Friday Reads: Republican Debate proves Adulting is Hard
Posted: March 11, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, Hillary Clinton 73 CommentsGood Afternoon!
Sometimes the way things work in this country really confuses me. Do you realize that our most well paid people either play with balls, play dress up and make believe, rely on their parents’ money, or gamble for a living? No wonder so many of them have such a difficult time adulting. What really confuses me is when they convince themselves they’re grown up enough to do something substantive like lead the country or fund some idiot to run the country the way they desire. The Republican debate last night basically highlighted a group of toddlers trying to act all grown up. It didn’t work for me.
Trump must have decided that he needed to prove he could adult last night. It didn’t really lead to any more substantive talk on actionable policy even though CNN pundits tried to convince each other that it did. Every thing was still grandiose abstractions. It did allow little Marco Rubio to apologize for his 7th grade locker room antics last time. Additionally, we got a peek at what an absolutely fanatical and slimy a person we have in Ted Cruz.
The upcoming problem is that the General Election is not the Republican primary. How can Hillary continue to face petulant toddlers and the pundit parents that continue to enable them?
At last night’s debate, Donald Trump lorded it over his rivals with supreme confidence. Gone was narcissistic, rambling, insult-spraying Trump. In his place stood calm, unifying, presidential Trump. The Donald noted with satisfaction that his foes were mostly laying off of him. “I can’t believe how civil it’s been up here,” he said, by which he really meant, “all you losers have surrendered to me, and I’m loving every minute of it.” And Trump may be right: it’s possible that by next week, he will be on a path to winning the nomination outright.
But if there is anything last night’s debate really revealed, it’s that Trump may not have any idea what is about to hit him soon enough. If Trump does become the nominee, he will run into a buzz saw of reality otherwise known as the general election, and he may not know how badly mangled he’ll get.
Last night’s debate is being widely described as a shift in tone: rather than lob schoolyard insults at each other, the GOP candidates had a real policy debate. And that’s true. But in the process, the debate really revealed the limitationsto the scrutiny Trump has faced on policy in the context of the GOP primaries — and that foreshadows, by contrast, just how brutal the scrutiny of Trump on policy will be in the general election, once those limitations are removed.
Consider a few of the main attacks that Trump had to endure last night. When Trump vaguely promised to keep entitlements solvent and to cut “waste, fraud and abuse,” Marco Rubio made a spirited case against Trump’s budgetary hocus pocus, repeatedly saying the numbers “don’t add up.” But Rubio was constrained from pointing out a key reason Trump’s numbers don’t add up — Trump’s tax plan would deliver a huge, deficit-busting tax cut for the rich — because Rubio’s plan does the same thing. Democrats speaking to a general election audience will be freer to attack Trump on this front.
Republicans continue to offer up policy that has never worked. What confuses me is how their voters don’t see that Trump’s tax plan is the same old, same old that all Republicans offer up. Are they all so wrapped up watching the shiny objects neatly wrapped up in ribbons of xenophobia, racism, misogyny and bigotry towards the GLBT community?
Here’s a nice little mini-scenario from my literally and figuratively sinking state of Louisiana. Business subsidies and cuts in taxes to the rich have gutted our ability to provide basic services and come any where near the ability to balance the budget. We just even elected a blue dog Dem as governor. However, the usual suspects have decided the way to try to close the gap is by sales tax increases on everything including food.
The poor in this state are paying for taxcuts to the rich. That’s the only Republican policy any of them have besides distracting their base with abortion controls here. It’s the local version of shiny object. Look ! We’re robbing you blind but we’ll restrict abortions even more to make you feel all holier than thou! This is a lot of the same crap that occurred on that stage last night. Government is the problem so you’re never going to get that bridge fixed, but hey, no trust fund baby will experience the evil death tax and look over there! We’ll build a wall because Mexican Rapists!!!
Louisianans will pay more and get back less under a compromise struck Wednesday over the state’s enormous budget gap.
The deal raises sales taxes by 25 percent — from four cents on the dollar to five — and applies the higher rate to a number of transactions that had previously been exempt from sales taxes.
It also falls $830 million short of fixing the state’s problems, making further cuts likely to services that have already been gutted.
Because the sales tax applies to consumption rather than income, the hike Louisiana lawmakers agreed to will be regressive: While people in the top 20 percent of the income distribution will pay 41 percent of the total cost of the tax hike according to the Louisiana Budget Project, the sales tax mechanism takes a bigger bite out of a poor family’s income than a rich one’s. Politicians are making poor people shoulder a load caused primarily by ex-Gov. Bobby Jindal’s (R) tax breaks for the rich.
The broad sales tax hike will raise $1.1 billion against the nearly $3 billion shortfall over the next 16 months. Lawmakers scrounged another $81 million from alcohol and cigarette tax hikes. These, too, are disproportionately targeted to low-income consumers who are more likely to smoke than wealthier people.
That’s not to say the deal was a complete rout for the underclass. Businesses lost some sales tax exemptions, and Democrats thwarted a campaign to raise the sales tax rate by twice as much.
The sales tax bump is temporary, scheduled to revert at the end of fiscal year 2018 according to the language of the bill. But with more red ink still on Louisiana’s horizon, lawmakers may be tempted to prolong the pain for shoppers in their state.
A slate of smaller business and sales tax tweaks will raise another $35 million or so. Much of the revenue raised by the combination of bills is listed as “uncertain” according to Associated Press. But state leaders expect these yet-unwritten tax provisions, including a sales tax for online purchases, to raise hundreds of millions more dollars.
The package still falls $30 million short of what Louisiana needs to fund all state services from now until the end of June, and $800 million shy of what’s needed for fiscal year 2017. Lawmakers faced a combined $3 billion gap over those two periods when Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) called them into the special session that closed about three quarters of the total hole.
Key state services are going to disappear into that remaining quarter of the budget hole. The $30 million shortfall this year will force cuts to agencies like the Department of Chilldren and Family Services, which was already at about half strength after massive cuts late in Jindal’s term.
How dumb can people that vote Republican continue to be? That’s what I keep asking over and over. Most Americans can see things slipping away. Why are they looking for love in all the wrong places?
Ted Cruz has turned into the darling of the National Review and the Luntz Focus Group. If there ever was an example of some one who can’t adult, it’s Ted Cruz. Do not follow this link unless you want to wind up at the Blaze where belief in the bizarre is a full time, ongoing concern.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) earned a 100-percent score from conservatives in Frank Luntz’s focus group when he talked about eliminating bureaucrats in Washington who are “killing jobs” at Thursday night’s GOP debate.
No Republican seems to understand what it takes to actually run a country or create an environment where there are jobs these days. They might as well stand up and say that little green men from mars taking money from you create jobs because that’s just about as a real. Like I said, the National Review just endorsed him. That’s proof they believe in little green men from mars creating jobs. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given that most of them still think the math-disabled Stephen Moore is an economist.
Let’s not forget. Ted Cruz is an end timer. He’s as besotted with as much end the world religious nonsense as the wackiest ayatollah in Iran. Every child likes a good fairy tale. But at some point and especially that point where some one wants to be the leader of the free world, you have to give up childish things.
Rafael Cruz is a pastor with Purifying Fire International Ministry, although in January 2014, as Ted Cruz was preparing his presidential swing, Rafael Cruz scrapped the group’s website after various blogs began identifying the ministry as rooted in “a radical Christian ideology known as Dominionism or Christian Reconstructionism.”
Dominionism calls on anointed Christian leaders to take over government to make the laws of the nation in accordance with Biblical laws. Rafael Cruz, at the Pastor Larry Huch’s New Beginnings mega-church in Bedford Texas, outside Dallas, on Aug. 26, 2012, in a Dominionist sermon proclaimed his son, Ted Cruz, to be the “anointed one,” a Dominionist Messiah who would bring God’s law to reign.
At a Dominionist pastor’s meeting held at the Marriott Hotel in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 19 and 20, 2013, the following “anointing prayer” was read over.
So to pull all this logic together, God anoints priests to work in the church directly and kings to go out into the marketplace to conquer, plunder, and bring back the spoils to the church. The reason governmental regulation has to disappear from the marketplace is to make it completely available to the plunder of Christian “kings” who will accomplish the “end time transfer of wealth.”
Then “God’s bankers” will usher in the “coming of the messiah.”
The government is being shut down so that God’s bankers can bring Jesus back. In an editorial published in the Washington Post on Feb. 4, on the heels of Cruz’s victory in the Iowa GOP primary, John Fea of the Religion News Service published an op-ed piece noting the frequent references Ted Cruz makes in stump speeches to his father “the traveling evangelist” Rafael Cruz.
“During a 2012 sermon at the New Beginnings Church in Bedford, Texas, Rafael Cruz described his son’s political campaign as a direct fulfillment of biblical prophecy,” Fea wrote. “The elder Cruz told the congregation God would anoint Christian ‘kings’ to preside over an ‘end-time transfer of wealth’ from the wicked to the righteous. After this sermon, Larry Huch, the pastor of New Beginnings, claimed Cruz’s recent election to the U.S. Senate was a sign he was one of these kings.”
Please let all that sink in as we consider if Trump–whose bullying behavior and racism has attracted the endorsement of the KKK–is really the worst alternative that the Republicans have emanated from they’re “tell them anything as long as we get our tax cuts” philosophy to life. The Republicans haven’t been too upset by the sight of a young black woman being assaulted or a black man being cold cocked. But, damn, assault one of their own and it’s on!!!
Brietbart tries to square the circle about the apparent assault on their reporter, Michelle Fields, allegedly by Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
Their gist – it may have been a security guy on the grassy knoll, not Lewandowski [Ben Terris, WaPo eyewitness, stands firm.]:
The Scrum: Video Emerges to Suggest WaPo Reporter Ben Terris Misidentifies Lewandowski in Fields Incident
…
Contrary to what Donald Trump said Thursday evening after the GOP debate, the incident certainly happened. However, the person who made contact with Fields was likely not Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
As Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson said Thursday on the Fox Business Network, “someone probably did grab her,” i.e. Fields, though Pierson claimed it could not have been Lewandowski.
Audio of the incident, published on Politico, shows Fields asking Terris if the individual who pulled her left arm was, in fact, “Corey.” Terris says it was — an assertion he later repeated in print: “I watched as a man with short-cropped hair and a suit grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the way. He was Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 41-year-old campaign manager.”
However, Lewandowski was not the only “man with short-cropped hair and a suit” walking near Trump. And he was walking on the opposite side of Trump from Fields, and Terris.
More video is likely to surface [Here is MSNBC – see UPDATE]:
People regularly get assaulted at Trump Rallies. Have you ever heard of that kind of thing before?
A 78-year-old white man punched a black protester in the face at a Donald Trump rally and was charged with assault, media said Thursday, in chaotic scenes on the presidential campaign trail.
John McGraw — who later said that next time “we might have to kill him” — was also charged with battery and disorderly conduct after the event Wednesday night in North Carolina, the Cumberland County sheriff’s office told the local TV station WRAL.
The incident was condemned by Bernie Sanders, who is vying with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for the White House.
“No one in America should ever fear for their safety at a political rally. This ugly incident confirms that the politics of division has no place in our country. Mr. Trump should take responsibility for addressing his supporters’ violent actions,” Sanders said.
Multiple videos of the assault show McGraw abruptly punching the young black man in the face as he was walking up a stairway with other protesters being escorted out by police, amid cries of “USA! USA!”
McGraw was not arrested until Thursday morning, as video of the assault gained widespread attention. He was released after posting a $2,500 bond, CNN reported.
So, why do all these Republicans find it so difficult to adult? Are we truly watching them fall apart? Can we get enough turnout by the rest of us to end this now? Is this the Republicans “McGovern” moment? Is it a repeat of the Goldwater campaign? Nate Silver discusses this election and “The Party Decides” which is a 2008 book by the political scientists Marty Cohen, David Karol, Hans Noel and John Zaller.
Nonetheless, truly disastrous nominations like McGovern’s have been rare. Instead, parties have usually nominated candidates who, as the book puts it, are:
- “Credible and at least reasonably electable”;
- “Representatives of their partisan traditions.”
You might describe these two dimensions (as we sometimes have) as “electability” and “ideological fit.” The goal for a party is to find a candidate who scores highly along both axes. George W. Bush in 2000, for example, was acceptable to all major factions of the GOP, but he also began the race as a “compassionate conservative” with a highly favorable image among general election voters. It’s no surprise that Bush won his nomination easily.
At other times, the party must contemplate a trade-off between these goals. Sometimes, it will choose a candidate who breaks with party orthodoxy in important ways, but who has a lot of crossover appeal to general election voters. Bill Clinton in 1992 and John McCain in 2008 are good examples. Or, it may go for broke with an ideologically “pure” candidate whose electability is unproven. Sometimes, the gamble pays off, as it did for Republicans with Ronald Reagan in 1980, but there’s also the risk of winding up with the next Barry Goldwater. Note that Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz, if chosen, would arguably8 fit into the category of ideologically pure but electorally dubious nominees.
There were no good candidates put forth by the Republicans this year. We’re actually getting to the point where we’re down to perhaps the worst two and the party is getting behind the crazy person over the malignant narcissist. Actually more telling is that Carly Fiorina got behind Ted Cruz and Ben Carson is now behind Trump. What we found out about them pretty much gives us an indication of why they went after who they did. Fiorina’s crazy attachment to all the untrue things about Planned Parenthood showed that she was mean and completely irrational. Carson came off as an idiot savant. He was at least successful at something and much well thought of albeit I’m still not sure exactly how some one that spacey could do complex surgery.
Then, there’s Bernie Sanders.
It seems obvious to me that there’s only one person that gives the country a chance of a future in the race. Trump will sell us to the highest bidder. Cruz will blow us up to get to the end times. Sanders will ignore everything but his own 70s paradigm of the world and we’ll be lucky if anything gets done at all any where but in his mind.
The choice has never seemed more clear. I really hope Hillary’s life time experience of being denigrated and persecuted serves her well We’re going to have to make a huge wall around her because it can only get worse as we careen towards the General. We need to be adults backing the only adult candidate in the room.
These beautiful caricatures/political cartoons are drawn by Steve Brodner who also does wonderful commentary. I’m a yugggge fan. Visit his page for more wonderful drawings.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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Sky Dancing 
http://billmoyers.com/story/blowing-the-biggest-political-story-of-the-last-fifty-years/
Transformation of the Republican party into one of hate and obstruction.
Gawd’s annointed? What farce of a world are we in? It’s looking more and more as if the toddler/freshman frat boy mentality is winning in politics. And they’ve bought all the journalists.
Meanwhile, I read this morning in my local paper that Seattle tops US cities for the most per-capita donations to Bernie. Easy enough to see why, and I disagree with that reporter that it’s due to Seattle’s liberalism. Seattle is swarming with pro-bros working for Amazon, Microsoft and their ilk — and not the ones sweating away in the warehouses. Hordes of well-paid badged young guys and a few gals walking around thumbing away at their smartphones.. They drove out all the small industry, second-hand furniture shops and old houses to put up boxy condos, boxy office towers, and more boxy condos. And restaurants with $20 “bites” of bacon, arugula & “foraged” (stolen out of our national parks) mushroom on a triangular plate. And driving up rents and housing prices. The average rent for a 1-bedroom apartment is now $1,700. Bernie, never mind free college. How about affordable housing? Got any real plans for that?
Yep and don’t forget that they are sexists. Hubby works with someone who came from Microsoft. We’ve socialized with him on several occasions, having our common Seattle experiences as well as our liberalism in common with him. I’ve always enjoyed his company but not this year. Hubby has mentioned some subtle but disturbing sexism that he’s picked up from the guy and sure enough, he’s for Bernie. Those tech dudes are more often than not, pretty sexist.
Yes, the misogyny has been blatant at tech conferences.
I don’t know what is going on. Need to catch up. Shit. Just got back from another day in Atlanta.
Sanders thinks if he wins swing states in the Midwest and West that Superdelegates will switch their support to him. He thinks he can win Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and then later New York and California.
Trump: most likely to lose to Clinton. And the Repubs look likely to nominate the orange hairball.
Sanders: the only candidate who could lose to Trump. So the Democrats, of course, make sure he can’t … oh, wait. I forgot. We’re talking about the Democrats here. The Democrats make sure to continue tearing down their best candidate in decades.
The stupidity. It burns.
Yes, but right now the polls show him beating all the Republicans–before he has been attacked and painted as a commie.
Democrats — Are they going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory again?
I’m hoping the superdelegates are smarter than the average Berner.
I don’t know if they’re smarter, but they’re just as self-interested. And they know d*mn well that Clinton will have coattails and bring the money in for them, Bernie won’t. Even if pledged delegates were close (they won’t be), switching for Sanders would require some serious self-sacrifice and would be against their self-interest. THAT’S not going to happen.
This is very different from 2008, when all many of them could see was all the rain Obama was making and they all thought they’d get wet too. They know Bernie wouldn’t make that happen for them.
Sanders had this event called “Bern the Witch” posted on his Facebook page for months until a Clinton supporter noticed it. They took it down, but people got screenshots. Click the link to see.
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“Oh, but that’s not sexist!”
Can you imagine what the media would say if Hillary had the equivalent up on her Facebook page? Not that she would stoop to something like this.
Bernie Bros strike again!
OMG…….we saw this coming in Chicago……….Trump postponed the rally……….The republicans made Trump, and this is what they want, and now they have to deal with it. So watch, Trump is going to blame it on the media.
I’m over here watching CNN slack jawed. Holy shit. WTF has become of us. Hubby keeps saying this is Germany in the 1930’s. Holy shit.
Exactly!
Surprise, surprise! They have just admitted that some of these protesters are Bernie Bros!
This is not good. I can only imagine what will happen when she gets the nomination.
I watched it as it was happening live on CNN. There were a lot of Bernie Bros & Girls in the middle of that mess. I’m basically stunned because it became confrontational as soon as the announcement went out that the event had been cancelled. And it wasn’t old Trump supporters against young Bernie supporters, it was young people against other young people.
Who knows how this will effect those who heard or saw this. I personally was upset that the Trump supporters immediately became antagonistic and the Bernie’s supporters began cheering “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie” in what looked to be a taunting effort. I totally understand the anger, but the protesters MUST protest peacefully or this will quickly become mob on mob.
As a young woman I was involved in Civil rights and Vietnam War protests and even though it got out of hand on many occasions, it rarely got out of hand because of the protesters, it usually got out of hand because Law Enforcement lost their composure. Tonight Law Enforcement looked to be handling it well inside of the Arena, but who knows what happened outside of the arena out of camera range.
I just saw a comment on FB about some major shit going down about 40-60 minutes ago?
Supporters of Trump still inside chanted “We want Trump” after the event was canceled. Protesters, meanwhile, shouted “We shut s*** down” and “We stumped Trump.” Others chanted “Bernie” as supporters whipped out Bernie Sanders campaign signs.
Holy fucking shit. Pictures http://www.politico.com/gallery/2016/03/trump-chicago-canceled-rally-chaos-gallery-002233?slide=20.
It was not a pretty picture. I’m just thankful it didn’t go nuclear! Had it we would have seen a lot of very young people hurting each other and probably very badly because when fists begin to fly, the cops have a tendency to pull the billy clubs.
Thank you…………..I was on the way out to my grandson’s play, and only caught the little bit, enough to run here, and say the shit was coming down. Hillary’s been talking about it at every debate, the republicans want her to shut up, and so does Bernie. And the media said she was only talking about Trump and jumping the gun to the general election. She had a message, and it was one of ugliness, and nobody wanted to pay her attention.
And what really pisses me off, is Ted Cruz responding to this all, saying don’t vote for Hillary, vote for me……..Bastard.
Some HRC folks were there. Said they saw the Bernie folks going all 1968 and then the Trump folks started going after them. The HRC folks bolted. Sheesh! We had a protest here without this kind of crap! Chicago never changes!
Whoa……….Hillary is from Illinois. I just finished watching Rachel Maddow, and listening to Trump in St. Louis, and all I can say is this is the leader that says he is going to “unify” the country. Rachel’s last words were this the republican party voting for Trump to be president.
Reminds me of 1968 Chicago Dem convention.
That’s what came to mind as I watched it unfold, but fortunately it didn’t escalate to that level. And this confrontation, unlike Chicago 68′, wasn’t young protesters vs. cops, it was young protesters vs. young protesters.
Yup
Like you, I’ve been in protest crowds, and I remember being packed like sardines, and trying to move, and I couldn’t, and panic set in with the pushing back and forth. Then all the smoke, and screaming. I remember that when I finally got freed, I took off running like a bat out of hell.
I was dragged from a sit-in across concrete, still have scars from the abrasions!
Meanwhile, all my older gay friends are up in arms about this and vowing to never vote for Hillary now.
http://gawker.com/hillary-clintons-reagan-aids-revisionism-is-shocking-i-1764346878
Yeah, she really stepped into some shit. She apologized already. Like hubby said, people die and you say something nice. That’s what you do. Although she could have said something else.
Yep, it was a very bad day for Hillary in the LGBT community. Ronald & Nancy Reagan abandoned us at the beginning of the AIDS/HIV epidemic and didn’t turn their head back in our direction until tens-of-thousands had died. I lost friends & family. Gay men and lesbians were taking care of the sick because care givers didn’t want to come into the home and care for AIDS patients. I was stunned that Hillary got that so wrong and I attribute it to fatigue. All she could do was apologize and she has.
I more than remember all of that but Nancy did advocate. It just hardly made up for the evil of her husband’s administration
http://www.advocate.com/politics/2016/3/06/remembering-nancy-reagan-her-involvement-aids-crisis
This is what I wrote to friends I’m old enough to have been turned away from my work on passing the ERA to come to the support of sick friends during the first wave. These were boys I knew from grade school and high school and college. Their family turned their back on them. At first, everyone thought it was drug addicts. The rumors of casual contact were so bad I had people telling me I’d likely kill my baby by bringing dinner and clean clothes. The Reagan Administration was awful. It wasn’t until Nancy took a pic with Rock Hudson and lobbyied Liz Taylor to get out front and lobbied that idiot husband of hers that the real activists started being heard. Most every one I knew wasn’t even out of the freaking closet let alone getting out there on AIDS. The blanket, Philadelphia, Ryan White and Elton John started a deadly and I mean deadly slow realization that things had to change. Nancy Reagan was not the enemy. My guess is Reagan himself would have never done anything if she wasn’t around. Every freaking person in the planet should be ashamed of how things were allowed to drag on and on after thousands of deaths. All I can say is that seeing everything that went on back then after the progress of now must seem like discovering barbarians. Thank goodness things have changed! But if you didn’t know what the entire country was like back then it’s a lot easier to judge any one person. The entire country is to freaking blame and back then any help was better than what most of my late friends got from even their closest relatives. The level of fear and ignorance was astounding. I don’t think she was brave and heroic but I think she did advocate. I look back and wish we all did more. I can’t tell you how I miss those boys who graced my teenage days and died before they could really live. Again, this topic is too damned nuanced for a freaking sound bite. Some advisor should have told her to pass but for all the things that Nancy Reagan did I hated, I have to give her some due on this. But never, her damn husband
Right on.
I spent a portion of today talking to friends who are very upset by this. Of course my friends are Boomers & Beyond and many felt as if she had forgotten those days. As I explained to my friends, it’s one thing to have lived that nightmare and another to have been on the outside looking in. Our memories are seared with the rejection and the failure of our government to care about what was happening. The LGBT community loathes Ronald & Nancy Reagan so any kind words toward either of them are rejected out of hand.
Most of the Gay people I know will not allow it to affect their vote, except those who weren’t going to vote for her anyway or were on the fence. If your friends are in LA, then they’ve already voted for her in the Primary, they’ll warm up to her again by the GE.
(Not disagreeing with your actual points, but I do think you’re wrong about this “The level of fear and ignorance was astounding” if you’re implying it’s a lower level now. Sure, it’s a lot lower about AIDS. But look at the reaction of some people in the US to the concept that Ebola might be anywhere on the same continent as them. I’m not sure I can say they’re more delirious now, because they were pretty bad then, but they are still plenty bad enough.)
Well that and the fact that the rights movement was so young. So many people in the closet so unless you lived near and around a gay enclave most folks couldn’t really put a face on some one who could have AIDS, you know? It was a problem most middle America thought was confined to the gay bath houses of SF or NYC. That’s part of why coming out became urgent. Rock Hudson was the original hero of AIDS because he put a face everyone knew and loved on it. That’s what moved stupid Reagan too finally after so many deaths. But yes, Ebola had the similar reactions.
Thank you for sharing. It brought back tearful memories of the time I spent with my friend, Russell, who died in the first wave. He and I became friends when I first moved to DC. As his “friends” and family stepped further and further away from him, I was one of the last to stay by his side. It was a heartbreaking time for everyone with a soul. People at the office wouldn’t eat the brownies he brought in one day. They didn’t want to sit near him or shake his hand. When he couldn’t work anymore, hubby (we were dating then) and I would go pick him up and take him places just to get him out of the makeshift hospital room on the first floor of his parents’ house. His parents took him in, which was wonderful, but he said his mom would put on gloves before she came into the room to see him.
Those were dark days and Reagan’s inaction likely resulted in so many more deaths than was necessary. I know she did not have bad intentions but I’m truly sorry for anyone who was hurt by what Hillary said. I have no doubt that she is sick about it too.
Wonderful story!
Thank you both for loving and defending your gay friends. I know you both realize that you were the exceptions.
She got it right this time. https://medium.com/@HillaryClinton/on-the-fight-against-hiv-and-aids-and-on-the-people-who-really-started-the-conversation-7b9fc00e6ed8#.84m179tz7
Why is it that doing the right thing is nearly always the exception to the rule in this damn country?
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/nancy-reagan/2011/01/other-headline-9.html
You know, I have to say this, she was at the funeral for a reason. It was somewhat a break, couldn’t she just for one day, zipped it. Damn it.
I only say that, not to shut her up, but to tell her to take a break. Funeral’s do different things to people, I’ve seen things said that made my eyes pop.
I am sorry, I told myself, if she could make it to the 15 Mar, it would be over, and that is what I said. That she couldn’t let up until it was over, and it was full press court ahead.
By the by, I am still waiting till midnight 15 Mar………..she’s been far ahead.
She will be far ahead.
I agree Fannie, when she takes a day off, she needs to stay away from the MSM unless there’s some sort of National Emergency that she needs to address. I hope she got some rest after the funeral and comes back stronger tomorrow. I look forward to hearing what she has to say about what happened in Chicago.
Lol. Not the best day or topic to be nuanced!
On one of the programs aired about Nancy Reagan shortly after her death, it said that she did encourage Ronnie to take action on AIDS. They said it was due to her friendship with Rock Hudson. Sorry I can’t remember the channel or the program.
So the revisionism is out there. But one would hope that Clinton’s staff would verify their facts more carefully.
I didn’t see your other comments before I posted. It seems it wasn’t revisionism. Just so low key that it didn’t register.
It registered eventually. It’s just by that time 20+ thousand people had died. There should have been more urgency for her to be a hero. She wasn’t an obstacle. She just plodded along in a way that just was not helpful and cost many lives and potential progress on a cure.
“Nancy Reagan shortly after her death, it said that she did encourage Ronnie to take action on AIDS.”
I’ve read that too, but who knows whether it’s true. She had a lot of influence over Reagan, but apparently not enough to get him to act before tens of thousands of people were dead or dying after being exposed simply because they didn’t know exactly the way it was transmitted. As I told Dak, the LGBT community loathes the Reagan’s and there’s nothing good Hillary could have said about Nancy Reagan that gay people would have been happy about. I felt compassion for her children, but I didn’t shed a tear at her passing or Ronald’s.
This is what we remember
http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/nancy-reagan-turned-down-rock-hudsons-plea-for-help-seven-we#.kbemRoeB9
“Rock Hudson was desperately trying to get treatment for AIDS in France in 1985. Much of that story has been told, but one part hasn’t: After a simple plea came in for White House help to get Hudson transferred to another hospital, First Lady Nancy Reagan turned down the request. ”
This article talks about this story as if it is news, but the gay community has known this story for decades.
Yup. Mentioned that when I stuck this obit up the day she died. She was no hero at all. She didn’t want to be the FLOTUS that was seen as political at all and people died because of that. It took Hillary to reenter the Eleanor Roosevelt mold. I would never praise Reagan but I think Ron Jr and Nancy tried to get his attention. At that point, any attention was positive again, albeit wayyyy over due. Remember C Everett Koop? He took it from those crazy religious Republicans trying to suggest sex Ed and information on AIDs too. Most of the Reagan appointees were assess. I never like Nancy, but I did feel the Rock Hudson picture stopped the glacially slow reaction to the crisis. I’d lost so many friends at that point I’d have taken any win.
PBS. I think I stuck the link on here.
She did. It was just very slow coming and way late. But, at that point anything to push research forward helped.
I think Hillary wanted to give Nancy Reagan credit for what she did, even if very little and late, because women so rarely get credit for what they do. Especially women in politics.
This lack of credit is even illustrated by so many people thinking that Nancy Reagan did absolutely nothing, because official history ignored her except in her wife-appendage role.
I agree, and we don’t like it when people blame Hillary for Bill’s missteps. First ladies don’t make policy.
That occurred to me too. The country reams a political FLOTUS.
Very well said.
What the fuck………………I am lost, shit.
I see Trump responds on Fox news saying it’s unfair.
Bullies never think it’s their fault.
Trump is saying that he was holding a peaceful rally. And Chicago is always a very bad place for rallies…
Trump: We’ve had no problems up until today. Fucker lies every damn day.
Trump: I was given credit for doing the right thing today. Yeah, by Shawn Hannity.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/escalating-aggression-marks-trump-s-rhetoric-642743363967?cid=sm_fb_maddow
This is really worth watching.