Wednesday, July 10, 2024

The View From 30,000 Feet

Once more, with feeling: 

A)  if it isn’t Harris, who pays for all the lawsuits to get ballot access/changes? 

B) If it isn’t Harris, what replaces the $240 million?

C) If it isn’t Harris, who has the name recognition?

D) What’s the record of success changing candidates this late in the year? LBJ did it in March, and HHH still couldn’t rally the troops.

This is such a bunch of crap from people who think real life is just like TeeVee.
Whom they’ve never heard of and probably don’t trust as far as they can throw them. And rather than an historic victory it’s 2016 redux as Democratic voters say “Fuck it!” and stay home. What Mike said. Except when the ship goes down it was the candidate’s fault (see Clinton, Hillary), and their Big Ideas cannot fail, but only be failed. Fritschner has a long thread there, worth reading, that makes two major points: political journalism is a herd practice; and “Dems in disarray” is a popular political journalism narrative. It is, indeed, up to we, the people. Not to the few, the elite, the scared of their own shadows. If Biden is going to win, it’s up to us to get him there, not up to him to win for us. It says a lot about the few, the scared, the mainly anonymous (“many Democrats say”) that they want someone certain to do it for them. Or unfit, incapable, and insane. There’s a whole campaign to be conducted between now and November. Maybe those points can be got across. Profile in courage. Yeah, let’s make these people our leaders to victory.

What could go wrong?😑 
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DEI

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Numbers And Cowards

"Public data” is a euphemism for “polls.” Which, as I say, have been wrong above every federal election since 2016. I saw a poll this other day that purportedly reported on statewide support for the major party candidates. The number of people polled was less than 700. To make up for the number of people declining to be polled, results are now “weighted.” Or done hand-waving flummery while the priests read the chicken entrails.

And how many people think Trump is fit to have anything sharper than a rubber ball?

The number of children dressed as adults but scared of a future they can’t be reassured about, and parading that fear in public, continues to astonish. Rather than do something to oppose Trump, they cry that he’s too powerful and can’t be stopped. They let him bully them, in other words, and parade their cowardice as bravery. The bravely defy what doesn’t threaten them, terrified by what they think does. 

In the words of the eminent Molesworth, they are utterly wet, and weeds. I discard them.
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Circling For An Answer

Brian Kilmeade's question:
"There are people who believe you want to get out of NATO — is that what you want to do?" he'd asked.
Trump's answer:
"I just want them to pay their bills, we're protecting Europe, they take advantage very badly. Not so much worse, I tell you what, very badly, you look at China, you know China is terrible, but I straightened them out and then we had COVID and I had to focus on other things and we did an incredible job, we got it back. We saved the country, this country would have gotten into a massive depression if I weren't president and I gave him a stock market that was higher than pre-COVID when COVID first came in. And what he's done to the economy is horrible because of inflation. The costs have gone up at a level — I think it's close to 50 percent, not 20 percent or 25 percent—" 
"So you're not looking," Kilmeade cut in. 
"I think it cost us—" Trump interrupted. 
Kilmeade said, "—to get out of NATO?" 
"You know they don't include the real costs, okay?" Trump continued. "When something really goes haywire like interest rates, they don't include that in their cost of inflation. But what they've done with inflation and what they've done to this country by allowing millions of people, I think 20 million people will be the number by the time this guy gets out hopefully Nov. 5 is gonna be the biggest day, most important day in the history of our country. But you're talking about 20 million people, many coming from institutions, mental institutions and insane asylums, coming from jails and prisons all over the world. Do you know that other countries have the best crime numbers they've ever had—" 
Kilmeade tried again to interject but Trump kept up his train of thought. 
"—because they're sending all their criminal into the United States," Trump continued. "Not just South America, they're sending all of their criminals, Brian, into the United States. We're going to have a problem and we're gonna get'm out." 
"Yeah," replied Kilmeade. 
"But this is what they're doing." 
Kilmeade then tried to return to the subject at hand by playing Trump a clip of Biden discussing increased contributions to NATO Wednesday night. 
"He's taking credit for that," Kilmeade asked. "Should he?" 
"Of course he shouldn't," Trump insisted. "They're under attack. With me there was no attack, everybody felt comfortable. And I took in billions and billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. [Jens] Stoltenberg, the secretary general [of NATO], said 'Trump did something I didn't think was possible.' I took in the money he's spending right now. If I didn't even take it in they wouldn't even have a NATO to fight Russia. It was me that took in all the money. But they felt comfortable because frankly, uh, they weren't going to be attacked. They knew Russia would never attack as long as I was president. When he became president, of course they're paying right now, they're under attack. If they didn't pay right now, the United States, if they were smart, would say, 'Well, I'm sorry, we can't protect you." 'Cause they have the money to pay. But he makes a big deal out of it. Think about it, they're under attack. He is such a dumb president it's not even believable. Of course they're paying they don't want to be attacked, they don't want, they want to make sure Russia, the United States, stays right behind them, Russia doesn't attack them. But it's real easy to get money when you're at war with Russia."
He still doesn’t know what NATO is.

Biden, meanwhile, is hosting the NATO Summit.

You can analyze the sheer stupidity of that “answer” ‘til the cows come home . But the problem among elite donors and the reporters who love them, is that Biden is older. And the polls, which haven’t called any federal election since 2016. But still: run in circles, scream and shout.

Which is always so fucking constructive.
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Replacement Lead For Worst Iteration…

... of the Batman movie franchise has thoughts on replacements. Or they’re saying what the rich Hollywood donor wants to hear, because they’re politicians. And they want to sit at the kewl kids table.

No one has yet explained how a brokered convention with delegates being told they came to Chicago to vote for the guy who just quit is going to produce a stronger candidate. What if the convention doesn’t go for Harris? Smoke-filled rooms do the job? Superdelegates save the day? Sure, that’ll rally the grassroots. And if it isn’t Harris, who gets the $240 million, and ballot access? And even if it is, after a rancorous convention, how much support can you build between now and November? When you’ve taken a sledgehammer to support of the candidate who won the primaries?

And who takes the blame? George Clooney? The NYT editorial board? Kamala Harris? That last is probably the primary reason she declines the opportunity. Better to be away from the ruins than seen as the architect of failure.

Ask Hillary Clinton.

So far, the only person acting like he can handle the pressure of the office, is the incumbent. But he’s being “defiant.” You mean like JFK in the Cuban Missile Crisis? Or Harry Truman? Or Reagan in Berlin?

Yeah, I still don’t see the problem; much less the “solution.”
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Old News

(About Trump, I mean.)

And what Biden is doing as host of the NATO Summit is far less important than what he did on a debate stage three weeks ago. Because gossip +horse race=political news.
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“The Hardest Thing To See…

...is what’s right in front of your nose.” Imagine if Joe Biden said any one of these things. Or, at this point, if Trump didn’t.

But go on obtuse taking stenography from a campaign and pretending you are a real journalist.
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But He Moderated The GOP Stance On Abortion…

...by including a “personhood” plank for zygotes.

And he didn’t speak in a raspy voice, so game-set-match, Joe Biden!
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Tuesday, July 09, 2024

Why Joe Biden Still Needs To Listen To The NYT

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☝️

Because their kids are getting on planes?✈️  What you mean, "we"? Biden still needs to drop out for the good of the country. Jon Stewart and the NYT said so. Because the only way to defeat Trump is with “None of the above.”☝️ 
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Biden In Europe

Trump at Doral:
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The Last Straw

When I was a kid (and Rubio wasn’t even a zygote), paper straws were the only ones available.

I still remember how weird and hard and odd plastic straws were.

You’ll get used to it. 
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You Have No Idea How Relevant This Is

Centerpoint Energy (the power line company)  used to have a map that, frankly, wasn’t all that helpful. Judge for yourself how much I’ve had to use it, to say that.

It’s gone now. All they can do is tell us how many people still don’t have power, and how few are getting it restored every 24 hours (averaging about 34%).   Not encouraging.

This at least tells you where to find food.

Lite Guv/Acting Guv (Abbott is in Asia encouraging business to come here!) Dan Patrick is all over local news being perfectly useless while returning to Austin every two years to be sure the status remains quo.

We have no one to blame but ourselves. Houston is a very blue area, and 4 times larger than the Austin area. (That fact still hasn’t penetrated a lot of brains.) Fat lot of good that does us.
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Tell Me You Don’t Understand Federalism, Without…

...well, you know.
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Hand To God…

...when this was announced, I thought surely Trump would hold it in the clubhouse only for members. He couldn’t possibly mean to make people stand outside in Florida in July.

Sure he could.
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This, Of Course, Would Just Prove Obama Is Running Things

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The Grey Lady Is Never Wrong, Only Unclear

"Some people say” is the new journalistic standard. Who knew?
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“It’s The Only Way To Be Sure”

Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) even said he saw a poll showing Biden was losing in his district even as the president won with 62 percent of the vote in 2020. 
Fellow Punchbowl News reporter Mica Soellner, meanwhile, relayed that there was a lot of "frustration" inside the meeting but that no consensus had yet emerged on what to do about Biden. 
Punchbowl's Heather Caygle reports that Democrats seem to believe they're stuck with Biden even though they believe his candidacy is doomed. "I haven't talked to one [Democrat] who privately says they think Biden is capable of running and beating Trump at this point," she wrote. "The debate was just a public airing of the concerns many of them have experienced/expressed privately. And that was from those who felt they actually got time with the president over the last year. Others have complained about very limited/controlled interactions. BUT they also don't want to be ostracized publicly and/or feel it's already determined that Biden will be the nominee."
Alternatively: Polls in July are all that matter:
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NYT Chasing WMD

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A Reminder

This judge resigned because a 9th Circuit panel, under a system established by Congress (Article III), was going to recommend him for impeachment.

The houses of Congress have authority over their members because Article I explicitly gives it to them. Article III gives no such authority to the Justices of the Supreme Court. It implicitly reserves that power to Congress. They serve for life because they said, not because Article III says so.

Congress could establish oversight over the Supreme Court. Given the example of Clarence Thomas alone, why don’t they do so?
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“All The News That’s Fit To Print”

Follow the leader. Once more, with feeling: Parkinson’s affects movement, not cognitive ability. FDR was confined to a wheelchair for his entire Presidency.

I’ll just end with this:
I’m sure the NYT will soon report that Trump has moderated his stance on the First Amendment.
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Monday, July 08, 2024

Physician, Heal The Press

You can start there. Then watch Lawrence O’Donnell explain what gossips the White House Preps Corps are (watch it and tell me I’m wrong in my characterization): And yes, let’s remember this is old news: Closing with the subject of old age: Comedians age faster than Presidents in their careers. Jon Stewart’s self-righteous act has, like Bill Maher’s, passed its sell-by date. He says he’s had experience with old people, so he’s an expert on age related decline? My father declined slowly, then rapidly, in his last years. He died just after his 90th birthday, so that happened in his late 80’s.  He died of a brain tumor diagnosed shortly before his death.  Then again, he didn’t have a White House Medical Unit giving him access to 24/7 medical care, or an annual examination by a team of physicians. My father also was not fit, and never exercised.

Mr. Stewart has no more expertise in these matters than I do. But he does have a microphone/megaphone. He should use it more responsibly. Or maybe he’s just getting old, and intemperate.
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In Order To Save The Village, We Had To Destroy The Village”

Everything old is new again. Teah, that John Woo. He didn’t deserve the deference he got.
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Defaulting To The Racist Nativist Party…

...would be better than a guy who had a disappointing TeeVee performance. Right? Well, maybe putting the brown people down will be enough to bring the single issue anti-abortion voters out in November. Maybe? 🤔 
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Jasmine Crockett Is My Hero

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Comparing And Contrasting

The implication of the NYT report is that Biden is old AND infirm. Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s when he was 29. It’s not a disease of old age and it clearly doesn’t limit your activities or your life. Mr. Fox is 63 this year, and the father of four. 

How many medical experts did Trump ever consult, except two doctors who basically said he was an immortal Greek god? He actually told us to ingest bleach and find ways to get ultraviolet light into our bodies, because his uncle taught at MIT and that makes Trump smart.

 Biden has been consulting experts and signing important legislation (which he no doubt helped pass) while Trump has been ranting about batteries and sharks and playing golf for almost 2 weeks.

Yeah, Biden is the one with the problem…
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Dark Brandon Rising

Well, it is all about the horse race. 🐎
Note: I seem to be the only one who remembers that this timeline includes, in addition to the pressure and travel associated with the G-7 and the expanded campaign schedule, the prosecution of his son that would never have happened were he not Joe Biden’s son. I seem to be the only one considering how stress exacerbated an aging process already in process.
Aging process? Or just the stressors listed in that paragraph? JFK took “power naps” to deal with the stress of the job. Obama started turning grey. Yes, age can impose physical limitations. But age and experience educate you on dealing with stressors that can seem insurmountable to a younger person. I wouldn’t be so quick to jump to conclusions. Especially in the context of the ranting lunatic who is the “or” in this dichotomous either/or.*

 I was looking for this earlier:
Access to the full letter, I mean.

*not coincidentally, the title of Kierkegaard’s two volume examination of the limitations of the ethical.
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Before The Battery Runs Down 🪫

Life expectancy in 1776 was about 64, which translates the average age of the signatories to about 64 in modern terms. The younger ones, by this measure, would average 55.

So I have no idea what her point is. Although it seems this tweet is still up. You truly can’t fix stupid.
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Vive La France

Music for a hurricane 🌀 day.
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How It’s Going

Sitting through a hurricane 🌀 with the power off (we’ve had worse), wondering if I should be spending battery 🪫 power this way.

Oh, what the hell…)
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When The People Don’t Pay Attention To The Polls

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La Marseillaise

Voting as a subversive act? As Nanci Griffith sang, “I am a child of the Sixties.” This idea kind of appeals to me. My way of stickin’ it to the man. 😂
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Sunday, July 07, 2024

Back At The Overton Window

The fun part of that is the responses in that thread: Trump is actually supporting “Plan A47”; Project 2025 is a hoax; Trump denied knowledge, and has he ever lied to you? Recently? All Russian bots, I suspect. 🤖 Oops. "TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME" is the cherry on the sundae.  And this is the after-dinner drink: The 14th Amendment has entered the chat.
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“THEY GOT TO HIM!”

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Choose Your Adventure

Or:
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🎶Got To Admit It’s Getting Better 🎶

It probably was Rep. Dingell: Yeah, but does he get on cable TeeVee? Or have a Twitter following?

I thought not.
Yes. I do admire that.

Lagniappe:
Yeah, I’m not holding my breath.
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Walks Like A Duck…

Barack Obama, with his henchmen, his aides, have been running the show under President Biden, and now you've got a situation where it's really up to him who it's gonna be," Ullyot said. "But bottom line here is that it's gonna go to Kamala, if anybody, because she was a DEI hire." 
"She was hired because President Biden said when he was a candidate that he wanted to hire a woman to be his number two, and then after the BLM riots, then he got a lot of pressure to have a Black woman from a lot of Black women's groups, and he did that," he added. 
Newsmax host Sarah Williamson and Democratic columnist Ellis Henican condemned Ullyot's remarks. 
"Okay, the DEI thing I strongly disagree with here, but this is not my place to have the disagreement," Williamson said. 
"Yeah," Henican agreed. "You shouldn't talk, John, you shouldn't talk like that. It makes you sound like a racist. Don't talk like that." 
"Look, it's the party that embraces DEI," Ullyot replied. "Those are the guys that put identity above qualifications."
Start at the bottom and savor the irony: “Those are the guys that put identity above qualifications.”  What’s that old adage about one finger pointing, three more pointing back at you? The guy who led off with “Barack Obama is in charge of Biden” is not putting identity above qualifications? Especially when Obama happens to be the first Black president in American history? The original “DEI” candidate? That’s not what he meant?

Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it. Kamala Harris is the “DEI” candidate, but Obama was not? Says the guy who worked for the cheerleader for the racist theory called “birtherism”?

And yeah, he only sounds racist. Being actually racist takes, what…? A white hood? A burning cross? Advocating birtherism? Or just calling a Black VP a “DEI” candidate?

Or does it have to quack like a duck? 🦆 
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Avoid Repetition?

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None Dare Call It “Cognitive Decline”

TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME! EVERY ONE OF THE LAWSUITS I AM INVOLVED WITH, INCLUDING THE CIVIL SCAMS, WERE STARTED BY CROOKED JOE BIDEN AND HIS FASCIST GOVERNMENT FOR PURPOSES OF ELECTION INTERFERENCE AND TRYING TO DAMAGE SLEEPY JOE’S POLITICAL OPPONENT. THE FAKE NEWS, INCLUDING FOX, HATES TO REPORT THAT BECAUSE IT DOESN’T PLAY INTO THEIR NARRATIVE — BUT THE PEOPLE GET IT LOUD AND CLEAR! IT IS THIS ELECTIONS FORM OF CHEATING. THEY HAVE NO SHAME! BUT FEAR NOT, WE WILL WIN, AND POSSIBLY BY HISTORIC PROPORTIONS. DJT
And:
PETER BAKER AND SUSAN GLASSER, THE FAKE OBAMA LOVING 'JOURNALISTS' WHO HAVE NO TALENT AND REFUSE TO WRITE THE TRUTH, ARE FAILING BADLY, ALONG WITH THE NEW YORK TIMES. THIS LOVELY 'COUPLE' IS A ONE SIDED, CONFUSED, AND HIGHLY CONFLICTED MESS. BAKER WRITES SO INACCURATELY ABOUT ME THAT HE HAS LOST ALL CREDIBILITY, ALONG WITH THE FAILING NEW YORK TIMES, WHICH AT SOME POINT WILL BE PUT TO REST IN THE GRAVEYARD OF BAD AND INACCURATE JOURNALISM. THEY HAVE CALLED ME WRONG FROM DAY ONE, EVEN HAVING TO APOLOGIZE TO THEIR READERS FOR THEIR FAKE REPORTING IN 2016. IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN, BUT BIGGER AND BETTER THAN EVER BEFORE!
And honestly: Because:
Why does FoxNews keep putting all of these warped Biden Apologists on, one after another, like failed former Congressman Patrick Murphy?
Nothing to see here. Right, Axios?
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🤷🏻‍♂️

695 RV.

It’s bound to be a fair sampling.

(And I WANT this to be correct!)
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All The News That Fits

Is “drowned out” journalismese for “ignored”?

Or what’s meant by “All the News that’s fit to print”?

Inquiring minds want to know!

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“Some People Say”

I’ll be honest: took me a bit to realize the correct response to this, the one Kristol was going for, is: “Who?”

In my defense, I first read it at about one in the morning.
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Trump Can’t Afford To Campaign

QED.
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Summing Up

After all: “Some people say.”

(Inadvertently the FoxNews/Trump/MAGA crowd have exposed the rot in American political discourse: the reliance on polls (Trump insists he can’t lose: “Look at the polls!”); election night “projections” (again, based on polls) which make it seem like voting is almost unnecessary (and in fact in one famous example shutdown voting on the West Coast; or we all agreed that was the story), and vote counts can (and should) be done in minutes, not days; and the simple fact that political news is largely gossip (“Some people say.” Like “some people say” Biden must withdraw from the election. Which people? “Many people.” Like Mark Warner. Or a few Representatives nobody’s ever heard of who suddenly, mirabile dictu, speak for all their voters in a clear and single voice)

Just the facts, donchaknow?
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Now Report On…

Trump ranting in public about:

The dangers of windmills 
Of being electrocuted by sinking boats with batteries 
Over 150 million undocumented immigrants in only 3 years 
“Black jobs”
The “Deep State”
Biden coordinating/controlling all four criminal trials against Trump, including 2 state cases 
Obama actually running the Biden Administration 
How he ran against Obama in 2016
How he won the election in 2020
Washing Machines 
Water pressure in showers
Shampoo 
Tents in airports 
How Hannibal Lecter is a great guy who said nice things about Trump
How Joan Rivers definitely voted for Trump in 2016, even though she died in 2014.
How Biden had been forced to withdraw from the race for President 

And dare to call it “obvious signs of cognitive decline.”

I double dog dare you.


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🔥 Week

The end (which doesn’t show up here) is the interesting bit:
The bottom line is that once again it is evident that the constitution is not capable of protecting the country from someone as pathological as Trump.
And clocks don’t tell time and books can’t read themselves and interpretation is really the only claim we have to knowledge.

The Constitution is not a being that works like a trained dog or an educated lawyer. It can only do what we say it does. Why does the VRA not implement the 15th amendment? Because John Roberts said it doesn’t. Why are Supreme Court justices appointed for life? Because they said so. That’s not in the constitution, or arguably even conceived there. The phrase is “hold their offices during good behavior,” which more reasonably means “not removed for political purposes, but has been interpreted to mean “until death do us part” for the Supreme Court Justices. Oddly, the Constitution hasn’t pushed back against that reading.

Nothing is capable of saving the country from anyone except we, the people.
Not, for emphasis, “we, the pundits and journalists:”
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