Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

… looking like a winsome Bee Gee who has stumbled into teaching geography

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

It’s a doggy dog world.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

And so it is for the politically and morally bankrupt Kevin McCarthy.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Second rate reporter says what?

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

I really should read my own blog.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / For Your Reading Pleasure: President Obama Campaigns for Joe Biden

For Your Reading Pleasure: President Obama Campaigns for Joe Biden

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Due credit from a master — “President Obama Has Set Up Light Housekeeping in Donald Trump’s Cerebellum”:

… We all know Inspirational Obama, and Devotional Obama, and Better Angels Obama, but Snarkmaster Obama is having a ball out there setting up light housekeeping in the president*’s cerebellum. If you’re going to shoot the dozens with this guy, bring your A-game. On Tuesday, he was in Orlando, and he took El Caudillo Del Mar-a-Lago downtown…

The obvious joy Obama is taking in trolling the president* makes these appearances appointment television, especially in a country subjected to two or three of the White House wankfests a day. It is excellent TV, and nobody knows that better than our favorite reality-TV president*…

Meanwhile, his predecessor shows every intention of cracking wise at his expense throughout the last week of the campaign. This, of course, violates the first rule of The Ex-Presidents Club: Thou shalt not harsh thy successor’s mellow. And one more traditional norm goes into the woodchipper. But hey, the current president* spent four years trying to erase the Obama presidency from the statute books and from the country’s historical memory. Obama is getting his own back magnificently and, hell, we all deserve a laugh.

… Obama, an important surrogate for Biden, campaigned for his former vice president for the second time in four days in Florida. The key battleground state could play a decisive role in the outcome of the election, and recent polls show a tight race between Trump and Biden.

Obama’s Orlando speech built on a blistering rebuke of Trump he delivered last week in Pennsylvania, his first foray onto the campaign trail since a speech to the Democratic National Convention earlier in the year, and over the weekend in Florida.

Obama’s speeches have shown how he is keeping tabs on the day-to-day news about Trump, and how the Biden campaign is deploying him to deliver some of its harshest attacks on the current President and his administration.

Former presidents usually avoid directly attacking their successor in the White House, but Obama has delivered full-throated criticisms of Trump while campaigning for Biden. But Trump, with the way he has continually attacked Obama, even suggesting he should be indicted, has changed the calculus, thrusting the former president onto the campaign trail.
Democrats hope Obama can help gin up enthusiasm among the Democratic base and encourage Black men, Latinos and younger voters in battleground states to turn out and vote…

The former President also criticized senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, for recent comments he made about Black Americans. Kushner said Monday on Fox News, “One thing we’ve seen in a lot of the Black community, which is mostly Democrat, is that President Trump’s policies are the policies that can help people break out of the problems that they’re complaining about. But he can’t want them to be successful more than they want to be successful.”

Obama seized on the comments, saying, “(Trump’s) son-in-law says Black folks have to want to be successful. That’s the problem.” After a short pause, an incredulous-sounding Obama continued, “Who are these folks? What history books do they read? Who do they talk to?”…

Obama praised his former vice president, describing Biden as a man of “principle and character” and highlighting his empathy and decency.

“He made me a better president, and he’s got the character and the experience to make us a better country,” Obama said.

Obama laid out the ways Biden has said he would get the pandemic under control, including making coronavirus tests free and widely available, distributing a vaccine to every American at no cost and providing enough personal protective equipment to all front-line workers…

“Last week, Trump flat out said he hopes the Supreme Court takes your health insurance away. Said it out loud,” Obama said. “Don’t boo, vote,” he said, repeating a favorite line of his when the crowd booed. The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on the future of the ACA, also known as Obamacare, next month.

Obama said if elected, Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris of California would “protect your health care, they will expand Medicare, they’ll make insurance more affordable for everybody, because Joe knows that a president’s first job is to keep us safe from all threats, foreign, domestic, and microscopic.”

Reader Interactions

153Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    I say this with all possible respect: Barack Obama has some formidable natural blogging skills

    He has dogs, so he is qualified to be a BJ front pager.

  3. 3.

    mad citizen

    @Baud:“He’s jealous of COVID’s coverage.”

    PBO may already be reading here.  Jackal Nelle made this exact comment a couple of days ago.  Quite insightful, I saved it in a google doc.

  5. 5.

    Kay

    Biden’s Path to 270 Widens, Trump’s Path Narrows, as Texas Moves to Toss Up

    Cook political. Might be a fun election night :)

    Obama loves politics. There’s a documentary out there where he’s watching the returns come in in 2006 and he’s just really enjoying himself. He was watching Ohio results come in and it was a wave year.

    Maybe he was thinking “well, maybe…”

  8. 8.

    jimmiraybob

    If, in the next couple of months, Donald John Trump were to be informed by Putin that Russia was about to launch a massive military invasion against America, Trump would insist on a licensing agreement.  And before the ink dried he would declare victory.  That would make a whopping victory on par with having already defeated the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Obama never did that.

  9. 9.

    danielx

    Well calculated to drive Cheeto Benito into a paroxysm of frothing at the mouth rage.

    Let us savor.

  12. 12.

    dmsilev

    @Kay: Cook said that? Wow. That’s a pretty cautious operation, and they don’t go out on a limb without good reason.

  15. 15.

    narya

    @Nina: SCOTUS? That would be kinda awesome . . .

    I alternate between being absolutely moved by the determined efforts that so many folks are making to vote, even as the whole right wing is trying to stand in the way, and being terrified that the right wing will succeed. They are desperate–they have no ideas other than grift, tax cuts for the wealthy, and cheating–and desperate people do desperate things.

  16. 16.

    dmsilev

    Post-ABC polls: Biden leads Trump narrowly in Michigan, significantly in Wisconsin

    And when they say “narrow”, it’s only in comparison to that “significant”:

    The surveys show Biden narrowly ahead of Trump among likely voters in Michigan by 51 percent to 44 percent, with Libertarian Party nominee Jo Jorgensen at 3 percent. In Wisconsin, likely voters favor Biden by 57 percent to 40 percent, with Jorgensen at 2 percent. Among all registered voters, Biden’s edge in Michigan is five points, while he leads by 17 points in Wisconsin.

    An outlier poll, most likely, but the ABC/Post operation is an A+ pollster in 538’s ratings so I wouldn’t discard it immediately.

    Biden’s margins in both states are driven by overwhelming support among female likely voters. He leads Trump by 24 points among those women in Michigan and by 30 points in Wisconsin. Biden trails Trump among Michigan men by double digits, and the two are running about even among men in Wisconsin.
    The findings suggest concerns about the coronavirus are weighing heavily on Trump’s candidacy, particularly in Wisconsin, which has seen case counts climb to record levels in recent weeks. When it comes to handling the pandemic, Biden is trusted more than Trump by double digits in both states, and large majorities support their state’s rules on masks and restrictions on businesses and public gatherings.

  17. 17.

    waspuppet

    I’m glad to see Obama back out there, if for no other reason than I predicted Trump wouldn’t be able to get through four years without dropping an N-bomb and I started to lose faith, but now I have new hope.

  18. 18.

    Edmund Dantes

    The abandoning of Trump supporters in the cold and rain at his Omaha rally was insane to watch unfold on Twitter last night. Hypothermia and other things happening to elderly supporters and people stranded from their cars, etc.

    It was also sad in some ways because my sympathetic muscles didn’t even twitch one bit.

  20. 20.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @dmsilev: since when is seven points a narrow lead? five used to be a solid lead back when I sported an onion on my belt! as was the style at the time.

    and I say that as someone who wonders, in my bed-wetting moments, whether polls have been sufficiently re-weighted for “education”, which means non-college white guys who are thrilled to have their resentments confirmed by the Oaf in the Oval Office

    ETA: and Jared Kushner isn’t getting nearly enough blowback for his comments

  23. 23.

    Danielx

    This, of course, violates the first rule of The Ex-Presidents Club: Thou shalt not harsh thy successor’s mellow. And one more traditional norm goes into the woodchipper.

    Right. Like Trump won’t be pissing on Biden from day fucking one if he loses.

  24. 24.

    WereBear

    @MattF: Twitter theory is that the Trump campaign stiffed the bus company. [in Omaha]

     
    Per a local reporter: the campaign only paid for the busses to get them to the venue. Not to take them back to their cars.

  25. 25.

    JaneE

    It looks like Trump’s trashing of presidential norms has caught up to him, freeing Obama to return the favor.  Even talking trash Obama makes Trump look like a poor facsimile of a real president.

  27. 27.

    Jeffro

    It’s going to be very weird, shifting back into a normal timeline.  Everyone please remain seated until the ride has come to a complete stop.

  30. 30.

    Al Z.

    @chopper:  Word on the street.  If you haven’t mailed your ballot yet, don’t.  At this point plan on voting in person or drop off your ballot in person.

  33. 33.

    Woodrow/asim

    Got up in the early AM to go vote here in South Carolina. Massive (for this area) line by the time the doors opened; rain only saw a few people step away, and many of us were prepared with umbrellas. People are determined to vote, in ways I’ve not seen here since the 2016 cycle.

    Vast majority of folx wore masks and tried to keep 6 ft, although the setup didn’t help. :(

  34. 34.

    The Moar You Know

    Just want to point out Obama did not initiate the “pissing on the predecessor”, that was one Donald J. Trump, who wasn’t ten minutes into office before he whipped out his miniature disease-ridden excuse for manhood and started in on both Obama AND Bush.

    Fuck that loser.  He is such garbage.  I hope that we can get him loose from the body of the Republic without too much damage.  You know.  LIKE A TICK.

  35. 35.

    gene108

    @Nina:

    He’s only 59. I hope they have a nice solid role for him in the next administration.

    I want Obama to move to a small town, and run for mayor, city council, or the school board.

    I think it has sit-com potential to have a city council meeting, with a former President as a member. Think “Parks & Recs”, but with President Obama.

  36. 36.

    germy

    @dmsilev:

    In a district that, until recently, was considered one of the few remaining safe Republican seats in California, Arballo is polling about five points behind Nunes but is rapidly closing in, according to a recent internal Democratic party poll. The Democrat has also managed to pull in a sizeable fundraising haul, largely from small donations including hundreds of thousands of dollars raised in response to Nunes’s constant lawsuits. (Nunes still enjoys a huge fundraising advantage, though).

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/28/devin-nunes-california-congress-election

  37. 37.

    The Moar You Know

    The abandoning of Trump supporters in the cold and rain at his Omaha rally was insane to watch unfold on Twitter last night. Hypothermia and other things happening to elderly supporters and people stranded from their cars, etc.

    It was also sad in some ways because my sympathetic muscles didn’t even twitch one bit.

    @Edmund Dantes:  I have a bad habit of texting such stories to my wife with the one word tagline of “GOOD”.  The last one was about some COVID denier in Texas who threw a party and killed his whole family, and only now has seen the light.

    Don’t care, no sympathy from me buddy.  Or my wife.

  39. 39.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    The Recount @therecount
    CNN’s @AlisynCamerota : “Hospitals in WI are near capacity. Does that give you any pause about going there and holding a big rally?”
    Trump 2020 Press Sec. Hogan Gidley: “No, it doesn’t … the VP has the best doctors in the world around him.”

    as several tweeters have pointed out, it doesn’t even occur to Hogan Gidley that there is a threat to trump’s own supporters, much less the spread in the community. According to the latest NYT map, eastern Wisconsin is a big hotspot.

  40. 40.

    TS (the original)

    @gene108:

    I think he has earned a rest away from politics, doing whatever he wants to do.

    Thus said, he would be ideal working on the international scene. There are so many bridges to be repaired  between the US and the rest of the world. Ambassador at large, rather than Sec of State would be ideal.

  41. 41.

    patrick II

    About the only good thing about the White House correspondent’s dinner was getting a chance to see snark side of President Obama.  He was very funny and often biting, but with a smile on his face, using humor to avoid playing Jackie Robinson for one night. One of my favorite lines was when he introduced John Boehner as “another man of color — just not one found in nature”.

    High points were his Trump desication, which had very bad results, and when he brought out his anger translator, Keegan Michael-Key, to help him vent but got so angry himself the anger translator thought it was a bit much.

    I thought it gave Obama his one opportunity to say what he thought.

  42. 42.

    gene108

    @Edmund Dantes:

    Hypothermia and other things

    Were the people with hypothermia, at the Omaha rally, deep state operatives?

    Otherwise you can easily avoid hypothermia by dressing adequately for the weather. If they truly are Trump supporters, they owe President Trump an apology for their poor choices in not dressing adequately for the weather. They have unnecessarily made President Trump’s campaign look bad.

  44. 44.

    JCJ

    @germy: Yeah, those traffic jams around the Omaha airport are legendary.  They make L.A. traffic look smooth.  Heck, the traffic in Omaha is even worse than Bangkok!

  45. 45.

    Marcopolo

    Vanity Fair has a new cover piece featuring AOC. It’s a long, great read. Here’s the lede:

    Her Republican colleagues had, up until then, been civil. But one day in late July, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol while Representative Ted Yoho lost his shit. The Florida Republican, incensed by the New York congresswoman’s recent comments linking crime and poverty, jabbed his finger in her face, calling her “crazy” and “disgusting.” She froze. The situation felt dangerous, with Yoho towering over Ocasio-Cortez, who calls herself “five-five on a good day.” Congressman Roger Williams, a Texas Republican, bumbled next to him like a wind puppet at a used-car dealership. She told Yoho he was being rude and went into the Capitol to vote. As Yoho descended the steps, he called her a “fucking bitch.” A reporter nearby witnessed the exchange, and soon the whole world had heard the epithet.

    This part hasn’t been reported: The next day Ocasio-Cortez approached Yoho and told him, “You do that to me again, I won’t be so nice next time.” She felt his actions had violated a boundary, stepping “into the zone of harassment, discrimination.” His mocking response, straight out of Veep: “Oh, boo-hoo.” Publicly, Yoho doubled down, issuing a non-apology on the House floor, citing his wife and daughters as character witnesses.

    Ocasio-Cortez flashed back to one of her first jobs out of school, when a male colleague whom she’d edged out for a promotion called her a bitch in front of the staff. She had been too stunned to reply, and no one came to her defense. She wouldn’t let it happen again.

    Forty-eight hours later, Ocasio-Cortez delivered one of the most eloquent dunks in political history, a “thank u, next” for the C-SPAN set, taking on not just Yoho but the patriarchy itself. She took care to enter “fucking bitch” into the Congressional Record. “I want to thank him for showing the world that you can be a powerful man and accost women,” she told the House. “It happens every day in this country.” And the line that spawned headlines, T-shirts, hashtags, and memes: “I am someone’s daughter too.”

    One of the most important bits for me (way down in the article), however, which sheds light on how AOC thinks about politics/governance, is why I will happily work my ass off for her if she runs for higher office:

    But the ending of this story is the same, no matter which man wins. America is “still in a lot of trouble,” warns AOC. There is a temptation to view Trump as an aberration, she says, rather than a wake-up call to failures of American government at large.

    Under a President Biden, “if his life doesn’t feel different,” she points to a cab driver whizzing by our table, “if their life doesn’t feel different,” she gestures to people walking by the beauty shop and Bengali Halal Grocery, “if these people’s lives don’t actually feel different”—now she is giving a stump speech over her omelet—“we’re done. You know how many Trumps there are in waiting?”

    She is tired of incremental change, of “bullshit little 10 percent tax cuts,” she says. “I think, honestly, a lot of my dissent within the Democratic party comes from my lived experience. It’s not just that we can be better, it’s that we have to be better. We’re not good enough right now.”

    Everyone have a good hump day & hang in there for another week. Remember, even little things can help. Example, I just moved into a new house Monday. Yesterday I helped the young AA guy installing my cable, who didn’t know if he was going to vote, to create his plan for voting.

  47. 47.

    The Moar You Know

    According to the WaPo, the busses were delayed by airport traffic

    I don’t know if that’s true, or something the campaign told the WaPo reporter.

    @germy:  Not true, campaign bullshit.  Read the local coverage last night, couldn’t sleep worth a shit.  A reporter actually overheard one of the shuttle drivers confirming with dispatch that they were not going to come back and get these people.  Guy said “ARE YOU SURE?”  “Yep”

    They went home.  The cops had to call in city buses from what I understand.

  48. 48.

    Gin & Tonic

    @WereBear: Old, possibly apocryphal story about some campaign, don’t recall which, in NH, candidate and staff get on a helicopter to go from Point A to Point B, pilot says he wants payment now. In cash. Otherwise the bird sits on the ground.

    Pilot was obviously experienced.

  49. 49.

    Gin & Tonic

    @germy:  It is now.

    This kind of thing has happened before. I’m sure WaterGirl has a lot of fun attempting to debug intermittent transient UI issues.

  50. 50.

    mad citizen

    @gene108: Only if Amy Poehler also moves to the small town and is on the Council.  The other day I saw a “Re-Elect Knope City Council” sign.  I’m in central Indiana, though.  Some of us love our Pawnee stories.

  51. 51.

    marcopolo

    @Kay:  Well, if anyone BJers know folks who live in the Rio Grande Valley (Cameron & Hildalgo counties) give them a call & make sure they are going to vote & get everyone they know out to vote.  That’s about the only area in TX right now that isn’t showing massive turnout & is the place where the demographics imply there are a lot of potential Biden voters.  I know one woman from there, though she is currently in MI in grad school,  and asked her to spend some time GoTVing with folks back home.

  52. 52.

    Gravenstone

    @germy: Still attributable to Trump, because that traffic would have likely come from the security measures required for his visit.

  55. 55.

    marcopolo

    @MattF:  Or the Trump campaign which appears to be broke, in order to save money, only hired the buses/shuttles to drop folks off at the rally & not to pick them up at the end.

  56. 56.

    Gravenstone

    @TS (the original): Unfortunately it’s partially exacerbated by the local Trumpists and their defiance of Gov. Evers’ mask mandate. They’re easy to spot by their “My Governor is an Idiot” signs. May the plague take them all.

  57. 57.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Marcopolo:  She is tired of incremental change,

    so am I, and I’m often frustrated by the slow pace of it, but that’s the only kind we’re going to get in this country, and if she’s selling her followers, especially the young ones, on “REVOLUTION!”, then she’s doing  a long-term disservice to them. Incremental change brought health care coverage to 20 million people in this country, and that’s just Medicaid expansion, and with right-wingers at the state level fighting it tooth and nail.

    According to her wing of the party, Biden’s health care plan is more of that ookie old “incremental change”, and it’s gonna be a helluva fight, and I’ll be very surprised if, once it’s passed, the people she’s pointing at don’t “feel” better about their lives knowing there’s a stronger safety net even if it’s not the blessed and sacrosanct Single Payer

    That’s why I was so annoyed by her childish rhetoric about “stones” yesterday. That may feel good and get her a lot of plaudits on twitter, and even a front page posting here, but it doesn’t make it more likely we’ll take the Senate. And if we don’t take the Senate, with the help of a lot of Senators who don’t agree with AOC and Bernie!, we won’t even get that “incremental change” that will improve the lives of millions more people in this country. Including me. And yeah, that’s why I find her tiresome almost as often as I admire her guts and skill. Cause this is fucking personal to me. I may not be able to afford four more years of trumpism because John Hickenlooper and Theresa Greenfield are judged testosterone-deficient by people who seem to think they’re curated twitter feeds are representative of this country, and who think “Look out the window, Mitch” is a legislative strategy that can’t fail, and who would be confused by the that Schoolhouse Rock video of how a bill becomes a law.

  58. 58.

    mad citizen

    Just now reading about this shitshow last night ”
    Hundreds of Trump supporters stuck on freezing cold Omaha airfield after rally”
    As you all are saying, so on brand for trump.  I think Tom Joseph (twitter) is right, things are just taking longer, but trump has dementia, can’t walk or do too much, so can only do the airport rallies.  And it’s so f-ing lazy too.  Make it as easy and convenient for trump, and as inconvenient as possible for his “fans”.  No sympathy for ANY of them.  Sorry.  Been done with sympathy for more than 4 years.  No quarter.

  60. 60.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @germy:

    According to the WaPo, the busses were delayed by airport traffic

    I don’t know if that’s true, or something the campaign told the WaPo reporter.

    Either way, I call bullshit. Somebody was incompetent, that’s all.

    ETA: Or cruel and unfeeling, of course. That’s always a strong possibility.

  61. 61.

    Leto

    @chopper: Just a note to all PA residents: it’s too late to get your mail-in ballots back via mail. Use drop boxes, turn it in at your county board of election office, or do it at the polls via a provisional ballot.

    If you mail it back it now, your shit won’t be counted.

  63. 63.

    Ken

    @mad citizen: trump has dementia, can’t walk or do too much, so can only do the airport rallies.

    Plus no other venues are available, either because of mask mandates or because they’re demanding cash in advance.

  66. 66.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Marcopolo:  Yesterday I helped the young AA guy installing my cable, who didn’t know if he was going to vote, to create his plan for voting.

      I hope someday to become as awesome a GOTV-er as you are! :)

  67. 67.

    marcopolo

    @mad citizen:  The point of the airport rallies is 1) they are cheap as fuck compared to a regular venue; 2) Trump can fly in, deplane, rant, and reboard to the next super spreader event ASAP–no hassles about driving anywhere, leave it to his chump supporters to come out to wherever the hell he is.  It’s another sign his campaign is broke, desperate, and catering to his ego fulfillment needs as much as the campaign’s needs to win EVs.

  68. 68.

    Baud

    @Marcopolo:

    Yesterday I helped the young AA guy installing my cable, who didn’t know if he was going to vote, to create his plan for voting.

    I’m just happy the cable guy showed up.

  71. 71.

    Barbara

    @chopper: Seriously, in what universe is 7 percentage points a narrow victory?  51-44 means that there are fewer “undecided” or third party voters than the current difference between the two contenders.  That takes “narrow” off the table as a way to describe the current contest.

  73. 73.

    marcopolo

    @H.E.Wolf:  Dude, you are already there.  I haven’t written a scintilla of the postcards you’ve sent out this year.  And since I am still holding to strict quarantine rules, aside from folks I see while out walking, the cable installer & movers have been the only people who I’ve spent any time around since March.  I used to have political chats at the grocery store if I ran into neighbors but not this year.

  75. 75.

    Barbara

    @marcopolo: Then the word is “narrower”  or “closer” not “narrow” or “close.”  Seriously, “narrow” is an absolute, “narrower” is comparative.

  76. 76.

    MattF

    @SiubhanDuinne: The reason for airport rallies is to get Trump feeling pumped up. Because then, he will be easier to handle and require less medication. People attending the rally are no longer in the field-of-view once the rally is over. They’re lucky duckies for getting to see the Leader.

    I suspect that reality peeks through the curtain, though, once in a while. But who knows?

  77. 77.

    TS (the original)

    @marcopolo:

    Nah – it was the media trying to make it a horse race. The heading was

    Biden leads Trump narrowly in Michigan, significantly in Wisconsin

  78. 78.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Edmund Dantes: While his supporters dying in the cold and dark would be Peak Trump, it really shouldn’t be happening.

    And, has anything like this ever happened before?

  79. 79.

    fourmorewars

    It would be Trump’s cerebrum. Not cerebellum. Cerebrum’s the cogitative thought part. Petty to bring up, it’s just I remember when I first heard, as a ten year old, the word cerebellum. It was in the news reports of where the bullet had lodged in RFK’s brain.

  81. 81.

    marcopolo

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:   A few things: 1) maybe read the article first before ranting; 2) do you remember the 2010 midterms? if you want your supporters to stay energized you need to give them a reason–those senators you worry about getting elected won’t hold their seats if regular folks don’t see things change in their lives in response to who they elect; 3) we have a responsibility to push our electeds to do bigger & bolder things than they are comfortable with–it was Obama who repeatedly told us that we needed to keep the pressure on him to bring about change; 4) the last aside about “how many other Trumps are out there” pretty much sums all of that up; 5) if you don’t think what McConnell has done vis a vis tax law & the Federal judiciary isn’t an example of change that isn’t incremental that has happened in front of your eyes, I don’t know what to say to you–we need to make chang/do stuff like this…except that it helps makes average folks lives better in ways that they can see/feel.

  82. 82.

    fourmorewars

    @TS (the original): He WOULD be an ideal ad hoc ambassador.

    Plus, of course, decent people are dying to see the Trump-repudiating joy of foreign crowds flocking to shout his name to the skies. Post-covid.

  83. 83.

    Baud

    @marcopolo:

    I don’t see how the tax cuts are any more or less incremental than Obamacare.  What is incremental is apparently in the eye of the beholder.

  85. 85.

    Ksmiami

    @MattF: especially when an attendee loses a toe to gangrenous hypothermia but what’s losing a body pArt or two in service of Dear Leader

  87. 87.

    germy

    if I were slowly succumbing to frostbite in a Omaha parking lot I would simply regret that I have only so many extremities to give for the pleasure of seeing our delightful president gyrate to Macho Man

    — inverted vibe curve: burgertown must be defended (@PatBlanchfield) October 28, 2020

  91. 91.

    germy

    I think this is not a rare occurrence.

    A third-party candidate in the MN-02 House race who died in September told a friend he'd been recruited by Republicans to spoil the race for the incumbent Democrat, according to the Star Tribune.

    "They want me to run as a third-party, liberal candidate." https://t.co/DtniE3GYch

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 28, 2020

  92. 92.

    James E Powell

    @germy:

    Trump could dump the porta-johns on his supporters and they would claim they enjoyed it. They are ruled by their hatred & bigotry.

  97. 97.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @marcopolo:

    A few things: 1) maybe read the article first before ranting;

    I don’t have as much time for her as you do. I just went by the excerpts that you, as a fan, chose as evidence of how awesome she is, and her own recent public statement about politics.

    if you want your supporters to stay energized you need to give them a reason

    how does telling people democrats are weak and full of bullshit and corrupt motivate our voters? how is dismissing Democrats’ hard-fought achievements encourage voters?

    3) we have a responsibility to push our electeds to do bigger & bolder things than they are comfortable with

    our electeds have to get elected first, again, how does talking about their weakness, cowardice and corruption help?

    5) if you don’t think what McConnell has done vis a vis tax law & the Federal judiciary isn’t an example of change that isn’t incremental that has happened in front of your eyes,

    McConnell’s Senate and SC are the result of fifty years of pushing rocks up hill and keeping their eyes on larger prizes, of telling their followers that voting for a pro-life dogcatcher was advancing the will of god. And they were helped along in that effort by the man Herself supported in the 2020 primary telling millions of people in 2016 that TPP was more important than RBG, even as McConnell was holding the Garland seat hostage. Mona Charen spoke for a lot of conservatives in ’92 when she said the campaign for Bush’s reelection should be “Only Four More Years”; Susan Sarandon spoke for most of Rose Twitter when she told them and us that four years of trump would bring the Revolution. Who won the long game?

    we need to make chang/do stuff like this…except that it helps makes average folks lives better in ways that they can see/feel.

    again, point out what has been done, how many of the most vulnerable people’s lives have been made better, how many more people’s lives could be better if Republicans didn’t block the efforts of Democrats, don’t loudly and publicly dismiss them as half-assed failures by incrementalist pussies (again, I really don’t like that kind of gendered language about courage and strength, just following Herself’s example.) Fight the real enemy, as Sinead O’Connor told us. Don’t send the Sunrise Movement to stage a sit-in in Nancy Pelosi’s office, send them to McConnell’s, or to the trump EPA offices. If I had more time, and I don’t, as I have to remind myself, I could go on.

    And I don’t hate her, but I think she has a lot of growing up to do as person and a politician. I honestly try to think back to when I was thirty, and did I have such a willfully naive understanding of the American political system– “Look out the window, Mitch”– I really don’t think I did.

  99. 99.

    WaterGirl

    I was watching an episode of Longmire while I was walking on the treadmill.  Words of wisdom, from that episode:

    Push any man too hard, and sooner or later they are going to push back.

    That’s what they have done – Trump, McConnell, Barr, all of them.

    They couldn’t quit while they were ahead, they had to grind our faces into the dirt, and then spit on us, the constitution, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

    I hope these fuckers go down hard, every single one of them.  And hopefully for their troubles, their actions will have brought us an expanded Supreme Court, which will no longer be packed and unbalanced.

  100. 100.

    Kent

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Either way, I call bullshit. Somebody was incompetent, that’s all.

    ETA: Or cruel and unfeeling, of course. That’s always a strong possibility.

    My guess?  SOMEONE didn’t want to pay all the drivers overtime or extra time to sit around through the whole rally waiting.  That decision would have been made either by the campaign, or the charter bus company.  Probably the campaign because only the Trump campaign would be that venal and stupid.

  102. 102.

    WaterGirl

    @Kent: Somewhere in the previous thread was a link or a report that the drivers were overheard confirming that they were only hired for ONE WAY.  Not the return trip.

  103. 103.

    Kent

    @Baud:

    @marcopolo:

    I don’t see how the tax cuts are any more or less incremental than Obamacare.  What is incremental is apparently in the eye of the beholder.

    All change in this country has either been incremental or violent.  Those are the two options.  And the only successful example of violent change was the Civil War.  And even that horrific event only resulted in incremental change that took over 140 years to bring to fruition.  In fact, we are still working on it.

  104. 104.

    rp

    @MattF: Could be a big deal if it’s someone still in the admin. and they trash Trump publicly in the last couple days. That would be a nice October surprise.

  105. 105.

    Kent

    @WaterGirl:@Kent: Somewhere in the previous thread was a link or a report that the drivers were overheard confirming that they were only hired for ONE WAY.  Not the return trip.

    So it was the campaign then.  They didn’t want to pay double (or triple) to have all the drivers sit around in their vehicles waiting for the event to be over.

  106. 106.

    Baud

    @Kent:

    Fair enough.  I understand the line between incremental and violent, more or less.  I’m less clear on the line between incremental and transformative as used by the people who think the distinction is an important one.

  109. 109.

    Bluegirlfromwyo

    @Steeplejack: What’s so awful about that is I’m not sure if it’s satire or not. I swear, I’m going to have to go through deprogramming along with the cult.

  111. 111.

    Kent

    @Baud:

    @Kent:

    Fair enough.  I understand the line between incremental and violent, more or less.  I’m less clear on the line between incremental and transformative as used by the people who think the distinction is an important one.

    Can you point to an example of “transformative” legislation that was not incremental?

  114. 114.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @germy: Rick Wilson, Conway’s fellow LPer, has hinted that he knows who anonymous but can’t say more. Then again, one of his more annoying tics is hinting at valuable knowledge he can’t reveal.

    I’ve seen speculation that it’s Kirstjen Nielson, and that former aide of hers who’s now making anti-trump commercials– Miles Taylor? Taylor Miles?– is her cat’s paw.

  115. 115.

    taumaturgo

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Incremental change is for center-right status quo defenders democrats, for others that are actually living the shit life, there is little time or patient for bipartisan commissions, stern warnings, or empty quivers. All Democrats should demand that the leadership of the party clearly define their stance vis a vis the working class and stop cowering to the GOP.

  116. 116.

    Baud

    @Kent:

    I’m not one to use those terms so no.  The 1964 Civil Rights Act was certainly more transformative than the Springfield Post Office Renaming Act of 2012. But I’m not aware of a piece of legislation that was considered transformative (from a progressive point of view) at the time it was passed, as opposed to in hindsight.

  117. 117.

    taumaturgo

    @Kent: Ask Moscow Mitch. He has shown by words and deeds how to yield power to get the results they wish. BTW, as far as I can tell the GOP style doesn’t include bipartisan commissions.

  118. 118.

    Baud

    @taumaturgo:

    as far as I can tell the GOP style doesn’t include bipartisan commissions.

    Trump’s voter suppression commission was bipartisan. Which is what helped us defeat it.

  119. 119.

    Ocotillo

    The horse race is getting to me.  I am worried I am in a bubble and wrong thinking Biden walks away with this thing.  I see things like GOP turnout in Florida is strong.  I read stuff about the GOP ground game is better in PA and WI.  Add to the mix foreign interference, voter suppression, COVID, a 6-3 court just salivating at the chance to help Trump and stories of AA men and Latino men going more for Trump this cycle and Nov 4 can’t get here quick enough.

    Someone reassure me.

  122. 122.

    patroclus

    @Kent: The Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, the Motor Carrier Act of 1935, Glass-Steagall, the Bretton Woods Agreements Act, the creation of the Selective Service and its extension, the Lend-Lease Act, the War Powers Act, the Defense Production Act, the creation of NATO, the Social Security Act, the National Housing Act, the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal trade Commission Act, the Clayton Act, the Esch-Cummings Act, the Wagner Act, the Fair Labor Relations Act, the Natural Gas Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act.  All transformative; not incremental.  And I could go on…

  128. 128.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @taumaturgo: no, it involves winning seats in the House and Senate

    I know you, or the role you play, are incapable of grasping that, the trouble is so are some people who are taken far more seriously than they should be

  129. 129.

    Geminid

    One week into the delayed Big Ten football season, this Saturday’s Wisconsin/Nebraska game is cancelled, due to a Covid-19 outbreak among the Wisconsin team.

  130. 130.

    LurkerNoLonger

    @Ocotillo: Someone reassure me.

     

    Ask yourself this, would you rather be in Biden’s or Trump’s position 6 days from the election? Try to put all of that other noise out of your mind. Feel better?

  131. 131.

    taumaturgo

    @Baud: Impartial observers would be hard press to take comfort in the commissions’ defeat giving current election circumstances. I’ll hate to think about what would the election and voting conditions be if they had “won.”

  132. 132.

    Baud

    @taumaturgo:

    Irrelevant to the point, which was your assertion that the GOP never cares about looking bipartisan.  They traditionally have cared about it.

  134. 134.

    patroclus

    @Baud: The ACA qualifies in some ways (the protection for pre-existing conditions) but not in others (expanding Medicare/Medicaid were re-writes of those laws, which do qualify).  On its own, Dodd-Frank was a re-write of Gramm-Leach-Bliley, the CFTC Modernization Act, FDICIA and FIRREA and some of the earlier banking statutes, so it doesn’t qualify, but viewed in tandem with the FMA, the CFTC Modernization Act, FIRREA and FDICIA, it would qualify.  It regularized capital regulation, the push-out requirements and re-imposed Glass-Steagall-like provisions with the Volcker Rule etc…; the creation of the CFPB might in time be regarded as transformational, but it’s too weak to conclude that now.

  135. 135.

    taumaturgo

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s the dog chasing its tail. Vote for the lesser of two evils, and wait for center-right changes which historically have given the GOP advantage of winning elections in which they lose the popular vote and has given the same GOP a 6-3 majority in the Supreme Court. Vote and you get a billionaire tax cut, a corporate Covid bailout, and zero extension of unemployment or rent assistance. In a sane world, any party that produces results like these should have dumped their center-right leadership long ago unless they believe the status quo is supreme, shit life for the majority non withstanding.

  136. 136.

    Baud

    @patroclus:

    I appreciate your point of view, but all other statutes that you mentioned, which all have been amended over the years, are also incomplete and imperfect.  The whole thing seems subjective to me, which is why I try to avoid those labels.

  137. 137.

    patroclus

    @Baud: Yeah, legislation is a process – it often takes multiple bites at the apple for transformation to really take place.  The Securities laws are a collection of 9 statutes which, at the time, were not regarded as transformational, but became so only after much time elapsed and they were upheld by the Courts (Electric Bond and Share; Wickard v. Filburn).  And they became generally acceptable to (virtually) all.  The Motor Carrier Act, for example, which outlawed “undue discrimination” in interstate bus traffic, just sat there for 25 years and wasn’t enforced, and then along came Boynton v. Virginia in 1960, which then inspired the Freedom Rides (with John Lewis) and the statute was given life and breadth and became transformational.  Only with some history and retrospective judgment can these views really be ascertained – over time, the ACA (if confirmed by the courts) and Dodd-Frank might rise to that level.  We don’t know that quite yet.

  138. 138.

    taumaturgo

    @Chyron HR: Right. While Democrats fiddle with bills, Mitch yields power to produce the results they aimed at and to increase said power by weakening the opposition which is by all measures is weak, to begin with.

  139. 139.

    geg6

    @taumaturgo:

    I think you need to go back to school and take PoliSci 101 and get a tutor to teach you the actual meaning of the terminology of the field.  Because you’re doing it wrong.

  140. 140.

    Ohio Mom

    Germy @ 91: We had one of those incognito Republicans for a while in my congressional district, OH-2.

    William Smith. Put in his name up as a Democrat in the primary  to pull votes away from the legit candidate. Always succeeded and always lost to the Republican in the general.

    Did that for a few cycles, then he apparently decided his work was done. Haven’t heard about him for at least two elections now,

    My District is heavily gerrymandered. Ages ago, the Republicans in Columbus split the Cincinnati metro area on two, attaching each half to a large rural area. My district snakes next to the Ohio River, and Smith lived/s in the hinterlands.

    I don’t know who he got to sign the petitions to get him on the ballot but after getting his name into the primary race, he was famous for never leaving the rocking chair on his porch. Reporters had to visit him there for their stories.

    Might make an interesting book, all these ringers.

  143. 143.

    Anoniminous

    @Barbara:

    oh, c’mon

    In Infotainment Medium’s Propaganda Land a Democratic 7 point lead is “narrow, endangered, and will collapse when Real People vote” and a Republican 7 point lead is “massive, unbeatable, giving the candidate certainty of victory.”

    Saw this extact type of crap in Representatives Omar and Ocasio-Cortez’s primary elections this summer.

  148. 148.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @patroclus: I’ll admit I don’t know what some of those bills are, much less their history, but… I think we have very different notions of what incrementalism is, both between you and me, and between both of us and AOC, her political mentor and their most fervent followers.

  150. 150.

    Bill Arnold

    @taumaturgo:
    Go do something useful like enhance contradictions in Russia. (Actually sort of serious about that; Russia need a good political … cleansing, and the current government is more vulnerable than it realizes.)

  151. 151.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @WaterGirl: They care only for themselves, which we have known for a very long time.

    Reminiscent of the old joke about the doctor confronting his patient with one even worse diagnosis/prognosis after another. Each time the patient cries out That’s terrible the doc replies Could be worse.

    Finally the patient shouts How the hell could it possibly be worse? and the doc replies, Could be happening to me.

    (Most MDs are not this insensitive to their patients’ feelings – but it’s probably common enough to strike a nerve. Particularly in a charge-humongous-med-school-tuition-&-let-them-make-big-bucks-once-in-practice system like ours.)

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