Category Archives: Politics

Why Harris & Walz Will Win

Current Affairs, Politics, Uncategorized

“We are effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” Senator JD Vance.

[The] false claim by Trump that Harris is generating fake big crowds with AI was a true Captain Queeg moment, maybe the most bat-guano crazy thing I’ve seen in 40 years of covering presidential elections. Will Bunch National opinion columnist, Philadelphia Inquirer.

But there’s no question something big happened on July 21. Lenny Bronner  in the Washington Post

“I don’t know where you all are, but Gov. Tim Walz, everybody gives him thumbs up. By the way, I didn’t get that 100 percent thumbs up for any of the other candidates.” Democratic strategist Donna Brazile.

Vice-president Kamala Harris is going to be the next President of The United States. That shocked me, and I’m not sure why. Part of the reason, I think, is that I thought an Elizabeth Warren or Amy Klobashure type would be the first woman President. Harris seems too young or too lightweight, too amateur, because of her coltish demeanor and laugh. Now, I think that is part of her draw.

Ambition is not considered a virtue in women. “She is ambitious” is a slur, just like “He has no ambition” is a slur. That Hillary Clinton was ambitious was one of the things that many people didn’t like about her, and Harris being ambitious was a detriment when she ran for President in 2020, but this time around, Harris didn’t run for President; she was in the right place at the right time, and it seemed to just fall – for lack of a better word – on her.

Even if Harris thought Biden might drop out, she must have been somewhat surprised when he did; still, she moved extraordinarily quickly to round up support and money. She started with the party royals; the Clintons backed Harris on the first day after Biden withdrew, and the Obamas were brought around on day 4. That’s impressive. There must have been other contenders, but Harris sewed up her nomination before they even got started. Then she didn’t pick the guy the party establishment wanted her to pick. She picked the guy she wanted. Harris immediately took control.

I voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and I voted for Joe Biden in 2020, although I didn’t really vote for either of them; I voted against Donald Trump. Since then, Trump has become even more erratic and bitter and, to my thinking, even harder to vote for. He has become a senile old man ranting about how everybody is cheating on him and treating him wrongly. Strangely – or weirdly, if you prefer – Trump has retreated to Mar-a-Largo.

Michele thinks that the reason Trump is holed up at Mar-a-Lago is because his crowds are smaller than Harris’ crowds. That may be a factor, but I think the biggest reason Trump isn’t holding rallies is because he is afraid after he was almost shot dead at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. And, I have to say, I don’t blame him; I’d be afraid, too, if some wacko had tried to kill me.

Meanwhile, Vice-president Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz are on the campaign trail and drawing record crowds. It turns out that Walz is a great campaigner and an effective attack dog, playing bad cop to Harris’ good cop (which is, after all, one of the main jobs of the VP). It turns out that Harris was right about her VP choice. That’s a good quality to have as President.

So Much Has Happened

Politics, Uncategorized
Found on Gary Peterson’s Twitter account with a caption saying: “The satanic woke Olympics have gone too far in mocking God, which is why we need Christ himself to pass the torch to our new messiah, President Trump, who will make sure that blasphemy has no place in winning the gold.

I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA! Donald Trump on Truth Social June 13, 2024.

Art restorers use the term photodegradation to describe the process by which a painting fades. The colors remain present; they just become less vivid. That’s the Joe Biden story. David Frum in The Atlantic

The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman. Malcolm X in 1962.

“I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rule for their own gain. So, believe me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.” Harris to staffers at her campaign’s offices in Wilmington, Delaware, and sure to become a theme.

A lot has happened in the last two-ish weeks: Trump was shot and nominated—probably winged and coronated, is a slightly better descriptor—Biden withdrew from his campaign, Harris immediately became the new presumed presidential candidate, Mukesh Ambani’s, youngest son Anant finally got married in a wedding that, reportedly, cost $600M, and we broke the record for the hottest day on earth – two days in a row.

When Donald Trump was shot, my first thought was of President Reagan getting shot and how it raised his poll numbers because of the sympathy generated by him being shot. It gave me a sinking feeling that history would repeat itself. However, the shooting – and the coronation, for that matter – does not seem to have changed Trump’s numbers very much. He still has an approvable rating in the low forties and an unfavorable rating in the low fifties.

When Biden withdrew from his reelection campaign, he immediately backed Harris. Well, maybe not immediately, but quickly. He withdrew with a letter and then, shortly afterward, Tweeted his backing of Harris, and, by all accounts I’ve read and heard, Harris immediately started rounding up backing. Almost overnight, Harris raised $1.5M from a Zoom call with Black Women and rounded up enough delegates to get the nomination.

At first, I was sort of put off by the speed of the whole thing. By not having an open convention, it seemed like the party insiders were feeding us their choice and, once again, not waiting for us – the hoi polloi – to have our say. I don’t feel that way anymore. Michele was on the “White Women” Zoom call for Harris, and her enthusiasm has rubbed off on me. But, it’s not just me; in two, maybe three weeks, Vice President Harris has gone from being a problem to being almost everybody’s answer.

When Barack Obama ran for president, I almost immediately thought he was going to win. I have the same feeling about Kamala Harris. I’m not sure why; it just seems to be in the zeitgeist—well, in the zeitgeist and Michele’s enthusiasm, and the incredible rate at which Harris is raising money. To quote the LA Times: Since Vice President Kamala Harris vaulted into becoming the likely Democratic nominee for president a week ago, a groundswell of identity-based grassroots groups have sprung up online to rally behind her. The nightly calls are raising millions of dollars and securing hundreds of volunteers, drawing comparisons to the grassroots efforts that fueled former President Obama to victory in 2008.

As an aside, one of the interesting things about Barack Obama and Kamala Harris, who are both mixed race, is that they self-identify as primarily Black. Logically, as Spook used to say, which is not as advantageous as their abandoned half. But I know the feeling. When I was relatively young – say 14 – I didn’t believe in God. I don’t remember ever making an actual decision about it. Thinking back on it, I’m sure my atheist grandfathers and my atheist Dad were an influence. And, as far as that goes, my atheist Mother who would explain, when trying to get me to go to church, “I don’t believe in God, but people who do seem to be happier, so you should go to church.”

Still, identifying as an atheist seemed to be a cheap way of denying my Jewish heritage which was not an advantage. So, when asked – and people in those days seemed to care more about what religion somebody was, so I was asked – I would say something along the lines of “I don’t believe in any religion, but my heritage is Jewish.” End aside.

Back to Vice-President Kamala Harris. She is going to win this Presidential Election election. I started out by writing; Right now, I think that she is going to win. then I think that she is going to win. But both of those read too tentative so I’ll stick with: Kamala Harris is going to win the 2024 Presidential Election election.

Wow!!!

Americana, Current Affairs, Politics

Will Trump go to jail? Can he be president? What’s next after guilty verdict? Washington Post

That Former President Donald Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies is shocking. At least, I was shocked, although not exactly surprised. I shouldn’t have been shocked either, everybody I talked to thought he was guilty (although the people I talked to represented an extremely biased sample). I also shouldn’t have been shocked because, like almost everything Trump is involved in, his defense was incompetent. They fought everything, starting with “Trump didn’t have sex with Stormy Daniels” when he clearly did rather than concentrating on one or two weak parts of the prosecution.

Quilty of all 34 felonies shouldn’t be surprising because they are linked so that if he is guilty of one, he was logically guilty of them all: the Invoice from Michael Cohen, marked as a record of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust (felony #1) was entered into the Detail General Ledger for the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, bearing voucher number 842457 (felony #2), and then paid by Check and check stub, Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust Account, bearing check number 000138 which is felony #4, and so on. Still, “Guilty” 34 times is shocking.

Shocking!

A Couple of Political Thoughts

Americana, Current Affairs, Politics

“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world, but they don’t have any following. They’re four people, and that’s how many votes they got.” In an interview with The New York Times circa 2020, Speaker Nancy Pelosi referring to the Squad.

After five years in Congress, she [AOC] has emerged as a tested navigator of its byzantine systems, wielding her celebrity to further her political aims in a way few others have. Three terms in, one gets the sense that we’re witnessing a skilled tactician exiting her political adolescence and coming into her own as a veteran operator out to reform America’s most dysfunctional political body. The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez You Don’t Know by Gaby Del Valle in The New York Times

It has now been about a week and a half since my heart valve operation, and everything seems brighter. I feel younger, not young for sure, but younger. The weather has been great – at least most of the time – with clear blue skies and temperatures in the low 70s. I’m not supposed to drive yet – I have no idea why – and my hospital release papers tell me not to walk on steep hills or lift more than 5 pounds. I have had zero pain. Zero. This whole operation has been astounding.

Near the end of last year, I got COVID. Earlier in the Spring, I ended up in the hospital with the flu, and now I am sort of tethered to the house. My last seven months have faded into a grey blur in which nothing seems to have happened. In the meanwhile, the world outside our door has continued to chug along. Well, most of the world, anyway, the US presidential race seems to be stuck in a Groundhog Day loop (just like me).

While there are safe for Biden blue states and safe for Trump red states, Trump seems to be leading Biden, more or less permanently, in the so-called swing states. As to why Trump is leading Biden, there are all kinds of theories, from the poles being wrong to the Democrats being clueless about what the average person thinks. All the theories are slightly true, but I also think that Joe Biden has never been a particularly good campaigner. That’s too bad because Biden has been a much better-than-average President and the best president so far on Climate Change.

The brightest spot in this year’s political landscape – for me, at least – is that so far, every Squad member has won their primary despite AIPAC – the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – claiming they are antiSemites and spending heavily to eliminate them from the public discussion. The Squad is not anti-Semitic, of course, but they are anti-Israeli policy, and AIPAC is a lobbying organization designed to promote the Israeli government and its policies, so there is a built-in conflict. Not only is that conflict with the Israeli government but with President Biden, who has, until recently, wholeheartedly backed whatever Netanyahu did.

Still, that hasn’t stopped President Biden from allying with the Squad when he is trying to minimize Climate Change. A couple of weeks ago, he announced the formation of an American Climate Corps and invited AOC to join him in the announcement. She did and even wore Biden’s trademark aviator glasses. I read about the announcement on Instagram and still haven’t seen anything about it in the New York Times since September of last year.

Lastly, maybe that is part of the problem; the mainstream media is too busy covering the 2024 Presidential election as a political horse race rather than talking about what the candidates want to do. No matter what the media reports, I am feeling much better and will soon be able to drive and even lift more than five pounds.

Coretta King & Martin Luther King Jr.

Americana, Politics, Uncategorized
Julia Roberts lors du Festival de Cannes le 19 mai 2022. (Photo by Laurent Koffel/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

George Washington gave us our independence. Abraham Lincoln cemented our unity. Equally significant, Dr. Martin Luther King glorified America’s spirit! As our greatest spiritual leader, Dr. Martin Luther King more than deserves a national day of permanent recognition! Edwin Cooney  

Part of me doesn’t think that Martin Luther King Day is a real holiday. It has always seemed like sort of a consultation prize given to African Americans in lieu of treating them as well as White People are treated.

The Reverand King was a powerful and consistent advocate for African American rights but was not celebrated in the White community for that. He was beaten and jailed for it. To quote Representative Ayanna Pressley, “Dr. King wasn’t murdered because he was a preacher, pacifist with a dream, that is revisionist history…He didn’t become an American hero until after he was dead and no longer a threat to White supremacy.”

The animosity against King wasn’t just in the South, it was also at the Federal Leval; the FBI wiretapped King and harassed him. This was not J. Eager Hoover going rogue; the wiretapping was done with the knowledge and permission of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. The FBI bugged King’s hotel rooms, hoping to record King’s extramarital activities. They wanted to discredit him. The FBI spread misinformation throughout the government as well as to journalists and church leaders, saying that King was a communist and a moral degenerate.

Reading all the accolades for King over the last couple of days, all this seems shocking. Still, the most shocking thing I’ve recently read about Martin Luther King Jr. is that he and his wife, Coretta Scott King, paid the hospital bills for Julia Robert’s birth. The backstory is charming and worth Googling.

What I like about the story is that it flatters everybody involved. That King was a nice guy as well as a powerful leader is worth remembering.