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2:00PM Water Cooler 7/11/2024

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Readers, I hope this is the last time I must ask you to be patient, at least for awhile. Because I kmew I would be traveling, I did a good deal of work early, and so I hope I don’t miss anything essential. For those who celebrate, Biden’s essential NATO presser is at 5:00pm, past press time, sadly. Perhaps readers will comment. –lambert

Bird Song of the Day

Great Horned Owl, Bubo virginianus, Hato El Milaglro, Cojedes, Venezuela. “Natural song by pair.” Sounds like a kazoo at the start!

Who? Who?

* * *

Politics

“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

* * *

Biden Administration

Good, decent, etc., etc.:

But not an issue, of course.

2024

Less than a half a year to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

First post-debate polling: Trump jumps a full point in the 5-way national race, which a Biden supporter might find concerning. OTOH, the Swing States seem relatively unaffected. Swing States (more here) still Brownian-motioning around. Of course, it goes without saying that these are all state polls, therefore bad, and most of the results are within the margin of error. It would be hilarious if the Biden Debate debacle had exactly the same effect as Trump’s 34 bazillion felony convictions, i.e., none, both parties are so dug in.

* * *

Let’s try to get our arms round the detail with some buckets:

The Calendar

Calendar is first for a reason.

Balloting:

From one county clerk:

Virtual Convention:

“How the calendar favors Joe Biden” [Politico]. “While there are technically 40 days remaining until the convention formally begins, the window for replacing Biden is actually much tighter since the party plans to designate Biden as the nominee in a virtual roll call that takes place in advance of the actual convention. The exact date of that roll call hasn’t been established yet but it will be sometime after the DNC’s July 19 Rules Committee and July 21 Credentials Committee meetings take place. (The Democratic National Committee voted to move forward with a virtual roll call before the calamitous June 27 presidential debate, in response to a threat from Ohio Republicans that would have kept Biden off the ballot there).” • Note, however, that the date has not been set, showing that the correlation of forces within the Democrat Party has not yet resolved.

The NATO Presser:

“”How the calendar favors Joe Biden” [Politico]. ” Biden has made clear in recent days he intends to be the nominee — and the most obvious hurdle standing in his way at the moment is another meltdown in a high-stakes situation. There aren’t many of those chances left before the Democratic convention kicks off in mid-August. After Thursday’s press conference, Biden needs only to run out the clock. Next week, there is a televised interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt scheduled for Monday, but Biden has already proved he can meet that bar. He didn’t receive rave reviews for his interview last week with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, but it didn’t damage his cause. In any case, starting this weekend, the media oxygen will be sucked up by the Republican National Convention and the rollout of Trump’s vice presidential nominee. And since Congress will be out of session, Democratic members will be out of town, diminishing opportunities to hatch a consensus plan designed to convince Biden to step aside.”

“Biden Faces Fresh Calls to Withdraw as Democrats Fear Electoral Rout” [New York Times]. “Mr. Biden’s strategy to save his candidacy appears to be aimed at running out the clock. And every day he defies pressure to step aside makes the logistics of replacing him more difficult. On Wednesday, he appeared to have survived another day, as Capitol Hill remained mired in a state of uncertainty and division during what lawmakers had deemed to be a critical week for Mr. Biden’s campaign. Intense focus was turning to Mr. Biden’s performance at a NATO news conference on Thursday, which Democrats said would be a critical — and perhaps final — test of the president’s ability to stay in the race.”

“Today is Game 7 for Joe Biden” [The Arena] “The Press Conference: Joe Biden must not only give the performance of his life at his 6:30 PM press conference, but he has to change the subject. I’m not suggesting he ‘wag the dog,’ but it would be nice if he had a major surprise announcement that immediately redirects everyone’s attention to what matters most—who can do the job. On the other hand, if Biden’s press conference is mediocre, or heaven forbid, bad, it’s over.”

* * *

“Three reasons the calendar could be on Biden’s side as divided Dems fret” [Roll Call]. “”Biden is outplaying all of his Democratic adversaries right now. The President controls the calendar, the delegates, and ultimately the power,” David Jolly, a former Republican House member, said in an email…. Biden campaign aides for months have bragged they have a superior ground operation across the country, but especially in the six to eight battleground states that likely will decide the election. If Biden stepped aside, Democratic strategists this week said it is unclear if, or how much of, Biden’s state-by-state organizations would cleanly transfer to the eventual nominee… That’s a reason Jolly said of congressional Democrats: ‘Unless a leading Democrat launches an organized effort to flip 2,000 delegates at the [Democratic] convention, then they’re just meeting to meet — and with no discernible strategy to rally adversarial Democrats to.’ The vast Biden campaign apparatus is a big reason why, if he sticks by his vow to run, Democrats might have to accept another thing Pelosi said Wednesday: ‘Whatever he decides, we go with.'” • The ground game takes money….

Electeds

Obama (and Clooney):

BFFs:

Good call:

Pelosi:

“Pelosi hints at something big coming” [The Editorial Board]. “he Times stepped in it this morning when it reported that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, on ‘Morning Joe,’ that the president should ‘reconsider’ his decision to keep running. According to the paper, she said Joe Biden ‘should continue to weigh the matter, after he made it clear this week that he’s committed to staying in the race.’ ‘Reconsider’ is the problem. ‘Continue to weigh the matter’ isn’t. She said the latter, not the former. That’s a highly nuanced difference, obviously, but the Times decided to interpret the ambiguity in such a way that fits into its narrative about the president being too old to continue running for president, and the Democrats experiencing ‘deepening divisions’ over the question of whether he should. And for that, the Times earned this rebuke from Pelosi (per Jaala Brown, a Capitol Hill reporter for CBS News): ‘I think the president is great. And there are some misrepresentations of what I have said. I never said he should reconsider his decision. The decision is the president’s. I don’t know what’s happened to The New York Times that they make up news [lol]. But if that’s why you’re here, it isn’t true.'” •

Lambert here: I’ve been mentally comparing Biden’s strategy to the game of “Chicken,” “in which two drivers drive toward each other on a collision course: one must swerve, or both may die in the crash, but if one driver swerves and the other does not, the one who swerved will be called a ‘chicken’, meaning a coward.” Supposing the road to be straight, one winning strategy to get the other driver to swerve is to throw your steering wheel out the window — but you’ve got to do it first! That is what Biden did on Sunday and Monday: “‘I am not going anywhere.” In response, Pelosi, as we see above, served up one of her classic word salads, from which we might extract a Minimuim Viable Signal that achieved two goals: (1) Calmed things down ’til NATO was done (see discussion of the NATO presser above) and (2) reminded Biden, by its very effects, that his game of chicken is not linear, i.e. not a straight road; there are more than two dimensions to consider. There could be, say, snipers by the side of the road, ready to shoot out his tires. There could be minions strewing caltrops on the road itself. There could, who knows, be earth movers regrading the road. Pelosi — who, let us remember, is an expert at counting votes — has created options for herself, and Biden must know she has created options. Now, what Pelosi will exercise those options, that I cannot say (except, I should think, prevent both drivers from dying). Perhaps Biden will ace NATO presser. Or perhaps not!

Obama and Pelosi

“Playbook: What Obama and Pelosi are doing about Biden” [Politico]. “While Obama did not encourage or advise Clooney to say what he said, he also didn’t object to it, we’re told from people familiar with their exchange. The lack of pushback is an eye-popping revelation given that the former president was one of the first big voices defending Biden following his abysmal debate performance (while many of his former aides have been some of the incumbent’s biggest critics)…. In private conversations with lawmakers, we’re told, the former speaker hasn’t tried to hide her disdain for the situation that party now finds itself in. She’s suggested to people that Biden won’t win this November and should step aside, according to about a half-dozen lawmakers and others who have spoken with her or are familiar with these conversations. In fact, she’s advised some Democrats in swing districts to do whatever they have to do to secure their own reelections — even if it means asking Biden to relinquish his place atop the ticket. Pelosi has advised those members, however, to wait until this week’s NATO Summit is finished out of respect for Biden and national security writ large. Some members, we’re told, have already started drafting statements of what they want to say, ready to drop once foreign leaders leave town.” • Pelosi, of course, denies all this….

The Squad:

That, plus AOC doesn’t want to overthrow Pelosi, or anything Pelosi represents; she wants to be Pelosi.

Bernie:

Question begging!

Random Democrats:

“Peter Welch becomes first Democratic senator to call for Biden to drop out” [Just the News]. “Welch said his constituents are ‘terrified of another Trump presidency,’ but praised Vice President Kamala Harris as a ‘capable, proven leader’who can replace Biden as the Democratic nominee. Other Democratic senators have expressed fear over Biden’s reelection chances against Trump, but none besides Welch have called for him to exit the race. ”

Wait, perhaps the Trump Threat isn’t existential? At least not for some electeds?

Black Women and Party Loyalists

“Stacey Abrams: Biden is still best bet against Trump” [Stacey Abrams, Atlanta Journal-Constitution]. “The anti-Biden doom loop feels loud right now, but it is largely a phenomenon among those who obsessively follow the news or want to make the news. Most of the voters Biden has won and needs to win again already know his foibles — and they aren’t turning in droves to say, ‘I’m now voting for the bombastic fascistic liar.’ … Let’s be clear: The wishful benefits of a contested convention or a late-stage exit are vastly outweighed by the potential harm. President Joe Biden has the integrity, moral character and record needed to beat Donald Trump in November. Our path to victory lies in standing by Biden and understanding the high stakes of this election.”

Perhaps a better source:

Perhaps an even better source:

Nice of Ro to say:

On the other hand, “true believers”… Rhinoceros is a wonderful play.

Donors

Where the heck was Clooney a month ago:

Or, for that matter, the rest of the great and the good at Clooney’s fundraiser:

If I had to pick a proximate cause for the dogpile — not the whole mess, just the dogpile — it woud be donors (whose stupidity and laziness is such that they know less about Biden than any Naked Capitalism reader). Why? Because they’re rich. Noboby says no to them. The signature: They think any problem — to be generous, outside whatever their limited business expertise may be — can be solved with money. Unfortunately, that’s not true for the electoral calendar. So Clooney can fiddle and diddle for a whole month, along with all his rich friends. And speaking of George Clooney:

“US election 2024: People’s will or donors’ will?” [Al Jazeera]. “In Biden’s case, though, it is noteworthy that the president’s alleged incompetence was only elevated to the status of Very Important Issue when donors got their panties in a bunch. This, despite the fact that, prior to the debate, an Ipsos poll found that a mere 28 percent of likely voters in the US were confident in Biden’s ‘mental fitness to be president’. Following the debate, this figure dropped to 20 percent. In short, it is just another reminder of the inordinate power and influence wielded by America’s donor class in a shameless plutocracy euphemised as ‘democracy’ – where voting and other democratic charades barely conceal a reality in which the people’s will could not matter less.” • Why not just dispense with the cumbersome and messy primary process and focus group the Forbes billionaire’s list? Or better, wire them all up to psychometric devices and parade the candidates in front of them, beauty contest-style. Check the dials, and whichever candidate gets the audience most sweaty and excited, nominate them! Just be sure to do it close enough to election day that they don’t change their minds….

* * *

“‘It’s already disastrous’: Biden campaign fundraising takes a major hit” [NBC News]. “One of the people close to the re-election efforts said this week that the campaign believed major donors who have threatened to jump ship after the debate would come around — if only to avoid helping former President Donald Trump by sitting out the race. Biden aides had said privately that ‘if major donors don’t come along, we’ll do it without them.’ One of the sources said several unplanned fundraisers were in the early planning stages for the month.” • Problematic, then, that Biden’s strategists chose the expensive ground game route.

“Dems fear Biden’s fundraising is ‘cratering'” [Politico]. “Biden is scheduled to appear at several high-dollar fundraisers this month, including one in Austin early next week, and a West Coast swing is scheduled, according to a source familiar with the planning of the events.”

“After a Bruising Day, Biden Faces a New Test” [New York Times]. “Some donors said they still backed Biden, including Alex Soros, son of George Soros, and James Costos, a former HBO executive who attended the Los Angeles fund-raiser.”

The Spooks

Biden is, in essence, saying: “Go ahead and shoot me” (in keeping with the game of chicken).

The Press

The savage irony is that if the Press will emerge more powerful than ever if, after declaring Biden’s cognitive ability an unstory for, well, donkey’s years, they manage to take him down:

Skip this if NSFW material offends or triggers you, but I can’t resist:

The Polls

“Biden’s poor debate performance had almost no impact on voter preference, new report says” (press release) [Northeastern Global News]. “Led by David Lazer, university distinguished professor of political science and computer science at Northeastern, the report indicates that the debate had little if any impact on people’s voting preference. Lazer hopes the report helps illustrate the dangers of making a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to the media interpreting data. ‘Even the New York Times, which is usually better about this, talked about a very tiny shift that was totally insignificant statistically like it was evidence that it was a shift toward Trump after the debate.’… Seeing the dominant narrative coming out of the debate, Lazer and the team at CHIP50 decided to test the hypothesis that Biden had lost ground in public opinion after the debate. Notably, Lazer says, they didn’t survey two different cross-sectional groups of people before and after the debate like most polls. Instead, the team was able to survey the same group of respondents from a survey conducted before the debate. Lazer says using the same group of people helps make the results more precise, which is important in polling that inherently has a margin of error. What the report finds is that Biden held on to 94% of the people who said they would support him before the debate. For Trump, 86% of people who said they would support him before the debate said they would do so after the debate. ‘What we see is that there is some churn –– maybe 10 percent or so of people change what they answer –– but that the net result is not a movement away from Biden,’ Lazer says. ‘If anything, it seems that Biden is holding on to his people somewhat better than Trump.’” • So Biden slipping a cog had the same effect as Trump’s 34 million felony convictions?

“Who Is Favored To Win The 2024 Presidential Election?” [FiveThirtyEight]. “It’s 120 days until Election Day, and our model thinks the presidential election could go either way. Right now, President Joe Biden is favored to win in 492 out of 1,000 of our model’s simulations of how the election could go, while former President Donald Trump wins in 505 of our simulations. There is still a small chance of the pure chaos scenario: In 3 simulations, no candidate wins a majority of Electoral College votes, which would throw the election to the House of Representatives. It might not seem like it based on the panicked reaction to Biden’s poor debate performance nearly two weeks ago, but the election is still a considerable ways away. This means there is a lot of uncertainty about where the polls will end up on Nov. 5. In turn, the 538 election model puts a healthy amount of weight on non-polling factors such as economic growth and political indicators. Today these indicators suggest an outcome closer to a 3-point Biden win — clear in the opposite direction of national polls. 538’s focus on uncertainty partially explains why our election forecast has not moved much in reaction to new national polls showing Trump gaining on Biden. In effect, we are hedging our bets, putting more weight on the so-called “fundamentals” because we believe the campaign could be volatile or polls could be biased.” • Model, FWIW.

“Tracking 2024” [Morning Consult]. “[W]ith Biden forcefully telegraphing his intent to remain atop the ticket — and a critical mass of Democrats on Capitol Hill apparently falling in line for him, at least for now — I wanted to use today’s edition to highlight a shift in our tracking that seems most salient now. It’s our buzz metric, which tracks what voters have heard about certain politicians or issues over the past week. Voters have three options on this question: They can say whether what they’ve heard about a person or thing is mostly positive or mostly negative, or they can say that they haven’t heard anything at all. Of all of the post-debate data I’ve seen, it’s Biden’s buzz numbers from our last two surveys that are most jarring….. It’s a devastating shift that threatens to disprove what appears to be the Biden campaign’s prevailing theory for 2024: That ultimately this election, just like 2022 and 2020, will be more about Trump than it will be about Biden, benefiting Democrats just as it did in those past two elections.” • Handy chart:

“The Bonfire of the Democrats” [The Bulwark]. “But there’s another thread that’s emerging: voters comparing Joe Biden to their aging relatives who won’t give up their car keys. That’s not an analogy you want to hear with democracy on the line. On Wednesday, these comparisons were more common than ever among the voters I talked to—a group made up of those who cast ballots for Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020 but were now undecided. ‘I’ve seen firsthand how difficult it is to get, you know, mom’s driver’s license or aging parents’ license away from them,’ one participant said. ‘What does that look like when it’s the president of the United States?’ This is fundamental to understanding voters’ fears about Biden’s age. They are disinclined to give him the benefit of the doubt because many have seen this all before. They don’t want their octogenarian father (or grandfather) running the country, let alone driving a car. Most of these voters believed Biden should leave the race: ‘Letting him continue to run is like not taking the keys away from your parents,’ one said. ‘Anyone’s letting him run to this point is just being weak.’

* * *

Lambert here: How a great nation, the world’s oldest democracy, and the oldest political party in the world select a Presidential candidate:

Alternatively:

Always something to look forward to.

<--- Our Famously Free Press

–>

Syndemics

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

* * *

Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (dashboard); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).

Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

* * *

* * *

Readers, there is no good news here at all, and this data does not include the Fourth of July weekend. It would sure be handy to have Biobot still in operation, so we could have a single indicator for infection, but of course that was not to be.

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Wastewater
This week[1] CDC June 24: Last Week[2] CDC June 17 (until next week):

Variants [3] CDC July 6 Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC June 29
Hospitalization
New York[5] New York State, data July 9: National [6] CDC June 8:

Positivity
National[7] Walgreens July 8: Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic July 6:
Travelers Data
Positivity[9] CDC June 17: Variants[10] CDC June 17:

Deaths
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC June 29: Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC June 29:

” alt=”” width=”310″ class=”alignleft size-full wp-image-273838″ />

LEGEND

1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.

2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”

NOTES

[1] (CDC) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Worse than two weeks ago. New York is a hot again, and Covid is spreading up the Maine Coast just in time for the Fourth of July weekend, in another triumph for Administration policy.

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) LB.1 coming up on the outside.

[4] (ER) This is the best I can do for now. At least data for the entire pandemic is presented.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Now acceleration, which is compatible with a wastewater decrease, but still not a good feeling .(The New York city area has form; in 2020, as the home of two international airports (JFK and EWR) it was an important entry point for the virus into the country (and from thence up the Hudson River valley, as the rich sought to escape, and then around the country through air travel.)

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). This is the best I can do for now. Note the assumption that Covid is seasonal is built into the presentation, which in fact shows that Covid is not seasonal. At least data for the entire pandemic is presented.

[7] (Walgreens) Still going up! (Because there is data in “current view” tab, I think white states here have experienced “no change,” as opposed to have no data.)

[8] (Cleveland) Still going up!

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Up. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn’t even run back to 1/21/23, as it used to, but now starts 1/1/24. There’s also no way to adjust the time rasnge. CDC really doesn’t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that’s why the shape of the curve has changed.

[10] (Travelers: Variants) Same deal. Those sh*theads.

[11] Deaths low, but positivity up.

[12] Deaths low, ED up.

Stats Watch

Inflation: “United States Consumer Price Index (CPI)” [Trading Economics]. “The consumer price index in the United States rose by 3% year-over-year to 314.18 points in June 2024, following a 3.3% increase in May and below the market consensus of a 3.1% advance.”

Employment Situation: “ıUnited States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the US fell by 17,000 from the prior week to 222,000 on the period ending July 6th, reaching a new 5-week low, and below market expectations of 236,000. The claim count was considerably below the elevated levels from June but remained firmly above the averages from February to April.”

* * *

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 52 Neutral (previous close: 57 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 44 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jul 11 at 11:22:01 AM ET.

News of the Wired

“Engineering Principles for Building Financial Systems” [wasteman.codes]. “When data is immutable, you have a record of what the state of the system was at any given time. This makes it really easy to recompute the world from previous states, because no state is every lost.” Who wants that? Where’s the space for accounting control fraud? More: ” Even though that balance was incorrect, we want an audit trail of what the balance was at any given moment.” • No, we really don’t. I say use Excel.

* * *

Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From TH:

TH writes: “We stopped at a yard sale in San Pedro (CA) over the weekend and the neighboring house had this sweet little garden.”

* * *

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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157 comments

  1. ChrisFromGA

    missing close tag ?

    (With that tweet about Joe’s, er, weak flow, I think it is safe to say that this latest lame work of parody is not going to take us any lower on the tasteless scale:

    Struggle Bus

    Every day he forgets how to tie his shoes
    (Joe’s on, the struggle bus)
    His blank, lost stare’s another clue
    (Joes on the struggle bus)
    Kammy’s so nervous, she just laughs and brays
    (Joes on the struggle bus)
    Brass ring is only a stroke away
    (Joes on the struggle bus)
    Thank you, Wizard™ getting us here
    (Joes on the struggle bus)
    There’ll be no drug tests, have no fear
    (Joe’s on the struggle bus)
    I don’t wanna cause no fuss
    (Joe’s on the struggle bus)
    But can we get him off the bus?
    (Joe’s on the struggle bus)

    Noooo …

    I don’t care what Carville says
    (too much, struggle bus)
    Joe’s gonna ride that bus ’til his body decays!
    (too much, struggle bus)

    I want it, I want it, I want it …
    Ya can’t have it!

    Poop-n-pants, clean the bed, every day
    Just to cling to that gravy train
    Poop-n-pants, clean the bed, every day
    As he drives the blogosphere cray cray

    Struggle bus! (repeat a lot of times)

    I said now Joe’s off the struggle bus! 2x [hypothetically speaking, of course]
    He’s rising up with a heavenly gait
    St. Peter welcomes, ain’t that great?

    (Kam wants it, she wants it, repeat a bunch of times)

    (You’d have to be on angel dust
    To not see Joe’s on the struggle bus)

  2. t

    If my boss came to me and said that the CEO was coherent last night and this morning, and what’s most important is what he will do for us ( such as not sell the company and send us all packing), what I would hear is “suck it up, we don’t have better options.”

    As a practical question, is there a process for replacing Biden but using his campaign’s resources for another candidate?

    2. griffen

      Well there exists a playbook on the handling and care of a delicate situation. I now think about the quite famous scene from The Godfather, where the Don’s point man travels to California I guess to persuade a famed movie director to reconsider their choice as a lead actor. Making Joe Biden an offer he can’t refuse may no longer exist in real terms.

      Tried finding the broader clip…I ain’t no band leader… perhaps NSFW but it’s pretty gory ! \Sarc

      https://youtu.be/VC1_tdnZq1A?si=qJh2nBMzzKP4RNUS

      2. nippersdad

        Only one problem with that scenario…..

        Joe: “Oh, look honey! Commander is back from the farm. He is sleeping in our bed.”

        Jill: “Oh, how wonderful! Just don’t pull back the sheet or he will get cold. Come on downstairs, sweetie, and have some nice ice cream while Hunter wakes him up and gives him a bath.”

        Joe: “Mmmmm, ice cream! What was I saying a minute ago?”

        Jill: “Never mind, dear.”

        …..Jill never liked that dog anyway.

        1. Buzz Meeks

          Done in Waits’ Frank’s Wild Years voice of course. Never could stand that dog….

  3. Jonathan King

    Do I actually get to be first to ask, if Joe Biden’s “no longer capable of producing forceful and high volume ejaculations,” how he plans to stand up to dick-tators?

    1. ambrit

      Yes, it appears you do. In this case, NSFW is the acronym for ‘Not Safe For World.’
      The unanswered, perhaps unanswerable question here is who takes these “measurements?” And for what purpose.
      I have been told that Power is the Great Aphrodisiac. Apparently not.

    2. JohnA

      And yet wasn’t Joe boasting and mock apologising to Stoltenberg the other day that he was f****ng his wife?

  4. DJG, Reality Czar

    Skip this if NSFW material offends or triggers you:

    andrew’s twiXt

    Well, all I can say is that I’m not sure Joe can rise again to the presidency if he’s going to give up the large and endowed pro-Fap community, who, I am sure, would be willing to lend a hand to donate.

    2. pjay

      At the risk of triggering even worse imagery, I couldn’t help but think of an alternative competition between Biden and Trump that would at least avoid the tedium of 18 holes of golf. Sorry. Now it’s in your brain, too.

      1. Otto Reply

        As the orange-headed menace said during the debate, “Knock on wood wherever you find it.”

  5. Dr. John Carpenter

    Hey, you have the Ryan Grimm tweet quoting Bernie up there twice. I’m assuming you don’t really think Bernie’s BS on his good friend Joe was a “Good Call”. ;)

    1. Samuel Conner

      Bernie, bless his heart, is being a good sport, but for me (who contributed thoughts, prayers and $ to the Sanders campaigns in 2016 and 2020), I’m less interested in comparisons of greater and lesser evils and more interested in contemplating the D Party itself (whatever it actually is), which did everything it could to prevent a Sanders nomination. JRB may be less bad than DJT would be (and I’m not convinced that he is), but JRB is not good enough, and I don’t want to help the Party (whatever it actually is) that considers him preferable to Sanders.

    2. pjay

      I was wondering about that myself. “A president that has maybe done more for the working class over the last four years than any president in modern history.” I mean, WTAF?? These liberal Democrats keep saying stuff like this. What in the hell are they referring to? Krugman made an even more extreme statement about Biden being the best president in his lifetime. What, specifically, are they talking about? And do we memory-hole his long record of supporting neoliberal economic policies in the Senate and as VP before he became warmonger-in-chief? He did keep the working class from using personal bankruptcy to escape their credit card debt, so I guess he did save them from becoming shameful deadbeats.

      These clowns constantly rip Trump for just making s**t up, which he does. But they are certainly no better. Thanks for laying Truth on us once again Bernie. Can I get my campaign contributions back? I promise I won’t use the coffee mugs I got anymore.

      1. Samuel Conner

        Steve Waldman, who knows a lot more than I do about policy, considers JRB the best on domestic policy since LBJ, though the thought occurs that that’s not a super high bar (though I’ve heard that Nixon wanted to enact, but was prevented — thanks, Edmund!, “Single Payer” national health care; JRB famously promised to veto any such legislation), and that JRB is no “New Deal” Democrat.

        The Party can console itself that eve if JRB is the nominee, at least it isn’t Sanders

        1. pjay

          Again, this is an *assertion*, but there are no specific examples cited. As I keep saying, through Biden’s political career in the Senate and as VP he usually supported the major neoliberal policies of Democratic administrations, and sometimes, as with the Bankruptcy Bill, the “Senator from MBNA” took the lead. It is possible to point to his infrastructure bill, his *temporary* continuation of Covid relief, or perhaps some anti-trust threats by his administration, but you can cherry pick examples like this from any administration. Remember the great anti-trust case against Microsoft in the 1990s? Anyone think that cancels out the major financial deregulation bills passed by Clinton? Remember NAFTA? Remember Obama’s Grand Bargain plans? Where was Biden on those measures?

          Statements like this are absurd. If Waldman wants to argue that Biden would be better than Trump on domestic issues, I’d probably agree, though that isn’t saying much.

        2. Yves Smith

          The great American socialist Richard Nixon gave us the EPA, revenue sharing, proposed a minimum family income (a UBI) and thought (like his one-time boss Eisenhower) that Social Security and Medicare had extremely deep and broad support and meddling with them would be suicidal.

      2. Dr. John Carpenter

        I’d like Bernie to tell me what exactly his good friend Joe stands for and I must insist he give examples. Because other than “nothing will fundamentally change” I can’t think of a thing.

      3. Buzz Meeks

        That’s why I put my 2020 donations on PayPal so I could get my money back for non-delivery when Ol’ Canvas Back went down for the count in the middle of the ring. I learned a good lesson from 2016 so was also able to get my Zephyer Teachout contributions back when she folded on Prince Andy Cuomo.

  6. Randall Flagg

    >Peter Welch becomes first Democratic senator to call for Biden to drop out” [Just the News]. “Welch said his constituents are ‘terrified of another Trump presidency,’ but praised Vice President Kamala Harris as a ‘capable, proven leader’who can replace Biden as the Democratic nominee.

    Tell you what, I’m a constituent of Senator Welch and at the moment I’m way more terrified of a second Biden term or a Harris first term. Not that I don’t realize things are gonna suck for the average person no matter who is the Big Dog. And by the way, Senator Welch calling for Biden to get out is not exactly anything dangerous for him to do. He, like Sanders, and Rep. Balint,have the gig as long as they want. Even if they lose

    their faculties in a manner worse than Biden.

    1. cgregory

      I, too, am a constituent of Senator Welch and Senator Sanders, and I stand with the latter in his opinion of Biden. As I’ve pointed out before, it’s the people around the President who carry out the programs, and even if he were reduced to to the state of Stephen Hawkings in his final years, Biden would know who to appoint and what to expect of them to work toward achieving his vision for the country. Kamala Harris would simply be coopted by the neoliberal faction hungering for influence in the Oval Office. (Her performance in CA shows that.) Like W, she would have little or no idea of what was being done in her name until it was far too late.

      1. pjay

        Let me ask the same question I posed above, but a little more politely. Biden has a long history of supporting neoliberal economic policies – in the Senate, as Obama’s VP. I’m mystified how his defenders could frame him as some sort of progressive on economic policy. And don’t get me started on who he appointed to carry out his foreign policies. Could you explain why you think Biden is different than Harris, or any other corporate Democrat?

        1. curlydan

          Yeah, I’m not sure if we could find two more dangerous people to run foreign policy than Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan. Add in the Zients and Klains etc, and the whole thing is a bit of a nightmare.

      3. albrt

        Please help me understand how Biden can be so good at choosing people and yet his most important choice, Kamala Harris, is so bad?

  7. Mark Gisleson

    I saw MichelleNotMAGA

    and tweeted

    Michelle No
    tMAGA

    They make it too easy. Supporting bullet points were prayerfully aspirational and it took very little googling to find a fan-written resume the strongest part of which was the executive summary:

    Former First Lady of the United States, lawyer, and bestselling author with a passion for public service, education, and equal rights. Committed to inspiring and empowering individuals to lead healthier and more fulfilling lives.

    [vision blurs tearfully] Sorry, having a bit of a Shepard Fairey moment just now.

    Next biggest job after First Lady?

    Associate Dean of Student Services
    University of Chicago

    Note that’s Associate and not Adjunct. Michelle’s the real deal. But wait, that’s not all!

    Education
    B.A. in Sociology
    Princeton University
    1985 – 1988
    Princeton, NJ

    Not only is Michelle Obama a politician by marriage, she’s over-qualified to do political analysis on network TV.

    Based on this I’d be ready to commit my support but—be still my fibrillating heart!—there are still rumors of a Puma waiting in the wings.

    1. nippersdad

      Other than having a vegetable garden and feeding Bush Jr. mints, I really don’t know how so many people can possibly be excited about a Michelle Obama candidacy. So, she is good with vegetables is my takeaway, but there are literally millions of Gardeners out there that can say the same thing. If she were to go out and plant Joe Biden in the Rose Garden I would be happy to wait with her to see what comes up, but voting for her for the presidency is a whole ‘nother issue.

      I’m just not seeing why her name is always coming up, especially as she has routinely said she hated it while she was in the White House and would never take such a job. That, like the Oprah or Taylor Swift thing just always strikes me as a little sad.

  8. Dr. John Carpenter

    I’m sure Pelosi is apoplectic over the Biden situation. Raking in donor cash is her bag and if they’re holding back because of lack of confidence in Biden, well that might effect the gelato fridge and wine cave eventually! We all know the Dems can’t have any of these discussions in public, but I’d love to be a fly on a few walls these days.

    1. Steve H.

      > Once Biden has been put out to pasture, we will see the most extravagant media propaganda campaign in history.

      (transl.) Donors will flood CNN with cash if they pull the sand out from under his feet, otherwise they won’t pour good money after bad.

  9. Socal Rhino

    Re the last bit

    I have worked in the innards of financial record keeping systems for insurance companies and asset managers. Maintaining an audit trail is a core requirement of such systems, as is maintaining copies of prior states that could be used to restore to those states, and increasingly mirrored copies are maintained in different locations to protect against disasters. Regulated companies don’t maintain their books and records on Snapchat. Records persist when the system is designed to persist.

  10. Samuel Conner

    > ‘Letting him continue to run is like not taking the keys away from your parents,’

    Finally, a “the government is like a household” analogy that’s actually valid!

  11. Dr. John Carpenter

    I made a similar comment about Clooney and his fundraiser this morning. There’s no way he and others at that fundraiser a month ago and before the debate didn’t see Biden’s condition. Heck, I’d forgotten about the video of Obama leading him off stage that they tried to tell us wasn’t what we clearly saw it was. I really hope his op-ed causes more people to have that same lights on “hey, wait a minute” realization.

    1. Tvc15

      Additionally, in response to the hagiography bs being written about Biden and specifically Clooney’s NYT OpEd; Glenn Greenwald provides video evidence of the warmongering, racist, lying and anti-human policies Biden has wholeheartedly supported through the years. I’d also add his brazen family corruption/grifting and credible Tara Reade rape allegations. This despicable person has a long history of being an asshole and pathetic excuse of a human being. I feel sorry for him in his current state but that feeling is fleeting when I think about his lack of compassion in his long tenure of screwing over everyone not in the ruling class. I hate him…Trump as well.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRZ7xVsbykE&ab_channel=GlennGreenwald (~33 min)

      1. c_heale

        I don’t feel sorry for him at all. He had a life doing what he wanted at the expense of many, many other people who were good and kind.

  12. Dessa

    Harris is already on the ballot in every state. If the calendar argument is actually serious, Harris could seamlessly take the nomination, the campaign warchest, and all of the endorsements and documentation needed with little fuss

    1. Jason Boxman

      Biden could simply agree to resign for the good of America after the election. Problem solved!

      2. scott s.

        Note that the election is 17 December, but the key date is 11 December by which each state/DC executive must transmit a “certificate of ascertainment” of appointment of electors. See 3USC5.

    2. albrt

      Yes, and I am confident 10 out of 10 judges would rule that a vote for Biden is a vote for Harris, provided that Biden is no longer president and Harris has replaced him.

      If the Democrats try to do it by backroom deal where Biden gets to finish his term, I am not so confident.

      1. scott s.

        In my state electors are bound:

        “Each elector nominee and alternate elector nominee of a political party or group shall execute the following pledge: “If selected for the position of elector, I agree to serve and to mark my ballots for president and vice president for the nominees for those offices of the party or group that nominated me”. The executed pledges shall accompany the submission of the corresponding names to the chief election officer. Electors shall be released from their pledge if the presidential candidate whom they are pledged to vote for dies. Electors shall not be released from their pledge under any circumstance other than the death of the presidential candidate for whom they are pledged to vote.”

    3. lambert strether

      I don’t know if there’s a calendar argument per se; there are mechanics that take time, something that tends not to be discussed or lost in magical thinking. NC readers deserve to know about them. I don’t know why you would consider the material not “serious.” Did you think it was meant to be humorous?

      The path with Harris is the easiest. The pledged delegates can vote their conscience, or Biden can release his delegates. No sign of either so far, although the situation is highly dynamic. Off the top of my head–

      It would then remain to merge/replace one campaign apparatus with another, secure funding, deal with the three (?) states, one IIRC Wisconsin, where Biden/Harris is already on the ballot, and revise all the media collateral and messaging for Harris at the head of the ticket. And of course completely change campaign strategy, including media buys. Easier now than before Labor Day, but still taking time and energy.

      There is also the question of what to do with Biden. If he’s not fit to be a candidate, shouldn’t he resign as President as well? If so, Harris will have a lot on her plate.

      So in your comment, “seamlessly” is doing much too much work for a mere adverb. Do try to think things through.

      1. scott s.

        Wisconsin Elections Commission:

        “The names of candidates for President and Vice President for these parties are placed on the General Election ballot when their names are certified by the state or national chairperson to the Wisconsin Election Commission no later than 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 3, 2024. ” WEC memo

        I don’t know what the DPW process is to name their party candidates, but don’t see any reason why they would do it prior to the national convention as I assume they need certification from the DNC.

  13. Carolinian

    Thanks for all the coverage but at this point I’m not sure there’s anything to do but wait and see what happens. Trump has just posted a rant againstt Clooney so perhaps Trump is worried that Biden really will drop out. It would take away Trump’s whole reason for running.

    1. lambert strether

      > L’m not sure there’s anything to do but wait and see

      Yes. Apparently today is a very big day; the floodgates may open when NATO finishes up, no matter what, says Axios. Though I must say I’ve been well-trained by “walls are closing in!” stories to be skeptical about scoops for future events.

      1. Jason Boxman

        Not going well, Unusual Whales on the Twitter saying Biden introduced Zelenskyy as Putin, with video from CNN.

        1. pjay

          Yes. NBC had that gaff cued up and ran it during their 6:30 newscast. Pretty funny. The big “test” is the supposedly unscripted press conference tonight. NBC really featured the doubting Thomases this evening. There is clearly a significant sector of the Establishment that want him gone.

    2. Lee

      According to Ezra Klein in the Tim Miller interview many Democrat electeds claiming in public that Trump is an existential threat to “our democracy” are at the same time expressing the belief in private that they are convinced Biden will lose the election but seem resigned to this loss and will not speak out against his running. I am much reassured by their courageous lack of existential dread over Biden losing to Trump⸮

  14. Wukchumni

    {abdication clicker: 11 hours, 51 minutes, 14 seconds}

    The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the muddled mind that day:
    The score stood against Joe, with but one card more to play,
    And then when Clooney’s support died at first, and Schumer did the same,
    A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

    A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
    Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
    They thought, “If only Joey could but get a whack at that—
    We’d put up even money now, with Joey at the mike.”

    Then from 331 million throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
    It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
    It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
    For Joey, mighty Joey, was advancing to the mike-chewing the fat.

    There was ease in Joey’s manner as he stepped into his place;
    There was pride in Joey’s bearing and a smile lit Joey’s face.
    And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
    No stranger in the crowd could doubt ’twas Joey chewing the fat

    Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright,
    The teleprompter is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
    And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
    But there is no joy in muddled minds—mighty Joey has struck out.

  15. Jason Boxman

    There’s a reason Sanders is dead to me, that tweet of his quote is it;

    So far, Biden has

    – Ensured OSHA doesn’t protect the working class from an ongoing brain damaging Pandemic
    – Allowed the largest childhood increase in poverty in history
    – Allowed the largest number of people to get kicked off Medicaid/lose medical care in history
    – Murdered by way of stochastic eugenics, three quarters of a million people, disproportionately from the working class, particularly minorities
    – Ensured the railway workers got a poor deal, while training continual to derail frequently
    – Shutdown virtually all testing for an ongoing Pandemic, while failing to proactively engage in testing and monitoring for a possible H5N1 human Pandemic

    That’s an incomplete, shortlist. And on the latter points, it is simply a manifestation of Trump’s original idea, that as if by magic, if we stop testing, the virus will disappear. And that is the Biden plan, which is the GBD plan. I’m not seeing the daylight here.

    (Ignoring foreign policy debacles, genocide, ect.)

    So Sanders either isn’t paying attention, or he’s complicit. Saying Trump would do worse is comical given the scale of the depravity and death, so that isn’t an excuse, that Trump is most more evil.

      1. Jason Boxman

        Perhaps to protect my delicate sensibilities, I’ve never been willing to consider him the sheepdog candidate; he didn’t earn the amendment king nickname for nothing, and ultimately I think he’s an incrementalist in practice that sadly talks a big game, with no intent to deliver. So he serves as an effective sheepdog in practice, even if he isn’t intentionally playing that role.

        But to declare Biden to have been an amazing president for the working class is just deluded, if not outright malicious. I’m thankful Sanders’ time on the national stage is now over. He’s done enough damage.

      2. The Rev Kev

        Not so much a Sheep Dog as a Judas Goat. If he was never prepared to take it to the end, he should never have stood those two times and taken all that money. I am serious when I say that one day there will have to be a historical damage assessment of his effect on American politics and voters.

  16. chris

    I have asked friends, family, and acquaintances, who claim to be ardent Joe Biden supporters, what he has done that merits their support for the upcoming election. I told them that they could say anything but they can’t mention Trump. My sample is small, but here is what they said:

    Lead us out of the pandemic
    The Inflation Reduction Act was impressive
    Support for Ukraine and not Russia
    Support for Israel after 10/7
    Walking the line with the auto workers during their strike
    Respect for American institutions

    If I was asked to steel man Mr. Biden’s tenure in office to date, I think I would say the following are good reasons to support him:

    Ending the Afghanistan sham
    Pursuing administrative efforts to roll back monopoly and anticompetitive practices
    Attempting to limit costs for some few critical pharmaceuticals

    But that’s it. Both lists and a dollar won’t get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks because inflation is awful and there might be homeless people sleeping in the drive thru anyway. And the press hated him for leaving Afghanistan. So when I read all these people claiming that Biden has been the best president in their memory, I have no family blogging clue what they’re talking about.

    Biden has brought the world to the brink of WW III. Biden has destroyed our European allies economies and their ability to defend themselves. Biden has united China, Iran, and Russia, and lost us the global south. Biden has presided over a period of amazing inflation in critical goods, services, and commodities. Biden has allowed the surveillance state to grow to unprecedented levels. Biden’s policies have resulted in unmitigated infection of COVID-19, Monkey Pox, Avian Flu, and who knows what else. Biden has done nothing about US production needs for critical supplies like pharmaceuticals. Biden has presided over a time of stunning inequality and awful job creation – claims that he created jobs make no more sense than saying if I kink a garden hose, stopping the flow, and then unkink it, restoring the flow, that I created water by unkinking the hose. Biden crushed the rail workers strike. Biden kept Trump’s tax plan. Biden has adopted Trump’s immigration plan after having no functional control over immigration for years.

    I could go on.

    Is there anything I’m missing? On the pro Biden side or the anti Biden side? I know we’re living in a state of reality flux until the election but I honestly have no idea what people are thinking when they say he’s been a great president.

    1. caucus99percenter

      > Is there anything I’m missing? On … the anti Biden side?

      Pressuring private tech-monopoly corps to censor what citizens’ can think and say in their conversations on social media?

      Though I guess that, at a stretch, that might fall partly under “allowed the surveillance state to grow to unprecedented levels.”

    2. ChrisFromGA

      I would throw Lina Khan in there on the plus side. She’s done good work, and no doubt made some enemies on Wall St.

      I think that the Inflation Reduction Act will be seen as one of the biggest frauds in history, on the negative side. It’s done nothing to bring down inflation, although some cretins will no doubt roll out “correlation equals causation!” arguments when in fact, the Fed has done the work to bring in down, temporarily I suspect. The amount of sheer wasteful spending under both Trump and Biden is staggering, and most of the confetti money will I suspect end up being bezzled away, benefitting the wealthy who can take advantage of tax loopholes and corporate handouts.

      1. Carla

        In my book, appointing Lina Khan was the only good thing Biden has done. She’s great, but doesn’t quite make up for all the negatives. Still glad I didn’t vote for him, because… JOE BIDEN, you gotta be kidding me…

      2. Michael Fiorillo

        I know it’s very thin gruel when compared to Gaza, Ukraine, et. al., but in addition to Khan his NLRB appointments have been good.

    3. hamstak

      I tend to think that your sample (and others considering Biden great/greatest in their lifetime) are so inclined simply because he is the president who replaced/defeated Trump (and who does mortal combat with him again!); any justification they further provide is after that fact.

      1. Dr. John Carpenter

        Also notice one of the bullet points is “respect for American institutions”. What does that even mean? It’s all about the feels and the “return to normal” with these people. All Biden had to do was act like they felt a garden variety US politician should act and they’d declare him the best presnit evar! Never mind that his policies are indistinguishable from Trump’s.

    4. Samuel Conner

      You’re leaving out JRB’s greatest achievement, and one that he accomplished even before he was inaugurated (though, admittedly, he had a lot of help) — he prevented “President Bernie Sanders.”

      Or as he put it, he “beat the socialist.”

      That’s gotta be worth a few billion Starbucks coffees.

    5. Jason Boxman

      Oops. Also, he committed an international act of terrorism against Russia by destroying their pipeline and enfeebling Europe.

      Rules based order indeed.

        1. albrt

          I assumed that was “Pursuing administrative efforts to roll back monopoly and anticompetitive practices.”

          1. chris

            That was what I meant. But Lina Khan is enough of a bright spot that she deserves mention IMO. Why he isn’t running on her success is beyond me… unless his handlers are planning on the bait and switch for the second term as has been suggested on NC. Maybe the threats will become explicit if the big donors continue to pull back.

            1. tegnost

              Why he isn’t running on her success is beyond me…

              It’s hard to defend her when the donors are saying defund her…

    7. lyman alpha blob

      I wouldn’t even give him credit for ending the Afghanistan conflict.

      Trump was the one who made the deal that the US was supposed to be put by May of 2021. Biden delayed that, only leaving in September and only when the Taliban were on the march and about to take over the whole country. If Biden could have figured out how to prolong the conflict further without risking embarrassment for his administration, I have no doubt he would have. As it was, he slaughtered a bunch of innocent people on the way out to look like some type of tough guy.

      Only took a few months to get the war on in Ukraine, which coincidentally and miraculously “ended the pandemic”.

      1. chris

        He followed through with the plan though. Kind of. And he didn’t have to. The top brass would have been happy to continue the farce for years longer. I’m still grateful he did. My friends and family who serve are grateful he did.

        There are several things about the entire debacle that will haunt this country, but the one I feel the most is we had a general staff and security advisers and generals, under two administrations, fail to give their commander in chief good plans and true answers for a requested withdrawal scenario. I know Trump had plans to bug out in the winter when it wasn’t fighting season. But still. These people lied to the president and to congress. Why weren’t the generals fired for insubordination?

        My guess is project Ukraine was already rolling. Biden needed their support for what he wanted to do, or what his state department wanted to do, and he couldn’t risk having the generals defect before then.

      2. Yves Smith

        Colonel Macgregor, who was a Trump DoD adviser, has said repeatedly that Trump went through all the bureaucratic hoops (there is some sort of papering process) to get the US out in Jan 2021. But the DoD refused to comply. Macgregor said Jan would have been much better, Taliban freedom fighters in their caves at that time of year, US could have exited with much less risk to personnel and have taken a lot more materiel with them..

        So I don’t know how the later dates came about and stuck. Seems like some sort of reverse bureaucratic FU.

    8. Nikkikat

      Chris, that about sums it up. I for one have no idea at all what the inflation reduction act did or was supposed to do. One think I did think of was the outrageous Covid shot mandate,
      It caused many to lose their jobs. An experimental shot that had no known advantage in fighting covid, the censorship committee working social media was another outrage. I didn’t vote for him, I think I wrote in Bernie. He hasn’t done anything that has helped me in the least. Biden was always a blow hard joke as a senator, he sucked.

  17. Wukchumni

    I played chicken with my circa 1972 Schwinn Sting-Ray and bent the front forks when the Huffy didn’t zag at the last instant. Most kids survive childhood and I was no exception that day.

    1. Lunker Walleye

      Reminds me of when my 12 year-old self got picked up by my boyfriend on his ’65 Sting-Ray. Today would have been his 73rd birthday. Alas he passed at age 26 under strange circumstances.

  18. Ranger Rick

    Is 538 going to seriously argue the economy’s “great” performance is a key factor in voting for Biden? The economy that is still in the grips of what the pundits are calling the ‘vibe-cession,’ mind you, where the facts on the ground do not agree with the economic indicators that the talking heads are seeing.

  19. Wukchumni

    On my climate change bingo card… the free spot in the middle is Houston, the poor place has been most affected of any large city in the country. Much of the population is without electricity now-in the midst of sweltering heat, and that’s coming after a couple of 1 in 500 year floods, among niceties doled out.

  20. Lefty Godot

    The current moment for the Democrats reminds me of when McGovern’s selection of Eagleton as his VP blew up in his face. Campaigns don’t recover from moments like this. So the question is, are the “stick with Joe” people whose opinions count just giving up on the election so they can say they were “good soldiers”? I think we were already looking at a potential landslide win for Trump, even with pre-debate Joe, so I’m not sure how anyone not suffering from dementia thinks Biden can realistically pull this out now.

    Oh, and shame on Bernie Sanders, who was my Senator when I lived in Vermont. He has no credibility remaining.

  21. Tom Stone

    Just how sick and perverted do you have to be to declare that you admire Joe Biden?
    A depraved, viciously corrupt warmonger and corporate shill with dementia who has brought the World closer to nuclear armageddon than it has ever been?
    Is it the elegant way he sniffs the hair of little girls?
    Enlighten me.

    1. chris

      I tried up to do that up above. I don’t understand how people can think that he’s a good person, let alone a good president. But he’s done at least 4 things that I think are good. However, they do not balance out slaughtering an entire generation of Slavs or murdering Palestinian children.

      1. tegnost

        Agreed, and in my case having a hard time thinking of someone worse…but one can’t ever forgive the notional heroes in and around bush cheney and they persist like the odor of skunk…or chrysanthemums

  22. Wukchumni

    Sometimes it’s hard to be President
    Givin’ all your love to just one country
    You’ll have the bad times
    And he’ll have the good times
    Doing things that you don’t understand

    But if you love him, you’ll forgive him (unlike Clooney)
    Even though he’s hard to understand, mm, mm
    And if you love him, oh, be proud of him
    ‘Cause after all, he’s just a man

    Stand by your man
    Give Jill two arms to cling to
    And something warm to come to
    When he’s tucked in at 8 pm

    Stand by your man
    And show the world you love him
    Keep giving all the love you can, mm, mm
    Stand by your man, hmm, hmm

    Stand by your man (Ooh, ooh)
    And show the world you love him (Ooh, ooh)
    Keep giving all the love you can
    Stand by your man, mm, mm, mm

    Stand By Your Man, performed by Tammy Wynette

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM-b8P1yj9w

      1. Samuel Conner

        I am too culturally ignorant to guess what “feeling” ABC is trying to evoke with its time-filler musical selections. It feels kind of “old” to me, like a ’50s film.

        1. nippersdad

          Keaton and Russel are incensed that this is starting so late. His lack of punctuality is imperiling their votes.

    1. Samuel Conner

      There’s precious little reason to vote for duopoly candidates above local level. But there might be value in 3rd party candidates at all levels.

        1. Pat

          Dammit how did I miss that. Another reason he should rot someplace twice as miserable as Houston.
          Looks like my entire ballot will not be counted unless I decide I can stomach the Republicans running against Goldman and Gillibrand, it will almost entirely consist of write ins. Which just disappear as soon as they decide they won’t matter so no need to look for them and count them

      1. CarlH

        How is one to know who they are? They all tell us what we want to hear, so how could any potential voter suss out who is not yet corrupted?

        1. Samuel Conner

          It’s a valid question, and I am not confident that I can answer, but here is a try:

          * to the extent that some candidates do start out with some integrity, they are less likely to have compromised that earlier in their career, so younger people who have not yet risen high enough to be worth corrupting with large donations may be less likely to have been bought.

          * candidates for local office may be more accessible, so it may be more possible to actually speak to them and learn what they think they can accomplish (or, at least in terms of “observables”, what they claim to think they can accomplish” and why that is worth accomplishing.

          * candidates for local office might be more open to feedback and correction of flawed ideas. Give him/her a copy of Stephanie Kelton’s “The Deficit Myth”. It’s not relevant to the finances of local and State governments, but local/State office-holders sometimes rise to Congress, and the “Federal budget constraint” myth seems to be nearly universally embraced among Congresspersons (whether sincerely or not, I’m not sure, since they never seem to invoke it when military spending is in view, but it always comes up when there are proposals to trim social spending).

          I would agree that you can’t know whether a candidate has retained integrity through “remote inspection”. But you might get a sense if it is possible to interact with them personally, and that is more likely to be possible for local candidates. (Of course, “skill in feigning sincerity” is probably a trait that is enriched among seekers of political office.)

  26. Sardonia

    I’m waiting to watch the press conference – and checking to see if Jack Ruby is in the audience

    2. ChrisFromGA

      Quick poll while we wait:

      Which Pink Floyd song should be playing as background music ?

      1. Comfortably Numb
      2. Wish You Were Here
      3. Brain Damage
      4. [Insert other here]

        1. ChrisFromGA

          Good choice. Maybe take a bit of artistic license and change “Eugene” to “Hillary?”

          1. Sardonia

            By the way, better late than never…. I read your “Ukraine Suicide With Biden” to the tune of The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (very late at night) – and thought that of all the fun re-lyrics that have been done here, that won the Grammy

        1. ambrit

          All the delegates sing that at the opening of the Party Convention. (Either party, you can’t tell the policy differences without a score card!)

      5. lyman alpha blob

        Pigs

        “Big man, pig man, haha, charade you are, wooh!
        You well-heeled big wheel, haha, charade you are
        And when your hand is on your heart
        You’re nearly a good laugh, almost a joker
        With your head down in the pig bin saying, “Keep on digging”
        Pig stain on your fat chin, what do you hope to find
        Down in the pig mine?”

        Sooooooieeeee!!!!!!!

  27. VTDigger

    I tuned in live for a bit and it was just a dark stage, no one to be seen, with some sort of military march playing in the background

    1. ChrisFromGA

      Not too different from what we’ll likely get if WWIII kicks off and a nuke takes out a lot of excess population.

  28. ChrisFromGA

    It was a decent start for Angry Joe; he’s got the usual slurred speech that reminds me of a drunken bar slob, but he hasn’t flubbed anything too badly, yet.

    He threw out the usual platitudes about NATO; he’s now on to campaign Joe going after Trump.

    When paired with the Putin/Zelesnky flub, this is another puzzler that leaves one to think the knives are still in their sheaths, for now.

    Ends with the functional equivalent of “America, F*** yeah!”

    1. VTDigger

      He’s just rambling on about ‘growing the economy’ for the past 5 minutes at least

  29. Lou anton

    Asked about Harris’ place on the ticket:
    “There’s a reason I picked Vice President Trump to be on my ticket”. He put trumps name in for Harris. Jeezus.

    1. Lou anton

      Also flubbed his name and trumps name in an immigration comment. About trump “killing a border bill”:

      “He [Trump] thought that would make a winner of me and a loser of him.”

      1. ChrisFromGA

        Right now the press is in a feeding frenzy, but eventually, if Joe can rope-a-dope them, they’ll find some other squirrel to chase. And the bar for Joe’s future performance will be lowered, as in, success will be redefined as, “he didn’t thud, so great presser!”

  30. nippersdad

    I don’t think Article Five is what he thinks it is.

    So, it is up to the American people? News to me.

  32. Lambert Strether Post author

    Biden forcefully declares he’s staying in reelection race in major news conference“\:

    As of Thursday evening, a dozen House Democrats had called for him to exit the race. The press conference was an effort to show he’s up for another four years; voters are watching, and elected officials are deciding whether to press for another choice.

    “Today, Kyiv still stands and NATO stands stronger than it has ever been,” Biden said, said in stressing the alliance’s support for Ukraine.

    He spoke strongly and clearly at the news conference.

    Democrats are facing an intractable problem. Top donors, supporters and key lawmakers are doubtful of Biden’s abilities to carry on his reelection bid after his recent debate performance, but the hard-fighting 81-year-old president refuses to give up as he prepares to take on Republican Donald Trump in a rematch.

    Biden campaign laid out what it sees as its path to keeping the White House in a new memo, saying that winning the “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan is the “clearest pathway” to victory. And it declared no other Democrat would do better against Trump.

    Poor Kamala. Heart-breaking for her.

    Biden accidentally calls Zelensky “President Putin” at NATO summit Axios. Right, the real enemy!

    * * *

    Scoop: Biden poised to face “deluge” of fresh calls to drop out Axios. Twelve is not a deluge, but possibly the cabal opposing Biden has managed to stage a rollout. In the meantime, could we please declare a moratorium on “Scoops” for events that have not yet occurred?

    2. Samuel Conner

      > NATO stands stronger than it has ever been

      granting the supposition that Alexander Mercouris’ news summary/analysis is approximately accurate, one could make the case that NATO has been significantly depleted by weapons and supplies transfers to Ukraine. It is less able to resist aggression than it was before the RF/Ukraine conflict began. The accession of Finland and Sweden do not compensate much for the reduction in military readiness of the rest of the European NATO members.

      It would have been refreshing to hear some pushback on the “NATO stronger than ever” claim, but maybe the press believe this themselves.

  33. Lena

    Biden gave a shout-out to Noel Coward and Feminine Sweden in his opening statement at the press conference. He’s at the top of his game.

  34. Nippersmom

    Typical Biden. Sounds drunk, lies his head off, has difficulty remaining coherent. And now he’s starting to whisper.

    1. Lou Anton

      Doing a good job of making me bored and wanting to turn the tv off. I guess that’s sort of a win! For him and me.

    2. Samuel Conner

      I don’t disagree, but in terms of “quality of information communicated”, I’m not sure that he’s meaningfully worse than his presumptive opponent, though I do find the opponent more entertaining to listen to.

      This ought to be a banner year for small party candidates; the duopoly offerings are so unappealing.

      1. John Anthony La Pietra

        Maybe that’s part of the reason why Ds have been going after Jill Stein so extra-hard this year.

  35. Ben Panga

    “Biden says he “wouldn’t have picked vice-president Trump to be vice-president if I didn’t think she was not qualified to be president”.”

    Inadvertently correct, if one leaves aside mistaking Harris for Trump

  36. Samuel Conner

    JRB seems to have two modes, “angry/loud/animated” and “subdued/sotte voce“.

    I think the press conference will be a Rorschach test. People will see what they expect to see.

    He seems to me significantly better than during The Debate.

    Claims to have had a significant neurological exam as recently as February.

  38. GramSci

    Unfortunately, that performance will put wind in the sails of the war machine. Biden oversold his accomplishments, spoke with angry conviction, and faked sincerity even better than Trump. WWIII, here we come.

    1. Lee

      Agreed as to Biden’s rhetorical bellicosity. But as regards China, there is pushback from weighty forces within the MIC: ‘We can de-risk but not decouple’ from China, says Raytheon chief. Outsourcing critical defense production to your future worst enemy on the planet, whose bright idea was this?

      Russia, OTOH, has at present no such direct economic interdependencies with the U.S. Our true blue European allies, OTOH, are getting well and truly phkt by U.S. policy toward Russia. There, citizen pushback is making itself electorally evident, and that’s coming predominantly from what is commonly termed “the Right”, these days. It’s all very complicated. Upon further thought, perhaps WWIII is the best option if only for the sake of simplification. May my grandchildren forgive me for entertaining such thoughts.

  39. chris

    Kind of surprised to hear the campaign season doesn’t start until September. Also interesting to learn that no one has shown President Biden any polls that show him losing to Trump, or any polls saying people want him to step down. His creepy quiet voice effect when he says “not going to happen” is new.

    I dunno… that presser combined with his President Putin gaffe would be more than enough for me to pull the plug on this joke. But as has been discussed on this site ad nauseum, the situation for Team Blue is not so simple. If only so much wasn’t at stake, I’d really enjoy their suffering. But too much can happen because the dofus refuses to go into his dotage quietly.

  40. Wukchumni

    Biden was kind of subdued and then late in his performance he upped the octaves a plenty when talking about children killed by bullets, and then simmered down again.

    If he was your uncle Joe who you dreaded seeing once a year at Thanksgiving, that’d be one thing, but we’re stuck with him 24/7/52/365.

    1. Lee

      “…children killed by bullets…”. “The horror! The horror!”, selectively applied.

  41. Tom Stone

    Volodymyr and Vladimir are different spellings of the same name, so confusing Putin and Zelensky is no big deal, really.

    When you are running the World sometimes minor details can slip your mind.
    Joe is fine….and OUR DEMOCRACY IS AT STAKE!!!

  42. sleeplessintokyo

    The whole thing is a giant distraction , rather a sleight of hand , whilst the fleecing proceeds apace

  43. Blowncue

    Just enough gaffes for oppo headlines, responses were coherent, he spoke softly most of the time but was very relaxed, not defensive, occasionally leaning in as if to share a secret during which he would express confidence in his capability and political chances.

    Said that he would take a neurological exam if a neurologist recommended but otherwise doubled down on the daily demands constituted same.

    Said that he considered delegates free to vote their conscience at the convention but believe none pledged would vote against him.

    Said that he would drop out of the race if he was approached by his advisors and told that there was no way that he could win.

    Said that he was not concerned with his legacy but wanted to finish the job.

    Danced around the question did he really think he would be capable of being president through 2028.

    Chris Hedges invoked an interesting analogy of the 9th inning picture with four outs left that doesn’t want to get pulled.

    Both David Axelrod and Rachel Maddow in their own ways both highlighted a disconnect between Biden’s assessment of his standing in the race versus polling trends where not a single poll shows that he’s winning.

    Feedback on my Facebook page is two out of three think he needs to drop out. Tonight’s performance does not change fundamental conclusions about electability.

    I’ve gotten zero acceptance by my friends of my contention that Biden will not drop out, someone has to step up and run against him similar to Teddy Kennedy versus Carter, and even if that were to happen, the only person who could beat Trump is Bobby Kennedy Jr assuming all Dem voters coagulated around him.

    Which would entail recognition that only another anti-establishment candidate can beat Trump at this point.

    (Assumes Joe Manchin doesn’t jump in).

    1. Acacia

      “Finish the job”, including Gaza and Ukraine, I assume, because not enough people have died yet for Biden.

      And this:

      Said that he would take a neurological exam if a neurologist recommended but…

      Here’s Dr. Tom Pitts, a clinical neurophysiologist from New York, who was on NBC this week:

      He has Parkisonism, that is a fact. He has degeneration of the brain. Show me the MRI, show me he doesn’t.

      Sooo, is Biden going to step up to the plate, do an MRI with Dr. Pitts, and share it with the public?

      1. .Tom

        Finish the job I understood as meaning finish Putin and Russia. It was a NATO event with Z present, after all.

        1. Acacia

          True, the US must continue fighting to the last Ukrainian.

          And speaking of which, I am doubtless not the only person whose social media timeline is over-flowing today, with slo-mo close-up shots of Z, right at the moment when Biden announced that Putin is President of the Ukraine.

          These, along with GIFs of Putin cracking up. ;)

  44. K.M.

    The problem is not in moving massive amounts of manufacturing to China in itself. The real problem is what was done after moving those industries to China, that is the cannibalisation of the US economy instead of investing the created surplus in upgrading the US industries.

  45. .Tom

    > “Or better, wire them all up to psychometric devices and parade the candidates in front of them, beauty contest-style.”

    Who puts together the parade of beauties they choose from?

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