By Steve Rhodes
Tuesday got fucked up and I didn’t get a column out and I’m still catching up. Trying to get completely back on track today.
Posted on August 3, 2016
The [Monday] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
“General-election polls show that voters trust Donald Trump more than Hillary Clinton on the economy, and her campaign has been told by donors and advisers that she must strip down her message,” the Washington Post reports.
That may be true, but what do donors know about it? Taking their advice strikes me as the bigger problem – but emblematic of the Clinton style that has helped to sow so much distrust in the first place.
Posted on August 1, 2016
The [Wednesday] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
Thursday note: The Papers will return sometime between now and Monday, possibly as The Weekend Desk Report.
An e-mail I sent to a Bernie-or-bust friend Tuesday:
“I would normally agree. I’ve never voted for a Clinton, nor an Obama, nor John Kerry or Al Gore. I hate Democrats. But this is different. Trump is not McCain, Romney or Bush. And while Clinton is horrible, she is, as someone whom I cannot remember right now said, “ordinarily bad,” (I think it was Romney who said that), but Trump is a fucking Nazi. This is no longer Coke vs. Pepsi. It’s a Nazi vs. a corporate, warhawk Democrat who will function within the system to the relative extent of all of our criminal presidents. Trump will not only be a daily Constitutional crisis, he’ll destabilize the world economy, every aspect of American life, and unleash white militias everywhere. This is the moment. Indeed, voting for Hillary is about protecting people – including the Sanders people. This is the one time the argument against third-party voting is correct.”
Posted on July 27, 2016
The [Tuesday] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
This is the issue; we can lock up Hillary later.
Trump campaign dismisses questions about David Duke after he said Trump left open possibility of Senate endorsement https://t.co/lqXRTftvzw
— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) July 26, 2016
Posted on July 26, 2016
The Weekend Desk Report
By Steve Rhodes
The Papers will return on Tuesday.
I don’t like Hillary Clinton, despite the accusations thrown at me eight years ago when I repeatedly told the truth about Barack Obama based solely on the reporting (and local sources in a position to know) that was buried amid waves of mythology and narrative-building. In fact, I’ve come to loathe Hillary Clinton.
I have also been a vociferous supporter of the right – even the duty – of citizens to vote their consciences, instead of enabling the cynical electoral strategies of a political establishment beholden only to themselves. There are no wasted votes – and in fact, the research shows clearly, despite what the punditry continues to repeat, that Nader voters did not swing the 2000 election to George W. Bush any more than Perot votes swung the 1992 election to Bill Clinton. Those are the facts.
So you might expect me to support, in this instance, Bernie Sanders voters – particularly in non-swing states where their votes won’t “matter” in the only sense that political professionals can conjure – to pull the lever for their guy with enthusiasm.
I do not. This election is different.
Posted on July 23, 2016
The [Friday] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
You can find my real-time commentary on Donald Trump’s acceptance speech and the rest of the doings at the Republican National Convention last night at @BeachwoodReport.
Meanwhile:
=(https://t.co/iGfksGsXAI pic.twitter.com/YkPoNE7XNz
— andrew kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) July 22, 2016
But:
“It’s been a great week for gay escorts in Cleveland,” the New York Post reports.
“Male prostitutes contacted by The Post said business is booming and Republican National Convention attendees – most of them married – are clamoring for their services.
“‘Business has been way better. I’ve seen 10 clients so far,’ one male escort said.
“‘Most of them were first-timers. You could tell they were nervous, but once they became more comfortable, they seemed to be having a good time.'”
So . . . you know. Figure it out.
Posted on July 22, 2016
The [Thursday] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
I’m having some internet issues so I’m just going to Twitterize today’s column.
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) July 21, 2016
Posted on July 21, 2016
The [Wednesday] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
“Before it was discovered to have been plagiarized from Michelle Obama, Melania Trump’s speech yesterday at the 2016 Republican National Convention had initially been praised by members of both parties as one of the best speeches of the RNC, a moving performance,” Oren Nimni writes for Current Affairs.
“If anything, the whole plagiarism scandal reflects somewhat poorly on Michelle Obama. One reason Obama’s words were able to play so well at the RNC was that in the lifted passages, Obama was speaking using the conservative language of ‘bootstrapping.’ Obama’s sentence, that ‘the only limit’ to one’s achievements is the height of one’s goal and the ‘willingness to work’ toward it, is the Republican story about America. It’s the story of personal responsibility, in which the U.S. is overflowing with opportunity, and anyone who fails to succeed in such a land of abundance must simply not be trying hard enough.
“People on the left are supposed to know that it is a cruel lie to tell people that all they need to do is work hard. There are plenty of people with dreams who work very hard indeed but get nothing, because the American economy is fundamentally skewed and unfair. This rhetoric, about ‘hard work’ being the only thing needed for the pursuit of prosperity, is an insult to every tomato-picker and hotel cleaner in the country. It’s a fact that those who work the hardest in this country, those come home from work exhausted and who break their backs to feed their families, are almost always rewarded the least.”
Posted on July 20, 2016
The [Tuesday] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
The Politico Playbook summary of Day One of the Republican National Convention:
On Monday morning, Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s campaign chief, said John Kasich, the popular governor of Ohio, was “embarrassing his state.” Trump went on Fox News and said there is “something going on” with President Barack Obama’s body language when he talks about violence in America. A mid-afternoon floor fight – which had the anti-Trump people squaring off against the rest of the party on live television – consumed the first few hours of the convention. Then, during the evening session, when the mother of a victim of the Benghazi attacks was on stage, Trump was conducting a simultaneous phone interview on Fox News. One of the GOP’s rising stars, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, spoke to a mostly empty arena. And Melania Trump delivered an address that included entire paragraphs that appeared to be lifted from Michelle Obama’s 2008 convention speech.
That’s pretty good, but they missed a lot of white supremacy stuff, the further derangement of (America’s Mayor) Rudy Giuliani, the absolute nuttiness of (America’s Sheriff) David Clarke, and a speech by celebrity D-lister Scott Baio, literally because Trump ran into him the other day and said, “I got to have me some Chachi!”
Posted on July 19, 2016
The [Monday] Papers
By Steve Rhodes
“Streets and Sanitation plows deviated from their normal course to clear a path to Ald. Ed Burke’s fortress-like house after a major winter storm last year, City Hall’s inspector general said Monday,” the Sun-Times reports.
“[I]nvestigators found snow-removal crews hit the powerful City Council member’s block on West 51st Street 46 times in five days after the fifth-largest winter storm in Chicago history paralyzed traffic on many local streets on Super Bowl Sunday last year.”
So Burke’s block was plowed nine times a day, on average – quite possibly more often than Rahm Emanuel yells at his police chief.
Posted on July 18, 2016