Month: July 2016

This looks so effing good.

Hillary Clinton met with Elizabeth Warren today at Clinton's Whitehaven home during a day of meetings about HRC's VP choice.

— Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) July 15, 2016

When it comes to making sure the Democrats have some kind of coherent brand statement, Tom Carper isn't a team player. And why is that? I happen to think that he believes he represents West Virginia in the Senate. It's a theory. I didn't say it was a great theory, but just check out the party break down (as expressed by the Cook Partisan Voting Index (PVI)) for the other conservative Dem Senators quoted in the Hill article.

• Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) R+3
• Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) R+5
• Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) Even
• Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) R+2
• Tom Carper (D-DE) D+8

Look how Carper sticks out like a sore thumb. ...an infected, pus-filled, throbbing sore thumb. Now look how it makes sense if he is under some delusion that he is representing the Mountain State.

According to CNN, Donald Trump asked Mike Pence to be his running mate early Thursday evening and Pence accepted, but (as the Indiana governor is surely learning) even the clearest decision is always up for negotiation to Trump. Just hours later, the candidate told Fox News he has yet to make up his mind about who he’s taking to the election, saying, “I’ve got three people that are fantastic” and “I haven’t made my final, final decision.” My God. He is going to pick General Flynn or Gingrich now and look even more the fool. If I were Pence I would tell Donald to go fuck himself.

Josh Marshall:

This isn't getting a lot of attention. But it should. Everybody took note when Donald Trump repeatedly claimed that American Muslims across the river in New Jersey celebrated and cheered as the Twin Towers fell on 9/11 - an entirely fabricated claim. Last night on Bill O'Reilly's show and then separately at a rally in Westfield, Indiana he did something very similar and in so doing cemented his status an impulsive propagator of race-hatred and violence. The details of the rapid-fire fulmination are important. So let's look at them closely. Trump claimed that people - "some people" - called for a moment of silence for mass killer Micah Johnson, the now deceased mass shooter who killed five police officers in Dallas on Thursday night. There is no evidence this ever happened. Searches of the web and social media showed no evidence. Even Trump's campaign co-chair said today that he can't come up with any evidence that it happened. As in the case of the celebrations over the fall of the twin towers, even to say there's 'no evidence' understates the matter. This didn't happen. Trump made it up. [...] A would-be strong man, an authoritarian personality, isn't just against disorder and violence. They need disorder and violence. That is their raison d'etre, it is the problem that they are purportedly there to solve. The point bears repeating: authoritarian figures require violence and disorder. Look at the language. "11 cities potentially in a blow up stage" .. "Anger. Hatred. Hatred! Started by a maniac!" ... "And some people ask for a moment of silence for him. For the killer." At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, if you translate the German, the febrile and agitated language of 'hatred', 'anger', 'maniac' ... this is the kind of florid and incendiary language Adolf Hitler used in many of his speeches. Note too the actual progression of what Trump said: "Marches all over the United States - and tough marches. Anger. Hatred. Hatred! Started by a maniac!"

His disgusting politics are well known, but the many other ways he is disgusting have always been a matter of speculation. Until now.

Here is Bernie endorsing Hillary and Hillary's speech immediately after (which was one of her better speeches this campaign). It was as if I had written the endorsement speech myself, and I give much credit to the Senator for writing and delivering it. Yes, I have, in Dana's words, trashed the Senator throughout the campaign, much as Dana and others have trashed Hillary. But it is time to move on, to let it go (cue Frozen soundtrack), and to come together. And thanks to Hillary and Bernie's combined efforts in reaching agreement on the platform, we have the beginnings of a Democratic juggernaut that shall obliterate all Republicans.