We do hope you’re feeling better, Mtierney, or will be shortly. It’s horrid, feeling under the weather especially in Spring.

I’m very grateful for my new migraine meds; just wish they’d work on my newly broken wrist.

mtierney - are you happy with your candidate's memorial day post?  Can you compare it with any other past president's Memorial Day message?

Happy Memorial Day to All, including the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country, & to the Radical Left, Trump Hating Federal Judge in New York that presided over, get this, TWO separate trials, that awarded a woman, who I never met before (a quick handshake at a celebrity event, 25 years ago, doesn’t count!), 91 MILLION DOLLARS for “DEFAMATION.” She didn’t know when the so-called event took place - sometime in the 1990’s - never filed a police report, didn’t have to produce the “dress” that she threatened me with (it showed negative!), & sung my praises in the first half of her CNN Interview with Alison Cooper, but changed her tune in the second half - Gee, I wonder why (UNDER APPEAL!)? The Rape charge was dropped by a jury! Or Arthur Engoron, the N.Y. State Wacko Judge who fined me almost 500 Million Dollars (UNDER APPEAL) for DOING NOTHING WRONG, used a Statute that has never been used before, gave me NO JURY, Mar-a-Lago at $18,000,000 - Now for Merchan!

Also - do you like the rhetoric that he and other GOPers are using that that raid on Mar-a-lago was an attempt to "plan to assassinate" T****?

In regards to soldiers - do you like his rhetoric - like how he doesn't like people who get captured - like McCain?  Can you even explain to me what that means - I suppose McCain must of had a choice to no be captured?  What should have happened when he was shot down and was severely injured?  Should he have killed himself to asvoid being "captured"?

While in Paris:

When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris, in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.

Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

Rather than attempt to respond to Jamie’s tirade — I am way too into my malaise of the past week to take on  his staccato Trumpian  issues — I came across this item and it actually cheered me up! No mean feat! What is that expression, “hoisted on one’s own petard?” Or, maybe, being stuck between a rock and a hard place?”

Unsinkable Kamala Harris

A party that lives by identity politics is now trapped by identity politics.

By

May 27, 2024 at 5:00 pm ET

(5 min)

Scarcely four weeks from the first presidential debate of 2024, Democrats dream of President Biden’s stepping aside for a more appealing candidate. But there is a hitch.

For starters, a convention switcheroo is all but impossible unless the president agrees—and he and the rest of the Biden family show no sign they’re ready to go. And even if someone did manage to persuade Mr. Biden stepping aside was the right thing to do, there’s a bigger problem. Her name is Kamala Harris, and identity politics gives her an effective veto over any plans to swap out candidates.

It’s an extraordinary power considering her political weakness. A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll released last week reported that she is now the favored replacement on the Democratic ticket if President Biden were to step down. But when it came to head-to-head match-ups with Donald Trumpin seven swing states, the same poll reported Ms. Harris trailing in all of them, by margins ranging from 3 points in Michigan to 10 in North Carolina.

That’s not surprising in light of her performance these past four years. Whenever Ms. Harris has been in the news, it’s typically been for her high staff turnover or the word salads she serves up regularly.

The one significant portfolio Mr. Biden gave her was the border with Mexico. She made one visit, and has since given it a wide berth. She rightly recognizes it’s a loser for the Biden administration. But for all her insistence that she’s dealing with the “root causes” driving the illegal crossings, the whole country understands that the problem has metastasized under her watch.

So if the party is to have a stronger ticket heading into November, it probably means dumping both Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris. But that raises the uniquely Democratic problem of identity politics. Could the Democratic Party today really pass over its black, female, Indian-American vice president for any one of the white candidates usually mentioned as replacements for Mr. Biden?

Even the vice president’s estranged father has been critical. When Ms. Harris in a radio interview invoked her dad’s side of the family to explain that she had both smoked pot and inhaled—“half my family’s from Jamaica!”—her dad, a retired Stanford economist, complained that their ancestors were having their names tarnished “in the pursuit of identity politics.”

It helps to remember how she got her job, after being forced to drop out of the Democratic primaries before a single vote was cast. Back in March 2020, before Mr. Biden tapped Ms. Harris to be his running mate, he announced he would choose a woman. This followed a similar promise before the South Carolina Democratic primary to appoint an African-American woman to the Supreme Court. In short, Mr. Biden has made no bones about his appeals to identity politics to get votes.

This embrace of identity politics may have been cynical, but it worked. Black voters, who constitute the majority of Democrats in South Carolina, rescued Mr. Biden after an embarrassing fourth-place showing in the Iowa caucuses and fifth-place showing in New Hampshire.

Now Ms. Harris is on the campaign trail trying to shore up the president’s standing with women and African-Americans. Support for Mr. Biden has been slipping with the latter demographic, which he really needs to turn out for him if he is to defeat Mr. Trump. So giving Ms. Harris the old heave-ho in favor of a white politician such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would probably backfire and further divide the party.

The only way Democrats might get away with it at this point is to nominate Michelle Obama. But the former first lady shows no desire to insert herself into the election mess that Mr. Biden has created for himself.

That leaves the vice president untouchable. Perversely that probably helps Mr. Biden because it means that Democrats who are calling for him to step down must think twice if Ms. Harris is the replacement. And if she’s not, they face the prospect of heading into the election having alienated a large chunk of Democratic voters.

Martin Luther King Jr. looked forward to an America where people would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Identity politics works the other way. In the Biden White House, people selected for their racial or gender identities are politically difficult to let go if it turns out they aren’t up to the job—because that isn’t why they were hired in the first place.

By making clear that he cared less about whether his picks were the best than he did about whether they checked some identity box, the president unfairly cast doubt on the competence of all such hires. The result is what the nation now sees with Ms. Harris, clearly in over her head but impossible to dislodge.

May is Asian-American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage month. At a Rose Garden celebration earlier this month to mark the occasion, the president introduced himself to the crowd with a joke. “My name is Joe Biden,” he said. “I work for Kamala Harris.”

His embrace of naked identity politics means it’s truer than he knows

“I am way too into my malaise of the past week to take on his staccato Trumpian issues — I came across this item and it actually cheered me up! No mean feat! What is that expression, “hoisted on one’s own petard?” Or, maybe, being stuck between a rock and a hard place?”

So this obsession with Kamala is actually a cheerful one…that’s a good thing. Please vote Blue in November, it’s gonna put you in good spirits for the next few years…

Growing up in NYC, I was delighted to wake up to a clip of Bobby DeNiro, expressing his feelings about Trump which I felt all of my life. Growing up not far from Trump and living in Manhattan where most of us thought of him as a jerk I grinned as I heard DeNiro spell it out. 

The Oscar-winning actor gave a press conference on behalf of the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris presidential campaign outside the Manhattan court where closing arguments in hush money trial were underway.

De Niro traded barbs with Trump supporters after his speech in which he spoke of the January 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol, and his love for New York City.

"I love this city. I don't want to destroy it," De Niro said. "Donald Trump wants to destroy not only the city but the country, and, eventually, he could destroy the world."

"But [Donald Trump] doesn't belong in my city... We New Yorkers used to tolerate him when he was just another grubby real estate hustler masquerading as a big shot," the actor said. "A two-bit playboy lying his way into the tabloids... a clown...

This city is pretty accommodating. We make room for clowns. We have them all over the city—people who do crazy things in the street. We tolerate it, it's part of the city's culture but not a person like Trump who will eventually run the country. That does not work and we all know that."

Jaytee said:

Morganna said:

Agree but wondering why Biden or at least his team are not announcing the never ending record breaking market numbers, Trump used to hold press conferences and announce almost daily every time the Dow moved and every new unemployment number. At least Morning Joe has Andrew Ross Sorkiin or Steve Ratner on giving updates.

They need to talk to people. Trump was out there ad nauseum with his signature marker, every time he signed a bill. 

Get the Lincoln Project to create ads.

Hire Donny Deutsch for some marketing to the middle. 

It’s frustrating! The only thing I can think of is Biden is waiting for summer to really crank it up. 

I know.  It's so weird, it's almost like Joe Biden isn't a good candidate.

If only someone could have foreseen this.

It really is getting crazy.  In modern times, has there ever been an incumbent President who was this unpopular with his own party?  

Jimmy Carter maybe? I was pretty young back then but I don't remember this sort of antipathy amongst Democrats.

Young people hate Biden and call him Genocide Joe, Zionist feel that his opponent would be a better friend to the Israeli Apartheid State, black people think he has forgotten them, white middle class voters blame (wrongly) Bidenomics for inflation.  Even Latino voters are supporting Trump in ever greater numbers for reasons I can't even imagine.

Biden has built a remarkable coalition...... against his own reelection.

Which sort of explains the insane lawfare directed at Trump — no one ever considered him a boy scout, it’s not like Trump himself pretended to be anyone but who he was — so, to prop up the very unpopular Biden/Harris, the hunt to throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks took off in earnest with the decades old Stormy Daniels he said/she said tittle tattle.  It was not the court’s finest hour.

If I were a Democrat (my father would be so proud) I would have to ask why there are no other candidates lined up to pick up the Biden pieces as he appears to be  struggling to stay erect these days. O, silly me, I forgot about the first female president of color standing in the wings! Mr Unpopular and Mis Unpopular, side by side!  God help us all!

mtierney said:

Which sort of explains the insane lawfare directed at Trump — no one ever considered him a boy scout, it’s not like Trump himself pretended to be anyone but who he was — so, to prop up the very unpopular Biden/Harris, the hunt to throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks took off in earnest with the decades old Stormy Daniels he said/she said tittle tattle.  It was not the court’s finest hour.

If I were a Democrat (my father would be so proud) I would have to ask why there are no other candidates lined up to pick up the Biden pieces as he appears to be  struggling to stay erect these days. O, silly me, I forgot about the first female president of color standing in the wings! Mr Unpopular and Mis Unpopular, side by side!  God help us all!

You don't have to be a Democrat to believe in the rule of law, just an American who believes in our country. Apparently too high a bar for many Republicans.

GoSlugs said:

It really is getting crazy.  In modern times, has there ever been an incumbent President who was this unpopular with his own party?  

Jimmy Carter maybe? I was pretty young back then but I don't remember this sort of antipathy amongst Democrats.

Young people hate Biden and call him Genocide Joe, Zionist feel that his opponent would be a better friend to the Israeli Apartheid State, black people think he has forgotten them, white middle class voters blame (wrongly) Bidenomics for inflation.  Even Latino voters are supporting Trump in ever greater numbers for reasons I can't even imagine.

Biden has built a remarkable coalition...... against his own reelection.

yeah. Biden could have decided to be the most progressive Democratic President since FDR.

Instead he, um, became the most progressive Democratic President since FDR.

I guess he really effed up that one.

You know, I JUST GOT that "lawfare" is a pun. Shoot me.

drummerboy said:

yeah. Biden could have decided to be the most progressive Democratic President since FDR.

Instead he, um, became the most progressive Democratic President since FDR.

I guess he really effed up that one.

My point (here) isn't that he's a terrible president although, given the context of the times, the author of the Great Society might quibble about the "most progressive" moniker.  My point is that, with the Dow setting records, an infrastructure plan up and running, insanely low unemployment rates and inflation finally coming back under control, Joe Biden is an absolutely TERRIBLE politician. 

Sadly, his ineptitude is going to cost the U.S. its democracy. America will not recover from his eff up.

One could also argue that the material support of genocide is not the mark of a true progressive.

PVW said:

You don't have to be a Democrat to believe in the rule of law, just an American who believes in our country. Apparently too high a bar for many Republicans.

just when your patriotic heart begins to swell, remember the hasty, nightmarish evacuation and abandonment of our Afghan friends at the  Kabul airport  and take a reality check. 

mtierney said:

PVW said:

You don't have to be a Democrat to believe in the rule of law, just an American who believes in our country. Apparently too high a bar for many Republicans.

just when your patriotic heart begins to swell, remember the hasty, nightmarish evacuation and abandonment of our Afghan friends at the  Kabul airport  and take a reality check. 

Non-sequitur much?

mtierney said:

PVW said:

You don't have to be a Democrat to believe in the rule of law, just an American who believes in our country. Apparently too high a bar for many Republicans.

just when your patriotic heart begins to swell, remember the hasty, nightmarish evacuation and abandonment of our Afghan friends at the  Kabul airport  and take a reality check. 

I don't usually comment on posts like this which "misremember" recent history, but since the "misremembering" is being used as part of an unsupported criticism, I am going to comment.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan was in accordance with a treaty with the Taliban that Trump agreed to, before he left office.  The Afghan government collapsed and the U.S. military tried, as best as they could, to help as many people as possible as a result of that collapse.

But if insults based on disinformation are what works for people, then my comment can be disregarded.

mtierney said:

PVW said:

You don't have to be a Democrat to believe in the rule of law, just an American who believes in our country. Apparently too high a bar for many Republicans.

just when your patriotic heart begins to swell, remember the hasty, nightmarish evacuation and abandonment of our Afghan friends at the  Kabul airport  and take a reality check. 

it's posts like this that really make me hate the right wing universe, and its ignorant lackeys. It takes what was, in actuality, a remarkable success and humanitarian accomplishment (especially given the hellish circumstances), and just turns it on its head.

Among other things, the evacuation resulted in the largest airlift of refugees in history. No small feat.

ridski said:

You know, I JUST GOT that "lawfare" is a pun. Shoot me.

and anyone using the term "lawfare" is effectively saying "I am brainwashed"

GoSlugs said:

Jimmy Carter maybe? I was pretty young back then but I don't remember this sort of antipathy amongst Democrats.

Jimmy Carter definitely. His approval ratings were as low as Biden’s, and sank even lower right about this time in 1980. When the Democratic National Convention started, it was an open question whether Ted Kennedy could pull the nomination out from under him.

I expect we'll be getting an angry cartoon from mtierney attacking the concept of trial by jury soon.

DaveSchmidt said:

GoSlugs said:

Jimmy Carter maybe? I was pretty young back then but I don't remember this sort of antipathy amongst Democrats.

Jimmy Carter definitely. His approval ratings were as low as Biden’s, and sank even lower right about this time in 1980. When the Democratic National Convention started, it was an open question whether Ted Kennedy could pull the nomination out from under him.

You and your facts again.

TRUMP GUILTY ON ALL 34 COUNTS

Very quiet around here.

We’d say people are ‘stunned like mullets’ ( fish). I.e. walking around stunned, eyes blinking, mouths gaping.

Morganna said:

Very quiet around here.

dave said:

You and your facts again.

Well, there’s also the fact of what happened that Nov. 4.

my “malaise” got  a name today: Covid.

mtierney said:

my “malaise” got  a name today: Covid.

I'm sorry you have Covid. I think the rules for Paxlovid have changed so it's not free anymore, but hopefully it is for seniors on Medicaid still. I don't pray, but I wish the best for a full recovery.

mtierney said:

my “malaise” got  a name today: Covid.

Get the Paxlovid ASAP.  The last time I had it (November 23) was definitely the worst thus far. Regardless of what people say, it's not something to be taken lightly.  

In spite of our countless differences, I wish you a mild case and a speedy recovery.

Feel better! Snuggle with Harry.