Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

“woke” is the new caravan.

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

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

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

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

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

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

People are complicated. Love is not.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

We still have time to mess this up!

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: State of the Union Prep

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: State of the Union Prep

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: State of the Union Prep

(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)



They report — we deride!


Be honest, BBC: Nowhere near as ‘gripping’ as Liz Truss versus a head of lettuce:

Also, ‘Dr.’ Sebastian Gorka has a typically GEENIUS idea, which I insincerely hope Squeaker McCarthy is dumb enough to implement. (Gorka wants Kevin to bring along a red balloon, because that would be payback for Pelosi tearing up TFG’s speech that time. I suspect McCarthy’s staffers would tackle & strip-search him, if he showed any sign of attempting prop comedy.)

Reader Interactions

245Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    How about “Extreme Republican MAGAs”? That’d be fine, right? Or just “MAGA Republicans”; everyone will hear the implicit “extreme”.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Biden didn’t use “extreme” or “MAGA” in his 2022 SOTU. Kevin just wants to pretend he forced Biden not to use those words.

  5. 5.

    citizen dave

    Jeebus AP, the stakes are high.   Has anyone remembered any SOTU address a week after?  The stakes are that a small minority of americans will watch it, and an even smaller number will watch the rebuttal, and by next week it will be down the memory hole.

  7. 7.

    Baud

    BTW, that NYT article says nothing specific about Biden’s stutter in relation to this speech.  It simply points out that Biden has a stutter and often marks up important speeches to help him navigate that.

  8. 8.

    Another Scott

    I was flipping radio stations yesterday evening and Mara was giving her preview on NPR ATC.  She wanted to make sure that everyone knew that Biden was still UNPOPULAR even with the “good” news about job growth and low inflation over the last few months and all the rest.

    News you can use, if you’re a GQPer.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  15. 15.

    Ken

    “Squeaker, excuse me, Speaker McCarthy has told the press he asked me not to use the phrase ‘extreme MAGA Republicans’ in tonight’s speech. I emphasize ‘told the press’ because he didn’t actually ask me, but setting that aside, I am more than happy to not use that phrase.

    “I will instead say ‘Republicans who are still trying to overturn the 2020 election’, or ‘Republicans who want to add a 30% sales tax to your grocery bill’, or ‘Republicans who want to defund the FBI,’ or ‘Republicans who side with those who beat police officers on January 6,’ or any of dozens of completely accurate descriptions which do not use the words ‘extreme’ or ‘MAGA’. Though it’s interesting how you hear them anyway, isn’t it?”

  16. 16.

    Amir Khalid

    The people who tried to make a scandal out of Nancy Pelosi’s taste in ice cream will do their darndest to make a scandal out of the Biden administration’s calm and rational handling of the Chinese balloon affair.

  17. 17.

    Elizabelle

    I look forward to watching the SOTU with my fellow jackals.  Even planning a good adult beverage or two, to celebrate.  And keep out of the keyboard.

  18. 18.

    Immanentize

    @NotMax: The Immp considered Harvey Mudd, it’s a good engineering school, but the facilities were trash. It cracks me up that H.M. and Claremont-McKenna are both on the list — they are “sister colleges” on essentially the same campus.

  20. 20.

    Immanentize

    Duplicate, but while I’m here — Doesn’t “no acronyms” mean not saying “MAGA?”

    Which came first?
    The chicken or the egg?
    I egged the chicken,
    then I ate it’s leg.
    — Beastie Boys.

  21. 21.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: The NYT’s “liberal” columnist today has the headline, “Biden Is a Great President Who Shouldn’t Run Again.”

  24. 24.

    Tony Jay

    “Before we start, I’d like to clarify a small matter that’s come up in my frequent meetings with my good friend Kev.. there he is, let’s give him a hand. Speaker Kev, thought we’d never see it, did we? Sweet. Yeah, so, as Kev and I discussed while we were working on scrapping the debt ceiling, I won’t refer in this State of the Union to The Extreme MAGA Republicans who have taken over his Party, because The Extreme MAGA Republicans have threatened to destabilise his term as Speaker if he doesn’t let The Extreme MAGA Republicans dictate the terms they’d like to be referred to by. I’m cool with that. If it helps out my pal Kev, I’ll refer to The Extreme MAGA Republicans by whatever name they prefer over The Extreme MAGA Republicans. I’m thinking MAGA Republicans Xtreme. Good with you, Kev? He’s nodding, yeah? Sweet. So with that out of the way, let’s rock this one out of the park...”

  26. 26.

    NotMax

    @OzarkHillbilly

    For that kind of dough one would expect the brochure to boast of students being treated to golden showers in the locker rooms.

    Wait, let me rephrase that…

    :)

  28. 28.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ken: Here I thought it was named after the physician who treated John Wilkes Booth (who was the person behind the phrase, “your name is Mud”)

  32. 32.

    Immanentize

    @Ken: That University is nearby in Culver City: “The Harcourt Fenton Mudd College of Advanced Cloning.” But that place went to hell once President Norman was replaced by President Stella.

  40. 40.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat: Maybe I’m confusing her with someone more sensible.

    Does the NYT ever feature the other side of this “debate”? I wonder how many articles they’ll run after Biden announces? And between the DNC convention and the election?

  42. 42.

    Elizabelle

    @zhena gogolia:   Yeah, I saw that.  Michelle Goldberg is so damned wrong on that one.

    The top reader comments disagree with her, and a lot of others as well.

    What puerile thinking.  She is taking on the FTF NY Times stench.  And it stinks.  Of death and lies.

  43. 43.

    RaflW

    I watched part of BBC News America last night on PBS. They were definitely flogging the balloon thing.

    Made me feel like punching people in the teeth. I don’t like being this angry so much of the time, but watching the media just guzzle down GOP talking points to regurgitate is sooo gross.

  44. 44.

    Elizabelle

    @schrodingers_cat:   So much disparagement of Kamala Harris in the reader comments.  What a simplistic bunch.

    So, maybe we are guaranteed another full term of Biden-Harris, if these are the outstanding thinkers of those who would deny them office.

    Fuckers.  Wanking fuckers.

  45. 45.

    Tony Jay

    @zhena gogolia:

    Nice to see they’re gingerly stepping off the derailed “Failed Presidency” train and trying to thumb a ride on the “Leave ‘Em Wanting More, Joe” highway.

    Because they care so, so much? Or because they think he’ll chuckle and wink his way past whatever garbage the MAGOP coughs up in 2024 and that’s just boorrrrrrrriiinnngggg? 

    Mmmmmnnnn. How to decide?

  52. 52.

    Baud

    @Elizabelle: I didn’t read it.  But the usual problem is often not any one individual article that discusses the issue. It’s the cumulative effect of beating the dead horse over an issue that doesn’t deserve it. (Like the balloon, over a longer time span. Or emails, of course)

  55. 55.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: They will visit every diner and every hipster coffee shop to find people who disparage Biden-Harris team from both the right and the left.

    And then wonder why he is so unpopular and why she isn’t well liked.

  56. 56.

    Joey Maloney

    I will not be getting up at 4 AM local to join the Jackaltariat watching the address. But I’ll think of y’all when I’m listening to it at work tomorrow.

  57. 57.

    Burnspbesq

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Stags (CMS’ women’s teams are the Athenas) play NCAA Division 3 football. It’s a member of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, alongside schools like Chapman, Redlands, and Occidental. Its biggest rival is the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens (the five Claremont colleges are divided into two groups for athletic purposes).

  60. 60.

    Tony Jay

    @RaflW:

    The BBC’s news output has been hot garbage ever since the Tories installed their loyal placemen to dumb it down. That said, they already had the example of the BBC’s American coverage as a blueprint for that effort, because it’s always been hot garbage.

    Basically, whatever their correspondent could get a MAGOP staffer to bullet-point for them over cocktails.

  61. 61.

    cain

    @schrodingers_cat: Apparently there is supposed to be some new Gandhi movie that shows “both sides” meaning we get to hear from the RSS side of things! Won’t that be lovely? /s

    I mean, sure – we should see  Hitler version that shows the Nazi side too, right?!

  66. 66.

    Joey Maloney

    @schrodingers_cat: I’m old enough to have sworn off the FTFNYT after they fell for Whitewater and then spent the next 30 years pretending they didn’t get punked by a bunch of Arkansas hick segregationists.

  68. 68.

    mrmoshpotato

    Can he call all of you “Trump trash Rethuglicans?”. Would that be ok, Kevin?  Should we put it to 15 votes?

  69. 69.

    schrodingers_cat

    @cain: It was released along with SRK’s Pathaan and it flopped. Even the bhakts didn’t want to see that garbage.

    Well, Savarkar loved Hitler and thought his strategies were worth emulating.

  74. 74.

    RaflW

    @Amir Khalid: “the Biden administration’s calm and rational handling of the Chinese balloon affair”

    I mean, you can see the whole problem for the press right there. What’s the news peg for calm and rational? Where are the daily press conferences full of chaotic ramblings and outbursts of snide, juvenile insults?

  75. 75.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I think Vanity Fair allows one free click a day, and I’m sure this will be all over the tubes in a few hours

    n a new book set for release this week by former acting defense secretary Christopher Miller, the ex-Trump-administration official writes that Melania was, inexplicably, in the Situation Room during the US’s 2019 ISIS raid that resulted in the death of then ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. According to Miller, Melania was there with the president, Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, among others. He writes: “Her presence was unexpected, to say the least. I wondered how it would play in the press if word got out that the first lady had popped in to watch a major military operation,” according to a copy of the memoir that was viewed by The Hill.

    this was the attack with the hero dog, Conan, and they talk a bit about how The Beast brought Conan in for a photo op, and the trumps weird relationships with pets in general

  78. 78.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

     I wondered how it would play in the press if word got out that the first lady had popped in to watch a major military operation,”

    The press would be upset because they were saving it for the book.

  80. 80.

    Ken

    @Baud: I wonder how many articles they’ll run after Biden announces? And between the DNC convention and the election?

    “As President Biden is sworn in for his second term of office, questions remain about whether he should have run again, and whether the American people should have elected him.”

  81. 81.

    Elizabelle

    @zhena gogolia:  Wait, isn’t that Gail Collins who schmoozes with Bedbug Stephens

    And yes, I no longer click on Gail Collins, because she has diminished herself with that.  Bedbug does not argue in good faith, too often.

  87. 87.

    Elizabelle

    @SiubhanDuinne:  It’s such a shabby ass thing to do the day of the SOTU.

    I hate the FTF NY Times.  Their arrogance.

    So disappointed with Michelle Goldberg.  She should hear from her usual readers.

    What a twofer.  People are cancelling their subscriptions!  Because of our liberal columnist!  Bingo!!

  88. 88.

    Ken

    @Amir Khalid: They must have added “red” for the meter.  Though now that you’ve drawn my attention to it, I’m wondering what other sorts of ballons the Germans have, that the original chose to specify “luftballon” (“air-balloon”).

  90. 90.

    Baud

    @mrmoshpotato:

    The rebuttal is always totally worth your time.  /S

    Ugh. I decided to look it up and, unfortunately, this “tradition” has not died.

    Rep. Delia Ramirez, a first-term Democrat from Illinois, is set to give a progressive response to the State of the Union address next week.
    Her speech on Tuesday, given on behalf of the liberal Working Families Party, is expected to address President Joe Biden’s speech and rebut the Republican responses given by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Rep. Juan Ciscomani of Arizona.

  92. 92.

    Elizabelle

    @zhena gogolia:   They’ve slid in another “used to be conservative” columnist.  This one a former soldier.

    FTF NY Times.  Their brand is squid ink and stench.

  95. 95.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud:

    the Republican responses given by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Rep. Juan Ciscomani of Arizona.

    Even less reason to watch the Rethuglican rebuttal!

    I’d actually forgotten about her.

  97. 97.

    Geminid

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ll be interested in seeing what else Miller says in this book. The Melania story is sensational so it’s a good tease sales wise, but Miller also saw a lot regarding the January 6th Insurrection. I expect his account to be self-serving but I think there will be significant information nonetheless.

    The book I really want to see is Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley’s. I don’t think he’ll wait too long after he retires to put his story out there either.

  99. 99.

    gene108

    @schrodingers_cat:

    The replies to Zakaria’s tweet and commentary are alarming. Gandhi’s push for eliminating caste barriers and whatever taboos existed between Hindus and non-Hindus working and studying together built the foundation for whatever progress India made since independence.

  101. 101.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Elizabelle:

    Yes, and they keep running stories about MVP Harris with headlines like “Struggling VP Tries Desperately to Carve a Niche for Herself” and “Kamala Harris’s Frustrated and Disappointed Supporters Are Looking Elsewhere.”

    Paraphrasing, but not by much.

  104. 104.

    schrodingers_cat

    @gene108: The BJP IT cell trolls are way worse than most RWNJs in this country. I don’t necessarily think they are representative of public sentiment but I do worry about hate that BJP is injecting in the veins of Indians 24/7.

  105. 105.

    Betty Cracker

    @zhena gogolia: I think that’s Gail Collins? Maybe they’ve roped Goldberg into it too, but I know she does standalone columns weekly. I used to enjoy Collins’ columns until it became a duet with Stephens all the fucking time, which I don’t bother reading.

    Fair warning: I’m probably going to do a post on Goldberg’s column. I think she’s dead wrong, but some of the arguments she made aren’t media figments — I know Democrats in real life who say the same. I disagree with them, but it’s real.

  109. 109.

    MomSense

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    My cousin went there and he helped to crash the economy in 2008 – his wicked smaht math brain created a program that could sell off massive quantities of stocks in seconds.  Ayup it worked too well.

  114. 114.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @The Moar You Know:  It’s like the Grammys. The good (and bad) parts will go viral. but I’ll probably have it on while I multitask with something else. Time to get those “Important tax documents enclosed” into one pile to ignore for another few weeks

  115. 115.

    Immanentize

    @NotMax: uggh. Today’s task is to make it so things on one side of the basement can be moved to the other so 1/2 the basement floor can be painted at a time. I am a damn pack rat.

  119. 119.

    Betty Cracker

    Have y’all been following the story about a neo-Nazi couple who plotted to take down the grid in Baltimore? They were arrested before they could do any damage. One of the names rang a bell, and it turns out he was involved in a small Nazi cell in Tampa several years back that came to the cops’ attention because one of the Nazis converted to Islam and took offense at his Nazi roommates’ comments about that, and he murdered two of them.

    The dude involved in the Baltimore plot also lived at that apartment and wasn’t at home at the time of the murders, luckily for him (perhaps bad luck for the rest of us). The cops found a whole bunch of explosives when they searched the apartment, and the surviving Nazi bolted with a friend toward Miami with a shitload of guns and explosives.

    They got caught, and he did five years. Now he’s out and plotting stuff again. Small world!

  120. 120.

    Betty Cracker

    @zhena gogolia: I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I personally do not remember many Democrats talking about Hillary’s emails, unless they were bitching about the media’s focus on the emails.

  123. 123.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker: There were people here complaining about Hillary’s emails, and not just the media coverage of them

    ETA: The fact is a lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about.  Especially the NYT.

  124. 124.

    catclub

    @Betty Cracker: ​
     

    small Nazi cell in Tampa several years back that came to the cops’ attention because one of the Nazis converted to Islam and took offense at his Nazi roommates’ comments about that, and he murdered two of them.

    This is starting to sound like the fuzzy story about the older brother of the Boston marathon Bomber. Was he killed by FBI agent? in Florida? or he killed somebody?

  125. 125.

    zhena gogolia

    @Betty Cracker: I personally remember lots of Democrats talking about her e-mails and regretting her carelessness. When I would ask them what exactly was wrong with her e-mails, they could never answer me.

    Just as I never get an answer to the question, why would we not want our incumbent to run. Other than he’s old, which Trump and Sanders supporters never say.

  128. 128.

    Aussie Sheila

    @cain: That is like a movie about Lincoln that shows the positive side of John Wilkes Booth. What an outrageous display of boffsidesism.

  131. 131.

    oatler

    @Aussie Sheila:

    Every morning the network news chyrons are blazing away with Fallout From Biden’s Balloon Scandal or whatever anti-something he’s been traced to. Do Democrats seem cursed with affection for Chinese balloons?

  132. 132.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Betty Cracker: From here it would be madness to replace Biden for the 2024 run. What is incumbency worth to a sitting President? One or two percent? In a close election that is the difference between winning and losing.

    In any case he has been a remarkably good and competent President. It is up to his party to support him and his accomplishments, which are many. Stop wasting time moaning about the NYT and the rest of corporate media. They never give any political party, idea or person left of their corporate bosses the time of day.

    Where I live, Murdoch controls 75% of the print media, and the ABC, the public broadcaster is a cowed, right of centre mouthpiece, whose journalists with one or two exceptions are shills for the conservative parties. The A holes can still be beaten though.
    The point is to not expect the media to ever tell the truth. They are in the business of ‘conflict’ and ‘clicks’ not truth.

    Proceed accordingly.

    Oh, and never, ever take political advice from journalists. They are wicked dumb, when not simply malicious.

  133. 133.

    Ohio Mom

    No, Lisa Mascaro, AP Congressional Correspondent, raising the debt limit does not “allow more spending,” it allows us to pay the bills we already racked up.

    If I knew how to respond to that tweet,  would. But I don’t so I will complain here.

  135. 135.

    Old School

    So McCarthy has to has to feel like he has to do something since it will be his first SOTU.  Get your guesses in for what he’ll do.

    Use a sharpie to put a big X on his copy of the speech?

    Crumple it up into a ball?

    Light it on fire?

  136. 136.

    Bupalos

    @schrodingers_cat: mmmm….I don’t want Biden to run again* because I’m just really worried in the big picture about a country so completely dominated by the generation gettin’ ready to die. We really are a little like Russia. Similar stratospheric levels of inequality and similar tilt towards geriatrics that seem at best to promise getting back to an unrecoverable past we shouldn’t actually want to get back to. Whether that is 2008 or 1928.

    *presumes difficult to identify alternative candidate that is both young and viable.

  137. 137.

    Soprano2

    @zhena gogolia: I just don’t get all this angst about Biden running again. I wonder how much of it is fear of Kamala Harris becoming president if Biden dies while in office?

  138. 138.

    Elizabelle

    @catclub:  The older brother was shot, and possibly run over, if memory serves.

    The Tsarnaevs. Tamerlan “Speed Bump”, and Dzjokhar.

    Tamerlan died of gunshot wounds and blunt force trauma.

  139. 139.

    Ken

    @NotMax: Can’t spell rebuttal without b-u-t-t.

    The Republican response will begin with with an adumbration of their oxymoronic rebuttal assessment.

  140. 140.

    Old School

    Since it will be his first SOTU, McCarthy has to feel like he has to do something to draw attention to himself.

    Draw an X on the speech with a sharpie?

    Crumple it up into a ball?

    Light his copy on fire?

  142. 142.

    Elizabelle

    @Aussie Sheila:

    never, ever take political advice from journalists. They are wicked dumb, when not simply malicious.

    Yep.

    They don’t realize what a closed circle they operate in.  They are pack animals.   Without the redeeming qualities of wolves.

  143. 143.

    Amir Khalid

    @Betty Cracker:

    he was involved in a small Nazi cell in Tampa several years back that came to the cops’ attention because one of the Nazis converted to Islam and took offense at his Nazi roommates’ comments about that, and he murdered two of them.

    As a Muslim, I find that incredibly fucked up.

  144. 144.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: The FBI and NC Bureau of Investigation still have not cracked the case of the Moore County attack that left 45,000 residents without power in early December. But the feds are catching other plotters now that this has become a priority.

    Authorities in Oregon did nab a couple guys for knocking out substations, but they apparently were common criminals who over thought the problem of burgling some local businesses.

  145. 145.

    Soprano2

    @Betty Cracker: It’s crazy though, because if Biden were the same except 20 years younger they wouldn’t be saying any of that stuff! I really think there’s a low-level, almost unconscious fear among many of these people that Harris will become president if Biden dies in office, and they’re terrified of that for some reason.

  147. 147.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud: ETA: The fact is a lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about.  Especially the NYT.

    truth

  148. 148.

    FelonyGovt

    I just heard the CBS radio announcer intone, prior to the SOTU, that “Independents, as well as Republicans, are unhappy with Biden’s policies”.  Pissed me right off. They covered Trump’s admin like a funny, somewhat scandalous reality TV show and as far as I remember, never discussed reaction to his “policies”.

  151. 151.

    snoey

    @catclub: FBI accompanied by Mass State Police shot a Chechen in Florida while investigating a triple murder tied to the elder Tsarnaev. The whole story reeks of coverups but has nothing to do with the Nazis.

  152. 152.

    Amir Khalid

    @Elizabelle:

    The younger brother, whose name is spelled (and pronounced) Johar in my neck of the woods, got his face on the cover of the Rolling Stone, and all the teen girls swooned about how dreamy Johar looked.

  153. 153.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: Some of this may be angst over not having a contested primary to cover. That could be very exciting, especially if it was protracted and divisive.

    Of course, that is one of the best reasons for Democrats to hope Joe Biden runs again.

  154. 154.

    Brachiator

    @Soprano2:

     I wonder how much of it is fear of Kamala Harris becoming president if Biden dies while in office?

    Unfortunately, I think there is a lot of this, especially from the pundit class as well as some Democrats.

    And yet, some lefties are still yearning for an ancient Bernie.

  156. 156.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Subsole: You are most welcome! I think the world is not paying enough attention what is happening in India. It is where Germany and Italy were about 90 years ago.

    It didn’t start with concentration camps.

  157. 157.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: Reminds me of that post Paul Campos made on LGM several months ago in which he fretted about Biden being too old and concluded that… maybe… he should dump and replace Kamala Harris. Justified with concern about Harris not polling well, in case something happened to Biden.

  158. 158.

    Geminid

    @Aussie Sheila: I think incumbency is worth more than one or two per cent of votes. A big factor is the saving the money, time and emotional capital spent on a contested nomination.

  159. 159.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Elizabelle: @Soprano2:

    We have a bingo. And boy, are they throwing derision her way, every opportunity.

    Yes. This is it exactly. Fear of a woman president. A woman of color as president is even worse to these clowns.

  161. 161.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Betty Cracker: One of the many drops of hacked emails, that happened after the trolls realized any emails with any connection to Hillary Clinton would do, was a collection of DNC emails that the Bernie fans claimed proved the DNC was rigging the primary for Hillary. It did no such thing but I remember the spin.

  163. 163.

    Brachiator

    @citizen dave:

    The stakes are that a small minority of americans will watch it, and an even smaller number will watch the rebuttal, and by next week it will be down the memory hole.

    In an effort to boost ratings, the Republican rebuttal to the SOTU will be given by George Santos.

  164. 164.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Geminid: Exactly. And contrary to the dumb and malicious journos, I think Harris is doing a fine job as VP. That’s because I almost never hear about her ever. Don’t get me wrong. She will be a good President if she gets there. But she’s the VP for fucks sake.

    She. Should. Not. Overshadow. Her. Boss.

    Is that too hard for the Media to process? Or is it being a woman she should be both forward and backward, in high heels. God they are dumb.

  166. 166.

    Ken

    @Brachiator: So despite the Democrats’ claims of inclusiveness, the Republicans are the first to have a Jew-ish, 9/11-surviving, six-time orphaned, college volleyball-playing, gay-ish Brazilian-Ukrainian-Martian give the SOTU rebuttal.

  167. 167.

    Amir Khalid

    @Brachiator:

    I seem to recall that Bernie dropped out of the 2020 primary after he had a heart attack. I suspect Bernie’s running-for-President days are behind him.

  168. 168.

    gvg

    @Betty Cracker: Unfortunately I did hear it. The people I heard it from kept saying they would be fired from their jobs if they did that etc. It was sort of like equating the Government spending with a household budget. Once people thought they understood it, you couldn’t budge them. And a lot of their analogies were wrong and kind of random. It wasn’t all liberals thinking this and conservatives thinking that, it was people often relate their own life experiences to what they hear on the news and get it totally wrong. (It seemed to me)

  171. 171.

    The Moar You Know

    From here it would be madness to replace Biden for the 2024 run. What is incumbency worth to a sitting President? One or two percent? 

    @Aussie Sheila: at least that much.  If he’s physically up for it, you run Biden.  That’s not even a question and the people “just asking questions” are showing what they want (Dem loss, GOP presidency) even by mentioning the possibility.

    Incumbents do lose sometimes.  But the history of American presidencies show the overwhelming advantage of incumbency.  VERY few involuntary one-termers, and most of those are recent:  Carter, Bush I, Trump.

  172. 172.

    WaterGirl

    @Soprano2:

    I wonder how much of it is fear of Kamala Harris becoming president if Biden dies while in office?

    IF, god forbid, Biden dies in office, Harris becoming president is not a bug, it’s a feature.

  173. 173.

    wenchacha

    @Soprano2: I was bug-nuts terrified when tfg was in office. I haven’t heard why VP Harris could be as scary. Aside from being a woman and non-White, I mean.

  175. 175.

    Sure Lurkalot

    No reason to give the FTFNYT a penny when you can read articles freely by turning off JavaScript or likely through your library. You can’t read or respond to comments but maybe that feature isn’t worth giving $ to fascists.

  179. 179.

    Ken

    @Soprano2: It’s crazy though, because if Biden were the same except 20 years younger they wouldn’t be saying any of that stuff!

    No, but we’d be hearing a hell of a lot more garbage about “questions remain about the Hunter Biden laptop”.

  180. 180.

    Another Scott

    @Tony Jay: +1

    Katy Kay was such an over the top St. John McCain fangirl it was embarrassing and infuriating to watch.

    They destroyed a great news organization.

    Grr…,
    Scott.

  181. 181.

    Barbara

    @Ken: There were people who wanted to primary Obama.  You have to understand that a presidential primary generates a lot of work for professional campaign staffers.  Every eight years instead of every four is a lot of money left on the table.

  182. 182.

    Matt McIrvin

    @WaterGirl: I think one of the fears that came from people like Campos is that she might be a fine President but would be un-reelectable as an incumbent, because so many people hate her for incomprehensible reasons.

    But it was all this very abstract reasoning in which they took the poll numbers of that moment as a static given and then swapped in different candidates and Presidents. Reality is always messier than that. “The President dies/is incapacitated and the VP steps in” is an event that shuffles political reality a lot

    For me, one of the things that has always made me worry less about Biden’s age is just that Harris would obviously be fine as President.

  184. 184.

    Amir Khalid

    @The Moar You Know:

    has nothing to do with Islam and I think most people understand that. The dude was a violent murderous shithead before his conversion, and stayed one.

    Somehow, I did not realise that until you so kindly pointed it out.

  185. 185.

    PJ

    @WaterGirl: Goldberg has always disliked Biden.  This is from a piece in April 2020 (https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2020/04/14/michelle-goldberg-what-do/ )where she says, regarding the blatantly false Tara Reade accusation, “it could be true, who knows?”:

    As I’ve written repeatedly, I think Biden is a weak candidate, and I wouldn’t be unhappy if the Democratic Party were forced, by some last-minute emergency, to replace him, maybe with one of the Democratic governors who has shined in response to the coronavirus crisis.

  186. 186.

    cain

    @Soprano2:

    I think the problem is that Kamala press coverage has been terrible – they just not interested in covering her. Notice how Pete gets all the accolades even in this fine blog? Kamala isn’t out there – nobody knows her. I wonder why that is? Media bias?

    I think Kamala is perfectly capable – I don’t think Biden would have made a mistake here and truly, she did help him win the presidency.

    She’s clearly been squeaky clean because nobody has written a negative article and try to put a shiv in her.

  188. 188.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud:

    The press would be upset because they were saving it for the book.
     

    You’re on fire today! Fast AND true.

  193. 193.

    karen marie

    @The Moar You Know: Where are you reading that he converted “and stayed one”? What I read gave me a very different impression.

    Arthurs told a shifting series of stories about his motives. He told his father he’d killed them to head off Atomwaffen’s terrorist plans. He said something similar to investigators. But he also offered an even stranger version: that he’d converted to Islam and supported ISIS, and that he’d killed the two men because they mocked his newfound religion.

    .

  194. 194.

    Baud

    @cain:

    She’s clearly been squeaky clean because nobody has written a negative article and try to put a shiv in her.

     
    Exactly. The lack of coverage tells me she’s doing a great job.

  195. 195.

    Suzanne

    @Brachiator: I think hostility to Kamala is part of it.

    I think there is also a generalized sense of not wanting old people to still be in charge of everything. I mean, I kind of share it. I would like to see more youth and vigor in our political life in general, and more of a mix of ages. But that’s a generalized comment, not any sort of direct comment on Biden’s age or fitness.

    It is hard to see people like Feinstein and to realize that there is nothing to come between her and her stubbornness.

  196. 196.

    different-church-lady

    Trying to figure out why the press hates Harris is like trying to understand the rules of a mean girls clique; there aren’t any.

  197. 197.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: @cain: BS bros and Warren supporters on Twitter have called Kopmala. Said she is not black enough because her parents were immigrants. I have also seen hate for her from some anti-caste Indian activists because her mother was Brahmin and from Modi Bhakts for being too soft on Muslims.

  199. 199.

    Elizabelle

    @Barbara: thank you for your comments on the Carpaccio exhibit yesterday. Plan to drive up to DC tomorrow to see it. And I’m very sorry that I managed to miss the John Singer Sargent exhibit about Spain. I so wanted to see it. It closed January 2. Lesson to self: write these things down.

  201. 201.

    Baud

    @Suzanne:

    The US hasn’t had a West Coast president since Reagan, and I’m not sure the Dems have ever had one.  But we don’t see 50 gazillion articles saying Biden should not run because of that.

  202. 202.

    leeleeFL

    @Baud: Like the former King of England and millions of other people who stutter!  The fucking HORROR!  May I just say that Ihate these assholes with the heat of a million suns?!

  203. 203.

    M31

    @Betty Cracker: what is up with these Nazis and their complete conviction that once the power goes out there will be chaos and ‘black people out of control’ thereby heightening the contradictions or something so whites rule everything?

    that was Charles Manson’s schtick too, if I’m not mistaken

    lol the power goes out from time to time anyway and people just hunker down and wait it out and also help out their neighbors

  205. 205.

    Ken

    @leeleeFL: Now you have me imagining Biden using exercises like in The King’s Speech, and when he gives the SOTU, every pause is because he’s looking at the Republicans and thinking “f*ckers f*ckers f*ckers”.

    Thank you.

  206. 206.

    Matt McIrvin

    @M31: Yep, it was exactly Charles Manson’s plan for world domination.

    But I think the preoccupation with power failures causing social unrest, specifically, comes from the mythology surrounding the 1977 New York City blackout, in which there was a lot of arson and looting. Of course NYC in 1977 was a city on the verge of exploding to begin with. Most urban power failures, even most New York City power failures, have been nothing like that.

  207. 207.

    AnonPhenom

    Speaker McCarthy says he told Biden to not use “extreme MAGA Republicans” in his speech. “I don’t think that’s appropriate comment … (blah, blah, blah)

    Sure thing Kevin, the minute you roll back 30 years of “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control”

  210. 210.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Suzanne: Feinstein should be put out  to pasture. What is it with US pols. They just won’t step away. The Dem party should adopt an informal practice-no nominations for anything if you are over 60 yo.

    I know that would have effed Biden, but going forward, it’s getting ridiculous. Once he is safely elected next year, make it so that nominations are tighter and younger. In any case she is unfit for office. Why is anyone even thinking of her running again?

  211. 211.

    Baud

    @zhena gogolia:

    Probably not.  The application to KH is stupid, but as a general matter it’s like the debate over whether or not to be “colorblind” in a world where racism and its effects are still present.

  212. 212.

    Baud

    @Aussie Sheila:

    People don’t expect Feinstein to run again. And as you know, US parties don’t have effective mechanisms for enforcing rules on who can be a candidate for office.

  213. 213.

    Peale

    @Matt McIrvin: Yep. That’s my take, too. I mean, look, the city of Birmingham has poisoned water for months on end and it looked like the government was actually taking steps to make sure that state of affairs lasted as long as possible and there were still no riots and race wars starting.  If it weren’t for the militias looking for Antifa during the forest fires last year, no one during that crisis was interested in looking for a fight, either.  But they are in their lalaland where its always Watts and Detroit and Rodney King in the inner cities and its just going 24 hours without power that’ll rid us of all our cities.

  214. 214.

    schrodingers_cat

    @zhena gogolia: Many anti-caste activists (I am speaking of fiolks who live in India) based on their lived experience find it difficult to trust anyone who has an upper caste ancestry.

    Their unease is also based on many 2nd gen uppercaste Indians who regurgitate BJP’s incendiary nonsense as wisdom.

    So I have seen these accounts retweet RW nonsense about KH

    Spaces dominated by Indian expats or Indian Americans especially in tech are rife with caste based discrimination. There have been several high profile lawsuits about this against tech giants.

    So it is frustrating but understandable.

    @Baud: You get it. You are wise.

  215. 215.

    OverTwistWillie

    Other strikes against Kamala are dating Willie Brown and having been a D.A.

    Worst of all she doesn’t even TRY to take the politics out of politics.

  217. 217.

    zhena gogolia

    @schrodingers_cat: Well, I can see it in the context of India, but she was raised in this country so I don’t understand feeling you can’t trust her, since she didn’t benefit from the system in which it mattered. Maybe I’m being obtuse.

  219. 219.

    Geminid

    @Matt McIrvin:Reports are that there has been an increase in the past year or so of calls in miltia-type circles for disrupting the power grid. This may be because they understand that their side is losing the political war.

    Now that utilities are on the alert, I expect they have toughened up the substations with hidden cameras and silent alarms, obvious and easy things to do. That way they’ll at least catch the dumb ones and that might scare the smart ones.

  221. 221.

    Geminid

    @Aussie Sheila: Feinstein’s not running. She has less than $10,000 in her campaign fund and that is the most expensive Senate race in the country.

    I think the people who talk about Feinstein running are people who don’t like her and like to complain about her. It’s like how some people cherish their grievances.

  222. 222.

    Brachiator

    @gvg:

     It was sort of like equating the Government spending with a household budget. Once people thought they understood it, you couldn’t budge them. And a lot of their analogies were wrong and kind of random.

    I keep hearing various pundits come back to the false notions of running the government like a business and thinking about federal spending like a household budget.

    These are easily understood analogies, so it is easy for some to fall back on them even though they are just plain wrong.

  224. 224.

    Eyeroller

    @Brachiator: It’s a myth that will not die, but in any case, hardly any households “balance their budgets.”  The majority of American households carry credit-card debt.  Most don’t pay it off every month.  Most households have loans or other obligations, at least a car loan or lease payment and perhaps a mortgage.  So this image of salt-of-the-earth (white) Americans “balancing their budgets” around their kitchen tables is ridiculous.

  226. 226.

    Elizabelle

    @Amir Khalid:  Oh no!

    Although I hope Dzhokhar is never executed.  Don’t believe he deserves the death penalty, mostly due to his age at the time of the murders.

  227. 227.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat:

     I have also seen hate for her from some anti-caste Indian activists because her mother was Brahmin and from Modi Bhakts for being too soft on Muslims.

    This is interesting and very sad. It’s like Harris cannot win.

  228. 228.

    Elizabelle

    @WaterGirl:   Yeah. Same here.

    Guardian columnist Arwha (whatever her name is).  Never read another paragraph after she fell for serial liar Tara Reade.

    Sad to learn Michelle Goldberg is as shabby a thinker, in that respect.

    Glad Betty Cracker will do a blogpost, because I think it will be seen, by Goldberg and possibly a lot of other journalists.  Whether we ever hear about that, or not.

    ETA:  Aha.  Betty’s post is up.  Next one.

  230. 230.

    Geminid

    @Elizabelle: I think some of the people who pushed  Tara Reade’s lies had an agenda: they were disappointed in the outcome of the primaries and hoped their candidate would take Biden’s place. It was so very reckless.

    I figure that’s why a popular MSNBC host tried to give Reade’s allegations some air. He gave up after a few days and I’m not sure his fans noticed what he had tried. But I sure did, and that guy remains on my shit list.

  231. 231.

    PJ

    @WaterGirl: To her credit, Goldberg was skeptical of Reade’s claims, but she used them to frame her “this raises questions – should Biden drop out?” bullshit.

  234. 234.

    Citizen Alan

    @Aussie Sheila: I’m sorry, but this is naive. States which have long serving senators benefit greatly from continuing to keep those senators in office, even after their faculties have declined and their staffs are running the show. It’s probably not what the founders would have wanted, but it’s what we’ve had for the last century if not longer. Mississippi kept voting for Democrat Jamie Whitten long after the rest of the state went Republican and long after Whitten was obviously mentally impaired because of the pork he brought home to the state. And they kept voting for Thad Cochran long after he could barely talk because his somnambulatory body sat in the chair of the appropriations committee.

  236. 236.

    evodevo

    @Eyeroller: Yep…this..I use that example every time someone brings it up.  Do you have a mortgage? do you make the payment every month? then you are NOT bankrupt lol…if you had to “balance your budget” every month/year…you would not have a house, or a car…on the other hand, if for some crazy reason you decide to tank your revenue sources, you WOULD be in trouble, and that’s just what Trumpy and the GOP did when they gained power and passed the 2017 tax cut.

  237. 237.

    Citizen Alan

    @Brachiator: Even on its own terms, it’s a fucking stupid analogy. These assholes are all rich enough to be in families where they can afford to buy a new car in cash if they want to. The overwhelming majority of American families with cars, however, have a car note, probably several. The majority of Americans who go to college and who are not from wealthy families have to take out student loans. And all but the wealthiest families buy homes through mortgage loans. The real issue is that we cannot afford to pay for what we want without taking on new debt because our tax revenue isn’t high enough WHICH IS  BECAUSE REPUBLICANS KEEP CUTTING TAXES! And in this stupid tortured analogy they insist upon, the equivalent would be parents voluntarily taking pay cuts because they believe their rich bosses should be allowed to keep more of their profits, so to make ends meet they raid the kids college fund and cut off grandma’s insulin supply.

  238. 238.

    Geminid

    @zhena gogolia:No. Melber wouldn’t fall for Reade. I’m talking about Chris Hayes. I think he might have backed off when Reade’s discreditable history was exposed. He never acknowledged his mistake, at least so far as I know.

    Reade managed to parlay her scurrilous allegations into some fame. She’s on the speakers list for the DC “Rage Against the War Machine” rally later this month. So are Medea Benjamin, Jimmy Dore and Scott Ritter. They will be overshadowed by Tulsi Gabbard.

    I found it interesting that the “von Mises Caucus” that took control of the Libertarian Party last year is listed as a principal sponsor for the event. Those people will bear watching next year. Third parties hurt us in 2016 and peeling off Biden votes with a strong 3rd party candidate is an obvious play for 2024. The money will be there.

  239. 239.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Citizen Alan: I think there’s this residual “neither a borrower nor a lender be” moralism even among Americans who have mortgages and car loans and student loans and credit cards like most regular people do.

    They’ve been told that the United States is like someone who’s in over their head on their credit cards and someone is about to repossess the furniture, and I know that back in 2011, there was this vague but false idea that the debt ceiling was like a credit limit. You wouldn’t keep raising the credit limit of such a person, would you? That’s a vivid and familiar image to most people and figuring out that it’s a bad analogy requires more analysis.

  242. 242.

    J R in WV

    I’ve often wondered to myself if President Biden may intend to resign in his second term, so that there would be a first Democratic female President of Color, also so that Ms Harris might run for President as a successful incumbent.

    I can’t tell if that would be a good thing politically or not.

    I’m not psychic, after all. Sadly…

  243. 243.

    Memory Pallas

    Biden should bring a little dart gun to the SOTU and if ANYONE brings a balloon, he should shoot it down.

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