Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

People are weird.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

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

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Donald Jessica Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread and Zoom Reminders (NC Black Alliance Tuesday at 7pm and several more for Harris!)

Open Thread and Zoom Reminders (NC Black Alliance Tuesday at 7pm and several more for Harris!)

by | 81 Comments

This post is in: 

 Zoom with NC Black Alliance on Tuesday at 7 pm

These guys are smart, passionate and inspirational, and I have not received a single RSVP for the zoom.
I can’t even begin to tell you how disappointed I am about that.  Please send email to RSVP if you are interested..

MoveOn for Kamala National Organizing Call Livestream TONIGHT at 6 pm Eastern

The political world has transformed in the past week. But one thing that has remained the same is the commitment of millions of MoveOn members to elect progressive leadership and defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans this November. 

Join us on Sunday, July 28 at 6 p.m. ET/5 CT/4 MT/3 PT, to  learn about this historic moment, MoveOn’s plan, and how MoveOn members can and will make the difference over the next 100 days.

We’ll be joined by Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and longtime friend of MoveOn. Together, we’ll raise our spirits, focus our energy, and dive into the work ahead with joy, solidarity, hope, and commitment.

This event will be streamed live on MoveOn.org/Live and on Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube.

Details:

Sunday, July 28, 2024
6 p.m. ET | 5 p.m. CT | 4 p.m. MT | 3 p.m. PT

https://act.moveon.org/survey/harris-organizing-call-livestream

Women for Harris National Organizing Call

NEW DATE: To accommodate the unprecedented demand, we are now moving the Sunday call to Monday, July 29th at 7:00 PM ET. We are committed to ensuring that all women can be a part of this moment.

It is clear that we are fired up and ready to elect Kamala! We will see you Monday for a call with special guests!

During this call, you will have the opportunity to hear from extraordinary women, both outside and on the campaign. We will provide the latest updates from HQ and details on how you can get involved with our efforts to mobilize women voters ahead of November. Please sign up for our call BELOW and share it with anyone you know who might be interested.

We are going to win this election — together.

https://events.democrats.org/event/653900/

White Dudes for Harris

There is a zoom call on Monday at 8 PM Eastern.  8,000  25,000 signed up already.

bit.ly/whitedudesforharris

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

81Comments

  4. 4.

    Joy in FL

    I put the Tuesday Zoom for NC Black Alliance on my calendar. And I forgot to let you know I want to attend!

    I will email you about that now.

    I did not know about the LiveStream tonight, so thank you for that.

    I’m already signed up for Zoom on Monday night with Women for Harris.

  5. 5.

    Chet Murthy

    I wonder if the last week’s whirlwind of events has everybody focusing on the Harris campaign, and not on all the other groups working for November.  Which is OK, people need to feel energized and optimistic.

  6. 6.

    Mousebumples

    I’ve got another 15-20 postcards to write tonight to mail tomorrow for Wisconsin elections.

    And then to determine my next project…

  7. 7.

    Orange is the New Red

    I don’t know how to send Watergirl an email to attend Tuesday’s Zoom, but I would like to hear these folks. I suspect many of us have been distracted by the Harris news and Zoom calls.

  10. 10.

    ChrisSherbak

    Emailed. My late partner was from NC and I’m still in touch with family and friends. I used to pooh pooh it being in the South and all (Yankee bias at play) but found it to be a weird, inviting, complicated place.

  11. 11.

    Almost Retired

    I’m in for the NC Zoom.  Signing up for tomorrow’s white dude zoom as well.

  12. 12.

    Gretchen

    Is there a recording of that big white women call last week that we could watch?

  13. 13.

    Reverse tool order

    Let’s include “white dudes for Harris” as well. There is a zoom call tomorrow, Monday, at 8 PM eastern. Searching will turn up an online form for email & name to RSVP.

    We may be a minority within the category but we’re out here for the same cause.

  16. 16.

    caphilldcne

    At this point I’m now signed up for a veterans for Harris, the white dudes for Harris and another LGBTQ+ for Harris.  Love that so many folks are doing so much.  Just donated what I can to NC Black Alliance. Hope the call goes well!

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    @Gretchen: I have wonderful write-ups from multiple people, which I planned on sharing the next day, but a whole bunch of crap came my way, and I haven’t gotten it done yet.

  19. 19.

    Suzanne

    Curve on Twitter supports an unorthodox VP pick:

    Travis Kelce should be the VP pick:

    > White guy
    > Midwest
    > Good on TV
    > High name-ID
    > Big wins in FL, AZ and NV
    > No issues playing second fiddle to a person of color or a woman
    > Brother could deliver PA
    > Would simply beat the shit out of JD Vance on live tv

  25. 25.

    Barbara

    @Suzanne: The Internet tells me he is one year shy of being old enough to qualify as VP (assuming his 35th birthday is not on or before January 6, 2025, or whatever the magic date is).

  26. 26.

    brantl

    I remember LLoyd Bensten going all I knew John F. Kennedy and you are no JFK, sir! on a Republican VP Nominee. Does that qualify as beating on him?

  28. 28.

    Redshift

    I was out canvassing yesterday, and pretty much everyone I talked to was cheerful and enthusiastic. It was in an area even more liberal than mine, so that doesn’t necessarily tell you much, but the shift from “committed but worried” to fired up was refreshing. I got lots of appreciation for what I was doing, thumbs-up for my buttons and stickers from passersby on the sidewalk, and a shout-out for Kamala a dude in a passing car!

    One of my favorite interactions was at a house where the person on my list was an 18-year-old woman. A guy (her father, presumably) answered the door and brushed me off, saying “we’re all voting Republican.” I knew better than to say anything out loud, but I’m thinking “yeah, as far as you know.” The fact that his daughter was on my list doesn’t necessarily mean the campaign knows anything more than demographics, but just on the basis of that and not living in a conservative bubble, I like our chances for that vote.

  31. 31.

    Redshift

    @Suzanne: Having seen the NYT story about the emails with his trans friend from law school, Vance is either a shameless opportunist who is play-acting horrific wingnut beliefs he doesn’t actually hold, or he’s been radicalized by the conservative bubble. Having lived for three years under Youngkin, who got elected by being a normie businessman conservative and has no accomplishments to speak of because he’s spent his whole term using state power to chase Fox News conspiracy theories, I have a particular contempt for the opportunists.

  32. 32.

    Suzanne

    @Redshift:

    Vance is either a shameless opportunist who is play-acting horrific wingnut beliefs he doesn’t actually hold, or he’s been radicalized by the conservative bubble.

    I tend to think, with these infuriating people (also, Sinema)….. they just never believed in anything. They are ultimately without values or principles other than immediate self-interest. So it’s almost halfway in between your two options. They’re not play-acting, exactly, because what they believe now is as real to them as anything else that they have ever believed. But they’ve also been radicalized by whatever the ideology-of-the-moment is. They have nothing but will-to-power, and ressentiment, and greed, and narcissism.

    I feel like everyone here — because we are good people — can’t fathom this. To us, ultimately, politics is about holding power in order to do something with it. To leave some sort of mark, or some positive change in society. But, like…. this type just sees it as another way to be famous.

  33. 33.

    zhena gogolia

    @Suzanne:

    I tend to think, with these infuriating people (also, Sinema)….. they just never believed in anything. They are ultimately without values or principles other than immediate self-interest. So it’s almost halfway in between your two options. They’re not play-acting, exactly, because what they believe now is as real to them as anything else that they have ever believed.

    I agree.

  37. 37.

    BR

    @Suzanne: ​
    Vance seems like he actually drank the kool aid in the last couple years — the only times he’s seemed sincere is in these obscure clips with weird far right podcasters. I wonder if his religious conversion is related.

  38. 38.

    Jay

    @zhena gogolia:

    If I am block quoting, I always use the Text option. I find that it is easier and cleaner.

    I have also found that if the comment format is a mess in Visual, (once I have posted it), if I go back in during the edit window, switch it over to Text, I can edit the format and clean up the comment.

  39. 39.

    cain

    I’ve been looking at politics for 40 years or so. Since Carter. This level of enthusiasm seems.. unprecedented.

  41. 41.

    Suzanne

    @Chet Murthy: It’s really a mindset I can’t empathize with, I can only observe it. Like, what does it feel like to be a person with no real values at all? No sense of fairness or justice? No sense of anything beyond yourself?

    I can absolutely be an asshole. Inpatient, strident, sarcastic, absolutely. But I’ve never been thirsty. Never been vindictive or so fucking malleable. Have even an ounce of goddamn courage. Some sort of character.

    Like I said…. loathing.

  43. 43.

    Chet Murthy

    @Suzanne: You’re an architect, and you design …. -big- buildings.  Don’t you interact with salesmen?  The kind that you would recognize from Glengarry Glenross ?  I worked in enterprise I/T, and I ran into those types all the time.  Literally I heard one (an otherwise perfectly nice guy) say to a colleague “It’s tough knowing about all the warts in the product; it gets in the way of being sincere with the customer.”

    The only difference between an accomplished salesman, and someone like Vance, is the -topic- about which they are being ruthlessly selfish and greedy.

  44. 44.

    Suzanne

    @BR: The religious conversion makes me even more suspect that he’s a fraud. I’ve known a few people — I would call absolutely zero of them “friends” — but I knew them long enough to witness a religious conversion to some conservative religion and then their deconversion, or a second conversion to something else. All of these people were thirsty for friends and community and positive attention. When it either proved to be insufficient to fill that hole in them, or they got sick of the strictures on their lives….. they moved to the next thing. Vance strikes me like that. (Sinema does, too, big time. She has big ex-Mormon energy.)

  45. 45.

    Suzanne

    @Chet Murthy: Oh man. I have spent much of my career interacting with salespeople. One of the worst parts of the job. In my current role, I do much less of that and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

  47. 47.

    Jay

    As we have seen over the years, to even cynically “fake wingnut” you have to dive deep into the swamp and swim in there constantly. You can’t just dip your toes in or do a shallow wade.

    And as we have seen over the years, the wingnut swamp’s water is not only deadly addictive, but it rots the brain and twists the soul.

    It really doesn’t matter if Vladimir Futon and his wife cynically decided that wingnuttia was full of all the best “marks” or not, they have been swimming long enough to be addicted.

  54. 54.

    Suzanne

    @Kent: But, for a person like Sinema…. why should she want to stay a Senator? She doesn’t want to hold political power for any genuine reason. This type wants to be famous, and there are probably a lot more fun and remunerative ways to be famous or flattered for her.

  56. 56.

    Chet Murthy

    @Suzanne: I think I get your point, but would disagree with it.  Indeed, I think she wanted money and (sure) fame.  But she was just greedy and wanted it really, really fast.  She wasn’t even a little bit patient.  She didn’t see that being a Senator is the easiest, cushiest job you can have: that if she’d just been a bit more accommodating of her voters’ desires, she could have kept that cushy job, -and- gotten a ton of lobbyist payoffs, for years and years.  All while spending her time on winery internships and vanity triathlon races.  Instead she shot her wad all in a few years, and now she’s out.  Maybe she’ll be repaid for her efforts with years of no-show directorships.  I guess, maybe.  But it seems less likely than if she’d kept that seat and paid off for those richies bit-by-bit, not all at once.

    It’s the easiest job: I’ve read it likened to living in an upscale retirement home, with people at your neck and call to do everything for you including wipe your chin and your bum.

  57. 57.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Redshift: Foungkin’ Youngkin is an asshole and a hypocrite, but he would have been a much stronger VP candidate than Vance. He’s slick. I wonder if Trump passed on Youngkin because he’s too slick and could have outshone Trump.

  59. 59.

    Jay

    @Suzanne:

    and there are probably a lot more fun and remunerative ways to be famous or flattered for her.

    to dream of and fail at.

    By being a useless public flake, she has closed so many doors that would normally open for a former US Senator.

    Had she just soberly done the bare minimum of her job and the odd “political stunt” in line with her duties, she could have resigned where she qualified for her “goodie bag”, and gone on to sitting on Boards and a really nice corner office on K street with a view, little work to do and a massive paycheck.

  60. 60.

    Suzanne

    @Chet Murthy: See, I think Sinema — and probably Vance, too — wants some sort of career in media/entertainment. I mean, Trump is the North Star for this kind of thing. They don’t want to show up at an office every day, or have to do fundraising stuff. They’re lazy. They’re grifty.

  62. 62.

    Chet Murthy

    @Suzanne: Hmm…. so you’re saying that they’re lazier than even the laziest Senator.  That’s a credible hypothesis, one I cannot disprove *grin*.  It certainly explains all the visible behaviours.  Certainly of Cinema; I don’t pay enough attention to Vladimir Futon to be able to judge his case.

  63. 63.

    hitchhiker

    @Baud:

    This does feel a lot like Obama 2008, but there was such a buildup to that — all those primaries and rallies, his travels to Europe making speeches there, the overcoming of the Rev Wright stuff, and of course managing to take out HRC. Once all that was done, the convention and the months after really were exciting. (Sometimes I still think about what could have been done if the world economy hadn’t collapsed just as he was taking office, but that’s a whole other story.)

    Today is so different. Just seven days between absolute dread and deep, spontaneous optimism. Just a couple of months left to work and watch and hold our collective breath. It moves us (me) out of excitement and into this pure oxygen feeling — that’s what I’ve never experienced before.

  67. 67.

    Martin

    @Suzanne: I don’t know. When I first met Ms Martin and we started dating, she said she didn’t want kids. I was pretty sure I did. But the way she said she didn’t want kids, inventing justifications for her positions, inserting it randomly into conversations, stuff like that, made me think that she was trying to talk herself into something that she didn’t really believe – that maybe she was just afraid of being a mom, or feeling like she’d have to sacrifice a career, etc.

    4 years after we were married, we’re up in Santa Barbara, we go to the zoo there (charming zoo) and she sees the moms pushing strollers and it hits her, and she nervously raises the idea, and I’m like ‘sure, sounds good’. And she’s kind of shocked, and I said I always thought she wanted kids, she just had to get to the right place, and I needed to give her space to get there.

    That’s kind of the energy I get off of Vance. He really hates women in a really almost forced way. His statements are just nonsense and really really odd. They aren’t even what Catholics think. It’s like he’s trying to talk himself into a viewpoint that his inner self is rejecting because he can’t for whatever reason accept that inner viewpoint. It reminds me of the virulently anti-gay Republicans or religious figures that all too often later come out as gay. I don’t know what his deal is, but it sure seems like there’s a deal that isn’t really explained by just being a craven asshole.

    In a lot of ways he’s a good fit for Trump who has the same kind of dynamic going on where he can’t help but think of himself as a loser and then has to do all of this bananas shit like faking Time magazine covers and declaring itself the smartest human alive to convince himself that he’s not a loser.

    It really feels like we have two completely delusional people running a campaign that an alarming number of people have just lashed themselves to, and embraced those delusions.

  72. 72.

    beef

    Baud, SchrodingersCat, as an actual lurker, I hope you two find your way back to regularly commenting.

  73. 73.

    Geminid

    @Baud: State Senator Louis Lucas is a foot shorter than Youngkin but she could still dunk on him, and take his lunch money on the way down.

  75. 75.

    surfk9

    I am the President of a democratic Club in a small town just south of Sacramento. We had our monthly meeting yesterday. We had a huge turnout. The energy in the room was absolutely electric. The unsolicited donations to our grassroots organizing team were amazing and unprecedented. I have never seen anything like it.

  77. 77.

    Geminid

    @beef: It would be good to see you comment again. You seemed to have sound knowledge about markets and the economy and expressed it well.

  81. 81.

    Rob Roser

    60,000 now on the White Dudes call. Mark Hamill, Bradley Whitford and a bunch of others.

Comments are closed.