Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

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

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

We still have time to mess this up!

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

No Justins, No Peace

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

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

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

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

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

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

In my day, never was longer.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Uphill Battle

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Uphill Battle

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Maybe once again A Democrat will pay, for certain values of ‘Democrat’…

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109Comments

  4. 4.

    Steeplejack

    Okay, I have been waiting for this thread. I am feeling perky today and ready to mix it up. Might even have the strength to watch the eight o’clock rerun of the Morning Joe opening.

    First up:

    @RSchooley, May 2016: “Remember the board of directors every time you read a story about Theranos.” [Picture]

    @RSchooley, June 2016: “From $4.5 billion to nothing: Forbes revises estimated net worth of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.”

    @RSchooley, today: “What a journey!”

    CNN: “James Mattis testifies he wasn’t sure why Elizabeth Holmes asked him to join Theranos board.”

    Click for “Who, me?” picture of Mad Dog Mattis.

  15. 15.

    Steeplejack

    Some fuel for Kay:

    Brian Murphy on Twitter:

    Guess everyone in DC is just going to pretend John Eastman is one of Trump’s mob lawyers rather than a Federalist Society leader and law school dean who clerked for Clarence Thomas and spent a lot of time developing a playbook for Republicans to steal an election. Polite society!

    Real head scratcher why elite institutions are hemorrhaging legitimacy.

  19. 19.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    Fine by me.  Those same assholes have filled up our hospitals because they are the stupidest, meanest fucking assholes.

    Suzi endorsed LePage yesterday.

  20. 20.

    Steeplejack

    Code Blue! Mika is at the White House! In the rain!

    Actually, the rain is kind of nice. It’s 61° and drizzly here in Threadkill Lane, very dark outside in that aquarium-green way that whispers, “Work from bed today, Steep.”

    Back to the studio. Oh, shut up Joe. He’s blathering about how, since the Democrats control the presidency, the House and the Senate and “control their destiny,” if they don’t get a deal done they will end up in the minority. He is tits deep in Murc’s Law. (“Only Democrats have agency; Republicans are like the weather or something.”) No discussion from the panel of the Republicans or what they are doing.

    Hmm, might have to check what’s on HGTV.

  25. 25.

    Patricia Kayden

    Here’s hoping that voters don’t punish President Biden for the nonsense going on right now in the Senate. He’s blameless and I’m so relieved that he is in the White House.

  26. 26.

    Kay

    @Steeplejack:

    They could absolutely get away with this and anyone who denies it is delusional. From the Eastman memo:

    At the end, he announces that because of the ongoing disputes in the 7 States,
    there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those States.

    Replace “he” (the VP) with GOP members of congress or GOP state representatives or GOP judges or GOP governors.

    During the attempted coup, there were a whole group of elite legal commentors who were basically arguing, “we won’t have a coup because coups are illegal”. You just want to bash your head against a wall. Thirty years of watching these people operate, they learned nothing.

  28. 28.

    Soprano2

    @Steeplejack: My God, does he think we’re all that stupid? She was credibility-shopping, pure and simple. It’s embarrassing for all those older, supposedly smart men that she was able to hoodwink them so easily.

  29. 29.

    Betty

    @Spanky: I believe Kyrsten has other plans than re-election. So, she doesn’t care. I just wish there were some way to embarrass her to at least stop the sabotage.

  30. 30.

    Kay

    @Steeplejack:

    Roe v Wade is still good law. Abortions are now banned in Texas.

    “We won’t have a coup because coups are illegal”. Okey doke, counselor. Thanks for reciting the rules.

  33. 33.

    John S.

    @Steeplejack:

    Media be like… Democrats are divided over how best to help people, while Republicans are united over how best to hurt people.

    Advantage: Republicans

    This. Nothing else needs to be said.

  34. 34.

    Steeplejack

    @Kay:

    Inorite. It beggars the imagination.

    And Anna Palmer, founder of Punchbowl News, was just telling Joe that Mitch McConnell has been “very clear” the last two months in [his opposition to everything] and that the Democrats are “dithering” in their response. Bad Democrats. I can’t even.

  35. 35.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: During the attempted coup, there were a whole group of elite legal commentors who were basically arguing, “we won’t have a coup because coups are illegal”. You just want to bash your head against a wall. Thirty years of watching these people operate, they learned nothing.

    Yeah, that was super dumb, as if people ask permission before fomenting a coup. These people think our system is immune from this kind of manipulation, but this memo shows that it’s not. I wish the press were paying 1/100th of the amount of attention to this that they did to Hillary’s e-mail server management, which they deemed to be the most important issue of the 2016 election (and no, I’m never going to get over that, don’t ask).

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    @Spanky: Sinema has not had strong Democratic primary opponents before, but I think she knows she will face a strong one in 2024 if she thwarts the Democratic agenda. Congressman Greg Stanton, former mayor of Phoenix, is one possibilty. After electing Mark Kelly last year, Arizona Democrats know they can elect a Senator who does not pursue a centrist strategy. Job one for Democrats there is to reelect Kelly next year. That election will give them a sense of whether Sinema can be replaced.

    Democrats will also know by then if Sinema is in fact an obstruction, or is just milking her centrist role and in the end votes for important initiatives like the second infrastructure bill and the revised John Lewis Voting  Rights Act. Even then, a lot of Arizona Democrats will still want to primary Sinema as payback for all the heartburn she’s given them.

  38. 38.

    Steeplejack

    Joe and the gang keep circling back to the French submarines issue. It’s like the house is burning down but let’s talk about how the neighbors want us to trim our tree that’s hanging too far over the fence.

  39. 39.

    Soprano2

    @Steeplejack: was just telling Joe that Mitch McConnell has been “very clear” the last two months in [his opposition to everything

    It’s obvious to me that most of the press agrees with Republicans on this, that’s why they talk about it the way they do. If something like this had happened when TFG was president, they also would have blamed it on “Democratic intransigence” and asked why Democrats couldn’t just vote for it to keep from crashing the economy. It’s OK with them if Republicans don’t care about that.

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    I read Marshall’s piece on Sinema yesterday, and his framing of the situation sounds right to me. Sinema’s bid to stake out a “mavericky” lane to collect enough votes from Democrats and independents might blow up, but it’s not because that lane doesn’t exist (it does!) but rather because she bungled the management of the split constituency by going out of her way to piss off Democrats.

    I don’t know if Marshall’s read is correct — he admits he doesn’t know the state well. But he knows people who do, and they’ve informed his thinking, plus there is some data. Of course, she’s not up for reelection for a while and maybe believes she can mend fences. Now would be a good time to start.

  42. 42.

    MJS

    @Betty:  She clearly loves attention. I’d bet big money that when she gets bounced from the Senate, she lands at Fox as the “Democrat” on any number of panels.

  43. 43.

    topclimber

    @debbie: Thanks to Mitch, Manchinema will have to put up or shut up on debt extension. They either vote to exempt it from the filibuster or agree to include it in reconciliation. Hopefully they don’t demand too high a price. Either they care about whether we default or not. At least we will know soon.

  45. 45.

    Geminid

    @Betty: That’s an interesting take. Sinema seems to be a political animal, and being Senator is a good job in terms of prestige and working conditions. I would expect Sinema to want to keep her job, but maybe you are right and she intends to walk away (or in her case run away) from her Senate seat. Even if she knows she’ll be walking away from her political career.

  47. 47.

    hueyplongex

    @Geminid: Her actions seem consistent with both (1) preening and (2) the sweet pharma money inducing her to throw a monkey wrench into this year and then proudly announcing a party change because “the Democratic Party left me” ahead of her reelection campaign.

    Don’t much care for (2).

  48. 48.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    this memo

    The memo is the last war. Don’t fight that one. They don’t need the VP. They just need state election officials or state legislatures or governors. They’ll have state election officials and the state legislators and governors will follow the lead of the state elections offocials who are, after all, state election officials.
    The next one isn’t going to look exactly like this one. That we have to tell “elite lawyers” that is just mindboggling. The problem is they are brittle. They cannot adapt to new or rapdily changing conditions.
    The easy part of lawyering is reading the rule and applying it. They have to get past that and do real thinking outside the way they are familiar with the rule. If they don’t they’re just not that valuable to us. I can do that, “read, apply, result” and so can you. They have to do more.

  50. 50.

    Geminid

    @hueyplongex: Sinema could not win a Republican primary in Arizona, any more than Jeff Flake could have. If she wants to stay in elective politics she has to remain a Democrat.

  51. 51.

    Butter Emails!

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I just keep thinking about how different the submarine issue would have been framed if it had occured under TFG. It would have been lauded as a triumph of his business acumen and the press would have been gloating about ‘merka pwning the wine drinking cheese munchers.

  52. 52.

    hueyplong

    @Geminid: Agree.  Just pointing out that her actions are so bad to date that they are as consistent with bad faith as they are with mere attention-seeking

    To get the GOP nomination you’d have to announce your intention to shoot immigrants and declare any Dem victory anywhere fraudulent, prior to the election at issue.

  53. 53.

    Steeplejack

    I’ma need a big dose of Perry Mason at 9:00 on MeTV to restore my sense of order in the universe. “The Case of the Gallant Grafter,” February 1960. Prime stuff.

    Goddamn, Eddie Glaude. Question to Cory Booker: “What does it mean that we’re [Democrats] not delivering again?”

  54. 54.

    Baud

    I’m as exasperated with Machin and Sinema as everyone else, but can we stop pretending that a McConnell controlled Senate wouldnt be worse? Foolish normies take our hyperbole at face value.

  57. 57.

    hueyplong

    @Baud: It’s fairly miraculous (2-0 in Georgia) that we don’t have a McConnell-controlled Senate right now.  It’s not unexpected that we’d chafe a little under a Senema- and Manchin-controlled Senate but, sure, it could be worse.

  58. 58.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: Sure, I was making the point that the existence of this memo shows that they can figure out a way around our system pretty easily, one way or another. And yeah, state election people standing between us and a coup is an unsettling prospect that the press isn’t taking seriously. Again, if the press thought this was 1/10 as important as Hillary’s e-mail server management everyone would know about it, because they would be covering it incessantly. But they aren’t, so too many people don’t take it seriously enough.

  59. 59.

    Baud

    @Butter Emails!:

    I agree.

    What’s pernicious is that, since Biden is pushing diplomacy over war, the media are treating this as a failure of diplomacy. Even though war with France is not an option, the idea is to discredit diplomacy generally.

  62. 62.

    Cameron

    @Baud: Plus the fact that it wasn’t the US that had the deal with France.  Why we’re at fault for Australia’s actions stumps me – yes, it would have been nice to give the French a heads-up, but it wasn’t our show.

  63. 63.

    Ken

    I posted this in the overnight thread on whining reporters, but it seems appropriate here too:

    Every reporter’s dream is to make ten million dollars for their book, titled: “U. S. OF ATROCITIES — How the United States became a dictatorship, and how I knew about the plans three years before it happened”.

    Though I feel they haven’t really thought through the plan, or they’d realize they’d have to be paid in euros.

  64. 64.

    Steeplejack

    Now on MSNBC, Garrett Haake in for Stephane Ruhle. “We start in Washington, where the Democrats have a mess on their hands.” Almost gleeful delivery.

    Okay, over to Perry.

  65. 65.

    Starfish

    @Steeplejack: “Law school” dean. Chapman University is ranked #134 in US News and world reports. They had him sitting in the CU seat for conservative thought. I feel like they are bestowing fake credentials upon a dude.

  66. 66.

    Baud

    @Ken:

    “U. S. OF ATROCITIES — How the United States became a dictatorship, and how I knew about the plans three years before it happened”. why Democrats failed to stop it.

     
    Fixed.

  69. 69.

    Steeplejack

    @Starfish:

    I don’t think that’s the “elite institution” being referred to. It’s the Federalist Society, the Supreme Court (via its clerk system) and the legal aristocracy in general.

  71. 71.

    burnspbesq

    @Soprano2:

    She ended up with what she needed: a board full of credulous old white guys with no conception of fiduciary duty.

    She needs to go down hard and spend a long time as a guest of the BOP. And she needs to be followed by a whole bunch of others. White-collar crime can be deterred, but only if the threat of losing everything and doing time is credible.

  72. 72.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Counterpoints: 1) I don’t think anyone who’s bitching about Manchinema is pretending that a McConnell-controlled senate wouldn’t be much worse, and 2) normies by definition wouldn’t read this blog, but if they did, it’s probably helpful to the cause for them to get the impression that it’s two Democratic senators jamming up the works than “Democrats” as a brand who can’t get their shit together.

  75. 75.

    Ken

    @Starfish: Can I ask Popehat if this is RICO?

    As with many such questions, the answer is “You can, if you are willing to suffer the consequences.”

  77. 77.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    Democrats need their own memo writers. Not as a blueprint for action or a set of instructions but to open it up and start thinking about what they can do on both defense and offense when a scenario like this comes to pass. Instead we’ll get analysis of that memo, in the same way we got endless analysis of “what will happen post-Roe” and none of them even imagined an end run. We can’t be that far behind. I mean, we CAN, we can continue to analyze far Right actions and insist they’re not legitimate and they can continue to take those actions.

    This is a radical, anti-democratic movement. An effective response to it will not be the same as the responses we have used in the past – we will need people who can think outside what has gone before. The Right has them. The Left needs them too. What the “elite liberal legal academy” can do if they can’t help – and it seems clear they can’t help- is at least allow different thinking and different discussions. They have to stop shutting that down.

  82. 82.

    Starfish

    @burnspbesq: In Colorado, we are also happy that Eastman is gone, but we would prefer that the entire Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization (a.k.a the place we store conservative cranks) would be gone.

  83. 83.

    zhena gogolia

    I am not paying any attention to news these days. You’re telling me this Australia story has legs? After all the multiple, blatant, obscene insults TFG dealt out to our allies without even a hiccup?

  85. 85.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    We don’t need fewer trillion dollar coin people- we need more of them. It’s not the coin! That’s not the thing! The coin is pretty dumb. But the 5th or 6th or 7th “trillion dollar coin”- like idea will have something worthwhile in it that we can use either in response to or to affirmatively use against what is a whole group of radical thinkers on the Right. The choice really ISN’T “follow existing law exactly as we always have” or “violence”. There’s a whole unexplored world between rigid and brittle reliance on what we have done in the past and “buy your weapon and prepare for war”.

  86. 86.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: The commenter at #47 is disgusted with Sinema, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to interpret the statement as a failure to acknowledge that a McConnell-controlled senate wouldn’t be worse. They say Sinema is setting up to switch teams, which I don’t think it right, but no where do I see them imply that would be a positive development.

    As for #2, my point was maybe it’s better for low-info voters to hear about two senators who are gumming up the works than to believe it’s “Democrats” writ large. Do you disagree?

    The senators in question should be treated fairly, i.e., no one should lie about their positions or falsely attribute quotes to them. But speculating about their strategy or saying they’re doing the will of their donors seems like fair game to me. We do that a lot around here.

  89. 89.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    There’s a third possibility. She doesn’t care that much if she loses the seat because now she’s really valuable in a private sector position and she can make a shit-ton more money as a former senator than she did as a senator.

  90. 90.

    Geminid

    @hueyplong: From what I read, the Arizona Republican party is divided between conservatives and radicals and and there is no room for a centrist ex-Democrat. Sinema probably knows this.

    As the first Democratic Senator elected in Arizona since Dennis DeConcini, Sinema may be thinking of the Arizona electorate she grew up with. Last year Democratic voter registrations only exceeded Independent by 32-31.7%, and had lagged behind before then. Republican registrations were at 35%. But Mark Kelly’s reelection contest will give a good picture of where Arizona voters are headed.

    In the meantime, I suspect Sinema will accept a compromise on the second infrastructure bill and move on. The next test could be the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

  91. 91.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I actually like the trillion dollar coin idea, both because it would solve the problem and would make the press and Republicans howl bloody murder. I also agree that our side needs people who can come up with novel ways to fix these problems, rather than wring their hands about how everything is oh so unfair. Of course, I still reserve the right to complain about how the press covers these issues, because they are still not taking TFG’s coup attempt and the Republican tendency to claim cheating every time they lose seriously enough. They are still acting like Joe Biden getting elected fixed all those problems.

    I was glad to see that when Biden met with these people he gave them concrete ideas for how to negotiate their differences, and told them to quit doing it in public. I think that’s the most maddening thing to me – was it really necessary for Joe Manchin to take to the pages of the WJS to air his unhappiness with the reconciliation bill? That seems like a stab in the back that he did because he knows he can.

    Did you check out that “Serial” podcast I suggested?

  92. 92.

    Another Scott

    @Cameron: I saw a blurb that said that Australia told France 3 months ago that there were problems with their proposal.  I think Macron did this fainting couch stuff for domestic reasons.

    This is less of a nothing burger than when Obama apologized to Merkel for the NSA spying on her cell phone…  (They hoover up everything outside the US – it’s their job and everyone knows it.)

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  95. 95.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    You can have two groups in a political party or broader ideology. You can have mechanics and designers. You need more mechanics than designers but you still need designers. We haven’t cultivated enough designers and we haven’t let them float enough wacky memos, because our mechanics insist on “THAT won’t work”. The mechanics will always rein them in. No one needs to be afraid of them. Just let them go. Give them the Eastman memo and ask them to think about all the possibilities. In time, maybe they can write a liberal memo.

  96. 96.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    I actually think it will happen anyway, I think “necessity is the mother of invention” and as the ordinary routes are closed off liberals will open new ones, because it’s happened before. FDR was radical and upending the traditional order because the traditional order was “conservatives run everything”. So it can happen now before we lose more or it can happen later when we’re in a corner but it has to happen, so it will. They’re going to adapt or they’re going to disappear. They’ll adapt.

  97. 97.

    Baud

    @numfar:

    Lots of judges and political appointees disagree with you. So do people who benefit from the child tax credit.  But, hey, hyperbole is important to our side.  Don’t let me stop the rhetoric.

  98. 98.

    Geminid

     

    @Cameron: I think we should have given the French better notice, but this problem will be worked out. The U.S. and France will still cooperate in important endeavors like restarting the JCPOA talks regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

  99. 99.

    VOR

    Don’t think for a minute that Secretary of State candidates believing TFG won the election is a new =, fringe element. This is mainstream orthodoxy. Remember, back in 2006, right after the mid-term elections, George W. Bush fired a bunch of US Attorneys supposedly because they weren’t doing enough to investigate (non-existent) voter fraud.

    I wish someone would ask these Republicans point blank “Do you think Democrats can ever legitimately win an election?”

  101. 101.

    Another Scott

    @VOR:  “I’m sure it can happen sometimes, but not here! People are saying that they think there was fraud and we have to get to the bottom of it!!1. Next question!”

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  103. 103.

    piratedan

    @Kay: I think there’s a lot of merit to this take and to what Geminid is triangulating as well.

    In regards to Sinema, she’s drawing all of the wrong conclusions… she dug the John McCain iconoclast persona, problem is, she hasn’t got a history of crashing expensive aircraft, nor has she enjoyed the POW gig and cutting a similar swath as an apolitical bi-woman fashionista doesn’t have the same cache outside of Scottsdale.

    I almost get the idea that to Sinema, this is role-play and that she doesn’t really have a good grasp on what good politics actually is.  If she was a weather vane, hurricane warning flags would be up but she’s still behaving unconcerned and I imply doesn’t care, because she’s gonna get paid.

    She may flutter back for some Dem initiatives and until she votes for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, I will remain skeptical as an Arizonan.  I fully expect in two years she will announce that she’s not seeking the office and will take the corporate/media route.  Even less work, all the pub, loads of perks and no more constituents.

    She strikes me that she sees politics as a means to an end and that end means keeping her flush with cash and comfort.

  106. 106.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott:

    I think Macron did this fainting couch stuff for domestic reasons.

    Absolutely.  If he had seen this coming, people would rightly hold him accountable.  If they hid the whole thing and sprung it on him 45 minutes before it was announced, he believes that he can’t be / won’t be held accountable.  He doesn’t want it to blow back on him.

    I feel certain that this is his play.

  107. 107.

    WaterGirl

    @numfar:

    [McConnell] effectively controls it [the senate] now.

    I can’t believe anyone would say that with a straight face.  Let alone expect to be believed.

    McConnell is most definitely obstructing everything he can AS THE MINORITY LEADER.

    If he was MAJORITY leader, things would be 100x worse.  We wouldn’t be chairing committees, for one thing.  Joe probably still wouldn’t have a cabinet yet, let alone a cabinet of talented people of like mind.

  109. 109.

    J R in WV

    @Steeplejack: 

    Joe and the gang keep circling back to the French submarines issue.

    I understand the French were trying to redesign their nuclear-powered boats to run on modern non-nuke power plants. The problem with that redesign was that the delivery dates kept slipping dramatically.

    Both the US and the UK can build nuclear-powered subs with a reasonably certain due date, which Aus can rely on. Sooner than the date the French were looking to provide their new subs by too.

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