President Biden wrote on social media that he was ending his campaign for re-election after intense pressure from within his own party. He endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him atop the Democratic ticket...
Well, since this all hinged on a debate... here's what a Harris/Trump debate would look like. Kamala's the Hulk, and Trump is Loki.
The right is bolted into full panic mode already. Hannity's on TV babbling about "they're going to take our plastic straws!" again. I'm never gonna stop being amazed at how stupid and childish Republicans think the people in their base are. I mean, they have every reason to think that, because almost every conservative I know is an abject moron, I have to spend my days helping them figure out how to plug things in and such, but you'd think the people running the shows would at least try to hide their contempt a little, but, nope! Plastic straws again. It's the main thing they have.
Oh, and they ran clips of Kamala laughing. Conservatives don't like to see women happy. It frightens them, because it's something they never see in their own lives. So, yeah, plastic straws, and "I don't like her, she laughs!"
Meanwhile, their clown can't even stay on teleprompter during his big convention speech and HAS to trot out his tired-ass "Hannibal Lector, he'd like to have you for dinner" joke AGAIN, like a toddler doing a trick everybody's regretting they laughed at when he did it 8,000 times ago, because now they're never going to stop seeing it until he hits puberty. "Hannibal Lector, he'd love to blah-blah-blah-blah-blaaaaaaaaaaahhhh... dinner meeeeeehhhhhh-muh-maaaaah. Late great gaaaah-guh-guh-guh-gaaaaah." Jesus Christ, is there not on off-switch on that boring old piece of cheese? Over an hour and a half of that tired rambling shit.
Anyway, money's pouring back in, which is what really spooked 'em. Kamala's done a few things that made her not my first choice, but I'm more than fine with it. She was my first choice for a while back in the primary, just because she's super-smart and I like the way her eyes light up all predatory when an opponent makes a mistake in a debate. She has a killer instinct, and Trump is nothing but exposed-neck-tissue.
In a way, it's a bit sad, because I still think Joe Biden was up for the job... but the narrative shifted too hard and it was unlikely that he'd get to be hired for it again. I don't think the perceptions are true, but, they are what they are, and it's hard to change people's minds about something they decided on. You've got to give the man a ton of credit for humility, integrity, and selflessness by stepping aside to go with the better chance of stopping the horror that is Project 2025 and Agenda 47, as well as sparing the United States the embarrassment of having that criminally-bent oaf "representing" us instead. I know, he represents part of America, but that's not the part anybody with any sense is proud of. They're the ones we don't want to admit even live here, the ones that make people claim they're Canadian when they visit Europe just so they won't be smeared by association.
Trump was the one who got shot at by some glory-seeking idiot, but Biden's the one who really took a bullet for the country. Dude's a hero... again.
Now, we have to keep going and win this thing. And I'm feeling a lot more certain that we will.
RealLindaL wrote:So are we feeling pretty good here about Harris/Walz?
I am, but I'm also quaking in my boots with a queasy feeling that something bad is going to happen. I wish the DNC convention were over and done with.
Yep indeedy! Harris is kicking butt. I thought it would go over well, but it went even better than I'd hoped, and the momentum shows no sign of stopping. Nothing Trump throws manages to stick... partially because there really isn't much to throw to begin with (ooo, she slept with Willie Brown! Maybe she did, maybe she didn't, who gives a damn either way? Republicans are so weird about sex, despite being a super-creepy fertility cult), and partially because Trump's side has zero integrity. There is pretty much nothing Trump can use to ooga-booga-boo-scary the public with that he isn't already guiltier than anyone else of doing. And his only defense is to start acting crazier... when acting crazy is one of his biggest liabilities.
Speaking of crazy, how weird is it that he's saying pictures of Kamala Harris look like Melania? What a weird, obsessive little man. Frankly, I think Kamala Harris looks better than Melania. Melania always looks like she's straining to swallow a guinea pig.
And good ol' J. D. Vance, or whatever name he's going by this week. Nah, he's not weird. He's got completely crazy ideas about forcing parenthood on everyone alive, and he wears just a tetch less eyeliner than Alice Cooper, but... not weird, nope.
This is not J.D. Vance
This IS J. D. Vance
Meanwhile, Walz is cool as hell. And their attempts to disparage his military service only makes the Republicans look even stupider and bigger liars. They have a history of this: they did it to John Kerry, so now they're trying it again. Using J.D. Vance to spearhead that is truly stupid. Walz was in the National Guard for 24 years and rose in rank. He put in for retirement to pursue politics a year before his unit was called up... and National Guard units should never have been called up for foreign wars, anyway! That was a disgraceful abuse of Dubya's. The National Guard is just that -- the National Guard. Still, whatever, Walz didn't desert anybody, his exit was a long time in advance of any deployment being in the works. So, Republicans are just spreading one big lie. And who's doing it? J. D. Vance, who's depicted himself as a "combat Marine." Yes, Vance was a Marine. But hell NO he wasn't a combat anything -- he was a correspondent, he sat in the rear in the air conditioning, typing up reports, and if he even heard gunfire it was at the rifle range. Now, there's nothing wrong with being a correspondent, the Marines need someone to do that work, too, and it's honorable service. But it's not combat. Vance presents it as such, and he's wrong.
Walz did serve overseas in 2003, but it was in Italy, not in combat. That's not his fault -- that's where the military wanted him. If they'd sent him to Afghanistan, he'd have gone; that's why he was waiting in Italy. Turns out the military never sent that unit farther than Italy. But, he's not a combat guy, either. And that's fine; there are a LOT of people in the military who serve honorably and don't see combat. As a Guardsman, Walz dealt with disaster relief and such... which is what the Guard does, when not misused. There's absolutely nothing about Walz's record that any serious person could find fault with.
Anyway, at the core of all this, is one immutable fact: Joseph R. Biden is a frickin' HERO. You'll seldom see a politician truly put the country before themselves. It's an ego business, but he put his ego in check because he saw what the narrative was. I do not believe the guy's senile in the least, but that disaster debate gave him a hard story to live down, and he accepted it and did what's right. I think he still could've beaten Trump, but it would've been a LOT riskier. Passing the torch to Harris paid off massively so far, and that's great, because we don't only need to win, we need a landslide that will demoralize Trump's movement. They're fanatics who need to be forced to doubt their god. O' course, nothing will pry most of them off -- they'll say things were "rigged" so that even the divine intervention of almighty god couldn't put his chosen onto the throne, etc., but what can ya do? Ya can't reason with people who aren't rational to begin with. They belieeeeeeeve things and will continue to believe them like wilful children. But a nice big landslide for Harris would make them look even more absurd, and that would help.
The convention does worry me a bit, though, because of the stupid protesters. Their cause isn't stupid -- Netanyahu is a butchering scumbag who's doing his country a huge disservice with this overreach -- but their tactics are completely inept. If Trump wins he'll let Netanyahu do all the atrocities he wants, AND he'll deport the protesters (or at least he's saying he will), but who are these geniuses going to scream at? The only people who'd possibly help them at all. Idiots. Idiots with a worthy cause are still idiots. If the Palestinians in Gaza end up suffering even worse, it'll be because of those protesters, not despite them.
The convention itself should go well. They keep talking about surprise musical guests. If it's Taylor Swift, this thing's gonna explode with wonderfulness. If it's Beyonce (which is more likely since she's letting them use one of her songs as the campaign's theme), similar greatness. What I'm hoping for is a Taylor Swift/Beyonce duet, which would break the internet (and Trump's floundering campaign) beyond repair. But, that's probably an unrealistic hope. Still, though... damn fun to think about.
Somebody suggested that Biden should come out and say, "I'm here to protest all of this and announce I'm still running for president, so I can debate Donald Trump again!" (Like Trump keeps pathetically dreaming he will). Then wait a few seconds and say, "Nah, I'm just kidding, go fuck yourself, Donald!" That would be the funniest thing that ever happened anywhere. Which is why it probably won't happen. But it should!
Anyway, I'm waiting for some setback somewhere down the line, because they always come, but so far, things are looking GREAT!
File under “I know I’m on vacation, but my peripheral vision keeps catching intriguing items in the news.” And, my oh my, such items call for a glass of sweet wine these days.
So, a few points of interest.
Harris is now ahead all over the board. And we haven’t even had the convention yet. Or the debates. In the comments I’ll post a Republican poll guru who is beginning to think Democrats might sweep the board. President. Senate. And House.
I know, I know, I know. I may be suffering from desert delirium. New Mexico madness. Taos titillation. But …
“Harris leads Trump 50% to 46% among likely voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.” If she wins these swing states, she’s our new president.
“42% of voters say they trust Harris more with the economy than Trump (41%).” Whoa! That is supposed to be Trump’s strong suite. He has no shot if this keeps up.
And, despite Trump’s rooting for a stock market crash and a depression, the market is soaring again, and the economy is strong. Which is why, of course, he keeps resorting to lies and bullshit. I love this next quote.
Trump at his economy presser: “Virtually 100% of the net job creation in the last year has gone to migrants. In fact I've heard substantially more and actually beyond that number 100%. It’s a much higher number than that but the government has not caught up with that yet.”
Talk about the lower end of the bell curve striking back. The man continues to plumb new depths of idiocy. Note the tells that he’s simply making shit up. “Virtually.” “I’ve heard.” And then the mountain of moron. There’s a number “beyond” 100%. Government still trying to figure that one out.
And this from the man who said of Kamala Harris, “I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence.” Lady Irony is giggling with delight.
And then I heard the Stable Genius recently had a little tech-challenged chinwag with the Genius Clown on Twitter/X. As one Trump friend said of Trump’s return to Twitter/X, “One of the advantages on Truth Social was that nobody was on there and he could say basically whatever he wanted and a lot of the problematic stuff just didn’t get seen. Now we’re back to old times.” And what amazing “old times” they were. Back when the stupid got noticed.
Here’s Trump on his diplomacy with Putin. Trump: “I said to Vladimir Putin, I said, ‘Don’t do it. You can’t do it, Vladimir. You do it, it’s gonna be a bad day. You cannot do it. And I told him things, what I’d do. And he said, ‘No way.’ And I said, ‘way.’” Who knew that international diplomacy was conducted like a couple of bullies on a grade school playground.
And he went on to boast about the great relationship he had with the world’s most vicious dictators.
Trump: “Elon, I know every one of them and I know them well. I know Putin, I know Xi, and Kim Jung Un. They are at the top of their game. They’re tough, they’re smart, they’re vicious.”
Of the man who fired a missile into a children’s hospital. “I got along with Putin very well, and he respected me.”
Of North Korea’s caviar-eating mass murderer of his own people. “You know, I got along with Kim Jung Un. We had dinner. We had everything. He really liked me. And I got along with him really well. We had a good relationship.” Trump clearly admires the brutal exercise of absolute power. Anyone who understands the meaning behind “America” simply cannot support this thug. At its core, America is not a place where you admire murderous dictators. America is the place where people do everything in their power to oppose such rulers.
All of this, and unapologetic doubling down on racism. After one account of Trump’s racist insults of Harris, I saw a news report with this sentence. “Trump’s approach risks turning off voters of color and women.” My first thought was, but what about white men?! Does it not turn us off? And if it doesn’t, my god, what does that say about us?!
Trump’s hapless VP candidate, JD Vance, tried to defend his master. Vance: Trump can’t be racist because he’s spent “quality time” with Vance’s Indian-American wife, Usha, and called her “beautiful.”
Hey, JD. I’d like to introduce you to virtually every slave-holder in the Old South. They all had slaves they thought were “beautiful.” And I’m sure they spent what they thought of as “quality time” with them. And yet, somehow, they also managed to be racists. Funny how that works.
And then yesterday Trump managed to insult wounded soldiers yet again. He was remembering giving the Medal of Freedom to one of his big donors. Yes, it’s a great honor, but previous recipients include Bill Cosby, Nancy Reagan, Julia Child, Rush Limbaugh, Devin Nunes, and Jim Jordan. All worthy recipients of some sort of medal I’m sure, but Trump went on to say the Medal of Freedom was equivalent to the Medal of Honor, no “actually much better” than the Medal of Honor.
Why?
Trump: “Because everyone [who] gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead. My recipient gets the Medal of Freedom, and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman, and they’re rated equal, but she got the Presidential Medal of Freedom.” Subtext: Who wouldn’t want to look at a beautiful woman rather than a wounded soldier, you know, the “suckers” and “losers” Trump wants to keep out of sight.
Poor JD, tried to defend the boss once again.
JD: “I think the Marines have the best motto . . . Semper Fidelis, always faithful. You hear Marines say it all the time, Semper Fi, and to me, what it means is that Marines are always faithful to our country. I really do think that Donald Trump exemplifies that motto.” If you watch the tape, it looks like JD said it with a straight face. Yes. Old Bone Spurs. Always faithful to our country.
Perhaps I’ll give the final word to Doug Vose, a Minnesota Republican. Vose, in an op-ed: “Trump should make his campaign about anything other than leadership, decency and competency. Because if he doesn't, and this becomes a character debate, he's way out of his league.” Vose went on to speak about Tim Walz: “He’s the adult in the room and he’s more concerned with what the right thing to do is rather than what’s best for his career.”
I defy anyone to say the same of Trump. And keep a straight face. Perhaps if you begin with “I’ve heard it said that” …
This convention is killing me. I've been running a sleep deficit for a while due to being too busy with some stuff, but even though I need a "go to bed at 7" night to catch up, I keep staying up 'til midnight to watch the stuff live. And usually I don't pay much attention to conventions, even when I like the people. There's something different about this one... it's like watching a baseball game where the worst player on the team is Ted Williams. Just *THWOCK! THWOCK! THWOCK!* all night, every night.
Then it's fun to watch the Republicans' perpetual sourpusses like Scott Jennings struggle to find something to whine about it. It's like seeing somebody try to downgrade somebody else's sirloin steak dinner because all they've got is a dried-out gone-bad tuna fish sandwich. "Well, the potatoes look a little good, but have you tried aged tuna fish? It's not really good until the fourth day out of the fridge, you know!"
I hadn't seen Oprah in forever and forgot how good her speeches can be. Bill Clinton's not quite what he used to be, but he's still got it... even if he does indulge in going twice as long. I'm glad he brought up the job creation thing, though -- what he said was true, Democrats have been in office during 96% of the job creation since the Cold War. Dems need to start leaning on the fact that they have a MUCH higher success rate for the economy than Republicans, because it's a strength they have that they don't exploit enough. In fact, they can lean on just about anything and they've got a better record than Republicans. Like I've hollered 8000 times here (and a thousand times more than that other places), all you have to do is compare the results that red states and blue states get to see that conservatism is an abject failure. I'm no far-leftie at all, but that's just a clear, inarguable fact. My main beef with conservatives is (A) they're mostly bigots, and (B) they're overbearing about shoving their religion into everything. I know this not from any "media narrative," but from personal experience gained by living a long life in Mississippi among 'em. They can't sell me any shiny idealized vision of what they are, because I know the fuckers. That's my main beef with 'em. If their economic policies worked, though, I could get on board with that part... but, fact is, they don't. So it was good to see Clinton bring that up.
While I'm on it, I wish Obama -- or somebody -- had pointed out that Trump did nothing for the economy. All that happened with that guy was, he inherited great economic trends from Obama and then conservatives decided that since their guy could take credit for being in office while they happened, they could now tout the same (but always slightly lesser) numbers they used to disparage under Obama. It was almost funny, but more frustrating, to watch the same people who declared a better number as "bad" start screaming about the greatness of a lesser number. But that's exactly what happened. And then Trump finally drove it all into a ditch. And Republicans blamed COVID, even though (A) the downturn started happening before COVID started, and (B) the downturn worsened because of Trump's mishandling of COVID. So, yeah, COVID would have had a bad effect, anyway, under anybody, but Trump made it a LOT worse by his childish "this makes me look bad, let's pretend it doesn't exist" response to a crisis. Also, Republicans tout $2 gas, ignoring the fact that gas was only that cheap because there was no demand because the country was in lockdown. And they completely forgot that people were brawling over toilet paper. This was America under Trump:
Inarguable set-in-stone fact. And for some reason, Democrats never bring that up. I want somebody to grab Republicans by the scruff of their necks and rub their noses in those things like they're trying to erase a dirty word somebody scrawled in their kid's copy of Goodnight Moon, but... nobody does it. Agh!
Anyway, at least Bill Clinton brought up that fact. That was refreshing.
Pete Buttigieg is frickin' brilliant and needs to be president some day. How he has the patience to argue with conservative idiots all day amazes me. I've had to give up on even bothering... ya might as well just to straight to the insults because they're so full of bizarre fantasies and illogical bullshit that they want to present as "facts" that it's absurd. It's like trying to debate physics with someone who insists that gravity doesn't exist... there's no way to even start, given the parameters that they use. In their minds crime is up, unemployment is up, the stock market is down, we need to drill for gas when we're already drilling more than ever, etc. and no matter what real data you show 'em, they won't acknowledge it, so... what's even the point? I just go straight to "You're a fucking shithead, go suck a gun and get out of the world's way," because that's all that seems worth the time. My patience circuits are burned all the way out with these folks at this point. And yet Pete still is willing to go head-up with 'em. He's got a lot more patience than me. And is better than making his arguments, too, so maybe that's why.
Then Tim Walz's speech was great. Extra assistance points have to go to his kid, Gus. If you've managed to raise a teenager who gets so full of love and pride that he'll weep and stand before a crowd and point and yell "That's my dad!" then, buddy, you've really done something. Nobody has to doubt that Tim Walz is a good man, just for that.
Compare and contrast to Donald Trump's family, who all stand there looking like a casting call for a sequel to The Omen.
I despise the Trumps, but I still have to feel sorry for Tiffany there. Trump drools over Ivanka in completely inappropriate ways (that conservative Christians ignore for some reason, while obsessing over Biden kissing kids on the head) but the other daughter's just completely invisible to him. Doesn't turn him on, I guess... he's just not that into her. She's probably better off, overall, not having to be too close to that creep, but still... gotta hurt.
I've been glad that people are showing a lot of love to Joe Biden. Dude is a freakin' HERO. That was a big sacrifice he made, and I know it had to hurt his pride, especially knowing he was still up to the job, but he did the right thing, given the way the story was going. I'm glad he gets to see that it's paying off in a big way. There can be no better revenge. His legacy is set in iron from now on. Helluva guy, that Joe Biden.
Anyway, so far the whole thing's gone amazingly, no weak points, no missteps. Hopefully the final night will do as well as the rest, or even better. I'm kinda expecting Beyonce to show up. And if Taylor Swift showed up that'd be amazing.
Meanwhile, this is the funniest thing I've seen in a while...
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So, yeah, plastic straws, and "I don't like her, she laughs!" 
Harris is kicking butt. I thought it would go over well, but it went even better than I'd hoped, and the momentum shows no sign of stopping. Nothing Trump throws manages to stick... partially because there really isn't much to throw to begin with (ooo, she slept with Willie Brown! Maybe she did, maybe she didn't, who gives a damn either way? Republicans are so weird about sex, despite being a super-creepy fertility cult), and partially because Trump's side has zero integrity. There is pretty much nothing Trump can use to ooga-booga-boo-scary the public with that he isn't already guiltier than anyone else of doing. And his only defense is to start acting crazier... when acting crazy is one of his biggest liabilities.
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