The Biden campaign dropped this tough ad on Christmas Eve Eve:
Donald Trump should release his taxes or shut up about corruption. pic.twitter.com/5G8VwWsyx0
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) December 23, 2019
I dread a general election that features two old white men shouting at each other. Sadly, it looks like that’s where we’re headed. But if that is to be our fate, it’s good to see Biden leaning into the anti-corruption theme. It will be necessary as a defense and offense.
The Trumps really are grotesquely and ostentatiously corrupt — the entire bunch, from Trump and his kleptocratic cabinet to his bribe-ingesting offspring to the lowliest greed-head political appointees. The Democratic nominee needs to hammer them on that, so kudos to Biden for going there.
******
Switching gears abruptly, belated holiday greetings to everyone who is celebrating! I was super-busy with holiday prep and cooking, plus I experienced the same technical issues with the site everyone else had, so I missed checking in with you all.
Weirdest holiday incident so far: I got the mister a wheelbarrow for Christmas (it’s what he wanted), and I hid it in my car for a week (thank you, tinted windows!). After he fell asleep Christmas Eve, I unloaded the wheelbarrow from the car, attached a giant bow to it, and parked it at the foot of the outdoor stairs.
On Christmas morning, I let the dogs out to pee, and Badger reacted to the presence of the wheelbarrow the way a normal dog might respond to a hostile alien space craft. He growled and barked incessantly with hackles raised and would not go down the stairs for the longest time.
Daisy, meanwhile, brushed right past the object and went on about her business. When the mister went onto the landing to investigate Badger’s carrying on, he expressed delight at the gift. That alleviated Badger’s anxiety enough that he finally went down the stairs, circled the wheelbarrow and then peed on it!
Anyhoo, Merry Christmas? Open thread!
NotMax
Baptism of ire.
:)
Mike J
Weird. The only media I see in this post is the Biden ad, but on twitter the teaser pic is baby yoda.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
“I was here first, weird looking creature!”
gotta show that interloper its place in the pecking order
Mike J
I like that Biden is running ads attacking Trump. Not wasting time going after Democrats or their affiliates. I think it’s one of the reasons he’s winning.
HinTN
Yes, indeed, Ms Cracker, a Merry Christmas.
kindness
I don’t think it’ll be Bidden or Bernie. Sure the media can’t get off them but I suspect when voting starts many in the media will be gobsmacked by the results.
Gin & Tonic
So it is now Badger’s wheelbarrow, and not your husband’s (I’m assuming [perhaps incorrectly] that he didn’t also pee on it to show his dominance.)
HinTN
@kindness: We can hope.
LivingInExile
A whee!barrow in the swamp? Does it have pontoons for front wheels?
OzarkHillbilly
Only problem with that ad is Joe left “the fuck” out of shut up.
danielx
A clear and unequivocal statement.
zhena gogolia
@Mike J:
I like it too. But I never watch TV, and the people at Xmas last night said they’d only seen ads for Steyer and Bloomberg.
zhena gogolia
@OzarkHillbilly:
His campaign offered me a “BFD” sticker.
Brachiator
Biden has never been my preferred candidate, but I do like how his jabs at Trump are sharp and to-the-point.
WaterGirl
@Mike J: I’m guessing that Baby Yoda is a “featured image”, which is what social media displays. A featured image is only in the actual post if you add it as an image in the post. Which is different from a featured image. :-)
Brachiator
@NotMax:
HA! Very good…
ThresherK
@Brachiator: Agreed on that.
I would not characterize this as “two old white men shouting at each other” but “a Democrat returning fire”.
dmsilev
Fixed for additional accuracy.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: But Baby Yoda shows up on the L/R fly-out buttons, also too, even though it’s not in the post. It’s weird that it seems so inconsistent (about what images appear and when).
Cheers,
Scott.
Shakti
I say it’s about fucking time Biden points out the corruption with his entire chest. I’m so sick of this fucking piece of orange slime calling anyone else corrupt while funding his entire clan of failsons and fail daughters and using the government to attack his political opponents.
As Betty knows, last year they found a brick lined tunnel underneath downtown St. Petersburg. The government didn’t get Capone on any of his numerous crimes but he went away on tax evasion.
I’ve been wondering for years whether that is what’s going to bring GSLiC down.
Baud
The primary too, sadly. Hoping for a January surge from somebody else.
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott: One of the site makeover features is a default image with every post that doesn’t contain an image (tweets don’t count) — Tunch is the default image. If I remember to, I set a different random image just to change things up. It functions exactly as the default image would, AFAIK.
JAFD
Took me a minute to realize ’twas Florida, not ‘the city formerly known as Leningrad’
Baud
@ThresherK: Ok, that’s true. Good on Biden. I’m still a little surprised that I’m only seeing these good ads from Biden’s team. I haven’t gone looking for ads, but I assume other candidates’ ads would be posted here if they were any good.
Kathleen
Merry Christmas Betty and Juicers. Interesting Christmas for me here in Tampa. Fay I my no political follies Betty C on Twitter and loves her tweets. Anyway I now have a great granddog since oldest grandson and his SO have mix named Oliver who icurrently has custody until they move in together. I found out my youngest grandson came out as Bi awhile back. I’m so proud of him for having courage to be open about it and his older brother for being so supportive of him (he said he was so happy he cried). I love my “little guys” who tower over me so much.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: God, me too! Did you see this?
Tom retweeted it — it was news to me. I’ll vote for Sanders if he’s the nominee, but thank dog this is the last Democratic primary his cult will have the opportunity to bugger up. If Sanders was pushing 60 instead of 80, we might be looking at rule by Republican popular vote losers for another 20 fucking years.
feebog
I was a Harris supporter, so I’m back in the shopping game, but the field has obviously narrowed. I’m really down to Biden, Warren or Booker. If the ad is any indication of the kind of punches Uncle Joe is ready to throw, I’m good with him.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: I like the idea of images on the L/R flyout buttons, but most of the time, for me, there aren’t any there. A week or few ago, there was a picture of an old map on the flyout buttons for a lot of posts. It never made any sense in the context of the posts, of course. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tunch on the flyout buttons, but he’s always there at the bottom of the page (apparently as the default image in the Twitter widget thingy).
It’s just weird to these eyes. Either the images should relate to the post, or to the site, but sometimes having the image be relevant, but most of the time not being there, and sometimes being completely irrelevant, just seems like noise.
“Ooh. There’s a picture of Baby Yoda! Maybe there are more pictures in the next post! [Click.] Nope. No pictures at all. Foiled again. :-(”
My $0.02. Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I had not seen that. There was a discussion here a few days ago based on another poll that said the number of Bernie switchers was in line with party switchers in past elections. This poll lines up more with my impressions, not that that’s worth anything.
I am apprehensive that, dispite the initial size and diversity of the field, after Super Tuesday, it’ll be Biden and Bernie and then a replay of 2016.
schrodingers_cat
How much did Modi pay President Orange to buy America’s silence. From Kashmir to the latest clampdown on protests, American official respsonse has been crickets. Or at least I have heard nothing. Have you?
Betty Cracker
@Baud: The other campaigns have decent ads, some of which have been posted here (IIRC), but IMO, they’re primary campaign ads, i.e., talking up the candidate. Biden’s ad are general election spots that trash Trump, which he can afford to do as a known quantity who’s the front-runner, IMO.
Miss Bianca
@feebog:
I’m with you on this one.
mad citizen
@kindness: Hoping you are right, especially if it’s Warren or Amy K who surprises.
I do like the ad, though. Like the straight to the point and the anger.
Kathleen
@Baud: Yup. My fear also. FWIW there was speculation on Twitter that Warren and Sanders cut a deal and if convention were brokered she’d give him her votes. I’m not sold on the idea that it’s true.
schrodingers_cat
@Kathleen: If this is true she once again confirms my biggest problem with her, she has shitty political instincts.
Kathleen
@Miss Bianca: I agree as well
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Thanks. I know which type of ads I prefer seeing, but I can’t say which ads make better strategic sense in the primary.
The ads do help me feel better about Biden than I otherwise would, so I guess they’re a win-win for Team Biden for both the primary and the general election.
Cheryl Rofer
@Another Scott: The old map images were mine. I’m using them as sort of a logo for my posts that don’t have an image of their own. It helps to draw eyes on Twitter, and I like having images as much as possible. Unfortunately, some of what I write doesn’t have an easily available image to go with it, and sometimes I am just too lazy to dig one up.
Hence a generic image that, after a while, will tell you that it’s my post.
Kathleen
@schrodingers_cat: I would agree with you. And I don’t want that speculation to be fact. Freaks me the hell out to think about it
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: Why would you think that is true? It sounds nonsensical BernieBro musings to me.
She’s not standing in selfie lines for hours at a time to give her voters away for nothing. She’s fighting to win, it seems to me.
It’s still very early. Nobody’s voted yet. I don’t see the need to throw candidates overboard yet, myself.
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Kathleen:
I probably still like Warren best, but it concerns me that she doesn’t seem to be the number 1 choice of the progressive lane she put herself in. And if she doesn’t end up the nominee, the fact is she has to end up supporting and endorsing Bernie for her own political benefit.
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott: I don’t use the flyout buttons, so I hadn’t realized that was a thing, but you’re right; I went back to a post where Tunch was the default image, and the image doesn’t appear on the flyout button in that case. So, I’ll stop changing the default image unless/until that changes. Didn’t mean to cause any confusion! Thanks for pointing that out.
Another Scott
@Cheryl Rofer: Ok, thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Another Scott:
The “deal” part sounds like Twitter ramblings. I agree. But as I said above, if she falters and Bernie is still in the game, I don’t know how she avoids supporting him. Not unless she’s willing to write off his supporters.
Betty Cracker
@Kathleen: That doesn’t make any sense to me unless it’s a deal that goes both ways, i.e., whichever of the two has the fewest delegates pledges his or hers to the other.
FelonyGovt
I am also a Kamala supporter who is now in shopping mode. I am warming to Biden if he’s going to come out swinging against Trump and not trashing other Democrats. I’d be fine with Warren or Klobuchar too.
Kathleen
@Baud: Excellent point. I find the fact that Bernie has the clout to put us in this position just as depressing as the dynamics of the Donald Trump zeitgeist
Baud
@Kathleen:
I don’t think those two things are unrelated.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Speaking of corruption and Trump is always about Trump; what’s up with him and MS-13? Don the Con owe MS-13 money and MS-13 accounts payable is making their displeasure clear and on no uncertain terms to Small Hands?
schrodingers_cat
@Another Scott: I don’t know if this is true hence the qualification at the beginning. She has followed BS to the left precipice with the M4All and the holier-than-thou attitude about donors among other things. I can’t stand her hectoring about millionaires and billionaires either. One BS is quite enough. There is no need to emulate him.
I also don’t prescribe to the left wing theory that T’s rise is all about economics which Warren heartily seems to endorse.
She is better than BS at economic policy prescriptions but she sees the world through the same prism that BS does.
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: Right. I was really counting on her to take a more commanding lead in the progressive lane to weaken Sanders but it’s not happening right now. But do you honestly believe that if there were a deal Sanders would relinquish his voters? That will never happen IMHO.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: Cheryl’s use of the map for her posts is a good idea. You could use a picture of Badger or something. That way we’d know instantly that it was a post of yours when the L/R flyout buttons are used.
Mayhew could use an abacus.
Tom could use a printing press.
TaMara could use a duck.
The possibilities are endless!!1
:-)
IOW, the images on the flyout buttons could indicate the author rather than the topic of the post or some generic B-J image.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Unfortunately, Americans don’t know much or care about India, or any other country that is not directly affecting American interests. There is little concern about the crackdown of Muslims in China (supposedly a million people in re-education camps), or crackdowns in Indonesia or Burma (Myanmar).
Even the crackdowns in Hong Kong only get spotty attention, and here only when it is connected obliquely to Trump’s phony tariff war against China.
Trump’s recent embrace of Modi in Houston did not gain much long term traction, apart from making Trump look like a statesman to his base.
Right wingers love the idea that America is “leader of the free world,” but they don’t care what is going on in the rest of the world, as long as it doesn’t affect them or require their attention in any way.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I was kind of looking forward to seeing what a smart, decent BS with actual accomplishments could offer. But like I said, if she can’t dominate her lane (and she still might), it’s a bit of a red flag (even if she manages to win the primary with crossover votes).
feebog
@FelonyGovt:
I just can’t with Klobuchar. The early stories about her relationships with and problems retaining staffers really rubbed me the wrong way. I want someone who is going to be able to appoint and keep quality cabinet members and a White House staff. That is going to be absolutely necessary to undo the damage Trump is inflicting on the Executive Branch. I don’t think Klobuchar is up to it.
Kathleen
@Baud: I agree they are not unrelated. If I allowed myself to really ponder what happened on 2000 and 2004 and 2016 and points in between (Snowald caper for example) I would be reduced to assuming fetal position and sucking thumb 24×7. That’s why Pelosi, Schiff et al are my North Star
Another Scott
@Baud: It seems to me that she’s much, much more pragmatic than St. Bernard and knows that his star is fading. Her Medium piece on how she would pay for M4All has lots of qualifications in it.
We must fix this system. And over the long-term, the best way to achieve that goal is to move from the system we have now to a system of Medicare for All.
She’s not going to go down with St. Bernard’s Titanic. She knows that 1/4 or 1/2 a loaf is much better than some purity crusade.
At least that’s my impression. We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@Kathleen:
A good chunk of Sanders supporters do not otherwise support the Democratic Party. I think that Sanders would support the party nominee. His supporters, on the other hand, may stay “pure” to the bitter end.
Yarrow
I think Biden’s social media team and ad team have definitely gone up a notch or two. I love this ad.
Chyron HR
@schrodingers_cat:
Biden would be running away with the nomination if only Warren wasn’t in the race splitting the (checks notes) loony leftist billionaire-hating medicare for all vote!
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I console myself that there are a lot of people (men) who will vote for Biden who wouldn’t vote for Hillary.
ETA: Of our three guests last night, the two men (plus my husband, making three) were for Biden, the woman changed the subject. I’m afraid maybe she’s for Bernie and didn’t want to say so after my announcement that I didn’t want him to get the nom.
Betty Cracker
@Kathleen: My guess is that in that scenario, Sanders would urge his supporters to back Warren, and I think he’d personally be more enthusiastic about it than he was in 2016 when he half-assed endorsed and campaigned for Clinton because his views are really are closer to Warren’s than they were to Clinton’s.
I think most of Sanders’ supporters would switch to Warren in that situation because they’re not cultists, but the portion who are cultists would bolt just as they did in 2016. I’m something of an outlier around here because I don’t think Sanders is History’s Greatest Monster who’s out to deliberately destroy the party; I think he’s an egotistical old fart who refuses to recognize that his moment has passed. That’s dangerous enough.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: I was not talking about American populace in general but the official State department and WH response. Surely India is an important enough country for that.
Kathleen
@Brachiator: I do not share your faith given his half gluteus maxed “support” of Hillary.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Yep.
schrodingers_cat
@Another Scott: She has adopted much of BS rhetoric. She may be smart policy wise but her political instincts need to be better if she is to take T down.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker:
No, but he’s being encouraged to cause dissent in the party and thus get Trump reelected.
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: I will have to respectfully agree to disagree with you on that point!
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: OT, but have you seen this?
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: I’m in complete agreement with you. I do not like her political instincts. I think her political skills are much better suited to being a Senator.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: We all have our buttons. It took me a while to warm up to Hillary.
I think Warren is building up a brand that says “look at me, I know life and government is complicated, here are ways I would address these complex topics to show you that I know what’s what.” I assume she will broaden her message over time, and not just be the “I have a plan for that” person for the next 6+ months. As the field continues to narrow, I expect her to take the fight to Donnie and the Teabaggers.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kathleen
@Brachiator: Good point. We really won’t have any clue until real votes are cast. I despise the frantic polling frenzy our propatainment complex promulgates.
Yarrow
@Another Scott: Biden started out right away taking the fight to Trump. All the other candidates left that lane wide open.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
No. I am very remiss in following news of Russia because it depresses me too much.
Brachiator
@Kathleen:
It’s not “faith.” Sanders seems to recognize that Trump is bad for the country. This might affect what he does when he loses the nomination. However, in some ways, it does not matter what Bernie does; his supporters do not simply follow his lead and do not have any general loyalty to the Democratic Party. But I would still expect the majority of them to vote for the Democratic Party candidate in even larger numbers than they did in 2016.
A lot of purity pony dopes really believed that there was not much difference between Trump and Clinton. They did not have any real Trump administration on which they could base this notion. Now they do. They can see the damage that Trump has caused. We will see how they deal with this, now that they cannot demonize Hillary.
Yutsano
@Another Scott:
Robert Walpole or GTFO.
:P
piratedan
@Baud: and yet, we never hear about who Bernie supporters are going to support if things don’t go his way….
to me, it sounds like a different tangent of ratfuckings that continue to emanate from a certain element of the Bernie camp that Mr. Sanders has refused to disavow or address.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
The State Department is throttled by the Trump administration. Also, since Trump loves Modi, I don’t think you would ever see much condemnation about what is happening there.
Also, even though Trump is fighting China over trade, he does not care about their mistreatment of Muslims.
In general, this administration only cares about business and trade that is in the interests of the US. Human right, and especially what happens to Muslim minorities are not important.
Trump also does not care whether countries become more authoritarian, as long as they are US allies. The State Department will not publicly disagree with this agenda.
Another Scott
@Yarrow: Biden is a known quantity so he had that advantage. The rest of them still have to create their brands and positive connotations before going after Donnie and his Minions. In that respect, I think Franken’s podcast criticism was too simplistic.
Cheers,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: Biden will be a hard sell to leftists who aren’t firmly attached to the party (i.e., a big chunk of the Sanders base) because his legislative record really is full of landmines. But I hope you’re correct that the reality of the Trump presidency (as opposed to the 2016 hypothetical that few thought likely at the time) will convince them.
Gin & Tonic
@Brachiator:
Bingo! The US Ambassador to Zambia criticized that government for corruption and for anti-gay policies. The State Department recalled him.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
If babies in cages aren’t enough for those “leftists,” then fuckem. We’ll do it without them.
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Was just reading about that. Outrageous! They should have retained the ambassador and demanded that the government stop persecuting gay people if it wants the $500M in aid.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
two days ago, Sanders was counting the “Democratic establishment” as one of the foes he and his cultists were going to fight, right along with trump and Republicans. There’s a solid chunk of Rose Twitter that will say explicitly that Clinton and Obama are at least bad as Republicans, if not worse, and I think that’s what Sanders believes, if he’s (usually) careful not to say so explicitly.
mrmoshpotato
Good thing wheelbarrows are exclusive to outdoor/workshop use! No risk of a pissed-on wheelbarrow being rolled through the living room.
Kathleen
@Brachiator: Good point. We really won’t have any clue until real votes are cast. I despise the frantic polling frenzy our propatainment complex promulgates.
Brachiator
@Gin & Tonic:
I had not seen this story. This is really unfortunate.
Ksmiami
@Yarrow: Fuck Bernie
Yutsano
@Ksmiami: Evergreen post.
James E Powell
@feebog:
Seriously? You can’t? So you’ll be voting third party if she gets the nomination?
The early stories about her relationships with staff were typical campaign BS that gets tossed out so that people who say they’ll vote for a woman, just not this woman because . . . staff, Goldman Sachs speeches, acted like a DA when she was a DA, and so on.
You have preferences? Great! We all do. But are you sure you can’t? Are you sure you want to keep Trump in the White House?
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
I’m an American, and I care about India. And as the second largest country (and largest Democracy), what happens in India most certainly affects America and Americans.
Not all Americans are ignorant provincialists.
Soprano2
We got a free issue of the “Epoch Times” in our mail on Christmas Eve. That’s the Falun Gong sponsored rag that’s all in the tank for Trump. There was a several-page spread about “Spygate”, what we know as the Mueller investigation, and an envelope with an invitation to subscribe. I figure most people will throw it away, but some will probably subscribe thinking that the paper is telling them the unvarnished truth, which is how they characterized themselves.
Shana
Your story of the wheelbarrow reminded me of a photo I saw somewhere (perhaps here?) of a decorated Christmas three protected from the house’s cats with two vacuum cleaners places around it.
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes, but our State Department and White House are ruled with an Iron Fist by a fascist monster, who probably loves to see hate taking charge in India, the world’s largest democracy.
I don’t see that they needed a bribe of $$ to love fascism in other countries. Look at all the love for fascist leaders like BiBi Netanyahu, Putin, Erdogan, the guys in Hungary and Poland, etc.
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:
But in reality, the $500 Million in aid was probably predicated upon the persecution of gay folk, given the domestic persecution of gay folk here in the US…
Jay C
And speaking of corruption….
CREW reports that Trump’s law firm (the one currently d/b/a “The United States Department of Justice”) has just issued a ruling that would seem to exempt certain foreign-owned entities from having to register under the FARA. Which apparently would allow them to (further) avoid any disclosures related to their lobbying efforts in the US. The case in point seems (surprise!) to be Saudi-related.
Any connection that might possibly rhyme with “residential bun-in-jaw” will most likely be studiously avoided….
sab
@mad citizen: Wasn’t Biden the point man on Obama’s stimulus plan, which spent gobs of money, and had minimal if any corruption? (Solana the solar panel people went broke, but that was just garden variety busines failure of a good idea that didn’t work out.)
sab
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t think Elizabeth Warren sees the world as Sanders does at all. She maybe came to the same policy conclusions, but it took her decades to get there, and she arrived with facts.
I am about five years younger than her. I had an easier path through life, so although I got through law school about the same time, she was older than me.
I started out as a bottom level consumer ( i.e. debtor, not creditor) bankruptcy attorney. In four years of practice I had many clients, and mostly they were in trouble for either buying a better house than they could afford ( better = better school district, not bigger house, when their overtime ended in the recession) or medical bills. A couple of crooks and deadbeats, but they were very, very rare. Also some nasty divorces. I don’t know, but guess, that the Volker recession didn’t help those marriages.
I figured this out in 1984. Elizabeth Warren, despite her blue collar background, was meanwhile thriving in her career because she was so darn smart and determined.
She was mostly an academic. A working one doing law, but mostly more interested in research than putting food on her table. Because doing research ( grants, or an academic job) put food on her table. I bailed from consumer bankruptcy because I was just anoher shark circling these distressed people hoping for attorney fees.
So it took her five or six years more than me to get to the same position as me on causes of bankruptcies. So what? We came from very different positions. She was a super intelligent lower middle class girl working her way up in what was still a merit economy, which she believed in being a white success story.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yarrow:
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: The fly-out buttons also use the featured image.