I’m joining my friend @JoeBiden tomorrow to talk about everything that’s at stake in this election.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 22, 2020
I hope you’ll join us, too. This is a critical moment in our history––and all of us have to do our part to build this country into what we know it can be. https://t.co/diQxk3uFH2
112 Responses to “A Critical Moment”
Comments are currently closed.
Obama White House.gov
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
WH Tumblr
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
The People’s View
- Follow me at my new venture: Reclaim the Fight
- Ignore the bait: Why it’s the right strategy for Democrats to focus SCOTUS fight on health care
- BIG: Judge halts Trump administration attempt to shortcut the census
- Trump doesn't want peaceful transition of power. Legally, it doesn’t matter.
- Fauci goes off on Rand Paul
- Rule 44: Why Obamacare is not lost even in a deadlocked Supreme Court, but only if Biden wins
- Time to suit up. This is war.
- BREAKING: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has passed
- Bothsidesism comes to fact-checking: CNN's “fact-check” calling Biden ad 'misleading' proves the opposite
- Pardon me: How Donald Trump's stooges conspired with Julian Assange to exonerate Russia and undermine US Intlligence
Smartypants
- Durham to Right Wingers: "Blame Hillary"
- That Time When Refusing to Negotiate With Hostage-Takers Worked
- The Other Christian Nationalists: Leonard Leo and Opus Dei
- Hawley Demonstrates That He's an Ignorant Liar
- DeSantis Board Votes to Counter-Sue Disney Over Something...Anything
- Hunter Biden's Laptop Is a Total Nothingburger
- What DeSantis Couldn't Say in Response to Disney's Lawsuit
- Disney Skewers DeSantis With His Own Words
- Populism Without Civil Rights Is Fascism
- Glenn Greenwald gets triggered by smart competent women like Rep. Stacey Plaskett
Steve Benen
- What to look for if Trump is indicted by the DOJ
- Ibram X. Kendi: When we assess structural racism, we are talking about groups not individuals
- Women are still pessimistic about the U.S. economy, polling shows
- 'You don't know anything about him': Evangelical voters on Mike Pence
- Most women believe menopause has negatively impacted work life: study
- Chris Christie says campaign will focus on Trump's presidential record
- House members seek sanctions on people involved in Iranian oil sales
- Andrew Weissmann: No question Trump will be charged, now a matter of 'when'
- Dave Aronberg: An indictment could be coming 'any day now'
- Pence weighs in on support for eventual GOP nominee: What it means
The Obama Diary 
Don’t forget Bannon
Sweet Jesus!
Growing number of public health officials are leaving positions following political pushback and threats of violence amid pandemic
Public health workers, who have long been underfunded and understaffed, are confronting waves of protest at their homes and offices in addition to pressure from politicians who favor a faster reopening.
Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, said more than 20 health officials have been fired, have resigned or have retired in recent weeks.
This is so ADORABLE!
🤣❤️🤣❤️‼️❣️
Ah.
Anyone here have current problems getting into Facebook right now? When I click on the app it just goes back to the app page.
It is working for me.
I just cannot wait! A stage full of POC expressing the events and principles of the founding of our nation!
THIS is how I grew up, learning to respect the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.
🎵 All By Myself 🎵
Absolutely!! This would be a looooong past due issue! DC needs statehood!
What a mess FL is right now. So sad. Worse than AZ and we’re a mess,too
Pod Save America:
“Color of Change Chair Heather McGhee joins as a guest host to talk about Trump’s speech on police reform,
the Senate Republican bill, where Joe Biden and the Democrats stand, and how we can ensure that this moment becomes a durable political movement to fight systemic racism.”
(https://crooked.com/podcast/juneteenth/)
Poverty Kills.
In that podcast: Reverend William Barber talks to Dan Pfeiffer about the Poor People’s Campaign.
Rev Barber on voter registration, protection, and mobilization, poor and low-income multi-racial peoples coming together. From earlier last week:
“Those folk in the streets have been marching for a long time recognize that we really are calling for a Third Reconstruction, a fundamental restructuring of America in five areas; systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy, and a false moral narrative of religious nationalism.”
😂😂😂😂😂😂
Something else to worry about! Check your sanitizer!
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/22/us/hand-sanitizer-fda-trnd/index.html
Is it possible to overturn these appointments by having all things done under 45 as being illegitimate?
🤣🤣🤣
When folks show who they are……
Kinda like Morgan Freeman when asked about racism: “Stop talking about it.” 🙄
Oh dear. Ridiculous.
Going to be 109 in Phoenix tomorrow. Welcome to hell, Jackass
Why is he coming to Phoenix?
I think, according to df’s post, “The devil made him do it.”
To get COVID?? I ha e no freaking idea, Don. Who the hell wants to come to Phoenix in the summer!? Only fools. He’s coming to some mega church around here and the yahoos that run the church have invested in some air conditioning units that clean the air of COVID. 99.9% COVID FREE!!! Fucking idiots. I hope that the TIC TOK kids work their magic again, though this “church” only seats 3,000… they better HOPE that air conditioning takes the COVID out! Fat chance… he’s going to Yuma, too… check on the wall her didn’t build there. I hope awful things. Maybe he’ll get stung by a scorpion for added pleasure.
Fool
Here’s the story about the yahoos. Oh good! I see the inept asskissing Governor will be there along with the inept Republican Senator from AZ.
https://www.12news.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/phoenix-church-hosting-trump-claims-its-new-air-units-eliminate-99-of-coronavirus/75-bc045cb6-1bbc-409c-acac-f42ff46492bc
Where is this church marleysperson? The only mega church I know there is on north Central. Can’t remember the name, but I use to attend it.
I just did mapquest. I do know where it is and its not the one I attended thank goodness. It is the crazy one.
No idea where that is:) I try to steer clear of a megachurch
Couldn’t REALLY be a church, right? Living tax free and holding political rallies and all…
I wondered about that! How could it be in a church.
Five years.
Let this really happen
We have to do just about this so they can’t cheat!!!
I’d say that he sufficiently profited in his role as campaign manager. Stepping down from that role doesn’t mean he won’t continue to profit from the campaign though.
“Companies owned by Donald Trump’s campaign manager have received nearly $40 million from the president’s reelection committees, according to a new report”
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-campaign-manager-parscales-companies-got-nearly-40-million-2020-5
The filings show that between January 2017 and the end of March, Parscale’s companies brought in $38.9 million from those committees.
He’s been able to buy a Ferarri, a Range Rover, a $400,000 boat, two million dollar condos and a $2.4 million waterfront house in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., according to HuffPost.
…the girlfriend and wife of Trump’s adult sons — Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lara Trump — have each been getting $15,000 per month through one of Parscale’s companies…
Can’t wait until it stops! (Not that it will ever totally stop in our political system.)
WOW …this is great
Looked great to me! ❤
YUP. Absolutely no surprise …
Valerie Jarrett’s daughter is brilliant.
I feel sick that this is even necessary but thank God for Chef Andres and his dedicated staff. They are a balm for our weary souls.
They have an abundance of gifts…
Let’s watch it again, shall we?
Morning everyone
These are the ones he KNOWS about. It’s NOT rigged, you ignorant jackass. It’s because when we vote, we win.
cops are TRAAAAAAAAAAASH
It’s America or Trump
It’s no accident that
:
You learned about Helen Keller but not W.E.B. DuBois.
You learned about the Watts and L.A. Riots, but not Tulsa or Wilmington.
You learned that George Washington’s dentures were made from wood, rather than the teeth of slaves.
You learned about black ghettos, but not about Black Wall Street.
You learned that Christopher Columbus discovered America, but not that his “conquests” also involved raping young girls and women.
You learned about the New Deal, but not “red lining.”
You learned about Tommie Smith’s fist in the air at the 1968 Olympics, but not that he was sent home the next day and stripped of his medals.
You learned that Rosa Parks sat on a bus, but not about her decade of activist work that led to that moment.
You learned about “black crime,” but white criminals were never lumped together and discussed in terms of their race.
You learned about “states rights” as the cause of the Civil War, but not that slavery was mentioned 80 times in the articles of secession.
You learned about the explorations of a few white men and little to nothing about the cultures they “explored.”
You learned that interracial relationships became legal in 1967, but not that white men had an unofficial yet socially accepted right to rape Black women for the 400 years previous.
You learned about the Declaration of Independence, but not that it also declares an inherent right to wage war against “merciless Indian Savages.”
You know about affirmative action for non-white college students, but have no idea about how the G.I. Bill provided the same exact benefits, only to whites, decades earlier.
Privilege includes having history rewritten so that you don’t have to acknowledge uncomfortable facts.
Racism and oppression are perpetuated by people who refuse to learn about or acknowledge this reality.
You have a choice.
#youhaveachoice. #strongertogether
#blacklivesmatter
♥️🙏🏼🕯⏳♥️
MP, did you write this, or was this from BLM. I would love to share this on FB. ❤️
A longtime friend, a woman whose career as a biological scientist in Seattle, posted this as a copy and paste in her fb page. I feel it is an excellent tool for everyone, but especially white people who have been oblivious to history. By all means share it, thank you, stjerrid.
Thank you, MP
🙏🏼🕯⏳🌏🕊
SOON:
Dr. Anthony Fauci Gives Testimony on Trump Administration’s Response to COVID-19 |…
Dr. Fauci testifies in House hearing on coronavirus response…
these senators oppose the anti lynching bill…because it is ok to lynch black people
Think about that. CONFEDERATE statues at that!
Donald Trump fires the entire U.S. Agency for Global Media leadership,
and heads it up with (Steve Bannon acolyte) Michael Pack, and unqualified officials loyal to Trump.
Maddow:
“…within 48 hours, all the network heads were fired within the agency that runs Voice of America.
Voice of America is just one network that runs alongside all the other international broadcasting entities in the U.S. government. You know, they`re all ultimately derived from that original mission set in World War II.
It’s Voice of America, but it`s also Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty,Radio Free Asia. There`s a Cuban Broadcasting Service, the Middle EastBroadcasting Network. They`re all run by the U.S. government. They`re all. supposed to be totally insulated from any domestic partisan politics in this country. They are supposed to be straight news organizations that bring both the values of the free press and actual free, un-bossed journalism to the world, courtesy of the American people. But this week, it has all gone haywire.”
Maddow:
“The VOA chief, Amanda Bennett, and her deputy, resign suddenly and without notice. Then two nights after that in what`s being headlined as Wednesday night massacre, the heads of all those other networks all get fired all at one as well. Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, the Cuban Broadcasting Service, the Middle East Broadcasting Network, fired, fired, fired. No reason given for any of those network heads being fired. They were all just wiped out. So what`s going on here?”
Maddow:
“A couple of months ago, the president started denouncing the Voice of America as, in his words, disgusting.”
And now: “President Trump has nominated that guy, the Bannon acolyte guy who makes the anti-gay documentaries about the oppression of Christians – President Trump has nominated him, Michael Pack, to take over the agency that oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Middle East Broadcasting Network and all the rest.”
Maddow:
“It`s widely believed in Washington that the president started mounting that criticism of Voice of America because he wanted to goose momentum to get that guy`s nomination through, to get his guy installed as the head of the agency that oversees all of these broadcast networks. Among other things, I should tell you the White House criticism of Voice of America led the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control of all places, to formally blacklist Voice of America reporters so they could no longer get interviews with CDC officials.”
Maddow:
“If you have ever wondered what the Trump presidency might be like if in addition to the traditional powers of the federal government, the president also commandeered control of a media empire for his own purposes, an empire with a budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars with hundreds of staff, with a huge reach that not only spans the global, it also of course now broadcasts into the United States, if you`ve ever wondered what a Trump presidency might be like with a huge media outlet added to it – well, let`s see, because what just happened this week in the middle of everything else was a hostile takeover of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, a sudden decapitation of all of its leadership, the removal of all experienced advisers and the installation of Steve Bannon`s guy to run it all.”
Until now anyway:
“The mission of United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) is to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy. Voice of America reaches a global weekly audience of more than 280.9 million people in 47 languages. VOA programs are delivered on satellite, cable, shortwave, FM, medium wave, streaming audio and video and more than 2,350 media outlets worldwide. It is funded by the U.S. Congress through USAGM.” (usagm.com)
For 78 years:
The Voice of America has been the voice of democracy funded by the USAGM.
It began broadcasting in 1942 to combat Nazi propaganda with accurate and unbiased news and information, telling truth to power. How about under Trump with an unqualified Bannonite ruling this global enterprise? Under Donald Trump this could quickly become the voice of Hate and Oppression, a No-truth venue for wannabe dictators. This is up there with the worst imaginable news.
Ambassador Karen Kornbluh,
Now former board member U.S. Agency for Global Media (just fired by Trump).
Senior fellow at the German Marshall fund of the U.S. to Maddow:
KORNBLUH:
“I mean we were appointed to what`s considers a bipartisan role to fill Democratic seats and Republican seats, but we function together in a completely nonpartisan way…..
We`re fighting this information war against disinformation and authoritarians, these organizations are getting out the U.S. message, VOA, and then the others are getting news and information demonstrating the First Amendment, demonstrating the free press, and getting information into Russia, China,Iran, North Korea, you know, the work that Radio Free Asia is doing in China is amazing. The Open Technology Fund has produced tools, Internet freedom tools that are used by 2 billion people.
Radio Free Europe working with the other entities launched current time,
which is a 24/7 global digital and broadcast network going to Russian
speakers around the world. So, these are really important assets.”
“Karen Kornbluh talks about the value of the work done by the agency in disseminating accurate information and spreading American values to places like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, and how Donald Trump’s re-staffing the agency with apparent cronies threatens that mission.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-threatens-valuable-tool-for-spreading-american-ideals-85492805964
Ryan Crocker,
Now former board member U.S. Agency for Global Media, (just fired byTrump).
Former US Ambassador to Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, to Maddow:
“You mentioned Amanda Bennett (VOA chief and her deputy fired by Trump). It does not get better than that in American journalism. In addition to the two Pulitzer prizes, she literally saved “The Philadelphia Inquirer” when she was executive editor.
Look at Alberto Fernandez, my former foreign service colleague who ran Middle East Broadcasting in the end.
He is a fluent Arabic speaker. Those are rare on the ground, let me tell you as one myself.
Alberto was good enough to go on Al Jazeera, debate some of our adversaries in flawless Arabic,
and just create a whole different image for the United States.
He remade the Middle East Broadcasting Network, cleaned it up, cleared it out, started over in a lot of respects, and it is utterly unrecognizable from the pretty pedestrian entity that he stepped into.
He got banned in Baghdad. How great is that, for reporting on corruption.
The Iraqi government didn`t like it….The people loved it. We were telling truth to power.
As you said earlier, that`s the whole mission of this agency and its subsidiary entities.
You`ve got, you know, Jamie Fly running radio-free Europe. This is someone who has been a thought leader particularly on European matters, comes out of the German Marshall Fund, speaks Russian and immediately got into the faces of some of these autocratic regimes.”
“Ryan Crocker talks with Rachel Maddow about some of the talented people cut from the agency by Donald Trump, and his concerns that high journalistic standards will not be maintained under the command of Trump loyalists.”
(https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-firings-at-us-global-media-risdamaging-high-standards-85494341544)
Good Morning, Good Day, Good Afternoon, Beloved TODbots.
💜❤💙🤗😍💙❤💜
Trump has so undermined our trust around the world with his wannabe tin pot dictatorship.
Yes he may be the face of the Bumbling Buffoon. But those architects (domestic and probably foreign) standing behind him in the wings are apparently setting up big things. Picture a global communications venue c/o America for dictators.
New post.
https://obamadiary.wordpress.com/2020/06/23/defund-the-police/
Livestream Rayshard Brook’s funeral service:
https://www.ebenezeratl.org/watch/
I do not know if anyone here has experienced this.
I have been in total social isolation since when it was suggested (end of Feb). I believe the science and I am also one of those who have a severely compromised immune system.
My friends have been extremely good and frankly reinforced my belief that I am the luckiest person. For all these weeks, my friends have called and dropped off cooked meals, They have voluntarily done and paid for my grocery shopping and delivered it to my door step. I have not felt isolated and I have more than I need to survive.
Due to an unavoidable situation, I had to step out and go to a store a while ago. Of course, given that I have been in ICU twice before, and even received my last rights from a priest, I was all masked and gloved up.
I planned to spend 15 minutes max in the store.
I did my shopping, ignored all other unmasked shoppers. I then went to pay my bill.
This is the annoying part, there is person at the counter who is supposed to receive my payment.
He is has a mask but he is not wearing it around his nose.
The mask dangling around his next.
Unsolicited, he decides to say he wants to “educate you about how you are going to kill myself because you are breathing in carbon dioxide due to your mask”.
I told him. I am okay. I just need to pay for my stuff and go home.
He insists that I have been watching too much tv. He explains to me how breathing occurs. Added more garbage.
I told him I am fine. But he goes on and on.
Meanwhile, the other unmasked family that is in the store also joins in to “educate me” and laugh.
I told them it is okay. I do not need to be educated. I am a scientist by training (which is true by the way). I just need to pay and leave the store.
Then one tells me that many people who come here and claim be scientists but “all they have is a hunting license”.
I shook my head and resisted telling them my resume (not that it matters to anyone who chooses to follow the advice medical experts).
I just told them, let me pay and go home. I am okay.
My problem is this, everyone is
(a) listening to the science, seeing the record of people dying, hospitalized, or whose organs have been permanently damaged;
(b) making a choice of what to do about it (whether mandated or voluntary).
So,
Why do people feel smug and attack people who choose to listen to the facts and follow science.
Especially when I did not make any comment or give any side-eye to those who were not wearing masks.
It will be while before I go out to the store again – not that I was planning to. I see how people can goad a negative reaction from you even when you are minding your business.