November 1993, that Bill Clinton had pressured him into providing an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the Clintons’ partner in the Whitewater land deal. Clinton supporters regarded Hale’s allegations as questionable, as Hale had not mentioned Clinton in reference to this loan during the original FBI investigation of Madison Guaranty in 1989; only after coming under indictment in 1993, did Hale make allegations against the Clintons. A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation did result in convictions against the McDougals for their role in the Whitewater project. Jim Guy Tucker, Bill Clinton’s successor as governor, was convicted of fraud and sentenced to four years of probation for his role in the matter. Susan McDougal served 18 months in prison for contempt of court for refusing to answer questions relating to Whitewater. The Clintons themselves were never prosecuted, after three separate inquiries found insufficient evidence linking them with the criminal conduct of others related to the land deal, and Susan McDougal was granted a pardon by President Clinton before he left office.

The term Whitewater is also sometimes used to include other controversies from the Bill Clinton administration, especially Travelgate, Filegate, and the circumstances surrounding Vince Foster’s death, that were investigated by the Whitewater independent counsel.”

Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/us/politics/25clinton.html

By PATRICK HEALY and KATHARINE Q. SEELYE – MARCH 25, 2008 – The New York Times:

“BLUE BELL, Pa. — As part of her argument that she has the best experience and instincts to deal with a sudden crisis as president, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton recently offered a vivid description of having to run across a tarmac to avoid sniper fire after landing in Bosnia as first lady in 1996.”

“Mrs. Clinton corrected herself at a meeting with the Philadelphia Daily News editorial board; she did not explain why she had misspoken, but only admitted it and then offered a less dramatic description.

Mrs. Clinton said she had been told “that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire,” not that actual shots were being fired.

“So I misspoke,” she said.”

Source:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/14/hillary-clinton-has-no-regrets-about-libya/

“On the campaign trail, Clinton has not shied from defending her decision to support the intervention that toppled dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi. “I think President Obama made the right decision at the time,” she said in the first Democratic debate in October as she pointed to the 2012 General Assembly elections in which Libyans voted mostly for moderate parties

But that answer focused on the more promising days of 2012 – before the killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and the country’s descent into civil war. We are now, of course, in 2016. How does Clinton make sense of what went wrong in Libya in the years since she left the State Department? Her answer to that question is one of the keys to understanding how she will approach the Middle East if she makes it to the White House.”

Source:

http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2012/09/197628.htm

Statement on the Attack in Benghazi

Press Statement

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Secretary of State

Washington, DC

September 11, 2012

I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in Benghazi today. As we work to secure our personnel and facilities, we have confirmed that one of our State Department officers was killed. We are heartbroken by this terrible loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and those who have suffered in this attack.

This evening, I called Libyan President Magariaf to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya. President Magariaf expressed his condemnation and condolences and pledged his government’s full cooperation.

Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.

In light of the events of today, the United States government is working with partner countries around the world to protect our personnel, our missions, and American citizens worldwide.”

Source:

http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/benghazi-timeline/

“About 10:00 p.m.: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issues a statement confirming that one State official was killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Her statement, which MSNBC posted at 10:32 p.m., made reference to the anti-Muslim video:

Clinton: Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.”

“Sept. 12: Clinton issues a statement confirming that four U.S. officials, not one, had been killed. She calls it a “violent attack.”

Clinton: All the Americans we lost in yesterday’s attacks made the ultimate sacrifice. We condemn this vicious and violent attack that took their lives, which they had committed to helping the Libyan people reach for a better future.”

“Sept. 12, 3:04 p.m.: Clinton calls then-Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil and tells him, “We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack — not a protest.” An account of that call was contained in an email written by State Department Public Affairs Officer Lawrence Randolph. The email was released by the House Benghazi committee. EMAIL:

http://benghazi.house.gov/sites/republicans.benghazi.house.gov/files/documents/Tab%2079.pdf

“Oct. 15: Clinton, in an interview on CNN, blames the “fog of war” when asked why the administration initially claimed the attack began with the anti-Muslim video, even though the State Department never reached that conclusion. “In the wake of an attack like this in the fog of war, there’s always going to be confusion, and I think it is absolutely fair to say that everyone had the same intelligence,” Clinton says. “Everyone who spoke tried to give the information they had. As time has gone on, the information has changed, we’ve gotten more detail, but that’s not surprising. That always happens.”

Source:

https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system

“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

“While not the focus of our investigation, we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified e-mail systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.

With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked.”

“In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.”

“I know there were many opinions expressed by people who were not part of the investigation—including people in government—but none of that mattered to us. Opinions are irrelevant, and they were all uninformed by insight into our investigation, because we did the investigation the right way. Only facts matter, and the FBI found them here in an entirely apolitical and professional way.”

***

So, there you go—food for thought—even, perhaps, food for suspicion—in the highlights of these and other over-inflated ‘scandals’ that the media and the GOP both feed on. But do remember that Secretary Clinton has gotten up every morning of her life and worked hard, achieving no small amount of good, week after week, month after month, year after year, and decade after decade. The above is the very worst that her enemies can say about her.

I don’t know—maybe our country’s most admired politician would make a bad president—well, second most admired (let’s not forget the guy she’s replacing). Maybe we should try four years with a vicious, vacuous clown? Naaah!

***

One last point, on the wording of Comey’s statement:

“All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.”

He could just as easily have said:

“We did not see clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; we did not see vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; we did not see indications of disloyalty to the United States; and we did not see efforts to obstruct justice.”

But he chose not to. Perhaps that’s apolitical, perhaps it isn’t….

Time Is A River (2016Jul29)

Posted by XperDunn on July 29, 2016

Friday, July 29, 2016 3:15 PM

Hillary Clinton’s opponents try to characterize President Obama’s administration as a failure—pointing to exported jobs, employment woes, wage woes, and economic inequality, pointing to threats from terrorism at home and abroad. And they hammer away at every questionable action taken by either Obama or Clinton (we’re all sick of hearing about them because there are only a few, out of all the good both have accomplished).

Cherry-picking data is a favorite sport of the GOP. When they talk about Obama’s poor economic stats (which aren’t all that poor) they never mention Obama’s starting point—or rather, the end of eight years under Bush-43. We were in economic hell—there’s no other way to spin it. And the fact that most economic stats are at record highs, eight years later, with unemployment down to nearly reasonable levels (there is still work to do) makes it ludicrous that the GOP could pretend to any understanding of economics—or any ability to fix the problems. They created the problems—but you won’t hear them own up to that. They’ll even complain that Obama’s recovery was ‘too slow’—hey, maybe if you didn’t create the problem, you’d have the right to back-seat-drive the recovery.

The same is true of terrorism. Bush went to war with another country—by mistake—and then screwed the landing. He turned Iraq from a developed country into a chaotic free-for-all—and then doubled-down on military forces instead of addressing the hard work of re-building the country’s infrastructure and brokering between all the different factions a truce that had a shot at lasting long enough to get Iraq back to what it was. Now it is a wasteland, a breeding ground for ISIL—can they blame that on Obama or Hillary? No, but they can criticize the administration’s attempts to deal with the problem. It is childishly self-serving to spill milk and carp at the person wiping it up.

Our history did not begin at Obama’s inauguration. The GOP earned their total shunning in 2008—they had us all in a very bad place—and how they ever wormed their way back in two years later says more about our educational system than it does about their merit as civil servants. And since their majorities in the House and Senate, they have sabotaged the gears of government—just to try and embarrass Obama. Now they want to point to him and say, “He didn’t get anything done.” Well, that’s right—he only got done as much as he could those first two years (AHA and banking regulations and saving the auto industry) and then went on to do as much as a president can do alone, while the Congress jerks off. I’d say half of them are just cynical pols—and the other half are simply cracker bigots. How else do you explain more than half of our 500 legislators deciding that their job is to block anything the president tries to do?

Notice there is no qualifier to that goal—even if they really want something the president wants to pass, they’ll still block it. The proof is in their denial of Supreme Court nominee Garland a Senate hearing, for a year and counting—before he was nominated, the GOP wrote nothing but love letters about him—now they don’t want to know him. Politics can be nauseating.

So, if Obama’s administration has failed in important ways—he hasn’t done it in a vacuum—or rather, he has, though he shouldn’t have had to. The GOP created more than one crisis in this country, then they spent eight years blocking efforts to right the situation, then they spent the last two years working on one thing—trying to destroy Hillary Clinton’s image. From the polls, I have to admit they’ve done a great job—but again, that says more about our educational system than it does about their merit as civil servants.

I don’t know—maybe there’s something in uneducated people that wants to be taken advantage of. Other polls seem to show that no one with a college education will vote for the clown who hijacked the GOP. People who need dramas in their lives will hang on to all the propaganda, resurrecting the zombie lies for the nth time, making out as if there’s a real contest here. I’m sorry—this election was over when Trump said Mexicans were rapists. Even if Hillary Clinton wasn’t a great woman, and wouldn’t make a fantastic President—we’d still have to vote for her, just to keep him away from the big button—yikes.

Come Listen Young People Wherever You Roam (2016Jul28)

Posted by XperDunn on July 29, 2016

Thursday, July 28, 2016 5:28 PM

My heart is full—I’ve been binge-watching the Philadelphia convention all week—the straight CSPAN feed (I want to make up my own mind—both about what’s worth watching and what I think about what I see and hear). Next week, I can go watch PBS, MSNBC, CNN, BBC, & FOX to see what the ‘buzz’ is. So far, it’s been like singing the national anthem—which I love to do—I love what’s best about our country. That doesn’t mean I ignore our problems. It certainly doesn’t mean I don’t worry. Neither does it mean that I believe everything I hear (from either side) nor was I born yesterday.

I’ve been a studious guy my whole life—I’ve studied world history, American history, and I follow politics. I’m sixty, which doesn’t make me an expert, but it does mean that I’ve lived through the same period of recent history as either candidate. I know what it was like for African-Americans in politics in the 1960s—and for a woman in politics in the 1970s—or rather, I remember what it was like for them—young people don’t know. If you had talked about a black president or a woman president back in those days, people would have laughed in your face. And if a gay person came out, he (or she) would have been dragged into a back alley and beat to death by an angry mob. No one can laugh at the first ‘if’ any more. Gays are still subject to violence—but the attackers don’t get a pat on the back anymore—they get charged with a crime.

People too young to have lived through those decades can be excused for not feeling Hillary Clinton—she’s just an old politician to them, with plenty of bad press. But they should recognize that Secretary Clinton has been getting bad press since before she graduated from law school—she has been a target of conservatives since she first appeared on the public stage, going undercover down south to prove that private schools maintained ‘hush-hush’ segregation, in violation of federal funding provisions.

People too young to know of Bill Clinton’s presidency can be excused for wondering what’s up with his cheating, their marriage, and therefore, her sincerity. Bill Clinton was a very young president when he got a blow-job from Monica Lewinski, an adoring, worshipful intern—then got in trouble when he swore he ‘didn’t have sexual relations with that woman’. He meant he hadn’t had intercourse, but others insisted that fellatio is a sex act and that he had lied. Now, Bill was a very popular president, very capable—and the GOP had to destroy him—they tried to impeach him, but couldn’t quite get him out of office. The whole country talked about blow-jobs for two years—it was stupid. Hillary stood by Bill, publicly, both as a believer before-hand, and as a wronged wife after the truth was publicized.

Now, people say that their marriage is a sham—as if no other marriage had bad problems and recovered. We’re coming up on our thirty-fifth anniversary next month and I can tell you—no marriage is without its ups and downs—long marriages are not a convenience, they are proof of character. But the press, comics, and her opponents, like to dredge this stuff up decades after the Clintons, I’m sure, have put it behind them.

Benghazi was Ambassador Stevens’ valiant choice, but her opponents insist on labelling it Hillary’s mistake. Her email server mistake did no demonstrable damage to national security or personal privacy—and she was not the only government official to do this—she was just the only one being stalked by her long-time haters. And let’s say that I have too high an opinion of her—that she has serious flaws. Look at her record, look at her achievements—recognize that the kind of work she does makes enemies in powerful places—recognize that she has been a target since before most of you were born.

If Hillary Clinton is an imperfect person, she has somehow managed, in spite of that, to do good for millions, to get healthcare for children, to broker a brief but important peace in the Mid-East, to get compensation for New York City, its police and its first-responders in the health crisis that was the aftermath of 9/11 rescue efforts. And much more—watch the convention for the full bio on CSPAN.org—it’s pretty damned impressive—and we should all be impressed. This is the lady who should be ‘locked-up’?! Yeah, by a dictator, maybe….

People say they don’t trust Hillary—I wonder who convinced them to think that way? People say Hillary makes mistakes—their list of complaints is mighty short for a decades-long career—maybe they had to look extra hard, maybe they had to inflate some things out of proportion—for instance, who the hell hasn’t had trouble with their email?

I trust Hillary because I have followed her career since she became First Lady—and I’ve learned about her life before that. There is a reason everyone in Washington assumed she’d be president two years ago—it wasn’t because she was an ‘insider’—it was because all of Washington knew her to be one of the brightest stars in American politics that anyone, on either side of the aisle, had ever seen. They won’t admit it now, during campaign season—but they’re still thinking it.

Anyway, I gotta go—don’t wanna miss her speech tonight…

Here’s a little something I played today—this convention is really lifting my spirits:

..ttfn

Belated History (2016Jul27)

Posted by XperDunn on July 27, 2016

Wednesday, July 27, 2016 12:50 AM

Yesterday’s nomination of Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic party’s presidential candidate and, with a little luck, the first woman president, was a major historic event—undercut only by the fact that it took us two hundred years and 44 male presidents to get here. The UK’s first woman leader is already a quaint bit of nostalgia—and many other democracies have been graced by women leaders—and we’re just getting around to it.

That’s the trouble with America—we’ve done so much—yet there is even more still left to be done. Michael Moore recently made an entire movie about good ideas that originated in America, were adopted by other countries (who benefitted greatly) yet failed to catch on, here in the land of the free and the home of the brave. And every time a progressive puts forth a good idea for making America a better place there’s a stubborn autocrat who finds a reason to block progress. Democracy is slow, grinding work—especially when it’s swimming upstream against the Citizen’s United ruling that opened the lobbyists’ coffers.

We saw an old lady at the convention who was a little girl in 1920, when the nineteenth amendment gave women voting rights, and lived to vote for the lady who we hope to be our nation’s first Madam President. Barack Obama’s presidency has given the empowerment of dreams to millions of African-American children—Hillary Clinton is in line to do the same for half our nation’s citizens, and every little girl in America. The GOP wants to minimize this aspect of Hillary’s candidacy, but our President is first and foremost a symbol to the world—and it’s about time we broke the gender wall. Everyone calls it a ceiling, but that’s just to emphasize the unfairness of holding women down—it’s really a wall and we need to break through.

I was also pleased to see so many details of Hillary Clinton’s long and selfless service to the people of America—state after state credited her with making a positive difference in their lives. The truth about her civil service only makes the GOP smear campaign, over the decades, that much more reprehensible. And after tonight’s endorsements from her friends, her constituents, her colleagues, and her husband, the idea that the GOP nominee can stand up to any comparison is ludicrous.

As president, one is expected to interact with Congress—that’s 100 Senators and 435 Representatives—over five hundred legislators—it helps if you’ve been to law school. As president, one is expected to make decisions about things happening around the globe, things happening in science, education, health, farming, industry, energy—and business. Knowing about business is great—but knowing a lot about a lot of things, knowing a lot of people, knowing how government works—these are all important, too. The presidency is a tough job for a qualified person—for a newbie trainee, it would be a tragic farce.

I was always a problem student—I grasped concepts at once, and got very restless waiting for the rest of the class to catch up—my notebooks had more doodles than notes. Nobody appreciates the egghead who screws up the bell curve. But trust me—I’ve already solved this little multiple-choice problem and I am more than restless—I’m scared to death that the rest of the class might not catch up by November.

Yes Mindy, There Is A Hillary (2016Jul24)

Posted by XperDunn on July 24, 2016

Sunday, July 24, 2016 3:42 PM

I agree with you, Min—choosing Pence for a VP pick was lucky for Pence, since his anti-gay and anti-abortion legislative efforts have angered his Indiana constituency—not to mention his resistance to a free-needle program to stop the spread of AIDs in his state—and it was unlikely that he could win re-election as Governor. On the other side, Hillary has chosen Tim Kaine, whom The New Yorker’s Adam Borowitz jokingly said, “exhibits none of the outward characteristics of a sociopath or clinical narcissist”—meaning he’s never had a scandal or an investigation or a fraud charge, so how can we take him seriously as a politician?

He is a lot like Joe Biden—when you go to smear him, you realize there’s no mud on the ground. A seemingly decent person who works hard as an honest politician—it’s confusing, I know.

I also agree with you about the legislature—both the house and senate GOP swore they would block anything and everything Obama tried to do—just so they could call him a ‘do-nothing’ president. But the Democrats did manage to regulate the banks and pass healthcare reform before the GOP slipped back into Congress—so when the AP did a fact-check on all the doom and gloom of Trump’s acceptance speech last week, they found that he lied about most of it—the economy is better, employment is better, crime is down, Iran can’t manufacture nuclear weapons, we have our first global climate-change accords, relations with our neighbor Cuba are being normalized (with Congress blocking the dropping of the fifty-year-old embargo, of course) and Obama has appointed a fantastic Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, who has just set a record for the longest an appointee has ever had to wait for a Senate hearing (almost a year now—and counting).

And let’s not forget that the origin of our financial woes came from the GOP’s spendthrift war-mongering and lax banking oversight—they left Obama with quite a hole to dig the country out of—but he did it, and has us back to better than before the bank crashes. So ‘just more of Obama’s policies’ sounds pretty good to most people—just think what a Democratic president could do with a working legislature.

To get that, we need more than just Hillary Clinton for president—we need some more Democrats in both houses of Congress. Both Clinton’s and Kaine’s Senate records show that they worked well across the aisle—so even if we don’t take the House or Senate, they still have a shot at some real governing, unless the GOP’s thinly-veiled racism simply transforms into thinly-veiled misogyny. Their acceptance of the orange Mussolini makes me feel that nothing is beyond them any more. They supposedly did some re-thinking after Obama won his second term—maybe when Trump gets his ass kicked, they’ll do some thinking worthy of the name.

Pinocchio (2016Jul22)

Posted by XperDunn on July 23, 2016

Friday, July 22, 2016 9:08 PM

The popularity contest that is a presidential election doesn’t treat intellectuals very well. People such as Al Gore get tagged as ‘college-boys’ with lots of smarts but no experience or heart. And I find it ironic that we have, in Donald Trump, the real threat that such fear supposes—he is an incredibly clever man—but he has no experience and no heart. These top-tier wheeler-dealers of our financial stratosphere are well-known to pride themselves on their heartlessness. And business tycoons like Trump have a very narrow, very one-sided view of what government is and what it does. Business owners rarely get to own billions-of-dollars-worth of assets by virtue of their tender humanitarianism or their sense of civic duty.

That he is manipulative is proven by the fact that he has taken a woman whose life is indeed one of tender humanitarianism and a sense of civic duty—a public servant virtually all her adult life—an educated, experienced, competent lady and a doting grandmother—and reduced her to a satanic conspiracy of lies and greed. Not too long ago, Trump claimed he had sent a team of investigators to Hawaii to dig into President Obama’s birth records and expose him as the foreign-born Muslim intruder the GOP wished he was. This was after the election—when President Obama was already serving his term. This was after President Obama had already released his birth certificate. Trump actually claimed that his investigators were finding ‘incredible things’.

But a few years have gone by, at least one or two—since he splooged that particular bit of narcissism—so let’s forget that he tried to smear the President just to get attention from the media. Let’s ignore the fact that he has yet to show any interest in the day after the coming finale—I mean election. Let’s just take his word that Hillary Clinton, without leaving any evidence, has spent her whole life trying to destroy America. We’re much better off with the world’s worst boss, I figure. He’s so entertaining—why shouldn’t I listen to him?

But that is a question. Everyone who has ever worked for Hillary Clinton just goes on and on about what a sweet, thoughtful boss she is, how smart and caring. We don’t hear a lot from Trump’s underlings (I assume he thinks of them that way) and there’s a good reason for that. NDAs. NDAs are non-disclosure agreements—they are legal papers some people make you sign before you can work for them. Trump can sue anyone who tells the world what it’s like to work for the guy. Not that he wouldn’t sue just about anyone—he has a long list of former litigants. And that’s another question—we’ve had lots of lawyers who became president—but we’ve never had a litigious businessman—I wonder which countries Trump would sue first? I wonder if I could bring myself to sue someone for telling the truth about me? Hmm.

Here’s how I see it—Hillary Clinton couldn’t possibly be the Machiavellian super-villain her detractors paint her as—and that’s not to deny her imperfections. She simply doesn’t have any of the symptoms of a person who only cares for herself—she’s not nearly as comfortable huckstering herself to the public as Trump is (or her husband was)—she’s too sincere for that. And the fact that she has it in her to be sincere—too sincere perhaps to be comfortable tap-dancing in the public eye—disqualifies her completely from being anything near as bad as her detractors would like to believe.

Trump however reminds me of nothing so much as the barker who inveigles Pinocchio into joining the after-party at the carnival. The American public is the Pinocchio in this scenario, you understand—and we’ll all wake up with asses-ears, being loaded into a truck like cattle. At today’s rally in Tampa, Hillary told the crowd, “I never thought I’d say this—but Ted Cruz was right.” She was referring to Cruz being booed at the RNC convention for saying “Vote your conscience.” I don’t care for Cruz, but right is right—we could all probably use a Jiminy Cricket right about now.

A Chat With An Old Friend (2016Jul06)

Posted by XperDunn on July 6, 2016

Wednesday, July 06, 2016 10:29 AM

It was convenient for Hillary that no charges would be filed—but it was equally convenient for the FBI director to cast aspersions on her without the need to prove them in a court of law. He says there’s no evidence that she was spied on, but that she MAY have been spied on. He says that out of 30,000 emails, about one hundred held classified info—but only eight held info that was classified at the time of the email—plus, he doesn’t give us anything regarding how HE decided this stuff was classified. Basically, Director Comey said ‘no harm, no foul’ out of one side of his mouth and ‘shame, shame’ out the other. It seemed a little partisan to me.

If you look at the email-server findings and the Benghazi findings, they both condemn the State Department. One wonders if it isn’t a little too easy to have someone be the head, the Secretary of State, and then, once he or she is done, lay a bunch of incompetence and malfeasance at their feet. An under-funded beltway bureaucracy, two centuries old, that gets a new boss appointed every few years—there’s your real bad guy.

Bill, the big dog, was less than circumspect in visiting aboard Loretta Lynch’s jet in AZ—but it sounds a little forced when people howl with laughter at the thought that these two could talk for thirty minutes about personal stuff. Really? You can’t blow a half-hour bullshitting with a friend? Has Bill done anything but, since he left office? Trump-eters who hail this as a sign that our ‘entire government is rotten to the core’ are being just a little bit hysterical. Nothing new there.

As always, the GOP witch-hunters who failed yet again to make a legal case against their nemesis have found ways to tag little PR addendums onto the statements clearing her. Politics is a rough game and no two ways about it.

Happy Fourth (2016Jul04)

Posted by XperDunn on July 4, 2016

Monday, July 04, 2016 2:33 PM

I like the idea of a public hearing—it could even be a new cable-TV channel—regular folks get up and say what they’re going through and what they would like to see the government do about it. Each statement could be followed by the names of the speaker’s town officials, their state officials, (with contact information so that people could call or write in) and the relevant legislation and programs that already apply, and a list of legislation that has been proposed but not passed. There could also be additional segments about legislation that was passed solely on the impetus of lobbyists—why they passed it, what the corporations get out of it, and how it deteriorates the public good.

That governor who recently got his corruption conviction overturned by the supreme court—he may not have done anything technically illegal, but with segments on our new show that link politicians to major campaign contributors, we could get rid of these jokers the old-fashioned way—by getting the word out, so they don’t get re-elected.

Of course, the same old problems apply—who would run such a TV channel and whose pocket would they be in? It would have to be very strictly administered to avoid the possibility of it being co-opted by a single group. And the financial needs of a TV channel would make it nearly impossible to avoid the same kinds of malfeasance that politics itself suffers from. Still, I like the idea.

Charles M. Blow wrote an editorial in today’s New York Times called “Giving Clinton Her Due” and I thought, ‘well, finally, some journalism about all the great stuff that Hillary Clinton has done over the decades’. But I was disappointed—the article was all about how well her campaign has done over the last month, compared to Trump. I just can’t fathom how people can pretend there is a comparison to be made between one of our most notable statespersons of the last four decades—and someone who hasn’t done squat, ever. Am I crazy or is this not the stupidest thing in the world today?

Even if Trump were sane, sensible, and thoughtful—wouldn’t it still be true that a complete novice, a green newbie like him, is a poor chose for ‘king of the world’? Add in the fact that he’s a narcissistic, psychotic imbecile and I have real trouble understanding how anyone can say his name, in conjunction with the election for Leader of the Free World, without laughing out loud. I can understand the talking heads—they get paid to say ridiculous things with a straight face—but regular folks? I just don’t get it.

And don’t tell me Hillary is a liar—who the hell isn’t a liar? Name another president who never stretched the truth—it’s practically a job skill in that regard. And the question isn’t just who is lying—it’s also who are they lying to? In the case of Trump, it’s a lifelong record of lying to everyone, for money. In Hillary’s case, when she misspeaks it’s usually in defense against the lies being spread by her enemies—she’s not lying to us, not the way Trump is. She’s just being a politician. And besides, let he or she who is without lying cast the first stone.

So get out there and set off some ‘works, everybody—happy Fourth of July!

Wakey-Wakey (2016Jun28)

Posted by XperDunn on June 28, 2016

Tuesday, June 28, 2016 10:26 AM

I’m sick of it—every time one of my Facebook friends posts a new bit about the disgrace that is Trump, some jackhole responds with a comment like, “But Hillary is a big, fat liar.” First of all, genius—Hillary’s state of grace has zero to do with all that’s wrong about Trump, so that response is worthy of a three-year-old brat—and changes nothing in the area of Trump being an embarrassment—only slightly less of one than the absolutely mortifying numbers of supporters who can’t think straight enough to see through him. Secondly, it is Hillary’s accusers who are the liars.

What did yesterday’s Benghazi Report tell us? One—it told us that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did nothing wrong—and she certainly never refused assistance to Americans in peril. Two—it told us that the months (and the millions of dollars) spent investigating and re-investigating the Benghazi incident failed to produce anything new—that, basically, no matter how badly her detractors wanted to find it, there was zero fault to be found with Clinton’s handling of a bad situation. I won’t even get into the fact that everyone is ignoring the true lessons that came of the investigation—that there is no big hullbaloo about revising State Department protocols in the wake of this tragedy.

And the email server—what have we learned there? We’ve learned that Hillary made a mistake, that she apologized for it, and that not a single bit of classified intelligence was ever leaked due to her mistake. But did Hillary go on to make mistake after mistake, like her idiot opponent—or did her witch-hunters latch onto the email server simply because Hillary’s mistakes are so rare? If she was as incompetent as they would have us believe, wouldn’t they have a wider menu to choose from?

I find it disheartening to see the parade of accusations and attacks on Hillary Clinton, all of which are either disproved entirely, or found to be minimal lapses unworthy of such outrage—and yet we never turn to her accusers and say, ‘Stop lying.’ No—years and years of their shameless misrepresentations go unindicted, while even somewhat-sensible people start to ask themselves if they can trust one of our most dedicated public servants. It’s madness. They’re like a bunch of monkeys hurling feces around and blaming her for the stink.

In 1977, the young lawyer Hillary co-founded the non-profit Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. Two years later she became the First Lady of Arkansas. You know the rest of the story—a lifetime of public service. That’s an entire lifetime of looking out for children’s welfare, of advocating for women’s rights, and of fighting for social justice and national security. That people can nit-pick at her occasional imperfections, as if none of her achievements meant anything, insults our intelligence. And I defy you whiners and bullies—name a single act in Trump’s life when he did anything for anyone but himself—when he even considered the public welfare over his personal gain. The idea that this moron could have people willing to elect him president makes my head want to explode.

Lastly, our mealy-mouthed national disgrace, the presumptive GOP nominee, has suggested that Hillary is somehow complicit in her husband’s scandal. Try this—go to any of the millions of Americans whose spouses have cheated on them—tell them that it’s their fault—tell’em that they’re to blame—go ahead and try that—but don’t forget to duck.

I don’t know which sickens me more—their baseless attacks on a great American like Hillary, or their joyful embrace of the sickest, most vile and divisive piece of offal that has ever gotten national exposure. If you are a Trump supporter, I hate to be the one to tell you this—but you are gullible, confused, uninformed, and a cheerleader for your own destruction—wake the fuck up.

While They Still Know Everything (2016Jun09)

Posted by XperDunn on June 9, 2016

Thursday, June 09, 2016 1:02 PM

Okay, here it comes. I’ve gotten so caught up in the last week or so of politics that I’m letting myself be baited by Facebook posts and comments, until I’ve turned into an angry, dismissive apologist for Hillary Clinton. But with so much stupidity flying around, when I get into combat mode I find myself in a target-rich environment.

Bernie made a great contribution to the national discourse—but in so doing, he also energized young people to switch from debating Klingon parts of speech to debating the many conspiracy theories and smear campaigns against Hillary. No matter what they’re told, they have an endless array of mud-slinging trivia to answer with—her supporters, like myself, are overwhelmed with the tidal wave of shit that’s been generated by the haters for longer than most of Bernie’s camp have been alive.

And of course, being young, they are all omniscient—it’s exhausting. They are too young to know or remember that the initial insults hurled at Hillary were largely anti-feminist-based, back when you could still go in that politically-incorrect direction.

Hillary originated in a time when the GOP still stood for anti-feminism, anti-integration, anti-social services—before they learned to gloss over that nonsense—and she was their boogey-woman-in-chief, the sole target of all their viciousness. That all these super-liberal kids are taking up the GOP banner and marching with it is intensely tragic to me.

Biography comes into it, now, as well—I wish people would ask themselves what that long career—First Lady in Arkansas, First Lady in the White House, NY Senator, Presidential hopeful, Secretary of State, and now again Presidential campaigner—would look like if they had lived through it. Would they do everything perfectly? Would they never change their position on a single issue? And that’s not even factoring in the insistent, burning hate being thrown her way every goddamned day. Secretary Clinton doesn’t claim to be perfect—she doesn’t claim to be superwoman—she’s a politician who has done a variety of incredibly tough jobs. As they say, any jackass can kick down a barn—it’s takes a carpenter to build one.

In closing, let me share an idea my son told me—as a response to the GOP’s refusal to hear Obama’s Supreme Court nominee—let them know that when Hillary takes office, she’s going to appoint Obama—that’ll learn’em. My son is a genius.

Hint: 1600 (2016Jun07)

Posted by XperDunn on June 7, 2016

Tuesday, June 07, 2016 6:48 PM

The New York Times ran an article about the endless, daunting, slogging journey that Hillary Clinton has traveled to become the nominee—not just years, but decades, of being the woman with a target on her back—for partisans, for media, for troglodyte he-men women-haters everywhere—for over a quarter-of-a-century now of public service. Yet the New York Times says, “even now, we’re not really sure what she believes in”. I call bullshit. We know—it’s just too simple and straightforward for the media to digest—Secretary Clinton believes in service—she wants to do good, with practical programs and political solutions that help people, especially people in need.

That such blanket sincerity doesn’t fit the narrative they’ve shaped for her—and the fact that ‘good intent’ as a political platform has no zippy label just yet—make it impossible for the media to suss out ‘what she believes’—because she doesn’t believe in a sound-bite or a slogan. The Times points to her difficulty settling on a slogan—without ever questioning whether that’s a bad thing or maybe a good thing. They call her a Democratic Party insider—but that really only means she’s been mixing it up on the political playing-field for a long time—all the dire partisanship is directed towards her. It’s not going both ways—Hillary’s focus has always been on doing the job, not defeating the ‘other side’.

And as far as political platforms go, I like the sound of ‘getting things done, being serious, and not playing to the gallery’. That’s my kind of party—particularly if we’re talking about a champion to face the hydra-headed monster that is the Oval Office.

Let’s turn to the other side now—Trump has claimed his racist ranting was ‘misunderstood’. Well, I’m sorry—but he’s disqualified either way—either he’s a monster—or he’s incapable of coherent speech. My money’s on a little of both, but it doesn’t matter. Ask yourself if you feel as qualified for the Presidency as Trump is—if you, a regular Joe or Joe-ette, would be no worse than he as leader of the free world. I certainly qualify—and that concerns me. Yes, you can grow up to be anything—but you can’t decide to play concert violin on a Friday and book Carnegie Hall by Monday—that’s a fantasy. And we all know how you really get there.

If Armageddon came, and all the politicians and officials were swept away, then, yes, I suppose Trump would be as good a choice as anyone. But we have a whole country full of hard-working states-persons and experienced leaders—one of the best is running against him. I suggest a test for Mr. Trump—someone ask him for the mailing address of the White House—see if he can come up with that poser.

But No Cigar (2016Jun07)

Posted by XperDunn on June 7, 2016

Tuesday, June 07, 2016 12:10 PM

Poor Bernie! He’s done a great job of dragging the Democrats back to the socialist agenda that made FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s War On Poverty. If the Democrats aren’t all about social justice and social services, then they don’t really stand for anything. The centrist agenda that helped Hillary’s husband get elected may have been politically expedient, but it also hollowed out the core of what we’ve come to expect from the Democratic Party.

But Bernie’s done it—he’s forced Hillary to publicly advocate for a war on income inequality—leaving her with baggage she will find difficult to misplace, once elected. Still, I think it’s a mistake to assume that she’s done so unwillingly—anyone familiar with her early work, co-founding Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, and other initiatives, will recognize that she is happy for the opening that Sanders’ campaign afforded her. It wasn’t Hillary who spent the last two decades backing away from social programs and banking regulations—it was her entire party, going for the easy vote.

Had Hillary attempted to run on her present platform, without Sanders’ competition as a foil, she would have been branded a wild extremist. So, well done, Bernie. Though, to be fair, it is these last decades of centrist, business-friendly politics that have created a situation where people are ready for socialism’s resurgence, whether from Bernie or Hillary.

Now, the big problem is simply this: Bernie is a human being—and not just that, he’s an old man. He’s spent the last two years being cheered by throngs of adoring young people, championing justice for the little guy, fighting the good fight. It’s going to be very hard for him to just turn around and go home. He was so close. But be of good cheer, Bern-feelers—Hillary hasn’t promised as much, but I believe she will deliver on more of her promises than Bernie ever could. In the end, that will give you more of what you’re looking for, just not everything. The rest we can talk about in four years.

Spoiler? (2016Jun05)

Posted by XperDunn on June 5, 2016

Sunday, June 05, 2016 12:31 PM

Back when Trump first entered the Presidential contest, there was speculation that he was a Democrat-spoiler—a troublemaker who only got into the Republican primary to help guarantee Hillary’s lock on the coming election—and perhaps raise his Q-rating in anticipation of his next reality show.

Having out-stupided all his GOP rivals and made a shambles of the GOP platform (such as it is) he is now making racist pronouncements regarding the judge presiding over his rip-off-‘university’ lawsuit—on a daily basis. His campaign has never troubled itself with the ‘boots on the ground’ machinery that the ‘real’ politicians use to get out their constituency. And he seems to go out of his way to do and say things which make the GOP leadership either squirm mightily—or have to repudiate outright.

I think it’s time to revisit the spoiler theory. Trump is in this race alright—he’s campaigning for Hillary, as far as I can tell. For a while there, it looked like the most ignorant portion of the GOP base would make of his parody a serious campaign, whether he wanted to become president or not. But Trump has always been resourceful, and he has found a solution—be blatantly racist. No one in America can get away with being publicly, pointedly racist—and Trump thus guarantees that anyone extreme enough to maintain their support for him will only expose their own small-minded-ness.

It is possible that he’s still serious—that his current race-baiting is in response to the positive image briefly generated by violence from those anti-Trump protestors in California—maybe he’s trying to spur them on to greater excesses, allowing him to play the victim. But it’s not working out that way. His anti-Americanism isn’t making people angry—it’s leaving them breathless with amazement at the depths of his bigotry. We all look at each other and ask, ‘Is this really happening?’ Even his top aides are shrugging their shoulders at his insanity, speechless.

Trump is a showman. But his latest performances have been tight-rope walks along the edge of civility. I figure his next move is probably going to be a statement against Religion—which would both devastate ‘his’ party and drive the country as a whole to new fits of outrage and disbelief. And just imagine how mortifying it will be for all of us atheists to find ourselves on Trump’s side of an issue! It’s enough to send me back to church.

At this point, if Trump were to be elected, I wouldn’t move to Canada—I’d move to North Korea and help them design those nuclear missiles that can reach the US mainland. If the country I’ve grown up loving and respecting is that much of a lie, it’s time to wipe it from the face of the earth. One way or the other, Trump is definitely a spoiler.

It’s About Us (2016Jun03)

Posted by XperDunn on June 3, 2016

Friday, June 03, 2016 11:41 AM

I love Hillary Clinton! She made a speech yesterday that clearly explained why Trump is not a candidate, but a threat. She said that even if she wasn’t running herself, she would be doing everything she could to make sure he was never President of the United States. Best of all, she condemned him with his own words—the wild public statements that he makes in passing, to jazz up his base, become evidence—when held up to the light—that he shouldn’t even have a driver’s license, never mind a public office. And as she described the nightmare of a President Trump, in the situation room, during a national crisis—a chill ran down my spine—what a friggin nightmare!

The media couldn’t even wait until she was done speaking before they started to leaven her statements with chyrons about Paul Ryan finally bowing to the inevitable, saying he would vote for Trump, because he would make GOP dreams into law. To me, that only confirms what Hillary was saying—it’d be a nightmare. It doesn’t seem to occur to the GOP that the reason they can’t satisfy their base is because their base wants to fundamentally change America into a nation of fear and anger and weakness.

There is no contest—when our choices are between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. As far as I’m concerned, the GOP has failed to produce a viable candidate—they’re stuck with Trump, their booby-prize for courting ignorance for so many years, but no one sees his potential presidency as good, or safe, or helpful. Even his supporters don’t expect him to keep America going—they hope he’ll turn the whole thing upside-down. If I didn’t live here, I’d say let’em have their way—see how they like it. But, as Hillary said, America is still full of reasonable, well-meaning people who are proud to be Americans and want to see America continue to lead the world toward freedom.

A democracy tries to do the greatest good for the greatest number. An election is a chance to get what we want. But it is also a litmus test of the electorate. If Hillary Clinton doesn’t win this election in a landslide, I’ll be personally disappointed—but I’ll also know something about the majority of American voters. I’ll know that we have become too ignorant to look out for our own self-interest, suckers for any used-car-salesman who happens to talk a good game. This election isn’t about the candidates—it’s about us.

While We’re Young (2016May25)

Posted by XperDunn on May 25, 2016

Wednesday, May 25, 2016 6:20 PM

I saw a couple of things on the news that I’d like to discuss.

Hillary got spanked today by the State Department—but like the Supreme Court Justice non-hearings and the Benghazi blame-a-thon, the whole e-mail-server debacle could have been handled far more swiftly if competent people had had any hand in it. There was no earthly reason for all this stuff ‘just happening’ to pop up right when her presidential campaign rounds the home stretch. But the GOP has always been more concerned with the timing of their accusations than with their probity. Now, onto whether she actually did anything wrong.

Here we get a display of ingenuousness you won’t see every day—according to the State Department, Hillary did, in fact, do wrong. That she did exactly what her predecessors did is hidden in the back pages—or, as the State Department likes to put it: ‘If she’d asked us, we would have told her no.’ The implication that Hillary Clinton has to ask the State Department to do its job doesn’t seem like a weird idea to them—though it does to me.

Plus this whole business is about new tech. It reminds me of when I was a young programmer—I coded computers for almost two decades, but when I tried to get a new job, I wasn’t qualified because I didn’t have one of those new IT degrees. The fact that there were no such majors, or degree programs, until the nineties didn’t signify for anyone but me, I guess.

To accuse Hillary Clinton, who’s even older, of high crimes because she didn’t use new tech right—well, that’s something only the GOP would think to do. Emails are not mentioned in the Constitution—they didn’t even exist until a decade or so ago. Pretending that there are hard-and-fast rules about them, that only Hillary Clinton is guilty of a faulty ‘tech launch’—that’s pretty effing precious, don’tcha think?

But I’m not too worried about Hillary—her opponent is still laughable. It is only Trump’s supporters who are scary—the man himself is a joke. The idea that there are enough stupid people in this country to elect him is terrifying—but he still makes me laugh. He’s like a first-grader that managed to steal a grown-man suit, and is fooling everyone.

But back to the GOP—words fail, ya know? GOP officials in eleven states are suing President Obama’s administration over the new transgender bathroom-law issue, saying it’s a ‘social experiment’—like that’s a bad thing, by definition. I guess they forget that America was the original social experiment.

I’ve listened closely to their arguments for opposing transgender bathroom rights (wondering how anyone could seriously object without exposing their bigotry) and their main tactic is a subtle bias in the use of the word gender, as if that word still has two, and only two, meanings. Well, that and the usual BS about how they need a century or two to wrap their heads around any new idea. (‘While we’re young, people!’—as my dad used to say.)

Their insistence on repeating things like ‘one gender or the other’, or ‘boys and girls’—it’s just their way of insinuating that all this new gender-identity stuff is airy-fairy foolishness. In today’s political climate, they hesitate to say that, plainly and aloud (as if we don’t know how they feel) but they strain themselves mightily trying to say it without actually saying it. NC Governor McCrory practically injures himself with such contortions—he’d be hilarious if he wasn’t so revoltingly forked-tongued.

President Obama’s election should have put an end to excessively bigoted comments in the media—but it didn’t. The Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage should have done the same—and it didn’t. I don’t just resent the ugliness of such people—I resent that they drag us all backwards. Racism has been ruled on, repeatedly. Gay rights have been ruled on, also repeatedly. It’s fucking over. Get on the bus, or stay home—don’t parade your idiocy around like it’s a political platform. We grown-ups have got shit to do.

Justice (2016May21)

Posted by XperDunn on May 21, 2016

Saturday, May 21, 2016 11:17 AM

Hillary Clinton was the first First Lady to have an office in the West Wing as well as the Residence. She was the first First Lady to have a married a President who wasn’t threatened by the idea of her becoming involved in his work as head of state. There were other presidents (most notably FDR) who tolerated, or ‘let’ their spouses have a public voice—but Bill was the first to welcome his wife’s involvement beyond charity, and into policy. And he very wisely asked her to handle Health Care Reform, because back then a president needed a lightning rod to touch that issue—but it was her efforts that helped lead to the political environment that eventually allowed Obamacare to win through.

It was also the starting gun for the GOP witch-hunt that Hillary Clinton has endured since the nineties. A recent article pointed out that she is the first political figure whose attackers have spawned a multi-million-dollar industry. Personally, my response was, and continues to be, sympathy. Even if her policies were misguided, which they aren’t, that would still not justify the vitriolic and personal attacks that right-wing politicians have made a lifestyle.

And it became clear that their dislike stemmed not just from opposition to progressive policies, but their opposition to women’s equality—to the GOP, Hillary is the uncrowned queen of Women’s Lib. And it is no coincidence, as some would have it, that America will be one of the last developed countries to elect a female head of state, when and if we finally do that.

Their frustration led them down the road of truth-twisting and fact-denying, which in turn led to their present candidate—a clown with no shot at beating her for the office of president. Their minds are turning in their graves (having stopped breathing, when Bush Jr. was elected) and their heads are ready to explode, seeing their nemesis so close to victory. I say it’s only justice.

Welcome to Paradise (2016May20)

Posted by XperDunn on May 20, 2016

Friday, May 20, 2016 2:00 PM

Hillary Clinton offers us our best chance at maintaining respect abroad and keeping us safe and economically healthy at home. Plain and simple. And that is partly due to her lifelong commitment to progressive but pragmatic government—an area in which Bernie Sanders certainly out-talks her, but doesn’t come close to out-performing her. And no one who cares a fig for social justice would ever consider her GOP opponent. Case closed.

But there is a mountain-range of BS to get yourself lost in. I recommend avoiding the cable news shows—at this point they’re trying so hard to drum up a contest between the most-fit candidate and history’s least-fit presidential candidate, that they stir up the mud between Hillary and Bernie, just to hug the shores of rational thought a little while longer. For any self-respecting journalist to suggest that there is a contest between Hillary and the orange clown is going to take several deep breaths, considering what a deep dive into the ridiculous that represents.

Certainly it is ethically allowable to report on the wave of mouth-breathers whose Orangutanal champion has emboldened them to crawl out of the woodwork in the name of political incorrectness, dog-whistle bigotry, and fear-mongering. But to report on his every smirk as if it stood up to Hillary’s lifetime of experience and service—please.

Politics is boring—if it wasn’t dry as dust, slow as molasses, and frustrating as hell, we’d have less voters and more candidates. Thus it’s understandable that journalists yearn for some point of interest, a scandal or a feud—anything to raise the pall from this deathly boring subject. But to abet a rising tide of demagoguery simply for the sake of ratings—that’s beyond the pale. If it weren’t the Media itself, the media would be all over this stupidity.

If they want human interest, they could easily delve into the depths of humiliation the GOP must be feeling right now—after cultivating idiocy in its base for decades, the chickens have come home to roost with a vengeance. I hear the late-night comics joking about it, but I don’t hear any serious journalists discussing it. Why should that be?

The party with a permanent nose-bleed from getting on its high horse has suddenly decided that rules were made to be broken, that platforms can conform to changing times, that the stupid have spoken—and they’re okay with that. Policies that they used to hate so much they shut down the government can now be easily overlooked, if only their candidate says so. That must be a bitter pill to swallow.

Not to mention the cognitive dissonance in realizing that supporting their nominee could destroy their platform—Trump is no Republican. And that is the miracle of him—who’d have ever imagined that American politics could find something worse than the Republicans? It boggles the mind. I urge everyone to vote for Hillary—if for no other reason than to get that horror-show off the airwaves. Just imagine it—a whole news cycle without Trump in it. Ah, paradise!

Journalist Cowards (2016May06)

Posted by XperDunn on May 7, 2016

Friday, May 06, 2016 8:17 PM

I keep finding new aspects of Trump’s popularity and media-attention that upset me. Today it occurred to me that everyone talks about what Trump said or what Trump did—but no one ever talks about who Trump is or what Trump thinks.

For instance, no one ever asks Trump why he suddenly decided to devote his life to public service—and the reason they don’t ask is because they know without it being said—Trump isn’t devoting himself to public service (although that is the job he’s running for) he’s going after a shiny power-bauble that caught his attention. His ego is actually doing the running for office—he probably has a tiny id somewhere deep inside that’s sweating how big of a hassle being the president is going to be.

The real president today scolded the press saying, “This is not entertainment. This is not a reality-show. This is a contest for the presidency of the United States of America.” I’m even a little upset with his word choice at the end—it may be a ‘contest’, but it is first and foremost a choice—a responsibility that voters have on their shoulders, whether they recognize its seriousness or not.

Trump has never done any work in the field in which he has chosen to ‘start at the top’—far from ever running before, or holding office before, he has never so much as clerked in a public office, courthouse, or civic center. And he never served. Past debates over presidential candidates focused on who would do the job better—with a complete novice like Trump, the answer is clear—regardless of policy, Hillary Clinton would walk into the job knowing the context of her position—for Trump it would be like sitting down to a snazzy new video-game console—he’d have fun figuring out what all the different buttons do—and he’d get the biggest kick out of the stuff that blows stuff up. No matter how popular—why would we want an uninitiated child in the top slot?

Is it because the voters just don’t have the balls, or the emotional investment to take to the streets and rise up against corruption and obstructionism—and they’re going to vote for Trump as a way of destroying the government? It’s kinda like Tea-Party-gone-nuclear, if you think about it—arm-chair rebellion. This simple-minded showman will never get elected—unless the whole country has gone out of its mind. I just don’t know if I can take the media fawning over this jackass, after a year and more of it already, all the way to November.

Isn’t there one decent journalist left in America? Won’t someone please ask this idiot to explain why voters should trust him when he never gives any specific details about what he’ll do, if elected? Won’t someone please ask him why he thinks an ego qualifies him to rule the free world, absent any knowledge or background in either domestic or foreign affairs beyond shady business meetings with god knows who? Paycheck –journalists—that’s what I call you. It’s not about the job—it’s about the paycheck. Now that I think of it—no wonder you guys are behind him—you’re already living in his world. Gutless traitors.

It’s Getting Serious (2016Apr08)

Posted by XperDunn on April 8, 2016

Friday, April 08, 2016 3:32 PM

We’ve reached an awkward point in the political process now—things are narrowing down. People begin speaking of candidates they formerly criticized as the solution to the problem of ‘the lesser of two evils’. Conversely, Bernie Sanders can no longer be unaggressive towards Hillary Clinton, and answered Charlie Rose’s question “Would you support her, if chosen?” by prefacing his ‘yes’ with “I’d consider a Trump or Cruz presidency an unmitigated disaster, so yes, I would support Hillary Clinton is she wins the nomination.” He couldn’t just say ‘yes’, like he would have a few months back—he’s got his gloves off and he’s got to keep them off.

The funniest part of this process is the simple truth that the very best possible next President of the United States would have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Oval Office and be locked inside—sentenced, in his or her mind, to the jury duty from hell—and a hell of a way to reward years of selfless public service. Any sensible person can just look at the before and after hair-color of the last few presidents and be able to tell that the job redefines the word ‘difficult’. Only a spark of ambition would drive someone to the madness of seeking the post—and now that we’re getting down to it, that flaw is being brought to the forefront.

It’s attack time—and, hey, does anyone else get the impression that both Bernie and Hillary were more comfortable when it was still ‘gloves on’? I get the sense they are both sane enough to be uncomfortable with the egotistical sniping that the final days of a head-to-head must inevitably become. This is in marked contrast to the GOP—they’ve long since disqualified themselves from the list of respectable candidates. They are far too happy in their playpen, holding dick-measuring contests when they had an opportunity to discuss the issues for months—hell, years now. Their ambitions are front and center, completely overshadowing any sense of service or responsibility to the public—and while you may think it an old-fashioned attitude, in my view it disqualifies them from serious office, be their platforms whatever they may.

We forget sometimes that the election is not wholly a popularity contest—no matter how much we treat it as such, it remains a serious decision with mortal consequences. Sanders’ young supporters flock to him because young people don’t need convincing, they just need inspiring—and it is a good thing that they are being inspired to play a part in their own democracy—I hope it lasts beyond Hillary’s nomination. Because the problems Sanders talks about need more than a populist president to fix—those problems require a quantum-level rise in political engagement from coast-to-coast, over several election cycles, if we’re ever going to have a chance at taming the super-wealthy’s de facto march back to monarchism.

It’s daunting to think of—a quantum-level rise in political engagement, obtaining objective news sources, growing neighborhood bonds while our youth are ever more deeply seduced into the twitter-verse or VR-gaming helmets—the list of impossible things we need to do to fix the future goes on from there. We could just let the powers that be continue doing what they do—it might not be pretty, but who’s to say they won’t avoid destroying us all in the end, right? They know what they’re doing, don’t they? After all, they are in charge—even if they did grow up in an age when phones had busy-signals and cords—even if some of them don’t even understand how the world has changed—even if most of them see change as dangerous. They want the power? Let’em have it. At least, if it all goes to hell, we’ll have someone to blame. Why be so serious all the time?

Friday, April 08, 2016 4:15 PM

The Bird Hearing (2016Apr08)

I went for a walk yesterday—the birds were so noisy, I went back inside and got my camera. I shot three minutes and change of bird cacophony—the video is pretty unwatchable—I was focusing on the sounds—but that didn’t stop me from making two improv videos with the same bird footage. The music is different in each, but the bird songs are the same. I suggest just listening to the audio—the video, in spite of all I did to stabilize it in post, is nauseating.

It’s kind of a shame I got so wrapped up in the birds singing—the music is pretty good on both of these—they would have been nice all by themselves, I think.

Oh, and here’s one more from the day before yesterday:

bu-bye now.

Grandma Clinton (2016Apr02)

Posted by XperDunn on April 2, 2016

Saturday, April 02, 2016 1:41 PM

Trump and Cruz announced today they will unite their tickets under a platform of increased police patrols of female neighborhoods.

Well, I can’t speak for everyone here—oh wait, I’m here all alone—yes, I can! So let me just say—we all have a lot to be grateful for. First off, we’re not Trump-supporters—so we know our brains are still functioning. More importantly, we know we aren’t Trump himself—oh my god—what a nightmare to wake up in that guy’s skin, huh? Best of all, we know that even if hundreds of thousands of the zombie-electorate show up at his rallies, there are still millions of sensible adults who will vote for virtually anybody else (I call it the Cruz effect). I like to think that principle applies to the GOP in general, too—meaning there are far more voters who want an educated, experienced adult to be the leader of the free world—so it doesn’t matter—Trump or Cruz, there’s no way we end up with a GOP caveman in office come November. And—bonus—first lady president! Or is that first ex-first-lady lady president?

What do we call Ms. Clinton anyway? She was the first lady, she was a New York State senator, she was the secretary of state—pick one, or mix-and-match for a zesty new title, i.e., First Lady Senator Secretary Clinton—I like that one—that’s almost better than President Clinton (after all, we’ve already had one of those). But I don’t know—after all the years she’s served, all the attacks she endured, all the campaigns she’s run to become our political queen-of-the-hill—maybe we should just take a page from the Brits and call her, “Your Highness”. What the hell, she’s earned it.

Bernie, you say? Okay, let’s take a hard look at Senator Sanders. He’s run a one-issue campaign—and, yes, that issue is central to most American families—it strikes home like nobody’s business. And it’s long past time we looked for politicians who would stand up to the wealthy and the corporations—I can only applaud his dogged opposition to the status quo—everyone knows things are broken and the income gap is transforming our democracy into a shadow-puppet government. Personally, I would go even further and attack Capitalism itself—it has metastasized into a suicidal paradigm that threatens the very ideals that supported its growth.

But I can agree with Bernie Sanders without assuming he’d make a better president than Hillary Clinton. By running a one-issue campaign, he avoids being scanned for weaknesses on other issues. Let’s take the most obvious—the President, whoever he or she may be, will have to work in concert with the Congress. As a lifelong renegade, Bernie Sanders has always stuck to his guns—and, as a senator, that’s a good thing—we want senators who stick by their principles. But a president has to compromise, form a consensus, and mitigate adverse influences—a knee-jerk idealist may not be the best person for that position.

Then there’s ‘international affairs’—things are fluid, globally—change is the only constant—and the changes become consistently more sudden. We don’t want a newbie going through training days while the world falls apart—not when we have an old salt like Hillary waiting in the wings.

Mostly, though, it’s the breadth of the challenge that makes Hillary the stand-out choice. Yes, we have to reform our financial regulations and enact laws that promote economic fairness. But we need to do other things too. We have to keep our present economy from collapsing while we make those adjustments—and that means working with the very financiers that Sanders so persistently villainizes. Yes, we need to make college more affordable—but we also need to keep our colleges and universities the pre-eminent centers of global learning they have been. And we need to keep our colleges from becoming de facto trade schools for the big donor corporations. We need to maintain national security and we need to continue, however unwillingly, being the world police. We need to protect our environment and ourselves from pollution, toxins, and complete extinction. The list of things a president has to do, and the things a president has to deal with, is a list too long for me to write here.

Suffice it to say that becoming president solely to regulate Wall Street and to make college tuition-free—is like becoming a mother so you can breast-feed. Yes, breast-feeding will be involved—but there’s a whole lot more to it than that. Besides, how often do you get to call the President of the United States grandma? Vote for Grandma Clinton—who knows? There might be some fresh-baked cookies in it for all of us.

Drunks Tussling (2016Feb27)

Posted by XperDunn on February 27, 2016

Saturday, February 27, 2016 4:33 PM

In a reasonable world, Hillary Clinton would win the presidential race in a walk—and if I’m living in an unreasonable world, I’d just as soon not have my face rubbed in it. If, god forbid, a Republican did win, that would be a tragic-enough disaster, without making me listen to these people—as I have already for more than a year—for the rest of this year. I’ve listened to them ad nauseam—and in their case, that’s about three minutes in—do I really have to bear the sound of Trump’s voice until November? Hasn’t he said enough idiotic things?

I remember our last Republican president—do you? He was an idiot—he got us in a war by mistake—he destroyed our economy—he didn’t speak in complete sentences—and what sentences he managed to get out had made-up words in them. Cruz or Rubio would be just as bad—maybe worse—and the nightmare scenario of a Trump presidency conjures up the movie-title-to-be: “The Return Of Fascism” or maybe “The Rise Of American Fascism”.

We are all aware that there is a contest between these three Republicans—it’s all the news, all the time—but to me it resembles a bunch of drunks tussling on the sidewalk just outside a bar-room—my concern for who wins is nothing compared to my concern that a cop will come along and get them off the street before a passer-by gets hurt. But there are no cops on CNN, or in journalism generally. News shows can keep airing this stuff—but I’ve got better ways to spend my time than watching a stupidest-man contest.

Likewise, while I appreciate Bernie forcing Hillary to add a focus on income inequality to her platform—I don’t want to hear any more about how he’s going to make college, health-care, and whatever else, free for everyone—yes that’s the way it should be—there are a lot of things that aren’t the way they should be in this country—but nothing happens on inauguration day—and Hillary is better prepared for the day after inauguration—both domestically and internationally. I don’t think Bernie supporters understand what a president actually does—I think they think he or she’s a wizard who makes a decree, and changes things all by himself or herself.

So that’s it between me and the news—I’ll wait to hear from other people about anything important. Hillary should win—and even if she doesn’t—that’s just more reason not to spend until November listening to all of this back-and-forth BS. Seeing as how our government is already broken, I think it’s a pretty sweet gig—getting a free pass on all the work our government should be doing while we all have a two-year long conversation about the Donald. I’m sure the folks in Flint, MI or Hoosick Falls, NY are glued to their sets. If I ran CNN, I’m pretty sure I could find more interesting stuff to report on—but fans of ‘The Apprentice’ might tune out the news—and that’s a huge demographic. I can hear it now: “Mr. Dunn, you’re fired.”

Ah, America—I hardly knew ye.

Enough. Here’s today’s improv:

Hillary—Accept No Substitutes (2016Feb07)

Posted by XperDunn on February 7, 2016

Sunday, February 07, 2016 9:58 AM

Bernie Sanders is a nice guy—capable, well-meaning, firm in his convictions, and smart. If I had to choose between Bernie and any of the candidates from the GOP field, I’d pick Bernie. Bernie has been making speeches all over America telling people about our serious problems with income inequality and the influence of money on government—and I’d have to agree with him that solutions to these problems are vital to our continued well-being. Fixing these problems—and doing it well—would make our country even greater than it ever has been—which is pretty damn great. Bernie has a dream—and he’s running on his dream.

Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton is running for a job. She’s having trouble matching Bernie’s progressive rhetoric—because she knows too well that the president is not a plumber—Prez don’t fix no pipes. Hard working legislators and supreme court justices do that. Bernie is running to succeed at the work he’s been trying to do in the Senate—Hillary is running for the job of President of the United States. Her vision for America’s future is more complicated than ‘attack Wall Street’.

No one in government—excepting John Kerry or Joe Biden—has experience in dealing with heads of state to equal Hillary Clinton’s CV—two terms as First Lady and four years as Secretary of State. And in case you forgot, she was elected to the Senate, too—just like Bernie. Her superior experience would stick out like a sore thumb if it wasn’t for one wrinkle.

The GOP has attacked Hillary Clinton since she became the first lady in 1992—that’s just shy of a quarter-century of libelous aspersions being cast on her character and morals. To many people, this is proof that there’s something untrustworthy about Hillary—but when I consider the end result of all these attacks, I see it as proof of the reverse—that the GOP has been dishonest about Hillary for all that time. Name another public figure who could be sniped at, and snared, and ambushed, and bushwacked for twenty-four years—and come out the other end spotless—you can’t do it. If you or I were under the same poisonous scrutiny and suspicion for so long a time, what would our reputations look like?

The GOP believes that if they just keep slinging mud at Hillary some of it will stick—and the Bernie-lemmings are proving them correct. But I ask you—of the countless accusations leveled against her, which of them has been proved? They called them ‘scandals’—not just the GOP, but the media (always up for a brawl)—and they trumpet her potential disgrace from the mountaintops—but they never give out a peep when each successive house of cards collapses in her vindication. Most of the country, when asked, will claim that they ‘don’t trust’ Hillary Clinton—why? Because they trust Ted Cruz and his slime-ball friends more? That’s just crazy.

So let’s re-cap: Hillary Clinton is no more dishonest than any other politician, including Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton has far more experience in public service and international affairs than any other candidate from either party, including Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton recognizes that income inequality is a major issue—but she is also prepared to deal with the million other things that a president will be called upon to deal with, unlike Bernie Sanders. Finally, Hillary is a woman—what John Lennon called the ‘n-words of the world’—so we can count on her being sensitive to minorities—I’d say that much is a given, considering she’s spent the last ten years trying to become the first woman president.

Secretary Clinton didn’t become a battle-scarred veteran because she is insignificant—she got those scars because the GOP is scared to death of her. Years of effective efforts to make progressive change have made her their favorite boogey-man—if they can just discredit Hillary, the GOP believes, then the fight is half-won. But where the right is overly belligerent, the left tends to be indecisive—that’s why we’re turning to Bernie’s pie-in-the-sky, rather than deal with the complexities of Hillary’s long struggle. It is said that young people are flocking to Bernie Sanders—does anyone remember the story of the Pied Piper? Kids—what are you gonna do, right? Be a grown-up—stand for Hillary.

Groundhog Day (2016Feb02)

Posted by XperDunn on February 3, 2016

Tuesday, February 02, 2016 6:32 PM

I had “Groundhog Day” playing in the background for part of the day—Comedy Central ran it on a loop, in honor of the day. And for those of you following at home, Puxatawney Phil did not see his shadow this morning—which legends tells us betokens an early spring—as if global warming wasn’t threatening to bewilder the spring bulbs out of the lawn right here in early February. I have a special fondness for Groundhog Day because it has always been the day before my birthday—which I share with Horace Greeley, among others. And the eponymous film is one of my favorites because lots of people say they don’t care for science fiction—but everybody loves “Groundhog Day”, and if that’s not science fiction, nothing is.

My CD-library-designated external hard-drive died, and today I purchased a new one-terrabyte Passport by Western Digital to replace it. I’ve started ripping my CDs to the new drive—but I have hundreds of CDs, so it’s going to take a few days. I hope I didn’t lose anything irreplaceable—but I’m not going to spend $500 to find out (that’s the average cost of a data-retrieval service to restore a broken hard-drive’s data). I’m enjoying the review of my CD collection, anyway—so I’m just going to relax and enjoy rebuilding my digital music library. I was fortunate in using my C: drive for the downloaded music files delivered by Amazon or I-Tunes—I don’t know where I’d begin to restore that part of my music collection. Do I re-order it? Do I have to pay for it twice? What’s the deal? Here’s hoping I never have to find out.

Hillary won (just barely) and Trump lost in last night’s Iowa Caucuses, so I’m cautiously optimistic. I think people forget that Hillary Clinton would be our first woman president—and that’s aside from being the best candidate, regardless of gender. We’ve been so excited and proud, most of us, to have elected Barrack Obama—and now we have a chance for another first—but somehow, the fact that we’ve had our first non-white president takes some of the luster off of the idea of our first woman president—which is weird. I guess, emotionally, people can get too much of a good thing.

Ms./First Lady/Senator/Secretary Clinton has done a lot of the downplaying herself—I guess she doesn’t want to make her gender the focus of her candidacy—and I can see why she’d think that—but I’m excited. Female heads of state may be rare—but guess what’s rarer? Female heads of state who commit war crimes, or get caught in corruption, or do the many bad things that male heads of state get up to when they get the chance—that’s what (or should I say who?). Not that women are always good—perhaps they get less chances to ruin the world—but that still leaves them with pretty good track records.

Good old Bernie is a nice guy—but he’s promising the moon to college kids—and those young people have enough school-loan-debt and unemployment to make them hungry for change—even hungry enough to vote. But let’s get serious about a Socialist running in the national election—the Democratic primary is one thing, but getting the whole country behind him is altogether different. And that’s just getting him elected. Look at Bernie Sanders’ voting record in office and ask yourself how much bi-partisan support his programs are liable to generate—even an elected Bernie could never deliver on his promises unless those same people vote in progressive Democrats to the Congressional and Senate seats.

Anyway, I continue to watch the race with interest. Now here are some videos I posted recently—I hope you like them:

And, finally, this is a post originally from my Amazon Customer Reviews:

Monday, February 01, 2016 3:58 PM

Book Report: “This Long Vigil” by Rhett Bruno (2016Feb01)

This would be more properly titled ‘Short Story Report’ but I often fall into the pit of convention—and in this case I am helped along by my Kindle, which renders the purchase and consumption of all fiction into the same seamless ‘buy-with-one-click’ stream—with the exception of the length of time for which we will be beguiled by the author. In this case—blink and you’ll miss it.

I found ‘This Long Vigil’ entertaining, well-written, and engrossing—but far too short. In the case of such snippets, one is more likely to feel the resonance of what’s missing than the paucity of what’s not. In this particularly case, I was left wondering how the premise came to be—what devilish organization would decide to put humans into the situation which the protagonist of this story finds himself? A solitary life leavened only by the voice of a parental computer, but surrounded by a thousand sleeping bodies who will never wake—this story leaves a lot unexplored—particularly how someone could survive such a life without succumbing to emotional imbalance or outright insanity. The protagonist’s final option skirts the issue, but couches it as a hero’s choice—not the ultimate desperation of a tortured guinea pig.

In programming we have the ‘reality check’—we look at a program’s results and, rather than check the calculations, we’d ask ourselves ‘does the output make any sense in general?’ If the ‘number of orders shipped’ equals negative two, or twenty million—you know you have a program bug—that’s a ‘reality check’. Story’s like “This Long Vigil” can be haunting and evocative—but the lack of a ‘reality check’ in the premise always breaks my vicarious concentration. Fortunately, this story is over before you have too long to dwell on it—the doubts come after. I look forward to reading something of Rhett Bruno that is longer and less darkly-toned—and I must stop here lest my review outstrip the story.

The Sanders Surge (2016Jan17)

Posted by XperDunn on January 18, 2016

Sunday, January 17, 2016 6:47 PM

Well, don’t expect much, because it’s been a rough few days and it is Sunday after all. I’ve been thinking about Bernie Sanders and his surge in the early states’s polls—and while that doesn’t mean a change in the overall Democratic nomination process—it does feed into my worry that I’ve been so set on Hillary Clinton for so long that I might be overlooking something in her number one rival for the Democratic nomination. However, now that I’ve taken some time to think on it—this is why I’m ‘still for Hil’:

A couple of things—first, Sanders supporters might not be taking into account that Bernie’s message, while attractive to the Democrats themselves, may fall on deaf ears in the nationwide election. Secondly, while I applaud all of Bernie’s most thrilling reforms, I question whether any person could deliver on any big, sudden financial reform—there’s a lot of headwind in that process—and while Hillary may be promising to do less, she has more chance of getting it done.

Hillary Clinton, because of Bernie’s rhetoric, is becoming the ‘bird in the hand’ candidate. You can take what she offers and be fairly certain she’ll win the election (and, as importantly, work better with a probable GOP-majority congress) or you can reach for what Bernie is offering, even though the realpolitik of his succeeding in both the election, and in working with a GOP-led congress, are less than promising.

I kind of think of Bernie Sanders as an Elizabeth Warren without the wisdom to see that such reforms will require a longer game—and greater influence—than a presidential term or two. In fact, Liz Warren, continuing her struggle in the Senate, has more chance of getting these kinds of reforms passed than a President Sanders ever would.

The chaos of the Republican campaign has caused the Democratic race to be shrunk down into a cartoon of itself, with little room in the meager coverage—between Trump sound-bites—to get the subtle nuances of why Hillary Clinton is still far and away our best bet, in spite of Bernie’s pyrotechnics in live performance (who’d a thunk it, huh?) And I admit that my fear that one of those Republican clowns could possibly ‘slip through’ is another factor in my favoring Hillary Clinton. Bernie supporters should recognize that his appeal stems from the very things that will make him beatable by a Republican—‘Socialist’ isn’t a dirty word to Democrats—but to the rest of the country? Please. Not that I have any objection to Bernie Sanders—wonderful guy—great ideas—total champion of the little people—but as presidential candidate in lieu of Hillary? No.

So, that’s my two cents on the Sanders surge.

I played some music the other day, right after several days of practicing nothing but my book of Chopin’s Mazurkas—so I’ve entitled it ‘Mazurkoid’—not because it sounds like Chopin, but because it has harmonies and rhythms I’ve never have thought of, had I not immersed myself in his genius—and I like to give credit where credit is due. All my improvising, honestly, is informed by constant practice, sight-reading through the great composers, the great song-writers, and any sheet music I can find, really—so while I don’t know where my fingers will go next, I know that their paths have been shaped by others—and all I’m adding is my personality.

Today I played from my Jazz Standards book—these are songs that I may have posted previously but if so I guarantee that these are better versions than I’ve ever recorded before, so I want to post my progress, if nothing else. They’re even kind of listenable, if not professional grade, renditions—so please feel free to give them a listen. I also ended with a tiny improv that I call ‘Moving On’, because it sounded so bright and sunny—like a fresh start. Wish it was longer, but I was pretty tired from all that jazz. I had just failed to play a decent rendition of Gerry Mulligan’s “Five Brothers” which was so bad it’s not on the recording—and you can hear me mumble, “I ain’t no Gerry Mulligan.” as I begin to play the improv….

Xper Dunn plays Piano – January 17th, 2016

Nine Jazz Standards:

Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams
Cute – by Neal Hefti
Don’t Get Around Much Anymore
Moonlight In Vermont
Imagination
Bernie’s Tune – by Bernie Miller
Let’s Get Away From It All
Fly Me To The Moon
Moonglow

Breaking News: The Day After Christmas (2015Dec26)

Posted by XperDunn on December 26, 2015

Saturday, December 26, 2015 12:33 PM

The affectionate whip has snapped and lies still—all its uncoiled energy came to a head with the crack of Christmas—and it is now hung coiled and still on a hook on the wall. We wake to the absence of holiday and the unnatural warmth of winter in a world out of balance—as if petrol prices weren’t low enough, the eastern seaboard is sporting shorts to New Year’s Eve parties.

The Stock Exchange reminds me of the Republican party—good news for humankind (the unexpectedly speedy, easy progress of conversion to alternative energy) is bad news for Wall Street—which is the same as saying it’s bad news for the fat cats. The petroleum industry, combined with the military-industrial arms-makers, make humanity’s doom the largest global profit center—what’s good for us is bad for business. You can’t pull down that kind of profit selling food or clothes or books.

The whole idea of making civilization a competition is stupid. Cooperation is the only smart thing to do—but there’s no profit in that; there’s no excitement in that; and there are no sinecures in true cooperation—nobody gets ahead. Yet if we insist on a society that allows us to get ahead, we are insisting that someone be left behind. Individual freedom is sacred to Americans—but a person without civic responsibility or a willingness to cooperate with the community is not exercising freedom—just willfulness.

We tend to include amongst our freedoms the right to be impatient—if argument goes too long or reason becomes too complex, we feel justified in cutting the Gordian Knot, throwing up our hands and saying, ‘Nuke the bastards’ or ‘Build a wall’. Being willfully stupid has become Americans’ favorite way of exercising our freedoms. I watched a beautiful program yesterday—it was a movie of new citizens being sworn in—a ceremony in each of the fifty states of the union—with interviews of newly-minted Americans extolling what they most loved about their new country. A common thread was voiced by one of them—‘Americans take their freedoms for granted—they don’t appreciate the miracle that is the United States’.

But that is only true of the loudest and sloppiest Americans—many of us are deeply appreciative, every day, to live here—and to keep vigil over our history and our ideals—and feel real pain at the words of demagogues—especially the ones who become media darlings through their outrageous subversion of our American way. Does CNN really think that the constituency that elected Obama to two terms is going to vote for John Wilkes Trump or Benedict Cruz? No, they just want ratings—and the hell with public service. We lost an important sinew of American cooperation when the news media went ‘for profit’.

We used to have champions of the public good acting as journalists and editors—now we have paparazzi and businessmen in their place—people who give a megaphone to any nitwit with a sensational way of spouting their ignorance. People like Trump and Cruz have always been with us—but the media used to keep its lenses trained on the sober, rational leaders who focused on the public good—and trusted that their honest efforts would gain them votes, without millionaires backing expensive hucksters to pump out propaganda. Sensation now substitutes for substance in the media—but the substantial challenges abide, and the sensations only distract us from the work of real change. The fourth estate used to help—now it just gets in the way, another tool of those in power.

People ask how America became so sharply divided—simple—the media made politics into a sporting event, encouraging people to pick a side and root for their team, rather than think about issues or answers. ‘Playing the devil’s advocate’ can be a useful exercise, in moderation—but when it’s the only thing you do, you’re just a rabble-rouser—a trouble-maker who profits from a fight and doesn’t care what the fight’s about.

Four Political Thoughts (2015Nov06)

Posted by XperDunn on November 7, 2015

Thursday, November 05, 2015 3:41 PM

Can You Feel The Warming Now? (2015Nov05)

Oil and Coal interests have been denying climate change for so long that they are now being investigated by the New York attorney general Eric T. Schneiderman. Since the world outside our borders has accepted climate change as real, there are a mounting number of international agreements on limiting carbon emissions. As the writing on the wall becomes more legible, a new legal strategy presents itself—by obfuscating the unstoppable tide of repression that fossil fuels face in the near future, Schneiderman posits, energy companies have been misleading their investors as to the value of energy stocks—in other words, financial fraud.

Big Energy has been questioning scientists’ concerns over greenhouse gasses since the 1970s—and has been successful, domestically, in carrying the day, partly due to confusion raised by conflicting research—which they paid for. This was a successful strategy insofar as it focused on doubting the details and expanding the questions—difficulties with ‘absolute proof’ are inherent in scientific research, especially in a field as new as climate science. That is the whole point of ‘doubt factory’ lawyering.

But we have reached a point where doubting climate science only works now in a court of law—finer points aside, only an idiot would question climate change as visible, and worsening. Plus, even if climate change is unprovable, in a legal sense, there is no question that people and businesses are now behaving as if it is true—and this changes the future potential value of energy stocks. In short, economic pressures pushed the energy companies to fight the inevitable—and now economic pressures are going to oppose their interests.

There is sometimes a subtle poetry to politics—if efforts like this new lawsuit can enhance America’s too-slow response to this issue, we may yet have a hope of retaining the polar ice-caps and avoiding sending most of the globe’s coastal real estate where Atlantis went. Of course, there’s still overfishing and rising acidity in the oceans, habitat-loss and species-loss on land, and plenty of other disasters-in-waiting to worry about—but clean-energy conversion would still be something we could all be proud of.

Some Kind Of Crazy

What is the difference between Trump crazy and Ben Carson crazy? Trump’s brand of crazy comes from ego and avarice—a businessman who feels that defeating the competition is as valuable as succeeding, a boardroom warrior who would rather burn down the building than lose his standing, a financier who would gladly bankrupt his company to protect his personal fortune, regardless of the losses suffered by others. He respects strength and strategy—which is understandably attractive to Republicans, yet Trump doesn’t discard practical knowledge, math, or science because they are too useful—and far more common in business than they ever are in politics.

Ben Carson’s crazy is a whole other animal—Rachel Maddow recently described it as a war on epistemology, or the ‘theory of knowledge’. According to recent quotes, it appears that Carson’s ‘American History’ (as well as his personal history) are simply stories he makes up as he goes along. His fundamentalism makes for some outlandishly screwy quotes that would place most people firmly in the ‘crank’ category—but he is a GOP presidential candidate, so at least during the primary he gets a pass on that particular line of nutcake.

Ben Carson is an iconoclast, i.e. ‘a person who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions’—but where traditional usage refers to those who attack religion and the establishment, Carson is an iconoclast who attacks the cherished ideas of humanism and science. More than that, he attacks many ideals that most of us consider core principles of the American spirit. His statements about barring Muslims from elected office are a direct contradiction of our Constitution. Moreover, I find any kind of fundamentalism or evangelical zealotry to be vaguely un-American—to accept pluralism requires us to be hard-headed about which of our faiths’ finer points should be debated as public policy.

On the surface, it would appear that anyone can believe anything—our thoughts don’t show, our religion doesn’t imprint on our foreheads. Our freedom of religion recognizes that fact—but it also implies that we have to be circumspect in any real-world manifestations of our chosen faith, particularly in public—especially in politics. There is a world of difference between believing that the Earth is only 6,000 years old—and deciding policy based on that belief. If your faith tells you that women have less status than men, you still have to recognize that, in the real world, the rest of us—and the law—don’t agree.

Today’s far-right has embraced the evangelical, ignoring the fact that theocracy by any other name is still anti-American. There are many faiths in this country—and there always will be. To pick just one, and incorporate it into a political platform, should by all rights be political suicide—that this is not true for the GOP is just one of its many dysfunctions. And it is also what makes a delusional nut-job like Ben Carson a viable candidate for their party.

Why We (Choose To) Fight

I was shocked the other night watching “The Brain with David Eagleman” on PBS—it was the episode about how we make choices. Towards the end, he shows an experiment that measures a person’s ‘disgust’ threshold—that is, how easily they are grossed out. Then he follows that up with another experiment that measures a person’s political bent—conservative or liberal. What was shocking about this was his statement that the tests showed a virtually unanimous correlation between a low ‘disgust’ threshold and a preference for conservatism. Neuroscientist David Eagleman said that he could look at the results of just the first test—and tell a person’s political leanings without giving them the second test.

If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. What are the things conservatives often deride about liberals?—Gooey things, like long hair, quiche, yogurt, or tofu—just the kinds of things that, at first glance, are somewhat repulsive. There is a ‘disgust’ barrier around these things—and only certain kinds of people will push back long enough to give these things a try. Not all liberals enjoy yogurt, you understand—but liberals are more likely to give it a try.

Being hawkish is a conservative trait—perhaps the male ego feels disgust for the idea of not fighting—even when fighting may be a bad idea. Poor people can be kind of gross—and women’s health certainly makes men squeamish—health issues in general can get pretty slimy, repulsing both men and women. Wouldn’t it be funny if conservatism turned out to be regressive—a sign of emotional childishness? Like kids who won’t even try their broccoli. Xenophobia is a form of disgust—perhaps that is what makes liberals more inclusive—they more easily look past the surface strangeness to the human being underneath.

I say we stop considering conservatism as merely another point of view—I say we start calling liberalism what it really is—intellectual maturity. Then again, I don’t need a scientist to convince me that conservatives are often childish—and being childish, nothing anyone says will convince them to change their minds. Only voting them out of office will do that.

Suggestion Box

I have a couple of suggestions. First, we should consider the millions of Syrian refugees as a potential resource. European countries are already seeing the potential benefit of an influx of younger, more energetic citizens. But what about giving Syrians a chance to do something about their own country?

What say the UN offers all young adult Syrian refugees the opportunity for military training—we gear up a few divisions of native sons and daughters, give them the arms and equipment and support they’d need to retake their country, and point them at Assad and ISIL? That way, outsiders like the US don’t have to send troops into a foreign country. Young displaced Syrians have an opportunity to do something other than depend on the charity of the world—and they wouldn’t go anywhere after the fighting is over—they’ll set up a responsive government—maybe they’ll even send for their relatives, old and young, to rejoin them in their native land— a Syria finally free of endless fighting. It’s just a thought.

My second suggestion is for Hillary Clinton’s campaign—hey, why don’t you guys rise above the media’s narrative and focus your platform entirely on infrastructure? You could come up with specific projects for most of the fifty states—smart highways, clean energy, bullet trains, wilderness bridges, dam tunnel, bridge and highway refurbishing, underground fiber-optic networks,–hell, I could go on and on—and I’m just one person. I’m sure a room full of people could produce quite a list.

And every one of those projects would make jobs, stimulate our economy, and put America’s infrastructure back to its former place as leader of the world. One of the most telling aspects of a developed country is its ease of transportation and communication—and these are the greatest lacks of underdeveloped countries. Lack of roads and barriers to communication contribute to poverty, hunger, and despotism in all the most bedeviled parts of the world—and those with a plethora of such resources are too busy doing business to have uprisings, insurgents, or to invite the chaos we find in the world’s worst trouble-spots.

Eisenhower’s great post-war push to grow America’s highways was an essential element in our rise to wealth and power in the latter half of the twentieth century—but now we are losing roads, bridges and other key features through neglect and an assumed entitlement that often precedes a great empire’s slide into decline. This stuff won’t fix itself.

We spend a lot of time and money on what we call Defense—it’s more than half the federal budget. Shouldn’t we consider taking some defensive measures against the passage of time? If we don’t have the will, or the spirit, to improve our infrastructure, we should at least defend against the loss of what our forebears have already provided.

All images are property of the Rijksmuseum—to whom all thanks are due:

Gazette du Bon Ton 1914, No. 8, Pl. 80: L’Arbre de science /Robe du soir de Doeuillet, Anonymous, George Doeuillet, Lucien Vogel, 1914

Mantle clock (pendule), Anonymous, Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy, c. 1802 – c. 1803

Allegory of the science, Jeremias of Chess, Henry Crown Velt, 1696

Portrait of Dr Gachet, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Ferdinand Gachet, 1890

Invention of the compass, Philips Galle, c. 1589 – c. 1593

Mécanique de Vaisseau-volant, Anonymous, c. 1781 – c. 1784

Lectern of the Felix Meritis Society, Anonymous, c. 1778 – c. 1779

Artilleriewerkplaats, Philips Galle, c. 1589 – c. 1593

Book Printing, Philips Galle, c. 1589 – c. 1593

Windmolen, Philips Galle, c. 1598 – c. 1593

She’s Still The One (2015Oct23)

Posted by XperDunn on October 23, 2015

Friday, October 23, 2015 8:14 AM

Yesterday’s Benghazi hearing was a spectacle. Republican congresspersons were indefatigably terse, insensitive, and thick-headed for eleven hours. Their pretense of nonpartisanship would have been better served had even one of them said even one civil word to the former Secretary of State throughout their marathon grilling. And even Hillary Clinton might have wilted under such a barrage of enmity, had she not had the regular interruptions of the Democratic members, who spent their time castigating the hearing itself, rather than its witness—to whom they pretty much offered apologies that she was required to be subject to that circus.

After the preceding seven hearings, it’s hard to see how the Republicans committee members had hoped to appear anything other than incompetent during this eighth, Clinton-only farce. All the GOP members at the dais were former prosecutors—and after witnessing their bullying, all-talk, no-listen tirades, I was ready to despair not just of the Congress, but of our justice system as well. To ‘win a case’, in our dreary reality, often replaces the seeking out of truth among hot-shot lawyers—and these specific lawyers have transferred that worst-of-all-failings of our legal system to our legislative system. Their desire for a partisan victory, rather than clarity, showed through every syllable of their attempted mugging.

With all the talk of ‘transparency’ yesterday, it was the Republicans who were revealed as transparent in their partisanship. I would have been tremendously embarrassed to have been among their number—but then, I’m not trapped in an extremist right-wing bubble of anger and resentment. They showed the sorry enthusiasm of cheerleaders for a team being soundly trounced—lots of noise to little purpose.

Darling Hillary—now, that’s a different story. Eleven hours of unruffled poise and competency—I was blown away by her strength, her endurance, and her intelligence. If her poll numbers don’t reflect a surge of approval for her candidacy, then I give up on this country for good—if hi-jinx and raillery can drown out such astute capability, then democracy has finally failed us. The late Margaret Thatcher has a new rival for the title “Iron Lady”.

I learned two things yesterday—the Benghazi attack was a horrible tragedy, and Hillary Clinton was not the cause of it. If that is what the Republicans wished America to learn yesterday, then—job well done, folks.

Things That Are Wrong (2015Oct02)

Posted by XperDunn on October 2, 2015

Friday, October 02, 2015 6:42 PM

Guns are bombs, okay? They’re sophisticated bombs with a piece of custom-shaped shrapnel that comes out the end. They’re explosives—adding the bells and whistles doesn’t change that. Now think about the difference between our attitudes towards guns and our attitudes towards bombs. Think about the pre-boarding inspections that confiscate water bottles and cuticle scissors. Think about that schoolkid who got busted for bringing a clock to school. Now think about those yahoos that parade about in public spaces with semi-automatic rifles across their shoulders.

We have got to stop romanticizing guns—we have to amend the constitution to rescind the ‘right of the people to keep and bear arms’. We have to end the NRA’s choke-hold on Washington—and on state and local lawmakers. Or we should just add ‘bombs’ to the Second Amendment—what’s the difference? Most homeowners own guns—and of those who use them, most of them accidentally shoot a family member—now that’s a proud tradition.

Money has hacked our democracy—and the proof is in the proliferation of commerce and industry, without a commensurate explosion in regulatory agencies. We are constantly told of all the wonderful new advances, new products, new materials, new investment derivatives, new genetically-modified products—where’s the damned regulatory structure to keep all these new enterprises from going rogue? They’re being suppressed by the rich bastards who are making money off all these new things—using society as a vast, cost-free experiment lab. We live on a knife-edge of new technology running in all directions at once—where is the government oversight on all the wonderful new risks and excesses?

We are unwilling guinea pigs for every new internet site, drug, GMO food or feed, flavor enhancer, investment scheme, and safety feature (or lack thereof) on every vehicle, appliance, or toy. We are told that the unions our grandparents went to jail for, got beat up for, or died for, are the evil influence—not the owners and executives with all the power—and because of our failing educational system, many of us are stupid enough to believe that. But don’t get me started on what the American voters have become stupid enough to believe—common sense has long fled the field of battle against these pidgeon-heads—a mindless victory that is looking fair to elect a clown for president. If you need further proof that our democracy has been hacked by capitalism—explain to me Trump’s poll numbers. I think he would be the first president who never read a history book.

Vladimr Putin is a gangster—a short one, because he’s not a whole person—he’s mostly asshole. Now that Russia is run by mobsters, it makes sense that the one with the Napoleon-complex is the big cheese. But the worst part about Putin is that he’s right. America thought it was clever to arm a bunch of religious fanatics and let them do the fighting in Afghanistan—then America turned its back on Afghanistan after the Russians gave up and went home—just when that region needed committed efforts (and funds) to help to transform itself into a developing country. Now we’ve got Taliban, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, and ISIL—in some ways it would have been better to let the Russians occupy the place.

So that’s on us—9/11 was a direct response from a bunch of pissed-off fanatics that resented being used by America to fight their Cold War, and then got dumped once they had done what we wanted. And attacking the wrong country in response—well, that was just Dubya’s little cherry on top, destabilizing the entire Middle East for no good reason. Now this oafish Capone-ski, Putin, is annexing countries and bombing Syrian freedom-fighters for Assad—and he’s got the moral high-ground. This is what happens when Conservatives use whatever it is they use, instead of thinking, to lead our nation.

Obama is understandably reluctant to throw fuel on the fire, having been elected partly on the premise that militarism in the Middle East is not America’s strong suit. And really, how is America supposed to end the conflicts between Shia and Sunni half-a-world away? All we could do is copy Putin—drop bombs on whatever targets present themselves and hope that random bloodshed adds to the discourse—and we’re already doing that. World War III, here we come—Oh, boy!

Meanwhile, all the reasonable Syrians are on hiking trips, or boating in the Mediterranean—well, if I think about it, I’m sure there are millions of decent Syrians who are too poor or too trapped to leave. Maybe someday, if the fighting ever stops, there’ll be a couple of intelligent people left to rebuild the place.

And of course our National village idiot, Trump, promises to ship all the Syrian refugees back to Syria (that’s after he’s shipped millions of undocumented workers south of the border). He’s really into transportation, this guy. What a tool.

The presumed-next Speaker, McCarthy, has admitted that the only purpose of the Benghazi hearings was to throw a wrench into Hillary Clinton’s political image and muddy her rep—that’s an unexpected bit of fresh air—not that he shouldn’t be ashamed of himself and his party for putting themselves above the service they purport to render. I watched a little C-SPAN and heard them cawing over Planned Parenthood—until Cecile Richards had to correct one of them on live TV. But even after the tapes were proved edited and it was pointed out that Planned Parenthood provides important women’s health care, with only a small percentage of their efforts involving abortion (which is legal, BTW) the GOP continues to pretend that Cecile Richards is leading a band of bloodthirsty cannibals who eat baby-brains for lunch. (They have it on video.) We hardly need rich people to screw up the world with idiots like this in government, especially now that they’ve gotten into the habit of doubling down on every stupid lie, no matter how many times it’s exposed as a lie.

And, as I predicted, the moronic Jeb Bush is making the talk-show rounds and looking downright erudite after a whole summer of Trump—and the Democrats, according to polls, are falling for the Hillary E-Mail smear—proof that we Democrats are just as stupid as the GOP—just in our own way. When I look at Hillary Clinton I see someone who’s uncomfortable—she’s not a natural politician, like her husband—she’s less comfortable feeding us bullshit. But I think that’s a good thing. When I look at Hillary Clinton I see someone who’s spent her life in public service—someone who has only entered politics because that’s where the chance for real change is. Perhaps I go too far—but isn’t it about time we had a counter-balance to the GOP’s bullshit against her? Whatever her faults, she’s Socrates with a touch of Einstein—compared to her rivals.

And whatever happened to our dream of electing the first woman president? Are we too smug now that we’ve had an African-American president—do we think that we’ve been ‘enlightened’ enough for now, let’s get back to the rich white guys that always do such a bang-up job? Yeah, that’s sounds about right. Sorry, Hil—you’re more than qualified, but the GOP says your email server destroyed the free world—and your lady Democrats got hit on the head, I guess, because they’re starting to believe those jerks.

Thinking In Time (2015Sep16)

Posted by XperDunn on September 16, 2015

Wednesday, September 16, 2015 1:51 PM

It’s very rude to say things about people we care for—but it is impossible not to think things about people, no matter how much we love them. The analytical part of our minds has no filter—that comes after. This leads most men to believe that lying, frequently and profusely, is a vital part of a happy marriage. Still, I’ve found that any thoughts that may occur to me will be skewed by my emotional inertia—if I’m feeling critical, I’ll find criticisms; if I’m feeling good, I’ll notice goodness.

Emotional inertia is a very important thing—if I keep an eye out for it, I can sometimes stop myself before I really get ‘on a roll’. And that’s not to say I stifle my feelings—when we’re ‘on a roll’, conversationally or interactively, we start to look for the next rung on the ladder we’re building—it leads us on, but it can also lead us away from our intentions. Sometimes it leads us to a place we don’t want to get to—so I find being ‘on a roll’ to be vastly over-rated.

Further, I don’t really like to be definite about anything immediately—the more important a decision is, the better it is to give it time to work itself out in my head. ‘Sleeping on it’ is folk wisdom in this vein—to go to sleep and wake up the next day, on its surface, doesn’t appear to have any value—yet I can’t count the number of times that doing so has allowed insights to present themselves, insights that took their time coming to the forefront of my consciousness.

Conversely, “time and the tide wait for no man”—taking one’s time isn’t always an option. While I can be pretty clever at a slow pace, I’m terrible at snap decisions—I’m slow-smart but fast-stupid. It amazes me sometimes how stupid someone can be—and still beat me in an argument. Part of that is due to the old saw: “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” – Bertrand Russell, “The Triumph of Stupidity” (1933). But in truth, there is also the simple fact that my education doesn’t recall itself to my mind instantaneously—another person with less than a tenth of my knowledge can nonetheless easily out-talk me.

Thus I am forced to disagree with another famous quote of his: “To realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.” – Bertrand Russell, “Our Knowledge of the External World” (1914). No doubt, in context, his use of “Time” and of “unimportance” refer to aspects other than those I am addressing—especially as he is speaking philosophically, while I’m talking about a sort of ‘applied mechanics’. He speaks of understanding—I’m going on about missed opportunities and un-ducked punches.

One last Bertrand Russell quote: “Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?”

I saw Jimmy Fallon doing a comedic interview with Donald Trump—who didn’t seem to find any cognitive dissonance in being laughed at by the entire audience for his policies and positions—as if he knew he would get in the last laugh. His platform seems to be: “I’m ridiculous—trust me.” We do, Donald, we do—we trust you to be ridiculous. Trust you with the presidency?—not so much. Survey question: What scares you more—Trump, or the people who would vote for him?

The GOP isn’t the only institution being put through the wringer of self-regard by Mr. Trump—the Media, as well, is finding it difficult to air anything other than Trump coverage—he’s such a ratings-magnet that they completely abandon all pretense of keeping us informed. We will be entertained by the news—and nothing more—until their new clown-god drops out of the race. Should the Donald actually become our Chief Executive, we will never see another straight news story ever again.

He will be ‘proof of concept’ that we will watch the news no matter how skewed or devoid of substance it becomes—the last barrier to infotainment, the audience’s expectation of maturity and analysis, will have fallen.

But none of this is the media’s fault, or Donald’s fault, or even the GOP’s fault—this is about human nature. We are all being given the option of either thinking seriously about difficult issues, or being distracted by the funny clown. I confess, the funny clown calls out to me—he says, “Why worry? Why be all serious about things? Let’s just wing it!”—and who can resist him?

The only counter-weight is the Presidency itself—it stubbornly insists that running the most powerful nation on earth involves life-or-death decisions about complex issues. It refuses the premise that running our government is like running a business—it refuses to place profit above human rights, faith above freedom, or wealth and power above the people. It fairly screams that Donald Trump’s election, rather than investing him with dignity, will strip any vestige of dignity from the office itself.

And someone will have to explain to me how a majority of us would have the wisdom to elect an Obama, twice, and then become brain-damaged enough to replace him with a joke in a suit.

The answer is probably that we are all willing to take a suggestion for a fact—Hillary Clinton, it has been suggested, did something wrong with her e-mails. It’s not a fact. There are no specifics. There’s no evidence of any harm done by her admittedly unwise combining of personal and professional e-mails. Still, between the GOP spin doctors and the media’s lust for scandal, it has become a meme—Hillary is dishonest. Who can say? Perhaps she is. She’s a politician, after all—their profession is as notoriously vulnerable to unpopular, bare facts as it is to popular, but false, rumors.

I’d like to ask all the people who say they won’t vote for Hillary because they think she’s dishonest—do you trust Trump? Do you truly trust any of the other 16 candidates? Or is this just another example of the double standard for women, i.e. a dishonest man is just a politician, but a dishonest women is a criminal?

And just how dishonest do we think Hillary is? I think she’s defensive—the GOP began to attack her when she was only the First Lady, without any actual standing in government other than a symbolic one. But she has been cleared of any substantial wrongdoing in every one of their manufactured scandals, from Whitewater to Benghazi. I don’t understand how so many failed attacks by the GOP has left their reputations untouched, yet managed to taint her image through sheer persistence—how stupid are we, the voters?

We are like the high school class that witnesses a bully pick on the weak kid every day—and decides to join in the ridicule rather than doing the right thing and defending their classmate from the bully. We have the opportunity to elect a great American, and our first woman, as President—and we’re seriously considering, instead, a spoiled billionaire with no experience. Again I ask—how stupid are we?

Music Hath Charms (2015Aug28)

Posted by XperDunn on August 28, 2015

It’s one of those days—I play the piano and sing along with myself—I sing along with the playlist on my PC (somewhere in there I marvel at the inordinate amount of lyrics I’ve somehow memorized over the years—yet still have some point in every song where I have to go ‘uh-la-la-yeah-oh-uh’). So—am I happy as a lark, or am I full of frustration and this is my passive-aggressive way of venting? It’s hard to say.

One thing I’ve noticed about music—if you do it properly, it’s pretty hard work—not that I see it that way—it’s a joy, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy—it takes focus, effort and seven kinds of coordination. They say playing the piano is the equivalent of rowing a boat; playing the violin is the equivalent of lifting weights; and conducting an orchestra is like being in a boxing match—in terms of calories burned, at least. For all I know, music has kept me from wasting away during my sick period—it was the only thing that got me out of bed.

Then again, I don’t exactly look like I frequent the gym. I’ve got a permanent paunch from having a liver transplant—there are certain abs of mine that will never flex again—but that just gives me a good excuse to look like most guys my age, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.

A few nights ago, I wrote:

O, Joy and Rapture! I noticed that some drawings I was sure I had were no longer showing up on my PC—then I remembered I had some back-up files.

Trouble was backup files don’t restore themselves—and I had used Norton 360 software to make them. I figured I was in for a long, hard slog before I ever managed to restore these files but I went on live-chat with Norton Tech Support (didn’t hurt that it was one in the morning) and they set me up with a quick Restore-app download and I’m sitting here typing now because I’m waiting for my 50,000 files to finish restoring—how easy is that?! Sometimes a person gets lucky.

One thing I’ve finally learned from computers—if something is important enough to get on there in the first place, I’ll probably want it again sometime in the future—no files are truly deletable.

That may seem like file-hoarding, but with the proper directory-tree organization–and considering how big today’s hard drives are–you never get into the kinds of problems that plague real hoarders of actual stuff.

Of course, now that I have that stuff restored, I have to go through my backups and de-dupe the files, and move them to the correct sub-directories—there’s a lot of confusion in my mind after a few minutes of that sort of thing, so I’m still not done. But it’s all there—that’s the important thing.

I could listen to the Beach Boys sing “I Can Hear Music” all day long, I swear…. Hey—tomorrow’s Claire and I’s 35^th wedding anniversary—cool, right? No wonder I can’t think straight.

I watched Hillary Clinton at the DNC meeting on CSPAN this morning—she gave a great speech. She defined the Democratic Party as the party that is concerned with the people—and she castigated the Republicans as out-of-touch. The former Secretary of State said the Republican presidential candidates were “all Trump, but without the pizzaz”—which I found especially apt.

How do the right-wingers rationalize their religiosity in a nation whose watchword has always been ‘separation of church and state’? How do they demonize immigration in a nation that is built upon an alloyed strength forged in a revered melting-pot? How do they maintain their dog-whistles of division in a nation where our progress is measured in the advancement of freedom and equality? It is only by preying on the weakness of will, the ignorance, and the self-love of their followers that the GOP inveigles us away from the true path of America’s future. End of speech.

So, I’ve been experiencing creative doldrums recently—I seem to have nothing musical to say in my recent improvs—it’s all just a bunch of seeking and not a lot of finding. This post, as well—I began it this morning but now it’s quarter to five in the afternoon—and it’s just a patchwork of disconnected ramblings. Anyhow, here’s my latest foray into the depths of the dog days:

We Know—But We Don’t Care (2015Aug24)

Posted by XperDunn on August 24, 2015

Monday, August 24, 2015 11:37 AM

So deep in the woods one would think it already nighttime—until the late afternoon turns to brief dusk then vanishes into inky nothingness.

Now we know we’re being played (as if there were any doubt beforehand). The Dow dropped over a thousand points first thing this morning, said the news-crawl. As if the Dow were a sentient creature and not a room full of gamblers and crooks trying to out-scheme each other. How long will journalists maintain this false naivety—that the Dow or the S&P 500 or any of those indices do anything other than what the obscenely-wealthy, top owners and players want it to do?

Or let us examine the case of Hillary Clinton—the media have invented a thing called her ‘email scandal’—but they stubbornly refuse to address the question of exactly what wrongdoing Hillary Clinton is accused of. Her stalkers have engendered investigations in the Justice Dept., the State Dept., and the Congress—they even have a judge who, for whatever reason, has ordered a monthly press-release about the e-mail investigation—just so it is guaranteed a place in the news feed for the remainder of the presidential campaign. A real journalist might report on the lack of a single specific crime or harm that any of this mishegas entails.

I would sadly, resignedly accept that Hillary Clinton is more untrustworthy than any other politician—if someone would just say in plain words what proof there is of this universal assumption. In the absence of anything like that, I am left with the conviction that we’re being played. The ‘Hillary E-Mail Scandal’ has become a given—the media discuss how it hurts her polling numbers, how skillfully or unskillfully she is handling her ‘response’—but they never have time to talk about the specifics, the reality behind all the smoke and mirrors.

Or take the Trump circus coverage—the media can’t resist this guaranteed ratings-maker. They marvel at Trump’s decisive lead over the other sixteen GOP candidates—as if a reality-show star could help but outshine a crowd of narrow-minded white men. But they don’t like to dwell on the larger reality—that Trump supporters—like the Tea Party they came from—represent a vanishingly small segment of bitter, ignorant reactionaries. These congenital shouters and bitchers make a big splash on TV—but their numbers are so small that we not only expect Trump to lose to a Democrat (any Democrat) nationally, but we assume that it would be suicidal for the GOP even to nominate him.

Here we see a conjunction of un-enlightened self-interest—the media is drawn to shiny distractions over substance, and the GOP can’t get their baker’s dozen of extraneous candidates to step aside and let the poll numbers show Trump against just one or two opponents. Most of these GOP candidates are busy feeding their egos with public appearances and feeding their bank accounts with fund-raising—that their collective milling about leaves Trump free to destroy their party’s image doesn’t prompt a one of them to pull out of the race. Insanely, part of the coverage of Trump is the occasional observation by this or that pundit that the whole house of cards will collapse as we draw closer to the election—making all their coverage a complete waste of time. No one talks about what a waste of time it is for the other sixteen to be running at all—I guess that would be insensitive.

Just because no one’s ultimately in charge of anything, or responsible for anything, doesn’t mean that we aren’t being played. The stock market has been a scam since the day it was invented—banks themselves aren’t much better. Politics has always been a dirty business. And journalism, in its most common incarnation, is just large-scale gossip for profit—the occasional ‘heroes’ of the fourth estate were always backed by their editorial chiefs—but today’s editorial departments are being muzzled by owners, lawyers, and advertisers whose allegiance is to the bottom line rather than the bare facts.

Still, we don’t care. Life is too complicated if we view all of our institutions as con games and all political and military decisions as furtherance of corruption and ego-feeding. So, we trust the banks and the markets, we vote for the politicians, we work every day for the fat cats, and we watch the news as if it mattered. We know we are being willfully ignorant in doing this—but we have our own lives to live amidst all the craven conniving, so we close our eyes and step out into thin air, expecting concrete.

Failure at CNN and The New York Times (2015Apr24)

Posted by XperDunn on April 24, 2015

Friday, April 24, 2015 5:59 PM

What with FOX News, Court TV, Network TV news, and MSNBC all out there working their angles, I use to tell myself not to worry—after all, there was always the ‘Gray Lady’ and CNN. They both have respectable histories and both seemed to display a real dedication to journalism. But I’ve been noticing the mob mentality of mass media inveigling its way into the thinking of even the ‘respectable’ news-editors lately. I’m even starting to wonder about Gwen Ifill!

Let me give two examples from today that raised my blood-pressure and totaled my peace of mind. The first was the headline of the New York Times issue on the kitchen table: “Obama Apologizes For Drone Strike that Kills American and Italian Hostage” What the hell is that? We didn’t take those people hostage. We don’t use human shields as SOP military strategy. And Obama wasn’t at the controls of the drone that hit the innocent victims. It’s ISIS who should apologize (if those fuckers had consciences, like human beings). These fucking savages terrorize the planet for years, and we focus on the rare mistakes where one or two of the deaths can be laid at our doorstep (if you ignore the source of the exigent circumstances).

When are we going to cut this poor bastard a break? But Obama is nearing the end of his last term—for my second example, let’s turn to Hillary Clinton. I wouldn’t be Hillary Clinton for all the tea in China—this poor lady is America’s favorite target. I hope she doesn’t get elected—you fuckers don’t deserve her. And she certainly doesn’t deserve the treatment she gets at the hands of all the hacks pretending to be journalists.

I saw three assholes talking on CNN. The left-wing-view guy makes a simple declarative statement—that ‘no evidence has been produced to support any charges of wrongdoing in the case of the Clinton Foundation vis-à-vis contributors getting special favors’. End of story, right? I mean, they’re journalists, right? Wrong. The moderator asshole responds, “Well, isn’t that just daring people to go and find proof?” In what bizzaro universe is an avowal of innocence the same as a dare to find wrongdoing? Only a total asshole would twist a simple sentence to mean its opposite—and only in the name of high ratings, truth be damned. A professional journalist wouldn’t even be talking about malfeasance without proof in the first place, never mind insisting on speculating on the whispers of her self-professed haters.

These people are lucky they live in a modern world where they can say these things in print or on a TV screen. If they said this shit in public, I’d fucking attack them—what a bunch of scum. You’ll notice I mentioned glancing at a newspaper headline on the table and seeing three assholes on CNN. I did not read the paper and I didn’t watch CNN—these were just snippets that I noticed in passing—and wished I hadn’t. I’ll pay actual attention to the details of these jerks when journalism comes back in style—and that’ll happen as soon as the major media corporations go bust, not before. So, I’m not holding my breath—or watching the news. Fuck’em all.

Overreaction (2015Apr13)

Posted by XperDunn on April 13, 2015

Monday, April 13, 2015 12:03 PM

Yesterday CNN had a parade of talking heads using Hillary Clinton’s eminent YouTube announcement as an excuse to dish about her, her husband, her detractors, her unauthorized biographers, and how she is simultaneously the same as Obama and worse than Obama. I heard very little factual material and a landslide of attack, dismissal, insinuation, and extrapolation—but CNN isn’t famous for reeling off mountains of data these days, so no big surprise there. The only thing that struck me was how their tone leaned so far towards FOX, and had so little MSNBC to it.

They expressed their editorial opinion, so here’s mine. Hillary Clinton is no saint, but neither is she the devil. She’s a world-class politician and a pretty good one. Any comment that fails to give her at least that much credit is serving someone else’s agenda, whether it’s the Tea Party, the Libertarians, or the media’s need for ‘sensations’. Anyone who tries to tie her character to her husband’s sexual misbehavior is reaching. And those who make a media feast out of her emails should really have some ‘dirt’ to point to, rather than trying to make her email system itself sound nebulously nefarious. But having prefaced the Email flap with the Benghazi snipe-hunt, we now know that actual wrong-doing is unnecessary to the Hillary-hunters.

Few media voices want to endanger their ratings by pointing out that the profusion of manufactured scandals is evidence of a total lack of any real wrong-doing—God forbid they inject any fairness into their rabble-rousing. One could make the case that this is good for Ms. Clinton—if she had done any actual wrong, the media will be too busy with their BS to find out about it. But while the media dances on the surface of things, there are truly dedicated right-wingers that will dig and dig—so I don’t think we need to worry about any of her actions being overlooked by her critics–except, of course, anything praiseworthy.

Neither am I prepared to give the same carte blanche to Hillary Clinton that I’ve allowed President Obama over his two terms—his mistakes display a surfeit of idealism, while her career has been more obviously a political battle. Plus, his symbolism as the first African-American president required some engagement with this country’s difficulties with race relations, whereas Hillary’s election as the first female president would be a self-contained achievement, without requiring that she ‘cure sexism’ in America.

Hillary Clinton, like most good politicians, is a mediator, a compromiser. She is far more interested in reaching across the aisle than any of her right-wing challengers. She is not trying to take us backwards in time, to repeal science, or to institute a theocracy. She doesn’t show the same bitter antipathy to her competitors that they show towards her. She’s the sensible choice for this country—and that’s her biggest problem.

How can the sensible candidate win in a country whose eyes and ears, the media, refuse to consider anything less exciting than a schoolyard brawl? They adore the divisive ignorance of Ted Cruz or Rand Paul—how exciting it is to see these jokers challenge observed reality! The media can’t be expected to waste time on the dusty business of governing, as discussed by Hillary Clinton, when they have mind-bending yahoos to cut to—people that not only say the craziest things, but never bore us with the sleep-inducing details of realpolitik.

Reince Priebus, the head of the GOP, claims that people don’t trust Hillary Clinton—and it is true that anyone listening to the GOP, as far back as the Whitewater pseudo-scandal, would have plenty of reason to question her honesty. But since the GOP has an entire news-network devoted to spreading right-wing falsehoods and misrepresentations, and Hillary has only a private email server, we must hear echoes of ‘the pot calling out the kettle’ in that idiot, Priebus’s, observation that “the country deserves better than Clinton”. If we listen to the GOP, this country deserves bigotry, violence and plutocracy—and they don’t believe Hillary will give us nearly as much of those things as they can. That, somehow, I believe.

Media-mouths like to say that Hillary avoids talking about foreign policy because the administration of which she was Secretary of State saw the rise of terrorist groups like ISIS and Boko-Haram. To me, this is patently short-sighted. Dubya was the one who brought hundreds of thousands of American soldiers to a country that we had no business invading. When Obama tried to draw down our military presence, the damage had already been done. We had begun a civil war among Middle Eastern Muslim sects, Sunni and Shia, before we were fully aware that Muslims had sects—hell, our training manuals for Iraqi soldiers were originally printed in Arabic, even though Iraqis speak Persian—that’s how little we understood the people we attacked so precipitately.

Like Bush’s financial crash, these things take time to repair. Obama took a lot of criticism for not fixing our economy the day after he was sworn in, with very little being said about the causes of the problem he tried so urgently (and ultimately, successfully) to fix. Bush’s invasion of the Middle East created a far bigger mess, and will take more time to fix. Until that time, the GOP will continue to criticize the Democrats for failing to fix what the GOP has broken. That is their strategy—blame, accusation, and the assumption that nothing they do is wrong.

That strategy’s success depends on our willingness to think like Ellen DeGeneres’s fish character in “Finding Nemo”—we forget anything that happened more than thirty seconds ago. I am burdened with memories of how the actions of fifty years ago, of twenty years ago, or of ten years ago led to the circumstances of the present—I could never be a member of the GOP because I believe in cause and effect.

But the dysfunction of the GOP has its counterpart in the Democrats’ lack of spine—it’s as if the Democrats, who don’t lie as professionally as the GOP, are nonetheless afraid to tell the truth. They may not act like the GOP, but they appear to believe that their constituents are as immune to facts as the Tea Party’s supporters. And I believe this accounts for the lack of Democrats showing up to vote—in and among, of course, our national disregard for that most essential of democratic activities.

Many supporters want a ‘firebrand’ to challenge Hillary Clinton for the nomination—usually either Bernie Sands or Liz Warren—but they don’t want to run for President. Their messages are too polarizing, and their overall experience in matters of state falls far below the level of Ms. Clinton’s CV. Their presidencies would just be Obama-all-over-again, without the overt racism. It would be thrilling—the media would love it—but our federal government’s dysfunction would only deepen.

The GOP has taken control of both houses of Congress—but they are stuck for a presidential candidate who isn’t outright laughable—even to themselves. So the question becomes: what Democratic president will best be able to do business with them? Hillary Clinton, for all their venomous attitudes towards her, is much more a member of their species than any of the more idealist Democrats capturing media attention today. Even the GOP’s rank sexism, so overbearing towards women in general, would work against them when dealing with a lady president. She’s perfect—and that’s the media’s problem with her. She’s a bit too ‘on the nose’ for their agenda, which is “Controversy, twenty-four, seven”.

In summary, I’ll be voting for Hillary in 2016—and I won’t change my mind because of GOP smear tactics or media scandal-mongering. She may not be perfect, but she’s perfect for the job at hand. And no one with better experience or better credentials is going to rise up out of obscurity because, if there was such a person, they’ve had ample opportunity to show their face already. And anyone who appears so will simply be someone so new to the national stage that we don’t really know anything about them.

Hillary has been out there, giving as good as she got, since Bill was elected—any newcomer’s advantage will be only that—that they’re new. And in a job with a built-in minimum age limit, meant to exclude the inexperienced, the last thing we need is New. Besides, it’s time for the “Land of Opportunity” to legitimize its nickname by electing its first female head of state. And all you non-atheists out there can get down on your knees and thank God that it wasn’t Sarah Palin.

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