Primarily Speaking

[Content Note: Misogyny.]


BIG NEWS, Y'ALL! Hillary Clinton hasn't answered a question from the press in 21 days. TWENTY-ONE DAYS! That's THREE WEEKS! A FORTNIGHT AND A HALF! Does she even realize that this election is only EIGHTEEN MONTHS AWAY?! Oh my god. How are we even supposed to understand her policy positions when all she's doing is giving speeches about her policy positions which are accessible online in their entirety and not even filtered through the mainstream media to be edited down into tiny, contextless soundbytes that have a 65% chance of fundamentally misrepresenting her position?! Everything they say about her is true: She is a monster!

I mean, just listen to her campaign's defense of this NO QUESTIONS strategy! "The focus of our ramp-up period is to hear from voters about the issues they care about. She's enjoyed engaging in hours of public question and answers sessions and, as the campaign progresses, looks forward to more engagement with voters and the press as well." HOLY SHIT, THIS HARRIDAN THINKS THAT QUESTIONS DIRECT FROM VOTERS ARE AS IMPORTANT AS QUESTIONS FROM REPORTERS! Hahahahaha Hillary Clinton, those questions don't count! WHAT A JERK!

Ahem.

Yeah, it's a real fucking mystery to me why Clinton might be disinclined to make herself available to a press corps who will literally turn her not answering their questions into a negative story about her, and who are such elitist fucking assholes that they will dismiss her direct interactions with voters in order to create that negative story. "Oh you're not going to make yourself accessible to us? Fine, bitch: We'll write stories about how you're not accessible at all, never mind that you're making yourself accessible to average people. WHY WON'T YOU TALK TO USSSSSSSSSSS?!"

The pre-Reformation Priests Beltway Media are fucking ridiculous. They have some goddamned cheek calling anyone entitled or elitist.

In other news: Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders has pledged not to accept SuperPAC support. Cool. He also promised, if elected, to appoint Supreme Court justices who will roll back Citizens United. (Excellent in theory.)

Not so cool: He again went after Hillary Clinton's Iraq War vote as the primary point of difference between them. Come on, Bernie. Move on. Especially because Clinton's foreign policy hawkishness is one area of major disagreement lots of progressives have with her, and we want to hear what your current differences are. How is your current foreign policy frame more progressive than Clinton's?

Speaking of Iraq: Even conservatives are unimpressed with Jeb Bush and his "Iraq was the awesomest!" shtick. So now he's claiming he misheard the question. Hoo boy. If you have to do this much laughable backpedaling after a foreign policy softball from Fox News, you are not ready for primetime, pal.

Meanwhile, Senator Marco Rubio is stealing his foreign policy rhetoric from the movie Taken (no seriously): "Sen. Marco Rubio, whose muscular foreign policy doesn't hesitate to exert U.S. influence or military might around the world, revved up an audience in South Carolina recently by referring to a line from the movie thriller Taken. That's the one where actor Liam Neeson vows to track down the people who had kidnapped his daughter. The same approach should be applied to global terrorists, said the Florida senator and presidential candidate. 'We will look for you,' Rubio went on, 'we will find you, and we will kill you.' A simple applause line from a Hollywood blockbuster says a lot about Rubio's foreign policy, which has been central to his rise in Washington." Yes, it says that he's a dangerously aggressive dipshit.

Senator Ted Cruz is still bad at math. (By which I mean: He's a liar.) But his conservative audiences eat up his anti-IRS crapola, so he continues to serve it up.

[CN: Dehumanization; anti-immigrationism] Speaking of the conservative base, they seem nice: "During a focus group led by GOP pollster Frank Luntz at the South Carolina Freedom Summit, the mother-in-law of Citizens United president David Bossie compared immigrants to rats and roaches, to the delight of the audience. Bossie is the organizer of the summit, one in a series of cattle calls for GOP presidential hopefuls. Asked by Luntz to give advice to the these candidates, she said: 'One man, one vote. People are comin' in this country across the borders like rats and roaches in the wood pile. We've got a state like Minnesota that says it's not our business to check 'em out, we just register 'em. We've got to get control. That's what they need to know.' Her comments drew laughter, whistling, and applause. Afterwards, Luntz asked the audience if they would vote for Bossie's mother-in-law for president, which drew louder cheers and applause."

Something something Carly Fiorina something something HP CEO something something failure.

Professor of Bible Bigotry Mike Huckabee and Dr. Ben Carson are still definitely human persons running for the US presidency.

And finally! Here is just a terrific video of a Rand Paul campaign staffer licking the camera lens of a Democratic tracker filming an event:

Duing a campaign event, as someone introduces Senator Rand Paul, a middle-aged white man steps in front of a camera, blocking the shot with an extreme close-up of his face. He hovers there for a few seconds, then licks the lens and smiles creepily.

Um, okay. Cool team, you've got there, Senator.

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.