Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

He really is that stupid.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

T R E 4 5 O N

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Vice President Biden Campaign Rally for Secretary Clinton

Reader Interactions

131Comments

  1. 1.

    Adam L Silverman

    In regard to my post this morning:
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/pamela-geller-clinton-sharia-breitbart

    Right Wing Watch flagged Geller’s interview with St. Louis radio host Jamie Allman, in which Geller began by going on a tear about Secretary of State John Kerry’s comments on terrorism earlier this week in Bangladesh, where he said “perhaps the media would do us all a service if they didn’t cover it quite as much. People wouldn’t know what’s going on.”

    “The media is already scrubbing and censoring and whitewashing jihad and Islamic terror from their reportage,” Geller said. “Their default narrative now is mental illness.”

    She went on to describe recent terror attacks, segueing into a discussion of what she claimed was a fundraising email from Clinton that said the Democratic nominee planned to “shut down” Breitbart News.

    “This is the Sharia, this is the totalitarianism, this is very frightening,” Geller, who writes for Breitbart, said of the email. “And what’s even more frightening is the media is not talking about because they’re marching in locked step.”

  5. 5.

    Nora

    @Mnemosyne: Why wouldn’t he? Don’t forget, Citizens United was all about getting Hillary Clinton; the full name of the case was “Citizens United Not Timid.”

  6. 6.

    BR

    Everyone should check out the Clinton campaign event page and sign up for a local phonebank or canvass event! I’ve started phonebanking here in California, and we need more and more folks doing it. It’s becoming clear to me that this election (and the margin) is going to be in the ground game. And with early voting starting in a few weeks in some places, there isn’t time to lose.

  7. 7.

    lamh36

    tell me this ain’t condescending…

    …Kaine correctly noted that Clinton had taken questions after an address to the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists, but that is different from addressing the national press corps that knows her positions better than anyone, including other reporters, and is therefore better equipped to ask probing questions.

    Norah O’Donnell alluded to the same thing when Tim Kaine brought it up…

    .cause ya know, the WHPC are the “real” journos and them colored journos just aren’t on par with the majority white WHPC…

  10. 10.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Nora: No that was Roger Stone’s group, Bossie’s group was just Citizen’s United. However Stone is an “informal adviser” to Trump, so both are on board now.

  14. 14.

    piratedan

    @lamh36: and its not as if this hasn’t been answered ad nauseum for them all-fucking-ready…

    1) the NSA told her no when she asked for a secure server
    2) she asked her predecessors what they did
    3) followed their lead
    4) it was never compromised
    5) all of this re-classification was after the fact
    6) the FBI found nothing to warrant any further investigation

    7) next question…

  15. 15.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Nora: No it wasn’t. Citizens United Not Timid is Roger Stone’s outfit. Bossie was the Senate staffer that started doing the GOP investigations into the Clintons in the 90s and was then made the head investigator for all GOP investigations into the Clintons by Speaker Gingrich.

  16. 16.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Citizens United Not Timid is Roger Stone’s outfit.

    Heh, stay classy Roger.*

    *I was going to add that to my earlier comment be the edit window expired.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: I mentioned this yesterday. What O’Donnell and Todd and others want is for her to have to stand there and let them berate her over the phantom scandals that exist in their heads. All the coverage I saw at the gym this afternoon on both CNN and FOX was about the Foundation and something that made no sense about the P5+1 Nuclear Agreement with the Iranians. For almost two hours almost no coverage of the Trump speech from last night.

  18. 18.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I hope Uncle Joe says “shenanigans” and “malarkey” in his speech, several times. If he were to casually refer to Trump as “Murgatroyd,” I’d count it as a bonus.

  20. 20.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @SiubhanDuinne: My dad used to say malarkey quite a bit. I hadn’t heard the term used since he’d passed until the debate between Uncle Joe and the ZEGS(Zombie Eyed Granny Starver).

  23. 23.

    BR

    @Adam L Silverman:

    What I really don’t get is, as Kay has said, it’s not like Trump has gotten even a shallow vetting. What the hell is the press corps waiting for? If Trump’s personal dealings are anything like the mess and pile of lies his campaign has been, there’s probably lots of great copy for them to write about him if they wanted to. It’s really strange that they haven’t. I think there may have been more in depth reporting on what Manafort was up than on Trump himself.

  27. 27.

    Adam L Silverman

    @BR: Because a significant amount of the people running the news programming at the networks and at CNN and FOX, the folks running the political coverage at the major newspapers, and the folks on talk radio don’t want Secretary Clinton to be president. They made that decision a long, long time ago. They just know that she’s conniving, unscrupulous, power hungry, grasping, etc.

    So you get what you get this morning in Politico – an interesting, if you are interested in how the nuts and bolts of government works and just how out of date things get and that no one seems to pay attention to the fact they need updating – by Ken Vogel outlining that some of the folks working for President Clinton in his post presidency were also doing work for the Foundation and that some times they were paid under a Federal program created by law in the 1950s to fund post-presidencies and some times they were paid by the Foundation. Vogel repeatedly makes it clear that there’s no crime here, no breach of Federal law, nothing even unethical. But the headline is sensational and most people who just scan it or only read the first few paragraphs are, I’m sure, going to come away convinced something evil happened here. And it will, of course, be picked up by the political reporters and the Trump campaign and the PACs.

  29. 29.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    I would like to see the actual quote from Tim Kaine, because the MSM loves to tear Hillary’s supporters down and try to divide the coalition.

    I’m guessing that Kaine said something much more anodyne that the MSM wanted to hear as acknowledging their vast importance.

  30. 30.

    sigaba

    @lamh36: The White House press corps has it pretty dialed-into their heads that speaking to them is journalism, speaking to anyone else is pandering or giving some undeserving wretch “exposure.”

    Old joke about two reporters and a Gentleman From The Times seems to apply here.

  32. 32.

    MomSense

    @BR:

    Thanks, BR. It really does help with election anxiety when you know that you are helping.

    There are so many ways to help. You can do data entry, voter registration, phone calls, canvassing, and even hospitality. The person who brings coffee, cookies, or soup is a popular person.

  33. 33.

    Highway Rob

    What was the protester on about? Veep handled it well, but how many times does a heckler get an invite from the speaker to come talk to him about it backstage?

  36. 36.

    Adam L Silverman

    VP Biden just did a great job with a very upset veteran regarding the Turkish on Kurdish violence that’s flared up now that the Coalition has cleared Manbij. Didn’t kick him out, asked everyone to be quiet so he could both hear him and answer him, and then told him to come talk to him immediately after he finishes his speech. That’s a class act.

    @Highway Rob: I’ll have something on the problem set we’re now facing with our NATO ally Turkey deciding to use the cover of the Coalition operations against IS to prosecute their dispute with our Kurdish allies sometime tomorrow.

  40. 40.

    OGLiberal

    @lamh36: i actually joked on Twitter yesterday in response to an Oliver Willis post on this press conference that these weren’t the “right” kinds of journalists and therefore it didn’t count. Thought maybe some racist wingnut or two might make that argument. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s actually the MSM saying it.

  42. 42.

    MomSense

    @BR:

    Great idea. And for those of us who hate leaving our abodes in the evening, your field organizer can set you up using the virtual phonebanking tool so you can check balloon-juice and make calls.

  44. 44.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MomSense: It is what it is. She knows what the dynamic is. At some point I’d love to see, just because I like to see these sort of things, one of her surrogates ask Andrea Mitchell just why she hates Secretary Clinton so much or what was it that Secretary Clinton did to her that she’s been nursing a grudge over for almost 30 years? I just want to see the look on Mitchell’s face. Same thing with Todd. And the question could also be just why she or he hates President Obama or President Clinton or Congresswoman Pelosi. I’d love to just watch them have to process the question.

  45. 45.

    Highway Rob

    In delivery only, in no way in content, I’m hearing frequent echoes of George Carlin in the veep’s voice today. Maybe because I’m not watching, just listening. Catholic kids from the industrial northeast?

  48. 48.

    JPL

    I love Joe and it would be easy to say that he’d be a head of Trump by twenty points. MSM would make sure that didn’t happen though.

  52. 52.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Joe is just such a fucking decent person. Obama couldn’t have chosen a better VP. I’ll miss him almost as much as I’ll miss Barack and Michelle, and I hope Madam President Clinton will use him as a “special envoy” (like George Mitchell) for the inevitable trouble spots that will pop up whose solutions fall outside normal formal diplomatic channels.

    And I believe I heard or read that he will be continuing with the cure-for-cancer “Manhattan Project” or “Moon Launch” or whatever it’s called, in the next administration.

    I’d also like to see him, or someone of his stature, take on gun violence once and for all in this country. Set up a nationwide organization that can and will take on the NRA at levels of close to their strength. Since Congress refuses to deal with it, let’s have a QUANGO that will.

  53. 53.

    lamh36

    How media ‘fluff’ helped Hitler rise to powervia

    BUFFALO, N.Y. – Some of the most iconic photos of Adolf Hitler show him at his most intense, eyes alight with frenetic energy as he addresses an audience or salutes a crowd.

    Equally haunting, however, are another set of images that are oft-forgotten: In the years preceding World War II, news outlets from home magazines to the New York Times ran profiles of the Nazi leader that portrayed him as a country gentleman — a man who ate vegetarian, played catch with his dogs and took post-meal strolls outside his mountain estate.

    These articles were often admiring — even after the horrors of the Nazi regime had begun to reveal themselves, says Despina Stratigakos, an architectural historian at the University at Buffalo..

    This book is from 2015, might be an interesting read

  55. 55.

    Peale

    @lamh36: you know, national press people, if you weren’t so obsessed with silly things, the local reporters would also know what her positions were just as well as you do.

  57. 57.

    MomSense

    @Adam L Silverman:

    One of my college summer jobs (I worked 3 every summer) was working at the front desk of the hotel that served as the press headquarters for the WHPC when HW was President. Then I worked at the exclusive hotel where HW held meetings and dinners with his closest advisors. I spent a month for four summers up close and personal with these fools. Andrea Mitchell was in love with Reagan. Even her cameramen/producers would roll their eyes at her. One of the wire photographers explained to me that the only reason for the WHPC was so the news outlets would have someone there if an assassination attempt or some other accident happened. When Marine One takes off, all the photographers and video cameramen stand underneath and shoot/film in case it crashes. He was eager to tell me that the whole bunch of them were sycophantic idiots. It’s all BS.

  58. 58.

    Lizzy L

    @Adam L Silverman: Given this, why would the pastor and congregation even want to go through with it? Trump is using them as props in his theatrical event. There’s not an ounce of sincerity or respect in this.

  61. 61.

    Mary G

    Uncle Joe looked exhausted, He probably made the right decision not to run for president, although it amuses me to think of him in the debates with Bernie in particular.

  66. 66.

    SiubhanDuinne

    BTW, Adam, we don’t thank you often enough for finding and scheduling these speech links. I would hate to have to plow through all the various streaming sites only to find that they’re subscription-only or that I have to have a cable account in order to access the stream, or whatever. You always manage to find sites that cost me nothing but a bit of iPad battery life, and for that I am grateful.

  69. 69.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SiubhanDuinne: You’re quite welcome. But its actually very easy. Keyword search: “Trump rally September 1”. Then hit the video results. Or “Hillary Clinton campaign event September 1”.

  70. 70.

    Adam L Silverman

    @SiubhanDuinne: One of the other special envoys for Middle East peace. I can see the face and can’t recall the name. He had been, however, a career diplomat. Its the one that’s got dual citizenship with Israel and his day job, when he was the special envoy, was as a senior fellow at a Likud funded research institute.

  73. 73.

    Mnemosyne

    @MomSense:

    The whole Travelgate thing blew up because the WH press corps got all pissy that the Clintons would dare fire the nice man who made all their travel arrangements. The fact that he was embezzling money from the travel office counted less than their personal comfort.

  75. 75.

    MomSense

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Don’t worry about it. Even though he was Senate Majority Leader for a long time, he was the original No Drama. He and my Dad were good friends. For nerd reasons, I recommend reading his statements from the Iran Contra Hearings.

    I also love him because he spent a long time with my then 8 year old son at a 2012 Democratic fundraiser when he was wanted by all the VIPs. I have no idea what they were talking about because I just stayed away and let them talk, but the two of them were laughing and hugging at the end.

  76. 76.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yep, that’s it. Holbrooke. Though I was also thinking of Ross. Holbrooke was overrated. My problem with Ross is just who’s interests was he representing?

  78. 78.

    Lizzy L

    @Adam L Silverman: I know. Maybe he’ll come to his senses after he sees the “script.” Maybe the ladies in his congregation will have a talk with him. I bet they aren’t Trump supporters.

  79. 79.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Peale:

    it should start with “you know, I noticed you make that face when you talk about her. It makes you look so…I don’t know…unlikeable tired.”

    Uh huh. Uh huh.

    #FTFY
    #ChannelingMyInnerRikyrah

  82. 82.

    Mnemosyne

    I just got a campaign email from Elizabeth Warren with a subject line of “We need to defeat this pathetic coward.”

    I get a feeling she doesn’t like Trump much.

  85. 85.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MomSense:

    I never met George Mitchell, and honestly know very little about him, but sometimes you can just look at a person’s face and know that they’re good people, decent people. From your lovely anecdote, it would appear that Mitchell’s face appropriately reflects his good soul.

  86. 86.

    MomSense

    @Mnemosyne:

    You cannot imagine how the Bush family played the WHPC. They pulled out all the stops. Private rides on his cigarette boat “Fidelity”. And don’t get me started on the Secret Service. Let’s just say I Was the least surprised person in the world when the prostitution scandals came out.

  88. 88.

    lamh36

    So I was on another blog I frequent and they had a comment about the Trump speech. The commentariat there were almost entirely about how Trump and Clinton are no different and so the Trump speech will of course help Trump because HRC…bad..bad..whatever.

    So I just had to share my thoughts on Trump and this speech…as a person of color (African American) my first thought…after the immigrants who’ll be next scapegoats…Blacks and down the color line.

    As usual the last to feel the pain at the neck will be the same White folks who think Trump is their way back to when America was “great” for them…

    Trump’s speech spoke of immigrants (and by immigrants, ya know he doesn’t mean “the good ones” like his wife and those of lighter hue), particularly Mexicans, like the were varmints and diseased ridden cockroaches to stump with his feet…

    It was disgusting…but hey, I’m not the community he’s trying to speak too though am I.

    And from the polling and some commentary I’ve seen he’s obviously got some folks listening…

    Citizens of color in US are eventually gonna be the “majority”, sure, but that’s not gonna be happening in less than a generation or two…until then… if past is prologue, we are the ones who’ll be getting the brunt of the disaster that will be a Trump Presidency…eventually it’ll trickle down to the white majority, but in the immediate case…it’ll be my community and other communities of color who will be taking the blows…

  93. 93.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: It may have been two things. 1) Personalities matter. He was the right person in the right place at the right time to do real good in the Balkans. This created the myth of Richard Holbrooke and leads to item 2. 2) He was only ever the right person in the right place at the right time to do real good in the Balkans. Every other time and place he was not the right choice, but because of the myth of Richard Holbrooke he was the go to guy.

  94. 94.

    redshirt

    @MomSense: Wow that’s an awesome story!

    I had to personally turn down Sen. Mitchell to speak at my HS graduation because we had just two days prior confirmed former Governor Brennan. I was pissed because damn it’s the Senate Majority Leader who’s called us to speak at our graduation and I have to call back and say sorry!

  101. 101.

    Percysowner

    @Baud: IKR. On Hardball the stand in moderator said Hillary hadn’t had a public appearance in six days. I guess the American Legion speech was secretive and private and the fact that I can find it in about 6 different sites on the Internet doesn’t count? Is the American Legion chopped liver?

  102. 102.

    Mary G

    @lamh36: We whites are a minority in California already, and are sending either a black woman or a Latina to replace Barbara Boxer in the Senate. Seeing how fast gay marriage won acceptance, partial equality may spread to more states in our lifetime, and become even more so in California. I hope so anyway. You have every right to be angry, but don’t let the bastards get you down so far that you give up. Your voice is important to me, anyway. I learn a lot from the links you post here and we are making a better world for Zoey and Layla Grace.

  107. 107.

    Adam L Silverman

    Maria Hinajosa stated on All In, guest hosted by national treasure* Joy Ann Reid, that entering the US without authorization/papers is just a misdemeanor. First time I’ve ever seen anyone on TV actually say that.

    * hopefully she is not being pursued by Nicholas Cage…

  108. 108.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: Yesterday, I posted it yesterday. To the American Legion. It got no coverage, from what I can tell, even when clips have been shown on TV, at all.

  115. 115.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: I think the only reason that Cortes guy comes on when she’s anchoring is he’s a submissive and enjoys having her put him in his place. As I wrote last night, I wish they’d give her Hardball and move it to 8 PM. Move Hayes to 7 as the lead in. She’s the best interviewer across all of the NBC properties and may be the best interviewer among political reporters and anchors regardless of network.

  120. 120.

    lamh36

    How do you become “white” in America?

    Trump has retweeted white supremacist groups and has the backing of the Ku Klux Klan. He uses whiteness as a weapon, and his candidacy on a major party ticket threatens to put the country back some 200 years. What does Trump’s vision of whiteness mean for a diverse country like the U.S.?

    …The AAA’s recommendations were not implemented and today Americans are taught to think of themselves as belonging to racial categories like white, black, or Asian. Within every category, however, are multiple ethnicities with distinct cultural differences as well as huge variations in when and how they arrived in America…

    The same internal diversity exists for white Americans – most of whom were not seen as “white” upon arrival, This book clearly describes how the Irish became white. but became accepted as white, Here’s an article on Fusion.net on how Italians in America weren’t always seen as white. gradually, over decades. And this book shows how Jews became white. Whiteness, in America, has always been a sliding scale. Anglo-Saxon Protestants who arrived in earlier centuries, for example, had more social advantages than more recent European arrivals. In general it seems that the further from Western Europe one’s ancestors are, the more subject one is to discrimination, which is why many groups deemed white by the U.S. census today – like Arabs – are not accepted as “white” by much of U.S. society.

    Whiteness is a social construct, and one with concrete benefits. Being white in the U.S. See Peggy McIntosh’s seminal essay on white privilege. has long meant better jobs and opportunities, and an escape from persecution based on appearance and culture. Although these structural advantages remain, the meaning of whiteness is still hotly debated – particularly during this election season….

  125. 125.

    Ruckus

    @lamh36:
    I agree with you on who gets the worst of it by far if Trump is elected but I think everyone will suffer and no one insignificantly. He is such a horrible person. At the VA today 4 of us were talking, we don’t know each other at all and one said that there are two kinds of people, good and bad and another one, the whitest one from who I wouldn’t have expected this, said Trump is an idiot and how bad it would be if he is elected. No one disagreed. I don’t think very many people who aren’t outright racists are seeing him in a good light.

  126. 126.

    Regine Touchon

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: My dad too. He also hated hair fuhrer. Growing up on Long Island I was exposed to him at an early age. The worst epithet he could call anyone was a blowhard as he did any time he appeared on the front page of the Daily News. He is tumbling in his grave.

  127. 127.

    JR in WV

    @MomSense:

    I doubt that. I’ve known some LEOs in my time. Many of them (Not all, but many!) do more of what they arrest people for than the arrestees do. Like the Secret Service abroad; anyone really think they’re only like that abroad? Hell no!

  129. 129.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Ruckus:

    one said that there are two kinds of people, good and bad and another one, the whitest one from who I wouldn’t have expected this, said Trump is an idiot and how bad it would be if he is elected. No one disagreed. I don’t think very many people who aren’t outright racists are seeing him in a good light.

    I hope you got a commitment from all of them to VOTE.

  130. 130.

    Ruckus

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    I didn’t, we all had to go our separate ways about then. And I have seen that discussing some topics at the VA is not enlightening. Or enjoyable. But from reactions I’ve over heard from people watching TV in the waiting rooms I’d say a lot of them vote and a lot are not falling for Trump’s bullshit. Of course being white I’m a minority in at least 2 of the 3 VA facilities that I visit. Makes for a better environment with better, more interesting conversations.

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