CONVENTION NIGHT TWO.

Chris Cox of the NRA is, unlike his beef-faced senior officer Wayne LaPierre, a bland doughball, head almost perfectly round and face almost uninterrupted by features. But he can yap the party line as well as anyone. He tells us "a Hillary Clinton Supreme Court means your raht to own a fahr-arm is goawn!" Also, Hitlery has Secret Service, which is hypocritical for someone who doesn't want all America to be Westworld. The worst and most typical thing is his reference to the NRA as "the largest and oldest civil rights organization in America” — which I guess is their way of telling white people that they're not racist, but actually advocates for arming all and even black people, under the right circumstances. Ha. Look up Huey P. Newton Gun Club on Google; look at the older articles by National Review gun nut Charles C. W. Cooke, when he was pimping that club as a sign of how Second Amendment activism and wingnuttery was for all the races:

In August, as the outrage over the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., dominated the news, an African-American group calling itself the Huey P. Newton Gun Club took to the streets of Dallas, rifles in hand, to protest. Local businesses were supportive, and the city’s police chief confirmed in a statement that his department “supports the constitutional rights of all.” On Twitter, the hashtag #blackopencarry prompted a warm response from conservatives.

Then look at wingnut stories about that Club after the recent Baton Rouge shooting, e.g. this one from Breitbart News: "EXCLUSIVE – MILITANT BLACK GUN CLUB FOUNDER ON BATON ROUGE COP KILLINGS: ‘NATURAL LAW TO TAKE UP AN ARMED APPROACH’..."

According to reports, Micah X. Johnson, who carried out a deadly shooting against police officers two Friday’s ago, “liked” the Huey P. Newton Gun Club on Facebook... 

The past two weeks, armed members of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club have been seen at demonstrations in Dallas and Baton Rouge...

Haven't heard from Charlie Cooke about the Gun Club since then. I bet he's real disappointed that his favored black avatar of Guns Everywhere hasn't passed muster, and hopes he can find another group of black gun nuts that his cracker buddies can endorse, some of these days -- but no need to rush into that until after the election.

UPDATE. Ugh, who doesn’t hate Paul Ryan — that fake-suffering, fake-hopeful face, that lacquered hair, that slightly-too-large jacket meant to make him look younger and slimmer. “I found some other things to keep me busy,” he says fake-humbly about the 2012 election, and laughs at stupid Obama and Biden who’ll be cooling their heels in some big-gummint hellhole while he’s on the dais with Donald Trump

“Have we had our arguments this year?” he says, and there’s a rueful hoot from the crowd. But those are “signs of life,” Ryan says, rather than the garbage fires they appear to everyone else. The “Democratic Part Establishment,” by contrast, offers “a third Obama term offered by another Clinton.”

Ryan also throws in “politically correct” — drink! “Four more years of it?” he says, referring to national leadership without racial slurs. The crowd is agin it! Also, the libtards “look down” on them, etc. “Wages never seem to go up… When it comes to ideas, the advantage goes to us.” Heh, check the 2012 wave of “reformi-cons,” and the Trump-friendly “Cure for Trumpism” by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, and you’ll see “ideas” are something the wonks play with in the back room while the big boys play Ooga Booga and Conan The Republican.

Ryan’s a terrible attack dog, but the 327 people on the convention floor give him a lot of support, especially when he runs sentences together at the end to signal the climax. (He drops “America” from the “God Bless America,” one would like to think out of shame.) So this convention is not a total departure from tradition.

UPDATE 2.  Fuck, ABC’s running that golf chick and not letting me listen to Renfield — I mean Chris Christie! Christie is mad because “we’ve seen the Justice Department refuse to prosecute her… as a former federal prosecutor” — yeah, once upon a time people trusted him with that job! Well, it was Jersey — “I welcome the opportunity to hold Hillary Rodham Clinton accountable…” The crowd chants “Lock her up!” Christie, used to being humiliated by the boss, welcomes this turnaround.

Anyway, as Form Fed Pros, he promises, “I’m gonna present the case now against Hillary Rodham Clinton!” He means for this to be a mock trial, like Night of January 16th, but his argument is more like Libya is a mess, so she’s guilty right? Boko Haram, so she’s guilty, right?  And the crowd screams Guilty! If he asked them to scream Kill the bitch, or The gun is good, the penis is evil, they'd do that too. He even knocks Clinton for sucking up to Putin! Yeah, in defense of Putin's buddy Donald Trump! (In his gilt tower, Trump is laughing his ass off and wondering what he'll do to shame Christie when he gets back -- maybe make him eat a cowflop.)

I can't imagine that, each time the goons chant "lock her up," I'm the only one who thinks that, no matter how debased we've learned Christie to be, this is beneath contempt.

UPDATE 3. There's no need to repeat anything the attractive and poised Tiffany Trump is saying. What's maybe important is: Why is this important? I mean, everyone knows that every single one of the 27 family members whom Trump is having speak at the convention is, in the broader scheme of things, a waste of protoplasm, wealth-holders burning up capital, the effluvia of Trump's ambition. Nothing any of them has said in any venue has ever been noteworthy except as something to attach to a boldface name in a gossip column, or believable even when it's about the patriarch. (The guy at ABC News says he heard some "cute anecdotes" about Donald Trump. Please forward them.)

UPDATE 4. That was a nice "Star-Spangled Banner."

UPDATE 5. Forgive me, PBS just showed this afternoon's Trump convention manipulations and I thought for a second we had started all over again. In the tape, Reince Priebus is explaining to an uninterested and/or cowed audience that none of the challenges to Trump's candidacy were ever going to get anywhere, and brings in some poor, terrified woman to read some rules about the times, dates, and business of the Convention they're right in the middle of. Priebus is now speaking Parliamentarian super-fast like a tobacco auctioneer, which must look like shit to any normal people listening in -- and I'm sure none were. Wow -- and these are the Constitutionalists?

The really sad (Sad!) thing was, I missed Donald J. Trump Jr.'s speech, which I'm told was exactly what you would expect.

UPDATE 6. Crazy motherfucker Ben Carson is on, raving about the “politically elite” — yes, that's "politically elite," not "political elite"; I guess his brain sagged at the nexus of “politically correct” and “ruling elite,"  caved in on itself and smushed together. He's descrying “the narrative that’s being advanced by some in our own party — that a Hillary Clinton Administration wouldn’t be so bad…” The crowd snarls. “They’re not using their God-given brain,” assures Carson. Because, he warns, Clinton’s Presidency would be something America “may never recover from.” At first I thought he meant she’d make herself dictator for life — he’s capable of that sort of hyperbole  — but no, he meant she’d appoint judges who would have a “deleterious effect for years to come,” which to hear him tell it would be just as bad.

Then he gets into Saul Alinsky — and the crowd boos! They know about Alinsky, unlike most normal Americans, including the Democrats who are allegedly in his thrall. “Let me tell you something about Saul Alinsky," says Carson. "In the dedication page of his book he acknowledges Lucifer…” And guess what — Carson doesn’t get the joke! He goes into a weird tirade about how God is on all our money, yet Alinsky and the Democrats want to worship Satan — which is like saying, “Ellen Burstyn was in The Exorcist, so if you ever go see Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore you’re trying to take God out of our lives!”

Then Carson talks about Thomas Jefferson and the crowd knows immediately without any prompting because he is crazy Ben Carson that this is Tree of Liberty/Blood of Homosexuals time and they go screaming nuts! “He knew," howls Carson, "that we the people would recognize what was going on, and we would rise up…” REBEL YELLS! Perhaps Carson wanted to explain further, but they’ve already shoved him off stage as GE Smith and his Band of Mercenaries plays Shining Star and the old folks shake their butts and a Code Pink demonstrator carrying an anti-racism banner is grabbed and dragged out of the hall.

CONVENTION NIGHT ONE.

The younger guy from Duck Dynasty is on (Willie), and here to pray on Louisiana (“we love you through pain”) and says Trump and he have three things on common — success in business, hit TV shows and good-looking wives. The media don’t know what-all it’s doing and that’s how they missed “the Trump train — they don’t hang out with regular folk like us,” who used to look like A&F models before the rebrand. “They don’t know how to talk to middle America,” he adds, so they talk real slow — Jeff Foxworthy did script-doctoring I hear. “America is in a bad spot, and we need a President who will have your back,” he says. “…if you're looking for a job, or tryin’ to start a business like I have, Donald Trump will have your back.” Just don't ask for money. He’ll do the same for cops — big cheer for cops! And he’ll do the same for “average Americans” abandoned by “faraway leaders.” He does the “not politically correct” thing, but assures us that though Trump spits slurs, he always “tells the truth as he sees it,” which makes it better. And — what, that’s it?

And here’s Chachi! He starts by thanking all the brave men and women of the military, always a good opening — show biz smarts, still! Scott Baio trusts Trump, thinks America “the greatest country God every created. America is an easy place to get to —“ I thought he was going into an immigration riff there, but instead he pivots to “getting free stuff,” like the blahs do. “Sometimes doing the things you don’t wanna do… to get where you wanna be.” Like this speech? Like the Duck guy, Chachi too thinks America’s in a state —so “we need Donald Trump to fix this.” Chachi admits that Trump is not a “messiah,” just someone who wants to “give something back” to America, because that’s the Trump way. He scores the Democrats for “policies that make us unsafe,” whereas Trump is “doing this from the goodness of his heart” — another inside joke? -- whereas “Hillary Clinton wants to be president for Hillary Clinton.” Sure, pitching anyone as more selfish than Donald Trump is a gutsy move, but — wait, he’s done?

UPDATE. Rick Perry and his wife met a "talk-drink-o-water" military man at a base once and invited him to visit them. And he did, and here he is -- "the lone survivor, Marcus Luttrell," an authentic war hero. Luttrell's father was "shamed out of his uniform" -- dunno what that was about, but Marcus makes a positive of it; he became a Navy Seal, and is humbly oblique about his celebrated fighting career. He got to meet "one of the greatest people America has to offer." Doesn't say who it is. Luttrell wants to make sure "the hell the veterans came from is not the hell they come home to." Well, there's a clear difference from the Democrats!  Here's another: "The only way we're gonna keep America safe is to have an elite military, alright?" he says. "...each and every life under the flag is family and needs to be treated that way." Ah, okay, here comes Benghazi. No, a pivot: "In order for any part of life to matter, we all have to matter." As for the next generation, "Your war is here... I was allowed to walk with giants... who among you are gonna step up and take the fight to the enemy, because it's here!" The world outside America is "a scary place," America is the "light," and now Luttrell is worked up, but gets off the stage because there's really nothing else to say.

Now Pat Smith, whose son was killed at Benghazi. She's very upset, and it's terrible to see. Her son told her the night before the event, "Mom, I am going to die," because security had been pulled and no one could tell him why. She lost a son, and "the American people lost the truth... I blame Hillary Clinton." Blood-red roar from the crowd. "I blame Hillary Clinton personally... Hillary Clinton blamed it on terrorism... she lied to me and then called me a liar... she looked me squarely in the eye and told me a video was responsible." The crowd is seething, bubbling under. Smith says she has kept after Clinton for a better answer, but "whenever I called the State Department, they refused to speak to me, because I am not a member of the immediate family... How can she do this to me?" People are yelling things from the crowd, snarls, rebel yells. "Donald Trump is everything Hillary Clinton is not," Smith says, and will keep us safe -- "he will not hesitate to kill the terrorists that threaten American lives!" Smith is catching the energy of the crowd. "That's right, Hillary for prison! She deserves to be in stripes!"

And they cut her off with a Swift Boat... I mean, a Benghazi video.

UPDATE 2. Two guys from Benghazi, Mark Geist and John Teigen, up there now, talking into hand mikes, talking about the situation on the ground, comparing it to whack-a-mole — “another guy’d stick his head up and you’d shoot him.” It’s straight reportage, telling about the mortar attacks, the casualties they sustained, with the traditional poetry and humor of war stories (“The debris was so thick you couldn’t see the stars… I don’t want to die [falling off a roof], I wanna go out in a blaze of glory”). I think the idea is to get the folks back home to know something of the warriors before accusing Clinton of murder again.  (Interestingly, they say they got some help from "Gaddafi loyalists" whom, they note, Clinton wanted to get rid of.)

Ah, here it comes: “...opportunities squandered when Hillary failed to protect her people on the ground. Had she done her job that night… Ty, Glenn, and Ambassador Stevens would be alive today. Now we as Americans, we have an opportunity, and that opportunity is to elect someone who will make that country safe again… someone who’ll have our backs… won’t leave anybody behind…” With all due respect: You’re talking about Donald Trump?

“We did our part — now it’s time you do yours,” says the other guy. If you don’t vote Trump, you’re letting down the U.S. military.

UPDATE 3. Ah, now it’s time for the Messicans! They show filmed footage of a couple of folks who lost a loved one thanks to “Obama’s failed Fast and Furious operation.”  The idea, I guess, is to show the human fallout from Obama policy so that they don't just look like angry nuts mad at minorities and foreigners.

And speaking of which — a guy with a Spanish name! Oh, wait, it’s Italian? This is the underwear model, right? Antonio Sabato Jr. lets us know up front he believes in Jesus, and America is “weaker by almost every measure” because of the Democrats. Anyway, Sabato came here legally and others “should follow the same rules… there should be no short-cuts… my mother was born in Communist Prague… I know what socialism looks like, I don’t want that for my children.” Obama and Clinton are socialists, while “Donald Trump is for unity,” a different thing altogether. “None of this is hateful,” Sabato tells us. I guess that’s for anyone who might be wondering, which no one in this crowd is, apparently.

Now, a story about a cop killed by a drunken illegal Mexican. Jeez, Obama's killing everybody! "It's time we had an Administration that cares more about Americans than about illegals," says his mother.  Another woman lost a son to a drunken illegal Guatemalan, who got just 35 days for killing him. Sounds like their beef is with the judicial system, but she's mad at "Crooked Hillary" and considers Trump her "life saver... build the wall, Americans need to come first."  Another fellow, a black man from Los Angeles, had a son shot to death by an illegal Mexican gangster. Since the guy was targeting blacks, "you'd think Obama'd care, because 'Black Lives Matter.' No!" The relief at having a black guy say this is palpable.

And now here's a politician, so who cares.

UPDATE 4. Ah, now they’ve got a black guy who’ll say some crazy shit, and it’s not Ben Carson! “BLUE LIVES MATTER IN AMERICA,” hollers future America’s Sheriff David Clarke. He tells the crowd that yet another Baltimore cop got off on the death of Freddie Gray, which really lights them up. “MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN,” yells Clarke. He says that “many Americans increasingly have an uneasiness” about their safety, which is not the same thing as actually being in danger, but so what, we have a Trump to push so “Americans don’t always feel safe” will have to do. Anyway, we all have to “play by society’s rules… built on a foundation of trust…” Martin Luther King was all about the “network of mutuality” and wanted the law applied equally to everyone. Sounds good to all of us, right? Well, Black Lives Matter is “anarchy” so forget about that. Trump “speaks to the values that are the foundation of the social contract,” and he knows contracts, amirite? “What can make our nation safe again is a recommitment to justice … no elected official, even Hillary Clinton… can claim privilege above the law!” When Trump wins this guy is gonna arrest Clinton for spitting on the sidewalk and by that he means the Constitution!

Now it's a couple of reality TV stars, the Campos-Duffys, who make lame jokes about Crooked Hillary and denounce "the corrupt socialist regimes our families left behind."  (Sean Duffy's people are from Ireland.) They're actually shouting so much Sean is getting hoarse,  so they must know we're getting tired out here.

Ah, now another black guy, who makes a joke about "change" but not Bob Hope and Steve Jobs. Anyway, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson don't speak for him, and All Lives Matter; if he were running for Senator of this convention instead of Colorado I'd say he had a shot.

I might come back for Giuliani but only if I can find some Pepto-Bismol in the medicine cabinet first.

UPDATE 5. Fucking Giuliani, who has been getting worse every day and covered a few months.  He cheers that Trump is a New Yorker, which the crowd seems divided on. He’s here to tell us about being safe and like Clarke he says people don’t feel safe and that’s what’s important. Also cops have a “target on their back.” He roars thanks to the Cleveland PD! “We know the risk you’re taking,” he roars. “When they come to safe your life, they don’t care if you’re black or white — “ Here his voice becomes keening, like a bagpipe — “THEY JUST COME TO SAVE YOU!” For a twist, Giuliani admits there is such a thing as an unjustified police shooting. BUT! “ONE AMERICA!” The bagpipe again — “THERE IS JUST AMERICA! WHAT HAPPENED TO IT! WHERE DID IT GO! HOW HAS IT FLOWN AWAY!” He tells us he made New York safe — and “what I did for New York Donald Trump will do for America!” (But no gun control this time!) Now the personal touch: He’s known Trump 30 years and he’s accomplished “great things.” And Trump has “a big heart.” He helped fallen cops, but asked not to be mentioned! Despite his famous modesty, Giuliani will out him as a great humanitarian! “I AM TELLING YOU THIS BECAUSE I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THE DEFAMATION OF DONALD TRUMP…” Jesus, did he work with a coach? Does he think the mike isn’t on? He’s getting hoarse, which may be the only reason he’s pulled back. Now he’s on the “Islamist terrorist attacks” — yah gotta say it! “ISLAMIC EXTREMIST TERRORISM!… I DID NOT SAY ALL OF ISLAM!” Anyway, for the ones he’s really talking about, “YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! AND WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU!” Rudy throws in “politically incorrect,” which is the theme of the evening, I guess (that and "Hillary kills our families"). He gets nice fat boos for Obama, because the foreigners think we’re weak, we must put them “on defense” — so we must commit ourselves to UNCONDITIONAL VICTORY, which would include, believe it or not, getting rid of the Iran treaty — which is almost totally backwards; he claims Iran is funding the terrorists. Well, Trump will break that up. Hillary’s “dereliction of duty” led to the murders in Benghazi, she and Obama “lied” about it, but Hillary lied more since she’s running for President. Rudy gets apoplectic about “What difference at this point does it make?” which is golden with this crowd, and proves she “should not be allowed to be our Commander in Chief. Who would trust Hillary Clinton to protect them… Donald Trump will change all that.” You have to be drinking the Kool-Aid to buy that one, but these guys are swimming in it. “DONALD TRUMP IS THE AGENT OF CHANGE AND HE WILL BE THE LEADER OF THE CHANGE WE NEED!”

You just know Giuliani's thinking, "And they think Trump is the new Mussolini! I should have tried this screaming shit in 2008."

POST-MORTEM: As Heet Jeer and others have observed, the program is calculated to strike fear into the hearts of viewers because fear is what turns people right-wing (unless we're talking about right-wing writers -- then, the come-on is easy money!). But the out-party always fear-mongers against the in-party; see Joe Biden earnestly telling black voters Republicans would put them-all in chains, one of my favorites. But until Hillary brings Philando Castile's grieving family out, crying and shaking, to accuse Donald Trump of murder and demand he be thrown in prison, I can safely say the Republicans have set a new bar.

NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about the rightbloggers' status as Trump takes the crown. I've been expecting the #NeverTrump people would come around by election time, and with the exception of the most embittered dead-enders that's the way they're heading, though most hang onto plausible deniability with some prefatory anti-Trump talk before telling us the real priority is beating Hillary Clinton.

I think the real test will be whether the old timers can get with the new style laid down by the more enthusiastic, fuh-real Trumpbloggers. Take the guys at Breitbart.com like Matthew Boyle. Boyle's current headline sounds like a typically ominous take on Il Douche: "FEAR AND LOATHING IN CLEVELAND: DONALD TRUMP COMPLETES NATIONALIST POPULIST TAKEOVER OF GOP AT REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION." But read the copy and it turns out he's not saying it as a bad thing --

Lobbyists aren’t welcome around the convention, and typical D.C. power-brokers are running as far away from Trump as possible. Trump, who has campaigned aggressively against these insiders, doesn’t want them here anyway... 

Right now, the world is on fire. Cops are being killed by black liberationists, illegal aliens are pouring across the border, and the government is placing “refugees” with tuberculosis in cities and town across America... 

Trump, a blue collar billionaire who’s made his fortune in real estate with many of the same rough and tumble tactics Americans have seen on the campaign trail, feels that anger...

Sounds like a publicist for The Joker, doesn't he? Pre-Trump, Republicans played their Daddy-Party cards with Nixonian decorum; now it's Helter Skelter, coming down fast. If the George Will types wish to remain viable in this Grand New Party, they'll have to get comfy with chaos. I expect they will; I mean, it's not like they have to believe in it.

THE FIRST THREE DAYS OF THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION.

There are plans to emphasize different themes each night of the convention. Mr. Trump wants to touch on a few of his favorite hot-button issues, like the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, former President Clinton’s infidelities and border security. — New York Times

NIGHT 1

[A soft-rock beat as the corpse of MUAMMAR GADDAFI is dragged around the stage by ARABS wearing dark greasepaint and loose-fitting muslin clothes; as they leave, U.S. MARINES march jauntily in place as AMBASSADOR STEVENS sings to the tune of Toto’s “Rosanna”:]

Thought it was my callin’ after Lib-i-ya had fallen to clean up the place —
Benghazi, Benghazi!
Shoulda known that Hillary the Traitor would get in my face!
Benghazi!
I tried to help the Arabs even though they’re filthy scarabs but they called me a fag —
Benghazi, Benghazi!
Then Hil-la-ry, she sent them after me just to disgrace the flag!

[Music shifts to "Ride of the Valkyries"; a swarm of Cirque du Soleil acrobats identifiable as HILLARY CLINTONS by their fat-butted pantsuits and blonde hair swoop in, with small puppets — also Arabs, on the model of Achmed The Dead Terrorist — strapped to their chests. The HILLARY CLINTONS’ arms and the Arab puppets’ arms are connected, so that whenever an ARAB clubs, stabs, or sodomizes STEVENS — or OTHER LOYAL AMERICANS who wander in at some point — it is clearly a HILLARY CLINTON actually doing the clubbing/ stabbing/ sodomizing. Some HILLARY CLINTONS also restrain the U.S. MARINES to the sides of the stage, where they brandish their weapons impotently.]

[After STEVENS and the LOYAL AMERICANS are all dead the ARABS, gibbering contentedly, drag them offstage. The MARINES sadly march forward. A huge hologram of MUAMMAR GADDAFI appears and laughs derisively, joined by holograms of derisively-laughing HITLER, STALIN, and ELIZABETH WARREN. The MARINES brandish their weapons at the holograms till they fade away, supplanted by a hologram of DONALD TRUMP, whereupon the MARINES cheer, stand at attention, and go “ooh-rah”; then they get in solemn formation as the music changes to "The Ballad of the Green Berets." Far upstage, effigies of HILLARY, BILL, and CHELSEA CLINTON, clearly dead, are borne aloft on halberds by men dressed like REVOLUTIONARY WAR SOLDIERS. MARINES sing to the tune of the Ballad:]

Let their deaths not be in vain!
Shoot each Clinton in the brain!
Throw their bodies in a dump
And go vote for Donald Trump!

[Cheers, gunfire.]

NIGHT 2

[A troupe of dancers enact a series of attempted sexual assaults by chubby white men with white pompadours to the tune of "Midnight Rambler" by The Rolling Stones. BILL CLINTON comes onstage, dragging by her hair over a carpet of dollar bills a dancer who looks like PAULA JONES, whom he drops and leaves comatose before strolling center stage and addressing the audience as the music vamps:]

Hi, y’all. I’m former President Slick Willy Clinton. [pause for boos] Now as y’all know I’m from the South — but not the good South you folks know, where Jesus reigns and certain people [pushes in nose] know their place. [Pause for cheers.] No, no, I’m not from your Bible-beating, fag-bashing South at all — I’m from what them Black Lives Matter types call the Dirty South, the ATL — that stands for “Anti Traditionalvalues Lesbianism” — where people like me learn deviant sexual ways from rapists like Emmett Till. [Pause for boos.] Sure, some people say he was innocent, but they said the same about that “gentle giant” Michael Brown, know what I’m saying? [pause for cheers] Hey, did y’all know my Momma was a whore? [pause for cheers] ‘Scuse me, I meant [finger quotes] “single mother” [pause for laughter]. And between that and my other “dark” influences, I can’t help myself — as the nation’s first black president — sorry, Bah-rack! — and I just gots to force myself on white women! And one of the first white women I forced myself on — though I can’t be sure, there was so many — was Hillary — who warn’t much to look at even then [pause for whoops, cheers, gunfire], but though she was in love with the black stuff, at the same time she was too racist — ain’t that right, Clarence! — [gets “thumbs up” from Clarence Thomas in the gallery, cheers, gunfire] — too racist to have relations with an actual black man! [whispers into the mike] That’s right, America — every fantasy you ever had about liberals being n-word-lovers and racists all at the same time — even when your liberal friends the schoolteachers, federal employees, bookworms and sissy-boys said you was crazy — is proved to be true by me, right here on this stage tonight! [Cheers, gunfire, fistfights, self-pegging. BILL CLINTON sings to the tune of "Midnight Rambler":]

Talkin’ ‘bout the midnight Clinton
I’m havin’ sex ‘most all the time
Talking’ ‘about the midnight Clinton
Unlike your sex, mine is a crime
Your wife submits to your advances
Because her preacher says she must
A gal who goes with me free-lances
It’s totally immoral lust.

Talking’ ‘bout the midnight Clinton
Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones
I held ‘em down and made ‘em take it
Just like with the Obamaphones!
I might have sex with any woman,
Might even have it with your wife
If she sleeps with me because she wants to,
Then what’s that say about your life?

[HILLARY CLINTON emerges from the wings, physically restrains the PAULA JONES dancer while BILL CLINTON simulates intercourse with her; this goes on an uncomfortably long time; URL, 800 number flash at the bottom of the screen, asking for donations to TRUMP.]

NIGHT 3

[PETER THIEL comes out to confused, quiet applause.]

Good evening, I’m Peter Thiel. [Still confused, quiet applause] Come on, you know! I made PayPal! PAYPAL! [Slightly less confused, but still quiet applause] Yeah, well who cares what you stupid littlebrains think. Anyway I made a game for you to play. [Smattering of applause.] Oh, yeah, you like that, don’t you, peasants? And it’s about illegal immigrants! [Applause increases.] Ugh, who needs this! Go play you stupid game, you waste products! I own you!

[THIEL storms off the stage as consoles are distributed to the delegates and a game takes place on stage — the good guys try to build a wall out of bricks, the bad guys try to get their avatars (who all look like Danny Trejo) to hop over it, and when they do hop over it the good guys try to shoot them. The delegates play this excitedly until the fence-hoppers start to win, at which point the delegates take out their real guns and start shooting each other, at which point coverage is suspended and GOP officials blame it all on Islamic terrorism.]

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

Look, I've been in a middle-late Residents fugue state for weeks,
you're just going to have to roll with it guys.
• I see conservatives are attacking Obama for not keeping France, the 51st State, safe from a truck terror attack. What I often wonder is, what is their plan for stopping such terror -- besides rhetorical muscle-flexing like "peace through strength," I mean, or promising to torture more detainees? Fortunately Newt Gingrich is around to fill us in:

“Western civilization is in a war. We should frankly test every person here who is of a Muslim background and if they believe in sharia they should be deported,” Gingrich told Fox News’ Sean Hannity...

Gingrich also said that the attack in Nice is the “fault of Western elites who lack the guts to do what is right, to do what is necessary,” and suggested that mosques in America need to be monitored.

The Washington Post showed some guts, at least, by pointing out that "Gingrich’s proposal, which made no distinction between U.S. citizens and noncitizens, would violate scores of First Amendment-based Supreme Court rulings as well as civil rights laws..." But since we are not at one of those rare "libertarian moments" right now, I doubt the yahoos care. Maybe a war on Tunisia, where the assailant is from? Or, hell, on Iran, that's a popular favorite. If this becomes the Id Monster Election, Trump has it hands down -- which would be okay, because if we fall for this we're finished as a society anyway.

• I subscribe to a wingnut newsletter that connects me with some of the lesser-known culture war scolds, and today it brought me a lulu: At Standpoint, one of those fancy journal only Ross Douthat impersonators read, Daniel Johnson raves at hyperlength about the usual stuff: for example, how Trump is a betrayal of some much classier True Conservatism, the through line of which Johnson hilariously traces "from Edmund Burke to William Buckley, from Samuel Johnson to Paul Johnson, from Irving Kristol to Bill Kristol" -- a classic culture-war tell of conflating the Great Ancients with one's, er, less exalted buddies. But he really gets churning when he reaches a favorite subject of the chin-pullers, How the West Has Lost Its Way and Only My Scolding Will Save Her. Hark:

There are numerous viruses attacking the Western body politic, but only one medicine. To face the future unflinchingly, we must return to the past: listen to the patriarchs and prophets, the ancestral voices of our literature, break open the arsenal of our intellectual history, and mobilise the resources of righteous indignation against the dominions, principalities and powers of darkness that threaten to overwhelm us. The great books, from Homer to Shakespeare, from Plato to Pascal, from Dante to Bellow, must once again not only be assigned to every student, but learned where possible by heart. The music of the masters, from Gregorian chant to George Gershwin, from Sebastian Bach to James MacMillan, from Palestrina to Arvo Pärt, must not only float across the courts and quads of our colleges, but fill our airwaves and headsets.

From Shakespeare to James McMillan! Yessir, Johnson sure loves that trick. Note how perfectly this expresses the culture warrior's idea of art as ordnance. Not only in Johnson's imagining is it an "arsenal" to use against the Muslims and the Marxists, it's also a scourge with which to drive Western Youth into battle with them; their headsets must be filled with music selected by the Committee, even if they prefer Drake or 2Chains; they must memorize passages from It All Adds Up, et alia. For them art is not pleasure, and you can't expect even your own people to embrace it; it must be pounded into their skulls. Johnson imagines that by this he will save the West, but can a more despairing view of Western culture even be imagined?

• Oh, yeah, there's a writer named Tom Block who is looking down the barrel of a very tough diagnosis and he is not so financially secure (I mentioned he's a writer, didn't I) that he can be sure of a safe and comfortable place from which to fight it. If you're looking to drop a mitzvah, you could do worse.

ALWAYS LEAVE 'EM LAUGHING.

"Comedians in Cars Getting Abortions" with Alice Wetterlund and Nato Green is a mildly amusing web video (the bit where a "crisis center" counselor shows Wetterlund a picture of a 10-year-old and says it's "your baby at 536 weeks" is one of the better ones ) which probably renders its greatest sevice to comedy by turning wingnuts into Margaret Dumont. National Review's Ian Tuttle:

It’s extraordinary that this needs to be said, but: Killing a human being isn’t particularly funny. Imagine if the NRA made a sketch called “Comedians in Cars Invoking ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws,” or the Fraternal Order of Police filmed “Cops in Cars Using Lethal Force against Resisting Suspects.”

Hmm, I think I get the analogy he's making: liberals are pro-abortion, while conservatives are in favor of beating and killing black people.

The folks at NARAL probably wouldn’t be amused. And rightly so.

But there’s a particular moral derangement that accompanies abortion. It’s been observed time and again (including by yours truly) that the days of “safe, legal, and rare” are long gone. “Rare” vanished as an aim years ago, and the dancing in the streets that accompanied last month’s Supreme Court decision striking down Texas’s abortion-clinic regulations should mark the official end of “safe” as a goal.

These bitches refuse to feel bad about it! In fact they're dancing! Quick, pass another funerals-for-fetuses law to soothe my rage!

What remains is the hope of a Cecile Richards-designed utopia in which, like Wetterlund’s character in the film, you can order an abortion like a McChicken. (“One abortion, please!”) And, just as important, enjoy it.

This is an apparent reference to the Abortions at Krispy Kreme and Chipotle Act of 2014, muscled through Congress by Hitlery Benghazi.

National Review is so outraged it gave the video two posts! "Comedians in Cars Getting Abortions video is A) not funny and B) based on a lie," claims Tuttle's comrade Alexandra DeSanctis. In fact, she insists, it's easy to get an abortion in America -- well, outside the woo-woo crazy Christianist hellholes, which DeSanctis doesn't mention; she seems to think the joke is about conscience exemptions for doctors, which suggest she didn't watch the video but instead had her preacher read a summary to her. "...procuring abortions anywhere else isn’t good enough for NARAL," she sputters. "Abortion has to be available everywhere." These guys are really working that abortion-everywhere angle; why they aren't adding WHERE MY KIDS CAN SEE IT! I can't guess.

Other wingnuts are catching the fever, some of them trotting out their film criticism chops: "This is a thing that exists. People made it. Watch what they made... They thought this video was funny and informative, apparently," cracks comedy genius Jim Treacher. "It’s terribly unfunny and riddled with misleading statements," tsks Bre Payton at The Federalist -- just like those banana peel gags; banana peels aren't actually that slippery, you know.

Then there are the deep semiotic analysts like Heather Wilhelm at Real Clear Politics. The video has a throwaway where Wetterland, after explaining why she wants an abortion, says "look at that kid" and gestures to some raging child off-screen. “That kid is slapping his dad in the face,” says a horrified Green. Got the bit? OK, attend Wilhelm's exegesis:

Hold your befuddlement, folks: It gets worse. “Also, I mean, look at that kid,” Alice says, gesturing out the window. We hear the sounds of a crying toddler, off camera. This toddler is, at least according to the latest science, a living human being with a heart and a brain and, depending on where you stand, a soul.

“That kid is slapping his dad in the face,” Nato says, in the manner of a man whose own soul has lost its batteries.

“Yeah, we don’t need more of those in the world!” declares Alice. Yeah, girlfriend! We don’t need any more pesky kids! Let’s get rid of them in a vague and unspecified fashion! Oh, but wait a second: My brain just got in the way, because it is larger than that of a stegosaurus. Why are toddlers related to your problem, Alice? You’re not incubating a person, right, so why worry?

Now that's funny! And I haven't even gotten to Wilhelm's extended denunciation of the 536-weeks bit ("For years, large segments of the pro-choice movement vehemently denied abortion involved a human child, or at least avoided that fact. Now, many no longer even try to hide it"). I suggest Greg Gutfeld snap Wilhelm up for "Comedians Raging About Abortion." That ought to give Fox ratings a bump -- at least until 2018, when the last of its viewership dies off. But I'll still be watching, because YouTube jokes come and go, but agitated wingnuts are a joy forever.

WHO'S AN ASSHOLE?

At National Review David French laments that "Donald Trump Confirms Progressives’ Worst anti-Conservative Prejudices," and boy does he ever, but not for the reasons French thinks. He starts with standard-issue bitchery about PC:

In the aftermath of both the Orlando and Dallas massacres, millions of Americans have been absolutely dumbfounded at the response of the Obama administration. In one instance, a Muslim man openly and repeatedly pledged allegiance to ISIS. In the other, a black radical openly and repeatedly declared his intention to kill police officers as retribution for alleged police abuse. In both cases, the administration stated that it may be difficult to discern the attacker’s true motives. Yet when Dylann Roof murdered nine black Americans in Charleston, there was no reluctance to ascribe motive. Why?

The obvious answer is “political correctness"...

I'm guessing the "millions" of dumbfounded Americans were about 98% white. I'm also guessing this is the part of Obama's speech after the Dylann Roof massacre that French is complaining about:

The fact that this took place in a black church obviously also raises questions about a dark part of our history. This is not the first time that black churches have been attacked, and we know the hatred across races and faiths pose a particular threat to our democracy and our ideals.

So to avoid political correctness, after Dallas Obama should have talked about America's dark history of black people oppressing and murdering white people. Fair's fair! (Actually I think French is just pissed that after the Charleston murders people got down on the Confederate flag, despite his eloquent defense of it.)

Anyway eventually French says that his and his buddies' own "reason and truth" would carry the day among the American people were it not spoiled by people like Donald Trump -- the Presidential nominee presumptive, you may recall, of the Republican Party:

The result is a movement built on spite, in which the desire to enrage progressives creates a continuous font of speech and conduct that works mainly to confirm the progressive world view. In the name of defying political correctness, Trump and his fans do absolutely nothing to temper the worst progressive impulses and do much to appall and repulse everyone else. They leave the American people without a morally defensible choice. It’s the scold versus the asshole. The scold feels vindicated, the asshole feels gleeful, and everyone else feels despair.

Make no mistake, Trump is not beating political correctness; he’s feeding it.

Again I remind you: Trump is the Republican candidate for President, and all the talk about how he's not really a conservative because he once talked about taxing the rich (only to back right off later) is a load of bullshit. Trump is actually the best possible avatar of contemporary conservatism. Because aside from the license to be an "asshole," as French puts it, what does conservatism have to offer voters? A sound economy? That was revealed as nonsense in 2008. Foreign policy? Ask your Republican aunt how eager she is for another Mideast war. Social policy that reflects the public will? Straights are cool with the gays now, and conservatives are outside the group hug screaming about bathrooms; white Americans are even starting to get what black people go through, which explains why conservatives keep stepping on their dicks explaining themselves on the issue.

No, political incorrectness -- that is, being an asshole -- is the only big seller left on the shelf. That's why the top career politicians in the Republican Party are flocking to Trump. Unlike the guys in the PR Department, they don't have to pretend to be nice.

UPDATE. Comments are marvelous, as usual. smut clyde notes, "If Trump is any guide, the central weapon of the War on Political Correctness is the call for the Wahhmbulance after any criticism he receives from others." Just so. Attend, for example, the weeping and wailing (led by the New York fucking Times!) over Justice Ginsberg calling Trump out. Few of the brethren noticed that the Judicial Code of Conduct that might restrain such comments does not apply to Supreme Court Justices (why should they, when Times reporters don't notice it?), and none could admit that Ginsberg is 100% right about Il Douche and truth, in the book of all wise men as well as in defamation cases, is an absolute defense. Instead they snarl about "Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s unhinged assault on Trump" (Seth Lipsky, New York Post) etc. One of my favorites is the Daily Caller's "[Andrew] Napolitano: Ginsburg’s Trump Comments ‘Damages The Reputation’ Of The Court." Andrew Napolitano! That's like Dwayne Johnson saying what a shitty actor Daniel Day-Lewis is. It's something, isn't it, that the people who in this life have the most need of shame possess so little capacity for it.

FOR HONKY FOLK WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/WHEN DONALD TRUMP IS ENUF.

Just read Rod Dreher's rhapsody on Hillbilly Elegy, an autobio by one J.D. Vance about how he, a son of Appalachia, escaped the depredations of the holler thanks to Mamaw and the U.S. Marines. Dreher's main take-away seems to be that hillbillies (the ones who didn't get out) are lazy, sexed-up, stupid, and self-deceiving and they need Jesus and Brother Rod's Benedict Option, in stores soon. Here's just one depressing piece:

Vance plainly loves his people, and because he loves them, he tells hard truths about them. 

(That's the bless-their-hearts part.)

He talks about how cultural fatalism destroys initiative. When hillbillies run up against adversity, they tend to assume that they can’t do anything about it. To the hillbilly mind, people who “make it” are either born to wealth, or were born with uncanny talent, winning the genetic lottery. The connection between self-discipline and hard work, and success, is invisible to them.

Plus they's always a-fuckin' and a-feudin' -- "Marriages rarely last, and informal partnerings are more common," he tsks. Why, they're as bad as the blacks!

Is there a black J.D. Vance? I wonder. I mean, I know there are African-Americans who have done what he has done. But are there any who will write about it? Clarence Thomas did, in his autobiography. Who else? Anybody know?

Maybe the job of Black Wingnut doesn't pay as well as it used to -- I mean, I'm sure this guy (author of "If You Don’t Want Police To Shoot You, Don’t Resist Arrest") gets lots of high-fives from Young Republicans, but I doubt he's making Clarence-level bank. But whatever Dreher's problems with black folk, this is just a brief detour for him; clearly white worthlessness is his hard-on here; he loves that the enlightened hillbilly Vance got out because it shows how shiftless the rest of them are. In fact, he references Kevin D. Williamson's infamous hymn of hate for poor whites --

I criticized Williamson at the time for his harshness. I still wouldn’t have put it the way he did, but reading Vance gives me reason to reconsider my earlier judgment.

Thank you, Rod "Imitation of Christ" Dreher. (Isn't it perfectly Dreheresque that, though he feels himself closer to Williamson's hatefulness, he wouldn't "put it the way he did"?)

As I mentioned when I wrote about Williamson's column, Dreher's review is part of a growing wingnut literature on how badly the poor honkies have let them down. There are a couple reasons why it's growing. For one thing, obviously, the rise of Trump has got these white-collar conservatives scared -- for years they applauded Joe and Jane Sixpack (remember them?) because they thought the Sixpacks were sufficiently racist, sexist, and otherwise class-resentful that they would reliably return Republican electoral majorities; then, however, it appeared they'd lost control of their Monster.

But this tendency slightly pre-dates Trump -- Charles Murray's book about the plight of white "Fishtown" punters (and David Brooks' effusions over it) go back to 2012. So there are clearly other reasons, and I can see them, too. First, the demographics that created the second Obama victory shattered mainstream conservatives' belief that whiteness might yet save them another time. Second, white-collar conservatives noticed that when they raved about lazy, sexed-up, stupid, and self-deceiving black people, everyone under 60 years of age gave them the stinkeye -- but if they just ported their viciousness over to another out-group, no one except obsessives like me paid any attention.

In fact, poor whites' very status as an out-group may have been the clincher. When it came out that white working-class people had begun committing suicide at an alarming rate, the first reaction of David French at National Review was to blame liberal hippies for making crackers feel bad.  But four months later French had changed his tune: "No one is making them do it," he had decided; "...The economy isn’t putting a bottle in their hand. Immigrants aren’t making them cheat on their wives or snort OxyContin..." They were, rather, only the victims of their own "self-destructive moral failures."

In many ways, my friends, it's no fun to get old, but there is some grim amusement to be had seeing people who thought for years that hate had made them safe learning God's truth the hard way. (You may think I'm talking about the poor whites, for whom I have much sympathy -- after all, I come from them -- but I'm really talking about the guys who've just thrown them overboard and are about to find out that the mainsail won't hoist itself.)

NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and Dallas, and the rightbloggers doing their thing. For the most part the brethren were predictably ooga-booga, but there were some brief glints of sanity,  and I'm still wondering where they came from -- I mean, they didn't last so maybe they'd don't matter, but maybe even their momentary existence suggests a way out of this madness. Or maybe I'm just getting soft.

I spent a long time on the thing (so read it, you ingrates!), and had to leave a lot out. There was for example the New York Post column by celebrity gun nut John R. Lott Jr., which he mostly devoted to ordinary rightwing racist tropes, e.g. "there were numerous cases around the country of blacks attacking whites and invoking [Trayvon] Martin’s name," and a suggestion that any claims of police racism were nonsense because “if black victims really believe police are so racist, why would they even bother reporting crimes?” (You People better be nice to us -- we're all you got!) One wonders why this famous Second Amendment scholar didn’t instead devote his column to advising African-Americans on how to start their own well-regulated militias. Ha, kidding, I don’t wonder at all.

COLOR BLIND.

A couple more black people just got shot by cops for what appears to be no good reason, so it's time for conservatives to trot out their usual weak-ass offers of conditional solidarity only so long as nobody mentions the R word in which case everything's off. At National Review Charles C. W. Cooke:

The officer could have been squarely in the wrong, and that would not necessarily render the incident “racist.”

In the same locale, Jim Geraghty:

But for some reason, some will point to this and say, “ah-ha, more evidence that cops are racist and murder with impunity!”

At The Federalist, Rachel Lu really strains to get the dopes who visit her site to accept that maybe not every person of color shot by the police has it coming, starting with the title, "You Don’t Have To Be Black Lives Matter To Support Police Accountability." Well, that's a relief! In 2,000 words, she mentions racism exactly once:

We understand how easily cops can become scapegoats for progressive liberals with an agenda. They deal daily with the grim effects of social breakdown, and when those confrontations take a tragic turn, liberals would much rather blame the “racist” police than acknowledge the bitter fruits of the sexual revolution and the welfare state.

So many innocent people of indeterminate race gunned down, and it's all because of LBJ and Hugh Hefner. Well, I trust we've learned a valuable lesson here; question, if you must and very gently, the police, but never question how good we are to You People.

SOCIETY'S CHILD.

You may have heard about that imbecilic mope-ed in the New York Observer today by its boy publisher Jared Kushner, also Donald Trump's son-in-law, defending Pa Trump from charges of anti-Semitism. The thing is all kinds of awful, but one part jumped out at me:

In December 1972, a month after Richard Nixon’s 49-state landslide, the New Yorker’s great film critic Pauline Kael gave a speech that said “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken.” I encourage Ms. Schwartz—and all reporters—to get out there and meet some of those people “outside their ken.” One of the reasons the Observer has more than quadrupled its traffic over the last three-plus years is that we’ve been actively broadening our perspective.

Let's lay to one side Kushner's humorous claim that he has the heart of The People because they buy more of his slop than they did before he dumbed down that once-sorta-good newspaper. There are two genuinely interesting things about his editorial. The more mildly interesting thing is that Kushner actually tells the real Pauline Kael story rather than the unflattering fake version -- wingnuts are not usually so scrupulous.

The other, more interesting thing about it is that anyone, especially a New York media mogul, still has the nerve to go out in public and tell liberals that they don't know anything about The People, and that they should go amongst them and learn as Kushner did.

Part of the joke for me is the persistence of the ancient limousine-liberal slur -- that if white people of some means (that is, who can afford to bother to know what the Observer is) believe in social justice and safety nets, it can only be because they never see any poor people or minorities, because they all live on the -- well, it used to be the Upper West Side, and then it was the West Village, and now I guess it must be Davos or some shit -- and that if they ever found themselves amongst darker people they would be disgusted and turn right-wing -- you know, like Rod Dreher did.

But a lot of white people who believe in these things are poor and have lived among other poor people of various shades and hues. I certainly was, and have, for several years, and I ain't exactly rolling in dough now. I've never owned a house or a car, and now, as often, I live in a majority-minority neighborhood. Yet I am invited to feel like some rich snob compared to Trump supporters, who make an average of 72 grand a year, just because I think Trump's bullshit is bullshit, which is allegedly (and despite his inferior poll numbers) elitist.

I see a parallel between Kushner's Rich Pal of the Poor routine and several other recent columns by big-time right-wingers who, while they might not quiiiite endorse Trump themselves, are yet happy to use Trumpism as a cudgel to beat liberals. The clearest example is Ross Douthat, who in his "The Myth of Cosmopolitanism" article ties (as others have) Trump to Brexit to make it seem more inevitable-like:

The people who consider themselves “cosmopolitan” in today’s West, by contrast, are part of a meritocratic order that transforms difference into similarity, by plucking the best and brightest from everywhere and homogenizing them into the peculiar species that we call “global citizens." 

This species is racially diverse (within limits) and eager to assimilate the fun-seeming bits of foreign cultures — food, a touch of exotic spirituality. But no less than Brexit-voting Cornish villagers, our global citizens think and act as members of a tribe.

Sure, I know about tribes. I was raised in a working-class New England Catholic family. (I don't know where Douthat got his wisp-beard Chesterton impersonator shtick, but I'm guessing it isn't from the streets.)  But I got out and found another way of life. And it wasn't as a "global citizen" -- because I don't know what the fuck that means. Maybe some rich people think of themselves that way, but I've never met anyone else who did. I just found a place I liked better and put down roots there. You know -- like Americans were once expected to do.

 I'm guessing what Douthat is trying to do is pierce or at least uncomfortably tickle some soft, white-guilt underbellies from the Times subscriber list. (If yours is black or brown, forget it, he has no reason to bother; from his perpsective you don't count.) If by any chance these assholes have made you feel at all bad about not living in Fritters, Alabama or not going to church or not voting for Trump, let me remind you that this has been their racket since time immemorial: Telling you that you should feel bad because you've turned against your kind. The big difference from the days when they more overtly told you to stick to your own kind is that far, far fewer people are listening to them, and they're desperate to get those numbers up.

NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about the Bill Clinton/Loretta Lynch thing and the Hillary Clinton/FBI thing and (mainly) rightbloggers' hysteria at being foiled by The Clenis and Hitlery once again. Like most Americans I'm kinda bored already by the CLINTONS CAUGHT SPITTING ON THE SIDEWALK (BY WHICH WE MEAN THE CONSTITUTION) stories emanating from Wingnut World. But after nearly a quarter century of this shit, even the brethren seem tired of it, too, and that's what I think I caught in this latest round of Clinton Contra action.

Some bonus material for the real-people late-night crowd: Here's some high-class hackery from Stephanie M. Jason at The Hill:

Given the "Teflon ability" of the Clintons to avoid political fallout from past questionable dealings – Whitewater, Chinagate, Travelgate, Monica-"gate", Clinton Foundation’s "pay-to-play" – Hillary’s karma may be catching up with her now.

Translation: We know The Clenis and Hitlery are guilty of something even if no legal or regulatory body has ever agreed — the law of averages is on our side!

Also I had to watch judicial cosplayer Judge Jeanine explain why Hillary was getting away with it this time: Apparently Boss Obama “knew [Clinton] had a private email server, so he is complicit -- and they will not allow a Constitutional crisis where the President of the United States knew about the risking of the security of the United States… Career prosecutors, FBI guys that I know, they’re pulling their hair out…" Maybe it's time Judge Jeanine and Wild Man Kurt Schlichter  and Allen B. West and all the other secessionists took their act on the road and overthrew another wildlife sanctuary!

UPDATE. Haven't had time (thanks to the inevitable post-holiday work-beating) to really examine the rightwing seethe-fest after Hillary got the fuck off, but now that I've had a look-in, all I can say is, between the armchair re-litigators like Joel B. Pollak of Breitbart.com ("FBI PROVES HILLARY CLINTON COMMITTED PERJURY BEFORE BENGHAZI COMMITTEE") and National Review's Andrew C. McCarthy ("FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook"), and screaming mimis like David Harsanyi at The Federalist ("She is above the law. And there is no one to stop her"), it is to LOL. One obvious thing never occurs to them about the Clintons: if everyone thinks they're corrupt, what does it say that people will still side with them against you?

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.

For the weekend of the glorious Fourth, the obligatory.
• At The New Criterion James Bowman is mad that obituaries of the recently departed Michael Herr often refer to Herr's Dispatches as "the definitive account of the war in Vietnam." Stuff and nonsense, huffs Bowman; it was instead a definitive liberal media put-up, as was Herr's contribution to Apocalypse Now. Says Bowman:

Neither the book nor the movie tells us anything about the war that the media, echoing the anti-war movement, hadn’t already told us. On the contrary, both existed to confirm our prejudices about the war as senseless, savage, insane, and criminal.

How else would people get a negative impression of war, if not from mendacious liberals? Bowman also laughs at Herr for having a nervous breakdown over the war, which Herr saw close up as a correspondent ("[we] were all 'traumatized' by Vietnam just like poor Mr. Herr..."]. Bowman is "well known for his writing on honor," according to his bio, which mentions no military experience. I'm pretty well accustomed to conservative culture-war gibberish, but it's always something of a surprise to find it in their actual cultural journals; it's as if Film Comment contained nothing but YouTube comments.

• Good old Nancy Nall reminded me about Jim Lileks the other day and I realized I hadn't read him in a while. So I pulled up a 2016 Bleat more or less at random and there he is complaining that the Oxford American had chosen to write about Terry Southern:

But the hangers-on - who had limited talent, if any, and whose purpose was to flatter the guy who Did That One Thing, would somehow believe that they were part of a great creative era because they had gotten high with the writer while he talked about Mick Jagger, who was interested in this project. Mick Jagger, man! He knows Mick! And the people to whom he's telling the story think then his dope must be really good.

There's a deadness at the heart of the period. Endless hours of unlistenable psychedelic music, endless pages of unreadable prose, cheap movies...

This from a guy who apotheosizes old matchbooks. Here's part of a more recent one:

Lest you think all Traders Joe clerk-customer interactions are a model of sparkling wit and bright banter, I had a disconcerting exchange the other day...

Yes, it's another in Lileks' endless series of insufficiently understanding service workers. They're still letting him down! He told that rapscallion about "Halt and Catch Fire" all right. Then on to Brexit:

The idea that a transnational organization is superior in its nature to a government that arose organically from a thousand years of culture and reflects the national will and character is wishful thinking, and there's one big example that comes to mind: the USSR. No, the EU is not the USSR, but given their druthers they'd love the scope of control the USSR had. Over the proper things. For the Good of the Many, of course.

You should see those gulags where they sent people who wouldn't use metric! Well, that visit will do for a few years.

• I have Monday off, so like many of my fellow citizens of this wretched neofeudal society I am being crushed with work to make up for that tiny respite, so that does it for this week's 'round-the-horn. This weekend celebrate your country as you see fit: as something to be seized by the dictatorship of the proletariat, by radical Islam, by the glorious sexual revolution or whatever -- remember, it's our dreams that make us Americans!

PERMANENT REVOLUTION.

Hey, guys, am I wrong or was the "Sexual Revolution" back in the 1960s? Wikipedia says it went "from the 1960s to the 1980s," which seems a bit long; I think once birth control pills came out, that was pretty much the whole ballgame.

Reason I'm asking is, conservatives have been using the term a lot lately and speak of it as something that's still going on. Here's Rod Dreher when the Texas abortion decision came down:

The bottom line, it seems to me, is that the Supreme Court will never let any state restriction stand meaningfully in the way of the Sexual Revolution. Ever. No federalism, no democracy, not when it comes to defending the Sexual Revolution.

Now, we all know Dreher is crazy, but he's far from the only wingnut talking about the Sexual Revolution as a live issue. When SCOTUS refused to hear the case of the pharmacist who wouldn't dispense Plan B, National Review's David French seethed, "to anti-Christian bigots, it is intolerable that Christian professionals exist unless they bow the knee to the Baal of the sexual revolution..." Also at National Review, we have Mary Eberstadt, who says liberal women's reactions to the Texas decision ("quasi-religious euphoria, a gnostic rave... intoxicated as maenads in the Bacchae") proves "secularist progressivism" is now "a religious faith grounded in theology about the sexual revolution," in the service of which we liberals gather regularly to celebrate abortions like Masses or Quaker Meetings:

The cold-blooded, untoward jubilation over yesterday’s Supreme Court decision is one more proof that in the matter of abortion, as in all else pertaining to the perceived prerogatives of the sexual revolution these days, the secularist-progressive alliance does not wage politics as usual. It instead orchestrates a bloodless religious war — bloodless, that is, apart from its central sacrament.

Elsewhere: "The Sexual Revolution, Like All Revolutions, Leaves A Wasteland Behind" (Brett Stevens); "virtually all of the opposition to Christianity and to religious liberty today derives from Christianity’s opposition to the sexual revolution" (Gene Veith at Pantheos); at Commentary, B. Richardson and J. Shields suggests campus rape is "the necessary price of the sexual revolution"; "Total destruction of everyone and everything that stands in the way of final annihilation of Western Christian foundations is the goal of the sexual revolutionaries," says some doofus at American Thinker. Etc.

What's behind it? I guess some of the more forward-thinking ones want to make sex look dull by associating it with revolutionary practice, like rifle cleaning and awful Chinese opera, and hence undesirable. But mainly I think it's because, as this blog continually shows, they can't help but fantasize political motives in every area of life, no matter how inappropriate, where they feel themselves at a disadvantage, such as culture and consumer choices. If only they could create an affirmative-action equivalent of sex, the way they come up with oddities like "The 50 Greatest Conservative Rock Songs" to make themselves feel better about art!

Alas, even if they're married and keep the lights off, any time they feel like fucking but don't really want to make a baby, or are tempted to stray from the kind of strict genital protocols of which Robert P. George could approve, they know they're living the sexual revolution. And the more society tells them it's no big deal, the bigger a deal it becomes for them.

No wonder they're so crabby.

WORST OF A BAD LOT.

I know there are lots of other candidates and we do have fun with them, but sometimes I think the guys at Power Line are the worst -- it's just I don't look at them much as I do the other rightbloggers. alicublog faves such as Jonah Goldberg are fun to watch, because they're flummoxed, bamboozled, and scared by the truth into falling down three flights of stairs in an entertaining fashion. But the Power Liners are cold-eyed propagandist shits who aren't so much flummoxed by the truth as committed by whatever mad scientist created them to obliterating all traces of it. It's like the difference between the border guards at the beginning of The Grand Budapest Hotel and the border guards at the end.

Fortunately, they're lawyers, so their arguments are transparent to normal people as bullshit. Today, for example, I noticed a June 21 post by PL's Paul Mirengoff in which he responded to a thoroughly vetted and well-supported Politifact post, "Donald Trump said, 'Crime is rising.' It's not (and hasn't been for decades)," by:

• Calling Politifact "a biased liberal operation";
• Insisting "Trump, in this instance, is correct. Crime is rising."
• Supporting his claim by:
  • Citing a poll that says the percentage of Americans who “personally worry about crime and violence" is up. and "this dramatic increase in concern surely reflects a change in the facts on the ground — i.e., increased crime and violence." Right you are if you think you are!
    
  • Citing rising crime stats in FBI's "preliminary" numbers for 2015 which, though unvetted by the Bureau, nonetheless "still represented the FBI’s best estimate as to whether crime was increasing as of the beginning of 2016." Which is rather like saying that the famous chart of the status of the British Pound after Brexit shows, because of a couple of rising blips near the end, that Brexit has actually launched the rise of the pound:

So I dropped by Power Line tonight to see what their headline was, and found this by John Hinderaker:

TRUMP HOLDS BIG LEAD AMONG WHITE VOTERS

No doubt. But Clinton in the latest poll leads by 12. So?

One thing is worth pointing out, however: even in this outlier poll, Trump holds a ten-point lead among white voters, 50%-40% (down from 57%-33% in May!). It is remarkable that even at his low ebb, Trump wins by a near landslide margin among white voters, a majority of the electorate. Not many years ago, that would have assured him of victory.

Jesus, I know these guys think black votes should only count three-fifths, but really...

This is why Democrats are so anxious to “fundamentally transform” the United States through mass immigration from Third World countries. Only by building up the minority population do they have a chance to stay competitive. But that still wouldn’t be enough, even if the Democrats got most of the votes cast by minorities, if minorities voted in anything like a normal pattern. In order to win, the Democrats need to roll up ridiculous margins, like the 90%-8% lead that Clinton holds with blacks in the ABC/WaPo poll.

He doesn't support this math with anything but, if he and his candidate Trump keep talking this way, 90% should be a cinch.

Racial conflict suits the Democrats. In fact, they need it to have a chance of remaining competitive.

Lucky for them they're running against you.

NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about Brexit and the curious enthusiasm of rightbloggers for the result. Since most of them (like me!) know fuck-all about British politics, it would seem they relate mostly to the rightwing ressentiment the vote suggests. Professional shit-stirrer Perfesser Glenn Harlan Instapundit Reynolds writes in USA Today, "A lot of [British] people felt powerless, and the political system not only didn’t address that, but seemed to glory in it." I wonder how the political system "glories" in it; maybe they got their BBC cronies to run ads mocking the outlanders for their poor fashion sense, in much the same way American conservatives believe that TV commercials make men look stupid to promote feminism. Anyway, as usual the moral is Donald comin', yo ("America, too, is experiencing a populist upheaval, of which Donald Trump’s candidacy is more of a symptom than a cause"), and if you elites don't get Right in a hurry you'll deserve the catastrophe that ensues -- namely, voters shooting off their nose to spite their face while rich people keep getting richer.

NO, THAT'S NOT WHAT WE MEAN BY BOOBOISIE.

Yeah, so someone told me there was something at The Federalist that --

Men Did Greater Things When It Was Harder To See Boobs

[Blink. Blink.]

While some have made the case that Kim Kardashian and her friend Emily Ratajkowski have made boobs boring, breasts are in fact are so potent that they may be hastening our decline. Breasts and female nudity have always been eye-catching to positively distracting, depending on your sex. The sheer boobitude immediately available either through online porn, Kardashian’s Twitter feed, and Tinder (otherwise known as Uber for boobs) has rapidly accelerated to the point that men have stopped creating because there’s so few obstacles to seeing them.

I won't string you good people along: this really is Amy Otto's argument -- that men aren't sufficiently productive because they can see tits -- and it never gets any less stupid. She eventually gets around to saying people are also having too much actual sex -- naturally, it's basic wingnut theology -- but she sincerely seems to think that looking at internet porn and sex are, basically, the same thing. No, really -- look:

Men also used to marry younger and in larger numbers to lock down their very own real-life woman. Now, why bother doing the decent work of marrying and raising a family if you can swipe right and see a new pair every night?

Beating off is pretty good, Amy, but actual sex with a partner is an exponentially different and preferable experience. Trust me, I've done the research. Otto's proof points for the social ravages of sex aren't so hot either:

Further, take note that the prime age for invention used to be one’s early twenties; often, scientists and other folks were not as productive in later decades.

Yeah, back when life expectancy was 40, people tended to hurry up. Maybe what we should really be doing away with is antibiotics! (Actually we sort of are.)

Now, that is often not the case: “There’s a boom in inventions by people over 50,” John Calvert, executive director of the United Inventors Association, told the New York Times. 

The article she cites is from last year, so who knows, maybe since then a bunch of pre-teens have created snapchat plugins that have bent the curve.

I should leave this ridiculous thing alone, but here's a final mango for y'all:

This may sound a bit Trumpesque, but to Make America Great Again we may need to Make Seeing Boobs Rare Again. Men did great things often in pursuit of women. Eric Clapton, in desperate love with George Harrison’s wife Patti, wrote the famous rock anthem “Layla” in pursuit of her.

Because before 1970 Eric Clapton had never seen a woman naked. Well, at least not a grown woman.

HOW YOU GONNA KEEP 'EM DOWN ON THE FARM AFTER THEY'VE SEEN THE FARM? PART 296.

"The New York Times Shows Why the Blue Model Is Doomed," says Walter Russell Mead. The Times ran a story, see, in which some guy left "hot, crowded Austin, Tex., and moved into an apartment on Munjoy Hill in Portland, Me., with a commanding view of Casco Bay only steps away." OK, good for him. So?

This is told as a fantastic story of human empowerment and social transformation, which it is. More and more of us are escaping the tyranny of location; thanks to the telecom revolution we can work where we want and when we want. 

The rise of telecommuting will lead to better, richer lives. Families will be stronger. The environment will benefit from less commuting. All good. 

But it also represents the death of the political philosophy and economic system that the Times is otherwise prepared to defend to the last: the blue social model. If this revolution continues—and it will—fewer and fewer people will be stuck in big, high tax, over-regulated cities. While some will still choose to live there, many, especially those raising children, will not.

Quite apart from the "three's a trend, unless you're on deadline in which case one will do" angle, I have to say I'm amazed that conservatives are still doing this. We live in an era of mass migration to the cities. It's not like New York, San Francisco, Philly, Minneapolis, et alia, are emptying out. In fact rents in most big cities are going up -- and surely conservatives know that when people pay more for something it's because they prefer it.

This is an old routine for the brethren. For years I've been following Joel Kotkin's crusade to make everyone hate urban life and move to the suburbs and exurbs like Real Americans, or to pretend this has already happened, all evidence to the contrary. And Mead's "rise of telecommuting" reminds me of Ole Perfesser Instapundit Glenn Reynolds himself pushing hard for telecommuting 11 years ago as an alternative to commie light rail. Reynolds actually proposed as a benefit of telecommuting that unions don't like it "because it's harder to organize workers who aren't all in one place."

Which, incidentally, reminds me of one big reason why people flock to the cities: Because that's where the jobs are. Some of you may remember a few years back when conservatives were trying to send poor people to North Dakota to soak up those big oil boom bucks (or to get a long-haul trucking job -- but that was always an obvious fraud). During that boom, capitalism did what capitalism does and drove housing prices in boom towns sky-high. Michael Warren at the Weekly Standard called these oil-boom immigrants "The New Pioneers" -- "The oil boom that began in 2007 has transformed this area of sleepy ranching communities into America’s new energy powerhouse," Warren gushed, and he said that whether you were young or old, whether you were an able-bodied pipe-fitter or "a receptionist at a man camp, those groupings of dorm-like lodgings for temporary workers that flank the highways of the Bakken," there was a place for you in this bright economic future-land.

Well, fast forward a few economic cycles and things ain't looking so great. Thanks, @jfxgillis, for pointing out this September 2015 Bloomberg story of what happened in the Bakken:

Fracking’s success has created another glut, and crude prices have fallen more than 50 percent in the past year. Now North Dakota’s white-hot economy is slowing. More than 4,000 workers lost their jobs in the first quarter, according to the state’s Labor Market Information Center. Taxable sales in counties at the center of the nation’s second-largest oil region dropped as much as 10 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, data from the Office of the State Tax Commissioner show... 

With the region’s drilling-rig count at a six-year low of 74 and roughnecks coping with cuts in overtime and per-diem pay, the vacancy rates in Williams County man camps are as high as 70 percent. Meanwhile the average occupancy rate of new units in Williston was 65 percent in August, even as 1,347 apartments are under construction or have been approved there.

It's all well and good for Mead to tell people that telecommuting's where the boom is now, sonny! But you actually have to provide the jobs to back that up, and unless I'm missing something there is no boom in internet jobs that pay a living wage.

So why do guys like Mead tell people -- people who probably trust him; they aren't reading his shit for the scintillating prose style -- that cities are over and they should avoid them? That's easy. Look how people in the cities vote. The only hope for wingnuts is to keep their dwindling pool of supporters in the outlands -- cut off from culture, from minorities and foreigners, from the experience of living among crowds without packing heat all the time, from anything that would show them that one could have a pretty good life without fear, isolation, and bigotry. (And if you can't guarantee that your peeps will stay in Fritters, Alabama, at least give them the idea that they can live the dream on the internet, so it doesn't matter whether they relocate by choice or necessity, they'll still be isolated, and you may yet keep them in the fold.)

Then you can keep dangling the Next Big Boom in front of them -- some Eden of free enterprise where they'll be able to shoot off guns and make a living with their hands and no goddamn unions or homos. And they won't know it's a con. How would they? 

NEW VILLAGE VOICE COLUMN UP...

...about Orlando, and the ways rightbloggers have been fucking it up. They're alway prone to self-pity, especially when guns are involved,  but what's making this worse is that the public is turning away from them, which is driving them nuts.

They have no one but themselves to blame. Take John Podhoretz's rant in the New York Post last week. Remember what President Obama said right after Orlando about the victims' families:

God give them the strength to bear the unbearable. And that He give us all the strength to be there for them, and the strength and courage to change. We need to demonstrate that we are defined more -- as a country -- by the way they lived their lives than by the hate of the man who took them from us.

Podhoretz's response: “That’s just disgusting. There’s no other word for it." Huh? Podhoretz was mad because Obama hadn’t said Radical Islamic Terrorism/Rumpelstiltskin, and furthermore, Obama had implied the attack had something to do with the furshlugginer gays. “The attack on the Pulse nightclub was an attack on us all, no less than the World Trade Center attack,” Podhoretz huffed. Because Mateen didn’t care those people were gay — except to the extent that he was Muslim, in which case of course he was a terrible bigot, because all those people are every bad thing you want them to be! As an American with an AR-15, though, anti-gay thoughts certainly never crossed his mind.

If you're wondering how we got to the point where that the NRA is actually declaring that the Republican Presidential candidate has gone too far for gun rights -- even though Trump's drink-and-draw proposal is endorsed by no less exalted a gun-rights enthusiast than John R. Lott -- this is why. Conservatives have been making themselves ridiculous for years, and it was inevitable that over time a majority of normal people would notice.