Primarily Speaking

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, June 05, 2019
image of a cartoon version of me looking tired and holding a pillow next to text reading 'I need a nap,' while standing in front of a patriotic stars-and-stripes graphic, to which I've added text reading: 'The Democratic Primary 2020: Let's do this thing.'

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

Let us begin today with yet another thing for which Democratic candidates have better have a plan, since it's almost certainly going to happen again, and even more so, during the 2020 election: "Russia's infamous troll farm conducted a campaign on Twitter before the 2016 elections that was larger, more coordinated, and more effective than previously known, research from cybersecurity firm Symantec out Wednesday concluded. The Internet Research Agency campaign may not only have had more sway — reaching large numbers of real users — than previously thought, it also demonstrated ample patience and might have generated income for some of the phony accounts, Symantec found."

Since Russia has faced zero accountability for having interfered in our last presidential election, they will do so (and have already begun) again. And I'm sure they will not be the only foreign interlopers, since the Trump Regime has telegraphed they have no interest in meting out consequences for foreign meddlers who undermine the integrity of U.S. elections to their benefit.

On another subject to which candidates might want to pay attention: "A new Morning Consult poll found that 14% of Democratic voters listed women's issues as their top priority, compared to just 6% that did so around the start of May. 'Although most voters still rank the economy and health care as their top priorities, that uptick marks a major increase in focus on women's issues, a policy area that encompasses reproductive rights, pay equity, workplace discrimination, and maternal mortality.'" In other words, "the economy and health care" are women's issues.

[Content Note: Joking about sexual misconduct] Someone who might want to pay attention to the fact that voters aren't fucking around when it comes to women's issues is Joe Biden, who continues to make jokes about his history of nonconsensually touching women and children.


The thing about Biden, as I have pointed out many times before, is that he doesn't learn. He won't learn. He refuses to. Because he doesn't think he's done anything wrong.

That's true whether we're talking about inappropriate touching, or whether we're talking about plagiarism.

Biden, who was caught plagiarizing in law school and again during his 1988 presidential campaign, has done it again: "Biden released on Tuesday a comprehensive proposal to combat global climate change, adding to the mix of candidates who have made rolling back dangerous emissions a central tenet of their campaigns. But multiple sentences in Biden's proposal appear to lift passages from letters and websites for different organizations."


In other news, he still supports the fucking Hyde Amendment OMGGGGGGG:


This fucking guy. Honestly.

* * *

Someone who is thinking ahead to the challenges of 2020 is Beto O'Rourke, who joins the female senators running — all of whom have repeatedly talked about election integrity and voter suppression efforts — and has released a comprehensive voting rights plan. He tweeted the broad strokes: "This is about having every voice heard. To achieve that, we'll: ✅Stop gerrymandering ✅Ban PAC contributions ✅Expand the Voting Rights Act ✅Make Election Day a federal holiday ✅Enact same day & automatic registration ✅Prevent members of congress from ever becoming lobbyists." Good stuff.

Julián Castro tells it like it is:

CNN's Don Lemon: What will tariffs actually accomplish?

Castro: Well, first of all, this is a stupid idea. This is grade-A dumb, in terms of ideas. It's not connected to trying to get Mexico to do anything. I think we can do this in a better way. It's already estimated that this 5% tariff, to begin with, that he wants to impose on Mexico would cost 400,000 jobs nationwide, and 100,000 of those would be in my home state of Texas. And so, this is the worst possible way to try and go about partnering with Mexico to get them to do anything. In fact, it's just gonna hurt the United States.
Malice is the agenda.

Senator Kamala Harris is tweeting about her plan to support public defenders: "This is not what a fair criminal justice system looks like in America. Public defenders should not be forced to take on second or third jobs. My EQUAL Defense Act would boost pay and resources for public defenders."

Senator Amy Klobuchar is tweeting about Trump's disastrous Cuba policy: "The Administration's latest travel restrictions for Cuba are yet another setback. I lead the bipartisan bill to lift the embargo. Isolating Cuba for more than 5 decades has not secured our interests. We need to move our relationship forward, not backward."

[CN: Gun violence] Senator Cory Booker is mad as hell about gun violence and he's not gonna take it anymore:

The corporate gun lobby has too much of a handle on politicians who are trying to block common sense. There was a time in America where, when people died, we changed laws. When four girls died in a bombing in a church in Birmingham, we changed laws. When women were throwing themselves out windows at the Shirtwaist Factory fire, we changed workers' laws and conditions. But yet now we're showing a level of political impotency that's outrageous! People are slaughtered at a concert in Las Vegas — we do nothing. People are slaughtered at a nightclub in Orlando — we do nothing. A Pittsburgh synagogue — we do nothing. Children hiding under desks, being slaughtered, shot, child by child — and we do nothing.
This is the anger I want to hear on this subject.

Senator Bernie Sanders is headed to Walmart to tell the owners to pay their workers a livable wage. Well, I sure hope that works! I'm pretty sure they've been asked before, but maybe they'll listen this time!

In other Sanders news, he continues to make it very hard for me to like him even a little bit:


Fucking hell, Bernie.

John Hickenlooper is still definitely running for president.

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