Trump’s Grand Slam

November 9, 2016 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | American Politics, POLITICS |

The Donald in Philly, PA, which might put him over the top (picture: Michael Candelori)

9 November 2016 We have been rebuked quite harshly over a previous post containing some mild objections about Donald Trump, so we have no wish to endure further ‘trolling’… It looks like Mr Trump has won a stunning victory.  As at 5 pm Australian Central Standard time, he has 244 electoral college votes to Ms Clinton’s 215, needing 270 to win the election. He is likely to gather the balance he needs by winning Arizona (11), and he is narrowly ahead in Pennsylvania (20), with almost all votes counted there.  This puts him over the top, but he also has handy…

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Weiner

Get it up proudly (photo by Thomas Good)

(Produced & Directed by Josh Kriegman & Elyse Steinberg) (2016) Is a Great Man not also a Man?  Think of the Emperor Tiberius, or John F. Kennedy.  The flesh is weak, and our moral standards can’t harden when some slack should be cut. In 2011, 7-term congressman and Democratic attack-dog Anthony Weiner (a kind of American Sam Dastyari) resigned office over salacious ‘sexting’, featuring close-up photographs of his bulging underwear, weiner prominent. After the dust settled from that, Mr Weiner (a scrappy, combative, demonstrative Weiner) decided to run for Mayor of New York City in 2013.  This documentary follows that campaign, with what seems…

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Unconventional

'Where are the cigars?' (George Healy's 'The Peacemakers')

July 6, 1854: The US Republican Party held its first Convention, in Jackson, Michigan, ‘under the oaks’.  Six years later, the Grand Old Party had its first President: 162 years after that first Convention, the Republicans have taken a wild gamble with their nominee for President in 2017: Mr Trump, like Howard Beale in Network, is articulating the rage of the American people.  It’s Big Casino – he could end up like Barry Goldwater, but if he moderates his approach, given the times, he might get there, like Nixon in 1968. Mind you, the Democrats aren’t exactly running FDR, or JFK. …

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Their Best Shot

July 4, 2016 | Posted by Lesley Jakobsen | American Politics, FILM, HISTORY, LIFE, Ulalume |

Hamilton by John Trumbull, painted 2 years after the Duel

Alexander Hamilton Elie Wiesel Michael Cimino This 4th of July, we recall Alexander Hamilton, the multi-talented and widely reviled (vide Burr) political figure of the early days of the American Republic, who did as much as anyone to build the various struts of the enormous edifice now creaking and groaning under the weight of history, with Mrs Clinton or Mr Trump poised to kick away the last brace.  What this founding father and first Secretary of the U.S. Treasury would have made of the modern opera now being staged in his name, one can only wonder. Al died in a…

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An American Deity

Young he was and sound ‘in wind and limb’, Fit and tanned, bareheaded, toothy, slim, Rich he was of vocabulary and purse, Bore away he be in a wagon, not a hearse, Draped in a flag his form, of garish stripes and stars Followed slowly by lesser men in motor cars. It all began they say, in a killing frost, A cold replicated later when he was lost, Abbreviated poesy marked the spot On which commenced the reign of Camelot, Where a bogus royalty came into view As desideratum, thus embraced as true.              …

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