QOTD: "Snap Out Of It"

 

From the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, who says fight the urge to "doomscroll" and get out, volunteer, contribute and vote:

"Snap out of it, Democrats. Take a deep breath and stop hyperventilating. Vice President Kamala Harris has maintained a consistent lead in the national polls, and there is no way anyone can be certain which way the swing states are swinging until the votes are counted. Stop all the doomscrolling and go win the election. [snip]

The nation has been here twice before, facing the possibility that Donald Trump will be elected president. In 2016, we didn’t take the threat seriously enough — hence the angst that the “Never Trump” majority is feeling right now. But don’t forget 2020, when Joe Biden not only defeated Trump but also won traditionally Republican states such as Georgia and Arizona. There is no rule that says all Election Day surprises must be bad."

Many of us are guilty of the political jitters, when we see that almost half the population is willing to vote for a felon, adjudicated rapist, con man and national security threat, and nothing seems to break their cultish devotion to the Malignant Loser. Despite the Malignant Loser's manifest unfitness for any office of public trust, his brainwashed / low information followers will ignore his declining mental state and vote for him. Turnout will be absolutely vital to victory for our side in what is shaping up to be a very close election, and it needs to be big and convincing.

 

QOTD: Options

 

Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson writing this morning on the Dems' options, which don't include surrender. From his closing paragraphs:

"Changing candidates would be a gamble, and there is no guarantee it would work. It is hard for me to imagine a process that ended with anyone other than [Vice President] Harris as the replacement. At 59, she would turn the age issue in her party’s favor; and I’m confident she could unite and inspire the Democratic base. I’m not sure, though, how she would ultimately fare among independents and the lost tribe of anti-Trump Republicans. No one really knows what would happen.

If the smartest politicians and numbers crunchers in the Democratic Party see a way for Biden to win, they must all agree to make that happen. But if not — and no one has yet shown a credible road map to victory — they must all agree to make a change. A leap of faith is better than an inexorable slide into the abyss."

The issue has always been who is best positioned to deny the felonious sociopath Malignant Loser another term in the White House, which would plunge the country into an authoritarian hell governed by the far-right's dystopian "Project 2025" blueprint. There's not much time left to make that call, and it's dwindling fast. It's imperative for the future of our democratic republic that the Malignant Loser be defeated by the strongest candidate the party can field.

BONUS:  The Los Angeles Times editorial board echoes the above.

QOTD -- The Debt Ceiling Ritual

 

"...The biggest win of all, for the nation, is that apparently we get a nearly two-year respite from this ridiculous game. Congress or the president should use that time to eliminate the debt ceiling once and for all.  [snip]

"Democrats should have tried to do away with the debt ceiling when they controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress. After this agreement is signed and sealed, Biden should look for a way to have the Supreme Court decide whether the 14th Amendment makes the debt ceiling unconstitutional, as some legal scholars believe.

"Reasonable people need to stop the madness. One of these times, unreasonable people will miscalculate — and deal the nation a crippling self-inflicted blow."-- Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post on the debt ceiling hostage- taking game, and what needs to be done about it.  Only the U.S. and Denmark have a debt ceiling that's set at an absolute amount rather than as a percentage of GDP.

Where we would depart from Robinson is in entertaining any thought that the Republican Supreme Court would be a venue that could rule favorably on the 14th Amendment issue.  

They've Got "A Whole Lot of Nothing"

 

From this morning's Eugene Robinson op-ed in the Washington Post:

"Republicans who have been trying for years to “prove” that President Biden is somehow corrupt made a big show Wednesday of revealing their smear campaign to be a shameless, empty exercise in rumor and innuendo.

Don’t take my word for it. Listen to Steve Doocy, one of the hosts of the morning show “Fox & Friends,” which is normally the safest possible space for Republican politicians to trumpet their talking points.

'You don’t actually have any facts to that point,' Doocy said Thursday to House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who was trying to sell the idea that the president, his brother James and his son Hunter were part of some shadowy influence-peddling scheme. 'And the other thing is, of all those names, the one person who didn’t profit is — there’s no evidence that Joe Biden did anything illegally.'

That wasn’t the reaction Comer had hoped to get in a GOP-friendly venue the morning after his much-hyped news conference releasing the findings of the Oversight Committee’s investigation into the president’s family. You might have missed Comer’s event, because it happened while another Republican member of Congress, Rep. George Santos (N.Y.), was being taken into custody and arraigned on felony charges of wire fraud, money laundering and other federal crimes."  (our emphasis)

Heh heh, nice reminder at the end of some of the real corruption infusing the Republican / Forced Birth / Shooters party. Along with Comer on the House side, you have on the Senate side the Kremlin's favorite Senator, the gutter-dwelling Wisconsinite Ron "Tiny" Johnson pushing innuendo and smears against the Bidens. It's a nastier replay of the Benghazi! Benghazi! BENGHAZI! show they put on to harm then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the polls leading up the 2016 election. With their sexual assaulter guy looking forward to multiple Federal and state indictments, and after the Manhattan DA's 34 felony counts and E. Jean Carroll's win for sexual battery and defamation, they want to "both sides" the 2024 political campaign with their laughably transparent smears, but as Robinson says, they've got "a whole lot of nothing." 

QOTD -- Performative Revenge

 

"Pay no attention to the House Republicans’ substance-free “Commitment to America.” The actual GOP plan, if the party takes control of the lower chamber in January, is a campaign of performative revenge.

"Ginned-up investigations, cruel attacks on the marginalized, even a concocted impeachment of President Biden — that’s what the nation has to look forward to if Republicans win the House. Those are the only things the party agrees on, except fealty to Donald Trump and an all-consuming desire for power." -- Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post.   Imagine spineless cipher Kevin McCarthy as Speaker (and third in line to the presidency!).  Or a feral "Gym" Jordan as Chair of the House Judiciary Committee.  Or every deranged member of the caucus in a position to cause more even damage and disrepute to fall upon the chamber.  Turning the House over to these treasonous trolls will give them a legitimized national platform.  And we've seen by their words and actions in these mid-term campaigns how they'd run things:  by relying on lies, fear, anger and hate to keep a grip on power at all costs.  That's all they offer, and why they need to be crushed in November.

QOTD -- Democrats In Array

 

"Wait, what? All of a sudden, Democrats are no longer in disarray. Instead, they’re marching in tight formation and achieving major goals. It’s such an unfamiliar sensation that it’s almost hard to recognize when it’s happening.

"Transformational legislation like the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) wasn’t possible, according to the hive-mind narrative that many in Washington followed as recently as a few weeks ago. President Biden’s ambitious agenda was supposedly dead in the water. Squabbling Democrats would limp into the midterm elections, the only question how badly they would lose.

"Now, it’s a different story." -- Eugene Robinson in today's Washington Post, on the shifting political winds that the pundits and Beltway kool kidz continue to downplay.  Even before the IRA's passage in the Senate, Christofascist Republican overreach on abortion combined with revelations by the January 6 committee (and a slew of crackpot Republican candidates running in key elections) was beginning to move the needle in the Democrats' favor in the midterm elections.  Now, beyond the myriad reasons not to turn control of the legislative branch over to the Christofascists, Democrats have an historic, positive and popular legislative record to run on.

QOTD -- Profit Over Patriotism

 

"...[F]or both Trump and Fox News, profit triumphed over patriotism.

"Trump’s campaign used the 'big lie' to raise $250 million after the election, according to the committee’s findings. Much of the money was supposed to go to an 'Official Election Defense Fund,' but no such fund existed. Instead, the big beneficiary was the Save America political action committee that Trump controls. According to Jan. 6 committee researchers, more than $200,000 found its way to the bottom line of the Trump Hotel Collection.

"Who could have guessed that a big pot of money would be found at the heart of this whole sordid affair? Anyone remotely familiar with Trump’s modus operandi over his entire career, that’s who.

"As for Fox, the network at least covered Monday’s hearing — unlike Thursday, when the network not only ignored the committee’s curtain-raiser but also went so far as to eliminate commercial breaks, when viewers might have been tempted to change the channel. All the other major cable news and broadcast channels covered Thursday’s session wall to wall. The 'big lie' business is so big that it’s apparently worth sacrificing a night’s worth of prime-time advertising revenue to maintain it." -- Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post.

The Great (Republican) Replacement Theory

The seeds of the latest mass murder by a right- wing white nationalist in Buffalo were planted years ago and continue to grow, encouraged by an entrenched subculture of racism and fascist violence.  Here are some thoughts on the killer and his motivators:


Amanda Marcotte, Salon:

The alleged shooter who killed 10 people and injured three others in a Buffalo supermarket is 18-year-old Payton Gendron, who appears to have target a busy location in a predominantly Black neighborhood. As has become far too common with these kinds of mass murders, Gendron reportedly live-streamed the massacre on video, and apparently also published a manifesto that echoes many of the paranoid right-wing talking points one can hear every day streaming from the mouths of Fox News hosts and Republican politicians: a series of scurrilous lies about "critical race theory," George Soros and the "great replacement."

Now a familiar refrain will commence. No doubt we will be hear a great deal of umbrage in the coming days from Republican leaders and right-wing pundits. "How dare you blame us?" they will proclaim, in almost hysterical terms, acting shocked, shocked, that anyone would suggest that their words have had horrible consequences. The point of this fake outrage will be to make it too emotionally exhausting to hold them accountable, and to reinforce the ridiculous victim complex that fuels the American right as it increasingly slides into fascism. But let's not mince words: These folks share the blame. They have been encouraging violence, and violence is what they got.

Erika D. Smith, Los Angeles Times:

[R]oughly 3 in 10 [Americans] think additional immigration will cause native, presumably white, Americans to lose their economic, political and cultural influence.

Unsurprisingly, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to share these views, according to the poll. One reason is that irresponsible conservative pundits keep touting the “Great Replacement” theory as an explanation for everything from the loss of manufacturing jobs in the Midwest to a spike in deaths from overdoses among white people addicted to painkillers.

As Tucker Carlson said on Fox News last April: “I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term ‘replacement,’ if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World. But they become hysterical because that’s what’s happening, actually.”

It’s a lie, and it’s ridiculous and it’s dangerous, especially in the era of social media. [snip]

What’s clear is we can’t keep treating acts of white supremacy as one-off crimes committed by supposed lone wolves suffering from mental health problems. We also can’t keep giving a pass to conservative pundits and Republican politicians who directly or indirectly encourage adherence to the “Great Replacement” theory or any other tenet of racism or extremism."

Talia Lavin, Rolling Stone:

Once you understand an obsession with racial composition and white fertility to be the driving engine of Republican politics, a number of seemingly disparate movements begin to fit together into an ugly whole. Some aspects are obvious: The anti-immigrant movement that has seen U.S. refugee admissions at historic lows and asylum seekers marooned in purgatorial camps in Mexico continues to dominate the right-wing airwaves. Historic levels of gerrymandering are ensuring that a diversifying populace remains beholden to the views of a white minority — alongside openly antidemocratic restrictions on voting and changes in election administration.  [snip]

When the rhetoric of an entire movement devolves into Manichaean demonization of their political foes; when demographic shifts are represented as apocalyptic; and when a party can appeal to nothing but the consolidation of white power, it is an inevitability that such rhetoric will leave bodies in its wake. The Republican Party caters chiefly now to those who claim that to be born the wrong color is an act of genocide, and act with appropriate fervor. There has never been a lone wolf when it comes to racist terror in the United States; it suffuses every aspect of our politics and policy, and in latter years the mass howl of fear at change comes from a jaw that drips with blood. As long as we fail to recognize the wellspring of racial animus that animates the right wing in this country, the corpses will continue to accrue. 

 

Eugene Robinson, Washington Post:

What we need to talk about is how politicians and thought leaders on the right are using the vile poison of replacement theory to further their own selfish ends — garnering campaign donations and votes, boosting television ratings, achieving fame. And we need to talk about how most of this demagoguery is coming from people who should know, and probably do know, that what they are telling potential killers, such as Payton Gendron, the man in custody after the Buffalo shooting, is complete fiction. [snip]

The replacement-theory grifters know that they are stoking the anxieties some White people feel about the nation’s increasing diversity. They also know that they are playing with tropes that have long been popular among unapologetic white supremacists, including those who infamously marched through Charlottesville bearing torches. And they must realize by now that some impressionable White people will take this rhetoric seriously — and act on it.

The accused Buffalo killer took pains to choose a location where he knew the victims would be people of color. Blame him for what he did. But also blame the prominent right-wing voices that egged him on. 

They're not "lone wolves," as Lavin explains above.  We must not let these murders and the murderers pass without understanding who and what they are, and in what poisonous political muck they have taken root.

BONUS:  More here, here, and here. 

Views On Russian Aggression Against Ukraine

 

The Washington Post editorial board:

Rebutting Mr. Putin’s arguments is almost beside the point — it’s doubtful even he believes his wild accusations about Ukraine as a future platform for NATO aggression — but not entirely. The truth is that Ukraine is a member state of the United Nations, whose security Russia itself undertook to respect 28 years ago, in exchange for Ukraine’s nuclear disarmament. Ukraine has not been waging “genocide” against a Russian-speaking ethnic minority, as Mr. Putin alleged, but defending itself from a 2014-2015 Russian destabilization campaign that created the breakaway regions and engineered the seizure of Ukraine’s strategic Crimean region on the Black Sea. Mr. Putin’s pseudo-history about the kinship of Russians and Ukrainians ignores those facts. His true reason for targeting Ukraine is not Russian national security but to preserve his own power in Moscow, which would be threatened by a successful democratic experiment in a former Soviet republic of Ukraine’s size and cultural importance.

Shaun Walker, The Guardian, on possible cracks in the Kremlin's aggressive facade:

From behind his desk, frequently smirking, Putin listened one-by-one to his security council. The body contains some of the few people who have Putin’s ear, but even some of them appeared overawed by the situation and nervous at fluffing their lines.

Sergei Naryshkin, the hawkish head of Russia’s spy service, known for making aggressively anti-western statements, stuttered uncomfortably as Putin grilled him on whether he supported the decision.

“Speak directly!” Putin snapped, twice.

Eventually, when he was able to get the words out, Naryshkin said he supported “the LNR and DNR becoming part of Russia.” Putin told him that wasn’t the subject of the discussion; it was only recognition being weighed up.

Some suggested this might have been a carefully scripted encounter to show the West what other options might be available, but Naryshkin’s genuinely flustered expression suggested otherwise.

Eugene Robinson: 

If Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to gobble up another chunk of Ukraine at little or no cost to his own interests, he should have done it while Donald Trump was still president. With President Biden leading the response, Putin’s potential costs are rising — while his hoped-for benefits have evaporated. [snip]

Even in this era of scorched-earth politics, Biden’s Republican critics are at pains to formulate specific complaints about his leadership on Ukraine. A few, such as Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), have said he should have ordered a full-scale evacuation of American citizens. But others, including Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), agree with Biden that such a step would be premature and unwise. Some Republicans have attacked Biden’s energy policies, arguing that the United States should be maximizing oil and gas production to curb Putin’s coercive power, which hardly seems on point. The most common GOP criticism is the most amorphous: Putin is supposedly emboldened because he sees Biden as weak.

The precise opposite appears to be true. [snip]

But even as Russian forces strike, Putin will have to ask himself one question: Where’s Trump when I need him?

Kenya's Ambassador to the United Nations Martin Kimani to the Security Council, where every member stood against Russian aggression:

The territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine stands breached. The Charter of the United Nations continues to wilt under the relentless assault. In one moment it is invoked in reverence by the very same countries who then turned their backs on it in pursuit of objectives diametrically opposed to peace and security. In the last two meetings and the buildup of forces in Ukraine, they urged diplomacy be given a chance. Our cry was not heated and more importantly, the charter's demand to settle the dispute by peaceful means in such a manner are not in danger has been profoundly undermined. Today, the threat or use of force has been affected. Kenya is gravely concerned by the announcement made by the Russian Federation to recognize the regions of Ukraine as independent states.

Full speech here.

No one, except the captive audiences in Russia and on Fox "News", is treating Russian thug Putin's claims of Ukraine being the aggressor, or engaging in "genocide" against the Russian speaking population in eastern Ukraine, seriously.  Not that that has any importance to him at the moment. His fear of an independent, democratic Ukraine on his border is the primary driver for his desperate actions.

Quotes Of The Day -- Perspectives On "Woke"

We're several days into Black History Month, so it's time to have a little Black history.

____________________

 "Like so many new coinages that spread throughout the culture, the whole 'woke' thing began in the African American community. It was, obviously, a variation on 'awake,' but the term’s definition was always a bit fuzzy. It meant being alert to social injustice and racism. It also came to mean being knowledgeable about U.S. history and the role that slavery, Jim Crow repression and systemic discrimination have played over the centuries. But being woke could also mean simply being aware of what was happening at any given moment in our politics and our culture.  [snip]

"As happens with many neologisms, 'woke' peaked and waned. It served its consciousness-raising purpose and then began to fade away. These days, I never hear Black people, progressives, Democrats, LGBTQ Americans or any other constituencies of the supposed 'woke mob' use the word. I mean never.

"The political right uses it, though — disingenuously and as a weapon. Republicans wield it as a bludgeon against Democrats in general and progressives in particular." -- Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post, providing his brief take on "woke/ wokeness" etymology.

____________________

"Many who lightly toss around the word today — including people who claim to embody it, or those who wield it as a pejorative for progressives — would be surprised to learn that 'woke' originated in the deepest trenches of Black nationalism.

"Black leaders have been calling on Black people to wake up for decades. To the first users of the word, it meant recognizing racial subjugation committed by Whites. Thus a White YouTuber or a liberal congressperson cannot, by the literal definition, be woke.

"In fact, 'wokeness' was originally applied to U.S. Blacks who had been mentally conditioned into philosophical slumber by centuries of oppression, intimidation, miseducation and social frustration." -- Bijan C. Bayne, discussing the history of "woke/ wokeness," which he explains has been misappropriated and misued by people for which the term was not intended to be applied.

Both essays beg to be read in their entirety;  please do so.

QOTD: Vigilantism

 

From the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson on the conviction of Ahmaud Arbery's killers, and the common thread of vigilantism with the Kyle Rittenhouse case:

"What they have in common is that they were both about vigilantism — about civilians, with no authority or training, arming themselves and rushing to 'defend' their communities. In both incidents, people died tragically and needlessly. I wish Rittenhouse had been convicted of something, anything, if only as a deterrent to future potential camo-clad crusaders.

But justice is supposed to be specific, not generalized. And the Arbery case was potentially more explosive because it was so specifically about race — and because it had such specific historical resonance.

If White men chase an unarmed Black man down and lynch him, they will be punished. That should be an unremarkable statement. And we should not have to feel so relieved to see it affirmed."

Another common factor is that all the shooters were white supremacists in their implicit, if not stated, beliefs: Proud Boy-admiring Rittenhouse by reacting to Black Lives Matter protesters by crossing state lines armed and looking for trouble, and the Arbery killers by hunting down an unarmed black jogger in a white neighborhood in broad daylight. The verdict in the former case has given right-wing, gun toting "camo-clad crusaders" hope that they can act out their violent fantasies; the verdict in the latter case should give them pause for now.

 

QOTD -- The Narrative

 

"So when The Narrative warns that Biden urgently needs to get the progressives and the moderates in his party to set aside their differences, I take a somewhat different view. What I see is a pretty normal exercise in legislative give-and-take, except that it’s all happening within the Democratic Party — while Republicans hoot, holler and obstruct from the peanut gallery. When it comes to Congress, things never go as quickly as they might, and there always comes at least one moment when it appears that all is lost.  [snip]

"But failure is far from inevitable, as I see it, and the window for success is certainly not measured in mere days. Thus far, on votes that really matter, Democrats have shown remarkable unity. Bridging the gap on overall spending between what Manchin wants and what Sanders wants is mostly a matter of the kind of mathematical legerdemain that both men could do in their sleep. Getting Manchin on board with some of the climate change initiatives in the package will be harder, I fear, and may require painful compromise.

"As Republicans ever more slavishly bend the knee to Trump, however, it should become clearer that Democrats must act alone. There will come a time when Manchin and Sinema have to decide whether the Senate filibuster is more important than protecting the right to vote in free and fair elections. I hope they choose wisely."  -- Eugene Robinson in today's Washington Post, on the "Democrats are doomed" narrative the media has latched onto, and why it should be taken with a grain of salt.  Pass the salt!

QOTD -- Betting On Dumb

 

"Conservatives in state legislatures across the country are pushing legislation to halt the teaching of 'critical race theory' in public schools. I put the term in quotes because genuine critical race theory, a dry and esoteric set of ideas debated in obscure academic journals, is not actually being taught in those schools at all. What’s being taught instead — and squelched — is American history, which happens to include slavery, Jim Crow repression and structural racism.

"I get it. The GOP has become the party of White racial grievance, and this battle against an imaginary enemy stirs the base. But the whole charade involves Republican officials — many of them educated at the nation’s top schools — betting that their constituents are too dumb to know they’re being lied to. So far, the bet is paying off." -- Eugene Robinson in today's Washington Post.  The well- organized and funded astroturfers disrupting and harassing local school boards are part of the Republican/ white racial grievance party's electoral game plan.  In the important off- year election in Virginia, the Republican weasel running for governor, Glenn Youngkin, is tying his campaign to this bogus issue in the hopes of energizing his sub- moron base.  We'll see in a few weeks whether his bet on the dumb has worked.

QOTD -- End Game

 

"How, exactly, did the Biden administration’s critics think U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan was ever going to end?

“'Certainly not like this' is not a valid answer, however tragic Thursday’s attacks near the Kabul airport prove to be. Please be specific. Did you envision a formal ceremony at the U.S. Embassy with the American flag being lowered and the Taliban flag raised? Did you see the Taliban waiting patiently while the U.S.-trained Afghan army escorted U.S. citizens, other NATO nationals and our Afghan collaborators to the airport for evacuation? Did you imagine that the country’s branch of the Islamic State would watch peacefully from the sidelines, or that regional warlords would renounce any hope of regaining their power, or that a nation with a centuries-old tradition of rejecting central authority would suddenly embrace it?

"This is not an apologia for the tragic and chaotic scenes that have been unfolding in Kabul. Rather, it is a reality check. If there is a graceful, orderly way to abandon involvement in a brutal, unresolved civil war on the other side of the world, please cite historical precedents. I can’t find them." -- Eugene Robinson in today's Washington Post.   We can't find them either.

 

QOTD: To Rise From The Ashes

 

Writing in today's Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize-winning Eugene Robinson:

"Before a sane, responsible political party can rise like a phoenix from the ashes of today's dangerously unhinged GOP, there must be ashes to rise from. The nation is going to have to destroy the Republican Party to save it.

Parties reform and rebuild themselves after suffering massive, scorched-earth defeats. Since Republicans decided to follow Donald Trump and Fox News into the dystopian hellscape of white supremacy, paranoid conspiracy theory and know-nothing rejection of science, they have lost control of both chambers of Congress and the White House. Yet it has become obvious that those defeats are not nearly enough."  (our emphasis)

One immediate way to defeat it is to go after the Rethuglican / Trumpist / QAnon Party's fuel: campaign contributions from major donors and corporations, especially to those seditious bastards that voted to reject the certification of President Biden's electoral votes. Then, fight the attempts by Rethuglican state legislators to rig the election rules to suppress Dem votes in their states, including voter IDs, gerrymandering, etc.

 

QOTD -- Honor And Dishonor

"...Lewis was never under the illusion that the road ahead would be easy. He had lived to see the 1965 Voting Rights Act — whose passage was spurred by the way Lewis and others were brutally attacked on the Selma-to-Montgomery March — have its guts ripped out by a conservative Supreme Court, giving Southern states license to impose new laws designed to limit African American suffrage.

"So please, no crocodile tears or soaring words of praise for Lewis from Republicans whose strategy for winning in November is to keep African Americans from voting. If you are trying to take away the rights this great American suffered a fractured skull to win, you don’t really admire him at all. You spit on his legacy and dishonor yourselves."  -- Eugene Robinson, on the dishonorable honoring the memory of Rep. John Lewis.

QOTD -- Choice Cuts

“I think Donald Trump has finally gotten his comeuppance.  Right now, he is a grounded vessel, trapped by covid-19, by the social justice movement, by the Supreme Court saying he circumvented the law, and by Bolton saying that he’s an idiot — and maybe a treasonous one. It’s a plague of locusts around Trump.  They’re piling up and starting to break his spine.”  -- Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, on the developments of the past week.

“Moments of upheaval can change you, shift the trajectory of your life, and mold your character. The President’s comments and actions surrounding racial injustice and Black Americans cut sharply against my core values and convictions.  I must follow the dictates of my conscience and resign as Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs.” -- Mary Elizabeth Taylor, one of the highest ranking African-Americans in the Trump regime, in resigning on Thursday. (What blinded you up until this point, Ms. Taylor?)

"John Bolton is a weasel for not telling the truth about President Trump when it might have mattered — at least, theoretically. In practice, however, Bolton’s coming clean wouldn’t have mattered at all, since Bolton’s fellow weasels — Republican senators — were never going to remove the Head Weasel from office. That was always going to be our job." -- Eugene Robinson, in today's Washington Post.

QOTD -- Go For The Win

"An adroit politician would try to calm the waters with a call for unity, compassion and mutual understanding. He or she would deliver a heartfelt address to the nation like, say, the powerful speech Biden gave last week. But Trump is not an adroit politician; he is a human cleaver who knows only how to inflame and divide. He apparently sees his only play as whipping his loyal base into a frenzy while trying his best to discourage — or actually prevent — those who oppose him from casting ballots.

"So expect his rhetoric to become ever more vicious, his lies ever more outrageous, his racist dog-whistling ever more like the blaring of a klaxon. Biden and the Democrats shouldn’t waste time and energy worrying about all of that. Their focus has to be twofold: channeling the passion of this moment into political action; and ensuring that all Americans who want to vote in November can do so safely. [snip]

"Stop worrying about potential ways you could lose, Democrats. Start registering new voters, building a massive get-out-the-vote machine and hiring top-shelf lawyers. Focus on the ways you are very likely to win." --  Eugene Robinson, in "Democrats, Get Out The Vote And Go For The Win" Washington Post op/ed.

QOTD -- One Word

"... It is remarkable how a tongue-twisting word few of us were familiar with a month ago — hydroxychloroquine — has suddenly come to represent so many of the reasons Trump should not be president, especially during a time of crisis.

"That one word illustrates Trump’s arbitrary, anecdote-based method of making decisions; his reliance on cronies who have no relevant expertise; his rejection of science, or perhaps his failure to understand how science even works; his defiant stubbornness in clinging to what he “knows,” even when he doesn’t actually know it; his obsessiveness even in the face of contrary evidence; and his imperviousness to fact-based arguments he does not want to hear."  --  Eugene Robinson, writing this morning about the one word that encapsulates why world- class dolt and malignant tumor Donald "Moron Vector" Trump should not be president:  "hydroxychloroquine."  What Robinson may not have known when he wrote this is Trump's likely financial interest in companies that produce the drug he's hawking.  Which pretty much makes this peak Trump.

QOTD -- Your Periodic Anti-Cannibalism Reminder

"As the candidates make their cases, they should ask voters to look at what really matters.  Purity tests are less useful than proof a rival has the ability to learn and to grow.  Differences in style and emphasis are not mortal sins.

"The party will have to unite — not superficially, for the duration of the balloon drop at the convention in Milwaukee, but genuinely.  So dial back the hissing and spitting, people.  It only helps Trump." -- Eugene Robinson in today's Washington Post, who says "Attacking isn't the only way to campaign."  Let's keep our attack energies focused on the real existential menace from now until November.

BONUS:  Put another way --

This is one of the most brilliant analogies for the 2020 DEM Primary I've seen.

Yeah, a raft COULD offer more than survival, but let's argue about it AFTER we avoid drowning.

ANY BLUE RAFT WILL DO. pic.twitter.com/7rJ53xvoiu

— BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) February 18, 2020