UTUSN
UTUSN's JournalHere's a definitive article on what these jerks are about from TruthDig (courtesy DUer Rainy) -
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https://www.truthdig.com/articles/whos-really-leading-the-democratic-rebellion-against-pelosi/
.... ... ideology is not driving this campaign, and this is no populist rebellion. In fact, its leaders have no discernible ideology at all.
That’s how corporate money rolls in the Democratic Party. It lays low, hides its true colors, and pretends it only wants to “get things done.”
The anti-Pelosi insurgency is not a movement. It’s a cabal, orchestrated by the appropriately hashtagged #FiveWhiteGuys, a group of self-self-interested players with big money behind them. ....
...vague on the issues, big on cliches and platitudes, ... is the hallmark of “centrism,” the billionaire-funded political faction that serves its financial backers by selling themselves as “non-ideological,” “technocratic” architects of “bipartisan” consensus who can “break the gridlock” and “solve problems.”
For this crowd, “solving problems” always winds up meaning the same thing: cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and an unwarranted obsession with the federal deficit that always—just accidentally, mind you!—winds up helping corporations and the billionaire class. ....
...claims to be “above parties and partisanship”—which, in the end, is another way of saying it’s free of any principles except the interests of its paymasters. It often comes in the guise of patriotism, as when Seth Moulton says he places “country over party”—a comment that, implicitly, is a deep insult to those who believe one party’s proposals would serve the country better than the other’s.
The anti-Pelosi campaign is being supported by one of the mainstays of the corporate centrist world—the cynical political ploy known as “No Labels,” which I wrote about in 2012, and its creation, the “Problem Solvers Caucus.” ... a guaranteed-employment plan for Republican and Democratic political hacks, ... ....
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Where the troops are is a Blue area of Red Texas, the locals being against the wall & miliarization
The troops aren't to blame for the deranged specimen squatting in the Commander in Chief space who cynically used them as a political stunt. And the military aren't supposed to speak out on political topics. They will have absolutely *nothing* to do. Should the locals drop off Care packages? This would be without proselytizing, we never want to undermine our own troops. After all, Care packages get sent to military wherever they are far away, why not on U.S. territory?
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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/troops-thanksgiving-border-migrants_us_5be947cce4b0769d24cf0fb2
They spend their time playing cards and fulfilling basic organizational tasks, the New York Times reports.
.... At Base Camp Donna, located between a highway and the border wall separating Texas and Mexico, troops barely have access to electricity, The New York Times reported Saturday. Showers ― which weren’t installed until last week ― can only last a maximum of seven minutes in order to preserve water. Their tents don’t have air conditioning even though the heat is sweltering.
The soldiers spend their time trying to make the outpost livable, according to the Times. They play cards and take turns charging their electronic devices. They build barbed wire fences. There’s no mess hall or access to hot food, so instead they eat prepackaged meals. ....
Brian Schatz @brianschatz....
Deploying troops to our own border for no national security reason is one of the biggest scandals of this Presidency. These dedicated, skilled, highly trained men and women will likely miss Thanksgiving w family, are near American cities but eating MREs. Let them go home.
Yet many argue that the deployment is a waste of time and resources, especially given that the caravan is still weeks away from the border.
“When you give a soldier a real mission, you have less of a morale problem, even if it’s Christmas or Thanksgiving,” said Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D-Md.), a veteran of the Iraq war. “But when you send a soldier on a dubious mission, with no military value, over Thanksgiving, it doesn’t help morale at all.” ....
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Note to *way*-early 2020 boomlets: GILLIBRAND and oh-Jed-ah (o-HEAD-ah)
It's WAY early and my WAY early picks are Eric GARCETTI and Kamala HARRIS, but the early declarers are pushing me to give them a note (like MY notes matter!1 ) :
To Senator GILLIBRAND: No. I love you as I love all authentic Dems and love all the correct Dem things you say, yet NO.
As for today's flurry about Richard OJEDA: Today is when I heard about you first, and did my diligent Googling (which anybody should do because I'm not the Summary Monkey) and have settled as my issue on your chosen pronunciation of your surname, which is your entire right to choose: The video below from the Young Turks and you at the 4:00 mark are clear that you pronounce it "o-Jed-ah" or as the media sound it "o-Jed-uh". You probably know (from your father) that the Spanish/Mexican pronunciation is not "j" with a hard "j" but rather (American sound: ) "h" so it's: o-HEAD-ah. But everybody's got a right to their name as they want it. I understand you're from the Midwest and then W. VA, so fine. That's a real good LBJ dialect, too, so that might help, certainly with me for the sound but not for your '16 vote for SHITLER. Here's the sound of your pronunciation from YouTube, from the Turks throughout and yours at the 4:00 mark:
(Retitled: ) Should I send this to my re-elected Blue Dog representative?
(Original title: Yes, the House & several significant wins & half dozen painful losses.)
MUELLER is my main hope.The wins ought to outweigh the losses, but I'm not blissfully happy.
Should I send this e-mail to my re-elected Blue Dog representative? What about an open letter to the editor? Will there be knocks at my door?
*********** I'll say again that I am a mainstream Dem, so this is to remind you that you won because of the Dem *label* by your name and all of our voting straight ticket. Yet we have no representation in this Red state from top to bottom and little from you.
I heard you on the local radio wingnut talk show thrilled to invite them over to your victory party. I know they were smirking at you, my having monitored them for years and heard them say openly that they only host you because of your title and eagerness to guest with them but that they will never trust you because you might vote with the national Dems when the chips are down. Yet your very first stop was to share your happiness with your wingnut pals, as you think they are, without even mentioning us stalwarts.
So you are well on your way to becoming entrenched in your status of power since there won't be opposition and you're relatively young. And you didn't even mention us stalwarts. Funny it has to be said that the radio wingnuts and their audience didn't vote for you.
Personal declaration: I've found my 2020 candidate: Eric Michael GARCETTI
(Not that it matters beyond my small world. And this is for NOW, who knows.)
So I forsook almost all of the Sunday yak shows a few years ago (except for STELTER's Reliable Sources, half-hour of Fareed). But this morning I was too busy to change channels for a few minutes and TAPPER was interviewing Eric GARCETTI, and the dude was totally NO B.S., and was put through the paces of the big ticket issues - Saudis, SHITLER, immigration, what-matters-to-Hispanics, Hispanic turnout or no-turnout, and more - and ended with telling TAPPER he will make up his mind about running by the end of the year, no wishy washery on anything.
I knew nothing about him before, only vague and not-immediately-positive name associations about his (father?). I'm sure I will be brought up to speed on him, positives and especially negatives, here, so t.i.a. for that.
ON EDIT: And oh, look, same Feb. 4 birthday as my father, so I've got some insight into Aquarius.
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from Wiki
Eric Michael Garcetti (born February 4, 1971) is an American politician serving as the 42nd and current Mayor of Los Angeles since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected in the 2013 election and won reelection in 2017. A former member of the Los Angeles City Council, Garcetti served as council president from 2006 to 2012. He is the city's first elected Jewish mayor, as well as its youngest, and the second Mexican American mayor in over a century.[1]
Garcetti was born on February 4, 1971 at Good Samaritan Hospital[2] in Los Angeles and was raised in Encino,[3] in the San Fernando Valley.[2] He is the son of Sukey (née Roth) and Gil Garcetti, a former Los Angeles County district attorney.
Garcetti's paternal grandfather, Salvador, was born in Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico. Salvador was brought by his family to the United States as a child after his father, Massimo "Max" Garcetti, was murdered by hanging during the Mexican Revolution. Max had immigrated to Mexico from Italy, where he married a Mexican woman and became a judge.[4][5][6] Garcetti's paternal grandmother, Juanita Iberri, was born in Arizona, one of 19 children born to an immigrant father from Sonora, Mexico and an Arizona-born mother whose father and mother were both Mexican.[3] He speaks fluent Spanish.
Garcetti majored in political science and urban planning and received a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University in 1992 as a John Jay Scholar.[8] During that time, he served on the student council, was president of the St. Anthony Hall fraternity and literary society, founded the Columbia Urban Experience, and co-wrote and performed in three years of the Varsity Show, a student-written musical, whose past co-writers include Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Lorenz Hart. Garcetti also received a Masters of International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, graduating in 1993.[8] He and his future wife studied as a Rhodes Scholar[9][10] at The Queen's College, Oxford[11] and also studied for a PhD in ethnicity and nationalism at the London School of Economics.[2] ....
Garcetti endorsed Barack Obama in early spring 2007 and was the southern California chairman and one of six state co-chairs for the Obama campaign. He traveled to Iowa, Nevada and six other states, and was a frequent surrogate (in English and Spanish) for the campaign. ....
On April 3, 2014, Garcetti was joined by former President Bill Clinton in hosting a half-day conference on alternate energy and improvements of infrastructure. It was the first time Garcetti and Clinton had appeared together since his run for mayor the previous year, in which Clinton had endorsed Wendy Greuel. The former president referenced the race but accidentally said that Garcetti had been elected president, not mayor. Clinton told Garcetti that he "may become president one day. ....
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A quotation from Felix FRANKFURTER, though even this will be gigged by some:
FRANKFURTER (applicable also to Pius XII, FDR on Holocaust) :
“Fluctuations of historic judgment are the lot of great men, and Roosevelt will not escape it … But if history has its claim, so has the present. For it has been wisely said that if the judgment of the time must be corrected by that of posterity, it is no less true that the judgment of posterity must be corrected by that of the time.”
- Felix Frankfurter
Is Mitch LANDRIEU the one? Pro & con. He says no, pick BIDEN but never-say-never
Thanks to the thread by mobeau69, "Watching Mitch Landrieu on The Axe Files" https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210907558 O.P., "He's very impressive! His description of this abnormal time we find ourselves in and what we need to do to turn things around was spot on. He also gave an excellent commentary on Helsinki and the traitor."
My first impression was, "An article on him a few weeks ago fairly much convinced me he's the one for us. My own points about him: He's from the South, connects with the common touch, is politically experienced, intelligent/intellectual, and savvy, has politics in his blood, and is authentic the way CUOMO ain't."
Plus, in Googling, more recent items from the past few weeks are about his denying himself for 2020 while saying never-say-never and saying it should be BIDEN. Well, if this article says it's a sign of how far Wingnut the country has been dragged that a Centrist looks Liberal, it still is in the correct direction. BIDEN is *over* (for me, unless he's the nominee), but maybe Mitch as Veep?
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https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/07/08/mitch-landrieu-new-orleans-presidency-politics-218960
A remarkably candid interview with the former New Orleans mayor about race, political ambition and America under Trump.
By EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE
.... For a man who’s spent his entire adult life in politics, Landrieu has an almost Obama-like intellectualism. He flows between ideas he’s read in books or encountered in conversations. His mind is associative, always linking up ideas with other experiences. He can be lyrical, though sometimes to the point of sounding like he’s doling out aphorisms. There are “y’alls” and explanatory diversions. He doesn’t tweet. He says “let me finish” a lot—not because he’s annoyed about being interrupted (though that sometimes flashes, too) but because he feels like he’s in the middle of a thought, and he wants to get through the full thought.
He talks about history. About moral leadership. The power of diversity. Who the future belongs to, and who it doesn’t. But most of all, he talks directly about race and racism and reality in America. When exactly is Trump saying America was great? What was it that made it great then? He pushes people to think about the answers, and he thinks they’re frighteningly clear. He sees what he lived through in Louisiana playing out in the country, has spoken and written about how much Donald Trump reminds him of David Duke. He says he knows people can be afraid to call it out but knows what happens when they don’t. He says he can’t believe he has to be the one to say there’s no place for white supremacy in 21st-century America.
And he gives speeches like the one he delivered at the Kennedy Library in May, accepting the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award that in 2017 went to Barack Obama. In an address that sounded very Obamalike, he said, “Our democracy is counting on each and every one of you, and in your countless acts of selfless courage. When millions of us do just our small part all at the same time, there is no mountain too high, no task too daunting, no dream too big. To every American listening: You may not be the tallest or the strongest or best-looking, or richest or fastest or smartest or the most well-connected. You may look different, love different or pray different. It is of no moment nor matter. We must all choose to find a way or make one. This is our America.” He finished by quoting Tennyson’s “Ulysses” on sacred duty, invoking JFK’s call to action, sounding like a man who was building up to, “and that’s why I’m running for president.”
But he didn’t.
For now, Landrieu is more concerned about understanding why Trump happened, and figuring out what he is prepared to do about it. “If you say to yourself, ‘It’s really not about him, what were the conditions that caused us to be able to choose this level of chaos over what we thought we had?’ And then what you would have to say is, the conditions in the country should never have been where they were, because it’s clear to me, historically, without necessarily equating them, when you look at the Holocaust, you look at apartheid, you look at slavery, when you look at the Japanese internment—when we as humans did terrible things to each other,” Landrieu told me when I caught up with him two weeks later, again in Boston, where he was to say goodbye to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, “and you ask yourself, ‘What were the conditions in which human beings decided to denigrate another human being that badly?’ They were for the most part in times when people thought that they were supreme to other people because of genetics, or people were fearing for their personal livelihood or safety, and as a consequence, human beings are capable of that evil. So the bigger question for the country long term is, ‘How did we get ourselves in a position where we had to choose between bad and worse?’” ....
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjpdgq/mitch-landrieu-should-not-be-president
Mitch Landrieu is getting some 2020 buzz, but New Orleanians can tell you about his spotty record.
Until last year’s removal of New Orleans’s Confederate statues made national news, Mayor Mitch Landrieu was largely unknown outside of his city. Today, he’s the latest Democratic flavor of the month. Landrieu followed up the release of his new book, Standing in the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Faces Down History, with a few victory laps of the lecture and talk show circuits, from The Week to 60 Minutes to the Daily Show, where mentions of his possible 2020 presidential run were met with applause. He’s also set to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in May. ....
Landrieu surely won’t end up in prison like his predecessor Ray Nagin, and he has done a few good things while in office, like help get marijuana arrests down to almost zero (arguably a much bigger blow for racial justice than taking down the statues). And his speeches around the monuments’ removal were admittedly some of the best I’ve ever heard from a politician.
But Landrieu is not the president America needs. Dig past the statue issue, and you’ll find that Landrieu is known around town as the New Orleans mayor who aided and abetted a massive wave of gentrification. While he would clearly like to be remembered for removing New Orleans’s racist symbols, many locals will remember him for the following catastrophes:
Airbnb ....
Cameras, Cameras Everywhere ....
In this and other ways, Landrieu has been to New Orleans sort of what Giuliani was to New York. Except without the drop in crime.
Avoidable Flooding ....
Hassling Music Clubs and Banning Go-Cups ....
Raiding Strip Clubs ....
So no, Mitch Landrieu is not our country’s—or Democrats'—savior. He is just more proof that American politics has been pulled so far to the right that a “run-of-the-mill centrist” (to quote the New Republic) seems not just excitingly liberal, but looks something akin to a real leader.
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The local rag keeps running my letters so far
The words “mandate” and “political capital” we used to use regarding leaders who had won landslides or good will can be deleted from our politics, since we have President Trump who won with a margin of 10,000 votes for the Electoral College. Yet he has ruled by fiat, nearly completely without Congressional legislation, and upended some 70 years of American leadership in the world.
All this done as though he had a mandate from a vast majority of the voters and done things even the worst presidents had the self-restraint not to do.
Remember when one candidate was bounced from the entire political scene because of the sound of his scream in a loud rally or another one because he shed tears when his wife was attacked? In our brave new world we have a leader who is hostile to the institutions and philosophical tenets of our democracy, hostile to the protections and well-being of We the People, and hostile to the country’s role among nations and admiring of dictatorial thugs.
He exists for his own personal enrichment and what he thinks will be glory. Here is why he wanted to talk to Kim Jong Un alone: To recruit him into the world’s Zillionaire Oligarchs’ Club, the cartel and mob literally ruling the world. This also explains why he can’t get along with “decent” people, world leaders who wouldn’t be tempted to participate in the dirty under-the-table mob games he lives by. Far fetched?
What about his supporters who really are diehard and his party in Congress who are just too craven to stand on principle? They all used to claim to be the true believers of patriotism and religion, yet are collaborating for the smallest, most short-sighted of issues.
My next-to-last defense of Bill CLINTON
Next-to-last because of a proverb in Spanish that it's your NEXT-to-last (beer/whatever) when you're leaving, because your LAST one is when you're dying.
Back then, we Dems did our barricades thing defending Bill. Yes, lots of the crap was VastRightwingConspiracy crap. It really was. But we Libs always look inward for root causes rather than Wingnut-looking-outward to blame outsiders, and Bill had a lot to account for.
And my Big Lesson from the defense-o'-Bill thing was: We lost a lot of our AGENDA time all for the defense of one charismatic leader. It takes a gawdawful time and energy to win power only to lose it all for ONE human and his personal failings.
So, today, here we are with a little reporter-on-the-make raking Bill over today's new coals about whether he has PERSONALLY apologized to Ms Monica LEWINSKY.
Here's MY apology to Monica LEWINSKY in the voice of Bill:
"I was the most powerful boss in the world. You were the lowliest of employees. As much power I had over the world, I had nothing to gain from you that I couldn't get and DID get from PRINCESSES of politics and celebrities. You came on to me and I played. It was stupid of me and I have and will continue to pay for my stupidity. It's too bad Hillary's crystal ashtray didn't kill me on my head. I apologized to you and everybody in public, but you don't deserve a personal apology in private. You played a silly immature game and I was a grown idiot."
************************* O.K., Bill, can you butt your way out of our work on our agenda? Thanks.
No, Monica, you (& Bill) were not alone. I & we were there, too, "#MeToo" as it were
Two things I don't have to prove, what a good Democratic believer on nearly all the laundry list of issues and on Equality for all (here, specifically, on supporting women - I could go on & on about the strong women in my family and the women candidates I have supported) - I am.
You and Bill BOTH rocked my world in a very bad, PTSD way. I blamed you BOTH, but despite what you went through my quandary was not being socially allowed to blame you for your part while having to defend Bill at the cost of channeling all my political energy into HIM while giving up the work on our Democratic agenda. I would have liked to throw a crystal ashtray at both your heads.
I still have carved in my sight your right palm taking the oath to testify while the journalist voiceover called you a child who was beyond responsibility despite your legal adulthood.
After all the years, I came around to letting Bill go, my being freed from having to support him and his crappy behavior and choices. As I say, since we were prohibited from criticizing you, I had long ago let you go. But in the years when you have resurfaced, I haven't gotten a vibe of your taking your share of responsibility, although I haven't paid much attention.
I will add my own little vignette from the same era: How I was a supervisor in my late 40s and a 24 year old I had hired came on to me repeatedly and I shut it down, such that I was no Bill. Within 3 or so years she not only replaced me in my job but became the top administrator (my superiors weren't so principled about handling her advances). I never made an issue of her career machinations any more than I did about your love and admiration.
But I am deeply invested in not buying into your #MeToo incarnation, any more than all the PTSD all of us were forced into by you and Bill for your short term jollies. Leave me alone.
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https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/02/monica-lewinsky-in-the-age-of-metoo
BY MONICA LEWINSKY
MARCH 2018
.... A student of Karma, I found myself seizing the moment. Whereas a decade ago I would have turned and fled the restaurant at the prospect of being in the same place as this man, many years of personal-counseling work (both trauma-specific and spiritual) had led me to a place where I now embrace opportunities to move into spaces that allow me to break out of old patterns of retreat or denial. ....
And the 20th anniversary of an annus horribilis that would almost end Clinton’s presidency, consume the nation’s attention, and alter the course of my life. ....
...a person who has been gaslighted.
To be blunt I was diagnosed several years ago with post-traumatic stress disorder, mainly from the ordeal of having been publicly outed and ostracized back then. ....
"I'm so sorry you were so alone.” Those seven words undid me. They were written in a recent private exchange I had with one of the brave women leading the #MeToo movement. ....
...I am unpacking and reprocessing what happened to me. Over and over and over again. ....
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