The Ivory Tower Speaks … High atop his ivory tower, Bill Maher scolded the BernieorBust movement last night on his show, Real Time. In his signature sarcastic tone, he told us slavery is around the corner (Drumpf), should we follow through with our threat to ignore Hillary Clinton come November. This just a few minutes after Maher condemned (or at least joked about) the blatant anti-democratic Super Delegate control the party holds over its electorate, something even the "fascist" (what Democrats love to hurl at the GOP) Republican Party doesn’t have. Essentially, Maher advised us to open our legs and/or bend over and enjoy the fucking we’re getting by the DNC.
I’ll tell you what, Bill, you’re not my hero. Your overzealous attacks on Islam and willingness to accept whatever the DNC throws your way doesn’t inspire. Nor does it make sense to a movement that has no intention of caving. The bigger picture you and so many others, we call them lemmings (and/or political cowards), fail to see is the process itself. Why on earth would the DNC, after all the corruption they’ve exhibited against the Sanders campaign throughout the nomination process, ever give us more than the flip-flopping lip service of their candidate, Hillary Clinton, if we went ahead and caved? What would be their incentive to take the left seriously moving forward?
When the tea party moved both political parties to the right, the left cracked jokes about them rather than organize. When talk of the left forming its own serious political movement was expressed, people like Maher immediately shot it down, claiming it would destroy the Democratic Party ... as if the Democratic Party deserves being protected. For all the economic disaster democratic administrations and congresses have slapped on the middle class (NAFTA and the repealing of Glass-Steagall, welfare "reform", the Clinton crime bill, not to mention the TPP, a corporate authored trade deal with Pacific Rim countries that Barry tried to slip through the back door), defense of the Democratic Party seems absurd to the progressive movement. We ask: What the hell are they seeing that we aren’t? Has Wall Street been curbed since the Obama administration? Well, no, it hasn’t. Its power is now more consolidated between fewer banks than before. Has income inequality lessened any? Well, no, it hasn’t. The fact is its worse today than 7 years ago. Have the Bush tax cuts been revoked? Well, no, those tax cuts can now be labelled the Obama tax cuts.
So, thanks, but no thanks, Bill Maher. We’re fine. Should the DNC finish the sabotage they’ve been so blatantly pursuing, good luck with their candidate. We’ll find someone else to support, whether it's Jill Stein or a write-in vote for President Bernie Sanders 2016.
As for Elizabeth Warren and our displeasure with her failure to endorse Bernie thus far, let us toss out a few names of so-called progressives from the past. Howard Dean, now a lobbyist for the healthcare industry … Barney Frank, now a board member of a bank … Eric Holder, now back at the firm he left to become Barry’s Attorney General (now defending the Wall Street banks he was supposed to go after) … and while we’re at it, and since Hillary Clinton loves to bring up the totally ineffective Dodd-Frank bill, Chris Dodd is also a lobbyist for the MPAA in Hollywood.
Yeah, we're pissed off at Elizabeth Warren. She hasn’t shown near the progressive guts of Tulsi Gabbard, who recently quit the corrupt DNC machine to endorse and campaign for Bernie Sanders.
It’s the Cheap Shot seen round the world … John McGraw, the 78-year-old goober arrested for his cheap shot at 26-year-old Rakeem Jones at the Crown Coliseum on March 9, shot his big mouth off afterward (claiming “he (Jones) is lucky they didn’t kill him.” McGraw is another of the Uber proud Trump nationalists, most of whom probably can’t read, or ever served in the military.
This kind of psychotic/berserk behavior has become commonplace at Donald J. Drumpf events, and last night in Chicago, one of his George Wallace-like rallies was cancelled.
Let’s be kind and assume it’s the “poorly educated” Drumpf loves so much who were most responsible for the violent behavior reminiscent, like the comparisons or not, of Hitler’s brown shirts before their ranks formed into a scourge on humanity. Unfortunately, the violence didn’t end with the 78-year old punk’s cheap shot. What baffles most is the fact that the police then took the victim of the cheap shot to the ground and escorted him out of the arena.
Let me state that again: What baffles most is the fact that the police then took the victim of the cheap shot to the ground and escorted him out of the arena.
Now, the 26-year old could well have turned around and dropped the elderly punk with a smack to his chops, but that’s not what he did. Nor did one of his friends, another much younger fellow who managed to control himself in ways the geezer cheap shot artist couldn’t bother to try.
Anyway, as The Drumpfald (my new nickname for him) rallies become more and more violent, and with clear racism energizing at least some of the non-card carrying KKK members, at the Republican Party debate Thursday night, for whatever reason, both the moderators and the candidates were careful to avoid the subject, speaking in generalities more than specifics. But let’s not kid ourselves, amici, the Republican Party is likely starting to realize they’re gonna need Drumpf come November, and the brash Billionaire (who draft-dodged the Vietnam war—so much for his nationalism) does enough damage all on his lonesome.
First of the Tommy Red Reviews … from Bill Crider: If you miss Elmore Leonard, give Charlie Stella's Tommy Red a look. It has dumb bad guys, bad good guys, great dialogue, humor, and a plot that'll have you guessing about who's going to survive.
The title character is Tommy Dalton, an Irish hit man who freelances for the mob. He has an ex-wife and three daughters, one of whom is in college and has just been told by the ex that her father is a hit man. He also has a new job, a hit on an informant who's been fingered by a retired cop.
Tommy makes the touch, but the mob boss who hired him decides that there should be cleanup -- those connected with the hit have to die. Tommy's hard to kill, and he decides that a little revenge is in order. Lots of people start dying. The FBI is involved because of the death of the informant, and sometimes it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Maybe they're all bad guys, and throughout the narrative Stella reminds the reader of some recent episodes that the police would probably like for us to forget, most prominently the Eric Garner incident. Even the mob guys think it makes the cops look bad.
There's a lot going on in Tommy Red, and big props to Stella for wrapping it all up in about 150 trade paperback pages. Good stuff and highly recommended.
And Pre Order Tommy Red here:
And the new website is up, thanks to the Principessa, Ann Marie (the wife).
—Knucks
BERN IT UP!
