So it\u2019s Thursday afternoon.\u00a0\u00a0Kamala Harris will give the \u201ckeynote\u201d acceptance speech tonight, and I\u2019m looking forward to it.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m also looking forward to getting some sleep:\u00a0\u00a0no matter how late my Democratic friends talk, the dogs still are \u201con the clock\u201d at six in the morning.\u00a0\u00a0Coach Walz used the old political campaign line: \u201cWe\u2019ll sleep when we\u2019re dead\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0But I need to get some snooze time sooner than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last night was amazing.\u00a0\u00a0Tim Walz is a natural, a leader, a man who can get others to follow him to the State Championship, to accurately fire an artillery piece, to the Congress, and the Governorship of Minnesota.\u00a0\u00a0He now will take his leadership national, and he\u2019s off to an awesome start.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Josh Shapiro is a strong speaker, but Pete Buttigieg is even better.\u00a0Hakeem Jeffries, ” the next Speaker of the House” can rap and rhyme with the best. \u00a0And while I will always bare a grudge against Bill Clinton, in the end, he still is the \u201cExplainer in Chief\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Oh, and \u201cOOOOOOOOOOOOO-PPPP-RRRR-AH\u201d is pretty good too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But today isn\u2019t about praising oratory. It\u2019s about the \u201cdirty laundry\u201d of the 2024 Democratic National Convention. I\u2019m going through it all, once, and then I\u2019m done \u2013 and it\u2019s back to the candidate of \u201cJoy\u201d (thanks Bill).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, let\u2019s talk about what didn\u2019t happen last night.\u00a0\u00a0John and Rachel Goldsberg-Polin have a twenty-three year old son, Hersh, held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. They wear the number 320 on their chests, a hard reminder of the days their adult child has been in captivity.\u00a0\u00a0Hersh was at the concert in the desert, and lost the lower part of his left arm in the grenade assault that ended in his capture.\u00a0\u00a0There have been pictures, taken months later, and John and Rachel believe that Hersh is still alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John and Rachel anticipated neutrality or even animosity from the Democratic crowd when they came to the podium. After all, Democrats are trying to get a ceasefire, and not rock-solid secure in their backing of the current Israeli government. And many Democrats express concern for the thousands of civilians casualties in Gaza, bystanders to the violence between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What the Goldsberg-Polin’s didn\u2019t realize, is that the thousands of Democrats representing the country in Chicago are just as concerned with the fate of their son, and the other hundred or so still held alive in Gaza, as they are with Palestinian civilians.\u00a0\u00a0And when they saw the real tears in the eyes of so many of the delegates, heard the chants of \u201cbring them home\u201d, and felt the warm applause for their statements, they found allies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democrats are concerned about the hostages:\u00a0\u00a0they know Hamas started this whole cycle of violence on October 7th<\/sup>.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s not that they support Hamas, it\u2019s concern for the thousands of civilian Palestinians caught in the crossfire.\u00a0\u00a0No matter what the MAGA propaganda machine says; Biden, Harris, and Democrats aren\u2019t Hamas sympathizers.\u00a0\u00a0They simply want the dying to stop.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are thirty Minnesota delegates who are dedicated to the thousands of Palestinian civilian dead.\u00a0\u00a0They are asking (not demanding) that the Harris Campaign give them some time to explain their concerns to the convention.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s a delicate balance for Harris; Minnesota, and more significantly, Michigan has a large Palestinian\/American population.\u00a0\u00a0They won\u2019t vote for Trump, but they might not vote for Harris either. And it’s in states where she has a narrow lead in the polls.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the Harris team has listened to them, arranged meetings for them, and \u201cmassaged\u201d them. But they won\u2019t give them time on the podium. Harris has to hope that\u2019s enough, especially when the alternative for them is Trump in the hip-pocket of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, determined to wipe out every Hamas member, even if he has to kill every Palestinian to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second issue is the Tim Walz\/China connection.\u00a0\u00a0As a younger teacher, Walz spent a semester in China teaching English and learning the Chinese language.\u00a0\u00a0A lot of teachers take advantage of exchange programs, from Australia to the Philippines to Europe to Asia.\u00a0\u00a0Later in his career, Walz led student field trips to China, a deal that many teachers do:\u00a0\u00a0you go free or even get paid if enough students pay to go.\u00a0\u00a0I seriously considered taking \u201ctrack trips\u201d to Ireland and the United Kingdom a couple of times, and a fellow teacher and coach now makes a living leading student field trips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Look, China is a Communist country. Any connection with China; industry, technology, entertainment, and most certainly education; is controlled by the Communist government. The Communist government is made up of the CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY; so if you take kids on educational field trips to China, you\u2019re definitely dealing with the CCP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the MAGA-Republicans (like the Chinese Government, there\u2019s no distinction between the two) will tell you that Coach Walz is somehow \u201cin bed\u201d with the CCP.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s nonsense, stupid, and depends on voter ignorance to \u201cfly\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0You\u2019re going to hear it, but don\u2019t fall for that.\u00a0\u00a0There\u2019s so much more important stuff to talk about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And finally, the media is still trying to stir the story of the \u201cmastermind\u201d Nancy Pelosi pushing Biden out of the Presidential race.\u00a0\u00a0She doesn\u2019t deny it; she says it\u2019s just \u201cold news\u201d and moves on.\u00a0\u00a0The best I can figure, she did exactly that.\u00a0\u00a0And while I don\u2019t like to admit it, it\u2019s better being the Party of Joy, rather than the Party of \u201cplease Joe, don\u2019t lose it now\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The President said it best:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWhen I was elected Senator at 29 I was too young, now I\u2019m too old to be President.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I love you, President Biden. I love your sacrifice and your courage. But you, and Nancy Pelosi, are right. Bill Clinton looked too-old too, and he\u2019s two years younger than you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dirty laundry displaying is over. I look forward to writing about Kamala\u2019s speech tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pro-Palestinian (not Hamas)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Chinese Communist Party<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Puppet Master<\/h3>\n\n\n\n