Comparing Trump to the Clintons, I’m sensing a difference between outright sleazy and sometimes shady. Not sure quite where to draw the line, but maybe it’s like a billion compared to a million, that is, 1,000-to-1. Or how squishy or rocky whatever is underfoot feels. Or even the direction of the wind.

I suppose, too, that I’d see a difference in a willingness to do business with one or the other. Yes, one I’d avoid altogether, the one with a proclivity to file lawsuit when things don’t go his way. As for the other, I’d simply be wary – and move with good counsel and colleagues.

~*~

I’d extend this to other comparisons. Hillary’s emails with the 22 million Karl Rove deleted from the Bush White House in 2007 or the Bush Administration’s private domain on the RNC server that same year. Where was the congressional investigation? Or is it purely a matter of party loyalty, right or wrong?

Or how about Benghazi versus the eight attacks on U.S. embassies and consulates during the George W. Bush administration or the 213 U.S. Marines killed in a 1983 attack on their barracks in Lebanon, during Ronald Reagan’s White House? Just for perspective, there’s always seemed to be a witch hunt here. Even some hysteria.

Me? I’d like some better balance. Useful advice and help fixing the problems, rather than blame.

Been reflecting on the great irony of Fox television’s bias toward right-wing candidates who wrap themselves in a nostalgic image of a nation back before, well, 1960. That is, before the network began spewing its vulgarity into American living rooms and lowering the standards of civilized conversation with language and situations that never before would have been allowed in polite company, much less its propaganda wing of the Republican establishment.

In other words, Fox has been a big part of the problem. Would the solution be to pull the plug? Do it themselves, to clear their conscience? Just wondering.

I’m tired of hearing so-called liberal media take the blame. And please don’t accuse Norman Lear and his societal comedies. They’re downright uplifting by comparison.

It would be fascinating, by the way, to get Archie Bunker’s take on Don “the Con” Trump. I’m guessing even he would see through the shill. Maybe in tandem with George Jefferson, at the bar? I’d drink to that.

A comment on a Hippie Trails pin at Pinterest just might explain how Trump-Pence followers interpret their vow to “Make America great again.” It goes:

“Man, that takes me back. I began in law enforcement back in the 70s, in the county jail in late 1970, on to police work four years later. we used to knock the crap out of those long hairs. Toss ’em into a drunk tank full of GIs from Fort Hood. Give ’em a free buzz cut on suspicion of lice. Worked out a lot of transition-to-civilian-life stress that way. Made coming to work pleasant. Back when a joint was a felony, and prison meant hard work in the sun. Good times!”

The fact that such a brutal, abusive outlook is still treasured by some shows how far we are from a just society. It echoes so-called conservatives who want to curb bureaucracy and government at the same time they’re invading bedrooms and voting for soaring prison populations.

Listen. Making America great is the opposite of such tyranny.

Or, as many are interpreting the campaign slogan, Make America hate again.

It’s enough to make Jesus weep.

To those who proclaim “All lives matter,” I want to retort, “Good, now let’s put it to the test. Does that mean cops can start shooting at you and yours willy-nilly?”

If you’re not appalled by the stream of news reports of police shootings of innocent blacks, you’re not listening. All lives are not given equal respect in American society, as the shootings are proving. All lives cannot matter as long as this inequality continues. This has to stop – it’s intolerable in a just society. To ignore this, we together need to fix the problem where it exists – sometimes, dare we say, where it’s been sanctioned.

Let’s be blunt. Black lives, we must insist, have not mattered when it comes to too many officers with guns. We’re hearing too many stories from too many law-abiding citizens who have too many reasons to fear officers and others acting on flimsy premises. It’s bound to fan panic and, unfortunately, ugly reactions.

The officers, in turn, are at risk from the availability of handguns and military rifles. Let’s be blunt. For the arms-ownership crowd, we need to advise, “Watch out how you embrace the Second Amendment, because one interpretation does indeed put public officials at risk.” It’s one reason I insist on the “well regulated” part of that amendment, the crucial phrase that’s currently overlooked.

It’s time to face reality and facts, rather than continue the smug ignorance. For all of the heated bombast about foreign terrorists, the biggest threat to any sense of personal security in America these days is domestic. I’d put people toting guns in public as the No. 1 reason. Where has any of that recognition been admitted in the GOP speeches? Or of that from those toting guns?

Yes, black lives matter. Start there, where the omission seems greatest, in assuring that all lives matter.