Susie's mom probably knew as well as we did that HRC didn't have pneumonia ...

Rather an insult to hookers, comparing them to politicians who don't just sell services involving only their own bodies, but policy, programs and properties - including tax money - belonging to the public. Wouldn't terms like 'thieves' or 'traitors' be more accurate?

to the previous decades. By FAR. Of course there are always great artists in every decade (I love the Cure, and was a metal and thrash head then but also like a lot of New Wave, though most of that stuff doesn't stand up. What I did miss, and have now re-discovered was the hardcore and punk stuff during that era).

Just looking at the hits of the day, the 80's are atrocious compared to the 70's and 80's. All you have to do, literally, is to go down a list of the #1 or Top Ten hits of that decade and compare it to exactly ten or twenty years before - and it's no comparison (I used to work for Billboard and have the books. Trust me, it's like comparing a JV basketball team to the 1990's Chicago Bulls). I guess you can tell, I'm much less sanguine about that decade - and I was in college right at the heart of it! Man, did it suck.

In a general sense, the tepid music of that era was a reflection of a RW super Conservative wet dream of dumbed down, inoffensive, and corporate culture designed for crass consumerism and willful ignorance. Don't talk about what's going, in fact, let's pretend nothing is happening. I see a direct lineage of how we got from there to the ugly, oppressive and infernal wasteland of Neoliberalism today. Marketers telling us our worth could be found in the products we buy. Obedience and shopping. Keep stuffing our faces and filling up our garages, attics and basements with cheap goods made by slave labor in SE Asia. All started then, propped up by vapid and empty pop music.

I'll let Bill Hicks take over from here for a few minutes:

I've also got some serious theories about how the 80's ruined practically every good rock band who existed before it, by sucking them into this vortex of terrible over-production, gadgets, fake drums, compressed guitars, producer-driven pandering pop, compelled to do ridiculous, expensive videos, (along with the worst fashion). It was a whirlwind of cheese. Just briefly, consider all these rock bands in the 70's: Genesis, Rush, The Who, Heart, Jefferson Starship, Steve Miller, Neil Young, Van Halen, etc, to name just a few off the top of my head. Now consider their 80's ventures. Oh-no! Gag-fest.

I don't have time to expound more right now. But I'd love to. Maybe I'll put together a fun musical/cultural essay someday soon on what I mean.

I'll be at the Desert Trip concert tomorrow and all weekend. The entire 80's could never put up a bill that comes anywhere near the universe of musical profundity and power that can be found in just these six artists' contributions.

Nah, the 80's don't compare.

I will write this up in an essay to explain further, with tons of examples. Of course this is all subjective, isn't it? So yeah, I'm just pretty passionate about this subject (obviously) and music overall.

Thanks, haven't heard that for ages!

Well, she doesn't like answering most policy questions where the public might hear them, so she needs to be able to pick and choose, plus I'm guessing that they have to have the best-polling answers in the right order and all Ready For Hillary on a monitor?

Hey, she does better with a low-turn-out, like the rest of the Republicans. And she doesn't actually need the voters to have the votes anyway.

In terms of Live TV, otherwise, who knows what TPTB would cook up. Although, I suppose the debates would work, right? They're live. Image the headlines for that event. Presidential Candidate declared DOA at nearest hospital. Speculation from Clinton camp about body double begin to emerge. Was it Hillary, or someone who looks a lot like Hillary. Stay tuned folks!