Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

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

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

The lights are all blinking red.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

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

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

You are here: Home / Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / Biden Town Hall Thread

Reader Interactions

159Comments

  4. 4.

    MisterForkbeard

    I honestly don’t want to watch this, because I’m sure someone will ask him about what’s-her-name that accused him of rape – now that it’s topical, with Trump being accused again. Or some other such nonsense that I just do not have the flipping patience for.

    I will (as always) have to rely on the wisdom and fortitude of the jackals here. Thanks in advance. :)

  7. 7.

    Hildebrand

    @MisterForkbeard: I am feeling like this about the debates.  I don’t want to watch because listening to Drumpf is painful, but also because I assume the moderators will have the long knives out for Biden.

  10. 10.

    MazeDancer

    Fabulous. Simply fabulous job being done by Mr. Biden.

    Slaughtering Trump.

    Also loved his so being riled about an Ivy League Education not being needed to be President.

  11. 11.

    MisterForkbeard

    @gwangung: If I remember correctly, Rush was whining just this morning about how Biden did a live event. Maybe I can capture the breathlessness and idiocy: “… and dems said he was there before it started but no one had seem him at all and maybe he was hiding again because he’s joe and he’s in the basement and then he showed up and was totally normal so clearly he’s on drugs and a deviant”

    MAGAts will MAGAt.

  12. 12.

    Elie

     

    I dunno — I’m not seeing/hearing any “long knives” for Biden yet.  I think he has been pretty uninterrupted in his responses.  Doesnt mean they won’t or can’t, just not seeing it.  He sounds good to me — in command of issues, not always the crispest but certainly holding his own…

  13. 13.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @MisterForkbeard:

    I honestly don’t want to watch this, because I’m sure someone will ask him about what’s-her-name that accused him of rape – now that it’s topical, with Trump being accused again.

    I think these are a pre-screened group of voters. I’d be surprised if someone so deep in twitter madness could pass their screening. I’d be less surprised if some aspiring Tim Russert (stipulating: I think Russert and his legendary “gotcha” questions were both comically overrated) still carrying the Broder Strain (do I even have to say it?) tries to do this later this week.

  15. 15.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Hildebrand: I appreciate that the media does seem to have caught onto the fact that Trump is a giant dumpster fire in every possible way, though they still cover for him. But they really all want to be the one to get in the news for damaging Biden too, and it shows.

    False equivalencies abound. The questions over the past few days about “If you say you can’t trust Trump aren’t you saying Americans can’t trust the government and the CDC? Aren’t you a giant hypocrite?” kind of things.

  17. 17.

    cmorenc

    IMHO Biden’s response to the question about defunding the police failed to adequately answer it, because he did not adequately make clear that he was for reallocating funding to more effective forms of community policing and services, rather than literally defunding police.  “Defunding” per se is NOT popular ouside hard-core progressive elements of the Democratic party, but instead sounds like pure madness, unless you adequately explain how community safety can be more effectively done by changing the emphasis in police funding, not eliminating or defunding police per se.

    Biden needs to sharpen and refine his answers to police “defunding” type questions in his upcoming debates with Trump.

  18. 18.

    Elizabelle

    @ WaterGirl:  Here’s a link.

    https://livenewschat.eu/breaking-news/

    With this link, breaking news takes you to CNN (also called “Top Headlines” on bar at the top), and Rockin’ Rooster’s Politics takes you to MSNBC

    ETA:  Some jackal told me about this online site, a few years ago, and really appreciate it for breaking news and watching the Mary Trump interview, etc.

  20. 20.

    Ohio Mom

    I don’t know if that is what Watergirl is looking for or not. We don’t have cable so I scrambling.

  25. 25.

    Mary G

    Just like in Trump’s town hall, Biden interrupted the questioner, she asked him to let her finish, and Biden, unlike Trump, apologized for interrupting her.— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) September 18, 2020

  26. 26.

    Hildebrand

    @Elie: My concern is more for the debates.

    Tonight’s regular voters will most likely ask pointed questions, but won’t lapse into bad faith argumentation.

    The debates moderators, on the other hand, straining to create a horserace, will likely be asking inane nonsense.

  28. 28.

    Elie

    @Hildebrand:

    Got it.  Still I think his basic Uncle Joe personality will hold him in good stead … He aint perfect and he isnt trying to be — but he is real and honest and putting it out there..  These days, that by itself is a powerful statement

  31. 31.

    CaseyL

    Oy – I missed most of it.  Just tuned in in time to hear the last few questions.

    Apparently, Biden called on Trump to resign because of his inaction on Covid 19? Good golly.

  32. 32.

    Mary G

    The nice thing about people sending *the most* idiotic hate mail to our house is it helps the postal service. Also, @AVindman will never see it because I put it in recycling before I go inside. But thanks for buying a stamp!!!— Rachel Vindman (@natsechobbyist) September 17, 2020

  33. 33.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    It was ok.  Joe had some good moments but it wasn’t his best night.  The decency contrast is remarkable.  And Joe is pretty knowledgeable about a range of subjects.

  37. 37.

    John Revolta

    @cmorenc: “Defund the Police” is a dumb and confusing slogan and I don’t know how we got stuck with it, We’ve already got a perfectly good word for what we need to do and it wouldn’t make the average person think you’re trying to burn down City Hall.

    Reform the Police.

  38. 38.

    JPL

    @Baud: The one who wants to pollute our water?

    I didn’t agree with him about not questioning motive.   I think it’s important to find out why the current president wants to poison states with Democratic governors.

    I

  39. 39.

    Mary Ellen Sandahl

    @Hildebrand:
    Well, at least there won’t be a clutch of them at each debate striving to outdo each other, as there’ll be only one moderator per debate. Chris Wallace for the first, C-SPAN’S Chris Scully at the second, and NBC’s Kristen Welker the third. From here.

  42. 42.

    Elie

    @Baud:

    I agree totally.   He was good but not as crisp as other recent — still 150% better than the orange and he didn’t show any new vulnerabilities…

    Must be so tiring !   Hope his team is taking good care of him.   I dunno if I could haul that wagon he has.   I  pray for him (and us) every day and night..

  44. 44.

    Betty

    I remain concerned that Joe keeps insisting that once Trump  is gone, he can work with Republicans as if he doesn’t remember all the obstruction Obama faced.

  46. 46.

    JPL

    @cmorenc: It was not a perfect answer but it was okay..  imo      from CNN

    “The vast majority of police are decent, honorable people. One of the things I’ve found is, the only people who don’t like bad cops more than we don’t like them are police officers. And so what we have to do is we have to have a much more transparent means by which we provide for accountability within police departments,” Biden said.

    As president, Biden said he would bring together a coalition of police chiefs, officers, unions and communities of color to “sit at the table and agree on the fundamental things that need to be done, including much more rigorous back ground checks that apply for and become police officers.”

  47. 47.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Betty: JFC, he isn’t speaking to us.  The people he needs to get or shore up are the kind of people who like to hear that sort of shit.

  48. 48.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Niles Edward Francis@NilesGApol · 44m
    Biden: “Who the hell makes you think I have to have an Ivy League degree to be President?” #BidenTownHall

    Holly Otterbein@hollyotterbein · 43m
    Joe Biden talking about not needing an Ivy League degree to be president gets (the only so far?) applause at the CNN town hall.

  52. 52.

    WaterGirl

    @JPL: I don’t believe that for a second – if the majority were good cops, they wouldn’t stand silent when black people are being murdered.

    However, I don’t think Joe can say that and still get elected.

  54. 54.

    Elie

    @Betty:

    Girl, you are in the microflora.  There is plenty of room to manipulate that over time.  Don’t get hung up on that.  Hell, we are probably gonna spend the first 6 months at the barricades making sure we have fair election results — not trying to talk to the opposition!  We will be lucky to get to your more sophisticated concerns for a while.

  55. 55.

    JPL

    @Baud:  Twitter is saying that he seemed prepared for the answers and my reaction was well doh!   He was asked about everything we have been talking about, and i want a president who is prepared to answer those questions.

  56. 56.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty: the way to keep Biden from having to make concessions to Republicans is to get Democrats the Senate majority. And there will still be things they do that we don’t like, because Mark Kelly and Theresa Greenfield and Steve Bullock (assuming we’re lucky) will probably want to be re-elected. And if we’re very lucky, I think a lot of people like the people who post and comment on this blog are going to get very angry at Angus King over the next few years.

    And IMHO that troublesome Senate majority that we’ll be lucky to have will be far less conservative and far less obnoxious than the one Barack Obama and Harry Reid had to deal with.

  58. 58.

    glory b

    Just out, a federal judge has enjoined the post office from continuing its tactics delaying the mail.

  62. 62.

    JPL

    @WaterGirl: He did offer this though

    As president, Biden said he would bring together a coalition of police chiefs, officers, unions and communities of color to “sit at the table and agree on the fundamental things that need to be done, including much more rigorous back ground checks that apply for and become police officers.”

  64. 64.

    JPL

    @Baud:  Truthfully, I don’t want a president that isn’t prepared to answer questions about the virus, foreign policy, environment, racial inequity, police brutality, etc etc etc.    We already have that which has caused many of us to loose sleep.

  65. 65.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @Betty: THAT is what kept me from being a Bidenite at the beginning of the primaries.

    But I don’t think Joe’s so stupid as to think these treasonous bastards can be worked with, much less trusted.

  66. 66.

    JPL

    Earlier trump tweeted about Chris Wray’s answer about election interference and is concerned about Wray’s comment about Russia, Russia, Russia.   I came close to commenting Marsha, Marsha, Marsha can you please stop tweeting about Russia, Russia, Russia.  It’s so immature.   

  67. 67.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @JPL: Twitter is saying that he seemed prepared for the answers and my reaction was well doh!

    Rose twitter? Villager twitter? MAGAt-Meathead twitter is jealous?

    Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom ·49m
    Also, President low energy guy might notice that Biden has been standing up through this.

    He won’t, but hopefully lots of tweets will force him to pretend he stood the whole time
    “I was standing, very beautifully, strongly. And George Stephapopolous, who’s a Clinton guy, you know, and he’s very short, very… PA-TEET!, he asked me during a commercial, because I’m very tall, some say I’m taller than Lincoln, I don’t know, but many people, history people, say that, I don’t know and little George, he looks up at me with tears in his his eyes and he says, Sir!, would you mind, for the cameras, if we sat down, and I was very nice, to little cryin’ George Clinton, I said, sure, even though I wanted to stand strongly.”

  68. 68.

    geg6

    @Betty:

    He actually does have some real relationships with some Republican senators.  And it has, at times in his career, paid dividends.  And I’m willing to bet he still talks with some of them and may even know some of their opinions held closely due to, well, Cheetolini and his minions.  I am not as good and nice a person as Biden is because I would have cut them out of my life.  But that’s not Joe.  And he does have a point.  We do have to try to drag another 10-20% of the Republicans in this country back to sanity in order to begin to function more normally as a country.  I would never be able to do this because I despise every one of those mother fuckers but if anyone can, it may be Joe.

  71. 71.

    Percysowner

    @Betty: He does believe that people are basically decent. Sometimes people live up to what is expected of them. I personally don’t think it applies to most Republicans (maybe Romney), but it sets a goal.

    Also, Joe isn’t black, so there won’t be the visceral need to “show him his place”.

  72. 72.

    JPL

    Chris Cuomo is interviewing Price and he’s still hedging on the president’s responsibility to tell folks to wear masks.    hahaahhaha

    It would be nice if Chris Cuomo would ask about our governor Kemp who won’t mandate mask wearing.   Maybe Chris could ask him how he and his wife feel about gays and lesbians.

  73. 73.

    SuzieC

    @geg6: And also agree.  That was his best answer.  I really think most Americans want to see the leaders of their country pulling together to solve problems.  As much as I would love to see every R dragged out of Washington in disgrace, that is not what the majority of Americans want to see.

  74. 74.

    CaseyL

    @geg6: That is true, but I wonder who those GOP Senators are with whom he has long-term relationships.  Not Cotton, surely; nor McConnell.

    Graham? – not anymore. Joe can overlook at lot of things, but not trying to drag his kid through the mud via a manufactured scandal.

    I’m trying to think of which GOP Senators are simply corrupt scumbags, rather than traitorous corrupt scumbags, and I’m not coming up with much.  Burr? Romney?

  77. 77.

    Baud

    @CaseyL:

    The Hill story Biden mentioned.

    Senate Republicans are signaling they are open to cutting deals with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden if he wins the White House in November.
    GOP senators – adding the caveat that they are supportive of President Trump – say there is room for agreement with a Biden administration, particularly on areas like trade or immigration, if they hold on to the Senate majority in November.

  78. 78.

    JPL

    Can’t believe Cuomo wants Price back on to discuss competing plans..   Price is fine with using antibiotics in cows so they can be crowded together in tight areas.  The overuse of antibiotics has caused great concerns among the health community.

  79. 79.

    piratedan

    the thing is, Biden actually has a chance with some GOP senators for getting perhaps a glimmer of bi-partisanship because he’s a white guy. Do I think it’s likely, no… but if anyone is going to make it plausible for it to happen, Joe’s the guy.  He’s gonna give as many GOP folks in the room every opportunity to be rescued from the cliff because he sees that as his duty to do so.

    Do I believe he will still get a studiously fair DOJ head, yes I do and I believe he will let them make the call on what needs to be prosecuted, it’s not as if there aren’t a boatload of other items to be fixed.  I suspect Biden will trust who he nominates to do a fair job, scrupulously and transparently.

  80. 80.

    Ruckus

    @geg6:

    We do have to remember that he’s worked in DC for a long time, in jobs that meant he had to at least appear to be willing to work with the opposite side of the aisle to get anything done. I believe that is his major strength. Otherwise he is what I’d call a pretty regular democrat policy wise. He’s not perfect but then he’s a hell of a lot closer than any republican and about a bazillion hells closer than trump. And no matter if every republican on the ballot gets tossed there are still republicans in federal office.

  81. 81.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    oh fuck, this unemployed sexual-harasser who had to be repeatedly bailed out by the Murdochs and whose ex-wife says she tried to strangle her in front of their kids is the source of the “CNN cheated” thing? I’m sure The Beast will be on it before the clock strikes the next half hour

    Bill O’Reilly@BillOReilly· 1h
    Looks to me that Biden had an idea of what the questions would be, at least areas of questioning.

    om Nichols@RadioFreeTom 5m
    In which Bill has been watching Trump for so long that he cannot comprehend the idea that a normal candidate actually has briefers and does preparation before he walks into an event.

  82. 82.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: translation (and realizing that this may be an N of 1 or 2 GOP senators at this point in the Republican Party’s spiral into madness): “ Once he is out of office, he has no leverage over us, and we can get back to our usual pontificating and promoting the interests of the 1% Without all that, you know, wacky tweet shit”

  84. 84.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Ruckus: and, as with the House, the new Senators who will hopefully give us the majority, and a whole lot of those who are already there, will have a lot of voters who think “bipartisanship” is a good thing

  87. 87.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    earlier in the summer I was listening to a lot of satellite radio while doing yard work, and Bill O’Reilly now does ads for supplements, I can’t remember which ones, and I think reverse mortgages. He’s in the mix with Stephanie Miller selling super-beets and those adorable children who sing that marvelous song about donating your car.

  88. 88.

    different-church-lady

    @John Revolta:

    “Defund the Police” is a dumb and confusing slogan and I don’t know how we got stuck with it,

    Same way we almost got stuck with Bernie: Twitter’s dumbest leftists.

  89. 89.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    I prefer Tom Nichols’s review (I didn’t watch it):

    Joe Biden stood on his feet for well over an hour taking questions from normal human beings and answering them like a normal human being. Unlike the president, whose town hall was a fireworks display of sociopathic behavior.— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) September 18, 2020

  92. 92.

    Kay

    Another one:

    Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s former chief of staff has joined a group of anti-Trump Republicans as an adviser.
    Josh Venable, who served as the top aide to DeVos in 2017 and 2018, has joined the Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform (REPAIR), the group announced Thursday.
    Venable previously served in the George W. Bush administration and as deputy finance director for the Republican National Committee from 2011-2012.

  95. 95.

    Kay

    I thought he did a good job. I watched Trump’s town hall so…ok not that hard to beat that :)

    Presidential elections are a choice between two people. You just have to be better than the one other person, not better than everyone who is alive right now.

  96. 96.

    HRA

    Personally the best example I ever read about Joe Biden crossing the aisle to “chat” with the Republican senators was when President Johnson asked him to do it for the Civil Rights Act.

    Joe did mention tonight about the 2 Republican senators talking to him not to quit the Senate after his 1st wife and daughter were killed with the two young sons injured in an accident. That I believe was the beginning of his talking with the Republican senators.

  97. 97.

    Ken

    @Baud: particularly on areas like trade

    There may be some truth to this, as I’m sure many of the GOP senators from farm states would like trade in soybeans and wheat to resume.

  99. 99.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Semi-related:  Die hard Bernie Bro/MAGAt Walker Bragman continues to beat the dead Tara Reade story.  Which of course has been thoroughly checked out and found appallingly lacking in veracity, but that doesn’t stop Bernie Bro/MAGAts like Bragman.  I’m sure Bragman also believes Juanita Broadrrick and the stories of Elizabeth Warren’s stable of Marine studs.

  100. 100.

    jonas

    @gwangung: Just like ol’ senile Joe to sneak an entire CNN television studio and audience into his basement. What kind of coastal elitist who pretends to be a regular, working class guy has a 20,000 sq ft. basement like that?

  101. 101.

    Kay

    Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform (REPAIR)

    This name makes me sad. It tries so hard. I feel like it’s destined for failure. The Lincoln Project sounds like a spy novel. Better.

  105. 105.

    Ken

    @Kay: An acronym like that always creates a bad first impression for me.  I guess I’ve seen so many cases where the group spent more time putting together the acronym than they did on their policies and programs.

  106. 106.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Kay:

    Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform (REPAIR) 

    They should’ve gone with the old, but still accurate Committee to RE-Elect the President.

  108. 108.

    Kay

    @zhena gogolia:

    Why doesn’t everyone get that? Are there better people? I just see the two. That was my understanding- two finalists, choose one.

    We don’t do this with any other contest. “Think about all the people who were never on Jeopardy. Some of them might be smarter than the winner. Might be GREAT at Jeopardy. No one ever talks about them. Why not?”

  109. 109.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    This should be bouncing around twitter like it’s surely bouncing around trump’s belfry.

    Charlotte Alter @CharlotteAlter 2h
    Biden: “Guys like me, the first in my family to go to college… we are as good as anybody else, and guys like Trump, who inherited everything and squandered what they inherited, are the people I’ve always had a problem with”

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @Ken:

    I’m terrified for him. The DeVos family is vast and much richer and more vindictive than the Trumps.

    He needs to be in witness protection. Jesus. Eric Prince.

  111. 111.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I think it’s clever of them to go there. Trump is obsessed with status. he made fun of Jeff Sessions’ accent and that Sessions went to a state school. He brags that he went to fancy schools constantly. I’m pleased they recognized it as an opening. I hope the dumbass takes the hook.

  113. 113.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: not just his status, but the idea that he’s a self-made man. It may be the biggest lie he tells himself, and the most important to him

  114. 114.

    trnc

    @John Revolta: “Defund the Police” is a dumb and confusing slogan and I don’t know how we got stuck with it, We’ve already got a perfectly good word for what we need to do and it wouldn’t make the average person think you’re trying to burn down City Hall.

    Reform the Police.

    I completely agree. I assume its partly because police reforms have been promised for a long time with mixed success, but re-labeling doesn’t really fix the problem, and labeling it as something that people who don’t have time to dissect it will hate is an unforced error.

  116. 116.

    Eolirin

    @trnc: The people who are pushing the defund the police line are arguing for more than just reforming the institution of policing, they want to reduce the size and scope in which policing operates.

    This ultimately means that rather than just having some new rules to try to rein in the worse excesses, that we have fewer police and more social workers, more spending on education, social services and infrastructure. It’s a statement that the idea of police as currently constituted is excessive and unnecessary and needs to go away.

    Reform doesn’t really cover it. Reforms have been promised and attempted and done very little over the last 50 years. That language doesn’t work. Defund isn’t great either, it’s reductionist and easy to strawman. But there’s not an easy way to put what needs to happen, what’s being called for, into a three word slogan.

  117. 117.

    Kent

    @HRA:

    Personally the best example I ever read about Joe Biden crossing the aisle to “chat” with the Republican senators was when President Johnson asked him to do it for the Civil Rights Act.

    Joe did mention tonight about the 2 Republican senators talking to him not to quit the Senate after his 1st wife and daughter were killed with the two young sons injured in an accident. That I believe was the beginning of his talking with the Republican senators.

    Huh?

    The Civil Rights act was passed in 1964 and President Johnson left the presidency in 1968

    Joe Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972

  120. 120.

    NoraLenderbee

    It’s good to see all these ex-staffers etc. speaking out, but I’m not welcoming them too warmly. 1. They had 3.5 fucking years to figure it out. 2. They’re still Rethuglicans. The minute Drump is gone, they’ll be back at their shit.

  121. 121.

    trnc

    @JPL: Truthfully, I don’t want a president that isn’t prepared to answer questions about the virus, foreign policy, environment, racial inequity, police brutality, etc etc etc.

    I regret to inform you that you will never have a place on Chuck Todd’s “Meet The Press.”

  122. 122.

    different-church-lady

    @Eolirin: You can take all the damn extra money and military toys away and racist cops are still gonna stand on the necks of black people if you don’t reform police culture.

  125. 125.

    Eolirin

    @trnc: The nature of those reform attempts is exactly why the Defund language is necessary. They’re trying to minimize police violence and the use of police force to oppress minority communities but they don’t even ask the question of whether what police forces are doing makes any sense.

    Defunding calls for a reallocation of resources away from police, which in many cases are the wrong tool to solve the social problems we’re tasking them with solving and toward more effective and socially beneficial uses.

    There’s still a role for police, but it’s a much smaller one and a much less expensive one.

  130. 130.

    Eolirin

     

    @different-church-lady: I’m saying you fire most of them. They’re dead weight anyway. What you need to fill actual crime solving and prevention is reconstituted with a much narrower remit and as new organizations.

  135. 135.

    trnc

    @Eolirin: I get it, but a lot of people in Bumper Sticker Nation may not understand that “Defund” really means “redirect and prioritize,” and I’m not sure that major media outlets will explain this very well.

  137. 137.

    Eolirin

    @trnc: They don’t. Reform is just not a good enough word either. So I’m not sure what would have been better there, and we’re stuck with it now, so we need our politicians to be able to explain it.

    Though honestly, this kind of change is probably a multi generational project and it’ll be driven from local communities up, not from a top down set of mandates at the federal level, so Biden should be more focused on the sort of stuff Obama was anyway, and also making sure that larger forces like the NYPD or CPD can’t keep operating as if they’re criminal organizations in their own right.

  138. 138.

    Morzer

    Dave Wasserman @Redistrict

    Watching this town hall, I’m seeing a Biden who’s actually a bit sharper/crisper than he was in the early Dem debates. It’s almost as if he might have been out of *practice* early on, rather than out of it.

  139. 139.

    Kent

    @NoraLenderbee:It’s good to see all these ex-staffers etc. speaking out, but I’m not welcoming them too warmly. 1. They had 3.5 fucking years to figure it out. 2. They’re still Rethuglicans. The minute Drump is gone, they’ll be back at their shit.

    It’s like WW2.  We were happy to even partner with Stalin to defeat the Nazis.  But come 1946 we were not going to put up with their shit anymore.

    I’ll take any help we can get to defeat our current crop of fascists.  But they better fucking behave in 2021 or we’re going to have issues.

  142. 142.

    Morzer

    @CharlotteAlter

    Biden, in an embarrassing senior moment, recites the divergent biological methods of two possible vaccines (molecular structure versus immune system enhancement) and also details the chemical specifics how they have to be stored and transported.

  145. 145.

    patrick II

    @Professor Bigfoot:

    I don’t think “I won’t work with those treasonous bastards” is a winning strategy.  So, when he starts out willing to work and they won’t work with him, it won’t be his fault, it could be theirs, unless the media does its usual both sides mantra.

  148. 148.

    burnspbesq

    @MazeDancer:

    Also loved his so being riled about an Ivy League Education not being needed to be President.

    Even if Joe wins, I will still maintain that Lou Reed is Syracuse’s most distinguished alum.

  149. 149.

    James E Powell

    @Ken:

    I guess I’ve seen so many cases where the group spent more time putting together the acronym than they did on their policies and programs.

    This is especially so in education.

  150. 150.

    Mary G

    Carrie Evans is my new heroine! Brava!

    An LGBT Pride flag at Minot City Hall caused such uproar the mayor said the council meeting got extra security due to threats. Councilwoman Carrie Evans went off, saying she's "proudly the first openly, elected lesbian in North Dakota" and "this city is big enough for all of us." pic.twitter.com/94svVAJaoV— Lindsey Ellefson (@ellefs0n) September 12, 2020

  151. 151.

    burnspbesq

    @gwangung:

    Now that we’ve got your attention…

    And given Republican an open invitation to distort and demagogue.

    ”Defund the police” is an own goal, and it will never be anything but an own goal.

  153. 153.

    Amir Khalid

    @burnspbesq:

    “Defund the police” is an own goal, and it will never be anything but an own goal.

    Yeah, but “Reallocate police funding judiciously to bring about better outcomes” is never going to work as a slogan.

  154. 154.

    SFAW

    @Kent:

    Huh?

    The Civil Rights act was passed in 1964 and President Johnson left the presidency in 1968

    Joe Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972

    Obama let Joe borrow his time machine, obviously.

  155. 155.

    SFAW

    @burnspbesq:

    Even if Joe wins, I will still maintain that Lou Reed is Syracuse’s most distinguished alum.

    Jim Brown. And you a lacrosse player! (If my memory is correct.)

  156. 156.

    SFAW

    @Amir Khalid:

    Yeah, but “Reallocate police funding judiciously to bring about better outcomes” is never going to work as a slogan.

    Maybe, but it has a cool acronym.

  157. 157.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I know exactly what you mean!  I hate that “donate your car to kids”  song.  I started out disliking it slightly, and as I heard it repeated, grew to loathe it.  Now I change the radio channel immediately when it comes on. If I never hear it again it would be too soon.

  159. 159.

    evodevo

    @catclub: They’re too nice…I want a shark in that cabinet position…one who will smell the blood in the water and go after the perps with vigor…

Comments are closed.