NOS4A2
And you're happy to let Americans live however they like. :up: — frank

:smirk:

I am outraged that people are given power based on race and gender, yes. — NOS4A2

We agree for once, NOS. Here in America we've been "outraged" about that since 1619 ... 1701 ... 1787 ... (1791-1804) ... 1857 ... 1896 ... 1954 ... 1963 ... and now in 2024 this "outrage" may culminate again (like 2008) in another (merely symbolic?) step up and forward out of America's white male caste system. TBD.

Biden’s address: fine. Boring. Underwhelming. Didn’t really answer the question about what changed his mind — but that’s to be expected.

He’s declined over the years, looked too old, and feeble, and donors were panicking. The polls didn’t look great either, even though they’re useless this far out. The Republican attacks would have been too easy after the disaster of a debate. So that was that. I’m surprised the pushback was as intense and sustained as it was.

The DNC and their rules aren’t, and never have been, democratic. They’re about as democratic as the electoral college. In the end, they and their delegates can do whatever the fuck they want. Biden doesn’t have the loyal following that Clownshoes has. The money and the nomination will go up Harris — whether Trump and his worshippers like it or not.

Let them scream about democracy— they lost all rights to even talk about it back in January of ‘21. They can pretend to care about it all the want— and we have the right to laugh in their faces.

I thought the speech was fine. Only that he was obviously reading a prompter, but the point was clear enough. I believe Biden when he says democracy is on the ballot.

Looks like Kamala Harris is the nominee. So far I'm cautiously optimistic. The campaign ought to concentrate on Trump as not a fit and proper person, as he's obviously not, and also on the legislative wins and prospects for the Biden period. I really do think Harris will run rings around Trump on the debate stage but I wouldn't be surprised if we never see that. Trump has reverted to form, hurling insults and incomprensible grievances. How anyone can think he should be electable will forever be beyond me.

:up:

I don't see the problem. If a party leader is clearly incompetent or does things contrary to the principles of the party they ought to be ousted.

If anything we can now test the theory of whether replacing one of the two unpopular candidates would ensure their victory. I mean Kamala is far from a generic Democrat, but it seems like voters don't really know much about her apart from her being VP and both sides are scrambling to define her right now so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. — Mr Bee

Mr Bee, I saw your post last night. As I processed my news stream today it was "top of mind," as KJP once said. I found six items to help people process the Kamala phenomenon. This did come out a bit long, my apologies in advance.

For the record I lived in the San Francisco bay area since the mid 1970s (no longer there) and have followed her career since before she became DA. I'm a seasoned observer of all things Kamala.

So, six recent stories to put Kam in perspective.

1) Brett Stephens questions the rush to coronation.

In yesterday's New York Times, columnist Bret Stephens wrote an essay titled, Democrats Deserved a Contest, Not a Coronation.

I've heard that some people can't read past the Times paywall, but it always comes up for me. I'll supply some quotes.

Stephens is described by Wikipedia as a conservative, which perhaps mitigates my point a bit. Still, what he has to say is interesting. It gives people permission to think about putting the brakes on the runaway Kamala train.

The last two times Democrats attempted to stage a coronation instead of a contest in choosing a presidential nominee, it did not go well. Not for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Not for Joe Biden this year.

So why would anyone think it’s a good idea when it comes to Kamala Harris — the all but anointed nominee after barely a day?

Maybe the answer is that a competitive process, either before or during the Democratic convention, would have been divisive and bruising. Or that Harris’s fund-raising advantages over any potential rival were already insuperable. Or that Democratic Party big shots (though not Barack Obama, at least not publicly yet) genuinely think the vice president is the best candidate to beat the former president.

But the one thing the Democratic Party is not supposed to be is anti-democratic — a party in which insiders select the nominee from the top down, not the bottom up, and which expects the rank and file to fall in line and clap enthusiastically. That’s the playbook of ruling parties in autocratic states.

It’s also a recipe for failure. The whole point of a competitive process, even a truncated one, is to discover unsuspected strengths, which is how Obama was able to best Clinton in 2008, and to test for hidden weakness, which is how Harris flamed out as a candidate the last time, before even reaching the Iowa caucus. If there’s evidence that she’s a better candidate now than she was then, she should be given the chance to prove it. — BrettStephens

A point he makes is that she is a bad manager. Later in the piece he notes:

The Washington Post reported in December 2021, following a series of high-level staff exits. “Staffers who worked for Harris before she was vice president said one consistent problem was that Harris would refuse to wade into briefing materials prepared by staff members, then berate employees when she appeared unprepared." — Stephens

She doesn't put in the work. This point will be echoed in my next link.


2) Kam missed an opportunity today to be seen as the next US president by everyone in the world.

Not ready for prime time: Kamala Harris chooses to give a sorority speech over meeting a head of state. This piece is from right-leaning aggregator American Thinker, but it makes some insightful, nonpartisan points.

Israel's prime minister Bibi Netanyahu addressed Congress today. Kamala did not attend.

Many Democrats, particularly those on the left, are upset with Israel at the moment and want to make a point of insulting the leader of one of America's strongest allies. That is their right. About half of Congressional Dems chose not to attend.

But Kamala is running for president. She COULD have risen above her partisanship and seized the opportunity to represent herself as the head of State at a moment when there is a power vacuum at the top. (Biden gave speech tonight. I've seen more convincing hostage videos).

Imagine Kamala had gone to the airport to meet Bibi. If she had, every newspaper in the world would have published a front page photograph of Harris, representing the United States, greeting a close ally. One she has differences with, to be sure ... but she'd be seen as rising above politics to perform the duties of a head of State.

Everyone in the world would have seen her as the acting US president.

Instead, here's what she did. She decided to go express her partisanship and boycott Bibi. Instead, she went off to give a speech to a council of black sororities.

The article makes the point, amplifying the reports that she doesn't put in the work, that she doesn't actually want to be bothered with doing the work of being president. She just wants the title and the perks.

In the end she leaned into the you-go-girl feminism that's driving her recent popularity; at the expense of an incredible missed opportunity to present herself to the world as the acting president of the United States.

She demonstrated her terrible political instincts and her unsuitability to be the leader of the free world. She is not up to the job. She doesn't know what the job is. In her mind she's still a leftist making a political point, not a head of State.

This was a very telling episode to understand Kamala Harris.

3) Jamal Trulove.

A black man in San Francisco was wrongly convicted of a murder. As Wiki puts it:

After he was framed by police for the 2007 murder of an acquaintance, Trulove was convicted in 2010, sentenced to 50 years to life, and imprisoned for six years.

A California appeals court overturned his conviction in 2014 and he was retried in 2015 and acquitted. In 2016 he sued the city of San Francisco. In April 2018 a jury found the two officers accused of framing him guilty of fabricating evidence and failing to disclose exculpatory evidence. In 2019 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to approve a settlement of $13.1 million. — Wiki

The prosecutor on that case was Kamala Harris.

It's very worth noting that Wikipedia does not mention her involvement in this case. Wouldn't it be useful for readers to know that a candidate for president framed a black man for murder and fought against his exoneration?

That's why Wikipedia is not to be trusted on political issues. You see this kind of thing over and over.

A detailed account of the case appears here. San Francisco Is Paying For Jamal Trulove’s Wrongful Conviction. Will Kamala Harris?.

At last week’s Democratic primary debate, Harris rightly won plaudits for confronting Joe Biden on his history of opposing busing. But Harris cannot escape her past as San Francisco DA and California attorney general, which includes wrongful convictions like Trulove’s and inaction in other cases of law enforcement misconduct, including an informant scandal that consumed the Orange County DA’s office and its sheriff’s department. If Harris does not reckon with her failures in the criminal legal system, she could find herself in Biden’s position at the next debate: defending the indefensible. — Appeal

4) A Facebook meme is going around to the effect that as California Attorney General, Harris put 1500 black men in jail for smoking pot.

In fact-checking this before I repeated it here, I found a "debunking": Misleading claim says Harris jailed 1,500 Black men for marijuana

The article went on to admit that she imprisoned 1974 people for weed ... but that some of them might not have been black men. Some were women or whites.

You call that a debunking?

After she was no longer Attorney General, she told black radio host Charlamagne tha God that "I have. And I inhaled – I did inhale. It was a long time ago. But, yes"

That's Harris in a nutshell. When she wants to look tough on crime, she throws pot smokers in prison. When she wants to look cool, she tells a black radio host she smoked weed.

She stands for nothing. She has no beliefs, no principles, and no convictions. She says and does whatever she thinks will bring momentary advantage to her ambition.

5) BLM agrees with Bret Stephens.

People who've followed Harris's career know her record of incarcerating black men. That's why today, Black Lives Matter came out against her un-democratic coronation.

Black Lives Matter demands that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) immediately host an informal, virtual snap primary across the country prior to the DNC convention in August. We call for the Rules Committee to create a process that allows for public participation in the nomination process, not just a nomination by party delegates. The current political landscape is unprecedented, with President Biden stepping aside in a manner never seen before. This moment calls for decisive action to protect the integrity of our democracy and the voices of Black voters. — BlackLivesMatter

They go on to enumerate complaints similar to ones I've made recently. That the DNC rigged their primaries. That "the DNC Party elites and billionaire donors bullied Joe Biden out of the race."

Black women tend to like Kamala. Black men often don't. I don't have the statistics but there are a lot of black people coming out against Kamala online today. In her disastrous 2020 campaign (that ended in 2019), she polled badly with blacks.

6) Two striking instances of Orwellian retconning of her past.

- A study by GovTrack, "an organization that tracks congressional voting records," showed that in 2019 Kamala Harris was the most liberal Senator.

Today, that web page is gone. "But the web page with the ranking, which was widely covered in news reports during the 2020 election, was recently deactivated. The link now displays a "Page Not Found" message. The Internet Archive shows the page was deleted sometime between July 10 and July 23, with some on X claiming the page was still up on July 22."

- In 2021 Biden had a crisis on the border, the result of his overturning all of Trump's policies that were keeping a lid on the problem. Biden appointed Kamala border czar. She did nothing at all except humiliate herself in an interview with Lester Holt. When he called her on her lie that she'd been to the border, she said "I haven't been to Europe, either." Classic Kamala. Great with a scripted line, but defensive and careless when speaking off the cuff. You know the clip. People were shocked when they saw it. Liberals especially. They had no idea.

The border is therefore a legitimate line of criticism from the Republicans. So what are the leftist media doing? Denying she was ever the border czar. If you claim Kamala was ever the border czar, you're repeating Republican propaganda.

Axios ran a story today (Wednesday) that Harris "never actually had" the title of border czar.

Of course numerous critics quickly pointed out that they had indeed claimed exactly that. Axios said, "After being called out, Axios issued an editor’s note to acknowledge that “Axios was among the news outlets that incorrectly labeled Harris a ‘border czar’ back in 2021.""

Of course they were not incorrect in 2021. They were caught lying today when they claimed she wasn't the border czar. There are dozens of news videos showing Dem politicians and MSM reporters calling her the border czar at the time.

This Orwellian retconning is exactly what Winston Smith, the protagonist of 1984, did for a living. He made news accounts of the past conform to the ever-changing party narrative of the present. In the digital age it's all too easy.


Well that's my curated list of Kamala miscellany this evening.

It's possible that Hollywood and the media will sanitize her past, coronate her, and get her over the top. She could win. I still give her a 25% chance. She's having a Brat summer dontcha know.

Or, the Kamala scam could blow up the way the Biden scam did, and the American people will hand the Democrats a defeat for the ages.

In which case they'll blame it on racism and sexism and learn nothing.

I watched the Biden speech tonight. I've seen more believable hostage videos.

As I understand it, he is not quitting the race for any particular reason; only "for the good of democracy." Meaning ignoring the will of fourteen million Democratic primary voters and replacing it with the decision of some Hollywood actors and big party donors.

With respect only to his speech; that is, if you woke up from a year long coma and just saw his speech on tv tonight; why is Biden quitting the race? Can a president really get away with competing in primaries rigged for his nomination; keep insisting to the end that he is running; and then drop out while giving no reason at all?

Are people going to buy this Soviet-level plot? Have we at last come to this?

I had to go and look that up, but that's absolutely crazy. Mob level shit. — Tzeentch

And then they call Biden a great patriot for gracefully stepping aside for the good of his country. Just like Caesar did.

A public pressure campaign? Why insist on a loaded word like "coup" when this is about who the candidate for the next election will be. — Echarmion

As I said, if you saw this play out in a corrupt foreign country, you'd call it a coup.

They stabbed him in the chest, not the back. It was very visible and very public. Nothing hidden or conspiratorial about it. — Echarmion

Not conspiratorial? Perhaps you should look up the word. They stabbed Caesar in public too. That wasn't a coup?

Even before the debate the common refrain was that Biden must demonstrate that he's not senile. He didn't. Biden had a lot of support at the time but he was not unassailable as the candidate. And in fact he failed to weather the storm. Nothing about this resembles a "coup", no organised group seized power in an orchestrated operation. One man lost his backing and the best placed person moved into the resulting vacuum. — Echarmion

They rigged their primary to get him nominated. They've been running a scam for three years. It blew up. But he is the legitimately nominated candidate. The insiders threatened him with God knows what, and he gave in. That's a coup.

I mean probably the same people who run it most of the time? It's not like the president is required for day to day decisions. — Echarmion

So we don't actually have a president, just a figurehead run by an invisible cabal? We all knew that was true, but isn't it significant that this has now been demonstrated in public?

And in a crisis, is there or isn't there an executive decision maker? And who, exactly, is that right now?

It's half a coup. There's no president. This is very unseemly and there are great risks to this country right now. The Dems have arguably committed treason. They didn't lawfully 25A him. They did something unlawful. You want to defend that, knock yourself out.

I wager that this little story is not over. The 25th amendment is invoked by the vice president and the cabinet. The vice president is Kamala Harris. Now she is the candidate for president. That’s a real, third-world coup, and that’s how desperate they are. — NOS4A2

They won't 25A him. They've just humiliated him, forced him to make a hostage video, and left a huge power vacuum at the top of the government. This could blow up very badly in the next six months.

No surprise here: our economy and politics are run by overlapping elites. — BC

Never so obvious before. Propping up Biden for four years then swapping him out in a humiliating operation, if someone doesn't want to call it a coup. There will be repercussions from all this that are hard to see at the moment, but they won't be good.

They rigged their primary to get him nominated. They've been running a scam for three years. It blew up. But he is the legitimately nominated candidate. The insiders threatened him with God knows what, and he gave in. That's a coup. — fishfry

I think we just don't agree on what a coup is. To me, not every power struggle that the incumbent loses is a coup.

To me, a coup is an organised movement using illegal or at least extra legal means to seize power swiftly, creating a fait accompli that pre-empts organised resistance. Usually by isolating the centre of power and preventing it from rallying it's supporters.

The slowly building pressure on Biden under which his campaign ultimately collapsed doesn't fit, imho.

So we don't actually have a president, just a figurehead run by an invisible cabal? We all knew that was true, but isn't it significant that this has now been demonstrated in public? — fishfry

I don't really understand the show of indignation here. I'm sure you didn't just realise that the USA have a huge bureaucratic apparatus and that the president isn't actually required to make day to day decisions?

The cabal is less invisible than ignored. Most people just don't really think about how the government actually runs.

And in a crisis, is there or isn't there an executive decision maker? And who, exactly, is that right now? — fishfry

That is a much better question. It's impossible to know without having information from within the "war room". But even being in a situation where you're no longer sure whether the president is still capable of making emergency decisions is bad.

It's half a coup. There's no president. This is very unseemly and there are great risks to this country right now. The Dems have arguably committed treason. They didn't lawfully 25A him. They did something unlawful. You want to defend that, knock yourself out. — fishfry

I agree it's unseemly. I'm not as worried though. At the end of the day there have always been weaker and stronger presidents. Under a weak president, power will tend to devolve to the VP, department heads and advisors. The fact that Biden's weakness is age related doesn't in and of itself make it more dangerous.

I remember that everyone agreed that GW Bush was a fucking idiot. But noone called it treason.

I was kind of hoping Biden would take a stand from the Oval Office and let his voters and constituents know that he is not just some weak, husk of a human being, and push back against The Party. But no; as his last act of cowardice and corruption and lies, he reminds everyone who he has always been, and submits to the will of his party elites and donors. Now we have to pretend he is running the country for the next six months.

I think we just don't agree on what a coup is. To me, not every power struggle that the incumbent loses is a coup. — Echarmion

Even ultra-lib Joy Reid called it a coup.

Biden was not removed by lawful means.

I don't really understand the show of indignation here. I'm sure you didn't just realise that the USA have a huge bureaucratic apparatus and that the president isn't actually required to make day to day decisions? — Echarmion

If there were a crisis, there's nobody making executive decisions. That's very dangerous for all of us.

That is a much better question. It's impossible to know without having information from within the "war room". But even being in a situation where you're no longer sure whether the president is still capable of making emergency decisions is bad. — Echarmion

Glad you take my point.

I agree it's unseemly. I'm not as worried though. At the end of the day there have always been weaker and stronger presidents. Under a weak president, power will tend to devolve to the VP, department heads and advisors. The fact that Biden's weakness is age related doesn't in and of itself make it more dangerous. — Echarmion

I'm glad you're not worried.

I remember that everyone agreed that GW Bush was a fucking idiot. But noone called it treason. — Echarmion

Cheney and the neocons arguably committed treason. Many said so at the time. And if they didn't, they should have.

Biden was not removed by lawful means. — fishfry

Which law was broken?

In addition, from what was he removed? He wasn't the official Democratic candidate, merely presumptive.

Biden was not removed by lawful means. — fishfry

He wasn’t removed at all. He decided not to run.

Even in deciding not to run, Joe Biden did something Trump could never do - which was to put the interests of the Party and the nation above his own.

I’m not particularly swayed by the euphoria sorrounding Harris today. Let’s see how it plays out over the weeks and months ahead (although there’s not that many of them.) I think it is true to say that it’s the politics of hope against the politics of hate and fear. All Trump has, is hate and fear. Harris is a ‘psychopath’, the country is ‘being overrun by Mexican rapists’, Democrats are ‘radical communists’. He has nothing positive to say - no policies, no ideas, no real platform. In the end it will probably come down to the progressive/diversity vote vs the scared old white guys vote (which is why the Republicans have been frantically gerrymandering the last ten years). But I hope and believe the former will have the numbers in the end.

:up:

:up:

Even in deciding not to run, Joe Biden did something Trump could never do - which was to put the interests of the Party and the nation above his own.

I’m not particularly swayed by the euphoria sorrounding Harris today. Let’s see how it plays out over the weeks and months ahead (although there’s not that many of them.) I think it is true to say that it’s the politics of hope against the politics of hate and fear. — Wayfarer

If Harris does make a major misstep in the next few weeks, I wonder who the powers that be will replace her with so that I can know who to vote for. I think the total vote count for the candidate of the party that hails itself as the protector of democracy is zero, as in exactly zero people voted for her to be the Democratic nominee.

What happened has nothing to do with love for country and selflessness. It has to do with the Democrats having selected Biden as the nominee, blocking any other candidate from running against him, denying he had become mentally incompetent over objections by the right, finally being exposed and realizing they couldn't win with him, and then forcing him out and finding someone they thought might be able to win.

I'm not saying anything positive about the Republicans here. I'm just refusing to pretend that some higher ideals drove the Democrats, that there is anything particularly democratic about the Democrats, or that either side is interested in anything other than maintaining power.

If Harris does make a major misstep in the next few weeks, I wonder who the powers that be will replace her with so that I can know who to vote for. — Hanover

You're going to vote Democrat?

Agreed. Still, Roevember is coming! :victory:

Even in deciding not to run, Joe Biden did something Trump could never do - which was to put the interests of the Party and the nation above his own. — Wayfarer

I don't even see why being President would be in Biden's interests. It's a lot of work and responsibility. Retirement is the much better option.

At least in Trump's case it benefits him because he can then try to pardon himself of his crimes, or at least shut down all his prosecutions.

They’re starting to capitalize the Party! Truly Orwellian times.

Media is all in.

KKKamala gets anointed in brilliant fashion.

Well, now that the Democrats have gotten rid of Biden, what are the chances that the GOP is gonna get rid of their weirdo? No, not the old one that's 78 and rambles incoherently on occasion but his running mate who apparently is so bad that he's dragging his boss down. It's only been a week since he was chosen but now there's already talk about replacing him.

You're just miffed their spectacle is effective and they're going to win the election.

being conservative means you're as ignorant today as you were yesterday. So no, he'll stay.