Year: 2015

Jeet Heer at the New Republic says Donald Trump is not a populist, he is the voice of aggrieved privilege...

....of those who already are doing well but feel threatened by social change from below, whether in the form of Hispanic immigrants or uppity women (hence the loud applause he got at the first GOP debate when he derided “political correctness”). Far from being a defender of the little people against the elites, Trump plays to the anxiety of those who fear that their status is being challenged by people they regard as their social inferiors. That’s why the word “loser” is such a big part of his vocabulary. Trump is not the first authoritarian bigot to be mislabeled a populist. In truth, the term almost always gets misused to describe movements that are all about persevering (and enhancing) hierarchy, not about creating a more egalitarian society. Populism has been misused to describe Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade, the John Birch Society, and David Duke’s white nationalism, among others. [...]

After Monday, the news on the Biden front has decidedly shifted. Remember we had Tomasky's piece on a game changing Biden-Warren ticket after their meeting on Saturday. But now we get a lengthy piece from Glen Thrush at Politico that highlights that "Biden is still not himself" after Beau's death, that his family and his wife Jill are not sold on another run, etc.

Mourning the loss of his eldest son Beau, who succumbed to a brain tumor three months ago, and under intense pressure from the presidential hype he’s helped stoke, Biden is more subdued, grayer and grimly on-task than usual — this while occupying political center stage for the first time since the promising opening days of his doomed 1988 campaign. For all the breathless reporting on Biden’s every move and meeting, he is, at core, a 72-year-old man presented with an unexpected, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at one of the worst times of his life. Several people Biden has talked to in the past month say he starts off conversations by conceding that “some days are better than others,” mixing recollections of Beau with logistical questions about mounting a state-by-state challenge to a vulnerable yet still formidable Hillary Clinton. “He’s just not himself,” says a longtime friend of Biden’s. “He’s sort of all over the place. He’s engaged but not in that childlike, manic way he usually is. He’s taking it all in and soaking up information, but he’s hard to read. And Joe Biden isn’t usually that hard to read.” [...] But reports that the vice president has all but made up his mind to run are simply not true, according to a half-dozen people in his inner circle interviewed by POLITICO.

I used to work at MBNA. The glory days. When high interest rate credit cards where just making their nut. My first day of orientation, had a general in it. Everyone went to "Orientation". Even special generals. It was kind of of cool to me back then to see that the appeared to treat everyone the same. I was very young and ignorant of the banking industry at this point in my life. Why hire a 4 Star Retiring general into your credit card company?

On Wednesday, September 2, at 7 pm at the Del Dem HQ in New Castle, the Progressive Democrats for Delaware are hosting a pretty great event: a Legislative Panel on the Budget for the next fiscal year. Remember the 6 Progressive Democratic State Representatives who voted against the Budget for FY2016 at the end of the last legislative session? Remember their reasons? Because the leadership did not address a looming deficit in the coming fiscal year and did not have the courage to raise taxes on the wealthiest in this state. Well guess what, the planning for this fiscal year is here, and we have now reached the can that we have kicked down the road.

As Coons continues to waffle and pretend he is tough guy (or act like it) on the Iran Deal, I figured I'd do a little lookie-loo back in time to see where else his shiny headed thoughts have bubbled and beaded similar nonsense that resembles a Delaware Way type of dissent. We all know it: the never ending sorta, kinda, wishy, washy, verbal non, almost in a way committal to your view and the 200 plus other views of Delawareans style of verbiage. I didn't have to go to far back to find Chris Coons once again challenging Obama. Questioning his strategy (however confounding) of diplomacy and not putting boots on the ground.

Some idiots on Fox News complained about a Tennessee school's decision to ban students from displaying any flag due to the renewed controversy over the Confederate flag. The exception of course, is the American flag flying on flag pols.

"This is a about a long-term trend where the people who run everything — the elites in Washington, New York, and L.A. — despise rural America and its culture, suspect anybody who doesn’t live in their cities of being a bigot, and they’re trying to crush that culture by banning its symbols — not just the Confederate flag, but the American flag," "Fox and Friends" co-host Tucker Carlson said on Sunday. "They hate expressions of patriotism. It makes them uncomfortable." Co-host Anna Kooiman chimed in to say that "Americans are feeling guilty" about their patriotism.

Flying the American flag is about patriotism. Flying the Confederate flag is about treason, which is the opposite of patriotism.

Let's play a game..which of these listed on the chart isn't an employer to residents of Delaware? I know it's not a big deal that these companies fuck over citizens of the USA and pay no price for it. The rats in their shiny metal boxes have to work. You can't hold people accountable. That would mean these people have to hire more people. Hiring more people means less profit. Less profit means less dividends. Less dividends means that 3 year plan to increase the stock prices by 8% will result in a loss of a bonus. So if the shitty work they do leads to heart ache, anxiety and a never ending cycle of high interest rates or worst case the inability to get a job who cares. I know these things don't matter to people. Have you ever had a problem with your credit and it wasn't your fault? Ever tried to get it rectified?

From Politico:

The drama could all be over soon. Delaware Sen. Chris Coons will announce his position on the Iran nuclear deal next Tuesday at the University of Delaware. We are assured he is still undecided, but his impending public announcement indicates there’s likely to be few, if any, Democrats that are still wavering when Congress comes back.

It is likely that the Coons vote won't be a deciding one, as most Democrats in the Senate, save Schumer and Menedez, are not cowardly war hawks that love to fellate Dick Cheney. Chris Coons will decide whether to get down on his knees to join them or whether he will instead stand up for diplomacy. And Senator, while 2020 is five years away, we have long memories. If you vote for war, no matter what else you do, your legacy and career are forever destroyed. You could cure cancer, save Social Security, establish universal single payer healthcare, and provide a living wage to all Americans. But if you vote no on the Iran Deal, it all matters not. Stay tuned. And once we have more details to when and where this UD Announcement is taking place, we will pass that on.

It didn’t happen overnight. Something like this takes time. It takes years. Years and minutes. Thousands and thousands of minutes. Minute, minutia played out over the course of years. Minutia teased out into minutes. Scrolling minutia right to left. Accompanied by more minutia graphically displayed from top to bottom. Sponsored content of course. It’s all teased out into an endless string of so called events, one leading into the other into a cavalcade of disaster. Each one sirens a call for change. A reason that this time, this time it is a bridge to far. Now we have reached critical mass. It all is going to end badly. Here’s why this is his fault. Here is why too. An expert discusses it with another expert. “This is it” he says to the glass. 25 stories up. His forehead is pressed against the glass. He can’t help but envision movie clips every time he does this. “I think I see my father” he mumbles to himself. He’s not even sure if that is the correct quote. He’s sure a remake is coming and he’ll be able to tell his kids he remembers when the original came out. As his dad did to him and said it was John Wayne and not Clit Eastwood. Clint dad, omg. His life is an endless reel of thoughts he isn’t sure are his own. They are contrived from a life that has constantly absorbed media. Media in so many forms he doesn’t know what is and isn’t his own organic, original thought.

Finally, some conservatives are giving up the long con that they are not theocrats wishing to completely destroy the constitutional foundation on which this Republic was built. Some of them are leaving the Republican Party and forming their own Christian Party. Indeed, they already have a presidential candidate in Tennessee resident Darrell Trigg. His platform is as insane as you thought it would be....