Trump Is a F#@king Racist, Part One Zillion in an Endless Series

[Content Note: White supremacy; nativism; misogyny.]

Yesterday, Donald Trump tweeted this racist shit about Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts:

So interesting to see "Progressive" Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly......

....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how....

....it is done. These places need your help badly, you can't leave fast enough. I'm sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

As many people have already noted, all four of the congresswomen targeted by Trump are U.S. citizens, so this is just more of the nativist birther shit on which he's made his political name, starting with his birther campaign against President Barack Obama.

I'll come back to that, but I also want to note very clearly that accusing sitting members of Congress of being uppity for having ideas about "how our government is to be run" shows, yet again, Trump's hostility to the most basic notion of the separation of powers. The president doesn't unilaterally run the U.S. government. Congress is a coequal branch which has as much authority over "how our government is to be run" as the executive branch.

Naturally, Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Omar, and Presley had some thoughts for the president.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted: "Mr. President, the country I 'come from,' & the country we all swear to, is the United States. ...You are angry because you can't conceive of an America that includes us. You rely on a frightened America for your plunder. You won't accept a nation that sees healthcare as a right or education as a #1 priority, especially where we're the ones fighting for it. Yet here we are. But you know what's the rub of it all, Mr. President? On top of not accepting an America that elected us, you cannot accept that we don't fear you, either."

Tlaib tweeted: "Yo @realDonaldTrump, I am fighting corruption in OUR country. I do it every day when I hold your admin accountable as a U.S. Congresswoman. Detroit taught me how to fight for the communities you continue to degrade & attack. Keep talking, you'll be out of the WH soon. #TickTock"

Omar tweeted: "As Members of Congress, the only country we swear an oath to is the United States. Which is why we are fighting to protect it from the worst, most corrupt and inept president we have ever seen. You are stoking white nationalism because you are angry that people like us are serving in Congress and fighting against your hate-filled agenda."

Pressley, quoting Trump's words, tweeted: "THIS is what racism looks like. WE are what democracy looks like. And we're not going anywhere. Except back to DC to fight for the families you marginalize and vilify everyday."

And of course they got backup from the People's President:

They're from America, and you're right about one thing: Currently their government is a complete and total catastrophe. https://t.co/NvsnFSN8mb

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 14, 2019

One thing I want to emphasize, again, is that one of the primary reasons Trump currently occupies the White House — and has the attendant platform from which to disgorge this despicable trash — is that lots and lots and lots of people who should have known better treated him like an entertaining joke through most of his candidacy, despite the fact that he launched his political career with a birther campaign and, long before that, was a public racist who had been sued by the Justice Department for housing discrimination and purchased newspaper ads calling for the death of the Central Park Five.

I'm old enough to remember when people who urgently warned that Trump was a dangerous authoritarian racist and misogynist were told to stop being such killjoys and ruining everyone's fun making fun of the silly man with the weird hair.

And the purpose of saying that, once more, at this particular moment is that it's still happening. Even now, even as the sitting president goes after women of color serving in the U.S. congress, engaging in rank nativism and racism and misogyny, asserting his authoritarianism as he demeans them as human beings and demeans the role of U.S. Representatives in federal governance, there are still people who have nothing but jokes.

We need more than fucking jokes. It is long past time to treat Donald Trump with the gravity his bigotry and tyranny deserve.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

A Couple of Notes on the Epstein Charges

[Content Note: Sexual violence; child abuse; trafficking.]

Financier Jeffrey Epstein, who is a very wealthy man with deep political connections, has been charged with new sex trafficking charges by federal prosecutors.

I am not going to detail in this space the heinous specifics of the crimes with which he is charged; if you want to know more about the case, head on over to the Washington Post, where Matt Zapotosky, Renae Merle, Devlin Barrett, and Kimberly Kindy have filed a brief, factual, and non-salacious report on the new charges.

I'm posting this thread primarily for discussion and to make space for community support, as stories of this nature dominating the news can get very triggering for survivors, but a couple of brief points:

1. This case is connected to Donald Trump in two ways: Epstein and Trump are longtime associates (Epstein is probably as close to a "friend" as Trump has), and the very credible rape accusation made against Trump by Jane Doe in 2016 allges that Doe was held captive as a sex slave to Epstein and Trump when she was thirteen years old.

Secondly, as noted in the Post piece: "The Miami Herald...detailed in a lengthy investigative report how then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, now Trump's labor secretary, shelved a 53-page federal indictment that could have put Epstein behind bars for life in favor of the deal that allowed him to plead guilty only to state charges."

So, to be clear: Epstein is alleged to have enticed and held hostage teenage girls for himself and his powerful friends to rape, among them the current U.S. president, and the U.S. Attorney who previously let him off with a breathtakingly inadequate plea deal that did not require him to name names is now that president's Secretary of Labor.

2. Epstein, being a very wealthy man with deep political connections, has a number of relationships with powerful people that might legitimately have nothing to do with his child sex trafficking activities.

(Although, these rumors about Epstein have been around for many years, and, if I heard them, so did they. There are investigations and lawsuits dating back to 2005. And some of Epstein's associates chose to ignore those rumors, investigations, and lawsuits and maintain ties with him despite them.)

Bill Clinton's name is often mentioned in any news about Epstein, because the former president has flown on Epstein's private jet a number of times.

I am not trying to implicate Clinton by mentioning him: My reason for mentioning him is because the Trump administration is almost certainly going to try to influence the case, because Trump himself has a vested interest in quashing any investigation that may expose his involvement. And I suspect that Trump will not merely want to make it go away, but instead will see this as an opportunity to go after Clinton.

Obviously, if Bill Clinton is involved in the trafficking somehow, then I hope he is charged. My fear, however, is that everyone else, probably including Epstein, will likely get away, and this will become the second impeachment of Clinton, irrespective of his involvement or lack thereof.

And, of course, I don't believe Bill Clinton is the endgame anyway. Humiliating Hillary Clinton and driving her out of public life and silencing her forever is.

It would be the ultimate insult to her legacy to forever ensure that any mention of her lifetime commitment to helping children conjures an association with a child trafficker.

They already tried it with Pizzagate. This time, Donald Trump has the entire force of the federal government at his disposal, and may try to implicate her in a "cover-up" of Epstein's crimes, by dint of her husband's association with him. "Lock her up."

I desperately hope that's not where this is headed, and I fear that it is.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Primarily Speaking

Welcome to another edition of Primarily Speaking, because presidential primaries now begin fully one million years before the election!

Current Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden thought he would do a little reaching out to Republicans by praising former Vice President Dick Cheney as "a decent man." I wish I were making that up. I am not.

This is inexcusable. Decent men don't start wars of choice that cost half a million people their lives, leave untold people with physical and/or psychological trauma, and displace around 2 million people from their homes. https://t.co/eCFuxtbH4J

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 2, 2019

The limits of @JoeBiden's Old School Politics of glad-handing and telling off-color jokes and complimenting your opponents as "principled men with whom you have good faith disagreements" are showing early and aggressively.

We're fighting fascism, Joe. Grasp the gravity of that.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 2, 2019

Between this and Mayor Pete Buttigieg going on about Mike Pence's integrity and respect for democratic institutions, I don't want to hear another goddamned thing about how terrific Republican leaders are from Democratic presidential candidates.

But I'm guessing we're not even close to hearing the end of it, especially from Biden, who in March called Pence "a decent guy" and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo "a good guy."

In a matter of months, Biden has publicly complimented Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, and Dick Cheney — but has trashed Hillary Clinton in deeply dishonest ways over and over and over and over, and had some shit to say about her supporters, too.

I have a problem with that.

* * *

Now that Senator Bernie Sanders is a frontrunner, he's finally getting vetted. I bet he doesn't like that at all!

At the Washington Post, Michael Kranish takes a look "Inside Bernie Sanders's 1988 10-Day 'Honeymoon' in the Soviet Union." And it's quite a straightforward and gentle accounting of Sanders' visits to the Soviet Union and Cuba, levying no judgment on Sanders, but the facts themselves are damning.

These are the final two paragraphs, so most people will never make it that far, but yikes:

"Under Castro, enormous progress has been made in improving the lives of poor people," Sanders said before leaving, while noting "enormous deficiencies" in democratic rights. While he failed in his goal to meet Fidel Castro, he returned home with even greater praise than he had for the Soviet Union.

"I did not see a hungry child. I did not see any homeless people," Sanders told the Burlington Free Press. While Cuba was "not a perfect society," he said the country "not only has free health care but very high-quality health care. ...The revolution there is far deeper and more profound than I understood it to be. It really is a revolution in terms of values."

Just shocking.

(More than a million Cubans fled for the United States following the revolution, and not because the country was merely "imperfect.")

And I want to underline, especially for younger readers who may not grasp the global politics of that era, that Sanders, as the mayor of a small town in Vermont, was not a U.S. statesman making a state trip, and, however he may spin it or what his intentions were, the only reason government officials of Russia or Cuba would agree to meet with Sanders at that time was because he was an American stooge in their propaganda campaigns.

Given that Sanders still refuses to be accountable regarding his own campaign boost from Russians in the 2016 election, I have real concerns about his willingness and/or indifference to be used as a prop by foreign adversaries. Or worse.

In other news, Senator Cory Booker takes absolutely the right position here, which also indirectly throws some shade Sanders' way:

Our government should never force toxic waste on local communities. Supporting @SenCortezMasto and @SenJackyRosen’s bill to give communities a voice on important decisions happening in their backyards.https://t.co/05fZw4nuZN

— Sen. Cory Booker (@SenBooker) May 2, 2019

In the final section of Part 4 of her Looking for Bernie series, Aphra_Behn detailed Sanders appalling support of "the Texas-Vermont-Maine Compact, a bill that would allow the latter two states to dump their nuclear waste at a site near Sierra Blanca, a small, impoverished, hispanophone community in Texas." I encourage you to read it.

[CN: Video may autoplay at links] After Senator Kamala Harris showed off her prosecutors' chops while grilling Attorney General Bill Barr, Donald Trump said she was "probably very nasty," to which Harris responded by saying: "His primary interest has been to obstruct justice. My primary interest is to pursue justice. You can call that whatever name you want, but I think that's what the American people want in a leader. TELL HIM.

My favorite (cough) new genre of articles about Senator Elizabeth Warren is: "She has so many policies, but why doesn't anyone like her?" (Asks the same press that barely gives her any coverage, while slobbering all over a small-town mayor with zero policy proposals.) Today's entry, care of Grace Segers at CBS: Elizabeth Warren Bets Big on Policy to Break Through Crowded Democratic Field.

Warren has taken a clear stand on just about every major political issue facing the country, and even some more esoteric ones, while many of her opponents eschew policy minutiae. She has a vision. She has an agenda.

And despite being the first major candidate to enter the race last December, she's lagging in the polls.

That is followed by a lot of words about Warren facing misogyny, how her policies are detail-dense, electability, etc., but here's the thing: I guarantee if the press steadily delivered fawning coverage of Warren accompanied by photos taken by iconic fashion photographers, in which we heard all about her idiosyncratic talents peppered in between languid descriptions of the precise color of her eyes, she'd be "breaking through" in a big way, too.

Instead, if we even get to hear about, say, her adorable dog, it's accompanied with a goddamn subhead about how she "has turned to Bailey the golden retriever to help humanize her." FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

Speaking of candidates getting shit treatment from the political press, I've now twice had occasion to post in comments this observation about Julián Castro, so I'm going to go ahead and publish it here on the main page, too:

He should be a leading contender.

He's everything that the media claims to pay attention to when they try to justify ignoring certain candidates: He's experienced, he's competent, he's interesting, he's media savvy, he's terrific on TV, he's young, and he's even handsome (not that that should matter, but it does and he is — I mean, did you see the photo accompanying that New Yorker interview?!), which basically makes him the whole package, according to the press' own definition. He's also a dude.

The one thing that he isn't is white.

And, given all his other qualities, it's tough not to conclude that that's the only one which really matters, in the end.

[CN: Ableist slur; homophobia] During an interview with the vile Laura Ingraham, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick used an ableist slur against Beto O'Rourke and implied that he is gay:

Patrick, a Republican, had a long list of complaints about O'Rourke, a fellow Texan and former congressman. His gripes ranged from O'Rourke's describing immigration as "modern-day bondage" to his support for reparations for the descendants of slaves.

"What a moron," Patrick said of O'Rourke.

"Whatever happened to this guy?" Ingraham asked. "Wasn't he a little more reasonable not so long ago?"

Patrick responded, "He is so light in the loafers he floats off the ground at times."

Later in the program, Ingraham asked Patrick to clarify his use of the phrase and whether he intended it as a "pejorative."

"No, no, no! What I meant, to me, you know, he flaps his arms a lot," Patrick, a long-time conservative radio host, responded. "He's just a lightweight."

That is not what "light in the loafers" means. That's not what it has ever meant. Fuck Dan Patrick and his dogwhistling and his gaslighting.

John Hickenlooper is still definitely running for president.

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Primarily Speaking

Welcome to another edition of Primarily Speaking, because presidential primaries now begin fully one million years before the election!

Let's start today with someone who isn't running for president, and yet continues to show us why she is the best leader we'll never have:

Once again, @HillaryClinton is the most prominent person to urgently highlight the threats to our democracy: Indeed, the 2002 election could become a proxy battle between foreign interlopers. We should try listening to her this time. https://t.co/kmfRp7jRoH

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 2, 2019

While everyone else is busily pretending that we're just going to have a normal election — despite the evidence that our elections will be neither free nor fair, owing to some combination of foreign interference, bigotry wielded against marginalized candidates, Republican voter suppression efforts, inaccessibility of voting, gerrymandering, hacking, social media manipulation, vanity candidates and their catastrophic egos, purity leftists, wannabe spoilers, obvious Kremlin agents, bots, trolls, ratfuckers, and everything else that conspires to undermine our democracy — Hillary Clinton is out here warning us that, if we don't get our shit together, our election could become a proxy war for foreign interlopers.

And yet again, we will fail to heed her warning. To our own peril.

On that note, let me say once more that I have real complicated feelings about this series, because I am constitutionally averse to pretending like everything is fine when it isn't. And sometimes it feels like this series implicitly suggests we're going to have a normal election, even though I don't believe that. But I don't know how to proceed except with the desperate hope that something seismic will happen and meaningful changes are made swiftly to ensure a legitimate election.

I expect more, and prepare myself for the worst.

* * *

On this #InternationalWorkersDay, let us recommit to fighting for an economy that puts people first. That means supporting unions, fighting for fair wages, protecting immigrants, and working to undo the damage of ‘right to work’ laws and the Supreme Court’s Janus decision. https://t.co/syfBRjo6yY

— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) May 2, 2019

I love seeing Julián Castro connecting immigration policy to workers' rights. This is why I want him on that debate stage. To that end, he's getting very close to meeting the individual donor threshold, if you have money to donate and want to help him get there.

Likewise, Senator Cory Booker is close to meeting that goal. I just threw a few bucks his way. I am giving a little to each candidate whom I want to see on that stage.

I continue to be a fan of Senator Elizabeth Warren's straight-talking Twitter game:

Hate has no place in our country. The threat of white nationalism is real. And when I'm president, the Justice Department will prosecute domestic terrorists to the full extent of the law.

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) May 2, 2019

Senator Amy Klobuchar is no Elizabeth Warren in that department, but she's no slouch, either:

People are dying. Pharmaceutical companies need to be held accountable and bring down prices before more lives are lost. https://t.co/EH1DvlJVH5

— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) May 2, 2019

A lot of the candidates are taking to cable news and social media to argue that Attorney General Bill Barr must be impeached, if he doesn't resign. See, as but one example, Senator Kamala Harris:

There's no question: Attorney General Barr has intentionally misled Congress and the American people about the contents of the Mueller report. pic.twitter.com/4MpB2foJqD

— Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) May 2, 2019

Attorney General Barr lacks all credibility and has compromised the American public's ability to believe that he is a protector of justice.

He must resign immediately.

— Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) May 2, 2019

He definitely won't resign immediately, so let's get those impeachment proceedings rolling, Speaker Pelosi! Especially since Barr didn't bother to show up to the House Judiciary Committee hearing today.

* * *

Joe Biden, who naturally is going to run a foreign policy driven campaign (because that's kind of his thing), took a strong position (and the right one) on the United States' support of Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen: "'Vice President Biden believes it is past time to end U.S. support for the war in Yemen and cancel the blank check the Trump administration has given Saudi Arabia for its conduct of that war,' Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates told me. 'He urges Congress to override [Donald] Trump's veto.'"

In other Biden news...

All I can see is an annoyed woman with a hand on her hip. https://t.co/wAJxtlvg92

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 2, 2019

Maybe that's projection. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh, dear: This is not a good headline for Beto O'Rourke: "Beto O'Rourke Blew It." And the subhead is even harsher: "Reacting to losing to Ted Cruz by running for president is like failing to land a role in a community theater production and deciding to take your talents to Broadway." Ouch! (But where's the lie?)

Um, Vogue — what are you even doing?

Calling anyone in this race a “policy wonk” who’s name is not Elizabeth Warren is...I don’t have the words for it

(and Mayor Pete does not have the range) pic.twitter.com/iSOwNanicJ

— blackness everdeen 🍋 (@traceyecorder) May 1, 2019

Meanwhile, Pete Buttigieg spent the day yesterday clarifying his position on vaccinations, which is about as softball a policy question as a presidential candidate is going to get.

If he can't knock a question about vaccines out of the park, he's going to struggle. He sure ain't a "policy wonk," folks.

A number of prominent people have already announced support for Buttigieg and arranged to throw big fundraisers for him, and I suspect they are going to be very embarrassed by that in short order, if they're not already.

Turns out, it pays to see if a candidate knows a single thing about anything that matters before going all in for him. WHO KNEW!

John Hickenlooper is still definitely running for president.

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Primarily Speaking

Welcome to another edition of Primarily Speaking, because presidential primaries now begin fully one million years before the election!

Welp, he's finally done it, friends! Joe Biden has officially entered the race for the 2020 Democratic nomination! If you are excited as I am, try to contain your enthusiasm by putting it inside a dollhouse teacup.

[Content Note: Video autoplays at link; Nazi imagery] Obviously, his announcement video is the fucking worst, simultaneously proclaiming America's greatness (which he represents) and lamenting America's terribleness (which Donald Trump represents), while positioning himself as the superhero who can save us from the supervillain Trump, set to just the shittiest score by a composer I can only assume is named Zans Himmer.

The only way this could have been worse is if it were just 3 minutes of him staring into the camera while licking an ice cream cone.

Actually, on second thought, that might have been better.

Anyway. His logo is also really bad:

“It’s her time.” pic.twitter.com/WDZiHeNI4c

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) April 25, 2019

But, in good news, Biden is going around asking party lions for their early endorsement, and they are all eager to say no.

Frankly, I couldn't be less interested in Biden's campaign. (To be honest, the dollhouse teacup was generous.) I've already heard everything I want to hear from Joe Biden for a lifetime.

Thank u, next.

* * *

Hahahahaha here is just a real headline in the world, care of the Daily Beast: "Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren Lead an Incredible Field of 2020 Women. How Are They Trailing Pete Buttigieg?"

Hang on, I know the answer to this one!

The opening sentence of that story reads: "It's now a practically boring fact that women are running for political office in record numbers."

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL yes, one presidential election after Hillary Clinton made history as the first female nominee from a major party, it's now boring that there are now six women seeking the Democratic nomination. From historic to boring in one election cycle!

I remember writing sometime toward the end of the 2016 election that Clinton had blazed that trail so successfully that most people barely saw her historical achievement as remarkable, and now here we are one cycle later and it's boring that women have been exponentially empowered to run for president.

This is how women are denied their achievements. It takes a woman so extraordinary to break through an ancient misogynist barrier that she renders our memories incapable of recalling that women were disallowed from doing what she's done, and so we immediately forget how legendary she truly is/was.

Something else I wrote during that election, many times, was what execrable codswallop it was when palpably misogynistic shitwheels would assert that they didn't hate Hillary Clinton because she is a woman, but because of who she is, and they'd totes vote for a different woman. And now here we are, and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris are polling behind Boy Mayor Ben Wyatt.

Welp.

* * *

Speaking of Harris: "The Harris campaign says of 19 senior staffers hired so far, 13 are women, and 11 of those are women of color."

And speaking of Professor Policy: "Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to drive down the maternal mortality rate among African-American women — and she has a plan to get it done."

Senator Cory Booker has a neat plan to address the racial wealth gap:

Booker's so-called baby bonds proposal, which has quickly become a centerpiece of the New Jersey senator's campaign, would provide every child born in the U.S. with a $1,000 savings account. Each year, the government would automatically deposit up to another $2,000 into that account, depending on family income.

People would not be able to dig into the funds until they hit 18, and the uses of the money would generally be limited to paying for college, buying a house, and saving for retirement.

...Booker calls his proposal, 'the most ambitious ever Congressional effort to combat wealth inequality.' The average payment to black children under his plan would be $1,193 a year, compared with $628 for white children.

The difference, of course, reflecting the existing difference in average household income. This is very good.

Meanwhile...

Dead

Joy: Yeah, And for black women specifically?

Bernie: I’m sorry?

Joy: For black women specifically.

Bernie: Black women will be an integral part of what our campaign, and what are administration is about. Okay? And that means…

Amy Allison: Were you finished with your..? pic.twitter.com/UUSS5udfYr

— Tormund XtopHodor, First of His Name (@tommyxtopher) April 24, 2019

Speaking of Senator Bernie Sanders: "Bernie Sanders harshly criticized the wealth of U.S. senators during his first campaign for office in 1971, calling it 'immoral' that half the members of the Senate were millionaires." Whoooooooops!

Also: "Sanders, the Vermont independent who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, for years has drawn a pension for his eight-year stint in the 1980s as mayor of Burlington even has he received a salary as a member of Congress. ...That practice, known as 'double-dipping,' isn't illegal. ...But double-dipping does rub some public watchdogs — and even elected officials — the wrong way. In fact, in 2014, former Obama administration official Ro Khanna, while conducting a challenge to incumbent Rep. Mike Honda of California, blasted his fellow Democrat Honda for double dipping. ...And in February, Khanna joined Sanders' second bid for the White House, serving as one of four national co-chairs of Sanders' campaign." Whoooooooops!

* * *

[CN: Homophobia] "Franklin Graham, one of the country's most influential evangelical Christians, has called on Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg to 'repent' for being gay. Graham, the president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, called homosexuality 'something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised, or politicized,' in a tweet Wednesday." Hey, Franklin Graham, GO FUCK YOURSELF.

Pete Buttigieg is a veteran and public servant whose bravery is on display every goddamn day, while Franklin Graham is a cowardly piece of shit who hides his vile bigotry behind religion because he hasn't the courage to state his loathsome convictions as personal beliefs and be held accountable to the people he despises.

Instead, he passes the buck onto a deity and claims he's obliged to be a hateful wreck. That rank deflection is what needs repenting, because, unlike being gay, the hatred it justifies actually harms people.

* * *

Julián Castro was the first candidate to accept the invitation to participate in the She the People Presidential Forum, and they thanked him by using a photo of his twin brother, Rep. Joaquin Castro, in their event program. Oops. "During the summit, Julián pointed out the literature handed out to the more than 1,000 audience members accidentally featured a photo of his twin. He joked that the blunder was okay because his brother is 'better looking.'" That was incredibly gracious. (I keep telling you he's a great politician!)

Here's a headline: "Rep. Tim Ryan Shies from Socialism in 2020 Run for President." Haha no shit.

Here's another headline: "Presidential Candidate Seth Moulton Knows He's Not Very Well-Known." Haha well at least he knows something!

Oh good grief: "'SPOILER ALERT: I'm a white man,' Rep. Eric Swalwell declared in a tweet Tuesday as the 2020 presidential candidate tried to address the identity debate that has emerged within the Democratic Party. In the tweet, the Democratic presidential contender from California pledged to select a female running mate and 'pass the mic' in instances where he feels he 'can't speak to someone else's experience.'" Or maybe you could have just not run and thrown all the energy you'll expend losing the nomination instead helping one of the women who's running get it! Just a thought.

John Hickenlooper is still definitely running for president.

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Hillary Clinton Should Have Been Our President

Hillary Clinton should have been our president for approximately eleventy-seven different reasons, and here is one of them: Despite the fact that she knows damn well the pushback she will get, she wrote this op-ed for the Washington Post anyway:

Our election was corrupted, our democracy assaulted, our sovereignty and security violated. This is the definitive conclusion of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's report. It documents a serious crime against the American people.

The debate about how to respond to Russia's "sweeping and systematic" attack — and how to hold [Donald] Trump accountable for obstructing the investigation and possibly breaking the law — has been reduced to a false choice: immediate impeachment or nothing. History suggests there's a better way to think about the choices ahead.

Obviously, this is personal for me, and some may say I'm not the right messenger. But my perspective is not just that of a former candidate and target of the Russian plot. I am also a former senator and secretary of state who served during much of Vladi­mir Putin's ascent, sat across the table from him, and knows firsthand that he seeks to weaken our country.

I am also someone who, by a strange twist of fate, was a young staff attorney on the House Judiciary Committee's Watergate impeachment inquiry in 1974, as well as first lady during the impeachment process that began in 1998. And I was a senator for New York after 9/11, when Congress had to respond to an attack on our country. Each of these experiences offers important lessons for how we should proceed today.

There are always people who say that Hillary Clinton is not the right messenger.

They are wrong.

She is the right messenger for this message, in this moment. And it's not just because of the particular, unique, extraordinarily uncanny details of her resume detailed above — although that, too.

It's because she is the person, she has always been the person, with the courage and the wisdom and the unparalleled gumption to be the one to say what needs to be said about Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

And lots of other things.

This country has made the grave mistake of not listening to Hillary Clinton before. I hope we have learned from that grievous and reverberating error, and listen to her now.

Head on over to read the whole thing.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

We Resist: Day 816

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by Fannie: Dispatches From the Queer Resistance #8 — A Pete Buttigieg Special. And by me: Trump's Relentless Campaign of Stochastic Terrorism: Rep. Ilhan Omar Edition and Primarily Speaking.

Here are some more things in the news today...

Millions of Americans will put tax checks in the mail today. Meanwhile, the secretary of the treasury and head of the IRS continue to refuse to turn over Trump's tax returns to Congress for reasons even they can't clearly articulate. #TaxDay

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 15, 2019

Donald Trump still has not released his tax returns, and of course he is leveraging the power of his office to ensure that he will never have to release them.

Andrew Desiderio at Politico: Trump Attorneys Warn Accounting Firm Not to Hand Over Financial Records.

[Donald] Trump's attorneys are warning of potential legal action if an accounting firm turns over a decade of the president's financial records to the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

Trump attorneys William S. Consovoy and Stefan Passantino are urging Mazars USA not to comply with a subpoena that Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) plans to issue on Monday for Trump's financial documents, calling it a politically motivated scheme to take down the president.

"It is no secret that the Democrat Party has decided to use its new House majority to launch a flood of investigations into the president's personal affairs in hopes of using anything they can find to damage him politically," Consovoy and Passantino wrote to Jerry D. Bernstein, Mazars' outside counsel.

The attorneys said they were formally putting Mazars "on notice" — an implicit threat of legal action. They also urged Bernstein to hold off on providing the documents to Cummings until the subpoena can be litigated in court, suggesting that a protracted legal battle is likely to ensue.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is taking a different tack, by making the novel argument that members of Congress are too stupid to understand Trump's highly complicated taxes. No, really. Via Devan Cole at CNN: "'This is a dangerous, dangerous road and frankly, Chris, I don't think Congress, particularly not this group of congressmen and women, are smart enough to look through the thousands of pages that I would assume that [Donald] Trump's taxes will be,' Sanders told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. 'My guess is most of them don't do their own taxes, and I certainly don't trust them to look through the decades of success that the President has and determine anything,' she said, adding that attempts to obtain the returns are 'a disgusting overreach.'"

But as Eric Levenson at CNN reports, 10 members of Congress are certified public accountants: "In attacking the fight to obtain Trump's tax returns, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders argued that members of Congress aren't smart enough to understand them anyway. But three Democratic members of Congress are trained as certified public accountants — professionals licensed by their states to do just that. The Congressional Research Service said there are 10 accountants in this Congress, including two senators and eight House members."

Which isn't even relevant, as members of Congress have access to professional experts who can help them make sense of things in which they don't have personal expertise. Sarah Huckabee Sanders knows that, of course. She's just a mendacious shitwheel, like every other member of the Trump Regime.

* * *

Devlin Barrett at the Washington Post: Mueller Report's Release Is Expected Thursday, Justice Department Says. But not so fast! It's not the whole report. "The Justice Department expects to release on Thursday a redacted version of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's report on [Donald] Trump, his associates, and Russia's interference in the 2016 election, setting the stage for further battles in Congress over the politically explosive inquiry." A redacted version. And no mention of the hundreds of pages of exhibits. I expect what will be released is just enough to neuter calls to #releasethereport.

Meanwhile, the collusion is still happening right out in the open:

wow congratulations mitch mcconnell what are the odds a fuckin russian oligarch would choose your state to dump $200 million what are the odds https://t.co/AnC0r5d45a

— darth™ (@darth) April 15, 2019

There is just so much trash to cover every day, so I don't cover anti-democratic shitstain Mitch McConnell as much as I'd like. Let me just take this opportunity to observe that he is one of the worst people ever to serve in federal government in this nation's history. Ever.

* * *

[CN: Stochastic terrorism; Islamophobia; misogynoir] Zack Ford at ThinkProgress: Trump Doubles Down on Islamophobic Attacks as Threats Against Ilhan Omar Rise. "Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said this week she's seen a surge in threats against her life in the days since [Donald] Trump targeted her in an Islamophobic video last week. The White House, however, is showing no signs of backing off its attack. ...Monday morning, Trump doubled down on his attacks, once more accusing Omar of being 'anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and ungrateful.' 'She is out of control,' Trump claimed." Now that's projection if ever I've heard it.

[CN: Misogyny; racism] Charles M. Blow at the New York Times: Demonizing Minority Women. "While white supremacy has historically tried to paint minority men as physically dangerous, it has routinely painted minority women, particularly those strong and vocal, as pathological and reprobate. There is a pattern here. It is expressed not only in the attacks on, and in elevation of, Omar, but also on Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Before them, Trump and his cohorts demonized Representative Maxine Waters, who Trump dubbed 'Low I.Q.,' and Representative Frederica Wilson of Florida."

[CN: Homophobia; death penalty]

BREAKING: The Supreme Court declined to take up the case of a death row inmate, Charles Rhines. He sought to challenge his sentence based on evidence of anti-gay bias in juror statements. https://t.co/VsS63rhsJx pic.twitter.com/dBkenYDWB2

— Legal Defense Fund (@NAACP_LDF) April 15, 2019

[CN: Nativism; abuse] Justin Glawe and Justin Hamel at the Daily Beast: Border Patrol Holds Hundreds of Migrants in Growing Tent City away from Prying Eyes. "Hundreds of migrants are being held for days in an emerging tent city at a Border Patrol station in a preview of what the Trump administration is reportedly considering to absorb a surge on the border. Five U.S. Army tents meant for battlefield hospitals have been repurposed to hold men, women, and children, including infants. Two of the tents were erected over the past week, expanding the facility's capacity by several hundred people. The tents are tightly surrounded by fences topped with barbed wire, leaving virtually no space for people to roam outside. Inside the tents, according to a congresswoman who was granted access, hundreds languish in fetid conditions."

[CN: Nativism] Nicole Lafond at TPM: Trump Admin to Threaten Countries Whose Nationals Often Overstay Visas. "Trump is planning to launch broader efforts to curb legal immigration by threatening countries whose nationals often overstay their visas, The Wall Street Journal reported. An administration official who spoke to the WSJ said the plan is to put countries 'on notice,' by threatening that it'll be harder for their citizens to obtain visas, or the visas will be shorter, if they don't reduce their rates of overstay. The countries impacted include Nigeria, Chad, Eritrea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone." Those are all African countries.

[CN: Nativism] Betsy Woodruff at the Daily Beast: ICE Now Aided by 'Enhanced' Spy Powers. "Under [Donald] Trump, ICE — the law enforcement agency that arrests and deports undocumented immigrants — has quietly grown closer to at least one of America's intelligence agencies, according to a letter from a top American intelligence official reviewed by The Daily Beast. The change, which came behind closed doors and without fanfare, has concerned civil liberties advocates. And the Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), isn't answering questions about it."

And finally, in good resistance news... Tiarra Mukherjee at Colorlines: Yo-Yo Ma Performs at Border: 'Build Bridges, Not Walls'.

The renowned musician, whose Bach Project seeks to bring unity to 36 cities worldwide, performed Johann Sebastian Bach's six cello suites at the foot of the Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge, which connects Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, in Mexico.

"I've lived my life at the borders. Between cultures. Between disciplines. Between musics. Between generations," Ma told CNN. "In culture, we build bridges, not walls. A country is not a hotel and it's not full."

In an statement about the tour, Ma said there would be days of action in each city, giving him a chance to link with community organizers.

I love everything about that, including the reminder that resistance will look different for each of us, according to our own talents and abilities. Every one of us has something we can do, even if it takes awhile to figure it out, even if it's just to survive.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Primarily Speaking

Welcome to another edition of Primarily Speaking, because presidential primaries now begin fully one million years before the election!

[Content Note: Sexual harassment] On Friday, Lucy Flores, a Democratic politician in Nevada, wrote a piece for The Cut in which she details having been kissed on the back of her head by Joe Biden at a political event in 2014. In addition to detailing her own experiences, she writes:

Time passed and pictures started to surface of Vice-President Biden getting uncomfortably close with women and young girls. Biden nuzzling the neck of the Defense secretary's wife; Biden kissing a senator's wife on the lips; Biden whispering in women's ears; Biden snuggling female constituents. I saw obvious discomfort in the women's faces, and Biden, I'm sure, never thought twice about how it made them feel. I knew I couldn't say anything publicly about what those pictures surfaced for me; my anger and my resentment grew.

Had I never seen those pictures, I may have been able to give Biden the benefit of the doubt. Had there not been multiple articles written over the years about the exact same thing — calling his creepy behavior an "open secret" — perhaps it would feel less offensive. And yet despite the steady stream of pictures and the occasional article, Biden retained his title of America's Favorite Uncle.

Since Flores' piece was published, there have been articles written with headlines like, care of the Washington Post, "Joe Biden's affectionate, physical style with women comes under scrutiny." That is, to put it mildly, a terrible and offensive headline for its soft-pedaling of what Biden's doing. And yet, the fact that it needs the qualifier "with women," as Biden isn't nuzzling and kissing any men along the campaign trail, reveals the truth despite the attempt to minimize the behavior.

Naturally, all the usual suspects are coming to Biden's defense, like the chronically odious Mika Brzezinski, and I was getting all the usual pushback on Twitter, with the same tired arguments about how it's a "learning moment" because he didn't know what he was doing, to which I responded that it's aggressively gullible to imagine that "someone who has endlessly bragged about helping pass the Violence Against Women Act and oversaw (badly) Anita Hill's testimony doesn't already know what he's doing is wrong." The man has lived on this earth for more than 70 years. He knows what he's doing is wrong.

Some of the Democratic candidates were asked about it, and rape essayist Senator Bernie Sanders said that whether Biden's behavior was disqualifying is a decision for Biden himself to make.

Is Lucy Flores' accusation against Joe Biden disqualifying for a 2020 run?

"I think that's a decision for the vice president to make," Bernie Sanders says. "I'm not sure that one incident alone disqualifies anybody, but her point is absolutely right." https://t.co/uqpr1mQulJ pic.twitter.com/zsxaHvVcsi

— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 31, 2019

Um, that is quite a punt! Especially for someone who keeps insisting they now have the best sexual harassment policies of any campaign in place. Leaving it up to men who commit sexual harassment and/or assault to decide whether that makes them unfit for office isn't the way accountability works, Bernie. YIKES.

* * *

This is a neat article about one of the constituencies supporting Senator Kamala Harris:

Lorna Owens is cajoling friends to get involved in the 2020 presidential race over coffee at her neighborhood Starbucks in Miami. In nearby Miramar, Florida, Dahlia Walker-Huntington is sending WhatsApp messages to dozens of contacts around the country. And outside Boston, Ramesh Kapur is busy organizing fundraisers in Cleveland, Chicago, and beyond.

All three are part of a small, but growing, network of political fundraisers in the Jamaican and Indian diaspora in the U.S. who have sprung into action in recent months with a single purpose: Help California Sen. Kamala Harris win the presidency.

Even in the most diverse group of presidential contenders ever fielded by Democrats, Harris stands out. If elected president, the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother would be not only the first woman, but the first Indian American, the first Asian, the first black woman, and the first person of Jamaican descent to ascend to the office.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] And this is a neat article about Harris and Senator Cory Booker appearing together at the NAACP Image Awards: "The 50th annual NAACP Image Awards served up several moving moments, and one of our favorites happened when Senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker stood shoulder to shoulder on the stage. The two presidential hopefuls shared a warm embrace before addressing the ecstatic crowd of stars and fans."

They talked about how important the issues in which they share an interest are, and how important the election and voting are, and it was basically more of the roundtable style electioneering that the Democratic senators in the race have been doing, of which I am very much a fan!

* * *

Oh dear, Pete Buttigieg, what are you even doing?

Oh look, he taught himself to speak 4chan as well as Norwegian

— Erik Siegrist (@AntonSirius) March 30, 2019

And then there was this, in a Washington Post piece about Buttigieg's religiosity: "He thinks [Donald] Trump has found favor among many white evangelicals and white Catholics because of his opposition to abortion, he said. But Buttigieg said he believes the president is behaving 'in bad faith' and said there's no evidence that he doesn't favor abortion rights deep down."

Honestly, who the fuck even cares what Donald Trump believes "deep down," because all that matters is that he is advancing an agenda of profound and relentless malice, including an assault on abortion access.

I just don't get this guy at all.

And I realize that I am apparently an outlier, because, according to Buttigieg, he raised $7 million in the first quarter. Which also means he ain't going anywhere anytime soon.

* * *

Damn, this isn't good: "Michael Pratt, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren's finance director, is in the process of leaving Warren's presidential campaign as a result of the senator's recent decision to swear off soliciting money from wealthy donors during the primaries, according to a Warren campaign aide." I wrote when she announced her decision that it was a risky strategy, but I didn't expect she would lose her own staff over it.

One of my main concerns about Warren is that, although she is very good at government, she is very bad at politics. And it's possible to become a senator while being bad at politics, as long as you're good at government. (If you're a Republican, you can be bad at both!) But a president needs to be good at government and politics, and I'm not sure that Warren has as strong a command of the political aspects required by the presidency.

Anyway. Let's hope her fundraising strategy doesn't rob her of the time to prove me wrong.

* * *

Beto O'Rourke is still running for president and still standing on stuff!

#BetoStandsOnStuff pic.twitter.com/SWfJ5Owj20

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 1, 2019

I am not the only one who has noticed this habit!

A growing fear about Beto O'Rourke is that he is actually just a very tall, wheat IPA.

— Conan O'Brien (@ConanOBrien) March 31, 2019

Hahahahahahaha!

* * *

The Guardian has a nice profile of Julián Castro, if you're looking to learn more about that guy! "People didn't know where I stood on a whole bunch of issues because when I was mayor and at HUD I wasn't asked about them. I'm going to articulate a strong vision for the country's future that people will see is genuinely what I believe, and I think it will catch on." Okay!

John Hickenlooper is still totally running for president, and, in a recent interview, he explained why he is not among the several candidates and would-be candidates (Buttigieg, Sanders, Biden) who continually criticize Hillary Clinton for her 2016 loss: "She is one of the smartest policy experts on almost anything. ...She had the FBI actually come out and make allegations ten days before the election, that turned out to be baseless. No one's ever had that...so I'm not gonna criticize her."

And when lots of folks thanked him for saying that, he responded: "There's no need to thank me, I'm just speaking the plain and honest truth. Hillary Clinton faced historic interference and obstacles in her campaign, and still won the popular vote. She's a brilliant mind, a caring individual, and a shining example to everyone in our party."

There’s no need to thank me, I’m just speaking the plain and honest truth. @HillaryClinton faced historic interference and obstacles in her campaign, and still won the popular vote. She’s a brilliant mind, a caring individual and a shining example to everyone in our party. https://t.co/j4gjgVERw3

— John Hickenlooper (@Hickenlooper) March 28, 2019

Blub.

John Delaney is still definitely running for president.

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Trump Still Wants Hillary Clinton "Locked Up"

When Donald Trump's deplorable supporters break into a "Lock Her Up!" chant at one of his rallies, fully two years into his presidency, there are people who express surprise that they're still hanging on to resentments about Hillary Clinton.

It should not be a surprise. Because Trump is an authoritarian who regards (and casts) his critics and political opponents as dangerous enemies, fomenting that same view among his seething cultists. He still wants her locked up, so of course they do.

"Lock Her Up!" chants aren't going to stop anytime soon when this is what Trump himself is still saying:

Donald Trump said in an interview that aired Friday he hopes Attorney General William Barr will “do what’s fair” with regards to opening investigations to perceived crimes by his 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, former intelligence chief James Clapper, and former CIA Director John Brennan.

[Trump] asserted in an interview on Fox Business Network's Mornings with Maria he'd been treated "very unfairly" by investigators probing his ties to Russia.

"So when I won, I made my opening speech, everyone's shouting, 'Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!' I said, 'No, no, no, let's forget her. Let's get on to the future,'" the president recalled Friday. "But they have treated me so viciously, and they have treated me so badly and we did nothing wrong — you look at the others — and all of these people you hear about, that had nothing to do with Russia, Russia collusion, nothing."

While Trump maintained that no one on his presidential campaign conspired with Russian agents to influence the 2016 election, one subject of special counsel Robert Muller's probe, he complained that "nobody does anything" in the face of alleged evidence of "stone cold crimes" by former Obama officials.

He accused Comey, Clapper, and Brennan of telling "absolute lies" to Congress, declining to provide proof of his claim or elaborating further on their alleged lies.

...Trump called it an "interesting question" whether he thought Barr should look into Trump's accusations against Clinton and the other Obama officials, despite two Trump-appointed attorney generals so far declining to do so.

"I think — look, I have a lot of respect for him. I've never known him. He's a very, very smart, respected man," he said of Barr. "Hopefully he'll do what's fair. ...All I can ask is what's fair."

What's fair, he says. After casually suggesting he resumed his attacks on Hillary Clinton out of spite for how he was being treated. (Which isn't even true: His attacks on her never stopped.) Trump doesn't traffic in fair.

If he cared about anything resembling fairness, he wouldn't still be publicly urging his Attorney General to investigate Hillary Clinton.

The sitting president is a dangerous authoritarian waging a campaign of stochastic terrorism against dissidents. This should be the biggest news of the day, every day, until he is removed from power.

Instead, it's reported like it's just another wacky day in Trump's zany presidency. If it's even reported at all. For fuck's sake.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Primarily Speaking

Welcome to another edition of Primarily Speaking, because presidential primaries now begin fully one million years before the election!

Let me start today by talking about a Democrat who isn't running for president (I KNOW!) but is instead doing something that could help whichever Democrat eventually becomes the nominee: Former Tallahassee mayor and Democratic nominee for Florida Governor Andrew Gillum today will be formally announcing the launch of "a Florida voter registration group dedicated to defeating [Donald] Trump's re-election chances in the nation's largest swing state. ...'In this period of time, whatever resources that I raise and time and energy I spend in this state is going to be around voter registration and deep-level engagement, so that when we have a nominee, we have an apparatus we can turn on,' Gillum said in January." Fuck yeah!

Relatedly, Senator Elizabeth Warren says that we should abolish the Electoral College, and I couldn't agree more!

You know who else agrees? Hillary Clinton! For 19 years.

Easy to forget, or to never have known, that Clinton did not, in fact, wait until her own loss to call for abolishing the Electoral College. pic.twitter.com/lFEwZtVhiO

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 14, 2017

Which is only a slightly shorter time than Hillary Clinton has been trying to get universal healthcare for America. But by all means, let's keep talking about how it's her former primary opponent who has pushed the party left.

Speaking of that guy... Senator Bernie Sanders made some genuinely appalling staffing announcements yesterday, including David Sirota — whom the Atlantic's Edward-Isaac Dovere calls Sanders' "Twitter Attack Dog," noting that Sirota has "on Twitter, on his own website, and in columns in The Guardian, been trashing most of Sanders' Democratic opponents, all without disclosing his work with Sanders, and has been pushing back on critics by saying that he was criticizing the other Democrats as a journalist" (which is the just the tippity-tip of the Sirota iceberg) — as well as Briahna Joy Gray, who, among other things, voted for Jill Stein in 2016 and believes the Democrats "pushed the 'Russia did the hacking' angle because it was politically advantageous for them."

Bernie Sanders' new national press secretary. Cool hire. https://t.co/VB6TarKOxX

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) March 19, 2019

On Twitter, @queerBengali observed: "I feel like with the addition of Shaun King, Nina Turner, Sirota, and Briahna Joy, Bernie intends to run the most extremely online campaign that has ever been. Unlike Warren who is running the one of the most extremely policy driven campaign i have witnessed."

To which I replied: "This. Also and related, I feel like with these additions, Bernie isn't running to win. He's running to be a scorched-earth destroyer. Not that he's running to lose, but winning increasingly seems to be a secondary objective, even more than the last time around."

And it seems like Democratic voters might be starting to pick up on the fact that Sanders doesn't have the party's best interests in mind (cough): CNN's Harry Enten reports that, in their latest poll, "just 30% of Democratic voters believe the party has a better chance of winning the presidency with [Sanders] than someone else as the nominee. The vast majority, 59%, think they have a better shot of winning with someone else." Welp.

And speaking of dudes who aren't running to win, Mike Gravel is back!

Can't wait to see Mike Gravel and Bernie Sanders yelling at each other on a debate stage. Exactly what I want progressive politics to look like in 2020. https://t.co/YGB72TPx04

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) March 20, 2019

The WaPo's Greg Sargent did an interview with Mayor Pete Buttigieg and it is very good! You should definitely read it. Here's an excerpt:

Plum Line: We're seeing a rise in white nationalism and serious anti-immigrant fervor in some parts of the country, and also globally. Are you going to be addressing this in a comprehensive way? It occurs to me that the 2020 Democrats should go bigger on these issues.

Buttigieg: Absolutely. We need to recognize 21st-century threats. Cybersecurity, climate security, and security in the face of white nationalism are all clear and present security threats that folks on the other side of the aisle either refuse to acknowledge or decline to do anything about. It's extremely important for Democrats to very vocally talk about those threats.

Plum Line: How do you view white nationalism as a policy problem?

Buttigieg: In the narrow tactical sense, it's something we need to stay ahead of and monitor the way you would any kind of violent radical movement from abroad.

There's a deeper phenomenon going on. As we see dislocation and disruption in certain parts of the country, from rural areas to my home in the industrial Midwest, and in the economy, this leads to a kind of disorientation and loss of community and identity. That void can be filled through constructive and positive things, like community involvement or family. And it can be filled by destructive things, like white identity politics.

This is one thing well-intentioned job training programs often miss: If we're not attending to that, then making sure somebody's income is steady or replaced after their place in the economy is disrupted, that's not really enough.

Plum Line: Can you talk about your broader sense of the role that this type of economic vulnerability plays in creating the conditions for the kind of communitarian collapse that creates an opening for sentiments like white nationalism to flourish?

Buttigieg: I don't want this to slide into the idea that some of these racist behaviors can be excused because they can be connected to economic issues. But I do think it's easier to fall into these forms of extremism when you don't know where your place is.

There's this very basic human desire for belonging that historically has often been supplied by the workplace. It's been based on the presumption of a lifelong relationship with a single employer. This isn't just a blue-collar phenomenon.

We've come to be pretty reliant on the way that your workplace explains who you are. That's breaking down. That doesn't have to be a soul-crushing thing, provided that there are alternate sources for community, identity, and purpose. In South Bend, we focus a lot on enlisting people in the project of the city itself.

The sense of belonging can be very powerful, and we're very fragile without it. It's not accidental that some areas that have seen the most disruption in our social and economic life are those that are most likely to produce a lot of domestic extremists.

This is so much better than his stuff on Mike Pence. Which gives me hope that perhaps he'll say smarter things on Pence in future. Because we need the Hoosier candidate to be saying smart things about the threat Pence presents, and has always presented.

Hey, guess what?! Joe Biden might be running for president! You heard it here first! But before he announces his announcement to his announcement that he'll be announcing he's running for president probably, he's lining up people with deep pockets who will be prepared to make BIG DONATIONS the day of his big announcement, so he won't look like a schmuck who can't raise as much money in the first post-announcement 24-hours as Beto O'Buttigieg or whoever.

Speaking of fundraising, if you want to read all about the Democrats' new fundraising requirements to get on one of what will probably be several debate stages across multiple nights (OMG), Michael Scherer at the WaPo has got you covered!

John Hickenlooper is still definitely running for president.

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Lindsey Graham Calls for Special Counsel to Investigate Hillary Clinton's Emails OMFG

Yeah, this sounds about right: Senator Lindsey Graham, he who informed us of his oh-so-dramatic dinner-interrupting pleas to Donald Trump to curb his authoritarian instincts on the border wall, has now moved to "object/temporarily block [the] resolution which calls for public release of the Mueller report." However, he would like to appoint another Special Counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton's fucking emails. FOR REAL.

Graham specifically wants a special counsel to:
- "Investigate alleged misconduct around the handling of the Clinton email investigation."
- "Investigate the abuse of the FISA warrant process against Mr. Carter Page."

— Lisa Desjardins (@LisaDNews) March 14, 2019

I honestly don't even know what to say anymore, besides what I've already said countless times: Every single Republican in the Senate and House are complicit in Donald Trump's collusion and corruption and authoritarianism, because they not only refuse to hold him accountable, but actively enable and abet him at every goddamn turn.

*jumps into Christmas tree*

In other news, the Senate voted to block Trump's border emergency declaration, but not with enough Republican votes to make a 2/3 majority and override his veto.

Trump greeted the news with a one-word tweet:

VETO!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 14, 2019

RAGE!

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Primarily Speaking

The woman who should be president. [Photo: Barbara Kinney.]
Today's edition of Primarily Speaking is all about the folks who aren't running, except for the ones who might be!

Hillary Clinton definitively said she will not be running in 2020, for anyone who still imagined that would be a possibility. Of course she said it in the most Hillary way possible: "I'm not running, but I'm going to keep on working and speaking and standing up for what I believe. I want to be sure that people understand I'm going to keep speaking out." RIGHT ON.

Also not running: Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, who will instead seek reelection to the Senate: "I've never been afraid of a tough battle. The question I've asked myself is, can I be more effective in making a difference on those being in the 2020 primary or by being in the Senate? ...It just comes down to that core sense that if we're going to make things happen, we've got to have a Senate that makes things happen." Correct!

Still undecided is former veep Joe Biden, who said last month that he's close to a decision and that his family is encouraging him to run. That is bad advice, because Democratic primary voters are not very enthusiastic about the prospect. In fact, yesterday, CNN's Alisyn Camerota asked a focus group of six Democrats how many of them want Biden to run, and none of them raised their hands. Ouch.

Alisyn Camerota asked a panel of six Democrats, "How many of you would like to see Joe Biden get in? Show of hands."

No one raised their hands.

"His time is done," said one panelist. https://t.co/WlCE8xj0mJ pic.twitter.com/e55IFCYF8b

— New Day (@NewDay) March 5, 2019

Also in the undecided category is former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, whose candidacy would complicate things for the other candidates because of his commanding fundraising ability and the broad loyalty he enjoys from Democratic fundraisers. For instance, Chris Korge, a prolific Democratic donor and coordinator, told CNN: "I did give a contribution to Kamala Harris, but when I gave it to her, I told her, 'If McAuliffe jumps in, I am supporting him.' I have made it clear to her, as well as every other person who has approached me, including five or six of them running, that if McAuliffe runs, I am supporting him." Damn.

And finally! Former candidate for Georgia Governor Stacey Abrams still hasn't decided what her next move will be, with lots of options on the table: "She said she will run for office again, and will decide whether for senator, governor, or president by late March or early April."

Until then, she has been crisscrossing Georgia — and making strategic national appearances — on a combination thank-you and mobilization tour, offering her experience as Exhibit A of a cause Democrats are pressing with renewed fervor: voting rights.

"The fight I see today is a fight for our democracy," she said at one of those stops, the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus's annual Heritage Dinner. "It's not a partisan fight. It's a hard fight, the fight to defend the right to vote in Georgia. Voter suppression is real."

LOVE. HER.

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Primarily Speaking

In case you missed it, Senator Kamala Harris sat down for an interview with MSNBC's Joy Reid over the weekend, while Harris was in Iowa. It's a detailed and informational interview, and I highly recommend it if you're looking to get a better feel for Harris.

Today, Senator Cory Booker is re-introducing legislation that would legalize marijuana at the federal level.

The Marijuana Justice Act would also expunge the records of those who have been charged with a crime for using or possessing it, and direct resources toward re-entry and job training programs.

"The War on Drugs has not been a war on drugs; it's been a war on people, and disproportionately people of color and low-income individuals," Booker said in a statement announcing the bill. "The Marijuana Justice Act seeks to reverse decades of this unfair, unjust, and failed policy by removing marijuana from the list of controlled substances and making it legal at the federal level."

Among the Senate sponsors of the bill are some of Booker's fellow candidates: Senators Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Bernie Sanders.

Speaking of Sanders, this column in the Chicago Tribune by the "vaguely libertarian" Steve Chapman is absolutely brutal:

Policy is not everything. Trump has reminded Americans that in the Oval Office, qualities such as restraint, moderation, good humor, and flexibility are indispensable. These are not traits generally attributed to Sanders. He brings to mind Winston Churchill's description of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles as a bull who carries his own china shop around with him.

Sanders is no Trump, but his humorless dogmatism bodes ill both for how he would formulate policy and for how he would try to achieve it.

...In the Democratic primaries, liberals and progressives will be able to vote for a host of candidates who have shown sensible judgment, pragmatic skills, and the ability to appeal beyond the hardcore faithful. Or they could choose Sanders.

OUCH.

As you may recall, I spent a lot of time documenting how absolutely appalling the coverage of Hillary Clinton was during the 2016 election, and, at one point, noting how abysmal the New York Times' coverage specifically had been, I wrote that the political press had been "unrelentingly unfair and often straight-up cruel to her, a dynamic in which the Times was a repeat offender, reaching their nadir in August with a 900+ word piece engaging body language experts to declare Clinton inauthentic because of a hand gesture people quickly noted she'd been using for decades." Every female 2020 candidate is already getting one piece or another of the Hillary Clinton treatment, and here is an actual headline about Senator Amy Klobuchar at Refinery29: "When Amy Klobuchar Talks About Being a Tough Boss, Her Body Language Is Revealing." For fuck's sake.

Oh boy. Sources tell the Dallas News that Beto O'Rourke "has decided not to run for U.S. Senate next year against Texas Republican incumbent John Cornyn and likely will announce a campaign for president soon."

Let me be frank: I honestly question the judgment of anyone who looks at the field of candidates already running and calculates: You know what this primary needs? ME!

Any one of the Democratic Senators running could defeat Donald Trump in a free and fair election. Everyone else should just let the Democratic voters choose between them and work their own asses off to ensure election integrity.

Now that would impress me.

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!