Rip was getting a little worked up, not that we blame him, but we figured a day off would help him get over the hump.
Let’s move it along…
Do you guys know how hot it is in DC right now? Grateful folks were still able to pay their respects.
‘He never yielded’: mourners pay respects to John Lewis outside Capitol
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/28/john-lewis-capitol-casket-outside-in-state
‘Because of you, I’m here’: For scores paying respects to Lewis at Capitol, his legacy feels personal
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/07/28/john-lewis-public-viewing-capitol/?hpid=hp_local1-8-12_lewis-visitors-520pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans&itid=hp_rhp__local1-8-12_lewis-visitors-520pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans
Speaking of heat, someone’s in the hot seat:
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) asks Attorney General Bill Barr about federal officers descending on protesters near the White House ahead of a photo-op for President Donald Trump.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/07/28/pramila-jayapal-bill-barr-lafayette-park-vpx.cnn
Now that’s a chyron:
Whomst among us had “sex demons” on their bingo card? I say WHOMST?!
America is suffering. Trump offers them a doctor who warns of sex with demons.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/america-is-suffering-trump-offers-them-a-doctor-who-warns-of-sex-with-demons/2020/07/28/460fea3e-d0fb-11ea-8c55-61e7fa5e82ab_story.html
Trump remains a giant idiot:
Trump says he still thinks hydroxychloroquine works in treating early stage coronavirus
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/28/trump-says-he-still-thinks-hydroxychloroquine-works-in-treating-early-stage-coronavirus.html
Kamala Harris won’t say ‘sorry.’ It might cost her a chance at the vice presidency.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/28/kamala-harris-wont-say-sorry-it-might-cost-her-chance-vice-presidency/?hpid=hp_opinions-float-right-4-0_opinion-card-d-right%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans
Guys, we’ve pissed off the CANADIANS. Do you know how hard that is?
The world is realizing the U.S. is no longer committed to basic standards of decency
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/canada-gives-americas-treatment-of-refugees-a-failing-grade/2020/07/27/3eabeb8e-cdfa-11ea-b0e3-d55bda07d66a_story.html
Stonks!
Stock futures flat in overnight trading as investors eye Big Tech testimony, Fed decision
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/28/stock-market-futures-open-to-close-news.html
Remington Gun-Maker Files For Bankruptcy Protection For 2nd Time Since 2018
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/28/896160169/remington-gun-maker-files-for-bankruptcy-protection-for-2nd-time-since-2018
Sprots!
Are they piping in fake crowd noise or is it just me?
Put another one in the Win column for the Canadians!
Have a great day!
Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s interrogation of Barr was a thing of beauty. She brilliantly summarized that asshole’s vicious perversion of his office, and showed everyone that he’s a craven Trump lickspittle and white supremacist. It should be required viewing for everyone.
I actually don’t want Trump in jail any more — I think it would serve as a rallying cry for his base (not that I’d argue hard against it). But Barr needs to spend the rest of his life in prison. Seriously, if you have less character than Jeff Sessions, you’re basically a cockroach.
…I think you’re right about Barr…it surely seems like fucking with the justice department in the ways he has ought to be the kind of thing that winds up with you rotting in a cell for the rest of your days
…I think there’s a few names (like his & Mitch McConnell’s) that I might be able to come up with on a list of people I find potentially more deplorable than Dolt45 but I think the dubious lists are best left in other hands?
I’m so proud of Jayapal and how she has represented our area. She replaced a legend in Seattle politics, Jim McDermott, so had huge shoes to fill. I wish she was born in this country so she could run for president someday.
I got so sick listening to the rethuglicans go on and on about antifa, I had to change channels for 5 minutes and go back to listen to the dems. What a sack of shit they are. If they want to get with the program, they need to fear Gran-tifa!
It’s not you. I heard that during the Sox-O’s series and said, “What the fuck is this silliness?” Utter nonsense.
They are, NPR had a mention of it the other morning. It’s the sprots version of a laugh track.
I think it might be so you don’t hear what gets said on the field. During the riot/protests in Baltimore a few years ago they held a game with no crowd and you could hear the on-field banter over the broadcast. It wasn’t all family-friendly from what I understand.
I am really feeling the heat this year. It’s probably the seclusion and claustrophobia getting to me.
I was prompted by your mention of John Lewis’s public viewing to revisit some online photos of the 1963 March on Washington. It was held on August 28th. The crowd was about 1/4 million people. The women were wearing sundresses and the men suits and ties, some with hats. How did they not drop like flies?
Further research (a little too much time on your hands, Cousin Matt?) reveals that it was a mild day for late August in DC. It was in the 70s/low 80s with low–moderate humidity. Plus, a lot of the attendees had come up from the South so this might have felt more like early Fall for them.
Now you know. Happy Wednesday, everybody.
And yet, each day, I am even further shocked, appalled, and humiliated on behalf on the USA. Sex with demons causes gynecological issues? And the president espouses this fringe and dangerous (to women) view via a retweet? After I stopped myself from adding any puns or innuendo about devilish-good sex here, I Googled the demon sex thing. And what do you know? It is a whole odd area of belief. Here’s a straight-up serious book, Deliverance from Incubus & Succubus: Sex Demons of the Night. Sigh.
We’ve gone from MAGA to MAM – Make America Medieval.
If you want a good sense of how this happens, take a long look at how outlets like the AP, NY Times and NPR covered Dr. Demon Sperm.
Actually, it will be a really, really short look, because those outlets decided the beliefs of Trump’s lead expert weren’t worth mentioning at all. Their coverage of the whole thing was framed as a fight over Twitter standards, with her views simply as controversial or misleading.
I guess the NY Times feels the worst thing you can possibly say about a doctor who believes in diseases caused by dream sex with demons is “misleading.”
People write off the major press as simply being driven by money. But if that was true, they would be riding stories about this Illuminati reptilian alien advocate all the way to the bank. They are leaving serious dollars on the table so they can avoid saying embarassing and true things about Trump.
I’m not wild about Kamala as VP anyway–mostly due to her record as CA AG. Plus, it seems the DNC continues to fail to learn the lesson that the Republicans will call ANY Democrat a full blown Marxist no matter what the reality is. They should be angling for Joe to pick Warren, but they’re afraid that she’d be called a commie, so we’ll probably get Kamala because she’s “tough on crime” or some BS of that nature.
Regarding the Remington thing, I always thought the wildest part about it was the proposed deal to sell to the Navajo Nation. I’m not sure how I feel about the deal falling through. Chapter 11 isn’t liquidation so Remington will still be around, but it would have been a pretty sweet irony that a company which was directly responsible for the deaths of countless native tribes would have wound up getting owned by one of them.
I’m hoping for Susan Rice, if for no other reason, I miss the good ole days of watching the GOP lose their shit over Benghazi. She has the most experience in international relations which is what we are going to need to get out of our third world status the Orange Menace has put us in.
Kamala is the wrong choice for VP for many reasons. Politico might have leaked that she is ultimately the choice and, just like with Biden being VP, we have to live with it and the DNC’s lack of respect for their voters.
Last night I had a big-brain shower thought which I’m sure isn’t what’s going down, but here you go:
Kamala Harris signed onto a bill with Sanders and Markey to give American families 2k a month. I’m not familiar with her voting record at large, and these co-signings are often symbolic, but this does not seem like a move she’d make on her own. She’s not Schumer, but she’s not Elizabeth Warren. I have Googled but there is not a single article of other Senators discussing this bill. Sanders, Markey, and their allies in the House have been tweeting about it regularly, Harris tweeted about it recently and was on TV, but there’s radio silence and there is zero indication that this bill is even up for discussion.
Right now, the Dems are simply hoping to pass the HEROES Act mostly intact with their negotiations for financial relief for Americans. Steny Hoyer said that they’ll
let the GOP kick them in the ballsnegotiate the enhanced UI. But what if they can’t come to an agreement? Say that Biden announces Harris on August 1st with no deal in sight? Suddenly, the bill she’s signed up with the Progressives could be in the spotlight and the Senate and other Dems might be compelled to fall in line with their future VP.Again, I don’t think the Dems are actually trying to pull this off with deliberation, but I think this would be the natural consequence if a deal can’t be made.
I hate to go all “pragmatic” about this one, but…you have to think about it this way.
Biden is feeling an immense amount of pressure to pick a black woman as a running mate. Now we can sit here and debate why people feel he needs a black woman as a running mate, but…let’s say, hypothetically, he had selected Elizabeth Warren.
Joe’s campaign thus far has been all about not giving Trump easy bait, right? And, like…I hate to say it, but Warren is easy bait. Now we can argue the degree to which Joe should give a single, stinky shit about anything Papaya Pol Pot says. But from a pure optics standpoint, Biden picking a white woman over anyone black woman is going to cause some grumbling from a base of Democratic voters that…I won’t say they’re not going to vote, but I do think Biden is trying to not give them reasons not to vote.
And you give Trump, who has been completely unable to land a single, solitary punch on Biden, an easy target. Fair or unfair, Warren is often compared to Hillary. Fair or unfair, she’s still seen as too progressive by a segment of voters. Fair or unfair, Trump has a dumb nickname for her that exposes a claim Warren made.
Joe’s whole strategy at the moment is basically to give Trump NOTHING and let him spin in the fucking win. It’s why the only thing Republicans can come up with to attack him have to do more with Bernie and AOC than anything Joe has done.
Love it or hate it, Kamala Harris is the safe, boring choice that gives Trump and his campaign surrogates the least amount of shit to say. What the hell is Trump going to say? Kamala was a cop? Trump has uniformed secret police snatches innocent protesters, flashbanged and pepper sprayed protesters, has made numerous references to being violent towards protesters, and keeps insisting that cops or good people and the people protesting police brutality are protesters that need to get put down by any means necessary.
On literally everything else, Kamala is basically in sync policywise with Joe, except maybe on Medicare-for-All. And even then, Kamala switched what she wanted for Medicare For All when she started to get pressure on it, in the same way Warren did.
Trump’s got nothing on Kamala that can’t instantly be turned around on him. And inevitably, Trump or Pence or someone will say something stupid and sexist or probably both about her, and that only works in Joe’s favor.
Basically, Joe is running the most boring, “don’t rock the boat and give the other side something to sink their teeth into” campaigns ever and letting Trump flay himself on a near daily basis. It is frustrating and profoundly unexciting. But Joe doesn’t need to be exciting. He doesn’t need the most progressive platform ever. He doesn’t need to energize his base, because his base are sick to their back teeth with Trump, as is everyone.
In an age of hyper-partisanship and extreme polarization on everything from health care to wearing a mask, Joe is doing as little shit as possible to energize the other side. I’m fairly confident that even in the midst of a pandemic, people are going to find a way to vote against Trump, even if they’re not really voting for Joe. The trick here is to make sure that the other guys are unenthused and don’t turn out because they think Trump is going to lose.
Again, part of what’s killing Trump’s ability to campaign against Joe Biden is that Joe is so thoroughly mediocre that he can’t come up with a wacky nickname or poke holes in a policy position Biden has. If he can’t do that, then all he has is the racism and the sexism and the homophobia that feeds his base. But it increasingly only works on them. Meanwhile, the type of person who voted for Trump mostly as a fuck you to Hillary isn’t necessarily going to magically vote for Joe as has been suggested, but is more likely to say “fuck it, I’m not voting for either of these jerks” and stay home.
Joe appearing moderately competent in comparison to Trump constantly stepping onto what seems to be an infinite number of rakes helps solidify swing voters, and most people like us who don’t really fuck with Joe are probably still gonna vote for him regardless because we hate Trump more than we’re frustrated by Joe. Kamala Harris is a safe draft pick. She’s like taking an offensive linemen in the first round of the draft; typically that’s not a reach, and maybe you don’t end up with a Trent Williams, but you get a Brandon Scherff, and who doesn’t need a good guard?
The TL;DR is that Joe Biden has made the tactical decision that he does not need to excite us progressives to drive turnout out in this election and is actively trying to do as much to put forward a front of competence, and is selecting smart, capable people that prove that point. Kamala is capable. Not perfect, not Progressive, but capable. And I honestly don’t think he’s wrong to feel that way. Muh’fuckin’ Texas is almost kind of maybe in play, at least to the point that they’re spending money to just kinda see how it goes. People are not voting for Joe; they’re voting for a competent human who has at the very least passed a high school government class. I think Joe is trying to do as little as possible to make people change their minds about that.
I agree with your points. I’m not expecting Joe to bend to progressives, either in broader policy or by choosing a progressive as VP. Kamala is a competent person and would do just fine in the role. I think she’d be better as AG, though.
It was decided that a WOC would be the pick a long time ago. I was hoping it would be Stacey Abrams or even Val Demmings, but I suppose they’re a little obscure to be VP.
I don’t know if the DNC needs to run from accusations of communism, though, since Joe just sits there and gets accused of being a leftie anarchist. Obama was a communist, too, apparently. It will take another generation before the DNC stops playing the GOP game.
I’m picking up what you’re putting down. The GOP are gonna call Joe pinko commie socialist scum even if he adopts their entire platform but only adds “Black Lives Matter” somewhere in the margins.
Still, if you’re running a campaign to be as unoffensive as possible, then even the knowledge that you’re going to be called everything but a child of God by the Republicans no matter what you do is still a thing you have to consider. I would have loved Stacy Abrams, though admittedly she doesn’t have much experience. Then again, neither does the fucking President at literally fucking anything other than wasting copious amounts of other people’s money and getting away with it, and at least Abrams could probably define “democracy” without having to first look it up in a dictionary, and then have someone else read the definition, and then forget about it two seconds later.
“Joe Biden has made the tactical decision that he does not need to excite us progressives to drive turnout out in this election…”
I mean, we can pretty much say that about every single Democratic nominee since LBJ. So it seems even the election of the biggest shit stain since Andrew Johnson (and he needed a guy to die to become President) isn’t enough to wake the DNC up to the reality that they actually DO need to excite what Howard Dean referred to as “the Democratic wing of the Democratic party.” Do we honestly think the DNC’s thinking will EVER change on this point? Even if Joe loses this year and the next Democratic nominee is running against literally anyone the Republicans nominate, do you honestly think the DNC will wake up even then? No, they will not.
why risk your life (possible covid exposure) to go vote against trump, if all you want to do is take a stand against trump? you just don’t vote for trump. biden still needs people to vote for him. I don’t think biden can just sit it out. in non-pandemic years ‘sitting it out’ could be ok. but now?
people may say ‘yes, I will vote for sure’ to the pollsters. but will they risk it?
…& that, in a nutshell, is why the way they’re resorting to everything up to & including fucking up the entire postal service to try to make mail-in ballots unacceptable
…make voting easy & risk free & even Dolt45 knows you never see the GOP in power again the way thigs are going…so it’s not that I don’t take your point but I’d argue that the stuff Joe can’t sit out isn’t the stuff KC is saying he’s wise to leave the opposition flailing at as they twist in the wind
…it’s the fundamentals of elections 101…we should vote…being able to is a big deal & many in years gone by died to give those of us around today the chance to…except none of them would want people to have to maybe die for exercising it…& the inaction regarding securing those fucking electronic voting machines is a national disgrace piled on many others in terms of gerrymandering & the tactics of voter suppression the GOP rely on as standard practice
…mail-in ballots in a pandemic are a fucking no-brainer & Joe’s camp ought to be banging that drum like nobody’s business…imho & all that
“Kamala Harris is a safe draft pick. She’s like taking an offensive linemen in the first round of the draft; typically that’s not a reach, and maybe you don’t end up with a Trent Williams, but you get a Brandon Scherff, and who doesn’t need a good guard?”
I agree with ALL of your comment, KC, especially ^^this.
And I wanted to add in, from a woman’s perspective, there’s also the fact that honestly?
Women look at Harris (like we did Warren, and Hillary), and we see someone who KNOWS how to get shit done!💖
Like Joe, Hillary, and even Warren, she may not be exciting to plenty of folks…
But in today’s society, lnowing what Black women & other WOC have to put up with, it’s also pretty damn obvious that to get to the positions of power Harris has achieved, she’s ALWAYS been better, smarter, and sooooo much more savvy about *everything* than most (sometimes ALL!) of the folks around her.
And that skill, that level of smarts, and that kind of savviness is EXACTLY what a (love the guy’s friendship with Obama, but come ON, let’s be REAL here, people!😉) president Biden,with his innate propensity for *all.the.gaffes(!)* is going to need coming off the bench as VP💖
She’s a solid draft pick–just like KC explained.
I’d ALSO argue, that she’s *at least* as qualified as any man who’s run for VP, in my lifetime.
And I’d bet that in any other election year, a man with Harris’s qualifications & background would be seen as a perfect choice as a VP candidate💖
Why are the DNC so fucking obsessed with maintaining white moderates?! I mean I get that their donors are abjectly horrified of the demographic trends because these donors do not live in reality. They may make feable attempts to placate the toiling masses, and espouse ‘equality’ -but only if they are still more equal.
But do they not care about having political power? Appealing to those who are other, especially with regard to Medicare for All, police reform and pot legalization, and Warren’s economic policies of reigning in Corporate America would win them seats almost everywhere.
Sigh. Yes, I know I’ve basically answered my own question here. It is so utterly defeating to watch all this absolute bullshit happening and not have anyone actually DO anything about it.
For all my snark about construction projects, I don’t really want to have to resort to using “The French Method” of encouragement for change. I feel that doing so means we’ve lost. Though I fear it has been too long since the ruling class has been reminded that we out number them, and that people who have nothing to lose also have no fear of what happens as a result of their actions.
I said it in a lot more words above this post, by the gist of it is, Joe Biden and the DNC are not overly worried about exciting their progressive base, because a lot of their progressive base is gonna vote against Trump even if they’re not voting for Joe, and to basically hang back and look decent while Trump and his gaggle of crooks commit political sepukuu.
Also…I feel like as progressives we have a lot of policy positions that we think would win almost anywhere, but actually wouldn’t, because we as Americans have like, 6 or 7 decades of deeply ingrained political phobias and are as adverse to change we don’t understand as we’ve ever been.
Like, we can’t even get white people to understand what “defund the police” means, without them ringing their hands over what a world without police would be like. We can’t get people to agree on what single payer healthcare would even look like because most people don’t know what “single payer healthcare” is, which is why the public option tends to poll better. We as Americans have been told our ability to choose should trump everything else. Even if the public option is essentially just “free healthcare” or “heavily subsidized healthcare”, the fact the people have the option to choose if they want it is more convincing then the idea that BIG GOVERNMENT is going to force us to do anything.
Americans have been told that the wealthy corporations are job creators. We conflate any tax increase on the wealthy with a tax increase on anyone. We’ve been told marijuana is a gateway drug. Like…those are deep seated, long simmering things in the American culture that you can’t magically wish away. it would take masterful orator to make the case for a lot of those things, and we already had one of those, and America hated him so much they put an utter buffoon in the White House just because he happened to be black.
So while I understand the frustration with Democrats, the bottom line is that its going to take years of incremental change to get around the brainwashing that conservatives have done to the country, and simply insisting that people smarten up and not be idiots about stuff that could help them isn’t working. They’re obsessed with keeping moderates because America keeps voting for moderates and embracing moderate policy position and trying to maintain some sort of balance.
Progress is a marathon, not a sprint. And that fucking blows. But just consider for a moment that (white) Americans are only just now coming around to the idea that police brutality is a bad thing that should be stopped and that Black Lives Matter and that maybe the President shouldn’t be a blithering dumbass. WE JUST GOT HERE and it’s 20-gotdamn-20.
I think it is worth it for progressives to stop talking about the DNC, because if anyone is pulling the strings, it’s not them. The fiasco in the Iowa caucus shows they couldn’t rig a game of pin the tail on the donkey if they tried. AOC showing up and beating the #4 Democrat in the House with no major money or endorsements shows how vulnerable the actual party apparatus is.
I think what needs to be looked at instead are the money guys, the lobbyists, and the media figures who are calling the shots across the board. When the debate moderators became obsessed with the imbecilic question of raising taxes to pay for health care, that wasn’t a case of Jake Tapper being a puppet of the DNC. So the focus should be instead how to hit back at the Jake Tappers of the world. When the Democrats signed off on the GOP’s luxury hotel payout in the COVID relief bill, the issue should be identifying the lobbyists and corporations behind it, and making them toxic.
that’s why ‘defund the police’ made me apprehensive. personally I agree with ‘defund the police’ 1000%. but I really have my doubts as to how good it is politically. white people hear dtp and go bonkers.
Polling has been surprisingly good on defund the police, with a significant majority reading it as “reform the police” rather than eliminate them. It’s tracked widespread support for Black Lives Matters protests in general.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the motivation is tied into general unhappiness with Trump and his authoritarianism, rather than any particular interest in the issues of police funding. But I do think that there is a lot of unhappiness with the police among a majority of people, and I think it has been brewing for a long time. People don’t see much value for what they’re paying for, and this extends into a lot of white communities. They see a cluster of police cars in the fast food parking lot, guys who take hours to show up for a call, and speed traps. And now they get stuff on the TV showing tanks, rubber bullets and tear gas. A lot of white people wonder what it’s all for.
They don’t care about political power as long as they get to keep their money. This means they spend more time and protecting themselves against those dirty commies, than they do protecting the world against psychotic Republicans, because Republicans will always protect the money anyway.
Please drop dead, please drop dead!
https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/07/29/louis-gohmert-who-refused-to-wear-a-mask-tests-positive-for-coronavirus-386076
Gohmert-freude?
We’ve got, what, 8 members of Congress who have tested positive? Not a damned one of those fucking Republicans will change their party-line tune. It’s better to not be perceived as caving to a bunch of pussy Democrats than it is to demonstrate actual leadership.
Please let Bill Barr contract it!
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/madonna-coronavirus-conspiracy_n_5f213f6ec5b66859f1f412e6?ri18n=true
Like a Karen, Demanding the Manager for the very first time!
Yep, Madonna can go fuck off. Apparently she’s auditioning to be Gwyneth Paltrow’s crazy aunt…
it’s not just you!