Month: May 2020

 
What is it about President Obama that really gets under your skin?

Transcript published by Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire.

 
A toxic, but increasingly familiar, argument gets an explosive response.

Oh. Well fuck me. If they’re over 60 who cares? They only had another 20 years in them but of course they’d have been a drain on the system. Asshole.

— Deheubarth (@DeheuB) May 5, 2020

And we hear a familiar voice.

I suppose I'm one of those expendables. My youth was long, long ago in a world that suddenly seems far, far away.

We were sometimes scolded if our language became too coarse. A paraphrase of one rebuke seems to apply:

Elle, do you kiss your grandmother with that mouth?

— Burr Deming (@BurrLand01) May 6, 2020

Do you kiss your grandmother with that mouth?

 

From driftglass:

Do you remember learning about D-Day? Maybe in school, or from your father or grandpa or an uncle?

That was when the WWII Allies mounted the largest amphibious landing in the history of the world in France on D-Day, despite knowing for a fact that the casualty rate would be appalling (General Eisenhower was told that paratrooper casualties alone could be as high as 75 percent.)

And they did indeed suffered huge, bloody losses.

And then they finally secured the beaches, moved the heavy equipment ashore and slogged their way several miles inland.

Do you remember learning that, upon hearing the news that the Allies had landed in France, President Franklin Roosevelt announced that the war was pretty much over? And that he then ordered Eisenhower to turn the army around and sail everyone back to England so that hair salons and bowling alleys could reopen and everything could get back to normal?

Yeah, I don’t remember that last part either.

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From Max’s Dad:

As across the country, gangs of thuggish armed bigots and clueless nitwits gather in groups to demand their right to bowl, we here in Nebraska gather in groups of 50, politely display our signs, and demand politely ask to be allowed to get a virus that will kill 3 or 4 of those dummies standing outside the State Capitol.

Hey its not the most favorite thing Ive ever done. Staying home. Wearing masks in public. Binge watching The Good Fight, Amazing Race, old Hawaii 5-O’s (Wo Fat is a Top 10 TV villain of all time) and incredible mediocrities like Little Fires Everywhere. But Ive done it for an entire month and a half. Oh the humanity! My parents and grandparents spent 4 years sacrificing during a World War and this current pack of planet destroying lamebrains cant wait to kill themselves and others so they can get their fucking grey roots colored. Its baffling. Now I know the vast majority of people are doing the right thing, understand its not about YOU getting Covid-19 but about YOU giving it to someone else, but its this rock slithering 30% who cannot stand not being at a Trump rally and goddammit they need attention and their right to be a racist, sexist, armed to the teeth fuckstick will not be infringed. Enough! This is about is here in Nebraska and not about a death cult devoted to their own Dear Leader.

Nebraska has a egg headed Governor named Pete Ricketts, the Eric Trump of the billionaire Cubs owning Ricketts family. This guy became bored making millions by sitting around T D Ameritrade and getting his Daddy coffee.So Daddy attempted to get rid of Eric Pete by buying him a Senate seat. That failed miserably. Ricketts laid low, found a shot at running for Governor of Nebraska in 2014, barely won the Republican primary (26% to 25%) then crushed the almost non existent Nebraska Democratic Party’s sacrificial lamb. Hey, look, nobody likes this arrogant Richie Rich on a personal level with his buying whatever he wants including legislative candidates and the ability to buy illegal drugs and killing people. Yep, he’s a Nebraska Trump.

Ricketts refused to lock down the state instead recommending social distancing and quarantine. He did limit gatherings to 10 people except of course if you slaved away in a meat packing plant then you could go stand shoulder to shoulder and cough and hack away. Ricketts is lifting these restrictions on Monday and has ordered meat packing plants to stay open. He also ordered that if you didnt feel comfortable returning to your job you would be a quitter and thus ineligible for unemployment. His administration is obsessed with not paying unemployment benefits, implying that most applications are fakes and that Nebraskans are lazy slackers, ya know like he used to be.

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• Tommy Christopher suggests that a campaign season is a tough time to test the proposition that an accused sexual predator may be entirely innocent and that a politically motivated accuser may be making things up. “If Biden’s accuser is lying,” says Tommy, “then maybe people need to hear a liar be called a liar.”
   
  I dunno. Maybe the thing is to deny the accusation if not true, avoid name-calling, show gentle respect, encourage investigation, let the facts speak. Otherwise, keep silent.
   
  You know… be the non-Trump, be the non-Kavanaugh.
  Be the contrast.
   
• In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson takes us through the desperate measures Republican strategists are considering. Candidates should stop defending their president and just get local. Trump’s campaign should proclaim that he is the very best of the very worst – because he is horrible, but Democrats are double horrible plus one.
   
  Heather reviews all that and why none of those fine plans will work.
   
• Jon Perr at PERRspectives slams Donald Trump, then slams him again and again, without saying anything. At least not saying his own words. He simply quotes a President from before I was born. And quotes him again and again.
   
• Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger has the latest poll results. The November election is close very close. Biden edges Trump, that’s the good news. But it’s by only one point.
   
  Hold on! That’s not nationwide. It’s a state poll in wait… where?

Continue reading “Biden & Accuser, Ballots, It’s Close, 1918, Very Fine People, Pence Pants, Masks”

 
From Michael J. Stern in USA Today:

If we must blindly accept every allegation of sexual assault, the #MeToo movement is just a hit squad. And it’s too important to be no more than that.

During 28 years as a state and federal prosecutor, I prosecuted a lot of sexual assault cases. The vast majority came early in my career, when I was a young attorney at a prosecutor’s office outside Detroit.

A year ago, Tara Reade accused former Vice President Joe Biden of touching her shoulder and neck in a way that made her uncomfortable, when she worked for him as a staff assistant in 1993. Then last month, Reade told an interviewer that Biden stuck his hand under her skirt and forcibly penetrated her with his fingers. Biden denies the allegation.

When women make allegations of sexual assault, my default response is to believe them. But as the news media have investigated Reade’s allegations, I’ve become increasingly skeptical.

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