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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 5h

????

I would have said many (too many, even pundits) are disgusted by Dem leadership, a gerontocracy writ large across the many Dem political stumbles since 2016, no?

Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 9h

There's a moral here somewhere.......

Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

Abso-fucking-lutely!

Let him cook!!

Kenny Akers @keneakers.bsky.social · 2d

Let him cook………….. 🔥

Reposted by Unreconstructed Curmudgeon

Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 2d

Normally it would take two thirds of legislators to do a special session in Virginia. But Youngkin called for a special session eighteen months ago to finish the budget, which they did, and then Democrats just refused to ever officially adjourn it. That's why they can meet now to move redistricting.

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

4) states, developed a friendly battlefield for money to exert sovereign power.

...and here we are.

Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

3) states/Confederacy, and that's true as far as it goes. Lying in the weeds, though, is the increased power such a strategy offers to the billionaire class.

IOW, the same constitutional framework that grated small states enhanced powers against larger, more urbanized

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

2) the wagons around Dem strongholds would protect the future.

So, the GOP turned every heartland and Southern state, given Constitutional protections for states, into a laboratory for gaining governmental dominance. One might see it as the revenge of the small

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

1) I subscribe to this. Framing it differently, how has Dem Strategy since the great Schumer/Dean face-off for the DNC created a window for a GOP takeover of government?

Howard Dean argued for a 50 state strategy. Schumer, looking at beleaguered Dem prospects, though circling

Samuel Moyn @samuelmoyn.bsky.social · 2d

Democrats reckon with how they are implicated - wow newrepublic.com/article/2023...

Why Is Trump Autocracy Rising? These Dems Have an Unnerving Answer.

A new Biden administration autopsy, based on internal assessments from many government insiders, has crystal clear lessons for the future.

newrepublic.com

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

4) of establishment Dems to recognize they're the fabled Mr. Jones

"Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?"

Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

3) Jews, Muslims, and Christians, greater than any other US city. Given the catastrophe of the Israeli/Gaza war, things are at a fever pitch here.

...and yet, the smears don't seem to be working, so maybe it's not so much weaponizing as the now traditional failure

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

2) them in key precincts. The more Dems key into this, the more it reinforces the GOP strategy.

Locally, though, things change in a hurry. In the NYC case (which I'm assuming you're referring to), you've a city, as one person pointed, with local populations individually of

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

1) Not sure this works as you're suggesting. Identity issues nationally are a club for the GOP, which uses them as a neat wedge issue to motivate their base to the polls, not to mention reducing everything to a binary choice that especially benefits

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Reposted by Unreconstructed Curmudgeon

Adam Klasfeld @klasfeldreports.com · 2d

A federal judge issues a GAG ORDER barring Trump's DOJ and Department of Homeland Security from violating Kilmar Abrego Garcia's right to a fair trial, citing a record of "troubling" statements that are "exaggerated if not simply inaccurate."

Doc storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

As discussed above, government employees have made extrajudicial statements that are troubling, especially where many of them are exaggerated if not simply inaccurate. (Doc. Nos. 118 at 2–8; 124). These statements made allegations regarding Abrego’s “character or reputation” and expressed government officials’ views on Abrego’s “guilt or innocence.” For example, the DHS Secretary stated that Abrego is a “MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator.

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

2) about striving to recapture the soul of the country, and do it genuinely, not as a species of latter-day kitsch, then we're lost regardless.

Have to be honest about what's been lost, and genuine about what needs to be done, and hopeful because it's possible.

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

1) How is that different from Kamala Harris' campaign?

This can't be a policy-driven campaign. Makes no sense. There's no government left to implement standard policies. If Democrats can't mount a campaign about being an American,

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

Jean-Pierre seems so riven by rage, she can't think straight. Read the interview. Usually, one can see Chotiner tenderly manipulating his target onto the killing field, but here he simply asks softball, even anodyne questions and Jean-Pierre drowns herself right before one's startled eyes.

Isaac Chotiner @ichotiner.bsky.social · 2d

New Interview: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

It's a logisitics problem. There are only so many modes of transport available, so warehousing is a necessity as long as the arrests rates remain high.

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

4)

Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

4) Never dawned on us how serious such illnesses could be.

That, however, doesn't mean we should go back to those days. Vaccines work. Beyond stupid to attack the use of medicines long since proved effective, that provide individual and herd immunity safely without exposure to the disease.

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

3) from siblings. He's saying it the way it was.

Way back when I taught 1st & 2nd grade for a couple of years (this is the 1960's), I was shocked when one of my students caught mumps and lost his hearing in one ear. We all treated childhood diseases as exotic bad colds.

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

2) disease to which any of us attached any dread was polio, and the Salk vaccine changed that.

Parents expected their kids to contract these illnesses, and the kids, of course, did, because it was passed on at school, and then siblings caught whatever/whichever

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 2d

1) He's accurate for those years when I was a child when Chicken pox, measles, and mumps were common childhood diseases (circa 1949-1954).

I'm sure there were children who suffered, even died, but that was hardly known (or, at least, never discussed). The only

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 3d

5) poles as they wish as long as they respect the rock-solid boundaries of citizenship

If that makes me a "centrist," so be it.

Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 3d

4) defense of due process and a fair judicial system. Lastly, equally important, economic freedom confined by sensible and robust regulation to prevent malign exploitation.

That's civics, not a culture war, and not centrism, ether. Within that framing people can migrate as far to the policy

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Unreconstructed Curmudgeon @ems1944.bsky.social · 3d

3) about: a broad and accessible voting franchise, robustly defended., best possible public education system, a politics respecting The Commons, a military and policing function commanded by and serving civilians, separation of church and state, and a vigorous

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