By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Readers, I owe you a double apology: First, that I spaced out and didn’t post a Water Cooler yesterday, Tuesday, with no announcement or anything. That happened because I’ve been going mad buttoning the house up and painting rooms and shelving books and heaving out stuff generally, and mulching the front lawn to kill off the last of the grass that isn’t quack grass (sigh), and happened yesterday because yesterday was a travel day for me, and I had somehow gotten into my mind the idea that I was traveling on Labor Day, and hence, travel equaled holiday equaled no post. Unfortunately for us all, Labor Day was Monday. And not Tuesday. I get calendar slippage whenever I go mad. Sorry!
Second apology: This is a vacation week for me, and so I will be posting very light Water Coolers through and including Tuesday of next week. Sorry!
You might like to peruse this article by the normally astute Matt Taibbi: “How Donald Trump Lost His Mojo.” When you unwrap the opinion from the reporting, you’ll see it’s a trip report from a Trump rally.
We’ve seen a number of such reports; some we’ve linked to (here, here, and here) and others we’ve posted (here, here).
Now we have this trip report from Taibbi, and I’m interested to find out what readers think about the reporting, in comparison to the other reports. Exercise your mad critical thinking skillz!
Readers, feel free to contact me with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, and (c) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. And here’s today’s plant (CF):
CF writes: “I spotted this flowering plant at a rehab center in Florida, where my Grandmother is currently recovering from a stroke (all things look good!) She liked the flower a lot, maybe it truly is a plantidote!”
Readers, if you can, please use the dropdown to choose your contribution, and then click the hat! Your tip will be welcome today, and indeed any day. Water Cooler will not exist without your continued help.
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that is oleander. it is highly fragrant, and highly poisonous. so you can look at it, smell it, admire it, but don’t eat it. so beautiful!!!!
Ha! Oh dear, I guess my Grandmother might be in danger then! I love the irony of that plant being at a rehab center/nursing home… maybe it is intentional?
NOVACANCY.And on the note of our healthcare system, while I was down there with her she was being moved from the hospital to the rehab center. It was a mess of little to zero explanation of what was going on, what the plans were, etc… etc… It illustrated well our system that holds no one accountable because every single component is a separate entity, none of which are ultimately responsible for a patient’s care. It is a system of incompetence by design.
She is doing better now, at least physically, and is back at home (in Florida). Apparently the doctor diagnosed her with Alzheimer’s a few months back (no one in the family knew). But she is still basically herself which is nice.
But she is still basically herself which is nice.
For the last ten years of her life, my grandmother never knew what year it was, what day of the week it was, or who was president. She was also a gift of grace to everyone with whom she came into contact. “It’s my mind I miss the most” she’d say in her Southern mill town accent – and laugh. And we’d all laugh with her.
Confederate Widow Maker- oleander
Contrary to the annoying ads that used to come from the Alzheimer’s Association, the self is the thing that sticks. Skills go, conversation goes, but the person who is continues to be. Enjoy her, and avoid caregivers who treat her like a diagnosis instead of a person.
Unless you’re trying to escape the draft, are in the induction process at that very moment, and are short on options and long on resolve. It worked for a past neighbor of mine.
Plantidote looks like the deadly Oleander
Don’t plant oleander if you have pets. They probably wouldn’t eat enough to kill themselves, but could make themselves sick.
– TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!” shouts the virtually all-white, mostly male crowd of fifty- and sixty- and seventysomethings. Trump’s speeches increasingly look like VFW raffle nights.
Kind of Taibbi to let his readers know their demographic distance in the third paragraph.
He really needs to read Scott Adams on A-B testing. This is a long way from the vampire squid.
Am I the only one who has been extremely unimpressed by Scott Adams’ writing in this election cycle? For all of his hugely smug columns and interviews I have yet to see a single compelling argument that any of these things will scale into electoral success. But he still predicts “Trump in a landslide” and any other result will probably be dismissed as a problem with the voters and not his analysis.
It will be dismissed as a problem with continuing rigging since Iowa, Arizona, etc. earlier this years.
I notice that every Adams blog article ends with “Buy my book!” I wonder how many new drive-by readers Adams gained for his blog by writing about his predictions for Trump over and over and over again. I wonder how many of those drive-by readers have become set-and-stay readers impressed by Adams’s self-advertised expertise in the dark arts of hypnosis and persuasionology. I wonder how many of those new readers will go on to Buy! His! Book!
This could all be a clever project on Adams’s part to increase readers in order to increase book sales as a percent of those increased readers.
dismissed as a problem with the voters and not his analysis.
I fear that “They” already have Putins evil Hax0rs lined up for the occasion, should Hillary lose the election. Fear – because that would be really ugly. “They” would need to kick off WW3 immediately to avoid Civil War II at home.
Which I think she might well do. There just too many loose skeletons rattling in her closet. Containment is failing and Hillary is just not putting up a good show.
Speaking of the squid….
Goldman Sachs bans employee donations to Trump, not Clinton
Goldman Sachs has banned partners of the firm from donating money to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, multiple sources reported late Tuesday.
“The policy change is also meant to minimize potential reputational damage caused by any false perception that the firm is attempting to circumvent pay-to-play rules, particularly given partners’ seniority and visibility,” the firm wrote in the memo to employees. “All failures to pre-clear political activities as outlined below are taken seriously and violations may result in disciplinary action.”
But what Goldman Sachs has not clarified is why top employees are still allowed to financially support Hillary Clinton’s Democratic bid.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/goldman-sachs-bans-employee-donations-to-trump-not-clinton/article/2601137?
Hillary’s Goldman handcuffs,,,,,,,,,,,,Hillary Clinton is looking into it…….
http://iwilllookintoit.com/
More squid…..
Wall Street’s Latest Retail Fleecing Product is Revealed – Structured CDs
Michael Krieger
Ms. Bailey, the Citizens Bank customer in Massachusetts, had sold a condo in Maine in 2013, a year after the death of her husband, who she says had handled their finances. She went to a Citizens branch in Arlington, a suburb of Boston, to deposit the money. She says bank employees pressured her not to just park the money in a savings account.
She says she was directed to Citizens broker Andrew Jurkunas, who steered her to a CD called the
GS Momentum Builder Multi-Asset 5 ER Index-Linked Certificate of Deposit Due 2021.
It is one of a series of CDs based on a Goldman Sachs-designed index that tracks the performance of up to 14 exchange-traded funds and a cash-like holding.
The index aggregates the performance of different combinations of some or all of the underlying funds, relying on a complex formula designed to smooth volatility.
When Ms. Bailey received her first statement showing that the value of her CD had dropped by more than $4,000, she complained to Massachusetts state securities regulators. This January, the office filed civil charges against the bank alleging that Mr. Jurkunas, who wasn’t named or accused of wrongdoing, didn’t adequately disclose the risks of the market-linked CD.
– From yesterday’s excellent Wall Street Journal article: Wall Street Re-Engineers the CD—and Returns Suffer
“Banks have to be delighted with these structured products,” said Steve Swidler, a finance professor at Auburn University. “There’s virtually no risk to them, and [the banks] sit back and rake in fees.”
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/09/07/wall-streets-latest-retail-fleecing-product-is-revealed-structured-cds/
Lloyd Blankfein and friend approve of this message.
Citizens United is all about freedom of speech, and money is speech, so you can spend it however you want, unless a private corporation decides you can’t.
How would they know? Does the squid have its tentacles into everything like the NSA?
It was his reporting on Trump that made me realize that Taibbi has some very big blind spots in his political perceptions. Add to it the fact that Taibbi wrote this when Trump was considered to be in free fall and went ahead and posted it even though the tone of the race coverage has changed since then.
Taibbi-on-Trump is like PJ O’Rourke on anything – read it for the entertainment value, not incisive content. Scott Adams is just having fun trolling right now but he still makes more sense than Taibbi.
In the last few months, I have groked, (from Stranger in a Strange Land) that the Main Stream Media is owned by, and completely controlled by, the 1%. We are living, right at this very moment, in a Totalitarian World, but one that is being advised by behavioral psychologists. (It does not seem so bad, does it?)
When Taibbi described “the Vampire Squid”, I was enthralled. BUT, nothing happened! If fact, it was as if Goldman Sacks reveled in the description, and continued on to greater “enterprises”.
Trump is describing The Matrix (which is fine with TPTB), AND promising to end it, which is NOT OK!!!!!!! (Imagine a hysterical and screaming voice)
Mat Taibbi is just another one of their (1%) hysterical hostages. He fears (vilifies) Donald Trump, because Donald Trump is rescuing him. (It makes sense when you go down the rabbit hole)
“Stockholm syndrome can be seen as a form of traumatic bonding, which does not necessarily require a hostage scenario, but which describes “strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other.” One commonly used hypothesis to explain the effect of Stockholm syndrome is based on Freudian theory. It suggests that the bonding is the individual’s response to trauma in becoming a victim. Identifying with the aggressor is one way that the ego defends itself. When a victim believes the same values as the aggressor, they cease to be perceived as a threat.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
As ever, IMO.
I first became aware of Taibbi years ago when a friend sent me a xeroxed copy of a piece he did on a state fair. Utterly hilarious and trenchant. However, when surveying mass political opinion he seems to lose control of the humor, his analytic sense of responsibility dwindles. He can blend humor with analysis; his writings on finanzkapital in its squid phase have put us in his debt for that great popularization. But his work on Trump tends to replay the state fair stuff and, though he tends to beat out the crowd of others taking the same approach, it’s like something out of Comedy Central, mostly lampoon and dismissal.
Some tunes.
Tracy Chapman – Stand by Me (Live). Letterman almost remembered how to smile at the end.
https://youtu.be/8XL6C3vY0jM
Merle Haggard – Mama Tried (Live)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loT_pYzi3Vw
Edsilia Rombley – Metropole Orkest – Get Ready. The Dutch have turned Motown into a classical music form.
https://youtu.be/eF0F1DEbKyI?list=PLc95krzo6sUL-FoUTnjiDKsIFSEK93Nh3
I Can’t Go For That —– Cee Lo Green Live From Daryl’s House
https://youtu.be/GoXxdObGKuI
Honest Man – Little Feat – LIVE at Bonnaroo
https://youtu.be/9qoRsS5H9xI
Thanks for the links, especially the Tracy Chapman.
I’m partial to this version of “I Can’t Go For That”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJiCUdLBxuI
Those who only know Cyndi Lauper from “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” might be pleasantry surprised by this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhRTUbv5J_Q
Those van sessions are surprisingly entertaining. It may have to do with memories of singing in the car on family trips. Unfortunately for mine, I can barely carry a tune or keep the beat.
Seeing Little Feat without Lowell George, especially when they do his songs, makes me sad.
You’re right. The Obama t-shirt on Bill Payne didn’t help either.
Since you’re felling nostalgic, Lowell George (and three Little Feat) produced an album for Robert Palmer. Riverboat has the sound.
https://youtu.be/9-jy7VnrxFY?list=PL7mn431TW3sKHNdd5IgH1x4ilmpH3iYJR
Music of a different kind.
Jackie Chan still punching and hamming after 62 years.
Riffin’ on the theme, an extraordinarily beautiful film.
> I Can’t Go For That —– Cee Lo Green Live From Daryl’s House
I find it somewhat distressing that Cee Lo Green performed in my house without my knowing about it.
Lambert — you shouldn’t feel any need to make apologies for taking a vacation. As for spacing out on the day of the week after travel — I lose track of the day of the week constantly. I often have to check my cell phone to make sure what day it is if I have an appointment coming up. I constantly wonder how you’re able to generate so much thoughtful and well written analysis. Thank you for all the hard work you do keeping us well informed and on our toes when we comment.
(Applause)
+
By the way, we serfs all can use a 4-day long weekend…
I promise I will not argue with those who would say 5 is better than 4.
I heard Lambert had been kidnapped from an Acela and taken to a black-site on Princeton campus to be re-programmed by Paul Krugman.
I believe that the black site you refer to was moved to NYU when Krudman decamped for his new position at said institution of questionable learning.
Thank you for pointing that out. I just gained NC-cred for not even knowing Krugman’s current redoubt.
CUNY, not NYU, the public institution which in its recent contract managed to find extra money to hire “stars” like Krugman while letting its adjunct army continue to earn poverty-level wages.
I think the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg still pays him a quarter million a year (through the non-profit Luxembourg Income Study Center) to ponder inequality. That he also defends the virtue of multinational non-profits with wealthy donors is totally unconnected with this.
Lambert, thanks for all you do. Relax and have fun.
I thought it was one of Matt’s better posts. He’s been on a role lately. I think he has a different perspective from the other examples of trip reports due to the fact that he doesn’t follow Trump to every speaking event. It was a good analysis of the early Trump versus what the campaign has become. He has great metaphors too.
NO matter the multitudes of articles that slam TRUMP, I will not and cannot find myself voting for HRC. I am an avowed Leftist, I guess. Or maybe it’s just the insanity of the Democratic Party being SO UN-democratic? As the Talking heads croon; Stop making Sense.
We were really sold up the river with the Obama administration/noecons and now that river is drying up faster than anyone could have predicted. Maybe a Trump Presidency will force us to face reality faster than under a Clinton one?
This is my actual feeling on the matter: There is a good chance that I would have supported Bernie over Trump. Trump does have his problems after all. And what I can’t get over is that even though there is abundant, empirical proof that Bernie Sanders was ROBBED of the nomination by a hardened criminal like Hillary, plenty of his former supporters are now going to reward her by either voting for her, or by not supporting her most viable opponent.
It looks like Hillary has a good read on people; she really knows who she can bend over for profit without suffering consequences. It’s no wonder there is so much hippie punching going on. With such a feckless and spineless group of people (in general) there’s really no harm that can come from it.
“Clinton Foundation Is Charity Fraud Of Epic Proportions”, Analyst Charges In Stunning Takedown
* * *
Overnight, on his website, Ortel released the long-awaited executive summary of his numerous, and at time confusing, findings: “Beginning today, and regularly thereafter, numerous detailed Exhibits will examine the known public record of the Clinton Charity Network within the context of applicable state, federal, and foreign laws.”
And while we await the upcoming exhibits to his summary, here are the main highlights from the executive summary, which we urge all visitors – who have an even passing interest in the effort that has consumed the Clintons’ time and energy for the two decades, and brought them substantial wealth – to read.
* * *
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Understanding the Clinton Foundation Public Record in Proper Context: 1997 to Present
To informed analysts, the Clinton Foundation appears to be a rogue charity that has neither been organized nor operated lawfully from inception in October 1997 to date–as you will grow to realize, it is a case study in international charity fraud, of mammoth proportions.
In particular, the Clinton Foundation has never been validly authorized to pursue tax-exempt purposes other than as a presidential archive and research facility based in Little Rock, Arkansas. Moreover, its operations have never been controlled by independent trustees and its financial results have never been properly audited by independent accountants.
In contrast to this stark reality, Bill Clinton recently continued a long pattern of dissembling, likening himself to Robin Hood and dismissing critics of his “philanthropic” post-presidency, despite mounting concerns over perceived conflicts of interest and irregularities.
Normally, evaluating the efficacy of a charity objectively is performed looking closely into hard facts only -specifically, determining whether monies spent upon “program service expenditures” actually have furthered the limited, authorized “tax-exempt purposes” of entities such as the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, its subsidiaries, its joint ventures, and its affiliates (together, the “Clinton Charity Network”).
At this point, Ortel previews the 40 detailed Exhibits which will be published starting September 7 on http://www.charlesortel.com. As a preview of the extensive analysis contained in these Exhibits, “these Exhibits document an escalating pattern of lawlessness and suggest that trustees of entities in the Clinton Charity Network exhibited gross negligence and reckless disregard in performance of their solemn duties.”
The exhibits can be read in their entirety in the pdf attached at the bottom of this post.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-07/clinton-foundation-charity-fraud-epic-proportions-analyst-charges-stunning-takedown
Hey P.K. take a look…..
Looks like Taibbi has joined the “Anyone but Trump” crowd. Yeah, we get it Matt, you think Trump sucks.
Trump is a Salesman/Bullshit artist. Fact checking guys like him is like shooting fish in a barrel. Too bad Hillbot will never see the same scrutiny. Notice how her weasel-words about the TPP disappeared from the headlines.
What’s interesting is the reaction out here (about 90% Republican). Everyone KNOWS a President Trump will be a:
– Disaster, or
– He recognizes he’s in over his head, and is playing kissy face with the Republican establishment, so they can stage a defacto takeover once elected.
And he sure seems to be pizzing off the “right people” so he can’t be all bad.
But even with all of these negatives, he’s still going to get a ton of votes. As far as the “Racist White Guys” are concerned, anyone voting for Hillary is ethically compromised/as big a sleazebag as she is.
In the meantime, I need to find one of those “Meteorite 2016……Let’s just get it over with” bumper stickers.
Just when you’ve almost convinced yourself that Trump is the less effective evil compared to the ‘beest, he goes and shoots off his big mouth:
Sure, we get the Reagan tropes. And the utter incoherence of questioning NATO while promising to build a bigger feeding trough for fat cat, unproductive defense contractors to slop at.
But the big picture is that America cannot be “made great again” with military spending leeching away 5 or 6 percent of GDP, two-thirds of which ought to be invested instead in R&D, education and infrastructure.
With his utter ignorance of economics (other than the economics of leveraged real estate speculation using other people’s money), Trump is paving the way to put America’s imperial decline on turbo boost.
The Crook vs The Flake: any way you look at it, we’re screwed.
“imperial decline on turbo boost.”…..
OK …. sounds good to me !
Something’s got to give sooner or later …. might as well be sooner …!!
“Mr. Sulu …ahead Warp 10”
“Just when you’ve almost convinced yourself that Trump is the less effective evil compared to the ‘beest, he goes and shoots off his big mouth:” — ain’t that the truth!
Is it time to dust off the old Paul Kennedy books and revive the “imperial decline” thesis, yet?
“With his utter ignorance of economics (other than the economics of leveraged real estate speculation using other people’s money), Trump is paving the way to put America’s imperial decline on turbo boost.” – Whoa, whoa, whoa….using other people’s money is at the CORE of how our economy operates! Student loans, car loans, mortgages, medical debt….these are CENTRAL to our business model! Nobody moves IOUs around like ‘Merica!!!
Also, from an external perspective, that’s also the burden/privilege of being the issuer of the world’s reserve currency. You gotta run CA deficits.
Here is the speech that JH is referencing. Trump also says “wouldn’t it be great if we got along with Russia”, to great applause from the audience. This is the problem when someone (Jim Hayward for instance) lets someone else (Market Watch, for instance) tell them how to interpret the World.
Watch for yourself and form your own opinions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXMAvppTSAY
Full Speech: Donald Trump Rally in Greenville, NC 9/6/16
At 43 minutes, Trump says, “Clinton is being protected by the Media, by the Press, like no-one in the history of our Country!”
Then something amazing happens;
The camera pulls back to a wide shot of the crowd. The crowd has turned around to look towards the back of the Meeting Hall, at the assembled Media. The crowd boos the Media and shakes their fists at the TV cameras.
The People are waking up! Wow, wow!
A transcript shows that the quotes excerpted by Marketwatch are accurate. Promising to bust the sequester and “rebuild” the “depleted” military is pretty unambiguous. Defense is where the big money is in the discretionary budget.
Trump added, even as he raged against “endless wars and conflicts”:
Cuckoo … cuckoo … our current “endless wars” are based on a 14-year-old AUMF which sets out the goal of defeating al Qaida … who seems to be our sometime-ally in Syria. Whatever — more of the same, piled higher and deeper, against the shape-shifting nemesis du jour.
This speech is incoherent, delusional word salad from a flat-out flake. That I agree with his comments about Hillary doesn’t change this.
Not with this program. You can pencil in the next bone-crushing recession for 2017-2018.
1. He wants to make the military great again.
2. He wants to get along with Russia.
3. He wants to defeat ISIS.
It’s possible to have all 3.
4. Defending the South China Sea (not sure why he didn’t include this one).
As for the next bone crushing recession – that one has many fathers and mothers.
I am assuming that Jim Haywood must be a Donald Trump supporter because of this unequivocal statement. I am quoting JH exactly from his above post;
“I agree with his (Trump’s) comments about Hillary”.
My point is, you have to read the entire post by JH to get it’s true sense.
Therefore, you have to listen to or read Trump’s entire speeches AND realize
Trump is building a coalition of the 99%, not of the 7.27% or the 3.94%.
Back in the day, back in 2008, when Obama would come out with some piece of Beltway crapola, like cutting Social Security, his supporters would go: “But he has to say that,” (and of course in his heart, he doesn’t believe it) because otherwise the political class and the press would cut him off at the knees.
I would bet most Trump supporters think exactly the same way: “He has to say that.” They can distinguish the stuff Manafort put in there from the real Trump (who is not a disorganized speaker at all, just a speaker who doesn’t spoon feed the press the structure they expect). I don’t know the form of words they use to express this but I bet it’s true.
So none of this stuff matters to Trump’s base in the slightest.
Well I think that a good portion of Trump supporters want to puke their guts out in revulsion whenever they accidentally see a picture of Hillary. Like me.
You could come out with ironclad proof that Trump is secretly a Lizardman from the Orion Nebula bent on enslaving humanity–and I’d think: “oh, that’s bad”. But my next thought would be: “wait. Hillary is still the alternative. Oh well guess I still got to support Trump anyway.”
Peace through strength.
And strength through joy (Kraft durch Freude).
As the guys say in Animal House, it’s toga party time.
Trump is building a coalition of the 99%. There are going to be plenty of his ideas that do not fit in with every individual’s POV.
It is enlightening, to me, to watch “low class rednecks” having the grace and humility to accept and cheer for “getting along with The Russians”, “Protecting the LGBT Community” and “a New Civil Rights Movement for African Americans”. They are putting aside their World View for “The Greater Good”.
Meanwhile, many “self described Progressives” bitch and moan about every point that Trump makes that does not fit scrupulously with their particular World View.
Political change happens when big-hearted people in a shared situation (the 99%), put aside their myriad differences and coalesce. In 1860, disparate peoples joined together to end slavery in the USA. That Emancipation is celebrated to this very day.
The minute he said we need to rebuild our military, he lost me.That is a “99%” I will never support. He’s mouthing the words of Lyin’ Ted Cruz.
We spend a fortune on our military and we are “rebuilding” every day. I’m in that business. Our military has more than enough money to do whatever they want to do, except win in the ME.
Like HRC, he will say whatever it takes, he is just another bullshit politician. Unlike HRC, the closest he’s ever gotten to political corruption is jumping in bed with the NY City Mafia. He’s an amateur.
“Trump is building a coalition of the 99%.”
Hmm. I’d check his views on “right to work” legislation. Not that the Democrats didn’t renege on card check.
When I say “the 99%”, I literally mean the 99% of Americans who are not billionaires or multi-millionaires. This includes the Evangelicals, bikers, small and medium business owners, pro-gun people, anti-gun peoples, pro abortion people, anti abortion people, blacks, whites, Latinos, native Americans, Asians……..all political/social POVs…almost every single one of us.
He is trying to recruit everybody who is threatened by the New Slavery (Matrix), presently under construction, by the Democrats and their Republican co-conspirators.
Trump is reaching out to all the people who do not have private fall-out shelters (under a remote mountain) stocked with 30 years worth of food and fuel, and access to a private helicopter to get there instantly. (This is probably more of a 0.001% thing than a 1% thing.) If you are part of the sub-billionaire 1%, IMO, a vote for Trump should be considered, if nuclear war with China and Russia bothers you?
Like I keep saying, there is much that Trump is saying that is not how I see things, BUT, I look for the big picture. I hope Trump does not break my heart the way that smooth talking, grifting Bastard, O’Bomba, did!
Maybe Matt has bills to pay and other obligations, therefore he may have to do work that pays the bills, but, he does not necessarily agree with personally.
Sometimes you just have to shut up, suck it up and do what your told – Or Else.
Cutting debt and expenses, aquiring more sources of income, is one way of getting out of this, but, this is not always possible for every one, and especially not right away.
I like his articles in general. I have been in the shit myself so I wouldn’t be too hard on the guy.
I’m glad to know you are OK, Lambert. I wondered if you had told us about a vacation that I missed.
I think Taibbi is bored with the whole campaign, and especially Trump – but he’s got a job to do.
It’s Their Party
A generation ago, socialists and civil rights activists tried to transform the Democratic Party. Why did they fail?
by Paul Heideman
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/02/democratic-party-realignment-civil-rights-mcgovern-meany-rustin-sanders/#.V83hbvscBCI.facebook
Thanks for the link. It’s a long read and, though I liked and learned a lot from the first part (about the intentional efforts to drive Southern Democrats from the party in the 1960s), and I think he mostly gets the history since right, I don’t think he ends up with a coherent answer to the question.
McGovern. Not complicated.
Hunter S Thompson, Tabbi is not. At least not in this article.
Like this passage:
It’s amusing, but not particularly illuminating. First, maybe I’m too young (millennial), but I don’t get the reference to Andy Kaufman prank.
But what’s the most disappointing about this passage is that Trump’s campaign just isn’t this simple. He doesn’t go to rallies drunk, he doesn’t wear lampshades. He’s succeeding at continuing to do his caricature that doesn’t involve any of those things. The guy actually takes pride in not imbibing, from what I understand.
But Trump isn’t trying to be smart about it. He has no reason to. He’s found enormous, staggering success doing whatever the hell he wants.
Taibbi seems to want to get into real analysis but stops short, every time. What I think he really wanted to say was, “Trump has no intention of being president and is making a mockery of the process”. Which is an article I’d like to see Taibbi write, instead of this one.
Trump is trying to prove that he is not a racist to both avoid a blow out, and to salvage his brand for Trump TV (headed by Roger Ailes).
well you can’t accuse clinton of trying to prove she is not a warmonger. she is providing proof of that in spades, with all the neocon endorsements.
When I read the article, Taibbi seemed to be telling us. But he wasn’t showing us. Where was the detail on the rally? And where, above all, where the interviews with the real rally-goers? Tressy MC’s report was far superior.
So I don’t like that. That flat, bland affect…
Taibbi is good on finance, but fails on politics; that’s true of many pundits who claim to be journalists. No where in Lib publications or TV have I seen political commentators mention the 1000s at Trump rallies vs the mere 100s (if that) at Clinton rallies. This fact says more than all the analysis of each candidate’s words or arguments.
I think he’s doing “contact work”, his heart is not in it, but it pays.
Now, it didn’t say in that contract that he put his heart in it, only the number of words and “negative on Trump”.
It’s unusual that Matt Taibbi couldn’t find something to parody mercilessly on both candidates.
Taibbi is not anywhere near as funny, incisive and interesting as is his norm. He really sounds distracted and unable to engage with the opportunity to lampoon Trump and his policies.
He normally writes better and uses anecdotes that are truly imaginary and off the fence. I guess he is now in an echo chamber where his editor is backing the other loser and counterfeit candidate who he would rather flush down the nearest drain. Such is the neo-journalists life but I have trust that he will yet find the dagger to forensically flense both of these charlatans. I’ll go back to reading Charles Ortel for my ‘fun’.
There is no real support for Trump on the internet that I can see. Lots of McCain and Romney supporters sounded like they meant it, but not this time. Probably because Billery could drop out due to scandal or ill health and Trump would still lose. He could go 0 for 50.
Really? I see a lot of support on the internet.
Go to reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/the_donald
Plenty of support there.
In my opinion that is not real support. That is flop sweat.
I’m not sure where your threshold for real support begins and ends, then, if you ignore things like message boards. Clinton apparently has many followers on twitter, but hundreds of thousands are bots controlled by one of her subcontractors.
So I’d agree with you if you said that actual support for any candidate is muddied by manipulation, but I’m not clear on no support at all.
I am not ignoring the message boards, I am interpreting them. It’s a bit like hearing the author’s “voice” in a book. I just do not hear “real” support, as in lots of people going to show up on election day.
Amen to to that sub-reddit. It started out as an almost normal site and has devolved into pure nonsense, few articles, just twitter comments. It is pretty abusive and welcomes no one that dares to question their POV.
-Pauline Kael, 1972.
.. and he was committed to Bellevue for psychiatric observation.
Well, yes, she lived in NYC and was part of the 10% elite.
I’m seeing Trump’s ads all over YouTube.
The damn Trump ads are certainly all over the various web sites I visit — even the liberal ones.
I get Trump ads in my Twitter feed all the time.
Also, people aren’t mentioning email chains. Email chains, often with memes, are huge on the right, I am told.
And let’s not forget that three (IRRC) anti-Clinton books are at the top of the Times best-seller list. The right often does well with books, even taking bulk buying into account.
Engineers, IT, and computer science people are a conservative crowd. The GOP has used computer/internet organization and messaging since the www went live In 1991.
I get Trump adds here.
http://imgur.com/a/4Bgo6
3. ARMAGEDDON by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
7. CRISIS OF CHARACTER
12. HILLARY’S AMERICA
Two on T:
13. THE MAKING OF DONALD TRUMP
15. TRUMP REVEALED
I don’t know the tenor of the T books.
Also relevant:
2. HILLBILLY ELEGY white working class
5. BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME by Ta-Nehisi Coates
8. WHITE TRASH white poor
11. LIARS by Glenn Beck
What “mad critical thinking skillz” are required for evaluating Taibbi’s piece? As Lambert states “When you unwrap the opinion from the reporting, you’ll see it’s a trip report from a Trump rally.”
It’s pretty much a nothingburger; unusually dull reporting from from a usually interesting journalist. I did not read completely through each of the comparison articles, but what I did read seemed to “pop” more than Taibbi’s.
Perhaps Matt was tired, bored & had to come up with something before deadline.
This story is too good not to share……
“70 year old man allegedly robs bank to escape home and wife”
http://tinyurl.com/jv5nvhd
“He didn’t make the traditional bank robber escape………, Instead, Ripple took a seat in the bank lobby and waited. When a security guard approached him, he reportedly said “I’m the man you are looking for.” , handed over the money, and waited for police.”
That’s my fall back plan for when my retirement runs out. My Social Security only pays the rent, for now.
Obama administration arms sales offers to Saudi top $115 billion [Reuters]
Giving new meaning to “going after the people who attacked us on 9/11”.
+++ Well said
The plant looks like Oleander, which is anything but an antidote. A few leaves will kill you.
Now that the native American nations are back in the news, till they are ignored again, I’ll link to a site I found while doing some research:
http://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/en
Language and culture of the Ojibwe, who are the largest group around the Great Lakes (U.S. side and Canada side). The Ojibwe language(s) are widely spoken on both sides of the border and down into Michigan and Indiana.
I don’t know why I was surprised to run across the Ojibwe word for sandwich, but there it is.
One of the factors that led me there was reading Louise Erdrich’s Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country (2003), which has aged well. In part, it is a memoir of traveling at the age of 48 through Ojibwe lands in northern Minnesota and southwestern Ontario with her baby of eighteen months.
Common Dreams has an article on the money behind the Dakota Access pipeline:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/09/07/whos-banking-dakota-access-pipeline
Thanks. I think Jill Stein has been awesome. She Daniel Berrigan’d the jerks.
Here’s a very long article, which I have not finished, with a lot of links that I haven’t looked at yet. This is not an area of any expertise for me but some here may enjoy it.
Syria: Another Pipeline War
by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/the-mess-in-syriarobert-f-kennedy-jr
And on a lighter note, with a bit of schadenfreude thrown in…
How Arianna Huffington Lost Her Newsroom
The Huffington Post’s namesake founder, who stepped down as editor in chief last month, built an iconic media company in record time. Then, after a decade at the helm, she left suddenly. This article, the first in a two-part series, reveals one of the factors that may have contributed to her departure: a capricious management style that alienated many of the journalists who worked for her.
by William D. Cohan
September 7, 2016 5:00 am
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/how-arianna-huffington-lost-her-newsroom?mbid=nl_TH_57cf3a4166baeedb35acda77&CNDID=15621256&spMailingID=9472287&spUserID=MTMzMTgyMzgwODcwS0&spJobID=1000495036&spReportId=MTAwMDQ5NTAzNgS2
Does “capricious” mean not paying people for their work? There’s that “management strategy,” too, I hear.
Right. Thanks for building my fortune for free. What are you complaining about- I’m paying you now!
Breitbart bunch might have finagled Trump into some speechifying in Sanders’ supporters’ direction. Likely not something Trump is all that excited about, since he is giving the speech, rote, in front of whoever happens to be there. Taibbi’s description of the Iowa barn rally made me laugh.
Makes sense to me that Trump would keep media at arms’ length, since they’re ad hominem all the time. That Taibbi doesn’t see this means he hasn’t bothered to put himself in Trump’s shoes, not even only for a minute. Makes his writing flat and irritated.
But seems Trump can say most anything and his bunch will put up with it. All of us plebs, one end to the other, are pinned against the walls. Maybe Taibbi doesn’t recognize that either. I’m assuming very low voter turn-out.
Comey gets pushback from da troops:
“Not a close call” is what we call a confabulatory counterfactual. In reality, the FBI report details a thoroughly researched and documented litany of crimes, that any competent prosecutor could slam right out of the ballpark blindfolded.
Simple fact is that from the FBI’s institutional viability perspective, angering the R party by not indicting Hillary is less dangerous than defying the president, which might bring serious, unpredictable consequences.
I have been taught since pre-school to be a good student.
Today, I am trying to learn, ‘There is nothing here to see. The FBI investigated and found nothing. Move along.”
To get into a good school, I must ace this test.
You probably would not be surprised, then, to encounter all the conversations I have encountered with many “smart” people who have already aced that test.
Keep studying, you can do it. But then you would have to live in an uncomfortable Brave New World.
Lambert – It’s good to take a day off now and then. Sometimes I think our inner calendars turn off just to give us a break. And as commented above, you do an amazing quantity of really interesting work here.
Apologize if this has been posted – I haven’t read all the comments – but there is something just so offensive about this I can’t stand it:
Yeah, it’s hilarious – I can hardly breathe I’m laughing so hard. Oh, wait, I think I’m actually gagging.
And then, because I must have some sort of mental defect, I actually watched the NBC-sponsored Hour-O-Crap wherein Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump separately answered questions from military folks and Matt Lauer. Trump is a train wreck and Clinton can talk a better story, except I don’t believe a word she says.
They should both be wearing poop hats
.
We take from the rich and give to the poor which is us!
Interesting article. Since most of us know by now of Jann Wenner’s unequivocal support for Hillary’s bid for ‘thief in chief,’ I knew from the get-go that the piece would be highly critical of Trump. I thought the best parts were in his observational descriptions of events, not the snarkiness of the tone in relating those events. Trump is a train wreck, as any critical thinker out there must admit, but he did get the nomination fair and square and he did it using his immense sales skills, not his ability to ‘talk good.’ Attempting to run an old fashioned political race may be his downfall as a neophyte politician but I don’t think any of his supporters will hold it against him and I predict his star will not fade and he will get a bigger, better reality show than the reality show that is sure to be Hillary’s as she takes the mantle from Obama in January. I’m very ‘escared’ of Hillary and do not support Trump, so I’ll be sitting this one out.
I’m trying to figure out if Taibbi is scared or Taibbi is stupid. The reality is that it’s a very smart play for Trump to try and peel off lower class AAs and Hispanics. If Trump can get all the common man to agree that the 1% are the problem then the candidate of the 1% will be in trouble.
I do think he’s trying a little late in the game but he’s absolutely right to try and peel off the Democratic stranglehold on minorities.
I also think that a candidate that can unite the bottom 80% of us that have been repeatedly been screwed by our government’s collusion with corporate America could fix some of the inequality problems.
Mind you I don’t think Trump is the guy he is pretending to be and I’d trust him as far as I could throw him if I were a minority but from a strategy standpoint I think whoever is advising him to make a play for AAs and Hispanic people is dead on.
Please ignore my taking a few, self-congratulatory, bows here. But, your comment affirms what I’ve been thinking, and, saying, for quite some time now. How ironic is it that Trump’s question, posed to an AA audience, “What, exactly, have the Clintons done for you?” is the question our main street media has, collectively, determined was unnecessary. Why, everyone knows that Bill Clinton was America’s “first black President,” don’t they?
My understanding is that, while Hillary is slightly ahead in the polls right now, her lead in the “Swing” States are all within the margin of error. His reach out to minorities recently, counterintuitive to most of our (totally objective, I’m sure) “experts” may be exactly what puts him over the finish line on election day.
Anyone else concerned that Trump is Americas version of the Brexit vote?
It will be a few years before we know whether Brexit is really the train wreck that the Serious People are convinced it is. I suggest we’d know how Trump works out after only a few months. OTOH, with HRC, no need to wait at all: a long and even mostly public record amply demonstrates who she’s working for … and against.
Trump’s going to win thanks to the dems and their corrupt candidate. It’s terrible and ridiculous and it’s hard not to fall into the nihilist view .
Unless you are actually at a political rally, hard to know what is the truth. Unless you listen to the entire speech, hard to know what is the truth. My husband and I went to Trump’s summer 2016 rally in Phoenix and the media representation of the event was not true. The crowd wasn’t extreme. If you watch a speech on the cable networks, the candidate keeps talking while the talking head panel splits the screen and drone on about whatever is on their mind. Might as well watch The View. Finding it more useful to watch the C-Span uninterrupted talks than what is filtered. Everything we watch is filtered. If you want to delve further, try to watch both ends of the spectrum and figure out what is true and in the middle. That is a challenge. Trump and Sanders seem to outdraw Clinton. That’s what I notice.
I first discovered the marvelous Matt Taibbi in 2004 when he was writing for NY Press, a free weekly in NYC. I loved his style. RS snapped him up and then he flowered, writing the “vampire squid” artcile and many others. I would then watch him on Max Keiser and Democracy Now and thought he was the finest. I started following him on Twitter.
But with this campaign, I’ve stopped all of that. The most amazing thing has happened to me, this radical/liberal: all of the radical/liberal media has gone batshit insane. Trump has better values in many, many issues than Clinton, but their constant crowing of “racist, fascist, the worst that could ever happen thoughout the entiriety of World History” is truly, truly preposterous nonsense.
I blame a part of this on Gen-X snark. It infects Matt, it even infects Lambert (whether he is Gen-X or not). You can faceread Matt in his interviews and he’s got that disgust look to him. A combination of disgust and haughty sniggering disdain. I never tripped on this facial characteristic (which combined with his 500 Uh’s per minute vocal delivery serves to negate the effect of his video appearances), until this deal with Trump.
It wasn’t just him: Jan Wenner, Amy Goodman, Thom Hartman, Glenn Greenwald, Noam Chomsky. And others. If the first paragraph of anything they say or write is all about how Trump would be the worst thing that could happen to the entire Universe, then bye bye. You aren’t impartial. You aren’t even rational.
It is the greatest surprise of my entire 70-year old life to see these great journalists collapse into bigoted incoherency right before our very eyes.
I don’t believe in shaming anyone really. I think it’s Victorian. But we live in Victorian times. So, shame on you, Matt. You spit on the gift you were given. As Assange has just said: you put the noose around your own neck and the neck of journalism in the United States by this sniggering snarky disdain.
And that is truly a fucking shame.