In Search of "The End of an Era"

 It’s been ten years since I’ve been listening to liberal talk radio and all this time we’ve been told that the tide was turning and a new era of populism and getting out the vote - - would occur.  It hasn’t happened.  For years we’ve been told that the demographics were changing.  We were told that in 2012 and we were told the 2016 election would be a slam dunk for the democrats.  Now we live in a world of uncertainty due to all the voter suppression that’s going on- - and the media now is very different now from what it was under Ronald Reagan thirty years ago.  The media at large didn’t take kindly to the policies of Ronald Reagan and his “jobless recovery” and his turning his back on the AIDS situation, and the epidemic of homelessness that sprung up then.  Now once again we are informed that with the death of Justice Scelia that the Ronald Reagan era is over.  But of course conservatives have a hammer-lock on over the air talk radio and all that purging out the left occurred not that many years ago.  We see that Donald Trump has tapped into the very ugliest part of society in terms of its reactionary bigotry- - something that would have been undreamed of thirty years ago.  For the first time in a long time the economy will play almost zero part in who our next President is, because people have accepted this “new normal” of uneven wealth distribution and nonstop wall to wall foreign wars.  The Republicans have a hammerlock on the state houses controlling thirty states.  That’s almost unprecedented.  But with everything that’s going the Republicans’ way we are told of this “vision” the right wing has that we haven’t gone nearly far enough.  So now we want to revamp congressional districting to further disenfranchise minorities, crack down even harder on labor unions,  and presumably be fighting in several foreign conflicts at once.  There seems to be no urgency by the public at large that “Anything is wrong with this picture”. 

John Kasech had a rally at Clemson College in SC talking about the rewards of assertiveness like persistence on getting in the President of the College office.  Then he got to see President Nixon - - alone - for twenty minutes in the Oval Office.  “Fantastic!” I thought.  But then he said something that invalidates his whole message.  He said ‘I never respond to the first person with a question who raises his hand’.  That to me means “Assertive people turn me off”.   Of course despite all of his pep talk rhetoric he’s still pretty much a hard, down the line conservative.  But Obama’s book with all that “Yes, we can” stuff was bullshit too.

   Pope Francis has questioned Donald Trump’s Christian faith.  I think it's about time somebody did.  He can't continue to tell jokes that begin 'Two Corinthians walk into a bar - - ".  Trump says “Nobody has the right to question my faith”.  Actually Donald Trump shows his ignorance of Catholicism because the Pope has the power to ex-communacate members of the Catholic Church, and if you’re not Catholic you can’t take communion in the Church.  Pope Francis spoke of “A person who speaks only of building Walls and not bridges, is not talking like a Christian”.  Donald Trump had the gall to claim that the Pope “Was being used as a pawn by the Mexican government”.  Meanwhile President Obama will visit Cuba soon.  Hopefully he’ll visit some Catholic Churches in Cuba if they have any.  Hopefully the President will speak on the subject of religious liberty. 

Nobody talks about "running out the clock" when it's just the beginning of the fourth quarter.  This whole idea of "fillibustering" is a weak debate tactic.  Thom Hartman has praised Hillary more than once for talking and talking and not letting Bernie Sanders get a word in edgewise in the democratic debates.  Hartman says "This is a good debate tactic and it's normal to use it, and it will work well against Ted Cruz or whoever in the fall when Hillary uses it against him".  Do you really think either the moderators then or the US population at large will tollerate evasion tacticts such as these?  Hartman says "Well Bernie Sanders doesn't want to wound Hillary for the fall campaign".  The trouble is that HIllary is playing to win - - and Sanders is trying "Not to offend anyone".  What if the Denver Broncos in the AFC championship game decided to go easy on the New England Patriots and "Let them win" so that the Patriots would have a better change against the Carolina Panthers?  Huh?  It's crazy talk, isn't it?  

Nevada is having its democratic caucus this Saturday night.  Sanders is gaining in the national polls 53% to 42%.   The race is a toss-up in Nevada at this point between Hillary and Bernie.  They’ve been having more “Town Halls”.  Meanwhile Ted Cruz is number one among the Republicans pushing Trump down to second place for about the first time since Trump announced last June.  How can Trump’s ego cope with that?   I have Norman Goldman on now.  Talk radio where being prepared for a conversation is a liability and not an asset.  If you’re too organized they accuse you of either reading something or of “Having an agenda” as Neil Savedra used to put it.  Sometimes less intelligent callers get more air time.  This is most certainly true with liberals attempting to call a conservative station.  Meanwhile this story of the conflict between Apple and the FBI on the right to protect personal data – is not going away.  It’s seemingly a really hot topic, which is hardly reflected in my blogger numbers.   This paragraph are just a pot purée of topics with no particular logical connection. 

It would seem that President Obama in his never ending battle to look tough against Russia and Assad, is willing to start WW III, or at least allow it to get started, presumably cheering on the radical Sunny Muslims, a sect he publicly criticizes but privately supports.  With the Russian-backed Syrian army encircling Aleppo, cutting off Turkish supplies to rebels andadvancing on the Islamic State’s capital of Raqqa, a panicked Saudi Arabia and Turkey have set up a joint headquarters to direct an invasion of Syria that could lead to a vast escalation of the war. And there’s only one man who could stop them: President Barack Obama.  It is probably the most important decision Obama will make in his eight years in office since a Turkish-Saudi invasion risks a direct showdown between Russia and NATO, since Turkey is a member of the alliance.   The U.S. traditionally has held tremendous power over client states like Turkey and Saudi Arabia. So, an order from Washington is usually enough to get such governments to back down. But Ankara and Riyadh are being led by reckless men whose continued existence in power might well depend on stopping a Syrian government victory – helped by Russia, Iran and the Kurds – and a humiliating defeat of the Turkish-Saudi-backed Syrian rebels, who include some radical jihadist groups.  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prince Mohammad bin Salman have shown increasing defiance of Washington. Neither man is the legal ruler of his respective country. But both have seized power nonetheless.  Erdoğan is technically in a symbolic post, a presidency without power. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu should be leading the country the way Erdoğan did when he was prime minister, but Davutoğlu is still letting Erdoğan call the shots.