On Courage

How come the women at WaPo are the only ones with balls?

"Democracy dies in darkness"

Ann Telnaes - WaPo

Opinion

It has fallen to me, the humor columnist, to endorse Harris for president

Isn’t this what a newspaper is supposed to do?

By Alexandra Petri - October 26, 2024

The Washington Post is not bothering to endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election. (Jeff Bezos, the founder of Blue Origin and the founder and executive chairman of Amazon and Amazon Web Services, also owns The Post.)

We as a newspaper suddenly remembered, less than two weeks before the election, that we had a robust tradition 50 years ago of not telling anyone what to do with their vote for president. It is time we got back to those “roots,” I’m told!

Roots are important, of course. As recently as the 1970s, The Post did not endorse a candidate for president. As recently as centuries ago, there was no Post and the country had a king! Go even further back, and the entire continent of North America was totally uninhabitable, and we were all spineless creatures who lived in the ocean, and certainly there were no Post subscribers.

But if I were the paper, I would be a little embarrassed that it has fallen to me, the humor columnist, to make our presidential endorsement. I will spare you the suspense: I am endorsing Kamala Harris for president, because I like elections and want to keep having them.

Let me tell you something. I am having a baby (It’s a boy!), and he is expected on Jan. 6, 2025 (It’s a … Proud Boy?). This is either slightly funny or not at all funny. This whole election, I have been lurching around, increasingly heavily pregnant, nauseated, unwieldy, full of the commingled hopes and terrors that come every time you are on the verge of introducing a new person to the world.

Well, that world will look very different, depending on the outcome of November’s election, and I care which world my kid gets born into. I also live here myself. And I happen to care about the people who are already here, in this world. Come to think of it, I have a lot of reasons for caring how the election goes. I think it should be obvious that this is not an election for sitting out.

The case for Donald Trump is “I erroneously think the economy used to be better? I know that he has made many ominous-sounding threats about mass deportations, going after his political enemies, shutting down the speech of those who disagree with him (especially media outlets), and that he wants to make things worse for almost every category of person — people with wombs, immigrants, transgender people, journalists, protesters, people of color — but … maybe he’ll forget.”

“But maybe he’ll forget” is not enough to hang a country on!

Embarrassingly enough, I like this country. But everything good about it has been the product of centuries of people who had no reason to hope for better but chose to believe that better things were possible, clawing their way uphill — protesting, marching, voting, and, yes, doing the work of journalism — to build this fragile thing called democracy. But to be fragile is not the same as to be perishable, as G.K. Chesterton wrote. Simply do not break a glass, and it will last a thousand years. Smash it, and it will not last an instant. Democracy is like that: fragile, but only if you shatter it.

Trust is like that, too, as newspapers know.

I’m just a humor columnist. I only know what’s happening because our actual journalists are out there reporting, knowing that their editors have their backs, that there’s no one too powerful to report on, that we would never pull a punch out of fear. That’s what our readers deserve and expect: that we are saying what we really think, reporting what we really see; that if we think Trump should not return to the White House and Harris would make a fine president, we’re going to be able to say so.

That’s why I, the humor columnist, am endorsing Kamala Harris by myself!

Courage

Let's talk about courage for a minute. I mean real courage in the real world of American politics that has been marked by frequent and often deadly violence for all of our 250 years.

Knowing what we know about the shit Donald Trump has already pulled - and what he promises to pull in the future - a pretty impressive level of physical courage is what it takes to stand up and call that prick a prick.

To call that bully a bully.

To call that criminal a criminal.

To call that narcissistic malignant wart a narcissistic malignant wart.

Now think about who's had the courage to face him, and stare him down.

Is it Lindsey Graham? Matt Gaetz? Nancy Grace?

The New York Fucking Times? (don't get me started)

What about the "normal" Republicans - the non-MAGA conservatives? The current office holders and former officials - the people with some level of power we either don't know at all, or never hear from anymore?

• Ben Cline
• Tom Kean Jr
• Tony Gonzales
• Condi Rice
• GW Bush
• the list goes on and on and on

It's true that some have come forward, and more are emerging, but the number of Republicans currently in office who have the balls to push back just a tiny bit is barely detectable.

Shifting the focus a little, now think about the probability today that Trump literally wants Kamala Harris dead after she kicked his ass last night on national TV.

Say anything you wanna say about any of the Dems, but they're putting it all on the line -  risking their lives in service to this experiment in democratic self-governance. They know what it could cost them if they lose, and still they're out there every day fighting the fight - doing the work.

They could use a little help.

On Stealing Valor

It's kind of an odd word, but its meaning is clear.

Vic Meyers - Old White Guy

Feeling Bummed Out

AG Garland appointing a special counsel may add to our highly angst-ey discomfort, but this is what we've got to work with - unless somebody has another justice system in their pocket, thinking we can make a quick change over and be on our way again.

So it's frustrating and scary, and makes everything feel squishy and uncertain. And there's definitely something to be said about being all anal-retentive, trying to make sure nobody can call you biased and political, but it doesn't matter what the truth is - Republicans are going to slam it, and say it's biased and political anyway you cut it.

So just get after it, and get it done the best you can.

Glenn Kirschner, doing his Droopy Dog thing, commiserating with the doomsayers, while trying to reassure us all that justice is coming. (and I think it is)

Today's Beau

Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column

Time is a river, and there's always more than one current for history to follow.

Ukraine

President Zelensky awarded US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi the Order of Princess Olga for “significant personal contribution" to strengthening Ukrainian-American cooperation and "supporting sovereign, independent and democratic Ukraine.”

She showed up

In a war zone

Wearing heels

At 82

No bone spurs

Todays Beef

This is the bur under my saddle today:

Jesse Unruh was not exactly the soul of integrity and straight dealing. He became California State Treasurer and turned that office into one of the most powerful public finance positions in the country. He politicized the shit out of it, and did plenty of questionable things with that power.

But oddly, he'll forever be something of a hero to me because of a quote that floats around in various forms:

"If I can't take your money, drink your whisky, fuck your women - and then vote against your interests tomorrow in committee, then I have no business being in government. Thank you, gentlemen, and goodnight."

Why the fuck can't we get some of that out of the congress critters we've got now? 

Calling (out) All Republicans

Maybe Gabe Sterling has ambitions beyond his current post, but maybe he's just a guy who's sick to death of the kinda shit we've had to put up with from a "president" and his asshole enablers in positions of power across the country.

And yes, maybe the Gabe Sterlings of the rank-n-file GOP should've been standing up to these jerks all along. Cuz this looks like a great example of the valid criticism of a party that seems content with looking the other way - on anything - as long as the shit doesn't splatter too much on them.

ie: "I wasn't all that worried - none of the shitty policies really mattered because nobody I know personally was being hurt - but then Trump turned on me and now I'm forced to say something, and I can only hope the rubes will help me rationalize my refusal to act before this."

The well of Republican depravity has no bottom.

The Editorial

This morning in the Washington Post:

Our democracy is holding. Americans will remember who defended it — and who didn’t.

With all due respect, it’s fair to say that until recently few of us had heard of Aaron Van Langevelde or Norman D. Shinkle. That was a good thing. Not many of us knew there was such a thing as the four-member Michigan Board of State Canvassers, on which the aforementioned Mr. Van Langevelde and Mr. Shinkle are the two Republican members. That was a good thing, too.

Our ignorance in this instance was an indicator of the health of our democracy. Like thousands of other public servants across the country, the members of the Board of State Canvassers are partisan officials to whom we have entrusted a nonpartisan job: the management and oversight of elections. The system may be peculiar, but it has worked, and it worked again this year. Secretaries of state of both parties, county judges, tireless vote counters and state boards like Michigan’s have managed a successful election, with a record number of Americans voting despite the challenge of a pandemic. Some of these officials undoubtedly rejoiced at the results, some undoubtedly despaired; they all did their jobs.

Now President Trump is attempting to foul this quintessentially American structure of self-rule, inducing Republicans to conspire in his lies about election fraud and overturn the free and fair results of the election. For the most part, he has been failing, as local and state officials have shown an integrity lacking in Republicans on the national level. His target Monday is the Michigan Board of State Canvassers, which is scheduled to meet to certify the results in their state, which Democrat Joe Biden won by the healthy margin of 154,000 votes. Ronna McDaniel, the servile chair of the Republican Party, and her Michigan counterpart, Laura Cox, on Saturday called on the board to delay certification. Their ostensible justification: “numerical anomalies and credible reports of procedural irregularities.”

As usual, there was no substantial evidence. Officials found only minor anomalies in Detroit affecting a small number of votes, and affidavits alleging irregularities were so weak that Trump campaign lawyers dropped the lawsuit based on them. Mr. Trump lobs sweeping allegations of a “rigged” and “stolen” election; his enablers such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) nod solemnly about letting him make his case — and judges across the country point out, again and again, that there is no case.

The latest such rebuke came from federal Judge Matthew W. Brann in Pennsylvania, and it’s worth reading his opinion if you can spare the time. Judge Brann, a conservative Republican before his appointment to the bench, noted that the Trump campaign was asking him to nullify almost 7 million votes.

“One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption, such that this Court would have no option but to regrettably grant the proposed injunctive relief despite the impact it would have on such a large group of citizens,” the judge wrote.

“That has not happened. Instead, this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence. In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more.”

Yes, and our people, laws and institutions deserve more. We hope that Michigan’s board on Monday performs its work honorably. And we hope that when this is all over, Americans remember who defended democracy, and who joined in the campaign to upend it.

An honorable man knows we're punished by our sins and not for them.

Republicans are proving unworthy of the public trust. Too many seem to be plotting and scheming and working to tear down our traditions of (small 'd') democratic self-government in order to replace it all with plutocracy.

There's no discernible honor in the GOP anymore - only a blind fealty to whoever peddles the kind of dark bombast and wildly negative fantasies that appeal to the basest, ugliest instincts of a feral mob.

We deserve a helluva lot better than that.

Today's Quote

When the sun sets on your career and they are writing your story - of all the good and bad things you did in your life - the thing you will be remembered for is whether, in this moment, with this president, you found the courage to stand up to him.

--Pete Buttigieg

A Tweet

Mazie Hirono is emerging as a true Lion of the Senate.

Mazie Hirono tells ABC that Chuck Grassley's claim that Republicans have done everything they can to contact Dr. Ford "is such bullshit I can hardly stand it." pic.twitter.com/cPUr0EeI0R

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 20, 2018

I wonder if "conservatives" will dump on her for being so politically incorrect.

Jeff Flake

Good, Senator, but y'know what?  Pick a cliché:

• Put up or shut up 
• Step up or step aside 
• Put your money where your mouth is

One of the things that bugs the fuck outa me about this is that it's so little traction. Seems like he's saying some important things, and it also seems like the Press Poodles oughta be picking it up and running with it.

The other thing is that Mr Flake continues to vote for the policies that give 45* the "wins" he needs to let him keep doing the shitty things Mr Flake wants him to stop doing.

So I don't wanna just shit on Flake's attempts (honest, I don't), but if he wants any of it to stick, he has to make it plain - "I'm not going along with that asshole in the White House until  or unless he gets real, and I'm not doing anything the Republican Caucus wants me to do until they stop being the same kinda assholes as that asshole."

Get Goin'

Dems aren't going to get over any particular hump in 2018 by just being Anti-45*. Yeah, OK - it worked pretty well for the Repubs, but that's kinda how we got into this mess. Let's do it better.

Deep Thoughts

On the phenomenon of hardcore 45* supporters:

You believe the lies. Or in the context of the current political culture - for whatever reason, it doesn't matter to you that 45* lies a lot.

(80% of people self-identifying as Republicans support him in spite of knowing he lies to them almost every day)

So, I'll go ahead and call you a dumbfuck lyin' sack of shit.

Now, if you care about the truth, and you know you're not a dumbfuck lyin' sack of shit, then you have a case to make that I'm behaving very badly - and I'll back you up on that one all the way.

If you know it's not true but you've established that lies don't matter to you, then anybody can say anything about you - good or ill - and you got nuthin', bubba. 

Zero Zip Zilch Nada.

There's nothing for you to feel proud about if they say nice things about you.

And there's nothing you can bitch about when they spread the shittiest most damaging lies about you. And eventually it will come around to that. It always has, and I can see no reasonable expectation for that to change.

The only thing worse than your failure to stand up to some jagoff like 45*, is realizing there's nobody willing to stand up for you.

Standing Up

It's almost like the Dems are discovering it gets a little easier to stand for something when you can actually stand up, and standing up becomes a little easier when you get some fucking backbone.

Chuck Schumer:

A little more than a week into the Trump presidency, the new Administration has violated our core values, challenged the separation of powers, and tested the very fabric of our Constitution in unprecedented fashion. It is clear that the Supreme Court will be tried in ways that few Courts have been tested since the earliest days of the Republic, when Constitutional questions abounded.

Now more than ever, we need a Supreme Court Justice who is independent, eschews ideology, who will preserve our democracy, protect fundamental rights, and will stand up to a President who has already shown a willingness to bend the Constitution.

The Senate must insist upon 60-votes for any Supreme Court nominee, a bar that was met by each of President Obama’s nominees. The burden is on Judge Neil Gorsuch to prove himself to be within the legal mainstream and, in this new era, willing to vigorously defend the Constitution from abuses of the Executive branch and protect the constitutionally enshrined rights of all Americans.

Given his record, I have very serious doubts about Judge Gorsuch’s ability to meet this standard. Judge Gorsuch has repeatedly sided with corporations over working people, demonstrated a hostility toward women’s rights, and most troubling, hewed to an ideological approach to jurisprudence that makes me skeptical that he can be a strong, independent Justice on the Court.

Make no mistake, Senate Democrats will not simply allow but require an exhaustive, robust, and comprehensive debate on Judge Gorsuch’s fitness to be a Supreme Court Justice.

We've got a 60-Vote Minimum on this shit now - your rules, not mine - and it looks like maybe Judge Gorsuch ain't gonna pass muster.

A Letter

Aaron Sorkin addresses a few problems in a letter to his daughters.

Sorkin Girls,

Well the world changed late last night in a way I couldn’t protect us from. That’s a terrible feeling for a father. I won’t sugarcoat it—this is truly horrible. It’s hardly the first time my candidate didn’t win (in fact it’s the sixth time) but it is the first time that a thoroughly incompetent pig with dangerous ideas, a serious psychiatric disorder, no knowledge of the world and no curiosity to learn has.

And it wasn’t just Donald Trump who won last night—it was his supporters too. The Klan won last night. White nationalists. Sexists, racists and buffoons. Angry young white men who think rap music and Cinco de Mayo are a threat to their way of life (or are the reason for their way of life) have been given cause to celebrate. Men who have no right to call themselves that and who think that women who aspire to more than looking hot are shrill, ugly, and otherwise worthy of our scorn rather than our admiration struck a blow for misogynistic shitheads everywhere. Hate was given hope. Abject dumbness was glamorized as being “the fresh voice of an outsider” who’s going to “shake things up.” (Did anyone bother to ask how? Is he going to re-arrange the chairs in the Roosevelt Room?) For the next four years, the President of the United States, the same office held by Washington and Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, F.D.R., J.F.K. and Barack Obama, will be held by a man-boy who’ll spend his hours exacting Twitter vengeance against all who criticize him (and those numbers will be legion). We’ve embarrassed ourselves in front of our children and the world.

And the world took no time to react. The Dow futures dropped 700 points overnight. Economists are predicting a deep and prolonged recession. Our NATO allies are in a state of legitimate fear. And speaking of fear, Muslim-Americans, Mexican-Americans and African-Americans are shaking in their shoes. And we’d be right to note that many of Donald Trump’s fans are not fans of Jews. On the other hand, there is a party going on at ISIS headquarters. What wouldn’t we give to trade this small fraction of a man for Richard Nixon right now?

So what do we do?

First of all, we remember that we’re not alone. A hundred million people in America and a billion more around the world feel exactly the same way we do.

Second, we get out of bed. The Trumpsters want to see people like us (Jewish, “coastal elites,” educated, socially progressive, Hollywood…) sobbing and wailing and talking about moving to Canada. I won’t give them that and neither will you. Here’s what we’ll do…

…we’ll fucking fight. (Roxy, there’s a time for this kind of language and it’s now.) We’re not powerless and we’re not voiceless. We don’t have majorities in the House or Senate but we do have representatives there. It’s also good to remember that most members of Trump’s own party feel exactly the same way about him that we do. We make sure that the people we sent to Washington—including Kamala Harris—take our strength with them and never take a day off.

We get involved. We do what we can to fight injustice anywhere we see it—whether it’s writing a check or rolling up our sleeves. Our family is fairly insulated from the effects of a Trump presidency so we fight for the families that aren’t. We fight for a woman to keep her right to choose. We fight for the First Amendment and we fight mostly for equality—not for a guarantee of equal outcomes but for equal opportunities. We stand up.

America didn’t stop being America last night and we didn’t stop being Americans and here’s the thing about Americans: Our darkest days have always—always—been followed by our finest hours.

Roxy, I know my predictions have let you down in the past, but personally, I don’t think this guy can make it a year without committing an impeachable crime. If he does manage to be a douche nozzle without breaking the law for four years, we’ll make it through those four years. And three years from now we’ll fight like hell for our candidate and we’ll win and they’ll lose and this time they’ll lose for good. Honey, it’ll be your first vote.

The battle isn’t over, it’s just begun. Grandpa fought in World War II and when he came home this country handed him an opportunity to make a great life for his family. I will not hand his granddaughter a country shaped by hateful and stupid men. Your tears last night woke me up, and I’ll never go to sleep on you again.

Love,

Dad

Bernie

Today's Quote

Vanity Fair Hive

“Democracy is a little bit messy sometimes,” he told reporters at a breakfast convened by Bloomberg News. “You know, I grew up in a family where I got yelled at a whole lot. It doesn’t make me nervous.”

Bernie Sanders is a mensch.

How Wrong?

Real wrong.  I ran a little video on my little blog here not all that long ago, showing Jim Webb's announcement that he was running for POTUS - and I remember saying I'd give the guy a look because he did some decent things in his one term in the US Senate (not the least of which was simply keeping George Allen out of that seat). 

Anyhoo - I've been wrong about a lot of things, but never wronger than thinking Jim Webb  as a candidate for Prez was worth more than a spit shine a dead man's shoes.

Samantha Bee:

The OpEd piece Ms Bee refers to is still up at WaPo, and I was kinda struck by a line Webb uses in the last paragraph:

Mark Twain once commented that “to arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.”

OK, but let's look at the behavior of both Jackson and Tubman thru the lens of those standards - which, btw, change over time.  You don't get to suspend the rules to suit your convenience - we play the full nine innings here.

In the early 1800s, Jackson was doing what most people were doing, and it all seems to be in line with the standards of his time. 

Tubman was doing things that were illegal in the mid-1800s; things that were considered by at least half of her contemporaries to be seditious and treacherous and evil.

Looking back on it all, which one was actually doing the good things, and which one was doing the shitty things?  What would you want to be remembered for - The Underground Railroad or The Trail Of Tears? 

So by Webb's metrics, Bull Connor (eg) was an OK guy because we need to think of his complete assholery as something other than complete assholery because he was a man of his time and so we have to judge him by the standards prevailing in Alabama in 1963?  What-the-actual-fucking-fuck?

Webb decries the PC / White Privilege criticism while arguing a position that is totally embedded in it. 

Here's the thing, Jim - when you've got your head up your ass, even if you open your eyes, all you're gonna see is your own shit.  I need you to work on that one for me, OK?

Today's Cheap Shot

At the risk of showing my ignorance (and really, when has that ever stopped me?), please indulge me as I ask just one question:

Where the fuck has this guy been for 7 years?

Damn, Prez - this should've been an every-day thing from the beginning.  And your staffers should've been hounding the Press Poodles for airtime to back it all up and hammer it all home. Every.Fucking.Day.

Honest, I'm really glad when you do this, Mr President, and yes, I'm aware that you've done it before.  I just really really really wish you hadn't insisted on being so polite and humble and gee-whiz-maybe-if-I'm-courteous-they-won't-be-such-assholes-to-me-so-fucking-always.

Sorry.

Lotsa jobs is a good thing.  70+ months of expansion is a good thing.  60% reduction in the federal deficit is a good thing.  Stock market up 65% is a good thing.  Progress on equal rights is a good thing.  Millions more with healthcare insurance.  Winding down the wars.  Lotsa good things.

But way too many people stuck in the poverty cycle is a bad thing.  Hundreds of Banksters not in jail is a bad thing.  30,000 Americans killed every year with guns is a bad thing.  1000+ new laws restricting women's reproductive rights is a bad thing.  Millions of 20-somethings living at or near the poverty level and needing their parents' help is a bad thing.  Fucked up infrastructure is a bad thing.  Voter suppression is a bad thing.  Gitmo is a bad thing.  Drones and extra-legal snuff lists are bad things.  The complete crazy-fication of the GOP is a really bad thing.  Lotsa and lotsa really bad things too.

Not that you're directly responsible for all that, I just think we needed you to be standing there every day telling us you're trying to do something about it, but somebody seems to be holding you back and getting in your way every time.

I think the pendulum isn't yet swinging the other way, but it's rightward motion has slowed enough to make it much more probable that it could be heading back to the left pretty soon.  So maybe you get a lot of the credit for arresting that movement, and I should ease up a little. But I think you know as well as I do that if we don't constantly push for progress, very little gets done, and the natural tendency is to slip back into that Authoritarian Oligarchy thing, which happens to be what the current batch of Republicans always seem to be pushing for.  And maybe you could articulate that little "elephant-in-the-room" thing too(?) Gotta push back.

And if we're looking at President Hillary Clinton, it's going to get real important real quick to push back hard against her Neo-Liberal bullshit.  

Paraphrasing FDR - "I wanna do what you want me to do, but this is a democracy, so I need for you to make me do it."

So yay, Obama. But we gotta get off up our asses and make things happen if we want things to happen.