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Dispatches From the Culture Wars - Electoralgasm edition

Allen <3 Bernie; Jews & gays Cruz-ified; Kocky Kasich; Onion for Hill; Things go bitter with Kochs


That Time Allen Ginsberg Wrote a Socialist Poem — About Bernie Sanders

By Allan M. Jalon
February 17, 2016
Forward

Last June, while digging through 50 boxes of archival material about Bernie Sanders’s four terms as the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, a reporter for the British newspaper the Guardian found a poem by Allen Ginsberg. Written by hand on a 1986 visit to the city, “Burlington Snow” didn’t name Sanders, but he was clearly the populist muse that inspired it.
Ginsberg wrote, “Socialist snow on the streets / Socialist talk in the Maverick Bookstore / Socialist kids sucking socialist lollipops.” Then he turned outward, questioning with almost Elizabethan wit: “—aren’t the birds frozen socialists? / Aren’t the snowclouds blocking the airfield Social Democratic appearances?”
After Ginsberg shares the city’s governing idea, the poem itself is shared: “Isn’t this poem socialist? It doesn’t belong to me anymore.”

Ted Cruz Embraces Apocalyptic Preachers and Anti-Gay Militants

By David Horsey
February 9, 2016
Baltimore Sun

Cruz endorsers include Mike Bickle, the pastor who runs the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. Mr. Bickle has preached that in the "End Times" God will raise up someone to hunt down Jews who fail to accept Christ -- someone, he imagines, in the mold of the most famous Jew hunter of them all, Adolf Hitler.
Another Cruz fan is Bob Vander Plaats, leader of an Iowa-based group called The Family Leader. One of the principles Mr. Vander Plaats espouses is that the fight against same-sex marriage is equivalent to the 19th century struggle against slavery. Same-sex marriage, he has said, is a "Satanic plot" that will lead to parents marrying their own children.
[Moderators' note: Cruz's campaign later stated “Pastor Bickle and the International House of Prayer have devoted decades to promoting prayer, and to improving the lives of those who are suffering. Nevertheless, the statements from Pastor Bickle concerning Adoph [sic] Hitler are not statements with which Senator Cruz agrees. It is indisputable that Adoph [sic] Hitler was the embodiment of evil; he was a grotesque murderer who committed one of the gravest acts of depravity in the history of mankind. God did not intend anything in Hitler’s evil, and it is wrong to suggest otherwise.”]

When Kasich Was a 'Cocky' Conservative Who Tried To Stop George W. Bush

By Olivia Nuzzi
February 19, 2016
The Daily Beast

Kasich, like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, has chosen to run in the “moderate” lane, which is another way of saying the candidates have made it a point to not act like they have rabies.
Nevermind that no one who actually knows Kasich thinks he’s a moderate. In the presidential race, what you decide to market yourself as matters more than what you really are. Disclosing actual information—like a record or beliefs—tends to be an annoying and messy endeavor that most candidates would be best served to avoid.
And the Kasich campaign, unlike the departed Chris Christie campaign, has calculated that appearing moderate is a smarter strategy than trying to outdo Ted Cruz, a very conservative evangelical, or Donald Trump, a bigoted populist. Kasich is as conservative in 2016 as he ever was, but it’s harder to look like a conservative now, sandwiched on a stage between those two.

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Hillary’s Top Donor Just Bought The Onion — Started Publishing Propaganda Immediately
By Claire Bernish
February 18, 2016
The Free Thought Project

When it was revealed in January that satirical news outlet, The Onion, had been purchased by Univision Communications (which is co-owned by one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest fans, top campaign donor, and pro-Israel fanatic, Haim Saban), it was if the world suddenly held its breath to see if the move would be the outlet’s downfall.
Now, it appears we have our answer. On Tuesday, an apparent attempt at satirical understatement in actuality proved to be nothing less than a blatant propagandistic fluff piece touting Clinton’s ostensibly stellar career.
It didn’t work.

The Koch Brothers’ New Brand
By Bill McKibben    
March 10, 2016
New York Review of Books
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/03/10/koch-brothers-new-brand/
Jane Mayer’s remarkable new book makes it abundantly clear that the Kochs, and the closely connected group of billionaires they’ve helped assemble, have spent thousands of times that much over the past few decades, and that in the process they’ve distorted American politics in devastating ways, impairing the chances that we’ll effectively respond to climate change, reducing voting rights in many states, paralyzing Congress, and radically ratcheting up inequality.
In this election cycle, for instance, the Kochs have publicly stated that they and their compatriots will spend $889 million, more than either the Republican or Democratic parties spent last time around. According to a recent analysis in Politico, their privatized political network is backed by a group of several hundred extremely rich fellow donors who often meet at off-the-record conclaves organized by the Kochs at desert resorts. It has at least 1,200 full-time staffers in 107 offices nationwide, or three and a half times as many as the Republican National Committee. They may be the most important unelected political figures in American history.