Archive for July, 2016

Just In Case The NRA Is Too Liberal For You ….

July 14, 2016 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized

GOP USA sent me this “business opportunity” email this morning….

 

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You can enter by clicking right here, but if you win, I want want you to give the money to the Brady Campaign.

 

The Trump Porch Campaign

July 14, 2016 By: Primo Encarnación Category: Uncategorized

Not very far at all from where I’m sitting is the town of Marion, OH, where Warren G. Harding lived when he was nominated and elected President. Like an earlier Ohio President, William McKinley, Harding chose to run a “front porch” campaign in 1920.

Traditionally, it was considered bad form to appear to be too eager for the Presidency.   The dignity of the office required a certain comportment from the candidate, regardless of the absolutely unscrupulous things done in his name and on his behalf by his operatives. By the early 20th century, however, the hey-day of the railroads signaled the onset of a new kind of campaigning. Peripatetic candidates racked up thousands of miles.

Harding Home: Great front proch! Lousy President.

Harding Home: Great front porch! Lousy President.

But not Warren G. He sat on his porch while people flocked from all over to see and hear him. His speeches spoke of “America First.” His campaign promise was to take America back to “normalcy.” A Republican ad in Colliers Magazine on the eve of the election cried, “This country will remain American” and “objected to foreign government of our people.”

This was the end of the Progressive movement in Republican politics. Teddy Roosevelt, the odds-on favorite to win in 1920, died inconveniently in 1919. Robert LaFollete’s Progressive insurgency had died on the convention floor.   Impressed by his anti-union cred, the RNC nominated Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge for Vice President, who later would famously say “the chief business of the American people is business.” The campaign, then, was business and nationalism, with a great deal of xenophobia mixed in as anti-Catholicism (foreigners!) and antisemitism (more foreigners!) joined racism as the guiding stars of the newly-resurgent Ku Klux Klan.

Senator Harding of Ohio, a newspaper owner and editor, was paired off against Governor Cox of Ohio, a newspaper owner and editor. People could hardly tell the two apart, as neither was very progressive and both tended to the isolationism that had characterized America’s aversion to “foreign entanglements” from George Washington until WWI.

In addition to Harding being characterized by newspapers as unqualified, “weak,” “mediocre,” “the flag-bearer of… autocracy,” and bereft of “original ideas,” his speeches from his front porch reminded H.L. Mencken “of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a kind of grandeur creeps into it.”

Nevertheless, Harding won in a repudiation of Democrats and Wilson and his League of Nations, ushering in a period of corrupt administration, the growth of organized crime and the Klan, and unregulated wildcat business practices culminating in worldwide Depression followed by worldwide war and slaughter.

Donald Trump is a similar candidate, running a similar campaign.   With its lack of campaign structure, its amateurish fund-raising, its M.I.A. data operation, its invisible presence in the field, and staffed by the dregs of political humanity, the Trump campaign lacks all of the normal workings of a modern campaign, except for the candidate jetting around and holding rallies. But in a very real sense, these rallies are just the same as the old front porch campaign, except Trump’s front porch is mobile.

Attended by sycophants, curiosity-seekers and a captive press corps, each rally plays out like a rambling, disjointed Harding speech: long on platitudes and attitudes, short on policy and coherence, “the worst English I have ever encountered” as Mencken wrote. Trump just uses modern transportation and his plundered wealth to carry his front porch with him. And from his porch, he holds forth on America First, extols the virtues of unchained business, decries non-whites with xenophobic zeal, cries “Havoc!” and lets slip the dogs of trade war.

This election isn’t 1968: it’s 1920.

We Need Some Damn Research

July 14, 2016 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized

Okay, Guys, the GOP has released their speaker’s lineup for the convention.  This is the best they have, y’all.

I have never heard of most of these people and I truly suspect some hanky-panky.

For example, I noticed the name of a football player, Alex Smith of the Chiefs.  I figured Smith was taking the job that Jack Nicklaus and Serena Williams wouldn’t do.  Well, come to find out, it’s the far less famous Alex Smith who is speaking.  This Alex Smith is the president of College Republicans.  Nice try, though.  I suspect that Trump didn’t want his other famous athletic supporters (yeah, I know I did that) to speak – Hulk Hogan, Dennis Rodman, and Mike Tyson.

There’s also Kathryn Gates-Skipper, who I looked up in case she’s related to Bill Gates.  Come to find out, she’s famous for being a veteran who lies about her record.  Yuge, really yuge.

Here’s the list.  If you have time today (I don’t) see if you can find out who some of these people are.

Pastor Mark Burns
Phil Ruffin
Congressman Ryan Zinke
Pat Smith
Mark Geist
John Tiegen
Congressman Michael McCaul
Sheriff David Clarke
Congressman Sean Duffy
Darryl Glenn
Senator Tom Cotton
Karen Vaughn
Governor Mike Huckabee
Mayor Rudy Giuliani
Melania Trump
Senator Joni Ernst
Kathryn Gates-Skipper
Marcus Luttrell
Dana White
Governor Asa Hutchinson
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge
Michael Mukasey
Andy Wist
Senator Jeff Sessions
Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn
Alex Smith
Speaker Paul Ryan
Congressman Kevin McCarthy
Kerry Woolard .
Senator Shelley Moore Capito
Dr. Ben Carson
Co-Chair Sharon Day
Natalie Gulbis
Kimberlin Brown
Antonio Sabato, Jr.
Peter Thiel
Eileen Collins
Senator Ted Cruz
Newt Gingrich
Michelle Van Etten
Lynne Patton
Eric Trump
Harold Hamm
Congressman Chris Collins
Brock Mealer
Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn
Governor Mary Fallin
Darrell Scott
Lisa Shin
Governor Rick Scott
Chairman Reince Priebus
Tom Barrack
Ivanka Trump
Attorney General Pam Bondi
Jerry Falwell Jr.
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein
Chris Cox
Senator Mitch McConnell
Tiffany Trump
Governor Chris Christie
Donald J. Trump Jr.
Governor Scott Walker

Have fun!

 

Investigating the Investigation

July 13, 2016 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized

Y’all, as I watched the House Judiciary Committee question Attorney General Loretta Lynch, I realized that they are investigating the investigation.

When Hillary gets elected President, I predict that we will need a House Committee on Investigations because there will be a new investigation every week.

I imagine “Is she really blonde and why should her hairdresser be the only one to know for sure?” will certainly make the list right away.

 

Why hasn’t she fully explained where she was during the Kennedy assassination?

Where have all the flowers gone?  After all, it’s been a long time passing.

You’ve never seen a penguin within fifty feet of her.  Why is that?

Has she stopped beating her wife?  No, wait. We’ll refer that to the “Could Be But Probably Not” Committee.

Join in the fun and suggest your own investigations.  (I might steal some from you for an Outsmart Magazine article I’m writing!)

 

Oh Please, Oh Please, Let’s Have a Mind Contest

July 13, 2016 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized

I need to admit upfront that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg is my hero.

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 10.44.40 AMI frequently wear my Notorious RBG tee-shirt.

And I also cheerfully admit that I have said some really, really mean things about Donald Trump.

So, I guess you could say that I have a dog in this race.

Add to that the fact that I have read the Constitution and pretty much understand it.  Pretty much.

Donald Trump, who wants to be the Tweetie President, had this retort to Justice Ginsberg calling him a “faker.”

 

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Okay, I think it’s nice that he said, “Justice Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court” because his followers probably don’t know what the title “Justice” means or who Ginsburg is.  In fact, I’m pretty sure of it. I think he should also say “Speaker Paul Ryan of the United States House of Representatives” because, after all, Speaker Ryan could be a senator or something.  Or maybe announcing baseball games.

Plus, it’s nice he put “the U.S.” in there.  It could be the Cuban Supreme Court, so he did need to clear that up.

Then there’s “embarrassed all.”  All what?  Idiots?  Seriously, it didn’t embarrass me or Verdelia so it couldn’t mean all people.  Yeah, he’s real clear about where the Supreme Court is but “all,” not so much.

“Dumb political statements?”  A guy who is tweeting his plan for America is calling something dumb?

“Her mind is shot.”  Yeah?  Think so?  RBG is 83 years old.  My Momma is 91 and could whip Trump’s constitutional knowledge with half her brain tied behind her back.  I would also like to remind people that John Paul Stevens did not step down until he was 90.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

NOW I Remember Why We Don’t Invite Him Places

July 13, 2016 By: Juanita Jean Herownself Category: Uncategorized

Since he left the White House, George Bush is pretty much invisible.  And, apparently, that’s a good thing.

Honey, when you get the Michelle side-eye, you need to quit whatever the hell it is you’re doing.

General rule of thumb:  If Dick Clark hasn’t played it, don’t dance to it.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0rfYWVO5OU

It’s the Battle Hymn of the Republic.  Dear Lord above, it’s the Battle Hymn of the Republic.  It’s not a happy tune.