Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

How stupid are these people?

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

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

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

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

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2020 / Friday Afternoon Open Thread

Friday Afternoon Open Thread

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So, I’m listening to more podcasts these days since I live in the boonies and have to go for a longish drive to accomplish errands like grocery shopping, etc. Just caught the Pod Save America (Obama Bros.) interview with Mayor Pete Buttigieg:

What an interesting and impressive guy. Transcript here, and a couple of excerpts below.

First, on what he’d focus on first as president:

I think the first thing you have to do is move on democratic reform. It’s kind of the way this Congress decided rightly to start in the House side on H.R. 1. And it’s not because I have any illusion that that’s one of the easier things to do or even that some of the things we need to do can happen quickly. I mean we’re talking about building a cathedral on some of these reforms when it comes to what it might take to reverse Citizens United or to do away with the electoral college or to have more depoliticized Supreme Court. But I think you launch that on day one as a signal that we’re living in a time when we’ve got to fix the engine of our democracy because every other issue that I care about, from gun violence to climate change, isn’t going to get better as long as our democracy is this warped.

When asked about court packing:

So to me, the question is less, you know, do we in February 2019 have the right flavor of Supreme Court reform figured out, more that we should in the course of this 2020 campaign have a debate over this central objective that is to prevent the Supreme Court from continuing on this trajectory to become basically ruined by being a nakedly political institution. So to me, this idea of adding justices is one way to do it. It may actually not be the most compelling way to do it. I mean I’m interested in a policy where you would have five appointees of Republicans and five of Democrats on a 15 member court. And where you get the other five from is a consensus of the other 10 which has to be unanimous. That’s one way to reduce the political stakes. Another way to do it is to rotate people up from the appellate bench. By the way some of these things could probably be done statutorily. I’m not a constitutional scholar, but I’m told that some of these things would not require a change to the Constitution just like you know the number of justices today is not set in the Constitution. The point is not do we court packed, do we not court pack. The point is what do we do to stop this from becoming a political institution where every time there’s a vacancy you have this apocalyptic ideological battle that makes the court and the country as a whole worse off.

The whole interview is worth a read/listen, IMO. I don’t think he’s going to be the nominee, but I hope Buttigieg makes it to the debate stage. He’s got some interesting ideas.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

77Comments

  1. 1.

    dm

    Listening to this interview, and several other Pod Bros interviews with Democratic candidates, I think the debates in the coming months are going to be very interesting. Makes me wish “all of the above” was an option.

  2. 2.

    MattF

    On the court-packing question- there will always be a way to load the dice. I don’t think there’s a solution for this, short of going back in time.

  3. 3.

    R-Jud

    @dm: Agreed. I feel like whoever does wind up as the nominee should pick-and-mix policy platform ideas from the also-rans.

    Betty, a friend of mine who teaches at the University of Birmingham also runs a politics podcast, which is here. His most recent episode on the Dem primary is worth a listen.

  6. 6.

    Patricia Kayden

    Buttigieg sounds like a cool guy but his name recognition must be close to zero. I look forward to the debates so we can learn more about him and the less popular candidates.

  7. 7.

    StringOnAStick

    I heard part of an interview with him a few weeks ago, he is impressive and has good ideas, plus he does well in an interview. Our last governor (CO, Hickenlooper) was excellent at interviewing but too centrist for me, and his friendship and political softshoe with John Kasich makes him forever tainted as far as I’m concerned. His current exploratory ads have the hoary “let’s bring America together again” tagline. You’d think someone who watched Obama get the back of the hand from the R’s over and over wouldn’t labor under such fantasies, but then again, he’s buddies with Kasich and they’ve done public events together in the last year. Kasich is good at fooling people though because he doesn’t come across as an asshole like Nunes or Meadows; I knew a woman who wasn’t willing to vote for tRump but was willing to vote for Kasich because she found him so much less embarrassing. I barked at her about different face and better social skills, but same retrograde policies.

    Then again, she also believed that her sister not being able to be hospitalized for a bad brown recluse bite (the sister refused because she has a job but no health insurance, lives in TX) because “the illegals can get medical care but my sister, who has a job, can’t”. I really came down on that lazy and stupid bullshit. Her sister can’t afford to be hospitalized because her cheap ass boss doesn’t provide health insurance and TX has one of the highest uninsured rates in the US, plus anyone who is in a critical state gets hospitalized, but an “illegal” didn’t jump to head of the needs-to-be-hospitalized-due-to-bad-spider-bite line just because they are illegal. I’ve grown a bit tired of her environmentalist posing and virtue signaling combined with RW talking points from poorly chosen media sources; lots of chaotic logic.

    I want to hear a LOT more from mayor Pete, I think he brings a ton of good ideas to the table and he should be at the top of the pile for who the eventual candidate pulls ideas from. Give him a cabinet post, get him on the national stage.

  8. 8.

    Frankensteinbeck

    every other issue that I care about, from gun violence to climate change, isn’t going to get better as long as our democracy is this warped.

    That is how I feel. Every problem America faces is because of the catastrophic divide between people who want racism and people who want equality. Things that do not seem directly related and would be totally differently handled if it weren’t for that split have been dragged in, gun control being an excellent example.

  9. 9.

    Anonymous At Work

    @MattF: WWMMCD? What would Mitch McConnel Do? That’s really the standard you want to impose, something that Mitchy can’t undo to re-pack the Court.

  10. 10.

    Matt

    The point is what do we do to stop this from becoming a political institution where every time there’s a vacancy you have this apocalyptic ideological battle that makes the court and the country as a whole worse off.

    New rule for 2020 Dem candidates: they need to live in the real world in the present time, not twenty+ years in the past or in fantasy-land.

    Possible parsings of Buttigieg’s “we need to prevent a thing from happening that’s ALREADY HAPPENED REPEATEDLY”:
    * “I am unaware of the recent history of the court. I’m unqualified to run for POTUS”
    * “I am aware of the recent history but want to pretend it wasn’t the way it was because pointing out Republicans do Republican things is impolite. I’m too much of a coward to run for POTUS”
    * “I am aware of the recent history and don’t think it was a partisan battle. I’m too much of a moron to run for POTUS”
    * “I am aware of the recent history and don’t see a problem since it wasn’t one of those icky lefties doing it. I’m too much of a fascist to run for POTUS”

  11. 11.

    Gravenstone

    @Patricia Kayden: Maybe he can break the curse of shithead VPs from Indiana. Granted, not being a Republican is an important first step in the process. Mike Pence and Dan Quayle, come on down…

  12. 12.

    Miss Bianca

    @StringOnAStick: Meanwhile, I’m still hoping that what Hickenlooper is actually doing is preparing for a Senate run against Cory Gardner. He may be centrist, and have questionable taste in political bromances (Kasich? Really, Hick? Ewww…), but he’ll still be better than that whey-faced (thank you, BC!) Milk Pudding of Concern, Cory Gardner. And I think he’d beat Cory by a country mile.

  13. 13.

    Droppy

    I am a biased South Bendian, but I love Mayor Pete. Whether or not he will someday be president or senator or whatever, he is definitely the kind of person we want to see running for offices. It’s also nice for the rest of the world to see that not everyone in flyover country is Mike Pence.

  14. 14.

    Lyrebird

    @dm:

    Makes me wish “all of the above” was an option.

    Hear, hear!

    I’m going to send a few bucks to Andrew Yang’s campaign just bc I want his income message up there on the debate stage, I’m hoping for Sen. Harris or Warren or Klobuchar as the nominee, and I will work like heck for whoever that is!

    Also hoping that the elected president pulls some awesome moves along the lines of Obama asking HRC to become Sec of State.

  15. 15.

    bluehill

    In the Cohen hearing, I thought Cummings’ statement to him at the end was touching and perhaps something that only someone who has been wronged so grievously could say. This piece in the Atlantic sums it up well and speaks to decisions this country may have to make when the Trump era is over.

    In the grip of #MeToo and countless other moments of reckoning, the United States has seen a great many apologies, most followed by demands for public forgiveness. Extending mercy can often seem like a cop-out, less an act of grace than an effort to avoid acknowledging the pain of those who have been wronged…
    Later, in his closing speech, he said to Cohen, “It’s very painful. You made a lot of mistakes, Mr. Cohen. And you’ve admitted that.” What he offered to Cohen was forgiveness—not wiping the slate clean, but acknowledging Cohen’s wrongdoing and offering him a chance to build something outside it.
    The philosopher Hannah Arendt has been much quoted lately on the matter of falsehoods in politics—an issue on which Cohen had plenty to say. But in her treatise The Human Condition, she also described the central role of forgiveness in political life. “Without being forgiven,” she wrote, “released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity would … be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover.” People would remain “victims of consequence.” The act of forgiving, in her view, is the necessary counterpart to the promises people make to one another—on which society is founded—because it allows the spontaneous possibility of moving beyond the pain of a broken promise. But that also means holding onto the knowledge that the promise was broken in the first place.

  16. 16.

    satby

    He’s a good guy; and has helped move my current city into the 20th century as much as was possible given the horrible racist and homophobic state South Bend is in. I think he’s running to get a higher national profile and maybe a cabinet position, not that he really expects to get the nomination; but I’m inclined to vote for him in the primary here in his hometown.

    @Matt: nice pile of straw you built on his actual words. He’s correct that depoliticizing the confirmation process for SCOTUS nominees would be a good thing for the country, he’s just spitballing in an interview on different approaches that have been proposed. It’s a valuable discussion to have; especially since a retrograde court can impede progress as much as a retrograde Congress can.

  17. 17.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Buttigieg sounds like a cool guy but his name recognition must be close to zero.

    It’s nearly 100% in the satby household, but seems to be lower elsewhere.

  20. 20.

    Ivy Vann

    If we want to hear him in the debates, the DNC has established a threshold of support for candidates to be part of the debates and one threshold is the number of individual donations. I chucked Pete a little donation as a way of doing my part to get him on the panel. He’s got an ActBlue account set up, if you’re inclined to help.

  21. 21.

    Ocotillo

    Politics has been so toxic lately that unless you are a purity pony, all of the Democrats running for president seem so refreshing. I saw where Jay Inslee is running and he is 68 year old already. I hope the above comment about Hickenlooper is correct that he really wants to run for Senate against Gardner.

    We really do need more governors and senators so I hope guys like Mayor Pete, Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum, Beto, Hickenlooper, and Julian Castro all work on their respective states which need strong, charismatic progressives pulling the center to the left.

    People like Inslee and Delaney are not going to really have a shot at get the nomination but would be good cabinet officers.

    Incumbent Senators from states with GOP Governors need to look in the mirror and ask is it worth handing a seat in the Senate to McConnell? (Looking at you Sherrod Brown)

    Uncle Joe needs to recognize he will never me more revered than he is now. A primary fight risks the positive capital that he has now. Recall Hillary was pretty well liked according to polling, until she ran and RW puke funnel cranked up with a huge assist from corporate media.

    I just hope the huge number of candidates doesn’t suck all of the oxygen out of the room for down ballot races.

  22. 22.

    Betty Cracker

    Just saw on CNN that Buttigieg will have a town hall on March 10. Good for them for giving him a platform. Random observation from my recent research on Buttigieg — he married his partner, Chaston, fairly recently, and Chaston took the Buttigieg name. It MUST be love! :)

  23. 23.

    Gelfling 545

    @Matt: I don’t find those parsings persuasive. He appears to be saying this is a thing that is happening and how do we prevent its continuation.

  24. 24.

    eric

    as this is an open thread, I suppose i should inform the commentariet that my father passed today from cancer. So, cancer 2 – eric’s parents 0. Hug your loved ones and enjoy your days. Do not suffer fools, but do not wallow in anger and hate. I am grateful everyday for the people with whom i share my life: my family, my friends, Bently, my coworkers, and you jackals. Peace and love to you all. eric

  26. 26.

    Motivated Seller

    I heard him speak on a different radio program, and I was really impressed by his ability to address all manner of topics. AND his responses weren’t your standard garbage slick of consultant-speak (despite having actually been a consultant). Took me a while to figure out how to pronounce his name. “BOOT-uh-judge”

  27. 27.

    StringOnAStick

    @Miss Bianca: I suspect that is what Hick is up to as well. A centrist white guy is just not where the party is right now as far as POTUS goes, and given how many really interesting people are already running, he won’t turn many heads. I’d prefer Mike Johnson for the senate seat, but I agree that Hick will easily beat Gardner, and I really, really, REALLY want Gardner gone. I send my biweekly nastygrams to his office, telling him to pack his bags because CO is done with his “centrist R” act while voting hard right.

  28. 28.

    Betty Cracker

    @eric: I am so sorry, eric. Peace and strength to you and your family in the difficult days ahead.

  32. 32.

    Kent

    Buttigieg is about at the same place in his career as Obama was when he was a community organizer and Univ. of Chicago law professor. Or when Harris and Klobucher were working as district attorneys. He is interesting but nowhere near ready for prime time. I like him. But wake me up when he has actually done something at the state or national level.

  41. 41.

    Mary G

    @eric: I hate fucking cancer and am sorry for your loss.

    I have been following Buttigieg on Twitter for a year or so and expect him to go far.

  42. 42.

    Paul W.

    I just finished the same pod! Honestly he is dead on for pretty much every point, especially changing the terms upon which Democrats craft, debate, and evangelize policies. We sell ourselves short by thinking this is a “center right” nation, and give too much fear to what the GOP will say about them (hint: it is always the policy that will presage the coming of the anti-Christ).

    The only part I couldn’t get fully onboard with is that yes it sounds good to give Republicans room to be “excited” about the Dem platform and how it can help them, instead of just continually calling them out for voting for Trump and all of the horrible things they have thus enabled. We have been there, done that, and if the people hearing our message are so inundated and embedded in the FOX world of “alternative facts” then I don’t think it is going to help to specially cater a message to them. Bring base, converse with the independents, anyone else who hops on board with them is welcome but the bus route may go through their neighborhood but it doesn’t have nearly as many stops.

  44. 44.

    A Ghost To Most

    She said, “Andy, you crack me up”
    Seagram’s in a coffee cup
    Sharecropper eyes, and the hair almost all gone
    When she was drunk, she made cancer jokes
    Made up her own doctors’ notes
    Surrounded by her family, I saw that she was dying alone

    But I’d sing her classic country songs
    And she’d get high and sing along
    She don’t have a voice to sing with now
    We burn these joints in effigy
    And cry about what we used to be
    Try to ignore the elephant somehow
    Somehow

    I buried her a thousand times, given up my place in line
    But I don’t give a damn about that now
    There’s one thing that’s real clear to me
    No one dies with dignity
    We just try to ignore the elephant somehow

    Condolences, Eric.

  45. 45.

    satby

    @eric: Deepest condolences to you and your family eric. That’s so tough.

    I’ve always appreciated the assistance you offered after my own mother’s passing.

  46. 46.

    Dan B

    I saw Mayor Pete (I’m not risking jackal attack over misspelling..) on Amanpour. I hollered with glee at my mostly asleep honey that he had the talent to sound genuine, like he’d be fun to have a beer with, and could fit four complex ideas together in a paragraph and still seem clear.

    I believe his run is an asset to the LGBT community much like Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm (and others) were for women and people of color. Once a compelling representative of a community that has been reviled by the “majority” gets a public vetting it is much harder for those who follow to be demonized, not that the troglodites of fear won’t keep up the slander.

    Familiarity breeds many things besides contempt especially when you have someone thoroughly decent like Mayor Pete in plain view.

    What position he should have in government is the discussion I heartily anticipate.

  48. 48.

    Another Scott

    In other news, Saturday is Debt Ceiling Day:

    The federal government will hit its borrowing limit on Saturday, but the Treasury Department is prepared to take its usual precautions to buy time for lawmakers to work out a deal to raise or suspend the debt ceiling.

    Congress last suspended the debt ceiling in February 2018, in a bipartisan budget deal that temporarily removed the borrowing restriction through March 1, 2019. The government will not face an immediate crisis, however, as Treasury will implement its standard “extraordinary measures” to give itself as much leeway as possible to continue borrowing and pay its bills.

    Those measures typically include a suspension of daily reinvestments into the Thrift Savings Plan’s government securities (G) Fund, as well as investments into the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund. All of those funds would ultimately be made whole once the debt ceiling is again raised or suspended. For now, however, Treasury will only suspend the sale of State and Local Government Series securities to buy time, department Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in a letter to congressional leadership last week. He added “it is likely Treasury will utilize additional extraordinary measures as well.”

    Those measures, in addition to the surplus of revenue expected in April when federal taxes are due, “should allow the Treasury to finance the government’s normal operations for several months without an increase in the debt ceiling,” the Congressional Budget Office said in a report this week. Treasury will “probably have sufficient cash” to make all of its usual payments until “late into the fiscal year,” CBO said, adding that “an earlier or later date is possible.”

    Congress is looking to put off the issue until it has to set fiscal 2020 spending levels. Federal agencies are currently funded through Sept. 30. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, recently told Bloomberg congressional action “probably won’t be until Oct. 1,” saying it is preferable to make the discussion “part of the budget negotiations.” He suggested they will not start until the summer.

    […]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  52. 52.

    Dan B

    @eric: Hugs to you. Many hugs when you feel you need them. When your ready to share a story or three about your folks I’d love to hear them.

  57. 57.

    Feathers

    I think what a lot of these candidates are doing is, wisely, raising their national profile. We’ve had far too long where the only Democrats viewed as newsworthy were either Presidents or tenured too soon weirdo professors.

    I can see presidential candidate who bows out with enhanced war chest to run in important statewide race to be a good path. The only thing we have to be careful of is that this doesn’t become a grift where candidates and/or consultants keep running losing campaigns while getting rich. A high level of substance and non-corruption must be demanded.

    And condolences to Eric.

  58. 58.

    Kent

    @Feathers:

    I think what a lot of these candidates are doing is, wisely, raising their national profile. We’ve had far too long where the only Democrats viewed as newsworthy were either Presidents or tenured too soon weirdo professors.

    I can see presidential candidate who bows out with enhanced war chest to run in important statewide race to be a good path. The only thing we have to be careful of is that this doesn’t become a grift where candidates and/or consultants keep running losing campaigns while getting rich. A high level of substance and non-corruption must be demanded.

    And condolences to Eric.

    This: If we start getting to where we have 30 candidates, of which only a half dozen or so are legit serious contenders and the rest are really just looking for a platform and national recognition then we will have an issue. But there is a very real hidden primary for staff and money that will soon sort things out. Most other countries manage to run entire elections in a month or less. I’m not particularly worried about what is happing 20 months out from the next general election.

  59. 59.

    Lyrebird

    @eric: Thank you for your beautiful words.

    Mine will be prosaic, but I sincerely hope you are surrounded by love and support as you go through this time of loss. And I will try to treasure my mom-taxi time this afternoon all the more in honor of your dad.

  61. 61.

    Another Scott

    @eric: Condolences to you and yours. It’s hard.

    Your reminder to us to all to be grateful is a good one.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  63. 63.

    Uncle Ebeneezer

    Sorry but I lost it when he started blaming the Rightward drift of the MidWest on meanie Liberals making fun of the heartland. Pass….

  65. 65.

    mad citizen

    It would be great if Mayor Pete would run for, and be Indiana’s Governor. Helpful that the muni elections are held in odd years so he could do it at no risk.

  66. 66.

    hotshoe

    @A Ghost To Most:
    I should have recognized that as a Jason Isbell song as soon as I saw it: got the off-kilter rhythm and tragedy-not-taken-seriously because it happens to all humans …

    Thanks for reminding me to put in my earbuds and listen to his “If We Were Vampires”, another song about mortality:

    It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever
    Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone
    Maybe we’ll get forty years together
    But one day I’ll be gone
    Or one day you’ll be gone

  67. 67.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @eric: I am so sorry to read of your loss. It’s a pointed reminder to be grateful for all the people we care about.

  68. 68.

    J R in WV

    @eric:

    So sorry for your loss. I think we all have lost loved ones to cancer, so we can share your loss in that way.

    Hang in there, keep in touch~!!~

  69. 69.

    beth

    @satby: oh, sure, now i find out there are other folks in south bend who read balloon-juice AFTER i move to asheville, nc. we’ll be back visiting in early april if you all want to put a meet up together. i would carve out some time to pop in.

    we used to live on south michigan (north of the new roundabout at chippewa) and we proudly hosted the largest sign Pete for [Elected Office] the campaign could provide in our prominent front yard since he ran for state treasurer. and got walloped, indiana being indiana.

    i don’t think he’ll be president this time around but i’d love to say ‘president mayor pete’ for sure. he’d be a great VP and it would be delightful to have pence and mother welcome mayor pete and chasten to the VP residence while handing over the keys.

  71. 71.

    beth

    @eric: i am so sorry for your loss. i lost my mother to brain cancer when she was far too young. it sucks.

  73. 73.

    satby

    @beth: April, huh? My nym has my Etsy shop and you can contact me there. Maybe we can have a gathering of jackals and lurkers.
    And I was looking in Asheville before I decided N.C. was too far from my family. Turns out Michigan was kind of far for them ?.

  75. 75.

    laura

    @eric: Eric, I am so sorry to hear that you’ve lost your dad. Cancer claimed mine a year ago on 3/10. Miss him every day.
    I wish you peace and Grace in the coming days, hours, minutes.

  76. 76.

    TomatoQueen

    @eric: I’m so sorry the beast has taken your father, it took my mother a few years ago and sometimes it feels like yesterday. Knowing they are at rest and suffer no more is comforting.

  77. 77.

    Mary Ellen Sandahl

    Eric – I mostly lurk here, but like several others I have lost both parents to cancer too. Just wanted to commiserate with you.

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