My friend Charles Adler again had me on his popular Sirius XM radio show the other night – link here – and he stirred me to unburden myself of a few thoughts about the likes of Jason Kenney. I’m expanding on them in next week’s column(s), but here’s the gist:

Here’s what I said, almost word for word: “I’ve written a lot of words for politicians over the years. So I tend to be skeptical about a lot of things they say. And I’m particularly skeptical about Twitter tough talk. Donald Trump has built a career on Twitter. What matters is what Bill Clinton did [after the Oklahoma City terror attack]: he hunted them down, he applied justice, and he put them to death.”

So Charles let me go on: “Jason Kenney is full of crap. When he was there, and when he was in a position to do something about terror…he didn’t. I don’t think we should be taking any lessons from Jason Kenney. And, you know, I’m just kind of sick of political people, and a lot of cops, talking tough about this stuff – but, every day, bad things keep happening, like what happened in France.

So, you know what, guys? Maybe you should all get off Twitter, and get your heads out of your asses, and maybe you should start doing something different from what you’ve been doing – because your little Twitter wars really aren’t protecting us, the citizens. Because, the Twitter wars, about who can express themselves with a tougher adjective? They’re crap.”

Sorry for the Earthy language, but I’ve just had it with the likes of Messrs. Kenney and Trump. You want to show you are tough on terror, boys? Do what Bill Clinton did when he was President – hunt these dogs down, give them a fair trial, and then put them to death.

That’s how you make us safer, tough guys.  Not with a fucking tweet.

 

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I want to see @realDonaldTrump's Russian birth certificate. #DemsInPhilly #USPolitics @HillaryClinton @thehill @nytimes

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) July 27, 2016

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Got a question for Millennials: does it bug you someone gave you a name that sounds like a Star Trek villlain? There, got that off my chest.

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) July 27, 2016

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He looked older. He sounded older. He isn’t the guy he was twenty years ago. And, yes, my mind strayed once or twice to that terrible time when he hurt his wife and daughter.

But it was a master speech by a master story teller – and all about her, not him. Her achievements, not his. Brilliantly, he zeroed in on her main weakness – her persona, her occasional inability to connect – and painted a wonderful, compelling picture of a good person.

At the end, he also laid out the ballot question. As I told Charles Adler on Sirius XM last night, the ballot question is now just one thing: Donald Trump. And Bill Clinton framed the ballot question in this way:

See what he did there? The choice is between a familiar, proven, positive, effective reality – or an unknown, untested, unpleasant, unimpressive cartoon.

That’s the choice.

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I was at Star Trek Beyond with Sons Two and Four, last night, so I missed much of the antics by the Bernie Brigade.  With their booing, or with their mouths taped shut, they actually reminded me of some Canadian sore losers, the ones who wore black arm bands way back.

Son Two is a big Bernie Sanders fan, still, and we debated all of this stuff before and after Star Trek.  He thinks the DNC stole the nomination from Bernie.  I disagreed, and gave him this rationale about why I (an ex-pat Democrat) could never support Sanders, and he shouldn’t, either:

• Bernie Sanders has always been an Independent, and not so much a Democrat.  He isn’t even registered as a Democrat in his home state of Vermont.  That matters.
• Bernie Sanders’ supporters aren’t really Democrats, either.  They, like their candidate, saw the primaries as a means to an end – a flag of convenience.  That matters, too.
• Bernie Sanders hurt the Democratic cause with the way he ran his campaign, well past the point that he could not win.  The beneficiary was Donald Trump, and Sanders’ supporters were so crazed, they were even prepared to echo Trump’s vilest attacks.  That also matters.
• Bernie Sanders, in pure policy terms, is not a Democrat.  He is Occupy’s candidate, arriving eight years too late.  He does not believe in the things Democrats do.  That matters.
• Bernie Sanders needs to get his lunatic fringe under control.  Because if he doesn’t, the only beneficiary will be Donald Trump. And that matters, most of all.

Don’t believe me? Ask Paul Martin, who never got his Bernie-style supporters to respect a democratic outcome, either – and who consigned the Liberal Party to a decade in the wilderness as a result.

And that matters, or should.

 

 

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They kill an 84-year-old priest, celebrating Mass in Rouen.

These pigs need to be hunted down, like the animals they are, and killed.  They are not human beings, if they ever were.

 

 

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Your perspective on the Republican National Convention depends on your politics, of course. 

If you are in any way progressive, it was a five-alarm dumpster fire, a bonfire of insanities, a crazy conflagration of fear and loathing. It made Fight Club and Dr. Strangelove seem like newsreel footage. 

If you are a Trump-style conservative, however, none of that matters in the slightest. To you, and those like you, the liberal media establishment are slime, and they lie all the time. 

What the reviled MSM (mainstream media) say doesn’t matter a whit to you, the Trump Troopers. To you, the only relevant truth is the one that validates your world view. 

Take, for example, the now-infamous plagiarized speech. Melania Trump stole Michelle Obama’s words and thought several million people wouldn’t notice. When some did, she and her husband blamed a secretary no one had ever heard of before, and whom many believed did not even exist. Dishonesty used to excuse dishonesty. Lie upon lie. 

Plaigiasm-gate stomped all over the GOP’s narratives (pro-unity, pro-security, anti-Hillary) on Days Two and Three of their convention. It was a clown show, with CNN giddily dissecting every minute. 

But the Trump Troopers? They didn’t care. 

To them, anything emanating from the MSM is a lie. To them, anything that upsets the pointy-headed intelligentsia is actually welcome. To them, the only media that matters is found at the furthest reaches of the Right, recycling dark conspiracy theories about Benghazi, Whitewater and email servers, over and over. 

What they wanted to hear were Donald Trump’s lies, and he had plenty to pass along. So, he said America was the highest-taxes nation on Earth. It isn’t. Not even close. 

He said the Obama administration had “reversed” crime rates – upwards. But they’re way, way down. Lower than they’ve been in decades. 

Trump said that Hillary had “invented” ISIS. This one is so crazy, it’s hard to know where to start. But the fact is that the Islamic State got its start in Iraq in 2006 – when, you know, the Republicans ran the show. 

Trump said Clinton wants to abolish the Second Amendment, the one that allows Americans to bear arms. His claim is unadulterated BS, however: Hillary Clinton has never said any such things. Ever. 

And so on and so on. Looking like a Cheeto in a tailored suit, Donald Trump lied like a rug. He lied, lied, lied. His supporters didn’t care. 

Thus, the GOP follies ended with Trump edging upwards in the polls. In battleground states, surveys found that Trump was tied, or even a point or two ahead of Clinton. Shocking, right? Appalling, yes?

Appalling, sure. But shocking? No. Donald Trump’s stormtroopers aren’t going to abandon him now. For more than a year, they’ve stuck with him through serial controversies: Muslim bans, likening of women to pigs, Mexicans are rapists, tributes to Putin, mocking the disabled, disrespecting POWs, dismissing NATO. And on and on. They stay with him, despite (and perhaps because of) the hate. 

As a consequence, the Democrats – and other Americans – need to acknowledge one truth: those angry, older men in Rust Belt states have been left behind by profound economic and technological change. They have. 

They feel marginalized. They feel isolated. They see no future. 
To ensure that Donald Trump loses – to ensure there is no October Surprise – Hillary Clinton needs to reach out to those marginalized, isolated folks. The ones who see no future. 

When Hillary Clinton acknowledges that one irrefutable truth – that the American Dream hasn’t worked out for many – she will overcome all of Donald Trump’s myriad lies. 

And she will win. 

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