We will never cease our critique of those persons who distort the past, rewrite it, falsify it, who exaggerate the importance of one event and fail to mention some other; such a critique is proper (it cannot fail to be), but it doesn't count for much unless a more basic critique precedes it: a critique of human memory as such. For after all, what can memory actually do, the poor thing? it is only capable of retaining a paltry little scrap of the past, and no one knows why just this scrap and not some other one, since in each of us the choice occurs mysteriously, outside our will or our interests. We won't understand a thing about human life if we persist in avoiding the most obvious fact: that a reality no longer is what it was when it was; it cannot be reconstructed. —Ignorance, Milan Kundera
1.
I think I blew out my brain cells in the last three posts stretching back to last Friday. Again, many are calling for Joe Biden to step down, and these are people who are much closer to the source than this nobody in Tucson will ever be.
Michael Moore penned a piece yesterday that has stuck with me overnight. He posits that This is not about whether he’s fit to serve another four years — this is about whether he should serve another four days in the toughest job in the world. That’s the question we should be asking. If he offered to drive you from Flint to Detroit tonight, would you get in the car?
Read the entire piece. I’m sorry, my friends, but if I have to be the only one to stand for Joe Biden, to protect him from the cruelest form of elder abuse I’ve ever been forced to watch, well then that’s what I’ll do. He was in epic distress that Thursday night. Every cognitive default in his mind was shutting down. If this had been someone you truly cared about, loved, embraced — what would you have done? Would you have seriously even let him go out on that stage? Who would send an 81-year-old out onto any stage to debate a living monster at 9 o’clock at night for a brawl that would not end until 10:42 PM?
This is not an unusual moment we are in this week. It happens. There’s precedent. And if President Biden is unable to perform his duties, there is a tried and true solution. He resigns due to the obvious medical issues that were on full display the night of June 27th. His vice president, Kamala Harris, is sworn in as President. By federal campaign rules, she, and only she, inherits all the campaign funds in the Biden-Harris war chest. Biden will urge all his Biden-Harris convention delegates to support her. She will now be the Incumbent President who will run on the incredible accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration. There will be no real convention fight, and nearly every American who had planned to vote for Biden will vote for Harris (as recent polling has revealed).
And Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo wrote this morning In one of the DC newsletters this morning Mike Allen largely streamed the Trump campaigns inner monologue about the “brutal attack” they plan to unleash on Kamala Harris if and when she becomes the nominee. Trump’s campaign has spent three years thinking it was running against Joe Biden. Well – if this set of events transpires – he’s not. He’s running against someone young and vital. His entire plan of battle goes out the window. It’s hard to overestimate how important that is. But that’s not the case for Democrats. They’re still running against a deeply unpopular candidate, who outlawed Roe v Wade, who staged a coup against the state, who’s a convicted felon, who most Americans don’t want to see as President again. The whole two very old very unpopular candidate model, well, that’s out the window. Harris at the top of the ticket pushes abortion even higher into salience. Republicans will try to shift things back to questions about Joe Biden.
Again, I’ll vote for an old refrigerator before casting a vote for ANY Republican. I can’t help but be amazed at the crossroads we in this country are now witnessing, and that half the people here would put their faith in an orange con-man with bad hair who would f**k your mother without a second thought. Mind-blowing.
2.
And in the spirit of voting, Robert Hubbell penned a piece this morning about the importance of voting in the down-ballot races, i.e., those races that appear near the bottom of the ballot. The races are the “bottom” of the ballot frequently have the most immediate impact on the liberty, safety, and health of voters. State legislatures have taken over the primary role of deciding reproductive liberty; after the Loper Bright decision (no more deference to federal agency rulemaking), states may emerge as the primary market regulators. Local sheriffs set policing policy. City councils decide on issues like enforcement of rules regarding homelessness. School boards decide what your children can—and cannot be—taught.
It turns out that some voters are reluctant to vote in races where they do not have perfect information about the candidates. But the voters who exhibit that reluctance tend to be Democratic and progressive voters. Republican voters exhibit no hesitancy in voting the party ticket, top to bottom of the ballot.
I’ll have much more to say about this as we get closer to the July 30 Primary Election here in Arizona. If you are not voting by mail, July 19 is the deadline for accepting requests for a ballot-by-mail. Another important reason to JUST VOTE BLUE in the entire ballot.
3.
MAGA cultists are not letting up as three of the Arizona Republicans indicted as “fake electors” for their roles in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election will serve as delegates at the Republican National Convention in July. Sen. Anthony Kern, R-Glendale, State Sen. Jake Hoffman of Queen Creek, and Nancy Cottle, who chaired the slate of electors for Trump in 2020, will be in Milwaukee next month with 40 other Arizona delegates to cast votes for the GOP’s 2024 nominee.
Fuckleroy, after calling Milwaukee a horrible city, later said to a crowd in Racine, Wisconsin, “I love Milwaukee. I was the one that picked Milwaukee. These lying people that they say: ‘Oh, he doesn’t like Milwaukee.’ I love Milwaukee. I said, you gotta fix the crime. But I’m the one that picked Milwaukee, and the Democrats, or the radical-left lunatics, as I call them, what they say is just so terrible. They lie, lie, lie.” Not a liar, that man…a truth-teller, he is.
Some folks are still thinking there are ‘good’ Republicans as opposed to ‘MAGA’ Republicans. Since they all vote in lockstep the ‘MAGA’ modifier is not really necessary but I’ll keep using it for emphasis. Heh.
4.
We are still enjoying our juvenile Cooper’s hawks as they gather around our water stations outside our kitchen window. Enjoy these beauties…
And now…
Thank you! I read Michael Moore's July 4 piece this morning. Excellent. I liked that he addressed the campaign cash. People -- including the media -- are coming up with all kinds of presidential tickets. That talk should have happened year ago. Primary challengers should have been encouraged against both of them. Trump didn't debate his challengers. The campaign donations went to the Biden Harris team. If he steps down before the convention, she becomes president and gets the campaign funds. Biden doesn't have the authority to give the donations to a random governor. The PAC money and the dirty Super PAC money can be spent however the PAC wants to spend it. And, yes, the right will throw all of the racism and sexism they can muster against Harris. She was a prosecuter. She's no shrinking violet. She's the reason I backed him initially!