gaothanear

Trump is far to dangerous to be allowed on Twitter but he still has the nuclear codes. Go figure!

Finally.
 

It has been the most fascinating political horse race I have ever followed. With very little sleep, I consider myself lucky I have any fingernails left.
I prepared myself for Democrat failure. It's a wacky world, so poles and predictions be damned. Plus, it's Georgia. I never have any faith in the south, especially with voter response to Black politicians.
This past year of politics has been the most depressing. And now we have the sedition caucus. DISGUSTING! Strip them naked. Tar and feather them all. A black stain forever on American democracy.
I know far too many people who are seriously suffering. Most friends in my circle are self-employed. Almost everyone lost their job overnight, thanks to Trump's mishandling of Covid. Every single person I know with a career on Broadway has been out of work for months.
Today there is light. There is hope.
A big FUCK YOU to Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. Stacey Abrams deserves some serious love from the Biden administration. I'm praying Sally Yates becomes Attorney General.

I'm glad Trump soon will be out, but I don't think twitter should have suspended his account.

Could LeBron James Defeat Donald Trump?
In securing major concessions and expanding voter participation, NBA players may have ended up changing the way 2020 plays out.
This is probably one of the best developments since the Black Lives Matter movement rose to a whole different political and moral dimension this year.
I've already said I think we have arrived at the new Moral Awakening I've been anticipating (or at least hoping for) for most of this decade.  I think BLM, a movement for both racial and economic justice, existed mostly at the periphery of our political culture until 2020.  The fact that it is now front and center, and driving the election debate, is one indicator that lots of people woke up about something.
All the news with Black athletes (and White allies) and the NBA is another indicator.  This is unprecedented.  Athletes doing politics is not new.  But the fact that James can call Obama, a former Black President, and Obama can advise James to double down and make this all about voting and access to voting?  That's new.  We have never been here before.  Nobody, not even the people in the middle of it, have a clue where it's going.  But it is all very, very, very good news I think.
One of the things that I'm enjoying about 2020 is that my ignorance about all kinds of things relating to race is being exposed to me on an almost daily basis.
So on this one, I feel ignorant.  I don't have a clue whether, or how, this will impact the election.  I don't think Biden can say or do anything that will be particularly compelling to the segment of the Black population that Charlemagne Tha God probably speaks for.  I don't know whether Blacks, or anyone who follows basketball, will listen to basketball players about the urgency of voting.  I guess we'll all learn together on Election Day.  But the idea that American sports arenas may now be symbols to Black youth of a ladder up - both by way of athletic prowess, and the urgent need to vote?  I just love it!
With all due respect to Rev. Sharpton, when the violence started, I kept wondering: where are the Black pastors?  So one piece of personal ignorance that was partly cleaned up is that I learned this is not Dr. King's movement.  The women who founded Black Lives Matter are, in fact, women.  The real wake up call to me was when Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told people to go home.  She was the first voice I heard that gripped me in the way MLK does.  She cited MLK, and everything she said was eloquent (and seemingly effective, in stopping the looting that was happening in Atlanta).  But the moments that were most moving to me were when she looked at the camera as spoke as a Black Mom.  Rev. Sharpton is himself a bit of an anachronism.  I mostly hear him on Morning Joe.  That's typically a good place to hear the voices of Never Trump Republicans.  The fact that the Black guy who used to BE the cutting edge is now, in part, the one who explains it to White Americans like me is interesting.
I did not need Rep. Clyburn to explain to me why there is no real distance between Joe Biden and the Black community on the crime bill.  In fact, I'd like to see Clyburn and his fellow South Carolina native Charlemagne have it out.  Because I do think Charlemagne probably speaks for lots of younger Blacks who do see distance between themselves and Biden on the legacy of the crime bill.  
Which leads to the next area where I feel ignorant.  It's reasonable to think that White America would react to all this by voting for President Toxic as a "law and order" quasi-Nixon.  And that may still happen.  So far, though, there's little to no indication of that.  In fact, it's the opposite.  Majorities or pluralities see Biden as better able to deal with race relations and public safety.  They believe President Toxic is the one who will lead to more violence, if re-elected.  Who knew?
Apart from race, I do think the fact that so many people see President Toxic as a poster child for chaos and corruption is a big part of his problem.  But on race, it could be that America knows that since the 1980's Trump has basically been preaching about how Whites should hate "those people."  His theme of "Jobs Not Mobs" in both 2018 and 2020 is the same hate and fear, different century. 
Why is it working less well today?  The simplest explanation might have come from Republican Tim Scott, in his RNC speech.  In explaining how he was elected to the US House and then Senate in a crowded field of Republicans, including a Thurmond, he credited it to "the evolution of the Southern heart".  I can go with that.  Were it not a partisan speech, Sen. Scott easily could have taken out the word "Southern", added President Obama, and spoken about the evolution of the "American heart".  Or even the "White American heart". 
I think some of that is what's happening today.  And if it is, we can thank Dr. King and fighters like John Lewis for that.  President Toxic may be a fighter.  But on race relations, I think he only makes matter worse.  My reading of the polls is that most Americans agree.  If the American heart evolved, President Toxic's heart has not appeared to evolve with it.
Scott is a shining light in the Republican Party.  If the GOP had chosen him as their leader in 2016, or if the collapse of the Toxic Trump Republican brand leads them to choose him in the future, I think both the Republican Party and the United States will be in a much better place.  That said, some of his "radical socialist" rhetoric was just laughable.  Since I'm praising him, I feel like I have to offset his rhetoric with reality.  There's only two Presidencies under which Black poverty went down in my adult lifetime.  It went from 33.4 % (1992) to 22.5 % (2000) under Clinton.  W. ended up leaving Obama with a Black poverty rate of 24.7 %  (2008).  Obama and Biden brought Black poverty from a high of 27.6 % (2011) to a new all-time low of 22.0 % (2016).  You can blame Obama and Biden for not doing better.  But they got handed The Great Recession to start with. And they handed President Toxic the lowest Black poverty rate ever.
President Toxic could take credit for continuing - not achieving -  the lowest Black poverty rate in US history, which hit 20.8 % in 2018.  By the time the 2020 poverty rate is measured, though, his legacy will probably not look very good.  The gloomiest projection I've seen is that COVID-19 could force Black poverty back up to about 32 %.  Meaning all the gains made since 1992 under 16 years of Democratic Presidents would be reversed.
The flip side of the poverty equation is this.  The HEROES Act passed by Pelosi's House and blocked by Republicans in the Senate could lower Black poverty to 10 %  by one estimate.  That would truly be a historic low.  That would have involved continuing the $600 a week benefit through December, a second round of stimulus checks, and increases in the SNAP (food assistance) programs.  If President Toxic's Republicans really wanted to brag about lowering Black (and Hispanic and White) poverty, they should have been supporting this - not killing it.
My point is that I think part of the change in the American heart is that people understand the links between poverty, crime, and success more than ever before.  Sen. Scott was never a criminal.  But he talked about how his Grandfather never learned to read and write, and he himself was a failure in school at one point.
I feel I was ignorant about this as well.  Meaning I didn't know how open-minded and open-hearted Whites, especially college-educate Whites, would be. 
Black conservatives and ex-cops like the one I started this thread with describe many of the Black men and women killed by cops as "the criminal of the criminals".  Or, in a word, "thugs".  That gives any White who wants one a "get out racism free" card.  And if we're talking about policing, it's baked into the cake that we won't be talking about the La David Johnsons of America - the Black Army Sgt. who was killed by Islamic militants in Niger in 2017.  We'll be talking about Blacks who have likely had some association with criminals, and a police record.  They are perfect candidates for the game of "Whack A Black".  No matter what they do, there will always be a reason to justify why the use of deadly force was appropriate - after the fact.  Black conservatives will say they just don't get why so many people want to wear t-shirts that, in their eyes, glorify "thugs".
Last night, despite my better judgment, I looked at Daddy's "Racism is OK" website for the first time in months. There was a predictable argument from one of the predictable conservatives that goes like this:  1) If no one had called the cops because something bad was happening, they would not have arrived at the scene and shot Jacob Blake.  2)  If Jacob Blake had obeyed them, they would not have shot him.  That's all quite true, probably.  It's also true that if all people were perfect, we could defund the police 100 %.  Because there would be no crime, ever.  Back on the Planet Earth, to me this is a recipe for empowering police to shoot and kill whoever they want.  And it especially empowers Whack A Black thinking among aggressive and/or racist cops. 
By this standard, cops had complete justification to shoot and kill me several times in my life.  Like when they responded to a call about a burglar in the house and I answered the door with a knife in my hand.  It was actually a screwdriver, I owned the house, and I was preparing the floor for a handyman coming at 6 AM to lay carpet.  But someone who thought I was a burglar called the cops.  True, when they said "Put the knife down" I said, "Officer, it's a screwdriver, I'm working on a rental property, and I am bending over to put the screwdriver down."  I did not seriously think the cops would shoot me.  That right there may make me NOT BLACK.  One way or the other, I don't buy the idea that any of this empowers a cop to shoot me, or Jacob Blake.
The same predictable conservative on Daddy's "Racism Is OK" website argued exactly the opposite about the White vigilante who killed two protesters.  By the same logic, if the vigilante hadn't driven to Wisconsin, he wouldn't have had to kill anyone.  If he didn't have a gun, he wouldn't have to defend himself from people who who were upset that he had a gun. Or because he had already used the gun to shoot someone.  But no.  In a battle between a skateboard and an AR-15, obviously the White vigilante had no choice but to pull the trigger.
The main difference between the two situations is that the cops actually do have to show up in situations like this.  It's their job.  And part of the job is that their lives are at risk, they are trained in the use of force, and it is expected that some people won't obey them.  There is no similar justification for a 17 year old White vigilante carrying a gun around to defend whatever he thinks he is defending.  It is not his job.  So you have to feel really good about White vigilantes with guns to argue that he really needed to be doing what he was doing.
Spending 30 minutes reading stuff like that reinforced that I have no need to get into such debates.  What I need to do is send as much money as I can to Democrats, or volunteer, and definitely vote.   Hopefully,  we can throw President Toxic into the sewer he came from.  And get serious about the huge problems facing us.  Including income inequality and racial inequality, which are related to each other and to the violence.. 
The conservatives (especially the White ones) will always argue the cops and White vigilantes were right, the Black thugs were wrong, and that's that.  In 1915, this thinking was immortalized in The Birth Of A Nation.  The vigilantes were the KKK, and the thugs were any living Black, primarily in The South.  This thinking worked fine in 1915.  It does not appear to be working as well in 2020.  So we're going to learn soon whether 2020 is a somewhat less racist remake, or something better and more just. If it's the latter, I think that's because most Americans know that racism is a real problem.  And that dealing with it will necessitate serious initiatives about poverty, education, and economic empowerment.
After I thought about it, it struck me that the Blacks who spoke at the RNC actually reinforced what Black Lives Matter and Democrats are saying about racism and the economy.  This was not a gathering of Black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.  One takeaway from several speakers is that success rests on being a good athlete, and being friends with Donald Trump.
As Sen. Scott described, his is mostly a story of political empowerment, not economic empowerment.  Understandably, he did not focus on how Republicans fought tooth and nail for decades against everything that made his political success possible.  I thought it was very graceful and effective of him to simply speak about "the evolution of the Southern heart."  But most of the Black cast of characters who spoke at the RNC, or who have defend President Toxic, are Black conservative athletes and entertainers.   Jack Brewer.  Herschel Walker.  Diamond And Silk.  Mike Tyson.  Kanye West.  (Is he a conservative?  Or just a gadfly?)  They represent a particular path to economic advancement for African Americans that starts with the phrase "exception to the rule".  There is only one LeBron James.
That brings us right back to where I started.  I'm grateful Black athletic superstars like LeBron James are taking an unprecedented stand against racism.
There's three specific things they add to this political debate, that I hope helps tip it toward success.  
First, they add a successful, powerful, and respected Black male voice.  Again, with all due respect to the women who started Black Lives Matter and the women who run cities like Chicago and Atlanta, the outspoken Black athletes tend to be men.  Many if not most of them came up from poor inner-city neighborhoods.  So a small minority of Black conservatives or cops are saying these Black men being shot are "thugs".  This activism puts the faces of Black men who are icons - not 'thugs" - in the front line of the effort. 
Second, if Sen. Scott is right and there has been "an evolution of the [American] heart", I think these athletes are speaking to that evolution.  If all of them thought this was only about a small group of "thugs" who are "the criminal of the criminals" who get shot by cops, I just don't believe they'd be risking their jobs and reputations over it.  Granted, if they lose some of their income over this they're still super rich.  Just like when they started charities  focused on issues like education and poverty, they were still super rich.  What their actions say to me is they are bearing witness to the fact  that, despite their success, systemic racism is a huge problem in America.  To quote President Toxic, what have they got to lose?  They actually have a lot of things to lose by speaking out.  So I have to assume they are doing so because, unlike Trump, it's not just about money and power.  They know what it was like to grow up around poverty and racism.
It seems like the majority of America is on the same side as "thugs" like Jacob Blake, anyway.  But it makes it easier when that means you are on the side of LeBron James, and very successful and respected Black men like him who have climbed the same ladder as Jack Brewer.
Third, precisely because they are the exceptions to the rule who made it to the top, just like Sen. Scott they are excellent leaders to speak to what actually needs to be done.  According to the NCAA, the odds of making it from high school athletics to the NCAA are under 10 % for almost all sports.  For basketball, it's 3.5 %.  The odds of going from NCAA to pro sports are about as low.   For professional men's basketball, it's 1.2 %  If I'm reading the NCAA numbers right, out of a pool of over 500,000 high school basketball players something like 50 of them ended up being drafted into major pro basketball every year.  Meanwhile, that NCAA link says this:
Black professional athletes probably have a particularly good idea of how challenging Black economic empowerment is precisely because they are among the success stories. 
I hope President Toxic loses, and Sen. Scott and Jaime Harrison make South Carolina the first US State to elect concurrent Black Senators, who happen to be members of different political parties.  That would be a really good sign of progress and, to quote Scott again, "the evolution of the Southern heart".  Then we can really start to get to work on moving forward.
I'm grateful that LeBron James and his baskbetball buddies have put their heart into this.  I think it is potentially going to make a big difference.
And one final image, with all due respect to Sen. Scott.

That's the image that I'll always remember from the 2020 Republican Convention.  Not Tim Scott, not Jack Brewer, not even Ivanka or Melania.
Right after President Toxic equated the Democratic push for "economic and racial justice" with tearing America down, the tv camera panned to some of the most powerful Cabinet members sitting in the front row.  They are White, male, and very rich.  So if you want to talk about who's got power in President Toxic's America, that's it.  I don't see Jack Brewer in that crowd, or in the Cabinet.
It did look at least somewhat different when President Toxic's favorite person to hate, Barack Obama, was in charge.  We have a ways to go just to get back to where we were.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

That's the interesting question.  What kind of a nation do we want to be?
I've been saying for years that we are headed to a Moral Awakening.  Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street and the growing awareness of income inequality, the Sanders campaign, the Warren campaign.  To me those were all signs of what may be coming.
Now I would not say an Awakening is coming.  I's say it's here. 
By Awakening I mean eras like the 1960's and civil rights.  You could also throw in the explicitly religious Great Awakenings in US history, although that fuzzes it up more.  They are periods of social renewal and a focus on the "soul" of the nation.  As opposed to what might be called "greed is good" values.  And one sign that we've arrived is that suddenly people see things that they were slumbering or passive about previously. 
BLM is certainly a good example of that.  There was protest, including violence and looting, after Ferguson.  But not like this.  What goes along with the new tide, which President Toxic is missing entirely, is that part of the movement is around personal morality.  That was true in the religious Great Awakenings.  It was also true in the Civil Rights Era, when MLK asked us to look into our own hearts.  Is this the nation we aspire to be?

Any leader who thinks the simple and one-dimensional answer is bulldogs or water hoses or federal troops or assault rifles is missing a huge part of what's really going on.  Of course, why am I not surprised that President Toxic is not the kind of guy who gets this?
I was impressed with a new Biden ad running which I will post below that fits into this theme.  I went to find that "Jobs Not Mobs" tweet President Toxic sent out.  When I Googled "Jobs Not Mobs Trump", this ad from 2018 came up, which I'd never seen.
I thought the first part of the ad, about the economy, was powerful.  This is clearly the campaign President Toxic was hoping to run in 2020 as well.  And the little kick at Hillary at the end was a nice touch.  
So you have to wonder.  If this didn't work in 2018, what makes them think it will work better in 2020?  One number that pops up in this ad refers to 4.1 % GDP growth in the second quarter of 2018.  In the second quarter of 2020 it was - 9.5 %.  In 2018 they said "the core economy is on fire".  In 2020 Coronavirus is spreading and killing like wildfire.
I'm going to keep using Charlie Cook's 2018 phrase:  "color intensifier".  Ads like this probably did work in states like Indiana and Missouri and North Dakota in 2018, where Democratic Senators got their asses kicked to the curb.  But they didn't work in most places.
If it was just the economy stupid, the Republicans probably should have done better in 2018.  So some part of this is that voters, particularly women, just aren't sold by this.  This 2018 ad proves that this has nothing in particular to do with any of the riots or looting that happened when the BLM protests really took hold of the nation.  This shouldn't be any surprise.  It's the same President Toxic that was just Donald Toxic back in the Central Park 5 days, when he said this:
Same hate, different century.
So he got his wish.  He's had three years to preach hate. My sense is that this is partly why things didn't go so well for Republicans in 2018, despite a good economy.
I can't imagine the 2020 tweet is going to work much better, since it doubles down on the fear and hate without mentioning a thing about the economy, or COVID-19.  Wonder why?
Here's one of the Biden/Harris ads that is being blanketed all over about 15 swing states.
I can't think of a clearer distinction between campaigning on fear, and campaigning on hope.  I'd take it further and say it's the difference between offering up hope, and offering up hate.
And that ad is Moral Awakening territory to me.  Biden is gambling on the idea that the nation is ready to talk about racial justice.  And the question, "Who do we want to be?"  I used the word gambling.  But if I'm reading the polls right, it's a pretty solid beat.  I don't think the Democrats could have run an ad like this to rebut "law and order" in 1968.  The fact that this is what Democrats are selling today is itself a small sign of progress, at least to me.
Ron Brownstein has delivered yet another great analysis relevant to this, full of both good data and good insights.
The Huge Snag in Trump’s Reelection Pitch
The president’s own volatility complicates his effort to convince Americans that he can stabilize their lives.
He's coming at it from a somewhat different angle, which I think compliments what I'm saying.  It's a bit hard to sell "law and order" when even your supporters equate your Presidency with chaos.  It's hard for President Toxic to say he'll calm down this situation when he's the one saying he hates "these people", and we should, too.  The one thing he's got going for him is the idea that hating people gets something done.  Although even the majority of Independents seem to think what it actually gets done is more violence, not less.
This is where I wish Elizabeth Warren was our nominee.  I think Biden is probably a bit more of a calming presence than her, actually.  But he's not the guy I would put forward as the poster child to fidelity to the law.  Which is not to say he's broken any law.  But Team Toxic will keep arguing he did.  As well as his family.   All they had against Warren was "fake recipes" in a cookbook called Pow Wow Chow.  She's the one that could have said "Really?  President Law And Order?  Really?  I know you don't read, Donald.  But the polls say people see you as President Chaos, and President Corruption.  You want us to buy President Law And Order?  Come on.  Give the viewers a break!"
That said, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that this issue of race/crime/safety does not hurt Biden, and probably mostly works in his favor.  The polls certainly suggest that.  There is zero evidence it's hurting him in Wisconsin.  And my gut feeling is that President Toxic is making sure Black turnout will go through the roof.  And not, of course,  to vote for him.  Biden is simply giving Blacks who think America has racial justice problems - meaning almost all Blacks - a positive reason to vote.
If there's a problem with the ads above, it's not what it says but what it doesn't say.  As Brownstein says in that article, for a lot of people it's not about race.  And if it's about safety, it's COVID-19.  But the biggest thing for most people is still the economy, stupid.
PENNSYLVANIA: PRESIDENTIAL RACE TIGHTENS
That poll is worth digging through a little.  It's the only "bad news" for Democrats.  And with bad news like this, who needs good news?  The scary headline is that Biden dropped from a 13 point lead in July, 53/40 to a 4 point lead today, 49/45,  in Pennsylvania.  
There was no change in support for Democrats in general.  The partisan lean question went from favoring Democratic Congressional candidates 49/45 in July to 48/45 today.  Biden's favorability rating actually went up, from 45 % in July to 48 % today.  My read of those numbers is that Democrats are solidifying a lead that is close to 50 %, but not quite.
Monmouth says this about the people who shifted away from Biden:
My guess is this shift is more about the economy than anything else.  The slice of President Toxic's supporters that think like the McCloskeys, and own lots of guns that they feel okay pointing at Black people, are never going to consider voting for Joe Biden or Kamala Harris.
There's no reference to geography in the polls.  But I'd also guess that a lot of these men under 50 live in the parts of Pennsylvania Jim Carville refers to as "Pennsyltucky".  Or the ailing old factory towns, like Scranton. 
I'd also guess that some of these men under 50 are Black.  And probably a big chunk of them are Hispanic.  The 2018 version of "Jobs Not Mobs" didn't cut nationally, and it certainly would cut less well today.  But it's the best thing President Toxic still has going for him.  As an article I posted in a different thread argued, it's the last strength of President Toxic Biden has to go after.   
The good news in the bad news is that if Biden had these folks seriously thinking about him in July, there is no particular reason he can't close the deal with them by November.  No one is talking yet about all the factory jobs NOT CREATED in President Toxic's three "good" years, before the plague started.  Or about that fact that Pennsylvania now has fewer factory jobs than when President Toxic was elected.  
When I say we have arrived at Moral Awakening, that is a statement of hope as well as what I think is a statement of fact.  I'm fine with Biden winning by asking, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"  Or by asking, "Are you safer than you were four years ago?"  But he is definitely adding a moral dimension here, which is clearly targeted at Blacks.  But not just Blacks.  "Are we a better nation than we were four years ago?"
I do find that genuinely hopeful.  It is an invitation to move forward, into a new and better era.

There are a lot more of these if you Google  for them. 

The White Is considering refunding Democratic Party run cities.
 
Comment:
 
Nice campaign bull crap follow up to the Attorney General claiming Jacob Blake was armed and it was why the police shot him.
 
Next Mr. Barr will claim Jacob Blake shot himself by accident, the plane full of thugs shot him.

Back on topic, with the writings of James Baldwin, from way back in 1971, as he writes to Angela Davis in an open letter:
One way of gauging a nation’s health, or of discerning what it really considers to be its interests—or to what extent it can be considered as a nation as distinguished from a coalition of special interests—is to examine those people it elects to represent or protect it. One glance at the American leaders (or figure-heads) conveys that America is on the edge of absolute chaos, and also suggests the future to which American interests, if not the bulk of the American people, appear willing to consign the blacks. 

Daddy's right wing posse' is unable to divert from their rhetoric, even if facts and common sense dictate they should.   It's their dialog and they stick to it, so its not unexpected that they defend the WHITE killer, who crossed states lines with an assault rifle and placed himself in the middle of a Protest...  They will say he was just there for a "picnic" and found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Yeah, uh-huh !    We know the righty's are gullible and will buy any bullshit Trump feed them, so perhaps they think WE have the same gullibility DNA and they can feed it to us too ?   And then when you have the in-ept leader of our country defending the action too,  what do you expect... These people are like rusty old cans tied to the bumper of an old jalopy headed to Crazy town....
Fucking Fools...

He may have been around for a while but all his posts have been about escorts, not Politics.

Wow. He is a new club member, I see. I do not recognize his name. I am glad I am keeping myself away from that.