2020 presidential election
Joe Biden Gave One Hell Of A Gettysburg Speech
Our better angels have had the crap knocked out of them.
October 07, 2020 09:20 AM
Joe Biden got his Abraham Lincoln on in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, yesterday, in a speech calling for Americans to come together and stop being a house divided, because if we keep going the way we've been going, we may not have fourscore years left as a nation. Something along those lines. It was actually a very good speech — and just the fact that it developed a coherent, well-crafted argument, as speeches are supposed to do, was a refreshing change from the freeform political cacophony of the past four years.
Biden made the most of the location, near the Civil War battlefield, to emphasize not just America's current political division, but also the awful death toll from the coronavirus pandemic, returning to his campaign's theme that the 2020 election is "a battle for the soul of the nation," and reminding us that America came out of the Civil War a different nation, one that keeps trying, too often clumsily and half-heartedly, to live up to its founding principles of equality for all. While he was at it, Biden managed to call for a less polarized politics without falling into the trap of pretending both sides of the political divide are equally extreme. Biden never mentioned Trump in the 22-minute speech, but very clearly called for an end to Trumpism.
In what could be seen as a sane person's riposte to Donald Trump's 2016 "What the hell have you got to lose?" Biden said, "You don't have to agree with me on everything, or even on most things, to see that what we're experiencing today is neither good nor normal."
Here, enjoy a hell of a good speech and maybe refuel your hope engine a bit.
<p>The setting, and the theme of the speech, worked remarkably well together. In contrast to Donald Trump's dark talk of "American carnage," Biden spoke at the site of actual carnage, and called for us to come together to fight the real carnage of the pandemic, not through demonizing other Americans, but by being a nation, damn it. And he invoked the Civil War, and Lincoln's speech at the dedication of the national cemetery at Gettysburg, to argue that America can't go on if we're at war with each other. But again, this wasn't a David Brooksish call for everyone to get along; it was a call to address the injustices at the root of our modern divisions — some of which go back beyond the Civil War: </p><blockquote>Today, once again, we are a house divided, but that my friends can no longer be. We're facing too many crises. We have too much work to do. We have too bright a future to have it shipwrecked on the shoals of anger and hate, and division.<br><br>As we stand here today, a century and a half later after Gettysburg, we should consider again what can happen when equal justice is denied, when anger and violence and division are left unchecked.</blockquote><p>Biden vowed that while he's "running as a proud Democrat," he intends to "govern as an American president," not just the president of those who voted for him. He didn't directly invoke Barack Obama, but the DNA of Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention speech was definitely there. </p><p>In contrast to that unifying vision, Biden said again he'd been convinced to run after Charlottesville, which conjured up a nightmare America that no one should tolerate, and he didn't have to name Trump for listeners to know who he was talking about. </p><blockquote> It was hate on the march, in the open, in America. Hate never goes away, it only hides. And when it's given oxygen, when it's given an opportunity to spread, when it's treated as normal and acceptable behavior, we've opened a door in this country that we must move quickly to close.</blockquote><p>Then Biden turned to the summer's protests against police violence and systemic racism, and said that calls for justice have to be heard, not suppressed, and he built on a point he made during the verbal carnage of last week's debate: "I believe in law and order," he said, "<strong></strong>But I also believe injustice is real. [...] I do not believe we have to choose between law and order, and racial justice in America. We can have both."</p><p>In one of the speech's most powerful moments, Biden spoke of George Floyd's six-year-old daughter, who told him when they met, "Daddy changed the world." And he quoted former LA Clippers basketball coach Doc Rivers, who summed up a horrible truth:</p><blockquote>"We're the ones getting killed. We're the ones getting shot. We've been hung. It's amazing how we keep loving this country, and this country does not love us back."</blockquote><p>Biden added, "I think about that. I think about what it takes for a Black person to love America. That is a deep love for this country that has for far too long never been recognized." And we won't have healing without actually addressing those inequities, he said. It was a nice change from tweets that simply shout "LAW AND ORDER!"</p><p>He called for a science-based approach to the pandemic, noting that the virus doesn't notice the politics of who it's attacking, and transitioned from that to a call for economic justice, again invoking Lincoln, who </p><blockquote>said that the country had to give people, and I quote, "An open field and a fair chance. An open field and a fair chance." That's what we're going to do in the America we're going to build together. <br><br>We fought a civil war that would secure a union that would seek to fulfill the promise of equality for all. And by fits and starts, our better angels have prevailed, just enough, just enough against our worst impulses to make a new and better nation. And those better angels can prevail again, now. They must prevail again, now.</blockquote><p>I found that the most moving part of the speech, that vision of our better angels having to really struggle to do right in spite of ourselves. It's a far more realistic vision of the fight for justice than the claim that the Founders declared America a land of liberty and justice for all, God smiled, and it was so. We don't need fairy tales of an America that was once great and just needs a few hard slaps (and children in cages) to make it great again. Again, Biden was echoing Obama's theme that America is a work in progress, a nation that's still working (and often stumbling) to form a more perfect union. </p><p>Like I say, it was a damn good speech. </p><p>[<a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/joe-biden-gettysburg-campaign-speech-transcript-october-6" target="_blank">Speech transcript at Rev</a> / <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/06/us/politics/joe-biden-gettysburg-covid.html" target="_blank">NYT</a>]</p><p>Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. Please help us keep you knee deep in hopey-changey things! </p><p></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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Religion
Trump Thinks Religious People Are Chumps. But They Think He's The Second Coming. Go Figure.
Sent by God ... to mock Mormon undergarments.
September 29, 2020 10:32 AM
As the GOP revs up to accuse Democrats of hating Catholics, nay all religious people, in defense of a Supreme Court nominee who may have difficulty keeping her personal faith out of her judicial decisions, The Atlantic is out with yet another reminder that Trump himself views religion as a total scam.
"They're all hustlers," Trump laughed to Michael Cohen in 2015 over an article describing megachurch pastor Creflo Dollar's efforts to raise money from the faithful for a new jet. He managed not to giggle when those same "hustlers" were laying hands on him to imbue him with the Holy Spirit, though.
"His view was 'I've been talking to these people for years; I've let them stay at my hotels—they're gonna endorse me. I played the game,'" a campaign advisor told The Atlantic's McKay Coppins. And when it came to Jerry Falwell Jr., he was apparently right.
Trump reportedly admired the "racket" of faith healer Benny Hinn, and deeply respected Joel Osteen's massive television audience. Like recognizes like.
<p>Coppins's article highlights the chasm between evangelical leaders, who accept that Trump is using them, as they are using him — "I'm not voting for Trump to be the teacher of my third grader's <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/robert-jeffress-trump/544196/" target="_blank">Sunday-school class</a>. That's not what he's running for," hustler pastor <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/trump-tweets-religious-nutjob-who-warns-of-civil-war-hissy-fit-if-hes-impeached" target="_blank">Robert Jeffress</a> said in the meeting — and their flocks, who view Trump as a sort of Christian avatar. </p><p>During a 2016 meeting with evangelical pastors on the dangers of trans women using the ladies' room, Trump joked, "The first time I met [Mike Pence], he said, 'Will you bow your head and pray?' and I said, 'Excuse me?' I'm not used to it." He was similarly blasé about his religiosity when it came to his habit of mocking his enemies.</p><p>"I call him Little Ben Sasse," Trump said. "I have to do it, I'm sorry. That's when my religion always deserts me." Presumably the decades of fornication and failing to render under Caesar were also during periods of religious desertion.</p><p>Trump's feelings about Jews were similarly different in private from his public pronouncements of respect and love. Just last week the <em>Washington Post</em> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-race-record/2020/09/23/332b0b68-f10f-11ea-b796-2dd09962649c_story.html" target="_blank">reported</a> that Trump said Jewish people "are only in it for themselves" and "stick together." Which is consonant with his constant public pronouncements that he's done more for <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-praises-israel-as-your-country-to-american-jews/" target="_blank">"your country"</a> than any other president, by which he means Israel, not America.</p><p>But Coppins reports yet another gross anecdote.</p><blockquote>And while he is quick to tout his daughter Ivanka's conversion to Judaism when he's speaking to Jewish audiences, he is sometimes less effusive in private. Cohen told me that once, years ago, he was with Trump when his wife, Melania, informed him that their son was at a playdate with a Jewish girl from his school. "Great," Trump said to Cohen, who is Jewish. "I'm going to lose another one of my kids to your people."</blockquote><p>Huh, so weird that only 25 percent of American Jews vote Republican.</p><p>But no other religious group can match Mormons in Trump's disdain. Trump has consistently maintained that Mitt Romney would have beaten Obama in 2012 if not for "the Mormon thing," as Trump put it on the call with Jeffress and the evangelical crew. </p><p>"Oh my god," Cohen told Coppins. "How many times did he bring up Mitt Romney and the undergarments."</p><p>The "undergarments" haven't stopped him from dispatching Don Jr. to be his emissary to the Mormon community, though. Coppins reports that "according to two senior Utah Republicans with knowledge of the situation, Don Jr. has been so savvy in courting Latter-day Saints—expressing interest in the Church's history, reading from the Book of Mormon—that he's left some influential Republicans in the state with the impression that he may want to convert."</p><p>UHHHHHHHH ...</p><div id="eb1f4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="faa31bd86436bdb8ca39f73acf915ccc"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1309558435818737664" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">What is up with Donald Trump Jr in this video? 😳 https://t.co/bineNLaDwR</div> — Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar)<a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/statuses/1309558435818737664">1601058036.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Anyway! Trump launched into his regular spiel on Romney's lack of appeal to Christians in a 2014 interview with Coppins at Mar-a-Lago.</p><blockquote>During our conversation, Trump began to strenuously argue that Mitt Romney's exotic faith had cost him the 2012 election. When I interrupted to inform him that I'm also a Mormon, he quickly changed tack—extolling my Church's many virtues, and then switching subjects.</blockquote><p>Ah, yes. Very Christian. Unlike that nasty Joe Biden who is <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/weaponizing-religion-trumps-attacks-bidens-faith-calling-god/story?id=72240325" target="_blank">"against God."</a></p><p>[<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/trump-secretly-mocks-his-christian-supporters/616522/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share" target="_blank">Atlantic</a>]<br></p><p><strong>Follow Liz Dye on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/5DollarFeminist" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">RIGHT HERE!</a></strong><br></p><p><strong>Please click here to support your Wonkette. 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History Facts
Your Tiny Home Goes Back To The Great Depression
But so adorable!
September 28, 2020 01:25 PM
We need to do some real talk about "tiny houses," why most of them seem to be portable rather than built in place, and how they're just today's version of a long tradition of portable housing for people with no money and no rights.
This photo is so great, because nobody expects to see a fully recognizable tiny house getting towed by a horse in 1936.
The archive's caption for this pic: "Roy Merriot getting ready to move a transportable house. He is a tenant of a 160 acre loan company farm which has recently been sold, and is now holding a 'quitting farm' sale. This is the third farm he has lost in the last 10 years." Aww, the rustic good ol' days before agribusiness!
More to the point when it comes to tiny homes: This shack on wheels was a precursor to the modern mobile home. The point of movable homes isn't just that they're cheap, per se. It's that you can own a home without owning land.
AKA if you get evicted you don't lose your home. You just move it.
<p>This was very important for tenant farmers. The farmers who owned the land — who were mostly wealthier local families, not corporations — refused to let tenants stay for more than a year or two in one place. This forced mobility helped make sure there would never be a critical mass of registered voters to support tenants' rights laws. In other words, portable housing worked for tenants because they got to keep their home from eviction to eviction. And it worked for the upper class because it was a way to make sure undesirable people kept moving.<br><br>Eviction was a normal part of life for tenant farmers. That's why so many lived in movable tiny houses. That's why they were early adopters for modern mass-produced trailer homes when they became available ... during the Great Depression. Here are a <a href="https://mobilehomeliving.org/the-history-of-mobile-homes/" target="_blank">couple</a> great <a href="https://mobilehomeliving.org/1936-mobile-homes/" target="_blank">articles</a> about how mass-produced trailer homes were a BOOMING business during the Depression.</p><p>Funny enough, the articles only hint at the hordes of people taking to the roads to find work (aka "hobos"). They chalk up the bull market in trailer homes to "leisure camping."</p><p>During the Great Depression.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<a href="https://media2.giphy.com/media/l2YWyhB3kxXJa7aEw/giphy.gif?cid=2fb0ca76sy8l8rrdkvdkatbndrx6cpxao9eg4le2g1rbfovu&rid=giphy.gif" target="_blank"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQ0MzcxOS9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwOTg0ODIxN30.Dm87Pj5SHds4FYzdRRsnIXHB9CYT5YWRXVZ_1msxXYo/img.gif?width=980" id="39f48" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c0b621ecc91a314cc8a3324eb63644ea" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"></a>
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</p><p>tl;dr, tiny homes are a decent stopgap measure for housing people in a time of national crisis. Most of the ones you see on Instagram are gentrified as hell, but real life small and/or mobile housing units can be super useful for folks without the money or stable work for conventional housing. But we need to get real with ourselves: "Wanderlust" alone can support a small subculture. The massive explosion of interest is something else. It's a mirror of the Great Depression.</p><p>Wonkette is ad-free and funded ONLY by YOU. If you like us, keep us going!</p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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News
Normal Minnesotans Oddly Unreceptive To Random Weirdass QAnon Mailings
You idiot! You were supposed to be redpilled, not repelled.
September 24, 2020 02:51 PM
Some dipshit in Minnesota is mailing out packets of photos of QAnon memes to normies in the Minneapolis area, seemingly at random. But instead of leading the recipients to realize that the world is secretly run by a cabal of cannibal pedophiles, the mailings have mostly just left folks squicked out, as the Intercept reports. On Monday, a fellow in the Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park found an envelope filled with 15 color glossy photographs of hard-hitting Q memes (albeit without any circles or arrows or a paragraph on the back of each one explainin' what each one was). One was about adrenochrome, the made-up pedo cannibal drug supposedly extracted from murdered children. And another
was a handwritten list of conspiracy-driven YouTube channels, including X22 Report and Alice Down the Rabbit Hole.
"The Battle Between Good and [EVIL]," read a third image. "Where to start is the Question?"
The fellow, Luke Healy, got on Nextdoor, the social media app, to ask if anyone else had received the weirdass photos, and yes, several people had.
In a post titled "Creepy photos in the mail," he noted the expense involved in the apparent prank. The photos were printed on premium digital paper, and the envelope bore three stamps. "At least they're supporting the USPS," he joked.
We like this guy.
<p>Mind you, whoever the QAnon advocate was, their methods seem ... unsound. In fact, we don't see any method at all. </p><blockquote>Instead of using well-framed screenshots, the person had printed images that looked like they were hastily photographed from a computer screen. In one instance, the screen was shot at an odd angle. In others, the red video progress bar appeared at the bottom of the frame, as if the sender had snapped the photos on a phone while watching YouTube, then dashed off to CVS to print them up. Adherents of QAnon often pride themselves on being "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Soldier-Keyboard-Warrior-Qanon/dp/B07PB7355F" target="_blank">digital soldiers</a>," but here was the internet crossing over into snail mail.</blockquote><p>If the QLooney sending the memes ever surfaces, they'll probably explain why they didn't simply send printouts of a screencap; we imagine it's something way more interesting than just "I never heard of Ctrl-Print SysRq." Maybe they read somewhere that screenshots can be traced, but photos of a computer screen can't? If it turns out the list of YouTube channels was written by the sender, that's particularly circular, because that means they wrote out a list, scanned or photographed it to put on their computer, and then took a photo of the screen so it could be converted back into an analog printout. </p><p>Maybe the sender is a conceptual artist and not a conspiracy theorist at all.</p><p>Here's a sample of the images Healy gave the Intercept's Mara Hvistendahl. Thankfully, they're too small to read well, because we fear the Truth. </p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQzNjgzOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MDk5NTk0NH0.lmLLLQXdVci9A8j2pvMe4EiQ3s44M8kHynV7AXOmw_0/img.jpg?width=980" id="2d911" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e525fdb9ed8a816a9893b617e1f355ad" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
</p><p>The contents of the packets varied from recipient to recipient. Some of the other color glossy photographs depicted memes calling the coronavirus pandemic a hoax, as well as memes attacking Black Lives Matter, like this really edgy meme that pretty much destroys the American Left for all time: </p><blockquote>an image of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton that read, "CALLING THESE TWO GUYS 'REVEREND' IS LIKE CALLING DOGSHIT TOOTSIE ROLLS."</blockquote><p>GO CRY MORE, LIB. </p><p>Jared Holt of Right Wing Watch told Hvistendahl that based on just how obscure some of the channels in the YouTube list are, he suspects the sender is a true believer who's been down the rabbit hole long enough to be well-smeared with <em><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/watershipdowngame/home/lapine-glossary---the-language-of-watership-down" target="_blank">hraka</a></em>. </p><blockquote>"It's hard to understand what the sender hoped to accomplish, but it's clear that whoever is sending the mail is severely escalating in their radicalization," he added.</blockquote><p>Whatever the Qultist may be trying to communicate (beyond <em>Help I Don't Know What I Am Doing With My Devices or My Life</em>), it's not exactly taking place in a vacuum. As the Republican Party casts off its remaining moorings to reality, Hvistendahl notes, </p><blockquote>Minnesota has <a href="https://www.startribune.com/6-gop-endorsed-candidates-in-minnesota-back-conspiracy-theory-of-qanon/572489641/?refresh=true" target="_blank">six GOP state legislature candidates</a> on the ballot in November who have supported QAnon – including one in Healy's district. Until recently Melissa Moore, a Republican running for the state House seat in the district, maintained a Twitter account where she described herself as a #DigitalSoldier. She recently <a href="https://apnews.com/b7f9693bb421723f12bba0499a4fadfe" target="_blank">told</a> the Associated Press that QAnon is "an exciting movement that opens our minds to different possibilities of what's going on, of what's really happening in our world today." </blockquote><p>If you want a picture of the future, imagine a lame WWG1WGA meme popping up in your face — forever. </p><p>Some of the recipients wondered if perhaps they'd been targeted to receive the QRap because they had Black Lives Matter or other progressive signs in their yards, but "adjacent neighbors with similar lawn signs had not received anything" similar, at least not as of the time the Intercept story went up yesterday. After the story ran, however, Hvistendahl retweeted another Minnesotan who'd received the mailing, and seemed a tad relieved she wasn't the only recipient. </p><div id="4f3cd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a942943ced2aa83f7b4644394fa7070f"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1308881610096418817" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Looks like I’m not the only one... Mysterious QAnon conspiracy theory mailings spook Minneapolis suburbs… https://t.co/1mkhsZT4Aj</div> — Emily Myatt (@Emily Myatt)<a href="https://twitter.com/emlywhite/statuses/1308881610096418817">1600896668.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Ms. Myatt appears to have received a special typewritten note in her packet of photos, reading </p><blockquote>Walk in all the ways that the Lord your God <br>has commanded you, so that you may live & <br>prosper & prolong your days in the land<br>that you will possess. Deuteronomy 5:33<br><br>There is no place like home. Dorothy. </blockquote><p>That's on some paper with a printout of the Ruby Slippers, as only makes sense. Below that, a handwritten note says, "Do you know Jesus? We're going home soon, RU ready?" followed by a messy unreadable signature. </p><p>Nothing creepy there! Wonder what color sneakers and sweatsuit this person has.</p><p>One person who received a packet of photos <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/09/23/qanon-mail-minnesota/" target="_blank">said </a>she had called the Minneapolis field office of the FBI, seeing as how the FBI has said QAnon could be a <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/qanon-conspiracy-theorists-already-developing-conspiracy-theory-about-fbi-calling-them-a-domestic-terror-threat" target="_blank">potentially dangerous terrorist cult,</a> but she said the person she spoke to just took her information and said to call back "if she felt directly threatened." </p><p>She said she was a little worried — not that she was being watched or anything, but because these handmade packets are "pretty creepy. It's not just a random political campaign pamphlet that's coming in our mail." </p><p>Man, your local weirdo takes the time to send you a semi-personalized pile of crazy conspiracy shit, and you reject that artisanal effort because you'd be more comfortable with conventional politics? WAKE UP SHEEPLE THE TIME OF PURIFICATION IS AT HAND, HAVE A NICE DAY SURRENDER DOROTHY.</p><p>[<a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/09/23/qanon-mail-minnesota/" target="_blank">Intercept</a>] </p><p>Yr Wonkette is supported entirely by reader donations. Please help us keep the servers humming, the writers paid, and Dok's disembodied brain floating in a nutrient-rich tank of cerebrospinal fluid and adrenochrome. 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