#Buttigieg 2020

[mai-komagata]

Ok I’m ready for president Kamala Harris.

[reality-detective]

Things that are not in the news anymore… 👇

-Maui wildfires.

-East Palestine, Ohio

-Joe Biden classified documents as a Senator.

-Fauci working with China to create a bioweapon.

-Pete Buttigieg’s best friend in prison for child porn.

-Cocaine in the White House. (TWICE NOW)

-The BLM and Antifa riots during 2020 causing BILLIONS of dollars of damage. And yes I brought this up on Juneteenth.

-The data collected from the Chinese spy balloons.

-Ukraine intelligence documents released that showed they were suffering massive losses and the American taxpayer was being lied to.

-Nancy Pelosi’s “documentary” film crew on J6.

-Veterans being kicked out of shelters to make room for illegals.

-Pizzagate “debunker” jailed for possession of child pornography.

-Gay porn film in Senate hearing room.

-Veterans Affairs prioritizing healthcare of illegals over Veterans.

-THE SOUTHERN BORDER CRISIS.

-Afghanistan drawdown and 13 service members killed in an attack on Kabul International Airport, that they hid the severity of it.

-Obama droning an American citizen in the Middle East.

-George Bush’s false WMDs.

-3 service members killed in Jordan.

-Hunter Biden making over $1M for “paintings”.

-J6 political prisoners that are still in jail.

-85,000 missing children at the southern border.

-Epstein’s clients.

-Obama coordinating with John Brennan and 4 other countries (5 eyes) to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign.

-Mail-in ballots were the cause of the stolen 2020 election.

-Jeffrey Epstein mentioning that Bill Clinton liked his girls “really young”.

-The (NOW TWO) airline whistleblowers that mysteriously died.

-Benghazi (I won’t mention anything more about this because I care about my life.)

-Nancy Pelosi’s daughter stating that January 6th wasn’t an insurrection.

-The January 6th committee destroying encrypted evidence before the GOP took over the House.

-Nancy Pelosi admitting that J6 was “her responsibility”.

-House Speaker Mike Johnson claiming there wouldn’t be foreign aid without border security in the bill, which was a lie.

-The recent riots from illegal criminal aliens at the southern border and the border in general.

-Hunter Biden not complying with a Congressional subpoena and deemed untouchable. Democrat privilege.

-Vaccine side effects.

-“Lab leak” out of China.

-The Secret Service having to basically guide Joe Biden everywhere he goes.

-Who leaked (Sotomayor) the SCOTUS Alito decision.

-Federal instigators inside the Capitol including pipe bomb evidence against them.

-Obama’s chef “passing away”.

-HRC’s chef “passing away”.

-The Sheriff that happened to be in Las Vegas (during the mass shooting) AND the wildfires in Hawaii.

-P Diddy sex-trafficking allegations. Where’s Diddy?

-Gonzalo Lira (an American journalist) that was killed in Ukraine

-Congress approving warrantless spying violating American’s 4th amendment rights while they are exempt.

-Americans that were left in foreign countries (Haiti, Palestine, Afghanistan).

-The billions of dollars of weaponry left in Afghanistan and the Taliban receiving $40M a week in “humanitarian assistance”.

-Biolabs found in California.

-Joe Biden’s impeachment.

-The scum in the UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES waving the Ukrainian flag.

-The over 300k ballot images that could not be found in Fulton County, Georgia; the same county Donald Trump on trial for “election interference”.

-Democrats defunding the police causing massive rises in crime.

-Kamala Harris’s record as DA in California.

-The Transifesto from the school shooting.

-Many U.S. Representatives and Congress receiving FTX funds.

-They’re already working hard to bury Donald Trump’s àssassination attempt but we won’t let them bury that story. July 13th is never going away.

The distractions are out of control.

Share to show that legacy media is dead and that WE are the media now. 🤔

[wynnefic]

Book Recs

Dropping by this blog with a few recs from my January reading!

Trust: I finished Pete Buttigieg's memoir last month and this felt the natural next step for my next read. It was a great listen, but made me feel wistful for 2020, the year this book was published. The book speaks of rebuilding the world's trust in the US in a post-Trump America. I do wish this could have been the case.

Shoestring Theory: In which the former grand mage of a ruined kingdom travels back to try to undo the damages, and accidentally brings with him his estranged husband, the king who may or may not have caused all the ruin in the first place. A must read for anyone who loves a good time travel fix-it fanfic. Delightfully iddy, but two steps to the left of my own id in that when something is billed as friends-to-lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers, I need a little more lingering on that sexy enemies bit.

The Goblin Emperor: A slow-paced, character-focused fantasy novel revolving around court politics. Maia is forced into the spotlight of elven society when his estranged family suspiciously dies and he must step up to become emperor. Even better (imo) is the spin-off series, beginning with The Witness for the Dead, which has everything: elves goblins ghouls ghosts! prejudice! murder mysteries! class struggle! burial rites! magic! religious diversity! the opera! and of course, my blorbo. @peaceful-fury, you were totally correct in that these books are a delight.

And two fanfic recs while I'm here:

Raising Your AU Son for Dummies: A Self-Help Starter Kit by acefiend: in which Harry stumbles from a war-torn reality into a world without Voldemort, and tries to be Normal™️ for his parents. He fails upwards and gains a family. Fantastic character voices.

The Gold-gilt Path by khthonicEcho: unlike in the above fic, Feyd-Rautha wouldn't know normal if it bit him in the baby-making sack he's wearing over the course of this fic after stealing Paul's genetic material. Peak Paul/Feyd.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

President Donald Trump held a press conference on Thursday to address the late-night crash between a commercial airplane and an Army Black Hawk helicopter.  Unsurprisingly, Trump used the tragedy to play a blame game that included everything from President Barack Obama and Pete Buttigieg, to the helicopter pilot and “dwarfism.”  After telling reporters that there will be an investigation, Trump launched into a—frequently contradictory—litany of reasons that he and his new, unqualified Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy would not take any responsibility.   “The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems,” Trump claimed, before generating an incorrect retelling of the Federal Aviation Administration’s hiring policies.

“Obama-Biden and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen because this was the lowest level,” he blathered.  Trump also mentioned a mythical “Obama policy” that he claims to have changed at least four times.  “Biden came in, and he changed it,” Trump added as a reason why the FAA is no longer up to his standards.  Trump went on to blame the crash on the 2020 election results, which he refuses to accept to this day. [...] “The FAA's website states they include hearing vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism,” he said. But the FAA's inclusion of disabled people has actually been an active policy since 2013. Trump didn’t just work under that policy during his first term, but he even launched his own FAA disability outreach initiative in 2019.

Donald Trump’s presser today on the Potomac River mid-flight collision reveals why many people hate him: turning an press conference on the tragedy into his own grievancefest, such as baselessly blaming DEI policies for last night’s plane crash and past Democratic predecessors.

See Also:

AP: Trump consoles crash victims then dives into politics with attack on diversity initiatives

HuffPost: Donald Trump Goes On Rant About DEI In Response To DC Plane Crash

The Guardian: Trump baselessly blames DEI and Democrats for Washington DC plane crash

NCRM: Trump’s Claim Diversity and Democrats ‘Could Have’ Caused Deadly Collision Draws Backlash

[mariacallous]

Walz was debate prepping with Buttigieg, who also helped prep Harris against Pence in 2020. They're gonna have to scrape Vance off the floor after Walz is done stepping on him.

[tomorrowusa]

White Dudes for Kamala raised over $4 million on Zoom to defeat Weird Donald and Weirder J.D..

The Ultimate Dude himself, Jeff Bridges, showed up to abide Vice President Harris.

Celebrities, elected officials and political activists jumped on a Zoom call to raise millions for Vice President Kamala Harris’s run for president on Monday evening. By Tuesday morning, the amount raised had hit $4m. The Zoom call featured stars such as Mark Ruffalo, Josh Gad, Sean Astin, Mark Hamill, Josh Groban — and “The Dude” himself, Jeff Bridges. “I was brought to the party not so much as because I’m white, which I certainly am, but because I’m a dude,” the Big Lebowski star said during the call. “I’m white, I’m a dude and I’m for Harris. I’m excited, man.” here were also appearances by elected officials such as North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, former House majority leader Steny Hoyer and Senator Gary Peters of Michigan. Transport secretary and potential Harris VP Pete Buttigieg was also on the call. Many of the attendees took swipes at former president Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance, seeing it as a chance to push back on sexist attacks about Harris being one of the “childless cat ladies” who runs the country, as well as accusations she was a diversity hire. Organized by Brad Bauman and Ross Morales Rocketto, the Zoom fundraiser is just the latest chapter of Harris’s fundraising blitz ever since President Joe Biden endorsed his running mate to succeed her.

Neglecting white males, especially in the Midwest, by Hillary in 2016 is one of the factors which led to the election of Trump. The Harris campaign and its affiliates don't want to make the same mistake.

Maurice Mitchell, who is Black and the national director of the Working Families Party, hit on a point that was discussed throughout the fundraiser: that white men are a significant chunk of the electorate and Democrats need to get serious about reaching out to them. “White men are a massive part of the electorate and in a close election, a few percentage points can be the difference between having a democracy or not,” Mitchell said. A Pew Research Center study of the 2020 election found that 40 percent of white men voted for Biden, compared to 32 percent who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. “I'm not a political scientist or the pollsters, but I know enough to know — and I've seen enough polling results or outcomes in elections to know — that if white males would vote 1 to 2 percent more for Democrats than they usually do, then we win this race,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a longtime friend of Harris’s, said on the call.

At ActBlue, online fundraiser for Democratic candidates and liberal groups, a weekly record of $252,517,168 was raised last week. On just the first two days of this week, $38,800,078 was raised. So we're on track for another $100+ million week. Given the enormous dollops of cash which Weird Donald is getting from Elon Putz and fossil fuel executives, it would be helpful to make every week through Election Day a $100+ million week.

[deadpresidents]

My inbox is filled with a ton of messages asking some form of this question, so here's what I would do it I was appointed the Pope of the Democratic Party and had the absolute power to shape what happens next.

First of all, I'd wait a few days until the news cycle is less of a hurricane. But once things calmed down a bit, I'd get a number of the past and present leaders of the party together to go visit President Biden and discuss the way forward. The best-case scenario would need the President to be on board with stepping aside, and I think that would require some serious conversations between Biden and his family and the party elders/leaders. The heavy-hitters would need to go see the President. I'd send President Obama and President Clinton and the other surviving past Democratic Presidential nominees: Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry. (Obviously, President Carter is still alive but he's 99 years old and in hospice care, so he wouldn't be involved.) They'd be joined by other Democratic heavyweights like Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Bernie Sanders, Jim Clyburn, etc.

It will be a difficult conversation because Joe Biden has spent his life wanting to be President of the United States, and he finally reached the pinnacle and nobody wants to give up that position if they don't have to. But I'd make sure they appeal to his sense of duty and patriotism -- the same things that led him to challenge Trump in 2020 when it seemed like Biden was finished with electoral politics in the wake of his son Beau's death. President Biden knows how dangerous Trump is and what this election truly means, and the Democratic leaders would need to hammer home the idea that while he was the person best able to defeat Trump in 2020, things have changed in the past four years and he's not that guy anymore.

In order for it to work, Biden would need to release his delegates and allow the Democratic National Convention to be an open convention. There are going to be many people and many reasonable arguments that Biden should endorse Kamala Harris since she is his Vice President. But the nominee would be chosen by the delegates to the Democratic Convention, so Biden couldn't just crown Harris as his heir. If he feels that she's the best choice to be the nominee and he feels a sense of loyalty to her, then I think Biden has to go further than stepping aside as the candidate. I think he would have to resign as President and allow Kamala Harris to assume the Presidency and go into the open convention as the incumbent President. That would give her a significant advantage and probably swing the nomination her way. But that's an even bigger thing to ask of President Biden, so I can't imagine being able to talk him into that. Even if he steps aside as the candidate, I think he's going to want to finish his term and he deserves that. I'm a longtime fan of Kamala Harris -- I campaigned with her for Barack Obama while she was still the DA in San Francisco. But I'm not sure she's the best candidate, either. Still, she will be in the mix and one of the favorites in an open convention.

I think an open convention would be really fascinating for people to see in 2024 since it hasn't really happened in 70+ years. It might be good for the Democratic Party and allow fresh candidates to come to the surface. I don't think there's any doubt Vice President Harris would be a candidate and it seems likely that California Governor Gavin Newsom and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer would be major possibilities. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Maryland Governor Wes Moore are rising stars, but I don't think they have the name recognition to be the nominee this year. I really like Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and think he has all of the tools necessary to be a good President, but I'm not sure where he would stand nationally. I don't think Michelle Obama is a possibility. I know she's the dream candidate for a lot of people, but I don't think she likes politics and I don't think she has any interest in running. I think a real dark horse would be Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. The only Democratic Presidential candidate to win Kentucky since 1980 was Bill Clinton. Beshear has won three statewide races in that very red state, and he won the most recent election in Kentucky by running as a pro-choice candidate defending a women's right to choose. I've seen Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia mentioned, but I feel like his Senate seat is so important that he's needed there more than as President.

There are also two wild card candidates with such strong national name recognition that they would totally shake up the race. However, they'd also be controversial in many ways, but particularly because Biden would be stepping aside because of his age and these two candidates are roughly the same age as Trump. It would eliminate the argument of a fresh Democratic candidate taking Biden's place, but no one would question their experience or star power. The first one is a pretty obvious one: Hillary Clinton. I think she'd energize women voters even more than she did in 2016 because it would be a chance to get back at what happened that year. Plus, she did win the popular vote against Trump. I mean, it's a simple fact that more people voted for her in 2016 than the person that she lost to the election to. The other person also won the election that they "lost": Al Gore. I don't know if he'd do it, but you couldn't find a better advocate for fighting climate change as President than Al Gore. He's also been out of politics long enough that he might seem fresh, even if he's only two years younger than Trump. And it would be a great story -- redemption for the election that he lost at the Supreme Court rather than the ballot box.

I don't know who I would choose if I could pick the nominee, but I think an open convention would be healthy for democracy and for the Democrats. Either way, I think Biden would deserve the opportunity to save face by having him speak to the nation and explain that he is stepping aside as the nominee as an act of political courage and duty to a country facing an existential threat named Donald Trump. Let him talk about how proud he is of the things his Administration has accomplished and that he was able to stop Donald Trump once and by doing this, he is making sure America stops Donald Trump one last time. And guess what? Then he can do what I'm sure it is breaking his heart to not be able to do right now -- he can pardon his only surviving son because he'll be a lame-duck and won't have to worry about the political blowback.

[tobiasdrake]

Not to keep hammering this point but again: Primary primary primary. The primary election is where we decide what our party's values are. It's where we fire Democrats who are moving in a direction we don't like and hire new Democrats who will uphold our values.

Kamala Harris shocked Leftists when she ran the single most conservative campaign for a Democrat I've ever seen in as long as I've been following politics.

You know what else she did? She sidestepped the primaries. The primary election is something of a political litmus test. If you can't even get a majority of Dems to vote for you then how are you supposed to win when moderates and Republicans get to throw their votes in the ring too?

Kamala Harris has only competed in one Democratic Presidential primary: The 2020 primary, where she was one of the first three candidates to drop out of the race when polling shows she was underperforming even other "Wait, who?" nobodies like Pete Buttigieg.

That the Harris campaign made it into the general election was basically a fluke. 2020's primary winner, Joe Biden, selected her as his running mate. Then he won the general and she became Vice President. Then he had to drop out of the 2024 election and she was his Vice President, so we just. Gave her the nomination. Without stopping to ask Dems if this is really the person and campaign we want representing us.

If you take anything away from Trump's crushing victory in the 2024 election, it should be the critical importance of primary elections. She ran exactly the kind of campaign that *checks primary polls* approximately 4% of Democratic voters are interested in. To predictable results.

Primary.

[dhaaruni]

This one part of that Vox piece annoyed me:

Biden didn't get the 2020 nomination because party leaders wanted to stop Bernie, Democratic VOTERS wanted to stop Bernie.

Nancy Pelosi said she was comfortable with Bernie as the Dem nominee!

And, the president who actually told Pete Buttigieg to drop out was Jimmy Carter.

[nerdygaymormon]

I guess as a straight up liberal that you're happy that the left is stealing this election from President Trump by pushing loser Biden out of the way in an undemocratic way, talk about a threat to democracy

Firstly, I'm not "straight" anything, I'm gay, but you are right that I am happy the former president's poll numbers have been dropping, because he & his VP pick seem to want the antithesis of basic American values.

JD Vance talks about people who don't have children as a moral failing and as a danger to the country, and listed Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg as examples. Kamala is a step mother who by all accounts seems to be a good mom, and Pete & his husband adopted twins, so no, they aren't childless, they are parents, just they didn't become parents in the "right" way for people like JD Vance.

JD & his crowd want to force people to have families in the way that they approve of. They would do away with abortion, with IVF, with birth control & family planning, with gay marriage, with divorce & remarriage. His ideology doesn't want people to have the freedom to choose how to live their life and to be with whom they love and pursue happiness in the way they choose.

Did you see the Republican Convention with Hulk Hogan and Dana White? I think it's not a coincidence that these examples of a certain type of hyper-masculinity is who Donald Trump wants to be associated with. They talk about men and masculinity being under attack and make fun of feminism and the #MeToo movement (remind me, which presidential candidate was found liable for sexual abuse). They use trans people as a punching bag to indicate they're for traditional understandings of gender and gender roles and not for letting people have the freedom to live outside of those understandings.

The promises they are offering aren't about how they'll make life better for everyone, or how they'll help fulfill the promise of the constitution by fighting for everyone's rights, or even freedom for people to pursue happiness in a way that works best for them. Instead, Donald Trump still talks about the 2020 election as though it was stolen from him because there were more votes for his opponent (speaking of a threat to American democracy), and he signals that if elected he'll use government to prohibit people from the types of gender identities and roles that he is uncomfortable with.

As a gay American, I spent most of my life under laws that made sex between two gay people illegal. The possibility of me getting married became a legal reality less than 10 years ago, it was 2020 when it was no longer legal to fire someone simply for finding out they're gay or trans. These are basic human rights.

I'm not saying all Republicans are bad, in fact I have never voted only for Democrats, I always find Republicans to support. But when I speak about equality, freedom, or rights for all, people assume I'm not a Republican and that's a problem I hope they fix.

[beardedmrbean]

The Biden administration issued final rules Wednesday to require airlines to automatically issue cash refunds for things like delayed flights and to better disclose fees for baggage or canceling a reservation.

The Transportation Department said airlines will be required to provide automatic cash refunds within a few days for canceled flights and “significant” delays.

Under current regulations, airlines decide how long a delay must last before triggering refunds. The administration is removing that wiggle room by defining a significant delay as lasting at least three hours for domestic flights and six hours for international ones.

Airlines still will be allowed to offer another flight or a travel credit instead, but consumers can reject the offer.

The rule will also apply to refunds of checked-bag fees if the bag isn’t delivered within 12 hours for domestic flights or 15 to 30 hours for international flights. And it will apply to fees for things such as seat selection or an internet connection if the airline fails to provide the service.

Complaints about refunds skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, as airlines canceled flights and, even when they didn't, many people didn't feel safe sharing a plane cabin with other passengers.

Airlines for America, a trade group for large U.S. carriers, noted that refund complaints to the Transportation Department have fallen sharply since mid-2020. A spokesperson for the group said airlines “offer a range of options — including fully refundable fares — to increase accessibility to air travel and to help customers make ticket selections that best fit their needs.”

The group said the 11 largest U.S. airlines issued $43 billion in customer refunds from 2020 through 2023.

The Transportation Department issued a separate rule requiring airlines and ticket agents to disclose upfront what they charge for checked and carry-on bags and canceling or changing a reservation. On airline websites, the fees must be shown the first time customers see a price and schedule.

The rule will also oblige airlines to tell passengers they have a guaranteed seat they are not required to pay extra for, although it does not bar airlines from charging people to choose specific seats. Many airlines now charge extra for certain spots, including exit-row seats and those near the front of the cabin.

The agency said the rule will save consumers more than $500 million a year.

Airlines for America said its members “offer transparency and vast choice to consumers” from their first search.

The new rules will take effect over the next two years. They are part of a broad administration attack on what President Joe Biden calls “junk fees.” Last week, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced that his department will let state officials in 15 states help enforce federal airline consumer protection laws.

[politicalfeed]

What’s Next After Joe Biden Steps Down from the 2024 Elections?

The political landscape in the United States has shifted dramatically with President Joe Biden’s decision to step down from the 2024 presidential race. As the Democratic Party grapples with this unexpected development, several key questions and potential scenarios emerge about the future of the party and the upcoming election.

Immediate Reactions and Interim Leadership

Following Biden’s announcement, Vice President Kamala Harris has become the most likely interim leader of the Democratic Party. Her role as vice president positions her as a natural successor, and she has already garnered significant attention and support from various factions within the party. However, her potential candidacy will need to be officially endorsed by the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Potential Candidates and Primaries

The race for the Democratic nomination is now wide open, with several high-profile politicians likely to throw their hats into the ring. Potential candidates include:

Kamala Harris: As the current vice president, she has a strong platform but will need to consolidate support from various party factions.

Gavin Newsom: The Governor of California has been seen as a rising star in the party, known for his progressive policies and strong leadership.

Pete Buttigieg: The Secretary of Transportation and former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has maintained a significant national profile since his 2020 presidential run.

Elizabeth Warren: The Senator from Massachusetts remains a powerful voice within the progressive wing of the party.

Amy Klobuchar: The Senator from Minnesota offers a more centrist approach that could appeal to moderate voters.

The DNC will need to organize a series of debates and primaries to allow these candidates to present their platforms and vie for the nomination.

Impact on the General Election

Biden’s decision to step aside has significant implications for the general election. The Democratic Party must quickly rally around a new candidate who can unite the party and appeal to a broad base of voters. This includes addressing concerns about Biden’s health and ensuring that the new candidate can effectively challenge the Republican nominee, presumably former President Donald Trump.

Strategic Shifts and Campaign Focus

With a new candidate, the Democratic Party may need to adjust its campaign strategies. Key issues that will likely be emphasized include:

Healthcare and Pandemic Response: Continuing Biden’s efforts in managing the COVID-19 pandemic and improving healthcare access.

Economic Recovery: Building on the current administration’s efforts to strengthen the economy and address income inequality.

Climate Change: Promoting aggressive policies to combat climate change, a central issue for many Democratic voters.

Social Justice: Ensuring that issues of racial and social justice remain at the forefront of the campaign.

Republican Response

The Republican Party will closely monitor the Democratic transition, adjusting their strategies accordingly. Trump’s campaign is likely to capitalize on the perceived instability within the Democratic Party, using it as a point of criticism. However, the Republicans will also need to address their internal challenges and unify their base.

Voter Mobilization and Engagement

The uncertainty surrounding Biden’s departure places a premium on voter mobilization and engagement. Both parties will intensify efforts to reach out to key demographics, including young voters, minorities, and independents. The importance of voter turnout cannot be overstated, especially in swing states that will determine the election’s outcome.

Conclusion

Joe Biden’s decision to step down from the 2024 election marks a significant turning point in American politics. The Democratic Party faces the urgent task of selecting a new candidate who can inspire and unite voters. Meanwhile, the Republicans will seek to exploit this transition to their advantage. As both parties navigate this evolving landscape, the 2024 election promises to be one of the most consequential in recent history, shaping the direction of the United States for years to come.

[centrally-unplanned]

was there a candidate in the 2020 D prez primary who could have won in 2024?

Buttigieg! He is a very gifted communicator, has his eye on the prize when it comes to electoral politics, and is a perfectly cromulent Sec of Transportation. I don't think being a part of the Biden admin would have hurt him - no one's complaints are about the roads right now.

I don't know what his odds would have been to win; I think he would have needed a more cohesive campaign identity to pull it off. Honestly this is the problem the Dems had in general - building a ~brand~ that seems authentic takes time, right? And since the default status was to just not have a primary and let Biden sleepwalk into it, no one spent 2023 really building that up. Thrust into that position in June 2024, Pete would have had his work cut out for him. But if there was a primary, he would have had the proper channel for building that and I think he would have been a strong contender.

(The 2020 field was generally not amazing, because Biden ate the electoral center lane and most people who would compete in that lane knew that so didn't run, and it was crowded with progressive candidates trying to ride the 2020 left wave which was clearly just a bubble. But it isn't like the right progressive candidate couldn't win either, lots of progressive ideas are popular - I think progressive circles should be questioning why their bench is filled with relatively unlikable people like Warren & Harris, and what that says about how they do politics)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ed Pilkington at The Guardian:

The football coach and the “Yale law guy” go head-to-head in New York City on Tuesday night, as two midwesterners with very different styles and vastly diverging messages slug it out over the future of the US.

Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, faces the Republican senator from Ohio, JD Vance, in a vice-presidential debate that promises to be unusually significant in this white-hot election year. They will joust for 90 minutes under the moderation of CBS News as they seek to give their respective running mates – Kamala Harris and Donald Trump – a leg up to the White House. Walz has been prepping for the debate in Minneapolis with the US transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, masquerading as Vance. (Buttigieg may have been suffering deja vu – he posed as Mike Pence during Kamala Harris’s prep sessions ahead of the 2020 VP debate.) Vance has been holding mock debates with the Republican whip in the US House, Tom Emmer, standing in as Walz. Emmer is a fellow Minnesotan, so has the benefit of having studied Walz up close. The two running mates bring contrasting strengths to the gladiatorial ring. Vance is an experienced debater who will relish confrontation under the glare of the TV lights. “Look, he’s a Yale law guy,” Walz has said about his opponent. “He’ll come well prepared.”

Walz by contrast will be able to lean on skills learned in the school classroom. Walz spent 17 years as a public school teacher, so he knows how to think on his feet – and deal with a disruptive kid. “I expect to see a very heated debate,” Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign manager, told CBS News. One of the big questions of the night is likely to be whether Vance can redeem himself after a troubled start to his candidacy. Will he be able to get past all the “weirdness”, as Walz has framed it, and bring consistency to the messaging of an often chaotic Trump campaign? From awkward encounters with doughnut shop workers, to the ongoing furor around his “childless cat ladies” remark, Vance has been the subject of online mockery that has at times appeared to engulf him. He also seems to be stuck on the same culture war issues that consume Trump. “Vance does not seem to have drawn additional voters to the Trump ticket, as the controversies he gets into are exactly the same as those the former president gets into,” said Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Most egregiously, Vance has doubled down on the false and racist narrative that Haitian immigrants are eating family pets in Springfield, Ohio, despite categorical denials from local authorities. He recently confessed to CNN that he was willing to “create stories” if it meant that he attracted media attention. Such comments have sunk Vance underwater in the opinion of the voting public – his unfavorability rating is 11 points higher than his favorable, according to FiveThirtyEight. Walz by contrast is basking in the glow of a positive four-point gap between his favorability ratings, which poses him with a completely different set of challenges on debate night. He will need to parry Vance’s attempts to frame him as the misinformation candidate based on misrepresentations Walz made about his military record, defuse his rivals claims that he is dangerously liberal, and refuse to be knocked off track. “Walz just needs to get in and out of the debate without causing trouble for his ticket,” Burden said.

Tomorrow is the big VP debate between Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and Ohio Senator JD Vance (R) that is being originated by CBS that will air on numerous outlets, beginning at 9PM ET/8PM CT. The debate will be moderated by CBS Evening News host Norah O’Donnell and Face The Nation host Margaret Brennan.

[darkmaga-returns]

It wasn’t just Kamala Harris. No, during the 2020 Democratic primary, presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg also supported taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for federal inmates and illegal immigrants.

The former mayor of South Bend, Ind.—now eyeing the 2026 Michigan Senate race—told the American Civil Liberties Union in 2019 that, if elected, he would use executive authority to ensure that federal inmates and illegal immigrants have access to "comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care."

"I would direct my HHS Office of Civil Rights and Department of Justice to vigorously enforce all federal laws against discrimination based on gender identity, including ensuring the provision of all medically necessary care for transgender Americans," Buttigieg wrote in response to the question. "This includes medical care for transgender individuals incarcerated in federal prisons and under immigration detention."

A spokesman for Buttigieg told the Free Beacon that he "made clear his position that the law must be applied equally and fairly to all people seeking necessary care, and that he would faithfully enforce all federal laws against discrimination."