Remember that time two white guys were heckled and booed and shut down by the Black Lives Matter crowd? Well, it’s happened again. This time to Bernie Sanders.
In an ugly confrontation at a campaign rally in Seattle, Sanders found himself aggressively confronted by two Black Lives Matter protesters who obviously don’t believe in other people’s right to free speech, and threatened to shut down the event if they didn’t get the microphone. And what did Sanders do? He did what was expected of him: he caved.
Sanders was unable to regain control of the microphone, or of the event itself.
Later in the day, Sanders spoke at the University of Washington before 12,000 supporters. He addressed the issues that were the subject of the protesters earlier in the day:
“No president will fight harder to end institutional racism and reform criminal justice system,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “Too many lives have been destroyed by [the] war on drugs, by incarceration; we need to educate people. We need to put people to work.”
There’s something funny about a poor old white guy who is confronted, verbally harassed and told to shut-up by militant blacks, and yet continues to vow to fight institutional racism…
ADDED: Commenter Beldar brings this our attention, via Althouse:
Bernie Sanders didn’t want to stand too close to Marissa Johnson, which she just might consider evidence of how racist he is … like all those other white progressives who think so well of themselves. And so Bernie couldn’t get close to the microphone, and Bernie gave up trying and left — in a white Jeep — to go to the Comet Tavern where people had paid $200 to $1,000 to hear Bernie proclaim that “When we stand together, when black and white stand together, when gay and straight stand together, when women and men stand together… when we stand together, there is nothing, nothing, that we cannot accomplish.”
Given that I’m wearied by that faction of the Republican party these days, I thought it would be a good distraction to look at the crazy happenings on the dark side of the aisle. Because it can always be worse!
The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday gave its blessing to two of the most prominent activist groups associated with the Black Lives Matter protest movement — the #BlackLivesMatter network and Campaign Zero — to host a presidential town hall focused on issues of racial justice, but stood firm in its stance that there will be no additional debates on the 2016 campaign schedule.
In letters addressed to leaders of the #BlackLivesMatter network and prominent activist DeRay Mckesson, the DNC invited the activist groups to coordinate and host a presidential town hall similar to those currently being planned by other liberal groups including MoveOn.org.
“We believe that your organization would be an ideal host for a presidential candidate forum — where all of the Democratic candidates can showcase their ideas and policy positions that will expand opportunity for all, strengthen the middle class and address racism in America,” wrote Amy K. Dacey, chief executive officer of the DNC, in the letters which were obtained by The Post. “The DNC would be happy to help promote the event.”
The mystifying ideological claim that looting is violent and non-political is one that has been carefully produced by the ruling class because it is precisely the violent maintenance of property which is both the basis and end of their power. Looting is extremely dangerous to the rich (and most white people) because it reveals, with an immediacy that has to be moralized away, that the idea of private property is just that: an idea, a tenuous and contingent structure of consent, backed up by the lethal force of the state. When rioters take territory and loot, they are revealing precisely how, in a space without cops, property relations can be destroyed and things can be had for free.
On a less abstract level there is a practical and tactical benefit to looting. Whenever people worry about looting, there is an implicit sense that the looter must necessarily be acting selfishly, “opportunistically,” and in excess. But why is it bad to grab an opportunity to improve well-being, to make life better, easier, or more comfortable? Or, as Hannah Black put it on Twitter: “Cops exist so people can’t loot ie have nice things for free so idk why it’s so confusing that people loot when they protest against cops” [sic]. Only if you believe that having nice things for free is amoral, if you believe, in short, that the current (white-supremacist, settler-colonialist) regime of property is just, can you believe that looting is amoral in itself.
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Modern American police forces evolved out of fugitive slave patrols, working to literally keep property from escaping its owners. The history of the police in America is the history of black people being violently prevented from threatening white people’s property rights. When, in the midst of an anti-police protest movement, people loot, they aren’t acting non-politically, they aren’t distracting from the issue of police violence and domination, nor are they fanning the flames of an always-already racist media discourse. Instead, they are getting straight to the heart of the problem of the police, property, and white supremacy.
Two op-eds with two different perspectives on the Black Lives Matters movement were published just two days apart, as well as a third video “op-ed” by an angry resident of Missouri.
First, Leonard Pitts wrote about the “moral cowardice” of the Black Lives Matter counter-claim that “all lives matter”, a claim that Mike Huckabee made on CNN:
When I hear people scream ‘black lives matter,’ I’m thinking, of course, they do. But all lives matter. It’s not that any life matters more than another.”
Pitts also objected to Huckabee’s claim that “Martin Luther King would be “appalled by the notion that we’re elevating some lives above others.””
Thus he says of the Black Lives Matter movement:
Namely because, while police abuse is not unknown in other lives, it is disproportionate in black lives. This is what Huckabee and the “All lives matter” crowd quail at recognizing. To treat where it hurts, one must first acknowledge that it still hurts, something conservatives often find hard to do because it gives the lie to their self-congratulatory balloon juice about how this country has overcome its founding sin.
That sort of willful ignorance has, unfortunately, become ubiquitous.
Which is why, for me, at least, the most inspiring sight to come out of Charleston following the racial massacre there was not the lowering of the Confederate battle flag, welcome as that was. Rather, it was a march through town by a mostly white crowd chanting, “Black lives matter! Black lives matter!”
To see those white sisters and brothers adopt that cry was a soul-filling reminder that at least some of us still realize we all have access — connection — to each other’s pain and joy by simple virtue of the fact that we all are human.
God love them, they did not slink guiltily from that connection. Instead, they ran bravely to it.
Second, GOP Presidential candidate Ben Carson wrote about the misdirection of the Black Lives Matter movement:
The idea that disrupting and protesting Bernie Sanders speeches will change what is wrong in America is lunacy. The “BlackLivesMatter” movement is focused on the wrong targets, to the detriment of blacks who would like to see real change and to the benefit of its powerful white liberal funders using the attacks on Sanders for political purposes that mean nothing for the problems that face our community.
The notion that some lives might matter less than others is meant to enrage. That anger is distracting us from what matters most. We’re right to be angry, but we have to stay smart.
Of course, the protesters are right that racial policing issues exist and some rotten policemen took actions that killed innocent people. Those actions were inexcusable and they should be prosecuted to deter such acts in the future.
But unjust treatment from police did not fill our inner cities with people who face growing hopelessness. Young men and women can’t find jobs. Parents don’t have the skills to compete in a modern job market. Far too many families are torn and tattered by self-inflicted wounds. Violence often walks alongside people who have given up hope.
And, compelling lifelong Missouri resident and Navy veteran Peggy Hubbard to record a searing video about the confused priorities of the Black Lives Matter movement were two recent deaths: Mansur Ball-Bey was a young black man who police claim tried to “run out the back door of the house where they were serving a warrant and that he pointed a stolen gun at them before they shot” and the death of 9-year-old Jamyla Bolden who was killed by a stray bullet from a drive-by shooting while she did her homework. Hubard takes no prisoners:
Last night, who do you think they protested for? The thug. The criminal. Because they’re hollering police brutality. Are you fucking kidding me? Police brutality? How about black brutality. You black people, my black people, you are the most violent motherfuckers I have ever seen in my life. A little girl is dead. You say black lives matter? Her life mattered. Her dreams mattered … Yet you trifling motherfuckers are out there tearing up the neighborhood I grew up in.
Not to be deterred by her critics, Hubbard responded to those accusing her of being an Uncle Tom:
“Given all the comments I received, black and white, saying, ‘Don’t stop, we need your voice,’ I’m going to keep going,” she said. “This is not a race issue. It never has been a racial issue … This is about accountability and responsibility … Last night we had another homicide … and we’re saying black lives matter. Black lives matter, white lives matter, Asian lives matter, Hispanic lives matter, Lithuanian lives matter, Russian lives matter, life in general matters … but it’s never gonna get better until we admit that we have a problem in our community.”
So today, Martin O’Malley, former governor of Maryland, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) were both interrupted and heckled by protesters during their back-to-back appearances at the progressive Netroots Nation conference.
Demonstrators began chanting, “What side are you on?” during a Q&A session with O’Malley. O’Malley allowed the protesters to finish, but drew boos when he said that “black lives matter, all lives matter, white lives matter”. O’Malley later admitted that he made a mistake in his choice of words, and said he did not mean any disrespect.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders also faced protesters:
The protesters remained as Sanders appeared on stage, and he took a less patient approach.
“Whoa, whoa, let me talk about what I came to talk about for a minute,” the senator said, before launching into a riff on income inequality and steps to address it.
The Vermont senator faced chants and heckling as well, but Sanders continued talking. Asked what he had done in the Senate to benefit black Americans, he started to talk about the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
“We can’t afford that!” heckled Elle Hearns, a 28-year-old Ohio coordinator for the LGBT rights group GetEqual.
And again, O’Malley tried to regain footing:
“I think that all of us as Americans have a responsibility to recognize the pain and grief throughout our country from all of the lives that have been lost to violence, whether that’s violence at the hands of police, whether that’s violence at the hands of civilians,” he said.
“Stop trying to generalize this s—!” yelled Ashley Yates, a 30-year-old activist from Oakland, Calif.
Statements followed:
Anna Galland, executive director of MoveOn, issued a statement which said: “The presidential candidates’ responses today to the powerful protest led by black activists at Netroots Nation … make clear that all Democratic candidates have work to do in understanding and addressing the movement for black lives.Hillary Clinton did not make an appearance at the conference.
A joint statement from Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said: “Black lives matter and we stand in solidarity with every single organizer and activist who stood up and demanded that presidential candidates challenge power and respond to the crushing consequences of structural racism.”
Hillary Clinton did not address racial inequality at the conference as she chose to skip the event.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) withheld support for a joint statement condemning last weekend’s protests against Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) because it also wouldn’t include a rebuke of her political views, Axios has learned.
I assumed that there was a consensus that public restrooms were a no-go for harassing politicians. Instead I’m told that being harassed in a public restroom is just “part of the process”. Anyway, I look forward to seeing even more Democrats confront and call out their heathen colleagues in public restrooms.
The Vermont independent on Friday shot down the idea of negotiating with Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona face-to-face, telling reporters on Capitol Hill,”It’s not a movie. I don’t know if you are a movie writer. This is not a movie.”
He labeled Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona as a pair of obstructionists holding up the bulk of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda.
“My criticism of Senators Manchin and Sinema is not their views, but my strong criticism is when the American people, President and 90% of your colleagues want to go forward, it is wrong to obstruct,” he added, per the Associated Press’s Farnoush Amiri…
“Two people do not have the right to sabotage what 48 want, what the president of the United States wants. That, to me, is wrong,” Sanders said, echoing Biden’s remarks from earlier in the week.
[T]his tweet conveniently leaves out the 50 Republican senators. Followed to its conclusion, this would suggest that 52 senators should not be able to block what a minority of 48 senators want.
The White House on Friday formally blocked an attempt by former President Donald Trump to withhold documents from Congress related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, setting up a legal showdown between the current and former presidents over executive privilege.
In a letter to the National Archives obtained by NBC News, White House Counsel Dana Remus rejected an attempt by Trump’s attorneys to withhold documents requested by the House Select Committee regarding the then-president’s activities on Jan. 6, writing that “President Biden has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified as to any of the documents.”
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled a plan Friday to phase out the gifted and talented programs for elementary school students that many educators say discriminate against Black and Hispanic children enrolled in the nation’s largest public school system.
It will be replaced by a program called “Brilliant NYC” that will expand the pool of students being offered accelerated learning, and not limit it to just the incoming kindergarteners who scored well on an optional exam that put them on a path to attend the city’s elite middle schools and high schools.
“The era of judging 4-year-olds based on a single test is over,” de Blasio said in a statement. “Brilliant NYC will deliver accelerated instruction for tens of thousands of children, as opposed to a select few. Every New York City child deserves to reach their full potential, and this new, equitable model gives them that chance.”
From gassing sleeping towns and bombing hospitals, schools, and bakeries to employing yearslong starvation sieges and using crematoriums to conceal the mass murder of prison populations, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has spared nothing in its brutal pursuit of survival over the past decade.
When men, women, and children took to the streets in the spring of 2011 to call for political reform—many holding roses in the air to represent peace—Assad labeled them “germs.” Ten years later, at least half a million Syrians are dead, 100,000 more individuals have disappeared, and more than half the population remains displaced. More prosecutable evidence of war crimes has amassed against Assad’s regime than against the Nazis at Nuremberg…
Indeed, the world seems to be gradually accepting Assad back into the global community—and thereby helping to normalize the atrocities his regime has committed…
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has also adopted a largely hands-off approach to Syria. And although the Biden administration itself may not be welcoming Assad back into the fold with open arms, it has clearly left open the door for others to do so—shattering international norms and rewarding the 21st century’s most notorious war criminal with a rebirth. One official, speaking anonymously, even admitted the Biden administration will not act to prevent or reverse U.S. allies reengaging with and normalizing Assad’s regime.
Having made a thorough case that Trump’s tariffs had failed, Tai might have been expected to say that President Joe Biden’s administration is therefore junking them and trying something new. The fact that she neither did that nor explained why the tariffs are staying suggests that its inaction stems from considerations of domestic politics rather than of foreign or economic policy. Unions that support Biden have also supported the tariffs. In the end, the president would rather avoid giving Republicans another rationale for saying that he is soft on China.
The price of not looking soft, unfortunately, is to continue to inflict damage on the U.S. economy in return for nothing.
Steve Bannon will not cooperate with the House select committee investigating January 6, his lawyer said in an email obtained by CNN that cites former President Donald Trump’s claim of executive privilege. Bannon’s attorney told the committee that “the executive privileges belong to President Trump” and “we must accept his direction and honor his invocation of executive privilege.” The letter from Bannon’s legal team goes on to say it may be up to the courts to decide whether he is ultimately forced to cooperate — essentially daring the House to sue or hold him in criminal contempt. “As such, until these issues are resolved, we are unable to respond to your request for documents and testimony,” wrote the lawyer, Robert Costello.
“Though the Select Committee welcomes good-faith engagement with witnesses seeking to cooperate with our investigation, we will not allow any witness to defy a lawful subpoena or attempt to run out the clock, and we will swiftly consider advancing a criminal contempt of Congress referral,” Thompson and Cheney said.
The U.S. economy added 194,000 jobs in September, after economists predicted employers would hire roughly 500,000 new workers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday.
This month is the second in a row in which job growth fell short of expectations, with the U.S. adding 366,000 jobs in August despite economists’ predictions of 728,000 new jobs.
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There are currently 5 million fewer people on payrolls than there were in February 2020, just before the coronavirus pandemic forced shutdowns of businesses across the country, according to the Bureau. The shortage of workers coincides with high numbers of job openings, with almost 11 million job openings towards the end of July this year.
So, Covid money is running out, eviction moratoriums are decreasing, and with this negative report out, one wonders exactly what are Americans living on? This, as businesses are desperate for employees (see: Help Wanted signs everywhere).
Smart comment from JVW as we discussed this subject this morning: Economists expected 500,000 hires last month and we got fewer than 200,000. How long before the Biden Team tells us that *next* summer will be “recovery summer”??
“If this is what being canceled is like, I love it,” the 48-year-old [Dave Chappelle] said in response to a standing ovation. The line, and many more like it, was greeted by rapturous applause from the crowd… At another point, he was more blunt: “Fuck Twitter. Fuck NBC News, ABC News, all these stupid ass networks. I’m not talking to them. I’m talking to you. This is real life.”
But that is precisely what the LGBTQ community, and in particular trans women, have objected to after Chappelle used their real lives, bodies and gender identity as punchlines in The Closer. “Gender is a fact. Every human being in this room, every human being on Earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on Earth. That is a fact,” he says in the special, his last of a string of Netflix specials
California students will soon be required to take ethnic studies to graduate high school.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 101 into law on Friday afternoon, requiring California high school students to take ethnic studies to graduate, starting with the class of 2030. Educators and recent studies attest to the benefits of students learning the histories and cultures of marginalized communities, but a few parents still worry the requirement could create more tensions between students.
Criticism of the requirement:
The editorial board at the Los Angeles Times opposed the bill because it provides too much flexibility for local districts to design their own curricula that could deviate from the state’s own model curriculum. Thousands from California’s Jewish community signed a petition opposing the bill because it would allow districts to use a previous draft of the model curriculum that has been criticized for containing anti-Semitic content.
Victoria Samper, a parent volunteer for Latinx for Quality Education, said she and her organization opposed the requirement because, she said, these conversations about oppression cultivates a “victim mentality” for students. Samper said ethnic studies should focus primarily on the historical figures who overcame adversity.
A State Department official for several years has been publicly calling for the establishment of Christian nation-states, warning that white people face “elimination” and railing against Jews as well as Black Lives Matter and other social movements.
Fritz Berggren, a mid-ranking Foreign Service officer, openly uses his name and image as he espouses these and other controversial views, according to a review of his online postings. Current and former State Department officials noted the connection to POLITICO in recent days.
“Jesus Christ came to save the whole world from the Jews — the founders of the original Anti-Christ religion, they who are the seed of the Serpent, that brood of vipers,” states an Oct. 4 blog post signed “Fritz Berggren, PhD” and titled “Jews are Not God’s Chosen People. Judeo-Christian is Anti-Christ.”
“They murdered Jesus Christ,” the 5,300-word post continues, “How then can they be God’s chosen?”
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In a Oct. 24 post titled “The Demon-God of Diversity,” he states: “The world gasps in horror with each new ‘endangered’ sub-species, but cheers the elimination of White culture from whole regions of the earth. This will not stop until White people stop it — we have been handmaidens to our own demise.”
[T]he U.S. House posted a first draft version of the “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021” – a $1.9 trillion emergency aid package to help America recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
Previous legislation has already provided at least $4 trillion in funds for testing, paid family leave, small business relief, direct payments to individuals and families, the Kennedy Center, and a plethora of non-related Covid-19 “relief.”
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*$1.5 million earmarked for the Seaway International Bridge, which connects New York to Canada. Senate Leader Chuck Schumer hails from New York.
*$50 million for “family planning” – going to non-profits, i.e. Planned Parenthood, or public entities, including for “services for adolescents[.]”
*$852 million for AmeriCorps, AmeriCorps Vista, and the National Senior Service Corps – the Corporation for National and Community Service – civic volunteer agencies. This includes $9 million for the AmeriCorp inspector general to conduct oversight and audits of the largess. AmeriCorps received a $1.1 billion FY2020 appropriation.
Retail stores in most of California are only allowed to operate at 25 percent capacity. A new bill in the state legislature would ensure that whatever part of their shop is allowed to be open is as inclusive as possible.
Last week, Assembly Members Evan Low (D–Cupertino) and Cristina Garcia (D–Los Angeles) introduced a bill that would require retailers to offer their toys and childcare products in a gender-neutral format.
Brick-and-mortar shops would have to display the majority of their products and clothing aimed at children in one undivided, unisex area on the sales floor. They’d also be barred from putting up signage that would indicate whether a product was intended for a boy or girl.
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If passed, stores that did put dresses in a separate girls section could be hit with a $1,000 civil fine. The policy would only apply to retail department stores with over 500 employees.
CAUTION: RANT AHEAD…So now parents will have to take extra time to pick through the gender-neutral clothing to try and find clothes specifically intended for boys or girls? No, that wouldn’t be frustrating at all, especially if you are shopping with irritable offspring who clearly want to be doing anything but shopping. And using the heavy-hand of the government to enforce this policy is just so typical. We are in the midst of a devastating pandemic where people’s lives have been turned upside down as they face Covid-19, school closures, online learning, unemployment, lost businesses, struggles to pay rent and to put food on the table, and all these nimwits can think of to do in a time of crisis is…this? To review: introduce a dumb piece of legislation (stores are already moving in this direction, no need to mandate it) during a pandemic, have the government penalize stores (currently functioning at a limited capacity because of said pandemic) if they don’t submit. Brilliant move, California. Sure, increase bureaucracy by having to enforce the new policy (aka new revenue stream). And when you end up scratching your heads as businesses start leaving the state because the grass is indeed greener elsewhere, you’re going to hear a nasty I told you so from me. And that’s when the real insanity kicks-in: Taxes will be raised on Californians to make up for the lost revenue. Lather-rinse-repeat.
President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered airstrikes on buildings in Syria that the Pentagon said were used by Iranian-backed militias, in retaliation for rocket attacks on U.S. targets in neighboring Iraq.
The strikes killed at least 22 people, London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday, citing unconfirmed local reports.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby portrayed the bombing in eastern Syria as carefully calibrated, calling it “proportionate” and “defensive.”
“Some Democrats said that Congress has not passed an authorization for the use of military force specifically in Syria,” reports CNN.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said “there is absolutely no justification for a president to authorize a military strike that is not in self-defense against an imminent threat without congressional authorization … we need to extricate from the Middle East, not escalate.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) agreed, calling for an immediate congressional briefing and saying “offensive military action without congressional approval is not constitutional absent extraordinary circumstances.”
Jen-jump-to-defend-Psaki jumped in and did that thing she does:
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki defended the action as “necessary,” and said Biden “has the right to take action” as he sees fit. She said “there was a thorough, legal response” and the Defense Department briefed congressional leadership in advance.
With the first full day of the Conservative Political Action Conference underway, there’s already an indisputable star: an outrageously golden statue of Donald Trump wearing shorts and flip-flops.
The more than 6-foot-tall statue turned heads as it was wheeled into the Hyatt Regency Thursday evening while CPAC attendees picked up their registration and milled about the hotel. The statue was on its way to the conference’s exhibit hall, where it found a home in a booth for a conservative nonprofit called Look Ahead America.
Tommy Zegan, a California-based artist, created the Trump statue in response to the multiple pieces of art mocking Trump.
“Two years ago, when I saw all those statues of naked Trump and Trump on a toilet, I said, ‘You know what? I can do better,’ ” Zegan told CNN Friday as attendees gathered around the statue to snap photos with it.
Here is Zegan’s statue of Trump. It reminds me of a cross between the iconic Bob’s Big Boy statute and Exodus 32:
The Biden administration will not sanction Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in 2018 even though a declassified US intelligence assessment explicitly implicated him.
The Treasury Department on Friday unveiled sanctions against Gen. Ahmed al-Asiri, a former deputy head of the Saudi intelligence services, and the Saudi Rapid Intervention Force.
“Those involved in the abhorrent killing of Jamal Khashoggi must be held accountable. With this action, Treasury is sanctioning Saudi Arabia’s Rapid Intervention Force and a senior Saudi official who was directly involved in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement. “The United States stands united with journalists and political dissidents in opposing threats of violence and intimidation. We will continue to defend the freedom of expression, which is the bedrock of a free society.”
A senior administration official told Reuters that the Biden administration was concerned that sanctioning the crown prince could “rupture” the US-Saudi relationship.
The number of unaccompanied immigrant children arrested for crossing the U.S. southern border illegally is on pace to rise more than 50% in February compared with the previous month, people familiar with the matter said, raising the prospect of a humanitarian crisis there.
About 2,200 children have been illegally crossing the border weekly in February, and the pace is picking up as the month progresses, some of the people said. The government is projecting that about 9,000 children will be taken into custody by the end of February.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported taking 5,707 unaccompanied children into custody in January, an 18% rise from the previous month. The growing number of children in custody is beginning to strain the government’s ability to properly house and care for them.
A former Walled Lake High School teacher has filed a federal lawsuit over his firing last year over his political posts on social media.
Justin Kucera, who also coached sports at the school, got into hot water last July when he tweeted his support for then-President Donald Trump, and also that “Liberals suck man.”
Kucera was offered his job back if he would apologize and promise to do better, but Kurcera claims the discipline is a violation of his first amendment rights.
Kucera is seeking damages for lost income and emotional distress.
[Neera Tanden’s] nomination as President Biden’s budget chief appears to be hanging by a thread, mostly because of GOP senators angered by her sharp tone on Twitter as head of the Center for American Progress.
The White House is sticking with Tanden so far, but it does not appear she has 50 votes of support in the Senate.
And while it is mostly Republicans complaining about her tweets, they’ve been joined by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), who says he’ll oppose her nomination because of her Twitter voice. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has also felt her barbs on Twitter and has been notable in not offering his public backing.
Related (and confirming how really awful people can be):
…a Washington Post reporter showed Murkowski a tweet Tanden had written about the Alaska senator in 2017 when she accused her of being “high on your own supply.”
“You know, we know, and everyone knows this is all garbage,” Tanden wrote in the tweet. “Just stop.”
After reading the tweet on the reporter’s phone, Murkowski replied: “High on my own supply, that’s interesting. Should I ask her? My own supply of what? See that goes to show how much homework I still have to do on her if I didn’t even know that she had sent out a tweet about me.”
In another sign of the nation’s noxious political atmosphere, particularly on social media and in emails sent to the media, the Washington Post reporter who showed Murkowski the tweet was hit with racist, sexist and hateful attacks after a photo of the exchange circulated on social media.
P.S. Don’t miss this great interview with Reason’s Nick Gillespie and Rep. Peter Meijer. In his almost two months serving as a representative, Meijer has faced some enormous challenges:
Just three days after being sworn into Congress to represent Michigan’s 3rd district, Republican freshman Peter Meijer found himself and colleagues trapped without security in the bowels of the Capitol building while a riot that ultimately claimed five lives raged all around him.
The following week, he was one of just 10 Republicans—and the only first-termer—to vote to impeach Donald Trump, a decision that led to a narrowly failed censure vote from his own state’s GOP and immediate announcements that he will be primaried in 2022.
It’s apparent from the get-go that Meijer is smart, insightful, and best of all, thinks before he speaks:
Meijer tells Nick Gillespie why he believes in limited government, economic freedom, and individualism; why he’s against out-of-control stimulus spending and military adventurism; and how he plans to combat the craziness he sees both on the right and left in the House of Representatives. He also talks about what he’s learned about business and public service from being the scion of the Meijer superstore chain, how generational fault lines may be every bit as important as partisan ones, and why he’s committed to voting his principles rather than his constituents’ will.
If the GOP had more Meijers, they might actually woo voters back to the Party.
Have a great weekend!
–Dana
[ADDENDUM by JVW]
Since DCSCA is chiding us for not discussing the Mars 2020 mission and the Perseverance Rover’s successful landing on the red planet, I include here one of the first images captured by the rover.
Multiple Democrats, including Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, have been calling on McConnell to bring a vote to a gun control bill that was passed by Democrat-controlled House back in February. The Senate majority leader declined to bring forward the bill but said Monday that he’s willing to consider “bipartisan” solutions in the wake of the mass shootings as long as those measures don’t infringe “on Americans’ constitutional rights.”
Unfortunately, not everyone behaves rationally when angry:
Approximately 25 demonstrators stood on the sidewalk near McConnell’s Louisville home, shouting “No Trump, no KKK, no Fascist USA!” while others called him names like “Murder Turtle” and made loud noises by banging objects and dragging a shovel back and forth on the ground as a group of security personnel stood between the protestors and the home, WLKY reported.
“The b—- is home — we keep seeing the lights go on and off,” another protester can be heard shouting. “This h– really thought he was going to get ready to be at home after he hurt his little punk ass shoulder. B—-, don’t nobody give a f—! F–k your thoughts and prayers, Mitch. F— you, f— your wife, f— everything you stand for. ”
Louisville Metro Police told the New York Post that the demonstrators were “protesting peacefully.” The force added that they “are assisting Capitol Police.”
After sharing a video of a profanity-laced protest outside of the Kentucky Republican’s home in Louisville, the campaign Twitter account, Team Mitch, has been locked out.
“This morning, Twitter locked our account for posting the video of real-world, violent threats made against Mitch McConnell. This is a problem with the speech police in America today,” McConnell campaign manager Kevin Golden told the Courier Journal. “The Lexington Herald-Leader can attack Mitch with cartoon tombstones of his opponents. But we can’t mock it.
“Twitter will allow the words of “Massacre Mitch” to trend nationally on their platform, but locks our account for posting actual threats against us,” Golden added. “We appealed and Twitter stood by their decision, saying our account will remain locked until we delete the video.”
The critical part of the video:
Black Lives Matter Louisville leader Chanelle Helm said in a live video of the protest that instead of falling and injuring his shoulder over the weekend, McConnell “should have broken his little raggedy, wrinkled-(expletive) neck.”
After a man makes a reference to a hypothetical McConnell voodoo doll, Helm replied, “Just stab the m—– f—– in the heart.”
Further:
“Everybody needs to show up wherever this ho is at and make him just regret his fucking life, period,” she added.
You can watch the relevant portion beginning at the :28 mark. Obviously, Twitter has taken down the original video:
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said on Saturday that he “fully admit[s]” Twitter employees share a largely left-leaning bias after facing accusations that conservatives are discriminated against on the social media platform.
In an interview that aired Saturday on CNN, Dorsey said his company has a responsibility to be open about its political viewpoints, but to operate without bias when applying content policies to users.
“We need to constantly show that we are not adding our own bias, which I fully admit is … is more left-leaning,” Dorsey says.
It would be nice for users if Twitter at least made a pretense of consistency when meting out penalties. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Heh. Nothing to see, just a few protesters demonstrating…
…Sarah Anderson was punched in the arm after spotting a man destroying Republican yard signs. She said the attack left her scared, and her attacker only desisted when she fled to her car and threw it in reverse.
“It was just insane. He was charging at me, saying, ‘Why don’t you go kill yourself?'” Anderson told the Washington Free Beacon. “To have someone physically coming after you and attacking you is just disheartening.”
The Plymouth Police Department investigation into Rep. Anderson’s alleged assault remains ongoing. A spokeswoman confirmed the department had identified a suspect, but declined further comment.
And:
First-time state representative candidate Shane Mekeland suffered a concussion after getting sucker punched while speaking with constituents at a restaurant in Benton County. Mekeland told the Free Beacon he has suffered memory loss—forgetting Rep. Anderson’s name at one point in the interview—and doctors tell him he will have a four-to-six week recovery time ahead of him. He said he was cold cocked while sitting at a high top table at a local eatery and hit his head on the floor.
“I was so overtaken by surprise and shock and if this is the new norm, this is not what I signed up for,” he said.
This comes after the Minnesota Democratic Party suspended a spokesman who posted on Facebook that Democrats would bring Republicans to the guillotine:
The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has suspended communications staffer William Davis for one week without pay after making a Facebook post joking that Democrats would “bring [Republicans] to the guillotine” on Nov. 7, the day after the midterm elections. Minnesota Republican Party chairman Jennifer Carnahan said the suspension was not enough, calling for his immediate firing in the aftermath of separate attacks against Republican candidates. She said she has been subjected to numerous death threats during her tenure as the state party leader and that death threats are no laughing matter.
“The overt hatred and violence that has become prevalent from many Democrats towards Republicans in recent times is unlawful, unacceptable, and downright scary,” she said in an email. “Yes, we have free speech and the right to peacefully assemble, but these words and actions by the left have gone too far. … He should have been terminated immediately.”
Wilfred M. Stark III, who goes by Mike, was arrested Tuesday evening in Las Vegas, after Laxalt campaign manager Kristin Davison accused him of grabbing and yanking her arm and refusing to let go. Las Vegas City Marshals arrested Stark, who was later released.
Stark, who was a reporter for American Bridge 21st Century, was fired Wednesday night in the wake of the incident. A statement from the David Brock-founded organization said that “an incident with a member of Adam Laxalt’s campaign” had taken place, and “one of our employees” had been relieved of his duties “effective immediately.” The statement did not identify Stark or Davison.
Fox News is told that during the arrest, Stark explained to police that this was “his job” and he “does this for a living.”
Recently, Democratic notables have called on party members to be pro-active in their responses to the GOP:
*Eric Holder recently told a group of cheering Democrats that Michelle Obama was wrong with her admonition regarding Republicans, “When they go low, we go high.” Instead, said Holder, “When they go low, we kick them.”
*Rep. Maxine Waters encouraged protesters, “If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. You push back on them. Tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!”
Hillary Clinton jumped into the fray too, having said during a recent interview, “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about,” obviously referring to the GOP.
*Sen. Cory Booker urged crowds to “get up in the face of some congresspeople.”
And so it goes.
Rep. Steve Scalise, who was one of four people shot at a baseball field in Virginia, wrote about his concerns regarding the escalating violence against GOP politicians. In the op-ed, he also listed the GOP legislators (and their spouses) who have been the recipients of aggressive and unlawful tactics:
The threats and the violence have not let up and instead of seeing my Democrat colleagues calling for an end, there have been calls for their supporters to keep going, to do even more to threaten Republicans.
In America, we win battles at the ballot box, not through mob rule or intimidation.
As a survivor of a politically motivated attack, it is tragic to think this is an acceptable state of political discourse in our country. I refuse to stand for this and I will continue to call for an end to it. A healthy, strong democracy is not possible if anyone lives in fear of expressing their views.
If this is going to stop, it must start with Democratic leaders, who need to condemn, rather than promote these dangerous calls to action.
In America, we win battles at the ballot box, not through mob rule or intimidation. While it’s clear many Democrats refuse to accept the election of President Trump, if they want change, they need to convince people with their ideas and actually win elections, rather than call for violent resistance, harassment, and mob rule.
Here is Scalise’s list:
*Ashley Kavanaugh, Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s wife and his daughters received multiple credible threats.
*Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., received such a threatening phone call that the man has now been indicted.
*Jamie Gardner, wife of Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., wife, received a text of a beheading after the vote to confirm Justice Kavanaugh.
*Several Republican Senators had their personal information, including home addresses, posted to Wikipedia for threatening purposes by a Democrat House staffer.
*Congressman Clay Higgins (R-La.) received threatening phone calls that led to a man’s arrest.
*Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kent., and his wife Kelly Paul have both received credible threats that have led to arrests.
*Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and his wife, as well as White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders, were chased out of restaurants.
*Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was confronted by protesters and harassed out of a DC restaurant.
*Rudy Peters, a Republican California Congressional candidate, was nearly stabbed while campaigning.
Obviously, this is wrong. Nobody should be threatening harm to anyone, and certainly elected officials should not be encouraging it in any way, shape or form. All of which makes it even more ridiculous that instead of a hands-down, non-stop condemnation of the overheated rhetoric fueling the fires of violence, there is a moronic “national conversation” currently taking place about what constitutes a “mob”. Seriously. When people are having their lives threatened with harm, or worse, have had those threats come to pass, shouldn’t insipid gasbags with a mic and a national platform be emphatically condemning the behavior rather than arguing over whether “mob” is a Republican talking point? Stop wasting my time quibbling about such absurdities. We have already suffered through the even more asinine accusation of Big Media that some targets on a political map were linked to the shooting of a congresswoman. All this sort of crap does is reinforce the pathetic state of partisan politics in 2018 and demonstrates a lack of seriousness about the putrid mess in which we currently find ourselves wading.
Protest, fine. Let your voice be heard, great. Call yourself a mob or a protester or whatever it is that floats your boat. But threatening your political opponents, physically assaulting or harassing them, doxxing or “getting in the face” of an individual is just wrong. Always. We all used to know that. We all used to believe that. We all used to agree with that. It’s what separated the civilized from the uncivilized. It was a commonly shared belief based on common values – in spite of our political differences. What has to be so broken with our political system a people that a clear consensus about this can can no longer be had? While Clinton, Holder, Booker and Waters might defend their comments, walk them back, make efforts to clarify, etc., the problem is, they already uttered the instructive words out loud. And there are simply too many frustrated, angry nutjobs just waiting for that nudge, that permission to do harm. Words matter. Especially if they come from political leaders.
“Never wrestle him. You understand that? Never. Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type! … I shouldn’t say that. You know, that’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” I had heard that he bodyslammed a reporter. And he was way up. And he was way up, and I said, oh this is the day of the election or just before, and I said, “Oh this is terrible, he’s going to lose the election.”
Surprisingly – or unsurprisingly, depending where you land on the cynic’s scale – the same Steve Scalise, whose words I just quoted above, “In America, we win battles at the ballot box, not through mob rule or intimidation. As a survivor of a politically motivated attack, it is tragic to think this is an acceptable state of political discourse in our country,” defended the president’s positive take on Gianforte:
(I’m torn here. Because Scalise suffered a very serious injury at the hands of a deranged Bernie supporter with a gun, it was pretty clear that the media wasn’t terribly interested in it, so that makes me think he deserves a pass on this. And yet….)
Bottom line: no one has clean hands in this age of incivility. But the tribe you belong to or identify with should not determine your response to it. You do not need any of these professional idiots condescendingly telling you what is and isn’t acceptable, or what is and isn’t justified. You already know. Good and decent people simply condemn the behavior, loudly, and without hesitation. No matter from which side of the aisle it comes. The worst thing any of us could do would be to laugh away, or deny the incendiary rhetoric and unacceptable behavior because we believe that party loyalty supersedes everything else. Even our principles. All of it needs to be condemned, from beginning to end, no matter from whose mouth the words come, no matter at whose hands the violence occurs. And most importantly, regardless of who occupies the Oval Office.
[Pre-emptive strike: Proud Boys and Antifa are despicable groups and should be universally condemned. There should be no quarter given. That’s true even if these fringe dwellers are part of your tribe. This is a no-brainer. ]
I wanted to finish up my three-part review of Shattered by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, the book that chronicled the collapse of the campaign of the Past, Present, and Future Inevitable Next President of the United States, First Lady/Senator/Secretary Hillary! Rodham Clinton, Her Royal Clintonic Majesty. The book has been sitting on my table for a month now, and I plan to send it off to my dad as a Father’s Day present. Part I of my review is located here and Part II can be found here. In those two parts I recounted many of the personalities involved in the campaign, as well as the inside info the authors provide on some of the pivotal moments in the run-up to the 2016 elections. What is left to report are some interesting anecdotes that did not make it into the first two parts, so here they are:
1) The authors mention that the campaign’s chief strategist, Joel Benenson, had a $1 million win bonus written in to his contract. Presumably this is standard operating procedure in Washington and the other campaign flacks had similar bonus structures. This makes me even happier to see them lose.
2) I mentioned in Part I of the review that the First Creep, Bill Clinton, found himself continually flummoxed that what he and Clintonland always believed had been a successful eight year reign in the White House had somehow turned into a liability. On the primary campaign stump for his wife in South Carolina, Bubba got into it with a Black Lives Matters member who told him that his crime bill had been racist. Bubba left that encounter believing that he had deftly parried the attack and exposed the crybully as being shortsighted and obtuse, only to have the campaign team “[light] into him” and tell him that he’s pushing young blacks to the arms of Bernie Sanders.
3) Allegedly, Hillary hates Chris Van Hollen, a member of the House Democrat leadership team, who at the time was running for a Senate seat in Maryland. Van Hollen had been one of the first Democrats to jump off her bandwagon in 2008 in order to catch the Obama Express. At one point the authors quote Hillary as blurting out, “Who gives a fuck about Chris Van Hollen?” The White House and the Maryland Democrat Party try to grease the skids for Van Hollen to defeat his female African-American opponent in the primary race by not doing the traditional get-out-the-vote campaign in the black community. Hillary’s team cried foul, and after tense negotiations a bare modicum of the get-out-the-vote campaign was put in place, though Van Hollen won pretty handily anyway.
4) I mentioned in the past two posts that the authors are certainly politically-sympathetic to Hillary and the Democrats. It often allows them to overlook some ideas that might be obvious to the rest of us. For instance, the never once mention the scandal uncovered by the email leaks that Donna Brazile was feeding debate questions in advance to the Clinton campaign, yet they praise Hillary for delivering fully-conceived and detailed responses to debate questions. Later the authors tell us that “a question [debate prep head Ron] Klain asked behind closed doors about a possible no-fly zone over Syria was repeated almost verbatim by moderator Chris Wallace in the third [Presidential] debate,” yet the authors don’t stop to wonder if perhaps the Hillary campaign was still being fed questions.
5) A very telling anecdote here: Hillary in her acceptance speech at the convention wanted to put in a quote from the popular Broadway hit Hamilton, a musical that coastal progressive elites shell out $1000 to see. Hillary naturally had already seen it twice. Some alert staffers wondered if the reference will go over the heads of the vast majority of the public who are not able to jump on a plane and spend an expensive weekend in Manhattan purchasing scalped tickets to see that show, but Hillary overruled them and the reference stayed in. It serves as a great metaphor of what is wrong with today’s Democrat Party.
6) Ah, Chelsea. This is just perfect. The authors speak of a gathering of the Clinton brain trust with Chelsea and her husband in attendance. Without a trace of irony, they report the following: “As Chelsea nursed her infant son, Aidan, and asked her daughter , Charlotte, if she wanted auga — Clinton and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, were raising their kids to be bilingual. . .” Can’t you just see Chelsea speaking a handful of Spanglish phrases to her daughter — “Do you want some agua?” “Come on honey, vamos.” — and pretending that they are raising her to be bilingual? But hey, maybe Elena, the Dominican nanny that they no doubt employ and pay under the table just like the other rich progressive parents in Manhattan, is carrying the load in young Charlotte’s linguistic upbringing.
7) Having suffered through financial problems in her 2008 campaign, Hillary was obsessed with fundraising. Immediately after the convention, at a time when she should have been out trying to connect with voters in Middle America, she instead embarked upon a series of fundraisers in Manhattan, Washington, Palm Beach, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Silicon Valley. At that point she had about 800 staffers on her payroll, as opposed to her opponent’s 130, and she really freaked out when the Republican nominee raised $80 million in July.
8) The relationship between Robby Mook and John Podesta never healed. They engaged in a nasty pissing match in front of the rest of the campaign staff at a retreat in upstate New York in June, and thereafter both men fought to freeze each other out of key decisions. That’s a preview of the kind of dysfunction that Hillary likely would have brought to her White House staff.
9) Regarding the “deplorable” remark, it was made at one of the first Hillary campaign events open to the media, and the authors claim that Hillary didn’t realize that the media was there. She was used to those types of events being closed, which makes you wonder what other sorts of things she said behind closed doors.
10) Be glad you are not this guy: “The most spirit-crushing job in modern political history — managing the Podesta email portfolio — fell on the shoulders of Glen Caplin. Every morning, for the full month before the election, 44-year-old former spokesman for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, would put on his hipster-style black-framed glasses, roll out of bed, and come into the Brooklyn office knowing that he and his team of as many as a dozen staffers would spend the day reading hundreds or thousands of Podesta’s emails.” The part about the hipster-style glasses is perfect.
11) Huma Abedin “was such a powerful force within Clintonworld that few of her colleagues dared to cross her. But some of them had always viewed her as a major vulnerability — even a ‘national security threat’ because of her potential to prevent Hillary from winning the Presidency. [. . . ] Regardless of her level of culpability — and her defenders say she’s unfairly targeted because she’s so close to Hillary — Huma was a disaster waiting to happen.” She botches the Hillary collapse at the 9/11 memorial service because (allegedly) Hillary had been given the (alleged) pneumonia diagnosis a couple of days earlier but Huma had failed to alert anyone in the campaign and that’s why several hours went by without the campaign being able to explain Hillary’s collapse.
12) Despite what the media was confidently reporting, both campaigns knew in late October that the race was tightening. The authors report on a GOP operative “with ties to the campaign” saying on October 26: “If he keeps his fucking mouth shut for the next twelve days, there are a couple of states that are going to surprise you.” The Republican nominee’s campaign was tracking a surge in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but didn’t announce them because they didn’t trust their own data and thought the numbers might be overly optimistic. At the same time, HRC campaign knew those states (and North Carolina and Florida) were getting shaky.
13) Much has been written about Hillary’s decision to forego visiting Wisconsin (Mook wouldn’t even send campaign collateral to the local offices there), but she actually wanted to campaign heavily in Michigan in the waning days, but the Michigan staff bluntly informed her that her numbers improve in the state when the election is not on people’s radar. Besides, the campaign had already grandiosely announced that they would be targeting Arizona, and to have suddenly changed plans would have alerted the suck-up media to the idea that maybe her position wasn’t as strong as they had been led to believe.
14) For all the claims that James Comey’s “October surprise” announcement lost the election for Hillary, the authors remind us that it was a fund-raising boon for her as angry liberals sent in donations to combat what they saw has outside interference.
It’s been fun reliving this campaign, and I am hoping that we learn even more in the months and years to come. We cannot be rid of the corrupt, nasty, awful, brutish Clinton Empire soon enough. Good riddance to those people and all the empty works and all of their hollow promises.
We are now two months away from the Democrat National Committee convening in the aftermath of their disastrous 2016 elections and selecting a new chairman/chairwoman/chairperson (I’m on an inclusion kick this morning). Since this promises to be an interesting contest with major implications on the party’s direction as they rebuild in the post-Obama era, let’s recap some of the scuttlebutt about how this race is shaping up.
Powerline has been tracking the candidacy of Minnesota Congressman, Keith Ellison, who is seeking to be the first Muslim to assume the chairmanship. This candidacy involves repudiating his past involvement with groups such as the Nation of Islam while simultaneously downplaying his allegiance to controversial Muslim advocacy organizations like CAIR and the Muslim American Society. Though the darling of progressives who are devoted to grievance group mollification and would like nothing more than to check multiple boxes on the diversity list, Rep. Ellison is being treated warily by Jewish groups and trade unions. After the disastrous leadership of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a woman whose qualifications seemed to consist entirely of being Jewish and female, the professionals seem to want a more steady and reliable hand on the tiller, not another winner of the diversity sweepstakes.
An early challenger to Rep. Ellison was former DNC chairman, former Vermont Governor, and former Presidential primary candidate, Howard Dean, who headed up the DNC in its glory years when it captured the House and Senate in 2006 and then expanded upon those gains during the coronation of Barack Obama two years later. Under Chairman Dean, the DNC instituted a “50-state policy” in which the Democrats made a concerted effort to expand their party beyond urban strongholds and coastal states and attract appealing candidates in the upper-Midwest and the South, even if it meant soft-pedaling the party’s traditional support for gun control, abortion, gay rights, and other divisive social topics. At the same time, Chairman Dean provided shrill criticism of the Bush Administration and Republicans, but managed to avoid hamstringing the races of moderate members of his party (that of course could just go to show how unpopular the Bush administration had become in its second term). Dean was probably the most likely candidate to return the Democrats to a big tent philosophy, but alas, he seems to have not gained any traction and has thus abandoned his candidacy.
So that seems to leave Thomas Perez, the former Obama Administration Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and later Secretary Labor, as the strongest challenger to Ellison. Perez checks a diversity box and as a Hispanic would provide the DNC with a valuable “first” for a grievance group that is way larger and more influential than Muslims, but he’s another Washington insider who doesn’t seem to have any plan for attracting blue-collar workers and social moderates back into the party’s fold. Interestingly enough, the Ellison vs. Perez race is shaping up as a proxy battle between the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren crowd (with the curious backing of Chuck Schumer) who favors Ellison and the Barack Obama crowd who favors Perez. It is noteworthy that no one seems particularly interested in discovering who is the favored candidate among the Clinton crowd. For the record, the state party chairs from Idaho, South Carolina, and New Hampshire are also running, perhaps in the hope that one of them emerges as a compromise candidate.
It’s difficult seeing either Ellison or Perez appealing to the voter who has grown tired of the Democrats’ dalliance with Occupy protests, campus crybullies, Black Lives Matter, transgender bathroom advocates, and the rest of the grievance left agenda. On other political blogs, many conservative commenters have welcomed the Democrats’ retreat into their insular progressive bubble where there can be no rational dissent to their leftward lurch, but I don’t think it bodes very well for our country. A Republican Congressional majority with a Republican President needs a legitimate and serious opposition party to temper some of its dumber ideas (bans on flag burning being a prime example), and the GOP tends to grow intellectually flabby (see the Bush years, 2003-2007) when the opposition is busy shooting themselves in the foot. Regardless of my hopes, it appears that the Democrats are bound to get worse before they can start to get better.
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