Because humorous snark is the only way I can take coverage of Republican conventions. Lots of good stuff here, so do click through and look at it all when you have time.
Wonkette Went To The Moms For Liberty Key Party And All We Got Was This Lousy Sticker
It was their *key* *party*, news factcheck websites!
On Tuesday, because of how we are all pretty much gluttons for punishment at this point, we (well, Dok and Robyn) attended a Moms For Liberty chat at the Bradley Symphony Center in downtown Milwaukee. Are you so jealous? I bet you are! Anyway, instead of writing a whole post on it, we decided to just have a Slack about our favorite moments. Fun? Fun!
Robyn: Hey Dok! So HOW MUCH FUN did you have at the Moms For Liberty forum yesterday?
Doktor Zoom: Well, I got that new bandage from Walgreens on my blistered toe, so that was a real win!
Robyn: That was pretty exciting. I got a bunch of Vitamin C there because I thought it might make me less anemic. So that was also nice. But sadly, instead of spending a few hours in the Walgreens where I could happily stare blankly at the ELF section for a while (it’s makeup, okay?) we had to go to the Bradley Symphony center not to see the symphony but to see a bunch of weirdos talk about how they are SAVING THE VERY SOULS of the children, but not in any specific way.
Doktor Zoom: But it was very specific, Robyn. Moms for Liberty cofounder Tina Vescovich started with a warning that “there’s something going on in this country,” which is a definitely true statement that I dare anyone to refute. Then she explained it was a battle between good and evil, and that sure sounded scary. Also, I guess radical Marxists are coming for America’s children, possibly to buy them school lunch, but also for their souls. That’s clearly terrible, and I hope the children don’t have their souls taken, by some unspecified Marxist evil.
Robyn: I feel like it’s not a real battle for good and evil if there’s not a Hellmouth but ymmv!
To be specific, she said that the radical Marxists are coming for their children’s futures, which is actually pretty true in the way that the radical Marxists do hope that, in the future, their children will have health care, subsidized college, a living wage, and a planet that is not entirely decimated.
Of course, the real “radical Marxists” are people like me (I guess?) with literally no power to do any of that, nevermind making it so the workers own the means of production, so perhaps she assumes we’ll just give up and … eat babies?
Doktor Zoom: Oh, wait, that does sound like us, doesn’t it. We’re the baddies, then. Also there’s all the radical gender ideology and the books that will make children think about gay pornsex if they see a child in a picture book who has two mommies, but for some reason nobody in the discussion actually mentioned any of the things that Moms for Libertines is best known for.
My heart wanted to fail back when now-AG Kobach was our Secretary of State. It was not at all boring! It seems that MO could be in for similar adventures. It’s vital to pay attention to all the races on the ballot. Everyone’s got their reasons for running, and it helps everyone when we know about those reasons. In addition, Jess has important words about gun violence.
Let’s talk about a kind of boring state position…the Secretary of State.
Yawn, right?
Wrong. The race for this position should be as interesting as it sounds…a calm race to fill an important position. But it’s not. Not in Missouri and not in other GOP-dominated states.
What are the duties of a Secretary of State, and why should we pay attention?
The Secretary of State is the chief elections official in Missouri, bearing responsibility for the administration of statewide elections involving both issues and individuals, and oversees local verification of petition signatures for initiative petitions. The Secretary of State’s Commissions section authenticates official acts of the governor, and has the authority to appoint and commission notaries public.
That’s a very important position. It seems like the person in charge of the elections for the entire state should be serious and not bend toward extremism.
Let me introduce you to a few candidates for Missouri Secretary of State, but let me first remind you of Missouri politics and gun culture. From the Kansas City Star:
“Even when gun policy isn’t mentioned explicitly, the presence of firearms in political messaging has come to act as a kind of visual shorthand that can quickly signal pro-gun attitudes without a word.”
First up, Adam J. Schwadron of St. Charles. Here is his recent mailer to Missouri voters:
Adam Schwadron, Missouri Secretary of State candidate. Photo, political mailer.
Adam looks as if he has a lot of big feelings as evidenced in the stickers and paint on his AR, but the point of the matter? Why did he send this mailer out to Missouri voters? What message is he creating by holding an AR while seeking the position of Secretary of State? What is an AR meant to convey about voting systems and fair elections and constituent petitions?
What would it feel like as a constituent to deliver a petition to a man you know feels comfortable enough to take and send pictures shooting an AR?
Adam looks absolutely menacing holding the AR. I can’t help but feel that this is meant to convey intimidation. It can be scary to receive a mailer from a current Missouri lawmaker, running for higher office, pointing a high-powered gun at an unknown target. I’m not sure why his campaign thought this imagery appropriate?
Yes, I do…because others are doing it.
Meet Senator Denny Hoskins, who is also running for Missouri Secretary of State as a Republican. Denny has a long history of gun fanaticism.
From April 2024:
The Missouri Senate is considering an anti-red flag law proposal. The bill would prevent guns from being taken away from anyone because of a court order or protection order. Senator Denny Hoskins introduced the bill and called it the Anti-Red Flag Gun Seizure Act.
Denny has opposed efforts to reduce gun violence through legislation like red flag laws, which allow law enforcement to temporarily take the weapons of people who a court has decided are at risk of harming themselves or others. It’s no surprise that he would included guns in his campaign for the Secretary of State, but it is no less grotesque.
Senator Denny Hoskins is not in the photo above, but he was more than happy to post the picture on his Facebook feed. The woman standing next to Hoskins’s sign is holding a rifle with a silencer and scope.
A few days later, on July 15, just two days after the shooting at the Pennsylvania Trump rally, Sen Denny Hoskins posted the photo below. In the photo, Denny is holding an AR. The Pennsylvania shooter used an AR to kill one person and wound others, including the former President.
Denny Hoskins, Missouri Secretary of State candidate. Photo: Screenshot, Facebook
I thought the Republicans were calling for the temperature to be turned down after the rally tragedy?
I have saved the best for last…well, the worst. The very worst. Meet Valentina Gomez. In a statement, Gomez said she would deploy the National Guard to oversee Missouri voting.
Valentina Gomez, Missouri Secretary of State candidate. Photo: Screenshot X
Gomez has filed for the SOS position, but I don’t think she has any plans to actually try to win the position. I haven’t quite been able to figure out what she’s up to, but she is using hyperbole and extremism along with assault-style guns to make her points. She seems unhinged in most of her statements…many of these statements also have nothing to do with the office she is running for. She loves rage-baiting.
She has used a homemade flamethrower to burn books stating, “When I’m Secretary of State, I will burn all the books that are grooming, indoctrinating, and sexualizing our children. MAGA. America First.”
Gomez also uploaded a strange video in which she is running through the suburbs with a vest with a flag decal that gives the impression that she is current military or a veteran — she is neither. She states, “In America, you can be anything you want,” and continues with, “So don’t be weak and gay,” “Stay f-cking hard.”
The video has since been removed, but another is still up on Twitter. It was posted just hours before the July 13 Trump rally shooting. You can find it here. In the video, Gomez references JK Rowling and offers to take her to a shooting range before firing off several rounds at an unknown target.
But why? Why would three separate candidates for Missouri Secretary of State send out such violent messages to the voters in my state?
Fearmongering. To stir up hate and discontent. To represent authoritarianism. To showcase an illiberal democracy.
These candidates are following the gun lobby’s playbook — they are leveraging the demagogue’s playbook. They are attempting to manipulate voters, or in the very least, intimidate voters.
We can counter this gun extremism by not voting for the folks who push it on us. We can stand against gun violence and demand better gun legislation. We can elect lawmakers who will pass common sense gun laws that will protect constituents.
A little of that common sense would go pretty far in Missouri. Especially in the race for Secretary of State.
This is an important video. It shows how the coverage of Biden is one-sided and how the republicans at their convention did all the same things they accuse Biden of. He says the news won’t cover it. I agree but not for the same reasons, the media is now corporate media is pushing for a tRump victory. Hugs with a mask from a sick Scottie
A friend used to blog on a health website that is no more, and she always started out with that, no matter what else she had to write. It just really put light into my day to read that, so I’m borrowing the idea for today. Today I have errands that I don’t want to run, don’t even want to get out of the house, I only want to read and post, but there it is. So, here’s a song for all of us.
I’ve also listened to this short this morning, and it’s giggle-worthy:
Finally, here’s one for whoever else doesn’t want to do what ought to be done because some other thing seems better to do:
Donald was never going to pick a woman to be his running mate. He has far too much contempt for us.
In Vance, he’s found someone who hates women as much as he does; someone who wants to control them as much as he does. If the Trump/Vance ticket wins this election, it will be the beginning of the end of women’s reproductive rights and bodily autonomy.
Our corporate media don’t seem to care, but I’m fairly certain American women haven’t forgotten that, with the help of Mitch McConnel and Leonard Leo, my uncle rigged the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, overturning over 50 years of precedent and stripping away a basic human right from half of the population. Maybe they think we’re as fixated on President Biden’s age as they are, but we don’t have the luxury of forgetting. While the press might want to gloss over or downplay Vance’s backwards views on women, I can promise you that American women do not.
Vance’s website has a whole section entitled “End Abortion.” When asked if he believes whether or not there should be exceptions for rape or incest, he said, “two wrongs don’t make a right” We know he thinks women in abusive marriages should stay with their abusers for “the sake of the children.”
Just days after Roe was overturned, Vance tweeted: “If your worldview tells you that it’s bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at the New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you’ve been had.”
And then there’s what he told fellow misogynist Tucker Carlson: “We are effectively run in this country… by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made. And they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”
American women will know misery if by some great tragedy Donald and Vance get into the White House because those two will make The Handmaid’s Tale our reality.
Last year, after Ohio voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to protect reproductive rights, Vance called the people’s decision a “gut punch.”
“There is something sociopathic about a political movement that tells young women (and men) that it is liberating to murder their own children,” Vance said after the vote. “So, let’s keep fighting for our country’s children, and let’s find a way to win.”
Vance found his way to a win by sucking up to a man who demands total obedience, humiliation, and subjugation—especially from those, like Vance, who had spoken out against him in the past.
We need to recognize that the white men who see women as breeding stock have created a strong alliance. This week we learned that Elon Musk—who, along with fellow tech billionaire and all-around vile human being Peter Thiel, pushed hard for Vance to be the pick—is donating $45 million a month to Donald’s super PAC.
On Tuesday morning, we learned from a video accidentally leaked by Robert Kennedy’s son, that my uncle is colluding with the independent candidate to win the election.
These are scary times, but it’s good to know where everyone stands. I stand with the women of America. So do Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
We know where Donald and Vance stand. And we need to make sure neither of them gets anywhere near the Oval Office.
Donald Trump has chosen J.D. Vance as his running mate, the former president announced on Monday.
Vance, a first-term Republican senator from Ohio, was widely expected to be Trump’s vice presidential pick as the pool of potential hopefuls narrowed earlier in the day. Just hours before the announcement, several outlets reported that Gov. Doug Burgum (R-N.D.) and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) were informed by the Trump campaign that they would not be on the 2024 ticket. Others previously thought to be on Trump’s short list included Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), U.S. House Rep. Elise Stefanink (R-N.Y.), and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
In a post on his own tech platform, Truth Social, Trump lauded Vance as the “person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States.”
“J.D. honorably served our Country in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University in two years, Summa Cum Laude, and is a Yale Law School Graduate, where he was Editor of The Yale Law Journal, and President of the Yale Law Veterans Association,” he said, adding that he “will be strongly focused on the people he fought so brilliantly for, the American Workers and Farmers in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, and far beyond.”
The choice of Vance, who rose to fame as the author of the controversial memoir Hillbilly Elegy, was likely intended to help Trump shore up support among white, lower-income voters in the Midwest, where President Joe Biden is considered vulnerable in the 2024 race. According to poll averages from FiveThirtyEight, Trump leads Biden by more than nine points in Vance’s home state of Ohio, and Biden also trails in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Biden would likely need to win all three of the latter states to stave off a second Trump term, with swing states like Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada also looking vulnerable in 2024.
A former critic of Trump who recast himself as a politician in the MAGA model, Vance’s LGBTQ+ record differs very little from the man at the top of his ticket. During his two years in the U.S. Senate, Vance opposed the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified federal same-sex marriage rights in the event that Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2004 ruling legalizing marriage equality, is repealed by the Supreme Court. He also authored the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, which would make it a class C felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, to provide gender-affirming surgery to trans minors. (This despite the fact that transition surgeries are rarely offered to patients under the age of 18 and only in cases of extreme medical need.)
Additionally, Vance is a supporter of the so-called “parent’s rights” movement, which advocates that LGBTQ+ students be outed to their parents and seeks to remove queer-affirming resources from classrooms. He has repeatedly referred to opponents of those actions as “groomers,” such as in an April 2022 post on X. “I’ll stop calling people ‘groomers’ when they stop freaking out about bills that prevent the sexualization of my children,” he wrote at the time.
The 39-year-old politician has also opposed diversity and inclusion in the U.S. armed forces, suggesting that he is likely to support re-banning trans servicemembers from the military should Trump be elected. “American political leaders should stop using America’s military as a social justice side project,” his 2022 campaign site reads. “Troops don’t need to focus on diversity or equity or any other progressive buzzword; they need to focus on fighting and winning America’s wars.” The removal of trans troops from the military is a major component of Project 2025, a set of far-right policy proposals shaped and promoted by the anti-LGBTQ+ Heritage Foundation, which Trump has sought to distance himself from in recent days.
Vance’s anti-LGBTQ+ background also includes claiming that Biden supports Ukraine because Russian President Vladimir Putin is anti-trans and blaming the “childless left” for America’s decline, specifically citing U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. Furthermore, he once accused U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) of making up the term “Two-Spirit,” which is broadly embraced by LGBTQ+ Native Americans to describe their identities. “Would love if progressives just stopped inventing words,” Vance posted on X in February 2021.
In repeatedly opposing LGBTQ+ equality, Vance has found a perfect match in Trump, whose administration was responsible for more than 200 attacks on queer rights in four years, according to GLAAD. These assaults included repealing protections for trans students, removing resources for LGBTQ+ Americans from federal websites, decimating funding for global HIV/AIDS prevention, and appointing a record-number of judges opposed to LGBTQ+ equality. His administration also made it harder for marginally housed people to find safe shelter and opposed workplace protections for LGBTQ+ employees.
Trump, whose own supporters threatened to kill his last vice president for refusing to support Trump’s 2020 bid to remain in office, is likely to resume many of those policies if reelected in November.
Happy Monday all. I had a hard time writing this morning. So much has happened since I last wrote to you on Saturday. Where to begin? We should all be grateful the shooter missed, and that Donald Trump is safe and unharmed. Democracies resolve differences at the ballot box and not with bullets. I have no idea how the shooting will impact this election, or what happens next. Polls conducted last week found the election close and competitive, with neither side having a clear advantage. Today Biden is at 270 Electoral College votes in the 538 forecast despite lingering and legitimate concerns about his candidacy. As I said in my video overview of the election from late last week we can and should win this election, but we need to stay together and not give into fear, factionalism or red wavy Trump has superpowers thinking.
So let’s start today with this reminder:
In the last few months we’ve gotten repeated and powerful confirmations of the success of the Biden Presidency – inflation *fell* last month and is running at the Fed’s target rate over the past six months, crime and murder rates are way down, gas prices are down, the flow to the border is down. We’ve had the strongest economic recovery of any advanced economy in the world, the best job market since the 1960s, the lowest uninsured rate in American history, the deficit is trillions less, the Dow has broken 40,000 and all three indices continue to hover in record territory. Domestic oil, gas and renewable production continue to be at all time highs leaving America more energy independent than it has been in decades. The Wall Street Journal has called the American economy the “envy of the world,” and the Economist recently wrote about the unprecedented start up boom America is experiencing right now. Biden’s big three investment bills have dramatically accelerated the energy transition necessary to combat climate change and will be creating opportunities and jobs for our workers for decades to come. The President has reinvigorated the Western alliance, been an historic champion of democracy and freedom, and campaigned to help successfully defeat the fascists in recent European and French elections.
Joe Biden promised to make things better for all of us, to get us successfully to the other side of COVID. And he has. He has been a very successful President for America and virtually everything you will hear this week at the GOP convention about the Biden Presidency will be lies.Subscribe
Here’s Governor Josh Shapiro this weekend celebrating the life of Corey Camperatore who was killed at the Trump rally on Saturday: (video on the page)
Here’s a passage from David Frum’s powerful new essay in The Atlantic this morning (gift link):
When a madman hammered nearly to death the husband of then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Donald Trump jeered and mocked. One of Trump’s sons and other close Trump supporters avidly promoted false claims that Paul Pelosi had somehow brought the onslaught upon himself through a sexual misadventure.
After authorities apprehended a right-wing-extremist plot to abduct Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Trump belittled the threat at a rally. He disparaged Whitmer as a political enemy. His supporters chanted “Lock her up.” Trump laughed and replied, “Lock them all up.”
Fascism feasts on violence. In the years since his own supporters attacked the Capitol to overturn the 2020 election—many of them threatening harm to Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence—Trump has championed the invaders, would-be kidnappers, and would-be murderers as martyrs and hostages. He has vowed to pardon them if returned to office. His own staffers have testified to the glee with which Trump watched the mayhem on television.
Now the bloodshed that Trump has done so much to incite against others has touched him as well. The attempted murder of Trump—and the killing of a person nearby—is a horror and an outrage. More will be learned about the man who committed this appalling act, and who was killed by the Secret Service. Whatever his mania or motive, the only important thing about him is the law-enforcement mistake that allowed him to bring a deadly weapon so close to a campaign event and gain a sight line of the presidential candidate. His name should otherwise be erased and forgotten.
It is sadly incorrect to say, as so many have, that political violence “has no place” in American society. Assassinations, lynchings, riots, and pogroms have stained every page of American political history. That has remained true to the present day. In 2016, and even more in 2020, Trump supporters brought weapons to intimidate opponents and vote-counters. Trump and his supporters envision a new place for violence as their defining political message in the 2024 election.
Fascist movements are secular religions. Like all religions, they offer martyrs as their proof of truth. The Mussolini movement in Italy built imposing monuments to its fallen comrades. The Trump movement now improves on that: The leader himself will be the martyr in chief, his own blood the basis for his bid for power and vengeance.
We enter the GOP’s Convention week with a few things still being true:
Trump is a rapist, fraudster, traitor, felon and the ugliest and most dangerous political figure in our history
And this is what his fascist party wants to do if back in power:
They want Putin to win, the West to lose. The border to be in chaos, and migrants to keep flowing into the country. Americans to lose even more rights and freedoms. The planet to warm faster. 10 year olds to carry their rapist’s baby to term, and for more women to die on operating room tables. Tens of millions to lose their health insurance. More dead kids in schools. Verified rapists in positions of authority. A restoration of pre-Civil Rights era white supremacy. Huge new tariffs which raise prices on everything, and wreck the global economy which has made us prosperous. Big new tax cuts for their wealthiest donors and less for everyone else.. Books banned across the US. Seniors to pay more for insulin and prescription drugs. Foreign governments free to pollute our daily discourse and harass our citizens. Teenagers to work night shifts in meat packing plants and not go to school. The minimum wage to stay at $7.25. Mass arrests and mass deportations of immigrants long settled in the US. Insurrectionists to get pardoned. To end American democracy for all time.
Matt Carriker of Demolition Ranch
The yound man who shot at Donald Trump on Saturday was a registered Republican wearing a Demolition Ranch t-shirt. A central reason he was successful at getting his shots off is that, unlike almost every other nation in the world, here in the US a 20 year old can legally carry a high-powered rifle in public within several hundred feet of a Presidential candidate and there is nothing law enforcement can do until he fires his weapon. Far right ideologies made Saturday’s shooting possible, and easy enough even a kid could do it. Violence is their goal, their aspiration, as is the ending of “law and order” and democracy itself. And here we are at a remarkably dangerous and consequential moment in our history.
Scottie's Playtime 