WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision in Department of State v. Muñoz that U.S. citizens do not have a constitutional liberty interest in their non-citizen spouses being admitted to the country.
I don’t understand – at all – how a citizen wouldn’t have an interest a *constitutional liberty interest in their non-citizen spouse being admitted to the US. In what world does that make any fucking sense? Maybe one of our BJ attorneys can explain to me why that makes any sense at all.
*not sure I understand that particular legal term of art, but I have corrected it anyway.
But that’s not the point of this post.
The point of this post is to say that this woman, Sandra Muñoz, who in spite of having just learned 3 days ago that she lost her case to Joe Biden’s State Department, was able to write this yesterday on Facebook.
I will take an old, honest, experienced, and sympathetic guy who literally took my ass to the Supreme Court to keep me separated from my husband over a bigoted, stupid, absolute asshole con man every single fucking day. How are we here again?????
It’s called perspective. She’s got it, and we all need it. Eyes on the prize, right?
Sandra Muñoz has a podcast, and in the episode below she shares her story of their personal experience with the immigration system. I haven’t listened to the whole thing yet, but I already love her for her calming voice and for the great podcast title. I mean, seriously, Law & Order Me Some TACOS? That might just be the best title of anything. Ever.
So if you’re looking for something to do inside on this way-too-hot summer day (at least here) or if you have found yourself sucked into the miasma of the debate media spin and you want to get out of that and learn about something real, take a listen.
Everyone who is in panic mode – and thinks Joe should be dumped – either has no clue about politics, in which case they should be ignored, or they think this is all about them and how important their hot take is, and they should be mocked and ignored, or they need to get some perspective and grow the fuck up.
We have our candidate. Now let’s get him elected!
Open thread.
Villago Delenda Est
It makes no sense because the Federalist Six are all racist swine.
Villago Delenda Est
A.G. Randolph Murdoch Sulzberger, looking at you motherfucker.
Miss Bianca
I second that emotion.
ETA: The only panicky texts I was getting yesterday post-debate were “contribute to Joe Biden’s campaign!” I did so – contributing a measly mite, I might add, in accordance with my financial circumstances, and lo and behold – those texts dried up! Wow, I took action and that action changed something. Mirabile dictu!
trollhattan
Steve Bannon will ironically make your day, with his list of gummint overreach and stuff.
https://digbysblog.net/2024/06/29/good-morning-21/
Aaah, the horror. The horror.
TBone
Thank gawd for you for bringing the sanity again today, WG!
Omnes Omnibus
They didn’t say that a person has no interest in their spouse being admitted to the US. They said that a person doesn’t have a “constitutional liberty interest” in it. It is a specific legal term of art. And, no, I am not going to go into detail about it because it’s a stupid, cruel decision, but we should get right what was actually said.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Emphasis mine but pertinent to some of the commentary over the last two days.
raven
@trollhattan: Xin loi mofo
J. Arthur Crank
@trollhattan: He has pictures of Jesus in the background? I never knew he was a God-fearing man.
I did not listen to the clip, because fuck him.
Danielx
I believe I read this morning that the FNYT editorial board has called for Biden to drop out. Proof positive that he should absolutely stay and roll to re-election.
JoyceH
I saw another take that makes a handy answer to those who try to over-simplify. Question was – if an 81 year old showed up at your place of work to apply for a job and his interview went like Biden in the debate, would he get the job? Answer: maybe not, but if he already had the job and was crushing it, and a guy who’d tried to blow up your building showed up and applied for the job, that’s another matter.
Josie
Thank you, WaterGirl. I agree 100%.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: We were so disappointed to see Chris Hayes have some wanker on talking about how to replace Biden with an open convention, for God’s sake. It wasn’t Nate Silver, I think, but the other one (I get them confused). Because they can read a poll they think they are pundits. Auggghhh. Fuck them.
Keith P.
@Omnes Omnibus: It struck me as laying the groundwork for getting rid of birthright citizenship
Baud
Wow. Muñoz is my hero.
Miss Bianca
@JoyceH: Perspective! :)
Barbara
If you are interested in the case, you can read it here, although the syllabus should suffice. I think it’s a close call, but fundamentally she was asking for greater procedural protection in the decision to deny her husband’s petition, which was denied on the basis of his membership in MS-13. The decision is normally unreviewable, and she argued that failing to provide additional process burdened her fundamental liberty interests.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/23-334
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: It appears to this non-lawyer to be a distinction without a difference, in practical terms.
Still, I have corrected it.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Does anyone think Joe Biden doesn’t appreciate the stakes in this election? He states it in the clearest possible terms.
Is he running this time out of selfishness, arrogance, ambition? If he thought someone else had a better chance against Trump probably he would step aside. His political judgement is better than mine and I trust him. Also I happen to agree.
One of these two men will be the next President of the United States. I pray, hope and expect it will be Joe Biden.
WaterGirl
@Barbara: What I read was that he had some tattoos that they thought MIGHT be gang-related. What kind of bullshit is that? Check your fucking gang tattoo database. That might was doing a lot of work.
I’m sure it’s not as simple as that.
Still, my larger point is that if this person can keep perspective, then we should, too. It is starting to feel like only people with privilege are still touting the “oh my god, Biden in the debate” and people of color don’t have the luxury of getting caught up in that.
WaterGirl
PSA: There is $200 remaining on the current Angel match. If anyone is donating today, I will be checking comments in this thread to make sure you are matched.
Almost Retired
@Barbara: But he wasn’t (isn’t) a gang member. That conclusion was summarily reached at the consular level by a misinterpretation of tattoos with common Catholic (and theater) imagery. Whether or not Luis was a gang member wasn’t really the gist of the decision – as you note it was about reviewability – but I hope no one comes away interpreting the decision as endorsing the mischaracterization of him as a member MS-13.
Anoniminous
deleted
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
Hilarious that Bannon wants me to feel sorry for the likes of Alex Jones, Jim Hoft, Rudy Giuliani, James O’Keefe, Epoch Times, and I can’t remember who-all else. Truly hilarious.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: You have an interest in a lot of things. Not all of those interests have constitutional protections.
Barbara
@Omnes Omnibus: The majority gave short shrift to her interests, that’s for sure. I have enough immigration experience to know that State probably thought a contrary result would be a precedent that vastly complicates its handling of these kinds of cases. You are really relying on the good faith of consular officials when you go through this process.
wonkie
Didn’t Biden sort of by decree create a path to citizenship for the spouses of citizens? Biden opens path for 500,000 illegal immigrants married to US citizens to gain citizenship (msn.com)
Barbara
@Almost Retired: Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest he was. That’s what the reviewer concluded.
Almost Retired
@wonkie: Yes, but it wouldn’t apply here because the spouse hasn’t been in the US for the requisite amount of time (10 years, IIRC).
JoyceH
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I find Biden to be sort of a heroically tragic figure. You can kind of tell that when he was VP, he would have imagined that if he was ever in the Oval Office in his 80s, he’d be there to visit Beau.
WaterGirl
Does no one else LOVE
Law & Order Me Some TACOS, like I do?
Almost Retired
@Barbara: I know you didn’t mean to imply that, but some of the reporting seems to take that as an established fact.
Barbara
@wonkie: This couple pursued the legal pathway. The irony is that they might have been better off using irregular means.
Miss Bianca
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
I sure don’t make that presumption. I trust his political instincts much more than I trust mine – or, for that matter, those of any arrogant/ignorant fucks who tries to tell me that Joe’s Gotta Go, because Reasons.
Yeah…how many elections have *those* assholes won, anyway? A lot fewer than JRB.
WaterGirl
@wonkie: I believe that this situation isn’t covered by that from Biden, but I will leave a better answer than that to the BJ attorneys.
edit: And I see that Almost Retired has pre-answered that!
Anoniminous
What happens when lawyers privilege Senate Rules over the citizens they – purportedly – represent.
ETA: Going to be a lot of this for the next 20 – 30 years. Unless the lawyers in the Senate get off their fucking asses and doing something about it.
Almost Retired
I’m in for another $100.
WaterGirl
@Anoniminous: Can you say more about that? I’m not sure I get what you are saying.
Barbara
@Anoniminous: Makes my blood boil every time I think about it.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: Yes, I do. And I won’t duck your question, because puns ‘pun any subject quack me up.
WaterGirl
@Almost Retired: Thank you! The thermometer hasn’t moved in 12 hours. I was starting to think it might be broken. :-)
Seriously, though, a lot of BJ peeps dug deep to get us to $10,000 and the $500 Angel bonus, which I’m sure has a lot to do with it.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: hahaha
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JoyceH: Excellent way to think about it
trollhattan
Sweet fancy Jesus, this forecast is to die for.
96, 99, 101, 107, 108, 104, 105. Years since we had anything like this. Good test for our new HVAC setup, I guess. I’ll just send the next paycheck directly to the electric company. (Tells self: could be worse, you could be in Phoenix.)
cmorenc
@Keith P.:
Even the most rabidly RW SCOTUS members and Congressional mouth-breathing bigots will have an impossible hill to climb to eliminate birthright citizenship, because of the crystal-clear simple language of the 14th amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the united states and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the united states and of the state in which they reside”
The argument originalists might attempt collides with the unqualified text – the 14A was not limited to freed slaves or blacks generally.
Spanky
@WaterGirl: In for $50.
Anoniminous
@trollhattan:
Our high was supposed to be 94 and it’s already 102.
New Mexico’s way of saying “go pound sand, white-eyes” I suppose.
Spanky
@Almost Retired: Hey, how many years have you been here as Almost Retired? We’re going to conclude that you’re not really trying.
TBone
@WaterGirl: I do! I feel like Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter today. Ooh! Ooh! *arms waving wildly in the air
Layer8Problem
@Spanky: I don’t think they’re here for the hunting.
Almost Retired
@Spanky: Would you like to subscribe to my “How to Retire Early” newsletter? You probably shouldn’t….
Mai Naem mobile
@trollhattan: baby boi is on the finding out part of the FAFO journey. Poor poor wittle Stevie.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@trollhattan: See this is what’s so frustrating about this election cycle. Every summer has turned into a series of rolling climate change driven natural disasters. Trump offered to sell off the future of the globe to oil interests for campaign cash…and it doesn’t get a mention anywhere ever. Neither party’s climate change proposals get any airtime. In fact other than a little bit about immigration and concern trolling inflation, no issues get talked about at all. It’s all let’s focus on Biden’s age, people wanting a perfect economy plus rainbows and unicorns or they won’t be satisfied, and dithering over the latest poll results. Biden is trying to bring some substance to it but he’s old so let’s just talk about that some more.
WaterGirl
@Spanky: Thank you!
That leaves $50 on the current $1k angel match. And then her $1,000 can go in the thermometer!
WaterGirl
@Spanky: I think he’s trying!
But perhaps he’s better at lawyering than retiring?
WaterGirl
@TBone: I am not alone.
cmorenc
@cmorenc: i would, however add to my earlier post about 14A birthright citizenship being impossible to eliminate without a constitutional amendment – that any citizen with Hispanic-looking features, especially if they might have been overheard speaking Spanish in a public place, wiuld be wise to always carry around a certified copy of their birth certificate if Drumpf wins.
Baud
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
By design.
The last few months the standard troll talking point on Reddit was it’s too late so why care.
gene108
@cmorenc:
If one court case interprets the law to establish a right, another court case can take it away.
It really depends on if the billionaires that pay for the Sinister Six’s lifestyle will object to the chaos it will cause.
Avalie
@WaterGirl: Added $50 to get the match if it’s still available
Starfish
@JoyceH: The response that I saw to that was “If a 78 year old showed up, denied that he previously lost the job, lied constantly, how many extra security guards would you hire to keep him out of the building?”
trollhattan
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
So true. Immigration, inflation, criming, because see #1, and my god, those tropes go back at least as far as Nixon, with some added Vietnam spice.
“The planet is poised to rid itself of us, because we’re not being good to it” is just so darn complicated while also being boring. The global petrostate, of which we’re happy members, want their tribute and that’s that. A second Trump admin I expect would down all our climate monitoring satellites to stop them from spreading their lies.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue
E.
@cmorenc: Yeah well that “crystal clear” language didn’t get American Indians their citizenship until 1924. There’s the words on the page, and there’s power.
Another Scott
@wonkie: Yes, on June 18.
As always, there are details. I don’t know if the folks in question in the SCOTUS case fit the categories (I haven’t tried to check). WhiteHouse.gov – Fact Sheet:
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
It appears that the Fischer decision may have a very limited effect on Jan.6 prosecutions.
WaterGirl
@cmorenc: But not the original, because that could be confiscated and then you would have no proof at all.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: You never get the original. That is always maintained in the county where you were born. You get certified copies.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: Made me look.
From your link:
Why it’s almost as if Garland’s prosecutors know what they’re doing?? Whodathunkit.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Avalie: Yes, there is $50 left on that angel match, and it’s yours! :-)
edit: and the $1,000 Angel match just went into the thermometer. Thank you, anonymous! :-)
WaterGirl
.
DougL
@trollhattan: as ever George Carlin had it right. The planet will be fine. Humans on it? Well, that’s the rub isn’t it. It is so spectacularly frustrating that we are the planet’s cleverest species faced with the universe’s hardest question – how do we sustain and thrive without destroying ourselves first – and instead we spend our time talking and thinking about how to stop madmen like Donald Trump. It is such a vital but painfully jejune task.
Layer8Problem
@Another Scott: Nah, nah, nah, Garland’s been doing it wrong! I mean just ask the front-pagers at LGM.
Chet Murthy
@cmorenc: When you get a passport, there’s the option to get a “passport card” (for a bit more $$). You can use that as proof of citizenship, so you don’t have to carry around your (arguably very precious) passport. I got one when I last renewed.
Betty
@Barbara: That’s a mouthful. I’m sure there are thousands of stories on how people have been treated by consular officers. It does seem to be a lot of unchecked power, but may be necessary given the volume of applications.
delphinium
@trollhattan:
Your comment made me think about the summer I spent in Yuma building sidewalks (among other things) as part of the Youth Conservation Corp. Yeah, it was hot.
Glad your HVAC will be able to handle the heat.
wjca
Thank you for this. At least now I have a clue why Justice Jackson concurred in the decision.
Eunicecycle
@JoyceH: good answer! I was thinking along the same lines. It would be different if these 2 men hadn’t been president yet. But they both have, and we can judge their results!
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Good point.
What if you live in a red county in a red state, where they can either slow walk it, or lose your record entirely?
Another Scott
Dooom! DOOOMMM I say!!
DOOM!!1
(via Fritschner)
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: No idea. Mine is in Kane County, IL, and I have never had any issues getting certified copies.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Someone said in the morning thread that that poll overlapped the debate, before and after.
RevRick
@Villago Delenda Est: I am not panicking. I am resolved.
As Jamelle Bouie points out in a NYT discussion with three colleagues, replacing Joe would be a really stupid idea. It would risk splitting the Democratic coalition. Real persons never do as well as the generic version. And no matter who else was chosen, the GOP would immediately switch to Joe dropped out because he knew his policies stank.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott:
I’m sorry, but I think you misspelled BOOM!
WaterGirl
@RevRick: Wasn’t Hillary the most popular woman on the planet? Or in the country?
Until she announced she was running for President.
Another Scott
@Baud: That seems to be incorrect.
MorningConsult.com:
FWIW.
(I’m not a subscriber.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Miss Bianca:
Weird. When I do that, I just get ten times as many appeals for more money.
TBone
OMG Boobert! 😆🤣😆
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/this-week-in-stupid-june-29-edition
So much fun at the link today! 💙❤️😆
With pictures and videos of This Week In Stupid!
hrprogressive
The thing is, people might be more likely to pay attention to what this person says on Facebook than what the Pundit Class is saying.
Americans, have, for both good and bad reasons, lost a lot of faith in the media. Watching people like Ari Melber and David Plouffe & Claire McKaskille going on TV to clutch their pearls isn’t likely to change the minds of people who weren’t already looking for some morally suspect reason to justify not voting for Biden even though they know they should.
Versus someone like Muñoz, who may well convince a couple of people who were, at best, on the fence about it or leaning against, and instead join the “For” camp.
Matt McIrvin
@WaterGirl: At some point Hillary Clinton placed first in a survey of “most admired women”, but it was a field split between many many people, so the fraction she got wasn’t that large.
Miss Bianca
@Matt McIrvin: ‘Twas a recurring pittance I signed up for. Wonder if that made any difference?
CliosFanBoy
@Chet Murthy:
I wondered what that was for. That makes sense to me now. thanks!
CliosFanBoy
@Layer8Problem:
They’re not wrong.
sab
The reason that the “Biden is too old” people don’t name their preferred candidate is that Bernie is even older than Joe plus he has a bad heart.
cmorenc
@E.: Native Americans were excluded until 1924 from birthright citizenship under the fiction that they were subjects of tribal jurisdiction (often compounded by birth on tribal reservation lands rather than land within the US within the meaning of the 14A).
Matt McIrvin
@Miss Bianca: Ah, probably. I decided to make large, early one-time donations up front rather than smaller ones monthly, and they keep trying to get me to donate monthly or to up the ante, perceiving me as a potential large donor.
MomSense
Good to know I’m clueless. I’ll add that to ageist, being a drama Queen, and not a good ally.
Got it.
TBone
@DougL: jejune! I might be falling in love …
UncleEbeneezer
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks for this. Ryan Goodman is a semi-regular on the Jack Podcast. Hopefully they will have him on the next episode to elaborate.
Layer8Problem
@RevRick: We’re where we are, the course is forward, the stakes are for good or evil. Wail all you want (not you RevRick) about Biden and his age, hell, go as far as dnfree and declare him demented and thanks so much for that helpful thought. He’s not and the Republican Party’s thataway, you despairing go help them out with your “self-evident” takes; they need more “I was a lifelong Democrat”s and deeply, deeply disappointed people like you all. Unless you have a clear plan and an unbeatable emergency backup candidate you’ve got nothing.
Layer8Problem
@DougL: Hey, my uncle was in boot camp at Camp Jejune!
cmorenc
@Another Scott: But since the presidential election is determined by the anachronistic electoral college, Biden could win the popular nationwide vote >5% and >10 million votes , and still lose if Trump wins enough swing states by 1% and 25k votes each. Ask Al Gore and Hillary how that dynamic works out.
It’s Trump’s narrow poll lead in enough swing states that needs to prove out differently on actual election day.
Layer8Problem
@CliosFanBoy: No, no, the front page of LGM is never wrong.
TBone
@cmorenc: good eye and so fukn ironic. What is the meaning of indigenous?
(I guess it wasn’t in the dictionary next to belt onions in those days).
Barbara
@RevRick: When faced with less than ideal choices one of the stupidest things you can do is buy a lottery ticket instead. Let’s not be stupid.
Anoniminous
@WaterGirl:
tl;dr version: Senator Turtle McFuckhead from Tennessee was able to block Senate appointments to the USSC because the Dems kept the Super-Majority Rules requiring two-thirds or a three-fifths vote to so do.
Baud
@Anoniminous: The only person he blocked was Garland, and the Republicans controlled the Senate at the time.
TBone
@Layer8Problem: that dn guy has some kinda issue finding his sense of humor (he can’t, even with both hands).
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I don’t know what you’re feeling. Do you think Biden should be replaced?
Because this is what I wrote:
Everyone who is in panic mode – and thinks Joe should be dumped ….
I find it hard to believe that you think Joe Biden should be dumped from the ticket. Am I wrong about that?
RevRick
@Baud: The poll claims to be post debate.
TBone
@Barbara: amen, sista!
Layer8Problem
@TBone: I don’t have much of a sense of humor about dementia, having watched my mother descend into it. dnfree can go get a blue-ribbon panel of psychiatrists to declare it so and then maybe I’ll entertain the notion.
ETA: But I’m within my rights to call TFG a self-evident lunatic and will continue to do so. I’ll even send pearls to the Broders of our day to clutch while I do it.
TBone
@Layer8Problem: who said anything about dementia being funny? I was talking about something else entirely. Did that person joke about it?
I make exception only for Dotard in that regard. Because he made fun of the disabled person at his rally.
Dementia took my mother, also, way too young.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@TBone:
Not surprised Boobert showed up to a hand party
RevRick
@WaterGirl: Yes, she was.
TBone
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: the golden sneaker knock offs! 😆😆😆
What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?
@hrprogressive: David Plouffe! Proof, part the infinity, that although Obama was a great President and Presidential candidate, he had a bad track record with hiring his mostly flunkie underlings. IMO he succeeded more despite them than because of them. I don’t know why but they all seem really prone to pearl clutching and undercutting any Democrat that isn’t Obama.
Obama inspired me like no other candidate before or since and in 2012 that’s exactly what saved his ass…we, his supporters, collectively pulled him over the finish line in a lot of ways despite the fact that he ran a fairly lackluster campaign. Now we have to pull Biden over the finish line and if these fuckers can’t start pulling in the right direction they should just go away rather than pulling against us.
Layer8Problem
@TBone: No no, not you. I misconstrued, thinking I missed that dnfree was making a failed stab at humor.
TBone
@Layer8Problem: whew! I tangled with him in the thread below. I had to offer some butthurt ointment to him!
Barbara
@WaterGirl: I have conflicting and complex thoughts about the 2020 primary. We banked on misogyny having diminished more than it had, and we overlooked Clinton’s weaknesses in 2008, thinking they were no longer a unique vulnerability.
RevRick
@Layer8Problem: The thing is all the pros knew FDR was dying in 1944 and therefore also knew that the VP they chose would be the next President, but refused to dump FDR, because you don’t change horses in midstream.
Another Scott
@cmorenc: Sure, the EC is an unfortunate problem and has been for a couple of hundred years.
Doesn’t change the fact that Morning Consult does lots and lots of polling and says that the Thursday debate didn’t change anything (so far) about voting intentions.
Whether their polling is an accurate reflection of the current state of the race, let alone whether it is an accurate predictor of results 129 days from now, is a different question (on the assumption that they haven’t suddenly changed the way they do polling).
The job of electing sensible people remains the same, independent of Thursday’s debate results.
FWIW.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: Bingo!
Baud
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?:
Yeah, it strikes me that people talking about making a change just assume Biden has no actual supporters that would be angered by that.
I’ll admit, I’m so anti-fascist that I would vote blue no matter what they do, but many people aren’t so committed and would happily punish the party for the slight.
(Along with the second slight if Kamala wasn’t the replacement).
RevRick
@Barbara: I think you meant 2016.
Anoniminous
@Baud:
Ack. I should have said “federal judges” going back to Obama 2006 – 2008
Baud
@Barbara:
It took a lot of malicious effort to defeat her. It wasn’t something that happened organically.
Another Scott
@Anoniminous: Nit – Turtle’s from KY.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@RevRick: NYT Editorial board would be gentle with replacement. I kid, I kid.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: Never named you in any of the comments. But if the hat fits..
TBone
@Baud: hence the porn star and the Pecker!
GUILTY is a big theme in the Tiedrich I posted above.
hrprogressive
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?:
Obama, The Candidate, was truly, historically, inspiring.
Obama, The President, disappointed way too many people by “clinging” to his belief the GOP was going to eventually negotiate in good faith on anything, instead of opening his eyes, trading in his transformational optimism into cold, realpolitik-based realism.
That most of the people formerly associated with his campaign in the past such as Axelrod and Plouffe have become such “Professional Bedwetters” is beyond the pale.
There’s a big reason why so many younger people are completely disillusioned by the Democratic Party, dangers of the Fascist Republican Party notwithstanding. It’s a lot of stuff like that, to say the least.
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
I do. I’m furious with him, his senior staff, and campaign. We called for this debate and it was disastrous. Political malpractice. Now we are in a terrible position with only four months to go before the election.
Anoniminous
@Another Scott:
And THAT’s what I get for trying to multitask political talk AND
Untangling the dorsal diencephalic conduction system: a review of structure and function of the stria medullaris, habenula andof structure and function of the stria medullaris, habenula and fasciculus retroflexusfasciculus retroflexus simultaneously at the same time
DougL
@TBone: 🥰🤣
TBone
@Anoniminous: are you a brain surgeon?
Baud
@hrprogressive: One of the nice things Dems have done over the past few years is to stop blaming ourselves for Republican voters being Republican. I hope over the next few years, we’ll learn to stop blaming ourselves for people choosing to be disillusioned.
Frankensteinbeck
@Another Scott:
Everyone who wasn’t a white liberal saw a different debate than we did, because they paid attention to both Trump and Biden. From the way the panicking people talk, it’s blatant they focused on Biden and just assumed Trump was a constant.
The rest of the viewing public saw both parties, and while Biden sounded sick and old, Trump sounded like a fucking monster. I will absolutely take that as a win. I really hope that the statements on Univision were indicative and Latinos in general heard what Trump thinks of them.
EDIT – Seriously, people, Trump bragged about ending Roe vs Wade. Bragged! Not at a rally, in front of a national audience! At length, with statements like ‘Everybody wanted it taken to the states, everybody.’ Do you think that doesn’t make a gigantic difference in a post-Dobbs world?
Mr. Bemused Senior
“Angered” is such a mild word. Appalled, outraged, gobsmacked, incensed… there are so many possibilities.
Sister Golden Bear
Spotted an on-point meme with photos of Gandalf the White and Saturn.
schrodingers_cat
NYT during WW2, Roosevelt should step aside for the good of the country because he has polio and is disabled.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?
@Baud: IMO as someone who lives with a mother in law that has late onset Alzheimer’s dementia Joe Biden does not seem to have dementia. My mother in law is never tongue tied (granted she’s not speaking in public just conversationally) but what she does is more like what Trump does…constant repetition of the same stories and questions to keep conversations going. Just not as mean, malicious and evil.
BUT…lets assume Biden were approaching a Reagan-esque level of senility…I’d still crawl over broken glass to vote for him instead of Trump. I’d vote for him because he’s not an evil, stupid, vindictive turd of a human being and that’s the alternative. I will not under any circumstances vote for that other guy or stay home. Period. And none of these political savants clutching their pearls should either. Start rowing with us! It’s that or doom.
Matt McIrvin
@Barbara: If I were purely and cynically trying to maximize the probability of general-election success, I would never support any woman as a primary candidate for President and might not even support women in primaries for other offices.
But I still do, because I still feel there are other considerations.
Another Scott
@Anoniminous: [ snort! ]
Enjoy!
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Yeah, I thought of that months ago. By indulging the age debate, we’re screwing over the disabled too.
UncleEbeneezer
@hrprogressive: Obama, The President, disappointed way too many people
by “clinging” to his belief the GOP was going to eventually negotiate in good faith on anything, instead of opening his eyes, trading in his transformational optimism into cold, realpolitik-based realismwho underestimated how incredibly racist America is, didn’t understand the constraints of a President with a small but not veto-proof majority in Congress, an already trending-Right-Wing Supreme Court and an Electorate that isn’t nearly as Progressive as they assumed.Mr. Bemused Senior
All at once?😁
Baud
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?:
Sure me too. But I’m not most people. I acknowledge that.
schrodingers_cat
@Frankensteinbeck: As an immigrant I found the bloodlust Trump had for immigrants downright scary. He brought it up in every fucking response. He wants to round up all the immigrants, warehouse them and kill them.
Changing the duly elected nominee will be political suicide for the Democrats.
Barbara
@Matt McIrvin: Like I said, complex and conflicting thoughts.
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
I actually think Obama thought people would be outraged by their behavior. Just like we all thought people would be outraged by Trump in 2016.
MomSense
Who on this blog watched the whole debate? Did it bother you that Biden was incoherent? He had difficulty putting sentences together. He did not come across as someone who is in command of the issues. The clips of bay are running post-debate are not doctored. They are his actual performance and they are being shared and mocked and used as reason not to vote for him.
SW
Look this is tribal. Their tribe has rallied around someone who through incompetence and malevolence will do great damage to the federal government. For them this is a feature not a bug because for generations now they have been conditioned to hate the government. Our tribe has selected an institutionalist who is dedicated to making the government work to help its citizens. It is up to our tribe to show up. We outnumber them. If we don’t show up we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: I did.
wjca
This. Especially “an Electorate that isn’t nearly as Progressive as they assumed”. And persist in assuming to this day. When it comes to denying reality, they give the MAGAts a run for their money. Which may sound harsh, but it is what it is.
Quadrillipede
@Layer8Problem: It just occurred to me that the value I personally get from LGM seems to broadly correspond to how many posts are written by women at any given time. (Although I do find Farley and Lemieux to be mostly not-annoying as well…)
Anoniminous
@TBone:
I am doing R&D on Biomimetic Animats.
Biomimetics: the application of research and development approaches of interest to practical applications and which use knowledge gained from the analysis of biological systems to find solutions to problems, create new inventions and innovations, and transfer this knowledge to technical systems.
Animat: artificial animal
MomSense
@UncleEbeneezer:
Yes to all of that. And he was also talking about negotiating with Republicans to give cover to the asshole blue dog Senators he had to deal with. After his first two years he had to negotiate with Republicans because voters didn’t have his back in the midterms.
gwangung
@schrodingers_cat: Wayyyy too many white people don’t take that seriously.
Immigrants, POC immigrants in particular, HAVE to take that seriously.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@TBone: Doctor! My brain hurts!
Another Scott
Cheers,
Scott.
UncleEbeneezer
I get the feeling that a decent portion of the collective freak-out and calls for Biden to step down are people positioning themselves so they can say “I told ya so” and bash the Dem Party, if Trump wins. At least amongst Progressives it’s a lot of Bernie-Woulda-Won/The Primary Was Rigged crowd. It’s the same way they treated Hillary in 2016 and very similar energy (even though Biden has already shown he can win the PV and EC against Trump).
jonas
@Another Scott: That hooked me for a second (didn’t see the byline at first) until I got to “be worst.” Genius.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense: Please explain what will happen after Biden is dumped. Who will the candidate be? How will they raise enough money? They can’t use any of the money Biden has raised.
NotMax
@Another Scott
“Be worst!”
//
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Agreed. But I think many who fell in love with Obama, were even more wrong.
Matt McIrvin
@UncleEbeneezer: I think there are a lot of people on our side who kind of want a liberal dictator, because acting like a small-d democrat means ceding some power to people who want to tear the whole thing down. The right needs to be cracked down on, hard! These people are all traitors and we have to man up and bust some heads!
(They’re the people who send hate email to Teri Kanefield.)
But in the end, a liberal dictator is always a contradiction in terms. It doesn’t and can’t work. And, yes, liberals are always playing with a strategic disadvantage because of that. Authoritarianism is perfectly consistent with the other side’s ideology.
Barbara
@Matt McIrvin: Sisyphus lives on and on. People like me can’t believe how far we have rolled back down the hill. But as I said to my daughter, everyone needs a buffer between themselves and things they can’t control.
Layer8Problem
@Quadrillipede: I’ll sign on to that. Shakezula, Rofer, Nelson, Nussbaum, no arguments, mostly. Farley, no probs. Lemieux, less. Campos, even less, Loomis, well, as far as I can tell he’s fine on labor history but may be a total buzzkill at parties.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@wjca: He got the first couple things on his agenda done – 1. Save the economy, which he did but maybe not quite aggressively enough. It wasn’t part of the plan but a necessity nonetheless. Then 2. he got Obamacare done. Then the Dems lost both houses of Congress in the mid terms and if I recall correctly, the Dems never regained the Senate for the next 6 years.
I’m fully willing to admit that Biden has been better at shepherding accomplishments through Congress but he’s held one or both houses for his entire first term so has had more opportunity. It did take Obama awhile to understand the total obstruction he was facing and he never found a way around it but I’m not sure anyone could have.
jonas
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?: I think that’s right. Momentary confusion/getting flustered or tonguetied =/= dementia. Alzheimer’s is exactly like you say: they repeat themselves endlessly and forget something you told them just 1 minute ago. Biden doesn’t do that.
The fact that he does have these moments is worrisome, however, but what the beltway media doesn’t appreciate and I think Biden does is that there is no way to replace him right now without blowing up the Democratic coalition and paving the way for another Trump term, aka the End of America. So yes, an occasionally confused, but decent elderly man with a stutter is vastly, vastly preferable at this point to a psychotic fascist bent on blowing up the rule of law and destroying the country. Like JC put it once, this isn’t like choosing between having Chinese or Italian for dinner; it’s choosing between Italian and tire rims and anthrax.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Via Kos
Layer8Problem
@Barbara: Like the poor, the work will always be with us, the rock needs to be pushed, we (or most of us anyway) keep pushing. One must imagine us happy.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I am surprised. We go back all the way to 2007 with Obama, obviously it wasn’t my intention to insult you.
I agree with all of this:
I have always respected your political instincts.
How do you see that working? Who would we run? Do you think everyone would coalesce around a single candidate?
Do you think we are more likely to win in November if we dump Biden? I think that would be political suicide. I keep coming back to this – how do you see that working?
Baud
@Barbara:
Sisyphus. Didn’t. Even. Try.
Baud
@jonas:
Being old > failing to follow email best practices
PJ
@RevRick: B-b-but my favorite Democrat would be sure to win against Trump, not like senile old man Biden! (as posters here yesterday asserted).
PJ
@MomSense: This debate will be largely forgotten by the end of next week, and will be even further in the rear view mirror when Trump is sentenced in two weeks.
Percysowner
@gene108:
Although true, if they are going to totally reinterpret language, I think they will go after the voting rights amendments, right now African American voters aren’t fans of Republicans and women aren’t great fans of the recent abortion decisions and are antsy about the possible attacks on birth control. Raise the age of voters to 21 and you get rid of younger voters who aren’t thrilled with Republican policies in general. They would also take a shot at the 16th Amendment which allows Income to be taxed. If they are going to overturn actual language I suspect it will be “go big or go home”.
NobodySpecial
The SC is getting it’s radical on because it knows it’s days as it’s constructed are numbered if Trump loses – and they think Trump is gonna lose.
jonas
@WaterGirl: Re: his staff’s responsibility for what happened at the debate, I’ve been busy this weekend so I haven’t seen any detailed reporting on this, but is there any indication that Biden’s staff (or wife, e.g.?) Thursday afternoon knew something was wrong, but still sent him out there anyway? Everyone seemed shocked by what was happening in real time on camera during the first part of that debate. And what explains the fact that shortly *after* the debate, he was at a campaign event seeming lucid and vigorous?
Almost Retired
@PJ: Exactly! Not to mention the renewed focus on Trump’s crime record when the immunity decision is released on Monday.
Martin
@WaterGirl: Let’s be perfectly clear here – replacing Biden only works if Biden agrees to step aside and throws his entire weight behind a specific ticket. He controls the delegates, and if he says Kamala/Pete or whatever, then that’s what it’ll be.
The only way the ticket changes is if Biden changes it. Period. Pursuing anything other than a campaign of persuading him to step aside is counterproductive. That’s Ron Klein, Jill, Obama, maybe 1-2 others. It ain’t us, it ain’t pundits, it ain’t Dem operatives. If you see people rallying around Biden (Newsom, etc.) it’s because they understand this. You can’t get there by pushing, only by pulling, and only a few people are close enough to pull, and pull only works when people aren’t pushing which he instinctively leans against.
Something something vinegar honey.
Quadrillipede
So overall, it sounds like it was a bit of a shame that Joe’s cold medication and CNN’S embarrassing incapacity to moderate meant that it took him longer to figure out an effective pushback strategy than would have been ideal. Also, it would appear that felon-president Shark J. Battery’s cognitive-performance-enhacing-shot-to-the-ass took about 40 minutes to fully wear off. So overall, probably a missed opportunity to get a nice post-debate bump in the opinion polls. But the fundamentals of the election remain unchanged, and there is ample time to recalibrate and keep working on it. If you’re worried Joe can’t get over the line, the best thing to do is to give him a push, and throw sand into the gears of this desperate feudal counter-revolution. The only way out is through.
Cacti
@Keith P.: Has nothing to do with birthright citizenship. It was a suit challenging non-reviewability of a Consular decision to refuse a visa to a non-citizen. The majority could have reversed, remanded, or vacated the Ninth Circuit decision on that basis and the dissent concedes this point.
The majority went much further than that. But in either case, the Ninth Circuit was going to be overturned. Had it been limited to Consular non-reviewability, it would have been 9-0.
Baud
@Martin:
Agree completely.
PJ
@MomSense: I did. I saw an old man with a stutter who was trying to get out too many talking points at once to respond in good faith to the questions put forth by the moderators. That was a mistake of debate prep. Like Trump, he should have ignored the moderators and focused on four things only: 1) how terrible Trump was as President; 2) how much more awful Trump will be in his second term; 3) how much good stuff the Biden Administration has accomplished so far; and 4) the even better stuff Biden will accomplish in his second term.
You can wet your pants all day long if it soothes you, but this debate is not going to change the dynamic of the race in favor of Trump, who came across as the mean racist he is. If anything, the united calls by the MSM for Biden to step down are going to fire Biden up even more, and make his campaign even stronger.
Another Scott
@PJ: +1
I haven’t seen Gaza mentioned since Thursday. Maybe I missed it.
TCFFG’s sentencing is July 11.
The GQP convention is July 15-18.
TCFFG’s NJ golf courses may lose their liquor licenses after hearings on July 19.
Bibi’s speech is July 24.
Etc.
Lots of things coming up. The press can only butter emails about one thing at a time. The debate will quickly be in the background noise.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Quadrillipede: “…felon-president Shark J. Battery”.
Good one!
SW
I blame the prep team. They were a bunch of policy nerds who overwhelmed him with data. What he needed were a crew to make him look relaxed and natural while letting Trump drive the crazy train.
zhena gogolia
@SW: Yeah, I’m coming around to Kay’s position on this. Fire some people.
Geminid
@Anoniminous: Once you folks get the general problems resolved I hope someone develops a Power Possum that eats ticks. People in Virginia are terrified by ticks because they transmit at least three serious diseases. Real possums eat prodigious amounts of ticks but they’re classified as wild animals so you can’t rent one like you can a goat. I can see the advertising slogan now: Power Possum, Pickin’ and Grinnin’.
trollhattan
@Layer8Problem:
Ketchup martinis, for the win.
trollhattan
@Geminid: Possums seem to, uh, present themselves whether welcomed or not. Some branding couldn’t hurt, I suppose.
Tick Power or somesuch.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@UncleEbeneezer:
My feeling is parallel in that the biggest shriekers for Biden to step down or feel so much fauxrage about the debate and refuse to put it in any historical context (https://nitter.poast.org/dcg1114) are people who didn’t want Biden in the first place. And the liberal white angle which has been discussed.
Matt McIrvin
@WaterGirl: There’s a part of me that wants Biden to immediately resign and make Kamala Harris President.
We would lose the election, probably in a landslide. (And 90% of the people calling for Biden to step down would hate it.) But we’d lose with honor.
But is losing with honor what we’re here for? It’s a purely emotional reaction.
WaterGirl
@gwangung: Did you get my email message this morning?
trollhattan
@Another Scott: IDK how a golf course can make money lacking a liquor license. Of course (heh) if Trump owns it, it is already losing money, booze or no booze.
Chris
@UncleEbeneezer:
Absolutely this. I thought the same thing.
Even if we all agreed that Biden needs to go after the debate, grabbing the nearest microphone and screaming about it isn’t the way to do it. You give some platitudes in public, then you talk behind closed doors about the best way to remove Biden while minimizing fallout (if you’re a politician) or you STFU and wait for the people whose job that is to do it (if you’re a pundit).
Running to the nearest microphone before the debate even ends and you can’t possibly have had time to coordinate with anyone is not what anyone does out of sincere concern for what’s best for the party. At best, you’re sincerely panicking and not thinking straight. At worst, you’re jumping on a narrative for the sake of your status on Official Washington.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
How is that more losing with honor than sticking with Biden?
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
I have Michael Dukakis on line #3 in case anybody would like to discuss the value of moral victories.
Downpuppy
@Another Scott: I think you’re quoting Biden’s new policy of allowing non-citizen spouses to apply for citizenship without having to leave the country. It confused me too – Why wouldn’t Justice have dropped the case if it was related to that? But, as others have noted, this is something else.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@SW:
Nerds or not, the prep team and the operational thinking behind their approach did leave a big pile of poo poo on the floor.
To go back to my WWII analogy, the failure of something like Operation Market Garden should have led to calls for Ike’s resignation if you follow the line of thinking of some commentors here and obviously the paid pundit class at large. And feckless Dems like McCaskill..who is also a paid pundit.
Geminid
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: A lot of Joe Biden’s legislative success is due to the Georgia Senate runoffs. The election of Senators Warnock and Ossoff flipped the script for that Congress, and foiled Mitch McConnell’s plan to strangle the Biden administration with austerity, like he almost did to Obama’s
Ed. I think the runoff victories also enabled Democrats to move beyond the rancorous ideological debates that plagued the party from 2010 through 2020. They’d have only gotten worse if Republicans held the Senate and could stymie Biden’s legislation.
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: I don’t think possums particularly want to present themselves. They’re shy animals, and nocturnal. But they’re always around, somewhere in the shadows.
Cacti
@Downpuppy: He never had residence in the US.
Layer8Problem
I’m sure there’s another part of you concerned about the welfare of women, Black and Brown folks, and people in general if such an honorable stand were taken. You’re a good guy from what I’ve seen here.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
We could have had Adlai!
Matt McIrvin
@Quadrillipede: I have a wholly COVID-preoccupied friend who relayed a Mastodon post about how Biden obviously has COVID, just like Trump at the debate in 2020, and it’s shameful that he’s covering it up and ironic that it’s going to make Trump win.
I don’t know how this person knows that Biden has COVID. There’s a lot of magical knowing of stuff going around.
Anyway
Reminds me of the comments after the Ivy presidents appeared before the House Crazy subcommittee— their answers were couched in legalese and they came across as excessively cautious and not standing for any values. Their prep teams were blamed as well.
I didn’t watch any of the debate and skipped the analyses on teevee but texts from D friends clued me in. I’m on Team D no matter what but it’s nerve wracking.
WaterGirl
@Martin: Are you suggesting that the folks closest to Biden are trying to convince him to step aside?
Did you see the email I sent you this morning? It was rejected from the email I usually write to you with, so I just re-sent it using my WaterGirl email.
Can you let me know whether you receive it or not? Thanks
Layer8Problem
That was for Matt at 196, and I just saw your last paragraph. Agreed, with regard to emotional responses and all.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Well, the act of ramming a Black/Desi woman President down the throats of all the haters while framing it as a prudent act for the good of the country would be a great dramatic gesture at least.
…But the thing is, we don’t live in an Aaron Sorkin show.
laura
@zhena gogolia: show Anita Dunn the door and move on.
Martin
@SW: Doesn’t matter. He’s the most powerful person on earth, responsible for more than any other human. It doesn’t matter if it’s him, his team, or anyone else. The job is to be there, be ready, make he call, not fuck it up, because fucking it up means we’re at war with Russia or China or the economy fails or a million people die of covid or whatever. There’s no grading on the curve with this.
We have approximately 150 million people who meet the qualification for that job and he’s supposed to be better than ALL of them. If he doesn’t know the prep he needs and build the team accordingly, that too is on him. Buck stops there. It’s harsh. If you aren’t up for it, don’t run.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin: No. There would be no honor in that.
I consider the honorable thing to do to be trying our best to protect the vulnerable.
Baud
@Martin:
Sure, but part of that job is firing the people under you who aren’t doing their job well.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: Same.
The next four years more likely than not will not be about me.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin: If he had Covid, he sure recovered quickly.
Mr. Bemused Senior
knowing when firing someone is necessary.
Tony Jay
I mean, I know it’s constitutionally forbidden, but if it would help out and Kamala was okay with it, I’d be prepared to take a leave of absence from work and do a few years light Presidenting over there.
What? It’s no crazier than dumping a successful Presidental incumbent four months before an election because the nutcutting nabobs of non-neutrality over at the NYT have decided that elections should be decided by the volume of pundit pearl clutching.
Also, taco trucks on every corner. Day One.
Captain C
@schrodingers_cat:
Also NYT: Hey, Hitler’s not so bad.
UncleEbeneezer
@Layer8Problem: For a site with “Lawyers” in the damn name, their coverage of the DOJ/Garland has been atrocious. Not sure if it’s primarily the difference between 1.) teaching/understanding Constitutional Law vs. actual experience as a prosecutor defense or appellate attorney (see also: Elie Mystal), or 2.) the desire to use Garland Sucks hot takes to show how totally Progressive they are (see also: Elie Mystal).
But there are dozens of excellent legal pundits with real DOJ/AG experience and expertise who are much better at putting expectations into a realistic context. Joyce White Vance, Barb McQuade, Andrew McCabe, Teri Kanefield, Harry Litman, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Michael Popok, Andrew Weissman, Renato Mariotti, etc
PS- Our own valued commenter Omnes_Omnibus, is infinitely better than anything you will read at LG&M.
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
They also seem oddly anti-gun.
WaterGirl
@Baud: It’s always about you, Baud! :-)
(going for levity)
gwangung
@WaterGirl: Eep. Got lost in my emails. Answered.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
That remind me, when will the rebranding to Baud Juice be announced?
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
I finally caught the ‘rona last summer and you would have had to zip tie me to a plywood sheet and tip it up to face the camera. After five minutes a pond of sweat would have formed around me. With the broadcast lights turned off.
WaterGirl
@Baud: They seem oddly anti–gun. LOL.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Um, only if there’s a typo? (said with love)
trollhattan
@Tony Jay: Can you have been conveniently born while mom was visiting a USAF base? Delivered at the base hospital?
I have a clever plan….
TBone
@Anoniminous: thanks, I was unable to download from your link and thought maybe it was a joke. I know what bio and mimetic mean.
I hope real animals are not harmed, I have nightmares about that after a truckload of monkeys destined for a lab was in a horrific accident in the dead of winter here in PA and some escaped but were euthanized. It was on our local news for days. Neuralink nightmares.
Chet Murthy
@Tony Jay: Nah brah: taco trucks are so last year. I’m holdin’ out for the candidate who’ll promise me Fully Automated Gay Space Communism.
SW
@Martin: Well of course we have a totally failed bankrupt system. Anyone who thinks that these two are the best qualified people out of 150 million shouldn’t be allowed to handle sharp objects. But here we are.
Layer8Problem
@UncleEbeneezer: As per your PS, I was about to say! We’ve got people right here who are not going to A) blow sunshine up our skirts about what’s going to happen legally and B) not going to jump on the bandwagon that this is the Worst. Justice Department. Ever. I’ll take their experience over my feels any day.
TBone
@Another Scott: 😆
Tony Jay
@trollhattan:
I watched a lot of Charlie’s Angels, Starsky & Hutch and The Incredible Hulk as a kid. Also Vegas with Robert Ulrich as Dan Tanna. Surely that’s enough for a brief period of Americaning?
@Chet Murthy:
What do you think is in the tacos? You are what you eat, honey.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@UncleEbeneezer:
Their coverage of many things is atrocious and they are as fauxgressive as they come, particularly LeMeow and Gloomis.
I gotta admit that reading Campos and his recent travails in academia are highly entertaining in a train wreck kinda way.
Martin
@WaterGirl:
Baud
@SW:
Eh, I happen to think Biden has shown he’s immensely qualified, even allowing for his communications issues.
UncleEbeneezer
@Martin: You just mentioned a bunch of other, far more important things that Biden has done incredibly well that the other 150 Million people can’t. You really think Debate Prep is on the same level as Avoiding War With Russia/China? On the list of skills needed to be President, debate prep is way toward the bottom of mine. Every great President we have ever seen has had shitty debate performances. It’s just not that big of a deal unless you are desperately looking for some reason to disqualify them. It doesn’t even translate to whether they win/lose the election. This is stupid
If Biden fires somebody, that’s fine, but it’s silly to make it a requisite for our support.
delphinium
@Frankensteinbeck: Thanks for continuing to bring this up.
The freakout about the debate is really eye-opening. Apparently we are supposed to memory-hole Biden’s actual performance as president and instead focus on this one poor debate while shoving aside Trump’s horrific statements. Maybe it’s just me (and I’m far more of a normie than most here), but I choose not to panic because pundits/attention seekers, who earn their paycheck shitting on dems at every opportunity, tell me to. And certainly not based on what all those embarrassing, empty-headed egos at NYT print in their rag.
Lastly, the armchair diagnosing of dementia based on this debate adds nothing useful to this discussion.
Ksmiami
@schrodingers_cat: there’s a Chris Rock line that follows… basically once they go after immigrants, blacks and Jews are next…
raven
@Martin: Safe travels!
Downpuppy
@Cacti: Yes, thanks. I don’t think I’m the only person who is alert, aware, & easily confused by multiple stories that have the same headline subject but are not the same.
10,000 stories confusing Hilary’s server & the DNC hacked emails only swung 1 election, no?
Martin
@Tony Jay: Charlies Angels, Starkey and Hutch and Incredible Hulk are 3 of the 4 documentaries of American life that masquerade as entertainment. If you had Dukes of Hazzard on there as well, you’re exempted from the citizenship test.
TBone
@Geminid: I too am terrified of ticks (and all blood sucking creatures that can transmit disease). I got bit in PA and in Texas. Never saw the ticks but have been suffering for decades. I’d buy a robot possum tick eater, but alas they don’t require protein, just power!
UncleEbeneezer
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Agreed. Campos is good about Legal Academia (and all the bullshit involved). And Lemieux is good on Constitutionality, imo. They know their areas of law just fine, and explain it well. It’s when they go out of their lane into criminal prosecution, that they get terrible.
SenyorDave
Thios is going to be an I “like Biden, but” post. He was very bad on Thursday. Too many supporters think that he wasn’t good, but Trump was just as bad because he was caught in lies, etc. To almost everyone here, Trump is disqualifying by being Trump (character flaws, lying, insane positions). Biden looked old, slow, and somewhat confused. I assume it was a combo of a bad night, he is slower than four or eight years ago, and poor preparation (I still can’t believe he tried to refute all his lies, just pick a topic or two and focus on it, like the economy).
Biden hurt himself a lot Thursday because it reinforced every meme about his age. A lot of people now question whether he is up to the job, period. I think it is a stretch that he would be up to the job three years from now, but I don’t care and I would vote for him or any other Democrat no matter what. That is not the way most of America thinks. And Trump may not have did himself any favors, but he was himself and he didn’t do any of the “magnets in the ocean” stuff. He’s an insipid lying sack of crap, but that had always been who he is. He stayed in character and did what he always does, Biden didn’t.
Biden is now seen as old, slow and confused by much of the electorate. Bad night, yes, bad strategy, yes, but people saw what they saw. And the only way that changes is if there is another debate and he performs well. And there almost definitely will not be a another debate, it would be political malfeasance if Trump’s people agree to another debate.
I suspect Trump’s negatives from the debate will wear off much sooner than Biden’s negatives from the debate.
wjca
@Percysowner:
—
Considering that they have had no problem ignoring the plain language of laws, why would they have any problem doing the same with amendments? And once they do it for one….
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Baud:
Baud 20XX! It’s not about me. I’m not most people.
NotMax
@Martin
Judges will also accept McMillan & Wife.
;)
Tony Jay
@Martin:
I did consider mentioning TDOH, but all I really remember is the ill-named car flying through the air, the Grandpappy and a pair of tiny, tiny jean shorts, which I don’t think are connected. Hopefully.
Does The Beverly Hillbillies count?
Another Scott
Almost needed to show my ID for a can of duster “air” at Target. Am I missing some new way to get stoned??
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@SenyorDave: So what is your practical solution?
Miss Bianca
@MomSense: “We” called for this debate? Who’s this “we”? I sure as shit didn’t. I think it was a damn dumb idea for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I don’t believe that a blood-gargling psychopath like Trump – a convicted felon, to boot – deserves the courtesy of being treated like a normal candidate. He isn’t.
Now, maybe I’m wrong, and maybe getting a full blast of unedited Trump – fascist, demented swill – is exactly what American voters needed, to remind them of how uniquely terrible he is as both a person and a candidate, regardless of Biden’s performance or nonperformance. Only Time will tell.
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense: I watched it. And I didn’t think that he was incoherent. I thought that he had a bad 20-30 minutes and them found his stride. I also thought that Trump was insane and fascist a fuck. I have also watched Biden and Trump for years. Biden fucks up in public speaking now and again, but is sharp and competent. Trump is insane and fascist. The debate changed nothing in my mind.
Geminid
Two new stories are being reported from the Middle East. Turkiye and the Syrian regime have been at odds ever since the Syrian civil war broke out over ten years ago. Now, Syria’s president Assad has called for talks to settle their differences, and dropped their precondition that Turkish troops withdraw from northwest Syria. Turkish President Erdogan seems receptive; reporters noted that he called the Syrian President “Mister” Assad for the first time in ten years.
And the Financial Times reports that Israeli, American and Ukrainian officials have been in talks concerning the transfer of up to 8 Patriot Missile batteries from Israel to Ukraine, by way of the U.S. Israel announced in April that the 30 year-old systems would be replaced. This would be a major step for Israel, if it happens.
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin:
A liberal dictator gets you Napoleon. Best not.
UncleEbeneezer
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I’ve noticed a lot of white liberals also really want to be popular with their Progressive friends and often take temporary stances that seem designed to achieve that. Sometimes it moves them towards better positions like acknowledging the racism of our police. But sometimes it moves them towards bullshit like GenocideJoe. I think much of the Liberal freakout and calls for Biden to step down may be influenced by wanting to sit at the Cool Progressives table.
Quadrillipede
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
TBone
The Quiet New Deal and President Biden’s BFDs. If it weren’t so quiet, maybe he wouldn’t have had to try to cram too much information into two-minute debate answers, thereby causing his stumbles…
https://i-know-how-much-you-care.ghost.io/why-is-the-quiet-new-deal-so-quiet/
I was on team ‘Punch Debate Dotard Repeatedly, policy is for another day.’ Today’s that day!
trollhattan
@Tony Jay:
And yet you emerged so very normal.
Maybe add some Dallas and Miami Vice to your TVCV. One of us. One of us.
Layer8Problem
@NotMax: And McCloud. Interested foreign persons need to understand what kind of law enforcement personnel they may run into in our fair land.
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer:
Day drinking that much can be dangerous.
trollhattan
@Another Scott: Uh…hypoxia contains “hy” but seems like not that kind of high.
I got nuttin’.
TBone
@Another Scott: I never heard of it, if so! Are they good ingredients for some kind of explosive-making situation?
trollhattan
Okay, it’s George Effing Will but still, this is hyperventilating with the knob set to 11 even for him.
Pretty fucking rich for a guy who denies/ignores his boss Regan’s obvious slide into Alzheimer’s across the second term and most likely, noticeable in the first. Fuck you, buddy boy.
Chris
@UncleEbeneezer:
I think it’s vastly less common than the other phenomenon, which is white liberals really wanting to be popular with their conservative friends and taking stances that seem designed to achieve that.
Honestly, I think most MSM pundits start out like this. So much of their shtick just reeks of “nerd in middle school trying desperately hard to have the cool kids’ approval.”
Miss Bianca
@Tony Jay:
I love you, man. :)
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
I actually think it’s broader. US politics since Reagan has been a war for the soul of white people. Clinton, Obama, and now Biden have failed to win over whites to the good side. That’s the cause of a lot of stress.
wjca
If Biden wins, the debate will magically, immediately become a brilliant tactic which cemented the victory.
Tony Jay
@trollhattan:
All of them. UK TV in my formative years had a lot of US imports. The Munsters. Bionic Man. The Fall Guy. Knight Rider. Wonder Woman. T. J. m#########ing Hooker.
Can’t beat a bit of Buck Rogers, though. I’ll even forgive that damned annoying robot for the foundational memory of Erin Grey.
I’m so old I remember when being a multiply convicted felon and jabbering racist was considered disqualificatory for national office. Ah, what silly, innocent days those were.
Layer8Problem
@trollhattan: “Hello Democrats! I just stopped by to offer some helpful advice, totally free!”
lowtechcyclist
I guess there’s no Constitutional pursuit of happiness interest?
Yeah, I know, the Constitution doesn’t incorporate the Declaration of Independence, but if it’s an ‘inallenable’ right, you’d think there’d be a Ninth Amendment argument for it at least!
wjca
Yeah, that’s why they all lost. Oh, wait….
Have all, or even a majority, of whites been won over? Nope. But the pretty obvious trend is in that direction. Not without setbacks, but that’s how it’s trending. Instant cures, in politics as in medicine, are very much the exception.
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: The experience does vary a lot.
I got it twice, at the beginning of 2023 and at the end of 2023. The first time, it was like a really bad cold except that for one day, I had this violent throat irritation that felt more like strep, just awful.
The second time, it was like three days of mild sniffles. I could barely differentiate it from the allergy symptoms I have most of the time. Worst part was just having to quarantine myself again.
Baud
@wjca:
I’m not talking about outcomes. I’m talking about white anxiety.
Tony Jay
@Miss Bianca:
True though, innit? Look at that George ‘face like a frozen anal bead’ Will quote up there. Sticking with Biden after a bad debate performance? Uniquely reckless and even cruel. But Republicans picking a convicted fraudster and sexual assaulter as their candidate? Oh, that’s just fine. Perfectly fine. Hardly worth mentioning.
They are simply bad people who do and say bad things. People should stop being even a tiny bit surprised when they prove it.
Matt McIrvin
@wjca:
This is not true. If anything, whites are trending away from voting Democratic, though there’s a lot of noise and Biden in 2020 did better than Hillary Clinton.
https://decolonialatlas.wordpress.com/2020/11/06/white-voters-1964-2020/
lowtechcyclist
@RevRick:
And 28 years later, the GOP stayed with Nixon because you don’t change dicks in mid-screw. ;-)
Martin
@UncleEbeneezer: It’s not an either/or. Politics is part of the job. Communication is part of the job. It’s an all of the above.
I’m not saying it’s catastrophic that it went that way. Go back the last day and you’ll see me saying I don’t think it’ll matter in the end. I’m not calling for him to be off the ticket, despite my saying that in 2022, I wish he’d decided to not run for reelection. And I still wish that. I’m pretty outspoken that I want the president to be young. I think it’s a good symbol to the public that we are still ascending, where older presidents are symbolic of having peaked and starting to decline. Yeah, it’s agist. But young people deserve representation too, and Democrats really benefit from having them energized. They’re going to vote for Biden, but they aren’t energized about it, and energized is what drives turnout. Everyone keeps saying ‘what are they doing to do, vote for Trump?’. No, they’re going to go out with their friends and get boba because who gives a shit. That’s how democrats lose – apathy.
Anyway, if you want to claim Biden had a great debate performance, go for it. I thought it was a shitshow. He needed to not look 81 and he looked 91 instead. His answers were rambling and unfocused. They were correct, but as someone who ran our technical writing and communication program for a while, he looked for a while like a freshman that was putting 100% of their energy into remembering their memorized speech rather than someone who just knew his shit and could speak about it extemporaneously. And Biden 100% is that latter guy – like top 10 that latter guy, and we did get some of that, but we got a lot of the freshman too. We didn’t grade on accuracy of content there – but on how you connect with the audience, was it tailored to the right audience, was it effective, and so on. Lot of style points in there.
I’ve done a lot of public speaking, I’ve built that curriculum, co-taught those courses, written those rubrics, done that assessment. I am qualified to judge. It was pretty fucking bad. It would have been bad for a high school debate. It’s also not the end of the world because yeah, policy and substance also matter. But you may have a great policy idea and if you can’t bring people to that idea because you’re a bad communicator, that idea doesn’t mean shit. And a lot of shit ideas get embraced because they are well communicated. Ronald Fucking Reagan haunts us to this day for that very reason. Politics is part of the job, and politics is communication. It still matters. I don’t know why he was so bad, he has a long and demonstrated capacity to not be that bad, but we got not-ready-for-primetime Biden for some reason.
The pressure to perform in the 2nd debate is like 10x higher now. I don’t know – maybe that helps him. I have this weird thing where if the stakes are low I can talk about anything forever, if the stakes are super high, I can pack 1000 words of value into 50, but in the middle I kind of fall apart. Overconfidence in middling stakes things is my kryptonite, so I have to convince myself that my life will fucking end if I don’t nail it in that presentation that probably everyone will forget about. Maybe he’s like that. I don’t know. Here’s hoping.
I’m not freaking out, but I’m not going to pretend it was something that it wasn’t. It was terrible, I would have done a better job, and nobody should take particular comfort in that statement. Let’s be honest and embrace what it was, and move forward. Sometimes in the middle of the Oscars you slap the host. It happens. You just got to start doing the hard work of rebuilding your reputation after it does, which means he’s got to own it and make sure it doesn’t happen again. I think he’s off to a fine start doing that.
One thing that I think might be a positive from this – an increased focus on Harris. I think getting the media to look at her not as the loyal sidekick but as the backup Commander in Chief that needs to be taken and evaluated seriously helps energize Democrats, helps the campaign, helps Harris. More Harris is good. And she’s especially good at speaking to the stuff that young people are concerned about. Biden has shown up with a lot of action for them, but Harris connects with them.
WaterGirl
@Martin: RE; 2, Totally understand.
RE: 1, I really really really doubt those conversations are happening, but I agree with you that if they were, we would not know aobu tit.
Martin
@SW: I think Biden is at least a contender. Moreso a decade ago, but he knows more about the US government than almost anyone alive. He has good policy ideas. His checkered debate performances are one of the few blemishes here.
Trump has maybe one good quality and even that he applies so unevenly as to be a liability most of the time. He is over 35, so he’s got that.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: I believe that Biden’s team called for the debate, set the terms, and challenged Trump to debate.
rikyrah
Whomever suggested Waffle House after the debate deserves a bonus. Absolutely the boost that JoeyB needed. I mean he needed that positive human interaction with actual voters.
Omnes Omnibus
I am calling malarkey.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Thank you for that.
gene108
My mom is watching CNN in the other room. Some guy was talking about replacing Biden.
Media has chew toy and won’t let it go.
Baud
@gene108:
It’s only been a couple of days.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Our party politics are racializing. Whites are getting worse even as they get less relatively numerous.
This worries me because it’s the kind of thing that leads to civil war and genocide.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: Well, as I said, I think the debate was a dumb idea, especially because its main effect seems to have been to allow the usual suspects to be able to bash Biden yet again, and with even more bad-faith BS energy than their usual. But what do I know – I’ve certainly never run a Presidential campaign before.
wjca
Assuming, for the sake of discussion, that this is true, why do you suppose that might be?
Note that even if you want to blame racism and misogyny, that needs an explanation of why those are increasing.
Chief Oshkosh
@SW: Agreed, but who made the decision to have the prep to be policy nerds? It probably wasn’t the nerds.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
True, it’s a possibility. We’ve already had one civil war over race, and genocide.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: And let’s be fair. It panicked some good but nervous people.
TBone
Debate takeaway:
Let’s not give an inch that RWNJs and Russian bots and trolls can use for manipulation is what I’m saying.
MomSense
@zhena gogolia:
I don’t know! That’s what is so maddening about this situation and why I’m so angry with the administration and campaign. I also don’t know that those campaign funds couldn’t be used by a Harris Buttigieg/Whitmer/Pritzker ticket. I haven’t looked at those rules.
Can I just say that it is possible to be a devoted Democrat and feel that the situation the Biden Harris campaign has put us in is political malpractice. If I disagree with you about the consequences of the debate it is out of a place of deep concern for our country and the most vulnerable in our country. Do we have to assume bad faith?
PJ
@Martin:
Nobody dies because of a poor debate showing.
Enough with the hand-wringing and melodrama. It means nothing.
TBone
FUCK NWS tornado warning. INCOMING!!!
Emergency Broadcast Service just broke through on my TV.
I do not laugh in the face of Mother Nature 😭 ever!
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: For the record the comments up top weren’t about people who are in a panic, they were about people who think Joe Biden should be dumped.
I know MomSense is coming from a good place, and I have a lot of respect for her, so maybe it’s best to think of that as the exception that proves the rule.
lowtechcyclist
@UncleEbeneezer:
Don’t you mean ‘large but not filibuster-proof’ rather than ‘small but not veto-proof’? Your comment would make a lot more sense with that change.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: both these things can be true.
Matt McIrvin
@wjca: I think most whites are mildly racist but don’t think they are or want to be perceived as such. But they’ll be OK with other people living in their society as long as they’re not taking over.
And the fraction of visible non-white people in positions of some power has been gradually increasing to the point that it triggers that “they’re taking over” reaction. And ever since the Southern Strategy, the Republican Party has been banking on exploiting that.
Whites are probably less racist than they were 50 years ago, but at the same time, racism has been aligning more and more completely with the political party divide.
Omnes Omnibus
Sure, it is possible, but I think it is mistaken.
PJ
@SW:
Democracy is never about selecting from the two best qualified people – it’s about selecting from the two people who manage to persuade their party members to select them. That’s why it’s called “politics”, and not an “aristocracy” or “meritocracy” (both of which are bullshit, but that’s another story.)
sdhays
@Chief Oshkosh: I saw a headline (didn’t read the article) the day of the debate saying Mary Trump was advising Biden for the debate, and I thought to myself, “Oh, dear. They’re overthinking this.”
I hoped I was wrong, but it seems I wasn’t. Oh well. I’m glad the campaign got this out of their system this early and hope they’ve learned from it for the fall.
Not to mention that the punditocracy is ignoring the dumpster fire that was Trump’s performance, which may end up having a more lasting effect.
Eyeroller
@Matt McIrvin: I’m sure it’s obvious but I’m going to suggest that “whites are getting worse” (politically) and “whites are becoming less numerous” are correlated. A while back I saw some study where just mentioning demographic trends to whites made them more likely to say they would vote Republican. Republicans are, after all, the White Peoples’ Party.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: There seems to be a pretty large crossover between the two.
Geminid
@Chief Oshkosh: I came away with the feeling that the debate preparation missed the forest for the trees, so to speak.
Martin
@WaterGirl: I don’t think they’re ‘who should be the replacement ticket’ happening, but I think there’s been a few ‘you sure you’re up for this – that was a disaster, and we can’t afford disasters’ conversations.
For people who are real professionals, you have people around you who will tell you the unvarnished goddamn truth. It’s not personal, it’s not a judgement, but you need people who can and will say it, to your face, and when they are convinced, when there is a strategy they drop it, trust you and move onto the next thing. And they are the people you confide your doubts and fears in. If you don’t think you got it, you tell them, and together you figure it out because it’s too much to do alone and you need that kind of trust in others. You don’t get there without those people. Klein is that guy for Biden. I think Obama is too (and Biden for Obama). Michelle is definitely that person for Barack. Jill probably is for Joe, but I’m less sure of that. Maybe Kamala/Joe, but unsure.
I had those people, and I was that person for two of my bosses. I would move the earth for those people. So yeah, that conversation definitely happened – I think we can trust that. I’ll go one further and say that I think you can probably trust that there is an expressed preferred ticket if Joe can’t continue, because who knows when an unexpected serious medical situation will arise. I think things are probably established that it’s always a pull the chute or pull the reserve status. I think that was probably true in 2012 as well. It’s grim, but you don’t leave these things to chance. But we have no way of knowing where they are on that. Given how they’ve campaigned since Thurs, I’ll go out on a pretty sturdy limb and say we’re still on plan A.
lowtechcyclist
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
That was true for Obama as well. The Dems didn’t lose the Senate under Obama until the 2014 midterms. Plus Biden’s majorities during the first Congress of his Presidency were much more narrow than Obama had during his first Congress. (In fact, the Dems had a filibuster-proof majority for four months, an advantage Biden never had.) So at least by this comparison, Biden faced a greater challenge.
NotMax
@Another Scott
Currently showing as unavailable, but have been very happy with this device over the years have had it. Suction at one end, blower nozzle on the other. Will it come back in stock? Magic 8-ball says “Check again later.”
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: One aspect of the so-called working class White voting question is the members of this group who vote Democratic. Massachusetts seems to have more of these than most states. I wonder what makes them tick.
Another question is whether the general trend will continue on a straight line or level off. It seems to me that either could happen.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: That conversation didn’t happen because a shit performance in a debate. They had the conversation before Biden declared for his second term. He said he was good and they agreed.
gene108
@cmorenc:
This is why so many of us are terrified. Like 2016 and 2020, this election rests in the hands of about 50k to 100k who are not either fickle voters who voted for Trump in 2016, Biden in 2020, and now just can’t decide, angry white men who vote when Trump’s on the ballot but otherwise don’t bother, and Democrats turning out irregular minority voters.
Sister Golden Bear
@gwangung: Just as way too many cis het people don’t take Republicans’ anti-LGBTQ+ attacks seriously.
Trans and queer people have to take them seriously as a heart attack.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense: I’m not assuming any bad faith. I just think that continuing to criticize Biden at this point in the campaign is not a good policy for us. There is no way to replace him without a certain loss to Trump. I believe Kay put it the other day as, stick with Biden and maybe lose, or replace Biden and definitely lose. We can’t afford to lose. (I don’t think he has dementia.)
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Not sure which way you mean that. Can you clarify?
I’m not at all happy about the debate, but I think dumping Biden is the worst of all the possible choices in front of us.
WaterGirl
@Martin: I want to marry this whole comment. I may compromise and just date it, in public, in a “promoted from the comments” post.
@Omnes Omnibus: Let’s make that a double-date.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: A lot of the people who are panicking are calling for Biden to be replaced, are they not? Good faith panic vs bad faith shit stirring ends in the same place.
SW
@Martin: Joe is qualified. He was more qualified in 2016 and would have clobbered Trump and be preparing his memoirs now. Most of us humans suffer a rather steep unanticipated decline after 80. I wish that he would have focused on getting the country back on the rails and setting up the next generation of Democratic leadership rather than running for a second term. But talk of dumping him now is beyond stupid. We all need to rally around him. It is no sin to grow old. We should all be so lucky. In the end this will come down to which tribe gets their people out. To first order the figureheads don’t even matter.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Massachusetts has lots of highly educated people, lots of LGBTQ people, lots of recent immigrants and people who know and work with them. All of this makes a blue state. And it’s also less white than most of New England, though whiter than most of the country.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
Absolutely – that was HUGE. I still remember the feeling of waking up to the news of their victory.*
And that they were bona fide Democrats rather than a couple of DLC triangulators just barely to the left of Joe Manchin also made a world of difference, IMHO, in terms of changing the intraparty debates. Winning those two seats with candidates like these in Georgia of all places really sent the message that the Democratic Party could win by being loud, proud Dems, and could leave all the damned equivocating of the previous three decades behind.
*ETA: Events later in the day changed the mood somewhat, but still.
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: It also has no really rural areas in the way that larger states do.
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus: The Berkshires are part of that odd “Greater Vermont” wedge that seems to be a highly atypical bastion of rural liberalism (though I understand that even in Vermont, Burlington is way to the left of the really rural areas).
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Ah, I see what you’re saying, thanks for clarifying. And I agree.
I think I didn’t see it at first because even though part of me in the back of my mind is screaming “oh fuck, this is really bad” I am choosing not to panic, not to go to the worst case possibilities, and instead am putting one foot in front of the other and working my ass off to try to get the House, the Senate, and Biden in the White House.
Slightly related, I do know that the most infuriating thing is to have someone tell you to calm down. So I don’t want to be that person, either.
Just trying to model, as many of us are, that we can know that THIS IS NOT GOOD yet still not panic, and not repeat Republican talking points, and not do anything that can help undermine Biden.
gene108
@Percysowner:
Birthright citizenship was adjudicated in 1898, in US vs. Wong Kim Ark
Second, from Wiki:
Elk v. Wilkins, 1884:
There’s enough “questions” raised about birthright citizenship in cases from the 19th century that this SCOTUS has all the ammunition it needs to overturn birthright citizenship and put conditions on who can be a citizen.
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: Even in the Berkshires, how far are you from a small city with a college or two and a hospital?
MomSense
@zhena gogolia:
I think we lose with Biden. The whole reason the Biden campaign wanted the fucking debate was because we are down in the polls and down in demographics we need. Calling for a debate is not something a candidate who is ahead does.
For years we have all been defending his age and his stutter and focusing on his experience, decency and competence against baseless attacks about dementia. The last few months there have been videos cropped to show him looking out of it but also he has been stumbling more speaking. And we were all defending him and talking about what a good president he has been. But to implode like that in prime time was a fucking nightmare. I don’t know if he has dementia but he sure as hell spoke and looked enough like it. Enough for lay people to look at him and freak out. They never should have let it get this far. He should have announced he was not running after fucking saving the country and handed it off to his Veep like a champion with his legacy preserved.
This was complete arrogance on their part and I’m sorry but he didn’t become this incoherent only one time. People who work with him must have seen examples. Hell some of the video clips lately have been disturbing. I do not trust this campaign to do what is necessary and I’m furious.
WaterGirl
@SW: Because of his experience and his relationships, Joe can still do the best job as president, with one hand tied behind his back, than any of the other possible Democrats that are obvious future presidential candidates.
And I think very highly of some of those folks.
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus: …Mind you, I can testify that Massachusetts definitely does have its share of suburban white right-wingers; I go past their crazy yard signs every day, think about how many guns they probably own and fret about what would happen if they really flipped out.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: We would all do well to remember that in the 2020 cycle we raised 1.7 million dollars through our thermometers, and at least $700,000 of that was related to Georgia, both during 2020 and for the runoffs on 1/5/2020.
You can’t tell me that we didn’t make a difference then, and we can make a difference now. Eyes on the prize.
edit: Not that you’re trying to tell me that!
Matt McIrvin
@MomSense:
Nobody whose primary concern was minmaxing the 2024 election was going to tell him to do that, because Kamala Harris was polling worse than Joe Biden. (And I think we all know why. It’s not because there’s anything at all wrong with Kamala Harris, despite what pundits will tell you.)
I’m still thinking about the time Paul Campos posted a whole LGM article about how Joe Biden’s age and the probability of him dying in office concerned him, which made him think that maybe the administration should… dump Kamala Harris.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: One of the things that gets me about panic reaction and the connected doomerism is that I can be prone to it in personal situations. Back when I was playing rugby, if i missed a tackle or dropped a ball, I used to start building it up in my one mind. I would get inside my own head. And then during the next play, i would be thinking, “I better not miss this tackle” instead of just making the tackle. Needless to say, I would mess that one up too. Once I started to just play, I did better. Look at the tackle I missed and realize I went in too high or took a bad angle. Make an adjustment and then fucking forget about it. Same thing in job interviews, dating, and life in general.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ve struggled with similar issues in my personal life, and I agree.
MomSense
@Matt McIrvin:
And if she lost the primary process – so be it. I say that as a Harris supporter from the jump.
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense: Well, I think you are simply incorrect.
MomSense
@zhena gogolia:
I’m not continuing to criticize Biden. Post debate is the first criticism. I’ve even given his judgment on Israel Palestine the benefit of the doubt even though I think the way his team has handled it has been waaay out of step. I haven’t said it publicly anywhere but here now.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
I hope so.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: You have that conversation every time you need to have that conversation. Thats why these are close relationships. If the media didn’t have the reaction they did, then yeah, maybe not. But you can’t say ‘the media is bullshit’. The media is real to a campaign. Right or wrong, fair or unfair, perception is reality in politics. It doesn’t matter if Howard Dean really screamed into the mic or it was some sound board artifact – his campaign ended. And when those perceptions form, you have to deal with them. If half the Democratic pundits are calling for you to be replaced, you have that conversation, see if those calls have rattled your guy badly enough that he can’t go on, and when everyone is on the same page as to where the candidate is, you formulate your plan to deal with this new perception and you move forward.
This isn’t drama and handwringing, it’s business. This is not a cult of personality around Biden, it’s a campaign. It’s a job, the job is to win, and we will deal with all of the shit necessary to get there.
MomSense
@zhena gogolia:
You may not have assumed bad faith but the majority of comments about those of us panicing have absolutely been assuming bad faith.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: I know all that. But Massachusetts still seems to have more middle/working class White people who vote Democratic than say,
OhioEd. Virginia, at least in national elections.MomSense
@delphinium:
Communicating, campaigning IS PART OF THE JOB OF BEING PRESIDENT. WTF. It’s not a side gig. It is an essential part of the job. Trying to separate it out like so many are doing is just denial.
MomSense
@Martin:
This is serious fucking business and I have no faith in that campaign at this point. I hope someone is having that come to jesus conversation with him.
gene108
@MomSense:
I think many, if not most, potential Biden voters agree with you.
Biden’s job, this election, is to not come off as a senile old man. He failed miserably at it Thursday.
Whether or not this will cause to lose is yet to he seen, but the media saying a President half way through the last year of his first term is unprecedented after one bad debate performance.
Normies rely on the media’s assessment of the candidates and the narrative to decide what to do. A CNN talking head stating the incumbent president needs to step down as the party’s candidate, a few minutes after a debate, is bad. There’s no way around it.
This election comes down to is the fear of second Trump term great enough than the fear of Biden’s “dementia” for 11780 voters in GA and 12000 or so in AZ, and few thousand in WI, and other states.
PJ
@MomSense: Well go pee in your bed and gnash your teeth. The fact is, you don’t want Biden to win, and you don’t want Democrats to win. You want to pout and come Election Day, be proven right.
Omnes Omnibus
@PJ: Steady on. That’s uncalled for.
dnfree
@PJ:
That’s quite a flying leap to a conclusion on your part.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: There’s also the remnant of the old Northeastern Democratic city machine politics dominated by 19th- and early 20th-century white immigrants, but I think that is dying in Massachusetts. It’s a stronger force in Rhode Island.
gene108
@MomSense:
I know other people who have this view. Why are they forcing this senile feeble old man to keep running for president? They should stage an intervention and force him to stop.
One bit of bad press from a debate or Howard Dean’s scream can derail campaigns.
A lot of people will grudgingly vote for Biden, because they fear Trump. For a lot of people who watched the debate, who are not committed Democrats, the feeling he’s feeble senile old man isn’t going away and can’t be dispelled.
UncleEbeneezer
@Chris: True. I’m in deep-blue Los Angeles in a very Dem social circle, but yeah, I’m sure pandering to MAGA is the much bigger phenomenon overall.
Omnes Omnibus
For 95+% of the people talking about it, it is drama and handwringing.
Matt McIrvin
@UncleEbeneezer: I feel this. A lot of my IRL friends and family were big Bernie supporters and a lot of my online friends are these sort of science-fiction Marxists and it pushes me toward all kinds of beliefs that I can’t fully espouse.
UncleEbeneezer
@MomSense: Candidates have always debated, that is until Trump created a new historic precedent. Let’s not re-write history here. Not Debating is the move that is exceptionally rare for a candidate (and is rightfully viewed as a chicken-shit move). They always debate whether they are leading or trailing. And considering Biden seems absolutely fine today and is exponentially more mentally acute than Trump, even on his worst days, it makes total sense that Biden wanted to debate Trump.
delphinium
@MomSense: Again, I’m far more normie than most here, so maybe I missed where Biden has had several terrible miscommunications and missteps out in public. From what I have seen of his campaign stops he is doing fine talking with people and making speeches. And he has done well as president, which for me counts far more than one bad debate performance but obviously others feel differently. There is just no comparison to how awful Trump is and that is the only comparison that matters in this particular election.
For numerous reasons, as other commenters have noted, there is no way to replace Biden now at this late date without making things worse. So I’m choosing not to panic but instead trying to what I can to ensure Biden wins.
And just for the record, both my aunt and grandfather suffered from Alzheimer’s so I am sensitive when people do armchair diagnoses of dementia regardless of who the candidate is.
UncleEbeneezer
@Matt McIrvin: Me too. There’s a lot of social pressure to move Left and adopt the correct lingo and slogans. Sometimes it’s great. “Trans Women R Women” and “Her Body, Her Choice” etc., are now much more common sentiments with Liberals I know than they were even a couple years ago. But I also saw many Liberals who should know better adopt dumb shit like Kamala The Cop or framing 10/7 as “Resistance” grrrrr… Stuff they saw on Activist Twitter and decide to parrot. I think Biden’s age and calls to step down have a similar dynamic happening.
Another Scott
@delphinium: +1
I’m old enough to remember when Dean Phillips was running in the primary as the guy who was the young alternative to Biden.
He got an estimated 4 delegates.
Democratic primary voters could have picked someone else – even a younger white guy! There were alternatives available. They supported, and continue to overwhelmingly support, President Biden.
Cheers,
Scott.
wjca
I would say there has been a lot of assuming bad faith on the part of the punditocracy and talking heads generally. But (with the obvious exception of PJ) very little of that here. Lots of vigorous “You are soooo wrong!” back and forth. Lots of “Get a grip!” But only that.
Chris Johnson
@MomSense: WaterGirl’s vouching for you pretty hard. That’s fair.
Bad faith IS. It doesn’t have to be you. It could be everybody you’re hearing from. It could be people you trust who’re not revealing where they are placing THEIR trust.
Some of this shit traces right back to full-on, hard-working, bad faith actors of the most extreme sort you could ask for.
Some of us cannot afford to care whether you mean well. Forgive us for that. We are trying to win an election against a Putin-appointed psychotic monster and would-be Hitler, with everything up to the FNYT actively working with the Hitler, and we don’t have the luxury of polite consideration of doomerism, whether it’s sincerely meant or psyop.
Understand that whatever you think or do, there WILL be psyop. The stakes are too high. Notably, Russia does not want to lose its war with Ukraine.
delphinium
@Another Scott:
Yeah, people have apparently forgotten that we had a primary with a younger candidate that didn’t make a dent. So disenfranchising the 90%+ of Biden voters by saying now we have to push Biden out makes no sense.
Like I said, I don’t watch the talking head shows nor am I on social media, so maybe it’s just easier for me not to panic.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Massachusetts differs from Virginia in that it is Whiter, 71% compared to 58%. Massachusetts’ Black population is 6.7% and Virginia’s is 20%. Yet Joe Biden carried Massachusetts by 33%, while he carried Virginia by 10.
My crude calculations tell me that White Bay Staters vote Democratic at a substantially higher rate than they do in Virginia, and the difference in educational attainment is not so great to account for the difference.
But another demographic difference might. Fifty-eight percent of Virginia citizens identify as Protestant, and only 12% as Catholic, whereas 34% of Massachusetts residents identify as Catholic and only 22% as Protestant.
BarcaChicago
…Can someone remind me how to use the pie filter? I can’t find it anywhere on the page. Thank you :-)
Juju
@MomSense: Are you going to vote for Biden in November even though you feel this way?
Juju
@BarcaChicago: It’s the picture of the cherry pie with the word filter at the top of the comments section.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep, that’s a good thing to learn. Use it as a data point to up your game next time (whether in sports or in life). It’s what you do next that matters, not what you did before.
I follow women’s volleyball at the University here, and if a hitter screws up a hit – it goes into the net, or she hits it out of bounds – they almost always give her the next set, too, so she doesn’t have time to get in her head about the play she missed.
In sports, a lot of plays are missed, and game are lost, because the players get in their own heads too much.
MomSense
@Chris Johnson:
Go watch it again. Seriously.
Geminid
@Juju: Sure she will. She’s just very rattled by the debate. A lot of people were and not all of them have gotten past it.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: You are saying that your feelings should invalidate all the primary votes that have been cast so far for President Biden. You have diagnosed him of dementia. Where is your MD in geriartrics.
I saw the debate and didn’t see what you saw.
BarcaChicago
@Juju: Thank you, appreciate it!
WaterGirl
@PJ: That’s really out of line.
There’s no way in hell MomSense wants Trump in the White House. There’s no way in hell MomSense doesn’t want Democrats to win.
MomSense and I were friends on the Obama blog under different names than we have now, and you won’t find a more reliable democrat than MomSense.
I think that MomSense has the wrong take on this, but your personal attack on her is over the line.
Emotions are running high, but turning on each other is not the road to success.
MomSense
@Juju:
seriously? I said I would and that I will campaign like I do every fucking election. I hate the phone and I make thousands of phone calls every election.
I teach people how to run phone banks and make calls. I recruit volunteers and do voter protection every election. I also do voter registration and outreach with our new citizens.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Are you a volleyball fan? If so, make sure you catch Turkiye’s Olymic women’s volleyball team next month. The “Sultans of the Net” are really something.
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
I didn’t diagnose him with dementia but after years of being attacked as having dementia he absolutely presented like he could have it. He looked befuddled. He had a hard time putting coherent sentences together.
Chris Johnson
@MomSense: This is a strange attitude. I’d vote for a zombie corpse before I’d vote for Trump, and I’d vote for a zombie corpse if it meant keeping BIDEN’S TEAM INCLUDING KAMALA together exactly the way they currently are, governing the damn country and dealing with lots of more important things.
I’ve heard that Biden may have been freezing out Israel from mass murder weaponry since like January, incensing Netanyahu, yet not breaking the kayfabe about being in support, thus simplifying the politics of it at the cost of pissing off the Twitter left. I’m waiting to hear more about this but it makes sense to me that it’d be the most effective path to forcing Israel back to more civilized acts. That stuff is going on NOW. So is the removal of the Chevron decision.
I want Biden’s team on these jobs, and especially if it’s Joe’s idea to wrestle Netanyahu in private and take the hit of public support and it works, I want Joe’s experience overseeing it. I don’t care if they have to wait for his nap to finish, and then ask him twice and listen close.
Real things are happening. Joe is not simply a candidate or TV personality.
Do you remember when Obama appeared publically, distracted, and then it turned out his people had taken out Osama Bin Laden?
Joe is BUSY. Get perspective. What would happen to any of these situations if he went ‘woopsy, blew my TV appearance, I quit’? What the actual hell.
WaterGirl
@BarcaChicago: Hi there!
I have a screen capture from part of this post to orient you re: teh pie filter. You are looking for the little cherry pie that’s just below the post up top and just above the circle that shows the number of comments.
Just click on the cherry pie to open the pie filter, and then you can select the people you want to pie. you can search for a nym or just go down the list. But in a long thread like this, all the nyms probably won’t show in the list, so i suggest you type the nym in the search field. Then just click the x to close the box, and people you pied will show up as desserts.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: I haven’t watched the olympics in years (decades?) now that you can’t watch a whole game or a whole anything.
But if you remind me when it’s coming up, i can give it a try. :-) I do love women’s volleyball.
WaterGirl
Hey, we broke $12,000 in the thermometer, yay!
Geminid
@WaterGirl: That’s some good work!
RevRick
@zhena gogolia: Except for Kamala Harris. She can gain access to all those funds.
Geminid
I’ll remind everyone when the Sultans of the Net start playing. Their two strikers, Ebrar Karakurt and Melissa Vargas, are awesome. “Air” Vargas defected from Cuba a few years ago and could be the best player in the world.
The two woman are also openly gay, and that became a political issue this winter when they won the Euro championship. A conservative politician said the two women were a disgrace to the nation and they needed to be kicked off the team. But most Turks were like, “This is the Turkish National Team! They just beat all those snooty Europeans and you need to STFU!”
WaterGirl
@Geminid: Thank you! We have to celebrate where we can!
Especially good work on the part of the Angels and the people who donate. What I do wouldn’t matter a bit if it weren’t for them!
MomSense
@RevRick:
That’s what I think too.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: So team pride / nationalism > oh my god, lesbian
Juju.
@MomSense: I’m sorry. I must have missed that comment. I thought you probably would vote for Biden, but I just wanted to make certain. Also, with the rest you do, wow. I’m impressed. I hate making phone calls too. I bow to your superior electioneering.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Same thing happened to Turing during WWII.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: But Dean Philips also chose to run way to the right of Biden, pitching himself as the true centrist candidate, which probably made sense to newspaper pundits but not to most of the progressives worrying about the gerontocracy.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: This is your opinion and at odds with what I saw. He sounded hoarse, and at times got lost in the weeds of statistics. It has happened to me when I have given presentations and I was not as prepared as I should have been. Doesn’t make me demented.
So for you, the appearance of dementia, as judged by others is enough to throw a competent President overboard.
Juju.
@MomSense: My guess is that he looked befuddled because he was mad at himself for letting the situation get the better of him. Sort of like farting during a presentation. He picked the worst time to lose control of his stutter and he knew it. If you haven’t watched the movie, “ The Kings Speech” watch it. It’s a very good movie about stuttering. .
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: I grew up in Virginia. Virginia may have tilted bluer but it is still the South. “Was part of the Confederacy” is an important variable.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Turks are very nationalistic, especiallÿ when it comes to sports. They seem to be 3 or 4 decades behind us when it comes to recognizing LGBTQ rights, but their women’s volleyball team will help change some minds, I hope.
Volleyball is big in Turkiye, and the Euros were shown on wide screens in town squares and stadiums all over the country. When the women won, there was a humungous fireworks display in Istanbul. (that’s a good place for one because the Bosphorus Strait runs through the city). If the women make it to the final the whole country will probably shut down for a few hours.
Ironcity
@Omnes Omnibus: Not in Pennsylvania or Virginia. You get the birth certificate certified copy from the state in those cases. Not sure what you would get from the hospital or county health department, could be called a birth certificate.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ironcity: You still get a certified copy not the original which was my main point.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, that could account for some of the difference. Minnesota could be a good state to compare that removes that variable. But it does not have as many Catholics as Massachusetts and I think that could be the most significant factor.
Omnes Omnibus
Jasmine Crockett’s take on all this. She is a star in the making.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
👍
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Omnes Omnibus: …annnd she got flustered, and emotional, and screwed up her delivery there at the end.
she must have fucking dementia.
Manyakitty
@WaterGirl: this comment captures all my thoughts right now. 🇺🇲❤️
billcinsd
@Danielx: Philadelphia Inquirer called for Trump to drop out
brantl
@SenyorDave: it would be political malfeasance if Trump’s people agree to another debate.
What’s your point here? Trump has seldom if ever listened to his handlers, AND DOES THE STUPID SHIT ON PURPOSE, CONSTANTLY.
brantl
@Omnes Omnibus: Napoleon fired grapeshot through a crowd of civilians. Napoleon was not a liberal. Period.