What Has Bill Clinton's Sex Life Got to Do with Hillary's Campaign?
Rudolph Giuliani, the despicable stand-in for Donald Trump on Face the Nation this morning, in defending Trump's indefensible admission of sexual molestation of women in 2005, tried to deflect attention away from Trump's disgraceful behavior, and language, by bringing up BILL Clinton's sexual peccadillos. What on EARTH has BILL Clinton's sex life got to do with HILLARY Clinton's campaign for President? Giuliani dared to drag in the great good name of Saint Augustine to defend Donald Trump. That is truly SHOCKING.
+
In case you don't know/remember Saint Augustine (which most of us pronounce áu.ga.stèen, tho Giuliani said au.gús.tin), let me quote from Google search's opening paragraph of results:

Augustine of Hippo. Augustine (13 November 354–28 August 430), Bishop of Hippo [a city in modern Algeria], was a philosopher and theologian. Augustine, a Latin Father and Doctor of the Church, is one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity.

I am an adamant atheist, but am nonetheless SHOCKED that Giuliani would dare to drag thru the mud the name of a great Church Father to defend the indefensible slimeball Donald Trump.
+
Few people outside the Tristate NY Metropolitan Area, of which my city, Newark, NJ, is the second most populous center, know that Rudolph Giuliani is a would-be dictator who tried to overstay his term after the World Trade Center attacks of 9/11/2001, on the pretext that the City of New York needed continuity in its response to the crisis. Incoming Mayor Michael Bloomberg would have none of it, but kicked Giuliani out. (Later, Bloomberg was also dictatorially to overstay his term-limited eight years by getting the City Council to void the will of the people as expressed in a referendum that imposed a two-term limit upon the Mayor of New York, and actually got away with it, to stay in office another four years! So much for American democracy.)
+
Riddle: What's the Difference between Bill Cosby and Donald Trump? Answer: Cosby waited until they fell asleep.
+
Hillary's Speeches on Wall Street. I have already mentioned in this blog that Hillary should have counterattacked her critics of email servers by pointing out that the State Department's email servers were compromised by hacking, probably by Russia, that went on for the largest part of a YEAR, whereas, as far as we know, her private server was NEVER hacked. Why on EARTH has the incompetent Clinton campaign failed to point that out?
+
In any case, Hillary has little reason to be embarrassed by revelations of things she said to Wall Street powerhouses. You have to work with what is in place. You cannot attack Wall Street every single day but nonetheless expect to win the cooperation of the financial-services industry in realigning the priorities of the financial system. Why would Wall Street reach out to an enemy? It is everywhere, and has always thru history been true, that everyone tries to please friends, not enemies. Bernie Sanders wanted to pretend that the Government could attack Wall Street endlessly but not meet resistance from powerful entrenched interests. Bernie Sanders is a fool. If push comes to shove, are the forces of reform SO powerful as to be irresistible? Or can the rich fite back? Certainly the rich have won every single contest between Government and the rich over the past 40 years — every single win has gone to the rich, NOT the regulators who have attempted to serve the public interest.
+
We have now the lunatic Donald Trump complaining at once about special interests' having exploded the National Debt AND insisting that the solution to our economic problems is to CUT TAXES on the rich and INCREASE the National Debt by FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS, or even EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS. The Trumpistas dredge up Ronald Reagan as an example of "fiscal conservatism", and nobody fact-checks them. Let us be plain: RONALD REAGAN TRIPLED THE NATIONAL DEBT. Why don't all Americans know that?
+
Worse, the first President Bush added a third to Reagan's appalling deficit, so that by the time the two Reagan and one [George H.W.] Bush Administrations had left office, the national debt had QUADRUPLED! Trump bitches and moans about the national debt having grown under Obama, but if it had grown at the same rate as under the "fiscally conservative" Reagan-Bush years, instead of $19T or $20T, we would have a National Debt more like $45T, or even $60 TRILLION!
+
Bill Maher (who happily lets it be known that he is originally from my state, New Jersey), has repeatedly pointed out on his HBO show and the podcasts derived from it, that even if you cut ALL "discretionary spending" (that is, everything other than, say, defense, Social Security, and other hard obligations), it is IMPOSSIBLE to cut spending by anything like what would be needed to cut the National Debt. So the only way to reduce the National Debt is by increasing taxes, and the only people who have plenty of money to spare are the rich. The Federal Government cannot do cake sales or car washes to raise funds. Income taxes, including taxes on corporate income, are the primary source of financing for the Federal Government, but Republicans don't want to tax the only people who can pay more: rich individuals and corporations. The pretense is that if we cut taxes, the resulting economic growth will more than make up for the loss by allowiing us to collect taxes at the same low rates on a much larger economy. It is that kind of screwball thinking that QUADRUPLED the National Debt under Reagan-Bush.
+
The Trumpistas have fired upon Fort Sumter. How do we return fire? If, by some nitemarish coalescence of events, Donald Trump should win the White House, and his party of angry white yahoos should retain control of both houses of Congress, we can consent to see our civilization destroyed, or we can rise up in violent revolution. We've done that before, in 1776, when the good guys revolted against the British, and in 1861, when the bad guys revolted against the United States. What we have not had to deal with before, however, is a madman who thinks that it would be fine to use nuclear weapons. In such circumstances, it would seem the only way out is assassination. Thomas Paine was right in his day, when he drafted, in my city, Newark, The Crisis Number One, which starts with this bold language, "These are the times that try men's souls" — tho I wouldn't use religious language like "souls".
+
Altho many media analysts think Trump has torpedoed his chance at the Presidency with his admission of sexual molestation in 2005, the reality may indeed be, as Trump proclaimed months ago, that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and he wouldn't lose so much as one supporter, so angry are his core voters. Anger and good thinking do not go together well. How many uneducated white people are there in this country, and how angry are they that they might be incapable of seeing that raging against the status quo won't really do a thing to fix ANY of their problems?
+
I don't want to seem unsympathetic to the plight of angry white people. I am white, and proud to be so. I'm also gay. But, I repeat, I am white. And I get furious over foreign invaders, tho my rage tends to center on people with British accents who take not terribly badly paid jobs such as farm worker, but very good jobs, such as television network correspondents, at high rates of pay and high media prominence, away from Americans. I want all those f*ng foreigners DEPORTED. I don't EVER want to hear a British, Australian, New Zealand, South African, West Indian, or any other godaimed f* British-style accent on American television, and I don't want Americans EVER to lose so much as one job to British-accented foreigners. I have an ancestor who was a corporal in the Continental Army. We didn't go to war against King George III just to have Brits march across our borders as tho those borders don't exist and take some of the very best jobs this society has to offer, away from Americans. Notice to all Brits, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, West Indians, etc. (the same notice would apply to Canadians, except it's hard to detect them, since they are preassimilated to American speech): GO HOME. This is OUR country, not yours! You have your own prosperous country. You are not driven by starvation to seek refuge in our country. GO HOME. We don't need you, and I for sure don't want you. GO HOME. The best American jobs, as in media, should go to AMERICANS. Why isn't Trump indignant about f* Brits who disrespect our speech and thus our culture, but take extremely well-paid and prominent jobs away from Americans? Deport them all, from Justin Bieber to every single network news reporter on American television. Get OUT, and stay out!
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 2:56 PM