Stacey Abrams: "There is no emergency. It is a falsehood and it is entirely a political stunt." Via CSPAN pic.twitter.com/7IVN13YFP5
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 15, 2019
Stacey Abrams continues to impress!
Elsewhere:
Members of the Selma-to-Montgomery March Foundation announcing @HillaryClinton will take part in Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma Sunday, March 3rd. pic.twitter.com/YqdrHjFOQL
— Reshad Hudson (@ReshadHudson) February 14, 2019
.
And it looks like Kamala Harris is very popular with the people who count (so I added a fresh new category for her):
As a young single mom in college, Barbara Lee invited Shirley Chisholm to campus to speak. She was so inspired, she later went to work for her presidential campaign.
Today, she announced her support for @KamalaHarris, saying she picks up where Shirley left off. What a world. pic.twitter.com/e26O2sXEXn
— Ian Sams (@IanSams) February 15, 2019
Also, it pays to keep your videos — here’s Harris and her first two 2020 co-chairs, Dolores Huerta and Barbara Lee, from 2016 pic.twitter.com/1enjMTTEnw
— Christopher Cadelago (@ccadelago) February 15, 2019
OzarkHillbilly
Blech: Amazon made an $11.2bn profit in 2018 but paid no federal tax
On the contrary, I can and do blame the soulless, greedy, amoral crime cartel known as the GOP.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
Blech indeed??
Baud
Don’t they know she runs a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor and doesn’t use best email practices?
Don’t they know she’s not really black?
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Sab
@rikyrah: good morning
Big Mango
Kamala Harris has impressed me; I can see how she can win the nomination and then pick an older pol to appease the nattering nabobs . Someone like Sherrod Brown reassures the talking heads and helps in Ohio which always a must win….
Baud
@Big Mango:
She seems the most organized at this early stage.
Bostonian
I think I would enjoy watching any debate in which Kamala Harris takes part.
OzarkHillbilly
US coastal businesses hit by everyday impact of climate change, study shows
Clever these Chinese.
Ben Cisco
This is shaping up to be an interesting primary season. If we can find a way not to screw this up…
Baud
LGM has a nice write up of Julian Bond as part of it’s Grave series.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/02/erik-visits-american-grave-part-414
NotMax
Felt in light of Dolt 45 yesterday this had to be made.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Linky no work, u fix.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Yet another Orion picture…
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Worked for me.
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I was hoping you got the other side this time.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Works just fine for me. Howsoever, try this one.
OzarkHillbilly
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Worked for me too.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: That is the other side.
@NotMax: Still no work, probably just my internet connection needs sleep.
NotMax
On a less somber and hyperbolic note –
Sorry, Coke, it sounds cloyingly yucky.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
Agreed on Kamala Harris. Organisational skills matter a great deal in the Oval Office. She seems way ahead of the field in that respect.
Repost from previous thread:
RIP Bruno Ganz. He’s the actor who played Adolf Hitler in Der Untergang; his bunker meltdown scene from that film has become an Internet meme.
Baud
NYT (not about domestic politics)
debbie
@Bostonian:
I want that debate to be canceled. Please. Too soon and too many unknowns.
Baud
@NotMax:
Have you ever tried ginger spam Coke? Delish.
debbie
@NotMax:
They keep coming up with flavors better suited for 7-Up.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
So basically he just got fired from his job at the Church? I would have thought a decades-long record of sex crimes merited nothing short of excommunication.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: One could think so, but one should not overlook what a huge and unprecedented step this is.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
I don’t know what the excommunication standard is, but since the Church emphasizes confession and forgiveness, I don’t think even horrific crimes are the basis for excommunication.
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
i think Benedict, with his vengefulness, would have excommunicated McKarrick, but Francis’s constitution is based on compassion. It would have been too much for him. And has excommunication even been used much since the Middle Ages?
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: From the Wikipedia:
The Midnight Lurker
So Bezos screwed Pecker, NYC and the American taxpayers all in one week! I’ll have what he’s having!
Then Amazon says AOC is real mean, so they’re leaving.
And Shultz! gets his own prime-time town hall on CNN in which he carefully enumerates all the problems facing this great country. But when asked, can not clearly delineate a remedy for a single one. Oh… and he hates Elizabeth Warren. HATES HER!
I hope the ladies sweep the tickets in 2020.
But honestly… after yesterday’s performance… I think we could run an old throw pillow stuffed with stale popcorn, draw a smiley face on it and still win by ten.
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: There have been various schismatic groups/bishops who have been excommunicated in the 20th and 21st Centuries.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
Correct. That’s the whole purpose of the confessional.
ETA pretty sure that heresy is the basis for most excommunications, but I certainly don’t know church law.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
I stand corrected. Thanks.
OzarkHillbilly
Brexit breakdown: fear and anger on the Irish border – video
It’s 20 mins long, way beyond my usual 3 minute rule, but I found it interesting. It puts an (Northern) Irish face and voice on Brexshit.
rikyrah
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Wow. So beautiful ?
mad citizen
@Amir Khalid: Oh my gosh, I’ve watched a few of the Hitler meltdown parodies, one I recall had something to do with Bob Dylan. And just watched the original scene. But I just made the connection: Bruno Ganz played the dark-haired angel in Wim Wenders “Wings of Desire”. I had not seen the film since the 1980s, but watched it recently and it has stuck with me. One of the most beautiful films ever made. RIP Bruno.
Als das Kind Kind war,
ging es mit hängenden Armen,
wollte der Bach sei ein Fluß,
der Fluß sei ein Strom,
und diese Pfütze das Meer.
Als das Kind Kind war,
wußte es nicht, daß es Kind war,
alles war ihm beseelt,
und alle Seelen waren eins.
Als das Kind Kind war,
hatte es von nichts eine Meinung,
hatte keine Gewohnheit,
saß oft im Schneidersitz,
lief aus dem Stand,
hatte einen Wirbel im Haar
und machte kein Gesicht beim fotografieren.
When the child was a child
it walked with its arms swinging,
wanted the brook to be a river,
the river to be a torrent,
and this puddle to be the sea.
When the child was a child,
it didn’t know that it was a child,
to it, everything had a soul,
and all souls were one.
When the child was a child,
it had no opinion about anything,
had no habits,
it often sat cross-legged,
took off running,
had a cowlick in its hair,
and made no faces when photographed.
Yellowdog
@Baud: I think you have to question or deny the back tenets of Catholicism to get excommunicated. Sins and crimes aren’t enough.
zhena gogolia
@Amir Khalid:
Oh, I’m sorry, he was a remarkable actor.
Steeplejack (phone)
@rikyrah:
Good morning! ?
Immanentize
@mad citizen: I too love wings of desire. I also haven’t seen it for a long time, but the scene in which the man is dying, sitting up after his (motorcycle?) Accident reciting all the things he loved in life. That still flashes in my mind occasionally.
And just how weary angels are.
Kay
@Big Mango:
Ohio isn’t a must win. Either is Florida. Democrats need Clinton states plus PA, MI and WI. IMO, Ohio is a bellweather in another way- PA, MI and WI are enough like Ohio that if they’re way back in Ohio they need to worry about PA, MI and WI. That’s what the “blue wall” meant. Must win. It didn’t mean “carry Ohio” because Ohio goes back and forth, so it wasn’t part of the wall :)
The honest critics of Clinton’s campaign aren’t mad because she lost Ohio. They’re mad because being so far back in Ohio should have meant she should have seen weakness in PA, MI and WI.
What they really need is another big state where they’re competitive. I think Georgia makes the most sense but luckily they raise such crazy huge amounts of money if they spend it smartly they have plenty to go around. I think they should cut down on media purchases in their “traditional” states. That to me seems hugely bloated and no longer connected in any real way to value. In the “blue wall” states I’d like to see them rely more on hiring organizers to contact people in the areas they win, and need. Obama did some of this- he didn’t just raise money differently, he SPENT it differently, but we backtracked since then and we need to be more creative with spending, not less so.
It doesn’t matter if you raise money from small donors and then spend it in exactly the same way you always did (Bernie Sanders). “How to spend massive amounts of money” is such a great problem to have and so many people will help you do it, that NOT doing it to me means there’s some kind of institutional, entrenched interest pushing back against re-examining where it’s expended.
Immanentize
@Yellowdog: There have been attempts by RWNJ Bishops in the US to excommunicate Democratic Candidates because of their stance on abortion. Didn’t such a move happen with Kerry?
plato
@Kay:
Yup. “Media spends” is yet another grift invented by the media to line up their own greedy pockets. Spend it on people, voter ID and election related issues. Ads on stupid teevee are so passe in this social media age.
Immanentize
@Kay: Liz Warren has upped her intern pay to $15 an hour. A friend of the Immp who is also a HS senior worked for Warren and got paid rather than being told it should be an honor just to be in her presence. I wonder if that will carry over to the campaign? Like you said, they all have enough money to do that.
debbie
@mad citizen:
I used to go to just about every movie that came out, foreign and domestic — easy to do, living in NYC. But at some point, and it was probably John Hughes’ fault, I’d stopped. I dutifully went to see Wings of Desire over on the West Side, and it reminded me why I had loved movies so much. What a great film!
Immanentize
@plato:
Not the the olds who vote.
plato
@Immanentize: The olds on facebook were the ones easily manipulated into voting for the totus thug, who spent zilch on ‘media spends’.
debbie
@plato:
Trump didn’t, but the PACs supporting him sure spent money. Tons of the stuff.
Kay
@plato:
I hate the whole discussion, too, because it’s so dumb. It isn’t about being frugal or cheap. It’s not “cutting costs”. It’s not “who ordered flowers”, not showy small things that don’t mean anything in terms of how one thinks about this.
It’s putting it in different places. A different idea. Not the same idea stripped of flower purchases and expensive hotel rooms. That’s “cost cutting”- accounting. Accounting is for when you’re happy with the overall plan, but want to spend less and still do the same things. It needs to be thought about more than that. Are we happy with the general focus, or should it change?
Immanentize
@debbie:
The Motorcycle scene with Bruno Gans in Wings of Desire
(With subtitles!). That just made me tear up.
I had forgotten that the real name of the film in German is “Wings Over Berlin.”
Steeplejack (phone)
@Amir Khalid:
Bruno Ganz was in a ton of movies, many of them great. One of my favorites is Gillian Armstrong’s The Last Days of Chez Nous (1992). Highly recommended.
Chyron HR
I think a woke white progressive needs to take these misguided ladies aside and remind them that BERNIE was the leader of the civil rights movement.
Immanentize
@Kay: I wonder why they keep the volunteer campaign worker thing going? Sheer tradition from when machines ran campaigns at the local level? Even then, the ‘volunteers’ were generally people who owed their full time job (or their kid’s summer job even) to the machine via patronage. The whole point of “walking around money” from campaigns was to give the bosses of the volunteers some cash to spread around to keep the loyal loyal.
But that whole system disappeared in the 70’s, but campaigns never changed.
Baud
@plato:
I don’t think the white olds took much manipulating. That’s why the Russians focused on young progressives and AA communities.
Kay
@Immanentize:
Oh, I’m so glad. Democrats can’t defend not paying people for work. I hope we can agree on that. It’s indefensible. It bothers me so much too, because it’s always young people and I think it’s a bad idea for them- bad advice. I don’t want them to work for free. I think that sets them back a year- it COSTS them 15k. Also- come on, it’s just gross. They can’t pay the top of the campaign 50k a month and pay NOTHING to the bottom. Move some down! Immediately!
Baud
@Immanentize:
@Kay:
So why keep the internship label? Aren’t they just employees now?
debbie
@Immanentize:
Thank you so, so much for this reminder! Weary is the least of it.
Yarrow
Good morning, everyone.
Sad commentary and people immediately think there’s an active shooter in situations like this:
Link.
Someone had a heart attack, the AED was taken from it’s location and that set off an alarm and everyone panicked.
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t think the idea of “internship” was not paying people. I think the idea was they would be in a lower position but learning something from people above them- potentially promotable, which is what makes it different than “we’re hiring you for this task”. The incentive is “this job sucks but you’ll learn something” but that doesn’t exclude paying them.
I actually think they SHOULD hire more straight employees though. Line workers. People who DON’T move up and out.
Yarrow
@Baud: Russia focused on all demographics. Old whites, young progressives, African Americans, anit-vaxxers, gun nuts, evangelicals, etc., etc. They even had people commenting on Balloon Juice.
Immanentize
@Baud:
I think the Internship label survives because it is about short term, short hour work. In my world of “experiential education”, whether paid or not, the term intern (or nouvelle “extern”) generally is used for one who is still in school, but working to learn.
There was a big (and scary for many) labor case out of the media industry in NY (I think I’m remembering correctly) that held that interns in that setting cannot be considered unpaid volunteers. This is a creeping understanding in many industries these days.
joel hanes
@debbie:
McCarrick is a social justice Catholic. Ratzinger would have hated him for that reason. But Ratzinger did very little to deal with sexual abuse by the clergy — neither that nor social justice were high on his list of priorities, which seem to have been mostly about attempting to shore up the traditional authority of the Holy See.
Kay
@Immanentize:
Exactly. During the Obama administration. It was a movie company. The interns sued. And, there’s rules:
The Fair Labor Standards Act! We like that! :)
gene108
@OzarkHillbilly:
The issue is profits, as reported for financial reporting purposes, follows different rules than reporting profits for tax purposes.
I really don’t know the solution, unless tax rules are totally rewritten to mirror financial reporting rules.
Kay
@Immanentize:
There’s also that it’s not 1943 and “college students” aren’t all upper middle class and on a voyage of discovery for 4 years. It’s just archaic. They have to get paid now. At least cover their losses- a year without the lowest paid work they could get (40 hours). That’s 16,100 in Ohio. Don’t set them BACK a year.
Mary G
Kamala plays the long game and has spent 20 years laying the ground work for this on the down low. The Republicans who are talking the media into the conventional “wisdom” that everyone who’s announced on the left is a dangerous radical (looking at you, Jennifer Rubin) are going to be surprised, because Democrats who drove the midterms are seriously pissed off at the “yes, a woman, but not that one” bullshit that’s being run again against Kamala the angry black cop, scoldy teacher Liz Warren, mean girl Amy Klochubar, yadda yadda yadda. We aren’t spending time bitching to FYFNYT reporters in diners, but tuning up our postcard-writing skills, stocking up on comfortable shoes, and in general getting ready to lay some serious whoop ass on Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, the Freedumb caucus, the “pro-life” uterus controllers, and anyone else who gets in the way.
ETA: Susan Collins also too.
joel hanes
@plato:
media spends
Don’t advertise. Organize.
And use some the money to give those organizations some permanence. Someone to answer the phone in the local Democratic Party office every workday of every month of every year.
jeffreyw
Lonesome Dove
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: They wanted to (and maybe did, can’t look up now) deny him Communion. This is not the same thing.
plato
@Baud: I need proof that AA people got played by russians. The other peeps? The proof is the totus thug.
Yarrow
I really like Kamala Harris and from what I know of her so far I’d be happy if she got the nomination. I do kind of want to have at least a somewhat competitive Dem primary. With more candidates in the race different issues can be highlighted. Different candidates will have different strengths and weaknesses and it’s good to get to see all that. I am really excited to see so many women in the race and so much diversity.
plato
@Baud: Go Francis. (The frigging ‘mexican’)
mad citizen
@debbie: We probably need a movie thread on Oscar day. Was going to mention this–maybe too obvious given that it is rightfully getting publicity, but Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma–on netflix–is also a beatiful, human, B&W film. Just incredibly, beatifully filmed–I believe much/all of it by Cuaron himself. I would vote for it Best Picture.
sdhays
@OzarkHillbilly:
I guess, ultimately, we can’t really complain about anything because it’s all God’s Plan, right?
Why shouldn’t we blame the Republican Congress (because no Democrat voted for this garbage) for enacting laws that companies wrote when Congress is paid to write laws? Do Congresspeople have no agency?
plato
@joel hanes: This 1000x. Don’t just play the game only during the elections.
Yarrow
@plato: One of the most popular Black Lives Matter Twitter accounts was a Russian account run by various members of the FSB, according to court filings from the Mueller investigation. There are other examples.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay: In 2018 our state party/coordinated campaign spent its money putting young paid organizers in every county, even the reddest of red ones. Their job was to recruit and train volunteers and execute voter contact strategy. It worked (with a little assist from Trump). We swept every federal and state race and increased our majorities in the state legislature and county offices. I hope they follow the same model in 2020.
There was paid advertising too, but I saw almost none of it since I don’t get network television.
sdhays
@Gin & Tonic: According to the Washington Post article I read, defrocking is actually more serious than excommunication because it is permanent whereas excommunication is considered temporary and will only continue as long as the person “continues in sin”.
I’m not a Catholic and I don’t pretend to understand this stuff, but that’s what they’re saying.
plato
@O. Felix Culpa: You are from NV, right? It was a great job by dems like you.
tokyokie
Bruno Ganz, who was Swiss, was the holder of the Iffland-Ring, an award bestowed upon “the most significant and most worthy actor of the German-speaking theatre.” The recipient of the award is supposed to be determined by ring’s previous holder, although they have a nasty habit of dying soon after winning the award without choosing a successor. Ganz’s first choice, Gert Voss, died in 2014, and there’s no word as to whom Ganz wanted to receive the honor. But I’m sure Christoph Waltz would consider receiving it a far greater honor than his two Supporting Actor Oscars.
O. Felix Culpa
@plato: The Russians went after virtually all groups, to see where they could sow division and weaken our electoral system. In the AA case, there were fake BLM accounts as Yarrow notes above, as well as efforts to suppress AA voter turnout for Hillary. It appears they had some modest success in the latter case, especially with AA men. There’s a fair amount of documentation about these efforts, but sorry I don’t have time to research them just now.
O. Felix Culpa
@plato: New Mexico, but thank you anyway. :)
Immanentize
Ann Coulter is setting up a GOP Presidential run. Discuss.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: For realz?
Roger Moore
@Immanentize:
Pretty please with sugar on top!
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: Coulter yesterday:
That is the best way, I would guess, for her to stay front and center. She would run Trump 2.0 for the grift.
plato
@O. Felix Culpa: Sorry, mea culpa. :)
But I know you are a long time dem fighter.
sdhays
@Immanentize: I can’t imagine her doing anything more than what she already does – go on TV and get more coverage than she deserves. She a poorer female version of Trump.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Shall pass on that, thanks.
Immanentize
@NotMax: ?
Elizabelle
Problem with comments in the above threads?
Good morning, jackals.
FlyingToaster
@Immanentize: Let us know when she actually sets up an exploratory committee. I want to mock.
And it’ll probably spark the return of the Baculum King….
Immanentize
@sdhays: That is exactly the point. But she is a pro-choice GOP woman, therefore a mighty foil to the current resident of 1600. Maybe she is just shooting to be named the next SCOTUS Justice?
O. Felix Culpa
@plato: Thanks. And now I’m off to a party finance committee meeting. No better way to spend a sunny Saturday morning! Ciao, all!
sdhays
@Immanentize: She’s pro-choice? Really? I did not know that. Regardless, she’s a monster.
tobie
@OzarkHillbilly: Amazon is not the only company that didn’t pay taxes in 2018. Google didn’t either. And yet our most progressive Democrats still only talk about individual tax rates, not the corporate tax code. Why is that?
PJ
@OzarkHillbilly: This is precisely why those politicians and protestors in NY should have kept their mouths shut and ponied up the $3 billion in tax breaks and grants. Amazon only got $129MM from the feds last year – how do we expect them to stay in business?!!
Immanentize
@sdhays: hmmm. She used to be but now her wiki page says she thinks that Roe should be over turned and the issue left to the States.
ETA. Her wiki page looks like a campaign flyer.
Princess Leia
@debbie: Actually, yes. Easiest to get though when you do something like participate in the “illicit” ordination of a woman.” The certificate is in latin and pretty enough to put on a wall!
mad citizen
@tokyokie: I was wondering about Christoph Waltz and this ring, which I just read about this morning. It sounds like a high honor indeed. I think Waltz has transcended in the Tarantino movies, I know nothing of his earlier work, but have to guess it is excellent.
His Comedians in Cars episode with Seinfeld was very funny, the German looking askance at our weird breakfast foods in the U.S.
mad citizen
@PJ: All they have to do is turn themselves into non-profits. Voila, No taxes are ever due. A young work friend of mine used to say, there’s no difference between corportations and non=profits, it’s just a matter of where the money goes.
We have these de-facto monopolies–time for some good old-fashioned regulation and minimum taxes, says this regulatory economist.
mad citizen
@Immanentize: Exactly. It’s the Pat Buchanan gamut. You’re just a two-bit columnist with a small following/income. Run for President a couple times, and somehow that bestows legitimacy onto you and your speaking fees and prestige goes up. I’ve never understood this cycle, but it seems to work for these people.
Steve in the ATL
@mad citizen: he is Austrian, not German!
A fine line, I know
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Yarrow:
As a middle-aged white guy who lived in either the reddest or second reddest county in MO (formerly because I’m FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST!), I’m open to most anybody running on our side but will definitely be swayed by whoever the black ladies in this country coalesce behind.
That being said, who saw Pete Buttigieg on Colbert the other night? Damned impressive.
PJ
@mad citizen: Well, one difference between a for-profit corporation and a non-profit is all those shareholders, who are gonna be a little upset if they don’t get a return on their investment.
Every for-profit corporation that actually makes a real profit should be paying taxes. (I would add churches to this too, but that ain’t gonna happen in One Nation Under God.) And corporate subsidies of all kinds need to be ended. If something needs to be incentivized, give a rebate to the consumer, not the business.
Uncle Cosmo
@Immanentize: The actual “real name” of “Wings of Desire” is Der Himmel über Berlin – literal translation of which is “The Heaven Over Berlin.”
Imm, I presume this is just a rare slip-up… but you kinda punched my button on this, because {RANT ON}
{RANT OFF}
Sab
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I heard Mayor Pete interviewed on our local public radio and yes he really is impressive.
mad citizen
@Steve in the ATL: Yes, yes, I forgot–Austrian.
I totally get the rant at self-proclaimed experts, but I don’t know German, so when the movie comes out in my country, and the poster says, and the dvd box says “Wings of Desire”, that’s what I’m going to call it. If you think about it, it’s perhaps a better title than “Wings Over Berlin”
Immanentize
@Uncle Cosmo:
I’m so sorry, totally a slip up. I meant Heaven but wings was still in my morning head. But you have restored my faith that the hive mind here will set it straight. In any case, I like the German title better than the English one….
ETA. I really better ask — what did/do you do for a living?
Doug R
@NotMax: Shouldn’t that be 1789-1830?
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Immanentize: I knew you meant Himmel, which is weird. And I teared up too; it’s a gorgeous film.
@jeffreyw: Thanks!
debbie
@mad citizen:
I’m not familiar with that film, but heard a lot of good stuff said about it yesterday on a PBS special.
debbie
@Immanentize:
Please, please, please.
debbie
@Uncle Cosmo:
In other words, mansplaining. //
Michael Cain
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, my response when the UK submitted their Article 50 notice was, “Well, Northern Ireland is screwed.” I still think the way things game out will require them to choose where the hard border is going to be, not whether there’s a hard border or not. If they’re lucky, that is, they’ll get to choose; it may be imposed upon them.
J R in WV
@Michael Cain:
And which would be better for N Ireland? Hard border between them and the EU/real Ireland? or Hard border between N Ireland and England?
I know which I would choose — but I’m neither Irish nor English, and would have fired anyone who brought up leaving my nation’s primary trading partner without a deal in place before voting on the departure. Amazing political stupidity as far as international economics goes!!!