I’m not sure how much I can post today. I’m down with a bad cold and I’m barely functioning. I did test for Covid and the result was negative. I’m not coughing, so I think it’s just a head cold.
I’m also really depressed about the way Democrats are publicly tearing down President Biden. It’s really shameful how they are treating him.
Before I get to that and other news, yesterday we lost a true Democratic shero. CNN: Sheila Jackson Lee, long-serving Democratic congresswoman and advocate for Black Americans, dies at 74.
Sheila Jackson Lee, a longtime Democratic congresswoman from Texas who was an outspoken advocate for Black Americans for decades, has died. She was 74.
“Today, with incredible grief for our loss yet deep gratitude for the life she shared with us, we announce the passing of United States Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of the 18th Congressional District of Texas,” her family said in a statement Friday.
Jackson Lee announced in June that she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. At the time, she acknowledged that “the road ahead will not be easy” and said she had “faith that God will strengthen me.”
Her family remembered her as “a fierce champion of the people,” saying that “she was affectionately and simply known as ‘Congresswoman’ by her constituents in recognition of her near-ubiquitous presence and service to their daily lives for more than 30 years.”
Born on January 12, 1950, in Queens, New York, Jackson Lee was among the first women to graduate from Yale University and served as a Houston municipal judge and a city councilwoman before she was first elected to represent Texas’ 18th Congressional District in 1994, unseating a Democratic incumbent in the primary for the Houston-area seat.
During her congressional tenure, Jackson Lee was an outspoken advocate for progressive interests and Black Americans. She was one of the sponsors of legislation to establish Juneteenth as a national holiday, frequently spoke out against police brutality and advocated federal legislation to prosecute police misconduct.
She was widely admired among progressives for her opposition to the Iraq War and was a fierce critic of former President Donald Trump. She opposed the tallying of electoral votes certifying Trump as the winner of the 2016 election, citing an unfounded claim about “massive voter suppression,” and occasionally used her position on the House Judiciary Committee to excoriate members of Trump’s circle.
Although she was unsuccessful in some of her most ambitious aims, Jackson Lee remained an advocate for racial justice, particularly in the wake of George Floyd’s killing at the hands of police in 2020.
“We will not stop until the nation knows Black lives matter, and reparations are passed as the most significant civil rights legislation of the 21st century,” Jackson Lee said at a march in Washington in 2020.
At the time of her death, she was a chief deputy whip for House Democrats and a vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. She formerly served as whip of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Read the rest at CNN.
On the controversy over the Democratic nomination: The latest effort by anti-Biden Democrats is to force Biden out and then open up the convention to a “mini-primary,” because, as Rep. Zoe Lofgen claims, there shouldn’t be a “coronation” of Vice President Harris. This is insane, IMHO, but supposedly Nancy Pelosi supports this idea.
From The Hill: Senior Democrat suggests Obama, Clinton host ‘mini primary’ vetting.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) joined the growing list of Democrats calling on President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race Friday, suggesting in an interview that former President’s Obama and Clinton should help vet new candidates for a “mini primary.”
Lofgren joined MSNBC Friday to discuss what would happen if Biden were to decide to step aside — which he has thus far said he would not do — and what she hopes to see happen if someone new were added to the mix.
“Should he make that decision, there will have to be quick steps,” Lofgren said.
“Maybe a vetting hosted by former presidents including Obama and Clinton would be helpful and help focus the attention,” she added later. “And whoever emerges, including Kamala Harris, would be a stronger candidate than if we tried to exclude a transparent public process.”
As the pressure for Biden to drop grows, speculation over whether Vice President Harris would be the nominee if Biden chose to pass the torch and her ability to beat former President Trump in November has as well.
Lofgren, a close ally of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said she doesn’t think Harris should immediately be named as the nominee, should Biden leave the race. Though, she acknowledged that the vice president would likely have the best shot.
“I don’t think we can do a coronation,” she said. “But obviously, the vice president would be the leading candidate.”
If they pass over Harris, the Democrats had better prepare for large numbers of Black and women voters to be outraged.
Politico: Pelosi voiced support for an open nomination process if Biden drops out.
In a meeting with fellow California Democrats last week, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi stressed the need for an open process to choose the party’s next nominee if President Joe Biden steps aside, in an effort to avoid the appearance of a Kamala Harris coronation.
The discussion in that meeting of the California delegation, which includes 40 members, took place in the Capitol on July 10, at least partly focused on the complicated next steps for the Democratic Party if Biden left the ticket. And they specifically talked about the potential political downsides of party elites quickly crowning the vice president as the next nominee, according to four people familiar with the discussion, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Pelosi was one of several California Democrats who stressed that an uncompetitive process would turn off voters, according to those four people.
The concern wasn’t about Harris’ strengths as a candidate — and in fact, several people made clear Harris needed to be the party’s next pick — but instead centered on worries that party bosses were choosing the president, rather than the party’s base.
“Nancy was leading that charge that it needed to be an open process,” according to a person briefed on the meeting, who was granted anonymity to avoid blowback from House leadership.
The debate about how to move forward should Biden step aside is unfolding across every level of the Democratic Party, but it’s particularly notable coming from a group effectively led by Pelosi, who has helped spearhead the public and private discussion about Biden’s condition since his disastrous June 27 debate.
Just hours before this California delegation meeting, for instance, Pelosi went on MSNBC for her now-famous remarks suggesting Biden hadn’t made up his mind on reelection and giving cover to fellow Democrats to speak out publicly. And several of Pelosi’s allies from California, led by Rep. Adam Schiff, who will likely soon be a senator for the state, are loudly urging Biden to exit.
The California Democrats are probably the most dependent on Hollywood money and we know that Hollywood donors have rejected Biden.
Interestingly, the Bernie Sanders crowd are supporting Biden.
The New Republic: AOC Issues Dire Warning on Threats to Come if Biden Drops Out.
On Instagram Live early Friday morning, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discussed the ongoing debate over whether President Biden is fit to run for reelection.
Speaking for close to an hour, the New York progressive explained her support of Biden and why she thought replacing him was a bad idea.
“If you think that there is consensus among the people who want Joe Biden to leave … that they will support Vice President Harris, you would be mistaken,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Ocasio-Cortez attacked her fellow Democrats who have spoken anonymously to the press about Biden, particularly those resigned to defeat in November.
“My community does not have the option to lose,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “If they’re going to come out and say all their little things on background, off the record, but they’re not going to be fully honest, I’m going to be honest for them. I’m in these rooms. I see what they say in conversations.”
“A lot of them are not just interested in removing the president. They are interested in removing the whole ticket,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
As far as a plan for replacing Biden, Ocasio-Cortez said that whenever she has asked, she hasn’t gotten an answer.
“I have stood up in rooms with all of these people and I have said, ‘Game out your actual plan for me.’ What are the risks of this going to the Supreme Court? And no one had an answer for me.… I’m talking about the lawyers. I’m talking about the legislators,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
She noted that the convention is in less than a month, and that Michigan has to finalize their ballot two days after the convention, which could result in a legal crisis. Ocasio-Cortez said she was concerned that these factors aren’t being considered by Democrats in the replacement camp.
Recent reports say Biden dropping out of the race is increasingly likely, and could happen in a matter of days. The president appears to be strongly considering the idea after meeting with Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, and reportedly even former president Barack Obama thinks Biden needs to reconsider running. A major West Coast donor has already drafted a withdrawal speech.
Watch AOC’s complete statement at TNR.
From ABC News short takes: Donors furious on call with Harris and voter outreach organizers: Sources.
Vice President Kamala Harris tried to calm the panic during a call Friday afternoon with major Democratic donors, and told them, “We are going to win this election,” one attendee on the call told ABC News.
Harris made the call with a person representing a Latino-focused organization and another representing a Black-focused organization, according to a source with knowledge of the call.
Their message was to “plead” to the donors who have been calling on Biden to drop out to stop and resume funding, according to the source.
“We know which candidate in this election puts the American people first: Our President, Joe Biden,” Harris said during the call, according to the attendee.
“With every decision he makes in the Oval Office, he thinks about how it will impact working Americans. And I witness it every day. Now contrast that with what we heard last night.”
The representative of the Latino-focused organization said they have spoken to thousands of people in swing states and out of those thousands of conversations, the debate came up only two times; these average voters were most worried about inflation and the economy.
Harris did not take questions, according to the attendee.
Some donors were furious, with some expecting the call to be about replacing Biden and they did not want to be lectured, the attendee said. As the call was wrapping up, one furious donor started going on a rant and the call ended in the middle of it.
The Guardian: Biden continues to resist Democratic calls to end re-election campaign.
Democrats were caught in an apparent stalemate on Saturday as a dug-in Joe Biden continued to endure high-profile calls to end his re-election campaign after a week of astonishing party moves to unseat the president in favor of a candidate many hope will be more likely to beat Donald Trump.
In the weeks since his disastrous debate performance against Trump, the 81-year-old Biden has attempted to fight off calls for him to step down from the top of the ticket amid concerns that his age and mental acuity are no longer up to the job. But a series of interviews, a press conference and speeches have done little to quell party nerves….
Frustration within the Democratic party establishment at what they see as Biden’s intransigence comes as the outlet also reported on Saturday that the president in private is complaining that former aides to presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton would be lecturing him on election strategy after Democratic 1994 and 2010 midterm election losses that he had avoided in 2022.
Those pressuring Biden – who also has Covid – to abandon his re-election bid, the Times reported, “risk getting his back up and prompting him to remain after all”.
Some advisers are said to believe that Biden is holding out at least until the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visits Washington on Wednesday. But some donors say that that this is the ideal moment for Biden to step aside now that Republicans have had their convention, and Democrats have a month until their own convention in Chicago to tell a new story about a new candidate.
The vivid picture of a Covid-sick, abandoned and resentful veteran politician, sitting out the pressure in a Delaware beach house, comes as most senior Democrats, including the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, former house speaker Nancy Pelosi and the current speaker, Hakeem Jeffries, are calling for Biden – at a minimum – to reconsider his position.
“We have to cauterize this wound right now and the sooner we can do it the better,” Virginia representative Gerald E Connolly, a Democrat, told the Times. Connolly, who has not publicly called for Biden to step aside, said the ongoing drama “shows the cold calculus of politics”.
The past week has seen waves of Democrat elected officials make public statements of their appreciation of Biden’s record in office but dire warnings that the US will see a second Trump presidency should he remain the party’s candidate for November’s presidential election.
The latest high-profile name to join the chorus was Sherrod Brown, when the embattled Ohio senator broke cover on Friday evening to call for an end to Biden’s re-election campaign.
“I’ve heard from Ohioans on important issues, such as how to continue to grow jobs in our state, give law enforcement the resources to crack down on fentanyl, protect social security and Medicare from cuts, and prevent the ongoing efforts to impose a national abortion ban,” Brown said in a statement.
The biggest problem I see with all this infighting and back-stabbing is that no one is explaining how all this work work. The other problem is that they are trying to disenfranchise the 14,000,000 Americans who voted for Biden in the primaries. I just want to beat Trump, and I don’t see how that can happen if Democrats dump Biden and Harris for a new candidate who will have to raise money, build a campaing infrastructure, introduce him/herself to the country, and fight the lawsuits Republicans are threatening if Biden is removed.
I’m really wiped out, so I’m going give you the rest of the stories I have as links only:
The Hill: Democrats’ stalemate over Biden candidacy escalates.
HuffPost: Near The End Of His Vice Presidency, Joe Biden Suggested How Long He’d Stay In Office.
Tom Nichols at The Atlantic: A Searing Reminder That Trump Is Unwell.
Raw Story:
Media Matters: Trump’s RNC speech was divisive, but front pages of mainstream media claimed it was “unifying” and “healing.”
Amanda Marcotte at Salon: Trump’s GOP is no country for MAGA women.
ABC News: JD Vance’s wife faces racist online backlash from far-right social media posts.
Scientific American: What to Know about Project 2025’s Dangers to Science.
MSNBC: Trump shooter flew drone over venue hours before attempted assassination, source says.
Take care and have a good weekend, everyone!
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Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Memeorandum Crooks and Liars Democracy NOW The UK Guardian
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First thought: if those vultures are so respectful of the base that they want to avoid a “coronation,” how about they support the ticket the base already elected?
Jerks.
When the going gets tough, the white old guys in the Democratic party run in circles, scream and shout, and shit their pants. You’d think there would be a modicum of respect for the current candidates who got all those votes and have an outstanding record. They don’t talk to voters. They listen to their donor base. Last time they acted this spinelessly we got an endless ground war in the Middle East.
Indeed. And the moron we’d get this time is way worse than the Shrublet, even with Cheney steering him.
Men with Daddy issues are the absolute worst to deal with.
(Bah. Looks like it ate my answer. Not important. Just agreeing.)
Oh, and I hope you feel better soon, bb! That should have been first, but I’m just so hopping mad about the Dems shooting themselves in all sixteen feet.
It’s so irrational (I mean, they say it’s because they want Trump to lose. So why are they handing the election to him on a plate?) so irrational I’d assume Putin was behind it, because anyone that stupid all on their own wouldn’t be allowed out of the house or to walk with scissors.
Thanks. I’ve nearly gone through a whole box I f Kleenex today.
WordPress is really fucking things up…
This pisses me off.
I think this is a huge point to make…
Totally agree with you BB. I am truly scared about what these Dem assholes are doing.
(wp is dumping my comments 😥 Rescue please?)
hmm I’ll try to get on my wonk account and see if I can get you out, help pitch in:)
ok I got on it but can only write posts and can’t figure out how to navigate WordPress anymore lol. But I texted JJ
I got them.
Thanks to both of you! I was once able to do that, but now it won’t let do anything but log in, as far as I can tell. Which is fine, except when wp gets it up its nose.
How disgusting- a big entitled donor on a rant. We don’t owe them anything. When this first began, I wish I could remember who was the one to say this initially- many have said this since, someone cautioned not to trust anyone without a plan. There still is no one with a plan. What a holes. They are imagining some bright and shiny saviour of the Democratic Party. Who might that be? Newsom is unpopular in his own state. Harris is great, but as many of us have said, those on the margins (who are the voters we need) may not vote for her. If something happens to Biden after the election, she would effortlessly segue into the role. There are other great candidates, but they should have introduced them when they had a chance. Now, there are so many turncoats, I see fewer and fewer dems that I would support that I might have considered good options at one time.
I should have said there “were” other great candidates.
My position has been: send out the surrogates and run on the record. The two surrogates doing a bang-up jog are Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg. Just today, I realized they are my dream team, and running on Biden’s record is still the best option. At the previously mentioned “open” conventions, the challengers were tearing down the incumbent. In this case, venerating Joe Biden’s accomplishments would be a celebratory approach, and (I believe) could be a winning campaign strategy.
The Congressional Black Caucus (all but one of roughly 60), the Clintons, Bernie, and AOC are all for Biden staying the nominee. That’s a pretty interesting coalition representing the backbone of the Democratic Party.
Okay. For all of us who aren’t clinically depressed already, here come the last few straws to put us there.
Carole Cadwalladr is a *brilliant* investigative journalist who writes for The Guardian. She tried to wake the UK up to the election shenanigans in the vote on Brexit in 2015. She pointed out in 2016 how it was practice for what was dumped on Hillary. Now she has a piece about the broligarchs (what a perfect word) lining up to install the Orange Garbage Pile.
Tech broligarchs are lining up to court Trump. And Vance is one more link in the chain https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/20/tech-broligarchs-court-trump-vance-elon-musk-peter-thiel
She talks about how Peter Thiel has backed him since forever, 2016, and made billions from having his surveillance software on special contracts to use in defense, against immigrants, and, and, and. How Musk is backing him to the tune of $45million –per month–, how Silicon Valley venture capitalists are all over him. And Vance is apparently a special protege of Thiel’s.
As JJ mentioned, all these Hollywood types being led around by the nose seem to share an agent or connections. With the kind of money Thiel throws around, I imagine it wouldn’t be hard to buy an agent or two.
Add Manafort, who she doesn’t mention, mainlining Putin, and the crowd’s all here except for Sauron. 🙄
So, anyway, I think we’re starting to get the shape of where this idiotic let’s all shoot our feet off movement is being pushed.
she’s not wrong from a general electorate perspective but I think the inner Dem stuff is more about who gets power over the Dems for the next 20 years.
she’s not wrong from a general electorate perspective but I think the inner Dem stuff is more about who gets power over the Dems for the next 20 years.
(Now it dumped what I think is an interesting comment. About Peter Thiel pulling strings. Could a kind soul rescue it, please?)
that the donor class/axelrod/Hollywood wing is trying to stomp on the grassroots, is no surprise to those of us who saw the same forces converge in 2008—they are converging again trying to get not just Biden but Kamala out. As a person who cares about who is controlling the center-left party in this country, it’s really s disturbing that the axellrod/Ezra Klein/George Clooney/arianna/kos axis of the party is trying to make a play to co-opt power. ( arianna and Markos a long time ago were GOP and tried infiltrating our party and messed it up and caused fissures and fault lines all along, not just now what’s being exposed of their machinations.) I think we all want this over, but to all of us on this Hillary 08 flank it also matters how it ends— I get in the weeds on this stuff bc this all has a long history of the last 50 years of Democratic insider politics and I see the idiocy and arrogance of rich white mostly dudes thinking they can just substitute their judgment for the will of the Democratic base. You know me, dork/nerd/wonk the vote;)
I’m with you, Mona. And JJ and bb and dak and everyone here! So tired of this shit.
I’ve been shocked (I’m a slow learner) that they’re trying to sweep Kamala out too. I guess the conviction that government can bring some justice to the table is like a scarlet letter to the broligarchs.
so true. Broligarchs is a perfect word for them. If we remember 2008-2012, remember the Chris Bowers “creative class” …down with Bubba, up with creatives… it’s all so dumb and redux
testing
testing
test
https://youtu.be/FvuMDmqwwbI?si=xBynrhIIVYX_ixMo
i.e. deja vu
yeah, I recently sent the Ickes speech to someone. So few people knew what went down.
btw, what is Wasserman-Shultz saying these days?
It really is. PTSD flashbacks to 2008 and 2016 for good reason! It _is_ the same process. That’s why it feels the same. Duh.
The only surprise to me (again, shouldn’t be) is they’re quite willing to pick on a white guy as they are any woman.
only because it’s a vying for power of the donor/axelrod/clooney/ezraklein/white chattering bro class to maintain relevance in the party… if Biden-Harris get a second term, it proves women of color are the ones with relevance and power, and their whole junk devil advocate asses are out of jobs. What’s weird is how much Donna Brazile is probably just as much a part of this now as then. There’s a side of Obama world that took Hillary under the tent while the other half didn’t want to. The latter feel the primal urge to oust Biden and Harris right now because no one needs the bros or their shitty strategies anymore if Biden-Harris get a second term.
I made my first comment here last week and was given good advice and a warm welcome. In return, I hope this link to Allan Lichtman this morning on CNN can be of assistance:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/21/politics/video/democrats-biden-drop-out-lichtman-nr-digvid