We were all on tenterhooks, right? Here’s President Obama’s endorsement of his former VP:
I’m proud to endorse my friend @JoeBiden for President of the United States. Let's go: https://t.co/maHVGRozkX
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) April 14, 2020
It’s longer than I expected (12 minutes or so), but it’s well worth a listen because 1) Obama, and 2) the massive amounts of shade thrown at the Trump administration, Fox News and Congressional Republicans, all lobbed with trademark Obama subtlety. Obama also makes it clear a return to “normal” isn’t a possibility or a goal. That’s wise, IMO. The world has changed in ways that were unimaginable when the campaign season started. We’re all coming to terms with that, but it’s real, and Obama gets it, and so does Biden.
Obama praises Senator Sanders’ role in inspiring young voters and acknowledges the need for “structural” change, echoing Biden’s post-pandemic messaging shift and signaling that it’s time to focus on the real enemy: Trump. Obama says he’s proud of what Democrats were able to accomplish during his administration but notes that if he were running now, it would be a different type of campaign addressing a whole new set of problems, such as the need to make affordable healthcare a reality for everyone and the urgency of addressing issues like crushing student debt. Bravo, Mr. President!
Speaking of things to savor, I know we had a post on the Wisconsin results last night, but why should the night shift have all the fun? In that spirit: liberal Democrat Jill Karofsky beat the pants off Scott Walker-appointed, Trump-endorsed wingnut incumbent Daniel Kelly for a state supreme court seat.
Not only did Karofsky beat the pants off Kelly, the voters of Wisconsin risked their lives in a goddamned pandemic to make it happen. They foiled a Republican dress rehearsal for cheating in the November election — an appalling “your franchise or your life” voter suppression stick-up scheme abetted by the SCOTUS Republicans.
Some voters waited in preposterously long lines at ridiculously few polling places in Milwaukee during a fucking HAIL STORM to vote. It WAS ridiculous, but they won. So did we. So did democracy. Bravo, Wisconsin voters!
zhena gogolia
I loved it! Great shade against DJT.
Msb
Obama is the embodiment of quality. Jeez, I miss him and his brains, decency, courtesy, eloquence, empathy, etc., etc., etc. OK, I’m in.
patroclus
Obama endorsed Biden??!! Wow, I didn’t see that coming!
Yutsano
So damn proud of the cheeseheads. I’m slightly hopeful the worm is turning there and their progressive tradition is about to come back.
Baud
Baud
MazeDancer .
What with the notice “Chatroom is too full” accompanying the first broadcast, had to settle for yelling “You tell ’em, Mr. President!” at the iPad screen.
Quite often.
JoyceH
I did find the Wisconsin results very heartening. The GOP is going to use every trick in their bag of tricks to make voting difficult and even dangerous, and in many jurisdictions they have the power to do so. So it’s good to know that when voting IS difficult and dangerous, our side is more likely to show up than their side.
Lord Fartdaddy (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Hallelujah.
I do wonder what a lot of Sanders’s big fans are going to say now that he’s explicitly endorsed Biden. I’m sure they’ll come up with something though that’ll give them a reason to write in Sanders or Jill Stein or somebody.
jackmac
You know that Trump is already seething. Irrational and nonsensical tweet in 5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1.
Elizabelle
OT but interesting: Top story in the Richmond Times
DispatchDisgrace right now: breaking and developing:Liberty University student sues school for not refunding fees after campus ‘effectively closed’
Roll them, student.
Eric U.
@Elizabelle: A Lynchburg police officer has tested positive for Covid. I blame Jerry
trollhattan
Had not noticed Hillary’s Twitter tagline before.
She’s never lost her sense of humor.
LuciaMia
Ahhh, always good for a final bit of gouging…
Dorothy A. Winsor
That video of Obama plus the video of Sanders and Biden make a satisfying contrast to the Trump press conference videos.
trollhattan
@jackmac:
Because it’s longer than two minutes you just know he assigned somebody to summarize it for him.
Dave
Being in Wisconsin I was pleasantly surprised to see that even against the redneck death panel of Robin Voss, Scot Fitzgerald, and the republican majority of the state supreme court we prevailed but now is not the time to relax. I’m hopeful for November and Wisconsin does have no excuse absentee voting so I’m encouraging everyone to sign up for absentee vote by mail. I tried it for the first time this election and was glad I did. Now I have already received and returned my ballot for the special election to replace dumbass Sean Duffy. I’m hopeful we can put a Dem in his seat but unfortunately this district is rural and seems to be trending more conservative.
Baud
@trollhattan:
I hope the result of everything we’ve had to go through is that we sweep elections for the next 50 years, but I’ll never “look forward, not back” when it comes to 2016 .
Amir Khalid
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
The endorsement video was a memory of a better world.
randy khan
It’s a tonic in these times to watch Obama. So calm, so rational, and so right.
L85NJGT
Pioneer Natural Resources is a big Texas fracker and wants state mandated production cuts:
Well, I guess that’s being upfront about matters at hand….
Citizen Alan
@Lord Fartdaddy (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
I’ve said for quite a while that if Bernie Sanders had ever even tried to build a coalition capable of getting 51% of the vote, most of the Bernie Or Bust crowd would have turned on him as a “neo-liberal sellout” and moved on to someone even farther to the left. Their liberalism is entirely performative. They don’t care if any progressive goals are actually achieved. In fact, they’re prefer it those goals were not achieved so they could maintain their status as martyrs to the cause, forever betrayed by the DNC or whatever.
Scout211
Since this is a thread that is open, I wanted to update all the jackals who are 60 or over about the Costco Senior hours shopping. We went on the first day that they were open for senior hours a few weeks ago and waited in a line for over an hour.
They have expanded their senior hours to Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 8:00-9:00. This morning we arrived at about 7:20 and expected a line but found the doors open and NO LINE! We got through the shopping, with everything we needed. The only thing that I could tell was out of stock was toilet paper but everything else seemed to be on the shelf. We were loading our truck up at 8:05.
The safety measures have been updated, too. You now do not place any of your items on the conveyor belt. They scan everything in your cart to reduce touches.
We saw only about 1/2 of the customers in masks. That was disappointing because everyone shopping at the time was over 60 or in vulnerable health. But 6 feet of social distancing was fairly consistent.
Oh, and our local tiny Dollar General had three brands of toilet paper on the shelf when we popped in on Sunday morning.
Mai naem mobile
AZ Biden/Dbag head to head 52/43. Just beyond MOE. I hope there’s one of these battleground polls every day to drive Would be Emperor nuts.
8 man shell
Obama has endorsed but Warren hasn’t?
What’s up with that?
Jeffro
@Baud: boom…Boom…BOOM!
This campaign actually has me excited! Let’s go, Democratic Justice League!!
Jeffro
@8 man shell: she did miss her moment, but no worries…a lot of what she was running on is going to end up in the Dem platform/agenda/legislation.
Also, not that the Dems were terribly far apart anyway. =)
germy
@8 man shell: You really seem to dislike Warren. When did this begin?
Mai naem mobile
@randy khan: he looks tanned, rested and ready to battle. I am guessing Trumpov Mitch Inc is deeply concerned..
Jeffro
@Amir Khalid: and the promise of a new and even better one ahead, if we show up
Baud
@Jeffro: Mandalay in the last thread cited an NYT article that said Warren is working with Biden’s team on the timing. There’s not real holdup.
germy
@Jeffro: Snyder cut or Joss Whedon’s?
MattF
It’s irksome, but Kristol is rather amusing on Performative Authoritarianism:
Note that this is a man who has positive things to say about Rush Limbaugh.
Jeffro
@Elizabelle: that’s the first time I’ve heard it called the ‘Disgrace’…
…it’s because they run Victor Davis Hanson’s column, isn’t it? =)
Betty Cracker
@Dave: I’m in FL and have always liked going to the polls to vote in person and sample the zeitgeist. But after this year and especially seeing the shenanigans y’all had pulled on you by Republicans this week, I signed up for a mail-in ballot and am encouraging everyone I know (who isn’t a Trump-humping idiot) to do the same.
Does anyone doubt for a second that Trump will use every lever of federal power to suppress the vote in November? I wouldn’t put it past him to get embedded toadies to issue outbreak alerts in key districts, etc. I’d swim through a canal choked with COVID-19 nasal samples to vote that bastard out, but I hope it doesn’t come to that!
Suzanne
@Mai naem mobile: I am cautiously optimistic that AZ will go blue this year. And all of my bits are crossed for Mark Kelly.
So Spawn the Eldest gave me the Pete Sousa book of Obama photos. It’s been too sad for me to look at it. I am desperately looking forward to having it be my coffee table book when Biden becomes the POTUS.
trollhattan
@8 man shell:
OT political post in consecutive threads: Check
Attempt to create FUD over Dem nomination in consecutive threads: Check
Here’s your five rubles, now go play on the freeway. It’s empty.
Jeffro
@MattF: he’s being kind of tongue-in-cheek, I thought. But it’s a good point.
Right now, trumpov has no reason to think the GOP will oppose him on anything…none of them except Romney voted to remove him, none of them except Liz Cheney have spoken out about his ‘total authority’ remark…
Post the WI election, one would think they would start speaking up. But whew do they ever have a ‘collective action’ problem on that side of the aisle…
Jeffro
I’m not that worried about him using federal power of some kinds…I’m more worried about him calling out to his stupid, armed, reactionary base to be “poll watchers” across the country (particularly in heavily non-white neighborhoods), or for them to stage armed sit-ins at the offices of elected officials who “disobey” him.
MattF
@Jeffro: When you’ve got a group of ambitious national politicians with a ‘leadership problem’ or a ‘collective action problem’ it’s fair to conclude that they’ve made their choices and they’re sticking with them. I invite evidence to the contrary.
mrmoshpotato
I’ll watch in a minute, but everyone needs to know about Virtual Cinema with the Music Box Theatre including pay-what-you-want for CatVideoFest (40 mins). :)
Omnes Omnibus
@Dave: That district got gerrymandered after Obey left. They moved Stevens Point into Ron Kind’s district and that hurt.
Capri
@Elizabelle: The exact same thing is happening at Purdue University for the same reasons. The University only gave back a fraction of what students paid in board and other fees. It was a naked cash grab by Mitch Daniels and I’m glad he got called on it.
8 man shell
@germy:
Warren was my first choice and Biden was about my 5th or 6th.
But there is no excuse for this refusal to bend the knee.
She should have done it weeks ago.
U-N-I-T-Y ….
8 man shell
@trollhattan:
This is an open thread.
Sod off with your prissy gatekeeping.
8 man shell
@Mai naem mobile:
It looks like he’s had his teeth whitened, too.
Which is good, b/c they were looking kind of dingy.
Maybe it’s just the adjustments on that particular photo I saw.
Mary G
I haven’t read it, but even the FTFNYT has a J. Martin piece about Democrats not in disarray up today. The rats are jumping off the sinking ship.
trollhattan
@8 man shell:
No.
A Ghost to Most
@Elizabelle: Jerry might have trouble bankrolling the pool boy.
Amir Khalid
@8 man shell:
Your question was answered in the previous thread: The NYT reports that Warren is leaving it to Biden’s people to decide the timing of her endorsement announcement.
I trust you will not need to ask again.
MattF
I like the pie filter but, IMO, it should have a ‘delete’ option.
ETA: Now I see… there is a ‘Hide’ option.
ItinerantPedant
@Yutsano: It’s gonna take time…in a fair state the Repubs wouldn’t have gotten 64% of the seats with 44% of the vote. And if they were self-aware, Vos and Fitzgerald would have never claimed a voter mandate right after that.
But that’s how it turned out and that’s what they said. It’s going to take a tidal wave to swamp it, but with only a 4-3 majority on State Supreme, MAYBE if Evers keeps vetoing what ever districting dumpster fire Vos and Fitzgerald cough up after the census, it’ll stick.
Or they could outsmart themselves. A bunch of R+5 districts are usually fine for this kind of thing, but maybe the swing will be 7 ro 8 or 10. Then we can institute non-partisan districts.
hueyplong
Unless the entirety of the Democratic roster endorses simultaneously, we’ll see “Why has X not endorsed when Y has?” posts.
I do admire the discipline that prevents references to “Sleepy Joe” Biden in such posts, though the whole “bend the knee” thing is so 2019.
sdhays
@8 man shell: Warren has been pretty supportive of Biden since she dropped out. Biden pretty much endorsed her plan for addressing the coronavirus, and I don’t think that was an accident or capitulation. I think they’ve already been working together because Biden actually does like and respect Warren and Warren is a professional who is really serious about making progress, regardless of who’s doing what to advance the goal.
JPL
@8 man shell: Saw an article that said she is coordinating the timing with Joe. She worked with both Biden and Sanders on the Sanders endorsement
I think they are trying to control the news media but loudmouth will never let that happen
What Baud said at 31
Krope, the Formerly Dope
Fox will play whichever 10 second clips he can get the most angry tweets out of.
Mandalay
@trollhattan:
I only noticed George Conway’s this morning, which disrespectfully states “Windmill cancer survivor“.
Kent
@LuciaMia: Honestly, that is fairly in line with the fees charged by most state and private universities. My daughter at the University of Arkansas had similar fees. That is one of the dirty little secrets of higher education. They keep shifting more costs onto fees so that they can claim they are reining in tuition increases. But it is a distinction without a difference when they are all mandatory line-item charges on your tuition bill. Arkansas also adds technology fees and other nonsense.
I’m not saying don’t sue Liberty University. Just that their actual fees look pretty normal.
JPL
@Krope, the Formerly Dope: I’m watching World on Fire and it showed Berliners watching a clip of the German parade in Warsaw and being greeted by large crowds. It made me think about how the fox crowd is being fed disinformation.
Oklahomo
@trollhattan:
Good people have no problem aiming their sense of humor at themselves.
JPL
@Kent: OT How is your daughter doing throughout all of this?
Kent
@8 man shell: Hey troll.
Can you stop with this “Warren needs to bend the knee bullshit?”
As was pointed out to you in the previous thread. The Warren campaign has already announced that they will be endorsing Biden. However, they are leaving the scheduling up to the Biden Campaign so that they can roll the announcement out at the best time for the Biden campaign so that they don’t step on other events like today’s Obama endorsement.
Pay attention.
Barbara
@Kent: To your point, there are similar lawsuits against other universities.
Origuy
@8 man shell: The top line on the Google Search.
When Will Elizabeth Warren Endorse Joe Biden? Report Says That’s Up To Joe Biden
Haroldo
@MattF:
I like the pie filter but, IMO, it should have a ‘delete’ option.
ETA: Now I see… there is a ‘Hide’ option.
Now, that is a useful little sucker, innit?
trollhattan
@Mandalay:
Good one! :-)
That has to be the weirdest home life of any celeb couple, ever. Unless it’s the most adroit piece of political theater, ever. (And I doubt Kellyanne would ever listen to a director, so….)
Jeffro
@germy: Grant Morrison’s ;)
Jeffro
@Baud: muh bad (sorry Liz!!)
Kent
She’s pissed at losing all the graduation celebrations but doing fine. She and her roommate (both seniors) have a 3 br duplex apartment off campus and they both have cars. Their 3rd roommate graduated and left back in December. Actual graduation is May 7 but it obviously isn’t going to happen. So she is hanging out and finishing up her classes online and busy selling all her stuff on instagram. I just sent her a Yakima rooftop cargo box to put on her car so she can drive back here to WA in May. Apparently if you are a mini-instagram influencer as my daughter is (she has over 1000 followers) you can just post pictures of your shit on instagram and people will buy it. Who knew?
Since she is graduating with a degree in PR and marketing with an emphasis on travel and lifestyle industry she is pretty fucked for the short term in terms of looking for work. Hotels and tourism industry is pretty dead. So we are thinking of sending her down to Chile once the pandemic eases. My wife is Chilean and all her family are there and she has a lot of HS and college friends who have various PR and related businesses. So she can spend a year doing unpaid internships with Chilean companies arranged by friends of my wife, work on her Spanish, and do some travel in Chile and Argentina while she waits out the economy. She (along with my other 2 daughters) are all dual citizens so she can go work and study in Chile without any paperwork or visa hassles. As long as we are willing to write the checks. My mother-in-law owns various apartments all over Santiago, two of which are currently vacant, so she has an apartment waiting too.
JPL
@Kent: It has to be disappointing, but pleased that her job prospects aren’t bleak.
JCJ
Something interesting regarding the election in Wisconsin yesterday. In 2019 there was a Supreme Court election which was won by the bad guy 606,414 to 600, 433 – a total of 1,206,847 votes. Yesterday the election went to the good guy (Judge Karofsky) 856,470 to 692,976 – a total of 1,549,446 votes. Is this change due to increased motivation to vote, other elections, the push for voting absentee? I went to a fundraiser in 2014 for Mary Burke who was running against Walker that year. Elizabeth Warren was the speaker and she emphasized “when Democrats vote, we win!”
Mandalay
Oh dear…some unkind person with nothing better to do has maliciously unearthed an article by Ted Cruz from 2014:
That should send the yellow bootlicker back into self-quarantine for a few months. I look forward to him leading the charge in the Senate against the Administration when he decides it’s safe to return.
Krope, the Formerly Dope
Even if the endorsement wasn’t already in the works, as shown above, if Biden wanted to pull a mad King Joffrey and demand a public display of fealty from Warren, that’s for him to demand and not random internet denizens.
Fortunately, Biden has too much dignity and grace to do any such thing.
James E Powell
Every time I watch Obama speak, whether it’s a formal speech or a Q&A, and I think about the way white Americans responded to his campaigns and his administration, I’m amazed at how deeply racist people have to be in order to hate him.
Kent
This year’s graduating college seniors are more fucked than any graduating class since maybe 1933. They are all going to have to find creative ways to wait out the economy. I expect huge numbers will wait it out by going to grad school of some sort. I expect grad school applications to absolutely SKYROCKET. A bunch will just resign themselves to taking whatever they can get in the gig economy or doing things like retail clerking when the economy opens back up. I think the key is to be creative and figure out ways to boost your personal portfolio while you wait out the economy.
I don’t think my kid understands how truly bad it is going to be. She has never actually looked for real career work in her life. She just stumbled on jobs when she needed them. It is going to be a rude wake-up. Luckily in this day and age one can apply for work from anywhere. She can apply for jobs from Santiago Chile just as easily as from Vancouver WA. Everyone does Skype or Zoom interviews these days anyway.
mrmoshpotato
Damn that was good! Go Joe!
Brachiator
@Kent:
We haven’t had a pandemic in a long time. People are resourceful. We may be surprised how things bounce back.
And we have no choice but to deal with this as best we can. And right now, we appear to be better able to recover than some previous survivors of pandemics.
We are all living through what may be a notable moment in history. Who knows. Your daughter may end up in the history books of the future.
jc
Great endorsement, President Obama.
Now I’m going to say to Joe what someone said to Hillary at approx. this point in 2016: Joe, don’t blow it. If you bungle this, we’re all screwed. Another four years of Trump and this country won’t be worth living in.
H.E.Wolf
“Bend the knee” is such a weird, antiquated, authoritarian phrase. It seems more appropriate to the demands of a despotic ruler than to the workings of a democratic republic.
I’m reminded of Anna Leonowen’s recitatif in “The King and I”, which includes the imagined behaviour of his downtrodden subjects: “Yes, your Majesty; no, your Majesty; tell us how low to go, your Majesty….” and goes on from there to the inevitable end-game of such requirements. :)
Gin & Tonic
@Kent: Yeah, my son finished grad school a year ago, and then left the country on a fellowship which our great State Dept. terminated. So he’s out of the country, and getting messages to come back urgently. But he thinks to himself – I have a place to live and money left from my stipend, in a country with a semi-functional health system. Why should I return to no job and no health insurance?
So he stayed away, but eventually has to come back when his money runs out, maybe by August. Then what? Who knows.
trollhattan
@Kent:
My HS senior can sympathize. School–on line as a timid echo of the classroom. AP testing–shortened and not proctored, so probably not usable scores. Prom–gone. Sports–gone. Graduation–whatever takes place will not be a celebration in front of friends and family nor, the most important, dunking on all your “frenemeis.” That last one really hurts. :-)
And oy, college choice. Here, watch this webinar and choose us.
Gin & Tonic
@H.E.Wolf:
And Wilmer is a weird, antiquated authoritarian, amirite?
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
Popularized by GoT. Before the series I never saw it in common use.
Omnes Omnibus
@H.E.Wolf: @Gin & Tonic: If you are really wondering, the modern use comes from Game of Thrones.
Mnemosyne
@MattF:
Bill Kristol is one of the conservatives who got spooked by the Charlottesville tiki torch mob chanting, “Jews will not replace us!”
He’s never going to completely swivel the way that Jennifer Rubin seems poised to do, but I do think that he genuinely hates and fears Trump and wants him gone.
Betty Cracker
@H.E.Wolf: I suspect the Chapo Trappists who popularized the phrase in their prematurely triumphal period between the Nevada caucuses and Super Tuesday were thinking of “Game of Thrones” rather than “The King and I,” but who knows? :)
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks, but I wasn’t.
Kent
Yes, daughter #2 is a HS junior and not really the prom type so this hasn’t been as big of a deal to her (Daughter #1 was a prom-zilla four years ago) What pisses her off the most is that her driving test was scheduled for March 15 and got canceled so her driver’s license is on indefinite hold.
UW just announced that the SAT will no longer be required for 2020 and 2021 admissions. So she doesn’t have to bother with that. Although she already has high scores from last fall. We did most of the important college visits last summer before the start of her junior year so at least that has been dealt with. We were going to do a week-long CA college visit trip over spring break but that all got canceled. But I don’t think any CA schools were in her top list. It was more just for fun.
H.E.Wolf
Oh, yes; understood. It’s just that I love that peroration from Anna. It’s so *applicable* in so many situations. :)
Scuffletuffle
@8 man shell: No. There is no need at all for her to endorse.
trollhattan
@Kent:
“prom-zilla” Heh! Mine has her dress and shoes, no particular BF but she’s quite happy to go with a gaggle of friends and poke fun. Na-ga-happen. IDK why AP tests even matter at this point, other than the aforementioned dunking on other smartypants classmates.
She’s at eeny-meeny-miney-mo selection stage, with drastically different destinations and no ability to do that final site visit. She’s in a chat group for Cal admittees with a thousand participants.
hitchhiker
@Scout211:
That’s funny … I went to geezer Costco today, too, but unlike you I arrived in the middle of the 9-10 am period set aside for the Olds.
And it was MORE crowded than the last time I was there during regular hours, with a longer line to get in and more people wandering around in the store.
Almost everyone was wearing something over their nose and mouth, too.
Miss Bianca
@Lord Fartdaddy (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Oh, you know what they’re doing? Whining about Biden. And how the Democrats haven’t *dooooooone anything* to *earn* their precious, precious votes.
ASK ME HOW I KNOW.
Oh, wait, on second thought, don’t.
cmorenc
@JoyceH:
But quite selectively so. If you live in a voting precinct that is disproportionately GOP, you’ll get short to nonexistent waiting lines and ample staffing and voting equipment.
mmolleur
@Betty Cracker:
I asked for one too, but I’m seriously concerned about D mail-in ballots. Early voting is easy. Not sure what I’ll end up doing.
J R in WV
deleted
J R in WV
@8 man shell:
Your repeated use of the term “bend the knee” is repulsive and anti-American. It is the kind of thing monarchists want to do for their King or Tsar. Isn’t that kind of thing over in Russia, comrade?
No one in America talks about bending the knee to anyone, anywhere. A huge tell that you are NOT an American, no one in America would say that once, let alone over and over.
How is the weather in St Petersburg today? Oh, my, it’s exactly the same temp as it is here in WVa!!! 31 degrees!!! What a coincidence!
J R in WV
@8 man shell:
Yet another tell, NO ONE who grew up in America uses the term “Sod off with your prissy” anything.
You learned English from an English teacher who learned English from a British teacher, probably in a school outside Moscow. Thanks for playing Tovarisch!!
AxelFoley
My Forever President endorsing my Future President!