Biden’s future or potential lack thereof continues to dominate the news, as lead stories in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Financial Times confirm. A key sign came with Nancy Pelosi’s appearance on Morning Joe yesterday, where she looked to be engaging in an over-caffeinated version of damning with faint praise. As you can see below, she gave an over-the-top review of Biden’s record and his performance at the current NATO summit, while insisting that Biden needed to decide what to do about his candidacy…and stuck to her guns as the hosts pressed her that Biden had already decided. This segment is watchable at 1.5x, with critical exchange starting at 3:24:
As you can see, Pelosi adopts the posture that Biden could not have decided to withdraw from with the NATO summit pending, that that would have damaged US interests.1
The Hill confirms that there’s no doubt about Pelosi’s message:
The Financial Times focused on how big donors were refusing to fund the Biden campaign, as well as not just high profile but also noisy defections like George Clooney. From Democratic donors warn of campaign funds ‘drying up’ as Joe Biden holds on:
Democratic donors have warned that funding for the November election effort is “drying up” because of Joe Biden’s refusal to step aside, threatening to undermine the party’s effort to defeat Donald Trump….
Their increasing willingness to walk away from the campaign, mentioned in interviews with donors from Wall Street to Hollywood, poses a new existential risk to Biden’s re-election if he stays in a White House race expected to be the most expensive in US history.
“As of today, it would be very difficult to raise major donor money for the president,” said one New York-based Democratic donor. “It is so quickly unravelling that it is going to be extraordinarily difficult for him to stay in the race.”
Another donor involved in the party for decades said the money was “in the process of drying up”. The donor added: “Nine to one when I talk to other donors, they’re not planning on contributing . . . because they’re concerned about losing.”…
But much of the White House’s political operation over the past week has focused on wavering Democratic officeholders, particularly on Capitol Hill — although Biden also held calls with governors and mayors in a bid to reassure them….
But donors have been less constrained, with several high-profile Biden supporters — including Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, hotel mogul Stewart Bainum Jr and actor George Clooney — explicitly citing the president’s mental acuity in their calls for him to drop out.
Confirming the Financial Times account on donors pulling back, CNN reported Wednesday evening that a Chicago fundraiser was just cancelled:
Meanwhile, organizers for at least one Chicago fundraiser scheduled during the Democratic National Convention have decided to not to proceed with the mid-August event, a source with knowledge of the discussions told CNN….
The event, designed as a lunch for a few dozen wealthy Windy City denizens, was expected to rally support among the party’s loyal and well-heeled locals in a show of support for the big event in their backyard.
Note that the oft-cited fundraiser shortly after the debate that got a $38 million haul was previously scheduled and so is not a good indicator of Biden’s present prospects. One contact with senior Democratic party and operative contacts said the campaign was touting its supposedly strong results with small donors: “They’ve never been important to Biden. We’ll see if anything has changed when the next reports come out.”2
To continue with the high-profile defections, which will confirm donor decisions to sit on their wallets: George Clooney weighed in not with casual remarks at a talk show, but via a New York Times op-ed. Key sections from George Clooney: I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee:
I’m a lifelong Democrat; I make no apologies for that….Last month I co-hosted the single largest fund-raiser supporting any Democratic candidate ever, for President Biden’s re-election….
I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him….
But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “big F-ing deal” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.
The Journal stuck the shiv in with its new story, The Night President Biden Lost George Clooney’s Support:
The president received a standing ovation when he took the stage. But for some audience members, the mood changed when he started taking questions.
To some in the audience, Biden appeared at times to struggle through answers or keep up with the conversationalists, a harbinger of what millions of Americans would see in the debate weeks later….
When Kimmel joked at the Los Angeles’s Peacock Theater that he had given his son, Billy, a stuffed animal of the president’s dog, “and it bit Billy’s toe off,” the president didn’t register an immediate response—but Obama chimed in with a reference to his Affordable Care Act, quipping, “Fortunately he’s covered!”
In a video taken at the event, Biden is halting in his delivery of some responses.
For the most part, the conversation flows, but to some in the room Biden, who had just returned from the G-7 summit in Europe, seemed to have a hard time keeping up with Kimmel’s quick patter. Obama seemed to pick up loose threads in Biden’s responses, and filled in gaps. One attendee who sat near the stage said it was clear to him by the end of the evening that the president wasn’t as sharp as he once was.
When the Financial Times story quoted early in this post went live, as you can see above, it included the argument that at least Team Biden had been successful in tamping down noise. It included this sop: “….no member of the official party leadership explicitly called on him to step aside.”
Erm, yes, he may not be among the party elite, but Democratic Representative Adam Smith of Washington State had called for Biden to withdraw before this piece ran:
MSNBC – 7/10/2024 – Rep. Adam Smith
"Joe Biden was not picked in 2020 because he was the only person that could beat Donald Trump. He was picked because he was the only person that could beat @BernieSanders" pic.twitter.com/xbdjotZFdj
— CaseStudyQB – #CeaseFireNOW (@CaseStudyQB) July 10, 2024
Similarly, Vermont Senator Peter Welch may not be a member of the Democratic party apparatus, but any Senate defection is significant. Welch joined the upper chamber only in 2023 but he was a state representative from 2007 till he ran successfully for the Senate. And he did it via a Washington Post op-ed, making it hard to ignore. From the Wall Street Journal:
Late Wednesday, Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont said Biden should withdraw “for the good of the country,” becoming the first Democratic senator to make such a call, and pointed to Vice President Kamala Harris as a capable successor. Writing in the Washington Post, Welch said his constituents “are worried that [Biden] can’t win this time, and they’re terrified of another Trump presidency.”
Welch’s remarks come despite reports of an aggressive, even vicious, Biden effort to crush nay-sayers. From IM Doc on July 7, of a conversation during a nature walk:
This guy has already given millions in donations this year alone. Solid blue Dem to the core….He also told me that Jill and Hunter are not going to be moved. They and I guess Joe have let everyone know that if they keep pushing – career destroying stuff will be leaked to the press on any number of the people pushing the resignation. Indeed, the cannons may be deployed very soon at a target or two just to make sure everyone knows where they stand. A prophylactic hit job. As he said, “a political hit job doing serious damage will get everyone’s attention – and Joe is already hit about as bad as possible. Retaliation means nothing to them.” He stated they have serious goods on about 90% of Dems in DC and many many of their major donors. There are very few if any who are willing to do the “Goldwater goes to Nixon” show. He is anticipating this is all going to get very ugly very quickly. It may also explain why this seems to be taking so long.
Just FYI – I have no idea what if any of this is true. Just someone who would be in the know shooting it off at the mouth. “Worse than despair” is how I would describe his affect right now.
Yours truly opined at the time that this would not work. Biden could not take donor money away, so they would remain powerful if he attempted to dirty them up. And if donors got the idea that Biden was targeting any in their ranks, they would circle their ranks at a bare minimum. IM Doc had reported early that attacks on Trump, specifically the New York tax case and then the Bragg prosecution, had not only accelerated the retreat of wealthy Silicon Valley and Hollywood donors from Biden, but had resulted in them shifting support from RFK, Jr. to Trump. And again, this is not a cohort one would see as native Trump backers.
On top of that, let us not forget the spook whisperers David Iganatius and more recently Sy Hersh have signaled Biden should withdraw from the presidential race. Biden cannot with a war with the CIA. It seems that at least a decent sized cohort in the agency has concluded he needs to go.
A fresh e-mail from IM Doc indicates that Biden trying to go nuclear against those calling for him to quit was not just a wild-eyed rumor:
We had an event with them [high-profile Hollywood-connected neighbors] and other neighbors this weekend. I was basically told the same story. Two disparate sources. The blackmail is ongoing right now. The Mark Warner thing earlier in the week was the shot across the bow. They were all at the Biden event in LA where Obama had to walk him off the stage. It was clear to all that Biden was horribly impaired. But agents, producers et al have made it crystal clear to them all not to say a word. They are all blitzed by the sudden change in the messaging. All of them have closed the purse strings and have started to donate to charity instead. I praised them strongly for that decision. I told them all they should give up on the politics shit and use their money to actually help people.
In case you wonder why the freakout among the Dem-connected is rising despite the thuggish Biden enforcement racket, it’s that he is indeed threatening to take the party down with him. The Senate seats up for re-election are likely to break for the Republicans, so if they lose the Presidency, they need to win back the House to prevent a Republican romp. Yet the trends are going the wrong way in the wake of the Biden debate debacle:
I see a lot of “well it’s all very complicated, none of us can really know” takes on Biden.
Friends. The man is turning NEW YORK into a battleground state. This isn’t very complicated.
If you’re arguing Biden shouldn’t step aside, at this point the burden of proof is on you. pic.twitter.com/ZAJyAf3FrU
— Aaron Regunberg (@AaronRegunberg) July 10, 2024
But Biden is capable of burning the house down rather than going willingly. From Semafor:
The message coming from the White House is clear: Biden isn’t going anywhere, and if you come after him you’ll be the one who gets blamed for undermining the party’s general election chances….
What Biden can do is be stubborn in a way that sets up a scenario of mutually assured destruction for Democrats. So long as opponents of his nomination believe it’s impossible to force him to step aside, any escalation of their criticism risks damaging him even further in November. And the worse his standing gets, the more his party is likely to suffer up and down the ballot…
But Biden’s big advantage here is that it really is almost impossible to force him to step aside; he already won the support of the overwhelming majority of convention delegates, who are required to support him. Some Democrats have politely alluded to Biden having a big decision to make, or suggested he talk with his family, in the hopes of giving him space to potentially leave on his own. But if that doesn’t work, the next move would be to organize members to demand he pass the torch — perhaps privately to start, but then loudly if he refuses.
It’s not a very appetizing prospect. If Biden really is willing to fight a Democratic civil war, it would mean heading into convention season with key chunks of the party on the record with doubts about their nominee and pro-Biden factions accusing them of sabotage, all while Republicans quietly sit back and munch popcorn. Biden has been working hard to line up support from Black Democrats and labor — Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford backed Biden Monday — setting up a potentially uncomfortable race and class dynamic to the fight as well.
Nevertheless I said from the outset, I don’t see how Biden survives his debate debacle, even before getting to the fact that Sy Hersh reported his decline in the last six months was rapid. Biden said only God could take him out of the race. God may oblige his request.
____
1 A DC-savvy contact said there were other coded messages to Biden, such as the discussion at 6:20 when Pelosi responded to the question of the concern of foreign leaders that Trump might be re-elected. She said there was reason to be concerned, described a series of Trump statements that were hostile to NATO and signaled an intent to reduce US commitments, and depicted a Trump win as a threat to national security. The contact said that was a message to Biden that his continuing in the race was a threat to national security. I see as going a bit too far with what Pelosi said but those more expert in the signals sent on high frequencies in the Beltway are encouraged to weigh in.
2 Another hopium strategy has been to point out that Trump beat Clinton even though Clinton had raised roughly twice as much money. First, Hillary was a singularly terrible candidate. Second, by all accounts, she ran a gold-plated campaign, far more heavily staffed than necessary, and at eyebrowraising pay levels. And third, as “money in politics” expert Tom Ferguson pointed out, the Trump campaign held back a great deal of funds and did a very heavy ad blitz at the end, considerably outspending Clinton in the last two weeks. As we also now know, Jared Kushner led a team that analyzed carefully as to what media markets were most important (including but not limited to swing states) and looks to have done a good job.
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Why is Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya in this interview next to Nancy Pelosi? Would any Americans know who she is even if they watch lots of MSM? Why not Edward Snowden or Julian Assange instead? Lots of American know who they are.
Must every MSM appearance by our very much elders be manipulated into ant anti-Russian opportunity and an insult to other non Russian nations that don’t share American “values”?
And it devolves into Putin has been vicious against women at the end. Raping children in front of their mothers and using rape as a weapon of war? Putin orders his troops to rape children in front of their mothers? Did Pelosi get that from his ex-wife?
Conclusion by anchor host: Now we know what fascism looks like and why we must fight for democracy.
For those who have never heard of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, she is President of the Coordination of Council of Belarus. She installed herself as President of this “deomocratic” institution in opposition to the Belarus government, as well as establishing the organization itself.
And I am President of The Wizard of Oz.
I didn’t watch the segment, as Pelosi makes me too angry and otherwise ruins my day. But what a fabulist. This is infantile.
Talk about a self-own.
Pelosi looks like a maid in this video. That should be her real job. No offense meant to all maids everywhere.
Interestingly the blond anchor scratched her hair in back right after the Pelosi Russia rant as she started talking. That sort of self-touching is usually a sign of uncertainty or doubt. Perhaps even she knows it was over the top/not true but was trying to figure out how to move on.
For those who have never heard of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, she is what Juan Guaidó was, and what Yolanda Navalnaya wants to be.
She’s working on it. Now head of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation and just elected head of the Human Rights Foundation. Getting the grift. I got ten bucks that says she will be addressing the US Congress within two years. Pass the tissues for the crocodile tears…if she doesn’t get caught with her hot little hand in the till.
I got ten bucks that there won’t be a National Congress to address in 2 years time.
LOL. At least Biden had the guts to hold a press conference.
Trump in his term of office just cancelled all of them!
I am amazed at the calm of you Americans. I am boiling at what’s going on (from the UK). We have a alzheimers ridden cretin in charge of nuclear codes in a conflict the USA/UK is losing. I listen to NATO representatives and they are clearly certifiable. The media blasts lies and distortions, or simply doesn’t report. I am a member of the Labour Party who refused to vote for them – and they join in as cheerleaders on a road to insanity. ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ mean nothing any more. All we know is that PUTIN (and Xi) are child murdering rapists bent on global domination. When I ask for evidence and facts I am called a traitor. Please find me a different planet. I want to go. Now.
It’s the weed that keeps us calm.
Not clear to me a solid trump led rep congress would be interested. Imo she needs dems.
Ie she is what HRC would be in US if she could find an outside sponsor.
“Putin bad!” is the alternate meme to “Trump bad!!!”. Genocide Joe is the answer to both those terror memes.
Democrats and well funded by war spending sponsors seem to want WW III and armageddon over the borders Lenin and Stalin drew for USSR convenience!
Putin is smart enough to let the full might of Genocide Joe’s unsustainable US war machine be drained 6000 miles from any “common defense” issue.
Genocide Joe must go!
Senile or no!
What’s hilarious is that for the longest time they insisted she was the legitimate President of Belarus, just as what’s-his-name was the actual President of Venezuela until they gave that up, and these new titles “President of the Democractic Opposition of Belarus” and “President of the Coordination Council blabla…”, which I had never heard her called before, struck me as being off-ramps (even literally verbal such, as they still get to start with “President of…”) from that position.
I think many people understood that the unravelling of the West would be great farce, but not that it would be this hysterical.
Great farce, yes, but this is one play I do no not wish to live in. The American empire began with the dropping of nuclear bombs, I fear that with these clueless and malevolent clowns, they will also mark its ending.
The American Empire began in earnest with the “Remember the Maine” false flag operation. when a new rising world power, the USA, decided to take the last significant scraps of an old declining world power, Spain. Don’t forget the estimated half million Filipinos who died because of American ambitions in the Orient in that pre atomic era. The farce we’re seeing now is the electronic version of the Yellow Press, only it’s not washing with most of the American public anymore.
So…. If you were Truman, and the choice was yours to kill millions
of American troops taking over Japan, or to drop the Bomb(s),
you would have chosen to kill our troops?
False dichotomy, and even worse a false premise.
The estimates shown to Truman never approached ‘millions’ of american casualties, but typically ranged from 500k-1000k.
The plainly motivated inflation of those numbers reveals your intentions clearly. It’s well known at this point that the Japanese were fully prepared to surrender–regardless of bizarre Allied expectations of a 100% mobilized civilian population engaging in guerilla warfare–they simply required the retention of their emperor, a concession that was ultimately given even with Japan’s unconditional surrender. Raises the question of the necessity of the bombing doesn’t it?
No. One of the greatest errors of human thinking occurs
when we the living attempt to project ourselves onto the
thinking that went into decisions made in the distant past,
which is something you are certainly guilty of. The mentality
of Japan in 1945 is something certainly cannot parse. The
culture was very different then. As a minor example let us take
Taipan, where the Japanese told the citizenry to commit suicide
if America successfully invaded. They did, masses of them.
Why? Because they were inculcated to obey. And shame on
you for ‘killing’ half a million Americans who had just finished
a long horrible war in Europe- my father among them.
Brute.
Japan was in the summer of 1945 trying to negotiate peace through the then neutral Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had promised the US and UK to enter the war against Japan in 3 months after the end of the war in Europe. That is in three months after April 9th.
So the options weren’t just to drop nukes or invade, the options of negotiation through the Soviet Union or waiting for the Soviet Union to enter the war also existed.
But the last two didn’t guarantee US control as the Soviet Union was involved. And they didn’t allow the US to demonstrate their new weapons. So just as the Soviet Union declared war against Japan and brought it’s considerable forces in, the US dropped nukes and got Japan to surrender to the US.
The choice only boils down to nukes or invasion if US hegemony over post war Japan is a must.
Interesting. I think I knew that Japan and Russia are
theoretically STILL at war, as no treaty was ever signed. Thanks for the background info!
https://x.com/TeamPelosi/status/1781733327587705093
Nancy Pelosi @TeamPelosi
Putin has used rape, kidnapping and murder in front of family members as weapons in his illegal war on Ukraine.
The Ukrainian people have borne a heavy toll — yet are undeterred in the fight for freedom and Democracy — and we must help them win! -NP
https://x.com/i/status/1781733327587705093
1:15 PM · Apr 20, 2024
Another projection by Nancy.
Democratic donors are withdrawing their billions now to try and drive Biden out. Will all those folks who suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome keep their money in the bank if it is clear that Biden will not be replaced? Highly doubtful.
Looks like Pelosi is not wearing her usual makeup.
She looks better than I’ve seen her for years.
100 million buys some pretty good face work. Know any 84 year olds that look like that?
lol, can you imagine being Speaker…the worst of managing Machiavellian kindergarteners plus grifters
They need to save up for protection money under Trump.
Wall st and corp types are imo not fully on tds. It’s important to have supported the winner under various scenarios. I’ve heard many donors hedge by donating to both… I expect several to switch from Biden to trump if he stays. But can Kamala win if Biden doesn’t run, whether god./cia intervenes or not? I suppose she’d get sympathy, female indies etc? I doubt it. We’d all hafta forget what has been… granted, us is good at that…
New York is a battleground state. Holy Mackerel. What’s next, Connecticut?
If the Big Guy stays in, I predict that he’ll win Massachusetts.
But the Big Guy won’t win in Jerusalem, and they call the shots, and they’re itching for trump.
Did Nancy Pelosi actually say that Vladimir Putin is raping Ukrainian women in front of their children? I continue to have no words for the obvious psychopaths who are our so called leaders.
> he already won the support of the overwhelming majority of convention delegates, who are required to support him.
Rules changes before the beginning of the National Convention? Perhaps require a publicly disclosed cognitive assessment of each candidate (the “big” one that can’t be gamed, mentioned by Dr Tom Pitts in a NBC appearance), without which delegates cannot be seated?
That would not be a bad policy for future conventions, and might pressure the Rs to do the same in future.
Remember how the Dems argued in court that they were a private corporation not bound by the results of primaries? Those pledged delegates and the rules don’t mean anything if enough people in charge decide to nominate someone else.
“might pressure the Rs to do the same in future.”
I hope you brought enough for everybody!
(Hedley Lamarr)
Sadly, I did not.
At a minimum, it would function like DJT’s taunt at the Debate, that DJT would take a cognitive test and make the results public if JRB did too.
‘In case you wonder why the freakout among the Dem-connected is rising despite the thuggish Biden enforcement racket, it’s that he is indeed threatening to take the party down with him.’
This does not surprise me at all. It is who he is with that vicious streak in him. If he loses, I’m not saying that he would chuck Molotov cocktails around as he leaves the White House but he is fully capable of wrecking the party that he has been in for decades because as he has told us himself ‘No one f**** with a Biden.’ Instead of going out gracefully and passing the torch to his successor to enjoy his wealth in private life, he is going to use that torch to burn everything down. And that is going to be his legacy and what people will remember him for. Oh, that and starting a proxy war with Russia, enabling a genocide in Gaza, ignoring an ongoing pandemic and flushing the economy down the toilet.
Don’t forget a nuclear holocaust! Why not?
that is the one outcome that will not be remembered (along with everything else humanity ever did).
These days, the Bidens do enough f***ing with themselves.
Pity the poor future PhD student assigned some Biden topic for that dissertation. Eyewash, penicillin, Narcan and whatever might be invented, all to help deal with the thesis advisor follies.
Let’s not forget the all the damage he caused by supporting mandatory minimum sentencing, or his support of student/credit card debt peonage, or his love of inappropriate touching and sniffing. Plenty of things to remember him by.
Where’s Albert Speer when you need him?
I hope Biden stays in the race. The best thing for humanity and the biosphere at this point is for America to self-destruct under its own contradictions.
Agreed.
He should stay in. And when he loses to Trump, that will be when the fun begins! Better to blow up the democratic party (or the uni-party system) than the world as we know it.
I hope GenoJoe will blow up the Dem party. Let’s get that first and then get Trump to blow up the Repug party. We can start with a clean slate then.
Heh. This is where I’m at too.
I will repeat an observation that I made at the end of the comments yesterday, which is that I wonder if Biden is refusing to step down until the DNC + donors pay off his claque, and maybe his Family’s “price” to desist is now more than $200 mil.
This is the Dark Brandon that I can get behind, the one who blackmails all the other people that I hate!!!
That self-destruction is going to be chaotic and painful.
Every day he is still around is like a gift from heaven. There isn’t enough popcorn for this.
You can only hope that something like this happens with Joe’s teleprompter, as it did with ‘ssshrubery in 2006, poor W doesn’t know what to say, and that look in his eyes where he’s searching for mommy!
Bush Blooper – False Start, Immigration Speech, May 15, 2006
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ZlXHCCzaE (1 minute 6 seconds)
I think Obamba had the same moment when he lost his teleprompter.
I hope Biden stays in because he’s an excellent brand ambassador for neoliberalism.
It seems that Biden is immune from any threats from the CIA: he doesn’t have any brains left for them to shoot out.
I realise that nothing more the sheer dementia-fueled stubborness might indeed be at the heart of this but isn’t there also another possibility of a different dynamic that doesn’t seem to be getting much discussion?
Isn’t it posssible that Biden (or his handlers) have already privately decided to step down? But if he were to, for example, step down tomorrow, he (and his important donors) would immediately loose all power and influence of who would succeed him which would open a Pandora’s box that they’d have little control over.
So I’m wondering if Biden is just publically hanging on while the donors work behind the scenes to decide unite upon on a preferred successor (which admittedly is a messy question that may not have an answer) and try to secure them as candidate.
I’m not based in the US, don’t pretend to understand the nuances of US politics and might be completely misunderstanding this so would welcome any reasons why I might be completely wrong about this…
C’mon man, it’s Biden. He’s pure id.
Decency and intellect are two words no one has ever honestly associated with Biden. He’s run for president 3 times, once on hoping no one knew who Kinnock was, once because he was an old white guy, and once because Hillary bombed.
I’m amazed that there are so many people who think Biden is this decent, principled person.
Huh? That’s not at all what I was trying to say here! My point is that the people who are in charge of the democrats presumably want to try to sew up the successor (if they can) and they’re going to have far more leverage to do that before Biden announces his resignation! So it’s potentially the donors’ interests for Biden to not publicly reveal his hand until they’ve agreed upon a successor and they can presumably make it worth his while to agree to this!
(Ahem) He certainly is decent and principled, by a long shot,
compared with his deranged foaming-at-the mouth Mad Dog rival.
Who also has dementia, by the way.
LOL. I pity those Billionaire donors. All they could get for their money were DJT and Biden.
Biden still looks like the lesser of the two evils we are being told to select from.
I can’t help wondering what might have happened if Biden had demonstrated this level of resolve and determination against say Manchin and Sinema when he was purportedly “fighting” to get the larger second stimulus/infrastructure bill passed? An experiment that can’t be run.
Rep Smith is correct on the history. Biden was not hired to beat Trump he was hired to beat Sanders.
Of course, there will be zero self-reflection on how the got here, but every piece of this screams “self own” to me. They just realized they can’t get away with it. Like Clooney up there. No way he’s just now realizing his “good friend” whom he just ran a mega-buck fundraiser for is gone. No way most of them are just now seeing it. They just thought they could sell it, until the debate.
So now it feels like the blame cannons are aiming at the Bidens. “It’s his decision” translates to “He alone owns this loss” to me. Even the blackmail emails (and I’d love to know who is actually behind those. I can’t believe Joe has the mental acuity to play politics at this level anymore) smack of “we had no choice.” No one is willing to say “it didn’t have to be this way.” No one is willing to say “we made a mistake.” The process can not fail, it can only be failed.
I never thought Joe Biden would turn out to be a Trumpian agent of chaos for the destruction of the Democrat party, but here we are. I feel they have a way out of this, but the system they’ve created guarantees it would be career suicide for anyone willing to pull the pin on that grenade. And people like Obama who don’t have to worry about that don’t have the balls or the will to do it. I also feel there’s too many warring factions who only care about growing their slice of the pie for the needed coordination to ever happen.
Ah yes. We are living in interesting times, to be sure.
“… Even the blackmail emails (and I’d love to know who is actually behind those. I can’t believe Joe has the mental acuity to play politics at this level anymore) smack of “we had no choice.”…”
with Hunter now installed at the WH…might this guy be doing some arm-twisting?
““I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter Biden wrote Zhao, according to IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley and another agency investigator who has remained anonymous.”
https://nypost.com/2023/06/22/hunter-biden-used-joe-as-leverage-in-china-biz-deal-text/
Dear Hunter is an obvious culprit. It would go a way towards explaining all the recent stories about his increased involvement in the White House. He may be a crackhead failson, but he’s done his dad’s dirty work before, as we know.
Yes, he could have picked up a lot of new coercion strategies via his Ukraine gig.
Trumpian agent indeed. Trump’s obvious con aside, and despite mostly known to the average citizen/consumer/target, the lifting of the curtain exposing the deep corruption of the Democratic Party and the media’s willing support in providing propaganda, surely paves the way for another ride on the Trump train.
“… a Trumpian agent of chaos for the destruction of the Democrat party…”
That’s a great phrase. And both Trump and Biden are the products of their respective parties and their decades of manipulation. The destruction is well-deserved; if only a desirable replacement was possible.
Exactly! He’s been in pretty apparent decline since somewhere around when he took office. It maybe wasn’t as obvious as now, but, COME ON!, everyone knew it.
Perhaps the CIA will “strongly urge” Biden to move on, thus providing Kamala Harris with the advantage of incumbency as she seeks the presidential nomination.
I see Biden is still treated as a person “menacing to take the Democrats down with him” and so on.
But Biden is so demential he can’t find his own way off-stage, or can’t distinguish what part of his notes should be read and what part should be acted upon.
And no words about who ‘his handlers’ are, that will take those menacing actions.
Joe is his own, personal Samsonite option, as a one-man wrecking crew.
His Secret Service guys must have a hard time keeping a straight face, when not looking around for memories of vicious
dogshumans.You mean this kind of Samsonite?
The better luggage did survive! Will Team Dem?
Actually, I think he meant Samson option, as in pulling down the Temple columns, but I like your interpretation as well!!
And the gorilla is the DNC bagman!
Or is it Gen Joe mad because he didn’t get his way?
Yeah I hope he meant Samsonite too.
Nowdays you can pull down all the columns of all the temples by pressing the red button inside a Samsonite* briefcase.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/putin-filmed-china-accompanied-by-officers-with-russian-nuclear-briefcase-2023-10-18/
*Other brands are available.
The trouble with people ensconced in a bubble is that they have no concept of reality on the ground. It happens to the anyone in the Oval, particularly if they are surrounded by psychopaths, which Biden is : Ron Klein and gang. Then, there’s the age issue that the world can see.
Biden, in one of his interviews alluded to his able team. It begs the question of who’s really running the Ukraine debacle and who’s pushing for the new exports of lethal cluster bombs to Israel. Btw, the already anemic press coverage of the Gaza genocide has subsided, now under the cover that “a cease fire agreement” is imminent – they don’t define, “imminent”.
Meantime, Palestinians keep getting killed, even in the West Bank. And, more illegal construction was announced in the occupied territories. So, who’s running foreign policy.
Pelosi’s Novocain laced wound on Biden shouldn’t be diminished. It’s still a frontal attack.
My feeling was /is that Biden was waiting for the NATO Summit to end “successfully”, to announce his retirement . He ca claim he leaves a united and committed NATO, to up defense spending, for instance. Will see.
One thing that’s surfacing more clearly and pressing is the issue of “wealthy donors” and their outsized influence. Perhaps a saner Congress can begin diluting Citizens United, or we’ll end up as a feudal vassal state to Israel. The insane SCOTUS decision on complete presidential immunity must be eliminated by Congress. Term limits all around are a must. Can’t have judges as lobbyists for special interests, nor elected official getting paid in gold bars.
I’ve spent several years of my life as a carer, working with mostly dementia patients. Dementia rarely accentuates the good part of one’s personality. More often, anger, paranoia and weirdness are magnified.
I’d expect the anger, meanness, and irrationality to increase as Joe further disintegrates. And definitely the stubbornness.
Remind me again that this election is about saving the world \s
All of which Joe had in spades, even before the dementia.
Covid personality disorder caused by viral illness
https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/view/covid-19-traffic-accidents-covid-19-personality-disorder-caused-viral-damage-prefrontal-cortex-
Covid personality disorder caused by viral illness
https://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/view/covid-19-traffic-accidents-covid-19-personality-disorder-caused-viral-damage-prefrontal-cortex-
The Dems see themselves as the Star Wars “Resistance” but Patrick Lawrence says–more correctly–that Biden has become the Dems’ Frankenstein. It’s still a narrative. They just have the wrong one.
In any case the above is scary stuff. And if the party isn’t going to take him down then the press are going to have to step up and finally do their job.
Maybe the Biden legacy building would take the shape of a distant planet, just so very much akin to the Death Star from the first or initial entries of the Star Wars film. Dark Brandon could live forever and onward, in our hearts and minds! \sarc
These are not the classified documents or the laptop you are looking for…to use a convenient Jedi mind trick. Hunter does have that aura of an entitled heir to a movie screen villain.
Maybe he’s (or she’s) waiting for the right price. Secure legacy wealth for the family in off shore accounts. We’re talking about big money donors, after all. Waiting for the check to clear.
I’ve started to come around to the very idea, that an exiting President has greatly benefited from highly connected donors following his term as POTUS. To wit, I don’t have numbers in front of me or how the funds were indeed raised. But no question, it is a remunerative procedure to fund the glowing new building or library. I’m not focusing on the Clinton Global Initiative or the Obama’s production contracts, for what it’s worth.
Bill Clinton, 42nd. 1992 to 2000. Presidential Library.
George Bush, 43rd. 2000 to 2008. Presidential Center at SMU.
Barack Obama, 44th. 2008 to 2016. Presidential Center in Chicago.
Easy to see that Joe, Jill, Hunter, etc…can see the largesse bestowed on the man leaving office and ask the big money questions. What’s in it for us…I mean ” Our Democracy! “. Not sarcasm.
The Clinton’s were crying poverty right before they left the WH, which was likely, considering the meager government income over the years and the heavy legal bills. Fast forward to 2016, and they declared 250 million in personal income (NOT foundation churning) in the period between their WH reign and her running for Queen. 250 million bucks in less than 15 years, and not really employed or running a business. A few years they declared 20 million. Basically, retired. It’s remarkable. Most CEOs say, wow, wtf? Then Obama exits at a fairly young age to book deals, Netflix deals, and half million dollar speeches. Of course they want some of that. Who wouldn’t?
Do not forget that for fourteen years of that she was either a US Senator or the Secretary of State.
Either Bill’s speaking gigs were particularly lucrative. Her books better than I recall. Or they were raking it in better than Joe and Hunter were dealing with crooks across multiple nations.
Clinton Foundation. Joe and Hunter are mere petty criminals.
Found this during a search on the post Clinton office years and the funding and building of his own library which is located in Little Rock. I left Papa Bush # 41 off, given his term in office was just four years. Ah but the Bush family have their bit of history…
And a hit on Marc Rich and the presidential pardon process…not a singular act by any stretch…
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/03/shining-a-light-on-presidential-libraries-the-unrenowned-pay-to-play-scandal/
They can ask the big money questions, but I do have to wonder how much largesse would be bestowed if Biden dies in office. My guess is zero.
President Tyler became POTUS after Harrison died in office.
His opposition never allowed his legitimacy, calling him “Acting President”
Truman had the same situation with Roosevelt. Of course there was a
war going on (Roosevelt died 2 weeks before VE Day.)
No doubt Harris would suffer Tyler’s fate. Republicans want to haul us back to the 1950s, when ‘the Wife’ was supposed to greet him at the front door
after a hard day’s work in a negligee with a martini in hand. Don’t think
they’ve changed at all.
Biden was elected literally by a virus. Trump would have coasted to re-election if the pandemic had not hit and if Trump hadn’t messed it up so badly. It’s hard to even say Biden beat Sanders. The DNC beat Sanders by doing everything they could to stop him, swapping in one candidate after another (Harris, Buttegieg, Bloomberg, Biden, maybe others) like a game of musical chairs. Biden just happened to be the last one seated when the music stopped.
It’s almost Shakespearean. The DNC goes all out to stop Sanders in two elections (2016 and 2020). The result is two Trump terms (2016 and 2024). Nice job, DNC.
Biden just happened to be the last one seated when the music stopped.
There was no “just happened” about it. Biden’s campaign had been on life support for several months. After the first few favored candidates flamed out spectacularly (Kamala, Beto) and the next handful failed to get traction in spite of the best efforts of the DNC (Iowa caucuses etc), the Wizard stepped in to prevent an embarrassing Super Tuesday result. He waved his wand and like magic, the remaining game pieces took themselves off the board in the space of a couple of days, leaving only Biden, Bernie, and Warren, the designated female “progressive” “POC” competition.
So we got President Biden, and here we are. Thanks, Obama.
Noticing the God talk. And now I will comment on the God talk.
George Clooney, who should know better but doesn’t, sez: “I believe in him….[Biden]”
What we are seeing is more of the usual U.S. religion and religious discourse, which is Baptist testifying and Methodist sermonizing. One may claim that Joe Biden’s God talk about his unremovability is Catholic, but only if the Catholic were some deranged Spanish monarch or inbred Habsburg emperor.
George Clooney: Salvation through Biden alone. (If the donors allow.)
So we are getting a kind of altar call. “Brethren and sistren, come down to the altar. Raise your hands to help cure brother Joseph and the Democratic Party. Make sure to drop some moolah in the collection basket.”
Saint Lawrence and his holy grill, pray for us.
As I’ve written before, I am waiting for Democrats to make the rights of labor, of working people, the central issue. Repeal Taft-Hartley. Eliminate right-to-work laws. Single-payer health care. Big raises in Social Security— with full retirement at age 60. Doing so would cause an almost immediate change (for the better) in the Gini quotient.
Otherwise, they’re just speaking in tongues (mainly forked tongues) and testifying.
Give me bread. Give me roses. And, naturalmente, pass the vitello tonnato.
“And, naturalmente, pass the vitello tonnato.”
I’ll take two!
Or the carne salada (have I managed to introduce some real controversy here?)
We can follow with a bicerin, though.
gk: Do you mean this carne salada, as described in the Italian Wiki voce?
Carne salada del Trentino
La carne salada è un salume caratteristico della provincia di Trento, generalmente preparato con tagli di manzo, lingua di vitellone o coscia di cavallo
So long as we keep this in Italian, I have a feeling that we can fly below the “politically incorrect meat radar.”
Bicerin is too rich for me. At the Caffe del Bicerin in the Piazza della Consolata here in the Chocolate City, I always get their lite treat: A corneto filled with panna montata.
In somma, I think we got away with not mentioning “il cavallo,” eh?
> Do you mean this carne salada, as described in the Italian Wiki voce
si
This has become the “Don’t Look Up” Democratic primary.
Really great article, thanks.
Since this started I believed that there is and will be a lot of bargaining going on here. You don’t, if you are a POTUS, just give up. Biden has Democrats scared. My impression is that the Democratic Party which is based on naked ambition of its members is in trouble. It has developed into a party in the need of a hostile takeover sort of like Trumps seizure of power in the RP. I would love it if Biden stays in power with Dr. Jill kind of guiding the administration. I don’t think a cranky Joe will be allowed anywhere near the nuclear button. I’ve been around some crazy people you just praise their cogent insights and pretend to do what they want of persuade them that your idea is really their idea–it works most of the time.
We need to get rid of this “holy” opinion of the POTUS. First, they really are dependent on their alliances with powerful factions who have their back, at best, they are power brokers the real action, in my opinion, is between those power forces. Biden having been in the middle of Washington power brokering for decades has more personal power than most in his office because, as your article indicates, he has the dirt on nearly everyone–and why not if he is able to access NSA/CIA/FBI information. Look how easily the Bidens skated through Hunter’s laptop. They were able to force or persuade spookdom and the media to bury the story and they weren’t even in office!
It’s possible that when the Bidens get their going-away presents they’ll leave the office of Presidency but that price is going to be high. Biden is a player even if he’s got dementia he’s been in hundreds of high-stakes poker games in Congress and knows how to read the room. Nothing I like better than to see the Democrats squirm–and I don’t favor the Republicans but they are going through major changes that might be good despite Trump’s show-biz antics.
You really get the impression that there are some Game of Thrones level games going on behind the scenes. I was struck by the number of articles yesterday, some in NC Links, that implied the Democrats were about to crumble in their attempts to oust ol’ Joe. Then I watched NBC News last night and its coverage was *strongly* leaning into the Pelosi/Clooney line. The factions are spinning like crazy – or in the case of the Biden critics just allowing the truth to be reported for once.
It’s always striking when a faction of the Establishment decides to change course. Whether it’s Afghanistan, Israel, COVID, or Biden’s mental faculties, stories that challenge what was the dominant narrative yesterday suddenly start appearing in the media. That’s the only reason to watch the NBC Nightly News – to track the narrative shifts. This is getting to be pretty entertaining.
When I watched the debate I didn’t freak out because Biden seemed kind of Bidenesque and not particularly out of it because he always seems kind of out of it to me. I think certain factions were waiting to do something they’ve thought of for some time. I think Biden’s walkabout he tried at the G7 turned a lot of heads in the international power elite. At this sensitive time the head of state of the country at the center of an empire cannot be made to appear silly in public. That, not the debate, is what brought the party hacks and their media partners to lay in wait and pounce.
Yes, if you’re referring to the parachutists incident. The striking thing was that after Meloni tried to bring Biden back to the group, and it wasn’t going easily, instead of pushing it and so calling attention to it, the others simply regrouped around him — all at once, like it was choreographed. What it said to me, immediately and viscerally, is that they all knew. They all knew he wasn’t all there.
Yes but it was also very symbolic. Europe flowing USA around no matter how deranged it behaves.
What I can’t figure out is why did the people closest to Biden allow him to debate at all? It put out in public, for all to witness, the degree of his condition whatever medically that may be. If Biden was being protected, and his condition hidden from the public view, by his staff and the media then the debate represented tremendous downside risk and little upside. Why not just cancel the debate and make up an excuse about not willing to debate a known felon.
Drugs. The goal was to knock Trump out early. They were pushing the debate. Then they could settle into collecting money and watch Trump squirm at sentencing. With early voting and Trump having money problems after the knock out blow, Biden taking a dump on stage in September wouldn’t matter.
Biden was probably supposed to lost how much more right wing he is than Trump which is part of a 3rd Way madness.
What I can’t figure out is why did the people closest to Biden allow him to debate at all?
As adam smith notes biden was there to beat sanders, and although sanders is so over now he left scars in the psyche of the “elite” donors who control the party so there could be no primary where alternative policies not sought by said donors could get air time. Narrative control ala free markets and we’re a capitalist country! are the required discourse. I think this, by the way, is an interesting exposure, the very undemocratic democrats… So my tin foil hat says they (donors) planned all along to ditch him and replace at the convention with we will soon find out who.
I think this gets pretty close to the truth. The Democratic party brass didn’t want anything resembling an open primary, didn’t want to have to talk about Gaza, Medicare for All, college tuition, or anything else that might ruffle the feathers of donors so it was agreed to have Biden stay in at least that long.
My own pet conspiracy theory is that the debate was early and the media pretty consistent in telling Biden to step down in the immediate aftermath because that was the plan. The debate was a sort of hit job, but something went sideways during the process. Maybe Biden is too far gone to play his part and his narcissism and selfishness took over. Maybe a lot of the other support in the Democratic party they’d counted on dried up when the moment came A lot of people got cold feet and decided not to press the issue of replacing Biden out of sheer cowardice. It has a bit of the flavor of a botched coup, and if that’s the metaphor we’re running with the likely outcome is a consolidation of power around Biden as he drifts deeper into mad king territory, God help us all.
Also, Biden plays a tough guy. He’s luke an old war heeler in presentation versus bleeding hearts. Many Team Blue types.are terrified of being called wimps. Biden makes them feel tough. He has.to debate.
Because, as some speculate, they wanted him to, and early, so they had time for a convention coup.
Pritzker and Newsom would be too risky as they would bring state Dems to DC displacing the ilk of Neera. They can’t rely on another Obama who just had no interest in filling jobs with loyalists. Bill Clinton brought his own people displacing the wise men of DC.
I think it was a combination of both the pro & anti Biden factions thinking they would get something out of it.
The pro-Biden faction made up of his close advisors knows he is fading rapidly and will not be up for a debate later in the year. Get the debate out of the way while the drugs can still do enough to let him make it through it. They see Trump as their main threat, so maximizing Biden’s performance against Trump was their goal.
The anti-Biden faction wanted to launch a coup and needed a “because” to hang it on. The bad debate performance was the perfect opportunity to get the party started. They see Biden as the main threat (not Trump), and believe that the presidency will belong to whomever the Democrats nominate.
They waited until after the primaries were through, then put Biden out there in the earliest ever debate, so he could be replaced at the convention by a backroom deal free of meddlesome voters. The convention would become interesting, and a fabulous coronation for the Swift-Harris 2024 campaign.
Biden is deluded about how impaired he is. His inner team must have convinced themselves that because they could juice him up enough to get through 20-40 minute performances, with enough rest and better living through chemistry, they could get him through a 90 minute debate.
My middle brother (who has a freaky good memory for details of the B movies he loves) recently re-watched the original Star Trek episode, The Deadly Years. In it, the key members of the crew, including Kirk, get an accelerated aging condition. I can’t find any really good clips on YouTube, but my brother reports that there are very strong parallels between Kirk refusing to give up his command and Biden now. So this behavior really is prototypical.
Thanks for this. One of The Shat’s more interesting performances.
He may be deluded about his mental acuity, but I’m sure he recognizes his substantial physical deterioration. I’m an active, fit, septuagenarian,near Biden, and diminished balance, eyesight, and general strength/coordination declines rapidly after 75. It’s hard to ignore the inevitable.
Strong parallels indeed. Kirk ages dramatically, but denies that he has any problem.
The crew of the Enterprise end up holding a hearing to relieve him from command.
Whole episode here:
The Deadly Years TOS S02E12.
https://dai.ly/x75zlx4
However, the parallels end, at least for me, in that whereas I could feel sympathy for Kirk, being the victim of an unknown form of radiation, I feel no sympathy for Biden, and hope he sticks it out to the bitter, ignominious end, causing the most damage possible.
I’m also of the inner circle thought they could get by with drugs. And either they didn’t get him the dose early enough (as he improved over the course of the debate) or they really aren’t clear what dosages work anymore as he has deteriorated since the SOTU.
And I would add that just as they have been deluded at Russia’s abilities, China’s smarts and how feral the Israelis are, they honestly believed that Trump was in as bad or worse condition than Joe is. That gagging him with the no microphones on during the other’s turn and the pressure he has been under would cause him to crack and look really awful to the audience. They weren’t counting on him just lying. (And he didn’t do as much of that as they try to portray.) Just for the record that wasn’t their only underestimation of how bad things are, I don’t think Biden could have managed to debate Trump and win with the public anymore even if the drugs had worked. He really wasn’t that coherent during the SOTU and that was scripted.
It was an all around miscalculation, one of their abilities to goose Joe and two of their opponent’s state.
I keep thinking that if the status quo holds, and Biden hangs on through November and purportedly “wins”, how does that play out? If he manages to claim a narrow win in the midst of polls showing him losing every swing state how do they manage to legitimize that result?
When I imagine the domestic unrest of the MSDNC types insisting they won the election, I recoil in horror. The Jan 6 incident will seem trivial by comparison. I’m expecting 2 SOTUs next year.
I think we will see the effects of our elites maintaining an untenable status quo very soon. And I think unfortunately that because they’ve made change impossible they’ve made revolution inevitable. But with respect to your comment, as Yves and others have been saying, if the Democrats truly believe this is an existential election and our country (and their money!) is on the line, then they can’t let Trump win.
One way or the other I think we’re going to see another revolt in January 2025. Only question now is who’s leading it.
1. There is no way Biden will win in November, and this has been apparent (to me) since 2022.
2. Even assuming he does win, there’s no way he’s making it 4 more years as either his brain or his body will expire well before 2028.
This is what bugs me the most: everyone is laser- focused on the election when anyone with a functioning brain can understand that he’s not fit, whether that be mentally, physically, or emotionally, to govern for 4 more years. That is the large problem, and is completely undemocratic as nobody is voting for his eventual replacement.
Thank you for your Divine prescience, My Lord and God
Well, the R’s have been very busy these past 4 years appointing county commissioners
in swing states who have sworn not to certify a Biden win,
Well the amusing thing if the Bidens really are viciously fighting for Joe to remain (and I don’t for a moment doubt IM Doc was told this, but do not know his sources) is that once again they are trashing Democratic memes regarding the Trumps, in this case it would be the unprecedented criminal and unethical actions of Trump’s children and family. Especially since in this case the people running the retaliation threat have to be Biden’s wife, btother and son maybe even the daughter with key associates. Blackmail and extortion may be the norm in the Beltway, but it is still criminal. And that doesn’t even take into account what classified sources Joe and family must have plundered to have this dirt.
I think it also confirms what we all knew, the German shepherds weren’t bad dogs they had really really bad owners.
Big brain, big heart, high profile, southern born, women love him – George Clooney for POTUS would make Trump eat dirt, and the world would breath a sigh of relief.
The DNC have shown with the shafting of Bernie Sanders (twice) that they can do what the hell they like, so it is all a matter of their political will (or won’t, as the case may be), aided and abetted by their deep pocketed donors of course.
Here’s what their will is, in the immortal words of Charles Hugh Smith:
“…the fate of the entire global economy now rests on the mumblings of a fossilized Politburo fanatically devoted to making the rich richer…”
It is a self-serving kleptocratic oligarchy. It will do whatever lines its pockets, and nothing else. It would be amusing if some grossly wealthy people tried to bribe the DNC to do something useful or noble, but don’t hold your breath looking for that. Because apparently no one gets grossly wealthy by doing the right thing.
“No matter how cynical you get, it’s impossible to keep up.”
Lily Tomlin
Good to see mention of the word Politburo. It was my impression in the 70s and 80s that the West used to ridicule the geriatric Soviet leadership. My, how things have changed in the West!
I remember the comedians doing this routinely. And yes, things have certainly changed.
Cue “The ABC’s of Dead Russian Leaders” in 3…2…
The black female base (publicly credited for Biden’s 2020 win) is not going to accept Kamala being leapfrogged by a white man
They’ll be told to shut up and vote blue, and they will. They’ll get nothing for it because they never do. Wash, rinse, repeat …
All you need to do is to remember just how maliciously Biden treated Stacey Abrams ON LIVE TV.
Christopher, as a Black man I could (pretend) that your words are insulting and to an extent they are, because they’re true and the truth hurts a little because of the Black women who blindly, mindlessly, and recklessly support the Dems -vote Blue No Matter Who-are insulting.
They insult my intelligence. They’re even insulting enough to carry the “Black man are disaffected because of disinformation” garbage, oblivious to how that term is one of the most weaponized terms on earth and that its usage will always inure to the benefit of the power structures they claim to be up in arms about those who are non-compliant.
I personally intend to sit this election out but believe the Black and Hispanic support for Trump will be shocking post-election. Black folks who consider themselves Christian and church-goers allow Genocide and Lock Em Up Joe into their houses of worship and push abortion rights is if it’s the ultimate civil rights issue on earth, forget homelessness, starvation, drug addiction/overdose, sex/human trafficking and most of all, the imminent possibility of nuclear war. These idiots think its more we’re more likely to be put back in chains than vaporized by a nuke.
It’s pathetic that you can’t be nuanced. Joe Biden is and likely remains one of the most racist and opportunistic politicians in US history if for no other reason than his longevity in office.
When it comes to Trump the levels of TDS in Black folks is shocking…they parrot Whoopi Goldberg’s demented comments about voting for a corpse over Trump. They are hoodwinked on nonsense like being scared of “Project 2025″…”ooohh, look out, they’re going to make us sharecroppers again.” 90% haven’t read the table of contents to the 922 pages of tired bromides published by the Heritage Foundation over the past 5 plus decades
I tell the bed-wetters, “Shut up, you will get up and go to work like every day if Trump is re-elected.” Gas was $1.95 under Trump, inflation under control, no imminent WW3, only hot spots, quiet and transactional hegemony like stealing gas, oil, and wheat from Syria or stealing from taxpayers by funding Afghanistan military occupation debacle.
The Democrats are a bigger cult than MAGA by far, because they own and control all of the instruments and levers of power, in Big Tech and Pharma, Wall St., Hollywood, popular culture, the majority of media outlets, and the intelligence/MIC leadership. That is on full display and is not debatable. The truth has nothing to do with your ideology in this instance.
The Black Zombies who Vote Blue No Matter Who are either invested in feeding from the $ trough as consultants, advisors, activists, or grantees or scared shitless from listening to the 24/7/365 propaganda from MSM–CNN, MSDNC in particular. They lack the talent and creativity and integrity to create a something anew, perhaps a Black Voting Bloc and say: “These are my 7 top agenda items, I won’t compromise on 3 out of 7 but will on the others, who wants to dance?
Everyone please ignore the chatter and noise and click bait and phony prognostications about who is asking or suggesting Genocide Joe step down. Sleepy’s not doing it! Over his literal dead body, perhaps, but that’s it! That is not to say he’ll physically last until November, that’s a serious question mark.
I hope he stays in the race and the DUMMOCRATS suffer an ignominious defeat that will sting for decades. The only threat to democracy is from those who don’t even bother to pretend a democracy exists when “democracy” gets in their way. Has it ever been more crystal clear that the oligarchs select presidents? Objectively speaking Genocide Joe is speaking truth to the power of the oligarchs when he says he got the most votes. Is he lying like his handlers have lied to us since 2020? Now the oligarchs who gave us “Weekend at Bernie’s” are upset because we aren’t laughing at the ending of the mini-series called the White House presidency.
“Now is Not The Time” ™
Clyburne will whip them back in line.
This idea that the bidens will start dishing career-ending dirt on other dems unless they back off is really intriguing.
The weird internet threat to mark warner and his subsequent meeting cancellation deserved a lot more scrutiny than it got IMNSHO.
If they are really serious about dumping joe, I think they’ll have to use the 25th Amendment, instigated by kamala “for the good of the country,” forcing him out of the presidency altogether before the election. They’ll just have to spin the who-knew-what-when fallout by saying with one voice that his deterioration was really, really “rapid.”
The relief at his being gone would probably be so monumental that nobody would even question the obvious bullshit.
This idea that the bidens will start dishing career-ending dirt on other dems unless they back off is really intriguing.
Right? All I can say is…”Please do!”
It’s like when you go to the laundry basket and the cleanest shirt far too dirty and now what to do?
Buy another shirt, but you can’t go to the store nekkid so …comedy ensues…
To put the tin foil on….I presume that MarkWarner spoke up because he is likely oneof the “cleanest” politicansin DC—independently wealthy and avoided sleaze.(Hence his chair of the Senate intel committee
That would be my hunch.
Though if he wasn’t a congressional staffer but a telecom lobbyist back I the day, he might not be that fabulously wealthy.
I would classify him as one of those mythical “good republicans.” The few that were real became Democrats with the 3rd way.
He was not as great of a governor as has been made out, very good still, but he didn’t have any of the sleazy ppps Kaine signed, even though Warner likes them in theory.
As Governor, he was given credit on the wrong end, but he worked over key Republicans to get their votes.
Warner did UVa no favors with his appointments to the Board of Visitors who were intent on turning Mr. Jefferson’s university into University of Phoenix.
Dunno. According to Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse, warner is up to his eyeballs in the Russiagate/Steele Dossier/duping of the FISA court/leaks to ali watkins at nyt/IC soft coup against the Trump presidency shit.
According to Sundance, it’s why warner was tapped to replace feinstein on the committee–she had neither the balls nor the marbles to pull it off.
At any rate, that obscure “threat” was pretty effective.
The 25th requires a 2/3 congressional majority if the president refuses to go. Hard to picture. You’d think the GOP would want Joe to stay in the race.
Fair point, but I continue to think that the so-called republicans don’t want a Trump win any more than the so-called dems do.
Just as the republicans are not all of one mind on Trump (but moreso than they used to be), so are the Democrats divided on Biden. I’d bet all kinds of money that a 2/3 majority could not be reached in the House.
That’s would be the plot twist of all plot twists: it won’t be either Biden or Trump come Nov.
I continue to maintain that the only person that will remove Biden is himself. I still haven’t seen a real action taken to knife him, just half baked pleading which is not going to work.
Joe has stated that he answers only to “The Lord Almighty”. So if he does step down, somebody needs to get the vatican to open a file on the miracle that has just occurred. He may end up being re-elected and beatified a twofer.
Biden: “It would take the Lord Almighty to get me to drop out”
US dollar: “In God We Trust”
“If god meant to interfere in the degeneracy of man wouldn’t he have done so by now?”
He is but Biden is refusing to get the memo. Biden as a supposedly good Catholic does not have a direct relationship with God, so his demand that God has to tell him personally to drop out is sacrilegious. If God were at all interested, there’s plenty here for him to be less than pleased about. That’s before getting to wee matters like backing genocide in Gaza.
Biden answers to Mammon, and as we see above, Mammon is starting to speak.
Do you think that the Pope, the next best thing to God for many practicing Catholics, would ever find it in his heart to excommunicate Biden, and boot him out of the Body of Christ? Biden’s penance, to absolve him of his sins, and to be readmitted to the Church, would be to repent and resign the presidency. His resignation would work then as a papal get-out-of-hell free card. Bingo!
<Do you think that the Pope, the next best thing to God for many practicing Catholics, would ever find it in his heart to excommunicate Biden, and boot him out of the Body of Christ?
No. Pope is too busy excommunicating conservative defenders of the faith like Vigano.
<Biden as a supposedly good Catholic does not have a direct relationship with God, so his demand that God has to tell him personally to drop out is sacrilegious.
I don't think that is an accurate description of Catholic theology. At a minimum in the Eucharist they see sharing in the body, blood, soul, and divinity with Christ, which seems pretty "direct" to me.
The Eucharist is a ritual and not a one to one tailored message. Only members of the Catholic church hierarchy interpret God’s wishes to the flock.
Or authorize the interpretations of the charismatic through the canonization process. But I don’t think I need claim the charism of prophecy to predict that there wont be a St. Joe Biden parish down the srreet from the Shrine of the Little Flower or the Basilica of Our Lady if Victory.
One man’s sacrilege is another’s song lyric:
“Get in line in that processional,
Step into that small confessional.
There the guy who’s got religion’ll
Tell you if your sin’s original.
If it is, try playin’ it safer,
Drink the wine and chew the wafer,
Two, four, six, eight,
Time to transubstantiate!”
The Vatican Rag – Tom Lehrer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvhYqeGp_Do
The best middle-eight lyrics ever! (And the rest of the son’s not bad, either. . . .)
“. . . the rest of the sonG’s not bad, either. . . .”
(I think my handheld mini-monolith’s micro-chiclet keyboard wants me to look foolish.)
Even God has a pretty bleak track record on peace in the Middle East.
He was the bugger that started it all in the first place!
God Gave this Land to Me.
Thanks for that, was thinking about this agit-prop kitsch und schlock masterpiece recently, which I remember hearing as a kid on the radio. Ah, those 60’s crooners and lush orchestrations sure made the displacement go down smoothly…
There is a great video out there somewhere on that theme, it starts with Cain murdering Abel and just goes on and on from there, in an orgy of violence that would make a John Wick movie look tame.
Never mind, looks like Jokerstein found it.
fwiw
https://x.com/DanaBashCNN/status/1811088108013707628
video at the link
I would not be at all surprised if Joe Biden ( America’s first lesbian President!) died before the convention and I would be quite surprised if he lived long enough to be sworn in next January.
The Biden Family is very likely to act in a way that is consistent with their past behavior, Nordstream comes to mind.
Which does mean attacking everyone one they can, with no limits and no regard to the consequences to the Party or the Nation.
This includes pressuring Chutkan to jail Trump.
It will be interesting to see what Merrick Garland does with the criminal perjury referrals of Jim and Hunter Biden, as a consummate courtier he has an excellent sense of when the wind is changing direction.
With any luck they will burn the Democratic Party to the ground.
Pelosi sounds worse than Biden. Soused and loose dentures.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/10/us/politics/kamala-harris-donald-trump.html
July 10, 2024
Harris Sharpens Her Attacks on Trump
The vice president told a crowd of roughly 20,000 in Dallas that former President Donald J. Trump had said he would terminate the Constitution in a second term.
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Vice President Kamala Harris stepped up her attacks on former President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday as she said in Dallas that Mr. Trump would round up his political enemies, deport peaceful protesters and terminate the Constitution in a second term.
“Consider: Donald Trump has openly vowed if re-elected he’ll be a dictator on day one, that he will weaponize the Department of Justice against his political enemies, round up peaceful protesters and throw them out of our country and even, and even and I quote, ‘terminate’ the United States Constitution,” Ms. Harris said….
‘terminate’ the United States Constitution,”.
It couldn’t happen to a better Constitution – it amazes me as a European (not that I’m claiming any superiority in these matters – viz British ‘unwritten’ constitution) to see how this ‘Constitution’ is so venerated. It was written by a bunch of Neo-aristocrats to perpetuate an aristocracy, and it has done so, while inspiring the loyalty of the downtrodden and deluded masses. Quite a feat, really.
Well, yes, It has taken 235 years for this level of corruption and dysfunction to happen, and it was created by the neo-aristocrats, with the Constitution is now more ignored than followed today, but in the past it wasn’t, or at least not as much. Unfortunately, all political systems are subject to this process of increasing corruption. Some systems are saved by reform, which happened here during the Progressive Era and by the American Civil War, but many are not. We will see what happens to the United States of America and its Constitution and the Bill of Rights, won’t we?
Aside from defending their privileges from the masses, aristocrats were greatly afraid of “tyranny” at all levels, which now exist under our beloved oligarchs, just look at the steady erosion of all the rights listed in the Bill of Rights (or by the cowards in the Cabinet ignoring the 25th Amendment) or by our current President and Vice President. I believe that they would prefer a lack of corruption regardless of the system of leadership: democratic, aristocratic and king as oppose to the mob, oligarchy, and dictatorship as there is a difference. All their failsafes and warnings have steadily eroded and ignored since the Spanish American War or 126 years.
Foolish fellows thought there would be reasonable levels of logic and honor among the elected officials. Had no way of knowing how insanely corrrupt these folks could get, nor of how incompetent and corrupt the ‘fourth estate’ could become.
The constitution was destroyed long ago by the duopoly.
Everyone in the country wearing a camo baseball hat driving a pickup truck knows the Constitution better than that dim bulb.
Don’t some Dems also want to terminate the Constitution, get rid of the Supreme Court, Electoral College etc? As Turley points out Biden boasted about bypassing the Constitution on student loans and–some of us would say–on vaccine mandates, shutdowns. He was against it before he was for it.
Alternately Kamala’s hot air is even hotter than Biden’s and Trump’s. Perhaps Trump started it with his many insults but the Dems seem happy to play the same tune. It doesn’t become them–seems kind of desperate.
I have found the Democrat aghastitude at Trump, democracy and the Constitution to be ‘illuminating’ over the last few years. There is not one thing they accuse him of wanting to do or doing that they themselves have not done. Eliminating elections – check. Ignoring the Constitution – check. Using the legal system against their opponent – check, check, check. Committing war crimes – check. Lying and corruption – check.
(And just so that people can discount me, I personally believe that the attack on Congress on January 6th was fully coordinated not by Trump and friends but by the FBI, Intelligence community, DC Police, people in place in the Capitol Police and a bipartisan cabal of members of Congress – not the least of which was Pelosi and McConnell.)
Call me a cynic, but I think that many of the folks calling for Biden’s ouster are hoping that Harris will replace people like Lina Khan, Gary Gensler, Rohit Chopra, (now departed) Marty Walsh, etc. with corporatist drones.
It’s why you see all the noise about this coming from conservaDems.
The “Radical Centrists” are following the Boies Penrose aphorism, “Yes, but I’ll preside over the ruins.”
It seems pretty obvious that the “brain trust” surrounding Biden, apparently now including the indispensable Hunter, is in turmoil over the prospect of losing their elevated roles in bringing about the further collapse of the empire. Of course, if Biden does step down (we can always hope), they will be like rats abandoning the proverbial ship.
But it really remains one of those great mysteries that the DNC could actually continue to support a 2nd term for this guy. He appears more and more to have no chance against the megalomaniac Trump. And how could one in good conscience vote for him? Apart from his nonchalant dismissals of a grinding genocide in Gaza, he has always been the friend of any war on the horizon. His history in the Senate has shown him to be a corporate shill, despite the “Joe Lunchbucket” persona we are persuaded to swallow. But he can still be remembered as the “Working Class Hero,”or Scranton Joe: If he really wants to do something momentus, and win the admiration of those who might still care about this country, he can do it in a heartbeat: RESIGN NOW
Regardless of what he does at this point, because it simply CANNOT wipe clean his sordid slate, this lying, corrupt war criminal deserves ZERO admiration.
Will Miranda write a new musical on all this farce? WHat will be the spin on it?
NYT just now:
The Embattled Biden Campaign Tests Kamala Harris’s Strength vs. Trump
Wake me when it’s over (if its ever over).
Greenwald last night excoriated the press. (We’ve always been at war with East Asia.
Silly Orwell, it’s West Asia (“the Middle East”) we’re always at war with.
Can’t believe it’s Biden or his family that wants to know that, maybe the former donors.
I’d be very surprised if she beats trump.
The great critic, H.L.Mencken, wrote about America after the US Civil War. What he describes, in amusing detail, is a land that built NO lasting foundations, unlike W. European/Britain.
An Ad Hoc approach with swarming demagogues, pedagogues, never allowed America to become an actual “civilization.”
Even Oscar Wilde, when visiting the US, observed:
“America is the ONLY country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.”
Between Wilde, Mencken and other adroit Europeans, it pretty much sums up America.
We can expect no better today.
I’ve been developing a deep interest in the Soviet Union of the 1980s. Anyone else? And is Covid our Chernobyl?
Best-ever advice from a doctor: I told them all they should give up on the politics [family blog] and use their money to actually help people.