Wednesday Stuff

David Doel takes a fairly deep dive into what happened about eight days ago... interesting that every governing party in the world lost vote share when running for election this year, which is the first time this has ever happened apparently...great point about Biden being hurt by programs ending that he initiated, which he really didn’t have much control over (thank Manchinema among others for refusing to kill the filibuster and allowing the plans on this list to expire; I’m sure that will help those two cash in now for cushy gigs at some wingnut foundation or some such group of rich miscreants)...the two issues that did in Harris according to this were immigration and the economy – I know I’ve already gone off on the Dems and messaging, but I can count on one hand and have fingers left over the times that Harris/Walz mentioned that Trump killed the Lankford bill in the Senate, which would have addressed a lot of the immigration issues; the economy would have required more imagination I know, and even that might not have worked, but the effort definitely could have been better of course...and I don’t care what anybody says; Putin told Jill Stein to stick her face in Rashida Tlaib’s district in order to get the Muslim vote over Israel/Gaza and take it from Harris; yes, I saw some lefties online screaming about allegedly dumb voters in Tlaib’s district, but what the hell do you expect from them when their population is getting slaughtered in Gaza and the Dem prez ticket offers essentially nothing? At least the progressive measures that passed in Missouri and Alaska are encouraging; let’s see how long it takes for the Repugs to roll them back...and yeah, it’s unbelievable that the Harris people brought on Tony West, with all of the likely negative consequences – I think Doel is spot-on there – but that is indeed what happened...I think Doel is a little too hard on Biden here about the programs ending as already noted, but if he wants to argue that Biden could have fought harder for them, then maybe I’ll go along with that...



...and Farron Cousins tells us about would-be Trump staffers fighting, and he’s only been president-elect for a week...yeah, I know the Dems and the Harris campaign lost the narrative (and they might have lost on the economy even if they’d bothered to get the messaging right), but heckuva job, all you Trump voters, for inflicting this on us...



...and Emma Vigeland of The Majority Report brings us a clip from a French leftist that offers a bit of encouragement, telling us “you will make it”...I hope to God she’s right...



...and RIP jazz alto sax legend Lou Donaldson.