Politics-What's on your mind?

[homoe]

Kamala Harris: what her sneakers mean..

Kamala Harris’s nomination as Joe Biden’s running mate is historic: the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, she is the first woman of colour to be on a major party’s presidential ticket. She is also the first to prominently wear sneakers on the campaign trail.

It is a small sartorial detail, but it is linked to the larger cultural moment in which we live. “Sneakers are a form of footwear finding their way into many women’s closets as part of a larger challenge to outmoded concepts of femininity,” says Elizabeth Semmelhack, the author of Sneaker X Culture: Collab. Traditionally, there is a standard shoe etiquette for women in political office – either alpha (see: Nancy Pelosi’s stilettos, Theresa May’s leopard print heels) or conservative (Elizabeth Warren’s slide sandals, Hillary Clinton’s pantsuit-matching kitten heels). Semmelhack believes Harris’s shoes signal action. “The sneakers are acting as the sartorial equivalent of being willing to roll up her sleeves,” she says. They suggest Harris “is a woman of action”.

[A. Spectre]

From President Jimmy Carter


"Rosalynn and I are pained by the tragic racial injustices and consequent backlash across our nation in recent weeks. Our hearts are with the victims’ families and all who feel hopeless in the face of pervasive racial discrimination and outright cruelty. We all must shine a spotlight on the immorality of racial discrimination. But violence, whether spontaneous or consciously incited, is not a solution.

"As a white male of the South, I know all too well the impact of segregation and injustice to African Americans. As a politician, I felt a responsibility to bring equity to my state and our country. In my 1974 inaugural address as Georgia’s governor, I said: “The time for racial discrimination is over.” With great sorrow and disappointment, I repeat those words today, nearly five decades later.

Dehumanizing people debases us all; humanity is beautifully and almost infinitely diverse. The bonds of our common humanity must overcome the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices.

"Since leaving the White House in 1981, Rosalynn and I have strived to advance human rights in countries around the world. In this quest, we have seen that silence can be as deadly as violence. People of power, privilege, and moral conscience must stand up and say “no more” to a racially discriminatory police and justice system, immoral economic disparities between whites and blacks, and government actions that undermine our unified democracy. We are responsible for creating a world of peace and equality for ourselves and future generations.

"We need a government as good as its people, and we are better than this."

---------------------------

President Carter and his wife are two of the most decent people on the planet, I am proud of my work with Habitat for Humanity. These two kind souls do more in one minute than the entire family grift who are currently infesting the people's house in their entire pathetic lives.

President Carter offers hope, civility and kindness.

[C0LLETTE]

If I could, I'd add a pageful of "thanks" at the bottom of your post, A.Spectre.

[Orema]

How Maine Turned on Susan Collins

Inside the movement to topple the Republican senator.

By CHRISTINA CAUTERUCCI
SEPT 08, 2020

Six years ago, Karin Leuthy, a registered Democrat, voted for Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Like many Mainers, Leuthy, 48, took pride in not voting a straight party ticket that year. “I thought it was really important to have women in the Senate who were Republican, who were pro-choice, who would protect reproductive rights and be a check to the men in the Republican Party,” Leuthy said.

Leuthy lives in Camden, a coastal town with a picturesque harbor and a ski area that hosts a national toboggan championship every year. Her daughter raises sheep, which they board at a nearby farm. In 2014, when she last voted for Collins, Leuthy was an avid news consumer and regular voter, but not an activist. She admired Olympia Snowe, Maine’s long-serving Republican senator who retired in 2012 out of frustration with Senate partisanship. “Snowe was very thoughtful. She was straightforward. And she had a way of working in a diplomatic fashion that I think a lot of Mainers really appreciated,” Leuthy said. “I thought Susan Collins was going to serve in an Olympia Snowe model. I was very wrong. Very wrong.”

Ask a handful of Maine Democrats for their thoughts on Collins’ current reelection campaign, and you’re likely to hear at least a few stories that mirror Leuthy’s. At a late-February bean supper in Skowhegan hosted by Sara Gideon, the speaker of the Maine House of Representatives and now Collins’ Democratic challenger, I talked to more than a dozen attendees. Some lived in the 8,500-person town in central Maine; others had traveled to the steelworkers’ union hall from up to an hour away. They were mostly registered Democrats—some committed to Gideon, some still considering her primary opponents. Almost all of them had voted for Collins in previous elections. None planned to do so again.

In 2014, Collins won her fourth term with more than 68 percent of the vote. She won every county, every age group, every education level, every income bracket, and nearly 40 percent of Democratic voters. The next year, with a 78 percent approval rating in the state, Collins was ranked the most popular Republican senator. Back then, she enjoyed a reputation among many of her Democratic constituents as a prudent, upstanding moderate, a perception shored up by her occasional consequential swing votes that swung toward the Democrats. A regular stream of analyses named her the “most bipartisan” and “most disagreeable”—as in party-bucking—member of the Senate.

That picture of Collins, who was also named the Republican senator most likely to back Barack Obama’s positions, hasn’t always told the full story. The tallies that led to those titles include votes made only for procedural reasons and votes to pass Cabinet or judicial nominations, which Collins almost always supports, regardless of the president’s party affiliation. The bills she co-sponsors with Democrats—the ones that make her the “most bipartisan”—rarely make it to a vote. They often concern important but not particularly far-reaching or controversial issues: helping states build out broadband networks or reauthorizing a geriatric care workforce development program. Many peter out in committee, making them far more consequential to the co-sponsors’ respective bipartisan rankings than to the American people.

In the more consequential votes, Collins’ record has been mixed. She memorably cast a decisive vote against the GOP’s attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act in 2017—but a few months later, she voted for the GOP tax bill that repealed the individual mandate. Collins opposed Betsy DeVos for secretary of education but only after casting an essential vote to send her nomination out of committee and onto the Senate floor. Collins made an eloquent defense of Planned Parenthood with her 2017 vote against the ACA repeal, then gave an equally impassioned speech in favor of Brett Kavanaugh, who’d go on to set the stage for a possible future rollback of abortion rights in his June Medical Services v. Gee dissent. She was one of just two Senate Republicans to vote in favor of allowing witnesses in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial but ultimately voted to acquit him, saying that Trump had learned an important lesson and would be “much more cautious in the future.” These actions have taken a toll: In January, Collins clocked in as the most unpopular senator, period.


Sen. Susan Collins at the Capitol on Sept. 26, 2018, the week Christine Blasey Ford testified against Brett Kavanaugh. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Her bid for reelection, a foregone conclusion in previous years, is now a tight race. Since getting the nomination, Gideon has beaten Collins in every major poll, with independents and undecideds both leaning her way. Collins still has a chance to win—she’s the incumbent, and Gideon’s lead is not that large—but she’s going to have to fight for it. And the stakes are high: Collins’ seat is a linchpin of the Democratic Party’s plan to retake the Senate. Democrats need to win four Senate seats to gain a majority—three if Joe Biden wins the presidency—and Collins holds one of the seven Republican seats that look flippable. Only Sen. Martha McSally of Arizona is rated more vulnerable, according to the Cook Political Report.

That vulnerability points to something else happening in Maine, something that polling data can’t quite capture. In the years since Collins’ last reelection, Donald Trump’s presidency and the new left-leaning activist infrastructure that has sprung up in response to it have changed the state’s political landscape. Many Maine independents and Democrats told me they felt they’d been awakened from a period of political complacency—able to see clearly, for the first time, that Collins wasn’t the moderating force in the Senate she claimed to be. People like Leuthy, who had voted for Collins in the past, are now actively organizing against her.

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The rest of the article can be found here.

[homoe]

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[homoe]

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Did Collins actually think voters would forget when she could of made a difference in the Senate she folded like a house of cards?

[homoe]

Originally Posted by homoe

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Did Collins actually think voters would forget when she could of made a difference in the Senate she folded like a house of cards?

Kavanaugh's confirmation, Trump's Impeachment, oh the list goes on and on!

[homoe]

[homoe]

President Trump on Wednesday released his updated list of potential Supreme Court nominees and called on Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to follow suit.

“Should there be another vacancy on the Supreme Court during my presidency, my nominee will come from the names I have shared with the American public,” Trump said in announcing the list. “Joe Biden has refused to release his list, perhaps because he knows the names are so extremely far-left.”

The new list adds 20 new names including Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Josh Hawley of Missouri as well as Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron. Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who is considered a likely next pick to fill a potential vacancy, remains on the list, as do Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Judge Amul Thapar.

Cotton said in a statement that he is “honored” to be named on the list, adding, “the Supreme Court could use some more justices who understand the difference between applying the law and making the law.”

Cruz expressed his appreciation as well, saying he is “grateful for the president’s confidence in me and for his leadership in nominating principled constitutionalists to the federal bench.”

The revamped list garnered praise from pro-life advocates who hope that a conservative majority of justices could overturn the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide.

The new list is “filled with all-stars” and “reflects the president’s firm and proven commitment to only nominating Supreme Court justices who will respect the Constitution and the inalienable right to life,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List and national co-chair of the Trump’s campaign’s Pro-Life Voices for Trump, launched in January.

[homoe]

Four candidates running for U.S. Senate in Maine will appear on the debate stage together Friday for the first time in one of the most closely-watched races in the country. The running battle between Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic rival Sara Gideon, the speaker of the state House of Representatives, could determine control of the U.S. Senate. It has drawn national attention and a steady flood of out-of-state contributions — the campaigns and outside donors have so far poured more than $60 million into appealing to Maine's one million registered voters. The two will be joined onstage by Max Linn and Lisa Savage, independents who, while not polling in the double-digits, could play spoiler roles in the ranked-choice election.

"We're glad we can offer voters an up-close look as the candidates make their case under questioning," Cliff Schechtman, the executive editor of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, said. "It's so vital now for the public to have enough information to make an informed decision."

Gideon has for months held a slim but steady lead over Collins, who has struggled to square her moderate, bipartisan reputation with the vagaries of hardline Trumpism.

[nhplowboi]

Currently watching Trump supporters waiting for his rally to start in Minden, Nevada. Most are maskless and they are crammed in, one atop of another and have been for hours. Keep having those daily rallies Donald.....all your doing is killing your voters.

[homoe]

Originally Posted by nhplowboi

Currently watching Trump supporters waiting for his rally to start in Minden, Nevada. Most are maskless and they are crammed in, one atop of another and have been for hours. Keep having those daily rallies Donald.....all your doing is killing your voters.

...........

[Orema]

At least with Nixon, Woodward had to follow the money to expose the venality. With Donald Trump, he simply had to turn on a recorder. Trump is his own whistleblower.

—Maureen Dowd, New York Times.

[homoe]

[homoe]

[homoe]

Kamala Harris....

She did not step off of her private plane on her way to visiting the scene of a devastating California wildfire so much as she bounced. The vice presidential nominee did so in Timberland boots! IMHO she rocked those Timbs...

LOVE IT!

[homoe]

~~
Of course he says that. He's trying to suck up to American Voters!

[homoe]

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was left with egg on his face after a smear campaign against his Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison backfired in spectacular fashion.

Graham in the last week had been calling on Harrison, the former chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, to release his tax returns and suggested on Twitter that Harrison was hiding something.Harrison, who pundits believe poses a threat to Graham’s 17-year career in the Senate, released his returns on Tuesday.

And he informed Graham with a zinger of a post that called on his 2020 rival, who is one of President Donald Trump’s most ardent apologists, to turn his attention to the president and demand that Trump release his own tax records.

Trump refused to release his own tax returns during the 2016 campaign and broke a promise to do so after taking office. Since then, the president has waged a pitched legal battle to hide his returns from the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into possible financial fraud by Trump and his company.

Graham blasted Trump multiple times before his 2016 election and has said repeatedly that Trump should release his tax returns. “I think you should release your tax returns if you’re running for president in 2020,” Graham said in 2019. “I think everybody should. That’s just my view. It’d be good for the country.” Graham, who frequently golfs with Trump, hasn’t pushed the issue since. Critics on Twitter hammered Graham for hypocrisy and cheered Harrison’s response:

[nhplowboi]

Wow Donald! I'm thinking you've really lowered the Barr.

[homoe]

onald Trump’s latest reported insensitive comment about COVID-19 sparked anger on Twitter Thursday, with accusations the president again has shown his contempt for Americans.

In a video released by the Republican Voters Against Trump group, former White House official Olivia Troye claimed the president (a notorious germaphobe) once said "an upside of the coronavirus pandemic was that he’d no longer “have to shake hands with these disgusting people.”

“Those disgusting people are the same people that he claims to care about,” Troye said. “These are the same people still going to his rallies today who have complete faith in who he is.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donal...b6480e896c863d