Hillary Clinton

Did voter suppression happen yesterday? Yes. Was it a conspiracy? Probably not.

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I saw this graphic on Twitter last night, which is the apotheosis of dumbness:

All the dumbness. All of it

The DNC (and for that matter the RNC, and for that further matter any and all of the individual Presidential campaigns currently still running in the primary) has literally nothing to do with any of litany of charges made in that graphic.

Elections in Arizona are overseen by the Secretary of State, one Michele Reagan, a Republican. They are executed by the counties. The largest county in Arizona is Maricopa, whose County Recorder is one Helen Purcell, also a Republican. I promise you that neither of these officials are taking any cues from the Democratic National Committee or Hillary Clinton.

Taking the charges on one by one:

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Clinton, Trump, and Stein in early leads in Arizona PPE

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Unofficial results from the Arizona Presidential Preference Election (PPE) from Secretary of State Michele Reagan’s website: http://apps.azsos.gov/election/2016/PPE/Results/PPE2016Results.htm. Only top two vote getters are being reported. Democratic Party:         Hillary Clinton  58%      Bernie Sanders  40% Republican Party:   Donald Trump  47%    Ted Cruz  25% Green Party:   Jill Stein  81%      Kent Mesplay  19% … Read more

No, your new heartthrob John Kasich is not a moderate!

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What inevitably turns up in my feed whenever I mention Kasich

If there’s one thing some liberals are big saps for, it’s the idea of forging kumbaya friendships with certain Republicans. They’re like nerdy high school kids pathetically grateful that the jocks and cheerleaders are letting them sit at their table for lunch. It’s very annoying but is an ongoing thing that will never go away so long as there are liberals yearning for whatever approbation they can get from people who scorn them. Arizona liberals are especially bad with this, since the political climate here is so demoralizing for Democrats. The hunger for “reasonable” Republicans is so strong that they’ll ascribe such characteristics to guys like Jeff Flake, mistaking his mild-manneredness for moderation, when the truth is that the now-junior Senator of Arizona holds a lot of horrifically right wing positions.

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That time Bernie Sanders voted to protect the Minutemen

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As I was planning to do a post about Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ problems attracting black and Hispanic voters earlier yesterday afternoon, the news broke that Bernie’s wife Jane Sanders visited Maricopa County’s Tent City Jail in Phoenix. She was there for the laudable purpose of calling attention to mistreatment of inmates and immigrants but, of course, Arpaio hijacked the event and turned it into a PR photo op. Most of the local news coverage (warning, autoplays) featured Sanders and Arpaio disagreeing amicably about the jail and about Donald Trump’s candidacy, with Arpaio getting (yet another) earned media opportunity to promote himself in an election year.

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Peggy Olson

Sexism in America: Peggy Olson, Hillary Clinton, Mom & Me

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Peggy Olson in the secretarial pool.
Peggy Olson in the secretarial pool.
Peggy Olson
Peggy Olson punches the Madison Avenue glass ceiling in Mad Men.

Beyond the booze, the babes, the cool, retro clothes, and the slick mid-century modern Madison Avenue backdrop,  AMC’s Mad Men is a story about office work and sexism at the dawn of the feminist era– before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), before Roe v Wade, before Ms Magazine, and before the Equal Rights Amendment’s (ERA) revival.

Mad Men’s Peggy Olson is the quintessential poster girl for working women and office survival. As Mad Men begins, Peggy is the Plain Jane secretarial school graduate who is assigned to be the secretary for handsome cad, sex addict, and creative genius Don Draper. As the episodes unfold, Peggy breaks out of the secretarial pool– with Draper’s help– to become a copywriter. Even in her success, Peggy isn’t given the respect she deserves. Initially, she shares a tiny office with the copier, suffers through Draper’s  unrealistic demands that rob her personal life, and works primarily on women’s products– stockings, bras, make-up, and cleaning products. She presents at pitch meetings when they need someone to give “Mom’s opinion.” Fighting sexism and entrenched behaviors, roles, and ideas in the ad agency office, Peggy claws her way up the career ladder and against-all-odds becomes a sought-after creative genius in her own right toward the end of the series.

Mad Men presents a more honest view of the 1950s-60s than the moralistic TV shows of the period– like Father Knows Best, Ozzie and Harriet, or Lassie...

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