Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand dropped out of the Democratic primary. She never got a fair shake, but she’s a great senator and we need those. [Pajiba]
A blind item which I am absolutely positive is about the only real couple of the VMAs: Camila Cabello & Shawn Mendes. [LaineyGossip]
John Stamos defends Lori Loughlin. [Dlisted]
Meryl Streep will probably win a lot of awards for The Laundromat. [Tom & Lorenzo]
Bradley Cooper with a mustache = Jeff Foxworthy. [JustJared]
Evangelical d-bag hates Taylor Swift. [Towleroad]
Cara Delevingne wore orange eye makeup. I can’t. [RCFA]
Some of these annoying visuals would drive me up the wall. [OMG Blog]
The field was flooded this time. But she’s where she needs to be at the moment. The Senate is a cesspool right now.
Her candidacy was always looking for a purpose and a constituency.
I could also see her getting a Cabinet position (fingers crossed we win in 2020) and then running again in the future.
While there are others that have more reason to drop out, they really do need to start paring down the contenders. Having 20 candidates makes it look like they’ve got no stars.
The thing that’s scary is Trump ran against 17 other contenders and still singularly managed to stand out, for better or worse. Not so for any particular Democrat contender, sadly.
Your comment reminds me of how Trump played the media and got all the coverage by being crazy and saying wild things. The dems aren’t getting that kind of attention because they are normal. The best candidates (In my opinion) are Warren and Harris but the media favors men and gives them more publicity.
Side note: I don’t get how Bernie is still a thing after all the shadiness during and after his campaign. I mean, he’s still got Susan Sarandon campaigning for him ffs.
She wasn’t going to meet the threshold to qualify for the next round of debates, where she would really need to appear to stay viable. The field is starting to narrow but there are still too many hanging on at the edges. Some of those still hanging on are being pushed by Republicans. Some Republicans are donating to Marianne Williamson because they want to cause chaos while Ben Shapiro is heavily pushing Andrew Yang and Gun Queen Dana Loesch is cheerleading for Tulsi Gabbard.
Tulsi is out though right? Saw she made an appearance on her white nationalist friend Tucker Carlson’s show.
*eyeroll*
Tulsi is out of the debate but not out of the race
and, dear lord, I’m seeing people who are publicly stating that she’s great
Ah yes good point, LP. I see the difference,
@pottymouth-Sanders folks love her. So does David Duke.
I love that this hashtag was trending yesterday-#TulsiDidntQualifyParty. She’s horrible and has been endorsed by David Dukes. Republicans are definitely hoping she runs as a third party a la Jill Stein. Hopefully everyone will be smart with their vote in 2020 and understand that we have to get rid of trump.
Williamson didn’t make the next debate, small things to be thankful for! Neither did Ms War Monger Gabbard.
She’s the only one that’s dropped out so far that I even slightly care about.
Out of all the candidates, Gillibrand is the one I’d most want to party with lol. That being said, she was never gonna be my choice for POTUS.
Can’t stand her ever since she threw Al Franken under the bus. He really stood up for people and had a backbone to fight Trump.
She threw him under the bus?
Many women came forward to discuss his behaviour. Including someone that works in the Senate! “Don’t assault people” applies to everyone, not just the people you don’t like.
She pressured him to quit before an investigation began. Before he was willing to submit to an investigation and see where it went. However she was the ringleader to gather the troops to pressure him to quit so he did. I think he was still around Congress would be a whole lot different.
@catwomen totally. she’s a disingenuous opportunist. Franken was one of, if not the only candidate that could have stripped trump bare, as only comedians can. none of these other candidates are doing an effective job of broadcastig to the public that the emperor has no clothes. they are going through the motions as if this is like any other election where the normal things are at stake, by the normal playbook. We need someone to lay that fantasy bare. Franken would have been particularly good at that, but gillibrand thought she was some vengeance Valkyrie for all women and stabbed him squarely in the back. good riddance to her blah campaign.
@annakarenina please read https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/the-case-of-al-franken
it’s an unbiased piece of real journalism. He didn’t assault anyone. seriously, read it.
There wasn’t just 1 accuser, there was something like 8 of them. That article only focuses on 1 allegation.
I read the New Yorker piece and I thought it was EXCELLENT but for all the criticisms that Mayer got for her writing, I didn’t read it as an exoneration of Franken TBH. I’m actually surprised so many people walked away from it thinking that Mayer was attempting to form a narrative that cleared him of wrongdoing.
And while it’s true that some of the accusations were patently absurd (“I thought he was going to kiss me” isn’t assault) and rather benign, some of the accusations weren’t thoroughly followed-up on. There could be more out there and more to these women’s stories, that’s all.
Welp, I guess misogyny is internalized. As that Pajiba article notes (direct quote and also QFT): “Kirsten Gillibrand did not inappropriately touch anyone; Al Franken did.”
This ^^^
Yup. I was so disappointed when the Franken accusations surfaced, because I really liked him. I actually remember thinking, “Well, maybe what he did wasn’t THAT bad…” And then I remember being shamed by Gillibrand’s moral clarity: she said, and I’m paraphrasing, “the only reason for you to think that Franken shouldn’t resign is if you don’t believe the accusers.”
There were eight credible accusers.
Please don’t. I’m someone who thinks that Franken should have never resigned and should have been subject to the investigative process but HE made that decision himself (one that he says he regrets), not Gillibrand.
And while I really like Franken and miss his powerful presence on the senate floor, NONE of us know whether he had more accusers waiting to come out.
So stop blaming Gillibrand for Franken’s departure. He’s a grown-ass man and could have decided to stay on. I mean, if he was so confident in his innocence then why resign? Sure, it could be that he felt enormous pressure and caved BUT it could also be that he was worried that other women would have some stories to tell as well.
We just don’t know.
And yeah, internalized misogyny is the name of this game.
And on an icky note, it appears that Jason Lewis, a horrible Trump disciple/ lookalike who was a right wing radio host – and who lost his US Congressional seat in MN last fall – is running for Franken’s old Senate seat in 2020 against Dem Sen. Tina Smith (who was elected in 2018 special election).
Wut?!?! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Hopefully Tina destroys him.
If he couldn’t win his congressional district I don’t know why he thinks he can win statewide. But Trump is going to be all over our state like a bad rash I’m sure campaigning for him as he is a special orange favorite.
I very much agree with this. He chose to resign, she did not hold a gun to his head, and he was in that position due to his own actions.
He was a good Senator, and it’s a shame we don’t have him there anymore, but I’m so tired of when a man does something wrong, people look for a woman to blame as well.
I’m amazed Castro is still in tho. Just weird. I love his environmental commitments.
I keep giving him money but I’m not sure his campaign has the wings to make it at this stage. I could see him on a ticket as VP. I could see Warren/Castro TBH.
@Kitten I’ve donated to him too although I realize his best-case scenario at this point is on a ticket. I would definitely love a Warren-Castro ticket!
I’m fine with Gillibrand dropping out.
Same.
I’m totally fine with Gillibrand dropping out. Unless the democratic candidates find a message other than “Trump sucks,” they’re going to lose in 2020. I cannot stand Kamala Harris. She spent nearly her entire interview time with (my girl crush) Rachel Maddow a few weeks ago doing this and I was singularly unimpressed. 🙄 Elizabeth Warren is still my pick.
Trump is the enemy. The candidates actually need to focus on that and not wonkish policy plans. Trump’s values are anti-American. He’s a white supremacist and nationalist. That’s the message – the burbs are going blue not because they are progressive, but because they find Trump abhorrent.
I was talking with someone the other day who had an interesting point – the wife of owls right now makes it really difficult for Trump because he doesn’t know who to focus on with his lies and exaggerations. I had not quite thought of it that way.
Yes, I’ve been saying this too. A bigger field for longer means that Trump is just flailing with a shotgun in his insults.
She just didn’t seem to have the “fire” necessary to take on Trump. She is a good Senator (which we need), and would probably be good in a cabinet position.