#than she does with rfk jr included

[qqueenofhades]

Also, allegedly the brainworm-bear-killing cuckoo-banana-pants RFK Jr is about to drop out of the race (did anyone remember he was still in it?) and endorse Trump, after finally realizing that his attempt to play the usual third-party spoiler for Democrats has, and say it with me, completely failed.

Now, all of us should point and laugh together, because RFK was first recruited as a "Democrat" in an attempt to "challenge" Biden in the primary. That didn't work, so he declared he was going to run as an independent. Democrats wanted nothing to do with him because he was insane (and well funded by the exact same billionaire donor paying for Trump, because he was completely intended to gum up the works for actual Democrats). A few Republicans, always up for insanity, flirted with voting for him instead, he had basically no ability to pull votes from Harris, and Republicans realized in a panic that this was sucking them up instead from their already significantly-underwater orange felonious messiah. So now the RFK experiment has completely backfired, he's going to be shown the MAGA door but it ain't gonna help them, Harris was already pulling voters from HIM (in addition to Trump), and for once, for goddamn once, Republicans trying to ratfuck Democrats with third-party candidates did not work. Truly, this is bizarro land -- nay, bizarro universe. I dig it.

[mariacallous]

He wasn’t kidding. Donald Trump really does want to rule as an extremist strongman, with contempt for the planet, for America’s allies and for the rule of law. He’s made that crystal clear this week, announcing one bombshell appointment after another, each one a declaration of intent. Few things tell you more about a president than their hires – personnel is policy, as they used to say in Ronald Reagan’s White House – and Trump is telling us exactly who he is.

The latest name added to the roster is a storied one: Robert F Kennedy Jr, now lined up for the role of health secretary. You may have known of Bobby Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy may be a hero of yours. But, boy, his son is no Bobby Kennedy. Once an admired environmental campaigner, now he is an anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist who promotes treatments that don’t work – such as hydroxychloroquine for Covid – and rails against those that do, spreading the long-debunked claim that childhood vaccines are linked to autism and opposing fluoridation of water to prevent tooth decay. Apparently unchastened by the pandemic, Kennedy believes US public health officials have been too focused on infectious diseases. Or as he memorably put it: “We’re going to give infectious disease a break for about eight years.” If deadly pathogens could lick their lips, they would.

At least the RFK nod was not a surprise: Trump had long said he wanted to let Kennedy “go wild” with the nation’s health. More of a jawdropper is the new president’s choice for attorney general, the most senior law enforcement officer in the land: Matt Gaetz. For two years, Gaetz was under federal investigation for child sex trafficking and statutory rape. (No charges were brought.) Until this week, his fellow members of the House of Representatives were running their own ethics committee inquiry into Gaetz – handily halted, thanks to his resignation just days before they were about to report – examining, besides the allegations of underage sexual abuse, accusations that he engaged in illicit drug use, displayed to colleagues, on the floor of the House, nude photos and videos of previous sexual partners, converted campaign funds for personal use and accepted gifts banned under congressional rules.

Some wonder if naming such a man as head of the US justice department is a diversionary tactic, designed to distract attention from the clutch of other nominations that are scarcely less outrageous, in the hope that those will look reasonable by comparison. In this view, Trump knows that Gaetz will never be attorney general, that his nomination will be blocked in the Senate where, even though the Republicans have a majority, too many will balk. Gaetz is chum, thrown into the water to satisfy the piranhas, so that Trump can quietly ensure his other nominees get through. And what a rum bunch they are.

As director of national intelligence, overseeing 18 separate intelligence agencies including the CIA and NSA, Trump has turned to Tulsi Gabbard, a fringe Democratic congresswoman before she defected to the Republicans, best known for meeting Bashar al-Assad while the Syrian dictator was busy slaughtering hundreds of thousands of his own people, and for parroting Kremlin talking points.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Gabbard was swift to blame the west, even repeating the Moscow propaganda line that the US had stationed secret biolabs across Ukraine. One of Vladimir Putin’s mouthpiece TV channels took to referring to Gabbard as Russia’s “girlfriend”. When asked if she was, in fact, a Russian agent, the talking head on the Kremlin-backed network replied: “Yes.” Now consider that at the core of the US relationship with its allies – including Britain – is intelligence-sharing and ask yourself whether the likes of MI6 could in all conscience share what they know with such a person.

Her proposed counterpart over at the Pentagon, set to be in charge of the mightiest, richest military in human history, is the weekend host of Fox News’s breakfast show, Pete Hegseth. Admittedly, he served in Iraq and Afghanistan – and as a prison guard in Guantánamo Bay – but Hegseth has never run a whelk stall, let alone one of the world’s biggest organisations, employing close to 3 million people. His rank inexperience would be worrying enough, until you become familiar with what he believes.

He’s covered in tattoos, including symbols favoured by the Christian nationalist far right, among them the slogan Deus Vult and the Jerusalem cross, which celebrates the medieval Crusades when Christians earned their spurs slaughtering infidel Muslims and Jews. These days, he backs the ultra-right Jewish fundamentalists who seek to rebuild the ancient temple on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the site revered by Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif, a move so incendiary it’s a byword for triggering holy war.

Hegseth will find company in Trump’s choice of ambassador to Israel, former Arkansas governor and evangelical Christian Mike Huckabee. Like Hegseth, Huckabee is against a two-state solution, insists on calling the West Bank by its biblical Hebrew name – Judea and Samaria – and is adamant that “There’s no such thing as an occupation.” In 2008 he said, “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian”.

All of which makes you wonder how those many Arab and Muslim American voters in Michigan and elsewhere, persuaded that Trump had to be a better option for the Palestinians than Kamala Harris, feel now.

We’ve barely got to Lee Zeldin, Trump’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency, despite having repeatedly voted against clean water and clean air legislation, and having expressed doubts over whether climate breakdown is “as serious a problem” as people say it is. Or to the self-confessed puppy killer who will head the Department of Homeland Security. Or indeed the man who will lead the new department reviewing government contracts, including, in an arrangement open to spectacular corruption, contracts with his own companies: namely, Elon Musk.

Still, you get the picture. How, then, to make sense of these choices? Some hope it’s no more than an opening bid by Trump, the arch-negotiator: offer the Senate something obviously unacceptable, then haggle from there. Others wonder if it’s part of a dark, deliberate strategy, by which Trump, the agent of chaos, appoints those who are not so much disruptors as wreckers, men and women who can be relied on to make the agencies they lead collapse in failure. When the federal government is a smoking ruin, then all power will have to reside in the single man at the top.

My own view is simpler. At the heart of it is the quality all would-be strongmen value most: loyalty. Trump knows that a character as tawdry as Gaetz, despised by his own colleagues, would owe everything to him. As attorney general, he would do whatever Trump asked, working his way through Trump’s enemies list, prosecuting whoever had crossed his boss, delivering the retribution Trump yearns for.

What’s more, Gaetz and the rest are a kind of test, one that Putin deploys often. You push your allies to defend what they know cannot be defended, to make concessions they would once have considered unpalatable. As the analyst Ron Brownstein put it this week, “Each surrender paves the way for the next.” It is, he says, “a cardinal rule of strongman dominance”.

So now it is up to the Republicans in the Senate. Will they abase themselves yet further, and nod through this parade of ghouls and charlatans? Or will they at last find their backbone and say no to the would-be autocrat who has taken over their party and now looms over all three branches of the US government? After all we’ve seen these last eight years, what do you think is the answer?

[dertaglichedan]

Biden, Panicking Over RFK, Wheels Out Kennedy Family Endorsements.

The Biden campaign is set to wheel out 15 endorsements from family members of Robert F. Kennedy Jr, as polling increasingly reveals RFK takes more votes from Joe Biden than Donald Trump. Siblings of RFK Jr. are set to endorse Joe Biden’s reelection bid on Thursday, including Kerry Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s younger sister.

“Daddy stood for equal justice, human rights, and freedom from want and fear. Just as President Biden does today,” she said of her father, Robert F. Kennedy Sr.

The Biden campaign has hired a team focused on seeing off the threat from RFK Jr., with the Democrats concerned he could act as a spoiler. Past polls have RFK Jr., performing better than any third-party candidate since Ross Perot in the 1990s, with his support pulled roughly equally from Biden and Trump supporters.

RFK recently announced left-wing multi-millionaire Nicole Shanahan as his Vice Presidential pick. Shanahan has donated millions to his campaign, which has been run by a former CIA operative.

RFK’s potential involvement in Presidential debates remains a concern for both major parties. He requires 15 percent of the vote in national polls, as well as securing his position on the ballot in enough states to prove electoral viability. He is currently short of these marks.

***With a family like this,, supporting a goofy old fool.

Who needs... Enemies...

[willfrominternet]

Exactly, because here's the thing once again:

Your third-party leftist candidate may align more with your values and the values you wish to see in America, but they do not have the current massive national support like the Democratic Party does. That's unfortunate. I sure would like to see someone like Claudia de la Cruz get more attention, or for some other major left-learning party to balance the centrism of the Democrats and the conservative and reactionary politics of the Republicans. But no such party or candidate has had the major optics and support necessary to make them a real contender in the national political sphere. Such a party/candidate needs to start on a smaller scale - municipal or state government - in order to climb the ladder to the national stage. (We do not support Jill Stein or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in this household, by the way. I know RFK isn't leftist, but I included him anyway, because... No. Just no.)

Not voting is not an option. You know every single Republican is going to turn out for their big beautiful bouncing baby boy. If Kamala doesn't have a big turnout because you decided she wasn't worth your vote, that fascist fucker Donald J. Trump will fart his way back into the White House and destroy everything all over again while eating his Big Macs and drinking his Diet Cokes. And when you watch him and his Heritage Foundation friends unleash Project 2025 and strip your rights and your friends' and family's rights away, increase your taxes while decreasing those of the uber-wealthy, and drag America further down the well towards an idiocracy, you'll have some serious FOMO.

So what do you do, even if Kamala Harris doesn't strike you as the perfect politician? You go out and vote for her anyway. Trust me: She, her team, and her party will be more sympathetic towards leftist policies and protecting civil rights than the other side, and they will be more eager to listen to ways they can govern better. The Democratic Party will at least try to steer this ship in the right direction and keep it from sinking; if the Republicans win in November, they will set it on fire.

Think of what we feared back in 2020 when we had Trump vs. Biden. We knew Biden was old. We knew he was more centrist than we liked. We knew he wasn't the best option. But he was a hell of a lot better than Trump, and we voted for him despite our reservations. It could have been a whole lot worse.

Vote blue in November. Holy shit, please vote blue in November.

You motherfuckers yes I hate Kamala too but when she is announced to be the Democratic candidate we are all going to shoot fireworks and go to the goddamn polls

[dreamofstarlight]

I believe JFK did speak of Kick again but not in public. I think people think just bc some of members didn’t speak of their lost siblings or something means they didn’t care but they did speak about them in private with their friends, family and etc. I read Debo Mitford’s memoir aka the former Duchess of Devonshire and she said when she visited the White House she and jfk spoke about Kick and their memories when they were younger. And I think RFK said the same thing regarding Kick and how he would never speak about her but he held a small gathering for her death in the 50s and called her “the best Kennedy sister” i just think they didn’t show their grief publicly. I remember reading how JFK couldn’t go to a remembrance of Joe Jr in 1963 right after Patrick died bc it was just all too much for him at once.

Yeah, he definitely talked about her in private because she was such a big part of his life and they were kinda inseparable (including Joe Jr). I think Jack saying that to the housekeeper was more hyperbolic and most likely an emotionally charged response rather than what he actually thought and felt probably at the time he didn't want to talk about her because that was kinda the final step and made her being gone more real. Also, people don't need to publicly talk about something so personal and emotionally vulnerable like losing a sibling for it to be a subject they feel strongly about, and them not talking about it does not mean they don't care. I just don’t get why people are so critical of the siblings and even the 3rd generation for not talking about family members dying, like Kerry had to specifically tell a network to not show footage from when Bobby died because it’s traumatic for her to see it again and again.

[reasonandempathy]

Well this is a massive load of horseshit, which is fun. Because I'm bored at work.

Let's start at the top, shall we?

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a fascist, and leftists aren't going to be voting for him. This post literally started with a strawman argument.

RFK JR was included on the post because he is a most prominent 3rd party candidate that people are considering voting for, including Biden supporters.

Whether he takes more from Trump or Biden is up in the air and changes frequently. And saying I had a strawman when I explicitly didn't say anything about him other than him being a 3rd party candidate is a great way to set the tone for your bullshit to come.

It is true that Dr. Cornel West does not have enough ballot access, however, the map you showed for Dr. Jill Stein is no longer accurate, even if it were at time of posting, and is manipulatively framed regardless. She has enough ballot access to win the election.

Wait, so you're telling me that not having a future map is "intentional disinformation or manipulatively framed misinformation"? Jesus Christ these words don't mean shit coming out of your mouth.

I didn't even focus on the Greens/Jill Stein initially because I was literally just asking for any candidate. Anyway,

Using the states she or the Greens are currently on the ballot for she barely crosses 270.

And getting 270 would require her to win Texas and Florida. So while yes, she added a 2 states in 6 weeks (I legitimately forgot about DC, so I apologize for that one), which is good, "being on the ballot" is literally the first step. The only additional state she's submitted ballots for is NY, which would bring her up over 300 but she would still need to win almost every state she's on the ballot for to win.

And this still would require her to beat both Trump and Biden by massive amounts to get either the majority of plurality of each state. the Jill Stein who's 15 points underwater nationally.

I mean fuck, it's mid-june and we're still having a conversation about which states she'll be on the ballot for.

Manipulatively framing poll results under status quo ergo nullum futura possibilate is disingenuous, ignores that people are capable of change, ignores the effects of people convincing others to vote differently, ignores people convincing non-voters to vote, and ignores mail-in write-in early voting.

And let's very quickly address your stupid attempt at sounding intelligent by code-switching to Latin. I didn't even mention the fucking polling, I just spoke about how any 3rd party candidate would need to win more states than they were on the ballot for initially.

The Greens are on the ballot for 21 states. 19 at the initial time of writing.

They were on the ballot in 21 states in 2020.

And 21 states in 2016.

This year, if we presume they get on the ballot in New York, they will reach their new historic high of being on the ballot in 22 states.

They're on the ballot in a number of red strongholds and not on the ballot in a number of safe blue states, Like WA and NJ. And while Green =/= Blue she's going to be drawing from Democratic Voters far more heavily than from Republicans, so she would minimally need to be on enough state ballots that she can win without having to beat both Trump and Biden is Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansan, Florida, and Texas.

Jesus Christ addressing your bullshit takes so much longer than you spewing it.

You'll notice that in the lower right map, while Texas (a swing state) is a battleground state (which, as a Texan, has an extremely large leftist population,

No it isn't. Yes, there is a large leftist population in the cities, but you fuckers can't get a single democrat elected to a national office and Trump has gained support among Texans since 2020, not lost it. Texas has been the Holy Grail of Democratic Electoral Ambitions since I was born and soon it probably will actually a battleground, but the Texas Democratic Party is fucking horrible at its job and Trump won the state with a solid buffer in 2020, the election with the highest turnout in our lifetimes.

And if you think the Democratic party can't beat right-wing fucknuggets in Texas but Jill Stein can I have two tickets to Atlantis I can sell you real cheap.

especially a large queer population in Austin, there's just gerrymandering and a lot of people have been taught that voting is useless), even excluding Florida (another swing state), she has enough ballot access to win the election.

Literally, objectively not.

Jill Stein is on the ballot for 276 votes right now. Adding New York, she's still only at 304. If you subtract Texas (40) and Florida (30) she's down to 234 and can't win.

So with developments in the past 6 weeks I'll happily amend my prior statement to "They are literally, legally, incapable of winning the election. They are not on enough state ballots to win and Jill Stein would need to somehow win California and Texas to even "win" all the states they're on the ballot for. Which, again, would still not be enough to win the presidency and likely throw it to the currently existing Republican House of Representatives. Which would put Trump in office." Currently, with the states she's on the ballot for, if she loses Georgia she can't win. If we include New York then she can afford to lose Georgia, Arizona, and maybe one other state.

Someone going through the fucking map and telling you how ridiculous of a proposition it is to expect someone that 60% of the country doesn't know, and of those that do know her it's 28:13 dislike her, to somehow rise in 5 months to break both the Democratic and Republic Parties, including Trump's diehard supporters, isn't a thing I see as realistic.

Anyway, because I'm still barely into your bullshit.

If she's able to gain New York and literally nothing else, which is currently awaiting certification of ballot access, she can lose Texas as well and still has enough electoral votes to win the election.

That's not how the fucking math works.

You're gonna sit here and accuse me of dishonest framing when you're here pretending your masturbatory map of "what if Greens win all of congress too and then vote for Jill Stein in Congress"? Are you fucking kidding me?

I'm just going to ignore your homemade maps alone from now on. They're fucking ludicrous, and your insistence on framing the conversation around "What if Jill Stein wins almost every Democratic State and major Republican states at the same time?" is disconnected from political reality.

The Democratic and Republican presidential candidates framing a genocide differently doesn't make either of them, "the better option," it's still a genocide, and I advise you think about the fact that Donald Trump is not going to drop a nuclear bomb on Palestine as the Gaza Strip is on the West coast of Israel.

Note for the record, this conversation is now shifting away from "Can a third party candidate realistically win" to "Fuck Joe Biden". Which is a fine conversation to have, but note what's going on now. They can likely say "I want Jill Stein to win!" in response to what I say below, but they haven't done shit about if Jill Stein can win. If I had a magic fucking wand I'd put Jill Stein in there in a second but there's no actual plan to do that so far other than "if she wins California and Texas and Florida and New York and Virginia and Arizona and Nevada and Georgia and South Carolina...then she can win!"

Yeah, that's how math works. My left testicle can be President if it wins all those states too. But she's 15 points underwater with 5 months to go and would need to break Trump's fanatical base to do it. That's not enough time.

Anyway,

"I know that Donald Trump said he'd do this ridiculous fucking thing but he wouldn't actually do it. It'd be too stupid for him to do it." Seriously? Your defense is that the madman is too smart to do something stupid?

And it doesn't even require the US to actually nuke Gaza. Even if we pretend Trump has a reasonable bone in his body, there is a universe of difference between what Biden is doing to support Netanyahu and what Trump would do to support Netanyahu.

Biden is saying Trump would do more. Trump is agreeing that he would do more, and that doing more is an important moral thing for the US to do. You're here saying "well, he's not actually going to Nuke Gaza" as if that's the entire conversation.

Iran has already threatened the United States with war if the US retaliates against Iran for fighting Israel to liberate Palestine.

Man, shut the fuck up about Iran. Trump was out here fucking assassinating Iranian generals, and Trump would also be far more likely to attack Iran in support of Israel than Biden is. Raising fears of a war with Iran with Biden in power but not Trump is fucking dumb.

Palestine's Islamic defense force Hamas, Palestine's Marxist-Leninist defense force Democratic Front of the Liberation of Palestine, Lebanon's Islamic defense force Hezbollah, and Iran's military are all simultaneously fighting against the Israeli occupation - and for the record, all of which are justified until Israel falls: oppressed people have a right to violence.

Real question. Do you sincerely think Israel is more likely to fall under Trump than under Biden? Because that's the only real reason you'd bring this into the conversation. I don't even disagree that people have the right to resist occupation, but we're not talking about the fall of Israel here, are we? We're supposed to be talking about the 2024 election.

Much of your criticisms of Donald Trump are things that Joe Biden has also done, he just has better PR because major news agencies like painting him in a positive light.

Literally not true. I went through it just now, and the only one you have is "Biden could've been better about COVID." Which is why it's the only thing you mention.

And yeah, he could have. But he was fucking miles above Trump on that. Trump vacillated between pretending it wasn't a big deal, calling it a Chinese Bioattack, and refusing to be seen doing or enacting public health policies because it would make him look weak.

We're just fully into the bullshit now, aren't we?

Biden and Trump are both fascists. Project 2025 is not a new, major scary thing, it's things that the Republican party has already been working on with the assistance of the Democratic party trying to be, "bipartisan," for decades; it's just written into a neat and tidy document and is consequently causing mass panic.

Fucking...no. Jesus fucking Christ.

Even when I agree with your criticisms of US actions you fling batshit at the walls.

A military junta of US civil infrastructure and martial law isn't "what we've been doing for decades." Unitary Executive Theory is explicitly not "what we've always been doing", nor is government-wide purges of anyone not explicitly loyal to Trump and Trump alone. The demolition of the DOJ, FCC, EPA, FTC, DoE, FBI, DHS, NIH, ACA, CFPB, the criminalization of porn, enabling people to legally discriminate based on sex and gender, and more isn't "what they've been doing for decades." It is the culmination and explosion of explicitly the most far-right bullshit in the country.

These are things that Trump has supercharged in the Republican bloodstream, but you're a fucking idiot if you think the Republican Party wanted to kill the DoJ in 2015.

Calling for a Free Palestine and not working for it is the kind of purely performative work of white liberals that black and Communist activists have warned us about. Vote for Dr. Jill Stein and talk to people about it.

"True communists believe we can vote out the fascists in control of the US"

Jesus Christ, man. It takes .4 seconds to come up with reasons, from the left, that you're a fucking idiot. Not the least of which being "why on earth are you trying to pin change and hope for the country on electing an unpopular politician in 5 months, rather than just killing Trump and Biden?"

Or, alternatively

"Ignoring political reality and institutions of power when fascists were on the rise is explicitly how we lost influence in Germany, Italy, and across Europe and got so many of us killed. It's why left-wing policies are being pushed back against and rolled back across Europe now. This is a weird moment when liberals are, correctly, motivated to actually beat back the head of a rising fascist movement. Help them do that while working towards the glorious Working Class Awakening, which isn't going to happen in 5 months." (which is the correct take)

Either OP intentionally created a fake map to deceive people, or Dr. Jill Stein does actually have significant enough support to rapidly gain ballot access in even more states. Neither of these paint OP's post in a good light. Vote Jill Stein. Vote Green Party.

You're a fucking idiot, and a loser. You can't even fucking count and I had multiple screenshots of maps at the time, for each candidate. If you couldn't read one of them I would've happily pulled it up for you again, but it's not actually that hard. It's the New York Times, which actively keeps track of where people are on the ballot.

If you actually had any interest in knowing what you're talking about you would've at least googled "3rd party candidates ballot 2024."

And you'd see that the NYT one is the first one with a big-ass color-coded map of the candidates and parties. And you'd note that I explicitly said the map I made was where they were on the ballot. Maybe for dumb fucks like you I could've put it in

BIG NEON LETTERS THAT I WAS MAKING A MAP BASED ON THE FACTS AT THE TIME AND NOT PROJECTIONS

but I didn't think I would need that level of redundancy. I though "How many electoral votes the largest of those (green party, a.k.a. Jill Stein) would win if they won every single state they're on the ballot for." was enough.

And I wouldn't be so aggressive about this if you didn't start this entire conversation by saying I'm actively lying to people, followed by "look at this stupid fucking map I made based on the collective class awakening of the US"

You're actively talking about "what if all of America woke up and chose to vote as a Working Class in their own best interest" but you don't even have the balls to throw it behind Dr. West, who you like more.

If the US is going to undergo a great spiritual/political awakening use it to promote the actual best candidate. Unless you're acknowledging that expecting the US to suddenly switch from Blue and Red to a 3rd party is actually a fuckload of work and it's not realistic to expect people to change decades of voting patterns in 5 months.

Either engage in the real world or don't. Don't play lala-leftist-pretend-revolution and try to tell me you're being realistic you fucking idiot.

Signed,

Someone who actually worked on election campaigns, including for the Green Party, in New York.

The weird radical/revolutionary politic larpers on this site are so allergic to political pragmatism I swear lmao. I am definitely left of the Democratic Party and I am certainly voting for Joe Biden in November. Not because I like him (I don’t). He is absolutely horrific on Gaza and that’s only the top (and priority considering there is a genocide going on there) of a list of complaints I have about him. I even voted uncommitted in my state’s presidential primary (the Pennsylvania one; I had to write it in) to protest. However, I’m still thinking pragmatically. Trump has said things that make me credibly think he will be worse on Gaza (insane that being worse on Gaza than Biden is possible but it is unfortunately), and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Project 2025, the potential for him to appoint more deeply conservative justices, more of his aggressively screwing over poor and middle class people with his tax policies. And does anyone else remember the spike in hate crimes after the race was called for him in 2016? Before he was even inaugurated? Whether people vote or not in November we will still have to deal with one of these two men in office come January unless all of the internet ancom larpers overthrow the government by then (doubt), so I’d rather deal with the one who will be marginally less bad and who didn’t try to overthrow the government. Can’t have your revolution if nobody’s alive cause you kept pushing off politically participating because there was no perfect option. 👍

Political pragmatist anon, sorry for ranting in your askbox but I feel like I lose brain cells watching these people talk. The other day I saw someone say Biden is bad because Roe v. Wade fell under his administration… even though the reason for that was Trump appointed justices. 💀 (2/2)

Fucking insane. Sincerely.

It's a completely, flatly binary choice for anyone with a brain stem and sincerity. It's distilled into the two below images:

Where all major third party candidates are even on the ballot

How many electoral votes the largest of those (green party, a.k.a. Jill Stein) would win if they won every single state they're on the ballot for.

They are literally, legally, incapable of winning the election. They are not on enough state ballots to win and Jill Stein would need to somehow win California and Texas to even "win" all the states they're on the ballot for. Which, again, would still not be enough to win the presidency and throw it to the currently existing Republican House of Representatives. Which would put Trump in office.

It's that straightforward. That simple. That BLARINGLY obvious to literally everyone except these people.

On the one hand you have:

Significant and continuous support for Israel and it's genocide

Record levels of pardons for low-level drug offenses

the gearing up of the strongest anti-trust regime since the early 20th century

the most aggressive NLRB I've seen in my lifetime, with massive wins and institutional changes to help workers

Including getting Rail strike workers a week of sick-leave that gets paid out at the end of the year, which is better than NYC and LA sick leave laws

Millions of people (not enough) getting student debt forgiveness

Some trillion dollars (not enough)of investment in renewable resources and infrastructure

Proposed taxes on unrealized capital gains (a.k.a. how billionaires never have any money but can still buy Kentucky, Iowa, and Twitter)

Effectively an end to overdraft fees

The explicit support of leftist world leaders like Lula de Silva. Who he has explicitly worked with to expand worker rights in South America.

Has capped (some, not enough, only a tiny amount really but it's something) some drug prices, including Insulin.

Reduced disability discrimination in medical treatment

Billions in additional national pre-k funding

Ending federal use of private prisons

Pushing bills to raise Social Security tax thresholds higher to help secure the General Fund

Increasing SSI benefits

and more

vs

Said Israel should just nuke Gaza and "get it over with"

Personally takes pride in and credit for getting Roe v Wade overturned

Is arguing in court that the President should be allowed to assassinate political rivals

Muslim Ban Bullshit, insistently

Actively damages our global standing and diplomatic efforts just by getting obsessed with having a Big Button

Implemented massive tax cuts on ich people, tax hikes on middle class and poor people, and actively wants to do it again

"Only wants to be a dictator for a little bit, guys, what's the big deal"

Is loudly publicly arguing that the US shouldn't honor its military alliances after-the-fact

Tore up an effective and substantial anti-nuclear-proliferation treaty with Iran

Had a DoEd that actively just refused to process student debt forgiveness applications that have been the law of the land for decades now

Has a long record of actively curtailing and weakening the NLRB and labor movement, including allowing managers to retaliate against workers, weakened workplace accommodation requirements for disabled people, and more

Rubber stamped a number of massive mergers building larger, more powerful top companies and increasing monopolistic practices

Fucking COVID Bullshit and hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths

Openly supporting fascists and wannabe-bootlicks ("Very fine people" being only the beginning of it

It's really not fucking close.

[msclaritea]

"An insurrection of upper-middle class white people | Will Bunch Newsletter

They flew from their affluent suburbs to the U.S. Capitol, ready to die for the cause of white privilege

The stunning pro-President-Trump insurrection that occurred at the U.S. Capitol less than a week ago must have been a carnival for one’s olfactory bulb, as the stinging aroma of tear gas blended with the pungent odors of the occasional joint, or maybe the piles of dung that some of the cruder mob members left in the hallways once graced by icons like Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and LBJ. The only thing that wasn’t in the air on Wednesday was the smell of what so many have falsely tied to Trump’s authoritarian movement — any whiff of “economic anxiety.”

When fascism finally came to America in the form of an attempted coup to halt our presidential election, it came from lush-green suburbs all across this land, flying business class on Delta or United and staying in four-star hotels with three-martini lobby bars — the better to keep warm after a long day of taking selfies with friendly cops or pummeling the unfriendly ones, chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” and generally standing athwart democracy yelling “Halt!”

Long ridiculed as deplorables rising up from the muck of Rust Belt trailer parks, the Donald Trump counter-revolution has finally revealed itself as an upper-middle-class affair.

What else can one think after seeing the photo of Jenna Ryan, real-estate broker from the upscale Dallas exurb of Frisco (also a “conservative” radio talker) posing in front of the private jet that whisked her to the Jan. 6 pro-Trump rally and subsequent storming of the Capitol, where she smiled in front of a window broken by other rioters and tweeted that “if the news doesn’t stop lying about us we’re going to come after their studios next”?

Maybe Ryan is an extreme example, but her compatriots in rushing Capitol Hill on Wednesday included a father of three from another upscale Dallas suburb named Larry Rendall Brock Jr., whose 1989 degree in international relations from the Air Force Academy apparently never taught him that it’s a bad idea to be photographed leaving House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office in a combat helmet, tactical gear, and holding zip-tie handcuffs.

One might also expect a criminal defense lawyer like McCall Calhoun of Americus, Ga., to know that it’s surely illegal to surge past a line of cops into the U.S. Capitol, even if, as you later told a newspaper, you believed your fellow rioters wer people who “don’t want to lose their democratic republic.” Or that it’s bad form to do this after tweeting about a looming civil war or the potential hanging of President-elect Joe Biden.

Political junkies like us remember 2000′s “Brooks Brothers riot” of well-heeled GOP activists and lobbyists that successfully halted Florida vote recounting in populous Dade County. Apparently what we witnessed Wednesday was the “Pottery Barn insurrection.” As key figures who invaded the Capitol have been steadily identified over the last five or six days, it’s remarkable how many alleged lawbreakers emerged from upscale zip codes.

The stay-at-home dad husband of a physician. The son of an elected judge in Brooklyn. The owners of numerous small businesses, as well as assorted state legislators. The New York Times spent four years looking for Trump voters in Ohio diners, but apparently that’s not where they would have found failed actor Jacob Chansley, a.k.a. Jake Angeli, the infamous shirtless rioter with the painted face and horns, who reportedly hasn’t eaten since his arrest because there’s no organic food in jail.

Yes, many of the 74 million citizens who voted for the guy who then incited an attempted coup do fit the stereotype of struggling or laid-off blue-collar worker in a rusted-out rural community. But those folks aren’t the ones who can take a Wednesday off and fly hundreds of miles, let alone plunk down hundreds of dollars, to get to the nation’s hub. While the Capitol mob was bulked up with other Trumpists — including an alarming number of off-duty police officers, as well as some neo-Nazi or KKK types who’ve been around forever — it was the 401(k) crowd that formed the front line of America’s first real putsch.

If that surprises you, then you weren’t really paying attention. For the last four years, political scientists have been trying to wrap their brains around Trump’s shocking 2016 victory in the Electoral College while trying to tell us that the 45th president’s true base is a lot of things — but it’s not poor. In fact, polling guru Nate Silver noted during 2016′s primaries that the average Trump voter had a median household income of $72,000, which was both higher than the national average and also higher than the numbers that year for supporters of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

Interestingly, Silver and other analysts have found that Trump performs particularly well with voters with high incomes yet often without college diplomas (although he also does better with degree holders than he gets credit for). A researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, the political scientist Diana Mutz, found that Trump voters generally weren’t struggling economically yet did feel great anxiety about their status — whether the threat was the rise of a foreign power like China or the idea that America, and its government, was becoming increasingly nonwhite.

That explains a lot. It explains why the Republican Party, arguably in a long downward moral spiral, lost its mind when America elected its first Black president in Barack Obama. It explains why so many people with the luxuries of a laptop and free time (things that actual poor folks have in short supply) look for conspiracies like QAnon to explain a society that no longer makes sense for them, or why so much of the hatred on the right is expended not at the CEOs who outsourced American jobs but at the cap-and-gown-wearing eggheads like journalists or scientists they find intellectually arrogant.

The main reason that so many reasonably well-off folks tried to shut down American democracy wasn’t because they feared losing their paycheck, but because they feared losing their white privilege. Donald Trump had promised that “I alone can fix it” — that he’d protect them from a society where Black and brown essential workers could expect help from their government during a pandemic or ask the police to stop killing them, a world that where just being white no longer guaranteed the status they were promised as kids. They truly believed that Biden, Kamala Harris, and the 82 million were going to end their white power, and they saw Jan. 6 as their last chance to save it. The Capitol still stands, but the rest of us are going to be spending decades cleaning up their mess.

History lesson

Philadelphia Police carry a protester away from a July 4, 1966 anti-Vietnam War protest held at Independence Hall. A new study proves police are twice as likely to break up a left-wing demonstration than a right-wing one, like Wednesday's storming of the U.S. Capitol.

In the end, as the FBI and other agencies step up their investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection, there will likely be hundreds of arrests. But the now-under-fire Capitol Police arrested only 13 rioters while the attack was underway, and only a few dozen more were busted by cops for violating the 6 p.m. curfew. No one must have been more shocked by this than the survivors of the May 1971 anti-Vietnam War protests in Washington, one of the largest demonstrations in American history. In marked contrast to last week’s light police presence, the heavy-handed tactics from the administration of Richard Nixon included secretly canceling a national-park permit for the protests and then sending in a whopping 12,000 military troops to augment an already sizable police and National Guard presence. Over three days, an astonishing 12,614 people — many who were protesting peacefully and not violating any laws — were rounded up in the largest mass arrest in U.S. history. Authorities detained thousands at RFK Stadium because there was nowhere else to put them.

The shameful 1971 incident proved a point that seemed clear last Wednesday and has now been established with research: Police who are aggressive with leftist social-justice protesters treat right-wing disturbances with kid gloves. Last year’s Black Lives Matter protests as well as anti-lockdown rallies on the far right inspired the nonprofit Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project to dig deeper. It found police were twice as likely to break up the left-wing protests, and when they did disperse a gathering, cops used force against leftists more often (51% of the time) than against right-wingers (34%.) This unequal treatment under the law is one more way that American policing is broken."

[bobbykennedy]

Hey there; I love your blog; just wanted to ask you if you'd be able to make a list of some of the best Kennedy documentaries, tv series, or films you'd suggest for essential Kennedy watching. Thank you xx

Hello hello! Thank you so much. I’d be glad to! I’ll try to link them (or at least their trailers) where possible, as a lot of them are on YouTube. 

Documentaries:

A Ripple of Hope (2008) - This documentary (along with RFK in the Land of Apartheid (2009)) provides a view of Bobby’s effect on the lives he touched with his compassion, understanding, empathy, and desire for change. This documentary in particular uses his speech announcing MLK’s death as the centerpiece for historians and people who were in the crowd that night to talk about Bobby’s impact on America. I also love that it includes interviews with people who worked on his campaign and Civil Rights legends like John Lewis. It’s a really beautiful film that I think shows perfectly why Bobby resonated then, and continues to today, so strongly with people.

Crisis (1963) - Crisis is one of Robert Drew’s landmark Kennedy documentaries. This doc follows Jack and Bobby through the process of integrating the University of Alabama. There’s some great footage of them including the incredible footage of Bobby convincing Jack to make his (what would go on to be) famous Civil Rights Address, along with the hilarious moment of Jack giving Bobby a hard time in the Oval Office. I wish we had more footage of moments like that. There are some truly, truly amazing moments caught on film here and I highly recommend it. It’s a snapshot of race relations in America in 1963 and how Bobby’s pushing for legislation and action caused friction with Jack’s other advisers’ established agenda. 

Ethel (2012) - Whenever I’m asked for Bobby documentary recs, this is always the first one I mention. This film was produced and directed by Bobby and Ethel’s youngest daughter, Rory. It features interviews with Bobby and Ethel’s surviving children as well as Ethel herself (which is amazing because she does NOT do interviews, especially about Bobby, ever.) It covers everything from Ethel and Bobby’s childhoods through Bobby’s death and Ethel’s life for the last 50 years since. Ethel is packed full of great firsthand stories from Ethel and the kids and it paints a beautiful picture of not only Bobby and Ethel’s relationship, but also them as individuals. 

The Kennedy Assassination: 24 Hours After (2009) - There are a million assassination documentaries out there, but this is the one I always go back to. This gives a minute by minute, hour by hour account of what happened that day, not only in Dallas, but also back in Washington. This program focuses heavily on the Bobby/LBJ dynamic and gives a full picture of who was doing what that day and when. It features interviews with a variety of historians and Kennedy experts and it is incredibly well done. 

The Kennedys: An American Experience (1992) - This is quite possibly the most comprehensive program about the family that I’ve seen. It’s long and incredibly detailed. Everything from Joe and Rose’s upbringings in turn of the century Boston to Ted’s presidential run in the 1980s is covered. It. Is. A. Lot. If you’re just getting into the Kennedys, or are looking to learn more about them, go for this. It has it all. PBS has done individual An American Experience specials about Jack and Bobby that are really well done as well. PBS and History Channel docs are usually the best and most accurate, in my opinion. 

The Lost Kennedy Home Movies (2011) - If you want to see the Kennedy family outside the political arena, this is what you need to watch. There’s so, so much amazing content in this program, I don’t know where to begin. It has footage of them in the 40s right through to the early 60s, and there is so much to see. You see young versions of Jack and Bobby with their siblings Joe Jr., Kick and the others. The Kennedys were ridiculously funny, and the footage of Jack and Bobby dancing on the beach proves it.

Dramas:

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (1981) - Jaclyn Smith plays Jackie in this, and it is incredibly sugarcoated, but it’s fun to watch. This covers Jackie’s life from girlhood to Dallas. They really bent the story around to make it something neater and cleaner than it was. This one is good if you want a harmless version of events, and I think Jaclyn does a beautiful job with the role. Side note: my mother has been a huge Jackie fan her entire life and this is her favorite Jackie portrayal. 

JFK: Reckless Youth (1993) - Patrick Dempsey plays a young Jack Kennedy brilliantly in this. They cover Jack’s years at Choate through his election to Congress. This program also has my favorite portrayal of Jack and Kick’s relationship, which is something I really, really wish there were more dramatizations of. 

The Kennedys (2011) - This is 100% my personal favorite Kennedy drama. They do take some creative liberties, and over-dramatize some of the story, (which they caught A LOT of flack for, and rightfully so) but the portrayals are incredible. Barry Pepper’s Bobby Kennedy is my favorite dramatization of him, no question. By the end, you forget that it isn’t actually Bobby you’re watching. Greg Kinnear is a pretty good Jack as well, and I love Katie Holmes – I think she’s a solid Jackie. This program focuses heavily on the White House years; there are flashbacks of Jack, Joe Jr., and Rosemary in the 30s & 40s as well. 

The Kennedys of Massachusetts (1990) - If you’re looking for dramas about Joe and Rose, this is absolutely the place to start. This covers everything from their courtship days in the early 1900s through Jack’s inauguration. I really love the casting for the most part in this program. The family members featured are: Rose, Joe Sr., Joe Jr., Jack, Kick, and Honey Fitz. 

Thirteen Days (2000) - I! Love! This! Film! Everything about it: the writing, the portrayals, the cinematography, I love it all.It focuses exclusively on the Cuban Missile Crisis, and really captures the high stakes that are sometimes downplayed in other dramas. It’s based heavily on The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis and government documents that were released after Jack and Bobby’s deaths. Steven Culp is fantastic as Bobby, Bruce Greenwood is amazing as Jack, and it takes some dramatic liberties in making Kevin Costner’s Kenny O’Donnell the protagonist, but he’s wonderful and it works. 

I also want to mention The Missiles of October (1974) here which is another Cuban Missile Crisis film and features possibly the most accurate Jack portrayal ever by William Devane. (seriously, he sounds just like him, it’s almost creepy). Martin Sheen plays Bobby in it and I really enjoy his take on RFK. This program is based on Bobby’s memoir, Thirteen Days, but doesn’t include all the government document details that the Thirteen Days film does, as they were not yet released in the 1970s.

You can check out my tags page to see posts about each of these programs, as well as many others. 💕

[newyorktheater]

Jeremy Konopka, Uton Evan Onyejekwe, Bob Gaynor, Mary Callanan, Joe Joseph, Jonathan Spivey. Photo credit: Michael Kushner

Before the musical “’68” begins, newspaper headlines are projected on the stage a, marking some of the tumultuous events in the year 1968 — the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F Kennedy, campus protests and city riots across the United States….and the events surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

But, despite the title of their musical,  which is an entry in the New York Musical Theater festival, librettist/lyricist Jamie Leo and composer Paul Leschen focus on just one of those events; the NYMF program bills “’68” as “inspired by the volatile events of the 1968 Democratic Convention and their place in history and our future.”

It’s a smart choice and in itself an ambitious undertaking. What happened in Chicago, from the contentious politicking inside the International Amphitheatre tothe demonstrations and police violence in the parks and streets outside, is in many ways emblematic of that chaotic era.

68 – a new American musical. Depicted from left: Uton Evan Onyejekwe, Jonathan Spivey, Delphi Borich, Jeremy Konopka, Bob Gaynor, Nicole Paloma Sarro, Jalynn Steele. Photo credit: Michael Kushner

Bob Gaynor, Mary Callanan

Joe Joseph, in 68 A New Musical

‘68 – a new American musical. Depicted from left: Jonathan Spivey, Nicole Paloma Sarro, Joe Joseph, Jeremy Konopka, Delphi Borich, Mary Callanan, Uton Evan Onyejekwe, Jalynn Steele, Bob Gaynor, Maggie Hollinbeck. Photo credit: Michael Kushner

‘68 – a new American musical. Depicted from left: Uton Evan Onyejekwe, Jonathan Spivey, Nicole Paloma Sarro, Bob Gaynor, Mary Callanan, Jeremy Konopka, Jalynn Steele, Maggie Hollinbeck, Delphi Borich, Joe Joseph. Photo credit: Michael Kushner

There are moments in “’68” that get at the era in a winning way. One of the most memorable is the song “Power-less” in which Lonnie (portrayed by Uton Onyejekwe), a black man dressed in the black militant uniform of the day – black leather jacket and black beret – explains why he is supporting Hubert Humphrey for president. Even those who don’t get the humor in the incongruity will appreciate the stirring Soul sound of the song. Indeed, Paul Leschen’s score is largely a pleasing pastiche of a range of 60’s era music, especially some mighty pretty folk songs.

There is much to like in “’68,” thanks in part to a production directed by Joey Murray that is competently staged, well-acted and well-sung.  But as in 1968, so in “’68” (to paraphrase Joan Didion’s quote from a Yeats poem): The center does not hold.

The musical is framed as an oral history project conducted by a librarian named Charlene (portrayed by Broadway veteran Mary Callanan) who has hired an assistant named Gary (Jeremy Konapka) to help her conduct interviews with the various participants. So we see an extended scene from The Festival of Light, a vaudevillian-like demonstration that was held in Chicago’s Grant Park by the Yippies, who nominated a pig named Pigasus for president; we also see “Hippie Sunny” (Delphi Borich) speaking into Charlene’s tape recorder commenting on the event. We see a scene of a police superintendent talking about crowd control with a group of officers, and later, Charlene and Gary’s interviews with Lt. Stubig (Bob Gaynor), a police officer who cracked heads at the festival.  We see Rebeca (Nicole Paloma Sarro), working the phones as a Humphrey campaign aide and talking (and singing) with her colleague Sandy (Maggie Hollinbeck), and then watch while she explains to Charlene how her mother was a political organizer in Mexico who’s become a maid in the Chicago Hilton, and, later, what impact the convention has had on her life. (“It made me sad.”)

Charlene and Gary occasionally debate what they should include and what they should leave out, which fits in with a main theme of the musical – “The Trouble with History” (which is the title of the first song.)  The working philosophy behind the musical is that the everyday people who participated were just as important as the “big name authors and party bosses….

You can bet they’ll have their word

But what about the rest of us?

What’s the chances we’ll get heard?

  This is hard to argue with in theory, but “’68” spends too much time on what feel like extraneous matters. There’s a song about how run-down the hotel where the conventioneers stayed; a song by Gary and Lt. Stubig about the police officer’s daughter, who is also Gary’s ex-girlfriend, leaving them both to live in a commune in Wisconsin; and an out-of-left field scene and song from Charlene recalling Chicago in 1948 and how her father was punished for his activism. The latter two songs seem part of an effort to flesh out Gary and Charlene as characters; the 40’s song, “Price Tag,” has a wonderful Andrews Sister vibe.   Meanwhile, though,  there’s little about what happened at the convention itself, as if that were irrelevant. There’s no effort to dramatize or even mention, for example, the battle for Kennedy delegates between Senator Eugene McCarthy and Senator George McGovern in the wake of RFK’s assassination. There’s little (except for Lonnie’s song) about the moving irony of the candidacy of Hubert Humphrey, who was an outspoken liberal during his entire Senatorial career, yet as Johnson’s vice president, was now viewed as LBJ’s puppet and the war monger candidate. There is nothing about the fight by civil rights activists to seat a more integrated slate of delegates from five states of the South. There is nothing about the impact on the Democratic Party of the political conflicts. Nobody would want gavel-to-gavel coverage – and you can’t include everything in a 95-minute musical — but if we’re promised a musical “inspired by” the Chicago convention, shouldn’t we get some orienting sense of the convention itself, rather than just the disorienting turmoil that surrounded it?

The creative team might even have gotten away with this odd omission, if “’68” were less diffuse. It’s as if, like the oral historians Charlene and Gary, they argued with one another about what mattered, and then couldn’t decide.

https://soundcloud.com/jamie-leo-988074172/sets/songs-from-68-lyrics-by-jamie-leo-music-by-paul-leschen

  ’68 is on stage at Theatre Row as part of the New York Musical Festival. Remaining performances, todat at 5 and 9, tomorrow (Sunday, July 29) at 5.

NYMF Review ’68: A Musical about the 1968 Chicago Convention and the Limits of History Before the musical “’68” begins, newspaper headlines are projected on the stage a, marking some of the tumultuous events in the year 1968 -- the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F Kennedy, campus protests and city riots across the United States….and the events surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.