The only worthwhile policy debate going forward: de-Trumpification.

What is a REAL policy platform you want to see from a Democrat in 2026?

Personally, I don't care a whit for the standard policy debate, anymore. 

There is no sense debating policy when the opposition has weaponized the electoral system, such that the Democrats are unable to advance ANY policies.* 

That is an exercise in futility, akin to yelling into the wind about the guy in front of you who is, himself, PISSING into the wind, instead of pushing him off your desk so you can enjoy the fan again while calling HR.

The only thing I want to know from a candidate is how do we get, and stay, rid of MAGA.

This doesn't mean find them and jail them. Nothing of the sort (unless they are currently on the lamb for some conviction, in the which case, arrest away). I am talking about erecting safeguards where we now demonstrably need them the most.

One question I want answered, is what do you plan to do with obstructionist congressman and senators, like Jim Jordan and that Southern goober Senator who blocked all those military promotions. 

Tangible answers I might accept would be eliminating the filibuster, and/or ending the practice of individual Senators being empowered to block nominations.

I would also accept that the candidate will call for Democrats to start a SERIOUS program, within the party itself, to identify and prejudiciously take down opposition candidates for office who have proven themselves unfit for deliberative democracy. Identifying and pushing for the censuring and expulsion of sitting obstructionists would be a good start, as well.

Moving on, what is a candidate's policy addressing the nation's DEMONSTRABLY low civics IQ, which brought us, more-or-less, directly to this point?**

I would entertain a policy of establishing a strongly-enforced national curriculum of mandated civics lessons, k-12. There should be testing as heavy as there is for math and language, with clear implications for failing school districts that receive federal funding.

I am not at all interested in what laws you WANT to enact, when the very idea of your enacting them is laughable from the get-go.

I want to know how you are going to reset things, cleaning up the MAGA mess, so that the bad faith actors are no longer a concern going forward. 

But, no one wants to have that conversation with me.

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*This is a whole other conversation in itself, wherein the Democratic Party has, over the years, allowed the GOP to build itself an artificial majority in government, from the Federal level down to the local level. GOP gerrymandering (ignored or enabled by Democrats), a refusal to address equitable and relatable apportionment (a HUGE topic), late-game voter scrubs, operationally disenfranchising entire constituencies (through inadequate voting equipment or precincts, requiring photo ID, etc.). There is a lot to be said about many things related to this subject.

**I find it inexcusable that adults do not know and understand how their government functions. Voters should not go into the polls thinking, "Biden got rid of Roe, because it happened under him, and he would have to sign off on it as President, right?" Similarly, they should understand the authority and limitations of each level of government. Hell, they should know that there ARE different levels of government, each doing their own unique function in society. Just, don't get me started about how stupid Americans are, regarding civics, and/or how I watched civics education fail while I went through it as a child, seeing the enabling of the very type of jackasses that became our later/current blowhards and bullies like Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Green, and Matt Gaetz.

Journamalism: it be dead.

 Journalism is dead. D. E. A. D.

A teen's head and hands were found in a refrigerator in a recently-sold house in Grand Junction, CO. DNA confirmed that the girl, missing since 2005, was the daughter of the home's previous owner.

The girl had never been officially reported as missing.

Do any of the stories I have read even TOUCH on the identity of the previous owner, or their current whereabouts?

Not one. Not a single damned one.

Does any reporter ask the simplest question, "Who were her parents, and what happened to THEM?"

Nope.

Journalism, I repeat, is DEAD. 

There are two deaths in this story, and no one is asking the right questions about either. Like, "how do you discover that the girl was found in a fridge in her parent's former home, and NOT CONNECT THE FUCKING DOTS, and STILL have your job as a journalist?" Or, "does your newspaper have an editor who has been identified as alive in the past year, and, if so, have they been in a coma?"

What brain-dead, dirt-eating mouth breathers are they hiring in news rooms, these days? A girl is found after twenty years, dead, in her parent's home, and you don't ask a SINGLE RELEVANT QUESTION?

Sickening, on multiple levels.

A vote for Trump is a vote for Trump

Turnout is the only thing that matters in this election.

You aren't changing any minds at this stage. All you can do is try to get people to vote. Turnout, not impassioned argument, is what will win the election for Harris. Are you driving people to the polls? Organizing busses? Guiding voters through getting absentee ballots?

No matter how much effort you put into nuanced policy arguments or posting mean-spirited vote-shaming memes (which achieve <checks notes> nothing), if a person doesn't get to their voting location, Harris doesn't get that vote. Period.

So forget convincing people to change their minds. Get similar-minded people to the polls in larger numbers. Anything else is a complete and utter waste of time that only strokes your own ego and delivers Harris a great big goose egg.

If you live in a reliably democratic-leaning district but still want to have a real, meaningful impact on turnout, look into helping with GOTV efforts in less reliably democratic districts. If you can afford it, volunteer in another county or state to get out the vote.

Because arguing over the FACT of a fire achieves nothing if you are standing next to an extinguisher and fail to use it.

Graf Drumpf, approaching the berthing mast here, in Lakehurst, New Jersey...

I am awaiting news on the Harris VP front. For once, in my life, I am not as deeply concerned as I usually am about VP. I think Harris, alone, has momentum enough to flatten Trump. Pessimistic and cynical as I can be, I know when I am feeling optimistic, and my brothers and sisters, I am feeling optimistic.

This feels like a watershed moment. I feel as if the fever is about to break.

And, you know what?

I am going to SO enjoy TF out of watching that flaming, racist/misogynist gasbag of a bitch's bastard go down in ignominious defeat.

And, while I would feel HORRIBLY for almost any other life form in the solar system to have to go through it, and I would shrink from viewing their pain, I would happily binge-watch it on repeat if Trump should be found on camera to have pissed his slacks on Election Night.

I am generally a VERY kind person, but I have an asshole waiver that I personally issued myself years ago, that permits me (without guilt) to watch assholes get theirs, and to feel free to laugh my arse off in a great catharsis at seeing their jolly (to me) misery.

Six little piggies

 I want to say something, apropos of nothing. I just wanted to say it. You know, to get it off my chest and share it with the world:

Fuck the conservatives on the Supreme Court.

Not for anything new. They have earned this already.

Just... fuck them. Fuck the feckless Roberts, who couldn't manage a Blockbuster video, let alone the court. Fuck that rapey drunken frat bro douchenozzle Kavanaugh. Fuck Pope Alito and may he burn in Catholic Hell. Fuck Clarence "Uncle" Thomas, in his RV, and with Ginni's crazy eyes. Fuck poisonous Mr Cellophane, Neil Gorsuch, who I am told is a person on the bench. And fuck court stenographer Coney Barrett, whose presence on the court simply baffles me.

Not for anything new, mind you. 

I just wanted to say, you know, fuck those assclowns.

Fuck them.

Food for thought

Think about this for a moment:

From announcement to election day, Harris' campaign will have effectively been a 100-day operation. Now, you can argue that her campaign, as the BIDEN campaign, began farther back in time, and I would allow that argument, while not necessarily agreeing with it.

See, I consider the change from Biden to Harris to effectively mark the start of an entirely new campaign, as it has been marked by the usual starting point of defining and introducing the candidate. While Harris was known before, she was second banana, and effectively just along for the ride on the Biden train.

But since the switch, the shift in gears has been so dramatic that I consider it to be a presidential campaign that only started two weeks ago. Considering how gangbusters it is going for her, such that she looks to be even to or surpassing Trump in the polls, I think this tells us something dramatic, with great import to the entire nation.

To wit: campaign season only needs to be about three months long. We don't need the continuous beatdown that wears out the nation. We could do what many nations do, and limit the legal campaigning period to three months. An ancillary benefit of this would be that less money would need to be raised for a three-month stint, as opposed to a two-year slog.

I, therefore, aver that a dramatically truncated campaign period is not only possible, but would be as effective, if not more effective, than the current multi-year battle we put ourselves through.

We don't need to run a marathon. We only need to make a short sprint and we're done.

Think about that.

Jello with glass shards, or a shit sandwich, Mr. Trump?

Ah, Don the Con. Don the Coward. Don the Cow-weird.

That fat treasonous sonofawhore wouldn't know a policy point if it smashed a teleprompter and sent a small piece of plastic flying to scrape his elephantine ear in a minor way.

What was the problem with the last debate, is one person showed up to debate policy, and the other showed up to spray the stage with copious amounts of his own shit. Policy never had a chance.

I have said this elsewhere recently, but I do think we are watching Agolf Shittler flame out (some have described him as having entered the "Fat Elvis" stage of his political career). It won't happen overnight, but he is no longer able to mount an effective offensive. People are getting tired of him and many are looking for the next shiny object. Harris is rightfully framing him as a goddamned chickenshit limp-dick.The couch meme about Vance is sticking. Oh, and speaking of Vance, he seems unable to fend off the accurate depictions of his weirdness, because every defense he mounts is, well, weird.

The real milestone (or millstone, for Mango Mussolini) will be the ABC debate. Because Harris WILL show up. Trump will be faced with the Hobson's choice of staying away (making him a demonstrable coward, running scared from a multi-ethnic, powerful, successful woman), or showing up and having the same woman hand him his ass in multiple, tiny, trowel-sized chunks (making him a demonstrable loser). He has backed himself into a scaredeecat corner, and there is no way to get out of it without shitting himself.

And then, Vance, again. It is known that Trump regrets the choice, but, again, he has a limited selection of bad choices to make: keep Vance, and smile while that boat anchor around Trump's neck drags the campaign down to Davy Jones' locker, or dump Vance, and very effectively admit that he, Golden Boy Donnie the Sphincter-breathing Coward, made a huge m i s t a k e. Again, there is no escape hatch through which he can run without coming out covered in shit on the other side.

And Harris will continue to taunt him and rightfully call him what he is: a convicted felon guilty of fraud and sexual assault, which we have SEEN he does NOT like, at all.

So, yeah. He is a feral beast which has been backed into a corner, and there is no good option left for him but to stand there like a deer in the headlights, shouting racist diatribes into the wind, while SOME Trump-exhausted Republicans simply stay home from the election, and SCORES of young people and previously disinterested or dejected voters (at which he has aimed his venom) flock to vote for Harris.

This could be a landslide to rival Reagan's. The only question is by how much, and will there be felonious shenanigans by MAGA election supervisors. I think her win would be a solid 10 if she chooses Buttigieg, but otherwise somewhere between a 6 and an 8 with one of the traditional stodgy old white guys (which would make her job harder, I think, because that would be fighting a modern battle with inefficient, old-fashioned tactics).

That is my take. This is why I am bullish on Harris.

A giant landslide is heading for Trump, and his escape routes are all blocked. I can't think of a better person to be roundly and soundly humiliated before all 8 billion of us on Earth. Because lose he will.