Our President's racism is "Not Blundering," announces William Rivers Pitt at TruthOut, but is "Tactically Deliberate." "An instance of horrifying racism becomes merely 'expected' from the president," Mr. Pitt writes, "and then he moves on to another one, and then another, and another after that. He and his administration are laboring to normalize the grotesque." Of course, Tha Bush Mobb also "set() the bar so low it is barely visible," even though Mr. Bush took great pains to avoid saying something actually racist. And Democrats won't win by straining to be "the party of civility"; they need to be the party of changing the damn subject from this awful President's latest flatugasm to what we-the-people want our America to be. At last count, only two Democrats running for President (Sens. Sanders and Warren, in case you hadn't guessed) might be able to do that.
Philadelphia, PA District Attorney Larry Krasner argues that the death penalty violates the state constitution. But though the flesh is willing, the heart asks whether the death penalty "cannot survive the state Constitution’s ban on cruel punishments" merely because his office has found that the state overturned almost three out of every four death sentences between 1978 and 2015; you'd have to at least compare that data to what's gone on in other states over the same time period. Still, to decide that it's constitutional, I would think you'd also have to prove that it could work if the legislature could fix it, and I'm less certain any legislature can do that, and not just because executing the wrong person ain't something you can take back.
Study finds correlation between broadband availability and higher housing values in rural areas, and why not? People like their internet, and people get a lot out of it, too. Interestingly, the higher broadband speeds (250 Mbps and up) seem to have no effect on housing prices; possibly (the authors theorize) because speeds like that are relatively new to rural areas, or because rural folks don't care exactly how fast their broadband is. I incline more to the explanation that once folks get the opportunity to "becom(e) civically-engaged, reduc(e) isolation, and even (improving) income generation," they don't really care about exactly how few nanoseconds it takes to reap these boons.
Sam Pizzigati at the Our Future blog asks: "Have We Hit Peak Decadence?" I'll admit I was tempted to answer in terms of our President's ongoing dramas and what evils we seem willing to tolerate from politicians as long as they're on our "team," but I was pleased to see Mr. Pizzigati pivot immediately to the burgeoning "super-penthouse" phenomenon. As long as I've been alive, the penthouse apartment has been synonymous with decadence, but now you've got super-penthouses with 10,000 square feet, a 360-degree view of the city below, and (oftentimes) more than one floor. And the folks who own them don't own just one of them, either! Sadly, every time you think we've "peaked," there are more peaks to climb. Are billion-dollar, building-sized penthouses that far off? And how many more overworked, underpaid people will they create?
Finally, another day, another Republican warning that if Democrats move too far left, then 2020 could be 1972 all over again. I'd agree with Mr. Sykes that national Democrats shouldn't simply be the mirror opposite of our President on immigration, and I also agree that our President's racist "go back to wherever you came from" flatugasma resonated with a lot of Americans. But here's a major difference between 1972 and 2020: Richard Nixon knew better than to say the proverbial quiet parts out loud. And, as I've suggested above, the best way to counter all these hypothetical attack ads on cherry-picked positions is to run ads about how your actual agenda will help us make a more perfect union. Of course, we have a more compelling reason not to make 2020 a "referendum" on our President: he loves being the center of attention, and people who love being the center of attention like that need to be ignored. (Not a lot of Democratic 2018 campaign ads even mentioned our President, you know. In fact, the only Democrat who did mention him in my media market lost.)
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