Gloom, despair, and agony

America under republican leadership

The most amazing part of the past couple of days has been watching Democrats throw republicans lifeline after lifeline and watching republicans plow ahead with their plan to reopen the economy, coronavirus be damned, and set themselves up for a bloodbath this November unlike anything they've seen since Roosevelt opened up a can of whoop ass on Hoover in 1932.

From letting Dr. Fauci testify with his expertise before the Senate, to highlighting the CDC plan for reopening the economy (which the Trump administration tried to suppress), to the economic package Democrats unveiled today right as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was letting Americans know that this economic downturn was going to be a lot worse than folks are preparing for...the Democratic Party has done all it can to keep the country safe and prepare for the tsunami that's coming.  The republican party is basically throwing a Hail Mary pass in hopes of a miraculous economic recovery, but the end result won't be merely losing a game but killing thousands more Americans and sending our economy into a tailspin that will make the Great Depression look tame.

I have no doubt that Joe Biden and Donald Trump will each get 45% of the vote this November, but I'm having a real hard time seeing the 10% of Americans who will decide this election walking into their voting booths and thinking, "What this country really needs is more needless deaths and a wrecked economy...I'm voting Trump!"

At that point we might be able to cue "Taps" for the republican party.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Bye Don 2020, Vol. II

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Bye Don 2020, Vol. I

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

You couldn't drag me away

Real Americans will be voting for Joe Biden this November

As they showed in Wisconsin, republicans will do anything to cheat this November so as to maintain their fragile grip on power, up to and including making Americans risk their lives just to exercise their right to vote.

What they don't understand is how committed we are to voting--even if I get coronavirus and die, I would consider if the most heroic and patriotic action I've ever taken in my life just to cast my vote for Joe Biden.

That's how bad Donald Trump has been for America.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Midnight in Washington

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

The coronavirus miracle

Simply the best

I'll say one thing about the coronavirus--Donald Trump's epic mishandling of the pandemic has actually got me fucking excited about voting for Joe Biden.  No matter the gaffe, no matter the bad Senatorial vote, no matter the lack of a liberal pedigree, Biden will be thousands, nee millions, of times better than Trump.

And that's more than good enough for my vote.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

It's beginning to look a lot like Biden...

Unfortunately, not a big fucking deal

Welp, though there's still a ways to go, it's hard to see a scenario where Joe Biden isn't the Democratic nominee to run against Donald Trump for the Presidency in November.

Yawn.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

What might have been

President Warren

Elizabeth Warren called an end to her Presidential bid today, and I can honestly say I haven't been this disappointed in the Presidential nomination process since it became obvious that Ted Kennedy couldn't topple President Jimmy Carter in 1980.  Through the course of my following politics, I've wondered how much better off America would be had Al Gore won in 2000, had John Kerry won in 2004, and most certainly had Hillary Clinton won in 2016, but I will always believe that Elizabeth Warren would have transformed America into the country that so many of us on the left have always believed it could be, and thus her withdrawal is all the more tragic.

I believe history will record our failure to nominate our best candidate as an opportunity lost to fear and will be one that once again ordinary Americans will pay for in poorer health, poorer wages, and above all, in more lost hope.

For me, defeating Donald Trump isn't going to be enough.  We need to begin reversing the downward spiral in economic well being, equal rights, income inequality, and climate change that began with that idiot Ronald Reagan and continues through another idiot, Donald Trump.

Elizabeth Warren had a plan for all of those, and sadly now we will never know how far she could have taken us.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Sometimes the truth is just the truth

And the horse you rode in on...

It would be hard to find anything that reeked more of putrid bullshit than the reports we keep seeing that Democrats are treating the Coronavirus in a partisan manner.

Leaving aside the fact that had Hillary Clinton won the Presidency in 2016 and bungled the response to the Coronavirus as badly as Donald Trump has (she wouldn't have) republicans would be absolutely crucifying her, it isn't partisan to point out that Donald Trump completely botched the response to a very real threat to American's health and their economic well being.  It isn't partisan to point out that Donald Trump has a history of lying and that he's lying about the virus being a hoax.  It isn't partisan to point out that Mike Pence has no medical training and has already fucked up a health threat (HIV) when he was governor of Indiana.   And it's certainly not partisan to ask for more money to again help against a very real threat to the nation.

No, what it is, is good government.  What it is, is caring about the American people.  What it is, is keeping Americans safe.

And that's what good political parties do, which is something that republicans neither understand nor care to ever become.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

A beautiful truth

Word to your mother...

While Elizabeth Warren was the clear winner of this past week's Democratic debate in Nevada, the best moment of the night may very well have been when Bernie Sanders reminded Mike Bloomberg that for all his bluster, he wasn't the only one who had made all his money--he'd had plenty of help from his workers along the way, most of whom were paid a smidgen of what he was.

There's a certain arrogance to men of wealth and power that all of that wealth and power is of their own making...and it's what leads to stagnant wages and the growing inequality that is slowly but surely destroying this country.

And the sooner we put an end to this bullshit, the better for all of us.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Taking the bloom(berg) off

I am woman hear me roar...

In reading through people's comments concerning Elizabeth Warren's most impressive performance in the Democratic debate last evening, someone asked where this Elizabeth Warren was in the previous debates, and I couldn't help but wonder if her performance was so solid because there was an actual adversary in the debate.  Warren didn't spend much time last night criticizing Biden, Sanders, Buttigieg, or Klobuchar (though she did question some of their proposals) because she knows that any of them would be a massive improvement over Trump, but Bloomberg...not so much.

Though I fear it may be too little, too late, it's certainly something to consider--if she could emasculate Bloomberg, who is loathsome but not as bad as Trump, just imagine what she could do to the orange shit gibbon in the Presidential debates this fall....

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Be careful what you wish for...

You sure about that?

Watching Iowa Senator Joni Ernst utterly embarrass herself  kissing Donald Trump's ass as she tried to influence Iowa Democrats on their upcoming selection of a Democratic nominee by questioning their support for Joe Biden after the Senate impeachment trials proved Biden had done absolutely nothing wrong (and you'd think after Ernst bragged about castrating hogs she'd have just a bit more fortitude), had me wondering once again why republicans think Biden is their toughest foe.

I know I'm in the minority, and while I think Biden can beat Trump regardless, I still think he would be the best candidate for Trump to run against.  To wit:

• Voters would be comparing two old white men (a group of which I am also a card carrying member).  Biden would not stand out in the way a either a woman or a candidate of color would.
• Biden is massively prone to gaffes when speaking.
• He would be a constant reminder to Trump's base of Barack Obama--and confirm all of their racist instincts and thus fire them up more than perhaps another candidate.
• Ditto his support from African-Americans.
• Biden does not appeal to young Democrats who are not interested in incremental steps and want action on income inequality and climate change yesterday.

I've been wrong before (anyone remember Sarah Palin's winning campaign for the republican nomination in 2012?  Didn't think so...), but I still think Biden gives Trump his best chance of winning.

Be a shame if all their work ended up with us selecting another candidate who trounces Trump in November...

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

It was a very good year

Here's hoping our long national nightmare ends this year...

I've read a number of people over the past few days who have noted that 2019 was a miserable year.  I get it--Australia is literally on fire and climate change keeps getting the short shrift from republicans; fascism is becoming the norm in India, Hungary, Poland, and Brazil; North Korea continues to make a fool of Donald Trump and is a whisker away from a nuclear catastrophe; every study released this year concerning the Trump tax cuts shows that the only thing it accomplished was making rich people richer; the media continues to be a dead man walking when it comes to exposing how abnormal Donald Trump is vis a vis the Presidency (and just about everything else); and perhaps worst of all--and something I never thought I'd live to see--the greatest experiment in democracy in mankind's history is on the verge of being destroyed because one of the political parties in our home country is much more concerned with appeasing the wealthy and coddling racists than with securing the blessings of liberty that made America the grandest dream mankind ever dreamed.

Despite all that (and plenty more that I'm sure I didn't mention) I will guarantee you that 2019 was a very good year--because despite all the bad news, despite the republican party becoming the Junior Nazi party, despite insurmountable odds...we're still fighting for what is right.  We impeached Donald Trump.  Though we still have far to go, we continue to make strides in civil rights for women, minorities, and the LGBTQ community.  The minimum wage will raise tomorrow in numerous states.  We have actionable plans for addressing climate change.  The candidates we have who are sparring to see who gets to challenge Donald Trump next November are all light years better than he (well, except maybe Tulsi Gabbard), and might be the most impressive group of candidates in our nation's history.  Every single day there is some American somewhere in this crazy land that is standing up to republicans' creeping fascination with fascism and saying, "Nope, not on my watch."

And as long as we're still fighting for what is right, there is hope...and as Stephen King once noted in The Shawshank Redemption, "...(H)ope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

Onward.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

3,2,1...

How much better can the rich eat?

Right on cue, just a few days after I warned that the wealthy would do whatever it takes to keep Elizabeth Warren from the Presidency, comes the revelation that Campbell Brown, the head of Facebook News, helped to start a website that is attempting to sabotage Warren's campaign.

Keep in mind that this woman is the head of Facebook News.

So much for impartiality on the part of Facebook.

It's time to call these people for what they are:  an enemy of the people.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

In which I play devil's advocate

His picture is next to "inspirational" in the dictionary

Quinnipiac released a poll yesterday showing virtually every Democrat beating Donald Trump in 2020, which, after watching polls for well over forty years now I take with a grain of salt.  Yes, I'd rather be in our position than theirs, but trust me, unless the economy collapses (in which case Trump is dead meat) it will tighten considerably in the next 17 months.

So I found it interesting that Markos Moulitas from The Daily Kos noted that since all of our candidates can beat Trump, we should feel free to vote for who we think would be the best candidate and not who is most likely to defeat Trump.  Yesterday, Digby posted that while voting for a candidate who can beat Trump is fine, it would be a great "insurance policy" in having a candidate that fires up the base.

While I don't disagree with either of them, I do think it's more than just choosing a candidate we like or an insurance policy--frankly, I believe it's utterly vital that we elect a candidate who will inspire the base because truthfully, Donald Trump or no, while people may very well vote for the Democratic nominee, we also need people to donate to, knock on doors for, volunteer for campaigns, and talk to their undecided friends and colleagues about our candidate and "He/She can beat Donald Trump" isn't nearly as inspiring as a candidate who shares the Democratic vision for America that so many of us aspire to.

And this is why I'll keep beating the drum against Joe Biden.  Because we all knew full well--even if it was a longshot--that Donald Trump could beat Hillary Clinton in 2020 (it's an election for Christ's sake) but still there were plenty of Democrats who stayed home and plenty who voted third party.  I've seen far too many uninspiring Democrats (Jimmy Carter in 1980, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry) lead us to defeat and we cannot allow that to happen in 2020.  Donald Trump must be stopped.

Give us a candidate to believe in and we'll show up.  If not, it's going to be a roll of the dice.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Go bold or go home

You never know until you try

While it's still early, polls are beginning to show that the race for the Democratic Presidential nominee in 2020 is Joe Biden's to lose.  Biden for his part is pretending he's Barack Obama (he's not) and proclaiming that if Trump is defeated, he can get republicans to work with Democrats again (maybe in an alternate universe, but not the one in which we live).  He's also pushing moderation, which is basically the game plan which helped elect Donald Trump.

Look we have a President in office with unprecedentedly bad approval numbers, literally 57% of Americans claiming they won't vote for Trump (which doesn't mean they'll vote for a Democrat...unless we give them a reason to), and we want to elect a man with the baggage of the Anita Hill hearing, the baggage of being in Big Bank's pockets, suffering from a lifelong case of foot in mouth disease, and one who has already run two disastrous campaigns attempting to win the Democratic nomination?

Fucking seriously?

We have a chance to elect a momentum changing candidate who can do worlds of good for ordinary Americans, running against quite possibly the worse President in our history, and we want to nominate a warm cup of spit when we have several espressos to counteract him?

Thanks but no fucking thanks.  We can--and we must--do better.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee