Running Mate

I wrote earlier of Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s promise to pick a woman running mate and the implications of such a promise.

Now we have this.

…some Democratic women are urging Mr Biden’s campaign during phone calls, at fundraisers and in writing to be part of history…by selecting the first black woman as a vice-presidential running mate.

For instance, this from House Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Karen Bass (D, CA):

It would be energizing and exciting for there to be an African-American woman on the ticket. If there is not an African-American woman on the ticket, I think people will be disappointed.

Just as it’s hard to be more sexist (and demeaning to women) than to pick a candidate for Vice President because the candidate is a woman and not the most qualified person who happens to be a woman, it’s hard to be more racist (and demeaning to the race of the selected candidate) than to pick a candidate for Vice President because of the race of the candidate and not the most qualified person who happens to be of one race or another.

The racism and sexism are strong in Party.

Statehood for DC?

That’s the House Progressive-Democrats’ plan. They voted on the thing last Friday.

One of the rationalizations for the move is this, from the District of Columbia’s “shadow senator” Paul Strauss:

DC [he’s cited as saying], created in July 1790, pays more federal taxes than any other non-voting territory and does not receive proportional services for their population, which is larger than those of Wyoming and Vermont.
“We are essentially a donor state,” he said.

That’s not an argument for statehood, though. It’s an argument for ending the transfers of citizens’ and their business’ tax monies from one State/territory/District to another other than in times of regional emergency.

What’s being carefully avoided in the discussion is the fact that this new State, were it to come to pass, would provide two Progressive-Democrat Senators to the Senate—and that’s why it’s Progressive-Democrats who are making the push. The same problem would exist were DC just as partisan, but Republican, and Republicans were making the push, and the solution would be just as invalid.

To answer James’ Madison’s Federalist 43 concerns about a State housing the Federal government, Strauss says this new State would exclude the Federal government’s facilities—just surround them entirely:

…Capitol, White House, and other federal buildings would remain in its own neutral area, with only the surrounding area being part of the new state….

Nah. If the politicians are serious about the region simply needing the benefits of statehood, that “surrounding area” should be returned to Maryland and Virginia, from which they were carved in the first place in order to form the District.

There’s no need to create a new State.

“Fundamentally Transforming America”

Leftist thugs are busily tearing down statues. They began by masking their destructiveness, centering it on destroying statues of Confederate generals, but now they’re showing their true colors: they’re tearing down statues of national founders, abolitionists, Abraham Lincoln, US Grant, Liberals like Theodore Roosevelt, desecrating monuments to an all-black regiment that fought for the Union against slavery in our Civil War and to WWII heros.

They’re vandalizing government buildings and defiling churches.

They’re even assaulting their own for daring to document the destruction.

Here is Michelle Obama in May 2008:

We are going to have to change our conversation; we’re going to have to change our traditions, our history; we’re going to have to move into a different place as a nation.

Here is Barack Obama, just five months later and immediately before the election:

We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.

And now their minions are busily trying to destroy our culture and our history.

Remember this in November.

Woke, Party, and Racism

Thugs are tearing down statues of Ulysses S Grant—who fought against Democratic Party-defended slavery militarily and, as President, politically. Progressive-Democratic politicians are carefully silent about this anti-slavery move.

Why might that be?

Here’s one possibility: the then-Democratic Party’s 1868 Presidential campaign slogan as they ran against Grant was

Our ticket, Our Motto: This is a White Man’s Country; Let White Men Rule.

Which, under current Left Woke Rules, raises the question: how can any black politician be a member of the Progressive-Democratic Party? Why haven’t they been canceled?

The Party of Economic Sense

A Sunday editorial in The Wall Street Journal provides some pretty dispositive data concerning State economic behaviors during the present Wuhan Virus situation.

The baseline: the national unemployment rate for May was 13.3%.

Ten States remained above even 15% in their individual unemployment rates:

  • Nevada 25.3%
  • Hawaii 22.6%
  • Michigan 21.2%
  • California 16.3%
  • Rhode Island 16.3%
  • Massachusetts 16.3%
  • Delaware 15.8%
  • Illinois 15.2%
  • New Jersey 15.2%
  • Washington 15.1%

These States also had some of our nation’s most draconian lockdown requirements.

States with no lockdown or very light-handed stay-home instructions coupled with very early reopening include these, and their May unemployment rates:

  • Georgia 9.7%
  • Arkansas 9.5%
  • Arizona 8.9%
  • Utah 8.5%
  • Nebraska 5.2% (our nation’s lowest rate)

It’s a nearly pure Progressive-Democrat vs Republican view of the importance of economic health, and so of overall health. As with most things, though, there are a couple of exceptions.

Massachusetts, in that top-ten list of poor performance, has a Republican Governor and Lieutenant Governor, although it has Progressive-Democratic Party veto-proof majorities in both houses of the State’s legislature.

Colorado, Progressive-Democrat-run, isn’t on the list of top-five best performers, but that government ended its lockdown very early, and its unemployment rate is below the national average and falling further: from April’s 12.2% to 10.2% in May.

Notice that. The economic recovery rate is markedly improved by early release from lockdown gaol or by not locking up the citizens in the first place.

Keep in mind who has the better sense—economic, liberty, health—this November.