JoeOtterbein
JoeOtterbein's Journal'The guy is ambitious': How Walz got on Harris' radar -- and onto the 2024 ticket
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/15/walz-harris-2024-elections-00174271By Holly Otterbein, Elena Schneider and Meredith Lee Hill
08/15/2024 05:19 PM EDT
The Democratic Governors Association had an enviable problem last December. After better-than-projected midterm elections, it had an unexpectedly large pool of candidates who could potentially lead the agenda-setting group — and out of them, they chose a Midwestern governor who was not known to have his eye on the West Wing.
What that governor, Minnesota’s Tim Walz, did with that job is a big part of the reason he’s Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate now.
Chair of the DGA for less than a year, Walz headlined state party events across the country, developed relationships with top media outlets and promoted a hefty slate of progressive legislation he signed as the “Minnesota Miracle.” Key donors and activists took notice. And then, ultimately, so did Harris, tapping him as her running mate — a choice that partially hinged on his deference to Harris, telling her that he wasn’t “angling for anything else.”
But Walz’s use of the DGA to expand his profile and strengthen his relationships with powerful figures in the party and the press suggested he was more politically calculating than his unassuming demeanor made it seem.
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more at link
(The article is co-written by my daughter)
Why Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/06/why-kamala-harris-chose-tim-walz-00172834The vice president and Minnesota governor didn’t know each other but quickly clicked.
By Eugene Daniels, Elena Schneider, Holly Otterbein and Christopher Cadelago
08/06/2024 12:21 PM EDT
Kamala Harris loved Tim Walz’s governing record in Minnesota. His biography and record of winning tough races resonated with her. And most of all, she just really liked him.
The Minnesota governor and vice president sat down for a one-on-one interview Sunday and connected, despite having little relationship prior to the vice presidential selection process, according to two people close to the process granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
But several other factors were important to Harris as well, according to one of the people. Harris appreciated Walz’s two terms as governor because he had accomplishments in Minnesota that Harris wants to replicate in her presidency — access to reproductive health, paid leave, child tax credits and gun safety.
Harris was also taken with Walz’s biography — a former high school teacher, a football coach and a veteran who flipped a Republican-leaning district in 2006 — which she believes will play well in all three of the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, including his win as a House member in a Republican district.
(BTW, this article was co-written by my daughter)
The Big Lie that Legal Experts Can't, or Won't, Tell Us
"Everyone is equal in the eyes of the law."
It is a lie that has been told so often we believe it. It makes sense until when you stop and look at the facts for a second.
Everyone is talking about *rump getting a "Special" Master that we could never get. Of course you can't! You do are not protected by the law.
I have said it here at DU before; US law is written, and practiced, to protect not prosecute people like *rump.
Don't believe it yet?
Think about the countless examples of laws that are broken by all demographic groups. Like drug abuse. How many rich white guys are in jail for drug crimes?
How many white people were shot dead by cops last year, compared to blacks who were shot? Answer: Blacks are twice as likely to be killed by police than white people. NBC NEWS
I could go on and on but the bottom line is that *rump will never serve a day in prison.
It's not right. But it is a fact. He has not only the protection of being white, well-known and wealthy, now *rump has the protection of being a republicant ex-POTUS.
All of the "law" protected *rump for years, before it protected him the entire time he was in office. It will protect him for long after.
I'm sorry. I hope like everyone here, that I'm dead wrong.
But I don't think I am.
Today is not first time *rump had a "legal win". It will not be his last.
My Unfortunate Encounter with a MAGA COVID19-SARS2 Survivor
The doctor wanted blood work so she sent me up to the local medical lab. I first saw him ahead of me, another slightly older white guy, at the door looking at his phone and wearing a "support the police shirt".
Still looking at his phone he motions its ok to pass him.
I go in and he follows sitting next to a woman he seemed to know in the waiting area and started to chat her up.
At this point he pulls his mask down below his nose and tells her the story about him having short-breathing etc. and that the doctor sent him to the hospital because he was positive for Covid. Complaining like hell that they isolated him. After telling her, and all of us in the waiting room about more symptoms he suffered for over a week in the hospital, he made his conclusion.
He said it was, "no worse than the flu."
At that point I was staring at both of them with my jaw down to the floor. Then the receptionist called my name.
So I tell the kind woman who is taking my blood about him and she shook her head adding, "we are so stupid". I knew immediately what she meant by the "we..". Because we live in a dead red PA county where people think wearing a mask is a result of a moral failure to unseat our great Gov. Tom Wolf and our cool Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.
Around here, "Impeach Wolf" lawn-signs are as common as Trump signs that are still, even now, standing next to since added "Stop the Steal" signs.
The lab worker said people come in "all the time" wearing a mask, only to have them "pull it down" to talk. She said they, "don't understand they are breathing it towards us".
I had to agree and added, shaking my own head, "we are so stupid".
'If Pennsylvania goes, so will go the country'
Trump and Biden are both betting big on Pennsylvania, spending the final days of their campaigns crisscrossing the state.
By HOLLY OTTERBEIN and MARC CAPUTO
11/01/2020 05:44 PM EST
Updated: 11/01/2020 06:11 PM EST
PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania has emerged as the keystone state of the entire race for the White House.
In the last three days of the presidential election, the campaigns of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden have made the swing state their home, with Pennsylvania surfacing as the president’s new top focus, his aides said.
Trump spent Saturday crisscrossing the state from the Delaware Valley to fracking country to north central Pennsylvania to stage four rallies. He’ll return for a stop in the northeast on the eve of the election. Biden sees Pennsylvania as so important that he is spending the final day of the 2020 campaign here, barnstorming “all four corners of the state” with his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, and their spouses, staff said.
“We are the Keystone State,” said Pennsylvania Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro. “It’s clear from an Electoral College perspective, if you look at the map from last cycle, just how pivotal Pennsylvania is. At the end of the day, I think if Pennsylvania goes, so will go the country.”
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more important news at link
Jill Stein cost Hillary dearly in 2016. Democrats are still writing off her successor.
The Green Party is set to nominate Howie Hawkins, a Democratic socialist making an explicit play for disaffected Bernie voters.
By ALEX THOMPSON and HOLLY OTTERBEIN
06/20/2020 07:00 AM EDT
ill Stein still haunts Hillary Clinton’s campaign team.
“Oh woof. I can’t bear to talk about that,” said former communications director Jennifer Palmieri.
For good reason: Had voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin cast their ballots for Clinton rather than the Green Party’s Stein, Clinton would be president.
Now, with the Green Party set to elevate its presumptive nominee — Howie Hawkins, a longtime labor activist keen on attracting disillusioned Bernie Sanders voters and calling for a “#DemExit” — many Democrats are unfazed. Not to worry, they say: Trump will be a sufficiently mobilizing force for Democrats this time around.
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more at link
Progressive groups boost spending against Engel
The left sees the New York primary as one of its last opportunities to oust a Democratic incumbent this year.
By HOLLY OTTERBEIN
06/18/2020 04:29 PM EDT Updated: 06/18/2020 05:41 PM EDT
Two top progressive groups are ramping up their spending on a super PAC to elect Jamaal Bowman in the closely watched congressional race in New York’s 16th District.
Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party, which previously announced that they would spend a half-million dollars on TV ads and phone canvassing to back Bowman, told POLITICO they are putting down another $250,000-plus in the days before the June 23 primary.
Their spike in funding comes as Bowman, who is challenging longtime Democratic incumbent Rep. Eliot Engel, is gaining momentum. In recent weeks, Bowman has won endorsements from Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The pro-Bowman super PAC will be airing a new TV ad on Friday featuring Jumaane Williams, New York City’s public advocate, who has thrown his weight behind Bowman. In the spot, Williams is sitting in a park alongside a diverse group of young people.
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more at link
New U.S. broadcasting chief fires agency heads
Source: Politico
WASHINGTON — The new chief of U.S.-funded international broadcasting on Wednesday fired the heads of at least three outlets he oversees and replaced their boards with allies, in a move likely to raise fears that he intends to turn the Voice of America and its sister outlets into Trump administration propaganda machines.
U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO Michael Pack informed those he dismissed in email notices sent late Wednesday just hours after he had sought to play down those concerns in an email to staff saying he is committed to ensuring the independence of the broadcasters who are charged with delivering independent news and information to audiences around the world.
Two congressional aides said that among those removed from their positions were the head of Radio Free Asia, Bay Fang, the head of Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, Jamie Fly, and the head of the Middle East Broadcasting Network, Alberto Fernandez. The director and deputy director of the Voice of America, Amanda Bennett and Sandy Sugawara, had resigned from their positions on Monday.
Pack, a conservative filmmaker and one-time associate of President Donald Trump’s former political adviser Steve Bannon, said in a notices to those fired that he was taking the step consistent with his authority as the new CEO of the overall agency. It gave no reason for his decisions.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/17/michael-park-voice-of-america-327713
more at link
Bolton did not want Trump impeached because they are both Republicans
Just a little FYI to all those on my TV who pretend they don't know.
If it was a Democratic President, Trump would have not only been impeached, he would have be non-persona for ever on my TV.
End of, televised or not, story.
Profile Information
Name: Joe OtterbeinGender: Male
Hometown: DelMarVa & PA (heading to PNW soon!)
Home country: United States
Current location: York County, PA
Member since: Sun Oct 28, 2012, 09:54 AM
Number of posts: 7,839