The rise of Donald Trump has seen a whole lot of people in the Republican party and conservative movement suddenly realizing that divisive rhetoric and xenophobic attitudes and bigotry are bad things, even though they were advocating those very same things for decades except using coded language. They seem outraged that he is openly saying what they were covertly advocating.
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Last night’s Republican debate followed the familiar pattern, and even more so, of insults and endless crosstalk with the candidates and moderators talking over each other so much that often it was hard to figure out who was saying what. It resembled nothing so much as siblings arguing, with repeated “No, I’m not” “Yes, you are” types of exchanges. Adding to the cacophony was that the audience was even more rowdy, whooping it up even before the candidates were introduced, maintaining a constant background chatter accompanied by boos and cheers and repeated calling out of things that I could not make out. The event can only be described as an embarrassment.
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First up is The Daily Show where I like the way that Noah exposes speaker Paul Ryan’s hypocritical statements that the Republican party should not be a home for prejudice, when in reality appealing to people’s prejudices is what the party has long been about.
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Super Tuesday on March 1 was supposed to be the day when the primary races were largely settled with a clear winner emerging, with all the other candidates acknowledging reality and dropping out of the race and throwing their weight behind the party nominee, enabling that person to focus for the next eight months on uniting the party and crafting a message that would win the general election in November.
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The two party establishments must have been wishing for different results than what they got last night. On the Democratic side, no doubt they were clearly hoping that Hillary Clinton would crush Bernie Sanders and force him out of the race quickly so that then Clinton and the party could go back to their familiar and comfortable space of oligarchy-friendly, Wall Street-friendly, and war-friendly policies without the pesky Sanders forcing her to address the issues of inequality, war, and the corrupt political system that have been the cornerstones of his candidacy.
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She rightly points out that while we pay a lot of attention to presidential election years, we pay far too little attention to mid-term elections and local and state elections, although these can have very significant consequences. The low voter turnout at such elections tends to result in horrible people getting elected to office.
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One of the zombie memes of this election cycle is that while Sanders is the better candidate on the issues and has been a consistent supporter of progressive values all his life, we should vote for the warmongering, oligarchy-supporting Hillary Clinton because despite her dubious past policy positions and doubtful integrity, she is the more ‘electable’ candidate.
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Hillary Clinton has refused to release the transcripts of her speeches to Goldman Sachs, speeches for which she received a whopping $675,000 for just three speeches. It is unlikely that she had anything to say that was of practical use to the audience of investment bankers, so naturally one wonders why they were willing to pay her so much and why she is so reluctant to reveal their contents.
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Yesterday a federal judge ruled against the FBI in its efforts to get Apple to unlock the phone of a suspected drug dealer. This ruling has an impact on the other case in which the FBI has demanded that Apple unlock the phone of the San Bernadino shooter. The government is using a 227-year old law known as the All Writs Act as the basis for its claim. (Neil Richards and Woodrow Hartzog explain the origins and purpose of this law.)
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The Daily Show compares the records of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on civil rights issues.
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