The simple fact is that there's no evidence or logic to the idea that anyone who doesn't already hate Hillary Clinton with a passion will believe that she is culpable in some way for her husband's acts of infidelity against her.But what's up with the title to his column? There's no music to Marshall's prose. There is a musical metaphor at the very end:
As I've written in similar contexts, when we look at the messaging of a national political campaign we should be listening to the score, not the libretto, which is, like in opera, often no more than a superficial gloss on the real story, mere wave action on the surface of a deep sea. You're missing the point in trying to make out the logic of Trump's attacks on Clinton. The attacks are the logic. He is trying to beat her by dominating her in the public sphere, brutalizing her, demonstrating that he can hurt her with impunity.Oh, I get it. He shouldn't attack her. That should be seen as sexual violence. If you listen to the music. Not the words. Hmm. Not any logic. Just how it feels. I know how I felt reading this piece, on the wave action of the deep sea that is Josh Marshall. Kinda seasick.
But to answer my question up there in the title. I think he meant to evoke the great song from "The Threepenny Opera," "Ballad of Sexual Dependency." Here's Marianne Faithfull's version:
Here are the lyrics. Read along and contemplate. Count how many times you think sounds like Trump and how many times you think sounds like Clinton and how many times you think Idiots, all of them....
Now there's a man
The living tool of Satan
He charges forth
While others are debating
Conniving, cocky knave
With all the trimmings
I know one thing
Will trim him down, women
In women he meets
Deep authority
In them he feels
His old dependency
He sniggers at the Good Book mocks the priss and prim
Does anything for pay if it will pay
And since he knows what ladies do to him
He thrusts them well out of his way
All through the day he swears
He's self denying, then dusk descends
And once again he's lying
They're all the same
In meeting love's confusion
Poor noble souls
Get blotted in illusion
The one who swore
He could escape the clinches
Who is it that
Entangles him, wenches
It fain resists
Their lush authority
Before him stands
His old dependency
He harked the Ten Commandments
Trod the tried and true
Would godly be and golden rule obey
For lunch ate frugally, a grape a two
Survived on one pure thought a day
He screamed, "I've mastered it without half trying"
Appears the moon and once again he's lying
Idiots, all of them
Posts
91 comments:
If you listen to the music. Not the words. Hmm. Not any logic. Just how it feels.
But isn't this exactly your position?
I scored it Trump-2, Clinton-17, Idiots-all four of them (including Brecht and Marshall).
"...even read some sentences aloud to Meade to test the intelligibility of the multiple negatives and piled up phrases..."
The more obfuscatory a writer gets the more they are trying to hide the fact that they don't really believe what they are saying.
I am Laslo.
Metaphor is a tool for obfuscation.
Marshall may be right about Hillary's culpability, if all she had done was to stand by her man. But she ran the bimbo eruption eradication possee. She headed the effort to destroy the lives and reputations that her husband had raped, sexually assaulted, or just sexually harassed. Suggesting otherwise makes Marshall look like a Clinton operative and tool.
Hillary! has been part and parcel of the Clinton "bimbo eruption" brouhahas. It is not like she was the sorrowing wife-mate sitting at home with the children while this was going on in the world outside.
Laslo Spatula: "The more obfuscatory a writer gets the more they are trying to hide the fact that they don't really believe what they are saying."
Whoa!!
"Laslo's Law".
To be forever entwined with Fen's Law.
I'll call that entwinement "Drago's Law of Law Entwinement".
I'm not intending to obfuscatory.
Most opera productions now have the libretto translation streaming above the stage. With several favorite operas, I have read the libretto translation enough times that I know it in some detail. The person who wrote that does not go to opera.
We are now in the period of throwing stuff against the wall to see what will stick.
The ghost of Romney is cringing at what Trump does but Trump is showing us what is needed when dealing with the Democrat criminal machine. I don't like Trump much but he is doing what is necessary when dealing with this criminal conspiracy.
I wonder how he is going to deal with the Democrat bureaucracy after next January 17?
This latest "missive missile" in defense of the "Hillary Homeland" by li'l Josh shows that the lefties really do not yet understand how the "political battlefield" has been "terraformed by Trumpian tactics".
P. Trump Barnum is bringing us a play written by Clinton Characters of the 1990s. It is as entertaining as Three Penny Opera. And Three Penny Opera seen live and well acted is as profound an experience as watching a Euripides, Sophocles or Shakespeare play.
What will Trump do for an encore?
"I wonder how he is going to deal with the Democrat bureaucracy after next January 17?"
"___, you're fired. ___, you're hired."
rehajm said...
Metaphor is a tool for obfuscation.
Simile is like a tool for obfuscation.
Between Marianne Faithfull and Josh's score-not-the-libretto business, I got to thinking about the old Rolling Stones song, "The Singer Not The Song."
It's not the way you give in willingly
Others do it without thrilling me....
I read the song of sexual violence to mean the "song" that Trump "sings" in, e.g., the Juanita Broadrick commercial and in his other attacks on Clinton. If I'm right, Marshall's title reminds us of the artful way in which the Donald is playing, playing, playing Hillary like a cheap guitar. Probably not Marshall's intention.
@MikeR, you need to read the laws regarding federal employment. Trump can fire people from cabinet positions down through Schedule C, but below that people hired by Obama into federal jobs are protected under Civil Service rules. And you can take it from someone who has lived in the Washington metro area since 1969 -- Obama has been worse than any of his predecessors in larding up agencies with deadwood from the Democrat party.
Why did Josh Marshall title his column "The Trumpian Song of Sexual Violence"?
Because it will make Trump look bad to those incapable of serious thought, a.k.a. Democratic voters.
Marshall is wrong, but he's also right.
The analogy to an opera is pretty good.
Do ignore the libretto. The substance of the complaints on either side don't really matter all that much. To a lot of people they are in Italian anyway.
Do pay attention to the music. That, the volume and verve, the artistr of the orchestra, whether it is inspired or banal, is it Mozart or Salieri.
Most convincing is done on an emotional level.
Whatever obfuscation means.
"...even read some sentences aloud to Meade to test the intelligibility of the multiple negatives and piled up phrases..."
In case you're wondering, I took a gentleman's "C" and called it a semester.
A review of that Rolling Stones song:
""The Singer Not the Song," appearing on the December's Children album in late 1965, is one of the more overlooked ones. In retrospect, it's kind of a bridge between their early, wimpy Merseybeat-like original songs -- which they tended to give to other artists to record, rather than do themselves -- and their more mature pop/rock, non-blues-based tunes, such as "Lady Jane" and, a little later, "Ruby Tuesday." "The Singer Not the Song"'s still been criticized for being a little too sappy, and for the undoubtedly out-of-tune guitars and harmonies (as if those were rare events on early Rolling Stones records). But it's a fairly attractive British Invasion-like pop tune with a tinge of folk-rock in the heavy use of reverberant acoustic guitars (and a tinge of groups like the Beatles in the greater use of harmonies than usual). There are also some hints of tenderness and vulnerability in both the lyrics and the way they're sung, as if to signify that there was more to Mick Jagger and the boys than sardonic rebellion and misogyny. The phrase "it's the singer, not the song" is itself pretty lyrical and abstract for an early Rolling Stones song -- almost philosophical -- and helps put this in a more sophisticated league than earlier pop/rock ballads the group had written. The final chorus, too, has a weird leap into falsetto harmonies, on what's been speculated is an actual attempt to sound like the Four Seasons."
Bruce Hayden and Hagar make the crucial point. Marshall's not stupid, so this seems like deliberate misdirection.
@Big Mike - so he fires a huge whack of them and then completely chokes up the appeals process to the point where most are sitting at home for years waiting for an appeal. Unfortunately they are getting paid during that time, but at least they aren't impeding progress.
As Rush described recently, the democrats desperately, desperately are trying to provide Clinton with the same shield as they managed to give to our black president. Any criticism of him then, now, future, forever is racist.
They desperately want to try the get the same thing going with Clinton.
Sorry...this is not McCain/Romney she is facing. It would have been delicious to have seen trump against Obama last election.
The reigning theory of dementia postulates that dementia is a life long disability, but the brain is constantly compensating for the disease. Eventually, the brain can no longer compensate, and the disease is manifest.
After reading the selected sentence, I'm beginning to think that progressivism is an attribute of dementia.
A Libretto translation is, to quibble, not a substitute for the libretto. The libretto is sometimes a significant piece of poetry. My truly rudimentary Italian is enough to tell me that a translation doesn't do justice to, say, Da Ponte.
"Trump can fire people from cabinet positions down through Schedule C, but below that people hired by Obama into federal jobs are protected under Civil Service rules."
Well, _if_ there is a Republican Congress, there should be some whole areas that Trump and Congress could agree on defunding. Civil service won't help you there.
Meade said...
In case you're wondering, I took a gentleman's "C" and called it a semester.
I suspect, in your case, it was more of a scalawag's "C".
"@MikeR, you need to read the laws regarding federal employment. Trump can fire people from cabinet positions down through Schedule C, but below that people hired by Obama into federal jobs are protected under Civil Service rules. "
Firing all of the heads and vigorously prosecuting anyone will go a long, long way to cleaning up some of this mess.
But I guess Obama (er Trump) could just issue an executive order cutting pay or furloughing employees as much as he wants. All he has to do is say that we cannot spend more than we have and it is a budget crisis.
Without wading into Josh Marshall's writing, or the Threepenny Opera lyrics, I think it's strange that a lot of prominent pundits don't seem to grasp Trump's argument (I'm going to call it that.
There's an indignant objection to attacking Hillary for Bill's sins, because wasn't-Hillary-also-a-victim, hasn't-she-suffered-enough?
But if we look at Bill's actions not as philandering, but as a repeated pattern of sexual harassment and assault, and consider Hillary's and Hillaryworld's roles in slandering Bill's victims, THAT is why Hillary is complicit in Bill's crimes. That is why Bill's sexual assault and sexual harassment allegations are, actually, relevant.
And most of the sordid details (forget the Lewinsky stuff--PAula Jones, Juanita Broadrick, KAthleen Willey) aren't known to voters under 35. (Never mind the Jeffrey Epstein stuff, which isn't known to most people and I expect Trump to pick up and use this summer.)
What is the truth about Hillary Clinton's role in "suppressing bimbo eruptions"? What is known about what she did? Marshall's article seems to ignore this aspect completely; is it documented and he's just oblivious to the most important part of the story?
This is the Dem meme of the day "...believe that she is culpable in some way for her husband's acts of infidelity against her."
I heard it several times while flipping through the news channels this morning, so the talking points are out. Hillary was just a passive victim of an otherwise harmless affair.
What Bill did was not simply "infidelity". What Hillary did was not simply "bear culpability" for something Bill did.
He was accused by numerous women of sexual assault and rape. She is known to have worked feverishly to deny and tamp down the accusations with every tool she had, both publicly and privately attacking the women who made them.
That is what Trump is bringing up for those who weren't old enough to witness it, and that is what the media is working feverishly today to strike down before people start asking questions about it.
The thing that caught my eye is "no music in his prose." It made me wonder, do I have music in my prose? Do I have rhythm in my write, melody in my byte, lilt in my syllables? Or am I a hammer who sees every word as a nail? Let us reason together.
Which brings us to the issue of today and every day: Trump. Music in his speech? Cadence in his delivery? Beat in his tweet?
Trump.
It ain't musical, but it says it all.
I got rhythm, I got music, I got my girl
Who could ask for anything more?
That guy blocked me on twitter.
Hillary keeps trotting him out, he is "in the cage". There is a reason that Obama lied and disavowed Rev. Wright. If he had, had him out there stumping for him, the media couldn't have ignored him. Heck even McCain/Romney wouldn't be that incompetent.
Not sure Trump is "woke" enough to get this, but it's probably going to help him strategically. I just re-read KAthleen Willey's wikipedia page, and my judgement is that she's an unreliable witness and more-or-less a crazy person.
But, in this day and age, her account would be more than enough to make a sexual assault charge stick on most campuses. Trump will attempt, with some success to tie Bill Clinton to Bill Cosby, for a generation with no memory of the heyday of either one.
"Lady Jane", "Ruby Tuesday", "The Singer Not the Song"
All pretty bad.
It's the Black Lodge Singers not the Black Lodge Song.
To his point that the only people who would care about these allegations are those who already hate Hillary, I think that's sort of the point--Hillary has about half the country disliking her and a good portion of that actually hating her. Trump is trying to solidify that group against her, and then at the same time make himself acceptable to those who like neither of them, and hope to get him over the top.
Hillary may be trying the same thing, but her salvos so far appear weak and mis-aimed. And as for making herself "more acceptable" to the malleable middle, I don't see her even trying that yet. The gender politics thing will backfire.
Of course Josh is running the Hillary defense, it's not like he hid his primary motivation when he named his website after the process of media manipulation in service of politics.
But to the issue Trump's criticism is relevant. Mostly because (as other people point out) she ran the character assassination effort but also because the entire process reveals how the left views the issue. Do we want to further empower the radical institutions pushing absurd ideas rejected by most Americans by electing their figurehead President?
"This is the Dem meme of the day "...believe that she is culpable in some way for her husband's acts of infidelity against her.""
We'll see how that flies. I think if she had simply found out about it after the fact, was furious with her husband but forgave him, and did nothing more, that would be one thing as far as the Lewinsky matter went. She can try and say she simply doesn't believe the Willey, Jones or Broaddrick stories, though why she trusts Bill is hard to fathom. But she went further than this, being involved in the smear teams against Jones and allegedly warning Broaddrick off.
If people believe Bill did all this stuff--and his own credibility and past actions make at least some of it convincing--then the only thing Hillary could have done right would have been to publicly disown him, or at the very least stay uninvolved as much as possible and not comment on these issues. But her involvement and support of Bill in those matters is what damns her.
The simple fact is that there's no evidence or logic to the idea that anyone who doesn't already hate Hillary Clinton with a passion will believe that she is culpable in some way for her husband's acts of infidelity against her.
If they're CONSISTENT, they'd have huge problems with her attacking women who slept with her husband while protecting him every single time.
Nobody expects Progs to be consistent, tho.
My state has the opposite example: Jenny Sanford.
When Mark Sanford, our Governor at the time, cheated on her, she left him. Period. Didn't make a huge scene, just moved out. It wasn't even known she moved out until several days after it happened.
When he came back from Argentina and gave the worst press conference in recorded history, her only action was to call his handlers and tell them to get him away from the reporters because he was making a complete ass of himself. She didn't want him to hurt --- she just wanted nothing to do with him but not to have him damaged for the kids.
But I am impressed with how the media will continue to accept talking points from the Left and parrot them. You'd think the Ben Rhodes thing would've chastised them.
She didn't attack the mistress. She didn't try and run protection for him. She let him wallow in his idiotic decisions.
@Brando...
I actually think that Trump is educating millenials about just how crooked Hillary and Bill are. They don't know.
And with the new SJW outlook and her incessant female card, it is going to be hard to reconcile her trotting out a rapist, and knowing they are voting to put a rapist in the oval office.
Then to find out Hillary was in charge of victim-shaming, well.
Also the media has changed quite a bit since then. Trump speaks right over it's head.
That's a pretty poor translation of the lyrics. It's much more explicit in German.
Lem said...
"That guy blocked me on twitter."
Aw. Did he at least email you to explain that he was blocking you because some of his friends had asked him to block you?
Hillary Clinton had to attack those women because any career she had hopes of was dependent on Bill.
You can see what a terrible candidate she is on her own. Her health care task force was mishandled from day one.
Now, there is a devastating column from Canada about the election.
Furthermore, the “dirty secret” of US politics is that racism and ethnocentrism, not to mention “me first” (anti-immigrant immigrants), are to be found in most sectors of the society. If Trump is successfully cast as anti-Latino, that might attract some black voters given the historical cleavages and rivalries betweens blacks and Latinos (a problem that affected Obama in 2008). If Trump is successfully cast as anti-immigrant, then that will attract some Latino voters on the US border with Mexico, as happened in Texas. Though currently small in number, Trump has already attracted some Latino and black voters.
And
The fact is that Trump won by bringing in voters who were neither identifying as Republican (many if not most of them being Independents), nor prepared to vote Republican, nor were some even considering voting (ever) until Trump. The fact therefore is that Trump has already been campaigning in a general election. The Republican contests have been the sites of the greatest voter turnouts thus far, and in some critical electoral states more have already turned out to vote for Trump than for Clinton. All of the excitement this time is on the Republican side, the side on which Trump needed to win in order to win the general election.
It's a pretty powerful analysis by an anthropologist.
In addition to all of this feminist consistency from Hildebeast, all of this "how can Hillary be responsible for Bill's escapades" nonsense seems to totally ignore the fact that she has officially offered him as the "economic czar" or similar for her administration. His moral makeup and ability to focus in the presence of "hittable" women is highly relevant to both her decision making and his suitability for such an important, visible position, no?
"I suspect, in your case, it was more of a scalawag's "C"."
I'll give the benefit of doubt and assume you're using "scalawag" ironically.
From the same folks that told us blowjobs aren't sex...
@8:59 "(never mind the Jeffrey Epstein stuff, which isn't known to most people and I expect Trump to pick up and use this summer.)"
He's going to have to be careful there--JE still runs the investment funds for the most elite, mega-wealthy people across the globe. (Funny how that's rarely mentioned.) They've done a fine job of getting the gullible younger generations to hate Goldman Sachs type firms and "evil corporations" while this pervert flies under the radar. Trump is aware of Epstein's power, and I'm sure will act accordingly.
What Trump is not too versed in and could really sink himself is the pro-abortion at any stage for any reason behind the scenes groups that all have their various reasons for backing an abortion on demand culture (and I'm not talking just PP.) They are vastly funded, more powerful than most understand, and able to swing millions of people on that single issue with a single tweet. Trump meets with the most radical pro-life 'leaders' tomorrow, and he needs to be very careful what he says and tweets after. This is an issue he needs to take time to develop, talk to other groups, and fully understand before he shoots his mouth off. There are reasonable responses and solutions that both sides can agree on, and it would be tragic if he blows his entire momentum and loses in Nov due to this single issue.
@Dude1394, better might be to assign some of the more recalcitrant Progs that the Obama administration burrowed into the federal bureaucracy to outdoor work assignments in Alaska in the winter, then outdoor assignments in the Everglades in the summer. Repeat until person resigns.
I'd just like to see somebody ask HRC directly: do you believe your husband is a rapist?
@holdfast, many of Obamaite federal bureaucrats are already being paid to do nothing. Your proposed solution is better for them because they no longer will have to drive into DC during rush hour.
As Mrs.X above said, it seems that the title refers to the song that Trump is yodeling, not the column itself. As for idiot writers, no bigger idiot than Scott Adams.
"I actually think that Trump is educating millenials about just how crooked Hillary and Bill are. They don't know."
That too--a lot of them probably learned about this stuff through the filter of "Bill got blowjobs, GOP puritans impeached him for it, LOLZ!" and figured Hillary was just another victim in it--cuckolded by a jerk of a husband who was nevertheless a great president because he created the tech boom and peace with the Soviets or something.
Getting the story out now--even if a lot of media folks and Clinton allies dismiss the story as old news or "no proof" or something--raises some of the more dark aspects of Bill's "rascally" behavior. More relevant though is where Hillary was during this--to the extent she helped smear his accusers as liars she cannot get off scot free.
The simple fact is that there's no evidence or logic to the idea that anyone who doesn't already hate Hillary Clinton with a passion will believe that she is culpable in some way for her husband's acts of infidelity against her.
Marshall is being stupid. He is trying to say that Hillary's critics hold her responsible for Bill's behavior. Her own behavior is the problem.
Juanita Broaddrick, in 2000 wrote:
I had obligated myself to be at this rally prior to my being assaulted by your husband in April, 1978. I had made up my mind to make an appearance and then leave as soon as the two of you arrived. This was a big mistake, but I was still in a state of shock and denial. You had questioned the gentleman who drove you and Mr. Clinton from the airport. You asked him about me and if I would be at the gathering. Do you remember? You told the driver, “Bill has talked so much about Juanita”, and that you were so anxious to meet me. Well, you wasted no time. As soon as you entered the room, you came directly to me and grabbed my hand. Do you remember how you thanked me, saying “we want to thank you for everything that you do for Bill”. At that point, I was pretty shaken and started to walk off. Remember how you kept a tight grip on my hand and drew closer to me? You repeated your statement, but this time with a coldness and look that I have seen many times on television in the last eight years. You said, “Everything you do for Bill”. You then released your grip and I said nothing and left the gathering.
What did you mean, Hillary? Were you referring to my keeping quiet about the assault I had suffered at the hands of your husband only two weeks before? Were you warning me to continue to keep quiet? We both know the answer to that question.
Lem said...
That guy blocked me on twitter.
Lem got twat-blocked.
ANSWER:
Because Josh Marshall is a hack Democrat posing as a journalist but is actually a "journo-list-er" whose sole function is to lie in support of Democrats.
What do I win?
Lies, lies, lies. The Clinton stock in trade.
The most fundamental and longest-running lie is that they are a married couple, within any reasonable meaning of the term.
It's probably just coincidence that there's a check in the mail now from the Clinton Global Initiative to Josh Marshall's office.
"Sofa King said...
I'd just like to see somebody ask HRC directly: do you believe your husband is a rapist?"
Trump could...face to face. More importantly, if he should ask her is she knows why Bill was on pedophile Jeffrey Epstein "Lolita Express" twenty-six times. And when she gives some dumb ass answer ask "Do you believe him?"
To use a Hollywood analogy Bill Clinton is Vince Vega and Hillary Clinton is Mr. Wolf in Pulp Fiction. She didn't pull the trigger but she tried to clean up the mess. Indeed a lot of messes. She was a very busy woman.
Holy horseshit, Batman. The way I read this piece is that Trump is winning on the Bill front. He has hamstrung Bill and he has, as Marshall says over and over, turned Hillary into a victim. Just what we need as C-in-C - a victim. By giving women plenty of time to think about Hillary's enabling of Bill he is sure to strip off a certain number who would otherwise have voted for H. They may not vote for Trump but they won't vote against him. As mentioned somewhere else Trump is using his artillery to soften Hillary's defenses prior to the real assault.
Marshall's piece is a very weak defense of Hillary - if it is a defense at all. For I bit I thought I was reading Scott Adams in praise of Trumps persuasion skills.
I suspect Hillary Clinton would love to send her comment about Tammy Wynette down the memory hole. She's a real standup woman, standing by her man the rapist.
Marianne Faithful has a version of Mack the Knife that never made it to my playlist. The lyrics were refashioned. Perhaps they're closer to the original German, but they're far more sordid and harsh and not much fun to listen to--something about raping and knifing and selling underage girls........Louis Armstrong has the version of Mack that I like best. He opens the song by saying "Dig, man, there goes Mack the Knife" and follows this by the sunniest possible cornet solo.......Armstrong's version is a celebration of a guy with a strong pimp hand--or just hand as Senfeld would say. Marianne Faithful's version is the lament of a woman under the sway of a man with a strong pimp hand......I think both Trump and Bill Clinton have strong pimp hands, but, in my estimation, Clinton is the sleazier of the two. He's closer to the Marianne Faithful version of the song. And I don't think America is shopping for the female victim of a strong pimp hand as the next president......I don't preclude the possibility that Clinton's acting out of his libidinal urges is needy and compulsive and gives Hillary a certain amount of leverage over him. Pehaps she's the one with the strong pimp hand, but, here again, I don think America is ready for a woman with a strong pimp hand.
I thought of the quote "politics ain't beanbag". When I looked it up, I was surprised to find that it is perfectly Trumpian:
Sure, politics ain’t bean-bag. Tis a man’s game, an’ women, childer, cripples an’ prohybitionists’d do well to keep out iv it.
Bill and Hillary! did not parachute in from outer space in 1992. They then already had a twenty year long history in Arkansas that stank to high heaven.
and according to the folks in Arkansas who knew them, it is Hillary! that is the mean one of the two.
When Marshall uses the word "score" in close proximity to either one of the Clinton Royal Couple's names, he simply reminds us is that "score" is what Billy Jeff liked to do.
"Sofa King said...
I'd just like to see somebody ask HRC directly: do you believe your husband is a rapist?"
"Trump could...face to face. More importantly, if he should ask her is she knows why Bill was on pedophile Jeffrey Epstein "Lolita Express" twenty-six times. And when she gives some dumb ass answer ask "Do you believe him?""
Trump is a good friend of Jeffrey Epstein.
The piled-up negatives means he writes straight ahead.
There's no idea of RECAST.
I hesitate to say that I don't disagree with you. - Bob and Ray
Tells me that Trump knows where to go looking for stuff related to Epstein. I suspect barrels of mud are stockpiled in readiness.
Trump is dangerous, among other things, because he has known these people forever. On the scale of billionaires it's a small world.
RE: Trump and Epstein.
This is pure speculation, but my thought is that Trump doesn't drink. I wonder if a guy who doesn't drink (presumably because bad things could happen) would also pass up underage hookers. Which puts him in position to exploit any account of Bill fucking a 15 year old on Orgy Island, because Trump didn't do that.
(OF course, this could be totally wrong and maybe Trump and Bill London-bridged a different 14yo every Tuesday on the Lolita Express.)
Marshall speaks in the most echoy of echo chambers and no one outside of it cares a wit about what he says.
Trump is basically island hopping around media, internet punditry and political establishment strongholds and isolating them into irrelevance. They may bring him down yet, but it will take a new approach to do it because too many people inclined to either side of the ideological spectrum ignore them.
"Marianne Faithful has a version of Mack the Knife that never made it to my playlist. The lyrics were refashioned. Perhaps they're closer to the original German...."
Yeah, the Bobby Darin lyrics are interesting but not really the translation you'd use if you were staging the play or if you were a female doing the song.
You wouldn't have stuff like "Look out for Miss Lotte Lenya."
Here's the German with what looks like a literal translation.
I loved the translation used in the Public Theater production in 1976 (the one with Raul Julia). The translation was by Ralph Manheim and John Willett.
See the shark has teeth like razors
All can read his open face
And Macheath has got a knife, but
Not in such an obvious place
See the shark, How red his fins are
As he slashes at his prey
Mac the Knife wears white kid gloves which
Give the minimum away
By the Thames turbid waters,
Men abruptly tumble down
IIs it plague, or is it cholera?
Or a sign Macheath's in town?
On a beautyful blue Sunday,
See a corpse stretched on the Strand
See a man dodge around the corner...
Mackie's friend's will understand.
And Schul Meier who is missing
Like so many wealthy men:
Mack the knife aquired his cashbox
God alone knows how or when
Jenny Towler turned up lately
With a knife stuck in her breast
While Macheath walked the embankment,
Nonchalantly unimpressed
Where is Alfred Gleet the cabman?
Who can get that story clear?
All the world may know the answer,
but Macheath has no idea
And the ghastly fire in Soho,
Seven children at a go--
In the crowd stands Mac the knife, but
He's not asked and doesn't know
And the child bride in her nightie,
Whose assailant's still at large
Violated in her slumbers--
Mackie how much did you charge?
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lEKcJ52xF8>Lyle Lovett sings that version.</a>
Lyle Lovett sings that version.
(Link fixed)
And the ghastly fire in Waco,
Twenty-five children at a go--
In the crowd stands Hillary Clinton, but
She's not asked and doesn't know...
Civil service rules are not in the Constitution, but are just statutes and executive memos that can be repealed or rescinded.
That said, I see Megan McArdle has a column up that we do not need to be so afraid of Trump as an autocrat in the making, because the bureaucracy will not obey him if he tries to make himself a caudillo.
I think that is true enough, and more than true; I think the problem we might well face is that they will refuse to obey even though his actions are well within the Constitution and approved, and maybe even instigated, by Congress.
I can well remember what happened when the Kennedys tried to force through a 10% "Reduction in Force" in 1962. They did not get very far.
@MikeR, you need to read the laws regarding federal employment. Trump can fire people from cabinet positions down through Schedule C, but below that people hired by Obama into federal jobs are protected under Civil Service rules. And you can take it from someone who has lived in the Washington metro area since 1969 -- Obama has been worse than any of his predecessors in larding up agencies with deadwood from the Democrat party.
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If Trump is Prez and the GOP holds both houses of Congress, nothing would prevent them from amending the Civil Service rules. Whether the Republicans would actually do something as sensible as that is another question....
The idea behind Civil Service used to be that government workers were to be above and OUT of politics, merely carrying out legislative mandates, and not subject to political retaliation.
But with the federal government now totally politicized, the rationale for lifetime
civil service has gone out the window.
Oh and it would be a really Good Thing if the Koskinens, Lerners, Holders and the like were given a good defenestration "to encourage the others".
"I think the problem we might well face is that they will refuse to obey even though his actions are well within the Constitution and approved, and maybe even instigated, by Congress."
Those limits will keep any president from doing 90% of what they promise. That's why it's not worth taking their promises too seriously, they're just suggesting which wall they're going to run their head against.
Miriam said...
"Sofa King said...
Trump is a good friend of Jeffrey Epstein."
"Other friends included Donald Trump and Kevin Spacey." That's it? That's all your link says? Really?
and in 1962-63, the Federal bureaucracy was quite modest compared to today, and since it was a Democratic administration, the MSM did not swing into action to oppose the "RIF," but which they most surely will against anything Trump proposes - even things they may have suggested Obama should do in this administration.
...cuckolded by a jerk of a husband...
Actually, pretending the concept is gender-neutral is literally a joke.
Polish mother to pregnant daughter: "Are you sure it's yours?"
Brandon wins -1 internets.
At least one presidential hopeful who has since jumped in the ring on the Republican side was friendly with Epstein: Donald Trump.
"I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,'' Trump told New York Magazine back in 2002. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life."
"A Trump associate said Tuesday that Trump wasn't aware of any wrongdoing and that he and Epstein were not particularly close. "He was a member of one of Trump's clubs where he would visit with women and business associates, but there was no formal relationship," the source close to Trump said."
I'm sure Bill Clinton makes the same claim. When you live in a glass house, don't throw stones.
The idea behind Civil Service used to be that government workers were to be above and OUT of politics, merely carrying out legislative mandates, and not subject to political retaliation.
But with the federal government now totally politicized, the rationale for lifetime
civil service has gone out the window.
They give our leaders total immunity.
"I didn't do that. It's the EPA! Them bitches be crazy!"
As I've said before, bring back the spoils system. At the very least, SOMEBODY was responsible --- namely the President who hired them.
It'd also serve to bankrupt DC and NoVA, so yay. Throw in a huge surtax if your new job involves lobbying the government for ANYTHING.
I'll give the benefit of doubt and assume you're using "scalawag" ironically.
Claim the mantle, Meade. Take this version of "queer" and make it yours!
JPS: "Bruce Hayden and Hagar make the crucial point. Marshall's not stupid, so this seems like deliberate misdirection."
Marshall may not be ignorant, but he is stupid as he demonstrates regularly.
marshall is journolist, in addition he entertained a trig denialist, that former marine, name escapes me early on, he trawls in all sorts of garbage like that,
paul hackett was his name, they have also softpedaled all the scandals from fast and furious to benghazi,
they often trumpet a lie as truth,
http://freebeacon.com/issues/audio-shows-katie-couric-gun-documentary-deceptively-edited-interview-pro-gun-activists/
As far as cvil service is concerned the key is in the power of the purse. Congress can limit the civil service levels through failure to fund. It wouldn't be easy and probably the most effective way would be to abolish entire departments or sub departments to avoid employees hanging on. Education is a prime target and several sub sections of Homeland Security might be candidates. The first thing to go should be TSA into the private sector. (How could the private sector possibly be worse?) Air Traffic control would be next. Any sub group with "diversity" or"inclusion" in its title would be high on my list as well. Fannie and Freddie should be privatized. The crooks that run Department of Energy lending programs should go as well. I could go on forever. Hardly anyone would notice the changes besides the rent seekers of each group.
Marshall is alerting people to the Siren's song. Unfortunately, the acoustics betray his good intentions. Forward!
Congress is supposed to have the power of the purse, but the Obama Administration has been spending more and more money in disregard of this. This is above and beyond them spending a decent chunk on global warming that was supposed to go to fighting the Zerka threat. Most egregious, probably was the money spent to reimburse insurance companies involved in ObamaCare. The Republicans, getting control of the House, zeroed it out. To no avail - the Administration found a slush fund to use instead. It is in the courts, with the House as the Plaintiff -which is the weakness in the case - who has standing when the Executive spends money not allocated by Congress? If not Congress, then whom?
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