So. What If It's a Tie?

This came up last week. I was running some numbers in my head and said, "Wait. This (s)election could turn into an Electoral College tie. What do we do then?"

Heh. Heh. Heh. I posted the question at NC, little knowing that the media, or at least parts of it, were running the same numbers and asking the same question. What do we do if  it's an EC tie?

Nobody really knows as it hasn't happened since 1800. The process was different then than it is now, so precedent and parallels cannot really be drawn.

According to an analysis of the issue at 270towin.com the election would go to the House of Representatives where under arcane and never-used rules, each state delegation would have one vote. It would take the votes of 26 state delegations, choosing among the top three presidential candidates, to elect a president. The Senate would vote for vice president among the top two candidates, with each senator getting one vote, meaning that 51 votes would be needed to elect a vice president.

Well. Isn't that interesting.

The House that would become electors in case of an EC tie is the incoming House of Representatives, not the currently sitting one. According to polls (who knows?) the Rs are likely to maintain a majority in the House, albeit a reduced one. One vote for each state delegation, however, could become quite complicated, especially if the R and D representatives are close in numbers. There could be a whole lot of horse trading going on. In addition, while the majority of states might have majority R delegations, the question will be one of whether the Rs in the House would vote for Trump or would they vote for Clinton? Clinton's main policies (as opposed to her Identity Politics) are far more closely aligned with standard R policies than are Trump's lawnsprinkler "Policies." Clinton has been actively soliciting R support during this election pageant, and she's bagged more than a few high ranking R leaders. She's been running essentially as a "moderate Republican" -- make of that what you will -- and has been fairly successful in bringing in bi-partisan support, at least among People Who Matter.

Trump on the other hand has been alienating the High and the Mighty of both major parties, as well as plenty of the Rabble, while being seen as a loose cannon, so-called Populist. Well, he's a Populist for some of his class but not for the People. He's basically just conning them, something both parties higher echelons can appreciate, but to them he's doing it wrong.

His basic problem -- apart from being Trump -- is that the faction of the Upper Crust he represents is the wrong one. These are gangsters, conmen, disreputable and socially unacceptable members of the Overclass, and barring something truly outrageous, they cannot be allowed to take power. Period. At least they cannot be seen to take power. How much power they already have is another question altogether.

So my question is whether the R majority in the House would go along with electing Trump despite their misgivings, or would they instead elect Hillary, who -- despite her many flaws -- is at least a known quantity to them. Besides, they'd be able to impeach her right quick -- and they would -- and wouldn't that be a hoot and a half?

They would be able to exploit Hillary to the hilt, and their calculus might well be to go that direction rather than go with the Unpredictable Lawnsprinkler.

Meanwhile, that leaves the Senate to choose between Kaine and Pence. Oh my. Both have been Senators, and apparently both are chummy with the rest of the Senate Club. Whom, then, would they choose? If Dems take the Senate majority -- which is still up in the air, but looks likely, either 50-50 or 51-49 -- then I'd say Kaine would be the Gracious Winner. But you never know. Even with a Dem majority, some renegade D Senator may vote for Pence for any number of reasons, and then... Well, you might have a Hillary presidency with a radical reactionary Pence VP.

Wouldn't that be fun?

In other words, no matter what it looks like a day out, the results could be surprising to everyone, and I have no doubt Our Rulers are juggling the numbers as we speak.

What I heard on the Sabbath Gasbag shows gave me a clue to what they're thinking at the moment: no matter who "wins" the vote (even if it's jiggered to produce the desired outcome), there will be hell to pay. The polarization of the nation is out of control, and neither Trump nor Clinton can or will produce a "Unity Government." (They used Bush 2 as an example of how a highly polarized outcome could be turned into a Unity Government -- without explaining just how that happened... oh well...)

The public opposition to either one will, they said, be fierce, and it could "turn violent." Nothing like this election has happened since 1860, and we know how that turned out.

The People Who Matter are... scared. So what they would want to do, more than anything, is tamp down insurrection and uprisings before they even take place. The role of the President, as we've seen throughout the Obama Presidency especially, is to mollify the masses -- keep them tame while they are thoroughly exploited for the pleasure and profit of the Overclass.

Apparently neither Clinton nor Trump have shown they can do that.

Oops.

So, perhaps by combining the tickets.... Well, who knows?

The aftermath of Tuesday may only be the start of what's to come. Whoever thought the "status quo" would be preserved (or overthrown) by this election is in for a rude awakening, methinks.

Something else again, something unanticipated, is likely to occur.

Obama Has No Agency

I see this over and over again in the chorus of denunciations of Hillary Clinton.

She and she alone is responsible for every foreign policy disaster and every act of war committed by Our Rulers, if not since Time Began, at least since she was elected to the Senate.

The President has no agency whatever; he is merely a bystander of the raging warmongering and disastrous foreign policy decisions of La Clintoon.

This would be silly of course -- were it not for the fact that Darth Cheney was authoritatively asserted to be the deus ex machina of all the warmongering and foreign policy disasters of the Bush 2 Regime. Ergo, it's only natural that La Clintooooon is the originator of all the foreign (and no doubt domestic) policy catastrophes of the Obama Regime.

The idea is that Presidents are merely the tools of others whose nefarious and bloody schemes they give the nod to but have no input into. They don't even have to give the nod to these schemes, they just have to stay out of the way.

In this manner, The Hag is blamed directly for Iraq, Libya, Syria, Honduras, etc., while no mention is made of Presidents Obama or Bush or the various other departments and agencies in the Executive Branch or Congress and their involvement - if any - in these disastrous and bloody efforts. Hm.

In fact, the implication is that neither Obama nor Bush 2 (nor apparently Darth) had anything to do with them. It was solely Mrs. Clintoon who brought them on. And if The Hag is elected to the Presidency, all bets are off; there is a very high probability that she will start a nuclear war with
Russia. God save us all.

Such absolute power The Hag has been wielding since Time Began. Gee. Who knew?

This is a partial transcript of a speech delivered by Mr. Trump on Hallowe'en which illustrates the point:

Hillary led us to disaster in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya. ... Hillary and our failed Washington establishment have spent $6 trillion on wars in the Middle East, and now it’s worse than it’s ever been before. 

Had Obama and others gone to the beach, Obama could have gone to the golf course, we would have been in much better shape. 

We shouldn’t have gone into the war, and she thinks I’m a hawk. Oh, Donald Trump.
...
Imagine if some of the money had been spent, $6 trillion in the Middle East, on building new schools and roads and bridges right here in Michigan. 

Now Hillary, trapped in her Washington bubble, that’s blind to the lessons, wants to start a shooting war in Syria in conflict with a nuclear armed Russia that could drag us into a World War III. 

Okay, folks. She – I’ll tell you what. She will get us into World War III. She will get us into World War III. I will tell you that. She’s incompetent. She will get us into World War III. 

The arrogant political class never learns. They keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. They keep telling the same lies. They keep producing the same failed results.

It appeared at b's place, "Moon of Alabama," one of the leading objectively pro-Trump sites on the ostensibly "progressive" InterTubes.

I generally like b's analysis of the Syria conflict and the other conflicts which the United States Empire is tangled up in, but he fails badly when he -- and others -- blame them all on Hillary and denies (or almost denies) any agency to the President and the Foreign Policy Establishment and War Department shops which come up them and implement them. Hillary has never had the powers imputed to her. No president or cabinet member does.

If she were President, she would not have the kind of absolute power that is imputed to the Presidency -- power imputed only if she or Trump occupies the Big Chair, not when Bush 2 or Obama is in the office.

I realize this is political rhetoric, not a genuine understanding of how the government works, but still, it's jarring.

The rhetoric says that Hillary -- the Hag -- is directly and solely responsible for every war and every foreign policy disaster in recent history, and she will start World War III on top of it if she is allowed to ascend to the Throne. Mr. Trump, on the other hand, it is asserted, has been an active opponent of every war and every foreign policy disaster in recent history and will prevent World War III from his perch in the White House once he ascends to the Throne.

This is because he's just a businessman, and she's a warmongering neoCon hawk politician and grifter, don't you see?

Well, no. That's not quite how it is and has been. Nor are the assumptions of who will start and who will prevent the ultimate annihilation particularly accurate.

The President's powers and authorities are considerable, but they are also constrained by Congress, the Constitution, precedent, and custom. The Bush 2 Regime broke a lot of the historic constraints on Presidential power and authority, beginning with its lawless installation by the Supreme Court. That lawless act enabled much of the lawlessness to come. The lawless legacy of the Bush 2 Regime still reverberates, and the Obama Administration has utilized aspects of Bush 2's lawless legacy in its own pursuit of national/imperial goals.

Not all constraints on Presidential  powers and authorities were lifted with the installation of the Bush 2 Regime, but it's truly shocking how much was transformed by Bush and his appointees including Darth Cheney.

Nevertheless, with some exceptions, none of them had independent authority. Not the President, not Darth, not Rummy or Condi or any of the rest of them. They were all linked together and they had to operate as a team, with the connivance of Congress and a compliant media, or the whole thing would have fallen apart. Bush 2 was the coach, the man in charge, and he was the one who set and enforced policy -- on the advice and counsel of his team, but also on his own directive.

This is how Presidencies operate, even when they go rogue as Bush 2's Regime did. They have to. For the President, despite all, is not an autocrat.

Came Obama and he was rather quickly disabused of independent notions of what he could and couldn't do in office. The constraints on him were interestingly much greater than those on Bush 2, who seemed to be able to do whatever he wanted at home and abroad. The situations were different of course, but more than that, the Bush 2 Regime was intimately tied into existing permanent power structures within government. These were the players and the practices that were baked into government from long before. Cheney, for example, had been part of the governing clique -- whether he was in or out of office -- for decades; so too Rummy. Colin. Not so much Condi or some of the others, but Bush himself was the son of a President who understood how the machinations of power within government worked and knew who to call on to get things done the way he wanted them done. In other words, the Bush 2 Regime came into office as Members of the Club of Rule/

Obama had no such advantages. Good heavens, no. He was a neophyte newcomer -- and a Negro for gawd's sake. He had to be -- and was -- put in his place right quick. He had few or no allies in the permanent government, and he found out that his freedom of action was strictly constrained, not only by his youth and inexperience, but by opposition in both parties to pretty much anything he wanted to do. Biden could run some interference with the Senate, but Biden fell under many of the same constraints Obama did, as he was never a full member of the Club.

So that brings us to The Hag and her position as Secretary of State. According to the current myth, She had unlimited and total power to do as She wanted in Her position, and Obama had none. According to the myth, She was operating Her foreign policy independently of the White House and Obama didn't even know what she was doing. Or something like that.

She, as Big Dog's Woman, had all Power -- just as Big Dog did -- from the moment she entered the Senate if not before. Why, She might even have been the True Power behind Big Dog's Throne. Imagine it.

This is nonsense. She could not operate independently any more than Colin or Condi could when they were Secretaries of State, nor can Kerry do so now. They are the creatures of the White House, and they follow the policy decisions made in the Oval Office. Even Maddy Albright had to do that when she served Clintoon I.

They have input into those decisions, of course, but they don't make those decisions independently.

She -- the Hag -- did not start or lead the wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria or any other place, nor could She have done so as a Senator or Secretary of State. And as President, She cannot start World War III independently.

Much as one likes to believe She can and will, that's not how these things happen, if they happen.

There is a whole series of agreements that have to be reached within the administration and the permanent government (aka The Deep State) before a -- say -- nuclear war can begin, particularly if it is a war of aggression which it would almost have to be given Russian reluctance to engage in mutual annihilation.

In addition, the public has to be convinced that nuclear annihilation is the preferable course of action, because reasons.

The anti-Russian/Putin propaganda campaign is in full swing, of course. It appears to be designed to induce Regime Change on the model of so many others since the destabilization and collapse of the Soviet Union, but it's not entirely clear what's going on. There are elements of pure ridiculousness and pretend in it that make little or no sense. Trump's contrariness over it doesn't mean he doesn't go along with it. He may simply have a different -- and more personally profitable -- view of how to exploit it. Exploit it, believe me, he will, whether or not he ascends to the White House.

What he says on the campaign trail about not going to war with Russia is essentially meaningless -- as he is well-known for re-negotiating deals after closing the sale to get out of whatever it was he promised to make the sale. That's his way, and it's the way of his class. Nothing these people say is confirmed until they actually do something, and what they do is exploit every weakness they can find for personal gain and profit. If that means lying to the rubes, so what?

In government, though, you have to play the game more subtly. You can say anything you want on the campaign, but in office you have to follow certain rather strict rules or... you're out or at least you will be tied up in knots. Examples there are many. Some quite recently, too.

In other words, Presidents have to get along with, and likely go along with the permanent government and their own administration. The President's ability to start or stop something is therefore limited.

But it does not mean Presidents have no agency at all. Far from it.

Yet Obama is asserted to have no agency in his own Presidency. Clintoon controlled it and still does, The Hag, and were she President, I guess she would control the whole wide world from her perch in the Oval Office.

Amazing.

But there you are. That's what happens in hotly contested elections in which a Clinton is a candidate (it happened during the Clinton I Regime, too. And we know what a rollercoaster/game show that was.)

I would say that as a general matter, Presidents are not as directly powerful as they are made out to be. They are not monarchs nor are they autocrats, though the Presidency itself is modeled on heads of state and government of historic Britain and Rome.

Compared to many other heads of government, Presidents have both too much power and too little. Their constraints have mostly to do with their advisers, cabinets and the inertia of the permanent government (Deep State). Congressional constraints are limited, but they can operate either for or against Presidential prerogative. A prime minister, on the other hand, operates in conjunction with his or her party and the party's majority in parliament. Their party is always part of the permanent government, so the constraints put upon the prime minister  by the permanent government are somewhat less than those put on a president from either party (parties function a little differently in a parliamentary system.)

A prime minister will generally have a less rocky road in office, but there are exceptions. On the other hand, there are some things a prime minister won't do that a president might.

They say a president has a completely free hand in foreign policy and war powers, with no constraints at all. It certainly looked that way in the Bush 2 Regime, but what they did required an amazing amount of coordination and cooperation between branches of government and TPTB up and down the line. Were it not for the media's complicity and lies, much of what the Bush 2 Regime did, including the disastrous war of aggression on Iraq would not have been possible.

I wonder whether the permanent government and the neoLibCon Overclass have learned any sort of lesson from that debacle or if they are capable of Lessons Learned. If they have learned, it might be the wrong lessons.

The idea that The Hag has had ultimate power since her Senate days is of course ridiculous. But what she would do in office is a valid concern as it ought to be with any President. I doubt she would instigate a nuclear Armageddon with Russia, partly because of the conditioning she and almost everybody else of her generation (my generation as it were) got regarding the permanence of nuclear annihilation and the results of instant incineration. The United States has never gone mano a mano against a nuclear armed power partly because of that conditioning.

Cold War brinkmanship was another thing altogether, and aspects of it have been revived to assert American hegemony over rivals. For how many years was the US Government threatening war against Iran, for example? Note how it was resolved. That was brinkmanship in action. Much the same procedure is taking place with regard to Russia, with interesting results. Both sides are operating cautiously, though the rhetoric out of DC is hot. Not so much out of Moscow, though. That's how the game is played, and it was played much the same way during the Cold War. And as was the case during much of the Cold War, there are constant backchannel communications between the Kremlin and DC -- partly in order to keep things from going nuclear.

Hillary actually made a comment during one of the debates which clued me into what is probably going on: she said that a No Fly Zone over Syria would only occur as a negotiated agreement between the US, Syria and Russia, it would not be imposed unilaterally. Its purpose would be to provide a safe-haven to civilians attempting to escape  the conflict zone.

It makes sense, and it is likely that just that sort of negotiations are going on right now. The rhetoric is warmongering, but that is not necessarily what the discussions are about. The Russians and Syrians have temporarily halted air attacks on East Aleppo, for example, as a means of fostering dialog and allowing the escape of civilians who wish to leave. It's a difficult process because of the nature of the conflict and the many disparate parties involved, but it appears to be taking place nonetheless.

It will not lead to WWIII under the circumstances.

And yet the fear being whipped up is all about the impending nuclear exchange between Superpowers.

And everyone knows that's what The Hag intends to do once she's in the Big Chair.

That's not how these things work.

The President has agency, but it's not that of an autocrat.

Obama is in charge of the current regime, just as Bush 2 was in charge of the previous one, but their authority is and was not absolute. At some point, it would be nice if Americans understood how their government actually works.

Oh well....

Creepy Clown vs The Hag

This election pageant has devolved into a cage match between Creepy Clown and The Hag. Some of it appears to be as scripted as a pro-wrestling match, other aspects seem to be ad libbed to the point where the contest is running the risk of spinning entirely out of control.

The irony is that the riveted focus of the contest is on the Sex Thing; dredging up Big Dog's past while all these new accusations against Trump are put in play. And blaming Putin and the Russians for the leaked Podesta emails...

Which puts a whole other layer of irony on this mess of a presidential campaign.

Sex sells, of course, so I guess we should have anticipated this focus on doing the nasty. Which, without consent, makes it assault and/or rape. Nasty indeed. Now of course we all know that Bubba was vehemently accused of doing likewise a couple of decades ago, and that got him in several tubs of hot water, including winding up impeached -- but not removed from office -- by the august majesty of Congress Assembled. It was quite the goon show. That was right around the time I started writing and commenting online. The impeachment of Bill Clinton triggered a lot of us to make some waves and call for... some semblance of reason in Our Government.

The thing was, there were plenty of things to criticize Clinton and his administration for. PLENTY. Every time the focus turned to The Sex though, all those other things -- from NAFTA to Serbia and Rwanda, the dismantlement of welfare as we knew it, the free rein given the banks, and on and on --
were shunted aside. And it quickly enough became clear that that was a prime motivation for focusing on The Sex. Keep the Rabble amused and entertained with prurient stories of Bubba's libido and poof, all those other things disappear.

Sure enough, it worked. It wasn't just the Rabble being entertained, either. This was hard core Presidential Porn for vast swaths of the Government as well. The Congress was entirely captivated; the media likewise. Special prosecutors went wild with glee. It was insane.

The echoes of all of that in the accusations once again being hurled at Bill Clinton, and by extension somehow tainting his wife ("The Hag") are dredging up plenty of revulsion among the masses. "Oh please, let us not go through all this again. Please!" I'm seeing the same sort of hyperbole about Bubba -- he's a rapist and worse, oh much worse, and Don't Forget Vince Foster, and Mina airport, and so much else that he's guilty-guilty-guilty of! -- being injected into the commentary about Trump's libido. It's as if the insanity of those times was institutionalized, and is now a permanent fixture of the government/media complex.

Of course many young people are being exposed to it for the first time. They didn't live through it like old codgers like me did. They didn't experience the utter hysteria the first time around, so this current hoo-hah must come as something of a shock to them. WTF? Right?

Not just the hoo-hah over Trump's stunted adolescent pawing of females and "locker room talk," but all the stuff about Bubba being a cad and a heel and an inveterate womanizer, too. Not that no one knew about it, it's just that until recently it wasn't much of a Thing anymore. Then suddenly, BOOM. It's back in all it's sleaze and tattered glory. 

Somehow this is supposed to impugn Hillary ("The Hag") for sticking with Her Man, yadda yadda. I'm surprised that the accusations that she's a lesbian or that Web Hubble is Chelsea's father haven't yet surfaced again. Let's try not to be shocked/surprised if they do.

There's a whole encyclopedia of accusations to draw from, after all.

Hag-Hate is a definite subculture in the USofA. What Bubba did back in the day -- and more importantly what he is accused of doing -- is a fundamental part of Hag-Hate. She was there, she enabled, she probably (an accusation) procured. She's therefore as Utterly Evil as he is.

Policy discussion and issues of (shall we say) more global importance get shoved to the background.

But isn't that the point? I think so.

In point of fact, the Clintons ("Clintoons" in the puerile lexicon of Hag-Hate) and their supposed rightist political opponents agree on most issues of global importance. Such disagreement as there is on the Important Issues comes from the left, not from the right. Never has been all that much disagreement on those Important Issues on the R side of the aisle, as there still isn't.

That's why I've said many times that Hillary ("The Hag") is running as the Establishment Republican candidate, not really as a Democrat at all. As many have pointed out, some of her policy proposals are to the right of Nixon. She isn't even as "leftist" as a Rockefeller Republican. Her belligerence and warmongering are direct throwbacks to Bush-Cheney, but they're rooted in the Kissinger perspective of world domination that flows through White House regimes like a river.

We the Rabble don't seem to be able to move or channel this river of hegemony in any way.

But who cares? It's not about The Sex, is it?

Trump is being portrayed as the prototype Creepy Clown, and I won't go so far as to say that's unfair. He's self-aware enough to understand that because he's rich and famous ("") he can get away with most anything he wants when it comes to Female Flesh, and he can crush his male rivals one by one or in batches (at least in his own mind.)  This is the mindset of a gangster and conman. No surprise, that's what he is.

That should be something the electorate pays attention to, but it seems that there's little or no comprehension of Trump's nature. Some see him as a bully and a predator -- but they like it. ("At least he's our Bully!" That sort of thing.) No, no, no. Trump does not bully on behalf of anybody but himself. Do you understand? No, they don't.

He's conning his supporters. Oh, but they like it. Whether they know it or not, they like being conned by Trump, because at least he's bothering to tell them what they want to hear ("Lock her up!") whereas the sticks in the mud "regular" Republicans endlessly tell them to sit down and shut up. Much as the "regular" Democratic Pooh-Bahs tell the rest of the Rabble to do likewise. "Sit down and shut up; there is no alternative."

Maggie Thatcher must be so pleased and proud looking up at us from her perch in Hell.

Sigh.

But again, none of that matters when the story is all about The Sex.

It's been noted that the obsessive focus on who did what to whom when is practically overwhelming the story of the Podesta email hack that is supposed to be exposing all the "devastating" details of what Hillary ("The Hag") really believes about the World and Everything.

And of course it's all Putin's fault.

Jeebus.

What I've seen of these emails (note, it's useless to try to search WikiLeaks for anything of interest), suggests to me that there's essentially nothing in them that we didn't already suspect or know, and that to a surprising degree, Hillary ("The Hag") was using her position and the opportunity to inject something resembling a social conscience into the crowds of malefactors of great wealth before whom she was speechifying. WHAT???? If there's a smoking gun of perfidy worthy of more than a passing glance, I haven't seen it. But then, we only see what others want us to see...

In other words, if she were smart, and her campaign wasn't so focused on the Creepy Clown, she'd actually be using these leaks in her defense; if she and her campaign were smart, they would have been using these things from day one. No, she doesn't come across as an antagonist to these High and Mighty Owners, not at all; but she does come across as a Persuader, "helping" them to do the Right Thing for once in their sorry lives. In this, she really strikes me as akin to a Republican moralist of yore.

But no. The focus must stay on the Creepy Clown and how Outrageous he is.

It's political malpractice, but then, side issues are always more important in the Pageant, aren't they? Gossip and scandal, you know? That's what the People really want.

And of course, Blame It All On the Russians.

I've been thinking about this anti-Putin, anti-Russia propaganda campaign quite a bit. It makes no logical sense at all. It's not just out of bounds, it's crazy, and it could spin out of control at any time, leading to God only knows what. But why? Why does it exist at all?

A theory is that it grows directly out of the neocon "Project for a New American Century" which is the blueprint for the catastrophe in the Middle East, and the plan for establishing and extending American Hegemony over the entire globe. The destruction of Russia -- regime change, followed by dismemberment -- is part of the long-term goal. So, too, the destruction and dismemberment of China. Any rival to American Imperial Power must be destroyed, vanquished or absorbed. The two strongest rivals are Russia and China, so it is proposed, and taking them out is in the National Interest. Or something.

So Putin, fully aware of this, sees the saber rattling and tub thumping coming out of DC and particularly from the Clinton campaign as an existential threat to Mother Russia, never mind to himself. That's actually quite rational.

But the blaming of Putin/Russia for everything is propaganda-silly. When I see it parroted in the "news" and online, I'm just gobsmacked. Have we learned nothing from the barrage of lies and half truths that led to the monstrous invasion and occupation of Iraq? And all the continuing fall out from that? What? How can Americans still be so gullible?

Dear God, no.

But I think there's something more than merely the Plan being followed. No, I think the current propaganda barrage is the result of something more immediate: Snowden. What? 

Think about it. Russia-US relations changed fundamentally when Putin-Stalin granted asylum to Edward Snowden three years ago (or whenever it was, I forget now...) That act was blamed directly on Putin, and it was cited as defiance of US orders and demands that he be turned over to American authorities forthwith.

Not only has that not been done, but Russia has provided Snowden with a home, apparently with a good living, a girlfriend, and much, much more. He has become well integrated into Russian high life. And he is being carefully protected by the Kremlin.

Anti-Russian and particularly anti-Putin propaganda ramped up immediately, and it has now reached a fever pitch unseen since the propaganda barrage preparatory to the invasion of Iraq. We're seeing a similar anti-WikiLeaks propaganda barrage, which I attribute at least in part to WikiLeaks' assistance in spiriting Snowden into comfortable exile in Russia.

For a long time, I thought Snowden was a black op, a "limited hangout". Perhaps he started out that way, but something changed along the way, and once he was protectively ensconced in Mother Russia, his revelations became less about domestic spying and so forth (which the NSA, etc. were quite prepared to "explain") and more about international spying, some of which was quite embarrassing from a diplomatic point of view (let alone  from the security state standpoint.)  In other words, he crossed a line that was unpermitted. That enraged his former supervisors at the Agencies. And revenge became their prime directive, no just revenge against him, but revenge against all those who had helped him.

That sort of revenge appears to be in play in the actions of the Clinton campaign to literally destroy the Republican brand and if possible take Congressional power away from them -- while utterly destroying Trump in the process.

It's revenge for the impeachment and the follies that followed.

It's all very, very personal.

Yes, our governing class is just that nasty. Oh yes.

All this is sickening, but there's nothing we can do about it from our position Outside the Gates. Our Betters don't listen to us. They govern contrary to our interests. They dismiss our pleas.

They are Bourbon-like. This would be true no matter which unacceptable candidate is in office. It is who they are, and it is what they must do. No matter who it is. We saw quite clearly how this works with Obama's transformation once he was installed in the Big Chair. He became the creature of those he had denounced.

So we're screwed once again.

But meanwhile, we can focus attention on the All Important Sex Issues once again.

Save us.

Not Much Interested

Can't say I've been following the campaigns or the conventions with anything like the interest and involvement I once had. No, not at all.

It's not so much the sham and charade of it all as it is the fact that at some point you learn that the spectacle has a particular purpose: to keep the Rabble amused and distracted sufficiently -- divided and at one another's throats if need be and possible -- to enable the continued exploitation and looting by the privileged elites.

It's a basic principle of rule.

Whatever else goes on, the Rabble must never be allowed to express their own interests and govern their own lives. Ever.

I have essentially no interest in either of the two major candidates for the presidency of the United States, for example. They may be a tremendous contrast to one another (or maybe not), but neither has shown a determination to enable the People's liberation.  Instead, they both show a strong tendency to want to order and command the Rabble to extract the most power from them. The idea of self-governance doesn't occur to either of them. It's more a matter of who can assert dominance over the masses "better."

Sheesh.

Of course the electoral process was irreparably damaged when the Supreme Court lawlessly intervened in the 2000 election, handing the presidency to George Bush the Lesser and his enforcer Mr. Cheney.

I'm old enough to remember some other lawless interference, including the assassination President Kennedy in 1963, and numerous subsequent assassinations, upheavals, bewildering government behaviors (such as wars and what have you) and constant economic exploitation and social and political repression.

But the election interference by the Supreme Court in 2000 was unprecedented, and it essentially put the lie to the whole idea of "elections." If they don't produce the "correct" result within a certain time frame, then they will be canceled and the Supreme Court will decide the outcome.

In the interim since then, we've seen, over and over again a plethora of electoral outcome shenanigans, from outright voter intimidation/suppression, to fungible machine counts, constantly off kilter polls (ha!), and media collusion for desirable outcomes. The Supreme Court hasn't had to interfere again, so that's good, I guess. But the mask came off, and I think more than a few people understand that if the outcome isn't satisfactory to the PTB, then the Court can and will intervene again. But it's almost impossible to imagine that the outcome cannot be remotely manipulated to produce the desired result so as to obviate direct intervention.

So. Don't think your vote really matters. It doesn't.

Besides, we've been given such dismal choices this time around. At least Obama had charm and grace. Neither of these two -- Clinton or Trump -- have either. Many have speculated that if Obama could run again, he'd be elected in a heartbeat over either of these two, and that's probably correct.

Can't say that Bernie has/had much charm or grace, either.

Of course, this has nothing to do with policy. It has everything to do with personality, and that's what our elections for president have been running on for practically ever. It's not about the policy. It's about the personalities on offer.

Those of us who try to keep things on a policy plane (heh) say that really, neither of the major candidates has anything to offer the Rabble besides more pain, suffering, and exploitation, and it appears from the signs and portents that one of them, Mrs. Clinton, is eager to get her war on, while the other, Mr. Trump, may wish to delay it for a bit, until the US itself is "cleansed." Yeek. Neither is really a palatable option in my view.

I will say that it was obvious to many of us during the 2000 election that Mr. Bush and his familiar Mr. Cheney were more than eager to gain the White House and get their war on. I remember online bets being taken over how long it would be before Bush-Cheney involved the US in a major armed conflict. I said "6 months," and of course lost because it actually took 9 months to get things started.
But that war started so long ago now, many young people who will be able to vote in the 2018 congressional elections (if they want to) can't remember a time when the US wasn't at war abroad and at home... It appears to be a permanent state of war -- which is what Bush-Cheney wanted apparently -- that the Rabble can do nothing about.

Trump wants to expand the imperial wars against Muslims, whereas Clinton seems to want to expand the Empire -- by any means necessary including nuclear confrontation -- to absorb/dismantle both Russia and China.

Whichever one succeeds in gaining the White House, they are both mad, and their warmongering policies are utter madness. But that's where our governing class is these days -- delusional, insane, dangerous, mad.

There is this notion that Clinton is somehow the consummate E-Ville of All Time, and Trump is not, but this is silly. They are both products of a corrupt and evil system, only one is slicker at it than the other, and one will be slightly sly-er at accomplishing the ends that system desires than the other. The system itself is evil, if you will, and it will only produce choices-candidates who fit the interests of the system. Don't fool yourself that one is uniquely evil and the other is not. They are parallel products of the same system. Both equally nasty.

So what do you do?

Clearly, the system is not self-correcting. If anything, it's getting worse. The option many have chosen is to withdraw and build a better -- but separate -- society that exists outside the parameters of government and rule.

That may be sufficient over the short term, but the long term looks pretty bleak. There is no escape from the vicissitudes of climate change, for example, and it looks from the evidence that the Empire will grind on like the Juggernaut it is, rolling over everything in its path in perpetuity. In other words, there's no permanent escape from the Juggernaut of Empire, either.

Stopping the Juggernaut will take some doing, and so far, nothing has proved effective against it. On the other hand, you never know what will be effective until you try it.

We are in such interesting times, no?

Random Notes

I've been on a surprisingly long hiatus -- partly due to health issues, partly because of the surrealness of the passing scene. Sometimes I wonder if we have all tumbled down a rabbit hole from which there is no turning back.

Health: My condition (rheumatoid arthritis) is stable, I guess. But word came yesterday that the rheumatologist suspects I have another complicating condition that needs treatment as well -- but she won't say what she suspects, just wants me to see another specialist. Sigh. What I can say is that there have been periods recently when I've felt... strange. Almost out of body. I attribute it to medication, but I'm not sure. At any rate, just remembering to take all the medications I've been prescribed is something of a challenge. They seem to work well enough, but there are so many, it's sometimes more than I can manage to remember them all and remember to take them in the right sequence.

Costs are starting to climb as well. So far, the cost is not crippling, but it's surprising just how much of my treatment and prescriptions are not covered by the Medicare Advantage plan I signed up to or are covered at such a low percentage of cost that I pay almost full price.

Brexit: Jeebus. What a clusterfuck. Watching the utter meltdown of Our Betters following the vote was/is entertaining, I suppose, but there is something curious about all the sturm und drang and garment rending that strikes me as completely phony. Things are not what they seem. There is a strong element of Show Business, in other words, that leads me to believe that in the end, Britain will not leave the EU, and the voters will learn that their vote really doesn't matter. These things are not to be decided by plebiscite. Very little is to be decided by the Rabble in the end.

Anyone who's watched what's happened to Greece, among other places, should have learned that by now. The People are to have as little say in matters of state and importance as is possible. Going forward, they should not expect to have any say, or if they have one, they should expect their decision to be ignored -- if it contradicts the decisions of Their Betters.

We'll see, but I'm not convinced -- at all -- that The People will have their way in Britain any more than they have had their way most anywhere else lately.

Clinton v Sanders v Trump: OK. It's always more important for neoliberal Democrats to attack and if possible destroy their left flank. The Left is considered an existential threat to the neolibcon program and must be crushed. Consequently much more energy is devoted to suppression of the so-called Sanders "Political Revolution" than has gone into "fighting" Republicans.

More and more it appears that Trump will not be the Republican nominee, assuming the Republicans want a contest for the White House (not entirely clear). The Rs seem to be happy enough with Clinton, almost as if they would have nominated her if Sanders had become the Democratic nominee.

The important thing for both Clinton and Trump is to keep the Sanders Wing from any kind of power no matter what else happens. The spectacle is typical but largely uninteresting.

That's just me, though...

Houses: On a completely different note, while pondering the world my parents grew up in -- so different from our own -- I've thought a bit about the houses where they lived. Those houses, I think, had a shaping influence on them, just as the houses I grew up in have shaped who I am.

My father was born in Iowa in 1901, the second son of a prominent Irish-American attorney and his German-American wife. The family lived in a series of Victorian houses on one street, actually one block of one street. These houses were not that big, they certainly weren't fancy, and even the biggest of them and the fanciest was relatively modest compared to the mansions of the town's wealthy just a couple of blocks away.

As the family grew, their houses got bigger. There were eventually eleven children, nine of whom lived to adulthood. They did not have electricity, however, until about 1913. They had servants -- a cook/nanny/housekeeper and a man to take care of the yard and drive the car. Ultimately, my father inherited one of his father's houses on that block and he lived there the rest of his life.

It was an old and very small house, though it was two stories. I remember it well, even from a very early age. The earliest memories I have of it are of the smell of the coal furnace in the basement and the rough feel of the wool rugs against my skin. There was nothing fancy about this house. Parts of it dated back to the 1840s or 50s, very rough and simple. Additions were made in the 1870s and 1890s, and my father remodeled some of it in the 1940s and 50s. But even though it grew, the rooms were small, some of them were actually tiny. The house still stands. It's been remodeled and expanded again, but I imagine it's still small and plain.

My mother was born in Indiana  in 1911 and lived the first five years of her life with her mother, grandmother and aunts in a house that no longer stands. It was replaced in about 1915 with a fire station. The family moved next door into a house that still stands, a simple Victorian place that is deceptively large. In 1917, however, my mother, her mother, and her step father moved to California where lived in a pretty typical California bungalow that still stands, though it has been heavily remodeled over the years. The bungalow was something like this. In fact, I think it was a lot like that. I think that house had a strong influence on my mother when she was growing up.

In Sacramento, we lived in a neighborhood that was filled with Arts and Crafts bungalows, and I became familiar with some of them. What struck me about so many of them is that they were dark, dark as caves, and nothing at all would brighten them up. I think it was because they were so dark that owners painted the woodwork white. Arts and Crafts aficionados, of course, are passionate about stripping the paint from bungalow woodwork, and then they wind up with a dark house once again. But I guess they like it.

Bungalows were considered progressive compared to their Victorian predecessors. It's a rather strict style, floorplans tend to be standardized, and for the most part, bungalows are compact. There are exceptions (like the Gamble House in Pasadena) but the house my mother grew up in was small, tight, dark (I'm assuming) and she probably felt confined.

How that influenced who she became is a topic for another post...

Banishing the Left -- So Called

An interesting phenomenon during these hectic Primary Wars (if that's what they are) is the ongoing attempt to banish the "left" as represented by Bernie's and some of Trump's policies which might be seen as meeting the needs the People.

Yes, some of Trump's policies (to the extent he is actually broaching policies) are considered leftist, even to the left of Hillary, approaching Bernie territory. Particularly when it comes to trade and employment and even now and then things like universal health care and so on.

Well, can't have that.

Bernie has been campaigning on what I would call "New" New Deal/"Greater" Great Society principles. They're practically antiques by now. Historic at any rate. They're not particularly leftist, or they are only considered to be "left" in the United States where rightist politics is so entrenched and NeoLibCon ideology is so triumphant anything that benefits people is seen as essentially communist, anti-American to the core, and deeply antithetical to the interests of the Ruling Class, Our Benevolent Overlords.

Hillary has been running on a theme of "No you can't!" from the get-go, and she seems to be doing well enough with it to capture not only the Democratic nomination but potentially the Presidency itself.

"No you can't!" It's gobsmacking. Is that what people really want? Or do they even hear it? Areha they even hearing her nay-saying? If they are, why do they accept it?

She's also running on a theme of "Go away you ingrates."

Yes well, that'll get her far.

On the other hand, Trump is running a similar sort of negative campaign focused on hate and fear of The Other. It's politically smart. You should never underestimate Americans' susceptibility to be duped by hate and fear. It's been a constant since the arrival of the first Europeans however long ago that was. So much of what's been wrong about the United States has been based in hate and fear of The Other. So much of what has been right about the US has been based in conquering hate and fear of The Other.

Stirring up passions of hate and fear has been a winning strategy for Trump in the Republican primaries, whereas "No you can't!" has paid off pretty well for Hillary on the Democratic side, though she's been sliding in the polls as Bernie's message of "Yes we can!" catches on. Trouble is there's no time left for him to catch up enough delegates for the Democratic nomination -- not that he ever could have got the nomination to begin with.

He couldn't. He absolutely couldn't. Our Rulers would not have allowed it. Under any circumstances. At all. Look what's happened in other countries where supposed Leftists have been elected; they've been kneecapped, removed by coup or other means, coopted, irrelevated, yadda yadda.

The point is that the dominant global political paradigm does not allow for the existence of effective and functioning leftist politicians, policies, parties, etc. The dominant paradigm posits Baroness Thatcher's principle: "There is no alternative."

Even as modest and mild a leftist as Bernie has been, he wouldn't be allowed anywhere near the levers of power, ever.

Meanwhile Trump is able to throw quasi-leftist bones out every now and again, bones on a string of course, a string he promptly reels back in, so he's allowed that.

That's truly as far left as the political class is allowed to go, however. Tease.

And effectively, the Left is banished from consideration, legitimacy, presence, or power.

When You Lie Down With Dogs

Is it time for hysterics and panic yet?

Seems that the elevation of Trump to be the Republican Nominee Presumptive has unleashed a veritable shitstorm of panic and dread on both sides of the political aisle -- because it seems the Party Apparatchiks and Nomenklatura of both the Dems and the Rs fear their chosen one, Mrs. Clinton, will not be able to withstand Trump's withering attacks and his rosy-orange public persona. And he might fucking get elected.

Really? I mean really?

Are they that freaked out by their own creation, or is this all just a game to stampede the masses into voting against their best interests (again) in order to stock the larders of the Highest of the Mighty and stoke the flames of Fear, Panic, and Dread just one more time before the inevitable Collapse?

Somehow, there's an element of unbelievability about all this hoo-hah over Himself, simply because Trump is one of the Oligarchs Who Rule the World, or at least he plays one on TV. He's been around for decades, Asshole of the Western World, repeatedly bankrupted Real Estate Mogul, finagler, deal maker/breaker, bully, freak, yadda yadda. Everybody knows him, everybody. He's like Schwartzenegger only worse.

Electing him to any office, let alone the Emperorship -- er, Presidency -- of the United States of America, (LLP), is absurdity on stilts. Yet here we are, with the distinct possibility of a President Trump in our future... who would have thought????

Of course we've been down this path before, haven't we? Sure we have. Schwartzenegger captured the governorship of California away from Gray Davis in one of the most ill-conceived political actions in my lifetime (and there have been many) when Davis was recalled mere months after an overwhelming electoral victory when he dared -- dared, I tell you! -- to let the vehicle registration fee rise substantially in order to help fund government operations. The nerve!

Schwartzenegger stood for election because he was convinced by some of California's Big Money Boys that he could do better than Davis, and that he was needed in the Capitol to fix what ailed the State of California. Of course that meant looting on behalf of his sponsors, but who cared? He was certainly decorative if not particularly functional.

Who cared that his reign was a failure -- a failure that led to much hardship and suffering, let it be known. Nobody liked Gray Davis, and he made some people's skin crawl, so having Schwartzenegger in the Corner Office was better all around. No?

No. But there are still those who think the presence of a Movie Star in office makes perfect sense.

After all, there was Reagan, wasn't there?

I'm old enough to remember when he was elected governor of California the first time, to the complete shock and dismay of the Establishment at the time. They couldn't believe it, oh no. The impossible had happened, though, and on January 1, 1967, Reagan was inaugurated according to Nancy's astrologer's prescriptions, and the dismantlement of Progressive California began.

Jerry Brown's father, Pat Brown, was stunned. Well, nearly everyone was stunned. Except for those who had voted for Reagan, those for whom the Status Quo had become intolerable.

Which happened to be a majority.

How could it be????

Well, it was easy to fathom, but nobody wanted to fathom it: racism and anti-student-privilege rose to the forefront of public consciousness thanks to progressive efforts at expanding civil rights, urban riots, and widespread student rebellion. Reagan promised to end these problems (once and for all?) and take care of all the other annoyances well-off (and would be well-off) white people in California were complaining about.

So it was.

Perhaps the greatest legacies of the Reagan Era in California were the destruction of public education (through the brilliant tactics of making higher education expensive and administering to death the academics of primary and secondary education) and the termination of public mental health services, leading to untold levels of homelessness and suffering.

That's what happened, and progressive California has not recovered.

It's possible Progressivism will never recover.

But that's another issue for another day.

What we're seeing now is a rerun of sorts, the elevation of a rich, wild, semi-buffoon to the highest office simply because it's possible to do so. Our system has some built in resistance mechanisms against too blatant capture by populists and/or oligarchs, but in the case of popular entertainment figures who sell themselves the way Trump has (a man of the people, no doubt) there is little or no functional systemic resistance. Too often they get elected and there is nothing -- or rather nothing legal -- the Establishment can do about it but yield.

That's what happened in California with both Reagan and Schwartzenegger, and if things turn out the way they've been going, it's what will happen with Trump. Washington has a far more illiberal governing system than California, and yet it yielded to Reagan when he was elected President (pretty much with relief, never having accepted Carter, the peanut farmer) just as it will most likely yield to Trump -- no matter how crazy -- when and if the time comes.

So long as he maintains a rightist populism and keeps the masses tame and entertained, what's the problem, right?

Clinton is in a total bind. She is no populist, and she is unlikely to become one during the remainder of the campaign. She is a rigid, no-nonsense elitist, the definition of the Establishment, and she and her surrogates have been going out of their way to court disaffected Republicans while hurling invective at Bernie Sanders supporters and ignoring or dismissing their interests.

You would think that this would be political malpractice on a massive scale, but apparently those who advise the Clinton campaign insist it's a winning strategy. I don't see it myself, but what do I know?

They've even taken a leaf out of Baroness Thatcher's playbook, touting the notion that "there is no alternative" to electing Clinton in the fall.

Perhaps.

But "No you can't" is hardly a slogan I can get behind.

The institutional resistance could not prevent the Bush-Cheney regime from causing havoc. In fact, the institutions of government largely enabled the Bush-Cheney regime. I suspect those institutions would be even less effective against Trump. As long as he kept the masses distracted and entertained...

Much has been made of the apparent collapse of the Republican Party Establishment in the wake of the Trumpist Rebellion. There is a lesson there which apparently cannot be learned by the Establishment or the rebels on the (so-called) Left.

Of course, when the Rs lay down with dogs...

IT'S CLINTON'S FAULT !!!!!!!

So I was driving down the freeway yesterday listening to Hate Radio as I sometimes do while in the car, when some caller called in and started going on and on and on about how all this financial meltdown is the fault of BILL CLINTON (aka: XLINTOON!!!!!) who kept forcing banks to make all these bad loans and how if he hadn't been in control of things all these years, none of this would have happened.

All righty then.

This seemed to start a miniexplosion of Xlintoon!! Blaming, something that had been mercifully absent from the airwaves since the conclusion of the "Democrat" primary. But all of a sudden, now that things are looking bleak, it's back, with a spirit and a vengeance.

And I'm told by some Obama supporters that if Obama loses in Novemeber, it will be CLINTON'S FAULT!!!!!!! Yes. True. I kid you not.

The man just can't get a break.

Now, there is no love lost between The Clintons and me. There are good things to say about them, and not so good things, and some pretty terrible things. There is plenty to blame Bill Clinton for, plenty of blame to heap on Hillary's plate. But none of that seems to be the issue in the constant litany of Clinton Hate and Derangement that seems to overwhelm the good sense and judgement of many people, too many people, of all political stripes.

Blaming Clinton (either or both of them) has become a classic scapegoating routine that people seem to engage in automatically, some sort of learned, almost Pavlovian, reaction to almost anything that seems to be wrong or going wrong.

Those of us who don't engage in it seem to be somehow immune from whatever triggers flip the switch for so many others. We weren't conditioned, in other words, to Blame The Clintons for everything.

But apparently many people were.

How did that happen?

[Note: a lot of "seeming" here I know. It is a real puzzlement to me. And maybe I'm just sensitive to something others don't see at all, and so maybe what I notice just "seems to be."]

O(What You Call Your) Bama!

YAY!

Well. At least he's got enough delegates lined up to take the nomination if they don't change their minds between now and August. Which they are very unlikely to do. But, given the way things have been going this campaign season, nothing would surprise me anymore.

And there is plenty to be troubled about regarding some of the elements of the Obama campaign.

First things first. Let's get it out on the table and out of the way: too many of Obama's most ardent supporters have become disreputable punks. They've been led by people who have become some truly repellant internet characters like Markos and Aravosis and Arianna, and their primary objective has been to trash Hillary and her supporters relentlessly. It long since reached the point of an obscenity. And apparently, no matter what, they cannot let go of their hatred and contempt of The Clintons and anyone (which amounts to almost half the Democratic Party, and pretty much all of the the Republican Party) who does not sing the praises of Obama long and loud enough.

There is no Obama Presidency in January of next year if the Clinton supporters who have been rigorously alienated by Obamaites sit this one out or -- far less likely -- vote for McCain. You don't do a purge until after you've got the Power, but for whatever reason, Obamaites have an urge to purge right now, and they don't care how it affects matters in the future.

All those old white women who support Hillary can just go Cheney themselves, now and forever more.

OK boys. Have it your way. But don't go crying that the Nasty Old Coot Republicans stole your presidency -- because you are doing a fine job fucking it up yourself. Keep it up.

Digby has been one of the saner voices in the blogosphere about what is going on, and she has been relentlessly trashed by Internet Thugs for Obama when she tells the truth. Unfortuantely, in this campaign season, "Truth" is the thing that cannot be told, ever, or the illusion, the gossamer bubble that surrounds the Obama campaign, will burst. She's a CLINTON SUPPORTER!!!!! Get her!!!!

There are and have been plenty of reasons not to support Hillary, primarily her warmongering in my view, but that's apparently too simple for the Internet Thugs for Obama to contemplate. No, they see their mission as one of complete destruction of The Clintons, their Machine, and all their fans and supporters, scorched earth, from here to eternity.

It's insane. It's Stalinist. Oh boy, let's trade one set of Authoritarian Thugs for another. Send the Busheviks into Siberia and bring in the Obamamaniacs -- to complete the task of purging and Autocracy.

Lucky us.

Unfortunately, that's the flip side of the vision of hope and change that Obama has been marketing, in one of the slickest and most appealing presidential campaigns since RFK's in 1968. In the background are all these droogs.














Is that the lesson that we've learned from the constant crisis and thuggery of the Bushevik years? Maybe so. Or is it all more illusion? Is all this implied threat and internet thuggery more apparent than real? It isn't really there, and millions of Americans aren't really and completely alienated from the Obama campaign and he's gonna win by double digits in the fall, and we're gonna be happy again, just you watch.

I guess we're going to find out, aren't we?

There's plenty that Hillary and her campaign did wrong, first on principle: those unrepudiated votes for blood and gore and Empire. She couldn't be my candidate any more than Kerry could. That's very straightforward, and it doesn't require smearing and psy-ops to communicate. She has terrible judgement when it comes to the fundamentals like war and peace and whether the United States should act like the biggest bully on the block.

Hillary is not my candidate, she has never been my candidate. But I have defended her when I thought she was being unfairly smeared by the Obama Droogs.

And THAT made me a "Hillary Supporter!" to be targeted for the purges underway and to come. Defending Hillary from unfair smears was enough. That's not just Stalinist, that's full on Cultural Revolution Maoism.

The key question for me now: If McCain wins in the fall -- which is not beyond the realm of possibility if the wedges driven between Democrats aren't removed (and not by eliminating the dissenters) -- would he be more or less totalitarian? We know he's an authoritarian and wants to become an Autocrat like his mentor Bush. Would he turn into an all out Totalitarian? Could be. He's not running for President, he's running for Commander In Chief and he sees his future like Patton before the Flag. That may mean, to him, that the nation's already tattered and shaken self governing constitutional republic is finally extinguished replaced by a quasi military junta that operates on a distinctly Basic Training model. Yep, that's totalitarianism.

If Obama wins -- and it's an uphill climb, but he's done it before -- does he build on the Bush legacy of civilian authoritarianism and institute his own brand of totalitarianism? Or will he curb the excesses of some of his supporters?

We'll see, won't we?

Ratfuck!

What has this Race Thing between the Dem candidates been all about, anyway? Disrespecting civil rights leaders, Martin Luther King, Jr., Obama and Hillary going after one another hammer and tong, Big Dog spoiling for a fight, Jesse Jackson, Jr. throwing his considerable Chicago clout around, leaders on the left of us, leaders on the right proclaiming this or that Truth to be Self-Evident, and the rest of y'all are gonna burn in hell.

Come on.

It's a ratfuck. Right out of the sinister right wing playbook. It should be obvious to anyone who's experienced it before (Missus Clinton, have you forgotten?) Big Dems fall for it every time, I don't know why, but they do; and the field troops follow right along uncritically and unthinkingly. And they seem to be powerless to resist anything negative about the other candidate that shows up in the New York Times. It's like catnip. There's a slam story about Obama, Clinton, or the Nameless One from The South Somewhere in the Times? Time for the partisans to parade it around in triumph, proof! proof I tell you, that the Other Guy/Gal Sucks.

Our Rovian pals on the other side know that Dems can't resist ratfucking -- and some of those Rovians are playing on Dem teams this cycle, you mark my words.

Dems have got to buck up and just say no to this shit. Or are they, like the Bourbons and the Bushes, incapable of learning? At least, for the moment, Clinton and Obama have agreed to bury the hatchet only half-way in one another's backs.

Progress!

(Pssst! Haven't you heard? McCain still has a Black Baby. Shhhh!)