Welcome to August !!
As the week is before us, our team curated a snapshot of the week that was as the threat of War looms in the Middle East in the aftermath of the Haniyeh assassination, the War in Ukraine rages on, the War in Gaza rages in with no end in sight, the UK has to deal with riots and as the World awaits the naming of a Vice Presidential running mate by Kamala Harris:
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Democrats are finally having fun again | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Haniyeh’s Assassination – Iranian Investigation Points to Airborne Shell |
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‘Broke Our Hands and Feet’ – Freed Gaza Detainees Recount Torture in Israeli Prison |
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Military Escalation – Advisories Issued as US Airlines Halt Flights to Israel
[COPY] Coop Scoop: Oh Lord, Please Keep JD on the Ticket!
By Marc Cooper August 1, 2024 Much to say but first…. Reminder; Next Monday 5 pm Pacific. Coop Scoop Campaign 2024 Zoom. All invited. Paid and free subscribers (subsequent zooms for paid only). Our agenda: the state of play, J.D. Vance, the Harris Lift-off, third party dead enders and anything else YOU want to talk about in our common battle for rule of law and against autocracy. So join us! MONDAY AUGUST 5 PM PDT THE TRUMP MELT DOWN You know it had to happen and just about now. How could Donald Trump (currently campaigning for the ‘black job’ of US president) just sit back and let his quite twisted and, indeed, very weird. running mate keep upstaging him as the country’s biggest asshole. And, worse, Harris was sucking up all the rest of the media oxygen. So the Don’s fantastic, amazing, jaw-dropping, idiotic, blatantly racist performance on Wednesday morn at the meeting of the National Assoc. of Black Journalists was bound to happen and, man, did it ever. Just how frickin’ rock stupid do you have to be to appear in that venue and start off insulting the Black journo questioning him — my former USC alum Rachael Scott now working for ABC News— only to transition to insulting the entire room and every American black, too. The very ugly part of this is that while Trump is, undeniably, the dumbest US president ever, his suggestion that Kamala Harris might be some sort of fake Black and assumed that identity only as a campaign pose, was no doubt in part quite intentional. Trump knows better than clueless journalists and pundits that he is now dead in the water when it comes to that often predicted but certainly phantom Pro-Trump Black Wave (LOL) and he was not in that venue to win any Black votes nor to curry favor with the hundreds of Black reporters present. This was a Donald Trump Sistah Souljah on Steroids moment (for you young-ins Sistah Souljah was a Black rapper who during his 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton ruthlessly and with no provocation attacked racially….only to shore up his vote among those I heard him call on his campaign plane “the bubbas”). You know, white racists who might suspect that this Arkansas good ole boy might in fact be some sort of sleazy Hollywood libertine in sheep’s clothing. [sic] That was Trump’s real intent. He’s like a comedian trying out new material on the road to use in a new stump speech (which he is incapable of delivering without a Prompter). He’s desperately searching for the best way to dirty up and frame Kamala Harris and it ain’t easy. It’s hard because it is dead simple for Trump to use coded language, dog whistles and sometimes direct insults to attack women and Blacks and by extension black women… in the abstract. Making those smears in the abstract is second nature to him. Trump, though, has zero experience dealing with strong women, strong black women, and especially a strong black woman who is roasting his nuts out on the campaign trail. You can imagine how Trump would really like to describe or call Kamala Harris but he knows enough that he cannot do it and be socially acceptable. His awkward noodling around what are essentially racist and mysoginist attacks reminds me of Dr. Strangelove having to suppress his Hitler salute while working in the Pentagon :) Harris knows exactly what she is doing when she says come say it to my face, pal. She knows he is WEAK in those sort of situations…meaning he has no idea how to respectfully talj to a Black woman who is visibly five times brighter than he is.  Anyway, folks, no problem! Let Trump be Trump because Trump continues to be the best campaigner against Trump we have. Harris is doing better than anybody expected but Trump has been off the screen way too long and it’s great to have him back because there will be a direct connection between Trump’s visibility and his chance of losing. The more — the better. Hats off to the NABJ who had to overcome juvenile internal opposition wanting to block him for putting this pathetic, racist, hostile, and clearly muddle-headed and impaired fool on garish and revealing public display. More please! CNN can you give him two hours a night?? The only real positive reaction to Trump’s televised melt down was, drumroll… from J.D. Vance who emerged on camera with a strange brown smear on his nose saying he loved what Trump said and found it “hysterical.” A strange modifier to use when your partner just insulted all Blacks in America! WE LOVE J.D. VANCE! Oh Lord, now that you came down to tell Biden to GTFO, please do not dream of kicking J.D. Vance off the Trump ticket. Pretty, please, Lord. I know there’s some buyer’s remorse in the White House. And Kelly Anne Conway is in the doggie house accused of leaking nasty tid bits about old J.D. to that Fake Media. She’s just one big name in a whole faction of MAGGATS who fear that Trump has chosen the toxic vote-killing spawn of Sarah Palin as Veep (he has). Their arguments take on new vigot based on new polling that shows Vance’s favorables has moved from negative six to negative twenty since he was appointed. Pointing to an ABC News/IPSOS poll, CNN’s Harry Enton declared, “It’s only gotten worse, from negative six points to now, negative 15 points. Mark my words, this is the worst vice presidential pick probably since 1972 when George McGovern chose Thomas Eagleton as his VP pick. He got replaced. I don’t think Vance is gonna get replaced, but that’s what we’re talking about. In no planet did I ever think we’d be talking about VP this late into the cycle after he was picked like 10 days ago.” In two short weeks, Vance has emerged, immediately after the Donald Himself, as the second most effective anti-Trump campaigner out there. Weird? Um, yeah. But much more weird than just plain weird. I mean J.D. Vance is so obnoxious, so off-putting, so tone deaf, so blindly both ambitious and obsequious, that he makes Ron DeSantis look like a warm and fuzzy avuncular professor who volunteers at the food bank. It’s been a long time since we have seen such a vile creature as JD Vance slither his way to the top since Trump rode down that golden elevator 9 years ago. Looking very hard at Vance, his book, his history, his wonderfully I hate Trump and I hate Cops and I love Immigrants emails and texts, looking at his pathetic and ineffective “clean-up” interviews, I THINK, I repeat I THINK I understand who this chump is. Vance has an IQ that is double that of your average red-hatted dumbass. He did not get into Yale Law by accident. His Hillbilly Elegy, whose content I was not crazy about, is nevertheless a very well-written memoir and piece of sociology. If you look at the totality of his statements and writings till around 2020, you can see that Vance’s disdain for Trump is not partial or about this or that policy. His is a wholesale rejection of the man, the myth, the supposed vision, the ever-present racism, the stop the steal bullshit and to a great degree a slam on the uneducated who follow him. When he’s asked nowadays about his conversion to the most extreme edge of MAGA he very simply says, “I misjudged Trump and I was wrong. I changed my mind.” Well, BULL_SHIT. Vance’s negative assessment of Trump and Trumpism would requite a whole lot more than just changing your mind to become the subservient lackey he has become. No. You would need ill-managed electro-shock therapy. Or getting blackmailed. Or somebody holding your child for ransom. Or a simple brain transplant from Mr. A.B. Normal. Or…. as I am convinced… Vance made a completely conscious and coldly calculated decision to create a new public persona for the strict goal of achieving political power, quite possibly the Oval Office. J.D. was chosen not only as running mate, but clearly also as Trump’s hand picked successor to run the new election-free American state once Donald re-ascends to heaven. And he knows it. I deeply suspect that Vance, having observed Trump and Trump followers, said to himself, “Hell, I can do that same act better than that old fart and I’m gonna replace him. These dumbfucks in the red hats don’t know shit from Shinola and are gonna be easy marks for me — including Trump.” Vance HAS to have complete scorn for the Trump masses and for King Trump himself because it is crystal clear from writings up to 4-5 years ago and his critique was deep enough, thoughtful enough, correct enough, that it just doesn’t change so easily. And you do NOT unlearn a Yale education. Meanwhile, he has gone completely nuts — intentionally or otherwise. Makes no difference. This stuff about cat ladies and especially the deluded, completely dog shit crazy denunciations of childless Americans as not being real Americans defies ALL political classification and demands the study of a board of psychiatrists. I don’t know what you call that kind of rabid disorder other than Fuckin’ Nuts! Pk, again there is more to this than just mental illness. It is, however, political kryptonite. Huzzah! One of the advantages of refusing the Democratic nomination for president is that his decision to do that has left President Joe Biden in the position of being above the political fray and being able to act for the good of the whole country. Today, Biden noted that the American people have lost faith in the Supreme Court. When he was in office, Trump stacked the court with three extremists who have worked with extremist justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to overturn longstanding legal precedents that protect civil rights and move the country toward a theocracy overseen by a dictator. A statement from the White House today recounted how the Supreme Court has “gutted civil rights protections, taken away a woman’s right to choose, and now granted Presidents broad immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit in office.” It also noted that “recent ethics scandals involving some Justices have caused the public to question the fairness and independence that are essential for the Court to faithfully carry out its mission to deliver justice for all Americans.” Today, Biden called for three major changes to restore trust and accountability. He called for a constitutional amendment to make clear that no president is above the law or immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office. This is a direct response to the Supreme Court’s decision of July 1, 2024, in Donald J. Trump v. United States that a president cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed in actions that fall under a president’s “official duties.” The White House wrote that “President Biden shares the Founders’ belief that the President’s power is limited—not absolute—and must ultimately reside with the people.” The “No One Is Above the Law Amendment will state that the Constitution does not confer any immunity from federal criminal indictment, trial, conviction, or sentencing by virtue of previously serving as President.” Biden also called for eighteen-year term limits for Supreme Court justices. Noting that Congress approved term limits for the presidency, Biden pointed out that “[t]he United States is the only major constitutional democracy that gives lifetime seats to its high court Justices.” “Term limits would help ensure that the Court’s membership changes with some regularity; make timing for Court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary; and reduce the chance that any single Presidency imposes undue influence for generations to come,” the White House wrote. The administration is reacting, in part, to the fact that Trump, with the help of then–Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), denied Democratic president Barack Obama the right to appoint a Supreme Court justice, holding it for Trump, and then, after Trump had appointed a second justice, rushed through a third Trump appointee at the very end of his term, enabling him to appoint three hard-right justices who will be able to skew the court’s decisions for decades. With those justices on the court, it has handed down a series of nakedly partisan decisions that represent the goals of the extremist Republican Party rather than the majority of Americans. They have overturned a ban on bump stocks for semiautomatic rifles, made partisan and racial gerrymandering easier, undercut business regulation, ceased to recognize the constitutional right to abortion, and, stunningly, ruled that a president has significant immunity from prosecution for committing crimes while in office. Biden also called for Congress to “pass binding, enforceable conduct and ethics rules that require Justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest. Supreme Court Justices should not be exempt from the enforceable code of conduct that applies to every other federal judge.” This, too, reflects the problems of the modern court, where several justices, especially Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito, have accepted large gifts from those with business before the court and have refused to recuse themselves from those cases. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced articles of impeachment against Thomas and Alito on July 10, and the measures currently have 19 co-sponsors. As Ankush Khardori noted in Politico today, before Trump’s three justices took their seats, public approval of the court stood at 58%. After its decision to give presidents immunity, that approval fell to a record low of just 38%. More than 75% of Americans, including a large majority of Republicans, support eighteen-year term limits for justices. In an op-ed in the Washington Post today, Biden wrote: “This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one.” He noted that as a senator he served as chair and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, and has “overseen more Supreme Court nominations as senator, vice president and president than anyone living today.” Noting that the current system makes it possible for a single president to radically alter the makeup of the court for generations to come, he warned: “What is happening now is not normal, and it undermines the public’s confidence in the court’s decisions, including those impacting personal freedoms. We now stand in a breach.” “We can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power. We can and must restore the public’s faith in the Supreme Court. We can and must strengthen the guardrails of democracy. In America, no one is above the law. In America, the people rule.” Ian Millhiser of Vox points out that these reforms would currently be almost impossible to pass, but Biden’s embrace of them is a powerful political statement for the Democrats to carry into the 2024 election. Until now, Biden has lagged behind popular opinion on the issue of court reform. Now, though, the sitting president is rejecting the power the extremist modern-day Supreme Court conveyed on presidents and reinforcing the rule of law. Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, immediately endorsed Biden’s proposals, meaning that she is willing to be bound by our historic understanding that presidents are not above the law. In contrast, Leonard Leo, who has been central to the stacking of the court and who has called for “flood[ing] the zone with cases that challenge misuse of the Constitution by the administrative state and by Congress,” called the plan “a campaign to destroy a court that they disagree with.” House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) called it “dead on arrival in the House.” For his part, Biden seemed more optimistic than Millhiser that his reforms could pass. When a reporter asked him how he would get court reform passed, he answered: “You’ve asked me that—on everything I’ve ever passed you’ve asked me that. We’re going to figure a way.” Today, additional assistance provided to International Brotherhood of Teamsters pension plans thanks to the American Rescue Plan saved the pensions of an additional 70,000 New England Teamsters. This brings the total protected to 600,000. No Republicans voted for the American Rescue Plan, and Teamsters president Sean O’Brien stood next to Biden when he put the first protections into place. After O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention earlier this month, Vice President at large John Palmer announced he is challenging O’Brien for the leadership. Momentum behind Vice President Harris continues to build. Today John Giles, the Republican mayor of Mesa, the third-largest city in Arizona, wrote an op-ed in the Arizona Republic explaining why “as a Republican mayor, I support Kamala Harris over Trump.” He blamed Trump for abandoning cities while Biden and Harris have made historic investments in them and brought thousands of new jobs to Arizona. Giles urged his fellow Republicans to reject MAGA Republicans and turn back to the principles of an older Republican Party. “Our party used to stand for the belief that every Arizonan, no matter their background or circumstances, should have the freedom, opportunity and security to live out their American Dream,” he wrote. But today’s Republicans are political extremists who are trying to disrupt elections and who killed immigration reform. “Trump poses a serious threat to our nation,” he wrote. “We can’t have a felon representing us on the national stage, let alone one who would threaten to abandon NATO and ruin our standing abroad.” “Arizona Republicans like me can emulate Sen. John McCain's motto of 'Country First' and beat back Trump and his threat to democracy,” Giles wrote. “Kamala Harris is the competent, just and fair leader our country deserves.” In the New York Times, Peter Wehner, who served in the administrations of Republican presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush echoed Giles’s autopsy for his party but, in an important shift, examined its recent changes through a lens of the political theories of autocracy. He concluded: “It’s hard and haunting to know that the political party to which I devoted a significant part of my life has become the greatest political threat to the country I love.” More than 40 former officials from the Department of Justice agree. On July 25 they wrote an open letter endorsing Harris and warning that “Trump presents a grave risk to our country, our global alliances and the future of democracy. As president, he “regularly ignored the rule of law.” In contrast, as the elected attorney general of California, Harris “oversaw the largest state justice department in the country. She forged strong relationships with law enforcement to keep people safe, fought for American consumers and fought against those preying on the American people…. The stakes could not be higher.” Tonight, White Dudes for Harris held an online fundraiser. Actor Jeff Bridges, who played The Dude in the 1998 film The Big Lebowski, recounted Harris’s popular policies on the call. “I’m white, I’m a dude, and I’m for Harris,” he said. “A woman president, man, how exciting!” Minnesota governor Tim Walz added: “How often in 100 days do you get to change the trajectory of the world? How often in 100 days do you get to do something that’s going to impact generations to come? And how often in the world do you make that b*st*rd wake up afterwards and know that a Black woman kicked his a** and sent him on the road?” The Trump-Vance ticket continues to stumble. In the Washington Post today, Jennifer Rubin noted that the Republicans appear to have gone out of their way to pick a presidential ticket that would offend women. Trump is, she pointed out, “an adjudicated rapist” who bragged about sexual assault, demeans and insults women, “mused about punishing women for having an abortion,” and boasts that he was behind the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Vance wants to ban abortion in all cases, wants the federal government to stop women from traveling across state lines to obtain abortion care, says childless women don’t have a stake in the country’s future, and has implied that women should stay in abusive marriages. The Republicans embrace the ideas of right-wing groups whose members want to roll back women’s rights; their call for a “revival of faith, family, and fertility” is a tenet of fascism. “When Harris declares ‘We’re not going back,’” Rubin notes, “the message has particular resonance among women.” Finally, the world is watching events in Venezuela, where President Nicolás Maduro has claimed victory despite exit polls that showed him losing to opposition candidate Edmundo González by more than 30 points. CNN’s Jim Sciutto commented: “Don’t underestimate the loss of U.S. soft power in moments like this after a U.S. president—and current candidate for president—attempted to overturn an election here.” — Notes: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ https://www.vox.com/scotus/ https://www.politico.com/news/ https://www.washingtonpost. https://www.washingtonpost. https://meidasnews.com/news/ https://www.nytimes.com/2024/ https://thehill.com/blogs/ https://archive.ph/4Ecyi# https://apnews.com/article/ https://apnews.com/live/ X: sahilkapur/status/ MacFarlaneNews/status/ jimsciutto/status/ clearing_fog/status/ TheTNHoller/status/ McFaul/status/ catypayette/status/
Twenty-Four Thoughts On The Harris VeepstakesAnd a different, slightly more qualified case for Tim Walz
I decided to send this out right away instead of scheduling it for Monday morning because there’s a non-trivial chance that the Kamala Harris campaign will leak the name of her running mate sometime tomorrow, even though the official announcement is scheduled for Tuesday. So the window of relevance may be smaller than usual. The truth is Harris almost certainly knows who she intends to nominate, and no clever assessment of the pros and cons of various choices will change her thinking now. But what’s the point of doing this if you preemptively decide nothing matters? Also, if the only thing this list achieves is helping a few readers clarify their own thinking—well, you’re who I ultimately work for.
With that said, here are 24 thoughts on the Harris veepstakes, comprising basically all of my thinking about Harris’s potential running mates, what she should do, what she’s likely to do, why, etc.
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