Surprise! It’s Biden/Harris

67 thoughts on “Surprise! It’s Biden/Harris”

1. Disregarding any and all emotion-driven claptrap and vitriol that is bound to arise, the choice makes perfect sense. Ms. Harris will come across as “fiery.” Far more eloquent than anyone even remotely associated with the Trump administration and campaign, she will be the perfect “attack dog” and will offset Biden’s own natural VP blandness.

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2. My heart sinks. And it’s even worse than your original scenario, because the Dems made sure that Bernie was eliminated so long ago. No attempt to preserve even a semblance of fairness or progressive values.

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   1. It’s a triumph of cynical corporate politics. No idealism — no vision — no “hope and change,” even in a false way.

      It’s more than possible Trump will win, especially if his team engineers an October Surprise.

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      1. Given the GOP’s voter suppression tactics and other methods of skewing the results, I’d day the Orange One’s chances were pretty good before Biden’s VP pick. Now….as in 2016, the Dems are throwing away the election. To paraphrase a comment I saw recently, the Dems would quite willingly lose the race rather than have a non-corporate-shill as a candidate.

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3. For me, the idea that there’s a need for either party to hold any actual convention, virtual or in person, this year is absurd. Well, it’s their money, I guess they can waste it as they choose. Except that The Donald is threatening to accept his coronation (“nomination”) at Gettysburg or from the Oval Office itself. If there’s any possible way to drain the public coffers for his own self-glorification, yeah, Trump’s gonna seize on it.

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   1. Gettysburg????!! Even when he gets to China, he doesn’t stop digging.

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4. Dear Mr. Astore, Congratulations on your early call. I made the same call—albeit unannounced—but I think that I am quite a bit more cynical than you. I don’t believe that Biden-Harris was any kind of a “dream ticket” for the nefarious DNC, despite Harris’s many odious characteristics, which they cherish. I think that it was a simple deal, and that all of the pretended uncertainty about Biden’s VP choice was a total sham. Harris saw after Iowa that she had no real shot at the nomination, so she proposed to pull out of the “race” (if I may be granted a pun) in order not to draw black votes away from Biden in the ensuing primaries, most especially South Carolina, in order to make absolutely that Bernie would be knocked out. The payoff was to become Biden’s VP pick if he won the nomination. Then they staged the John Lewis charade to make it clear that blacks weren’t to vote for Bernie, but only for Joe (the actual racist). Lewis actually retracted his (disingenuous) remarks questioning Bernie’s credentials as a civil rights activist, but the retraction was almost nowhere reported. Lewis was, anyway, a phony; his post-mortem hagiogrphy is only marginally less disgusting than John McCain’s. See: https://www.blackagendareport.com/no_tears_for_john_lewis, written well before his recent death. (I don’t wish death upon anyone, but I think that one may speak ill of them, if they deserve it.) Anyway, the Biden-Harris deal worked. the DNC was betting that they would wind up getting a heavy black vote for Biden in the election and that Trump was so offensive to the Bernie supporters that they wouldn’t sit at home as they did in 2016 but would vote for Biden in desperation. Sadly, the DNC gangsters were probably right on both counts. I say “sadly” not because Trump may lose, of course—I wish that both candidates would evaporate and don’t understand how any decent, principled person could vote for either of them—but because this manoeuvre destroyed any chance of even minimally changing the direction of the (so-called) Democratic Party, which depended upon the possibility of a Bernie Sanders candidacy. Win or lose at election time, the Party remains solidly in the hands of the corrupt and depraved Clinton-Obama camp, and Biden is surely their guy (otherwise why take the chance of running such a hopeless and phoney candidate); and Harris is of the same camp. Well, unlike Bernie, who has now become a complete sell-out non-entity—very sad, since he was the only contender with any integrity (Tulsi never managed to be a real contender)—I never imagined that the Democratic Party could be reformed. I don’t believe that Americans now really want it to be reformed; they stuff they now swallow without remark is incredible. Trump derangement syndrome has erased the widespread anti-establishment revolt (across the whole political spectrum) of 2016; so the opportunity is lost, probably for good. Anyway, as I have said before, the fact that there is to be an election in which the choice is between Trump and Biden proves the complete and total train wreck of so-called “American Democracy”. Remember that Harris was the first of the barely-plausible contenders to pull out, and that Biden was fairly quick, after knocking Bernie out, to announce that he would be picking a “black woman” for his VP. All the subsequent playing around with names has been a fake, aimed at holding the support of people who might otherwise have given up in disgust. My wife and I have noticed that since yesterday’s announcement, Kamala Harris’s complexion has been darkened in selected photo venues while remaining very light (or perhaps being lightened?) in others (particularly where she is cheek-to-cheek with Biden as he sniffs her hair); check it out yourselves. I close with this thought: surely there was the same sort of deal between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (and the DNC mucky-mucks) back in 2008 as to who was to be the Democratic nominee in 2016 (and to get a high-level cabinet position in the interim, to keep her in the public eye); Clinton would not have pulled out under any other scenario. Save for that deal with the devil, the Democrats might conceivably (smaaaalll chance, but not then non-existent) have run Bernie in 2016, and we wouldn’t be where we are now. But that’s not something that the controllers of the Party really care about; they just want to hold on to their rackets, and snatch those back that have now fallen into Republican hands. I hope that no one imagines that if Biden-Harris win the election that anything will get any better. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

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   1. Unfortunately for the country, it’s very likely you’re correct on all counts, I believe. The fix was in for Harris early on.

      I thought the same thing about Hillary and Obama. As you say, only scenario that makes sense.

      The only [slim] hope for change is that Progressives break away and become a third party. But not holding my breath there.

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      1. We have a quasi-third party called the Greens, appearing on ballots in any number of states. But it would take years and years before they could persuade John and Jane Q. Public that their platform makes sense, that they’re not a bunch of wild-eyed crazies. Of course, there’s also the Libertarians! Some folks vote for them as a protest vote without the least understanding of what they really stand for. Which is Capitalism on steroids, and you poor folks kindly curl up in a corner and die!

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         1. The Greens are perennially disorganized, from what I’ve seen personally (I’ve attended a local rally or two). I thought that Jill Stein was a person of integrity on the ballot in 2016, so I voted for her. And so she proved to be.

            But the Progressives already have Bernie’s extensive grassroots organization, something substantial that they could build on.

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            1. Well, I accept that there actually are some progressives in Congress, but I can’t imagine them being able to overcome the Dem. Party Establishment. The latter’s hostility to such a notion is plainer than day.

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               1. Oh, yes, there are a few real Progressives in Congress. But as you say, the Dem establishment tries every tactic in the book to smother them. That’s why I think the Progressives should take Bernie’s organization and run. Form a viable third party. We see from Ilhan Omar’s landslide win this week that there’s support out there for values such as accountability, aid for the 99%, help for the environment, and so on. Those basic things that sustain our society. SOMEBODY’s gotta stand up for them, and it’s time we jettisoned the Dem warmongers and Wall Street flacks.

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                  1. Much as I find Rep. Omar admirable, I’m afraid her accession to Congress is essentially an aberration. As I understand it, she was elected in an area where a lot of Somali and other refugees from predominantly Muslim societies have settled. Trump’s anti-Islam rhetoric doesn’t go over real well there! I will be very happy if all the members of “The Squad” retain their seats, DESPITE the Dem. Party Establishment’s efforts to get them out of Congress.

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                     1. According to my reading, the Squad is 4-0 in the primaries. So….a glimmer of hope!

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            2. Greg: We need more than a squad, more than a platoon. We need at least a company of progressives in the Democratic Party, especially when Major Pelosi is as blinkered as one can get.

               For those not in the military, a company would be roughly 100 men and women.

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               1. Of course that is true, sir. But “The Squad” stand out for their ethnic origins and (with some) religious preferences. These are precisely the factors that made their 2018 election remarkable, and likewise make them very juicy targets for hate-mongering Trump & Company.

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   2. Yes, certainly the Biden/Harris ticket signals to the Powers That Be that they need have no fear of real “change.” I assume your disdain for the late John Lewis is based on his having been a staunch supporter of the Democratic Establishment. For me–and these are, of course, all matters of personal opinion–that flaw does not obviate what he and his fellow marchers suffered on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Alabama, taking a stand for simple human rights.

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   3. I would like to direct the attention of Mr. Astore’s readers/commenters, an evidently astute and thoughtful group, to an astonishingly deep and perceptive recent article by Paul Street that exposes what I referred to the other day as the “genteel racism” shared by—among others—the sainted phoney, Barack Obama, along with, in a rather cruder version, Bill and Hillary Clinton and (surely and predictably) Kamala Harris. (There’s nothing particularly genteel about the racism of Joe Biden or Donald Trump; hence it’s perhaps, in the end, less pernicious, although no less revolting.) Paul Street has been through it all and knows what racism really is, even if practiced by smooth-talking black folks or sanctimonious “liberals”, just as Martin Luther King did, or Brother Malcolm, or, today, Margaret Kimberly. https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/05/misleaders-at-a-funeral-bill-clinton-and-barack-obama-eulogizing-racial-justice-in-the-name-of-john-lewis/print/ In this article, Paul Street takes no prisoners.

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5. A few quick remarks on top of my rant:
   1. I think that BUTSUDANBILL is right. Kamala Harris will be a feisty and effective candidate. (Will she debate Mike Pence? Hooowee!) In that sense, she’s a good pick, but I don’t think that that’s why she got picked.
   2. As he says himself, Mr. Astore got the “scenario” wrong when he wrote back in April; but the rest of what he says is mostly spot-on, despite his being insufficiently cynical.
   3. One thing he says now, though, I disagree with. He says of Biden and Harris: “Both are basically moderate Republicans who are business-friendly.” There’s a difference between being “business-friendly” and being militarists, corporatists, crony capitalists and shills for Wall Street (fraud as a business model), the pharmaceutical industry, and the military-industrial complex. And Biden is thoroughly corrupt. You might want to look at:
   https://ukrainegate.info/part-1-a-not-so-solid-prosecutor/
   https://ukrainegate.info/part-2-not-so-dormant-investigati…/
   https://ukrainegate.info/part-3-a-not-so-noble-president/
   https://ukrainegate.info/part-4-shokin-strikes-back/
   If you look at Biden’s record, he’s not a “moderate” of any kind, even on the “normal” Republican standard. He’s a Neoconservative militaristic warmonger. He brags about being an instigator of the Iraq War, Clinton’s famous Crime Bill (which Biden says, falsely, that he “wrote”—maybe Kamala can help him out with toughening up the police some more), supporter and enabler of Israel’s anti-Palestinian holocaust, proponent of the Patriot Act, and you name it. (Would you call Dick Cheney a “moderate Republican”?)

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   1. You’re probably right that I’m not cynical enough.

      When I describe Biden/Harris as moderate Republicans, I’m thinking mainly of domestic politics. You’re right about their foreign policy positions, which are driven by the usual militarism and imperialism. I would argue that this is viewed as “moderate” by the mainstream media, even as it’s rightly seen as extreme when you’re looking at the USA from a foreign vantage point. It really helps to live outside the USA … I am caught in the thick of it here. USA! USA! 🙂

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      1. Thanks for your response, Mr. Astore. Very fair, I think. I think that you are right that it helps to live outside of the USA, as I do, but I am afraid that it doesn’t help enough. The thing is, I think, that the USA hardly has an “outside”. Through its many vehicles of influence and infiltration, it can set the terms of the “discussion” almost everywhere. Still, there seems to be no one more “clueless” than Americans themselves—those who ought to know better—many of whom are personally near and dear to me. Thanks for your decency and stimulating work.

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         1. From my perspective of being an American for 72 years, I can wholeheartedly agree about the cluelessness of my fellow citizens!!

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   2. Gotta give you props for zeroing in, in your last point. Just so.

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6. I’ve been citing you since April. Thought you had it right–and here we are.

   Douglas Wissing

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7. Tulsi Gabbard demolished Kamala Harris here (beginning at the 4:00 minute mark). The beginning of this video is also a good reminder of Harris accusing Biden of being a segregationist.

   Happy days are here again.

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   1. Of this we may be confident: Joe Biden will continue to insert his foot in his mouth with regularity. But I think he’s speaking publicly a bit more coherently of late. Probably he’s been spending a lot of his basement time being drilled by aides in “cognitive functioning” exercises. Making the bold assumption that the Dems do regain the White House (and it’s anything but certain, I don’t care what the polls are saying), it may not be long before Kamala Harris steps up to the Big Job. The stench of the Democratic Establishment is only ameliorated by the far worse stink of Donald J. Trump and the vile White Supremacism that won him the job in the first place.

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   2. Yes, the American Memory Deficiency Syndrome seems to have let this exchange in the Democratic TV “debates” have faded into the black hole of forgetfulness. Good to run this again as Biden and Harris are furiously re-fictionalising themselves to meet what they perceive to be the latest politically correct Democratic voter sentiments while appealing to the disaffected elements of Trump’s “base”. Good luck to them, as there is, of course, no consistency among these audiences (same position that The Donald was in in 2016 with his very diverse target audiences). The Democratic handlers are assuming that women, and most especially “women of color”, along with black voters, have nowhere else to go, and will vote rather than sit home, so I don’t expect too much other than lightweight rhetoric to be wasted on those groups; nor do I expect them to accrue any real benefits if Biden-Harris get themselves elected. Those groups will have given what they have to give—votes—and policies and favors will accrue rather to those who can contribute something “more”, namely money. The election victory of a “woman of color”, and her possible accession to the presidency would have a very great, and important, symbolic significance, in my opinion, just as Obama’s election to the presidency did. But Obama did nothing at all for black people, either in terms of material improvement of their lives and opportunities, or in terms of simple decency and respect. Obama was, I think, personally rather disdainful of American blacks, in the same style as his most genteely racist fellow (white) country-club members. I doubt that Kamala Harris has any great feelings of care or protectiveness for her fellow “persons of color”, including the female persons. Her story about herself as the little girl who became the great and important woman she is today because of school integration, including federally mandating bussing, is touching, but her subsequent actions as California Attorney General—or, for that matter as a US senator—do not suggest that she will be any kind of champion of equality and justice for persons of color any more than Obama was, and certainly not nearly as much as that white, male, boorish Texas redneck, Lyndon Johnson. If you want a good reminder of how you can talk big for peace, justice, and transparency and do nothing, or rather less than nothing, about those things, it’s good to watch that Scott Noble film, Lifting the Veil (http://metanoia-films.org/lifting-the-veil/) every once in a while. (Now would be a good time!) To return to the present connection, the video clip posted by Mr. Astore shows Kamala Harris doing a pretty good job of showing up her then-adversary, Joe Biden, for what he really is (even if she had time only to reveal the tip of a very large iceberg; and who knows whether she had even the will to go further); but then Tulsi Gabbard, in the one debate where she was really allowed to say anything, unmasked Harris for what she (Harris) really stood for, as revealed by her long-term performance as California‘s Attorney General. What stood behind Gabbard‘s (now mostly forgotten) remarks is explained in some detail, and documented, in an article by Marjorie Cohen, originally published on July 9, 2019, when Harris was running for the Democratic presidential nomination and representing herself as having been a progressive reformist Attorney General in California. Cohen’s article has just been republished by Consortium News: https://consortiumnews.com/2020/08/13/kamala-harriss-distinguished-career-of-serving-injustice/ Read it, if you haven’t already! Marjorie Cohn, by the way, is Professor Emerita at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former President of the National Lawyers Guild, Deputy Secretary General of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. If people think that they have to vote for Biden-Harris in order to get rid of that awful Donald Trump, that’s an understandable conviction and they should do so. But they should not fantasise about the people that they would be voting for being “progressive”, or even decent, well-intentioned, human beings; and they should most particularly NOT imagine that things are going to get any better when and if Donald Trump is driven from the scene.

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      1. Agree on all points! On even some supposedly progressive threads, I’m seeing many comments along the lines of, “OK, Biden and Harris aren’t what we wanted, but let’s get them elected, then we’ll hold their feet to the fire and force them to uphold Progressive values.” Utter fantasy! As you say, once they get the votes they want, it’ll be status quo ante. SS, DD.

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         1. Yes, there are die-hard (could any be under the age of about 50 or 60, though, I must wonder?) supporters of the Dem. Party who will vote for their candidates with machine-like precision election in/election out. And you’re right, they’re delusional if they think they can move these guys “to the left.” Didn’t work terrifically well with Obama, did it?!

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            1. Not in the least. Pretty close to abject failure with Obama, and he looked better going in than Biden ever has.

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      2. Yes, grudgingly, we must give some credit to Trump in 2016 when he remarked about [paraphrasing] “Politicians who only show up in your neighborhood every four years to ask for your vote. Vote for me, what have you got to lose?” As Americans, of course, we merely had our nation to lose! I’m sure whatever number of African-Americans who did vote Trump were thrilled when he emerged as an open “White Supremacist.” Yes, we’ve been painted into a corner once again. The Dem. ticket leaves so much to be desired, it’s practically a bottomless box of deficiencies, but indeed the only way to be rid of Trump is to vote for them.

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8. I’ve been cruising the mainstream media, and the usual identity politics apply to Kamala Harris. Few speak of her positions. They speak of her being black, Asian, and (of course) female, along with her alleged ability to appeal to disgruntled conservatives. A sample from CNN:

   “Now, she is the first Black and South Asian woman to grace a presidential ticket. Experts say Biden’s allies are hoping Harris’ political savvy and straight-talking demeanor will win over disaffected conservatives.”

   And here’s another quotation courtesy of CNN:

   “I think today it is evident there is an affirmation of not only Black women, but women of Southeast Asia, women of color, that they have finally reached a status where they are affirmed in this nation as equal partners, and this mountain that we’ve all been trying to climb, Kamala has now taken us to the mountaintop.” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who said Joe Biden’s historic selection of Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate fulfills the central message of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final “mountaintop” sermon.

   It’s the most shallow form of “diversity” and identity politics. What matters is her gender, race, and ethnicity, and little else.

   All surface — with no concern for depth. Or I should say the depth — as in her record — is ignored or elided except when that record advances corporatist interests.

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   1. “Joe Biden’s historic selection of Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate fulfills the central message of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final ‘mountaintop’ sermon”? My God, people really can say just anything. Could Sheila Jackson Lee really have heard, or read, Dr. King’s sermon? Or does she just suppose that no one that she’s talking to has (which could be right)?

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      1. “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.” – H. L. Mencken

         “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” – George Carlin

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         1. I’m afraid “stupid people in large groups” are THE dominant voting bloc in USA today!

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            1. No doubt about THAT!

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   2. I heard on NPR News today that Sen. Harris is actually of Tamil heritage. I would not place the region of India and Sri Lanka where these folks primarily reside as “SouthEAST Asia.” So much for the accuracy of MSM. At any rate, Trump’s racist supporters will show her no mercy. If there are actually any “centrists” left in USA, I wouldn’t count on them swooning over this candidate.

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   3. Here’s another write-up on Kamala Harris, coincidentally by Paul Street. This is what you get when you look into Kamala “in depth”, which explains why so many folks want to stick strictly to the superficia.
      https://www.21cir.com/2020/08/kamala-harris-is-not-a-left-radical-or-a-marxist-i-wish-she-were/
      Stuck onto the bottom of this is an short piece by Moon of Alabama asking why on earth Biden would pick Kamala Harris as his running mate. You already know my answer to that particular question.

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9. Curious that in the midst of significant domestic unrest over police brutality (among other things), the choice is a running mate prideful of her use of state power to corral, control, and convict U.S. citizens over things like truancy and marijuana use. A better law-and-order shill for the national security state could hardly be found. What kind of blindness must Biden (or his handlers) have to fail to recognize signals that the citizenry has had enough? I’m not in the habit of publishing predictions, but I admit to having seen this one coming for a long time. Biden’s unrepentant militarism, hawkishness, and patrician lack of empathy for anyone are well matched by Harris. Together, they can be expected to continue use the stick rather than the carrot to berate and beat down people who would arguable respond much better to encouragement and support.

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   1. This is a replay of the 2016 election “choices.” This is the level to which US politics have descended. The Dems only look slightly (underline that three times!) palatable compared to the alternative. Ugh.

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10. Not surprised, but still revolted. Leaving aside her rather awful record and policies on a purely cynical and tactical level I have to be astounded that in the midst of the current outrage against police brutality they chose a top cop for VP. One who for example is on record as saying it would bad to reduce prison overcrowding by early release of non-violent offenders because they make a useful cheap labor pool for the prison industry.

    I really think they’re on track to actually losing to Trump again! An even more impressive achievement than 2016 since there’s Trumps’ catastrophic handling of the pandemic working against him.

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11. In the “not in the least surprised” category of jaded (i.e., accurate) observations.

    Two videos from the Jimmy Dore Show, with Max Blumenthal of the Grayzone:

    Biden Pick His VP — KAMALA Is A Cop! (August 13, 2020)

    Kamala Is A Cop Except For Billionaire Banksters! (August 13, 2020)

    Michael Tracey on the job, as usual. From his Twitter feed:

    Michael Tracey @mtracey · 3h “The irony of this VP selection process is that Biden’s overwhelming victory in the primaries was a repudiation of the idea that voters choose candidates purely on the basis of identity factors. That’s more an elite fixation. But this elite fixation is 100% what drove the VP pick.”

    Michael Tracey @mtracey · 3h “Wall Street is perfectly fine with Kamala because they know the priorities of the Dem Party now decisively hinge on things like racial/gender representation — which they can certainly accommodate. This doesn’t meaningfully challenge their power in any way.”

    Michael Tracey @mtracey · 5h “Spare a thought for the countless protesters whose signature chant is “All Cops Are Bastards” being told they must vote for California’s self-described “Top Cop” in order to stop fascism.”

    Michael Tracey @mtracey · 5h “The selection of Kamala is being framed as some kind of fulfillment of the desires of “black women,” but it would be more accurately framed as a fulfillment of the desires of Dem elites/donors/pundits who have boosted KH for years despite her inability to garner electoral support.”

    Michael Tracey @mtracey · 6h “NYT and other elite media giddily touted the “history-making potential” of Kamala from the moment she announced her presidential campaign, hence why she was the recipient of so much unearned hype. Her entire trajectory is a self-fulfilling media prophesy.”

    [quotes a previous tweet of his from early in the year, before Kamala Harris dropped out — very much as a result of Tulsi Gabbard exposing and humiliating her during just one of the few debates that the DNC allowed her to enter]

    Michael Tracey @mtracey · Jan 23, 2019 “Notice how the NYT describes Kamala as having “history-making potential” but omits this label for Tulsi, even though she’s a minority woman. NYT instead chooses to label Tulsi an anti-gay Assad lover. This is how establishment consensus tries to preemptively disqualify candidates.”

    The for-profit prison-industrial complex will surely breathe a sigh of relief at the prospect of more $1/hr convict labor coming their way no matter which of the Global Corporate Oligarchy’s two US right-wing factions “prevails” in November.

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    1. Thank you for these, Mr. Murry!

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12. Good call, Bill-Man. I was unaware of the Kamala news until I saw the Bracing Views email land on my phone, announcing your latest piece here. I was instantly reminded of my own windshield epiphany, just the day prior, while driving to work. I was thinking about the various strengths of the other potential picks, and I reflected that Kamala would be the absolute best pick to further torpedo Biden. In the simplest terms (and like Hillary) she is just not likable. More specifically, she exudes treachery. Thanks for posting the vid of Kamala, melting in the light of Tusi Gabbard.

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    1. Tulsi surfs. And serves. Kamala doesn’t. And didn’t. End of story.

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       1. But “‘Charlie’ don’t surf.”!!

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13. I have no sympathy for Kamala Harris, but the way the Republicans are attacking her make them look even worse. For example:

    “Conservative media figures wasted no time hurling personal attacks at Harris, questioning her racial identity, mispronouncing her name and mocking her voice.

    Trump called Harris “nasty” at least four times on Tuesday, wrote Katie Rogers, a turn to his preferred misogynistic trope. He also called her the “meanest, most horrible, most disrespectful” member of the Senate.”

    “Nasty” was Trump’s father’s term of choice for any woman who crossed him. Like father, like son.

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    1. Hello again,
       Not to defend Trump, for whom I have less than no sympathy, but what I heard him say (directly, and not through Katie Rogers) was that Harris had been nasty to Biden and disrespectful of him (in the debates, the implication being that it was therefore surprising that Biden had selected her as his VP); and, in another statement, Trump said that she had been mean, horrible, and disrespectful to Justice Kavanaugh. That’s a bit different from taking these adjectival ejaculations out of context and talking about Trump’s father’s way of talking about “women who crossed him”. Maybe I’ve missed something—Trump says a lot of awful, stupid stuff—but that’s all the context I could find.
       Cheers,
       Mikjall

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       1. Trump has a clear record of using “nasty” against any woman he wants to defame.

          Was Harris that “mean, horrible, and disrespectful” to Kavanaugh? Any judge looking for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court should expect tough questioning, especially a judge with an openly partisan record of working for Republican interests.

          For Trump, methinks it’s not so much that Harris asked tough or “mean” or “nasty” questions: it was because she was a woman who dared to challenge a man. It’s the equivalent of Obama being “uppity.”

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          1. LOVE your last sentence! That’s it, exactly!

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       2. Yes, even in my minimal scanning of MSM I got it that Trump was referring to Sen. Harris’s questioning of Kavanaugh (who I tagged ‘Angry Little Judge’ at the time). Team Trump, of course, was trying to picture their boy as Victim of evil Liberals. Same tired old bag of tricks. Mr. Astore was simply referring to a clear pattern in Trump’s very public attitude toward “uppity” women, regardless of color of their skin. I’m waiting for The Donald to refer to Ms. Harris as someone of “very low IQ,” the Stable Genius’s standard dismissal of Members of Congress of color.

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    2. And Trump naturally seized on Harris’s “snippy” (my word choice) seizing on a Biden slip of tongue in one of the Dem. “debates.” I’m pretty sure it was she who caught him contradicting himself on Medicare For All within about a minute’s time in one of Joe’s segments. It is so nauseating that Fox “News” has become “Trump TV.” I mean, that network was bad enough prior to this arrangement! The FCC should force Fox to display an icon stating “A Subsidiary of the Trump Organization.” Of course, that won’t happen with current FCC leadership, and Fox actually belongs to the Murdoch Empire. I recently watched “Bombshell,” about the Megan Kelly affair. The movie, based largely on the true story, indicated that Rupert Murdoch personally dislikes Donald Trump. One sure wouldn’t guess that, based on what Fox puts out.

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14. Hormonally Pigmented Puppets on Parade
    (in the accentual-alliterative Anglo Saxon style)

    Uttering unctuously undulating ugliness
    A warmongering woman’s wanton whim
    Suckles sick snakes seeking something for seizure.
    Manifestly, miserably mumbling her mantras,
    Conventionally dressing for “victory.” Dreadful
    Expression expressly appropriating platitudes:
    “Noise” from a face-hole numbingly fatuous.

    Onset of Alzheimer’s ought to scare all of the
    Citizens sitting at home (if they have one)
    As Dithering Dude chooses Melanin Mamma,
    Hormones and pigments heralding hopelessness:
    Pipsqueaks Pretending. Puppet “alternatives.”

    Meanwhile the other two men mangle management.
    Orange and albino (the one thumping Bibles)
    Propose printing paper, apocalypse pending.
    The plague settles everything — properly. Error
    Invalidates polling: Variable poisoning.

    Browbeaten brutally, bullied electorates
    Validate viciousness, verbiage and vanity.
    Ballots? Needless. Bullets next?

    Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright © 2020

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    1. A good one! May I share this in Facebook (with attribution)?

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       1. Certainly. And thanks for the kind words.
          — Mike Murry

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15. For those having some familiarity with the visible spectrum, the Democratic Party’s White-Man / Black-Woman ticket sounds more like:

    A Man of All Colors
    A Woman of None

    Which leads to the Republican Party countering with:

    All Light Matters
    No Light Doesn’t
    Orange and Yellow Matter More-Equally

    Just saying . . .

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16. Arguing with Democrats who support Biden and Kamala is equal to arguing with a Trump supporters. They refuse to have any self reflection on the state of the DNC. The comeback is “well I guess your voting for Trump”. No I’m trying to clearly come up with a solution as to why the Democratic Party refuses to change and how we can facilitate this. If Trump wins maybe this will be the final blow for them to wake up. AOC in 2024? I do fear for her life though. I’m so grateful I found your website. I have been feeling very isolated with my view points. I wrote in Bernie in 2016 and this was when my eyes were being opened to how the DNC operates. Hilary paid her dues and it was her turn and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone was going to do about it. Biden is only a rehash from the past and a very creepy one too. Kamala prosecution record towards certain minority groups needs to be addressed. Thank you for your article.

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    1. Thanks. Welcome to the site. We’re a bit like the island of misfit toys. 🙂

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       1. Will Santa come and get us, in the end?

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          1. Possibly the saddest line I’ve heard in a kid’s show: the doll that says “I don’t have any dreams left to dream.”

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             1. Yep. That line just spears you.

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          2. Groucho: “I’ve asked that a Sanity Clause be inserted in the contract.” Chico: “Ehh, wotsamatta wit’ you?! Everybody knows there’s-a-no-such-a-ting as Sanity Clause! Dat’s fer little kids!” And here ends today’s lesson in Marxism.

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             1. ROTF, sir! : )

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             2. An actual lol from that one…

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    2. CS–I haven’t caught up on all the comments, so pardon me if I repeat something already posted. The explanation for why the Dem. Party Establishment refuses to embrace change is contained in the fact that they ARE the establishment. Rock the boat and lose corporate donors? No way!!

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       1. Exactly. As has been expressed here and elsewhere I’ve seen, the Dems would rather concede the White House than back a candidate NOT tied to the corporations. Someone who’s independent, like Bernie (or, years ago, like Dennis Kucinich) can’t be manipulated, and the Dems can’t stomach that.

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17. Can’t say that I really understand what Gerard Manley Hopkins had in mind, but having had a knowledgable friend explain the verse rules to me, I thought I’d give the form a try, anyway. Leave it to the right-wing corporatist Democrats to pass over Tulsi Gabbard for the non-entity she demolished in just one of the primary season’s debates. So what do we have left?

    Pigment’s Hour Proclaimed
    (with thanks to Don Webb of Bewildering Stories for his “sprung rhythm” example)

    Joe, descendant of Barack, descendant of William, unwisely inherits
    from Ronald and George 1 and George 2 and Trump
    a status quo prized for its capitalist demerits
    like gross inequality and economic slump.

    Still, maybe Joe loses because voters abandon
    him, leaving the Democrats’ with their scapegoating tropes:
    like blaming Ralph Nader and Susan Sarandon
    and Russians for Donald the Dumb. Here’s to hopes!

    But Joe has a friend in the virulent pandemic
    which Donald’s incompetence has certainly made worse.
    Trump’s boat sprang a leak (like this “sprung verse” polemic)
    And now he might drown his own ocean’s curse.

    Which leaves us to wonder who then will take power
    when questions to Joe return just a blank stare.
    Someone both female and black: Pigment’s Hour.
    Entitlement’s pony as promised. So there!

    Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright © 2020

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