DNC Night 2

Michelle Obama For VP

I think she is the logical choice. A VP, by definition, must be able to take the top job in a heartbeat. Nothing prepares you for the top job like spending eight years in the White House. She is well prepared.

Joe Biden became Joe Biden in South Carolina. The African American voters across the South put him back in the race and gave him the nomination.

President: Joe Biden
Vice President: Michelle Obama
Attorney General: Kamala Devi Harris
Secretary Of Urban Affairs: Pete Buttigieg
Secretary Of Labor: Andrew Yang
UN Ambassador: Tulsi Gabbard

Michelle Obama For VP https://t.co/pc5f6OPiGl @MichelleObama @JoeBiden @KamalaHarris @PeteButtigieg @AndrewYang @AOC #2020 #UnitedStates #presidentialelection #obama #MichelleObama

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) April 13, 2020

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Has Never Spoken to Joe Biden. Here’s What She Would Say. I want to respect his win, he won because of his coalition building, he won because of his service, he won for a lot of different reasons — but I don’t think he won because Americans don’t want “Medicare for all.” And in this moment, I wouldn’t be surprised if what we’re seeing with coronavirus didn’t further change people’s views in further support of a progressive agenda......... And I just don’t know if this message of “We’re going to go back to the way things were” is going to work for the people for who the way things were was really bad......... Beating Donald Trump is a matter of life or death for our communities. I think it’s a difference between making an argument for harm reduction, and making the argument for, there’s actually going to be progress made for us........ Because, for some people, this argument of returning to normalcy sounds like an argument of respectability politics and civility. And for other people, it sounds like, will my child be put in a cage? ....... I do not feel a choice in adhering to my principles and my integrity, and being accountable to the movement that brought me here. But also, I don’t want another term of Trump....... I don’t want this president throwing paper towels at my family again.

Ocasio-Cortez says Biden campaign has not reached out to her

GOP Civil War Round The Corner?

Now the party of Ronald Reagan is being led by a man with no discernible ideological leanings, save for an affinity with some of history’s ugliest. 

“The likelihood of the Republican Party surviving this, of there being another Republican president in the future, is small,” said one movement conservative who served in the Bush White House. “I don’t think the party survives.”

Far from the halls of the Hoover Institution and big Washington policy shops is a force they cannot control: the Trump campaign, a small collection of social-media gurus, Breitbart alumni, and Trump family members who have managed to capture the majority of Republican voters in the U.S., and who may use their new power to launch a media network, or take over as the new axis of the GOP, or both. And as the old establishment looks on in horror, the civil war in its ranks has already begun.

“I’ve never seen so many really smart people at a loss for what to do,” says the head of one prominent conservative think tank. “They’re pulling their hair out, to the extent they have any hair left.” 

“We’ve known the cause of death while the patient was still alive on the table.”

There is pretty universal agreement in conservative circles that the immediate cause of death was blunt force trauma with a loud, orange object.

there is wide disagreement as to whether this was a sudden, unpredictable trauma—a piano falling on you as you walk down the street—or the result of deep-seated, sclerotic disease. 

“The ugliness of those forces is real. The number of people who supported Trump is alarming. 

Some among them just think it’s time to start over. “If you can’t resurrect the Republican brand with less than half a billion dollars and spending four to eight years to get it done,” Glover, who is on the board of Roy’s new think tank, said, it might be time to think about starting something new. 

The party she envisions is one with “a Jeb Bush platform but with a 21st-century bolt on acknowledging climate change, gay marriage and campaign finance reform that’s First Amendment-compliant.”

Trump could only have happened to a party that was already paralyzed by an identity crisis—one that still has to be dealt with in addition to the secondary identity crisis wrought by Trump.

three disparate factions that find themselves squabbling under the Republican tent—the Trump fans, the stand-pat establishment, and the conservative Jesuits—

What the orange dragon chooses to do after the drubbing Republicans are sure he’s going to get might be the difference between the final nail in the GOP coffin, and a revival. And again, few really believe in the latter, not even the stalwarts. “I have a feeling no one’s going to learn a lot from this campaign because of the unique nature of Trump,” says the think tank head. “I’m one of the people who is feeling a lot of angst.” If he starts a media company, says Ayres, “It will be far harder to heal the wounds that he opened up, and far harder to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”

“It’s in Trump’s nature to continue to want to be relevant, to have people come to Trump Tower to lick his boots for years to come,”

As for the people who hope Trump will simply melt away on November 9 and remove the threat of collapse from the Republican Party? “I appreciate but do not share their optimism,” says Soltis Anderson. “I feel like we are in for a pretty long civil war.”

Michelle Obama For President 2024

I just read somewhere earlier that Republicans are scared Michelle Obama might run for the Senate and I was like, dang, how did they beat me to such a good idea!

That would be an excellent outcome. Hillary Clinton has not had a better surrogate this year. Michelle Obama is such a natural. Michelle took the gender issue by the horns. I think that partly explains Hillary's great confidence in the third debate.

And then I don't see why Michelle Obama can then not run for president in 2024.

People with last name Obama have been known to do that. Enter the Senate, then enter the White House.

I am on record from years ago right at this blog suggesting let's just declare Michelle queen and be done with this First Lady business. And since Bill Clinton can't be First Lady I think my idea has new relevance. It's still not too late. Where is an executive order when you need one?

After 44 men in there, what's two women? Besides black women find themselves at the intersection of both race and gender. It is a unique sociopolitical position to be in.

Send guys named Bill and Barack off to the golf courses. Let the women run the show.  

Michelle Obama's Pop Off

Read Michelle Obama's First Campaign Trail Speech for Hillary Clinton 

We also need someone who is steady and measured because when you’re making life-or-death, war-or-peace decisions, a president can’t just pop off.

Hillary Should Collect A 10 Point Bounce

Hillary Clinton Speech

Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton: such uplifting, wonderful speeches. Such a contrast to the Republican arsonists. I think Hillary will see a 10 point bounce from this convention. This election is going to be won in a landslide. And by now I am so glad the Bernie crowd is all sewed up, and she did it herself. That crowd needs to know, how much you get of all you want is in direct proportion to the size of the mandate. I should write that in the form of a mathematical equation. Give her the House!

The top speakers from Philly should now fan out to the 50 states in a coordinated fashion.

Did you get the news? Donald wants to punch people in the face! This dude can't come anywhere near the nuclear code. This is a simple one issue election now. People, be very afraid.

The Obamas And Austin

Rumor is the Obamas might move to Austin after they are done with the White House. If they announce anything to that effect, Texas goes blue in November, there is a strong chance, which would be tectonic.

Michelle Obama Could Do The Paid Speeches, No Sweat

There are some things that don't work in America, but paid speeches are not among them.

Barack Obama: Christ-Like
Vice President
Money: 100% Digital, 100% Global, 100% On The Blockchain, 100% In Circulation
South China Sea: Early Thoughts
Libya: Laboratory
The Obesity Epidemic
Kathmandu And Jerusalem
Science And Engineering
China And The Next Thousand Years
Mexico, Europe And Infrastructure
America: A One Party State?
Military Expertise
Xi Jinping: Movie Star
Ai Wei
Six Fall Guys
The Genius Of The US Constitution

Barack Obama: FDR, Lincoln And Washington
What Did I Do?
2016: The Year For Barack Obama's Revolution From The Top

Android Phones Should Machine Record All Talk

A New Thought On Agricultural Subsidies

Instead of the government paying farmers to not grow as much they could, why not just let them grow as much as they want, and instead use that subsidy money to buy from them, and give the food first to the poor, and then to whoever might want it? There should be an emphasis on fruits and vegetables.

I don't think food is expensive. But what if it were 10 times cheaper? Because 10 times as much is grown. Michelle Obama should make this happen while Barack Obama works on guns. If this can not become bipartisan, shame on you America.

Food stamps should not be a matter of shame. It should be a signal that you are eating healthy.

What Did I Do?

2016: The Year For Barack Obama's Revolution From The Top
Right To Privacy Is Important



What Did I Do?

As a Barack Obama volunteer in 2007 and 2008 (I would not know much about 2008), you basically did two things. You knocked on doors. And you made phone calls. The guy had dumbed it down for the rest of us. While I mull about on foreign policy, here, you knock on doors. And you make some phone calls. If you might feel so enthused, here, knock on some more doors, make some more phone calls. It was almost patronizing. He read somewhere, 40% of Americans can’t point out the Pacific on a map. And so he be like, here, make some phone calls, and knock on some doors. Some of his most impassioned speeches were like, “If you will just knock on some doors for me, if you will just make some phone calls for me ……..” And then he would taper off. People be like, you got the looks. I am making the phone calls.

The more creative and original among us naturally gravitated towards the phone call regimen. But no, even there they gave you a script. Here, read this out. That took out the possibility of originality. There was no room for how you feel about Obama, and how it all came out to be, and what your particular story is that might inspire the person on the other end. None of that.

Too bad Donald Trump picked up a fight with Jeff Bezos or, for as uninspiring as he is, he could be hiring Amzon turks this season. Here, make some phone calls for me. He fills up auditoriums with struggling actors. Amazon turks are just a few blocks down that road.

I did not give Obama credit for the stimulus. I am like, he is filling a ditch he did not dig. The credit goes to Bush. This is too Soviet. But by the time health care reform showed up. You know when you volunteer for someone who becomes president, when you see him on TV, things like that, you feel a certain connection. I mean, I did meet the guy before he became president. When he signs a major bill, you feel like maybe you had something to do with. But then he soon became really unreachable. Health care was (and is) in this country so complex an issue that when he did get it passed, I am like, what did I do? Health care was supposed to be this issue. They have god, gay and guns. We have health care. It was supposed to just stick around permanently as an issue that you emote about. It was not supposed to be solved. No one was expecting any kind of resolution. And he goes ahead and solves. And I am like, what did I do? I did knock on some doors, and made some phone calls, but what is this?

Cuba really knocked me out. You don’t expect the Rocky Mountains to move. I was left scratching my head. What did I do? I did knock on some doors, and made some phone calls, but what is this?

I mean, I did take credit for Iowa. Like, deeply, personally. I met Michelle Obama at a Harlem event in the summer of 2007. I said, “You give us Iowa, we will give you New York. We will make it quick and painless for Hillary.” And she delivered oh so handsomely. And I am like, Michelle, we are talking! Not New York, but we almost delivered Brooklyn. We had Anthony Weiner worried. Hillary, you need to make one trip to Brooklyn. And she did. Make one trip. To Brooklyn.

The R Word

Blackmon’s book describes what he calls the “Age of Neoslavery,” in which newly freed slaves found themselves entangled in a legal system built upon involuntary servitude — which included the selling of black men convicted of crimes like vagrancy and changing employers without receiving permission........ “The constitutional amendments that were supposed to free African-American slaves did something for about 10 years, then there was a North-South compact that granted the former the slave-owning states the right to do whatever they wanted,” he explained. “And what they did was criminalize black life, and that created a kind of slave force. It threw mostly black males into jail, where they became a perfect labor force, much better than slaves.” ...... “If you’re a slave owner, you have to pay for — you have to keep your ‘capital’ alive. But if the state does it for you, that’s terrific. No strikes, no disobedience, the perfect labor force. A lot of the American Industrial Revolution in the late 19th, early 20th Century was based on that. It pretty must lasted until World War II.” ....... by the 1970s and 1980s it’s going back to the criminalization of black life.” ....... “It’s called the drug war, and it’s a racist war. Ronald Reagan was an extreme racist — though he denied it — but the whole drug war is designed, from policing to eventual release from prison, to make it impossible for black men and, increasingly, women to be part of [American] society.”

Obama shared personal anecdotes about the racist double standard she had encountered as the wife of the nation’s first black president

A Most Wonderful President

Barack Obama and Michelle Obama (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I volunteered for Barack Obama in 2007 expecting him to be a wonderful president. He has been more wonderful than I expected him to be. What more can one ask for!

Mr. Obama Comes To Delhi

I Am Tired Of This First Lady Business

Just make Michelle Queen, and we would be done with it.

Make Michelle Queen! #election2012
— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) November 7, 2012

The Hug That Was Seen Around The World

Four More Years

The most retweeted tweet of all time.

Nice Shot

Americans Are Fat

Image via WikipediaThe obesity epidemic in America more than anything symbolizes what is wrong with this country, and how it has gotten itself off the tracks. Michelle Obama more than any other single person in this country has managed to hit the nail on the head, although her efforts need some major scaling.

The obesity epidemic in America and the debts and deficits as far as the eyes can see are both deeply correlated. A people that can not eat right are not capable of voting for elected officials who can make the right decisions for them in public matters like the budget.

Barack Is Going To Need Me All Over Again
Obama 2012 Is On
Michelle Obama Is Just Fabulous

The trimming of the national budget has to start with the voters' waistlines.

The number one reason the job market in America is so bleak is because the national budget is out of control. You erase the deficit and you will start creating jobs. And both parties have been focused on the tiny slivers of the budget. I mean, come on, if defunding Planned Parenthood might have balanced the budget even I might have supported the move.

You balance the budget by looking at the military budget. You take one hard look at the entitlement programs. And the Bush tax cuts are so very offensive. The Bush tax cuts are probably the number one reason why there are not plentiful jobs in America.

The US Military Budget Needs To Come Down To 100 Billion From 600
I Fixed The Budget, You Can Too

Related articles

• Food Processing and Obesity (education.com)
• A Culture of Schadenfreude: Delighting in the Deaths of Fat People (psychologytoday.com)
• Chuck Collins: Pawlenty's Reckless Tax Plan: 10 Years After the Bush Tax Cuts (huffingtonpost.com)
• The $2.5 Trillion Tragedy: What America Has Given Up For 10 Years Of Bush Tax Cuts (kaystreet.wordpress.com)
• Is Your Workplace the Cause of Obesity? (fooducate.com)
• Does policing snacks have any effect on children's weight? (news.nationalpost.com)
• Is Arizona's Fat Tax a Solution to Obesity? (singularityhub.com)
• On the Tenth Anniversary of G. W. Bush's Tax Cuts: Where Has All The Money Gone (talkingunion.wordpress.com)
• Praise the Lard (logarchism.com)
• America's Obesity Crisis:Are You Responsible for Your Own Weight? (time.com)

Obama 2012 Is On

New York City
Obama 08: NYC Video: 10 Hours

Today is the official launch of Obama 2012. I am in because I was never out.

Barack almost took Brooklyn in February 2008. The summer before I made a promise to Michelle in person: "You give us Iowa, we will give you New York, we will make it quick and painless for Hillary." I tried hard to deliver. Things got so bad Congressman Weiner urged Hillary to make an appearance in Brooklyn before the primary, and she did. Minus that I think we had it.



Third World Guy
How My Grandfather Became Mayor The First Time
The First Time I Heard The Obama Name
Barack The Glass Walls, Ceilings, Smash 'Em
Image via WikipediaMichelle Obama Is Just Fabulous
I Stand With Michelle: Iowa Must And Can Be Won
I Touched Obama: Babel, Barack
Maya Soetoro-Ng
June 4, 2008 Court Appearance: Prepared Statement: Final Draft
June 3 Immigration Court Date
The Madonna Of Global Politics
Hello Barack, I Was In Chicago
Independent For Bloomberg
Before Michelle And I Became Rich And Famous
Brooklyn And Santogold/Santigold

But first and foremost for me Obama 2012 is about 2011. I believe 2011 just might end up the biggest year in world history for democracy. But the arc does not bend on its own like Barack never tired of quoting MLK on the 2008 trail. We have to make it happen. And I want to play my part. Democracy has to sweep the Arab world, and Africa, and China and Russia.

Time For Nonviolent Protests In Libya
A Rwanda Was Prevented
Ultimately It Is About Iran, Because That Is Where It All Started
Syria's Turn
The Anatomy Of Revolutions For Democracy

Related articles

• Obama kicks off 2012 re-election bid (calgaryherald.com)
• Obama Begins Bid for 2012 Re-Election With Video and E-Mail (businessweek.com)
• Michele Bachmann Poised for Presidential Run (onebluestocking.wordpress.com)
• Obama Preparing Re-Election Paperwork for the 2012 Campaign (businessweek.com)
• IT'S OFFICIAL: Barack Obama Is Running For President (businessinsider.com)
• You: Changed Obama gears up for second term bid (france24.com)
• Michelle Obama to launch military support campaign (sfgate.com)
• Michelle Obama Brings Back Some Oldies But Goodies (PHOTOS) (huffingtonpost.com)

Barack Is Going To Need Me All Over Again

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeBarack is going to need me all over again during his re-election bid, and I am going to be there for him. Barack needed me in his run for the presidency. And he is going to need me all over again. I will be there for him in his hour of need.

I maintain the hunger of someone who was forced to skip the victory parties of June 2008 and November 2008, and felt Inauguration 2009 simply pass him by. I missed the celebrations. I stayed hungry.

I am going to bring that hunger to the table for Barack all over again.

I stopped being a Democrat. I became an Independent. I am an Independent for Barack. And I am going to be there for him.

The First Time I Heard The Obama Name
Obama Has To Announce In January
Jupiter And Obama
30 Points Down In The Polls
Michelle Obama Is Just Fabulous
Maya Soetoro-Ng
Barack, "He Walks Between Worlds"
I Touched Obama: Babel, Barack
Third World Guy

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