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anthonybialy · 5 months ago

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The Runner-Up Worst

Joe Biden can’t brag about anything dull like achievements. But he can claim to somehow be only the second-worst option. The only truthful thing he’s ever uttered fittingly involves the person for which he’s again competing for one job. A declining octogenarian who was an imbecile in his prime couldn’t have chosen a better foe. The only people who can beat each other face off again in a most formidable challenge to logic as we know it.

The last incumbent who deserves assistance can run on Donald Trump sucking. Bipartisan assistance isn’t as appealing as it may seem in concept. A wholly inspirational message of the other guy being demonstrably appalling has created the exact morale you’d figure. It’s coincidentally the only case his similarly tiresome foe can make? As far as which one, it doesn’t matter.

You were sick of this in 2016. Sweet folks in 1984 tired of Trump’s grating shtick without realizing they’d be enduring it for decades and on a far grander scale than bringing tackiness to Atlantic City’s boardwalk. A plague of phony alpha success will culminate in another wretched term whether it’s somehow winning or letting Biden complete the most undeserved tenure in human history. Selectors should probably figure it out by one of these presidential years.

The leader of the once-free world is obviously going to make preposterous claims in his Bidenesque way. Even his surrogates who can formulate sentences without notecards are unable to avoid calling a potential loss the Fourth Reich’s start. A vague threat of imposing white supremacy by law comes before claiming Trump would divide the country.

Every single Republican option is branded racist before uttering a word. The maniacal charge is similar to claiming the right to negotiate without subsidies equates to hating the poor. We would presently be hearing about how the fantasy decent nominee dreams of wearing Klan robes to the inauguration.

AI-generated Democrats on alternate DC Comics Earths are issuing identically nonsensical slanders against a calm governor who’s only noticeable for creating jobs when it’s most unpopular. The fact they’re right this one time by coincidence makes Trump’s infuriating nomination somehow even more appalling.

Using the challenger’s only successful business strategy would be cunning if it weren’t instinctual. An utter failure of an executive is wagering on serving as only the second-worst possible nominee. In the spirit of respecting the other side, that’s same way Trump won, namely by running against the worst possible candidate imaginable. Today’s devilish decision is Hillary Clinton’s fault in her way.

Politics appeals to black holes of humanity who just have to pretend to be less worse. The election that makes Sophie’s Choice seem like it was between Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream and Cold Stone Creamery is the precise opposite of a free market with an endless array of options. By contrast, one just must be better than the other one. How did Biden get 81 million votes? This same way he will this year, namely by being a human being who is not Trump.

Noting Trump is a tantrum in human form is not quite a cunning election strategy. But you can’t expect much from the person who spent half a century in politics thinking he’d finally make everyone rich by sending out checks. The choice of all-time dreadful idiots who have lucked into roles mistakenly linked with success shows why the private sector is always better. Imagine only getting to pick between Trump Ice and Trump Vodka if you’re thirsty.

Two candidates who have nothing but calling the other one awful are grateful for codependency. Railing against each other is the only time each is accurate.

Nobody is happy, so let’s try more of what sucks. A breakthrough is inevitable unless patterns are consistent, and life should feature more surprises. Right now, nothing’s shocking. This is a rather painful way to learn predictability can be torture. Dinner at Burger King is out of reach even for royalty. The only people not harassed are criminals and those sneaking into the country.

A competent candidate’s greatest worry against Joe Biden would be excessive cockiness. The electoral vote total would be even higher than he can usually count. Instead, the person who makes us feel the least worst might be at a disadvantage. The sole thing older than Biden is the case against his beliefs. The ghastly ideology of an idiot who doesn’t understand reality can be downplayed because his repeating adversary is on record as not getting anything he promised done.

There are no other options. I mean, there were. But primary voters were either too medicated or not enough. As with getting poorer by printing more money, the result is sadly predictable. If voters don’t like negative campaigns, then they should stop selecting the surliest messengers around.

The increasingly unlikely prospect of a candidate ever running by making the case for improvement is what voters wanted, so congratulations. Each side demanding compliance by noting the binary choice should share blame. It’s the one time collectivism is useful. Never worrying about how options became this distasteful in the first place works out in the same way ignoring which way the debt clock rolls leads to breaking even.

#Joe Biden #Donald Trump #president #election #2024 presidential election

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fernstream · 4 years ago

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For months, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been a good soldier for the Democratic Party and Joseph R. Biden Jr as he sought to defeat President Trump.

But on Saturday, in a nearly hourlong interview shortly after President-elect Biden was declared the winner, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez made clear the divisions within the party that animated the primary still exist. And she dismissed recent criticisms from some Democratic House members who have blamed the party’s left for costing them important seats. Some of the members who lost, she said, had made themselves “sitting ducks.”

These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

We finally have a fuller understanding of the results. What’s your macro takeaway?

Well, I think the central one is that we aren’t in a free fall to hell anymore. But whether we’re going to pick ourselves up or not is the lingering question. We paused this precipitous descent. And the question is if and how we will build ourselves back up.

We know that race is a problem, and avoiding it is not going to solve any electoral issues. We have to actively disarm the potent influence of racism at the polls.

But we also learned that progressive policies do not hurt candidates. Every single candidate that co-sponsored Medicare for All in a swing district kept their seat. We also know that co-sponsoring the Green New Deal was not a sinker. Mike Levin was an original co-sponsor of the legislation, and he kept his seat.

To your first point, Democrats lost seats in an election where they were expected to gain them. Is that what you are ascribing to racism and white supremacy at the polls?

I think it’s going to be really important how the party deals with this internally, and whether the party is going to be honest about doing a real post-mortem and actually digging into why they lost. Because before we even had any data yet in a lot of these races, there was already finger-pointing that this was progressives’ fault and that this was the fault of the Movement for Black Lives.

I’ve already started looking into the actual functioning of these campaigns. And the thing is, I’ve been unseating Democrats for two years. I have been defeating D.C.C.C.-run campaigns for two years. That’s how I got to Congress. That’s how we elected Ayanna Pressley. That’s how Jamaal Bowman won. That’s how Cori Bush won. And so we know about extreme vulnerabilities in how Democrats run campaigns.

Some of this is criminal. It’s malpractice. Conor Lamb spent $2,000 on Facebook the week before the election. I don’t think anybody who is not on the internet in a real way in the year of our Lord 2020 and loses an election can blame anyone else when you’re not even really on the internet.

And I’ve looked through a lot of these campaigns that lost, and the fact of the matter is if you’re not spending $200,000 on Facebook with fund-raising, persuasion, volunteer recruitment, get-out-the-vote the week before the election, you are not firing on all cylinders. And not a single one of these campaigns were firing on all cylinders.

Well, Conor Lamb did win. So what are you saying: Investment in digital advertising and canvassing are a greater reason moderate Democrats lost than any progressive policy?

These folks are pointing toward Republican messaging that they feel killed them, right? But why were you so vulnerable to that attack?

If you’re not door-knocking, if you’re not on the internet, if your main points of reliance are TV and mail, then you’re not running a campaign on all cylinders. I just don’t see how anyone could be making ideological claims when they didn’t run a full-fledged campaign.

Our party isn’t even online, not in a real way that exhibits competence. And so, yeah, they were vulnerable to these messages, because they weren’t even on the mediums where these messages were most potent. Sure, you can point to the message, but they were also sitting ducks. They were sitting ducks.

There’s a reason Barack Obama built an entire national campaign apparatus outside of the Democratic National Committee. And there’s a reason that when he didn’t activate or continue that, we lost House majorities. Because the party — in and of itself — does not have the core competencies, and no amount of money is going to fix that.

If I lost my election, and I went out and I said: “This is moderates’ fault. This is because you didn’t let us have a floor vote on Medicare for all.” And they opened the hood on my campaign, and they found that I only spent $5,000 on TV ads the week before the election? They would laugh. And that’s what they look like right now trying to blame the Movement for Black Lives for their loss.

Is there anything from Tuesday that surprised you? Or made you rethink your previously held views?

The share of white support for Trump. I thought the polling was off, but just seeing it, there was that feeling of realizing what work we have to do.

We need to do a lot of anti-racist, deep canvassing in this country. Because if we keep losing white shares and just allowing Facebook to radicalize more and more elements of white voters and the white electorate, there’s no amount of people of color and young people that you can turn out to offset that.

But the problem is that right now, I think a lot of Dem strategy is to avoid actually working through this. Just trying to avoid poking the bear. That’s their argument with defunding police, right? To not agitate racial resentment. I don’t think that is sustainable.

There’s a lot of magical thinking in Washington, that this is just about special people that kind of come down from on high. Year after year, we decline the idea that they did work and ran sophisticated operations in favor of the idea that they are magical, special people. I need people to take these goggles off and realize how we can do things better.

If you are the D.C.C.C., and you’re hemorrhaging incumbent candidates to progressive insurgents, you would think that you may want to use some of those firms. But instead, we banned them. So the D.C.C.C. banned every single firm that is the best in the country at digital organizing.

The leadership and elements of the party — frankly, people in some of the most important decision-making positions in the party — are becoming so blinded to this anti-activist sentiment that they are blinding themselves to the very assets that they offer.

I’ve been begging the party to let me help them for two years. That’s also the damn thing of it. I’ve been trying to help. Before the election, I offered to help every single swing district Democrat with their operation. And every single one of them, but five, refused my help. And all five of the vulnerable or swing district people that I helped secured victory or are on a path to secure victory. And every single one that rejected my help is losing. And now they’re blaming us for their loss.

So I need my colleagues to understand that we are not the enemy. And that their base is not the enemy. That the Movement for Black Lives is not the enemy, that Medicare for all is not the enemy. This isn’t even just about winning an argument. It’s that if they keep going after the wrong thing, I mean, they’re just setting up their own obsolescence.

What is your expectation as to how open the Biden administration will be to the left? And what is the strategy in terms of moving it?

I don’t know how open they’ll be. And it’s not a personal thing. It’s just, the history of the party tends to be that we get really excited about the grass roots to get elected. And then those communities are promptly abandoned right after an election.

I think the transition period is going to indicate whether the administration is taking a more open and collaborative approach, or whether they’re taking a kind of icing-out approach. Because Obama’s transition set a trajectory for 2010 and some of our House losses. It was a lot of those transition decisions — and who was put in positions of leadership — that really informed, unsurprisingly, the strategy of governance.

What if the administration is hostile? If they take the John Kasich view of who Joe Biden should be? What do you do?

Well, I’d be bummed, because we’re going to lose. And that’s just what it is. These transition appointments, they send a signal. They tell a story of who the administration credits with this victory. And so it’s going be really hard after immigrant youth activists helped potentially deliver Arizona and Nevada. It’s going to be really hard after Detroit and Rashida Tlaib ran up the numbers in her district.

It’s really hard for us to turn out nonvoters when they feel like nothing changes for them. When they feel like people don’t see them, or even acknowledge their turnout.

If the party believes after 94 percent of Detroit went to Biden, after Black organizers just doubled and tripled turnout down in Georgia, after so many people organized Philadelphia, the signal from the Democratic Party is the John Kasichs won us this election? I mean, I can’t even describe how dangerous that is.

You are diagnosing national trends. You’re maybe the most famous voice on the left currently. What can we expect from you in the next four years?

I don’t know. I think I’ll have probably more answers as we get through transition, and to the next term. How the party responds will very much inform my approach and what I think is going to be necessary.

The last two years have been pretty hostile. Externally, we’ve been winning. Externally, there’s been a ton of support, but internally, it’s been extremely hostile to anything that even smells progressive.

Is the party ready to, like, sit down and work together and figure out how we’re going to use the assets from everyone at the party? Or are they going to just kind of double down on this smothering approach? And that’s going to inform what I do.

Is there a universe in which they’re hostile enough that we’re talking about a Senate run in a couple years?

I genuinely don’t know. I don’t even know if I want to be in politics. You know, for real, in the first six months of my term, I didn’t even know if I was going to run for re-election this year.

Really? Why?

It’s the incoming. It’s the stress. It’s the violence. It’s the lack of support from your own party. It’s your own party thinking you’re the enemy. When your own colleagues talk anonymously in the press and then turn around and say you’re bad because you actually append your name to your opinion.

I chose to run for re-election because I felt like I had to prove that this is real. That this movement was real. That I wasn’t a fluke. That people really want guaranteed health care and that people really want the Democratic Party to fight for them.

But I’m serious when I tell people the odds of me running for higher office and the odds of me just going off trying to start a homestead somewhere — they’re probably the same.

#aoc #mine #shes so smart #and so Correct

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 years ago

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 16, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

History was in the news today in three very different ways.

First up is the deep freeze in Texas, which overwhelmed the power grid and knocked out electricity for more than 3.5 million people, leaving them without heat. It has taken the lives of at least 23 people.

Most of Texas is on its own power grid, a decision made in the 1930s to keep it clear of federal regulation. This means both that it avoids federal regulation and that it cannot import more electricity during periods of high demand. Apparently, as temperatures began to drop, people turned up electric heaters and needed more power than engineers had been told to design for, just as the ice shut down gas-fired plants and wind turbines froze. Demand for natural gas spiked and created a shortage.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) told Sean Hannity that the disaster “shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal” for the United States, but Dan Woodfin, a senior director for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the organization in charge of the state’s power grid, told Bloomberg that the frozen wind turbines were the smallest factor in the crisis. They supply only about 10% of the state’s power in the winter.

Frozen instruments at gas, coal, and nuclear plants, as well as shortages of natural gas, were the major culprits. To keep electricity prices low, ERCOT had not prepared for such a crisis. El Paso, which is not part of ERCOT but is instead linked to a larger grid that includes other states and thus is regulated, did, in fact, weatherize their equipment. Its customers lost power only briefly.

With climate change expected to intensify extremes of weather, the crisis in Texas indicates that our infrastructure will need to be reinforced to meet conditions it was not designed for.

Second, there was an interesting development today with regard to the January 6 insurrection. Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS), in his personal capacity, not as a member of Congress, sued Donald Trump—in his personal capacity—Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani; Proud Boys International, LLC; and Oath Keepers. The lawsuit is backed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and argues that these four people or entities each “intended to prevent, and ultimately delayed, members of Congress from discharging their duty commanded by the United States Constitution to approve the results of the Electoral College in order to elect the next President and Vice President of the United States.”

That language is significant. While the lawsuit lays out in detail the actions of the former president and Giuliani and the domestic terrorists in the lead-up to January 6, as well as the events of that day (making its 32 pages an excellent synopsis of the material the House impeachment managers laid out in the Senate trial), Thompson is making a very specific claim.

Thompson accuses the four defendants of “conspiring to prevent him and other Members of Congress from discharging… official duties.” This puts them afoul of the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, designed to break that deadly organization in the years after the Civil War when its members were intimidating and assaulting Black and white Republicans in the South. The law makes anyone who has “conspire[d] to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from… discharging any duties [of an officer of the United States]” “liable to the party injured.”

Thompson points out that he is 72, within the age group hardest hit by the coronavirus, and the lockdown precautions put his health at risk. This speaks to the part of the law that calls out perpetrators who “injure [an officer] in his person or property on account of his lawful discharge of the duties of his office, or while engaged in the lawful discharge thereof… so as to molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of his official duties.”

The law allows a successful plaintiff to claim money not only to make up for the damages the perpetrators caused, but also to punish the perpetrators and to try to warn others against trying anything similar. And that is what Thompson has asked for.

Thompson appears to be trying to defang the insurrectionists by going after their bank accounts. Bleeding white supremacist gangs dry through lawsuits has proved surprisingly effective in the past. In 1999, a lawsuit bankrupted the Idaho Aryan Nations white supremacists; in 2008, the Southern Poverty Law Center sued a Ku Klux Klan group in Kentucky and won a $2.5 million settlement. Going after Trump, Giuliani, and the organizations central to the January 6 insurrection by taking their money would likely make insurrectionists think twice before they tried such a thing again.

Third, President Joe Biden held a televised town hall tonight to sell the idea of his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. He answered in detail questions about domestic insurrection, the minimum wage, white supremacy, coronavirus, and vaccines. But what stood out was an exchange between the president and the mother of a young man with health issues who cannot get on a list in Wisconsin to get the coronavirus vaccine. Biden told the woman that he could make recommendations to the states, but the order in which they chose to administer the vaccine was up to them.

“But here’s what I’d like to do,” he continued. ”If you’re willing, I’ll stay around after this is over and maybe we can talk a few minutes and see if I can get you some help.”

This is a powerful echo of an exchange President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had with a Black Mississippi farmer, Sylvester Harris, in 1934. In the depths of the Great Depression, Harris was about to lose his cotton farm because he couldn’t make the mortgage payments. In desperation, he traveled a dozen miles into town, picked up a telephone, and called the White House. News stories told readers that Harris had reached FDR, who had promised to stop the impending foreclosure of Harris’s mortgage, and within days, the bank gave him an extension.

In the exchange, Americans saw a president who cared, and a government that finally, after its previous leaders had told them to get out of a terrible catastrophe on their own, responded to their needs.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #Infrastructure #political #climate science #climate #Biden Administration #Ku Klux Klan #racism #lawsuits

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benoitblanc · 4 years ago

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tagged by @castelllans (ily caroline!!!) to answer some questions!

do you prefer writing with black pen or a blue pen? black 100%

would you prefer to live in the country or in the city? city, but not in a super crowded hectic bit. like near the natural history museum in london. in one of those super expensive row houses. as you can see, i haven’t thought about this at all XD

if you could learn a new skill, what would it be? i’d love to become proficient in italian. or tap dancing

do you drink your tea/coffee with sugar? i actually don’t drink coffee at all and not much tea, but on the extremely rare occasions i have english breakfast tea, i take sugar

what was your favorite book as a child? besides harry potter? my love of crime fiction started really early with the a to z mysteries by ron roy. i loved ruth rose so much

do you prefer baths or showers? showers- i never have time for a bath

if you could be a mythical creature, which one would you be? a phoenix or a dragon!

paper or electronic books? absolutely paper

what are your favorite items of clothing? i have a t-shirt with the entirety of les miserables written on it in tiny text, and another with the entirety of the secret garden. i also love my stage management outfits, which are literally just whatever black clothing i can find the day of, but they always make me feel so badass

do you like your name? would you like to change it? i do, actually! my first name is extremely common and anglican but i think it fits me anyway. my middle name, what i go by on tumblr, is after fucking arwen undomiel- no, i’m not joking, i was legitimately named by my parents after arwen undomiel- so what’s not to like lol

who is a mentor to you? all the more experienced members of my production team are always so helpful and supportive and lovely. i miss them a lot

would you like to be famous? if so, what for? honestly? probably not. i’d like to be well-respected in my field but i don’t think that’s the same thing

are you a restless sleeper? yes, which sucks

do you consider yourself to be a romantic person? i’m a weird mixture of “absolute cynic” and “hopeless romantic” so... i suppose?

which element best describes you? air or fire

who do you want to be closer to? i forgot to answer this question last night- the answer here was copy-pasted from caroline with the rest of the game, sorry caroline- but there are several people i see on a semi-regular basis (during normal times) who i’m sort of friendly with but i’d love to be friends with

do you miss anyone at the moment? i miss all of my friends a ridiculous amount, but especially my idiot actors. (you all have probably heard at least one idiot actor story if you’ve been following me for any length of time.) they all mean the world to me, and i can’t wait until we’re all back in the theatre

tell us about an early childhood memory. when i was really little, like 3-5ish, i would always go to a family friend’s house while my mum worked. the family friend had three kids, one a year above me, one my age, and one two years younger. i have a handful of weirdly specific memories from their house, but my favorite is when the kid my age and i were playing on their swingset and when the mom called us in for lunch, she joked “oh, where are arwen and ben? i think they’ve swung into space! maybe to the moon!” i was maybe like four and i can still remember that she made us macaroni and cheese. it was a good day

what is the strangest thing you’ve eaten? i’m completely blanking on this one. i’ve eaten some weird shit in england but nothing too bizarre. elizabeth sponge, which is basically lavender-flavored victoria sponge, was pretty horrendous though. victoria sponge is such a perfect dessert and then you go and make it taste like perfume??? why???

do you like spicy foods? usually! as long as they aren’t too spicy

have you ever met someone famous? i went to elementary school with one of stephen king’s grandkids, aka joe hill’s son, so i’ve met joe hill. he and my dad would always talk about doctor who while they waited to pick us up. he actually wasn’t as weird as you would expect. my classmate, on the other hand, was exactly as weird as you would think a king would be

do you keep a diary or journal? i have made several attempts to do so and inevitably fail every time

do you prefer to use pen or pencil? depends on the situation

what is your star sign? pisces

do you like your cereal crunchy or soggy? in between!

what would you want your legacy to be? that i did something good for the world. i touched someone’s life in some way

do you like reading? what was the last book you read? i adore reading. i would die if i couldn’t read. i’m currently reading my dear hamilton by stephanie dray and laura kamoie, but the last book i finished was a reread of the raven king by maggie stiefvater

how do you show someone you love them? just by being a shoulder to lean or cry on more than anything. also, lots and lots of teasing in a fun, mutual, bestie banter (or straight-up flirting depending on the person) way

do you like ice in your drinks? in water or lemonade, but nothing else

what are you afraid of? wasps and gas masks and failure

what is your favorite scent? the specific mix of evergreen, cold air, woodsmoke, peppermint, stale popcorn, something baking, and snow that you only get at christmastime

do you address older people by their name or surname? depends on how well i know them

if money was not a factor, how would you live your life? in london in one of the aforementioned row houses, doing the things i love and travelling as much as i could

do you prefer swimming in pools or the ocean? neither. lake supremacy. (i do enjoy pools and the sea, but lakes are best)

what would you do if you found $50 on the ground? attempt to figure out who it belonged to, most likely

have you ever seen a shooting star? did you make a wish? i think i’ve seen a couple, but i don’t remember making a wish

what is one thing you would want to teach your children? the boldest thing you can do is just be kind

if you had to have a tattoo, what would it be and where would you get it? ...i don’t want tattoos, so nothing

what can you hear now? the hum of my air purifier

where do you feel the safest? my theatre is simultaneously where i feel the safest and where i have the most anxiety attacks. no clue why, although maybe it’s because i feel safe enough there to let myself freak out a little

what is one thing you want to overcome/conquer? i’m making it my goal this summer to overcome my phobia of thunderstorms. i’ve progressed to the point where a calm, rumbly storm actually makes me really happy now, which is great! i’d also love to just... stop having the aforementioned anxiety attacks but not sure how much i can do about that lol

if you could travel back to an era, what would it be? assuming none of the bigoted shit that was inevitably going down in literally any era is applicable, either the 1920s or 1940s

what is your most used emoji? 😂

describe yourself using one word? tenacious

what do you regret the most? i honestly don’t have many regrets, which is wonderful. the one i do have i flipflop between not giving a flying fuck about and going “oh god i really fucked up there!”, so it’s complicated XD

last film you saw? a rewatch of the avengers

last tv show you watched? technically both marvel agent(s) shows because i’m getting clips for giffing purposes- and side note the carter lighting designer owes me money at this point for making me go through this coloring bullshit over and over- but the last show i saw a full ep from was leverage

invent a word and it’s meaning. praecipience (n.)- the feeling of sickening anticipation you get right before something that you know is coming, like a cast list or an episode or opening an acceptance/rejection letter or an execution

tagging anyone who wants to do it :)

#tag game #about me

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theissuesthatmatter76 · 4 years ago

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"Makin America Great Again?" How about "Makin it easy not to vote for you again!"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-blames-video-games-mental-health-in-wake-of-mass-shootings-condemns-white-supremacy/vi-BB18ZFsb?ocid=msedgntp

Wow every bit as scary as Kamala Harris here, except he is the president. We can at least hope Joe Biden doesn’t deteriorate. What is more scary than this actual statement (and it is pretty scarily off base and out of touch) is what tyrannical invasive policing practices he plans to empower to do what he talks about. You thought ICE left a bitter taste in your mouth? This is the ICE of his next administration along with the good odds for martial law happening if Biden loses and the people rioting right now have to deal with Trump for another 4 years...There will be rights abusing and even greater police evils that are a biproduct of the direct call for martial law that may follow. The only monster with many red flags is Donald Trump and there is a much greater risk of REAL danger from this man because he will wield and has already wielded the power of the most powerful military in the world in haphazard fashion.

Oh and I love how no one is wearing masks at his rallies! I wouldn’t go so far as to call his followers deplorables but I would certainly call them morons! but i digress, you know what the real motivation behind this complete garbage statement he is making is don’t you? I mean the timing of releasing this statement the day of a rally in Vegas where they are advertising gun sales aggressively says it all doesn’t it? He is blaming video games and mentally ill people (the vast majority of which are peaceful people who don’t plan mass murders) You aren’t going to stop evil people from picking up guns and causing mass carnage except by not making it possible for them to get those guns. To a certain extent you aren’t going to stop people from doing these types of things because people do these types of things that you don’t see coming..Even if you take away everyone’s right to privacy and witch hunt a bunch of people who would never do anything, you are still not going to stop the dude you don’t know about. Videogames don’t kill people..people kill people..and people like Trump make people who kill people.

The mindset of some of these shooters who go off and kill people is not all that different from the way Trump flies off the handle threatening to burn other countries in seas of fire or his "peace by bullying" military doctrine...which fits him perfectly..It is a power trip that motivates these people..Trump knows all about power tripping like when he had that general murdered in Iraq almost starting an all out war and resulting in US soldiers almost getting killed and ending up with TBIs! which Trump callously and ignorantly dismissed as "a few headaches" Yeah "a few headaches" is what you get when you and your buddies go a little overboard on a drinking night not when you are on the receiving end of 15 ballistic missiles!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/10/us-troops-brain-injury-iran-strike-military-to-report

and we will win....way to be totally incoherent..uh ok?

P.S. His attitude that all people that do these type of things are monsters and irredeemable is probably the same attitude that pushes people down this road, some are just plain evil but one thing is true. If they don’t have the guns they can’t commit the crimes and if they try the police can handle them much more easily..The real monsters in this world are the tyrannical bullies who ruin lives and still get elected president a second term.

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cksmart-world · 3 years ago

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SMART BOMB

The completely unnecessary news analysis

by Christopher Smart

September 21, 2021

NOW YOU CAN COMPOST YOUR FAMILY — FOR REAL

There are some people who just don't like the idea of getting buried, even after they're dead — so they get cremated. And there are folks who can't fathom getting shoved into a blazing oven after years of purchasing expensive moisturizers. Well, hold onto your cotyledons, there is now a third option: composting. (We are not making this up.) Just like backyard composting, your body, along with some wood chips and straw, can turn into enough soil to fill a pickup. It takes about six months. Think of it, your family could use the compost for a memorial tree planting. Future offspring and relatives would drive by the beautiful foliage and say, “Hey, look, there's Uncle Billy.” As the world and cemeteries get more crowded, composting is looking like a better ecological strategy with spiritual benefits (ashes to ashes, dust to dust and all that). And think of the green-house emissions it would mitigate. What if every person who died was now a tree. Imagine a scrub oak in California dubbed, “The Gipper,” or a bald cypress in Texas called LBJ.” This could change many afterlife plans. In the near future, folks might do a lot of thinking about what tree they want to nurture after they move on to the world of compost. On the other hand, you could become a flowerbed.

10 REASONS UTAH IS THE HAPPIEST STATE IN THE U.S.A.

In case you needed telling, Utah is the happiest state in the country. But to make it official, the website WalletHub.com gave Utah the top spot after factoring in a whole bunch of stuff. As usual, the staff here at Smart Bomb wanted to get to the nitty-gritty, so we analyzed WalletHub's algorithms to find the essentials.

Utahns are happy because:

1 – We can eat as much ice cream as we want and nobody will roll their eyes.

2 – We know there'll always be a “next season” for the Utes.

3 – When we get down, we just go to Chuck-A-Rama.

4 – Utahns know someone else will make the hard decisions for us.

5 – We take half-gallon cool cups of Diet Coke everywhere we go.

6 – Utahns have “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” to sin for us — guiltless joy.

7 – The LDS Church does not use tithing to fund capital projects, like malls.

8 – Six days a week we can count on warm beer at the State Liquor store.

9 – We have a special place for secret political meetings — Krispy Kreme.

10 – And climate change is in the Lord's hands, so we don't worry about it.

DEMS TO ERASE WHITE AMERICA WITH IMMIGRANTS

Democrats are continuing their heinous conspiracy and want to let all those Haitian refugees swarm into the U.S. where they will all become citizens and vote for Democrats. That ain't all, when their kids grow up they will be voting Democrat, too — it's like cancer. Beginning to see a pattern here? And what about the invasion from Central America after hurricanes Etta and Iota in 2020? Here is what GOP strategists have assured us for a long time: Democrats are bringing in black and brown people by the millions who will dilute America's whiteness. Even Tucker Carlson says so. It's only fair then that Red States adopt voting restrictions to keep 'em from voting. Or as Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told Fox News firebrand Laura Ingraham: “The revolution has begun — a silent revolution by the Democrat Party and Joe Biden to take over the country... They are allowing this year, probably 2 million, maybe another million into this country... You’re talking about millions and millions and millions of new voters, and they will thank the Democrats and Biden for bringing them here.” And don't listen to Democrats who say this is white supremacy, we're just tryin' to keep this country the way God meant it to be — white. As for Mexican food — well, that's different.

Post script — And that'll do it for another week here at Smart Bomb where we keep track of Facebook so you don't have to. In George Orwell's classic novel, “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” the protagonist, Winston, is watched by Big Brother on “tele-screens.” Published in 1949, it appears prescient — but it seems like we are Big Brother watching ourselves for the likes of Facebook and others who are only too happy to keep tabs on us. But, oddly, it also reminded the staff here at Smart Bomb of the modern-day Republican Party. In Orwell's book, “The Party” is forcing adoption of a new language, called “Newspeak,” to rewrite history and keep party members in line by eliminating words it doesn't like. Thinking outside The Party's constrictive dogma is a “thoughtcrime,” enforced by the Thought Police. Flash forward to Jan. 6, 2021 and the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. According to congressional Republicans — save Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger — said insurrection never happened and insisting it did is a “thoughtcrime.” Not agreeing with “The Big Lie” that Trump won reelection also is a “thoughtcrime.” Of course, our analysis takes a little artistic license, but we're fairly sure the political climate in this country today would scare the pants off Orwell.

Alright Wilson, we know that you and the guys in the band have committed your share of thoughtcrimes, albeit under the cloak of darkness. Just because you think Big Brother is watching, doesn't necessarily mean you're paranoid and sometimes, as Amy Winehouse once said, it's back to black. So, pick it Wilson:

Darkness, darkness Hide my yearning For the things I cannot be Keep my mind from constant turning Toward the things I cannot see now Things I cannot see now Things I cannot see Darkness, darkness Long and lonesome Ease the day that brings me pain I have felt the edge of sadness I have known the depth of fear Darkness, darkness, be my blanket Cover me with the endless night Take away, take away the pain of knowing Fill the emptiness of right now Emptiness of right now, now, now Emptiness of right now

(Darkness, Darkness — The Youngbloods)

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democratsunited-blog · 6 years ago

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The Abolish ICE Debate Is a Test for Powerful Democrats – Rolling Stone

https://uniteddemocrats.net/?p=5198

The Abolish ICE Debate Is a Test for Powerful Democrats – Rolling Stone

Donald Trump acts as though “persecution” and “prosecution” are the same word. This is why he has been exploiting Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE. Under his influence, ICE has embraced its capacity for jackboot thuggery, enforcing white supremacy as much if not more than any immigration law. Trump has taken an agency that ostensibly was meant to keep Americans safe and used it to act out his personal cruel desires. Facing increasingly loud calls for ICE’s abolition, Trump’s empty bravado and capacity for lying have been on display these past few weeks.

The president has falsely claimed to have witnessed ICE agents “liberate towns from the grasp of MS-13,” the violent gang he wants us to believe is lurking on every street corner and in the soul of every toddler he incarcerates. The latest of many tweets on this topic arrived Tuesday morning.

How can the Democrats, who are weak on the Border and weak on Crime, do well in November. The people of our Country want and demand Safety and Security, while the Democrats are more interested in ripping apart and demeaning (and not properly funding) our great Law Enforcement!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2018

Trump has good reason to be flustered about this. There were more than 700 demonstrations last Saturday protesting ICE and the administration’s family separation policyl the one in L.A. was the largest. Some 70,000 people flooded the city’s streets with an anger and determination to match their numbers, demanding the reunification of immigrant children and their parents – and quite a bit more. “This is a city that stands up for immigrants, a place where 63 percent of us are either immigrants or the children of immigrants,” Mayor Eric Garcetti told me as the rally began in Grand Park, about two blocks from City Hall. “But when the federal government fails, we pick up the pieces. This policy has taken a hammer to a broken system.”

Garcetti has admitted to considering a presidential run in 2020, and, during the course of our conversation, I realized that he never once mentioned Trump’s name. Celebrities, politicians and regular citizens alike at the march grasped that we have bigger things to worry about than one man. “We have lost our humanity on a cultural level,” actress Laura Dern told me as thousands began to abandon the staging area to march several blocks to a federal detention center where immigrant children were being held. “This is not a political issue.”

Constance Wu, star of the immigrant-focused sitcom Fresh Off the Boat and the forthcoming film Crazy Rich Asians, visited the tent camp for children in Tornillo, Texas, last month to help lead protests there. Still, she felt encouraged. “From the top down, it seems like it’s getting worse, but bottom up, it’s getting better. We’re getting more people activated, more people aware,” Wu told me, holding a sign that read “CRUELTY IS NOT STRENGTH.”

Yes, there were some mentions of the president and his sadism – on signs, on clothing and in rhetoric from the stage. A good number of those had the word “fuck” preceding his name. However, the chants of “abolish ICE” outnumbered any denunciations of Trump himself.

A policy that was a hashtag a little more than a year ago had a prominent place on the platform of newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, the Democratic Socialist from New York’s 14th District who defeated incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley in the state’s primary last week. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand are seconding her calls, along with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. California’s Kamala Harris, who spoke at Saturday’s L.A. rally, said she wants to see the agency “re-examined.”

There is a vocal contingent of establishment Democrats and pundits, however, who behave as though they agree with Trump’s claim that a progressive stance on ICE means that “they’ll never win another election.” On Sunday morning, Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois managed to toss water on that fervor and on the energy behind Ocasio-Cortez. “If you abolish ICE now, you still have the same president with the same failed policies,” she told CNN. “Whatever you replace it with is going to still reflect what this president wants to do.” Duckworth – who made history recently by bringing her newborn to the Senate floor – is also worried that going “too far to the left” would ostracize Midwestern voters. She shrugged off Ocasio-Cortez’s stances as “the future of the party in the Bronx, where she is.” (Never mind the fact that the Bronx-born Ocasio-Cortez is running to serve the people of Queens.)

Protesters carry signs during a rally in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in downtown Los Angeles.

Naysayers like Duckworth – including her colleagues in the senate Amy Klobuchar, Richard Blumenthal and Bernie Sanders – are failing to see the forest for the trees here. Neither Duckworth nor her fellow critics can possibly know how the call to end ICE will play out with Democratic voters in November – let alone in 2020. The movement has just begun inching toward the mainstream, and yet there seems to be a particular urgency to nip it in the bud. I don’t know if abolishing ICE is the answer. I do know that it is strange to see Democrats telling us not to even bother considering the question.

By echoing House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s haughty take on the Bronx native, Duckworth used conventional assumptions about Midwestern voters even as more than 50,000 people were on the streets of Chicago this past weekend to protest ICE. As an Ohio native myself, it is sad to see a politician of color, in particular, be this short sighted. Too many at the heart of the Democratic base, particularly African American and Hispanic voters, have seen the system fail them, long before Trump was president. Those Democrats who urge a singular focus on the bogeyman in the Oval Office ignore their base’s demands for systemic change. If the DNC truly wants investment from the voters it needs the most later this year, it needs to stop being so cautious.

The Democratic establishment could learn a lot from coastal communities like Los Angeles, which has the highest population of Central American migrants per capita in the nation. Here is where a person like Jose Luis Garcia, a lawful Mexican immigrant, is scooped up by ICE and detained for weeks or even years at a time. Angelenos are precisely the people Democrats should be listening to on this issue. “We’re the heart of the values, but we’re also practical,” Garcetti said, citing a lengthy list of community benefits to embracing immigrants. The coasts are not the redheaded stepchildren of the DNC apparatus, valued when it is convenient and dismissed when there are moderates to pursue.

Here’s the thing: Abolishing ICE might not even be that revolutionary. While Duckworth is right to note that ICE is being used differently under Trump, that doesn’t mean Americans need it. ICE is an outgrowth of the expansion of the national security industrial complex that sprouted up after 9/11, replacing the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It should take more than 15 years for something like ICE to become an irreplaceable institution of American jurisprudence. I have yet to see any of these Democratic defenders make a convincing argument for why we must have ICE.

Nineteen ICE agents wrote a letter last week to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen suggesting that the agency be dissolved and reorganized into two separate entities so that they may resume paying attention to the many law enforcement priorities unrelated to Trump’s crusade against undocumented migrants. That alone should bolster calls to rethink ICE, and not to – as Duckworth suggests – maintain it and wait for a new president who we trust not to exploit its obvious weaknesses.

The greatest trick that Trump pulls on the American public daily is to be so extreme that we can’t imagine someone else like him. He has made a joke of our politics, but he has only done so more colorfully than a Mitch McConnell or a Jeff Sessions. There will be others in Trump’s wake who are even more competent at exploiting the weaknesses of this nation’s government and its various agencies. Other than trying to win in November, the DNC needs to start thinking less like politicians and more like repairmen.

That’s why these attempts to silence the “abolish ICE” conversation are flawed. November may be the most significant midterm election in years, given that it is possible that the Democrats could win the 24 seats they need to regain House control and the 28 they need for the Senate. The latter may prove essential should the current Senate minority manage to slow or block Trump’s choice to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court if a replacement is not yet confirmed by then. Voters surveyed strongly prefer a Congress that can hold Trump in check, to the degree that is possible. But as we all saw this past weekend, shackling the president isn’t all Americans want or need.

There will be plenty who show up to cast a ballot this fall for governor, state rep or Congress based purely on the fact that it will be a middle finger to the president. But Ocasio-Cortez and the Democrats who have joined her call to abolish ICE are not acting as mere reactionaries in a political moment that grows more partisan by the day. If they truly want to win in November and not just signify how civil they are, Democrats should adopt or at least be willing to discuss positions that already have their voters marching in the streets.

Read full story here

#Democrats

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clubofinfo · 8 years ago

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Expert: US authorities are reported to have prepared charges to seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. This overreach of US government toward a publisher, whose principle is aligned with the U.S. Constitution, is another sign of a crumbling façade of democracy. The Justice Department in the Obama administration could not prosecute WikiLeaks for publishing documents pertaining to the US government, because they struggled to determine whether the First Amendment protection applied in this case. Now, the torch of Obama’s war on whistleblowers seems to have been passed on to Trump, who had shown disdain toward free speech and even called the U.S. media as “enemies of the people”. Earlier this month, CIA Director Mike Pompeo vowed to end WikiLeaks, accusing the whistleblowing site as being a “non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia”. He also once called Edward Snowden a traitor and claimed that he should be executed. This declaration of war against WikiLeaks may bring a reminiscence of George W. Bush’s speech in the aftermath of 9-11, where he said, ‘either you are with us or against us’, and urged the nation to side with the government in his call to fight global ‘war on terror’. In a recent interview on DemocracyNow!, journalist at The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald put this persecution of WikiLeaks in the context of a government assault on basic freedom. He spelled out their tactics, noting how the government first chooses a target group that is hated and lacks popular support, for they know attacking an idea or a group that is popular would meet resistance. He explained: …. they pick somebody who they know is hated in society or who expresses an idea that most people find repellent, and they try and abridge freedom of speech in that case, so that most people will let their hatred for the person being targeted override the principle involved, and they will sanction or at least acquiesce to the attack on freedom because they hate the person being attacked. Demonizing and scapegoating of a particular group or organization is an alarming tendency toward an authoritarian state. At a news conference last Thursday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions also chimed in to emphasize how Assange’s arrest is a priority. This targeting of WikiLeaks is a threat to press freedom and could be seen a slippery slope toward fascism. History Repeats Itself Recall the Weimer Republic just before the rise of Adolf Hitler. He was successfully able to install hatred in the minds of Germans and carry out massive crimes against humanity. Americans often wondered what made many ordinary Germans accept these horrendous acts that led to the holocaust. Now, in Trump’s America, it is not so far a stretch to say that Muslims, Mexicans and other immigrants are becoming like the new Jews, to be scapegoated under this right wing administration. Once he gained power, Hitler made his word to be above the law. Trump, in his first 75 days in office, turned the rhetoric of hatred into action through passing executive order barring refuges and citizens from seven majority Muslim nations from entering into the United States and enacting mass deportation with the ICE agents acting like Nazi Gestapo to track immigrants. Draconian policies that were more under the radar during the Obama administration are now becoming overt. More and more, Americans might now be able to get under the skin of those ‘Good Germans’. In Hitler’s Germany, persecution of Jews didn’t happen overnight. It was a gradual escalation. The first thing Hitler did was to control media and create an arm of propaganda. By using this weapon of mass deception, the Nazi Regime garnered popular support on a platform of racial identity and nationalism and managed to brainwash citizens with the Nazi-Auschwitz ideology of anti-Semitism. Under the guise of fighting communism, the Party suppressed civil liberties, free speech and association and expanded its power by demonizing whoever stood in their way. Identity Politics and Machination of Power The Trump campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” spoke to middle class America and disfranchised populations who were fed up with corporate plunder enacted under Democrats. His message of putting America first also struck a chord with white nationalists. By channeling their frustration and desires, Trump successfully created a fertile soil to harvest identity politics that is now coming to resemble Nazi’s emphasis of nationalism and racial supremacy. No one can deny how the Trump victory empowered white supremacist groups that until now were more on the fringe. These identity politics that seem to be spreading around the world tend to contract one’s heart. Whatever the ideology is, progressive or conservative, anyone gripped with it falls into a narrow vision of humanity and loses perspective. This identity, fixed by ideology, becomes a point of manipulation, to be exploited by those in power and used to divide everyone into ‘Us vs. Them’. When people lose capacity for dialogue, they become deaf to their own humanity. Then, the state can easily exert control over the masses and seize power through manufacturing wars of all against all. We are now seeing a new civil war unfolding in America. The city of Berkeley is becoming a battleground. In February, riots erupted on the UC Berkeley campus when protesters shut down an event scheduled for right wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos. Also, at the recent free speech rally on Patriot Day, Trump supporters, along with members of far-right nationalists clashed with local activists and anti-fascist groups. Ironically, the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement in the 60’s turned into a bloody fight, devolving into violence, with each camp acting totally contrary to the principles of free speech. Height of McCarthy Era Hysteria This attack against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is not something new. Consorted efforts to delegitimatize the organization through character assassination and smearing of Assange have been persistent, ever since the site came to public prominence. Assange was called a high tech terrorist by former vice President Joe Biden and incitement for his murder came from high US officials. Assange has been holed up in asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy for 5 years, despite a UN ruling clearly stating his detention is unlawful. This is not the first time he and his organization were declared to be enemies of the State. In 2012, the US military had designated them as such enemies. So what is different now? The head of the CIA and the Department of Justice’s declaration of war against WikiLeaks comes in a particular political climate. These efforts to arrest Assange, now backed by President Trump are taking place at the height of a kind of McCarthy era style hysteria. Just like the recent US government cruise missile attacks on Syria, carried out without any investigation or evidence that Assad was the one using chemical weapons, the echo-chamber of the liberal media has been amplifying their own speculation of WikiLeaks alleged source of DNC leaks and Podesta emails. With the narrative that Russia meddled in the US election, they branded Assange as a Putin sympathizer and/or Russian agent without backing it up. The Left’s seeming irrational obsession with Russia is also rooted in these identity politics, namely their allegiance to the Democratic Party and America’s post-cold war national identity, defined by a hysteric red scare and its mission of defeating communism. Whistleblowers as Democracy’s Last Line of Defense In the wake of the possible arrest of Assange, the ACLU noted that, “prosecuting Wikileaks would set a dangerous precedent that the Trump administration would surely use to target other news organizations.” We must never forget where hatred-driven identity politics led Nazi Germany. Martin Niemöller, the famous Protestant pastor who spoke against the rise of Hitler and spent years in concentration camps, reminds us of this: First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out –Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out –Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me. Fascism begins in the mind. Its seed grows whenever we accept hatred toward someone who has different or opposing views. Enclosure happens when we suspend critical thinking in the hype of fear and turn the other into an enemy. It happens every time we close our hearts, shunning those who have been made into our enemies. Democracy dies whenever we choose to pick up the sword of ideology, rather than choosing to uphold our common humanity and instead engage in a self-righteous crusade of defeating the enemy. When Trump signed a Muslim ban into law, outrage spread nationwide and people rallied at airports. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit refused to reinstate Trump’s travel ban and so the solidarity of the people won. As Trump pressured to cut funds in sanctuary cities, these cities defied the order, assuring to maintain their immigrant policy. Now, the US government is coming after WikiLeaks, a transnational journalistic organization, who has no allegiance to any nation, governments or corporations, only to the conscience of ordinary people around the world. In the darkness that hovers in the veil of ideology, whistleblowers shine a light through which we are able to recover perspectives that were lost. WikiLeaks, through their act of publishing, lets everyone see views that are forbidden, marginalized or shunned. They are last line of defense and are on the front line in this battle for democracy. One may dislike WikiLeaks and disagree with Assange, but whatever one’s opinion is, we all need to stand up against this erosion of our civil liberties. Prosecution of WikiLeaks is persecution of free speech. Setting this precedent moves us down a dangerous path. • First published in Common Dreams http://clubof.info/

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