The Nov 4 Election US Senate: Democratic Disaster or Republican Rout?

According to Nate Silver's  538 forecast it appears that the Democrats are due for a solid thumping in the elections this Tuesday. The forecast currently predicts a 68.3% chance of Republicans winning the Senate. Most other forecasts I've seen suggest that it's a done deal that the Republicans keep the House and possibly even extend their majority there. A lot of the Republican likely electorate is said to be mad as hell and ready to grab the nearest baseball bat and (figuratively) beat the doggie doo out of any Democratic elected officials that they can find. Conservatives and perhaps Republicans are allegedly fired up to vote against the entire Democratic agenda. This could be why so many Democratic Senatorial candidates have done their best to keep President Obama at arm's length, with some even going to far as to refuse to confirm they voted for the man. Possibly having gotten all they can get out of the "war on women" rhetoric, the Democrats could be belatedly realizing that men also vote.  
Tuesday’s results, Mr. McInturff added, would tell “whether it is possible that the single-minded focus that most Democratic candidates attached to the ‘war on women’ meant they never conveyed an economic and jobs message that might have led a higher chunk of the persuadable male vote to vote Democrat.”

Republicans increasingly make that argument that Democrats miscalculated in their zeal to galvanize women who otherwise would not vote in a midterm election. Democrats counter that Republicans use the phrase “Republicans’ war on women” more than Democrats to stoke a backlash among older and married women who reject partisan, feminist-sounding rhetoric and lean Republican. Ms. Greenberg said Republicans were “deliberately misconstruing” Democrats’ legitimate attacks. Yet she and other Democratic strategists complain their party has not effectively espoused a broader economic agenda, when women tell pollsters their top concern is jobs and the economy.
However, worried Democrats should know that the early voting numbers from some contested Senate races appear to be from younger and nonwhite voters who did not vote in 2010. Such people tend to lean Democratic.So there could be an unpleasant surprise for some Republicans. It depends on who shows up. I think that the Republicans will take the Senate. We will have a very interesting next two years. This election cycle was fascinating because President Obama, despite his popularity with some elements of the Democratic base, was sufficiently toxic with independents, Republicans, and Democratic leaning independents that almost no Democratic Senate candidate wanted to be seen with him, possibly causing an enthusiasm gap. Additionally some races could be a test of Hillary Clinton's or former President Clinton's coattails. We shall see.

So what's your call?

Will the Democrats lose the Senate?

If so what does this mean for the final two years of the Obama Presidency?

Movie Reviews: John Wick, The Purge: Anarchy

John Wick
directed by Chad Stahelski and David Leitch

What do you get when you combine actors from The Wire, The Matrix, Game of Thrones, Deadwood, The Warriors, Oz, The Boondock Saints, and Hanging with the Homeboys among others? Well you get John Wick, that's what you get.
This is a very good, very simple, very direct payback/revenge movie. It's no more than that nor does it try to be. So Keanu Reeves, who plays the titular character, actually has a role that plays to his strengths as an actor. Wick, who lost his wife to cancer, spends a great deal of the film in a fugue state of confusion, grief and anger. There's initially heavy emphasis on the confusion. There aren't many actors who can look confused better than Reeves can. It's virtually his default state of being. So how fortunate for him and for us that he was cast in this movie. There's very little fat in this film. It has a taut running time of around 100 minutes. There are a few predictable setpieces common to the genre with one or two exceptions these are mostly done well. And with a virtual who's who of character actors and "don't I know that guy/girl from somewhere appearances" any writing flaws are more than made up for by smooth performances. The camera work is excellent. It changes throughout the movie to help express Wick's feelings and experiences. I've learned that a horrible thing about getting older is that you attend more funerals. Some are just business affairs but when it's someone you loved the feelings of sadness, isolation and meaninglessness can be very strong. 

We are all indeed dust in the wind. The zooming crane shots at the funeral of John's wife (Bridget Moynahan) establish John's grief and make you feel it just as surely as the John Woo The Killer and Equilibrium inspired hyperactive camera work during the gunfights makes your blood pressure rise.

So what's this movie about? In many gangster stories the mob boss often has a special who reports only to him. This special guy is not just a killer. Heck any hoodlum can pull a trigger or tug on the end of a garrotte. The special is a fellow who never misses an assignment, has rock solid loyalty, possesses deadly talents which are far beyond the normal, is almost unkillable, has completed jobs previously thought impossible and without even lifting a finger or raising his voice terrifies some very scary people. The classic example is Luca Brasi from the Godfather movie/book. Here John Wick is that guy. Or to be precise he was Viggo's guy before leaving the lifestyle. As the top Russian mob boss Viggo Tarrasov (Michael Nyqvist) warns his subordinates "John Wick isn't the boogeyman. He's the guy you send to kill the f***** boogeyman!". John is out of the game. He's just become a widower. The most important things he has to remember his wife by are her bracelet, a phone video of better times and most poignantly a puppy named Daisy, delivered posthumously by his wife with a message of her deep and abiding love. John also has a black 1969 Mustang. A classic. While John is filling up at a local gas station, a Russian man named Iosef Tarrasov (Alfie Allen "Theon" from A Game of Thrones) tries to get John to sell his car to him. When John declines the offer Iosef makes a threat in Russian but is taken aback when John, neither impressed nor intimidated, responds in Russian. Unfortunately neither John nor Iosef recognize each other (John has been out of the game for a long time). Iosef and his men follow John home and later that evening break in to steal the car. Not satisfied with that they also beat him and kill his puppy Daisy.
That was a mistake.

John learns from the local auto theft czar Aurelio (John Leguizamo) that Iosef is Viggo's son. Aurelio, who works for Viggo, punched Iosef and refused to take the car. Viggo declines the request to turn over his son to John. He sends a platoon of men to deal with John. Well. Some ideas work better than others don't they. The tripwire has been tugged. A nightmarish killing machine is starting a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. As John later snarls to Viggo, "..that dog was the last memory of my wife. And your son killed it!!! So you can either give up your f***** son or die screaming beside him!!!!" I really enjoyed this action movie. It should be required viewing for folks who want to make entertaining, tight action films without flab. It is violent in the EXTREME though so if that is not your thing then you know what to do. But whatever you do, you never kill a man's dog. He might take it personally. The premise is perhaps dopey and could even be a satire. But it's played straight and works because of both the disrespect involved in violating John's house and killing his dog AND because of what the dog represented. Although Wick is deadlier and more dangerous than any of the men he's killing we still root for him because after all, they killed his dog. John Wick is a man. A core truth of American film and cultural myth is that a man handles his own affairs. He does not ask for help. He does not ask for directions. Wick will provide his own justice against those who wronged him. Wick's back tattoo translates as "Fortune favors the strong" . Enough said, right?

One of the film's interesting asides is the existence of an underground hitman superstructure, complete with special currency, lingo and assistants. One such place is the Continental Hotel. It's managed by a polite, quiet and exacting man named Charon (Lance Reddick). This is doubly symbolic because Charon was the Greek entity who provided souls a trip to the afterlife for a fee of a gold coin. Those who couldn't pay were doomed to roam the earth as ghosts, a fate literally worse than death. When John Wick goes to stay at the hotel he pays Charon a gold coin. Charon and other denizens of the criminal underworld continually ask Wick if he's back, which could imply that his previous existence was temporary or ghostly. William Dafoe, Adrianne Palicki, Dean Winters, Ian McShane, Clarke Peters, and David Patrick Kelly (Luther from The Warriors) also appear. Allen does a great job portraying a slimy, cowardly horndog. There is routine comedy when everyone except Iosef immediately realizes just what a horrible mistake Iosef has made or when Viggo's number two (Winters) has to constantly ask people to translate Russian, a language he does not speak. If I were a member of the Russian Mafia I might consider asking Hollywood to pay royalties because these days it seems like every bad guy is Russian Mafia in origin. If you like action movies, see this film. It more than makes up for 47 Ronin.
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The Purge: Anarchy
directed by James DeMonaco

The Purge: Anarchy, hereafter called Purge 2, is that rare sequel which is just as good as if not better than the original. Whereas the original strongly hinted at the race and class elements of "purging", Purge 2 brings those to the forefront. It is clear that the primary purpose of purging, at least as far as those at the pinnacle of economic and political power are concerned is not to allow millions of individuals to indulge their warped fantasies of rape, murder, assault and theft  but rather is a deliberate culling of the lower elements of society. And by lower elements I mean anyone with darker skin tones, anyone on public assistance or especially anyone who makes their money by salary as opposed to profit taking and dividends. To paraphrase Mitt Romney, the Makers want to ensure that the Takers don't get too large in number. So the Purge combines evil of both a personal nature and of an institutional framework. The low class people who gleefully plan rapes and murders are too stupid to see they're just doing what the upper classes want them to do.

Whereas the initial movie was centered around one man's struggle to protect his blood family during the purge night, Purge 2 moves people outdoors. It imagines a family made up of strangers who must come to trust each other. Purge 2 skillfully ratchets up the dread as we watch people attempt to make their homes safe in the hours before the Purge, try to make it home, or more ominously make their preparations to join the Purge. Evil can be seductive. Most of us know a few people who we really don't like. That's just part of being human. Some of us might even know a few people who we think have done us serious harm and gotten away with it. What if, for just one night, you could exercise a little payback on such a person? Hmm? If someone cavalierly misdiagnosed what turned out to be a loved one's terminal cancer or was found not guilty of raping your sister or committed some other act of mayhem against a person you loved, would you be immune to the thought of vengeance? Maybe you would. Depending on the act though, I would at least have to think about it. And that's how evil can be justified. It can worm its way into our psyche through what we think of as justified reasons.

As Purge 2 opens, a waitress, Eva Sanchez (Carmen Ejogo), frets about staying too late at her workplace. The Purge is coming but her greedy boss hasn't let the workers leave early to get home in time. Anyway Eva has to ask her boss about a raise so that she can afford the medicine for her chronically sick father Papa Rico (John Beasley). Papa Rico is disgusted with how society has turned out and has no hope of anything getting better. He tells his granddaughter Cali (Zoe Soul) to place no hope in the messages of anti-Purge revolutionaries led by Carmelo (Michael K. Williams). Carmelo ties all the race, class and civil liberty elements together but he's having trouble getting his message out. Across town Shane (Zack Gilford) and his girlfriend Liz (Kiele Sanchez) are at a dead end in their relationship. They are about to call it quits. However it being Purge night they are arguing about whether they should make this official and tell family members that their relationship has gone belly up. One of them enjoys arguing; the other is more passive-aggressive. They are trying to make it to Shane's sister's home before the Purge starts.

Finally an ominous man who we later discover is named Leo (Frank Grillo) is arming for the Purge. He has guns, body armor, knives, and of course a bada$$ armored car. He's a man with a plan. You wouldn't want to be on his bad side. Grillo initially brings some of the intensity that one might expect from a seventies era Harvey Keitel or Robert DeNiro. He's smoldering with fury and doesn't say much. Through a series of unfortunate events many of these people end up together on the street. The movie is almost a cinematic interpretation of the classic 90's Ice-T cut Midnight. The ending is not quite as strong as it could have been but all in all this was a good action movie. I don't know that there needs to be a sequel but I'm sure that there will be. A dangerous looking group of bikers led by a man in a white mask with "God" engraved on it (Keith Stanfield) provides some additional scares. Obviously the film is very violent. If something like this ever took place it might make even the most resolute anti-gun individual run down to their local gun shop and stock up on everything. Nevertheless it's still a moral film or at least tries to be. There are anti-violence messages included within. Things get a little confusing on that point but I don't think anyone would watch this and think that purging is a good idea.
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HBO Boardwalk Empire Series Finale

Evil, why have you engulfed so many hearts...Evil

Evil, why have you destroyed so many minds...
Leaving room for darkness, where lost dreams can hide..

Stevie Wonder-"Evil"

It’s nice to imagine that everyone is or would be outraged at sexual abuse of children and would do anything within the law or beyond it to prevent an adult from harming a child. We often chortle self-righteously at the imagined hell that a convicted child abuser suffers in prison. We'll say he (and men are the ones for whom most of our justified rage is held) is getting what he deserves. But that's just not reality. Adults often turn a blind eye to child abuse. Whether it's international cinema stars claiming that Roman Polanski really isn't that bad of a guy despite his rape of a thirteen year old girl, Hollywood or music industry producers and agents with casting couches for teen actors/actresses/musicians, R&B musicians like R. Kelly who hang around junior high school girls, Orthodox Jews in New York City trying to prevent other Jews from reporting Jewish pedophiles to non-Jews, men in Afghanistan with teen or even younger male concubines, Baptist Church choir directors with scores of teen male "assistants", the various Catholic Church scandals or the fact that so many different people in authority pretended not to know what Jerry Sandusky was up to at Penn State, there are plenty of people in all walks of life and among both genders who will ignore evil committed against children. Some will even assist. One moral cretin at Rutgers has the nerve to counsel us to find sympathy for pedophiles. The world is full of people who make peace with such evil. They can justify their decisions by pointing to a greater good (usually for themselves), claim that they could not commit career or literal suicide by taking a stand, whine that they don't really know what happened, claim the child was no virgin or provide any number of other excuses designed to kill a conscience. 

Atlantic City Treasurer/Sheriff/Mob Boss Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) was such a man. As one character poignantly said of him "You want to be good but you don't know how". Much of this season and finale was shown in flashbacks. Brought up impoverished in an abusive family atmosphere, Thompson had big plans for himself and his wife. Working in a corrupt political system he decided to play by the rules that existed. And rule number one was to give the boss what he wanted. The boss during Thompson's youth and rise to power was the Commodore Kaestner (John Conlee). And the Commodore liked to have sex with young girls, children really. The Commodore read people well. He skillfully played on Nucky's ambition, fervent need to belong and to have a paternal figure. Nucky became aware of the run of the mill corruption that the Commodore directed, the store shakedowns, real estate payoffs and murders. He also slowly learned of the Commodore's interest in young girls. At the Commodore's direction, Nucky paid off a rape victim's family. And finally, in an act that would cause his death many decades later, Nucky turned over a barely pubescent teen girl to the Commodore. This twelve year old girl, Gillian Darmody, was someone who could and should have been Nucky's adoptive daughter. This ugly betrayal gave Nucky the Sheriff's job. It laid the foundation for his transformation into a corrupt political boss and later mob boss. It also gave him a permanently negative outlook on life, one that could only be temporarily alleviated by romantic love (which he rarely had), sex (which by this final season had lost some of its luster) or the love of his nieces and nephews (which was complicated by his difficult relation with their father), his brother Eli (Shea Wigham). Tormented by sibling rivalry and the knowledge that Nucky really was smarter, Eli was involved twice in serious plots to kill Nucky and at least on one occasion tried to do so all by himself.

Over previous seasons we knew what Nucky had done but it wasn't emphasized. It was years in the past after all. The grown up Gillian (Gretchen Mol) was hardly a sympathetic figure. She committed incest with her son, made a living as both a high class and streetwalker prostitute, pimped out other women and girls just as she had been pimped out, became a junkie, murdered an innocent youth in order to get her son's inheritance, tried to murder Nucky and was often needlessly cruel to those she saw as damaged or rivals for her son's affections. Still, one could make a good argument that if she had been taught kindness at a young age rather than learning that her only value lay between her legs, then perhaps her life would have gone differently. Nucky could have made different choices when the young Gillian appeared in his life but he didn't. He never seemed to feel guilt either. He felt some annoyance, yes, occasionally a twinge of sympathy, but never guilt. He thinks that all anyone ever wants from him is money. It's about all he's willing to give, anyway. It's very difficult for someone like Nucky to love. He lacks children of his own. His wife is estranged. His girlfriends keep getting killed. Sympathy and love are not things which Nucky has in abundance.

So when visiting the desperate Gillian in an insane asylum, (out of options she had written Nucky for help) Nucky shows little care for or understanding of the fact that the sadistic and misogynistic doctor has performed a hysterectomy on Gillian, believing it will cure her "insanity". This was actually based on a real life Dr. Cotton who behaved pretty much as depicted. Gillian knew this was coming; she wrote to Nucky in a vain attempt to win freedom. But it was too late. Even it if hadn't been it's unclear as to whether Nucky would have helped. He couldn't even tell Gillian he was sorry for pimping her out or killing her son. So it wasn't too surprising when Nucky, after having been deposed as Atlantic City Boss by the burgeoning syndicate, found out the hard way that one of his previous employees, a child really, was Tommy Darmody, son of the man he had murdered and grandson of Gillian Darmody. The youngster murdered Nucky. From a karmic point of view this made sense but given that Gillian hadn't been around the orphaned Tommy very often while he was growing up it's not clear where or how he inherited his sense of grievance. So that ending was a bit sloppy as far as narrative goes. Was Tommy visiting Grandma Gillian in the loony bin?

 It is interesting also that while we thought this series was about 20s-30s gangsters and hoodlums what it was really about how one man sold his soul for power. He could never find peace until he found the absolution that everyone gets eventually, the peace of the grave. So it goes.

The criminal sellout with grand delusions of national and religious redemption, Dr. Valentin Narcisse ,(Jeffrey Wright) was murdered by syndicate hitters when he refused to come to terms with Luciano and Lansky. This was based on reality but it was actually Dutch Schultz and Owney Madden, who were the first syndicate bigshots to muscle in on Harlem rackets, not Luciano. This season felt a little rushed and the finale was somewhat anti-climatic. We know that Lanksy, Luciano and Siegel survived the wars of the thirties. We know that Luciano and Lansky had Siegel murdered in the forties. We know that Capone was convicted for income tax invasion and suffered the horrors of syphilis and Alcatraz before being released to die insane in Florida. We even know that a crusading special prosecutor, aided by the first black woman ADA in NYC convicted Luciano of pandering and extortion in the prostitution racket. Luciano got a 30-50 year sentence and was later deported to Italy. The finale didn't show any of this once again choosing to spend too much time on Nucky's estranged wife Margaret (Kelly MacDonald) and her forays into white collar crime with Joe Kennedy (Matt Letscher). I never liked Margaret so this storyline was wasted on me. The season's strongest goodbyes were delivered in the penultimate episode when both the Knight Templar Treasury agent turned mobster and cuckolded husband Nelson Van Alden (Michael Shannon) and the fallen on hard times gangster Chalky White (Michael K. Williams) were suddenly murdered by their enemies. This finale just tied up some loose ends and made explicit a horror that had previously been subtext. I enjoyed the show but I don't think it ranks with HBO's greatest hits. I did appreciate the work that the actor Stephen Graham did as Capone. Michael K. Williams always impressed. And Gretchen Mol did a great job making a despicable character sympathetic.

Do you remember when we met? I'll never forget your smile. Jimmy sometimes, he has it. I look at him and I see you. That first night, how you plied me with wine... Why, I'd never felt such a sensation. We were downstairs. And I'd fallen asleep on the divan. You carried me to the bedroom, went to say good night to your guests. And I laid there in bed, dreaming of the waves. I'd been on the beach that day. Suddenly I felt a crushing feeling. I couldn't breathe. I opened my eyes to find you atop me. Your breath smelling of whiskey and tobacco. One hand covering my mouth and the other groping at me. Do you remember that? Still, sometimes when I sleep, it wakes me with a start. Do you remember that night?
-Gillian Darmody speaking to the Commodore

Child Support Gone Wrong: Michigan Man Paying For Child That's Not His

Apart from extreme purist libertarians and anarchists, I think most people would concede that a certain level of government is necessary. However I also think that many people outside of devoted statists would also admit that government has become in some cases too large, too powerful and far too dismissive of individual rights. There have been some recent incidents which do remind me of the fact that a government which has too much power will inevitably seek to exercise that power in ways that harm all of us. Now we all may have our pet peeves and biases. That's part of being human. I may be more concerned about police brutality than you. You might be worried about arrogant and bullying EPA workers when they are not even on my radar screen. Someone else might have good reason to really dislike ICE workers. And so on. Government is made up of flawed men and women, like every other institution. It makes mistakes just like we do. That's ok. But what's not ok, is when government, which has the right and the power to put you in prison and take money from you, makes a mistake, admits it made a mistake but continues to treat you as if it didn't. Do you have an extra $30,000 lying around? Because if you don't you have something in common with one Mr. Carnell Alexander of Detroit, Michigan. He doesn't have that money either. But even he did he wouldn't pay it to the State of Michigan. The state claims he owes them that money for something he did not do. Read more and see the video below the fold.
DETROIT (WXYZ) - The State of Michigan is ordering a Detroit man to pay tens of thousands of dollars, or go to prison. The reason? He owes back child support for a child that everyone agrees is not his.  "I feel like I’m standing in front of a brick wall with nowhere to go," said Carnell Alexander. He says he learned about the paternity case against him during a traffic stop in Detroit in the early 90s. The officer told him he is a deadbeat dad, there was a warrant out for his arrest. 

“I knew I didn’t have a child, so I was kind of blown back,” said Alexander. The state said he fathered a child in 1987, and ignored a court order to pay up. It was the first Carnell had heard of the court order. He'd never even met the child. Eventually he, by chance, ran into someone he knew would know where the woman was, and got a DNA test. It proved what he had been saying all along: the child he had never met was not his.

The mother had realized that, and the real father was in the child's life. Alexander took this information to court. The judge was unmoved. Carnell's ex had a baby, and didn't know who the father was. She was struggling to care for the child. When she applied for state assistance, the case worker told her she had to name the father....

Now although I think that the entire alimony/palimony/child support/divorce industry needs an overhaul this really is beyond what I thought the worst could be. The man has irrefutable proof that he's not the father and the judge really doesn't give a ****. This is precisely the sort of thing that could make people explode. Yes you should take care of your kids. And if need be the state should be able to "help" you do that. The flip side of that though is if the kid in question isn't yours then the child isn't your responsibility. For the state to try to make that child your responsibility goes beyond corruption and slides into tyranny. It's exactly like being convicted and sent to prison for a crime you didn't commit because the prosecutor and judge want to send a message to other criminals about the cost of defying the law. They aren't interested in the fact that you are not a criminal. This sort of thing really bothers me. If the so-called justice system is treating the innocent and the guilty exactly the same, something that I'll be discussing more in a future post, then what incentive does anyone have to pay attention to the system or as Peter Tosh referred to it, the s***stem. Absolutely no incentive at all. A system that behaves like this loses legitimacy in the eyes of the citizens. Ultimately it relies on pure power, little different than the Mafia hoodlum shaking down construction companies for the weekly payoff. But when people start to withhold their consent and stop obeying the system, the results will be unknowable. When there are more cases like that of Mr. Alexander more people will start to do just that.  And I'm sorry but if, absent rape, a woman doesn't know who the father of her child is, she should be shamed and criticized just as much as the lazy lothario with multiple children by multiple women and no way of supporting his women or children.

What are your thoughts?

If you were this man what would your next move be?

Bill Clinton tells President Obama to man up

Reality is a funny thing. It exists independently of our perceptions yet our perceptions are the only way in which we know reality. Our perceptions can color our "version" of reality. There are literally an infinite number of ways by which to generate the number 4. 2+2 = 4 is likely the first one that came to your mind. But let's say you work for a boss who who was taught to express the number 4 as the square root of 16. And let's say that is the only way which he permits anyone who works for him to express the number 4. His version of reality is accurate but it's not accurate to suggest that that is the ONLY version of reality. So just as in mathematics, in politics there are a number of competing and complementary narratives which all might describe reality yet look very different from each other. I suppose if someone had soundly beaten my wife, sister or other close female relative for something which she wanted very badly and yet asked for my help or her help shortly after doing so, my feelings for that man might best be described as complex. There is a Ben Harper song "Roses from my friends" which has the chorus "The stones from my enemies, these wounds will mend, but I cannot survive the roses from my friends". Former President Clinton may have shown how his version of reality differs from President Obama's while handing the President a thorn covered rose. Both in 2012 and in a recent interview with PBS, former President Clinton said that as far as personal attacks go, he's had it worse than President Obama even as he concedes that the partisan gridlock is worse today.
"Nobody's accused him [President Obama] of murder yet, as far as I know. I mean it was pretty rough back then. I think that most people underappreciate the level of extreme partisanship that took hold in '94."

President Obama heads into midterm elections in which he may face crushing losses. He has been spurned by his own party, whose candidates do not even want to be seen with him. The president’s supporters say the toxic atmosphere in Washington has made it impossible for Mr. Obama to succeed. Whatever Mr. Clinton’s motivations, his comments, which his former aides frequently refer to when the topic comes up, do not permit Mr. Obama to excuse his legislative setbacks by simply citing hyper-partisanship. As one former White House aide to Mr. Clinton put it: “They impeached our guy." 

Even Mr. Clinton’s old rival, Newt Gingrich, a former Republican speaker of the House, said people had a gauzy view of the Clinton years. “Everyone is doing the, ‘Gee, Newt and Bill got things done, why can’t Obama get anything done?’ routine,” Mr. Gingrich said. “Maybe it’s driving Bill nuts.” The underlying implication is that Mr. Obama does not have it so rough. Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Clinton criticize the current president for being less able or willing than his Democratic predecessor to woo congressional Republicans. 

Some of the venom directed at Mr. Obama has a racial component that Mr. Clinton, a relatable white Southerner, never had to deal with, said Douglas G. Brinkley, a presidential historian and professor at Rice University. “The Clintons created huge problems of their own making,” Mr. Brinkley added, while “Obama’s problem is that he bullheadedly pushed Obamacare, and he happens to be African-American.” “You can’t get more personal than questioning a person’s veracity for where he was born,” said Mr. Galston, the former Clinton aide, referring to the “birther” conspiracy theories about Mr. Obama’s birth certificate."

LINK (Please read this entire article as it's actually quite good)

It's true that as of this writing President Obama has not been impeached. Of course as far as I know he's not getting intern provided oral sex in the White House and lying about it under oath either. So there's that. Should that happen and President Obama not be impeached then we have a better "apples to apples" comparison. Still it can be true both that President Obama has had to deal with a level of opposition which other Presidents didn't face and that President Obama has had rose colored glasses about the fact that the opposing party doesn't like him and is not in fact, required to work with him. In my opinion he's only belatedly arriving at that realization. I disagree with former President Clinton about the nature of the attacks that President Obama has faced. Conservatives and Republicans have attacked President Obama's religion, race, citizenship, intelligence and sexuality in a way that they didn't do to President Clinton. I don't say that Clinton had it easy. Right wingers compared his daughter's looks to that of a dog, called his wife a lesbian and suggested he and she murdered people. Nevertheless they were willing to work with President Clinton in a way which they have generally refused to do with President Obama. IIRC no mainstream conservative intellectual called President Clinton's mother a fat whore with a fetish for non-white men. 

It's difficult to walk in someone else's shoes. Empathy only goes so far, especially with someone who has a completely different personality than you and who came out of nowhere to defeat your wife. Apparently that still rankles.

What do you think?

Did President Clinton have it worse than President Obama?

Is President Clinton making inaccurate and self-centered comments?

Will President Clinton's comments help his wife if she runs again for President?

Movie Reviews: Supernatural Season Seven, Dead Snow 2

Supernatural Season Seven
created by Eric Kripke

If Season Six was a bit iffy and a virtual series reboot Season Seven found the story back on more familiar ground. The Winchester Brothers are still doing what they do best, saving people, hunting things, you know, the family business. But this season there are two new extra dimensional threats, further challenges to the relationship between Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles), and personal losses. While the show started with the Winchesters and their allies very firmly on the side of good, over time the series has subtly and not so subtly played with that perception. Both brothers have been to Hell and returned somewhat the worse for wear. Each of them did things or suffered things there that they don't want to talk about. Dean's arrogance can be matched by Sam's self-righteousness. Although the first reveal of angels, in the form of Castiel (Misha Collins) was awe inspiring and a reminder that pure good exists, later events showed us that although God might be omniscient, His angels certainly weren't. They were just as prone to bitterness, rivalries, jealousy and squabbling as humans were. The only difference was that angels played for higher stakes. By the end of Season Six the war between Castiel and his superior, the Archangel Raphael (played by Demore Barnes and Lynette Ware)  was concluded. Over Season Six Castiel realized that he lacked the raw power to defeat an Archangel. His army was badly losing the heavenly civil war. From desperation Castiel made a secret deal with the demon Crowley (Mark Sheppard). Souls are power. So Crowley would manipulate the Winchesters into helping him search for Purgatory (the dimension where the souls of deceased non-human monsters reside) while Castiel would keep the Winchesters misled about the fact that it was he, not Crowley who had rescued the now soulless Sam from Hell. 

Once they found Purgatory Crowley and Castiel would split its souls. With this additional power Castiel could go toe to toe with Raphael. This plan might have worked were it not for the fact that the Winchesters were too smart and too independent to be manipulated for long. They called upon Death to restore Sam's soul to him, damaged though it was. They figured out that Castiel was lying to them. Dean took this rather hard as Castiel was something akin to a big brother. Once they learned that Castiel was actually working with Crowley all bets were off. But as Castiel sadly pointed out, no matter how tough the Winchesters thought they were, they were still just human. And humans rank below angels on the power scale. Castiel removed the wall that Death had placed in Sam's mind to protect him from his memories. Sam stated to alternate between having hallucinations and being comatose. Castiel wanted the Winchesters to stop interfering in his affairs. Castiel opened Purgatory. He betrayed Crowley and took all the souls for himself. Crowley ran. Castiel then killed Raphael with a mere snap of his fingers. The Winchester Brothers and their paternal stand-in Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver) tried to kill Castiel but it was too late. By taking ALL the souls for himself Castiel had transcended angelic status. He was now God. He forced the Winchesters and Bobby to kneel to him. He took a trip across the world and Heaven, righting wrongs and settling scores. His idea of righting wrongs usually involved smiting sinners, often in great numbers, but that's what God does, right? That is what Castiel thinks He does. After all Castiel was there watching when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. He's pretty sure he can do this Ruler of the Universe thing. I mean what could go wrong?

Sam, Dean and Bobby were almost out of ideas. But Dean remembered that Death (Julian Richings) once told him that some day he will even kill God. Hoping that that's true, the trio summoned and bound Death. Death was more amused than irritated by this as he liked Dean but before he left he warned Dean not to ever try this again. He also revealed that Castiel is not God but merely a low level angel struggling to control all the souls inside of him, in particular things called Leviathan. Leviathan were God's first creations, before angels and humans. Like many beta models they were scrapped. They were too dangerous. Leviathan were confined to Purgatory, that is until Castiel foolishly took them out. Feeling the effects of the Leviathan Castiel comes to Dean and Sam for help in reopening the gate to Purgatory and releasing all the souls back into that dimension. They do this but it turns out that the Leviathan are able to hold on. They "kill" Castiel and release themselves in the water supply. This allows them to take and reshape bodies on our plane of existence. And thus Season Seven sees the most dangerous yet threat to humanity. Leviathan are virtually impervious to any of the Winchester's normal weaponry, material or spiritual. Bullets don't bother them. They can reform after total body disintegration. Holy water and exorcism makes them giggle. Even decapitation just temporarily slows them down. They're very intelligent with utter contempt for all other life forms. The Leviathan are basically humanoid white sharks. And they are always hungry. The best way to deal with a Leviathan is to run. But John Winchester didn't raise his boys to run from a fight.

This season had its share of dramatic setpieces, including a point where a crippled Dean and concussed Sam are taken to a hospital infested with Leviathans. Sam continues to hallucinate that Lucifer is still with him. As always though, especially post-season five, the show's emotional center remains the fractured yet enduring relationship between the Winchester Brothers. They don't always like each other. They split up for a while due to what Sam sees as an unforgivable betrayal by Dean. They seem to have a knack for getting their friends killed and destroying each other's outside relationships, romantic or otherwise. But when the chips are down and their backs are against the wall they would each rather die than fail to help each other or anyone who they consider family. Dean, more so than Sam, has always had a very black and white approach to their job. Monsters are bad. They kill people. Hunters kill monsters to save people. It's just that simple.The end. But in an ironic echo of Castiel's mistakes, Dean will discover that sometimes things aren't so cut and dry. Some monsters are worse than others. And sometimes you may have to overlook a lesser evil in order to deal with a greater one. Season Seven introduced new allies for the Winchesters, including the goofy and entirely too touchy feely hunter Garth (DJ Qualls) and the IT expert/nerd/expert hacker/gamer Charlie Bradbury (Felicia Day). It also saw the reveal of the Leviathan leader, Dick Roman (James Patrick Stuart). 

Roman has nasty plans not just for the Winchesters but for all of humanity. As he is a corporate CEO there's a slight Omen feel to some Season 7 episodes. If you will forgive a small pun Roman chews up the scenery. The Leviathan swiftly organize. They know all of the Winchesters' aliases. They use the police and FBI to go after Sam and Dean. The Winchesters try to find a way to kill the Leviathans, stay alive and do their regular job. We learn more of the cost of the hunter lifestyle, especially as it applies to Dean. You deal with threats no one believes. You can't tell anyone about it or you'll be locked in an insane asylum. You never make any money. You often run afoul of the authorities. And if you ever do manage to find a woman you love you dare not put her in danger by hanging around. You may even have a few "love children" out there. As Dean would say, awesome. The season is not without its humor, even as things look their bleakest. Those of you who avoid fast food or any processed food may find amusement at a turn of events that finds the healthy eating and organic loving Sam proven right in his choices. Dean, who religiously consumes burgers, french fries and especially pie, has reason to reconsider his diet. And Sam, being Sam, can't help but take a few opportunities to say "I told you so".
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Dead Snow 2 : Red vs. Dead
directed by Tommy Wirkola

If you don't like horror movies at all then you really should skip this sequel. Although the first film (reviewed here) had a deliciously twisted sense of humor this film just increases the carnage and put its hero in more perverse positions. I didn't find this that amusing. The first film was a real horror film as the heroes and heroines were isolated, outnumbered and surrounded in the snow, cold and dark. This wasn't the case with this film. This film is more of a "monster" film. There's less horror and much more campy humor. YMMW on this. I was less than impressed. You can get this film in English or subtitled. I went with English.
The director retrofits the original's final events to create the sequel. At the end of the first film, the sole surviving member of a group of Norwegian medical students has made it to a car and is about to (absent the arm he cut off with a chainsaw to avoid zombie infection) escape some very vicious Nazi zombies, who are upset that the students have disturbed their gold.  Martin (Vegar Hoel) is about to drive off when a coin falls out of his coat pocket and he realizes he has not returned all the gold and is thus still fair game. The Nazi commander (Orjan Gamst) realizes this too and knocks politely on the car window before breaking it. Martin starts screaming and the scene fades to black. Well the sequel shows us that Martin didn't die then and there. He manages to get the car started and drives off. With one hand this is no easy task, let me tell you. However the Nazi commander doesn't let go and when Martin sideswipes a truck the Nazi commander loses his arm, which falls into Martin's car. 

Obviously Martin has an accident. I mean how many wounded zombie fighting one armed men do you know who are excellent nighttime drivers? When he wakes up in the hospital he's happy to be alive. But things go badly for him. The authorities have found all the dead bodies of his friends and classmates. He's considered to be a serial killer. No one wants to hear about how much he loved his girlfriend or that Nazi zombies were to blame. To make matters worse though, the doctors have found the Nazi commander's severed arm in Martin's car and, thinking it's Martin's , have attached it to his body. This was quite reminiscent of Evil Dead 2. The Nazi arm has a life and will of its own. Soon it's killed other people and Martin is free. However the Nazi commander has found Martin's arm and attached it. So they have a link. Completely inexplicably Martin is contacted by a so-called Zombie Squad, a group of American nerd siblings, who are convinced that zombies exist and are just delighted that Martin has proof. They promise to come help him.

In the meantime the Nazi commander is leading his troops to Martin's town. But Martin discovers that his new arm has additional powers besides just killing people. Again I think that your enjoyment of movies like this depends entirely on your expectations. I was expecting a little more so I enjoyed it less. It does have what must be film's weirdest and most ironic use of the classic Bonnie Tyler ballad Total Eclipse of the Heart. And I always liked her voice. So there's that at least. TRAILER

Michigan: Michigan State Game

Today in East Lansing my cherished alma mater, the University of Michigan, will play Michigan State University in a football game. Unfortunately this game is highly unlikely to result in a U-M victory. At the time of this writing U-M is a 17 point underdog. Since 2008, MSU is 5-1 against U-M. In their last two matchups U-M could not even score a single touchdown against MSU. In 2013, MSU dominated U-M so thoroughly that some people who saw the game left questioning the manhood of the U-M players. There was a time when U-M was the team that went around punching other teams in the mouth and daring them to do something about it. Those days are long gone. Now, sadly even a diehard Wolverine fan such as myself must admit that there is a certain softness, a certain weakness about U-M. MSU on the other hand has an attention to detail, toughness and even arrogance that used to be U-M's domain. The programs are headed in different directions. Although the Big 10 and Midwest college football in general is not competitive with the juggernaut that is the SEC, MSU has risen to prominence over the past eight years, displacing U-M as the power in the north. This has come about under the leadership of MSU's smirking head coach Mark Dantonio. Meanwhile U-M has floundered and failed, never more so than under the "leadership" of current head coach Brady Hoke, a hapless and oft incoherent man who will likely hopefully be fired at the end of the season. Still, this is a rivalry game. Both teams should be excited. MSU's defense is not quite as good as last year's. MSU's QB makes more mistakes than he should. So anything can happen. And if there is one thing that could save Hoke's job it would be going to East Lansing and laying an old school Schembechler style smackdown on the Spartans. That almost certainly won't take place but dreams and memories are increasingly all U-M fans have left. Anyway, below the jump there are two videos summarizing the two schools and the types of people who attend them. Obviously the stereotypes aren't true but as with any stereotype you can always find an example to buttress it.