In Case You Missed It (v122)

Time to settle into a comfy chair and catch up on last week's posts, in case you missed anything.

I listened to three Democrats for your Sunday School this week: South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. 

They all put in good words for President Biden, tried to dispel fears about his age, and reminded us why we need him to be re-elected in November.  Here's a bit of Shapiro, referencing Ezra Klein's NYT comments.

Shapiro agrees with Klein that "the stakes could not be higher," but said Biden'll be the guy, and he'll have Shapiro's support.

...we’ve got to go out and make that case. The president, the vice president and those of us who are privileged who support him and have a front-row seat to this, we've got to go out and do this important work now.  

He said we all are "going to have to stand up and be counted" on whether America will continue "to be a voice of freedom and democracy..." and he's confident voters,

 ...just as they did in 2020, they will rise up; they will demand more; they will seek justice; and they will look to defend freedom in this nation, and they will reject Donald Trump.

Switching gears for your Extra Credit, I focused solely on Jake Tapper's chat with former Rep. Liz Cheney who, of course, is persona non grata with the MAGA crowd. She was not impressed with recent comments from Snitty Snitty Bill Barr, who recently said he'd vote for Trump over Biden even though, he also said,

Voting for Trump is playing Russian roulette with the country. Voting for Biden is outright national suicide.

She said he's "absolutely wrong," and even though she hasn't endorsed anyone, she "certainly would never support Donald Trump." Why?

...we know what Donald Trump will do because he's telling us every day. And anybody who has spent any time overseas, who has spent any time studying the history of autocracies and of autocrats knows we have to listen to what Donald Trump's saying. So electing Donald Trump's not Russian roulette. Electing Donald Trump would mean putting in power a man who's committed to unraveling our constitutional framework. So Bill Barr is just wrong on that.

I was Wondering on Wednesday about Choco Tacos, and about a proposed 'trucker boycott' of NYC, among other things,. The boycott was proposed by a trucker named Chicago Ray who tweeted about the boycott as a response to the penalties in the NY financial fraud case.

I'm just one of the many millions of Truckers who believe in God and love this Country. I stand with Trump bc Trump stands with me. Truckers for Trump ain't just a slogan, it's real.

Trump was delighted, as you might imagine, to "have so many Great Patriots" on his side, and so on. But then, Chicago Ray deleted his original tweet, put up another one in which he stressed he was not encouraging anyone to do anything - and then deleted that one, too. And I can't help wondering, is he still a Great Patriot, or not?

I took a more serious turn on Thursday, where I highlighted one more Sunday School interview in a Quick Take. I was not familiar with Charlemagne tha God until I watched his taped conversation with Jon Karl. Here's how things kicked off.

Karl started with a quote from his guest, who said the 2024 campaign is "a race between the cowards, the crooks, and the couch." Here's how he defines those three Cs.

...the crooks are the Republicans. The cowards are the Democrats, because they don't fight hard enough on anything. And, you know, the couch is voter apathy. And, you know, that's -- that's who everybody is up against in 2024. 

He doesn't know if anyone benefits from the couch winning, but that's what it feels like will happen; even his audience isn't energetic. He said "nobody wants to see the rematch" between Biden and Trump, and that's why he feels the couch will win.

Charlamagne's very quotable, and he had a few in the interview that I think really hit the mark, even though a lot of Dems might be mad at him for saying the quiet part out loud. 

Friday was a two-fer: first, an OrangeVerse entry in which I turn former president Donald Trump's words into verse, and there was my usual Friday feature, TGIF, where I attempt to identify folks I think had a good week or a bad one. 

There were political references, of course, including Rep. Dean Phillips, who's running for president on the Dem line, who had a good week.  There also was a culture reference, one that didn't mention Taylor Swift. 

Beyonce has her first #1 single on the Billboard Country chart, the first Black woman with that achievement in the history of the chart. And some folks don't seem happy about it.

Sure, if a Black woman either native to country music or coming up through the country music ranks would have achieved a similar goal, it would speak to the opening up of the genre to women of color. But that’s not what’s happened here at all. Instead, Beyonce is leveraging her global superstar status earned in the pop and R&B/hip-hop world, the enthusiasm of her Stan army the Beyhive, and the coercion of country music’s institutions to ensconce herself atop the genre.

On the other hand, people are line dancing all over the place to the song - including the Savannah Bananas - does that mean this whole thing is a wash?

See a snippet you like? Click the link and check out the full post - and be sure to stop back this week for more of the pastiche.

Quick Takes (v72): The Three Cs

He's important, he's influential, and he'd never been in a Sunday School classroom until his taped interview with Jon Karl aired on This Week. 

'He' is Charlamagne tha God; it was in his interview in 2020 that brought us this comment from then-candidate Joe Biden: 

Well, I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.

Karl started with a quote from his guest, who said the 2024 campaign is "a race between the cowards, the crooks, and the couch." Here's how he defines those three Cs.

...the crooks are the Republicans. The cowards are the Democrats, because they don't fight hard enough on anything. And, you know, the couch is voter apathy. And, you know, that's -- that's who everybody is up against in 2024. 

He doesn't know if anyone benefits from the couch winning, but that's what it feels like will happen; even his audience isn't energetic. He said "nobody wants to see the rematch" between Biden and Trump, and that's why he feels the couch will win.

He also said it's "mind-boggling" to him that people aren't even taking January 6th seriously. He said, "Everybody's acting like it was just a bunch of people, you know, wilding at spring break, you know, down in Florida." 

Karl pointed out that President Biden talks about that all the time, and wondered why it isn't resonating. Charlamagne was blunt: "... there's nothing about...Joe Biden that makes you want to listen to him." He said Biden needs to be leaning on others, like Vice President Kamala Harris ("way more charismatic than him"), California's Gavin Newsom, and Pennsylvania's Josh Shapiro.

And he should just be, I guess, if you want to call it the brains of the operation behind the scenes... Like, that sounds crazy that we're saying that about a president of the United States of America, but he, he has no 'main character energy' at all. None.

And when he compares Biden to Trump, who's nearly as old, the latter seems "a lot more youthful...  like he has a lot more energy."

And I always say this about him: Donald Trump seems more sincere about his lies than Joe Biden does about his truth.

Ouch. If you're part of the Biden campaign, you've got a tough row to hoe with that, I think.

Charlamagne endorsed the Biden/Harris ticket in 2020, mostly because of Harris, and Karl asked if she had met expectations. Another blunt response: she hasn't - but he doesn't think "it's too late for her to pivot." Her problem is that the VP is supposed to speak on behalf of the president, that's it.

But I think, man, we're in a new, a new era, right? Like, like for new jack problems, we need new jack solutions. And she serves a unique purpose, right? Because she is the first woman of color in that position.

Thinking about then-Senator Harris 'prosecuting' witnesses in hearings, Charlamagne said

I want to see her prosecute the case against Donald Trump in this country. I feel like she could go out there and really let the American people, you know, know what's going on. I'd like to see her going on outlets like Fox News. I'd like to see her going in there and mixing it up.

Does he hear from the administration when he's critical of Biden? That's a yes, and he thinks "that's the stupidest (EXPLETIVE DELETED) ever," because he thinks we all should be able to criticize elected officials, especially given what we're up against.  

So what I'm saying to them is, where is the sense of urgency? You can't keep saying that there's a threat to democracy, and democracy as we know it is going to be, be gone, but not act like it.

He also has a problem with the Dems "demonizing" their opponent, saying "Since I've been alive, whoever the Republican presidential candidate has been, they've demonized." 

And now that there's an actual legitimate threat right there in our faces, they're like, they're like the party who cried wolf. Nobody believes them.

He says it's "scary" that he doesn't know who will win. With the insurrection, and Roe being overturned, when you look at it, "it really shouldn't be close, right?" But the polls say Biden would lose to Trump in the general election.

That's where these conversations are coming from, where they're like, you, you might need to step aside and put somebody else in there. Because you know, my fear is that the election is going to be close, right?

He's not going to endorse anyone, Charlamagne said, but he will tell his listeners what he's seeing including this:

For years, they've told us that, you know, these people are threats to democracy. This person is absolutely a threat to democracy.

He'll continue to "speak the truth" about Dems, too. If he lies about Biden, why should anyone believe him when he tells the truth about Trump? He added

... I hate to say this, but why do we keep having to say this: pick your poison. One poison might send you to the hospital for a couple of days. Other ones will absolutely kill you. 

I don't take issue with what Charlamagne said, just as I didn't with what Jon Stewart said. I'd love to hear what you think - drop a comment, if you like.