The King is dead. Long live the Queen!

Well, I suppose everyone is happy NOW?

Yes, actually. Now we actually have a chance.

Biden Stands Down - History Will Damn Him (Owen Jones)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biWOqF6CqLs

In domestic terms, it takes a lot to decide to cede power for the good of the country. Good on him for that, at least.

>2 davidgn:

Plus ça change . . .

I had not heard of the claims of child beheadings, but I suppose we should have learned by now. How similar this slander is to the Nayirah testimony way back in 1990 to justify American intervention in Kuwait.

Unfortunately, this stunt will usually work, since not all atrocities against children are false — e.g. the school girls kidnapped in Nigeria.

>2 davidgn: The weird thing about that video — and I didn't watch all of it — is that it is Trump who loves Netanyahu. As bad as it has been in Gaza — and it has been very bad! — it would be much worse with Trump in charge.

>4 krazy4katz: I don't dispute for a moment that Trump's instincts are worse. In practice, though, I question how much worse things could be. (edited): The Lancet is estimating that 8% of the Gazan population will be liquidated before long, and it's hard to see the death rate decreasing.

As far as I'm concerned, Biden's contribution amounts to:

Slow down, you kill too fast.
You've got to make the moment last.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fullt...
https://www.juancole.com/2024/07/israeli-campaign-population.html

>5 davidgn: I don't pretend to know what to do about the situation in Gaza and the rest of Palestine/Israel. So many people have suffered on both sides since the 1940s. If we could just go back to the original 2-state solution proposed by the UN, that would be great. But, or course, like all my solutions to the world's problems, it's impossible. My only hope is that since Biden is off the campaign trail he can spend the time pushing Netanyahu further towards a cease fire. The Israelis want this too and hopefully they will throw Netanyahu out of office. So far only Biden's plan for a cease fire has been taken somewhat seriously (at least in public) by both sides. So you never know…

ETA: sorry to make this about the Middle East. I know this is supposed to be about the election and anyway, we have Kamala Harris now. This will be interesting to watch! I am rooting (and voting) for her!

>6 krazy4katz: Likewise.

Watched David Doel's coverage of her first speech as presumptive candidate.

Kamala Harris Hammers Trump In First Speech As Likely 2024 Candidate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcxPdPsShCY

The woman can hit. I think we may have ourselves a dark horse.

>6 krazy4katz: You didn't make it about the Middle East, that was someone else. Best to just move on if you ask me. There's not a lot of point in talking sense to anyone who buys that "Biden personally bombed Gaza" stuff, they're not interested. They got their marching orders, and they're marching.

So, looks like it's Harris. This will be interesting, but it could work out. I think we can pretty much write off the pro-Trump left. They were willing to believe whatever they were told to believe about Biden and Gaza, so when Moscow dusts off the old "Kamala is a cop" memes, that's pretty much going to end it for them. I give it a week before we start hearing about "Harris the fascist", here on this very forum. But I'm not sure that will actually matter, since I don't think those folks are nearly as influential as they tell themselves they are, and Harris looks like she'll be able to make a case to the center, which turns out to be where the votes are. I have no idea how she'll govern, but obviously that doesn't matter at all, since we know everything we need to know about the alternative. So maybe she'll surprise us with some good ideas, or maybe not, but she can't be worse than the waddling fuckbag, so I'm in with both feet.

>8 kiparsky: Some very interesting libel you've got there. You seem to have imbibed deeply from the well of "everything I don't agree with is Russian. And therefore Trump." Usually your deflections have some wit to them. I suppose you're having an off night.

Bauman was a Pole.

Meanwhile, this has entered my rotation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahl7_kCIiAk

>9 davidgn: Yeah many of the bombs that have killed thousands of civilians have been traced back to US manufacturers. Boeing is a prime one. The NYTimes some months ago did a video on what a 2000 lb. bomb does when it hits an apartment building. It's not hard to find for anyone who wants to see. The white phosphorus that the Israel Air Force was caught using also came from the United States. Using white phosphorus in most cases is a war crime---and always when used against a civilian population as the Air Force was caught doing. The United States and Biden Administration with the approval of our congress has continued to send bombs and tank shells to the Israeli Army and Air Force these past 9+ months and Israel has continued to ask for more and more and has used them to kill what the Lancet (maybe the oldest and certainly amongst the most prestigious peer reviewed medical journals in the world) conservatively estimates as 186,000+ Palestinians (keeping in mind that estimates of Hamas fighters pre Oct 7 was somewhere around 30,000) more than half of whom were women and children and the IDF is about as far away from defeating the Palestinian resistance as the day they invaded Gaza. FWIW the Lancet is counting those dying through starvation and disease and those who could have been saved with a little bit of medicine or proper health care and follow up. We've supported Israel all the way however as it has decimated the Gaza health care system and deliberately starved the population. We've overlooked the war crimes and defended Israel's genocide in the United States and against world court rulings all the time sending them more war material which makes the United States complicit in any crimes committed.

I don't know. People have to make up their minds what they think is acceptable. Some people don't seem to have much in the way of standards. Do I think it's a good thing that Biden stepped down to be replaced by Harris? Very much so. I also think there's a fairly decent chance that Harris if elected would put some constraints on the full bore support that Biden has given. I also think Trump would probably be worse or at least unless it cramped his own personal interests. That said it's not just the leaders here it's also the Israeli govt. through it's proxy agents who are wagging the congressional dog with all the lobbying money---trying to sow terror among those few congressional members who don't support their agenda. This is both parties. Thomas Massie made the point that he's pretty much the only republican in congress that doesn't have an AIPAC handler.

Ignoring all the shit posted above, and getting back to the subject in the OP, the Harris campaign has now received enough important endorsements to insure her the nomination.

In the first 24 hours her campaign has received 100 million dollars in small contributions. Un-fucking-precedented. Nearly all the Dem leaders and all the talking heads on media are hailing Biden as a hero who has placed country and party before his personal interest - something tRump would NEVER do - they all are saying. If there are one or two "influencers" who say differently - well fuck them, they are not going to be invited to any cocktail parties.

It's starting pretty god damn good for Harris. Sure, the stinking putrid slimeball repub/nazi/traitors are going to throw the kitchen sink filled to the brim with total ungodly shit and garbage at her. So what? A majority of voters will not be fooled.

Here's the type of memes that you geniuses are going to get sick of - The Prosecutor vs. The Felon. The woman who prosecuted sex abusers and rapists vs. The convicted sex abuser. The woman who prosecuted fraudsters/cheaters/criminals vs. the convicted fraudster/cheater/criminal. That will be repeated until we all just throw up - but none of us can reasonably deny these objective truths.

The Orange Turd is now facing a double bind that will destroy his chances. He can refuse to debate Harris and be pounded by Dem ads day in and day out until election day. Or he can debate her and be shown to be a reflexive liar who is the epitome of ignorance, incompetence and incoherence while displaying the charm and personality of a lobotomized Arkansas hillbilly, the gold toilet he sits on/shits in notwithstanding.

The Dems are high as a kite right now because the political future is bright with possibilities - possibilities for dragging tRump face down through a Hell on earth in a way he has never experienced to date.

And get used to hearing/seeing this:

Yes We Kam! 2024

LOL.

(Addendum - This just posted by the Huffington Post:

A majority of Democratic delegates have voiced their support for Harris as of Monday evening, according to a tally by The Associated Press.

Under party rules, a candidate needs the support of 1,976 delegates on the first ballot to win the nomination.

The AP tally shows Harris has at least 2,579 behind her. The support is not binding until the official vote, which is set to take place in early August.)

Biden would do Kamala Harris a favor if he resigned. It would give her more legitimacy and break the ice of first woman POTUS if she's already serving when the election comes around. That could strengthen her position and help her numbers. It certainly wouldn't hurt. He's a lame duck at this point and FWIW it also would give a lot more credence to the 'he dropped out for the good of the country' narrative that they've been trying to spin. Also if he's not fit to serve another four years it kind of argues against serving the rest of his term. Republicans have been asking for it as well and IMO it would bite them in the ass and turn into an own goal for them. Sometimes you got to give your opponents what they ask for.

>11 JGL53:

<rhetorical question>What's with the ad hominem?</rhetorical question>

>12 lriley:

I wonder if Biden's resigning mightn't make her a doubly lame duck. Just a thought.

Couple of thoughts...
- Good to see lots of small-dollar donations coming in to the Harris campaign. Not so much for the dollars - money doesn't win elections. While lack of money can lose an election, there's not a lot of danger of the campaign being unable to afford the essentials, so I don't usually follow the money race. However, small donations constitute a hard-to-fake signal of support, and clearly Harris has a ton of support. So that's good.
- Also good to see the party converging on Harris. There has been some concern about wanting to avoid a coronation by party elites, but I don't think there was ever a lot of point in trying to re-run the primary. The sooner we can get certainty about the candidate, the better.
- I'm not seeing any advantage in a Biden resignation. Obviously there's no concern about his fitness to serve out his term - and if anyone from the Trump campaign raises that, that just gives Harris ammunition, since Trump is of a similar age to Biden and has been having much worse cognitive difficulties for much longer. So if I'm in the Harris campaign, I'm looking forward to that attack, since it sets up a much more potent counterstrike. Beyond that, three months in the job is not enough time to gain any incumbency advantage but it certainly is enough time to saddle her with any incumbency baggage. She'd own every failure and none of the successes. That's a pretty crappy deal, which is why it's being proposed by all of Trump's surrogates.
- I'm still concerned about the "Kamala is a cop" attack. It worked four years ago, lots of people bought into it then even though it was plainly nonsense. What can we do to make sure it doesn't work this year?

>9 davidgn: You seem to have imbibed deeply from the well of "everything I don't agree with is Russian. And therefore Trump."

I really don't think this is the right forum for this, but just to tie this up: when I see a concentrated attack campaign that manages to get otherwise smart and well-meaning people to adopt a position completely opposed to everything they believe, I figure that's not amateur work. Russia has built up a lot of expertise in this area in the last decade, and as far as I can tell nobody else has got it down the way they have. So when I see leftists attacking Biden on Palestine, and refusing to even acknowledge or address the obvious fact that a Trump victory would be infinitely worse for the Palestinians, I have to suspect Russian involvement. I certainly don't think that this is a position that a bunch of people on the naive left just sort of came up with independently, because while it's easy for one person to make a mistake, it's very hard for a lot of people to all make the same mistake in the same way at the same time. "Monster Biden" is not a piece of flawed political analysis, it's someone running a game on you. You're right, I have no proof that the Russians are the ones running that game, but clearly someone is. If you have a better candidate, I'd be happy to hear it (though maybe in a more appropriate thread, as >11 JGL53: has pointed out, we're well off topic here)

ETA: >14 librorumamans:: yes, exactly.

>15 kiparsky: You don't seem to comprehend how upset people are about the slaughter of civilians in Gaza. If you believe that someone is a supporter of genocide you're not likely to be swayed by the argument that the other guy is worse

>16 jjwilson61: I think I do comprehend how upset people are about the slaughter of civilians in Gaza, because I'm also quite upset about that. But my view is, if I'm upset about that situation I'm going to take actions that reduce that harm, not ones that increase it. The concept of "right action" seems relevant here. Reflexive lashing out is not effective political strategy, and generally does more harm than good.

But of course, this is not relevant to this thread, so perhaps we should split this conversation off to a more appropriate venue.