brooklynite
brooklynite's JournalYesterday, I attended a private reception with The Second Gentleman...
...Doug Emhoff, courtesy of the DNC.
In addition to the expected Secret Service clearances, I had to provide proof of COVID vaccination AND a negative COVID test within 24 hours of the event. Masks were required during close-up activity (handshakes and photos), and a perimeter line was drawn around the podium when he was speaking.
He's an affable and engaging speaker (formerly an entertainment lawyer in LA) and talked at length about life as the first Second Gentlemen (Jill Biden told him: you have to just experience it and then we can talk about how to handle things), attempts to maintain some level of normalcy in their personal life, and how the Administration is dealing with the COVID crisis, especially convincing people to get vaccinated. He's also been out on the campaign trail, and will likely get busier going in to 2022.
I asked him how VP Harris was dealing with the other part of her job: Senate President. She's been building on her prior Senate experience and relationships and meeting privately and socially with other members -- Republicans included.
Six cruise ship passengers test positive for Covid: 4 vaccinated, 2 unvaccinated
Source: CNN
Four of the guests are vaccinated and two are unvaccinated minors, Royal Caribbean International said in a statement. The seven-night cruise departed from Nassau, Bahamas, on July 25.
One of the four vaccinated guests has mild symptoms, the company said, and three are asymptomatic. The four are not traveling together.
The two unvaccinated minors were in the same party and are asymptomatic, according to Royal Caribbean.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/cruise-ship-covid-cases-royal-caribbean/index.html
A reminder for everyone excited about Trump's tax returns...you won't see them.
Federal Law prohibits their being made public outside of evidence in a public Trial.
BREAKING: Treasury Dept ordered to turn over Trump tax returns.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1421162559923576834BREAKING: Man jumps security fence at White House
https://twitter.com/albamonica/status/1421146541704859653BREAKING: Broadway Theaters to require vaccination proof
https://twitter.com/AnaCabrera/status/1421116230052859907From the Party that Nina Turner founded and proudly supports...
Movement for a People's PartyDetroit, May 5, 2021 The first 100 days of a presidents term are historically their best chance to enact their agenda. In 1933, as he took office at the height of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Democrats convened a special session of Congress and ran the legislature like a New Deal printing press.
Pushed by widespread and fierce labor strikes, popular movements, and independent parties, FDR and Congress passed 76 new laws in their first 100 days including the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps, and the Tennessee Valley Authority programs that employed, housed, and fed tens of millions of people. Roosevelt reshaped the role of government in providing for the people.
Eighty years later, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris entered the White House in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the worst public health crisis since the Spanish Flu. They arrived backed by Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, giving their party the power to pass anything. Last Friday marked the end of Biden and Harris first 100 days in office, and the scale and substance of their response is the antithesis of their Depression-Era predecessors.
The Democrats are repeating history in a different way though.
In 2009, Obama and Biden entered the White House in the middle of the Great Recession, which was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression at the time. Instead of using the crisis to enact structural change, they chose to preserve the economic and social status quo that had produced the crisis. Their actions pushed the country deeper into an increasingly authoritarian oligarchy.
Twelve years later, Biden returned to the White House, during the new-worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Once again, he was backed by Democratic majorities in Congress. And just like Obama, Biden has chosen to preserve the economic and social status quo. The result will be to push this country still further into authoritarian oligarchy. Bidens first eight years produced Trump. His next four will produce something far worse.
Gavin Newsom Has Reason To Worry
538Who casts a ballot in this unusually timed election could be pivotal. The UC Berkeley IGS/Los Angeles Times poll underscored why: Among registered voters, Republicans were far more likely to say theyd vote than Democrats or independents. Eighty percent of Republican registered voters said they were absolutely certain to vote, compared with only 55 percent of Democrats and about half of independents. As such, likely voters were opposed to removing Newsom by only 3 points, while the spread was much wider among all registered voters 51 percent were opposed to removing him compared with just 36 percent in favor (in line with the pollsters findings in early May and late January). In fact, Republicans enthusiasm for this race is so high that they make up roughly one-third of the surveys likely electorate, even though they constitute only about one-quarter of Californias registered voters.
Irregularly timed elections, like a gubernatorial recall held in September of an odd year, can produce unexpected results and lopsided electorates. However, theres one reason why that might not happen in this race: California has extended its pandemic-inspired election-law changes that require ballots to be automatically mailed to all active registered voters through the end of 2021. Mail elections dont inherently help the Democratic Party, but studies have found that they do increase turnout, which could help insulate Newsom from a scenario where only his most fervent opponents bother to cast a ballot.
Its tempting to point to COVID-19 as the chief cause for why Newsom is in hot water since the pandemic helped galvanize the recall effort in the first place. The highly contagious delta variant has led to an uptick in cases of COVID-19 in California, and Newsom is now weighing whether to impose statewide restrictions, which could further energize his opposition. (Los Angeles County has already reinstated an indoor mask mandate.) The governor has also had disputes with teachers unions and school administrators over the reopening of schools, and many Californians are still frustrated by the states continually changing vaccination-distribution plan. Yet Newsoms handling of the pandemic might not be his biggest liability. A slightly greater share of likely voters in the Berkeley poll agreed with the statement that Newsom should be recalled because he has failed to adequately address many of the states longstanding problems, such as homelessness, income inequality and wildfires (48 percent), than agreed with the statement that he should be recalled because he greatly overstepped his authority as governor when responding to the COVID-19 pandemic (44 percent).
House primary in Ohio takes nasty turn as national Democrats descend
NBC NewsNina Turner, a former state senator, is running on a push for universal health care and a $15-an-hour minimum wage. Cuyahoga County Council member Shontel Brown, who also chairs the county's Democratic Party, is pitching herself as a staunch loyalist of President Joe Biden who wouldn't try to force the White House agenda too far to the left.
The nasty tone that has been present for months escalated Thursday as high-profile surrogates for both candidates were set to arrive here. Turner, 53, unleashed a commercial that questions Brown's ethics and ends with the image of a jail door slamming. (Brown's campaign manager said the ad was "verifiably false." Brown, 46, has sought to paint Turner, known nationally for her work on Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaigns, as too much of an outsider and too critical of Biden to accomplish anything in Congress.
The national endorsers, while welcomed by the candidates, have superimposed past Democratic battles onto the district, frustrating those who say eagerness for a proxy war is overshadowing local nuances and issues. Brown and Turner are successful Black politicians in a majority Black district, familiar on their own merits to voters. Both have made local issues like poverty and gun violence central to their campaigns.
Biden to headline DNC fundraiser Monday
PoliticoLets build that bank to fuel the Democratic campaigns of 2022, Ajay Bhutoria, national finance committee at the DNC, wrote in the invitation.
Ticket prices for Mondays event are $100,000, $50,000 and $36,500.
Biden spoke virtually at his first DNC fundraiser as president late last month as Democrats began ramping up efforts to build their war chest for the 2022 midterm elections. Losing control of either the Senate or House in 2022 would be a blow to the presidents agenda, though historically the party in power does suffer losses during the midterms.
The DNC is going to need you, because heres the deal: We won in 2020 as a unified party, and we need to stay unified and keep doing the big consequential things, Biden said at the June 28 event. If we make the right decisions in the next four years, in 50 years, people will look back and say this was the moment that America won the future. But we cant do it without you.
Profile Information
Name: Chris BastianGender: Male
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Home country: USA
Member since: 2002
Number of posts: 94,735