Hallway to Nowhere

Tag: Hillary Clinton

  • So Transparent-NOT

    So Transparent-NOT

    I have to write about Donald Trump, Jr. The whole debacle is further proof that Trump (#notmypresident) and his family seem to be TRYING to provide fodder for bloggers, late-night comedians, and all those who deem this admin a joke. He has changed his story 5 times. As details come to light, he looks more and more guilty, not to mention stupid AF. I’ve watched Junior come up with excuse after excuse. Trump’s admin keeps trying to spin this. The main story seems to be “He didn’t actually get any damaging info, so this doesn’t count.” EXCUSE ME??? That is NOT the point. The point is: You and others in the Trump campaign knowingly and eagerly met with RUSSIANS to get damaging info on HRC. Merrian-Webster has changed the spelling of “collusion” to “JUNIOR” because of you! This is like saying: “Yes, officer, I DID break into that house and steal items. But no crime was committed b/c they weren’t worth much!” Your INTENT was to collude with a foreign government to win the major election in the United States. Whether or not you succeeded (in this meeting, at least) is irrelevant.

    Kushner, also present at this meeting, has amended his security clearance 3 times. He keeps forgetting meeting with foreign offials, i.e. Russians. Sessions also has neglected to list HIS contacts with Russian officials. With Russia being a main topic before, during, and after Trump’s election, how the fuck do you forget something like this? Were I a Trump official, I would even be putting down, “I watched Boris Badenov as a youngster!” But, nooooo. These people seem to have a collective and selective amnesia, which filters out meetings with foreign ambassadors, government representatives, and anyone else who might prove problematic. As the Church Lady would say, “Well, isn’t that convenient?!!”

  • The Debate

    The Debate

    I have to address the debate. I streamed it from the NYT. I wanted to have an actual debate party, maybe with drinking involved (not on my part, as I don’t imbibe), but all my friends who would be eagerly watching are either located elsewhere or coupled. I did try to do it by phone, but the acoustics set up a feedback, so we disconnected. I’m sure we’ll go over the debate this weekend, though. Anyway. here goes:

    The bar was set much differently for each candidate from the start. Trump would be applauded if he just didn’t implode, melt down, show his abysmal ignorance of any real political information, or walk off the stage in a huff. For Clinton, though, the expectations were different. She was supposed to somehow transform herself into someone that you’d want to make your BFF, feel warm and fuzzy about, show her compassionate side, etc. The moderator had to rein both political animals in, when they got rowdy.

    Trump started off the debate in a somewhat subdued manner-for Trump. That is to say, he was only speaking in a normal tone, though he was still almost loud as he spoke about trade. He employed his usual tactics of deflection often and rarely seemed to answer the question he had been asked, something that Clinton called him on. He interrupted Clinton, spoke over her, and shook his head. Later in the debate he reverted to classic Trump, blustery and full of self-praise for his own temperament, criticizing Clinton’s stamina and saying how good his relations with the African Americans were. He exited on weirdly back-handed threat of what he could have said about Clinton and her family-but didn’t. Factually, he espoused about what you’d expect: the birther lie ( that Hillary was responsible for the whole birther campaign);  that he opposed the war in Iraq before it began; that NATO never opposed terrorism until Trump brought to their attention; Ford is leaving the US; Clinton is responsible for ISIS; there are more. Listening to him last night, most of what I heard was MONEY MONEY MONEY….with a little Law-N-Order thrown in for good measure. But running a country is about so much more that dollars. It’s about government and politics and people and history, not to mention OTHER COUNTRIES. Trump failed to convince me that he has anything near the ability necessary to lead the US last night.

    Clinton. For the most part, she kept her cool. She was restrained, factual, and actually answered the questions she was asked. But, unlike Trump, Clinton has experience at debates and knows what she is about. The contrast between the two was glaring. Trump said once during the debate that it was “all sound-bites” in reference to Clinton’s replies, but in truth, that is all that TRUMP provided, as he gave little of substance and much of what sounded good.  He told the audience they could go to Hillary’s website and read her positions-have you ever been to TRUMP’S site? No positions, just videos-with sound-bites! He tried to attack her on stamina; she came back with a stinging reminder of her schedule as Secretary of State and followed it up with an attack on his remarks on women. She started out mild but in the end did what the moderator should have been doing-calling him out. She showed herself to be fierce and not to trifled with-good job!

    Will the debate change anything, though? Trump was clearly playing to his core constituency-white uneducated male (with some female) voters whom he hopes will sweep him into the White house. This group is what I term “true believers” and sometimes I think that they are so mesmerized by Trump that they just don’t care what he does. Confront them with words from his own mouth confirming that he has lied again and again-doesn’t matter;  show lawsuits, bankruptcies, debt -doesn’t matter; he professes admiration for the leader of Russia, a ruthless dictator-doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that he exudes strength, promises to make the country great (again), and seems to be an outsider in a political system that many view with suspicion. Clinton, by offering us a politically savvy opponent who had actual facts at her command, had to reach the voters who were wondering, “why her?” If watching this debate didn’t clarify THAT issue, then I shake my head. I’ve got more to say on the debate and the vision of America presented by each of the candidates, but that will be an issue for another time.

  • Shame On KY Gov. Matt Bevin!

    Shame On KY Gov. Matt Bevin!

    Last weekend at the Values Voters Summit, a meeting of far-right leaders, KY Governor Matt Bevin suggested that the election of Hillary Clinton would be the occasion for bloodshed. He specified that this would be blood of the tyrants and the patriots but worried that the ensuing conflict could even engulf his nine children, perhaps even his grandchildren. Now, this kind of alarmist rhetoric is nothing new from the alt-right. They preach Armageddon regularly, repetitively, and at tiresome length. But Gov. Bevin is an elected sitting official of the state of Kentucky, and as such, should not be blathering this tripe. Bad enough we get overblown nonsense from candidates running for the Presidency. On the campaign trail, especially THIS campaign trail, I’ve almost gotten used to a certain tabloid-like style, as candidates tweet their way across the landscape. But I still expect (unfairly? unlikely?) a modicum of common sense and judgement from those holding office. DON’T DO STUPID SILLY SHIT like calling for Hillary’s blood! It just makes you look crazy or deluded or LIKE YOU SHOULDN’T BE IN OFFICE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Sigh.

  • Shame On KY Gov. Matt Bevin!

    Shame On KY Gov. Matt Bevin!

    Last weekend at the Values Voters Summit, a meeting of far-right leaders, KY Governor Matt Bevin suggested that the election of Hillary Clinton would be the occasion for bloodshed. He specified that this would be blood of the tyrants and the patriots but worried that the ensuing conflict could even engulf his nine children, perhaps even his grandchildren. Now, this kind of alarmist rhetoric is nothing new from the alt-right. They preach Armageddon regularly, repetitively, and at tiresome length. But Gov. Bevin is an elected sitting official of the state of Kentucky, and as such, should not be blathering this tripe. Bad enough we get overblown nonsense from candidates running for the Presidency. On the campaign trail, especially THIS campaign trail, I’ve almost gotten used to a certain tabloid-like style, as candidates tweet their way across the landscape. But I still expect (unfairly? unlikely?) a modicum of common sense and judgement from those holding office. DON’T DO STUPID SILLY SHIT like calling for Hillary’s blood! It just makes you look crazy or deluded or LIKE YOU SHOULDN’T BE IN OFFICE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Sigh.

  • Advice to A Young Feminist

    Recently I made the acquaintance of a young feminist/activist. She had read my blog on a different site before I moved here and decided we were kindred spirits. She was despairing of contemporary America and told me that she planned to find an affordable island somewhere and set up a lesbian separatist commune. I was invited to join, and she asked for my thoughts and advice on the subject. After noting that I do not qualify either by gender or sexuality, being neither female nor lesbian (I had to explain I was ace and neutrois), I told her I had experience that historically most lesbian separatist communes failed. (I remember them from the 70s and 80s.) They do so b/c women are still humans and bring with them all the problems that humans have. IMHO if she were serious about wanting to improve the lives of women and work for a more equitable society, she would stay and fight here in the U.S. We live in a time of change, where women have amazing role models before them: Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Michelle Obama, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, etc…Should Clinton win, the glass ceiling of the highest office in the land will have been shattered. But the struggle for equal opportunity will not be over-there will still be those who seek to defund Planned Parenthood, ban abortions, and oppress LGBTQA individuals . Should (shudder) Trump win, those who are feminists/activists will be even more needed. Being the librarian I am, I gave her a reading list.

    I do intend to write on the Democrats and Hillary’s nomination. I’m dealing with some health issues, though, and my energy is limited.

  • RNC: “LOCK HER UP!” : A WITCH HUNT

    Upon perusing my posts, I feel like I should perhaps change the name of this blog to something more appropriate. RepublicanWatch? I’ll report on something else soon. It’s just that they make themselves, well, such tempting fare. The RNC, for instance. So many possible topics, I wasn’t sure which one I would choose. Malania’s plagiarised speech? The defunct NeverTrump movement? The cringe-worthy “minority you can trust ” remark by the (laughably non-representative) Asian-Americans For Trump? I decided to address the tone of the convention. While conventions past have been raucous and  involved namecalling by nominees, this particular one has taken on overtures that once again evoke more ominous images, say from a KKK rally, a witch burning, or a Hitler rally. There have been remarks made by speakers that were overtly racist, stating that the white race had contributed more than any other to civilization (something I’m certain that everyone not Caucasian is DELIGHTED to know, as well as, oh, China and India)and anti-transgender , calling them “absurd” ( something I’m sure that Caitlyn Jenner, who reported how difficult it was to come out as Republican, was overjoyed to hear). But most disturbing was the vitriol directed towards Hillary Clinton. This included a linkage of Clinton with Lucifer and a mock trial of Clinton. Rather than focusing upon the Republican nominee-Trump, the RNC seemed to feel that it could unite itself by bashing Clinton. The slogan became not “Make America Great Again” but “Lock Her Up.” The party that fractured over Trump attempted to put a bandage of “we might not like him but we surely hate HER” over its divide. Whether or not that will be enough remains to be seen. But it was enough to get those listening good and riled and to inspire the already-crazed to even loonier tunes. (Example-Frank Gaffney, a right-wing broadcaster, was so convinced by Christie’s mock trial of Clinton that he declared on his show that the only out for her was by a preemptive pardon by President Obama. Remember, now: CLINTON HAS NOT EVEN BEEN CHARGED WITH ANY CRIMES.)

    Though I would like to be aghast at such behavior, I cannot be. Witch hunts have a long history in this country. I saw Klan marches as child in my home state. I’ve seen films of Adolf Hitler as he roused crowds with his words. This raising of a new demagogue-Trump- on his path with racist, homophobic, and hateful words is sinking to only too human depths. I hope that we prove ourselves better than these people have acted.