The Kamala Harris Good News Round-Up
LFG
Today is Day 6 of the Kamala Harris campaign for President. Here’s the latest round good news:
— There was never any doubt, but Barack and Michelle Obama have now endorsed Kamala Harris. The Obamas (and Pelosi) had really tried to hold back so that it didn’t look like a coronation, but the grassroots enthusiasm and the swift unity of the party made that impossible. Obama was starting to look like an outlier. He and Michelle are on board now, and I can’t wait to see him speak at the DNC.
— The White Women for Harris Zoom call last night had well over 160,000 people on the call, so many that it caused glitches, leading many women to watch on YouTube, where another 25,000 were in virtual attendance. The Zoom included the likes of Pink (who appeared after getting off stage in Sweden) and Connie Britton, who went full Tami Taylor: "We've got a fucking job to do, y'all." No word on the amount of money raised yet, but it will be a lot (early numbers already show more than $1 million). In only a matter of days, Harris has doubled the war chest left to her by the Biden campaign.
-Speaking of white women, Samantha Bee wrote a piece for the Daily Beast supporting Harris but also mocking the way that Republicans have tried to attack her.
J.D. Vance implying that women (miserable cat ladies) without biological children don't have a stake in... the future and therefore should not... hold public office? Do I have this right? I was trying to type this sentence without throwing up, but I was unable, so my cat had to fill in for me. I hope she did a good job!. This is just. I just. What vision this man has. What panache. Is there a way I can go back in time and un-read that awful book? Thank goodness I pilfered it from a Free Library.
— Joe Biden is a big defender of Israel, and while he expressed sympathy for the Palestinians in Gaza, it never broke through. Yesterday, Harris met with Netanyahu, but in a statement afterward, while insisting that America will continue to defend Israel, Harris also made the plight of Palestinians central to her comments while insisting that the way that Israel defends itself is important.
“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies … I will not be silent.”
— Senator Mark Kelly — who is a potential VP pick — has also weighed in on JD Vance’s idiotic comments suggesting that cat ladies and childless women should not have a stake in Presidential elections.
— Donald Trump is balking on the September 10th debate, claiming that they won’t schedule a debate until they know that Harris is the nominee (she is as much the presumptive nominee as Biden now, and Trump had no problem scheduling a debate with him). Trump is scared to debate Harris.
Honestly, I’m not sure it benefits Harris, either. You can’t beat Trump in a debate because he doesn’t engage in debates. He unloads a firehose of lies, and while Harris could counter those lies far more effectively than Biden, ultimately nobody looks good debating Trump, including Trump. If she needs the boost, she should debate, but if the race is tied or if she’s ahead, I don’t think it is helpful.
— People get mad when I mention polls because polls are meaningless, and it is true so far as what it means for the outcome of the election. But big shifts in polls are meaningful, and in the NYTimes/Sienna poll, the race has moved from Biden down 6 points after the debate to Harris down only 1 point (or virtually tied) after only a few days into her campaign. She’s actually winning by one if Kennedy is included. Emerson had swing state polls out, too, where Harris is up by on in Wisconsin, tied in Michigan, and down by 2 in Pennsylvania. Georgia — once out of reach — is back in play, too, where she’s only down by 2. Again, we’re only six days into the campaign.
— There is so much more on JD Vance coming out that it could easily warrant its own post — he opposes IVF, he literally said that people without kids should be taxed at a higher rate, and has called for a federal response to prevent women from red states to traveling to another state to get an abortion — but I still want to keep things positive, so I’ll just end with this delightful TikTok.
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"Yesterday, Harris met with Netanyahu, but in a statement afterward, while insisting that America will continue to defend Israel, Harris also made the plight of Palestinians central to her comments while insisting that the way that Israel defends itself is important."
She also told him to get a ceasefire done like yesterday. It is VERY apparent they're going to have her much more up front on political issues through the rest of the term and to that I say: good. Kamala was never going to go full "pro-Hamas," but this is pretty much as forceful a statement as we've heard yet. I fully expect her to turn the screws even harder when she's elected. This is great news.
JD Vance is advocating for Quiverfull policies. He's talked about parents getting additional votes for their children, for child tax credits to only apply to married families, for additional monies (100%+) to married families for assistance (straight married families of course-don't be absurd) and he actively advocates that couples should not divorce even when a spouse is violent or abusive. This is who MAGA is. This is who they have always been. Make America Great Again intends to take everybody back to a TV sitcom 50s era. Or even a TV sitcom 80s era.
I don't give a damn about the couch story, and it's bad policy to play the right's bad faith argument game. Beat them up on their actual stances which are horrific enough.