Trump vs. HRC
At first I thought that Hillary Clinton would have no trouble dispensing with Donald Trump. Sure, she’s the second most unpopular presidential candidate (and likely nominee) in the history of polling—but he’s the first. She’s unpleasant, but he’s downright repellent. All she has to do is win Obama’s states and a swing state or two and it’s all over for Trump, and he’d go back to being a third-tier real estate guy. Now I’m not so sure. The same pundits and pollsters who assured us he could never get the nomination are… Read More
Fresh audio product
Just posted to my radio archive: April 28, 2016 Greg Grandin on the recession of the Pink Tide in Latin America • Ashton Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks, on aging and ageism I didn’t produce a new show this week; it was a rerun of this show: August 13, 2015 William Darity on discrimination, a job guarantee, and baby bonds • R.L. Stephens II, founding editor of Orchestrated Pulse and author of this essay, talks about Black Lives Matter and the creation of a leadership class And for the next three weeks, KPFA is fundraising, so I’m not sure what I’ll be… Read More
Hillary quotes conservatives
Although Hillary fans discount her early enthusiasm for Barry Goldwater, she did say this in 1996 (audio here): “I feel like my political beliefs are rooted in the conservatism that I was raised with. I don’t recognize this new brand of Republicanism that is afoot now, which I consider to be very reactionary, not conservative in many respects. I am very proud that I was a Goldwater girl.” (Her distinction between “reactionary” and “conservative” is hard to parse; Goldwater voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, wanted to privatize Social Security, and once suggested… Read More
Katha Pollitt’s review of It Takes A Village
Katha Pollitt is now a big fan of Hillary Clinton, but she wasn’t always one, as this review of her dreadful book It Takes A Village shows (although the opening is a portent of the future). In the spirit of my earlier reposting of Katha’s polemic on the repeal of welfare, here’s her view of HRC’s pieties from twenty years ago. Clarification: the business with the ghostwriter, Barbara Feinman is serious; Hillary and the White House tried to stiff her out of her last payment, and she wasn’t acknowledged in the book. For more, see Carl… Read More
Factchecking Gail Collins
Gail Collins wrote this ludicrous paragraph in her New York Times column today: The bottom line on Hillary Clinton is that she’s spent her life championing women and their issues. She began her career with the Children’s Defense Fund, fought for better schools in Arkansas, for children’s health care as first lady and for reproductive rights as the senator from New York. As secretary of state she spent endless — endless — days and weeks flying to obscure corners of the planet, celebrating the accomplishments of women craftsmen, championing the causes of women labor leaders, talking… Read More
Fresh audio product
Just added to my radio archive: April 21, 2016 Bruce Dixon, managing editor of the Black Agenda Report, on black voters’ mysterious lingering romance with the Clintons • Alfredo Saad Filho on the vote to impeach Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff
Fresh audio product
Just posted to my radio archive: April 7, 2016 David Howell on the increase of the minimum wage to $15 in California and New York • Vidar Thorsteinsson, author of this article, on the political crisis in Iceland unleashed by the Panama Papers March 31, 2016 Nikil Saval, author of this article, on the hippie-inspired new architecture of the Silicon Valley • Alfredo Saad Filho on the ongoing political and economic crisis of Brazil
Fresh audio product
Just added to my radio archive: March 24, 2016 Rachel Price, author of Planet/Cuba, on the art scene in that country as Obama visits • Sam Stein, author of this article, on neoliberal housing programs, de Blasio style March 17, 2016 Ben Zachariah on the activities of India’s fascist BJP government at home and abroad • David Rieff, author of The Reproach of Hunger, on the economic development racket
Zoë Heller on My Turn
It’s always a delight to read Zoë Heller, especially so when she says this about My Turn: “a solid and persuasive guide to what has been characterized as shady or shabby or unprincipled in Clinton’s political career.” Other, less personally relevant, highlights from the piece: …[her memoir Hard Choices] fairly brims with “aren’t women amazing?” sentiments of the sort one finds cross-stitched on decorative cushions. …her much-vaunted “women’s rights are human rights” declaration in Beijing in 1995 (a speech that her supporters characterize somewhat implausibly as a watershed moment in feminist history)… Just as in 2008,… Read More
Varieties of Krugmanesque experience
Paul Krugman’s talking shit about Bernie Sanders again: Indeed, what the Sanders movement, with its demands for purity and contempt for compromise and half-measures, most nearly resembles is not the Trump insurgency but the ideologues who took over the G.O.P., becoming the establishment Mr. Trump is challenging. And yes, we’re starting to see hints from that movement of the ugliness that has long been standard operating procedure on the right: bitter personal attacks on anyone who questions the campaign’s premises, an increasing amount of demagogy from the campaign itself. Compare the Sanders and Clinton Twitter feeds… Read More
Fresh audio product
Just added to my radio archive: March 10, 2016 Anne Balay, co-author of this article, on the tough but romantic life of the truck driver • Lester Spence, author of Knocking the Hustle, on neoliberalism and black politics [Back after KPFA fundraising break. If you like these shows and want to keep them coming, please support KPFA. If you do, be sure to mention Behind the News.]
The New Republicans
In a remarkable New York Times story, former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell has revealed the strategy of the Hillary Democrats as they face the challenge of Donald Trump: “For every one of those blue-collar Democrats he picks up, he will lose to Hillary two socially moderate Republicans and independents in suburban Cleveland, suburban Columbus, suburban Cincinnati, suburban Philadelphia, suburban Pittsburgh, places like that,” he said. In other words, they’re hoping to terrify the moderately conservative into voting for their candidate. Forget having any positive message that might attract disaffected “blue-collar Democrats,” meaning the white… Read More
Complacency of the Dems
According to the Iowa Electronic Market (IEM), Hillary has an almost-90% chance of winning the Democratic nomination. Anything can happen of course, but I wouldn’t put much money on the other side of that bet. So what about November? As I write this, the IEM has Trump ahead of Rubio by 45–37. That may underestimate Trump’s chances, as people have been doing all along. Leaving that aside for now, I think that Dems are way too overconfident that Hillary can beat Trump in November. People are pissed and don’t want another president from Goldman Sachs. Trump… Read More
Fresh audio product
Just uploaded to my radio archive: February 11, 2016 Tim Shorrock on panic over North Korea (Nation author page) • Robert Fatton on the mess in Haiti on the departure of Sweet Micky from the presidency February 4, 2016 Matt Karp on the demographics of Sanders’ support (Jacobin author page) • Jasson Perez on the Black Youth Project 100 (full agenda here)
LBO News from Doug Henwood 