#this is the most insulting talking point of the Biden campaign

[whitehotharlots]

The left-ish void

Lot of understandably intense reactions to the tweet screenshotted above, which was posted by some member of Biden administration about 600 days into Russia's invasion of Ukraine and two weeks after a Hamas invasion of Israeli territory triggered a barrage of retaliatory bombings and a blockade of all food, fuel, and potable water into Gaza.

The first point is the most obvious: it takes a lot of nerve to decry Islamophobia and antisemitism after providing many billions of dollars of support to neonazis in Ukraine and openly genocidal zionists in Israel. If a person were insane or stupid enough to believe that all forms of hate are indeed connected and that they emanate from the a singular "place," that place would likely exist somewhere inside the the United States' military and security state apparatuses.

This observation misses a fundamental point, however: people are indeed insane and stupid enough to believe what Biden's twitter account is asserting. And this fact alone is more troubling than the routine hypocrisy expressed with the tweet. Because, seriously... what in god's name does this even mean?

This is every bit as incoherent as the old Bushisms that NPR listeners once scoffed at. It reflects a Kindergartener's understanding of foreign policy and is presented in the language of a preschooler. Calling it pabulum would be an insult to the infants who drink literal pabulum. It is the diplomatic equivalent of the high-pitched mumbles I make when I encounter a new puppy, only less coherent and more shameful. And it's coming at a time when the world is teetering on the brink of total collapse.

Is the Commander in Chief of the world's largest and most aggressive military suggesting that international conflicts transpire due to the presence of metaphysical hatred? That the brutalities stemming from these conflicts would have been avoided if only leaders had streamed the correct TED Talks or been yelled at by more DEI ladies? That a response to NATO expansion, the normalization of white nationalist paramilitaries, the brutalities of irregular war, the massacre of kids at an EDM festival, the targeted bombing of ambulances, and a clear statement of intent to starve 2 million+ concentration camp prisoners to death are all not only caused by the same thing but somehow equivalent to kids using slurs on Xbox Live?

For the longest time, I was certain that no one actually took this stuff seriously. And I was probably right, most of the time. I'll bet my last dollar that whomever in the Hillary campaign posted that moronic intersectionality diagram did so out of raw cynicism. But now... now I'm worried that this truly is the scope of left-liberal analysis. What started as a means of destroying the small whiff of 2016's class consciousness has been codified into official policy. Our leaders now sincerely believe that "hate" is some kind of magic, unstoppable, unknowable force with limitless causal potential. Nothing is or could ever be our fault. Effect does not stem from cause. It's all ghosts and spirits and vibes.

This would be funny, perhaps, if these people did not have the power to kill every living thing on earth. But they do. And we are at their mercy.

[littlecornerinbrooklyn]

the thing i took away from studying politics is that poli-sci advisors on campaigns are often just repeating the Last Thing That Worked and they REALLY don't like when anyone point out that the circumstances have changed

anyway, getting the country to vote for Biden out of fear of a second trump presidency worked for them once, and the DNC doesn't seem to understand that circumstances have radically shifted (and that they straight up admitted to rigging the primary against Bernie--who is not my favorite candidate but you...literally can't do that??)

we've now had a Biden term as president, and many MANY people who voted for him have been disillusioned by his actions--his ratings have been low the entire time he's been in office, he hasn't completed major campaign promises (and shamed people for having expectations that he would, in fact, follow through), and he's running this campaign in ways that make me, a lifelong dem, very uncomfortable

I don't like that he didn't debate other nominees. I find that insulting to democracy as a whole. I really don't like that I'm being called childish for having very real concerns about the type of government he's running, about his diplomatic appointees getting the positions via favors more than their diplomacy expertise, about his approach to covid (and denialism), about the way he seems to think that a second term is a foregone conclusion, that he doesn't have to earn my vote.

My vote for him.

(I'm very worried about the state of election politics in America. My heart is breaking everytime I read someones diatribe about how we should all shut up and eat our bloated military budget flavored peas, don't we know how lucky we are to have peas at all? Who CARES if those peas are indiscriminately killing people, how dare you complain about the flavor???)

anyway, he hasn't won the nomination yet. the right time to talk about it IS now. I wish I had higher expectations of the man who leads this country, who was pitched to voters as a man who understood the impact of death and grief. But the lack of surprise might be the most devastating part for me, emotionally.

I love democracy. I love voting. I love the will of the people being the most important guiding principle of government actions.

I hate that the precariousness of our constitutional freedoms is being used against us, that fear is the primary reason they're using to sway me.

I don't want to be afraid. I want to be elated. I want to be hopeful. I want to be supportive, even! None of that is possible if Biden is the nominee.

[warningsine]

The United Auto Workers announced that it won at least 95 percent support for a possible strike at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis if negotiations fail to produce a contract by the September 14 deadline, with an average of 97 percent across the three companies.

The vote, which was expected, does not mean there will be a stoppage, but it gives newly-installed UAW President Shawn Fain an additional point of leverage in talks. Fain has criticized the companies for dragging their feet during the negotiations thus far.

"Our union's membership is clearly fed up with living paycheck-to-paycheck while the corporate elite and billionaire class continue to make out like bandits," said UAW President Shawn Fain. "The Big Three have been breaking the bank while we have been breaking our backs."

The UAW's push comes in a period dubbed #HotLaborSummer as unions flex muscles in a still-tight employment market. Hollywood has been virtually shut down by writer and actor strikes, while UPS avoided a stoppage following difficult negotiations.

A strike at all three companies would involve about 150,000 workers, with a potentially wide-ranging economic impact on suppliers and industry-adjacent services.

The talks are on the radar of President Joe Biden, who recently called for a "fair" contract that ensures workers' rights are strengthened during the transition to electric vehicles (EVs).

Fain has signaled a willingness to strike at all three companies, although labor experts think if there is a strike, a stoppage at just one company is more likely.

Fain has argued workers should get the same 40 percent salary boost given to auto executives. Other demands include a restoration of cost of living adjustments (COLA), guaranteed pensions for all workers and elimination of a multitiered compensation system.

The pandemic helped "create a sense among the American workforce that they don't have to tolerate bad working conditions anymore," said Michelle Kaminski, a professor at Michigan State University who specializes in labor relations.

"These are the most favorable conditions for unions in decades," she said.

Reform candidate

Fain, 54, who worked as an electrician at a Stellantis factory in Indiana, narrowly won the first UAW presidential election with direct voting by rank-and-file members. The voting was overseen by a court-appointed monitor after a corruption scandal led to prison terms for two former UAW presidents.

In the campaign, Fain ran as a reformer, criticizing other UAW leaders for an overly cozy approach with management and a legacy of plant closures and lower pay for junior employees.

He has maintained an aggressive posture since taking office, shunning a ceremonial handshake with auto CEOs when the talks kicked off.

In a streamed bargaining update earlier this month Fain plunked Stellantis' proposal in the trash, a gesture the company criticized as "theatrics and personal insults."

Stellantis said it was committed to reaching an agreement "based on economic realism" that reflects the pressures of competing with nonunionized automakers.

"Agreeing to Mr. Fain's demands could endanger our ability to make decisions in the future that provide job security for our employees," Stellantis said in a letter to employees.

GM said it has "been working hard with the UAW every day to ensure we get this agreement right for all our stakeholders," while Ford said it looks "forward to working with the UAW on creative solutions ... when our dramatically changing industry needs a skilled and competitive workforce more than ever."

Compromise?

Fain's strategy with the Detroit Three has taken a page from that of Teamsters President Sean O'Brien, who also presented regular livestream updates and organized "practice pickets" at UPS.

UPS workers overwhelmingly approved a contract that included hefty wage increases and an elimination of a two-tier wage system.

Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein, who noted the UAW's long history of striking, said Fain could "claim victory" with hefty wage hikes and elimination of the tiered system.

Harry Katz, a professor at Cornell's School of Industrial & Labor Relations, said a compromise could include a cost-of-living adjustment and a narrowing of pay gaps in tiers.

Fain "will definitely deliver a favorable contract," Katz said. "It's all a question of how favorable."

But Katz said there is also a decent chance of a strike if either side misreads the situation. While the UAW has some leverage over the carmakers, it has less compared with the Teamsters in the UPS case, given the heavy number of US vehicles built by nonunion automakers.

#United Auto Workers #us #General Motors #Stellantis

[worldofwardcraft]

How to win a Republican primary.

July 25, 2022

Want to run for public office as a Republican? You're in luck. Here's a sure-fire, can't-miss formula for enticing dim-bulb conservative rubes and prevailing over your competitors in any GOP primary election. So if your ambition is political success as a Republican, your campaign definitely needs to do the following.

Make frequent and worshipful mentions of Donald Trump. The most desirable situation for your candidacy, of course, is to have landed his endorsement. But while that might prove helpful in your primary, it can also be a distinct disadvantage in the general election. Nevertheless, if you're unable to score his seal of approval, wear a red MAGA hat at all times and make his picture prominent in your ads.

Repeat over and over again how you're a conservative because all your primary opponents will be sure to call you a liberal or a cuck or a woke RINO (the worst possible insult). Also, emphasize that you're a Christian. The right kind of Christian. Who believes in Christian values. Might be a good idea to wear a cross, too.

While you're peddling values, call attention to your strong belief that women should be property rather than persons. Point to your hatred of gays, trans kids, immigrants (with regular references to "illegals" and "open borders"), the homeless, libruls and anyone who's not certifiably white. Loudly proclaim your goal to "take back our country."

Make up something, anything you think the left could be doing for your voters be very angry about. Like the 2020 "stolen election," Hunter Biden's laptop, critical race theory, antifa, socialism, teachers "grooming" kids, inflation, cancel culture, it really doesn't matter. Keep stoking that rage and declare you're a fighting fighter who will fight against whatever manufactured grievance needs fighting.

Finally — and this is mandatory — your campaign ads absolutely must show you holding some kind of gun, no matter how awkwardly (pictured above). You should also declare your everlasting fealty to the 2nd Amendment and your willingness to defend it to the death when Joe Biden comes to take away everybody's firearms. After all, according to an analysis by the New York Times, Republican candidates were either shooting guns or talking about guns in more than 100 TV campaign ads so far this year.

Failure to obey these guidelines will almost certainly spell defeat in your GOP primary. On the other hand, there's no guarantee of victory if you follow them, either. Because, unfortunately for you, every other Republican will be doing exactly the same.

#Republican Candidates #Republican Primary #MAGA idiots

[politijohn]

#this is the most insulting talking point of the Biden campaign #politics #us politics #science also applies to marijuana #and climate change #and criminal justice reform #and health care goddamn it #government #the left #twitter post #activism #progressive #centrism #neoliberalism #democrats

[antoine-roquentin]

best result for the gop among asian people since 2008, latinx people since 2004, and black people since reagan got 14%, tying bob dole’s 12% in 1996. weirdly, people are reading blame into these charts when it’s clear that some sober-minded analysis should be done as to why the supposedly more racist candidate doubled his vote among black women. when you remember that biden wrote the 1994 crime bill and that racists like richard spencer, curtis yarvin, rahm emanuel, madeleine albright, bill kristol, max boot, jeffrey goldberg, bret stephens, george will, rick wilson, eliot cohen, stanley mcchrystal, william mcraven, miles taylor, tony blair, rick snyder, david cameron, moe davis, joe lieberman, and others felt comfortable enough to endorse and vote for him, people responsible for untold numbers of deaths, then it starts to make a bit more sense.

this all brings to mind a new york times article from september:

The results are sobering. We began by asking eligible voters how “convincing” they found a dog-whistle message lifted from Republican talking points. Among other elements, the message condemned “illegal immigration from places overrun with drugs and criminal gangs” and called for “fully funding the police, so our communities are not threatened by people who refuse to follow our laws.”

Almost three out of five white respondents judged the message convincing. More surprising, exactly the same percentage of African-Americans agreed, as did an even higher percentage of Latinos.

These numbers do not translate directly into support for the Republican Party; too many other factors are at play. Nevertheless, the results tell us something important: a majority across the groups we surveyed did not repudiate Trump-style rhetoric as obviously racist and divisive, but instead agreed with it.

Hispanics, of course, are no more monolithic than any other group, and internal differences influenced how individuals reacted. The single biggest factor was how respondents thought about Hispanic racial identity. More than whether the individual was Mexican-American or from Cuba, young or old, male or female, from Texas, Florida or California, how the person perceived the racial identity of Latinos as a group shaped his or her receptivity to a message stoking racial division.

Progressives commonly categorize Latinos as people of color, no doubt partly because progressive Latinos see the group that way and encourage others to do so as well. Certainly, we both once took that perspective for granted. Yet in our survey, only one in four Hispanics saw the group as people of color.

In contrast, the majority rejected this designation. They preferred to see Hispanics as a group integrating into the American mainstream, one not overly bound by racial constraints but instead able to get ahead through hard work.

The minority of Latinos who saw the group as people of color were more liberal in their views regarding government and the economy, and strongly preferred Democratic messages to the dog-whistle message. For the majority of Latinos, however, the standard Democratic frames tied or lost to the racial fear message. In other words, Mr. Trump’s competitiveness among Latinos is real.

But our research also suggests good news. There’s a winning message Mr. Biden and his party can deliver that resonates with most Hispanics no matter how they conceptualize the group’s racial identity.

The key is to link racism and class conflict. The pivot we recommend was also the most convincing message we tested among whites and African-Americans.

Democrats should call for Americans to unite against the strategic racism of powerful elites who stoke division and then run the country for their own benefit. This is not to deny the reality of pervasive societal racism. But it does direct attention away from whites in general and toward the powerful elites who benefit from divide-and-conquer politics.

This is the race-class approach that one of us helped pioneer. It fuses issues of racial division and class inequality, and by doing so shifts the basic “us versus them” story — the staple of most political messaging — away from “whites versus people of color” to “us all against the powerful elites pushing division.”

Here’s what this looks like:

We had come so far, but now Covid-19 threatens our families — for instance with health risks, record unemployment and losing the businesses we worked hard to build. To overcome these challenges, we need to pull together no matter our race or ethnicity. But instead of uniting us, certain politicians make divisions worse, insulting and blaming different groups. When they divide us, they can more easily rig our government and the economy for their wealthy campaign donors. When we come together by rejecting racism against anyone, we can elect new leaders who support proven solutions that help all working families.

This message was more convincing than the dog-whistle message among Hispanics no matter how they saw the group’s racial identity. It also beat the dog-whistle message among African-Americans and whites.

To understand why this works, it helps to compare it to the standard Democratic responses to Mr. Trump’s messages stoking racial fear.

One standard reaction is to directly challenge Mr. Trump as a bigot while also condemning structural racism. We tested a message like this. It said, in part,

Certain politicians promote xenophobia, racism and division. And it’s not just their words. It’s their policies, too. We see it in how they rip families apart at the border. And in how the police profile, imprison and kill Black people.

Compared with the dog-whistle fear message, this “call out racism” message lost among whites, perhaps unsurprisingly. It also lost among those Latinos who did not perceive themselves as people of color.

Denouncing racism against Latinos seems like an obvious strategy to those of us who see ourselves as people of color and are outraged by Mr. Trump’s denigrating language and his administration’s violence toward Latin-American immigrants. Yet this approach ignores the fact that our racial self-conception is not shared by a majority of Hispanics, who seem to balk at understanding themselves as people of color under racist attack.

The other standard Democratic response to dog whistling is to sidestep racial issues as much as possible. Let’s call this the “colorblind” approach, which we also tested. Our version partly said,

We live in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, but Covid-19 illnesses and deaths are worse here than almost anywhere else. We must elect new leaders who have a plan and are ready to build this country back, better.

This approach seeks to build a coalition by emphasizing shared concerns, for instance around health care or the economy, while avoiding divisive conversations about racism. But it is dog-whistle racism that cleaved the white working and middle classes from the Democratic Party in the first place, and failing to counter that strategy directly leaves its potency intact. In our research, the colorblind message basically tied the racial fear message among whites as well as the majority of Hispanics.

In contrast, Democrats can build common cause across economic classes and racial groups with a race-class approach.

We tested seven race-class messages woven around different issues, including immigration reform and criminal justice. Among whites — often seen as more likely to be comfortable with messages that avoid challenging racism — all seven race-class messages beat the colorblind narrative. Indeed, five beat or tied the dog-whistle message, something the colorblind message failed to accomplish.

Framing racism as a class weapon also proved effective at nurturing support for racial justice reforms. The race-class approach urges people to view the real threat in their lives as emanating from powerful elites stoking division, not from supposedly dangerous minorities.

[creepingsharia]

How to Steal an Entire Country

Biden “will make America weak again, dependent upon others again, full of Made in China again, and friends to jihadists again — it'll be Obama II...”

By Donald Finley

It's been over a month since the election, and all is not well in Mudville.  The home team fights round the clock to prove that the challenger cheated, and the challenger makes no effort to calm fears or address concerns — just continues naming cronies and planning not just to take over the ballpark, but to change the rules for the entire sport.

For those who care, the internet still exists, and there are more sites than Twitter, Facebook and news services out there where the truth actually matters.  So why does anyone have to search for the truth?  Investigations and impeachments have been blasted forcefully into our faces for years, thanks to the author of the MSM's Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Joseph Goebbels, of Third Reich fame, who said, "The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly — it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. ... A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth."  It appears he also wrote the SOPs for Facebook, one of which is clearly "propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will."

Now, all across the MSM, Biden's "victory" consequences are given the fait accompli treatment.  We should all just behave and accept reality.  It sounds and reads like this: "Trump is baselessly contesting the results."  "Trump campaign court cases have been thrown out due to baseless claims."  All the "doing" is from the Trump side, and it's wasting everyone's time.  The Democrats haven't done a thing, obviously.  They are the innocent victims, once again, of Trump's craziness.  "Meanwhile, President-Elect Biden saw his shadow again today."

There is nothing baseless about what happened.  It's clear the Democrats planned this for quite some time, focusing on the battleground states, and centrally synchronizing and executing their Transition Integrity Project war-gamed plan.  They prepped the battlefield with lawsuits all across the country to remove any teeth in election laws, thus making the commission of fraud much easier and its discovery much harder.  And here is what they did.  And here.  And here.  And here.  More here.  Just check it out.  I recommend getting a head start and caring now; otherwise, it will be a big shock when you care later, and you will certainly care later.

So there's a growing mountain of evidence that President Trump was re-elected.  If the election had been conducted according to existing laws, there would be no question.  If only legal ballots were counted, there would be no question.  If the Democrats hadn't fabricated so many illegal votes, there would be no question.  But there is a question, and it's this: how are we going to make this right?  This is no conspiracy theory; it's a real conspiracy, across many states, involving the highest levels of Democrat elected officials, down to hapless election volunteers just following directions.  It was a conspiracy to steal the federal election for Joe Biden or, in other words, to remove Donald Trump from office, something Democrats have been openly trying to do for at least four years.

All the guilty Democrats believe that if they act the propaganda out, it will actually happen.  Why don't they call for transparency?  Because they don't want it.  It will expose them for what they are.  Don't they want to eliminate the cloud of illegitimacy in the election?  No, because they built it; it's about power, not legitimacy.  What about their reputations in being associated with a fraudulent election?  They don't care what we think of them; they want their shot at wielding power and getting rich from taxpayer dollars, book deals, and speaking fees.  There is no MAGA in what the Democrats did, nor in what they plan to do.  If they are allowed to do it, there will be no America left to make great.

Like the home title theft commercials, this is entire country and cultural theft.  Every MAGA policy will be reversed if Biden is allowed to take the Oval Office.  He will make America weak again, dependent upon others again, full of Made in China again, and friends to jihadists again — it'll be Obama II, the narcissistic pronoun president again.  "I," "Me," and "My" will dominate every speech again, which will repeatedly lecture to us, "That's not who we are," as something we absolutely are is insulted in favor of some more egalitarian socialist-globalist replacement.  Under a Democrat administration, "we" real Americans who love "our" nation and don't want "our" prosperity given to China so Hunter Biden can get rich again will slowly watch "our" Constitution, freedom, history, democracy, tradition, and independence chip away.

Because the Democrats are so self-centered, they have framed the governance of the U.S. as them versus Donald Trump.  They have fought everything Trump because he has fought their corruption with his promise to "Drain the Swamp."  But this is much bigger than Donald Trump, and he has openly said so.  It's not whether he wins or loses this election; it's whether the U.S. ever again holds a free and fair election.  To the Democrats, it's "Donald Trump's investigations can destroy many of us in the next four years and we'll never win another election" versus "Donald Trump goes away, and so do his investigations of Democrat crimes (and as a bonus, Joe Biden will let us do whatever we want and we'll ensure we never again lose an election)."  In framing it in such a way, the Democrats' thirst for power at all costs created the circumstances whereby they couldn't succeed without doing grave damage to the country.  That's where we are, with our election system shattered, void of the electorate's trust, and those who did the damage potentially and ironically poised as the only ones who can fix it.  The epitome of "the fix is in."

In the end, it comes down to this: what does it mean to have right versus wrong, corrupt versus honest, truth versus lies, fair versus stolen all work out backwards?  The last place on Earth the rest of the world would have thought that possible is right here.  "Our" America.  Abraham Lincoln said, "We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth."  He was talking about slavery, an evil that needed to be purged from our nation, lest we lose our nation altogether.

There are many evils, but today the foremost evil we must address is the Democrat party's corruption of our national election.  We all know what happened, and what the right thing is.  We need to fix it.  Now.  The details and the prison terms can be figured out later.

Donald N. Finley is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel.

---------------------------------------------------------

image source: Transition Integrity Project

Go to https://stopthesteal.us/ to see how you can help in your state or nationally.

#News #Politics #Media #Life #Legal #Law #Biden #Obama #Election #Elections #StopTheSteal

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 3, 2020

Heather Cox Richardson

One of my children asked me once if people living through the Great Depression understood just how bad their era would look to historians. I answered that, on the whole, I thought not. People are focused on what’s in front of them: finding work, feeding their kids, trying to keep it together, making it through the day. It’s only when historians look back to gauge an era that they put the full picture together.

So for those who cannot see it: we are in one of the most profound crises of American history.

We are in the midst of a vicious pandemic that is killing us at an astounding rate while the administration ignores it or, worse, exacerbates it by encouraging our neighbors to think that wearing masks and social distancing to protect lives is somehow a political statement they must resist. Cases of coronavirus are spiking across the country. Hospitals are overwhelmed and health care workers exhausted. More than 14 million Americans have been infected with the virus and more than 276,000 of us have died of it. Today saw over 211,762 new cases and 2,858 deaths. Tomorrow will likely be worse.

The pandemic has crippled our economy. After a brief recovery this summer, it is faltering again. More than 20 million Americans are receiving some sort of jobless benefits. Pressure is building for some sort of federal aid package to provide relief and stimulate the economy to bridge us over the next months as vaccines are distributed. But until that happens, people need to work to keep food on their tables and a roof over their heads, so they cannot lock down to stop the spread of the disease.

The president of the United States is ignoring the pandemic, instead spending his time fighting against the results of last month’s election. The president’s opponent, Democrat Joe Biden, won the election handily, by close to 7 million votes and by a majority of 306 to 232 in the Electoral College. But Trump, supported by loyalists, continues to insist he has won, even though the states he claims will swing the Electoral College behind him have already certified their votes for Biden.

The attack of a president on the outcome of an election is unprecedented. Four times in American history, a candidate who has won the popular vote has lost in the Electoral College but the loser has bowed to our system, even though, curiously, it has always been a Republican who won under such circumstances and never a Democrat—indeed, Trump won in 2016 under just such a scenario.

In this instance, though, there is no misalignment between the popular vote and the Electoral College. Biden has won both, handily. And yet, the president is actively attacking the results and the underlying democratic system that produced them. His supporters are asking him to declare martial law and seize power, although the military has denounced this idea and those supporting it are making such increasingly wild claims that at some point they simply must fall apart. Indeed, there is reason to believe Trump's claims of fraud are simply a grift: his campaign was effectively broke before the election and he has raised more than $207 million since it. But, money grab or not, this is an unprecedented assault on our democracy.

There are, though, signs that change is in the wind. For all his drama, Trump is losing relevance. Today Congress finalized its draft of the defense authorization bill, and in it members of both parties pushed back on Trump’s demands. They refused to reduce the number of troops in Germany and South Korea, as he announced he would do in what appeared to be an attempt to weaken U.S. ties to Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), our military alliance there. Congress also ignored Trump’s demands to strip technology companies of liability protections (apparently he is angry when insulting names for him trend on Twitter) and his insistence that he would veto any measure that called for renaming military bases currently named for Confederate generals, a plan endorsed by members of both parties.

The measure also more directly rebukes Trump for things he either has already done or hasn’t done and should have. It orders the Secretary of Defense to report on Russian bounties offered to Taliban-linked fighters in Afghanistan for killing U.S. troops, limits how much military funding the president can move to domestic projects—as Trump tried to do for his border wall—and requires that federal law enforcement officers “visibly display” their names and the names of their agency when engaged in public responses. This summer, the officers dispatched to the streets of Washington, D.C., and other cities could not be identified. In another rebuke to the summer’s police violence, the measure also prohibits the Pentagon from handing off bayonets, certain combat vehicles, and weaponized drones to state and local law enforcement.

It is not just Congress that is pushing back on the president. Today the Associated Press broke the story that within the last two weeks, a political operative Trump had installed at the Department of Justice has actually been banned from the building after pressuring staffers to give her information about investigations, including those about the 2020 election. Heidi Stirrup, the appointee, is an ally of Trump adviser Stephen Miller. Today Trump appointed her to the board of visitors of the Air Force Academy. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo notes that it’s unlikely a Trump ally would have been physically removed from the Justice Department in the days before the election turned Trump into a lame duck.

In the first interview President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris have given since the election, aired tonight on CNN, they reiterated their support for all Americans and their determination to combat the coronavirus pandemic, saying they would ask everyone to commit to wearing a mask for the first 100 days of their administration. Harris told journalist Jake Tapper: “There couldn't be a more extreme exercise in stark contrast between the current occupant of the White House and the next occupant of the White House,” and the country will be better for the change, she said.

But it was CNN journalist Don Lemon who summed up this changing moment best. He told Tapper: “[I]t feels like we are watching ... a president-elect and a president who are on Earth One and Earth Two. And at this particular Earth that is in reality, it was very normal, very sedate. And it was welcoming news. It was good to watch. It was good to actually get content. We heard no fake news. We heard no conspiracy theories. We heard no personal grievances. We heard a President-Elect and a vice president who want to work with the other side.”

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Quotes #political #election 2020 #Heather Cox Richardson #global pandemic #COVID-19 #the plague #Letters From An American #Mad King

[and-the-world-is-quiet-here]

Live 2020 debate commentary from a salty, disabled, and VERY pissed gen Z

 Yall he just said he’s immune

My dad just left the room

Bitch are u saying Johnson and Johnson is going to make the vaccine?

sir that’s the diaper company…..smh

Biden just said its going to be a dark winter

#winter is coming

“virus.....that came from china” -trump 2020

“were learning to live with it”-trump 2020

apparently “Biden lives in his basement”-your president 2020

totally accurate.....obviously

ohhhh biden just said were learning to die with it

trump interrupted biden

Mam I thought you said you were muting them?

biden laugh count at 3

he all about the once percent till its the dead ones

trump interrupting at 3...nvm its now 4

this debate is making my dog sad

interrupting now at 5 for trump

trump saying his young sons illness just “went away”

bitch he’s may age and no it did not just “go away”

he was in quarantine for two weeks

apparently nyc is a ghost town 

its not a ghost town trump I live right next to it

loudest neighbors ever

trump don’t call him Anthony

his name is DOCTOR Fauci

treat him with the respect he deserves

Biden looks so sad

nvm he legit looks like the joker right now

HALFWAY MARKKK

why is this at 9?

sir its a school night

I need time to scroll through my feed for hours before collapsing

Biden don’t use the word sovereignty

trump doesn't know what it means

thats discrimination against trumps

ohhh hes attacking hunter (biden) again

so he has a wee drug problem?

at this point everyone got one!

your the one making lewd comments about your infant daughter on national tv

(look it up he talks about his 6 month old daughters legs but and breasts)

get him big b!!

h876689908776- my dog 2020

he wants to express his disappointment

the light boxs is stealing his mother attention

ohh hes being rude to the moderator again

u a strong independent Indian woman get him girll!

mute his mike

prty plz

I am dissapionted in you

he’s saying he’s not allowed to release his taxs

(that is a proven lie)

“i was put through a phony witch hunt”- you'll never guess 2020

hes going after his BROTHER now

how is this allowed?

who decided trumps strategy would be to accuse his opponent of his own crimes?

look at the insults guys its a crystal ball

stay ahead of the scandal's

WILL YOU LEAVE HIS SON ALONE PLEASE

THESE ARE HIS CHILDREN LEAVE THEM ALONE

“i was a business man doing business”-trump 2020

no sir you were another rich white guy taking advantage of tax brakes and cheap foreign labor in asia

#american jobs as long as i don’t have to pay minimum wage

#you know like a DECENT FUCKING PERSON

Trump interrupted again

I lost count a while ago

Biden is staring into my soul

oh Biden just played the middle class childhood card

I haven't heard a single mute so far?

trump just said his bromance with kim jung un saved america from nuclear war

dont through my boy Obama under the bus

and another interruption

my big bro just screamed “MUTE BUTTON MUTE BUTTON MUTE BUTTON”

honestly same

10 more min guys

hang in there

OHHH trump just got MUTEDDDDDD

Biden is now on legitimate policy 

ahhh hes proud of his plan

annd trump just interrupted

trump just kissed up to the moderator

trump just said biden’s more liberal than bernie

ohhh

biden just said trump dosent know who hes running against

hes like “this is joe biden”

like I know bro but slick burn anyway

ohhh they muted trump again!!!!

perfect opportunity to mute missed

trump just blamed healthcare issues on nancy peloski

biden says the the republicans wont pass it

(btw hes actualy right)

2 mins left

and trump is speaking through it

1 min left

omg what a waste of air

I really want him to test his “immunity”

preferably during a harsh winter

ITS TEN GUYSSS

there running over

they still haven't covered immigration

shit

I have just learned there is 30 min left

I think I would rather kill myself than watch the rest of this

I’m seriously have a sensory overload right now

I’m doing this for u

“children are brought here by coyotes”-presedentail cown 2020

what a wack ass sentence

hes like ohIi haven't been putting kids in cages

and then just went but I didn't build them they were built in 2014

(contradiction much)

“who built the cages”

“who built the cages”

“who built the cages”

yes it was Obama but guess what

THEY WERNT BUILT FOR KIDS

there ment to house animals, evidence, and adult prisoners in emergency situations

THEY WERNT MENT FOR 3 YEAR OLDS

Biden was just like “well no actually kids come with PARENTS”

(kids hardly ever come over with out parents)

and then he was like and also WHO LOST TRACK OF OVER 1,000 PARENTS

(thats 500+ new orphans at the least)

hes saying only the illegal immigrants with the lowest IQs come back after being deported

we said the same thing in december about you but ya’know

my mum was like “anyone eating chocolate” and I was like “im snaking on this ignorance” and she was like “dont do that you'll get indigestion”

“no one has done more for the black community then Donald trump except for maybe Abraham Lincoln”

oh yeah Biden just brought up how trump publicly campaigned for the execution of the central park 5

WHO WERE CHILDREN

AND OH YEAH THEY WERE COMPLETELY INNOCENT

trump just yelled at Biden, got muted, and just yelled louder

trump just said he cant see the audience but hes the least racist person in the room

“Abraham lincoln here is one of the most racist presidents in american history”- biden 2020

biden just went “oh god”

he just said that he used to not support the blm movement because they chanted rude things about police officers

I would like to reiterate that “pigs in a blanket” has never been chanted in a protest or been a prominent statement in the blm movement nor “fry em like bacon” so what trump is saying is factually incorrect

unless hes on some sort of far right conservative twitter feed were he came across a video of some drunk white college kids chanting it 

but you know what ever fits you narrative

plus I would be pretty pissed if I kept getting shot at for no reason so....

Biden making more logical decisions

trump was like why have you never done all this stuff when you were vice president

“we had a republican congress” -biden 2020

we have the cleanest air

we have the cleanest crystal clear water

sir, i know you've been to mexico

don’t lie

the waters gorges down there

and not owned by your smug ass

trump just called china filthy

so you know....

*whispers* racism

ok 5 min left

for real this time

trump just went “aoc plus 3: and then hes like she knows nothing about the climate

ummm.... you dont even believe in climate change

bidens like “are....is...is is”

good for you

correcting your grammar

trump just said “the wind kills all the birds” out of the godamn blue

(he means wind mills and its untrue)

“Whats the next question baba”

“the final question is leadership which he doesnt have”- baba 2020

I feel bad for anybody watching this on the toilet

bidens starring into your soul

he knows what your doing

there officially overtime

its 10 33

they haven't even done the last section yet

btw ITS A SCHOOL NIGHT

why do they host these so late

I should be pretending to be asleep right now

this is generational discrimination

plus trumps supporters are so old there asleep by now

ohhhh its over

1036 final time

okay so thoughts....I generally dont like the party system i think its ridiculous the system was not designed for it, and its now more about loyalty then the actual candidates. I also am really hesitant to put another strait white male in the oval office, especially one thats from “the lucky few” I.E. the smallest voting generation in the country and also the one that already holds the most positions. That being said, at this point its really anyone but trump and I think bidens got the experience to turn things around. 

I AM IN SCHOOL I CANNOT VOTE. I am relying on all my older friends, followers, neighbors, and community members. To make an educated decision that wont further degrade the once hopeful future my generation awaits. Please if you can vote VOTE the kids are relying on you!

P.S. sorry i wasn't able to edit this earlier i struggle alot with spelling and didnt have the time to edit this because I HAD TO GO TO BED AND THEN GO TO SCHOOL. Why am I more politically active then people twice my age you might ask? Well, thats because adults are lazy and need to get of their gd asses and VOTE. So kids dont have to do the legwork for them. 

I have said my peace now, have a wonderful day!

#2020 #election #covid #trump #biden #debate #byedon #flyden 2020

[birthisacurse-and]

several things from the debate:

• if I hear one more comment about the fucking swine flu, I'm drinking two bottles of bleach

• on that note, I don't want to hear any more "x happened during person y's incumbency" attacks/arguments. They completely disregard the concept of economic growth and cycles. Please shut the fuck up already, you sound dumb as fuck, omfl

• why didn't Pence jump on the point of the president's health and fitness for office? He totally could've thrown Harris for a loop by bringing up Biden's mental health and pressuring her about whether or not he would be completely transparent if he were seen by a doctor. But instead he actually fell for Harris's taxes bait?? And with such a weak defense??? Lmao man, oh my lord

• why did Pence seriously think arguing China is an active national security risk and to blame for COVID would appeal to anyone but people as far right as him, and abject racists? A super effective anti-China argument would've been a warning against their impending economic surpassing of the US, eventual military supremacy, and potential nuclear armament to meet our capacities. This is based on real facts and genuinely terrifies the American people without falling back on xenophobic, baseless accusations or Red Scare tactics

• that being said, I never want to hear a politician ever utter a sentence akin to "communism bad" ever again for the rest of my fucking life. Clinton kept bringing up fucking Russia in 2015/16 and now Pence and Trump with their stupid "communist China" bullshit, come on grandpas, are we still in the midst of the Cold War in your heads? Get your heads out of the 80s, for fuck's sake

• I'm actually so surprised Pence didn't do more of Trump and the Republican Party's "Biden is giving into socialism" arguments

• also, Pence seriously needs to brush up on appealing to normal Americans. Some of his arguments were clearly regurgitated from the shit he probably tells lobbyists at dinners and says to campaign donors while schmoozing. Mike, normal people don't care about your vague suggestions that renewable energy will cause the destruction of America, you need to be more specific and compelling than that, bud

• I can't believe that, after getting eviscerated by Tulsi Gabbard for not defending her actions as a prosecutor, Harris still hasn't come up with a decent defense. She's lucky Pence had already talked too much so the moderator cut off his rebuttal because he was well within his right to fucking destroy her for her weak-ass response

• Also, Harris 100% alienated every single Christian voter watching. Any Christian watching who didn't know about the SCOTUS justice drama was just told by Mike Pence that she openly insulted that lady's faith, and she barely even responded. She should've been like "I, as well as Biden, are deeply guided by faith, as are my beliefs, but I still believe in the separation of church and state, an ideal upon which this country is based, therefore I do not let my faith affect my objectivity, as I fear this new Justice would," but instead she gave some weak-sauce answer about "being a woman of faith" and a lightly-veiled correlation between Biden & JFK? Wtf? I'm disappointed

• still, when all is said and done, I think that while Trump won last week's debate, Kamala had this one in the bag. She was most prepared, she talked less drivel, and she was, on average, more compelling. I went into this debate thoroughly hating the woman, and now I feel like I can mildly tolerate her

#anyways #politics #vice presidential debate #kamala harris #mike pence #america #presidential election 2020 #2020 #random ramblings

[lastsonlost]

GET THE FUCK OUT?  Creepy Uncle Joe Biden is a creepy ass motherfucker?

No shit.

In 2014, I was the 35-year-old Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in Nevada. The landscape wasn’t looking good for my party that year. There were no high-profile national races to help boost turnout, and after the top candidate bowed out of the governor’s race, “None of the Above” ended up winning the Democratic primary.

So when my campaign heard from Vice-President Joe Biden’s office that he was looking to help me and other Democrats in the state, I was grateful and flattered. His team offered to bring him to a campaign rally in an effort to help boost voter turnout. We set the date for November 1, just three days before election day.

In a state as large but sparsely populated as Nevada, it takes nonstop travel to connect with all its residents. You’re lucky to get properly fed, much less look properly coiffed as female candidates are often required to do. I was exhausted and short on time, so decided to not to wash my hair the morning of the rally. I sprayed some dry shampoo in my hair, raced off to the Reno airport, and flew back to Las Vegas.

The event proceeded as most political events do: coordinated chaos with random problems that no one can predict. I found Eva Longoria, co-founder of the Latino Victory Project, roaming the parking lot trying to figure out how to get inside the union hall. My staff was running around town trying to purchase ferns because according to Biden’s team, no other vegetation was acceptable for the stage.

I found my way to the holding room for the speakers, where everyone was chatting, taking photos, and getting ready to speak to the hundreds of voters in the audience. Just before the speeches, we were ushered to the side of the stage where we were lined up by order of introduction. As I was taking deep breaths and preparing myself to make my case to the crowd, I felt two hands on my shoulders. I froze. “Why is the vice-president of the United States touching me?”

I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, “I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it. And also, what in the actual fuck? Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?” He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused. There is a Spanish saying, “tragame tierra,” it means, “earth, swallow me whole.” I couldn’t move and I couldn’t say anything. I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me. My name was called and I was never happier to get on stage in front of an audience.

By then, as a young Latina in politics, I had gotten used to feeling like an outsider in rooms dominated by white men. But I had never experienced anything so blatantly inappropriate and unnerving before. Biden was the second-most powerful man in the country and, arguably, one of the most powerful men in the world. He was there to promote me as the right person for the lieutenant governor job. Instead, he made me feel uneasy, gross, and confused. The vice-president of the United States of America had just touched me in an intimate way reserved for close friends, family, or romantic partners — and I felt powerless to do anything about it.

Our strange interaction happened during a pivotal moment in my political career. I’d spent months raising money, talking to voters, and securing endorsements. Biden came to Nevada to speak to my leadership and my potential to be second-in-command — an important role he knew firsthand. But he stopped treating me like a peer the moment he touched me. Even if his behavior wasn’t violent or sexual, it was demeaning and disrespectful. I wasn’t attending the rally as his mentee or even his friend; I was there as the most qualified person for the job.

Imagine you’re at work and a male colleague who you have no personal relationship with approaches you from behind, smells your hair, and kisses you on the head. Now imagine it’s the CEO of the company. If Biden and I worked together in a traditional office, I would have complained to the HR department, but on the campaign trail, there’s no clear path for what to do when a powerful man crosses the line. In politics, you shrug it off, smile for the cameras, and get back to the task of trying to win your race.

After the event, I told a few of my staff what happened. We all talked about the inexplicable weirdness of what he did, but I didn’t plan on telling anyone else. I didn’t have the language or the outlet to talk about what happened. Who do you tell? What do you say? Is it enough of a transgression if a man touches and kisses you without consent, but doesn’t rise to the level of what most people consider sexual assault? I did what most women do, and moved on with my life and my work.

Time passed and pictures started to surface of Vice-President Biden getting uncomfortably close with women and young girls. Biden nuzzling the neckof the Defense secretary’s wife; Biden kissing a senator’s wife on the lips; Biden whispering in women’s ears; Biden snuggling female constituents. I saw obvious discomfort in the women’s faces, and Biden, I’m sure, never thought twice about how it made them feel. I knew I couldn’t say anything publicly about what those pictures surfaced for me; my anger and my resentment grew.

Had I never seen those pictures, I may have been able to give Biden the benefit of the doubt. Had there not been multiple articles written over theyears about the exact same thing — calling his creepy behavior an “open secret” — perhaps it would feel less offensive. And yet despite the steady stream of pictures and the occasional article, Biden retained his title of America’s Favorite Uncle. On occasion that title was downgraded to America’s Creepy Uncle but that in and of itself implied a certain level of acceptance. After all, how many families just tolerate or keep their young children away from the creepy uncle without ever acknowledging that there should be zero tolerance for a man who persistently invades others’ personal space and makes people feel uneasy and gross? In this case, it shows a lack of empathy for the women and young girls whose space he is invading, and ignores the power imbalance that exists between Biden and the women he chooses to get cozy with.

For years I feared my experience would be dismissed. Biden will be Biden. Boys will be boys. I worried about the doubts, the threats, the insults, and the minimization. “It’s not that big of a deal. He touched her, so what?” The immediate passing of judgement and the questioning of motives. “Why now? Why so long after? She just wants attention.” Or: “It’s politically motivated.” I would be lying if I said I didn’t carefully consider all of this before deciding to speak. But hearing Biden’s potential candidacy for president discussed without much talk about his troubling past as it relates to women became too much to keep bottled up any longer.

When I spoke to a male friend who is also a political operative in Biden’s orbit — the first man who had heard the story outside of my staff and close friends years ago — he did what no one else had and made me question myself and wonder if I was doing the right thing. He reminded me that Biden has significant resources and argued points that made me question my memory, even though I’ve replayed that scene in my mind a thousand times. He reminded me that my credibility would be attacked and that I should be prepared for the type of “back and forth” that could occur. (When reached by New York Magazine, a representative for Vice-President Joe Biden declined to comment.)

I’m not suggesting that Biden broke any laws, but the transgressions that society deems minor (or doesn’t even see as transgressions) often feel considerable to the person on the receiving end. That imbalance of power and attention is the whole point — and the whole problem.

 Now all of you who follow me know that I am a firm believer of innocent until proven guilty. So I’m genuinely asking out of curiosity. How much evidence is there and how much more is needed? If I’m being perfectly honest Lucy Flores  for the most part isn’t telling us anything that we haven’t already known for years.

But I wonder if we’re just going to continue to ignore it because he’s not wearing a Maga hat. I’m sure the guardian or Huffington Post will make some excuse right?

#joe biden #metoo #vision 2020

[whitehotharlots]

Previewing the 2024 Democrat Primary

Within a couple weeks of his being sworn in, just about every person on earth will wish Joe Biden was no longer president. Sure, the few surviving John B. Anderson voters will be thrilled to see 4 years of crushing austerity and half-assed attempts at Keynesian stimulus. But most people will begin dreaming about a brighter future.

Good news! The 2024 Democratic primary field is going to contain dozens of options. Bad news! They are all going to be disgusting piles of shit. 

The “top tier”

While it’s too early to do any handicapping, these are the candidates the media will treat as having the most realistic chances of securing the nomination. 

Kamala Harris

Kamala did not win a single primary delegate in 2020. This is because she dropped out before the first primary, and that was because no one likes her. She has no base beyond a few thousand of twitter’s most violent psychos. Her disingenuousness approaches John Edwards levels: any halfway incredulous person can see immediately beyond her bullshit. She has no principles whatsoever, and while that may be par for the course for Democrats, she lacks even the basic politician’s ability to intuit anything that might, hypothetically, constitute a principle. 

Even better: she is an awful public speaker. She sounds like how a talking dog would speak if he were just caught stealing people food off the kitchen table. She communicates in weird grunts and faux sassy squeaks, which is how she imagines real black women sound like, but something about her is unable to sell the bit. She begins her sentences in halfhearted AAVE, stops and panics halfway through as she realizes that maybe this sounds fake and offensive, and then reminds herself oh wait, no, this is okay since I’m black. This doesn’t happen once or twice per speech. This is how every single sentence sounds. 

Kamala is like Nancy Pelosi in that no sketch show will ever impersonate her correctly, because anything that came close to authenticity would be considered far too cruel. This might benefit her in the primaries, as she exists in the minds of Democrats as someone and something she absolutely is not in reality. Nominating her would be like allowing your child’s imaginary friend to attempt to drive you to the store. 

Andrew Cuomo

Easily one of the 50 worst people alive, Cuomo has a solid chance because Democrats, same as Republicans, are unable to differentiate between electability and self-serving ruthlessness. Cuomo used the deadliest public health crisis in American history as a pretext for cutting Medicaid and firing 5,000 MTA workers, and his approval rating increased. New York Dems are little piggies who love eating shit. If we assume that the political media will continue their habit of refusing to discuss the legislative history of right wing Democrats, Cuomo might well cruise to the nomination and then lose to literally any human being the GOP nominates by an historic margin. 

Joe Biden

The party loves him because he is a right wing racist. “Progressives” tolerate him because black primary voters over 40 supported him, and their opinion is supposedly a magic window into god’s truth. Everyone else can tell he is manifestly senile. I don’t put it above the DNC to pick a candidate who is in horrible health, dying, or even dead--whatever the financial sector wants, they’ll get. But I would be shocked if his approval rating is above 39% by mid-2023, and by that point deep fake technology will be advanced enough they’ll put out a very lifelike video in which the Max Headroom version of Joe explains he’s proud of his accomplishments--that budget’s almost balanced already--but, man, I gotta abd--I gotta abdica--, uhh, I gotta, I, uhh, I gotta move down, man. 

Wild Cards

These candidates would have all have a chance if they ran, but they could all much more easily retire to Little Saint James off of kickbacks they’ve gotten from Citibank and I.G. Farben. 

Rahm Emanuel

Rahm is going to receive some hugely influential post in the Biden administration. Let’s say he becomes Secretary of Education. His signature achievement will be replacing all elementary school teachers with Amazon’s Alexa, which saved the taxpayers so much money we were able to quadruple the number of armed police officers we put into high schools. This will give him several thousand positive profiles on network news programs and the near-universal support of the Silicon Valley vampires who will own 99% of the country by the time Biden’s term ends. They will use their fancy mind control devices to convince geriatic primary voters that Rahm’s the one who will bring Decency back to the white house. His candidacy will be the paragon of wokeness, as expressing concern toward the fact that he covered up the police murder of a black guy will get you called a racist. 

Rahm has a bonus in that Jewish men are now Schrodeniger’s PoC. When they are decent human beings, they are basic, cis white men who are stealing attention from disabled trans candidates of color. When they love austerity and apartheid, they become the most vulnerable people of color on earth and criticizing them in any way is genocide. No one will be able to mention a single thing Rahm has ever done or said without opening themselves to accusations of antisemitism, and that gives him a strong edge against the rest of the field. The good news is that an Emmanuel candidacy would result in over 50% of black voters choosing the GOP candidate--which, I guess that’s not really good but it would certainly be funny. 

Gavin Newsom

Newsom is every bit as feckless as Cuomo, but he doesn’t put off the same “bad guy in an early Steven Segal movie” vibes. He will mention climate change 50 times per speech and no one will bother to mention how he keeps signing fracking contracts even though his state is now on fire 11 months of the year. If anything, this will be spun into an argument about how he’s actually the candidate best suited to handle all the water refugees gathering on the southern border. Look for his plan to curb emissions by 10% by the year 2150 to get high marks from Sierra Club nerds. He’s also a celebate librarian’s idea of what constitutes a handsome man, so he’ll have some support from the type of women who claim to hate all men. 

Larry Summers

I mean, why not? Larry, like most members of the Obama administration, has politics that are eerily similar to those of Jordan Peterson. In normal circumstances, this makes a person a dangerous fascist who should not be platformed. But if that person has a D next to their name this makes them a realistic pragmatist who has what it takes to bring suburban bankers into our tent. If current trends in Woke Phrenology continue apace, Larry’s belief that women are inherently bad at STEM will be liberal orthodoxy by 2023, and his dedication to the Laffer Curve could see him rake in massive donations. Seriously, I’m not kidding: cultural liberalism is now fully dedicated to identity essentialism and balanced budgets. Larry is their ideal candidate. If he were black and/or a woman, I’d put him in the very top tier. 

Jay Inslee

Unlike Newsom, Inslee’s attempt to crown himself the King of Global Warming won’t be immediately derailed, since his state is only on fire because of protestors. This, however, poses a different problem. He’s going to be a good test case for the Democrat’s uneasy peace with the ever increasing share of the electorate who become catatonic upon hearing a pronoun. On the one hand, you need to take their votes for granted. On the other hand, they’re not like black people or regular gays: most voters actively, consciously despise wokies, and associating yourself with them will ruin a campaign even in deep blue areas. There’s still gonna be riots in a year. Biden’s gonna announce the sale of all our nation’s potable water to the good folks at Nestle and some trans freak named Sasha-Malia DeBalzac is going to use that as an opportunity to sell their new pamphlet about how it’s fascist to not burn down small businesses. No matter what Inslee does in response, it’ll end his career. 

AOC

I’m not one of those “AOC is a secret conservative” weirdos, but I am aware enough of basic reality to know she has zero chance of coming close to the nomination. The right and the center both regard her as a literal demon. The party is already blaming her for the fact that a handful of faceless Reagan acolytes failed to flip their suburban districts even though they ran on sensible pragmatic proposals like euthanizing the homeless. The recriminations will only get more unhinged when the Dems eat shit in the 2022 midterms. She will be a Russian, she will be white male, she will be a communist, she will be a homophobe: any insult or conspiracy theory you can name, MSNBC will spend hours discussing. Her house seat challenger will receive a record amount of support from the DNC in 2024 and it’ll be all she can do to remain in congress.

Larry Hogan

Don’t be dissuaded by the fact that he’s a Republican. Larry is the DNC’s ideal candidate: a physically repulsive conservative who owes his entire career to appealing to the most spiteful desires of suburban white people. He’s an open racist in a material sense--if you’re old-school enough to think racism is a matter of beliefs and actions, rather than the presence of cultural signifiers--but his is the beloved “never Trump” style of racism that Dems covet. He’s also a Proven Leader who thinks the role of government should be to finance the construction of investment property and give police the resources they need to run successful drug trafficking operations. Few people embody the Democrat worldview more than Larry. 

The Losers Bracket

These people will have at least a small chance due solely to the fact that the Democrats love losing. They have lost in the past, and in the Democrat Mind that makes them especially qualified.

Joe Kennedy

The man looks like a mushroom-human hybrid from a JRPG. Trump proved that physical hideousness need not doom a presidential bid, but a candidate still needs some kind of charm or oratorical abilities or, god forbid, a decent platform. Joe aggressively lacks all of these things. A vanity campaign would be a good way to raise money and perhaps secure an MSNBC gig, so Joe might still run. 

Mayor Pete 

I am 100% convinced that Pete’s 2020 run was a CIA plot meant to prevent working class Americans from ever having a chance of living decent lives. I am also 100% aware that Democrats are dumb enough to enthusiastically support a CIA plot meant to prevent working class Americans from ever having a chance of living decent lives. If we have some sort of military or terror disaster between now and 2023 the Dems are sure to want a TROOP, and wait wait wait you’re telling me this one is a gay troop? Holy hell there’s no way that could lose!

Stacy Abrams

Never underestimate the power of white guilt. She lost the gubernatorial race to Gomer Pyle’s grandson, and her spiritual guidance of the Dems saw the party lose black voters in Georgia in 2020. Nonetheless, she is regarded as a magic font of fierceness within the DNC. She might stand a chance if she can establish herself as the most conservative non-white candidate in the field, but there’s going to be stiff competition for that honor.

Elizabeth Warren

Liz is probably angry that the party so shamelessly sold her out even after she was a good little girl and sabatoged Bernie’s campaign for them--yet another example of high ranking US government officials reneging on their promises to the Native American community. Smdh. The fact that this woman hasn’t been bankrupted a dozen times over by various Wallet Inspectors genuinely astounds me. So Liz is probably going to run again, and her campaign will be even sadder the second time around. 

It might surprise you to hear this if you don’t work at a college or NGO, but Liz diehards actually do exist. She’ll get even less support this time because there will be no viable leftist in the field for her to spoil, but she’ll still hang in long enough to make sure the very worst possible candidate beats out the second worst possible candidate. Maybe she’ll fabricate a rape accusation against Sherrod Brown. Maybe she’ll spend her entire allotted debate time doing a land acknowledgment. With Liz, anything is possible--so long as it ends in failure. 

Amy Klobuchar 

Amy was the most bloodthirsty of the 2020 also rans. She will double down on the unpopular failures of the Biden administration, explaining that if you weren’t such a selfish idiot you’d love the higher social security retirement age and oh my god are so such a moron you think you shouldn’t go bankrupt to get a COVID vaccine? There’s a non-unsubstantial segment of the Democratic base that’s self-hating enough to find this appealing, but it won’t be enough to make her viable. 

Martha Coakley

She lost Ted Kennedy’s senate seat to a retarded man who was pretending to be even more retarded than he actually was. Then she lost a gubernatorial race to a guy who openly promised Massachusetts voters that he would punish them for electing him. Her record of failure is unparalleled, making her perhaps the ideal Democrat standard bearer for the twenty twenties. 

[idlnmclean]

How to Kill Hope

There’s all these pieces out now about how even though Biden might have become the nominee (which is propaganda at this point) that all the people who didn’t vote for Biden should still vote (”PLEASE!?” they beg) for him in the general.

It is amazing that people 50 on up (happening to correspond to the age demographics for millionaires and billionaires that most benefited from Wall Street Bailouts under Obama and Tax looting under Trump) don’t understand how electoral politics work (or they do and they’re just that fucking petty and malicious). The damage to Biden’s campaign was done back in the summer or fall of 2019 and insult was added to injury in the span of time leading up to the primaries.

Young people likely will vote in record numbers in the general election, but they are unlikely to vote for Biden in significant enough numbers to replace those people who voted for Obama but turned around and voted for Trump (10% of the democratic voters in 2016). The Reagan Democrats are also having record breaking turnouts.

Y’all lost the interest and will of the young voters when you talked down and ignored what the young voters have been telling y’all.

This isn’t as so insultingly is asserted that young voters are going to throw their votes away. Young people have all my life have been more serious and more informed about their voting habits than previous generations. They’re going to vote. The problem is that they’re not going to be inspired to organize people who haven’t voted before or voted third party or voted republican in the past; Biden is a total non-starter to sell to your younger friends.

Biden is like inviting people to a party and when they ask why they should show up, you’re like “We’re going to have yogurt and stale chips. It’s not that bad. You should come anyway.” or when they ask what the entertainment will be “we got this dude that gives corporate training seminars”. And you have to warn people that he might get gropy and is known for his “gaffes” and he leers. He’s real popular in the Cruise Ship Comedy circles though!

Biden doesn’t inspire. He has PR but not personal charisma. Media companies love the image of him, but he’s not someone you want randomly showing up at your party and taking selfies with your guests.

When he was made Obama’s VP, it was a sop to old people, and the young people went with it because it was Obama vetting him. You could sell Obama even with Uncle Gropy. Keeping in mind that “sell” is not the right word in any of this.

#abuse

[uk-news-talking-politics]

Swimming with the sharks: What progressives can learn from Republicans Against Trump

By Laura Shields and Dirk Singer

We've always known that conservatives have the campaigning instincts of sharks. But it's rare for progressives to see their techniques being used against a common enemy, rather than ourselves.

As dual UK-US nationals who work in communication, we have become obsessed with the Never Trumpers who are going all in to get Donald Trump out in November. They include The Lincoln Project, a super PAC which includes former strategists for John McCain and George W Bush as well as George Conway, the husband of one of Trump's closest advisers, and Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT), a campaign that has run some ads, but mainly uses video testimonials from Republicans who will not be voting for Trump.

To give you an idea of what this might look like in the UK, just imagine if Lynton Crosby all of a sudden announced that Boris Johnson is a danger to democracy and they will now be campaigning for Keir Starmer.

So, what can we learn from swimming with our new temporary friends?

Be ruthless

The Never Trumpers might as well have written the phrase 'go big or go home'.  For them there is no Plan B, so there is an intensity and relentlessness about their approach. They act quickly and opportunistically through their attack ads, frames and messages and react to and lead conversations in real time.

For example, on the day that John Bolton came out with his revelations about Donald Trump begging President Xi of China for help in getting re-elected, the Lincoln Project released their Chyna ad.

There is no magic formula – they just keep it simple by using Trump's own words against himself. The attacks are often witty. Crucially they always go straight for the jugular. And part of the strategy is to wind Trump up so that he attacks them rather than Joe Biden. This means nothing is off limits, which a lot of the left ('we're better than this') finds distasteful. We do too. But you don't take a bar of soap when wrestling with pigs in mud.

Zeroing in on Trump's bizarre ramp walk at West Point and the way he was drinking water made a lot of people with liberal sensibilities uncomfortable. Yet it arguably succeeded in making his unfitness for office an issue and also robbed the Trump campaign of one its most potent attack lines against Joe Biden – ie the 'Sleepy Joe' insult.

That in itself is a lesson. Republican operatives have in the past attacked an opponent's perceived strengths, not weaknesses. If you demolish their key talking points one by one, they have nothing left.

Target your efforts

Never Trumpers target their time and money at the 15 or so battleground states where the election will be won or lost and ignore the national polls.

Within these states, they don't talk to the Democrats, they talk to the people they need to convert: swing voters, conservatives who also hate Trump or those who voted for him in 2016 but are feeling uneasy about him now.

As Lincoln Project founder Rick Wilson said in a recent podcast, the people the Democrats need to win over in these states "are not people who care about gender pronouns". Unlike a lot of progressives, the Never Trumpers understand what makes their target audiences tick. The left is good at talking to itself but not empathising with the views of people who think differently.

Empathy is not endorsement. It simply means getting inside people's heads and understanding what messages and arguments work best to persuade them.

Values matter more than policy or facts

Republicans Voters Against Trump is a master class in low budget values campaigning. The videos are shot on smart phones or computers.  And they are effective because they are unpolished peer to peer testimonials that speak to core conservative morals, values and identity frames.

Words that come up a lot are responsibility, character, authority, respect, decency, faith, honour and integrity. Unsurprisingly, for all these ex-GOP voters, Trump has none of these qualities. For many, Biden does. They will vote for him because he's a man of character not because they agree with his policies.

A timely example of all these approaches coming together is the one minute testimonial of Carter and Nancy, Republicans who live near Tulsa, Oklahoma who will be voting for Biden this year. Their story was broadcast on Fox News ahead of Trump's rally in Tulsa on Saturday.

The closest the UK has come to using voter testimonials in the same way was through the highly underrated and underused Remainer Now campaign, who were not given anything like the prominence or support they needed by the stop Brexit campaigns.

Be consistent, employ message discipline

Message discipline seems to have gone out of the window for the left in recent years in the UK, probably because they associate it with Tony Blair.  But the idea that you can shift public opinion or change conversations is fanciful if you don't hammer your points consistently.

The Never Trumpers pick a theme and keep hammering away at it so that it sticks.

Some key examples are #AmericaOrTrump, where they tried to pin the Confederate flag on him, and more recently #Trumpisnotwell and #PlagueRally to describe Trump's Tulsa rally. The Lincoln Project and their founders have significant online reach. Both George Conway and Rick Wilson have over a million followers. The media of course tunes into Twitter, and these messages then get currency, are amplified, and stick.

At the moment the Never Trumpers are on our side because they believe in the fundamentals of democracy and the rule of law. But the reason why they want the Republican party to be demolished at the polls in 2020, is so that they can rebuild it from the ground up to once again look more like the Reagan GOP of the 1980s. That means eventually they'll be targeting - and beating - progressives again.

Had we adopted some of their tactics, a whole series of disasters from Brexit in 2016 to Johnson's 2019 election victory could have been avoided.

As a result, we'd do well to watch what they are doing between now and November and internalise some of the lessons they are teaching us, so that we don't become shark bait next time we meet.

#donald trump

[mrtroy]

America Needs Both

I've been reading a lot of opinions of my friends, pundits and others over the last few weeks.  Corona virus.  Racial injustice. Police brutality.  The coming presidential election. 

I feel like with each passing issue, the divide gets deeper.  The differing sides seemingly getting further apart.  Some of these opinions I agree with. Some I don't.  But the more I think about it, the more I realize as a nation, we need both sides of most of our issues.  No, we don't need racism.  We don't need looting.  Or police brutality.    But we do need the ability for people with different opinions and viewpoints to be able to have those viewpoints without vilifying them.  We need a nation where we understand that black lives matter. But we also need a nation where our public servants (police, teachers, government officials) matter too.  You may be angered by one side of that paradigm right now, but in order for our nation to truly live up to its ideal, we need both.  We need a nation where people in cities feel represented.  And we also need to provide opportunities to those who live in rural America.  We need corporations.  And small businesses.  We need non-profits.  And agencies that watch out for at risk portions of the community.  Right now, there's a good chance that the idea of voting for the candidate opposite your preferred political party seems like an outrageous thought, but lest not forget that whoever our next president is will again be governing our entire nation.  Forget who wins, how beneficial will it be to our nation to have roughly half of our citizens enraged?  Say what you want about Donald Trump, but he realized in 2016 that a large subsection of our population felt like the policies that Barack Obama's administration had enacted didn't appeal to them.  Pause.  Whatever you think about that statement above, it is true.  Now, fast forward to 2020, whoever wins this election will signal to our nation that we either want to go the same direction, or back the other way.  Joe Biden is currently running campaign messaging that is asking potential voters to condemn the acts of Donald Trump and pledge their allegiance to Biden's campaign.  Let's just say this works. I have no idea who will win this election, but just for the sake of this piece, let's say it's Biden.  Come January of 2021, we'll have the opposite half of our nation that can't wait to vote a president out of office.  Not only that, but if Biden were to follow suit with Obama and Trump, and if balances of power stay split in the House and Senate, we're going to spend the next four years seeing different pieces of legislation that previous administrations enacted be reversed.  Or, we'll see the opposing party block things in the Senate to the point where very little will change in Washington.  At this point as you read, you might be thinking, okay, you're a moderate, or, you're arguing for party reform, or maybe the abolition of the electoral college.  And while some of those things may be the answer (I'm not educated enough on those topics to know for sure) what I'm actually arguing for is something that isn't political at all.  It comes back to the examples I gave at the beginning of this piece.  America needs both of its major points of view.  As people, are we better off accepting our neighbor with a different point of view, or turning them into a sworn enemy until they see things exactly how we do?  Before you fire off a retort to a school of thought where you just can't possibly accept Point X of someone's viewpoint, realize that person may be reading this same piece and thinking the same thing about not accepting your point of view.   If we continue in these cycles of behavior, where do we end up?  Do we just keep browbeating each other until one school of thought dies out? Or, do we end up having the public conversations where we say one thing to avoid drawing a reaction, but actually believe something else in private?  To be clear, I don't know how to fix every issue. I don't know how to find a common middle ground for some of society's most inflammatory issues.  But what I do think would be a good start would be to stop trying to make every issue one-sided. 'If you don't believe this, you must be a raving lunatic.' Or, 'If you believe this, you can't possibly call yourself a good person.'  And yes, I have been guilty of reacting in the above manners in discussions I've had. But, bringing these kinds of attitudes to any conversation / debate / issue rarely leads to change and it rarely helps anything.  So, rather than jumping all over your neighbor - or silently writing them off in your brain - the next time you disagree with them, I think we all need to do a better job finding a middle ground.  And again, this isn't to say that we should tolerate terrible things in our country because we're doing the neighborly thing and accepting people's vile viewpoints.  But it is to say that we should be able to find a way to find a middle ground on things that are worth finding a middle ground on.  Because I think many of us can agree that the status quo we've got going on isn't working. For the rest of this year, we can find some solace in saying, 'Vote in November.' But come December, all of us have to live with the officials we elect - and it doesn't do us much good if roughly half of the population is ready to lose their mind if their candidate happens to be the one who loses.  -- I have always thought American ingenuity was our greatest virtue as a country. Throughout our history, we've had groundbreaking inventors and innovators that have figured out new and better ways to do things in more effective ways.  We need to muster up some more ingenuity as a nation. To modify how we think and how we react to opposing thought. We have to empower the things that make us different to also make us great.  We cannot simply agree to disagree.  Or, stop trying to address topics in our world because the opposing sides on certain issues are simply too far apart.  We also cannot simply take politics, or matters of social / racial justice off the table when things get too touchy to deal with.  We must not run to the safety of only those who think like we do and attempt to isolate ourselves from anyone who thinks differently.  We must ask ourselves, in 2020, do we want to attempt to solve the issues plaguing our nation, or do we want to continue to point out how stupid, or wrong, or morally bankrupt our neighbors are?  Let's say you were brought into a situation as a third-party mediator in a fight between two neighbors in the town next to yours.  Let's say you agreed with one of the neighbors, but after talking to the second neighbor, you could see that he or she was 100% convicted on where they stood  -  and weren't trying to be a jerk about anything in any apparent way...  If it was your goal to help these neighbors, would you start your engagement with a ruthless insult of the second neighbor?  Would you tell your neighbor that if he didn't come around to seeing things the way the first neighbor did, he may as well be an idiot?  Would you tell your neighbor that his family - and anyone that thinks like him - is a worthless pile of garbage for thinking the way he does?  Unfortunately, it seems as though these kinds of tactics are often resorted to in response to things happening that we don't agree with.  What about trying to find solutions?  What about trying to listen?  What about trying to work towards mutually beneficial outcomes?  These are the things we need to be doing.  Not arguing.  -- In closing, as discussions, debates and conversations happen over these next few months, try to be empathetic to your fellow humans.  Yes, there are some terrible people in the world who have thoughts that are not worth considering a second side of. However, there are also millions of our neighbors that think differently than we do that are fantastic human beings who deserve to be heard and respected. 

America is better when the right and left find common ground.  America is better when opposing viewpoints are met with intrigue not detest.  America is better when we try to find solutions, rather than simply attacking our neighbors.  In a fantasy world, it might be nice to envision a way where one opinion or one side of an issue worked for everyone, but because that’s never been true at any point in history, America needs to embrace the fact that there are two sides to every issue, and we’re better off if we can consider both. 

[politijohn]

Could you talk about or give info on why Bernie Sanders is more electable than Joe Biden? I'd like to see the "Bernie isn't electable" talking point put to rest.

First, Joe Biden:

If recent presidential elections teach you anything, it’s that centrist candidates like Biden don’t win - John McCain (R), John Kaisich (R), John Kerry (D), Hillary Clinton (D), Al Gore (D) - especially when they’re up against populists.

Biden’s record is extremely problematic. Independents, progressives, and otherwise non-voters who are tired of the status quo won’t vote for him

Biden is uninspiring as evidenced by his weak fundraising, low campaign rally turn-outs, and low supporter commitment.

Biden sucks with young voters, who will make up a majority of the electorate in 2020

Joe has ran for President 3 times, never earning more than 0.22% of American support in a primary. His centrist ideology was more widespread then and he was still obliterated.

He has a history of insulting voters many times and is currently skipping major party events, and hiding from the press.

He clearly isn’t the most motivated to win as he’s holding only between a quarter and half as many public events as his rivals.

I acknowledge Joe has a stutter, making speech more difficult, but Americans still recognize his gaffes as unpresidential. Even his allies recognize it. Imagine him up against a tyrant like Donald Trump.

Now, Bernie Sanders:

Bernie has received the most donations from counties that flipped Obama-Trump. His # of donations were 3x higher than the next highest candidate and more than the next 3 candidates combined.

Bernie is shattering fundraising records…5 million donations so far. His campaign was the earliest in history to receive over 1 million contributions.

Bernie’s platform is widely popular with Americans.

Bernie has received so many donations across the country, that he has dominated graphs depicting voter spread by candidate. He has received the most money and the most individual donations

Bernie consistently beats Trump in hypothetical head-to-head polls, performing better than the other candidates almost all of them.

Bernie’s the most popular US Senator…consistently.

Bernie 2016 and Bernie 2020 are strong with rural American voters and the midwest, which are crucial populations for the Democratic Party to win over in 2020.

Bernie is the strongest candidate among young voters. Young voters outvoted Boomers and prior generations in 2018, and will have an even stronger influence in 2020.

Bernie has the most diverse base of the 2020 candidates.

The supporters of other top-tier candidates, Warren and Biden, favor Bernie as their second choice.

Bernie has received the most donations from members of the military…Almost 3x as many as Trump.

Bernie polls the strongest with independents, the largest population of voters in the US.

Bernie has the strongest grassroots volunteer network which is needed to take on a behemoth like Trump.

#asks #2020 election #joe biden #election #election 2020 #Bernie 2020 #Bernie Sanders #Politics #US Politics #vote