Stuff I'm Thankful For--

Well, of course, pubs.

Ken Cuccinelli walked into a bar. And Martin O’Malley lit into him. https://t.co/zIqlBYZUVE

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 28, 2019

If it were up to me, no person representing the Trump Administration would ever know a drink in peace unless they were quietly drinking themselves senseless in their own homes. I've been opposed to any enlarging of the pool of Democratic 2020 hopefuls, but I might make an exception for O'Malley, whom I did have high hopes for the last time.

(But that might just be a me thing. Look, Vixen's heart wants what it wants. I'm just saying. I mean, am I resisting this?)

But in the main, I'm thankful for rudeness and dissent. I'm thankful for the freedom to disagree and even be disagreeable. I'm thankful that, unlike many people around the holidays, I ate a table today where, while there was dissent from the current political climate, we had agreement with one another. I'm thankful for my health and peace of mind, and for my unease and disturbance of conscience. I am thankful for love and acceptance, and I want everyone to have that feeling of belonging. I'm thankful for the world and the environment I love, and I want to preserve it. I'm thankful for my blog as a virtual spleen-vent which has served as my place of thrashing out my thoughts while sharing them with others. My family joked with me about getting a knock from the Secret Service one day.

Yeah, no. I'm thankful we aren't that country, yet, for folks like me. And that's my Thanksgiving wish, for me, and for the pilgrims who need sticking up for, and their dissent and their journey and their desire to seek a new land and breathe free, that we greet them and welcome them to our table. That they too, can unite with their families in fellowship and love. And we all kick child-separating fascists out of our government. The end.

Say what, now?

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick tells Laura Ingraham that Beto O'Rourke is "so light in the loafers he floats off the ground at times." pic.twitter.com/rAw4XUM2EF

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) April 30, 2019

The funny old thing about backwards-facing bigot Dan Patrick using a really old-fashioned practically mid 20th century slur to describe Beto O'Rourke as not his own definition of studly macho manhood (even if all the reports seem to come back that one Robert O'Rourke is a cis straight male in good standing--and so what if he weren't?) is that an actual gay man, Pete Buttigieg, is the apparent subject of an actually weirdly inept rodent screwing regarding Jacob Wohl, who is very young and stupid, and Jack Burkman.

NEW: Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman have been trying to recruit young men to falsely claim they were sexually assaulted by Pete Buttigieg.

One recorded their convo and gave us the audio.

Another says allegations published today in his name are bullshit https://t.co/9RDYOe5aAw

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) April 29, 2019

(Wow, the rodent intercoursing. It's a lot.)

Anyhow, implying someone is "light in the loafers" is kind of a smear to conservatives of a certain stripe, and how they feel about it is apparent in how they treat actual gay people.

Martin O'Malley Makes a Great Case Against Rigging, for Clinton

He countered the argument the FOX Mushroom Farm folks had about whether Trumpism should be seen as fascist by asking them "What would they call it?", and of course Tucker Carlson and them had no damn clue.

Getting in Formation

This was a good day for Hillary Clinton--she picked up some major endorsements from President Obama, from Vice-President Joe Biden,  from Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has been on fire regarding calling out Donald Trump, lately, from former MD Gov. Martin O'Malley, from Sierra Club,  and even one Republican Senator thinks she might think about voting Hillary Clinton (not an unheard-of sentiment among Republicans even at this early date). 

We heard it for Hillary Clinton, as one of the most qualified people to ever run for the office, and we heard some pretty great statements against Donald Trump. But especially from Senator Warren. I really hadn't thought a Clinton/Warren ticket could ever happen because Warren is so great in the Senate, but I feel like I could really warm up to the idea, because her strikes at Trump are exactly what you want in a running mate.

I think there might even be a plan for how her seat could be saved for the Democrats so this could happen. If so--yes. I would like this very much. Very much indeed.

The Difference a Caucus Makes

You know, the best thing that happened in Iowa was Ted Cruz winning the caucus. First of all, that made Donald Trump a loser, because no one remembers second place (except we will, for the moment, just fondly look on Trump as "Number Two"). But besides that, it's a good story: a lot of people mention that Cruz's campaign simply had a better ground game--true. Donald Trump claimed that he never even heard of a "ground game". (So much to learn! Also about internal polling versus media polling. Also about knowing which things to blow off, which to take seriously.)

But the interesting thing is that part of Cruz's last-minute poll-defying support came at the expense of Ben Carson. Cruz campaign workers spread a message that Carson was likely to drop out, possibly spurring some Carson supporters to throw in with Cruz to avoid throwing their efforts away on a candidate who wasn't in it for the long haul. What's fascinating to me about this is that there was something a little odd about the claim the Carson was going to Florida to get "fresh clothes". (Is one to believe there is no dry cleaning to be had in Iowa?) And that campaign is, well, same as it ever was. But still, that sort of thing is just further evidence (some might suppose) of Ted Cruz's bottomless skullduggery.

The second best thing is that the results finally persuaded Huckabee, Santorum, and Rand Paul to just stop. Huckabee, instead of doing anything to raise his profile during the course of the campaign, really hit some distasteful notes, and Rand Paul certainly has reasons to concentrate on his Senate re-election campaign. Former PA senator Santorum, is typical bumbling fashion, not only dropped out but threw his endorsement to third place finisher Marco Rubio--for reasons he struggled to explain. (Let me help the gentleman from PA--he can't support the libertine Trump, and no one likes Cruz. But the truth of the matter is, the pretend-moderate character Rubio is just as huge a smarmy social conservative as Santorum. Twinsies!)

The third best thing is Rubio may well be getting a bump from a strong third-place showing in Iowa, and while I don't love Rubio, man, he sure does irritate me less than Cruz and Trump!

On the Democratic side, we bid farewell to Martin O'Malley, who for some reason just never took off. There doesn't even seem to be one specific thing about him that was objectionable. He just didn't take off. The finish between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders was as good as a tie in my opinion. Meh. Social media is showing me that there are some people with deep "battle for the soul of the Democratic Party" feelings about the two-person contest. I'm not one of those people. I'm sort of a knee-jerk pragmatist: I'll take better over worse.

O'Malley Makes a Point about Climate Change and Foreign Policy

Connecting the dots between a changing environment and radicalism is something my blog has been about for years, so I was actually pleased to hear one of our Democratic candidates address it directly, in citing a study that connects ISIS to climate change.

In an interview with Bloomberg on Monday, O'Malley discussed the national security implications of climate change. "One of the things that preceded the failure of the nation state of Syria and the rise of ISIS, was the effect of climate change and the mega-drought that affected that nation, wiped out farmers, drove people to cities, created a humanitarian crisis that created the symptoms -- or rather, the conditions -- of extreme poverty that has now led to the rise of ISIS and this extreme violence," he said.

 

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called O'Malley's comments "absurd."

Not absurd at all, actually.  The Arab Spring itself stems from food scarcity and higher prices because of climate change. The stressors of agriculture workers seeking jobs that have been lost to climate change is simply a real thing. The Pentagon knows well and good that climate change is a real thing.  A failure to understand how these things are linked is kind of disqualifying for GOP candidates, who for the most part are not conversant with or are actually hostile to knowing something about the science involved.

I think we need a person in the White House who understands the serious challenges that sea level rises, increased severity of storms, droughts and fires, (like we are seeing in California), and possible famine and epidemics related to climate change will impose. We need someone who will be a realist and engage those things. We do not need ostriches--we need lions. The GOP is weak on climate change. And because they can't deal in facts, they are useless on foreign policy also.

(I'm sorry--not all my pictures having to do with Martin O' Malley are probably going to be objectifying him as a muscular Irish tenor with some reasonable guitar skills. But, well, there we are.)