Raven Onthill

Raven Onthill

@ravenonthill.bsky.social

5928

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Just a dilettante amateur political science bird who lives in the US Pacific Northwest. If you want to know what I think, try my blogs at adviceunasked.blogspot.com and shinycroak.blogspot.com.

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Heather Cox Richardson after the debate.

Politics Chat: July 2, 2024youtu.be Want more Politics Chat? Send me your questions on Facebook, and find me on Facebook Live every Tuesday at 4 pm (eastern time).

That awful blitz primary scheme is the work of a law professor and a venture capitalist. You can read the reports here. Da fuq? If there weren't a ton of money behind this, would anybody take it seriously at all? And it's just one person! www.semafor.com/article/07/0...

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Biden displays pretty obvious signs of normal aging, and my biggest takeaway from the past week and a half of discourse is that a lot of people will strongarming the family doctor for a fraudulent diagnosis to get a chunk of the estate early.

Maybe people just don’t know what dementia is? When the Dalai Lama did something gross and shocking in full on public, seemingly oblivious to the judgment of others — after which we basically never saw him again — I thought that sounded like actual dementia, but people insisted no!

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Here's what's up right now on French TV: Lots of politicians are fighting, & it's complicated to figure out what's going on. This level of fragmentation in Parliament just has not happened under this constitutional regime, designed in 1958; this is unprecedented territory.

LOL

Wow. @nytimes.com has closed their Threads account and left the platform after days of getting just shredded in the replies for their handling of Biden post debate. Now they're getting dog piled on Instagram for running from Threads.

The Democratic campaign is rapidly turning into a referendum on disability. This is crazy.

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bad luck for biden to run in an electoral cycle where "are you old" is the most important issue instead of in one of the cycles where email security procedures or accuracy of vietnam war medal citations was the most important issue in the country.

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One of trump's foreign policy advisors, Matt Pottinger, who is close to Mike Flynn, wants the US to go to war with China over Taiwan because our "empire must be maintained." Others close to trump also want that war. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Tom Stevenson · War Chariots: On the US and Taiwanwww.lrb.co.uk In a sane world, avoiding a Sino-US war would be an overriding priority. A global crisis over Taiwan would be a disaster...

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People who warn you about 2025 aren't threatening you, they're warning you. Like how if people were to tell you that there's a lot of deadly blue ringed octopi in the water off the beach aren't threatening you, they're warning you. Only difference is that if you swim it'll only kill you.

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Some lawyers are principled; some are not. More to the point: we can think that there is often a right answer, or at least better and worse answers, to the question: what does this law mean? This is one reason why I loathe the recent immunity decision: it's a horrible misreading of the Constitution.

I have very well meaning, impressively educated liberal friends who think justices are abundantly principled and that laws are real, as opposed to what the blatantly obvious truth is which is: “a lawyer is someone who you can ask to get you somewhere, and they can find out a way to do it…”

“The media is in straight dereliction of duty by not sharing this portion of Pres Biden’s annual physical in Feb which specifically says he had a neurological exam" – A Candee www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

www.whitehouse.gov

"Ours is a culture that greatly undervalues the potential contributions of older people who have so much to offer in terms of care, mentorship and experience and instead consistently portrays them as burdensome."

Frailty - Digby's Hullabaloodigbysblog.net This piece in the NY Times by a geriatrician is nicely done. As someone who is older and will be hitting those geriatric years sooner than I might like, the cruel ageist attitudes we've seen in recen...

Harris is part of the Biden administration, and cannot run against Biden. If Biden is replaced with Harris, how much advantage would she have?

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I will bang this drum forever: in THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE: THE GERMANS, 1933-45 Milton Mayer interviewed 10 ordinary Germans after WW2 to learn how fascism took hold. There was never a moment when everyone woke up:

if you’re waiting for everyone around you to wake up, you’ll wait forever. this is how the people grinding our bones to make their bread WANT you to be. paralyzed, alienated & purposeless

So now the Murdoch NY Post, which has been a rag all my life, is not getting Jill Biden's ex to say that Joe Biden is demented. This is starting to resemble the pile-on on Prince Harry. It's like that pile-on in another way, too: racist.

Biden dropping out has a price; it's not clear to me that it can be paid. Also, Biden is a great consensus builder; that's how he became president – he's the candidate everyone could tolerate. It's not clear to me that Harris can step into that role.

I really wish Bsky added the option to only reply to specific people. Threads with hundreds of replies generate dozens of divergent conversations, and it’s not fair to inflict that on the OP

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This is something that's hard to grasp in retrospect. I was sexually harassed as an undergrad, by which I mean things from a prof grabbing my breast at a party to another asking me to spend the summer with him. I was repulsed by this, but *we had no concept of 'sexual harassment at the time.*

The news coverage of the scandal was literally introducing the concept of “sexual harassment” to Americans and Biden and the rest of the Democrats were scrambling to get a grasp on it

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If you paid attention to Trump's side of the debate, he had the same underlying problem Biden did, where over and over he would start a sentence and realize he couldn't say or remember the words that would come next, but where Biden stalled out, Trump just switched to blurting something unrelated

Donald Trump has good days and bad days but increasingly only bad days. He's lost it - he can't focus and his brains are leaking out his ears, but the press is very impressed with him because HE CAN STILL SHOUT

Fk Jeff Bezos

Happy #primeweek! I just want to let y’all know that the Amazon shipping warehouse where my husband works is denying workers fans during a nationally recognized heat emergency and everything you order during time week places workers’ lives at risk.

I think the main goal of the decision was to immunize Trump against current prosecutions, because the Court's right wing (or some of its patrons) know very well that Trump is guilty as sin. But of course the judges can't say that. So they mixed in some tradcath monarchism. So, constitutional crisis.

New from me: Where is your "institutionalism" now? radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-suprem...

The Supreme Court foldsradleybalko.substack.com Faced with the most potent threat to democracy in more than a century, our most revered institution didn't just fail to hold, it aligned itself with the threat

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Right, if you can't say with your whole chest "Biden is the Democratic Party's nominee for 2024 and until such a time that he steps aside I will support him whole-heartedly", you don't have the strength to actually fight fascism. If you are shitting bricks over 0.3% in the polls you're cooked.

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My guess is that Trump knows very little about P25 *and* it will be the blueprint for his administration. He’s famously bored by policy. He’ll appoint these people because they’re loyal. They’ll then go to work on the plan while he grifts, golfs, and gives two-hour speeches at rallies.

Trump: I don't know anything about Project 2025 Here is a list of all the Trump officials who authored the Project 2025 blueprint, Mandate for Leadership. 25 of 36 were part of the Trump administration. project2025istheocracy.substack.com/p/project-20...

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The scary bit is when you realize that Bond villains were invented by Ian Fleming—former journalist, secretary to the Chief of Naval Intelligence during WW2, and UPPER CLASS NOB WHO KNEW THESE PEOPLE IRL. (By "these people" I mean rich entitled bastards with hench-thugs.)

if we ever thought Bond villainy was exaggerated, the last few years have shown us it is totally realistic

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Every pundit fretting over Biden’s age should mention that he could be a walking corpse and electing him would still be the only way to protect abortion rights.

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Today's daily reminder: : after watching pundits and political journalists at the NYT misunderstand and misrepresent infectious disease biology for the last four years, I'm not really eager to read their opinions about geriatric medicine.

It’s pretty alarming how the reporters suddenly devoted to watchdogging Biden can’t tell the difference between real drastic glitches like in the debate and normal fumbling

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No. 11: Call on governments to stop subsidizing plastic polymer plants, and to cease providing export credits and other government-mediated finance for such plants.

Plastic Pollution Solutions - 10 Ways to Reduce Plastic Pollution – NRDC | #PlasticPollution | MORE at EcoSearch

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So Biden has: -Held multiple public rallies -Met with governors -Done multiple interviews (radio and TV) -Made public statements about his intent -Showing support in swing states is unchanged -Bonus: Refused to cross a picket line. Y'all can see the ratfucking the media is doing right?

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Hello social medias... You may not be aware a major Cat 5 hurricane struck an area that normally doesn't get them. The eye passed directly over Carriacou and Petit Martinique. The devastation is tremendous. The need is great. You can help and make a difference: www.gofundme.com/f/the-people...

Help the people of Carriacou and Petite Martinique recover, organized by Marine and Yachting Association of Grenada MAYAGwww.gofundme.com On 1 July, the eye of Hurricane Beryl bore down on two tiny i… Marine and Yachting Association of Grenada MAYAG needs your support for Help the people of Carriacou and Petite Martinique recover

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Where are the pundits weighing in on Project 2025's training academy, and just who they're recruiting, and what exactly they're teaching in this training academy? (By unverified accounts, it's all terrifying, especially because it's so structured?) It's so, so easy for a pundit to opine about-