In partial defense of Donald Trump…

… I think this falls into a category of “Man-Splaining”… (Which sub-category, I don’t know — there are sub-categories for this one, aren’t there?)

… and, as a defense, it falls into the category of “Doesn’t do Donald Trump any favors”.

It’s probably the case that “Miss Universe”, as set up by Donald Trump, would have to fulfill the duties of fitting the normative definition of beauty that she won the beauty contest with for… that year she’s Miss Universe.  (It has to be in the contract, right?)

The fact that that’s sexist is the result of what sexist shindigs these things are.  Particularly as under the ownership of Donald Trump.  Apparently.
Actually, I’m less surprised that Donald Trump tripped over the “losing a slice of that Suburban Women” demographic with one slip at the debate — he has a lot to answer for…

then I am that he slipped up on the same thing that cost Mitt Romney……

His “Don’t pay taxes, ’cause I’m smart” lining up with Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comments.  Being that the logic of a Donald Trump victory lands on him winning a slice of “Rust Belt” white men who would align with opposition to free trade and bristle at being called one of the “deplorables” by Hillary Clinton or “clinging to guns and god” by Obama…

Ted Cruz, I’m thinking, gambled at the time of the convention that it might be a landslide, or a low-level landslide, against Trump.  Seeing that Trump is coming in for at worst that low-level landslide loss and at best a win, he decided he had to throw in the towel and state he was siding with Trump.  Never mind his insinuation that his father killed Kennedy.

It probably doesn’t matter.  Cruz will continue to roil in the Senate for another term or two — maybe a term and a half, and won’t get anywhere in a presidential bid.

The Republicans have consolidated behind Trump, and Cruz is the last one in.  Which makes this election a  little funny… I’m thinking after all this, after all the over-bloated personalities that would shake the map up in curious ways, this election might just come down to how a Generic Democrat fares against a Generic Republican.

Which might not be that odd.  Maybe Trump is Generic Republican and Clinton is Generic Democrat.  There’s a reason they slid through the process the two parties have set up, roiling across the electoral fissures in each party.  If not Clinton, who?  If not Trump, who?  If the particular personality problem that forged the tightening of the polls was Hillary Clinton’s health and a week off — and here we’ll see whether this feeds into a larger narrative and the poll positions remain the same or if Clinton’s dwindling polling was the result of being out of the campaign hustlings for a week — it might be a remnant of the problem with the party with the public– not up to the standards of the Uber economy, the metanarrative of tired and old – or — something…

Sooo… that ad aiming at the Suburban Republican set — interesting to digest in the way it explicitly zooms in gender-wise from an earlier ad of “won’t somebody please think of the children?”  There is one push-back, or there would be, in the sense that I hope not to see policing of what flies in Entertainment.  I’m getting just a little queasy reading in liberal mags some extrapulation of the problems inherent in the field of un-pc professional wrestling, with Donald Trump’s dipping into that industry.  But the good news here for this line of attack is Trump never separated himself from his Entertainment world persona…

My theories of the election had it that perhaps it’d remain close up to the debates, when Hillary Clinton would pull away.  This had been super-ceded when Hillary Clinton pulled away — as Trump wasn’t recalibrating into a New Trump, and then dropped back to parity with Trump — when Trump finally did and when Clinton got sick.  It may be possible that the first theory will prove correct after-all, with that weird interim.

Good news.  According to Prisonplanet, Hillary Clinton bombed because she has one of those bumps that shows something or other and… since when does Alex Jones start linking to Ted Cruz facebook pages (globalist and Republican hack and all that)?  [And the beat continues…]

Donald Trump might have had a point about getting the Debate off of the same schedule of Football…

… though the NFL may have done the political football world a favor by placing on the schedule a Saints — Falcons game.  High offense, surely.  Lots of losses over the last season…

It is hard to decide how that great swing voter in Ohio sees the yelling of Donald Trump and the chiding Hillary Clinton… The big problem — and we recall “Bush benefits from low expectations”…

Though in the end the game has to be for the two candidates to push forward on their electoral narrative, the slight up and down of the moment notwithstanding…

Donald Trump is right now trumpeting against NAFTA and trade deals, and getting into a — perhaps accurate — digging at Hillary Clinton’s “one hand and another hand” on the issue.

And is right now sarcastically charging Hillary Clinton with fighting ISIS over 30 years…

Oh, dear lord, he just played the “Obama going to play golf all the time after his presidency” card.  Is that a current right wing meme?

Brings up the email issue “Release the emails; I’ll release the taxes”, audience explodes in applause.  Donald Trump makes hay of lack of paying taxes — “that makes me smarter”… I’d think that would play in the same problem with Romney’s 47 percent thing — though I frankly thank Hillary Clinton’s speculating is off-key.

(Sigh)  Falcons 21, Saints 14.

Trump… “We’ve become a third world problem.”  I have a hunch Americans don’t believe /want to believe…

And… Gary Johnson is aiming for a parcel of the Hillary Clinton ufo / space vote.  This will solve Global warming.

Jill Stein plays that same game as Ralph Nader — goes to the debate, gets ushered off.  You can now read her twitter stream if you care.

I.  Russia’s parliamentary election brings out a resounding land-slide victory for the ruling “United Russia” Party of Vladimir Putin.

In terms of seats in Parliament, United Russia leapt to 343 from 238, a gain of 105 seats and an absolute majority. The other parties in Parliament, which rarely challenge Mr. Putin, all shrank. The Communist Party lost 50 seats, to 42 from 92; the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party was down 17 seats, to 39 from 56; and A Just Russia had 41 seats disappear, to 23 from 64.

As per wikipedia, here’s the old parliament.  And the New Parliament.

 

As you can see… the Blue “Putin Party” has increased in size total, and the other “merely supporting Putin” Parties have dropped in size total.

Curious editorializing, though.

After Mr Putin’s first term in office, which ended in 2004, the Duma ceased to be a democratic forum; it merely rubber-stamped the Kremlin’s edicts. But its standing—and that of United Russia—was sustained to an extent by high oil prices and a growing economy. At least the Duma could not be ignored, as it provided a rare means of access to the Kremlin, which distributed the oil rent. With the sharp fall in oil revenues, the economy in recession and real incomes dropping, this is no longer the case. Social scientists note that the urban middle class—the most economically active part of the country—has no real representation; United Russia is just a vehicle for the Kremlin to exert power.  By shutting out the opposition and marginalising even the tame Duma, the Kremlin is pushing Russian politics into unchartered and potentially dangerous territory. Mr Putin’s latest victory turns the Duma into more of a sham. As a result, he risks becoming detached. In the view of Gleb Pavlovsky, a political analyst and former adviser to Mr Putin, Russia’s leaders are like pilots flying in heavy turbulence with the cockpit dials all painted over.

Uncharted?  I’m thinking of a series of 1952 Pogos from cartoonist Walt Kelly, the heavy-handed political satire bringing in a Soviet Bear… talking up the Soviet election system of the leaders winning with 99.7 percent (or some such figure) of the vote.

II.  It’s interesting to see how the deposed left-wing leader in Brazil — who, either was the victim of a “soft coup” sanctioned by the United States or was simply offed off of popular uprising against corruption– left office with a historically low approval rating… to be replaced by an equally unpopular and loathsome right-wing leader.

But we see they’ve all had their ups and downs…

Imagine, for a moment, Trump or Clinton win.  And in two years, by some convoluted process that’s technically legal and by-passes norms of electoral processes we arrive at an unpopular Clinton or Trump replacing an unpopular Trump or Clinton.
Maybe an impeached Vice President Pence or Kaine and the naming of Trump or Clinton as Speaker of the House (who, it should be noted, does not have to be a member of the House).

III.  Funny ad in the New York Times.  Turkey pulled out an ad extolling its democracy, and positing it as partners in stuff and things with the USA.  Sure… sure… and it’s surely complicated, but… NEXT!

Meet the Democrat who is running for Senate.  Misty Snow.  She would be the first transgendered woman in the Senate.  And is not a politician.  And would represent Utah.  And it is a little puzzling why anyone would pay to poll this race, but there it is.

Georgia’s Democratic Senate candidate is a Bernie Sanders backer socialist.

Alaska’s race is weird — the Republican incumbent won six years ago in a write-in generation election campaign appealing to Democrats against the tea party insurgent who beat her in the primary election and is now running as a Libertarian where the Democratic candidate is a former Republican at odds with the state party and so the party is reaching to the Democratic senator who lost two years ago to wage a write-in for little or no purpose, given that the Republican incumbent will win easily.

John Boozman of Arkansas can’t be bothered to debate.  The two minor party candidates (Democrat and Libertarian) try their best to put on a show.

Every Republican needs to run against Obama-care, declares the Weekly Standard.  It’ll win them everything!!!

He came in 10th in 2012, and he is running again.  Or so says his facebook page.

Trump Jr. gets in trouble due to a Skittles photo.  Herein is an attempt to put the problem of Trump kids into a political context.  Conan O’brien gets it a little better, though it veers into the arena of right wing politics Trump has strayed from.

George Herbert Walker Bush just voted for Hillary Clinton.  Kathleen Kennedy Townsend tweeted the news, than… er… untweeted?  The bottom half of the Internet reacts in a fury.

A key point about the Trump response…

“I think what is most disturbing about this report to me, Erin, is that someone divulged a private conversation — it doesn’t seem like it was meant for public consumption. And that’s always very bothersome to me.” — Private conversations are different than Democratic emails hacked by Russians and leaked online.

Yeah, well… at least this tweet has been vetted a bit. Unlike the one about Bill Weld dropping out of the race — wishful wistful thinking.

A gratuitous linking to an episode of Get A Life, which somehow or other buffers this libertarian argument against food inspectors.

As with most things, Chris Elliott’s path-breaking early ’90s Fox sitcom, Get A Life! got there decades ago, in an episode in which becomes a food inspector and quickly goes on the take.

Yes.  The show demonstrates a definite political viewpoint.  Corruption! Five bucks!  An investigator hiding in the shadows named Jim Gorman who, if you need him, signal him by standing on your lawn with a small dog strapped to his head singing Mr. Bo Jingles in a high voice… which, from a libertarian point of view would indeed be a sign of big gummint shenanigans.

It’s a reach, that’s all I’m saying.

Dip into the comments section for some arguable comments.

What amazes me is that there was even a single Network Exec who thought the laugh track did anything except assassinate that show. You know how much better that is without the insipid canned laughter?

Dunno.  The laugh-track is an overdone concoction, spot-lighting the artificiality of the show’s universe, keeping a viewer within the sitcom conventions.  I don’t know if it works better without this laugh-track — it’s just that it has a premise in being in this show.  I know that option is there on dvd, but apparently this mostly gets you a chance to hear producers shouting directions and laughing just off the set.

Shouldn’t everyone thank Donald Trump for … ending the Barack Obama birther controversy… which was started by Hillary Clinton?

I suppose the thing about the “Big Lie” is it forces one to forage and figure out what “germ” of truth there is in the thing.  It is a fact that Hillary Clinton said mean things about Barack Obama in the 2008 primary season.  It is a fact that the fringe of Hillary Clinton supporters, who coalesced into the “PUMA Movement”, dug into weird things about Barack Obama after Hillary Clinton was out of the running.  (And the beat goes on — The Boomerang booms, oh ye Sanderistas.)

So now, going to sources we know will want to trumpet anything they can reach for, we’re stuck at a lone figure in Hillary Clinton’s orbit who was quickly dismissed.  And was not “started” there, but plucked it out from the ether that had been growling.

And anyway, having had no effect on the growth of this conspiracy theory, it doesn’t really matter when the whole basis of Trump’s 2012 flirtation for President was this issue.  But now we get the hurraying from Trump’s strange cheer-leading section — and…

Meantime, the obvious sarcasm which flees from such sources as the New York Times in a front-page News Analysis is … really something.  And something Trump’s Base of Support will glom onto as how the MSM are ‘gainst em.

Interesting to note the problems with Snopes — This is a pretty unprovable and non-disprovable claim.

You know.  Jimmy Fallon gave a nice issue-less softball interview to Trump this week.  Both why Stephen Colbert comes up a niche programming against the broad strokes of Fallon, and why you can feed an apolitical audience to vote apolitically for entertainment’s sake.  The Game Continues, devolves from Jay Leno with Schwarzenegger — which to be fair was not entirely issue-less.
The follow-up fluffer for Hillary Clinton lands on much the same wacky hi-jinks.  No.  Not much for Jimmy Fallon…

It is interesting that an earlier Hillary Clinton’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel had Kimmel doing a “man-splaining” bit — which shows a probably preference on his part for Hillary Clinton and is playing up his “Man Show” / “Frat Boy” shadow — it’s like him wanting to educate the base of his audience to prep them on subtle sexist attitudes they may harbor on Hillary Clinton.