Jeb! lives

Despite the death knells of recent days, I'll play devil's advocate and say that I still think Jeb! Bush will be the republican nominee in 2016.   While Bush's poll numbers have indeed fallen, he's still in the thick of it and is nowhere near becoming an afterthought like Scott Walker.  He's raised a ton of money and shows no signs of slowing down.  I think his using his brother to raise campaign cash is a purposeful reminder to the powers that be that George W. won two Presidential elections that weren't guarantees and that the Bush family knows how to win (actually governing, though, be damned).  Even when he campaigns, like he did recently in Cedar Falls, IA, he's not feeding the crowd red republican primary meat--he's talking like a Presidential nominee, discussing education and foreign policy.

The only candidate that wouldn't surprise me if he beat Bush would be Marco Rubio--only because the power brokers in the republican party might decide to go with young and new over tried and true.  But they'd be getting essentially the same candidate.

And even though I'm supporting Bernie Sanders, I still think Hillary Clinton is going to trounce Bush come November 2016.

Y'all can thank me in Jamuary of 2017 when the first Democratic Socialist is being sworn in as President of the United States after crushing Donald Trump on the first Tuesday of November 2016...

Peace,
emaycee

With or without you

Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the House in waiting, today made official what anyone with a brain (note:  this does not include the republican base) already knows:  the Benghazi hearings were nothing more than a charade to hurt the campaign of the President of the United States in waiting, Hillary Clinton.

It will be interesting to see if a) the traditional media does its job in giving this admission the front and center attention it deserves, and if so, b) do Hillary Clinton's poll numbers improve?

It will also be interesting to see how republicans react to one of the dumbest declarations in recent American political history being made by the man who along with Mitch McConnell will be the face of their party at least through the end of 2016.

One thing is for sure, though--after McCarthy's boner and yesterday's inept Planned Parenthood hearings, the republican House delegation is going to remain just as incompetent with or without John Boehner.

Peace,
emaycee

Not so pretty in pink

Just how incompetent are congressional republicans?   After having months to prepare for today's hearings with Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, discussing a cause that is one of their core issues, they were so inept that they were absolutely excoriated by their fellow conservative pro-lifers.   Hell, it never even dawned on them that it might be a good idea to at least have one or two republican women front and center during the hearing.

Apparently it's not enough for republicans to get decimated in the African-American and Latino vote, so now they want to get crushed in the women's vote, too.  I may never see another republican President for the rest of my life....

Thanks, fellas!

Peace,
emaycee

An imperfect storm

Whilst the republican base was cheering wildly when Marco Rubio announced John Boener's impending resignation as the Speaker of the House, I was wondering, will they finally do it?  Will the base finally push one of their true believers into the leadership position and try to shove their radical right wing agenda down American's collective throats and relegate themselves to permanent minority status as a party?

Say what you will about Boehner and Mitch McConnell as both have beliefs not all that different than your average republican, but at least they're both not fucking nuts.  While I'd wager that the powers that be are going to see that Kevin McCarthy (with the help of the only sane political party left in this country, the Democrats) is the next Speaker, you have to wonder how emboldened they will be after Americans did not punish republicans in 2014 despite their attempts to shut down the government for shits and grins.

I'd say it's going to make for great political theater except for the fact that republicans have shown again and again that they don't give a rat's ass about the least among us and their antics could inflict some serious pain on America's poor and working class.

But that's kind of their point, isn't it?

Peace,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. XXXIX--Marvin Gaye: Got to Give It Up

Sometimes, it can just be fun.

Marvin Gaye has the political ("What's Going On" or "Mercy, Mercy Me") and the sexual ("Let's Get It On" or "Sexual Healing").  If Sam Cooke invented soul, Marvin Gaye took it to another level.  Sadly, like Cooke, he would die far too early (at age forty-four) from a gunshot after an altercation--in Gaye's case, it was his own father.  But the legacy he left behind...one would be hard pressed to find any best of list over the last fifty years covering best artists or greatest singers or best songs or greatest albums where Gaye wasn't prominently featured.  From his Motown roots to his work with Tammi Terrell, from his groundbreaking seventies albums to his eighties comeback, Gaye set a soul standard that has never been matched.

And the man had balls.

"Got to Give It Up," this week's featured tune, is basically Gaye's fuck you to Berry Gordy and Motown.   Gordy wanted Gaye to record disco music when it was at its height, and Gaye disdained disco music.  Gaye actually wrote "Got to Give It Up" as a parody of a disco scene--if disco had actually been as good as "Got to Give It Up" it wouldn't be sitting the in the moldy basement of mediocre music where it resides today.  And this is the measure of his talent--what started as a joke, became a classic.  Gaye sings in a falsetto of a man at a nightclub, a little too shy to dance, but eventually the music overtakes him and he's able to get on the dance floor and shake it until he meets a lady.  Throughout there's talking in the background, a sense that you're actually at a club where the DJ is playing a song with a driving rhythm that everybody is swinging to, and the night is always just beginning.  And if you aren't smiling while you're listening, you're just not trying.

The song is the only non-live song on Gaye's album Live at the London Palladium, and would spend one week at number one (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.

And when the man sings "Keep on dancin'/Got to give it up" you know he knows what he's talking about.

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee

Bullshit artistes

For all republicans whining about Pope Francis, the only thing that's different about his papacy over that of his predecessors is that Francis has reminded his flock that fighting for the poor, looking after immigrants, taking care of the earth, and abolishing the death penalty have always been and will continue to be every bit as much a part of the church's mission as abortion, gays, and birth control.

And for Catholic politicians such as Chris Christie and Marco Rubio to claim that they can disagree with the Pope on these issues because they are political issues is the height of hypocrisy.  To suddenly decide that your faith is an a la carte of beliefs when it doesn't suit your wealthy donors or your hateful base is a sure sign that your faith is a fraud.

Which really isn't so surprising when you consider that republicans have never had any problem ignoring Christ's admonition that "You cannot serve both God and money."

They've made a movement out of serving money.

Peace,
emaycee

First they came for the pharmaceuticals

In light of The New York Times story this past weekend on price gouging in the drug industry (who could have ever guessed?), hedge fund manager and drug industry investor Martin Shkreli tried to do damage control on TV for raising the price on a drug his company makes for $1 from $18 a pill to $750 per pill.  The drug, which is used to help pregnant women and HIV patients with parasitic infections, was developed 62 years ago so it was hard for Shkreli to argue they were trying to recoup investment costs, but he nonetheless claimed the pill was still a bargain.

And caviar might be a bargain at $70 an ounce, but you aren't going to see too many everyday Americans spreading it on their Ritz crackers....

After much blowback from ordinary Americans (and Hillary Clinton vowing to take on the drug industry which caused Big Pharma stocks to drop), Shkreli said he would reduce the price, though he didn/t say to what price.  Make no mistake, though, about the bigger picture:  folks like Shkreli will not be happy until they have all of our money.

And don't be surprised when they start fiddling with the price of our food next.

Peace,
emaycee