Y’all misogynists don’t act racist Team MAGA was on its back foot for a couple of days after President Joe Biden on Sunday dropped out of the presidential race and passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris. Republican attack lines prepared for one old white guy against another old white guy would need reworking to smear the daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father. Donald Trump will not be able to hold his tongue, of course. He never has. But his MAGA cultists never quite mastered the art of the dog whistle (CNN): In an interview with CNN’s Manu Raju Monday, Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett suggested President Joe Biden selected Harris as his running mate solely because she is Black: “One hundred percent she is a DEI hire,” he said, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion. “Her record is abysmal at best.” DEI is how one now utters the N-word if one is a Republican congressman from Knoxville. Or anyone else in the MAGA movement.
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North Carolina is in play “Sunday was the single biggest day for online Democratic donations in years, reads the subhead at The New York Times this morning. With President Biden’s withdrawal Sunday, with his endorsement of his vice president as his replacement, and with Kamala Harris the clear pick of multiple state Democratic delegations, now comes the veepstakes. An avalanche of cash for the Harris coffers followed the announcement — more than $50 million. Endorsements flooded in as well, including 50 state Democratic chairs, members of Congress and governors. A palpable sense of relief flowed through the Democratic Party. The next big question, and Harris’s first big decision, will be her vice presidential pick. Swing state governors are clear favorites. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (46), Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (51), and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (52) are in Slate’s Tier 1. But Whitmer has said she doesn’t want it. When did Kentucky become a swing state? Donald Trump won it with over 62 percent in both 2016 and 2020. Shapiro is a possible. He could bring with him 19 electoral votes.
Not that he had it to lose President Biden upset someone’s evil plans by handing off his party’s (presumptive) presidential nomination to VP Kamala Harris. “Discount Goebbels” has a sad. Trump adviser Stephen Miller is freaking out. This is absolutely delicious. I could have stripped naked and danced in the street. Christmas came early. Miller is as vile as Trump, but far more strategic. He relished the idea of running Trump against Biden almost as much as sending troops to round up immigrants in detention camps and deporting them by the millions. The prospect of Biden resigning and handing Harris the presidency meant she, not Trump, would be president No. 47. All that Trump 47 merch would be instantly obsolete. But with Biden’s withdrawal, a whole lot more MAGA gear is obsolete as well as demolishing Miller’s and Trump’s campaign plans. Miller and Trump are furious. They now have to heavily retool their campaign with only months to go. Trump hates losing money almost as much as he hates America. (He could declare bankruptcy on the Taj Mahal, and did, one of several Trump bankruptcies.) But never fear.
I know Tom is for N. Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper for Veep and he makes good points. If he put the state in play he’s obviously the front runner. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is also mentioned frequently and he’s very good. He’s also from a state that knows from Appalachia and can counter JD Vance’s gross propaganda which I think is useful. I have no dog in this fight. There are a number of excellent choices. I just thought I’d feature this one since he’s on the short list.
Then there’s this, which I saw all over twitter yesterday: And this disgusting piece of misogyny: That’s an illustration of this from the Dear Leader. This is what we can expect from that pig and his henchmen. Just thought you should know. And by the way, I truly doubt the suburban moms Trump needs to win in those big midwest states are on board with this crap.
Sen. Chris Murphy: On this historic day, I want to tell you a story about Joe Biden, and what he did behind the scenes to make the historic 2022 gun bill – the first major gun safety legislation in 30 years – a reality. 1/ It starts with a phone call he made to me days after the Uvalde shooting. 2/ After the tragic Uvalde and Buffalo shootings, Biden wanted to give a prime time address to push the Congress to act. But several of his advisors told him not to waste one of his few prime time speeches on guns. Congress will never pass a gun bill, they told him. 3/ He called me to ask my opinion. In 2013, he and I had sat for hours with the Sandy Hook parents, and parents of kids killed in Hartford and Bridgeport. I knew how personal those families’ pain was to him. “I want to give this speech, even if a bill is a long shot,” he said. 4/ Days later, he called back and told me he had made up his mind to give the speech – bc he worried if he didn’t, the urgency would dissipate (Congress was on recess that week) and our chance to do something would be lost.
JV Last at the Bulwark has some interesting thoughts on the events of the last day: On the night of June 27, the various power centers within the Democratic party began a difficult conversation: Was Joe Biden still capable of running a vigorous campaign? Over three weeks the party reached a diffuse—if not unanimous—consensus: He was not. This consensus was the product of all levels of the party: Elder statesmen such as Nancy Pelosi, elected Democrats analyzing their own future prospects, donors making decisions about spending, and the main body of public opinion among Democratic voters. Once this consensus was reached, the various power centers began a dialogue with the party’s leader, President Biden. The party expressed its choice. Biden pushed back. The party took up the question again and, after due consideration, held firm. Joe Biden then stepped aside for the good of the nation. This is how healthy institutions are supposed to work.
Thank you President Biden for your service to our country and for having the grace to usher in Kamala Harris to finish the job. Harris went to campaign headquarters today. Yes. The president called in and it was moving:
Very much worth seeing if you missed it. You really cannot overstate just how bizarre he was, and I’ve seen a lot of Trump speeches. I liked David Frump’s description in The Atlantic: At the climax of the Republican National Convention last night, former President Donald Trump’s nomination-acceptance speech was a disheveled mess, endless and boring. He spoke for 93 minutes, the longest such speech on record. The runner-up was another Trump speech, in 2016, but that earlier effort had a certain sinister energy to it. This one limped from dull to duller. Somebody seems to have instructed Trump that he was supposed to have been spiritually transformed by the attempt on his life, so he delivered the opening segment of his address in a dreary monotone, the Trump version of pious solemnity. After that prologue, the speech meandered along bizarre byways to pointless destinations. A few minutes before midnight eastern time, Trump pronounced a heavy “to conclude”—and then kept going for another nine minutes. Perhaps it was the disorienting aftereffect of shock, perhaps the numbing side effect of painkillers.
But not if the beatings continue One may find polls to support about any position out there. A set of polls that consistently tilt one way are those reporting that conservatives are happier than liberals. These findings date back years. Contra that, Rachel Bitecofer cites data from the World Happiness Report—a partnership between Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre and the United Nations—that suggests people who live in red states are, by and large, less happy than those who live in bluer states. European countries, you have heard, report greater hapoiness than the U.S., however. This too is a consistent result. Indeed, “the U.S. fell eight spots to number 23 in the global rankings between 2023 and 2024,” dropping out of the top 20 for the first time in the survey’s history. But not so fast. Polling of individiuals still more consistently shows that conservatives report being happier than liberals. Real Clear Science from August 2022: Social psychologist Jaime Napier, Program Head of Psychology at NYU-Abu Dhabi has conducted research suggesting that views about inequality play a role.