Today is Tuesday, August 20, 2024. Last night marked the opening of the Democratic assault against totalitarianism masquerading these days as the Republican Party in the form of the Democratic National Convention featuring rousing speeches by Hillary Clinton who brought the house down when she skewered the former president. She intoned, “There’s a lot of energy in this room, just like there is in this country. Something is happening in America. You can feel it.” Then, she pivoted, saying, “First, though, let’s salute President Biden. Thank you, Joe Biden, for your lifetime of service and leadership.” Her comments were culled from an online article in The Atlantic by David A. Graham entitled “Joe Biden’s Late Goodbye.”

Clinton paused after saying these lines ever so briefly, then crowed, “And now we are writing a new chapter in America’s history.”

Other speakers followed 2016’s failed presidential candidate and former First Lady and Secretary of State like Jasmine Crockett from Texas’s 30th congressional district since 2023 who is best remembered for slapping down stupid Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (have you noticed she’s quite invisible these days? Good!) at some congressional hearing gaveled into existence for no rational reason by repugnicans. She delivered a poignant speech recalling how she visited Kamala Harris for the first time when she came to Congress as a freshman representative and how she put it, “And the most powerful woman in the world wiped my tears and listened.” Thus Harris reassured her, saying, “You are exactly where God wants you. Your district chose you, believe they believe in you, and so do I.”

In her emotional and energetic speech to the party faithful at Chicago’s United Center, Crockett not only humanized the vice president and presumptively presidential nominee, she brilliantly contrasted both candidates for president. She stated, “Let’s compare their resumes, shall we? One candidate worked at McDonald’s while she was in college at an HBCU. The other was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and helped his daddy and the family business: housing discrimination, that is. She became a career prosecutor while he became a career criminal [this should have angered the Orange Turd to no end if he was listening] – with 34 felonies, two impeachments, and one porn star to prove it.” This line I particularly liked, “She’s lived the American dream, while he’s been America’s nightmare.” She ended her justification of America voting for Harris as its president, saying, “America, looking at the two choices before you, who would you hire, Donald Trump or Kamala Harris?”

Clinton got thunderous applause when she declared, “We got him [Donald Trump] on the run.” She said Dump is mocking Kamala’s name and her record and she crushed Dump by saying this throwaway line, “Sound familiar?”

Then it was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez’s (D-NY) turn to rouse the crowd in the arena by taking jabs at former president Donald Dump over his notoriously transactional politics and praised working-class Americans – recalling her past experience as a bartender.

To loud applause, Ocasio-Cortez said, “And Chicago, we have to help her win, because we know that Donald Trump would sell this country for a dollar if it meant lining his own pockets and greasing the palms of his Wall Street friends.”

Then she leaned into the Orange Turd’s absurd fraudulent record, saying, “And I, for one, am tired of hearing about how a two-bit union buster thinks of himself as more of a patriot than the woman who fights every single day to lift working people up from under the boots of greed trampling on our way of life.”

Addressing Trump directly, Ocasio-Cortez said, “The truth is Don, you can’t love this country if you only fight for the wealthy and big business. To love this country is to fight for its people, all people, working people, everyday Americans like bartenders and factory workers and fast food cashiers who punch a clock. And are on their feet all day in some of the toughest jobs out there.” Here the fiery Latina addressed the criticism from stupid repugnicans who have indicated she should go back to bartending. She answered them with this zinger: “But, let me tell you, I’m happy to any day of the week because there is nothing wrong with working for a living.”

The best was saved for the last, as the sitting president took to the stage close to 11:30 ET (10:30 p.m. in Chicago) to formally pass the torch to his much younger vice president, Kamala Harris. At one point, he joked about having been labeled both too young to be a senator at age 29 and too old to be president. As for how democracy has prevailed under his administration, Biden commented, “I stand before you to report on this August night that democracy has prevailed. Democracy has delivered. And now democracy must be preserved.”

His speech was met with continued applause and chants of “We love Joe”reverberating throughout the arena. Toward the end of his touching address, he ended with a line from a song by Gene Scheer called “American Anthem” in which he quoted, “America, America, I gave my best to you,” and Biden definitely did, as America should so fondly remember when he leaves the stage in January.

Elliot and I made it through our second day home from Down Under. I managed to follow my usual routines without succumbing to too much jet lag. We had breakfast out at the old Austin Street coffee shop. I even attempted a short walk – only to 67th Avenue, not Rego Park, since that was really too far for me on this second day of being home. So that was good for me today.

Stay safe and be well.

Oh, Michelle Obama just took the stage at the second night of the DNC. Have to go!