Damn

[Content Note: Hacking.]

Background here.

'DNC Hacker' Unmasked: He Really Works for Russia, Researchers Say:

The hacker who claims to have stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee and provided them to WikiLeaks is actually an agent of the Russian government and part of an orchestrated attempt to influence U.S. media coverage surrounding the presidential election, a security research group concluded on Tuesday.

The researchers, at Arlington, Va.-based ThreatConnect, traced the self-described Romanian hacker Guccifer 2.0 back to an Internet server in Russia and to a digital address that has been linked in the past to Russian online scams. Far from being a singly, sophisticated hacker, Guccifer 2.0 is more likely a collection of people from the propaganda arm of the Russian government meant to deflect attention away from Moscow as the force behind the DNC hacks and leaks of emails, the researchers found.

Welp.

ICYMI yesterday: Sophisticated Agitators Are Actively Working to Sabotage Hillary.

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Hillary Clinton's Entire Career Has Been Set to a Soundtrack of Shouting

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

I've got a new essay up at BNR: "What's All That Shouting at the Democratic Convention?"

To be a woman is to live a life against a backdrop of shouting.

...And most of us don't live our lives on a stage as visible and a scale as grand as Hillary Clinton has done — and continues to do.

...Hillary is used to being shouted at. The sound of shouts echo through the halls of whatever space she works, doing the business of getting things done, for the people who shout at her. And the people who don't.

So it was inevitable that there would be shouting at the Democratic convention, this place in which Hillary will officially become the first woman ever to be nominated for the U.S. presidency by a major party. It is the biggest and best thing she's ever done (so far), so naturally there is shouting.

But if shouting could stop her, she never would have made it to this moment. Hillary is tougher than the people who shout at her ever will be.

And then there is this: There are people who are shouting for her. With lungs full of air drawn in the deep breath of relief and validation. There are people who are shouting with all of our might that she has done this thing, this extraordinary thing, which took 227 years for a woman to do.

We are shouting, too. We are shouting with the fervor of multitudes; with the vigor of millions of ghosts. Women who have lived and died without ever seeing this moment, who no longer haunt us; whose rattled chains of celebration reverberate in our lifted voices.

We have taken up their legacy with breathless gratitude and compelling need, drawing our lives from their oft unknown lives, beneficiaries of a legacy we only deserve if we endeavor to enrich it with our own contributions, no matter whether infinitesimal or grand, as long as they are honest and true.

This moment is grand. And so we shout. Our shouting will drown in deep, incandescent pools of reproach the shouting of those who would try to derail this moment.

Head on over to read the whole thing. And please share it far and wide with all the Hillary supporters you know who might need the reminder that there are millions of us shouting with joy.

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In the News

My time continues to be tight because of convention stuff, so let's continue to crowdsource this! Please feel free to use this thread to share news items of interest you've seen in your travels 'round the web today.

(As always, please be sure to add relevant content notes. Thanks!)

Here are a couple of links of interest:

Clinton Leads Way on Abortion Rights as Democrats Seek End to Decades-Old Rule.

Cecile Richards: Tim Kaine Is an Incredible Ally for All Women.

There Are All-Gender Restrooms at the Democratic Convention and Nobody Gives a Crap. (Pun intended?)

WNBA Rescinds Penalties Against Players Who Protested Police Shootings.

LUCA: A 4 Billion-Year-Old Ancestor of All Living Things on Earth.

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Daily Dose of Cute

"Yeah, I was chewing on your blanket. What do you think YOU can do about it?"
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

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Photo of the Day

Okay, they might not be Obama-Clinton, but this is still a PRETTY TERRIFIC PICTURE AND I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

[Photo: Barbara Kinney for Hillary for America.]
In other news, this AP dispatch is ending me:

Tim Kaine says Donald Trump's got him all wrong.

Trump on Monday put Kaine down as a, "weird little dude."

Kaine, Hillary Clinton's running mate, says he's "not that little."

LOLOLOL!!! So, he has conceded that he's boring, and now he's conceded that's weird.

Senator Kaine, as a fellow traveler who checks both the weird and boring boxes big time, I heartily approve!

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Democratic Convention Day One Wrap-Up!

Well, that was quite a night!

Although the day got off to a rocky start, and stayed fairly bumpy throughout the evening, there were a number of terrific speeches last night, not least of which was First Lady Michelle Obama's. Woo! FLOTUS BROUGHT IT.

[Transcript here.]
I again did some live-tweeting of the primetime speakers, and I've Storified those tweets for anyone who wants to read them.

And here is some of the coverage from BNR:

Me: Grab the Tissues: Karla Ortiz Is Why We're Democrats.

Peter: Karla Ortiz and Anastasia Somoza Make Me Proud to Be a Hillary Democrat.

Peter: Wow! Astonishing Michelle Obama Endorsement of Hillary.

Ginger: Michelle Obama Was My Harvard Law Classmate and Her Convention Speech Floored Me.

Me: Bernie Slams Trump's Twitter Trolling.

What did you think? Whose speeches did you love? It's so amazing when your party nominates someone people love and thus have an embarrassment of riches in terms of speakers, as opposed to nominating a radioactive dirtbag!

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Open Thread

Hosted by calves.

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Democratic Convention Day One Thread

Instead of doing Questions of the Day during the conventions, I'm going to be posting Convention Threads, since the big speeches happen in the evenings, and I thought we might all want a place to discuss.

Obviously, everything is going great so far!

Bernie Sanders emails delegates, asking them not to boo, turn their backs, walk out or similar displays (via @kasie) pic.twitter.com/Tb9V3BePW8

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) July 25, 2016

I just literally don't know what your definition of "progressive" is if you have zero respect for @RepMarciaFudge & @RepCummings.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) July 25, 2016

And, no, I'm not saying they're above criticism. I'm saying they deserve the right to speak at their own party's convention w/o heckling.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) July 25, 2016

Anyway. I'm looking forward to tonight's speakers!

The Dem convention line-up tonight includes: Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren, & Bernie Sanders.

They're no Scott Baios, but okay I GUESS.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) July 25, 2016

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Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Sara Bareilles: "Brave"

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Great Point

From Paul Waldman (who is always worth your time to read):

Perhaps it was inevitable that one way or another we'd get a spate of "Dems in Disarray!" headlines as the Democratic National Convention begins, since for a long time that has been the default story many reporters write about the Democratic Party. And there is a story to be told about conflict in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, it's not the one that everyone seems to be telling. The Democratic Party isn't being torn apart from the inside; it's being attacked from the outside.

As you may have heard, there already seem to be many more protests from the left around the Democratic convention than there were around the Republican convention. If it seems strange to you that leftists would be protesting not the candidate who wants to deport 11 million people, ban Muslims from entering the country and roll back civil rights gains for gay Americans, but the candidate who wants to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour, expand Social Security and enact universal child care, well, that would only mean that you're unfamiliar with leftist politics. For a certain kind of activist on the left, the real enemy is never the right; it's always the liberals who are insufficiently committed to their brand of revolution.

And this is what's important to understand about the protests now going on: They aren't Democrats fighting with Democrats. I wasn't able to go to Philadelphia this week, so I'd encourage the reporters who are there and are covering the anti-Clinton protests to ask those participating a simple question: Do you consider yourself a Democrat? Because I'm fairly certain that they'll find almost no one who says yes. This is even true of some of the people who are Bernie Sanders delegates; they got involved in the Sanders campaign, but they weren't Democrats before this election began and they won't be after it's over. We've seen this at the highest levels: Consider that Sanders appointed Cornel West to the Democrats' platform committee, and after helping decide what the party stands for, West promptly turned around and endorsed Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

Just to be clear, none of that invalidates the substance of the critiques the protesters are making; those can be evaluated on their own terms. Nor does it mean that the fact of the protest itself isn't newsworthy. What it does mean, however, is that it's a fundamentally different story from "Dems in Disarray!"

Yup.

And, frankly, this is precisely why I support parties having closed primaries. Which, by the way, I supported when I was an independent. (I only registered as a Democrat for the first time this year.) Political parties should be allowed to have the people who are members of their parties choose their candidates, because the members of their parties don't necessarily want the same things or have the same ideas about how to best achieve those objectives as people who aren't party members.

Which is fine. But that means that people who don't want to back the Democrats without fundamentally altering the party shouldn't be petitioning the party for open primaries, but for laxing resistance to building third parties.

(Of course, building your own party is a lot harder than just trying to hijack one that already exists.)

This argument does not, of course, preclude outside agitation. I am all for outside agitation! I have been an outside agitator of the Democratic Party for two decades! And it does not preclude inside agitation. I am all for inside agitation, too! Democrats should always be pushing their leadership to be better; we should always expect more!

But I digress. The point is: It's really not that Democrats are in disarray. It's that there are people who mostly aren't Democrats making noise at the Democratic convention. And that is indeed a very different story than the one being told.

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A Black Life That Matters: Lonnie Mitchell

[Content note: gun violence, harassment, institutional racism]

Lonnie Mitchell is “lucky,” if you can call it that.

He’s alive.

He’s alive after being shot in the chest by a policeman in Decatur IL.

He was shot, as he held his hands in the air.

He was taken to the emergency room, but had to be airlifted to another hospital, where he spent 6 days. Now, he is home, with pain in his liver and ribs. He is employed but can’t work while he recovers, has many medical bills not covered by his insurance, and needs help with food, transportation, and caring for his dogs.

But he’s alive.

According to his family, Lonnie was walking home from the party when the police arrived in response to (according to the police report) a “noise complaint” at a party Lonnie had been attending on July 11. In their public statements, the Decatur police have claimed they were responding to reports of a man with a gun, but that’s not what the police report says. According to an e-mail from his sister, Anyta:

He says he was walking away from a party at a friend's, a few blocks from his house, when a police car pulled up to the house he'd just left. He says he was spotted by the officers and recalled to the party. As he approached the officers he held up his hands and informed them that his bracelet had a knife which he was removing. He says he unsnapped the bracelet, it fell off and he stepped over it, with his hands still up. Lonnie says the officer told him to get down on the ground but he refused. He said he told the officer that he was afraid he'd be shot in the back. Then he said he felt an abrupt pain in his chest and looked at the officer and asked, "Did you shoot me?" as his knees buckled and he hit the ground. He said he could hear screams around him but couldn't move or speak but that he could feel his blood pooling around him and he wondered if they'd call an ambulance.

Lonnie and his friends filmed the encounter, but, according to his family, Lonnie’s phone, and those of his friends, were confiscated by the police. There is a state police investigation ongoing.

The police have made much of claiming that Lonnie was carrying a “realistic” bb gun. I want to point out that having a partially concealed real gun is perfectly legal in Illinois, as long as one has the the appropriate license. And if you believe that a 40 year old white man in possession of a gun and interacting in the same way with the police would have ended up shot in the chest, well, I have a bridge to sell you. As of this writing, Lonnie has not been charged with any crime. It’s unclear if he will be. The community has marched, peacefully. Will it make a difference?

Lonnie is alive, but he could use some help. His family has set up a Give Forward Page where, if you would like to do so and are able, you can help with his bills. He is employed in the building trades, so he won’t be able to work for a while. In addition to paying off his medical bills, he will need help with his usual expenses as he recovers. He also needs help with transportation to his medical appointments, food, and caring for his dogs. Even leaving a kind word can make a difference.

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to speak with Anyta, and she shared with me a little of what she and other family members have been going through. We don’t always consider the ripple effects of attacks like this—all of the family members who are also affected. Parents, children, siblings, cousins, and chosen family. And in particular, the women of the family are often most tasked with caregiving; sisters, mothers, aunts, cousins…. There’s stress and anxiety. There’s the problem of trying to effectively advocate for the family member, without simply being written off as a “hysterical black woman,” or otherwise negatively stereotyped. There’s the issue of taking time for self-care, and of getting appropriate support from co-workers and friends. As Anyta put it to me, it’s like you’ve been through a major disaster—a hurricane or fire—and everybody knows, but no-one knows quite what to say or do. Simple messages of support can mean a lot. The “women’s work” of emotional support is, well, real work. And because of this epidemic, an awful lot of family members are working overtime.

It’s been said many times, but it bears repeating: This. Should. Not. Be. Happening. And we know that there are many stories out there like Lonnie’s, stories that don’t grab the headlines, because those black victims of police violence are “lucky,” and survive. Well. I suspect we’d all be happy to trade in that “luck” for a healthy dose of the police not endangering black lives to begin with.

Black Lives Matter. Lonnie’s life matters. It cannot be said enough.

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In the News

My time continues to be tight because of convention stuff, so let's continue to crowdsource this! Please feel free to use this thread to share news items of interest you've seen in your travels 'round the web today.

(As always, please be sure to add relevant content notes. Thanks!)

Here are a couple of links of interest:

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] If you missed Hillary Clinton's and Tim Kaine's joint appearance on Meet the Press last night, you can view it here, and the complete transcript is lower on the same page. I was amazed and delighted by their chemistry. It reminds me a whole lot of her camaraderie with President Obama, and, needless to say, I believe that's a very good thing!

[CN: Gun violence; death] Fort Myers Shooting: 2 Dead, More Than Dozen Wounded After Teen Event.

Hillary Clinton's VP Pick Gets Warm Reception from LGBT Groups.

Democratic Convention Makes History with First Openly Transgender Speaker.

[CN: Nazi reference; bigotry] Resignation Letter

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Bernie Can't Put the Genie Back in the Bottle

Bernie Sanders just gave a speech to his delegates at the Democratic National Convention. And it didn't go so well. They really enjoyed the part where he basically gave his stump speech as a victory lap about how his campaign was the best and not beholden to billionaire donors and never had a super PAC and the usual, thus passive-aggressively continuing to indict Hillary Clinton even at the convention, but they didn't seem to like the part where he said it was time to support Clinton and Kaine to defeat Donald Trump.

The crowd reacts to @BernieSanders saying: "We have got to elect Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine" pic.twitter.com/7v3puhTdLM

— POLITICO (@politico) July 25, 2016

Video Description: Sanders says it's time to back Clinton and Kaine. The crowd jeers and boos and chants "We want Bernie!" Sanders looks shaken and waves his arm, trying to quiet them. They continue to yell, and he tries to carry on, saying that Trump is running a campaign of bigotry, but they jeer at that, too. He looks like he has absolutely no idea what to do, but continues speaking, over the sustained shouting.

Sanders has now been saying for weeks that his supporters won't fail to support Clinton; won't vote for Trump. He's been in such denial—and/or been so convinced of his own control over his supporters; certain that they'll do whatever he says at the snap of his fingers—that he seemed genuinely alarmed to realize that they didn't understand he was just playing politics all along.

They believed him when he tried to win by saying Clinton is corrupt and unqualified and lacks good judgment and all the rest of it. And it was foolish of him to have failed utterly to realize that's exactly what was going to happen.

Yes, Sanders. It turns out that lots of your supporters actually will vote for Trump, since you spent a lot less time talking about how terrible he is than you did talking about how terrible Clinton supposedly is.

I hope he is deeply shaken over seeing the genie he unleashed and now can't put back in the bottle. He should be.

I sure am.

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Daily Dose of Cute

Just perfectly normal cat napping positions.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

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Why I'm Still Angry About the "Low Enthusiasm" for Hillary Clinton Narrative

[Content Note: Misogyny; racism.]

Because it just. won't. die.

[Note: The embedded Storify was doing weird things to the page, so I've replaced it below with just a link instead.]

The Lumbering Zombie That Is the "Low Enthusiasm" for Hillary Narrative.

I've said it once, or a hundred times, before and now I'll say it again:

Clinton's base of supporters is largely comprised of people of color, white women, LGBTx people, Latinx immigrants, and other marginalized groups.

To consistently disappear us—and our enthusiasm—in service to a narrative that is patently false is some hot garbage.

And it would be bad enough if it was just being done to try to discredit a historic female candidate, but it is being done to try to discredit her in the middle of an election in which her only meaningful competitor is a white supremacist authoritarian patriarch who unapologetically disgorges every shade of bigotry as the centerpiece of his campaign. A person who actively and expressly wants to make our lives worse.

I am filthy angry at the journalists who keep peddling this shit like it's a joke, or like it doesn't matter.

I see you.

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The Real Story of the DNC Email Leak is Trump's Terrifying Ties to Russia

As you may recall, in June, Russian government hackers "penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach. The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC's system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said DNC officials and the security experts."

Over the weekend, Wikileaks (very irresponsibly) published DNC emails. There has been an enormous amount of outrage about these emails, but apart from one suggesting exploiting Bernie Sanders' religious beliefs—a suggestion which was never used, and for which the staffer, who will presumably face additional consequences, has apologized—it's mostly a storm in a teacup.

I strongly, and amusedly, agree with Judd Legum, who said: "If you are shocked by the Wikileaks DNC emails, you probably have never worked in politics."

Which is why it's too bad that DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been forced out over this stuff. I've had many criticisms of her over her tenure, but I'm nonetheless unthrilled that this is why and how she's leaving.

The DNC had serious concerns about how the Sanders campaign was potentially damaging Hillary Clinton, who was always leading and always seen as most likely to be the party's nominee. And as well they should have: By repeatedly going after Clinton's character, rather than running on the issues, they damaged Clinton and entrenched a deeply mendacious narrative about her character, which Donald Trump is now continually using against her, often invoking Sanders by name.

Which was entirely predictable. That's why political writers (like yours truly) were continually criticizing Sanders for his scorched-earth approach.

The Democratic National Committee exists to elect Democrats. Of course they were concerned and angry about their most likely presidential nominee, and their candidate who had the best chance of winning in the general election, continuing to be attacked in a way that was unfair.

Which Sanders knew. Why do you think he's supporting her now? Because he knew that was all bullshit! He was just trying to win. And he was trying to win in a way the DNC didn't like, for good reason.

Anyway. While everyone who still doesn't understand how politics works focuses on this non-issue, the real story is that this breach was orchestrated "by two Russian intelligence agencies, which were the same attackers behind previous Russian cyberoperations at the White House, the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year. And metadata from the released emails suggests that the documents passed through Russian computers." And now, releasing them on the eve of the Democratic convention, they are trying to fuck with the US election.

To Trump's favor.

And why the Russian government would try to fuck with the US election to Trump's favor is what we all need to be talking about, because it is genuinely alarming.

As [Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook] notes, this comes just one week after Donald's alarming comments about NATO and his advisers having successfully weakened the Republican Party's platform with respect to Ukraine, reneging on a promise to provide aid to the Ukrainians in their struggle against Russian aggression.

There have long been questions about some of Donald's advisers' ties to foreign governments. In particular, his campaign co-chair Paul Manafort has built a career specializing in working for arms dealers, dictators, and foreign oligarchs. He was "for many years on the payroll of the Putin-backed former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych."

In April, Franklin Foer wrote an extensive profile of Manafort, in which Foer details Manafor's decades-long relationship with Trump, which has spanned the former's career of advising some of the most despicable tyrants around the globe. In the piece, he recalls the time that Manafort "snookered" John McCain into aiding him in "undermining American policy."

Manafort's business partner, lobbyist Rick Davis, was one of McCain's top advisers. Manafort's and Davis' work in Ukraine was so concerning that, in 2008, a staffer on the National Security Council called McCain to ask him to help "dial back" Manafort and Davis, because: "By promoting enemies of the Orange Revolution, they were undermining American policy." But McCain had already been taken in by them.

That year, the pair had consulted on behalf of pro-independence forces in the tiny principality of Montenegro, which wanted to exit Serbia and become its own sovereign republic. On the surface, this sounded noble enough, so noble that McCain called Montenegro's independence the "greatest European democracy project since the end of the Cold War."

A report in the Nation, however, showed that the Montenegrin campaign wasn't remotely what McCain described. The independence initiative was championed by a fantastically wealthy Russian mogul called Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska had parochial reasons for promoting independence. He had just purchased Montenegro's aluminum industry and intended to buy broader swaths of its economy. But he was also doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin, on whose good graces the fate of all Russian business ultimately hangs. The Nation quoted Deripaska boasting that "the Kremlin wanted an area of influence in the Mediterranean."

Got that? Manafort and Davis (who was running McCain's campaign) manipulated the Republican nominee to lend his support, under the auspices of "yay freedom," to a geopolitical event designed to enrich Putin and his allies.

And that was hardly the end of it.

Manafort and Davis didn't just snooker McCain into trumpeting their client's cause; they endangered him politically, by arranging a series of meetings with Deripaska, who the U.S. had barred from entering the country because of his ties to organized crime. In 2006, they steered McCain to attend a dinner with the oligarch at a chalet near Davos, where Deripaska speechified for the 40 or so guests. (The Washington Post reported that the oligarch sent Davis and Manafort a thank-you note for arranging to see the senator in "such an intimate setting.") Seven months later, Manafort and Davis took McCain to celebrate his 70th birthday with Deripaska on a yacht moored in the Adriatic.

And now, two presidential cycles later, Manafort is running Donald Trump's campaign. Needless to say, Trump is even less politically sophisticated than McCain. If McCain could be that easily exploited, it's petrifying to contemplate how effortlessly Manafort is able to manipulate Trump.

Further, McCain was not deeply indebted to Russian money-lenders with ties to Putin. As TPM's Josh Marshall details, "Trump appears to have a deep financial dependence on Russian money from persons close to Putin. …There is also something between a non-trivial and a substantial amount of evidence suggesting Putin-backed financial support for Trump or a non-tacit alliance between the two men."

That, of course, is the result of Trump's multiple spectacular business failures and bankruptcies. Despite his relentless boasting about his own extraordinary business acumen, which is essentially his singularly cited (alleged) qualification for the presidency, he is, in fact, not regarded as a wise, skilled, and competent businessman by US banks, who refuse to lend to him. So now he must depend on foreign cash to fund his business ventures.

We don't know how indebted Trump is to Russian lenders. We don't know if his borrowing has now critically compromised the Republican nominee for the United States presidency.

This is not idle speculation. This is a genuine concern based on the facts we know.

And if indeed Donald Trump is beholden, in any way, to Putin and his allies, it should alarm the everloving fuck out of all of us that Russian government hackers now appear to meddling with the US election in order to install Trump.

We are so well beyond what the DNC said in its emails. And, seriously, if you're concerned about the DNC rigging a primary (which wasn't rigged), then you oughta be really concerned about a foreign state trying to rig the entire US presidential election.

If what comes out of this story is somehow, once again, that Hillary Clinton is History's Greatest Monster, then we are well and truly fucked.

Because right now, the only person standing between a man who is possibly (and likely) compromised by a foreign government, and whose aides have already changed the Republican platform in a way that benefits that government, is Hillary Clinton. And hers is the only campaign raising that alarm.

If you look at that and think it's her campaign doing the distracting, I despair for our collective future. I really do.

UPDATE: I have more on this at BNR: "BE WARNED: Sophisticated Agitators Are Actively Working to Sabotage Hillary."

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The Democratic Convention Starts Today

And if you would like to take a look at the schedule and speakers who will be appearing at the convention in Philly, here you go!

I'm especially excited to see Anastasia Somoza speak, who is a friend of a friend, and also to see First Lady Michelle Obama!

But I'm sure all the speeches are going to be great, not only because the Democratic convention are typically full of amazing speakers, many of whom will shape and define the party for years to come (remember when most of us "first met" President Barack Obama as a Democratic convention speaker?!), but also because, unlike the Republican convention, where lots of Republicans wouldn't have spoken if you'd paid them in solid gold busts of Ronald Reagan, Democrats are very excited to show up for and participate in the historic nomination of Hillary Clinton!

They surely had a huge selection of willing and eager speakers from whom to choose, as opposed to having to scrape a bunch of Scott Baios from the bottom of the bin.

Let's do this!

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Hosted by piglets.

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More on Kaine

[Content Note: Racism; misogyny.]

So, I'm watching this Clinton campaign video last night about Tim Kaine:

.@TimKaine is a relentless optimist who believes no problem is unsolvable if you put in the work to solve it.https://t.co/pui1WFEVpS

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 23, 2016

Video Description: Over video of Kaine speaking and/or campaigning with Clinton, audio clips of Kaine speaking: "Remember folks: Tough times don't last, but tough people do last. We've been through tough times as a nation, but we are tough people. ...Do you want a 'me first president,' or a kids and families first president? Do you want a trash-talker president, or a bridge-builder president? ...What leaders do is walk right out into the challenges and embrace them and bring people together. That's what the best leaders have done in this country since we've started. ...Hillary's ready to be our leader. Hillary's ready to make history."

And right at the moment where he says, "Hillary's ready to be our leader," it struck me like a ton of bricks: There is a white man standing on the stage in support of a woman running for president, and he is saying that she will be our leader.

And he is standing there in support of her, her second in command, saying he's going to help her make history.

Whoa.

I just feel very overwhelmed with how powerful a message that is in this moment.

When President Obama selected Joe Biden as his running mate, Biden was much older than Obama, who was, at the time, a one-term junior senator. The choice of Biden, already a statesman, was seen as necessary because Obama's lack of experience was a concern. Biden was positioned as his mentor, even though Obama was, as been made abundantly evident, clearly capable of doing the job all on his own.

Here, Clinton is the one with more experience. She's older than Kaine, and she's held a presidential cabinet position. There's no mistaking that she's the boss.

Whoa.

And let's be honest: President Obama was obliged to choose a white man as his running mate (in part) because of racism. People were (rightly) angry about that, but it wasn't Obama's fault. And Clinton was obliged to choose a white man as her running mate (in part) because of misogyny. People are (rightly) angry about that, too, but I'm seeing a lot more of the blame being directed at Clinton than I saw directed at Obama. And I'm not sure that's fair. Because misogyny isn't her fault any more than racism is President Obama's.

To be frank, my thought was that anyone who was prepared to vote for a woman is prepared to vote for two women, or a woman and a man of color. (I also thought the same thing in 2008, replacing woman with Black man.) But friends around the country who are not professionally ensconced in a pro-Hillary bubble the way I am tell me that I'm wrong. That it still matters to a lot of the less progressive Democrats and independents they encounter that there's a white dude on the ticket.

That's discouraging, but I'm listening to what they're telling me. And if that's true, then I have to believe that Team Clinton's incredibly sophisticated research uncovered the same. And I'm not going to hold her to blame for other people's bigotry.

I will, however, give her credit for making an enormously important political calculation regarding a potential Democratic Senate majority, if the above wasn't, in fact, a consideration. Senator Elizabeth Warren would have been replaced by a Republican governor in Massachusetts. Senator Cory Booker would have been replaced by a Republican governor in New Jersey.

Kaine, on the other hand, will be replaced by Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe, who just last night announced he will individually sign thirteen thousand orders for ex-felons to make sure their voting rights restored. That's the kind of governor who will be picking a new Democratic senator.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, who was also reportedly in contention, was just found by the US Office of Special Counsel to have violated the Hatch Act. "The agency didn't disclose who made the initial complaint about Castro's interview that prompted the investigation." Yeah, I wonder who it could have been who complained about someone on Clinton's shortlist violating a rule that voters don't care about or understand, making sure there was a ready-made scandal for the media to endlessly discuss if she chose him.

Labor Secretary Tom Perez (who was my preferred pick) is reportedly one of her choices for a cabinet position, where he'd have a lot more to do, and thus a lot more influence, than the average vice-president. If that's right, I'm definitely okay with his not getting the veep nod.

Which brings us back to Kaine. Who has an even lower rating (lol) than his Senate colleagues from the conservative Heritage Foundation. Even lower than Bernie Sanders! The lowest in the entire Senate. Which, in case it's not clear, means he's very progressive.

Since the announcement last night, I've heard from people who have worked with him, and read the accounts of people who have worked with him, and it's remarkable how much what people say about him sounds exactly like what I always hear from people who have worked with Hillary Clinton: He's a pragmatic progressive. He's a great listener; always seeking information; eminently willing to change positions (leftward) if new details demand it. And this:

Also... Not a person I know who's worked for @timkaine that wouldn't do anything for him. The loyalty and love of his staff speaks volumes.

— Mo Elleithee (@MoElleithee) July 23, 2016

Also? He, too, is a dork.

I know there's a lot of concern about Kaine's record on choice, which I totally understand, although it's clear that he has moved significantly left on reproductive issues in the last decade. As I noted in comments last night, I would be a lot more concerned about his mixed record were it not for three things:

1. I don't believe that Hillary Clinton would have chosen him were she not certain that he would be 100% committed to supporting pro-choice Supreme Court nominees.

2. I have already been through the "Catholic dude who is personally squishy on choice but is publicly pro-choice" with both John Kerry and Joe Biden, both of whom were more reliable on choice the more influential they became.

3. Normally, when there's someone who's chosen for veep who isn't flawless on choice, I'm super pissed off because it doubles-down the ticket on being insufficiently robust in their support of choice. For the first time ever, because Hillary Clinton is at the top of the ticket, that isn't happening! And that actually isn't a small thing to me.

(And, hey, she pushed Sanders left on Hyde; I've no doubt she can push Kaine left on choice if he needs pushing.)

I'm very excited about indications that my instinct about Kaine's history taking on the NRA figured into Clinton's decision. Clinton hasn't gotten much credit for being bolder than past Democrats on gun reform during this election, but her willingness to give zero fucks about the NRA and campaign with mothers of Black people killed by guns is a big deal. It's not a coincidence that there has been a Senate filibuster and a House sit-in by Democrats on gun reform since she launched her campaign. She seems very serious about gun reform, and it is even more reassuring to me regarding pursuing meaningful gun reform that she chose Kaine. I would very much like to see him lead on that.

And I'm very excited about this, too:

In terms of resume titles, has a ticket ever had more than Clinton-Kaine? SecState, Sen (2x), Gov, LtGov, Mayor, Councilman, FLOTUS, FLOAR.

— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) July 23, 2016

Possibly the most qualified presidential ticket in history vs. Donald Trump, who has never served a day in public office. I am down with that big time.

So that's where I'm sitting right now. I respect people's concerns about Kaine, and I'm not telling anyone how they should feel about him. There are no perfect candidates, and we all draw our lines in different places. I'm just telling you what I'm thinking, because lots of y'all have asked for my further thoughts. No one is required to agree.

I probably don't even need to say this, lol, but I genuinely didn't expect to be as enthusiastic about Kaine as I am. I was surprised to discover he is very different than my impressions drawn from the media.

The irony is not lost on me. You'd think I'd have learned, after a decade of pushing back on the bullshit coverage of Clinton, that I can't trust anything but my own research on candidates—especially a candidate who was being covered because of his potential association with her.

Noted.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

It's Tim Kaine!

Congratulations, Senator!
So, as you may recall, I was not very enthusiastic when Virginia Senator Tim Kaine emerged as the leading candidate for Hillary Clinton's veep slot.

But a funny thing happened when I started actually researching Kaine (and not relying on the mainstream media's assessment of him): I discovered that I really like him!

It's almost like Hillary Clinton is really smart and knows what she's doing or something!

Naturally, I have a piece up at BNR at her pick: Tim Kaine Is a Nice Guy; Mike Pence Just Pretends to Be One.

Hillary has oft said that she believes politics needs more love and kindness, and that she's trying to run a campaign that centers both. So it makes perfect sense to me that she'd choose as her running mate a man whom I've read described as a nice guy in a dozen or more articles in the past few days.

(I'll also note that competence has been central to her campaign as well, so it's also unsurprising that the rollout of her running mate was handled with both care and dignity, unlike some Donald Trumps I could mention.)

Kaine, I've read, is "vanilla nice"–he's "humble-but-sturdy" and "squeaky-clean." A "steady hand" with unassailable ethics. He's "personable but unassuming." He charmingly burst out laughing on Meet the Press when asked about his reputation for being boring.

"I am boring," he said with a grin. "But boring is the fastest growing demographic in this country!"

...If Hillary chose Tim Kaine, in part or in whole, because he's a "nice guy," because he gets what it means to want to be someone who injects more love and kindness into politics, I'm on board. I'll take all the love and kindness I can get.

There is much more at the link! And I'll be honest: That video clip of Kaine on Meet the Press really endeared him to me. Granted, that was after I had already immersed myself in his (rather impressive) ratings based on his voting record, but still. He is definitely a likable dude.

Kaine was a civil rights lawyer for more than a decade, before he became a politician. He has been the only white mayor of Richmond, Virginia, in about 25 years. He's an anti-death penalty Catholic very much in the mold of the Kennedys:

Kaine is also fluent in Spanish, thanks in part to the year he spent in Honduras as a Catholic missionary before graduating from law school.

He speaks openly about his faith and its impact on his views on social justice. He and his wife, Anne Holton, are longtime members of Richmond's St. Elizabeth Catholic Church, a predominantly black congregation in a poor part of town. And as a private attorney before he entered politics, he made a name for himself advocating for fair-housing.

I also want to recommend this enlightening piece by Krystal Ball, a Virginian Bernie supporter who believes that Kaine is someone who can help Clinton win over progressives and the rest of the country:

Kaine is the son of a welder who graduated from a Jesuit high school, flew through University of Missouri and then landed at Harvard Law. While his classmates were hanging out in Cambridge fielding offers from big firms, Kaine took a year off to do mission work in Honduras where he worked with young boys growing up in brutal poverty. The year abroad left him fluent in Spanish and with a deep commitment to using his Harvard law degree for the public good. After law school he made good on his commitment to service and rather than cashing in on his degree, spent much of his legal career fighting against housing discrimination. Now you just tell me, does that sound like the bio of a chamber-backed, blue dog, corporate Dem?

Ahh but perhaps Kaine abandoned all his lofty principles in a quest for political power in a conservative Southern state! If that’s your concern, perhaps you should just ask the NRA how they feel about Tim Kaine. Here’s how his elections in Virginia typically go: the NRA gives him an F rating, fear mongers about how he’s going to take everyone’s guns, spends massively against him, and then Tim goes on to win anyway. Keep in mind, the NRA is literally headquartered in Virginia. If they are powerful anywhere they are powerful in the Old Dominion but that didn’t stop Kaine from [pursuing gun reform]. As someone who ran for Congress, in Virginia, I can tell you that perhaps the definition of political courage for a Southern Dem is willingness to buck the gun lobby. Tim Kaine has been unflinching.

Maybe though, Kaine was able to be bold on guns because he was right of center on everything else. Yeah, not so much…

…But, but, but Kaine is so boring! Surely he won’t bring the energy the ticket needs to win, right? If you think so, here’s something to consider: Tim Kaine has won every single election he’s ever run in. He’s won everything from Mayor of the majority African-American city of Richmond, to governor of a conservative Southern state…

…Look, anyone who has served as long and in as many ways as Tim Kaine is going to have taken positions you don’t agree with. I’m not saying the guy is perfect. But having watched a long time and gotten to see the man up close, I can tell you he is courageous, principled, and value driven.

The stuff about Kaine's courage in taking on the NRA makes me feel even more reassured that Clinton is serious about gun reform—and maybe she will put Kaine on point for getting something meaningful done.

One of the biggest criticisms of Kaine, as noted in the above-excerpted piece, is that he's boring. Well, here's what I have to say about that:

I'm significantly less inclined to consider "boring" a quality deserving of criticism after writing about not-boring Trump for 174 years.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) July 22, 2016

Anyway. Those are the basic outlines. I don't agree with him on everything (some policy differences on financial regulation and trade, for a start), but I'm on board.

Clinton-Kaine 2016. I'm with them.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!