Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Infrastructure week. at last.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Consistently wrong since 2002

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Open Thread: Lead, Follow Or Get Out Of Her Way

Open Thread: Lead, Follow Or Get Out Of Her Way

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This is a good article.

I needed some Kamala goodness today.

There are recipes tonight!

Open thread

Reader Interactions

56Comments

  4. 4.

    MoCA Ace

    When I see Kamala or Joe take a knee and speak to a child or comfort someone who has had a loss the humanity of it is jarring.  Displays of common decency by elected officials didn’t always make me feel that way.  Fuck the orange menace for making this our new reality.

  6. 6.

    trollhattan

    @Ken:

    Xavier Bacerra perhaps has the most buzz lately. Just think, he’d be the first senator with a name beginning with X! Marvel would be chuffed at the spinoff possibilities.

  10. 10.

    dmsilev

    Via the Post,

    He’s sort of like Goebbels,” Biden said during an interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle. “You say the lie long enough, keep repeating it, repeating it, repeating it — it becomes common knowledge.”

    Biden made the comment when asked about Trump’s repeated attempts to brand Biden as a socialist.

    “I think people see very clearly the difference between me and Donald Trump,” he said. “Trump is clearing protests in front of the White House that are peaceful, you know, with the military. This guy is more Castro than Churchill.”

  11. 11.

    Tom Levenson

    @TaMara (HFG): Someone had to write those lyrics!

    That’s what always gets me–someone had to come up with such ridiculousness.

    Not to mention noting how accomplished the actors have to be to belt it out without breaking…

  13. 13.

    Yutsano

    @TaMara (HFG):  Did…did they go through a height chart to cast that movie? Because from what I understand that’s scarily accurate.

    I know the thread be open but…is it okay if I drop a heartwarming RBG article here?

  14. 14.

    susanna

    @trollhattan:

    Yes, first name to come to mind.  But DiFi will retire next and the Dems will want a sure-thing, high-profile, popular win, so anyone considered for replacing Kamala, in my mind, will hopefully be someone outstandingly qualified, and perhaps not as electable as XB.

    This is very important for GovGav.  Is it time to bring along SoCal into the Dem fold?  Another woman?  We have a wealth of qualified talent in this state. of all ‘isms.’

  15. 15.

    Kathleen

    Oh lemur dung. I got the same email from Portman that Debbie got. I didn’t send him an email but I left a burbly message on his voice mail during which I may have used the term “soulless ghoul”.

  16. 16.

    Kent

    @Ken:BTW, assuming Biden-Harris win, any speculation on who will be appointed to fill Harris’s Senate seat?

    That, honestly, is my very least concern out of all the issues surrounding the 2020 election.   I’m sure there are at least 50 CA Dems who would do a perfectly good job.

  19. 19.

    Yutsano

    @susanna: I don’t see a huge issue with getting Becerra in there. He’ll have to run again in 2022. It’s possible that Feinstein either dies or retires by then so there could be two open seats come that election cycle. And since on paper the Senate looks really good for the Democrats there (fucking fake ass Droopy Dawg Kennedy is up again but unless a Landrieu runs again I don’t see knocking him out unfortunately) the majority could be expanded upon.

    Side note: I could also see Patty retiring and the Washington seat open for this election as well. We have lots of great Dems up here but PLEEEEEEASE kan I haz Senatol Pramila Jayapal plz? Okthxbai!

  20. 20.

    Mary G

    Kamala is such a shining star, and this is glorious after seeing the media disrespect and disappear her during the primary. Every time I see a national political reporter complain about her not talking to them, I want to tweet back that they had their chance and they blew it.

    Also in people ignored by the Villagers, Elle Magazine has a great profile up of Nancy SMASH:

    Nancy Pelosi Is Trump’s Nightmare. She Couldn’t Care Less.

    The Speaker of the House was supposed to retire in 2016. Then, well [waves arms wildly], all of this happened.

    I could quote the whole thing. Here’s the end, about climate change:

    Two weeks after my first interview with Pelosi, I return to DC to see how her daily life has changed as Congress has come back into session. Her press conferences look a lot different than they did before COVID. It’s 10 a.m., and she is standing outside the Capitol in the blazing heat in another exuberant outfit—a hot-pink dress and matching mask, sparkling glitter stilettos, and a rainbow watch for Pride Month—unveiling the Democrats’ new climate plan. Instead of huddling environmental activists behind her in a chaotic mass of people waving signs, they are spread out evenly, exactly six feet apart, across the Capitol steps, like a checkerboard.

    The goal of the plan—which Pelosi says should result in over 100 separate pieces of legislation—is to bring the country’s greenhouse gas emissions down to zero by 2050. This is her dream, she says: to be able to pass meaningful climate legislation before she retires. “When I first became Speaker, we did climate the first day,” she says. “Then we were more visionary. Now everybody knows that this has to happen. We’re destroying the planet.”

    Pelosi has been under mounting pressure to do something significant about this issue; young protesters, joined by Ocasio-Cortez, stormed her office in late 2018 to demand that she act more decisively on climate change. Pelosi says the issue was one of her earliest passions and intellectual obsessions—before she ran for Congress, she read “every book there is about paleoanthropology” in the bathtub after putting her young children to sleep. “Primates are our relatives,” she reminds me, before launching into a very detailed tangent about the origins of man.

    She would love to pass a huge climate bill right now, she says, but the GOP-controlled Senate won’t have anything to do with it. “If you don’t believe in science or governance, then you don’t have to do anything, because you don’t care about what science is telling us is happening to the ozone or the acidification of the oceans,” she says. “So this is perfect for them: no science, no governance, no care about climate.”

    There may be a short window coming up for Pelosi to take action. If Democrats take control of the Senate and the White House in 2020, she will have exactly two years to tackle climate change and cement her legacy apart from Donald Trump. She made a deal with her caucus when she ran for Speaker again that she would only stay for four years, so this is it. Her final shot.

    Pelosi is literally counting down the days until she gets a chance to work with a different president. “It’s 128 days until he’s gone,” she murmurs at one point. I clarify that she’s referring to Trump. “Yes,” she says, looking at the ticking clock over my shoulder. “And 12 hours.”

    A charming story of office decor:

    I wait for Pelosi at a grand 20-foot table in her personal conference room, staring down her mounted taxidermy bald eagle. The bird’s nickname is Sparky, her aide later tells me, because it died by accidentally flying into an electric wire. Pelosi, a passionate conservationist, is a bit uncomfortable keeping a dead animal in her office, but it was a gift from former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid when he retired from office. So she mounted it atop an eight-foot pole so at least visiting children couldn’t try to pet it.

    Another look at an iconic moment:

    After the impeachment, Pelosi says, her relationship with Trump really “deteriorated.” She tore up her copy of his 2020 State of the Union address as soon as he was done speaking, right in front of the cameras. “I didn’t go in there intending to tear it up, and then I heard the constant flow of lies. And we got like a third [of the way] through, and I thought, Should I do it or should I not?… I’m doing it,” she recalls of the now-iconic moment. “Because it was a pack of lies. It dishonored the chamber.”

    There’s lots more, about Twitler, the Squad, and more. I recommend the whole thing. Except for the more detailed description of outfits, you’d never know it’s from a women’s magazine, and it’s much more substantial than what the hacks at Politico and on the Sunday shows can be bothered with.

    ETA to add kink, I mean link.

  23. 23.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Yutsano: Good pick – Jayapal is awesome. And I’m looking forward to being represented by Senators Karen Bass and Xavier Becerra.

  26. 26.

    James E Powell

    @trollhattan:

    Xavier Becerra is okay but not at all exciting. I’d prefer someone younger and more like the senator we’d be losing.

    Schiff’s name comes up, but he is 60.

    Kevin De Leon didn’t do that bad going against DiFi, but that may have alienated him from some in the party. Some say he was a bad candidate, but that’s the usual thing to say when someone loses.

    Linda Sanchez?

  33. 33.

    cain

    @James E Powell:

    I would really like to see a Gen Xer or a Gen Yer level politician.. I mean, why are only boomers interested in running for high office or perhaps why are voters interested in boomers running for office (maybe because 50% of young voters don’t vote?)

  35. 35.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @James E Powell:

    Schiff’s name comes up, but he is 60.

    I would never have guessed that. Either because I’m in denial about my own age, or there’s something to be said for that vegan thing.

    I like the idea of Schiff in the Senate because I think he would be an effective voice for investigating the DoJ

  37. 37.

    Mary G

    @NotMax: Hard co-sign. Katie’s a spectacular communicator and doesn’t play along with the little pretenses of collegiality so many older senators are addicted to. She’d bring youth and fresh air to a dead establishment.

  38. 38.

    dogwood

    @Yutsano: Patty will be hard to replace.  She has spent decades in the Senate doing great work and going completely unnoticed by the the press and democrats in general.  She doesn’t entertain the troops on Twitter or fight for camera time.  She’s a good liberal who does her job.  I’d like to see more like her.  I think I’m just tired of celebrity politicians in general..

  39. 39.

    Kent

    @opiejeanne: You want that Seattle Commie as a Senator???

    Joking, but I can hear the howls from the Right already.

    Jayapal is fine.  She sometimes gets confused with Seattle City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant, another Seattle Indian-American politician who is, indeed, something of a “Seattle Commie” and at times, very much a half-cocked lightning rod.

  41. 41.

    gwangung

    @opiejeanne:You want that Seattle Commie as a Senator???

    Hell frackin’ YES!

    (But you knew that…

    She sometimes gets confused with Seattle City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant,

    …because all the brown people look alike…(sigh). Jayapal is definitely progressive though, and the right wing certainly can’t tell the difference between liberal, progressive, socialist and communist…

  42. 42.

    Subsole

    @Leto:  You seriously think he’s gonna take out Lydekker? Guy’s got biiig backing from Weyland. That’s gonna be a lift.

  43. 43.

    opiejeanne

    @Kent: Did you see the part at the bottom where I said I was just joking?  And Jayapal is fine with me, but she was also pretty far to the left of anyone else. We would read about her “radical” ideas and laugh because they were not all that radical, and seem almost tame just a few years later.

  46. 46.

    Kent

    @opiejeanne:@Kent: Did you see the part at the bottom where I said I was just joking?  And Jayapal is fine with me, but she was also pretty far to the left of anyone else. We would read about her “radical” ideas and laugh because they were not all that radical, and seem almost tame just a few years later.

    Oh, I know.  I’m a WA resident and I know that Seattle has more than one progressive Indian-American female politician.  But I have seen folks confuse the two of them.  And yes, it’s probably party racism.  But I’d also be happy to support Jayapal for Senator but not Sawant.  Jayapal is a Democrat. Sawant is not

    I’m happy to defend progressive Democrats.  Always.   I don’t much use for 3rd party nonsense in this day and age when the Orcs are truly at the door.  Especially when it is mostly targeted at Dems and not Republicans.

  47. 47.

    opiejeanne

    @Kent:  Yes.

    The Far Left gives me a pain with their pissing into the tent. I am not as aware of Sawant because I don’t take the Seattle Times, and haven’t been watching the local news much, but I have read her and been annoyed more than once. I’ve been mostly pleased by Jayapal.

    (I wish CBS and Dish would settle their contract issues already, I miss Steve Raible)

  48. 48.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @opiejeanne:

    (I wish CBS and Dish would settle their contract issues already, I miss Steve Raible)

    Interesting. Here in Atlanta, the contract dispute is between Dish and ABC. It’s been going on for a good two months and maybe a lot longer.

  50. 50.

    rjnerd

    So I am engaging in a touch of schadenfreude, pushing the “Herman Cain Awards”, for those that take a public position against pandemic control measures, and wind up paying for it. And as always, its in part to push the idea that they WILL be infecting others, and medical workers will be risking their lives to care for all that are ill.

    Given actions like the Florida ending restrictions (including a prohibition on local mask mandates), or Трумп calling out Biden for not hosting his own super spreader events, etc. I decided I need to twist the knife a bit.

    To earn a medal, you have to use your bully (or real) pulpit to actively denigrate preventative measures, things like premature re-opening, hosting super spreader events, throwing public tantrums about wearing a mask, etc. Followed by acquiring the virus, and managing the third requirement, the whole only awarded posthumously thing.

    I am now the proud? owner of HermanCainMedal.com for the next year. I am also an engineer and mathematician, not a graphic designer. Anyone feel inspired to come up with a design for the actual medal? Or to offer advice on how to (cheaply) set up a page for it.

    Also do any US manufacturers of enamel pins exits? How about ethical print on demand t-shirts?

    I was assuming proceeds to Medicine sans frontieres, but am open to other destinations.

    Yes, I am being a bad Buddhist about this, I really know just how much worse dealing with a death sucks right now. I lost my wife in May, (to a long battle with cancer), and when we discussed what she wanted for her memorial event, one fear I had, was that I might not get to hold one until the anniversary of her death. Since then with our horrid response to things, I now know it will be very lucky if I get to hold it as soon as the first anniversary.

    Susan was a biostatistican and epidemiologist, working on clinical trials. (For all the trials she worked, she was that lone unblinded statistician reporting to a safety board that Fauchi mentioned) She was absolutely horrified at how we were handling the response, and how the right wing politicians were treating the directions of the public health experts. (and this was April, and they weren’t so blatant about it).

  54. 54.

    CarolPW

    @opiejeanne: I’m in the fucking Tri-Cities and can get the main non-cable networks including CBS. You need an over-the-air antenna. They plug into your TV, and you point them in the general direction you think your comm towers may be. In the Seattle area you probably point it almost anywhere. Go to Amazon and search over the air antennas indoor.

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