I’ve noticed in the last few weeks a real uptick in the attacks on the Democratic nominees, and I don’t know if it is just the usual mania that happens in every primary, bitterness from supporters whose candidates have already dropped out, or ratfucking from the far left and/or Republicans. I expect some degree of the all of these, but I don’t know the extent of the last.
It’s dispiriting, to me, at least, because other than the crazy aura lady and that cultist from Hawaii, I’d vote for every single one of the Democrats remaining- even that Elon Musk like guy whose name escapes me at the moment. Obviously I have have my favorites, but really, anything is better than the current crisis. I dunno if I am just numb and nihilistic, removed from the process because WV votes so late and is inconsequential anyway because of our size and the fact that we will go for Trump regardless, or stupid, but everything for me is the general election. They’ll all be fucking fine compared to Trump.
rikyrah
Baud
You have the right approach, JC.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Whoa! Not someone prone to hyperbola. Scary stuff.
Raven
You’ve got to pick up every stitch. . .
Another Scott
It doesn’t seem that different to me than in years past. The MSM political press picks on the Democratic candidates – remember the “Seven Dwarfs” from 1988?
I don’t know what we can do about it, other than not talk quite so much about the horrible memes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Another Scott: People are more inundated because of social media.
hells littlest angel
I’ve resolved to stopped mocking Old Handsome Joe to avoid the possible awkwardness of having to, a few months from now, suddenly start talking about how fucking awesome he is.
Sab
It is still vetting,, but I think it needs to be done carefully. I personally think Buttigieg’s campaign is a bit ham-handed at this and needs to improve. But he attacked my candidate, so maybe I am biased. I do not know why we need Warren’s tax returns back to her high school. She has been pretty open forever about what she is doing.
All this stuff does need some vetting. I am okay now with Kamala Harris as prosecutor and a Willie Brown mentee. I am okay with Buttigieg at McKinsey. I am currently not okay with Corey Booker sucking up to Betsy deVos, or Deval Patrick and McBain. They need to explain. I am absolutely not oakay with Bloomberg shutting down most of his China reeporting because he wanted to send those expensive Bloomberg stock reporting terminals to China. He can’t explain his way out of that.
This is why we have a primary season. Republicans don’t believe in vetting, so now they still have Trump.
kindness
I think it’s mostly trolls at this point. Those folk don’t get paid for sitting on their asses & watching porn. It’ll be actual liberals if Bernie losses big Super Tuesday. I really think that’s a magic shake out date.
Zinsky
You can see it on your own blog – liberals criticizing other liberals over petty differences or failure to maintain doctrinal purity. It’s maddening. The Democrats should be able to run a sick dog against Donald Trump and beat him handily. But I fear they will find a way to lose again in 2020.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@rikyrah: Sarah Kendzior isn’t wrong.
Another Scott
In other news, Reuters:
(Emphasis added.)
Good, good.
Cheers,
Scott.
smintheus
Hell, Donovan would be better than the current president and he’s not even an American.
rikyrah
Sab
@kindness: I am Warren all the way, but I still wish Kamala Harris was there as backup. Her campaign was just suspended, not closed?
Baud
@Zinsky:
“Should” in a moral sense, sure. But not in a real-world sense, since we know now how too many of our fellow citizens think, and the structural advantages they have.
Raven
@smintheus:
TO SUSAN ON THE WEST COAST WAITING Donovan
Baud
@Sab: I’m also disappointed that she’s not in the running, even though I hadn’t settled on her.
The suspension is a finance thing. She’s done.
Another Scott
@Sab: “Suspended” is the magic legal word so that they can continue to legally spend their campaign funds (to wind down the campaign, if nothing else). At least that’s my recollection.
Cheers,
Scott.
smintheus
@rikyrah: Barr is a frightening dude. Cheney without the filter; Reagan without the respect for civil rights; Nixon with twice the enemies lists.
The Dangerman
@kindness:
There are jobs where you sit on your ass and watch porn … and get paid? Does it require any special training? Asking for a friend.
Barbara
I am with you JC. I am having a hard time getting through the day without anxiety gripping me at some point. I don’t mind the vetting per se but I am impatient with the tone of it, especially when people broadcast things out of context.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Dangerman: Baud is your friend?
Jay
@Sab:
yup, vetting is good.
the ReThugs are going to come at whom ever is the cantidate hard.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: I think that’s true, but I think it also leaves them an option in case something entirely unexpected happens.
Lapassionara
@Sab: As do we.
Sab
I talked to my Dad’s nurses aides months ago. I was enthusiastically Warren, and also Harris. They were shocked. They were Biden all the way.
In 2008 she talked me into Hillary ( it didn’t take much talking) instead of Obama (promising but young and inexperienced.)
We are still early in the primary season. We won’t nominate a Trump.
I do think something is wrong with our debate setup. Some good people gone, billionaires everywhere.
sdhays
@smintheus: But so many people assured us that he was a good, responsible law enforcement professional.
sdhays
@Sab: The debate setup is atrocious.
CaseyL
Well, with the EO declaring Judaism as a “nationality,” I expect to see a Kristallnacht next year, particularly if things aren’t going well for the GOP.
Is HeleninEire around? My marriage proposal just got a lot more urgent.
SectionH
@Raven: Two rabbits runnin’ inna ditch
@smintheus: When I’m not in an airport, I’ll try to find the really nice Ytube of Mr Leitch and a young busker in Glasgow… he seems to be a good guy.
FlipYrWhig
@Another Scott:
I have a hard time believing that this is a real person. It sounds like a character from a sub-Tom Clancy-level technothriller.
SectionH
@SectionH: Donovan, I mean just to be clear
Sab
@Sab: My husband likes Steyer, not as a candidate, but just on his issues.
Politics is ( and should be viewed as) a skilled profession. I do care what your positions and values are, but I want to know that you have the chops to get stuff done.
I don’t care if you went to Harvard or Yale or OSU. Did you try ( and could you get elected) to the school board? Town council? State rep? State senator? Congress? Senate? AG? I f you cannot get elected to that, then go and work on your CV.
Raven
@SectionH: If someone didn’t know who you were talking about they still won’t have a clue.
Raven
Pete’s up on Rachel.
Sab
@CaseyL: Get a room.
Ilieitz
I know this is way off topic and maybe a little intrusive but how many ex- peace corps volunteers read this blog? I am one. Jamaica 1979-1982. Any others?
Sab
@Ilieitz: Don’t know, but I bet lots.
Kent
It is what it is.
Better now when really no one undecided is really paying any attention. It’s only the hard core on each side who are obsessing today. How the candidates respond and learn to respond to these attacks tells you a lot about them.
11 years ago we were hearing 24/7 about Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers and scary <<black>> stuff. Obama had the talent to just push through the mud and brush it off.
I still don’t have a good sense as to which candidate is the best natural politician who can push through the mud when it gets the deepest and come out the side. My instinct says Warren but who the hell knows.
Raven
@Ilieitz: I was in the war corps, 66-69.
Kattails
One of my male coworkers keeps asking why they’re “Spending so much money” on this (impeachment investigation). Another guy came in the other day and casually asked the same thing when the news was on, then chicken-shit side stepped with the old “Oh I don’t talk politics” when I started to answer. Pissed me off enough so that I’m compiling a dope slapping rebuke to anyone who dumps this shit near me again. Cost to the taxpayers of keeping DJT in the people’s house.
The direction the entire Republican party has gone in scares the crap out of me when I look at it directly. Have to kind of give a sideways perusal, nod yup, and just keep going. A modicum of wine helps.
Kent
Guatemala 87-89
oatler.
“Epistle to Dippy”
Sab
@Raven: Where?
BC in Illinois
On the “Season of the Witch,” the version I turn to (after listening to the Donovan ur-version), is the Vanilla Fudge. Tastes may vary.
The 50-year-old memory: sometime between 1969 and 1971, both the Vanilla Fudge and the Iron Butterfly came to the Washington DC area on the same night. Iron Butterfly were the bigger draw (Columbia MD) and drew the WaPo’s top rock critic, Tom Zito, who gave them a rave review. The #2 rock critic went to Shady Grove to see the V Fudge and totally panned the show. Absolutely unfair. It was a great concert.
The back-up critic for the Post was Carl Bernstein. Calls into question all the other things he has written.
[Though — full disclosure — today, the Vanilla Fudge S of the W is un-listenable. (But then, so is Inna Gadda da Vida.]
Raven
@Sab: Korea, 67-69, Vietnam 68-69.
smintheus
@SectionH: This one? sweet…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL8x0gM9oeM
Kent
But governing and campaigning are two different skills. I think Hillary (and Gore) were much better at the former than the latter. Carter, on the other hand, was better at campaigning than governing. As was Bush. Obama and Clinton were skilled at both.
Raven
@BC in Illinois: Here’s the real deal
Season of the Witch – Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, Steve Stills
Jeffro
Everyone’s on edge ’cause it’s literally do or die time re: getting rid of trumpov/saving our democracy, and there is no easy, almost-flawless choice like Obama appeared to be in 2008/2012.
And maybe in the background, we can all see that the GOP is really, truly ‘all in’ on their authoritarian cult and will be just fine with whatever he pulls from now through November and maybe beyond.
It’s nerve racking. But it doesn’t mean we should put it all on our eventual candidate, or expect that any of the current candidates are going to be some sort of white horse riding to the rescue. A presidential candidate is a figurehead for a coalition of interests. Let’s grab ours, and go all out to get her/him elected. Like, ALL OUT. Four more years of the GOP death cult and Mexico will be trying to build its own wall…
Omnes Omnibus
@BC in Illinois: Not Lana Del Rey?
Raven
@Jeffro: I’m not, fuck it.
Sab
@Sab@raven
: Sorry. I am slow on the uptake. “War corps.”
I don’t know anyone who did both peacecorps and military, but I know lots who did Peace corps.
Raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Goin to Pasadena?
Raven
@Sab: The former mayor of Athens, one Gwen O’Looney was in the Peace Corps and a Donut Dollie in the Nam.
Jeffro
OT but sort of also on topic: The Witch by The Cult is awesome and I wish they had played it Sunday night! (They usually do but this was the ‘Sonic Temple 30th anniversary’ thingy and hey only so many songs can make the set list)
Ilieitz
@Kent: There a lot of us out there. We are like cockroaches hiding in the the shadows. We need to stand up and show the world how many of us are out there. You can serve this country try without being in the military
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Okay, the link didn’t take and edit never appeared.
Link
Sab
@Kent: We need both.
HeleninEire
@CaseyL: I’m here. ?
Raven
fuck it twice
Jeffro
@Raven: You’re not on edge, or you’re not ok with going all out to defeat trumpov? I’m not trying to be any more clueless than usual here, just not sure which interpretation (or some other) so I’m guessing the former.
I have been on edge for four years now and keep trying to let it go a bit while still doing what I can. It’s not easy.
Kent
I’m not sure that you could really say that about Obama in December 2007. I was following the campaign pretty closely and I think at that point I was leaning Edwards. And honestly there was a some of the same early hand-wringing. If I remember correctly there was some effort to enlist Wesley Clark or someone with more stature.
By Iowa, Obama was gaining a lot of momentum. But that was honestly something of a surprise.
FlipYrWhig
@Jeffro: Oh my I just realized that when I saw them, as the opening act for Metallica no less, it was… 30 years ago. [shakes cane sluggishly]
Jeffro
@Kent: 2008 = Obama vs McCain. Easy call there.
2012 = Obama vs Romney. Same thing.
Wasn’t talking about the primaries – my bad, I guess.
smintheus
Anybody have an opinion on Knives Out?
smintheus
@sdhays: Yeah I didn’t believe them either.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jeffro: HRC vs Trump, Kerry vs Bush, Gore vs Bush, etc.
Ilieitz
@Ilieitz: Chris Dodd and Chris mathews were peace corps volunteers
Jeffro
@FlipYrWhig: hey they caught fire at the end of the 80s and managed to make it through ’til now…there will be folks at their shows next year who, like me, will have seen them in five different decades(!)
So I’ll see you a cane and raise you a walker, a Geritol, and an AARP membership ;)
lamh36
Moved to next thread…better fit
Bill Arnold
@rikyrah:
Good for Norm to talk about it. As he says, it is important to prepare plans for responses to what some call alarmist scenarios; not least, it makes tactics of this sort more risky for perpetrators, and so might reduce the change that they are attempted.
BC in Illinois
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, she’s good. Better than Bloomfield, Stills, and Kooper, which I didn’t make it all the way through, either.
So Donovan (1), Donovan (2), Lana Del Rey, Bloomfield etc., Vanilla Fudge. But the Fudge still have first place in my memory.
Kent
@Ilieitz: Chris “tweety” Matthews, Paul Theroux, Donna Shalala, Reed Hastings (founder of Netflix), Joseph Kennedy, Paul Tsongas, Chris Dodd, Bob Vila (This Old House), Peter Navarro, Tom Wolf (Governor of PA), and Mae Jemison (astronaut) were all Peace Corps volunteers. There are a lot of us.
Jay
@Kattails:
suggested short subjects,
Trump Golf Count, 228 golf trips, $ 114,000,000
Bengahzi!!!!!!!!!!!! Etc,
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.newstalkflorida.com/featured/gops-fear-loathing-hillary-clinton-cost-100-million/amp/
Jeffro
@Omnes Omnibus: Right…I was just addressing Kent’s note about the 2007 primaries, which wasn’t what I meant/said by ‘easy choice in 2008’ re: Obama.
NotMax
As the year dribbles to a close, so far as electioneering goes it’s the calm before the sturm und drang.
satby
@Ilieitz: VISTA, the domestic Peace Corps, 1991.
Ilieitz
@Kent: Did you know that Paul Theroux was a great friend o f V.S. Naipaul until they had a falling out
Matt McIrvin
@Bill Arnold: At least some of the people on that list are going to respond by cheering and joining in the cracking of Democratic heads.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ilieitz: Meh. I was a great friend of Baud until we had a falling out.*
*Not intended to be a factual statement.
Ilieitz
All Peace corps volunteers need to stand up and be counted. I see all of these old guys wearing their Korean war hats etc. We need to show the world who and what we are
Sab
@Ilieitz: I read VS Naipaul ‘s book about the American South, and it wasn’t describing the same planet as the actual South I grew up in. Made me sceptical of everywhere else he described that I hadn’t lived in.
Ilieitz
@Sab: read his novels. There was a reason he won the Nobel prize
NotMax
@Ilietz
Military veterans are around 7½% of the populace. Outsize voice proportionate to their numbers.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ilieitz: Obviously you need hats.
Kent
@Ilieitz: Only one I *think* I have read was “Bend in the River” about a small Indian merchant trying to make a go in post-colonial Africa. Pretty depressing work but gripping.
I did not read “A Turn in the South. But I would say, having lived over a decade in the South, that one’s perspective of the place really really depends on your race. All that famous friendly southern hospitality that everyone white and middle class notices when the move to the south? Yeah. Not so much if you are black or Hispanic.
AliceBlue
@Kent: Lillian Carter (mother of Jimmy) was also a Peace Corps volunteer, going to India at the age of 68.
Yutsano
@CaseyL: That’s it. It’s time to make Denobulan marriage legal in Ireland. I could do with two other husbands and you two as wives. :)
Ilieitz
@Kent: All of his novels are kind of depressing. But the way he writes is wonderful. He writes how the colonial experience has damaged all of the people caught up in it.
zhena gogolia
@Kattails:
I love it when they’re losing the argument so they pull the “don’t talk politics” gambit.
Sab
@Ilieitz: I will reread and rethink, but I am skeptical.
James E Powell
@BC in Illinois:
The version on Super Session (Bloomfield, Kooper, and Stills) was the one inspired hours and hours of basement jams when I first started playing guitar.
Ilieitz
@Sab: I thought A turn in the south really showed the parallels of poor black America and poor whiteAmerica ymmv. But read his novel
Ilieitz
I live in Florida. 34 years
Ruckus
@Sab:
Those billionaires have the cash at hand to purchase their way in. (To everyfuckingthing)
It isn’t right but they did steal the money fair and square. For me, anyone that can pay for a presidential campaign out of couch change is not a viable candidate. So no Bloomberg, no Steyler.
Next on the no list, anyone not an actual democrat, Gabbard, Williamson. I won’t say no to BS but I will have to hold my nose, stand on my head – and I have extremely poor balance – to vote for him and it will be an extremely pissed off vote.
Next too old, so BS, see above as well, with KH gone that leaves me EW and Biden but I’d hold my nose for Biden unless KH or EW are the VP. Thankfully Mike Gravel – 89 already dropped out.
People I’d vote for as a last fucking resort, Yang, Mayor Pete.
People that I like for one reason or another but don’t see them as presidential now but possibly in the future, Castro – like him just don’t think he’s ready, Booker, Klobuchar- seem OK but neither float my boat.
How I think it’s going to end up with what I see now, EW or Biden, either with KH as VP. A team effort as it were.
Ilieitz
@satby: people Forget about Vista. Just like Americorp
Jinchi
Wow! WV is going to pick Trump to be the Dem nominee? You guys are hardcore.
Ruckus
@sdhays:
Well he does act like a lot of law enforcement people who think that their title of law enforcement doesn’t have any relationship to law abiding. And there are numerous examples that most of us could provide.
Kent
@Jinchi: Doesn’t WV usually tilt pretty lefty in the primary? Because all the centrist types are hard-core GOP?
Ruckus
@Raven:
Was trying to think how to say that, but yes war corp is good.
Sab
@Ilieitz: Where in Florida.? I left Ormond Beach in 1966.
I still dream about it. I still miss the beaches with open sky. And the sunrises and sunsets.
My part of Ohio has hills and rivers and lots and lots of trees. And I live in a small city. The sky is in a little opening in the tree canopy overhead. Sunsrise is a little crack in the east over the houses across the street. Sunset is on the horizon through the trees across the street. Nothing like the amazing sunrises and sunsets I remember from Florida in my childhood.
Sab
@Raven: Thanks. So I have limited experience. I am glad to know there are folks who are both.
Ilieitz
@Sab: Gainesville
Jinchi
For those of you not passionate about Biden, you can still take hope. At this point in December 2007, Obama was trailing Clinton in the polls by about 20 points and Giuliani was the leading contender for the Republican nomination followed closely by Mike Huckabee.
OGLiberal
In a “we must be rid of Trump” world I think we would all be wise to realize the misogyny that exists in key states. In Northeast PA, where I am located, I watched traditionally Dem towns/cities go from voting for Obama in two elections by mid-to-large (double-digit) margins, to either swinging to Trump – sometimes significantly – or barely voting for Clinton. Folks here are almost all white and Scranton-Wilkes-Barre is one of the largest metro areas in PA so numbers here matter. Lots of long time registered Dems. In a lot of the down ticket elections they still voted for Dems. They did the same in 2018. Either they just really hated Clinton (maybe, but Trump was a better alternative?), whose dad was from here, of they don’t like the idea of a lady president. Note that these are largely non-affluent voters…mostly, the opposite. (The white folks in the nearby more rural areas with huge houses and acres of property are the ones with the money and huge Trump flags in their yards…the folks in the cities are less vocal but still voted shitty in 2016 v. previous elections.)
Sab
@Ilieitz: No beaches there, but a very interesting city and campus. I will reread your reading suggestions. I get more perspective as I get older.
neldob
Yes, pick the right person to run, but the voters are what matters. People have to vote. People need to ramp up to work for the vote, donate for the vote, postcard for voters. Plan for it. Get ready for it. Maybe go to a swing state for it. The nominee may lose the election, it’s the citizens who lose and lose.
Another glass of that please.
Jeffro
I just want to note that at this point in time, Bill Kristol (yes, him) is on record via Twitter as saying that Nancy Pelosi has “done a pretty damn good job so far, I’m just going to say I’m fine with whatever she decides” (re: impeachment)
Am I high? I don’t think I’m high. Nevertheless, events overtake…
JoeyJoeJoe
@Kent: There are a ton of conservative registered Democrats there. Check out the 2012 Democratic presidential primary- a no-name convicted felon got about 40% of the vote against President Obama, even winning a couple of counties
Ilieitz
@Kent: Did you like it . I’found out that you love it or hate it??????
Jinchi
I think Trump’s chances get oversold because the stakes are so high. But he lost the popular vote in 2016, winning 46% in a 4-way race, and barely squeaking a win in the electoral college. So could keep every vote he won in 2016 and still lose by 8 points. Trump’s best real option is Putin hacking the voting machines in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
CaseyL
@HeleninEire: Hi! How do you feel about cats? What is Ireland’s pet quarantine policy? Because I have two cats who are middle-aged and whom I adore.
Just in case, y’know :)
SectionH
@Raven: meh, but you’re right.
@smintheus: Yeah, I think so. Close enough. The video I saw caught some of the *I do believe* first encounter that wasn’t exactly scripted. Don’t care. It is sweet.
And yeah, it’s only 11pm “home time” and way late for this post, but it’s the first chance I’ve had. So I did.
tomtofa
Sort of OT, though people have talked here about experiences in the South and brushes with music from the 60s/early 70s.
After another in a seemingly endless stream of 10 or 12 hour days of packing boxes, discarding memory items that have faded or lost their meaning, labeling, organizing, in order to sell our Bay Area house (and absurdly, trying to relocate within the Bay Area instead of taking our net and living like royalty in an area with awful humidity, long winters, flying pests, and smug right wingers), this thread (and a couple of drinks) made me think of my brushes with music back in the day, the day being the late 60s.
I drank with Janis, on an evening in which she and Big Brother stole most of whatever audience I might have had for my recital of classical Carnatic Indian music (I played the mirdangam), performing on the same campus. We traded stories about the shittiness of small town life – hers in TX, mine in the hills of NC. She actually wanted to hear what the rhythms and melodies of the mirdangam (a drum, similar to the tabla) were about. Yes, she really drank Southern Comfort.
A little later I spent a half hour or so with Judy Collins in her dressing room after a concert. I pumped her about Leonard Cohen, who I’d discovered as a songwriter through her (already knew him as a poet and novelist). Suzanne was the perfect song, as was the whole album, for dealing with the reality of the time, – olds hating the youngs, parents against their children, straights against the freaks, the government sucking up kids to die in a senseless war. I spent a lot of time trying to convince her to write songs herself; she said she lacked the confidence, but as I was leaving she said “You might want to listen to the next album, a couple of the songs may interest you”. She wrote a couple of songs for it; My Father was especially touching. And it also introduced me to Sandy Denny. Collins was responsible for mainstreaming many musicians’ careers.
What I was really thinking about was how in those days (OK, Boomer), there was such a congruence between politics, music, and culture. It was all a mix. Big time musicians conversed (and/or got drunk) with fans, music – underneath the pop at the top – spoke to what was happening. Is that still the case? Don’t know, now I’m an old, keep meaning to figure out what Tik Tok is . . .
Chris Johnson
The purpose of the ‘Dems are going to sit on their own balls again, and screw themselves out of winning the election!’ exists for a specific reason. Whether it is ‘racism rules everything!’ or ‘sexism rules everything!’ or ‘people love their insurance companies!’ or ‘the nominee is a neoliberal spook!’ all these narratives have only one purpose.
They are all pretexts for cheating like hell and outright stealing the election, just like last time.
That’s the whole purpose. People will come out, and they’ll vote in big numbers, too big to easily steal the election (which is why to vote knowing the election will be dirty). So, the Republicans alongside Russia will steal it anyway, by any means necessary, even if it comes to shooting people or carjacking vehicles carrying election returns and then claiming ‘oh hey everyone voted Republican in this box we won’t let you open!’
BECAUSE (run down well worn litany of how the Dems fucked it up)
So, you gotta vote, but they’re going to steal it anyway, and then we’ll have to fight, also by any means necessary. But remember how much of this divisiveness is enemy action, there to provide a pretext for another blatant, stupidly obvious election steal. They’ve been doing this shit for YEARS, from back when it was more subtle. They can’t be subtle anymore so the line is ‘Dems fucked up!’ to explain a steal.