SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 2024
Will Cain gets it (somewhat) right: In you watched Thursday night's event, you saw the two worst debate performances in presidential history.
A consensus seems to have formed concerning President Biden's side of the ledger. By general agreement, his worst moment came at 9:12 p.m., when he played the central role in this three-way debacle:
TAPPER (6/29/24): President Trump, we will get to immigration later in this block. President Biden, I want to give you an opportunity to respond to this question about the national debt.
BIDEN: He had the largest national debt of any president four-year period, number one.
Number two, he got $2 trillion tax cut, benefited the very wealthy. What I’m going to do is fix the tax system. For example:
We have a thousand trillionaires in America–I mean, billionaires in America.
And what’s happening, they’re in a situation where they, in fact, pay 8.2 percent in taxes. If they just paid 24 percent, 25 percent—either one of those numbers—they’d raise 500 million dollars–billion dollars, I should say—in a ten-year period.
We’d be able to right–wipe out his debt. We’d be able to help make sure that all those things we need to do—child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our healthcare system—making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the, uh, the Covid—excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with, uh—
[PAUSE]
Look—
[PAUSE]
If—
[PAUSE]
We finally beat Medicare.
TAPPER: Thank you, President Biden. President Trump?
"We finally beat Medicare?"
At the end of a halting presentation full of self-corrections, that's what the president said. In this awkward, tragic moment, we TV viewers were transported to the moors, where King Lear was wandering.
In a striking non-response, the moderator moved right along, failing to ask President Biden what he could have meant by that astonishing statement. As the debacle continued, Candidate Trump responded to the moderator's prompt with a welter of crazy claims.
Along the way, President Biden had made a peculiar set of statements:
In what way could $50 billion per year in additional revenue "wipe out President Trump's debt," even while allowing us to address a wide range of social concerns? In what universe could that happen?
Also, if President Biden is "going to fix the tax system," why hasn't he attempted to do so in the past three-plus years?
Meanwhile, does President Biden, as a candidate, have some major tax proposal? If he does, have you ever heard anyone, including President Biden himself, say what that proposal is?
On Thursday night, Candidate Trump responded to the moderator's prompt with a welter of crazy claims. But Candidate Biden's fumbling claim—his claim that he somehow "finally beat Medicare"—took all of us out to the moors.
The debate was barely ten minutes old when the president made this presentation. The moderator plowed ahead as if nothing had happened—as if nothing needed to be clarified, questioned, explained.
What were we the people seeing as we watched that three-way exchange? We were seeing the shape of American discourse, to the extent that we're able to produce some such creature at this point in time.
Barely ten minutes into the event, viewers were observing an imitation of discourse—an imitation engaged in by all three participants, Biden and Tapper and Trump.
This is the best we the people can do at this point in time! In fact, our discourse has been functioning at this level for at least the past forty years, though its failures have rarely been as easy to spot as they were this past Thursday night.
That presentation represents who and what we actually are. This morning, we saw a somewhat accurate overview of this state of affairs—a somewhat accurate partial overview—offered in a surprising venue:
We saw it offered at the very start of the Fox & Friends Weekend program!
This partial overview came from Will Cain, the most measured of this gruesome program's three weekend co-hosts.
Cain sometimes inserts a dollop of nuance into this program's imitations of discourse. This morning, at 6:06 a.m., we saw him (somewhat correctly) make this statement about President Biden's performance:
CAIN (6/29/24): You know, this is the first time I've had an opportunity to reflect publicly on this debate—and there's just so much to say.
You know, first of all, it wasn't a bad performance. It was par for the course. They can't get away now with telling us, "I had a bad night, and you get up and knock the dust off when you get knocked down."
This was confirmation of something that we've known for a long time—not weeks, not months, but that we've known for years.
[...]
Most importantly, what I want to point out right now is the lies, the absolute gaslighting that needs, I think, to be at the top of the line.
Because not only has Joe Biden compromised America. But everyone surrounding him—Karine Jean-Pierre, his cabinet, his chief of staff—and most importantly, the fourth estate, the media that has told us this is the best version of Joe, that he is great, that it's Trump that [UNINTELLIGIBLE]—they have lied to us, to the compromise of the United States.
We wouldn't agree with every word. For starters, we almost never traffic in L-bombs.
Also, we've edited out part of the statement. We do agree with these parts of what Cain said concerning President Biden's performance:
First, what became apparent on Thursday night has been apparent for some time—in our view for many months, though probably not "for years."
Also, large elements of Blue America's media have been gaslighting the public about what was otherwise apparent to the eye. We especially think of the Morning Joe program where we've been told, again and again, that President Biden is sharp as a tack—that Red America's claims to the contrary were in fact a welter of lies.
For the record, no one who co-hosts a program as gruesome as Fox & Fruends Weekend should get to complain, in this way, about the gaslighting performed by anyone else.
That said, Cain's aim was true with respect to those basic points. We the people of Blue America have been played, again and again, by the corporate hirelings we're told we can trust on our own nation's "cable news" programs.
Here at this site, we were surprised when the Biden campaign arranged this debate because of what we'd seen on Fox News Channel programs. The millionaire stars on MSNBC had been keeping that video hidden away, even as Joe Scarborough kept telling us, day after day, that the president is sharp as a tack.
No one who co-hosts a show like Fox & Friends Weekend should be allowed to cast himself in the straight shooter role. But we had assumed, at least since last summer, that President Bidne wouldn't be able to participate in a debate.
On Thursday night, at 9:12 p.m., the reality hit the fan.
As currently programmed, the Fox News Channel is a coarse and vulgar pseudo-journalistic disgrace. That said, the dissembling has been general over Blue America's media—and voters who vote the way we do need to understand this fact.
There will be much more to say about these matters next week. But President Biden's unfortunate state has been visible for some time—and news orgs which serve our own Blue America were refusing to deal with that fact.
On Thursday evening, President Biden said that he'd finally beaten Medicare. Jake Tapper, a good, decent person, proceeded ahead just as if nothing whatever had happened.
It happened on Thursday, at 9:12 p.m. This is the current state of the race.
Sadly, there's a great deal of truth to what Will Cain said. This is the state of the human race, as the gods on Olympus all laugh!
Margarita Voites and Lothar Gall have died.
ReplyDeleteJake Tapper, a corporate hireling who plays us, is a good decent person.
ReplyDeleteJoe Biden was oozing decency, empathy and competence. My finger smells funny.
ReplyDeleteI am Corby.
Choice of the word "oozing" shows you are against, not for, Biden. Corby should sue you for using that name, but in the end, a nym is just an alias and anyone can use it, as you demonstrate repeatedly. No one cares how your fingers smell -- they are yours to use as you please.
DeleteYou are Boris operating from Eastern Europe, paid by Russia via Iran and Qatar through Truth Social.
DeleteSomerby is not a liberal.
I am Corby.
Reminding readers that Somerby is not a liberal is a public service that offsets the other nonsense you repeat here.
DeleteFake Corby is an anonymouse, not even bothering with a nym.
Delete10:48 I suspect you are the troll that thought the 5th Circuit ruling on Biden's social media requests was going to stand.
DeleteI explained in detail how wrong you were, and now, as I predicted, the SC has ruled against the 5th Circuit, which is infamous for it's far right extremists judges.
You keep getting everything wrong, which is why you are irrelevant.
You will have to now cope, one hopes you start with some self reflection.
No, I’m a different troll. There are so many of us!
DeleteMaybe Biden didn't beat Medicare, but he did beat inflation:
ReplyDeletehttps://jabberwocking.com/pce-inflation-plummeted-in-may/
From Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo:
ReplyDelete"What we take for granted is the culture of public service behind the kind of government experts who predict our weather and collect our crop data and archive history and objective facts.
Michael Lewis in his book “The Fifth Risk” wrote that government manages a portfolio of risks that requires “mission-driven” careerists, experts with a dedication to the work, not to making big money from it. Donald Trump’s administration came to Washington to upend that system. Not to improve it, but to exploit it for profit. They abandoned data collection on anything Trumpers opposed, the New York Times review explained, “like climate change or food safety regulations, or that they didn’t care about, like poverty, or stuff that they assumed were government boondoggles, which was most everything not involving the Pentagon.”
Project 2025 means to destroy that public service culture to secure control. If information is power, authoritarians want it. All of it. This is more than the usual ref-gaming from the right, Sargent observes. They want the power to declare what reality is. Trump believes he can do that by repeating his falsehoods until they take on lives of their own. Others repeating his baseless lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him is a mark of loyalty and will be prerequisite for hiring. “The lie is the point.” Competence just gets in the way.
When conservatives are out of power, they express concern for fairness and complain that measuring their statements against objective reality is unfair, Roberts replies. “But the more power they get, the less thay have to put on that mask.”
The truth comes out. Fact-checking them “is in their minds, a power move. Everything, in their minds, is a power move.” Stephen Colbert once parodied the right as claiming that reality has a left-wing bias. But that’s what they believe."
https://digbysblog.net/2024/06/29/giving-america-a-lobotomy/
Somerby today wants us to believe we are being gaslighted and that what we take for reality is imitation. THAT is gaslighting too -- don't believe it. There are still reliable sources but we must fight this tendency to portray reality as if it were whatever someone else wants it to be, as if it doesn't have an independent reality that can be known by observers.
Somerby is not a reliable source of ideas and neither is Trump, but that doesn't mean Biden is not still one of those public servants working for the common good (at personal cost) and trying to make our country a better place to live (for all of us). And Biden is still the head of a government comprised of individuals with that same goal. THAT is who we will be voting for in November.
It’s odd how everywhere I look, I see mainstream media pundits and former Democratic operatives calling for Biden to step down, after months of complaining about his age and energy level, only to be told by Somerby and Will Cain that “blue media” has engaged in a campaign of lying about Joe Biden.
ReplyDeleteIt’s almost as if Somerby is gaslighting his readers.
Judging from how Somerby presents things, it would be unreasonable to vote for Biden - he trashes Biden every chance he gets, although typically for petty reasons; Somerby's claim that he will vote for Biden is incoherent when considering the context of Somerby's posts.
DeleteSomerby is obviously attempting to gaslight his readers. He is snickering like a petulant little schoolboy behind his coyness. Somerby's fever dream is that there is indeed a sucker born every minute.
Somerby is a right winger; he is here to repeat Republican talking points, to spread misinformation, to put his thumb on the scale, to manufacture ignorance, and to soothe his emotional discomfort at having failed to attain a sense of dominance that his unresolved trauma-borne personality demands.
Interestingly, the post debate polling shows a bump for Biden!
When you get everything wrong like Somerby does, you have relegated yourself to to the ash heap of history.
Smolderin' Somerby!
He's putting his thumb on the scales!
DeleteI am Corby.
That phrase really triggers you!
DeleteGiven Biden’s obvious decline in recent months, Scarborough should be held accountable for claiming two weeks ago that Biden is as sharp and on top of things as he has ever been.
DeleteThe same applies to Karine Jean-Pierre, who claimed that President Biden could accomplish more in one hour than most people could in a full day. This statement came after the Hur report, which accurately noted the president's ongoing drift into blankness and senility, as we all know now.
None of this is contradicted by the debate.
DeleteThe debate mirrored the polling, which shows that voters are concerned that Biden is old and Trump is corrupt.
DeleteThe polling bump Biden got after the debate suggests voters are more put off by Trump's corruption than Biden's aging.
Somerby's analyses seem to be inaccurate at best.
3:12 - Interesting. Somerby has been saying that Biden is not up to the task of running for president. The debate confirms Somerby’s prediction in spectacular fashion. And your reaction? That Somerby gets everything wrong.
DeleteGo figure. (Maybe you’re trying to manufacture ignorance.)
Biden has been an excellent president and he has earned the right to run for reelection as the incumbent. That is how our political system works.
ReplyDeleteI believe the reports that the Democrats are in disarray and desperately seeking another candidate is coming from the right wing and from places like the NY Times (which are demonstrably not supporting Democrats or Biden, even before the debate).
I am taking my lead from Biden, who says he had a bad debate but he is moving forward, because that is what people do after a stumble. His rally in North Carolina showed a more encouraging version of Biden. But I am mostly voting for Biden because of his work as president -- he has been great and it doesn't matter to me how much of that is because of his team and how much is because of Biden's leadership. I want another 4 years of that good work.
It might be helpful if Somerby, who claims he will vote for Biden, to examine Biden’s record as president, rather than constantly harping on “performance “. Biden is often a perfectly fine public speaker. I remember when the media’s takeaway from a Bush-Gore debate was Gore’s sighing, rather than any substantive discussion of issues.
ReplyDeleteYou can choose to doom post as Somerby does, or respond like Obama, who said “ Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight — and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit. Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November.”
"Will Cain gets it (somewhat) right"
ReplyDeleteThis means that Somerby somewhat agrees with Will Cain. It says nothing about right/wrong or objective truth.
Will anyone, media or Republicans, call for Trump to step aside after his torrent of lies, and his status as convicted felon?
ReplyDeleteNah.
Only Democrats tear their candidates apart.
"By general agreement, his worst moment came at 9:12 p.m..."
ReplyDeleteWhy would someone who asserts that he wants Biden to win use a major part of his blog to repeat Biden's worst moment? What was Biden's best moment? Crickets from Somerby.
He points out Biden’s worst moment to drive home this point: We would have known sooner if blue-side media had been straight with us.
Delete"First, what became apparent on Thursday night has been apparent for some time—in our view for many months, though probably not "for years."
ReplyDeleteThis is a ridiculous lie. Yes, Biden looks and acts old. That's because he IS old. But his State of the Union Address was nothing like this debate performance, and that was only a few months ago. And his rally in North Carolina, the day after the debate, was nothing like his debate performance either. And that was just yesterday. So, this idea that Biden has always performed this badly in public is an obvious lie, especially if you consider his one-to-one interactions with people he encounters daily, including congress members (right and left) who have said he is sharp, engaged, and on top of the knowledge needed to interact with them.
Somerby and Cain (who is a right winger on Fox News) are both lying about this. I say lying, because the evidence contradicting this assertion is right in front of their eyes.
Of course Trump would love to run against a less able candidate. That is why they are working hard to undermine Biden's efforts. You would expect nothing less of someone like Trump and his crowd, but why is Somerby joining the right to tear down Biden? I think it should be obvious that Somerby never has supported Biden and is not a liberal.
"But we had assumed, at least since last summer, that President Bidne wouldn't be able to participate in a debate."
ReplyDeleteSomerby may have assumed this, but Biden DID participate in a debate. He didn't do well, but he also was correct when he said Friday, that he gave honest answers, didn't lie, and described achievements that are real and have benefitted the American people. Unlike Trump. Biden stayed within his allotted time. Trump had his mic cut off twice. Biden answered the questions whereas Trump ignored several questions and used the time to talk about whatever he wanted. In that sense, Biden debated while Trump stoop in front of a camera and told lies, ignoring the moderators and in the process, failing to give the viewers a chance to compare his views to Biden's on those topics. Trump cheated while Biden took the debate seriously, but was unable to speak clearly. That has been a problem for Biden all his life, not just during this debate. Everyone seems to know that except Somerby.
"On Thursday evening, President Biden said that he'd finally beaten Medicare. Jake Tapper, a good, decent person, proceeded ahead just as if nothing whatever had happened."
ReplyDeleteThat was Jake Tapper's job (as he defined it for himself). He did the same with Trump, past lie after lie to a total of 50 lies for the 90 minutes.
Biden's slip of the tongue is the same as ones Trump has made while speaking at his rallies. But let's not lose track of the fact that Trump actually plans to defeat Social Security and Medicare, which was the topic Biden was addressing and Trump was ignoring.
Biden is still debating Trump. He is doing it with every act as president, and actions are louder than words.
ReplyDeleteHere is one statement from Joe Biden following the debate. These are the kinds of things supporters and Democrats should be saying in order to help defeat Trump, which remains the most important goal for us all:
"I spent 90 minutes debating on a stage with a guy who has all the morals of an alley cat. I mean, did you see Donald Trump?
He must have set a new record for the number of lies ever told in a single debate.
He lied about what a great economy he created, when we all remember the pandemic.
He lied about how great he was for veterans, when we can recall how he called veterans who had given their lives for this country “suckers” and “losers.”
And he even lied about how he had nothing to do with January 6th.
But we all saw it with our own eyes. We saw the mob attack the Capitol. We saw the police being attacked. The Capitol ransacked.
Folks, for all of Trump’s lies, we did learn some important truths.
We learned he is still proud of being the person who killed Roe v. Wade.
We learned that he wants another giant tax cut for the very wealthy and biggest corporations.
And that he’ll cut your Medicare, your Social Security, and cut your health care to pay for it.
Most dangerously — though — we learned again that Donald Trump will not respect the outcome of this year’s election.
Donald Trump showed us who he is. We have to believe him." -- Joe Biden
"Sadly, there's a great deal of truth to what Will Cain said."
ReplyDeleteSadly, this is what Somerby has reduced himself to -- shilling for Fox News as they try to defeat the Democratic incumbent in the midst of a presidential election. Somerby has no shame.
"Fox News Channel is a coarse and vulgar pseudo-journalistic disgrace"
DeleteI guess this is your idea of "shilling for Fox News."
You sound foolish defending Somerby
DeleteWhat I’m doing is proving that what you said is just flat-out ridiculous.
DeleteThere is other reaction to Biden's poor debate than what is being report by the NY Times.
ReplyDeleteTom Sullivan (Digby's Hullabaloo) says "Democrats want to govern. Republicans want to rule."
Here is his take:
"Confidence, even false confidence, inspires. As Bill McKibben once wrote:
The power of the Christian right rests largely in the fact that they boldly claim religious authority, and by their boldness convince the rest of us that they must know what they’re talking about. They’re like the guy who gives you directions with such loud confidence that you drive on even though the road appears to be turning into a faint, rutted track.
Democrats’ loud, public second-guessing themselves about Joe Biden looks desperate. It’s a bad look.
So take a long, deep breath through your nose. Hold it a beat. Then exhale slowly through your mouth. Do it again. (Relax those shoulders.) If you lean Democrat, I know. It’s hard.
Joe Biden had a bad night on Thursday. “Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know,” Barack Obama tweeted Friday afternoon.
[screenshot of Obama tweet omitted]
https://digbysblog.net/2024/06/29/november-is-a-bidenary-choice/
"The president responded to his bad debate an hour or so earlier on Friday with a forceful speech in Raleigh, N.C. I was there right up front. His performances were literally night and day. This was the guy we’d hoped would show up to face Donald Trump.
Biden wiped his left eye a couple of times as if it was watering while his wife Jill introduced him. So maybe the campaign explanation for Thursday that he’s working through a cold has merit.
But in Raleigh, Biden delivered a lot of lines he’d likely prepared but failed to deliver on Thursday. When Trump boasted about “acing” his cognitive test Thursday night, I thought, “Here we go,” and figured Biden would pounce. He didn’t. More’s the pity.
“Donald Trump isn’t just a convicted felon—Donald Trump is a one-man crime wave,” Biden insisted on Friday, just not to a worldwide audience. Too late, but on Friday Biden was on."
Obama's campaign team and a few others have a podcast called Pod Save America. They have written a book for everyday Americans describing things we can do to help Biden win and save our democracy.
ReplyDeleteDemocracy or Else: How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps, by Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor and Josh Halloway
Available from Amazon and other places:
https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Else-Save-America-Steps/dp/1638931437/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1DPG1J2EW9UJG&keywords=democracy+or+else+jon+favreau&qid=1697576954&sprefix=democracy+or+else+jon+favreu%2Caps%2C51&sr=8-1
We need to all step up and defeat Trump by reelecting Biden. And if he becomes too old to give good speeches any more, he will still do less damage than Trump would if we allowed him to become dictator.
Even if you do not have the energy to do something active during the election, at least vote for Biden. We are not Troy and we do not inhabit Somerby's fantasy world. Over here in reality, we need Biden and not a narcissistic sociopath as president.
In his debate performance, Trump hinted at his collusion with Russia over Ukraine and over the freeing of a reporter being held as a prisoner and bargaining chip by Russia. Today, Heather Cox Richardson discusses what this means to the 2016 election and to our current election:
ReplyDelete"Instead, tonight I want to make a note of something that has been nagging at me for weeks now: Trump’s focus on 32-year-old Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested by Russian officers in March 2023 and is currently on trial for the trumped-up charge of espionage. The State Department considers him “wrongfully detained,” a rare designation indicating that the person is being held by a hostile government as a bargaining chip. That designation means the U.S. government will do all it can to secure his release.
At least three times now, Trump has interfered with those negotiations by vowing that Russian president Vladimir Putin will release Gershkovich for him and him alone. He said it in last night’s CNN debacle, where he also made a big deal out of the idea that Putin will do it as a favor, without an exchange of money.
He said something else last night in his slurry of words that jumped out. Somewhere in his discussion of Putin’s invasion of eastern Ukraine in February 2022, Trump said: “Putin saw that, he said, you know what, I think we’re going to go in and maybe take my—this was his dream. I talked to him about it, his dream.”
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election explained that Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager and then conduit to Russian operatives, in summer 2016 “discussed a plan to resolve the ongoing political problems in Ukraine by creating an autonomous republic in its more industrialized eastern region of Donbas, and having [Viktor] Yanukovych, the Ukrainian President ousted in 2014, elected to head that republic.”
Manafort had helped to get the pro-Russian oligarch Yanukovych into office, and when Yanukovych fled to Russia after the Ukrainian people threw him out, Manafort was left unemployed and in debt to other oligarchs. When he went to work for Trump, for free, he promptly wrote to his partner Konstantin Kilimnik, whom the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee identified in 2020 as a Russian operative, asking how “we” could use the appointment “to get whole,” and made sure that the Russian oligarch to whom he owed the most money knew about his close connection with the Trump campaign (p. 135).
The Mueller Report continued: “That plan, Manafort later acknowledged, constituted a ‘backdoor’ means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine” (p. 140). The region that Putin wanted was the country’s industrial heartland. He was offering a “peace” plan that carved off much of Ukraine and made it subservient to him. This was the dead opposite of U.S. policy for a free and united Ukraine, and there was no chance that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who was running for the presidency against Trump, would stand for it. But if only Trump were elected….
And, in November 2016, he was."
This boils down to a stark difference between Biden and Trump. Biden supports the independence of Ukraine and other Russia-adjacent countries, while Trump does not. Trump sides with Russia and would sacrifice the freedom of both this particular reporter (who remains in prison because Trump is using him as a bargaining chip himself during this election) and the Ukrainian people, who do not wish to be absorbed back into Russia.
Yes, Biden gave a bad debate, but Trump would sacrifice Ukraine in exchange for Russia's help with being elected. There are larger stakes than whether Biden seems old. Somerby ignores what is at stake in this election.
Forgot the link:
Deletehttps://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-28-2024
She is a national treasure.
DeleteGavin Newsom says:
ReplyDelete"I am old fashioned, but on the substance Joe Biden won the debate last night. That is what matters to me.
All this other talk... it's unhelpful and unnecessary. We aren't going to turn our backs because of one performance. What kind of party does that?
Don't look at 30 minutes... look at 3 and a half years of Joe Biden as president. It's been a master class: 15.6 million jobs created — 8x more than the last 3 Republican presidents combined; gun safety legislation; lowering the cost of prescription drugs; an infrastructure package to rebuild this country.
Joe Biden has delivered — and we need to deliver for him in this moment. We're talking about the fate and future of our democracy, this country and the world. They all need us right now.
That's what I intend to do, and I hope you'll join me."
Gavin 2028.
DeleteCalifornia is the 5th largest economy in the world, the 2nd largest by per capita, growing at an impressive rate under Newsom's guidance.
The problem is that the rest of the nation thinks of CA as being flaky and radical. I remember when Pete Brown tried to run for President but was not taken seriously as a candidate despite his success as Gov of CA. Newsom may have the same image problem.
DeleteHe might solve that by serving in Biden's cabinet in some capacity and gaining a positive national reputation.
DeleteIt's easy to have a "large economy" in nominal dollars when it costs 10 bucks to buy a lousy fast-food burger in your state.
Delete@3:37 I think you mean Jerry Brown. Brown did a number of good things as Governor, but one bad he did outweighs all the good things. That was allowing state employees to unionize. We now have enormous state taxes, mediocre state services, and big state government deficits.
DeleteIt is comparative not nominal.
DeleteThere's no such thing as "comparative". There's nominal and PPP. The fifth place is nominal. By PPP it's the 12th.
Delete"Accounting for the state’s higher costs of living, California instead ranked as the 11th largest economy in the world in 2021, and dipped to 12th highest in 2022."
https://centerforjobs.org/ca/special-reports/special-report-was-california-the-4th-largest-economy-in-the-world-in-2022
I’m with Gavin in this opinion. 100%
Deleteallowing state employees to unionize.
DeleteDavid, you're just a constant stream of bullshit.
The MMBA was signed in 1968, not by
Governor Jerry Brown, but by Governor Ronald Reagan, a former union president. The MMBA, modeled in part after the private sector’s National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), grants employees of cities, counties, and most special districts the right to bargain collectively.
Right, Jerry Brown
DeleteWould you really rather live in China, India, Russia, or even Turkey than CA? Brother, please.
DeletePPP GDP has limited usefulness as a way to make analyses and comparisons; there are too many variables and inaccurate measurements, and too many significant variables that are obfuscated, like income, so it winds up being used by those looking to weaponize it to make spurious, and frankly, laughable claims.
https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/review/03/11/pakko.pdf
California is not just the 5th largest economy in the world (and Japan is quickly sinking), not just the driving force behind why America is the largest economy in the world, it is the 2nd largest economy per capita in the world.
Furthermore, the main driver behind CA's massive success is primarily Los Angeles.
Sure, this inevitably will engender some jealousy from those that do not live in CA, do not live in the LA area. Such folks will have to cope.
Hollywood + Silicon Valley = global supremacy
DeleteAnd the central valley which grows produce for the rest of the country and export.
DeleteThat's a good point, 6:57pm.
DeleteI live in Monaco. I love it here. And it's not even in the top 100 economies, it doesn't grow any produce, and, thank God, it doesn't have Hollywood or any "global supremacy".
DeleteGood luck to you, in beautiful South Central.
3:46 I am surprised you can afford your lifestyle in Monaco, given the current buying power of rubles.
DeleteHuh. The one and only universal Soros-bot comeback never disappoints.
Delete5:04: Don’t worry, David will have another falsehood to propagate about Jerry Brown that will more than adequately explain why he didn’t like him.
DeleteSouth Central LA is now a Hispanic neighborhood. Neighborhoods change over time. East Los Angeles used to be a Jewish neighborhood.
Delete"Los Angeles' diverse population includes Hispanic/Latino: 49%, Black/African American: 9%, White/Caucasian: 25%, Asian: 15%, and a composite of other communities including American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and other Pacific Islanders totaling about 2% of the overall population."
https://ctsi.ucla.edu/los-angeles-county-diversity#:~:text=Los%20Angeles'%20diverse%20population%20includes,2%25%20of%20the%20overall%20population.
The people who live in Los Angeles are those who value and appreciate diversity. My own parents moved there in 1950 to escape the racial segregation of the Chicago area.
So Saint Ronald, despite the memory issues afflicting DIC (who as usual got his facts wrong) is the responsible party behind the current tax burden in Cali? That and the failure known as Reaganomics. But let's all worship at the alter of the great communicator.
DeleteWait, so it's the Republican party that's pro-union? And the Democrat party beat Medicare?
DeleteI need to reconsider my affiliations.
Simon Rosenberg recommends watching Lawrence O'Donnell's broadcast about Biden's debate:
ReplyDelete"Many of you have commented that yesterday in a campaign event in North Carolina we saw a strong, fierce, energetic, compelling Joe Biden. I think the best way to watch the video that’s been making the rounds is to watch this 20 minute segment from the great Lawrence O’Donnell last night which includes an extended clip of this now famous Raleigh rally. In a time of challenge for the country, Lawrence has really stepped up, and has become one of our valued and important commentators. The time I get to spend with him on MSNBC a few times a month is the part of my work these days that I look forward to most. I always, always learn from him. So set aside 20 minutes today and watch this video. It is likely to be the most important thing you do this weekend (other than help make June count!):
As Lawrence mentions, we know about 30% of those likely to vote this fall watched or streamed the debate on Thursday night. The historically small audience that checked in was likely very hard partisans on both sides, particularly given that CNN allowed Fox to run a simulcast of the debate on its network, giving Trump supporters a safer way to watch. That so few undecided or persuadable voters checked into the debate could explain why a new 538/Ipsos poll taken yesterday, entirely after the debate, found almost no movement (and well within margin of error) from a previous poll of the very same people. Note Biden leads here today by 3.2 pts, 47%-44%."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgjyHwQOUoo
I agree that Biden still has a good chance to win the election. Trump is so hated by so many Americans, and the media is so biased. that any Democrat could defeat Trump. In addition, there seem to be government agencies who are working against Trump, including the CIA. It was the CIA who took the lead in finding 51 "experts" to falsely say that Hunter
DeleteBiden's laptop was Russian disinformation.
Even though Biden might win, the Dems have an obligation to Americans to replace him as candidate. Winning the election with Biden would disserve the country.
Biden's ability to function at a very high level today is already questionable. He clearly doesn't s ability to function at a very high level for 4+ more years. And, his replacement, Harris, is not a highly capable person.
David, last time you said Harris was not a highly capable person, I wasted a bunch of time telling you about her achievements before becoming VP. You do not discuss anything here in good faith because you do not read or respond to what others post here. It is as if I never said a thing about why Harris not only highly capable but outstanding as VP, as Attorney General of the State of CA, as a US Senator, and as District Attorney for San Francisco.
DeleteMany of us are tired of trying to educate you, only to have you repeat the same garbage later, as if we had never spoken.
Give me a break, @2:15. Surely you are aware that Harris is widely regarded as not having been effective as VP. E.g., here's a poll by respected 538 showing her approval\disapproval at 39.4%/49.4% https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/kamala-harris/ By comparison, Al Gore's favorable rating was generally 20 points or more higher than his unfavorable when he was VP. https://news.gallup.com/poll/141269/favorable-ratings-gore-down-cheney-biden-flat.aspx
DeleteSure, you can find arguments to try to show that's she's highly capable. But, you shouldn't reproach me for expressing an opinion that's so widely shared.
David, you are attributing Republican sentiments to Democrats and that is incorrect. Harris had the second highest polling against Trump, after Biden. Democrats are not unhappy with her performance. YOU are campaigning against her and trying to make it sound like anyone on the left shares your opinion, when we do not.
DeleteDemocrats are showing their support for Biden by donating to his campaign. A huge amount, $27 million to Trump's $14 million, since the end of the debate, saying that we do not want the party to drop him over one bad debate.
DeleteKamala Harris was speaking in Utah on the night of the debate. Here is what happened there [from KPCW, Park City and Heber City]:
Delete"While the June 28 fundraiser was underway, The New York Times editorial board called on Biden to drop out.
But Harris reaffirmed her faith in their ticket.
“We’re gonna win,” she said, to cheers from the crowd of Utah donors.
The fundraiser’s hosts said people rallied around the campaign the night of the debate.
“Our phones rang off the hook,” they said, “with people asking, ‘Can we still donate?’ ‘Can we still come tomorrow?’...
This campaign, Utah Biden supporters have already donated over $1 million.
Tears on my eyes.
DeleteBiden's outpacing of Trump on individual contributions is startling, about 70 to 1.
Deletehttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/06/us/politics/trump-biden-donors-election.html
Delete"Former President Donald J. Trump was trailing President Biden in overall campaign cash on hand at the end of 2023, but he dominated fund-raising last year by at least one critical measure: his number of small donors. An analysis of Federal Election Commission data by The New York Times shows that about 668,000 donors gave less than $200 to Mr. Trump, compared with 564,000 for Mr. Biden."
"Small donors have always been intrinsic to Mr. Trump’s political momentum. Not only have they powered his three presidential bids, but they are also a vital measure of his broad appeal to an immovable grass-roots base. Most large donors have so far kept their distance from Mr. Trump this cycle.
Mr. Biden, in contrast, has drawn ample support from big donors, who are not reflected in this dataset."
I no longer trust anything written about Biden by the NY Times. They have shown their bias.
Delete@DiC:
DeleteOnce again, you're wrong on the facts. The letter signed by the 51 members of the intelligence community never said it was disinformation.
Look it up.
"It was the CIA who took the lead in finding 51 "experts" to falsely say that Hunter
Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation."
At this point it is safe to assume that every comment posted by DiC contains misinformation. It is abundantly clear from the number of times he has required correction (earlier this section as well about the unionization of California government employees) that he has little regard for facts or the truth, making it all the more easy for him to support a lying grifter like Trump. The number of times he has posted links that contradict his comments is beyond comical at this point. That he should be remarking about the mental acuity of other octogenarians reflects a profound lack of self awareness. Pitiful, unless he is a paid troll, in which case his complete inability to convince anyone of his arguments makes him substantially more overpaid than the California workers he bemoans.
DeleteHe is a troll.
DeleteNY Times is getting pushback over its editorial:
ReplyDelete"The New York Times editorial board urging President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 race has prompted a visceral reaction from some of the president's most outspoken supporters on social media.
Following the leading national newspaper of record's stinging editorial, NJ.com's Kevin Manahan assembled tweets from Biden supporters blasting the Times for grading the president on a steep curve while largely giving former President Donald Trump a pass. Manahan noted that progressives "gave the newspaper a social media middle finger and pointed out one-sided coverage that has favored Donald Trump, the first criminally convicted ex-president, who is facing more criminal charges to go along with a long civil rap sheet."
Except that the choice to be made by Democrats is not between Biden and Trump, it's between Biden and his replacement.
DeleteIf Biden continues to run, he will turn from being the man who saved the country from Trump to the man who gave the country to Trump.
The problem is that Biden doesn't have a replacement. There is no one who is more likely to be able to defeat Trump than Biden. The fragmentation of Democratic support would be worse if Biden were to be pushed aside, because Biden's remaining supporters may be angry enough to weaken the already-weak replacement prospects. People keep forgetting that no one had the strength to beat Biden when he won the nomination to run in 2020. That is still true. Bernie, Warren, Newsom, Witmer, etc., all have less support than Biden, even after this debate. Why not wait for the polls and see how people are reacting?
DeleteBiden was not the man who saved the country from Trump. He IS the man who saved the country from covid and prevented a recession or depression. He is currently trying to save the country from the effects of global warming and will get credit for that in the future, if we can come out of the that crisis OK.
This is not about Trump. Trump is a has-been who lies, cheats and steals and is now supported only by a cult of losers. We need to defeat Trump's under-handed tactics and hold steady and Biden will win, as he should given that he is the only sane person in the race.
This is not a matter of having faith in Biden, but of having faith in the American people to make the best choice at the polls in Nov.
"I don't know what he said at the end of that sentence, I don't think he knows either."
DeleteYes, and Trump has never gotten lost in the middle of a sentence either? Get real!
Delete"Donald Trump followed up Thursday's presidential debate with a rally on Friday, but onlookers complained that he slurred his way through the speech.
DeletePresident Joe Biden was highly criticized for his debate performance, which caused some -- including the Editorial Boards of the Raw Story and the New York Times -- to suggest that he should drop out of the race.
Trump himself criticized Biden's lack of clarity during the debate, but then appeared to mess up his own words at his Virginia rally.
"We want a land schlade that's -- and remember this term, too big to rig. We want a landslide," the ex-president said at his rally on Friday."
"A new poll showing the disastrous Atlanta debate appears to have helped — or at least, not harmed — President Joe Biden's chances, and the internet laughed as everyone rallied around the notion it seems no one knows anything anymore.
DeleteAmidst a sea of articles and opinion pieces questioning Biden's decision to seek re-election — and even a certain prominent paper of record urging him to drop out — emerged a small beacon of hope for Democrats.
The non-partisan group Political Polls shared a new general election poll Friday afternoon with a curious finding: Biden led Trump 45 percent to 44 percent post-debate. The previous poll "was a tie," the group noted on social media."
Raw Story
1:46 & 2:02,
Deleteagain, the decision Democrats face is not between Biden and Trump. It is between Biden and his potential replacement on the ticket.
Biden is not being replaced despite media panic.
DeleteHe’s being replaced because of media panic.
DeleteHe is not being replaced.
DeleteIt is unlikely Biden will be replaced; however, Whites - people of European descent that have engaged in imperialism and colonialism, largely via racial oppression, for the last few hundred years, are being replaced.
DeleteBoo fucking hoo.
Trump lies to the American people wholesale during the debate, but he also lies to individuals who are then personally hurt, as this man's business has been harmed [from RawStory]:
ReplyDelete"Speaking with both Atlanta News First and News 11 Alive, the Black owner of an Georgia barbershop claimed he was suckered into becoming part of a Donald Trump campaign event after the former president's aides got him to host what he thought would be a private business roundtable aimed at boosting Black businesses.
According to Rocky Jones, owner of Rocky's Barbershop in Buckhead, he was blindsided when Trump called to the get-together and the exchange was filmed and used to promote the former president who was in town for his debate with President Joe Biden.
Speaking with ANF, he bluntly stated, "I feel like I have been betrayed,” after stating, "Mind my business and serve and give haircuts back to the community and have good conversations; it’s never been about politics.”
According to 11 Alive, "Jones explained how the event came to be: it started with a text message, followed by a phone call while he was out of the country. He agreed to host what he thought would be a small, private gathering for Black small business owners. Instead, the event turned into a crowded affair, with Trump surrogates like Ben Carson and a surprise phone call from Trump himself."
“I thought it was going to be something real private,” Jones said. “I'm thinking about Black businesses in Atlanta, small Black businesses in Atlanta. And I'm like, 'Ok, so when are we gonna start talking about this?'” he said in an interview before adding, "I'm like, why is the ex-president calling somebody in my barbershop? This has nothing to do with small Black businesses.”
The businessman explained business has been impacted negatively after the video was released.
"We had some calls Thursday. We definitely got some calls, some backlash, some angry people that don't know me and I have to deal with that,” he said. "I have no involvement in politics. We don't even talk politics in my barbershop. It's all sports. The World Cup, soccer, baseball, basketball – politics is not what I do. I commend everybody to vote, but that's your business. 'You know, I don't tell you what to do.'"
Au contraire! Trump compares to Hitler and there are no statues of Trump either.
ReplyDeleteDo Trump supporters abandoned their candidate every time he makes 20-30 stupid gaffes in a rally speech, such as confusing electricity with solar power (as he did during the debate)? Do people think he is less old than Biden just because he uses spray tan? He looked doughy and like he had fallen on his chin in a gravel bed, as he leaned on the podium and smirked while waiting to lie again. But his supporters don't go out looking for Nikki Haley to replace him.
ReplyDeleteAs Somerby suggests, we can learn from the Others about how to be loyal without the whip of fear or bribes.
If you see that your loyalty will damage the country, you should withdraw it.
DeleteDo Trump supporters abandon him? Yes they do. There is a large number of “Never-Trumpers” — conservatives who oppose Trump.
DeleteHector, loyalty for the sake of loyalty is misguided, but loyalty to someone who deserves your support is right.
DeleteHow are “Never-Trumpers” "Trump supporters" who "abandon him"? Something's wrong with your logic here, David.
DeleteOh gosh, has our own DiC fallen to cognitive decline?
DeleteSee, Never Trumpers were never Trumpers, duh.
These fanboys like Hector and DiC are always wrong, always make misinformed claims; they have earned their irrelevancy.
1:46,
DeleteI wouldn't be loyal to Mother Teresa if doing so would hand the presidency to Trump.
This looks like a coup engineered by the right to knock out Biden in favor of someone more beatable. Biden remains the strongest opponent.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:09pm, yes, and Biden will only get better.
DeleteBiden is on his way to the stars.
DeletePolls are going up.
DeletePolls are vaulting.
DeleteBiden's "poll" is bigger than Trump's.
DeleteCope.
Instead of debating, they should have dropped their trousers.
DeleteOnly one abomination on that stage ever bragged about the size of his dick in a presidential primary debate. Sadly, not enough republican primary voters worried at the time "what will our children think?".
DeleteIf Biden had appeared peppy and sharp, the Republicans would claim he was on performance enhancing drugs. He was so opposite to that, I suspect he was on performance decreasing drugs. I find myself wondering what they jabbed him with or put in his podium water glass to get him to appear so uncharacteristically dim. And note how the NY Times had their editorial all ready to go the moment he stumbled, almost as if they had advance knowledge of the dirty trick Republicans were playing on Biden.
ReplyDeleteThese are the things the Republicans would be saying if it were Trump instead of Biden who appeared dull, as he has looked at several rallies lately (and looked all the time during his criminal trial).
Why isn't Trump's falling asleep during his trial worse than Biden having speech difficulties during this debate (while under the influence of a cold and whatever medication he took for it)? At least Biden showed up, which was more than Trump did to those people who waited hours for him before his cancelled rallies.
What "situation" had been visible? Anyone can have a bad debate.
ReplyDeleteIt's true anyone can have a bad debate. But it takes someone in a bit of a 'situation' to have as horrendous a debate as Biden did.
DeleteHe had a cold.
DeleteHe caught a minor cold during his daily swim across the Yangtze river. Could happen to everyone.
DeleteMao Zedong was one of the greatest men of the twentieth century.
DeleteApparently, having a "bad debate" can endear one to voters.
DeleteDemocrats don't seem to remember the PUMAs, who left the party over its mistreatment of Hillary in 2008. They are at risk of creating a similar group of disaffected Democrats upset at the abandonment of Biden after his service during his first term in office.
ReplyDeleteI will not vote for any Democrat who puts his own interests ahead of Biden's in order to take advantage of a single bad debate.
How about a Democrat who puts the country's interests ahead of Biden's? Would you vote for them?
DeleteBiden is an excellent president and I will vote for him.
DeleteTrump is infamous for keeping a copy of Mein Kampf on his bedside table.
ReplyDeleteDid he read it? Doubtful, considering his short attention span and other limited resources within his skull; it is just for the aesthetics, Trump is selling an image of himself as a fascist because it is something he can personally benefit from.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAnonymouse 3:32pm, the copy is quite a collector’s piece. It’s signed by Hitler (then residing in Buenos Aires) and includes an affectionate note from Eva.
ReplyDeleteHalf of the post-debate CNN focus group of undecided voters said Biden won the debate, one remained undecided and the remainder were for Trump. That mirrors the polls. Hardly a reason to yank Biden.
ReplyDeletebullshit
ReplyDeleteThat's nothing. During the invasion of France the Fuhrer personally pinned an iron cross to his chest.
ReplyDeleteBiden's debate performance follows a series of actions suggestive of problems. A big one was Biden's campoaign strategy in 2020. He seldom went out to speak to people. Covid was an excuse but that's odd behavior for a candidate. However, his debate performance was OK in 2020.
ReplyDeleteAs President he held relatively few press conferences. Evidence shows that at least some of them were structured in advance. That is, some reporters were given questions to ask in advance. In short, he has seldom put himself in a position were he had to speak extemporaneously.
His debate performance is consistent with Biden not being able to speak well without a teleprompter.
His decision to debate Trump showed poor cognition.
Deletegood point, would they have agreed to debate if they were secretly hiding Biden’s senility from the public, as Somerby hints?
DeleteHis staff are yes men, too weak to say, “Jill, the president needs to retire.”
DeleteYes, why did Biden agree to a the debate? And, why schedule the first debate so very early? Debates are normally held after the candidates are formally nominated at the convention.
DeleteOne theory is the early debate was intended as a test. If Biden didn't do well enough, the early date allowed time for him to be replaced. That leaves open the question of whether he did well enough.
Reagan's policies led to a $53 trillion redistribution of wealth from the 99% to the 1%.
DeleteTrickle down indeed!
Biden has started to reverse that trend, so the 1% is freaking out and working hard to con suckers into thinking Trump is not a corrupt person suffering from cognitive decline.
Thomas Sowell says Trump is unfit to be president, agreeing with all the CEOs of the top corporations.
DeletePolls are going up and half the CNN focus group thought Biden won. How can anyone say he must step down?
Delete@6:41 your comment assumes that total wealth is fixed, so that some people's gain in wealth must be matched by other people losing wealth. In reality, total wealth increased a lot due to Reagan's policies. Every percentile became wealthier.
DeleteIncidentally a point often made by Thomas Sowell, but generally ignored by most other economists, is that the members of each income percentile are always changing. So the top 20% today may not be the same people as the top 20% 5 years ago or 10 years ago. I myself have been in all five quintiles at various points in my life. The same is true of my parents.
DeleteOne of the architects of Reaganomics, Bruce Bartlett (who constructed it with Jack Kemp), abandoned it as failed policy late in the first decade of this millenium. It clearly contributes to wealth inequality and the notion that tax cuts pay for themselves has been debunked. Of course Republicans are on board with trickle down to this day, having given Arthur Laffer a medal of honor for his crackpot theory during Trump's presidency. Wealth will inexorably be funneled up to the top percentile with current tax policy, and as an indication of how corrupt Republicans are in this realm, they have tried to remove additional funding from the IRS to enforce even the existing tax laws, with the apparent goal to under fund the agency for the benefit of tax cheats.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:11pm, that’s a myth.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn’t an “iron cross” and it wasn’t pinned to his chest. It was an iron-on decal of a cross on his t-shirt.
Cecelia 4:38, by that time he’d already dumped Eva. The note was from Blondi.
ReplyDeleteAnonymouse 5:54pm, it’s Hitler. They were all blondes.
ReplyDeleteBleach blonde.
ReplyDeleteMy joke fell flat because nobody here knows who Blondi was.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blondi
Hitler never slept with a porn star shortly after his wife gave birth, and then tried to cover it up with a poorly thought out illegal scheme that led to a felony conviction.
ReplyDeleteIn part that is why Eva stood by her man, unlike Melania. There's also the part about Trump being physically repulsive, a walking talking (sort of) roll of belly fat, leaving a noxious trail of Trump Stench.
Trump wishes he was Hitler, but sadly, no. A for effort, though.
ReplyDeleteBiden has to step down.
you first
DeleteJoe has died.
ReplyDeleteJoe who?
DeleteJoe Mama.
DeleteAnonymouse 6:28pm, awwww. It took Biden having some senior moments to mellow you out a bit. Until that happened Trump WAS Hitler.
ReplyDelete6:42 here's a tissue for your MAGA tears.
ReplyDeleteVery kind and touching, Anonymouse 6:44pm. Who says adversity isn’t ennobling.
ReplyDeleteAnonymice are going into overdrive with attempted damage control after Biden's disastrous performance at the debate. The MAGA propaganda onslaught has been that Biden is senile. One of the main goals for Biden in this debate (probably the main goal) was to refute that narrative - and he failed abysmally. He had a cold? How lame can you get? He had a "bad night" just like everyone does every once in a while? He's running for President for god's sake. It wasn't a "bad" night - is could hardly have been worse. Any half intelligent person could have done a better job. Of course, Trump is execrable, though somehow got elected once before, and could be on his way there again. ideally, Trump would lose in a landslide. Maybe the blue side is missing something. Given how bad Trump is, and the avalanche of his bull shit spewing nonstop from his mouth, it was Biden's job to come on strong. Instead, it was an epic failure, he basically supercharged the MAGA narrative. That said, maybe Biden will still win. Questions: Is Biden going to go thru with the second debate? will Trump? will Biden back out?
ReplyDeleteOne of the criticisms was that Biden referred to details the public wouldn’t know, which is too specific. That shows he is on top of the issues, not oblivious of them as Trump is (confusing electricity and solar power yesterday). A half intelligent person coulldn’t do that. Biden came on strong on Friday, which means something was wrong on Thurs, not that he is senile. No one is thinking about debate 2 now.
DeleteAC/MA At this point I think it's more likely than not that Biden will withdraw. However, if he is the candidate, he will have to go through with the 2nd debate. Not to do so would be an admission of not being capable.
DeleteIf there is a 2nd debate, Biden might benefit from even lower standards. He might be considered to be OK if he did somewhat better than the 1st debate.
AC/MC, Biden will fare ok in the next debate. Heaven and hell will be moved in order for that to happen. I don’t know if it will help him in the long run, even if Trump hands the thing over to Biden via his mouth.
DeleteThe biggest threat to the Republican ticket is Biden being replaced. We’ve had eight years of domestic turmoil. If this country had to appear in family court with Solomon as a judge he’d be hard pressed to know what to do. Everyone is completely exhausted with the constant combat.
A new candidate would be a relief.
There is nothing more threatening to the RNC than a breath of fresh air waltzing right into everyone’s living room.
Please don’t throw me in the briar patch!
DeleteAnonymouse 7:37pm, you’ll never be able to say that right.
DeleteYou’re makng some assumptions.
DeleteThere will not be a second debate. Trump will let the memory of the first one linger in the air undisturbed.
DeleteBorn and bred in the briar patch?
DeleteBiden will run and he will lose. 2024 is beyond recovery at this point. Too steep a hill to climb. Dems will plan and execute a long-term plan to counter Mr. Orange and build a moderate platform for the future. They made a mistake letting him run and the price is four more years of Trump.
DeleteNothing supports this.
DeleteAnonymouse 8:14pm, good point.
DeleteAnonymouse 8:21pm, don’t be so sure of that.
DeleteTrump cannot wait for another debate. Biden is obviously diminished. That will only get worse and worse. He can only perform with a teleprompter. People that think he can do well in an hour and a half without a prompter are fooling themselves. People that think Biden has a remote chance of winning are wrong. 2024 was lost last Thursday.
DeleteYes, Cecelia you are right - anything can happen. But a lot of us are not factoring in the fact Biden is on a downhill slope that will only get worse and worse. It's very sad. Biden can't even form sentences. People haven't let that sink in. They still think they are dealing with a functional human being. In a way we are all so close to the story it has been bled of it's utter absurdity.
DeleteThere is nothing Trump would love more than to have Biden continue as the candidate. Let's see Biden go out and inspire voters to vote for him. He can't even talk! It's crazy.
DeleteLast Thursday was a historic event. There's no recovering from it. The ordinary tools to do so can't be employed by Biden because he is ceasing to function as a human being. Meanwhile we are paying for two war and whoever is in charge is provoking Russia into war. It's wild!!!! The last four years of the Biden administration will be one of the most interesting episode's of our county's history once the books are written.
DeleteAnonymouse 8:36pm, I would not underestimate the people who are going to be killing themselves in order “ to make this right.” That there was an inexplicable…failure of management… is not going to happen twice. I understand Biden’s prognosis. They do too, but will not be any public discussion of that. The observation that Trump will refuse a rematch is a good one.
DeleteThis is just trolling now.
DeleteCecelia - The point is they don't have the ability “to make this right.” They can convince people there was an inexplicable failure of management, he had the sniffles, he was over prepared blah blah. They can convince their gullible supporters of anything. Just two weeks ago, they convinced them that he didn't wander off from a photo op with other world leaders when it was clearly on camera for the whole world to see. The mechanisms of propaganda are firmly in place and work incredibly.
DeleteBut that's why it's so interesting.
They can't form and speak sentences for Biden. And Biden has lost the capacity to do that. He is literally a demented old man. His public life is over.
The whole world knows it because it is blatant. The whole world except for the segment of propagandized Americans and those of us who are not ready to accept it because it is so emotionally discomforting. But Biden's mental incapacity is the one thing that can't be propagandized. They can lie to their supports about it - but when it is demanded that Biden put himself forward and show the world objectively he's not mental incapacitated, it all falls apart, like Humpty Dumpty. It's game over for Biden.
The observation that Trump will refuse a rematch makes a lot of sense. I agree. Especially if it was a race between two normally functioning human beings. But this is not a race like that. And Trump smells the blood I'm sure. I bet he is dreaming of a rematch. It's the president's people that are afraid of a rematch. Biden's decline is visible, profound and fully unveiled and you can bet they are not anxious to trot it out again for all the world to see.
Wild times.
Wait - maybe Biden will drop out???
DeleteNew report from NBC News:
“Joe Biden is expected to discuss the future of his re-election campaign with family at Camp David on Sunday”.
It's true that he is is cognitively decrepit and incapable of speaking extemporaneously in any way. He certainly would never make it through another debate. Maybe it took his family and enablers a few days to come to terms with the fact his public life is over and the whole world knows it. The whole world outside of the cohort of suckers who don't realize Heather Cox Richardson is a propagandist. ;)
I believe CNN experienced the failure of management as to the expectations of their audience of liberals. I'm certain Tapper and his team are feeling suicidal. Everyone else in the chattering class is murderous towards them.
DeleteAs a result, Democrats will seek out a shiny and fresh candidate and some judge will prevent Trump from campaigning.
I would support Harold Ford if he were to run.
The regular commenters leave and the right wingers here take over. This is all crap.
DeleteAnonymouse 11:20pm, I am a regular commenter, bro.
Deleteyou are a right wing troll
DeleteYou are a right wing troll.
DeleteYou’re a left wing dunce.
DeleteIf some judge prevents Trump from campaigning, the Supremes will swoop in to save him.
DeleteIt will be interesting to see what will happen. Biden's mental decline isn't Jake Tapper's fault. It's no one's fault. What has them freaked out is that it can't be hidden or spun. They can get Heather Cox Richardson to say anything and the sheep will believe it. It has worked that way for years - but the one thing they can't spin gerontological brain decay.
DeleteIt's like Wile E. Coyote going off a cliff. The propaganda machine worked so perfectly for so long, they applied it to everything and became addicted to it. 'It's a miraculous economy but Americans don't feel it because they are stupid'. 'Ukraine is winning the war against Russia'. 'Hunter's laptop is Russian disinformation'. 'Biden is cool because he wears sunglasses and orders ice cream cones'. 'Panic over Joe Biden's age is manufactured.' The sheep will believe anything. But the cliff is when Biden has to go in front of the world without a teleprompter and show the world what he's got. And he's got nothing. He can't form words or thoughts. His life as a public figure is over. The world knows it. So right now the Dems and their propaganda machine, the chattering class that you mentioned, are over the cliff, temporarily defying gravity, comically realizing their predicament just before the inevitable fall.
That's why it's so interesting.
Vegas odds are now giving Biden an 18% chance of winning.
None of us should want Biden as president because he has dementia. Advocating for him to be president is actually a cruel act. Democrats can try to get someone else in there and hope they can beat Trump. There are a lot of people that could probably beat him pretty easily. But the party insiders have to work out the internal politics of who that will be. That's the difficult part. Or they can run Biden who will and should lose. A majority of Americans, the ones who have not become propagandized zealots, can see that electing him would be immoral and cruel on a personal level and utterly deranged for the country's future and standing.
Deleteanon 5:51, it's not just Biden. Trump is deranged. It's a choice between 2 terrible candidates.
DeleteTrump is not deranged. He just isn't a typical robotic scripted politician. He is Bizarro World's Al Gore. And that's why people like him.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:51am, they were always aware of Biden’s condition. Up until the announcement last night that the Biden family is discussing where to go from here, the chattering class was still bullying and denouncing anyone who made a peep because that’s their moral duty due to Orange Man. Two minutes after the debate, one moral colossus wrote an Op Ed blaming Trump supporters for the left’s sad, but saintly moral duty to gaslight themselves and everyone else for the sake of the planet.
DeleteIt would be nice if there is, or will ever be, someone who will write the story of those people who are still in the background running the country for Joe Biden. Keeping the barbarians at bay.
If only in order for anonymices to declare that this cabal is oozing with integrity, brilliance, discernment, self-sacrifice, and most of all… heart.
Delete@Cecelia 8:29 AM
All true, but why do they need a veg to keep the barbarians at bay? Is it that after Trump's reign they are now scared of any possibility that an elected chief executive may choose to interfere in their operations?
Biden stepping down from the race is a right wing talking point. Biden is not quitting over a bad debate.
DeleteBiden's "condition" is a right wing talking point. It is manufactured, just like the fake videos they keep posting. This is nasty right wing politics, not anything real about Biden. I am still voting for Biden.
DeleteThis spate of late-night attacks on Biden should tell you anything you need to know about the right wing and how they operate. Cecelia is the nastiest piece of work I've seen anywhere but she embodies the Republican approach.
5:51 I yearn for days gone by. Or specifically one day. Would like to have been a fly on the wall.
DeleteThat is the Saturday when then president Trump was hauled off to Walter Reed for an unscheduled visit to take the Montreal test for dementia. The one he said he aced, under the direction of his physician, Dr. Johnson (sic). The one that included identifying the silhouettes of zoo animals. Aced it like he's won those golf tournaments. "That's right, Mr. President! It is a giraffe! Let's get back in the car now." But that was over four years ago, well before 40 out of 44 of his hand picked very best appointees said he was unfit for office. Yeah, that Saturday. A so-called routine visit.
Cecelia, what is the post debate op-ed of which you speak?
DeleteAnonymouse 8:56am, after looking around a bit
Deletethis morning, it seems to me like “they” are engaged in trying to pin this years-long ruse on the mastermind and power-mad First Lady-cum-puppet-mistress—— the Mrs. Joe Biden.
That dog won’t hunt.
Anonymouse 9:10am, I don’t remember the man’s name, but it was linked and described by a commenter here.
DeleteYou can tell who the paid trolls are by the time-stamps on their comments. These odd late-night comments and very early morning (after late at night) remarks are coming from people in Eastern Europe. That's why they don't conform to normal times when Americans are awake.
DeleteOdds are that we’re suddenly going to see a change for the better with crap.
Deletehttps://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/street-takeover-with-more-than-50-cars-in-downtown-la/
Hopefully we will get an accurate history of the insider players and the decisions that led to this. They definitely have known about his condition and blatantly lied about it for at least a year. They may have been energized by the midterms which were more or less somewhat successful for Democrats and decided to keep going with Biden knowing the tremendous power they have to spin the public and gaslight detractors. I think they just gambled that he would be able to continue to speak in full sentences without a teleprompter ... at least through the election. But they came up short. Not only that he can hardly even walk now. It's very sad. His condition can't be hidden or spun. The entire world knows it. It's sitting there like a turd in a punchbowl. It's just a matter of how long they want to pretend it's not there and immorally promote him.
DeleteIt was a gamble these people behind the scenes took. They may have been forced into it by other factions within the party. But they laid their money down and lost it all last Thursday. They're going to have to pick up and regroup. They still have a lot of power to gaslight and propagandize. Although that is diminishing by the day as well and has the potential to be taken for granted, overestimated and made a contributing factor to another debacle like this one.
to again be taken for granted, overestimated and made a contributing factor to another debacle like this one.
DeleteAI wrote this.
DeleteCecelia, I only want what’s best for you.
ReplyDeleteAnonymouse 7:00pm, oh I can tell.
ReplyDeleteGod chose President Biden to lead us.
ReplyDeleteBernie Sanders would be a fine candidate. He could balance the ticket by selecting AOC as his running mate.
ReplyDeleteI don’t believe that the $170/hr job will be available to me. DIC has explained that blacks will get preferential hiring over me, and now Trump says that Hispanic migrants will be taking those black jobs. So now both myself and the blacks will be unemployed and that is so many jobs vacated that there better be enough Hispanic migrants coming across to fill them. If you can believe what are obviously race baiting comments.
ReplyDeleteThey are master baiting comments. I believe in David. And Cecelia.
ReplyDeleteDo all these commenters going on and on about how Biden should drop out work for the New York Times? If not, they should apply today. They’d be happy to have you.
ReplyDeleteHere is how some actual undecided voters felt about Biden after the debate [from Alternet]:
ReplyDelete"But one Georgia voter CNN spoke with was notably stoic when asked about whether she still planned to vote for Biden a second time in November.
"I care about where our country is going to be rather than who delivered the most stellar debate onstage," she said. "And I care about who tells the truth, who is going to keep me safe, and who is actually going to do things for the country. I don't feel like that's [former President Donald] Trump."
The voter's comments about Trump not telling the truth were echoed elsewhere. Hispanic network Univision surveyed a group of undecided Latino voters after the debate, and found that the group was even more in Biden's corner than before.
"Trump sounded like a crazy liar," one man told the network, adding that the former president didn't answer moderator's questions and "said the same thing time after time."
"After being undecided for a little while, I think today, I switched to Biden," the voter said."
I was undecided, but after the debate I decided to vote for Joe Biden. Because he finally beat Medicare.
DeleteYes, it will be a big funny joke if Trump wins.
DeleteCecelia was here after 1 am and then again at 8 am. Who keeps hours like that? I suspect she is two different people, both paid trolls, handing off to one another as the day goes along. Same with David in Cal.
ReplyDelete