Primarily Speaking

Welcome to another edition of Primarily Speaking, because presidential primaries now begin fully one million years before the election!

Sometimes I like to start the morning by ensuring that my Twitter mentions will be a shitshow for just the ENTIRE day:

Dear @SenSanders:

Where are your tax returns?

Sincerely,
Liss

P.S. Since I presume you want to be at least as transparent as, per your description, unqualified establishment candidate @HillaryClinton, I will helpfully remind you that she disclosed 39 years of tax returns.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 2, 2019

But seriously. Where the fuck are Bernie Sanders' taxes? Senator Amy Klobuchar released a dozen years worth of tax returns yesterday. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has released her tax returns going back to 2007. Etc. What gives, Bernie?

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Senator Kamala Harris announced yesterday that she raised $12 million in the first quarter, with 98 percent of her donations being $100 or less and $6 million raised via digital donations.

And yet!

Senator @KamalaHarris raised $12 million. https://t.co/kgavHD9y64

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 2, 2019

Yes, that is an actual headline that actually says Pete Buttigieg "becomes first winner in fundraising primary," despite the fact that he raised $5 million less than Harris. That is some kind of amazing math!

Luckily, infamous misogynist shitwheel Chris Cillizza is here to help us understand: "The $12 million for Harris makes Buttigieg's $7 million look that much better."

Ohhhhhhhh I get it! It's like how when Hillary Clinton won the Iowa primary but it felt like a loss. Cool cool cool.

*that face*

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Speaking of rank fucking misogyny, I'm sure you'll be positively SHOCKED to hear that, even though voters say in surveys that they want a hypothetical candidate whose qualifications Senator Elizabeth Warren meets almost perfectly, she is still trailing behind a bunch of white men who don't meet those qualifications as well. Huh!

I wonder why that could be. Oh well, just another mystery lost to the sands of time, I guess!

Old enough to remember when it wasn't about women running per se, it was just about that one woman and her likeability. How's that theory holding up? pic.twitter.com/rHJfeaScAJ

— Tom Watson (@tomwatson) April 2, 2019

Julián Castro has published a new piece at Medium outlining his immigration proposal, titled "Putting People First." It is such a stark juxtaposition to the vile nativist agenda of Donald Trump which I document in profound grief every day that I burst into tears reading something that centers abundant compassion instead of abject cruelty.

The president's failure in this defining moment was complete: It was a failure of leadership, a failure of policy, and a failure of conscience. But those all stemmed from an original and foundational failure: a failure to understand that despite the rhetoric, when we see families seeking refuge, we don't see criminals, or an invasion, or a threat to national security.

We see kids. We see parents. We see people.

We see people first. Because we are people first. And it's time for an immigration policy that puts people first.

This moment demands that of us. And in order to meet the challenge, we must not only expand our political will, but also our moral imagination. We must remember what immigration means to our national identity, and who we want to be as a country.

The next President must start by reversing the cruel policies of the Trump administration — including the Muslim ban, wasteful spending on a pointless wall, and cuts to the refugee program — and ending the vile rhetoric that has scapegoated and vilified immigrants.

Emphasis original. I implore you to read the entire thing.

[CN: Sexual harassment] As additional woman come forward with reports of uncomfortable interactions with Joe Biden, the pushback on social media against them, and any of us who believe and support them, is strong. One of the arguments I continue to see over and over is that Biden "didn't realize" that he was making women uncomfortable. The fuck he didn't.

I'm just entirely done with being asked to indulge the revolting pretense that men who inappropriately touch women don't know that what they're doing is wrong and/or that it isn't sexual. Do they do it to other men? No? There's your fucking answer. The end.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 2, 2019

Naturally, in response to that tweet, dozens of people have felt obliged to tell me that Biden is "affectionate with men, too." They even tweet photos at me as PROOF! Except, Biden isn't sniffing the hair of, or kissing the backs of the heads of, or rubbing noses with any of the men in those images. If anything, they are proof of my point. He may be a space-violator of all people, but he violates women's space in a very particular way.

And, as I noted previously, it's just aggressively gullible to imagine that "someone who has endlessly bragged about helping pass the Violence Against Women Act and oversaw (badly) Anita Hill's testimony doesn't already know what he's doing is wrong."

Meanwhile, with Biden's candidacy in peril, now former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is considering entering the race, because MAUDE FORBID we not have one more old white dude in this contest for fuck's sake.

John Hickenlooper is still definitely running for president.

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.