Good, But Not Excellent

Last night I caught Al Frankin the Minisota Senator with a comedian named Sarah with dialog but in general the other speakers, when they had them on KOCE weren’t that interesting.  Actually there was a whole lot of dissention in the ranks this day because of the recent news that Hillary Clinton had hired on Debby Wasserman Schultz as her campaign manager.  Thom Hartman said that was OK if she was forced to do it as the price of Debby Wasserman leaving the stage.  But if Hillary did it of her own free will, then it would be wrong.  Clearly it sends a very bad signal to Bernie’s supporters.  So naturally they were chanting things against Hillary.  Earlier in the day in another location Bernie Sanders was booed when he said he was supporting Hillary.  Some said they even heard the chant of “Lock her up!”.    I think there was a chant, “Hell no to the DNC, we’ll never vote for Hil-lar-ry.  That’s a good one.  The three main headliners came on at seven.   I had George Stephanopolis on now.  Michelle Obama it is said gave the best speech of the three because she carried on the “What about the children?” theme of this campaign.  She talked about her daughters going to school escorted by men with guns.  She expressed concern they might hear disparaging remarks about this President and were instructed to ignore them.  They she talked about the daughters on the White House lawn playing with their dog.  Then there was a reference to the notion of a Black Man living in the White House, which was built by Negro slaves.  After this I went down for medication.  Earlier the line was too long but now there were only a couple waiting for Tom to get back from wherever he was.  Then it was Elizabeth Warren.  Like Bernie Sanders, she gave a good speech but not a great speech.  Bernie and Warren gave better speeches the day that Bernie endorsed Hillary.  I was impressed with both speakers.  Tonight they both touched most of the same bases.  Bernie said this campaign was not about men, or stretegy or gossip or polls, it's about issues.  The needs of the American people.  Naturally it was pointed out how divisive the republican speeches were last week, and Trump's main appeal seems to be of division.  "We produced the most progressive platform in the history of the democratic party".   I don't think the importance of "down ticket" races can be overemphisized.  Bernie did not speaking till ten to eight or something.  Strangely I fell asleep right at the end of Bernie’s speech so I don’t know what climatic note he may have closed on.  Bernie spoke most about his supporters buttering them up because of the divisive atmosphere that existed earlier in the evening.  But he didn’t pull a Ted Cruz but did in fact endorse Hillary.

Revanchist or revanchism refer to an individual like Vladimir Putin who wants to regain his lost glory or territory.   Russia hacked the DNC E mails and Putin was behind it because he wants to see Trump elected President.  You won’t hear that on the Shawn Hannity show.  Norman Goldman revealed this key piece of information.   It would seem to me though that this is a stunt that both Bernie and Hillary supporters can agree is pretty rotten if it's proved to be in fact true.   We don't want Trump too cozy with Putin.  

 Meet the Press featured Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.  There was a new DNC conspiracy uncovered yesterday by leaked E mails where there was an all out effort by the DNC to smear Bernie Sanders, among other things, by calling him an Atheist, which he is not.  After this it was Breakfast with the Beatles where they have “all your favorite songs just slightly different”.  As far as I could tell quite a number of tracks were absolutely identical to the originals.  I went out to the courtyard and had two classes of lemonade from Rico and corn bread.  It’s a little sweeter than they usually make it.   The only solo track I heard all morning was “Give Me Some Truth” which was a just slightly different recording (the drumming seemed notably different) and was un-faded.  They also played the Mc Cartney version of “Come and Get It” from Anthology.  The real lead singer was Tom Evans.

 I had “Face the Nation” on and there was political analysis of both parties and then there was a lot of President Obama.  When asking whether Obama was a good president he’s asking the wrong questions.  Yes gay people can get married now, which is nice for the fraction of the three percent of the population who are gay and who want to get married but what about the other 97% of us?  He kept “The great recession” from turning into “The second great depression”.  This is hardly cheery.  And he captured Bin Laden.  This is fine for the day in May 2011 when it actually occurred but what about the past five years?  When you look at the grand sweep of things you must ask yourself whether generally you are more optimistic or pessimistic about America now.  Here it’s a no brainer.  You have ISIS, and you have Libya in chaos and Putin more dangerous and Iraq in a mass.  Violence and crime are increased.  We have backtracked on civil rights advancement.  We have also backtracked on civil liberties advancement.    Our national debt has doubled and our trade posture is a lot worse.