Category Archives: Neglected History

THE NEW CLASS WAR: MICHAEL LIND’S INSIGHTFUL NEW BOOK

New Class WarBalladeer’s Blog’s coverage of corporate fascism continues with this look at Michael Lind’s brilliant book The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite. Lind often writes for Salon and Politico and in this book deals with the way in which the global trend toward populism started in response to oppression from what he calls “The New Class.”

Regular readers here know that I often write about the way that the callous, comfortable elites love to blame the rest of us for the problems they have created in the world.

The way that the corporate media and Democrat “educators” (LMAO) distort history one might think that there was once an age when the poor and the working class ruled the world and caused colonialism, wars and all the other plagues that were really caused by the Powers That Be among the rich and politically connected. The people who STILL run things, in other words.

george-soros-aloneLind’s work criticizes the new corporate fascist elite, like last year’s Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas (previously reviewed here at Balladeer’s Blog). Lind, a professor at the University of Texas, argues that the plutocrats of today don’t just guard their money and privilege, they disguise their self-interested pursuits under the pretense of “social activism” and other deceptive buzzwords while lecturing the working class and the poor.

George W BushLind writes, “The new class war is very real—and the managerial class is winning.” Lind’s “managerial class” quite rightly includes not just the wealthy elite themselves but also the facilitators of these privileged fascists – the bought and paid-for politicians, the unelected bureaucrats, biased journalists, media propagandists and the politically prejudiced lawyers and “educators” who promote the interests of the wealthy while pretending to be championing the underclasses.

Lind savages the political right AND left alike, appropriately enough. Continue reading →

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CHICAGO IS STILL THE MOST CORRUPT CITY IN AMERICA

democrat republican awakeRegular readers of Balladeer’s Blog are familiar with the way I refer to “the Chicago cesspool” of political corruption. Well, in the recent study by UIC the Windy Cesspool remains the most corrupt city in America! From 1976 to 2018 there were 1,750 political corruption CONVICTIONS in Chicago. So that’s not even counting the many times the city’s corrupt machine thwarted justice.

Los Angeles was in 2nd place with over 1,500 corruption convictions in that same time period. New York City was in 3rd place. All three cities are Democrat-run, and in Chicago’s case the city has had NO Republican mayor since 1931.

#WalkAwayI emphasize this for overseas readers who seem to think that only America’s Republicans are criminals, when in fact BOTH Democrat AND Republican career politicians are white-collar criminals.

For the link to the study Continue reading →

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THREE FORMER PRESIDENTS WHO RETURNED TO FEDERAL SERVICE

As Presidents Day Weekend draws to a close here’s one last seasonal post from Balladeer’s Blog. This item looks at the three former presidents who occupied other United States federal government positions after their years in the White House.

William Howard TaftWILLIAM HOWARD TAFT

Gang Affiliation: Republican

Post-Presidency Office: Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

Comment: In July of 1921, President Warren G Harding took time out from letting his criminal cronies run the country to appoint former President Taft as the new Chief Justice.

Among the Associate Justices serving on the Court when Taft took the position were three of the legends of the Court – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, Louis Brandeis and Willis Van Devanter (insert your own “Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” joke here). Continue reading →

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AMERICAN PRESIDENTS: EISENHOWER TO TRUMP

It’s Presidents Day Weekend! Here are some of Balladeer’s Blog’s takes on the more recent presidents.  

EisenhowerDWIGHT EISENHOWER

Character Type: Well-meaning but befuddled sitcom grandfather.

Military Service: World War One and World War Two

Motto: “FOOORE!” (Remember,  the traditional cry as you’re teeing off in golf? Oh, never mind!)

Nickname: Uncle Milty

Pro: Knew enough to distrust Richard Nixon long before it became the national pasttime. 

Con: Was the first president to pronounce nuclear as “nucular”. Continue reading →

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VICE PRESIDENTS – JOKES ABOUT THESE ULTIMATE SECOND BANANAS

John Adams

John Adams

Since it’s Presidents Day Weekend here’s another seasonal post.

John Adams called the Vice Presidency “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived.” A very old joke went “Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea and the other became Vice President. Neither was ever heard from again.”

In George S Kaufman’s and Morrie Ryskind’s classic stage work Of Thee I Sing one of the characters turns down an offer to be Vice President because he’s ashamed to have his mother know. He’s persuaded to accept the office when it’s pointed out that if he doesn’t tell her about it she’ll never find out.

The office has featured eminently forgettable figures as well as comic relief buffoons like Dan “The Global Village Idiot” Quayle and Joe “Koo Koo For Cocoa Puffs” Biden. In the light-hearted style of Balladeer’s Blog’s look at U.S. Presidents here’s a look at the men who got to hang around and see if the country’s Chief Executive wound up six feet under. I’m omitting VP’s who went on to actually become President, so no John Adams or Thomas Jefferson, etc. 

aaron-burrAARON BURR

Served Under: Jefferson 

Noted for: Shooting dead more Treasury Secretaries and hatching more plots to start his own country than any other Vice President. (So far, anyway.)

Best Burr Quote: “I’m still searching for the real killers of Alexander Hamilton.” 

GEORGE CLINTON

Served Under: Jefferson and Madison

Noted for: P-Funk and Funkadelic Leading American Rebel forces against the British troops of his loyalist cousin Sir Henry Clinton during the Revolutionary War. Continue reading →

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Filed under humor, Neglected History, opinion, Presidential Rap Sheets

VALENTINE’S DAY SHOUTOUT TO PRESIDENT WILLIAM MCKINLEY AND HIS WIFE IDA

MckinleysSince today is Valentine’s Day AND we have Presidents Day coming up here’s a brief shoutout to the often neglected love story about President William McKinley and his wife Ida Saxton McKinley.

The McKinley years were far enough away that there is a certain sincerity to their relationship that could never be trusted in these days of endless media overload. 

Years before they were President and First Lady the McKinleys lost both their daughters in tragic circumstances. Ida was never the same and became epileptic plus showed signs of other disorders. As president, William happily restructured the usual social agenda for First Ladies to accommodate Ida’s special circumstances. Continue reading →

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DEMOCRATS AGREE THAT TRUMP’S POPULARITY WITH AFRICAN-AMERICAN VOTERS IS A DANGER TO THEM

Van JonesEven Democrats like CNN’s Van Jones and Jamal Simmons have begun facing the fact that President Trump’s policies have helped the working class and the poor of all colors. Trump has broken many of the old political paradigms in America, partly by being a de facto Third Party President.

Since he doesn’t fit the traditional Democrat or Republican mold, Donald Trump won far more of the African-American vote in 2016 than Republicans usually get. The president’s real-world improvements to life for the African-American community has only increased his popularity with voters of color. No, he won’t win the African-American vote but is on pace to capture an even larger share in 2020 than he did in 2016. (links below)

At CNN Van Jones admitted that President Trump’s policies have helped African-Americans “in real life” and that:

Donald Trump never called racist till running against Democrats“What he (Trump) was saying to African-Americans can be effective. You may not like it, but he mentioned HBCUs [historically black colleges and universities] — our black colleges have been struggling for a long time, a bunch of them have gone under — he threw a lifeline to them, in real life, in his budget. He talked about that. He talked about the criminal justice reform. He talked about opportunity zones. He talked about school choice.”

Jones also called out “the bubble” in which white Democrats live, a confirmation bias bubble which prevents white Democrats from acknowledging Trump’s positive results in minority communities. That same bubble also prevents white Democrats from seeing Trump’s positive results for the entire working class.

Contrast that with white Democrat heroes like the tone-deaf Oscar celebrities, who lectured and harangued Trump and his supporters while carrying off TWO HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR “swag bags” from the ceremony. Donating those swag bag funds to the poor and needy would be more effective than loud public posturing but shallow celebrities fail to realize how despised their hypocrisy is. Continue reading →

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Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion

ROLLING STONE’S MATT TAIBBI: DEMOCRATS ARE DOOMED ELITES AND DUMB CROOKS

Matt TaibbiIndependent voter site Balladeer’s Blog often points out the need for Third Parties. So many of us decided to #WALKAWAY from the increasingly deranged Democrats to become Independent voters. Rolling Stone‘s Matt Taibbi expressed similar disgust with Democrat corruption and dishonesty after last week’s Iowa Caucus debacle.

The link is below but first some excerpts:

The chaos in Iowa “reeked of third-world treachery — from monolithic TV propaganda against the challenger (Bernie Sanders) to rumors of foreign intrusion to, finally, a “botched” vote count that felt as legitimate as a Supreme Soviet election. . . .”

#WalkAway“Worse, though, is the fact that the Democrats have become so politically entrenched that, in this election, they are the reactionaries. Iowa and the “flatulent end of the party’s impeachment gambit” revealed to the world that Democrats are “an incompetent lobby for doomed elites, dumb crooks with nothing left to offer but their exit.”

“What happened over the five days after the caucus was a mind-boggling display of fecklessness and ineptitude. Delay after inexplicable delay halted the process, to the point where it began to feel like the caucus had not really taken place.”

“No matter what result emerges, it’s likely many individual voters will not trust it. [snip] [T]he overall impression was a clown show performance by a political establishment too bored to worry about the appearance of impartiality.” 
Continue reading →

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DEMOCRATS FALL FAR SHORT IN THEIR FRAUDULENT IMPEACHMENT ATTEMPT

Trump and Bill ClintonBalladeer’s Blog remains the only site on the web that equally criticizes both Democrats and Republicans, and I want to remind the uninitiated that SIXTY-SEVEN votes out of the one hundred in the Senate are needed to unseat a president. The Democrats could only conjure up 48 and 47 votes respectively on their two weak and fraudulent articles of impeachment. (Nancy Pelosi should have torn up THOSE when the House passed them!)

I always maintain that neither Bill Clinton NOR Donald Trump deserved to be impeached in the first place, and I know from experience that – just like the anti-Bill Clinton crowd – the anti-Trump crowd will be forever sniveling with impotent outrage that he SHOULD have been found guilty, etc.

trump-and-hillary-map-behind-themIn reality the entire impeachment process has been degraded to the point where it is now meaningless. It’s been reduced to just another tactic in the usual partisan warfare of the Washington DC cesspool. And even worse, in this case it was used to try to undo presidential election results that America’s notoriously corrupt political establishment did not like.

Just like when the Hillary crowd failed to get Electors of the Electoral College to change their votes and put her in office and just like when the Robert Mueller investigation went down in flames, I will repost election night 2016 items. (see below) Because that’s what all this has been about. Trying to overturn the 2016 election: Continue reading →

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DEMOCRAT TULSI GABBARD HEROICALLY DENOUNCES DNC OVER IOWA DEBACLE

Tulsi Gabbard CDemocrats usually reserve their vote fraud for the general elections, but beginning in 2016 they extended it to the primaries by robbing Bernie Sanders of the Democrats’ presidential nomination. Always innovative when it comes to robbing the voters of their choices, the Democrats have now extended their corruption of the voting process to the Iowa caucus.

Countless news stories have already been written about the debacle that the Democrats authored this week, and multiple candidates are trying to claim victory amid the muddled results.

#WalkAwayHeroic role model and member of Congress Tulsi Gabbard courageously spoke out about the corruption at the Democratic (sic) National Committee and elsewhere: “It’s clear that the corporate media, the military-industrial complex, and the party establishment are threatened by [my] message, because it challenges their grip on power. They will do everything to silence us, while also rigging the primary process for billionaire candidates who think they can bypass the kind of grassroots campaigning that is the fuel of our movement.” Continue reading →

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