US Politics, July 2024 - "Will you just drop out, man?"

what a year June was

Turn on, tune in, drop out

thought this was a good piece by Tim Miller refuting the arguments made by what he calls "the This Is Fine crowd":

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/dear-dems-gaslighting-isnt-helping-biden-debate

And on the other end of the anti-Trump spectrum, the lefty podcasters at Know Your Enemy are also on the Biden's-gotta-go bus:

https://know-your-enemy-1682b684.simplecast.com/episodes/joes-gotta-go-teaser

Biden's support at this point seems to be entirely concentrated within the White House and DNC. You could say he's ... increasingly isolated.

whenever anyone is "huddled" at Camp David with other people its not a good sign.

Especially when it's with Annie Leibovitz.

Huddling is bad for your back.

Cuddling preferred

how did we get to this point

Hope he does this soon:

Biden, who has ducked tough interviews and avoided no-holds-barred press conferences, is now considering both. Look for a town hall or big one-on-one interview this month.

I don't imagine it going well, but I'd love to be proven wrong. Either way, better before the convention than after.

lotta factors here but James Comey deciding to put his thumb on the scale in service of Trump (who would fire him a few months later) was a pretty major one

if Hillary is president, she maybe doesn't get re-elected in 2020 as the Republican controlled Senate is blocking key legislation to help with COVID recovery that they voted for under Trump. but SCOTUS is either 5-4 left leaning or at the very least, 5-4 right leaning, and we're not in this mess. it's infuriating.

how did we get to this point

by being ideologically pure and strategically idiotic. should never have challenged trump in court, for one thing. not with this court.

yeah I mean who knows if Hillary wins maybe we get Trump in 2020 instead. maybe this was all baked in the moment he started winning primaries. I don't know. I'm just so despondent right now. I really did not think they were gonna do it.

Clinton would never have gotten Garland (or anyone) on the Court.

yep. mccain said as much

ted kennedy shouldn't have died, obama should have compromised even harder with the healthcare industry, and scott brown should not have been so irresistibly sexy to massachusetts voters

idk, I really don't think they woulda stonewalled for four years. feel like whipping ability would have been harder after a third straight Presidential loss, would might have embittered some less ideologically 'pure' Republicans in the Senate.

RBG, otoh, they would have stonewalled using similar Garland logic.

xpost McCain was one dude.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/clinton-wins-gop-say-no-9-supreme-court

“If Hillary Clinton becomes president, I am going to do everything I can do to make sure four years from now, we still got an opening on the Supreme Court,” North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr said in an audio recording of his meeting with GOP volunteers on Saturday. CNN obtained a copy of the audio.

still don't think they would have made it all four years stonewalling a nom.

and said this days later

https://apnews.com/united-states-senate-united-states-government-senate-elections-united-states-congress-87e0ea5ab5b64dd7abeb8e05f72e4ad9

just pointing that out for people saying what if Hilary won

i love how we're gaming out alternate shitty pasts. this is grim!

hilary is not and was never going to save us--that's my point here

good thing that isn't what I said! the current SCOTUS scenario only happens under Trump.

eh you said mccain was one dude and dude it's way more than one dude

Where’s Some Dude when you need him?

(I kid)

if hilary won

if Nader hadn't spoiled Bush/Gore (I don't think Nader spoiled Bush v Gore)

etc etc

Some Dude to thread!

haha! x-post

Some Dude has been posting on the Tom Petty thread if you need him.

any major ILX dude will tell you

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ITcOcQi4L._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg

Honestly, I anticipate martial law and civil war in my lifetime. I want neither and am not happy about it.

But reading David Brooks’ interview with Steve Bannon in the Times this morning, there was something that Bannon said that struck me as 100 per cent correct.

This is spiritual warfare, and those of us who value humanity need to start acting like it. This is about seeing people as siblings, about increasing connection and joy within our communities, and about proselytizing to those who don’t see things this way that life is better when it is lived in compassion for and faith in others.

I know I am often a crabby motherfucker who gets on all of your nerves, but all of my haranguing and testiness has a lot to do with these views. We are fighting against forces that would have us divided, starved, dead, but I believe many who follow this bleak line of thinking are persuadable and might see the light, particularly given how bleak their own lives must be.

In any case, good luck USA

You could say he's ... increasingly isolated.

irl lol

This is spiritual warfare, and those of us who value humanity need to start acting like it. This is about seeing people as siblings, about increasing connection and joy within our communities, and about proselytizing to those who don’t see things this way that life is better when it is lived in compassion for and faith in others.

These are the best tenets of Christianity, and it comes naturally to me as a longtime non-believer to hold myself to those tenets. So, OTM on the merits. A genuine lol if Bannon told Brooks he believes in compassion for and faith in others.

he said this:

"What we should be doing is cutting the number of foreign students in American universities by 50 percent immediately, because we’re never going to get a Hispanic and Black population in Silicon Valley unless you get them into the engineering schools. No. 2, we should staple an exit visa to their diploma. The foreign students can hang around for a week and party, but then they got to go home and make their own country great."

This isn’t what Bannon said to Brooks

We are fighting against forces that would have us divided, starved, dead, but I believe many who follow this bleak line of thinking are persuadable and might see the light,

I think there's a fundamental truth in this, all people are more pliable and less rigid than they might appear, even if only marginally, and its better to err on the side of assuming so rather than assuming not, where possible

As horrible as Clinton is, she wouldn’t have rolled over and played dead (sorry-“reaching across the aisle”) for 8 fucking years like Obama did

there is a metaphor I like to remind myself of from time to time: right before a star dies, it gets really big and bright and powerful

I kinda feel this way with America's right... the demographic/urbanization shifts are inevitable, but they're not gonna go down without a fight

I can’t believe Biden still isn’t even pushing harder on marijuana legalization. It’s a winning issue with Republicans, even, you goddamn idiot

"This isn’t what Bannon said to Brooks"

that quote was from the interview in the nyt.

the demographic/urbanization shifts are inevitable

the notion that these shifts will naturally favor the Democratic party is the weirdest white liberal fantasy and I've been hearing it for so many years -- this'll sort itself out, the bad guys are on their last legs, they're getting their licks in before they're obsolete. actually the bad guys are remarkably adaptable, and have made considerable inroads with the very demographics that Democrats think of as "theirs"/"ours." Any person who makes less than six figures a year is voting against their interests when they vote (R), but the Republicans have done a great job getting votes from those very people. indeed there will be many demographic shifts in the years to come, but to take those votes as tallied is a grave error imo. one I wholly expect the (D) establishment to make!

i was replying to alfred and xposted by accident, apologies for confusing scott!

lol I got confused too

JCLC otm

the notion that these shifts will naturally favor the Democratic party is the weirdest white liberal fantasy and I've been hearing it for so many years -- this'll sort itself out, the bad guys are on their last legs, they're getting their licks in before they're obsolete. actually the bad guys are remarkably adaptable, and have made considerable inroads with the very demographics that Democrats think of as "theirs"/"ours." Any person who makes less than six figures a year is voting against their interests when they vote (R), but the Republicans have done a great job getting votes from those very people. indeed there will be many demographic shifts in the years to come, but to take those votes as tallied is a grave error imo. one I wholly expect the (D) establishment to make!

As they say in Brazil, "money makes you whiter."

See: most people fleeing Venezuela, Columbia, and Cuba to South Florida.

Welcome back, Dan S

thanks jaymc

Soon we'll need a new thread and thread title. Any brainwaves out there?

What Can Be, Unburdened By What Has Been obvs

“Don’t Couch Me, Bro”

What Can Be, Unburdened By What Has Been

― mookieproof, Wednesday, July 31, 2024 9:36 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

unburdened by a has-been

i feel like this got lost in the shuffle today. 21 years later in the home of the speedy trial!

"Accused Sept. 11 Plotters Agree to Plead Guilty at Guantánamo Bay"

"Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and two of his accomplices will receive a life sentence rather than face a death-penalty trial, prosecutors said."

US Politics, March 2024: The house of illuminati will NOT be holding any other event in the foreseeable future.
Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (995 of them)

US Politics, April 2024: "Are You Better Off Today Than You Were <Checks Notes> Four Years Ago?"
Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (924 of them)

US Politics, May 2024: They Shoot Puppies, Don't They?
Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (764 of them)

US Politics, June 2024: "Have there ever been this many cowards in power?"
Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (1288 of them)

US Politics, July 2024 - "Will you just drop out, man?"
Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (7611 of them)

The numbers do not lie

Mustard on the Beat, A Ham Sandwich in Every Pot

A Ham Sandwich & A Couch Will Bind Them

not really though...

this kinda blew my mind...

“A Black job is anybody who has a job.”

"Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and two of his accomplices will receive a life sentence rather than face a death-penalty trial, prosecutors said."

― scott seward, Thursday, 1 August 2024 01:43 (thirty-two minutes ago) link

I'm not pro-death-penalty, but this is kind of surprising. Is it maybe more of a political decision not to create martyrs?

"The men have been in U.S. custody since 2003. But the case had become mired in more than a decade of pretrial proceedings that focused on the question of whether their torture in secret C.I.A. prisons had contaminated the evidence against them."

Watching Trump-apologists tonight (none actually do, though--they just aggressively try to run right over today's news) has been highly enjoyable.

"He and Mr. Hawsawi, 55, were captured together in Pakistan in March 2003, and held in secret C.I.A. prisons until their transfer to the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo in September 2006 for an eventual trial. By then, interrogators had held them for years incommunicado and tortured them, including subjecting Mr. Mohammed to 183 rounds of waterboarding, a decision that would stymie years of efforts to put the men on trial."

Tom Cotton on CNN should have won some sort of award for evading Kaitlan Collins asking the same question about Trump and race over and over. And Kaitlan Collins should win an award for asking the same question 10 times with a straight face. But Cotton was masterful in his annoying dumbfuckery.

He was going on about something from 2020, right? "Why hasn't Kamala apologized! WHY??!!" Embarrassing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGO9m34nJHg

Trump reminds me of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtHyc43Firk

this kinda blew my mind...

“A Black job is anybody who has a job.”

it almost sounds accidentally woke. "ALL JOBS ARE BLACK JOBS"

Rachel Scott was powerful and unrelenting in that interview, we should see more like that

So This Happened...

Kennedy, Stills & Clap

this was the initial Washington Post framing of the NAJB Interview:

"Harris faces a pivotal moment as Trump questions her identity"

"The first Black and Asian woman to be a major-party presidential nominee confronts her opponent’s comment that she “became a Black person.”

Just look at those cool dads!

ffs she went to howard

and the black sororities and fraternities are fired up about it

Republicans see non-white ethnicity as some kind of cynical cheat code to get into higher office. That’s why they go after AOC for not calling herself Sandy anymore or Obama for calling himself Barack instead of Barry. Or why Mitt Romney said he would have been president if he was Hispanic.

They see Kamala’s mixed heritage as a double cheat.

Otm

They know at some level that performing a hostile takeover of someone’s identity is the quintessential act of domination by the slaver. Denying a person of their name , their social status, their kinship ties — these are signature moves of the Virginia plantation owner, and went hand-in-hand with ownership, droit de seigneur, the whole nine. The fact that a certain version of this tactic has been deployed against the occasional white individual (e.g., E Warren) doesn’t contradict this : tactics that have been perfected in the plantation can be deployed elsewhere: on the reservation, in the prisons, at the border, and so on. But that’s what I see, beneath the crude political calculations: a will to dominate that is unquenchable.

^and yeah, President Keyes otm

this was posted in the kendrick lamar thread:

My boy on the PBS News stream was going crazy for Not Like Us pic.twitter.com/97tPdR35uJ

— I talk music and music accessories (@tribblez) July 30, 2024

― Jersey Devil Vance (President Keyes), Wednesday, 31 July 2024 00:47 (yesterday) link

but MSNBC interviewed him and he's the president of Georgia's Young Democrats!

Kennedy, Stills & Clap

― BrianB, Wednesday, July 31, 2024 8:21 PM

Kennedy, Stills & Please Clap

Republicans see non-white ethnicity as some kind of cynical cheat code to get into higher office.

If that was true, why don't we have a Rafael Cruz on the hustings then.

I realize Loomer is a fucking moron but, does she actually think Jamaicans aren't black?

There are various layers of crank opinion at work but, at minimum, yes - she is claiming that Donald Harris isn’t black. She’s not the first person to come up with this. idk how you go about trying to explain this to normal people but Race Science Enthusiasts (not necessarily only white ones) point to the fact that Jamaica is a country where a lot of people have mixed ancestry as invalidating claims of ‘blackness’. Within Jamaica, you also have perceived ‘degrees of blackness’ going back to the 18th century. This is what Loomer’s claim that Harris is ‘descended from slave owners’ appears to be referring to.

How that’s mean to play in a US context idk, I can’t imagine the response from 99.9% of people being anything other than ‘huh?’.

The entire “she’s not Black” argument is this weird inversion of hundreds of years of white supremacist “race science” that defined anyone with pretty much any amount of African ancestry as Black. But of course it’s also of a perfect piece with it, because in both cases it’s about denying or attempting to deny people certain kinds of power and autonomy on the basis of racial categorization (with white people as the categorizers of course).

I continue to be gobsmacked by the racism that Trump habitually gets away with.

“Don’t Couch Me, Bro”

they're suddenly critical of race theory? xposts

There’s a weird kind of Swiftboat / stolen valour element that runs along the lines of ‘you say that you’re black, which implies that you’ve overcome hardships and prejudice, but you’re actually from this other privileged category that’s too complicated to explain but, you know how Sean Paul is Jamaican but he kind of looks……..’ which is, as noted, completely at odds with how race is typically enforced in the US. Irrespective of how Donald Harris identified in Jamaica (which afaik is ‘black’) he was black the minute he set foot in America.

unburdened by a has-been

this is p good

i'm not sure the best approach from harris here, either ignore completely or be like, oh, okay, you want to get into this? let's get into it. am i black? can black people be the descendents of slave owners? can jamaicans be black? let me take you back...

Do we have an August thread yet

We do now!

I wouldn’t overthink the “she’s not really black” thing. It’s the kind of thing that will make some trumpers feel smug but resonate with exactly zero Harris or potential Harris voters. If this is the brilliant MAGA plan to get more non-white voters to go over to Trump, I’m not very worried. People don’t tend to take well to someone outside their group trying to define who counts.

I think he’s trying to pull an Elizabeth Warren on her and failing to read the room/understand why it doesn’t land in this situation.

yeah for sure

afaic this LGM post about the Kamala race thing nails it pretty succinctly:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/07/theyre-going-all-in-with-the-kamala-harris-isnt-really-black-thing

It's a rerun. They did this with Obama, and it didn't work then. It makes them look pathetic and limited in how they respond to them. Bringing up Kamala's birth certificate? It's not convincing or shocking, it's "oh, this shit again."

US Politics, August 2024 -- "Unburdened By a Has-Been"