…a lass [DOT 23/7/24]

& a lack...

23/7/24 SplinterRIP 72

…it’s…early days…sort of…late in the game but early days…so…don’t want to jinx anything…but…it’s looking pretty good?

Hours after she delivered remarks laying out some of the themes of her campaign, Harris secured pledges of support from a majority of Democratic National Convention delegates, a forceful show of unity behind her presidential campaign that signals she is likely to officially become the party’s nominee next month.

“Over the next 106 days, we are going to take our case to the American people, and we are going to win,” Harris said during a visit to campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., where she was greeted by a group of energized staffers for Biden’s now-abandoned candidacy. Harris accused Trump of wanting to “take our country backwards to a time before many of our fellow Americans had full freedoms and rights.” She added, “we believe in a brighter future that makes room for all Americans.”

…of which more, anon

…& I think I’ve heard about four or five different riffs on “I took down sexual predators, scam artists & cheats – hear me when I say I know his type”…which…throw in a bit of “bodily autonomy for women shouldn’t be a question”…&…well

In the eight years since Hillary Clinton failed to win the American presidency, the work force for the first time grew to include more college-educated women than college-educated men. The #MeToo movement exposed sexual harassment and toppled powerful men. The Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion.

Will any — or all — of it make a difference for Vice President Kamala Harris?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/22/us/kamala-harris-women-voters.html

…it seems to appeal to a whole bunch of people

Female Donors Mobilize for Harris, Moving to Stamp Out Opposition [NYT]

…anyway

Less than 36 hours after Biden abruptly exited the race and endorsed Harris as his successor, hundreds of state delegates, the majority of Democratic lawmakers and governors, a group of state party chairs, and several influential interest groups threw their support behind Harris, as other potential candidates said they would not challenge her. Top congressional leaders followed suit, with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressing support for Harris on Monday.

While a small number of Democrats have advocated an open, competitive process, Harris appeared to have an inside track Monday to quickly securing the nomination ahead of the party’s convention next month.

…so…so far so good might be underselling it…over the years I’ve heard any number of versions of “america would never elect _______”…but

Democratic leaders on Monday unveiled a new virtual process for selecting a nominee to replace Biden that would conclude by Aug. 7, ahead of the nominating convention in Chicago next month. The dates for the virtual process will be announced on Wednesday.
[…]
Campaign aides said more than 28,000 new volunteers had signed up to lend support, more than 100 times the typical number. Further highlighting the breakneck pace of new developments, some aides predicted that Harris was on pace to have pledges from enough Democratic delegates to secure the nomination within hours Monday evening. Harris, who has been traveling around the country, planned to continue her campaign travel this week.

…not to mention actual record-breaking amounts of cash being thrown at the thing…I don’t even want to imagine what a shitshow a zoom call with the best part of 45K people on it could have been but you can’t argue with the stacks of cash that apparently came out of it in 3 hours or so…& not to make with the lazy stereotypes…but…your black ladies…even stereotypically…well…they get shit done…& if they got as much done as the likes of stacey abrams did when the beneficiary was an elderly white dude…& now the ticket has “one of them” at the top…you gotta think they might go an extra mile or two…which should offset the drag acts

Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) initially expressed interest in challenging Harris for the nomination, before taking himself out of the running on Monday. Manchin, who left the Democratic Party in May to become an independent, said he wanted the party to embrace an open process to allow more-moderate candidates to compete. Before Biden left the race on Sunday, Manchin suggested in an interview with The Washington Post that Harris was too liberal.

“I think we can rebuild the Democratic brand and right now you’re going to have to pick somebody that physically and mentally basically believes with every fiber of their body that we’ve gone too far to the left,” he said. “Now if they don’t, they’re going to keep dwindling away.”

Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, who sought the Democratic nomination in 2020, warned the party against rapidly lining up behind any candidate before taking “the pulse of voters.”

“The decision is too important to rush, because the election is too important to lose,” he wrote Monday on X.

…correct me if I’m wrong…but that sounds like it translates to about the same thing in both cases…which is roughly…”the money took joe out & we expected that to let us yank this thing to the right or just give it to the tax break guy who’ll slash regulations – this wasn’t what we ordered”…&…sincerely…fuck that noise

In a new ad released hours after Biden dropped out, the Trump campaign targeted Harris over the surge of migration at the southern border, falsely branding her the nation’s “border czar.” The ad featured a repeated clip of Harris laughing, part of an attempt by Trump to undermine her bid to be commander in chief. At a rally Saturday, Trump referred to Harris as “laughin’ Kamala” and “crazy,” repeating his practice of mispronouncing her name.

…you know the ouroboros thing? …well…if it had an ass…& was biting itself in that…you get the picture…one minute they want to claim she was so involved in misleading the public about joe being incapable of performing the duties of the president…so she was the stealth president already…the next they want to claim she can’t do the job they say she’s already doing…& then the projection kicks in & they call her crazy or complain about what her voice sounds like…as though their guy isn’t harder to listen to than nails on a fucking chalkboard & madder than a box of frogs…it’s incoherent…which plays to their base…sure…but…& maybe I don’t say this enough…in my experience americans…even if they can sometimes seem a bit too gung ho on the whole “USA #1” thing for a child of the land of understatement…& have some funny ideas about things designed specifically for killing stuff in a hurry…just aren’t that fucking crazy…so

Harris has already begun leaning into her background as a prosecutor and state attorney general as she began to cast the race against Trump in a new light.

…in the clips I’ve heard she notes that the AG thing was an elected position…which…funny story…a certain someone once cut a check for her campaign for & described it as “a wise investment”
[…for clarity…since that mess of a signature lacks that virtue…I believe the wise investment part is a quote & the scrawl matches the name on the top left of the check not the @]

….this is where we throw our heads back & laugh dot gif

“In those roles I took on perpetrators of all kinds,” she said. “Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”

…&…just for context…the UK ran a whole campaign season (in a not-unusual way) that took less time than there is between now & november…but the losing side just announced they won’t be done deposing their leader until the same week the US goes to the ballot boxes…so…compare & contrast, I guess

“Everything is abbreviated — so what we need to look for is the equivalent of sprinter’s skills,” he said. “Durability is much less an issue than quick reactions, ability to focus, a fast start and getting into stride quickly.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/07/22/kamala-harris-appearance-biden-drop-out/

…sounds like one candidate might be built better for that kind of thing…but of course the media needs something to chip away at or they might not seem “impartial”…the way they wouldn’t if they told it like it is about her opponent…which some of them seem congenitally incapable of…but…there’s one charge in particular they seem to have deemed as evidence that she’s “just bad at politics”…so…I’m curious…what do you make of this?

…it’s from ’21…&…honestly…I thought it’d be easier to find the version of the clip I’ve heard maybe a dozen times now…which the above isn’t, quite…so…in an abundance of fairness to a point I don’t think is even slightly fair…it may be important that she acknowledges that she understands lester’s point…& the crux of the complaint is that responding to “why haven’t you visited the border?” with “I haven’t been to europe, either” is apparently evidence of being “bad at politics” for some people…or that she can’t respond to things off the cuff

…personally…I think it came across to me as…roughly…”so the fuck what – I ain’t been to europe but I don’t get people implying I don’t grasp foreign policy so what’s your point there, chief?”…which was a two-fer…nodded to the part where no, she had not in fact taken time out to make a performative pilgrimage to the mexican border…unlike any number of republicans who skip turning up to vote in the house to go play ICE for a day…& yes, she was aware that she was being served up one of TV’s favorite staples…the “gotcha moment”…& it coud fuck right off…but…that’s me…& at least one person I actually know who’s been right about a bunch of shit over the years when it comes to how politics plays…which is either cart or horse but in any case has gone along with a career of being paid to call that kind of thing…thinks it’s a genuine problem…which…given the context of her opponent(s)…seems fucking ridiculous to me…but what do I know…so here I am asking you lot…forget the part where they had to reach back to nearer the beginning than the end of biden’s term to find their attack vector…& the dubious character of the people whose tweets dragged her for it at the time…there’s at least one cut of that bit of that interview that some people seem inclined to cling to as proof that it’s an unacknowledged issue that she’s a liability without a script…anyone hereabouts buy that?

Is It a Mistake for Democrats to Go All In on Harris? Four Columnists on the Party’s Moves. [NYT]

Republicans, for their part, plan to argue that Ms. Harris still owns the unpopular parts of Mr. Biden’s record, saying that she is also weak on issues like inflation and immigration. Polling has shown Mr. Trump with significant advantages on many of the most important issues for voters, other than abortion rights.

…well…there’s a lot of people claiming the “disasters” she’s on the hook for include the withdrawl from afghanistan…which was a deuce shut-up-donnie-you’re-out-of-your-element dropped on the resolute desk once he knew it wasn’t going to be where he was sitting…&…another is “the economy, stupid”…which we may need to update to “the stupid economy”…because…either that’s doing a damn sight better than those folks find convenient to notice…or the markers they wanted to crow about when their boy was “responsible”…don’t describe the “average joe” economy…no matter how many column inches you spend trying to explain how they do, actually…but…fuck it…I’m not here to explain why the price of petrol in the US is not in fact a reliable marker of how good a job a president is doing so much as irresponsibly low even when dudes are bitching about how much it costs to run a stunningly inefficient heavy-ass truck…that quite frankly only some of them actually need rather than want for reasons that are more to do with self-image than reality…because…you know…I’m not here to pick a fight with anyone…& hell, I don’t hate trucks…upgrade the shit you can’t see & I even kind of like an old one…like…a 50s chevy…but I stand by the suggestion that if the heaviest thing you put in the bed on the regular is a case of beers…you don’t need a fuckin’ “dually”, son…maybe you want one…fine…but you buy that shit & then moan about how much it costs to fill ‘er up…& it’s time for the world’s smallest violin to kick in for the chorus as far as I’m concerned

[…really I wanted the version in french…the dialogue is better in a way the subtitles don’t really get across…but…unless or until I find a youtube version of that… this’ll do?]

…found it in french but the quality is poor

…& that all probably sounds besides the point…but…to me, at least…it’s a pretty clear parallel to the people campaigning for ol’ spam-in-a-can (now with added nutso)?

In a statement, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, tried to undermine Ms. Harris’s credentials by accusing her of embracing “pro-criminal, soft-on-crime policies.”

…are you…FUCKING KIDDING ME?

“This election will be won on abortion rights and there is no one better to make the case to voters,” said Jessica Mackler, the president of Emily’s List, which supports Democratic female candidates who back abortion rights. The group has fiercely defended Ms. Harris and has used polls to test messaging about her political strengths and weaknesses.

Its research, Ms. Mackler said, found that highlighting Ms. Harris’s work on abortion rights “will turn out the voters we need to win in November — young voters, women and voters of color.”

Abortion access was top of mind on Sunday as Ms. Harris and her staff made the case to other Democrats that they should back her, according to a list of talking points used to outline those conversations that was reviewed by The New York Times.

Ms. Harris is the party’s “leading messenger” on abortion rights, according to the document, and will make certain that Mr. Trump’s role in overturning Roe “is front and center in this election.”
[…]
“We believe in freedom,” Ms. Harris said last week at an event in Michigan. “Freedom from the government telling us what to do about matters of heart and home. We believe in the right of people to make basic decisions like when and if they will start a family.”

…meanwhile

Ms. Harris’s “dismal record is one of complete failure and utter incompetence,” Mr. Cheung said. “Her policies are Biden’s policies, and vice versa.”

…I’m starting to think that’s the dude I heard on the radio yesterday tying himself in knots so bad it actually made me laugh…if it isn’t…well…it might as well have been…in a sane world the coverage would be “in the blue corner, we have kamala harris…& in the red corner…we have a textbook example of the term “sophistry”…c’mon, people…this is a no-brainer…if that doesn’t float your boat…better luck next time”…& I know…that’s not the reality of a US presidential race…so I’m still gonna be more freaking out than not for the duration…but…& I can not say this clearly enough…it fucking should be…& in a sane world…it fucking would be…& billions of dollars still couldn’t buy you a different outcome

“I’d take the next three weeks and hang the Biden White House’s failures on her,” said David Kochel, a Republican strategist based in Iowa. “Most people think the country is going in the wrong direction. They need to place her right in the middle of that.”

…fuck you

And less than an hour after Mr. Biden dropped out, the leading pro-Trump super PAC posted an ad on X saying Ms. Harris had “covered up” the president’s “mental decline” and was responsible for his “failed record.”

“Look what she got done,” the ad’s female narrator says. “A border invasion. Runaway inflation. The American dream, dead.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/22/us/politics/kamala-harris-trump-presidential-election.html

…& fuck you, too

…& not in the nice way…let’s say…I dunno…there should be a cactus…or some barbed wire or some shit…for those who are familar with the skits on the wu-tang’s “enter the 36th chamber”…”bang them shits with a spiked fucking bat” is about where I’m at…in the abstract…I’m not literally taking to the streets with an adulterated baseball bat that resembles lucille from the walking dead or anything

Until now, most of the anti-immigration sloganeering coming from Donald Trump and his campaign has involved false claims that we’re experiencing a migrant crime wave.

Increasingly, however, Trump and his associates have started making the case that immigrants are stealing American jobs — specifically, the accusation that immigrants are inflicting terrible damage on the livelihoods of Black workers.

Of course, the idea that immigrants are taking jobs away from native-born Americans, including native-born Black Americans, isn’t new. It has, in particular, been an obsession for JD Vance, complete with misleading statistical analysis, so Trump’s choice of Vance as his running mate in itself signals a new focus on the supposed economic harm inflicted by immigrants.

So, too, did Trump’s acceptance speech on Thursday, which contained a number of assertions about the economics of immigration, among them, the notion that of jobs created under President Biden, “107 percent of those jobs are taken by illegal aliens” — a weirdly specific number considering that it’s clearly false, because native-born employment has risen by millions of jobs since Biden took office.

What seems relatively new, however, is the attempt to pit immigrants against Black Americans. True, Trump prefigured this line of attack during his June debate with Biden, when he declared that immigrants are “taking Black jobs,” leading some to mockingly question which jobs, exactly, count as “Black.”

…see what I mean…how does that not deserve the sort of rebuke that’s the rhetorical equivalent of a fucking curb-stomping?

At the Republican convention, former Trump adviser Peter Navarro, someone very likely to have a role in the next administration if Trump wins, spoke of “a whole army of illiterate illegal aliens stealing the jobs of Black, brown and blue-collar Americans.”

In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek published last week, Trump went even bigger, declaring that “The Black people are going to be decimated by the millions of people that are coming into the country.” He continued, “Their wages have gone way down. Their jobs are being taken by the migrants coming in illegally into the country.” He went on to say, “The Black population in this country is going to die because of what’s happened, what’s going to happen to their jobs — their jobs, their housing, everything.”

…interesting you bring up housing there, asshole…redlining…winding up with toxic shit wafting your way & no fucking trees in sight…& stll needing to hold down more than one job to make ends meet…while getting shafted not just on the bottom line but clear through the entire healthcare system in terms of outcomes…you wanna talk about who & whose chums are killing those folks…go take a long walk off a short cliff you fucking disgrace of supposedly human being

Trump’s diatribe forced Bloomberg to add this, parenthetically, as a fact check: “According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the majority of employment gains since 2018 have been for naturalized U.S. citizens and legal residents — not migrants.”

There was a time when a rant like this would have signaled that a politician lacked the emotional stability and intellectual capacity to hold the highest office in the land. Alas.

…& indeed…alack

Also, it’s hard to overstate the cynicism here. Trump has a history of associating with white supremacists, not to mention his longstanding obsession with crime in urban, often predominantly Black precincts. Still, he clearly perceives an opportunity to peel away some Black voters by playing them off against immigrants.

But again, even if we ignore the cynicism, this new line of attack on immigration is just wrong on the facts.

If immigrants are taking away all the “Black jobs,” you can’t see it in the data, which shows Black unemployment at historic lows. If Black wages have, as Trump claims, gone way down, someone should tell the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which says that median Black earnings, adjusted for inflation, are significantly higher than they were toward the end of Trump’s term. (You should ignore the spurious bump during the pandemic, which reflected composition effects rather than genuine wage gains.)

You might ask why, given we have indeed seen a surge in immigration, that we aren’t seeing signs of an adverse, let alone cataclysmic, impact on Black wages or employment. After all, many recent immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, lack college degrees and maybe even high school education. So aren’t they competing with native-born Americans who also lack college or high school degrees?

The answer, which we’ve known since the 1990s, is that immigrant workers bring a different set of skills to the table than native-born workers, even when those workers have similar levels of formal education. And yes, I mean skills: If you think of workers without a college degree as “unskilled,” try fixing your own plumbing or doing your own carpentry. It shouldn’t need to be said, but a lot of blue-collar work is highly skilled and highly specialized. As a result, immigrants tend to take a very different mix of jobs than native-born workers do — which means that there’s much less head-to-head competition between immigrant and native-born workers than you might think, or what Trump and Vance want you to think.

The bottom line is that the attempt to portray immigration as an apocalyptic threat to Black Americans is refuted by the facts. Will it nonetheless work politically? I have no idea.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/22/opinion/trump-immigration-black-voters.html

…me neither, krugs…but…I have some ideas *about* that shit…probably too early in the day for that much cussin’…but…use your imagination

Why Are There Neo-Nazis on the Streets of Nashville? [NYT]

…good fucking question, mags…the answer is fucking shitty from the ground up…& I don’t mean her piece…I mean the reasons these wannabe fascists have for wanting to be fucking fascists…but…you probably figured that part out without needing anyone to draw you a picture…because you have a fucking brain…I mean…you lot are plenty smart…but that shit doesn’t require a genius…you just got to be not-a-fucking-moron with solipsism issues your cognitive dissonance won’t let you admit to yourself

Can Kamala Harris Step Up? Asking for a Friend. [NYT]

…are you, tho?

…c’mon gail…level with us…tell us what they’re really paying you to…doubt-that’s on the roundtable but bedbug’s byline seems to have been skippped over today…so your boy must be weeping in a corner somewhere while his hopes & dreams circle the fucking drain…maybe go hang out with him because you’re wasting my fucking time & apparently we need to be making the most of not a ton of that

…speaking of which…there’s plenty of shit going down out there in the big bad world…& maybe I should have gone on about some of that…but…I dunno…this is how it turned out this morning…so…maybe I’ll see if by thursday I can drag my keyboard in a different direction…but…that’s probaby enough of that for one day…so…if you’re gonna go whistle past a graveyard…at least make it a jaunty tune?

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72 Comments

  1. The American dream, dead

    And to think that Joe Biden, aided and assisted by Kamala Harris, pulled it off in less than four years. I would have thought that the pandemic wrought a lot more havoc but I guess I haven’t been paying close enough attention.

  2. Yesterday, when I was at the gym, one of the TVs which is perpetually tuned to Fox blared:

    MEDIA FAWNS OVER HARRIS AS BIDEN DROPS OUT

    Yes.  Because we all know that you motherfuckers would never, ever, fawn breathlessly over a presidential candidate.

  3. “but I stand by the suggestion that if the heaviest thing you put in the bed on the regular is a case of beers…you don’t need a fuckin’ “dually”, son…maybe you want one…fine…but you buy that shit & then moan about how much it costs to fill ‘er up…& it’s time for the world’s smallest violin to kick in for the chorus as far as I’m concerned”

    100% agree (yes, I am skipping over all the well-placed, valuable content and going for the tangent). Plus, they are often quite pricey, upwards of $80,000 new. Hence, I scoff at the trucks driven in the city as they attempt to navigate narrow streets and park in small spaces.

    • Now hold on there, little lady.  When I visit Chicago, I drive my pickup truck because it’s much  more comfy than my wife’s Hyundai and actually gets slightly better mileage.  I drive those narrow city streets and manage to park on Chicago streets.  And I have put a lot more than just a “case of beer” in the truck bed.  And if one of my friends needs a hand picking up that new futon or set of mid-century chairs I’m on the spot.

       

      • …I’ve seen a few in that town…probably not as many as there are series 1 land rovers…but I don’t think I’ve ever seen what the US calls a “full-size” truck anywhere in scotland…& one way or another I’ve seen more than my share of glens?

      • *they* dont want you driving smaller cars…..they can make a lot more money on the big ones……

        but the counter argument is also…that people arent buying smaller cars…. especially not since hybrids largely offset the extra running cost of going big…

        this side of the pond small…ish…hatchbacks are still popular….but sedans are kinda going out of fashion….

        mostly in favour of suvs…..which i hate…

        bring back wagons damnit!

        • …always kind of liked how the french called them a “break”…supposedly on account of the early ones had wood in the frame & reminded people of a “shooting break”…which was maybe more of a carriage than a wagon…but both are better than calling them “estates”?

        • One article I read (not sure if it was the one I linked or a different one I tried to link, but it would not let me hyperlink more than one) said that consumers, at least in the US, *would like to* buy smaller cars but feel pressured to buy bigger cars because everyone else is driving bigger cars. If you get crashed into, bigger car wins. But people would generally not prefer them, all things considered.

          I have no kids, haul no lumber, don’t have large dogs, etc. Even a crossover type SUV is more than I need. I had some pickup truck behind me in traffic yesterday, the bottom of his grill was at the top of my rearview mirror. He wasn’t hauling lumber either.

    • they are pretty funny to see over here…..we has a surprising amount of them…. most as grey license tax evasion imports….but some do at least get used for towing…..(course…we has vans that can tow a similar load…and you know…still fit our roads….but thats just not as cool a big ass truck i guess)

      anyways…..practical they are not….and i imagine driving them here is not as much fun as the people getting them maybe thought it would be

    • The only way it happens is with a supermajority of Democrats in both houses of Congress and a Democrat in the White House.  But even then it will still wind up with right wing SCOTUS and guess how they’ll rule on it?

      • I’m pretty sure SCOTUS doesn’t get to rule on things like expanding the court, term limits, or reducing their jurisdiction. If a majority in Congress goes for it, then they don’t get a say in the matter other than “hello, new liberal justices.”

        Uncle Joe was opposed to court-packing, but Harris is more pragmatic.

        • Am I incorrect in thinking that any amendment that is passed by the proper prescribed methods is automatically “Constitutional” and therefore doesn’t have to pass muster with the courts or anybody else?

          • Amendments, yes. Boom, it’s now part of the Constitution. But amendments are impossible. Three-fourths of state legislatures would have to ratify it, and that is not feasible under most circumstances. That’s why we have so few amendments.

            Laws have to agree with the Constitution, and that’s actually what SCOTUS is for. But the court size has been changed several times so there’s a precedent. And if they can’t point to the Constitution and say “it says no right here” then they’re out of luck. Now remember we’ve got a court of lying fucks that lie, and lied throughout their confirmation hearings, so that’s a factor.

            But I believe Congress can specifically limit the Court’s jurisdictions, so they can put in the law that the Supreme Court may not object or modify these ethics rules (for example). And I think that can be extended to other things like increasing the size of the court.

        • Congress can put in any law “the courts may not change or override this law” or something like that.  I’ve heard a bunch of talks about this but can’t find a link right now.

          • Ok but it won’t stop republicans from suing in federal court, shopping for one of their people like Loose Cannon or any of the right wing fucks in TX, and sending it all the way to SCOTUS. They’ve proven over and over that they don’t give a shit what the rules are or what precedent says, much less the constitution itself. So when those six pieces of shit strike it down, then what? Nothing. That’s what. Because Democrats will just whine and say “oh well we tried but we can’t challenge the legitimacy of the courts because that is how things work.”

            • Ah, but if there are majorities in Congress then the fastest course of action is to impeach Thomas and Alito. Thomas for sure is a tax cheat so that’s a slam-dunk. I’m pretty sure Alito can be impeached for refusal to recuse based on his MAGA wife.

              I strongly suspect that if there’s a Democratic majority, both those assholes will head for the door. But we should set term limits and pack the court anyway.

              • The answer is packing the court. I think the reputation of the court is so low at this point that while the usual pundits will scream in horror, the majority of the country will wonder what took so long. People who consider the Grapes of Wrath to be ancient history are not going get why they need to stick with a political point of view almost from almost 90 years ago.

                One of the fatal flaws of present day elite attitudes toward the court is blindly accepting an old narrative that Supreme Court rulings are incremental and the rest of the country can adapt to whatever they decide and move on. In this mindset, the Court itself seeks out balance if the effects of rulings seem too veer too far.

                The right wing six are radicals. They will not stop breaking things. The aftereffects of blowing up Roe and Chevron are just starting. They are not going to be manageable, they are going to be corrosive.

                Which not only means that Democrats need to embrace outnumbering the six before they do more damage, the popular demand for it will only grow. I think the best strategy comes down to directly linking packing to policy. Tie it to Roe, voting rights, anti-corruption, and corporate regulation, and make it clear the only way to get the people’s will considered is to outnumber the right.

                I’m not saying it makes sense to campaign on the specifics now. But I think there’s a lot of value in a general attack on the status quo of GOP domination of the courts, and lay the groundwork for packing if Harris wins.

                • Thing is, they would have to pack the fuck out of it, by at least 3 or four seats beyond what it would take to outnumber the right wingers.  Because, sure as shit, the second the Republicans have a chance, they will weaponize the hell out of it.

                  • In for a dime, in for a hundred dollars.

                    I think there’s a wild overestimation of how much people really care how many serve on the Supreme Court. I wouldn’t be surprised if most people think a president can nominate as many people as they want.

                    What they care about is how much bias they see from the justices. In the past, most people just didn’t care much about the Supreme Court, or thought it was roughly even, so why change? They might have had a problem with a decision, but then the issue faded into the background, and they’d be open to the idea that someone like Clinton was engaged in a power grab.

                    I think it’s sinking in now that the radical court itself is engaged in a power grab, and that feeling will only grow.

                    • correct me if im wrong

                      Article III of the Constitution, which establishes the Judicial Branch, leaves Congress significant discretion to determine the shape and structure of the federal judiciary. Even the number of Supreme Court Justices is left to Congress — at times there have been as few as six, while the current number (nine, with one Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices) has only been in place since 1869. The Constitution also grants Congress the power to establish courts inferior to the Supreme Court, and to that end Congress has established the United States district courts, which try most federal cases, and 13 United States courts of appeals, which review appealed district court cases.

                      doesnt sound like theres an upper limit in place..tbh…if i read that right

                      you know….jus saying

      • FWIW: You don’t *need* a supermajority; that’s a filibuster thing which is also just a how-we-do-things-here and not a law or even mentioned in the Constitution.

        What IS actually in the Constitution is that the Legislature holds their purse and has the right to reshape the court, so while I don’t think the Supremes give a crap about the stated law, it’s not just precedent they’d be shattering in this case. (I don’t think they care, but they might get a little hot under those robes if the Senate 0’d out their budget and the power company came to shut off the AC and wi-fi.)

  6. It’s funny to me that Trump is freaking out because Kamala is now his main opponent because his whole campaign was built around Joe is Old.

    Seems funnier as black women (particularly attorney generals) have been getting the better of the narcissistic fascist old fuck recently (like Kamala.)

    Still feels like a coup on Joe, but we shall see.

    • I’m starting to think that it was less of a coup and more of Joe accepting an inevitability. Joe, bless his heart, is Catholic and anti-abortion and has said so many years ago, and people remember. Age aside, he’s not the best person to lead the charge in an election that’s going to be almost entirely dominated by abortion rights. He’s reluctant to even say the word. That’s not his fault — SCOTUS dealt him that hand, and he’s tried to play it.

      I think everyone realizes that we have to lean into the abortion thing. WE HAVE TO. Kamala is just better positioned on that, and women voters are more likely to trust her than an old white guy, even if he is a stand-up dude.

      I think Joe accepted the inevitable a couple of weeks before the Repub convention, and then moved to shore up support and time the announcement perfectly to sucker MAGA into screaming about him for a week and then going whuh? Despite his age, Joe is an expert political operator. And the fact that Dems fell instantly and completely in line shows he knows what he’s doing. And he’s doing what he thinks is best to win the election.

      I still think he could have pulled it off, but one more “old” incident would have doomed the entire thing. And the gamble is just too risky.

      I wish Joe had run instead of Hilary back when. I think we could have avoided the orange stain on the country. But that’s not how it worked.

      • I think one of the best things I read this morning was that she got adept at prosecuting sexual predators, and now she’s running against one.  She likely won’t be shy about hammering on that point.

          • I still say he won’t debate her. He will just say he already “won” the debate with Joe and then he will delegitimize her as part of the party line that it’s somehow not fair. So if she wins it will be another bullshit talking point with them about how the election was “stolen” again.
            Congress had better have their security shut together in January.

            • …he already tried pleading to shift the venue to fox news, I believe…but…yeah…I fully expect a whole sob-story about how he agreed to debate an old white guy not a young not-so-white woman so it’s not fair if he isn’t the one pulling the bait & switch…& if all else fails…he’ll probably pull a sickie…which would be deeply ironic for a guy who turned up to one after testing positive for covid…but…still on-brand both ways?

      • There’s a chance too that it could peel off some republican voters if you lean heavy into the abortion issue. A chance. I would expect it would hurt local republican candidates more than Trump but fuck them all.

        Like Missouri was the first state to end abortion after Roe fell, and then they collected double the fucking numbers of signatures to get abortion on our November ballot to make it legal again in our state (I think it’s only up to 15 weeks, but fuck me that would still be a great improvement).

        Keep in mind that prior to Roe falling we had exactly 1 abortion clinic in the entire state (Planned Parenthood downtown St Louis), we had a stupid 3 day waiting period, and I think the metrics were like under 400 abortions a year provided.

        So like… For the vast majority of people living in this state it wasn’t even accessible and they’re still that fucking pissed it was taken away.

      • I think you’re right that Biden had made the decision before the GOP convention but kept it quiet to let Harris and a few insiders work out the details. If this had a been a genuine Hamlet act, you’d see a lot more chaos post announcement.

    • I knew she’d have to resign. I give no fucks about Trump, but that was a huge fucking security breach. As soon as people came forward showing video and saying they tried to warn the Secret Service, it was over for her. There’s no way civilians should be telling the Secret Service about security problems. Heading that stuff off is their entire job. And we can’t have them fucking up on the Harris or Biden details. Because you know there are MAGAs out there looking for opportunities.

      • Yeah stopped clocks and all, but the right was correct that she had to go. She shouldn’t be fired for being a woman (which was their dumb take) but your primary job is protect the president and that went REAL SIDEWAYS. You don’t get a second chance on something like that.

    • Andy Beshear speaks softly and with a lot of diplomacy but he’s no pushover. His Kentucky accent leads some people to underestimate him. He’s very smart and is a political animal having been raised in a popular KY DEM family. And he is ambitious. His messaging has remained consistent since his days as our AG. I see his name being thrown about as a possible veep. But ultimately I don’t think he’ll be the pick. I don’t think he has the clout just yet. But the exposure is great for him. I hope to see him in McConnell senate seat.

        • I think it’s interesting that the bulk of this list is from the aggressive progressive side of the party. It’s mostly governors who have been pushing both party building and passing legislation.

          How that would translate into actual White House action is unknowable, of course, but this is different from Clinton focusing on Kaine.

        • Andy never shies away from a fight. I think he’d be much more valuable in the Senate. And he’d run circles around a lot of the MAGA idiots there.

  10. i like that the border crisis is being compared to the rona years….

    yeah no shit numbers are way up now

    you remember being able to travel anywhere easily during the pandemic? coz i sure as fuck dont

    (tho admittedly the experience really depends on the country…or state i guess)

    (also unrelated….but i enjoyed the roots and bt)

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