THE BROS THINK WE NEED THEIR HELP TO UNDERSTAND WHAT WE WANT

https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-bros-think-we-need-their-help-to.html

I want to thank Ten Bears for the link, his link will be below because WordPress messed up blogging like I do to the max. But for those who do not follow Ten Bears he posts grand links that you can choose to follow or not, and he labels them well enough that some of them get my interest, like the one below. In this one it is about how the die hard center / lean right democrats are not giving up just because the entire public seems to want Kamal a more progressive candidate. No they insist the public really wants a center / leans right one like Old Joe used to be in the old days. Maybe a split ticket of Kamal and a Joe Manchin type is what they are hinting. What they say is right wingers don’t lose hope at the convention a centrist will rise up to challenge her and win over whelming support. These guys just don’t get the 1980 – 1990s are gone. The right had it last brief gasp of power, but the country is moving forward, not backward to the 1950s. Hugs. Scottie

Page Tue: Time is Short …

Many pundits are sad today because the Democratic Party won’t have a mini-primary to choose Joe Biden’s replacement on the presidential ticket. But how do Democrats feel? Morning Consult has done some polling:
A Morning Consult survey conducted after President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign found that 65% of Democratic voters support Harris to lead the party’s ticket, more than double the level of support she had in a hypothetical look at the same question late last month following the first presidential debate.
As has Quinnipiac:
Democrats and Democratic leaning voters were given a list of 10 names of possible Democratic candidates for president instead of Joe Biden and asked who they would most like to see win the Democratic nomination for president.

Vice President Kamala Harris tops the list with 45 percent support, California Governor Gavin Newsom receives 12 percent support, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg receives 11 percent support, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer receives 7 percent support, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear each receive 4 percent support, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly receives 3 percent support, and Maryland Governor Wes Moore, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, and Colorado Governor Jared Polis each receive 1 percent support.
Those are blowout numbers, as is this:
Vice President Kamala Harris raised $81 million in the first 24 hours since announcing her bid for president, her campaign said, a record-breaking showing as Democrats welcomed her candidacy with one of the greatest gushers of cash of all time.
See also this:
Future Forward, the flagship super PAC blessed by President JOE BIDEN, received $150 million in new commitments from major Democratic donors in the 24 hours since the president announced he would step aside from the race, Elena Schneider reports.

The fundraising boon … gives VP KAMALA HARRIS, Biden’s endorsed successor, an enormous boost as the Democratic Party reorients to a new nominee.
Sounds as if Democrats are very satisfied with Harris as the candidate. And that should be no surprise. Go to FiveThirtyEight’s collection of 2024 Democratic primary polls. When you get to the bottom of the list, keep clicking “Show more polls.” Long before Biden dropped out, in every national poll that asked respondents about a field without Joe Biden, Kamala Harris won, usually by double digits. When Harris’s lead was only in single digits, it was because her closest rival was Michelle Obama, who has made it clear she’ll never run for office.

Here are three typical polls, all posted on one day late last month (click to enlarge):

Survey USA: Harris by 27 over a field including Newsom, Buttigieg, Whitmer, Shapiro, and Wes Moore. Morning Consult: Harris by 10 over a field including Newsom, Buttigieg, Whitmer, Moore, Beshear, Cooper, Pritzker, and Moore. Data for Progress: Harris by 21 over a field including Newsom, Buttigieg, Whitmer, Pritzker, Shapiro, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar.

In a field without Biden, Kamala Harris is the Democrats’ consensus choice. Kamala Harris has always been the Democrats’ consensus choice.

But bros like Ezra Klein aren’t satisfied. They still think we Democrats don’t know what we want, and need to have a bro-devised process to help focus our tiny minds:
I think there’s a middle path here that Democrats should consider. None of the top-tier candidates are going to challenge Harris for the nomination. But what about some second- or third-tier candidates? Let a few up-and-comers make their case against Donald Trump. Let’s see some CNN town halls, some multicandidate forums. Nobody is going to go negative on each other here. Give the country a reason to watch a lineup of young Democrats, most of all Harris, make their cases against Trump day after day for the next few weeks.

Think of it not as a contest. Think of it as an exhibition. Maybe the people who’ve endorsed Harris can participate, too. She’s going to need a vice president. So maybe Gretchen Whitmer and Shapiro and Kelly and Beshear should be up there, too…. Maybe a little strategic ambiguity about what these candidate forums and voter town halls are would be good.
Harris vs. “some second- or third-tier candidates”? You mean the way Joe Biden ran against Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson? We all derived a great deal of civic nourishment from that process, didn’t we?

And what does Klein mean when he writes, “Think of it not as a contest. Think of it as an exhibition,” and then “Maybe a little strategic ambiguity about what these candidate forums and voter town halls are would be good”? Beyond the obvious (We can’t allow you simple folk to know what your big-brained betters are doing), is Klein arguing that this will be described as an exhibition but will actually be a contest, because donors who want another candidate will urge writers like Klein to magnify any Harris slip-ups and promote a donor-friendly alternative?

Klein goes on to say nice things about Harris, and says she’d almost certainly emerge from his process as the nominee. (Though you never know — he writes, “If she really isn’t up to it, [Democrats] need to know that now.”) He describes this as good publicity for the party (though I’d remind him that a few excellent speeches by the presumptive nominee would also be good for the party, especially if other party stars show up in support of her).

But it’s clear that if you’re happy about the party’s consolidation around Harris, Ezra Klein thinks you’re uninformed and need educating. I worry that patronizing bros like this — and not just the ones in the media — will choose not to vote for Harris, ‘cuz she’s a girl and a bunch of girls and girlymen decided to make her the nominee by acclamation, without contests and brackets and March Madness and a Final Four. We need to outvote Republicans, but we may also need to outvote America’s Ezra Kleins.

Posted by Steve M. at 10:44 AM

Stuff I saw on AP today

A few headlines of interest here, with snippets and links.

I got a great giggle when I saw this story last night. Imagine Republicans telling other Republicans they’re being too racist…

https://apnews.com/article/trump-harris-attacks-johnson-hudson-76f8e90d24004e49449087787ac031a5

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders are warning party members against using overtly racist and sexist attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris, as they and former President Donald Trump’s campaign scramble to adjust to the reality of a new Democratic rival less than four months before Election Day.

At a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday, National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Richard Hudson, R-N.C., urged lawmakers to stick to criticizing Harris for her role in Biden-Harris administration policies. (snip-more)

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Monthly headlines are turning into daily headlines:

https://apnews.com/article/hottest-day-ever-climate-change-weather-heat-extreme-global-warming-8e2b0b7fa0360ecb931ca333a832c694

Monday was recorded as the hottest day ever globally, beating a record set the day before, as countries around the world from Japan to Bolivia to the United States continue to feel the heat, according to the European climate change service.

Provisional satellite data published by Copernicus on Wednesday showed that Monday broke the previous day’s record by 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.1 degree Fahrenheit).

Climate scientists say it’s plausible that this is the warmest it has been in 120,000 years because of human-caused climate change. While scientists cannot be certain that Monday was the very hottest day throughout that period, average temperatures have not been this high since long before humans developed agriculture. (snip-more)

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Cuteness overload!

https://apnews.com/video/kangaroos-animals-new-york-bronx-wildlife-conservation-society-11cbd816bd71411fb4ecb980b986361e

VIDEO

A 7-month-old tree kangaroo peeked out of its mom’s pouch at the Bronx Zoo and here is the video

The second baby of a tree-dwelling kangaroo made its public debut this week in New York, poking its pink head head out of its mom’s furry white pouch. (snip-click the Video hyperlink just above the title)

Here’s a really good vent piece

about what was happening with the Dem presidential ticket prior to Sunday’s culmination. It hasn’t been easy for any of us to just pivot to our new candidate, though her wondrousness makes it easier. There are still feelings about it. I like how this writer termed it.

Joe Did What? Trafalgar Edition by Yastreblyansky

“No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy.”Read on Substack

Well, I guess this certainly does change everything, and that’s refreshing.

I’m going to stay angry for a long time at The Times and Politico and other big media and the “liberal” tech billionaires for the dishonest backdoor trick they pulled, when they couldn’t succeed in turning the public against Biden and shifted instead to convincing us that we had turned against Biden by ourselves, or rather that our neighbors had, through the bogus “age issue”, warning us not that Biden was a bad president, but that he’d lose because other people thought he was too old, and our punishment for supporting Biden would be another Trump term (on the basis of a polling model that has consistently failed by underestimating the Democratic vote for six years now). They recognized our deep fear of the consequences of another Trump term and exploited it, in a way that actually made Trump’s reelection more likely, using the debate disaster as evidence of a permanent degeneration (which it obviously wasn’t—Biden had never showed up in that condition before and never has since). It was irresponsible and disgusting.

I’m not too angry with the congressional party leaders, or the “centrist” representatives in their precarious suburban seats, or even the bedwetter commentariat. The fear is real, and it’s justified. What could be lost in another four years of Trumpery is almost incalculable; I’m thinking especially of the backsliding in the elimination of fossil fuels, but the “deconstruction of the administrative state” as prefigured in the Project 2025 document turns the entire civil service into an easily corrupted tool for tearing down regulations, and reduces the Justice Department into the president’s personal police agency. It really is the end of the republic, alongside plans for a federal ban on abortion, vigilante takeovers of school libraries, the insane powers for evil conceded to the presidency by the Supreme Court even as it strips the office of its power to do good. The thing is, fear is a lousy counselor, and their Fantasy Politics League plan to get rid of Biden by obliterating the primary results with some kind of pantomime competition, before or during the Democratic convention, as somebody leaked the plan to the abominable Mark Halperin (now working for Newsmax), was a terrible, senseless plan that would have flung us into even worse uncertainty than we already had. Don’t panic.

I’m certainly not angry at Biden for making the decision. Far from it! Remember that (as @nycsouthpaw just pointed out) there are two parts to what he did: stepping down from the campaign, and giving his endorsement to Vice President Harris. The first was the thing he was being pressured to do by the congressional party leadership, the timorous representatives from Nassau County and North Jersey and the Hudson Valley, the readers of Friedman and Brooks and Ezra Klein, and so on; the second was the thing those people absolutely didn’t intend for him to do, spoiling the open convention plan. He was not supposed to endorse Harris.

So it was one of those audacious, perfectly timed Biden moves that looks like a gaffe (the most famous example would be the one during his vice presidency that made marriage equality a federal reality) and changes the whole situation. Harris quickly announced her candidacy (to “earn and win” the nomination, she said, carefully), all the other conceivable candidates endorsed her too, and the campaign had raised $50 million from small donors ($100 million after 24 hours, suck on that, billionaires). Like one-eyed, one-armed Nelson at Trafalgar—I’m not kidding, folks!—the 81-year-old Biden had sacrificed his own (political) life, but had won the battle, for his legacy of a better, more free and equal America.

At least I hope so. A battle, of course, not the war. Anyway, it seems clear that Democrats are in a much better position than they were a couple of days ago, with a unity in the party we’ve seen nothing like in years, pro-Biden and anti-Biden voices embracing in the social media. Of 263 Democratic congressmembers and 23 governors, the Washington Post tally 24 hours after the announcements has 243 who have endorsed Harris and 43 who haven’t (non-endorsers include convicted felon Robert Menendez and the federally indicted Henry Cuellar, but the New York and New Jersey centrists I’ve been watching the most have endorsed, except for that freak Tom Suozzi, and so, I’m glad to report, has Speaker Emerita Pelosi). There are no alternative candidates except Marianne Williamson (old Joe Manchin sent out feelers, but was roundly rebuffed). As of this afternoon convention delegations from ten states—Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Florida, Louisiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Alaska, and Wisconsin, plus Guam, had pledged support to Harris, for a total of 770 delegates out of the needed 1,986.

Meanwhile the Trump campaign, now led (with Biden’s withdrawal) by the oldest and unquestioned most cognitively disabled presidential candidate in history, is having to completely reconfigure its tactics. They are running ads complaining that Vice President Harris laughs too much and that she’s opposed to plastic drinking straws. Their vice presidential candidate “JD” Vance looks like a feeble impostor and baffles his audiences with his complaints.

Republicans have been trying to characterize the surge of support for Harris as some kind of coup attempt against Biden, as if Biden hadn’t sparked himself it with his bold move, and as undemocratic, which is somewhat ironic—

One of the most gratifying aspects of the excitement is the way the discussion of Biden’s age has given way to the discussion of his accomplishments from all quarters:

I’ll be getting to that, no doubt, but in the meantime check out this magisterial survey, “Why Biden Outclasses Every American President Since FDR,” by Nathan Newman.

Oh, and maybe one of his most surprising accomplishments will be the election of the nation’s first Black woman president.

(For me, that cleans the Anita Hill slate. It may not for her, and I wouldn’t blame her, but I’m over it now that this has happened. People learn, grow, and remediate wrongs over time. Well, good people do.)

Miss Kansas reveals more about stunning statement that her abuser was in the audience

By Scottie Andrew, CNN 2 minute read Updated 9:22 PM EDT, Mon July 22, 2024

(There was a time when this would not have been allowed to be spoken of within the pageant, even after VAWA passed. I’m glad we’ve managed to raise a few generations with more confidence than we had at their ages.)

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/22/us/miss-kansas-abuser-domestic-violence-cec/index.html

Alexis Smith was crowned Miss Kansas last month. She wowed audiences when she told them that her abuser was in the audience, reinforcing her platform of ending domestic violence. Miss America/AP/FileCNN —

Being a pageant winner takes more than beauty and talent. The newly crowned Miss Kansas Alexis Smith showed that winning the title sometimes requires bravery, too.

Smith stunned the judges during her final interview at the Miss Kansas competition last month when she said that her abuser was in the audience.

It only reinforced the importance of her platform — “to eliminate unhealthy and abusive relationships.”

When asked about her vision for her tenure as Miss Kansas, Smith maintained her composure in a sparkly azure dress.

“Some of you out in this audience saw me very emotional, because my abuser is here today,” she said.

“But that’s not going to stop me from being on this Miss Kansas stage and from representing as the next Miss Kansas,” she continued to applause and cheers. “Because I and my community deserve healthy relationships.”

She provided more context in an Instagram post the month after her win. On the night of the pageant, she said, “someone I have been healing from tried to disrupt my peace.”

“Instead of falling into silence, I chose to live out my vision for a better world,” she wrote. “I took back my power — not just for myself, but for my dreams and everyone watching and listening.”

She added, “I’m ready to use my story, tools, and resources to end unhealthy relationships in all forms.”

Some positive trans posts debunking the hate lies of the anti-trans, I post some of Ethel’s videos. If you are interested in the truth about trans people, trans rights, trans people in sports then please follow her channel.

Hi, welcome to Essence of Thought with me, Ethel Thurston, as your host.

Today’s video explores the Cold War’s impact on the West, namely how the Red Scare laid down the groundwork for the modern anti-trans panic in sports. From the media’s open misogyny to literally cartoonish fearmongering, there’s a lot to unpack.

@EssenceOfThought7 hours ago Today’s video explores the Cold War’s impact on the West, namely how the Red Scare laid down the groundwork for the modern anti-trans panic in sports. From the media’s open misogyny to literally cartoonish fearmongering, there’s a lot to unpack.

Until the Violence Stops, We Need Pride

Let’s talk about Biden, Trump, and mixing up names….

Oklahoma Schools Chief Defends Forcing Teachers To Instruct From The Bible In Combative CNN Interview

Oklahoma Schools Chief Defends Forcing Teachers To Instruct From The Bible In Combative CNN Interview

July 2, 2024 Christianists, Education

CNN HOST PAMELA BROWN: “You’re saying that the teaching of the Bible in the classroom is a must, that every teacher must accept that. The bible includes beheading, rape, and incest. Do you support teaching children about those topics?”

RYAN WALTERS: “I support teaching children our history accurately and what we’ve seen is the radical left and the teachers’ union have driven the bible out of schools.

“You can’t talk about our rights coming from God, as Thomas Jefferson referenced, you can’t talk about Abraham Lincoln talking about being on God’s side in what he does and that inspires him?

“You can’t talk about the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr., who routinely referenced examples from the bible, including from a “Letter from Birmingham Jail”?

“I’m doing the things I’m doing is because of the tenets taught to me by the bible, so it’s essential that our kids understand our history and we’re going to put it back in and the left is going to continue to try to censor our history. Well, we’re not gonna allow it here in Oklahoma.”

BROWN: “Okay, you didn’t answer my question. We’re going to get to the history and everything, and by the way, Thomas Jefferson, he advocated for freedom of religion, actually not the establishment of a religion for one, but are you okay with all teachings of the Bible? If you want to bring it back into the classroom, rape, incest, beheading. Is that acceptable to you?”

WALTERS: “Again, I’ll answer your question, you might not like to answer, but it is the answer. It is our history is referenced, the bible was referenced multiple times in American history. It had a profound influence on American history.

“It was the bestselling book in American history, to not teach that in the classroom is academic malpractice. Our kids have to understand our history and we’re not going to hide that from them.”

BROWN: “Okay, so will you allow teachers to teach all aspects of the Bible? How are teachers supposed to know what of the bible to teach and what of the Bible not to teach? It’s a simple question, given the fact that the bible includes, also, you know, pornographic material, something you’ve come out against and actually took a teaching certificate away from a teacher for giving access to students— pornographic material. That’s in the bible.”

WALTERS: “Yeah, let me be crystal clear. The bible is not on the same plane as Gender Queer and Flamer. These are pornography, the bible is a book that was referenced throughout American history.

“We have academic standards that tell our teachers that you are to talk about the bible in reference to the Mayflower Compact, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” the Declaration of Independence, so these are all very clear.

“It’s very clear from primary sources that these individuals reference history— in our history, they referenced the bible. So look, when it’s historically accurate, we’re absolutely going to include that.

“I mean, think about how absurd it would be to teach about the Pilgrims if you don’t mention their intention for moving to the New World, it’s crucial and we’re not gonna allow the radical left to continue to push a false history on our kids that said that faith played no role, well, just read the history. It’s clearly there.”

Watch the full clip. There’s a LOT more.

AtticusP 14 hours ago

The moment that the words “the radical left “comes out of someone’s mouth, I stop listening because I know that they can’t be taken seriously and engaging with them is pointless.

Woke AF AtticusP14 hours ago

One hundred percent. This guy isn’t in charge of education. This guy is in charge of BRAINWASHING CHILDREN.

SkokieDaddy-Admire my wiener! Woke AF13 hours ago

Phrasing please. Brainwashing is so 1950’s CIA.

He’s a GROOMER. He is GROOMING CHILDREN to force his lifestyle DOWN THEIR THROATS.

clay 14 hours ago

The Bible isn’t history, ours, or anyone else’s. We teach history, including the use of the Bible by historical personages by reading their primary documents. Teach the Mayflower Compact, teach the Declaration of Independence, teach the Letters from the Birmingham Jail, teach On Walden Pond, teach a wide variety of English literature that uses Biblical themes, none of which is teaching “from” the Bible, nor teaching the “full story” of the Bible.

amy cuscuriae clay14 hours ago

Exactly, the Bible is a tribal scrap book from the bronze age. It contains, myths, legends from various traditions. laws, and strategically placed and conveniently discovered historical forgeries. In our 8th grade Ancient Semitic History class we began learning what the various sources from specific books and verses were. It included spending a lot of time with Gilgamesh and Enkidu before reading the Song of Solomon.

It was an inoculation against the fundamentalism prevalent in Utah.

I don’t think that’s what Ryan Walters has in mind for kids in Oklahoma

JW Swift amy cuscuriae13 hours ago

“I support teaching children our history accurately…”

Since you can’t really compare the Babble with anything peer reviewed or that can be otherwise corroborated factually, the implication here that using the Babble to teach history to children “accurately” is ludicrous.

Even his attempt to tie the Babble to early American history is pushing the envelope, by a LOT. The hubris alone of automatically implying that a mention of Gawd somehow means specifically the Gawd referred to in his Babble is breathtaking.

Raising_Rlyeh 14 hours ago edited

“I mean, think about how absurd it would be to teach about the Pilgrims if you don’t mention their intention for moving to the New World,”

Oh yes, go ahead and teach kids how they were religious bigots who thought the Dutch were corrupting their youth and so set sail to establish an intolerant theocracy (see how the puritans treated Quakers as just one example).

Let’s talk about Dems moving to stop Project 2025….

WOKE LEFT YouTuber’s INSANE ANTI-TRUMP RANT!

Watch as GreaterSapien, usually the voice of reason, loses his grip while discussing Donald Trump and the MAGA movement! This video can’t mask the underlying meltdown as he rants against Trump’s policies and MAGA’s influence with shaking fury. From calling Trump the “titanic of presidents” to labeling MAGA hats as “brain cell repellents,” GreaterSapien pulls no punches in this comically exaggerated takedown. It’s all absurdly civil on the surface, but the subtext screams satire! Come for the supposed meltdown, stay for the clever critiques. #UnhingedLogic #TrumpTirade #MAGAchaos