Wednesday, July 08, 2020

White House Update: Duck, Tucker! plus: Mary T's book, Greens convene, and Jo J's Boogaloo


Finally some lively topics.


-- In what could be a 2024 preview, "deeply silly" Tucker Carlson and rising vice-presidential hopeful Sen. Tammy Duckworth have been exchanging pleasantries over her patriotism and valor.

Their squabble isn't worth rehashing, but it opens the door for me to posit a few things:

1. Biden must not be thrilled with Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren as the finalists whom the media and online pundits have winnowed for him.  Otherwise he's just stringing people along.

2. Drawing out the veepstakes is thus growing unseemly, even if Old Joe did say it would be August before he decided.  Susan Rice, the Dems' version of Condi Rice -- whom Biden would choose if he could get away with it -- does not have the charisma or political experience for the job.  And now that Mayor Bottoms have tested positive for the virus, she's probably on the outside looking in.

3. If we really want to start playing 2024 already, then the betting opens with Pence, Tom Cotton, and Marco Rubio.  Can't think of any "moderate" that might wish to be flogged publicly just to find out his party isn't where he thought it would be post-Trump.

-- For a candidate I keep hearing is the most progressive evah, there sure are a lot of Republicans jumping on his bandwagon.


Can't say I have any love for the Lincoln Project either.


-- Is it trite to say that Trump is having another 'worst week ever'?


From the psychoanalysis (she IS one, as it turns out) of his upbringing to reports of his paying a classmate to take his SAT exams, it's a scathing expose'.  It's easy to understand why he fought its publication.  Then again, when you redefine "draining the swamp" as "pushing your snout into the government trough with all your swine friends", maybe you don't care what people think.

Tom Friedman suggests some debate rules for Biden that make sense.

“First, Biden should declare that he will take part in a debate only if Trump releases his tax returns for 2016 through 2018. ... No more gifting Trump something he can attack while hiding his own questionable finances.”

“And second, Biden should insist that a real-time fact-checking team approved by both candidates be hired by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates -- and that 10 minutes before the scheduled conclusion of the debate this team report on any misleading statements, phony numbers or outright lies either candidate had uttered. That way no one in that massive television audience can go away easily misled.”


-- That brings me, I suppose, to Kanye West.


He sat for an interview with Forbes in order to sound as serious as possible.  His platform?

  • He’s running for president in 2020 under a new banner -- the Birthday Party -- with guidance from Elon Musk and an obscure vice presidential candidate he’s already chosen. “Like anything I’ve ever done in my life,” says West, “I’m doing to win.”
  • He no longer supports President Trump. “I am taking the red hat off, with this interview.”
  • He’s ok with siphoning off Black votes from the Democratic nominee, thus helping Trump. “I’m not denying it, I just told you. To say that the Black vote is Democratic is a form of racism and white supremacy.”
  • He’s never voted in his life.
  • He was sick with Covid-19 in February.
  • He’s suspicious of a coronavirus vaccine, terming vaccines “the mark of the beast.”
  • He believes “Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work.”
  • He envisions a White House organizational model based on the secret country of Wakanda in Black Panther.

As you could have guessed, this has Biden Bros crapping themselves.


The best the Donkeys could manage were comparisons to ... Jill Stein.


Joe Biden could do something about this himself, of course.  He simply can't.


Nothing will fundamentally change, after all.

-- David Collins reprinted the GPUS press release -- with speakers and schedule information -- for their upcoming convention this weekend.


-- Libertarian presidential nominee Jo Jorgensen may or may not have a Boogaloo problem.  IPR provides a summary:

The Guardian today published an article from Jason Wilson reporting on 2020 Libertarian presidential nominee Jo Jorgensen’s appearance on “Roads to Liberty” podcast, which Wilson claims is associated with the “Boogaloo” movement.  “Boogaloo” is the right wing codename for a second civil war.  Supporters of the movement want to bring about civil war either for racial or anti-government purposes.

Wilson connects one of those asking questions on the podcast, named “Squid,” to a Facebook group he says is “strewn with memes that reference insurrectionary violence, and appear to invoke white nationalist and neo-Nazi imagery and subject matter.”  Squid asks Jorgensen about “boogaloo” on the podcast but she does not seem to know much about it.


If you enjoy mindless digressions, the comments there go off to Nowheresville celebrating Ringo Starr's 80th birthday ("Back Off, Boogaloo").

-- And cryptocurrency entrepreneur Brock Pierce joined Kanye in the presidential indy lane.  He has the same ballot access hurdles as West and anyone else who might join the race this late in the cycle.
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