As it became clear on Sunday that Vice President Kamala Harris is the front-runner to replace President Joe Biden as the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, pro-Donald Trump conservatives went on TV to fiercely condemn her position on sipping devices.
“I mean, heck, she wants to get rid of plastic straws, for goodness sake,” Jason Miller, a senior adviser to former President Donald Trump’s campaign, told NBC. “Whereas Joe Biden was renting some of the territory on the more extreme left, Kamala Harris owns it.”
In a lengthy monologue on Sunday, Fox News host Sean Hannity said Harris would “be the single most radical major party candidate to run for election.” He went on to condemn her environmental record, including her previous support for ending the oil and gas drilling practice known as fracking and, of course, reining in the use of plastic straws.
“She wants to ban plastic straws,” Hannity grumbled. “I love my plastic straw. I hate those paper straws. Anyway.”
Finally Friday Reads: We Understand the Assignment
Posted: August 2, 2024 Filed under: 2024 Elections, 2024 presidential Campaign, Germany, Russia, Slovenia | Tags: @repeat1968, Harris for President 2024, Hostage Swap, John Buss, Racism 5 Comments
“Ketchup is flying.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
While the Wall Street Journal and the other “big” newspapers were busy writing about how President Biden looked so old and tired and ignoring the insane things Dotard DonOld was saying at his rallies, President Biden was busy negotiating a complex deal with multiple countries to get a WSJ writer and other hostages released from Russian Prison. There are so many amazing things about this series of negotiations that it’s hard to list. Still, one of the many amazing things was that there were no leaks of any ongoing processes, that included other countries, the CIA, the State Department, the Vice President, and other U.S. officials.
The Wall Street Journal is even being gracious today with its news and headlines about their freed reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is now in San Antonio for medical exams and has been reunited with his mother. They have even acknowledged the role Vice President Harris played in the Swap.
Vice President Kamala Harris played a role in negotiations with allies to secure the prisoner-swap deal. Harris met with both German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob separately in intimate settings during the Munich Security Conference in February to urge both leaders to push the deal through, according to a White House official.
Harris’s meeting with Scholz was particularly critical to securing the exchange because releasing Krasikov was a key Russian demand. The two first had a normal bilateral meeting before Harris asked Scholz to stay back for a “restricted bilateral,” the official said. Harris asked everyone to leave except Scholz and one aide on each side.
“They had a back and forth about how to best move forward about that, but ultimately, she was pressing Scholz to take action on this,” the official said.
Harris has met Scholz previously on several occasions and had a “good working relationship with him,” the official said. That is “part of the reason why she was able to have a really good, frank conversation with him.”
Harris had never met Golob before the conference. Their meeting was the highest-level U.S. engagement at the time with the Slovenian government, which was holding two Russian nationals Moscow wanted released. That meeting was also restricted to just Harris, Golob and two aides.
Separately, Harris spoke to Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Alexey Navalny, on Thursday, according to a White House official. Russian political prisoners who had worked with Navalny were released as part of the swap.
The German Chancellor and the Slovenian Prime Minister were key to the deal. The AP reports the swap as a “landmark.”
The United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan, along with dissidents including Vladimir Kara-Murza, in a multinational deal that set two dozen people free.
Gershkovich, Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist with dual U.S.-Russia citizenship, arrived on American soil shortly before midnight for a joyful reunion with their families. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris also were at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to greet them and dispense hugs all around.
The trade unfolded despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at their lowest point since the Cold War after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Negotiators in backchannel talks at one point explored an exchange involving Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but after his death in February ultimately stitched together a 24-person deal that required significant concessions from European allies, including the release of a Russian assassin, and secured freedom for a cluster of journalists, suspected spies, political prisoners and others.
I don’t care that some bad guys got sent back to Russia. That’s a type of punishment, even though Putin played them up as heroes. I can’t imagine they will be completely safe there. However, we brought the good folks home to thrive.
I keep reporting that my phone banking response is just about the most uplifting since I did my first phone back as a junior in high school. The election updates are getting more positive as the Harris Campaign raked in more than twice Team Weird. This is from NBC News. Election 2024 live updates: Harris team says it raised $310M in July, more than double what Trump’s team announced. Vice President Kamala Harris’ team said it raised $200 million during the first week of her campaign.”
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Vice President Kamala Harris’ team announced today that it raised $310 million in July. That would trounce the $138.7 million former President Donald Trump’s team said it raised last month. NBC News cannot verify those reports until Federal Election Commission reports for July are released.
Tara Sutter, reporting for The Hill, has this headline. “Pritzker says Trump ‘bewildered’ by Harris, new Dem excitement.” I’m getting trolled on social media whenever I produce my mini-report on what people say to me. On my Wednesday calls this week, I got to talk to seniors in places like Tennessee, Missouri, and Illinois this week. They are fired up and ready to go! They’re talking to their family and friend circles to pass a better world to our children and their children! I feel very positive. Some of these folks live in deeply red corners of their states. Yet, they’ve decided to talk about how excited they are about Harris to friends, family, and neighbors. One woman said she saw a woman wearing a Kamala t-shirt in a restaurant, which surprised her. She talked to the woman, and they said they would stand up for the future! The couple from Tennessee asked how they could volunteer! They said they knew they had to fight for the future. I guess I’m not the only granny for sanity.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) said Thursday he believes former President Trump is “bewildered” by Vice President Harris and the excitement she has generated among Democrats.
“Kamala Harris is the perfect person at this moment,” Pritzker said on MSNBC’s “The Beat” to anchor Ari Melber. “We’ve got the kind of palpable excitement, the energy, that we really need in the party to carry us to victory in November, and of course Donald Trump is, I think, bewildered by it all. I don’t know that he has any idea how to handle the excitement that’s happening on the Democratic side, or Kamala Harris herself.”
Pritzker is among the many names floated as a possible running mate for Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee. His home state will also host this year’s Democratic National Convention later this month in Chicago.
“We’re planning a phenomenal convention here in Chicago. … the excitement is palpable,” Pritzker said. “The United Center, which is where the convention will happen, is being spruced up, lookin’ terrific.”
Besides Pritzker, other names on the vice presidential shortlist include Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Democratic Governors are all speaking out with enthusiasm. They’re also nailing Donald and the guy who changed his name three times to the wall. DonOld is ratcheting up the racism and misogyny. This is from Susan B. Glasser reporting for The New Yorker. “Trump’s Racist Attack on Kamala Harris Was No Accident. Is it, perhaps, a sign that the Vice-President’s swift rise in the polls has him panicked?”
Spoiler alert: he meant it. When Donald Trump claimed, on Wednesday afternoon, in a combative onstage interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago, that Kamala Harris had adopted her identity as a Black woman in an effort to gain political advantage, he drew appalled gasps from the audience. “She was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person,” he said. This was an inaccurate slur as well as a bizarre one. Harris has always been proudly biracial: she is the daughter of an Indian mother and a Black, Jamaican father, both of whom immigrated to the U.S. She attended Howard, a historically Black college, where she joined one of Black America’s most storied sororities. Nonetheless, Trump doubled down on this particularly Trumpian form of hate speech. In a post on his Truth Social platform, he wrote, “Crazy Kamala is saying she’s Indian, not Black. This is a big deal. Stone cold phony. She uses everybody, including her racial identity!” That evening, in a rally in Pennsylvania, his campaign even projected an old news headline proclaiming Harris the first Indian American U.S. senator. Trump’s embattled Vice-Presidential nominee, J. D. Vance, joined in, too, calling Harris a “total phony who caters to whatever audience is in front of her.”
By Thursday morning, as the liberal commentariat feasted on its horror over his remarks and right-leaning pundits struggled to explain and excuse it, Trump mocked them all, posting an old photo of Harris alongside relatives on the Indian side of her family. He wrote, “Thank you Kamala for the nice picture you sent from many years ago! Your warmth, friendship, and love of your Indian Heritage are very much appreciated.” In another post, he circulated the conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer’s idea that, because Harris’s birth certificate says her father’s “color or race” is “Jamaican,” not Black, she is a “liar” who is “NOT black and never has been.”
How much clearer does it have to get? America, you are being trolled.
Laura Loomer probably holds the Guinness World Record for being the largest piece of shit ever. Meanwhile, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Atlanta rally Tuesday night. I got to stick around for some campaign insider stuff and a Zoom visit from the Vice President. It’s been a long time since I’ve been this hyped up to volunteer my ass off. This is from the Washington Post. “Harris events: Not your father’s campaign rallies (or Biden’s). If there was ever any indication of the head-snapping transition that Democrats have gone through, it was the one that occurred on Tuesday night in Atlanta when 10,000 people danced and cheered to Megan Thee Stallion before Harris took the stage for a campaign rally.”
If there was ever any indication of the head-snapping transition that Democrats have gone through, it was the one that occurred on Tuesday night in Atlanta when 10,000 people danced and cheered to Megan Thee Stallion before Vice President Harris took the stage for a campaign rally to the strains of Beyoncé’s “Freedom.” Biden forecast this kind of a change four years ago when he talked about a bridge to a new generation, but that transformation didn’t take place until the past two weeks when he officially relinquished his grip on the party.
In fact, Joe Biden never came up.
From the music to the outfits — and, most tellingly, the crowd size — it was clearer than ever that the shift to a new Democratic generation was complete.
By and large, it is the same campaign aides who were putting on Biden events that are now in charge of Harris ones. But the types of crowds interested in attending Harris events — and the musicians willing to perform at them — are very different. The new playlist, even if controlled by the same staffers who curated Biden’s soundtrack (a mix including Whitney Houston’s “Higher Love,” Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down,” and Elton John’s “Philadelphia Freedom”), has a certain Harris flair, and is put together based on her personal input.
Campaign aides say they are still thinking about how Harris events will be different, and they are determined to not only do large-scale rallies but want to put her in smaller settings as well. The coming days will provide more of a test case as Harris picks a running mate and launches a seven-state tour that will probably include a range of venues.
In Atlanta, the baton was fully passed to Kamala Harris. This was now her party. Her campaign. Her playlist.
Even though this headline comes with my usual admonition about trusting polls, it’s a good sign. “Kamala Harris Now Leads Donald Trump in Eight National Polls.” That’s eight data points, so that’s good. This reporting comes in Newsweek by Martha McHardy AND Andrew Stanton.
The new polls show the presumptive Democratic nominee is leading the former president by between 1 and 4 points.
RMG Research is the latest pollster to find Harris leading Trump in the national popular vote. The firm released a survey on Friday showing her with a 5-point lead (47 percent to 47 percent) over the former president. The poll was conducted among 3,000 registered voters from July 29 to July 31.
A poll conducted by Civiqs between July 27 and July 30 also showed Harris with a 5-point lead over Trump. Among 1,123 registered voters, Harris leads Trump 49 percent to 45 percent. Her lead is outside the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Harris is ahead of the Republican presidential nominee by 3 points in a poll by Leger conducted between July 26 and July 28. The poll, which surveyed 1,002 U.S. residents and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, showed she was leading Trump with 49 percent of the vote to his 46 percent. That represents a 4-point increase for the Democrat since Leger’s June poll.
When third-party candidates were included in the Leger poll, Harris’ lead over Trump grew to 7 points, to 48 percent, compared to the former president’s 41 percent.
Harris had a smaller lead of 2 points over Trump in four other national polls. These include a poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov, where the vice president polled at 46 percent among 1,434 registered voters—a lead within the poll’s 3 percent margin of error.
The other polls, conducted between July 23 and July 30 by Redfield and Wilton Strategies, Angus Reid, and Florida Atlantic University, showed Harris leading by 2 points—within each poll’s margin of error.
We just have to keep up the Momala Momentum. This is an interview from Elle on her role as stepmom to two young adults. To hell with J.D. Vance and his parade of stereotypes.
Cole and Ella could not have been more welcoming. They are brilliant, talented, funny kids who have grown to be remarkable adults. I was already hooked on Doug, but I believe it was Cole and Ella who reeled me in.
To know Cole and Ella is to know that their mother Kerstin is an incredible mother. Kerstin and I hit it off ourselves and are dear friends. She and I became a duo of cheerleaders in the bleachers at Ella’s swim meets and basketball games, often to Ella’s embarrassment. We sometimes joke that our modern family is almost a little too functional.
A few years later when Doug and I got married, Cole, Ella, and I agreed that we didn’t like the term “stepmom.” Instead they came up with the name “Momala.”
Our time as a family is Sunday dinner. We come together, all of us around the table, and over time we’ve fallen into our roles. Cole sets the table and picks the music, Ella makes beautiful desserts, Doug acts as my sous-chef, and I cook.
So, that’s it for me today. We’re on our 4th heatwave and have perpetual Severe Heat warnings. I’m at the point where I just fill my soaking tub up with cold water and literally chill out. I’m watching the Tropical Storm headed to Southern Florida. The Gulf Waters are hot. This could become a big wet one; southernmost Florida is on the Dirty Side. CNN is calling it this way. “Tropical Storm Debby forecast to hit Florida this weekend with torrential rain and wind.” It’s going straight up the East Coast and could become a Cyclone Level Four. So, be safe if you’re on its path.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Tableaux and Free to be You and Me
Posted: July 29, 2024 Filed under: 2024 Elections | Tags: Dionysian Bacchanalia, DonOld Wierdo, Free to be You and me, JD Vance Weirdo, Tableaux, The 2024 Paris Olympics Opening 6 Comments
“Vance is a weirdo. Trump is weird. They make a lovely pair.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I was raised in a city where I never felt I belonged and was a Nerdy Tom Girl bored to tears. Fortunately, my mother loved to travel and always took me to the library. She also taught me piano starting at age 3. All I can remember from a lot of that period was what I was told I couldn’t do. I couldn’t wear pants to school–even in a near-blizzard–because whatever. I couldn’t play little league baseball even though I could bat a ball and put it wherever I wanted because whatever. The world of the 1950s and the early 1960s was a world of barriers with the excuses of “just because.” Books, music, taking my sketchbook on trips to places where no one judged what you did or gave you a speech about what’s not, I found refuges from piety scolds.
J.D. Vance and the deplorable throwbacks that worship Donald want to shove the majority back into a world of barriers. I looked at the boys with a glare that screamed Broadway Annie Oakley’s song “Anything You Can Do. I can do better; I can do anything better than you.” Then, I worked to prove it at horse camp, on the ski slope, sliding down huge hills in the Missouri River hillsides, or dissecting a pregnant nurse shark after getting my scuba diving license for one of the high school football players because he couldn’t do it.
I was drug into the school psychologist’s office in high school for testing off the walls on ambition, which was considered a male trait on the Bem Sex Role Inventory, BSRI. They were always testing us for something. I always found some supportive men. They generally tended to be creative like me, musicians like me, or dreamers of a life beyond boundaries. Most of these guy friends died in the 1980s. I was an activist feminist by that time. I was duly working to change the sexual abuse and domestic violence laws in that same boring place. I also volunteered to go to other states to get the ERA passed. But, also, at that time, I had to bring meals to these friends, take them to doctor’s appointments, and be prepared to watch them die even as their family turned their backs on them.
I know real misogyny. The faces of misogyny are right there at the top and all over all the Republican tickets. I know the faces of religious oppression. You can find them in the same place. I also know the people who can not just let people live and let live but be their authentic selves if that means either wearing a dress or sporting a crew cut when the piety scolds tell you that just isn’t done when you’re you. We all evidently failed the Bem Sex Role test. To hell with defining masculine and feminine traits.
My religion is kindness. I let the local homeless folks use my hose to get water. They may sit on my porch in the shade of my Magnolia and rest. I leave fruits from my trees and anything spare I can to feed them. I was taught that for those who have much, much is required by my mother and Nana. I was also taught to not judge others unless ye be judged yourself. I still believe in many things I was taught in Sunday School. It’s easier, however, to apply them as a Buddhist. I now have the meditation chops to negate piety scolds. Piety scolding is not a Buddhist thing.
J.D. Vance better not come to New Orleans. We’re already planning the protests. The man who searches for dolphin-on-woman porn, who can’t even defend his wife properly, and who starts the bad performance with “even though she’s not white” better stay out of New Orleans because we will protest and probably too much by his standards. Nothing comes from his mouth, only insults to my neighbors. This is from The Hill.
Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the GOP vice presidential nominee, said this weekend his feelings are not hurt by Democrats labeling him “weird” as past comments he made before being tapped as former President Trump’s running mate are resurfaced.
“No, not at all,” Vance told a Fox News reporter in an interview that aired Sunday. “It doesn’t hurt my feelings.”
“Look, the price of admission — meaning, the price of getting to serve the people of this country — is the Democrats are going to attack us with everything that they have. I think it’s an honor,” Vance continued.
“As Harry Truman once said, ‘if you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen,’” he said.
The brief interview, conducted during a campaign stop, comes nearly two weeks after Trump announced Vance would be his running mate on the GOP presidential ticket.
I personally wonder if Vance has ever seen functional parts of kitchens. Donald, however, builds it up. This is from Marcie of EmptyWheel. None of us have the power to persecute these people. First off, the U.S. Constitution lets everyone do their own thing when it comes to Religion. Second, professors like me, cat ladies like me, and women like me have little to no power. Just check who the rapists are, the perpetrators of climate change, and the lawmakers who limit our freedom, and you’ll see the demographic that proffers persecution.
The other day, during an address to a Turning Point conference, Trump implored,
Christians, get out to vote. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore my beautiful Christians. I love you. I’m [not/a] Christian.You have to get out and vote. In four years, you won’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.
Horse race journalists didn’t care. They found it more important to repeat and therefore magnify Trump’s latest slur on Vice President Harris.
When I first looked at how NYT covered it at 3:37AM ET, this was their headline.
At 8:311AM, this story from Michael Gold was published. It still focused on magnifying the slurs Trump used against Harris.
That story included Trump’s comment about voting, along with Gold’s spin of it as a claim that Trump would address the concerns of Christian voters sufficiently that they would no longer have to vote, buried in ¶14.
At the end of his speech, Mr. Trump urged the religious crowd to vote in November, suggesting that if elected he would address their concerns sufficiently enough that they would no longer need to be politically active. Earlier, he had lamented that conservative Christians do not vote proportionately to their size, a complaint he has made repeatedly in recent weeks.
“Christians, get out and vote. Just this time,” Mr. Trump said on Friday. “You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more, years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
Let it be noted that one of NYT’s allegedly professional horserace journalists believes that the white Evangelical Christians who have been among Trump’s most important supporters vote in disproportionately low numbers or that any Republican would forego that most important part of their coalition. (That said, for demographic reasons Trump can’t change with a speech, white Evangelicals make up an increasingly smaller proportion of the voting public, which poses an entirely different kind of threat than apathy.)
Only much later, around noon ET, did Gold figure out that the “not have to vote” stuff was far more newsworthy than Trump calling the Vice President a “bum.”
This mural is at a restaurant in Mayfair, London, called Bacchanalia. It’s artist Gary Myatt’s interpretation of French artist Thomas Couture’s 1847 painting Romans in their Decadence..
Obviously, the media have power. They can ignore the important stuff and misalign our priorities.
So, it’s no surprise that the Piety Scolds are out on the Tableaux performance art at the opening of the Paris Olympics. Since I spent most of the 40 years of my life reading and getting away from Dodge Street as much as possible, I am fully aware of the role the art form and parlor activity played in suppressed Victorian England and America. It’s not only historical but also in the fiction of the time. It’s also referred to as melodramatic realism. Children’s books were essential forms of artwork in that style. Cinema uses it, too. It’s a form of escape from our rigid piety scolds in many ways. Many paintings of the time were tableau. It’s a really old artform and newly modern Paris was full of tableau performances and caberets with all kinds of acts and audiences.
I still have shits and giggles that some folks don’t know about the 19th-century Bacchanalia art and celebrations during the original Olympics. They even don’t know about Marie Antoinette or the goddess of the Seine River, Sequana.
We had a mythology semester for English in 5th grade and world religions studies in social studies. It was the first time I determined Buddhism was the only sensible religion. Also, my neighbor and friend and I used to play goddesses. She was a year ahead of me, so I got advanced lessons from the book. We’d drag white sheets out of the dirty laundry, make them cloudlike, and play Athena and Aphrodite.
I later named my consulting firm The Minerva Group in the mid-80s! Imagine spending your life thinking people persecute you because your education is sorely lacking! But one can always make up for that.
Bourdon Sebastien mid 17th Century, Bacchanalia
It’s not surprising that a French choreographer would study these art forms and use them first to represent the Original Olympics with its Dionysian Bachannals combined with the artistry at the time. We’ve also since discovered that the much older DaVinci Last Supper was also used for one of the scenes. A Bacchus/ Dionysus performer crashed the scene. Now, Piety Scolds are taking everything to task and even Mislabelling the Goddess of the Seine Sequana as one of the riders of the apocalypse. Okay, it’s the Washington Post. I get it. “Paris Olympics organizers sorry for Last Supper at Opening Ceremonies. The tableau included a woman in the role of Jesus, drag queens, and gay icons as disciples. It was crashed by a man in blue as Dionysus, the Greek god of revelry.”
Organizers of the Paris Olympics apologized on Sunday for a performance during Friday’s Opening Ceremonies that featured an apparent reenactment of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” amid mixed messages about the piece’s intent.
The tableau included a woman with a halo-like crown in the role of Jesus as well as drag queens and gay icons as disciples; it was crashed by a scantily clad blue man wearing a headdress of fruit — Dionysus, the Greek god of fertility, wine and revelry.
Church leaders and some conservative politicians condemned the performance as a perversion of the scene, recounted in the Bible, on the eve of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Saturday called the performance a “mockery [that] was shocking and insulting to Christian people around the world.” A U.S. telecommunications firm, C Spire, said it was pulling its advertising from the Summer Games. The French Conference of Catholic Bishops also objected.
My life as the musical director of a drag show, DJ, chorus, and band (piano). We were prime time on Bourbon Street for a few years. The worst patrons were Brides and Bridesmaids who would make everything all about them. Respect a queen because it’s the one time she can display a vital part of herself.
I wonder what upset them more: the woman as Jesus or the dragqueens? I understand a movement within the Catholic religion is trying to reposition Marie Antoinette as a Christian hero. So look who is upset about all of these. The White Men in power deny the rest of us our humanity and identity. What’s worse is the Olympic Committee is sanitizing the videos of the various legs of the tableaux. So, let’s look at this. Some of my women friends like wearing men’s clothing and having crew cuts. They wear tuxedos, and I have never seen them in any dress.
I have friends who are now dead because of Ronald Reagan’s response to AIDS who loved to play dress up and dolls with me when we were kids. They do so because they were never allowed to express themselves as they truly felt they were. They were not allowed their feminine sides, and men like J.D. Vance were the ones who oppressed everything feminine.
This is Miss Jessica DeLorean, who has a killer voice. She’s got big hair because she comes from Texas. My favorite part of our performance was when she sang songs like “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman” or “I Say a Little Prayer For You,” which I introduced to her and arranged especially for her. She frequently flirted with men. I would watch many of them with crawling skin and think yeah, now you know what it’s like. Many of them I bet are still confused about why women take the bear. Most of my gay friends have a drag queen outfit in their closet somewhere because it’s the time they are allowed to play dress up with the little girls in their neighborhood. Something that they were not allowed as kids. It’s why performance artists like Cher and Dolly Parton are flattered to be featured in shows where the purpose is to highlight their talent and their status as gay icons. Neither is a Piety Scold, and they don’t misunderstand the art form.
My WiFi carries the name Queens of Poland Avenue because Women and Gays were primary on my block. We prefer that because you know it’s been a rough life, and you need someone who just loves you for who you are. This time of year, my outfit is usually men’s jockey shorts and the kind of t-shirts made famous by Marlon Brando, who, like many men in the creative arts, had to pretend to be something he wasn’t. One day, I will go to the FQ and join the show to shout Stella! It won’t be because I like the character, but I want to do the drag performance to show my favorite Dead of Summer couture. Women do drag.
That’s what freedom should mean. Free to be you and Me. That is the name of the album my oldest daughter listened to constantly as a kid. It was a gift from one of my friends in NOW. They had a baby shower for me. Free to love any other consenting adult. Free to be ambitious and not particularly care about marriage. But free to marry if that’s what you want. This country is about Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Justice. That can’t happen without respect being granted to those just living their lives and doing no harm to others.
This blog is a safe space. Given Donald and J.D. Vance and the thralls, we have enough to deal with daily in the news cycle. We understand different views but do not think it creates a positive environment to attack others and their lifestyle choices. Please respect this.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Friday Reads: The Veep Shakes Trump, Rattles Republicans, and Rolls all over them!
Posted: July 26, 2024 Filed under: 2024 presidential Campaign | Tags: @repeat1968, Cat Ladies for Kamala, Donald's Weird Ear BooBoo, John Buss, Media Coverage of the Harris Campaign, Weird Donald, Weird J.D. Vance, Weird Republican Bigotry, Weird Republican Policy and Values 14 Comments
“I wanted to get this right, so I took my time. I have no respect for the bully pulpit; they didn’t do anything other than give themselves undeserved pats on the back. That being said, we have an election to win. Kamala 2024!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
And it is a good day! I became part of the Vice President’s Ground Game last Wednesday! I took a deep breath and shook off my phone anxiety. Then, I called Georgia Voters. I’m giving my Wednesday off to do this until my birthday, which is the day before the election. I’m one of the many people delighted to see a Harris Presidency. The Obamas were the last to join the chorus and finally endorsed Harris today. I can tell you that this ride to victory is a joyous one! Everyone I know and follow is ready to go!
Historian Steven Beschloss made these observations in his America, America blog. “A Joyful Campaign Ahead. With an exuberant laugh, Kamala Harris is energizing Democrats and renewing confidence about the coming election.”
Donald Trump and all the other arrogant, woman-hating Republican geniuses think attacking Kamala Harris’ laugh is a smart play. As if putting her down for her exuberance and joyfulness will reveal her to be unserious, unattractive, unfit for the job. As if a majority of Americans are not sick to death of the nasty, joyless, hateful and degrading mentality and agenda of Trump and his enablers. As if American voters—more than half of whom are women—really want to be told how to behave by a 78-year-old convicted felon who’s been found liable for sexual assault and has made exceedingly clear throughout his life what he thinks of women.
Last Sunday Joe Biden jolted the political world by announcing that he was stepping aside and endorsing his vice president—an inspiring act of patriotism that has led to a swift and electric surge of fundraising, endorsements and delegate support for now-presumptive nominee Harris. That same weekend, the ever-degrading Trump was mocking Harris’ laugh: “I call her laughing Kamala. Have you seen her laughing? She is crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh. She is nuts.” That was followed by calling Nancy Pelosi crazy, too.
Honestly, we should hope that he and his VP pick, J.D. Vance, keep reminding American voters how much they despise Kamala Harris for her gender and her laughter. Because it’s my view that the more they say so—including their woman-hating views on reproductive rights and marriage and family—the more that VP Harris will rise in the polls and in the eyes of voters who’ve had it with Trump’s lust for carnage and yearn to avert the grim future that he promises.
Take note of how the vice president, aware of the sexist mockery, described the origins of her laugh in a conversation with Drew Barrymore in April. “Let me just tell you something: I have my mother’s laugh,” Harris told Barrymore, who hosts a daytime television show and had just told her guest that she loves her laugh. Harris continued:
And I grew up around a bunch of women in particular who laughed from the belly. They laughed. They would sit around the kitchen, drinking their coffee, telling big stories with big laughs…And I think it’s really important to remind each other and our younger ones, don’t be confined by other people’s perception about how you should act…It’s really important.
Contrast that with the sour, humorless, grievance-filled Trump and his running mate who supports a national ban on abortion and who has said that he believes women should stay in abusive marriages for the good of their children. J.D. Vance is also the guy who attempted to smear Harris as one of a group of “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.” (Never mind that Harris is part of a blended family and has been a stepmother for over a decade.) Do they really think that denigrating women like this is a winning strategy? Have at it and find out.
The last days have been stunning, providing a kind of joyful whiplash for all of us who have gravely worried about the state of the race and the expanding prospect that Trump was careening toward victory. The speed with which the vice president has shifted from a question to a declarative answer about how to defeat Donald Trump has been overwhelming in the best sense.
The great news is that Harris and her choice of Veep candidate can get on state ballots. This is from CNN. “Exclusive: CNN survey finds 48 states say Harris can get on ballot instead of Biden, rejecting claim switch breaks state laws.”
The election authorities of at least 48 states, both Republicans and Democrats, say there are no obstacles that would prevent Vice President Kamala Harris from getting on election ballots if she becomes the official Democratic presidential nominee, as expected.
The findings of a CNN survey of all 50 states undercut the claims of House Speaker Mike Johnson, who said both before and after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday that there are legal “impediments” in some states to a party switching presidential candidates as the Democrats did. There was not a single state election authority that told CNN Harris would face a ballot issue as the official nominee; election authorities in two states, Florida and Montana, did not respond to requests for comment, but a review of the states’ ballot access rules suggests Harris is not likely to face an issue there either.
Johnson, a lawyer, said on ABC News Sunday that “it would be wrong and I think unlawful in accordance to some of these state rules for a handful of people to go in the backroom and switch it out because they’re – they don’t like the candidate any longer.” He said on CNN Monday that “in some of the states, there are impediments to just switching someone out like that.”
But experts on election law say that is not true, since the Democrats never named Biden as the official 2024 nominee or submitted his name to the states as their 2024 nominee. And election authorities around the country have now confirmed – telling CNN or saying in public statements that Harris will not face any obstacles getting on their ballots if she is formally chosen as the Democratic nominee next month.
The 48 states (plus the District of Columbia) whose election authorities have said the official Democratic nominee will not have ballot issues include the seven states with the closest margins in the 2020 election, which are widely considered the key swing states again in 2024: Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan and Nevada. The 48 states also include the 15 states where former President Donald Trump, the Republicans’ 2024 nominee, had his highest share of the vote in 2020.
Johnson’s office did not respond to CNN’s requests to identify the “impediments” he claimed some states have.
One of my favorite things to listen to on the news the last few days is the profuse use of the word “weird” to describe the Republican ticket. Its association with J.D. Vance is hysterical because he and his policy suggestions are weird. This is from ABC News. The story is reported by Julia Reinstein. “Democrats’ new line of attack on Republicans? ‘You’re being weird’. “I think it’s really elegant in its simplicity,” one Democratic strategist said.”
Democrats have recently begun adopting a fresh new line of attack on Republicans: quite simply, calling them weird.
In a press release Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign responded to an appearance by former President Donald Trump on Fox News.
Under a bulleted list of “main takeaways” from Trump’s appearance was one that quickly captured the public’s attention: “Trump is old and quite weird?”
The dig appeared to be a callback to what Harris once said she would do, according to CNN, if Trump followed her around the debate stage like he did to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Harris reportedly said she would turn around and ask him, “Why are you being so weird?”
After the anecdote circulated widely online, more Democrats began leaning into the “just call them weird” strategy.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz adopted the new party line in an MSNBC interview on Tuesday.
“These are weird people on the other side,” Walz said. “They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room, that’s what it comes down to. … These are weird ideas.”
Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz also picked up on it. In an X post on Thursday, he shared a clip of a 2021 speech by Sen. JD Vance, in which the now–Republican vice presidential nominee said Americans without children should not get “nearly the same voice” in elections as those who do have children.
“This is quite weird,” Schatz wrote. “Like, a very very bad idea, but also weird. And presumably, unpopular.
The Former Guy’s Campaign is stumbling and bumbling. His usual nasty labeling is not working. The choice of JD Vance puts attention on Vance. I think he’s not going to stand for that very much longer. This is from the Guardian. “Conservatives’ racist and sexist attacks on Kamala Harris show exactly who they are. Conservatives’ racist and sexist attacks on Kamala Harris show exactly who they are. Hatred will continue to ooze from the right. Pay attention – because that bigotry isn’t just talk, it’s Republican policies.” The analysis is provided by Judith Levine.
Like a warm compress drawing pus from a wound, the Democratic presidential candidacy of Kamala Harris immediately brought out the misogyny and racism of the Maga Republican party.
Tim Burchett, the Tennessee Republican representative, called Harris, the child of a Black Jamaican father and an Indian mother, a DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hire – picked, that is, because she is Black, not because she’s qualified. Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, insinuated that Harris is a welfare queen. “What the hell have you done other than collect a check?” he asked at a Michigan rally of Harris, a former state attorney general, US senator and now the vice-president. At the same time, social media posts showing Harris with her parents falsely claim she’s not really Black, because her father is light-skinned.
Popping up again are rumors circulated in 2020 by Trump lawyer John Eastman that Harris is ineligible to run for office because she might not be a citizen. Like Barack Obama, about whom Trump stirred the same “birther” calumny, Harris was born in the US.
Far-right blogger Matt Walsh and former Fox host Megyn Kelly suggested Harris slept her way to the top. Conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer went further, alleging that the veep was “once an escort” who started out by “giving blow jobs to successful, rich, Black men”. The founder of Pastors for Trump tweeted: “Both Joe + the Ho gotta go!”
While allegedly copulating with all comers, Harris is slammed for failing in her womanly duty to reproduce. In a video that recently turned up, Vance, the father of three, told Tucker Carlson in 2021 that the US was being run by “childless cat ladies” – Harris among them – who don’t “have a direct stake” in the country’s future. Will Chamberlain, a lawyer who worked on Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign, proclaimed that “people without kids … are highly susceptible to corruption and perversion. They have no care for the future and live in the present.”
Being a step-parent – as Harris is to her husband’s biological children – doesn’t count, Chamberlain added. This criticism has never been leveled against the childless George Washington – although, to be fair, he was the Father of Our Country.
And if misogyny and racism are not sufficient, the right keeps searching for plain weirdness to use against the Democratic candidate. All they’ve come up with, though, is one of her more charming characteristics, her laugh, from which Trump derives his lamest-yet political nickname: “Laughing Kamala”.
This stuff is vile to watch. But as with drained pus, it’s got to be exposed to the air. Because it’s not just talk. It reveals what a Trump presidency would mean. By exposing what’s festering barely under the skin of Trumpism, the Republican party is telling us to vote against him.
Margaret Sullivan writes this in the Guardian. “The media is already failing in its duty to fairly cover Kamala Harris. Sure, Harris deserves scrutiny. But she doesn’t deserve smears and stereotypes amplified by journalists and pundits addicted to clicks.” I have been more selective about whose coverage I watch these days and which newspapers I rely on. You may have noticed this in my cites recently.
It’s going to be ugly, that much is already clear.
In the few days since Kamala Harris began her 2024 campaign for president, the media has shown us where some of their coverage is headed: no place good.
Both the rightwing and traditional media are making some predictable blunders. Add in the swill that circulates endlessly on the social media platforms, and you’ve got a mess.
Take, for example, the recent coverage of a Republican congressman’s smear of Harris.
“One hundred percent she is a DEI hire,” Tim Burchett of Tennessee said on CNN, using the acronym for “diversity, equity and inclusion” to claim that she was ascending because of her race, not on merit. “Her record is abysmal at best.”
An NBC headline was one of many to hand a giant megaphone to this racist trope: “GOP Rep Tim Burchett calls Kamala Harris a ‘DEI vice-president’.” Plenty of others did the same – parroting and thus amplifying the slur.
Some news organizations added a fig leaf to their coverage, like the Tampa TV station whose headline read: “GOP representative called Harris a ‘DEI hire’: what does this mean?”
There was a more responsible way to go. USA Today, for one, brought helpful context in a piece headlined: “DEI candidate: what’s behind the GOP attacks on Kamala Harris.” It did a good job of explaining that this phrase is all part of the right’s anti-“woke” culture wars. “DEI has become GOP shorthand to impugn the qualifications of people of color who ascend to positions of power and influence.” The reporter quoted the author Mita Mallick noting that the DEI label is an attempt to “discredit, demoralize and disrespect leaders of color by labeling them ‘diversity hires’ – or otherwise misappropriating the language of diversity, equity, and inclusion as thinly veiled racist insults.” You come away with greater understanding.
Some insults are even more transparently racist, as when the perpetual liar and propagandist Kellyanne Conway went on Fox News in order to trash Harris: “She does not speak well. She does not work hard. She should not be the standard bearer for the party.”
These stereotypes, painting a woman of color as unintelligent and lazy, echo well-established white-grievance themes, causing the author Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who studies authoritarian movements, to warn: “Propagandists know that you should build on existing prejudices when introducing a new hate object or theme.”
Some commentary wasn’t racist but just pointless – as when Katy Tur asked, on MSNBC, if Harris was the kind of person voters would want to have a beer with. The “likeability” question certainly seems to come up for women candidates more than men.
It’s a familiar election-cycle cliche, but the former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob didn’t find it harmless. He posted his disgust: “I want a president who won’t turn our country into a fascist hellscape. I’m not auditioning barstool partners.”
So, this is obviously going to get more heated and weirder as the next 100 days unfold. Here are some things that I’m looking out for. First, are we going to know more about Trump’s booboo that’s still wearing its Kotex? This is from Time Magazine. “What We Do and Don’t Know About Trump’s Ear Wound” This is another one of Trump’s braggadocious weirdness that’s like a lie. He did not take a bullet for us. He most likely caught a piece of shrapnel.
Trump’s ear wound from an assassination attempt at a rally on July 13 quickly became a symbol of solidarity for many of his supporters, and a grim reminder of political violence in the U.S.
But new comments by FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday indicated there’s much the American public still does not know about the injury. Wray suggested in congressional testimony that the wound may have been caused by shrapnel, while Trump and his former White House physician have said it was caused by a bullet.
The former guy is incapable of telling the truth. I don’t even think he recognizes it. He just makes things that make him feel good about himself and then repeats them incessantly. Will J.D. Vance be removed from the ticket for being too open about his weirdness and upstaging Donald in media coverage? This is from Matthew Chapman of Raw Story. “
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) has a big problem, former Trump administration communications chief Anthony Scaramucci told CNN’s Boris Sanchez Thursday. He is constantly at risk of overshadowing former President Donald Trump himself.
And that is a dangerous thing for anyone in Trump’s orbit to do, he warned.
This comes amid reporting that Trump is already regretting his choice of Vance, which he made at a moment when he felt that he had already locked up the race and didn’t think he needed a running mate who balanced the ticket pragmatically.
“Given that vantage point that you’ve had into Donald Trump, how do you think he’s absorbing these comments by J.D. Vance about ‘childless cat people‘ and the sort of blowback that he’s gotten on social media and elsewhere from women notably, a subset of voters that Republicans haven’t had the most success with?”
“What made Vice President Mike Pence successful as a vice presidential candidate is he understood President Trump’s personality,” said Scaramucci, who became a sharp Trump critic after a catastrophic and brief 10-day stint in the administration.
Any questions to add?
So, have a great weekend. We can breathe easier but we must also work harder. I have two friends–one from here and one from Minneapolis–addressing and writing notes to votes with postcards. The number of us grannies on my Zoom phone bank retraining and calling was amazing. There were also a lot of grandpas too. You can also just ensure your family and neighbors get out to vote and encourage them to use mail-in and early voting if it’s available. GOTV work is just really empowering and it keeps you away from the stressful stuff. I’m doing as much as I can to save my daughters and my now 3-year-old granddaughters from a Donald, J.D., and Project 2025 nightmare! Just send out information on that all over Social Media! Everything helps!
What’s on your reading and blogging list?
Mostly Monday Reads: We Stand with Her
Posted: July 22, 2024 Filed under: 2024 Elections, 2024 presidential Campaign, American Fascists, Economy | Tags: 2024 Presidential Election, Kamala Harris 26 Comments
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
It’s Deja Vú, All Over Again! President Biden withdrew his name as the Democratic candidate for President in 2024 after a series of bad days and calls by many in the media, donors, and pols to quit the race. Enthusiasm for the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris is on the rise. Once again, we can hope for leadership that reflects this country and its needs. I’ve been waiting for her first speech as the candidate since these events over the weekend. She is set to speak at the White House on NCAA Sports Day to 1000s of student-athletes shortly.
NCAA Sports Day brings championship teams from the National Collegiate Athletic Association to the White House. Harris also spoke at the event in 2023, which saw more than 1,000 student athletes from nearly 50 teams, according to Harris’ remarks.
Shortly after Biden announced he will not seek reelection Sunday, he threw his support behind Harris as his successor for the Democratic Party’s nominee. Harris said in a statement on X, “I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination.”
President Joe Biden has been one of the most consequential American Presidents in History. I am not a Noble Laureate, nor did I attend anything but Public Universities in two States, and I have only taught in public higher institutions and secondary schools. His economic policy record is beyond anything we’ve seen since the policies to end the Great Depression. The good thing is that we’ve learned a lot since then, and we have the computers, statistical chops, and data to determine what works and what doesn’t. He’s heeded these lessons. This analysis is from Jonathan V. Last writing at The Bulwark. “Joe Biden Is Our Greatest Living President. On the most unlikely great president in modern history.”
A president gets, at most, two lines above the fold on his Wikipedia page. That’s it. That’s how history judges them.
Here is Joe Biden’s legacy: He beat back America’s first authoritarian attempt. And when he realized that he could not do it a second time, he stepped away so someone else could.
This is enough to make him—already, today, on July 21, 2024—our greatest living president.
Biden’s presidency was unexpected. Prior to 2020, there had been nothing in his 47-year career to suggest that he was more than a pleasant, ambitious, Irish pol from central casting. He had been a senator, and a man running for president, over the course of four decades. His selection as Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008 seemed like a nice capstone for a rather average career in national politics.
For the first two years of Trump’s presidency, no one expected Biden to challenge him.
But the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville became a hinge-point in which this ordinary politician found his moment.
…
Biden’s administration was not perfect, but was largely successful.
He passed several significant pieces of bipartisan legislation. He fixed the COVID vaccine rollout (which Trump botched) and drove a stake through the heart of the pandemic. He achieved the kind of soft landing on inflation that economists dream about. His handling of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was the single most effective management of a foreign crisis since the end of the Cold War.
But Wikipedia doesn’t care about your CHIPS Act, or your Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan, or your Inflation Reduction Act. It doesn’t care about NATO expansion.
Again, you can feel the mounting support for Vice President Kamala Harris. The money is pouring in, and Donald is likely throwing ketchup everywhere. This is from Newsweek. “Nikki Haley Voters PAC Announces Support for Kamala Harris.”
A coalition of former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley voters pledged their support for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris‘ presidential bid on Sunday, hours after President Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out of the race.
Biden announced on Sunday afternoon in a letter that he will not be seeking a second term in this year’s presidential election and threw his support behind Harris. The president’s decision follows weeks of mounting pressure from people within his own party and from key Democratic donors urging him to step aside for the sake of the party’s future after a disastrous debate performance last month against former President Donald Trump.
The political action committee (PAC), previously known as Haley Voters for Biden, which now features Harris’ name, seeks to amplify the voices of former Haley voters in support of Harris’ White House bid.
Craig Snyder, the group’s director, told Newsweek in an email on Sunday afternoon that the organization believes Harris “is best suited to defeat Donald Trump in November.”
“A tough former prosecutor, the Vice President comes from the centrist wing of the Democratic Party, not it’s left most fringe…For Haley voters, all of this puts the Vice President in a sweet spot for them to register their ongoing opposition to [former] President Trump,” he said.
“Voto Latino pledges $44M to support Harris.” This is published by The Hill and reported by Rafael Bernal.
Voto Latino is endorsing Vice President Harris on Monday in her bid for the White House, pledging its entire 2024 campaign budget to her cause.
The civic engagement group, a key player in Latino campaign politics, supported President Biden’s reelection efforts and is a fierce opponent of former President Trump.
“As far right extremists seek to demonize immigrants, shatter our democracy, and curtail our rights at every turn, Vice President Kamala Harris has led the defense of our multicultural democracy. Her long-standing support for working Americans, voting rights, DACA, and for women’s rights have done so much good for our country and the Latino community — and it has never been more important,” said María Teresa Kumar, president of Voto Latino.
Voto Latino’s campaign in 2024 is hitting the road, after a mostly-digital 2020, amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“In 2020, Voto Latino endorsed Joe Biden in the face of an unprecedented threat to our community and our country. His exceptional term has earned our admiration and respect,” Kumar said in a statement Sunday, following Biden’s announcement that he would no longer seek reelection.
“Now more than ever we must unite our efforts to make sure Trump is not elected in November. The stakes have never been higher. If Trump returns to the White House, he’ll execute his anti-democracy and extreme platform. He will continue dehumanizing immigrants and will deploy our military to round-up people who they deem look undocumented. Trump also will expand the cottage industry of detention centers across the nation where no one is safe — U.S. citizens or not,” Kumar said Sunday.
Kumar told The Hill last month that Voto Latino is on track to raise and spend $44 million, up from $36 million four years ago.
The group plans to focus on young Hispanic voters with anti-disinformation, registration and mobilization campaigns in Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
Politico has this headline this morning. “Kamala Harris clears the path to the nomination as potential challengers fall in line. The rapid demonstration of support was a show of force — and unity — after weeks of unrest and anxiety.” I admit that I feel better already.
It took less than 24 hours for Kamala Harris to all but clear the Democratic presidential field.
Endorsements from a series of governors Monday morning — JB Pritzker of Illinois, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Wes Moore of Maryland and Andy Beshear of Kentucky — effectively ended talk of a serious contest for the party’s nomination after President Joe Biden’s sudden decision Sunday to drop out of the race. Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), who also briefly flirted with challenging Harris, also said Monday morning that he wouldn’t seek the nomination.
“I am proud to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president of the United States,” Pritzker said in a statement.
“Today, I am fired up to endorse Kamala Harris for President of the United States,” Whitmer wrote in her own statement.
“She is the fighter we need at this moment to realize the full promise of our nation,” Moore said.
The rapid demonstration of support was a show of force — and unity — after weeks of unrest and anxiety over whether the president would agree to step aside after his disastrous debate performance in late June.
Again, Donald and his campaign of hate are now in more chaos than usual. Sean Hannity was thrown off his game and had this shocking (not really) headline covered by HuffPo. “MAGA Rages That Kamala Harris Is A Threat To Plastic Straws. Sean Hannity grasped at the argument while alleging Harris will “be the single most radical major party candidate to run for election.” Mediocre white men are fall to pieces when threatened. Maybe he needs a sippy cup like my 3 year old granddaughters use.
Signe cartoon
TOON13
Kamala Harris
That has to be one of the most ridiculous displays of white male privilege I’ve ever seen. This is from The Atlantic. “This Is Exactly What the Trump Team Feared. A campaign that had been optimized to beat Joe Biden must now be reinvented.” It’s reported by Tim Alberta. How will they have enough time to teach the Reality Star and Crisis Actor his lines? Perhaps all we will hear about is his fear of sharks and obsession with Hannibal Lecter.
In many ways, the convention scene was one of a party peaking too early. Campaigns are marathons measured by changes in momentum and narrative, and Republicans in Milwaukee reveled in what felt like a three-week winning streak, dating back to the debate, in which the daily churn of insider gossip focused ever more on Democratic fatalism and Trump’s seeming inevitability. No Republican I spoke with could remember a longer stretch of uninterrupted forward propulsion. And with Biden appearing to dig in, they left Milwaukee believing that this run of luck might never end.
The president’s abrupt exit dashed any such fantasy. Suddenly, Republicans who had boasted last week about expanding the electoral map—pushing into Minnesota and Virginia and other decidedly blue areas—were fretting about the possibility of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro or Arizona Senator Mark Kelly joining the Democratic ticket, partnering with Harris to put back into play key battlegrounds that just 24 hours earlier seemed to be out of reach.
Given the historic volatility of this campaign—Trump survived an assassination attempt just last weekend—there’s no guarantee that Harris will ultimately succeed Biden atop the ticket. The Trump campaign certainly believes she will—understandably so, given the rapid consolidation of Democratic officials around her following Biden’s announcement—and blasted out a statement Sunday afternoon that tied Harris to her unpopular boss. “Kamala Harris is just as much of [a] joke as Biden is,” Wiles and LaCivita said in a statement. “Harris will be even WORSE for the people of our Nation than Joe Biden. Harris has been the Enabler in Chief for Crooked Joe this entire time. They own each other’s records, and there is no distance between the two.”
This is the essence of what Trump’s campaign believes—that any Democrat who picks up the party’s banner will inherit the baggage that made Biden unelectable. Republicans will point to historic inflation, millions of illegal border crossings, and geopolitical chaos from Eastern Europe to the Middle East as evidence that the entire Democratic Party has failed the American people. “We’ve talked about strength versus weakness, success versus failure,” LaCivita told me before the convention, summarizing the campaign’s strategic vision for the race. “The great thing about that messaging is that it’s not just unique to Joe Biden.”
In other words, they’ll continue to lie about issues at the border, dismiss that Trump told Republicans not to vote for a Republican-written Immigration reformer bill. They’ll cover up his murderous Covid-19 performance and the rest of the stuff. Also, they support dictators so Biden’s success with NATO will never be mentioned. They know that many people question what happened on that day at Butler Farms where one man died and two others were critical wounded. Trump continues to wear his Ear Kotex while not delivering evidence there’s anything in it. Photographs, as we have shared here, suggest it was likely a bit of glass. The campaign is mostly using it as a amarketing tool to extract money from the Cult. And, it is a cult.
I especially like this article and lede in The Guardian. “The post-Biden era may be uncertain for the Democrats, but for Trump it will be utterly dismaying. Whoever is nominated, a fresh choice will be on offer – a far better one than a grudge match between two grumpy old men.” It’s penned by Simon Tisdall.
The unforgiving deadline is 19 August, when the Democratic party national convention opens in Chicago. Thursday 22 August is the day the successful nominee must make her or his acceptance speech. After that, there’s no going back, no time for second thoughts. From then until election day on 5 November, it will be all-out war, a fight to the political death with an extremist Republican ticket in arguably the most consequential election since John F Kennedy narrowly defeated Richard Nixon in 1960.
Will Harris get her party’s nod, or face a damaging internal competition? She has big advantages. The vice-president since 2021, she can count on nationwide name recognition – unlike Trump’s far-right white nationalist running mate, the deservedly obscure JD Vance. She has black and Asian-American roots, a potential plus with minority voters. She is the first ever woman to hold the vice-presidency. And at 59, she is definitely not Joe Biden.
Before joining the White House, Harris was a well regarded prosecutor and senator from California. In office, she has earned a reputation, among those who care to look, for championing women’s rights, education and climate action – and for fighting Republican voter-suppression schemes. She is underestimated and mocked by opponents, as vice-presidents typically are. But she has taken hard knocks and kept going. And she could inherit the $100m Biden-Harris campaign war chest.
For the US’s independent and undecided voters, Harris, crucially, is also not Donald Trump. Instead of a grudge match between two grumpy old men, battering each other bloody like cranky Monty Python knights, a fresh choice may soon be on offer – in terms of personality, energy, policy, tone, trustworthiness and moral integrity. It’s a choice that could bring a generational leap. Come January next year, it’s possible a new, younger morning in the US may dawn.
Indeed, I hope we can finely rid ourselves of Donald and his cult.
I have to say that I am so happy to see so many of our Hillary friends are here again. JJ explained that we’ve been fighting the WordPress AI goblin, which is somehow mistreating comments. I even have trouble commenting on my posts, so don’t despair. If you download the Jetpack app, you can sometimes comment more easily there. Also, we know that some of your comments are going to SPAM, so we’re all on the watch for it! Nothing like getting the old gang back together again!! I am so glad you’re here.
We know what’s at stake. They’ve already taken so many rights away that it’s time we elect people at all levels to stop this.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: We Shall Overcome
Posted: July 19, 2024 Filed under: "presidential immunity", 2024 Elections, Biden Harris 2024, Feminists, fundamentalist Christians, House of Representatives, The Insurrectionists Club, The Media SUCKS, tRump crimes against humanity, Violence against women, Women's Rights | Tags: @repeat1968, John Buss 9 Comments
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I never wanted a week to end so much in my life as this one. I’m not one for TV viewing because reality shows are not my thing. There are very few movies and series that grab my attention, too. This time of year, it’s good to have the weather channel. You already know I’m a news junkie, but the news is more like a staged reality show than about actual events that matter. It also is getting too far into the Beltway gossip zone to be of any real use. The media is on a few stories like flies on rice. I searched for something beyond the Beltway jive talk today.
Today, Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries put to rest a story at the Washington Post yesterday. I would like to think this will stop all the headlines out there speculating when and if President Biden will give up his bid for his second term.
The other big story was the Republican National Convention, which looked more like a North Shore Klan rally than a convention. The self-proclaimed ‘David Duke without the Baggage,’ Congressman Steven Scalise, even got a speaking spot. I questioned my affiliation with the Republican Party after the 1992 speech by Pat Buchannan. After that, I registered as an Independent for quite a while.
[17] Mr. Clinton, however, has a different agenda.
[18] At its top is unrestricted abortion on demand. When the Irish-Catholic governor of Pennsylvania, Robert Casey, asked to say a few words on behalf of the 25 million unborn children destroyed since Roe v. Wade, Bob Casey was told there was no place for him at the podium at Bill Clinton’s convention, no room at the inn.
[19] Yet a militant leader of the homosexual rights movement could rise at that same convention and say: “Bill Clinton and Al Gore represent the most pro-lesbian and pro-gay ticket in history.” And so they do.
[20] Bill Clinton says he supports school choice – but only for state-run schools. Parents who send their children to Christian schools, or private schools, or Jewish schools, or Catholic schools need not apply.
[21] Elect me, and you get two for the price of one, Mr. Clinton says of his lawyer-spouse. And what does Hillary believe? Well, Hillary believes that 12-year-olds should have the right to sue their parents, and Hillary has compared marriage and the family as institutions to slavery and life on an Indian reservation.
[22] Well, speak for yourself, Hillary.
[23] This, my friends, is radical feminism. The agenda that Clinton & Clinton would impose on America – abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat units – that’s change, all right. But it is not the kind of change America needs. It is not the kind of change America wants. And it is not the kind of change we can abide in a nation that we still call God’s country.
[24] The President of the United States is also America’s commander-in-chief. He’s the man we authorize to send fathers and sons and brothers and friends into battle.
[25] George Bush was 17-years-old when they bombed Pearl Harbor. He left his high school graduation, he walked down to the recruiting office, and he signed up to become the youngest fighter pilot in the Pacific war. And Mr. Clinton? And Bill Clinton? When Bill Clinton’s time came in Vietnam, he sat up in a dormitory room in Oxford, England, and figured out how to dodge the draft.
That time I got to see both President HW Bush and President Bill Clinton together presenting aid to the city’s Universities on the Campus at UNO. I was sitting nearly up front and even had a nice chat with a secret service woman. Where did those days go? (December 7,2005)
Needless to say, I voted for Bill Clinton even though I had previously supported Bush against Reagan when he pulled that stunt about Welfare Queens. If you haven’t read Josh Levin’s book ‘The Queen’, you should. Here’s an interview with him from PBS by Hari Sreenivasan from June 2019. Reagan used a criminal who was an outlier to slur an entire group of women, as detailed in “The True Story Behind the ‘Welfare Queen’ Stereotype.”
Hari Sreenivasan:
Josh there’s this “welfare queen” moniker that’s been used really to demonize entire groups of people. You go through this entire book and take a dive not just into that phrase but really that it’s based on a real person. She was an outlier while at the same time becoming an icon for a whole category.
Josh Levin:
Yeah that’s exactly right. Her name was Linda Taylor and she was identified by the Chicago Tribune in 1974 as a person who had committed welfare fraud while driving fancy cars, including a Cadillac. And very quickly after that she was given the nickname the welfare queen. And it was a nickname and a stereotype that really very quickly blew up.
Hari Sreenivasan:
You know it was a Chicago paper that gave her that nickname but it’s really Ronald Reagan on the campaign trail that makes that phrase such a household idea. How did it get from the Chicago paper into his speeches?
Josh Levin:
One of his advisers had found a wire story about it and Reagan was looking for kind of outrageous stories about welfare because welfare reform had been one of his big accomplishments as governor of California. And it was also something that voters were outraged about in the mid 1970s increased welfare spending at a time when the economy was really poor. And this idea that there were welfare cheats out there was something that created outrage.
Ronald Reagan Campaign Speech, 1976: In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record. She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veterans husbands. Her tax-free cash income, alone, has been running $150,000 a year.
Josh Levin:
He didn’t say the phrase “welfare queen” in his speeches he would talk about how there was this woman in Chicago who’d stolen as much as one hundred fifty thousand dollars in welfare money in a single year, which was an exaggerated sum. But there was such baggage attached to welfare at that point that I think the electorate really understood what he was saying and really knew what he was talking about. Welfare has been an effective talking point for a whole generation of politicians.
Me and the nuns at Congo Square protesting the caging of children and Donald’s family separation policy. (July 2,2017)
Now we have promises to deport and look up and one that is painted with the brush of ‘illegal immigrant with brown skin.’ They’re also developing a scheme of citizenship that would deprive citizenship for all kinds of folks that would actually include Melania if the law passed. This is from the page of America’s Voice.
Selected immigration components of Project 2025 are below:
Mass Detention and Family Separation: Project 2025 paves the way for mass family separation by eliminating important benefits for unaccompanied children and transfers the care of unaccompanied minors from Health and Human Services to DHS to allow for large scale detention of young children. The proposal recommends weakening standards for migrant detention, calling for mass detention in temporary structures such as tents.
Attacks on Dreamers and Parents of US Citizens: Project 2025 calls for the elimination of family-based immigration and DACA.
Raid Schools Hospitals and Religious Zones: Project 2025 removes prohibitions on ICE acting in ‘sensitive zones’ thus allowing raids on schools, hospitals, and religious institutions.
Suspending Due Process: Project 2025 removes legal processes allowing immigrants a day in court by expanding the use of expedited deportations to the ‘fullest extent’ throughout the country. It also gives DHS the authority to declare a ‘mass migration event’ and enact anything to avert it (e.g. scrapping all Title 8 requirements and automatically expelling migrants). The proposal further undermines due legal processes by allowing immediate expulsion of migrants in the case of ‘loss of operational control’ or USCIS backlogs which is caused by consistent underfunding from Republican officials. Project 2025 would create a show-me-your-papers style mandate and require ICE to remove, arrest, and detain immigration violators anywhere in the country and without warrant, if possible. The plan authorizes local law enforcement to participate in border security actions and penalizes jurisdictions that do not comply. The project also plans to remove oversight authorities from ICE and classify all USCIS operations.
Use of the Military: Project 2025 encourages the use of the US military to crack down on peaceful migrants arriving at the border. The proposal also considers engaging in war with drug cartels in Mexico.
Attacks Legal Immigration: Project 2025 seeks to restrict legal immigration by barring certain groups or nationalities from accessing work and student visas, eliminates DACA, family-based immigration, TPS, and visas for victims of crime, reduces asylum and discounts gang and domestic violence as grounds.
Yup, I am photobombing my friends at the Women’s March (Jan.23, 2013). All the Donald Cult probably thinks I doth protest too much.
These kinds of things happen when White Christian Nationalists take over a party and embrace a criminal, narcissistic, lying, and authoritarian leader. We’ve gone from a B-movie Actor to a Reality Show Actor who sure does a good job at Crisis Acting, too. I’ll rely on JJ to outline the absolute misogyny demanded by Project 2025. My point is that the RNC this year was basically the showboat for Project 2025. It was a festival of the Donald Cult wreaking racism, misogyny, and white Christian nationalism. Plus, the Vice Presidential nominee is a self-loathing hillbilly. His book is all about blaming poor people in Appalachia for the systemic problems they face. This is from Aja Romano, who is writing for VOX. “Revisiting Hillbilly Elegy, the book that made J.D. Vance. The bestseller proves Trump’s VP pick has abiding disdain for absolutely everyone.”
At one time, liberal and conservative centrists alike hailed Vance’s bestselling 2016 memoir of making it out of rural, poverty-stricken Appalachia, transforming himself from a tempestuous teen into a successful Yale law school grad.
Yet years on, Vance has undergone a transformation of a different sort, remolding himself from a fairly moderate professed conservative who once compared Trump to Hitler and wrote with disdain about the outer edges of the party into a would-be authoritarian.
That’s not to say Vance doesn’t have some nuanced and even appealing positions. His populist economic instincts are a running theme of Elegy, and today he makes deals across the aisle with Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren. But to understand his larger worldview, you have to look past his economic ideas to his social ideas — and to what Vance actually displays about himself throughout the book.
Perhaps readers in 2016 were eager to look past the book’s highly loaded subtext and overt classism, as the promise of a sympathetic conservative who could unlock Trumplandia for liberals was just too appealing. It also seems likely that readers loved the book because it confirmed all of the negative stereotypes they already held about country hicks. As a read on Vance himself, though, in the context of his subsequent embrace of Trump and far-right ideology, Hillbilly Elegy paints a portrait of a man obsessed with status — and brimming with contempt for just about everyone he meets.
Another one about J.D. This is from the Independent. “I’m from the same place as JD Vance, and there’s nothing to celebrate now that he’s Trump’s VP. We are both Appalachians, with eerily similar working-class backgrounds which JD Vance wrote about in his bestselling book Hillbilly Elegy. Yet, says Skylar Baker-Jordan, our views — and our reactions to this attempted assassination — couldn’t be more different.”
Like so many millions of my fellow citizens, I watched in horror on Saturday as a would-be assassin came perilously close to murdering former president Donald Trump. This was not just an attack on him and those innocent people simply exercising their First Amendment right to attend a political rally. It was not just an attack on the Republican Party.
It was an attack on the very fabric of American democracy.
Political violence has become a norm in our divided and beleaguered nation. From the 2011 attack on Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to the 2017 shooting of Republican Steve Scalise to the attack last year on Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, to this weekend’s horrific attack which left one of our fellow citizens dead, we are increasingly solving our differences not with ballots and votes, but bullets and violence.
Neither side in this cold civil war, now cataclysmically close to boiling point, can claim the moral high ground. Would that someone told my fellow Appalachian, JD Vance.
“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” the junior senator from Ohio tweeted last night following the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.
So the man they’re hailing as being just a good old boy is really just another elite enthralled by bigger elites. That’s what reality television has done with political reality. It’s made an entire group of people believe that a staged, scripted, false narrative wrapped up in a box with reality printed on it must be true. Let me show you some data rather than speculation. This is from Newsweek. This was published two days ago. The data comes before that awful RNC ho-down. “Donald Trump’s Chances of Winning Election Are Declining.” This comes from who once was a candidate and has worked campaign since High School. Don’t trust polls too far away from Election Day!
According to the tracker, Biden is favored to win in 534 out of 1,000 of FiveThirtyEight’s simulations of how the election could go, while Trump wins in 462. The poll also shows that the simulations indicate that Biden is on track for a three-point win.
The polling website said its forecast is based on a combination of polls and campaign “fundamentals,” such as economic conditions, state partisanship and incumbency.
It comes after a Presidential Voting Intention poll of 3,601 swing state voters by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, found that Trump’s margins over President Joe Biden have narrowed since June in two key states: Florida and North Carolina.
Trump previously defeated Biden in both states in 2020, while he held a six-point lead over Biden in Florida in a Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll from that June.
This craziness at The Daily Beast has me seething. It’s written by Jake Lahut. “Trump’s Plan to Slam Dems for Their ‘Coup’ Against Biden: Campaign. No matter who may replace Biden, the Trump camp plans to attack Democrats for an unruly ouster of their nominee.”
However, he now only leads the current president by four points in Florida. The poll shows that 45 percent of participants plan to vote for Trump, compared to Biden’s 41 percent.
It is not the only recent poll to give Trump only a four-point lead in Florida. A June Fox News survey gave Trump 50 percent of the vote, compared to 46 percent for Biden.
You would think a few folks would be reading them just to notice the trend. But, nope. Not with a big dose of Potomac Fever going on. So this one from The Daily Beast has me seething. It’s written by Jake Lahut. “Trump’s Plan to Slam Dems for Their ‘Coup’ Against Biden: Campaign, No matter who may replace Biden, the Trump camp plans to attack Democrats for an unruly ouster of their nominee.” Notice how we get two for one here.
Donald Trump‘s campaign will attack the Democrats for conducting a “coup” if Joe Biden quits the presidential race, the GOP campaign co-chair told The Daily Beast on Thursday.
The former president’s campaign for president will try to throw the charge leveled at him over the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection back in Democrats’ faces, Chris LaCivita told The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
“Here’s what’s fascinating about it,” LaCivita said as he mingled on the convention floor in Milwaukee. “You are watching a coup. Literally. In front of your eyes.”
LaCivita, the architect with Susie Wiles of Trump’s 2024 campaign, offered the first insight into how Republicans will deal with a new Democratic candidate as Biden appeared increasingly likely to accede to calls to step aside.
The attack as a “coup plotter” will be matched with a playbook that continues to attack Biden’s record especially if Biden is succeeded by his vice president, Kamala Harris.
The campaign will run the same strategy if Harris takes over, he said. Biden has already given Republicans too much fodder, he acknowledged. They will also demand that Biden step down as president if he won’t run. That would give them extra ammunition to attack Harris as a sitting president who benefited from a “coup.”
“It’s Joe Biden,” he added, even if the nominee will not, in fact, be Joe Biden, should he step aside.
And AOC says the quiet part out loud. We knew this. “AOC goes live on Instagram saying many who want Joe Biden to drop out of race also want to remove Kamala. ‘A lot of them are not just interested in removing the president. They are interested in removing the whole ticket,’ congresswoman says.” This is from the Independent.
New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went on Instagram Live early on Friday morning to share her thoughts on Joe Biden’s floundering re-election campaign – and warning that many of those who want the President to drop out of the race, also want Vice President Kamala Harris off the ticket too.
“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,” she told viewers.
She slammed her colleagues for giving anonymous quotes to the press, calling it “bull****” and urged those resigned to a loss to Donald Trump to give up their seats.
“My community does not have the option to lose,” she 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,” the congresswoman said.
One last story that really shows what the ramping up of Wipipo privilege has done to our society. This is from CNN. “‘Treated like a convict’: NFL legend Terrell Davis describes getting handcuffed on a plane near his kids after asking for ice.” This story is reported by Holly Yan.
Terrell Davis and his family were looking forward to vacationing in California when pro football Hall of Famer was handcuffed and removed from a United Airlines plane – for no apparent reason.
“I was stripped of my dignity. I was powerless. I couldn’t do anything,” the two-time Super Bowl champion told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Wednesday.
The incident happened Saturday at the end of a flight from Denver to Orange County, California. Davis, 51, was flying with his wife, two sons and daughter when one of the sons asked for a cup of ice during beverage service, Davis wrote on Instagram. A flight attendant “either didn’t hear or ignored his request and continued past our row,” the post read.
Terrell Davis and his family were looking forward to vacationing in California when pro football Hall of Famer was handcuffed and removed from a United Airlines plane – for no apparent reason.
“I was stripped of my dignity. I was powerless. I couldn’t do anything,” the two-time Super Bowl champion told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Wednesday.
The incident happened Saturday at the end of a flight from Denver to Orange County, California. Davis, 51, was flying with his wife, two sons and daughter when one of the sons asked for a cup of ice during beverage service, Davis wrote on Instagram. A flight attendant “either didn’t hear or ignored his request and continued past our row,” the post read.
We should really be careful. It is getting ugly out there. But, if there is a protest of anything here in Orleans Parish, I will be there. I will also vote. I will also drag my neighbors to the voting booth if I have to.
We shall overcome.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Nothing reminds me of the worst stuff to come out of the 80s than Disco. Nothing says cultural appropriation like three white guys from the Isle of Man morphing funk and black slang into a song that’s all about themselves!!!!!! But it’s a good message to the pols and media that won’t settle down and do their damned jobs!
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