Kamala-itis

AKA Kamala Fever, an epidemic spreading throughout the country via an infectious laugh and virulent memes.

Treatment:

a shot in the arm of pure joy

for the next 101 days get plenty of exercise knocking on doors, constructing lawn signs, handing out bumper stickers, carrying people to register and to the polls.

after which the next day, take 2 aspirin for your celebratory champagne headache.

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83 thoughts on “Kamala-itis”

  1. Thanks for the thread inspiration from trail friend Bink’s comment last thread “having a trumper over for the weekend, gotta pretend i don’t have Kamala Fever.”

    Bink, hope you didn’t wear a mask and he/she caught it.

  2. speaking of fevers of another kind here’s an excerpt from the exceptionally interesting ‘The Interview’: Pete Buttigieg Thinks the Trump Fever Could Break – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

    I want to ask you about a specific shift in messaging I’ve noticed this week from the Democrats. The Harris campaign is leaning into the idea that Trump is, quote, weird. It’s very different from the way Democrats framed him before, which is that he’s an existential threat to democracy, this terrifying figure that is going to take away people’s rights. “Weird” seems, you know, a different tack from that. What do you think of that strategy, of basically laughing at him? Well, to be clear, I think we’re doing both. We’re talking about the implications for democracy and noting that he is obviously a strange person who’s getting stranger, and you’ve got to ask yourself, is that the kind of person you want in charge of the country? Part of the promise of a Kamala Harris presidency is actually the prospect of a comparatively normal Republican Party. What I mean by that is: Beating Donald Trump the first time in 2020 ended his term, but it did not end his grip on the G.O.P. Beating him twice would, I think, have a different effect on a lot of people in the G.O.P. who know better than to be onboard with him. He goes against their values too, not just my values, but they’ve gone along with it because they think it’s the path to power. And it would become abundantly clear that that is not true if we beat him, not just the way we beat him in 2020, not just the way we indirectly beat him in 2022 in the midterms, but beat him a second or, so to speak, third time.

    What I’m hearing you say, and please correct me if I’m wrong, is if Donald Trump is defeated in this election, then perhaps the Republican Party can be freed from his grip? I think so. I made myself watch the first couple Republican presidential debates, and we had a lot of Republican candidates this cycle. There were still some things that I thought were pretty fringe, and just about everything I heard I disagreed with, but apart from some of the darkness of Vivek’s populism, you could be forgiven for thinking you were looking at a more normal Republican Party. Look, we have fooled ourselves many times before into thinking that the fever would break. We thought it would happen before he was elected, when the “Access Hollywood” tape revealed that he had boasted about sexual assault. We thought it would happen when he was defeated, but he wasn’t in 2016. We thought it might happen after Jan. 6, and it very, very nearly did. So many of the people who are now kissing up to him basically turned their back on him then. We got so close to the fever breaking, but it didn’t quite break, because Republicans found that their access to power still depended on their standing with Donald Trump. If he leads this party to defeat a third time, I believe that the self-interest, just the internal power dynamics of the G.O.P., the very power dynamics that have kept them enthralled to him, even though so many of them know better(notably including, by the way, JD Vance, who, back when he was speaking truthfully and for himself, referred to Donald Trump as an idiot and compared him to an opioid, which is an exceptionally dark thing to say about somebody if you are from or connected to Appalachia as JD Vance is, right? And that was in public. In private, comparing him to Hitler, and now turning around and supporting him) — all of that finally breaks loose if they realize that attaching yourself to Donald Trump doesn’t just destroy your character; it destroys your access to power.

  3. another NYT story on a different topic no less fascinating was this from 3 days ago:

    Kamala Harris’s Indian Heritage Is Deeply Felt if Little Advertised – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

    [a little explanation of her “coconuts” remarks}

    To most who saw the quotation being circulated this week as a meme, it was just something funny that Kamala Harris said in a speech in 2023: “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?”
    But for many Indians and Indian Americans, the line, which Ms. Harris attributed to her mother, is layered with extra meaning. Tamil Nadu, the South Indian state where her mother’s family is from, is one of India’s largest growers of coconut palms. It’s also the kind of thing an Indian parent might say.

  4. David Horsey’s op ed Kamala Harris has earned her success | The Seattle Times

    If Republicans nominated a candidate for president who had won elections as a district attorney, as a state attorney general, a United States senator and as vice president, they would be boasting about their candidate’s impressive qualifications, but a batch of GOP members of Congress is calling the presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, a “DEI hire” even though she has precisely that record of electoral success.
    Meanwhile, Republicans have put up as their vice-presidential pick a guy whose political career began with his election to the Senate a mere two years ago, not to mention the fact that their presidential nominee’s entry into politics got a huge boost from his status as a reality TV star.
    Of course, JD Vance and former President Donald Trump are white men, and that is the primary qualification that Harris lacks in the estimation of her critics in the House Republican Caucus and the right-wing media.
    DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — is the new affirmative action and conservatives hate it. Whatever the merits or faults of DEI programs may be, a lot of folks on the right immediately assume that any woman or nonwhite person who does not share their ideology must have gotten to where they are without having to prove their qualifications.
    The truth is that Harris had to win tough elections in America’s largest state to get to where she is today. She did not ride on her daddy’s coattails like George W. Bush. She did not benefit from a name made familiar in the entertainment world like Ronald Reagan. She did not get picked out of a barrel of bland mediocrity like Dan Quayle. She earned her success.
    A few Republican leaders who have more than half a brain are telling their colleagues to cool it with their offensive comments, but those comments will continue to spin in the echo chambers of Fox News, conservative talk radio and the cesspool of right-wing social media.
    By next week, do not be surprised if these racist, sexist poltroons are demanding to see Harris’ birth certificate.

  5. “Weird” Pete says….. like I said yesterday, they’re turning into zombies all in plain view.  There’s been a sea change, slow but building, and Trump and his cult are beginning to be widely recognized as the fools they are.

  8. The public cried out for literally any other choice, and it turns out the other choice is qualified and charismatic.
     
    who woulda thunk it

  9. My notes from last night’s “weird” Trump speech to right-wing crazies, Turning Point:

    Trump: “Christians, get out and vote! My beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians! I’m a Christian”

    Trump: “Get out and vote just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years it will be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore…In four years you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good your not gonna have to vote.”

    He’s not kidding, just ask Liz Cheney: “A vote for Donald Trump may mean the last election that you ever get to vote in” (NBC, 12/4/2023)

  10. Kudos to Harris campaign for an immediate takedown of Trump’s speech, calling it “strange” and “bizarre”: “sounded like someone you wouldn’t want to sit near at a restaurant – let alone be President of the United States.”

  11. A dangerous attack line they’ve got is “a  study shows she was the most liberal senator”, but sounds more persuasive than it actually is.

    Facts: The “old ranking” in question was a one-year profile of senators from GovTrack in 2019. It was a very dubious enterprise that rated senators as “liberal” or “conservative” strictly on the basis of how many bipartisan bills they sponsored or co-sponsored; it did not factor in actual voting in the Senate or differentiate between significant or insignificant legislation. The rating was discontinued after 2019. —
    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/how-kamala-harris-can-fight-the-too-liberal-label.html

  13. Trump is honing his response on abortion. In last night’s speech he said Harris “wants a federal law for abortion to rip the baby out of the woman in the eighth, ninth month and even after birth”. Of course, a brazen lie (or “falsehood” as NYT gently calls it) but he’ll keep on saying it.

  14. Pennsylvania presidential election results could again take days to count
    This is a setup for Trump to attack the results if he loses. Just like last time, as it takes days to count mail-in votes he will claim it’s being rigged. Which is why he’s pushing PA Republican legislators to block the obvious fix done in many states: count the votes as they come in so they can be announced on election night.
    Washington Post: “Republicans in the state Senate refused to change the law and allow mail-in votes to be counted ahead of Election Day, despite widespread calls for change.”
    free link:
    https://wapo.st/4c3wmCb

  15. KeithOlbermann

    ·
    Jul 26

     

    The stunning thing is, in less than two weeks, Trump has gone from the first legitimate victimhood of his life to just looking like a hapless clown

  16.  
    You won’t have to vote anymore…In four years you don’t have to won’t be able to vote again

     
     

  20. I woke up high on Shapiro, but after breakfast turned to Kelly thinking how his tough border stance helps. Will probably get back to Cooper after lunch. Maybe Beshear for dinner.

  21. StellaParton
    Let’s talk about some badassery. My mom could have done a better job in Washington than most of our elected officials. No President, Biden included could have been successful without smart, strong women propping them up. VP Harris is gonna kick butt and take names.

  22. The gop has (following their leader) become a party of Sadists.   Not just mean people, but actual Sadists.  
    .Cruelty is the point.  

    And the twitterscape is aflame with no more voting.

  23. Still too soon for meaningful matchups but at this point we can measure Kamala’s sugar high. Average favorable rating up from 36% to 49% since becoming presumptive nominee. We have to wait another couple weeks to see if Trump campaign can knock that back down.

  24. The contrast of “dude” energy Kelly would being to the ticket seems unstoppable to me
     
    And for more contrast, any of these qualified, respected, moderate candidates will make the trump/vance ticket seem absurd by comparison. 
     
    That said, i don’t see Beshear beating out the other 3

    Hardly anyone mentions (that i’ve heard) that Shapiro’s very impressive 14pt win was against Mastriano whose candidacy was regarded as a joke by many.

  25. It has to be Shapiro because he is a winner.  He wins every time.  He also can have some coffee because “coffee is for CLOSERS!” And Josh is a closer.  I advocated for an open convention in Chicago just a week ago but man, that got detonated  quickly, eh? I wanted Shapiro to head the ticket, meaning I am dogshit at tea leaf reading.
    Trump heading back to Butler , this time inside, no more open air venues. And a new head of security, Odd Job from the Bond movies, with his bladed rim hat, a razor-edged bowler hat. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQOBAKngyMRmXrLcgqgvnsH71I4Wnc8VN9Ygm1bCaE9Iw&s

  26. Dex, let’s get the Jewish piece on the table and pass around. Jewish husband and running mate. Any meaningful impact on voters? I hope not, but needs a think through.

  28. ok i watched this, i get why people like him, now
     

    We don’t need PA by 14pts, though, we just need it by .01

    So, once again, does Shapiro bring anywhere besides PA?? Maybe 🤷‍♂️

  30. An upside I had always hooked for if the ticket opened up — people get to see what a deep bench of talent the Democrats have. That’s why we’re having trouble picking one.

  31. “ ‘I hate the police’: J.D. Vance ”

    i mean trump supporters assault cops with flagpoles and balustrades, so Vance seems like a perfect fit

    i keep hearing how smart Vance is but i’m not seeing it- maybe that’s how smart he is! 😱

  33. Harris’s people are starting to impress me.
    Like this comment:

    “America can do better than the bitter, bizarre, and backward looking delusions of criminal Donald Trump,” James Singer, a spokesperson for Harris’s campaign, said in a statement Friday night.

    Nothing like alliteration to get an idea stuck in the public memory and it sums the whole attack campaign up in one simple sentence.  Democrat’s  biggest  problem is they want to over explain. They tend to write a book where a simple sentence is needed. 
    Jack

  34. I doubt we’re having trouble picking a VP. Kamala is playing it close to the vest and keeping it under her her hat.  
    Like Joe did.

  35. Hope the powers-that-be that advise Kamala on veep choice have considered what the day after might look like in the states affected.  Govs like Shapiro, Beshear and others are absolutely necessary to remain in power in their state and could mean a blow to dems to say nothing of the public good if taken away. whilst the absence of Kelly from AZ on the other hand would provide an opportunity for the likely appointment of either a native american or hispanic in addition to putting a very big thumb on the scale for Kamala in 3 major issues (border, guns and climate change) which few of the govs in question have the same heft. 

  36. How do you win with a VP that emailed that he hates cops???
     
    i’ve been verrrry critical of law enforcement over the years and have never said that nor would i ever, what he said isn’t even a criticism

    if you’re an independent reading this, team trump either didn’t vet this guy at all or was extorted to pick him, either way, voting for trump/vance is extremely irresponsible, they’re inept, compromised, or both

  37. Craig

    I mentioned a few blogposts back that there was no way Kamala could escape the Jewish connection so I hoped the Antisemites wouldn’t be too omnipresent.

    Doug is Jewish.  Shapiro is Jewish.  Kelly’s father-in-law is Jewish and he and Gabby were married by a Rabbi.   

  38. Let’s talk about all of it. The second woman ever heading a ticket.  She’s married to a Jew and is endorsed by the Obamas. Mayor/Secretary Pete is a married father with Chasten.  Trump is a crazy adjudicated rapist crazy liar .  I read Beshear is out because he fights for coal, understandably, but a killer today in progressive politics.  Kelly apparently isn’t as favorable as Joe is t0 labor unions. Walz seems untouchable so far, no skeletons, and I would applaud his selection if the Jew factor boots Shapiro to the curb. Walz is Lutheran and oh my God, his resume is outstanding.  He has it all, military, stellar political career, smart, clear-headed and a great attention commander when he speaks, all plaudits, all for him…but Josh Shapiro is even better.  First Gentleman Doug won’t be running the nation anyway. Of course now the world knows Harris is Baptist with an open ear to the teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.  
    I am quite old enough to recall my dad arguing with his peers how The Pope would not be running the USA if Kennedy won, yes, believe me…people believed that. Kennedy dispelled much of the religious trepidations of Americans then which I believe has dissipated still more in Americans center and center-left who we know will vote Blue. Our voters…well, I just do not think the fact that Doug and Josh may wear yarmulkes on appropriate days  would lose votes when it comes to the call of all true patriots to dump Trump into a prison yard and away from 1600.
     

  39. LP’s latest

    The people pulling all the strings are now hanging you out to dry. You used to be in total control. What happened, Donald?

    and

    There’s only one old man in this race…and it’s Donald Trump.

  40. i’m assuming one reason team Kamala is taking their time is to focus-group and poll the heck out of how relevant Shapiro’s ethnicity is to the electorate
     
    Take your time, Team Kamala, i’m enjoying learning about all of these stellar Democrats across the country that are actually interested in governing! 👍

    What if Vance is so bad he puts Ohio in play???

  42. Ah, a nice thought, but Ohio is gone, gone with the wind, so to speak.  Trump’s poison has spread here . Goofy bastards have vans and trucks cruising around , painted TRUMP is brush strokes. In Defiance yesterday, I saw a big Ram truck with multiple giant Trump flags flying from all six stake-holes upside the truck bed.  This area and seemingly all of western Ohio where I live is RED .  Of course if the good folks in the power cities would get off their asses and vote, yeah, Harris wins.  But….

  43. My resident MAGAt thinks tRUMPsky’s “you won’t have to vote anymore” statement is “obscure.”     They claim they don’t understand what that means.   Yeah, they do.  Gaslighting?
     
    https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/07/26/mark-kelly-supports-the-pro-act-why-it-matters-to-his-vp-prospects/74534343007/
     
    “Kelly, D-Ariz., told HuffPost on Wednesday that he would support a pro-union bill that has floated, inconsequentially, in Congress for years.”

    “Kelly previously had expressed reservations about at least one provision of the bill but never signaled outright opposition to it.”

    “My parents were both union members,” Kelly said in reference to his upbringing in New Jersey to parents who worked as police officers. “I come from a family of cops and firefighters, all union members. When I was younger at the Merchant Marine Academy serving on merchant ships, all union ships.”
     
    Dex – Not anti-union. 
     

  44. https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/26/business/trump-crypto-bitcoin/index.html

    “And while Trump has locked in support from a handful of deep-pocketed Silicon Valley bigwigs like Marc Andreessen and the Winklevoss twins, his claim to be the “crypto candidate” may be a harder sell now than it was even just a week ago.”

    “Almost immediately after Biden dropped out of the race Sunday, the tech world began buzzing about what a Harris administration could look like and how it might take a gentler approach to crypto regulation than Biden’s did.”

     
    “Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur and bitcoin enthusiast, told the news site Decrypt that advisers to the vice president have reached out to him with questions about crypto, which he saw as a “good sign.” Cuban also told Politico on Tuesday that Harris would be “far more open” to crypto, though he noted that was “certainly not confirmed by the VP.”
     

    Cuban isn’t as smart as I thought he was; crypto is a house of cards; it’s a game of chicken; it’s just gambling without a net.

  45. BiD
    If even the maga supporters don’t know what he is saying?
    What a great attack ad, “You think you are confused? Even his most loyal supporters are going “wtf, that was some weird shit””
    Jack

  46. Crypto, high stakes gambling, in search of the next sucker. Crypto geeks are addicts not investors and should be treated so. 
    Pity them, don’t accommodate them.
    Jack

  47. Ohio…..first national vote on abortion.   
    Outcome not assured. 

    I bet there’s a lot of Ohio women getting sick and tired of riding around in trucks with a bunch of dumb flags and shit all over them. I mean, I know they’re out there…..chump women, just as ragged and ignorant as their friends and neighbors……but I’d wager that a lot of the younger wives and the kids….are looking at all this general insanity and wondering if maybe there’s not a way out.

  52. Nelsons…..Lennon.   Not sure exactly what but something
    may have gone full circle here.  

  53. He’s promising this Bitcoin conference everything they want, including pardons for their colleagues jailed for fraud. This speech needs to get a lot of coverage, scrutiny. It’s nuts.

    This speech is going to get a lot of scrutiny. It’s as close to a major policy speech as he’s given. And this is the topic he chooses??? He has officially made cryptocurrency a campaign issue.

  54. TRUMP “I’m laying out my plan to ensure that the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the World.. if Bitcoin is going to the Moon — as we say— I want America to be the nation that leads the way”

  56. I guess I’ll just have to google bitcoin. 

    I had been so hoping to avoid that.

    I’ll give it a couple of days.

  57. I Googled it Sturg. And here’s what it said, sounds awful ..

    “Cryptocurrencies are a relatively new and unregulated financial asset class that can be risky. Some potential risks include:

    Price volatility

    Cryptocurrency prices can fluctuate dramatically and quickly, and selling at the wrong time can result in significant losses.

    Lack of regulation

    The regulatory status of cryptocurrencies is unclear in many areas, and additional oversight is likely in the future.

    Fraud and cybercrime

    Scammers may target newcomers, and the technology and platforms used for trading are susceptible to hacking.

    Theft or loss

    If you store your cryptocurrency online, you don’t have the same protections as a bank account, and your funds could be at risk.

    User risk

    Unlike traditional finance, transactions cannot be reversed or canceled once they’ve been sent.

    Counterparty risks

    Many investors and merchants rely on exchanges or other custodians to store their cryptocurrency.

    Mismanagement

    Cryptocurrency projects often involve many teams, which can lead to mismanagement and negatively affect the value of the product”

  58. Some coverage of this bonkers speech..

    Trump, if President, pledges to replace Federal Reserve with a Bitcoin Reserve, using 210,000 Bitcoin seized by the Department of Justice, as the core of a new “Strategic National Bitcoin Stockpile.”

    TRUMP: “THE US GOVERNMENT WILL KEEP 100% OF THE BITCOIN IT OWNS, THIS WILL SERVE AS THE BASE FOR A STRATEGIC BITCOIN RESERVE”

  61. Trump as president in 2021: “Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam, another currency competing against the dollar” (FOX BUSINESS, 2021)

    He told Fortune Magazine he’s “not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air.”

    FORTUNE: “Donald Trump vows to make the U.S. a ‘Bitcoin superpower’ and create national stockpile of tokens”.. https://fortune.com/crypto/2024/07/27/donald-trump-bitcoin-2024-conference-kamala-harris-national-stockpile-gary-gensler-cbdc/

    Who knows how much they’re bribing him for this reversal of policy. He sold the planet to the oil industry for a billion dollars.

  62. trump, as head of a crime syndicate, heard that crypto is good for laundering money

    trump’s like “we’re losing in every demo, let’s go after the organized crime vote”

  67. MAGA Christian freak out over the horse going down the Seine is now death on a pale horse bringing on the Apocalypse

  68. Notice that they list US dollars as payment to attend and get a pic with Orange Adolf.  Attendees can’t pay in Bitcoin?  

  70. She’s not a white person, but she’s very articulate and never gets uppity.   

  72. you can see the shame in Meghan Kelly’s eyes, reflects off her hair extensions 😆 

    yo doofus you say “you got a problem with my wife say it to my face”, not “i love my wife even though she’s not white”

    holy shit

    Usha’s thinking “damnit my kids have his weasel genes 😭 “

  73. Had the NBC Olympics coverage (which sucks, btw unless you prefer commercials to commentary during ongoing events) on while I was installing a closet system for Mrs. P today. The Lyin’ Dangerous San Francisco ultra liberal Kamala super PACs are blanketing the coverage with their ads. 

  76. The people who would have a problem with his wife are like 4chan incels- that’s maybe a half a percent of the electorate

    what the fuck are they doing at Team Trump, keep doing it whatever it is

  78. Incels, by definition, are childless and Jumbo Douche is their clown prince…for now.

    Orange Adolf will give him the heave-ho (Vance will withdraw, probably under duress – hey, it’s the mob and he knew what he was getting into) on 8/19 to highjack the news cycle as the DNC begins.

    ps – Fill up up your gas tanks around the 10th.

  79. what a fortunate circumstance to have a VP candidate hat will have been praised for weeks as opposed to the knocked-around 2nd-place finisher of a contentious primary
     
    the challenge will be resisting arrogance

    Meanwhile the GOP has to run opposition research on 4-7 people and they couldn’t even vet one 👍

  81. Mark Kelly would be tough to oppose.  He’s a veteran, an astronaut, and he used to be a Republican so they can’t scream liberal-commie.

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