* As a follow up to my post the other day about the woman in Iowa who traveled to the caucus, ended up voting for Mayor Pete, and then wanted her ballot back because she learned he was gay? Sadly, she is not alone. I spoke to a lawyer friend in California the other day. He said his step daughter, around 30, is basically Republican and works for a major southern CA developer. She said this week to her mother and him how she likes Mayor Pete. My friend replied, as someone who grew up in the mid-west, and still has ties there, he worried about Mayor Pete's gay status with some working class religious voters. She said, "What? Mayor Pete's gay?" And it was not said in a rainbow happy way.
I really have to wonder about some people. I think one must purposefully ignore news from so many sources to not know Mayor Pete is gay.
Anyway, for those forgetting, here, again, is the article from Slate which sums up why I consider Mayor of South Bend, Indiana to be a phony. I wish I could support him as he hits so many of the shallow corporate media boxes. However, this is an existential time with respect to (1) climate change, (2) economic inequality, (3) health insurance, and (4) college/university tuition and debt. He is Barack Obama 2.0, and we cannot afford that at this perilous time. Each of these are existential because, well, climate change is obvious, and economic inequality will eventually lead to the owners of this nation choosing a dictator to keep the masses in line. Health insurance is existential as Americans continue to become sicker every day and die every day due to lack of money to pay for health insurance and care. And finally, we are beggaring an entire generation in their 20s and 30s, who should be accumulating wealth, and instead, are servicing debt.
Mayor Pete is now becoming likely to win first place in New Hampshire, a stunning media fueled comeback. He is simply a placeholder for corporate Democrats who are still scratching their heads who they push onto the Democratic Party base and working class voters. The desperation is quite clear at this point.
* Latinos may be the smartest voters this year. They simply get it. Latinos were crucial for Sanders in Iowa, as were other immigrant groups who are citizens and voted for Sanders there. In the parlance of shallow corporate media presentations, Latinos were supposed to have had "their" candidate, Julian Castro. Yet, most Latinos rejected Castro's candidacy, probably because they smelled his corporate Democratic Party leadership past. What a growing number of Latino voters nationally understand is this presidential campaign is not about pedigree. It is about empathy. Would that the majority of other ethnic voters and especially white voters understand this.
Anyway, it is clear to me Bernie's campaign support is most like RFK's in 1968. He has the most woke union workers. He has minorities and women supporting him. Unlike RFK, Bernie is not from the plutocratic class--yes, his two best selling books put him just over the $1 million mark in wealth--and lacks RFK's glamour. Bernie is simply...Bernie. And the corporate media owners will never forgive him for it.
* My non-Trumpist Aunt posted this ad from Denmark to FB and I shared it, as it is so beautiful. It perfectly encapsulates the pluralist values that are no longer well understood in our nation. I hope the Danes can take The Wife, Kids and me in after Trump wins re-election this year--assuming the nominee is not Bernie Sanders, who again shows he is the best candidate to defeat Trump.
* The NY Times headline is correct: "Trump moves to relax rules against killing birds." Wait. I thought Trump was against wind turbines because he cared about birds. Sorry. My mistake. He cares about money and his Russian and American oligarch friends. He clearly does not care about half his voters and people in general. The latest with Medicaid tells us that, too. Full stop. He must think there is a spaceship somewhere waiting for him to take him and his 0.1% elite friends to another planet.
* This juxtaposition of two Jennifer Rubin (WaPo) columns less than a year apart tells us what we need to know about corporate media pundits. Corporate media pundits are paid to lie, manipulate, and cajole us. That is their function. It does not matter how many times they are wrong--as long as they are wrong on behalf of the corporate media boards of directors and executives, who are interlocking with the other owners of this nation.
Last night, I think it was at the NY Times live blogging of the debate, a reference to Pete B's "strong win" in Iowa. These people have no shame. They will pull out all stops to defeat a working class and minorities' supported movement. Bernie's campaign may now be compared to RFK's campaign, but without RFK's wealthy glamour at the top. Mayor Pete is simply a placeholder as the campaigns head south after Tuesday. I missed last night's debate, as I figured, no matter who said what, it would be about the spin and emotional rhetorical devices corporate media will use to rain down superlatives on Mayor Pete and Amy Klobuchar. I am not sure I missed anything in that regard. The Wife and I finally saw Spiderman: Far From Home, which was on Starz. It was okay, a sort of high school hijinks superhero film. The Wife liked it more than I did, I must report. The Daughter had seen it when it was released, and had called it "cute," which summed it up for me. The decline of superhero films continues, though, we really liked Avengers: Endgame. It had high intelligent emotional content and did a great job of rounding out an ending to the Avengers as we knew it. Yes, it lacked the sociological-political punch of the great Marvel films of the past two decades, but, again, it had deep emotional power.
* Oh, for those who think I don't criticize Bernie Sanders, well, that's pretty true as he agrees with me on just about everything, I found it funny how he misstated (see here at 13:50 into the speech in New Hampshire) Woody Guthrie wrote Which Side Are You On? Woody didn't write that song. Florence Reese, the wife of an early United Mine Workers organizer, wrote it in 1931. Woody helped popularize it with his Almanac Singers at the dawn of the 1940s, though. I get how sometimes the things we think we recall best can sometimes be wrong. I found that when I saw most of my errors in my novel. They were usually things I said, "Nah, I don't have to look up. I know it already." Ha.
* If anyone is not watching The Hill's Rising each day, then one is missing the best political analysis. See here and here for their spot on takes on the DNC, the Iowa caucuses and corporate media coverage.
* Finally, here is a live version of this greatest They Might Be Giants song of recent vintage. This song is brilliant because part of fascism's appeal has been the uniforms, and many times, in the 20th Century, communists tended to write the most compelling music. It is an insightful, mischievous song. In other words, classic TMBG.
