cleanup on aisle 2! (as they say)

As the 2016 election recedes into the distance it seems more people are coming out with real criticisms of Candidate Clinton. Of course these could have been predicted, were noted at the time by people like us, and ignored by her partisans. Even to mention the problems was consided criminal as it would undermine the impression (a false one!) that everything was just great in her campaign and triumphant march towards the throne.

Sometimes it takes an outsider to be calm enough to look at what happened and why. Here's an article by a Republican strategist. You can tell from the link title what it's about.

http://www.blackenterprise.com/news/politics/hillary-clintons-10-misstep...

I'll just list them here but it's some good reading so check out the link.

1. Assumed the election was in the bag:
2. Took the black vote for granted:
3. Unable to galvanize voters to support her platform:
4. Unable to decisively beat Trump in all three debates:
5. 270+ days without a press conference:
6. Relied too heavily on star power:
7. Didn’t play by the rules in the primary:
8. Weak connection to millennial voters:
9. No plausible response to WikiLeaks:
10. Relied too much on “Never Trump” movement:

and here's another good one

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trump-didnt-win-election-hillary-l...

It's got this, comparing the enthusiasm for Bernie to the lack of same for Hillary.

"...regularly pulling 20,000+ enthusiastic people to his rallies, while Hillary spoke in small gatherings to large donors and never attracted more than 800 people to an event."

To large donors....and even now that's who she's talking to, "explaining" to them why she lost. "Comey", she says. Right....

Anyway, there it goes. So long, election of 2016! You left us with those memories.

Wait!!! BULLETIN!!! LATE BREAKING NEWS via email!!

Just got this piece of nuttiness from MoveOn.org.

It starts out "blah blah blah" and then has this:

"We were only able to do these things because we never, ever gave up and never stopped organizing. Our work together paved the pathway to taking back Congress, ending the war, and electing President Obama for eight years."

I'm not sure what war they claim was ended. It's typical, though. I get...what's the word when you read something that makes you go "give me a break!"? So blind! And willfully so! I saw a Facebook thing today that was supposed to mock rightwingers who don't like the anti-Trump protests. This FB post had photos of the rightwing crazies who had signs opposing Obama from the day after he won the election in 2008. And how hypocritical they are to now not like anti-Trump protests! Yet...hold on. Isn't it also hypocritical to have thought those wingers where sore losers back then and to now do just what they did? Plus that whole crazy idea of the electoral college voting for Hillary...how would they feel had she won enough states with enough electoral votes only to have the electoral college vote for Trump? They'd go ballistic of course. But they can't see why it would be a terrible idea for it to happen in Hillary's favor.

Ok, enough of that. Back to where I was going....

Now we can return to what we care most about: Issues! Identity politics is a drag. Putting our faith in a single candidate is a losing proposition. We learned that with Obama. Identity politics has ruined dKos and could ruin c99p if we let it. If we focus on the issues we're much better off. Looking only at a candidate makes us excuse poor stands on those issues. If Obama is our lefty savior then we have to excuse his drones and his support of corporatism. If Bernie is our guy then we have to ignore his foreign policy. Don't look when he says the Saudis have to do their share of the killing. Don't look when he frames the Palestinian plight with the phrase "they lob missiles into Israel".

We don't have to only support those who agree with us on everything. It's probably impossible to find any such candidate, anyway. But if we stick to the issues, both at home and foreign policy, and don't get hung up on the idea that there's someone out there to lead us, we're more likely to remain level headed and effective.

On a personal note, by the time most of you read this we'll finally be getting work done on our roof. We think there'll be two dry days here, enough time for the dormer to get re-roofed. We'll probably have to wait until after Thanksgiving to have the rest of the back of the house done, then wait until late Spring and get the front taken care of. Hooray! Then when it rains we'll chuckle instead of quivering in fear.

And, you know, I quiver in fear a lot more about the rain coming through the roof and the house collapsing than I do about Trump continuing what Obama's doing. But soon that roof will be protecting us. Yippee!

Hey, Tom Hanks, Diana Ross and Bruce Springsteen are three of the twenty-one recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That's absurd. It reminds me that a comedian named Lenny Henry is now Sir Lenny Henry. And there's also Sir Tom Jones. No Sir Ringo but a Sir Tom Jones. Because we don't have enough elitism, I guess. These "awards" are as meaningful as the diploma that the Wizard of Oz gave to the Scarecrow. No...less meaningful, now that I think about it. Which reminds me, the Margaret Hamilton who's getting one of these Presidential Medals is a computer scientist, not the Wicked Witch. I'm going to lump these Presidential Medals into the Grammy category. That's like the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame category. Madonna's in there, for god's sake! But not Johnny Burnette. Bah!

ok, music time. It's alway music time around here. We've got a Pandora station that I peppered with my favorites. I listen to that when I get up, and sometimes I listen to "Beyond the Beat Generation", a garage rock internet station. Because, you know, you can listen to that internet stuff on radios now if you've got a certain kind of radio. My three favorite internet radio statios are that Beyond... that I just mentioned, WFMU Ichiban from New Jersey and "Beatle Radio". It's hard listening to the Beatle station because those songs are just too good and I can get sucked into not working while I think "hey, this is a good one" over and over.

Here's a tune featuring Sir Van Morrison

now a song my group does. I heard this one on Beyond the Beat Generation.

and another garage song I had the pleasure of performing...with Big Al in the audience!

Did I mention Johnny Burnette is not in the RnR Hall of Fame?