"Tomorrow will mark one year since I took office,” President Biden says as he begins outlining his administration’s accomplishments. “It’s been a year of challenges but also a year of enormous progress.” pic.twitter.com/elPFntfNgi
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) January 19, 2022
Pres Biden, in the longest news conference in presidential history, made news, pushed back on critics, called out lies, took responsibility for mistakes he believes he made, expressed surprise at GOP, talked foreign policy and didn't lash out on reporters.
Quite the change.
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) January 19, 2022
Biden says “yes” he thinks VP Harris is doing a good job on voting rights (despite the bill headed for failure), and “yes” she will be his running mate in 2024
— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) January 19, 2022
"The fundamental question is, what's Mitch for?" Biden says, framing how he'll campaign against McConnell and congressional Republicans this year.
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) January 19, 2022
“I’m going to get out of this place more often,” Biden says at the White House https://t.co/qi2nGH2GxH
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) January 19, 2022
I'll take "there's so much more work I want to get done for you" over "I alone can fix it" in the Oval Office any day.
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) January 20, 2022
That was nearly two hours of POTUS.
He answered each question cogently and to the best of his ability.
He called on more than 20 different reporters.
He never once attacked us.
He never once avoided a question.
He never once tried to belittle us.
He stayed on point.
-30-— Brian J. Karem (@BrianKarem) January 19, 2022
The media wants to paint Joe Biden as a failure. He won’t let that happen, @JRubinBlogger writes: https://t.co/Um8PWdtNwO
— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) January 20, 2022
… Many of the questions from reporters verged on self-parody. Fox News’s Peter Doocy comically asked why Biden is pulling the country so far to the left. (Disclosure: I’m an MSNBC contributor.) The right-wing outfit Newsmax asked about his mental fitness for the job. It seemed everything was his fault, from Republicans’ refusal to support virtually any proposal to the fight between airlines and telecom companies over 5G.
Biden, for the most part, remained a “glass half full” president. “I’m not going to give up and accept things as they are now,” he said. “I call it ‘a job not yet finished.’” He stressed that the situation with covid-19 is improving. On school closures, he emphasized that 95 percent remain open.
He also seems to have heard complaints from Democrats, who have practically been begging him to focus more on his legislative successes. He started the news conference with a lengthy and passionate recitation of the low unemployment, widespread vaccination and infrastructure investment he achieved during his first year. “It’s been a year of challenges but also enormous progress,” he declared, conceding the nation should have done more testing earlier in the omicron surge. He also vowed to spend more time telling the country what he’s done and stressed the need to contrast his ambitions agenda with the stand-pat Republicans…
In a show of bravado, he asked if the reporters wanted to continue the presser for another hour or two. (He gave them 20 more minutes.) By then, he had demonstrated he had far more patience than was necessary considering the questions’ low quality.
In short, with the exception of the Russia questions, Biden turned in a strong performance that belies the right’s accusation that he is feeble. He was determinedly upbeat, ready to defend a productive first year and more pointed than he has been in dealing with Republican extremism. The press corps, by contrast, revealed once more that they put more emphasis on sounding tough, asking unanswerable questions and creating conflict than they do on exploring some of the gravest problems our country has ever faced. Our democracy deserves better.
debbie
What is this crap I read in the overnight thread about Rachel Maddow saying Biden’s press conference went too long? WTF?
Baud
I choose to recognize the 270 Dems that stood up for this country’s values rather than the 2 who joined the GOP in rejecting them.
O. Felix Culpa
@debbie: To quote Eolirin from that thread:
Kay
@debbie:
Oh, it’s funny. That Rachel Maddow thinks someone else “went on too long” :)
I love the complete lack of self awareness in that.
Baud
@debbie:
She and Chris Cilliza should go on the road with their act.
germy
news from upstate ny:
https://wnyt.com/columbia-county-ny-news/rally-against-hate-speech-held-in-chatham-columbia-county/6363601/?cat=10114
debbie
@Baud:
And let us also be grateful no one called him Brandon. //
Baud
???
NotMax
Not The Onion.
Chief Oshkosh
I disagree with her assessment that Biden is going to shrink his plans now that voting rights and BBB got tanked by the Republicans and two additional shitheels. It may be that he can get everything he wanted for BBB by more-or-less quietly paying for small chunks of it by Executive action. We’ll see. As to voting rights, I’m still freaked out that even the President seems to think that voter suppression is the big concern. It is a problem, and possibly the main one that regular people can help address (by voting), but I think think the larger issue is the bits and pieces of legislation from lots of states that take power from voters and give it to the counting process, run by the same people who created the new laws.
PsiFighter37
Not sure I’d call myself a Biden Democrat. The floundering on strategy the past few months has been bad. Not trolling but a realistic view of how the past couple of months have played out.
OzarkHillbilly
A commentor over at OTB who leans libertarian said of Biden’s performance yesterday, “Somebody ate his Wheaties this morning.”
Baud
@PsiFighter37:
It all depends on whether you focus on strategy or values. It’s a personal choice.
Kay
The DOJ is and will be bringing lawsuits so we’ll start to get a sense of what the new post-federal civil rights protections for voters landscape will look like. I don’t think anyone knows yet. States could stay where they are or go much further and no one knows how effective what’s left of the protections will be with a far Right Supreme Court.
The environment is different now. When they gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act the Supreme Court was not as far Right as it as now and since they gutted Section 5 they gutted Section 2, so both effectively gone.
The “state voting police” are also a new development:
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Yeah, I got that alert. To be honest, Gotham City barely registered in my brain and all I thought was, “It must be in northern Misery.” because it rang no bells for me.
NotMax
Media mention.
Never quite rises to a Spock-level “Fascinating.” although he might let slip an “interesting.” is the documentary Passage to Mars, found on Hulu.
John S.
And they are very subtle about it since every fucking headline this morning literally blares out DEMOCRATS FAIL.
They could have gone with REPUBLICANS BLOCK, but that really wouldn’t have advanced their agenda. Democrats are not good for their business. They want Republicans in power because they want carnage, they want chaos, and they want dysfunction so they can spend the next 2 years breathlessly talking about it before publishing their tell-all book and cashing in. They are nothing more than carrion, feasting on the corpses created by their agenda.
It’s really pretty fucking obvious.
OzarkHillbilly
Seeing as he can’t spend money not appropriated by Congress, anything he might accomplish via that route will be very limited. He has some leeway, but not much.
J.
I didn’t watch or listen to the press conference, but I’m a proud Biden supporter too and think he’s doing a good job, especially considering what he has to deal with. And I loathe the press/media for making him sound worse than Trump and rarely if ever touting how much better off and safer we are under him.
While there are some exceptions, the press has become a bunch of jackals, and I don’t mean the cute African or Balloon Juice variety.
Suzanne
@PsiFighter37: My WTF moment came when I read that Biden has been surprised by the GOP’s intransigence. Like…. REALLY?! If you’re surprised, you haven’t been paying attention. They’re terrible. All of them. The strategy needs to reflect that understanding.
I hope Joe was being somewhat generous in his language and that he really has expected them to be terrible all along. But one of my fears about these older Dems, especially the longtime Senators, is that they mistake the GOP and their former colleagues as reasonable and persuadable. They’re not.
ThresherK
What I hear is “Mainstream media ignores how Biden and Harris keep touting legilative successes”. Dem messaging is whatever the NYT, Fred Hiatt, and CNN determine it is; GOP messaging is whatever Fox News is told to say.
J.
@John S.: EXACTLY. (Just saw this after my comment posted.)
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Baud
Today show did mention that two Dems joined all Republicans 8n blocking the voting rights bill.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Whenever my husband hears a snippet of Biden as I’m watching these, he goes “He is such a good man!” That’s what comes through.
zhena gogolia
@Suzanne: Biden knows more about Republicans than any person on this blog, I can guarantee you.
OzarkHillbilly
Overheard yesterday at the Outdoor Supply store in Sullivan:
“So and so was having trouble getting health insurance so he went on that.. you know that website… Obamacare! Yeah, and you know what? He got the best health insurance ever! You should try them too.”
I didn’t hear his reply, I was so stunned by her full throated endorsement of “Obamacare”.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Whoa.
Phaedrus
I listened in the car while I was getting it washed, but tuned out during the questions when he stated, “My Republican friends”…
He is calling the people actively subverting our democracy his friends.
Yeah, he’s a failure – but not because he’s cognitively impaired or anything.
WereBear
First of all, I love to see President Biden come out and defy what the corporate press/right wing press/outright nut next door keeps repeating. I think the jolt might get people’s attention, too.
Also, this is more support for the diabolical move of the Democrats in running one old white man against another. Is this Winger Cryptonite? A kind of Pod Republican who does not reveal their soshalist tendencies right away? Or what?
They should be considered insane. A judge recently said so!
Baud
@Phaedrus:
Jesus. That’s lame.
NotMax
Repeated from last night because it blows me away they were able to pull it off so adroitly.
Need a feel good vibe and a smile? Amazingly, this, in one take, was originally aired live. In 1958. Those early cameras and cables and lights were far from the easiest equipment to move around.
Steve and Eydie and Ann and Steve and Dinah. Oh, and a cameo by some guy named Frank.
:·D
zhena gogolia
@Baud: He’s supposed to only refer to them as “those fucking assholes.” Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Baud
@NotMax:
Submit it to reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PraiseTheCameraMan/
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Yep. Just shows that a lot of people want a Democratic Trump.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Yeah, exactly. It might take a few years to sink in but sometimes we really do win.
Thank you, Obama.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Not worth it.
satby
@Phaedrus: sarcasm. Learn to recognize it.
Suzanne
@Baud: That’s excessive. I think Joe comes from the good-ol-boy days of the Senate, and I hope he is clear-eyed about what kind of crap they are. But I don’t think it’s necessarily Trumpian to think that kind of talk “my friends on the other side” feels a bit generous. I hope it is just excessively good manners.
I mean, we have all taken tons of well-deserved shits on Sinema and Manchin here, but, like… some Republicans could have supported voting rights. They’re crap and it would be nice to recognize that.
zhena gogolia
For a politically savvy blog, I’m sometimes amazed at how people on here take literally what an elected official says in public.
WereBear
@Baud: Which I find difficult to wrap my head around, but these are the times we are trapped in.
zhena gogolia
@Suzanne: And what do you think the media would do with it if he called them a bunch of assholes?
satby
There was also this Freudian slip by McConnell: https://twitter.com/stridinstrider/status/1484013191101362176?s=20
rikyrah
David Darmofal (@david_darmofal) tweeted at 10:01 PM on Wed, Jan 19, 2022:
One important point worth noting: many Democratic senators had been opposed to changing the legislative filibuster. Tonight, all but 2 of them changed their positions & voted for filibuster reform for voting rights. That’s progress for Dems to build on w/ additional Senate wins.
(https://twitter.com/david_darmofal/status/1484013081307103236?t=dI-sTSmxWVMtbVOegVGt_w&s=03)
Baud
@Suzanne:
It’s traditional protocol. I’m pretty sure McConnell has used it when taking about Dems. No one accuses him off being misguided.
satby
@Baud: exactly. Assholish authoritarianism is bipartisan.
lowtechcyclist
@PsiFighter37:
I’m not sure how much he could have done differently, absent having a device enabling him to exercise mind control over Manchin and Sinema.
I think he should have given up on hopes of bipartisanship much earlier, and basically called out Republicans as traitors in the war on Covid. (I’m a big believer in negative partisanship, and besides, it’s freakin’ true.) Other than that, got any ideas? Because that’s about all I’ve got.
Kay
Just a note on electoral count act “reform”, because the reporting is sloppy and Manchin is driving it, as usual.
There are two working groups. There’s a group of Senate Democrats and then Romney and Collins. Manchin and Sinema are backers of the Romney/Collins/GOP effort, not the Democratic one. Romney doesn’t have ten Republicans, even if one includes Manchin and Sinema.
lowtechcyclist
They used to call that a ‘Kinsley gaffe’ – when someone slips and speaks the truth that they’re not supposed to say aloud.
rikyrah
Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) tweeted at 5:24 PM on Wed, Jan 19, 2022:
Want to know why WH reporters are freaking out about Biden dismissing polls? Most of them are incapable of asking a serious question about substance. So they fall back on asking about polls.
(https://twitter.com/NormOrnstein/status/1483943409815539718?t=LG50fVlctC4DQLXN0mX2Tg&s=03)
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good. I got tired of those rumors that Manchinema was providing cover for secret unnamed Dem senators.
sab
@Suzanne: After four years of Trump I can happily accept a bout of excessively good manners. I think Biden umderstands these people perfectly.
Kay
This is exactly the same play Manchin did on gun regulation. After Sandy Hook, there was support for some measures of gun regulation. Manchin declared he had 10 Republicans, got nothing done for a couple of weeks other than running his mouth, until the news of the slaughter of the first graders faded and opponents of gun regulation had some political cover, and then never mentioned it again.
Baud
@Kay:
Honestly, I prefer leaving Harris the power to disregard electoral votes from republican state legislatures who overturn elections.
Baud
@Kay:
I got the sense that Biden is about to follow your advice and disassociate himself from Congress.
Patricia Kayden
NotMax
@Baud
“The pain, the pain.”
Oh. Not that Harris.
Never mind.
/Emily Litella
;)
Another Scott
@Phaedrus: One doesn’t get to be a successful politician by being stupid about how politics works. He was explicit about what he’s doing, and let people follow along about what he didn’t say.
E.g. He said that he doesn’t call them names in public, but has lots of conversations with them in private (where I’m sure the appropriate hammers and 4 letter words come out for emphasis). He won’t back them into a corner where they can’t support him without losing face.
As long as every vote matters he will do everything he can to get every vote to move forward. It’s that simple.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Kay: Have Ohio Republicans instituted any new voter suppression/election subversion measures yet? This seems to be a Southern phenomenon so far.
WereBear
Anyone remember the mini-series, V, and its sequel? I own it, that’s how enamored I am, and now it’s an eerie replica of our situation in some ways.
We are endangered by people who believe in lizards who look like people.
And scientists are being threatened with death.
Sure Lurkalot
@Baud:
I agree but it appears that a fair number of Americans value low gas prices and shelves overstocked with cheap goods more than anything…certainly more than a decent health care system or easy access to voting.
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
Or higher wages!
Denali
It is very discouraging to see Manchin and Sinema support the filibuster to block voting rights. President Biden should not have to fight so hard for the right thing for our country.
WereBear
@Sure Lurkalot:
One of the legacies of a Confederate culture in the area is the way the working class, of any category, are actively discouraged from aspiring too much.
Yes, they have been trained to undermine themselves, all with the stick of falling further down the caste ladder.
Soprano2
@NotMax: Yep, I got that on my phone! It was hilarious! I thought it was just a test, though.
sab
@Geminid: One dropbox per county for absentee ballots isn’t helpful, especially in urban counties.
Soprano2
@John S.: Listening to an NPR reporter talking to an administration official about Ukraine, you can hear it in the reporter’s voice how much they want Biden to send U.S. troops to Ukraine. They have been deprived of their “war” in Afghanistan, so now they’re trying to get one in Ukraine.
Jay
@WereBear:
my local bookstore moved the dystopian SiFi novels to the current events section,
the glossy travel books to the Fantasy section,
and the Epidemiology textbooks to the Self Help section.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: I was thinking in my head what I would like to say to the reporter’s questions as I was listening to the press conference, and there was a lot of “fuck” in there. I know Biden can’t say that, but I’m sure he’s sometimes thinking it! The only good question I heard came from a foreign reporter, it was something about Yemen.
Ksmiami
@Kay: He and Sinema are total wastes of space. Do-nothing morons
sab
@Jay: Truly? or //?
Anne Laurie
This is President Biden’s version of your favorite teacher’s ‘I’m not mad at you for behaving badly; I’m just disappointed.’
Only Republicans — like high school gym teacher / sportsball coaches — are allowed to smack bad students around & call them moron losers. Democrats have to use ‘persuasion’… which may not work on the moron losers, but does sometimes shame the rest of the class into behaving themselves.
Starfish
@PsiFighter37: I think that there were so many things that were just torched by the previous administration that it was hard to focus on a single thing because so many things are on fire.
Focusing on fighting with Republican clowns and Sinema and Manchin as the pandemic was taking off again seemed out of step with what was really bothering people.
Hoodie
@Suzanne: The GOP’s biggest problem is that Trump is still alive. There seems to be some movement among GOP PTB to test whether they can sideline Trump. Some may think they can go back to the pre-Trump era in which they ran and won on various culture war issues (god, guns and gays replaced by CRT and trans) behind some generic GOP candidates. They may think they will be able to pivot to DeSantis or some other more manageable Trump replacement. However, they may be forgetting that probably the biggest reason they have 50 senators and 6 SC justices is Trump. He provides a certain joie de guerre I can’t see Dumpy DeSantis (who has the personality of a Stasi agent) or any other GOP wannabe being able to replicate. Plus, they would have to deal with Trump out there threatening to undermine them if they try to cut him out. They would prefer a dead Trump they can eulogize like Reagan.
There are two potentially more important things going on while Joe is conferring with the village idiots, namely, the Jan 6 committee has won what looks like unhindered access to Trump’s presidential records and James is teeing up fraud allegations in NY. We may soon be seeing prime time hearings airing out all the bullshit that went down leading up to Jan 6, concurrent with NY headlines about Trump’s various tax evasion scams. While those two things might not reduce the ardor of Trump’s cult followers (it might actually cause them to dig in deeper), they potentially put a significant portion of the GOP in a bind; do you stick with Trump and risk getting hurt among the suburban voters you need to win (e.g., along the lines of how Youngkin won) or cut him lose and risk him burning everything down? No need for Joe to get in a name calling battle with Republicans at this point, as that unnecessarily changes the focus of events. His current tack allows him to make it about the GOP being in the thrall of a wannabe dictator and fraudster, which ultimately makes them look weak. The main purpose of the press conference was to highlight accomplishments and demonstrate that Joe is still out there punching.
Steeplejack
I’m a bit grumpy this morning. About 7:30 I canceled my post-op appointment later this morning with the urologist in Largo, MD, based on the scaremongering TV weather coverage, and now it seems like it’s all a big nothingburger. It’s raining a bit here in Threadkill Lane, but it doesn’t look like it’s changing to snow, much less that we’ll get the predicted 2″. It wouldn’t be so bad except that the person on the phone told me that the next available appointment is on March 8. Yikes—long time. I asked them to call me about something earlier, so I guess I’ll hear about that eventually. Grr.
The other thing that swayed me was that a lot of schools announced closings last night, and I figured they would have a good handle on the situation. Oops. Guess I’ll console myself with the thought that I probably wouldn’t want to be out driving in commuter traffic and (possibly freezing) rain anyway.
Okay, now to redirect my irritation toward the White House press corps, the Republicans and the two feckless Dem renegades.
p.a.
Wikipedia:
“All 34 Class 3 Senate seats are up for election in 2022; Class 3 currently consists of 14 Democrats and 20 Republicans…
Five Republican senators and one Democratic senator have announced that they are not seeking re-election; 15 Republicans and 13 Democrats are running for re-election.”
5 incumbent R retiring: MO, OH, PA, NC, AL. 1 D: VT
Can’t post the map photo☹️ but GA & AZ seem the most iffy Dem ‘holds’, even without Jim Crow.
Geminid
@Anne Laurie: The difference is that here some of the “good” students want to hear the name calling. I think this may be a matter of confusing tough talk with toughness.
sab
@Steeplejack: On the brighter side, someone was very happy to get your cancelled appointment, as you will be when someone else cancels.
Spanky
@Baud: The quality of trolls at this blog has really declined. Who can I complain to?
JMS
@ThresherK: Fred Hiatt is dead so that’s quite a trick that he’s setting an agenda from beyond the grave.
zhena gogolia
@lowtechcyclist: I don’t think it’s a slip. He says it quite slowly and deliberately.
zhena gogolia
@sab: Exactly.
Layer8Problem
@ThresherK: We no longer have the highly-eulogized Fred Hiatt to kick around anymore, having left for that great green room in the sky to ruminate over the latest New York Times Pitchbot tweet with David Broder. Hey, I still say “Koch Brothers,” even though we lost the high-culture one. Just sounds better.
Gin & Tonic
@Soprano2: I can tell you that Ukraine Twitter was not happy with his remarks.
Brant
@Phaedrus: That’s a rhetorical device, you nimrod.
Geminid
@Steeplejack: I listen to WTOP off of their Fredericksburg transmitter, so I heard their weather forecast for this morning. It was scary! Blatant driver suppression.
Quinerly
@NotMax: l got one.
Starfish
@Kay: The number of times Manchin has failed to count to ten. Someone should run against him on the “Manchin does not know how to count to ten” agenda.
lurker
@debbie:
@O. Felix Culpa:
Saw that in the thread last night, then watched a replay of maddow later. If she complained in the show, I misheard it. I specifically heard her mention that it was a long press conference, and then talk about how a bunch of other news had been dumped somewhat randomly, such as the TFG documents/privilege ruling from the supreme court. She also mentioned technical gremlins that caused her to do the show from her house.
What I did not hear was a complaint about Biden’s press conference. If anything, she gave it a bit of a short shrift to focus on TFG’s troubles and the demise of the voting rights bill. But the comment about it being long seemed to be descriptive, and that she viewed it as indicating competence and effectiveness on his part, in contrast to TFG.
If anyone has a video clip or explanation for the original comment, I would be very curious to see it. And if it was just a reaction right after the press conference or during the press conference, I would be curious to see if there was anything humorous about it. If anything, I tend to think of her as a bit of a cheerleader who tries to hold herself back, so the idea she criticized it for length stood out to me.
Steeplejack
@sab:
Well, I hope so. Mostly I was disappointed at the next available appointment being seven weeks away.
JPL
@satby: If a democratic member spouted that, it would be nonstop news. Granted, I haven’t listened intently to the news, but I doubt it was mentioned. IOKIYR
Layer8Problem
@Spanky: Cole outsourced it. Just write to BJ Complaints, 1060 West Addison Street Chicago, Illinois USA 60613-4305.
lurker
@Spanky: you can complain all you want … won’t make a difference who you complain to
; – )
Baud
@lurker: Ok, thanks for going to the videotape. Twitter reactions are unreliable, even those on our side. I’d be interested in seeing if there is evidence to back up the assertion.
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: That is *amazing.* Thanks
sab
@Steeplejack: There will be cancellations.
stacib
@Baud: OMG, this was a HUGE deal on MJ this morning. Everybody decried the “weakness” Biden portrayed yesterday in facing the big, baddies Putin and Xe. They were focused on Biden saying something about a minor incursion, even though as I remember it, Biden cleaned that up during the presser.
Steeplejack
@Geminid:
Srsly. I check WTOP (on the Web), WaPo, NWS, Weather Channel and the local TV stations, and they all oversold it.
Well, NWS didn’t “oversell” it, but their forecast turned out (so far) to be way off.
lurker
@rikyrah: this is a pretty key development, as I am pretty sure Feinstein was one of the ones opposed, and would have guessed Leahy was as well. There are a couple of other ones I long suspected, who were not known to have talked about it much either way as far as I know. If they took the vote, that means they are getting with the program.
So yeah, this is big.
Another Scott
@Steeplejack: I’m down the road south from you. The Weather Service is still predicting ~ 1/4″-1/2″ per hour of snow starting soon, and the WTOP people are saying that the thinking is that the rain may wash away the brine on the roads leading to icing issues (during the multi-hour “rush hour”) once the snow starts accumulating. Given the nightmare on I-95 a few weeks ago (when, granted there was much more snow and it was colder) when the roads weren’t salted enough, they’re being rightfully cautious.
Good luck on getting an earlier appointment!
Cheers,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
This is embarrassing – like a high school kid trying to stall on a term paper.
indycat32
@lurker: Rachel was on Nicholle Wallace show immediately after the press conference. Maybe it was said then.
sab
@Steeplejack: If you lived in Ohio the weather outlets would ignore you completely. Nobody told us to expect 19″ the other day.
Gin & Tonic
@lurker: Or they knew it wouldn’t pass, so decided their vote doesn’t count.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic: Maybe, but having taken a stance, it’ll be that much harder to walk it back if we get another chance in the future.
You can’t really tell what’s in people’s hearts. All you can do is judge their actions.
BlueGuitarist
@zhena gogolia:
Hope you are bettering!
Re: Moscow Mitch: “African-American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans”
Toni Morrison: “In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.”
Brennan Center: “Between 2012 and 2020, the white-Black turnout gap grew between 9.2 and 20.9 percentage points across five of the six states originally covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.”
Racist Supreme Court Shelby County decision, 2013, at work.
WereBear
@sab: I have been experiencing this with my holds at the library. I’ve gone completely ebook with them now, and if I am not eager to read a popular book right away, I give up my place in line.
different-church-lady
@debbie: Rachel Maddow? The TV pundit who every night takes 17 minutes to get to the point? That Rachel Maddow?
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Indeed. The man didn’t get elected President when all our progressive betters had written him off as out of touch. He knows that the online left and the media do not represent the base of the party. He was more in touch with what the party wanted than those who worshipped at the altar of BS and EW.
He knows that there are things he cannot say out loud because he is the President. It almost feels like there are those ostensibly on our side who go for bombast and insult more than competence. What they wanted was a Democratic version of the Orange One and Bill Barr.
Another Scott
Berlin keynote speech by Blinkin starting soon – https://www.contentflow.de/atlantik-bruecke/
(via CherylRofer)
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@lurker:
Thank you, lurker! I was just starting to formulate a similar comment in my mind, so I appreciate your saving me the trouble. I like Maddow a lot — yes, even in her lengthy and sometimes rambling monologues, I nearly always learn something new, or understand afresh a connection I hadn’t previously noticed — and the idea that she gratuitously carped about the length of Biden’s news conference just doesn’t jibe with my experience of her at all.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: My husband is more of a normie than I am and Biden was his first choice as the nominee since the get go. I eventually voted for Biden on Super Tuesday but he was not my first choice.
Steeplejack
@Another Scott:
I’m definitely glad that I’m not going out. Driving through D.C. is no fun in the best conditions, and I’m sure the rain and cold temps are causing problems. Guess I’m having second thoughts weighing whether I should have toughed it out vs. waiting until March for another appointment. Hopefully, as sab said, another one will open up sooner.
Leto
@debbie: as someone who’s actively watching last night’s show, it’s the usual BJ circle-jerk of complaining about Maddow. She never complained about the length of the presser. Did say that it was twice as long as his previous longest, but it was a statement of fact, not criticism.
Quote- “As you know, President Biden held a big press conference today on the occasion of the start of his second year in office. He took reporters questions for a couple of hours almost, which is almost twice the length of the longest press conference he had done before this one.”
Oh yeah… that’s a complaint. Here’s a complaint of mine: “The sky is blue. Water is wet. The car is red. It’s snowing at this moment.” See, complaints!
Baud
Rachel’s first reaction on Nicole Wallace’s show was that the press conference was long. “I thought it was long, first of all. Not an opinion.”
ICYMI: Cliffnotes from Biden’s marathon press conference (yahoo.com)
Steeplejack
@sab:
I have lived at times in the frozen north, so I know the snow problems here are somewhat laughable. But the thing is that so few drivers here know how to deal with snow because they encounter it so rarely.
topclimber
@lowtechcyclist: His attempts at bipartisanship will fail sometimes and succeed others. However he wants to play it, he can be measured in his partisan criticisms during the next portion of his Presidency, because 1/6/21 is going to cover the GQP in shit.
Measured doesn’t mean you shut up. Old Joe certainly ripped TFG a new one just two weeks ago. But frankly America, he has more important things to do for us than help ease the exit of the diva-est diva evah.
I find myself hoping and actually believing that this Spring will be better.
Soprano2
@Steeplejack: Oh God no, if it’s anything like around here they’re terrible now. They’ll cancel if they see two snowflakes come out of the sky, or if the weather forecaster says it’s going to be too cold. Now they build a bunch of snow days into the calendar, and the state government passed a law saying they don’t have to make up days if they miss a bunch, so it’s basically cost-free to cancel school. I hate that you canceled the appointment, hope you can get an earlier one.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I suspect this tweet, which bounced around a lot, and got shredded, last night might be the source of people’s rage at Rachel Maddow
Another Scott
@Steeplejack: To be fair, few things are as slippery as wet ice. Traction problems can be much, much worse around the freezing point than at, say, 10F. There was a time a couple of years ago when the roads were impassible because of icing right around the freezing point and cars couldn’t make it up gentle grades.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Blinkin is being introduced now.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cacti
The thing I liked yesterday was Biden’s change in tone where he asked: What do Republicans even support or stand for?
That’s the message we need to hammer home for the midterms. The GOP is a nihilist/obstructionist party that only believes in their own right to rule, and they don’t care if they harm the country to do it.
Soprano2
Yeah, I hate this. Republicans make this mistake constantly, it’s one reason they loved Trump because he was constantly making hollow threats. I hate that Democrats are now starting to act like this, too.
Baud
@Soprano2:
It’s not new, especially on the internet.
lurker
@Baud: ok, so I watched the clip. Not enough context to know how much of an outright complaint that was. Seems pretty overblown from what I saw.
There are good points to it being long. Two hours where anyone watching cannot rationally argue about mental incompetence, for example, can be a useful thing.
Maddow does go on long-winded discussions – she has that unique format where the A-block is basically half of the show, uninterrupted, and it is her talking the whole time – impressive, disturbing and unquestionably long-winded. I tend to tune out and back in mentally during that block. Then fast-forward through the commercials to get the other half of the show in snatches.
But that quip – if that is the complaint, without more, I am skeptical of good faith from the people complaining about that interaction on the Nicole Wallace thing – not a show I watch though.
Soprano2
@Gin & Tonic: I have no doubt they weren’t. I’m sure they’d love to hear that we’ll send troops, even though Ukraine isn’t a NATO member. I’m not sure what people think we’re supposed to do in a situation like this. George W. wasn’t able to stop Putin from invading the country of Georgia, either. Are we supposed to run around pushing back with military force every time Putin does something like this? On NPR this morning an administration official told the interviewer that Ted Cruz’s sanctions were on German companies, not Russia!
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: How many Biden initiatives were blocked by “the squad” and how many were blocked by “centrists”?
Gin & Tonic
@Soprano2: Nobody in Ukraine (well, nobody serious) wants US troops on the ground.
lurker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: well, twitter – whaddayagonnado? I pretty much ignore it.
Baud
@lurker:
Sure, but when people start talking past each other on Twitter, it best to look at the original material and make your own judgment. I do wish the clip went on for a few more seconds to get a better sense of the context.
ETA: and you make a good point — the media turned on a dime from questing Biden’s mental stamina to talking about how his press conference was soooo long.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
Very similar to, and from the identical mindset as, Chuck Todd’s comment a couple of weeks ago about “families want [something or other] while African-American families want [something-else-or-other].” Because in Fuckles the Toddler’s so-called mind, AA families aren’t, you know, families.
Leto
@Baud: here’s the rest of the clip. And “not an opinion” was stated by Wallace.
Maddow: ‘Biden Will Get Pushback From Liberals, But He’s Right About Republicans’
Agree’s with the President, it’s Republicans fault. Called it, “objectively true.” But gotta keep up with the Maddow hate. Mustard, mopping, Maddow hate; Make BJ Great Again!
gene108
@Suzanne:
I think there’s acknowledgment of it strategically. This is why BBB was going to be done through reconciliation, and most Democrats wanted filibuster reform for voting rights.
What I think Biden & Co. failed to account for is the bad faith Manchin and Sinema are operating under in dealing with Democrats.
Gin & Tonic
@Soprano2: Well, Germany is the country that is providing arms to Russia and not Ukraine. Great Britain, at least, is sending substantial quantities of anti-tank weapons – and had to fly over Denmark and Poland to get there, because Germany wouldn’t grant overflight rights.
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It sounds like Maddow and Wallace may have been impatient. They wanted their turn on the stage, but there was Joe Biden, hogging the spotlight!
mrmoshpotato
He followed up with, “I mean it. What are these American-people-hating, government-hating, obstructionist shitheads actually for?
Baud
@Leto: She said what she said. Now that people can see the video, they can react how they want to react. They don’t have to rely on Twitter’s paraphrasing.
sab
@Steeplejack: You guys get freezing rain so you are driving on ice. That isn’t laughable.
I just don’t understand why weather services have decided to completely ignore northern Ohio. It’s just weird. A lot of people live here and we do buy stuff, so I don’t understand why they ignore us.
lurker
@Gin & Tonic: interestingly, a number of countries are waiting on US permission to sell US-made arms to Ukraine – we sell things to allies (e.g. UK and even Germany), but we restrict their option to sell them on – not allowing our weapons or particularly our technology to go to the “wrong” place…
Betty Cracker
Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly: we’ll Trump proved that wrong (taking money appropriated for other stuff to build his wall), but realistically we all know the SCOTUS will suddenly find that precedent no longer relevant as that was for hurting brown people not helping them.
Gin & Tonic
Tony Jay
@WereBear:
Back when I was but a lad I drew, in chalk, an entire V display on the back of my bedroom door and kept it there, mostly unsmudged, for ‘lo, very many years. In fact I think it was still there when I had University friends staying over, which won me all the cool points let me tell you.
Anyway, yes, that’s how much I loved
Jane Balderthat crazy show. And that anti-Scientist riff has been one of my go to analogies since AGW denialism became mainstream conservative orthodoxy.Also, you can tell it was science-fiction. The hero was a (sort of) journalist. As if!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the idea that The People are just waiting for Dems to call Republicans assholes goes back at least to Obama, maybe to Clinton, I just didn’t know about it because because there was less internet in my life. But polls consistently showed that it was Dem and Dem-leaning voters who liked Biden’s “I can work with them” rhetoric. We, the hyper-engaged, are a minority, in the electorate and even in the Democratic Party.
Leto
@lurker: I found the rest of the clip and posted it at 133. It was on the MSNBC website. You know, hiding in plain sight. Claire McCaskill followed Maddow, along with John Heidleman and Michael Steele. Steele tried to talk about it being too long from the point of essentially he was repeating the same things and allowing the shitty press corp to continue to ask bad faith questions (especially Newsmax and Fox). Both McCaskill and Heidleman made the same point that it demonstrably shows the he’s in full control of his mental facilities. They made the point that Trumpov never did that type of presser, specifically because he couldn’t.
germy
Alrighty then.
Leto
@Baud: Didn’t have to rely on the BJ paraphrasing too, which is what most people here did. Reflexive.
Fair Economist
@ThresherK: Not a day goes by that I don’t get a tweet from an official Biden admin account touting legislative successes. They are doing the messaging right and aggressively. The media chooses to ignore it.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Today show put up a poll that saying like 42% of people think Biden has been too uncompromising.
Activists push for strong comprehensive bills, and normies just want to see things happen without caring that much about the details.
Suzanne
I hope that’s it. There are times it feels like our side has more disgust and harsh words for Sinema and Manchin than we do for any of the GOP except maybe McConnell. Obama, who I love, seemed to be under the impression that some of the GOP would be reasonable and come to his side. I hope our side is 100% clear-eyed that that will never happen, that they will literally sacrifice the lives of their own voters to block Biden from doing even a single good thing for the country. They are enemies at this point.
lurker
@Leto: if that is the next clip, it seems pretty clear that her it was long comment was a quick off the cuff statement – maybe a mild whine if you want to read it that way, but really more a statement of fact without anything else …
anyway, work to be done…
germy
Baud
@Leto:
Sometimes it’s unavoidable. People can’t look up the source material on everything that gets discussed. I thought this was worth it because it was Rachel. If people want to make someone like Mitch McConnell look worse than he is, I don’t care.
satby
@Steeplejack: @Another Scott: Last week driving to work here after a drizzle and precipitate drop in temperature, cars were sliding sideways on a medium incline street. And this is folks experienced in driving in cold icy conditions, so there wasn’t an accident resulting, but it really screwed up traffic for a while. That street is badly planned, there’s a stop light midway up and another at the top of the hill; stopping and restarting on ice is hazardous.
germy
My wife ordered something from them once, many years ago. And then for years and years we’d get their GIANT catalogs in the mail. It finally stopped.
BC in Illinois
Joe Biden, Press Conference, Jan 19, 2022:
Joe Biden, upcoming single, to be released at State of the Union Address:
Kalakal
@Phaedrus: In the UK parliament MPs have to adress their opponents as ‘My right honourable friend’ .They’re very good at doing it in tones that make it very clear that they consider the other person to be neither right, honourable, and most certainly not their friend.
Biden’s simply using a standard, formal mode of address. Implies nothing about his true opinion
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Mary Ann Lynch is a fucking idiot if she thinks Susan Collins reaches across the aisle to get things done. It’s fucking tiresome to cater to the aesthetic desires of the Mary Ann Lynches of the world.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne:
So did a lot of Republicans. Remember when Obama was reelected and John Boehner said Obamacare was settled, “the law of the land” as I recall, and it was time to move on? His right wing revolted, he held some show votes, and eventually zippity-doo-dah’ed his way to day-drink in Florida all day.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Yeah, by definition, she is not a “model Democrat” as that piece states.
satby
@germy: yes, that’s the link I posted at #44.
Geminid
@lurker: Reuters reports that the U.S. has just approved licenses allowing Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia to transfer weapons to Ukraine. One country plans to send Javelin anti-tank missiles, another Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. We may have been waiting to prepare for the shipment of replacements to these countries.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne: okay, but there are more Mary Ann Lynches than there are Balloon Juice readers. And they vote.
Leto
@Baud:
And there are times they don’t want to because it fits into their preconceived notions. If people have enough time to post multiple replies to a thread here, they can spend the ten seconds to type into their search engine of choice, “YouTube msnbc”, and then click on the video that’s right there. But better to join in the circle jerk than to actually know what was said, and in what context.
Jeffro
@Hoodie:
It’s funny, we were having a similar conversation in the office earlier this week. Great point!
This, too. Every member of the national snooze media seems so preoccupied with their narrative of “Biden’s losing/falling in the polls/doomed” that no one’s looking ahead to the various scenarios of what the GQP’s gonna do for the next three years – how they thread the trumpovian needle. He’s going down, and he’s not going to go quietly, and in all likelihood, he’s going to exhort his cult followers to burn it all – including the Republican party – down on his way out. Let’s hear more about THAT.
lurker
@Leto(148): thing I saw from the link at 133 was short and did not mention length at all – which is fine – and it looked like it was a direct follow-on. Beyond that, not sure I have the time to dig further into what seems like an attempt to pile on where there was nothing there to start with.
@Leto(146): That description suggests a longer clip than what came up for me from the link. Makes sense in terms of where I would have guessed it would go…
Soprano2
@Baud: I know, but it’s becoming more prominent and even louder. Tough talk and calling your opponent names doesn’t do anything.
satby
@Suzanne: She’s a voter in Maine. So a Collins constituant. And I wonder how clearly the press in Maine describes Collins’ lack of reaching across the aisle as opposed to her constant lip service to the concept.
lurker
@Baud: the idea of maddow complaining about a politician taking a long time to answer questions seemed wildly off – if anything, she tends to lament how some politicians will not talk to her show or say anything of substance in general (not just to her show).
Soprano2
@Gin & Tonic: What do they think we could do that would actually help? (serious question, I have no idea about this)
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Sure, but if in targeting the votes of the Mary Ann Lynches of the country, we end up not doing the things we should do…. that’s not a good outcome, either.
Or if, in trying to keep Mary Ann Lynch and her friends, we alienate a less dumbassed segment of voters who no longer think we care about them.
Kathleen
@satby: The Press Corpse outrage over this was lit. Oh wait…
Another Scott
Good speech by Blinkin. Laying out in detail all of Putin’s provocations for years and years. All the agreements he’s broken. All the nonsense about Russia being threatened when he’s the one who invaded neighbors. And he still is leaving the door open for diplomacy.
He’s meeting with Lavrov in Switzerland tomorrow.
Cheers,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Gin & Tonic: Is this because of that natural gas pipeline? I wouldn’t think Germany would normally help Russia in a situation like this.
germy
Baud
@Suzanne:
That’s inherent in the Dem coalition. If we’re smart, we avoid self-destructive litmus tests and artificial timelines for action, because it’s hard to predict when all the necessary piences will fall into place. But I think we’re often not smart.
lurker
@Geminid: had not seen the latest – it seemed likely that the US was working to get these approvals done. Knowing a few people who do legal work for government agencies, the amount of time it can take to do internal paperwork for something that seems simple (just ship them the missiles!?) is astounding.
On one level, I get it – if the situation is not actual life-or-death (bullets flying) then doing it by the book seems necessary, on another level the complexity of the book boggles the mind.
Steeplejack
@sab:
That’s a bookstore sign (a joke) that was making the rounds of Twitter, etc., a few days ago. Might even have been posted here.
germy
@satby:
Ah! I missed your comment.
I notice whenever the LGM blog does a story on McConnell, they illustrate it with the old photo of him grinning in front of a wall-sized confederate flag.
Leto
Amy Klobuchar indirectly calling Manchenima a hypocritical piece of shit, on the Senate floor last night right after Manchin spoke, is pretty satisfying.
Suzanne
@Baud:
Yeah, I agree with this. I think we have a harder road to victory than the GOP, too, both because of the electoral structure of the country but also because moving forward is harder than sitting still or backsliding into the 19th century. But I don’t think we always play our hand as best as we could, either.
germy
VP Harris spells out the details for George. She mentions the DOJ investigating some of the voter suppression efforts.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne: Susan Collins and Maine are both unusual cases. My point is people who think Biden’s rhetoric should be directed at the Extremely On-Line might be misguided. Is it more important that he said “my friends” or that he set up the long-term rhetorical model of “What are they for?” You really think Joe “My word as a Biden” Biden has forgiven Lindsey Graham for going after Hunter?
Polls consistently showed that one of the things Dem primary voters liked about Biden was he talked about reaching across the aisle. It was a tic with George W Bush, too; I knew it was bullshit, but I’m not a normie. We are not the Normals, with all due respect to the Goo Goo Dolls.
lurker
@Leto: in this case, I looked up potential source material (a comment on her show) and made a judgment – the comment strikes me now as somewhat similar to what she said in the clip – short, factual, not complaining nor opinionated.
Since there were two comments, finding the source was not as simple as one might like.
I think we agree that the original complaints on BJ were essentially biological refuse from a bovine or other hoofed animal.
Leto
@lurker: agreed
Edit: how to make conservatives say, “Even that liberal Maddow thought it was too long!” Is to break up the the Nicole Wallace piece, like NBCUniversal did, and just post her laughing response. Not the rest of the piece where she agreed with everything Biden said (context). Just break it up, give it piecemeal, off you go. Helps hit everyone’s preconceived notions.
James E Powell
@PsiFighter37:
Right now there is no other kind of Democrat to be.
We don’t have the luxury of one foot in, one foot out option. We need to put aside our differences, swallow our doubts, and work hard to promote, protect, and elect every Democrat on the ballot this year.
Not trolling, but a realistic view of what we need to do.
Another Scott
Wild. Looks like giant bagels.
(via nycsouthpaw)
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as to Nicolle Wallace: Her white hot hatred of trump made me a fan, but sometimes her faux-naivety can be a bit grating– Hayes and Maddow do it too, but they have a different background. Hearing the woman who helped elect George W Bush, twice, who appointed the Chief Gutter of the VRA at a time when trump was still angling to wrest control of the Reform Party from Pat Buchanan, hearing that woman ask plaintively if Joe Biden gets the threat to voting rights is a bit much
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m less interested in his rhetoric than his strategy. His legislative agenda is dead at this point. Nothing we care about is getting through the Senate with the filibuster in place, and the Sinema/Manchin turds in the punchbowl. So what can happen through executive order? Or through the states? Are we going to just sit here for two to six more years accomplishing fuck-all? That’s what I’m talking about, I hope there’s a Plan For That.
Joe Biden is a good man, that is never in doubt.
sab
@Steeplejack:I did laugh, but then I worried.
I tend to be too literal minded. I dare not even turn the radio on on April 1.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@James E Powell: I don’t really get “floundering on strategy” either. What I see is an administration dealing with razor thin margins in both houses of a co-equal branch of government in a country where events have been shaped by two new variants of a novel virus after we all– at least most people, myself very much included– thought virus was gonna put that virus in the rear view mirror.
And an electorate that, collectively, watched 1/6, said, ‘goodness, that’s terrible”, then went on to complain about gas prices.
frosty
@Betty Cracker: Now that’s innovative marketing! Too funny!!
lurker
@Leto: yup … don’t really watch these clips on youtube, but that particular clip seemed to frustrate the purpose and value of the discussion.
Leto
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ve seen her do this and I think it’s a rhetorical device she uses to set her guest/s up in a direction she wants them to go. “Does Biden really believe X, (insert guest)?” Gives the guest a chance to say, “Yes, here’s why.” Otherwise it’s just another copy of Maddow, but an hour longer. And I’ll give you the past 5 years of BJ Maddow analysis of how that would be received.
topclimber
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: When you are right you are so right.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne: I’ve been saying for quite a while that the “strategy” — I think that word is getting thrown around pretty loosely– needs to be winning more seats in the Senate and holding the House. That will happen in states and districts that look a lot more like Maine than Queens.
I don’t know what can happen through EO, but I’m deeply skeptical.
If “activists” want to turn their attention from shrieking at Biden to focusing on state legislatures and registering voters in FL, NC, GA, etc, I’ll be as happy as a clam.
A good way to make God laugh is to tell him your Plans.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@topclimber: I’m always right
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I hope we can win more seats in the Senate. But we might not. Again, I hope that people with more expertise in American government than I do have a good idea of how to proceed. I am skeptical of EO’s too, but when you don’t have good options, I hope you have a backup.
Soprano2
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I wish they’d spend that energy not just registering voters, but helping people get what they need to register. We can rail against dumb voter ID laws all we want, but if a state has a particular law then how about having an organization that helps people there get the ID or other thing they need to register and actually vote? I guess that’s not as satisfying as complaining about Biden on Twitter, though.
Geminid
@Suzanne: @ Jim Foolish Literalist
I don’t think we should cater to true independents (“swing voters”) in policy. I trust our moderate/liberal coalition to produce good legislation that will appeal to those in the middle who are unprejudiced.
Political rhetoric is a different matter. The party’s fortunes will rise or fall upon the tangible results we deliver for our base, and how well we sell it. If hardline rhetoric furthers this end, I’m all for it. To the extent that it does not, it can be counterproductive. I am influenced here by the observation that many of the advocates of tough talk are not Democrats at all, but just want to undermine the party and it’s leadership.
Not that I am against leaning into “negative partisanship” when it comes to campaigns, and I expect Biden to take the gloves off this fall. He got some good punches in yesterday even while observing the forms of civility.
Soprano2
And stores where they can’t find the brand of cat food they want, and see other random empty shelves, and find price increases on a lot of stuff they buy. (Shoot, on Twitter I saw where someone took a photo of a menu where they were pricing chicken wings as “market price!” I’m not surprised at that right now, but a lot of people are.) People will always care a lot more about the things that affect their day-to-day lives than things that don’t, which is hard for people like us who pay a lot of attention to politics to understand. We know that TFG and what happened on 1/6/21 is a direct threat to democracy, but most people just know it as that day that some idiots invaded the Capitol building. What they also know every day is how much more it costs to buy food and fill up their gas tank. We ignore that at our peril.
Miss Bianca
@Starfish: I would support that ad campaign!
topclimber
Not about that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
to wit:
Florida, not Queens.
I’m surprised we haven’t heard, or at least I haven’t seen, any “VAL’S A COP!” bullshit. I guess without the alliteration it’s not as much fun.
Also, I don’t know if people who talk like quite get that the Senate exists, or what it does.
Geminid
@lurker: There wasn’t much point in granting the licenses before these countries were ready to ship, and it could be they were waiting to have replacements on hand. I would.
I get the sense that these and other measures are not for deterrence, but in the expectation that there will be war.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: One of my favorite people I follow on social media is Deedra Abboud, who primaried Kyrsten Sinema in her last election. Abboud is an attorney, much leftover than Sinema, a white woman who married an Iraqi man who became a citizen. She also converted to Islam. She worked her ass off in that election, and I met her a couple of times. She’s great. Anyway, she posts these great interactions she has with people talking about policy. One of the ones she posted about was a discussion with her husband back at the beginning of the pandemic about empty store shelves and how it made him sad. He said that, even during the war in Iraq, there was always food on the shelves.
It is definitely a thing that freaks people out.
Soprano2
Yes, it does. We’re so used to being able to get whatever we want whenever we want it that it freaks us out when that’s not possible. We associate this with places like the Soviet Union, not the U.S. Oftentimes, too, there are other things available that aren’t our preferred brand, but we complain about “empty shelves” as if there are no choices at all. Which, of course, was true of some things early in the pandemic, but not much since.
One weird “shortage” that I’ve noticed ever since the beginning of the pandemic is of those water flavoring drink mixes, like Mio. They have been consistently short every time I go to the store, no matter what store it is.
Anyway
@Soprano2:
Also, there’s been so much “Shelf bloat” in grocery stores. The yoghurt section is outta control ..
I am guessing Iraqi grocery stored are much smaller //
Another Scott
@Soprano2: VoteRiders.org helps people get informed about what they need for voter ID, and tries to help them get it. Organizations like that are in the trenches, doing the work in the reality that exists, while also trying to make things better.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Soprano2: Gas is down 30 cents a gallon from the recent peak at my local station in NoVA. It’ll move around, of course – that’s what gas prices do – but the press is always behind (and usually paints things the worst way possible for Democrats).
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kelly
@WereBear: Don’t get above your raising!
Ksmiami
@Denali: Schumer needed to hardball them- kick them off their committees etc
Old School
@Ksmiami: All right, so Schumer kicks them off the committees. What’s the next step?
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: The Squad doesn’t have numbers yet to block legislation. If they could they would. They wasted 4 months signing the infrastructure deal and deprived Biden a victory lap for a bipartisan victory. They spend their days attacking Dems on social media. That is the opposite of helpful.
To make Manchin and Sinema irrelevant we need to vote more Democrats to the senate.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat:
they tried, it was their stated intention to threaten to shoot both hostages
Ksmiami
@Old School: offer stuff for their states if they comply… or hound them in the media. Pull any dccc funding for their campaigns and pt it toward other Senate seats. Enough with those twatwaffles
dww44
@debbie:
I watched the RMS show last evening, as I do virtually every evening, and I didn’t hear her say that. While she could have said it what I do remember her saying is that his press conference was virtually the longest in history. I didn’t get the impression that she was in anyway denigrating it. As she regularly does, she has a historical lead in and/or follow up to the headlines of the day, and I recollect that she noted that it was the 10th Press conference of his Presidency and the first in 2022. In my view any comparison between her and Chris Cizilla has no basis in reality.
NotMax
@Tony Jay
Thing I could never swallow about the premise was that salt water was lethal to the extraterrestrials. So where does the government deign to settle them? On the coast.
A Good Woman
@NotMax:
I believe you are conflating V with Alien Nation.
NotMax
@A Good Woman
You are correct. Age exacts a toll. Again.
J R in WV
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
J R in WV
@Baud:
Baud, I love you, but this just isn’t possible. No one can make Mitch McConnell look worse than he is. No one. Impossible!!
J R in WV
@Geminid:
Perhaps Joe Biden should hire Tony Jay as a speech writer, not to actually give one of Tony’s speeches, but to
releaseleak them late the night before he gives a more mellow speech… Just thinking out loud here…