Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

T R E 4 5 O N

Come on, man.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Consistently wrong since 2002

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Wear A Mask or Pelosi is President

Wear A Mask or Pelosi is President

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Someone on Pence’s team has tested positive for COVID-19, as did one of Trump’s valets. If these old guys are going to surround themselves with people who stand close and don’t wear masks, the right set of circumstances could lead to Pelosi becoming President. Don’t you think that, if anything, would be enough to scare them into some kind of compliance with reasonable distancing and mask wearing?

They probably all think that Pompeo is next in line because that’s what they learned in grade school, but 25th Amendment, motherfuckers!

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

290Comments

  1. 1.

    PenAndKey

    Shhh!!! Nobody tell them.

     

    (Also, nobody tell Jared and Jr. I wanna see their faces when they find out this isn’t Game of Thrones succession rules)

  5. 5.

    Kent

    We only need a small handful of geriatric GOP Senators to be in the ICU on ventilators and then McConnell will need to get Dem votes to do anything at all in the Senate like approve judges or move legislation.

    Same thing with SCOTUS.  We just need one GOP judge to go down and they are back to a 4-4 deadlock.  I’m not sure what the SCOTUS rules are, whether a justice needs to actually be there for the oral arguments to vote later or not

    Of course the Dem senators and justices need to make DAMN sure they stay healthy.

  9. 9.

    MattF

    Unlikely. You’re assuming that R politicians believe what they’re saying. I’d assume that even the dumbest ones actually know better. Too bad about grandma, but the nation’s business is important, etc.

  10. 10.

    kindness

    I do feel like I am blessed/charmed in my life but the FSM does not love me enough to off both Pence and Trump at the same time so we could be saved by Nancy SMASH!  God that would be karmic though, eh?  Our first female President, Nancy Pelosi?  Just to see Congressional Republicans & Fox News heads explode would be twistedly satisfying.

  13. 13.

    germy

    In the early afternoon on April 16th, Jill Nelson, a 67-year-old writer, left her apartment on Riverside Drive to run a few essential errands. Bundled up in a green down jacket, turtleneck sweater, jeans, and sneakers, she planned a quick trip to the drug store and supermarket, stuffing a hat, credit card, and some cash into her purse.

    On Broadway and 162nd Street, she passed a boarded-up storefront, and wrote “Trump = Plague” in pink chalk.

    Seconds later, she was in handcuffs, she told us.

    “Before I could step back and see my handiwork, two police SUVs roared up on either side of me, and blocked me in,” Nelson told the Rag. “Four officers jumped out: ‘What are you doing? Why are you doing that? Do you own this building? Do you have a weapon?’

    “They roughly cuffed me, took my purse, and shoved me into the back of an SUV. I was taken to the 33rd Precinct and put in a cell at about 1 p.m. I was never read my rights. They took mug shots, they fingerprinted me, I was searched by a female officer, and they itemized my belongings,” she recounted.

    https://www.westsiderag.com/2020/05/07/67-year-old-writer-handcuffed-and-jailed-over-chalk-graffiti-petty-arrest-amidst-a-plague?fbclid=IwAR1wvgNt9vA3sU-RfXSxOlTorYhFJvWa87NYYrc5ToVt792XlmwjrSUFa-k

  15. 15.

    Baud

    This is one of those things I can’t control so I’m not going to worry (or fantasize) about.

  19. 19.

    Fleeting Ex-istence

    @germy:  These people are soulless. I wish I had dated it, but I found a quote from Trump early on that was so weird it worried me and I wrote it down.  He was on Fox, of course, and he said “We have absolute warriors” and he names Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, Matt Goetz, DeSantis, and Corey Lewandowski.  Also, “I have a phony cloud over my head that doesn’t exist.”

    Wonder what these warriors swore to do.  Also, I wonder if the winds will shift when 10-30 Senators/congressmen get sick.  Are they even routinely tested yet?

    Also I want Steven Colbert’s tee shirt.  An outline of the DeathStar, above it “Trump 2020” and below it says

    OBJECTIVELY BAD
    WITH EASILY EXPLOITABLE
    DESIGN FLAWS

  21. 21.

    Calouste

    Question for constitutional scholars:

    What happens when both the President and the VP end up, say intubated and sedated in an ICU. They’re not dead, but they’re not conscious either. Who is in charge?

    AFAIK the order of succession only applies in case of the position becoming vacant, but they’re not dead, and they’re incapable of resigning.

  22. 22.

    artem1s

    Six who were deplaned to be tested. This staffer who is now positive tested negative yesterday. They tested positive this morning. No symptoms.

    pig ignorance may save us yet.  I refuse to feel sorry for people who are so willfully and stupidly ignoring the science.  These cowards call for the most needy American’s to be warriors when they and their staff are getting tested daily.  I hope Dence is right about his vengeful god.

  23. 23.

    Roger Moore

    @Tom Levenson:

    I know that this is the GOP line, but do these folks have any idea how they sound to those outside the charmed circle?

    To GOP voters, they sound like “we’re not going to give n****rs your hard-earned money”.

  24. 24.

    JoyceH

    Something I’ve noticed is that not only doesn’t Trump wear a mask, he doesn’t SAY “wear a mask”. I’ve noticed several times when reporters asked him if it was safe to reopen the economy, he’d say he thought so, as long as people followed the guidelines – and then he mentions maintaining distance and hand washing, but never says wear a mask. And that’s the most important thing, I think.

  26. 26.

    Roger Moore

    @Calouste:

    What happens when both the President and the VP end up, say intubated and sedated in an ICU. They’re not dead, but they’re not conscious either. Who is in charge?

    Alexander Haig, of course.

  27. 27.

    sdhays

    @Calouste: I think that the Speaker of the House is supposed to then be Acting President, and if the Speaker was a Republican, that might happen. But I suspect that the minions in the White House would cause a Constitutional crisis before allowing that.

  31. 31.

    Amir Khalid

    Another reason to boo/hiss at the Trump administration, courtesy of the Guardian’s liveblog:

    My colleague Julian Borger, the Guardian’s world affairs editor, has this update from Washington:

    The US has stopped a vote on a UN Security Council resolution to support Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s call for a global ceasefire during the Covid-19 pandemic.

    After more than six weeks of wrangling, France thought it had achieved a breakthrough last night. But the French underestimated the determination of the Trump administration when it comes to demonising the World Health Organisation.

    The US mission wanted no references to the WHO in the resolution. So the French watered down the reference in the resolution to “specialised health agencies” of the UN (of which there is really only one – the WHO).

    The US mission seemed to be on board last night, but this morning they signalled that the wording was still not acceptable, leaving western diplomats at the UN to suspect that someone high up in Washington must have intervened.

  32. 32.

    BBA

    Weren’t they all already exposed at CPAC? I’m betting they’re immune, because we live in the least convenient of all possible worlds.

  35. 35.

    Mike G

    …could lead to Pelosi becoming President. Don’t you think that, if anything, would be enough to scare them into some kind of compliance with reasonable distancing and mask wearing?

    In which case, wearing masks is for pussies and only libruls who like books and salad take precautions. I encourage both Trump and Pence to be brave and resolute against this wimpification, because they’re too virtuous and loved by Jeebus to ever get sick. Oh, and Obama hates it when people lick the White House doorknobs.

    I hope Barr, McConnell, Rupert Murdoch and Dick Cheney take the same advice.

  37. 37.

    Jeffro

    @PenAndKey: Shhh!!! Nobody tell them.

     

    I know, right?  PLEASE PROCEED ORANGE MAN AND OBEDIENT FAKE-PPE-DELIVERING DUMMY!

     

    OT but our congressional district’s ‘virtual convention’ is tomorrow, with people running to be delegates to the national convention (I think that’s how it works, anyway.  I was really heartened by the way one of the candidates opened her statement

    Dear Friend,
    I am a Warren Democrat who is wholly committed to electing Joe Biden as President.
    Biden is a decent man who knows how to bring people together. I believe he can lead us to victory in November, if we unite behind him. I believe he will draw on our deep Democratic  bench of superior talent and political skills to rebuild our damaged government.
    With joy and grit, I see a fighting Democratic team — Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders, Adam Schiff, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Val Demings, and others at the national level, and our ground army in Virginia — who are working to free us of the danger Trump and his accomplices have put our nation in. These Democrats from all parts of the country stand in firm support of Biden.

    The Democratic Justice League got a shout-out!  Sort of!  =)

  39. 39.

    germy

    @Mike G:

    In which case, wearing masks is for pussies and only libruls who like books and salad take precautions.

    Thread:

    A customer came to check out just now and told me to "take it [my mask] off. Act like a real American." and a part of my brain just inwardly snapped. What the FUCK kind of thing is this to say to someone deemed an essential worker. I've been here this whole time helping you.

    — sharpest of cheeses (@Incog) May 7, 2020

  40. 40.

    LuciaMia

    Dammit, Covid-19.  Cant you take just one step to the right and infect the right person?

  41. 41.

    JPL

    hahahaha   Steven Miller’s wife is the aid

     

    She’s Pence’s press secretary.

  50. 50.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @JPL: good christ, you’re right, that fucking goon was our chief diplomat

    Sometimes, with the passage of time, I forget just how batshit crazy the Great Waver actually was.

  51. 51.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @JPL: JPL got it right

    ETA: humbug: this was supposed to be an edit– ‘request deletion’ is no longer an option?

  52. 52.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @germy:

    If a customer told me that, I’d probably be sorely tempted to tell them to fuck off

  53. 53.

    Brachiator

    @Calouste:

    It doesn’t. It just deals with what happens when the President is incapacitated, not when they both are.

    Not a constitutional scholar, but I read fast. The Presidential Succession Act would allow the Speaker to become president. The idea is that someone elected should become president.

    However, there is a line about what officer of the government can become president and apparently neither the speaker nor the president pro tem of the Senate are officers.

    So you could have a constitutional challenge and the Supreme Court could decree that the Secretary of State become president.

    I think.

  56. 56.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    So you could have a constitutional challenge and the Supreme Court could decree that the Secretary of State become president.

    I think.

    Because of course they could. And you know the GOP would do this in a heartbeat

  57. 57.

    CaseyL

    I wonder if I could catch the virus, drive to DC, and attend one or more glad-handing GOP Senate fundraisers (no masks, no social distancing, lots of physical contact), all before I need to go to ICU.

  63. 63.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @germy: This is a surprise

    Let me guess what he said;

    “It tell you, mothers think they have it rough with child birth, well no one has it rougher than me. Every day it’s like I am passing a bowling ball threw my unmentionables with the press. And I have had hundreds of mothers come up to me with tears in their eyes and thanking me for going threw it, saying they don’t know how I do it. We only have to face the Virus out there in the Shopping Malls, but no way could they take the abuse I take, every day. So sad.”

  64. 64.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Calouste:

    What happens when both the President and the VP end up, say intubated and sedated in an ICU. They’re not dead, but they’re not conscious either. Who is in charge?

    This reads like a back-cover blurb of a political thriller. Allen Drury, where have you gone?

  65. 65.

    CaseyL

    O/T:  I haven’t checked the earlier BJ threads, but has anyone noticed or commented on the flurry of tweets now making the rounds that the reason Tara Reade was fired from Biden’s office is because they found she had a record of check fraud?  And that she made up the sexual harassment issue to hide that inconvenient little fact?

  67. 67.

    germy

    BREAKING: President Trump just said "Katie" is VP staffer who tested positive. Katie Miller is VP spox & wife of WH adviser Stephen Miller. Entire West Wing has now been directly or indirectly exposed to COVID-19.— Paula Reid (@PaulaReidCBS) May 8, 2020

    According to CDC rules, shouldn’t they all be quarantined for two weeks?

  69. 69.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Calouste: What happens when both the President and the VP end up, say intubated and sedated in an ICU. They’re not dead, but they’re not conscious either. Who is in charge?

    How would that be different than how things are going on now?

  72. 72.

    NCSteve

    And turns out, it’s Stephen Miller’s wife. That would be the Stephen Miller who was instrumental in Trump’s fiddle playing in January and February.

  75. 75.

    sdhays

    @Spanky: It was recent. I seem to recall that he was dreaming up ways to hurt people while on his honeymoon. Ever the romantic…

  77. 77.

    M31

    when Al Haig made that announcement, my friends from Central America were all getting panicked calls from their parents “The president has been shot and there’s a general on TV saying he’s in charge? IT’S A COUP, stay inside!”

  78. 78.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Barbara: Yup, I’m not jumping on every piece of dirt they dig  up, and trying to resist the Schadenfreude. Though I have to say, as someone who thinks all accusations of Russian puppetry have to be taken with a large grain of salt, the fact that she hired a former Russia Today lawyer, to complement the trump donor… are she and her handlers just trolling at this point?

  81. 81.

    jl

    I like to look on the bright side of things. Good news from the WH covid-19 outbreak (which is what it is), is that the WH has finally managed to produce an effective public information campaign on the epidemic and simple precautions that should be used.

    On the serious side, the public information campaigns have been pretty weak. I think the public infrastructure of this country has been so hollowed out, that there is just not adequate institutional memory or resources to do a good job on the local state or federal level. US did much better, had more skill, and more resources 60, 50, 40 years ago, And the problem predates Trump administration.

  82. 82.

    germy

    Louie Gohmert tells reporters that before they write stories about GOP lawmakers not wearing masks here, Trump "saw to it that we had tests," and "nobody in here has the coronavirus unless it's somebody in the media," so the only reason would be "to protect ourselves from you."— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) May 8, 2020

    False, @replouiegohmert. @CBSNews confirms a member of @VP & @POTUS staff each tested positive in past 2 days – both have been in close contact w/bosses. Appears most of West Wing has been directly or indirectly exposed to #Covid_19. (For now, no confirmed case among WH press). https://t.co/YwVO2cifWA— Paula Reid (@PaulaReidCBS) May 8, 2020

    I think Paula Reid CBS has decided she’s not putting up with any more shit.

  83. 83.

    PenAndKey

    @germy: Yup, basically. And given that the point of first exposure for her could have been up to two weeks ago everyone she’s been in contact with for the last week or two should as well. It ain’t gonna happen, because they’re in a self-reinforcing death cult and can’t show weakness.

  85. 85.

    hueyplong

    I’m going to require proof that someone married Stephen Miller.

    Frau Goebbels died 75 years ago.

  87. 87.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The Supreme Court would decide the issue since it’s never happened before and there are some legitimate objections to basically anybody. Unless it’s a very clear issue, which it isn’t, the four biggest conservative hacks would pick a Republican, the four liberals would have a different opinion, and Roberts would pick which side he agreed with (hint: the other Republican hacks) and then write the opinion.

  88. 88.

    germy

    “Justice matters.” Today @PressSec spent nearly half of 20 min briefing reading prepared remarks on Mike Flynn. As she abruptly left I asked why Flynn is top of mind on a day when @potus & @VP have both just been directly exposed to #Covid_19 & US reached historic unemployment. pic.twitter.com/esjbG14Ouw— Paula Reid (@PaulaReidCBS) May 8, 2020

    She didn’t answer, just walked away instead.

  90. 90.

    jl

    I mean, yeesh, wear a fricken mask. How hard is that? Some insecure menfolk should understand it goes around  their nose and face, not their balls. Edit: apparently Pence thought it goes around his eyes. I have to wonder about all the places he thought he was supposed to wear it. Maybe it was just out of sight on his elbow. Who knows? Those people are just stupider than I could ever imagine a person could be.

    I saw a Jama article recommending face shield and masks. That would a very low cost and effective that solution that would make reopens easier and safer. But the US is proving it is incapable of doing much of anything anymore other than finding more and better ways to swipe all the cash that is not firmly nailed down.

    Now looks like New Zealand and Australia have made dramatic progress. And they did the shutdowns right: lots of public information, very severe and consistent, and imposed very early so could be shorter, constant well disseminated color warning alerts to keep people updated on degree of need to double down on social distancing, big effort to prepare outbreak control after the shutdowns were lifted.

    I read the feds started a color code alert system, but abandoned it, I guess because Trumpsters realized it would require actual work to execute.

  91. 91.

    The Moar You Know

    “I couldn’t do any wrong, which is a big problem. Maybe that’s why I ended up the way I ended up, I don’t know.”

    @germy:  The orange droid knows it’s broken and knows why. I find that really interesting.

  94. 94.

    jl

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I am forced to make a few exceptions, which breaks my heart. Maybe BillinGlendale and Baud can reform themselves and I can look on the bright side on everything. Let’s hope for the best (oh, dang, sorry, I did it again.)

  95. 95.

    James E Powell

    @Major Major Major Major:

    If Trump and Pence end up incapacitated at the same time, the acting president will be whoever John Roberts wants it to be.

    I just assumed it would be Kiefer Sutherland.

  98. 98.

    Ruckus

    @Tom Levenson:
     @dmsilev: 
    Do they know? They know so little that it’s 99% that no, they don’t.
    Do they care? Far less than how much they know. The world to them revolves around their sorry, dumb asses and everyone else is beneath them and less important. That probably wouldn’t change if they were actually in prison, because they aren’t really smart enough to understand. And no, I’m not giving them too little credit, I’m giving them exactly what they deserve. Zero.

  100. 100.

    Brachiator

    @Major Major Major Major:

    The Supreme Court would decide the issue since it’s never happened before and there are some legitimate objections to basically anybody.

    If there is a challenge to the Presidential Succession Act, the Court would be deciding between the Speaker of the House and the Secretary of State.

  102. 102.

    trnc

    @Kent: We only need a small handful of geriatric GOP Senators to be in the ICU on ventilators and then McConnell will need to get Dem votes to do anything at all in the Senate like approve judges or move legislation.

    Where the hell is Rand Paul? Seems like he could actually be useful right about now.

  107. 107.

    The Moar You Know

    A customer came to check out just now and told me to “take it [my mask] off. Act like a real American.” and a part of my brain just inwardly snapped. What the FUCK kind of thing is this to say to someone deemed an essential worker. I’ve been here this whole time helping you.

    @germy: I’ve gotten some looks in the stores recently (I have full medical-grade PPE gear for my side business of guitar and furniture refinish, never thought I’d be using it for this) and I already know I’m going to get this or something similar said to me soon.

    My response will be “come and take it, you gutless coward.”  I’m 6′ 2″ and 220 and I doubt anyone’s going to take me up on that offer.  If they choose to, well, that becomes a self-defense situation…and it so happens California allows open carry of knives and I do that too.

  108. 108.

    Delk

    If pence and trump both end up intubated good luck keeping social distancing.

  109. 109.

    Elizabelle

    @Brachiator:   The Speaker of the House is elected. And of some elected experience; I cannot think of any in modern times that were new to politics.

    The Secretary of State:  not.  Political appointee.  Could, frankly, be not born an American.  (See:  Albright, Kissinger, and maybe we have had some others previously.)

    That would not seem to be a terribly hard decision to make.

  110. 110.

    JPL

    @The Moar You Know: I always thank those working at stores.   Two weeks ago when I was in Publix, one of the workers who stock shelves, came over to me with a box ans opened it, and said you can take two.   It was hand sanitizer.   Sometimes being nice, pays off.

  114. 114.

    Elizabelle

    @germy:   I love the idea of the White House briefers looking out … at a sea of masks. And maybe even gloves.  On smarter people in their audience.

    Sucks to be you, briefers.

  115. 115.

    Betty Cracker

    Here’s an interesting and thoughtful article on the Reade-Biden thing by someone who knows/knew them both and was also the Forrest Gump of U.S. sex scandals:

  117. 117.

    Van Buren

    @kindness: Looking forward to the media turning on her when she hasn’t fixed EVERYTHING by hour 3 of her presidency.

  118. 118.

    Elizabelle

    @The Moar You Know:   You are cruising for pie.  I don’t know why some of you asshats are living through bad times, and want to envision it even worse.

    My guess is that Eeyore had higher standards.

  121. 121.

    trnc

    @Elizabelle: The Secretary of State: not. Political appointee. Could, frankly, be not born an American. (See: Albright, Kissinger, and maybe we have had some others previously.)

    Only the president is required to be a natural born citizen. Any other officeholder can be non-US born. The VP could probably even be foreign born, but technically wouldn’t be eligible to ascend to the presidency.

  122. 122.

    Duane

    @germy: Did Paula Reid make that announcement with glee in her voice because that’s how I felt. Quarantine is too good for that plague infested lot.

  123. 123.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle:

    The Speaker of the House is elected. And of some elected experience; I cannot think of any in modern times that were new to politics.

    The Secretary of State: not. Political appointee. Could, frankly, be not born an American. (See: Albright, Kissinger, and maybe we have had some others previously.)

    That would not seem to be a terribly hard decision to make.

    I noted before that I ain’t no constitutional scholar, but I read fast.

    I ran across a reference to a scholarly article that argues that succession should fall to an officer of the United States, because of language in the Constitution, which would be Secretary of State, even though the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 specified the Speaker, and Congress clearly wanted the job to fall on someone who had been elected.

    But if the issue came up, I would expect the Republicans to go for a challenge that might install Pompeo over Pelosi.

  126. 126.

    Mandalay

    @CaseyL:

    the reason Tara Reade was fired from Biden’s office is because they found she had a record of check fraud?  And that she made up the sexual harassment issue to hide that inconvenient little fact?

    WTF??? Whatever you think about her claims, that’s that’s a shameful argument. Knock it off.

  128. 128.

    Gin & Tonic

    @trnc:

    Where the hell is Rand Paul? Seems like he could actually be useful right about now.

    I don’t think there’s a lot of meat on him, and frankly, I can’t think of anything else he might be useful for.

  130. 130.

    Elizabelle

    @Brachiator:   From your link.  Two Yale profs riffing in 1995, because the Speaker of the House was …. Newt Gingrich.

    And the end of the abstract of their article:

    Our most important reasoning is structural: If legislators are in line to fill a vacant Oval Office, a pervasive conflict of interest will warp their judicial roles in presidential and vice-presidential impeachment proceedings; and similar pressures will tempt lawmakers to betray our Constitution’s careful rejection of a Parliamentary/Prime Minister Model of presidential selection.

    Um, Nancy Pelosi is one person who takes the duties of POTUS seriously and tried to hold a demonstrably criminal one to account.  (On the limited charges that she was able to bring.)  She was not doing it to elevate her own status, because it was pretty clear her corrupt GOP Senate colleagues were in the bag for the criminal.  Nor did she rush, eagerly, to impeach.

    The actual people OUT of the line of succession — those who voted to acquit Trump — demonstrated that “a pervasive conflict of interest — [in this case, self-interest — their next election and their own political careers] warped their judicial roles in presidential and vice-presidential impeachment proceedings.”

    Those fuckers were leaking all over the place that if it were a private vote, they wanted to impeach Trump.  They really did!  Ask Susan Collins!

    You won’t get President Gingrich, spitballing scholars.  At ease with your constitutional argument of the month.

  131. 131.

    germy

    @Mandalay:

    Someone went and dug up the records from the California Court Report (scanned):

    Remember when I mentioned that Tara Reade has a pattern of lying and fraudulent behavior? Here’s more evidence: She was charged for “Forgery and Counterfeiting” in August of 1993. Just days before she stopped working on Biden’s Senate office. pic.twitter.com/9d7YThG8pK

    — Kassandra Seven (@KassandraSeven) May 8, 2020

  132. 132.

    trnc

    @CaseyL: has anyone noticed or commented on the flurry of tweets now making the rounds that the reason Tara Reade was fired from Biden’s office is because they found she had a record of check fraud? And that she made up the sexual harassment issue to hide that inconvenient little fact?

    Got some hard hitting snapchats to go with that? :-)

    Sorry, but as bad as the MSM is, I’m not putting an ounce of faith in something just because it’s going around twitter. If there’s a more reputable news source for it, I’m all ears.

  136. 136.

    Raoul

    THIS is how you do it:

    MN’s Gov. Walz, on Minnesotans protesting his Stay At Home Order: “I couldn’t imagine Brits during the Blitz saying ‘I have a right to turn on my lights because I have the right to turn on my lights.”

  139. 139.

    JPL

    @trnc: same.   I following some links and it gave a case number and said anyone can request the file for a few dollars.   If it’s true, you can betcha news folks would do that.

  140. 140.

    JPL

    Can Tara Reade request her personnel records to be released?   That would add to the story.

  141. 141.

    jl

    It’s a good thing, given the unavoidable circumstances, that the Trumpster leadership, at federal and state levels are so incompetent. They are too incompetent to hide their misdeeds. FL is trying to hide the death toll from the covid-19 pandemic in the state, but the messed up, the records can be read anyway.

    Found Unresponsive at Home’: Grim Records Recount Lonely Deaths
    Records kept by medical examiners in Florida offer a window into how the coronavirus has killed more than 1,600 people there. Many died at home.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/us/coronavirus-florida-medical-examiner-records.html

    The very first, very first, actions of the sketchy reopen states have been sketchy and self-incriminating. What was the first thing they did? Beef up outbreak control? Put in place adequate surveillance? Back up sound advice and guidelines from state and local health departments? Enforce the local public health orders? Issue clear and strict guidelines for reopening? No. Out in the open, they signaled plans to cover up the harm of the pandemic.

    The US oligarchs behind the sketchy reopens profess to hope for that which they should fear. A sketchy reopen that results in hidden outbreaks will lead to another explosive wave of an epidemic that threatens to swamp the health care system. Sooner or later they will be forced to pull back in disarray. OK, then all the sunk and fixed costs businesses incurred, especially small business, to reopen will have been wasted, thrown away for no reason. Plenty of news that most small business owners are trying to be responsible. But if another epidemic wave comes, nothing they can do to stop it, that is the governments job.

    Result: small businesses set even further back financially, and customers even more spooked, making the next attempt at reopen harder, and harder to start economy up. And, more people needlessly sick, disabled and dead.

    So, this is what happens if a society spends all its resources dong nothing but scheming more ways for its oligarchs to cage more cash by any means necessary. They become stupid and incompetent at doing anything in the real world, besides becoming ever more malicious and destructive.

  142. 142.

    trnc

    @germy: That looks a bit smoke and mirror-ish. Is the misdemeanor charge for forgery or writing bad checks, or is it for the traffic ticket? The forgery and counterfeiting thing looks like it might be shoehorned in there.

    I don’t believe what Tara is accusing Biden of, but I don’t think it does us any good to falsely accuse her of some other crime. I’m not saying you’re doing that, I’m just saying be careful about what you’re looking at.

  143. 143.

    Betty Cracker

    @trnc: Same. Also, I am skeptical that a charge filed in CA that alleges an aide bounced a check would a) reach DC inside a week, and b) result in immediate termination. If I’m reading it correctly, the purported evidence seems to indicate that a charge was filed the same week Reade left Biden’s employ, not that the charge was adjudicated.

  145. 145.

    Baud

    @trnc:

    I’m not putting an ounce of faith in something just because it’s going around twitter.

    We wouldn’t be in this mess if everyone followed that rule.

  146. 146.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle:

    You won’t get President Gingrich, spitballing scholars. At ease with your constitutional argument of the month.

    Why are you getting huffy? It is not “my constitutional argument.”

    I noted the law, the reason for the law, and how Republicans might attack it. I presume that Republicans would use anything, no matter how weak, to prevent the Speaker from becoming president if it came down to that.

  147. 147.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: If that flyover was in Russia, the idiots got the day wrong – the successor states to the USSR celebrate Den’ pobedy on May 9, not May 8 like everyone else. Per Wiki:

    The instrument of surrender signed 7 May 1945 stipulated that all hostilities must cease at 23:01 (CET), 8 May 1945, just an hour before midnight. Since that time would be already 9 May in the USSR, most Soviet states including Russia celebrate Victory Day on 9 May.

  149. 149.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker: 

    If I’m reading it correctly, the purported evidence seems to indicate that a charge was filed the same week Reade left Biden’s employ, not that the charge was adjudicated.

    If the charge is legit and if it did reach Biden’s office, I doubt his office would wait for an adjudication before letting her go.

  150. 150.

    jl

    @Baud: With stories like the Reade accusations, we are swimming a sea of bad faith PR efforts. Very hard to investigate and evaluate the accusations on their merits. The accusers story is not holding up well, but we don’t need rumors on either side that just confuse the issue and erode trust in the process of figuring out what happened.

  151. 151.

    randy khan

    @Tom Levenson:

    I know that this is the GOP line, but do these folks have any idea how they sound to those outside the charmed circle?

    They don’t.  They also will vote for whatever the Administration agrees to with the House Dems, so it’s doubly stupid.

  152. 152.

    Baud

    @jl: Well, this isn’t a rumor.  It’s a bit of information that requires follow up investigation if people are truly interested in piecing together the facts.  I agree the information so far is not sufficient to draw a conclusion one way or the other. (See how I did that, BernieBros?).

  153. 153.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Betty Cracker: she also quit and wasn’t fired, right?

    I’m not really interested in doing a countertop inspection of her. The preponderance of evidence, to the extent there is any, doesn’t favor her current account. No need to dig further. (I have no doubt she experienced the unfortunate cocktail party incident, and Biden’s well-established personal space violations.)

  155. 155.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: I am not a lawyer, but isn’t a formal judgment on a disputed matter the way we determine if a charge is legit?

    @germy: I have no idea what her deal is/was, but the speculation on Twitter is gross. Not unexpected, but gross.

    @Major Major Major Major: Same!

  156. 156.

    Baud

    @Major Major Major Major:

    The preponderance of evidence, to the extent there is any, doesn’t favor her current account. No need to dig further.

    Unless she and her enables are going to drop this immediately, there is a need to dig further.  Just because you and I are convinced Biden is innocent, doesn’t mean the marginal voter we need to come out is convinced, or that the media will not flog this story if our side just lets up on investigating the facts.

  157. 157.

    Suzanne

    Sending thoughts and prayers to the Rodent of Unusual Size and Mrs. Rodent of Unusual Size.

  159. 159.

    eemom

    Dump and Pence are not gonna die and Tara Reade is a lying sack of shit.

    Some of y’all good folks really need some new hobbies.

  160. 160.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    I meant “legit” in that it was actually her that was charged, and that the charge was actually writing bad checks.  I don’t think many congressional offices would keep around a low-level staffer with a pending charge like that, even if it hadn’t been adjudicated.

  161. 161.

    Brachiator

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    There’s also the President Pro Tempore of the Senate.

    Oddly enough, the Presidential Succession Act of 1792 had the president pro tem of the Senate coming after the VP.

    And illness and partisanship was a big consideration.

    Throughout most of the 19th century, the Senate assumed it was empowered to elect a president pro tempore only during the absence of a vice president. But what should senators do at the end of a session? Since Congress was customarily out of session for half of each year, what would happen in that era of high mortality rates if both the president and vice president died during the adjournment period and there was no designated president pro tempore?

    For decades, the Senate relied upon an elaborate charade in which the vice president would voluntarily leave the chamber before the end of a session to enable the Senate to elect a president pro tempore.

    Fearing that the presidency might thus accidentally slip into the hands of the opposition, vice presidents occasionally refused to perform this little courtesy when the opposing party held the Senate majority.

    Also, of course, Senators originally were not directly elected by the people.

  164. 164.

    Jinchi

    Don’t you think that, if anything, would be enough to scare them into some kind of compliance with reasonable distancing and mask wearing?

    Trump doesn’t care if the world burns after he’s dead, so I don’t think the idea of Pelosi becoming president worries him.

    Although he’d probably be worried that she’d get all the credit for the A+ job he’s been doing so far.

    Still he will never willingly wear a mask, and he probably thinks he’s invincible.

  165. 165.

    germy

    @Betty Cracker:

    but the speculation on Twitter is gross.

    I get the impression that she’s wronged quite a few people over the years, and now they’re coming out and sharing their memories.

    The whole thing is ugly.

    It’ll be even uglier if they succeed in reelecting  trump.

  166. 166.

    MomSense

    I think the person who tested positive is Pence’s spokesperson who also happens to be Stephen Miller’s wife.

  167. 167.

    Bill Arnold

    @Mike G:

    In which case, wearing masks is for pussies and only libruls who like books and salad take precautions. I encourage both Trump and Pence to be brave and resolute against this wimpification, because they’re too virtuous and loved by Jeebus to ever get sick.

    It is amazing that the White House is a den of anti-maskers.
    Along, sadly, with much of stupid-Red America.
    I will never again have anything polite to say to Republicans who gibber on about morality, or about low-probability threats.

  170. 170.

    Brachiator

    @eemom:

    Dump and Pence are not gonna die

    I would not wish death even on Trump or Pence.

    But if they both became ill as a result of the virus, they could become seriously incapacitated.

    One of the reasons why they make sure that they are tested, even as they dismiss the value of tests for everyone else.

    Can you imagine Trump in an earlier era saying, “Yeah, I got this polio vaccine, but the rest of the country doesn’t need it. Back to work!”

  171. 171.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: I’d like the equivalent of a counter-top inspection on how Chris Hayes got to a point where he felt the need to lecture his viewers– you know, the people who keep him on the air– in what I’m sure in the same tone I’d suspect he uses to explain to his kids that nobody like to go to the dentist, but we all have to go, then bring on Rebecca Traister so the two of them could agree with each other as if they were at brunch (a thing I’d bet fifty bucks they have done) and introduce no evidence that challenged the (to me, clearly shaky) conclusions they had already reached. I’d like Jon Favreau and Jamelle Bouie to explain why they felt the need to retweet (and those RTs were endorsements) Traister’s wildly over-caffeinated (to put it kindly) piece on how any woman Biden picked for Veep was now “tainted”. I’d like to ask all the journalists who wrote about this story how it was I had known about the “tic toc” tweet for weeks, yet they never noticed it (the only people with prominent platforms who mentioned it were Michelle Goldberg– who, while she’s still one of the best in the business, gave it no context– and Laura McGann, who laid out the incredibly damning case against Reade’s case, and still called it somehow “agonizing”). I’d like people to start thinking about who funds The Intercept, and why. I’d like people taking this seriously to ask themselves why Katie Halper went running to George Galloway on his Russia Today show, and why Reade hired as attorneys a former RT lawyer and a major trump donor…. I could go on.

    TR:DR: this is a media story at this point, including why they’re all so afraid to talk about the crazy in and around Bernie World.

  172. 172.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: For good or ill, you’ve been following this story more closely than I have.  But for so many people our “side” to act like that after everything we experienced in 2016 is inexcusable. Too many people are addicted to, or profit from, the dark side of lefty culture, and not even Trump can shake them from their old habits.

  173. 173.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @eemom:

    Dump and Pence are not gonna die

    all men must die

    I also wonder how many different risk categories Bill Barr fits into. Not wishing any ill on anyone. That’s not my way. I’m just wondering.

  175. 175.

    Elizabelle

    We are having the most wonderful wind storm right now in central Virginia.  And threatening skies.

    And some of New England is braced for snow this weekend, no?

  176. 176.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud:

    For good or ill, you’ve been following this story more closely than I have.

    Well, I had to cancel a lot of travel plans.

  177. 177.

    Betty Cracker

    @germy: Could be. Just trying to steer clear of unsourced stuff from Twitter randos and stick with what’s been vetted by reputable reporters.

  178. 178.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ha.  I appreciate it, as well as the unsung heroes on Twitter who are fighting back.  Someone has to throw themselves into the muck to dig up information for me to rely on. God knows I’m not going to get the whole picture from the media or Wilmerphilic social media outlets.

  179. 179.

    jl

    @Baud: Thanks for info. I misunderstood, I thought you had info that it was just a rumor.

    Edit: I don’t trust twitter, but in Baud I Trust.

  182. 182.

    Brachiator

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I’d like the equivalent of a counter-top inspection on how Chris Hayes got to a point where he felt the need to lecture his viewers

    A journalist or pundit is dead to me when they do this.

    Almost as bad, and equally disqualifying is supercilious political cynicism: “we know so much more than you about how things are really done, but we can’t tell  you because we have to protect the system, uh, we mean, our sources.”

  184. 184.

    randy khan

    @trnc:

    Only the president is required to be a natural born citizen. Any other officeholder can be non-US born. The VP could probably even be foreign born, but technically wouldn’t be eligible to ascend to the presidency.

    The VP is required to meet the qualifications to be President.  There’s an interesting question about whether a termed-out President could be VP (the argument is that it says qualified to “be” President, not qualified to “be elected” President), but it seems pretty clear the VP needs to be 35 and a natural born citizen.

    And this seems like as good a time as any to note that the question about succession by the Speaker is whether the Speaker is an Officer (capitalized because, well, you’ll see why) of the U.S.  The Speaker and the President Pro Tempore are both specifically named as Officers in the Constitution, so it would seem like a stretch to say they are not Officers for Article II purposes.  It’s just tough to say that the Framers used the same term accidentally.

  185. 185.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Steeplejack: It’s “75” for 75 years.

    And your point is, what? The successor states to the USSR celebrate the anniversary of VE Day, i.e. Den’ pobedy (Victory Day), on May 9, not May 8 like most of the victors. (Reread my post for the reasoning.) The 75th anniversary in Russia would therefore be tomorrow, 9 May 2020, which is also when the Victory Day parade in Moscow was scheduled to take place (since cancelled).

    Again, your point is what? Do you even have a point?

  186. 186.

    jl

    Wow, really hard to tell where the stupidity, mental pathology, and maliciousness all begin and end with Trump.

    @Acyn tweet quoting Trump:

    ” Trump: Katie, she tested very good for a long period of time and then all of the sudden today she tested positive… This is why the whole concept of tests aren’t necessarily great ”

    https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1258838201818476544

    Infectious disease is not a case where ‘what you don’t know won’t hurt you’. Trump thinks if we don’t test then there is no problem because you won’t have to confront bad news. Like, if you don’t look at your kid playing with matches under the living room drapes no reason to check for fire.

    Trump would be right in a way if he said “the whole concept of JUST tests aren’t necessarily great” You need to take common sense precautions as well, like taking 20 seconds to put on a stinking mask, and keep some space between people, and not shaking hands.

    I guess Trumpsters will say that is all too complicated to keep track of.

    If you need to drive your car to work in the morning, you have to check yourself that you are not still drunk from the night before, you have your keys, the seat belt is fastened, and you can see out of the windows and mirrors. I guess that would be too complicated as well.

    Ain’t rocket science and it ain’t brain surgery.

  187. 187.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I didn’t see the Hayes episode where Traister appeared, but I read her piece and came away with a very different impression than you did. I didn’t interpret it as Traister saying the women on Biden’s VP list are “tainted.” I think she was expressing disgust that women are once again put in the no-win situation of explaining a powerful man’s behavior toward another woman. I read it as an indictment of the shitty culture rather than a dis on Biden or his VP short list.

  189. 189.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Mandalay: I think the more likely event is that she may have been let go because of the fraud, but decided to tell everyone that it was because of the other issues she’s attributed to Biden.

    The check fraud happened something like 10 days before she was let go, so the timing appears to be right.

  190. 190.

    Mai naem mobile

    @kindness: I think there may be a good number of Republican Senators and Congressmen  who would be fine with a President  Pelosi because Trumpov  is doing such an awful job and they’ve pretty much gotten what they want out of him legislatively. It would maybe end up helping the GOP hang onto the Senate   by pushing a ‘check’ on a Dem  POTUS.  Bonus points for being able to blame Pelosi for bad COVID Crisis outcomes because Americans have the attention span of a gnat.

  191. 191.

    randy khan

    @eemom:

    Dump and Pence are not gonna die and Tara Reade is a lying sack of shit.

    Well, I expect they will die *eventually* but in truth I don’t wish for them to die now, although a Pelosi Administration would be way better in every way.  I do think that, like most Republicans, they would take this more seriously if it affected them directly.

  192. 192.

    Brachiator

    @jl:

    Wow, really hard to tell where the stupidity, mental pathology, and maliciousness all begin and end with Trump.

    @Acyn tweet quoting Trump:

    ” Trump: Katie, she tested very good for a long period of time and then all of the sudden today she tested positive… This is why the whole concept of tests aren’t necessarily great ”

    Trump is an ignoramus who does not understand basic science.

    But then again, he has never demonstrated that the understands much of anything.

  193. 193.

    jl

    I also think that this new innovative public health information campaign is cleverly playing to Trump’s strength and the drama will engage the public, which does wonders for information retention on the importance of taking almost zero cost but effective preventive measures.

    They are doing it as a reality show.

  194. 194.

    Bill Arnold

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    If a customer told me that, I’d probably be sorely tempted to tell them to fuck off

    In a stand-your-ground state, there might be other options, or at least the credible threat of them.

  195. 195.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    I think this is the relevant part of Traister on Hayes. I didn’t watch it live.

    What he is – you know, his record on the environment, enfranchisement, you

    know, the democracy is imperiled and women, and particularly vulnerable

    women, are especially imperiled, so progressive feminist women have every

    reason to support his opponent; however, what this is creating is a kind of

    a perfect storm where the women who are being asked to support his opponent

    are now being asked to answer for these charges, in part because of the

    vacuum created by Joe Biden who is not yet really directly answering these

    questions. And certainly not doing what I wish he would, which is to say,

    please direct your questions about these allegations to me, and not the

    women that are out there offering their support to my candidacy.

  196. 196.

    Jeffro

    @eemom: I know, right?  Why are we parsing every last twist in the TR “allegations”?  She’s clearly lying and I don’t care why (although I do care, a little, about who’s funding her legal expenses).

    We’re only aiding the Republicans here.  Move on, folks.

  197. 197.

    lamh36

    @JPL: I’ve been saying since the beginning.  It is her peronnel files so she should be able to grant their release if she wanted to.

    If she can and she hasn’t…then….

  198. 198.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: So women who are supporting VP Biden should just shut up and just refer any question to Biden?  They shouldn’t express any opinion on the veracity of the charges?

  199. 199.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    What a load of crap.

    Today at lunch one of my highly educated colleagues said that the 23 accusations against Trump didn’t matter because “he’s not running as a good guy.”

  200. 200.

    Barbara

    @Betty Cracker: Maybe she appeared before Biden answered, but two points.  First, he has responded.  Second, it’s not his fault if women are singled out to explain his conduct.  I like Rebecca Traister a lot but I can’t help but feel that she is overreaching here.  Would it be better if Biden selected a male so that a woman VP candidate wouldn’t be required to “represent” for him?  Would that be her idea of progress?

  201. 201.

    jl

    @Baud: I thought Biden said categorically that, NO, it did not happen.

    But now we have the media BS narrative that is ‘out there’ and they have decided that it will ‘hang over him’ no matter what. Meanwhile, OK for Trump, since it’s old news he’s a complete a-hole.

  203. 203.

    hueyplong

    @jl: Best to bookend the quotes:

    Today, after Katie Miller tested positive: “Katie, she tested very good for a long period of time and then all of the sudden today she tested positive… This is why the whole concept of tests aren’t necessarily great ”

    March, when touring the CDC:  “Doctors asked me, ‘How do you know so much about this?'”

  204. 204.

    zhena gogolia

    @Jeffro:

    Because she gave an interview to Megyn Kelly so now it’s on the front page of WaPo again, and probably NYT although I haven’t looked there.

    Oh, but the Democrats never say anything when Trump does something outrageous like drop charges against Flynn! They say it, but the MSM are more interested in Reade.

  206. 206.

    jonas

    @germy: Uh oh! LEA’s abusing constitutional rights during lockdown! I’m sure Barr’s DOJ will be all over this!

    *crickets

  209. 209.

    Barbara

    @lamh36: She actually had her personnel files in her possession and handed over a copy to at least one journalist, but the complaint was not there.  In other words, she has every document except that one.

  211. 211.

    lamh36

    @Betty Cracker: I saw that going round on twitter.  Unless and until their is confirmation or something legit, I take it with a grain of salt.

    Besides which after that bullshit Megyn Kelly interview where she now saying Biden said “I want to F*&K you”, when last I read she claimed Biden told her “you mean nothing…” or some bullshit.

    She’s a liar, and her story changes every time she tells it.

  212. 212.

    Baud

    @jl:

    I thought Biden said categorically that, NO, it did not happen.

    The Traister thing might have been before Joe’s appearance on Morning Joe.  I believe before that, he had denied the allegations through a spokesperson.

  213. 213.

    JPL

    @jl: Is this the same guy who said the person who said the veterans he met with today were fine cuz of the wind.  Also they had good lives.  That one?

  215. 215.

    Baud

    @lamh36:

    She’s a liar, and her story changes every time she tells it.

    And thus every time it’s a new front page scoop!

  217. 217.

    zhena gogolia

    @lamh36:

    Maybe now she’s read Shirley Temple’s autobiography. That’s what she said Kirk Douglas said to her when she was 18.

  221. 221.

    Mandalay

    @MisterForkbeard:

    think the more likely event is that she may have been let go because of the fraud, but decided to tell everyone that it was because of the other issues she’s attributed to Biden.

    Maybe so. Or maybe Biden assaulted her because she was dressed provocatively? Both claims are absurd speculation.

    Reade’s accusations may very well be completely false, but asserting that she made them because of fraud on her part is simply bullshit. This is what always happens to the accuser: “She made it up because of this, that or the other!“.

    Nobody here has a frigging clue about exactly what happened in 1993, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.

  224. 224.

    Betty Cracker

    @Barbara: I didn’t see that All In episode, so I don’t know when it came out, but I assume it was before Biden appeared on MJ. In Traister’s column, I think she was expressing disgust with the situation, not prescribing how women should respond when asked about Biden. I mean, they’re going to be asked repeatedly, and they’re going to have to respond, repeatedly. That’s the reality, and the reality sucks.

  225. 225.

    Fleeting Ex-istence

    @Baud: See, this is why I cannot stand young Chris Hayes.  Besides the overbearing grad student manner, his speech patterns are all over the map.  I spent years transcribing dictation, automatically punctuating as I type.  His sentences are  so full of “I mean, you know”  and other filler that they would be almost undiagrammable.  I hooted when he, speaking with a farmer about crop uncertainties, he said “Yes, that is a recurring conundrum” as he went to commercial.  I guess I’m a harsh critic, but with his prime time real estate I have little patience with his presumed erudition.

  228. 228.

    cmorenc

    @Calouste:

    What happens when both the President and the VP end up, say intubated and sedated in an ICU. They’re not dead, but they’re not conscious either. Who is in charge?

    Alexander Haig, if he’s still around.

  231. 231.

    Death Panel Truck

    @JPL: Haig was also Ford’s COS for about six weeks before being dumped for Rumsfeld, who was succeeded by Cheney.

    Three decades later, Rummy and Dick started the Iraq war and clusterfucked the shit out of it.

  232. 232.

    Elizabelle

    @cmorenc:

    What happens when both the President and the VP end up, say intubated and sedated in an ICU. They’re not dead, but they’re not conscious either. Who is in charge?

    Karma.  The Flying Spaghetti Monster.

    With Trump, however, chaos likely to reduce in this scenario.

  233. 233.

    hueyplong

    @lamh36: Crap, which I’ll optimistically see as a concern that Harris is about to be picked for VP.

    Everyone complains about FTFNYT, but we’re supposed to see “clouds and shadows” because Tara Reade might hit the mark with version #5 of The Biden Story.

  234. 234.

    Barbara

    @lamh36: This is the thing. Every possible candidate was going to have something like this happen. Every. Single. One.  The only issue is who would take the bait.  I am officially writing Tara Reade and anybody who writes about her out of my consciousness.

  235. 235.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud:

    And thus every time [Tara Reade changes her story] it’s a new front page scoop!

    Laughing, but it’s really not funny.  A good topic for WaPost ombudsman Margaret Sullivan.  Who used to be FTF NY Times ombudsman but now … they don’t have one.

    This is the media getting played, and aiding and abetting in character assassination.  Some of them, you have to suspect, on purpose.

  236. 236.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker: I don’t have the timeline at hand, but my recollection is the revelations about the neighbor came out over the weekend, Traister’s piece  posted on Monday (that I checked). She appeared on the Hayes show Wednesday evening, and Biden was on MJ Friday morning (Hayes segment addressing the blowback to the Wed segment was Friday night, a solo shot, and was even more pompous, condescending and self-indulgent than the first one).

    . In Traister’s column, I think she was expressing disgust with the situation, not prescribing how women should respond when asked about Biden.

    That’s certainly in there, but as I read it, the underlying conceit of the piece, set out in the first three paragraphs, is that Joe Biden is guilty and everybody knows it. And by the time she appeared on the Hayes show, I believe it had already come out that the neighbor, like the brother, had had to be reminded of the thing she had known, and believed, for twenty-five years.

    I blame Hayes for his one-sided lack of professionalism more than I do Traister, but neither one has made any effort, that I’ve seen, to present a clear picture of all the evidence. Even now, they’ve both retweeted the McGann piece, but nothing further.

  237. 237.

    lamh36

    @Barbara: I mean conveniently, Kamala Harris is her rep so “of course” she’d reach out to her, but so is DiFi…ya know the womena Blasey-Ford reached out to?

    I’d think you’d reach out to DiFi too. Or even any of the OTHER Dem House reps from Cali.

    SMH…c’mon so

     

    ETA: I mean especially if Kamala Harris “didn’t answer”

  238. 238.

    Jinchi

    @Barbara: Every possible candidate was going to have something like this happen. Every. Single. One.

    And we saw dry runs for attacks on each of the candidates whenever they surged in the polls during primary season. Republicans haven’t been subtle about this at all in the last few decades. They undoubtedly have a template and just swap out the name of the candidate as needed.

  239. 239.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Baud: This seems like an utter bullshit response from Traister.

    Biden has said he didn’t do it. He’s trying to get the relevant records. How does that mean that women now have to defend him? What does she actually want Biden to do?

    This sounds a lot like the Why won’t Hillary talk about/apologize for/respond to email server issues? stuff. Even she did, they would pretend she hadn’t and then change the goalposts.

  240. 240.

    Chyron HR

    @Mandalay:

    Can we say she’s accusing Biden because she wants him to concede to Sanders?  Because in her interview with Megyn Kelly she LITERALLY SAID SHE’S DOING THIS TO MAKE BIDEN CONCEDE TO SANDERS.

  241. 241.

    Jinchi

    @cmorenc: What happens when both the President and the VP end up, say intubated and sedated in an ICU.

    I’d like to think that we’d get to see what a competent government looked like, again.

  243. 243.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Mandalay: I’m actually not saying she made up harassment or uncomfortable touches from Biden, here. We know he got uncomfortably close to some women, and he’s apologized for it.

    I am saying that she’s clearly troubled and that this is exactly the sort of thing that would you get fired from a probationary job, which is what she had. Considering she’s changed her story on why she left several times, I’m highly skeptical of her claims that cast negatively on other people.

  245. 245.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mandalay: No one except Biden and Reade know what happened, true.  The rest of us have every right to make judgments as to the credibility of the parties involved.  Reade does not do well by that measure.

  248. 248.

    MisterForkbeard

    @zhena gogolia: I guess we’re not allowed to note really obvious inconsistencies now because people explain we’re looking for the “perfect victim”.

    It’s stupid. Reade could be a giant liar about literally everything else in her life but still be truthful about this one thing, but that doesn’t mean I’m obligated to believe her. It means I’ll look at her evidence. And the evidence is that she has constantly changed her story on this, revealed details that don’t make sense, has a history of fraud, was charged with intentionally writing bad checks just days before leaving the office, has pretty obvious political reasons to make a bad accusation, and has even started changing details now once her story has been told.

    Her entire body of evidence is that she told various people that she’d been harassed by Biden’s staff or (rarely) Biden, and some of those people have ALSO changed their stories to support Reade’s newest accusations after they were spoken to by Reade or admittedly were coached by reporters.

    All of that could technically happen and Reade could be telling the truth. But I have very little reason to believe her.

  252. 252.

    Brachiator

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Queen’s Brian May hospitalized after ripping butt muscles ‘to shreds’ while gardening

    Aren’t you supposed to shred your guitar, not your buttocks?

  253. 253.

    MisterForkbeard

    @hueyplong: It’s super weird that Reade keeps saying she contacted people, who keep replying that Reade didn’t do this. And Reade has no evidence of it.

    And that simultaneously, she’s also insisting that the media ignored her while the media has receipts of reaching out to her for over a year and she repeatedly fucked off or couldn’t substantiate plans.

  254. 254.

    mad citizen

    Another working week over, and I’m so thankful I am working, and from home.

    Reading through the comments and threads, November and January can’t come soon enough.  If this country can’t throw these con artist incompetents out of office this time, we are well and truly fucked.

    My and me took a little car trip yesterday into rural Indiana.  I saw very few (maybe only this one now that I think about it) trump signs, but in front of a house on U.S. 36, I did see the 3 feet by 5 feet trump/pence 2020 No More Bullshit sign.  Why that is a positive message for them, I don’t know.  The internet tells me it refers to no more of the BS Russia-type investigations.  I read it and say “Exactly, No More Bullshit–time for you to go”.  Such a proud GOP.  I like Ike.  Win with Nixon.  Morning in America.  No More Bullshit.

  256. 256.

    rp

    @Betty Cracker: But saying “the situation sucks” is accepting the premise that there’s something to Reade’s claims and that we should take this whole thing seriously. If, OTOH, she’s full of shit, there’s no “situation.”

  258. 258.

    Elizabelle

    Here’s the Laura McGann story referred to above.  It’s from Vox.  Warning:  you will first get an enormous photo of Tara Reade.

    The agonizing story of Tara Reade [and her sexual assault allegation against Joe Biden]

    If TL;DR:  Laura has been working with Reade since April 2019 to substantiate these claims.  Neither Vox nor the FTF NY Times — who were doing “deep dives” on the story — published anything in 2019.  Because:  no verification.

    And the claims — so far — cannot be substantiated.  Never mind that they keep changing. McGann waits until the very end to bring up the Sanders deadenders connection, and the Reade “tic toc” tweet since erased.

  259. 259.

    pajaro

    @Mandalay: Right, because a guy in public life for more than 50 years, without a single allegation of violence, sexual or otherwise, who denies, is no more credible that someone who as an adult says she was digitally raped in a public hallway and who not only never claimed it happened, but repeatedly claimed that different things happened, who even though she now says it was the basis for leaving, was unable to say when or where it actually happened, who said she complained in writing but has conveniently mislaid said writing, who has engaged in fraudulent behavior, who has repeatedly lied about herself and others, who a year ago attempted to shop a different set of stories to multiple papers, who two years ago developed a crush on Russia, who developed an affection for Bernie and had her complaint massaged by Nathan Robinson, who escalated the attack on the night of the super Tuesday primaries, and who is now being feted by pro-Russia pro-Trump interviewers is just as reliable as Biden and his former staff.

    This is not about counter tops.  She is an unreliable narrator.  She absolutely has a partisan axe to grind.  She is agressively seeking the limelight, with the express goal of causing Biden to resign.

  260. 260.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    That’s certainly in there, but as I read it, the underlying conceit of the piece, set out in the first three paragraphs, is that Joe Biden is guilty and everybody knows it.

    We’ll have to agree to disagree on that. Traister assessed the possibility that Reade’s allegations are true much higher than I do (I put it at close to zero), but the article wasn’t really about Reade or Biden; it was about reliving this nightmarish movie yet again.

    Did you read Jen Palmieri’s piece I linked in a tweet further up-thread? I think she’s saying something similar to what Traister was trying to get at, but perhaps in less inflammatory language?

  261. 261.

    NotMax

    @rp

    Yup. The insistence on this blog to continue batting around a deflated ball is perniciously insalubrious.

  264. 264.

    Elizabelle

    @pajaro:

    [Tara Reade] is an unreliable narrator.

    Yep.  And — to quote Vox journalist Laura McGann (link in my comment above):

    I wanted to break this story. Badly. About half a dozen women had stepped forward around the time I spoke with Reade to say they were bothered by how Biden had touched them at events. I wrote a column praising them for staring down the political media that had given him a pass for all those years. Reade’s story took these complaints further — showing how even lower-grade inappropriate conduct can have real consequences for a woman’s career, an important subject that we still don’t talk about nearly enough.

    I knew I wasn’t the only reporter Reade was talking to. The New York Times had three reporters on the story, she told me. On April 3, the day after we first spoke, she texted me four times. She wanted to know when I planned to publish, and she warned me that other outlets were getting ready to do so.

    That day, the Union published an article with her story. This happens sometimes. It’s happened to me, many times. You fight for a story that would be explosive if you could prove it, but you can’t. I continued reporting on her story for a few more weeks after the story broke, but I didn’t get enough. Vox did not publish anything about Reade in 2019. Neither did the major outlets that I know were pursuing the story, including the Times, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press.

    Story only broke when Reade went to the dirtbag left.

  265. 265.

    Another Scott

    @Calouste: (Probably already answered, but what the heck…)

    https://www.lawfareblog.com/presidential-succession-nightmare

    […]

    An analogous situation could soon arise with the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, now codified at 3 U.S.C. § 19. Imagine, as it is easy to do, that President Trump and Vice President Pence die or are temporarily unable to discharge the powers and duties of the Office of the President due to infection by the coronavirus. The 1947 statute says that in that circumstance, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi “shall … act as President” after resigning as speaker and from Congress. Pelosi would wield all the powers of the presidency. Consistent with the law, she could issue whatever executive orders she wanted, fire disfavored political appointees, and in general direct the executive branch as she pleased.

    Whether this scenario is a nightmare or salvation may seem to depend on one’s political outlook. But in truth it’s a nightmare scenario for all Americans because there is a powerful (though not airtight) argument that the Succession Act’s placement of the speaker in the line of presidential succession (and after her, the president pro tempore of the Senate) is contrary to the Constitution’s Succession Clause. That clause states that only an “Officer” may succeed and act as president. Most of the pertinent commentary maintains that the term “Officer” here does not include members of Congress. If that is right, Pelosi could not constitutionally “act as President,” even though the statute says she can.

    But who would decide the controversy?  […]

    Lawyers love to argue – that’s what they’re trained and paid to do after all.

    HTH!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  266. 266.

    Betty Cracker

    @rp: It’s a burden women bear,* having to weigh in on the behavior of powerful men toward other women, regardless if a particular charge is bullshit or not. There’s a history that gets thrown in your face when it comes up. If you’re old enough, you think about voting for Bill Clinton, etc.

    *Since we’re not a monolith, I’m sure some women bear it cheerfully, some don’t feel it at all, etc., but some of us DO.

  267. 267.

    eemom

    @Betty Cracker:

    Traister is also a sack of shit for doing her part to keep this bullshit in the “news”, in my very humble opinion.

    I’ll take my earlier comment a step further. Some of y’all good folks somehow still manage to not grasp what’s at stake here.

  268. 268.

    Elizabelle

    Can anyone put up a link to the particular Rebecca Traister column under discussion?  NY Magazine has a paywall, and I don’t want to waste a click.

    Always good to read the article one’s self, rather than relying on someone else’s take on it.

  270. 270.

    trnc

    @jl: ” Trump: Katie, she tested very good for a long period of time and then all of the sudden today she tested positive… This is why the whole concept of tests aren’t necessarily great ”

    Literally everybody who has gotten any disease ever didn’t have it one day and then one day they did. Does DT think it would be better to not know that there are infected people where he works and lives?

  272. 272.

    smedley the uncertain

    @JPL: Hopefully when she gets home, she gives hubby a BIG HUG and a Kissssssss.

  274. 274.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    Whether this scenario is a nightmare or salvation may seem to depend on one’s political outlook. But in truth it’s a nightmare scenario for all Americans because there is a powerful (though not airtight) argument that the Succession Act’s placement of the speaker in the line of presidential succession (and after her, the president pro tempore of the Senate) is contrary to the Constitution’s Succession Clause. That clause states that only an “Officer” may succeed and act as president.

    I raised this earlier, and could even see the GOP trying to use this in a Supreme Court challenge.

    However (and again I note that I am not a constitutional scholar, I just read fast), some of the people who were the actual Framers of the Constitution argued about this, but then relented when the Presidential Succession Act of 1792 was passed, and put the president pro tempore of the Senate next in line, followed by the Speaker of the House.

    Also at the time, with partisan fever developing, some in Congress didn’t want that rascal Thomas Jefferson, who was Secretary of State, and an Officer by the Constitution, so close to the presidency.

    But yeah, if it ever came to it, the lawyers would argue their asses off, but it would take some Bill Barr level bullshit to bypass the Speaker, and ignore the 1947 Succession Act.

  275. 275.

    mad citizen

    @trnc: I read these issuances from the Orange Head and think “God is this man stupid.  Breathtakingly stupid”

  276. 276.

    Ruckus

    @trnc:

    Yes. Yes he does.

    He’s lived his entire life in the dark, not knowing a lifetimes worth of things. Things that a normal human would have learned, may have forgotten, but could pick them up again, as long as they haven’t gone senile. But shitforbrains doesn’t do this because he’s incapable. He’s like an ex’s dog. He could learn a basic command with a lot of effort but within a day it was gone. He couldn’t recall it, he could be retaught it, but he’d forget it within a short time, again. Rinse and repeat. This is shitforbrains. There are words in there just like there were barks in the dog. But there is no real communication, it’s just noise that comes out.

  277. 277.

    Richard Guhl

    @Elizabelle: While we’re speculating about who might end up as President for the remainder of the term, this presents something of a nightmare to the Republicans. The clock is ticking on nominations and getting on the ballot.
    Who would they nominate?
    Would their convention be a multiple ballot [email protected]#k, with multiple “favorite sons” making multiple backroom deals? The result would likely be as great as the 1924 Democratic disaster, discouraging marginal GOP voters and disgusting independents.

  278. 278.

    smedley the uncertain

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My understanding is, I wear the mask to protect you from my germs,  I’m doing you a favor.  I’ve met so many people that don’t get it.  They think a mask is supposed to  prevent them from inhaling the virus thingies.

  279. 279.

    Elizabelle

    @Richard Guhl:   Good question.  I have no sympathy for the GOP. None.

    discouraging marginal GOP voters and disgusting independents.

    I think that’s baked in.  The base is crazy ass, and even if you got what passes for sane in the GOP, that person would still have to skew to the ugliness of the base.  I cannot imagine that independent or moderates who would like to consider themselves Republican-leaning could trust them.

    I hope the GOP implodes.  It’s sad that it’s had as much staying power as it has.

  280. 280.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Mandalay: The fact that she was charged with misdemeanor check fraud in San Luis Obispo is apparently not a rumor:

    https://twitter.com/JudLounsbury/status/1258824490139684864?s=20

    Whether that played a role in her leaving Biden’s Senate office is another thing.

    Reid has been reported to have a long history of doing illegal stuff like embezzling and refusing to pay legally owed debts.  Not once or twice, but a repeated pattern over years. This plus making accusations of having been abused or mistreated by others who absolutely deny such behavior. Sometimes, she accuses people she stole from of abusing her for saying she stole from them.

    So her history is NOT a great confidence builder for her latest incarnation of the Biden story. Instead it indicates she is very comfortable with being less than truthful or honest. It’s why she’s not credible, and why the press needs to stop wearing kid-gloves in her situation and just do a minimal amount of normal investigative reporting instead of just taking a few handpicked (by her) people’s word they told her something she had to remind them she told them, it would really help.

  281. 281.

    Richard Guhl

    @Elizabelle: Oh, I have no sympathy for the GOP either. But given the backdrop of COVID-19 and the economic depression, the spectacle played out on TV would be another blow to the system.

  282. 282.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Betty Cracker: This essay was also thought provoking

    Cliff Notes for Lazy Journalists — The Tara Reade Allegations

    I really DO think writers and journalists like Traister have been incredibly lazy about this, maybe due to having certain pre-existing biases about women and men, or maybe out of fear of looking like they’re “re-victimizing” a victim.

    But given the stakes here of setting the record straight, why not treat this like any other allegation of a serious crime that appears to have no evidence that supports it? Dig in, do the work, get some facts, and don’t just leave it up to the public to project their OWN biases onto the story, pro or con Biden.

    (In Traister’s case, I wonder if the fact is that she has a writing “brand” she has to support, as evidenced by the body of her work, and that maybe not getting too many conflicting details helps HER, not Tara or the cause of women abused by men.)

  285. 285.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @eemom: yes, as big of an advocate for equality between the sexes as I am, I found her pretty tiresome after a while.

  286. 286.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Elizabelle: the only link I would have would, I suspect, go to the paywall, but here’s a try. And I was wrong, what looks to me like Traister judging Biden guilty is in the 4th and 5th paragraphs, not the first three, bolds, italics and bracketed comments mine:

    Last year, A Woman named Tara Reade, who worked in Biden’s office in 1992 and 1993, was one of several to allege that Biden had touched her neck and shoulders in ways that were unwelcome; in Reade’s case, while she was in his employ. This March, Reade went further and claimed that Biden in fact digitally penetrated her against her will and that when she complained to his staff, she was retaliated against professionally — claims that Biden and his former staffers have denied but that investigative reporters have been working to shed new light on [which investigative reporters, and what have they found? if nothing at the point, as Laura McGann’s article would suggest, why mention it here?]. Over this weekend, audio emerged of Reade’s late mother, whom she says she told about the assault, calling in to Larry King’s television show in 1993 to complain about how her daughter had a problem with a prominent politician’s staff but was rebuffed when she complained, strongly corroborating the claim that Reade expressed dissatisfaction and suffered professional consequences, an allegation supported by the New York Times, which reported that two former interns recalled Reade abruptly ceasing to supervise them [which valuable testimony supports…what? That she worked there and then didn’t? is that in dispute?]. On Monday, Lynda LaCasse, Reade’s former neighbor and a Biden supporter, told Rich McHugh, Ronan Farrow’s former producer [indirect appeal to authority by association?], that Reade had confided to her in detail about having been assaulted by Biden, while another former colleague confirmed to McHugh that Reade had told her she’d complained of harassment and been fired by a prominent politician [two very different things there, assault and harassment, IMHO]. Such strong pieces of corroboration [sez who?] should surely imperil Biden’s position at the top of the ticket [should surely imperil, Biden should be off the ticket, not exactly neutral journalism] though it remains to be seen whether — in the midst of the COVID crisis and with all the other candidates out of contention — there is any chance that they will [not ‘it remains to be seen if Reade’s charge hold up’, again, assumption of guilt].
    And part of what’s sickeningly clear is that if Biden remains the Democratic nominee, whichever woman gets the nod to be his running mate will wind up drinking from a poisoned chalice. Because the promise to choose a woman ensures that whoever she is, she will be forced to answer — over and over again — for Biden’s treatment of other women, including the serious allegations of assault leveled by Tara Reade .

    Again, almost all of this is based on the “strong corroboration” by Lynda LaCasse, which was pretty quickly undermined by the time Traister went on the Hayes show, and I did sense, watching on Wednesday, that she had backed up a bit from the “should surely imperil” language she used in this piece.

  287. 287.

    SWMBO

    @The Moar You Know:  Publix used to have comment cards at the service desk. It was a postcard with headquarters address on one side and a place to answer a survey with comments. Most people used them to bitch about something. I used them to tell about someone who put up with a demanding old crazy lady (me) and they made me happy. I was a satisfied customer after they (name them) took care of me. It got put in their personnel file at headquarters and used in their reviews.

  288. 288.

    Elizabelle

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:   Thank you.  Pulled up the article and will read it, although not at this moment.  Maybe we can chat further about it tomorrow.

    Really appreciate your supplying the link.  Which was not behind a paywall, thank dog.

  290. 290.

    J R in WV

    @JPL:

    I always thank those working at stores. Two weeks ago when I was in Publix, one of the workers who stock shelves, came over to me with a box ans opened it, and said you can take two. It was hand sanitizer. Sometimes being nice, pays off.

    I got 4 big canisters of Clorox sanitary wipes one day, after I asked politely a guy doing stocking at Kroger’s if they had any more in back. HE said, “I’ll check for you…” and came back with a whole case and said help yourself. Still have most of them!

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