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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Tuesday Evening Open Thread: President ‘Union Joe’ Biden *Gets* It

Tuesday Evening Open Thread: President ‘Union Joe’ Biden *Gets* It

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You know it’s serious, because professional plagiarist / Turning Point USA propagandist Benny Johnson tried to put out another lie about the President’s picket-line visit… and his fellow Very Serious Media Folx immediately called him on it!

Reader Interactions

83Comments

  2. 2.

    cain

    @Baud: That’s what I was going to say.. “minutes after slipping…” fuck that guy.

    ETA Maybe he meant to say “slip of the tongue” but like his other quote it came out all wrong? Yeah.. likely not.

  4. 4.

    Tim Ellis

    Just here to once again acknowledge that I was supremely wrong about Biden in the primaries. This dude rocks, and I’ve never been prouder to be a Democrat – the real party of the working class in the United States.

  5. 5.

    Tony Jay

    That’s the flag the United Farm Workers use? The one in the picture with President Romero?

    That’s… uhhhhh…. that’s a pretty striking choice of colour and whatnot. Nice eagle too.

    Wow.

    ETA – Other than that, Keep Going Brandon.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: We can safely assume that’s a lie, considering the non-stop lying source. I watched the clip posted earlier start to finish, and I admit I was worried about a stack of pallets used as a soap box as a tripping hazard, but there were no pratfalls that I saw.

  9. 9.

    dmsilev

    Meanwhile, the House GOP refuses to do their jobs, to the point where the Senate is actually the faster-moving and more responsible body. And the “solution” being proposed is, of course, to slash slash slash at benefits that go to normal people.

    Quite the contrast.

  10. 10.

    Juju

    @Baud: A slip on the stairs is being reported by Fox News, Forbes, the Daily News and New York Post. I watched the video and I didn’t see a slip.

    Edit: a slip on the stairs of Air Force One.

  12. 12.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Baud: Did Biden actually slip on the steps or is that another lie too?

    If he did, it’s not a moment too soon. Seth Meyers just got his writing staff back and they need to update their Biden tripping clip.

  14. 14.

    Anne Laurie

    @Tony Jay: That’s the flag the United Farm Workers use? The one in the picture with President Romero?

    IIRC, the eagle is a tribute to both the American icon and the Mexican flag.

    And, yeah, founder Cesar Chavez was… not above tweaking the rightwingers who called him a filthy commanist, let’s phrase it.

    (UAW co-founder Dolores Huerta, age 90, is still tweeting occasionally.)

  15. 15.

    Baud

    From page 21 of the judge’s order dissolving Trump Corporation.

    [Trump] also seems to imply the the numbers cannot be inflated because he could find a “buyer from Saudi Arabia” to pay any price he suggests. [10]

    [10] This statement may suggest influence buying more than savvy investing.

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    @Baud: Are you saying that the judge is suggesting that there may have been ulterior motives in the Saudis shoveling billions of dollars towards Jared Kushner?

    I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.

  21. 21.

    sab

    @Tony Jay: I think that eagle is a thunderbird, which was a big deal in North American cultures centuries before any Europeans got here with their symbolic baggage.

    ETA Everybody around the world had big birds. Everybody did weaving and bead work. Everybody used various native dyes. So not surprising at all that the similar imagery turned up all over.

  23. 23.

    Tony Jay

    @sab:

    It’s not so much the eagle, which is pretty much universal, it’s the bright red banner with a white circle around a black emblem. That’s the colour combination that brought me up short.

  24. 24.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Tim Ellis:

    Yeah, I’m another one who really really didn’t want Biden as our candidate in 2020. Extremely glad to be wrong, since he’s turned out to be the best President of my lifetime.

    Proud to be a Democrat.

  30. 30.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @schrodingers_cat: Biden is the anti-Reagan. I am proud Biden voter from Super Tuesday of 2020.

    Does that make Obama the anti-Nixon and Trump the anti-Carter?

    ETA: Hillary can be the anti-Goldwater. She warned us they were coming. So did he, in the “we” sense.

  36. 36.

    Origuy

    @Tony Jay: The eagle association with Mexico relates to the Aztecs, who were nomadic and settled down where Mexico City is today because of a prophesy that they should look for an eagle with a snake in its mouth perched on a cactus.

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    @schrodingers_cat

    Which is way curious, because he headed a union. Twice.

    The Last Time Writers and Actors Went on Strike at the Same Time, Ronald Reagan Was SAG President

    Decades before he was the 40th U.S. president, Reagan led the Screen Actors Guild in a five-week strike. Source

  38. 38.

    Jeffro

    Just run ads of Biden riding his bike and trump riding in his golf cart, Ds.

    Ads of Biden saying things like he did today on the picket line, vs trump saying his crazy shit at almost any point in time.

    Ads of Biden mocking the shit out of the GOP candidates, vs trump squealing like a hit dog over his many indictments.

    There was a piece a few days ago noting that the Biden/Harris campaign was going to lean in on “split-screen” ads and comparisons like this, and I for one could not be happier.

    Because we have to tell the blessed snooze media, and normies, and all the low-info voters in this country: HERE. ARE. YOUR. CHOICES.  One is pretty awesome in his own right – legit contender for best Dem since LBJ, maybe FDR.  The other has 91 felony indictments pending, just called for the execution of an American general, and just had his entire “business” “empire” declared fraudulent in his home state.

    HERE. ARE. YOUR. CHOICES.

  40. 40.

    Tom Q

    @Juju: Very, very tiny — barely perceptible — wobble.  The kind all of us have probably had hundreds of times in our lives, at all ages.  Even mentioning it marks you as an obsessive who’s actively seeking out confirmation for your “Biden is old/infirm” priors.

  41. 41.

    Jackie

    TIFG heard the news from NY 😁

    After a judge ruled that Donald Trump was liable for extensive financial fraud over a decade, the former president railed against the “new, un-American depths” and “radical attack” against him.

    Trump added the decision by a “deranged” judge was “a terrible reminder that the Radical Left Democrats will stop at nothing in trying to prevent me, and the American people, from winning the 2024 Presidential Election.”

    Eric Trump also slammed the verdict: “Today, I lost all faith in the New York legal system. Never before have I seen such hatred toward one person by a judge—a coordinated effort with the Attorney General to destroy a man’s life, company and accomplishments.”

  43. 43.

    Jeffro

    This is great.

    Even better: point out how the GOP is mouthing the words but doing nothing to actually help workers, Ds!

    Despite long standing GOP antipathy toward organized labor, since 2016 when Trump won over more union households than any GOP president since Ronald Reagan in 1980, more Republican officials are aligning themselves with striking workers — or at least aren’t being openly hostile to them. Trump, it’s worth noting, will be speaking at Drake Enterprises, a non-union shop Wednesday. Already, a range of prominent faces in the party have visited the picket lines or expressed support for UAW members, though in ways that stop short of strengthening the power of organized labor. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri spoke to strikers at a General Motors Plant in Wentzville. Rep. John James of Michigan, who represents suburban Detroit and the Reagan Democrat bastion of Macomb County, brought hot coffee to striking workers. And Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio has said that workers “deserve to get their end of the shake.”

     

    This new Republican attitude toward labor is borne out in new polling conducted by American Compass, the conservative think tank trying to chart a post-Reagan, populist vision for the center right that is “pro-worker.” Some 41 percent of Republicans now say “unions are a positive force that help workers and reduce corporate power,” according to a survey of 1,000 Republican voters conducted with YouGov and shared first with POLITICO Nightly. Likewise, 57 percent of respondents agreed that “Wall Street investors are getting rich doing things that weaken our economy” over one that “Wall Street investors play an important role in strengthening our economy.”

    They want to talk like Democrats…let’s SEE THEM ACT LIKE DEMOCRATS when it comes to supporting unions!

  44. 44.

    cain

    @Jeffro: performative bullshit is all they got. They don’t know how to do anything else. They probably don’t even know how to write a bill. I mean how long as it been since they have passed anything?

  45. 45.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: I might agree with JD Vance that workers “deserve to get their end of the shake” if I knew what the hell that meant. A fair shake? The short end of the stick? Was the ambiguity intentional? Or is Vance just an idiot.

  51. 51.

    Kay

    United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain said Tuesday that he won’t meet with former President Trump during his upcoming visit to Detroit.
    “I don’t think the man has any bit of care about what our workers stand for, what the working class stands for,” told CNN.
    “He serves the billionaire class and that’s what’s wrong with this country,” Fain added.

  52. 52.

    wjca

    @dmsilev: Meanwhile, the House GOP refuses to do their jobs, to the point where the Senate is actually the faster-moving and more responsible body.

    Maybe they’re on strike, too?  And just neglected to say so….  After all, they’re (our) employees, and not working.

  53. 53.

    Quiltingfool

    @Tom Q: I’m impressed that he can walk down stairs like an adult; I still walk down steps like a toddler, after (and before) my knee replacement!  When I do steps like an adult, whew, I go very slow!

  54. 54.

    Jackie

    Stock up on popcorn and beverages!

    Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said on the House floor that he will file a motion to vacate against Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Punchbowl News reports.

    He said it would be up to Democrats to decide whether McCarthy would be bailed out.

  57. 57.

    Jackie

    @cain: They’re finally learning to baby-walk 😉

    “House Republicans on Tuesday advanced four full-year spending bills, handing Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) a small win but doing little to stave off a government shutdown at the end of the month,” The Hillreports.

    “The chamber voted 216-212 to begin consideration of spending measures to fund the Department of Defense; Department of Homeland Security; Department of State and foreign operations; and the Department of Agriculture, rural development and Food and Drug Administration.”

    “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was the lone GOP ‘no’ vote.”

  58. 58.

    Geminid

    @schrodingers_cat: I’ve been enjoying Turkish Twitter myself, and have had some interesting conversation with a guy named Bora Bingol. That would be the medical technology engineer Bora Bingol, not the landscape architect or the forestry professor with the same name.

    Twitter being the way it is, I also seem to have fallen into a crowd of “old school Kemalists” or Galatasaray Football Club fans, I’m not sure which.

  63. 63.

    Kay

    There’s a great book about the UFW and the grape boycott: Delano: the Story of the California Grape Strike, by John Gregory Dunne 

    It’s about more than the strike. It’s really about Latino and Filipino political power in California. It’s also about the tensions between white union members and Latino union members; specifically, how the two groups got past their differences to work together – Teamsters ( the locals, not the national) refused to carry the grapes during the strike.

  64. 64.

    wjca

    @Geminid: Matt Gaetz should be careful what he wishes for.

    If he succeeds in “vacating the Chair,” then the House can do nothing until they elect a new Speaker.  Including passing a spending bill or a continuing resolution.  Which means the shutdown continues — a two-fer, because that’s also a Gaetz wish.

    Admittedly, November 2024 might be another story.

  65. 65.

    janesays

    In tangential union related news, the WGA has reached a deal with AMPTP, and the strike will officially end at 12am PT tonight. Though it hasn’t been officially ratified by the membership yet, the negotiating committee of WGA West Board and WGA East Council both voted unanimously to recommend the deal to their membership, and they seem quite thrilled with what they were able to get in the deal.

    https://twitter.com/APEntertainment/status/1706737903882453090

    Hopefully this will give SAG-AFTRA some serious leverage and the actors union can work out their new contract soon as well.

  66. 66.

    Soprano2

    @schrodingers_cat: It was quite disconcerting to be in an old theater in Albuquerque and see all the swastikas, even though they explained that it’s an old symbol that way predates the Nazis. It’s a visceral reaction for me.

  67. 67.

    Geminid

    @wjca: Yeah, that’s probably why Gaetz is doing this. Trump may even have instructed him to engineer a shutdown.

    But Democrats might not save McCarthy like Gaetz predicts. Then, if Republicans can’t rally around a new one of their own, the House might elect a Speaker very different from what Gaetz has in mind.

    But however this shakes out, I don’t think the House will go without a Speaker for more than a week.

  69. 69.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Geminid: ​

    I might agree with JD Vance that workers “deserve to get their end of the shake” if I knew what the hell that meant. A fair shake? The short end of the stick? Was the ambiguity intentional? Or is Vance just an idiot.

    I’m going with that last option. God, how I loathe that man.

    @cain: ​

    performative bullshit is all they got. They don’t know how to do anything else. They probably don’t even know how to write a bill.

    I wouldn’t doubt it. They’ve lost all interest in governing, and if you’re not interested in something, it’s hard to be any good at it.

    Besides, writing a bill isn’t going to get them that nice Faux News or RW ‘think’ tank sinecure after they get bored with not legislating.

  72. 72.

    Steeplejack

    @Jackie:

    How in hell did Matt Gaetz go from being a back-bencher one step ahead of a statutory-rape charge to a big wheel in the House GQP?!

    Rhetorical question. I don’t want to know, although I think I have a pretty good idea.

  73. 73.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Steeplejack: How in hell did Matt Gaetz go from being a back-bencher one step ahead of a statutory-rape charge to a big wheel in the House GQP?!

    One possibility: 15 rounds. Also, willingness to be an over-the-top jerk. He is a good example of how to get ahead in the GOP these days.

    [Please forgive the response to a rhetorical question]

  74. 74.

    Geminid

    @Steeplejack: I’m not sure Matt Gaetz is a big wheel. But he is the brashest member of a small group of troublemakers that can have outsized influence when Republicans have only 5 votes to spare.

    I imagine most of Gaetz’s Republican colleagues want to punch him out, and I won’t be surprised if one does before this Congress is over.

  76. 76.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Soprano2: The original swastika (used in Hindu rituals)  that inspired the Nazi variation, is  not tilted at 45 degrees and it is never black. It is vermillion and has 4 dots in the 4 quadrants as well.

    But yes seeing it any other context than in a pooja is disconcerting for me as well.

  77. 77.

    Juju

    @Tom Q: To me it looked like he lost his rhythm and then got it back. It might have been a twinge from his previously broken foot. My sister broke her foot years ago and occasionally gets a twinge every now and again where she sorts of jiggles when that foot lands. That’s what it looked like to me.

  79. 79.

    Jackie

    @Geminid: I read somewhere Gaetz has plans to be the next FL gov. Florida has three years to get their act together. Maybe the combo of DeSantis to Gaetz will “wake” Floridians up.

  82. 82.

    Geminid

    @Jackie: I’ve also read that about Gaetz. I don’t know much about Gaetz’s political stature in Florida except that his father has political clout, plus a lot of money. Still, it seems like there would be other viable contenders.

    But the only thing I know for sure about Florida politics is that I know very little about Florida politics. I feel like my state, Virginia, has a lot in common with many other states, especially those in the Southeast. But Florida is different. It’s terra incognita.

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