I say YES. YOU say NO....Numero Tre! Enjoy!

illinoislady · August 16

Governor’s Day at State Fair draws party faithful from across the state

By PETER HANCOCK & HANNAH MEISEL Capitol News Illinoisnews@capitolnewsillinois.com

SPRINGFIELD – Democrats gathered in Springfield Wednesday for their annual rally at the Illinois State Fair amid a surge of enthusiasm and a renewed sense of optimism about their chances of retaining the White House in November.

“There’s a new level of energy in this effort,” U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin told reporters just before the traditional Democratic County Chairs’ Association fundraising brunch Wednesday morning. “You can’t buy it. You can’t fake it. It’s for real.”

That renewed sense of excitement has come about just in the last few weeks. On July 21, following a disastrous debate performance that raised doubts about his ability to serve another term, President Joe Biden withdrew from the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to run in his place.

Harris, whose own short-lived campaign in 2020 ended before the first primary ballots were cast, quickly consolidated support from party leaders and donors, as well as delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

Now, just days ahead of the DNC in Chicago, the most recent New York Times poll shows her in a statistical dead heat with her Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, and enjoying a razor-thin advantage in the key battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

That marks a dramatic change in fortune since Biden’s withdrawal just 3 ½ weeks earlier, when the New York Times’ average of national polls showed the incumbent trailing Trump by 3 points.

“Right person at the right time in a historic election,” Durbin said of the sudden shift. “That’s it.”

Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch said he has seen the change in enthusiasm as well, and expressed hope that it will reach into down-ballot races, enabling Democrats to expand their already-existing super majority in the General Assembly.

“I saw something similar in polling in ’22 after the Dobbs decision came down,” he said, referring to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and declared there is no constitutional right to an abortion. “But this seems to be even more of a bounce, and we’re not even at the convention yet, so I expect it to continue.”

Harris is now only the second woman, after Hillary Clinton, and the first woman of color to win a major party nomination for president. But she is not the first woman of color to seek the nomination. That distinction belongs to the late U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm, D-New York, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in 1972.

In a recent New York Times interview, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul reflected on that race and how Chisholm encountered an unexpected obstacle in her campaign – a lack of support among Black men who were reluctant to award power to a Black woman.

Raoul said he is now working to prevent that from happening again as Harris campaigns for the presidency. And in an interview at the State Fair Wednesday, he said he thinks significant progress has been made since 1972.

“I don’t think we’re perfect yet, but I think we’ve made progress,” he said.

“Obviously, I used my voice to speak to it because I think it still lingers as a challenge,” he said. “I think predominantly, she (Harris) will have support of African American men, not because of her color, but because of her experience and her position on the issues that disproportionately affect African American men.”

Mentioned a few times during Wednesday’s programming was Raoul’s predecessor in the Illinois Senate, former President Barack Obama – whom keynote speaker Cincinatti Mayor Aftab Pureval credited with his entrance into politics. He gave credit to Obama for “inspiring a new generation of leaders.”

The 41-year-old is the only Asian American mayor of a big Midwest city and is among a small class of Asian American mayors in the U.S., according to research from the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies. Pureval joked that his father could’ve chosen any American city when emigrating from India, but chose to relocate his family to Beavercreek, Ohio, where the future mayor grew up.

“And thank God we did, because that is the path to victory for Vice President Harris,” Pureval said of Asian immigrants who also chose to make the Midwest their home.

“The whole damn family is lactose intolerant. Let’s go to the cheese capital of the world,” he continued, with laughter from the crowd. “That’s the Midwest Asians that I’m talking about.”

Pureval acknowledged that Harris, who is both Black and Indian, will endure “racist tropes” from Republicans during the campaign’s sprint to Nov. 5; Trump has already called the vice president’s ethnicity into question, claiming at a recent rally that Harris “turned Black” for political gain.

But he said his own experience embracing his heritage and refusing to Anglicize his name — despite well-meaning advice from other Democrats — has taught him that voters are more accepting than conventional political wisdom would indicate, so long as candidates can communicate a vision and follow through with action.

“There are people who say that this country’s not ready to elect a Black, Indian, female president. And they’re wrong,” he said. “I believe in this country. I believe in its promise…And I believe in that because of my own story.”

Pureval’s mother, he said, fled Tibet when China’s communist regime took over the country in the 1950s. And “in one generation,” Pureval said, his family “went from being refugees” to seeing him elected mayor of Cincinnati.

“And Democrats, that story only happens in this country,” he said. “It’s on us to preserve that dream for the next generation. Let’s go win this thing.”

Cincinnati, the third-largest city in Ohio, is part of the so-called “Rust Belt” Democrats are trying to regain their footing in after losing so many predominantly white, rural counties to Trump in 2016.

In order to win critical swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, home to many of the hollowed-out factory towns that characterize the Rust Belt, Democrats have leaned heavily on organized labor to push for and tout Biden’s signature infrastructure plan to voters whose cities and towns have steadily lost population — and investment — in the last half-century.

But Pam Davidson, Democratic State Central Committee member and chair of the local Democratic Party in western Illinois’ Knox County, told the hundreds gathered at Wednesday’s breakfast that Democrats can turn even one of the party’s most vulnerable issues — the Biden administration’s handling of migrants at the southern U.S. Border — into an opportunity for a more appealing message.

“Republicans talk about the border. They talk about people wanting to come over across for better jobs…for a better life. They said it’s too many,” Davidson said ahead of accepting a “Party Builder” award from the IDCCA.

“They talk about it all the time but they don’t talk a damn thing about our jobs, big businesses sending jobs over to Mexico and paying them only $3 an hour and no benefits,” she continued. “And our people — our union jobs — were laid off. They don’t talk about that.”

Davidson’s hometown of Galesburg was for decades the home of a Maytag factory, but nearly 20 years ago the plant closed and the company moved the bulk of the manufacturing to Mexico and Korea, leaving roughly 1,600 unionized workers out of a job. The facility sat empty until 2020, when an agriscience business moved in.

She said Harris would understand that businesses who move jobs overseas “need to be taxed for what they do.”

betrayal · August 16

betrayal · August 16

betrayal · August 16

ruthbru · August 17

Great memes!

How anyone in who is in the military or has ever had a family member in the military can support Trump is completely beyond me,

illinoislady · August 17

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Trolling the Troll

Kamala Harris knows how to get under Donald’s skin

Mary L Trump

Aug 17

READ IN APP

Americans have known for a while that my uncle has the thinnest skin on the planet. We now know that Vice President Kamala Harris is all the way under it because Donald keeps admitting it.

“I’m very angry at her,” Donald said Thursday. “I think I’m entitled to personal attacks. I don’t have a lot of respect for her. I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence, and I think she’ll be a terrible president.”

Donald can’t handle losing, but losing to a Black woman is particularly hard for him to bear. Harris’s campaign team deserves a lot of credit for understanding just how to put pressure on Donald’s very fragile psyche. Their rapid-response and press teams are running an edgy presidential campaign that is unique, as far as I know, in modern American political history. It’s the kind of approach that both highlights and exacerbates Donald’s weaknesses. It also makes it impossible for Donald to stay on message and stay away from the kind of personal attacks that his advisors are desperate for him to drop because they’re endangering his reelection bid.

Donald’s narcissistic injury is so great that he has essentially stopped campaigning in swing states. Multiple reports say that he can’t control his impulses in private. He continues to be furious that he’s no longer running against President Biden. More than anything, he perseverates about crowd sizes—both publicly and privately.

Sensing its advantage, just a few hours before Donald’s pathetic attempt to reclaim the spotlight by holding another staged event, the Harris campaign put out a media advisory, but not just any media advisory:

“TODAY: Donald Trump To Ramble Incoherently and Spread Dangerous Lies in Public, but at Different Home. TODAY at 4:30 p.m. — Donald J. Trump, loser of the 2020 election by 7 million votes, will hold another public meltdown in Bedminster, New Jersey.”

That’s quality trolling. It’s was also pretty prescient.

For so many years, Democrats have taken the high road (remember “When they go low, we go high?”). Unfortunately, Donald and the Republican Party have gone lower than most people thought possible.

So, we’re not “going high” any more. What the Harris and Walz ticket understands is that the best way to take down a bully with the kind of power Donald Trump has, the kind of unimaginable power he hopes to seize, is to mock him and encourage others to laugh at him.

“She actually called me weird,” Donald whined Thursday. “‘He’s weird.’ And it was just a soundbite. And she called JD and I weird. He’s not weird.” Methinks thou dost protest too much. Also, cry harder.

It’s a disjointed and rattled response from a clearly unwell man. Harris and Walz, on the other hand, are running a joyful, cohesive campaign. And while the joy they have brought to this race has been widely discussed, the effect that joy has on Donald hasn’t. It’s his kryptonite because he doesn’t understand it, he doesn’t know how to generate for himself or for his campaign, and it causes him pain. He has no idea how to combat the fact that he’s losing, so he engages in more cruelty. And so the cycle continues, and he continues to get worse.

The Harris campaign is happy to help. I want to note, however, that it’s not only getting under Donald’s skin that’s going to propel Harris to win this race; it’s the contrast between the campaigns.

Examples one, on Friday, while speaking at her economic policy rollout in North Carolina, Harris remarked that she used to work at McDonald’s. Donald had a million dollars by the time he was a year old.

Example two, the Harris campaign recently sent out a fundraising email in which the Vice President talked about how she felt on Election Night 2016.

It was incredibly bittersweet. When I took the stage for my acceptance speech—to represent California in the Senate—I tore up my notes. I just said, ‘We will fight.’ Then I went home and I sat on the couch with a family-sized bag of nacho Doritos. I did not share one chip with anybody. Not even Doug. I just watched the TV with utter shock and dismay.

That may be one of the most relatable things a candidate has ever said. I challenge anybody to come up with a comparable moment of honesty and vulnerability from Donald Trump.

Kamala Harris isn’t afraid of Donald, and her campaign reflects that. But Kamala Harris also isn’t afraid to be herself, and her campaign reflects that, too.

You may or may not want to scroll and read this, but I really enjoyed the read. It is by Mary Trump. Wish I knew how to get it to print all the way.

divinemrsm · August 17

I hope Kamala Harris has a plan of attack for the debates because TFG is going to pull out all the stops.

divinemrsm · August 17

Amen and amen!

divinemrsm · August 17

divinemrsm · August 17

divinemrsm · August 17

divinemrsm · August 17

Thanks for the pep talk, IllinoisLady! I go up and down about the campaign. I know the upcoming DNC will give us a shot in the arm. Still, remembering how I felt after the 2016 election tempers my hopes. It’s not that I don’t think Harris can win. I worry about corrupt politics interfering.

betrayal · August 17

If you just click on the blue heading of the story you posted, you can read it in its entirety.

illinoislady · August 17

If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should not grow old. -James A. Garfield

illinoislady · August 17

Divine, I do understand. It is VERY valid that the other side cheats like no one can, and you and I and everyone do need to feel great concern. It's scary and daunting with the history we are living with from the other side. You have done a good thing reminding us all that we don't dare get complacent. I think I worry as much about getting too afraid. Since the other side are the fear mongers they love to be. Some days hard to find just the right amt. of caution tempered by right amt. of enthusiasm.

illinoislady · August 17

Jackie,

There’s no denying it – Kamala Harris has created an incredible amount of excitement and energy since becoming the Democratic nominee. Since Biden passed the torch, Trump’s campaign has cratered, and the deeper that hole gets, the more Trump himself looks unwell and unhinged.

Just this week, Trump has:

Claimed that Harris’ (much larger) rally crowds were AI-generated and fake.
Bombed a glitchy X/Twitter livestream with Elon Musk where Trump slurred his speech, lied constantly, and generally was incoherent.
Held a much-hyped North Carolina “speech” on the economy that a USA Today opinion columnist described as, “a dumb speech on a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with the economy.”

Remember when the legacy media put a 24/7 pressure campaign on President Biden to drop out of the race because of a poor debate performance? So, we ask for the one billionth time, where is the similar outrage for Trump’s erratic, off-the-wall behavior?

So, where is the media outrage about Trump? Where is the concern about a mentally unwell man becoming President again?

Following President Biden’s poor debate performance, legacy media like The New York Times and The Washington Post ran editorials calling on Biden to drop out, citing concerns about his age and mental fitness. Coverage on cable news channels was never-ending, especially on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News.

Once Biden finally passed the torch to Harris, right-wing outlets like Fox News even said Biden hadn’t done enough, calling on him to resign the presidency.

The media were tough on Biden, but, as always, they continue to hypocritically treat Trump with kid gloves. They keep airing his rambling press conferences and speeches, and to anyone watching, it’s obvious that Trump’s decline is becoming more public and pronounced as Harris picks up momentum.

Of course, the media has never really figured out how to cover Trump. As Lawrence O’Donnell put it in a recent monologue criticizing his employer MSNBC and other news outlets:

“It’s 2016 all over again. The same mistakes are being made. I have never seen an industry slower at learning from its own stupid mistakes than the American news business.”

illinoislady · August 17

Trump Finds Another Benghazi.

AI entered the presidential race this week, but not in the way many might have been expecting. In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump falsely claimed that Kamala Harris had “CHEATED” and “A.I.’d” an image showing a large crowd of people cheering for her at a campaign stop in Michigan.

The charge was quickly and easily disproved by news organizations (thousands of supporters were in fact photographed there from multiple angles); this was certainly not the “deepfake” crisis that experts have warned about for years, in which the existence of high-fidelity synthetic media leaves the public without the ability to distinguish between reality and fabrication. Nonetheless, Trump’s claim instantly boomeranged around the internet, amplified not only by his supporters but by pro-Harris accounts (to ridicule and condemn it) as well as technical experts (to fact-check and debunk it). Some commentators also seized on the occasion to speculate as to Trump’s mental well-being, a persistent theme of the summer campaign season. Was the post one more piece of evidence that the former president is losing his grip?

I have no special insight into Trump’s mental state. But I do know that fact-checking and pushing back on a claim like this is a mug’s game. Whether or not Trump believes what he says is largely irrelevant: What matters is that he’s saying it, which invites others to participate.

Trump thrives on the unique dynamics of social media—tapping into both the algorithms that shape the information landscape and what it means for individual users to interact online. Loaded words and terms (which can also function as hashtags) are everything; they’re sometimes called dog whistles, but linguists also refer to them as signifiers. This is a term that refers to a word’s actual form—its appearance on page or screen, its sound to the ear, its feel on the tongue—as opposed to its semantic meaning. What “A.I.” signifies in Trump’s post is not just a technology but Trump’s superiority, his dominance and mastery of all eventualities: He gets it. He’s on it. Nothing gets past him.

Trump understands the raw emotion of posting and engaging, the jolt that all but the most jaded users feel whenever the likes and replies start to roll in and the dopamine receptors activate. And this is what he’s offering to his supporters: something to post about, a way of licensing them to follow his example by filling up the text boxes on their own screens. It’s a version of what’s been termed the “liar’s dividend”: Henceforth, whenever partisans or the media write about Harris’s impressive crowds, there will be a preapproved and ready-made reply that can be transacted. She “A.I.’d” it!

Putting signifiers into play is not a new tactic, of course. Perhaps the best example to date is the word Benghazi, unfailingly uttered by a certain segment of the right-wing commentariat as an almost reflexive response to mere mention of Hillary Clinton. As a signifier, Benghazi stems from the 2012 attack on a pair of American government compounds in that Libyan city. Four Americans, including our ambassador, were killed. Then–Secretary of State Clinton was accused by her opponents of slow-walking the appropriate military countermeasures, costing lives. Numerous congressional hearings ensued, none of them proving negligence on Clinton’s part but all of them consuming bandwidth and implanting the word in the minds of the electorate.

As a result, people who couldn’t find Benghazi on a map would nonetheless invoke it whenever someone praised Clinton’s experience or foreign-policy acumen (key selling points of her 2016 candidacy). Indeed, Google’s Ngram Viewer, which tracks how words are used in a variety of published sources, shows a peak in the incidence of Benghazi not after 2012, when the event occurred, but around 2015—which is to say, in the thick of the presidential campaign that Clinton ultimately lost.

In this respect, even the oddly painstaking punctuation in Trump’s “A.I.’d” post may not be beside the point. It functions much like the multisyllabic foreignness of Benghazi. The fussy periods abbreviating the acronym A.I., the placement of the apostrophe: all communicate precision and specificity of knowledge, a command of what’s going on. Trump’s got them cold. He knows exactly what this is all about.

To be clear: I am not claiming that Trump was conscious of any of this as he posted. This isn’t another Trump-as-multidimensional-chess-master argument. Whatever tactical savvy is behind the post is the product of the reflexive way Trump uses media—his instincts for how to spike the narrative and shift the discourse—as well as his reckless disregard for the truth, and his consistent treatment of nearly all language as mere filler, or mere bluster, malleable and millable for his own ends.

[Read: Elon Musk throws a Trump rally]

But Trump’s most effective signifiers have never been entirely arbitrary. In the case of “A.I.,” the signifier feeds on many of his supporters’ inherent distrust of the media, as well as legitimate fears of the menace of deepfakes and a paranoid belief that Democrats and the so-called deep state must surely have such technologies at their disposal (and are willing to use them). The signifier also feeds on their desire to believe that Harris herself is some kind of synthetic candidate, manufactured to spec and illegitimately inserted into the electoral process.

Can anything be done to counteract this behavior? Fact-checking may be necessary, but it is never going to be sufficient. It’s an entirely reactive move, one that succeeds only by granting its subject, however spurious, undeserved consideration. The better move might be to play a more tactical and targeted version of Trump’s game. This is where J. D. Vance’s alleged (and disproved) illicit relations with a couch come in.

Some media outlets have tsked-tsked the meme, which is popular on the left. What’s the difference between this and Trump’s endless canards? The couch meme may be unwholesome and unflattering, but it does not attempt to distort the truth of an actual event. It posits a nonevent, and the fact that the original tweet included phony page references to Vance’s own memoir also made it effortless to fact-check; an untruth with its own refutation built right in.

Not everything that may be factually untrue is equally liable as disinformation, and not every untruth operates in the same way. The Vance-couch meme does not demonstrate that Democrats are poisoning the information landscape in equal measure with Trump, creating even more work for all the hapless guardians of accuracy. It uses parody and humor to provide an outlet for people’s distaste for an individual who seems to take an inordinate amount of interest in the bedroom activities of others. Mockery and ridicule operate in a different register from outright fabrication. They are effective signifying tactics not because they are falsehoods but because they can achieve a unique kind of accuracy.

Both “A.I.” and Vance’s couch are signifiers, fungible tokens in the collective language game that is the internet. Democrats shouldn’t have to apologize, certainly not until the internet is a far less hospitable place for right-wing lies, memes, and disinformation campaigns that are far more harmful in the aggregate. By recognizing language games for what they are, it’s possible to be a more responsible player—while still throwing the occasional elbow