how we're going to win this election (Rebecca)

how we're going to win this election

 

let me start with that.  

i think we're all at our wits ends these days.

i wanted to blog last night but i also just didn't want to get into it.

again, i'm always amazed by c.i.  she's always had that ability to just keep going.  no matter how upsetting something is, she focuses on what needs to be done and keeps going.  we're being betrayed by 'the progressive,' 'the nation,' 'in these times' and 'democracy now' who are working overtime to elect donald trump by trashing kamala non-stop.  

donald trump is a danger to this country and to our democracy.  

and yet these outlets that claim to be left attack kamala endlessly.  

it's enraging.

racist like katrina vanden heuvel - owner of 'the nation' magazine.  they're the 1s leading the attack on kamala.

and katrina's so damn lucky that c.i. only left 2 comments on her thread because ava told me about the post c.i. wrote but didn't post where c.i. talked about katrina's racism and how she should personally be paying reparations.  it may go up yet.  they had sat down to lunch and c.i. was returning calls and learned of the editorial against kamala for president that 'the nation' had just published.

c.i. was so mad, ava said, that her hands were shaking.  and she typed it up and was almost done with it but lunch was over because it was time to go speak to another group about why it was important to vote for kamala so she said it was probably a sign to leave it in draft and calm down before posting.

she went into every thing.  katrina's racism.  how katrina and her sister pilfered her mother's apartment after her mother jumped off the balcony to her death.  how katrina and her sister never found ______ but that c.i., to this day, knows where it's at and will never katrina because her mother kept it from her for a reason.  my favorite was about did she sleep with katrina's late husband.

i won't quote it but when ava was telling me about it, it reminded me of donna mills' abby on 'knots landing' when joan van ark's val is asking if she's sleeping with val's husband gary.

abby said: i'm not saying we are sleeping together and i'm not saying we're not.  i am saying that i can have him any time i want.  

it was the most brutal take down.  

i know we'll get it in a community newsletter if c.i. doesn't post it at 'the common ills.'

it is telling and sad that racism exists at all but even more telling and sadder when we're looking at our left outlets like 'the nation' and 'democracy now' and seeing just how much racism still exists to this day.

and i know it's depressing.  it depresses me.  it makes me want to climb into bed and just pull the covers over my head.

but that doesn't make it go away.

so i do that for a moment or 2 and recharge and then get back out of bed and get ready to fight again.  and that's what we have to do.

vote.

vote like your life depends upon it because it does. all we have to do is vote.  if we vote, if all of us vote, we're done with trump.  we have the numbers on our side.

donald's cult has decreased since 2020.  

we have brave americans who are swing-voters, who are independents, who are democrats, who are greens, who are libertarians and who are republicans who get just how important this election is.  

we have the numbers on our side as long as we actually vote.  

we need to vote and we need to ask the people we know to vote for kamala as well. 

there's no secret math required.  there's no in depth strategy needed.  we have the numbers, we just have to turn out.

now i can't write constantly, i can' spend all day talking to 1 group after another.  i can't do that.  c.i. can and we're lucky to have people like that.  but just because i can't put hours and hours of time in on this doesn't mean i can't do anything.  

i can vote.  i can make sure my friends who are supporting kamala know how important this vote is and, say 1 of them needs me to watch their kids so that they can vote, or they need a ride to the polls so they can vote.  those are things i can do.  

and when it starts feeling overwhelming, just focus on what you can do and do that.  that's how we're going to win this election because we need president kamala harris.

let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'

Friday, October 25, 2024.  Don't just get mad, get even.  

Early voting is taking place, mail-in voting is taking place and the last day of voting will be November 5th, ten days from now.

And it can be discouraging.  In a normal election, it can be discouraging.  In this one, it especially is.  I hear comments as we go around speaking where people feel the biggest opponent Kamala Harris has is not Convicted Felon Donald Trump but the media.   And it's true.  The media's done an awful job -- All Things Media Big and Small.  Others cover the corporate media.  Here's OCCUPY DEMOCRATS doing that.

 And people have rightly called out THE NEW YORK TIMES and others.  To me, those are the rivers.  I prefer to focus on the tributaries.  Our so-called independent media. The beggar media.  You can't watch or listen or go to their page without them constantly begging you for money.  Money that then waste -- PACIFICA RADIO has accomplished nothing in over a decade -- let's be honest. Or is mere survival -- on some of the worst snake oil programming -- supposed to count as something worth praising?

Amy Goodman constantly says -- forever sticking her hands into your pockets -- 'We couldn't do this without you.'  And she's right.  She'd have to get a real job and, considering what she's done to Kamala, we should stop enabling her by giving her money.  

'Al Gore is the world's worst liar.'

I don't believe that.  I don't think he lied any more than anyone else and he might have lied less.  But that's something that stuck and it didn't come from the right wing.  It didn't come from the corporate media.  It came from a distant relative of Al's (Gore Vidal) writing in THE NATION.  

Can someone ask THE NATION if they think that witty column was really worth the over one million dead Iraqis that resulted from their amplification of Ralph Nader as a savior and their trashing of Al Gore.

I don't blame Ralph Nader voters.  Some were going to vote for him regardless.  But I do blame our left  'independent' media and their ho-hum coverage of Al Gore.  I think you should as well.  We have the Iraq War because of the beggar media.  Certainly, if Al were running today, they would take him a little more seriously and cover him better because of climate change.  But back in 2000, they just wanted to have their fun.

And they're pulling the same crap again.

Reality: PACIFICA would have gone under.  THE NATION would have struggled but would have survived on a very limited circulation.  THE PROGRESSIVE would have gone under.  Amy Goodman might not have been able to hijack ownership of DEMOCRACY NOW! (thanks, Leslie Cagen, you always were repulsive) from PACIFICA.  So many would not be standing today had they not trashed Al Gore.

Because trashing Al Gore and putting Bully Boy Bush in the White House led to the Iraq War.  And that's the only thing that saved our beggar media.  They used it to fund raise off.  They pretended they cared.

Ivan Brobeck.  If you were watching and listening and reading in 2008, you might remember him.

You might not.

He was a US service member who checked out and went to Canada where he tried to get recognition of some form of status that would allow him to stay in Canada.  It didn't come to be.  So he returned to the US as the 2008 presidential election was taking place.

And everyone . . . looked the other way.  We called it "The Full Brobeck."  The beggar media had used the Iraq War to make money.  Pretended to care.  But they didn't care.  And Ivan's story didn't matter to them which was telling those of us on the left that we didn't matter either.

We matter.  If we didn't, they wouldn't always be begging us for money in pledge drive after pledge drive, pop up after pop up.  

Kamala Harris matters.

She could be a great president.  We know that.  We know damn sure she'd be a better one than Donald Trump.  But she could be a great president.  

So it's very frustrating to watch DEMOCRACY NOW! and THE PROGRESSIVE and IN THESE TIMES do everything that they can to derail her campaign.  An e-mail to the public account came in last night about Donald Trump's worship of Hitler and how offensive that is (agreed) and the e-mailer was glad that Kamala had spoken and so had her running mate Tim Walz.  The e-mailer said he was glad I had noted Tim's reaction as well because I don't usually note Tim.

Tim's the running mate.

For that reason, he'll always be noted less.  Kamala wasn't noted much when she was Joe's running mate.

But the other reason he's been noted less and reason why I've actively made decisions not to note him sometimes is because he's already got a fan club.  COMMON DREAMS -- even when attacking Kamala -- was happy to publish praise Tim articles.  THE PROGRESSIVE, as we noted yesterday, has Kamala on the cover of their latest little read magazine -- it was once a monthly, let's see if we can't ensure it stops publication completely -- but they've never published an article praising Kamala or applauding her.  They attack her.  They did publish two rah-rahs for Tim this week.  But they've done that before.

They like him.  Beggar media likes him.  He's a he.  He's White.  

They like Tim.

They identify with Tim because they're all White or people of color who've learned what to do to fit into the office mindset. 

And that's not meant as an insult to Tim.

It is meant to make you think about the content beggar media has produced.  

And to think about how they've treated a Black woman.  Day after day after day.

2016 had some sexism in the media.  It was nothing compared to 2008.   That's when Matthew Rothschild, then in charge of THE PROGRESSIVE, wrote things like the column where he was tickled by right wingers calling Hillary the c-word.  It wasn't just FOX "NEWS."  It was the media.  Non-stop sexism.  

FAIR?  Every week they seemed to find, during the Democratic Party primaries, evidence of racism to weigh in on in their radio program COUNTERSPIN.  And Ava and I noted at THIRD, in real time, how they repeatedly avoided noting any sexism.  As we noted, it took until May for them to finally note an example of sexism.  Hillary being called a bitch on CNN.  

Peter Hart: One of the most disturbing features of the media coverage of the Democratic presidential race is the way racism and sexism have been expressed. CNN viewers were treated to one pundit explanation that people might call Hillary Clinton a bitch because well isn't that just what some women are. Not everyone's so out in the open. MSNBC host Chris Matthews opened his May 18th show wondering how Barack Obama would connect with regular Democrats? Obviously code for working class Whites. This would seem to make the millions of Obama voters so far irregular. But then consider the May 14th op-ed by Washington Post Writers Group Kathleen Parker. She wrote about 'full bloodness' and the patriot divide between Obama and John McCain offering that there is "different sense of America among those who trace their bloodlines through generations of sacrifice." This makes Obama less American than his likely Republican rival and his success part of a larger threat "There is a very real sense that once upon a time America is getting lost in the dash to diversity." Well thanks to The Washington Post, Parker's rant appeared in newspapers around the country including the Baltimore Sun and Chicago Tribune. We're not sure what those papers used for a headline but one blogger suggest [nonsense] would do. Parker's attack wasn't even new. Before in the pages of The Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan wondered if Obama had ever gotten misty thinking about his country's rich heritage. John McCain by contrast "carries it in his bones." There's an appetite in corporate media for such repellent ideas as Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell recalled, Noonan's column was praised by NBC's anchor Brian Williams as Pulitzer worthy.

Now they didn't tell us who said it.  And they didn't think it was worth more than a single sentence -- after detailing multiple examples of racism.  It's not either you call out racism or your call out sexism.  You call out both and you call out other examples of discrimination.  Unless you're beggar media.

Kamala is at the intersection of race and gender.  And apparently defending a Black woman is much more difficult for the largely White beggar media than defending a Black man.  

David Corn, at MOTHER JONES, kind of explored this topic this month but only as it applies to right wing media.

But reading it, you should wonder, "What kind of difference would we see in the coverage if, for example, Patricia J. Williamson was still writing for THE NATION?"  And, if she was writing for the magazine still, this Black woman would have been -- as she was in 2008 -- on DEMOCRACY NOW! and every PACFICA RADIO program explaining not just the issues of racism targeting the candidate (Barack) but racism and sexism with regards to the coverage of Kamala.

A woman, a Black woman, in Pennsylvania this week, shared her outrage in one of the groups we spoke with and asked, "How many drone strikes has Kamala carried out?  Oh, right, NONE!"  And she's exactly right.  Kamala's covered as though she's a criminal -- covered that way by our beggar media.

Tabitha had a video yesterday that so captured what Ava and I are hearing in group after group that we speak to as we try to get out the vote.

She concludes with, "From this point forward, those people will be treated just as I treat the MAGA nuts in this society."  And she recommends a TIKTOK video by a woman who is sharing her disappointment with all the attacks not just on Kamala but on herself for supporting Kamala.

These attacks and insults that both women speak of?  They're not coming from the right-wing, they're coming from supposed leftists.

And it's very frustrating when you grasp how many elections have been won due to the votes of Black women and yet here we have a Black woman running for president and we're not supposed to feel joy, we're not supposed to be excited -- this is coming from the left.

And Amy Goodman and all her other creepy inbred freaks can hope we're not seeing it.  But we are seeing it and it's opened our eyes to just how hard and difficult equality still is -- on the left -- in 2024.

Tabitha made me cry in her video because I don't think you can watch the coverage of Kamala and not see what Tabitha's talking about unless you're just lying to yourself.

And these reactions are real and widespread but beggar media thinks they can trick us.  

Reality: Beggar media does not control the votes.  

All they do, in the best of times, is shine a light on something that causes corporate media to follow.  That's it.

And if all the people we're speaking to -- again, we've spoken in all the states except for Hawaii and Alaska -- show up and vote, Kamala's got it.  So I understand if you're sad or angry, but we vote.

And then we forgive these losers in beggar media because . . .

Oh, honey, no.  You got the wrong one.  I'm a bitch and I've never pretended otherwise.  We make them pay.  After the election, we work on taking our pound of flesh.  We make sure everyone we know grasps what beggar media did and how they worked overtime to dampen enthusiasm for Kamala, how they belittled her and attacked her, how they ran puff pieces on Tim Walz but not the head of the ticket.  We make sure that their reputations are destroyed.

So when you're feeling dejected right now because yet another idiot has attacked Kamala as the election looms, stand up a little straighter and go about your business knowing we're going to vote and we're going to do everything we can to get her elected.  And when the elections over, we're going to work on accountability for every piece of beggar media that worked overtime to elect Convicted Felon Donald Trump back into the White House.  And we're not going to go to say, "Oh, Kamala won so we'll just let it go."  Oh, hell no.  There's going to be another Kamala, that's the thing.  Win or lose, there will be another Kamala.  And we need to make such noise that they never again think they can treat the next Kamala the way they did the woman who is I hope our next president.

One of the reasons 2016 was less sexist in its coverage was because these same fools attacking Kamala had attacked Hillary in 2008 and they finally got called out for it.  We can go into Amy Goodman's history there because it's a long one.  But the pushback and the call out after Hillary dropped out of the primaries resulted in sending a message to all media.  We need to be sure the same message is sent again because that is the only way change will happen.

We've already dealt this week with the idiots and whiners -- the Gaza Freaks (purity pests who don't care about the Palestinians or they wouldn't be working so hard to re-elect Donald) -- that Kamala's 'ignoring' the base -- maybe Ralph Nader's base.  As I already stated, nothing she does is ever good enough for them so if I were running her campaign, I would've told her to avoid them as well.

 

The goal is people who might vote for you, people you might be able to reach.  And it is working -- I don't know to what degree -- but saving our nation appeals to people of all political stripes.  REASON is a Libertarian magazine.  Here's the opening of Ilya Somin's piece:

In this post I am going to explain why Kamala Harris is a far lesser evil than Donald Trump, and therefore, I plan to vote for her. Both candidates have serious flaws. But Trump's record of trying to overthrow constitutional democracy after he lost the 2020 election creates a strong presumption against him. In addition, he is worse on key policy issues, most notably, trade, immigration, federal spending, and maintaining the Western alliance in the face of threats from authoritarian powers.

This outweighs Kamala Harris's significant weaknesses on some other issues, especially because Trump is more likely to be able to implement his worst policies through unilateral executive action, while Harris's worst ideas require hard-to-secure new legislation. Arguments that Trump is superior on deregulation and issues related to the judiciary are greatly overblown, and nowhere near enough to offset his awfulness elsewhere.

It would be foolish to expect this piece to have any meaningful impact on the outcome of the election. I am no Taylor Swift, and my endorsement has little, if any, political value. But I hope readers might find it of value as an exercise in how to assess issues and weigh them against each other.

At THE NATION, Micah L. Sifry writes:

First, the Harris campaign is actually just the Biden campaign infrastructure with a different (and better) candidate. But that infrastructure was not built to scale a mass mobilization campaign. Prior to Biden’s dropping out, his field operation was handling a trickle of volunteers. Now it has struggled to manage the flood unleashed by Harris. Many pop-up entities flowered after Biden bowed out, starting with Win With Black Women and spreading to dozens of similar “Xers for Harris” groups who attracted hundreds of thousands of participants to mass Zoom meetings in early August. But leaders of those groups tell me they have had little success figuring out how to best funnel the people they’ve attracted into the Harris campaign machinery.

Of course, no one has ever built a full-blown presidential campaign in such a short time. By necessity, the Harris campaign is partially relying on the Democratic National Committee’s organizing infrastructure. But that means it has also inherited the DNC approach, which is very top-down and media-centric. Sri Kulkarni is a former Texas congressional candidate who was an early developer of the concept of relational organizing, where voters are encouraged to match their contact lists against the Democratic voter file and then try to personally engage with voters they actually know. This is called “friendbanking.” He is now working triple time to help scale up the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s relational effort to help candidates across the country, including in Pennsylvania.

Kulkarni tells me that more than 50,000 people have signed up for the DNC’s relational campaign, which, like the DCCC, uses the Reach app to help people activate their personal networks. Among those are at least 7,000 in Pennsylvania, he says. But so far the Harris campaign is primarily using the DNC’s Reach tool to prompt its users to share social media content, rather than to actually friendbank. This seems unwise. In theory, when Democrats hit the final weekend before Election Day and everyone is scrambling to move voters who still haven’t cast their ballots, a robust friendbanking operation could give campaigners access to a list of activists who actually know these missing potential voters. Each of those 7,000 Pennsylvanians on Reach could also potentially activate another voter or two on their own. Such a strategy worked for Jon Ossoff in the special runoff election in Georgia in 2020—helping his Senate campaign identify 40,000 people who had actually skipped the general election. While many independent groups are trying relational organizing this year, including the WFP in Pennsylvania, where it has roughly 20,000 supporters on Reach, it appears it has yet to be adopted by the top of the Democratic hierarchy.

"The flood unleashed by Harris."  At last, someone at THE NATION besides Joan Walsh can note that, yes, there is enthusiasm for Kamala.  I guess the lesson in 2024 is that Black women are invisible.  As candidates and as voters because you don't find these left outlets crediting Kamala with one damn thing.  They slam her.  They go on and on about the supposed base being outraged by her -- even though there's no stronger base for the Democratic Party than Black women and Black women are backing her all the way.  

I'm glad the reality got in there.  It's a shame it took so long and it's a shame that others aren't following suit.

A crackpot in every home?  Is that what DEMOCRACY NOW! is going for.

There was some Chicago crackpot what was his name? Let's not name him.  He was trash and let's not help him be remembered.  He was a blogger for a few years before he died.  Jesse Jackson was a bad guy.  Everyone in Chicago was a bad guy.  He'd write posts like that over and over, day after day.  That's what DEMOCRACY NOW! has turned into.  I don't know what it is that makes the show go ape s**t crazy at presidential election time but it does.  Amy brings on her friends and lets them lie and lets them attack people. And this isn't a right or left thing.  Ava and I have documented it for years at THIRD.  She decides who she likes and then recruits those who also like her candidate.  They might, in fact, be working for the campaign of her candidate or be a pledged delegate for the campaign she favors but she won't tell her audience that.  She'll lie to them, while lecturing everyone else about journalistic ethics.  She brought Lie Face on in 2008 because Lie Face was working for Barack's campaign.  Amy knew that because a little bit before she'd been on Rev Jesse Jackson's radio show with Lie Face and Jesse doesn't play.  He has ethics.  And he identified Lie Face for what she was.  A little bit later Amy brings her on DEMOCRACY NOW! and Lie Face is just a college professor who took some students to New Hampshire and she's just sharing neutral observations as a college professor and . . .  No, she was for Barack which was why she trashed John Edwards and why she ignored Hillary.  Amy thought people wouldn't notice or ever catch on.  But they did notice.  Now that wasn't the end of Lie Face for Amy.  She continued to bring her on.

We have PBS friends.  Lie Face pulled that stung once on PBS -- and attacked the wife of a Congress member -- and we let PBS friends know that Lie Face was not just a political observer and college professor, she was campaigning for Barack.  That made PBS look like fools.  They refused to ever let her back on.  

But again, Amy wants to play you for a fool every presidential election.  

I really wished she'd learn to grow.  I was hoping she would.  But she didn't.  So she'll probably die Goody Whore as well.  And probably pretty soon.  What's up with that right eye? She needs to have it looked at.

So Goody brought on the crackpot that the Secret Service wouldn't let into Kamala's rally. 

Another anti-Kamala segment.  Well, again, the Iraq War saved them.  It's good business for these beggars when a Republican is in the White House.  People are outraged and the Goody Whores can show up and pretend to care and steal your money.

ATLANTA BLACK STAR NEWS notes:

CNN host Anderson Cooper faced backlash on social media Wednesday night following his sharp questioning of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris during a town hall with undecided voters in Pennsylvania, with his confrontational approach leaving some viewers scratching their heads. 

During the event in Delaware County, Cooper repeatedly pressed Harris on the Biden administration’s weak handling of illegal immigration and her shifting stance on fracking, questioning why she hadn’t accomplished in four years what she was now pledging to do as president.

The hardline questions drew swift criticism from viewers who accused Cooper of applying a double standard that worked in Donald Trump’s favor.

Numerous online voices blasted Cooper for repeatedly interrupting Vice President Harris and holding her to a higher standard than Trump, whose vague “concepts of a plan” on health care and other key issues have faced little to no scrutiny from the network.

Critics argued that while Harris faced overwhelming dissection by the media, Trump was getting a free pass by choosing to skip the event altogether.

“CNN brought every GOP candidate on for a #CNNTownHall and let them lie up and down. Fact-checked nothing and stood by while they made things up the whole time,” wrote one X user. “Tonight @andersoncooper is picking apart every single tiny little thing Kamala says. CNN is trash and so is Anderson.”

Another user echoed the sentiment, stating, “I wish @andersoncooper would concentrate on questions that need to be answered and not on gotcha questions. The audience has much better questions than Anderson.”

At times, it seemed as if Cooper was trying to put Harris on the spot, especially when it came to her fluctuating positions on key issues such as the border. Harris even had to cut Anderson off as he talked over her response to a question from the audience about immigration.

We see them.  We see all of them.  Let's wind down with this from Philadelphia yesterday:

Warwick Hotel Rittenhouse Square Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1:27 P.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Oh, hi, guys. 

     Q    Hello.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Okay.  Good morning — or af- —

     Q    Good afternoon.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  — afternoon.  Good afternoon.  Good afternoon.

Well, let me start by saying I’m really very proud to announce that we’ve had some endorsements this morning, as we’ve been rolling out endorsements, by two leaders in the Republican Party: the mayor of Waukesha and then, of course, former Representative Fred Upton.

And this continues to be, I think, evidence of the fact that people who have been leaders in our country, regardless of their political party, understand what’s at stake.  And they are weighing in — courageously, in many cases — in support of what we need to have, which is a president of the United States who understands the obligation to uphold the Constitution of the United States and our democracy.

As for last night, yet again, Trump not showing up, refused to be a part of a CNN debate.  And clearly, his staff has been saying he’s exhausted.  And the sad part about that is he’s trying to be president of the United States, probably the toughest job in the world, and he’s exhausted.

I said last night what I mean, which is the American people are being presented with a very serious decision, and it includes what we must understand will happen, starting on January 20th, in this choice. 

Either you have the choice of a Donald Trump, who will sit in the Oval Office stewing, plotting revenge, retribution, writing out his enemies list, or what I will be doing, which is responding to folks like the folks last night with a to-do list, understanding the need to work on lifting up the American people, whether it be through the issue of grocery prices and bringing them down or investing in our economy, investing in our small businesses, investing in our families.

Happy to take any questions.

     Q    Madam Vice President, you will be back in Philadelphia with members of your team on Monday, former President Barack Obama, as well as Bruce Springsteen.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yes.

     Q    Do you — can you tell us where you — that may be? 

And secondly, any other, as we would say, heavy hitters in your campaign planning to come to Philadelphia in the lead-up to Election Day?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, I’m very honored to have the support of former President Obama.  As you know, he’s been on the campaign trail and has been really wonderful and extraordinary in terms of the time and effort that he’s putting into our campaign.  And people like Bruce Springsteen, to have their support — and, of course, he is an American icon — I think it just shows the breadth and depth of the support that we have and also the enthusiasm that a lot of people are bringing to the campaign and feel about our campaign.

Q    Any other big names we can share?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  I have nothing to report at this moment.  (Laughs.)

Q    (Inaudible.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Stay tuned, however.

Q    Vice President, what do you make of the gender gap in this election?  Why do you think you have stronger support among women than the former president?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, I have to be honest with you, it’s not what I see in terms of my rallies, in terms of the interactions I’m having with people in communities and — and on the ground.  What I am seeing is e- — in equal measure, men and women talking about their concerns about the future of our democracy; talking about the fact that they want a president who leads with optimism and takes on the challenges that we face, whether it be grocery prices or investing in small businesses or homeownership. 

So, I’m not actually seeing that kind of disparity, and I intend to be a president for all Americans.  And that includes paying attention, yes, to a fundamental freedom that has been taken away because of Donald Trump — the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body — and, in equal measure, to prioritize the economic needs of individuals and families in America and what we also must do in terms of upholding our strength and standing on the global stage.

Q    Madam Vice President —

Q    Madam Vice President —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:   You all sort that out, okay?  (Laughter.)

Q    How are you going to vote on Prop 36 in California? You are a California voter.  Do California and other states need to punish drug and theft crimes more harshly?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So, I have not yet voted, and I have not yet had the chance to read through the ballot.  I will keep you posted on that.

AIDE:  We have time for one more question.

Q    Madam Vice President, this topic was brought up last night, but will construction of a southern border wall continue in your administration?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  I will tell you that my highest priority is to put the resources into ensuring that our border is secure, which is why I’ve been very clear: I’m going to bring back up, as president, that bipartisan border security bill and make sure that it is brought to my desk so I can sign it into law. 

The biggest issue that we have right now is that Donald Trump has stood in the way of what would have been a proven part of the solution to the bigger problem, which is that we have a broken immigration system in America, and we need to fix it.  And we have the tools at hand, but we have on the other side of this election, Donald Trump, who would prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem. 

I intend to fix the problem in a way that is just about practical solutions that are within our arms reach if we have the commitment to do it. 

Okay?  Thank you.

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Open letter to Naomi Klein (Betty)

Open letter to Naomi Klein

Hey, White girl.

I'm the Democratic Party base.  I'm a Black woman.  Watching your garbage 'analysis' on DEMOCRACY NOW! (which has become a garbage show) and hearing you talk about how Muslims are the Democratic Party's base?  Honey, you don't get to be the base based upon a few elections.

Black women turn out every election for the Democratic Party and that's why we are so pissed to see the way left media is treating Kamala Harris. From DEMOCRACY NOW on down, they all want to destroy Kamala or knock her.  

And we get that, right?  Black women, we get that?  

We get that from society every day, don't we?

So it shouldn't be that surprising to us that Naomi Klein, Amy Goodman and so many others are trashing Kamala and insulting her.  That's how they really treat us, let's be honest.

Want to make a story about police brutality the least covered?  Kill a Black girl or a Black woman.  

George Floyd?  Society will take to the streets.  And should.  But find the same outcry when it's a Black woman.

White girl, Naomi, I see you.

I remember your garbage when Barack Obama was running for president and you went around talking about how important this was because he was a Black man.  Then you wrote that insulting column where you tried to speak for Black voters. You didn't try to speak to Black voters, mind you.  That would have required you recognizing us as people.  So instead, being a White Jew who apparently knew no Black people, you just watched some Black people the night of the election, from across a busy street and then, in all your Whiteness, you wrote a column telling your peers what these Black people felt and thought.

Again, you never spoke to them.  But why would you need to?  You, Queen White woman, know everything.

Here's what I know, a Black woman's running for president and you have no praise and only offer attacks.

A Black woman's running for president and you're blaming her and using your racism and your sexism to attack her.

You're not a feminist, Naomi.  You're a political woman.  That's not the same as feminism.

You need to check your Whiteness and you need to stop insulting Black women.  We're not playing with you, Snow Princess.  I noticed when you listed your Canadian notion of the US's Democratic Party base, you didn't include Black women.  Rather telling, dontcha think? 

"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

What losing in November will mean for Miss Sassy JD Vance (Mike)

 

 What losing in November will mean for Miss Sassy JD Vance

 Here's a Tweet that reminds how many days left to vote and what this election is about.

We've got to make this happen.  We need Kamala, we need a real leader.

Donald Trump is a crook, a convicted felon who has already harmed out country and will destroy it if given the chance.

He and his mini-me are disgusting.

Miss Sassy, he's good for jokes, if nothing else.  Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) reports:

Appearing on MSNBC's "Way Too Early," former Republican National Committee spokesperson Tim Miller took a shot at Donald Trump's running mate for claiming to a rally crowd that the 78-year old GOP presidential nominee is "healthier" than him.

Speaking with host Jonathan Lemire, Miller, of the conservative Bulwark, quickly slapped down the spin and ridiculed the Ohio Republican for engaging in the type of propaganda that would not be out of place in North Korea.

Speaking in Reno, Vance proclaimed, "I try to be a humble guy. I think the presidency is, of course, such a big job but I feel extremely confident. I mean, hell, Donald Trump is healthier than I am, so I feel extremely confident that Donald Trump is going to serve and serve well for four years for the American people."

After sharing the Reno rally clip, host Lemire called Vance's remarks "shameless" and dryly added, "J.D. Vance is almost 40 years younger than Donald Trump, but that won't stop him from saying that Donald Trump is healthier, smarter, more handsome than he is. There really isn't anything they won't say to flatter the boss, will they?"

"Yeah," Miller agreed. "The North Korea-type spin remains uncomfortable, even though we've been dealing with this for whatever, nine years now, Jonathan."

I think Miss Sassy asked his grandmother the wrong question years ago.  Instead of asking her if he was gay, he should have asked her, "Why am I so turned on by elderly men?"

He's certainly turned on by Donald Trump.

Does he realize what a career breaker that can be?

If Donald loses -- I hope he does -- JD loses as well.  There's no 2028 run for JD.  He's a loser.  And Donald's most fanatical fans?  They're going to be suck ups like JD is now.  They're going to lie about how great Trump is.  Does Miss Sassy not get that?  He is the fall guy.  They will lie about him just like he lies about Trump.  That means JD will be seen as the one who cost Trump the election.  MAGA will not blame their god, they will blame JD.  Josephine Harvey (TPM) adds:

Trump has rebuffed calls to share his medical history after Vice President Kamala Harris released hers earlier this month. Hundreds of health professionals have called on the Republican nominee to disclose the information, citing concerns about his acuity and fitness to serve based on his erratic behavior on the campaign trail.

“It is very telling how defensive they are,” Harris campaign director of rapid response Ammar Moussa said of Vance’s praise on X, formerly Twitter.

“Authoritarian personality cult alert. We must praise the leader’s vitality, especially if he has been falling asleep in public!” wrote Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an authoritarianism expert.

Trump's a Nazi lover.  Anyone who claims they are MAGA and support him now are full of s**t.  There's nothing patriotic about Hitler.  David Hudson (INTO) notes:

The subject of Donald Trump’s apparent admiration for dictators came into sharp focus this week.

Although the question of Trump’s authoritarian tendencies is not new, they’ve exploded again following remarks made by his former Chief of Staff, John Kelly. In a new interview with the New York Times, Kelly said Trump, “certainly falls into the general definition of fascist”.

[. . .]

Yesterday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg responded to the question as to whether Trump is a fascist.

“It’s one thing for some leftist group to call you a fascist,” Buttigieg tweeted. “Quite another when it’s a fellow Republican. And absolutely astonishing when it’s your own chief of staff.”

Good for Pete.  Solid point.  And, again, you're not a patriot if you're defending an American who praises Hitler.  A lot of Americans lost their lives in WWII.  Not Trump, he never served in any war.  He had 'bone spurs,' remember?    David Gilmour (MEDIAITE) notes:

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough slammed ranking supporters of former President Donald Trump attacking the credibility of retired Gen. John Kelly for his claims the Republican nominee privately praised Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler as “pathetic people.”

Kelly, who served as Trump’s White House chief of staff, told The New York Times on Tuesday that the former president once told him Hitler “did some good things.” The Trump campaign denied the claims. In a further article in The Atlantic, it was claimed that Trump remarked when in office that he wished he had “the kind of generals that Hitler had.”

Naomi Klein realities

 C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Wednesday, October 23, 2024.  No, we're not going to rewrite history and paper over it with lies. 

We're going to start with the nonsense brigade.  Naomi Klein's going to be our focus.  I'll give you her Tweet but we need to wind up to her.

John Rick MacArthur -- goes by "Rick" -- is someone I've known for years.  I doubt the young people in the left (under 30) have any idea who he is.  But for awhile there, he was being pimped like crazy.  And he did do some good work -- especially at the start of the Iraq War.  And it was his magazine, that published Naomi Klein's "Baghdad Year Zero."  A very important work about the Iraq War.

And people turned on Rick.  Before they did, I lost respect for him and made that clear here.

I knew him for years.  I knew his mother was French.  On his father's side, they were a historically important American family.  

And then one day Rick let's slip that he'd just voted.  Oh.  Who for?  Wait.  He voted in the French elections.  And he voted in the US elections.

I do not approve of that, I do not support that.  This is not a new position for me with regards to Elon Musk.  You should not be allowed to vote in more than one nation's elections.  It's just not fair and it's not really about democracy or one person one vote.

Rick can tell a funny story.  He's a good person.  But I walked away on that day -- and noted it here -- and then came his refusal to support unions much later -- the magazine staff wanted to unionize.  That angered others -- the union issue -- and I understand that but I take the other issue seriously as well.

Naomi Klein.

She was on DEMOCRACY NOW! yesterday and I  have no idea why.  

I do not need her discussing US elections.

I think with her especially that she's crossing a line.

Years ago, during the days of AIR AMERICA RADIO, she appeared on Al Franken's show.  And Al, as usual, didn't know what he was talking about.  The issue turned to travel -- specifically entering the US.  And had that ever been a problem for Canadian Naomi Klein?

Her answer would have had great importance if she'd answered it -- if she'd answered it honestly.  But she didn't.  She avoided the issue.

Now the Iraq War was raging and some US service members were self-checking out.  Jeremy Hinzman, Darrell Anderson, Joshua Key, Ivan Brobeck and many more.  

And they needed support.

And, in Canada where they went, Naomi did support them.  She'd sign a petition.  She donated to a group.

And for some people that might be enough.

Excuse me for not being satisfied.

Naomi's father left the US due to Vietnam.  He was a War Resister.  And if Naomi had shared that -- especially on Al Franken's neoliberal show -- it could have made a difference in the way some saw the War Resisters.  

Naomi had Canadian citizenship, yes, but being born to parents from the US, she also had US citizenship.  So, no, Al Franken, Naomi didn't have trouble entering the United States.

That's the answer and that is why.  But she wouldn't say that.  She just dodged the question.

This was early 2005 and it would have made a difference.  

But she didn't want to tell the truth.  So we did here.  

And I have never cared for her championing US politicians when elections rolled around.

I'm all for War Resisters and have helped many over the years.  But you leave the country, then you leave the country.  I've forever noted here that the US should not allow Cuban exiles into the US if the whole point is for them to use our country as a base to attack Cuba.  

You're Cuban and you want to live here?  Great.  Welcome.  You're an American now.  Let's all get along.  

But that's not happening if you're here feeding your resentment against Cuba.  And that's true, for me, for any exile.  Don't come to this country in order to plot against your country of origin.

Now on Naomi, should she be a US citizen?

I don't believe in dual citizenship.  I've made that clear here for two decades.  But her mother and her father elected to leave the United States.  Why are we now, as a country, saying she's a citizen of the United States?  I'm not trying to be rude or mean. 

She didn't grow up here. (Her father can't return unless he wants to go to prison.)

I think Naomi is often exceptional.  But I also believe in Ellen Goodman.  In fact, I believe in the former BOSTON GLOBE columnist even more.  She's smarter than so many and has a lot more common sense.  She'd started out on the chat and chews -- those public affairs programs where they bring you and you end up weighing on everything.

But no one can weigh in on everything.

And she grasped that and stopped doing the chat and chews as a result.

No one can speak in an informed manner on every topic.  When Texas Governor Greg Asshole went after Latino citizens, I noted here that I really wanted to avoid the topic and that I wanted to do that because I knew nothing about it.  But then I'm looking around and left media -- independent media -- is avoiding the topic completely.  My plan had been to just highlight reports on the topic.  I was not qualified to comment on it.  But to get qualified -- because no one, not even Juan Gonzalez, was weighing in -- I had to ask Texas community members to do a conference call with me, I had to talk to a member of the US Congress from Texas that I personally knew, I had to speak to one of the women targeted -- her home raided -- and then I still wanted another conference with community members in Texas and bothered poor Sabina with non-stop questions even after that. 

So Naomi Klein appears on DEMOCRACY NOW! and she was there to talk about Gaza.  And she's informed on that.  

But then Amy wanted her to weigh in on the US presidential election.

Why?  

She's not an expert on that.  She doesn't live in the US.  There are Americans who would argue she shouldn't have citizenship (including those who would make the argument -- I did not -- that the minute her father refused US military service and left the country, he should not have been able to pass on citizenship -- Naomi was born long, long after Vietnam).  She's not qualified to speak on US electoral politics.  She has no knowledge base.  She has nothing worth sharing -- her 'tears of joy' on election night piece for THE PROGRESSIVE back in 2008 was nothing but political porn at its worst as she watched from a distance people that she could not hear speaking and people that she had never met became people that she just knew what they were thinking -- just knew it, really, really, really knew it!  That's political porn -- the sort that James Wolcott rightly took Peggy Noonan to task for years ago.

Naomi made some general statement before sharing her concern: Kamala had abandoned her base!!!

STFU.  Not since your bad book -- now out in soft cover -- where you didn't understand the concepts of twinship even though it went to the heart of your book's argument -- have you looked so stupid.

Kamala abandoned the base!!!!

Just f**k the hell off.

That is not what happened.

I tore Kamala apart over the wording of an answer she gave on Gaza to the media and I got a call from a friend in the administration stating I was attacking the only one defending Gaza.  I noted that in a roundtable and I backed off from attacking Kamala.  I didn't write about it here.  I believed my friend but I didn't make the case for it here -- this was long before the Biden-Trump debate.  And I went back and forth on the topic.  Talk about it here in a snapshot and maybe risk outing the friend?  Didn't want to do that.  Nor did it really matter.  Kamala was going to advocate in private but it wasn't going to have any real impact because that's all she could do.  She was not the president.  Nor is she today.

But what ended up happening is that she became the nominee.  I'm glad she did.  I think she'd be a great president.  And I'm willing to hold her feet to the fire the same way I've done every other politician -- and journalist -- in the two decades this site has been up.  If she becomes president, I'll hit hard.  I don't pull punches.  I like Naomi Klein but I don't pull punches on her.

So the Abandon Biden movement already existed.  And then he stepped aside.  And without taking a breath, it became Abandon Harris.  And it became more and more nonsense and bulls**t -- to the point that these Gaza Freaks are now harming Palestinians because Americans are recoiling from the Gaza Freaks.  So they trashed her in public and they attacked her for this and that.  Including the nonsense of a speaker they wanted at the DNC convention.

Naomi may not know all this happened, she doesn't live in the US.  But it happened.  And electoral politics not being an area of expertise for her (campaign politics was a field of emphasis for me both as an undergraduate and as a graduate student), she may not understand how political conventions work in the US.  I have no idea how they work in Canada.  I wouldn't pretend to.  

But the reality is that a spot to speak at a convention is a big deal and everyone wants it.  An unknown would-be-US-Senator from Illinois got to speak at the 2004 convention -- Barack Obama -- but a sitting US senator, Hillary Clinton, who was not just a former First Lady but someone who repeatedly raised a lot of money for the Democratic Party was initially denied. No female politician or female activist was going to be allowed to speak in prime time.  For those too young to remember, this was back in the day when Simon Rosenberg was advocating for Democrats to abandon support for abortion rights and for LGBTQ+ rights.  Those of us who did believe in reproductive rights had to demand Hillary get to speak.  This was a months long process.

And Hillary was a nationally known Democrat.  She had star power.  

So you idiots who thought you were going to elevate some woman who held a local office?  You're idiots.  You could have had six months to attempt that -- you didn't, you had about two weeks -- and it wouldn't have worked.  You would been better off getting behind an activist for Palestinian rights -- an activist with a name which means Bella Hadid, for example.  Even then, in two to three weeks, you wouldn't have achieved anything most likely.  But you would have had a better shot with someone like Bella. 

And it wasn't just that your local politician was an unknown on the national stage so she wouldn't have helped get viewers tuned it, it's also the jostling that takes place among the politicians who all want to be on stage and speaking in prime time.  They would never had let your local politician onstage for that reason.  They wouldn't want Bella on as well but they would have surrendered to the notion because Bella is news and attracts an audience.

But instead of grasping that they were pursuing a losing strategy, they trashed Kamala.

That's all they ever did.

Kamala doesn't have months, you idiots and assholes on the left.  She had to assemble a team and get a campaign going in an instant.  And she did that.

And she doesn't have time to woo people who say they won't vote for her.

Equally true, for all the lies from Amy Goodman and others, Gaza Freaks are not the base of the Democratic Party.  They're not the base of anybody's party.  I suspected that in July but we've spoken to groups in every state now except Alaska and Hawaii.  And Gaza Freaks are on their own. (Gaza Freaks are not supporters of Palestinians.  Supporters of Palestinians would be doing anything to keep Trump out of the White House.  Gaza Freaks are purity freaks with infantile yet sterile minds.)

A lot of Republicans do not want Trump.  That was clear in the primaries.  That's an audience Kamala could pick some voters from.  How many?  I have no idea.

But if I were managing her campaign, I would've told her to forget the Gaza Freaks.  No matter what she did, it was not enough for them.  Acknowledging the suffering in Gaza in her convention speech and the need for a cease-fire didn't make the Gaza Freaks stop attacking her.

In a normal campaign, you'd be wasting your time trying to court those crybabies.  In a much more limited campaign?  She doesn't have the time.  She'd be wasting her time based on the reality that nothing she has said has been good enough for these Gaza Freaks.

You have cut yourselves out of the conversation.  That is on you.  

A campaign is about winning votes.  When all you did was attack the candidate, there's no reason for the candidate to try to woo you.  Donald Trump's not going before LGBTQ+ audiences, seeking their votes.  (Melania will speak to them provided they pay her at least $200,000 -- for her, that's campaigning).

You screwed yourselves out of a seat at the table.  

Naomi's yammering away like an idiot because, on this topic, she is one.  She doesn't understand electoral politics, she doesn't understand US politics, she doesn't live in the US and she's looking down from a cloud at those of us working our asses off to try to save our democracy and protect our citizens.  Guess what, Naomi, we can't exit the US for Canada because we don't have dual citizenship, we don't have your privilege.  

I'm not here to let reproductive rights suffer again.  Every woman in the US should have the same medical options in every state.  That's healthcare.  My healthcare is not a 'state's right.'  That's bulls**t.  Every same-sex couple should have the same rights and that includes full citizenship.  That awful case built on lies found the Supreme Court creating two kinds of citizenship -- full citizenship and second class citizenship.  If you're straight, you can shop where you want and expect to be treated fairly.  If you're gay or lesbian, you can be refused service.  I'm not here to let our public education -- the thing that binds us together as citizens (it certainly isn't home schooling) -- fall apart because Trump wants to destroy the Dept of Education.  I'm not here to let some racist rewrite history by refusing to allow future generations know about slavery and what a scar it left on our country and how much damage it did to people living under it.  I'm not here so that Sabina, in Dallas, TX, a US citizen, has to worry that the police are going to come up to her when she goes to the Mercado on Jefferson and demand proof of citizenship and, if she doesn't have it on her, be pulled off the street.  

I'm not here to watch Donald Trump achieve his goal of dismantling our Constitution.  

I don't have the luxury of sitting this election out or the stupidity of voting for a con artist like Jill Stein.

I also am fully aware that the Palestinians are screwed if Trump gets back in the White House.  100% screwed.  

Let's note Michael Albert (ZNET) who isn't crazy about Kamala but grasps that there are serious issues at stake in this election:

Whatever anger, pain, fear, or strategic hope may cause you to lean toward a vote for Stein, West, or whoever else or to not vote at all in swing states, those choices will undeniably help Trump. Only Trump or Harris will win. Yes, Harris could act in ways to make it easier for Trump-haters to vote for her. And yes, she would be very, very far from a president that you or I would ideally want. But nonetheless, to defeat Harris is to help elect Trump. And to elect Trump would seriously and perhaps even irredeemably hurt every progressive program and prospect that anyone seeks, here and everywhere. When Trump says the real enemy is the enemy within, the “radical left lunatics” who may need to be dealt with by the national guard or the military, he is talking about us. Drill baby drill. Enrich the rich. Abort abortion. Crush all enemies. Get it over with, already. These are not manipulative slogans for him. They are a carefully planned program. Wake up to that on Nov 6th and declare strategic victory? Seriously?

I wonder, do Stein and other third candidates not understand such a trivially simple observation? Are they so ignorant, so unable to reason, that that observation eludes them? I do not think so. But if not that, then do Stein and other candidates and their advocates instead think that getting people to vote for them and not for Harris in swing states is some kind of radical blow for a better future, thereby offsetting the fact that it undeniably helps Trump? Or perhaps they think the act of voting for Harris to stop Trump will inexorably cause such voters to become politically passive and it would be better to have Trump in full power violently working overtime to compel their passivity. I have not been able to personally chat with any of them to ask. I have also not been able to convey nearly as effectively or as widely as I would like the obvious truth that to oppose genocide, to be caring, to be radical, to be revolutionary, and to vote your conscience (where your conscience is cognizant), all entail voting to stop Trump. And I have not been able to ask Stein, West, or other third candidates how and why they disagree with those efforts. How come?

Stein has said, we are in “a very dire situation that will be continued under both Democrats and Republicans. So we say there is no lesser evil in this race.” So I suppose that is her answer. How comes it that she so outrageously denies reality. Is she blinded by the light of her 1 percent campaign? Is she blinded by the lure of the press coverage she gets when she says such things? I don’t know. But now we have another, and I think a more honest, albeit no less disturbing answer to why from an exemplary activist who is arguably Stein’s most savvy and accomplished supporter. 

You may remember Kshama Sawant, Seattle’s socialist city council member from 2010 to 2024. I won’t review her history. It suffices to say she has been a singularly successful left candidate and has been on the progressive, radical, and revolutionary side of issue after issue. She has been courageous, brilliant, and committed. One need not have liked her every move or her every allegiance to feel that she has been exemplary in numerous ways. 

But according to news reports Sawant recently went from Seattle to Michigan to campaign for and with Jill Stein at a Stein Rally in Dearborn. Sawant is highly knowledgeable. She is no one’s fool. She did not say vote for Stein to express your conscience. She did not say vote for Stein to show you are radical. She did not say vote for Stein to build the Green Party. No. Sawant said, “We need to be clear about what our goals are… We are not in a position to win the White House. But we do have a real opportunity to win something historic. We could deny Kamala Harris the state of Michigan. And the polls show that most likely Harris cannot win the election without Michigan.” And in case that didn’t express her intent clearly enough, she added we are “fighting to defeat Harris, not just symbolically but in reality.” Michigan “is ground zero to punish Kamala Harris and defeat her…. We need to break the two-party system, and we need to begin that by breaking this election for the Democrats in Michigan.” Back in June, Trump made his oddly similar feelings about Stein known. “I like her also, Jill Stein, I like her very much.,,, You know why? She takes 100% from them.” I guess Trump could now say the same about Sawant.

Okay, I admit that I can’t imagine that Sawant will read this essay, or that Stein will, but maybe some people will who are understandably feeling that if they vote for Harris in Michigan, or in any swing state, it would seem to say genocide is okay. The system is okay. The Democrats are my champions. Or it would deny their own personal past. Or it would seem to accept a supine future. And so, they understandably hesitate.  

I have been trying to hear, empathize with, and take those types of fears and concerns to heart, not least because I share many of them. And I of course know that Arab Americans and Palestinian Americas have tragically lost family members. I likewise know that American progressives and radicals are rightly and righteously furious at American complicity. But Sawant is being honest. Can you hear her? Is her intent your intent too? If so, then I guess yes, you should vote for Stein and on election night if Harris wins and you are happy about it, or if Trump wins and you are despondent or worse about it, I guess then, perhaps you might want to reconsider the path you chose.

Naomi's taking a lot of flack for that segment.  Some are appalled that she said vote for Kamala and some are appalled by this or by that.  I'm appalled by her 'creativity' when it comes to what went down.  Again, she wasn't here.  So I'm not surprised she's wrong.  But I am surprised she was stupid enough to talk about that she didn't witness and that she clearly did not study.

If she reads the comments left on her Tweet that we noted above, I would encourage her to click on the ones commenting that are balling her out for saying vote for Kamala.  A lot of them are right-wingers pretending otherwise.  There is the White guy from the UK pretending to be an American, a White guy who reTweets Epstein lies about Kamala as he works hard to pimp Trump but pretends to be Green in his comment, there's the outraged Muslim who, woops!, endorses Trump every day on his Twitter feed, there are a whole lot of fakes who want to come off differently in their Tweet slamming her than what they actually are.

If Kamala becomes president -- and I hope she does -- I'm not gong to be tossing kleenexes at her -- Marilyn Monroe tried to house train her dog and would bat the dog with a kleenex -- I'm going to be hitting hard and I'm not going to fret over my language or my approach.  I do get that Naomi Klein means well so in this case, I will stress again, she's exceptional on many things. 

I'm not making that claim about Michael Moore who I can't stand.  Yeah, I saw him on MSNBC giving his Muslims in Michigan analysis. 

It was lies and he knows it.

That's why he starts with 2020.

Reality: This is the group that overwhelmingly voted Republican until 9/11 results in Bully Boy Bush scapegoating and attacking them.  With him long gone from the White House, they have been repeatedly edging to the Republican Party.  In this decade, they're repeatedly embraced book banning and attacks on LGBTQ+ people.  It's not the Disneyfied picture that Michael Moore paints.

There are progressive Muslims in Michigan.  As with any religion, there are also fundamentalists.  

Steve Neavling (MICHIGAN ADVANCE) reported last year:

Dawud Walid, director of the Michigan-chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a pro-Muslim group that has spoken out against LGBTQ+ books, says many Democrats have taken Muslims for granted and are dismissing their serious concerns about “hot-button social issues,” like LGBTQ+ books and transgender bathroom policies.

“We were painted as a homophobic community,” Walid teold the Metro Times. “If people who are progressive continue those kinds of talking points, then Muslims are going to feel alienated. And then there will be people on the right who will seize the moment and capitalize on it because politics in many regards is about capitalizing on the moment.”

[. . .]

Like any religious group, the Muslim community is not homogenous and doesn’t share a single, uniform viewpoint. Ani Zonneveld, president of Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV), a progressive human rights organization, says she has feared the day would come when conservative Muslims would “get in bed” with Republicans because of social issues.

“This is going to become what I call ‘an ugly monster,’” says Zonneveld, an outspoken advocate for gay, bisexual, and transgender Muslims. “Many Muslims have always been homophobic. That hasn’t changed. During the Trump days, the conservative Muslims have used the human rights language as its facade to camouflage their real values so they would be defended by the political left. And the political left bought into that facade.”

"She's told us that we're irrelevant" lies Naomi Klein.  That's not how this unfolded. I'm not in the mood for stupidity, justifications or lies.

Yesterday afternoon, Brad Reed (RAW STORY) reported:

Former President Donald Trump abruptly canceled a planned media event Tuesday — again.

The Hill's Hanna Trudo reported that "Trump was scheduled to hold a virtual roundtable with RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard today, which has now been canceled."

The 78-year-old Trump has been backing out of multiple planned events amid reports that he's feeling "exhausted" by the demands of the 2024 presidential campaign.

That is troubling and does raise serious questions about his health.  However, in fairness to Donald, ask yourself: "Would you really want to be at a roundtable with Junior and Trashy Garbage?  Me neither.  Reed reminds, "In addition to the planed RFK Jr-Gabbard event, Trump canceled interviews with CBS News' 60 Minutes, as well as with CNBC and NBC News."  And there's also his refusal to do the second debate with Kamala.  

Meanwhile, Kamala's everywhere.  Pennsylvania and Wisconsin alone yesterday.  Let's note this from her Brookfield, Wisconsin campaign event with former US House Rep Liz Cheney:

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Good evening, everyone.  Good evening.

MR. SYKES:  And, Vice President, wel- — welcome back to Wisconsin.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:   It is good to be back.  You — you know, I — so, Tony Evers.

MR. SYKES:  (Laughs.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  That’s funny about his playlist.  Is it really that long?  (Laughter.)

MR. SYKES:  No.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Okay.

Every time I — I land in Wisconsin — almost every time, Tony Evers, the governor, will meet me on the tarmac.  And because I did live in Wisconsin when I was five years old, every — (applause) — he will say, “Welcome home.”  So, I do feel and have a connection to Wisconsin and feel a sense of connection.

MR. SYKES:  Actually, we all have connections to Wisconsin, which — which makes this event, I think, so important, with 15 days to go. 

So, let’s just dive right into all of this.  There are actually undecided voters out there.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.

MR. SYKES:  And there are undecided voters here.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.

MR. SYKES:  People who have never voted for a Democrat.  Moderates, conservatives who voted for people named Bush and Cheney and Ford and Reagan —

MS. CHENEY:  Yay.  (Claps.)  (Laughter.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.

MR. SYKES:  And — and Bob Dole.  Wow, that’s a — that’s throwback, isn’t it?

But I guess the question is: What is your pitch to them?  Why should they do something they’ve never done before?  Why should they cross over party lines and vote for you?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, I start from the belief, based on the lived experience, that the vast majority of us have more in common than what separates us. 

I also know that you all are here spending time that you could be spending doing a number of other things, with all of the obligations you each have, and you are here because we, together, love our country.  We love our country, and we believe in the foundational principles that are at stake in this election. 

I believe that when we think about who we are as the American people, there is more we have in common than what separates us when we think about what is at stake in terms of our democracy, rule of law, the Constitution of the United States, national security, the standing of our country in the context of the world.  All of that is at stake. 

And I will share with you, Charlie, when I was in the Senate for — for those four years that I was there, my favorite committee was the Senate Intelligence Committee, and I’m going to tell you why.  We would walk into that meeting in a SCIF, which is a — a secure room.  We’d have to leave our cell phones outside.  The press, with all due respect, were not allowed in.  No cameras. 

People would walk in, Democrats and Republicans, take off their suit jacket, roll up their sleeves, and we’d dispense with who was a Republican and who was a Democrat.  We were all Americans.  We were all in that room with one singular purpose: to concern ourselves as our highest priority with the security and well-being of the United States of America. 

I think those things are at stake in this election.  (Applause.)

MR. SYKES:  Congresswoman Cheney, you know how hard this is, though.  You know how hard it is to break away from tribal loyalty to do something you haven’t done before.  So, I’d like you to address that as well. 

Lindsey Graham was on television yesterday saying, “What do you ‘Never Trump’ Republicans — you know, what — what are you thinking of?  How could you possibly do all of this?”

There are a lot of people who are listening to us who may be disillusioned with what’s happening with the Republican Party, but they w- — they don’t they — they — they’re afraid of paying the price, because there is a cost to all of that. 

So, what do you say to those Americans?

MS. CHENEY:  Well, don’t listen to Lindsey Graham.  Number one.  (Laughter and applause.)  It’s good life advice, actually. 

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  (Laughs.)

MS. CHENEY:  But what I say is that, at the — what undergirds everything that we are as a nation — everything that we are as a nation is the rule of law and it’s our Constitution. 

And when you — when you look at what Donald Trump did after the last election, when you look at the cruelty that’s involved in someone who watches an attack on the United States Capitol, an attack conducted by people in his name, and refuses for over three hours to tell the mob to leave — I mean, I really — people just need to think about what that — that — that’s — that’s depravity.  He watched the attack happen, and people kept asking him, “Please tell the people to leave.”  And law enforcement officers were being brutally beaten and the Capitol was being assaulted, and he would not tell people to leave for over three hours. 

That cruelty is the same cruelty that we see when he lies about the federal government’s disaster response, when he puts people’s lives at risk because he won’t tell the truth.  He’s a man who’s unfit to be the president of this good and honorable and great nation. 

And so, I’ve spent a lot of time working — before I was elected to Congress — in countries around the world that — that weren’t free or where people were trying to achieve their freedom, and I know how fragile — how fragile this — this can be, how fragile democracy can be. 

And so, in — in this election, we have a choice.  We have the choice of somebody, in Vice President Harris, who you know is going to uphold the rule of law.  You know that she’s going to lead this country with a sincere heart.  You know that she is going to always be thinking about what is best for this nation.  We might not agree on every issue, but — but she is somebody that you can trust and someone that our children can look up to.  And I think it’s so important for us to cast the vote for Vice President Harris this time around.  (Applause.)

MR. SYKES:  You know, Vice — Vice President, I w- — I was thinking about one of your social media posts recently where you go through all the things that Donald Trump has bailed out of: that he won’t debate you, that he won’t — that he won’t do interviews, that he’s refusing to release certain information.  And — and you asked an interesting question: What is he hiding?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.

MR. SYKES:  So, what, in fact, is he hiding?

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Well, I — I wonder what is he hiding.  I also wonder what his staff is trying to hide by — by preventing or suggesting he not debate me again, not do these interviews.  It is the norm, as you know, that presidential nominees will do a “60 Minutes” interview.  He has refused to do that.  He is pulling out of interviews left, right, and center. 

And I think that we — what we see about him in public, whether it be his rallies or, as you said, the — the — would it — would it be called a — just a solo dance?  I — I don’t — I — (laughter).

MR. SYKES:  I don’t know that is has a — I don’t even know if it has a name to it.

MS. CHENEY:  “Dance” is really generous.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  What — (laughs).  Yes.

MR. SYKES:  Yeah, the word “dance” would be generous.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  What — what that was.

I — I think it does lead us and it should lead us to observe that he is increasingly unstable. 

But you don’t have to take my word for it.  Listen to the people who know him best, the people who worked with him in the White House, in the Oval Office, in the Situation Room: his former chief of staff; two former secretaries of Defense, his secretaries of Defense; his former national security advisor; and, of course, his former vice president.  And they have each talked about the — the chief of staff — that Donald Trump has contempt for the Constitution of the United States. 

Not only has that been said by a former chief of staff of the former president, but we know he has openly talked about his intention to terminate the Constitution of the United States. 

I have taken that oath six times: as district attorney twice — elected and reelected; as attorney general of the largest state, in California, twice; as a United States senator; and actually now as vice president.  And the congresswoman and I have talked about that.  That is an oath one must take seriously.  It is a duty to defend and honor and uphold the Constitution of the United States. 

He has said he would terminate it.  Anyone who wants to be president of the United States should never again be able to stand behind the seal of the president of the United States, having said they would terminate the Constitution of the United States.  (Applause.)

And, again, most recently, the report is that the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a decorated general, said of Donald Trump that he is “fascist to the core.”  These are the people who know him best, people who worked with him. 

And so, yes, we can talk about that moment on stage of the music and all that, but I think it’s very important that we acknowledge, and I have said publicly, Donald Trump is an unserious man, and the consequences of him ever being president of the United States again are brutally serious — brutally serious.

I — to — to the congresswoman’s point, I have now, as vice president of the United States, met over 150 world leaders — presidents, prime ministers, chancellors, and kings — many of them, multiple times; we are on a first-name basis — most of them allies in connection with NATO, and — and I’ve met with them in connection with our standing, rightly, with Ukraine.  The world is watching this election, and our allies are worried, because the reality is that when we, as the United States of America, walk in these rooms around the world, we walk in chin up, shoulders back, with the earned and self-appointed authority to talk about the importance of democracy and rule of law.

And being a role model — this is a room of role models — we know, as a role model, people watch what you do to see if it matches up to what you say. 

One of my very real fears, Charlie, to be candid, is I hope that we, as the American people, fully understand how important America is to the world.  I hope we really, really understand that — (applause) — because this is about what will happen to and — and with us as Americans, but it will impact people around the world.

MR. SYKES:  Let me follow up on that, Congresswoman, because I was on a podcast recently with — with another pundit who was saying that she was afraid that America was sleepwalking into authoritarianism, that American voters were not sufficiently alarmed.  And as the vice president just said, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff just said that Donald Trump was the most dangerous threat facing the country. 

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.

MR. SYKES:  Do Americans — in this last 15 days, do they understand that?  And what has to happen in the next two weeks for them to really understand the danger?

MS. CHENEY:  Yeah, I — I think that they — I think they do.  And, you know, one of the things I — I remind people is that although not every Republican who is casting a vote for Vice President Harris will say publicly that they are — there’s clearly, you know, a threat associated with that in some instances — but — but millions will.  And — and they will do that for a whole range of reasons, but — but what you mentioned is so important. 

I mean, when I think about — you know, I — the first time I ever voted was for Ronald Reagan.  I’ve known presidents well.  Obviously, particularly, I know a vice president well — (laughter) — in addition to Vice President Harris.  And — and I watch how our presidents have operated.  And even when there have been presidents that we have potentially disagreed with on issues, they’ve respected the Constitution.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yeah. 

MS. CHENEY:  I mean, think about the 2000 election and how close that was and what Vice President Gore did in — in his concession speech and in ensuring that we had the peaceful transfer of power. 

And so, I — I would just urge people — again, you don’t have to — to take my word for it, but — but look at what the people closest to Donald Trump are saying about him.  Look at the testimony of the leaders of his Justice department, the leaders of his campaign, the most senior officials in his White House.  Look at their testimony in front of the Select Committee.  You know, they’re the ones that — that told us everything that we know about his plan to overturn the last election, about what he did watching the attack from his dining room. 

We’ve never faced a threat like this before, and I — I think it’s so important for people to realize this republic only survives if we protect it, and that means putting partisan politics aside and standing up for the Constitution and for what’s right and loving our country more.  (Applause.)

MR. SYKES:  Do — do you — do you think we’ll be hearing more from some of those folks in the next 15 days — the generals, the chiefs of staff, the people who really understand exactly how unfit Donald Trump is?

MS. CHENEY:  I do.  I also think that — you know, that they have been very clear so far. 

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.

MS. CHENEY:  I mean, you’ve had — you’ve had hundreds of national security officials who served in Republican administrations endorse the vice president —

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Publicly, yeah.

MS. CHENEY:  Yeah.  And all of the things that — that — you know, the fact that these people aren’t endorsing — the fact that Vice President Pence, who was the most loyal person there was to Donald Trump — he won’t endorse him because he knows Donald Trump asked him to violate his oath of office. 

Now, that should also give you a lot of pause about J.D. Vance.  J.D. Vance is there because he will do what Donald Trump wants, and that makes him a particular danger to the republic as well.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  And — and I’ll add to that point: Understand also what happened in the last few months when the Supreme Court essentially told the former president he will be immune from anything he does in office.  So, whereas, before, there was at least some threat of consequence and accountability, that no longer exists. 

And to the congresswoman’s point, imagine Donald Trump — based on everything we know about him and everything we see now and before — imagine him with no guardrails, because all of those folks who worked with him before, they’re not — those who held him back, who attempted to ensure that he would follow the law are no longer there.  And — and we have the Supreme Court decision, so the stakes are very high.

MR. SYKES:  Okay.  Let’s go to the audience for some questions.  We — we have some undecided voters who have some questions for you, Madam Vice President.

Let’s go to Lisa Brockman from Madison.  Lisa is a small-business owner. 

Q    Hi.

MR. SYKES:  Good evening. 

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Hi.

Q    Thanks for taking my question.  I have a question on reproductive freedom.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.

Q    And I am — come from a conservative, Christian, pro-life family, and I was a Republican until Donald Trump’s presidency.  (Laughs.)  Like most Americans, I believe in a woman’s right to choose.  And with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, my 21-year-old daughter now has fewer rights than her mother or her grandmothers.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.

Q    I no longer recognize the Republican Party.  They have introduced bills for everything from restricting birth control to bringing homicide charges for abortion.  It is such an extreme, radical agenda by any standards, and it seems less about the unborn and more about controlling women. 

So, my question is: What are your thoughts on this extremism, and how can we restore those fundamental human rights that have been taken away from the American women?

MR. SYKES:  Thank you.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So, to your point, when Donald Trump was president, he hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe, and they did as he intended.  And now there are at least 20 states in our country that have criminalized health care providers, to your point. 

I mean, in Texas, the — the law provides for prison for life for a doctor, nurse, health care provider for doing what they believe is health care and in the best interest of their patient. 

Punishing women.  I was actually just this week, just a few days ago, in the state of Georgia with the mother of a young woman who died because of Georgia’s abortion ban, and she had to go to another state.  And it’s a long and very tragic story that did not have to be.

And here’s how I think about this issue.  One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government — these folks in a state capitol, much less Donald Trump — should not be making this decision for her.  If she chooses, she will talk with her priest, her pastor, her rabbi, her imam, but not the government. 

And — and I also have found, though, since the two years that the Dobbs decision came down, that this happened, I have had conversations with a number of people who were opposed to abortion and remain opposed to it but did not intend for the harm that we are seeing to happen.  And I think as this has — this decision came down and we are seeing the harm, there are more and more people who are agreeing that this should not be the government making this decision for women and their families.

And the way that we will address this is, eventually, Congress needs to pass a law restoring those protections, and we need to agree that, in our society, you know, we should not have laws that are treating people in a way that is causing such harm. 

I’ll give you another example of the harm that is going on.  I started my career as a prosecutor.  I have prosecuted everything from low-level offenses to homicides.  But one of the reasons I became a prosecutor is because, when I was in high school, I learned that my best friend was being molested by her stepfather.  And so, I said to her, “You have to come live with us.”  I called my mother.  My mother said, “Of course,” and she did.  And I made a decision early in my life that I wanted to do the work that was about protecting vulnerable people. 

There are some of these bans that include no exception for rape or incest.  I have specialized in those kinds of cases.  And the — the notion that we would tell a survivor of a crime that is a violation to their body that they have no right to make a decision about what happens to their body next — I mean, I think that’s just unconscionable.  I think it’s immoral. 

And so, this is one of the issues that is at play.  And when this issue has been on the ballot, since the Dobbs decision came down, in so-called red states and so-called blue states, the American people have voted for freedom.  (Applause.)

MR. SYKES:  Congresswoman Cheney, I’d like to get your thoughts on this as well. 

MS. CHENEY:  Yeah.  You know, I am — I’m pro-life, and I have been very troubled, deeply troubled by what I have watched happen in so many states since Dobbs.  And I have been troubled by the extent to which you have women who, as the vice president said, in some cases, have died, who can’t get medical treatment that they need because providers are worried about criminal liability. 

You know, we’re facing a situation today where I think that it’s an untenable one.  And I think that as we deal with issues like this one, having a president who understands how important compassion is, who understands that these shouldn’t be political issues, that we ought to be able to have these discussions and say: You know what?  Even if you are pro-life, as I am, I do not believe, for example, that the state of Texas ought to have the right, as they’re currently suing to do, to get access to women’s medical records. 

I mean, there are some very fundamental and fundamentally dangerous things that have happened.  And — and so, I think that it’s crucially important for us to find ways to have the federal government play a role and protect women from some of the worst harms that we’re seeing. 

But — but, again, I just think that if you look at the difference in — in the way that Donald Trump is handling this issue — you know, Donald Trump, at one point, called for criminal penalties for women.  Now, you know, he — he’s been now trying to — to, you know, sort of be all over the place on this issue, although he expresses great pride for what’s happened.

And — and I think the — the bottom line on this, as on so many other issues, is, you know, you just can’t count on him.  You cannot trust him.  We’ve seen the man that he is.  We’ve seen the cruelty.  And America deserves much better.  (Applause.)

MR. SYKES:  Thank you.  Thank you, Lisa.

So, we — we have another question.  Carolyn Mitchell from Wauwatosa has a question for the vice president as well. 

Q    Hi.  I have concerns about the strength and the health of the Medicare and the Social Security system.  There have been a lot of suggestions for improving or protecting it, some of them raising the age for full acceptance of Social Security.  There’s also the idea that we would end the cap on — on the Social Security tax.  There is also the suggestion that we raise the tax rate on both Medicare and Social Security.  And, of course, the last one is to reduce the benefits. 

So, my question for you is: How can we protect the health of both Social Security and Medicare without reducing the benefits?

MR. SYKES:  Thank you.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So, first of all, thank you for your question.  Actually, just today, I believe it was — within the last 24 hours or so — an independent review of Donald Trump’s policy on Social Security has indicated that, under his policy, Social Security would become insolvent in six years. 

And what I and you and, I think, most of us know is that we have many, many seniors in our country where their Social Security check is their only form of income.  It’s everything and the only thing they have to live on, to pay rent, groceries, all of that.  And so, we must protect Social Security. 

     If you look at Donald Trump’s Project 2025, the — the plan that they have if he is elected — or reelected president, it — it would attack Social Security.  It would attack Medicare. 

     And back to the point about just what is in the interest of dignity.  The president of the United States should have as one of their highest concerns the dignity of the American people and, in particular, those who have lived a productive life, who deserve to be able to retire and go into their senior years with the dignity of not worrying about whether they’re going to have a roof over their head or be able to eat. 

     So, my plan includes what we need to do to strengthen the solvency of Social Security.  It includes what we’re going to need to do and work with Congress to make sure we’re putting more into it.  And it cannot be about cutting benefits, because right now, those benefits are barely adequate as it is. 

     What we must also do is continue to strengthen Medicare around what we’ve been working on, which is to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription medication costs for our seniors. 

     So, in the last four years, we have now capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors.  This is a huge issue for so many who have otherwise either taken a bus trip to Canada to try and get their prescription medication — you’re smiling; you know what I’m talking about — or — not that you have; I’m not suggesting that.  (Laughter.)  I’m not suggesting that.  And we’ve also capped the cost of — of prescription medication at $2,000 a year for our seniors, understanding, again, that this is a related issue, which is what is causing our seniors to be on the verge of bankruptcy and — and homelessness, by the way.

     The other work that we have to do is to deal with home health care and how Medicare is covering that. 

     So, part of my plan is — right now, the only way that there will be coverage for home health care is, generally speaking, Medicaid, which means that the family or the individual would have to spend down all of their savings to be able to be eligible for Medicaid.  And, frankly, I think it’s just — that’s — that’s wrong, and it’s — it’s just wrong.

     You know, I took care of my mother when she was sick, and the work that needs to happen to support our seniors to be able to stay in their home, to be able to live a life with dignity should include that we will pay attention to the fact that not everybody can afford that help, not everyone has a family member who can do it. 

And so, my plan includes having Medicare cover home health care work for seniors — (applause) — so that you can stay in your home, for example, and have someone who can prepare a meal and help you put on a sweater.  But the — the core point being dignity and understanding that we should not have a society that allows or requires our seniors to — to go into poverty in order to qualify for the care that they may need that, I think, we — most would agree — should provide.  (Applause.)

     Thank you.
    
     MR. SYKES:  And we have another question from the audience, from Dan — Dan Voboril, who is a retired school teacher, taught at MPS, and now lives in Waukesha.  Again, a genuinely undecided voter, I understand.

     Q    Thank you.  Good evening.

     MS. CHENEY:  Come on, Dan.  (Laughter.) 

     Q    What did you say?

     I was told I was going to be an alternate, so I was a little worried about getting my question.  But —

     THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Take your time.  Take your time.

     Q    This is a question that — I actually retired from MPS, but I currently teach, and I teach at a private Catholic school.  I’m a Catholic, but I’ve also been pro-life, pro-choice depending.  But I have five daughters, and I think it’s my duty to continue — with the children I teach as well — to see that we need to respect women, and I’ve really come to the conclusion that this toxicity that exists is just rather embarrassing.  And as a lifelong Republican, who I thought your father would be a great president —

     MS. CHENEY:  Thank you.

     Q    — not to say George wasn’t, but — (laughter) — but I’ve come to this realization, and it’s — it’s been very difficult.  So, I’m just — my big question was, for the future of my children and also students that I encounter and try to show that we have to have some kind of civility like we did back in the — the ‘80s, when Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill, of course, could talk about things and solve problems, and now it’s trying to get one better than the other. 

     And so, I’m just wondering, in your position now, how to convince people like me, who some of my siblings might be questioning what I’m doing here, but — (laughter) — I — I think, like you said, we have to be courageous, and that’s what I’m trying to be.  And so, what do you think we can do in the last 15 days — or you can, Madam Vice President — what you can do to try to get some of these people to cross over?  I know you already said that some of them probably won’t say who they’re voting for, but — or something I could take with me to say, “This sounds very good,” or, “We got to at least listen to this.”

     MR. SYKES:  To reduce the toxicity?  Is that —

     Q    Yes.

     MR. SYKES:  Okay.

     MS. CHENEY:  Yeah, I — I think that — that, you know, you’ve really put your finger on something that’s so important, and you see it as a teacher.  You know, any of us who are around young children — I see it as a mom.  My kids aren’t so young anymore, but — but, you know, the — when they look at how elected officials and, in particular, how Donald Trump is conducting himself now, that’s — that’s not — that’s not a lesson that anybody would look up to. 

     And — and I think about it often from the perspective of the men and women who’ve worn the uniform of our country and who have sacrificed so much for our freedom, all of us have an obligation to be worthy of that sacrifice. 

And in this — (applause) — you know, in this moment, there — there are millions of good and honorable people who Donald Trump has just fundamentally betrayed.  And — and I think it’s so important for — for people to think about this from the perspective of, you know, the decision to give somebody the power of the presidency means that you’re handing someone the most awesome and significant power of any office anywhere in the world, and — and you have to choose people who have character, choose people of good faith. 

     You know, the — the framers knew this.  The framers knew that — that it was so important that, you know, we take an oath but that also, fundamentally, you had to have people of character.  And Donald Trump has proven he’s not one of those people by his actions. 

     So, you know, what I — what I say to people is, look, for us to get back to a time where we are actually having policy debates and discussions and disagreements, we have to protect what undergirds all of this, and — and what undergirds all of it is the Constitution.  And we have to be willing to say, as a nation, “We’re better than partisanship.” 

     We know — and I say this as someone who spent a lot of years engaged in partisan battles and — and there are important debates we have to have.  But if — if we allow someone again — if we give him the power again to, you know, do all of the things he tells us he’s going to do — he says he’ll terminate the Constitution; he says he’ll deploy the military against the “enemy within” — that — that is a risk that we just simply can’t take as a nation.  And — and I think that, you know, this vote, this election cycle, this time around has to be about so much more than partisanship. 

And I will just end this by saying: And I also know because I have spent time with Vice President Harris, because I have come to understand what she believes about how she will govern, that she will be a president for all Americans, that she’s committed to listening and committed to having viewpoints, some of which, you know, come from different ends of the political spectrum. 

     And — and if you think about how you conduct, you know, your life outside of politics, how we all conduct our everyday lives, those are the kinds of people that you trust.  Those are the kinds of people you can work with.  Like, if you wouldn’t — if you wouldn’t hire somebody to babysit your kids, like, you shouldn’t make that guy the president of the United States.  (Laughter and applause.)  I mean, that’s, like, pretty basic.

     MR. SYKES:  So — so —
    
     MS. CHENEY:  Thank you.  Thank you.

     MR. SYKES:  Madam Vice President, that — this question goes to the heart of our discussion tonight, because it’s almost — it is not about politics.  It’s not about left versus right.  We’re talking about the culture and the impact, the coarsening of the culture, the way in which we have been taught to fear and hate one another, and how our —

     THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.

     MR. SYKES:  — debates have just devolved into sort of trolling one another.  How do we get back from that?

     THE VICE PRESIDENT:  So, I think that Dan raised — and, Charlie, your point is — is really also hitting on we have to tap into and — and rejoice, frankly, in the spirit of who we are as Americans.  And we are an ambitious people.  We have aspirations.  We have dreams.  We are optimistic by nature.  And we, I think, value certain qualities in our leaders. 

     To your point as — being a teacher, all of — those of us who are parents or parent in any form, the — the notion over the last several years coming from Trump and those who follow him, meaning people like who he’s running with — not his voters, but just others — the notion that the measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down is just wrongheaded. 

     I think most of us would agree that the — that the real measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up.  I think most of us would agree — (applause) — and most of us would agree that it is — when we talk about character, it is the sign of strong character to have empathy, to have some level of concern and care about the well-being of other people and then to do something about that.

     And I think there’s so much about this election that calls into question whether we are on a track with a Donald Trump as president to actually teach and to — and to show our children our definition of a leader, and is that it.

     One of the issues that I think has resulted in the kind of toxicity that you have been describing is that he tends to encourage us as Americans to point our fingers at each other.  That’s not in our best interest.  The vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us. 

     We are stronger as a nation when we are working toward a common goal, at least on the most basic, fundamental priorities. 

     And I think in this election, you can look at, for example, how he presents in his — in his events to know that he really does not have a plan for America that is about investing in our future, investing in our children, investing in — in our economies and new industries, investing in our relationships around the world.  It’s all about himself and his personal grievances.  And do we want a president of the United States who spends full time plotting revenge while they sit in the Oval Office or a president who is actually focused on the American people?

     I would also say, as a — as a point that I think the congresswoman exemplifies in so many ways, the strength of our democracy requires a strong two-party system.  It really does.  (Applause.)  It requires that we have healthy debate — that we have healthy debate based on — you know, based in logic and fact and that we — we debate it out — have good, vigorous debates — have a good fight over policy.  That’s good for democracy.  But not to point our fingers and call each other names over trivial, petty grievances. 

     So, I think all of that is at stake in this election, and — and tapping into the commonalities that we have around some of these fundamental principles, I think, is going to be key.

     MR. SYKES:  Well, that’s why the stakes are so high, right?  Because the presidency is a role model, but America is a role model to the rest of the world. 

     THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yes.

     MR. SYKES:  So, in the very short amount of time we have left, Congresswoman Cheney, just talk a little bit more about the — the stakes for the world.  We haven’t talked about the stakes for the future of Ukraine, NATO, of all the other democracies who are looking to us.

     MS. CHENEY:  They’re so, so high, Charlie.  And, you know, America’s safety and security depends upon America leading, and it depends upon allies. 

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yeah.

MS. CHENEY:  And when you have someone who is erratic and chaotic and unstable, that puts all of us at risk.

     I — I tell people often — you know, I spend a lot of time working on national security issues.  And when people that I know in the — in the Republican Party tell me they might be considering voting for Trump from a national security perspective, I ask them: Go look at his national security policies.  Please, go look at them, because what he’s proposing in terms of withdrawing from NATO; welcoming Vladimir Putin to attack our NATO Allies; praising — he — he praises Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, and President Xi of China and Putin of Russia.  And if you listen to him, he doesn’t just praise those people generally.  He praises them for their cruelty —

     THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yep.

     MS. CHENEY:  — for their tyranny.

     THE VICE PRESIDENT:  Yep.

     MS. CHENEY:  That’s not who we are as a nation.  It’s not who we are. 

And the world needs us to be better.  And our own security and our own freedom requires that we have a president who understands America has to lead and that our strength comes both from our greatness and also from our goodness.  And that’s Vice President Harris.  (Applause.)

     MR. SYKES:  And you have the last word.

     THE VICE PRESIDENT:  And — and just to — thank you.  Thank you.

MR. SYKES:  You get the last word.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:  But — but just as a point of emphasis on this important point: Understand that this is an individual, Donald Trump, who is easily manipulated by flattery, and we’ve seen that.  We’ve — don’t forget he — he dared to even consider vi- — inviting the Taliban to Camp David.  Remember all this.  The love letters with Kim Jong Un.

     Let’s remember what we just most recently — what was reported.  During the height of COVID, Americans were dying by the hundreds a day.  Nobody could get their hands on COVID tests.  You remember what that was.  During that time, he secretly sent COVID tests to Vladimir Putin for his personal use.

     On the issue of Ukraine, he says, “Oh, well, I’d solve that in a day.”  Well, I don’t think we as Americans think that the president of the United States should solve an issue like that through surrender, and understand that’s what would happen.  (Applause.)  Understand that’s what would happen.  Vladimir Putin would be sitting in Kyiv if Donald Trump were president. 

     And understand what that means as — so much that our allies understand, and that’s why they’re concerned about this election.  If — if Putin were to get away with invading the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine because America, the leader in bringing the allies together in standing for fundamental international rules and norms, like sovereignty and territorial integrity — if Vladimir Putin got away with that, you think he wouldn’t march next right into Poland and the rest of Europe?  Because Donald Trump wants to please somebody that he considers to be a strongman, who he admires?

     So, on this and so many issues, the stakes are extremely high. 

     But I — I would say this as — as a final point for now.  This is not as much an issue of what we are against as what we are for.  And I’ll end my point where I started: We love our country, and our country is worth fighting for.  (Applause.)  And that’s how I think of this. 

     We — our — our democracy will only be as strong as our willingness to fight for it.  And you all are taking your time out of your lives to be here because we, I think, agree on that among the most fundamental principles at stake. 

     And I thank you for the time you’ve taken, and I hope to earn your vote, by the way.  (Laughs.)  (Applause.)
    
     Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

     MR. SYKES:  And we have 15 days to make a decision. 

     Thank you all for coming here to (inaudible).  Thank you, Congresswoman Liz Cheney.  Vice President Kamala Harris, thank you so much.  (Applause.)

And you had Eminem and Barack Obama in Detroit yesterday.

On Barack, Marcia noted this last night:

Let's enjoy a good laugh.

Barack can nail it when he's on fire and he was on fire when he detonated that one.  He's right and he did it with humor.

Marcia also steered us to a letter to the editors of The Los Angeles Times:

To the editor: The letter you printed regarding the large number of negative articles about former President Trump and very few negative articles about Vice President Kamala Harris is dead on. You should be printing comparable articles about her.

I suggest that you provide coverage for her federal trial over her conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, and her efforts to steal the presidency; her New York civil trial for defamation and sexual abuse; her other New York trial for fraud; her federal Florida trial for allegedly stealing documents and refusing to return them; and her Georgia election interference trial.

 

You should also have coverage for every time that she has talked about using the U.S. military against the American people, every desire she has ever uttered about wanting to be a dictator, and every tariff she has ever championed that would act like a tax on the American people.

Emery Galambos, Los Angeles

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