Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Books are my comfort food!

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Let me file that under fuck it.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Consistently wrong since 2002

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

We won’t go back.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Onward & Upward

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Onward & Upward

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… The first lady was to kick things off on Friday, the start of Women’s History Month, with a weekend travel blitz through states that will be key to deciding November’s presidential election.

“Women put Joe in the White House four years ago, and women will do it again,” she said in a statement. “In our communities, women are the organizers, the planners, the mobilizers. We get things done. That’s exactly why we’re launching ‘Women for Biden’ now because when women organize, we win.”

The first lady’s Friday to Sunday tour will take her to Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin, all among the handful of states that will decide whether Democrat Biden gets another four years in office or whether the Republican Party retakes control of the White House…

Julie Chávez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager, said the stakes for women in this election “could not be higher.” Women were crucial to Biden’s defeat of Trump in 2020.

“Americans will face a real choice at the ballot box this November between Joe and Kamala who will stand up and fight for women and their freedoms each and every day, and Donald Trump who is looking to take our rights and freedoms away,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “Republicans have underestimated the power of women time after time and together, this November, we will make sure that they never make that mistake again.”…

This is great news — more young voters, and more young people getting into the habit of voting:

Ex-Republican / professional curmudgeon:

Reader Interactions

100Comments

  2. 2.

    Elizabelle

    I joined Women for Biden.  Joining Women for Obama worked out pretty well.

    Good morning, jackals

    ETA:  Make that Women for Biden-Harris.  We know our ticket!  And it’s an excellent one.

  3. 3.

    lowtechcyclist

    Looks like we had a front-page post disappear.  I’d just finished writing a comment in that thread. So it goes.

  5. 5.

    Dangerman

    We have several months of waiting for the Cat 5 shitstorm.

    There is no way they grant immunity. They are just trying to avoid to storm. Yeah, good luck, MF’s.

  10. 10.

    Betty Cracker

    I like Lieu’s spirit and hope he is right. Also heartily approve of Dems talking about women’s issues in terms of freedom because that’s absolutely what’s at stake, and it’s a winning message.

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Vanishing ice and snow: record warm winter wreaks havoc across US midwest

    By mid-February, ice cover historically averages about 40%. This year it was about 4%. Even before the official end of winter on 19 March, three normally frigid cities – Grand Forks, North Dakota; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Minneapolis-St Paul, Minnesota – have already recorded their warmest winter on record this year. Scientists say warming temperatures are a result of human-made climate change and are expected to continue rising for decades to come.

    This winter’s mild temperatures have played havoc across the midwest, wrecking plans and disrupting local economies.

    In Minnesota, organizers of the Wayzata Chilly Open – an annual ice golfing tournament – were “heartbroken” to have to cancel their event in January after up to 6in of water lay on top of ice on Lake Minnetonka. The event since 1984 had annually attracted about 2,000 “golfers” to the area, serving as an important economic boost.

    North America’s biggest cross-country ski race, the American Birkebeiner, contributes about $20m to the north-western Wisconsin region each year. This year it has been forced to run on an altered course due to a lack of natural snow.

    “Last year, we had record amounts of snow and this year we’re at record low snow,” said Natalie Chin, climate and tourism outreach specialist at the Wisconsin Sea Grant program in Superior, Wisconsin. “So it’s a pretty stark contrast. There’s barely any snow on the ground. It’s unseasonably warm.

    Welcome to the new normal.

  15. 15.

    topclimber

    Repeated from post down under:

    It takes four judges to grant cert and five a stay.

    With a stay, the appeal process returns to the full district court. This would further delay the process vs. the Supremes taking cert now. That’s probably why it was Smith’s fallback position.

    This indicates to me that Trump has four judges in the bag, not five. Sometime in May, he loses his appeal 5-4. (Remember you saw it here folks, but only if I am right).

    Which is all anti-Eyeore to the max, but won’t mean diddly if we don’t win the election. It could mean a lot in helping us win that election, assuming the trial actually begins.

  17. 17.

    lowtechcyclist

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Welcome to the new normal.

    Indeed.  The calendar still says February, but it’s been March normal here for the past two weeks at least.  This morning is chilly and windy, but it’ll be in the mid to upper 40s by afternoon, and will get warmer from there.

    We’re fucking things up globally, and it’s gonna take a lot of doing to unfuck them.

  18. 18.

    RevRick

    @OzarkHillbilly: The Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius predicted this outcome back in 1896. When he presented his findings to the Royal Academy in Upsala, he added that if we doubled the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to burning fossil fuels, the global temperature would rise by 5 degrees. And here we are.

  19. 19.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I feel better about politics this morning than I did yesterday. I seem to have accepted that this is the political situation we have. Time to move on to doing something useful.

  20. 20.

    Dangerman

    @topclimber: This indicates to me that Trump has four judges in the bag, not five. Sometime in May, he loses his appeal 5-4.

    I might be misreading your comment. Early my end. Raining. Worst of all, Decaf.

    No way the USSC grants immunity. If they can’t look into their crystal balls and tell that first thing Biden does if immunity is granted is arrest them all (along with Trump) and send them on a vacation to Gitmo, they are idiots. Which we knew.

    Hey, Immunity, MFs. Of course, the House impeaches, but the Senate won’t convict. Enjoy that beach in Cuba, assholes.

  21. 21.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I didn’t see either the post or your comment, so this is not specific to any particular front pagers, BUT: I really wish FPs wouldn’t pull (their own or others’) posts just because a new one went up a few minutes later, AND: I really wish we could all just get over the whole “Bigfoot” thing. I hope we’re all capable of reading different threads and moving among them to comment or follow a conversation. As it is, I always feel cheated when I see (or worse, don’t see!) an interesting post only to have it disappear a few comments in.

  22. 22.

    Scamp Dog

    @Baud: Back in 2008 and 2012, when I volunteered with the Obama campaign, we joked about forming White Men for Obama. Our motto was “we’re not all reactionary assholes.”

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WaterGirl: The Guardian featured that pic in one of their “Photos of the Day/Week whatever” spreads. And yes, heartbreaking. And speaking of heartbreaking, I read a while back that it has been another really bad year for the Monarch Flutterbys.

    @lowtechcyclist: If we can.

    @RevRick: Butbutbut Exxon said it wasn’t true.

  24. 24.

    jonas

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yesterday here in upstate NY, it was 65 and partly sunny. This morning it’s 18 with a foot of snow on the ground. Lost power This is what most of the month of February *used* to look like around here, but these days it’s week-to-week Weather Whipsaw.

  25. 25.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Scamp Dog: Remember “Rednecks for Obama”? I managed to peel one of the bumper stickers off my commute car and put it on a window in my shop.

  30. 30.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    We’re in Columbia starting later today to attend the True/False film festival.  Have been going since year 1 with the exception of 2022 when they did a botched attempt at coming back from covid (there was none in 2021).

    It’s gonna be 70s all weekend…a far cry from the early years when it was always cold, sometimes snowy.

    Of course this tracks with what we saw living beside the Osage River for 22 years, or watching the Missouri River *not* ice up like it used to.

    Or the fact the winters didn’t get cold enough to kill off the box elder bug larvae the result of which the front of the Dauphine would be innundated with the bastards come summer.

  33. 33.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: The place I live is an example of climate change. My landlord bought it in the late 1970s and planted 18 acress of apple trees. The orchard produced well for about 10 years, and then warmer winters started causing early blossoming. There were still April frosts though, and that meant poor harvests. Now the orchard has gone back to forest.

  34. 34.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Dangerman:

    No way the USSC grants immunity. If they can’t look into their crystal balls and tell that first thing Biden does if immunity is granted is arrest them all (along with Trump) and send them on a vacation to Gitmo, they are idiots. Which we knew.

    Biden will not do that. Biden believes in the rule of law, even if they don’t, even if he can’t go to jail for it. And they know that.

    This is the handicap we deal with: evil people who believe only in power have options available to them that decent people don’t. That’s always the case, regardless of Supreme Court rulings.

  36. 36.

    oldgold

    What are the prospects of Sotomayor, Kagan  and/or Jackson speaking out on this grant of cert and dilatory scheduling? They should.

    Or, the prospects of some damn reporting on how this went down?

    This is the Court’s most outrageous action since Bush v. Gore.   And, no, I have not forgotten Dobbs.

  37. 37.

    Josie

    @Geminid: ​
     I was doing research for my next book on pecan growing in central Texas (I decided not to use it.). I found to my dismay that climate change has devastated a number of the growers there. Their trees are dying and they haven’t found a solution yet. These are families who have been growing pecans for several generations. So sad.

  38. 38.

    Juju

    @SiubhanDuinne: I agree with you 100%. The Bigfoot thing is such a peevish complaint. If that’s the worst thing that happens in your day, you’ve had a pretty nice day. Cope with it people. It’s not that difficult. I deal with difficult everyday.  The Bigfoot thing is not difficult.  I feel better now.

  39. 39.

    Juju

    @Matt McIrvin: Biden doesn’t handicap us by believing in the rule of law. Biden wouldn’t do it, but Trump would. Why would they put a target on their backsides for a possible Trump presidency or any other president who has Trump like inclinations?  Even I know they aren’t that stupid.

  41. 41.

    Geminid

    @Josie: That is sad. Nut trees are a good use of agricultural land. And good work, I imagine.

    Once, on the way back from New Mexico, I stopped at a roadside pecan stand near Vinita, Oklahoma. The woman running it was selling nuts she had grown. She seemed happy.

  42. 42.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @oldgold: This is the Court’s most outrageous action since Bush v. Gore. And, no, I have not forgotten Dobbs.

    Dobbs is miles worse.  Telling half of the population that they are less than is worse than granting cert. on any case.  If the Court were to find that any person is above the law, you would have a case.  That hasn’t happened (and you don’t know that it will).

  43. 43.

    Sean

    It’s a nice rallying cry, but Lieu sounds pretty freaking delusional. Expanding our senate majority (a near impossibility) because people are mad Trump wouldn’t face justice? If people were really that concerned about it, I doubt the guy would have any realistic shot at winning the presidency again, and yet, here we are – uncomfortably close to that reality.

    Maybe that energy is seething below the surface, but people know the guy is indicted, a liable sexual assaulter, a failed business mogul, a racist, etc. and he’s still tied. So, yeah. Not sure his trial getting delayed is going to really change the dynamic.

  44. 44.

    Yarrow

    There are doors to knock, phones to call, texts to be sent.DO NOT LEAVE THE FATE OF OUR COUNTRY TO A CONSERVATIVE SUPREME COURT.

    The most important thing is not convicting Trump, IT IS MAKING SURE THAT JOE BIDEN WINS!

    THIS IS ON US, WE CAN & MUST BEAT TRUMP AT THE BALLOT BOX!

    This is great but the Biden won’t be allowed to confirm judges if the Republicans control the Senate. All messaging, whether its regular people talking to their neighbor, friends and family, or what comes from the professional political class needs to emphasize that it’s essential to vote for Democrats all the way down the ballot. Otherwise Biden can’t get stuff done.

  45. 45.

    Soprano2

    @Josie: I read somewhere that some people said in response to the idea that farmers need immigrant workers from Mexico “move the farms to Mexico”. This shows that there is a segment of the population who have no idea how farms or growing things works. I’ve been thinking about grape vines, and what climate change is going to do to wine production.

  46. 46.

    Elizabelle

    @Sean:  Why do you think Trump is “tied”?  Why buy into that bullshit?

    Polling this year has been more propagandistic than informative.  Look at the results.

    Not up for Eeyores today.  Ciao.

  47. 47.

    Sid

    I’ve been saying what Ted Lieu tweeted for several months- I absolutely think it’s to the Democrats advantage for this to be drawn out so as to make the election a national referendum on whether Trump faces justice like any other person would.

    For every loyal MAGA sycophant and minion, there’s two Americans who feel disgust at the thought of Trump.

  53. 53.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Sid: We should as Dems make lemonade out of these lemons. This delay should cost the Orange Man politically. Conventional wisdom in DC is that every delay helps T. We should make sure that it doesn’t.

  54. 54.

    oldgold

    @Omnes Omnibus:  Dobbs was awful – no question.  But, this is far worse.  The Court has intentionally done the unthinkable,  granted, in effect, Trump immunity for attempting to fraudulently and violently overturn a presidential election.  In so doing, the Court has placed the Republic in jeopardy. The peril the Republic now confronts is the most serious since shots were fired at Fort Sumter.

  56. 56.

    Yarrow

    @SiubhanDuinne:  The posts usually appear a bit later. Sometimes the FPer pulls it out of consideration for another FPer who has worked hard on their post. Other times there are duplicate posts on the same topic or the FPer realized they need to edit or change something in their post. In that second case, again, the post usually appears later

     

    Edit: Aaaannnd, the post has reappeared.

  57. 57.

    Yarrow

    @schrodingers_cat:  Agreed. Any and every way we can hang this around TFG’s and Republicans’ necks we should do it. Like the IVF thing. People are making them own it. Most people aren’t falling for their lies that they’re going to somehow support IVF when their record says nope, embryos are people.

  59. 59.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @oldgold: Two things.  1.  No immunity has be granted.  Cert. was granted.  It wasn’t a good result.  As a matter of fact, it was bad, but stop overselling it.  2.  The courts, Mueller, Smith, et al., were never going to save us.  We have to vote and get others to vote.  Our salvation is in our hands.

  61. 61.

    Betty Cracker

    Regarding the “bigfoot” thing: I’m not referring to any specific post here, but if you’ve gone to the trouble of putting up a post that fewer people will see because another one got layered on top of it, that can be legitimately frustrating. Especially if it’s a post you put a lot of effort into researching and writing (this almost never applies to my posts, but others regularly do).

    While it’s true that people can scroll down, etc., the fact is the folks who comment here are a fraction of the total audience, and a post that’s immediately knocked off the top spot gets fewer readers. Unfortunately, the WP scheduling function doesn’t work, and it’s basically impossible to tell if anything is about to drop in the mobile interface, so bigfooting happens. I usually don’t care, but I can see where others might.

  62. 62.

    Frankensteinbeck

    There is a big, big, big difference between delaying and granting Trump immunity.  The three Trump appointed have ruled against him again and again.  They have no loyalty to him personally.  Throwing him and the Republican Party a bone by slow walking things is a much lower bar to clear.

    I personally am watching the situation with his fines much more closely.  Nobody seems to be stepping up to loan him $500,000,000, and his offering $100,000,000 suggests he doesn’t have the rest.  That slow moving tidal wave is now poised right above his head, and unless he finds a way out very fast… I don’t even know what will happen if Trump is suddenly poor and loses all his property.

  65. 65.

    oldgold

    @Omnes Omnibus: As I argued here to no avail during the Mueller fiasco, in law timing is often as important as substance.

    Since December, when Smith first asked the Court to take this up, this Court has used time to in effect grant Trump immunity. This case and most likely the documents case is not going to be tried before the election. If he is elected, probably even money at this point, these cases will never be tried and what comes next will make Dobbs look damn near benign.

  66. 66.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: I sometimes feel that a post following another too closely can tend to curtail discussion in the first one when it’s just getting going. An observation, not a criticism.

  70. 70.

    Sean

    @Elizabelle:

    I don’t believe polling is a conspiracy. It’s all of a piece. I’m not here to tell you how to feel about it. Here in Texas, polling tells me that 53% of GenZ voters here either approve or strongly approve of Greg Abbott. Seeing as how he just won reelection by 10 points in 2022, those “results” stand out to me. Should I ignore that data, too? I think the picture is complicated, and it’s early, but this is going to be a difficult and close election. I don’t think Donald Trump evading justice is a silver bullet that will crush our opponents, and that’s all I meant to convey, not that we all needed to jump off a cliff.

  71. 71.

    Sid

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Yes- ‘the same Republican dominated Supreme Court that told American women they can’t choose whether or not they become mothers has now told Donald Trump he can choose whether or not he faces justice’.

  72. 72.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Elizabelle:

    Really depends on how dry you like em.  Tanins baby, tanins!

    My wife lives for the howitzer of tanins, Barolo (or anything based on the Nebiolo grape).  I live for Amarone (typically associated with Valpolicello wine).

    Believe it or not, Trader Joe’s sells a very affordable, and surprisingly good Barolo at around $18-20 a bottle.  They used to sell an Amarone, also quite good, at that price point, but stopped getting it with any regularity so I stopped trying to get it from them.

    Lately, I’ve been on a quest to find the best $10/bottle Italian wine.  I have a couple but can’t find links to them.

    One thing is true: the best stuff ain’t exported.

  74. 74.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: I’ve never analyzed it, but I’m sure it’s true via observation too. I usually don’t care if my post gets bigfooted, but I can understand why others do, and I feel like a heel if I accidentally bigfoot someone else. It’s kind of shocking that a ubiquitous platform like WP doesn’t have a reliable scheduling function, which would take care of a lot of the problem.

  75. 75.

    Sid

    @oldgold: Garland dragging his feet on Trump (in addition to his other fuck-ups, e.g. the Hur appointment) is why this is down to the wire. If Democrats take the Senate, replace Garland with Hillary Clinton.

  76. 76.

    oldgold

    @Elizabelle: “People act like everything is good for John McCain Trump.”

    No not everything, but this action by the Court’s was GOOD for Trump. Are you denying that?

  79. 79.

    EarthWindFire

    @Betty Cracker: Freedom and accountability. Let’s make sure the on the fence Trump voters know that SCOTUS is taking away their opportunity to know if Trump’s convicted before the vote, regardless of how they decide.

  80. 80.

    RA

    Since the beginning of the Biden admin I have been worried that the Right has been working on a more comprehensive plan to rig the elections for trump and this ruling just makes it seem more than a possibility.

  83. 83.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Soprano2:

    If you’re interested in dry, Italian, red wines, then look for a something that’s just a Sangiovese.  Or there’s tons of Sicilian table wines that are affordable.

    Yeah, Barolo is intense.

  84. 84.

    Ksmiami

    @Josie: sad but having fled that shithole state, the ag and oil ppl have been climate change deniers and have moved against action for years. Time to pay up mfers.

  85. 85.

    Ksmiami

    @Sean: Agreed. Americans aren’t civically engaged enough for this to matter too much. The GOP going after I’ve and birth control however is enough to get ppl on our side

  88. 88.

    catclub

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: If you’re interested in dry, Italian, red wines, then look for a something that’s just a Sangiovese.

     

    I developed a taste for the house Sangiovese when a stayed in one city in Italy for two weeks. It was so cheap you could never find that type imported to the US.  sad.

  89. 89.

    Elizabelle

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:  Thank you.  And have heard that before: the good stuff stays in country.

    I might, might be going to Italy in April, so learning up.

    Barolo and Amarone are delicious.

    Of all places, there is a wonderful Italian deli in Regensberg, Germany, that had all kinds of wonderful wine and foods.

  90. 90.

    Elizabelle

    @oldgold:  At oldmale:

    I am not denying it might be good for Trump, but I am not sitting in a puddle of urine, either.

    Delayed justice is going to be falling on Trump like a pile of bricks in the next few months.  And I don’t believe that Biden is as weak as the FTF Wanking NY Times, or all those ridiculously poorly constructed polls, want to depict.  Nor that Trump is that strong.

  91. 91.

    Miss Bianca

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: an Italian white I like a lot is Frascati, but it’s hard to find around here. Also Orvieto, another rarity but a little easier to find.

    My favorite liquor store had some Frascati on the shelf, but it was from 2020! And based on bitter (or, rather, sour) experience, I try to avoid white wines over 2 years old.

  93. 93.

    Elizabelle

    @Miss Bianca:  I can occasionally find a Frascati at Lidl, a good German foods and home stuffs discount grocery store.  A lot of private label items there.

    And.  I see that Lidl is no further west than western Georgia; does not seem to be in Tennessee, WV or Kentucky at all.  150-170 stores, 34 of them in Virginia.  Headquartered in Arlington, VA.  Purely an East Coast purveyor now, and only the coastal states (save a few stores in PA). Georgia to New York.

    I hope it comes west.

  94. 94.

    Captain C

    @topclimber:

    This indicates to me that Trump has four judges in the bag, not five. Sometime in May, he loses his appeal 5-4. (Remember you saw it here folks, but only if I am right).

    So, Scam, RV, and 2 of 3 of Coathanger, Boof, and Gorsuck?  I assume Dred Scott Roberts is at least smart enough to know that a less scrupulous President than Biden would immediately take the opportunity to remove the Shitty Six to a target range and drone the fuck out of them, along with the Freedom Caucus, Leonard Leo, and probably a few others

    ETA:  I see Dangerman got there way ahead of me.

  95. 95.

    Prometheus Shrugged

    @RevRick: True, but Arrhenius also thought it would take a few millennia for humans to double atmospheric CO2 (as opposed to what will almost certainly be a doubling of late 19th century levels in fewer than two hundred years).  Finally, he was sanguine about the prospects for a warmer Earth–or at least for warmer winters in Sweden!

    So he was close to being correct about the magnitude of the greenhouse effect, but clearly wasn’t thinking about the mismatch between human and natural timescales, nor the interactions between climate dynamics and ecosystems. All of those considerations only rose to prominence in the latter part of the 20th century, and only after it became clear just how fast CO2 was rising in the atmosphere.

  96. 96.

    Frank Wilhoit

    Ted Lieu is fighting the last war.  He reckons without devolution, which is more important, and less comprehensible or predictable, than any prediction based upon analogies with past behavior, whether that past behavior is praised or blamed, deemed rational or irrational.

    What we see around us today is not action, or reaction, either to the right or left, nor an existential struggle between disjoint worldviews.  Until quite recently, those frames may have been useful, but today what we see is pure, simple, universal, and accelerating collapse.  It is no longer even a matter of ideology, but only of the child’s first cry.  November is eight months out.  Try to run this tape forward eight months: it does not reach.

  98. 98.

    Eyeroller

    @Prometheus Shrugged: All he could do was analytical (pencil and paper) calculations on a one-dimensional model.  Basically he just computed the atmospheric energy balance.  That’s enough to give you the fundamental result of warming, but obviously not enough to take into account interactions between the atmosphere and surface, ecosystems, spatial distributions, etc.

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