Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

So very ready.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

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

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

To the privileged, equality seems like oppression.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

Books are my comfort food!

“Alexa, change the president.”

Republicans do not trust women.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!

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

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Reader Interactions

203Comments

  2. 2.

    TBone

    Former President Donald Trump’s campaign connected with Elon Musk’s X last month to discuss hacked Trump campaign materials circulating on the social media platform before X blocked links to the files and banned the independent journalist who published the materials, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.

    The research dossier published by Ken Klippenstein, allegedly the result of an Iranian government-supported hacking operation, contained internal communications from a senior Trump campaign official and materials the campaign had put together on Sen. JD Vance before Trump named him his running mate.
    edition.cnn.com/2024/10/11/media/trump-elon-musk-x-hack-materials/index.html

  4. 4.

    SatanicPanic

    What Obama said. This is shameful shit from our Republican citizens. They know it but they can’t help themselves. It’s both evil and pathetic at the same time.

  5. 5.

    John S.

    Just another day here on Earth-666:

    At a rally in Aurora, Colorado, former president Donald Trump announced “Operation Aurora,” a plan to invoke the 1798 Alien Enemies Act if he is re-elected. The law allows the president to detain and deport non‑citizens in times of a declared war or presidentially proclaimed “invasion.” Trump added that he would call “for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer,” indemnify police and ban sanctuary cities.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    We elected Obama 16 years ago and then dropped the ball in 2010 on moving the country forward. Hopefully, our beginning of the end of our time in the wilderness will begin next month.

  8. 8.

    trollhattan

    @twbrandt:

    Been a long time and I forget his artful pauses, his cadences, his knowing when to raise the roof and unlike you-know-who-and-I-know-you-do, when not to.

    Pro tip Donny: a little goes a loooong way.

  9. 9.

    Sanjeevs

    I’m sure Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and the GOP congress will immediately begin investigating Twitterfiles 2.0.

  12. 12.

    TBone

    I was in the middle of editing/posting that comment above when a very nice older than me couple of Dem canvassers came along and interrupted me – a cute couple out walking the neighborhood, we were all glad to see each other and chat!

    (I had to explain Gritty.  Age gap.)

  13. 13.

    wmd

    @Baud: 2010 is truly a turning point year because of what it did with state legislatures in charge of redistricting. They engineered control for the decade in some states, while also tilting US Congress districts in their favor. (I haven’t done the full analysis on this, but the fact of redistricting and super majority Republican legislatures solidifying isn’t disputable).

    Unrelated: Obama was able to be an angry black man in that clip. Nice to see.

  14. 14.

    Falling Diphthong

    @Baud: The Harris campaign is in cahoots with the shape-shifting lizard people who gave Democrats the magical weather machine.

  15. 15.

    skerry

    I deposited my mail-in ballot into a drop box today. Feels good to have voted.

    Maryland even enclosed a “I voted” sticker with the ballot.

  18. 18.

    Bupalos

    I think Obama sounds like he thinks we’re likely to lose. There’s an authenticity to the exasperation that goes beyond rhetorical art.

  19. 19.

    Scout211

    SpaceX’s plans to launch more rockets from the California coast were rejected by a state commission this week, with some officials citing Elon Musk’s political posts on X and raising concerns about the billionaire’s labor record at his companies.

    The plan to increase the number of rocket blasts into space up to 50 a year was rejected by the California Coastal Commission on Thursday despite assurances from Space Force and Air Force officials that they would increase efforts to monitor the effects that rocket launches have on nearby wildlife.

    The military also vowed to mitigate the reach of sonic booms that often span across 100 miles of coastline, an issue that has caused controversy.

    Members of the California Coastal Commission commended Space Force and Air Force representatives for reaching an agreement, but some cited their concerns about Musk, the owner of SpaceX, before rejecting the plan.

    Among the issues raised were Musk’s decision to insert himself in the presidential race, his spreading of conspiracy theories, the labor record of his companies and derogatory comments he has made about the transgender community.

    . . .

     

    Military officials argue that launches by SpaceX, a leading contractor at Vandenberg Space Force Base, should be considered a federal activity because all of its launches benefit military objectives, regardless of whether the payloads being carried by the rockets are for the government or for Musk’s private satellite internet company, Starlink.

    As such, Space Force officials don’t have to obtain a permit or permission from the California Coastal Commission for rocket launches; they only need to reach an agreement to mitigate the effects.

    . . .

    But commissioners in recent months have questioned whether SpaceX launches, which carry private Starlink equipment on up to 87% of their flights, should be considered private activity. That would mean that Musk’s company would have to obtain permission from the California agency for launches carrying private equipment.

    On Thursday, members of the commission lauded military officials for their work to reach an agreement, but plainly stated their main concern is that it should be SpaceX representatives who should be before the commission to obtain permits for the company’s growing rocket program, not military officials.

    “It is essential that SpaceX apply for a [Coastal Development Permit],” Hart said. “We’re going to hit a wall here.”

  23. 23.

    wjca

    @TBone:

    I particularly liked the last line of that CNN story about Musk

     if Trump loses the election, “I’m f–ked.”

    From his lips to God’s ear.

  25. 25.

    eclare

    Obama’s hair may be gray, but he has not lost a step.  One hundred postcards ready to be mailed to NC on Tuesday, including adding “I hope that you and your loved ones are safe” to 80 that I had previously done.

    One hundred to go, but my local post office’s latest collection time is 5 pm, they’ll be done.

  26. 26.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Bupalos: I think Obama sounds like he thinks we’re likely to lose. There’s an authenticity to the exasperation that goes beyond rhetorical art.

    I think you sound like you’re looking for something to be upset about. Is everything ok?

  27. 27.

    Bupalos

    @SatanicPanic: It’s the content too. But that’s how it’s coming off to me. We’re bleeding out too many black dudes and he’s freaked.

    it’s a typically great effort there by Obama, just doesn’t exactly reassure me. Which is good, none of us should feel assured.

  29. 29.

    TBone

    @Scout211: that is great news! A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

    “Elon Musk is hopping about the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] while claiming his desire to help hurricane victims with free Starlink access to the internet,” Commissioner Gretchen Newsom said.

    That “free” Starlink scam is also egregious and should be prosecuted as the fraud against vulnerable, desperate survivors that it is.

  30. 30.

    peter

    @skerry: Here in NoVA our votes have been counted, according to the Ballot Trax system that manages our absentee ballots. We get texts when the ballots are first sent to us, when they are received by the Board of Elections, and finally when our votes are counted.

    The “I voted” sticker comes with the ballot, but we don’t actually wear them in public until we know our votes have been counted.

  31. 31.

    bbleh

    @Bupalos: I dunno, he clearly IS aiming some of his remarks — and not just here — at men in general and Black men in particular.  BUT (1) he JUST got involved in a public way, (2) that IS a vulnerable demographic, as both polls and (!!!) the 2016 election make clear, and (3) he has CRED — with both, and especially with Black men — that is fresh right now.  So if he’s gonna aim at anything in particular — and it’s pretty late in the game to be doing general stuff, demographically or geographically or whatever — then that’s a pretty sensible place for him to focus.  I wouldn’t read much more into it than that.

  32. 32.

    Bupalos

    @The Audacity of Krope: No?

    Everything is definitely not OK. Guy’s, this speech is really good and it can be paraphrased as “WTF is wrong with too many of you people and your shitty ideas of what it means to be a man!!?”

    I mean, he was like “shut up with your applause, I’m not looking for applause I’m looking to rip you a new one”

  33. 33.

    bbleh

    @twbrandt: he is a RARE political talent.  That we had him AND Nancy Smash in power simultaneously is … well, I thank all the gods, Old, New and Red, daily for it.

  34. 34.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Bupalos: I mean, he was like “shut up with your applause, I’m not looking for applause I’m looking to rip you a new one”

    I know, and Barack Obama knew, that virtually everyone in that crowd will enthusiastically vote for Kamala Harris.  He certainly wasn’t looking to tear them a new one. If I wasn’t sure before, I’m certain now that your read is off.

  36. 36.

    bbleh

    @The Audacity of Krope: @Bupalos: concur that was rhetorical not argumentative, not least because he clearly knew it was coming.  Plus of course, his remarks were aimed at a much wider audience than just those physically present.

    Have a drink, B-man.  And if you’ve been doomscrolling, maybe ease up for the weekend.

  37. 37.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @zhena gogolia: I mean I don’t think anyone of any sort should be voting for Republicans. Obama should be exasperated.

    Still, to infer from that speech that he believes we will lose is just soliciting misery.

  38. 38.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @Bupalos: Just want to say this before I pie you –  please stop with the ceaseless vomiting of despair and angst. It’s not helping. Nearly every comment you make is pissing & moaning.  24/7 Deputy Dawg “it’ll never work” BS. Maybe go read a book and leave the blog alone for a few weeks?

  40. 40.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @SatanicPanic: Honestly, on the ground vibes this year are the best I’ve ever seen. I fully suspect we will win and we still need to push because we need to win as big as possible.

  44. 44.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @zhena gogolia: They were looking for a guarantee that wasn’t coming. They cast aside principles to achieve it.

    This virtually always comes up on Presidential election years, but Democrats really need to be less susceptible to the vicissitudes of the emotional states of their most cowardly members.

  45. 45.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @eclare: i picked NC as the state to send postcards to. I am supposed to send them Oct 25 at the earliest. I’m wondering if I should send them earlier to the western NC addresses if they’re in areas affected by Helene.  I had bought the sailboat postcard  stamps  because that was the  only other choice they had besides the american flag ones.  I won’t be using those  since that seems in poor taste post Helene. I honestly wish I had picked AZ.

  46. 46.

    Another Scott

    @John S.: Made me look.

    50 U.S. Code § 21 – Restraint, regulation, and removal:

    Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies. The President is authorized in any such event, by his proclamation thereof, or other public act, to direct the conduct to be observed on the part of the United States, toward the aliens who become so liable; the manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be subject and in what cases, and upon what security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those who, not being permitted to reside within the United States, refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any other regulations which are found necessary in the premises and for the public safety.

    (R.S. § 4067; Apr. 16, 1918, ch. 55, 40 Stat. 531.)

    It’s hard to see how the clear language of the law applies to economic migrants or those seeking political asylum.

    Of course, the RWNJs on the SCOTUS and too many of the lower courts would be fine with letting Donold do whatever he wants.

    IANAL.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  50. 50.

    Bupalos

    @BeautifulPlumage: I just find this weird. I think I forget that people treat this as a kind of influence operation or something. Anyway, you aren’t really reacting to my history here, I’ve rather pointedly become more optimistic as the campaign has gone on. I do think people continue to underestimate the systemic issues of democratic decline that aren’t coming to an end one way or the other with this election. But you don’t have to tell people to go away, have whatever take you want and filter whatever you want.

  51. 51.

    dm

    I like the way the Harris campaign is redefining strength — Obama does it in the speech above, and I urge you to take a look at that Harris campaign ad I mentioned above, which turns Trump’s denigration of Detroit back on him in a powerful way.

  52. 52.

    KatKapCC

    @twbrandt: Definitely is. In any kind of circumstance and situation. His eulogy for Clementa Pinckney had me in tears almost the whole time.

  53. 53.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I early voted in person today. The ballot was loonng.  There was a steady trickle of voters which I feel was a good sign since it’s early in in person voting and I went mid morning so not  primetime after work or lunchtime hours.

  54. 54.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @zhena gogolia: Especially when many of those cowards are serving in Congress and like to go on TV.

    God help me I had a moment I wasn’t sure if I was going to vote for Elizabeth Warren’s reelection this year. I wanted her to be President 4 years ago.

    It passed, but I find myself looking askance at the entire Dem operation in a way I haven’t in years. We need to win this election, but then we need to have a serious rethink of our priorities.

  55. 55.

    KatKapCC

    @Bupalos: Whatever you’re smoking, please put it down.

    And:

    We’re bleeding out too many black dudes and he’s freaked.

    what the absolute shit is that

  59. 59.

    cmorenc

    That clip of Obama really provoed the RW slime-lizards, disinformation batallion and Russian troll-bots into overdrive.  Plus the FTNYT today reported that Musk is using Twitter to coordinate with the Trump campaign.

    For example, the accusation that the NC National Guard was called into action to haul a C-47 full of supplies to Florida in order to provide a photo-op for Harris, rather than actually help hurricane victims.

  62. 62.

    Starfish

    @The Audacity of Krope: Some people need to feel prepared for the worst, and this is how they do it.

    I know it is hard on others who like to stay positive, and I am sorry that some of us experience the world this way.

  63. 63.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @SatanicPanic: The reliable Dems are as excited I’ve ever seen them. Republicans are muted in a way that I wouldn’t have dared to imagine. Nonvoters still doing their thing.

    Signs are auspicious as one could hope for.

  64. 64.

    japa21

    @The Audacity of Krope: What I got from that section of his speech was that he feels that we will win, but he doesn’t want to just eke out a win, he wants us to win big.  He wants the margins to be so big, specially in places like PA, MI and WI, that there isn’t any doubt about the victory.

  65. 65.

    KatKapCC

    @StringOnAStick: This is the same person who spent days screeching at all of us because they didn’t think we were properly recognizing how BRILLIANT AND AMAZING AND TERRIFIC KAMALA HARRIS WAS YOU GUYS WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU WE SHOULD BE TALKING ABOUT THIS FOR 194 HOURS STRAIGHT!!!!!

    I don’t usually like to make “fix your meds” type jokes, but in their case………

  66. 66.

    Bobby Thomson

    Trump is playing for Macomb and Oakland Counties, not Wayne County.  Most of the people who work downtown don’t live anywhere near there.

  67. 67.

    BlueGuitarist

    @John S.:
    Some folks seem to have forgotten that Jefferson and Madison demonstrated that the Alien Act was unconstitutional. Sedition act also. Virginia and Kentucky resolutions

  69. 69.

    eclare

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    Yeah, I addressed one today to someone in Asheville.  That made me feel kind of gross.  I bought the school bus stamps, and I will keep going, if for no other reason than I will never get through 100 stamps in my personal life.

    My mail date is October 15.  Since the election is Nov 5, you might want to move your mail date up a few days.

  70. 70.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @Baud: Really I view those as the same problems. It’s those same set of cowards who are infinitely manipulable by the media and we seem to have a set of armchair Machiavellis who manage to convince themselves the media CW was really their idea and isn’t it so obvious and brilliant and why is no one(everyone) talking about this?

  72. 72.

    SatanicPanic

    @The Audacity of Krope: That’s true. I definitely get a feeling like when Obama was running in 2008. I’ve said it before I’ll say it again- if we can’t win with Harris/Walz we can’t win with anyone.

  73. 73.

    Starfish

    How can we get the aliens to abduct Donald Trump? Maybe he can go on SpaceX’s Mars mission?

  76. 76.

    Eolirin

    @Baud: The next ticket won’t matter if we lose.

    We could run the second coming of Jesus in 2028, and it wouldn’t matter because JD Vance would be the VP and the fake electors scheme would get sent to the SCOTUS, where bad things would happen, because unlike Pence he wouldn’t certify the election.

    The problem with winning is that the next ticket won’t be this exciting.

  77. 77.

    Dave

    @KatKapCC: Taking them at face value the problem of savvy and knowing a fair amount about a specific topic and then lensing everything through that light.

    Could I see Obama’s comments in that light? Sure I can back them into it.

    I can also see them as a person that doesn’t have to be quite as careful as he used to with his rhetoric and is genuinely exasperated by these clowns.

    Particularly given that pretty clearly one of Obama’s core beliefs is in the importance of civic minded institutions and civil servants.

    He might have anxiety simply because the negative consequences of a Trump victory are likely to be extreme. Even if one is confident Harris wins no one really believes it is certain so some underlying anxiety isn’t exactly a shock.

  78. 78.

    SatanicPanic

    @Baud: That’s always possible. I don’t want to annoy anyone so I’ll keep my thoughts on which of our past candidates weren’t super inspiring tho.

  80. 80.

    Another Scott

    @peter: +1

    I got an e-mail today that my NoVA ballot (dropped in a drop box a week ago) has been counted.  I was getting a little antsy because I was expecting some notification that they received the ballot and I don’t think I ever got that.

    Whew!

    Forward!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  82. 82.

    MagdaInBlack

    @TBone: Of course, going to ground zero of the whole ” violent illegal immigrant gangs are taking over apartment complexes” lie.

  84. 84.

    Emily B.

    I interpreted the raw emotion in Obama’s voice as massive frustration at the culture of lying that has infected the GOP—and also as fear that it will outlive Trump. YMMV

  86. 86.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Baud: Don’t worry, I’m sure the “Primary Kamala 2028” shirts are already being printed and should go on sale around 11/9 or so.

  87. 87.

    Kay

    I have to say, the conspiracy theory about the NC floods that Musk and Trump engineered rattled me a bit. I just found it very dispiriting. I’ve recovered, but boy the last thing this country needed was another malicious super wealthy operative.

  88. 88.

    Dave

    @Emily B.: And it will barring multiple significant electoral drubbings. Even then there is a fair chance that they go the way of the California GOP. Mind you both those options are the good outcomes.

    The worse ones are fairly obvious.

    And yeah Obama sounds both angry and free of having to be quite as measured in his rhetoric as he was during his Presidency.

  89. 89.

    Eunicecycle

    My husband and I voted yesterday in Ohio. Of course 100% blue and Yes on Issue 1, the anti-gerrymandering issue. The Board of Elections was busy but there was almost no waiting.

  90. 90.

    The Audacity of Krope

    @UncleEbeneezer: We all know the proven method is to gin up a media crusade against the candidate supported by the thinnest available reed of truth and do so after the primary so no pesky voters get an opportunity to provide input.

  94. 94.

    Chet Murthy

    @Another Scott: Not that it’ll matter (the bastard will do whatever the hell he wants) but that text you cite seems to require that the President has to specify  -which- countries, and perhaps even must declare war against them?  B/c boy howdy, it’d be interesting if TCFG declares war against:

    Mexico, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, China, India, and probably a dozen other countries.

    But we all know that that’s not how it’ll work.  He’ll just send in his deportation vigilantes and that’ll be that.

  95. 95.

    WaterGirl

    @StringOnAStick: Hmm.  Have you tried the setting where it does’t add an image or add a saying, it just shows the comment # and the commenter amp?

    Guessing that would’t slow dow your device.  I would love to test that theory if you are so inclined.

  96. 96.

    Ksmiami

    Finally the thing I don’t get is do none of these voters have 401ks, or IRAs, the economy has been gangbusters- what do they think will happen when Trump implements tariffs, or goes after companies he doesn’t like. Fucking stupid peasant country

  100. 100.

    Harrison Wesley

    Just got my electricity back after Milton’s visit.  Looks like it’s shaping up to be an interesting evening here.

  102. 102.

    kbid

    Am waiting for Harris to get into the meat and potatoes of some of these issues. For instance: Both candidates are going to run up more debt than my 65yr old self can get her head around but the question is, who benefits from that debt?

    Kamala’s debt is estimated to be about a third of Trump’s over 10yrs, but hers will benefit a wide swath of the American public across most demographics while Trump’s will benefit a small slice — 10% at best? And the remaining 90% will be stuck with the burden because shazaam! That 10% won’t be paying taxes anymore. I’m really at a loss as to why a simple explainer like this isn’t being yelled from the rooftops.

  104. 104.

    wjca

    @The Audacity of Krope: Honestly, on the ground vibes this year are the best I’ve ever seen

    Not a good idea to become complacent or anything.  Let alone stop working hard.  But blue wave seems like the smart money bet this year.

    Then it will just be a matter of making it thru to February.

  108. 108.

    KatKapCC

    @wjca: I’m not meaning this as an attack, but I see this so often and I am perplexed as to why so many folks on our side see “optimism” or “hopefulness” or “a good feeling” as “complacency”. No one is complacent. No one needs to be told not to be complacent. Seeing hope as complacency is a result of being poisoned by the horserace media BS. The antidote is GOTV.

  109. 109.

    EngineerScotty

    @Another Scott:

    You don’t think that Trump, with support of a GOP congress, couldn’t conceivably declare war on Mexico, or the rest of Latin America–not because they intend to militarily invade such places, but so they could use laws like this to expedite removal of the nationals of such countries (including Green Card holders and other lawful immigrants)–plus get all the other legal superpowers that would spring from a state of war?

  111. 111.

    WaterGirl

    @Falling Diphthong: I think most of us here are aware of that.  I know that BeautifulPlumage is.

    Never hurts to say that we need to do the work.  But just because you say the vibes are good doesn’t mean you’re not working your ass off.

  114. 114.

    Starfish

    “Telling the truth even when it is inconvenient.” Obama is sending us secret Al Gore climate change messages.

  115. 115.

    Shane in SLC

    I donated $50 yesterday to 4 Direction NV. I left a comment in the post from Wednesday, but it was over 24 hours old by then, so Watergirl may have missed it. Can I count it toward the match?

  118. 118.

    EngineerScotty

    @Baud: Hopefully, Kalama Harris becomes Madame President, and all questions concerning her claim to that office are dispensed with, at least with the people that matter.

    Trump will say it was stolen again, of course.  And there might be ratfuckery between November 5  and Jan 21.

  122. 122.

    wjca

    @KatKapCC: I put in the caveat from experience.

    Because, suppose I just give my optimistic view that not only will Harris win big, but the Democrats will pick up seats, including Senate seats, that almost everybody thought were totally out of reach.  There would be howls about people ceasing to work hard, and focusing in the wrong places, and how that’s what happened in 2016.

    I mean, suppose I said I thought Harris would take Florida and Nebraska (state wide, but only one of the two Congressional districts), and quite possibly Ohio.  Among other, less out-there cases.  Only imagine the response.  :-)

  127. 127.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @kbid:

    Am waiting for Harris to get into the meat and potatoes of some of these issues.

    We are in the home stretch. Meat & potatoes are no longer being served. Getting our people to vote is the only thing we need to be doing.

  132. 132.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @KatKapCC:

    Optimism, hopefulness, and good feelings are critical elements of the enthusiasm we need our voters to feel in order to drive them to the polls. And our experience shows us that those feelings are contagious.

  134. 134.

    UncleEbeneezer

    We had a wonderful time in the Eastern Sierra but are glad to be back home sleeping in a real bed and having access to a shower!

    That said, boy did this whole Ta-Nehisi Coates interview blow-up prove me right about the widespread Anti-Semitism of the Left.  So many of his angry defenders are just showing their asses right now and gaslighting Jewish/Israeli voices.  People who I usually respect and who regularly preach about 1.) “stay in your lane” and 2.) “listen to ___ people” (about their oppression), 3.) don’t use Europe/America-centric lenses to interpret the rest of the world and 4.) don’t use slogans/framings that are rooted in Isms/Phobias…but suddenly all that goes out the window when it’s their fave author, Anti-Semitism, Israel and age-old, Jewish Conspiracy Theories.

    I also just learned this about Coates’ father (who Coates credits most with shaping his political worldview):

    students in Martin’s class were assigned a book called The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews,[25] compiled by the Historical Research Department of the Nation of Islam. The book’s thesis is that Jews had a disproportionately large role in the black slave trade relative to their numbers. This thesis has since been refuted by mainstream historians, including the American Historical Association (AHA).[26]

  135. 135.

    wjca

    @Baud: What happens in February?

    The inauguration is behind us.  And there has been time, hopefully enough time, for even most of the true believers among the RWNJs to realize that a violent overthrow of the lawful government isn’t going to work this time either. No matter how sure they were that it would.

  136. 136.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud: And it was great seeing all of the trash getting arrested because they recorded their crimes themselves.

    Dumbshits.

  138. 138.

    KatKapCC

    @wjca: There’s a difference between “I think” and “I know”. If you were to say “I think Harris has a good shot at winning Florida” that would be fine. If you say “I am 100% certain for a concrete fact that Harris will win Florida” then yeah, that might get pushback, the same way any claims of clairvoyance will.

  141. 141.

    KatKapCC

    @UncleEbeneezer: Interesting how they ignore the large number of white Jewish lawyers from the North who went South to help during the CRM. Not saying they’re the biggest heroes of the story, but of course acknowledging it at all complicates the preferred narrative of “It’s really the Jews who have it out for Black people”. It also ignores that there are Black Jews.

    Coates is an intelligent man, but sometimes, people think that being intelligent about some things makes them the wisest of all scholars on whatever topic they choose. He is wrong. And he has biases he seems unwilling to examine, while lecturing others about their own.

    I would ask him and his defenders: Is it illegal to kill a Jew? And do you agree that it should be? There are a lot of people — more than most of y’all want to believe — who in their heart of hearts would say no to the second question.

  142. 142.

    Jackie

    @BeautifulPlumage:

    @Bupalos: Just want to say this –  please stop with the ceaseless vomiting of despair and angst. It’s not helping. Nearly every comment you make is pissing & moaning.  24/7 Deputy Dawg “it’ll never work” BS. Maybe go read a book and leave the blog alone for a few weeks?

    There’s some great playoff baseball games, college and NFL football games all wknd to watch 😊

    I agree with BeautifulPlumage: Take a mental politics break! It will do you good, and, honestly do us good, too.

    I’m already spending less time reading BJ because stress from several posters screaming the sky is falling! is harshing my positivity. I so can’t wait for Nov 5, 6, 7 to get here!

  146. 146.

    wjca

    @KatKapCC: If you were to say “I think Harris has a good shot at winning Florida” that would be fine.

    Sadly, experience (here) suggests otherwise.

    EDT I don’t generally make claims of clairvoyance.  My engineering training may be far behind me, but that part stuck.  And even if it hadn’t, it isn’t possible to get a degree in Anthropology without learning how little we know about the causes of human behavior — which makes predicting it chancy at best.

  147. 147.

    Scout211

    @Jackie: I’m already spending less time reading BJ because stress from several posters screaming the sky is falling! is harshing my positivity.

    Same here.

    Oh, hey Jackie, did you catch that game last night?   ***ducks and runs away**

    😝

  148. 148.

    EngineerScotty

    There seems to be a lot of antagonism between the Black and Jewish communities here in the US… antagonism that even predates the emergence of the Nation of Islam and its rather explicitly anti-Semitic views.  I’m a white dude (non-Jewish), so am in many ways a bystander to all of this, but am puzzled where a lot of this comes from.  (And no, I don’t think the answer is “sympathy with Palestine”–a lot of this predates even that, though the current situation in Israel and the Occupied Territories certainly doesn’t help anything).

    The notion that Jews were disproportionately involved in the slave trade is ahistoric garbage, right up there with all the other “Jewish banker” conspiracies that have been circulating for centuries.   The slave trade (and the European conquest of the New World) was, however, actively endorsed, aided, and abetted by the Roman Catholic Church, by numerous Protestant state churches in Northern Europe, and later in the US, by the Southern Baptist Convention, a religious sect created specifically to protect and defend the peculiar institution.  Many modern US evangelical churches have anti-Black racism at the heart of their existence.  Brown v. Board led to an explosion of religious schools, whose actual purpose was to exclude Black children because the public schools could no longer do so.  Yet one doesn’t see the likes of a Louis Farrakhan or a Ta-Nehisi Coates (the Rod Dreher of the left–a once-brilliant writer who went completely off the deep end) assaulting Christians and Christianity for the rather explicit sins committed by the leaders of the Church centuries ago, or even recently.

    Netanyahu, of course, should get the fuck out of the Occupied Territories.  That does not remotely justify anti-Semitism.

  149. 149.

    Lyrebird

    @japa21: My impression of Prez Obama’s remarks is that he is a person who has also stood with leaders and members of communities who have just gone through massive floods etc and it makes the orange one’s depravity that much harder to think about without throwing up.

  151. 151.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Bupalos: Obama is just trying to shake more fruit (voters) from the trees. Gotv. Put a little urgency into those that are dragging their feet, “undecided”

  152. 152.

    KatKapCC

    @EngineerScotty: An easy answer is that Jews have functioned as a convenient scapegoat for basically every single other group of humans on Earth as long as humans have existed on Earth. You cannot find a single other identity group that has not, at one time or another, blamed Jews for their problems. We have apparently been quite busy.

  153. 153.

    Kent

    @Baud: We elected Obama 16 years ago and then dropped the ball in 2010 on moving the country forward. Hopefully, our beginning of the end of our time in the wilderness will begin next month.

    Citizens United happened in 2010.  And as a result, that was the first election in which we were swamped with a tidal wave of dark money.

    Everything is connected and the orcs are always at the door.  Always.

  154. 154.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Baud:

    • Israel = Apartheid (an old Anti-Semitic trope)

    • He’s never felt racism as bad as when he was in Israel (Anti-Semitic trope of Jews being the most racist of all)

    • He only wants to amplify Palestinian voices because they don’t have any bureau chiefs at news organizations (Jews control the Media)

    • “Does Israel have a right to exist?” is an irrelevant question (even though Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, all talk about destroying Israel, all the time)

    • He just opposes Israel because he hates Ethno-States (even though Hamas/Hezbollah/Iran want to create an Islamic/Arab Ethnostate in Israel)

    • He doesn’t want to talk about the complex I/P history, Palestinians turning down past deals, or Hamas/Hezbollah’s perpetual terrorism, 10/7, etc., because they are all irrelevant to the morality of the I/P conflict

    • And he’s not sure, if he were Palestinian, that he could’ve resisted the pressure to join in the 10/7 massacre (which could be true and is honest at least, but damn…saying so out loud, during a press tour on the week of the anniversary of the 10/7 attack, is pretty damn insensitive/offensive)

  158. 158.

    wjca

    @KatKapCC: You cannot find a single other identity group that has not, at one time or another, blamed Jews for their problems.

    Would be interested in cites for Japanese and Koreans.  Not that I disagree with your general point.

  159. 159.

    Gloria DryGarden

    I may have replied to the wrong person and gotten pie. If Obama sounds like there’s urgency, maybe he’s just trying to shake more voters out of the tree, like fruits. Those undecided and voter apathy folks, shake em loose, baby.

    Maybe he’s expressing some of the fierceness most of us feel, about how important this is?

  160. 160.

    ArchTeryx

    @Bupalos: Quite possibly my and my fiancee’s lives are at stake in this election, but I still manage to have some fun and even optimism in my off time.

    To quote the late, great Warren Oates: “Lighten up, Francis.”

  162. 162.

    Other MJS

    @John S.:

    Trump added that he would call “for the death penalty for any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer,”

    … or looks like they might be thinking about it.

  163. 163.

    ArchTeryx

    @Gloria DryGarden: Yeah. For all his blind spots Obama really, really cared about this country, and the last thing he wants to see is it fall to fascism. He’s not taking any chances. Nobody should be. When you can’t see the scoreboard clearly until the game is over, you never let up.

  164. 164.

    Gloria DryGarden

    I may have replied to the wrong person and gotten pie. If Obama sounds like there’s urgency, maybe he’s just trying to shake more voters out of the tree, like fruits. Those undecided and voter apathy folks, shake em loose, baby.

    Maybe he’s expressing some of the fierceness most of us feel, about how important this is?

    (Oh jeez, already posted, but it saved it for my next comment too. Oops)

     

    @Lyrebird: agree

  166. 166.

    cain

    @Baud:

    Basically like star wars.

    1 Obama elected 2008:  A new hope

    2 GOP Congress elected: The Empire Strikes Back

    3. Obama re- elected: The Jedi Returns

  168. 168.

    eclare

    @Gloria DryGarden:

    Lisa Rubin was on MJ talking about extending voter registration for areas impacted by Helene.  She said that NC has same day registration, so even though the article lists a registration deadline, that isn’t the case.

    Hopefully that helps some people.

  170. 170.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @KatKapCC:

    Coates is an intelligent man, but sometimes, people think that being intelligent about some things makes them the wisest of all scholars on whatever topic they choose.

    Exactly.  Coates is brilliant on US racism.  But he commits the oldest mistake in the book by assuming the American racial lens of White Supremacy fits for analyzing I/P.

  171. 171.

    KatKapCC

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    And he’s not sure, if he were Palestinian, that he could’ve resisted the pressure to join in the 10/7 massacre

    Oh? Did anyone ask him how many Jewish women he would have raped? I’d be curious to hear!!!!!!

    He can go fuck himself. Neo-Nazi dressing his hateful views up as wokeness.

  173. 173.

    Another Scott

    @EngineerScotty: Counterfactuals are fun.  ;-)

    I don’t expect those things to happen.

    If, for some horrible reason, they did, as Baud says they would just pass a law (if they thought it was actually necessary).  Declaring war is one of those things that doesn’t seem to happen any more.

    My main point was that the text of the law seems clear to me.

    But the text of the law about federal officials not having personal contracts with the GSA seems clear to me.  And the text of the Constitution about emoluments seems clear to me.  And the 14th Amendment Section 3 seems clear to me.  TCFFG’s administration, and the RWNJs on the SCOTUS decided that the plain language of the law and regulations doesn’t matter any more.  That bribes and selling one’s office actually isn’t bribes and selling one’s office unless there is a signed contract, or something very similar.  This and more shows that it’s all Calvinball to them.

    Ultimately, people matter – “people are policy”.  The law won’t protect us if there are monsters in office and on the courts.

    The idea that the GOP and the Courts and state legislators and governors would simply roll over and let some carnival barker who loves the leaders of Russia and North Korea do whatever he wanted simply because he won the Electoral College in an almost freak set of circumstances would have the framers and just about every every elected republican pre-1980 screaming that’s impossible.  Little did they know…

    We know better now.  We have to do everything we can to vote the monsters out.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  174. 174.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @EngineerScotty:

    Well, part of it is that the Soviets ran a decades-long OP to influence the West/Left that purposefully included Black Power leaders.  I believe, iirc, Coates has said that Angela Davis is also one of the people who shaped his worldview:

    Two high-profile alumni of that Soviet-devised and Soviet-financed propaganda system continue to influence contemporary left-wing politics, including in the sphere of Zionism and Israel. One is Angela Davis, a member of the CPUSA from 1969 to 1991, who became a star not in small part thanks to Soviet efforts. (According to CIA estimates, in 1971 Moscow devoted some five percent of their propaganda efforts to her.78) Davis famously refused to speak for jailed Soviet Jewish activists because they were “Zionist fascists.”79 As the author Scott A. Shay observes, Davis continues to advocate conspiracist antizionist views, which hold Zionism as a universal evil responsible as much for the problems in Gaza as for the problems of policing in Ferguson and Baltimore.

     

    A remarkable number of figures who have shaped anti-Israel discourse in recent years came of age politically within the Soviet-sponsored anti-colonialist ecosystem. Angela Davis is only one such figure. A long-term member of CPUSA and a prominent member of the Black Power movement, who owes much of her political and cultural stardom to Soviet investment in her image and career (in 1971 Moscow devoted an estimated 5 percent of its propaganda efforts to Davis), she first met Yasser Arafat at a 1973 World Festival of Youth and Students in Berlin and credits the “powerful force” of “communist internationalism”—“in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, South America, and the Caribbean”—with globalizing the Palestinian cause. Davis remains an icon on today’s anti-Israel left, and in a recent post-Oct. 7 talk, she spoke of the “murderous power of Zionism.”

    Another iconic figure of the Black Power movement, Stokely Carmichael, whose virulent anti-Zionist quotes are frequently recalled by admirers today, including last fall at Harvard, was also profoundly influenced by this global ecosystem. He first entered it at a conference in Cuba in 1967. He developed a close personal relationship with Fidel Castro, embarked on a Third World pilgrimage to Vietnam and Africa, and lived for many years in Guinea and Ghana, developing close relationships with their Marxist dictators, Ahmed Sékou Touré and Kwame Nkrumah. (Both played important roles in the Non-Aligned Movement.)

  175. 175.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @wjca

    If you were to say “I think Harris has a good shot at winning Florida” that would be fine.

    I’m going to spend time visualizing a win, like this: Olympic figure skaters spend time focusing on their skate performance, and in seeing themselves win. The gymnasts do it too.

    So I’ll imagine all he phone bankers and canvassers having great positive motivating conversations. I’m seeing ballots getting cast, I’ll make affirmations about great turnout and clarity cutting through the lies. I’ll imagine the EV count going up above 270 in our favor, I’ll imagine that much desired inauguration. Holding the positive thoughts and feelings, for the win!

  176. 176.

    Starfish

    I haven’t read Coates’s book and knew nothing about this controversy.

    The interview that sparked this sounds like “Why didn’t he write the book that I wanted him to write?”

    He devoted a third of his 260 page book to Palestine, and the interviewer asks him why he did not write more about Israel.

    He was pretty clear that he opposes all the religious states.

    The way that the framing someone highlighting the lack of main stream media representation of Palestinian voices as “Jews control the media” feels like an attempt to silence Palestinian voices.

  177. 177.

    EngineerScotty

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    There is a well-known troll (one of the more capable ones who isn’t quite obvious at first) at LGM that routinely cites Davis as a moral authority.  (She also cites Malcolm X as an authority on I/P as well–while he had much interesting to say on US race relations, I’m not at all convinced that when he left the NoI, he left behind it’s virulent anti-Semitism as well).

  179. 179.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @KatKapCC: Right?  I mean, imagine if someone said the same thing about joining the Tulsa Massacre (on their book tour during the week of the anniversary of the massacre!!)  I’m so saddened to see Black voices that I genuinely admire (and constantly learn from) rushing to his defense and claiming he’s being treated unfairly.

  181. 181.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @EngineerScotty: Oh geez, now I’m dying to know which commenter!  I used to be a regular there, but have mostly stayed away from LGM since their obsession with Biden’s age.

  182. 182.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @eclare: oh God.giving me tears of hope. And relief. Thank you

    ETA

    If autocorrect is so smart, why can it not ever guess when I type fir in my phone, that I mean for?

  183. 183.

    Starfish

    @EngineerScotty: Yes. You are right. I responded to the wrong comment. I was referring to the one that you were talking about.

    I feel that after 10/7 we are using a new and more expansive definition of anti-Semiticism, and that new expanded definition feels like an attempt to silence anyone critical of all the civilian casualties being created by Israel.

  184. 184.

    prostratedragon

    Checking out A Face in the Crowd and noticed that Lonesome Rhoads said his father was a carny barker (making him a son of one). To hammer the point home radio just started up Beethoven 7. Should hit that scherzo just around the double flaming baton twirling scene.

  185. 185.

    KatKapCC

    @Starfish: What you have said here is a form of antisemitism. The “expansive definition” is simply saying that screaming “gas the Jews” and attacking random Jews in the street and kicking anyone wearing a yarmulke out of your business counts as antisemitism no matter the reasons claimed to be behind it. Things like what you said seem to imply that the only thing YOU will accept as antisemitic is saying “Hitler was right”. No one is saying Israel is above any and all criticism. Go to the cornfield to fight your strawman.

  187. 187.

    BarcaChicago

    @UncleEbeneezer: ALL of this. It’s just maddening and horrifying. Projecting the American lens of white settler colonialism onto Jewish people in Israel? I see it as serving a deep need to cleanse oneself of our very real foundational American sins by assigning them to Israel and conflating that to the entire Jewish diaspora, because Jewish people are always a convenient target for any scapegoat needs. Anyone dehumanizing either Palestinians or Israelis is a part of the problem.

  191. 191.

    EngineerScotty

    @Starfish:

    Both the Israeli right, and the various anti-Semites around the world, are eager to yoke Judaism together with the policies of the Netanyahu government.

    To the Likudniks, any criticism of Israel or of the policies of its government, is ipso facto anti-Semitism; to support the Jews you must not criticize Israel.

    To the anti-Semites, the crimes of Bibi Netanyahu are the crimes of the Jews; they are indistinguishable, and Zionism itself is perfidy.

    Sane discourse on the subject requires separation of the two.  Just as Putin’s crimes in Ukraine do not cause me to seek the destruction of Russia, or Beijing’s continuing conquest and oppression of some of its western provinces make me hate the Chinese, one can object to the Gaza war and the West Bank settlements, without viewing 10/7 as a righteous act, or demanding the end of the Israeli state.

    Indeed, the humanitarian argument requires acknowledging the dignity of all.  Which doesn’t mean that injustices cannot be wronged; but that there is no justice that involves genocide, in either direction.

  192. 192.

    EngineerScotty

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Someone called BrainiacBarbie.  Might be a genuine contributor, albeit one with some rather nasty ideas.

    Originally showed up when Biden’s status of the nominee was being debated.

    (Speaking of that–the flamewar on Biden dropping out finally has died down somewhat, though there are still references to “foot Parkinsons”–one FPer there, Colorado law prof Paul Campos, drew a lot of scorn when he produced a long-distance diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease in the President, based on his gait).

  193. 193.

    EngineerScotty

    @BarcaChicago:

    The staunchest Likudniks generally aren’t the Asheknazi Jews (i.e. European migrants), but the Sephradim and Mizrahim–darker-skinned Middle Eastern Jews, many of them who came (or whose ancestors came) to Israel after being expelled from their homelands, who in many cases have long histories of distrusting their Arab neighbors (a feeling which is mutual).

    And of course, the US Bureau of the Census, for what it’s worth, considers all Middle Easterners (and North Africans) to be wypipo.

  196. 196.

    wjca

    @Another Scott: would have the framers and just about every every elected republican pre-1980 screaming that’s impossible.

    I’d even go as far as pre-1992. Reagan, for all his faults, would have been appalled by Trump.  As would Bush I.

  197. 197.

    wjca

    @EngineerScotty: Putin’s crimes in Ukraine do not cause me to seek the destruction of Russia,

    Putin’s crimes, no.  But observing the behavior of the Russian soldiers, as shown in the little videos they proudly share?  Something is profoundly wrong in the Russian Federation, something that goes far beyond just Putin.  Not sure if it repairable without something as extreme as national destruction and recreating its culture from the ground up..

  198. 198.

    Eolirin

    @Baud: Or, you know just start rounding up people and leave it to the Supreme Court to try to stop them, with good odds that they don’t, and even if they try to, they can just ignore them. Kind of like they did with the wall construction stuff.

    A truly lawless executive is only constrained by congress going for impeachment, which is impossible with the 2/3rds requirement. And even then, I’m not sure how you enforce impeachment if the necessary parts of the executive don’t go along.

  199. 199.

    dm

    I haven’t read Coates’ new book, but the interview Ben Rhoades did with him last week on “Pod Save the World” makes me think people are distorting what he wrote, and others are being taken in by those distortions.

    Rhoades seemed to think the book was pretty reasonable.

  202. 202.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @dm: I’m talking about his interview which I listened to.  The Anti-Semitic tropes I listed above are all from his interview.  Apparently there are also some misrepresentations about the laws and restrictions of Israel.  Aizenberg on Twitter has a pretty detailed fact-check, that I’ve seen shared by several Jewish/Israeli historians:

    Te-Nehisi Coates The Message is an anti-Israel, antisemitic screed filled with lies, misrepresentations & omissions (especially). He calls Israel the most evil nation on earth. His academic fraudulence is only exceeded by his vicious hate for Israel. Detailed analysis: 1/

    Coates’ first sentence deliberately reflects his hope & dream: no Jewish state. He makes clear he believes there is only one legitimate people with rights in the Holy Land – Palestinians. He disgustingly says Holocaust center Yad Vashem is based in Palestine. Tone firmly set. 2/

    …

  203. 203.

    Citizen Alan

    @The Audacity of Krope: To be fairIt’s kind of built into the political dynamic. Democrats are understandably anxious because we know that the republicans want to kill us. Whereas republicans are always angry because they want to kill us, but are not allowed to.

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