Just Do the Right Thing

There's a ridiculous and counter-productive "debate" going on right now about how Democrats should handle the nomination of a face-eating leopard to the Supreme Court.

Should Democrats fight like rabid ferrets in a losing cause in order to inspire Democratic voters for the November elections?

Or should they surrender in order to protect red-state Democratic Senators up for re-election?

Or maybe put up a token resistance that won't anger repug voters and drive them to the polls?

When the likely electoral consequences of such what-if game-playing are not clear and obvious, stop playing games.  Just. Do. The. Right. Thing.

The Right Thing is to loudly condemn any nominee who is not Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or Gov. Steve Beshear.

The Right Thing is to vote against the Orange Loser's nominee and discourage any Democratic Senator from doing otherwise.

The Right Thing is to speak clearly, loudly and often about the catastrophe the Orange Loser's nominee will bring down on this country.

Do the right thing, and let the chips fall where they may.

The Resistance: We Can Only Win the Hard Way

For 64 years, since Brown - or maybe 80 years, since Parrish, progressives have been on the ascendant.  Not without setbacks, but on a steady course of expanding the rights and freedoms of the Constitution to everyone - non-white, female, immigrant, poor, gay - left out of the 18th-century document.

And every one of those victories, those giant steps forward, came through the Supreme Court.  No matter what clusterfucks the repugs and conservatards created in the states, we progressives could always count on even the repug-led Courts to rescue us.

So over-confident were we that we didn't notice until far too late that the neo-confederates and the conservatives and the repugs were reacting to always losing at the Supreme Court by building up an electoral victory machine of unmatched power, even as we let our voters languish and drift away and give up.

Now the worm has truly turned, and we're the ones who have to start building an electoral machine to overcome the literally lethal rulings the Trump Court is going to issue over the next 50 years.

First, the polite version:

Josh Marshall:

Today’s High Court decision upholding the President’s anti-Muslim travel ban should focus us on a key, important fact: the federal judiciary is now heavily stocked not just with Republican appointees but conservative ideologues. This isn’t simply a commentary on this decision. It does include major exceptions – the Court’s jurisprudence on marriage, for instance. But we simply cannot rely on the Court’s as presently constituted to make rulings which are in line with the actual constitution or our national traditions. This is in significant part because of the corrupt appointment of Justice Gorsuch. But there’s no undoing that. We are on the cusp of what will likely be an even more dramatic example of rightwing judicial activism against labor rights. On issue after issue, change and justice or simple preservation will have to rely on building robust political movements. This is a point I plan and hope to see as a guiding premise of our upcoming voting rights and democracy series.

It’s not either/or. I spoke to a friend a few days ago who said flatly, the courts are a lost cause. It’s all about politics and elections. That’s wrong. It’s not a pure either/or. Courts and litigation remain still absolutely critical. We’ve seen that even in the last year. Critically important. But on many issues, in this period of testing, saving the country will come from robust political movements, ones which will have to succeed in the face of daunting challenges to the right to vote in order to eventually redeem those rights.

Now, the rude version:

Rude Pundit:

I've been saying this shit for nearly 15 years now. Democrats keep pretending there are rules. That didn't start with Trump. Democrats were playing badminton while Republicans were playing with flamethrowers during the Clinton administration. There are no rules except the ones Democrats keep making themselves follow. That's all so naive.

SNIP

We've been working on the fight in November for one or both houses of Congress. And that fight stands. But another fight is here now. Democrats have to be willing to fight dirty. Oh, sure, there are a lot of less dirty things that we can and should do. But these motherfuckers have gone too long without having their faces shoved in the mud.

Let's wallow in anger and shock for moment. Yet don't get caught up in the bullshit blame game. We have no time for childish things. I don't give a fuck about who voted for what in 2016 anymore, not in the election, not in the primaries. We either put that aside for this fight or we may as well just roll over and wait for the fucking. (By the way, that doesn't mean ignoring important election results this year or the utter failure of Democratic congressional leadership on this and other issues.)

Tomorrow, I'll get to how to fight dirty. Legal, yes, but fuckin' dirty, man. Getting chanted out of restaurants will look like a tiptoe through a meadow. Fuck chess. It's time for a barb wire cage match.

Send This Candidate ALL THE MONEY

Do it now.

Whether Pat Davis wins or loses, he's causing a bit of a stir in New Mexico with his rather blunt message for the NRA.

And from a quirk of election law, stations are not allowed to censor political ads, so his 15-second spot airs as is, without any bleeps.

Source: KRQE, Albuquerque

ALBUQUERQUE, NM (KRQE) - People see a lot of outrageous political ads, but it's not usually the language that's controversial.

Albuquerque City Councilor Pat Davis wants people to see his congressional campaign spot in which the Democrat uses profanity to get the viewers' attention.

"F*** the NRA," Davis says to start off his 15-second ad. "Their program policies have resulted in dead children, dead mothers and dead fathers. I'm Pat Davis and I approve this message because if Congress won't change our gun laws, we're changing Congress."

"I think the only people who are going to be offended are the NRA," Davis argued when asked about the ad Thursday.

Oh, please let this start a rude ads arms race among Democratic candidates.

Can't Lose Democratic Primary in KY Sixth

Democratic voters in Kentucky's Sixth Congressional District have a candidate bounty for once:  Three strong progressive candidates who would each represent a first for the District: a woman, a gay man and a black man. 

 

Amy McGrath would be just the second woman elected to Congress from Kentucky. The Third District (Louisville) elected repug Ann Northup to several terms back in the oughts, for reasons passing understanding.

 

Jim Gray is openly gay, something so boring these days that news coverage hardly mentions it.  But it would be a statewide first to send him to Congress.

 

Reggie Thomas is a reliable progressive vote in the General Assembly and as an African American would be another Congressional first for Kentucky.  He might energize the black vote all over the state if he won the primary.

 

It's a win-win Democratic primary for Central Kentucky and a giant step forward into the future for the state if any one of the three goes on to beat straight white male Candy Barr in November.

From the Herald:

Jim Gray pitched experience. Amy McGrath pitched a new generation of leadership. Reggie Thomas pitched a progressive future.

With a little more than a month to go before the May 22nd primary, the hourlong Hey Kentucky! Debate at Transylvania University Wednesday marked the first time the three major candidates in the Democratic primary for the Sixth Congressional District took the stage in front of a television audience.

Those three candidates — Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, retired Lt. Col. Amy McGrath and State Sen. Reggie Thomas — largely agree on the issues. All of them said health care was a top priority. They’re for increasing the minimum wage, changing gun laws and each of them added that they had supported Hillary Clinton in the last presidential race and primary.

That general consensus has forced the candidates to focus on the traits that define them, namely their backgrounds, to separate themselves from the pack and make their case for why they think they’ll beat U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, R-Lexington, in November.