Welcome to the Donkey Dow
Posted By: Pluperfect, 3/12/2019 5:45:40 AM
With 13 candidates so far, 11 months from the first caucus in Iowa, it’s hard enough already to keep track of the 2020 Democratic primary. That’s why Cockburn is introducing the Donkey Dow: a round-up of the movers and shakers in the race to face up against Donald Trump. Here’s how the candidates and contenders fared over the last few days.(Snip for graphic)Winners Are you part of the Yang gang yet? Outsider candidate Andrew Yang has had a barnstorming week – all thanks to the internet. The businessman and Universal Basic Income advocate has quietly reached the necessary 65,000
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Pluperfect"
After a Democrat won the special election last week to finish out for Alaska's at-large congressional seat, former Gov. Sarah Palin called on Monday on fellow Republican Nick Begich to withdraw from November's congressional race so that the GOP can unite behind a single candidate.
Palin and Begich lost to Democrat Mary Peltola in the special U.S. House election last week to fill the remainder of Congressman Don Young's term, who died in March.
Beto O’Rourke, a democratic candidate for Texas governor, approached the stage during Gov. Greg Abbott’s news conference Wednesday, confronting him over the Robb Elementary School shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead. O’Rourke told Abbott the shooting was “totally predictable” and that he was “doing nothing.”
O’Rourke was shouted down by several of the officials on stage with one calling him a "sick son of a B----" as he was escorted out by police.
Dollars don’t vote, people do.
But new federally-mandated campaign finance reports show Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidates David McCormick and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman won their respective party’s “money primaries” through the first quarter of 2022, and that counts for something because all those dollars do help candidates reach the maximum number of people.
And the spending in the Pennsylvania Senate primary has been relentless so far, with an analysis by Kantar/CMAG showing $39.16 million has been spent through April 12 in paid television advertisements
Paris climate treaty
puts America last 9 replies
puts America last 9 replies
Here we are in the midst of a once-in-a-half-century pandemic, with the economy flattened, millions of people unemployed, and unrest on the streets of our cities. And President-elect Joe Biden says that one of his highest priorities as president will be to reenter the Paris climate accord.
President Trump kept his "put America first" promise and pulled the United States out of this Obama-era treaty. Biden wants us back in.
Why? Paris is an unmitigated failure. You don't have to take my word for it. National Geographic, a supporter of climate change action, recently ran the numbers and admitted in its recent headline: "Most countries aren't hitting 2030 climate goals."
Teachers unions have been instrumental in keeping American schools online during the pandemic. But some have escalated their positions on reopening to include an array of social justice demands.
A set of demands from teachers unions in July, which addressed how to safely reopen schools amid a pandemic, was criticized by The Wall Street Journal editorial board as “political extortion.” The board argued that unions were taking advantage of a health crisis to advance their own ideological agendas and to eliminate competition from charter schools.
Black Friday is my favorite day of the year and my favorite extreme sport, but when events and gatherings began disappearing from the calendar back in March, I thought surely Black Friday would be safe. Now here we are, more than eight months later. The mask Karens are still breathing down our necks, governors are trying to kill Thanksgiving, and Black Friday is canceled.
The fliers are still arriving in the mail and the festive doorbuster commercials are rolling, but Black Friday this year just isn’t the same. A Black Friday that takes place mostly online, the whole week of Thanksgiving or the entire month of November,
Joe Biden and the 'Strolling Bones'
7 replies
They’re the Rolling Stones without the roadies. Or the great music. Or any music, actually.
The Strolling Bones reunion tour.
John Kerry and Joe Biden are getting the band back together again.
Collectively, they have been getting things wrong in Washington for nearly 100 years. Literally, two of the dumbest people on earth … but they do love to hear themselves speak!
Droning on and on and on.
Why do we do this to ourselves every four years? We talk incessantly about the latest poll in Florida and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Arizona until we are blue in the face. Then they turn out to be wildly wrong.
When will we ever learn? It reminds me of that old saying which I think was from Einstein, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
Polling, at least the old-school style, is over. Done.
I don’t need to go through a long list of reasons why nobody should take pollsters seriously anymore, but a few data points are instructive.
Implications of the Flynn Pardon
11 replies
President Trump granted a pardon to Michael Flynn, his former national-security adviser, today. Flynn had pled guilty to lying to FBI agents about conversations, during the 2016 transition, with the Russian ambassador about sanctions. Flynn’s pardon should bring to an end one gross violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers, even as it gives rise to groundless accusations of another.
Although Flynn had pled guilty, the circumstances of the case had raised serious concerns about whether the government had proceeded properly. The FBI, for example, questioned Flynn even though it did not appear he had violated any law. In May, Attorney General William Barr ordered the case dropped.
The first Thanksgiving in the New World was celebrated in 1621, nearly a year after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. In 1789, George Washington became the first of many US presidents to formally proclaim a day of “public thanksgiving and prayer”:
I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him
Go Ahead and Celebrate Thanksgiving
7 replies
Minnesota is one of a number of states that are living under what amounts to martial law. Our proto-fascist dictator Tim Walz, in his latest edict, purports to ban traditional Thanksgiving get-togethers:
Saturday, Nov. 21 through Friday, Dec. 18, Executive Order 20-99 requires all Minnesotans to:
* Limit social gatherings to one household.
* Not gather outside of your household.
* Postpone all celebrations, events, receptions, and parties, including any social gatherings for weddings and funerals.
So it is “illegal” for me to invite any of my four kids to Thanksgiving dinner.
Obama defends Rev. Wright as 'supremely gifted
preacher,' hits Loeffler's 'crazy' attacks on Warnock 15 replies
preacher,' hits Loeffler's 'crazy' attacks on Warnock 15 replies
Former President Barack Obama in an appearance on "The Breakfast Club" radio show on Wednesday said that attacks by Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler against her runoff opponent Raphael Warnock over his connection with Rev. Jeremiah Wright are "crazy stuff" as he defended Wright as a "supremely gifted preacher."
Obama appeared on the popular radio show and podcast to promote his book "A Promised Land," which details much of his presidency, including his 2008 presidential campaign during which his connection to Wright became an issue. Wright has a history of controversial comments, including a sermon in which he said "God damn America" when referencing racial injustice.
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Former U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan is doubling down on his belief that former President Donald Trump is the wrong choice for Republicans in 2024, saying he would not support Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee for president.
“There are too many people like me in the Republican Party who would not support him if he were the nominee, and that is why I don’t think he’ll be the nominee,” Ryan told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an interview.
WASHINGTON— The U.S. military on Saturday shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolina coast after it traversed sensitive military sites across North America. China insisted the flyover was an accident involving a civilian aircraft and threatened repercussions.
President Joe Biden issued the order but had wanted the balloon downed even earlier, on Wednesday. He was advised that the best time for the operation would be when it was over water, U.S. officials said.(Snip) ..(Video) China responded that it reserved the right to “take further actions” and criticized the U.S. for “an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice.”
The Biden administration was aware of the Chinese spy balloon entering United States airspace on January 28 but tried to hide its existence from the American public until being forced to go public, according to a report on Saturday. Bloomberg News reported that the Biden administration was “well aware” that the balloon had entered U.S. airspace on Saturday, January 28, but decided to keep quiet about it so as not to ruin a planned trip by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to China.
Fighter jets shot down the Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic today after Joe Biden vowed to 'take care of it' and the FAA shutdown three airports in the Carolinas.
The balloon was seen bursting at 2.38pm and its payload - the metal structure carrying its cameras - appeared to have been separated as it plummeted towards the ocean off Myrtle Beach.
The Biden administration confirmed the shoot-down order around 2pm after the President this morning vowed, 'We're gonna take care of it,' as he stepped off Air Force One at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base, upstate NY.
Anne Holton, wife of U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), denounced the Declaration of Independence and Constitution as “fundamental in enshrining slavery.”
Holton made the comments as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) new history standards were approved 5-3 by the Commonwealth’s Board of Education, upon which she sits. She said:
To an audience as inclusive as our Virginia is, you cannot reference the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as ‘remarkable documents’ without also acknowledging that they [are] fundamental in enshrining slavery, and limiting the protections that they provided only to white property-owning men.
Bloomberg, which exists to serve active traders on Wall Street, is throwing shade on the January jobs report that “surprised” a lot of people with its positive numbers. Before addressing the technical factors used to produce the rosy numbers, consider the buried lede hundreds of words into the piece. Stripped of all the technical jargon is this stark reality:
"On an unadjusted basis, payrolls actually fell by 2.5 million last month."
Joe Biden praised the Top Gun fighter jet pilot who shot down the Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina today after he vowed to 'take care of it.'
An F-22 Raptor out of Langley Air Force base took the balloon down with a single AIM-9X sidewinder missile at 2.38pm, separating its surveillance payload and sending it plummeting towards the ocean off Myrtle Beach.
Footage showed the jet screaming towards the spy aircraft before firing the missile as stunned locals watched from the coast.
An operation was underway to recover the wreckage and retrieve any valuable intelligence before it sinks into the ocean.
Houston activists call for arrest of armed
taqueria diner who shot, killed robbery suspect 28 replies
taqueria diner who shot, killed robbery suspect 28 replies
Community activists in Houston are calling for a restaurant patron who shot and killed a robbery suspect during a holdup to be arrested, saying he went beyond self-defense despite many calling him a hero.
Customers were eating inside a local taqueria when 30-year-old Eric Eugene Washington entered and pointed a pistol at them and demanded cash. As he gathered the cash, an armed patron can be seen on surveillance video getting up from the booth he was sitting in and shooting his pistol at Washington multiple times.
"He was within the law when he fired the first initial shots," said activist Quanell X in a
Three years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s not uncommon to see people wearing masks in public. I try not to judge people when I see someone wearing a mask; after all, the person may have a legitimate need to wear a mask.
But what I’ve noticed is that there seem to be a lot of healthy younger people — teenagers and people in their early 20s — who wear masks often, and I have a difficult time understanding it.
I’ve had a theory about this phenomenon for some time. I think some people like to keep masking because it makes them feel anonymous. I’m convinced that some people
The U.S. was able to collect valuable information on China’s surveillance capabilities while observing the spy balloon as it traversed the continental U.S. for several days, a senior military official and senior defense official claimed Saturday.
President Joe Biden asked for possible military options for removing the threat of the suspected Chinese spy balloon Tuesday, but the Department of Defense (DOD) opted against doing so Wednesday over concerns falling debris could endanger civilians, officials said at a briefing Saturday. However, they did not clarify whether a military option was considered when the craft transgressed U.S. airspace over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands on Jan. 28,
Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene took a below-the-belt shot at one of her congressional colleagues Friday in a spicy Twitter exchange.
The Georgia Republican invoked Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D-Calif.) purported dalliance with suspected Chinese honeytrap Christine Fang, aka Fang Fang, after the California Democrat made a bawdy joke at the expense of Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), who has spent the week passing out AR-15-shaped lapel pins to pro-Second Amendment House members.
White female professor endeavors to help
‘damaging’ white people dismantle
their ‘whiteness 26 replies
‘damaging’ white people dismantle
their ‘whiteness 26 replies
A white, female Willamette University professor is scheduled to host a veritable struggle session this month at a local library “for white people to reflect together on what it means to ‘do our work’ as white people.”
The professor, Emily Drew, predictably “teaches courses about racism, white supremacy, immigration, and social change,” according to a biography.
“Her research agenda revolves around understanding how race and racism get institutionalized, with the goal of helping to illuminate more effective strategies for interrupting systemic inequality,” the biography reads.
She also performs work for Crossroads, an “antiracism” consulting form whose mission centers on “dismantling racism” and “building racial justice in institutions.”